Monday, February 22, 2021

FATA MORGANA: can we believe our eyes?

 


A Fata Morgana (Italian: [ˈfaːta morˈɡaːna]) is an unusual and complex form of superior mirage that is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon. It is the Italian name for the Arthurian sorceress Morgan le Fay, from a belief that these mirages, often seen in the Strait of Messina, were fairy castles in the air or false land created by her witchcraft to lure sailors to their deaths. 




Although the term Fata Morgana is sometimes applied to other, more common kinds of mirages, the true Fata Morgana is different from both an ordinary superior mirage and an inferior mirage.




Fata Morgana mirages significantly distort the object or objects on which they are based, often such that the object is completely unrecognizable.




A Fata Morgana can be seen on land or at sea, in polar regions or in deserts. It can involve almost any kind of distant object, including boats, islands and the coastline.





A Fata Morgana is often rapidly changing. The mirage comprises several inverted (upside down) and erect (right side up) images that are stacked on top of one another. Fata Morgana mirages also show alternating compressed and stretched zones.





BLOGSERVATIONS. I knew something about mirages, but I thought they were those things in the desert, where you see water and palm trees on the horizon and by the time you run to them, they're gone. But the Fata Morgana, named after the sorceress Morgan Le Fay in the Arthurian legend, is something quite else.

I seem to remember, in certain films, seeing something above the water, something weirdly shimmering that kept changing size and shape. It seemed to melt, stretch and reform like a strange liquid. Sometimes you could see through it. These things likely freaked out those sailors of antiquity, just as they freak out people today. Pirate ship? Imminent attack? One can see where they might be mistaken for a UFO.




A boat can suddenly project itself upward so that it appears to hang in the sky, morphing from an elongated shape to a blob to - nothing. The marine mirages make sense - sort of - because of all that reflection on the water. But what about the ones on land?

Wikipedia tells me (and how can Wikipedia be wrong?) that a Fata Morgana can be almost anything: an island, a mountainside, a mountain GOAT if you could get a goat to hang upside-down. But how about whole cities? The photos from China appear to show tall buildings supended above the clouds, leading a lot of people to cry "photoshop!" Then how to explain the video of the same phenomenon? Who could have created that?





All this comes from the Land of the Strange, that country in which I am a cliffdweller or sharecropper or part-time lover. It's all very well to say "it's just a trick of light". Simple physics. Physics is a strange thing, however, and some time I'll post something about the overtone chanting of Tibetan monks, which is, quite literally, a chord coming from one person's throat. The way the sound leaps all over the musical spectrum is downright spooky, and seems impossible.

Do we believe our eyes, and if we don't, what do we rely on? Physics? Upside-down boats (or goats), or castles in the air? And did anyone in that eerie floating city in China happen to look down?




Sunday, February 21, 2021

Johnny Cash - Wanted Man - Live at San Quentin



The best, if not the only, version of this song. Johnny Cash wrote the tune, and Dylan the lyrics (can't you tell?). I had this album in the late '60s and wore the grooves off it, but seeing this video is startling and makes the experience much more real and vivid. Cash had never done any serious time, but he managed to create the impression that he had. His was an outlaw's soul, and these men knew it.

Wanted Man (Bob Dylan)

 


Wanted man in California,
Wanted man in Buffalo
Wanted man in Kansas City,
Wanted man in Ohio

Wanted man in Mississippi,
Wanted man in ol' Cheyenne
Wherever you might look tonight you might see this wanted man

I might be in Colorado,
Or Georgia by the sea
Working for some man who may not know at all who I might be

If you ever see me coming and if you know who I am
Don't you breathe it to nobody 'cause you know I'm on the lam

Wanted man by Lucy Watson,
Wanted man by Jeannie Brown
Wanted man by Nellie Johnson,
Wanted man in this next town

I've had all that I wanted of a lot of things I've had
And a lot more than I needed of some things that turned out bad

I got sidetracked in El Paso,
Stopped to get myself a map
Went the wrong way in Pleura with Juanita on my back


Went to sleep in Shreveport,
Woke up in Abilene
Wonderin' why I'm wanted at some town half way in between

