Leap In The Dark

How far would you travel to preserve yourself and your family? Would you be willing to set off on a sea voyage of undetermined length and time where your final destination is in a land completely alien to you and the only promise you have is that you might survive? Refugees sometimes have no choice where they go, and sometimes they have to be grateful for any port in their storm that will take them in. For the Jews of Europe in the late 1930's this was especially true, as no matter where they turned they found borders closed to them.

Mysteriously countries like Canada and The United States, with their huge tracks of undeveloped land, had no room for the few people who actually had the where with all to get out of Germany. As late as 1938 the Nazi government of Germany was still willing to let Jews leave, and exit visa's could be obtained if you had enough money. However an exit visa is no good if you have nowhere to exit too. There was one safe haven for Jews, however once there the only thing they were promised was they might not be rounded up, for although Shanghai was nominally a free city, it was under Japanese control.

Anyway, the idea of sailing away from home and country to a land at the other end of the continent where there was no way of knowing whether or not you'd even be able to eke out a living or find somewhere to lay your head at the end of the day seemed insane. After all, surely the German people would come to their senses and these hooligans would be out of power in only a few months? We've lived in Germany for generations, we're Germans not Jews. That's what the members of the Dresden Philharmonic thought up until the night in 1938 when each of its members were arrested as they came off stage after their performance of Joseph Haydn's Symphony #45: The Farewell. You see talented as they were, and even though some them didn't even know they were stained with the stigma of a Jewish grandmother - they were all Jews, and were now enemies of the state.

In Farewell, Shanghai, author and film director Angel Wagenstein's latest novel, published by Handsel Books and distributed in Canada by Random House Canada, we follow the circuitous route taken by German Jews to Shanghai and then live out the exile that the crime of their faith sentenced them to. Wagenstein divides his attentions between focusing on the experiences of two sets of characters from different backgrounds; Theodore Weissberg, world renowned concert violinist from the Dresden Philharmonic, and his opera singer wife Elisabeth, and Hilde. a young film extra and her companions, who have all ended up in Shanghai; and writing a documentary novel of the times that fills in the background details that the close up accounts can't accommodate.

Weissberg was one of the musicians who was whisked away mysteriously with the applause of his audience still ringing in his ears. Thankfully his wife, a non-Jew, was able to secure his release from Dachau, and more importantly two exit visas good for four months. After convincing her husband that yes indeed it is necessary for them to flee the country, and the only place open to them is Shanghai, they secure passage on one of the last trips made by one of the two boats running from Italy to their safe haven.

Their story is typical of the majority of German Jews who ended up in Shanghai, well educated intellectuals and artisans who are all of a sudden forced to live in extreme poverty and be grateful for even the most menial of jobs in order to earn their living. They are somewhat luckier than others because they manage to obtain their own living space, a two room hut with a storage shed that they convert into a shower. To them it is the height of luxury as it means they no longer have to live in the communal dormitory which houses the majority of the refugees. Unfortunately it also means that they somehow have to come up with the rent money each month, and there's not much call for either a concert violinist or an opera singer in Shanghai.

Hilda Braun, who was born Rachel Braunfield, has the remarkable good fortune to look like every Nazi's dream of the ideal of Aryan womanhood. Blond, blue eyed, and beautiful she parlays that appeal into a photo shoot in Paris as the first stage in her escape, knowing full well that anyone investigating closely will see through her facade. By luck, and some skilful lying, Hilda is able to wangle not only a cabin on luxury liner headed to Singapore, but a job as secretary to the city's German high commissioner as well. Here, not only is she able to hide in plain view as well as lead a comfortable life, she is able on occasion to discreetly keep the immigrant community informed of events in the outside world that will impact them.

Wagenstein's style of narration is almost that of a jocular tour guide showing us the sites on a tour through history. Casually pointing out points of interest like Krystallnacht, "The Night Of Broken Glass", where joyful, singing Brownshirts paraded through cities across Germany burning and ransacking synagogues, Jewish businesses, and hauling Jewish people out into the street to hang signs around their necks if they were lucky or hanging them by the neck if they were unlucky. It's the casual nature of his narration that makes Farewell, Shanghai so heartbreaking, for it makes everything that occurs seem like the everyday and the ordinary; perfectly acceptable.

Reading about unspeakable acts of brutality or descriptions of torture you can distance yourself from the events depicted on the page. Due to their unbelievable nature, you can convince yourself that they're fiction. However when human indignity is described in the same terms as one would use to discuss the weather or a vacation, it is impossible to separate yourself from it. You find yourself on the verge of accepting the events depicted as commonplace, until you stop yourself short realizing what's being described and are horrified at how easily you came to taking things for granted.

As we watch and listen as these people try to make lives out of nothing, to carry on in the faint hope that somehow, someday, this too will pass to become only a memory, the reality of what we are bearing witness to comes into tighter and tighter focus. Wagenstein's abilities as a film maker have given him an unerring eye for editing and pulling the reader's attention to what's important. Whether our point of view is that of one of the characters, or our guide through history, what we "see" on each page of the book is as vivid as if it were on a movie screen in front of us. Each character is so well described that, no matter how minor a role they play, we see them as if they were standing in front of us, and have a fairly good idea of who and what they are.

When all the world was closed to them, and it looked like there was nowhere for the Jews of Europe to flee, Singapore offered a semblance of succour. Hands that once might have played the violin that enraptured thousands may have had to carry garbage or wash cars, but at least they were on the end of arms that weren't tattooed or destined for the fires of the camps in Europe. Twenty thousand German Jews, and a few thousand from the rest of Europe, were able to call Singapore home during a time when millions of others were becoming part of The Final Solution.

Angel Wagenstein has the remarkable ability to put a human face on history, and Farewell, Shanghai is no exception. As the history he depicts is one of the most inhumane periods of the twentieth century, this talent is perhaps a mixed blessing. For, although it makes for fantastic reading, it also makes heartbreak inevitable as we struggle along with his characters to come to terms with their new reality. This may not be the most pleasant of reads you'll ever have, but it will be one of the best.

Farewell, Shanghai can be purchased either directly from Random House Canada or from an on line retailer like Amazon Canada as of November 04/08.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:31 AM | Permalink

There was a time in the 1990's that I thought if I heard the tune "Lord Of The Dance" one more time I would have gladly shot somebody. North America was going through one of its periodic flings with all things Irish, and the outlet for it this time was a troupe composed of Irish dancers, singers, and musicians performing a show called Riverdance. In all fairness the original production was a thing of splendour and must have been an exhilarating experience to see live.

Of course it bred offshoots, the most famous being Lord Of The Dance the creation of Michael Flatley, the lead male dancer in the first go round of Riverdance. While Flatley's show was able to compete with its predecessor in terms of excitement and entertainment, other productions with lessor performers just haven't been as interesting. Lets face it, step dancing is step dancing no matter how you dress it up, and unless the lead has exceptional charisma and talent it can become pretty boring after a while.

One of the things that had impressed me most about Riverdance was even though the music was towards the safe end of the scale, The Pogues it wasn't, it was beautifully played and done as traditionally as possible. So it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that the former music director of that show, David Downes is also behind the creation of the latest Irish show to capture the attention of mainstream audiences in North America, Celtic Woman. With a cast of originally five experienced Irish folk music performers, now six, (Chole Agnew, Orla Fallon, Lisa Kelly, Malread Nesbitt, Lynn Hilary, and Alex Sharpe) they scored instant success with their first release back in 2005. In only three years they have combined sales of CDs and DVDs totalling over three million, and have appeared in concert halls across North America to sold out audiences. Numbers like these are unprecedented for world music groups so you have to figure they must be doing something right. Now with the release of a greatest hit package on October 28th/08, The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection on the Manhattan Records label, you have a great opportunity to check them out if you haven't done so yet.

Now I have to admit to being somewhat cynical, and more than a little bit jaded when it comes to all things Irish these days. What with the preponderance of new age Celtic web sites, the romantic notions about Irish nationalism that saw North Americans raising money for terrorist attacks by the IRA, and the idiocy surrounding St. Patrick's Day (He was a Brit for goodness sake and the snakes he was killing off were the Irish people who didn't want to give up their traditional way of life and become Catholics) it just gets a little hard to take. So when I saw that the publicity shots that were included with my copy of The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection were of six very striking looking women in evening gowns I was prepared for the worse.

Thankfully Celtic Woman is not just a collection of pretty faces, and although I could live forever and not have to hear another version of "Danny Boy" and it would be too soon, it was the only song on the disc that even came close to being a cliche. Even better was David Downs showing the same willingness with Celtic Woman that he did with Riverdance to not restrict the music to the Irish folk music catalogue. Those all ready familiar with the performances of this ensemble won't be surprised at the inclusion of songs like "Ave Maria" or "Somewhere" from West Side Story on this collection of favourite songs from previous releases, but it gave me the first indication that this disc shouldn't be judged by appearances.

The second indication was the individual talents of the women involved. Each of them not only have natural abilities when it comes to singing, they also have obviously been well trained in how to use their voices. There's none of the straining or histrionics that I've come to associate with pop singers trying to achieve high notes. Instead their voices smoothly ascend and descend the scale without any apparent effort and without ever faltering. A sure sign of well trained voice is the ability to sustain a note for a protracted period and infuse it with character at the same time. It easy to have a loud voice, but to my mind the fact that the women on this recording don't automatically reach for volume as the solution for expressing strong emotion indicates an amount of maturity and talent that you rarely see among popular vocalists these days.

Downes does a wonderful job of creating arrangements that support the women's voices to the best advantage, so while they are never overwhelmed by the orchestra or other instruments, neither do they completely dominate the proceedings. One of the smarter things that he's done is have all the songs performed on what would be considered Irish instruments as well as regular orchestral and popular ones. This ensures that no matter the song the atmosphere never changes, so the women aren't being made to try and accommodate any radical adjustments in style which gives them a comfort zone that guarantees their best performances possible.

You're not going to hear anything daring or new on The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection by the assembled voices and instruments of Celtic Women. However, what you are going to hear are sumptuous arrangements of traditional and modern instruments providing accompaniment for skilled and excellent sounding voices. Even if there might be an occasional song on the disc that you're not thrilled with you can't help but appreciate the talent on display. If you've not heard Celtic Woman before, and were wondering what the fuss was all about, this is the perfect disc to act as your introduction.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:29 AM | Permalink

In 1980 a new wall went up between two worlds, and although it wasn't a physical barrier like the one splitting Berlin in half, it has over the years just as successfully cut the West off from Iran as if it were an actual presence. The fall of the American backed Shah of Iran, the take over of the American Embassy in that country, and the subsequent severing of all relations between the new regime and North American governments has had the result of turning those on either side of the wall into a one dimensional enemy whose every work and deed are to be denounced.

Mistrust between the Muslim world and the West is nothing new of course, but in the past there has at least been times when there has been mutual recognition and appreciation of cultural achievements. Now, however, we live in a culture of such absolutes that for the majority of us the other is nothing more than a faceless enemy incapable of doing anything of value. While its true that the poetry of Rumi, the great Sufi mystic of the middle ages, enjoyed a burst of popularity in the West in the nineties, little or nothing is known of poetry from the last hundred years. It's like we have tarred all of modern Iran with the same brush, and even those who predate the current theocracy can't escape that censor.

But even the tightest seal can develop leaks, and thanks largely to the efforts of expatriate Iranians, occasional glimpses are to be had of some truly unique talents. A new offering from Iranian-American composer Shahrokah Yadegari, Green Memories, on the Lila Sound label, does just that by offering American audiences an introduction to the poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad. Combining the structure of classical Iranian music with computer software that transforms acoustic instruments into melodies and textures, Yadegari has collaborated with fellow expatriates, vocalist Azam Ali and violinist Keyavash Nourai, to create a series of ambient soundscapes that reflect the emotional texture of one of Farrokhzad's most powerful poems, "I Pity The Garden (Green Memories)".

Forugh Farrokhzad was born in 1935 and was well on her way to establishing herself as a major poet when her life was cut short in 1967 by a car accident. During her short life she published five collections of poetry, produced a documentary film about a leper colony, and was the subject of two documentary films. Yadegari sees her poem, "I Pity The Garden (Green Memories)", as an example of the difference between Western and Islamic thought when it comes to our relationship with the environment around us. Where as ever since the 19th century the West has steered a path that preaches the separation of man and nature, Islamic thought has expressed the interconnection and interweaving of the two.

To that end he, and his two collaborators, have taken for their inspiration lines such as "No one thinks of the flowers/No one thinks of the fish/No one wants to believe that the garden is dying/its heart swollen under the sun..." from Farrokhzad's poem to try and express the emotions of desperation and hope expressed in it. Although the poem's original intent was not to describe our current global environmental conditions - it was after all written in the 1950's - the fact that Farrokhzad often used personal images to express universal concerns lends legitimacy to Yadegari, Ali, and Nourai's interpretation.

Classical Persian music is structured such that it gives the musicians a context within which to create individual reactions to an overall theme. It was with this in mind that Yadegari employed his computer program to create a structure based on themes created by the other two musicians, within which they could then improvise. In this way, while the content may be reflecting specific emotional aspects of the poem, the structure is simultaneously reflecting the interconnection of humankind with its environment. The result is both beautiful and haunting as layers of sound have been woven together to form an overall ambience while still maintaining their individual characteristics. It's like looking at a woven tapestry and being able to see both the individual coloured threads and the picture they form as two distinct objects and a single entity at the same time.

Save for the last track, "Mantra", where Azam Ali sings the words of the poem in English, each composition is an impressionistic expression reflecting the emotions expressed in the poem. While each piece is a distinct entity they are all designed to build towards "Matra", preparing us to feel as much of the emotional depth as possible buried beneath the surface of the words. Again this is not something that you are aware of happening until you arrive at the penultimate moment when Ali sings on the final track. The progression is so natural, and the build so gentle, that it's only on reflection that you understand what the musicians have accomplished. They have successfully created the perfect context for the poem; the environment where it comes fully alive so that as listeners we can appreciate its beauty to the fullest.

Ambient music is deceptive in its abilities to affect the listener. If its done well it should work almost subliminally, but without being manipulative, as it creates an aural environment that not only carries a message, but is the message. In some ways it is a true marriage of form and content as they both reflect the theme of the piece. In their interpretation of Forugh Farrokhzad's haunting poem "I Pity The Garden (Green Memories)" Shahrokah Yadegari, Azam Ali, and Keyavash Nourai have been have accomplished that and created a piece of surprising emotional depth and passion.

Green Memories is not only an intriguing and compelling piece of music, it also provides a rare glimpse behind the wall of fear and mistrust that has been erected between ourselves and the Muslim world. We know far too little about the poets and artists who have been creating wonderful works on the other side of the planet for the past hundred years. Hopefully this disc will inspire more people to investigate the work of Forugh Farrokhzad in more depth, and maybe other poets as well. No people or culture speak with one voice and it's important to listen to as many voices as possible in order to truly know them and Green Memories is a great place to start.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:14 AM | Permalink

Science fiction used to be filled with predictions of a future filled with flying cars and lives spent living among the stars. As many of these predictions have failed to come true with the passing of the years writers seem to have become more interested in suggesting ways in which technology will impact on our day to existence or postulating alternate realities. While some writers still turn their eyes towards the stars, a great many have kept their eyes firmly affixed upon our planet and the human condition and society.

In the two books that I've recently read by Cory Doctorow, Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town and Little Brother he has done a wonderful job of depicting our current world and the way in which technology impacts upon it. In both instances the technology depicted in the stories is nothing different than what's available to you and me currently - although he does demonstrate some rather creative ways of putting that technology to work in both instances. However, that wasn't the case in an earlier novel, Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom, as he gives a glimpse into one possible future. (As with all Cory's novels Down And Out is available as a free download)

Death and money have become things of the past in The Bitchun Society, as have the workplace and work. Instead of individuals accumulating personal wealth in order to obtain status and privileges they amass Whuffie, a complicated scheme that reflects the amount of esteem you are held in by society at large based on what you are doing with your life. Technically you could sit on your ass and watch television all day and drink yourself into a stupor, but because you won't be earning any Whuffie with that type of behaviour you'd soon find yourself hitting the skids as your apartment is reassigned to someone held in a little more esteem.

But don't worry, all is not lost, if things are really bad you can always revert to a back-up and wipe out everything that has happened between when you last saved your experiences and the present. Your old memories are simply downloaded into a clone and you pick up your life at that point in time and star over again. Of course if things are just too much, and you can't find anything that interests you anymore, there's always the option of deadheading for an extended period of time.

