*Insert fangirl squee here.*

[railenthe]

 

What a way to welcome the Full Moon.  Truly, a gift from the Goddess.

Described by the composer himself as “something resembling poetry/but it’s not the same thing,”  Colorful Fortune is a collection of verse by American ambient/minimalist/Avant-garde composer Harold Budd.  The first half of the book contains ‘poem sketches’ previously unknown and unreleased.  The second half features work that is more familiar, from his albums By The Dawn’s Early Light, Glyph, and She Is A Phantom (with Zeitgeist).

 

Notice the little trail on the cover, like the contrails of a butterfly hopped up on amphetamine-laced nectar.  These sketches are a visual representation of the music that Budd was listening to at the time—in this one’s case, Monteverdi.  The line begins somewhere on the page, sometimes exeunt on one side, reappearing on another part of the page unbroken—a visual metaphor for the sound of music.

 

…I’ve wanted this book like burning since discovering its existence one year ago.  And a month ago, this desire came to a head.  You see, there are only two hundred copies of this book in existence.  250 if you count the hardback—the hardback is WAY too rich for my pay grade.  It was released in ‘09.

 

Yea verily, time was of the essence.  Who could say when there weren’t any more to be had?  I ordered a copy on my Nook Tablet and…

 

waited.

 

And waited.

 

I get a “zzzt!” on my phone on the way back to the apartment from dress fitting: my package was no longer ‘in transit.’  I grew antsy on the way back home, realizing: this was it.  The thing I’d been waiting for.  I got a little nervous when the super-careful packaging was stuck in the mailbox, but finally I got it home…and devoured every verse within.  I lingered over the sketches, and sort of roosted in one particular zone of the “something resembling poetry” entitled “Wings:”

 

…
Through it all

I danced toward my sun

as my soul sought to fly—

Through it all

it was you.

It was always you.

 

I actually forgot to read forward at that point.  My mind?  Blown.  I needed to find a new fuse for my mind.  Except I didn’t.  I kept reading that portion of the poem, fingers loitering on the heavy-weight superfine paper, like the memory of a lover’s touch on the palm.

 

I then began to transcribe the entire book, so that I would not harm the book by taking it outside later in search of photo opportunities that seemed to speak the very verses; while I was typing, I hung up again on that passage of “Wings.”  The entire damn book is full of such loveliness that there are passages that I despair of ever finding a fitting photo op for. 

 

I know two things about this project:

1. I’m glad I’ve got almost a whole entire year of nature to go through for this project, and
2. I’m going to pull a Genesis or a Kuja with the randomly quoting verses fairly often.

       (From:  Reflected In The Eye Of A Dragonfly: )

…

Unexplained light reflected from the spine of a

     metallic viper

I’ll seal your radiant kiss my lover

…

Comments

[railenthe.livejournal.com]

Even the pages are ridiculously pretty. It was made the old-fashioned way with that limited printing, and you can feel the text on the paper. And the etchings, too—the etchings are nothing fancy; a line looping, angling into the page, coming just close enough to almost touch a line of verse, then leaving the page at one point—re-entering elsewhere.

It's all so simple but so lovely at the same time.