The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

January 11, 2014


Birds and Mood, Birds and Saz


From an Estonian bird webcam, participants were green finches,
tree sparrows, and grey tits. The weather in Providence,
another dark and rainy day. Last night there were bar fights
that spilled onto the streets, the left front door of our
building was smashed and we heard screams but couldn't see
anything. Today I went to the barber's around the corner; he
had a hunting show on the television and the haircut was
punctuated by laughter over the birds and animals killed. The
one magazine available was Playboy. This isn't your Roger
Williams' Providence, this is the retribution of Winthrop,
Cotton, and company. So I recorded the birds, which were
beautiful and arguing over food, and made two pieces. Celan
would have approved, Jabes would have wondered where the book
was, and Blanchot would have called everything I do a
disaster.

http://www.alansondheim.org/birdsandmood.mp3
http://www.alansondheim.org/birdsandsaz.mp3

Weep, stranger, nothings stranger.

Gale

http://www.alansondheim.org/gale.mp3

our place has large windows that face south and west.
we had torrential rains with gale force winds. the
sound is amazing -

"Spring lifted tresses, faced gale with cloud,
  Spring lifted tresses, faced gale with cloud,
  Spring lifted tresses, faced gale with cloud,
  And sound murk'd blessings, thund'rous aloud."

(I'm assuming spring came extraordinary this year.)

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