editor

i noticed there were a few typos i my last post and a general air of absurdness. to help me curb this, i have gainfully employed an editor to help me separate the moldy peaches from the men from del monte. her name is ellen oparson and she told me she shall help whenever she could. present yourself whenever you can. (Hi everyone. It is Ellen here. I hope I can make this blog more fun and more exciting than ever before. I promise not to edit any of the posts, just make constructive comments. I can't be at hand all the time, so I'll edit when I can. I hope we can all be good friends. By the way, all my posts will in italics, so you will not confuse us. See you around. E.O.)


in fact

i actually used in fact as one of the idioms that she didn't understand. it went a bit like this.

me: it means in fact.
student: in fact? fact?
me: fact means real.
student: real?
me: like true. you know, true and false.
student: ahh true. in true? IN true? (she used one had to mime a very small glass of beer, making a circle with here thumb and forefinger and used the other hand to point into the glass.) in?
me: er... don't worry about it. actually means really, well kind of...
student: ?
me: let's move on to the next part of the lesson.

thanks for your help though. prague is a bit frosty now i hear.


secret chord

i finished the bob dylan book. (You should mention that you mispelt the author's name in the last post. E.O.) I thought it was like one big magazine article on bob. i didn't feel like i was part of the action; there was no drama, even when he was fighting with his infamous stalker and putting dog shit in his trash cans. it has some amazing detail about his life: some of his chat up lines, his many foibles, his apathy and especially his fame. no wonder he's a weirdo eccentric now, with so many people sticking tags on him and following him around. he has to keep moving or they'll catch up and drown him; tear his skin from limb to limb. he found hippies having sex on his bed of his home (the home where he raised his children) and recordings of his answerphone message bootlegged and for sale in the record shops. a shitload of his greenwich village mates ODed or committed suicide because they all wanted to be like dylan; wanted to be the star and the icon, and realising that lightning rarely struck twice, left the stage in the only way they knew how.


i know this room, i've walked this floor

i bought the grateful dead live/dead album. dylan was good friends with jerry garcia. it is like mogwai fighting with doors with mick jagger leaning into the ropes, begging to be tagged.


you don't really care for music

i heard an interview with leonard cohen's father on the radio yesterday. it was around midnight. it went something like this:

"i was walking on the highway when is spotted an old notebook on the dusty road. i picked it up and read the cover. it said ideas for songs by someone called bacon rind. the pages were all curled up on the corner and the front was kinda beat up and worn. it was yellow with age and use. i was in farming country just outside denver. i opened the book to look inside for an address or telephone number so i could return it to it's rightful owner, for i didn't want anyone to lose something that could cost the bread in his belly. the book nearly fell apart as i leafed through and it stopped on page 14 where i read this song:


the prince and the serf

the prince and serf lived together,
the prince and serf didn't like each other,
the flesh like flies and skin like leather.

the prince fought like a rascal,
the serf battled like a knight in armor,
the ground was hard and trees did fall.

the prince soon won the battle,
the serf soon buried in wet cold dirt
over the oil and under the cattle.

the prince prayed in his private church
for the fallen serf, on a leper's perch,
and for more battles, the prince will search.


i put the book back on the road. it wasn't for me. "

it went on, but i fell asleep and didn't wake up until the follow morning.