Leap In The Dark

I don't have anything against them personally you know; in fact some of my best friends are Christians. There are a couple of them in my office and they usually come over to the house with their husbands once or twice over the course of a year. We usually end up talking about our kids or other stuff that we have in common. Of course, they're not really close friends, but its just good policy to make everyone in the office feel like they matter to me.

I like to think it's because of Jim that I'm the open-minded person I am, and inviting the couple of Christians in the office over for coffee with their spouses is the least I can do by way of honouring our former friendship. It's a pity more people didn't have the opportunities I did getting to know Christians. I'm sure if they did they'd realize that given the right opportunity, a Christian isn't much different from the rest of us.

Growing up in very white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant Toronto, Ontario Canada, in the late 1960's and through the mid 1970's, I'd run into this attitude on a regular basis. The birthday parties I wasn't invited to as a child for example, because the clubs they were held in were restricted; restricted to keep people like me out.

I have memories of my mother from those times that make me suspect she was more hurt by these incidents then I was. She lived through the Second World War and the horrifying aftermath filled with news of death camps and family dead in Europe for no reason except their religion. A war supposedly fought to preserve democracy and ensure equality to make a world where people were treated with dignity.

Twenty years after its end, the same racism that existed in Toronto when she was a kid before the war, was still going strong. The same racism that had greeted her grandparents when they arrived at the beginning of the twentieth century to seek a life free of persecution and equal opportunities. A racism that very politely and firmly told Jews the name Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, (YM/YWCA) meant they were not welcome.

Today there are still clubs and organizations across North America that claim the right to limit access to their facilities based on a persons skin colour and/or religion. Yet our governments claim they are fighting wars to create democratic societies just like ours. Why would anyone want a society like ours?

How can our governments say with a straight face that they are fighting in Afghanistan to liberate its people from a theocracy, when that's what they are attempting to impose on their own people? No modern era, "democratic" governments have been more regressive and close–minded then those of George Bush and Steven Harper in The United States and Canada respectively. Their governments have been changing the criminal code and/or, passing legislation to ensure people live in closer compliance with their narrow definition of Christianity, whether they want to or not.

George has been championing "Intelligent Design": – the theory that God "faked the fossils" as a means of testing our faith and that He created evolution. It very conveniently makes both God and Darwin right, although I've yet to hear how they get around the whole –Adam and Eve versus the higher form of primate theory. I don't know how successful he's been in getting that taught in high schools, but the fact that he's trying at all scares me to death.

His buddy Steven, up here in Canada, wasn't able to get rid of same sex marriage as he had promised to do if elected. Instead, he's trying to modify the criminal code to allow people the right to discriminate – if their religion tells them to. "The Defence of Religions Act" would allow anybody, public service and private sector, to refuse service to gays and lesbians, refuse to hire them, refuse to sell them a house or rent them an apartment, and to publicly preach and teach that they are evil.

Now I don't know if the law is limited to gays, or if you can discriminate against anyone as long as your God tells you to, but it would set a dangerous precedent. It doesn't seem to matter that all of those activities are forbidden by the criminal code and Canada's Bill of Rights, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and would never stand up to a court challenge. This way everybody knows Steven's heart is in the right place. If only they could get rid of that pesky Charter of Rights, he'd rid the land of fags and other undesirables, so fast it would make you head spin.

How anyone could even think of claiming that the rights of the majority need defending is beyond me. What do they need defending against? They should be grateful that the only price they are paying after centuries of intolerance, cruelty, and oppression are affirmative action programs that barely offer any redress for their behaviour. Would they prefer to have the state confiscate all their possessions and revoke all their rights as citizens like we did to Japanese North Americans during the Second World War in the 1940s?

How about living in an atmosphere of such poisonous fear you are referred to as a "rag-head" and automatically treated with suspicion because of your religion? Maybe you would prefer being stopped by the police on a regular basis simply because they can't believe "your kind" could own the vehicle you're driving without having done something illegal? Or, you could just be hauled out into the town square every time you screw up at work; whipped, sold, and shipped across country never to see your family again.

For all my apparent cynicism, I'm a pretty naive and optimistic person. I still believe that the purpose of a religion is to help people celebrate the beauty of creation, and to provide them the means to say thanks for being given the privilege of living in such an amazing world. Unfortunately, too many people view it as a means for justifying oppression and exalting themselves over others.

The other day I caught the tail end of a discussion on the radio about racism in the oil patch in Western Canada. It seems that anybody who isn't a white skinned male is treated with open hostility. A listener had emailed in a response; silence in the face of racism or other oppressive behaviour implies your tacit approval.

The twentieth century showed just how deadly not speaking out could be. The twenty-first has barely begun and governments the world over are counting on us to keep our mouths shut. I plan on disappointing that expectation whenever possible.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:01 PM | Permalink

I think if I wander into another store and here some pop star, with a trembling voice they think makes them sound sincere, singing a Christmas song, I might vomit. Not only do they sound awful, they always pick some of the worst excuses for Christmas music that exists. Why people must associate the sickly sentimental with Christmas I don't know, but they do.

Although when you think about it, it makes sense. Advertisers learnt long ago that a message triggering a sentimental reaction would guarantee sales more effectively then anything as messy as real emotions. One of the biggest ironies about Christmas, a supposedly religious holiday, is the lack of religious iconography associated with the holiday anymore.

The closest you'll come to something even remotely religious are pictures of Mom, Pop, and Baby Jesus surrounded by cute farm animals passing themselves off as representations of the birth of the Christ child. Or even worse, one of those angels who are popping up everywhere like hives. But even they are in the minority, because the last thing retailers want people remembering is that it's a religious holiday.

If they did, they might wonder about the need to spend thousands of dollars on material possessions. Especially when celebrating the birthday of the guy who said something about giving up material wealth to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and who had all the merchants and bankers tossed out the Temple for besmirching its holiness with business. All in all it's better that people see pictures of dogs in red bow and red cheeked children playing in the snow, Jesus was right, religion and sales don't mix.

All the more reason then to heap blessings upon the people at the Music Makers Relief Foundation for providing some antidote to that attitude with the release of the CD Christmas With Cootie. Cootie Stark is one of the many old time Blues singers from the South who had their careers resuscitated by the Foundation as part of their programming for assisting them financially. For decades, he had earned his living as a street performer, but through his association with Music Makers, he began a successful second career on touring and performing.

A number of the men and women who are produced by the Music Makers label, no longer have any family, and the studio in Hillsborough North Carolina where they record and jam, has become their home. So, in 2005 when Cootie turned up for Christmas it was no surprise that the guys in the neighbourhood would drop by to wish him well and to celebrate Christmas with their extended family.

It was only natural that they would sing a bunch of songs together, and since they were hanging out in a recording studio, it wasn't that much of a stretch to set up some microphones and flip a couple of switches so they could make a record of the event. What's ended up on CD is a mix of Christmas and gospel music making it sound like you keep moving back and forth between a revival meeting and a family Christmas party.

Although such great singers and players like John Dee Holman, Cool John Ferguson, Macavine Hayes, Whistlin' Britches Thompson, and Captain Luke all showed up for the party, it's Cootie the action is centred around. With a voice permanently hoarse from singing on the streets in all kinds of weather, and imbibing who knows what over the years, no one is ever going to accuse Cootie of sounding saccharine sweet. But that doesn't prevent him and his friends from singing versions of "Silent Night" that send shivers up your spine because the emotions are so real.

Revival meetings and Gospel music of that type make no concessions, or apologies. They are Christian songs for Christian people sung with a passion and belief that's far too in your face for mass-market consumption. This isn't the music of some highly polished choir sanitized for consumption on Oprah where everyone is stepin' and fetchin', but the real thing as it's been sung in clapboard churches throughout the South for over a hundred years.

Even with just the group of them sitting around the studio there's the exhortations to "Let me hear you say amen" happening in a way that sounds like second nature to these men. None of them are preachers, in the sense of being ordained ministers by any church, but I'm thinking you'd be hard pressed to find much difference between how Cootie and his friends performed "My Lord Died On The Cross" and how it would be sung in a church with a minister leading the way.

Can you imagine going into a store around this time of year and even hearing them playing a song with the title "My Lord Died On The Cross"? Now I'm not saying that I'm particularly enamoured of the song myself, but I can respect and admire the passion that has gone into recording and singing that song far more then whatever is being performed by the generic pop singer being piped into stores these days.

