Oh Silent Night: An Agnostic Carroll. Part 2.

OK, so, picking up where I left off...

What I hadn't realized about the traditional (i.e. "Christian") end of the Christmas music spectrum, listening again for, for all intents and purposes, the first time since I've been old enough to know better, was how incredibly complicated what's actually being SAID in the songs is with any eye at all to current affairs, global-culture, international politics, religious wars, etc.

Listen to the lyrics of conventional carols... "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "Oh Holy Night," "What Child is This," etc. etc.... you know, any of the countless that depict the creche or nativity-scene. Imagine what would happen if a child was born into poverty in a Middle-Eastern Gaza village now making such claims, representing, yet not representing, altering, and redefining one sect or another. It gets pretty messy, to say the least.

Maybe it was just because this sudden exposure to these songs directly followed a report from the BBC World Service that dealt with a lot of these sort of issues. Who knows. Either way, it's troubling, to put it mildly.... especially since the ideological struggles so "peacefully" depicted in these songs represent (in the tangible, non-dogma-based world, free from indoctrinated anachronisms) so much very real bloodshed.

What bothered me the most, I think, was thinking about the sort of individuals earnestly singing these songs (probably without paying much attention to the lyrics, to be fair) at the same time spouting political agendas that take a far more simplistic and narrow tack on such issues (ie, the awkward irony of the American "evangelical-ethics" voter who is also in favor of nationalist/ patriotic imperialism... but there are a ton of other examples as well). There's a "choosing sides" element at work in these songs, when placed in a modern context (that dates back problematically to the same time-period that they depict, and even earlier) that makes me deeply uncomfortable. The idea prevalent in all of these songs that this child in the stable "brings peace" seems particularly awkward, considering the actual history that chronologically follows (and, in some cases, results from) his arrival. Apparently the Christian carolers's definition of "peace" is different (and far more sectarian) than mine.

To boil it down, then... These holiday songs offer a caricature-ish depiction of how the people who most violently advocate waging war against impoverished, radical, sectarian Middle-Eastern peoples also happen to WORSHIP an impoverished, radical, sectarian Middle-Easterner.

Anyway, my intention here wasn't to be a holiday downer. I just figured I'd offer my take on a partial answer to the questions I've been hearing more and more every year (and this year it's like an epidemic); Why does no one seem terribly "festive," and why are many of us becoming increasingly irritated by those who are, because the festivity seems out of place or fake? I think this might be part of the answer... our collective world-view is more and more global each year, and both the capitalist- and religious- mythos involved with the elements that make up the "spirit of the season" seem increasingly disingenuous to the real-life complications of the world that we live in.


The "moral," then? Make the holidays that you celebrate your own. Be "festive," in your own way, for yourself and the people that you care about. Any other reason for celebration becomes far too problematic, and might just leave you advocating something that you may not otherwise, opening a can of worms that has too many angles to effectively "celebrate."

Like I said in the first installment, I'm not exactly your average Bah-Humbug type. Here's a photo of how Sara and I got festive on our own terms at the Swords We Swallow Studios in Dover-



And here's a bit of a "Holiday gift" from me to all of you out there in the interwebz. I dropped about 20 minutes of live improvised electronic music to video the other night... I know, I know, it's wicked long... but I was just jamming and experimenting, so wasn't really keeping track of the time. Bear with the length, and enjoy what you can of it. (unfortunately, some of my favorite moments are closer to the end.)


Wolf, Are You Ready?

Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour | MySpace Video

Because some people were asking when I initially shared this elsewhere, here's the rig I was using for this particular jam-



Let's see... there's a customized toy piano, an odd stringed "harp" thing that I made out of a broken door-chime, a toy record player (for this track I was spinning a record called "Songs Children Sing in France"), an iTouch running some synth and sequencer apps, an old radio-shack mixer, a Zoom Rythmtrak 234, a halloween toy for vocal effects, an old electro-voice ceramic mic, a Sure vocal mic, a Macbook Pro running garage-band synth-pads, some Bose speakers and a beat-up Gorilla bass-amp.

Out of curiosity, if I were to put together some sort of a show doing this sort of thing, with a collection of guest-collaborators (most likely somewhere in New England), would anyone come out to see it?

Oh, and if you like this sort of thing, keep your eyes peeled. I definitely hope to drop at least a couple more before classes start again in January... but hope to not be the only one making noise (hint hint... interested collaborators be in touch.)

Confessional of Control, In Fragments.

On NPR, in interview,
Julliane Moore discusses
A character crying at
Forgetting to wind a
Wristwatch in quarantine,
Chaotic dirty mess of
Blindness. The small
Things. The loss of
Personal control. These
Are the things that
Touch us, the inducers of
Emotional panic, as
The larger situation
Rakes on worse and
More severe, we neglect to
Notice, we don’t commence
To feel it until a personal,
Turning, ticking, symbol
Of tiny, systematic
Retained control is
Noticed to have stopped.
The little things. Our
Tenuous grasps on
Tiny fragments of
False control.

