Green Rocky Road

I took a hiatus from blogging and have just revived my other blog, so I thought it time to revive this one.

Today I have been listen to a folk musician I have somehow missed, Karen Dalton.  Dalton was a true folk artist, not a revivalist, although because she was young and pretty at the height of the 60's folk revival, she was often confused with one.  I discovered  a CD, Green  Rocky Road in the pop music section of the library today, but knew from the songs listed it was a folk album.

At home I popped it into my Cd and listen to the strong claw hammer banjo playing and the purity of her singing.  It was obvious she had learned her music sitting on the porch with the old timers and listening , trying asking.   Her versions of Little Margret, Nottingham Town and Skillet Good and Greasy placed her as a skilled old ballad singer.  But she had some compositions of her own that showed she also listened to contemporary trends in folk music.

Only a couple of her songs were recorded commercially while she was alive, but after her death a reel to reel tape recording from her concerts appeared, which included  the material on Green Rocky Road.  Finding this CD is almost like finding an old folk blues artist alive and living on his farm in the Delta.  Give her a listen.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RryRmyMv54

http://www.myspace.com/karendaltongreenrockyroad

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4429

Back Again

Just  brief note to let you know I will be resuming blogging on this site shortly.  And I have a new camera to make it interesting with photos. 

Freewheelin' Suze Rotolo

March, 2011. Suze Rotolo dead at age 69, famous as one half the shot on an album cover, but oh, such more. Suze was Dylan's girlfriend at the time of his second, break out folk alblum, Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. He was walking down a Village street in a light jacket, shivering and she was holding him tight on his arm. Bob Dylan, was really Robert Zimmermann, as she found out when his draft card fell on the floor.  He came to the village full of folk music influences and tall stories about who he was.  She was tied in, a red diaper baby born from New York Italian Reds, a researcher for Alan Lomax the musicologist, a friend of John Cohen the photographer and founder of New Lost City Ramblers, an artist and actress.  She introduced him to poetry, Bertold Brecht's plays, Truffaut's films, Picasso's art. She was also a political activist who volunteered with CORE (The Congress of Racial Equality) and who introduced Dylan to the civil rights movement.  She is the inspiration, the muse for many of his early love songs, civil rights songs and songs derived from the French symbolist poets.  His fame climbed over her, probably not by his intent, and she soon couldn't walk down the street without representing one half of an album cover.  There was the tragedy of an abortion, the break up, and geographic cure in the run to Italy.  Soon she was married and remained a professional artist and a political activist.  Good bye Suze. 

Graham Greene Lecture Thursday Night

I've gotten a notice from the Seattle Chesterton Society I wanted to share with you.  If you are living in the Seattle area I recommend that you attend if you can.

Graham Greene: Catholic Literary Modernist

Rev. Dr. Mark Bosco, S. J.

Loyola University Chicago

It is something of a cliché that the so-called modern age witnessed the death of God, religion, or both. Modernist writers, among those most aware of their own “modernity,” have done much eulogizing of faith. The success of this Modernist “project” is, of course, complicated by the persistence of religion. Moreover, the modern period produced writers the likes of T.S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene, to name only a few. I would like to suggest ways in which we can understand Greene as a representative “Catholic Modernist” who re-imagines Catholicism through modernist aesthetics, modernist sensibilities. In particular, I would like to develop the historical trajectory of this Catholic literary revival as a kind of Catholic literary modernism, and see in Greene's work, especially, how this is embodied.

Mark Bosco, S.J., holds a joint appointment as associate professor in English and Theology at Loyola University Chicago, and serves as its director of the Catholic Studies Program. His scholarship focuses on the intersection of Catholic theology, aesthetics, and literature. His book publications include Graham Greene's Catholic Imagination (Oxford UP 2005), and two edited volumes, Academic Novels as Satire: Critical Studies of an Emerging Genre (Edwin Mellen, 2007) and Finding God in All Things: Celebrating Bernard Lonergan, John Courtney Murray, and Karl Rahner (Fordham UP, 2007). He has published in such journals as The Southern Review, The Flannery O'Connor Review, and LOGOS: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture.

