Sandwiched in Cottonwood: Box 3

cottonwood tree, american idyll, by ruuscal

This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed... 'That art Thou!' say the Upanishads, and the Vedantists add: 'Not a part, not a mode of that, but identically Th at, that Absolute Spirit of the World.'
--William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

During the night, I came *this* close to killing myself. Don't worry, the flirtation is over. The only reason to grant any status whatsoever to last night's peril is that it was not born of collapse, nor was it a yielding or concession. There was no surrender; There was no giving up. I felt no worse before than I did after.

So why even bring it up?

Because I came away with the realization that I want to cease my dedication to the cultivation and maintenance of the "barriers between [myself] and the Absolute."

Don't worry. That doesn't mean an end to my dedication to verbal foolishness. [Witness the proof before you.]

A box from TW arrived yesterday, out of the blue. If you have been keeping count of these troves from my once-lost, now-found older brother, this is the third such gift.

This is the first gift box, however, to arrive without the contextual benefit of an occasion. The first box came in the guise of a Christmas present, even though he does not celebrate Christmas, himself. The second box was a boisterous January birthday celebration.

It was only after the second gift box that I reciprocated, sending him one in April in honor of his own trip around the sun. The experience of choosing what to pack, and what incantations to chant over the gathered mess, turned out to be an occasion of great angst and small personal growth.

"What is the big deal?" you may be thinking. "So you baked a dozen chocolate chip cookies and tossed in some cup-o'noodle soups, and voilà, an instant care package..."

Actually, that sort of care package is also dear to my heart -- but that is not the type of boxes my brother and I are exchanging.

In the beginning, the beginning being November 2009, it went like this: A few weeks back, thinking it would be a way to save money and be a marvelous gift, I asked my two brother-units for used copies of the two books that had been the most formative to the person they each have become.

Yes, I thought up that Grand Idea and was very proud of myself. Then, Brother-Unit Grader Boob declined by sending a loud and poignant gift certificate, with which I promptly purchased a Wii system with appropriate accompanying loot. Oh well, it was just a thought, I thought.

My pride morphed into sincere doubt and a sense of familiar foolishness. Until, that is, the arrival of Brother-Unit Tumbleweed's first box. It took my breath away, made me weep, and I remain, to this day, a gasping woman drenched in tears.

It's not a simple matter of grabbing a few items you think you might love or like, and packaging them as clear explanations of the person you want everyone to think you are.

Even though it wasn't stated in the rules, the urge to explain the inclusion of an item must be carefully stifled. For instance, in my box to him there was a weaving made by a women's collective in Nicaragua. I could not tell Tumbleweed of its history, about how it formed the basis of a short story that traced the narrative of its hieroglyphic threads. There's no way to divulge, either, how much I hate its color scheme or how I miss the friendship of the woman who gifted it to me.

It tells the story of a farmer defending his corn against crows.

That I am having a hard time is such tired and tiresome news. In some ways, I am managing my sucky health in a healthier fashion, especially in how it impacts the people I love. By keeping their welfare foremost in mind, I am able to speak, in real life, almost none of the pain, discomfort, and hardship with which I live. But this death of pretension has not significantly changed my experience. Not yet, at least. I intend to keep trying.

What scares me is my matter-of-factness.

It makes strange, true things come out of my mouth. I was telling Fred, for instance, of a recent email from a dear friend, an email that was brimming over with affection.

Matter of factly, I turned from the sapling we were admiring to say, "It came at an excellent time, for I have been feeling particularly unloved."

Particularly. Passive aggression. I am angry with myself for claiming it, here, as a matter of fact. But, it is said, done.

Still, it can be shocking, the words that remain in the wake of hyperbole and pity. Thank goodness for the wealth of humor at hand, for ballast's sake -- and to complement my complete grasp of, and dedication to, the truth.

Thank goodness I have such a brother as Tumbleweed.

The third gift box, sent on the occasion of no-occasion, contained:

1. Everyone's favorite: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson. (Almost as important, to me, are the illustrations by Ralph Steadman.) That was surely a creepy time. I remember being forced into a baby blue Cadillac, driving from Miami to creepy Homestead A.F.B., where I was forced from the baby blue Cadillac onto the runway tarmac to await Air Force One and a limp-wristed, sweaty-palmed, newly-reelected Richard Milhouse Nixon. Pat was with him, but she was quickly subsumed under the dry-like-stale-baby-powder category. I remember thinking that she could barely support one hyphen, much less four, in the search for complex adjectives.

ralph steadman, i shot the sherrif

That's not true. Of course, it also was not a true Tar Macadam runway, those now being exceedingly rare. The ramp/apron area of airports are made of concrete.

