Gary Barwin's Blog: serif of nottingblog

  

Ventriloquist 1492

The European explorer stood on the bow of the ship, holding a ventriloquist dummy dressed as a sea captain. Together, explorer and dummy looked across the vast ocean at the distant horizon. 

            "Vast," the explorer said. 

            "Distant," the dummy said.

 Two weeks later, the explorer stood on shore with the dummy. Small waves lapped at the explorer's feet. A Taino man was also standing on the sand, holding a ventriloquist dummy dressed as a Taino man.

            "Whatever I say," the explorer's dummy said, "it's really what the explorer is saying."

            "I know," the Taino's dummy said. 

            "He's throwing his voice," the explorer's dummy said. "His soul is in another place, about twelve or eighteen inches to my right."

            "I know that, too," the Taino dummy said. "Wanna kiss?"

            The dummies' wooden lips clacked together as they made mm-mm-mm sounds. 

            It really was the two men making the sounds. It could have been a beautiful moment but their souls were twenty-four or thirty-six inches apart. 

 

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I was asked to speak on the subject of "Jews and Jazz" for our local synagogue. Here's what I said. 

Ah Christmas. Whenever I think of it, I think of sleighbells and glistening children, open fires and chestnut-nosed reindeer. But whenever I think of Christmas, I also think of Jews. Not only the birthday boy over about whom all the fuss is about, but also all those songs. From White Christmas to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It's a cliché to point out that so many Christmas songs were written by Jews. Of course, some of the same songwriters wrote the most famous jazz standards of the age: from The Way You Look Tonight and All the Things You Are to Strange Fruit and Summertime. But since tonight's Torah Portion is Terumah and the theme is "gifts we give from the heart," I'd like to speak about another aspect of Jews and jazz. 

But first I'm going to tell you something else this drash isn't about. Did you know that Louis Armstrong wrote a memoir entitled Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, Louisiana., the Year of 1907? Louis and his mother lived with and worked for the Karnoffskys, a Litvak family. He played a tin horn to attract people to their junk wagon and they helped him buy his first trumpet. It's really moving to hear the young Armstrong empathize with the discrimination this poor white family experienced. He wrote, "I was only seven years old but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for." Armstrong wore a Magen David all his life, partially in recognition of this family and he supposedly could speak quite a bit of Yiddish. De vunderful vorld, nu, maybe it's a bissel gut?

Like much of American culture, from its origin until about 1930, jazz was segregated, and black and white musicians were not allowed to perform together, though they sometimes, invisibly. made recordings. For example, there's an early integrated 78 by Louis Armstrong. 

But it's significant that at the beginning of the swing era, when jazz became a mainstream music for both black and white audiences, it was Jewish bandleaders who first included black musicians in their bands. Benny Goodman who led a hugely popular big band—he was the Taylor Swift of the time—very visibly broke the colour bar by including black musicians, notably at his famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Concert which featured jazz legends such as Lester Young, Count Basie and Johnny Hodges. Even before this, the Jewish big band leader, Mezz Mezzrow attempted to create an integrated orchestra but was stopped Nazi sympathizers.

Perhaps the most powerful expression of Jewish and black solidarity is the iconic song Strange Fruit made famous by jazz singer Billie Holiday's 1938 recording. It was written by Jewish high school teacher, Abel Meeropol. The song is a chilling representation and condemnation of lynching.

These efforts at integration and civil rights prefigure later Jewish efforts such as those of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel who famously joined John Lewis and Martin Luther King in the third Selma to Montgomery march, amongs other actions. 

It is powerful to think of Jews, who weren't really considered "white" for much of the 20th century, using whatever position they had to support and advocate for equality and human rights. These Jews certainly understood racism: the reason that most of them were in North America was because their families emigrated to avoid pogroms and persecutions in Europe. And they first wrote these songs, formed these bands, made these recordings in the 30s as Nazis and other fascists were coming to power in Europe.

 I became a jazz fan since I began listening to the music of John Coltrane at the same time as I began studying for my Bar Mitzvah. When I went to synagogue and heard the chanting of the cantor, I heard echoes of Coltrane’s freeform improvisations. A solo voice keening, birling, undulating. I heard the expression of another kind of identity – what I imagined was an alternative to the four-square harmony of Western culture. 

Coltrane’s Alabama features the plaintive cantillation of Coltrane’s tenor saxophone, not weepy but a single voice in mourning. In Alabama, I heard the deep grief for four young girls murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in a Birmingham church. Coltrane expressing his sorrow and blessing them with this secular prayer. Sanctifying their experience. What felt like “our” experience, even though, I, of course, knew almost nothing of this and came to it as a middle-class white Jewish teenager, fifteen years later in suburban Ottawa. But it revealed something about the world. This was what was important. This was how one responded with courage and a sense of empathy and morality. 

