Intricacies coating the core

Cold dew - Wild geese return

Oct 11, 2022

Thoughts rearrange, familiar yet strange. Difficulties arise, but a certain calm follows. There’s frost on the ground when I awaken, but a baking heat in the early afternoon. It is the season for sorting schedules, demanding adaptive expectations, craving more spontaneity, forgetting what it looks like when it arrives, grasping as it goes.

So it goes.

A common theme of my current days and thoughts have been ‘intricacies coating the core’. Complicated. Perplexing. Mystery. Appealing. Stumper.

It is a season that easily affects my emotional state, adds a layer of unsteadiness. This past week alone has felt like a month of emotions. Likely so because each year I try to cram more and more personal and professional projects into the same amount of time before the onset of the cold.

Projects dealing with flowers and metals are less than pleasing when feelings fleet fast from fingers.

The week was rather tumultuous, I felt the need for more individuality, distancing from immediate family. Irritable. Obscure. Brushing aside. Abbreviated. Still sorting through the entangled thoughts, but I feel like a healthy communicable family member again.

Weekend began with kicking metal with Nathan and Ken, purchasing a literal half ton of metal (steel and aluminum) from the scrap yard. The steel came in massive plates, intended to be used for bench tops. Aluminum round stock was fresh in the bins and we filled our buckets to the rims to supply projects for infinity and then some. If it peaks your interest at the scrap yard, move on it fast. That’s the motto. For tomorrow it will likely be gone.

Also began the teardown of the van’s steering column as it seems to be the issue, not the steering linkages. Already in uncharted territory but calmly rowing along. Found a bearing with quite a bit of play, so fixing that alone will surely help. Parts will take some days to arrive because they have been discontinued and need special ordering. In the meantime I’ll be tending to the gardens as they wither closer to hibernation.

Yesterday Jakki visited and Chloe and I joined her for some adventuring. Rockgathering on the shores of Lake Michigan, coming up with more ‘chert’ and questions than answers. The main reason she was in town was to attend ‘The Mars Volta’ concert, a favorite of hers. Admittedly the band has been on my radar even before my friend in Austria shared songs with me, but even then I never gave them an opportunity to marinade deep into my marrow. Well, the concert was a jumpstart back into an aliveness I have forgotten. Nostalgic, yes, but still attainable, acceptable, preferable. The band is the embodiment of this ‘intricacies coating the core’ topic. At one time, the band self described themselves as ‘free-jazz entropy’, often improvising and skirting turbulently between multiple genres and time signatures. Progressive underground gone somewhat mainstream. Lyrics in English and in Spanish, both sung as if they were last breaths. Band members changing over the years, but two core members remain.

Sputnikmusic.com’s Jared W. Dillon wrote a descriptive synopsis song structure for their song “L’Via L’Viaquez”:

Quiet skipping of a record is heard for 40 seconds until John Frusicante comes in with a huge rock riff. Then we break into some classic sounding heavy metal with Spanish lyrics coming from Cedric. While some of Cedric’s slurs and such are not perfect, he still uses Spanish pretty greatly throughout the song. The pretty normal sounding song sticks the same until about 2:40 when it breaks into a small piano beat that has an extremely Latin feel to it. Cedric starts to sing in English in this section sprouting off phrases like ‘With every clamor that they mine’ and ‘I will never forget who I’m looking for’ After the short interlude we come back to some heavy soloing on John’s behalf that brings the song back to the Latin rock feel. There are no changes in this section from the previous except for the solo that started it off and so at around 4:53 it breaks back into the piano Latin section. Cedric’s lyrics have changed here but they are still in English, and eventually he reprises the ‘I will never forget who I’m looking for’ section.
After a minute of piano play we go to another solo who is by Omar this time I believe, and instead of returning back to the similar rock beat of the past two sections we are given a rousing drum beat and some very deep singing from Cedric in Spanish. Soon after the Spanish is complete Cedric breaks into English saying, ‘When all the worms come/Crawling out of your head, Telling you/ Don’t be afraid’ The drumbeat eventually breaks into a short solo and then a gong sounds off the return to the piano section. The reprise of the piano sections is different than the previous two though as it has the sampling of people talking behind it. Although it has this new effect the same chorus is returned but towards the end the vocals of Cedric start to be drowned with effects.
Following Cedric’s vocal arrangement the famous pianist Larry Harlow plays a piano solo, with the help of Omar providing some back up soloing in response to the keys. This goes on for until 11:03 when the song drowns out and we hear a highly distorted Cedric spouting out the chorus of ‘And with everybody that I find/And with every clamor that they mine, I won’t forget who I’m looking for/ Oh mother help me I’m looking for’. After the ending of the small vocal solo, a quiet squeaking is heard that takes us into the next track.

In the gardens as in song and in life, there are easily tangible complications and layers. Below are glimpses into my garden views and some mental musings, attempts to pull you closer into my own intricate coated core.

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How can an unconditionally vibrant blossom be silhouetted by browned, spent seed heads?

Why have I not been attending more concerts or picking up my instruments when music is the headwater for my creative, motivational, and social energies?