HINDU WINDMILLS TEXT CLARIFICATION (APRIL 2008)

It took much, much longer than originally anticipated to release the Elephant Micah - Hindu Windmills CD. The delay was partly due to printing issues that, to everyone’s frustration, were never fully remedied. As a result, the design is paler than we intended, and most of the handwritten text is illegible. 

The booklet, as it stands, is more like a satire of all the project's errors and misunderstandings than a useful guide to the songs.  It’s hard to look at, in more ways than one. The only even remotely helpful measure I can think of is to post the contents here (see below). Otherwise, until a future pressing, we seem to be stuck with it.

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2 twenty-third turn
3 distant things
5 send lightning bugs
6 pleasure-trip whirlpool

9 privacy (if you are my piano)
10 cocoa in the hay
11 human groove
13 wild goose chase 

say faith but it could be conceit in this attraction to the sense sign.  every tiny illumination must prove true if you believe due to beauty.  have you added up the sparkling series?  behold bad patterns of false phosphorescents in the mirror surface of our strange human wave.  what do these seasons confide?  I can’t remember the likes of weather this cold, but it was one year ago when the trees caught on fire and the sun just expired.  I know this in fact, still I’m a stranger to the act.  it's the pain of childbirth.  We can’t keep up with this earth.  we’ve all traveled it ‘round, but it seems like a first-time sound each time my senses get burned - relearn this twenty-third turn.  when you can’t memorize the feeling, the circle keeps it here for thee.  I’d forgotten how to say my name until it came back to me today.  we’re not headed for a heaven on this earth.  remind me when I can’t recall its worth.  I sought out stars but the roots ran so deep beneath my feet and life grew upon that tree.  the truth is so close to us it’s impossible to see with eyes that are fixed on distant things.  once upon a day st. lucy came to speak with Yahweh, saying "all of this darkness, cast it away - it makes them afraid.  it’s why they’ll one day invent an electric light.  they’re frightened that you’ll leave them blind - every night." and there was a silence before Yahweh spoke, when st. lucy’s feelings welled up in her throat…

he said, "listen my daughter, you and I both know about the signs mankind has been shown. but still they’re going to invent an electric light - they’re blinded by their own pride. so, remind them!"  steeped in luxury, fine-tuned ‘til you can’t even find the right key.  drunk on liberties taken for the sake of feeling free.  you feed your soul with sound that you find lying around, on the air or underground, never believing you’d be bound to one day sing your own song, to one day say what’s right from what’s wrong - it might not be long before a black train’s going to come and take away all your wild grace in being young.  judgement will be done upon the wicked way of life that you have sung.  you’re going to have to sing your own song.  some lucky baby was given the gift of a loving sister’s ceaseless lullaby - what a song to grow into!  while constantly turning it teaches about time. (our love can never repeat in quite the same way) (every moment must be invented by your words once they come.

a spinning vista arose somewhere in Pennsylvania - quixotic towers.  powerful eyes are invading our privacy, but if you are my note and I am your human soul, then we’re free in the field where they see their control.  lecherous arms are pushing us toward false alarm, but if you’re my piano and I’m your tattoo, then we’re both past the grasp of what those arms can do.  judgemental tongues have been talking tough behind our backs, but if you are my key and I am your water, then we’re sure that the taste of those tongues is impure.  if I married the ferrier’s daughter, so fair, we’d wake up in the morning and we’d go out a-hunting, a-looking for the ginseng root growing wild in our woods.  we’d make our home upon a mountain top so high- if I saw satan with a wooden face and the voice of a kind lady, tempting us from tallest motorcycles, hiding cocoa in the hay, she’d drive him away riding on back of her good pony.  imagine the world as one great divine victrola phonograph.  it’s playing the human groove that god himself cut with his own bare hands.  right now...

the needle is passing over you and I. we’re just like sonic tattoos - our voices are etched in the black wax of time.  now that we’re alive, let us send a song up to our lord, sustaining the chord sounded long ago in our ancestors’ time.  we’re dressed like sonic tattoos.  I do not love to ramble around.  no I don’t.  and if that makes me a home-loving man, then I am, for why enter in on a circular path?  on a pilgrimage leading straight back to where I know I’ll drop my guitar.  I’ll abandon my car on the highway. don’t send me away.  don’t set me on some wild goose chase for freedom, for money, for love.  from portland west to portland east, to albuquerque to montreal to san francisco to chicago to cleveland to tuscon to buffalo.  it can be shocking to be shown the shapes that truly suggest suffering, but look - spinning in series - an endless exercise of frustrated earthly circuits - please try again.