The Hammock Papers: Steely Dan

Showing posts with label Steely Dan. Show all posts

02 January 2026

14 November 2025

Knows.

The waiter never comes

God knows the service could be better ...

07 July 2025

Up.

I never knew you

You were a roller skater

You gonna show me later

Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening ...

30 June 2025

Your.

If you're feeling lucky

You best not refuse

It's your game, the rules

Are your own, win or lose ...

21 November 2024

Released.

Steely Dan released Gaucho on this day in 1980.

17 July 2024

10 January 2024

Happy Birthday, Lester

Lester The Nightfly was born on this day in 1948.

21 November 2023

Released.

Steely Dan released Gaucho on this day in 1980.

El era del terzo mondo ...

23 July 2023

24 June 2023

Lighted.

A bad artist almost always tries to conceal his incompetence by whooping up a new formula.

H. L. Mencken

... [T]he virological equivalent of looking for a gas leak with a lighted match.

I love it when a new formula is better than the original.

21 November 2022

Released.

Steely Dan released Gaucho on this day in 1980.

Walter sings the title track ...

02 August 2022

Sing.

When he's crying out

I just sing that Ghana Rondo

El era del terzo mondo

He's a third world man

01 August 2022

Whim.

Sure he's a jolly roger

Until he answers for his crime

Yes I'll match him whim for whim now

31 July 2022

Bodacious.

Bodacious cowboys

Such as your friend

Will never be welcome here

29 July 2022

Perfect.

Drive west on Sunset

To the sea

Turn that jungle music down

Just until we're out of town

This is no one night stand

It's a real occasion

Close your eyes and you'll be there

It's everything they say

The end of a perfect day

Distant lights from across the bay

28 July 2022

Hustle.

You

In your Lark

You're a mark

You're a screamer

You know

How to hustle

Daddy

Is a rare

Millionaire

I don't care

Yeah you

Got the muscle

I got the news

27 July 2022

Again.

Call in my reservation

So long, hey thanks, my friend

I guess I'll try my luck again

26 July 2022

Yesterday.

It seems like only yesterday

I gazed through the glass

At ramblers

Wild gamblers

That's all in the past

25 July 2022

Angular.

Chinese music always sets me free

Angular banjoes

Sound good to me

24 July 2022

Holy.

No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on

Oh no

That's what I am

Please understand

I wanna be your holy man

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."