The Answer?

Bebe Rexha & Dolly Parton
(on my current playlist)

Today there's an old conversation playing in my head. 

We were attempting to get to know each other better, and he asked, "what kind of music are you into?" That was a mistake. I'm terrible at small talk. I suspect many people would say, "oh I like almost anything" or "Not jazz" but... music is just too paramount within me for any definitive synopsis. (I've written about my playlist before.) 

I'd compare musical tastes to explaining how one falls in love. How do you articulate those highly personal and abstract and fervid whatabouts? Intangible notions that sometimes trigger love at first sight or maybe bit by bit and then suddenly all at once. For me, music (the arts) is the lifelong love: my first love, a love longer than all the other loves. Lonely (Gen X) kids found love where they could. My early loves were all in books and on the radio and TV. 

Anyway, we had a bit of a meandering conversation; I tried to explain that the music I like is not just about the genre, or performer, or time period—it depends on the songwriting, the personal connection, and the self-expression. It's a relationship. He considered this, and asked one last question, "so, you like Dolly Parton then? I said, "absolutely." Suddenly, we understood each other! It's true: Dolly always has a way of bringing people together.  

Today I'm thinking about 1970s childhood me sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching Dolly perform, feeling connected, and yes, it was love at first sight. (She was like my cousins' dolls.) But it was also her trademark self-deprecating humour, her warm neighbourliness, her sincere optimism and over time, her incredible generosity and humanity. Today, I am also remembering some other members of my childhood TV family: Mork (Robin Williams), and John Candy. Sigh. 

If music is indeed like love, this week our sorry world lost love personified. Nevertheless dear friends, notice (and don't forget) that even after this world-wide collective grief fades, Dolly will always be the answer to many of life's most challenging questions. 

Small?

Irish writers? Extraordinary. 

C.S. Lewis...W.B. Yeats... James Joyce... Oscar Wilde...  Bram Stoker... Claire Keegan... Sinead O'Connor... Bono... Dolores O'Riordan... the Irish Rovers... Hozier...

Although Ireland has a relatively small population (about 5.3 million), the country, per capita, apparently produces the second-highest number of poets, writers, and songwriter-musicians (Iceland is number one). 

Why is this?

Clearly, Ireland has established systems for the arts to thrive, but it also speaks to the way the Irish value and elevate storytelling.

So when I saw this whiskey in Ireland, I chuckled, not entirely surprised by the cheeky name. Who hasn't drowned their tears in alcohol once or twice? But I also thought, oh yes, I know the struggle that is writing and communicating as I write and rewrite a lifetime of words like assembling Lego. Does this connect? What's missing? Is this forming something perceptible? Yet despite the struggle, writers gotta write, hoping to bring something into being—an idea, a release, a light in the dark? For creatives, tears (sad and happy) are inevitable. 

Today those tears continue to fall for another Irish singer-songwriter, Glen Hansard. In one of the many tributes occurring in Ireland and elsewhere, someone expressed his admiration for the artist this way: "he operated at the speed of love." Is there a better legacy (or sentence) than that? Tears indeed. 

Big

We saw this piper along the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. 

Although I did not wear a kilt to my own wedding, when my son was young I used to tell him that he and I will wear kilts to his wedding someday. He's getting married next summer. Hmm. 

The first time I visited Scotland, I tried on a kilt. Absolute blunder. I had no idea how to wrap the fabric, where or how to buckle it, how high to wear it, how to adjust its length.... I soon realized I needed a. my ancestor's confidence and b. some sort of kilt whisperer. Since I have zero experience as an adult male requesting that someone help dress me, there was no kilt-whispering, ha. Maybe my son and I will don Stewart tartan bowties next summer instead?

Bagpipes always give me big feelings. I'm not sure why the tears...perhaps because they made my grandparents emotional? Bagpipes always invite in me a stillness: pay attention. That magical sound gets inside me. Some people say they find bagpipes alarming; I think they're positively arresting. 

One more thing about my love for bagpipes. When she was 20, my daughter moved across Canada (to Montreal) to complete her first degree. Those were more turbulent years in our parent vs young adult relationship. One day, I received an unprompted text from her: "I heard bagpipes and thought of you." Whoa. 

Dear friends...that's even better than bagpipes. 

21/31

Links to 20/31 &
the 31 Vibrant Things Launch Post

A long-ago wedding gift that's been displayed in our home for decades, this is a photo of a lithograph print named "Moonlight" by London-born artist Peter Ellenshaw. Who are the people in the boat? Why are they sailing in the moonlight? What danger are they escaping? 

