an old writer and his words

  • DISTANT SONG

    I thought I heard a woman singing somewhere in the distance, an ethereal song whose melody floated over me, dropping momentarily into my consciousness then as quickly flitting away. I walked off the carefully tended path stepped into the clutching brush, the smell of Juniper filled the air. Pushing through a thicket I thought I…

    Lou Faber

  • FUGUE

    The name on the door says Richard Strauss though the lack of music emanating from within the room suggests he may be napping or off doing something more important than entertaining those of us out in the hall of the nursing home. It’s no surprise, he’d be in a home now, more odd that he…

    Lou Faber

  • THE TRIO

    The big man caresses the bass and the strings pour out caramel and cocoa. Ulysses strokes the skins which sing the melody and mind the rhythm. The keys of the Steinway whisper to him play me, play me and even the 89th key finally joins in the song.

    Lou Faber

  • SPACED OUT

    I laughed at my parents when they talked about a typewriter as something of a marvel when they were so commonplace. Of course as a boy, half the fun of helping my father at work was knowing the mimeo ink would stain my fingers purple for a week and even borax would only render them…

    Lou Faber

  • NOTELESS

    He says, “I write songs without music, my head is a libretto warehouse.” She says, “You string words like random beads, no two strands the same.” He says, “Symmetry is for those with linear minds, who can’t see out of the tunnel.” She said, “Dysentery is a disease to be avoided particularly by poets.” He…

    Lou Faber

  • 4/4 TIME

    Musicians have a clock that runs on its own time and all that is constant is the beat, in four second increments. They start, they say, when the music is ready, never before and music is fickle: tonight it wanted to sit off stage and rest an hour, another night it begins precisely as advertised…

    Lou Faber

  • SEOUL MUSIC

    The hardest part of getting old isn’t the near constant aches and pains but the senses that slip away, replaced by an ever deeper truth. She says to really play the blues on piano you must have Seoul and listening to her, you agree, although you aren’t sure if hers is Gangnam-gu or Jung-gu, but…

    Lou Faber

  • ROBERT ALLEN ZIMMERMAN IN HELL

      Baby Blue stormed into the room. Jones never saw  her coming, was totally confused. Angry didn’t cover even the half of it. “I’ll tell your sorry ass when it’s over Jones and not the other way around, got it!? Oh, yeah, and by the way you are really packing on the pounds of late,…

    Lou Faber

  • GALLERY (IN) CONCERT

    Kandinsky, Braque, Matisse and Degas all stand patiently in the hall wondering if anyone, this night, will notice them as they always seem to do, while Motherwell and Pollack lurk around the corner, feigning indifference, dreading being ignored. The sound check is long ago complete and the three men sit in the cafe lost in…

    Lou Faber

  • EUTERPEAN EVENING

    An evening: spring retreating in the face of summer, two garnacha, a piano, standup bass, drums, her voice lifts the weight of the sky and we float up on a melody, unchained. In heaven George and Ira smile and we, here, smile with them.

    Lou Faber