Please see our full Events Calendar for more details pertaining to meetings.  Parking at the Newman Center is extremely limited. It is recommended that commuters park in the nearby "N5" lot on the University campus, accessible via the north gate at NE 45th St and Memorial Way. The fee for evening parking in the University lots is $5.00. Campus maps showing the exact location of the N5 lot are available here.

We look forward to seeing you Thursday evening!

For more infomration on the Chesterton Society: 

http://www.seattlechesterton.org/

For more information on Fr. Bosco: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bosco

Formation Films "Rainy Day Reels" Preview

I took a hiatus from blogging on any of my blogs for various reasons, but now with the film nights in my parish beginning  again, I am going to start up with a piece on that.  I see that I have been getting readers for older posts, which just proves that on the internet what you put out there stays out.

I know that most of my readers do not come from Seattle, but I will write about these films anyway, hoping you will either watch some of them, or start similar film projects where you are. I think every parish, school and neighborhood should have film nights with popcorn and discussions.  These movies should be, as our are, free and educational in purpose.  The discussion should elevate the listener, as should the movie choices. Discussion leaders should come prepare and new and interesting popcorn recipes should be ventured on.   (Tonight for instance we are trying a very spicy Sudanese recipe, a cheese popcorn and Italiano, one of our favorites.  We might save room for regular buttered popcorn as well. )

The way our Formation Films work at Blessed Sacrament is that we run a series for a few weeks, then we meet and schedule another series. Some of the active volunteers come with suggestions and then we talk it out.  We try to balance the topics a little to include peace or justice films, Catholic or Biblical films, thought provokers or various kinds, films on moral questions, spiritual films from other religions, and films of cultural significance or about other cultures. Some films even hit all of those categories at once, like The Ninth Day (http://www.kino.com/theninthday/)  did when we showed it.

Our films start tonight, January 9th 2011 at 7PM and "The Rainy Day Reels" runs every other Sunday until March 20th.

Here is our current line up:

January 9 - Joyeux Noel
Joyeux Noel captures a rare moment of grace from one of the worst wars in the history
of mankind, World War I. On Christmas Eve, 1914, as German, French, and Scottish
regiments face each other from their respective trenches, a musical call-and-response
turns into an impromptu cease-fire.  A moving tribute to those who saw past hate and
political intrigue long enough to share in their humanity.   2005. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl)


January 23 - Sugar Cane Alley
Euzhan Palcy's warm, deeply felt film about mentorship and sacrifice is a life-affirming
experience of childhood in black Martinique in the 1930’s. Palcy recreates the plantation
life with a keen sense of balance, offsetting the squalid conditions of workers with an authentic feeling of community and the innocence of childhood.   1984. (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19840101/REVIEWS/401010395/1023)


February 6 - The Navigator
Vincent Ward's mystical tale of a tiny 14th-century English hamlet during the devastation
of the Black Plague mixes faith and fantasy in a compelling adventure. The Navigator
defies genre, mixing fantasy and science fiction, religion and mysticism, historical realism
and modern adventure, to create a compelling, beautiful, visually stunning leap of faith.
1988. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Navigator:_A_Medieval_Odyssey)


February 20 - Dersu Ozala
Akira Kurosawa’s epic film that traces the deep and abiding bond between two men; one
civilized in the usual manner, the other at home in the sub-zero Siberian woods.  This is
a true story, and a stunning piece of film making.  Riveting and relentless in its quest to
show the transcendence of human affection within the context of Russian history.  1975.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dersu_Uzala_(1975_film)


March 6 - Bonhoeffer, Agent of Grace
What is a moral person to do in a time of savage immorality? That question tormented
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German clergyman of great distinction who actively opposed Hitler
and the Nazis. His convictions cost him his life. Bonhoeffer's last years, his participation
in the German resistance, and his moral struggle are dramatized in this film.  2000.
(http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/ChurchAndMinistry/ChurchHistory/Bonhoeffer_Agent_of_Grace.aspx)


March 20 - Thérèse
Thérèse tells the story of St. Therese of Lisieux, a young girl who fell in love with Jesus
Christ and demonstrated a path of spirituality through the actions of unconditional love,
human compassion, and her "Little Way" to the modern world.
1986. (http://www.stlukeproductions.com/therese/index.html)

Each one of these films in some way ties into the values of the Catholic faith.  The first film, about a spontaneous Christmas truce is a great film for the last day of the Christmas season.  It shows that the transcendent values we have a Christians need not remain stuck in the mire of the trenches.  I think on a day when we are mourning a Congresswoman who fell victim to a heated political atmosphere a film about putting the weapons aside is a great one.

