December 13, 2007
Who’s shroomin’ who
…listen
…about the musicUnabashedly.
If I had the time (because I do have the interest), I could spend hours cataloging the many unique mushrooms I come across on the modest acreage of which I have the honor of stewardship. Each is a piece of public art, erected very suddenly while no one was looking. And just as quickly, little museum thieves whisk them away. I walk across the same piece of property every day and, like the ocean, it is never the same two afternoons in a row.
Lots of these fungal flowers, if not mingling in little coffee klatches of a handful, are loners, standing upright with an admirable defiance and too-brief beauty. This one, reaching five inches toward the sky, would be picked for the mushroom basketball Olympics if they had one (and maybe they do… who knows what goes on in mushroom-land when we’re not paying attention). The tinge of purple and the delicate upturn of petals is not what I usually see with the rest of the fun guys who wear big hats.
I’ve been a bit of a mushroom myself this week, holing up like a hermit and preferring the dark (easy to do here since the sun sets at 4:15, shortly after I’ve finished my morning coffee). I managed to bribe my muses with enough red wine and dark chocolate over the past few weeks and they have finally returned to play with me. This is a good thing, since I have two commissions that could not be more different from each other in every conceivable way– style, instrumentation, client– due almost at the same time. And that time is coming up shortly.
Be kind to your muses and they will be kind to you.
And talk to your mushrooms, and sometimes they will talk back. Maybe even sing.
Inspiration comes from everywhere. I steal it like a mushroom thief.
Glenn Buttkus said,
December 14, 2007 @ 7:13 am
The solitary mushroom standing tall is a bit unique, as shrooms go. It wears it’s cap backwards and upside down; quite the individual. Do you eat mushrooms much, being a vegetarian?
You know, your prose is very poetic. I have noticed that from the first line I read of yours. It is just the way you reorganize the words that might transform it into poetry of a sort; like my sort, free verse, Walt Whitman stuff, free like your spirit, like your music.
WHO’S SHROOMIN WHO?
If I had the time,
because I do have
the interest,
I could spend hours
cataloging
the many unique mushrooms
I come across
on the modest acreage
of which I have
the honor
of stewartship.
Each is a piece of public art,
erected very suddenly,
while no one was looking.
And just as quickly
little museum thieves
whisk them away.
I walk across
the same piece of property
every day
and
like the ocean,
it is never the same
two afternoons
in a row.
Lots of these fungal flowers,
if not mingling in little coffe klatches
of a handful,
are loners,
standing upright,
with an admirable defiance,
and too brief beauty.
This one,
reaching five inches
towards the sky,
would be picked for
the Mushroom Basketball Olympics,
if they had one;
and maybe they do.
Who knows
what goes on in Mushroomland
when we are not
paying attention?
The tinge of purple
and the delicate upturn
of petals
is not what I usually see
with the rest of the fun guys
who wear big hats.
Be kind to your muses
and they will be kind to you.
And talk to your mushrooms,
and sometimes they will talk back;
maybe even sing.
Inspiration comes from everywhere.
I steal it
like a mushroom thief.
Alex Shapiro 2007
We all figured you were “holed up”, secluded, sequestered, knawing and nibbling on that old friend dark chocolate, waiting for more creativity to blossom, like your mushrooms out there hiding in plain sight, creating their own musky melodies in the moistness of where they spring up fecund and feisty, on your property, in your mind, in a secret chamber of your heart.
I can see you wandering your modest estate, inspecting every pebble, every blade of grass, every wildflower, talking to the insects in ant-talk and beetle-speak and bee-buzz; holding a colorful ceramic cup of tea, or wine, or bright hued juice, wearing flip-flops so that you come in contact with the grass and moss, reinforcing that strong tactile nature of yours –listening to the birdsong that hangs lightly in the air around your home, streaming down from every other tree and bush, sometimes your hands on your hips smiling wide at the jays, robins, sparrows, starlings, and crows that live with you, that watch over you.
“Unabashedly”, your snippet of music moved me as well, at once both frenetic and pastural, Celtic, smokey, jazzy, fat and lazy, whistful and wild, with notes flitting like birds, bars of rock and roll, thumps of the blues; with plenty of counterpoint, something frantic, omnipresent, working like bugs, never silent, a steady beat, overlapped with smooth and long strains of strings; great tune to walk your estate with.
When your finish your commissions, and you will, enrichening your livelihood, take some time and go to FEEL FREE TO READ. I have posted, much like yourself, some of my present and past work, poetry, movie reviews, Bio, family history, narratives, bitchs, moans, unprovoked screetching. You will be able to satiate yourself with the rough Buttkus edges, and the sweet sentimentality, and the muscular prose.
There is only one other link hooked to it now, the one labeled –“Alex Shapiro”. I will post your newest, your freshest piece of poetry on it this morning; for it is poetry, only rearranged presumptiously by mineself.
Glenn
Doug Palmer said,
December 14, 2007 @ 9:53 am
Buttkus does a little stealing of his own on http://bibliosity.blogspot.com/
Doug Palmer said,
December 14, 2007 @ 10:04 am
Oh, yeah, it is possible to play kelp, those things don’t look like english horns for nothing. Local composer Suzi Kozawa has an interesting piece featuring seaweed instruments. I have a tape around here somewhere.
Alex Shapiro said,
December 16, 2007 @ 1:27 am
I’m honored to be poeticized by you, Glenn. Now I’ll have to be even more careful in the words I choose, lest they form inadequate, boring poems.
Aw, hell, I’ll just write in my usual stream of unconsciousness style and let the rhythms of my uncensored utterances fall where they may. I’ve never been one to write to please an audience. I’ve only hoped that audiences might be pleased by what I write.
🙂
Mike Wills said,
December 18, 2007 @ 11:04 am
Mushrooms are an apt seque to creative inspiration, growing as they do from mycellium bodies that can be as large as 24,000 acres (known in eastern Oregon, btw), huge and unseen.
Your specimen is such a soft purple.
Thanks, Alex!!!! I am listening to your “Desert Spring” right now.