A mellotron, played by the right musician, sounds like the soundtrack to the end of the world when the demons run amok in the streets and children cry for their lost parents.
Some albums recorded with a mellotron (some evil sounding, some not so much) that I have listened to:
The Beatles - Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour & The White Album
Black Sabbath - Volume 4
David Bowie - Space Oddity, Hunky Dory & Diamond Dogs
Genesis - Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot & Selling England By The Pound
Joy Division - Closer
King Crimson - Just about every album but best sounding on the first album, In The Court Of The Crismon King and on Larks' Tounges In Aspic
Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy & Physical Graffiti
The Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium & Frances The Mute
Monster Magnet - Dopes To Infinity
Moody Blues - Days Of Future Past
Oasis - "What's The Story" Morning Glory
Opeth - Damnation & Ghost Reveries
Pink Floyd - A Sucerful Of Secrets, Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia & Deadwing
Radiohead - OK Computer
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication & Blood Sugar Sex Magic
Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure & Stranded
Smashing Pumpkins - Most of their albums
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Strange Advance - World's Away
Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring
Tangerine Dream - Most albums from the 70's but I especialy like Stratosfear
The Tea Party - All their albums
Traffic - Mr. Fantasy
Any parts of these albums that make you sad or fearful were most likely made by the mellotron.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Friday, April 29, 2005
Work In Progress 2
Work in progress: Poem from "A Quiet Weariness".
it's always quiet of course,
just the low sound of
classical music
playing in the background
and a muffled machine-like sound
coming from everywhere,
summer and winter,
morning and night,
forever,
apparatus that we need
to keep places like this
running
smoothly.
the names are always there,
Paul Eugene Lortie,
Georgette Gervais,
good old
Geraldine Di Tomma Stallato,
friendly, habitual denizens
of this quiet
place.
the new neighbours.
we can't always choose our neighbours,
even less in death
than in life.
it's quiet here,
the quiet of respect,
regret and tears,
death
of course,
but mostly
a quiet weariness.
hello Gino,
hi Alberto,
how's it going
Maria...
resting...
resting neighbours
old friends really,
in death only
of course
in death only.
it's always quiet of course,
just the low sound of
classical music
playing in the background
and a muffled machine-like sound
coming from everywhere,
summer and winter,
morning and night,
forever,
apparatus that we need
to keep places like this
running
smoothly.
the names are always there,
Paul Eugene Lortie,
Georgette Gervais,
good old
Geraldine Di Tomma Stallato,
friendly, habitual denizens
of this quiet
place.
the new neighbours.
we can't always choose our neighbours,
even less in death
than in life.
it's quiet here,
the quiet of respect,
regret and tears,
death
of course,
but mostly
a quiet weariness.
hello Gino,
hi Alberto,
how's it going
Maria...
resting...
resting neighbours
old friends really,
in death only
of course
in death only.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Bethune: A Review
The Sword, The Scalpel – The Story of Dr. Norman Bethune by Ted Allan and Sydney Gordon. A review.
Norman Bethune is still a hero to many Canadians and non-Canadians, especially in China where he spent the last years of his life in Mao’s fight against the Japanese, Chinese imperialists and capitalists. Socialists, medical professionals and many Montréalers (where he spent a good part of his life as chief of thoracic surgery at Ste. Justine Hospital) revere Bethune as a noble doctor who helped the underprivileged. His many exploits of genius, from designing better surgical tools to inventing the modern mobile medical unit used in wars since 1939, have made him a Canadian to be proud of. His almost single-handed and constant fight against tuberculosis alone (which he himself suffered from), would make him a great humanitarian.
Which makes it all the more unfortunate that Ted Allan and Sydney Gordon’s biography
has two things (among many) that hinder our understanding and appreciation of this man: The book is more propaganda than art which serves to make a truly great man somehow less and the information gathered and given to the reader is subsumed by the authors’ agenda in pushing a particular point of view, that of the glorious communist future awaiting us. The book is more hagiography than biography.
Now, I don’t have an issue with a socialist or communist ideologist attempting to convince us of the greatness of that way of life, but the effect of items such as getting to age 34 of his life by page 20 of a 319 page book, but writing with great heavy-handed detail on his death, to the extent that we know the exact time of his passing and the exact words spoken by those around him full of camaraderie and brotherhood, is to feel like we are being beaten over the head. Yes, we know that all the communists fighting in Mao’s army were really, really hard-working and never complained about their lot because they believed in the brotherhood of man. Enough already.
