His eminence, the poet chantoose, with his hipster Christmas tale, Babs Gonzales
the late Minnesota poet Robert Bly, 12.23.26
“Looking at the Stars
I still think about the shepherds, how many stars
They saw. We owe our love of God to these sheep
That had to be followed, or companioned, all night.
One can’t just let them run. By midnight
The stars had already become huge talkers.
The Parent sits in her proud Chair, and is punished.
The Dog follows the Hunter. Each time a story ends
There is such a long pause before another begins.
Those of us who are parents, and getting older,
Long, as tonight, for our children to stand
With us, looking at the stars. Here it is,
Eight thousand years later, and I still remember.”
Carol Anne Duffy, the poet laureate of Britain. First female to be named in 400 years!
“In Miss Tilshcher’s Class
In Mrs Tilscher’s class
You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
”Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.”
That for an hour,
then a skittle of milk
and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust.
A window opened with a long pole.
The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.
This was better than home. Enthralling books.
The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.
Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley
faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.
Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found
she’d left a gold star by your name.
The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved.
A xylophone’s nonsense heard from another form.
Over the Easter term the inky tadpoles changed
from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs
hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce
followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking
away from the lunch queue. A rough boy
told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared
at your parents, appalled, when you got back
home
That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity.
A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot,
fractious under the heavy, sexy sky. You asked her
how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled
then turned away. Reports were handed out.
You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown
the sky split open into a thunderstorm.”
Sufjan Stevens. His two recordings which celebrate the states of Michigan and Illinois in personal and public sound experiments are high points in his discography worth exploring. “Avalance” is a record of outtakes from the “Illinoise” lp. He often breaks the traditional use and settings of the banjo, including electric guitar, duo vocals and heart rending choral effects to beautific ends.
Parliment/Funkadelic
“Can you name a dozen bands that featured costumes? Well in rock Kiss, Alice Kooper, Bowie, Prince, Devo, The Residents, Daft Punk, Village People (they weren’t really rock – disco pop perhaps), GWAR – metal - (I don’t know them but they were on many lists I found) – in jazz the SunRa Arkestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but perhaps the most fun and wild was Parliament Funkadelic, a psychedlic funk, acid rock, progressive soul conglomeration led by George Clinton. Their heydey was in the later part of the 70’s and 80’s where they were a huge headline act, but in 1971, not so much.
A young child ventured on stage and stood behind a conga drum that was almost as tall as he was. He tentatively played a few beats, not in any discernible rhythmic form but in a random slow non-existant pattern. After a few minutes another band member sauntered on stage. A minute or two passed and another member emerged and eventually a groove developed and the band one by one was fully on stage. Parliament Funkadelic released their third album, Maggot Brain, in 1971. It featured a Jimi Hendrix inspired 10 minute guitar extravaganza featuring Edward Hazel. Their second album, Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow and some of Maggot Brain formed the bulk of their opening act.
Thomas was featured on two Pharoah Sanders recordings released in 1969, Karma and Jewels of Thought and specifically on two extended pieces, The Creator Has A Master Plan and Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah-Hum-Allah. These two pieces were anthems for myself and many college students of that era.
Robert Christgau wrote of the significance behind Thomas’s vocal abilities in Christgau’s Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) “He has literally expanded the musical possibilities of the human voice. He is as powerful a jazz/blues singer as Joe Williams or Joe Turner, both of whom he occasionally resembles, as inventive a scatter as Ella Fitzgerald. But that’s just the beginning, for despite the generation lag, Thomas beats Turner and Williams in their mode even while singing his own, and he turns scatting from a virtuoso trick into an atavistic call from the unconscious.”
Leon Thomas passed away in 1999 at the age of 61 from heart failure due to complications from leukemia. George Clinton, at 81, is still going strong. He got an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in 2012 and in 2022 he was featured as the gopher on the program The Masked Singer. Should you wish to explore their music, I recommend for P-Funk - Maggot Brain (1971), Mothership Connection (1975), and One Nation Under a Groove (1978) and for Leon Thomas, Pharoah Sanders’ previously mentioned Karma and Jewels of Thought and Thomas’s Spirits Known and Unknown (1969) and The Leon Thomas Album(1970).”
Eight years in the making, Geoff Muldaur’s continuing contributions to the American musical experiment crept onto the scene this year. Witness “His Last Letter.” It got little airplay and press but is an earful to behold. Those who have witnessed his live performances come away broadened by his indispensable filling in of the blanks. He had something or other to do with luminaries in blues, rock, gospel, folk and jazz throughout the 60’s and early 70’s. Instead of attending college he moved to New Orleans and chased his influences in person. Geoff introduced Mississippi John Hurt to surfing but he chose not to partake of it. Anyway, its a two cd or 3 lp affair ripe with pieces you will love.
“Lady of the Lavender Mist” is a Duke Ellington composition.
“With this issue, “Parahernalia Springs” glides sprightly into the sunset. I want to thank you personally for your interest in this experiment. It has been a launching pad/repository for passing along diverse contributions from the arts that I have found inspirational. My hope is that you may have been similarly touched.
For 2023 I will begin a daily post.
It unveils 1 Janvier !
”
And an appreciation to the great Alan West for sharing 52 of his magnificently recollected concert experiences!