Saturday in the park, I think it was the Fourth of July — Chicago
Care to sample our newest Summer ale? It’s called White Chalk Horse IPA and has a nice, light taste. It’s been very popular. It’ll go well with the whole hog barbecue that’s being cooked right now for serving up this evening after the contradance that the visiting Snow on the Mountain band’s providing the music for. Gus, our Estate Head Gardener, doing the calling.
It being summer, I’m reading several titles at once, so I’ve been reading Neal Stephenson & Nicole Galland’s The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. about an agency in our future which has developed time travel and recruits an agent to assist it in its quest to alter the past in order to bring magic back. Need I say that things don’t go as planned? Even at seven hundred plus pages, it’s a fast read.
I’m also reading Theodora Goss’ The Strange Case of The Alchemist’s Daughter, a delightful romp in a feminist version of Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in novel form only with better realised characters.
Now enjoy your drink and give a listen to the Swedish tunes that the Neverending Session while I finish this edition off…
Crow Mother and the Dog God, a Retrospective gets reviewed by Grey: ‘Meinrad Craighead has spent her long life creating images and words in her search for the deepest sources of the divine. As the girl christened Charlene Marie Craighead, she spent her summers in North Little Rock, Arkansas, running with packs of dogs, digging holes and listening to the stories of her beloved grandmother, “Memaw.” When she took holy orders as a Benedictine nun in England, she was given the name Meinrad, in honor of St. Meinrad, one of her own ancestors. Leaving the convent fourteen years later, she came to her heart’s home in New Mexico, where she has lived with dog companions and human friends ever since. In all that time, she has never stopped drawing, painting and writing about the images she has discovered.’
Robert was somewhat ambivalent about Elizabeth Hand’s Black Light, which he notes ‘is a foray into the world of dark gods, misty legends, and deep secrets.’ But you’re going to have to read his review to find out what the problem was.
He was much happier with Generation Loss: ‘Generation Loss is a foray into, for lack of a better term, “mainstream” fiction by Elizabeth Hand, many of whose previous novels have been marked by a decidedly mordant view of humanity (an attitude this one shares) and somewhere in the works, an apocalypse of some sort or another. They have also pretty much been easily identifiable as “science fiction.” The fantastic elements here, however, are the people and circumstances — the world at large is fairly normal, if not very pretty — and if there’s been an apocalypse, it’s been intimate and incremental.’
Robert also has a look at a trilogy that should be a classic, if it’s not. Describing George Alec Effinger’s Audran Trilogy, he says: ‘Effinger’s series builds a rich picture of a place (the Budayeen, the red-light ghetto in a Middle Eastern city that remains nameless ), a time (the late 22nd century), and a context (the political map is largely composed of the fragments of earlier superpowers, while it seems only the Islamic world has any coherency). The driving forces in the Budayeen are the same as the driving forces in any such place: money, sex, drugs, and power.’
I should note that D.O.D.O. is 750 pages long, a svelte length for a novel by Neal Stephenson, as the work Wes looks at, the first novel in The Baroque Cycle is 925 pages: ‘Quicksilver certainly doesn’t fall under the traditional conceits of science fiction, instead falling into something resembling ‘history-of-science fiction’. Set during the heart of the Baroque period, Neal Stephenson’s carefully crafted book follows fictional and historical characters through a world torn by conflict and plague. Those familiar with Neal Stephenson’s earlier novel Cryptonomicon will recognize the Shaftoes and Waterhouses, and the imaginary Qwghlm islands. Quicksilver, while exploring the state of alchemical study during the years of the Royal Society, focuses on the contributions of the ancestors of the protagonists of Cryptonomicon. Even so, you don’t need to have read Cryptonomicon to enjoy Quicksilver.’
Andrew notes that ‘Some stories are merely bad — dull, uninspired, or simply misformed. Others are bad in entertaining ways — bad movies, outsider art, and demented pulp fiction. Some stories are so horrible that it’s physically painful to read them, such as the work of Rob Liefeld. And then there’s Witchblade.’ It is now your solemn duty to read his in-depth review of the Witchblade Compendium, Volume 1 to see just why you should really, really avoid this work.
