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Utopian Turtletop. Monsieur Croche's Bête Noire. Contact: turtletop [at] hotmail [dot] com

Sunday, October 15, 2006

my old pal

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The house concert last night was preceded by a grand art project, but the batteries died in the digital camera, and so until I can get you some documentation of the art, I’ll hold off commenting on the concert (except to say I had a grand time). In the meantime, these tidbits:

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My old pal and high school bandmate John de Roo has put some of his highly accomplished, elegant, melancholy songs up on the web. Delighted to see (and hear) him have a web presence -- and good to see he’s let his hair grow out a bit again.

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Re-read Uncle Vanya today and wondered anew at the depressed doctor Astrov’s ecological far-sightedness. His mapping of the deforestation of his unnamed Russian district, and his awareness of the importance of biodiversity (not a word he uses) seem like this week’s news. The play is almost 110 years old.

And that Chekhov . . . so influential -- Beckett, G. Bernard Shaw -- but more to the point, he cuts deep.

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My band received its first public comment, that I know of, today. Xenius Jones of the blog Ants In Your Plants of 1939 went on a web search of some of Marianne Moore’s car name suggestions to the Ford Motor Co. (whence the name Utopian Turtletop), and he came across this blog. Mr. Jones read some of the blog, clicked through to my band’s site, listened, and liked it:

Click through to his own music, which sounds like the sort of stuff that only happens halfway through a Sunday afternoon backyard barbecue when someone says "Hey, let's get the guitars out." Which is, now that I think of it, what the blog feels like, too. That's a compliment, by the way.


I do in fact love a barbecue, and the band photo at the music site is from just such a gathering. Jesus and Hakim Bey agree: The Kingdom of Heaven, like the Temporary Autonomous Zone, can be likened to a dinner party (though I suspect Bey’s dress code is looser than Jesus’).



Comments:
hey john,
thanks for the plug. jake didn't have a photo, so i suggested a rembrandt self-portrait. he picked a good one.
hope your house concert went well. wish i was there....
john d.
 
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