Leap In The Dark

It remains a cause of wonder to me that people express surprise at how powerful conservative Christianity is in the United States. Do they not remember who it was that sailed on board the Mayflower that put ashore at Plymouth Rock? The history that's taught to American school children says that the folk who celebrated America's first Thanksgiving were fleeing religious persecution in England. Technically I suppose that it's true they weren't being allowed the freedom to practice their brand of Christianity back home, but did anyone bother to find out what exactly they weren't being allowed to do that so impinged upon their liberty?

One doesn't need to look much further than the reign of Oliver Cromwell to understand why they weren't being allowed to do what they wanted back home. Cromwell led a Puritan revolution that saw the overthrow, and execution of King Charles 1 of England. During his reign of terror Cromwell and his Puritan followers outlawed any form of worship that wasn't in compliance with their strictures, closed all the theatres as sinful, and invaded Ireland and razed it to the ground for being Catholic. Saying that the Puritans were fleeing persecution because they weren't allowed to do what they wanted is sort of like saying denying the Klan the right to hold a lynching impinges on their civil rights.

Of course in 16th and 17 century, nearly anyone crossing an ocean anywhere and travelling to a "new world" was a Christian of some sort or another. Portuguese and Spanish sailors were circling the globe and "discovering" South America; the French and the British were dividing up North America between them; and everybody was trying to find an easy way to get to the East. It was the great era of Christian exploration and conquest. According to a new book by Native American author Steven T. Newcomb, Pagans In The Promised Land, published by Fulcrum Publishing, it's here we need to look to find the roots of American policy towards the indigenous people of the North American continent.

Steven Newcomb is a columnist for Indian Country Today and co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute(ILI). In his work for ILI he works to support indigenous nations and peoples to protect their sacred and ancestral homelands, restore and revitalize traditions, and to heal from the past five hundred years of colonization. A good deal of that kind of work involves finding the means to advocate for various nations in courtrooms across the United States, which in turn means he's had to make a study of the rationale behind Judicial rulings that have found both for and against Native Americans in the past.

In Pagans In The Promised Land he has distilled some of that information to offer proof of his theory that American government policy towards Native Americans has been justified by concepts of Christianity. He also categorizes the relationship of American governments towards Native Americans as one that follows an empire-domination model based on an inherent right of Christian rule by discovery.

While he offers various examples throughout the book substantiating his theory through the history of America, three concrete examples, or proofs, form the core of his argument. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI issued a Papal Bull known as Inter Caetera in response to a request from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to justify their claiming any lands that Christopher Columbus discovered or may discover in the future. The only codicil that the Pope added was that no Christian King could claim any land already claimed by another. The Pope saw this as being a way of spreading a Christian Empire, fulfilling his desire to subjugate non-Christian nations, by whatever means necessary, and making them all Christian.

Those landing at Plymouth Rock claimed the land in the name of the Puritan, Christian God, and after only a single generation had exercised dominion over the indigenous populations. They may not have exercised the letter of Alexander's Papal Bull, as they weren't Catholic, but they sure followed its spirit through their treatment of the local indigenous population. Yet, according to Newcomb, while the Inter Caetera may have defined their relationship with Native Americans, it has been American governments likening themselves to the Israelites of the Old Testament in Exodus and America as "The Promised Land" that has had the farthest reaching consequences.

The Puritans saw themselves as the Chosen People and the new world as their promised land where they would be able to live as they wanted, but it didn't stop with them. Benjamin Franklin suggested to the Continental Congress that Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea should appear on the Great Seal of the United States, while Thomas Jefferson said it should depict the Israelites crossing into the Promised Land guided by clouds and fire. Both images were designed to reinforce the image of Americans as The Chosen People and America as the Promised Land.

Of course, as in the Old Testament, in America there were Canaanites who needed to be smitten before the Chosen People could move into their Promised Lands, and smitten they have been. According to various proofs offered by Newcomb throughout the book this mindset has permeated the attitude taken by America during their expansion across America and their treatment of Indigenous people's everywhere.

One of the key arguments in his book in support of his theory that the relationship between the American government and the Native population is based on the rule of Christian discovery is a legal case from the 1820s - Johnson v. McIntosh. Chief Justice John Marshall actually based his ruling in part upon the Papal Bull of 1493. In the case he said that the discovery of "heathens" by Christian people gave the Christians "ultimate dominion" over the "discovered Indian". This decision has never been overturned and remains the legal foundation for all American government dealings with the Native populations of the Americans.

Steven Newcomb has studied judicial history, and has in some ways approached this work like a lawyer proving his case in court. Fortunately, he refrains from using legal terminology, whenever possible, and has formulated his case in a way that all lay people can understand. The other thing to realize is that this book has been written for a native audience to help them understand the situation they face. One of the parts I found wonderful about this book was how he offers cognitive counsel for Native people to help them overcome the mindset of feeling like they are a conquered people. He reminds them that governments can not control how they think, what they imagine, how they use their language, or where they direct their attention. As long as they remember that, and continue to work on keeping their languages, traditions, and cultures alive, no matter what constraints the government puts on them they will still be free.

Pagans In The Promised Land is a must read for anybody wishing to understand what truly motivates American policy towards the Indigenous people's within in its borders. While at times it can make for a depressing and angering read, the author ends with a message of hope that is applicable for people anywhere in the world struggling to maintain their identity in the face of what seems to be overwhelming odds.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:07 PM | Permalink

Have you ever fallen into a story? It used to happen to me a lot when I was younger, when I was first reading, and there were still plots and characters awaiting discovery by a mind eager to escape from its own reality. As I grew older my reasons for reading never changed; the desire to be carried away into worlds other than my own remained strong if for different reasons, but the more I read it seemed the harder it became for books to work their magic.

There was a time when I began to feel there might be only be a finite number of stories told, for it started to feel like I was only ever reading variations on stories that I had already read. No matter the genre or the author, the patterns of the plots and the character types were all ones I was already familiar with. What made it even worse was that the more I read, the worse the stories appeared to become, as if the authors were merely writing pale imitations of the story I wanted to read.

It seemed like I was constantly finding stories that languished between covers awaiting passive readers who wanted nothing more than to be spoon fed the same tale over and over again. Thankfully something changed, whether it was me looking farther afield, writers opening up new territories, publishers willing to take the risk on something different, or a combination of all three I'm not certain, but in the last six or seven years I've been able to recapture the excitement of being a new reader again.

It seems like a whole new generation of writers have appeared to take up the challenge of capturing our imaginations: Erikson, Gaiman, Banker, Barclay, Kay and Kerr are just a few of the many names breathing new life into what was becoming a moribund art form. Even more exciting is the fact that hardly a month or two passes when there isn't a new author putting his or her vision down on paper. One who I've just stumbled upon is Robert V. S. Redick, whose latest book, The Red Wolf Conspiracy (book one of The Chathrand Voyage Trilogy) is published by Orion Gollancz and distributed in Canada by McArthur & Company

In the Red Wolf Conspiracy it appears that Redick was inspired by the great sea faring stories of the past when men sailed the oceans through the grace of the wind and the strength of their sails; added dollops of magic and political intrigue, to create a book that draws you in from almost its opening words. With characters drawn from all levels of society, human and otherwise, he has populated the pages with the many faces of good and evil.

Like those aboard their counterparts in our world, the lives of those who crew the sailing vessels that plough the seas of North West Alifros as either merchants, pirates, or navel ships, is never an easy one. It's especially difficult for the lowest of the low, the tar-boys. Young boys, who've either been sold into indentured servitude aboard a ship by their parents or press ganged into service by a mysterious sub-human race known as Flickerman, (for their ability to light up like glow worms and fire flies), they do all the menial tasks aboard ship. On a decent ship, with a decent Captain, their lives are merely hard, but on a ship where bullies are allowed to thrive it can be a living hell.

Pazel Pathkendle has experienced the many sides of this life, and has invariably borne even a larger share of abuse than most as befits his status as the member of a conquered race. Still things could have been a lot worse if not for a benefactor who occasionally manages to pull strings to get him placed in as good a posting as possible. Now, he can't but hope that his fortunes are improving as he has secured a position aboard the grandest ship ever built, the Chathrand. Of course he's not to know that the ship and all it's passengers and crew are about to become a pawn in a plot hatched by the Arqual Empire to conquer and destroy the one power that has rivalled them for control of Alifros, the Mzithrin Empire.

On the surface it appears that the Chathrand's charge is to deliver a new ambassador from the Arqual Empire to the Mzithrins. Former Admiral Eberzam Isiq, a hero of the Empire, his young bride, and his daughter are on more than just your regular mission of peace. Thasha, the admiral's daughter is to be married to a Prince of the Mzithrin Empire in order to cement a relationship between the former foes. Although if young Thasha has anything to do with it the wedding will never happen. Even before she steps on board ship she is plotting and scheming of ways she'll be able to vanish before the great ship reaches its final destination.

Unknown to the Admiral and Thasha is the fact that her marriage is merely one small part of an intricate plot designed to throw the Mzithrin Empire into a horrible Civil War making them ripe for conquest. Through chance, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time, both Pazel and Thasha begin to realize there is more to the voyage that meets the eye. Unfortunately that's the sort of knowledge that can get a person killed if the plotters were ever to catch wind of their awareness. Together the two of them form an unlikely alliance, and alongside some even unlikelier allies, (a talking rat and a race of warlike, insect sized little people for starters), they must somehow figure out a way to keep Thasha alive and prevent a war that will result in the deaths of thousands of innocents.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy works in so many different ways to fire a reader's imagination that it's difficult to enumerate them. The various levels of the plot develop gradually so that while we always suspect that there is more to the action than what meets the eye, it's always a surprise when we discover each new layer as its revealed. Perhaps even more interesting is the ambiguity of the characters' nature. Is it so evil what the plotters are doing in orchestrating the destruction of their Empire's enemies? After all they are only carrying out the wishes of their government in this matter, making them not very different from government operatives in our own world.

The Mzithrins have terrorized them and their allies in the past, so why shouldn't they desire to see them finally defeated? Listening to them rationalize their behaviour they don't sound particularly evil; ruthless in the way they'll use whatever means necessary to achieve their ends certainly, but they have hopes and dreams just as Pazel and Thasha do. That doesn't stop them from being the villains of the piece, but it does make them far more interesting as characters, and makes those portions of the story told from their perspective that much more interesting.

In the end though what makes this story so captivating is Robert Redick's ability to bring the world it's set in to life. From storms at sea, everyday life aboard a ship, to life ashore, every scene is so lovingly detailed that you can almost smell the salt of the ocean, or feel the planks of the ship shudder beneath your feet as it weathers a blow. The Red Wolf Conspiracy takes its readers on a wonderful voyage of adventure that they won't regret booking passage on. Keep an eye out though for your next opportunity to sail the high seas with Robert Redick and his cast of characters, as this is only the first leg of The Chathrand Voyage Trilogy.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy is distributed in Canada by McArthur & Company and is available through regular retail outlets and on line through retailers like Amazon Canada. For now American readers can only purchase it online through Amazon.com but it will soon be available for sale in book stores through Del Ray books as they've just purchased the American rights.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:32 PM | Permalink

Well another Earth Day has come and gone presenting us with an ideal time to check in with Mother Earth and see how she's doing these days as compared to last year at this time. (Does anybody know when Earth Day was this year - I thought it was supposed to be every April 23rd, but it looks like people were getting all Green on the 22nd this year) It's harder and harder to get in touch with Mother Earth these days as she has so much on her plate, but I was finally able to track her down and ask her a few questions.

When I finally caught up to her she didn't seem to be in the best of moods considering it was Earth Day, with people all over the world celebrating how much they cared about her. I thought she was being somewhat ungracious and decided to call her on it.

I'm surprised that you're so put out, given the fact that people all over the world have been making a big fuss about you. Don't you think you could be acting a little more grateful

Mother Earth: Oh, and I've got so much to be grateful for. Three hundred and sixty four day a year they don't think twice about spitting on me, and I'm supposed to feel grateful for them for taking one day to pick up some garbage? I'm still going to have to figure out what to do with all the crap they pick up today aren't I? No don't answer, it was a rhetorical question idiot.

What do you think is going to happen with all the garbage that gets picked up today? It's going to go where garbage always goes; into landfill, onto a garbage scow in New Jersey, or burnt in an incinerator. It means that I'm still going to have to figure out how to bio-degrade shit, pray to whoever that the damned scow doesn't sink dumping its load in the river, and trying to absorb another load of CO2 from it being burned. Not much different from any other day of the year as far as I'm concerned.

But doesn't it make you feel like people at least care about what's happening to you?

Mother Earth: Care? Care! If they god damned cared they wouldn't have dumped the garbage they're picking up in the first place. Don't talk to me about caring asshole. For the last, I don't know how many billions of years, I've worked at creating this really incredibly, delicate, balance called the natural order of things where all of life is beautifully interconnected. It's a god damned work of art if you ask me, but what do you philistines do?

Ever since you climbed out of the trees there's been somebody among you who thinks that they can do this creation thing better than I can and proceeds to rip great big holes in the web that ties everything together. I'm left scurrying to try and patch it up somehow and mitigate the damage.

Of all the animals on this planet humans were the only ones given the ability to reason, but you couldn't tell that by your actions. You people should know better. But you still shit and piss in the water you plan on drinking the next day, dump poison into the air that you need to breath in order to survive, and cut down the trees, that if given half a chance might be able to clean the air for you, to build another strip mall. Those aren't the actions of a caring and responsible people, let along rationale or reasonable.

If you were dumb like pigs or cows, while it would be understandable, but humans are supposedly intelligent and rational. Therefore, the only explanation I'm left with for your behaviour is you don't care. What else I'm supposed to think?

Well, but that was in the past. Don't you think we're getting better - look at all the things we're doing to try and fix what we've done wrong

Mother Earth: Recycling, car-pooling, florescent light bulbs, and composting your kitchen wastes are known where I come from as both, too little to late and useless as tits on a bull. Oh don't look so shocked you little putz, it's the truth. Look, those are all really nice things, and I do appreciate that the people doing them are genuine in their desire to make changes in their lives to help me. That only makes it doubly sad that it's not really doing any good.

The reality is that no matter what the government and the corporations who own them say, it's not the fault of individuals that the world is in the trouble its in. For the last couple of hundred years a small minority of humans have been making huge amounts of money off the the labour of the majority and at the expense of the planet's health. Mass production of anything leads to massive generation of waste directly and indirectly.

Not only does a manufacturer have the potential to create waste products through the direct operation of his business, but there's also the demands he makes upon other sectors of the system. First of all he needs power in order for his equipment to work so that means electricity has to be generated for his use. Then there are the raw materials he is going to be making use of in his manufacturing process. If he uses metal, that means a steel mill is involved, and there's all the waste and pollution they generate, and all the electricity they're going to need to make their equipment work.

Sooner or later you'll figure out that I don't have an endless supply of anything and I'm going to start running out of the stuff you need to feed the beast you've created. As the supply decreases and the demand increases what do you see being the end result? One day you're going to go to the cupboard and it's going to bare and then what's going to happen? Oh the corporations and their pet politicians will reassure you that it can never happen, that there's always new sources of oil laying untapped beneath the sea or under the perma-frost just waiting to feed us all. Even if you do find a way to get at that oil, it's only a stop-gap. It will run dry eventually.

