Carmelita Estrellita

A Dylanist’s Diary (“sugar and salt/ if you never listen to the basement tapes/ it’s your own damn fault”)

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Originally posted here in 2016… 

11/7

My monthly income is $500. I just spent $130 of that on the newly released Dylan Basement Tapes. My daddy thinks I’m no good with money.

They haven’t arrived yet so I’ve been listening to the bootleg of those 6 CDs I bought in ‘93 in NYC. One thing now occurs to me—this is boy music. It’s like a frat party of geniuses. It’s a lot of fun to be invited.

My friend in NYC and I were discussing the relative merits of the 2CD release vs. the 6CD box.  How many times do you have to hear 3 takes of “Open the Door Homer” (wherein Homer’s name is Richard)?? I explained my sense that the 2CD set is the trailer, and a damn fine one, and the 6CD set is the documentary. (I didn’t mention I already have 3 copies of 3 takes of “Open the Door Homer.”)

I’m not a fanatic nor a cultist—it just seemed obvious to me get the box. Also I was stoned when I ordered it. My daddy thinks I’m not good with money.

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Estrellita’s Last Quartet

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Carmelita (AKA Natalie) Suzanne Estrellita died last Friday.  She was 60 years old.

The transgender rhymer  was a world-class wit who realized, per Oscar Wilde, “those who see any difference between soul and body have neither.” Like Wilde, Estrellita got off some of her best shots in conversation, but many of them made it into lyrics she published in “First of the Month/Year”:  “anguish as a second language”…”loss is more”…”Am are I?”…”knee-jerk heart”…”jerk de soleil”….”you don’t know me from ishmael/I don’t know you from dick…”

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Institutional Memories

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Honorable Discharges at the Dementia Center

don’t part your lips on the dementia ward
unless you want to be crammed full of puree
you’re in the company of mostly angels
who’ve already made it past their judgment day

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Me and Petrarch

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my love’s way beyond unrequited
I need a new word now
to describe the yearning of yearning for someone
I’ve never even found

me and Petrarch
sitting in a tree
he’s gonna be married
long before me

Estrellita’s is a world-class wit but her stuff is more than clever. It’s deep too. And it’s getting deeper. Dig Estrellita’s new stretchy collection of lyrics which starts with a Rolling Stones tribute and ends on “Petrarch’s Ark.”

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Starlet Letter

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Estrellita still ain’t got no band but her new (virtual) album drops the same month as Leonard Cohen’s who’s one of her heroes. She composed about half the lyrics here in a hot rush last New Year’s eve/day, which calls to mind a story Cohen once told about Bob Dylan:

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Knee-jerk Heart

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Carmelita Estrellita (AKA Natalie Estrellita) is a longtime contributor to First of the Month. Fired up by late stylings of Leonard Cohen (among other personal heroes) ourFirst lyricist has been especially inspired lately. Check these new testaments to Estrellita’s wit and the beat of her “knee-jerk heart.”

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