Of course it's not all just serious "gospel hour" on Christmas With Cootie. You can't put that collection of people together without some silliness and good times happening. Then there's the last track on the album. A recording made of Guitar Gabriel back in 1994 singing "Let's Have Christmas Together for which Tim Duffy has mixed down with some newer tracks as accompaniment. It's only fitting that Gabriel shows up here like a benign spirit of Christmases gone by, as it was through him that this "family" was brought together under this roof.

Gabriel died before the foundation had really begun to take off, but it was through him that Tim Duffy was introduced to all the people who appear on this recording. Shortly after this recording was made Cootie Stark left the world as well, meaning the Christmas get-together's at Hillsborough are going to be a bit quieter and smaller from now on. These recordings of Tim Duffy's become even more special when you consider them in light of how each year the possibility exists that one of those voices won't be around come next year.

For all of you, Christian and non-Christian alike, who are heartily sick of the pap that passes for music these days at Christmas Christmas With Cootie isn't a complete cure, but it doesn't hurt. Real music sung by real people goes a long way to removing a great deal of the bad taste surrounding this time of year. Boycotting spending more then $25.00 on Christmas presents, per family would do the rest, but that's not going to happen so let's be grateful for the blessings we do get.

On that note – why not spend that $25.00 at Music Makers and buy someone you love Cootie Stark and his friends for Christmas. Not only is it a great gift, you get the satisfaction of knowing you've done your part to preserve an endangered species – real people singing real music. It would also be a fine way to show some appreciation for the work of Tim and Denise Duffy and all the other people who bring us the gift of the Music Maker Relief Fund.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:03 AM | Permalink

When Hiawatha brought his message of peace to the original five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, it was with an eye to the future. He knew that if they wanted any chance of surviving in the days after the arrival of the Europeans, they would have to stop fighting amongst themselves and unite. (He is widely credited with being the first person in North America to use the bundle of sticks being harder to break then each stick individually allegory).

The original five members of the Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse) were the Nundawaono – People Of The Great Hill (Seneca), Gueugwehonono – The Mucky Land People (Cayuga), Onundagaono – The People On The Hills (Onondaga), Onayotakaono –The Standing Stone People (Oneida), and the Ganeaganono – The Flint Place People (Mohawk). As events began to turn out like Hiawatha predicted, and the Europeans picked Indian nations off one at a time, a final tribe sought sanctuary in the Confederacy's territory.

The Dusgaoweh – The Shirt Wearing People (Tuscarora) were being pushed out of their traditional territory in the Carolinas and were perilously close to being exterminated, when they petitioned to be allowed to join the Haudenosaunee and be ceded land to live on and cultivate. So in 1722 the majority of them made their way to upstate New York to join up with the Confederacy, but some stayed behind and tried to survive as best as possible.

Pura Fe' Crescioni (most often simply referred to as Pura Fe') a mixed blood Tuscarora, Deer Clan on her mother's side and Spanish on her father's, she grew up in New York City. She is the seventh generation of successive families of seven sisters; all of who are singers. On the enhanced portion of her most recent CD Hold The Rain, released by the Music Maker Relief Foundation, there is a video interview with her. In it, she talks about her memories of growing up with her mother and Aunts singing all the time. As the Tuscarora are matrilineal, it's only natural that she'd follow in the footsteps of these women and sing.

Initially she focused her energies primarily on performing traditional native music with the women's acappella trio Ulali. Somewhere along the line, she began feeling the pull of her roots and ended up in the ancestral territory of North Carolina. It didn't take her very long to understand the unique cross-pollination that music had experienced in this part of the world, traditional Native music and the African American Blues of the Carolinas.

We're not just talking about modern times either, but a cultural exchange that's been ongoing since the two people first had contact. Unlike European history where first contact with Native people refers to Europeans only, the oral histories of the Tuscarora and other nations speak of trade between the Americas and Africa long before the Santa Maria made a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in the Bahamas instead of India. The logic of sailing due West when you wanted to go South/East has always escaped me, but some how a guy who didn't know how to navigate became a famous explorer.

Whatever the heritage or the roots of the music Pura Fe' plays she has a voice that could call the birds from the skies and rains from the clouds. For starters, her range is phenomenal; a low throaty bass growl, that I'm sure could make the earth tremble with enough volume. Her high notes are as pure and clean as the sound of an iced over lake singing on the coldest, stillest morning of winter as the sun is gently kissing the earth's surface.

If that sounds unreasonably poetic, I only ask you to reserve your judgement on my flights of fancy and sanity, until after you've listened to her. Of course, she can also play a mean lap – slide guitar, and uses a beautiful Hawaiian steel string that she makes sing. But on Hold The Rain she's overshadowed, and I'm sure she would be the first to admit this, by her lead guitar player Danny Godinez.

Pura Fe' refers to him as Seattle's best guitar player, and that's not hard to believe after listening to him play. He plays acoustic guitar, and makes it sound just as exciting as almost anybody else playing an electric guitar. Not only are his leads wonderful, he also provides the perfect support to Pura Fe's bottleneck slide. I think once people get a chance to hear him play on this CD, Seattle won't be allowed to keep him hidden away much longer.

As for the music on the disc, the songs are a great mixture of the modern and the traditional both in content and in style. The opening is a short piece performed by the Drum Pura Fe' sings with; The Deer Clan Singers, but as the echo from that is still resounding within your head, "If I Was Your Guitar" begins. I first heard a version of this on a MusicMaker's compilation disc where she dedicated it to Cool John Ferguson a, very sure fingered guitar player, and the innuendo of the words was hilarious. Not much has changed about the song since then, except that she's added a couple of voiceovers that will make you pee your pants laughing if you're not careful.

Personally, the highlight of the disc is her version of the old Gershwin tune, "Summertime" from the opera Porgy and Bess. (For some reason they credit Rogers and Hammerstein with writing the song when it was Ira & George Gershwin who wrote it – perhaps the other two own the rights now) I've always loved the song, and her adaptation, with an up-tempo, bluesy, second verse is great. It captures the true essence of the song without being welded to the original version.

Pura Fe' is one of the living treasures of the south, and in her music she captures two of the significant cultures from the Carolinas; African American and Native American. But this isn't some dusty anthropological recording, it's a living, breathing, and vibrant slice of music that's alive and kicking. Hold The Rain is a great album, by a great performer. The only regret you might have in picking up on this disc is that it ends too early. Ah well you can't have everything, but sometimes what you do get is pretty good.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:58 AM | Permalink

It's one of the world's dirtiest secrets. The only thing worse then a dirty secret is one that everybody is in on, but refuses to acknowledge. Maybe they hope that if nobody says anything, it will miraculously cease to exist. It's a nice thought, but I think the reality is that's it not politically expedient for anybody to do anything about it. Why else would world leaders get so hot under the collar about things far more trivial, but stay almost completely mute on the issue of child soldiers.

Occasionally, the press will run pictures of large eyed boys dressed in tattered rags with maybe a kerchief tied around their neck as uniform. Their malnourished bodies are dwarfed by automatic rifles, bandoliers of spare clips, and the requisite grenades worn like misplaced testicles on their hip; the testicles they probably won't live long enough to develop.

I wonder how many of them have the will anymore to realize if what they are wearing were sold on the open market, the money would have fed their families for weeks, if not months. Of course, that's irrelevant now, most are orphans as a result of the conflict that has conscripted them. With adults in such short supply, it's only logical that children are used as cannon fodder. There's always plenty more where they came from, they're easily manipulated, and best of all, nobody cares about their fate.

Ashraf Bey, the new Chief of Detectives of El Iskandryia, the city that is the heart of the Ottoman Empire, knows that Child armies have existed since the horrendous "Children's Crusade" of the 12th century. He might reside in the fictional world of the Arabesk Trilogy created by Jon Courtenay Grimwood, but that doesn't stop there from being common ground. Corruption, political expediency, and the colonial imperialism of Europe and America are facts of life that he must deal with daily.

If anything, the latter is even more prominent in Ashraf Bey's world. Although the Sultans still nominally rule the Ottoman Empire, the treaty brokered by the Americans in 1916 guaranteeing its survival allowed the French, Germans, and of course the Americans "advisory" status. Over the years, elaborate dances of protocol and intricate backroom manoeuvres have been developed by the leaders of El Iskandryia to keep their "protectors" at bay. Nevertheless, in moments of crisis, real ingenuity is needed to prevent the vultures from descending.

