approaching the last rest stop before we go north

Mike

2009-08-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

The New Lost City Ramblers

40 Years of Concert Recordings

Rounder 821 610 481-2

John Cohen (vocals, mandolin, guitar, kazoo, banjo, banjo-guitar, triangle), Mike Seeger (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, banjo-mandolin, banjo, autoharp, mouth harp, jaw harp), Tom Paley (vocals, guitar, banjo, kazoo), Tracy Schwartz (vocals, fiddle, guitar, button accordion)

Soldier’s Joy /Down in the Willow Garden/Brown’s Ferry Blues /Too Tight Rag /Little Birdie/Darling Corey /The Democratic Donkey (is In His Stall Again) /Poor Ellen Smith/On Some Foggy Mountain Top/Cackling Hen/The Battleship Maine/Worried Man Blues/The Unquiet Grave/Lady of Carlisle/Groundhog/Orange Blossom Special/East Virginia Blues/Country Blues/Little Maggie/The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake/Keep Movin’/Fortune/She Tickles Me/The Arkansas Traveler/Saddle Up the Grey/Sally Goodin’/The Old Bell Cow/It’s Hard to Leave You, Sweet Love/Dark Holler Blues/Locks and Bolts/Wildwood Weed/Milk ‘Em in the Evening Blues/Madeline/Sourwood Mountain/Black Bottom Strut/Jordan Is a Hard Road to Travel/The Old Man at the Mill/Tom Sherman’s Bar Room/Turkey in the Straw (intro.)/Turkey in the Straw/Old Joe Clark/Rabbit Chase/Poor Old Dirt Farmer/Tennessee Blues/Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar/I’ve Always Been a Rambler/Baltimore Fire/Three Men Went A-Hunting

“Reagents for Organic Synthesis” by Louis and Mary Feiser is a twenty-volume work found in the personal libraries of most practicing Organic chemists. Unlike a textbook or an encyclopedia, it is an essential reference, a compendium of past and present knowledge of the field as perceived by two eminent scientists. Simultaneously instructive and inspirational, it provides a portal to the universal corpus of chemical knowledge known as “the literature”. By analogy, the personal libraries of old-time music enthusiasts should include the two CD set “The New Lost City Ramblers: Forty Years of Concert Performances”.

The history of the NLCR is well known to readers of the OTH. Notable accomplishments include re-introducing urban mid-20^th century American society to its rural cultural antecedents and sowing the seeds that blossomed into a still vibrant subculture. Perhaps more importantly, along with Bascom Lamar Lunsford and Pete Seeger, they collectively and individually defined the role of a practicing vernacular musician-folklorist who operates outside of academia. The NLCRs’ deflation of academic ethno-musicological pomposity with excruciating puns, controlled silliness, and sparkling, authentic old-time musicianship motivated a multi-generational urban audience to personalize and re-invigorate traditional rural culture. Although the NLCRs’ penetration into mainstream consciousness was minimal at most, the band and its audience influenced the nature of mainstream culture with a very distinct stage whisper. But most importantly, the NLCR were and remain one hot little band, as evidenced by this outstanding collection.

This recording is a generous forty-eight cut retrospective of the Ramblers’ live performance career, ranging from a radio dub of “Soldier’s Joy” recorded in 1958 to “retrograss” experiments with Bill Monroe’s “Tennessee Blues” recorded in 1999. NLCR archivist Mike Seeger provided most of the material, which was assembled into the present collection by Jon Pankake in collaboration with the Ramblers. The intent was to create a program that conveyed the unique, joyous feel of a NLCR concert as well as to make available alternate takes and new live material. The entire breadth of the NLCR repertoire is covered. Examples of classic string band re-creations, solo ballad singing, Cajun music, jug-band blues, re-interpretation of material from cornerstone performers of traditional music such as Dock Boggs, early commercial country music, and newly-composed songs in traditional styles are spiced with trademark near-surrealistic humor concerning the travails of rural life in and around the imaginary hamlet of New Lost City. Most of the selections are intensely vocal-driven. The raw energy of the earlier live performances is captured and enhanced by the primitive recording techniques. Occasional ensemble raggedness contributes to the feeling of immediacy and excitement. The differences in musical approach shown by the original ensemble that included Mr Paley and the current line-up that includes Mr Schwartz are clearly discernible. The maturation of the Ramblers as a musical unit and the growth of their interpretative powers are fascinating to witness. Sixteen tracks are previously unreleased. A veritable treasure-trove is presented!

