Tonight, at Bottletree, a dylan/devendra-like hairy fairy with sufjanian aspirations performs at nine. It will be an evening to remember. PALEO
is currently writing, recording, and releasing a song everyday for an entire year - and they are incredible songs. Its a miracle to find someone who has so many songs in their heart and who can deliver consistently captivating performances with only a voice and a children’s sized guitar with flames painted on the front.

Here is the poster, designed by marvelous:

and here is the art historical context, or, the rip-off:

by PALEO/David Strackany

out here they hired a man to count the stars
a holy ghost with rainstickfigure arms
brought from boston’s famous numbers school
the country called the counter to a dual
all heaven’s bodies are now property of state, they said
we need them numbered, mr. counter, right away
so he fetched his special pen
he sent for an abacus
procured a french curve from the grocery
and gave his faculties a test
13 oranges
7 pears
2 spills in aisle 2
4 children cry 11 tears
all in a single room
but when he looked into the eyes of outer space
something within the counter must have changed
all future seemed a vulture of a lie
drawing circles black and hollow in its sky
sure as morning ferments duly into day
his ivy ego’d gone without a trace
gone and in its place a smart despair
gone and in its place a vacant stare
nothing means a thing
life’s a phone that never rings
it’s all meaningless and empty and unfair
he rushed to tell the country
and rushed to tell his wife
he rushed to warn his little girl
his baby bird of paradise
that god ate up the animal in man
pointed to visions of a promise near at hand
and on the double we were enraptured of the land
til religion ate up god and science ate up religion and culture ate up science
and commerce ate up culture ate up compassion ate up friendship
then music came to try to lead the way
to try to make some sense of every day
it drew pictures in my head
put its sounds inside my tongue
and for the first since god was god we felt okay
while computers chew on television screens
and no one dare say anything they mean
music offered hope of some reprieve
music made a promise
that it could almost keep
except there’s not a single sound
deep in outer space
there isn’t anything but empty lightyears
silent as the grave
but his lady wouldn’t listen
she tells her friends he works too much
and the country asked if he could hold
he said yes and then hung up
and now that it was very nearly dawn
and the twilight swept the stars under the lawn
his baby girl was sleeping like a lamb
to tell her now, he thought, would just be wrong
but just then she opened up her baby eyes
and he saw in them something to his surprise
the sun had poked over the hill
and her eyes had caught the light
and he saw in them the very stars
he’d counted earlier that night

to listen to david read it, go HERE

“This way, Metro Center?” he asked with a thick, broken accent. Maybe French. I’m sure he had been practicing how to say it in his mind, but all the accents were on the wrong syllables once it was vocalized. It came out of his mouth with such strained effort. My reply was not in kind - I barely lift my head to nod yes, my aloofness having no affect on his nervous body language. I had seen him a few minutes before - he was up above on the mezzanine, just beyond the turnstiles, completely confused on which escalator would take him to the correct platform, which platform to the correct train, which train to Metro Center. He was pacing then and he is pacing now, looking in back and forth along the tracks in both directions. He doesnt know the train will come from the left. He has two duffel bags set on wheels, a backpack, a white knit cap, and a half empty bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red from which he gulps long and hard ends with a sucking slurp. He is large nosed, dark, he smells funny. In my mind I call him Jacques but that name comes only after I consider calling him Django because I think he could pass for a gypsy. You can call him whatever you like.

In a moment, the train will come and Django Jacques will sling his bags aboard in a hustle and go about looking for a place to sit. I reach out toward him and let go a half-assed, “wai–” but its too late. He is already halfway down the aisle, his bags bumping against commuters and finally piling up in a jumbled mess in the middle of the car. He has no idea that all of that effort was completely unnecesarry, for Metro Center is only one stop away. No sooner than he is seated and ready for the ride, the conductor calls “Next station, Metro Center” over the loudspeaker, and he looks quizically over at a fellow passenger, and in the same broken accent he asks, “Metro Center?” He receives the same sort of aloof nod as the one I gave him a few moments earlier. As the train comes to a hault and he begins to put his bags together I am faced with a decision. Django Jaques needs help. And as someone who is supposed to act like Jesus and be selfless and reach out to those in need I should follow him out of the train and show him the way to his next train or up to the exit because I know he’ll be as lost upon his arrival to his destination as he was in getting there. I should even help him carry a bag. But, the train gives a tone signaling the doors to open and Django Jacques steps out and I don’t follow. In a moment, the doors will close and the train will pull away, leaving him on the platform, looking back and forth along the tracks and not knowing where to go.

I am a selfish, selfish bastard.

One of the best ways to begin the new year was by reading what was one of the best and most unexpected Christmas gifts given to me this year - WHAT IS THE WHAT, the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng - a novel by Dave Eggers. For those of you in the know, re: Eggers, this is not another foray into post irony, nor is it lathered in self-consciousness, waspy humor, or the angsty introspection of a upper middle class gen-x’er. Not to say I dont love all those things in his previous novels. They are, in fact, what make them so great. Instead, WHAT IS THE WHAT is written in the voice of the real life Valentino Achak Deng, who, well, Ill just let Valentino say it himself:

This book is the soulful account of my life: from the time I was separated from my family in Marial Bai, Sudan to the thirteen years I spent in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps, to my encounters with vibrant Western cultures, in Atlanta and elsewhere.

As you read this book, you will learn about the two and a half million people who have perished in Sudan’s civil war. I was just a boy when the war began. As a helpless human, I survived by trekking across many punishing landscapes while being bombed by Sudanese air forces, while dodging land mines, while being preyed upon by wild beasts and human killers. I fed on unknown fruits, vegetables, leaves, animal carcasses and sometimes went with nothing for days. At certain points, the difficulty was unbearable. I hated myself and attempted to take my own life. Many of my friends, and thousands of my fellow countrymen, did not make it through these struggles alive…

And yet Valentino lives, and lives a story that is both heartwrenching and uplifting, despairing and inspiring. I could go on and on about the book, but would never do it justice. Just read it. Please, please read it.

For more, check out this report from NPR, or go to Valentino’s website.

its so quiet. the rain outside is a consistent ssshhhh to all those who might attempt at making noise. the day, usually filled with the sounds of the city, is silent. it is the first day of the year. is everyone sleeping? or is there a collective enjoyment of this silence, a communal pause as we all begin anew?

i hear no tv or radio coming muffled through the walls. the usual footsteps on the sidewalk below are not to be heard, and the couple walking in sync under a single black umbrella carry no conversation. there is just the rushing sound of the blue flame as it warms a whistling kettle on the stove. its almost time for tea. the cup, currently cold, will soon be steaming and steeping earl grey. ill use the remaining water for oatmeal, and towards the bottom of the bowl will be the sound of the spoon scraping the ceramic, and with a jangle the spoon will clang in an empty bowl when i put it down with the last bite.

a bird whistles and i am reminded that i havent heard them yet this morning. its way overdue. the silence is almost too much for my thoughts. thoughts, of everything and nothing, of a year past and a year to come, of hopes and regrets, that make for a list much too long to put to record. i wonder how different the list will look this time next year. there are so many unknowns on their way, and the silence of this morning is a fitting prelude.