And crisis is exactly what El Iskandryia finds itself in at the beginning of Effendi, the second book in the trilogy published by Random House through their Bantam/Spectra imprint. Someone is out to frame, or bring down in anyway possible the city's biggest industrialist/criminal. That Hamzah Effendi also happens to be the father of the woman, Zara Quitrimala, who Ashraf was supposed to have married as part of multi-million dollar deal negotiated by his late aunt, would be complication enough for the city's Chief Detective, if he didn't have the nagging feeling that he was falling in love with Zara.

When attempts to have Hamzah framed as a serial killer are foiled by Ashraf, information is "uncovered" implicating the industrialist as a war criminal. As a child soldier in the Sudan, he had conducted an ambush resulting in the deaths of over a hundred in an opposing army of children. Mysteriously any records of who had controlled either army have vanished, leaving Hamzah holding the bag more then forty years later.

Like book one, Pashazade, Enfendi is served up like the elaborate feasts described in the book. There are tastes that will make even the most jaded of literary palates salivate as Grimwood picks up where he left off in the first book. From the intricacies of the plot to the continued development of his main characters, and their relations with each other, his execution and timing are as impeccable as they were in the first book.

There's the matter of the burgeoning of love and trust between Zara and Ashraf being kept consistent with what we know of each of their lives and their characters to date. It has always struck me how many authors throw out carefully constructed character histories when a romantic interest is introduced. If anything that's when people are most vulnerable and their weaknesses most exposed, but Grimwood is one of the few authors I've read who seems to understand that and have his characters act accordingly.

Like a master pastry chef, Grimwood knows exactly where to draw the line at embellishment when it comes to both his plots and his characters. One of the easiest characters for him to go over the top with would be Ashraf's nine-year-old niece Hani. Kept locked up in her house until the death of her aunt she became a computer prodigy from lack of anything else to do with her IQ of 160. Let loose on the world she has become Ashraf's unofficial intelligence officer, as there's not a computer system built that's safe from her intrusion; breaking though encrypted site security is akin to the routine solving of Mensa puzzles as far as she's concerned.

It would have been easy for her to become one of those horrible, Hollywood type, children characters, that are all snappy answers and nothing else. Instead, she has just as much depth as the adult characters that surround her. She uses cute and precocious to her advantage with people who don't know her very well, and can carry off the haughty aristocrat when needs be. But that doesn't stop her from reacting with a child's enthusiasm when excited, or devastation when disappointed.

In Effendi Grimwood takes us deeper into the world of political intrigues surrounding the city of El Iskandryia and the Ottoman Empire, and it's a fascinating labyrinth. But, he never allows himself to get so overly caught up in developing that theme that he forgets the story he is telling, or the lives of the people who inhabit the story. Still, the issues he raises, from the question of culpability when it comes to the armies of children, to the morality of artificial modifications to the human body and brain are equally pertinent to our world, but are either ignored or dismissed.

If what happens as a result of that behaviour in the world of The Arabesk Trilogy is any indication of what we can expect here when we start yanking open those cans of worms, we may never find out who knew what when, but at least the innocent won't get blamed. I guess sometimes that's the best you can hope for in fiction or reality.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:05 PM | Permalink

We live in horribly cynical times that make you second-guess everybody's intentions. What are they getting out of it, has become the typical response to altruistic behaviour, as if nobody ever does anything any more because it makes them feel good to help others. Unfortunately it's an attitude that's understandable, and one I freely admit to sharing, due to the barrage of press releases we are subject too, outlining just how wonderful some star is because of their gift to some cause or other.

The funny thing is that when the genuine article does come along it's remarkable how easy it is to recognize them. From the moment I first came in contact with the folk behind the Music Maker Relief Foundation,
Tim and Denise Duffy, through one of their CDs, I knew they were for real. Since then I've turned into one of those tiresome people who keep going on and on about the same subject at any chance I get; The Music Makers Relief Foundation.

I can't help it; in a country like France where they honour culture they would be awarded the legion d'honor by their government for the work the foundation does. What had started out as way of helping elderly musicians take care of themselves has become one of the most important programs, out side of the Smithsonian Institute, working to preserve American popular culture of the past and keeping it alive today.

According to how Tim tells it, it was his 1990 meeting with Guitar Gabriel that got him started on the work he's doing now. At first, he was content to simply play the Blues with Gabriel at festivals throughout the Southern States and even Europe. Gabriel gradually introduced him to other musicians, and Tim saw how they were forced to live, barely surviving on their social security checks.

The men and women who he met and recorded were not only some of the most talented Blues musicians he had ever heard, they also represented a significant period in American music history. Initially he strove to find them as many gigs as he could so they were getting little bit more money each month. At the same time he continued to make recordings of all the people he knew and tracking down those he was told had played music at one time or another.

It was this collection of field recordings that got the ball rolling for The Music Makers Relief Foundation. In one of those happy coincidences that occasionally actually happen in real life, a friend of Tim's late father ran a high end audiophile equipment business. When Tim went to ask him his advice about what he could do to transfer his field recording to CD, the man went a step further and helped him produce the first CD.

From there, it's been a long, steady climb up the hill towards fulfilling Tim's dream of bringing his new friends to the world's attention. Through recordings, and tours to South America and Europe he's been able to both raise significant funds towards supporting more individuals and continue to develop new projects featuring the music of some of the best traditional Blues and Gospel performers you are liable to ever hear.

This year they've come out with Blues Sweet Blues a two disc set that features the talents of those who have been recorded and are still recording with the Music Makers Fund. Unfortunately, the only reason most people stop recording with Music Makers is that they have passed on or their health has failed them. But, while people like Guitar Gabriel, Etta Baker, and a few others are no longer around we at least have their music to remind us of what they meant to the world.

I've raved about the voice of Captain Luke on other occasions, but that's not going to stop me from doing it again. It's just so rare to hear a pure baritone anymore that hearing him sing for the first time can stop you cold. Tim Duffy once described how Captain Luke came out on stage in Argentina, in front of thousands of people, and the second he began singing you could hear a pin drop.

Sitting on stage in his chair with just a single guitar for accompaniment, this deceptively frail looking elderly gentleman opens his mouth and something amazing happens. With seemingly no effort on his part at all the room fills with the sound of a lush summer twilight as the sky turns that particular shade of dark sapphire blue. Captain Luke's is easily the most amazing sounding voice I've heard in ages.

Of course, he's not the only one on the discs, but he certainly is a highlight. He's joined on the first song, "Let The Good Times Roll", by Willa Mae Buckner, and the late Cooties Stark, and the second song he goes it solo on "One Of These Days". Then there's Drink Small singing his creation "President Clinton Blues" who's followed by...If I'm not careful I'll just end up naming all the songs on both discs. Every one of them are important and good for their own reasons, but I guess you'll just have to follow the link above to the Music Maker's site and buy yourself a copy if you want to hear how good the are.

Tim Duffy and Denise Duffy might not have had any real idea of what they wanted to do initially aside from helping out some musicians who they liked and believed deserved better hands then what fate had dealt them. However, it's almost like the music was waiting for someone to come along and take an interest. The overwhelmingly positive response from audiences all over the world is proof of that. The Music Makers Foundation has done all of us a valuable service – not just he artists it represents.

Without Tim and Denise Duffy the world would have missed out on some truly amazing music and performers. If you have a few extra dollars this year you might want to consider sending it their way. There's always more they can be doing to help somebody out, and new music to be recorded as well. Use the link above to get to them quickly.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:46 AM | Permalink

I wonder if people are aware of the huge influence the Ottoman Empire had on the world, as we know it. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the Ottoman Empire lasted from around the time of the Crusades until the end of World War One. At one time they controlled all the territory from Turkey along the Mediterranean to Spain; most of the Balkan States including Greece; North Africa, Egypt, the Gulf States, and of course Israel.

Part of that legacy is all the Dracula stories. It was the Moors, as they were sometime referred to, of the Ottoman Empire that Vlad the Impaler slaughtered by the bucket load. After the Empire was forced from Spain, the border between East and West was Bulgaria and the Danube River. At one point, the Empire made it all the way to gates of Vienna, Austria before being turned back by troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

If you lived in the Balkans, either the Turks or the Austro-Hungarians were constantly liberating you until the 19th century. If you ever wondered where the Muslims came from in Bosnia during the ethnic cleansing of the mid 1990's, it was because of the Ottoman Empire. Although it had been well over a hundred years since they had ruled that part of the world nationalistic hatreds seem to have no shelf life.

So when I found out that British author Jon Courtenay Grimwood had set The Arabesk Trilogy, in a world where the Empire has survived until modern times it was only natural I was intrigued. Since it hasn't been released in Canada yet, the good folk at Random House U.S. were kind enough to send me review copies ahead of the Canadian release date.

