Look out for a new song this week
Packing up my things to go back home tomorrow. I got a bunch of raw recording done (and some mixing – I couldn’t help it), and I’ll have a new song up within the next few days, so check back this week. I seem to have developed a Wednesday/Sunday pattern for posting. I don’t know if it’ll stay that way yet, but I’m going to try to make it my goal to get a new song posted by Wednesday. Gulp.
Oh, hey, look! A link to a really well-written song by Honor Finnegan!
Pictures of Snow – Honor Finnegan
I like good songs because they motivate me to write good songs. I also happen to like good things in general. I figure good things are good. But that’s just me.
mattglaz.com 
I really like her voice, too. How do you find these excellent artists?
03/12/2012 at 6:49 pm
Well, it all started while I was working a dig near a small village on the outskirts of Cairo back in the 70s. It was three weeks into our excavation, and the days were beginning to blur together. We were all tested brutally, day in and day out, by the scorching sun. My men had become delirious from heat exhaustion. Some of us had to be taken to hospital. Some of us never came back. And many gave up and returned to their families. Only those of us most bull-headed stayed to sweat it out – those of us who were more thirsty for knowledge and glory than for precious, precious water.
Then, one fateful afternoon, disaster struck. A sandstorm, vast and heaving, came hungrily roaring toward us, unannounced. Figures scrambled in the turmoil, shovels asunder, but there was nothing for it. In mere moments, the mountainous cloud was upon us, tossing bodies aside like they were bits of gravel in the wake of a tremendous charging beast.
Many men vanished, never to be heard from again.
A few colleagues and I managed to find shelter, but we were separated. I found myself plunging into an old clay hut just beyond the site, falling to the floor and coughing the bits of silica from out my lungs. Before long, I heard a chilling whisper call from the back of the room. I looked up to find a form shifting in the shadows. A faint shoulder line, a trail of smoke drifting from the embers of a pipe, two dots for eyes, twinkling like distant galaxies. The silhouette shifted again, this time toward me. A withered face shone in the light – an eye of glass swimming like a lighthouse in a turbulent ocean of festering boils, silver wisps marking his chin like sea foam, forming what once could have been called a beard. The man’s days were numbered, to say the least.
The stranger’s lips opened again and formed, unmistakably, my full name. “Matt Glaz,” came the hoarse words, like a shovel dragging across asphalt.
Regaining my reasoning somewhat, I muttered, “How do you…”
The man would not let me finish, “If it is ancient treasure you seek, then you’ve come to the right place.” He gestured broadly with his trembling, gnarled hand. Looking around, I could now see that I had stumbled into an antique shop of sorts. Shelves and bins alike were littered gratuitously with steatite vases and soapstone jars, papyrus scrolls and limestone figurines, ancient relics from worlds long forgotten.
One item in particular, however, caught my educated eye. Something out of place…a tarnished old lamp. It was a filthy thing, left to bathe over the centuries in the murky waters of neglect, its blanket of dust giving off a ghostly glow. Crawling forward, then slowly rising, I tenderly cupped my bloodied hands around the shabby trinket and lifted it into the light.
The old man grinned knowingly, “Yes…it is this for which you have come. It is yours, if you dare let it be so.”
The only words my mouth could speak were those of social habit. “How much?” I asked, bewitched.
“You will know the price,” prophesied the old man, “in time.”
I turned toward him, not comprehending, but he gave me no time to grasp what was happening. “Go!” he rasped, waving the withered claw at the end of his right arm. “Your friends are waiting outside.”
Suddenly realizing the silence surrounding the hut, I dashed outside. Sure enough, the storm had passed. As I was recovering my bearings, I heard a familiar voice to my left. Dr. Mitch Rawlings, a fellow researcher of mine, was calling my name some fifty yards away. Realizing I was still holding the lamp, I put it in my shoulder bag for the moment and ran to greet him, forgetting all about my encounter with the mysterious old merchant.
It wasn’t until later that night, when I retired hopelessly to my tent after a long and mournful evening of searching for my team, that I came upon the old lamp in my bag. I examined it more carefully now, in the full light of my lantern, but could not make out the engraving on its battered surface. Naturally, I used the cuff of my sleeve to try and clear away the dusty film which clouded the tiny markings.
That’s when it happened.
From out the spout of the lamp erupted a great geyser of jade-green smoke, knocking me onto my back. The luminous cloud swirled fiercely about, rapidly taking shape. Smog-like tentacles bent into limbs, into hands, a looping mass converged atop widening shoulders, and behold – there, hovering in the rippling ether, loomed a great apparition, a hulking strongman cast from vapor.
The powerful being spoke suddenly, his thunderous voice quaking my terrified insides:
“I am he – Galthar, Bringer of Worlds.
I serve only one – by none else be I ruled.
Speak, then, O mortal – I grant unto thee
Thy heart’s grandest wishes, numbering three.”
I was frozen.
Unfortunately for me, this supernatural entity wasn’t the patient kind. “SPEAK, MORTAL!” he roared.
“PLEASE DON’T HURT ME!” I blurted out. Then, “Wh…What the hell are you! Damnit, stay back! Oh, God, SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!”
Again the ectoplasm thundered, “SPEAK YOUR WISH, YOUNG FOOL! You are to speak unto me your grandest wish!”
Frightened beyond reason, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “I…I don’t know! I guess I could use some help finding content for my website!”
With that, the awesome being vanished, and I was once again alone.
It took me decades to finally come to terms with what transpired on that chilling night, but it’s apparent to me now that my pleas of “Please don’t hurt me” and “stay back” were interpreted by this omnipotent spirit as my first two wishes, respectively, leaving only the third to be granted. I guess that explains it. Huh. It wasn’t until you asked that question that I was really able to put the pieces together. Thanks!
03/13/2012 at 1:16 pm