I'm "that guy" with the camera that has to take a picture of everything.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Crepuscule with Nellie-Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, At Carnegie Hall
My Favorite Things-John Coltrane
I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing-Sufjan Stevens
Keep Eye on Other's Gain-Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Lie Down in the Light
A Little Bit of You-Laura Cantrell, Not the Trembling Kind
andrew
Sunday, November 28, 2010
I've learned only a few things in my first week as a pappy. First of all, babies aren't like the rest of us. Most of us don't know what we want. We have so much stuff, so many ways to be entertained, so many different things to eat or drink, so many people to interact with to be strengthened or to be discouraged by, that with all of these things flying around in our head we can't seem to pinpoint what it is that we really want. Lillian's different. She only wants to be held, to be warm, to be fed & to not have gas. I'm not sure she even cares if she has a dirty diaper or not.
I've learned I'm not a very patient person at 3:00 in the morning. I want to hurry up, change the diaper, feed her, burp her & for her to be back to sleep in twenty minutes. I've come to learn it doesn't really work that way. I think Lillian can probably sense this frustration, so the problem becomes worse. I'm learning, though.
Christie is quite a bit better at sensing what Lillian needs than I am, thankfully. A couple weeks ago, if you would have told me that Christie would be up with me at 6:30 in the morning smiling contentedly & telling me how happy she is I would call you crazy. Motherhood suits her perfectly. She only gets about half the amount of sleep she used to, but she is okay with it. She knows how to take care of everything Lillian needs, & she enjoys it. She is patient, kind, gentle & I couldn't ask for a better mother for my daughter.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
This Side of the Blue-Joanna Newsom, The Milk Eyed Mendor
It's Saturday morning, & it's most likely our last weekend without the sound of a little girl in the house. I'm extremely excited about that. My usual Saturday morning routine when I don't have to work involves getting up around 6:30, taking a shower, letting the dog out, making coffee & then basically doing nothing productive until Christie gets up. I'll read the news on the internet, music reviews, blogs, I'll listen to tunes. I've come to cherish this little time of mine, & I guess I won't have it any more. I'm okay with that, I'm 31, it's time for a change. That little girl of mine will be more exciting than anything on the internet, anyways. I hope she doesn't mind listening to jazz in the morning, until she discovers cartoons.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Say It (Over & Over Again)-John Coltrane, Ballads
Workingman's Blues #2-Bob Dylan, Kalamazoo
My Sweet Lorraine-Oscar Peterson Trio with Coleman Hawkins & Nat King Cole
Bob Dylan played The Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo on Friday night, an intimate little place that appears to be better suited for a production of Macbeth than a rock concert. It's in these little places that Bob usually shines, when the sound doesn't fly around up in the rafters only to be left to die. The audience is usually more attentive, as well, & since it only holds about 3000 people, you're not usually distracted by the endless amounts of people talking through the show, playing with their cell phone or getting up to get another beer. I imagine being surrounded by professors, English & history majors. Bob Dylan has something to say about the English language & American history, too.
His show on Friday was, in a sense, a history lesson, although not a linear or chronological one. His greatest strength as a songwriter has always been to marry the universal with the personal, to take a simple idea & layer it with meaning. It's never occurred to me before Friday how uniquely American Bob Dylan is, & how infused with the American landscape & history his canon is. His vision of America is one that exists outside of or in spite of 24 hour cable news channels, Walmart, strip malls, facebook & subdivisions. It tells of an America that contains the age old struggle between men & women & all of the infidelity, the heightened & diminished expectations that goes with it. The second song, It Ain't Me, Babe wonders how much does a person have to invest when they enter into a relationship, & the conclusion is maybe you'll never get everything you want out of a relationship. In looking for everything, you are forgetting what's really there. In "Beyond Here Lies Nothing", he paints a picture of a love that leads you blindly down a dark path of trouble.
There are two songs about floods, first, "The Levee's Gonna Break". The Levee's Gonna Break was written the year after Hurricane Katrina, but could be talking about either Katrina or The Great Mississippi Flood. Bob seems to be saying there have been floods in the past, & there will be floods again. On this night, he closes the song with the opening sarcastic line, "everybody saying this is a day only the Lord could make."
