i ought to be going to sleep but i have this need to find some words for this whole improv jam experience, tonight's in particular, but also just the jam mind-state in general. today's, unusually, i started out fast. i wanted to get moving after seeing probably a hundred teenagers in a circle with their arms around each other doing cancan kicks to 'american pie.' i kept singing it to myself 'while lenin wrote a book on marx, the quartet practiced in the park...the courtroom was adjourned. no verdict was returned...the day the music died...drove my chevy to the levy and the levy was dry. them good ol' boys were drinkin whiskey and rye singin this'll be the day that i die. this'll by the day that i die.' a sign met us at the door. "the first hour will be a silent jam. the second with musicians.' good i thought. i've got music in my head. this black curtain was pulled across the back wall of the ark, covering up the clock (time disappeared for awhile) and the water fountains, and the door to the bathroom. a row of glowing yellow lights along the bar of the curtain, 10,12,14 i counted while walking on tiptoe looking up at them, one hand tapping against my chest, sometimes feeling the bone of my sternum, sometimes this great quick thumping heart, the other hand interested in the top of my head. there were two or three tiny tiny moths landed vertically, layed flat their creamy-beige wings against the black folds; one flying in the air. a bug, maybe a gnat, for a moment flying in tight erratic speeded-out spirals, and i wanted to be able to do the same thing, zip zip zip. i tilted on one leg finding my balance held up by soft air, then onto the other fingers searching out the air, trying to discover what it was i was doing. then doing the twist, pelvis side to side stretching sloshing organs. could i move my pelvis while my upper body stayed still? not really. twisting lower down, higher up, feet close together, wide apart, faster, slower. tapping my toes on the floor, tap step african step, knees getting higher, find the repetition, inside of it inside of it until it's time to stop. look around at the people. what are they doing. watching a guy on his back, matching the rhythm in his feet and legs with my flopping circling hand, wanting him to notice our connection but he doesn't. where'd the tiptoe walk come from? i tried it and it felt like such an easy liberating restriction for myself. i would stay on my toes for awhile and see what would happen. rushing arcing walks coming to suspension, backwards and forwards, looking up to the balcony, the top of the curtain, being caught by the curtain. finding alison, an aha, yes here's something to stay with, feeling that she was in it for the run of whatever it was we were going to do. finding her upclose and at a distance. i back bend and she's half a room's length away. we shake our heads at each other, no yes no yes... (and how's that backbend connected to the one on the bicycle, no hands, careening into the ditch, blood dripping down--hear the ding of the toaster clear in the living room, almond butter and raspberry jam). how'd we get over to the other side of the room? looking up at the ceiling, brushing past her, around her. some piano began ominously and i thought, look at that, here i go being affected by that piano sound, couldn't keep myself from relating to its rhythm, its ominous first tones, when before it was alison, i, the crickets and darkness outside the open windows, and a room full of so many different kinds of energy, now was added this new sound that quite possibly affected my action more than any of the others.
for the hell of it, a big sweeping metaphor: one thing ends, there's always something new, unexperienced, in this body, at this time, whether you ease into the next thing, some time alone, finding some interest from inside, or it suddenly grabs you by the waist, picks you up, balancing and sensing touch before even meeting each other's eyes, and the music doesn't stop until you die (just now there's the water circulating in the fish tank and the hum of the fan on this laptop--ope the fan stopped and the air conditioning began). just like bach's music which i mention because one of the dances tonight in the student dance concert was to this so so beautiful version of the
cannon played on some unusual instrument combination by the ?takehuma? quintet (i have it written somewhere). also a little like the song that surprised me on the drive home, elvis costello, 'i want you.' that song might be a smallscale artfully simple pop masterpiece. he's not afraid to repeat and add, repeat and add, until he really gets to the fulfilling end. and that melody, the persistence, cooly intense and driving forward at the same time, the emotion of the breathing rhythm meeting with the layered emotions of the lyrics. and i like how the beginning doesn't quite prepare you for what's coming up, slow and easing in (hmm, that sentence sounds like some amazing inuendo but i really didn't mean to write it that way). oy. i swear i must have some memories connected to it but i can't remember anything particular.
posted by Liza 13.7.03