Seven AM.
The moon shone right over my head when I hit the street in front of my house, a little larger than a crescent. The stars were still out, and I thought of a Moody Blues couplet: “Take a look out there / Planets everywhere.” This kind of correspondence of mind and nature is like Wordsworth in The Prelude, and yet it complicates the scheme unnecessarily to use allusions. I trod the black street gingerly in the low visibility. It was a crisp 27 degrees but with the clear weather I needn’t worry about ice. At the Maxwell intersection I could look to my left and see the dark blue atmosphere tinged rose on the rim of the earth. Finally I reached the store. Lisa wore a black and white knitted beanie with big snowflakes and said with an expletive that it was cold outside. The radio behind her played old alternative rock, probably Pearl Jam. A lot of those bands sounded alike to me because I was already thirty during that decade, and involved in a totally different genre of music. If I’d had my way, I would have tried for jazz fusion, but the demand for electric bass had declined in jazz at the time. My favorite listening music was actually classical, the Modern period starting with Erik Satie. The guy who helped the old man at the Musique Gourmet, named Scott, gave me quite a little education in Modern music, though his occupation was film critic. I long for those days in the Nineties, and especially I miss my dad…
robgradens 