If you look carefully, my reflection is visible in this photo, inserted and absorbed into this "story." I wasn't sure how to represent today's vibrant thing but then I remembered that Ellenshaw worked in the film industry, specifically for Walt Disney.

No doubt many of us in North America count Disney as formative in introducing us to the movies; many of my generation remember Sundays at 6PM when the Disney theme song invited us to eat our ice-cream in front of the TV and watch Goofy steer that camper around that treacherous mountain yet again or watch wunderkind Jodie Foster (a favourite) escape danger while running circles around the adults.... Sure enough there's a Reddit thread exploring similar memories. These were my early experiences with film-related vibrant things, absorbed in a magic I will always be captivated by and am forever grateful exists for us all to engage with, enjoy, and be inspired by.   

Despite being an introvert, this appreciation for films compelled me to minor in Drama. Dear friends, do not assume studying drama (or any of the arts) is impractical. Those courses truly helped me improve essential life-skills including speaking, listening, presenting, improvising, problem-solving and especially creative-thinking. But I especially loved scene analysis, studying text and subtext, and using it to create the behind-the-scenes props and sets—the stage craft, the art direction. Artists who arrange the locations, the sets, the props, the look, the feel, the identity of a film setting...they're creating a emotional landscape, which results in a kind of art-therapy alchemy and finally this leads me to the magic. 

Film-makers create spaces and characters and ideas fundamental to pondering (even solving) the mysteries of our lives and who we are. Good films are magic, and if you pay attention, that magic is hidden in the details. And those details...details that suspend our disbelief, cause the world to slip away, immerse us, possess us, invite us to become lost and somehow also found within the story. 

It's a trip, isn't it? It's why we love movies. For some, certain genres are especially effective at achieving this alchemy, but today (stay with me), I want to elaborate on this using the horror genre. You see I have a soft spot for horror. Whoa, I just flinched at my soft spot word-choice and so I googled its origin and it has something to do with a baby's fontanel AND NOW my imagination just fused that with the horror genre AND NOW I'm completely freaked out by my own thoughts.... As you may have deduced, it doesn't take much for me to be get absorbed. Sorry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Dear friends, horror movies are particularly powerful at creating vibrant spaces; those dire landscapes are often metaphors for pervasive human struggles. One recent example is the last chapter of Danny Boyle's apocalyptic zombie film saga, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Is it dark, disturbing, even deranged? Yes, but it's also a metaphor for overwhelming grief (personal and collective) and a lantern of hope in the dark emotional landscape we currently live in.

For example, a vibrant thing featured in the film is a record-player and an album that somehow survived a virus-based apocalypse in what was the UK. Do you remember Duran Duran's song, Ordinary World? It's a profound ode to loss, disguised as a 90s pop song and it's oddly perfect for a horror film. Hearing that haunting song played by a lonely man in a bunker surrounded by human bones is a nightmare, but it's also an act of defiant rebellion, an act of human perseverance, and much-needed hope in a world (our world) gone mad. That's magic. And that's what film-makers do. 

If you're interested in contemplating how Ordinary World compliments the horror genre, listen to Joy Williams haunting version, lyrics included:

2/31

Links to 1/31 &
the 31 Vibrant Things
Launch Post

I haven't touched my guitar for years. I guess we broke up. But I still love her. Hmm, that sounded a tad toxic, didn't it? 

I believe every home should have a guitar, or something to entice the musicians. Music is medicine, but in this metaphor I'm definitely not your pharmacist. 

The only song I ever truly learned was my favourite Christmas song: Happy Christmas (War is Over). Years later now, I can't even recall the first chord, but I will always and forever sing that song as loud as I can until, well, war is finally finally over. The world needs more John Lennon. 

Despite multiple attempts to gain competency, let's be honest: all my guitar ever did under my mismanagement was hide my stomach. And yes indeed, that's another reason to love a guitar. Perhaps it was because I never practiced? 

None of this matters though. Why? Dear friends, a guitar is a passport to  cool people. Despite my ineptitude, my conviction for music (and all arts), plus my commitment to providing exposure and encouragement means both my kids became musicians! Insert high-five here. Do you know what it feels like when your son can guitar-pick Tears in Heaven or when your daughter can strum her mandolin and move a crowd with her singing voice or when your oldest granddaughter is taking fiddle lessons?! It's pure heaven. 

Here's my point: you don't have to know how to play the guitar (or the piano or the harmonica or drums or some other musically vibrant thing) to alchemy music into the world. Support musicians and artists and soak in their sounds. And if you insist on mastering it yourself, do what another imposter guitar player once told me: pretend you know what you're doing and just play the chords you love. 