Most people use deadheading as a means of avoiding the tedium of travel - spending the four hours of plane travel in suspended animation instead of staring out the window in boredom - but it can also be used to put yourself to sleep for as long as you want. Having run out of things to do you might decide to deadhead until in the hopes things have changed when you come to. Of course if you ever get to the point where you feel as if you've seen enough you can always decide it's you last day on earth and take the lethal injection that puts you to rest.

Jules has had a moderately successful two or three lives so far; composed a couple of symphonies, written three symphonies, but when he meets up with Dan he's pissing away his accumulated Whuffie. Dan on the other hand has amassed stupendous amounts of Whuffie serving as a missionary to those pockets of humanity who have resisted joining the Bitchun Society. However he's beginning to think that it will be time for him to check out soon - he's seen more and done more than probably most people on earth have and from now on he figures it can only be boring and redundant. When they go their separate ways Dan is off to see if there's anything left to do on earth, and Jules to start over again in his favourite place on earth - Disney World.

It's in Disney World where Doctorow really brings the Bitchun Society into tight focus and we begin to see the flaws in this version of utopia. Disney World has been carved up into little fiefdoms with each area being controlled by the group of people, or ad hoc, who have been able to establish the most Whuffie for making the area exciting and popular. Jules and his new girl friend Lil, who was born and raised in Disney World, belong to the ad-hoc controlling Liberty Square; home to the Hall of Presidents, The Haunted Mansion, and the Liberty Belle riverboat. Not only are the members of an ad hoc responsible for the technical aspects of the rides, but they also are the live staff for the attractions and as such have developed the personalities of Disney employees.

When Dan shows up out of the blue he's spent all his Whuffie and is a wreck - he's not been able to summon the courage up to kill himself. It's Lil who comes up with the idea that he needs to accumulate Whuffie again if he wants to top himself, as it's far better to go out on top than looking like a washed up loser. So Dan ends up joining Jules and Lil in their efforts to stave off the attempts of another ad hoc to take over first the Hall of Presidents attraction and then, the holiest of holies -The Haunted Mansion. We watch as what at first is an honest attempt on Jules' part to preserve the attractions out of affection, becomes a dangerous obsession on his part that results in him not only destroying his relationship with Lil, but in the end losing all his Whuffie and becoming an outcast.

Now Cory Doctorow is no anti technology Luddite, but he's also very much aware of its potential for misuse. The more we learn about the great Bitchun Society and the way that tech is used so that people can slough off lives like a snake does its skin, the more we realize how facile and empty existence has become. There's nothing at stake anymore as the worst thing that can happen is that you simply revert to a back up and eliminate anything that you might have done that impacted upon your status. Why you can even arrange to have someone murdered and then revert to your back-up and honestly have no knowledge of having set the forces in motion that resulted in somebody's death.

With everybody hard wired into the same network, how else can you run a backup of your digital and organic memory if you're not "on line", anyone can access your Whuffie score at anytime just by looking at you and calling up your data. A well orchestrated campaign against an individual can result in their going from having a moderately comfortable life to a complete outcast, shunned by decent society, in as long as it takes for information to travel the net. Not conforming to Bitchum Society norms - like deciding that you'd rather lose the capacity to be on line all the time rather than losing your memories of the last year by reverting to a back up as Jules does - is considered aberrant behaviour that could result in a serious hit to your Whuffie.

The concept of personal self-esteem in a society where you are judged by the popular esteem that you're held in has become irrelevant. What does it matter what you think of yourself when nobody else thinks your fit even to merit being allowed to sit on a park bench or be allowed admission onto the hallowed grounds of Disney World? When an experience no longer has any meaning save for the impact it has on your social status and can be wiped out with a thought, and when there's no risk involved in anything that you do, where's the exhilaration of being alive come from? It's like a society that's been put on anti depressants and has lost some key element of what it means to be fully human.

What makes Doctorow so successful as a writer is how he everything is so believable. We learn about the society through the characters and their actions. Gradually he incorporates us into the world until the point comes where we take it everything just as for granted as his characters do. It's when we've reached that comfort zone that he begins to pull the rug out from under us, and we begin to see the ugly truths behind the idealistic facade.

Doctorow doesn't preach to us, he simply lets us observe the society in action through the eyes of Jules. As his place in Bitchun Society becomes more tenuous we begin to see the hollowness at the core of the whole system. Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom is a well crafted and executed piece of social satire that reminds us that life isn't and shouldn't become a popularity contest. There's lots of great uses for technology, but hard wiring us all into a massive social network so that we can vote on each other's position in society is not a future I'd be interested in partaking in. Although come to think of it, how far from that are we now?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:35 AM | Permalink

I've always been fascinated by the stories that define a culture and its people. I'm not talking about the books that they use for worship either, but the stories that have been told from one generation to the next for longer then anyone can remember. Each story tells you a little bit about who a people really are and what they believe in as they are a reflection of how they live their lives on a daily basis. It's probably why I love epic fiction so much, because not only does it tell a whole series of stories, but if its done properly the stories will create a whole new world for you to wander through.

Think of all the great epics throughout history; The Ramayana, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and Beowulf, not only do they recount the adventures of a hero, or collection of heroes, they allow you to see the world through their eyes. It doesn't matter whether you follow Aeneas on his quest to find a new home for the defeated Trojans or Rama as he attempts to wrest his darling wife Sita from the clutches of Ravana, along the way you meet the gods who rule them, you learn about their social order, and you are introduced to the philosophies and moral codes that they adhere to.

For the authors of these works, even good old anonymous, accomplishing all this wasn't very difficult as they were merely writing down accounts of what they knew to be true, or at least what was accepted wisdom. However, that's not the case for the modern writer who sets out to create an epic from scratch. That author not only has to create a series of plots and stories, he or she has to build the world and belief systems that supply the frame of references for the events that are being depicted. So while there are many novels out there these days that have had the appellant epic tied to their titles, the reality is that very few of them really qualify to be included in that genre.

One of the best of the modern era's epics has been The Malazan Book Of The Fallen sequence by Steven Erikson. Meticulous in their detail, not only have the eight books all ready published in the series been remarkably entertaining, they have created a whole new world for the reader to explore and experience. Then two year ago Erikson brought out his secret weapon, a second author who was also writing stories set in the same world to fill in any gaps in the narrative that he may have missed. Ian C. Esslemont's first book, Night Of Knives took us back in time to an incident that had happened before Erikson's recounting had begun. His second instalment, The Return Of The Crimson Guard, first published by PS Publishing of England, and now available through Random House Canada, jumps forward in time to the present day in the heart of the Malzan Empire. Chronologically it picks up the action about a year after the events that were recounted in Erikson's sixth book, The Bonehunters, and the Empire is facing its worst crises since its formation. Lands that were first conquered in the early days of the Empire have risen in revolt against the rule of the current Empress, Laseen, and to make matters worse it appears that most of the dissent is being fermented by people who were once loyal to the Empire.

Unfortunately for Laseen, these men and women were more loyal to her predecessor, the man she assassinated to become Empress. In spite of having successfully rid herself of many of them, she hadn't been chief of the assassins for nothing, enough of "The Old Guard" remain alive that the threat they pose as leaders of the rebel factions is very real. Just to make things even more exciting a company of mercenaries who took an oath to eradicate the Mazalan Empire, The Crimson Guard of the title, have decided the time is ripe for an assault on their enemy. What distinguishes the Guard from other mercenary companies is the fact that 600 of their membership have somehow taken a vow which has made them immortal and almost invincible in battle. After years of individual troops wandering the world on their own, the word has been spread that they are to reform to begin the final assault that will see the destruction of their hated foe.

However Laseen is not without allies or troops still loyal to the empire and in the heart of the territories under revolt one group is determined to do anything they can to save not only the empire but their own lives as well. Deep within the caverns that run underneath the city of Heng, a city that the rebels must sack if they hope of advancing on the Empire itself, lurks an ancient evil that if released will wreck ruin upon any that it comes in contact with. Releasing it will destroy the rebel forces, but it will also set loose an evil that will continue to attack humans long after the war is over. What lengths would you go to in order to preserve your own life?

What makes Esslemont's story work so well is that he takes these huge sweeping events and has them seen through the eyes of individuals in the field. Some of them are leaders, but others are like Kyle, a lowly conscript in The Crimson Guard, who circumstances thrust into the centre of events whether they want it or not. Kyle stumbles onto the fact that there is a rot within the guard, and he is forced to flee for his life. We spend a good portion of the book with Kyle on his travels to find the founder of the Guard in the hopes that he will be able to stop whatever plans have been fermented by those who are intent on corrupting its original purpose.

It's through characters like Kyle, the people he meets up with, and others in various camps with the different armies, that Esslemont is able to paint a picture of what life in the heart of Malazan Empire is like. While Erikson's books have mainly dealt with events occurring in the furthest reaches of the conquered territories, Esslemont takes us into the corridors of power and behind the scenes to expose some of the secrets in its heart and even more of the corruption that has been festering in its veins. Yet just as we are wondering why anybody would want to defend such corruption, we are back among the soldiers fighting for the empire, and find that they are no different from the ones they are defending their cities from. In fact, if anything, the Malazan soldiers are far easier to like than the ones they are defending against as they don't have any motives beyond survival and defending their homes.

Epic fiction is probably some of the hardest to write as you not only have to write a story that will hold your reader's attention but you have to create the world that the story takes place in. It's like creating an extra character who doesn't do or say anything, but without whom the story is pointless. Ian C. Esslemont and Steven Erikson have done what I would have previously considered impossible, they have created a fictional epic that is on a par with those epics that were created to honour real people and real civilizations. After reading The Return Of The Crimson Guard it's hard to believe that you're reading about events that never actually happened or a society that didn't exist.

Those wishing to purchase a copy of The Return Of The Crimson Guard can either purchase a limited edition (very expensive but looks beautiful) from PS Publishing of England, Random House Canada or an on line retailer like Amazon.ca.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:12 AM | Permalink

It's always been a source of amazement to me that stories from the days preceding the written word have survived down through the ages to this day. How many years after Homer sat around the fires at night relaying the history of the sacking of Troy was it before the words were written down on paper in an attempt to preserve them? Of course we have no way of knowing how much what is written down today resembles the original stories that Homer recited to his companions. Yet in spite of that it remains the touchstone for Western epic fantastical narrative to this day.

Without Homer where would the world of fantasy as we know it be today? Perhaps we might have invented giants on our own, but single eyed ones named Cyclops? I think not. Mermaids probably share a common ancestry with the sirens and the first witch to lure men to their doom. appeared in this tale to turn Odysseus's companions into pigs. Sadly, as we are beginning to discover to our chagrin, cultural chauvinism robbed us of access to even greater resources for inspiration as epic tales from both before and after Homer, that are equal to, if not surpassing, The Odyssey in splendour and imagination, recount the tales of heroes and the histories of peoples all over the world.

While Valmiki's Ramayana might be the oldest and most renowned of the great epics from South East Asia it is not the only one. Via the Muslim migrations and invasions of what is now India came the great heroes and villains of the Islamic world. Like the heroic tales of other cultures the dastan (literally tale or legend) of The Adventures Of Amir Hamza had its origins in history. However, as Musharraf Ali Farooqui reveals in his recently published English translation available through both Random House and Random House Canada, that although the central character is named for the historically real figure of the Prophet Muhammad's uncle, Hamza bin Abdul Muttalib, who was renowned for his bravery, aside from that, very little of the subject matter is historically accurate.

This pattern of using real names from history or legend in the story, but ascribing them different characteristics and histories then had been previously recounted, holds true for all of the characters in the story. While the identity of Hamza remains a constant, over the years various legends and folk tales have been grafted onto the story which has led to the contradictory claims as to its origins. Some hold that it first began being told by the women of Mecca to honour the deeds of the original Hamza after he fell in battle, while others say it was first composed by the dead man's brother. Whoever originally began compiling it, whether it was in the 8th or 10 century CE, the version Farooqi has translated into English from Urdo - the language of Islam in Pakistan and the rest of Indian sub-continent - was first compiled in 1855 by Ghalib Lakhnavi and then revised and expanded by Abdullah Bilgrami in 1871.

One of the first things you'll notice in setting out on this epic journey, we're talking nine hundred plus pages, is the ornate style employed by Farooqi. Unlike another recent new edition of an ancient classic, Ashok Banker's Ramayana, this is not an adaptation but a translation, which means that he has adhered to the style of the original. For those who have read Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton's (not the actor, but the nineteenth century British explorer and writer) translation of The Book Of One Thousand And One Nights, popularly known as The Arabian Nights, you'll see similarities between the two. This has less to do with the translation as with the material Farooqi was working from as both the original text and Burton's book were subject to the same influences.

In spite of the fact that Lakhnavi, and later Bilgrami, both wrote in Urdo they seemed to be no less influenced by their colonial masters, the British, then Burton had been by the Muslim world he was interpreting. The result is that both texts, while set in Arabia, Persia, and India, have a distinctively nineteenth century British aftertaste to them. This isn't a judgement on their quality, merely an observation, and a compliment to the skills of Farooqi as a translator for being able to recreate that sensibility. Don't worry though, because once your ear has acclimatized to the sound of the text, and it should only take a few paragraphs or pages at most, you'll find that not only does the style fits the content, it increases the verisimilitude of the experience.

I've always asserted that if you want to learn about a people, the best thing to do is read the stories that the people tell about themselves. What do they admire in their heroes, what do they consider appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, and other characteristics are revealed in these epic stories that will tell you more about a culture than any history book ever written. Not only that, but as they were created to glorify the people involved they are full of countless adventures that range from waging battles, outwitting devious enemies, and battling with fearsome monsters.

The Adventures Of Amir Hamza actually begins before he is born as there are events that occur prior to his appearance on the face of the earth that help shape his destiny. We also learn valuable information as to the various factions within the kingdom where the story originates. We see how even before his conception he has had created some deadly enemies who would along with their descendants, conspire against Hamza for his entire life. Of course once he's born the action really picks up as at the age of five he's all ready having adventures that would put grown men to shame. As Hamaz ages his exploits continue to grow and his reputation expands as he fulfills the destiny foretold before he was born of rescuing the Emperor's throne and crown from the clutches of a notorious outlaw while still a teenager.

One of my favourite characters in the story isn't Hamza, but one of his boon companions, Amar bil Fatah. Amar is a trickster who delights in the discomfort of others and a great thief. As an infant he contrived to steal the milk from the breasts of the wet nurse who was caring for him, Hamza, and another baby so that he grew plump while the other two stayed small. At first his trickery is indiscriminate and mean spirited so that only through the friendship of Hamza is he saved from being sent away or cast aside. While he never loses his taste for stealing and trickery, as an adult he puts his talents to good use to take revenge upon those who would discredit or harm his dearest friend and patron Hamza.

Not only does Amar provide comic relief from the seriousness of other events he is also, like other trickster characters throughout history, a teacher of humility. He takes especial delight in deflating those, even his closest friends, who have let pride puff them up beyond their worth. He is a constant reminder to all the characters and the reader of what happens to you when you think too highly of yourself and that it is important to retain a certain amount of humbleness at all time.

The Adventures Of Amir Hamza is not only interesting to read because of its subject matter, its a lot of fun. It contains all the adventure and excitement of some of the best of sword and sorcery stories while supplying an introduction to the legends and mythical heroes of a culture few of us in the West know little or anything about. While reading this book might not answer all the questions you have about the history of the Islam or the Muslim world, it will give you a far different perspective on it than any you'll have had before now.

The Adventures Of Amir Hamza can be purchased either directly from Random House.com in the United States, Random House Canada or an online retailer like Amazon.ca.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:00 AM | Permalink

Once in a while a performer comes along who is so riveting, and the impression they make on you so indelible, that you seriously doubt your own senses. Nobody can be so gifted that they take your breath away from the moment they open their mouth and begin to sing. So the next time you see them you go in armed with scepticism, prepared to withstand whatever trickery they used to get past your critical detachment the first time, only to discover the armour hasn't been invented that can defend against so pure an assault upon your heart and soul.

The first time I saw Antony of Antony And The Johnsons perform he was participating in a tribute concert to Leonard Cohen that had been staged at the Sydney Opera House in Australia that was included in the documentary I'm Your Man. In a production crowded with star power like U2, Nick Cave, and Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Antony's performance was so transcendent that it left the rest in its shade. Ask me if I can remember which song he sang, and I couldn't tell you, but I can remember every note he sang and being amazed that anybody in popular music had the courage to stand on stage with so much of their heart and soul on display.

Although I was pretty much convinced by that performance that this might actually be a performer who deserved to be called an artist, watching him as part of the ensemble of musicians who participated in the concert version of Lou Reed's Berlin on the recently released DVD, cemented that feeling. Here was the second time he had sung material with an incredible potential for melodrama, and he had not only been able to resist that temptation, but had delivered on the promise he had shown in I'm Your Man of being able to pierce your heart with a single note.