Sugar Cane Alley is a great film, about poverty, about familial love and about education.  The preferential option for the poor will no doubt be discussed that night.  The Navigator is in part being shown just to have a "fun film", a sci-fi/fantasy break from reality, but it also has a great deal of mystical content. Dersu Ozala, one of the greater films of  Akira Kurosaw, Japan's best film maker, has a lot to say about human culture, our obligations to each other as humans, and our relationship to nature.

 Bonhoeffer, Agent of Grace, returns us again to a these and setting familiar to our film series: moral choice against the huge backdrop of World War II. Would we have the courage to defy the Nazi's as Bonhoeffer did. What are the moral and theological implications of his course of action.  Should we remain pacifist, or is violence ever justified.

Thérèse, a fairly recent American production, is an excellent note to end on.  We often forget that The Little Flower, a contemplative, is the patron saint of missionaries, both because she prayed for them, and because she taught that it is the 'little things' that are important.  Perhaps she will be kind enough to send us all roses the night of the movie

If anyone has comments on film series projects, any of the films listed, or films we should show, please go ahead and live them. You are part of the community of this blog. thank you.

I would also like the staff of Scarecrow Video, one of the best  and biggest video stores in America, fortunately located one block from Blessed Sacrament.  The staff of Scarecrow has always been helpful in reserving films or answering questions.

Under my umbrella flash mob

Umbrella Flash Mob Official Video Seattle - Glee

Hounds at Bay About to Play 2

Ding Dong Ding Dong
Hounds@Bayare ringing at Egan's 
on Thursday December 9th
And it's a no-cover kinda night.
Please do come! 
We are going to howl in celebration! 
Reservations Recommended!
With schedules a'changin, new jobs and all, 
who knows when 
it will be able to happen again!
Oh my Father Christmas, You'd better come!

EGAN's Ballard Jam House Thursday December 9th   7:00 PM doors 6:30PM  Egan's Ballard Jam House  (206) 789-1621 (Reservations recommended) 1707 Northwest Market Street, Seattle, WA The food is great and this band is too ! NO cover - We're playin' for Scooby snacks and tips. Hounds@Bay is:  Larry Baumgartner, Jim Nason & Steve Peterson Help us celebrate our 1 year anniversary "Leaving our mark on Ballard" LET'S PACK THE PLACE Photo by Ron Dalton

This announcement sent to you by  Larry Baumgartner and Lynette Hensley 3009 NE 135th St. Seattle, Washington 98125 206 291-4117

New Issue of Victory Review

The December issue of Victory Review is in the stands!.  When not the stands exactly.  When it was an in print magazine it was given away at northwest folk events and stores, or mailed by subscription.  It's the magazine of Victory Organization the Northwest acoustic music organization.  Victory has been promoting folk, bluegrass, jazz and other music for years.  I have two CD reviews in this issue and I hope to be able to provide them more for the next issue. Of course there are a lot of reviewers these days.   Here is the link:
http://victorymusic.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=28&Itemid=74

Nuevo Tango Performance by Scott Vigil and Bridgette Maria Rivera

Greetings to New Readers

Greetings to new readers I am getting from St. Blog's Parish and Catholic Blogs.  This is a blog about the arts, primarily the ones I am most interested in: folk music, poetry and film, but other arts as seems good to me at the time.  I am, it's no secret Catholic, and some of my posts will be from a uniquely Catholic perspective, while others will be broader in theme and content.  I can't of course in an arts blog talk a lot about how my faith affects other aspects of life, but you can find some of that in my Roomin' House Blues blog. http://roominhouseblues.blogspot.com/
 
I welcome and value all my readers and encourage all of you to leave comments.  C.S. Lewis once told a young man that we read so that we know we are not alone.  I have said many times, accordingly, that we write so that others  know they are not alone.  I follow the old round table tradition of the Catholic Worker movement, which I am quite attracted to, and try to make sure that everyone has there say.  I live for the day when I check on of my posts and find there are twenty comments.  It isn't just for me.  It's for building community.  A one sentence comment can encourage the next reader to add something to the mulligan stew of conversation. (That's another Catholic Worker tradition, to always have a pot of stew on the stove that everyone could add to, to feed the guests of the hospitality houses. It comes from the old hobo camps, which had the hospitality of the poor that Steinbeck so well described in Grapes of Wrath) So leave a comment so the next guy has more to chew on.