The second flood song of the night, Highwater (for Charley Patton) was written months before September 11. There's a little more going on with this one, the historical references to musicians, scholars & cultural places of interest where science & religion & political ideologies meet, fly by quickly. We'll start with the musicians referenced, obviously there's the great blues singer Charley Patton who's song High Water Everywhere is the precursor to this song. "I believe I'll dust my broom" comes from Robert Johnson who sold his soul to the devil so he could play guitar on Highway 61 (we'll talk about that later), "the cuckoo is a pretty bird" comes from the Appalachian folksinger Clarence Ashley. "12th street & vine" is a place that Big Joe Turner, one of the earliest people to play rock & roll most likely walked. Vicksburg, MS was effected by the Great Flood of 1927, & was where people met who were displaced by the flood. Clarksdale, MS was also effected by the great flood & was where Bessie Smith died of a car accident, also on Highway 61 Revisited. Bertha Mason was a creole character from the novel Jane Eyre. George Lewes was one of the early proponents of Darwinism, "they got Charles Darwin trapped out there on highway 5" alludes to the Scopes Trial of 1925, that place in American History where science, religion & political ideology collided. Months after the song was written, the phrase "I want him dead or alive" was uttered countless times by George W. Bush in reference to Osama Bin Laden.
In addition to being one of Dylan's greatest songs of the last twenty years, it was one of the highlights of the evening. It's current stop start arrangement, with brief harmonica breaks in between, creates an incredible tension in the song that didn't exist before.
Highway 61 Revisited, written 36 years before Highwater, refers to the Highway that goes from Duluth Minnesota where Bob Dylan grew up all the way down to Mississippi. The song deals mostly in mythical characters doing all kinds of things on Highway 61. One can imagine Robert Zimmerman hearing all of the great blues musicians from Mississippi hundreds of miles away down Highway 61 & dreaming up the mythical character of Bob Dylan.
Workingman's Blues #2 is the perfect example of Bob Dylan having a pulse on what happens in America where one man's millions is just as important (if not more) as another man's next meal. Again, though, this song written in 2006 before the economic crisis hit, could have also been applicable 70 years ago. You can easily imagine "Low wages are a reality if we want to compete abroad" being uttered in every corporate board room & factory across this country. The people who say something like this know how it effects them personally, but they don't know what it means to the low wage worker. I don't believe Bob Dylan's ever really "worked" a day in his life like he sings in the song, but somehow he gets to the heart of what it means for a man to work. Work is identity, & without it he is "forced into a life of crime". He's played it the last three times I've seen him in concert, & I can see why, it is extremely poignant. Believe it or not, there's some hope tucked away at the end. They say that poor people have an incredible sense of resiliency, & Dylan gets to the heart of that too. "I got a brand new suit & a brand new wife, I can live off rice & beans." Just before he sings this verse in concert, he steps out from behind his organ to the center of the stage. It's an incredible piece of performance art as he inhabits the character of the worker as if to say "here I am, I've got nothing to hide, what else can you do to me that hasn't already been done?".
Only in America does a line like "we drove that car as far as we could, abandoned it out west" as Dylan does in Tangled Up in Blue. Performances like these are what keep me coming to Bob Dylan shows. Despite the roughness of his voice, & often laxidasical performances, he still can bring out a performance like this. He brings his best to the first verse, & the crowd reminds him of how good a performer he can be so it builds on through the rest of the song. It's a personal tale, but it could belong to anyone, & now thanks to performances like this, it does.
There's one song that pulls all of these songs together, When the Deal Goes Down. It combines all the joys & sorrows, the despair & the hope, the faith & cynicism of all of them & condenses it into a poetic, bittersweet little song. The song is at once my grandmother's chair, the blanket my sister quilted for my unborn daughter, & my wife at home. "More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours they keep us so tightly bound". It is all the struggles & joys of a life lived together, a beautiful song & a fitting capture of Bob Dylan's patriotic rhapsody.
1. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat 2. It Ain't Me, Babe 3. Beyond Here Lies Nothin' 4. Just Like A Woman 5. The Levee's Gonna Break 6. Tangled Up In Blue 7. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum 8. If You Ever Go To Houston 9. High Water (For Charley Patton) 10. When The Deal Goes Down 11. Highway 61 Revisited 12. Workingman's Blues #2 13. Thunder On The Mountain 14. Ballad Of A Thin Man
I love that poem, I've probably posted it here before. I wonder if everyone asked themselves at the end of every day what they lived for that day if they would be honest with themselves & if they would be happy with their answer. As fast as time goes, it's easy to go through a day trying to get to the next day, like that John Lennon song goes, "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." I don't know what's worse, living for the wrong thing, or having nothing to live for at all. I heard a story on This American Life recently about a teenage kid who accidentally hit a girl riding a bicycle with his car. It wasn't his fault, but he had to go through life with the guilt of killing someone. The girls parents told the kid that whatever he did in life, he'd have to do it twice as good because we was living for two people now. What a responsibility, & what a weight. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, maybe we should ask ourselves what we're living for.
I was thinking alot about Oma today, ten years after she died. I remember my mother calling to give me the news. The day of her funeral was a perfect fall day, mid sixties, sunny with the mums in full bloom. I remember Oma making lunch for us when my dad would take me to work on the farm. No one sits down for lunch like that anymore. The day of her funeral was a perfect day to listen to my old man talk about his mother more eloquently than anybody else could. I think we sang Rock of Ages that day, what a great song, & I remember how Oma sang. No one sang like her, she had a very high pitched voice when she sang. She didn't have a conventionally great singing voice, but she sang with a feeling that conveyed love & conviction, & a connection with the past. I remember thinking that day that the song didn't sound the same without her singing next to us. I remember driving by the farm after the funeral, how the front porch always saw Oma standing & waving until your car was out of sight, like she wanted to make sure she told you that she loved you & to tell you that she hopes you make it home safely & to remind you to come back again soon. That reminded me of my old man standing in the driveway waving until your car was out of sight. Christie always tells me how much she loves that my old man does that. The day of the funeral was a perfect day to plant a tree, life's crazy circle spinning around & around. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, a life, a birth & all sorts of wonderful silly little things in between like new Christmas ornaments & Aunt Rose's birthday on Thanksgiving, making dogs sing, euchre tournaments, going to the American legion, "better than a kick in the pants" & "you're getting a little big for your britches".
A lot has changed since then. I can't help but think how much she would have loved Quinn, Ella, Avery, Sophia, Kaliegh, Lucy, Christie & Lillian.
There's a ton of things that excite me about being a pappy, & there's probably just as many things that quite frankly scare me to death. Depending on my mood, sometimes the things that excite me pop into my brain easier, other times it's the other way around.
I'll always remember the first days of kindegarden & the new shoes I had. I can picture them now, they were brown faux leather with stitching around the edges, pretty stylish considering the velcro. I remember avoiding the sandbox during the first days of recess, so as not to get my new kicks dirty, until Ms. Kolver & my mother told me it was okay to go in the sand. My wife will be the first to tell you that little things like this persist in my adult life. I wonder where these things come from, my father was never afraid to get his shoes dirty. I often wonder whether or not my child will have these little pieces of neuroses. Are these things biological? Learned? A little of both? I know we are our parents' children, & we are also influenced by those around us. I'm sure we pick up many traits all on our own without any influence. I can't help but wonder whether I should go with instinct & keep my child's hands washed at all times or if I should teach them not be be afraid of germs & have them lick a gasoline pump right off the bat. If anybody has any suggestions, I'm not being rhetorical here, I'd love to hear it.
On to something positive, I'm looking forward to playing with my kids. Really playing. Making up a stupid game & playing it for hours the way my sister & I could see how many times we could throw a ball across the room with only one hand without dropping it. Or the time we'd lay upside down with our head hanging off the couch & calling it "truck". I'm sure this will drive my wife crazy, & I have to admit it, I'm looking forward to that too. I'm looking forward to scheming with the kid & Winston to figure out how we can wake her up in the morning, too.
