All Ye Need Know ....

I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same. The temperament is not that different. -Donald Trump, Republican nominee for the US president (b. 14 Jun 1946) Reference: 1, 2

Psalm 23

The Gun is my protector; I shall not want.
It lays waste to my enemy,
makes him lay down in bloody fields.
It troubles the waters.
It restores my manhood;
it proves I am right,
and none deny me for fear of its wrath.

Yes, my enemies shall know the valley
the valley of the shadow of death;
for I am the angel of death.
I shall fear no evil;
for I carry my Gun always,
its trigger and hammer are with me always.

I prepare a table before my enemies,
I anoint my head with oil;
my goblet overflows with no mercy.

Surely no one will follow me;
goodness and mercy shall give me wide passage;
and I will sleep with my Gun forever.

As translated by the NRA

Idée d’jour

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.
– Edmond de Goncourt, writer, critic, and publisher (26 May 1822-1896)

Idée d’jour

I felt odd: overtired, overwrought, unpleasantly like my brain had been removed and my skull stuffed with something like microwaved aluminum foil, dinted, charred and shorting with sparks.
Helen Macdonald, H Is For Hawk,Chapt. 1, pg 3

Idée d’jour

We carry the lives we've imagined as we carry the lives we have, and sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost.

... Sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost, and sometimes we take it upon ourselves to burn them to ashes.
Helen Macdonald, H Is For Hawk, pg. 129-130

How We Tell Our Stories

1. It's the way we tell our stories that tends to set our fate
2. We speak of heroes and villains
3. We speak of winners and losers
4. How we tell the story forms the mask we will wear
5. The word on our lips
6. The breath exhaled
7. The air taken in
8. All part of the mysterious stew
9. It's the way we tell our story, the length of each line - longer than the palmist's reckoning
10. We speak of our role, but
11. We are always the hero of our own saga
12. We speak of winning and losing,
13. But each new breath is a victory
14. How we decorate the hours,
15. How we honor the day,
16. How we dream the night
17. How we limn the path determines where we go
18. It's how we tell our stories that tends to set our fate

Meet Dr. Black

You drop your silver needle
into the canyon of my heart
You sleep the sleep of reason
you dress yourself in dark

You never left the ceremony
you never found your bliss
You sleep the sleep of reason
And forget what you have missed

Sha la la la la

There's an owl outside your window
And he plays an eldritch drum
Your nightmare dreams of heaven
And things you've left undone

There's an owl upon the bed stand
She wears Minerva's crown
Your nightmare dreams of heaven
And all the sh*t gone down

Sha la la la la (shoop, shoop)

Dr Black & Lady Midnight –
You think they know the score?
They're at the end of Boogie Street
But they don't live there any more.

You've your golden record
 And I've got my golden voice
Dr. Black is in his wheelhouse
And it seems you have no choice

You say the bed's gone crazy
And the bats have gone absurd
Dr Black is in his wheelhouse
But he never says a word.

Sha la la la la

You kneel before the altar
Where streams of honey flow
You've sacrificed your innocence
For things you'll never know

When you walked upon the water
Well, it was understood
You'd sacrifice your innocence
And enter the dark wood

Sha la la la la (shoop shoop)

Dr Black & Lady Midnight,
They seem to know the score –
They go whistling past the graveyard
But they don't work there anymore

It's the way we tell our stories
That tends to set our fate
You wander through the labyrinth
In lazy figure eights

I know your heart is spinning
Dr Black has got the cure
He'll lead you through the labyrinth
Where nothing's known for sure

Sha la la la la

You say you were a miner
There’s no diamonds in your mine
You’ve gathered all the laurels
The judges said were mine

And once you were a hunchback
Beneath your bed of snow
You gathered all the laurels
Down where the asphalt grows

Sha la la la la (shoop shoop)

Dr Black & Lady Midnight
They surely know the score
Down at the end of Boogie Street
It don't matter any more

You took the first position
in the mariotte parade
With your mistress and her lover
and her lovely chamber maid

Your father dreams in heaven
your mother's doing well
with your lover and your mistress
and the hermit in her cell

Sha la la la la

I'm the perfect imitation
of the man I'm meant to be
So I dance upon these stages
Believing I am free.

In the shadows of the evening
Where the saints are dressed in chains
You dance upon your stages
For the little that remains

Sha la la la la (shoop shoop)

Dr. Black & Lady Midnight
May want to know the score
Down at the end of Boogie Street
It don't matter any more

The structure of your innocence
It ain't too hard to see
as I kneel before you baby
and your fearless symmetry

Cause if I ever met you
I didn't catch your name
but I kneel before you baby
and I love you just the same

Sha la la la la

You drop a diamond needle
In the blackness of my heart
You sleep the sleep of reason
and you dress yourself in sparks

You never left the ceremony
You never found your bliss
You sleep the sleep of reason
And forget what you have missed

Sha la la la la (shoop shoop)

Dr Black & Lady Midnight
Can never know the score
Down at the end of Bookie Street
They don't live there anymore

Dr Black & Lady Midnight
They've got a place to dwell
Down at the end of Boogie Street
At the Mystery Motel

---

This pastiche of Leonard Cohen was inspired by a dream recounted in passing by Yosev Omed.  All he could remember was a new LP by L. Cohen titled Sleep the Sleep; "Meet Dr. Black" was the opening track for side two.

Idée d’jour

For one human being to love another...the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Idée d‘jour

There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
– Carson McCullers

Iowa

Here's hoping that winning Iowa will do Cruz as much good as it did Santorum four years ago.

Idée d’jour

Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
– Anton Chekhov

Idée d’jour

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel, rabbi and professor (11 Jan 1907-1972)