Inca Roads

BrainDumps, I read your comments and agree we should always think positively. It's a little difficult sometimes.

I hope enough of us choose to be the change we hope to see in this world. I believe that our present day 'road less traveled' actually represents an evolutionary cul-de-sac abutting a bottomless abyss. If we are indeed too stupid a species to survive our own hubris, I certainly hope we haven’t inflicted any lasting damage on our amazing planet.

Speaking of our planet - December 21, 2012, will mark the end of b'ak'tun 13 according to the Mayan calendar and the world will end ... There is a lot to be said for people who believe in this apocalyptic, doomsday mumbo-jumbo from a civilization that got wiped out after a 650-year existence. Maya priests are burning incense and praying in the town of Tapachula in Chiapas as the days count down.

I am reminded of Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention. I still have a couple of his albums. Zappa wrote a very weird tune called Inca Roads. He and his wife Gail had four children: 2 sons (Dweezil and Ahmet) and 2 daughters (Moon and Diva). The hospital where Dweezil was born refused to register the baby boy under the name 'Dweezil' (a nickname coined by Frank for an oddly-curled pinky-toe of Gail's). Dweezil's registered birth name was Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa (the names of several musician friends of Frank Zappa's). At five years old, Dweezil learned that his legal name was different, and he insisted on having his nickname (Dweezil) become his legal name. Gail and Frank hired an attorney and soon the name Dweezil was official. Below are the lyrics to Inca Roads:

Did a vehicle come from somewhere out there, just to land in the Andes?
Was it round and did it have a motor, or was it something different
Did a vehicle, did a vehicle, did a vehicle
Fly along the mountains and find a place to park itself
Or did someone build a place, to leave a space, for such a vehicle to land?
Did a vehicle come from somewhere out there, did a vehicle come from somewhere out there
Did the indians, first on the bill, carve up the hill
Did a booger-bear come from somewhere out there, just to land in the Andes?
Was she round and did she have a motor, or was she something different
Guacamole queen, guacamole queen, guacamole queen, guacamole queen
At the armadillo in Austin texas, her aura, or did someone build a place
Or leave a space for chester’s thing to land (chester’s thing... on Ruth)
Did a booger-bear come from somewhere out there
Did a booger-bear come from somewhere out there
Did the indians, first on the bill, carve up her hill ... On Ruth, on Ruth, that’s Ruth

You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read, the music they listen to, and last (but not least) how they react in a car shop when given an estimate. Do you agree?

Speaking of books - finished reading some poems by Kay Ryan (her poems are the opposite of the confessional, default mode of most contemporary American verse). She keeps her words squarely in front of the reader ...

"Things Shouldn't Be So Hard" (2006)

A life should leave deep tracks; Ruts where she went out and back
To get the mail or move the hose, Around the yard;
Where she used to stand before the sink, A worn-out place;
Beneath her hand the china knobs, rubbed down to white pastilles;
The switch she used to feel for in the dark, almost erased.
Her things should keep her marks.
The passage of a life should show; It should be abrade.
And when life stops, A certain space - however small -
Should be left scarred, By the grand and damaging parade
Things shouldn't be so hard ...

We want the world to commemorate the lives of those we love who are now dead. We don't want their passage (or ours) through life erased.

Kyrie eleison; Christe eleison; Kyrie eleison ...

There's no sense - in past tense ...