Since the previously released tracks (some appearing on the 1978 Flying Fish 2-LP set, "20 Years: Concert Performances") may be familiar to OTH readers, this reviewer chooses to highlight some of the newly released material. A performance recorded at Symphony Space (NYC) in 1995 (“Turkey in the Straw”, “Old Joe Clark”, “Rabbit Chase”, “Poor Old Dirt Farmer”, “Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar”, “I’ve Always Been a Rambler”, “Three Men Went A-Hunting”) is one of the gems of the collection. The Ramblers are at the apex of their powers as interpreters of traditional music. Mike Seeger demonstrates how the lowly jaw harp can be used to deliver a virtuoso performance of “Turkey in the Straw” with a tongue-knotting patter-song vocal alternating seamlessly with the jaw harp’s metallic boinnnng. “Poor Old Dirt Farmer”, composed and performed by Tracy Schwartz, is a stark lament accompanied by an ominously droning DDAD-tuned fiddle. The song is indistinguishable from traditional material, and the presentation is a testament to Mr Schwartz’s uncanny skill at assimilating diverse traditional musical genres. Two interesting performances come from a 1972 concert at NYU. The Uncle Dave Macon chestnut “Jordan is a Hard Road to Travel” is given a supercharged full-band reading that threatens to flatten the audience, not unlike the aggressive approach taken by post-modern old-time bands such as the Old Crow Medicine Show. Tom Ashley’s “The Old Man at the Mill” receives a deep, mysterious reading, as belies the enigmatic nature of the text. An unusual selection was unearthed from a 1963 performance at Knox College (IL): “Orange Blossom Special” is given a good time, non fiddle-indulgent “train blues” treatment, complete with a running commentary on the Doppler effect. OTH readers who truly hate OBS should give this a listen! Outstanding among the previously-issued material is the side-splitting, rapid-fire “Arkansas Traveler” routine, which should take its place in the pantheon of word-play inhabited by Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?”

Many of the recordings were not made on professional equipment, and a progression of sound quality from earlier to later performances is evident. This in no way interferes with the enjoyment of this release. A carefully annotated booklet is included containing full source, personnel, and recording details for each cut. Striking band portraits and an illuminating essay by veteran folk music commentator Jon Pankake round out the packaging. Also included are an extensive bibliography, filmography, and discography of Messrs Cohen, Paley, Seeger, and Schwartz, as well as references to important documentary musical collections produced by them. “40 Years of Concert Recordings” is, in this reviewer’s opinion, marvelously entertaining and absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in traditional American music. I cannot recommend it more highly.

Steve Senderoff

Beer, Humanity, and other Universal Considerations

2009-03-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

Recently, a woman was mauled by a 200 pound chimpanzee. She was, and still is very close to death, and probably nothing more can be done for her. The chimpanzee was a lifelong pet of an acquaintance of the victim. It was raised as a human child in a misguided attempt to produce a non-human surrogate for companionship. Even though the owner and the chimpanzee bathed and ate together, the chimpanzee's genetically encoded instincts remained intact. The animal did not respond well to Xanax. He tore the victim's face off. Apparently, she had changed her hairstyle.

The animal's behavior is perfectly explainable. But it is not explainable to people who tend to anthropomorphise and "own" non-domesticated animals. Domesticated animals that have been integrated into human society are the result of countless generations of selection for physical and behavioral traits. If they weren't, my cat will probably bite my head off when I ask him not to sit on my computer keyboard. This unfortunate incident, which resulted unnecessarily in the maiming of a human and the death of a chimpanzee, proves my arguments concerning the corrosive effects of Disney movies upon American society.

How do we define "human"? Is it the ability to engage in meaningless violence? I am not sure I share the opinion that the violence exhibited by the chimpanzee is analogous to human violence. I am sure the chimpanzee thought he had a good reason to rip a woman's face off, unlike our former president's cynical perpetration of violence upon the Iraqi people. Is it the ability to use tools? Chimpanzees have been observed to use tools. Is it the ability to create natural language? I do not think we know enough about the details of animal communication to make a determination either way. Is it the ability to create formal language? I do not (thankfully) know of any animal-developed programming languages or technical jargon such as the word "chemoselective", which is a neologism that truly stinks to the ear. Is it the ability to create and manipulate religion? Certainly, my cat's ritual behavior appears to be a religious mimetic. The above "human" characteristics give an equivocal measure of humanity at best.

I believe the human species can be unequivocally and accurately defined by its unique ability (among all other species) to produce beer. Indeed, the intentional combination of a carbohydrate source, water, yeast, and flavorings in the presence of a container meant for storage of the resulting product is an exclusively human endeavor.

Da Financial "Industry"

2009-01-29T13:21:00.000-08:00

It seems that JP MorganChase made some highly leveraged investment products (derivatives) available for purchase to institutional investors. Below is an excerpt from the corresponding story appearing today in the New York Times.

