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Weeding, Surprise Creek Colony by Julie Melton
For the past 2 or 3 months, on my way to work, I have passed a slow-moving construction site, making it’s way at no pace at all up a road, reconfiguring something deep underground.
From what I can tell, there are 3 workers on this site, but rarely altogether. Mostly there are 2. The fat, younger one who mans the digger, and the old-timer – and I mean old-timer – who does the shovelling.
It’s the old-timer that interests me most. He must be in his 80′s. He could be late 70′s if he’s been working construction his whole life. His nose is long, and beginning to look cumbersome in the way it does when you get very old, so I am happy to pronounce him 80 plus.
I’m somewhat surprised at the company’s retirement policy. I’m surprised enough that I think that perhaps something else is going on here. In Shawshank redemption Brooks begs not to be freed from prison and the security of what he knows and perhaps this old-timer has done the same. Perhaps he’s on half pay, just to be working.
And he’s working. He’s doing all the work. But very slowly. It’s a joke. I would take a photo, but I’m not that kind of person. He digs so slowly – he turfs up a yoghurt-sized sprinkling of dirt each time. The younger one mans the digger and smokes. Today he read a magazine.
The old-timer won’t take a sick day. If he doesn’t come to work one day it will be because he is dead. I imagine his heart beating in his chest, and then I imagine it just stopping.
The third man on the site is another young one, but even younger. He’s big too, but in a youthful, strong way and he helps with the manual work. He doesn’t man the digger and smoke. If the old-timer didn’t show, I try to imagine the conversation between the two younger guys. I don’t think it would last long.
It’s interesting because they are knotted around this site. This slow-moving site that must have the street’s residents at their wits end. The whole site is being inched painfully up the hill by the old-timer, and sometime in the future it will be a road again. When the old-timer doesn’t show for work, the other guys will find a way to remember him. One will man the digger and smoke, the other will commence shovelling.
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Julie Melton’s photograph is on a wall in our home. Her website is here.
Sometimes we need to stop. And take a breath. And clear our heads. Completely. (Is that possible anymore?) This week has been one of those times.
Last week, I was on holiday in Crete. At the tail end of a holiday, when home and work start poking at me through the membrane of relaxation, I begin to plan for my trip back to earth. I feel fresh, rejuvenated. Opportunities for change offer themselves up, like a handful of tiny new years, waiting for my better self to grab hold and pull.
I came back to work Wednesday and immediately hit a wall. No new projects, no movement on current project. I’ve spent a good part of the past couple of days fiddling around with this site. I have other things to do, but they’re being put off and put off.
* * *
I haven’t made work for myself for about two years. I am sore about this, and scared too to try and make inroads. Scared I won’t feel anything for the arts that i used to love.
* * *
Having children is tiring. You give yourself, with pleasure, and you get back big time. But you lose too…that old, selfish self that could do anything, anytime, is now seriously impeded. That’s some reality, and a danger too. My daughter can’t have all of me, or there will be nothing left to surprise her with later on.
* * *
I read my first book for a long time while in Crete. It was Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell. I took proper books in my luggage – Steinbeck, Hemingway and Fitzgerald – but opted instead to choose from a stack of tat in our villa. It was great, I ploughed through it. I laughed at first – the writing’s ridiculous. Then I settled in, and enjoyed myself, not feeling guilty at all. I’m reading some Hemingway now, and writing this. Thanks Patricia.
Wow. This dropped in my inbox this morning. Gorgeous.
Our new baby girl is the beautiful Aurelie Eve Abbott ! I can’t put into words how special this feeling is, or how much love I have for this little parcel! We’re so glad to have you Aurelie!
I watched Field of Dreams for the first time in a long time this evening. I’ve been wanting to watch it for a couple of months and I’m pretty sure they only just released it on iTunes to rent as it wasn’t there the last time I checked.
I love the film. It pretty much ticks all the boxes and does well to stay on the right side of a wheel of sweating brie. I think “if you build it, he will come” is a pretty strong message. Not taken literally, of course. While hitting a deep fly ball from our back porch would likely involve breaking a shop window down the street, thinking about “if you build it he will come” in other less literal ways could still be useful.
