Have fun shopping, suckers! The single stupidest product of capitalism yet, and boy, there are some bad ones. Anyway; I guess it is all part of the True Meaning of Christmas...
okay - enough of that. Friday Random Ten, I guess it is:
1. Stiff Little Fingers - Closed Groove
2. Ginger Baker Trio (Bill Frisell and Charlie Haden) - When we Go
3. The Attack - Mr. Pinnodmy's Dilemma
4. Husker Du - Back from Somewhere
5. Outkast - Vibrate
6. G.O.N.G. - Zero the Human and the Witch's Spell
7. Shudder to Think - Red House
8. Descendants - Suburban Home
9. Waterboys - Natural Bridge Blues
10. Buck Owens - Together Again
This deserves something - this is the Attack, obscure English psychedelic rockers The Attack, anticipating Tommy by a year or so, with the story of a lonely deaf and dumb boy:
And - any day is a good day for Buck Owens:
Friday, November 29, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Thanksgiving 150
This is a very eventful week or so in Civil War history - after the Gettysburg address, the battle of Chattanooga, today, November 26, was the first official, national celebration of Thanksgiving. I will leave it to Honest Abe - or really, William Seward, who wrote it - to issue the proclamation that made the turkey our de facto national bird:
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
Monday, November 25, 2013
Chattanooga
Today is the 150th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Chattanooga. The Chattanooga campaign lasted a while - the situation developed after Chickamauga: the Union army was defeated, retreated to Chattanooga, to the city itself - the Confederates followed, and occupied the high ground around the city, blocking most of the easy resupply routes. For a month or so they tried to starve the Yankees out - then Grant arrived, and set in motion a plan to get supplies through.
That was an interesting campaign itself - a night crossing of the Tennessee river, to allow the men of the Army of the CUmberland (George Thomas' army, which had been holding Chattanooga) to link with men from the Army of the Potomac, who had been brought west under Fightin' Joe Hooker. It all worked - the forces united, repulsed a night attack by the Confederates, and were able to open a short and reliable supply line, to feed the troops in Chattanooga. All that happened in late October - Grant then went to work on a plan to drive off the rebels holding the high ground (Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge), a plan that depended on the arrival of Sherman's army of the Tennessee. While that was happening, the Confederates feuded and divided their forces (Bragg sent Longstreet's corps off to Knoxville to harass Ambrose Burnside), thus leaving themselves badly outnumbered by the time the fighting started. They did very little to improve their positions - they were almost as badly supplied as the Army of the Cumberland. They held ground that looked very formidable, but had done all they could to neutralize their advantages.
When all was ready, Grant expected to put the burden of the fighting on Sherman's army. Their part in the plan was to cross the Tennessee on the Union left, and attack the Confederate right, at the end of Missionary Ridge. Thomas' army was not expected to do much - they had been shot to pieces at Chickamauga, and on short rations since, and were not considered ready for much fighting. Hooker's men, on the Union right, were mostly charged with pinning down what rebels they could, to keep the Confederates from shifting men to oppose Sherman. But all these plans started to come apart.
First - Hooker's men attacked Lookout Mountain, a high, rough mountain at the left end of the Confederate line - they went up the side of the mountain, managed to break the rebel lines in a couple places, and ended up taking it. It was a rather remarkable feet - a high, wild mountain, topped with nearly sheer cliffs - but the terrain tended to break up regular formations, and the union was able to negate the South's advantages there. By the end of November 24, the rebels had abandoned the mountain, leaving Hooker in possession.
On the 25th, the plan was for Sherman to attack to the other end of the Confederate line, while Hooker looked threatening, and Thomas waiting. But this went wrong. Sherman had some bad information - the hills were broken and ragged on that part of the field, and he found that he had not taken the position he thought - when he started attacking, he found himself facing another line of hills. He delayed badly allowing the Rebels to reinforce and prepare, and attacked in an uncoordinated and inefficient way, and made no progress. That threw the whole plan off balance - but then, the Army of the Cumberland attacked.
They were not expected to take an active part in the fighting. They were worn down from their experiences - and Grant didn't exactly trust the army or Thomas. They were also lined up in the valley, under Missionary Ridge - commanding high ground where the Rebels had been entrenched for some time. But as things went badly for Sherman, Grant decided to order Thomas' men forward. Not really expecting to accomplish a lot - but hoping that the Confederates would be forced to shift men away from Sherman's front. So - Thomas' army was ordered to attack the Rebel positions at the bottom of Missionary Ridge - and they took the whole thing. It was an odd, somewhat botched attack - the orders were vague - some commanders through they were supposed to take the lines at the bottom of the ridge only; others thought they were expected to go as far as they could. No one quite looked at it as anything more than a diversion. But it worked.
