Running After My Hat

Midweek Music Break: Mandolin Orange, “Boots of Spanish Leather”

February 18, 2015 by John 2 Comments

You won’t find a lot online about Mandolin Orange at the moment. They’ve got a Facebook page, more or less up to date — ditto a Twitter feed, a YouTube page, and so on — but their Web site appears to be almost 100% under construction. Only their upcoming tour dates are listed there, with a promise of more “coming soon.”

I have found some few features about the duo elsewhere, however. From them, I’ve gleaned that Andrew Marlin (who, yes, started as a mandolinist) and Emily Frantz have so far released three CDs, most recently (2013) This Side Of Jordan, and including a double album — one CD with the two of them and a band, and one CD with just the two of them. For more information, see these sites:

The Bluegrass Situation (November, 2013): “Artist of the Month”
Folk Alley (NPR, also November 2013): little summary, video of their “Waltz About Whiskey”
No Depression (September, 2014): A Potpourri of Musical Styles

For myself, I came upon them entirely by accident, while sort of browsing through recent YouTube music videos. I’m not sure, but believe that this one just showed up at one point in YouTube’s “Up Next” sidebar.

As for the song: “Boots of Spanish Leather” may not have been a bestselling single for Bob Dylan, but — released on his own 1964 The Times They Are A-Changin’ album — it did absolutely nothing to hurt his growing reputation as a songwriter. Wikipedia quotes one reviewer, calling it “a restless, forlorn ballad for the ages and sages — a classic Dylan tale of two lovers, a crossroads, and the open sea.” Its lyrics were even included in the fifth (2005 and still current) edition of the Norton Anthology of Poetry.

Mandolin Orange performs the song in a way which seems utterly natural: as a duet, alternating verses and voices until the woman in the song falls silent. (At this point, Frantz switches from plucking her violin to to bowing it.) Their rendition haunts, right down to the not-quite-bitterly-sarcastic last line.

[Lyrics]

Book Review: The Magicians, by Lev Grossman

February 16, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

I don’t know the process whereby Lev Grossman came to write the first of his trilogy, but I can imagine its developing something like this…

The germ of the story would be a what-if question an author might ask of himself, a rather involved question along these lines:

Stories centered around magic and fantasy lands are all so damned full of wonder: of the characters’ (sometimes just the reader’s) slack-jawed omigosh-so-utterly-amazing appreciation of the miraculous. Suppose such a book, with such a subject and setting, was populated instead by realistic, no, by out-and-out cynical characters: characters bored of magic, characters who sneer at the course of their lives which has led them to magic, characters — no matter how magically talented — who often out-and-out hate magic and refuse to use it? What would such a book be like? Hmm. Let me see…

The most direct route to an answer would start with the age of cynicism, “age” in the sense of both an historical era and a time of individual human lifespan. It would start, in short, with 21st-century American teenagers — even better, perhaps, teenagers from New York City (and specifically, best of all, from finger-snapping nasal-voweled Brooklyn).

—

[Read more…]

The Door Open, the Light Tentative, the Compass Uncertain

February 13, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: a colony of chinstrap penguins in the bowl of Mount Michael — an active volcano in Antarctica. Photo by Sebastião Salgado, from his spectacular book Genesis. “These landscapes are as alive as I am,” Salgado has said. “One day I was walking around rocks near a volcano that were one day old. They had just become solid.”]

From whiskey river:

The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.

(Clarissa Pinkola Estes [source])

…and:

Mind Wanting More

Only a beige slat of sun
above the horizon, like a shade pulled
not quite down. Otherwise,
clouds. Sea rippled here and
there. Birds reluctant to fly.
The mind wants a shaft of sun to
stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch sea to sky
with its barred wings, some dramatic
music: a symphony, perhaps
a Chinese gong.

But the mind always
wants more than it has —
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses — as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren’t enough,
as if joy weren’t strewn all around.

(Holly Hughes [source])

…and:

The wind of longing blows to your right, from the orange groves, and to your left, from the sea salt. A fog, approaching the chambers of your heart from the north, makes it difficult for memory to distinguish what is private from what is public. You fear for the present stifled by the hegemony of the past and fear for the past from the absurdity of the present. You do not know where to stand at this crossroads. Are you what you were, or what you are now? You fear you will forget tomorrow while mired in the question: In which time do I live?