So Jazz for me is deeply embedded with the idea of compassion, empathy, and fellow-feeling. Do Unto Others. This, to me, is a powerful expression of Terumah,"Gifts we give from the heart." Whoever we are, wherever we are, we are all in this together. We give from the heart, not only in material, spiritual and emotional ways, but by understanding "All the Things You Are," all the things We are, understanding our essential and elemental connection to each other. 

And to quote Louis Armstrong—you remember him from It's a Wonderful World, written by two Jews, by the way— he said, With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are good looking and you sing well, too." No, that's the wrong quote, I mean the other Louis quote, “Seems to me it ain't the world that's so bad but what we're doing to it, and all I'm saying is: see what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love, baby - love. That's the secret.”

It's E. Pauline Johnson's birthday today and  I've been invited to read some of her poems at her birthplace, Chiefswood. Since Margaret Avison said that the best response to a poem is another poem, I "translated" a couple by two different proceedures. The version of "The Bird's Lullaby," I took all the words of the poem and made a new one. The version of "The Song My Paddle Sings" I translated through about 10 different languages in Google Translate and then edited. I've posted the original poem and then the translation. 

the birds' lullaby

i

sing to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping
  with shadowy garments, the wilderness through;
all day we have carolled, and now would be sleeping,
  so echo the anthems we warbled to you;
        while we swing, swing,
        and your branches sing,
    and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

ii

sing to us, cedars; the night-wind is sighing,
  is wooing, is pleading, to hear you reply;
and here in your arms we are restfully lying,
  and longing to dream to your soft lullaby;
        while we swing, swing,
        and your branches sing,
    and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

iii

sing to us, cedars; your voice is so lowly,
  your breathing so fragrant, your branches so strong;
our little nest-cradles are swaying so slowly,
  while zephyrs are breathing their slumberous song.
        and we swing, swing,
        while your branches sing,
    and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

 

 .

LULLABY BIRDS

we while is sing

the while to song

sleeping

while we their arms 

to warbled day 

we drowse pleading 

while so strong

and little your birds

our you to all the now would have us

echo wooing through you 

the hear lullaby

zephyrs swaying into wilderness is voice

we here swing we 

dreamy swing

is branches slowly cedars 

so breathing swing

shadowy and your garments,  

branches twilight 

drowse your nest-cradles is

to sing to lowly 

to lullaby sing 

to whispering swing 

to dream i, we, and creeping be

to night-wind dreamy lying are

your whispering we longing 

so drowse your cedars we 

your sing

we your and your and anthems  

to restfully sighing 

are you dreamy swing  

to reply and us to carolled branches 

soft and us slumberous 

us branches and sing

us dreamy sing 

are so with breathing fragrant 

us your whispering

your dreamy sing so 

dreamy cedars your sing to sing

 

The Song My Paddle Sings

West wind, blow from your prairie nest,
Blow from the mountains, blow from the west
The sail is idle, the sailor too;
O! wind of the west, we wait for you.
Blow, blow!
I have wooed you so,

But never a favour you bestow.

You rock your cradle the hills between,
But scorn to notice my white lateen.

I stow the sail, unship the mast:
I wooed you long but my wooing’s past;
My paddle will lull you into rest.
O! drowsy wind of the drowsy west,
Sleep, sleep,

By your mountain steep,

Or down where the prairie grasses sweep!
Now fold in slumber your laggard wings,
For soft is the song my paddle sings.

August is laughing across the sky,
Laughing while paddle, canoe and I,
Drift, drift,
Where the hills uplift
On either side of the current swift.

The river rolls in its rocky bed;
My paddle is plying its way ahead;
Dip, dip,
While the waters flip
In foam as over their breast we slip.

And oh, the river runs swifter now;
The eddies circle about my bow.
Swirl, swirl!
How the ripples curl
In many a dangerous pool awhirl!

And forward far the rapids roar,
Fretting their margin for evermore.
Dash, dash,
With a mighty crash,
They seethe, and boil, and bound, and splash.

Be strong, O paddle! be brave, canoe!
The reckless waves you must plunge into.
Reel, reel.
On your trembling keel,
But never a fear my craft will feel.

We’ve raced the rapid, we’re far ahead!
The river slips through its silent bed.
Sway, sway,
As the bubbles spray
And fall in tinkling tunes away.

And up on the hills against the sky,
A fir tree rocking its lullaby,
Swings, swings,
Its emerald wings,
Swelling the song that my paddle sings.

