“That escalated steadily” & the guy out of the line: Chronicle 68

Reading a Gertrude Stein biography, an American who lived most of her life in France. A character, for sure, and therefore a tank of ideas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein

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Conversation about the last albums of singers, like David Bowie or Leonard Cohen. What do you sing when you’re about to die? The guy told me about Bob Dylan, who just sold his songwriting catalog a few days ago, and wrote a new album, which “sounds” like an ending. I’ll look into it soon.

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Got my microphone, a Fifine k670, which looks like this. I love it already!

I’d like to mix poetry and music, or “one-minute tracks”, or…

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What happens to the guy who steps out of line?

“L’homme qui sort du rang”, in French, the guy who steps out of line sounds positive in my ears, much more positive than the English version – I’m not sure of that.

He’s the volunteer, the man who is (suddenly or not) ready, but also the village idiot, who doesn’t understand the consequences, the one who decides to take a step, the man who shows himself to the community, etc.

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I have this phrase on a draft:

“If you’re using your imagination, you tend to look into the past”.

I’m sure it’s true, even after a little moment of thinking. It’s because we mainly see the world with analogies. Therefore comparisons? Therefore the past, the knowledge. It’s a one-hour conversation, right?

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When something’s too old, mono music, mute movies, we have to make a strange effort to appreciate.

Schubert in Berlin, by Furtwängler in 1951, The “Great” Symphony, is in mono and the sound seems muffled. Murnau’s Sunrise has no dialog and no real sound.

My article was called “The Furtwangler/Murnau effort”. Because it is an effort, right?

I remember I did it with John Ford‘s Four Sons (1928), and I loved it!

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Where is Washington DC? I checked on the map and realized that my idea was not too far from reality; thanks to my books about the Civil War. Ahhhh le Potomac! Ask French people about where the capital is (or the difference with the state Washington): nobody knows.

By the way, DC is pronounced “d’ici”, which means “from here” in France. Therefore Washington DC sounds from here “Washington from here”. I wrote an article about the fact that the medias say “Washington is about to decide this”, the country is called by its capital, which is called by one ex-president. The loop is pleasant.

French people like to brag Americans on “They don’t even know where Germany is” but they don’t know where Arkansas or New Hampshire are.

• Washington, I love you.

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Very interesting to follow far-right persons. I read a long “chronicle” by Ann Coulter on Breibart (she is sad because Trump “didn’t build the wall”), and I follow on Twitter a French trumpist (yesss it exists), who is a “patriot”. It’s not a good time for these people, I reckon. I read her, she’s mean, sarcastic, with huge energy for the “Grand Soir” (the Big Evening), which never happens of course. The world is complex… but at least these people have big steam, like a huge obsession which carries life.

I also spent an hour reading subReddits about QAnon people today, like r/QAnonCasualties or r/reQovery.

It’s like religions: my question is in fact “Why do people NEED to believe such… things?”.

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• We are coward here, and courageous there. Strange facets. Develop.
• Life is clear, and very confusing – alternatively.
• To come back on a subject, and come back again, multiplying points of views. In music? Poetry?
• Insistence as a way, for Arts.
• After a toxic relationship, is back to normalcy “refreshingly boring”?

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“All that is reached is destroyed”, says Montherlant, talking about “The Melancholy of Accomplishments”.

So what about all that is not reached?

Thanks for reading!

Vectors & North Star: Chronicle 67

I love to explore Springsteen or Dylan, though I really don’t like their music!

I tried to listen to Blonde on Blonde – I’ve been completely bored. I will try again with headphones and articles about the music, but I already know I’m not really interested, because I find it harmonically lazy. I need strange chords to trigger my pleasure!

Nevertheless, when I have a huge book about these guys on my lap, I feel like a child in front of a toy chest. I love to read about what they did, how they did it, and why. Intentions. Attempts. Codes. Changes. Etc.

oOOo

I found this draft, for this blog, a sentence: “She’s organized and he’s messy, but, and other positive “buts””. Haha! I don’t remember what it was about! The “Positive Buts” (one “t”, please). So what is it about? Complementary characters? A need for balance?

oOOo

Ordered a microphone for my Macintosh. A USB one. I’ll music this year, voilà.

oOOo

Poe’s Law is “Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

oOOo

I also wrote (or found) this: “The world’s most faithful and unreliable friend” (oh), near to “The North Star. You can navigate by it.“

I wonder if, when one is creative, if they have a North Star. I like the metaphor! The idea of Muse (someone is there for you, even an “idea” of them). The Golem (a figure you invent from clay), who is like a statue you work for, an archetype, a friendly aim.

The North Star is a landmark and a point, you draw a vector from your point to this other point. Direction. But also a light, right? Maybe a sign? Glow, Glim, Glimmer, glimmering (for a reason).

