by Joni Mitchell
Row and floes of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air
and feather canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow,
Its cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds
at all
The music video stares back at me across the five feet breadth of the living room; the singer called Pink is dressed in an elaborate goth white alice-in-wonderland-dress; she has a white wig with bangs over her eyes and a nose ring and she is in a white room; the song is acceptable, but what I like is the image and the sound hitting me at once. It is rich — a rich experience — and its no surprise that its the quintessential addiction of the postmodern era — sounds and visions beamed directly into our cerebral cortex — who needs LSD when you have three hundred channels with high production values.
In other news, frantic job-seekers have crashed the NYU Law website.
Last night, on my way back from New Haven, I was in a cab driving through Times Square. What is there to say about Time Square in 2009? It is unspeakably beautiful — an image of the future and how far we’ve come — but where? 21st Century. Karl Marx is dead. The Heroes of the Paris Commune — forgotten. The blood of the dead have dried.
There are trees here in New York City. They grow — grow in the lights and the sounds and the smells of New York City. We walk beneath them, not noticing them for the buildings.
The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of paraheliotropic trees 