(Mahmoud Darwish [source])

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The Gravity of the Unknown

February 6, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

'Remarkable things, passing,' by user PhotoGraham on Flickr

[Image: “Remarkable things, passing,” by user PhotoGraham on Flickr.com. (Used under a Creative Commons license.) See the note at the foot of this post for more information.]

From whiskey river:

Think of how little has been salvaged from the compost of time, of the hundreds of billions of dreams dreamt since the language to describe them emerged, how few names, how few wishes, how few languages even, how we don’t know what tongues the people who erected the standing stones of Britain and Ireland spoke or what the stones meant, don’t know much of the language of the Gabrielanos of Los Angeles or the Miwoks of Marin, don’t know how or why they drew the giant pictures on the desert floor in Nazca, Peru, don’t know much even about Shakespeare or Li Po. It is as though we make the exception the rule, believe that we should have rather than that we will generally lose. We should be able to find our way back again by the objects we dropped, like Hansel and Gretel in the forest, the objects reeling us back in time, undoing each loss, a road back from lost eyeglasses to lost toys and baby teeth. Instead, most of the objects form the secret constellations of our irrecoverable past, returning only in dreams where nothing but the dreamer is lost. They must still exist somewhere: pocket knives and plastic horses don’t exactly compost, but who knows where they go in the great drifts of objects sifting through our world?

(Rebecca Solnit [source])

…and:

Abraham Joshua Heschel, a very interesting rabbi and mystic, said he didn’t pray for faith; he prayed for wonder.

That is also my prayer. Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table; a tiny fleck of it stops time. My periodic table of the heart also has many other elements, still unidentified by science. One of them is unattainium. That’s the one that continues to drive us forward whether or not we expect to succeed.

(Diane Ackerman [source])

…and:

Balance

I watched the arctic landscape from above
and thought of nothing, lovely nothing.
I observed white canopies of clouds, vast
expanses where no wolf tracks could be found.

I thought about you and about the emptiness
that can promise one thing only: plenitude —
and that a certain sort of snowy wasteland
bursts from a surfeit of happiness.

As we drew closer to our landing,
the vulnerable earth emerged among the clouds,
comic gardens forgotten by their owners,
pale grass plagued by winter and the wind.

I put my book down and for an instant felt
a perfect balance between waking and dreams.
But when the plane touched concrete, then
assiduously circled the airport’s labyrinth,

I once again knew nothing. The darkness
of daily wanderings resumed, the day’s sweet darkness,
the darkness of the voice that counts and measures,
remembers and forgets.

(Adam Zagajewski [source])

[Read more…]

Crossings

January 30, 2015 by John 2 Comments

[Image: “The Other Side,” by Gisela Giardino on Flickr. (Click image to enlarge.)
Used under a Creative Commons license.]

From whiskey river:

Happiness

A state you must dare not enter
with hopes of staying,
quicksand in the marshes, and all

the roads leading to a castle
that doesn’t exist.
But there it is, as promised,

with its perfect bridge above
the crocodiles,
and its doors forever open.

(Stephen Dunn [source])

…and:

The fierce poet of the Middle Ages wrote, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” over the gates of the lower world. The emancipated poets of today have written it over the gates of this world. But if we are to understand the story which follows, we must erase that apocalyptic writing, if only for an hour. We must recreate the faith of our fathers, if only as an artistic atmosphere. If, then, you are a pessimist, in reading this story, forego for a little the pleasures of pessimism. Dream for one mad moment that the grass is green. Unlearn that sinister learning that you think is so clear, deny that deadly knowledge that you think you know. Surrender the very flower of your culture, give up the very jewel of your pride, abandon hopelessness, all ye who enter here.

(G. K. Chesterton [source])

…and:

Gone

It’s that, when I’m gone,
(and right off this is tricky)
I won’t be worried
about being gone.
I won’t be here
to miss anything.
I want now, sure,
all I’ve been gathering
since I was born,
but later
when I no longer have it,
(which might be
a state everlasting, who knows?)
this moment right now
(stand closer, love,
you can’t be too close),
is not a thing I’ll know to miss.
I doubt I’ll miss it.
I can’t get over this.

(Lia Purpura [source])

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Midweek Music Break: Gary Moore, “Still Got the Blues (For You)”

January 28, 2015 by John 3 Comments

[Lyrics]

Like many — maybe most — Americans with an interest in music (blues or otherwise), I know very little about the Northern Irish singer-songwriter-guitarist Gary Moore. The little I do know about him and his music, I’ve picked up after he died of a heart attack, at age 58, in 2011.

