song of the day: Crying (that version in Mulholland Drive where the chick sings it acapella)
word of the day: Dol / unit for measuring intensity of pain
monk of the day: Will Bueche (gasho)

up till three a.m. last night hanging sheet rock. i managed to almost get the other side of the studio all rocked. it's kind of difficult lifting those big sheets when you're skinny, maladroit, and sleepy. the little Dane that could...

talked to Joel Sayles on the phone yesterday about producing my next studio album. could be very, very cool. Joel is in fact one of the greats, as well as one of my oldest dearest friends.

i had to make a mad rush to get my passport renewed this week, it expires in September and i'm off to Holland in October. i just couldn't bear getting kicked out of another country. why couldn't i have gotten kicked out of China? or Greenland?

working on a song today which i do not really have a name for (the secret, maybe?). it's a strange song (to me, anyway), not weird in terms of chord progression or assembly of notes, but just in its vibe. actually i'm not so much working on it as revisiting it-it's pretty much done, my conversation with Joel just got me thinking about songs, or certain kinds of songs. this one has always given me a broken hearted, opened up, vaguely spooky feeling of love. i've never played it live because i've never been able to play it without crying, and i have no idea why. just something about the mood of this song always destroyed me by the third verse or so, but i never had any sense that it would have that kind of effect on other people. this song has always seemed incredibly private and...to be honest i've never even played or shared it with anyone before (not even my wife), but last night it popped up in me again. now i guess i'm putting the lyrics in my blog...

mother
there's a secret in my body
mother
will you come and kneel beside me?
mother
are you gonna help me face the way?
are you gonna help me face the way?

father
will you put your arms around me?
father
there's a secret in my body
father
are you gonna help me face the way?
are you gonna help me face the way?

brother
will you pull my ribs apart?
brother
open up the window to my heart

even though you'll feel me shaking
even if you see my crying
even when you hear me pleading
tell me that we're only dreaming
brother keep the window open

sister
will you reach inside of me?
sister
can the secret set us free?

this is the type of song that's almost all mood to me. and i can't explain even what the mood is. i always had these images of this family surrounding this guy, and to heal or set each other free, they have to do this difficult operation on him that they're all afraid to do but they know they have to. and what's the secret?

i can see how this song and Glass, Before Beyond, and What are related. sometimes there is a family tree of songs. the most salient example for me is swim, dive, drown. the strongest relation between songs is one of feeling, you can sort of trace a line and see where they are of the same family- would this be phenomenology? who cares.