Still, there have been to many times in the past where I've seen performers sound wonderful as backup singers, or doing a guest spot in someone else's show, only to listen to them perform their own material and be sorely disappointed. So when the opportunity to review the five song Another World EP, on the Secretly Canadian label, that the band has released in advance of their forthcoming full length CD, The Crying Light expected in January, I took it. Not only didn't Antony disappoint when performing his own material, he ended up impressing me more than ever.

For those of you not familiar with Antony, the first thing you need to know about is his voice. He's probably the only popular singer around right now who sings in a pure tenor, meaning he's in the high end of the scale. However, unlike other male singers who sing high he doesn't sound like he's been cross bred with one of Disney's more annoying characters so he's neither shrill nor squeaky. Instead he has a purity of tone that you'd normally only associate with opera or traditional Irish music. Thankfully, although he leans more towards the latter, he's developed his own unique style that allows him to have more expression and a wider range of emotion than I've heard from singers in either of those genres, so he's never monotonous.

Normally power is not a word you'd associate with a man's voice in the upper registers, but Antony is not only able to display delicate nuances of emotion, he can belt out the blues. The third track of Another World, "Shake The Devil", starts off with Antony sing/chanting lyrics over a sustained note gradually building in volume until into breaks down into fuzz and a moment of quiet. This is quickly broken by a sharp, almost staccato, beat snapped out on the snare over which Antony begins to sing out a gospel tinged, blues number. With a saxophone blurting out counterpoint to the lyrics and the drum, the song takes on a strange hypnotic quality that gives one the impression of a ritual in action.

Still, that's not what distinguishes Antony from so many other singers. No, what elevates him a notch above anyone else is his ability to imbue what he sings with emotion that feels like its being drawn directly from his heart. I know there are plenty of singers out there that can be described as singing their hearts out or who even sing from their hearts, but there are few who you can honestly say surrender themselves completely to the song. When you listen to Antony sing you are drawn out of yourself into the world of the song. You don't so much listen to him perform as become absorbed by it to the point that its more like a piece of theatre than music.

Take the title track "Another World" where Antony sings about wanting another world, but lists all the things about this one he's going to miss. Not only does the song remind us of how much we stand to lose if we allow the planet to be destroyed, we experience the sense of lose and longing generated by those circumstances. Yet, underneath, there's another level of meaning that runs through the song as well, a plea for a world where there is room for all of us no matter who we are. Sure there is great beauty in this world of ours, but there is also plenty of ugliness in the form of hatred and bigotry that we could certainly do without.

Musically the songs on Another World obtain a level of sophistication that are far beyond what one would expect from pop music. Normally I consider strings to be the kiss of death in a pop song as they usually only serve to manipulate the listener's emotions and add a layer of melodrama to the proceedings. In this case though they are incorporated into the overall composition instead of being used to merely point out obvious increases in emotional intensity. Like the rest of the instruments being played by the "Jonhsons" they work together with Antony's voice to create an atmosphere appropriate to each song's lyrical content.

It came as no surprise to me that while searching for information on Antony And The Johnsons on the Internet to discover that they had been involved in the production of performance art pieces that have been presented at some of the most respected galleries in North America (The Whitney Museum of American Art) and concert halls across Europe. There is a theatricality about their music that brings it alive for the listener in ways that I've never experienced in popular music before. Yet in spite of that they maintain the type of intimacy that one would expect from a folk musician so one never feels distanced from their performance.

Another World by Antony And The Johnsons is a truly unique recording from a very singular talent. If you've never heard them before than this represents the perfect opportunity to sample what they have to offer. The only drawback is that its only an EP so there are only five songs on the CD. Of course you could always pick up there previous release, I'm A Bird Now, to help tide you over until January when they will be releasing their next full length CD, The Crying Light. However, the five songs on this EP are far more substantial than most other band's complete catalogues, so even if you only buy this disc there's no way you'll feel short-changed.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:22 PM | Permalink

I remember a night in 1980 walking in downtown Toronto Ontario and I happened to look in the window of one of the city's really good independent record stores. Normally their window displayed the latest imports from England or efforts by local punk bands, so it came as some surprise to see a copy of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Willy And The Poor Boys featured prominently in the window. One of the staff had stuck a label on the cover reading -"The Original Only Band That Mattered", in an obvious challenge to The Clash's promotion of themselves as "The Only Band That Matters".

"Down On The Corner", one of the singles taken from Willy And The Poor Boys, was one of the first pop songs that had stuck in my head as a kid outside of The Beatles, so although as a good punk I was properly indignant by the slight towards The Clash, I was intrigued enough to later that night dig out my brother's copy of "Willy" and put it on the turntable. Listening to it for the first time as an adult I was amazed by what I was hearing. It was rock and roll at its purest. Raw, unrefined, and stripped down to the essentials it was everything that punks claimed to aspire to with only a few ever came close to achieving. Listening to Willy And The Poor Boys is to understand what rock and roll is.

It's been forty years since Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) put out their first album, Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1968, and in honour of that anniversary Concord Music Group, through their Fantasy Record imprint, the band's original label, have reissued re-mastered version of their first six recordings. Aside from the two already mentioned that includes Bayou Country, Cosmo's Factory, Pendulum, and Green River. ( I have to admit to a little confusion because the Concord site says the reissues are in honour of the band's 40th anniversary but also lists their first album, Creedence Clearwater Revival as being released in 1967 - I guess forty just sounds better than forty-one.)

In spite of the success they had with hit singles like "Bad Moon Rising", "Proud Mary", "Lookin' Out My Backdoor", and "Who'll Stop The Rain", to name only a few, the band started to splinter in 1971 when John Fogerty's brother Tom left the band, and the band dissolved the next year. The years following the band's break up were nasty to say the least as Tom and John Fogerty spent years in court fighting each other over ownership of CCR's catalogue of music. It's interesting to note that only John has had a successful solo career while the best others have done is try to cash in on the CCR name by putting together a lame cover band playing the band's hits.

Of the albums being re-released the one that I thought I was the least familiar with was Green River, so I figured that would be a good one to check out. Well it turns out I wasn't quite as unfamiliar with its contents as I had thought. I might never have owned Green River but aside from knowing the title track, I knew two others quite well too. Perhaps you've heard of them; "Lodi" and "Bad Moon Rising"?

Well I felt like a bit of an idiot after finding that out, but it still meant there were six songs on the disc I wasn't familiar with, as well as the five previously unreleased bonus tracks that had been included. Yet it was hearing the songs that I did know in the context of an album instead of in the soundtrack of a movie ("Bad Moon Rising" shows up in American Werewolf In London), played by some cover band, or on the radio as a golden oldie that somehow had the most impact. Green River was released in 1969, just before that little get together in upstate New York called Woodstock, and a year after Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. Although many among us, myself included, have a romantic view of the Woodstock concert it really was the beginning of the end of an era.

A year earlier it looked like Bobby Kennedy was headed towards the White House and there was hope of revitalizing American society. He was trusted by everyone from members of the Black Panthers to New England blue bloods, and if there was anyone who was going to be able to bridge the gap between the two it was him. He was promising to end the war in Vietnam, promote literacy, and find ways to deal with the grinding poverty of the inner cities and rural poor. What America got instead was Richard Nixon escalating the war in Vietnam, dealing with the poor by drafting them into the army and shipping them overseas as cannon fodder, and instead of spending money on the people of his country he increased military spending.

"Hope you got your things together/Hope you are quite prepared to die/Looks like were in for nasty weather/One eye is taken for an eye" Fogerty rasps in "Bad Moon Rising", which doesn't sound nearly as cute or funny when its not the soundtrack to a werewolf movie. In fact if you didn't know any better it sounds like John is predicting the end of the world with this song. Or how about in "Wrote A Song For Everyone" when he sings "Saw the people standin' thousand years in chains/Somebody said it's different now, look, it's just the same/Pharaoh's spin the message, round and round the truth./They could have saved a million people, how can I tell you?"

Not only doesn't he sound very optimistic about the way things have gone, he doesn't sound like he's got much faith in the future either. Then there's "Commotion" where "People keep a talking, they don't say a word/...Talk up in the White House, talk up to your door/So much going on I just can't hear". It sounds to me that forty years ago Fogerty knew what was going to be happening with the world in the future, as he's articulated pretty much what goes on today in this song. A lot of noise but no substance from anyone, especially our leaders. In fact they seem to make a lot of noise just so nobody will notice what it is they're really doing.

There's precious little sweetness and light on this disc, and when you hear songs that you once thought you were familiar with in this context, boy do they take on a more potent meaning. Even the title song, "Green River", for all the beauty of nature and the carefree days of youth it evokes, has an aura of foreboding to it -"...you're going to find the world is smouldrin'/And if you get lost come on home to green river". Of course those were the days when there was still green rivers to go home to, and maybe there are some still, but I doubt there as plentiful as they were back in 1969 when Fogerty wrote this tune.

The five bonus tracks that are included on this disc are of two songs that were never finished, "Broken Spoke Shuffle" and "Glory Be", and three live cuts that were from the European tour in 1971 after Tom Fogerty had left the band. When I first heard the live cuts I hadn't realized they were minus a person, and was puzzled as to why the sound was so thin - I had thought the mix was so off that they had lost one of the guitars. They're interesting to listen to because it makes you realize just how important that extra guitar was to the Creedence sound, and that without Tom they just weren't the same. It's no wonder the band only lasted another year.

Green River is more than just a great rock and roll album, although its that too. Its a sophisticated and intelligent, if rather pessimistic, commentary on the time period it was written in. Musically and lyrically this release far outstrips most of its contemporaries for its realistic view of the world around them. While others might have been writing about ending the war or all you need is love, John Fogerty and CCR were singing about the darker truths that run like a current underneath the surface of our society. What's really incredible about Green River is that unlike many of its contemporaries this album is still relevant. CCR may not be the only band that matters, but the fact that they still matter is equally amazing.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:16 AM | Permalink

There are some images that are nearly impossible to shake, and one of the ones that's been stuck in my head since back in the dark days of the 1970s is that of the typical female country singer of the time. Hair piled on top of their heads, held in place with enough hair spray to create its own personal hole in the ozone layer, and wearing long sweeping dresses of either lime green or bright pink with a high neck, they'd sing with a mournful voice that was sure to crack when they reached the part about the guy who left her at the alter for his pickup truck.

In spite of the efforts of people like Emmylou Harris, Alison Krouse, Gillian Welsh, and others those visions of polyester and bee hives are still the first thing that comes to mind for me when someone mentions country singer and woman in the same breath. If I'm really honest I have to admit that the number of people who I actually saw fitting that description were probably only a few, but such was my general feeling of animosity for country music in those days it became forever welded to my imagination.

Then along comes someone like Carrie Rodriguez, who has just released her second CD, She Ain't Me on Manhattan Records, who not only looks the complete opposite of those Bride of Frakenstein clones of my memory, but sings songs that don't make mention of pick-up trucks or hard drinking men and you want me to believe that she's a country singer. Sorry it just doesn't compute. Sure she was born in Austin Texas and plays fiddle and electric mandolin, which are definitely prerequisites for being a country singer, but have you listened to the lyrics of her songs or heard the quality of her voice?

Okay I know that's really unfair to a lot of people, but I've always had a love/hate thing with country music. Some of my favourite performers are considered country music singers, but the genre itself, what with the whole God and America thing and the stink of hypocrisy that holier than thou closet drinkers give off, has always repelled me. So when I hear a recording as thoughtful and interesting as She Ain't Me I automatically don't want it to be lumped in with the music of the anti-Hank Garth Brooks and his ilk. I just can't see Carrie Rodriguez stooping to writing a sentimental song about God, country, the flag, and the need to kill people who look different.

Okay now that we've established who she ain't, what is Carrie Rodriguez? Going by this release, that's thankfully not an easy question to answer. You can start by saying she's a songwriter, as she had a hand in writing ten of the eleven tracks on the new disc, and of course she's a singer as well as being a multi instrumentalist. However, there are plenty of people out there who can say the same thing so that's nothing really to go by. What is something to go by is the fact that she's not easy to pin down musically and doesn't fit nicely into anybody's, including mine, square pegs of where she should belong.

Lyrically her songs range from those that deal with the physical world around her, the metaphysical, to the world of emotions and thoughts that normally stay stuffed inside your head. "Infinite Night", which opens the disc, tries to impart a sense of the perspective that's required to deal with the chaos of life in modern times: "Well the sun is just a star/It reminds us where we are/Just a little part of the infinite night". Instead of telling us what or who we should believe in like far too many would do, Rodriguez just gently reminds us that no matter how crazy it might get down here on earth, there's more to existence than what we see in front of our eyes.

From the outer reaches she switches to the internal with "Rag Doll" in which she dissects a relationship without any of the usual accusatory bullshit that accompanies this type of song. Sure he might make it "hard to love you" but than again "I make it hard to love me/When every time you do I lose my head". Unlike so many other singers these days, male or female, Rodriguez has the good sense to point out that relationships are two way streets and that both parties are more often or not equally involved in what goes on.

My favourite song on the album is the hauntingly beautiful "Absence". In it she shows a beautiful understanding of imagery and describes the empty place in your heart when someone you love has vanished for, whatever reason, in a way that anybody can understand. "Snow, sleet, wind, and rain/Breath on a windowpane/Absence tells the hardest truth". Austere and bleak, just like how your feel when you're dealing with the grief of loss, the lyrics of this song speak to their subject matter both in their literal meaning and the imagery they generate. It's rare these days for a songwriter to achieve the kind of poetry with song lyrics the way Rodriguez manages with this track.

Rodriguez's voice is not only expressive, but it has character as well. Not only does her singing reflect the emotions of what she's singing about, but she sounds like a human being as her voice catches on a tear, rises in anger, or sinks back in resignation. She also exhibits wonderful control, so unlike some singers who believe you only have the option of either shouting or whispering, she can modulate her breathing and find the real places in between extremes where so much of life actually does happen.

Musically She Ain't Me follows the example Ms. Rodriguez sets by knowing when to crescendo and when to pull back and leave her voice front and centre. It's hard to say what the music is because it's crafted to work with each individual song so well. So on the opening track there's a hardness to it that befits the urgency of the lyrics while at the other end of the spectrum the introspective "Let Me In", near the end of the album, is close to minimalist as notes and beats are carefully picked out by Carrie and her fellow musicians.

Speaking of musicians, it's easy to forget while you're listening to her sing, that it's Ms. Rodriguez playing the violin on this recording. Yet that is her playing those really interesting sounding fiddle lines on various songs that all of a sudden pop out from the background. You can hear her classical training in her playing, as there's a control to it that is often missing from people who've only ever played fiddle. To my mind it makes her playing stronger and more passionate then is normal for violin in popular music.

Like other strong and independent female vocalists before her Carrie Rodriguez is not going to be easy for people to pin down and label. Unlike most of what flutters around the pop charts these days she sings about real life with the voice of a human being. I don't think I've been as impressed upon hearing a female vocalist for the first time since I first heard Iris DeMent. If there were justice in the world She Ain't Me would have been the disc to scream to the top of the Billboard charts when it was released, not the latest piece of pabulum from the drama queen.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:10 AM | Permalink

It was sometime in the early 1990s when the rest of the world discovered, much the way Columbus discovered America, that there was more to traditional Native American music than just drums. However they quickly made up for lost time and since then the cedar flute, sometimes known as a love flute as it had been primarily used by young men for wooing young women, has become annoyingly ubiquitous on the shelves of new age emporiums.

Carved from cedar the design of these flutes sounds deceptively simple as they consist of six holes, a thumb width apart, punched into a hollowed and shaped tube that's blown into like a recorder. A palm's width from the mouth hole the passage is blocked by a piece of wood and air flowing over it is controlled by an adjustable piece lashed to the surface of the flute called a slide. The air comes up one side of the block and is then forced down the other by the slide giving the instrument its familiar breathy quality. With no thumb hole, or octave hole, on the back of the instrument, the range of these flutes is dictated by the performer's breath control and the length of the flute's body.

Like many utilitarian instruments it would appear that the scope for using the native flute is quite limited. Judging by most of what you hear played it's probably difficult for most people to believe that the flute is actually quite versatile and can be used to create a variety of sounds, and to great effect in different genres. On his most recent release, Pistola, rock and roller Willie DeVille did a great job of incorporating a cedar flute into one of his songs by improvising an accompaniment to the track and then cutting and pasting pieces from what he recorded into the song . Still, that's only one of the few times I've heard anyone use a cedar flute without trying to be more spiritual than thou.