But he apparently was very well-known in Europe, especially among musicians. Wikipedia:

In a career dating back to the 1960s, Moore played with musicians including Phil Lynott and Brian Downey during his teens, leading him to memberships with the Irish bands Skid Row and Thin Lizzy, and British Band Colosseum II. Moore shared the stage with such blues and rock musicians as B.B. King, Albert King, Jack Bruce, Albert Collins, George Harrison and Greg Lake, as well as having a successful solo career. He guested on a number of albums recorded by high-profile musicians.

This single, from the 1990 album of the same name, was his best-selling release in the US, at number… [heavy thud] 83 on the Billboard 200 list. In contrast, it went gold or platinum throughout Europe (especially Sweden, where it rated a double-platinum designation).

On the way into work today, The Missus and I were talking about the knack of American Idol (and similar competitions) for unearthing outstanding musical performers — whether we’ll buy their music or not — from non-musical fields. We think about the people we’ve known who work in shops or blue-collar jobs but bring fairly sophisticated listeners to their feet, or to tears of appreciation, in karaoke bars and church choirs. It’s a little sad, in a way, to think about all the hidden talent that doesn’t make it as professional musicians (or artists, writers, and so on, for that matter).

But it’s another sort of sadness — and another level of it — to think of all those who made their way as musicians, whose music we’d love… if we’d only heard it while they were alive.

Gary Moore: now there’s a name I want to hang onto.

Enough

January 23, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

Illustration by George Herriman, for Don Marquis's 'archy and mehitabel'

[Image: illustration by George Herriman, for Don Marquis’s archy and mehitabel. And let’s change things up this week by starting with a song, because wotthehell archy wotthehell… Click Play button to begin The Only Joy In Town. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 5:13 long.]
(Lyrics here.)

[audio:theonlyjoyintown_jonimitchell.mp3|titles=’The Only Joy In Town’|artists=Joni Mitchell]

From whiskey river:

I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional wish to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us.

(Rachel Naomi Remen [source])

…and:

working it out
(excerpt)

once in a dream I saw a snake swallowing its own
tail, it swallowed and swallowed until
it got halfway round, and there it stopped and
there it stayed, it was stuffed with its own
self. some fix, that.
we only have ourselves to go on, and it’s
enough

(Charles Bukowski [source])

[Read more…]

Midweek Music Break: The Doobie Brothers, “Black Water”

January 21, 2015 by John 9 Comments

[Image: cover of The Doobie Brothers’ 1973 album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits. (Click to enlarge.)]

A few days ago, as I walked through the living room, The Weather Channel was on TV. The Missus asked, “Have you seen the weather? In the Philadelphia area, I mean? Black ice.” Preoccupied, I said, “Jeez,” and shook my head, and kept on going. But the damage had been done: the phrase had set a hook in my head, where — of course! — it immediately triggered a skein of associations.

I know, I know — “black ice” simply describes the appearance of the ice, not the ice per se. I know, okay? Black ice does not come from black water.

But that’s where my mind went. And then the mental needle jumped into this song’s groove, where it has stayed.

And did I mention, this was days ago?

—

When The Doobie Brothers first started to record, I had no idea who they were. In fact, I didn’t pay much attention to them at all until ten years later, when they churned out a string of hit singles with Michael McDonald on vocals.

I did like McDonald’s distinctive voice. Plus, practically every woman I knew thought he was the bee’s knees. It had something to do with the white hair (which, sadly, never earned me any groupies of my own).

All of which said, I did know this song. McDonald wasn’t with them yet, but even allowing for the absence of his voice I’d never have guessed it to be the same band. This piece just sort of choogles loosely along, in a softer Creedence Clearwater Revival vein vs. the later “blue-eyed soul” stuff.

And the suddenly a capella refrain, repeated over and over down towards the end, sticks utterly in the head — days, years, decades later…

The album on which it appeared (pictured above) — the Doobies’ third — seems these days to be widely dismissed: not particularly interesting. But “Black Water” was the band’s first #1 hit, and I’ve never heard or read anything to suggest it shouldn’t have been.

