February 2006

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Eight and One Third Candles

This is Whither Zither #100. Sincere thanks to everyone --especially the Madison Folk Music Society -- for all the encouragement and feedback over the years regarding this blog, which is dubiously commemorated here by one line from each of its 100 episodes:

Let's jump right in and see how it goes. The whole enchilada of creativity could be construed as the art of getting things not quite right. Or will it mean something only to you because it's based on the particular peep of your first love's budgie? I can't figure out what a song called "Wienermobile Menorah" would be about. That sure sounds like the area that would cover Yo Johnnies. This disgusting blues amalgam could have been displayed beside the baggie I have also lost, which contained half a marshmallow circus peanut, its missing half having been chomped off by Pete Seeger a few years ago in Lou's living room. Beware of bunched-up consonants, as in packed clay. Others I liked very much, some were okay, and some left me completely cold.

In Folkland there are passionate stances on all shores of this mud puddle. I forget where I read this, but the word "beer" does not appear in the song "Beer Barrel Polka." I bought silvery gray Naugahyde to match the duct tape that was in its future. I ran my Velcro only from hinge to hinge, but don't see why it couldn't go all the way around. I felt a little like crawling back inside the panda. Judy goes on to say, "My favorite Oberek is one from Pulawiak played by the Baczkowski Wiejska Orkiestra, Chicago 1928. My sincere thanks to them for taking the time to be Whither Zithered. Old Put's most well-known song is probably "Sweet Betsy From Pike." Pigs ran free in the streets, alongside packs of wild dogs. Henflings is a biker bar on weekends but is known for its acoustic music on weekdays.

What do Nixon, Ross Perot, Leadbelly, Robert Service, George Hesselberg, and my Uncle Ed have in common? Or is there no single Best Sandwich? I'm my own worst roadie. Someone once called him a "One-man Pete Seeger." Summer is represented by 2,696 songs. What were some of the first things you did when you became president? Any awkward phrasing is due to my editing. Stage fright already and not ten years old. Socrates would dig it. A fomite is a pathogen-contaminated inanimate object. Onward, to the State Gumball and Chicklet Convention. Many others in favor of rewriting allude to the good ol' theory of song-Darwinism called the folk process. This is a perfectly legitimate, age-old songwriting method. So I'm needling you to let them needle you. Kava uses Tina Turner's $28 T-shirts as an example. Far out, but not groovy. There's no Whither Zither this month. You know how it is, the tunk tunk of those latches, the brass nestled in velvet ravines.

We stay simple. Do you suppose the father of the woman who wrote "Over The River and Through The Woods" invented hardtack? We sat down mid-store and immediately business picked up. Another odd example given for an epenthesis I found on the Internet: the phrase "singing nun." If you couldn't see you could find parlor B on the mezzanine level by smell. Seems there is at least a 1,243 year tradition of difficulty in finding anything out about zithers. So which signal do I send to consciousness, chief? Better writers don't need the gimmicks I use. The original had more of an extended refrain than a chorus. "So what's with all those buttons?" Doug told me he would like to have a record here of every bluegrass band and artist in Wisconsin's history. This is because for most people, life was pretty grim indoors.

May we all have a Sousaphone tucked away somewhere. Maybe with songs, unlike with vision, you can be both attentive and preattentive at once! With touch, it's the patting of the dog, the fingering of the worry beads, the jiggling of peanuts. Joe Shmoe's Paul Simon night is a night of "he says," but his Sinatra Night is a night of "he goes." "Folk music? Sounds like hell, culture minister says" was its title, so I had to read it. Tombstones You Can Sandblast Like A Pro. To dig a yo-yo is to appreciate its yo-yo-ness. Park temporarily by fire hydrant. The great ship cracks apart like a baguette. It's never the same listening to a folk CD in your Yugo as being right there in the folding chair. Before the uke I played the flutophone. All pushy, dreamy, catchy gibberish. A list is an easy, lazy, comfy heap of communication. This machine has its own rhythm section. Rudolph the red smelled annuitant you with history will downward deal. This is the exact reverse image of a conversation that would have taken place in the 60s. Why is wisdom so complicated? Variations are rampant. How do you hang your head over a valley? Many strange gigs are only slightly off, as though in a parallel universe. I drove straight to the dollar store and bought supplies to hang beads from a lampshade.

Our old poster files look like stacks of ransom notes. Then there are just plain baffling lyrics from some unknown reality. There may be songs that have MacGuffins yet are plotless. Lunch special $4 rice soup salad. This is best done delicately, with the touch of a safecracker. Clocks are fun to make because of the LP's handy hole. Just be glad you are not bound and gagged in the back seat. Some are funny, some are long winded, some are fantastic. No doubt Tom Lehrer has rhymed a few physical laws.

A SQUID, in fact, is any short, uninteresting sentence. Rexeroxer is one of my all-time favorite words. Repetition's like a mantra: Last week trashday, last week trashday. Joseph's vocals consist of grunts and laughs and strangely captivating mumblings. The teeth are to grab the adjustable vertical post B. Styrofoam, maybe. Some people recommend subscribing to satellite radio as an alternative. The self-taught Karas had been discovered playing zither in a bar in Austria by the director. No more of that convoluted upward on the week of the news of doom. I suppose I should have paid more attention when the Mir space station went up. Images suddenly come to life: vivid, expressive, so much so that singer suddenly bursts into tears and abandons song.

A's an Accordion Kindled and lit By chilly Girl Scouts In a campfire pit. ESISHY Q MSFK QEXCHI. Dog at one o'clock; cat at ten thirty. Then the jig's up, and it no longer is a folk song. Phone number to dial in Vienna to hear the European A note of 435 vibrations per second (Hz):1507. And let's not forget S'mores. A nephew is now plinking the former. But there are many songs about floods, storms, and high water in general. Two strums up. Then you find out about the SPONDEE. So, as with most other episodes of Whither Zither, it all comes down to complete confusion in the end. This is Whither Zither #100.

Back to the present. Next episode, more of the same.