Wanted man in Albuquerque,
Wanted man in Syracuse
Wanted man in Tallahassee,
Wanted man in Baton Rouge

There's somebody set to grab me
Anywhere that I might be
And wherever you might look tonight
You might get a glimpse of me

Wanted man in California,
Wanted man in Buffalo
Wanted man in Kansas City,
Wanted man in Ohio

Wanted man in Mississippi,
Wanted man in ol' Cheyenne

Wherever you might look tonight you might see this wanted man


Saturday, February 20, 2021

Bob Dylan - I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You



I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You


I'm sitting on my terrace, lost in the stars
Listening to the sounds of the sad guitars
Been thinking it all over and I've thought it all through
I've made up my mind to give myself to you

I saw the first fall of snow
I saw the flowers come and go
I don't think that anyone ever has ever knew
I've made up my mind to give myself to you

I'm giving myself to you, I am
From Salt Lake City to Birmingham
From East L.A. to San Antone
I don't think I can bear to live my life alone

My eyes like a shooting star
It looks at nothing here or there, looks at nothing near of far
No one ever told me, it's just something I knew
I've made up my mind to give myself to you


If I had the wings of a snow-white dove
I'd preach the gospel, the gospel of love
A love so real, a love so true
I've made up my mind to give myself to you

Take me out traveling, you're a traveling man
Show me something I don't understand
I'm not what I was, things aren't what they were
I'll go far away from home with her

I've traveled a long road of despair
I've met no other traveler there
Lot of people gone, lot of people I knew
I've made up my mind to give myself to you

Well, my heart's like a river, a river that sings
Just takes me a while to realize things
I've seen the sunrise, I've seen the dawn
I'll lay down beside you when everyone's gone

I've traveled from the mountains to the sea
I hope that the gods go easy with me
I knew you'd say yes, I'm saying it too
I've made up my mind to give myself to you

Friday, February 19, 2021

Wedding of The Painted Doll - 1929


One of my all-time favorite numbers from the early-talkie musicals. The choreography is extremely odd! These dancers lack the grace I see in my three dancing granddaughters. Their "splits" are more like thuds, and those pompoms. . . oh well, this is definitely a period piece. This has just resurfaced on YouTube after disappearing (copyright issues, probably) for several years. 

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

"PLEASE STOP!" History's Worst Singers (an encore)

 


(I rediscovered these recordings a little while ago, then realized I'd already done a post on them. Well, if I can stand to hear them again, so can you!)

There's not much to say about singing like this - not even words to describe it, but I'll try. Most of these are "vanity" recordings, kind of like self-published books, and thus are a whole new definition of awfulness. But at some point, these people must have thought they could sing. Who told them that? Whoever it was should be incarcerated. At very least, there should be a stiff fine.




Ah! Emanuele Bucalo. You may ask - who is he? You will know even less about him after you hear this. But I will say, it's funny. There used to be a Hanna-Barbera duck character named Yakky Doodle, and this is who he reminds me of. Not even as tuneful as Donald Duck.




Sirach Van Bodegraven is another infamously un-famous singer who deserved his reputation. He has a way of blundering through the classics in hell-bent fashion, singing so badly that it's often hard to tell what the hell the song is supposed to be. Here he eviscerates Vesti la Giubba from Pagliacci with true operatic gusto. Or is it gutso?



Encore, encore! To thunderous applause (or is that a thunderstorm? Can't tell, my ears just went blank), Sirach treats us to his inimitable rendition of that other opera standard, Nessun Dorma. This is only marginally worse than listening to those fat adolescent boys in spandex body suits butcher it on America's Got Talent. Note to the audience: LOUD singing isn't GOOD singing.




Now, here we have "The Highest Voice". That is the title of the video, so that is what I am going to call it. It is the highest voice, I suppose, if screeching at the top of your lungs and "sort of" hitting the note counts. I had to read the YouTube description to find out who this was. It's Susie Summers! Sounds like someone from a Gidget movie, or maybe one of those dolls with hair you can pull out of its head so it reaches the floor. Anyway, Susie Summers is singing The Doll Song (appropriate!) by Offenbach, whom I don't believe for a minute wrote it the way she is singing it.