Elizabeth answers our question of favourite libation and says ‘To be honest, these days my libations don’t change much from season to season. It’s nearly always red wine. But at some point during the summer I usually have one margarita, on the rocks, salt — I had one while in San Diego — in honor of all the margaritas I used to mix for myself back in the day. I had enough then to fuel me for the rest of my life, plus it’s hard to get a decent margarita in a bar or restaurant — they all use a margarita mix, even in places like San Diego, and I don’t believe in frozen margaritas, strawberry margaritas, or some such. The one I drank in SD was the real thing. Rose’s lime juice, Cuervo, triple sec, salt. At the beach I used to do shots with salt and a slice of lime, but that was another century.’
John went to see a legend among Irish bands: ‘Ending the Irish leg of their 2005 European Tour, Thin Lizzy arrived in Limerick to play at the University of Limerick Concert Hall to a capacity house. During the halcyon days of the 1970’s and 1980’s, Thin Lizzy were regular visitors to Limerick during their many Irish tours. For this re-constituted line up, this was their second time in the University of Limerick Concert Hall, as they played here before on their 2003 ‘Global Chaos’ tour.’
Robert shares some thoughts on tradition in music, specifically as it relates to a group of CDs featuring the cedar flute: ‘As I listen to more traditional music and more music from non-Western sources, I begin to realize that the blithe use of the word “traditional” is tantamount to making your own noose and putting it around your neck. This was brought vividly home to me while listening to a group of CDs from Native American and Native-derived artists. Historically, American Indian music has been viewed as being an integral part of a whole, residing quite inextricably with dance, religious ritual, singing, and drama. Music, in this situation, is functional rather than being purely aesthetic, in that it almost invariably accompanies some other activity: North American Indians did not have “concerts.”’
Robert’s next offering is a look at several recordings by two artists who start with the cedar flute and take off from there: ‘I learned a very important concept about making art in a dance class, studying butoh, the contemporary Japanese dance-theater that is at once highly abstract and fundamentally impressionistic: evocation. Our movements were not to describe an action, but to evoke the image of the action. This applies to works done in many mediums, from dance to poetry to fiction and, of course, music. Coyote Oldman (Michael Graham Allen on flutes, Barry Stramp on recording studio) has explored a range of possibilities inherent in this idea, basing their music on the sounds and textures of New World flutes (for the most part, made by Allen).’
We round off our music reviewing this week with Sean taking a look at yet another Clannad anthology, A Magical Gathering: ‘For those unfamiliar with the full panorama of the Clannad sound archive, these two discs might come as a surprise, as they contrast the band’s acoustic roots with more recent, perhaps familiar work, which is all too often formulaic, elegiac and in the hands of their most successful scion, Enya, totally commercial.’
In keeping with our opening quote, not to mention our Coda, our What Not this week is a ramble through a nature reserve — in the middle of Chicago. Here’s Robert’s take on the North Pond Nature Sanctuary: ‘Chicago, perhaps surprisingly to most people, has a number of nature sanctuaries in Lincoln Park, which stretches along the lakefront from North Avenue in the south up to Hollywood Beach in the north. I say “perhaps surprisingly” because Chicago’s lakefront happens to be on a major flyway for migratory birds, part of the Mississippi Flyway, and given the city’s commitment to green space, nature reserves are pretty much a no-brainer. The “reserve” part is the result of Lincoln Park being one of the most used parks in the city, so we’ve had to set aside some places for the visitors.’
There are bands for which I’ve deep liking for pretty much everything they’ve done such as the Old Blind Dogs or Steeleye Span, though the former used a full drum kit for a while that put me off those recordings. And then there are performers for which I can only blame radio play in heavy rotation for the song when I was working.
So it is with Chicago’s ‘Saturday in the Park’ which I’ve heard playing off and on over the past forty years. It’s certainly an upbeat, feel good summer song much like ‘Love Shack’ by the B-52s. It was recorded on 6th of August 1982 at the Park West in Chicago. It was released on Chicago V in 1972 and peaked on the Billboard carts at number three which is bloody impressive. It was lovely enough that I didn’t get tired of it. But I’ve prattled on enough about it, so here’s that song for you to have the pleasure of hearing performed live.
