Cecil Vortex

Bean Thread Noodles

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Here’s an all-new micro-tune featuring the legendary Jake Vortex on tenor sax. We call this one Bean Thread Noodles, because much like traditional bean thread noodles, it’s made from ground mung beans. Oh yeah!
Seriously though, I have no idea what that means. Mung beans? That can’t be right can it? Is that a typo? If you have any better explanation, please don’t be shy. We’re at least as confused about this whole bean thread noodle thing as you are.
time: 22 seconds; specs: 300K
Press Play to play.

The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch Gameplan

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27 people have now signed up for the Deathmarch. And I think it’s safe to say that this little idea has now morphed from an amusing notion into a full-fledged movement — a movement that may well change the way people think about reading books and talking about them on blogs forever.
Here’s the rough plan: Tuesday will be GRDM day here on cecilvortex.com. For the next couple of weeks, that will mean short updates as folks holidize, stretch their legs, wash their socks, that sort of thing. But starting on the morning of Jan. 4, we’ll have a post indicating how far we aim to travel on the first week. Each week’s journey will be roughly 50 pages. Since editions may vary and numbers can’t be trusted, the marker will be “read up to X” rather than “read to page Y.”
Starting on the 11th I’ll post short entries here every Tuesday morning that will be meant as open threads — a spot to drop comments. I’m encouraging everyone to chime in, if only with “oh my lord, this is awful, what have I done?” More than anything, this is a GR support group.
Although a paragraph or three of pithy analysis will always be welcome, I’m going to discourage folks from giving in to old habits and churning out a 6-page paper each week. (If 27 people wrote 6 pages each week of the GRDM we’d end up with 2,430 pages of critical analysis. And that, I’m pretty sure, would make my head blow up.)
Prizes? Oh yes, there will be prizes. More on that next week….
It’s not to late to sign yourself (or several loved ones) up for the march. All are welcome. Just add a comment to this link, or drop me an email.
Merry Tuesday and watch the skies, -Cecil

Soul

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Soul is not space,
not molecules.
You can fit all the world’s souls
in the crack
of your ass.
However,
just because you can
doesn’t mean you should.

Long gone

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Today my son
is the Black Fox
in a one-kid revival
of the ’50s classic, The Court Jester
as he stands around the kitchen shouting:
“Hawkins, get out of my clothes.”
“Hawkins, get out of my clothes!”
He wants to play with Danny Kaye
but Danny Kaye is long gone.

The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch

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So I was talking to one of my brothers last night, and we agreed that this Pynchon book has bedeviled us long enough. Me, I’ve started Gravity’s Rainbow at least 3 times. And let’s just say I’m very familiar with the first 30 pages. OK, sentences. OK, consonants. Hell, I’ve never even finished The Crying of Lot 49 and that’s a damn pamphlet.
So we made a pact. We made a death pact. You know, minus the death. 50 pages a week, starting the first week in January. No stopping till we reach the other side. Then we thought: hey! There must be other folks out there who’ve been similarly confounded. Let’s see if we can gather together a tribe of like-minded long-suffers and tackle this beast en masse. Thus was born The Gravity’s Rainbow Deathmarch.
We’d like to use this site as a forum, post an open thread once a week for shared thoughts, comfort. Mebbe I’ll even spring for some exciting incredibly cheap end-of-journey prizes for them what make it all the way through, and manage to check in each week, all depending on how many people are interested.
So that’s the shpiel. All are welcome — friends, foes, strangers, passersby. If you’re reading this, and if you’re interested in joining, drop a comment here, or send me an email. We’ll work out the details in the next couple of weeks.
I hear the clamor of boots, the clatter of coffee cups, the straightening of glasses. Today we order paperbacks and shuffle through dusty shelves for old unread college copies. For tomorrow we ride!
-Cecil
update: if you’re buying a copy, I’m told one handsome option is this swank Penguin edition. That’s the one I’ll be picking up, fwiw.

For Every Man There’s a Woman

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Good golly do I love the standards. A while back, you may recall, I posted covers first of “Bye Bye, Blackbird,” and then (with a lotta help from eb and Eileen Dahl) “Second Hand Rose.” Great tunes, both.
Here’s the third in this ongoing series of let’s-just-say-non-traditional piano/vocal/guitar takes on jazz standards — “For Every Man There’s a Woman,” written in 1948, with ok-they’re-sorta-dated lyrics by Leo Robins and absolutely timeless music by Harold Arlen. Wotta tune. Seriously: Big ups for Harold “Harold Arlen” Arlen, author of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “That Old Black Magic,” “I’ve Got the World on a String” and a gazillion other bits of genius.
Let me just put it this way: If Harold Arlen was alive today and had a web site, I’d give him a free link. That’s how much I like Harold Arlen.
Press Play to play.
playtime:1:34
file specs: nought but 1.4 MB mp3
Enjoy! And thanks for dropping by…

She’s Quite Old

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That Victorian isn’t old. That car
isn’t old. My Sinatra records aren’t
old. Not that old. Not really.
Even that old tree isn’t old.
That old woman
who just walked past
like she just stepped out
of Deuteronomy
with a flock of goats trailing behind
and a thin little stick
and a plan
to get them all
to water by nightfall.
That old woman is old.