Revisiting The Past

The other day something I was reading reminded me of something I wrote. And that led to another thing I had written a while back. So, here they are, the two pieces from the past, a couple of song reviews... perhaps you missed them. The first was written a couple of weeks after my father spent some time in hospital and when released was on some heavy-duty heart drugs. Enon's song stirred up memories of the many hours I spent in hospital during that time. And the Empress review? I don't know where that came from.


Enon: "Kanon"

3 am, irregular heartbeat has stabilized, blood thinned by rat poison--dreams keep breaking loose like dreaded clots might without the Warfarin. Monitors beep, a gurney clicking and clacking on the hard floor, wheeled up to my quasi darkened room--like a snowy moonlit night--pushed by two men with shaggy hair. They are directed by a tiny woman, a nurse who begins to sing in my drug muffled ears--calming and frightening at turns. We stop in a quiet dim lit hallway as she injects me with something... I think it was called 'Kanon' or Enon.
I can see lights, colours, although my eyes are closed, I think. I can hear unfamiliar names called, strange names, and then, and then.... my own. I blink awake in Emerg with the dream nurse's song still swirling in my ears; I keep thinking Blonde Redhead, Blonde Redhead with American blood and electronic rhythm, but that's not right--trying to find a name, but none comes to mind... none... nonE....Enon. Walking towards the triage nurse who called my name, I almost hope they can't get my cd player earphones, some bastard krazy glued into my ears, loose.

+ kanon

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Empress: "Vodka and Verlaines"
A slowly picked guitar and pecked out piano notes lay atop what a warm summer wind sounds like as you float with your ears submerged, your hair fanned like silky seaweed behind your head, in your neighbors pool. Your neighbor is in Arizona or Saskatchewan (you forget which) for an estate auction. Still you float, half in and half out of the leaf strewn pool, half in and half out of sleep -- and you have all you need: a warm pool, the keys to your neighbor's house, and the Empress song, "Vodka and the Verlaines", playing in your head. You don't know the song or the band, but somehow they are playing away somewhere behind your sun-stroked eyes, between your water logged ears. You hear a country tinged melody without the pedal steel, or Cat Power without the naked vocal emotion. You hear Empress, as a floating Smirnoff bottle flashes in the sun... just before it cracks against your skull.

+ vodka and verlaines