Slicer's Slivers of Being

A Slice of Fish

Over Christmas, my daughter was given a goldfish as a housewarming present for her student flat. Given that there are 2 cats in the house, we think the future looks a little bleak for inter-pet relationships... and goldfish lifespan. I can just imagine the conversation between the 2 cats. One says, "Where d'you want this killing done?" I'm guessing the answer will be the kitchen floor - tho that won't rhyme so well as the original answer, but the cats wouldn't make it all the way to that particular highway. Longevity or otherwise, a fish needs a name and this one was quickly dubbed Frank. Neither my daughter nor I have any idea how to sex a fish but (as a name) Frank has a little bit of gender-bending quality so we hope he/she won't feel too misclassified. The Blues has a tendency to be regarded as a male-dominated genre, and perhaps that's a perception that's a little bent.

One of my new year resolutions this year is to dig a little deeper into the wealth of female talent playing Blues music. The excellent Blues website Down At The Crossroads has for quite a while been highlighting the contributions of women from the very start of blues right up to the present. I was aware of the contribution of quite a few of the old blues women but, apart from a few big names like Susan Tedeschi & Bonnie Raitt, I have been relatively ignorant of newer female artists, particularly young upstarts. I aim to fix that ignorance and, along the way, share a few tunes. Here's the first of those - courtesy of Samantha Fish, on an old Howlin' Wolf number. It's a song about an abusive relationship, so perhaps it's about time it got some airplay by a female artist. And she sure can bend strings. If only her parents were country music fans, and had given her a first name of Wanda, I might have had an awesome title for this post.... As it is, I present to you a fish called Samantha.
 
Oh, and the goldfish was a present from someone called Sam...
Wishing long lives and peaceful relationships to Frank and all of you out there in 2016.

Maybe we should do something to protect Frank...

Bacon Therapy

A little cartoon which tickled the Slicer, in preparation for Christmas festivities...

Raptor, Rapture and Reptiles.

Hope Street, Belfast. The site of the following tenants - a reptile shop, a Hi-Fi dealership where I spent a fair bit of time, and a popular restaurant. I did spend some money here, but confess to having never bought a reptile.

From previous posts such as this, you should know by now that I like examples of things being different than they first appear, and what constitutes being human. 

Well, this challenges your perceptions regarding what is a big scary reptile (not that mankind ever met one of these to be specifically programmed to be scared of it...) 

and naturally, it deserves some gratuitous reptilian rock:

"When the brink of ruin lies
Upon the world angels shall rise"

Did anyone mention Rapture? Or the Lizard King?

 

Snakes and general crawling back in the 80s:

"Another fight on the street below
They've got things to prove
Shouting threats and sending out a counter glow
All they do is walk, talk, knit socks, wind clocks
And crawl on their bellies like a reptile."

 
"This is the lion's den
I hope you knew that before you came in
This is where the angels and the devils fight
And their choosing up sides tonight

I'm part man (part man)
I'm part monkey (part monkey)
I'm part man, part monkey, part mystery
And the angels (and the angels) and the devils (and the devils)
Are play tug-of-war with my personality now

Snakedance - all over the world
(snake, snake, dance, dance, ah)
Snakedance - all you boys and girls
(snake, snake, dance, dance, ah)
Snakedance - you got to form a big line
(snake, snake, dance, dance, ah)
Snakedance - you got to have a good time
(snake, snake, dance, dance, ah)"

Gratuitous Dylan reptilian reference:

 

"Standing on the water, casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing
Distant ships sailing into the mist
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with truth so far off, what good will it do...

So swiftly the sun sets in the sky
You rise up and say goodbye to no one
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don't show one
Shedding off one more layer of skin
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within..."


Slicer's wish for you in 2014 (or one of 'em anyway) - brought to you via Hope Street, an optical illusion, and a few old songs - is that you rise above your reptile brain, you shed whatever old skin you need to and, whatever/wherever your turbulent space, you keep one step ahead of the persecutor within. HAPPY NEW YEAR.

On the advantages of being made of jelly

A little follow-on from Slicer's article on youth and the ravages of time.

Thank you, Benmont Tench (via Twitter), for highlighting this piece 

in the New York Times on the work done since a little-known scientific 

paper was published in 1996.

This species defies the claim "life's a bitch and then you die,"

but then it ain't no bitch, it's a jellyfish...

Slicer admits he struggled to find something suitable for a soundtrack

to this post - but when he turned to jazz & blues, the possibilities 

opened up:

Great musicianship, but the lyrics aren't quite so imaginative:

"Oh jelly, jelly, jelly, 

Jelly stays on my mind

Well well well well well

Jelly jelly jelly

Jelly stays on my mind

Oh- oh Jelly roll killed my papa

And drove my mama stone blind."

The song has sexual connotations, which could be considered 

life-giving, but some have alleged it's about the consequences of 

syphilis. Clearly not all jelly is good jelly.

But has the particular jelly featured in the NYT got the secret of living 

forever?

It all depends how you define immortality...

Heavens to Murkatroid: Tom Waits on nature v nurture

It's been a busy week for Tom Waits - the Letterman show on Monday night, the Jimmy Fallon show last night. As we've come to expect, Waits usually has an interesting observation or two to share. On Letterman, he presented a Victorian earthenware rat-trap, and confessed that his last ebay purchase was the last dying breath of Henry Ford. 

On last night's show:
"The only people qualified to run the country are cutting hair and driving cabs..."  Legend.

His most recent album carries the title "Bad as Me." His interest seems to stretch from the heavenly to the down-to-earth. And his thinking seems to be consistent with the quote Slicer used at the end of "Whole Lotta Shakin." That one was on the subject of a significant handshake; and there's significant shaking of hands going on in the video below, from last night's Jimmy Fallon show.

Waits suggests, perhaps disagreeing with evolutionary psychologists, that we blame the parents...

"There ain’t enough raised right men
It takes a raised right man to keep a happy hen
I said there ain’t enough raised right men"

and he's a purveyor of some fine alliteration (for which you'll have noticed Slicer has a weakness) combined with well judged metre

"Mackey Debiasi
Was a complicated man
He quarreled with his woman
And she quarreled with her man
His head was just too thick
So she knocked out a tooth
He’s that lonely man on the Turnpike in the
Toll takers booth"

 

"Heavens to murkatroid
Miners to coal
A good women can make a diamond out of a measly lump of coal
You need the patience of a glacier.."

But then again "Love is patient, love is kind..."