As it happened - the rebel lines were deceptive. The ground looked strong, their entrenchments looked strong - but the lines were poorly laid out, with little mutual support, especially given the steep hillside. The lines were held by far too few men - who were divided between the bottom and top of the ridge. On the other side - the initial attack succeeded, giving the Union control of the lines at the bottom of the ridge - but there, they were exposed to murderous fire from higher up - many of them had no choice but to continue up the ridge. So up they were - they reached the top - they broke the lines there - and swept all of Missionary Ridge clear.
It was a heady day of rate Army of the Cumberland - humiliated at Chickamauga, treated as distinctly second (even third) best by Grant (and Sherman and Hooker), they had come into the battle, almost by accident, after Sherman's failure and carried the day. They had their vengeance. They proved their worth. They made George Thomas' career (though he had little to do with any of it - he argued against the attack, did very little to control it), as well as adding another triumph to Grant's career (though he didn't have much to do with it either: the Cracker Line campaign was really George Thomas and Baldy Smith; Hooker's success at Lookout Mountain came against Grant's directions; Sherman's attack had failed; this one was supposed to be a glorified demonstration.) The battle also elevated Philip Sheridan, one of Thomas' division commanders - he would go east with Grant, command the cavalry, then an army, and be instrumental in winning the war. He was very prominent during the storming of Missionary Ridge, riding around making himself conspicuous - the sort of thing that gets attention, though his general air of aggression wasn't just for show.
And so it was. Bragg's army was routed. Bragg himself would finally be relieved after this, Joe Johnston put n charge, sometime over the winter. The Union held Chattanooga, once and for all - a perfect starting point for their innovation of George in the spring.
That was an interesting campaign itself - a night crossing of the Tennessee river, to allow the men of the Army of the CUmberland (George Thomas' army, which had been holding Chattanooga) to link with men from the Army of the Potomac, who had been brought west under Fightin' Joe Hooker. It all worked - the forces united, repulsed a night attack by the Confederates, and were able to open a short and reliable supply line, to feed the troops in Chattanooga. All that happened in late October - Grant then went to work on a plan to drive off the rebels holding the high ground (Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge), a plan that depended on the arrival of Sherman's army of the Tennessee. While that was happening, the Confederates feuded and divided their forces (Bragg sent Longstreet's corps off to Knoxville to harass Ambrose Burnside), thus leaving themselves badly outnumbered by the time the fighting started. They did very little to improve their positions - they were almost as badly supplied as the Army of the Cumberland. They held ground that looked very formidable, but had done all they could to neutralize their advantages.
When all was ready, Grant expected to put the burden of the fighting on Sherman's army. Their part in the plan was to cross the Tennessee on the Union left, and attack the Confederate right, at the end of Missionary Ridge. Thomas' army was not expected to do much - they had been shot to pieces at Chickamauga, and on short rations since, and were not considered ready for much fighting. Hooker's men, on the Union right, were mostly charged with pinning down what rebels they could, to keep the Confederates from shifting men to oppose Sherman. But all these plans started to come apart.
First - Hooker's men attacked Lookout Mountain, a high, rough mountain at the left end of the Confederate line - they went up the side of the mountain, managed to break the rebel lines in a couple places, and ended up taking it. It was a rather remarkable feet - a high, wild mountain, topped with nearly sheer cliffs - but the terrain tended to break up regular formations, and the union was able to negate the South's advantages there. By the end of November 24, the rebels had abandoned the mountain, leaving Hooker in possession.
On the 25th, the plan was for Sherman to attack to the other end of the Confederate line, while Hooker looked threatening, and Thomas waiting. But this went wrong. Sherman had some bad information - the hills were broken and ragged on that part of the field, and he found that he had not taken the position he thought - when he started attacking, he found himself facing another line of hills. He delayed badly allowing the Rebels to reinforce and prepare, and attacked in an uncoordinated and inefficient way, and made no progress. That threw the whole plan off balance - but then, the Army of the Cumberland attacked.
