Blessings and Best Wishes

Mage Music: the Blog now available on Kindle

YAY! Mage Music: The Blog is now available for Kindle! I'll be getting the hard copy published soon as I can if you'd prefer that. Or you can get both!

CLICK ON THIS LINK>> for Mage Music: the Blog: Writings on Magick and Creativity

A different view of Jimmy Page

For no reason at all, here's a photo montage of a different view of Jimmy Page, from Choir Boy to book promoter.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Sneak preview of the cover

Here's a sneak preview of the cover for Mage Music: the Blog.  I'm thinking I'll have the Kindle version available in the next few days.

Progress report

Just thought I'd post a progress report so you all know I'm not just slacking off.

Mage Music: The Blog is about halfway edited. I had hoped to get it out into the world by the first of the month (that is, December, not January) but I had to first finish editing and printing up another manuscript (fiction) to send out this week.

Now I can get back to Mage Music: The Blog, which will be available at a very reasonable price on Amazon for Kindle. I'll let you know soon as I know. 

Soon as that is done I'll get working on the book on creativity and Magick that this blog has been the proving ground for. I'll let you know how that goes, too. 

Exciting times!

Let Me Go, Lover!

“Oh let me go. Let me go. Let me go lover. Let me be, set me free from your spell”
~Joan Weber, written by Jenny Lou Carson and Al Hill. Covered by Patti Page, Teresa Brewer and The Lancers, Billy Fury, Peggy Lee, Hank Snow, Dean Martin, Kathy Kirby and no doubt others... not to mention Lucille Ball.

Mage Music 90

That song was really popular back in the day. Let me go, lover. A heartfelt plea, begging for the freedom to get on with life.

Of course, it’s a mistaken concept, as appealing as it may seem. Nobody attains freedom by relying on it to be provided by someone else. Only personal choice gives freedom. Only personal choice breaks the chains.

I started out to write this blog post because I woke up the other morning with that song in my head. To my knowledge I hadn’t heard it anywhere in the days before. I figured it had manifested as an earworm for a reason.

I had some ideas about what to say - but I said them in the first two brief paragraphs, above. Nothing more would come. The song didn't go away. Darned annoying but I lived with it a few days anyway. Till today, when I realized what was really going on in the back of my head.

All this writing that I've been doing here - it wasn't for you, it was for me. Sorry. I needed to work out some concepts the hard way – by making them concrete through writing, and by firing them in the furnace of public view. The blog was perfect for that.

I woke up with the song in my head because it’s time to pull the pot out of the fire.

What pot? What is the woman talking about now?

My last post was about how I came away from the most recent Led Zeppelin remasters feeling like they were a good-bye. That was really the beginning of my coming to understand that I, too, have to move on. Mage Music -- the blog -- isn't my creative goal and it never was. Mage Music has been my testing ground. 

I wrote that I knew all things have a perfect time to be, and that there is a time for moving on.

So yeah, that's the message my subconscious -- or maybe the Universe -- was giving me. It's time to say so long, though not good-bye. I'll have things to talk about here in the future, but my focus is going to be on writing the book I've been wanting to write all along, about creativity and Magick.

So the pot's been fired, and I'm looking at it closely to see what other work needs doing. There are flaws, but I think the concept will stand. I will need to remaster the blog but that's no problem. Better artists than me have seen the need for doing that. 

Maybe now that blasted song will let me be. 

2014 remasters: Goodbye Led Zeppelin

Last night I received the 2014 Remasters, Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy. I'm going to take my time reviewing the music but wanted to post a few thoughts right away.

I got the first three reissues as Deluxe CD sets rather than the Super Deluxe box sets, but sprung for Super Deluxe for these next two. Last night LZ IV and HOTH arrived. I have, of course, seen the photos of the contents (right) and knew what to expect, but not how I'd feel about the box sets.

First thoughts when I opened the individual cartons:

Why did I just get the Deluxe CDs before? I'm so sorry now I didn't sell my left kidney to get the Super Deluxes for the first three. I'll have to pick them up down the line because I just want them so badly now. The Super Deluxe box sets are perfect. They are obviously the product of intense thought and consideration, beautifully presented. You can tell that this physical aspect of the remasters were truly a labor of love on Jimmy Page's part.

They are the saddest things I've beheld in a long time.

I perceived in that moment that the remasters really are a swan song for Led Zeppelin. I understood that this truly was the end, the last significant work that was ever going to be released as Led Zeppelin, for ever and ever. The remasters are a going-away present from Jimmy Page to his former bandmates and to the world. Jimmy Page is moving on -- to new music we can hope, but whatever it is, he is leaving Led Zeppelin behind. 

All things in their time. I know that. 

Change means moving on. I know that.

But it's such a bittersweet knowledge.