It's a lovely, deeply affecting song. The lyric certainly speaks to me. The almost shambling arrangement, the sad resignation in his voice. It's a vibe I'm familiar with.
The problem of connection preoccupies me. I don't want a bunch of superficial relationships, even if they bring an attenuated kind of companionship or satisfy a desire of having "people to do fun things with." It's communion I'm after. I want someone courageous enough to invite me into their world, their real, inner world, the sanctum sanctorum of their true self. I have been yearning for this my whole life. I would almost but not quite say that I have trouble feeling real without it. I feel untethered, liable to float away. But the social world is what it is now, alas.
Rothko's work emotionally overwhelms me. I've always wanted to visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston. I don't find Rothko melancholy, or rather not just melancholy. I often find it crushingly lonely, the way it sees terrible beauty in the vastness that separates us from one another. The distances. I'm probably full of shit, I'm no student of modern art. I feel as though they demand that I peer into something unbearably and eternally sad and forbid me from looking away. Something we weren't meant to see.
Forgot to add, the film you write about reminds me of The Boy and the Heron, which I viewed with my 10 year old granddaughter recently, giving us hours of conversation in the attempt to untangle its meaning. Gorgeous stuff.
Michael, love your thoughts on Rothko. I too have felt similar things immersed in his paintings and other color field artists. But then I can get lost in the deep folds of pink rose, or a turquoise sea. It's color that makes me want to paint. Have you seen the art of Solan Qadri? Amazing. I had a religious experience entering his work, which is what he aims for it appears, what sparks his creativity.
Mike, do you know the musical composition called 'Rothko Chapel' by Morton Feldman? It's one of my all time favourites since I first heard it in my teens and it was a source of inspiration for one of projects I hold most dearly in my memory, which was a collaboration with an art student from the RAA when I was at the Guildhall School of Music. We called the work 'Tramontane Parchments '. Maybe I told you about it years ago. The name itself gives quite a lot of insight into the project and, I think, connects with the contemplation you write about. It was a large-scale, one time only presentation. Sadly, the large art works made largely of natural materials we rolled for storage, got 'rigor mortis' and had to be burned. Maybe one day I will rework the music into a concert piece.
That 2019 Sad About The Times compilation was really something special. For me, there’s not a bad track on there and I rated it my #5 album of the year, which is saying something as I rarely include compilations or reissues on my AOTY list.
The melody of the Stoner song to me has shades of Mountain’s Theme From An Imaginary Western, a very different song but one I’ve enjoyed since hearing it for the first time on the soundtrack to the Woodstock documentary (can’t remember if the video of the performance was included in the movie).
I really like the way you tie these experiences together, Michael. I listened to the Dennis Stoner (great song) and was also inspired to dig out the Loren Connors LP Blues: The Dark Paintings of Mark Rothko. I’ve been soaking up its washes of sound and reading the liner notes.
It's a lovely, deeply affecting song. The lyric certainly speaks to me. The almost shambling arrangement, the sad resignation in his voice. It's a vibe I'm familiar with.
The problem of connection preoccupies me. I don't want a bunch of superficial relationships, even if they bring an attenuated kind of companionship or satisfy a desire of having "people to do fun things with." It's communion I'm after. I want someone courageous enough to invite me into their world, their real, inner world, the sanctum sanctorum of their true self. I have been yearning for this my whole life. I would almost but not quite say that I have trouble feeling real without it. I feel untethered, liable to float away. But the social world is what it is now, alas.
Rothko's work emotionally overwhelms me. I've always wanted to visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston. I don't find Rothko melancholy, or rather not just melancholy. I often find it crushingly lonely, the way it sees terrible beauty in the vastness that separates us from one another. The distances. I'm probably full of shit, I'm no student of modern art. I feel as though they demand that I peer into something unbearably and eternally sad and forbid me from looking away. Something we weren't meant to see.
Rare Earth Records was a subsidiary of Motown (named for the band of the same name which recorded for it).
Forgot to add, the film you write about reminds me of The Boy and the Heron, which I viewed with my 10 year old granddaughter recently, giving us hours of conversation in the attempt to untangle its meaning. Gorgeous stuff.
Michael, love your thoughts on Rothko. I too have felt similar things immersed in his paintings and other color field artists. But then I can get lost in the deep folds of pink rose, or a turquoise sea. It's color that makes me want to paint. Have you seen the art of Solan Qadri? Amazing. I had a religious experience entering his work, which is what he aims for it appears, what sparks his creativity.
Mike, do you know the musical composition called 'Rothko Chapel' by Morton Feldman? It's one of my all time favourites since I first heard it in my teens and it was a source of inspiration for one of projects I hold most dearly in my memory, which was a collaboration with an art student from the RAA when I was at the Guildhall School of Music. We called the work 'Tramontane Parchments '. Maybe I told you about it years ago. The name itself gives quite a lot of insight into the project and, I think, connects with the contemplation you write about. It was a large-scale, one time only presentation. Sadly, the large art works made largely of natural materials we rolled for storage, got 'rigor mortis' and had to be burned. Maybe one day I will rework the music into a concert piece.
That 2019 Sad About The Times compilation was really something special. For me, there’s not a bad track on there and I rated it my #5 album of the year, which is saying something as I rarely include compilations or reissues on my AOTY list.
The melody of the Stoner song to me has shades of Mountain’s Theme From An Imaginary Western, a very different song but one I’ve enjoyed since hearing it for the first time on the soundtrack to the Woodstock documentary (can’t remember if the video of the performance was included in the movie).
I really like the way you tie these experiences together, Michael. I listened to the Dennis Stoner (great song) and was also inspired to dig out the Loren Connors LP Blues: The Dark Paintings of Mark Rothko. I’ve been soaking up its washes of sound and reading the liner notes.