You can already hear the wheels grinding to a stop. In their desperation to find more fuel for the beast's insatiable appetite they're causing famine by using land that once grew food for humans to try and find a way to sustain the unsustainable by growing plants they can turn into fuel. They're also stealing the water that we all need to drink to stay alive by diverting rivers with dams to create hydroelectric power. The world is experiencing food shortages to such an extent already that riots have started to break out because people are starving.

The more water they steal, and the more land they take, the less food there will be and people will starve. A starving population is a desperate population and they will make the food riots of today look like a day at the beach. The question is not whether the system will fail or not, it's how will the system fail? Will it grind to a stop because you've run out of fuel or will it explode into a million pieces as you run out of food for all the mouths in the world.

Now go away - you bother me.

Well you can see Mother Earth was in quite the mood. Can you believe some of the stuff she was coming up with? Talk about not understanding the big picture - what does she expect us to do? Shut down all the factories? As if that's going to ever happen. Mother Earth might know all about growing things but she's really out of touch with what it means to be human.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:16 PM | Permalink

I think it 1973 when Paul Newman and Robert Redford released their second buddy movie, (the first being Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid), The Sting. Set in the depression of the 1920's, one of the things the movie was noted for was it's period soundtrack featuring the music of Scot Joplin. Joplin was notable for being the person who originally popularized Ragtime at the beginning of the twentieth century, and his song "The Entertainer", taken from the movie's soundtrack, became a hit close fifty years after it was written.

Although, like everyone else at the time I was infatuated with the song, I've never been much of a fan of ragtime since. Most of the performances of it that I've heard have been frankly boring, because of the seemingly endless repetition of the same theme. So I was interested to read something that traditional Jazz pianist Wally Rose had to say about why ragtime originally died out. According to him it was because it was too demanding for the pianist who didn't have classical training. "It requires a rugged touch" he's quoted as saying. "like Beethoven's".

Now what I found most interesting about that comment was I read it after I had listened to Delmark Record's new release Whippin' The Keys, a compilation of two Wally Rose's recordings from the old Blackbird label. The original Whippin' The Keys recorded in 1971 and Rose On The Piano recorded in 1968. The very first thing I had noticed when listening to the first track, "Whippin' The Keys", was how untypical it was of any ragtime playing I had heard before.

There was something about his playing that made me immediately think, here's a man with at the least a classical music education. There was a body and texture to his piano playing that only comes from having to play the more complicated arrangements and subtleties I've come to associate with classical compositions. As I listened to the songs on the disc I realized he was approaching the music more as a pianist would approach playing variations on a theme, instead of merely repeating the same melody like so many are wont to do with ragtime.

As a point of reference; one of the most famous variations on a theme is the song most of us know as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". Written by Mozart, the performer begins by playing the tune we are all familiar with and as the piece progresses plays variations on the melody that become increasingly complex. While the ragtime pieces on Whippin' The Keys don't have the same potential for variations as Mozart's children's rhyme, Wally Rose is able to take their basic melodies and expand them in ways that I've never heard from anyone else.

On his version of "Cannonball Rag" by Joseph Northrup not only does he come up with an elaborate introduction, at various points throughout the piece he adds fills with both his right (melody) and left (rhythm) hands that add texture and depth to the tune. It's also quite amazing what he is able to accomplish simply with volume. Whether it's repeating the same phrase with just a minor reduction in volume or a slight increase, it makes a world of difference when it comes to breaking up what would otherwise have been tedious repetition.

One of the other pieces of ragtime that I was most familiar prior to listening to this disc was "Elite Syncopations" by Joplin. Just after The Sting was in the theatres, The National Ballet of Canada deviated from their predominately classical repertoire of the time to perform a work based on the music of Joplin and his contemporaries that took its title from the song.
With "Elite Syncopations" providing the basis the orchestra played a medley of orchestrated arrangements of Ragtime variations, that would return on a regular basis to the signature tune.

What I remembered being impressed by most, (aside from the crush I had on the prima ballerina at the time, a href="http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0004210">Karen Kain, and the fact that once she finished dancing she sat two rows behind me and I don't remember any of the dances that came after) was the way the music had been elaborated on sufficiently to allow the choreography to be more than just music hall dance steps that you would find in a Hollywood movie.

Now obviously only having a piano at his disposal Mr. Rose wasn't quite able to come up with anything so elaborate. Anyway, he was still recording albums of Ragtime, not adaptations, and was only interested in playing the pieces to their fullest potential. The version of "Elite Syncopations" that he recorded in 1968 sounded like it could have been the piece that the arranger for the ballet had used as his, or her, starting point. Rose took this song, and the rest of the material on the disc, as far as they could go without actually re-writing the music. It was like he was able to take each phrase in the song and bring it to its full potential musically; finding and playing all the nuances possible while still maintaining the integrity of the original composition.

Ragtime was music composed to be played over the noise of a crowd in the honky-tonks, whore houses, and taverns of the early twentieth century in the days before there was amplification. It was full of loud notes and easy refrains that could muscle their way through almost any competing sound. What was appropriate for that atmosphere is not exactly music designed for listening to while sitting around at home.

Wally Rose's Classical music training and performance experience allowed him to take the songs of people like Scott Joplin and elaborate their sparse frameworks to give them a life outside of being merely background noise. Whippin' The Keys is a great example of just how accomplished a musician Rose was, and how successful he was in adapting Ragtime music for a contemporary audience.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:58 PM | Permalink

I've always believed that if you want to understand a people's culture than you need to know the stories they tell. Everything from the tales about the heroes who people their mythology to the stories that form the basis for their belief system will tell you more about how a people define themselves than any fact based history.

In some way stories are the popular history of a culture. They may be dismissed as legend or myth by so-called serious scholars, but if you look closely enough you'll find out that they were all based on fact. Over the years they have all been embellished to some degree or other, but what stories haven't had their lilies gilded to some extent anyway? For the longest time the only records that we had of Troy's existence were from Homer's account of the war, and nobody believed them to be true until Troy was unearthed in the late 19th century. There might not have been the direct involvement of the Gods and Goddesses in the battle as was depicted in Homer's Odyssey, but the fact remained the war between Greece and Troy really occurred.

Although in the greater scheme of things a family's stories may not seem important, they bear the same relationship to a family's history as a culture's stories do its history. Whether you know it or not, all families have stories, even yours, that are as unlikely as any mythology in some ways. You may not think so looking at your parents, but think about where they came from. Look back to your great-grandparent's generation on each side of the family and find out where they were. What are the odds that they would have children who would marry, have children of their own who would meet and marry to finally meet to create you? If that's not the stuff of myth I don't know what is?

In his newest work, The Hakawati (roughly translated as the story-teller) being released today (April 22/08) by Random House Canada's Knopf imprint, Rabih Alameddine has created a glorious tapestry by interweaving the threads of one family's story with the stories of the Arab world. In doing so not only does he give truth to the cliche fact can be stranger than fiction, he shows how fine a line there really is between myth and history, and how the one gives birth to the other.

While recounting the history, and the rise in fortunes of the al-Kharrat family, through the eyes and memory of their prodigal son, Osama, on his returning to Beirut from Los Angeles for the death of his father, Alameddine regales us with the stories that entranced his characters when they were children. While most of us are probably familiar with the story of Abraham and Isaac, (although judging by the way the world acts today it seems like most of us have also forgotten that each of the Big Three: Christian, Jew, and Muslim recognize him) I doubt that many of us know anything about Ishmael, father of the Arab tribes, the true story of Fatima who was lover to a djinn, or Baybars the slave prince who vanquished the Crusaders once and for all.

Of course every history has to start somewhere and with the al-Kharrat family, at least on the father's side, it started with Osama's grandfather. The illegitimate son of an English missionary doctor and his Armenian maid he is the Hakawati of the title. At the age of twelve he had to flee the city of Urfa in Turkey where he was born, when, for his part in pigeon war, his life was threatened. His mother had died two weeks after he was born, and the doctor's maids who raised him sent him to Beruit where one of them had a cousin.

At least this is the story that Osama tells us his grandfather told him when he was young. Osama is our Hakawati, regaling us with his memories of his father, mother, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and enemies. Stories that he was told by his grandfather, his uncles, and other members of his family of the history of the Arab world make up a goodly portion of his memories. Within those stories, other stories live, and as the book unfolds all the stories take on lives of their own.

As a result, in the course of telling us the history of his family, Osama tells is also telling us the history of the Arab world. Each history starts with the tale of the founder, and parallels the other for the rest of the book. Through war and peace in Lebanon, and the stories of Arab heroes fighting to preserve their freedom in the face of treachery, we learn both the modern legend of the al-Kharrat family and the ancient myths, as the heroes of each tale give birth, survive warfare, and travel the world.

Rabih Alameddine has created a beautiful epic that combines the modern and the ancient world into one extraordinary story. There is an elegance to his story telling that elevates the mundane to the mythical and a straight forwardness that makes the legendary human. By blurring the lines between his "real" world of Osama's family history and the "legendary" world of the Arab heroes, he makes the reader examine the whole concept of story and history and question what is real and what is myth.

At one point young Osama asks his uncle whether a story he is telling him is true or not and is told that he should believe the story but not the storyteller. The story of the horrors suffered by Lebanon during its seemingly endless civil war is true, the number of Lebanese people who were forced into exile is true, but whether or not this story teller is telling the truth doesn't matter. What matters is the essence and the feelings generated by the story and Alameddine has been able to communicate the experience of that country's betrayal and abandonment by both the Arab and the Western world.

In the end what makes this so effective is that we care about the people. Osama and his family could just as easily be any one of our families. They are drawn with love, so that even the character who is like your annoying aunt who tells everybody what to do, makes you smile. The Hakawati is a wonderful story told by a masterful storyteller, which on it's own is sufficient reason for reading it. The fact that it pulls back the blinds a little further on the Arab world and introduces you to some of the beauty and magic that has existed in the Middle East for thousands of years is just an added bonus.

The Hikawati can be purchased either directly from Random House Canada or from another on line retailer like Amazon Canada.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:16 PM | Permalink

Have you noticed how with some musical instruments it seems that plenty of people can acquire a level of competence, but the number who can take it to the next level are few and far between. There's something about the instrument that it takes a particular dedication or talent for the player to obtain a level of playing that he or she are able to distinguish themselves from the field either by their sound or their inventiveness.

The more that I hear it being played the more convinced I am that Blues harmonica is such an instrument. There are plenty of people out there who are capable of playing along with a band and keeping the beat and throwing in a solo or two when the song requires its. Yet for the most part one player is interchangeable with the rest as very few have a real distinctive style anymore. It seems odd that an instrument that looks to be so intimate when being played, has produced so few players in recent years that seem to be able to imbue their playing with a character unique to them self.

So I have to confess to feeling less than enthusiastic about listening to the new CD recorded by Mississippi Heat, Hattiesburg Blues, on Delmark Records when I saw the cover photo of a man in a Panama hat cradling a harmonica in his hands. Those misgivings were slightly mitigated when I flipped the package over and saw a listing of the various players who had contributed to the album's creation, as I recognized among them some of the finest players on the Chicago Blues scene, including one of my favourite guitar players Lurrie Bell.

In a genre replete with a history of unique individuals, Mississippi Heat band leader, song writer, and harmonica player Pierre Lacocque's story alone is enough to warrant his inclusion in their number. Born in Israel, he was raised in his parents home country of Belgium from 1957 until 1969 when his father, a Protestant minister, was offered a job in Chicago as a professor of Old Testament studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary.

Pierre had been listening to the music of people like Ray Charles, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin on the radio long before he came to America. He received his first harmonica, a plastic toy, when he was three years old, and still remembers the feelings of sadness that its sound was able to provoke in him. Still, it wasn't until his family moved to Chicago that he heard a harmonica played live through an amplifier. It probably didn't hurt that the first player he heard was Big Walter Horton, but he was blown away and felt like he had found his calling.

Passion became obsession, and he took to practising his harmonica six to seven hours a day while in high school. Fate has a funny way of dealing with people's lives, and although he formed a couple of bands during his university days in Montreal, Canada, it was getting stiffed by a promoter during that time that put his dream on hold. Instead he became a social worker and worked as a clinician in the Pilsen neighbourhood of Chicago for ten years, until 1988.

Although successful and established, he realized there was a void in his life, and that was caused by not playing the Blues. At the age of thirty-six he finally surrendered to the inevitable and went back to doing the work of his heart. Perhaps it was this rather unique life path that he followed in becoming a Blues player that has shaped his playing and his song writing. For he has a willingness to experiment and a broader vision of what the Blues can be than the majority of players that I've heard from this era.

Take for example two songs on the Hattiesburg Blues CD; "Calypso In Blue" and "Nature Is Cryin'". While I suppose there's nothing all that unique about incorporating Latin rhythms into the Blues, it's the manner in which Lacocque does it on "Calypso In Blue" that caught my attention. Instead of it being the usual sort of shot-gun marriage you are liable to hear where the addition of a salsa beat is sufficient to call a song Latin, what distinguishes "Calypso" is the subtlety of the flavouring. How many other harmonica players do you know out there that can make their instrument sound like steel drums?

Guest percussionist Ruben Alvarez contributes his talents on this song and a few others to change the accent slightly. Instead of radically changing the songs, it is more like he is giving the tunes an extra layer of texture that makes them more interesting, It's like the addition of a spice that you might not expect in a dish, but done so discretely it serves to accentuate the flavours around it instead of overwhelming them.

When I first listen to a disc I tend to let it play in the background while I'm doing something else, and notice when it draws my attention. While "Calypso Blues" caught my attention because of the unique sound Pierre was producing with his harmonica, it was the lyrics of "Nature Is Cryin'" that pulled me up short. Inetta Visor, the group's lead vocalist, is a captivating singer in her own right, and hearing that lovely gospell/blues voice singing a Blues song for mother earth was immediately arresting.

It's not often that you hear a Blues song about something other than personal hardship or toil, and I have to admit the man/woman done treat me wrong theme, or variations of the same, can get tedious. It makes a refreshing change to hear a song that sings the Blues about something else for a change. It still had all the classic motifs of a Blues song where one party has treated another badly, only this time the victim wasn't some hypothetical person, but the planet we live on.

As I mentioned earlier Lurrie Bell is a featured guest on this CD, he sings and plays lead guitar on two of Pierre's compositions, and he brings his usual passion and unique style to them both. Aside from Lurrie and Ruben Alvarez, the band was also joined by Carl Weathersby. Carl has been a regular guest of the band (as Lurrie is) whenever possible on stage, and has played on all of their releases since 1998 save for one live recording. Its his guitar you hear soloing on nearly half this record and he also lends his voice to the song "Hell And Back".

Rounding out the guests on the disc are the Chicago Horns led by Kenny Anderson. Not only does he plays some great trumpet, his horn arrangements on the songs where they appear are ideally suited to the needs of each piece. He's accompanied by Hank Ford on tenor saxophone, Bill McFarland on trombone, and Willie Henderson on baritone saxophone. Aside from Pierre and Inetta, the regular members of Mississippi Heat are Giles Corey on guitar, Chris Cameron on keyboards, Spurling Banks on bass and Kenny Smith on Drums. Stephen Howard substitutes for Banks on a few tracks as does Dujuan Austin for Smith. Both these men regularly sit in with the band when Banks and Smith aren't available fog gigs because of conflicts in schedules, so the substitutions appear seamless.