They were not expected to take an active part in the fighting. They were worn down from their experiences - and Grant didn't exactly trust the army or Thomas. They were also lined up in the valley, under Missionary Ridge - commanding high ground where the Rebels had been entrenched for some time. But as things went badly for Sherman, Grant decided to order Thomas' men forward. Not really expecting to accomplish a lot - but hoping that the Confederates would be forced to shift men away from Sherman's front. So - Thomas' army was ordered to attack the Rebel positions at the bottom of Missionary Ridge - and they took the whole thing. It was an odd, somewhat botched attack - the orders were vague - some commanders through they were supposed to take the lines at the bottom of the ridge only; others thought they were expected to go as far as they could. No one quite looked at it as anything more than a diversion. But it worked.
As it happened - the rebel lines were deceptive. The ground looked strong, their entrenchments looked strong - but the lines were poorly laid out, with little mutual support, especially given the steep hillside. The lines were held by far too few men - who were divided between the bottom and top of the ridge. On the other side - the initial attack succeeded, giving the Union control of the lines at the bottom of the ridge - but there, they were exposed to murderous fire from higher up - many of them had no choice but to continue up the ridge. So up they were - they reached the top - they broke the lines there - and swept all of Missionary Ridge clear.
It was a heady day of rate Army of the Cumberland - humiliated at Chickamauga, treated as distinctly second (even third) best by Grant (and Sherman and Hooker), they had come into the battle, almost by accident, after Sherman's failure and carried the day. They had their vengeance. They proved their worth. They made George Thomas' career (though he had little to do with any of it - he argued against the attack, did very little to control it), as well as adding another triumph to Grant's career (though he didn't have much to do with it either: the Cracker Line campaign was really George Thomas and Baldy Smith; Hooker's success at Lookout Mountain came against Grant's directions; Sherman's attack had failed; this one was supposed to be a glorified demonstration.) The battle also elevated Philip Sheridan, one of Thomas' division commanders - he would go east with Grant, command the cavalry, then an army, and be instrumental in winning the war. He was very prominent during the storming of Missionary Ridge, riding around making himself conspicuous - the sort of thing that gets attention, though his general air of aggression wasn't just for show.
And so it was. Bragg's army was routed. Bragg himself would finally be relieved after this, Joe Johnston put n charge, sometime over the winter. The Union held Chattanooga, once and for all - a perfect starting point for their innovation of George in the spring.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Friday Music
Quick one today - preparing for a bit of travel. I do hope to get back, to offer some kind of thoughts on the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination - that's kind of a big deal, though it's hard to figure out what I think about it. I am sure it changed my life profoundly (changing the world I would grow up in) - but I have never quite figured out how. A lot of that comes down to knowing how much of what is good and bad in the 1960s (and there were many things both good and bad) were driven by JFK, and how much LBJ. Johnson was the one who did most of it - the Civil Rights laws, the Great Society, but also the Vietnam War - but how do those things relate to JFK, and to his assassination? I don't know... and am not sure what to say about them.
Anyway - enough of that. I point you to a somewhat more pleasant subject - my essay on Winchester 73 for Wonders in the Dark's western countdown. More may come of that - I've put a couple essays in there about Anthony Mann, and suspect he might be my next Director of the Month - though probably not this month. The holiday, you know... For now - I leave you with music - a plain random ten, though it's a nice one.... I commend iTunes for its taste.
1. Gomez - Sweet Virginia
2. Sonic Youth - Winner's Blues
3. Mission of Burma - Good, not Great
4. Scott Walker - If You Go Away
5. Nick Cave & Bad Seeds - Hold On to Yourself
6. John Zorn - The James Bond Theme
7. Ramones - 53rd and 3rd (live)
8. Spacemen 3 - Starship (live - feedback rules!)
9. Jimmy Smith - God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman (oh crap! even iTunes is starting with the Christmas music!)
10. George Harrison - Hear Me Lord
Video: Ramones, of course. Twice, since that vintage footage is rather - distressed...
And - a different kind of thing, but just about as cool - Spacemen 3:
Anyway - enough of that. I point you to a somewhat more pleasant subject - my essay on Winchester 73 for Wonders in the Dark's western countdown. More may come of that - I've put a couple essays in there about Anthony Mann, and suspect he might be my next Director of the Month - though probably not this month. The holiday, you know... For now - I leave you with music - a plain random ten, though it's a nice one.... I commend iTunes for its taste.
