Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 06:25:35 -0700
Title: Cleanse With the Blues

I'm watching as Jake washes, with hose and hot soapy water, the walls, tables
benches floors bar barstools barred windows doors and chairs. In a panic
Oscar throws his body across the top of the piano and pleads loudly,
"DO NOT include in your lustration this beloved beer-soaked be-jeweled
metal instrument! Cleanse thine floors and walls of the spilt brews and
broths but
thou shalt NOT WASSSHHH THIS SACRED PIANO!"  The large arteries on
Oscar's temples are visibly pulsing, just milliseconds behind his heartbeat.

The water stops and Jake holds up a large heavy plastic tarp.
"This what cher lookin' fer, partner?" Jake's version of cowboy dialect.
"New Year.  Clean House.  That's what ma' Pa always sed, partner...  Maybe
you won't mind if I sorta jes polish up some uv them mirrors and stones,
without the usual waterblast,  That ok?"
"That ok, partner."  Oscar sits and plays a couple minutes of his latest
version of Oscar's New Year Blues and Reds as Jake begins to cover the piano
and the player.

The music makes you want to dance and
at the same time he somehow makes you think
about who you're with or NOT with,
like maybe he's flagellating us,
through chords and tempo,
away from lonely self
toward others.
Or is it the other way around?
I can't remember.
I just can't remember.

*lus.trate \'l*s-.tra-t\ \.l*s-'tra--sh*n\ vt [L lustratus, pp. of lustrare
to brighten, purify] : to purify ceremonially - lus.tra.tion n. to cleanse or
purify by lustration.
*lustration:  a purifactory ceremony performed as a preliminary to entering
a holy place, as a means of removing bloodguiltiness, on the occasion of a
birth, marriage, or death, or as a means of ceremonially cleansing a house,
a city, army, or a whole people on some special occasion (lustration with
water is a prominent feature in babylonian cult...)[Web3rdInt].

*flag.el.late \'flaj-*-.la-t\ vt [L flagellatus, pp. of flagellare, fr.
flagellum, dim. of ]flagrum whip; akin to ON blaka to wave 1: WHIP 2: to
drive or punish as if by whipping.


Thursday. Oer th' hump, as it were!
Some of us are on 'vacation', some not.
May it go well.
later,
d.

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                               ,^_ ,-.
                            ()'  \_/()

Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive. -Robert
Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

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