One thing you can comment on here, if you wish, is any arts events, music, poets, etc you would like me to write about.  Or go ahead and provide links to some of those things on the internet.  Unless things are completely inappropriate, I am not inclined to remove them.  Thanks for your readership.

Catholicism and Poetry #7 Dante

"Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost."


Thus, simply,  begins Robert Pinsky's translation of the Inferno by Dante, or beautifully in Italian, "selva oscura".  As a writer on the arts, I have such great limitations and yet I believe that I have insight into the first Canto of the Inferno, which has always moved me, both before and after the middle of my life.  Perhaps it is because I have often found myself alone, lost in what is dark and grouping for a turning point. 

This is the genius of where Dante begins.   He begins with a confession.  His confession, brief though it is, is as complete as that of Augustine.  But it is the confession of a poet.   He says that
"To tell
About those woods is hard"


For Dante the woods will always be dark.  The experience of sin, loss, confusion, even upon our reflection, does not become light.  It isn't our goal.  The goal is at the end of the right road.  So a poet, speaking honestly, can never turn what is dark into light.  He has to rely on God.  His descriptions will be as obscure as his experience is.   And it is quite painful for:


"—so tangled and rough

And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
The old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter." 

For Dante, as a true Christian, sin and alienation from God is as bitter as death.  It is the water of bitterness, Mariah, from Exodus.  There two was a journey from sin towards God.  And every time the Hebrews complained and alienated themselves from God, they gave themselves bitter water to drink.  So Dante is unhappy, but he does not despair for he says

"And yet, to treat the good I found there as well

I'll tell what I saw,"

The good is always present for Dante.  If we are being honest we can speak of the good as well as the evil.  

Evil is a mystery for Dante. Sin obscures it's origin. 

" though how I came to enter
I cannot well say, being so full of sleep
Whatever moment it was I began to blunder

Off the true path. "

Now he describes, literally, the morning star, but that is obviously not the real meaning of these lines.

"But when I came to stop
Below a hill that marked one end of the valley
That had piereced my heart with terror, I looked up

Toward the crest and saw its shoulders already
Mantled in rays of that bright planet that shows
The road to everyone, whatever our journey."

Dante is really talking about how God's light reaches us, no matter what path in life we are on. 

The Italian below:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita. (3)

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura! (6)

Tant’è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte. (9)

Io non so ben ridir com’i’ v’intrai,
tant’era pien di sonno a quel punto
che la verace via abbandonai. (12)

Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto,
là dove terminava quella valle
che m’avea di paura il cor compunto,

guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
vestite già de’ raggi del pianeta
che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle.

More of the first Canto at:

http://www.csupomona.edu/~jelerma/dante/index.html

More on the Inferno at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

And for biography of Dante:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri

The Mystery of Man

Bruggeman On The Poets

Folk Hymns vs Folk Hymns

It's been a matter of some controversy in the Catholic church, post the "Folk Mass Era" of the 70's and early 80's to compare the old church music to the new church 'folk" hymns.  It was the subject of a book, advocating a conservative music liturgy,  called "Why Catholic's Can't Sing" which claimed that the new church hymns are unsingable and this is why you don't here a lot of pew accompaniment to the choir.  It's author said that the old high church hymns were very singable and in the old days everyone sang.

An interesting memory.  He suffered from false memory syndrome.  Don't get me wrong, as an old choir boy I loved the old church hymns.  And I, folk music lover that I am, I hate many of the new guitar strumbable "folk hymns".  But I hate them because they are fake folk hymns, not grown organically from the people's musical tradition.

The Catholic church would do well to adopt and adapt many of the old  Southern spirituals Black and white.  They grew up out of a fusion of African and European folk signing, a signing school tradition that started in New England and went South, a form of music called shape note singing that actually owes it's roots ultimately to the Gregorian chant, and the English Methodist practice of putting sacred lyrics on popular tunes, even bar tunes.  Why should the devil have all the good music it was asked.

