Back in Bible Black

Tea: Mandarin Green with Honey

Music: Robert Fripp, "Starlight I"

Time: Night.

As you might have noticed, I like mismatching musical references. If I quote a song in the post title, there's no way I'm using that song as the soundtrack for the post. This is sort of an unusual situation, though.

Tonight's title is an AC/DC - King Crimson mashup. Why? Eh. Just felt like it. Did you know, by the way, that Crimson's "Starless" -- whence comes the lyrical line "Starless and Bible black" -- isn't on the Starless and Bible Black album? It's on the subsequent album, Red. And to add to the confusion, "Starless and Bible Black" is also the title of an instrumental on Starless and Bible Black -- and sounds nothing at all like "Starless."

Sometimes I am a bear of very little brain, and the ways of prog confuse me.

All of which, to keep the musical theme going, is just so much vamping until the caffeine from a third steeping of Mandarin Green (It's been a long day.) kicks in, and some sort of groove takes shape.

Fripp recorded "Starlight I" during a performance in St. Louis. I wish I could have been there. Anyone who's ever been in Crimson is on my "to see before I die" list, but Fripp and Adrian Belew co-head it.

The solo piece incorporates the melody from the guitar intro to "Starless," which was performed live well before it went onto vinyl as the closing track of Red. (That line was originally played by violinist David Cross, who quit the band between Starless and Bible Black and Red. He came back as a session player on the latter album, but by then Fripp had made the intro line his own.)

(Yes, I like trivia, if you hadn't figured that out by now.)

Anyway ... I wish I could have heard this live, but part of me wonders if I would have been disappointed. Would it have been enough to hear those opening notes -- and then not hear the rest of "Starless," which is one of my favorite songs of any genre? Could I have appreciated "Starlight I" for its own sake, right out of the gate?

I don't know. I suppose I would have been ambivalent -- multivalent, even.

Yes, I'd love to hear "Starless" live -- ideally with the 1974 lineup of Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford and guests -- all former members -- Cross, Mel Collins and Ian McDonald (part of King Crimson's original lineup and later a cofounder of Foreigner.) But there's no chance of that happening. Still, I have to give props to Fripp for not playing the laurels card, for continuing to move ahead and make new music that actually sounds new.

I wouldn't want my writing or photographic style to be frozen in time. They have grown, through solo work and collaboration, and -- Lord willing, as they say, and the creek don't rise -- they will continue to do so for years to come. I can't, without being a hypocrite, expect my own work to evolve while demanding that my favorite artists stagnate.

Sure, the paychecks are probably better for nostalgia acts. They're safe. But so long as I can keep a roof over my head and food on the table, I'd much rather keep evolving. And someday, if I'm able to drop in a snippet of something I did more than 30 years ago -- and it still resonates with people -- well, how cool would that be?

Cup II: Lovely, blue-sunny day for Jayhawks and dinosaurs

Tea: Pu-er Poe/Jasmine blend

Time: Midmorning

Music: Bill Withers, "Lovely Day"; Jayhawks, "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me"; Adrian Belew, "Big Blue Sun"

It's a bit of hopeful thinking, perhaps, this whole loveliness thing. It's supposed to be 90 out today, and I am not in favor of this. Summer is all right after dark, but I still think of it as a bad opening act for fall.

But ... how can you listen to "Lovely Day" and not start nodding your head? Follow that up with "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," and the prospect of a sunny day doesn't seem so bad after all. Complete the trifecta with Belew's Beatlesque ditty (even if my copy plays at a crummy 96 bps), add caffeine, and voila! Instant happiness, or at the very least a big plate of cheerful bemusement with a side of motivation.

It's also hard to remain blah when drinking the daily cuppa from a mug with a picture of a T-Rex skull on it. It's from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Never been, but I'm going to NYC for the first time this fall for a series of writing classes and workshops. So, time permitting, I'll get to go.

In the meantime, here and here and here are pictures of other impressive dinosaurs.

Yeah, they're all meat-eaters (or fish-eaters, in one case). Face it, carnivores rock. When was the last time you saw a kid pretending to be a placid herbivore?

OK, maybe one of these. Because big horns are pretty cool, too.