SONG: Elves On Expresso! (a fractured Xmas song)

Elves on expresso! was my Facebook status on Dec. 23rd. Someone commented that it sounded like a song title. So I agreed and wrote the song. 

ELVES ON EXPRESSO
- mad mar writes a new song on Dec 23, 2011

1) Kids are getting greedy
shopping lists are getting dense.
Everyone's fretting and getting tense.
Break out the eggnog, break out the rum,
when they ask you what you want
just play dumb dumb dumb because
the ELVES are ON EXPRESSO
OH NO they're over the top
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
NO NO NO
they just can not stop!

2) The sesason is unreason, expectations and illusion
buying, wrapping eating, salesmen in collusion.
Kids are full of GIMMES. Bills are all unpaid
parents under misletoe hoping to get ___ (you know!)
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
OH NO they're over the top
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
NO NO NO
they just can not stop!

3) So The relatives are coming, so the bank will soon foreclose
put on your santa hat and sparkly reindeer pantyhose
sweep out those killer dustballs, let that brick of fruitcake shine
you could always lock the door and drink holiday wine!
the ELVES are ON EXPRESSO
OH NO they're over the top\
ELVES ON EXPRESSO
NO NO NO
they just can not stop!!

Song from the Molten show: I bet it all on you

Well I can't say I was in good voice here - NOT. But it seemed to go well, nonetheless.

My Pathetic Holiday: CHRISTMAS BE GONE!

Christmas is over and I for one am glad. I'm not so much grinchy, as totally irreligiously flummoxed by a season I find artificial and demanding.

To move things along next year,  I want to invent a product called Christmas-Be-Gone.  Perhaps an aerosol spray or tins of loose scrub powder.  Not sure what the fragrance would be.  And it certainly couldn't be guaranteed since Christmas is like the damn flu and return:s each year.  I'd like it to be a product you could spray around the house and no one would bring you awkward presents or heart-burn cookies or worse insist you visit a church.  That shouldn't stop us from visiting each other or enjoying the seasonal lights, the concerts, or the beauties of winter.  ---- BUT if only it would stop me from revisiting the follies of gift-giving disasters past. Take this year's: which I could easily title "My Pathetic Christmas Day."

This year Maize declined to have people in and instead asked for a particular present  -  a trip to the Mohegan Sun on Christmas day.  Not for a show, just for a little slot machine action.  It's not my idea of fun, but she doesn't drive, and my gift then, is to take her there and back which is two plus hours each way.

Christmas morning came under a dead-pan sky and we were on the road. A planned stop at O'Rourke's in Middletown was kiboshed by the fact they were not open, or not open for breakfast at any rate. So we just drove on.  We arrived, had sweetish food-court muffins and java, then Mazie sat with the slots and I sat reading a book, 3rd Degree from the Woman's Murder Club Series by James Patterson. I felt it was pure formula pulp. The characters seemed flat and the prose sort of blah. (I couldn't get the voice of the TV  actress who played the lead character out of my head and I think that was problematic somehow, oh well.)

Then after an hour and a half Mazie abruptly announced she wanted to go home right away and didn't want to stop until we got there. (It might be she was out of sorts from eating Xmas cookies the evening before.)  On the way back I got a bit lost (flummoxed again) used the gps which routed me some odd way of just highway driving.  When we got home, naturally I felt compelled to finish the book I wasn't enjoying. And so it was  I gave a dud of a present on a dud of a day, and ended up reading a dud of a book (at least for me), and driving for 5 hours mostly on highways.  We decided it was not a plan we will ever repeat on any subsequent holiday.

Bring on the middle of January.

Abstract made in web-based browser programs

It's Xmas eve and the days are moving fast toward years end.
This picture was begun while sitting at Molten Java in Bethel this past Wednesday night. I connected to the web over the wifi and usedg Deviant Art Muro to make a few sketches. This was further processed later in Picnik

SONG from the Molten show with weird visual effects

This performance by Mad Mar Walker (me) was filmed at the Molten Java send-off benefit on Dec 18, 2011, in Bethel CT. Since it was filmed in portrait rather than landscape AND since my head looks like a bowling ball with bad hair - well, I thought I'd just distort the heck out of the picture and give people something slightly less disorienting to look at.... 

METHOD: In iMovie HD - I used the Crystalize effect to make large cells, followed by the Edge effect, mirror effect, bloom, then n2 and exposure adjust. I exported it from there as an .dv file and used the new iMovie to turn it into an M4v file. whew... I left the sound naked as the day it was born. No effects there at all, gravel old age and all.

THE SONG:

This one dates back to when I was going out with my future husband and I was in my early twenties.

