The Mountains and The Melvins In Vancouver

Rustic mind, knee deep in a pit of pines
The sun sets over multistoried redwoods
in tandem with the tired gaze.
Somewhere the blue dunes in the water are lurching
towards a destiny unknown.
We know all destinies are unknown because we know
no final condition pertains to the bedrock of things.
In freedom, all laws are outlawed.
The jade reality springs...

Got back yesterday from Vancouver. The lovely city teems with boutiques, used book stores, restaurants, and coffee shops. In Gastown, an upper-class area of the city, one could purchase an ornate and byzantine Persian rug for fifty-two thousand dollars. I was tempted, but no---my financial situation would not allow for such an impetuous purchase. In Gastown, there is also this really cool steam clock. An anonymous author on the Atlas Obscura website has this to say about it:

"Underneath Vancouver, Canada, there runs a series of steam tunnels, some apparently large enough to walk in. You can look down onto the tunnels—which run under major streets, including Cordova, Water, Cambie, and maybe Abbot—through large grates in the sidewalk.

These steam tunnels both heat much of downtown Vancouver and power the city's steam clock, one of the few functioning such clocks in the world."

Memories: The setting sun over the distant mountain is like time setting over the final edifice of space. Clouds wax and wane, but the image of the insuperable sun mounting great mountains is eternal. Rays promulgate from the sun's center and bathe everything in radiance and joy. Above the mountains there seems to be other mountains, ethereal mountains where the eidolons of lumberjacks live on. They're made of light and cloud and the color of possibility. The moment is inscribed into the tome of memory.

On monday night, Ashley and I went to go see the Melvins. They were quirky, pummeling, cathartic, anarchic, jocular, and transcendentally heavy. At one point during the second set they played, Buzzo and Jared held the notes on their respective guitars until a bundle of hiss and feedback swelled and filled the Rickshaw theatre with a tumultuous shriek. This was followed by the heaviest sounding part of the night. So heavy.

The riff moves through the mountain.
Sonic peaks touch the timbral sky.
All sound is a seismic rise towards
the attic of the earth.
All mountains are dressed in tones of glory.

King Buzzo, the lead guitar player, looked like the ornery wizard of heaviosity. He would often contort his body with his riffs, or bang his frosty mane, or unleash gnomic pig latin incantations with a voice as booming as Yahweh. The drummer, Coady and Dale, pounded their drums in thunderous synchrony the entire night. It was most impressive. They never missed a beat. It seemed like a pivotal part of the Melvins' live sound involved the rhythmic interplay of those two heavy-hitters. Jared, the bassplayer, looked like an outer space neanderthal. A cross between a Mad Max pariah and a Logun's Run utopian philosopher. Lots of his antics were humorous.

Snow-capped mountains call from the distance. A song of clarity is intoned by all visible things. The tangible and the intangible coalesce somehwere at the summits. Clusters of sacred and hoary trees line up for the sky festival. Soon Shiva will swoop down from the celestial realm and anoint everything with Brahman's immortal oil. Time seems to stand still. The elevation becomes primary. The sky looks like a dome of purity. Reflection on the self. Reflection on the surround.