Today’s pick is “Leviathan” by Mastodon. This 2-disc set (audio CD and DVD) is a great piece. The artwork and presentation are superb. Both the notes and music follow a tight Moby Dick theme… with a metal twist!
This album takes off where Clutch’s “Whiskey and Rye” left off. Just like the promo literature states, it’s “Rush meets Metallica”, blending metal, blues, and prog rock with a distinct and cohesive nautical theme.
This is one to keep the long-hairs aft on the quarterdeck rockin’ through their watches…
You are currently browsing the daily archive for September 22, 2004.
Earlier this summer, i showed a new hand something of sail. Slacks and i have known one another for some years now, and we’ve a good trust of one another, and as such i could not have had a better hand (green or not) for exploring the local lakes.
Now first, of our craft: she was a natty little thing, an Enterprise racing dingy. A touch over 13 feet, she set over a 100 square feet of sail, and thoough her half-fathom of centerboard kept her well into the wind, two (and sometimes three) hands on the rail were well-pressed to keep her on her feet.
Now before you get all inspired, picturing some fine craft, it should be said that although she made for fine times, she was no beauty. Her sails well-stretched, varnished mast peeling, and with a thick coat of black paint on her bottom being the most of what held her sprung seams together. Caulked up, she still presented some challenge for the bailer, and in a lively beat to windward, her split and weathered stem gave us cause for much caution.
Still, she was a fine boat for a new hand to learn a thing or two. Board up, she drew a pittance, and would move in lightest breezes. With a firm hand on tiller and sheets, she would fly in some wind, but as it crept over 20, she would baulk and show a vicious weather helm.
We two (a hand of some experience, and a hand of some enthusiasm) had been taking to water most every day the lake showed a ripple. On day, the air too hot for other other endevours, we thought we’d try our luck once more, though the lake was more still than not. Indeed, by the time we had the mast stepped and steadied, sails bent, and hull kissed by water, there was little enough breeze, but as summer it was, and free we be, we ventured out nonetheless.
The afternoon progressed as well as could be expected, given the calm conditions. We reached out into the center of the lake, then slowly taked south down the arm, into the failing breeze. We made some manuvers to retrieve a piece of floating trash, then later hove-to, and Slacks slipped over for a swim. Mid-afternoon found us both spread upon the thwarts, soaking up the sun, and looking up at a wrinkle of slack baby-blue sail, and to the deeper blue of the sky above. By and by, a tickle of breeze tumbled in from over the hills to the SW, and catching the tiller with outstretched toes, I brought us onto a ghost of a reach across the lake to a friend’s dock.
I handed the sails as Slacks steered us alongside, and our friend, the baker, came down and caught our lines. We sat for some time on his deck, enjoying some conversation, and a crisp beer, but as the sun lowered itself nearer th’horizon, we thought it best to cast off. Indeed, the wind was freshening, and more northerly by the looks of it, and we were looking forward to a brisk beat home.
to be continued…
We all have dreams, but at which point do they stop being dreams and start being plans and achievements? The furthest back that i can remember is when Hewitt invited Slacks and i up for New Year’s Eve, then later cancelled. Slacks and i had the time off work, and our road-trip vehicle prepared. We had to go somewhere.
We went to the city instead, where i met a person, who gave me a job, which introduced me to another person, who later introduced me to another person, which led to another job, where i met a sailor. This sailor indroduced me to another sailor, and to sea i went.
At that time i stepped away from dreams, and achieved one piece of me sailor-heart’s desire…
From there i met sailor upon sailor, and in the fullness of time (but not so long a time as all that) i met another sailor, a woman, who came to own me as no other had done before.
Now it’s hard to say, lads and lasses (tho’ i must confess, i dictate more to th’former than th’latter), when it was that we went wrong, tho’ if i was to guess, it came when we left the sea. Sea-legs were love-legs to we, and on th’hard we two did stagger. We were cast on land together, where things must have their appointed beginnings, and their appointed ends. In retrospect (always that the cunning teacher) my only real regret must be that i did not let her go th’sooner.
My sin it was to capture her; she is more wave than water, tho’ neither could i hold… She capsized me, as was wont to happen to a careless hand, setting a careless watch.
They say that in the Southern Ocean, the fetch does run th’world ’round, and in time, as wind and waves find their way eastwards, they have on occasion chance to run up upon themselves from behind; then there forms a wave so great, that none may stand before it.
There is no beginning at sea, says i, and no ending either. As creation calls it, first darkness, then water, and ever since, a wave ’round the world, before land or man or other fabulous animal. On land th’human animal is born and dies, but for th’sailors the sea.
Hewitt and Slacks have some idea of what beginning i claim, tho’ they cannot be my full heritage. But of my end, well… As this one wave does claim my heart, so it will be that the wind and sea claim my soul.
There is no better end for a sailor-song than that.
Recent Comments