I'll reread the book, I guess, and those old names of McGovern, Humphrey, Muskie, Hart, Kennedy. Even though I wrote "everyone's favorite," up above, Hunter S. Thompson isn't really one of mine. A drug-addled smartass, author of Gonzo journalism, a favorite of mine? Sure, it may sound like a match made in heaven, but I cannot rid myself of the fatigue reading him generates (and I don't need help in the fatigue department, thankyouverymuch).

I love the way Thompson went out, though. No, not the bullet to the brain, no -- I mean the ashes shot out of the cannon. I am pretty sure, though, that the creative energy and money necessary to produce a send off of equal quality will be lacking, once I am a stiff. I mean, Johnny Depp is reputed to have bankrolled the affair for Hunter... I've no attendant rich friends gifted in funerial highjinks.

2. passions of a man: Charles Mingus, the complete atlantic recordings 1956-1961. Part of Rhino Records jazz reissue series. I am excited! Another man of... temperament! [I begin to suspect a trend, as I reflect on the totality of TW's boxes. A trend, if he is cognizant. A tell, if he is not. Always remember, and never forget, he supports himself, his friends, and his menagerie with monies from his work in the betting industry.]

I've always appreciated Mingus' firm stance against the romanticization of Charlie Parker and his penchant for self-destruction which figured prominently among the cultivated traits of his pretendants -- If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats, was the entire working title to Gunslinging Bird. It's been described as a blistering "jazz waltz."

I so love form and organization. Together with raucous insanity? It's Eden as it was meant to be, with The Asp held over.

4th track from Mingus "Mingus Dynasty" album. Recorded in New York on November 1 and 13, 1959. Charles Mingus (bass); Booker Ervin, John Handy, Benny Golson (saxophones); Jerome Richardson (saxophone, flute); Donald Ellis, Dick Williams (trumpets); James Knepper (trombone); Maurice Brown, Seymour Barab (cello); Theodore Cohen (vibraphone); Roland Hanna (piano); Dannie Richmond (drums).

--from rogerjazzfan

I am somewhat ashamed at my excitement, as I don't react with such exuberance over all of the music my big brother gifts to me. I am no Deadhead, f]r instance, though I have amassed Big Knowledge around their songs, and seek to understand TW's place in the culture.

[Please note that Gunslinging Bird does not figure among the Atlantic recordings.]

3. Coltrane: The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings

4. Handel, Water Musick, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan

5. Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik

Lest I be accused of recently being bereft of satire, or parody, even:

"A little nightmare music" is a opera in "one irrevocable act" by the eponymous P.D.Q. Bach in which the man behind the alias, Peter Schickele, effectively plunders (or to quote a more politically correct term, "readopts") Mozart's music, most obviously "A little night music", to retell "a dream P.D.Q. Bach had December 4, 1791-- the night that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died and Antonio Salieri didn't."

The narrative is very simple (considering the opera, composed of four musical numbers, runs no more than twenty minutes): Salieri (bass), a successful composer, comments on the beauty of Mozart's music (violin; marked as a "unsuccessful composer") and prophets him world renown; he is quickly brought down to reality by Peter Schläfer (tenor), a mysterious writer, who quickly claims that it is actually Mozart who is the better composer; this point and a quarrel that develops from it makes Salieri so mad that he ponders poisoning the writer but a good kick from P.D.Q. (silent part) leads to the death of Mozart, as Schlafer laments the loss of his best coat. The witty libretto in combination with the varied music of Mozart makes for quite an enjoyable recording (which also presents two of the most hilarious orchestral pieces that one could hope to hear).

Presented here is the setting of the second movement of Mozart's concerto, the Romanza, which in this version becomes a delightful cavatina for the tenor (giving the orchestral piece a logical vocal twist). The basic sonata structure and the delightful music of the Austrian composer are preserved and given a perfectly whimsical text by P.D.Q., as the writer comments on how it is obvious, to him at least, that it is Mozart, and not Salieri, who will be the more famous composer.

A young Bruce Ford sings this adaptation, and, despite the obvious comical element of the whole piece, his handsome delivery of the music is an added bonus.

-- courtesy of LindoroRossini

6. Gregorian Chant:Gregorianischer Choral
Choralschola der wiener Hofburgkapelle, Vienne
Pater Hubert Dopf, S.J.

7. Mozart, The Flute Quartets. Jean-Pierre Rampal, Flute. Isaac Stern, Violin. Salvatore Accardo, Viola/Alto. Mstislav Rostropovich, Cello.

8. Anonymous 4 -- A Lammas Ladymass: 13th and 14th Century English Chant and Polyphony "...a Ladymass for the summer portion of the church year, as it might have been sung around the feast of Mary's Assumption in August."


