If you're anything like me, the music system is pretty much the last thing to be packed. It *takes* music to get through packing up all of your shit, and rediscovering how much of it owns you.
I'm finding that the Grateful Dead's "Without A Net" works just great. Recorded live, no retakes. It's very we-had-to-get-it-right-the-first-time-and-we- think-we-did-and-that-you'll-find-it-danceable music, and tends to keep a spring in the step when your back is saying, "Stop this silliness...you're OLD, ferchrissakes." Some very sweet solos by Jerry, too, especially on this album's version of "Cassidy," one of my all-time favorites. Garcia, whatever his excesses, could get really OUT there, and if you tuned in, he could take you with him to those further shores. He still can. My rule for packing is the same for this move as it has been for all the others I've made in my life. If I haven't touched it *since* the last move, I'm prob- ably never going to, so out it goes. In Sauve, all you have to do is take the stuff you no longer want and put it on the ledge outside Fouzia's Moroccan épicierie, and it'll be gone within half an hour. And someone will be *using* it, and *enjoying* it, whatever it is. It's like reincarnation, only with objects, not souls. Then again, maybe my turntable had a soul...who knows...all I know is that I never plugged it in to the sound system while I lived here, so I am in all likelihood never going to any- where I live. So it now lives with a very excited young French boy, who snatched it up off the ledge before I was ten meters away. He had a big smile on his face, and seeing it, so did I. Just hit the Back button to replay "Cassidy." Twice. It's a nice song to listen to when getting ready to make a big move. I met Neal Cassady once, and if my brief encounter was any measure, he was far more out there than Kerouac portrayed him as Dean Moriarty. And the lyrics by John Perry Barlow never fail to inspire me and get me looking forward to being On The Road myself. It's a lovely "goodbye song," one that reminds me of the bittersweet taste of goodbyes, but also of the somalike taste of new hellos. I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream. I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream. Ah, child of countless trees. Ah, child of boundless seas. What you are, what you're meant to be Speaks his name, though you were born to me, Born to me, Cassidy... Lost now on the country miles in his Cadillac. I can tell by the way you smile he's rolling back. Come wash the nighttime clean, Come grow this scorched ground green, Blow the horn, tap the tambourine Close the gap of the dark years in between You and me, Cassidy... Quick beats in an icy heart. catch-colt draws a coffin cart. There he goes now, here she starts: Hear her cry. Flight of the seabirds, scattered like lost words Wheel to the storm and fly. Fare thee well now. Let your life proceed by its own design. Nothing to tell now. Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine. Fare thee well now. Let your life proceed by its own design. Nothing to tell now. Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine.
