Hello.
Its been a while.
For those that have asked, it’s been a few months or so of manifold transition on this end. From a lack of full-time work to overloaded with freelance clients and back to full-time work again. I crossed the country a couple times. Beautiful things moved around. Precious things returned to stay. Time was spent, wasted and otherwise passed. You probably know the deal. Sometimes it’s on, other times it’s all about momentum. Besides, this thing has never really been something I wanted to push too hard. It’s a repository after all, not a recalcitrant node on a branching hierarchy of things to get done.
Last night though, in the midst of doing something I actually did have to get done, I found a folder full of 90’s era mp3s. It took a few moments to place the voice with the memory of Jim Carroll from a series of recorded readings released in 1991 called, Praying Mantis. I’m pretty sure I’d invested hours into downloading it from some fringe BBS. Nothing terribly rare in the grand scheme of things (especially today), but an artifact that has remained somewhat shelved since Basketball Diary days.
I hadn’t heard it in years, but could recall a few of the tracks having a particular and somewhat heavy affect on me at one point or another. It seemed interesting enough to share, so I packed up the tracks and while in search of cover and other supporting imagery, eventually deleted myself to the root of Carroll’s site where I found his gaunt visage above his name and a range of dates:
8/1/1949 - 9/11/2009
And so, as denouement for a single and unexpected sequence, here’s Praying Mantis in memoriam so that we might remember Jim Carroll for a bit more than just People Who Died.
Jim Carroll: Praying Mantis (13.6mb, mp3.zip, MF)
Goodbye.