I'm looking forward to taking the kid for a walk & explaining to them everything we see, even when their only a few months old. I don't think I'll be too good at baby talk, maybe that will change. I'm looking forward to playing the kid classical music & jazz when they can't sleep at night & I'm looking forward to them rolling their eyes at me when I play the same music when they're 15. I'm looking forward to reading them stories, 'cause I know I'll be just as intrigued by the stories as they will be. I've already bought Frog & Toad All Year.
I'm worried about not being able to show the kid how to work with their hands. Let's face it, I'm not the handiest dude in the world. Maybe I'll have to take them to grampy's for that. Speaking of grampy, & I'm not trying to be mushy or sentimental here, I'm worried I won't be half the father he was to me. My old man was my hero when I was a kid, & has been ever since. He had a way of showing me what it means to be a man in every sense of the word without ever opening his mouth. When he would stop & shoot hoops with me, even for just a few minutes when he was walking home from work it made me feel like I was on top of the world. He & my mother had a way of making us feel loved & cared for without spoiling us. I worry about striking that balance between giving my kids everything they need without spoiling them. I guess, maybe if I can figure that out the rest just might fall into place.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Naked As We Came-Iron & Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days
God's Small Song-Bonnie "Prince" Billy, The Letting Go
Here At the Right Time-Josh Ritter, Monster Ballads
Hang Me, Oh Hang Me-Deep Dark Woods
Up a Tree (went this heart I have)-Cotton Jones, Paranoid Cocoon
"You are the beat of my heart & the light of my life." This is a lyric I've had running through my head the last few days. In one of his last interviews, Vic Chesnutt told NPR's Terry Gross that the song "Granny", the last song on what would become Vic Chesnutt's final album, was taken verbetem from a dream he had about his own grandmother.
Granny, oh Granny what you doin' by the kitchen sink? what you doin' by the kitchen sink? she said, "i'm just makin' up some hamama cheese" she said, "i'm just makin' up some hamama cheese" she said, "i'm just makin' up some hamama cheese"
Granny, oh Granny what you doin' with your false teeth what you doin' with your false teeth she said, "I'm just pickin' out the blackberry seeds" she said, "I'm just pickin' out the blackberry seeds" she said, "I'm just pickin' out the blackberry seeds"
Granny, oh Granny where did your husband, my granddaddy go? where did your husband, my granddaddy go? she said "he went off to heaven just before you were born" she said "he went off to heaven just before you were born" she said "he went off to heaven just before you were born"
she said, "you are the light of my life & the beat of my heart" she said, "you are the light of my life & the beat of my heart" she said, "you are the light of my life & the beat of my heart" she said, "you are the light of my life & the beat of my heart" she said, "you are the light of my life & the beat of my heart"
I'm no songwriter, but I'm sure many songwriters pour over lyrics that they write, & may have a tendency to over edit, when most likely, the first draft of lyrics were perhaps the most powerful, when the idea is new. What a gift it must be to have a song come to you in a dream, & it takes alot of courage to write it down & leave it be, without editing. What's great about the song is the rawness of it. To listen to it seems like your peaking in on a private conversation that wasn't meant for your ears. That doesn't necessarily come from the lyrics, but with the rawness with which Chesnutt sings it.
I just got done reading The Shack today. When "Papa" says "I'm particularly fond of..." to & about any number of people, it sounds alot like "you are the light of my life & the beat of my heart". I think that if anyone else said that phrase about that many people, it would start to sound insincere. People think that there should be a limit to the amount of people we should love, but God (& the book) shows us that we should love everyone, especially the people towards whom we have anger & hatred.