While it might sound somewhat confusing with all the different people appearing on this CD, and even the regular band members not playing consistently on all tracks, it's not reflected in the quality of the music. Pierre formed the band back in 1991 and this is their eighth recording with the same core group of people so they must be pretty comfortable with each other by now. Although that might be an understatement when you consider it only took them two days to record the disc and how good and tight it sounds.

Pierre Lacocque was drawn to the sound of the harmonica, and by extension the Blues, before he even knew what the Blues were. He brings a perspective to the music that allows him to cherish the traditions of those who came before him, while having the vision to see how he can build on it. Mississippi Heat's Hattiesburg Blues is a great example of just how good a job he and his band are doing in fulfilling that vision.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:25 AM | Permalink

Artists in all fields of expression have one basic thing in common; what they are attempting to do. All artists spend their days either looking for the inspiration that will give them the vision for their next project, or desperately trying to actualize that vision so that it can be appreciated by others. Where it can get especially tricky is if you're trying to realize a concept that can't just be spelled out.

Abstractions are difficult to communicate even with a media where you use a language that an audience is familiar with. Yet the difficulties involved in writing about a subject pale in comparison to those faced by those working in the more transitory arts like music. Someone listening to a piece of music doesn't have the luxury of being able to read a sentence over and over again until they comprehend it. Instead a composer's audience is dependant on his or her abilities to communicate via their ability to make their music understood on an emotional level.

Like the abstract painter who uses shapes and colours in an attempt to stimulate a reaction in his or her audience, the composer uses sounds and their arrangement for the same purpose. Compounding their difficulties is the subjective nature of music. Unless you are willing as a composer to be blatantly obvious, most pieces of instrumental music are wide open to interpretation making it very difficult to communicate, even imprecisely, what you were trying to say.

Jazz musicians have been working together in improvisational collectives since the 1960's, and the listening public has grown used to the idea of them creating pieces based on a single phrase of music or an idea. This does not meant the ensemble is necessarily creating a piece of music anew each time them play it, because the basic structure has been developed through rehearsal, but individual solos might change from performance to performance. The same holds true whether a band is in the studio recording, or in front of a live audience.

Bass player/composer Jason Ajemian had been playing improvisational gigs with percussionist Nori Tanaka and saxophonist Tim Haldeman for some time before they decided to enter the studio. It was only when Nori's visa allowing her to stay in the United States was about to expire that they decided to create a record of the work they had been attempting. The Art Of Dying, on Delmark Records, is a distillation of the past four years of their experimentation.

Time is of vital importance in music of course, and according to his liner notes for The Art Of Dying it's time and the way we use it as a society that Jason and his fellow musicians have been exploring. If timing is everything in comedy, what is it in music? Of course there is the basic notion of keeping time, where in you maintain a steady beat, but maybe even more importantly, there is what you do with the time at your disposal. You can fill it with numerous notes in the hopes of hitting the right one, or you can find the right one to start with and sustain it long enough for people to hear what it is you want to say.

What Ajemian and his fellow musicians have been exploring sounds a lot like meditation in certain ways, as they have been attempting to develop a style of playing which allows them to sustain moments sufficiently that they are able to explore all the emotional possibilities available to them. Whether pain. joy, grief, or love, society, according to Jason, doesn't normally allow us the time to see the beauty in what moves slowly We aren't encouraged to plumb the depths of an emotion and experience them to their fullest.

The expression, being in the moment, which means existing completely in the present; not thinking about what just happened or about what is just about to happen; could well have been coined to help describe what Jason and his band mates are attempting. What they have tried to do with their music is create the circumstances where the listener can appreciate moments to their fullest.

Talk about your abstract concepts that are highly subjective! Obviously I can't speak for others about what emotions the music made them feel, yet I can't help but feel like they are on the right path with what they have created on The Art Of Dying. The first song of the disc "With Or Without The Universalator (Birdie's Dream)" (The Universalator is a machine that creates a drone like effect) was written by Matt Schneider who plays guitar on the disc, in response to being asked if a song should be played, with or without The Universalator.

What he did was write a song that allows a band to emulate the drone sound created by the Universalator with what ever instruments they have at their disposal. The drone like effect made with the full band extends each moment of music far longer then most of us are used to hearing and allows us to go deeper into the moment. What emotional chord that the moment strikes I think has been deliberately left in the listener's hands by the band. It's not important what you feel, what's important is that you feel, seems to be their credo on this attempt.

The next thirteen tracks on the disc are all variations on playing with what can be accomplished with short moments of sound. Tracks range in length from thirteen seconds to five minutes and have titles like "Ludicrous Dreams And Solar Guided Lovehandles", "Miss O" and "The" that don't suggest a particular feeling one way or another. They all take up moments in time, and those moments have been given titles that don't suggest anything in particular, allowing the listener to take from each track what they will.

The final track on the disc, "Smokeless Heat" is a live recording and checks in at nearly twenty-four minutes and is the penultimate attempt by the composer and the performers to create a piece of music that allows the audience to appreciate something that develops slowly and over a period of time. I found that while I didn't feel anything in particular, that it caused my mind to wander down a variety of emotional paths, as various moments stirred reactions within me.

Yet I wonder at how effectively they would be able to communicate with people who are not used to, or willing to, take the time to listen to something which unfolds this slowly. There is beauty is each moment of the song for those who are willing to spend the time allowing it to affect them, but those used to being spoon fed emotions and told how to think and feel by popular culture are not going to be interested.

The Art Of Dying is an exploration of how time can be used in music to help increase the depth of feeling expressed by the performer and experienced by the listener. While the musicians are most definitely committed to this project and have done some exemplary work, the problem is whether or not there is an audience who is willing to listen beyond those who are already interested in this type of music. If a person would be willing to take the time and put the effort into listening they would get something from it, but how many people are there willing to do that anymore?

The Art Of Dying is beautiful and evocative music that challenges our perceptions of time and what is needed to create an emotional response. If you are willing to take the time to listen you will be deeply rewarded.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:19 PM | Permalink

I don't know if you're like me and have become sick and tired of independent films with their cute casts of eccentrics and the even cuter child that leads them all to enlightenment? For something supposedly independent, these movies are all beginning to look and sound alike. To be fair this judgement is based on those movies which make it out of the Festival circuit with some sort of distribution deal, and distributors are only going to be interested in those flicks they think are going to be able to make them some bucks at the box office.

There's the rub isn't it. If film makers know that they need to make a certain type of film if they want to have a hope in hell of making their money back, don't you think that they are going to make a movie that a distributor wants? How is that any different from what would have happened if they had a studio putting up the money for the flick instead of raising it on their own? Sure they don't have some executive producer foisted on them by Universal or whoever telling them what to do, but they are still making a movie based on the dictates of what someone else thinks people want to see.

Aside from a few directors, like Kevin Smith, who have had the balls, luck, and talent to carve out a career for themselves to make the movies they want to make, the majority of real independent movies will probably never make out of the festival circuit and show up in your local multiplex. They might get occasional screenings at art house theatres or second run cinemas, but aside from that the only place you'll probably see most of them is in the privacy of your own home on DVD.

One that you might want to keep you eyes open for is being released on DVD at the end of April 2008 is The Guatemalan Handshake directed by Todd Rohal and distributed by Benten Films. Not only does it give new meaning to the word quirky, it also does a fine job of ripping a strip off the eccentric/cute child formulae so beloved of reviewers and distributors alike. This movie will never be dammed with the faint praise of "heart warming movie of the year". (Just how many of those can there be in one year anyway?)

Local misfit and human doormat Donald Turnupseed vanishes in the confusion following a massive power outage in a small town somewhere in middle America. The last we see of him, aside from a few flashbacks and day dreams by other actors, is him walking away from his father's small electric car at the beginning of the movie. In his wake he's left behind a pregnant girl friend, a widowed father, two half-brothers, and his best friend; an eleven year old girl named Turkey Legs.

Although we never really find out why Donald walked away from his life, over the course of the movie we are given enough of a glimpse into his life must have been like to see that he had any number of reasons for doing so. It tells you something that the only person he's able to communicate with is an eleven year old girl, and when you meet his family and some of the other residents of his small town, you quickly find out why.

While most independent movies have given us a rather rosy view of eccentricities, The Guatemalan Handshake paints a slightly more insidious version. Donald's brothers and father are barely this side of human and spend their time humiliating him whenever possible. In a flashback we see the three of them leafing through a family album filled with pictures of Donald looking ridiculous as a young child and laughing themselves silly at his expense. When Donald finally cracks and steals the album away from them and leaves the room his father follows him.

Not to offer comfort as you'd hope, but to ask him why he insists on spoiling their fun - and if they could have the book back. His girl-friend isn't much better, as she doesn't seem overly concerned about Donald's whereabouts. She spends the majority of the movie concerning herself with beating her father in the demolition derby that seems to be the community's penultimate yearly sporting event.

Turkey Legs is the only one who makes a concentrated effort to try and find Donald, and wonders what could have become of him. She even tries to file a missing person's report with the local police, but they don't want to be bothered. But Turkey Legs isn't going to lead any of the adults around her into having soul-searching, heart warming moments of self awareness, they're all far too self absorbed for that. You end up feeling sorry for this eleven year old girl who's been dumped by her mother for the summer in this strange community where no one seems to give a damn about her. Except for Donald and he's vanished.

Although the acting in the movie isn't the greatest, each of the actors are able to do what is necessary to make their parts work for the movie. That they all come across as being from too small a gene pool without going over the top or resorting to the stereotypical antics one gets in a mainstream production out for cheap laughs is a good indication that the director was very specific about what he was trying to depict.

While the majority of the characters are objects of ridicule, there comes a point in the film where you sit back and realize how little they actually have, and that which makes them ridiculous evolves into a level of poignancy. Almost in spite of yourself you actually begin to feel sorry for them and the emptiness of their lives. To be able to achieve that type of result requires a very delicate touch from the director, and that Todd Rohal managed it says a lot for his skills.

I think a true judge of a movie's "independence" comes when you ask yourself if you could imagine a main stream studio making this movie and getting the same result. In somebody else's hands The Guatemalan Handshake would have ended up being merely ridiculous, with none of the underlying pathos that makes it worth watching.

The edition that will be for sale at the end of April is a two disc set that comes with some really good features. One of that I especially liked summed up what independent movie making is all about. There was one scene in the movie where Turkey legs is using a rope swing to jump out into a river, and then bathing in the river in an inner tube. In order to get a camera onto a boat on the river the film makers had to sneak it down the river past private houses, through downed trees, and over a small waterfall until they got to the desired location where the rest of the cast and crew were lurking in the bushes waiting for them. If that doesn't sum up the spirit of the independent film making I don't know what does.

The Guatemalan Handshake is a refreshing change from the formulaic rut that independent film making seems to have fallen into. If you want to see a movie that will genuinely defy your expectations than this is the one for you. It will definitely give you something to think about.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:43 AM | Permalink

It's not often that you run across a Blues musician who writes as many instrumental numbers as he does songs. That seems to be especially true of guitar players as those instrumentals that have been written in the genre seem to have been predominately for piano. Perhaps it's because of the tradition of instrumental pieces for piano predates the Blues with Ragtime, or simply because the eighty eight keys on the piano allows for a diversity of sound that a guitar just can't match.

Whatever the reason, you don't often see and hear what's on offer on Dave Specter's latest releases on Delmark Records, Dave Specter Live In Chicago. Available in both DVD and CD format, Live In Chicago was shot and recorded over two nights in August 2007 during performances at two of Chicago's renowned Blues bars; Rosa's Blues Lounge on Aug/20th/07 and Buddy Guy's Legends on the 21st.

Each night saw Dave and his band of Marty Binder on drums, Brother John Kottke on Keyboards, and Harlan Terson on bass being joined by guest vocalists. At Buddy Guy's they were joined by singer/harmonica player Tad Robinson and the great Jimmy Johnson, while the night before over at Rosa's, Sharon Lewis came out to handle the singing chores. On top of offering up some dandy instrumental pieces of his own composition, Dave showed his versatility by being equally at home with each of his guests and their individual styles.

The disc opens with quite a long instrumental, a medley of two Specter tunes "Boss Funk/Riverside Drive", that clocks it at close to eight minutes. Quite remarkably you don't notice the length of the piece as Dave and the band show themselves to have a deft hand with melody and beat. It could very easily have become an exercise in tedium if they had let themselves get sucked into the seductive Funk rhythm, but Dave not only performed a variety of solos throughout the piece, each time he came back to the main melody he'd make some subtle alterations that would change it up to sustain our interest.

His first guest, Tad Robinson sang three of his own compositions and accompanied himself on harmonica, I'm not sure whether I liked his style of music all that much, but there was no denying either his talent on the harmonica or his ability to sing. It's just that I found his music lacked the intensity that I prefer from the Blues. Of the three tracks he performed, his cover of Tom T. Hall's ,"How I Got To Memphis" was the most interesting. Very much a Country Blues song, it seemed to inspire a little more passion in Tad, which made for better performances all round.

Following Tad on stage at Buddy's was Jimmy Johnson who immediately set the tone for his set by playing a charged version of the Jimmy Rogers' tune "Out On The Road". Jimmy is a traditional Chicago electric Blues player, who also happened to be one of Dave's original teachers when he started out on his Blues career. So the two men are naturally very familiar with each others playing styles. Perhaps that explains why this set was that much more exciting, although Dave had recorded with Tad Robinson as well,

What was clear right from the moment Jimmy started playing was that he was an old friend of the Blues and knew just what to do when, to make a song work. With him on stage the band and Dave seemed to pick up the intensity and the music became a little more fun to listen to. Jimmy doesn't have the greatest of voices or play the best guitar, but he has that intangible quality that makes the Blues work. There was a rawness to his sound that made the songs he performed just sound that much more "Blue".

When the show moved back in time a day to the gig at Rosa's the band opened with two of Dave's instrumentals, "The Hollywood Park Shuffle" and "Is What Is" before they were joined on stage by vocalist Sharon Lewis. Two of the songs Sharon sung were of her own composition, although I suspect the third, "Angel", was more her lyrics to an older tune as the music sounded familiar even though I didn't recognize the words.

I had never heard Sharon sing before, and in fact hadn't even heard of her before listening to this disc, and as far as I'm concerned the fact that I hadn't is another example of how screwed up the music business is. Here's this amazing singer; passionate, funny, with great stage presence, and on top of which she writes her own material, still playing the bar scene in Chicago while schlock merchants like Celine Dion are making a fortune in Las Vegas. There's definitely something wrong with that picture as far as I'm concerned.

One of the things that was really amazing about Dave Specter's guitar playing was how well he was able to adjust to each of the people he was accompanying without ever once looking or sounding like he was making any adjustments at all. No matter what style of music was being played he was able to handle it effortlessly. Even more impressive was how he could be both the centre of attention and play a support role on stage with equal poise.

A lot of guitar players who spend most of their time playing for other people lack the charisma to be a front person, especially when they are predominantly instrumentalists. Dave Spectre plays with such poise and authority that he has sufficient presence onto himself that he and his band are a pleasure to watch and listen to without the need for vocalist. Even though Live In Chicago features the talent of three other lead performers through out the course of the recording, you are never in doubt that it is Dave's show.

