I love it best when some random thing triggers a specific memory, like just now I glanced at the stove to see 1:11. Daddy loved bowling, and whenever someone's frame showed the score 111, he'd draw a little roof over it to make a stick drawing of a house. I haven't bowled in years, but this brought it all back.
Maybe you’ve never heard of a bandura. There’s a reason for that,
and I’ll get into it shortly.
I was first introduced to the bandura by Yarko Antonevych
(pictured), the son of a Ukrainian émigré, at the Florida Folk Festival. I’d
been playing the hammer dulcimer for a couple of years and was really getting
into learning more about musical instruments that were less “mainstream.”
Yarko taught as he performed, explaining that the bandura of today
had “evolved” from a lute-like instrument played in Ukraine during medieval
times. Although the strings are plucked, rather than hammered, I noted a
definite similarity of its sound to a hammer dulcimer, and was fascinated to
see another instrument that had so many strings – and was probably similarly
difficult to keep in tune.
Beautiful as the music was, my main takeaway from Yarko’s
performance was the tale he told about the persecution of Ukraine’s Kobzars – a
unique class of itinerant musicians who earned their living singing and playing
traditional Ukrainian music. In the late 1800s, Imperial Russia banned stage
performances by Kobzars and bandurists; the intent was to prevent any musical
performances in the Ukrainian language because the repertoire typically
included aspects of Ukrainian history and culture. Kobzars, who had once
enjoyed status in society, turned to street performance but in some cities were
arrested and their instruments destroyed. They were relentlessly persecuted and
all but wiped out.
A few of them survived, however, and a rekindling of interest in
them and in the bandura sparked a rise in Ukrainian
self-awareness. There was even a brief period during which the
Russian government showed tolerance to Ukrainian language and culture.
Then, the Communist Party launched a fight against nationalist
tendencies. Kobzars, and even the manufacture of banduras, were once again
restricted, all in an effort to quell a movement for the liberation of Ukraine.
Bandurists were harassed, arrested, exiled, tortured, and even executed.
In 1932 (or 1933; accounts vary), on the orders of Joseph Stalin,
Soviet authorities invited all Ukrainian Kobzars to attend a congress in Kharkiv.
All who attended were taken outside the city and put to death. According to
Yarko, the only reason that anyone knows about the bandura today is because of
a bandurist who figuratively “missed the train to Kharkiv.”
No documents exist – or at least none have been found – to
substantiate the story about the mass execution of Kobzars and other
traditional Ukrainian performers. But there’s plenty of evidence that SOMETHING
happened, that bandurists died or disappeared in significant numbers around
that time, and with all that we now know about Stalin, the story is more than
plausible.
And isn’t that the way to subjugate a culture? Over and over
throughout history … Irish, living in Ireland, yet forbidden to speak their own
Irish language. Native American children sent off to boarding schools, in order
to “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” The playing of bagpipes banned
in Scotland by the Act of Proscription of 1746. Obliterate any semblance of
cultural identity.
Historically, Imperial Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, and Lithuania all have claimed jurisdiction over Ukraine. I don’t pretend to understand all of the complexities that have led to Russia’s current attempt to once again annex Ukraine. But my sympathies lie firmly with Ukraine as they fight, yet again, to maintain their identity as a culture and as a sovereign state.
Today I had a Facebook comment from a long-time acquaintance:
Gilbert Sullivan. Actually, I first came to know him when we were in elementary
school, through my younger brother. Gilbert Sullivan’s name immediately grabbed
me … and this was years before Irish pop star Gilbert O’Sullivan hit the music
scene. Gilbert Sullivan’s name meant something to me because it reminded me of
Gilbert and Sullivan, the creative team that wrote comic operas in the
Victorian Period. Most of my other elementary-school friends didn't make that
connection. (And why on earth would they?) But I was listening to Gilbert and
Sullivan operas, and playing their music on the piano … yes, even as a little
kid.
As an adult, teaching school, I encountered a student named Nicole Porter. “Cool name,” I thought. It was even cooler when I discovered that she could sing! “How fitting!” I mused to a friend. “How so?” said with a blank look, was all I needed to hear to realize that my friend’s mother didn’t ever sing them snippets of Cole Porter songs.
And these are just a couple of the musical connections made by my brain. I can’t even count the number of coincidences and oddities -- musical and non-musical alike -- that my brain found interesting or amusing but were met with blank looks, and occasionally derisive laughter … until I finally learned to just keep the observations to myself.
Like any other kid, I didn’t want to be weird. Unlike most other kids, I never figured out how to accomplish that.
I’m still weird. I laugh at jokes that are funny only to
me because they pull together disparate knowledge and trivia; by the
time I explained every little component, the joke would no longer be funny,
even to me. As a kid, this really bothered me. As an adult, it doesn’t much
bother me any more.
Part of self-acceptance, I suppose.
I have friends whose "weirdness" is genius, in my estimation. There are friends who are considered by others to be weird but in reality are marginalized, because of the unwillingness of general society to accept them for exactly who and what they are, without condition or judgment. I hope they all know just how much I love and admire them for being true to themselves. It can’t always be easy. I know whereof I speak.
Between physical sales and iTunes reporting, I'd known that my
music was played on six continents ... this day, thanks to George Houston and
Lisa McIntyre, it became official: MY MUSIC HAS BEEN HEARD AROUND THE WORLD ON
ALL SEVEN CONTINENTS! What fun!
(Click on the picture of Lisa McIntyre, below, for link to Facebook video.)
