Of Subliminal Mysteries

I think Ive spent most of my life being confused and full of questions. Had I been born an Elephant's Child I would have been accused of satiable curtiosity. The questions mostly become stuck in my head these days or fly out of it so quickly they are never voiced. I guess a lifetime as long as mine may have knocked some corners off some of the more jagged questions, apart from those that query the inequalities of circumstances, still I can't help but ponder. I daresay I've already remarked somewhere among these essays that my questions have often led me into trouble, but still the qustions come. 

As I write this the time has just passed mid-day. I woke up early this morning with a dream song still reverberating in my head. As is sometimes the case I was dreaming of a school music workshop, an activity that featured in my life very prominently over many years. Four boys dressed in something I took to be far-Eastern or south Asian attire formed a line and began to sing a song made of vocables, rather than words. As they sang they danced into a space in front of the rest of the class and the line curved into a circle, at which point I woke up. However, since the music was still so loud in my head I grabbed the manuscript book I keep close to hand and transcribed the tune along with the sung syllables. I didn't have time to go back over it, because my other notebook, the one in which I attempt to capture snatches of lyrics, poems or ideas to be developed into such, had fallen open at idea number 322, dated April 2022. It was just a couplet and the rest of the page was blank, but these four years later I finally saw where the song could go. Now I have the skeleton of a new song, cross-referenced in my lyric book and music manuscript notebook and I have no recollection of what was my original concept four years ago. I only know I haven't broached this subject or storytelling style in any of my other work. There is a kind of refrain containing (at the moment!) the line "Follow, why? Follow, where? ..." I guess the mysteries are finding a voice in the song.

Yesterday I spent the day signing up to or renewing subscriptions for boat related organisations. I've never been through Stanground Lock and I fancy travelling out in that direction, specially with the cott blocking my way in my normal direction of travel. Consequently I am now Friend of the River Nene. In fact I was so keen to avail myself of their facilities I think I've paid twice after getting a bit confused following instructions on their website. I had plans for this morning, including cycling into the village with my application form and membership fee for the Well Creek Trust and basket for fresh vegetables, but every time I have attempted to get ready to carry out my plans I've been struck by yet another new tune idea. In between mixing seeds, fruits and grains for breakfast and medical routines popping the pills that are supposed to be keeping me alive along with boiling the kettle for a hot compress, followed by massaging my eyes and applying ointment for a recently diagnosed eye condition with enough hot water left over for ablutions, I've had to stop and write three tunes. Again I've no idea whether they are any good, but why, after months of little in the way of creative ideas, have the ideas started to tumble out of my head again? It happens from time to time, but normally I'm not in a situation where taking the time to actualise what is in my head is convenient or even possible. I first became aware of this phenomenon in 2005 following a serious change in my personal circumstances. It got quite bad. I would be woken up several times a night with the clamour of the music in my head. This was when I first took to keeping a manuscript book nearby at all times. I had been very unproductive for about thirty years and I felt a responsibility to record all these tunes that appeared to be coming as a gift from the muse. I would also have to leave for work early knowing I would have to stop driving more than once to be able to make a note of yet another new idea. I was afraid that ignoring these tunes would leave me dry again and I couldn't risk that. Friends observed that I was becoming a little obsessed and no doubt it was some form of hyper activity after spending so many years in depression. Whatever was the cause, it was exhausting, even if it supplied some of the best tunes I composed for The News of the Victory. Eventually I had to let some of the tunes go just so I could get some rest and the episode calmed down after a few  months. These days, in between new ideas, my head is littered with ear-wormery leaving no space for my own thoughts. This noisy mixture of sound that goes unnoticed by anyone else, gets quite jumbled up with sounds that pop up over the radio or on a podcast and I am left asking myself every time I compose whether anything I have written is actually original or a plagiarised rebranding of someone else's work. I suspect it's probably closer to the latter, but often I don't know for sure. And, oh Best Beloved, I promise I have tried to keep a little more balanced.

Returning to the major topic under consideration it is a mystery to me why, when I have an idea for a blog essay, I don't seem to be able to get straight into it. There generally has to be some irrelevant diversion. Apropos of nothing so far, it is a complete mystery to me why my boat collects massive quantities of cott around the prop, while other boats cruise through known weed patches untouched. I believe I may have made reference to this mystery a couple of essays ago. 

Meanwhile out in the real world, why are the loaves of bread I make so inconsistent when I turn them out of the pan? I only use a breadmaker, so the variations can only be in the ingredients or the amounts, rather than the processes. Usually they turn out elegantly enough, but sometimes the end result of more like a large rock cake! I've had two rock loaves recently and don't know why. I'm guessing that the proportion of flour to water has varied sufficiently to make a difference, though I do measure everything as carefully as I can. I've been through five breadmaking machines over the past twenty-five years, but this one has started producing these mutant loaves. Why?