Those looking for an in depth analyses of Bethune’s early childhood and formative experiences should look elsewhere. For example, where did Bethune get such a single-minded ability to focus and his zeal for causes? We are given scant information on his parents; his father was a minister and his mother a missionary is basically all we’re told. A proper biography would have explored his upbringing and relationship to his parents to bring into focus his later stubbornness and attachment to causes. The authors write of Bethune’s “idealism of adolescence” but try as I might, I can not find any reference to his adolescence as Bethune’s teen-age years don’t even rate a sentence.
Bethune joined the Canadian armed forces the day World War 1 begun. He spent time at the front and was wounded at Ypres where many Canadian historians note that Canada was truly born as a nation. Surely such a horrendous experience would make some sort of impression and help us to understand his later hatred of unworthy causes. After all, many post-war writers, the Lost Generation as Gertrude Stein called them, felt such deep scars that they wrote and drank and talked in some fashion about their experiences for the rest of their lives. These authors see fit to give us exactly one page on Bethune and the First World War.
The propensity to propaganda comes early in the book. We are told that Bethune’s decision to start his first medical practice in Detroit is partly because “America was rich, and a great torrent of its riches washed through Detroit…There, he told himself, he would have to kiss no one’s hand, bend the knee to no British upper-class dowager…” There is nothing inherently wrong with this statement except that we haven’t been given a proper explanation or set-up before hand to tell us why he felt he had to “bend his knee”. In the paragraphs preceding this statement we are told he is living the good life and quite enjoying it. We are told of his jaunts in London, Paris and Italy, carousing and carrying-on like any young man at the time. He seems to be happy. Where did he get the feeling he was “bending the knee” while drinking in London pubs or picking up girls in Parisian cafes? Approximately 2 pages later we are told that money no longer satisfies him, he needs to be able to be the “old” Bethune, healing the poor with no thought to monetary reward. Unfortunately the authors have already made him out to be a bit of a spoiled rich kid…how many of us get to go to medical school in England and Italy and squander the money sent by his parents on drinks and food. At least make the propaganda a little more subtle guys!
Now I know this book was written in 1952 during a time of Communist witch-hunts and paranoia so maybe the message had to be heavy-handed but it doesn’t excuse sloppy writing. The move from self-serving to self-sacrificing young doctor is unclear and one of the problems I think is that both authors knew Bethune and the only detailed biographical information we get comes in the years that Allan and Gordon had dealings with their subject.
I had seen the Donald Sutherland movie (Bethune – The Making of a Hero) many years ago and the only part that made an impression on me was when Sutherland, playing Bethune, collapses his own lung in order to stave off or cure the effects of tuberculosis. My thoughts at the time were, my god, what absolute balls does it take to be able to operate on yourself and is this what Bethune really did or did the film makers take the hero title a little too seriously.
I bought Bethune’s biography soon after to confirm for myself. Although Bethune never actually collapsed his own lung, this biography would have us believe that this medical genius, inventor and communist was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The sainthood attributed to Bethune sometimes so far outweighs the often truly astonishing things he has done, that this biography makes the man Bethune much less real and the story of his life, ironically, much less interesting.
Norman Bethune is still a hero to many Canadians and non-Canadians, especially in China where he spent the last years of his life in Mao’s fight against the Japanese, Chinese imperialists and capitalists. Socialists, medical professionals and many Montréalers (where he spent a good part of his life as chief of thoracic surgery at Ste. Justine Hospital) revere Bethune as a noble doctor who helped the underprivileged. His many exploits of genius, from designing better surgical tools to inventing the modern mobile medical unit used in wars since 1939, have made him a Canadian to be proud of. His almost single-handed and constant fight against tuberculosis alone (which he himself suffered from), would make him a great humanitarian.
