Flames Pour Upwards

Fire, or at least flames, seems to operate in the opposite fashion to gravity.  The flames run like water, pouring over, “licking” the wood, pulled by another, higher power, off into the air, until they disappear.   The wood, the coals, fall of course, with a crack and thud, down into the pile of glowing embers, like any other object.  But the flames pour upward, reaching from below up to the highest point flammable and, fuelled, run onwards.  Heat rises.  Flames rise.  Something else, some substance, must be falling in precisely equal measure to what’s heading upward.  Flames only appear to have substance.  They are the traces of substance disappearing.  

I’m sitting in front of a fire and I notice that it is rarely “just right.”  It’s burning away now but I’m inclined to make it hotter, brighter.   There’s a wicker basket in front of the fire, and I’m conscious of containing what I build.  It’s a temporal experiment is controlled destruction; where as a fish tank, say, is a controlled experiment in preservation.  You can go stare closely at a fish tank and it will be entertaining.   A fire is as well, but if you don’t feed it, much more regularly than one might sprinkle fish flakes, it will burn itself out.  You’ll excuse me.  I need to put more wood on.

My musical appetite is also a commanding furnace.  Technology keeps opening new means of consuming ever more music.  But the medium is regularly interrupted.  I still have LPs, I still have CDs, I still have mp3s but we move on from the means to play such things, when online music is ubiquitous.  And when veritable ubiquity is interrupted, as mine was during the recent Rdio acquisition, you can limp along for weeks with out new fuel, and “old” music, no matter how vast the library, feels limiting.    

Last night I used my VPN to land in Colorado so I could meet the US requirements to sign up for Spotify.  I’d tried before but was generally sent to their Swedish site due to local licensing law.  I reviewed a number of alternatives, but none had the jazz collection of Rdio.  Spotify seems to.   I haven’t figured out how to download albums to my phone but apparently its doable.  The main bummer is the “share” button.  Rather than helping me to find out who else is using the software, I am prompted to sign in to Facebook.  I don’t have a Facebook account.  I don’t want a Facebook account.    No other choices?   If your union with the behemoth is that singular, why don’t they just buy you?  This will probably be next.