Lawrence, Kansas. Home of the last, most westward Steak N Shake. Get yourself a strawberry smoothie today.
Archive for August, 2009
In Sight it must be Right
Saturday, August 15th, 2009The Trains, Man…
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
Audio: The Trains Are Gone
Stepping into the way-back-machine, this is a recently unearthed excerpt from a recording project I did my junior or senior year of undergrad, circa 1998…or was that ’99 and 2000?
Sometimes the moxie, silliness, and serendipity I have amaze myself. I didn’t think I had it in me. This wasn’t part of the intended musical art project of train recordings. This was one of those moments when an unknown colorful character I encountered on the tracks started relaying, unprompted, what he felt was a political decision that impacted the labor and economic status of Muncie, Indiana, clearly implicating a former mayor and the local university. Clearly, according to this man, “Muncie is fucked up.” I seem to recall that there might have been something prior to this part of the recorded conversation, regarding Amtrak and its discontinuation of service in the late 80′s-early 90′s. What possessed me to start recording, I don’t know. But man, is this a gem.
Dan Canon. Muncie. Ball State. Trains. Jobs. Sometimes a man just wants to be heard. Let him have a voice. Let him have the mic.
Tell me how you really feel, brother.
Bye.
See you in the woods
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived … I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner…”
(61) (Thoreau, 1854).
As I clean my closets and cabinets for this move, both real and digital, I find little self reminders and messages. According to the time stamp of file creation, at some point exactly two years ago to the day, at 5:30am, I decided this quote from Walden was something for me to save to ponder.