49. So Wearily Do The Children Arm Themselves
10/27/24
Heya!
Here’s my last reminder to send in any submissions for Skullcrushing Hummingbird - The Zine Issue Five. The theme is dreams. I’m looking for black and white artwork, photography and writing. Deadline is this Thursday, Halloween.
Send submissions to larstonovich@gmail.com
Big thanks to all of those who submitted so far, it looks to be a great issue.
Book
Adam has been putting out a new novel every year and I just finished his latest. It doesn’t disappoint and I wasn’t ready for it to end.
I wrote a bunch more about his books in a previous post here:
https://larstonovich.substack.com/i/141397043/books
Poem
American Sonnet #59
It’s a magnificent window that allows
Views of orbiting yesteryears, though
I’m often puzzled by awful glitch-beasts
Braying just beyond my unintended periphery.
So wearily do the children arm themselves,
Arguing over possession of the sole
Flamethrower. “We’re the burning bush,
We’re the burning fire, we’re the bleeding
Volcano!” I’m so cold, the window is drafty.
Do children still fry the legs of crickets with
Magnifying glasses? Are we privy to the
Inconsolable breezes that have crossed
Centuries merely to tease our pilot-light?
Are we indistinguishable from a noble gas?
Visual Noise
Leaves Lost Inside by KalloHumina featuring DJ Larstonovich on drum machine and stratocasters.
Amps For Christ
It was sometime in 1996/97 when I read a little review of the “Amps For Christ” cassette called “The Plains of Alluvial.” I’m pretty sure it was in a music magazine called “Your Flesh.” This fat mag had definitely graduated beyond “zine” status.
It was a few years before I got my hands on the internet so I went downtown to O-Zone and they ordered me a copy from Shrimper Cassettes.
I was certainly a little put off by the “Christ” in the “band’s” moniker but that’s just because I had yet to come to terms with all the nun-inflicted damage. (Does one ever?)
"The alluvial fans on the south side of the San Gabriel mountains are some of the biggest anywhere. I ended a twelve year relationship and moved into my friend's house in east Claremont only about 100 yards from the San Antonio River, on the center of that giant alluvial plain. I made instruments in a falling down garage and in the front of the house built a studio. It was the end of me in MAN IS THE BASTARD and the birth of me returning to folk, but bringing hardcore and noise back with me. I started calling it Folk-core meaning folk and hardcore mixed together and Musnic meaning musical noise. I had at that studio a Hammond S-6 chord organ, pure tube electronics. with no mechanical tone wheel to derive the sounds. I circuit bent it to produce the sounds of bodrahns and bagpipes, sounds I have always loved. It has 60-80 vacuum tubes in it! A small little organ designed by John Hannert for Hammond; and one was used on Magical Mystery Tour. I had been writing AMPS FOR CHRIST on all the amps and oscillators I made, so it ended up being my new name. The Plains of Alluvial felt meant to be, everything, the name, the recordings just seemed to fall in place. I took the tape to Dennis of Shrimper Records and he agreed to release it."—HENRY BARNES
Next I got my hands on their CD Circuits which really blew my mind. It featured a beautiful female vocalist on some songs and dug deep into electronic drones and medieval melodies. It is an ALL TIME FAVORITE.
Decades later, with my CD in dire condition, I saw that it was released on vinyl. I was about to order a copy online when I noticed it was being shipped from Mississippi records right here in Portland, Oregon.
I rushed down there to get a copy like some psycho who believes that more than a small handful of other people in the world give a shit about this beautiful obscurity.
Live
10/24/24 at the Aladdin Theater
Earth performing Earth 2
Object
Be careful when the veil gets real thin this week. Samhain it up!