take this sinking boat and point it home

yesterday saw two musical blessings:

a sneaky advance listen to the forthcoming duke special album. beautiful, with some quirky orchestrations... tuesday group sat in rapt awe... cd release date: october 2006... limited edition vinyl pressing will be available on the May tour...



and this was news to me and had me struck dumb and immobile in CGs - hot off the shelves the swell season, recorded in prague by glen hansard and marketa irglova... melodies haunting, the lyrics heartbreaking. you can hear four tracks at that link. then you'll know... if you can listen to the lyrics of falling slowly, nay, any of this offering, without being moved then please, check your pulse...and god bless you...

looks like the title comes from a book by josef skvorecky -- "six tales in which Skvorecky traces the libidinous ardours of a youngster growing up in wartime Czechoslovakia", according to google. ah yes, glen's blog on the myspace confirms same.

following a rec from ricky, willow asked me to put a link if i could find it...
i've yet to hear catie curtis (there it is willow) but ricardo sez he's been meaning to pass her on for ages coz he finks i'll like her...
so RM - 3 secs research on her website (above) told me she has curly hair and is gay. 15 secs more and we learn she's from maine originally, and has a couple of kids. now ya know. 5 minutes later and i'm still listening to the tracks on the website, which surprises me given how high the bar got set over at the swell season site... some nice stuff in there... feed me some more...

may your ears be blessed by all of the above...

LB, x

Does the hard LB so you don't have to

this is one of the rare nights when i sit down with my laptop and make a decision not to share... but for the second night in a row ulrich schnauss weaves his magic around me...soothes me... brings calm to the air...

there are some things that you just can't write about in a public realm...

such as the pain of others, so close it strikes the heart hard and clenches the gut... to know that sometimes there is nothing you can do to take away that pain but only offer some glimmer of something like comfort in constancy of care, to trust that just maybe it will be understood and received, and to offer nothing more than presence to the pain as to the joy...there is no magic wand to heal our hurts...but the salve of friendship can sometimes be just enough to keep us going into another day...

we offer symbolic gifts...little monuments to act as reminders... markers of the things of significance... pieces of ourselves and our words in forms that can be seen and heard and held... such gifts are not measured by monetary value but by their intention, their specificity... their peculiarity to the moment... their embodiment of this could only be for you...

we cannot take away the pain of another... believe me, i tried, and in the process forgot, no, neglected to acknowledge that my own pain even mattered, so that i nearly lost myself past the point of no return...we can only sojourn on...
i'll walk with you at your pace and hope that tomorrow you might walk at mine, when i no doubt will be on my knees again... if not tomorrow then no doubt the day after... it's a fragile trade off in this life of interdependence... to realise you can't frogmarch hearts towards healing... we are not an army but a struggling band of refugees...

today i cried for the hurt in the heart of another, and felt then tears for myself in my helplessness and brokenness fall and mingle with them... these tears were not alone... intertwining... speaking to each other in their cracked tones...whispering of the vulnerability in us all... a reminder that the place of care lies deep within the fault lines... our compassion and our grief are neighbours... and in caring for others we also might learn to care for ourselves...


and there the fingers strike their way across the keys all the same... and something still has been shared afterall...

...and so we keep going with the prayer of the lost, that, despite today's broken stumbling in the desert with our hearts' pain and grief so raw and so visible in our eyes, tomorrow might awaken us unto hope and find us exploring the kingdom, our sense of wonderment and adventure intact...

::the landscape on this journey of faith is as scarred as our hearts::

LB,x

the dirt says hot, the label says LoserBaby

jayne,

here's the link to the daily show. hours of video to enjoy at your leisure and pleasure...

LB,x

Can You Tell LoserBaby from Butter?

as you can see, i'm still playing with the advertising slogan generator...

my good chum Ricky, he who owns the other half of the sofa at common grounds, turns 29 today... Padraig and i launched his birth::fest:: on saturday night with a delicious dinner chez Pad, copious amounts of wine and port, and more level 5 conversation than you can throw a stick at...

so:


RM

Bon anniversaire mon ami...

may this year of playful rebellion ahead be everything you could hope for...you deserve it to be...from the mighty grace to the supermacro...

L'etc...

LB, x