Adele's Laughing Song! But we're not laughing.





Thomas Burns may just be the Michelangelo of bad singing. The piano introduction seems to be preparing us for singing that is romantic and tinged with melancholy, and instead we get a constipated Elmer Fudd. I have heard that Burns was a close friend of that other scion of bad singing, Florence Foster Jenkins (badly portrayed by Meryl Streep, whose performing is now so weighed down by mannerisms that she looks like a candidate for Dr. Nowzardan). Maybe not, though - I think he was just added on to a CD of Jenkins' recordings to pad it out a bit. Florence only recorded a dozen or so arias, or perhaps the others just exploded into bits. When Burns sings, "O, Margarita", though. . . do I even need to finish that sentiment?




I shouldn't include this one, and I feel a little ashamed of myself, but here it is anyway because it is just so horrendous. It's not just bad singing - it's drunk singing, from a soprano who should know better. What's both touching and cringeworthy about it is how the tenor just keeps on valiantly singing, not trying to carry her but just keep his head barely above water. What else can he do - escort her off the stage? Really, someone should have, if only for her own sake. I had to look up her name - she's a well-known singer, when sober, with the incredible handle of Dragana Jugovic del Monaco. Yikes!




Natalie de Andrade. I can't find out anything about her. Obviously she must have performed somewhere, or her puss wouldn't be plastered on this programmy-looking thing. But she is awful. Simply awful. This sounds like a rehearsal, but of what, I can't say.

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Donation guilt: "Go 'way from my door"

 


I have some serious issues with the two people who came to my door on a freezing-cold evening, right at supper hour, and said, "Thanks for coming to the door! We're collecting for UNICEF!" I said, "We don't give at the door", and closed it. But of course, being a good Canadian who had politeness jackhammered into her as a child, I felt "bad" as I went back to my already-getting-cold dinner. But I didn't want to stand there shuffling from foot to foot while they gave their spiel and I fished around for some money to get this transaction over with. 

I think door-to-door donation is a VERY bad idea in this age of widespread fraud, even if charities actually still do it, because I've heard stories that they won't even take your cash now and want your credit card info (! How dumb do they think I am?), or will only sign you up for monthly donations. I'm not against that, in fact we already do it from the security of our PayPal account. Certainly it feels safer than handing your money over to "someone" who says he's from UNICEF. 


It's hard enough to overcome a highly-warranted suspicion about people holding their hands out in the dark, especially when you've been trying to de-stress with your loved ones at the dinner table. But that leads to another question. Since when is this still OK during COVID? How easy is it to stay six feet apart when handing someone a wad of cash?  What are the regulations now, and who has the extra money to spare when businesses are failing all over the place? Yes, I know kids overseas have it even worse, but is it helpful to remind me of that as I stand there wondering if I can even afford to give them anything? 

In addition to all this unpleasantness at dinnertime, I don't honestly want a person I don't know coming to my door unless it is some sort of real emergency. Bill and I recently made a pact: the ONLY business we do at the door now is Girl Guide cookies. (BTW, there used to be someone who came around every year with no affiliation at all, saying he was collecting money to buy milk for homeless mothers. I think it went straight into his pocket. If he comes around again, I'll tell him my daughter is a TV reporter who's doing a story on donation fraud, and watch him skedaddle away from my doorway forever.)

Friday, February 12, 2021

Haunts of violence


Psalm 74

A maskil of Asaph.

O God, why have you rejected us forever?
Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
Remember the nation you purchased long ago,
the people of your inheritance, whom you redeemed—
Mount Zion, where you dwelt.
Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins,
all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary.

Your foes roared in the place where you met with us;
they set up their standards as signs.
They behaved like men wielding axes
to cut through a thicket of trees.
They smashed all the carved paneling
with their axes and hatchets.
They burned your sanctuary to the ground;
they defiled the dwelling place of your Name.
They said in their hearts, “We will crush them completely!”
They burned every place where God was worshiped in the land.

