Without ceremony, Mimo and the other two who’d come with him quickly unpacked their instruments and dove right into the impromptu jam session and it was on… Dolo was laughing as he fiddled away furiously, leading the groove as usual. His bow tore at the violin with such fury I expected the thing to start […]
read moreNarcisa- Our Lady Of Ashes
Dolo’s cousin Dimitri was standing on the street waiting for us with a big black umbrella at the gate to the big house. Mimo parked the taxi and we unloaded the instruments and ran up to the the path in the rain under Dimitri’s umbrella. As we approached, I could hear the unmistakable mad bee […]
read moreDolo was an orphan, like me. Legend had it that he had been taken away from his Calao gypsy people after being caught stealing from a grocery store and put into a reform school in Minas Gerais. From there he was adopted by a respectable local gadji family who had given him an upper class […]
read more“And Sergei here’s another great violinista,” Mimo went on, gesturing to the other guy. “These guys come all way here now from Para to see Dolo and play with all us together. Big Roma gathering on the weekend… Gonna be ciganos from all the South America, even some come from far away in Europa… Like […]
read moreHalf an hour later I heard the familiar short toot of Mimo’s horn downstairs. I went to the window and gave him the sign… Narcisa was snoring softly and steadily now. I put the note I’d written on the table by her pack of cigarettes where she’d be sure to see it if she woke […]
read moreRussian existentialism dwells on two questions: “What to do?” and “Who is to blame?” Jonathan Shaw replaces them with: “What else can I do?” and “For the good and the bad, I take responsibility for all!” Which, at the end of the day, sums up a living example of human undestructability that’s hard to surpass. When I […]
read moreRio De Janeiro, 2009 crisis time 6 am deconstruction project of weird science coming up over this empire of ashes and ruin and rust this physical body getting heavier, denser, slower, dying. i crawl out of dreamspace to watch the sunrise coming up over abundent fields of churning waste and obsolete matter. light another cigarette. […]
read moreone house: three women and one cat they all have left their memories upon my shelves at one time or another– one took instant decaffeinated one took fresh ground one took vodka or whatever she could get they all took my love with a tear chaser the cat took tuna they all left their memories […]
read moreHere is a short piece from 1969, from an upcoming Collection of newly edited essays, poems and short stories by Jonathan Shaw. Stay tuned for more, which we will be posting as we dig them up from the catacombs. PITTSBURGH ZOO- The rains fell with blue force outside the aquarium. Down the street, Jeff and Howard were driving […]
read moreNEW YEARS — 1975 Oh I’ll run from the house of madness on a rainy night and down the slippery pavement laughing tears streaming with the rain god damn I’ll geta bottle and shake my wet body on strange doorsteps like a dog drip drip drip and i won’t be dead yeh! […]
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