Postcard Sorceress in Spanish. My mother, Caracas-raised,
helped me translate. The Spanish version is more hopeful
because in Spanish to be hopeless is to be dead. There's little
language for the gray area. Despair is big in Latin America,
but not hopelessness.

Vittorio, on a 2004 car ride from Mexico City to San
Miguel de Allende (where we would take a dawn balloon ride),
taught me of the bruja en las colinas de la selva
y el chupacabra.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Nina tuvo un sueño cuando era joven
Escorpiones llegaron a jugar
Ella se despertó descubriendo tener una hija
Y 2 tickets para el tren de Punta Mita

Ella se pasa la vida haciendo joyas para turistas
Trabajando en el Café Revolución
Ella sabe que ya no se puede huir
No se pierde nada cuando no hay nada que ganar

Cada día Nina se detuvo a leer un anuncio
Detrás del estante de tarjetas postales en el café
Decía “Puedo exorcizar cualquier demonio!”
Mostrando el camino a una cueva a través de la selva

Un par de años más tarde, Nina dio su hija a un vecino
Dijo que volverá en un par de días
“Voy a dar un paseo por la colinas de la selva
Para que mi bebé nuca sepa de mi dolor.”

Empacó una bolsa con dinero y cigarrillos
Y el cuchillo de su abuela, por si acaso
Ella desapareció en el dosel de la selva
Dejando el pueblo polvoriento en su estela.

La bruja utiliza el cuchillo para mezclar un elixir
Dijo que ya había visto este dolor
Ella dijo: “Nina, la verdad flota en el tiempo.
Beba, y ya no soñaras más.”

Nina pasó su vida haciendo joyas para turistas
Trabajando donde todos los demás se escapan
Ella sabe que ya no tiene que huir
No tiene nada que perder cuando elige otro tren

01.09.2009-01.14.2009

I could not record today.
My studio is not soundproof enough sometimes for a city daytime
Contractors hired by an aspirational Brooklyn property developer
are down the block stamping underpinnings
for a cantilevered condo
That will be 4 times the size of the
60 year old 2 family that the developer
Demolished a month ago

On the opposite side of my apartment from the recording studio
The back of a post office is across the street
The carriers often shout at each other
In the loading dock
While jumping up and down on postal truck roofs
One of them, a man with a bird voice, likes to sing
Arias from Norma
As a mechanical gate opens and closes to let the trucks
In and out, he gives
the gate a mournful movement

Night brings its own challenges
The Bingo Hall on 5th Avenue allows its patrons
Access to its rear alley, which shares
The north side of my Condo complex
The alleyway is the de facto smoking lounge
Where winners coming out to smoke
Make on-a-lucky-streak noise
The ones on a losing tail fall off towards the streetside of the
Alleyway and smoke in silence
As passing headlights echo through
The flickering alleyway’s security gate

Tomorrow I’m going to mail packages
That have been sitting on my dining room table since before last holiday
I look at the gifts meant to be given,
Gifts that people have no idea they are going to receive
I’ve created a purgatory
Between loneliness and not loneliness
But to me these gifts have become
When your partner isn’t talking, the soft rustle of a paper
Or a sweater against a sofa…
Things that mean everything that you don’t notice
If you’re not standing still
Or trying to record

i always wanted to write a song about a bruja. this one's a
nod to Manu Chao and Carlos Santana via fastball.
cut a Spanish version, too, fwiw...

you just have to float away; leave your body
for a little bit; every day.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

You say
Breathe. Dream.
And as you fall away
Drink in the sky

Everything about you just shines
You and I get unstuck in time
There is no line between you and me

The way you float over sand
The way you live without a plan
If I could only use your eyes to see

You say
Breathe. Dream.
And as you fall away
Drink in the sky

Feel free
as you walk so soft into the light

w/you I’m lost but not alone
like a mariachi saxophone
I want to hear every note you play

You say
Breathe. Dream.
And as you fall away
Drink in the sky

Leave time.
Fly so soft
Into your life

You say
Breathe. Dream.
And as you fall away
Drink in the sky

01.09.2008 4:27p; 6:10p; 01.10.2008 5:37p; 8:17p

Austintown, OH, is the driving midpoint between
New York City and Chicago. Written election eve 2004.

version: 03032009a
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

When they dig us up – they might never know
We dug deep – and left evidence as far down as they will go
They might even think we were older than dinosaurs

Arrogance thinks we’ll see the end of the world
That we’d be last ones – to ever see
the truth/the truth
it’s just funny how much truth
you find

½ way between here & there
so many secrets you can’t begin to dare
to leave
escaping only in dreams
looks like it comes down
tonight to AustinTown

They’re gonna say we went backwards – all the way back
Before we went forwards again
Here it comes around again
And there goes the

the truth/the truth
it’s just funny how much truth
you find

½ way between here & there
so many secrets you can’t begin to dare
to leave
Escaping only in dreams
looks like it comes down
tonight to AustinTown

...

11.18.2004, 10:24am; 12.23–25.2004;
07.07.2005 8:55pm; 05.01.2008 9:54pm;
01.15.2009 9:12pm

zipline. jungle. mexico.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I want to take a zipline
Through my mind
(But) no one speaks our language
Down here
Where’s that number?
I need to call The Doctor

We wanna get draddled
And set fire to the beach
But the dolls are at the border
And the pilot’s getting screened
I need to call The Doctor
Where’s that number?

There are shooting stars
In Orion’s Belt
Swinging high from a chandelier
It would be such a waste
To be out in space
Without a doctor
What’s that number?
We need a zipline

Baby you are so fine
Caressing my mind
You see forever
You see through me

But there’s no contradiction
Between what I’m feeling
And what I’m seeing
In your eyes

There are shooting stars
In Orion’s Belt
Swinging high from a chandelier
It would be such a waste
To be out in space
Without a doctor
Without your number
w/out a zipline

w/out your number
w/out a zipline

01.08.2008 8:21a; 11:04p; 11:30p

last night it was joe frank with Karma – Part 6.
if you want to make the cupcake from the song, just know that the cupcake is not the serving suggestion pictured on the Addavanilla package. the picture looks like a cupcake but it’s actually a fire-roasted scorpion with addavanilla frosting. The cupcake, though it’s no Sugar Sweet Sunshine, is amazing, but the scorpion dish, while tough to duplicate, is well worth wrestling with the Easy Bake for the protein alone.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Today I am not turning on the radio
All the talk is right vs black and wrong vs white
I’m gonna head out into the neighborhood
I’m gonna see some friends
I’m going to try to live beyond every mistake

I am not going to fall in love today
I don’t feel like saving a tree today
I refuse to be a ritual

Jellyfish come to mind
In winter
Something about swarming wet snow
The cold of a thousand needles
Poison slowly breaking synapses
To the jellyfish, it’s like a peaceful drift
Through an addavan cupcake

To write in silence is impossible
Even with the radio off
The Internet is sitting in a window
Behind the window in which I write
I don’t have a typewriter
Or enough paper
To write off grid today

So I’m going to enjoy my addavan cupcake
With its rainbow sprinkle arpeggio
And moist chorus filling

Today I am not turning on the radio
That’s What Adam Green Would Do (WWAGD?)
I’m gonna head out into the neighborhood
I’m gonna see some friends