Which makes it all the more unfortunate that Ted Allan and Sydney Gordon’s biography
has two things (among many) that hinder our understanding and appreciation of this man: The book is more propaganda than art which serves to make a truly great man somehow less and the information gathered and given to the reader is subsumed by the authors’ agenda in pushing a particular point of view, that of the glorious communist future awaiting us. The book is more hagiography than biography.Now, I don’t have an issue with a socialist or communist ideologist attempting to convince us of the greatness of that way of life, but the effect of items such as getting to age 34 of his life by page 20 of a 319 page book, but writing with great heavy-handed detail on his death, to the extent that we know the exact time of his passing and the exact words spoken by those around him full of camaraderie and brotherhood, is to feel like we are being beaten over the head. Yes, we know that all the communists fighting in Mao’s army were really, really hard-working and never complained about their lot because they believed in the brotherhood of man. Enough already.
Those looking for an in depth analyses of Bethune’s early childhood and formative experiences should look elsewhere. For example, where did Bethune get such a single-minded ability to focus and his zeal for causes? We are given scant information on his parents; his father was a minister and his mother a missionary is basically all we’re told. A proper biography would have explored his upbringing and relationship to his parents to bring into focus his later stubbornness and attachment to causes. The authors write of Bethune’s “idealism of adolescence” but try as I might, I can not find any reference to his adolescence as Bethune’s teen-age years don’t even rate a sentence.
Bethune joined the Canadian armed forces the day World War 1 begun. He spent time at the front and was wounded at Ypres where many Canadian historians note that Canada was truly born as a nation. Surely such a horrendous experience would make some sort of impression and help us to understand his later hatred of unworthy causes. After all, many post-war writers, the Lost Generation as Gertrude Stein called them, felt such deep scars that they wrote and drank and talked in some fashion about their experiences for the rest of their lives. These authors see fit to give us exactly one page on Bethune and the First World War.
The propensity to propaganda comes early in the book. We are told that Bethune’s decision to start his first medical practice in Detroit is partly because “America was rich, and a great torrent of its riches washed through Detroit…There, he told himself, he would have to kiss no one’s hand, bend the knee to no British upper-class dowager…” There is nothing inherently wrong with this statement except that we haven’t been given a proper explanation or set-up before hand to tell us why he felt he had to “bend his knee”. In the paragraphs preceding this statement we are told he is living the good life and quite enjoying it. We are told of his jaunts in London, Paris and Italy, carousing and carrying-on like any young man at the time. He seems to be happy. Where did he get the feeling he was “bending the knee” while drinking in London pubs or picking up girls in Parisian cafes? Approximately 2 pages later we are told that money no longer satisfies him, he needs to be able to be the “old” Bethune, healing the poor with no thought to monetary reward. Unfortunately the authors have already made him out to be a bit of a spoiled rich kid…how many of us get to go to medical school in England and Italy and squander the money sent by his parents on drinks and food. At least make the propaganda a little more subtle guys!
Now I know this book was written in 1952 during a time of Communist witch-hunts and paranoia so maybe the message had to be heavy-handed but it doesn’t excuse sloppy writing. The move from self-serving to self-sacrificing young doctor is unclear and one of the problems I think is that both authors knew Bethune and the only detailed biographical information we get comes in the years that Allan and Gordon had dealings with their subject.
I had seen the Donald Sutherland movie (Bethune – The Making of a Hero) many years ago and the only part that made an impression on me was when Sutherland, playing Bethune, collapses his own lung in order to stave off or cure the effects of tuberculosis. My thoughts at the time were, my god, what absolute balls does it take to be able to operate on yourself and is this what Bethune really did or did the film makers take the hero title a little too seriously.
I bought Bethune’s biography soon after to confirm for myself. Although Bethune never actually collapsed his own lung, this biography would have us believe that this medical genius, inventor and communist was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
The sainthood attributed to Bethune sometimes so far outweighs the often truly astonishing things he has done, that this biography makes the man Bethune much less real and the story of his life, ironically, much less interesting.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Consequences
Life gets musch easier when you make a decision, then simply accept the consequences which follow from it. Robert Fripp.
Someone threw a cookie at me today. While walking along a downtown street, a cookie hit me on the left shoulder. I brushed it off, looked around but decided to forget it and just kept walking. My day was instantly changed. A somewhat depressive weight lifted off my mind. I couldn't get angry at something as stupid as a cookie hitting me in the shoulder and I realized that most of my issues were exactly the same; as inconsequential as that cookie. Perhaps more importantly, a young lady looked at me right as the cookie hit me, saw that I did not react in a vile manner and I swear I saw a shadow or something more weighty rise from her shoulders into thin the air.
