Sound

Mallarmé-inspired poem: Sound

As though it was there the whole time,
It could be a beat alone.
Strikes chords within us,
Palpitations around his throne.

It doesn’t have to be audible,
It will be expressed.
A tenor trilling at the top,
He thinks it’s all a test.

Like we’re cathedrals,
A dome for a crown.
His shines and locks like a chord,
It’s here and then it’s gone.

Overtones of a crowd
Lifted feelings in song,
In the ring of a tree,
We sing to lose the smog.

This poem was inspired by Mallarmé’s “Sainte,” which I loved particularly because of the musical references and the last line, “Musician of silences.” I decided to make mine a little more obviously musical. I love that Mallarmé managed to use instruments (mandolin, flute, and harp) but still maintain the aspect of nature (“Magnificat in rivers flowing”), so I tried to do the same thing but with the voice instead of instruments, and the expression of the voice.

I shall become whiter than snow.

I may not be the first to admit it, but I do come around after a while: The Lord works in mysterious ways. Just last night I read Psalm 50, and this morning we watched a movie in class that featured music based on Psalm 51. Clearly, I was supposed to continue on that tack.

I don’t even want to talk about the movie. That song was probably the best part of the movie, so it’s a good thing that it was sung by a young soprano boy.

However… I cannot find the song ANYWHERE. I found many versions of a song called “Whiter Than Snow,” which I know I’ve sung in church, but none of them sound like the one the boy sang. His was almost operatic, and extremely melodic, whereas all the ones I’m finding are contemporary and bland.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! If you need another clue, the movie was “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover.” Please don’t watch it. Or, just watch a clip of the boy singing, because that’s the best part.

Pleasant Surprises

I’ve said it before (but not here), but I’ll say it again: Talking about Tchaikovsky and Nietzsche makes me feel like the college student everyone wants to be. Or at least, I feel like the college student I always wanted to be. I have to listen to it and read it, respectively, to be able to talk about it, and for once that’s what I’m doing!

First, I found Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture on my iTunes (one of those moments of musical joy)… but initially that made me feel more like a budding anarchist (because I also realized that V’s symbol in V for Vendetta looks like an upside down anarchy symbol)… so I moved on to the Nutcracker Suite. But that made me feel like a stuffed mouse or a five-year-old, not a college student, so then I moved on to the Swan Lake suite, which I guess feels a little more refined.

Then, I began reading The Birth of Tragedy, and got all excited because its alternate title is “Out of the Spirit of Music,” which is what Life is. And Love. Here, Nietzsche says it best: “In song and dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk and speak and is on the way toward flying into the air, dancing. His very gestures express enchantment. … He is no longer and artist, he has become a work of art: in these paroxysms of intoxication the artistic power of all nature reveals itself to the highest gratification of the primordial unity.”

… Oh my God, why in the world didn’t I use that for my paper last year?!

This one is even better: “Now, with the gospel of universal harmony, each one feels himself not only united, reconciled, and rused with his neighbor, but as one with him, as if the veil of ‘maya’ had been torn aside and were now merely fluttering in tatters before the mysterious primordial unity.” I don’t know what “maya” is, but otherwise, that’s pretty much exactly what I was trying to say last year. AND I DIDN’T GET IT FROM NIETZSCHE!

Actually, that’s kind of depressing. I thought I had a bunch of original thoughts… but of course this philosopher said it better. Well… Maybe not better. I mean, mine DID take up 25 pages, and I am pretty damn proud of it. I spent so many hours of heartache over it, and Nietzsche probably just rattled it off in a couple minutes without much research or soul-searching. At least that means that mine was more personally interpretive and meaningful. …But alas, I am biased.

Look it up.

Ok, yes, I’ve been away. And the next week isn’t going to be any better. But in the meantime, FIND THIS SONG. I think it’s a cover of a Johnny Cash song and (curse my hypocrisy) I haven’t heard the original, but this one is sooo crazy awesome. It might just be based on the Cash song, because it’s quite similar, but very different. ha.

I found it. It’s by Moby and it’s called “Afterlife,” though Cash’s version was called “God’ll Cut You Down.” Doesn’t sound too uplifting, but WOW. Look it up.

*****CORRECTION*****

The song is “Run On For A Long Time,” and it was originally done by the Blind Boys of Alabama. I’m pretty sure the group that covers it is Bill Landford and the Landfordaires. I must say, though, that the lyrics are extremely similar to the ones in the Johnny Cash song. Maybe Johnny Cash changed some words, made it more monotonous, and retitled it. ha.

Savoring the Beat

My mom is leaving tomorrow for southern Idaho, so for a while we had a plan to carpool a ways down there. She would drop me off at a monastery and I would spend a couple nights down there, volunteering and just hanging out, because I’ve never been in that kind of environment before. Then I found out that their facilities aren’t really open to that right now–only to retreats. Which means it would be two nights/three days in complete devotion to God, and I don’t think I’m ready for that. That’s pretty intense, and I feel like such an amateur.

Anyway, it turns out that they’re booked up for this weekend, so I’m not able to stay there even if I had the guts. It’s sad that I would even need guts to visit a monastery, for Heaven’s sake, but it’s true. Situations like that have always intimidated me. When I got to my middle/high school, everyone was familiar with the Bible and I barely knew where Genesis was. I’ve gotten a bit better, and a little more confident, but I still freeze up every time I enter a Catholic church. When do I kneel? When do I stand? With which hand do I cross myself?

It’s odd that I have some friends to whom this is all second nature… then, I have some friends who have only memorized the moves and rituals from movies, and some who have never stepped inside a Catholic church. I love them all, of course. But I do become wary of people who don’t really step out of their box.

That’s why Caleb and I are looking into “touring” some churches in the area, just to get some variety before I leave again. And when I do leave, I’d like to keep going to a church, because I love the experience. Last Sunday, after church, my dad asked me what it was like after the sermon. “Do people leave immediately, or mill around, or dissect the sermon, or what?”

After thinking for a moment, I likened it to the moments after a Sweet Adelines rehearsal. We sing a closing song, usually with hands held, and close with a big finish. We’re all smiling at each other and praising each other for a job well done, no matter how the evening went. Then, when we release hands, there’s a “beat” (as they say in the acting community) where everyone just sort of sighs.

It’s marvelous how similar things are in the churches I’ve been to. As the congregation closes with a song or a rousing chorus, everyone feels unified and vibrantly alert of each other and the reason they are all gathered there. Then, like the end of a rehearsal, there is a moment like a sigh–it isn’t silent, and it’s not particularly reverent, but it is somewhat thoughtful.

That’s a pretty cool moment, though it’s usually unremarkable. I mean, it’s also just the moment when everyone picks up their Bible and purse, begins talking to their neighbor, and makes their way out of the pew. Life goes on. It’s ordinary. But it’s the most comfortable moment, because there’s so much to think about, and yet it’s a very tense moment, because there’s so much responsibility. I always feel pretty pressured to keep up the kind of faithfulness I’ve felt for the past hour. And even that is a pretty awesome (yes, awe-some) feeling… but it’s also near impossible.

As many a pastor has said, “life gets in the way.” Sometimes I wish I were someone like Rumi or Aristotle or the Dalai Lama, for whom life probably does not get in the way. Feeling faithful IS their life. Hopefully they know how lucky they are.