1. Gomez - Sweet Virginia
2. Sonic Youth - Winner's Blues
3. Mission of Burma - Good, not Great
4. Scott Walker - If You Go Away
5. Nick Cave & Bad Seeds - Hold On to Yourself
6. John Zorn - The James Bond Theme
7. Ramones - 53rd and 3rd (live)
8. Spacemen 3 - Starship (live - feedback rules!)
9. Jimmy Smith - God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman (oh crap! even iTunes is starting with the Christmas music!)
10. George Harrison - Hear Me Lord
Video: Ramones, of course. Twice, since that vintage footage is rather - distressed...
And - a different kind of thing, but just about as cool - Spacemen 3:
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Gettysburg Address
150 Years ago today, in Gettysburg, the United States dedicated a cemetery for the Union dead from the battle. That in itself was important, part of the evolution of the way the country treated the dead in the Civil War - part of the increasing effort, during the war, to give fallen soldiers a proper burial, to accord them the dignity and respect they deserved. It was a daunting task, north and south, to take care of the dead - again, I recommend Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering.
At the dedication, there were speeches and ceremonies, and then Abraham Lincoln spoke. Not a long speech, one with its modesty built in ("the world will little note, nor long remember"), and rather underwhelming at first. But it rings down through history, partly for its clarity and efficiency (for Lincoln was a great writer, one who helps to invent a more modern form of political speech), but also for its definition of the war. It marks how the nature of the war has changed since the beginning of the war. It is now a war for freedom, which by 1863, meant freedom for slaves - but phrased in a way that makes it clear that without freedom for all (including slaves), there is freedom for none. That ties it back to the beginning of the war, Lincoln's arguments from the start - that the war was about the question of whether "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The speech integrates the earlier statements of the Union's aims in the war with the aims as they had evolved in 1863, it links the defense of the union and of democracy itself to the freeing of the slaves; it carries the recognition that slavery was always a fall from the ideals of the country (a case made by abolitionists, Frederick Douglass, say, who revered the Declaration of Independence, and distrusted the Constitution) - that is powerful. It is moving to this day.
This is Jim Getty (I believe), a regular Lincoln re-enactor:
And Charles Laughton, from Ruggles of Red Gap:
And the words themselves:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
At the dedication, there were speeches and ceremonies, and then Abraham Lincoln spoke. Not a long speech, one with its modesty built in ("the world will little note, nor long remember"), and rather underwhelming at first. But it rings down through history, partly for its clarity and efficiency (for Lincoln was a great writer, one who helps to invent a more modern form of political speech), but also for its definition of the war. It marks how the nature of the war has changed since the beginning of the war. It is now a war for freedom, which by 1863, meant freedom for slaves - but phrased in a way that makes it clear that without freedom for all (including slaves), there is freedom for none. That ties it back to the beginning of the war, Lincoln's arguments from the start - that the war was about the question of whether "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The speech integrates the earlier statements of the Union's aims in the war with the aims as they had evolved in 1863, it links the defense of the union and of democracy itself to the freeing of the slaves; it carries the recognition that slavery was always a fall from the ideals of the country (a case made by abolitionists, Frederick Douglass, say, who revered the Declaration of Independence, and distrusted the Constitution) - that is powerful. It is moving to this day.
This is Jim Getty (I believe), a regular Lincoln re-enactor:
And Charles Laughton, from Ruggles of Red Gap:
And the words themselves:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
Friday, November 15, 2013
Friday Music
I think today we are going with a simple iPod shuffle. We are coming into the Holiday Season, and even now I can see Tasks, Looming Up Before Me.... So - simple and to the point:
1. REM - Discoverer
2. David Bowie - Moonage Daydream
3. REM - Departure [two REM songs, from records I don't listen to much? how weird!]
4. TV on the Radio - Hours
5. Public Enemy - Night of the Living Baseheads
6. Loren Connors - Airs No. 7
7. Pere Ubu - Montana [proof that you CAN play accordion in a rock and roll band!]
8. Einsturzende Neubauten - Well Well Well
9. Faust - Jennifer
10. Built to Spill - Good Old Boredom
And video? Try REM, one of the high points of their late career....
A bit of Krautrock - Faust, doing Jennifer:
And though I can't find a live clip of Hours, here's TV on the Radio, since it's best to have someone on the list younger than me. (I suppose the Built to Spill guys count too.) And because TV on the Radio are the real deal...