 

WIND FROM THE WEST     

Wind from the mountain

Wind from the west

The west wind blows and whistles through the grass

We are nothing but bones

 

Wind from the west 

Our life is over

Nothing but bones 

The west wind blows and 

we were not counted

 

West wind, we wait for you

Fold our wings and sleep

There are angry songs

a river flowing over rocks.

a deep river flowing

a deep river flowing fast

 

We sleep beside the river

Rise like unexpected waves

We do not fear 

our power will not be known

 

We left life early 

Now we are far away

The water flows over us

The water flows over our bed

The corn is planted, the corn is harvested.

It wrote this song

this song for us to sing

 

Wind from the mountain

Wind from the west

The west wind blows and whistles through the grass

We are nothing but bones

 

 

 

I don't really know what translation is. It carries one thing to another place that is perhaps the same place after all. Reminds you of it. Or it carries it across a river from one bank to the other; sister places, brothers beside the river. Translation is a tricky mirror. Someone's tongue in another's mouth. 

Here are two texts about translation. The second presents E. Pauline Johnson's The Bird's Lullaby and my "translation" of it. It's a translation by reordering the words, keeping the sound, the tonality, the elements of its world. A kind of antiship of Theseus. The universe is made of the infinite juggling of finite atoms. 

The first is about translation within English. What is it that the world is possibly or impossibly Englishable? 

Let me end with a quote by the just passed Lyn Hejinian:

 Without what can a person function as the sea functions without me?

    *

I am writing this in English because I want to be subversive. It wants to be subversive. Ok, now some parataxis. That means an owl. My insides owl. What is night? It is English. The subject object, the noun verb, the crickets' buzz, the velvet thickness of air. Thick as adjectives between adverbs' fingers. We adverb night when we adjective swim through English air and owls are a premonition of our weaknessless. Subversive because it is a translation from the original English. The original English: paratactic because one velvet thing after another and no one knew what it meant, cut from soil then brought a great distance and lifted into a circle of standing sentences. Arrive at the right time and it aligns with sun. Speaking the known to owl, from knurl to slurry, speaking English to night what isn't Englishable. English like us, grown around a wound.

*

The Birds' Lullaby
E. Pauline Johnson
ising to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping  with shadowy garments, the wilderness through;all day we have carolled, and now would be sleeping,  so echo the anthems we warbled to you;        while we swing, swing,        and your branches sing,    and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.iising to us, cedars; the night-wind is sighing,  is wooing, is pleading, to hear you reply;and here in your arms we are restfully lying,  and longing to dream to your soft lullaby;        while we swing, swing,        and your branches sing,    and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.iiising to us, cedars; your voice is so lowly,  your breathing so fragrant, your branches so strong;our little nest-cradles are swaying so slowly,  while zephyrs are breathing their slumberous song.        and we swing, swing,        while your branches sing,    and we drowse to your dreamy whispering.
 We While is Sing (Bird Lullaby)
we while is singthe while to songsleepingwhile we their arms to warbled day we drowse pleading while so strongand little your birdsour you to all the now would have usecho wooing through you the hear lullabyzephyrs swaying into wilderness is voicewe here swing we dreamy swingis branches slowly cedars so breathing swingshadowy and your garments,  branches twilight drowse your nest-cradles isto sing to lowly to lullaby sing to whispering swing to dream i, we, and creeping beto night-wind dreamy lying areyour whispering we longing so drowse your cedars we your singwe your and your and anthems  to restfully sighing are you dreamy swing  to reply and us to carolled branches soft and us slumberous us branches and singus dreamy sing are so with breathing fragrant us your whisperingyour dreamy sing so dreamy cedars your sing to sing
 

Silence in the comic strip as if only puffs of speech and thought like clouds of breath or actual clouds were hanging in the emptied rooms, the vacant roads, the grass outside the house. There once were people. Or soon will be. There once were the things they said or thought or would say. If there's wind, it's invisible, moving through the panels like a vague presentiment of the end of what—possibility, communication, ink? We say what we cannot say, think the impossible, something edgeless, blurry, the heart, useless, has lost its chambers and so pulls and pushes, sucks and squirts in unrecognizable rhythm, pumps because what else is it to do? A kettle boils for no-one. The sprinkler is on. The difference between everything and nothing is not clear. 

All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly then I become another.
           

       —Mahmoud Darwish

Hanukkah celebrates many things. In its symbol of the miraculous eight-days of light, I like to consider it to represent the survival and wish for hope and the ability to be secure (light, warmth, food) despite perhaps insurmountable odds. To be able to define one's life and community on one's own terms. I also think it celebrates the right, possibility and hope for all communities and all peoples to have the freedom to live, believe and flourish regardless of the challenges of the present.