Someone threw a cookie at me today. While walking along a downtown street, a cookie hit me on the left shoulder. I brushed it off, looked around but decided to forget it and just kept walking. My day was instantly changed. A somewhat depressive weight lifted off my mind. I couldn't get angry at something as stupid as a cookie hitting me in the shoulder and I realized that most of my issues were exactly the same; as inconsequential as that cookie. Perhaps more importantly, a young lady looked at me right as the cookie hit me, saw that I did not react in a vile manner and I swear I saw a shadow or something more weighty rise from her shoulders into thin the air.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Playing In Time
Posted elsewhere but I have wanted to write about this for awhile so I've put it here as well. Why? Because I can.
For years I have read Robert Fripp's writings on music. Often his descriptions of what happens during group improvisations and specific gigs (Central Park 1974, Marquee 1969, recording Moonchild) often seem quite other-worldly to me. Especially during the group improvisations, he seems (to me anyway) to describe the experience as almost a form of communal and telepathic thinking where something else takes over.
Although I have felt a power in the music or experience as a member of the audience and it was exhilarating, I hadn't felt anything special as a musician playing in a group context. And I frankly doubted what he was saying. Until one evening...
I was playing in a studio, just jamming with some players. Nothing much was happening, just noodling around. At one point I started playing a simple progression on the bass and the drummer followed, then the 2 guitarists and finally the vocalist gave us some stream of consciousness lyrics. While playing this tune, I had the experience of being "locked-in" with the other players. It seemed to me that whatever we did, whether changing chords or tempos, we did it together, instantly and with no audible errors. It also seemed to me that there was no "leader" for that tune, if the drummer suddenly shifted into a different groove we followed, if the vocalist suddenly got quieter we followed. There seemed to be a group-mind in play that dare I say it - directed us. I was playing bass but had no conscious feeling about playing bass. It just melded with the other instruments and players to form something new. If I was a Crafty I might say I was playing bass and not playing bass at the same time. We seemed to be in sync for exactly 6 minutes and 32 seconds at least. The experience was so powerful that I still get goose-bumps thinking about it and yet have a difficult time describing it.
This experience allowed to me to get a glimpse what Mr. Fripp might have been describing. I don't know if it was exactly the same but it was in my opinion just as powerful a feeling for me as it was for him and countless other musicians who have no doubt gone through a similar experience.
I have tried mightily to get that feeling back with other musicians and studios and gigs. Sadly it hasn't.
For years I have read Robert Fripp's writings on music. Often his descriptions of what happens during group improvisations and specific gigs (Central Park 1974, Marquee 1969, recording Moonchild) often seem quite other-worldly to me. Especially during the group improvisations, he seems (to me anyway) to describe the experience as almost a form of communal and telepathic thinking where something else takes over.
Although I have felt a power in the music or experience as a member of the audience and it was exhilarating, I hadn't felt anything special as a musician playing in a group context. And I frankly doubted what he was saying. Until one evening...
I was playing in a studio, just jamming with some players. Nothing much was happening, just noodling around. At one point I started playing a simple progression on the bass and the drummer followed, then the 2 guitarists and finally the vocalist gave us some stream of consciousness lyrics. While playing this tune, I had the experience of being "locked-in" with the other players. It seemed to me that whatever we did, whether changing chords or tempos, we did it together, instantly and with no audible errors. It also seemed to me that there was no "leader" for that tune, if the drummer suddenly shifted into a different groove we followed, if the vocalist suddenly got quieter we followed. There seemed to be a group-mind in play that dare I say it - directed us. I was playing bass but had no conscious feeling about playing bass. It just melded with the other instruments and players to form something new. If I was a Crafty I might say I was playing bass and not playing bass at the same time. We seemed to be in sync for exactly 6 minutes and 32 seconds at least. The experience was so powerful that I still get goose-bumps thinking about it and yet have a difficult time describing it.
This experience allowed to me to get a glimpse what Mr. Fripp might have been describing. I don't know if it was exactly the same but it was in my opinion just as powerful a feeling for me as it was for him and countless other musicians who have no doubt gone through a similar experience.