What’s New for the 1st of September: A Firefly novel, our most criticised review, a pair of dark mangas, recreating Medieval English Ales, Balkan music history, ‘Excitable Boy’ in Bluegrass style, Emma Bull’s favourite tune, on blackberries and less tart matters…
We raise a lot of berries here from those who expect this on a Scottish Estate, such as cranberries, raspberries and blackberries, to the unusual such as Border strawberries that start out blood red and turn as white as bleached bone as they ripen. Right now, we’re harvesting plump, full-of-tart-goodness blackberries that will be used in making both wine and preserves.
My wee gram used to make them both, as her ancestors did as well, and as a bairn I could never understand why they liked either, but now I find both quite appealing. Mind you though, I still think the best use of blackberries is in fresh churned ice cream. Or maybe in American style muffins. Or with porridge and cream. Or just eaten warm straight off the brambles as I did as a child.
H’h. I just had a Library visitor ask me where the phrase ‘the long conversation’ came from. I know what it means but I have no idea where it started, so let’s turn to this edition while I’ll research the question for that patron…
Gary found a superb book on Balkan music: May It Fill Your Soul is a history and commentary on the massive changes in Bulgarian “folk” music that took place during the communist era, based on the experiences of Kostadin and Todora. The book is fairly well known among students of Balkan music and provides a different and much more detailed view than can be read in short articles, for example in The Rough Guide To World Music.’
Speaking of World Music, Kim looks at Richard O. Nidel’s World Music: The Basics: ‘Part of Routledge’s “The Basics” series, this book purports to give a survey of world music in an accessible, readable fashion. It largely succeeds, but may prove frustrating for those with more than a passing knowledge of any of the traditions it covers. Nidel’s text is readable, in that it is direct and simple. With very limited coverage of so many traditions, it needs to be.’
And now, dear readers, Mia gives you the review that brought us more hate mail than the next dozen or so reviews that drew complaints did combined: ‘When I read Fire Bringer I had hopes for Mr. Clement-Davies future works. The Sight was a huge disappointment. This book is a mess.’ Needless to say the lovers of this book were not pleased what-so-ever, and they made sure we knew it.
William looks at a fantasy he really likes: ‘With a dark charm and grace no less endearing and seductive than the prince of darkness himself, To Reign in Hell, by Steven Brust, is a deliciously decadent voice leading you off the same tired, beaten path and into the wilderness of primal miracle and possibility. With a premise and daring vision that would have undoubtedly landed him on the Inquisitor’s table in an older time, the author of this descent into epic struggle manages with a deft and authoritative hand to slap an ancient myth in the face and force it on its head.’
This novel is what happens when a series, no matter how short-lived, becomes beloved by legions of viewers. Firefly was a one-season space opera created by Joss Whedon that was brilliant. Unfortunately the network didn’t think the ratings were good enough, so they killed it after a single season, though they wrapped it up in a movie called Serenity. Stephen Brust, a writer many of you will know, wrote My Own Kind of Freedom and Cat says it’s quite true to the series.
Mucking about the net one quiet afternoon, I chanced upon an interesting sounding article, Tofi Kerthjalfadsson’s Recreating Medieval English Ales, (a recreation of late 13th – 14th c. unhopped English ales). The author says that ‘These recipes are a modest attempt to recreate ales that are not only “period”, i.e. pre-17th century, but is actually medieval. These ales are based on newly available evidence from the late 13th and early 14th centuries.’ It’s an entertaining look at just what it takes to replicate these ales.
Robert brings us some manga from the dark side. Let’s start with Kazuya Minekura’s Wild Adapter: ‘Kazuya Minekura is a well-known manga artist responsible for, among other things, Saiyuki and Araiso Private High School Student Council Executive Committee, which I have only seen in anime and which, believe it or not, is directly relevant to Wild Adapter, her newest manga series.’
It gets darker. See what Robert has to say about Aya Kanno’s Blank Slate: ‘Aya Kanno’s Blank Slate is the sort of thing that turns up in manga from time to time — a grim story peopled by some frightening characters, all wrapped in gorgeous drawing. I will say, however, that I didn’t expect to find something like this from Shojo Beat, an imprint focusing on teenage girls.’
