Thursday, December 22, 2011

“The Primitive And What Came After”




The green witch said, “She’s in Los Angeles doing what you call villainy.”

I said, “It won’t be the same without her.”

The green witch smiled and asked, “If she were here, what do you think would be the same?”


random holiday talk






De Santillana and von Dechend state in the Introduction to Hamlet’s Mill that they are well aware of modern interpretations of myth and folklore but they find them shallow and lacking insight: “...the experts now are benighted by the current folk fantasy, which is the belief that they are beyond all this - critics without nonsense and extremely wise”. Consequently, de Santillana and Deschend prefer to rely on the work of “meticulous scholars such as Ideler, Lepsius, Chwolson, Boll and, to go farther back, of Athanasius Kircher and Petavius”. They give reasons throughout the book for preferring the work of older scholars (and the early mythologists themselves) as the proper way to interpret myth; but this viewpoint did not sit well with their modern critics schooled in the “current anthropology, which has built up its own idea of the primitive and what came after”.


that quote is from
Wikipedia’s entry on “Hamlet’s Mill”
and the quotes within it
are from
“Hamlet’s Mill”





My guitar is like prehistory now
because my fingers have traveled through time
and can play on keyboard synthesizer
chord voicings similar to the voicings
I use in arrangements for my guitar
and the synthesizer can synthesize
acoustic or electric guitar sounds
so my fingers all modern and high-tech
can make sounds not exactly the same but
so similar that if you close your eyes
or even if you keep your eyes open
wild dogs crying out in the night might not
be able to tell the two sounds apart.

At least that’s my current folk fantasy.

My guitar is still right next to my bed.

My room wouldn’t be the same without it.

But if my guitar could talk would it say,
“I’m here, but what do you think is the same?”




































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