Once again, at the local residents and traders social tonight, I found myself in a conversation revolving around the belief in making quality things and allowing interest in them to build slowly, but steadily. Watching Field of Dreams underlined that conversation and at this point in time I think it is the best thing I can remind myself of every day and a good way to stave off bitterness / laziness / low self-confidence. If you build it with quality, people will respond with quality.
The other great message of the film is that heaven can be where we are – in Ray Kinsella’s case, Iowa. It is not always necessarily waiting for us in the future, but can exist in our present. As St. Catherine said “all the way to heaven is heaven.”
I have been meaning to write this since last Wednesday when we heard that our old-time family friend Bill Parrish passed away in Vienna, VA. Bill was an old-fashioned renaissance man, if that is not a contradiction in terms. Together with his wife Marianna they formed a large part of my early American experience. The name Hackleys was taken from a country store in Amissville, VA, that Bill and Marianna took us to as kids, every time we visited their farm in the Blue Ridge.
Men like Bill don’t come around too often, and I say that without a hint of hyperbole. I’m sure there are thousands of people that can attest. He was a big-hearted, intelligent, adventurous, eccentric and charismatic man with a mixture of values you may not expect to find in one person: a southern, Old-Fashioned-drinking man, fascinated by the British monarchy, with Clinton bumper stickers.
I had planned to write more about Bill than I will do here. His life and legacy is spellbinding, and should be talked about. But I’m just not sure I’m going to do it justice here. It is warm outside, I have just arrived at work and I’m hot and sticky and having trouble cooling down to proper concentration levels. Hot and sticky is how I remember 1988 when we first visited Locust Hill Farm.
We will miss you Bill, and I will think you every time I think of America and the best people that incredible country has given us. Your passing has left a massive hole, that our memories of happy and life-changing/affirming times will only partly fill. Our thoughts are with Marianna.
Love, David.
On the lake, Locust Hill Farm 1988
Peter, myself, Tom and Warfield, Locust Hill Farm 1988
Locust Hill Farm, 2008
Frea, back of the Parrish pickup truck, 2008
Hackleys Store, Amissville, VA, 2008
Bill and Midnight at Locust Hill Farm, 2008
The latest musical instalment is actually not the latest at all, but the resurrection of a playlist I made reference to in this post and have now finally got around to publishing. My latest shit is all over the place is a vague reference to Advanced Printmaking 2003 and, I think, Josh Miller or Travis Robertson. The artwork is the Douglas House by Richard Meier whose work I was looking at when this compilation took shape, around this time last year. I kind of listened this one into the ground at one stage, but have recently come to hear it for what it is: a halfway decent collection of very good songs.
The last four tracks were later additions, and somehow don’t fit quite right with the rest of the mix. But they’re great songs too, and I wanted to give value for money.
1. Ain’t Worth the Time ~ Shep And Me
2. Northern Lights ~ Bowerbirds
3. Close My Eyes ~ Arthur Russell
4. Red Ravagers Reel ~ Michael Hurley & Pals
5. Thermal Treasure ~ Polvo
6. Dark Was the Night – Cold Was the Ground ~ Blind Willie Johnson
7. I’ll Write Your Name Through The Fire ~ Shocking Blue
8. Slowness ~ Calexico
9. My Lonely Days ~ Monty Morris
10. Amazon One ~ Sun City Girls
11. Brain Burner ~ No Age
12. Troubled Waters ~ Michael Hurley & Pals
13. Dead Flowers ~ The Rolling Stones
14. West Palm Beach ~ Palace Music
15. It’s Three, Let’s Go ~ Sweet Baboo
Mediafire download: http://www.mediafire.com/?djmyt1yjkdg
Jack McCaslin, friend, printmaker, and musicologist gave me this CD before a trip I took with my family to Morocco. It instantly became a favourite, and my first inroad into what is, I suppose, world music. Despite not knowing a thing about the origins of Gnawa, I have enjoyed listening to the record for years and am finally doing my bit to share the love and pass on the magic. Gnawa music is (originally) North-African religious music, often performed with acrobatics. Wikipedia says that it has become increasingly profane as it has become more modernised. I would like to hear more of the profane, but for now this record remains the only Gnawa music I own.