As is usual for a Delmark DVD release the sound and audio are great. There are sufficient cameras that they have all the shooting angles you can think of covered, and some you wouldn't have thought of. This included some great close-ups on both Brother John Kottke's hands during piano solos and Dave's fingers working his fret board. While there's no difference between the quality of sound on the CD, the DVD comes with a couple of extra bonus tracks; one each from Jimmy Johnson and Sharon Lewis.

Dave Specter Live In Chicago on either CD or DVD is yet another example of why Delmark records at fifty-five years old are still going strong: Great music, and great recordings are a combination that can't be beat.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:53 PM | Permalink

Famous anarchist Emma Goldman never actually said "If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution". Her actual response to be being criticized for dancing and having a good time, was "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." somehow was paraphrased by a printer into her most famous "quote" when creating an Emma Goldman t-shirt in 1973. While the modern version is definitely snappier, and fits better on a t-shirt, it doesn't really do justice to the sentiment she was originally expressing.

In the late 19th century and early twentieth century when textile workers struck to improve their lot, the slogan "Bread & Roses" came to symbolize their desire not only for better working conditions and decent wages but an improvement in the quality of their lives. There is more to human existence than simply the drudgery of work and the struggle for survival. Emma wasn't just saying that she wanted the right to party and have a good time, she was saying that social movements had to fight to liberate not just the bodies of the people they represented, but their minds and spirits as well.

When Goldmen said she did not think that "a cause believing in the release and freedom from conventions and prejudice should demand denial of life and joy", and that she wanted nothing to do with it if it meant living like a nun or in a cloister, she was unfortunately expressing a minority opinion. Since her death in 1940 I doubt there has been anybody in a leadership position on any side of the political fence who has considered quality of life, freedom of expression, or beauty, as worthy even of mention, let alone worth fighting for.

Even those you'd expect, or hope, to express such sentiments, have for the most part stuck to politics. The majority of musicians, who could so easily bring beauty and joy into people's lives, with either their sound or their message, have taken to being either preachers or purveyors of mindless and thought destroying noise. English Ska bands the English Beat and the Specials of the early 1980's were exceptions. The infectious joy of their music made it impossible to resist dancing, while their lyrics spoke of resistance to the spread of social conservatism and appealed for racial tolerance.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that the first band I've heard since those days that's able to recreate that same spirit, has its roots in Ska music. Babylon Circus' disc Dances Of Resistance, due for release at the end of this month on the Mr. Bongo
label, is seventeen (eighteen with the hidden ghost track) tracks of the wildest, most exuberant, make you glad to be alive, music that I've heard in a long time. Not only have these nine guys from France got something to say about the state of the world, they say it in a manner that brings you to your feet from joie de vivre.

While there is no denying the Reggae and Ska influences in their music, there's another flavour that comes through loud and clear as well. The sound of the Balkans comes can be heard in the way they use the brass section of the band. Anyone who has listened to any of the gypsy brass bands from Romania will recognize their influence on Babylon Circus. While the idea of mixing the deep base groove of Reggae with the express train of a gypsy brass band might sound odd to some, the effect has to be heard to be believed.

Not only are they musically exciting but their lyrics, at least the ones in English that I could understand, are compelling and intelligent. The first song on the disc, "Contra La Guerra: Greva General!" (Against The War: General Greva) starts off with the sounds of the anti-war demonstration in Spain that brought two million people into the streets to protest the war in Iraq. At the onset of the current Gulf War, a conservative government in Spain had supplied troops as part of the occupying force against the express wishes of the people. It was demonstrations like this one that ensured that government lost the next election and the new government brought the Spanish troops home.

No matter how much the American administration wanted to bluster about Spain giving in to terrorists, the truth of the matter was that the people of Spain were against the war from the start as was proven by demonstrations of that size. Celebrating that demonstration in song, is a celebration of the power a population can have for positive change when they come together and speak with one voice. By incorporating the sound of the people at the demonstration chanting the words of the title into the song, the band manages to capture the spirit of the event and transmit it to the listener. They've done such an effective job that it's impossible not to be caught up in the moment. If you close your eyes while listening, you can almost believe that you are there in amongst the people.

The music of Dances Of Resistance isn't just about the big events in the world. There're songs about our individual struggles as well. "J'aurais bien voulu" ( "I Would Have Liked") is about a man's regrets and desperation from what must be unrequited love. "My Friend" is a driving guitar song in honour of friendship, and what that can truly mean. In some ways it raises questions about the nature of friendship because the music is so frenetic, but at the same time it avows that "this song is for you because you are such a good man". (At least as near as I can tell because sometimes it is hard to understand the vocalist's English. When he gets excited his accent becomes very thick and I lost the occasional word).

The title song, "Dances Of Resistance" is pure Reggae and is a call to arms to stand up and "get out of control" because "Dances of Resistance give justice a chance", and "turns the balance". It blends into the first track, "Contra La Guerra", so that the demonstration becomes part of the "Dance Of Resistance". In fact, the first four songs of the disc pretty much blend into each other, as the band careens from song to song. It is very much like watching a three ring circus, what with the variety of entertainment, and the ongoing display of talent. That might not be what the name of the group refers to, but it sure feels appropriate in that moment.

More than anything else though Babylon Circus makes you feel alive and encourages you to understand and appreciate being human as much you possibly can. They sing about the world, and they sing about individuals, and in some ways they are a call to arms. The battle they want you to fight doesn't involve guns, or hurting anybody though. It's a call to wake up and live.

Emma Goldman may not have said "If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution" but I'm betting she would have been the first on the floor for Dances Of Resistance This is a CD of great music, and a timely reminder that being political doesn't mean forgetting what it's like to be human. In fact, remembering what it means to be human is probably the best "Dance Of Resistance" we have at our disposal.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:42 PM | Permalink

Quick: what places do you associate most with the Blues? Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, and most of the state of Mississippi are I'm guessing what most of you would answer. Historically those would be fine, and I'm sure they're still hotbeds of Blues today; but more and more the Blues are making a home for itself in Europe. Labels like Germany's Ruf Records boasts a roster of Blues musicians that include the likes of Jimmy Vaughn, Omar and The Howlers, the late Jeff Healy, and Sue Folly from North America plus European young guns from England and the continent.

Jazz and Blues music have been popular in Europe since the 1920s when African American musicians first started coming to Paris to play to escape the oppressiveness of American racism. In the years after World War Two Blues musicians were touring Europe on a regular basis either independently, or in the late fifties and early sixties as part of the American Folk and Blues tours that saw performwes play concerts across Europe and England. It was those tours of the early sixties when young British musicians like Eric Burden, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton had their first chances to share stages with the men whose records had inspired them to pick up guitars and start singing in the first place.

While the Blues in North America has only ever had minimal mainstream success, Europe has not only welcomed North American performers wanting to rejuvenate careers with open arms, a thriving domestic scene has developed as well. From Finland to the former Yugoslavia Blues players and performers have been popping up all over the continent. Just how well established the Blues are becomes clear when you watch a DVD like Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, & Autour Du Blues Paris Concert that's being made available by MVD Entertainment

While guitarists Larry Carlton and Robben Ford are familiar to audiences in North America, the same can't be said for the men and one woman who accompanied them on stage that night at the New Morning night club in Paris. The five guitar players, two keyboardist, harmonica player, bass player and vocalist who made up Autour Du Blues for that night's concert were an all star collection of players from France. While both Carlton and Ford are world renowned players and carry heavyweight reputations onto stage with them, it was soon obvious that the locals didn't look out of place on the same stage.

While Francis Cabrel (guitar), Denys Lable (guitar), Michael Jones (guitar), Patrick Verbeke(guitar), Claude Engel (guitar), Slim Batteux (keyboard), Gerard Bikualo (keyboard), Claude Salmieri (drums), Bernard Paganotti (bass), Pascal Mikaelian (harmonica), and Beverly Jo Scott (vocals) may never obtain the status of their famous guests, they show they're every bit as talented and passionate about the Blues as any group of players from North America. This concert was the culmination of a week's worth of festivities celebrating New Morning's twenty-fifth anniversary in 2006 and the result is a hundred minute plus concert of great Blues music, being played for the sheer fun of playing.

When you get as many as seven guitar players on stage at once it can get awfully crowded and the chances of it turning into a pissing contest seems to be good. Yet, somehow these folk have been able to leave that sort of shit behind and nobody tries to "outgun" anybody when they play. Of course you hardly ever get all seven on stage at once, but there's at least always three guitars up. While one player ( I believe it was Claude Engel, but I'm not sure as it's hard to tell from the photos in the liner notes who is who) was content to handle the majority of the rhythm guitar duties for the night, and occasionally playing a mean slide, everybody else soloed at least once while on stage.

My biggest complaint about so many Blues based guitar solos is how many guys just seem to live to bend the really high notes and forget about the rest of the frets. So, I was really impressed by the fact that no matter who from among Autour Du Blues turn it was to solo, they would make use of the guitar's entire neck. They put on an absolute clinic on how to get the most out of your guitar during a solo; instead of worrying about speed, and playing more notes then the human ear can possibly hear, these guys showed how great it sounds when you linger over a note.

The two keyboard players, Gerard who played electric piano and Slim on organ, made sure that it didn't turn into just a guitar festival, by being every bit as good as their companions. Gerard's piano playing was especially good, as he ran off a couple of really nicely played solos. Slim also handled a lot of the vocal duties, and showed himself to have a really good voice for the Blues. The only real disappointment of the evening was the vocalist Beverly Jo Scott, who just didn't have the breath support to give her singing the strength that is required for singing the Blues.

The stars of the evening were of course Larry Carlton and Robben Ford. While the gathering didn't really lend itself to either of them really taking off while they were playing with the full band, there is a nice added bonus to the disc of an extra cut featuring just the two of them. It's here you get to see them really shine by doing what they are both famous for. Carlton's playing shows his Jazz influences with a fluidity and elegance that you don't normally associate with Blues guitar. Yet, he also has enough grit that it stilled retained the earthiness needed for it to have the emotional depth that Blues has as compared to Jazz playing.

Robben is a different story as he is a pure Blues guitar player. What really impressed me about him was his ability to use rhythm in his leads to give them body and way more texture than I've heard from most Blues guitarists. Like the guys in Autour Du Blues he's another exponent of the less is more theory of leads, and was able to wring some great sounds out his guitar during his solo.

I've seen a couple of other concerts recorded at the New Morning, and like those both the camera work and the sound on this DVD are wonderful. There is great footage of each man's solos and some wonderful shots where you see the interplay between the guys on stage as they are working things out on the fly. As for the DVD itself, it says on the cover it was recorded for HD television originally, but I had no problems playing it through my DVD ROM and a non HD monitor. With widescreen presentation and DTS and Dolby 5.1 surround sound it can be played on any modern system and you'll get great quality audio and video.

The Paris Concert recorded at the New Morning night club featuring Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, and the all star band of French Blues musicians, Autour Du Blues, is a great DVD of wonderfully played Blues music. This DVD will put to rest any doubts you might have had of the universal nature of the Blues. The man sure was right: Everybody really does get the Blues!

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:49 PM | Permalink

It was only a short while ago that I reviewed Kimya Dawson's Hidden Vagenda CD on these pages, and yet here I am reviewing another, more recent release from her, Remember That I Love You. What, you might wonder, can he have to say about her music that he didn't just say, like, a month ago? Well, you know, there have been times that I've reviewed three or more books by the same author in the space of a week, so why not a second disc by the same musician within a month or two.

The real truth of the matter is that I liked the first CD I listened to so much that I wanted to hear more. So I contacted the good people at K Records, who distribute her music, and asked for a review copy of Remember That I Love You. What had impressed me the most about the earlier release, Hidden Vagenda was not only the intelligence of Ms. Dawson's lyrics, but how she performed her songs.

Although her breathless, nearly stream of conscience, mode of delivery is not what most of us are accustomed to when it comes to pop music, I found it to be one of the things that appealed to me most about her music. Instead of the normal dynamic of the passive audience being spoon fed by a singer, listening to Kimya's music was like waiting your turn in a conversation. I couldn't help but notice that while I was listening to her sing, I was thinking of things that I would like to say to continue the conversation she had started.

Most issue oriented singers have a tendency to create slogans instead of dialogue, and end up depicting a world that is black and white. The only thing that separates them from those they are singing about is what they designate as "good" and "evil". It's that sort of intransigency that gets humans in all sorts of trouble. Everybody is so damn sure that they are right and the other guy is wrong that they don't even take the time to listen to what somebody else has to say any more. How do people expect to get through to those with opposing views if they are constantly putting their backs up by attacking them?

Having an opinion on a subject is a good thing, and to believe passionately in something is not a bad thing either. To think that because somebody holds to a different opinion somehow makes them lessor than you, or even "bad", precludes ever being able to have a conversation with them or finding the common ground we need in order to move beyond the current state of the world. The fact that when you listen to one of Kimya Dawson's songs you feel like you're part of a conversation, and not being lectured at, may not seem like such a big deal, but it reflects an attitude that we all could stand to emulate.

While Kimya Dawson makes no bones about having a particular world view and having strong opinions on various issues you never once get the impression that she believes herself to be the one with "the answer". Her songs encourage listeners to think about whatever she is singing about, instead of merely proselytizing. Even though the majority of her audience are probably all ready in agreement with her opinions, what's important is that she doesn't appear to allow that to affect her approach to her song writing. It would be easy for her to write simple polemics that the crowd can call out it's approval to, but she doesn't chose to go that route.

When I sat down to listen to Remember That I Love You I knew that I wouldn't be able to absorb all the material on the first, or even second listen. It's not that her songs are difficult to understand, they just make you think to the extent you don't notice the next song - or even two - have gone by while you were still ruminating on the earlier one. To expect anything else would be silly though; could you have twelve different conversations in less then an hour?

Kimya Dawson has this wonderful ability to put things into a perspective that you might not have considered before. Instead of belabouring you with a message, she takes you into a situation or circumstances and lets you view the world from there. Her song, "12/26" about the tsunami that devastated parts of South East Asia in 2005 is a great example of this.

On December 26th, 2005 an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean off shore of South East Asia, caused a massive tidal wave to batter shore lines from the South East tip of India to Indonesia and beyond. Villages and cities were swallowed by the ocean; on the island of Sumatra the province of Aceh was completely obliterated and the majority of its population killed. Horrible stories of families helplessly watching loved ones being washed away in front of their eyes were common place in the days after the storm, and Kimya has taken a situation like that as her means of bringing us into the story.

Everything she's ever known is gone, gone, gone/Everyone she's ever loved is gone, gone, gone/The only reason she's alive is she gabbed a palm frond and held on, held on...We'd have 12/26 tattooed across our foreheads if something this atrocious happened on our coast "12/26" Kimya Dawson Remember That I Love You

What would you think of a country that would expect everyone else to remember about their dead, but whose government was slow in sending aid after your country was almost wiped off the map by a natural disaster? Kimya doesn't lecture you or try to make you feel guilty - she tries to get you to look at events from outside of yourself and outside of our narrow world view.

