"What do you write at the end of the world?" . . . Joni Mitchell

[OneBlueSky]

Working Three Shifts, and Outrage Overtime:
Quick, before the world falls apart, Joni Mitchell is making songs (again), art and now ballet

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/arts/dance/04yaff.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

(snip)

Two decades later this legendary singer-songwriter is still giving dance lessons: “The Fiddle and the Drum,” her choreographic collaboration with the Alberta Ballet, opens on Feb. 8 in Calgary. Meanwhile “Flag Dance,” an installation of her antiwar mixed-media art, has finished a two-month run at the Lev Moross Gallery in West Hollywood, and she has recently recorded enough new songs for an album, which she plans to call either “Strange Birds of Appetite” or “If.”

(snip)

Mr. Grand-Maître couldn’t have known it, but after a hiatus of 10 years she had recently begun writing new songs. She was spurred on by something her grandson had said while listening to family fighting: “Bad dreams are good — in the great plan.” Ms. Mitchell was stunned. “How did he know that?” she wondered. “That’s an amazing thing for anyone to know at any age. The line just stuck.” When the war in Iraq began, her grandson’s words resonated in her mind, and she “gave birth,” as she described it, to four new pieces. Mr. Grand-Maître’s invitation seemed like an opportunity to present that music in a new context. “Humbly I hope we can make a difference with this ballet,” she told him, speaking of her outrage about the foreign and environmental policies of the United States. “It’s a red alert about the situation the world is in now. We’re wasting our time on this fairy tale war, when the real war is with God’s creation. Nobody’s fighting for God’s creation.”

(snip)

But she could not help being what she calls a “pot-stirrer.” She thought about how the Maya calendar ends in 2012, about the 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. What, she wondered, what do you write at the end of the world?

(snip)

“My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species,” she said. “I can’t cry about it. In a way I’m inoculated. I’ve suffered this pain for so long. We were expelled from Eden. What keeps us out of Eden?” She thought about this for a moment before riffing on a Dylan line: “I tried to tell everybody, but I could not get it across.”

“Well, I’m being more specific now,” she allowed. “The West has packed the whole world on a runaway train. We are on the road to extincting ourselves as a species. That’s what I meant when I said that we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

- more . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/arts/dance/04yaff.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1

[speedoo]

1. Ahhh... it's good to hear from Joni again.

No matter what the message.

[KT2000]

2. Hope they film this ballet

it should be good.

[Ellipsis]

3. A ballet, how cool!

The Tea Leaf Prophecy

Study war no more
Lay down your arms
Study war no more
Lay 'em down, lay 'em down now
Study war no more
Lay down your arms
Study war no more

Newsreels rattle the Nazi dread-
The able-bodied have shipped away-
Molly McGee gets her tea-leaves read-
You'll be married in a month they say
"These leaves are crazy!
Look at this town-there's no men left!
Just frail old boys and babies
Talking to teacher in the treble clef."

She plants her garden in the spring
She does the winter shovelling
Tokyo Rose on the radio
She says she's leavin' but she don't go

Out of the blue-just passin' thru
A young flight sergeant
On two weeks leave-
Says "Molly McGee-no one else will do!"
And seals the tea-leaf prophecy.
Oh these nights are strong and soft-
Private passions and secret storms
Nothin' about him ticks her off
And he looks so cute in his uniform

She plants her garden in the spring
He does the winter shovelling
But summer's just a sneeze
In a long-long-bad-winter cold
She says, "I'm leavin' here" but she don't go

"Sleep little darlin'!
This is your happy home
Hiroshima cannot be pardoned!
Don't have kids when you get grown.
Because, this world is shattered
The wise are mourning-
The fools are joking
Oh-what does it matter?
The wash needs ironing
And the fire needs stoking."

She plants her garden in the spring
He does the winter shovelling
The three of 'em laughing 'round the radio
She says "I'm leavin' here" but she don't go

She plants her garden in the spring
They do the winter shovelling
They sit up late and watch the
Johnny Carson show
She says "I'm leavin' here but she don't go

[CrazyOrangeCat]

4. rock on.

