Call it what you will.  The sky a field of black that covers us all, not as a dome but as what it is: an infinity of dark matter that stretches in all directions and in which you are suspended like an insect caught up in some viscous fluid, twitching and scrabbling for a surface that does not exist and in fact has never existed.

Go ahead.  Cast your mind back and back and back before all your various disappointments stacked themselves like cordwood at your feet.  Your eye still pressed to the eyepiece.  A cruel monocle indeed.  The black emptiness of space with its uncountable stars.  What might you learn from that emptiness?  Humility?  A lesson you learned long ago and need no reminder here.

A lane of dust, although Messier likely could not have seen it and yet there it is: a swath of darkness akin to a bruise again the thick swirl of stars not like a bruised eye but like a smear on a napkin, the diner having already belched out his final gaseous surprise upon eating—yes—a galaxy.  Indeed.  So the universe works just like the local diner: the lights even flickering on and off now and again.  Power outages as the grid browns out once or twice and then ducks the neighborhood into frantic candlelight.  The diners sit with their forks suspended between plate and maw.  Where’s my coffee cup now?  The final bite in the black and then setting the fork down next to the plate with a metallic clink.  Quizzical.  Quixotic.  That too.

Which galaxy are you in now?  The one devouring or the one being devoured?  Could you know?  Would you care if you did?

So it is everywhere.

There is no jewel and so there will be no lighting up your dark heart.  Ah god.

It is as if lying at the bottom of a swimming pool: a shining, shifting object like a small coin. The object is there: it can be seen. Its outlines can be traced, some details detected, and yet if the pool could be drained only for a moment: the letters on its surface, the small scratches and nicks from handling, a sense of its history and its purpose.

Look out the window and see the sky aglow with its stars in all their staggering indistinctness. And now: a starfield incomprehensible and crowded with lights that do not shimmer but are firm and steady and do not falter. Every feather and crest perfectly outlined. Each beak sharp in its point. How they shine even now.

There are a variety of longings. This one drifts through the circle of lit space like a ghost.

A cluster of blurred light whose history you already know. Galileo had counted forty individual stars. You could likely count the same number had you the desire or need to do so. The Beehive. Messier, never the poet: “a cluster of stars known by the name of the Cancer nebula.” Before it had been as if a huge mystery floated in plain view of everyone but was essentially akin to a foreign text impossible to read except for those trained in its grammar. The forty-five had become one hundred and ten by the end of his life. And not stars but objects: clusters and nebulae and distant galaxies. Indistinct. Curiouser.

Of course there is no answer. What answer might you give? An answer in minutes and seconds? The low sky to the north until your eyes blur out trying to resolve objects. And you have a count of them too. But which have you already counted? Each star shifts against the pool bottom of the atmosphere and so his view continues to be garbled by distance and by the last light of the sun still blues out the horizon even to the north. The array of stars tangled together as if it had some meaning but no meaning could it have. And so it goes on: the night a blurry, terrible thing that is stationary only as a cruel illusion, like the camouflage of an animal that lay so still as to seem part of the landscape itself and then, in an instant, slithering away, the illusion so complete that when it was gone the landscape itself appeared exactly as it was and then again the motion for all the while the slithering animal had been replaced by another and another until the watcher knows only that the landscape viewed is no landscape at all but only a field of slithering animals all moving at once and that the watcher itself is standing upon such a field so that he too moving along with them and as such the entirety of the scene is of motion itself and yet offers the illusion of being frozen and so shall it ever be.

House of David

If you’re in Sacramento and/or the Bay Area we hope you’ll join us
for a special house concert at David’s in Davis, CA featuring
Christian Kiefer, Stephen Yerkey, and Richard March. We’ll be trading
songs, telling stories, and doing alot of harmonizing. Friendly for
the kids but music for the grown-ups.

