Lots has happened. I can't possibly document all my emotions, all that I feel, all that passes through my life every single day. Not for lack of trying, but simply because it is too much to contain within the frail wire-frames of letters and words.

Recently, I've found that I can lose myself when I shut my eyes. I can discover new worlds of light behind the soft red of closed eyelids, I can replay memories with such accuracy that I can almost taste them, feel them. And when I combine these with music, especially Nina Simone's.. silken voice... I can forget where I am, forget who I am and it is the most incredible high I've ever experienced. And what is beautiful about this kind of letting go, is not knowing whether you'll always be able to do it.

Here's to Nina Simone, here's to losing yourself and may be, just may be, finding something beautiful along the way.

From Black Gold, 1970
"We are recording tonight and because we are recording tonight, we are trying to do something... things that actually, that, I'm too tired to do.
But we'll..
But as Faye Dunaway, I think it was, she said, when Bonnie and Clyde came out and all, she said she tried to give people what they wanted.

That's a mistake, really, I know. You can't do it, but only after.. You use up everything you got trying to give everybody what they want.

But I will learn my lesson soon and then you will buy more records, right, because you'll want to see me.

Let's see what we can do with this lovely, lovely thing..
That goes past all racial conflict.. and all kinds of conflict.

It is a reflective tune.

At some time in your life, you will have occasion to say, 'What is this thing called time?'
You know, 'What.. what is that?'

The clock. You go to work by the clock, you get your martini in the afternoon by the clock.. and your coffee by the clock.. and you get on a plane at a certain time and arrive at a certain time.. and it goes on and on and on.

And time is a dictator as we know it.
Where does it go?
What does it do?
Most of all, is it alive?

It is a thing that we cannot touch and is it alive?

And then, one day you look in the mirror.
'How old.'
And you say, 'Where did the time go?'
We'll leave you with that one."

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving
But how can they know it's time for them to go?
Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming
I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes?