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Sing while you may
The Legendary Pink Dots – Zero Zero.
We’re all like the people in that song if we’re honest. Human beings have been searching for answers for as long as we’ve been on earth. Sad, but beautiful.
That’s why I love The Legendary Pink Dots’ motto, “Sing While You May.” However ugly life may seem, there’s always something beautiful in it. Usually the part that’s most human.
My wife, finding her joy at the karaoke bar.
I’ve concluded that, conscious or not, existential dread is at the heart of all extremism. In fact, maybe it’s the basis for all human behavior. Adult behavior at any rate.
No one knows what it all means or what comes next, whatever they may tell you. If they seem very certain, they’re probably trying to convince themselves.
Arguments usually amount to, “I am important, you are worthless” and “I know you are, but what am I?”
No one has the answer to “what am I?” We breeze right past it. But it’s always there in the background.
Scrape the paint off a violent extremist and you will find a person who feels worthless to the core.
Someone who can think of no other way to stave off fear of the void than to push that feeling onto others.
What could give you meaning, when the tools you’ve been offered turned out to be worthless or forever out of reach?
What do you have left? You’re alive.
So sing. Whatever that means to you. Sing while you may.
Me, doing Pink Floyd at Karaoke. No idea who the girl was, but she had a lot of fun.
Earth Wind and Fire – Sing a Song
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Madagascar surprises me again
Sometimes a new rabbit hole opens so suddenly and unexpectedly it feels like I’ve been struck by lightning.
I just found a type of Madagascan music I never heard before and I can’t wait to hear as much of it as I can. It’s called Salegy.
Wawa Salegy – 400 Volts
I never heard of it before this, although it’s apparently getting popular in the French-speaking world. So funky.
I wish I knew Madagascan music better than I do, but life is short when you’re curious about everything. I just know whenever I look for music from that island, I find gold.
They have a culture you just can’t put your finger on, African influenced, traces of Indonesia. I’ve been fascinated for years.
Mily Clement – Ho Meva
This is why I like world music, to discover things like this. I’ve loved Malagasy music since the 90s. Once you give up the idea of having to know the language, you get beautiful surprises like Salegy music.
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News editors are people too
Me, back in the day…
I wish somebody would write a song about a news editor that captured the way it felt when that was my vocation.
Closest I could find was “Newspapers” from Stan Ridgway (singer from Wall of Voodoo. Remember “Mexican Radio”?). He at least made an effort to see it the newsman’s way.
It was stressful, always being “on.” You never had enough help, but you got it done anyway. It wasn’t something you did, it was something you were. Until one day, you weren’t…
Stan Ridgway – Newspapers
Most songs about the news business take journalists to task for their bias – as we all should. But there’s another side: Staying till the end of a late night meeting so they wouldn’t slip something past you, driving pages to press yourself after an all-nighter, running racks on country roads late into the night.
I still can’t find a song about newsmen as good as “Wichita Lineman.” It’s not about us, but it captures some of that lonesome yet rewarding feeling. I tear up every time I hear that line, “I need you more than want you and I want you for all time.”
Yep, that was me, for a while. Sadly, “all time” is not something you can have.
I feel like songwriter Jimmy Webb would’ve understood. I like Glen Campbell’s version best, Friends of Dean Martinez’s spacey instrumental is also incredible.
Friends of Dean Martinez – Wichita Lineman
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Living under Damocles’ Sword
Another reminder of why Beau of the Fifth Column is one of my favorite people ever. Such a good message for today.
A lot of people are feeling the way this young man does. His message touched me because he reminds me of me. This was hard thing to face once I really came to understand it.
Richard Westall – Sword of Damocles
When you get old, you get kind of jaded about this stuff. It’s easy to forget there are young people who aren’t used to nuclear saber rattling, or the thought of what could happen.
It doesn’t help that we’re running head-on into another man-made crisis no one seems to care about.
Those of us who are old enough to remember Cold War I, remember the feeling.
After a while you get used to it, living under all those invisible flight paths. It takes time. My mother had duck and cover exercises at school. Yet she married and had a family.
I had nightmares. I worried. But I learned to cope. Now that it looks like Cold War 2 is under way, younger generations are going to have to learn that skill.
It is absurd to have to live under a system like this, where a few people have the power to end it all. Enjoy the absurdity. It helps. A little…
You can’t sit around and have an existential crisis all day every day. It’ll wear you out. I know. Get up and do stuff. It hasn’t happened yet.
Daniel Knox – Armageddon Song
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Madagascar and Latvia: put them together and you get awesomeness
Auli and Kilema – Taltalu
Madagascan and and Latvian? Who would’ve expected that? It’s the combo I didn’t know I needed.
I’ve been a fan of Madagascan music since the ’90s. I’ll be digging into that on the blog at some point. Latvian music, I’ve barely dipped my toe in those icy waters.
Here’s one Madagascan song, just to give you an idea why I love it. How could you not? I’m especially captivated by the tubular zither known as the Valiha.
Linda Volahasiniaina plays Valiha
Coincidentally (or not, I have superstition about “signposts”), a wonderfully pagan member of our Unitarian church chose a Latvian song for the congregation. It kinda fit with her talk to go along with her talk on Ostara.
Tautumeitas – Raganu Nakts
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Daniel Knox, voice of the fed up everyman
Daniel Knox is the man I listen to when I’m feeling blackpilled about human nature and he makes me smile. No one else sounds like him.
