Category: New Hampshire

Categories
Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Music & Songs New Hampshire

Corn Man


Rasputin with giant cucumber, halo, ruffles, and cloud.

I heard this song in my head one morning while making corn bread.

The next day, I had to spend hours at a fair. While there, I started to be overcome with anxiety from being surrounded by so many people. James said, “Maybe some corn will help you.” and bought me a gigantic bag of kettle corn. And it did. Just like magic, with every sweet and salty bite, the claustrophobia began to melt away, until I ended up feeling quite comfortable and having a good time. Thanks corn!

Feeling impressed, like me and corn were on the road to becoming good friends, I googled corn when I got home and found that it is used homeopathically as a remedy for discomfort in crowded environments. I also learned about corn’s checkered past. Corn is definitely a grain more focused on power and success than being a nice guy. But I like that about corn. We all need a tiny (diluted) drop of pure evil in us.

I do feel that corn itself is the driving force behind genetically modified corn, and not humans. Corn has been inspiring humans to tamper with it since its inception. Personally, I think there are MANY cases in life when humans are simply carrying out the will of plants or other life forms. Would people feel less afraid of genetic modification if they thought that corn itself was in the driver’s seat? At the very least, it would be harder to consider the process unnatural.

Recently, I saw a great corn movie- “At Any Price.” It really captured the impact corn can have on people, and the perils of having too much corn running through your veins. Next up, “Children of the Corn.” I wonder who inspired Stephen King to write that book?

Download MP3: Corn Man

Categories
Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs New Hampshire

White World

 

Julien in Salem, Massachusetts cemetery, with scarf and coat.
Me, enjoying an autumn stroll through the park, and looking forward to winter!

I wrote this song during winter in New Hampshire. Most people here seem to like the ice and snow, but to me they were prison bars.  Staying indoors all the time can feel very claustrophobic, but so can walking around under gray skies covered from head to toe in thick black fur, unable to breath and still freezing.

But, since everyone else seemed to love winter, I figured there must be something I was missing. I wanted to love winter too; I just needed to know how. So I went to the library to check out books about eskimos, hoping to pick up some tips on how to be happy in an all white world.

From the eskimos, I learned the importance of drinking fresh seal blood so your soul will be part human and part seal. I learned that you can eat raw brains, liver, and intestines, and that meat doesn’t have to be cooked, it can be eaten frozen as well. I read about wife swapping, and giving away babies you couldn’t feed, sometimes even leaving them outside on the ground in the hopes that someone else would find them before an animal did. Their lives reminded me of White Fang and Call of the Wild- deep, rugged, brutal, and nothing like the lacy white wonderland I had been hoping to read about!

The cold seems to drag everything down, forcing you to make tough choices between what to hang on to and what to let go of. I know some people choose to live in super cold environments where the sun doesn’t shine for months at a time, but I still don’t know what their secrets are. How does a person keep happiness alive when all the fruits and flowers have died?

Download MP3: White World

Categories
New Hampshire

Mark Olson Interview

Mark Olson, former Jayhawk.

 

Yesterday, on WSCA Portsmouth, I interviewed Mark Olson (of the Jayhawks), one of my top two favorite musicians of all time.  I liked him a lot. For someone who writes such wistful, nostalgic music, he was a very fiery and down to earth kind of guy. He said his favorite stone is carnelian, which I thought was fitting.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Music & Songs New Hampshire Uncategorized

So Small

 

A song about small things, because no matter how much effort is put into deception, the tiniest and most insignificant details will eventually reveal the truth. As will stones.

Confederate pauses to examine a pebble as the sun rises.
“Confederate pauses to examine a pebble.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: So Small

Categories
Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Music & Songs New Hampshire

Home

Back in the day, there was one Greek philosopher who believed everything is made of fire, one who believed everything is made of air, one who believed everything is made of water, and one who believed everything is made of earth. The one who believed everything is made of fire also believed that change and impermanence are the true nature of life (a common belief today as well). The one who believed everything is made of earth believed that nothing ever changes and that permanence is the true nature of life.

Perhaps there is one layer of life which is constantly in flux, and perhaps this layer tends to grab our attention because of its unpredictable, dramatic, and anxiety-producing nature.   But beneath that, isn’t there also something so constant and steady, so soft and reassuring,  that it is easy for us to forget it is even there?

This song is about that realm of  comfort that lies beneath the more teetering aspects of our lives- the element of Earth!!

The Letter: To Black Hole's surprise, a mysterious letter arrives in the mail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Home

Categories
Earth, Pink, Mothers, Love Music & Songs New Hampshire

Earth

One day- I don’t remember why- I was feeling the need to get in touch with the Earth.  So I sat down to begin wondering about her and right away this song started playing in my mind.

Mary holds baby Jesus, wrapped in royal blue blanket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Earth

Categories
Blue, Black, Silver, Water, Moons, Death & Ghosts Music & Songs New Hampshire

Cool Hands

A song about strangulation. Because when faced with too much meanness, we can build up defense systems so suffocating that it can be hard to know if we died by somebody else’s hand or our own.

Ominous hand strangling a woman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download MP3: Cool Hands.mp3

Categories
Minerals, Mountains, Crystals, Ice, and White Music & Songs New Hampshire

White World

 

This song is called “White World” and it is about… well, on one level, like many of my songs, it is about people lost in a frozen world, struggling to maintain enough body heat to stay alive.  On a metaphorical level, it is about the struggle for perfection and goodness, and how it can sometimes run counter to the struggle for survival, growth, and even love.  Ideals are beautiful, but also cold and inhospitable.  Everything that enchants us with an image of perfection, can also leave us disenchanted with the way things are.  If there was no ice in the world, no dedication to purity and goodness, then maybe the world would heat up into a chaotic, fiery  hell.  But, if there is too much ice- when the attachments to moral, spiritual, or aesthetic values grow too strong- it becomes harder and harder for any life to flourish.

Personally, I do believe that there is a world where the Platonic Forms live, a world of perfection and beauty, but I do not think humans could survive there for very long.  I think it is the world of minerals, and there are places on Earth where this world can be visited- at the North and South Poles, and also at the top of any mountain that stretches above the tree line.

This song was recorded by James Prendergast, who is playing guitar. 

Download mp3: White World

This is a picture of me on the top of Mount Washington, New Hampshire.  I was very excited to be beyond the tree line for the first time ever!

Julien Aklei on Mount Washington Summit