woolgathering.

Hello! It’s autumn! This is your autumn mix!

I decided to carry over my King of Summertime theme into the fall here and make this an all-instrumental mix. I’m telling you this right now: it’s hard to put together a mix with no singing or words! I tried my best to keep things varied (Look - no Fahey!), mixing in some classic autumn jazz soundzz, a little folkie action, even - gah! - some classical music?! If nothing else I can guarantee you this is the only place in the world where you’ll find Led Zeppelin followed by music from It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Yep. Got that. All in all I think it’s a pretty great little mix. I hope you guys all enjoy it.

Autumn 2011: Green Arrow

1. Bron-Yr-Aur - Led Zeppelin
2. Great Pumpkin Waltz - Vince Guaraldi Trio
3. Crow River Waltz - Leo Kottke
4. Autumn In Washington Square - Dave Brubeck
5. Let Me Come Home - Wilco
6. Opus 23 - Dustin O’Halloran
7. Autumn Leaves - Cannonball Adderley
8. Instrumental - The Microphones
9. Deciding to Run - Richmond Fontaine
10. Op. 208/2, The Ancient Tree - II (Fugue) - Hovhaness, Alan
11. Harmonics - Fridge
12. Autumn in New York - Chet Baker
13. Tuolumine - Eddie Vedder
14. Yakima - Erik Friedlander
15. Music for a Found Harmonium - Penguin Cafe Orchestra
16. Cross - James Blackshaw
17. Green Arrow - Yo La Tengo

You can download it here, or if you’re on Spotify (which you are, right?) you can get it here.

Also check out the Music Vault at the top of the page for all the rest of my mixes!

Summer deepens and a root reaches for receding
water with a sense of waking long afterward
long after the main event whatever it was
has faded out like the sounds of a procession
like April like the age of dew like the beginning
now the dry grass dying keeps making the sounds of rain
to hollow air while the wheat whitens in the cracked fields
and they keep taking the cows farther up into the woods
to dwindling pools under the oaks and even there
the brown leaves are closing their thin hands and falling
and out on the naked barrens where the light shakes
in a fever without a surface and the parched shriek
of the cicadas climbs with the sun the bats
cling to themselves in crevices out of the light
and under stone roofs those who live watching the grapes
like foxes stare out over the plowed white stones
and see in all the hueless blaze of the day nothing
but rows of withered arms holding up the green grapes

* * *

From The Vixen.

Original Article

The fireflies gone now
the trees low bending
with the weight of winter rain
I listen for the sound of winters past.
The years I walked the rainy streets
and filtered through the parks
in search of music people.
Creeping home to bed alone
to be with imaginary lovers
and hear the sound of Eden
singing in my young ears.

I could go back to San Francisco
if I still had muscled thighs.
The trouble is
I run a little faster now.

* * *

Ah, hello Mr. McKuen! I knew we’d make it to you eventually. This is from his book of the same name, Listen to the Warm. I like picking this book up from time to time because his poetry is so unaffected. He just writes. Writes beautiful, sorrowful, erotic, melancholic poems. He doesn’t hide things behind too much metaphor, imagery, or other poetic tricks. I really like that sometimes, that unadulterated take on poetry. Which isn’t to say that it’s boring. He can turn a phrase too. Like “hear the sound of Eden / singing in my young ears” or that enigmatic ending. I also like this book because my good friend Jared gave it to me, inscribed and everything, and I like to remember the people who give me books when I’m reading them. It adds that secondary layer of thought and attention to your reading.

Original Article

wwnorton:

Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon’s eyelid

later spread
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair
asleep but not oblivious
of the unslept unsleeping
elsewhere

Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve

Syntax of rendition:

verb pilots the plane
adverb modifies action

verb force-feeds noun
submerges the subject
noun is choking
verb    disgraced    goes on doing

now diagram the sentence

-Adrienne Rich | Interview