I'm going to annotate it as though I am having a conversation with my grandfather. Grandpa Harry was one of the most lovable members of my family. Interestingly, he controlled the laundry rackets in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan with an iron fist from the 1920s until his "retirement" in the late 1950s. Let us just leave it at that, and see what Grandpa Harry would have to say:

From New York Times:
Leveraged notes issued by big banks like JPMorgan Chase (Stevie, never trust a bank unless they are, how do I say this, like us.) and Nomura became conduits through which fresh money flowed from institutional investors' hands into the Fairfield Sentry and the euro-based Fairfield Sigma funds, both run by the Fairfield Greenwich Group — and, in turn, into Mr. Madoff’s hands. (Stevie, Mark my words, this guy sounds like a shyster... He's getting laundered money.) The arrangement worked like this: Investors put up cash to buy the notes from the bank. In return, the bank promised to pay them up to three times the future earnings of the Fairfield funds (Stevie, this is too good to be true. When I loan money, the vig about 50%.) When the notes matured in five years, assuming the funds did well, these investors would get more than if they had invested in the funds directly. The bank collected just under 2 percent in fees, investors said. (Stevie, those Morgan guys must have their hands wet, too. How else could they hedge their bets?) And because the bank had to hedge its entire risk, it put up to three times the face amount of the notes into the Fairfield funds. (I told you, Stevie, and I bet you they will dump their position and not tell the other guys when things get meshugge!) Thus, Fairfield Greenwich got more cash to manage than it otherwise would have, increasing its own fee income. (Stevie, that's called a sweetheart deal!) To reward note-holders for making that possible, Fairfield paid them a so-called rebate of a fifth to a third of a percentage point a year. (Stevie, that's called a kickback!) ...Stevie, did they take your money? Well, don't worry, Grandpa Harry will set everything straight! I'll be back in about an hour.

If the legal investment world operates like that, I wonder what Grandpa Harry did to set everything right in this imaginary discourse. I'm glad I wasn't there.

Teachers

2009-01-27T08:57:00.000-08:00

Most of my teachers were forgettable at best, and obstacles at worst. The exceptions were a high school English teacher who taught me to write, a speech therapist who taught me to speak, a chemist/research director who taught me to think, and a number of musicians who taught me everything else.

Here's a great teacher. An appreciation by David N. Adamson, BW ‘73, a fellow student.

ALAN P. SQUIRE

Alan Squire first entered the third floor clarinet studio of the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music in 1950 as Professor of Clarinet. A student of the legendary Daniel Bonade, he would remain in this position for the next 43 years, retiring in 1993.

Alan taught all the clarinet majors, the clarinet method classes and area high school students who shared his love for the instrument. He performed with the BW Faculty Woodwind Quintet, The Ohio Chamber Orchestra, the Blossom Festival Band, and the Lakewood Hometown Band, being as adept as a performer as he was a teacher. He also conducted the BW Concert Band and taught Music History when the need arose as well as directed BW’s Clarinet Choir, a true joy for him.

In the 1950’s the legendary conductor George Szell drove to BW seeking a new principal clarinetist for the Cleveland Orchestra. Mr. Szell knocked on Alan Squire’s studio door and asked him to fulfill this need with no audition. Alan declined the maestro’s offer as teaching was his first love and, in his own unique way added, “I have nothing to prove to anyone”. If this sounds a little arrogant, you have to have known Alan for he was the epitome of self-confidence and is it arrogance when one is factual?

There were numerous pictures of bands and orchestras on the walls of the Alan’s studio, showing him sitting principal clarinet in every one! One of his students noted this and asked him, “Did you always sit first?” He replied with his customary ‘self-confidence’, “since the day I was born”!

As rich as his professional life was, his personal life was unfortunately marked with tragedy. His son was killed in the 1970’s and during the last years of his life, his daughter died followed by his wife, Mary. He soldiered onward; often performing at his church in Missouri, “sharing his musical gift so unselfishly” noted a church member who represented his adopted family during his final years.

Alan Squire was a unique teacher, a gifted musician and a person of high intellect. His legacy is assured for his talent and personality impacted all who heard him play and/or benefited from his teaching. There are over 1000 students who occupied his studio and they now perpetuate his spirit and love of the clarinet and music. Perhaps some of us even pass on a “lauba, lauba, lauba” or “cha, cha chi” as we vocalize a musical passage for a student. Ok, probably not, but we remember hearing such from Alan and if only we could hear him utter those syllables one more time…..

Thank you Dr. Squire. We miss you.

