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It occurred to me that last week’s Act 1 climax of What We Were Thinking Of calls for the time-honored intermission — in live theater, with lights up to stretch one’s legs and visit the loo, during epic films, like The Brutalist, to include, as well, a musical interlude.
Next week, we’ll return to the play, where in Act II we’ll see David seek to resolve his longstanding tensions with Hannah as she deploys to the Gulf, visit his mother for advice and learn a secret about his father, worry himself with drink over Hannah’s safety at war, while he comes into conflict with just about everyone around him, including Kurtis and his students, and, finally, face a long delayed reckoning.
Today, however, I’m doing something I hope to do more of — highlight my sustaining and annual subscribers as a particular expression of thanks for their support. I said a couple of weeks ago that I would soon be sending all annual paid subscribers by email one of the gifts to which they’re entitled, a free digital edition of Waiting for Word. I said that I would include all new annual paid subscribers who sign up by the end of July. With this announcement, I’ll extend that one week, to include next Saturday.
Another promised gift for annual paid subscribers is promotion, here on Homo Vitruvius, of a creative work or project or personally meaningful cause. Again, to offer my thanks.
This week, my first thank you goes, as it happens, to the very first person to pledge himself a founding subscriber, when I was just starting out on Substack, David Paul Shaw. David is a fellow New Yorker originally, though we didn’t meet until many years later. He’s done many things in his life, including be a great friend and supporter to me and Julia, but he’s always been a musician. A couple of weeks ago, when I published part 7 of What We Were Thinking Of, in which the play’s David, Bud, and Sarah visit a New Mexico commune in 1968, I mentioned on Substack Notes that David lived for two years during that era on the Big Elk commune in Oregon. (The link to my Homo Vitruvius Substack Notes stream, on which I microblog daily is https://ajayadler.substack.com/notes.)
Now, David has written, performed, and produced a song in which he looks back on those years. "The River," is about that commune experience and his memory of it. From David’s liner notes:
It’s a very personal story about my group of close friends who shared a vision: to get away from the noise of New York City and travel around the USA to find the perfect place to start a commune and a band. We were chasing freedom and creative expression during one of America’s most turbulent and creative decades. The name of the song references the two rivers that flowed through my life. The Elk River in the mountains of Oregon where my commune Big Elk was born and the Applegate River near Ashland, Oregon where my band Homegrown became real.
Just this past year, the members of the commune gathered for a reunion.
Lyrics, guitar, and keyboard by David Paul Shaw; upright and electric bass, keys, percussion and atmospherics, then mixing and mastering, by co-producer Petros Klampanis.
"The River" is available on Spotify and other music streamers as of August 1.
Wonder in our eyes Thunder from the wise Did we realize? It was just a moment In a lifetime Such a long time ago
If you like what you hear, why not give David a “like” wherever you listen. Thanks for listening. Thanks for reading. Thanks for subscribing — to all Vitruvians.
Homo Vitruvius and American Samizdat serve as homes for my weekly creative writing and intellectual exploration. HV persists as my original and primary Substack in these pursuits; AS arose in resistance to Trumpism and is dedicated to its defeat. From memoir and poetry to fiction and drama, mostly in HV, to history and political philosophy, predominantly in AS, you will find it here, integrated across the two stacks through a creative and intellectual sensibility I hope you will find invigorating. The stacks may be subscribed jointly or singly in Manage Subscription.
Poet. Storyteller. Dramatist. Essayist. Artificer.
I so loved "The River" -- Kudos, as always ... 💕
Listening to "The River". A loo-ong time ago. That time, so vivid in memory, wonderful to revisit with this great track. Voice powerful, smooth, deep-toned as molasses and the classic steady heart beat. Youth, freedom, dreams, still living.