So when I heard that the latest release from Kevin Locke, Earth Gift on the Ixtlan Artists Group label, was supposed to be different from what one normally hears when it comes to flute playing these days I was intrigued and hopeful. Locke is a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux and according to his biography he was given as traditional as is possible upbringing as can be managed in this day and age. Anybody can claim a traditional upbringing, but not many people go on to become hoop dancers and create dance ensembles that tour the world to international renown, so I had hopes that in spite of its new age sounding title, Earth Gift would genuinely explore the cedar flute's potential.

I started to have some doubts when I received a copy of the CD and looked over the track listing and saw titles that looked like they stepped off the shelves of a bookstore from my worst nightmares; "I Sing For The Animals", "Buffalo Said To Me", and so on. While I did my best to set aside any prejudice, I have to admit to a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that there wouldn't be anything new under the sun, the moon, or anybody's sky here. Unfortunately what I heard on the CD didn't do much to dispel that original feeling.

Now I wouldn't know a Lakota Sioux song if it hit me in the face, so I can't dispute the claim that some tracks on this CD have their origins in traditional Lakota ceremonies and are songs that Kevin learned from his great uncle. The thing is though, that just because something is beautiful and spiritual when performed in the right setting and at the right time, doesn't make it interesting to listen to on a CD no matter how you dress it up. (I'm not even going to go into the whole issue of commercializing stuff that's supposedly sacred under the guise of "keeping it alive" - keep it alive by observing it not by selling it - oops I went into it) While there's no denying the technical accomplishments of everybody involved with this recording from the two people providing vocals an a couple of tracks, the accompanying musician, and Kevin himself, the music on Earth Gift is pretty much interchangeable with any other flute disc you'd off the shelf in the world or new age section of your local music store.

While it's true that some of the instruments that have been chosen to accompany Kevin, the zither, nail violin, and the marxophone, may sound more appropriate in that they are acoustic and from an earlier age, the flute itself is still being confined to a very narrow view of its potential as an instrument. Not only is this a disservice to the instrument, but to the culture that they are supposedly trying to preserve. Culture should be a living and breathing entity that continues to grow, not something that allows itself to become hidebound in the name of tradition solely for the sake of tradition.

There is plenty of reprehensible behaviour that is carried out in the name of tradition these days, and thankfully plenty of traditions that have fallen by the wayside as they have proven to be inappropriate to the realities of the world we now live in. By not allowing culture to breathe you run the risk of turning the sublime into cliche. There's a real danger of that happening with the music of the cedar flute as we keep hearing the same things performed on it over and over again. One only has to look to the work of people like Buffy Saint Marie, Martha Redbone, Robbie Robertson, and Pura Fe, to name only a few, to see the potential for diversity in Native American music and for examples of how to keep a culture growing and alive.

When I started playing a cedar flute twelve years ago I quickly saw both it's limitations and its potential. While it's true the range is limited, although if you have really good breath control and have a well made flute you can coax it up into the next octave, it also allows amazing opportunities for improvisation. Unlike other wind instruments that have multiple valves and keys the cedar flute is very technically easy to master, and once you have the technique down the only thing to limit you is your imagination.

While there is no denying that Kevin Locke is a highly proficient flute player, the music on Earth Gift doesn't bring anything new to the instrument's repertoire. I love the sounds the cedar flute is capable of creating, yet it seems that very few performers are willing to experiment with its potential, and this recording is no exception.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:02 AM | Permalink

In 1860 a British act of parliament declared that sex between men was illegal and punishable by a jail sentence of up to ten years. The law went into effect throughout the British Empire including its largest colony, India. Unfortunately, when the British government repealed section 377 in 1967 it couldn't take back what it had imposed on its colonies the century before, and to this day homosexual sex is still illegal in India. (Speaking to a gathering of Indian delegates at last summer's, 2008, International AIDS conference in Mexico, Indian health minister A Ramadoss lent his support to the repealing of Section 377, but as of yet nothing has been done to do so)

The Bombay Police Act of 1951, which covers everything from frightening cattle to public decency, gives police the power to fine and arrest people they believe are behaving indecently. As the act does not define what is indecent, it gives police the arbitrary power to arrest virtually anyone they feel like. While in theory the act is to be used to curtail prostitution, the fact that the average police officer makes less than a maid results in widespread use of the act to shake down sex trade workers for money. Of course the constable on the beat has to give a cut of whatever he takes in to his superior officer. In fact if the lower grades among the police force ever want to advance up the ladder they are expected to pay off their higher ups on a regular basis thereby encouraging the practice.

Its reading disheartening facts like these, and other far worse anecdotal tales, that makes the new book AIDS Sutra, produced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and published by Random House Canada (available in India through Ramdom House India) so depressing. For all that India tries to present to the world the shiny face of a modern technologic giant, judging by what you read in AIDS Sutra when it comes to sexuality its stuck in the dark ages. One of the things this book makes clear is just how much these attitudes impact HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment.

For AIDS Sutra the Gates Foundation gathered together sixteen of India's best writers and sent them out among the various communities in India affected by HIV/AIDS. AIDS Sutra tells the stories of everyone from orphan children living with the disease to women, men, and transgendered people forced to sell their bodies as a means of survival. Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai, Vikram Seth, Nalini Jones, and twelve other authors have each contributed a report for the book that as fiction would be heartbreaking while as non-fiction are heart-sickening and horrifying in their implications.

The overall impression that you get from reading these works is that in general India is the same place North America was in the 1980's when it comes to their understanding of HIV/AIDS. There is still wide spread ignorance concerning how the disease is spread and it's only been recently that even the medical profession has begun to treat those suffering from the disease with something approaching the respect offered anyone suffering a serious ailment. Reading the story of Dr. Tokugha, as told by Nikita Lalwani, that opens the book prepares you for some of the ugliness to come. When he tested positive for the virus instead of informing him of the results, in a horrible breach of patient confidentiality, the hospital told his brother in law, a government minister. It was only six months later, a week before he was to be married, that his brother in law let him know he was positive.

Reporting on sex trade workers in various places around India Kiran Desai, Sunil Gangopdhyay, Sonia Falerio, and CS Lakshmi all draw similar pictures of women who have been pushed into circumstances by forces beyond their control. While some of them, mainly the younger and prettier ones, are able to command a degree of respect, the majority of them face the attitude of one police officer interviewed who said any woman who sells her body is bad so should be beaten, and wants sex, so should be raped.. Even more disquieting is new legislation being proposed by the government threatens to send them even further underground, making it harder for medical authorities and Non Government Organizations (NGOs) to work with them to help prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.

While the police in major centres like Mumbai (Bombay) are now starting to make attempts to educate new officers about the reality of AIDS, ingrained habits and conditioning will take years to overcome. As no records have been kept in the past there is no way of knowing how many police officers have been infected with the virus from exercising their "rights", raping sex trade workers instead of arresting them, and then in turn infecting their wives and other partners. The only group more difficult to monitor and help than female sex trade workers in India are men who have sex with men (MSM).

With homosexual sex acts still illegal the stigma attached to being gay is such that many men are forced underground. Since sex is illegal they are continually at risk of being arrested and are routinely subject to harassment and extortion by the police. However according to articles by Salman Rushdie and Mukul Kesavan that's nothing compared to what happens to MSM sex trade workers. The police routinely set up entrapment ploys for them by sending a "client" out looking for sex in one of the regular cruising areas. When the client goes to leave the area to take his partner of choice somewhere they can have sex, the sex trade worker is arrested. If he's lucky he'll only have to pay off the police, but quite often they will be hauled back to the station house where they are gang raped by police officers and tortured.

As it is illegal to have gay sex, how do you set up programmes that will deal with preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS among that community? There are NGOs that do work with the MSM and transgendered communities in India, and as it stands the best statistics available show that 20% of MSM's are HIV positive. How many are still going undetected because of their reluctance to go public with the reason for them requiring testing is anybody's guess, as are the number of police officers who may be positive after participating in a scene as described above. Until the act making sex between men illegal is repealed in India, there can be no way of knowing the true numbers of people infected with the disease, and no way of mounting a seriously effective prevention campaign.

It's never a good thing to try and impose your own moral code unto another culture or to form judgements on it based on observations conducted by eyes conditioned to another value system. However, when a book like AIDS Sutra, written by people who are native to the culture, paints as devastating a picture of India's preparedness for dealing with HIV/AIDS, it's no longer a question of morality, it's a question of human rights. No one, no matter what their sexual orientation or gender deserves to be treated in the manner the people we meet in this book are treated. Even worse is the fact that the way they are treated not only endangers them, but endangers the population as a whole.

Reading AIDS Sutra one is forced to draw the conclusion that not only is the Indian government unprepared for dealing with preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, the situation is such that there is no way of knowing the extent to which the disease is spreading across the country. For the country that gave us Tantric sex and the Karma Sutra, and whose pantheon of Gods and Goddesses contains a transgendered deity (Ardhanarishvara the half woman god) India seems to have somehow become stuck with horribly Victorian attitudes towards sex and sexuality.

In the West our governments ignored HIV/AIDS until it was almost too late because of bigotry and prejudice. India can't plead the excuse of ignorance when it comes to the disease as far too much is known about it for that to wash as an argument any longer. However, judging by the articles in this book the government which should be leading the fight to save the lives of its citizens is allowing conditions to continue that will only encourage the spread of the disease. The tragic conclusion one reaches reading AIDS Sutra is that India is headed the way of East Africa of ten years ago and risks allowing AIDS to reach pandemic proportions.

AIDS Sutra can be purchased directly from Random House Canada or an online retailer like Amazon Canada and in India from Ramdom House India.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:32 PM | Permalink

You have to wonder at some people's stamina, sticking with being pop musicians for over forty years. I'm not talking about folk like Mick and Keith either who have been stars for longer then most of you reading this will have been alive, but the guys (and women) who have somehow or other managed to make their livings in popular music since the early sixties. Think about what it must involve to do that if you don't have a record contract with a major label that pays the bills. It means you're dependant on the cash you make from any gigs you can scrounge.

After some success in the early 1960's playing the Detroit rock and roll scene with the likes of Bob Seger, some collaborative work with Del Shannon, and bouncing around he industry producing and performing, Fontaine Brown spent five years living what he called the life of a man with no fixed address, playing crappy little clubs and making just enough to get by. There's only so long though that a man can do that, and so he pulled his van over to the side of the road, set up a home studio, and through his industry contacts settled into a comfortable career as a songwriter for the last twenty years supplying the likes of Emmylou Harris, Persy Sledge, Dave Edmunds, and John Mayall with tunes.

Now two hundred songs later Fontaine has stepped back into the studio for the first time in close to thirty years to record his own music. If you couldn't tell by the diversity of the folk who have recorded his songs over the last few years, Tales From The Fence Line is a collection of tunes that ranges from country flavoured pop to some of the raunchiest and low-downiest blues you'll have heard outside of a swamp. Fontaine has been out right to the extreme edges of pop-music, where it's dirty and nasty and bar owners stiff you for a night's work, what he calls "the Fence Line", but instead of becoming bitter and resentful over lack of success like others might have, it seems to have only made his love for the music he plays stronger.

Some performers who spend their lives doing a little of this and a little of that end up being only mildly proficient in a variety of styles; basically only good enough to satisfy the not so discerning audiences of drunks they play for in bars. Judging by the evidence presented on Tales From The Fence Line that's not the case with Fontaine Brown. It doesn't seem to matter what style of song he's singing or playing, he's not only as comfortable playing it as someone whose dedicated their whole career to that genre, he writes tunes that reflect its best aspects.

The first thing you notice upon listening to Tales From The Fence Line is how seamless the disc fits together. You'd think that a recording make up of a mixture of genres would sound pretty disjointed, but Brown and his producers, Don Dixon and Daniel Bourgoise, have arranged the twelve songs in such a way as to create the flow that you don't normally find on recordings. The songs don't have anything to do with each other, there's no "theme" tying them together, yet they fit together just like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

The opening track is an ear grabbing, blues/rock song, "Ain't No Brakeman". Complete with raunchy, fuzzed out lead guitar, harmonica solo, catchy chorus, and slow break in the middle of the song, it's a classic rock song that could have been written anytime between 1969 and 1975. From there they go into the mandolin drive title song from the disc, "Fence Line". While anybody could have penned the opening song, this one could only have come from the heart of a man whose spent as long wandering in the wilderness of popular music as Brown has. There are echoes of John Fogarty in his vocals, but the song is uniquely his own, as it sums up a great deal of the desperation he must have felt while sweating up on stage in some nameless bar in front of empty chairs.

Musically the song is also far more interesting than your standard blues/rock song as they do things like have the drums and guitar playing on each other's off beat to create a strange syncopation for the mandolin to run across. There's something about the song that it sent shivers up my spine the first time I listened to it. Somehow or other the music manages to capture the desperation of the lyrics in a way that most songs aren't able to accomplish. This is not a pleasant song to listen to, not because it sounds bad, but because it's never easy to listen to something this truthful and emotionally raw.

Fontaine gives you a bit of break for the next four tracks as he does a sort of tribute to the various styles of music you can tell have influenced him the most. "Detroit Saturday" is the sounds of Detroit rock and roll; "Closer To The Flame" is a soul influenced pop song that shows his affinity for Motown; from it's organ driven opening to it's chorus "Love Come Rescue Me" sounds like it could have been a hit for Marvin Gaye or even Otis Redding; and "Southside Story" is Chicago blues - electric and scorching.

After giving you some steady ground, and making you think he's going to deliver a disc of fairly safe conventional pop songs, he yanks the rug out from under you for the rest of the disc. While each song might contain some element that you can recognize as being blues, or whatever, he pushes the boundaries of the song past what most people would be willing to risk. Take "Pool Of Light" for example, nothing's prepared you for the electric sitar and tabla which gives the song its almost psychedelic flavour.

Most guys who spent their careers playing bars or writing songs for a living end up being fairly conventional, only if from having to spend so many years being concerned with pleasing as many people as possible with their music. Fontaine Brown can play that game as well as anybody and can write a pop song when he wants to. However what makes Tales From The Fence Line a cut above what you're going to hear from most people is his willingness to take chances and experiment. The result is a recording that is continually surprising in its content, and a delight to listen to. Don't feel bad if you've never heard of Fontaine Brown before listening to this disc, but I think you're going to be hearing a lot more of him from now on. After forty some years of working in pop music its about time he got a little recognition and he deserves it for this recording.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:40 AM | Permalink

In the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed, followed by the communist governments in the Eastern Bloc, and Yugoslavia, countries that the majority of us had never heard of before started appearing on maps of the world again for the first time since the beginning of WW Two. Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Slovakia, and Macedonia were just some of the new place names that cartographers had to try and squeeze onto maps of Eastern Europe. While this might have seemed like an upheaval of unsurpassed proportions to some of us, at the other end of the century, from 1900 to the end of WW Two things were just as tumultuous.

In that time a person could literally not move an inch and wake up one morning to find yourself living in a new country. At the onset of WW One parts of what's now present day Poland were part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire. When the end of that war resulted in the dissolution of the Empire, out of its ashes were formed countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and many other Eastern European countries. Those borders didn't last long as the European powers gave Czechoslovakia to Germany without a fight in attempt at appeasing Hitler. The Russian - German pact of 1939 split Poland between them, so when the Germans invaded Poland from the West, the Russians came in from the East for their bit. Of course those was some of the first territories "liberated" by the German armies when they invaded Russia in June of 1941, only to see them revert back to Russian control four years later when the tides of war swam the other way.

For those keeping score that meant if you lived in Eastern Poland between years of 1900 - 1945 you would have had to change your passport five times, if you somehow lived through it.While your chances of survival weren't great no matter who you were, they were reduced dramatically during the period of German rule if you happened to be Jewish. Only with the greatest deal of luck could you have survived the liberation of Poland by the Nazis if you were a Jew.

In Angel Wagenstein's Isaac's Torah, his most recent work translated into English, published by Handsel Books and distributed in Canada by Random House Canada, we follow the life of Isaac Jacob Blumenfeld, one of those "lucky" few to have survived. I'm not normally one for reading "Holocaust fiction" as I call it, books that detail the suffering and horrors of the camps, but the way the book was described made me think this would not be the usual book about this period of history.

Among the Jews of Eastern Europe, long accustomed to poverty and persecution, humour was one of the few reliefs they had from the drudgery of their existence. Aside from jokes that deflected anti-semitic attitudes around them, or deflated the pompous in order to remind people they were all equal in the eyes of God, one of the more popular comic traditions the fool. While this fool is very often an object of ridicule, he is also like the Fool in Tarot decks who, although always of the verge of falling off the cliff manages to somehow never quite topple over the edge. So it is with Isaac Jacob Blumenfeld as he weaves his unsteady way through life.

From a very early age he learns that if you act the fool chances are that not many are going to take you seriously enough to consider you a threat or worry about what you're doing. At various points through-out the story Isaac draws upon this rich vein of Jewish humour to help tell his story. Aside from providing momentary relief from the events that Isaac finds himself helplessly propelled through, these jokes also often serve as moral lessons and parables. They offer a kind o backwards logic that throws the absurdity of a world in chaos into relief that helps you see just how ridiculous life can be.

For example, Mendel was looking to take the train from his home to Moscow and he goes up to the wicket where's he's told the price of a ticket to Moscow will be twenty rubbles. When he tires to bargain and offer fifteen he's told to go away. So, he goes to the back of the line and eventually ends up at the wicket again where he again he offers fifteen rubbles for the twenty rubble ticket, and is again told there will be none of that and to be off with him. So, again he goes to the back of the line, and this time when he gets to the wicket the train to Moscow is pulling out of the station - and he looks into the wicket and says to the clerk, in his most satisfied voice, "Now look, you've missed out on fifteen rubbles".

How ridiculous is Isaac's life? Well he's drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army just in time to for the war to end and comes home to discover that he's now Polish. In 1939 he's drafted into the Polish army to defend his homeland against the German invasion in the West, and just as he and his troop are preparing to head out Russian tanks pull into their village. In June of 1941 when he's drafted into the Russian army to go East to Manchuria to fight off the invading Japanese, the train he's travelling on is bombed by the German airforce as he gets caught in the opening salvo of that invasion.

As he says, it's a good thing they come from a small Jewish town. Russian trains never stop in Jewish villages, so he'd become adept at boarding and disembarking trains through the windows while they are moving. Otherwise he might have been scattered around the wheat field with the rest of the train. As it is, he is now a Jew in German occupied Russia, which isn't exactly the healthiest of circumstances. Lucky for him though he is able to acquire identification papers that recognize him as a Polish national which should keep him safe. However, he has the misfortune to be caught out on the street when three trucks pull up and grab everybody off the street to come and do emergency war work for his new fatherland - and he's shipped off to Germany.

However things don't turn out so bad for him. As a Jew he speaks Yiddish, which is as close to German as you can get without speaking German. So when the labour camp's commandant asks if any of new workers can speak German without sounding too much like an idiot, Isaac volunteers. All is well, until one day a general roll is called and two Gestapo agents come into camp and take every tenth person away in trucks. The hundred men, among whom of course Isaac finds himself, are taken to a prison where they are locked up with other undesirables of the state; Jews, Communists, Gypsies, and even some real criminals. In the middle of the night the guards come into the cell blocks yelling Jews move, and foolishly Isaac responds only to find himself on a train heading for a concentration camp. Which may sound pretty awful, and it is, but he finds out later that the other ninety-nine people he came to the jail with were taken out and shot the next morning.

Like the Fool, Isaac blindly steps off the edges of cliffs and makes it through, yet lest you think this is a light hearted romp through one of the darkest periods of modern history, his wife and children either die in the camps or fighting the Germans. His village's Jewish population, as all the fit men had been sent to fight the Japanese, wasn't even considered worth sending to a concentration camp. They were herded out of their houses one night, lined up at the edge of a ravine, and machine gunned. The ravine was then filled in with gravel and everybody he had known, including his parents and the rest of his family, ended up in that mass grave.

There are no lurid details of conditions in the camps, Isaac says why should he talk about that as others have done so before him and he figures he can spare us and him details, yet still sorrow stalks the pages of this book like few other book. It is a such a human book, full of laughter and love, that the horrors of what's going on as backdrop to the absurdities that Isaac describes are somehow even more disquieting than the most graphic descriptions could ever be. No matter how much we are able to laugh in the face of adversity, no matter that we are able to see how absurd life can be, it doesn't prevent us from tasting the salt of our tears or feeling the bitterness of anguish.

Laughter may take the edge off, and it may indeed be the best medicine, but it can't hide reality. Isaac's Torah doesn't hide reality, if anything it brings it heartbreakingly to life. At the same time though it shows how it is possible to find hope in what many would consider the most hopeless of circumstances. After all, as Isaac says in conclusion, if life was given us to live it, we will live it, there's no other way.

Isaac's Torah can be purchased either directly from Random House Canada or from an on line retailer like Amazon.ca.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:09 AM | Permalink

There was a time when I was under the illusion that when I read a mystery story I stood a fair chance of figuring out "who done it" before the end of the book came about and the author would have his investigator reveal the criminal. I would studiously examine all the clues left at the scene of the murder and pay close attention to the answers supplied by witnesses and potential suspects in the hopes of being able to suss out who the killer was. While my success rate wasn't great I just put that down to my own lack of skill in that area, not any nefarious plot on the part of authors preventing me from discovering who the killer was.

However, after years of reading mystery stories by some of the most accomplished writers of the genre I've come to realize that while I may never be detective material, my inability to solve mysteries in books was completely unrelated to any failings I might have in that area. After numerous fruitless quests involving the re-reading of texts in an effort to spot any clues that I may have missed that pointed to the killer and or his/her motivation, and only rarely finding anything substantial, it became obvious that most authors had no intention of letting you figure out who the culprit was.

If that's the case, than what's the point in reading a mystery novel? While its true that with some of the older writers like Agatha Chrisitie there were occasions where it was possible for a reader to uncover the culprit, at least fifty percent of the time it was a matter of sitting back and letting ourselves be impressed by the skills of one of her favourite investigators. It wasn't just the late Dame Agatha whose works were along those lines either; how many of you can actually claim to have picked up on the clues that Sherlock Holmes utilized in unravelling the mysteries set forth by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

Is it any wonder that mystery stories were for such a long time relegated to a lower class of fiction. It wasn't until the appearance of writers like P.D.James, Jean Le Carre, and others that mystery and suspense stories began to be taken seriously. While a mystery to be solved still remained at the heart of the matter, the whole genre came in for a serious shake up as the authors began to delve deeply into the psyches of their characters and create plots that were just as interested in life as they were murder and mayhem. Reginald Hill has been one of the more prolific of the new breed of mystery story writers, but as his latest release from Random House Canada, A Cure For All Diseases, shows this hasn't affected his ability to create highly intriguing reads.

Like a great many of his contemporaries part of Hill's success has been his ability to create lead characters that have captured reader's imaginations. Superintendent Andy Dalziel and Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Peter Pascoe head a cast of police officers, their significant others, and a variety of local colour, residing in the Yorkshire district of Northern England. As the two lead officers in the Mid-Yorkshire constabulary Criminal Investigation Division (CID) Dalziel (pronounced Deal) and Pascoe have been responsible for solving everything from terrorist attacks to serial killings that have occurred on their patch. After twenty-two novels featuring the same cast of characters you'd think that a certain amount of staleness or predictability might have set in when it comes to plots and character development.

However, with A Cure For All Diseases Hill shows that familiarity does not have to breed contempt, as he takes us on a wonderful ride into the previously uncharted waters of alternative medicines, private convalescent homes, and pig farming. Perhaps only in a world created by Reginald Hill, and occupied by Andy Dalziel, could these three seemingly unrelated subjects come together with such panache, but then again murder, like politics, makes for strange bedfellows. Of course when we last saw Dalziel it looked like his chances of being anybody's bedfellow again were slim as a terrorist bomb had plunked him into a coma for a month.

In an attempt to spare the public health system any further strain upon its limited resources, Dalziel's love interest, animal rights activist "Cap" Marvel, has offered to help cover the cost of sending him to a posh convalescent home by the sea in order to speed his recovery along. Ironically for a town that is trying to establish itself as an epoch centre for healing facilities, Sandytown, where Andy's facility is located, soon finds itself host to that most final cure for all diseases - death in the form of murder.

Lady Daphne Denham, the former Mrs. Hog Hollis, who inherited Hollis's Hams - pigs and all - and her money from her first husband and her title from her second husband, was one of the two movers and shakers behind turning Sandytown into a modern day Mecca of medicinal wonders. Unlike her business partner, Tom Parker, though her motives are less than altruistic, as she's more interested in turning a profit than helping others take a turn for the better. Aside from being known to be tight fisted when it comes to money, it's common knowledge that she keeps her three closest kin on a tight leash through the threat of leaving them out of her will. So when her body turns up done to a turn in a hog roasting machine at an event to celebrate the town's new status as home to the healthy, suspicion soon falls on the three who stand to gain the most monetarily by her death.

However, as DCI Pascoe and his team discover when they wash up on the shores of Sandytown, there's more than three people who had good reason to be glad to see Lady Daphne shuffle off this mortal coil. The American doctor heading Andy's convalescent home who she's blackmailing into marrying her, the acupuncturist whose secret she has threatened to reveal, her first husband's brother who believes she cheated him out of his rightful inheritance, the nurse who is in love with the above mentioned doctor, and even her financial advisor, all have reasons for having had her slow cooked on a spit.

One of the most attractive aspects of Reginald Hill's writing is the seemingly haphazard way in which he allows events to unfold. While at times the book takes on the air of a farce in progress, there is a tension beneath the light hearted tone that ensures we never forget that someone has been murdered. Like his central characters, Dalziel and Pascoe, it is not good to underestimate Hill, and mistake the occasional breeziness of his prose as casualness. Every glance taken, and every word spoken (or written) by his characters reveals something that may or may not be pertinent to the circumstances at hand. Just when you think you are standing on solid ground and coming to grips with what's going on in the story, the rock turns into sand and shifts beneath your feet.

Yet it's not as if we weren't cognizant of all the facts needed to solve the case. Hill's not one of those who springs things on you at the last minute by revealing the butler is really the long lost illegitimate child of the deceased, but he doesn't spoon feed the information to you either. Like his police officers we are given the information through the observations of various characters and he leaves it to us to try and assemble the truth of the matter. Murder is a convoluted and messy business and Hill never lets us forget that for a moment.

As is usual for one of Hill's books A Cure For All Diseases is not just a murder mystery, it is also a study of human nature. It never does to be complacent when reading his books, for even those characters we think we know from reading his previous books still have unplumbed depths to them that yield new insights into what makes them tick. Even beneath the thick skin of the stalwart Andy Dalziel things are percolating that will have you re-accessing your previous thoughts on his character.

Just as there's more to Hill's characters than meets the eye, A Cure For All Diseases hides within its covers more than you'd expect from a murder mystery, which is what makes it special. Yes its a delight to read, but its also thought provoking and strangely moving. Mystery stories today can be a far cry from the old drawing room dramas where the killer is revealed in the last frame, and the genre is far better for it, and reading Reginald Hill is to be reminded just how much better it has become.

A Cure For All Diseases can be purchased either directly from Random House Canada or an on line retailer like Amazon.ca.It's being released in the United States under the title of The Price Of Butcher's Meat and will be available November 4th/08.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:20 AM | Permalink

I've always been very particular when it comes to piano playing, or at least listening to piano players as I couldn't play the thing to save my life. It doesn't matter whether it's a classical, jazz, or pop performance, but it has always taken a very specific type of player for me to able to warm up to the instrument. For some reason there is something about the tone, or the quality of the music, produced by the way its played that will often leave me feeling emotionally cold. It doesn't matter how technically gifted an individual is, it seems to require some sort of extraordinary gift to generate emotional warmth when playing the piano.

Of course it may have to do with how fiendishly difficult an instrument it is to play with any degree of proficiency, and the amount of rigourous training in technique that so many players have to undergo in order to amass the skill set required to do what is needed to even play the damn thing. There is such a focus on learning how that to bring any soul to the proceedings requires more than what some people can accomplish. I think back to the late Glenn Gould, classical piano player, who for the last fifteen years of his life refused to play in public because of his desire to only produce mistake free music. I once saw a documentary on him which showed him in the recording studio adjusting the pitch of individual notes with technology so that they would ring exactly true.

Okay, so Gould was known for his eccentricities, and for being a tad over the top, but it was listening to his playing that encouraged me to keep listening to piano music. You could feel his music, if you'll excuse the pun, strike a chord within. He might have been obsessed with the technical side of playing, but it was only because he cared about the music. It was that caring, his emotional commitment, that you could feel being transmitted every time he sat down at a keyboard and played. Perhaps it's unfair to use genius as a yardstick for measuring other people, but once you find an ideal it becomes impossible to ignore it. I know I'm constantly listening for echoes of that caring every time I listen to a piano player.

That doesn't mean I expect all piano players to sound like Glenn Gould, but I look for characteristics in their playing that remind me of what captured my imagination about his playing all those year ago. I came across Lafayette Gilchrist, while trolling through the Hyena Records web site and something about him caught my attention to pique my interest sufficiently to ask the label to send me out a copy of his most recent release, Soul Progressin'

Am I ever glad that I did, as this guy's playing, either solo or with accompaniment by the amazing band he plays with is some of the most inspired I've heard in ages. Each of the seven tracks on Soul Progressin' have been composed and arranged by Lafayette, which means he's, at the least, indirectly responsible for every note played by every musician on the recording. Therefore, he not only knows what he wants to accomplish with his own playing, he has considered how each part comes together to form a single unit that will accomplish the objective he had in mind when he composed a piece. Seven other players aside from himself (John Dierker tenor saxophone and bass clarinet, Gregory L. Thompkins tenor saxophone, Gabriel Ware alto saxophone, Mike Cerri trumpet, Freddy Dunn trumpet, Anthony "Blue" Jenkins bass, and Nathan Reynolds drums) to think about requires an attention to detail and caring that can't help but a piece's qualities.

My initial impression after listening to the disc for the first time was to be wowed by the diversity of the music on offer. From the first track's, title cut "Soul Progressin'", up beat, near funk groove, the simple elegance of "Uncrowned", a memorial to Andrew Hill, to the strange, almost dissonance, of "Those Frowning Clowns" Gilchrist pushes himself and his band in a number of different directions. Sometimes such mixed bag discs can be hard to handle as they come across as a series of disconnected pieces thrown together without any apparent rhyme or reason. However, that's not the case here, as somehow or other, in spite of the obvious distinctiveness of each song, they flow together as if they were individual parts of one song.

I don't think there is a deliberate attempt at "theme", or anything of that sort, that allows the songs to flow like I described, more it's the overall distinctiveness of Lafayette Gilchrist's character that comes through in each song no matter how different each is from another. I deliberately avoided using the word style above, because, at least to me, that implies something superficial, which is definitely not the case with this music. There's a swagger and self assurance to the tracks on this disc that verges on cocky, but they are rescued from arrogance by the music's obvious sincerity and concern with matters beyond itself.

Take the final track on the disc, "Many Exits No Doors" which Lafayette notes is an expression of trying to escape the frustration at modern life, before adding this tag-line: "Time to re-evaluate, but wait no time. Time's up." If you're feeling at all anxious you might not want to listen to this song until you've had a chance to relax, as it manages to convey the pressure of not having enough time and could induce a panic attack on those susceptible to them its so real. Unlike some pieces which have attempted this that begin slowly and build up gradually, "Many Exits No Door" starts high tempo, and builds to a feverish pitch that is then sustained until it finally collapses under its own weight. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I've had days where I've woken up with my pulse already racing and that don't end until I collapse from nervous exhaustion. I swear this song is the soundtrack to one of those days.

Now as you can imagine Mr. Gilchrist has obviously put a lot of himself into not only the compositions, but the arrangements. If you can, think about bringing that same amount of focus and passion to playing an instrument and you'll have some idea of what his piano sounds like. He has a talent for being able to use the piano as a percussion instrument one moment and the next be playing a beautifully melodic lead. He also has a wonderful economy to his playing, and is able to express with a few notes what it might take others a keyboard's worth to accomplish. This serves him in great stead when others are playing leads and he inserts little accents or counterpoints into the flow which say a great deal without interrupting or distracting from the lead's performance.

Soul Progressin' is one of the best jazz discs I've heard this year, and any other year for that matter. I'm sure there will be plenty our there who disagree with me and that's cool, but I haven't heard music as soulful, eloquent, and passionate as this in a long time. A lot of times jazz seems to be cut off from the world around it, existing in some sort of bubble, but not this music. Lafayette Gilchrist's compositions are definitely of this world, and you hear it in every note he plays.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:10 AM | Permalink

There's nothing quite like a hero is there, those great defenders of virtue and so forth. Steely eyed in battle, firm of sinew, and pure of heart, they've strode through the world's literature before we even had writing. Whether it was Homer spinning his tales around the fire side for his fellow Greeks or Valmiki reciting verse after verse in praise of Rama for future generations of Indians to recite hasn't mattered. Heroes puff up our vision of ourselves as a people as they are the epitomes of all that we hold to be virtuous. In the same token they are useful for propagating a specific way of being and establishing and enforcing the character traits that a society considers attractive.

However where would the hero be without his scribe? Would we have even heard of Achilles and his buddies' attempt to take Troy if it weren't for Homer? When the Vikings used to set out upon their raids into foreign waters they were always accompanied by at least one poet or bard who could recreate the heroic deeds carried out by his countrymen as they raped, pillaged, and looted their way through coastal Europe and the British Isles. What was the good of performing deeds of great valour if they weren't going to be properly appreciated after all? Yet haven't you ever wondered about the relationship between scribe and hero? There's something almost symbiotic about it, as they each depend upon the other for ensuring their places in the annals of history and the pages of literature.

Its this relationship that is deconstructed in The Vault Of Deeds, a new novella by British author James Barclay, just released by the British independent small press PS Publishing. Barclay first made a name for himself through the publication of the six part series, soon to be seven, covering the exploits of the heroic mercenary company known as The Raven. While he never used the flowery prose of the romantic writers from the late 19th centuries, and his heroes were not necessarily men and women a good son or daughter would take home to meet their parents, the member of the Raven did possess heroic characteristics. Brave, resourceful, somewhat noble, and if not always completely pure of heart and innocent of evil influence, at least their intentions were always for the best as they fought both human and inhuman enemies in defence of their homeland and what they believed to be justice.

So it's only fitting that Barclay has written this farcical satire on the connection between the hero and his scribe, and vice-versa. Something is going terribly wrong in the blessed kingdom of Goedterre. One after another all the great heroes are being defeated in battle by the forces of evil. Helpless scribes are forced to sit idly by while, instead of recording their hero's eloquent words as they vanquish another demon from the pits of hell to the abyss, they watch them cut down in mid sentence. A feeling of unease and disquiet has come over the now unemployed scribes of the best Hero (H.E.R.O. = Hideous Evil Routinely Overcome) school in all the land. Fully forty-seven heroes have suffered consecutive defeats, the worst record since the dark ages.

However of all the currently unemployed scribes only Grincheux is willing to risk his flesh to find out why the best of best are dropping like flies on the fields of battle and the forces of evil are marching virtually unopposed unto their fair land. Unfortunately there is a reason his fellow scribes are hesitant about even beginning to formulate plans for looking into the reason behind all the recent defeats. Any thought that a scribe has that can be construed as pertaining to heroic deeds or adventures is recorded in draft form in the Vault of Deeds in preparation to the scribe adding the finishing touches upon the completion of a campaign. Although scribes are usually considered sacrosanct and are never harmed on the field of battle, accidents have been known to happen. So a process that allows a rough draft that could in theory be finished off by any other scribe was deemed an essential safe guard.

While those in training for heroism are learning essentials like how to swing their battle axe and proper heroic utterance, scribes are taught how to formulate their thoughts to ensure posterity gets the best possible read. As part of that process whenever they begin to think in terms of plot and action, their book in the Vault of Deeds immediately begins to render a draft form for the potential adventure. With the Vault inexplicably off limits to the scribes all of a sudden, there is the real threat that if there is something foul in the state of Goedterre, those behind it can keep an eye on any scribe nosey enough to start poking around simply by seeing what they're writing about.

Already one of their number's book had been brutally closed by his untimely demise, and everyone else is of the firm mind that heroism is best left to those who went to school to become heroes. The trouble is that recent crop of students at the hero school just aren't what anybody under most circumstances would ever consider hero material. So it comes down to Grincheux and his newly assigned hero(ine), Cassandra the Swiftblade, to take the afternoon before committing to the field of battle to nose around the school to see if they can uncover what's gone wrong. What they discover is even more base a betrayal than either could have believed possible. In the catacombs beneath the school a pit has appeared in which the forces of evil are being taught the secrets of Heroism and how to defeat the champions of good in battle.

While I've always enjoyed Barclay's work prior to this, nothing in any of his earlier works had indicated he had such a flair for the ridiculous. He has done a brilliant job of standing the whole hero genre on its head using elements of farce and satire to make his point. While some of the humour is as broad as a barn door - the extravagant language has to be seen and read to be believed, at other time he hones his wit to a point that cuts deeper than any weapons wielded by fiend and hero alike. Conventions are manipulated as easily as a child's building blocks revealing just how flimsy the whole notion of a hero really is. For what is a hero anyway if not a construct of the writer, and in this world the heroes are trained to spout the words that heroes always declaim so that their scribes can record it as deathless prose.

It is those very conventions that the minions of evil are able to exploit to ensure the speedy dispatch of the forces of good. In their classes the evil ones are taught that heroes talk too much, and that just before they deliver a killing blow they will always, without exception, deliver a speech describing their great victory so the scribe can record it. By shaming defeat and awaiting their moment the villains are bisecting and dissecting heroes during what should be their moment of triumph - cutting their speeches short by abbreviating their stature.

Unlike other writers who might have tried to stretch the joke too thin by writing a full length novel, Barclay has wisely chosen to stick with a novella, and because of that The Vault Of Deeds never becomes tiresome or just silly. (Although there are wonderful moments of rampant silliness) For anybody who has ever struggled through the turgid writings of the 19th century Romantics, or the florid prose of lessor sword and sorcery writers - this will be a balm for any wounds they might have left upon your literary soul. In the past Barclay has proven his mastery of both sword and sorcery and epic fantasy, he can now add comedy to his list of achievements as a writer. After reading Vault Of Deeds you'll never look upon heroic fantasy in quite the same way again.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:10 AM | Permalink

Being different and an outsider is always difficult. Have you ever been the new kid in a school, the one who starts in the middle of a year after everybody knows each other already and have established their relationships? You end up spending a lot of time observing the other kids trying to figure out how and where you can fit in. Sometimes you try too hard and end up looking even more outlandish and fitting in even less than before you started trying to be "one of the gang", and as a result you become even more ostracized.

Of course if there's anything the least bit odd about you, or your brothers and sisters, that makes it even twice as hard. Even if it's only something as seemingly trivial as wearing your hair the wrong way, having the wrong clothes, or eating the wrong food for lunch you're labelled as the dreaded different. Imagine how bad it would be if you had some real difference like a foreign accent or different skin colour. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, no matter that you think you might be succeeding, you'll just never blend, never be able to fit in with anybody who you try to hang out with.

In Cory Doctorow's, Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town,(available for free download, like all of his books, by following the link,) when we meet Alan he seems to be just like any upwardly mobile young man. He's just bought an old house and spent a lot of time and energy on renovating it to just the way he likes it. While he may seem a tad obsessive about how he goes about sanding the floors, or taking inordinate amount of pride in the fact that he's give the contractor's discount at the building supply place he purchases his materials at, I've known plenty of people who have similar quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Even the fact that he's opened and sold off three businesses isn't too odd. Lots of people are entrepreneurs like that, finding their pleasure in developing an idea and once its a successful going concern feel the need to move onto a new project. However the boarders of the picture you've begun to visualize that is Alan become a little blurred when he starts to make references to his parents. At first you figure he could be talking metaphorically - the son of a mountain could just mean his father was huge, a mountain of a man. Even when he say his mother was a washing machine you can still bring your mind to bear on that by telling your self when he says she kept their clothes clean that it's a reference to her nurturing abilities.

It's when you realize that Alan is talking literally, that his father is an actual mountain and his mother is really a washing machine that you begin to understand how different he really is. He's not just some strange backward guy from Northern Ontario, he's strange even for that part of the world. Of course compared to the rest of his family Alan is pretty normal looking and can usually pass for one of us. After all he's not an island like his one brother, three interconnecting parts like one of those Russian dolls which fit one inside the other like his three youngest brothers, clairvoyant like his brother Billy, or worst of all a psychopathic corpse like his brother Dave.

As the eldest child Alan had always been the one to do everything first, and was the one who tried to integrate the rest of the children, when physically possible into society. He was the one who took them to school and made sure they were fed, he was the one who tried to make the abnormal normal. He even had some success with Bill and the trio of Fredrick, George, and Nathan, but he couldn't do anything about Dave - even before he was dead. He would torture animals as a toddler, and when Alan tried him in kindergarten he started to do the same with children. He was a monster.

Yet Alan is the son of the same mountain and the same washing machine that gave birth to Dave, and the other strange progeny. He's only taught himself to be like those he lives around by observing their behaviour and approximating it as best as he can. Yet he's still different, no matter how hard he tries to pass there is something about the way he does things, his means of interacting with others, that no matter what company he keeps he stands out. His new house is in one of the oldest immigrant neighbourhoods in Toronto Ontario, Kensington Market, which has become a mixture of immigrants, punks, and other folk in need of cheap housing.

Even here among the street kids, punks, and immigrants - those who have either chosen to be different or are different because of circumstances - Alan stands out. Only with Kurt, a thirty something punk who dumpster dives for old computer parts in order to fulfill his dream of making all of Toronto a free wireless Internet network, is he able to build something akin to a friendship. The one other person who he begins to become close to, after a while, is Mimi who lives next door - but then again Mimi has wings growing out of her back so knows what it's like to be different. Every so often she gets her boyfriend to saw them off with a hunting knife before they get too big so she can blend in.

In the midst of Alan helping Kurt establish his dream of a wireless Toronto, and feeling like he is doing something normal and even beneficial for his fellow man, his family shows up on his doorstep to bring his world crashing down upon him. Dave has come back from the dead and is killing off his brothers one by one. First Fredrick, George, and Nathan, and then he starts coming for Alan. Confronted by the obvious differences between himself and even those most of society considers different, Alan wonders who and what he is. Hoping for answers he and Mimi flee Toronto and head up north to visit his father but finds that he has cut himself off from being able to communicate with the mountain anymore.

In Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town Cory Doctorow has written a story about learning to accept yourself for who you are inside a strange hybrid of a story. At one moment you feel like you're in a gothic fantasy/horror novel with a depraved child killing innocence. Yet other times it feels like the world of the mountain can't possibly exist, especially with Alan and Kurt talking about the intricacies of establishing their free, wireless network. Yet Alan's reality is he was sired by a mountain and a washing machine gave birth to him, and until he learns to accept that he won't be happy.

Doctorow is very clever in the way he delivers the fairly rudimentary message that is contained in the story of being true to one's own nature and how detrimental trying to blend can be. Alan and Mimi are different and have been told either directly, or through observation of others, that they are abnormal. It's not good to be different, and they both go to great lengths to disguise who they are from others in a bid for acceptance. Yet all that happens is they both end up hurting themselves, and in Mimi's case putting herself at the mercy of another who uses his knowledge of what she is and his power to make her normal, to control her.

What is especially good about this story is how Doctorow manages to make everything so believable. His descriptions of Alan's home life are so matter of fact, and sound so normal and mundane, that neither the fact that his mother is a washing machine or his brother's oddities seem like a big deal. Like the children before Alan takes them to school for the first time and tries to teach them to be normal, we don't know any different, and as far as we know this might just be normal for here. Throughout the whole novel, no matter which reality he is writing about, Doctorow maintains the same tone to his style. We are the ones who pass judgements and make assumptions about the characters and their various degrees of normalcy.

We are what we make of ourselves and what we are born with, and Doctorow has written a moving and sometimes funny, sometimes frightening story, that brings that point home nicely. We may not be all as lucky as Alan in having a place where we know we fit, but like Alan we can all learn to accept ourselves for who we are and find some peace in that.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:33 AM | Permalink

To most of us the nearest television comes to being live anymore is when they say that a show was shot live in front of a studio audience. Of course that's still not live television, as the actors will still get a chance to re-shoot scenes and the show isn't being broadcast live out over the airwaves as they film it. Yet, hard as it may be to believe that is something that used to happen all the time in television, shows would beam out to audiences un-edited and actors would run the same risks that their cousins in theatre did when it came to forgetting lines or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although there were similarities between live theatre and live television, there were sizeable differences as well. Live television was made to be performed for the camera, while live theatre is made to be played in a large hall with a live audience. If you don't think that makes much of a difference think of what an actor has to do to make himself heard and seen from the fortieth row of the theatre. Then think of putting that same person in front of a camera and having him or her doing the exact same performance - it would look and sound ridiculous. His voice would be far too loud and facial expressions that look normal up on stage to people in an audience would look horribly exaggerated when captured by the television camera.

One of the hardest things to do is to take a live performance of any play and put it on the screen. To do it successfully usually involves re-staging it specifically for the camera instead of for the audience. To actually stage it for both and make it look convincing both on camera and for those in the audience is a very tricky proposition that not only requires particularly skilled actors, but a director skilled in editing camera shots live to ensure you get the right mix of television and theatre. Shooting flat with one camera - just opening the lens so you can see the whole set and all the action taking place on it - makes for both lousy television and lousy theatre - so you'd want to be able to cut back and forth between close-ups of central characters, mid range shots to show the reactions of those in the immediate surroundings, and long range shots to capture the fact that it is indeed taking place on a stage set.

In 1984 NBC TV took the risk of staging a live television broadcast of the one time Broadway hit play Mister Roberts, and now the Acorn Media Group have just released a DVD of that performance. Based on a novel by Thomas Heggen, it was originally staged on Broadway in1948 starring Henry Fonda in the title role of Mister Roberts, a role he latter recreated when it was made into a film in 1955. In the version that was telecast in 1985 the producers returned to the Broadway script to attempt the exceedingly difficult feat of televising a piece of live theatre.

The plot centres around the relationship between officers and crew aboard a cargo ship in the American Navy during the closing months of WW2 in the Pacific Ocean. Lieutenant (Mister) Roberts not only serves as cargo officer, but acts as a buffer between the crew and the ship's ambitious and overbearing Captain. While he is respected and admired by the crew, Mister Roberts chafes at what he considers a useless assignment and is constantly submitting requests to be transferred to a combat ship, which the Captain stamps as not approved assuring they will be ignored by those higher up in the chain of command. According to Navy protocol a ship's Captain can't refuse to pass along an officer's request for transfer, but he can make it impossible for the transfer to be considered by not approving it.

Aside from Lieutenant Roberts and the Captain the ship's officer complement includes Ensign Pulver, a young man who spends as much time as possible asleep and his waking hours trying to avoid coming to the Captain's attention, and Doc, who serves as mentor and confessor figure to the crew, as well as providing essential services like grain alcohol from medical stores for parties. While initially the story line and the behaviour of the crew might feel a little dated, the performances have been so carefully directed that they contribute to creating the atmosphere of the times. What in 1948 would have been realistic behaviour looks and sounds strange to our ears, but in the end it makes the play all the more authentic.

It's one of many intelligent choices the director of the production, Melvin Bernhardt, made. The other was to use only three basic sets to shoot on. The set where the majority of the action takes place is an exterior of the ships fore-deck. This included two levels and a multitude of places for actors to exit and enter from, so that a few actors could create an impression of a ship hard at work merely by appearing and disappearing either up, down, or to the left and right. The other two sets were both interiors, the quarters shared by Roberts and Pulver and the Captain's office. Both of these sets allowed the director to focus our attention squarely on the primary characters and gave him the opportunity to establish the relationships between the ship's officers as well as getting to know them individually.

Of course this type of performance is entirely dependant on the skill of the actors who are entrusted with the lead roles, and in this case none of the four; Robert Hays as Mister Roberts, Kevin Bacon as Ensign Pulver, Howard Hesseman as Doc, and Charles Durning as the Captain, disappoint. Not only do each of them do a convincing job in creating their characters obvious traits, they are also talented enough to make them more than one dimensional. Although Durning is playing what is basically an unsympathetic character, he does manage to make us understand where his attitude comes from. We may not like him any better then we did after but he's not just a bully anymore, there's something deeper and almost more malign at work in his character than just enjoying bossing people around.

In some ways Hays has the most difficult job, as he's playing the straight man to everybody's character around him, but he carries it off by paying close attention to the details that make up his character's personality and the way he treats the crew. Kevin Bacon does an equally excellent job with his performance of Ensign Pulver, as he allows his character's insecurity to come through his brash exterior and does a credible job in showing his development into maturity so that his actions at the end of the play are believable. The biggest surprise though was Hesseman as he showed that not only does he have a wonderful instinct for timing when it comes to comedy, he can put that same gift to use when it comes to more dramatic acting. He is so supremely comfortable on stage and in front of the camera that everything he does is completely believable.

There are a few glitches in the sound and audio on the DVD, but that's to be expected when you're dealing with the digital transfer of old footage and they don't detract from the overall production. One thing is for sure though, you know this was live television, because there is no way that the occasional glimpses of boom microphones you catch in the footage would have been left in otherwise. There aren't many special features, but there is a nice overview of the script's history and the attempts to make a sequel to the movie and a television series in the early 1960's.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by not only the quality of the acting involved but with the over all production itself. The cast and crew have managed to carry off the very difficult task of bringing a stage production to the television screen without sacrificing any of the excitement of a live performance and making full use of the intimacy offered by cameras. Mister Roberts is one of the classics of the post war American stage, and watching this production is probably as good as seeing it live on stage, if not better.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:22 AM | Permalink

While the twentieth century might have been the era which saw technological advances that continue to shape our lives, the nineteenth century was when the socio/political events occurred that made those advances possible. For it was during this era that many of the old ruling families of Europe found their power pulled out from under them, and the continent's map began to take the shape we are familiar with today. Countries which had previously not existed, Germany and Italy, were born when charismatic leaders rode the crest of the nationalist wave that was sweeping Europe.

Along with the political upheavals came social changes as the power base began to shift away from the aristocracy and their inherited wealth in courts across Europe, to a new merchant class who made their money through manufacturing and trade. With their increased wealth came demands for more say in how they were governed which led to a series of reforms across Europe that saw the gradual winnowing away of power from monarchs and into the hands of elected politicians. While it's true in countries like Germany and Russia it would eventually take war and revolution to oust the monarchy, in others the transition was far more painless.

England had already undergone its bloody civil war between parliament and the throne close to two hundred years earlier when Charles the 1st was deposed and beheaded by Oliver Cromwell. Although the monarchy was returned to power after only a short interval, it was with far less influence in the actual governance of the country. By the time the nineteenth century had come around the monarch in England was still considered head of the government, but in name only. So although she was head of a vast empire when she ascended the throne at seventeen, Queen Victoria's word was not law.

This era, specifically the reign of Queen Victoria, is brought to life brilliantly in the Granada television production of Edward The King that has just been released as a four DVD box set by Acorn Media. For, although the series is about the life of Victoria's heir, Edward VII, their stories are irrevocably intertwined and the one can not be told without the other's. The series begins in the year preceding Edward's birth, only a few years into Victoria's reign, and not only follows his life to its conclusion, but provides details of her life with her husband Prince Albert and an overview of the changing face of Europe and the world.

The first four episodes, Volume 1 of this set, deal with Edward's formative years. In an attempt to mould him as a future King of England, Prince Albert devices an educational plan that keeps him working from dawn to dusk and isolates him from the "corrupting" influence of other children. Over the first few episodes a picture develops of a young man who, no matter how hard he tries, will never succeed in pleasing his parents. Unlike his brothers and sisters he is never shown any affection, given any encouragement, or allowed any freedom to do anything that he might enjoy. Naturally when the first opportunity arises for a little independence, when he's a student at Cambridge University, he jumps at the chance and begins an affair with an actress.

His timing couldn't have been worse, because it happens during the middle of the American Civil War and Prince Albert is involved with delicate negotiations to keep England from being drawn into the conflict. Britain needs the cotton trade with the Confederate states for its industry, but also can't afford to alienate the Union states either. Shortly after dealing with his son's affair he contracts typhoid fever and dies. Victoria blames Edward for the death of her beloved husband and for the rest of her life that dominates her relationship with her future son.

As the series progresses through its thirteen parts we see the effect this has on shaping Edward. While Prime Minister after Prime Minister pleads with the Queen to let her son play a more active role in government, she keeps insisting he's not ready to take on any positions of responsibility. At the same time Victoria retreats into virtual seclusion following the death of her husband and refuses to take part in any public functions. When the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, asks Edward and his new wife, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, to make themselves visible by attending parties and functions to remind the people of their monarch's existence, Victoria accuses her son of being frivolous and immature. Victoria also demands that Edward not be allowed to represent the monarch in public as she is the sovereign, not him.

It's no wonder that Edward began a series of extramarital affairs, he had nothing else to do. Even though the series shows that he clearly loved his wife and was devoted to her, it also shows that his mother's refusal to allow him any meaningful employment, and her continual low opinion of him and his character, pushed him to living down to her expectations. Although a part of him knew it was behaviour akin to cutting off his nose to spite his face, he couldn't stop and was involved in scandal after scandal.

Of course no one can live forever, although Victoria sure tries, and after over sixty years as Queen she finally dies and Edward inherits the throne. By then he's already advanced in years, and doesn't have very long a reign so very little of the series actually deals with Edward as King. In spite of this it's a fascinating study of both the time and the people in it. This is the first production of any sort that I've seen where Victoria, wonderfully portrayed by Annette Crosbie, is shown as a young woman, and happy. The first four episodes showing her relationship with her husband, Prince Albert (Robert Hardy) were exceptionally well done as they managed to not only depict their happiness together but show how they developed their low opinion of their eldest son.

While in the first four episodes a variety of younger actors portray Edward, it's Timothy West who portrays him from his early twenties onwards. He does an absolutely masterful job as he is able to bring out the various sides of his character. He is both charming and, contrary to his parents' opinion, very intelligent. We watch as his frustration with his limited role gradually turns him from a loving husband into a philanderer as he continues to look for ways to spend his boundless energy and enthusiasm for life. It doesn't help much that his wife prefers a quiet life, while he desires the adoration of society as consolation for the lack of attention and affection he received from his parents.

In spite of the fact that the original program was televised in the 1970's the sound and picture quality are fine. Special features included with the four discs include an in depth look at Robert Hardy, the actor who portrayed Prince Albert, some of the original introductions to episodes when it was originally televised in the US with Robert McNeal, and a featurette on the life of the real King Edward VII.

Not only is Edward The King an exhaustive history of one of the most important times in the modern era, it is also provides an intimate portrayal of the lives of some of its pre-eminent people. British television has always had a knack for bringing history to life and making the famous real, Edward The King is another shining example of that talent.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:46 PM | Permalink

I was in high school when the first wave of punk rock hit Toronto Ontario in the mid 1970's. A couple of friends had family in England and they had picked up copies of Never Mind The Bollocks by the Sex Pistols and the first Clash album while on vacation and brought them home for us to listen to before they were readily available over here. It took me a bit to warm up to the Pistols, but I was soon hooked. My buddies and I soon took to trolling through the small, alternative record shops in Toronto that sold imports from England, and between us we soon built up a collection of music that you definitely weren't going to hear on the local radio stations.

What really surprised me about a lot of the music these bands were playing was how familiar so much of it sounded. What most of the bands had done was simply returned to basics and stripped the music back to its rawest and most elemental form. Short, two to three minute songs, played fast and furious and fuelled with the energy of youthful rebellion, anger, and the excitement that the music itself generates. The other thing that separated must punks from their immediate predecessors was their attitude of defiance and their easy acceptance of their outsider status. They were a reminder that at one time rock and roll hadn't been acceptable music, and had been the topic of many a sermon from the pulpit for its potential to be the ruination of young people; a path to the devil.

As befitted their outsider status, the punks sang about people and subject matter that went beyond the usual silly fodder of pop music. You weren't going to hear any whining about my girl friend left me for another guy, or I wish I were prettier songs from these folk. They sang, and still sing today, about the people that get left behind and fall through the cracks to be forgotten about by the rest of us. They look at the world and see that not only isn't the emperor wearing any clothes, his throne is made of bones and his palace flesh and blood. The real punks are the ones who express their anger and outrage over the way our society treats people and the world through their music, which is why its hard and mean with lyrics full of so-called obscenities.

So when I first read about All Aboard: A Tribute To Johnny Cash, being released by Anchorless Records on the 21st of October/08, and that it was to feature fifteen tracks performed by various contemporary punk bands and performers, it made perfect sense to me. Who did Johnny spend his life singing about? Prisoners, guys who shot their girlfriends after getting loaded on cocaine and booze, people from the wrong side of the tracks, and the sad state of the world.

Think about the lyrics to his song "Man In Black": " I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down/Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town". He doesn't stop there either as he goes on to say that although we think we're doing good, with all our fancy stuff, we need to be reminded of the ones worse off then us; "Up front there ought to be a Man In Black". Punk rockers have continued that tradition since they first started back in the seventies. They have been the men and women "in black" in spirit and attitude for thirty years now. It didn't come as any surprise to me how easily they identify with Cash's music.

Some people might think that the punks would have a hard time with Johnny's Christianity, but if you look at most of his songs, he talks about Christ and his teachings in a way that few others do. Instead of just blithering selfishly about how Christ saved him, he talks about the Jesus who preached we must love each other and treat everybody with compassion. It's a Christ who doesn't seem to come in up in conversation very often anymore, you know, the guy who said something about ridding yourself of material possessions if you wanted to get into heaven.

If you had any doubts as to how well the punks were going to be able to handle the music of Johnny Cash they're dispelled from the first song as far as I'm concerned. Now I'm not familiar with the punk scene anymore so none of the band's names meant anything to me, but I'd lay odds that all of them captured the true spirit of Johnny's music better than most of today's so called country music singers could. While The Bouncing Souls opened the disc with a great version of "Man In Black", complete with the traditional punk guitar attack, what surprised me most about the disc was how many bands chose to use acoustic guitars for their songs.

Yet even though they went that route there was no way you're going to mistake this for being anything other than a punk album. Energy crackles from each track on this disc like sparks from someone standing on the third rail of a subway line. Even songs like "There You Go" (performed by The Sainte Catherines) become statements of defiance and real anguish. I'd only ever heard insipid covers of that song before and never really liked it, but after hearing these folks do it, I've gained a far better appreciation for the depths of the feeling expressed in it.

While the disc contains versions of some of Cash's classics, "I Walk The Line"(Russ Rankin), "Folsom Prison Blues" (Chon Travis), "Wreck Of The Old '97" (Chuck Ragan), and "Cry, Cry.Cry" (The Flatliners), one of the ones I liked most was one I wasn't familiar with. "Ballad Of A Teenage Queen", performed by The Dresden Dolls and featuring Franz Nicolay, stands out for the way they played it as a nearly straight country song, but added an edge to the vocals and the music that removed any potential for cheap sentimentality the song might have had. Instead it was a genuine expression of a person realizing the hollowness of fame and the importance of having someone who loves you for who you are, not what you are, in your life.

All Aboard: A Tribute To Johnny Cash isn't just a great collection of music either. All the proceeds from the sales of this recording are being donated to Syrentha Savio Endowment (SSE) a non-profit organization that provides financial assistance to underprivileged women who can't afford the cost of fighting breast cancer. Since its inception the SSE has awarded gifts to organizations in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles California that help women in struggling neighbourhoods find the means to fight the disease. Not only does the music reflect the spirit of Johnny Cash, but the disc is taking care of some of those that Johnny wanted to make sure wouldn't be forgotten.

You can pre-order copies of All Aboard: A Tribute To Johnny Cash at the Anchorless Records' web site either as a CD or if you hurry, a special, limited edition, pink vinyl LP. No matter what format you purchase, you're guaranteed receiving fifteen songs (the LP contains a bonus track, an alternate version of Ben Nichols' version of "Delia's Gone") that will have you appreciating the genius of Johnny Cash all over again. Mainstream country music may have tried to co-opt Cash as one of their own, but this recording will remind the world that Johnny walked his own path, one that more of us could stand to follow.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:54 AM | Permalink

It's been slightly over two years since I finished writing my first novel, The Paths Life Takes. Since that day she has sat quietly in various computer hard drives, on CD data discs, on a floppy disc, and even in a cardboard box awaiting shipping to a publisher. She's been very patient waiting to see if I'll ever help fulfill her purpose of having people read her. Not once has she raised a fuss when I've let months go by and not even made an effort to find her a publisher. Even when I've ignored her completely, forgotten her existence entirely, she has continued to wait for me without a word of complaint.

Every so often I might open one of her files and dust off some of the language in an attempt to pretty her up, but my heart isn't really into it, and I think she must some times know it. Yet, she is very understanding and doesn't take it personally, accepting my cowardly behaviour without criticism. For what else but cowardliness can explain my inertia when it comes to seeking out publishers for her more actively? If, as I claim to do, love her so greatly, why am I unable to commit myself to applying to one of the many publishers still out there who look at writings from new writers, if not because I'm afraid of something?

Once in a while I'll make the effort of looking up the submission guidelines for various publishers, and will even go so far as to bookmark the page on their web site where they outline exactly what they want from writers. For a half hour or so I tell myself that I will really do it this time, send off the thirty pages that they want, with the synopsis and covering letter. Yet in the end I don't - there's always some excuse. I don't have the postage to pay for sending off the required number of pages, I'm too busy to write the chapter by chapter breakdown that one publisher requires, or the marketing plan that another requires are three of the most common ones I've used recently.

I don't know what happened, because it never used to be like this with me and her. When I first finished the manuscript I had no trouble motivating myself to do anything required by a publisher - heck I even paid the postage required to send a three hundred page manuscript to India on the chance that Penguin India would be interested in it (no). Even the four rejection letters that I've received by mail and by e-mail were like badges to be displayed in honour as they proved my gallantry under fire, and only made me more determined to win a place for my beloved amongst others of her kind on shelves.

So why than do I now feel such an overwhelming sense of disquiet, a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, whenever I contemplate another publisher's submission page? Why has the strength of my desire dissipated to such an extent that all I end up doing is saying "What's the use"? I went back and read over the first chapter again, and realized I still liked what I had written - so it's not a matter of doubting her quality. I still think she's a good as most of what's on the market, if not better, and don't feel the least bit of embarrassment in saying so either.

Yet still I stall and refuse to do anything about publishing her, so I have to figure that a part of me is afraid, but afraid of what? If I'm honest with myself the fear is that I will be found out as a fraud and somebody will finally say it to my face that I'm not a writer and should seriously consider finding something else to do with my time. That this flies in the face of all the evidence that's been accumulating over the past year or so that says otherwise does little or nothing to console me. Deep seated insecurities quickly overwhelm concrete evidence when left alone to dominate your thoughts in the middle of the night.

So what if the German edition of Rolling Stone published /commissioned me to write a feature article and interview with Willy DeVille last February? Who cares that I've signed a free lance contract with Deutsche Welle to write an article a month for their English language "Qantara.de - Dialogue With The Islamic World" web site? It all sounds very impressive but it means absolutely nothing to the inner demon who whispers in my ear, "Who do you think you're fooling and how long do you expect to continue to get away with it?"

The standard advice that is normally given when dealing with fears like this is that one should face up to them in order to prove them wrong. I can understand the logic behind that as I've done just that in the past with other things that have required a leap of faith, a leap in the dark. The problem in this case is how can I get people to read the book if there is no means available for them to do so? Sending thirty pages to a publisher to have them write back and say its not what we're looking for at this time, or words to that effect, isn't going to tell me whether somebody liked reading my book or why they didn't. What I need is a way of getting people to read the damn thing so that I can face the people who matter - readers of books, but without a publisher how do I do that?

Well I guess the answer would be obvious to most of you, but it had to be pointed out to me. Yesterday I reviewed on these pages the novel Little Brother by Cory Doctorow that I had downloaded for free from his web site. Even though Cory has a publisher, Tor books, and his books are available for sale in book stores and on line, he has free download sites for all his books and encourages people to translate them and distribute copies of them in countries where they're not available for publication.

He cites as his inspiration for doing this somebody saying to him once that his problem is not people pirating his work, but his obscurity. Reading his site, and reading about what he does with his books, inspired me all over again. True I don't have a publisher for my work, but I do have the potential for putting things on the market if people want to buy a hard copy through any of the print on demand options available to writers these days. Why couldn't I do what he's doing and offer copies of The Paths Life Takes as a free download in PDF format at my web site? I could give them the option of also purchasing a copy through Amazon.com, or maybe even making a donation through my PayPal account for the download?

Supposedly I receive around a thousand unique visitors to my Leap In The Dark blog every week, and there must be a few people who read me here at Blogcritics.org. Some of them could be curious enough to download a free copy of a novel I've written, just to check out what I've done. They won't be risking anything, all it will cost them will be the time it takes to read enough of the book to decide whether they like it enough to keep reading it or not. I don't expect everybody to like it, but maybe some of them will, and maybe some of them will like it enough to translate it into other languages for me so it can be made available for other people to read in other countries. The possibilities are endless - heck there's even the chance a publisher will notice me and offer to publish, if not this book, but it's sequel. Heck if this works out it will even give me the motivation to finish writing the sequel.

Look, I know, the reality is that probably very few people will actually download her, what motivation will they have for doing so other than the fact that I'm offering free copies. In all likelihood the fact that I'm offering it for free will turn most people off because they'll think if its free it can't be any good. However, as it stands right now, nobody is reading her, and at least this way somebody might. I've recently opened my own Facebook and My Space pages where I can create download centres and promote the book as well.

