"Distaccati" is a rollicking and literary adventure complete with rustic guitars, blaring trombones and a driving rhythm section.
Todd Portnowitz - vocals/guitar, Brian Bo - bass, Adam Burguet - drums/percussion, Nick Hill - guitar/vocals, Cristian Duran - trombone/organ/piano, Jay Godwin - guest vocals
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With Walt Whitman as his Virgil, singer/songwriter, Todd Portnowitz embarks on a journey through the cosmos, resembling Dante's descent into hell. Out in the depths of space, where the "black current rolls like a centipede's feet" and the stars are "golden silk spiders, floating on the sea," Whitman gives Mr. Portnowitz a tour of the grand nowhere.
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I found a telescope, put my eye to the lens,
and there I was, in a dark that doesn’t end,
and I was sitting on a star as on a beach,
watching the black current roll like a centipede’s feet,
watching the golden silk spiders float on the sea—
Walt Whitman laid his blanket next to me
and said, “The more you know the smaller you grow,
You may remain fat and sane
or follow me.”
We swam from nowhere to nowhere until finally Whitman stopped,
and, pointing to nowhere, he said, “There, that spot,
that’s Job in a heap of dark matter.”
And Job was shouting, “God’s not a green cloth hanky on a silver platter,
or a parking space, or an empty bladder,
and you won’t reach him from your step ladder.”
Then Whitman lit a match and Job’s face blew like a horn
“Darkness, darkness, darkness, curse the day that I was born!”
So I blew the flame out and dove head first into a black hole,
and time came crawling after me like a paralytic mole.
I landed, like a screw unscrewed, on the other side,
in the middle of a boxing match, a bare-knuckle fight
between Castor and Pollux, when one accidentally punched me in the mouth.
I fell flat and my consciousness went out.
Next thing I’m on a spiral staircase going round and round—
without knowing if I’m going up or down—
until I reach the bottom or the top, and there appears
the Unmoved Mover, laughing to tears,
and, pointing a camera, he says, “I don’t have a s_c_r_i_p_t,
so I want you to act terrified but tranquil—pretend you’re on a ship
that’s going down, you know your life is going to end,
and count up from one to ten.
We’ll put the words in your mouth later”
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