I listen to this, as
I drive back from the
Hospital roller-coaster
Bedside of
Watching my namesake
Fade away, to a job where
I haphazardly jot this, where
Every week in the panic of
The weak economy in the first
Industry to be hit they
Forget progressively more
That it’s easier for me to
Find a just as increasingly
Less lucrative job than
It is for them to
Replace me, the increasingly
Fewer competent members
Of their staff. Just before
The actresses interview, a
Report on plans to
Prop up, for the third or
Fourth (at least second
Major) time, an
Economic system that
Was known to
Experts in the field
Centuries ago to
Lack any potential for
Long-term sustainability.
Yet the proposal is to
Dump hundreds of
Billions of the same
False-credit-dollars
Back into it, to
Slightly prolong its
Inevitable and impending
Death and subsequent
Possible reincarnation,
Time-buying transfusions
Ironically administered
To a patient with a
D.N.R. In slow death-beds and
Faulty inflated commerce,
The word “better” should
Be wiped from our
Vocabularies. For it is
Relative to…
What?

The little things. Our
Futile grasps on time
Particles of personal
Control. On the drive back
From a distracting twenty-
Dollar call-in shift the
Cool breeze smacks my
Face from the window as
An enveloping and appropriately
Fall-feeling morose symphonic
Opeth song soothes my
Ears, scorching as a smooth
Flame from my speakers.
My own watch keeps ticking,
As I drive back to wind it,
A winding that I won’t forget
To do, and no foreseeable
Malfunction of machinery
Could cause to stop. The
Little things. Our fragments
Of control. A laptop open
With scribbled notebook
Pages, a loving embrace and
Urge back to my work from
One who understands and
Appreciates my goals. I
Know the time my watch
Keeps, my symbols of the
Fragments of control, to
Keep the bigger picture small,
While focusing an eye always on
The bigger picture, the tiny
Ticking emblems of the
Things that we can control.

Control, the things that touch
Us, make all else “relevant,”
Is “real.” Internalize the watch,
The winding, the ticking,
The goal-structure…
Our tiny particles of…
Control is hope.
Control the control symbol.

Control.


"Skyward Stability; Structure in Stark Shadows and Contrast." 2008

The Politics of an Underwritten Sense of Identity; Three Digits, Four Digits, Four... Dotted Line.

I’m not usually much for
Outwardly “political” poetry,
But…
Some things have been…
Festering… lately that I’ve
Been having an increasingly
Harder time trying to
Ignore.

My attention is short for
Chosen ideologies based on
Personally biased concerns,
Personally motivated, pay-check,
“Real world” based
Partisan decision-making…
Cries and whines of “isms” based
On “because of the ‘system’
My ends won’t meet so it’s
Obviously the ‘system’s’ responsibility
To make them, to even playing-
Fields, tear down the
Institutions that tear us
Down,” or, just as bad, the
“My vote will ensure that
My dollar’s not going to
That,” with no concern for
Broader philosophy or any
Larger concerns than your
Personal take-home pay.

To quote a wise anachronism whose
Name on principle I
Refuse to capitalize,
“Render to Caesar
That which is Caesar’s”
“In {something vague and
Elusive} we trust” printed
In so many different
Words and symbols
On the fronts and backs of
Bills, and “trust” is
Something that you know I’m
Not one terribly quick to do.
These bills belong to a
System that we’ve
Chosen to participate in…
In theory.

Cue the back-beat backing-track
Break-down as I spin you a
Slide-show.
(Mock me in your mind as a
“Wonder Years” monotone for a
Lecture-like moment) Spin of
Reel-to-reel, “START.”

In order for a “Democracy” to
Function as such, based on the
“Will” of the “people” to
“Choose” their own “freedoms,”
The “people” must have the
“Freedom” to “choose” to
Opt out of said otherwise-
Sham of a “democracy.”

But most of us were
Born into this system,
Tagged with codes of
Threes and fours and
Fours to mark our
Places within, our debts to
Jurisdictions inside
Ever closing in, continually
Smaller sets of borders,
To contain us within the
Laws of our “personal” fiscal
Identity.

I must stress here, you
Don’t need to desire to
Exist outside of the system
For that freedom to be
Active and pertinent.
That “freedom,” however, must
Be constantly conscious
In the way that our
“Chosen” institutions “choose”
To conduct themselves,
And the way that we relate
Ourselves {as now in
Shackles} to them.

This is why I refuse
To wave flags intended
To represent false “freedoms.”

This option has failed,
As we find ourselves
Forced, within our sets of
“Obligations” as “responsible
Adults,” to sign our
Names on lines, scribble
Last four digits in boxes to
Underwrite every aspect of our
“Personal” conduct with the
“Insuring” capital of
Corporate conglomerates,
In case something were to
“Happen” to force you to
“Require” services within the
System built up as
Confining walls of bullion
Blocks around us that few
Humans alive could comfortably
Procure without the
Fiscal net you’ve bought and
Signed for, to reaffirm your
“Choice” to operate within
This “optional” system.