The Hollow Men

2009-01-26T17:54:00.000-08:00

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Images: Frances Reisman and Hubble Space
Music: Vincent Persichetti

Me and the Devil

2009-01-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

"Weeping Willow" (trad.)
Jesse Black, gtr & voc

My alter ego.

Last Entry of 2008

2008-12-27T14:36:00.000-08:00

Doors Close at About 200 Woolworths in Britain

Article Tools Sponsored By
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 27, 2008

Filed at 2:48 p.m. ET

LONDON (AP) -- About 200 Woolworths stores in Britain have shut their doors for good.

The stores that closed Saturday represent about a quarter of the company's shops. The rest of the stores are to close within about a week unless a last-minute buyer is found for the failed retailer. It filed for a form of bankruptcy protection last month.

About 27,000 people are expected to lose their jobs.

The company's current debt-laden predicament is a far cry from the clamor that greeted the first British store, which opened in Liverpool, northern England, in 1909 under the FW Woolworths brand -- a subsidiary of the U.S. company.

click here

2008 was a nightmare. I'm lucky I'm alive. I'm curious what 2009 has in store.

Music Education

2008-11-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

Public schools no longer support music education. How can they when half of the American people equate taxes and government with an assault on freedom?

My high school education in basic musicianship started a process that saved my life 35 years later.

Take a look at the photostory. Which kids do you want to see dead, and which teachers do you want to become mortgage brokers?

Our Town(2)/North(5)

2008-10-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

The Stage Manager's monologue, Act 3
Stage Manager: Paul Newman
Music: Romeo Cascarino
Images: All over the 'net

"Joe the Plumber"

2008-10-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

Seems like "Joe the Plumber" exists only at the strange Republican ideological intersection of high school student council politics and an infatuation with a 1950s television sitcom interpretation of suburbia that never existed. Why be a metaphor when you can be a maxiphore in a social hygiene film aimed at brain dead adolescents?

Hiatus

2008-10-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

Outer Banks with best friends in the world, new blood, new immune system. Stay tuned...

North (4)

2008-09-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Where is Spoon River (4)

2008-09-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you think too much...

click here first

Stephen, the Musician

Passers-by, reflect and consider...
The gods shall endow us with embryonic tools for our use
To assemble a life and a path.

For the carpenter, braces and shaving planes,
For the cobbler, the pegs and awl,
For the shopkeeper, ledgers and shelves.

For the banker, keen fingers and an eye for gain,
For the farmer, strength to wrest sustenance from barren prairie fields,
For the orator, a shiny tongue of Panglossian appeal.

For the artist, pigments and brushes,
For the poet, language, rhythm, and shades of meaning,

For the musician, dancing notes of color, depth and weight-
non-corporeal violins, piccolos, horns, and bassoons-
swirling in a cacophonous aerial ballet of unheard possibility.

These god-endowed tools shall reside in our heads!

But the tools of mere mortals,
perseverance, diligence, dedication and loyalty,
The tools that cause the quickening of hands-

These man-worshipped tools shall lurk in our hearts!

But I was born inexplicably with music in my heart-
And the tools of mere mortals residing incongruously in my head
Were confiscated by strangers wearing the selfish robes of...
Mentors!
Who with the certainty of the insular
Tried to compel my life and my path.

From the chemist, chalk and fire,
From the doctor, medicinal elixirs and omnipotence,
From the professor, inflexibility and infallibility,

From the lawyer, the precedent, the cruelly twisted logic-
the book, the whig, the obscured agenda-
the spectral comrade of mutual convenience.

I could no more deny the banshee-keen of their leaden demands
Nor dull my misplaced mortal tools of helpless compulsion
Than I could cut music from my heart!

So my hands and arms withered and disappeared,
In a weary bi-brachial waltz towards the Plain of Lethe.
Like sand eroded from the banks of Spoon River,
Washed in surrender to the Father of Waters.

Where Is Spoon River? (3)

2008-09-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

Click here

Receiving a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1998 re-ignited my quest for Spoon River. This time, I realized that I would have to use my knowledge of American literature and my skills as a musician and composer to bring Spoon River to life.

My long time neurologist and treasured friend suggested I write a series of art songs for her daughter, who is studying voice at the music conservatory of Gettysburg College. Since she's the matriarch of a family of accordionists, she specified that the accompaniment be written for the accordion with her son in mind as a performer. I immediately saw that this was an unprecedented but perfect compositional medium. Of course, my textual sources would be from Spoon River.

