When I was a kid, I was absolutely mad about dancing. It took a while – somewhere around my 14th birthday or so – but I discovered dancing with a girl was nearly as cool as making the throw across the baseball diamond. I recall sitting in Barbara Brackett’s living room, listening to Aretha Franklin, “Shotgun” and Sam and Dave, then going crackers on Friday and Saturday nights, doing our version of the “Disco” of the era. More than just one girl were responsible for helping me in this sweaty and satisfying endeavor! But her potato chips were dam good and she was beautiful.
Back then, Soul Music landed with all four feet and a loud, upbeat rhythmical thump. It took us all by storm. Fr0m Bo Diddly to the elegant Marvin Gaye, I spent years dancing and listening to Soul Music. It remains to this day a virtual Fountain of Inspiration to me. Here’s Bo – inventor of the guitar sound which he pioneered as well as the guitar itself. Funky man, that Bo:
I had an exceptionally eye-opening experience as a sophomore in high school, when three of us traveled to Evansville, Indiana from my home town of Owensboro to attend a James Brown concert. We got there real early, because we were afraid we wouldn’t get good seats, so we were easily an hour ahead of the concert start. As the crowd filed in, we began to realize we were pretty much the onliest white people in the entire small arena.
There we were, 3 young dumb white kids in “O” jackets, with “State Baseball Champions” engraved across the letters – which we had just won. Well, as people filed in behind us (we were in about the third row), they engaged us. They were quietly thrilled we were interested in Brown but what blew our minds was that they knew who we were. Huge sports fans. “You boys have a sweet team. That Jim Howes will be throwing in the Big Leagues. Our boys gonna get you all!, ha ha ha.”
And, as always: “You came to the right concert, boys. James Brown is The Man.”
Well, he was. For all sorts of reasons, it may have been the greatest concert I’ve ever seen. Big Mama Thornton led things off, with Brown’s incredibly tight band behind her and our local men were going stark-raving crazy. She was amazingly talented, with a gorgeous voice and a passion I’ve never forgotten. She sang the blues – and she got upbeat – but her blues were the stunner. I wonder if I ever saw it done better.
We left the place on a cloud. It was a unique and enhancing experience for us all. It was, of course, during a time when racial issues became extremely important as an American social phenomenon. In a way, for me it was easier, owing to my athletics. Playing with the guys had me visit their homes, listen to them gab – for better or for worse, lol – have a darn good time and appreciate pure talent and performance. The good old bottom line in both the athletics and military experiences I had back then acquainted me with a race of people who were about as ‘different’ from me as “I am from me”.
So I danced – and danced. Let’s face it. If you can’t move to this, you may be dead:
OK, this is a stretch for a simple landscaping blog. Just know this: I know that and let me say my piece. It’s never stopped me before, has it? This one deals with the Earth, having said that, and that’s my own area. Dirt rocks and so do rocks.
I recently went to the movies, chucked on my 3D glasses and watched one of the most stunning movie events I have ever seen. The film is called “The Cave Of Forgotten Dreams” and I cannot possibly recommend it high enough. It was directed by Werner Herzog and deals with an inside look at the astonishing Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc, where artists as long ago as 32,000 years plied their art of cave-paintings, using the walls of this gorgeous, previously-hidden cave as their canvas and using the folds and 3 dimensional aspect of the terrain itself to provide depth, apparent motion and breathtaking artistic ability.
The extremely cautious French Government goes overboard in scrupulous preservation paranoia, and the film mentions this. Protecting the inside treasure is testified to when references to them shutting the cave off to visitors for a few months was felt necessary owing to “The breath of visitors is causing a mold to adhere to the walls.” This is a look inside – a rare moment in time and one which may or may not ever be replicated.
The cave simply reveals life at that time in a manner which nothing else possibly could. The genius is inside the art itself, of course, but the creative genius of Werner Herzog amplifies it, juxtaposing all this with modern perceptions of an era, seen from the best anthropological, psychological and paleantological minds of our generation.
Borrowing this piece of breathless excitement emitted by a movie review in the New York Times:
“The cave was discovered in December 1994 by three French cavers, Jean-Marie Chauvet, Éliette Brunel Deschamps and Christian Hillaire. Following an air current coming from the cliff, they dug and crawled their way into the cave, which had been sealed tight for some 20,000 years. After finally making their way to an enormous chamber, Ms. Deschamps held up her lamp and, seeing an image of a mammoth, cried out, “They were here,” a glorious moment of discovery that closed the distance between our lost human past and our present.”
How cool is that?
The movie possesses so much depth and range of emotion and the hidden tension of discovery, that it nearly stands alone as an experience of brotherliness linking ourselves with our incredibly ancient past. I have to suspect this is an instant classic, no matter how uneven it might seem at its start. The punch is delivered as we advance, revealing all the incredible wonders this cave has to offer. Bear skulls, complete vertebrae of gigantic land animals, pictures of the rhinos, the Ibex, horses, lions, bison adorn these walls in graduated impact as the camera gets released later to fully explore.
