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| Me & Andrew on chalumeau & shruti box in the woods.
In memory of my good friend Andrew Fox I present:
After Dark Star by the Grateful Dead. July 2020 At the end of the movie The Dark Star crashes Those guys were crazy Pouring its light into ashes Picking at the paint On the picture frame. Reason tatters forces Torn loose from the axis Mere enlightenment Is set loose upon the world. Mirror shattered Matter a formless reflection Revolving in the night Of goodbye To speed the plough Through the transitive Nightfall crazy diamond. Morning, evening A pub lunch, a circle dance My friend was waiting In the station, in his cap We were laughing At the absurdity of it all. Hand dissolving, The pint glass stands empty. Dark Star is a classic Grateful Dead song. The band had an interesting take on piracy (in those days the making of tapes.) They asked that fans not make copies of albums but gave permission for folks to make as many copies of their live performances as they wished. Because of this there is a huge archive of Dead gigs spanning decades. The version above is just over two minutes long but the band, being famous for holding together a show while seriously tripping sometimes took 30 minutes or more over it. This is, I must point out, not to everyone's taste (eg our wives) but we thought it was rather wonderful. At one point we trawled through the archives to see who could find the longest one. Andrew did, it was about 45 mintues long. Nowadays to have this elevating experience all you have to do is type "Dark Star Grateful Dead live" into Youtube or Google & you can find loads of them. I think that some of the longer ones are better than this single version. |
Opening with a sound bite of Allen Ginsberg reading from his poem The Sunflower Sutra & featuring Andrew on shruti box in the backing track, this poem contemplates the task of the writer as well as male friendship.
Andrew dancing with Elephant up a Pole Morris on Earlsdon Street, Coventry
Thank you. Om A Hum |