1. REM - Discoverer
2. David Bowie - Moonage Daydream
3. REM - Departure [two REM songs, from records I don't listen to much? how weird!]
4. TV on the Radio - Hours
5. Public Enemy - Night of the Living Baseheads
6. Loren Connors - Airs No. 7
7. Pere Ubu - Montana [proof that you CAN play accordion in a rock and roll band!]
8. Einsturzende Neubauten - Well Well Well
9. Faust - Jennifer
10. Built to Spill - Good Old Boredom
And video? Try REM, one of the high points of their late career....
A bit of Krautrock - Faust, doing Jennifer:
And though I can't find a live clip of Hours, here's TV on the Radio, since it's best to have someone on the list younger than me. (I suppose the Built to Spill guys count too.) And because TV on the Radio are the real deal...
Monday, November 11, 2013
Armistice Day
We are getting close to the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I - next year... It is, I think, the defining moment in modern history - even WWII plays as a kind of sequel - bigger, more horrible, though also, maybe, more "successful" in remaking the world in a slightly better form. In some places. Kinda, sorta… I imagine, next year, I will try to follow along with it, as I have been doing with the Civil War's 150th anniversary - it is, I think, to modern Europe what the Civil War is to the United States.
And now - on this day, again, we should remember the end of the first one: the bad war - the war to end all wars, that spawned a dozen more wars. We should remember, and think about what war is.
I will turn it over to Wilfred Owen. Here, first, his most famous poem - Dulce et Decorum Est (here, with annotations):
And here is Kenneth Branagh reading Anthem for Doomed Youth:
the texts:
Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
and:
Anthem for Doomed Youth
BY WILFRED OWEN
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
And now - on this day, again, we should remember the end of the first one: the bad war - the war to end all wars, that spawned a dozen more wars. We should remember, and think about what war is.
I will turn it over to Wilfred Owen. Here, first, his most famous poem - Dulce et Decorum Est (here, with annotations):
And here is Kenneth Branagh reading Anthem for Doomed Youth:
the texts:
Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
and:
Anthem for Doomed Youth
BY WILFRED OWEN
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Friday, November 08, 2013
Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground
This month's band is a bit out of order, if I were sticking to my rough chronology - but events have intervened, so let's look at the Velvet Underground, and Lou Reed.
I became a fan after college; that was late, I suppose, but it took a while to get where I was going. I started listening to a lot of things after college that I'd missed before - contemporary stuff like the Feelies, Replacements and Husker Du; punk, especially the Sex Pistols, Joy Division, the Ramones; and older underground music - the Velvets, Stooges, etc... All of it felt like I had finally reached the place I wanted to be. All of those bands, really, made me feel that way - like I was hearing something that I had imagined but didn't know existed until now... And the best of these was the Velvet Underground.
There were reasons. Reed's lyrics, obviously - they were a different matter than anyone else I'd listened to. Stories, full of characters, situations, described, in clear and evocative ways. They were naughty of course (shiny shiny boots of leather...), but more than that, I loved their descriptive power, their way of describing things that might be happening somewhere. I was not, then, the movie geek I would become - but I had the makings; and Reed's songs operate almost like little movies. They are built, after all, around stories and people - vignettes, scenes - and images - "Severin, down on your bended knee..." - conversations, actions, things seen. Not all - but the imagery in Reed's songs is still more vivid than almost anyone else (at least of the songwriters I knew then) - "I wish that I was born a thousand years ago..." They are a tour of a world - they are like a sketchbook, with commentary... they feel documentary. And the man can turn a phrase....
But I don't know - was it the words? or the music? Because the music blew me away just as much. Nothing else quite sounds like that - listening to the first Velvet Underground record, especially, is like watching old Godard films - the more you know about music (or films) the more familiar they seem, because everyone since then seems to be stealing a little of it - but almost no one since then has come close to taking the chances they took. There's nothing quite like that set of drones and pretty melodies, the dissonance and pulsing rhythms, the ebb and flow of the music, between songs, inside songs. They are beautiful, genuinely unsettling, and build up to real honest to god rock and roll climaxes. It crushed me in the late 80s, and has the same effect now.