He’s like yeah, humans suck. And here’s why that’s funny and here’s why it’s sad. And why it’s still beautiful.
I always get over the doomerism I have for humanity. But if I didn’t, I think I’d be like Daniel Knox. His songwriter persona at any rate.
Daniel Knox – Ghost Song
I quit following his career for years. Just played the hell out of his first two albums Everyman for Himself, Disaster, and lately anything I could find on Spotify.
I’ve checked up on him recently and was happy to see he’s been having a lot of success while my mind was elsewhere.
He’s worked with David Lynch, The Handsome Family (and others I probably should recognize but don’t).
And he continues to make beautiful music. Never heard anything like his songs, yet they sound like American standards that could have been around forever.
Daniel Knox – Hollow
Looked up the lyrics to “Hollow” and Genius says “*The author prefers the lyrics to remain unprinted until all of them have been accurately guessed“. How fun! A puzzle. He’s gonna make us slow down and listen for ourselves.
His backstory alone ought to make him a legend. He taught himself to play piano on a grand piano in a Chicago hotel lobby. He used to be a projectionist at the historic Music Box Theater which gave him access to the theater organ.
Still working my way through the rest of his catalog. I’ll be talking about him again.
Daniel Knox – Blue Car
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Do androids have dreams or do they only feed on ours?
AI and creative inspiration
“Robot Radio” low power FM station sign outside Meow Wolf art exhibition in Santa Fe, Texas.
Can computer technology “create”? I’ve been wrestling with that question a lot lately. Do AI’s really contain that precious thing called inspiration?
If not, will they? Ever?
My Robot – by Looper (Stuart David, co-founder of indie pop group Belle and Sebastian).
My old man brain shouts “No! Never.” And then I see or read a piece of AI “art” and I feel something.
Is it only pattern recognition tricking me?
Is it a bug in my programming?
At times I swear I’m picking up a signal, but is it live or is it Memorex?
“Black Sun, Dead Can Dance” – Courtesy of Airminded, an online creator who is exploring the possibilities of Art and has curated some really evocative images.
Did we put our ghost in the machine or do we only see our minds reflected? Are we giving dreams to machines or just giving them up?
I remember seeing a slide show in the ’70s, from a missionary on leave from Africa. Some of the slides showed traditionally-dressed people hiding their faces with their hands.
“Some of them hate having their pictures taken,” the missionary said. “They think the camera will steal their souls.”
That got a few titters from the congregation, of course. But I’m starting to wonder if the people in those photos are getting the last laugh. Could that be exactly what we’re doing as “modern” humans? Feeding our souls into a machine?
If we are will we ever get them back? If we don’t, will this thing we’ve made appreciate the gift?
Maybe those tribesmen should have been the missionaries? They might have been wiser than us.
Judas Priest – Metal Gods
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Magic from beyond the world
I can’t help but love humans, as much as they may break my heart. I still hope our species will defy the odds, travel to the stars and and survive for thousands of years. Or millions, while we’re wishing.
Because humans can access a miracle known as inspiration.
I’m addicted to the stuff.
Jim White – Static on the Radio. (This song conveys the idea perfectly. I used to do this as a kid. The mystery…
Real artists bring things to life that never did exist in this world. To be honest, I consider myself a rational man, but it feels like magic.
Maybe it’s not magic, but I’m hanging onto that.
I think of it as the dragon’s whisker. Sometimes it feels like you could almost pull the entire dragon into this world.
When I see certain art, hear certain music, I feel it. It’s a bit like fishing. You can’t see it, but something is there. Something tugging the line. Something from somewhere… Else.
The fish may get away, but you KNOW you had something on the end of the line.
I have had a few tugs, but I don’t think I’ve reeled in any dragons yet. Dragon minnows at best.
I envy the people who reel in dragon after dragon, producing works that change people’s lives.
From the outside they may appear miserable. Magic takes it out of you.
But I know why they do it. It’s better than any drug.
Dead Can Dance – Summoning the Muse
I’m trying to expose myself to as much inspiration as I can before I leave this earth. I know it’s irrational, but I have a drive to listen to every great work of music from every time and culture. Impossible, but I try anyway.
Sarah Jarosz – My Muse
When I can’t channel it myself, I have to get it secondhand.
When I feel that tug, I’ll share. You might not feel it. We’re not all on the same wavelength.
But I have to try. My muse or whatever the hell it is, requires it.
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Murph!
Bowling for Soup – Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It)
I’ve mentioned before that my sneezes have changed into nonsense words. I plead allergies. More “old man noises” for my wife to make fun of and be grossed out by. (The one she really hates sounds kinda like “Buuuuicccckkkpttt!”
Today I realized I’ve developed a grunt vocabulary. Every old person has one of those. You can’t just quietly get out of a chair anymore. My grandmother used to go “Wheee!”
I used to have the standard “Umph!”
But lately it’s been coming out “Murph!” I was trying to yank my side of the blanket out from under my wife last night and it came out “Murph! Murph! Murph!” Till I yanked it loose.
I swear didn’t steal that from Interstellar, but I can’t help but think of it. Hearing Matthew McConaughey go “Murph! Murph! Murph!” made me snicker at all the wrong times.
You know he’s gonna make that noise when he gets old.
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