We are given no signs from God;
no prophets are left,
and none of us knows how long this will be.

How long will the enemy mock you, God?
Will the foe revile your name forever?
Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the folds of your garment and destroy them!

But God is my King from long ago;
he brings salvation on the earth.
It was you who split open the sea by your power;
you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.
It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.
It was you who opened up springs and streams;
you dried up the ever-flowing rivers.
The day is yours, and yours also the night;
you established the sun and moon.
It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;
you made both summer and winter.

Remember how the enemy has mocked you, Lord,
how foolish people have reviled your name.
Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;
do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.
Have regard for your covenant,
because haunts of violence fill the dark places of the land.

Do not let the oppressed retreat in disgrace;
may the poor and needy praise your name.
Rise up, O God, and defend your cause;
remember how fools mock you all day long.
Do not ignore the clamor of your adversaries,
the uproar of your enemies, which rises continually.

Thursday, February 11, 2021

With glowing hearts, we see thee rise



My favorite version of our national anthem. Even without words, it expresses so much about what it is to be Canadian - with breathtaking glimpses, lightning edits, a glorious chorus - and even a puck drop at the end! I can't get through this without tears.

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Oh, Sister! Oh, Brother!



Anyone who follows this blog (and, admittedly, that would be mostly me) will notice I come around to certain subjects on a cyclic basis. Having heard and been completely entranced by Bob Dylan's latest album, recorded when he was 79 years old and apparently in yet another flowering of his startling lyric genius, I'm now in a Dylanish, Bobbyish phase once again. 

I have my favorites, but because he has written so many hundreds of songs it's hard to pick just one, or even just a dozen. I became attached to one of his earlier albums, Desire, in part because of the unusual violin stylings of Scarlet Rivera, but largely because of some truly kick-ass songs. It isn't Dylan at his best, but it's a more relaxed and self-revealing Dylan than most, with some memorable and sweetly pining love songs. One More Cup of Coffee stands out for its breathtakingly succinct language: 

Your sister tells the future, like your mother and yourself
You never learned to read and write, there's no books upon your shelf
And your pleasure knows no limits, your voice is like a meadowlark
But your heart is like an ocean, mysterious and dark
One more cup of coffee for the road
One more cup of coffee 'fore I go
To the valley below.


How Dylan can cram an entire biography, not to mention a family history, into a few deft lines is completely beyond me - but that's genius for you. You can't define it, but you know when you are in its presence.

But while wandering around inside this one-of-my-many-favorite Dylan albums, I rediscovered a tender love ballad called Oh, Sister - and remembered that this song led to a famous, if not infamous, musical feud.

It was obvious to anyone who knew the situation that Oh, Sister was written - not for, but AT Joan Baez, expressing some obvious hurt and self-pity for having been "wronged" by someone he felt so close to that they could have been (ick!) brother and sister. Dylan doesn't have a sister, and it's kind of evident by these sentiments. But it's also pretty manipulative stuff, and as usual with Dylan, you kind of have to pull it apart to really get at it.


Oh, Sister       Bob Dylan

Oh, sister, when I come to lie in your arms
You should not treat me like a stranger
Our Father would not like the way that you act
And you must realize the danger

Oh, sister, am I not a brother to you
And one deserving of affection
And is our purpose not the same on this earth
To love and follow his direction

We grew up together
From the cradle to the grave
We died and were reborn
And then mysteriously saved

Oh, sister, when I come to knock on your door
Don't turn away, you'll create sorrow
Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow

Oh, sister - where do we start?  This is a really short song, but as usual, it's packed with megatons of import. The first couple of lines aren't just reproachful: they actually contain the word "should", as if he has the right to dictate how she feels about him. From the erotic reference to lying in her arms (which can also be seen as a mother thing), he quickly segues to "Our Father", as if he's suddenly saying the Lord's Prayer. Dylan's entrenched religiosity can be a real ambush which is difficult to endure right in the middle of a supposed love song.