In Pashazade, the first book of the series, Grimwood introduces us to not only the characters who will be populating the pages of the trilogy, but his version of how the world turned out after World War One. The Kaiser's temporary advisors to the Sultan still haven't left, but all in all the treaty of 1916 between Germany and the Ottoman Empire has worked out quite will for the Turks. They are able to rule independently in North Africa and follow their own traditional social structure.

The majority of the action takes place in the capital city of the new Empire, El Iskandryia, affectionately known by those who love and despise her as El Isk. It's everything you'd want from a capital city of the East. Part free city like Tunisia in the 1950's with a thriving multinational population of tourists, spies, and even an American chief of police. However, it's first and foremost a Muslim city; with formal manners, exquisite taste, and an aesthetic sensibility the west can never hope to obtain on the surface, and a seething cesspool of crime and deep-seated passions just below the surface.

When the man you meet for dinner smiles and bows to you after the meal, you always look over his shoulder to see if that was the cue for the man behind him to kill you with a well placed bullet or knife. Alcohol is illegal, but you are offered a hookah with the locally cured hash with your morning coffee and newspaper. Women have power behind the scenes but if they walk down the street with bare arms, they risk a fundamentalist slashing their arms to mark them as wanton.

It is into this world that Zee Zee finds himself magically transported from a prison cell in Seattle Washington where he's doing the time for a murder he didn't do, to being a ruling elite by the name of Ashraf with the title of Bey affixed to his name. It turns out that his blood father, who was married to his mother for five days, is an emir, and Ashraf is his only living heir.

An aunt he's never met has had him released so she can sell him and his title as a husband to the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. When his aunt turns up dead a few days after his very public refusal to marry somebody he's never met, and his nine-year-old niece Hani witnesses their ensuing argument, he becomes a prime suspect in her murder. Fortunately for Ashraf, and Hani as well it turns out, the police who want to arrest him don't have any evidence to hold him with. When you have the honorific Bey attached to your the name the police actually need evidence to hold you for more then eight hours.

One of the things I found so amazing about Pashazade was that after awhile you accept the surroundings without noticing that you are in a different culture. Grimwood is so matter of fact in his writing that El Iskandryia becomes as familiar as any generic Western city in similar circumstances.

The calls to prayer, the sounds of the bazaar, and coffee urns hissing in cafes, form an interior soundtrack that loops throughout the story, only fading as the city wraps itself in the shroud of night that cloaks activities that would be otherwise frowned upon under Muslim rule. Nightclubs with no fixed addresses run on ecstasy and pirate music transmissions and are the playgrounds for the children of money and tourists.

As long as they are discreet, a blind eye will be turned, but if a message needs to be sent, to somebody in specific, or just in general, they are very publicly raided. It's a way to remind the new rich and the spoiled children of the aristocrats who really are in charge, and how little say they have in the matter.

For Ashraf to survive in this world he has to quickly shed all who he was, and become who he is expected to be. Thanks to a few artificial enhancements, and some genetic engineering that his mother invested in his creation, he is able to survive some initial surprises on instinct and nerve. However, in a society as subtle and ancient as the Ottoman Empire, that will only get you into the game, not offer any guarantee of walking away from the table.

Grimwood does a remarkable job of carrying us through the development of Ashraf Bey. Through flashbacks to childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, we find out how Zee Zee came to be walking through the airport of El Iskandryia at the beginning of the book as someone he'd never heard of. From there, we watch as Zee Zee effects the transformation into Ashraf Bey, a role, it turns out he was born to play.

The opening salvo in the Arabesk Trilogy , Pashazade, does a remarkable job of not only creating the world where the story takes place, but also in developing the characters who it appears will dominate the action over the course of the final two books. Aside from Ashraf, we meet his nine year old niece Hani who until now has lived her entire live indoors in front of a computer monitor; Zara the young woman he was supposed to marry who, appearances aside, is not your typical spoiled rich brat; and her father, Hamzah, the underworld king with as many legitimate businesses as illegal ones.

The success of this trilogy will rest on Grimwood's ability to sustain what he has started in book one. Character's who constantly surprise and don't know what the word stereotype means, combined with an atmosphere so thick you can taste it, are an unbeatable combination. If books two and three are of the same quality, this will be an incredible ride.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:38 AM | Permalink

People should just know better. In this day and age, you might be able to get away with faking something's provenance for a little while, but with information being so readily accessible and data so easily checked, you're going to get caught out one way or another. What's amazing about the circumstances surrounding the supposed lost Luther Allison recording, Underground is how close they did come to getting away with it.
Professional
No one is pointing any fingers at anybody, and maybe it can all be put down to an honest mistake, but recordings claimed to be from a private session Luther Allison did in 1958, seem to really have been made at least ten years later in 1968-69. It wasn't until after Thomas Ruf, and Ruf Records had released the ten track CD, and begun promoting it as the lost recordings of Luther, that Rein Wisse, publisher of Block Magazine in the Netherlands smelt something wrong.

Once the can of worms was opened it didn't take long for the truth to come out. Ruf has published on its site Wisse's article on his investigation. Aside from subjective statements, "it doesn't sound like it was recorded in the fifties", the fact that "Cut You Loose", a song originated by Ricky Allen, appears on the '1958 recording' is enough to create serious doubts about the discs authenticity, as it wasn't recorded by Ricky until four years after that date.

It wasn't just Thomas Ruf who was fooled by these recordings either. Both of Luther's sons, Bernard and Luther, genuinely believed they had unearthed a treasure in their father's collection. Bernard is quoted as saying the songs on that disc were the first ones that he and Luther sr. had jammed to when he was twelve. What is true about these recordings is Luther did go into a studio by himself and laid down ten tracks in the late 1960's while he was under contract to Delmark Records

In fact, there a quite a few people out there, including the above mentioned Rein Wisse who own bootleg recordings of those sessions. Instead of some third party making money off the deal like is normal in these situations, Allison himself was selling them. Delmark Records knew what was going on, but turned a blind eye to his breaking their contract.

Almost lost in the confusion are the actual contents of the disc. There's only about thirty minutes of music on Underground and as is to be expected the sound isn't of the greatest quality. The material itself though is an interesting mixture of instrumentals and songs that give the listener a good idea of the sound Luther was after in those days.

It's no wonder he was recording this on the sly behind Delmark's back, as it wasn't stuff they were going be overly interested in recording or publishing. You can hear Luther's interest in the rockier side of things on some of his instrumentals, (remember this is the guy who played guitar with his teeth as much as Hendrix did), but you can also hear his affection for the smoother sound of R&B coming through.

What I found the most interesting about these recordings is just how laid back they are. All descriptions I've heard of Luther, and any other music I've heard of his, has been driven and intense. Normally he played like he was propelled by Rocket fuel, but here it sounds like he's just kicking back and exploring some mellow licks with Bobby Rush's band.

If one were to believe Bobby Rush, this is the work of an eighteen-year-old Luther Allison, unsure of himself and his abilities. But even before I had heard the revised history of these recordings I had a hard time matching what I heard to that description. Nothing about these recordings, from the vocals to the guitar work sound tentative.

Insecure guitar players in my experience don't normally play leads near the tuning pegs; they usually go for the flash of bending notes high up the neck by the body of the guitar. Luther uses his whole fret board when picking out leads on this disc, and puts on a clinic for anybody wanting to learn how to build a lead. (It's easy to believe that Bernard Allison taught himself to play using this record when he found it floating around his mother's house) While there are eighteen-year-old guitar players who can play hot licks, there aren't many who can apply the same intensity to playing slow.

That's what distinguishes the playing on this disc, is Luther Allison's ability to enjoy a note. Sure he could play fast, but so could a million other people, on Underground you have the opportunity to hear him play slow and relaxed. Not maybe something you've heard before.

Thomas Ruf's commitment to expanding and developing the Blues in Europe and around the world is well known. Ruf records was awarded the Thomas Handy for "Keeping The Blues Alive" in 2007, the first European record company to be recognised in that manner. For someone to take advantage of Thomas' personal affection for Luther Allison by attempting to pass off a late sixties bootleg as an early, previously unreleased, recording is disgusting.

If anything, Underground shows how seriously Thomas Ruf and Ruf Records take their responsibilities as a record company. Instead of trying to deny the controversy, or try to discredit information that is embarrassing, they have openly admitted there are questions in regards to Underground's provenances.

