Alex Waterhouse-Hayward: Purple Haze

Rosa 'Ebb Tide'07 June 2020

"Purple Haze" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and released as the second record single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on March 17, 1967. As a record chart hit in several countries and the opening number on the Experience's debut American album, it was many people's first exposure to Hendrix's psychedelic rock sound. Wikipedia

Before my Rosemary, our two daughters and I moved from Mexico City to Vancouver in 1975 my knowledge of popular music was limited. Perhaps it was because of the Mexico City radio stations that I listened to that had lots of South American folk music particularly the radical one from Chile.

It was in Vancouver when I began to work with Vancouver Magazine, In One Ear rock columnist Les Wiseman that my education began. Because Wiseman was a critic he had by definition an eclectic taste in popular music. I was soon a snob, too.

In 1986 I had a vague idea of who Jimi Hendrix had been but I could not have identified any of his playing or his music. It was in that year that as a fan of the Kronos Quartet I bought a tape that included something called Purple Haze. That was the first Hendrix composition that I have memory of sitting down to listen to.

Here it is in YouTube.

Often in these blogs I write about that most human characteristic and talent which is our ability to associate stuff that at first glance may not have anything in common. Take for example this exquisite purple rose, Rosa 'Ebb Tide' that grows in a large pot in our Kitsilano garden. How could I scan these beauties and somehow write something about them that was not just about roses. I am sure that by now anybody who is here that the connection was an easy one!

More Ebb Tide
And even more Ebb Tide

Kronos Quartet released this version of Purple Haze in 1986.

Purple Haze - the Kronos Quartet

980

Purple—is fashionable twice—

This season of the year,

And when a soul perceives itself

To be an Emperor.

Emily Dickinson

Su palacio nocturno: el sueño, el párpado

sedosa guillotina del diurno pavo real

para que sólo las similitudes

desplieguen sus tapices de morado, de púrpura y de óxidos,

harem del negro, esperma de los sueños.

Negro el 10 – Julio Cortázar

More Emily Dickinson
Yellow she affords
A sepal, petal and a thorn
Her breast is fit for pearls
I would not paint a picture
November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf
We turn not older with years, but older
Now I am ready to go

Dilapidation's processes Are organized Decays

I find my feet have further goals

A melancholy of a waning summer
Just as green and as white
It's full as opera
I cannot dance upon my Toes
a door just opened on the street
Amber slips away
Sleep
When August burning low
Pink Small and punctual
A slash of blue
I cannot dance upon my toes
Ah little rose
For hold them, blue to blue

The colour of the grave is green

Its temple stands, alway,

The Woman in white

Her Grace is not all she has

To know if any human eyes were near
Linda Melsted - the music of the violin does not emerge alone
The Charm invests her face
A sepal, a petal and a thorn
The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman
T were blessed to have seen
There is no frigate like a book
I pay in satin cash

Emily Dickinson's White Dress & a Hunter of Lost Souls