April has a choice recording for us: ‘As an integral part of the band Frifot (with Ale Moller and Per Gudmundson) and the Nordan project (with Ale Moller and others), as well as numerous other side projects, Lena Willemark has been a fixture on the Swedish folk scene since the late 1970s. Windogur, a set of ten original compositions commissioned by the city of Stockholm (in its role of Cultural Capital of Europe ’98), was first performed live as part of a series of concerts entitled “Ladies Next,” and only later translated to CD.’
Gary found a lot to like in Angel Olson’s sophomore release Half Way Home from a few years back. ‘In a world full of cutesy and waif-like vocals from female singers in all genres, Olson’s decidedly non-angelic style immediately telegraphs her seriousness. Her husky warble is unadorned, the perfect instrument for delivering her nakedly honest and emotional lyrics.’
Gary reviewed Mosaïk by the Francophone Canadian group Vishtèn, which he says ‘could maybe be described as progressive Acadian, in much the way that I think of Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys as progressive Cajun.’ How progressive? To their tradition-based music they’ve added modern trappings including electric guitar and even an old-school Moog synthesizer!
We were talking about world music earlier. Well, Robert brought Mahmoud Fadl’s Drummers of the Nile in Town: Cairosonic to our attention: ‘Mahmoud Fadl is a well known percussionist and advocate of the music of Nubia, that region in southern Egypt largely forgotten in the contemporary world. Raised in Assuan and Cairo, he is today based in Berlin, not coincidentally a traditional center of study on Nubian culture and history.’
And just in case you can’t get enough of music from other traditions, Robert brings us the beginning of a major series on the Gamelan of Central Java: ‘A few pointers on listening to Javanese music. As I’ve noted, by Western standards the tones in Javanese music are not precisely predictable. Javanese music, along with that of many other non-Western cultures, develops horizontally, so that significance is a matter of sequence rather than chord. And the development is circular rather than linear, so that to a Western ear, it may seem formless.’ Got that? Enjoy.
Tim rounds our our music review with a look at the Rocky River Bush Band’s Sea Boots And Swags: ‘The title gives a good sense of what can be heard on this disc. The selections mostly have to with the sea (including four traditional shanties), with a couple of Australian bush songs thrown in, and rounded off with a few jigs and polkas.’
Our What Not this time comes courtesy of a note by Emma Bull in The Sleeping Hedgehog from some twenty years or so ago about what was her favourite tune and decided it was worth sharing again, so here it is: ‘Right now that would be ‘Twa Bonnie Maidens.’ It’s so lovely and hopeful and soaring, exulting over Flora MacDonald helping Prince Charlie escape to the Isle of Skye. Yet it’s got a wistful strain, too, at the end, as if the singer knows Charlie won’t be coming back from France, whatever the song says: There’s a wind in the tree, and a ship on the sea / To me hi, bonnie maidens, me twa bonnie maids / By the sea mullet’s nest I will watch o’er the main / And you’re dearly welcome to Skye again.’
Gary here. You and I would probably never think of playing Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy” as a bluegrass song. That’s why someone like John McEuen, who did think of it, has had a 50-year career as a groundbreaking roots musician, and you and I are just fans and listeners. McEuen is about to release a new album on which he is joined by some of the top names in American roots music. Not that he’s ever done anything else, but this is a special group, mostly featuring folks he’s known for a long time but not recorded with. Folks like Jay Ungar, David Bromberg (both of whom are on the “Excitable Boy” single along with Matt Cartsonis, who was a mainstay of Zevon’s touring band and who has also made his name scoring TV shows), John Cowan, Steve Martin, John Carter Cash … you get the idea. They’re all on the upcoming Made in Brooklyn.
I’ll be reviewing the album shortly. But in the meantime, see what you think of this ballad of a teenaged psychopath, performed in laconic bluegrass style by John McEuen and friends. I know this section generally features a live performance, but this one (and the whole album) was recorded live in studio using some special microphones, in just one take. Here’s “Excitable Boy.”