The watcher needs it, he’s thankful, he smiles, he travels, thanks to the North Star.

oOOo

I found Honorary Astronaut, a great little song with surprises each minute. Had to explore a bit before finding it’s a lateral group from The Dear Hunter, plenty of music to discover, like this one hour long “ACT IV: Rebirth in Reprise”, which is like someone says in the comments: “Indie Prog Orchestral Rock”.

Then I found Hold Salted Wind from Einar Stray Orchestra, from Norway (again). This music gets my attention immediatly: harmonies, doubled voice, organ, drama, some dissonances, surprises, broken structure.

Voilà, pour finir :

Thans for reading!

Photography: Winteroof Silhouette

Photography: Waiting for a train in Ablaincourt, France

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Tritones & Sad-Eyed Ladies: Chronicle 66

“We have to bring out knowledge where we don’t expect it.” – Roland Barthes

Isn’t it a fascinating quote?

We bring out knowledge in articles, in schools, in books: exactly WHERE we expect knowledge to be shown, that’s good.

But why should we do this in “unexpected” places? To create surprises? To aim at a new audience? Elegance of life?

I don’t know but I find it interesting.

But OK: where?

At work? Social media? Could we talk about Barthes on TikTok?

Knowledge? Music isn’t knowledge. So, what? Humanities? History? How? What form? Courses?

oOOo

Ahhh a day off, and a lonely time…

Let’s choose a musician (Gustav Holst, Chick Corea), ask some web pages, take some books, and explore. Finding names: “The Could Messenger”, “Now He Sings, Now He Sobs”. But I ended listening to “Jan Bang, Erik Honore, Gaute Storaas and Arve Henriksen – (2013) – Knut Hamsuns Victoria”.

A piece of quiet music:

oOOo

I have a draft here named Blood Family/Soul Family but I only have the title here. It’s an old structure, we know and see what it is. The problem is that we “know” our blood family – the soul family is elsewhere. We meet them later, maybe never. Maybe some work is needed to find the soul family. Not some work, but some… accuracy, or attention. But not being a tracker, right? One does not hunt a soulmate, but one can be ready to meet one.

oOOo

I made some photos which need some poetry.

oOOo

In French, there’s a song: “J’attendrai” (I will wait) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27attendrai. See lyrics. Other versions.

oOOo

Riskiest modulation of The Beatles: If I fell. It’s funny to hear it “explained” by a scholar with tritones, knowing that John Lennon liked to build song by “making piles of random chords”. I used to do it. Listening to the chords in loop triggers melodies.

oOOo

I opened a book about Bob Dylan and found that he had be signed on Columbia in the sixties by a guy named John Hammond. Hmm:

“What I wanted to do with Bobby was just to get him to sound in the studio as natural, just as he was in person, and have that extraordinary personality come thru…. After all, he’s not a great harmonica player, and he’s not a great guitar player, and he’s not a great singer. He just happens to be an original. And I just wanted to have that originality come thru.”

Producers who… feel something – the archetype probably being George Martin, often called the “fifth Beatles” (producer, arranger), and there’s another man, the manager (Brian Epstein). Hmm:

“…as John Lennon and Paul McCartney joined in with jokes and comic wordplay, that made Martin think that he should sign them to a contract for their wit alone.”

Stig Anderson was one of the dominant figures behind ABBA. He built them, co-wrote lyrics, etc, he’s sometimes called “The fifth member or ABBA” (well well), etc…

It is funny to read about the “guy behind”, when you read about big music stars. Who’s behind Queen, Elvis Presley? I’d like to find a book about them. What did they bring? What did they see? What have they in common?

oOOo

I opened a book about Bob Dylan’s songs, finding pages about one single song: Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. In itself, a big source of analysis games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Eyed_Lady_of_the_Lowlands

• It’s a very long “poem”, full of mysterious words. I found a French web page about Dylan’s lyrics style, closer than Rimbaud than American or English poets ( https://www.bobdylan-fr.com/articles/jeffreyside.html -> Google Translate it!).
• Instead of “stories” or descriptions, images so weird that people scratch their heads in wonder. Like in Umberto Eco & the Open Work, the audience built their signification.
• Therefore everybody finds something talking about themselves. Read the comments everywhere.
• Dylan’s recording of the song is interesting.
• It’s said to be a “hymn” to his lover. But some guys think that it’s about Dylan’s “anima” (the unconscious feminine side of a man – animus being the unconscious masculine side of a woman).
• It’s a waltz.
• The album was released in 1966; I’ve seen June, but also May 16th (I was born on May 15th this year).
• The sleeve’s blurry.

Well: voilà some seeds, dig a hole, put the seed, see what blossoms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
Oh, who do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass
Who could they get to carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I put them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Here it is by Joan Baez :

oOOo

Isn’t the best stimulant the curiosity of the person you love?

Thanks for reading. Happy New Year!

JP