the virtuosity of his goofiness, i miss it

The old admonition is whining at me again today, the Stones, being all truth-telling and such.

You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find
You get what you need

Oh, why not?  Take a moment for the music.


Uploaded to YouTube by mariule2 on Apr 21, 2010
The uploader notes:
Probably their pest performance of the song. It [was] recorded in Brussels in 1973. 
Fantastic solos from Mick Taylor and Bobby Keys.


I passed a difficult night, one that culminated in slumber among spilled (or spilt, depending) popcorn kernels.  I don't know that culminating works well, as a word, to convey that itchy, fibre-filled quilt of a slumber-fest, but what the heck?  It's very much a "why not?" kind of a day, as a result.

And, of course, I can hear all you Smarty-Panted Ones out there, crowing:
"How else would culminating work, if not as a word?"

Peppered with Kettle Corn, dosed in sucralose, I dreamed, and also dreamt, about John Hartford.  Not in passing, not in a cursory fashion, no.  He came alive again, he stood profiled against the setting sun, hat cocked -- and that's not a bicorne reference, not even inadvertently, since I'm refutin' it as you read,. before your very eyes!

He shuffle-danced, way more nimble than he was at the end, though the fool kept dancing, didn't he?

A fool, in the fool tradition, that's exactly what John Hartford was in my dream, and is, in my narrow understanding of his genre.  A banjo-picking fiddler, and a shuffling fool.

Here is a sentence I love, written about the English Medieval fool tradition: "The rigid social hierarchies of medieval society relied on these reality maintenance constructs which were closely related to traditional inversionary re-enactments of mis-rule to create a sense of release for and in the population." You gotta admit, that's a sentence that means to pack a wallop.

I'd give you the reference but it's an unpublished document and I'm unsure that the author, one "Bob," would appreciate it.  Also, I think Bob may have picked it up off the floor at some SCA swap meet, or whatever, as his phrasing is rather... errrr, popular. For what it's worth, Bob is part-and-parcel of the San Francisco-based industry of good will Fools For Hire, sort of a project affiliate of the aforementioned Society for Creative Anachronism.

I know, I am bleeding all over the page.  But so it was as I slept, and therefore, so shall it be here.  Lots of grandstanding, and stuff.

Right.  So... John Hartford.  The quality of my mind's reproduction of his music may safely be filed under "Q" for Questionable.  I wonder how the brain manages a trick like that?

Right.  So... John Hartford.  Skimming over the YouTube videos in which he figures, I wanted one with the Aereo-Plain Band, because my wrecked memory keeps telling me that the John I dreamed was that John, of that era, with hair everywhere and aviator goggles. Newgrass, and all that, too, I suppose.

Of course that was the John Hartford of my dreams;  I lack a knowledge base of the Mississippi River Basin.

Here's John at the 30th Anniversary Reunion Concert with the Aereo-Plain Band, November 11, 2000, in Albany, NY. He was pretty doggone sick at this point but the performance warms the heart.

Theme song of my dreams.



Uploaded to YouTube by AcousticBoxOffice on Jan 16, 2009 "...In addition to John Hartford, Tut Taylor, Norman Blake and Vassar Clements [there] were special guests Sam Bush, Chris Sharp and Mike Compton..."

Steam-Powered Aereoplane

by John Hartford

Well I dreamt I went away on a steam-powered aereoplane.
Well, I went and I stayed and I damn near didn't come back again.
I didn't go very fast on a steam-powered aereoplane.
well the wheel went around and up and down and inside and then back again.


Chorus:
Sittin' in a 747 just watchin' them clouds go by,
can't tell if it's sunshine or it's rain.
I'd rather be sittin' in a deck chair high up over Kansas City
in a genuine, old-fashion, authentic steam-powered aereoplane.


Well I dreamt I was a pilot on a steam-powered aereoplane.
I'd turn that pilot wheel around and then back again.
I'd wear a blue hat saying "Steam-Powered Aereoplane"
with the letters go 'round the brim and then back again.