And then there is this - it had the same effect in 1973 or 4. I have a memory - I don't know if I trust it - of hearing Walk on the Wild Side on the radio, on AM, I think, when it was a hit, I think. I try to place the memory - I can, almost - I was in my bedroom, it was back when I shared a room with my brothers - I think I remember details, playing with some kind of plastic cowboys and Indians or soldiers or something on an old dresser... and Lou Reed came on the radio and brought me up short. That's a very strange song to hear as a kid, used to the Carpenters and Wings and maybe Elton John. It didn't sound like anything I had ever heard - or anything I would hear for a couple years afterwards, I think. But even then - it was fantastic. It would bring me up short, when I heard it - the way it sounds... It's a fairly simple rock song in a sense, but nothing about it is simple. From the chunky acoustic guitar, the twin bass lines, the brushed drums, Lou's voice, to the colored girls on the chorus, and the sax solo - it didn't sound like anything else. I don't know how often I heard it, in those early days - but I must have loved it. When I started hearing it later, I remembered it, and could sing along with it.... Now - when I first heard it, I had no clue what it was about. When I heard it later - well, yes. But by that time I had heard plenty of "dirty" songs - you know - Love is the Drug; Sweet Emotion; things like that... That time around I got Walk on the Wild side. But from the start - the sound of it burrowed into my head and waited until I was old enough to get it.
What I did get, from the beginning, was the line about the colored girls singing. I recognized the irony - the joke, about white musicians using black musicians and voices to give their songs authenticity and a touch of beauty. I could tell this song was doing that, and making fun of it at the same time. And I thought that was very cool. And I think I recognized it in a lot of Reed's music - the stuff I heard in the 70s and 80s especially. The AOR stations I listened to played Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll from Rock and Roll Animal a lot - those guitar solos are as familiar as Jimmy Page or Tommy Iommi's... they were odd - sounding nothing like Walk on the Wild Side (which got played a bit); then later, other stations would occasionally play something from the Velvets - which sounded nothing like either. And when I started listening to the Velvet Underground records - well - that's another of Lou's many virtues. He was something of a musical chameleon. He played in many styles - played with styles - adopting the slick rock and roll of Rock and Roll Animal, going off into the experimental strangeness of Metal Machine Music - you could never quite tell how seriously he meant to take it... though I suspect a big part of the point is that you don't really have to choose, seriousness or irony. You should be able to hold both in your mind at the same time - and when it's good, it's good.
And so one more thing, still on the musical legacy of Reed and the Velvets. It sometimes seems that all of my favorite songs in the last 30 years have been variations on Heroin. Seriously - Bad? Atmosphere? Marquee Moon? The Cross? Nirvana made people talk about the soft/hard thing - it wasn't new - it isn't even really unique to the Velvets, but they did something different. Songs like Behind Blue Eyes, Stairway to Heaven have a similar structure, but they seem so much more conventional. The main difference, I think, is that the Velvets work the structure around a drone - most of the other bands weren't doing that. (Oddly enough, the one big English band that did love drones, as much as the Velvets, is the Beatles - all those fake-Indian songs, or Tomorrow Never Knows?) But after the Velvets, people picked up on it - whole National Musical Styles picked up on it - take Krautrock.... They made drones an integral part of rock. That's something right there.
It's also something that really depended on John Cale and Mo Tucker, too - I've made this post mostly about Lou Reed, for obvious reasons - but they were a great band. Cale brought a lot of the musical sophistication and strangeness - and Tucker brought that sound, that 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 drum pattern, that makes every song seem to race. YOu can't beat them.
All right - now to the top 10. I could have stuck to The Velvet Underground, but I think I will make this a combined list - Velvets and Lou by himself. Here then - my 10 favorite songs:
1. Some Kinds of Love - the possibilities are endless...
2. Heroin
3. Street Hassle - tramps like us, we were born to pay...
4. What Goes On - this song, especially the live versions, chugging along the way it does, could go on forever, and I would be happy; it is all you need. Lou and Sterling do yeoman work, keeping those rhythm guitars going for 10 minutes at a stretch.
5. Walk on the Wild Side
6. Rock and Roll - another song that comes in half a dozen variations, all of them thrilling
7. Sweet Jane
8. All Tomorrow's Parties
9. Pale Blue Eyes
10. Venus in Furs
And now some video - start with Walk on the Wild Side, live in France, full glam - which in Lou's case translates into something like horror movie makeup:
And Street Hassle, video made of Warhol films...
Loutallica! doing Sweet Jane.
80s Lou, doing Rock and Roll at Amnesty International. I read a Christian rock newsletter that described Lou Reed at this concert (and the Meters if such a thing can be imagined) as "disposable pop music." This remains one of the touchstones in my life for bad music criticism.
The Gift, from the Velvet's reunion tour:
And Heroin, also from the reunion (nice shots of Mo and CAle, as well as Lou - though Sterling gets short shrift from the editors, I'm sorry to say):
One more - Romeo had Juliet - since, for all my talk about the Velvet Underground, Lou kept churning them out for a long time. The one time I saw Lou play, was after the New York record - he held his own with the Feelies, which no one else has ever done... Also - this is the first record I could not find of vinyl, and had to buy on CD. It marked the end of something there...