If it were really from 1958, it would be an interesting curiosity, but if, as it appears to be, merely a bootleg that was recorded in 1968, it's of little significance. All that it has served to do is embarrass a company who has given a home to Blues musicians across North America when no one else was signing them while developing new talent both there and in Europe. It's a shame that Luther Allison, the man who encouraged Thomas Ruf to follow his dreams and form Ruf Records, has had his name used in such a way as to cause them embarrassment. I'd like to think he'd be royally pissed off.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:15 PM | Permalink

It's hard for us who aren't the right generation to understand what a radical thing it was for Elvis Presley to play what he did back in the 1950s. It had nothing to do with how much or how he moved his hips and everything to do with the skin colour of the musicians that influenced him. Sure, he was playing a lot of country music, but that beat was pure Blues.

One of the big influences on Elvis and all the other young white musicians who were keen to experiment was Jimmy Reed. He was born down South but like so many others migrated up North and got work in and around Chicago. After two years of working in a foundry in Gary Indiana though, he was able to quit and become a full time musician.

What made Jimmy Reed so attractive to young musicians was his big, chunky, sound and steady rhythms. Like Big Bill Brozney, he often sang unaccompanied save for his own guitar keeping time and harmonica blowing solos. Listen to any Rolling Stones song from the early sixties and you can almost hear Jimmy Reed playing along, and they weren't the only ones as Van Morrison and The Grateful Dead both showed his influence in their earliest recordings.

Unfortunately, he didn't survive as long as some of his contemporaries did, dieing of an epileptic seizure in 1976 at the age of 51, and has missed out on the accolades being heaped on the first generation of Blues artists recently. Thankfully, there are those who still remember how important he was, and a group of them under the direction of Omar Kent Dykes (of Omar And The Howlers fame) and Jimmie Vaughan have put together a disc honouring both the memory and the music of Jimmy Reed.

On The Jimmy Reed Highway, released earlier this year on the German labelRuf Records is a collection of rollicking tunes that Jimmy either penned, or performed, plus a couple written in his honour. Right from the opening song, the disc's title track "On The Jimmy Reed Highway" written by Omar, you know you're in for one hell of a ride.

For those of you who haven't heard Omar sing before, or if you've somehow forgotten one of the most distinctive voices this side of Tom Waits, he rasps like a buzz saw in desperate need of oil, growls like a Harley-Davidson that doesn't know what the word muffler means, and is one of the sweetest sounding Blues singers you'll ever hear. If part of Jimmy Reed's popularity stems from the fact that he wrote about the realities of a working life, Omar Kent Dykes' voice was created to sing about them.

There aren't many Blues singers around who you're going to believe have spent time on the floor of a steel foundry, having to shout to be heard over the thousand gallon vats of molten metal boiling and the roar of fires hotter then the flames of hell. But listening to Omar singing "Big Boss Man" you can see him pitching coal into the maw of those furnaces to keep them blasting or doing any number of the back breaking jobs that fuel the North American economy.

Jimmie Vaughan may not be as famous as his brother Stevie Ray was, but the other half of Double Trouble is still a Blues guitar player to be reckoned with. I haven't heard him play since the days of Double Trouble, and he sounds like a far more complete guitar player now then he ever did. He had always been able to match his brother lick for lick when they played together, and on this recording, he shows he knows how to savour the notes as well as rip them apart.

I can't think of anything better then listening to an accomplished player who can still sound like each note he plays is something new and wondrous to be treasured. His touch is so sure he never overextends his stay or rushes a note. If I can't hear and feel each and every note walking up my spine, it's not Blues guitar as far as I'm concerned. Jimmie Vaughan runs leads and chord progressions up and down your vertebrae so impeccably that their echo lives on in your nervous system long after he's done.

As they tool along, the boys are joined by some fellow travellers on the Jimmy Reed highway. While folk like Delbert McClinton, James Cotton, and Gary Clarke Junior stop by for a song apiece; Kim Wilson and Lou Ann Barton are around for a number of songs each. While Kim is taking care of Harmonica duties on the majority of cuts (not when James Cotton or Delbert are playing obviously enough) Lou Ann is providing vocal counterpoint to Omar's growl.

Now Lou Ann isn't just another pretty voice singing doo-wop underneath and behind some male vocalist, she's a powerful, impassioned singer in her own right. Each time she sings, she at least shares vocal duties with Omar by splitting the verses with him and singing the choruses together. Compared to Omar her voice is like the purr of a finely tuned V8 engine that when fully revved you hear the growl of the power that's driving her.

While she's providing a contrast to Omar's growling vocals with her clean sound, you know that she can get just as down and dirty as him if she needs to. In fact that's what makes them work so well together as a team, the underlying potential that lets you know she's his equal any day of the week.

On The Jimmy Reed Highway is a wonderful disc for two reasons. First, it serves to keep the memory of one of Rock & Roll's and contemporary Blues' greatest influences alive and introduces him to a generation that might never have heard of him. The second is the fact that it's a great CD filled with superlative performances, by great musicians.

You really couldn't ask for anything more then that.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:27 PM | Permalink

I will always associate two series of books with my starting to write book reviews online. One is Ashok Banker's modern adaptation of The Ramayana and the other is The Eldarn Sequence by Robert Scott and the late Jay Gordon. Although the books are literally worlds apart, the impact they had on me was identical: "I must tell people about these books."

Ashok's books were already past the mid point when I caught up with Rama on his quest, but in the case of The Eldarn Sequence I came in at the beginning just after book one, The Hickory Staff, was published. I have followed it through the process of publication until now as it prepares to go to press with book three The Larion Senators I am able to be in on its completion as well.

As firsts go, first literary interview may not rank too high for some people, but my interview with Ashok will always be the first author I interview I conducted and to this day remains one of my favourites. Robert Scott was my second author interview but his series represents two other firsts for me. Lessek's Key, book two of the series, is the first ever book to carry a quote from one of my reviews on its dust jacket, and will always be the first set of author's proofs I've ever read.

The final book of The Ramayana was released some time ago, and my review is gathering dust in many site's archives but my association with Ashok hasn't ended as I now edit his online publication for international Arts & Culture Epic India Magazine. I don't know what my association with Robert Scott will constitute in the future, but I do know that my head is still reeling from the ride of reading The Larion Senators, and bringing that journey to its successful conclusion.

Don't worry I'm not going to tell you how it ends, except to say that it doesn't end it begins, but I do want to tell you what an excellent job was done in bringing the story to it's conclusion. Robert and Jay had left us with a pretty nasty cliff-hanger at the end of book two (if you haven't read that don't worry I won't even give that away) and the challenge as far as I could see was going to be creating a plausible way out of it. Even with 550 plus pages, I thought they'd be hard pressed to accomplish that and stitch together all the loose ends that have been left dangling since book one.

When you write fantasy or other sorts of speculative fiction you are able to define the rules your world abides by, thus allowing your characters to accomplish certain feats that they wouldn't be able to if they were living in our reality. However, you are bound to abide by your own rules and not take any short cuts to solve your dilemmas. You are as much a prisoner of the world you have created as your characters

All the way through the first two books, Robert and Jay were scrupulous in making sure that the characters kept to the limits of their abilities. While Steven Taylor learned how to control the magic he discovered was his in Eldarn, and began to understand just how powerful he could be, nothing he did was outside the realm of possible as far his character was concerned.

It's wonderful to see that adhered to faithfully right through to the end of the books. There is precedent for everything that occurs and nothing is pulled out of a hat in order to save the day in that final moment when all seems lost...at no matter what point it occurs in the story. But, it's that sort of attention to detail that has distinguished this series from the start.

Where it really comes through is the characterization and the development of the relationships between the characters as the story progresses. Whether it's sexual tension between Hannah and Hoyt after their prolonged time together in emotionally trying situations, Garec's struggles with his conscience about his ability as a killer, or Gilmour desperately trying to find out just what his role will be in the final confrontation, each process is organic and has the ring of authenticity to it.

When The Hickory Staff was published in 2005 there were two living authors, and before Jay Gordon succumbed to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gerig's disease in November of that year Lessek's Key had been handed over to the publishers. With The Larion Senators though Robert was left with only the notes that Jay had prepared as an outline and his own awareness of the story. In spite of previously only dealing with specific characters and aspects of the plot, he managed to seamlessly integrate everything and everybody without there being any noticeable difference in style and voice from the previous books.