Sounds like a good way to live one's life, doesn't it? 

Drag path

Whether archaic or zeitgeist-y, unfamiliar words or phrases fascinate me. Currently, I'm captivated by the phrase drag path. Apparently, it's also a social media hashtag...so for those who imbibe in that sketchy pastime, perhaps you were already familiar? 

Although I don't know much about this phrase's history, I encountered it thanks to the (fantastic) band Twenty One Pilots who recently released a song bearing this name. Perhaps they coined it? 

If you know anything about me, you know I'm an (overly)enthusiastic learner so experiencing this song, this phrase felt...how to describe...? 

You know when a much-missed friend covers your eyes from behind...like a makeshift blindfold, then suddenly removes them to reveal themselves? Like that...like a sight for sore eyes, but for my ears instead, ha. I didn't know I was missing this phrase (and this song) because I didn't know it existed! It turned me round. And now I see drag path evidence everywhere. Thanks (once again) to music and language, I'm empowered to identify something that once needed many more (failed) words to describe the profound but typically nebulous after-effects of an emotional experience.  

To explain: a drag path is literally the path made during a task, struggle, or conflict—it's a sign, an impression, an earthly scar—somewhat forensic in nature. Metaphorically though? Imagine a grief drag path, or those created by addiction or depression or trauma. And like a drag path through the snow (eventually melted) there's intangible and psychic evidence everywhere. Think about the personal story a series of hidden tattoos might tell. Think about a heart surgery scar. Think about the pandemic's ongoing effects: a drag path of health issues, education gaps, politics, histrionics and loss. Think about the devastating drag paths of this violence and these (endless) wars.

Hardwired to be introspective, I think I've long sensed this idea but I'm grateful to now name it, to recognize it, to help others acknowledge theirs. Sometimes my own drag paths linger like ghostly trails. Heck, much of this blog might be a drag path. 

We've all endured something—or we're currently enduring something. This phrase enables us a lens through which to investigate life's inevitable emotional scarring. Who/what dragged us? Did we drag our own feet? At what moment did we stand on our own two feet again? Others may never know our hidden struggles, but whether the evidence is subtle or not, they leave a wake. What might we learn from the wake? 

The song features a character's intentionally-left evidence, "I dug my heels into the gravel as evidence for you to unravel," touting some type of rescue. One could insert their favourite saviour accordingly, but the song leaves it ambiguous, resisting a single interpretation. Regardless, what I'm more interested in about drag paths is this: they signify BOTH weakness and strength, surrender and resistance, friction and perseverance. In this sense, some are necessary. And sometimes we rescue ourselves. 

Dear friends, contemplate, even examine your drag paths, but remember those struggles also represent survival. Whether it's to signal rescue or pure tenacity, continue digging in your heels.  

Moved

I haven't attended an arena concert since 1991 (Sting), so the Sarah McLachlan concert this past weekend at Edmonton's Rogers Place was...overwhelming, good overwhelming. She performed with the band Tiny Habits; combined they just might be the sad song music therapy epicenter, lol. For a guy who read this book as a beacon to the shadows, let's be honest...all the feels, all at once. 

Things have changed since 1991. Mostly me. This time, sober, conscious, I brought a well functioning (mostly) frontal lobe. But my brain still wanted to play games. The venue? The crowd? Yikes. Massive. This introvert's initial reaction? Fear. And the Dad in me kept waiting for the event safety spiel, lol. But soon I forgot because somehow, Sarah made it feel cozy. 

I have a list of musicians I've longed to experience live: Sarah was third. She's a one-of-a-kind Canadian treasure of a human and her concert did not disappoint. Imagine being a child with hearing loss and becoming a global award-winning performer who used her mastery of sound and voice and language to change the world. (See the Lilith Fair documentary.) 

I had hoped she would perform her cover of Joni Mitchell's song River (Mitchell is the #1 artist on my list). Yet with every hit, old and new—her voice like a weighted blanket—I soon forgot and then she sang a favourite: Ice Cream. 

Years ago I sang this song to my kids at bedtime. If you know it...your love is better than ice cream...better than chocolate...better than anything else that I've tried...that might seem fitting but this song—deceptively simple and upbeat—is also dark, and most importantly, honest...but everyone here knows how to fight...how to cry...it's a long way down to the place where we started from.... That's why I love the song: it juxtaposes exuberant delight with that abrupt anguish inevitable in all our relationships, the mirth and the melancholy. She did not sing her crushing song from Toy Story 2 either, but she did sing a song she wrote about her relationship struggles with her daughter, entitled Gravity. Oh wow. 

While waiting to vacate that massive arena, a stranger asked me what I thought of the concert. Sheepishly, I told her I cried a few times. She nodded and smiled, "you were moved." I'm still moving. 

Dear friends, what's moved you lately? 

Playlist

Is your playlist doing its job?

Playlists are personal. I'm hesitant to even write about mine. People get judgy about song choices. Sigh. I could attempt to explain mine: um, maybe eclectic? Catchy? Genre-bending? Silly? Vapid? Rebellious? Deep? Sad? Yes, all of those. Imagine everything from Joni Mitchell to the Muppets, from Dance to Dolly Parton. Insert shrug emoji here.

My main criteria? An emotional reaction (typically mirth or melancholy).  Bonus criteria? Goosebumps. 

We all know goosebumps: the body releases adrenalin, muscles involuntarily contract and force body hair to stand upright, indentations patterned across the skin. Science says this occurs due to cold, or a reaction to stimuli (fear, attraction, sadness, joy...). Whatever the reason, think about it: our bodies are trying to help us survive. And that's what a playlist can do: enliven us when we're struggling. It's a mental health buoy. 

Science (Daniel J. Levitin) says we humans enjoy a special relationship with music. Unlike other stimuli, it triggers multiple effects in both hemispheres all across our brains including language, emotion, memory, even physiological responses like that overwhelming desire to move “to the beat.” It releases the feel good hormones and affects blood pressure, body temperature, even metabolism. But for what purpose? 

Despite my amateur scientist status, I know the answer; obviously, it's preparing us for that inevitable crucial music-related battle we must all face at some point in our lives: the dance off. Amirite?

I jest, kinda. Music is similar to humour. Music changes channels. Introduce a song to whiny toddlers and suddenly they get their happy on. It's more than humour though. Think about how that song at the funeral pushed open the rusty gate in your heart. 

Alerted by adrenalin, music jolts us from simply existing, shocks us more fully into life, both the joys and the pains. Music speaks truth better than we can: it invokes our deeper feelings, the ones we may not even realize. One amazing song can help us problem-solve, feel less alone; it can provide some new or renewed perspective, it can open a vulnerable conversation, it can heal. Music pushes our buttons and, goosebumped, even our skin can’t hide the transformation.   

What song does the job for you? 

Wordfuse (Wordlers Edition)

source

The world needs more literary ambassadors and the like, people who make us think and think again, people with thoughtful diction, keen word-sense, (wordlers?) people who can shift worldview through wordview, wordly people who specialize in word makeovers. Dare I call them dictionairdressers?

Her song, her carol.

It’s fitting that it’s May. Spring was my Mom’s favourite season. She also liked summer, fall and winter (mostly). She also loved hummingbirds and bees and frogs and water and leaves and soil and seeds and garden corn and veggies and books and Bugs Bunny: “what a maroon!” Her name was Carol.

She had a great name didn’t she? As you know, Carol means “song” or “to sing.” If your life were a song, what would it sound like? What would the lyrics be? Would its patterns rhyme or would random rule? (My Mom lived random.) Would people line dance to it or would they head-bang or would they flash mob or would they hold still, listening carefully waiting for what might come next? What images would bloom from those sounds and from those words in listeners’ minds? Would it inspire? Would it warn? Would it question? Would it shock? Would it soothe? Would we laugh? Would we long to hear it again and again?

My Mom’s song would sound like a ball game and a picnic but only after hard work and perseverance and sweat. Her song would sound like corn stalks in a garden tended dutifully. Her song would be the squeak of her countertop every Saturday morning as she kneaded bread dough. (I often woke to that sound.) Her song could be silent too, like an owl, patient and watching but mostly silent like a page turned and another page and another book and another and one more too. It would be loud sometimes too and there would be laughter and yelling at the TV and the occasional swat given to the occasional boy. And it would sound like coffee brewing and more coffee and cigarettes and debate and politics and some stories and some lies too. There would be a dash of ABBA, maybe some Anne Murray and some fiddle and some guitar and an old country song: “King of the Road.”

But mostly, it’s what you wouldn’t hear in her song: no worry, no complaining, no bitterness, no anger, no rushing. Peaceful. Sometimes, so much so that it seemed distant. Nevertheless, in honour of her song, I urge you today: don’t worry. Yes it will rain, it will snow, it will freeze, the sun will shine, bees will sting but rarely all in one day. So enjoy today. Eat cake. Seed the crops. Plant a garden. Watch the news. Cry if you need to but mostly be calm. Why worry so much? Why rush? Just carry on. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Enjoy today. This, I believe, was my Mom’s song, her carol.

