'... a damsel with a dulcimer (in a vision once I saw)...'

'... a damsel with a dulcimer 

in a vision once I saw

it was an abyssinian maid, 

and on her dulcimer she played, 

singing of mount abora...'

- samuel taylor coleridge, kubla khan (third stanza)

ok it's just become the afternoon of the 7th. horsemouth will be away delivering eggs in a little while. (he is indebted to myk for the coleridge quotation). 

as a kid horsemouth learned the first stanza of kubla khan  (and later he learned the story of its writing). 

'in xanadu did kubla khan

a stately pleasure-dome decree:

where alph, the sacred river, ran

through caverns measureless to man

     down to a sunless sea...'

later still he heard rush play xanadu  on tommy vance's friday night rock show. 

'for he on honey-dew hath fed,

and drank the milk of paradise.'

still the damsel with a dulcimer bit is new to him. 

tommy vance crops up in slade in flame (which really is a very good film). the band bicker their way up far enough to be noticed and then are taken on to the top. they then fall apart at the optimum moment. 

 

it's the anniversary of cecil mcbee recording mutima in white plains, new york in 1974. it's another one of those releases on the great strata-east label. 

later the bell-ringing. in the middle more gardening.