Luna Moth

Muddy Waters singing with Mick Jagger, 1981, Chicago. Then the rest of The Rolling Stones sat in for a couple of numbers. I don't even like the Stones, but this was a great concert, recently re-released and re-mastered, and it's incredible. Mr. Waters is not even phased by having Mick on stage with him. Only two voices might be better, John Lee Hooker, and Lightning Hopkins. The first of the blues singers were almost contra-tenors, a strained high voice that works very well, but when the blues moved north, out of the delta, and got electric, it was the baritone voice that held sway. Listen to John Lee singing with Bonny Raitt, it stops you in your tracks, a baritone and an alto, singing like a tenor and a soprano, the great American opera. Beverly Sills thought that Bonny Raitt had one of the great voices ever. Beverly had asked me to dinner, after the first of three performances of her last Traviata, at a great Italian restaurant in Boston. I was hungry, and I couldn't not go, despite the fact that I felt uneasy about dining with a diva. I mean really, I don't have running water, and I lick my dinner-wear. But I went, to prove that I could, and we had a lovely conversation about cleaning out the corners where crap collects. She also tends to pile books too high, so we had some common ground. And it comes as no surprise that a suicidal Luna Moth crashes into the window right next to where I write. . What universe is that from? There's a lot of information conveyed but none of it makes any sense. Beverly asked me if I'd ever met Bonny, and I told her, sadly, no, that I had been close, one time in Aspen, but I had to go get a soccer ball out of traffic. She said, I think I quote, "she has the best goddamn voice in the universe". And I only remembered that because a goddamn Luna Moth is trying to get in the south window to mate with my writing lamp. You have to draw the line somewhere. I don't even use my buttery-fly net, I just go outside and grab the Luna Moth, it leaves powder on my skin, and I just wipe it off, fucking Luna Moth dust, and carry the moth out back. Slept late, read all afternoon. One of the two fawns was back today and stayed for hours. It would eat blackberries for a while, right below my writing window, then walk over to the edge of the woods and take a nap. Repeated this several times. I was rereading some sections in "The Printing Press As An Agent Of Change", for my upcoming lecture on the origins of the Renaissance. Very quiet day. Finally heated water, washed the few dishes, and shaved. A couple of glasses of wine, sitting on the sofa, staring out the patio doors, lost in thought. Nice use of the word debacle, when a backed up river breaks through an ice-jam, the headwater is powerful and carries a lot of debris, the event is called a debacle. Reading definitions in Barry Lopez's great collection "Home Ground" is a lovely end to the day. Each of these definitions is a carefully crafted miniature essay. And it is true that everything has a name. Detroit Rip-rap for a revetment made of old cars.