It seems that a trilogy is only ever as good as its third book. The first two books could be brilliant, but if book three is anti-climatic, nobody will remember them. While each book of The Eldarn Sequence up to now has been well written and exciting, somehow Robert has managed to hold something in reserve for The Larion Senators and the tension level and excitement are raised another notch all the way through. It not only lives up to the expectations for a finale, it exceeds them by a long shot.

When Jay Gordon was diagnosed with ALS in 2002, he and his son-in-law Robert Scott set out on their quest to write the type of fantasy trilogy that Jay had loved to read. With The Larion Senators about to be released not only will that journey have been completed successfully, it will be done in spectacular fashion.

The Larion Senators will be distributed in Canada by McArthur & Company Publishing and can be purchased directly from them or through Amazon.ca.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:53 PM | Permalink

While there are plenty of multi instrumentalists and plenty of multi national players, it's a rare thing indeed to find a multi national multi instrumentalist. What surprises me is that I can actually name two of them off the top of my head. I'm sure most of the world has heard of Ry Cooder by now, but what about Bob Brozman? On his last release, Lumiere Bob played thirty some different stringed and plucked instruments from as far away as the Solomon Islands to a National Baritone tri-cone Resonator guitar that he designed and built with the National Guitar company in the United States.

Bob doesn't just have instruments from all over the world, he's been to those places as well, to learn, teach, and record music with some of the most interesting and best musicians in the world. On Lumiere he put all of that experience to work. The entire CD was made up of compositions that he improvised in the studio while recording. He would start with one instrument, lay down a basic melody or rhythm, then proceed to build layers around, on top, behind, and under the original with other stringed and percussion instruments. The finished results were nothing short of extraordinary and some of the most exciting music I'd heard in a long time.

Periodically Bob comes home to the music that Resonator guitars were made to play, American Blues. While I know there are others who play resonators, John Hammond for instance plays a beat up old National, only Bob has gone to the lengths of not only designing and building unique guitars like the Baritone mentioned above, but Resonator mandolins and ukuleles as well. His latest Blues album, Post Industrial Blues on Thomas Ruf's love affair with the Blues calledRuf Records of Germany, sees him armed with his full complement of resonators, but also bringing in friends from around the world to help out.

From India comes the 22 string Chaturangui and the 14 string Gandharvi; Greece contributes the baglama, from the Japanese island of Okinawa comes the sanshin, and a little closer to home, the Hawaiian ukulele. For someone else they might not sound like typical instruments to bring into the studio when recording a Blues album, but Bob likes to keep his options open. Hell he's as liable to use found objects for percussion as anything else – just check out what he's used on this album: a knife blade tapped on a table (these are actual credits), broken grass clippers, and a broken toy piano.

This may not have been an improvised disc like the last one but that doesn't stop it from being spontaneous. In fact, two of the tracks on this disc were written off the cuff in between takes of another song with the microphone open and the tape rolling. Just as unlikely is the fact that two songs were recorded live and on the first take, which in these days of overdubs and massive edits is as much a rarity as an honest politician. (Don't read the liner notes before your first time listening and see if you can guess which ones they are – I was surprised when I found out)

In what appears to be something of a switch for Bob, as I've never heard him sing them before, there are quite a few political and a number of social commentary songs scattered among the fifteen tracks of the album. Though I guess it shouldn't be too much of a shock because if you ever hear him interviewed you'll find he's not the least bit reticent about speaking his mind. Unlike other folk who write political music though, the content doesn't affect the artistry.

You could never tell by listening to the music of a song like "Follow The Money" that he's singing about job's being moved out of America or how Vice President Dick Cheney's Haliburton Oil seems to do what it wants in spite of the laws governing multinational corporations in America. Nope, it just sounds like an up-tempo, raggedy ass blues song. It's a stark contrast to the most powerful song on the recording that follows in it's wake; "Look At New Orleans".

For this song Bob hauls out an antique as musical accompaniment, a 19th century, seven string, English Banjo. I don't know if I've ever heard so melancholy an instrument before, but it weaves a perfect, haunting, counterpoint to the genuine anguish in Bob's voice recounting the plight of those left homeless by Katrina and the cynicism of politicians. It's also a lament for the country he loves, the United States of America, and he sees New Orleans as a symbol for how she's failing her people.

Anybody can sing an angry song, a song that's so full of hate and bile that all it does is raise everybody's hackles. Not many can sing a sorrowful song without it sounding trite and sentimental. "Look At New Orleans" is a few deceptively simple lines that cut to the chase and leave no doubt as to what the writer believes, fears, and hopes for. If that ain't art, I don't know what is.

Now you can't be a serious political type all the time and Bob's no exception. "Shafafa" is about the quest to be served real food today. "I want a mom and pop restaurant, that's what I want," he sings, knowing that his options these days don't include much without an INC. or LTD. after the name. It's a funny take on a situation that's not very funny; food that's so artificial that you can't even call it by it's real name. (When was the last time you saw a milk shake in a fast food joint – most of them are now shakes as the closest they get to a cow is the burger that gets stuffed in a bag with it)

Bob Brozman's Post Industrial Blues sees Bob returning to North America to play some fantastic Blues music on a recording that utilizes instruments from around the world and from different eras in history to make a thoroughly contemporary CD. To me that's the sign of an exemplary musician and gifted artist. To be able to draw upon different cultural influences and the past, and without imitating or appropriating them, incorporate them into a vision that is unique is what every artist should be striving to accomplish. You need look no further then Bob Brozman for an example of this in action.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:47 PM | Permalink

Have you been in the children's section of your bookstore recently? I know I don't normally wander through it, as I don't have children in my life to buy stuff for. However, on occasion I've found my eye being caught by something spectacular and been reeled in like the proverbial fish on the line. Once entrapped I have a difficult time escaping without making a purchase, in fact I'm lucky to get out without burning holes in my credit card.

Children's books have really changed. Searching through my dusty memories of childhood, I've distinct memories of monochromatic pages occasionally alleviated by pastel washes of colour. Of course, the majority of books in those dark ages hailed from the British Isles and exotica were considered ancient Rudjard Kippling stories of "Inja". Elaborate and scary paintings of fear stricken "natives" cowering behind the stalwart British soldier, facing down tigers and cobras were standard adornment no matter what the story; I suppose they were considered to embody all the virtues of the Empire, but I usually hoped the tiger would rip the soldiers throat out.

You only have to walk down one aisle to see the difference time can make for the better. I'm now surrounded by smiling faces of children from lands that I didn't even know existed when I was a child. Even better is the fact that these children either don't have to have any white children around to justify their existence, or they are teaching the little blond haired girl on the cover about their world. When I see that I feel like the world might have a chance and can forget for a moment that the majority of people still want to kill what they don't understand.

Thankfully, some adults don't think that way and are actively trying to teach the next generations to be like them. The adults who do that best draw upon their own traditions and tell the stories their people created for children. Most of the world's older cultures are replete with tales and adventures easily adapted into stories that can teach children about other people and places.

In Search Of The Thunder Dragon, written and illustrated by Sophie and Romio Shrestha, (published by Mandala Publishing and distributed in Canada by Publisher's Group Canada) is a beautiful example of this. The small Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, also known as the land of The Thunder Dragon, is the country being explored in this book.

When a young girl, Amber, travels to Bhutan with her father for the first time she learns about the Thunder Dragons, and together with her cousin sets out to find them. While the story is fun and exciting – who wouldn't want to ride on the back of a flying tiger and soar through the clouds with Thunder Dragons – the manner in which the authors have been able to work in facts about life in Bhutan is equally well done.

For instance, we learn that Bhutanese people live in extended families because Amber stays with her cousin Tashi, who lives with his parents and grandparents. We also learn that elders are considered repositories of knowledge, because the first person Amber and Tashi ask about the Thunder Dragons is their grandfather. Throughout the whole quest little things like that come out in the story – without being shoved down anyone's throat.

That was probably the most pleasant surprise of all about this book – it was just a story. It doesn't insult the intelligence of its readers by assuming that everything has to be spelled out for them just because they are young, and it doesn't ruin the story by preaching a "message". One of the worst reactions to the children's literature of my day was when writers forgot that the whole idea behind story telling was to stimulate the imagination not deliver a sermon. A good story should give a child the right tools to figure things out on their own, not hit them over the head with a hammer.

The artwork in In Search Of The Thunder Dragon is spectacular, so it's not surprising to find out that co-author Romio Shrestha was born in Bhutan. as well as a world-renowned painter of traditional thankas; the sacred scrolls depicting scenes of wonder in the Buddhist faith. Samples of his work hang in museums around the world including The British Museum, The Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the American Museum of Natural History. So not only is he eminently qualified to write about Bhutan, but you know that his illustrations are going to be culturally accurate.