And as for the line "realize the danger" - of what? Even if we don't go there, we find in the next stanza that he thinks he's "deserving of affection", which she is obviously withholding. He also jumps the gun on not only HIS, but HER purpose here on earth, assuring her (and assuming) that he knows more about it than she does, though it's doubtful he ever asked.

"We grew up together/From the cradle to the grave" - well, it WAS the '60s, wasn't it, and they were in a kind of glamourous blaze of folkie love, but that "cradle to the grave" bit also seems to jump the gun. Not only are they not dead yet, they're still only in their thirties.  And all that died-and-reborn stuff is a little heavy for a love ballad. Dylan is still hiding behind his heavy-handed Christianity - but wait, this was BEFORE all that happened! The symptoms of the disease were already there: self-righteousness mascarading as piety. 

The last verse is deceptively beautiful, but similarly "loaded": if she dares turn him away, she's going to "create sorrow" - not just for him, but for both of them, if not the whole world.  Ahem! "You may not see me tomorrow" sounds almost like a threat. Is he going to die or what? Come on, Bob, make it clear.

The funny and really Dylan-ish thing about this song is that, when you hear him sing it, it sounds sweetly sentimental, full of lyricism and longing, not the piece of subversive abuse that it truly is. Dylan manipulated Baez like a yo-yo for years, jerking the string just as she was getting over him (see the truly incredible Diamonds and Rust, the only song she ever wrote which was a worthy adversary of the Dylan one-two punch).  She STILL isn't over him, if a recent PBS special is any indication - she goes all dewy-eyed and then even apologizes for his cruelty to her, saying she just didn't understand back then what he was all  about. (As if he wasn't busy telling her that, not to mention what SHE was all about.)


But at the time, some time in the '70s, Baez's reaction to Oh, Sister was one of white-hot fury. Dylan had the effrontery to keep his marriage to Sara Lowndes a secret, not just from the whole world but from the woman he supposedly cherished as a soul mate. Baez didn't even know about Sara until she heard Bob was sick, popped in to see him, and his wife, who happened to be a dark-eyed fashion model, opened the door. It was one of the worst betrayals in popular music history, and the song is one long vomit of the toxins his deception created.

I had trouble even posting it here because it seethed and fumed and even spewed vitriol. Because Baez is Baez and unable to cram all this into one line like "you'd know what a drag it is to see you", it goes on for verses and verses. I watch true crime shows, though I probably shouldn't, and when someone is stabbed to death, they are always stabbed 47 times, and it always turns out to be a family member or spouse. It's called "overkill", something that can only be perpetrated by someone with intense feelings for the victim. 

The opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference. Baez takes a lot of verses to purge herself, is as nasty as she knows how to be, and even uses a refrain (take it easy, but take it) that comes directly out of a Woody Guthrie song. 


I do wonder, if Dylan paid any attention to this at the time, how much it affected him. Though I always saw something one-sided in their immortal Darby-and-Joan (or Bonnie and Clyde) connection, Dylan rhapsodized about Baez during an interminable acceptance speech he gave for some award or other a few years ago. Who knows what THAT was about. He talked for half an hour, when it's more normal for him to just take the award and run.

This never gets resolved.

Dylan will turn 80 in a couple of months - yes, eighty freaking years old, and Baez might be there already. Dylan has suddenly hit the jackpot - AGAIN - proving he has more creative lives than a wildcat (bobcat?), and isn't finished with us yet. Are these two extremely old people still attached by some freakish umbilical cord born of history, twins like Castor and Pollux (excuse me, I've been listening to Dylan's latest album and it's chock-a-block with mythology)? Or did they just get thrown together by a simple twist of fate? 


Oh, Brother!        Joan Baez

You've got eyes like Jesus
But you speak with a viper's tongue
We were just sitting around on earth
Where the hell did you come from?
With your lady dressed in deerskin
And an amazing way about her
When are you going to realize
That you just can't live without her?

Take it easy
Take it light
But take it

Your lady gets her power
From the goddess and the stars
You get yours from the trees and the brooks
And a little from life on Mars
And I've known you for a good long while
And would you kindly tell me, mister
How in the name of the Father and the Son
Did I come to be your sister?