 *



The lights of Hanukkah which we light at home are for me a symbol that we are the centre of our own light. We are not in the diaspora of another light but our centre is light. We must continue to kindle these lights, to ensure that there is light at the centre of our lives, that there can be light at the centre of others' lives. Our identity, our values, our selves are centred in this light which is an understanding and appreciation of the light at the centre of all living things, human and non-human.

*

One light leads us to a second and the second to the third and so on until the eighth. Rather than being like the repeating lashes of a whip, each day can be a light, a passing of light from one to the other. An illumination of the way forward, an illumination of the past. The light is not only energy and brightness, but clarity and honesty. Where has each day come from and where is it leading? Who is burnt and who is brightened by the flame and how long will it last?

*

Each day we light new candles assuming that eventually we will light them all, for all. Tonight I think about the candles that we have not yet lit. Tonight I think about the candles that perhaps will never be illuminated because we have run out of time or light or else our work has been interrupted or hindered by fear or war or lack of possibility. Tonight, I light these candles thinking of the work of tomorrow when more candles will be kindled, when less candles will remain in darkness.

*

The match lights the shamash candle and the shamash candle lights the other candles, one for each day. We blow out the match and throw it away. If lighting the candles is a metaphor, a creation of light now and a recreation of light then, then I think of the match.

*

On this last day, all candles throughout the world and from the time of our forebears have been illuminated and we take time to celebrate how much light there is. But we imagine the time ahead— an entire year minus eight days—where there will not be these candles, where there will be no light. Except we remember and we look forward. And we make light in other ways, for other reasons for ourselves and for others. And we look to others' lights, look to having these conversations about light, about dark, about when it will be light again.

 

 

PINK TELEPHONE

There were six telephones. There were a hundred telephones. There were fifty-seven telephones. They were all the same telephone, pink and ringing. The woods were filled with telephones and they were ringing. Should I answer? Should I answer one telephone or all of them? These telephones that were made of flesh and that called me. How far can a voice travel? What is the greatest distance between humans? What can be said from so far? What can be whispered from nearby? But who is calling? A tree, the earth, those who have gone, the pizza delivery place confirming the colour of olives? Friend, lover, my grief. Has time itself got on the horn to remind me, or memory, a priest, my mother? What is it to be in a forest ringing? I walk. I sing. I sleep. I remember the phone numbers of my childhood, the imagined numbers of constellations and celebrities, that after you dialed, you heard another world, a veiled world, hissing like the sea.
_________
Delighted that Elee Kraljii Gardiner and I have this piece published in the latest issue of The Goose (edited by Ariel Gordon and Tanis MacDonald.) Elee placed this old pink telephone in various places in the woods near her home in Vancouver and took this haunting photographs. I made the images into the video and added music and text speaking to Elee's images. This is part of an ongoing larger project that we're doing, writing texts together, as well as a variety of real-world and multimedia aspects. Our chapbook (with multimedia) WATCHER  was published by Timglaset Editions (Malmo, Sweden.) We have some exhibitions scheduled as well as other work at large (for example in Miracle Monocle.
________

I've had a discussion with several musicians, artists, & writers about their desire to create work that isn't negative or "ugly," but somehow reframes the discussion while still interrogating or being aware of the issues, the complications. Not to create some kind of soma, but trying to think towards creating a resistant affirmation. Anyone else having these discussions or thoughts?

The story I write explains how the future contains a small box the size that might hold a wedding ring. But inside this box is no ring, instead, a nipple. Perfect red raspberry rising from the pink galaxy of its areola. I do not know if it is the left or right only that it is from one whom I love. Think of the difficult borders of nations. Wind rustling trees, moving through fields, over dunes, has a source just as rivers have a source. I carry this box with me always as a guide, a token, a relic. The sound of the ocean in a shell, but which ocean? 

BREATHE MOSS

 

The dustpan at the end of day here in the motel of escapees. A sniffle, a subcontinent, a plutocrat with superstar characteristics. Long blemishes of grease shine like miniseries. Weather throbs and sunshine appears, warms the skunk's foreparts. A patrolman on an off-day partakes in wink and simulation, then parked cars dissolve. An airship, low above the night table, fills with rivers, accepts me as a discoverer. The bomb and the dead absorb the rampage. Thousands create undulations beneath no shingle. Wait. Grow from the mileage. Breathe in lengthening shanties. Breathe from all sieves. Breathe your own moss. 

________

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