Thankfully they taste okay, so now it is lunchtime and I shall cut myself a slice or two, slather them both with humus and garnish them with onion. Then, O Best Beloved, I shall disembark with my bicycle and go about the day I thought I had planned

P.S.

Those who know, know 😉

Of Dancing & Inheritance

I love this photograph, though my prosopagnosia strips away some of the pleasure. My son assures me this really is my parents, even if I can't see it! What joy there is in dancing! My mum and dad loved to dance and this photograph expresses that joy perfectly. I think she radiates joy in this image. A love of dancing runs in the family. Had she lived, my beautiful mother would have been a hundred years old this year. 

Sadly she didn’t live to see the next three generations enjoy dancing - it is, however, a wonderful inheritance from two lovely people. My father went to tea dances twice weekly until a few weeks before he died. In the long-ago days before covid, the innoculations and my two strokes here is that legacy, three generations of my family dancing to my band, The News of the Victory playing my composition, "The Divine Miss M". For me, the very worst thing about my degree of recovery from the strokes is that I no longer have the confidence to dance beyond a bit of shuffling about.

Of course, the legacy carries on and the ripples spread far beyond family. My mother would have been so happy to know that her granddaughter set up and leads this institution while her great-granddaughter has graduated from a college in the USA having completed a course in musical theatre.

Mina

It is not often I take a YouTube video as an inspiration for a song, but this video first moved me deeply a couple of years ago.  It still has its intended effect every time I watch it.  As is often the case with YouTube, one comes across some really clever videos quite unexpectedly.  I was trying to retrace what led me to this one.  I think it may have been after watching a few Stacey Dooley investigative reports that this link caught my eye - "Dancers star in hard hitting anti trafficking ad".   Dubious punctuation notwithstanding I clicked on the link and this is what I saw.

For weeks afterwards I could not let go of those images.  Like all the best stories the punchline is saved up for the end.  It is the contrast of the punchline with the assertive, almost confrontational, dance moves that makes the message so effective.  As the dance builds we perceive the women as having the power.  After initially keeping a wary distance, the men gather and are gradually lured in closer - willing participants in this game.  At the climax of the dance the women freeze and eyes drift to the written message.  Perhaps the dawning realisation of the message initiated the wilting of dozens of cocks as blood rushed back to the big brain ... assuming it wasn't all set up.  If the men were genuinely unaware their expressions show that we can be effectively confronted with some of the consequences of our choices.  I think we need to be reminded often.

I thought of my daughter, a professional dancer, and how but for an accident of circumstances it could have been her had she been born elsewhere.  She and her husband have danced professionally around the world, but what a sickening end to a dream this could have been.  She had worked towards realising her dream since the age of four when she first articulated to me her need to express herself through dance.  Dance having played an important part in my life too I was happy to support her.  As parents we needed to support her when the system challenged her perfectly rational choices - the secondary school that would not provide GCSE music, the careers "adviser" who told her to forget all this "silly dance nonsense" and think about getting a "real job".  Throughout her childhood and adolescence we took her to dance classes two or three times a week.  When we lived in a town and didn't have a car she would perch on the child seat on my bicycle and when we moved to a more rural location we would drive over a hundred miles a week to and from lessons.  Added to that were school shows in a theatre even further away along with pantomimes and summer shows.  Night after night of trekking across rural East Anglia and sitting out in December weather (August weather brought balancing compensations) waiting for her to finish.  It was hard sometimes, but never a hardship.  I loved these opportunities for communing one to one.

Watching the video I thought of the girls whose families had supported them as their dreams took shape.  Do those families know where their daughters are?  Were they in some way complicit in this tragedy?  At what point does one give up the search?  I would be utterly devastated had my daughter been lured into such a trap.  

Reading reports such as the UNICEF report by Barbara Limanowska, Trafficking In Human Beings In South Eastern Europe the situation is grim.  The trafficking of people is just one of many terrible ways our species has learned to exploit and devour itself.