Kimya Dawson's Remember That I Love You confirms my opinion that she is one of today's most gifted songwriters. Her songs have the amazing ability to let the listener see the world through the eyes of whoever the song is about. Not only does that make them powerful works of art, but it also makes them political songs that aren't political, but a pleasure to listen to. If you've not listened to Kimya Dawson yet you're missing out on some of the best and most human music going.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:56 PM | Permalink

As hard as it might be to believe, especially considering what you hear on the radio these days, there was a time when a transistor radio was all you needed to hear a whole range of interesting and good music. During the daylight hours it would pick up your local AM radio station which played music from across North America ranging from the latest release by Alice Cooper to the new Barry White singal.

At nights, especially on a clear cold night in winter, you could pick up radio signals from as far off as Chicago and Detroit while lying in bed in your house in Ottawa Canada. You could fall asleep listening to the sounds of Motown, Chicago Blues, Soul, and classic Rhythm and Blues (R & B). Of course those were the days long before the night sky was filled with the senseless chatter of cell phones and broadcast information from countless communication satellites.

It was on one such clear, cold, night around thirty-five years ago that I first heard the high clear voice that I would forever after associate with the band Earth, Wind & Fire. I don't know if it was the year that "Shining Star" was a hit, but I'll never forget the first time I ever heard the band that Maurice White founded. There was something close to magical about the sound of those harmonies issuing out of my radio in the dark of the night; like they were a star shining for me in my bedroom.

One of the things that always pissed me off about the Disco era was how bands like Earth, Wind, and Fire seemed to disappear from the radio. Even though their music had to be some of the most danceable I'd ever heard, it somehow didn't seem to satisfy whatever it was the disco bunnies wanted from their music. Maybe it was the fact that Earth, Wind & Fire sang songs that might make you think and feel while disco's sole object seemed to be to render its listeners into unfeeling drones.

While they might not have getting the radio play they deserved, at least up here in Canada, they were one of the biggest draws on the concert circuit with a wonderfully choreographed and elaborate stage show utilizing laser beams and elaborate lights. Having never had the opportunity to see them, I was happy to see that Eagle Rock Entertainment had released a DVD from a concert they had done in 1981, simply called Earth, Wind & Fire In Concert

The concert was recorded at the Oakland Coliseum on December 30th and 31st 1981 for Home Box Office. Eagle Rock has taken those tapes and digitally re-mastered the audio for both Dolby 5.1 and DTS surround sound systems so modern systems can get the most out the music. There's not much that can be done about video quality on these old tapes, but thankfully the original film was in great condition and there's only one or two occasions where the video has a bit of a flaw, and even that is just a little bit of colour streaking probably caused by a light refracting in a camera lens.

As for the concert itself its everything I could have hopped for. First of all the band has been expanded by a four piece horn section so there's now fourteen guys on stage in wonderfully elaborate and colourful costumes, moving and dancing in perfect synch with the music and each other. The show opens with an elaborate display of lights and smoke announcing the arrival of the band, who appear either out of hidden entrances or via hydraulic lifts from under the stage.

Unlike a lot of bands who have used elaborate light shows to hide any deficiencies that they might have musically, once the music starts in earnest, the lights and lasers are put on the back burner and the music takes centre stage with Earth, Wind & Fire. The stage was set up as a series of ramps and risers, with the horn section having a home base stage left, drums stage right, and keyboards located just behind the drum kit. Dotted around the front of the stage, where a couple of ramps converged, was the home of the vocalists. Stationed around them were little islands of percussion instruments, where one or other of the vocalists would take a turn when not singing lead.

Meanwhile, the bass player and guitar players were in constant motion; one moment standing far down stage with the vocalist, the next scampering - in perfect time with the music - up and down the ramps on all sides. Amazing as it may sound, in spite of it seeming like all fourteen people being in constant motion, it never became chaotic on stage. The choreography was so tight that nobody was doing anything that didn't fit with what was going on with the music and what was happening around them. It was like a set of interlocking cogs that took their impetus from the central gear that was the singers.

For, in spite of all that surrounded them, the vocalists remain the centre of attention, and rightly so. The amazing falsetto work of Philip Bailey, which had sent shivers up my spine thirty-five years ago when I heard him singing "Shining Star", was still as strong as ever in late 1981. He and Maurice White took the lion's share of the leads, and each of them were charismatic enough to be that cog that powered the rest of the band. They were so good, that I was only mildly disappointed that "Shining Star" was reduced to just being included as part of a medley of hits at the halfway point of the concert.

Aside from that though all the hits were there and the concert ended with a rousing version of "Let's Groove". Earth, Wind & Fire were a wonderful fusion of Funk, Soul, and R & B, equally at ease creating hip shaking dance music as they were with soul stirring ballads. In an era when plastic dance music predominated, these guys were one of the few bands with real heart and soul. The DVD Earth, Wind & Fire In Concert captures that magic, and is an unique opportunity to experience them during the zenith of their career.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:52 AM | Permalink

Vampires versus Werewolfs: Ladies and gentlemen step right up and watch the undead try and kill each other. In the red corner, the previously undefeated rulers of the undead; sexy and decadent - The Vampires. Facing off against them in the blue corner, their former slaves, thought hunted to extinction, but secretly making a comeback: they're furry and barbaric with vengeance on their minds - The Lycan.

The movies Underworld and Underworld Evolution introduced audiences to a world where Vampires and Werewolfs had been at war with each other for centuries. While the Vampires had believed that their former slaves had been hunted nearly to extinction, treachery and deceit by an ambitious second in command had actually allowed the Werewolfs to flourish in secret.

In fact, they were more than flourishing. Under the guidance of their supposedly dead leader, Lucien, (did I mention betrayal among the Vampires), they were in the process of creating a super being who combined the powers of the two species. To the Vampires, believing as most of them do that Werewolfs are inferior beings, the thought of mixing the blood of the two races was an abomination that mustn't be allowed to happen.

Underworld Evolution, much as the title implies, takes us on the first step down the road with the new species, as the two heroes from the first movie, Michael the mix blood, and Selene the Vampire who has fallen in love with him, have to take on the originators of both species. Marcus and William Corvinus; twin brothers with a difference. One of them is a were-wolf and the other a vampire. Way back when, in the dark ages, they started it all.

The movies were really well done and great visual treats. Although slightly over the top on occasion, they were highly entertaining and quite a lot of fun. A perfect mixture of horror movie gore, love story, and plain old fashioned adventure story, offering a new and interesting take on the world of the undead. What really made them so successful was the matter of fact way in which both species and their world was dealt with. It made it very easy as an audience member to suspend your disbelief and accept the reality the film makers had created.

So when I found out that IDW Publishing had created graphic novel versions of both movies I was intrigued. I have seen movies that have been made from graphic novels, and graphic novels that were adaptations of novels, so I was interested in seeing how well a kinetic art form like film could be translated into the static form of a graphic novel.

The Complete Underworld is an omnibus that not only contains adaptations of both Underworld and Underworld Evolution but a prequel story set in the same world called Red In Tooth and Claw. Both adaptations were written by Kris Oprisko, with art work supplied by Nick Postic and Nick Marinkovitch for Underworld, ( the same team also worked on the prequel) and Antonio Vasquez for Underworld Evolution.

When critiquing any adaptation the key is not to get caught up in comparing it to the original story, but in trying to see how well the adaptors have managed to recreate the story in their medium. The question I always try and ask myself is whether or not the adaptation works as a stand alone project, and would someone unfamiliar with the original be able to enjoy it.

Both adaptations have done admirable jobs of telling the stories, so that even the uninitiated would have no problem in following what was happening. The major difference between the two adaptations is the artwork. While both did fine jobs in doing their part in visually imparting information to the reader, Nick Postic and Nick Marinkovitch's work in Underworld went quite a bit further in creating the atmosphere appropriate to a world existing in the shadows of the mortal world.

Backgrounds are indistinct blurs of dark colours from which a white face or a weapon will all of a sudden materialize. Colours are muted, if distinct at all, yet with deft line work the artists have made it easy for the reader to distinguish between characters and species. They have definitely taken their cues from the design team of the movies, but carried the depth of the darkness even further to great effect.

In comparison I found the more realistic approach taken by Antonio Vasquez in the adaptation of Underworld Evolution to be a bit jarring. While it's true that it made it easier to follow the story line on occasion, it also made it harder to believe in the world that the action was taking place in. The art work was very "comic book" and made no attempt to create the type of atmosphere that had made the first adaptation so effective.

The bonus prequel, Red In Tooth And Claw, was a surprise in terms of it's content. The writers have created the back story for the large Werewolf named Raze from the movie Underworld. It is quite a good, inspired piece, of story telling that manages to recreate the world of the Vampires and Werewolves in another environment. What I really liked about it was its refusal to show either the Werewolfs or the Vampires as "good guys" While our sympathies might be initially with the Werewolfs because they are being hunted by a group of Vampires, the fact that Lucien decides to "turn" the mortal version of Raze because he would be a useful Werewolf makes him a lot less sympathetic.

The Complete Underworld, containing graphic novel adaptations of the movies, Underworld, Underworld Evolution, and a new original story set in the same world, Red In Tooth And Claw, does a good job of bringing the world of the movies to life. While the artwork in the adaptation of the second movie wasn't as convincing as its predecessor, it still managed to do a good job of telling the story. This omnibus collection makes both a great companion piece for the movies that also works in its own right as a stand alone adaptation of the stories.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:13 AM | Permalink

I can think of nothing more disappointing than going back in time via video tape and seeing something that you remembered cherishing when you were younger and finding it wanting. Things that you once thought funny not only don't make you laugh anymore, they are so un-funny that you wonder why you had ever considered them humorous. Of course it doesn't just apply to television shows and movies that you once laughed at, but also books and music you remembered as being brilliant, now no longer shine with the same intensity that they once did.

Part of it can be put down to whatever altered state of mind you might have been in during the time the memory comes from. It's really quite amazing what you find out you missed seeing or hearing the first time round when you see the same program sober at some latter date. Of course the reverse also applies in that's it's amazing how what you thought you saw and heard at one time no longer seems to exist.

What ever the reason for it happening, there have been sufficient occasions recently where memories of an event have proven more entertaining than what actually happened that I've started to grow nervous of trips into the past. While I've never been one to get all teary eyed with nostalgia over the "good old days", or want to return to my youth, it would still be nice to know that some of the things I enjoyed when I was younger have been able to stand the test of time.

So it was with mixed feelings that I sat down to watch the DVD Mink DeVille Live At Montreux 1982 that Eagle Rock Entertainment has just released as part of their Live At The Montreux Jazz Festival series. I was pretty confident in my belief that the music would stand up to being as good as I remembered it being, because the music that Mink DeVille's front man, Willy DeVille, has been producing recently has been great, but a whole bunch of times being been bitten can sure make you shy.

I needn't have worried; as soon as I heard the opening notes of the band's instrumental piece prior to Willy's entrance I knew this was one time when the music was going to sound as good now as I remembered it sounding when I listened to Mink DeVille back in the seventies and early eighties. Ironically it wasn't a configuration of the band that I was familiar with, as there were some people in it who hadn't been on any of the albums the band had released to that point. In fact I hadn't even known that Paul James, a Toronto, Canada Blues guitar player, had even played with the Mink DeVille band until I saw this concert disc.

Yet it doesn't seem to matter who is in the band, the music is impeccable. From the moment they began to play the show's opening instrumental, "Harlem Nights" to when the last chord of the last song faded away they sounded like they had been playing with Willy, and together for decades. The rhythm section of Joey Vasta on bass and Tommy Price on drums; long time Mink DeVille keyboard player Kenny Margolis; saxophone player Louis Cortelezzi, and the previously mentioned Paul James on guitar, handled the multitude of styles required to play the band's repertoire with ease. From the hard rocking numbers like "Lipstick Traces" to the smouldering torch song sound required by "This Must Be The Night" they don't miss a beat or a note. They managed that rare balance that only really good bands achieve of sounding loose while being incredibly tight.

Then there was Willy; nearly as skinny as his moustache, hair swept back and up in his trade mark pompadour, and elegant in a three piece suit. All the deadly beauty of a switchblade at midnight on the streets of Spanish Harlem singing with a voice that originated in the cotton fields of Mississippi, mixed with the street smarts of West Side Story, and the soul of Memphis made Willy the nearest thing to a pure distillation of American Pop music that you could possibly hear.

With either his guitar or the microphone as his partner, Willy danced across the stage with the deadly elegance of a matador doing a tango. With a roll of his shoulders, a tilt of the head, and a flick of his hand he communicates more with his body than most singers can dream of doing with their voices. Yet at the same time he never allows himself to become more than the music. Instead, all that he does is part of his effort to ensure that the listener gets full measure out of each song.

The music on the disc includes classic Mink DeVille songs like, "Spanish Stroll". "Cadillac Walk", and "Savoir Faire". Yet it seems only fitting that for his encore Willy chooses to do a cover of the Ben E. King classic "Stand By Me". With it's mixture of Soul, Rock and Roll, and Blues it might have been written for Willy and the sensibility he brings to popular music. It's also a great song for the whole band to show off their abilities, as it has great parts in it for the rhythm section, guitar, and saxophone.

Eagle Rock Entertainment has been gradually releasing DVD after DVD of concerts from various Montreux Jazz Festivals. Mink DeVille: Live At Montreux 1982 is due to be released on April 29th/2008 in the North American market. As has been the case with all of these releases they have re-mastered the sound for modern digital playback.

There are times our memories deceive us and over inflate the quality of things from the past, but for those of you who have memories of Willy and the Mink DeVille bands from the late 1970's and early 1980's you can rest assured that your memories haven't deceived you. If anything you may even have underestimated how good these guys were. Mink DeVille: Live At Montreux 1982 isn't an exercise in nostalgia, it's a chance to hear some great music being played by some great musicians.

Sign Petition To Induct Willy DeVille Into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:49 PM | Permalink

At the end of World War One an artistic movement sprang up in France that was in direct response to the horrors people witnessed in the war. The surrealists, the Dadaist in particular, were a criticism and rejection of the values and the society that had allowed such a thing to occur. The works they created were sometimes violent, often outrageous, and always a condemnation of what they saw as the failings of the world around them.

At the end of World War Two something similar happened in the United States, as a group of writers, poets primarily, but prose writers as well, challenged conventionality through both the style of their writing and their subject matter. While the majority of Americans were jumping feet first into the post war economic boom period; celebrating materialism and the American Dream, the Beats, as they came to be known, were delving into the dark underbelly of the same beast. Their work looked at the emotional and spiritual costs incurred when a society barrels full steam ahead in search of profit and was the first to suggest that an alternative was possible.

William S. Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, are perhaps the four best known names from that first wave of experimental American writers in the post war period. Seminal works like Junkie by Burroughs, Howl By Gingsberg, and On The Road by Kerouac burst upon American literature with a force equivalent to an atomic bomb and the fall out is still being felt by individuals today,

In 1989 American director Maria Beatty created a documentary movie on Beat poets and their writing. Gang Of Souls is a series of interviews with three generations of American writers from original beats Burroughs, Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and John Giorno; their successors Ed Sanders, Anne Waldman, and Diane Di Prima; to today's next wave of Jim Carroll, Henry Rollins, Richard Hell, and Lydia Lunch. (Marianne Faithful is also interviewed, but, as she freely admits, she isn't a poet, she's a lyricist and seems to have been included as a way of showing the extent of the original generation's influence). The original film has now been transferred to DVD for the first time and is being distributed by MVD Video with its original audio re-mastered in 5.1 surround sound to take full advantage of contemporary digital equipment.