Anyway – I guess you can tell I enjoyed the film! ;-)
And here is where we return to the premise of this post. That Herzog has created a masterpiece I have little doubt. When you feel literally blessed and extremely fortunate to view a film, then these emotions tell us something very important: either we are nuts, or else this guy put together a magnificent piece of pure genius. I naturally choose the latter. As I said, the uneven beginning to the film requires a bit of patience. There is information coming in rather placid and somewhat pedantic ways, although there are indeed gorgeous pictures of the paintings and the access to them at the same time. The geological wonders alone are fantastic and impossible. Calcite galore, stalactites and stalagmites adorn the view – some literally impacting the paintings as well as such things as footprints of a bear as well as that of a child. The protective measures taken by the French is also droned on about at length – but – and here’s the thing:
It all makes sense and comes together incredibly effectively as we witness what a treasure this is. The drama of this discovery is served well by Herzog and the ineffable music streaming from the cello of the master cellist, Ernst Reijseger, which takes on an increasing urgency and even pathos as we discover this enormously ancient past of all of ours. The musical work of Reijseger is of a quality I have rarely seen before – it is clearly evocative and it seems utterly spontaneous as it impacts us concurrently with the images we behold and the verbalized statements from the long list of exceptional people. It courses through the film in a sensuous, even mysteriously sinewy way – somehow absolutely perfectly emotive and even responsible as we peer into who we once were. It is somehow totally fitting that we should answer the very height of their art with some of our own.
There is humanity here and a respect for our past. I mean a deep respect for our past. Oddities galore – it appears Neanderthal man was around as well as our own Homo Sapiens species evolved in the same neighborhood. Entire skeletons of the animals of the day appear, close up and personal.
I’m including aspect of Herzog and Reijseger’s traveling “Cine-Concert” which is entitled “Requiem For A Dying Planet” which toured to rave reviews globally. The reason I include this apparently non-related and somewhat disjointed piece is merely to illustrate the level of artistic genius this group operates at. Obviously, their goals are as high in terms of the stewardship of our planet – a message it would seem we could use ample measure of. I give you the “Requiem”:
I began a project this past Monday – nothing huge, but a serious renovation of a back yard involving a massive cleanup. For once, I decided to attack it myself – sans help – because I should be able to nurse the project quite selfishly and simply because I get total control over every aspect, along with the input from the client.
Well, was I ever bowled over by the 100 degree heat – good lord, that was hideous. In Kentucky, the “Heat Index” actually means something. When they say “Temperture: 94, Feels Like: 101″, they happen to be correct. Today was a far more bearable 93, lol. Humidity like this can make sweat come from outside a man.
It beat me up pretty good, lol. I’ve lost 8 pounds and I’m only partially-plump.
So, as much as I want to share more here, I think I’ll devolve into an easier task of presenting just a little more from my favorite Youtube musical choices, nurse a Coke laden with ice, sit back and watch some baseball. ;-)
John McLaughlin is a timeless hero for me. I’ve sat, mesmerized by the chops of his Mahavishnu Orchestra in the ’70′s and have followed him as closely as i could over the years. This piece below is from a concert just a couple years ago, in Chicago. Always the jazzist, he borders on some lyrical, near rock and roll-like licks and, as always is such a huge presence as a guitarist. I also like the MC at this concert……..
For anyone curious as to what his Mahavishnu Orchestra was all about, I’m including this below – the taping was done in the 70′s, so it will be less than perfect but the super group of Billy Cobham on drums, Steve Goodman (Benny’s son) on violin, Jan Hammer on piano and Rick Baird on bass here represent very much their stunning musicianship and their wildly unique musical method.
The weather has conspired to be what has to be considered a complete pain in the butt here in dreary, cold Louisville, Kentucky. Flirtations with Springtime turned out be be shallow affairs – enough to entice blooms but then followed by literal snow. Snow and the pain that accompanies once-enthusiastic working in good weather with that of freezing hands mixing and slurrying cement in a hostile world have worked me into a mild frenzy of total nihilism. Here’s how bad it is: It’s enough to make someone send off a nasty letter.
I often take solace in music, as is evidenced by this blog. These diversions are fun and helpful. Today’s diversion deals with a song I watched modern guitarist Jeff Beck perform live one sunny Summer Day in Vancouver, all those years ago, as Beck morphed in to a near-jazzy style which he has stayed with since, making just the best music. I had to admit at the time, I had no idea as to the origins of this tune which evidently goes back into a Hindu past, resurrected by Beck in entertaining fashion.
Then I heard the actual words to the music in a cut by another – far newer name in the guitar world – Nitin Sawhney – which I might even like more. particularly owing to the wonderful lightness of the female singer’s style.
Here they are, in order – first Jeff Beck, secondly Nitin’s version:
