Revisiting LINGUA IGNOTA for a chilly November morning. It seems appropriate. It’s icy cold and distant. It’s far off sounding, like the remains of grief that you have to accept is not going to heal. You’ll live with it. It will be part of you far into the next season and beyond. ‘Til death do us part.
And all that.
The change of seasons here in New York City has not been graceful this year. The trees have not bowed to accept the end of a love or a season, as Mr. Frost may say. Not Jack but Robert and sometimes Robert could be icier than Jack anyway. Some are still vibrant green. Others are in various stages of change, while others are already nearly stripped bare by the storm that ripped through yesterday. The one thing they all have in common this Sunday morning is that they’re huddled in the cold, confused. It may be warm tomorrow. Perhaps if we just hold onto the green…
But no… They would only be fooling themselves. The days will still be shorter. Nights longer. It’s time to let go. Let go or be dragged as The Crocodiles might say.
I prefer winter in New York City anyway. It just seems more honest without any of the window dressing. You cant pretend to be anything but cold when it’s cold, and this is a dreadfully fucking cold town in the winter. You leave the house with no pretense, just for the purpose of getting to the next destination. Nobody cares about your outfit and you don’t care about theirs’. It’s a genuine season when the Canadian winds whip in off the Hudson River and tear across the west side. And the east side just sits in shadows, more so than at any point in the past as the real estate developers have gone higher up all over the town to steal and sell the last of the sunlight. If you live along the east side you get a little bit of the morning sun, and then the leftovers. There are parts of town now that are in permanent shadow, dank and smelly in the summer heat, and icy windy in the winter. You can dress it up with window displays or leaves on the trees, but…
Let the Evil of His Own Lips Cover Him is bitter cold like the most wintry of cold winter days in New York City. It’s honest and thank fuck someone can still be honest and lay bare the truth like the winter does here. We all have to face the truth at some point, without the fancy decorations because sooner or later we’re all going to have to ask what the fuck we’re doing here. And that goes beyond New York City to wherever you’re standing. It’s beautiful and terrifying, this album, simply because it is so brutally cold and honest. I’m grateful that there are people alive that are willing to go this deep and dark. To be this authentic. It makes me feel so much less alone and when things get bare and raw it helps to know that other people have been there too.
What rough beast 