I heard a story on the news the other day about a girl who had some sort of disorder which wouldn't allow her to distrust anyone. The girl would walk up to everyone she met & told them that she loved them. The girls' mother, probably for good earthly reason, puts her through exercises to teach her to distrust people. What a sad commentary on our world that is. I think we have an opposite view of trust than what we should. I think we don't trust people until they give us reason to trust them, when I think we should trust first until we're given reason not to. This distrust we all carry along with us is not only a barrier to loving one another, it's also a barrier to us even being decent to one another. Think of road rage, how easy it is to give someone the finger or cut somebody off because it's someone you'll never have to talk to.
Another great thing about the book, is that it makes you think of the possibilities God can create in your life, if you're interested in hearing what He has to say to you. Of course, it's a story, & my cynical mind will always consider someone crazy when they tell me that God speaks to them. It's easy for me to go to church, to pray before dinner, & know all the right answers about forgiveness & salvation, but I'll admit it's not always easy to have a personal relationship with Jesus. Not that Jesus makes it hard, but my brain & all sorts of other things get in the way of talking to Jesus like I would my wife or my mother or father. Give the book a read, friends.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Sweetness Follows-REM, Automatic for the People
Ahead of the Curve-Monsters of Folk
But for You Who Fear My Name-The Welcome Wagon
But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you shall go forth again, skip about like calves coming from their stalls at last.
You shall be my very own on the day that I cause you to be my special home. I shall spare you as a man, as compassion on his son who does the best he can.
But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you shall go forth again, skip about like calves coming from their stalls at last.
You shall be my very own on the day that I cause you to be my special home. I shall spare you as a man, as compassion on his son who does the best he can.
(instrumental)
But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. And you shall go forth again, skip about like calves coming from their stalls at last.
When I was 26 years old, it was the last year before I met Christie. I like to call it 2006 BC. What does this have to do with anything? Well, Christie turns 26 tomorrow, which means I am really old, & she is still very young, & beautiful & caring & sweet & many many other things. Happy Birthday, my sweet wife. I love you.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
He's Funny That Way-Coleman Hawkins
Each Coming Night-Iron & Wine, Our Endless Numbered Days
Love & Some Verses-Our Endless Numbered Days
The Last Song I Will Write-Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit
Go ahead, if you want & go out to a bar, your favorite restaurant, to a movie, a show, a sporting event, whatever you want, but for me, I'll take a simple Saturday night with my favorite meal my favorite doggie & my favorite wife. In bed by 10:00.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
All That Matters-Mark Knopfler, Shangri-La
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My darling girl My darling girl You're all that matters In this wicked world All that matters All that matters My darling boy My darling boy All of my sunshine And all of my joy You're all that matters All that matters
Well, I can't stop the pain When it calls I'm a man And I can't stop the rain When it falls, my darling Who can?
My darling girl My darling girl You're all that matters In this wicked world All that matters All that matters My darling friend My darling friend All we've got going Is love in the end It's all that matters All that matters
On Friday night, 800 or so of some of the strangest people you'd ever see crammed into the Calvin College Chapel. The average age looked to be about 20, young kids with '70s era suits, mustaches, skin tight pants, knit caps covering unwashed dreads, black eyeliner, not the kind of thing you see on the streets of Grand Haven & certainly not the kind of thing you would expect to see on the campus of Calvin College. They were all there to see the strangest character of them all, Joanna Newsom. They sat quietly in rapt attention to every oddly turned phrase, every manic strum of harp & every spine chilling warble that came out of her mouth. Her backing band included a mad scientist drummer in a three piece suit sans shoes & socks, a handsomely dressed trombone player with an average of about 20 seconds of playing time per song, two attractive looking violin players & a guitarists/banjo player (the brother of the mad scientist drummer) who at times played indistinguishably from the star of the show.
This is no freak show, as you might expect, the harp playing is no novelty act for wierd people who are looking for something wierd to listen to. This is a finely tuned, finely rehearsed cast of characters playing music, the likes of which you've never heard. Let me say that again, you've never heard music like this ever before, & if these people should retire & decide to become pharmaceutical sales reps, you'll probably never hear anything like this ever again. If you had to pin it down & put it in a box, it would combine both the elements of an opera & a folk song.