Talking head documentaries, ones that consist solely of interviews with individuals, have the potential to be dull as dishwater. Of course the majority of those movies aren't ones that feature people quite as dynamic or exciting as those in this movie. Ms. Beatty has divided the movie up into chapters, and the first chapter allows each writer to briefly introduce themselves to the viewer and tell us a little about themselves and something of the nature of their work. Before each writer makes their first appearance, some highlights of their biography are flashed on the screen for us to read before we try and enter into their worlds.

For that's what happens in this film, we are given glimpses into the world which each of these men and women inhabit. These are not people who write for a living, they live by writing. While some like Ginsberg and Burroughs have achieved international recognition, had some commercial success like Ed Sanders as a pop singer, and Jim Carroll received critical acclaim for his book The Basketball Diaries, they are hardly what you'd call household names.

Yet when you listen to them as they talk about what they do, and you watch and hear them read or recite their work, they come alive like few others. It's especially true when they read their work. A fire seems to be lit within them that illuminates their beings and allows us an unprecedented opportunity to look into their souls. There is something about the written word that has called out to each one of them like a siren's song, and that motivates them to heights of creativity that few others have ever reached.

The irony is that none of them, these people who are so gifted with the use of words, seem able to articulate what it is that makes them who they are. The best that most of them can come up with is that they love words and what they allow them to do. They all freely admit that the idea of being a poet is really quite laughable. What are the chances of being able to live off the proceeds of poetry? What is clear, after listening to them talk, is that for the majority they don't have a choice in the matter; it's a compulsion.

A lot has been said about the original beats and their use of drugs. Burroughs wrote with brutal honesty about the horrors of his attempt to go clean in the novel Junkie, and he spent the last fifty years of his life addicted to opiates of one kind or another. A lot of people have some sort of romantic image of poets and drugs, yet one only has to read the work of Burroughs to know just how much of a fallacy that is, and nothing any of these writers had to say makes drugs sound like an attractive proposition.

What becomes obvious from listening to these people is that they already have found their drug of choice - poetry and writing. They are addicted to the power and the energy that is contained within what they can create by putting one word after another down on paper, and nothing that any chemical can offer them can match it. Yet what happens if the words stop coming? Where do you go to find something that might approximate that same sensation of tapping into the collective unconscious of the human race and recreating it on paper? Drugs might offer some solace for the anguish of not being able to create, but they're not going to do much else.

One of things that Gang Of Souls makes clear is that being a Beat poet is to be different, but it is not a cultivated difference. It's a way of seeing the world and writing about it that you're either born with or you don't have. It's as much an awareness of the world as it is an ability to write. In the case of the Beats that awareness is married to a compulsion to write about what you see and feel. The pictures they draw with their words aren't necessarily pretty ones, because they feel the pain of the world as much as they see or taste its beauty.

Sometimes being able to see beauty is as much a cause for pain as it is a cause for celebration, especially when you see it being ignored and destroyed like is the case in our world. Each of the men and women you meet in Gang Of Souls has their own way of expressing that pain and celebrating that beauty. Being a Beat poet does not mean that there is a style you are following, like a Romantic or a Realist would have adhered to a specific way of creating a poem. What all the people in interviewed in this documentary have in common is the desire, the compulsion, to write about what they see around them with almost brutal honesty.

Gang Of Souls is at the least, an amazing way for those who know little about the American poetic movement known as the Beats to be introduced to some of its leading lights from both the past and the present. Neither William S Burroughs or Allen Ginsberg are with us anymore so there won't be any more opportunities to hear them read or speak in public again. If for no other reason that should make this compulsory viewing for anyone who claims to care about literature.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:52 PM | Permalink

During the Vietnam war thousands of young American men left their homes and their families behind and crossed the border into Canada to avoid being drafted into the United States army. Since none of them had as yet been conscripted into the army they weren't listed as deserters from the army and went into the books as draft dodgers; a very important distinction in the eyes of the law and the eyes of the public.

To the majority a deserter is a coward who has run away from his responsibilities. They have betrayed their country in a time of war and in most people's minds there can be no worse crime. To the majority there are only two reasons for you to desert your country's army; either you are a coward or you are an enemy of the state. That there could be another option isn't even conceivable to some people.

On the other side of the coin is the person who enlisted in the army because he or she couldn't see any other employment options on the horizon and the army offered a source of income. They also felt that serving their country was a way of doing something of at least some significance. Once in the armed forces they start hearing stories from people who have done tours of duty in Iraq; stories of running over children in tanks, shooting civilians, that over 60% of the Iraqi population don't want them there, and how so many returning soldiers are suffering from emotional and mental problems.

So if you were a young man like Ryan Johnson and have heard all these stories, and find out that your unit will be shipping out to Iraq in spite of being told you would only be based in the States when you enlisted what would you do? Your options are limited; go to Iraq for no apparent reason other than you are being ordered to; stay in the military and refuse to deploy and go to jail for at least a year; or desert and head to Canada.

I'm sure there are a great many people out there who will say he should either go to Iraq or pay the price for his refusal by going to jail and only a coward would take the third option. Yet think about what it would mean for a second if he decides to go to Canada. He can never come back to the United States and see his family and friends again. His government and a great many of his compatriots will consider him a traitor and a criminal, and if he were ever arrested he could very well face life imprisonment.

Ask yourself if you would be willing to do those things, take those risks, for your beliefs? Wouldn't it be safer just to play the game like you are supposed to and go to Iraq or be led off to jail meekly for refusing to deploy? Doesn't it take just as much courage to make the decision to desert as it does to blindly obey orders? Before answering that question wouldn't it be a good thing to get to know the reasons why a young man like Ryan Johnson would volunteer for the army only to desert?

Big Noise Films has just released their short documentary feature Deserter which introduces us to Ryan and his wife Jen and follows their trek north and east from California to Toronto, Canada after he has made the decision to desert. We first meet Ryan at his mom's house when he is already Absent Without Leave (AWOL). He had enlisted in the armed forces because he didn't know what else to do in order to make a living to support his wife and raise a family. Quite a number of his friends had already done the same thing, although two had joined the navy instead of the army, for the same reasons.

When the assurances that he would only ever be posted Stateside turned out to be a lie and he was told that he was going to be deployed to Iraq he started to find out as much as he could about what it would be like over there. He also considered all the stories he had heard already One friend of his had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, and to celebrate his wife had booked the family at trip to Disney World. After the first day there his friend hadn't been able to leave his hotel room because the crowds and the noise were too much for him and he couldn't cope.

"I don't want to end up like that"

Interspersed through the rest of the movie, as we follow the young couple across the United States into upstate New York, are excerpts of interviews with veterans of the conflict in Iraq telling stories of what they did and experienced there. One man talks about being part of a company that indiscriminately shelled an Iraqi city killing hundreds of people, and another of watching a friend's leg being blown off, and having to try and haul him over the tailgate of their vehicle so he could be taken to safety.

One of the men apologized for having slurred speech, but the medication they had him on for anxiety and depression was causing him difficulties. To a man they all looked like they had seen things that no human being should ever have to experience; hollowed eyed and grim they appear to be still suffering from shock. After seeing these people and listening to their stories is it any wonder that a person who enlisted to serve Stateside balked at being deployed to Iraq.

All the way across America there operates a new Underground Railway, but now instead of helping run away slaves they are helping young Americans escape from having to serve in what they consider an unjust war. Ryan and Jen are passed from safe house to safe house until just before the border they phone the contact they have for Toronto. They've already been coached on how to get through the border crossing, but that doesn't stop them from being nervous; there is the risk that they could check Ryan for outstanding warrants and find out that he is a deserter.

Ryan and Jen have been in Canada for almost three years now, we're not told how they are living - if they are some of the deserters who have applied for refugee status or if they are living underground. In a special feature after the main body of the DVD, the movie makers have included a live video conference call that was conducted at the end of a showing of Deserter with Ryan and Jen. They both appear happy enough, and the interesting thing about Ryan is that he seems so much more self assured now than he did at the beginning of the movie when he was a scared and unsure kid who had just made the decision to leave the United States to come to Canada.

A war like Vietnam, or like Iraq, creates wounds that are invisible. The wounds of distrust and hatred between people who live in the same country. The young people who are being asked to fight these wars might do things that people will not approve of, like desert the army instead of fighting in Iraq. Before you judge them you need to hear their stories. Deserter is a little piece of Ryan Johnson's story, and maybe it will help you understand why he felt like he had to do what he did.

For the sake of the future of your country, don't you think you owe them at least the chance to tell their story?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:33 AM | Permalink

There are layers of irony surrounding the protests over China's occupation of Tibet and the forthcoming Olympic Games in Beijing that would make an onion envious. From the signs that read "Free Tibet" to the fact that China was even awarded the Olympic Games in the first place it's hard to know where to even start. What do people have in mind when they demand a free Tibet? What were the International Olympic Committee(IOC) thinking when they awarded a country that depends on slave labour and has one of the world's worst human rights records in the world the Olympic Games?

The Dali Lama has captured the imaginations of people in the West for the past few decades in the way that no other spiritual leader, except maybe the last Pope, has been able to. He is welcomed in nation's capitals the world over, and people of all faiths hang onto his every world as if he has some particular insight into the human condition that everyone else has missed. Supposedly, he is the reincarnation of a previous Dali Lama, and was anointed as such when he was a young child by the hierarchy within the Tibetan Buddhist priesthood.

The royal families of Europe use to have this quaint notion call the Divine Right of Kings, (and Queens). Since they were God's appointed rulers of their country's they were above reproach from lesser beings, like their subjects, and their word was law. Who, after all, could gainsay them if God had put their buts on the throne. That was all very well and good as long as the majority of a country's population remained downtrodden, and dependant on their feudal lord for survival.

Once the economic picture started to change and a middle class of educated and monied people started to emerge, people weren't willing to buy that line anymore. Kings and Queens were reduced to being merely human and lost most of their authority. That doesn't mean there aren't countries in the world that are either theocracies or ruled by someone who considers themselves a divine ruler. Prior to the Chinese invasion year ago, Tibet was one of those countries.

What freedoms are people demanding so vociferously on behalf of Tibetans exactly? The freedom to revert back to being the feudal theocracy they were prior to the Chinese invasion? Where every man, woman, and child who was not part of the priesthood spent their lives in servitude to the monks. Much as in feudal Europe the labour of many was used to sustain a select few who claimed that God had selected them to rule.

While the Church in Europe promised the masses eternal salvation in the afterlife as a reward for their suffering and threatened damnation in hell if they stepped out of line, Tibetans were offered the solace of potential reincarnation as something better off the next time around if they toed the line. They'd only themselves to blame that they were toiling in the fields this time; obviously they hadn't earned enough merit badges in their previous life to be elevated up to the next rung on the ladder of enlightenment.

People need to be asking themselves what would happen in Tibet if the Chinese were to withdraw tomorrow and the Dali Lama found himself reinstated. This is a country that has gone from one form of autocratic rule to another, and has no history of anything remotely resembling representational government. Would political parties miraculously spring up overnight? Who would be responsible for crafting a constitution that would create the Free Tibet, they are calling for? Or would they be satisfied if the country were to return to a feudal theocracy where the population was in thrall to the priesthood?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of this as an endorsement of the poor, put upon, misunderstood Chinese government either. This is a government that turned tanks upon its own people twenty years ago, that still routinely puts people in jail and even executes them for being a little too outspoken in their opposition. Yet somehow they expect us to swallow the crap they're spouting about peace, friendship, and harmony and that their decision to send the Olympic Torch on a global relay was to encourage people to build a more harmonious, better tomorrow.

The Olympic Games have been about propaganda since Hitler tried to turn them into a showcase for White supremacy in 1936, and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional at best. Why else would countries like the United States who barely spend a cent on social programs, dump millions of dollars into amateur sport, or China, where millions of people live without running water, build an entire network of Olympic facilities from scratch in only eight years? It's just another variation on the age old pissing contest.

When the decision was made to award Beijing the Olympic games do you think that the boys in the IOC gave any consideration to the human rights situation in China? Do you think they cared that all those shiny new facilities would be made with what was virtually slave labour? I doubt those considerations even crossed their minds, and why should it? They've never troubled themselves about trivialities like that in the past; why break with tradition now?

The Chinese government figures it can tighten the screws in Tibet and not worry about anyone boycotting these Olympics because the whole of the industrialized world has been whoring itself to them for the last decade. Just the thought of a billion people waiting to be served has CEO's salivating and frothing at the mouth like a pack of rabid dogs. If they're really lucky they might even be able to go into business with the Chinese and open a factory there. China is every corporations idea of a wet dream; no environmental regulations, no unions, no health and safety standards to worry about maintaining, and best of all, a population in desperate need of employment.

No government will dare and rock that boat or they will find themselves replaced in the next election by someone more "sensitive" to the needs of the business community. It's amazing how the words freedom and human rights can vanish when they no longer serve your purposes. It's all right to fight for human rights in Afghanistan and freedom in Iraq, but not in China, and the Chinese government knows it.

The real irony of this whole business is there are so many reasons for people to be protesting against China being awarded the Olympic Games, and yet they've latched onto a cause which has no meaning. Instead of demonstrating against the horrors of life inside of China; starvation, cultural genocide, slave labour, environmental horrors, and the absence of anything even resembling individual rights, they've taken up the cause of a feudal theocracy.

If it wasn't so sad it would be funny, as it is it's just sort of pathetic. Protesting for a free Tibet has done China a huge favour by diverting attention away from the real problems that exist in that country. Wouldn't it be ironic if the Chinese staged it all just for that reason?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:51 AM | Permalink

The slave trade that took Africans to the Western hemisphere was one of the most heinous crimes executed by one people against another. Husbands were separated from wives, children from parents, and brothers from sisters. Whole villages were uprooted and force marched across a continent and then stuffed into ship holds where they were chained together and to the walls of the ship.

Those that died were perhaps fortunate as they found relief in the depths of the ocean and a reprieve from sickness and suffering. Those who survived were doomed to a life of slavery and horrors that none of us can imagine. They were treated like livestock; bred for labour and whipped, they lived until they were no longer of use as workers then they would be disposed of. It was no life for a human, yet somehow some of then survived long enough to be freed and their descendants still live in North and South America with varying degrees of rights and freedoms.

In the seventeenth century one ship load of slave bounds for the Caribbean floundered and sunk off the coast of Central America. The survivors of that wreck made their way to shore where they intermarried with the natives who inhabited the coastline from Honduras to Belize. The Garifuna, as they have come to be known, have developed their own culture that is a mixture of their African traditions, Spanish, and the indigenous populations of the areas where they settled. Part of the culture has included certain ceremonies and rituals that have been the preserve of the women, and out of those developed a music unique to the women.

Until now the only music from the Garifuna communities the world has heard has been that performed by the men. Now, after ten years of extensive field research and recordings, Ivan Duran, producer of Stonetree Records in Belize, has released Umalali, featuring the voices of The Garifuna Women's Project.

These women have learned the music and the rituals of their people from their mothers and grand-mothers in an unbroken chain that stretches back to their ancestors who first landed on these shores in the aftermath of the shipwreck which gave them their freedom. The songs that they sing are about their lives; the heartbreak of losing a son, the joy of a new born child, or finding a job.