Much to my surprise, I found that in the nearly 100 years since the publication of "Spoon River Anthology", many musicians had tackled the daunting task of setting Masters' poetry to music. The work is written in an unusual synthesis of blank (free) verse, gravestone epitaph doggerel, mildly archaic Midwestern speech patterns, and artistic license. I had decided to use an amalgamation of the style associated with the masters of 20th-century Philadelphia art song composition (Curtis faculty members past and present including Samuel Barber, Giancarlo Menotti, Vincent Persichetti, Ned Rorem) and traditional American folk song. This approach allowed me to use polychordal harmonization and pandiatonicism in conjunction with simple melody lines. However, Masters' verse did not "scan" well for a smooth incorporation into a song. I was forced to make changes to Masters' words, but strictly maintained his intent and meaning. The natural expressiveness of the soprano voice coupled with the unusually wide range of emotional evocation possible with the accordion produced something, in my opinion, that is unique and mutually reinforcing.

"Spoon River Songs" (Senderoff, 2008) begins with a setting of "The Hill". This narrative poem is the introduction to "Spoon River Anthology". It is stated unequivocally that small town life was not idyllic. It could be horrific. The characters die as a result of wanton acts of cruelty, bad luck, overwork, and alcoholism. Although they are all sleeping, it is probably a troubled sleep. I have set the ominous drone of the accordion against a plaintive vocal melody that moves between loosely defined modal and minor tonalities. The overall mood is sad but resigned. Although I have set only the first verse (involving male characters), the second verse describing the tragedies of female characters could easily be set to the existing melody.

The second song is a setting of the epitaph of "Eugenia Todd". Ms. Todd impressed me as an irritating woman who would corner you at a party and pour out a litany of physical ailments that seem to be of equal importance, or the cause of her bedrock existential decompensations. Although she is essentially unbalanced, she is firmly in touch with her emotional needs and severely affected by disappointment and loss. I tried to illuminate these aspects of her personality by inappropriate use of traditional American Square dance tunes, dissonant polychords, and a mocking "oom-pah" rhythm in accompaniment. The vocal melody is humorously melismatic. It employs awkward rhythms characterized by hemiola, as well as a psychotic bit of Sprechstimme. A poignant central section highlights Ms. Todd's existential sadness.

The third and currently final song of the cycle is the epitaph of "Lucinda Matlock". Masters uses her as a vehicle to extol the virtues possessed by the original settlers of Spoon River: devotion to family, devotion to neighbors, acceptance of hard work as the pathway to accomplishment and happiness, as well as an unfettered joy in the simple pleasures of life. Masters saw these values disappearing during his lifetime, and many of the epitaphs scold the current inhabitants of Spoon River. Ms. Matlock met her husband playing "snap-all to Winchester", a partner-swapping game occurring at dances. They were happily married longer than most people live. During that time, she saw her share of joy and tragedy, but at 96, she had simply lived enough and moved eagerly to the next world. She berates the current inhabitants for expressing anger, sorrow, and weariness in their lives. "Life is too strong for you. It takes life to love life," she says. I have illustrated her love of dancing, child rearing, and constancy with a repetitive rocking figure similar to one used by Samuel Barber in "Knoxville Summer of 1915". Her melody resembles a lilting folk tune. Conflict and dissonance are absent from the accompaniment. The central section is a transcription of a traditional Kentucky fiddle tune called "Rose in the Mountain". I took liberties with the text of her song; I could not let such a wonderful woman refer to people as "degenerate sons and daughters", so I dropped the line.

If you have clicked at the proper place before reading this entry, you have heard one of the original cast members of "Spoon River Anthology" present the epitaph of "Lucinda Matlock". When I composed Ms. Matlock's song, I changed Masters' text as shown below:

Lucinda Matlock

I went to the dances at Chandlerville, and played snap out at Winchester,
One time we changed partners, driving home in the moonlight of middle June.
And then and then, and then, then, then!
I found Davey!

We were married and lived together for Seven, Seven, Seventy years!
Enjoying working raising twelve children
Eight of whom we lost ere I reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I nursed the sick, kept the house, nursed the sick-

But on holiday-

Ran over fields where sang the pretty larks, and by Spoon River gather'd many shells,
Flowers, flowers, medicinal weed,
Shouting to the wooded hills and valleys green!
Green!
Shouting! Singing! Singing! Shouting!

At ninety six, I had lived enough, That is all.

At ninety six, I had lived enough and passed, passed-
To a land of sweet repose

What's this I hear of sorrow and weariness?
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Life is too strong for you!
It takes life to love life!

Shouting! Singing! Singing! Loving!

Below is a MIDI rendition of the song; when I can get recordings of the concert I'll post them.