Songwriter Patrick Simmons, says Wikipedia, was inspired by New Orleans to write the song:

A lifelong aficionado of Delta blues, Simmons would state: “When I got down there [to New Orleans] it was everything I had hoped it would be… The way of life and vibe really connected with me and the roots of my music.” Having earlier constructed the song’s basic guitar lick, he completed “Black Water” on the basis of the experience of his introduction to New Orleans: the lyrics Well if it rains, I don’t care — Don’t make no difference to me/Just take that street car that’s goin’ uptown specifically reference a streetcar journey Simmons made on a rainy day to the Garden District in Uptown New Orleans to do his laundry.

An alternate theory batted about on the theory-rich Internet asserts that the song pays tribute specifically to Mark Twain, specifically to Huckleberry Finn — sometimes adding that the novel is one of Simmons’s favorites. Romantic, hmm? And convenient. Thanks, Internet, but I’m stickin’ with the rainy-day laundry version. (See the note below for more about Simmons.)

Interestingly, “Black Water” was not at first released as a single, but as the “B” side of a song called “Another Park, Another Sunday.” According to one of the original Doobies, Tom Johnston, airplay of “Another Park” suffered because of a line which said, “Radio brings me down” — leading DJs, out of loyalty to their medium, to simply flip the record over and play the B side instead. This strikes me as (again) convenient, marginally believable 20/20 hindsight, as folklore, almost. I don’t think the song needs any external excuses for its popularity; once played, it almost demands replay. All the ingredients are right there, stuffed inside: a lyric which, while not particularly complex, fits with precision into the melody and the complex, shuffling rhythm; that a capella touch, apparently improvised in the studio; and a couple of kicking solos, especially on the violin.

[Below, click Play button to begin Black Water. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 4:15 long.]

[audio:blackwater_doobiebrothers.mp3|titles=’Black Water’|artists=Doobie Brothers]

[Lyrics]

________________________

Note: “Black Water’s” lyrics were used as a sort of pegboard wall on which those of another band’s other, later, and very different song were hung: 2009’s “I Got You,” by Train:

[Lyrics]

The Doobies’ Patrick Simmons thus received partial songwriting credit for “I Got You,” too.

[back]

Une Moment

January 16, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika” (full title: Negerknaben in der Brandung des Tahganyikasees, or “Boys in the Surf at Lake Tanganyika”) by Martin Munkácsi (ca. 1930). This picture crystallized for photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson all the elements of what became famous as his insistence that photography capture a “decisive moment.” See Cartier-Bresson’s quote about it, below.]

From whiskey river:

There are such moments in life: one unexpectedly discovers that perfection exists, that it, too, is a tiny sphere traveling in time, empty, transparent, luminous, and which sometimes (rarely) comes in our direction and encircles us for a few brief moments before traveling on to other parts and other people.

(José Saramago [source])

…and:

Horses

From the window I saw the horses.

I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
was without light, the sky without sky.

The air white like wet bread.

And from my window a vacant arena,
bitten by the teeth of winter.

Suddenly led by a man,
ten horses stepped out into the mist.

Hardly had they surged forth, like flame,
than to my eyes they filled the whole world,
empty till then. Perfect, ablaze,
they were like ten gods with pure white hoofs,
with manes like a dream of salt.

Their rumps were worlds and oranges.

Their color was honey, amber, fire.

Their necks were towers
cut from the stone of pride,
and behind their transparent eyes
energy raged, like a prisoner.

And there, in the silence, in the middle
of the day, of the dark, slovenly winter,
the intense horses were the blood
and rhythm, the animating treasure of life.

I looked. I looked and was reborn: without knowing it,
there, was the fountain, the dance of gold, the sky,
the fire that revived in beauty.

I have forgotten that dark Berlin winter.

I will not forget the light of the horses.

(Pablo Neruda [source])

…and:

But being is making; not only large things, a family, a book, a business; but the shape we give this afternoon, a conversation between friends, a meal.

(Frank Bidart [source])

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Not Grasping, Only Groping Towards

January 9, 2015 by John Leave a Comment

[Image: “The Amityville Handheld,” by user v1ctory_1s_m1ne on Flickr. (Used under a Creative Commons license; click to enlarge.) This seemed to me to embody the spirit of today’s theme, without explicitly stating it: it gropes in the right direction.]

From whiskey river:

What We Want

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

(Linda Pastan [source])

…and:

We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if the beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarls to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skein, or indeed, if we may be permitted one more stock phrase, in the skein of life.

(José Saramago [source])

…and:

But if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow, everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn’t it?

(Haruki Murakami [source])

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