Lay On Down And Die

a song by Mad Mar Walker


Verse 1)

My love rents from a cold water baroness who
sticks to his pay check like gum (shit) on a shoe
on payday, she stalks him like a bloodhound dog
but after lunch why she'll be lost in a corn mash fog

REFRAIN:

So you and me go down to our favorite spot
in the grave yard beneath the pine trees
where it never gets too hot

We'll read the tombstone poets smell the flowers, get a little high
and when were too happy to move
why we'll just lay on down and die

Verse 2)

You had yourself a rusted out Chevrolet car
you drove it one night right thought the window of a bar
Then they could not find you for 17 days
when they did were mumbling dirty words
and your little eyes were still glazed.

REFRAIN

Verse 3)

For your birthday I brought you buttered rum, Jamacian red
You smoked and you drank till I was sure you was dead
but when it comes to chasing round after me
you're ever ready like that famous flashlight battery....

REFRAIN

Molten Benefit Bash - this Sunday Dec 18 Noon-10pm

Woohoo it's a nice line up for Sunday's music Marathon at Molten Java in Bethel.  (That's the existing Molten Java at 102 Greenwood, near Bethel Foods. (In the new year it will move to Dolan Plaza, 213 Greenwood.) For $5 you get a free cup of something and some great tunes!

Here's a link to a writeup of the event: http://www.ct.com/entertainment/music/shows/wtxx-local-musicians-throw-a-housewarming-party-to-celebrate-the-new-molten-java-in-bethel-20111213,0,7546758.story

Here's the linup of music:

Molten Java Jazz Trio 12-1:30pm
Marc Huberman – 1:30-2pm
Mar Walker – 2-2:30pm  <<<<<< me - ha!
Joey Vee – 2:30-3pm
The Hip Replacements 3-3:45pm
Seth Lefferts and the Side Effects 4-4:45pm
Amanda Bloom 5-5:30pm
Neil Corday 5:30-6pm
My Dad's Truck 6-7pm
Michel Rae Driscoll 7-7:30pm
Phoenix Tree 7:30-8:15pm
J.D. Hill – 8:15-8:45pm
Mr. Happy Cloud 8:45-9:15pm
Burnkit2600 til closing

Psychological Spaces: Alone, Not Alone

A public place is a place of odd and unexpected possibility.

In a busy world where so many things demand attention and there is always a list of things to be done - sometimes a public place is the only place where obligations can be briefly set aside. It's also a place to be a participant with others in a kind of silent, noncommittal way. Often it's a place of watching, reading or waiting. Sometimes it's a place of writing.

Sitting in a public place, you  have company, yet you are by yourself. You are with the crowd, but not in it. You can feel lonely there, but you don't have to  - with a little imagination, you can also feel your place as a member of our varied human menagerie.

Here, you can quietly observe or discreetly ignore the gaggle of humanity around you. You can chronicle it all  - just in your head, or with a camera or a laptop, a drawing pencil and sketchpad, or with a pen and a pocket notebook.  Or you can sip your java, ignore your cell phone and revel in this small zone of tranquility. 

This, of course, makes a glaring assumption: you have money for coffee, a cell phone and/or any kind of peace.  When 11 million people have lost their homes and half the working age population has given up looking for work - that's not a good assumption. 

If you are homeless, for sanity's sake you have to carve a private space out of a series of public or shared spaces. I think that's why so many choose to live in a car, (assuming you have one of whatever vintage) - because a car offers the privacy of a door and a lock. 

You can't hide out there forever though, and inviting public spaces offer a respite. Of course I have made another assumption: that store owners and citizens aren't complaining and getting non-buyers tossed out for loitering. 

My how the mental furniture around here has changed.....

This phone-photo was taken from the second story of the mall, looking down into a sitting area. It was fiddled with digitally in Picnik. 

Small, colorful works at Art & Frame

There is an interesting Small Works show, around 200 pieces from 80 local artists, up through January 6, 2012 at Art & Frame in Danbury. That's on Route 6, (60 Newtown Road),  in the same plaza with Camomile Natural Foods.  I wasn't going there, just walking by, and the display caught my eye, lured me inside.  The works are various, with various prices, and the atmosphere was soft and friendly as opposed to austere and sterile.  I liked being there looking at the art. You can find their website at http://www.artandframeofdanbury.com, and their facebook page at http://facebook.com/ArtandFrame .   I noticed three Alberettis two by Robert and one by Mary Lou, all with a nice well-touched feel. Check it out. Made-in-America too.

Sun, blood and darkness - a digital pic

Title:  Sun, blood and darkness. This digital abstract bit was originally an MS Paint file. It's last facelift was in Picnik. I have a feeling this little file should actually be big, wall-sized like a Pollack. If I could print it out onto canvas, I'd have some extra brush work to add since this file is small.

There is this sporadic, insistant intermingling going on in this picture. of the red and yellow, of the beige and black. For me it bespeaks the relentless stippling of ideas and culture. There is always disturbance and spillage.