In twenty-six years “my”
“Name” has become
Attached to so many
Various forms of
Account numbers that
The fees would rise
Higher than the national
Deficit were I to
“Choose” to try to close them all.

And you wonder why I’ve used
So many alternate names for how I
“Choose” to represent "myself".

I’m not sure if I would
Personally exercise the option to
Opt-out if I had it,
But it’s integrally important to me
That we regain that
Most essential freedom
To actively choose not to sign
Our names and identities as numbers
On another dotted line.

This Smirk Is What I've Worked For; a bit of a warning to aspiring musicians and artists.

I’m vaguely recalling that there was once an individual with a vanity license-plate featuring a reference to a song by a band that I was in. There had, to the best of my recollection, never been an official studio-recording of that song.

I think that it’s a good idea to always bear in mind (particularly for musicians, artists, and public personalities of various sorts) that with a change in time-period, time-zone, or both, these sort of reflections quickly change from accolades and rungs on an imaginary ladder to “success,” into mere anecdotes, tales, and quips fun to tell at parties that part of you is always sincerely doubting that the listener completely believes.

As soon as I hung up conscious attempts at musical “success,” my persona apparently changed from “musician” to “eccentric storyteller” nearly overnight. I feel, in many regards, that both are valid, and are skins that I’m fairly comfortable in. From a critical perspective, I am often immensely pleased that, more often than not, most of my listeners, when I begin to ramble about my experiences, don’t seem to care in the least whether what I’m telling them is true or not. The entertainment-level of the perceiver is fixed prior to any question of the probability of the account is registered.

From a more personal level, however, this can be a bit frustrating. As much as my critical stance involves a disintegration of the separation between fact and fiction and the past assumptions of the “necessity” of trying to define one, in the less academic and quixotic parts of my mind I still find myself categorizing things in more structured terms of “reality.” “These things have actually happened to me,” “I’m making this story up on the fly,” etc; These are boxes to place various anecdotes in, that I still make some effort to get across to people that I’m relating stories to.

As I think about this, and reflect on my current balance of amusement and frustration, my mind can’t help but turn as well to what was running through it back when I was accruing the tales that I now relate to nonchalantly disbelieving listeners. As I said before, these things did, at the time, feel like stepping-stones. These were genuine accomplishments that were (hypothetically) to lead to continually larger and more notable accomplishments. We were climbing the ladders. In fact, at one point or another, I feel that I’ve climbed these ladders in just about every slightly-sideways, not-quite-completely up (but definitely not down) direction that “music” has to offer. And in retrospect, many of the rungs along the way WERE, in fact, quite notable, and emblematic of what other versions of the ladder, at other times in my life, would have been happy to call “success.” My “bragging-rights,” if this was at all the purpose of my story-telling (which it is not), are vivid and diverse. I was legitimately, “truthfully,” and passionately engaged in procuring the next rung as soon as I had leapt over the last, and believed in the validity and purpose of doing so with rarely a flinch.


After my flinches at the climb and its purpose became drastic enough that I felt like I was having a seizure, however, these anecdotes and accolades look very different. For all the work put in, for all the “success” achieved that I (and so many others) believed was worth fighting for, what was truly purchased? What remains in the end?

Stories. Tales. A medium that blurs fact and fiction, and demonstrates that, in a larger scheme, the reasons for making the distinction aren’t terribly compelling or necessary.

The thorn, however, is that the story bears a very different sort of substance and grit if it’s being related as truth, no matter how skilled the constructor of a blatant fiction may be. Therefore, what I gain from my past attempts, earnestness, and success is the irony of being able to tell a compelling tale with the confidence of the legitimate memory that can only truly come from having physical experience with the substance of the story, to more effectively point out that the storyteller’s truthfulness is not, at the end of the day, terribly relevant.

What I have seen with my eyes in the physical aspects of my life (what I will refrain from calling “reality” in admission of the problematic nature of that term) has made possible the confident smirk that plays on my face when I tell you that it pleases me that you don’t care at all whether the license-plate that I speak of was ever actually stamped out of physical metal. In truth, much like all of our past ambitions, it really doesn’t matter. It does, however, shape the way we tell our stories, and that is the largest “success” that we could ever hope to achieve.



In other news, I suddenly realized that, sitting behind a laptop by myself in a crowded pub in Manchester, NH, presenting an out-of-state ID for my drinks, a couple days prior to the first-in-the-nation primary, I am probably assumed to be a young campaign-worker, a traveling politico of some sort, as I gather that everyone else in the room is. I also realize, that if I'm asked, saying "I'm a writer," or even worse, "blogger," doesn't exactly get me off the hook. I can't say that this doesn't amuse me immensely, as it couldn't be farther from the "truth"... but in some ways, it's at the same time as "true" as any other identity I could choose to tout at the moment. So, sure, I'm a traveling politico. My politics and reasons to travel are just a bit skewed from those of the rest of the crowd.