Seas of the Mind

Joseph Cornell's early collage Untitled (Schooner) is a remarkable image hinting at his later masterful (and slightly precious) handmade box collage creations using junk and ephemera gathered from his wanderings among junk and old book stores in Manhattan.

It recalls a piece by Tennessee artist Andrew Saftel, a mixed media sculpture called Past Away. Another mysterious creation hinting at the child-like desire to explore one's dreams on a boat made by whatever materials are on-hand.


















Or Saftel's ship could be Sir Francis Drake's galleon discovered in the middle of the jungle by Jose Arcadio Buendia in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's circular time narrative One Hundred Years of Solitude. Marquez is also creating by using the materials on-hand by using the Drake galleon as a way to re-create his home in the dreamland of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Deep Blues

W.C. Handy first heard the blues on a train platform in Tutwiler, MS in 1903. Handy called it the "weirdest music I had ever heard." He heard a mysterious man accompany himself on the guitar and repeat the line "Goin' where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog." South of Tutwiler, the tracks of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad - known as the Yellow Dog - crosses the tracks of the Southern in Moorehead (modern photos here). All this can be found in Robert Palmer's book Deep Blues.

In 1966, Bob Dylan recorded "Absolutely Sweet Marie" in Nashville and released on Blonde on Blonde. This song includes the line: "And now I stand here looking at your yellow railroad / In the ruins of your balcony." A line that Dylan once said was "not a lie."

In 2006, Dylan recorded the song "Nettie Moore" and released it on Modern Times. It includes the line: "I've gone where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog / Get away from all these demagogues."

Yellow railroads, yellow dogs and lots of weird music.