Apart from being completely rhythmically mesmerising, the performances on record are incredibly energetic. While we were in Morocco I recorded a couple of musical performances on a cruddy dictaphone my dad had. Unfortunately, like similar recordings I made in Tanzania a couple of years later, they have been lost to time. Perhaps I will recover them in a box of mysterious goodies I recently unearthed at my parents house… Either way, enjoy. And if anyone has an Gnawa music kicking around, let me know!
Mediafire download: Gnawa Night Spirit Masters
I have been following the story of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion pretty loosely, and with an emotional response rather than factual interest. For as long as I can remember mines have fascinated and frightened me. It may be due to a made-for-TV film I saw when I was young called Haunters of the Deep. Or it may just be down to the fact that, like most people, the thought of working thousands of feet underground in the dark and claustrophobic spaces of a mine sounds terrifying. And then there’s the black lung, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and all the other respiratory diseases that come with the job. Plus the notoriously low pay for those willing to put up with all the negatives already stacked high against them. All in all, it paints a picture of a pretty grim profession, for low financial return.
When I started to listen to Appalachian old-time music I came across a number of mining songs, prevalent as they are in the coal belt of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. Miners, and their plight, have been immortalised in song since early Appalachians (and diggers across the world) first struck coal and the legend of the mine and the strange, soot-covered men that risked their lives in the deep took on a whole new dimension for me. The miner is a labouring man, taking his place next to train drivers, farmers, steel workers and sailors as part of a particular folklore and legend. Miners lives have been immortalised in songs and stories of tragedy, heroism, love and hatred. Blackleg Miner, a British folk song is about hatred towards strikebreakers and the miners who continued to work throughout an industrial action. Coal Miner’s Daughter is a sentimental description of life in a poor mining family, Sixteen Tons is about the mining company (company store), and the power it wields over every aspect in the life of the miner. And there are countless songs about mining disasters and trapped miners, which are about camaraderie and the brotherhood of miners.
Anyway, as I have read about the Upper Big Branch disaster, many of these songs came to mind and I decided to compile them together as a nod to those who were killed deep in the ground and the families they left behind. This is by no means a representative selection of mining songs. It is simply every song about mining I can remember I own. Not all the songs are even specifically about mining. Swannanoa Tunnel is about digging a tunnel and The Recruiting Collier is about a miner press-ganged into service in the army. But you’ll get the idea. And finally, it seems poignant to me that the bodies of 29 miners will be pulled from the ground in West Virginia only to be buried again as this seems to sum up what is so evocative about a mining disaster, and mining in general: a human life spent underground, and eternity spent the same way.
Coal Miner’s Blues
1. Coal Miner’s Blues ~ The Carter Family
2. He’s Only a Miner Killed in the Ground ~ Ted Chesnut
3. Miner’s Prayer ~ Dwight Yoakam
4. Blackleg Miner ~ Richard Thompson
5. Red Jacket Mine Explosion ~ The Phipps Family
6. Dark As A Dungeon ~ Merle Travis
7. Shut Up in Coal Creek Mine ~ Green Bailey
8. My Bonny Miner Lad ~ Shirley Collins
9. The Dying Miner ~ Woody Guthrie
10. The Recruited Collier ~ Anne Briggs
11. Sixteen Tons ~ George Davis
12. Coal Miner’s Daughter ~ Loretta Lynn
13. Coal Creek ~ Roscoe Holcomb
14. Swannanoa Tunnel ~ Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Mediafire download: Coal Miner’s Blues
Ah the sweet sweet smell of sunshine. This morning is the first with summer smell-o-vision. I walked into Bristol station and could feel the heat coming off things and out of the ground. Or maybe it’s the absence of cold that smells so good, as it’s still only hovering around 45. In the station the diesel and dust was thick in my nose and prompted memories of reading my way through Richard Ford novels while on my MA. The station cafe is a strange place of odd barstaff and cheap music, but I don’t want it to change. And I don’t want the station to change either. It is where I continually enter and re-enter my lives, it is certainly also a place of memory. Our train is pulling away now and I get a view of barreled roofs and corrugated iron painted in sunlight. I remember looking at Walker Evans photos, and think he would like the light on Temple Meads right now. I am thankful that I can take such joy in a mess of outbuildings and service shacks and hope today remains sunshiney and doesn’t, as has been promised, turn to rain.