I became a fan after college; that was late, I suppose, but it took a while to get where I was going. I started listening to a lot of things after college that I'd missed before - contemporary stuff like the Feelies, Replacements and Husker Du; punk, especially the Sex Pistols, Joy Division, the Ramones; and older underground music - the Velvets, Stooges, etc... All of it felt like I had finally reached the place I wanted to be. All of those bands, really, made me feel that way - like I was hearing something that I had imagined but didn't know existed until now... And the best of these was the Velvet Underground.
There were reasons. Reed's lyrics, obviously - they were a different matter than anyone else I'd listened to. Stories, full of characters, situations, described, in clear and evocative ways. They were naughty of course (shiny shiny boots of leather...), but more than that, I loved their descriptive power, their way of describing things that might be happening somewhere. I was not, then, the movie geek I would become - but I had the makings; and Reed's songs operate almost like little movies. They are built, after all, around stories and people - vignettes, scenes - and images - "Severin, down on your bended knee..." - conversations, actions, things seen. Not all - but the imagery in Reed's songs is still more vivid than almost anyone else (at least of the songwriters I knew then) - "I wish that I was born a thousand years ago..." They are a tour of a world - they are like a sketchbook, with commentary... they feel documentary. And the man can turn a phrase....
But I don't know - was it the words? or the music? Because the music blew me away just as much. Nothing else quite sounds like that - listening to the first Velvet Underground record, especially, is like watching old Godard films - the more you know about music (or films) the more familiar they seem, because everyone since then seems to be stealing a little of it - but almost no one since then has come close to taking the chances they took. There's nothing quite like that set of drones and pretty melodies, the dissonance and pulsing rhythms, the ebb and flow of the music, between songs, inside songs. They are beautiful, genuinely unsettling, and build up to real honest to god rock and roll climaxes. It crushed me in the late 80s, and has the same effect now.
And then there is this - it had the same effect in 1973 or 4. I have a memory - I don't know if I trust it - of hearing Walk on the Wild Side on the radio, on AM, I think, when it was a hit, I think. I try to place the memory - I can, almost - I was in my bedroom, it was back when I shared a room with my brothers - I think I remember details, playing with some kind of plastic cowboys and Indians or soldiers or something on an old dresser... and Lou Reed came on the radio and brought me up short. That's a very strange song to hear as a kid, used to the Carpenters and Wings and maybe Elton John. It didn't sound like anything I had ever heard - or anything I would hear for a couple years afterwards, I think. But even then - it was fantastic. It would bring me up short, when I heard it - the way it sounds... It's a fairly simple rock song in a sense, but nothing about it is simple. From the chunky acoustic guitar, the twin bass lines, the brushed drums, Lou's voice, to the colored girls on the chorus, and the sax solo - it didn't sound like anything else. I don't know how often I heard it, in those early days - but I must have loved it. When I started hearing it later, I remembered it, and could sing along with it.... Now - when I first heard it, I had no clue what it was about. When I heard it later - well, yes. But by that time I had heard plenty of "dirty" songs - you know - Love is the Drug; Sweet Emotion; things like that... That time around I got Walk on the Wild side. But from the start - the sound of it burrowed into my head and waited until I was old enough to get it.
What I did get, from the beginning, was the line about the colored girls singing. I recognized the irony - the joke, about white musicians using black musicians and voices to give their songs authenticity and a touch of beauty. I could tell this song was doing that, and making fun of it at the same time. And I thought that was very cool. And I think I recognized it in a lot of Reed's music - the stuff I heard in the 70s and 80s especially. The AOR stations I listened to played Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll from Rock and Roll Animal a lot - those guitar solos are as familiar as Jimmy Page or Tommy Iommi's... they were odd - sounding nothing like Walk on the Wild Side (which got played a bit); then later, other stations would occasionally play something from the Velvets - which sounded nothing like either. And when I started listening to the Velvet Underground records - well - that's another of Lou's many virtues. He was something of a musical chameleon. He played in many styles - played with styles - adopting the slick rock and roll of Rock and Roll Animal, going off into the experimental strangeness of Metal Machine Music - you could never quite tell how seriously he meant to take it... though I suspect a big part of the point is that you don't really have to choose, seriousness or irony. You should be able to hold both in your mind at the same time - and when it's good, it's good.
