David Greenberger and Prime Lens | Good Perspective
(Pel Pel Recordings)
Davidgreenberger.com
DAVID_GREENBERGER___PRIME_LENS_The_Mischief_Chair.mp3
I can see, but I'm worried. I've developed diabetic macular edema, something of a family curse, which I've helped along with years of bad behavior. I now receive injections, in my eyeballs, every couple of weeks. Fun. Don't even start with me on the old "better than a sharp stick in the eye" saw. I can tell you firsthand, having been routinely trussed up like Alex Droog, that just about anything is better than a sharp stick in the eye. When my mother, who passed away a year older than I am now, was going through a similar situation 25 years ago, I read her Rilke's "Going Blind." She loved romance novels; Rilke's dense, hoping words winged past her, but I think of them now in a new, selfish light, dreaming of radiance, joy, and flight.
Which is to say, David Greenberger's latest disc, Good Perspective, is a clear sky. Greenberger, particularly through his Duplex Planet magazine, has made an admirable career of translating interviews with senior citizens into art, work rich in "fractured narratives" and "accidental poetics." Speaking with residents at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, facility for the disabled and visually impaired, Greenberger—joined by composer Tyson Rogers's team—moves through many rooms, noting obstacles in the way. The aural results, smart, caring, inquisitive monologues developed from those conversations and paired with supportive sound collages, are, as Rilke might note, "beyond all walking."
