This episode of Something Like imagines dipping your fingers into a glassy subterranean river, impossibly still, ancient—a gradually collected, fluid experience. Jorie Graham’s 2020 poem Thaw—where the title of this episode comes from—draws on another image: a plot in the back of her building, a “green sensation” that pushes up, pushes it. She writes, ” . . . Our prior lives press on us. / Something with heavy re- / collection in it / presses. Not / history anymore of course but / like it. Is it five minutes or five hundred years. . . “
This is an episode interested in marking change, locating decisions, and witnessing shifts in spatial orientation, but it’s also an episode that calls on interior magic.
As ever, thanks to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s jingles.
The music under my voice today comes from John Chen (陈国平) and his album Songs From Within (心意), 1999.
You can read Jorie Graham’s Thaw here.
Tracklist
Jennifer Walshe, Epitaph of Seikilos, A Late Anthology of Early Music, 2020
Buffy Sainte Marie, God is Alive, Magick is Afoot, Illuminations, 1969
Ka Baird, Subration, Bespires, 2020
Folk Music At The Sibelius Academy = Kansanmusiikkia Sibelius-Akatemiasta (Melkutus), Taru Aaltojen Ruokopillistä, 1983
Don Cherry’s New Researches featuring Naná Vasconcelos, Elixir Repris – Witchi Tai To, Organic Music Theatre: Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972, 2021
Jason Sharp, Blossoming Rest, The Turning Centre Of A Still World, 2021
Cole Pulice, Sleep Helix, Gloams, 2020
Michael Stearns, As the Earth Kissed the Moon (Excerpt), Planetary Unfolding, 1981
Sofie Birch & Johan Carøe, Calibrating Senses, Repair Techniques, 2021
Kay Hoffmann, Tempus Instat, Floret Silva, 1985
Mad Music Inc, 03, Mad Music, 1977
Alanis Obamsawin, Nziwaldam, Bush Lady, 2018 (reissue)
Alan Watts, Onion Chant, This is It, 1962
Master Wilburn Burchette, Raising the Pyramid of Power, Guitare Grimoire, 1973
David Bowie, Quicksand (Demo), Hunky Dory, 1971 (remastered in 1990)
Masma Dream World, Becoming the Magician, Play at Night, 2020
This Mortal Coil, Song to the Siren, It’ll End in Tears, 1984
L’Rain, Find It, Fatigue, 2021
Leslie Winer, Fragment #2, When I Hit You, You’ll Feel It, 2021 reissue