As talented as Newsom is as a harpist, piano player & songwriter, her greatest strength as a performer comes as a singer. Her odd voice effortlessly lilts between sharply & smoothly sung syllables. The lyrics aren't easily decipherable most of the time, but they are sung in such a way that makes you want to look them up & read them, & when you do, you aren't disappointed. Let me end by saying one more time, you've never heard anything like this before.
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
Occident-Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me
Mercy me, the night is long Take my pen to write you this song Lord, is it harder to carry on Or to know when you are done
All my life, I’ve felt as though I'm inside a beautiful memory Replaying with the sound turned down low
Long-life, show your face Slow-heart, curb your taste Smoke me out of my hiding place Long-life, state your case
What in the world are we waiting for Building glowing cities along the shore Where the wind batters in Baiting my kin like a matador
So much value, placed upon What lies just beyond our plans Waving my handkerchief Running along, till the end of the sand
Long-life, speak your name I'm so tired of the guessing game But, something is moving Just out of frame Slow-heart, brace and aim
Breaching slowly, across the sea One mast, a flash, like the stinger of a bee To take you away A swarming fleet Is gonna take you from me
The universe is getting loose Sodden spread from some leaden disuse Rushing, unhinged, toward diminishing lights Like a headless caboose
I'll wait for you alongside the ocean And make do with my no-skin But then, Long-life, will you let me in And then, Slow-heart, are you gonna know him
Long-life, speak your name I wait, while I decry the wait And when I die, may I relate Slow heart, congregate
To leave your home and your family For some distortion of property Well, darling, I can't go But you may stay Here, with me
Not Dark Yet-Bob Dylan, Osaka Japan
Baby Birch-Joanna Newsom, Have One on Me
The Book of Right On-Joanna Newsom, The Milk Eyed Mendor
Today, for your reading & viewing pleasure (& mine), two poems I love & a picture of the woman I love.
The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, whose hands reach into the ground and sprout to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn. His thought passes along the row ends like a mole. What miraculous seed has he swallowed That the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth Like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water Descending in the dark?
Wendell Berry - The Man Born to Farming
I have been spared another day to come into this night as though there is a mercy in things mindful of me. Love, cast all thought aside. I cast aside all thought. Our bodies enter their brief precedence, surrounded by their sleep. Through you I rise, and you through me, into the joy we make, but may not keep.
Wendell Berry - A Poem of Thanks
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
I Won't Be Found-The Tallest Man On Earth, Shallow Grave
I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground-Bascam Lamar Lunsford, Anthology of American Folk Music
You have to listen to I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground to fully understand I Won't Be Found, but not to enjoy it.
For Every Field There's a Mole-Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Lie Down in the Light
Got the Farm Land Blues-Carolina Tar Heels, Anthology of American Folk Music
Christie & I were in the cookie aisle at Meijer today, & I suggested we get some Ginger Snaps. I asked her if she liked Ginger Snaps & she said emphatically, "No!". I asked her if she's ever tried Ginger Snaps she said equally as emphatically, "No!". I said I used to love Ginger Snaps as a child & she said that she preferred Windmill Cookies, which I also enjoyed. So, eager as I was to open her taste buds up to the delicious snack euphoria that is Ginger Snaps, I opened up the bag on the way home. I gave one to her & asked her how she liked them. She replied, "meh, they're nothing to write home about". I disagreed, of course, & stated that indeed, they are something to write home about. So that's what I'm doing this evening, I'm writing to you, my dear mother, to tell you how delicious the Archway Brand Ginger Snaps are. Try a bag today.
Love your son & your not convinced daughter-in-law,
Andrew & Christie
Five Favorite Songs of the Day
I Feel a Change Coming On-Bob Dylan, Together Through Life
It's Good to Be On the Road Back Home Again-Cornershop, When I Was Born for the 7th Time
My old man really likes Bluegrass music. He tells me all about the songs they play on RFD TV. I wish I had that station so I could see what he's talking about. If I had a bluegrass band, I'd call it Uncle Harry & His RFD All Stars. Anyways, here's some of my favorites I think he'd like.
That one ain't really bluegrass, but it's great all the same.
