The Ninth House

True story.

My wife and I are in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y. Wonderful gallery. I’m standing less than a yard away from a Van Gogh, thinking, “He touched that. Those brush strokes, those frosting peaks in the paint, he put them there.” Wonderful moment.

It’s an afternoon, might have been one or two other patrons there. My wife and I pretty much have the museum to ourselves.

We’re sauntering down this long, broad white hall, soaking it in, just letting ourselves sauté in artsy goodness. At the far end of this long hall, we hear voices. There’s a man and woman, and they’re young, and as we move closer, we can see they’re museum staff. College students working as guides or something. They wander into the hall, wander out of sight.

There’s so few of us in the hall, and those parts of the walls and ceiling and floor not hung with or resting beneath art are so broad and smooth, a church fart would echo. So my wife and I are hearing this conversation between the museum staffers for some time, a good ten minutes.

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This is a passage from Covenant Spring, a straight read over music. The protagonist, Danny, is walking down a dirt road in the scorching late morning Carolina sun when it happens. Read the book to learn what it is but for shorthand’s sake, call it a Meursault moment from The Stranger, with less existential disassociation and more spiritual angst, and a heroic dose of fuck-it-all-ness riding the swell. Also, no one goes to jail.

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This one’s pretty basic, just a read over music. I didn’t take a lot of time to prep it. The words came in a single session and, as near as I can recall, the performance is the first take, with maybe a couple of lines re-cut to polish.

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I don’t meditate as much as I used to. I used to meditate daily, though usually it was a few times a week (ooh, bad seeker! Bad!). I’ve sat in seiza, contemplating my breathing, or in comfortable chairs, relaxing, descending into that delicious alpha state. Mowing the lawn works well for me, too, though the consequences of drifting off into sleep are somewhat elevated.

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I wrote and produced this piece back in 2003, when there was much clashing of spears on shields on the geopolitical stage, and most of it, it seemed, coming from my side of the line in the sand. The vibrations went straight to the base of my skull, crawled over the top and sank its claws deep, right above my eyebrows. I existed with teeth and fists clenched, wondering why, why we were so damned eager to rush into war.

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