As I thought about this video the song, "Mina", gradually formed.  Once I started to write it down the words came uncharacteristically quickly.  I think choosing Mina's name was the most difficult decision with regard to the text.  I wanted the song to have a wistful feel and to try to reproduce the same surprise in the listener that I experienced at the punchline to the video.  For some reason the Yiddish song,  דאַנאַ דאַנאַ (Dana Dana), from the show, Esterke, with music by Sholom Secunda came to mind.  With its English translation by Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz, "Donna Donna" was a popular staple in the UK in folk clubs and on Saturday night television variety shows in the 1960s and early 1970s.  I have recordings of it by Joan Baez, Donovan and Theodore Bikel and witnessed countless floor singers in folk clubs sing it.  That was my starting point for the music of this song.  I trust that any of you who have heard the song would not have recognised this influence unprompted.  I am pretty certain that I have left no trace of the original reference and can justify it as an original work.   My early versions of the song had no chorus.  I liked the stark simplicity of having just the five simple verses with their common construction.  After singing it a few times in public that starkness was too unrelenting.  I put the two choruses in to give some space for reflection.

This is one of those songs that demanded to be written.  Having seen the video and having been confronted with the issue I could not and cannot remain silent.  Silence is complicity.

Mama held Baby Mina in her arms 

And she danced for joy and she danced for love

And gently she danced for the sky above her

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina played as children played 

And she danced for joy and she danced for the thrill of the 

feel of the movement and every day still

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

She danced. She danced. She danced, oh how she danced.

The feel of the movement and every day still

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina grew up and grew into her beauty

And she danced for life and she danced for joy

She danced and she glanced at a beautiful boy

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

The boy had friends who could make her a star 

And she danced for love and she danced for pride

Dreams could come true and her heart swelled inside her

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

She danced. She danced. She danced, oh how she danced!

Dreams could come true and her love swelled inside.

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina left home to fly to her dream 

And she danced for life and she danced for hope.

Under a red light, strung out on dope

She danced.  Oh how she danced.

Mina ©Marshlander - 5^th September 2013

Of Nocturnal Negotiation Nightmares

I sold my van.  I didn't intend to do it; I mean I didn't go out with the intention of doing it.  I knew there was no other action I could perform, short of sinking my narrowboat, that could cause me so much inconvenience.  Somehow I happened to be in a place with my registration document in my hand and I sold my van.  By the side of a Fenland road a small market had popped up.  There was a craft stall owned by someone who specialised in recycling industrial materials into clothes.  I met a couple of friends who had bought matching boots from the stall.  The boots were mid-calf high and primarily made from stove pipe while the uppers were made from carpet wool that had been woven in square patches of pink, lime green and yellow.  I'd never seen anything remotely like them and they looked so cool.  Both friends were wearing leggings made from a metal the colour of tarnished copper into which had been woven a black line image of a rodeo cowboy's head, cowboy hat, neck scarf and all.   I didn't take in the rest of their outfits, but I really wanted those boots and leggings.  I was worried I would not be able to find the stall holder again, so I needed to strike now.  I asked my friends if they minded if I copied their look and they told me they would be flattered.  Unfortunately when I turned to look at the clothes on the stall I realised I didn't have the cash on me.  Disappointed I moved on, but amazingly there was also a booth where vehicles were being bought for cash.  I had no idea how much I would get for my van, but it would surely cover the cost of the boots, the leggings and leave me plenty to live on until I could source another vehicle.

There were forms to be filled in, papers to sign.  Before I added my final signature I felt the first pangs of doubt.  Being without my van was going to be a nuisance.  For a start, how would I get home?  We were, after all, in the middle of nowhere and whilst I also live in the middle of nowhere, it is a different nowhere.  Other concerns began to nag me.  How would I get to my lockup to collect instruments and p.a. for tonight's gig?  How would I manage any of my work?  There was still time to say that I had changed my mind, but there was an obstinate internal voice that insisted I had started this process and it would be dishonourable to pull out of the transaction now.  There was another voice that said, "Do it.  See what happens."  All thoughts of the clothes had gone.  I felt that I didn't want to be seen to renege on a deal, however much I risked losing.  I saw my registration document stapled to the forms I had just filled out.  The man behind the desk at the booth slid a receipt and my cash under the window that separated us.  I didn't even know how much cash I was being given.  It looked to be around a thousand pounds, less than half of what I had paid for the van.  I couldn't bring myself to count the money in public, so I looked for the nearest gents.  I sat on the seat in a cubicle and started to count, but counting it seemed pointless now, so I never found out how much the trade had been worth.  I felt very sick.  I could probably still go back and change my mind.  There was surely some cooling-off period allowed for in the small print?  At the same time I knew that it was equally likely that there was no backtracking possible.  The men on the vehicle stall looked as though they were more than capable of persuading me that my transaction was final.  I had an overwhelming impression that, despite the receipt in my hand, they would deny any knowledge that we had just had any dealings with each other.  This is how I sold my van.