What have I got to lose? I'll feel better about myself for having done something, and I'll be facing up to my fears. A writer isn't a writer unless he or she is willing to let people read what they have written. I'm willing to let people read what I've written - now the question remains are people going to be willing to read it? Well, are you? As soon as I figure out how to go about setting up download sites I guess I'll find out.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:21 AM | Permalink

Back in the dark ages of technology, the early 1990s, a friend tried to convince me of the necessity of learning about technology. As he was (and remains to this day) the smartest person I know I didn't dismiss his argument that we needed to understand technology in order to know what the government could do with it to keep tabs on us as complete paranoia. Hell if I had graduated from University it would have been in 1984, so the idea of Big Brother looking over our shoulder wasn't something I ever took lightly.

Still, at the time, I really didn't understand what he was so worried about, not realizing just what technology could do and its potential for surveillance work. Sixteen years later I'm wishing I took him a little more seriously as the world has gradually given itself over to technology, and more and more opportunities exist for monitoring our every move. Information chips on credit cards, GPS systems in cars that track your movements, and CCS Cameras on every corner equipped with gait and face recognition software to pick out individuals in a crowd are only the tip of the iceberg, as its the stuff I know about. It's the stuff I don't know about that worries me now.

In the past decade science fiction writers have had a field day with technology and its applications for surveillance and control. Yet, perhaps because they are so obviously science fiction, or the stories I've read just a little too outlandish, it's been easy to disassociate what they have written from the world we live in and dismiss them as fantasy. That is until I downloaded a copy of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother from the free download page at his Craphound web site

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian science fiction writer and, for lack of a better description, copyright and free technology activist. He's one of the co-editors for Boing, Boing, has worked extensively with groups around the world at freeing up copyright restrictions and creating open source technology, and founded the open source company, OpenCola. It's his belief that by making his work available as downloads it creates the potential for more, not less sales, so all his books are available as free downloads under the Creative Commons Licence. (If you're interested in reading up on this sort of thing in detail Cory has gathered together a collection of essays he's written about it in Content that can be downloaded from his site)

In Little Brother we are introduced to Marcus Yallow, a seventeen year old high school student living in San Francisco. In Marcus' San Francisco the schools have introduced various means of monitoring their students, including handing out free laptops for their school work that monitors their on line behaviour, surveillance systems that use cameras and gait recognition software to monitor their whereabouts, and library books with chips that can be used as homing beacons. Marcus and his friends are able to stay two steps ahead of the system and have figured out work-arounds and hacks for anything the school board can throw at them.

Marcus is pretty much your typical, self-assured, slightly cocky - bordering on arrogant teenager, believing that he can handle anything the grown-up world can throw at him. A terrorist attack that blows up the Bay bridge between San Francisco and Oakland changes all that and his world forever. Caught out in the open when the bomb happens he and three friends at first try to head for shelters like everyone else. Deciding they're better off out in the open, they head out to the street where they try and flag down a cop after discovering one friend has been injured. Unfortunately the first vehicle to stop for them is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who immediately arrest all four of them for being somewhere they're not supposed to be.

Like any other American Marcus assumes he has rights, and demands to see a lawyer and refuses to co-operate with any of their requests for information without one. Which is when he finds out that he doesn't have any rights and the DHS are perfectly prepared to keep him in jail without telling anyone where he is forever if he doesn't co-operate. One night in a jail cell having to piss in his pants because he is handcuffed convinces him that they are serious and he caves in. He and two of his friends are released after four days, but told if they ever tell what happened to them they will disappear forever and that the DHS are watching them. Their injured friend isn't released and nobody is willing to tell them anything about him.

Marcus quickly discovers the whole world has changed and that DHS have instituted monitoring on everything. Once he recovers from his shock at being imprisoned, he makes the decision to fight back. Using his knowledge of technology he believes he'll be able to stay under Homeland Security's radar and organize resistance against them. Using various cracks, hacks, and loopholes in the Internet, and through the distribution of copies of an open source operating system, he establishes an alternative network for those wishing to stay anonymous and untraceable. (All the technology and tricks described in the book exist and are available for anyone to use if they are willing to learn how. In an afterward to the book Doctorow provides articles written by some of the people who developed them.)

At first he thinks he's accomplishing something, and in some ways it's just another computer game to him, but gradually the cat and mouse game he's playing with DHS starts to get dangerous. Not only do his opponents have access to the same technology that he does, and people working for them just as smart if not smarter than him, they have blackmailed teenagers into working for them as undercover spies who are closer to Marcus than he knows. Yet in spite of his constant and real fear of "disappearing" Marcus refuses to run away or cave in. Along the way he learns valuable lessons in what it means to take responsibility for your actions, and the responsibility of leadership. For whether he wants it or not, his online personality becomes a rallying figure for all the people resisting DHS, and people are putting themselves at risk because of his ideas.

Like I said earlier their have been lots of books written about this sort of thing recently, but Little Brother works where they haven't for a couple of reasons. The reality that Doctorow depicts is highly plausible, we only have to read unbiased news reports to verify it. Innocent people have been sent to foreign countries to be tortured, people are locked away in nameless prisons without trial and without being told why they have been arrested, and the atmosphere of fear and mistrust manufactured by governments in order to justify suspending civil liberties is a reality.

Into this very believable world he has dropped some very real people whose behaviour is completely plausible. Marcus and his friends, and the other young people we meet, could very well be any group of young people today. They are tech savvy in a way that people of my generation will never be as they have grown up taking it for granted and accepting it as a part of life, while to us it's still something alien that has to be learned and not to be completely trusted. While they understand some of the risks involved with chat rooms and such (pervs looking to score with young kids etc.) they have a hard time separating their online world and reality. Like Marcus they don't understand the real consequences of what will happen to them if they're caught as that's beyond the scope of their experience. To them it's just one more on line role playing game, but brought to life.

For those of you who have trouble getting your heads around the idea that a bunch of teenagers can be motivated enough to take a stand on issues like civil liberties, Doctorow has the brains to work recent history into the text to establish precedents. It was only as recently as the 1960's when young people were involved with voter registration drives in the South as part of the Civil Rights campaign, or protesting the war in Vietnam. Give people enough motivation and direction and they can be galvanized to action, and Doctorow provides his characters with both making their behaviour believable and realistic.

Little Brother is a well written and intelligent story that will keep you on the edge of your seat no matter what your age. It not only provides its readers with an overview of the technology that's being employed to monitor your behaviour and the means to counteract it, but it does so within a moral and legal framework that can't be argued with. Young and old, this book will help you see the world around you in a new light, and will open your eyes to the reality of our not so brave new world.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:06 AM | Permalink

There are times when it's really obvious that I don't know my way round the Internet very well. I guess I can offer up the excuse that for the first seven years I had access to a personal computer I was using a dial up modem connection which meant on a good day I was operating at about 43kps. For those of you who've never been stuck down there in low speed land what it means is that your options for activities on line are limited. For instance you're not going to watch any streamed video unless you don't mind it stopping every few seconds to buffer as you can't download the information fast enough to play it continuously.

So even though I've been using high speed since the beginning of this year, it's only been recently that I've started shedding the old behaviours and taken to watching clips of concerts that show up on places like You Tube. What I didn't know was that there are sites like Fabchannel where they broadcast entire concerts online. I found out about them when I was trolling through Hyena Records' blog looking to see which, if any, of my reviews of their people they had linked up to, and I came across a link to a concert that one of my new favourite performers, Gryason Capps, had given at the Paradiso Club in Amsterdam.

Grayson Capps had really blown me away the first time I heard any of his music, and continued to do so after I heard his recent release,Rott 'N' Roll. Then in August I had the chance to spend some time with Grayson on the phone for aninterview and that only confirmed all the good opinions I had formed about him from listening to his music. You know how it is, sometimes a person might come across a certain way on record, but then when you talk to them you find out it was only artifice and they aren't anything like what you hoped. Well that's not the case with Grayson Capps, what you hear on the records is pretty much what you get when you talk to him.

The opportunity of seeing even a recording of him performing was too good to pass up, so I decided to check out Fabchannel's offering. It wasn't going to cost anything except some time, and if, like some of the feeds I've seen on other video sites, the sound or the picture quality sucked I could always turn it off without feeling like I'd wasted anything. Well I don't know who these people are over at Fabchannel, but, in this case anyway, the quality of the sound and video was better than many concerts I've seen on DVDs offered for sale. Even when I blew up their embedded player to fit my full screen the picture quality stayed almost as crisp as it was in the smaller version and the sound was crystal clear.

The concert was filmed in May of this year, and in a bit of a surprise was Grayson performing by himself without his band. Over the course of about one hundred and ten minutes Grayson sings twenty-five songs and regales the audience with stories about people he's known and some of the places he's been. Some of his songs tell versions of the stories that's he's just told us, versions that take us inside the story so that instead of being an observer all of a sudden we're sitting in that bar with him and Bobby Long on a Saturday afternoon in Alabama.

Watching Grayson Capps perform is almost like attending an old fashioned revival meeting. He's a commanding presence on stage, and not just because he's a big man but because of the force of his personality. Whether he's telling a story, singing, reciting, or leading the audience in a sing a long, he exudes a life force that has to be seen to be believed. He sings with a voice that sounds like its been carved from the wood of a tree that's been around as long as the Tennessee Mountains he sings about in his song "Arrowhead". Yet for every rough hewn song about some strange and tragic character who has crossed his path,, there's an equal number of songs that express his joy and wonder at the world.

You get the impression watching Grayson that's there's always a great big laugh just waiting to burst out even when he's at his most serious. It's like he can be serious if he has to, and knows there are times when it's important, but there is so much about life to enjoy that he can't hold it in for very long. In the song "A Love Song For Bobby Long" he talks about a character who was a friend of Grayson's dad when he was a kid. At one point he compares Bobby to Zorba, the character played by Anthony Quinn in the movie Zorba The Greek who teaches a young English school teacher how to enjoy life to its fullest. You get the feeling that Grayson received similar lessons and took them to heart as he pours all of himself into all of the songs he performs that evening on stage at the Paradiso.

The set list pretty much covers his entire career as a solo performer, with songs from all three of his recordings, plus a couple of covers including a version of the traditional Scottish ballad "Barbara Allen" and the Tom T. Hall song "Fox On The Run". He alternates between playing an old battered Gibson acoustic, and a wooden resonator for when he switches to playing slide guitar. Interestingly enough he doesn't use a pick-up on either instrument, so he stays seated for most of the concert. However, unlike a lot of folk who stay seated while playing, you never get bored watching Grayson. He's got to be one of the most animated people I've seen. Even when just playing an instrumental on his guitar his whole body is involved, from his toes tapping out the beat to his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as his fingers strum, slap, and pick at the strings or fly over the fret board.

After having listened to a few of Grayson Capps' discs and talking to him on the phone for about an hour or so in August, I'd thought I had begun to get to know a little about him and his music. However, watching him perform, and seeing how the music brings him to life and how he brings life to the music, I realized that to really appreciate Grayson Capps you have to see him. He is such an integral part of his music; his personality, his zest for life, and, most of all, his spirit, that just listening to his songs on the CDs you'll never fully experience him or his music.

Which means if you're like me and live in some small city where the chances of Grayson showing up to give a concert are minimal (people only stop in my town to give concerts because the wheels on their bus fall off while travelling between Toronto and Montreal) your best bet is to find a good recording of him in concert. Thankfully not only is there one available, it's also amazingly enough free. Fabchannel's recording of Grayson Capps live at the Paradiso Club in Amsterdam, is not only free, it's professionally produced and recorded. Not only are the sound and video of excellent quality, the actual camera work is superb as five cameras were used and captured wonderful footage of all aspects of the performance. I guess the only drawback is that you won't be able to burn concerts like this onto a disc of your own to watch on an external machine, as they are broadcast through a flash player like the one embedded into this article.

If you've never had the chance to see Grayson Capps live, and want to, this concert should tide you over until you get the chance to do so in person, it really is the next best thing.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:23 AM | Permalink

Greetings from north of the 49th parallel. As you down there in America are looking more and more like you are about to make a drastic change in your national political landscape in the next presidential election by switching from the arch-conservative to the liberal, we here in the land of igloos and ice-hockey are poised on our own cusp. On October 14th Canadians will head to the polls to choose our next Prime Minister, and there is a chance that we could be electing our first ever really conservative government.

In the past a party that called itself the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada has formed governments, and while they might have been what some people in Canada would have considered fiscally conservative, they have always been far more liberal socially than even the most liberal of Democrats in the United States. It was a Progressive Conservative Prime Minister in the 1960's who instituted our system of universal medicare after all, something that very few politicians of any stripe in the States dare to even talk about let alone implement.

The party calling itself the Conservative Party of Canada under the leadership of Steven Harper won the most seats in our House of Parliament in our last election, but failed to win enough to have the outright majority required to rule uncontested and do whatever they wanted. What they want to do is remake Canada in the image of George Bush's America - somewhere safe for God fearing, white, heterosexual Christians who want to profit at the expense of others. In the two years they've had a minority government they have managed to scrap Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Accord, rescind The Kelowna Accord (legislation that the previous government, the provinces and native leaders had negotiated that would have given native Canadians a chance to dig out from under years of poverty), cut 50 million dollars in funding to the arts, divert funding from HIV/AIDS prevention programs, extend and expand Canada's military mission in Afghanistan against the wishes of the majority of Canadians, increase military spending, and cut funds to social programs for women and children.

Of course there are some things they have failed to do; rescinding the legalization of same sex marriages, instituting legislation that would have given people the right to discriminate against others on the basis of sexuality, and closing North America's only safe injection facility, Insite. In each case it wasn't any of the opposition parties in the House of Commons who prevented them from enacting these pieces of legislation, but the courts upholding the constitution and Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This has led to the familiar conservative call to reform the courts on the grounds they are interfering in the government's ability to rule. While this is a seductive argument, because it has some basis in truth, it is up to the courts to ensure that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is respected and the Constitution is upheld. If any government complains because they aren't allowed to contravene their country's constitution and do what they want, shouldn't one wonder about them instead of wondering about the courts? I would think that we should be grateful that the politicians have someone, or somebody, holding them accountable.

For those of you not familiar with Canada's form of democracy, we are what's called a Constitutional Monarchy, with the Queen of England being our titular head of state represented in Canada by a Governor-General. This is a figure head position with no real power, and the real authority lies in the hands of whoever is Prime Minister. As we have a parliamentary system of government our Prime Minister is the leader of whichever political party elects the most members to sit in parliament during an election.

The country is divided up into electoral districts based on what is supposedly the fairest means of proportional representation possible - but as certain parts of the country have a higher population density than others it doesn't really work out - with each district representing one seat in parliament. If a party wins a clear majority of the seats they are said to have a majority government and can pretty much do as they please for the next four and half to five years when they'll have to call another election.

When no one winds an outright majority, as what happened in the last election, the leader of the party with the most seats in the house forms the government. Under normal circumstances they will try and negotiate a deal with another party with seats that together they form a majority. However after the last election the Liberal party of Canada, who finished second to the Conservatives, were too busy stabbing each other in the back and electing a new leader to risk an election being called, so the Conservatives didn't have to worry about making nice with anyone.

In fact the Conservatives could probably have gone on ruling for quite some time without having to call an election, but they thought they could win a majority government if they called an election now. So claiming that parliament was unworkable, Steven Harper asked the Governor General's permission to dissolve the current parliament and call an election. As I said before, the Governor General is only a figure head and no matter what he or she might think they have to go along with the Prime Minister, so he was allowed to call an election.

It's been a perfect campaign for the Conservatives - boring and tedious. They haven't promised anything, haven't even said what their plans are if elected. Oh they make vague comments like, we're the best party for the economy, or Canada has become more conservative in the last while and the newspapers report them as gospel. Nobody is calling on them to explain how they plan on being the best party for the economy or even asking why anybody should vote for them, and the most recent polls still show them flirting with a majority government.

The good news, for those in opposition, is that the polls are by no means anywhere as near as conclusive as they were earlier in the campaign. Where it once looked like they were a pretty sure bet to form a majority, the other parties are making enough inroads into Conservative support that the chances of that happening are decreasing. Wednesday night, October 1st/08, the leaders of the four national parties, Conservative, Liberal, New Democratic Party, and The Green Party, will face off in a debate over the issues that will go a long way in deciding whether or not Steven Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada form a majority or have to make do with another minority government.

If the other four leaders are able to make the country realize that Steven Harper isn't actually saying anything and wake everybody up enough to notice that he could be on the verge of winning a majority government, there's a good chance it will be enough to prevent it from happening. On the other hand if nobody is able to do anything to wake people up, to make them pay attention to what's going on, to care enough to vote, Steven Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada could very well have a majority government on October 15th.

It would be supremely ironic if on the eve of an historic breakthrough for liberalism in the United States, the election of a black president, Canada, historically the far more liberal country, elects its most conservative government ever.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:55 AM | Permalink