Click here

North (3)

2008-09-19T18:10:00.000-07:00

Where Is Spoon River? (2)

2008-09-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

click here first

I was born in Washington, DC in 1953, and grew up in suburban Cleveland, Ohio.

I pursued my education in Berea and Oberlin, Ohio, Interlochen, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Evanston, Chicago, Urbana, and Granite City, Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, and finally, Rochester, New York. I established myself in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and settled down with my wife in a suburb of Wilmington, Delaware.

Between 1972 and 1992, I lived in suburban homes, dormitories, crowded apartments, more or less co-operative group houses, a converted Motel 6, an ancient row house in a dead mill town, a basement, and in several instances, an automobile. I rarely lived more than a year and a half in the same place, considerably less in the automobile.

While such an odyssey is not unusual, I noticed something disconcerting. The communities in which I lived appeared to be interchangeable. Surprisingly, I began and ended my journey in what felt like exactly the same place. When people ask me where I am from, I jokingly reply, “anywhere and nowhere".

I found life to be soporific and repetitive in suburban Cleveland (Fairview Park, for God's sake!) by the time I was 13. In desperation, I retreated to fiction and poetry, mostly not age-appropriate. About this time, I discovered "Spoon River Anthology" (1915) by Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950). Although I was not aware of it, this volume of poetry was Masters' magnum opus, and one of the cornerstones of 20th-century American literature. The book held a cobra-like fascination for me, because the characters Masters created were speaking from the grave through epitaphs. I was enthralled by these characters; they had deep passions and strongly held opinions, they were unusually perceptive and tragically unaware, they were brutally honest and criminally deceptive. Most importantly, their lives all seemed to be intertwined inextricably within the unique, confining, small Midwestern town-of-another-time, Spoon River. Little did I know that the characters were inspired by Masters’ fellow townsfolk. Unlike me, they had roots.

My high school drama club presented the Broadway musical adaptation of "Spoon River Anthology" (Aidman, 1963) in 1970. I was selected to be the music director, and helped several

fellow students prepare and perform the music that accompanied the dramatic readings of Masters' poetry. This was an early life-changing experience for me. I learned that poetry read from a page in silence and isolation was flat and listless, but came to life with powerful immediacy

when spoken. I realized that "poetry" could become an emotionally shattering experience within a communal dramatic context. The inhabitants of Spoon River became more real to me than some of my classmates. Most importantly, I recognized that the main character of "Spoon River Anthology" was actually Spoon River itself. I had to find Spoon River. After I devoured Masters' "The New Spoon River" (1924), "Winesburg, Ohio" (Anderson, 1919), and attended several performances of "Our Town" (Wilder, 1938), my search for a physical as well as a metaphorical "Spoon River" became a lifelong obsession.

My initial search for Spoon River was a resounding failure. Obviously, I did not have sufficient knowledge of American history, sociology, nor the maturity to conduct a meaningful search. College and time would remedy those deficiencies. Much to my dismay, I learned that small town life in America began disappearing at the turn of the 20th century, and had completely vanished at least two decades before my birth. I was now living in Evanston, Illinois, only 216 miles northeast of Lewistown, Masters' home during adolescence. He would later model Spoon River on this town, as well as nearby Petersburg, his childhood home. As my feelings of loneliness and disconnection increased, my search became more desperate. I continued my education in Urbana, Illinois. Lewistown was now only 115 miles due west. I made the drive.

Lewistown was a shock. Although it was a small Illinois town, Lewistown appeared, in its salient features, indistinguishable from my home of adolescence! In desperation, I drove to Petersburg, only 35 miles away. I went to Oakland Cemetery and found Masters' grave.

My heart leapt as I read words I had memorized in high school:

Good friends, let’s to the fields...
After a little walk and by your pardon,
I think I’ll sleep, there is no sweeter thing.
Nor fate more blessed than to sleep.
-"Tomorrow is My Birthday" (1918)

I wandered through the cemetery. I saw names I recognized (Ann Rutledge), names I imagined I knew. A cursory exploration of Petersburg gave the same disappointing result as the exploration of Lewistown. If there was a Spoon River, it was long gone. My search for Spoon River was now entirely metaphorical and relegated to the back burner due to the sequential demands of graduate school, a postdoctoral appointment, the establishment of a career, and the settling of a life. Nevertheless, I re-read "Spoon River Anthology" every few years. I realized that Spoon River was a personal myth, located in my emotional and intellectual landscape.

Receiving a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1998 re-ignited my quest for Spoon River. This time, I realized that I would have to use my knowledge of American literature and my skills as a musician and composer to bring Spoon River to life.

Hiatus

2008-09-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the disappearing act...two weeks in the hospital gave me new blood plasma and a new immune system, thanks to ca. 15000 donors...