PS: Watch for the dancing penguins. 
Alan Watts, Future of Communication
"And this, then, is why music — of all the arts — is the most meaningless art. After all, music is a major industry in the United States. The money invested in orchestras, in operas, in the recording business is fantastic. It’s — horse racing is a very great industry, but music, I think, probably absorbs more millions than horse racing. And you could make a case that this was a complete dissipation. It solves no useful purpose, it doesn’t help anyone to survive, it is a noise; meaningless noise, endless meaningless noise going down the drain. And all these energies of orchestras, or all the power of electronics that delivers this, is total waste! And people get hooked on it. They get the thing called chorditis, which is addiction to harmonics. And they have to have this repeated day after day. Some people get up in the morning and they can’t function until they’ve had cup of coffee. But many more people get up in the morning and can’t function until they turned on the radio and got some music.
“And what would you say, then, of a culture which took this standpoint: music not allowed. Music is a diversion from reality. You know? That kind of awful, utilitarian attitude—but really, one of the basic things, you see, that we live for. What makes it worth surviving and going on is there can be such a thing as music, there can be dancing. In other words, that we can do things that are absolutely irrelevant so far as mere survival is concerned. Now, we have the proverb that ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ Dull for work. And people who play — justifying their play by making it a means to that end — those people never play. Because you don’t really play until you get so absorbed in the music — or the dancing, or the whatever you’re making; the part of doing, the calligraphy — until you get so absorbed in that there is no reason for it other than what you’re doing. The sheer delight of that. Then — because you are absorbed in something for which there is no ulterior motive, and which is pure play — this, by way of a byproduct, produces sanity. In other words, if you play in order to be healthy, in order to be sane, you’re not playing. But if you play just to play, then, as a byproduct, as something you couldn’t aim at directly, you are sane.
“And so a culture which allows for this, which allows for this sort of goofing, is a healthy culture. This is not the culture that we live in, because it is extremely anxious about play. Everybody, when they play, they have to find an excuse for it. They say, ‘Well, this is culture.’ You try and persuade the city of San Francisco to support its opera. What sort of propaganda do you have to use? You can’t say, ‘We should have a good opera house because we just like going to be opera.’ You say, ‘This improves the city’s image.’ After all, they have it in New York.
“And that is because we do not allow ourselves the idea that life is not serious. Because somehow we feel if you aren’t engaged in something serious you’re a loafer. You’re not contributing to the social welfare. And so, in this way, the artist has a peculiar role in this society. Very, very interesting. Because the artist is a very deceptive fellow. He appears to be the supreme luxury, the irrelevant fellow. You can afford an artist, you can afford to buy paintings, if you have surplus money. That’s a luxury. So you can support an artist, and we call it ‘fine arts.’ The completely useless person who makes paintings—which are sort of big labels or posters that you stick on your utilitarian walls to decorate them.
“But on the other hand, the artist is the man who shows you the future long before everybody else sees it. The artist is the eye opener. Just because the artist is distinct in role from the preacher and the philosopher, the artist can get away with all sorts of things. For example, in our culture, if you’re a university professor, a doctor, or a minister — these three professions: teacher, doctor, minister — you have to be very careful about your private life. Because the moment you have any alliances that are not quite regular, people’s tongues begin to wag. And why do they wag? Because they say, ‘The way you behave is inconsistent with your profession, with what you profess. You are teaching people the good life, the healthy life. And you live in this disreputable way. You have a mistress. You have something or other going on.’ But the moment an artist should take a mistress, this is what is expected of him. Everybody says, ‘Oh, he’s an artist.’ In other words: he doesn’t matter. He’s irrelevant. He is an entertainer; some sort of clown. But on the other hand, if you belong to a high culture, you patronize artists. See?
“So the role of the artist is very fascinating. Because he appears to be the clown, the jester, the absolutely unimportant and irrelevant person. And yet, it’s actually through the artist that we learn how to live. Not through the preacher, not through the philosopher, not through the professor. It is the artist who teaches us, whether he does it visually with painting or sculpture, tactually, or whether, above all, in music."
So one year ago today I put some ink on a few lines and became a homeowner once again!
It came at
the end of a long, drawn-out process – almost six months! – that was weirdly
complicated, but I’ll spare the details on that. It finally happened, and that’s
all that matters. The house needed some upgrades and repairs, and some of the things I’d
really like to do will take years. But the excellent news is that none of the
needed repairs/upgrades was necessary before I could move in.
First order was to remove all the old wall-to-wall carpeting.
A couple of days of crawling around on hands and knees to remove
carpet staples, some buffing and a coat of wax, and here’s the result:
After removal of the
carpeting, and its years of accumulated dust and inevitable decay (no judgment;
that’s the nature of carpeting) and it was time to clean and move in a few essential
pieces of furniture, like a bed, a couple of chairs, and this really cool
dining table with benches that I’d spied in an antique store.
The chairs
had been forgotten by the previous owner, and coordinate oddly but well with
the “new to me” table.
Over the
months, and with help from various friends, I’ve converted what was intended to
be the master bedroom
Into a music
room
Complete
with orange wall.
I’m pretty
thrilled to have a fireplace, even though it doesn’t “work” – that unsightly
and rusted out, inoperable Buck stove had to go, and the chimney needs MAJOR
attention before it’s safe.
But no
matter. I never had a fireplace before, and it comforts me just to look at it.
I’ll keep
painting and upgrading/repairing as the months and years go by, but for now I’m
happy and content. Almost as happy and content as Henry-Dog.