Catholics will learn how to sing when the church adopts the old folk tradition of singing schools, when decent song books of old high church songs and true folk songs are provided with easy to follow notation and lyrics, and when song picks bear in mind carefully the beautiful and true.  We only sing when we want to sing, when we are encouraged to sing and when we have the resources.

A Visual Arts Blog

I can recommend highly to any readers I actually have, my friend Christen Mattix's blog, Traveling Light.  Besides a comment here and there on arts and politics she posts her wonderful work, and provides a link to her website that has her great short films on it.  She is clearly inspired by the great Russian contemplative film maker, Andrei Tarkovsky.  Give her blog a look see.
http://christenmattix.blogspot.com/

Irish Theater, Music and Dance

For those, who like me, love Irish folk music and dance, the local Irish Seattle new, which John Keane so faithful emails to me, had a great little notice. 

According to the Seattle Irish Clubs newsletter, Saturday, November 20th, it will be Irish night at the local Seattle Rep.  At Tony award winning play, Dancing at Lugnasa by Brian Friel will be shown, starting at 6Pm.  It will run until December 5th at Seattle Repertory Theatre.   But Saturdays event is special, starting with Irish Dance lessons, a live band, a potato bar, and whiskey tastings. The play is loosely based on the lives of Friel's relatives in the Glenties on the rural west coast of Donegal and set in 1936. It shows a beautiful fragement of five women's lives during a romantic summer.

More on the play at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_at_Lughnasa 

Thanks to:SEATTLE-NEWS@IRISHCLUB.ORG

Catholicism and Poetry #6: Samuel Menashe: A Jewish Poet a Catholic Should Love

Can a Jewish Poet write poetry a Catholic should love?  Did not St. Paul say we were spiritual Jews?  Our Bible begins with the Hebrew story and continues onto our unique beliefs and our Catholic poetry is rooted in the bible.

A Jewish poet who has labored in relative obscurity for years, Samuel Menashe, won Poetry Foundations Neglected Masters Award in 2006 and since he has become the darling of a New York literary scene that once snub him.  He writes terse, even taut poems with Zen like clarity and pointedness, but they are often on biblical or other Jewish themes.  He rhymes his short little poems, something now unconventional, and yet in many other ways his poems are completely modern.  Modern in language and influenced by existentialism, yet they touch the ancient additudes of the Hebrew people.

My favorite poem is  Adam Means Earth.    Are we not all born of the earth?  Menache plays on the fact that in the ancient semetic tounges Adama was earth, while Adam meant man.

The poem can be found at:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=181927

In this poem he draws out the essential humility of the human condition, when we chose to embrace it.  When he  speaks of "the man  whose name is mud" is am reminded of the scene in Francesco where Mickey Rourke, playing St. Francis, rubs his face in the mud and says "I am so low, I am lower than the dirt."
Menache says "dust Adam became" aluding to our death, and yet also speaking ou our life, what we are made of.  He asks "Was he his name" which perhaps we should all ask of ourselves.  Have I lived up to my humble origins?


In august of 2006 NPR carried a wonderful audio story on Menasche, below.



Here is a wonderful u-tube of Menashe talking and reading



Here is a brief biography:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Menashe

And great little interview recored on a blog.

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/culture/a-visit-with-samuel-menashe/

And some more poems of Menashe.

http://www.archipelago.org/vol8-4/menashe.htm

Hounds at Bay About to Play

Acoustic Music fans there is a special treat coming up--Hounds at Bay is playing and there is an ad for it.   Go if you can.   I have also posted a U-Tube of these guys playing, Great stuff.

EGAN's Ballard Jam House Thursday November 18th   7-8:30 PM doors 6:30PM  Egan's Ballard Jam House  (206) 789-1621 (Reservations recommended) 1707 Northwest Market Street, Seattle, WA The food is great and this band is too ! $7 cover Hounds@Bay is:  Larry Baumgartner, Jim Nason & Steve Peterson Help us celebrate our 1 year anniversary "Leaving our mark on Ballard" LET'S PACK THE PLACE Photo by Ron Dalton

This announcement sent to you by  Larry Baumgartner and Lynette Hensley 3009 NE 135th St. Seattle, Washington 98125 206 291-4117

Houndsatbay -- Parchman Farm James Nason Hounds At Bay