The model at David’s is kid-friendly so bring them. We start early.
Food (great Indian food) at 6pm (for FREE!), we start playing at 7pm
and are done at 9pm or so. Don’t have kids and want to stay late and
get hammered? Feel free. David is just that friendly. Last time a
contingency of fine drunkards camped in the backyard for the evening.
Really.

But that was all after the kids had gone home. Speaking of which:
Babysitters will be around to take your kids to the park and entertain
them. How’s that?

Here’s the address:

718 Hacienda Ave, Davis 95616

If you’re coming, please RVSP to david@christiankiefer.com so we can
keep some kind of head count happening.

Chicagodents

By way of keeping you informed of other goings on, the band just
returned from Chicago where we played our Presidents songs at the
Hideout and at the Taste of Chicago in Grant Park with help from Tim
Rutili (Califone), Tim Kinsella (Joan of Arc), The Gunshy, The Bitter
Tears, Jon Langford (Mekons, Waco Brothers), and so many others I
can’t even remember.

More shows like this in the works but likely not until next year.
Keep your ear to the rail.

Coming Up

Vinyl release by the Tetuzi Akiyama / Tom Carter / Christian Kiefer
trio is on the way, also from Digitalis. It’s called THE DARKENED
MIRROR and features some guest work by percussionist Chip Conrad and
bassist Scott Leftridge.

Other stuff in the works too, which I’ll let you all know about as
it comes up, including a double batch of new songs, some of a more
rockist vein than I’ve done in the past.

We’ll be bringing the Songs for Presidents show to Chicago for July 3 (the Hideout) and 4 (Grant Park for Taste of Chicago) with a horde of special guests.  E-mail david@christiankiefer.com for more information.

Hi all:

Just a reminder of the show dates comin’ up!

April 22, 12:00PM
Sierra College, Rocklin, CA
Live daytime, outside show for whoever wanders by

April 25, 3:30pm
House show, Sacramento, CA
Benefits the American Cancer Society
E-mail ross@rosshammond.com for location and information 

.

April 25, sometime in the evening…
House show, Marysville, CA
E-mail jesseharris87@sbcglobal.net for location and information

May 1, 9:00PM
Luna’s Cafe, Sacramento, CA
w/Kevin Lee (Silver Darling) and James Finch, Jr. (Jackpot)

June 6, 9:00PM
Luigi’s Fun Garden, Sacramento, CA

For those interested in the show in Washington, DC back in January, Jeff Hutton’s photographs have been collected in a fine book with texts by Christian Kiefer, J. Matthew Gerken, Jefferson Pitcher, Stephen Kilroy (of Middle Distance Runner), Scott Leftridge, and Tim Fite. It more or less tells the story of the album and features new live photographs of us and the various guests involved: Nellie McKay, Tim Fite, Hiss Golden Messenger, Joe Pug, Denison Witmer, Laura Burhenn, Middle Distance Runner, Jukebox the Ghost, The Potomac Buccaneers of Leesburg Virginia, and These United States. Did I miss anyone? Probably. Click below for a preview of the beast (although note also that the preview is of the Intro section, which only has our press photos–the show starts later in the text).

Songs for Pres…

Of Great and Morta…

By Jeff Hutton

Book Preview

Lots of local (to us) shows up and coming…

April 15, 7:00AM
Rotary Club, Rocklin, CA
Lecture on Presidents project

.

April 18, 7:00PM
House Show, Davis, CA
E-mail david@idhsales.com for location and information

.

April 22, 12:00PM
Sierra College, Rocklin, CA
Live daytime, outside show for whoever wanders by

.

April 25, 3:30pm
House show, Sacramento, CA
Benefits the American Cancer Society
E-mail ross@rosshammond.com for location and information

.

April 25, sometime in the evening…
House show, Marysville, CA
E-mail jesseharris87@sbcglobal.net for location and information

.

May 1, 9:00PM
Luna’s Cafe, Sacramento, CA

.

June 6, 9:00PM
Luigi’s Fun Garden, Sacramento, CA