Take it easy
Take it light
But take it

You've done dirt to lifelong friends
With little or no excuses
Who endowed you with the crown
To hand out these abuses?
Your lady knows about these things
But they don't put her under
Me, I know about them, too
And I react like thunder

Take it easy
Take it light
But take it

I know you are surrounded
By parasites and sycophants
When I come to see you
I dose up on coagulants
Because when you hurl that bowie knife
It's going to be when my back is turned
Doing some little deed for you
And baby, will I get burned

Take it easy
Take it light
But take it

So little brother when you come
To knock on my door
I don't want to bring you down
But I just went through the floor
My love for you extends through life
And I don't want to waste it
But honey, what you've been dishing out
You'd never want to taste it
And if I had the nerve
To either risk it or to break it
I'd put our friendship on the line
And show you how to take it

Take it easy
Take it light 
But take it

SPECIAL BONUS RECORD. Like those cereal-box records I collected as a kid, I can't help but share the magic of this. It's just one of the songs on Dylan's latest album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, which is among the best he has ever done. Though it might be said the song is about Joan, I think it more likely that it's about his most faithful love: the love of his Saviour, his truest friend always, the Son of Man.




Monday, February 8, 2021

Some day you'll be able to eat this!




There’s an ad that comes on TV during the news (which I still watch to see my daughter the reporter), I can’t remember what the ad is for, and it goes like, “Some day you’ll be able to. . . “ in a sort of syrupy, Hallmark Channel woman’s voice. They then show all the things we can’t do: family gatherings with everyone beaming, public events with crowds, weddings, etc. etc. etc. The purpose of this seems to be to make us all feel better about what we are going through now. 




But to me, negative, antisocial me, it’s like sitting a person down at a banquet table and saying, “Some day you’ll be able to eat this”, not having any idea when that “some day” will come (months? Years?). We are also not supposed to complain about our lot, as others always have it far worse, and besides, people got through World War II and the Spanish flu pandemic, didn’t they? Not to mention the Great Plague of Europe. So. . . we must be chipper, upbeat, watch ads about all the things we can’t do, wonder when we WILL be able to do them, and realize (as I have come to realize) that this culture will never be the same. COVID will likely return cyclically like flu viruses, and keep mutating like flu viruses, so we will need to KEEP getting vaccinated and continue to dread it as it becomes more deadly and the viruses become immune to the vaccines. 




Meantime, the mutations seem to get more communicable all the time. Social isolation is already a pandemic and was a serious problem before all this, and will likely escalate and become a sort of new normal. Rebuilding thousands of sunken businesses will be long, laborious, and sometimes impossible. Online sales/service will become much more standard, so people will seldom need to leave the house. These are the things I see happening and which won’t go away. In some instances it’s an advantage: my son can work from home instead of commuting from Port Coquitlam to Vancouver every day. But I keep thinking extroverts must be going through hell now. And even more disturbing is what this is doing to kids: literally robbing them of some of the more fun and stimulating aspects of childhood. 




Christmas was cancelled last year, and we may well have to cancel it again this year – we can’t count on it, for sure. One year in the life of a young child is FOREVER (if you can remember back to what it was like waiting for Christmas), and they can never get that fun and joy back. And what about that SECOND crop of young adults who will be unable to attend their grad - because, for the second year in a row, grad has been cancelled, along with most of the other rites of passage that help to form their adult identity?

Fortunately, most people I know are introverts who don't crave the party scene, but we still feel the lack of ACTUAL contact, as in being in the same room with someone we love. Zoom calls will soon be seen as a standard substitute, and then, once in a blue moon, we’ll see an article about “mental health” which tells us all to take a walk outside, breathe deeply, and think about how great it will be when this is all over. (In truth, it is much more like holding our breath.) Or – even worse – we’ll be told to “reach out for help”, which was never there to begin with (sorry, we have no beds. Here’s a prescription. Now go home and behave yourself). There apparently are computerized therapists now who just repeat back the last thing you said with a question mark at the end of it. Or Siri will talk to us! She’s always good for a chat.