-- Saturday, July 31, 1999 --

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11:19 a.m. A somewhat restless night ... did anyone else toss and turn under the glare of that incredible moon? I have a skylight, as I mentioned a few days ago. And the light was so bright on my pillows that I had to make a sort of tent out of the covers to create a shadow so I could get some sleep.

I won't say or even think it -- it's too late -- now it's too late ... anyone reading this who is of a certain age or who is musically pantheistic knows what happens to your brain if you say: moonshadow. Moooooonshadowmoonshadow. As in: I'm being followed. As in: if I ever lose my mouth. Rhythmic hypnotic words that will not let go of you, once you've heard them. All my teeth, north and south. Cat Stevens. Remember him? Remember that cover art? Too bad about album cover art, right?

The thing about that particular art, the thing that can't be reproduced, is the fact that it was a combination of circumstantial, performance, and participatory art all at the same time. You might be able to reproduce the picture, but you'll never be able to reproduce the nexus: the excitement of a hard-won album, either begged out of your parents, or borrowed from your best friend, or stolen from someone else's collection when they were too ... too preoccupied to care. You never, ever felt as if you could afford the thing on your own. It was always somewhat precious.

And because you wanted the thing inside -- the music -- soooo bad, you ended up sort of wanting the art, too. The art completely and totally represented the music, and you could even hold the art in your hands (and examine it closely) if you could just get your hands on the album.

And then there were the thousand rules you would break, along with the seal: do you store them standing up or laying down, face up or face down, with that stupid flimsy thing inside or do you squash it into the cardboard all sloppy one day and sort of rip it and finally throw it away or are you really really careful? And does the sheet of song lyrics go inside the sleeve or does it stay in the fold, if it's a fold-open album? Do you listen one time first, and then read the lyrics, or do you read the lyrics first to get an idea, or do you just kick back and do whatever you feel like? But if you do that, you'll end up with permanent garbled ideas in your head -- 'scuse me while I kiss this guy? Huh? What's that all about?

For years and years, the dulcet tones of Crosby, Stills and Nash would waft through open college dorm windows every time it was balmy enough to open a window. This album even has a sort of a smell attached to it -- sort of a herby, weedy, Marrakeshey scent of incense and midnight coaches smokey smell. A total of ten really good songs all weaving in and out of each other, in and out of the memories of several generations and probably countless relationships.

About the only thing it doesn't have is a title. My daughter grew up thinking the album was called "Gordon Brown" because of the name written there in red felt-tip over on the far left. I never met Gordon Brown, even though I was sort of best friends with his sister Toni back in my ill-spent youth, and somehow, I came into possession of his/her album. She was sort of best friends with the wife of Jim Croce, and so it goes, round and round.

A long time gone.

You know what? I just went looking through my album collection for Tea for the Tinkerman, so I could lay it (face down) on the scanner to try to reproduce a bit of the cover for you here: but you know what? It's gone missing. Hmmmm. That's weird. Somebody must 'of swiped it, while I was otherwise ... preoccupied.