Bodleian Library, fragment of agnus dei for three voices
Amazon's music sampler

The vocal group Anonymous 4 formed in 1986, originally comprising Johanna Maria Rose, Susan Hellauer, Ruth Cunningham and Marsha Genensky. So named in honor of the designation given by musicologists to the unknown 13th-century Parisian student whose writings detailed the vocal polyphony he heard at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the ensemble's performances also explored medieval chanting and polyphony, combined with elements of poetry and narrative; debuting in 1992 with An English Ladymass, the Anonymous 4 immediately topped Billboard's classical music charts, a feat repeated by their 1993 follow-up On Yoolis Night. Subsequent efforts include 1995's The Lily and the Lamb and Miracles of Sant'iago, 1996's A Star in the East and 1997's 11,000 Virgins. After completing A Lammas Ladymass, Cunningham left the group in 1998 and was replaced by Jaqueline Horner. Legends of St Nicholas followed a year later.

-- Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

I dare to believe that my brother comes to know me, although my preference is for gruff and tired men, and less perfection. I like the creak of real wood, the sound of something dropped, a cough in the background.

This was immediately added to the bedtime playlist. Thank you, TW.

Uh-oh. In what might be some sort of Perverted Pyramid Ponzi Ploy of a Stockholm Syndrome Plan... I fell prey to lax thinking and forgot what informs the choices for the box. The point is not to please me, the point is to share what has been formative.

Now *that* boggles the mind.

9. Audio tapes: Doc Watson, Vanguard Years I & II; John Renbourn Traveller's Prayer; Grateful Dead, Winterland, SF 3/18/77 * 10/22/78; Grateful Dead, Springfield, Mass 6/30/74.

10. A wrinkled, tattered, and slightly smelly red Grand Canyon National Park bandana, within which are nestled one beaded necklace, a small quartz rock formation, one sea shell, one piece of sandstone, two miniature rubber dinosaurs, and seven rocks.

11. A beautifully stitched, tightly woven, colorful undersea scene -- a placemat? It feels like something I am supposed to know, to recognize, but I do not. It also smells.

12. Bawdy Verse: A Pleasant Collection (The Penguin Poets series) edited by E. J. Burford.

The volume falls open, of its own accord, to page 145:

Have Y'Any Crackt Maidenheads? (c. 1672)
[A broadside ballad]

Have y'any crackt Maidenheads to new leach or mend?
Have y'any old Maidenheads to sell or to change?
Bring 'em to me; with a little pretty gin
I'll clout 'em, I'll mend 'em, I'll knock 'em in a pin
Shall make 'em as good Maids agen,
As ever they have been.

NOTE: From even before the time of James I there had been Quacks who specialized in renewing maidenheads. Midwives were particularly esteemed for this service. The main chemical used was alum, or othere astringents designed to tauten up the vaginal walls to give the impression of virginity. In many cases, however, serious damage was caused and the enraged pimps frequently assaulted the Quacks, who usually fled to the Netherlands or France whence they had come. Dutch Quacks were attacked in the famous petition of the Whores to the Prentices in 1668 after the Shrove Tuesday riots which so upset Charles II and "vex'd my Lady Castlemaine."

13. The River That Flows Uphill:A Journey from the Big Bang
to the Big Brain by William H. Calvin

You can read it along with me, here! Hmm, a good many of the links are now defective, though the text itself shows up fine.

This Sierra Club Book of 1987 is Calvin's "river diary of a two-week whitewater trip through the bottom of the Grand Canyon, discussing everything from the Big Bang to the Big Brain." Calvin is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, most recently with the University of Washington School of Medicine.

14. Secrets of the Great Pyramid by Peter Tompkins, with an appendix by Livio Catullo Stecchini [Recounts the fascinating discoveries made by explorers, adventurers, and scientists about the Great Pyramid of Cheops, including the stunning recent assertions that the ancient structure was used as a geometric tool to measure the outside world.]

15. Rodale's Successful Organic Gardening: Vegetables

16. Three issues of National Geographic: May 1955, May 1969, July 1978 -- All featuring wonderful articles on the Grand Canyon.

17. Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon (abridged), by François Leydet

18. The Hidden Canyon: A River Journey, by John Blausten, including A Journal by Edward Abbey and an introduction by Martin Litton

*** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * *** * ***

I am not sure exactly why, except that I like them, of course, but this post opens and closes with photos taken/snatched/borrowed from TW's blog, American Idyll. Ah, but these were taken, not by Tumbleweed, but by ruuscal, who now shares authorship of that wonderland. TW recently explained in an email replete with references to dirt, manure, and zucchini:

the canyon blog will soon have new shots from exotic locales as some chums are stomping about all last week and the next upcoming. i am rather bluesy at not being able to tag along due to grinding slave obligations, no cat-sitter, and all the tiresome inconveniences of a cumbersome, improbable dead end life. yet, one takes a sliver of solace from having shown them the way and having set up a forum where big views of wilderness are always welcome when they return. but day-yum, i would loved to have joined the expedition. sigh.

More venture forth to walk, and witness, because of him -- than he will ever know.




Twilight songbird, in the Deer Creek Canyon cottonwoods
american idyll, by ruuscal