And so one more thing, still on the musical legacy of Reed and the Velvets. It sometimes seems that all of my favorite songs in the last 30 years have been variations on Heroin. Seriously - Bad? Atmosphere? Marquee Moon? The Cross? Nirvana made people talk about the soft/hard thing - it wasn't new - it isn't even really unique to the Velvets, but they did something different. Songs like Behind Blue Eyes, Stairway to Heaven have a similar structure, but they seem so much more conventional. The main difference, I think, is that the Velvets work the structure around a drone - most of the other bands weren't doing that. (Oddly enough, the one big English band that did love drones, as much as the Velvets, is the Beatles - all those fake-Indian songs, or Tomorrow Never Knows?) But after the Velvets, people picked up on it - whole National Musical Styles picked up on it - take Krautrock.... They made drones an integral part of rock. That's something right there.
It's also something that really depended on John Cale and Mo Tucker, too - I've made this post mostly about Lou Reed, for obvious reasons - but they were a great band. Cale brought a lot of the musical sophistication and strangeness - and Tucker brought that sound, that 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 drum pattern, that makes every song seem to race. YOu can't beat them.
All right - now to the top 10. I could have stuck to The Velvet Underground, but I think I will make this a combined list - Velvets and Lou by himself. Here then - my 10 favorite songs:
1. Some Kinds of Love - the possibilities are endless...
2. Heroin
3. Street Hassle - tramps like us, we were born to pay...
4. What Goes On - this song, especially the live versions, chugging along the way it does, could go on forever, and I would be happy; it is all you need. Lou and Sterling do yeoman work, keeping those rhythm guitars going for 10 minutes at a stretch.
5. Walk on the Wild Side
6. Rock and Roll - another song that comes in half a dozen variations, all of them thrilling
7. Sweet Jane
8. All Tomorrow's Parties
9. Pale Blue Eyes
10. Venus in Furs
And now some video - start with Walk on the Wild Side, live in France, full glam - which in Lou's case translates into something like horror movie makeup:
And Street Hassle, video made of Warhol films...
Loutallica! doing Sweet Jane.
80s Lou, doing Rock and Roll at Amnesty International. I read a Christian rock newsletter that described Lou Reed at this concert (and the Meters if such a thing can be imagined) as "disposable pop music." This remains one of the touchstones in my life for bad music criticism.
The Gift, from the Velvet's reunion tour:
And Heroin, also from the reunion (nice shots of Mo and CAle, as well as Lou - though Sterling gets short shrift from the editors, I'm sorry to say):
One more - Romeo had Juliet - since, for all my talk about the Velvet Underground, Lou kept churning them out for a long time. The one time I saw Lou play, was after the New York record - he held his own with the Feelies, which no one else has ever done... Also - this is the first record I could not find of vinyl, and had to buy on CD. It marked the end of something there...
Sunday, November 03, 2013
One Last Red Sox Post
Just some pictures from the parade. A gorgeous day - we got a great spot by the Charles, I got a ton of pictures (though I ended up watching the whole thing through the camera viewfinder, probably - though modern cameras and all, you can sort of hold them at arms length and take your pictures... that helps explain why I got so many shots of duck boat roofs and water), and all was well. This stuff doesn't get old...
Friday, November 01, 2013
Covering Lou Reed
The Red Sox have completely disrupted my writing patterns over the last couple weeks (not that they are ever very disciplined). So I am well behind on what I was hoping to pt up this Friday - another Band of the Month, dedicated to Lou Reed. Fortunately, I can stick to my second Friday of the month schedule for that, and pretend I did it on purpose...
But I think the general plan can hold - we can dedicate this week's music post to Lou. Mainly video - and this week - to Brian Eno's remark that everyone who bought the first Velvet Underground record formed a band...
Here's Roky Erickson, doing Heroin:
Feelies' Velvet Underground medley:
The Cowboy Junkies, playing Sweet Jane:
Galaxie 500, and Here She Comes:
And Ralph Stanley:
But I think the general plan can hold - we can dedicate this week's music post to Lou. Mainly video - and this week - to Brian Eno's remark that everyone who bought the first Velvet Underground record formed a band...
Here's Roky Erickson, doing Heroin:
Feelies' Velvet Underground medley:
The Cowboy Junkies, playing Sweet Jane:
Galaxie 500, and Here She Comes:
And Ralph Stanley:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