Part of Ivan Duran's motivation in this project was to preserve these songs; to have a record of them so they wouldn't disappear like so many cultures the world over have vanished. But he also wanted to create an album of music that would be allow other to appreciate the vocal prowess of the women. To that end he has taken the vocal tracks he recorded in various locations throughout the Garifuna community and blended them with music that would make them more accessible to a wide audience. In some instances he has used the familiar sound of Afro-pop guitars, while on other tracks he's added funk or Latin beats.

I have to admit that when I first read that this is what had been done to make this CD it caused me some trepidation. I have heard far too many such efforts, the combing of traditional sounds with modern music, where the original music has been lost underneath a welter of sound that has nothing to do with it. Obviously none of those other attempts had someone like Ivan Duran at the helm His touch as producer is so light and deft that the music he has chosen for the songs supports and enhances the vocals without detracting from their original beauty and power.

What impressed me the most was his ability to leave things alone; most producers these days just don't seem to know when to stop. Listening to the last song on the disc," Lirun Biganute" ("Sad News") where all that accompanies the woman singing is guitar and lap steel guitar, you can really appreciate the job he has done. Your focus is directly on the woman's voice and nothing else, and so even though you can't understand what she is singing about, you can feel her sorrow.

Sometimes when listening to a collection of songs that are being sung in a language you don't understand, you are able to appreciate them only for the music and not for the intent of the song. Certainly there are occasions where a singer's voice will convey an emotion because of his or her expressiveness, but it's not often that you really feel like you understand what's being said. Somehow, the way Ivan Duran has been able to combine the music and the voices on this CD he has overcome that language barrier. You really feel like you are able to understand what the women are attempting to communicate to you.

Umalali by The Garifuna Women's Project is more than just a collection of music, it is also an introduction to a people and a unique culture. If you insert the CD into your CD ROM on your computer you gain access to some special features that include a collection of videos from each of the areas where the Garifuna people settled and you get to meet some of the people involved in the making of the disc. These are a poor people, where life is obviously a struggle against poverty and hardship, yet they take pride in who they are and where they come from.

Like all people in this world with a small population they are struggling to hold onto their culture and with each passing generation fewer and fewer seem interested in carrying on the ways of their fore-bearers. Yet there are still young women in the various villages who seem willing to learn from their mothers and grandmothers so at least among the women the effort is being made to preserve that heritage. After listening to Umalali and all the beauty contained within it, I think it would be a pity if this culture were to simply vanish.

Umalali by The Garifuna Women's Project is a beautiful collection of music, and a wonderful introduction to one of the world's truly unique cultures. Let's just hope there will be future generations of Garifuna women to make more of these CDs for years and years to come. It would be horrible if the world was only to learn of them as they faded out of existence.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:23 AM | Permalink

The first real Sword and Sorcery stories I ever read were ones featuring Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. To be honest about it I can't remember whether or not I read them in their book form first, or in the Marvel comic adaptations, but to be honest there wasn't much difference between the two when it came to literary merit. In fact Conan was probably the ideal comic book character.

Robert E. Howard had created him as so much larger than life, and involved him in such spectacular adventures, the stories were ideally suited to the comic book media. In fact the character was so much a figure of fantasy that it really didn't stand up to the scrutiny of live action and the movies were a great disappointment. They weren't even bad enough to be good. Even with Conan being played by the walking, talking cartoon character, Arnold, there was something about live action that robbed the character of his ability to be larger than life.

That's what makes the whole genre so much fun in the first place as far I'm concerned. Nobody reads Sword and Sorcery for it's intellectual qualities after all, they read it for the escapism offered by the adventures. You read them for the very qualities that make it impossible for them to be filmed; the ability to fight twenty-five opponents at once; take on a multi-headed, multi-armed, poisonous creature without breaking a sweat; and getting the scantily clad wench in the end.

The scantily clad wench was of course one of the primary drawing cards for Sword and Sorcery's original demographic; adolescent males. Thankfully it turned out that women liked a good sword fight as much as men, and the genre started to gain a level of enlightenment when it came to the objectification of women; especially when women started creating their own characters and writing the stories. With women stepping out of the harem and onto the battle field the whole complexion of the genre changed.

With the stories no longer being geared strictly for the guys who lived in their basements playing Dungeons & Dragons, the plots became more imaginative, and the characters more complex, while still retaining the all the exciting bits that made them so attractive in the first place. You don't need to look any further than Rogue Blades Entertainment newly published anthology, The Return Of The Sword, edited by Jason M. Waltz, for proof of just how far the genre's come since its comic book days.

Of course that's not to say there aren't stories in the collection that show a fond attachment for those roots, and feature lots of good old fashioned sword play and witchcraft. Let's face it, there's always going to be a market and a need for that type of story, but here they're balanced with stories that delve a little deeper into the psyche of the warrior, and look beneath the armour, behind the shield, and under the helm.

The very first story in the collection, "Alter Of The Moon" by Stacey Berg, is an example of the newer style. Now don't be put off by the title, it's not some New Age, pagan priestess propaganda posing as a fantasy story, rather it's about the price a warrior pays for being a hero, and the price paid for the gift of a magic sword.

Karen had saved her kingdom with the mysterious sword that sang to her and her alone. On the night of a new moon, with her homeland on the verge of destruction the sword called her to it, and gifted her with it's song that made her invincible in battle. Step by step, battle by battle Karen had fought until she had repelled the invading forces and her land was safe and at peace. Yet when the final battle was fought, and the last enemy fled, she was not at peace, as the sword still sang it's deadly song in her ear.

A dream takes her on a desperate journey; a dream of a path that may not exist. Yet if it does, it might just see her being rid of the sword and breaking free of the killing song in her head. While "Alter Of The Moon" is not your typical adventure story, Ms. Berg has included most of the elements that we have come to expect from Sword and Sorcery; magic, swordplay, and mystery. It was even irrelevant that the characters were women, they could just as easily have been men. What mattered was telling the story and Ms Berg did a great job of that which is what matters most of all.

Now if you wanted a story that was slightly more typical of the old style of Sword and Sorcery, Jeff Draper's "The Battle Of Raven Kill" fits the bill nicely. Oth chooses to stand and fight so his clan's people can escape those who would kill them all. While they flee in an attempt to find some safe haven he blocks the one narrow bridge the invaders have to cross to get at them. He knows they can only come at him two at a time and he is willing to buy his people time as long a there is life left in his body.

Draper does a great job of describing the action, and keeping it real. Movies will sometimes show a single man holding dozens at bay when they can only get at him one or two at a time, but somehow they don't seem to be able to capture the reality of the desperation that must grip the person making that stand. Oth knows that his chances of survival are slim, but he knows the longer he can survive the better. As the battle continues he takes wounds. At first they're minor, but as they continue to bleed and his reflexes slow from blood loss and fatigue, the wounds inflicted gain in severity.

"Why don't you just die" the opposing war chief keeps taunting Oth. Finding a reason for being put on the earth is something that plagues many people. For Oth, this moment on the bridge where he has chosen to make his stand to preserve his people, is that reason. "Let this be why I was created" he prays just before the enemy's war party shows up. Duty and self are one for him, and as long he holds onto that he will win. Doubt, not the swords and spears of his foe, is his biggest enemy.

Draper has done a masterful job of giving a very realistic description of close and horrible infighting. No matter what some Sword and Sorcery writers will have you believe, it is impossible for a mere human to fight under such circumstances without having damage inflicted upon them. But sometimes the human spirit is stronger than flesh, and Draper makes that come alive as well.

I could probably go on like this for all the stories in the book, because they all have something of value, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention one other piece in particular. It's not actually a story, rather its what the editor Jason wisely refers to as a distillation of knowledge. In the middle of the book is a wonderful article by Eric Knight called "Storytelling" where he takes you through the ins and outs of how to get the most out of the story that you want to tell. For anybody with any aspirations to storytelling, no matter what the genre, its an invaluable piece of writing.

The Return Of The Sword is a wonderful collection of Sword and Sorcery short fiction. Editor Jason M. Waltz has gathered together some of the finest examples of the genre that I've read in a long time. Sword and Sorcery has come a long way since the days of the "noble savage" wrecking havoc, but that hasn't stopped it from being a lot of fun and overflowing with action. If you're looking for a wonderful break from your daily grind, there is nothing better than this collection of mayhem to take your mind off things.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:19 PM | Permalink

Throughout the history of so-called civilization zealousness and fanaticism has come in many forms, from the political to the religious. The word zealot is taken from the name of a group of fanatic Jews who fought against the rule of Rome during the reign of King Herod and the time of Christ in what is now present day Israel. That their name has stuck in our language to symbolize over the top devotion is not due to any success they had in the field of battle, but because of the mass suicide carried out by their members during the siege of the town of Masada.

Unfortunately the majority of the original zealots' successors didn't follow in their footsteps by limiting their deeds to self-harm. The worst atrocities throughout this planet's brush with human kind have been carried out in the name of God, nationalism, or political ideology as inflexible visions or beliefs won't stand for dissension or accept the possibility that another way could have validity. The Inquisition burnt heretics at the stake to save their souls; the Nazis used inferior races for medical experiments and slave labour before killing them; and today, countless men and women are convinced that killing others while blowing themselves to bits ensures their ascension to heaven.

One of the modern era's worst examples of fanatic excess also happens to be the one that we in the West know the least about. The Cultural Revolution held mainland China in the grip of terror for around a decade. It is assumed that Mao Zedung was the motivating force behind it's initial implementation in 1966 as he sought to consolidate his personal power. Academics, professionals, and artists, were deemed to have begun to put on airs and in need of re-education in order to properly appreciate the goals of the Revolution. Universities were closed and young people were formed into brigades of Red Guards with the purpose of using them to impose the new order.

Part of the campaign saw Red Guard members and university students dispersed to the far corners of the country to help stamp out beliefs or behaviours that were considered contrary to the goals of the party. In 1967 Jiang Rong, (which is a pen name for Lu Jiamin) was one of those young people. When the schools were closed and his academic career halted, he volunteered to go to Inner Mongolia where he spent the next eleven years working and living with the nomadic people native to the area. Wolf Totem, published by Penguin Canada, is a fictionalized account of this period. It was first published in Chinese in 2004 and has now been translated into English by Howard Goldblatt.

Chen Zhen is one of a group of students who has been sent to live with the Mongolian Nomads who have inhabited the grasslands of Inner Mongolia since before the time of Genghis Khan. Like people throughout the world who depend on the land for their survival the Mongols have figured out how to live in harmony with their environment to ensure their continued existence. For hundreds of years they have raised sheep, goats, cattle, and horses in harmony with the needs of the wild creatures and the grasslands. In fact, so important is the continued existence of the prairie to them, they consider themselves the protectors of the grassland first and herdsmen second.

As Chen spends more time with an elder in the work brigade he is assigned to, the more he comes to understand just what the grasslands mean to the Mongol. It's from this same man, Bilgee, that Chen learns about a third key element upon which the lives of the nomads depend; the wolf. Although the wolf is the enemy of livestock and the Mongols are constantly at war with them, they also revere them as a source of knowledge and for the role they play in preserving the grasslands.

The Mongols understand the importance of a large predator in an environment where vegetation is limited and rodents multiply like, well like rabbits. Without the large predator not only would the pest population quickly get out of hand, but the gazelle population, native to the Mongolian plains, would soon deplete grazing land the nomads depend on if the wolves didn't keep their populations in check. This doesn't mean that the wolves are allowed to use their livestock as a buffet either; if a pack becomes a nuisance and preys too often on the nomad's herds they will be hunted down.

Chen soon learns that the wolves are not only a valued citizen of the grasslands, but also grows to respect their intelligence and battle planning. He hadn't really believed Bilgee's contention that Genghis Khan owed his military success to learning from the way the wolves hunted until he actually saw them exercise a brilliant flanking and encirclement manoeuvre while hunting down a herd of gazelle. Unfortunately while Chen, and maybe a couple of the other Chinese students are gaining an understanding and appreciation for the wolves and the way in which the nomadic Mongols have co-existed with them, the traditional way of life is considered counter-revolutionary because it is based on beliefs other than those sanctioned by the party.

For while the academics need to be re-educated through manual labour, it is also the job of the Red Guards to fight against what they see as the superstitious beliefs that are found among people like the nomads. With the fervour of missionaries the world over they have no tolerance for what they consider heresy. Some even accuse the old nomad Bilgee of helping wolves escape from a hunt he had organized because of his beliefs. It sounds ridiculous to our ears to hear someone call a wolf the enemy of the proletariat and calling for their eradication because they are a threat to livestock, but there's not much difference between that and some of the reasons given for killing wolves in the West.

It is the age old clash of the demands of civilization against the needs of the environment being played out on the pages of Wolf Totem. It doesn't take a soothsayer to know who is going to win and who is going to lose this battle. Chen is bearing witness to the cultural genocide of the Mongols; the great grasslands will be turned into pastures, the herds put into pens, and the wolves exterminated.

Jiang Rong has done a masterful job of depicting life among the nomads, from his descriptions of their everyday lives, to a terrifying ride through the night in a fierce snow storm with four horse herders desperately trying to defend their charges from an all out attack by a wolf pack. So vivid is his description that you feel like you are riding with the herders as they helplessly watch the wolves bring down horse after horse in a series of suicide attacks.

They leap onto the backs of the horses and dig their claws and teeth into them. The wolves' claws and teeth have been embedded so tightly that as the horse fights to throw the wolf off it ends up disembowelling itself as it is raked end to end by the wolf before it falls beneath the hooves. When you read that it was female wolves who recently had given birth conducting the attacks, Bilgee's assessment that the attack was in vengeance for men killing litter after litter of wolf cubs the previous week is enough to send shivers down your spine.

It's not often that we get the opportunity to read about life in China, and although the Cultural Revolution was officially denounced during the 1970's with the trial of the Gang Of Four, (the name given to the four leaders, including Mao's third wife Jiang Qing, in charge during the worst excesses of the period) it is rare for the Chinese government to allow anything this outspokenly critical of the Party and its policies to be made public.

Wolf Totem is a beautiful and heartbreaking story that everybody who cares about the state of the world should read. No amount of Earth Days, or Earth Hours will ever be able to replace the things we have lost through our own stupidity and fanaticism. The Red Guard's behaviour in Inner Mongolia in the 1960's and 1970's is no different from the destruction of natural habitats the world over in the face of progress.

There was another country, once long ago, where the original people considered themselves the preservers of the land and tried to live in harmony with the animals they shared it with. They too were considered the enemy of civilization and lost their way of life, and witnessed the desecration of the land and the decimation of the wild animal populations. Communist or Christian it doesn't seem to matter, greed wins out in the end.

Wolf Totem can be purchased either directly from Penguin Canada or through an on line retailer like Indigo Books

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:32 PM | Permalink

I really don't like musicals, never have and most likely never will. I used to think it was because I just couldn't stand people bursting into song at the drop of a hat, but then I realized it wasn't the music or the songs I had anything against, it was the plays themselves I couldn't stand. Oklahoma, South Pacific, and the rest of the so called classics of American stage and screen were simply pitiful excuses for theatre; facile plots, no character development, and nothing to hold the audiences attention aside from the song and dance numbers.

