Tonight’s show started off with Picture Book, a one-hour mixtape of songs dedicated to the captured image, whether it be a personal snapshot or an exotic postcard. The rest of the night was the usual Mixtape territory, closing out with my latest inexplicable favorite, International Sangman.
The Sasha river was running dry, and the aerialist maneuvered his craft to take advantage of the fact. As they moved swiftly along the crumbling banks, exoskeletal legs easily scrabbling over the terrain in an unearthly three-limbed gait, they encountered sun-baked sections where a trickle fed a series of pools on the cracking river bottom, animals congregated around them in a temporary truce. They hadn’t seen a human since Saturday, a fact that concerned the actuary more than the dry river, and the attempted distraction of some Guatemalan gamelan techno was not working. In its steel box, the package of Peanut Butter Crunch patiently rustled and awaited its delivery.
There was no official name for this giant hole, this cavern that truly made you realize the proper utilization of the word “cavernous”. Those who knew of its existence referred to it as the “Sarlacc Pit”, while the geologists debated what to call this previously unseen feature in the farthest reaches of British Columbia. The ophthalmologist could not help but recount these facts as they descended into its depths; they were the chatty sort and had barely endured a few hours of self-reflection in the noisy Chinook that had brought the expedition here. The conductor whistled a short melody and listened for the glorious reverberation. The nearest person who could recognize its Peruvian punk origins was 2,524 miles away.
Shrugging through the rose thorns, protected by a heavy leather apron, the blacksmith adjusted the thick gloves, proof against stray hammers and cinders but well-worn enough to allow the gentlest of movements. A stem was carefully pincered and brought in view of the entomologist’s face, who scanned it for aphids. Across Sarmiento Park, a teen herd’s boombox gave voice to an excited Córdoban DJ, announcing the latest from the latin bhangra scene. A traffic cop was nosing around their parked Alfa Romeo, assuming it was just another family sedan that forgot to feed the meter.
I’m not going to deny the synesthetic appeal of songs with words about pictures, but there is something additionally poignant about the mood created that seems to stand out. The images called forth serve a variety of purposes, from the reminiscent to the hedonistic, but just like your family album, the whole thing works out because it has to.
It’s simple mathematics. Given an “N-th Anniversary of Spinal Tap”, there is no known value for N that will not make you state “crap, Spinal tap was N years ago?”
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