introspective

Sacred Sunday: “Jisas Yu Holem Hand Blong Mi,” Melanesian Choirs

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This Melanesian song, used in the film, “The Thin Red Line,” is in Pidgin English (translation below) and is a beautiful hymn with (surprise!) a great rhythmic aspect. I love its sparseness.

—
Jesus hold my hand
Hear my cry when I call you
There is none like you,
I praise you Jesus
I come unto you now
Take me as I am
Jesus I come unto you
Take me as I am
I humbly come unto you
And say thank you for everything given to me
And I will be ready for your return Jesus
I come unto you now
Take me as I am
Jesus I come unto you
Take me as I am

Sacred Sunday: “Freuen Wir Uns All In Ein,” Michael Weisse

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This extraordinary hymn was written by Michael Weisse in the very early 16th century in Silesia.

Silesia

Silesia

I can’t find the German or English anywhere for the life of me, so sorry to leave you hanging.  Nevertheless, I can’t get enough of the tune.  It’s classic German and classic Baroque at the same time: solid, four-square construction, with gorgeous but sober harmony.  It’s an earth-bound hymn with heaven-ward eyes, like all good prayers should be.

Worldly Wednesday: “Tyrkjaránid,” Icelandic Folk Song

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This is an instrumental version of a song from Iceland that documents a series of Ottoman raids of Icelandic towns during June and July, 1627.  Annoyingly, I haven’t been able to find one with lyrics, but according to various historical accounts, Dutch pirate Murat Reis commanded ships of Barbary corsairs from Morocco and Algeria that captured around 400 people.  Only about two dozen escaped and made it back to Iceland.

Sacred Sunday: “Call to Prayer,” Baaba Maal

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Islam is a beautiful religion.  One of its most wonderful aspects, for me, is the Call to Prayer.  I’ve heard it in in Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, and the West Bank.  Even for a Christian, it has a calming, centering effect.

I am completely remiss in not posting this last Sunday, when the holy month of Ramadan officially began.  In the Islamic tradition, the month of Ramadan marks the month the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhamed.  Ramadan is also the time when the doors of Paradise are open and the doors of Hell are closed, with the devils within chained up.

To all of my Muslim readers: Ramadan Mubarak.  Kul ‘am wa enta bi-khair.

Modernism Monday: “Live and Learn,” The Cardigans

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncnJpYTi-hY

 

Every problem can be compartmentalized into bite-sized chunks.  You take care of the problem one chunk at the time.  Some chunks are fly-swattingly easy.  Other chunks are boulders.  None of this is news to you, Tune-Up fan.  But what’s news to me is that each individual problem chunk has a separate timeframe to solve.  That is the crux of the suck.  That is a new lesson for me.

I’m not a very patient person by nature.  I am goal-oriented, I am anxious, I dislike uncertainty, I want to know the future, and I put far too much mental energy into controlling how others perceive me.  I sometimes care more about being considered A Person Who Solves Problems Quickly than solving the problem at hand.  I’d rather have a guaranteed 70% solution now than a 100% solution in a little more time with maybe one or two variables out of my control.  It’s really weird and it gets in my way and it makes me nuts.  

One of the myriad benefits of getting older is that the cumulative experience of living longer and longer allows you to take the long view.  You can benchmark a bad day, a success, a heartbreak more accurately, having had more of them.  This context can cool you off and help you break apart problems into their components and attach importance and timeframe to each.  So, while I might be an anxious person today, I was a high-powered tension rod a few years ago: one slight readjustment could have me shooting off into space.  I’m grateful for the difficulties that have provided the necessary context to unwind myself.

The greatest thing I’ve learned, so far, is that once you’ve attached the timescale to each problem chunk and set your solutions in motion, the best and most Zen thing to do is just throw your hands up in the air and say “f$%& it.”  And I mean doing this literally – physically throwing your arms in the air and saying “f$%& it” out loud.  It feels wonderful.

Live and learn.