Aside from being performed in the same type of facility that people go to see performances of plays in, I see no connection between them and the works of Shakespeare, O'Neil, Pinter, or any of the great dramatists the world has known. It's not that there aren't great pieces of theatre that have music and songs in them, because there are; but plays like Mother Courage by Bertol Brecht have been theatre first and musicals second.

While big budget theatre productions in most major metropolitan centres seem to be still dominated by the blockbuster musical production, film has been reluctant to embrace the genre as often as it once did. Aside from Chicago a few years ago, there haven't been any major attempts to capture a musical on film until 2007 when Tim Burton's adaptation of Steven Sondheim's Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street splattered onto screens around the world.

While I've never been overly fond of Sondheim's work, I've always appreciated it for it's intelligence and originality. His work has always been as much theatre as musical with a real plot and characters who actually develop as the play progresses. Therefore I hoped that the combination of Tim Burton's direction, and Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter tackling the lead roles, would make the film version of Sweeny Todd worth watching. For a variety of reasons I never saw it in the theatres, so I picked up a copy of the DVD (two disc special edition) when it went on sale Tuesday.

I was delighted to see that the support cast included Timothy Spall,(Wormtail in the Harry Potter franchise) and Allen Rickman who I've always liked, and a bit concerned by the appearance of Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat)who I usually find too over the top for my tastes. I know there had been some fuss made about none of the leads being "musical theatre" people, but as far as I was concerned it was a plus that actors had been cast rather than singers and dancers. It's a Tim Burton film for goodness sake; were they expecting a lot of happy cappers and jigs or uplifting songs?

For those unfamiliar with the plot of Sweeny Todd, it's a straightforward revenge tragedy. Sweeny Todd had at one time been a happily married barber with a lovely wife and daughter. An evil judge (Alan Rickman) fell in lust with Sweeny's wife, and had him framed and deported. Fifteen years later Sweeny returns to London where he's told by a certain Mrs Lovett, who runs the pie shop below his old barber shop, that his wife took poison and his daughter was adopted by the evil judge.

Something snaps in our dear Mr. Todd and he decides to take his vengeance upon the world and opens his barber shop with the sole purpose of providing a steady supply of filling for Mrs. Lovett's meat pies in the shop below. It's his fondest hope that he'll be able to lure both the evil judge (Rickman) and his henchman (Spall) beneath his razor and enact revenge, but in the meantime everybody is ripe for the slaughter.

While none of the four leads, Depp, Bonham-Carter, Spall, or Alan Rickman are musical theatre types, they are more then equal to the task of the singing that is required of them for their parts, and any deficiencies they might have in range or strength of voice, is more than compensated for by their acting abilities. The story is of course ideally suited to Tim Burton's macabre vision, and by sticking to his usual nearly black and white palate for the scenery, he has great fun with gouts of blood during the "shaving" sequences.

I was pleasantly surprised by the performance of Sacha Baron Cohen as the pseudo-Italian barber Perelli, as being over the top worked perfectly in that instance. He also showed himself able to take it down a notch or two when necessary, as in the scene where he confronts Todd and threatens to reveal him for who he really is. Unfortunately the same couldn't be said for the two actors playing the young lovers; Todd's daughter and her beau, a former shipmate of Todd's from his exile.

Of course their roles were less characters and more plot devices serving as the means to bring Todd and the evil judge together. Still it would have been nice if they had had some acting ability instead of just being pretty voices, as it made them stand out like sore thumbs when compared to the other more accomplished actors in the cast. Depp, Bonham-Carter, Spall, and Alan Rickman are all as magnificent as one has come to expect of them from past performances. Bonham-Carter is especially wonderful, as she seems to have discovered quite a talent for playing evil characters in recent years.

While I appreciated the wide screen format of the special edition, and the 5.1 surround sound, the second disc of "Special Features" really wasn't that special. There was the usual self-congratulating, making of the movie featurette where everybody talks about how wonderful they are without really telling you anything about how the movie was made. The only two extra bits of any interest; a look at the history behind the story Sweeny Todd and an interview with Stephen Sondheim, could have been easily included on the same disc as the movie.

Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street is a wonderful movie full of great performances. But if you are going to buy it on DVD, shave some costs and don't bother with the special edition and its extra disc; its a waste of money.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:23 AM | Permalink

I always feel slightly uncomfortable reviewing someone's poetry. Unlike reviewing a novel, where you can make relatively objective comments based on how well an author has established characters or developed the plot, poems have to be judged on how well you believe the poet has communicated something far more ethereal. Just because you are not impressed with how a poet has chosen to express him or herself, does that necessarily make it less valid that a piece that you approve of?

Unlike previous generations where poetry was confined by meter or structure, the free verse of today can't be judged by a poet's ability to maintain a complicated rhythm or include the right number of syllables in each line. It doesn't even matter if the words make "no sense" when you read them, as its their ability to make you feel that's important. You can't even set one poet's work against another to see how it compares. Poetry is such an individual matter that there is usually little or nothing that one can use as a basis for comparison.

What I usually end up with is an attempt to judge how successful the poet has been in either expressing an overall emotion or feeling with his poem, much like an abstract artist would with his canvass, or in recreating the moment in time that he or she was inspired to try and capture with the poem. While it doesn't prevent me from being subjective in my critique, at least it gives me something objective to consider.

There are some prose writers whose work tells you that they would be equally adept at writing poetry as they are at fiction. It's not that their work is poetic, more that they have an ear for creating imagery when they write. A good indication is when you read their work you are able to see in your mind's eye what they are writing about with little or no effort on your part. This doesn't mean they spend page after page writing descriptions of the scenery, in fact it usually is the opposite. The prose writer with the potential to be a good poet would be one who can use the fewest words possible, yet still imbue a scene with beauty and emotion.

Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay has always impressed me with his ability to evoke whatever atmosphere he desires in an apparently effortless fashion. He is equally adroit at bringing to life sumptuous scenes in royal courts as he is the horrors of a battlefield, and like a good painter, knows exactly when to remove the brush from the canvass so as not to mar the image with too much detail. Quite a few of his novels have contained either poetry or song, so his readers have been given hints as to his talent as a poet, and in 2003 he published a book of poetry.

Penguin Canada has now re-issued that book, and Beyond This Dark House is now available in a paperback edition for those of us who missed out on its original release. I have read all of Mr. Kay's novels, and have found them to be almost uniformly excellent, but they have also shaped my expectations as to the nature of his work.

Having expectations is probably as bad as making assumptions about somebody's work, as they can sometimes have little or nothing to do with reality. In this case the only expectation that stands up is that the poetry in Beyond This Dark House is as good as Mr. Kay's prose, but it has a style and flavour all of its own. While his novels are intricate and elaborate puzzles, resplendent with detailed characters and vivid locations, his poems are far more austere while not surrendering an any of the intelligence or depth of his prose.

One poem that I keep coming back to as an example of the differences between his work in the two genres is "The Narrow Escape". The poem sets out the details of how a woman was fortunate enough to avoid marrying someone who already had someone he love more. The man in question was a poet, and his mistress who he loved most was his poetry. But there is a wonderful bite of irony to the poem that makes you wonder about the women and what she thinks love is in the first place.

You see, "Because he was such as could spend a whole night, centuries from sleep, crafting a poem to reclaim the afternoon when they first met, she fell in love with him. But when he actually did so..." It's all very well and good to be sensitive and poetic, but if I'm not going to be the centre of your attention all the time, you can't love me and I don't want you. Imagine, leaving me alone in bed so he could get up and write about me? ..."she burst into angry tears, crying: "How could I not have seen how destructive you are?"

While this poem is a nice piece of satire, Kay can also write some beautiful descriptive poems. In the third part of the book he has collected a number of poems that he has written based on various characters from literature and myth. What I liked about them was that he created pictures of them that fit the character perfectly. "Malvolio" is about the uptight butler of the same name from Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night.

He is the worst sort of puritanical prude, and in the poem he compares the fun that other characters are having to the fires of hell. He flees back to his austere, cold room, where he cleans himself of the stain of their sin with prayer. Then he falls into the sleep of the righteous and has dreams about himself and the lady he serves, the duchess. "My room is cold, my anguish sharp as icicles. One day trumpets will proclaim our victory. I salve my heart with prayer...I walk amid gardens of precisely trimmed hedges where she awaits me, unveiled and alone. My garters are yellow as I sigh my way back into splendour."

Kay has created the perfect character study of the repressed Puritan, who on the surface is all proper and prim, but he's just like everyone else underneath it all; a normal human being with desires. In both "Malvolio" and "The Narrow Escape" Kay shows that he has knack for creating intelligent and witty poetry that is sharp and to the point. He is able to describe those moments he wants to tell us about with grace and style and no small amount of humour.

Of course there's more to his poetry than what these two examples offer; he is still a master of imagery after all and he uses it to great affect on quite a few occasions. Yet for me the example provided by these two poems is sufficient proof that he is as capable of communicating in verse as well as he does in prose. Beyond This Dark House answers the question as to whether Guy Gavriel Kay would make a good poet or not with a resounding yes. For those of you who have liked his prose and are fans of poetry I encourage you to pick up this volume and experience another side of this wonderful author.

Beyond This Dark House can be purchased either directly from Penguin Canada or from an on line retailer like Indigo Books

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:35 PM | Permalink

I guess it goes without saying that biographies are always going to be written about people who have already gained a certain amount of renown; otherwise nobody would be interested in reading about the person. If we already know about a person because what they have done has gained them sufficient recognition to have a biography written about them, what are we looking for when we read their biography?

There is always going to be an audience for the "tell-all" biography that does its best to diminish its subject matter, but those books are more self-serving exercises on the part of their authors to obtain their own notoriety rather than give a true accounting of a person's life. Although I'm sure that on some level wanting to find out if a person's private face matches their public image will always be part of the motivation for reading a biography, most of us are looking to gain deeper insights into the people who have sparked our interest for one reason or another.

How did they develop into the person deserving of a biography? If they were a musician when did they begin playing and who were their influences for example? Was there some moment in their life which brought about a revelation that set them on the path that would lead them to fame? In order to sate his audiences desire for answers to these sorts of questions, the author of a biography will have to have done extensive research into his subject matter, and be able to convince his or her audience that they know what they are talking about.

David King Dunaway
received the first Ph.D in American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, in folklore, history, and literature. He is the author of a half dozen books of history and biography specializing in the presentation of folklore, literature, and history via broadcasting. He has also created a number of radio broadcasts and documentaries on such topics as Route 66. Across The Tracks: A Route 66 Story is a three part radio show on the influence of this famous cross country highway on America's literary and artistic culture.

However his main focus for the last thirty years has been the documenting the life and work of Pete Seeger. In 1981 he published a preliminary version of a biography of Pete, and this year, a new definitive edition of How Can I Keep From Singing? The Ballad Of Pete Seeger has been re-issued by Random House Canada through their Villard Books imprint. In the twenty-seven years since the book's original publication Dr. Dunaway has delved deeper into the life of Pete Seeger in order to substantiate what he had in the first edition. He also, to quote Mr. Seeger, "spent many days going over each page"of the original publication with Pete, fixing mistakes that Pete had found in the original book.

The result is an exhaustive documentation of the life of the man who was probably the most significant folk singer of the twentieth century with a career that spanned close to seven decades. He has performed with some of the most famous names in music including Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly), Woody and Arlo Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Muddy Watters, and influenced more people around the world than can probably ever be counted. He was also vilified and blacklisted for being un-American by the Joseph McCarthy anti-Communist witch hunts of the fifties; stoned by angry mobs, and received death threats for most of his career because of his belief in the power of music to conduct social change.

Professor Dunaway takes us on an Odyssey that starts with Pete's parents who were both musicians, and his father being a Conscientious Objector in World War One. Although Peter wasn't born until 1919, and missed out on his father's burgeoning radicalization, it was part of the family atmosphere that would shape his future. When he was still an infant his father, Charles Seeger, decided to take Classical music to the people and packed up the family into a ramshackle car/trailer and headed out on the road. They ended up in the Ozark mountains playing classical music for people who in turn played them fiddle tunes.

Charles Seeger was also part of a group of Classical musicians who tried to compose music for the picket line in support of the burgeoning trade union movement in the 1920's, but the world will probably never be ready for the twelve tone protest song that the Composer's Collective insisted on trying to write. But young Pete missed out on most of this activity as from the age of four he was in boarding schools. His parent's marriage had ended when he was quite young and he ended up spending a great deal of time alone.

Aside from his parent's music and his father's radicalism the biggest influence upon young Pete Seeger were the writings of the Canadian naturalist Ernest Thomas Seton who wrote stories about survival in the wilderness based on a romantic and idealized version of Native American life for young boys. Seeger spent long hours alone in the woods relishing the solitude. While most young men of intellectual privilege would sequester themselves from the world's realities in the ivory towers of academia, Seeger refers to himself as growing up in a woodland tower where he learned about surviving in the woods, but little or nothing about the world's bitter realities.

Two things occurred during his time in high school in the thirties that according to Dr. Dunaway were key in young Peter's development; he purchased his first banjo and his father became involved with a group of men trying to find a wider audience for American folk music. It was through this group of people that Pete met Huddie Ledbetter and indirectly Woody Guthrie. In 1940 Woody invited Pete to take a road trip with him to discover America. Long before the Beats, Kerouac, or anybody else they took to the road with a banjo and guitar; playing for food and gas they crossed the country via Route 66.

Anybody who knows anything about Pete Seeger knows of his passion for social justice and his love of folk music from all the corners of the earth, but especially that of his own country. He had a firm belief in the power of music to bring people together and overcome the barriers of race and class. In How Can I Keep From Singing: The Ballad Of Pete Seeger Dave Dunaway does a masterful job of establishing the roots and showing how those beliefs developed and grew in Seeger. He's not blind to the consequences of the third great influence on Seeger growing up though; the isolation and lack of any real emotional support of family and friends as a child.

Growing up in his "woodland tower" meant that Seeger had no real experience with human nature or what fear and hatred could drive people to. The result was that on occasion he would inadvertently place his wife and children in danger. While trying to get to a concert in Peekskill where he was supposed to perform the car he and his family were travelling in was stoned so badly by an angry mob that the windshields shattered leaving Pete, and his wife and children covered in shards of glass. Less physically dangerous, but just as threatening was his failure to realize the severity of the House Un American Committee Hearings and the consequences of his initial conviction for contempt of Congress would have on his career for the 1960s even though he was eventually acquitted on appeal.

Pete Seeger the solitary singer on stage leads two thousand people in song and in that moment is fulfilling his dream of bringing all people together no matter what their backgrounds through the power of music. But he's still Pete Seeger alone, the young boy with dreams of being a hermit living in the woods. He and his wife have been married more than sixty years and according to Dunaway have a wonderful partnership and marriage but that doesn't stop there being a certain aloofness about Seeger that dates back to those days on as a solitary child.

How Can I Keep From Singing: The Ballad Of Pete Seeger is a marvellously detailed and fascinating account of both a man and an era. Yet, for all of his accomplishments, and in spite of all of the joy he has brought so many people over the years, I was left with a feeling of sadness that in some ways Pete Seeger never got to experience the gifts he bestowed on us. This is a brilliant and poignant account of one North America's truest treasures.

How Can I Keep From Singing: The Ballad Of Pete Seeger can be purchased directly from Random House Canada or an on line retailer like Indigo Books

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:13 PM | Permalink