This story was based on a trip Romio took to Bhutan with his eldest daughter Amber and the wonderful time she had there. This explains how the authors have been able to capture the child-eye's view their writing depicts so well. The sense of wonder that pervades the book reflects that viewpoint, and is a refreshing change from the cynical ways children are too often depicted in our media and culture. These aren't ten-year-old kids made to sound like miniature adults with the joy and wonder hammered out of them.

Perhaps that's not a very realistic view of our world, but who knows how children are in Bhutan. Anyway, this is a work of fiction and if the authors want to create a world where a child's eyes can still be opened wide in wonder, more power to them. The last thing children need in this world is more reality and they certainly could stand a little more enchantment.

If you're looking for a book to read to, and with your child, or even one that he or she could read on their own, In Search Of The Thunder Dragon would be perfect. It's beautifully illustrated with a straightforward narration that's understandable without being condescending. All in all, the perfect book for people who have just started reading, or for those of us who've been reading for a while.

It's a really good thing I don't have to buy books like this for children –I wouldn't be able to give them up.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:30 PM | Permalink

Some people live their life on a timer where everything starts at zero as if they have a certain amount of things to accomplish within a limited time. Other people take their time, not worrying about how long it takes them, but about the quality of the time they put into doing something. No matter the approach, they both see time as being a straight line from a – b that never deviates from its inexorable path.

Some people believe in reincarnation, returning to lead a succession of lives until they complete whatever it was they were meant to complete, or learn what they needed to move on to somewhere else. They still see time as a line that inches forward entropically eating up the ages with an insatiable appetite, otherwise how could they progress and grow.

Time is the barrier against which humankind finds itself running into whenever we consider travel beyond our own little planet's sphere of influence. Even the closest star – our Sun – is an unobtainable objective because of our limited time alive. No matter what system you use to measure time, what calendar you follow, doesn't change the fact that it takes more then a human's life span to make it there, never mind back again.

Science fiction writers have spent as much creative energy on figuring out ways to circumvent the problem of overcoming time as they have on creating plots and character. If a story features space travel and humans, writers feel compelled to show off their make believe physics to justify their characters crossing distances that take more then their life spans. While there have been some interesting theories in that regard suggested, everyone still accepts the premise of linear time.

Things aren't quite as straightforward in Jon Courtenay Grimwood's book Stamping Butterflies, released in Canada by Random House Canada's Bantam/Spectra imprint. While it's not the first novel to take place in the past, the present, and various futures, it also explores the possibility that time isn't necessarily linear. In fact, things could be construed as confusing at the beginning as we try to get our bearings in three separate eras, but Grimwood ties it all neatly together in the end.

Of the three timelines we follow in "Butterflies", the connection between the past and the present seem obvious enough. The book's current time, a near parallel time to ours, revolves around the attempted assassination of an American president by what appears to be a deranged individual. What else are you supposed to think when a person tells you that the "darkness" has ordered him to carry out the attempt? But when the prisoner turns out to be some sort of idiot savant who is scrapping quantum physics equations into his arms or in his own excrement that he has smeared over his cells surfaces like plaster, his jailers are forced to re-evaluate his status.

Who is the mysterious "Prisoner Zero" and where did he come from? What's his connection to a punk rocker from the States who supposedly died in a fire in a junkie's squat in Amsterdam? Where does the street kid from Marrakech of the sixties and seventies, who wants to know how things work fit in, and what does his relationship with the rock star Jack Razor forebode for the future?

Thousands of years in the future a young emperor exists in what appears to be a vast artificial replica of the "Forbidden City" of Chinese empires from ages long past. Zaq is the latest in a line of "Emperors" who originated with a cryogenically frozen Navigator of a star ship launched by the book's present-day China. It's from that Navigator's brain that the empire in the future was created.

When you read a novel like this you have two options; try and make sense of all the different circumstances as they are happening or sit back and enjoy what's on the page in the moment and trust in the author to pull it all together in the end. In the case of Stomping Butterflies my suggestion is to go with the latter and it will be well worth your while. While some author's might be able to only carry off the conundrum part of the book and not have anything left over for character creation or story telling, that's not the case with Grimwood.

This is a beautifully written book with characters and situations unbearably real in their ability to break your heart and make you rail at the injustices of the world. I would say that Grimwood writes with precision, in the way he uses his words to paint pictures that come alive in your mind, but that makes him sound cold and clinical, the furthest thing from the truth.

I know from nothing when it comes to physics, and in spite of that, I was able to enjoy even the technical parts of the book. Although I think that had more to do with Grimwood's abilities as a writer – if he wrote phone books he'd find a way to make them interesting –then my understanding what was written. At the same time if something of a technical nature was truly important to the story, he ensures that it is understandable to anyone willing to make some effort.

Stamping Butterflies is one of those rare books where you forget what genre you're reading and simply enjoy the story. It's not often that you find this good a story combined with an intellect that challenges you without the author being a show off or the thinking being intimidating. Jon Courtenay Grimwood is rapidly becoming one of my new, favourite writers, and I can only hope that more of his work is made available in Canada soon.

Canadians wishing to buy Stamping Butterflies can order it through Random House Canada's web site or through an on line retailer like Amazon Canada

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:45 AM | Permalink

Anybody who has ever experienced the loss of someone they loved dearly probably understands the feeling of wondering why the world didn't come to a screeching halt with the person's death. How can it be business as usual when he's dead? What does it matter what the latest gossip is about some Hollywood or Bollywood star when she's dead?

Well that's how I feel all the time. How can people be so complacent in the face of what we are putting the planet and her people through? In North America I'd hazard a guess and say the nine out of ten people are somehow actively hastening the destruction. Every time one person climbs behind the wheel of an SUV to just drive around the city by themselves they are increasing the demand for fuel and replacing oxygen in the air with carbon dioxide.

How about living in a world where we reached critical mass in population years ago, but millions of people still believe that practicing birth control of any kind is sinful. Isn't it a worse sin to have children come into a world where they are not wanted or there isn't enough food to feed them? How many children die of starvation each day? How many are neglected, emotionally, physically, or sexually abused because there's nobody who cares anymore?

In 2005 the world watched in horror as first New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina that forced thousands upon thousands of people to become refugees. Three months latter the Indian Ocean exploded with tsunami that destroyed villages and coastal towns forcing hundreds of thousands of people into temporary camps and shelters. Concert were given, speeches were made, and money was raised to try and help the people in both locations rebuilt their lives.

Instead of housing being rebuilt and lives resurrected the land where fishing villages have stood for generations is being sold to developers to make hotel /condominium complexes that cater to the rich tourist trade. This government sanctioned land theft (a government official in India called it a "golden opportunity") is echoed in New Orleans where the city is refusing to repair any flood damage until people come home.

But how can people come home if they have no homes, and no infrastructure to serve them. According to Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine if the government has their way the people will never come home and the whole area will be converted into private housing well out of the range of it's original inhabitants' pocketbooks.

Is anybody keeping track of all the countries where we are killing each other? Iraq and Afghanistan of course come to mind first because we in the West are involved in those ones so they "merit" our attention. Does anybody remember the reason that George had for invading Iraq – Weapons of Mass Destruction that nobody has yet to find a trace of.

Has anybody asked why George is so determined to keep spending the lives of his citizens on a daily basis in Iraq? It wouldn't be because they haven't finished stripping the country of all her assets could it. That they aren't going to leave until they've sold off every scrap of useful property and service to the people who bought him power has become increasingly obvious to everybody but the United States public.

Over the years, North Americas have perfected the ability to be completely self-absorbed and ignorant of the world around them. Until of course the minute it affects them. We hide behind our gadgets and our noise so that we can't see or hear anything around us until its far too late and somebody flies an airplane into our buildings.

It's our behaviour out in the rest of the world, or at least the behaviour of those whom people take to be our representatives that goes a long way towards creating resentment. When the multinationals come in and strip mine a country of its natural resources the locals don't think too fondly of them or the country they come from.

Since they were allowed into the country in the first place because the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made the government sell off nationally owned assets at a penny to the dollar there's bound to be a little local resentment. Especially since the IMF also makes governments stop spending money on infrastructure and social services like education and health.

Yet, I'm sure if you were to ask, the majority of people in North America would have no idea that the IMF policies worked to take money out of the countries they were supposed to be helping. If we don't become aware of what's being done by agencies in the control of our governments to other countries soon we won't understand why they are so upset with us half the time.

