here today

 

the size up.

we danced around each other verbally jousting.  what does she think of me this girl I met one thousand miles from here in a class on Freud & his Discontents.  what does she think of me this girl so different from myself who lives two blocks away.

we danced around which is what I always do not showing my hand too early you know.  often showing my hand too late as a matter of fact.  have you read this obscure author what's your IQ anyhow where've you traveled and prove you can talk about sex without blushing.  most of the rounds went to her but it was an internal accounting system.  fatally flawed because as I've heard I can hold my own on the outside.  on the outside I'm steel. On the inside I'm tabulating. 

she's been to Surinam for example.   

we danced around me and the new girl in my life.  will she be a new girl in my life?  no way to tell from last night.  no way to tell.

sometime.  sometime in the future I'd like to jump in the fire face the flames.  sometime in the future probably the far future I'd like to say out loud - you are so cool I'm intimidated by your fierceness I'm so scared I'll look seem like how I feel inside because how I feel inside is mush.  I'm so scared I'll show the mush that I'm putting some kind of mask on right now and how about we each agree to toss the masks and just. be.  because maybe I don't want to know you and maybe you don't want to know me but let's find out.

do any of you show your hand right off?  do any of you lay the cards on the table and shout out loud hey I've got a mixed bag here want to play anyhow?  I don't know who is gonna win and I don't care because isn't this a blast?  anyone?  or is it always always the slow size up.  the depressingly fake plastic game of the size up all our cards so far behind us we can't even remember what was dealt.

anyone?

Posted by: 120pages at 10:43 | link | comments (6) |

if you love jazz

if you love jazz the mind-bending non-melodic event that is jazz.  if you love jazz that kind of jazz you will not like ben's album.  if you love jazz the emotion-less thrill of the chase trying to find the sense of it not feeling it but thinking about it.  if you love jazz that kind of jazz you will not be there on saturday night.

if you are like the reviewer in the Jazz Journal the reviewer who in spite of himself smiled when he listened to ben thought he sounded like Sanborn.  If you are like the reviewer you will give ben's album 3 and one half stars not four.   if you are like the reviewer the intellectual type you will want a more complicated vision music that hurts by the end of the evening you're all worn out from the pain of it how do they do that? you'll say admiring the hurt.  if you are that kind of listener the kind that needs to hurt at the end of an evening you will not be there on saturday night when ben plays his album when ben plays his heart out those sweet sweet melodies those soft notes that sexy style not a powerhouse my ben though he can blow his horn and make the first row sit up straight clap for the sound give him a shout out clap at the end of his solos each one of them. yeah.

saturday night at jimmy mak's ben will play for the people in the back friends family even people from work the insurance agency for people walking by.  saturday night ben will play for me.  saturday night ben will play for all those years when he didn't think he could do this. 

if you love jazz.    www.benfowler.com

 

 

Posted by: 120pages at 15:54 | link | comments (3) |

change.

change is not a subtle creature in my world.  change roars in tears my life to pieces, chomps those into smaller bits then looks around for anything that might have been missed, snorts around for any tiny secrets hiding in the corners.  change is not a subtle creature and me being me I wonder about that.

took my series six exam on day 8 of an 11 day fever spent that night on the floor of the bathroom.  the floor of the bathroom.  for me, lover of down comforters cozy places, amenities and such - for me it takes a lot to get me to the bathroom floor on my back wondering when the night will be over and if the night being over will change anything.  too sick to call anyone.  Ben out of town leaving messages on my phone increasingly frantic messages on my phone me on the bathroom floor thinking about when the night might be over thinking about why I change in this way this emphatic way.

change is not a subtle creature in my world.  saw a rat in the basement with the fever in my head Ben gone series 6 exam to take they won't let me cancel my appointment to take this test that I won't need after I leave the job at the insurance agency.  school starting the next weekend.   hurt my foot limped around the house fever in my head couldn't walk couldn't eat couldn't study.

passed the test but the larger test the life test I still wonder about that one.

 

Posted by: 120pages at 16:35 | link | comments (1) |