Richard Buckner performed “Ariel Ramirez”, among other songs, at the Empty Bottle in Chicago July 2014. My favorite that he performed then was “Little Wallet Picture”; I really enjoy a bit of good pedal steel. You should hear it in Our Blood‘s “Traitor”. (Our Blood, 2011 Merge Records, https://www.mergerecords.com/our-blood)
That evening at the Bottle my iPhone was inside a clear sandwich bag in my purse, so my sneaky audio grab is wrapped in plastic. (Rain was common and unpredictable that July, my purse was cloth, I walked everywhere and if not amid lightning and thunder I enjoy being rained-upon in summer.)
About a year later I laid the audio over footage from winter 2014-2015, including some painfully-shaky of my apartment in January or February and a particularly dirty state. Winter in Chicago, especially late winter, can be very rough. A warm, thawing day here or there stokes hope to dash it on tomorrow’s icy blasts, bury it under thick snowfall, and cake it in the persistent sludge. “The snow didn’t come from the sky — it fell from the boughs of the trees / Why do we not call a winter wind a breeze?” Pardon that, got sidetracked… Where were we? Oh yes: the long winter. I pity any who own, drive and park cars in Chicago between November and April. Therefore I took the multicolored bouquet of roses I’d sent myself that Valentine’s Day when they neared wilting time and strewed one per across the windshields of cars on my block as far as they lasted. My intention was to redirect energy of murderous rage such as parking, shoveling and warming up one’s frigid car can incite, through catalytic delight I imagined an unexpected rose of a unique hue from any other in sight, might provoke.