North (2)

2008-08-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

Extreme Bullshit

2008-08-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

This was the featured obit in the Times:

Barbara Warren, a champion endurance athlete in the over-60 age group, died in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Tuesday , three days after crashing during the bicycling portion of the Santa Barbara Triathlon. She was 65 and lived in San Diego.

Her twin sister, Alexandra Drake, told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Ms. Warren had broken her neck in the fall and was paralyzed from the neck down, breathing with the help of a ventilator, when she signaled, by blinking her eyes and nodding, that she wanted the ventilator turned off.

“She wanted to leave,” Ms. Drake told the newspaper in confirming the death. “No athlete would like to have a life with only their eyes talking.”

Ms. Warren, an Austrian-born psychologist, competed 13 times in the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Hawaii, a grueling event consisting of a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run, finishing eight times in the top five in her age group and winning in 2003, at the age of 60. She ran a seven-day race across the Sahara Desert, competed in double and triple triathlons, and with her sister, also an endurance athlete, often competed in bicycle relays, including the Race Across America, in which they took turns riding, covering nearly 3,000 miles in less than 10 days.

In addition to her sister, her survivors include her husband, Tom Warren, the 1979 Ironman champion, and two daughters.

“This is a woman who understood adventure sport and the risks that go with it,” Bob Babbitt, a triathlete and the publisher of Competitor magazine, said in a phone interview Friday. “We all know that when you do this stuff, going 30 or 40 miles per hour downhill with 130 pounds of pressure in one-inch tires, this stuff happens. You do this in a car, and the car hits a rock, no problem. The bike hits a rock, it’s death. We understand that.”

I have known dozens of people who communicated final wishes with eyeblinks, but they died of ALS, not some damn fool endurance freakshow. I also know of someone who changed the world with eyeblinks. He has lived with ALS his entire adult life. His name is Stephen Hawking.

Here's another link. I'm in there. (view with IE)

Yeah, these events are used as charity platforms, and I saw two ALS nonprofits on the Ironman(tm) recipient rolls. So what? Get real.

The Nice Guy

2008-08-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

kunst und mittel Amerika oder "lumpkinproletariat"

2008-08-24T19:40:00.000-07:00

Dramatic Overtures The World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 12 3 Lp Set $10
Greatest Overtures of Opera The World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 8 3 Lp Set $10
Portraits of Many Nations The World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 14 3 Lp Set $10
America's Favorite Waltzes Family Library of Beautiful Listening Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 12 3 Lp Set $10
Six Immortal Symphonies The World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 3 3 Lp Set $10
Keyboard Masterpieces The World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 2 3 Lp Set $10
Great Opera - Great Stars The World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 11 3 Lp Set $10
Symphonic HighlightsThe World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 4 3 Lp Set $10
Musical Landscapes The World's Most Honored Music Longines Symphonette Society
Volume 1 3 Lp Set $10

Peter I. Tchaikovsky Great Men of Music Time Life Records 4 Lp Set $15
Ludwig von Beethoven Great Men of Music Time Life Records 4 Lp Set $15

Reader's Digest Music SKU: 77482
Discover a musical escape destined to lighten your days and sweeten your nights.
A rich musical tapestry of classical, film, folk and new age favorites, Symphony of the Senses will calm your mind, body and spirit… and fill you with renewed energy, warmth and hope. 72 best-loved masterpieces from the world's greatest composers.

* Rhapsody In Blue
* The Merry Widow Waltzes
* Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet
* William Tell Overture: Finale
* Tara's Theme from Gone With The Wind
* The Evening Bell
* Adagio for Strings
* Unchained Melody from Ghost
* More

I will not speculate as to why these material culture artifacts exist, except to state that the Franklin Mint is not too far away, and has not collided with matter, and released two 511KeV gamma rays. But wait, there's more..... WHAT IF a golden melody, one of the selections from your collection of EVERY CLASSICAL MELODY YOU'LL EVER NEED was to be given the "Switched-On Bach" treatment, that is to say, turned into electronic music a la Walter Carlos, who now goes by the name of Wendy Carlos, due to a sex change operation? Well, the immortal "Pavanne" by Gabriel Faure has been converted to a MIDI file and passed through the S-D3.01, an UNFINISHED, BUT WORKING hybrid (FM and subtractive) software synthesizer of my own design, programmed in SYNTHEDIT.

click here

Where Is Spoon River? (1)