Sacred Sunday: “Creator’s Prayer,” Joseph Fire Crow

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I’m off for a long hike in the woods. Every time I go for a hike I think of Joseph Fire Crow. I first heard of him through the “National Parks” series. So this song will be running through my mind as I’m scrabbling up rocks and hopping across streams.

Throwback Thursday: “Nimrod,” Edward Elgar

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England plays Uruguay today in the match that could see either side knocked out of the final.  For England to lose today, it would mean the first time it got kicked out this early in more than fifty years.  So to all of my followers in Blighty, and all England fans everywhere, here’s a bit of “there shall always be an England” courage for Hodgson’s men.  Come on, you lads!

SHAME WEEK! Termagant Tuesday: “Tapestry,” Michael Jones

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Wood varnish, modern dance, and New York City.  Those are the three things that come to mind when I hear this.

Wood varnish: I am seven.  My mom refinished…man. I lost count of the number of things she refinished in the house I grew up in.  Our beautiful old upright piano, tables, chairs.  Not to mention all of the other home improvement projects she had going on.  A Michael Jones cassette was part of the music rotation she would put on the paint-splattered radio-tape player that kept her company when the fumes were too strong for a kid to deal with.  Michael Jones was soon supplanted by Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” and I took “Pianoscapes” for myself.  It heavily influenced my own early compositions.  Don’t get me wrong – this music isn’t that great.  But what it did do for a little kid writing her own stuff was make it okay to experiment with melodic changes, time signature changes, and rhythmic changes.  It also made it okay to write “songs” that were more than ten minutes long.  You’re welcome, neighbors.

Modern dance: I am ten.  I took a bunch of different styles of dance when I was a kid but modern dance was the only one that I really got into because – surprise! – there aren’t a whole lot of rules.  Perfect.  One homework assignment was to create our own dance and set it to music.  The person who came up with the most popular dance (decided by a very public vote) would choreograph a whole group routine.  I used “Tapestry.”  I did not win.

New York City: I am thirteen.  For my thirteenth birthday, I got to go to New York City and visit my godmother.  She lived by the courthouse in Manhattan and worked in the fashion industry.  She was (and still is), very tall and very glamorous.  She took me shopping to buy my very first make-up (Clinique – what’s up).  She bought me my first pair of black cigarette pants.  We ate escargot and went to the theater.  It was incredible.  We also went to a bookstore that had a CD section and I bought the CD version of the now six-year-old cassette tape.  I put it on her CD player when we got back to her enormous apartment and I remember walking around her very modernist two-bedroom, looking at the city lights glowing in the dark, with this piece pouring out of the speakers.  That’s a very happy memory.

SHAME WEEK! Modernism Monday: “Life in a Northern Town,” The Dream Academy

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I recently got a few boxes delivered from a storage unit I had more or less forgotten I had.  One of them had photos in it.  It was marked, “Photos.”  Another had scratch-and-sniff stickers in a jewelry box, an orange stopwatch in a plastic bag with some loose Euro coins, and approximately seven different guidebooks of Washington, D.C.  It was marked, “Random.”  The third box was marked “DO NOT PUT ANYTHING ON TOP OF THIS BOX” and was filled with all of my old CD binders dating back to senior year of high school.  Oh man.  This was going to take some time.

Leafing through page after page of CDs was way more intense that looking at old snapshots of myself and my degenerate college friends.  It was a tour of my innermost thoughts and – worst – tastes and preferences.  “Oh Christ” was a common thought that sprang to mind every three or four page-turns.  Talking about this with some friends over beers last week, it became clear that they – and therefore the entire universe of still-alive humans – have music that they still love but are too ashamed to tell people about.

I am not ashamed.  I am going to air my dirty musical laundry for all to see.  Welcome, dear readers, to Shame Week.  We begin our tour with the odd little British group The Dream Academy, whose song “Life In A Northern Town” is a nice pre-chewed bite of moodiness, punctuated by a howlingly out of place “African”-style chant in the chorus.  Oh, and there’s an oboe.  Okay.