dir-IG-I-ble!
It’s been a longass busy day – I actually made it to work on time only to have to work through lunch and stay late. No justice. What got me through it was the photograph of Mama Dog and Baby Dog (when Baby was still so small that we had to hold her head up for her in photographs) and the compact disc player. Except for a brief flirtation with the Tiger Lilies first thing in the a.m., I spent pretty much the entire day listening repeatedly to Tom Waits’ most recent album, Real Gone. More than any Waits album I can recollect, this one is all about percussion. On Mule Variations, there’s one song – I think it’s Low Side of the Road? – where the slamming of a dresser drawer is the most prominent element in the rhythm section. Real Gone takes that unconventional percussive impulse and runs with it. There are several tracks where Waits does a human beatbox thing in lieu of drums. The whole thing becomes pleasingly hypnotic when you’re typing about dirt, and I kept finding myself restarting the disc every time it ended. When I stumbled into the BART station at 6:30, my head was still reverberating with the weird syncopations. The station agent made an announcement as I came down the stairs. It sounded like “Hold on to your dirigibles at all times,” but I was pretty sure that couldn’t be right. Then I started turning “dirigible” into a little rhythmic chant in my head – “dir-IG-I-ble, dir-IG-I-ble, dir-IG-I-ble!” I was thinking how that word could form a perfect spine for one of those Waits songs, and I knew then that I’d probably played the damn thing one time too many.
I needed to decompress and some miscreant at MacArthur station helped me out by triggering police activity and shutting down traffic through the station just as my train was approaching. We sat patiently on the track for an extra five or ten minutes, and I had time to read one more short chapter of my book. I trundled home woefully late. We had tried a new routine today, with me walking the dog in the morning and Mama Dog ready to walk him when I got home (traditionally it’s been the other way around), and first day out I gummed the thing up by working late. Still, I got to spend an extra twenty minutes playing with Baby Dog before bedtime. It was nice also not having to turn around and go out as soon as I got home.
Now we've eaten and Baby's asleep. We'll have a couple of hours of peace and quiet before we turn in. I’ll probably listen to the same thing all day tomorrow.
I needed to decompress and some miscreant at MacArthur station helped me out by triggering police activity and shutting down traffic through the station just as my train was approaching. We sat patiently on the track for an extra five or ten minutes, and I had time to read one more short chapter of my book. I trundled home woefully late. We had tried a new routine today, with me walking the dog in the morning and Mama Dog ready to walk him when I got home (traditionally it’s been the other way around), and first day out I gummed the thing up by working late. Still, I got to spend an extra twenty minutes playing with Baby Dog before bedtime. It was nice also not having to turn around and go out as soon as I got home.
Now we've eaten and Baby's asleep. We'll have a couple of hours of peace and quiet before we turn in. I’ll probably listen to the same thing all day tomorrow.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 8:50 PM
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