I have tried mightily to get that feeling back with other musicians and studios and gigs. Sadly it hasn't.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Whatever
The reconciliation of work and love. Another eternal question in an endless series of them.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
For Absent Friends
Mother in law passed on 12 years ago today. I haven't made many toasts in my life, but when I do, I always toast to absent friends. It seems the smallest thing I can do but it is needed.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Wide Asleep
Twice now I've tried to read the passage in Jason Elliot's book An Unexpected Light on Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam, and both times my eyes tear up, or almost close involuntarily as I fall asleep, and prevents me from reading the whole passage or even remember the few words I have been able to read. I have noticed this happening when I read certain profound passages in other books as well. What is this phenomenon? It must have a name. Perhaps I am unready to be made aware of this knowledge. Most likely though I'm just tired. But it's interesting how the mind invents deep mysteries where there may be none.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Work In Progress 1
Work in progress: From Hotel Poems (plain tentative title).
you were framed
in the window,
crying,
and when i asked you why
you said
because,
and i said
i know,
but pulled you back to bed
anyway
anyway,
i can no longer sleep in hotel
rooms
and the night desk people
are annoyed at me
because i keep pressing
the wake-up call button
but it doesn't seem to work
you were framed
in the window,
crying,
and when i asked you why
you said
because,
and i said
i know,
but pulled you back to bed
anyway
anyway,
i can no longer sleep in hotel
rooms
and the night desk people
are annoyed at me
because i keep pressing
the wake-up call button
but it doesn't seem to work
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Dead Stop
Still having a difficult time writing daily. The discipline required is tremendous for such a seemingly easy task. Just starting the first word is hard sometimes. The ideas are there it's just bloody difficult getting the engine going. The hardest thing to do is to start moving from a dead stop. I needn't worry about turning and inertia just yet.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Spent
Spent, or The Poem That Couldn't Last.
i'm spent,
leaving these traces
on a clean page
as i once left traces
on your glistening breasts,
profaning the sacred
for a second
time
i'm spent,
leaving these traces
on a clean page
as i once left traces
on your glistening breasts,
profaning the sacred
for a second
time
Monday, April 18, 2005
Clean And Cheerful Friends
Had lunch at J.'s restaurant today. He looks tired. Opening and running a business is not easy but he does it with a kind of cheerful fatalism. Having such decent friends is a blessing. He's one of the good guys and I wish him well.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
The Consensus
"If we know that someone is consumed with greed, avarice & venality (like myself) we feel safe with them: they can be bought. This person presents no challenges or threats to the consensus."
Robert Fripp, May 4, 2000
The question in my mind then is how does an individualist safely live in this world?
Robert Fripp, May 4, 2000
The question in my mind then is how does an individualist safely live in this world?
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Thursday, April 14, 2005
The Damage Done
Lies can create both physical and psychic damage.
It's easy at first, then the worry and stress comes. Then the skipping heart appears. Then the nervous arm shaking. Then the restlessness. Then pacing. Then...
It's easy at first, then the worry and stress comes. Then the skipping heart appears. Then the nervous arm shaking. Then the restlessness. Then pacing. Then...
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
The Final Frontier
In the spirit of wonderful spring days and sticking to the easy-going and space related them from yesterday, do yourself a favour and check out the Astronomy Picture of the Day site. It is inspiring and awesome in the truest sense of the word (not the de-clawed way use it today).
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Monday, April 11, 2005
Lies My Father Told Me
Maturity means:
Take it like a man.
Don't complain.
Don't cry.
Be a man.
Be tough.
Take it like a man.
Don't complain.
Don't cry.
Be a man.
Be tough.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
That's All Right
Parts of me are well and parts are not well. Sometimes those parts that were well become not well and vice versa. If I could make all the parts be well at the same time you might find me under a plum tree. But generally, today, the majority of parts are well. Perhaps that's all right too.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Boxscore
It's official. I no longer care anything whatsoever about baseball. I found myself reading the morning paper and skipping all the baseball related stories. It's done. Move on. Nothing to see here folks.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Friday, April 01, 2005
Blog Life
Life is getting in the way of writing this blog so I'll be out for a bit...of the blog that is, not life.
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