2008-08-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

click here first

Due to America’s historic and present-day cultural diversity, I may be going out on a limb to speak of the American psyche. Nevertheless, I will assert that the current American psyche is torn by diametrically opposed forces of its own creation. On one hand, our historically ingrained desire for and idealization of independence, mobility (both geographic and social), “rugged individuality”, and self-reliance have been both satisfied and intensified by unprecedented technological advances and extreme social dislocations that occurred during the horrific 20th-century. On the other hand, in response to the above-mentioned forces, an equally strong desire for social continuity, familiarity, communal but family-centric activities (both social and economic), and conformity has given rise to a desperate need to belong to a place-specific but time-independent “community”. This community, or idealized “small town”, is located temporally in an ill-defined mythological and nostalgic agrarian past, and geographically in New England, the Southeast, or the Midwest. Exploring the forces driving American urbanization and the resulting disappearance of interpersonal and economic bonds characteristic of “small” community life presents a complex topic beyond the scope of this essay.

Indeed, the great majority of 18th and 19th century Americans lived in small, stable communities that existed over many generations, as a walk through an older, non-urban church cemetery will confirm. Examination of economic and family records suggest these communities were cemented together by blood and social interdependence. The decline and disappearance of “small town America” is coincident with the end of the “Pax Britannica” during the first decade of the 20th century. The ensuing fifty-year world war, of heretofore-unseen savagery, was fueled by technological advances and extreme social dislocations. The final demise of small-town American life may be dated to the creation of artificial “small-town” communities such as Levittown, NY in the mid-1940s and universal availability of instant communication by telephone, radio, and television by the early 1950s.

Obtaining an answer to the question: What was it like to live in a small American town “back then”? is problematic. History is written by the victors, and is of limited use in the study and interpretation of vernacular culture, which deals with the story of the vanquished. Therefore, capture of unprocessed recollection or narrative is critical to preserve the stories of people ignored by historians. Collection of these data is left to folklorists or enthusiasts operating at the fringes of academia. 19th-century small-town recollections are unfortunately beyond the range of individual human memory. Recollections of early to mid-20th-century small-town life will invariably be colored by the above-mentioned mythology and nostalgia, because this was the time period of rapid urbanization, cataclysmic societal change, and social fragmentation. Study of material culture artifacts is useful, but provides at best equivocal interpretation. Perhaps useful answers to the question: What was it like to live in a small American town “back then”? may be found in art, specifically, in literature. Certainly, not in journalism posing as literature; the small towns of Agee and Evans’ “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” (1941) are a nightmare vision of a dying social order. Alternatively, fiction exemplified by Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio” (1919) or drama exemplified by Wilder’s “Our Town” (1938) could provide more “truthful” information. But I think the essence of small-town America may be expressed by a combination of poetry and music.

The Agony of 10 msec....

2008-08-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

Hope

2008-08-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

"You know my situation, which could be a matter of weeks, or months before the wheel runs off. Nobody likes to run out of time. But it's not nearly as great a tragedy as Hiroshima, or the millions of people blown to hell in a war that could be avoided. Those are the real tragedies in life. What's happening to me and Woody are just mistakes of nature, things that eventually someday will be overcome."....Cisco Houston

Cisco and Woody Guthrie
cancer and Huntington's disease

Huddie Ledbetter
Leadbelly
ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease)

1st US drug for Huntington's disease wins approval
RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators on Friday cleared the first treatment approved in the United States for Huntington's, a rare inherited disease that causes uncontrolled movements, deterioration of mental abilities and, ultimately, death.

Scientists Discover Major Genetic Cause Of Colorectal Cancer
Main Category: Colorectal Cancer
Also Included In: Genetics; Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 15 Aug 2008 - 6:00 PDT

About one-third of colorectal cancers are inherited, but the genetic cause of most of these cancers is unknown. The genes linked to colorectal cancer account for less than 5 percent of all cases.

Scientists at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and colleagues have discovered a genetic trait that is present in 10 to 20 percent of patients with colorectal cancer. The findings strongly suggest that the trait is a major contributor to colorectal cancer risk and likely the most common cause of colorectal cancer to date.

Scientists Create Stem Cells From Lou Gehrig's Disease Patients

August 1, 2008

In a stem cell research breakthrough, scientists have reprogrammed skin cells from two elderly patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis -- also called ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease -- to act like stem cells.

Brave New SportsWorld

2008-08-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

I watched about one minute of the Olympics opening ceremony. I thought I heard Leni Riefenstahl beating on her coffin screaming, "Let me out, I have work to do!" After one minute of exposure to womens' beach volleyball and the Brave New SportsWorld that NBC is ramming down our throats, I decided to make a photostory about reality. I doubt that a world society based on this manifesto is where I want to live:

"Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."

Triumph of the will, and strength through joy...

Images from all over the net, music by Copland.