Wildflower Inside Out
When songs bleed into memory —
dear wildflower,
our tales really do melt away in memory between the vibrations of music, voices, yelling, laughter, and singing.
music for remembering is best in the evening. nostalgia through sound, i think you can call it. When it conjures laughter of friends and warm summer nights, vanilla, cicadas, and the day is set to end-
we inaugerate the evening, just drumming up a little weirdness / I’d see fire where its not supposed to be.
wait, how did that bit of spoken word get in there? where you come from?
“Saturday Night Inside Out” is a song consistent through past summers and presently mild mornings. david berman, the solitary member of the group who endured the entire 20 year run of the avalanches, mossed around my eardrums:
the last summer before the pandemic, the 40km bike ride i took this year, a 4am flight to toronto from vancouver, late nights walking home through snow covered montreal streets.
sometimes i can’t tell the difference between these moments probably because i colour the variety of memories with a single series of vibrations.
wildflower, as an album, so blissful and melancholic. it paints a world of summer that is tinged with nostalgic undertones and heartbreak over psychedelic, distorted samples. yet, it’s special because it stretches. like strands of webbing, the msuic breathes through time, real or imagined. then again, don’t we all occupy space between the now and the then?
‘Speak to Me’ (M. Hershman) is a volume of essays that had me reflecting on the human voice one morning,
I adored the way she modified my mornings / When I’d wake up in the calm shoals of her bed / Somersaults or smoke in a universe of sleep / Before she slipped into her heritage and disappeared
again, we’re interupting are we? well, thats just dandy. if you’re going to stay, at least you’re relating to what i’m writing.
ahem, human voice. it draws us into memory through sound, evokes feelings for people long gone. and i realized while looking around that people listen to their tracks on the track, they disappear into that noise. familiarity, like a friend you talk to every day.
even children take notice; two friends were talking about current affairs and life, planning a trip to the east once it was all over they said, and a child babbled admist the silence,
Teardrops were standing in my eyes / Like deer before they bolt
uh, yeah silence. “What are they doing?”, he wondered. what was he doing questioning what they were doing, i wondered. has he never heard two friends talk contemporary affairs; ie. the ongoing horror of genocide of a people in the east who are being bombed, murdered, voices silenced?
for many people on that street car, myself included, that association doesn’t come through, mainly because we are nestled in our songs, our control, ultimate familiarity. music can change a life, but also capture it in a moment, moments we need when our resolve falters and frays.
it gets late so early now, the waves come in mountain phases.
i get it already, at least pick a different song! my anxiety has been sweeping all my feelings under the bed like the gator under the bed. we need to talk about how you keep interupting me with nonsequetors and lack of meaning —
“All you kids are the same today, all you wanna do is play, you never wanna work or take any responsibility — TRUUUUUUEE!”
different song, but well, true. working shitty kitchen jobs, smoking up in the garage, so much anime, meeting up on the go to go to toronto, devilmancrybaby and edibles; why take responsibility when the benality of this life is so sweet? real life rarely has moments like these anymore:
int. neil’s garage — night.
i had spilled the cards. his face was aghast. i snickered, we picked them up.
Alex
“hey bro, want to play 52 pick-up?”
Neil
“don’t you fucking dare” (schhhhwiiipppppt). a flick of the finger. cards scattered over the floor. our other friend is laughing his ass off too over there in the corner. this happened not even 5 minutes ago, too.
a flick of the finger spreads the cards across the floor. kings, queens, jokers and aces all fall down. ben is laughing his ass off in the corner, for five straight minutes.
end.
with a scene like that, how could we ever compare this shitty ttc ride? when the howling coyotes call to me from the words of the poet.
…
i said, when the howling coyotes from the farmers fields behind my friends old house, now soaked into the concrete like the new development there, speak to me everytime i listen to the same song.
…
oh for fuck’s sak-
The day-glow raven born into a free fall / The fulfillment of a 10th grade prophecy / A motel masterpiece/ Blind to the branching possibilities
oh, finally.
as i was sayin, to find those coyotes i would probably need to bust that concrete open like my gut after i spilled those cards. but for that memory, its just a click away and i’m off to musical neverland.
then again, if the entire streetcar bursted into conversation, you would terrified. it would absolutely overwhelming, an assault of the senses. at the same time, how fun would that be? to be in that space when the entire world comes alive. not just the words coming off the advertisements lining the halls, words like ‘be better, get your money up, you dumb, poor, broke, idiotic, emotional motherfuckers. banking.’
one day Marcie lost her brother to cancer, but she still hears his voice. i hope i never loose my sister the same way. i hope i can still hear her voice when its all over. i think i’ll give these friends a call, before its over too soon.
why the fuck do i think about death on the ttc? i don’t know, i clearly have a self-loathing problem. anyway, that marcie book is really good.
thanks avalanches,
sincerely,
alex
p.s.
thank you and you, biz markie, for making the noisy eater. i show all my favourite dates that song, and watch their face recoil in cringe when they realize that i really am a weirdo. it never fails to make laugh my ass off. ah well, the date usually works out, if you catch my drift. aight, later.