Things one should never outgrow:

Need one too?

mobilizing for a common cause aka drinking beer with your buds and impressing them with the new bagpipe app on your iPhone!

#tomorrownight

"Twelve highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion." ~Scottish proverb

Yearlies

What art awaits?

Inspired by Rude Cactus and his "yearlies," I included more than my favourite reads this year. Why? "Art doesn't have to matter to a lot of people to matter a lot." ~Jeb Dickerson

I always apply the same criteria to art regardless of the medium: sincerity. That difficult-to-explain but easy-to-feel genuineness always affects me. And, for me, some linger.

My favourite 2012 reads:
-Quiet by Susan Cain
-Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon
-Blood Meridian by Cormac MacCarthy
-What it Is by Lynda Barry
-You are Not So Smart by David McRaney

My favourite 2012 movie experiences (I haven't seen many yet):
-Tree of Life
-Being There
-The Grey
-Drive
-Bridesmaids
-Looper (late entry)

My favourite 2012 television experiences:
-Game of Thrones
-American Horror Story

Songs that moved me again and again this year:
-Gold in Them Hills Ron Sexsmith
-U.F.O. Coldplay
-Abide with Me Emeli Sande
-Garden Noah Gundersen
-In My Veins Andrew Belle & Erin McCarley

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

this is what a teen boy's bed looks like in the morning.

#wheredidhesleep?
#hisroomlooksjustasbad
#frick

Things one should never outgrow:

playing in the snow. (Canadian kid Sean Quigley shows us how it's done.)

#justmightdrumupsomeChristmasspirit
#justmightgetmethroughtheweek
#justmightgothrowsomesnowballs
#thanksfortheinspirationshewhoseeks

Likers

     I have a little confession: those screaming girls at concerts scare me. They look like one giant congealed living thing glued together with hairspray, its countless mouths opening and closing, it's camera-flash eyes like high-frequency tics. 

     Yeah. I'm not much of a crowd person. But I do enjoy concerts. Sort-of. I find them curiously engaging like I'm studying them for an anthropology class or something. I know that feeling of mass movement, hopping to the beat, a synergy with friends and strangers, rushing the stage, a throng thronging. I remember Rod Stewart once leaning down and offering his hat to one of those screaming girls who likely still keeps it under glass.

     Despite appreciating those experiences, what I really prefer is the music minus the drama. Unplug it and I will come. I recall that happening twice and those were my favourite concerts ever: the legendary Ray Charles and the one-of-a-kind Buffy St. Marie. Did girls ever scream at those two? 

     Although I may never intentionally attend another concert where screaming is on the playlist, I must confess something else too: I respect those mildly pathetic and scary screaming girls. Why? I guess it’s because I prefer the “likers.”

     I’m sick of haters. Take Justin Bieber for example. Maybe I don’t buy his music and maybe I don’t know why so many girls apparently watch him blow-dry his hair on you tube but I certainly don’t hate him or his music. I’m just bored when people choose people to hate and wear their hatred like a badge that provides them with an identity.

     Sure. Everyone has the right to their preferences. And I'd prefer my likers to be more low key and less pathetic, yet even if it manifests itself in the form of one gullible screaming girl at a time, I must confess that I am pleased whenever there is a little less hatred in the world. 

Weird Word-of-the-Day Wednesday

Lyrical (adjective): characterized by or expressing spontaneous, direct feeling.

    

     Even though most songs contain lyrics, not all songs are lyrical. One of my favourite sayings goes, "music is what feelings sound like." I really do love any genre of music but my number one criteria is this: does the song feel sincere? I guess I long for lyrical lyrics. What are your top five favourite lyrics?

1. "And the landslide brought me down." Stevie Nicks
2. "I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world." Walt Whitman
3. "Lunatic fringe, I know you're out there." Red Rider
4. "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" The Beatles
5. "Manah manah (doo doo dah doo doo) manah manah (doo doo dah doo) manah manah...." The Muppets

Sometimes when she sings....

"Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise."

At the Music Monday celebration at her high school tonight, my 16 year old daughter sang Beatles' classics Blackbird & Yesterday. Her dress was a tad too short. But in all honesty, sometimes when she sings, it's like the sunrise.

#1 Thing I learned:

#1Thing i have learned from my excessively repeated John Mayer IPod playlist:

• "Say what you need to say."

Uh, that's a bit ironic now, isn't it Mr. Mayer?