[Dragonfly]

5. As Lt. Watada and enlightened members of Congress

do battle with the criminally insane admin this week, reading the account of Joni Mitchell's artistic resurgence was heartwarming.

This NYT piece gives a hopeful boost to many who have wondered how Ms. Mitchell is manifesting her vast creative juices these days.

Thank you for posting this wonderful news.

[omega minimo]

6. Like Neil Young (war, impeachment) Joni has to sound urgent messages

that aren't found in "mainstream" art since the megacorporatization of media.

Thanks for posting this.

[Veronica.Franco]

7. She is back ..

I was hoping she's start writing again ... YES! ... every now and then the Universe opens up and we get a peek ...

[InvisibleTouch]

8. I went to a talk just yesterday about the Mayan calendar.

It's rather intricate and complex stuff, but basically the Mayans had history mapped out from the Big Bang to the near future (essentially that much-touted 2012 date, though in some translations it comes out as 2011). Each cycle was made up of 7 "days" and 6 "nights" which lasted variably long - for instance, in the first, oldest cycle, each "day" and "night" was about 1.6 billion years long. In the next cycle, each "day" was several hundred million years long, and so forth - up through the dawn of human history where the "days" shortened to thousands and then hundreds of years and then decades. In our current cycle the "days" last only 360 days, and in the next (last), they will last only 20 days. In other words, the amount of change that once happened over the course of 1.6 billion years, now takes place in 360 days, and will happen over 20 days in the near future. "Time is accellerating," you could say - or rather, more stuff happens in less time. No wonder we all feel overwhelmed and rushed!

Anyway, regardless of how much stock you put in the wisdom and mythology of ancient cultures, it was a very interesting talk. Yes, the calendar stops in 2011/2012, but this means the end of time, not the end of the world (my interpretation: the end of human-imposed labels for time, the names of days, months, hours). New Agers like to think of the coming era as some sort of return to paradise, an age of sudden worldwide enlightenment, but I disagree. It's basically the end of human civilization. Those (few) who survive, will have to take a whole new approach to living on the Earth - thus, the "end of time" - because all that crap that we're so frantic and worried about today, will mean less than nothing in the years to come. A "return to the garden," perhaps, in a sense, but not the way so many are imagining it to be.

For what it's worth.

[JeffR]

9. This is great news

Her voice is needed now more than ever.

[Cabcere]

10. I love Joni Mitchell.

:loveya: She's amazing on so many levels. I really admire her, and I'm glad she's getting out there and expressing herself (and us, in a way) through art and music. I'm not a huge ballet fan, but this sounds like it will be really good. :)

[Contrite]

11. Love to hear her new stuff.

"The Hissing of Summer Lawns" was mind-altering, for me.

[Bluebear]

12. Ah, I changed my sig line last night before you posted :)

[OneBlueSky]

15. hope you don't mind, but I think I'll steal your idea . . .

and use that quote as my sig as well . . . it really does sum up what we're up against, and Joni Mitchell is one of my all-time favorite songwriters . . .

[dweller]

13. We are stardust ...

Woodstock

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an' get my soul free

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who I am
But you know life is for learning

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden

Joni Mitchell
Copyright © Siquomb Publishing Company

the truth,
dp

[saltpoint]

14. I saw this piece and was very encouraged about it.

Joni Mitchell. Renaissance woman.

Her lyrics have followed me from way, way back. I thought I had all of her recordings, then discovered a .45 rpm with "Urge for Going" on the B side. I thought I'd found Jesus' own diary. To this hour I know those lyrics by heart.

"I had a friend in summertime
With summer-colored skin
And not another dream in town
My lover's heart could win
Window leaves fell to the ground
And icy winds came 'round,
and pushed them face down in the snow
He got the urge for goin'
And I had to let him go."

Jesus. There's really nothing she can't do with the language.

You can give me "The Wolf that Lives in Lindsey," and "A Case of You," and "Song to a Seagll," from which my DU screen name is quietly stolen.

Keep writing music and lyrics, Joni Mitchell. Til your last breath.

[redqueen]

16. Interesting stuff...

:kick:
back up there