Sunday, March 15, 2009

James Brown in Jerusalem

I cannot get over the notion that the spirit of James Brown infuses the city of Jerusalem. Now I don't believe The Hardest Working Man in Show Business ever performed in the holy city, but something tells me he left his mark.

Consider first how time is accelerated here. True to its own law of general relativity, space-time warps around the walled city like a bear hug that squeezes every drop of inertia out of a body. This effect may be tied to the question of home Security. The first time I spoke what little Arabic I know and a guard asked in English Gun? and I shook my head No and every time since I've gone through a metal detector, a checkpoint, been frisked my body-clock is 'red-shifted' just a little more i.e. accelerated towards a light I do not know, have not become.

In the Godfather's concerts, when he danced with his back to the audience, shooting hand signals to those band members who were half-a-second-late, because that's all you needed for the beat to unravel, become a divisible thing, he was defining his own theory of gravitational attraction, as Jerusalem has done for five thousand years, inviting  pilgrims and spinning them like a dradle for the pleasure of a dance.



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