I don't believe I have any special powers, or am I super intelligent, but I try to keep myself up to date about what is happening in the world. Doing so makes me realize that while not on the verge of complete disaster, our situation is precarious. It also makes me want to walk down the street shaking people to let know that there is something beyond their iPods and iPhones that they need to start worrying about.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:07 AM | Permalink

Some musicians are as comfortable as an old favourite sweater. You can count on them to deliver the same thing consistently. There are no surprises when you get one of their new recordings, in fact you can predict what will be on an album before you buy it. While that might be boring it has the redeeming quality of being a certainty.

Then, there are the musicians who change each time. Each recording is so different it's a crapshoot whether you're going to like what they put out each time. They are always exciting and challenging, and guaranteed to make your life more interesting. In a world where pop music plays it as safe as possible, they are like a breath of fresh air, no matter how jarring they can be at times.

There is a rarer breed of animal then either of those two, the performer who has managed to combine both of those elements. You get the same guarantee of certainty that you did with the guy who does the same thing repeatedly and the excitement of the one who always changes. Unfortunately, there aren't too many performers in popular music that can wear that mantle; in fact, I know of only one.

I can't remember a time in pop music when Neil Young wasn't recordings. From the time, I became aware that there was such a thing as rock and roll; he's been churning the stuff out. From his early days at The Riverboat in Toronto Ontario, showing up in California driving a hearse and becoming part of Buffalo Springfield – to the retired country farmer that he seems to have become as he's aged, Neil Young has been continually lurking around the edges of stardom.

But that's not something that's likely to ever happen in the "celebrity" sense of the word, as he's just far too uncompromising when it comes to his music. He does what he feels like, when he feels like, and with whom he feels like doing it and has his whole career. Whether working with his band Crazy Horse, touring with the Shocking Pinks performing rockabilly, or even that scary period when he put out Transformer where he played with electronic music, he's never given a rat's ass for whatever any one else has thought.

In spite of that, he remains a constant in a world of inconstancy because of his individuality and the distinctive sound of his voice. It doesn't seem to mater if he's singing one of his folk songs like "Sugar Mountain" or burning the roof off with something like "Down By The River". In the last few years, he's spread his artistic wings even further by getting involved with making movies based on song cycles he has created.

But music is still what he does best and while there are those who will probably disagree with me I think his latest Chrome Dreams ll is one of his better efforts in years. Last year's Prairie Wind was a step in the right direction although I found it a little too sentimentally nostalgic and lacking the bite that normally elevates his acoustic work above the norm. Although considering the year he had come through (surgery for a brain aneurysm and the death of his father) it's more then a little understandable.

Chrome Dreams ll sees Neil still working the quieter side of the street, but the lyrics have a lot more too them on this occasion. In some ways its the equivalent of the novel where the characters go on a long road journey but the real road their travelling is the one inside where you figure out things about yourself. Road and travel imagery abound in the songs on this disc, to help explain the inner journey needed to get back home to yourself.

From the bluebird who always looks like she's flying home in the opening track "Beautiful Bluebird", the spirit road in your mind that you have to find to get you home in "Spirit Road", to the fact that it's not that big a mystery on how to go about being like the bluebird on "No Hidden Path". Young talks about the importance of taking the time to get to know yourself and the world about you.

Spirituality is not something that people are comfortable talking about in our society, but Neil doesn't share that reluctance. Heck I've always found "Helpless" to be one of the most spiritually moving songs I've ever heard in the way it evokes the power that memories have on the spirit. So it shouldn't surprise people to hear Neil advocate finding your spirit road or talking about praying among the trees. But then again it might.

Neil is one of the few folk who can actually write a musically satirical song, maybe it's his voice, or something to do with the way he can control his inflection. "Dirty Old Man" is a typical example of his best satire. What sounds funny and glib on the surface is really a criticism of those people who find those sorts of attitudes funny. There's nothing funny about people who are drunks and piss their lives away, yet you can already hear the idiots cheering when Neil sings "I love to get hammered on a Friday night, but sometimes I can't wait and Monday's alright".

"Dirty Old Man" is the path most often taken by people in North America instead of trying to learn how to fly like the Bluebird and make their way home. In the last song of the disc, "The Way", when he sings, "we know the way", he's only speaking the truth because we do all know the way. The trouble is most of us aren't interested in doing anything but becoming a selfish, self-indulgent, dirty old man.

For those of you who wonder what new thing Neil Young is going to throw at them with his latest album the answer this time lies in the content. By far the most introspective recording of his career, Chrome Dreams ll may be a little more disconcerting then his recordings that were musically challenging. It happens far les often these days then it used to that someone puts out a recording demanding the listener listen to the lyrics in order to fully appreciate it; at least not with the level of intelligence and intensity that is displayed on this album.

It would be easy to dismiss Chrome Dreams ll as the consequence of a near death experience and the death of somebody close to Neil Young's heart. But that would be a disservice to his creative power and his commitment to his art form. Of course the events of last year will have affected Mr. Young, but this recording goes far beyond being merely a reaction to life – its a guide to life and getting the most out of it.

If you want to check out some of the songs on the recording you can head over to Neil's Youtube site where they have four songs in rotation.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:11 PM | Permalink

I first came to know about the extraordinary Blues guitar player Lurrie Bell through a wonderful DVD put out by Delmark Records of Chicago featuring his dad Carey and himself performing in three different locations around town. Gettin' Up Live caught them at Buddy Guy's Legends, Rosa's, and in the comfort of Lurrie's living room one afternoon.

It was the scene in Lurrie's living room that really got me; it wasn't some staged shit like those, we just happened to be in the neighbourhood with cameras and sound equipment spots you see on "documentaries" about "Celebrities". No this was a planned thing when it was discovered that Carey would be singing and playing harp accompanied by Lurrie on guitar for that weekend. Carey's health was failing, in fact he came out of a hospital bed to do the gig that weekend, so my feeling is that people just wanted to gather as much footage as possible of the two men playing together while there was still time.

It was the lack of pretence that made it so beautiful, and so heartbreaking. During the shoot the camera would cut away occasionally to Lurrie's wife Susan Greenberg, a great photographer, trying to stop three kids, one of them Lurrie and hers, from running out to hang with grand-pa. The music was great and the atmosphere was even better, which made reading the press material closely after I had written the review that much more distressing.

You see there was a ghost on that film, Susan Greenberg had died of illness the same month that the DVD was released. If that wasn't bad enough Carey was taken from Lurrie only a couple months latter, heart attack and complications brought on by Diabetes (The second song on the DVD is called "Gettin' Up" and Carey had written the day of their gig at Rosa's as he had just "Gotten Up" out of bed to come do the show)

Lurrie Bell's 2007 started out really hard and continued to be a rough ride right through the first half of the year. But I think that if you were to open a dictionary printed this year and looked up the word determination, he would be staring back at you with a small grin on his lips and a guitar in one hand and his little girl Aria in the other. The year's not even over and he's started his own record label (Aria, named for his daughter of course) and produced his first disc for it Let's Talk About Love.

When I was given this opportunity to send Lurrie some interview questions by email to coincide with the release of his new CD, I wasn't given any guidelines on what I should and shouldn't ask about. Since he'd obviously taken steps to get past the events of earlier this year, it seemed obvious that I owed him the respect of honouring that commitment and wasn't about to start asking him about it. "Tell me – how's it feel to lose your wife and your father in the same year" just didn't seem appropriate.

Lurrie's not the most chatty of men in these situations, I think he prefers to leave the talking to his music, so his answers are short and to the point. But I figure if anyone has a right to be reticent it would be Lurrie after the year he's had.

Is there any truth to the rumours that a) you were born with a guitar in hands, b) backstage during a sound check before a gig your dad was playing at Buddy Guy's, and c) that you were sitting in before the night was out?

(Laughs) Yeah I’ve been playing the blues ever since.

Well if that's not the case maybe you better set the record straight and tell us how you came to pick up your first guitar?

I first picked up the guitar when I was hanging with my father at his rehearsals. I think I was 4 or 5 years old.

Was there pressure on you to become a musician? What if you had wanted to be an accountant or something, would that have disappointed your father?

No pressure but my dad was very proud that I had made a name for myself being a musician.

Seriously was there ever any doubt in your mind about what you were going to do?

NO

You were sort of like an elite athlete in that you really didn't know anything else aside from your chosen profession – you were playing professionally by sixteen or close to that. Do you think given the opportunity you might do things a little differently?