« January 14, 2007 - January 20, 2007 | Main | January 28, 2007 - February 3, 2007 »
January 22, 2007
Vinyl Review
In the course of converting vinyl to mp3, I've made some interesting rediscoveries. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed some King Crimson albums--In the Court of the Crimson King and Lizard are standouts for me. I had also forgotten small treasures like Hero and Heroine by The Strawbs, Pawn Hearts by Van der Graaf Generator and 666 by Aphrodite's Child.
In looking through the collection I dug out 801 Live, Night after Night by UK, and Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy) by Brian Eno. I also pulled out the eponymous The B-52s and once again visited "Planet Claire." (Same recognized this cut from a Hallowe'en album we have.) Echo and the Bunnymen and Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division, mixed in with Dazzle Ships (OMD) and Chameleon in the Shadow of Night--Peter Hammill. I renewed my acquaintance with "The Pothead Pixies" who appear first on Camembert Electrique and then drive the entire Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy.
We mustn't forget the electronic side of things--Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Edgar Froese (particularly Aqua), Cluster, Roedelius, Klaus Schulze.
But, what was most gratifying is to hear that despite youthful pretensions, the real talent and drama of Genesis was there, right from the beginning. From From Genesis to Revelation right on through to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway there are, at first flashes, and then a sustained high level of art, intelligence, and real beauty. Foxtrot is still the standout, but I had forgotten some of the beauties of Trespass, Nursery Cryme and Selling England by the Pound.
All of this before the stranger realms of This Heat and From a View to a Scream by Tuxedo Moon. Snakefinger and Nash the Slash make appearances before we arrive at the pinnacle of oddness and interest--The Residents. I got through The Residents, The Third Reich and Roll Album and Fingerprince--I have yet to get Diskomo, The Commercial Album and whole "Eloi and Morlock" trilogy of Plutonian Jazz.
Next up--I hope--The Unfortunate Cup of Tea, The Tain, The Book of Invasion, The Man who Built America and other treasures from the nearly forgotten Horslips. And perhaps some YMO, more Peter Hammill, Gentle Giant, Gryphon, Renaissance, Curved Air, and bits and pieces from more renowned but less preferred sources--The Cars, Focus, The Human League, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet. And then there's the standout of Ultravox and John Foxx. They still await electronic transformation. And given Metamatic I don't know why I didn't pull these out first--perhaps deferred gratification.
It's very nice to visit past greatness and it gives me pause to wonder why I stopped listening. And then I remember--I got married and everything else faded in importance. Now, I hardly know a modern group or a modern sound and somehow, I have no real sense of deprivation. That's a good thing.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Word for the Day and St. Therese's Prophetic Vision
James 2:13
Merciless is the judgment on the man who has not shown mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgment.
Here we have the glimmering of the love of God that, I am convinced, took us a long time to understand fully. In fact, I would mark the turning point in our understanding of this Lord near the turn of the 20th century, with the still quiet voice of a young French girl hidden away in a cloister of little importance in the small French town of Lisieux. This young girl, raised in the Jansenist, puritanical vein of the Church vouchsafed us all a glimpse of what God is really like; and her revelation, prophet-like, received the endorsement of the Church--first with her unprecedentedly rapid canonization and then with her elevation to Doctor of the Church.
She didn't invent anything new, but she showed in a new light what had been proclaimed since the time of Jesus. God is a Father. Not only is He a Father, He is the exemplar of all fathers. And because at the same time He is all Love and all Goodness, He is a Father whose patience is infinite and whose heart longs for our return to Him. The smallest motion, the slightest leaning in His direction and He is there to scoop us up in His arms and bring us to Him, the very finest "elevator to God" because in the entire journey, we are close to Him.
This is the God that Jesus proclaimed, the God who is the Father of the prodigal Son. He isn't a new invention. But Saint Therese had the courage and tenacity to give us a new insight into Him. We understand Him now as we do largely because of the synchronicity of St. Therese of Lisieux, Blessed Dom Columba Marmion, and St. Pius X. Together the three of these, and probably a host of others, converged upon the vision of God the Merciful and loving Father. The Holy Spirit reawakened this knowledge in a very special way for all of us moderns. And we would do well to recall it frequently and to act with the knowledge that with God as our Father, we are all brothers and sisters. We do well to forgive, put aside our petty sibling rivalry, and show His beautiful mercy and love to all around us.
St. Therese continues to shower roses from heaven upon those willing to receive them.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In The Court of Excess
People truly love King Crimson. Things I found while looking for lyrics:
In the Court of the Crimson King
and for those who can follow it better than I can,
An Analysis of In the Court of the Crimson King
If you get a chance, you really should listen to this album, most particularly the title song which is at once quite lovely in ways that I cannot give proper voice to and a bit melancholy. When I listened to this album again, I was reacquainted with brilliance. I believe this is the version of King Crimson that includes Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer on both bass and vocals.
And you know, considering that there is a fair amount of a type of Jazz that I absolutely dispise on some of the tracks, this recommendation might be regarded as some fairly strong stuff. If you find yourself initially put off, skip the first track--or better yet, listen to the last track, "In the Court of the Crimson King" and after you have a sense of the group, come back--it makes better sense. (In fact in the context of "21st Century Schizoid Man" the endless tootling of the acid jazz, or whatever it is called makes perfect sense and gives the whole song interesting context, vision, and power.
"Nothing he's got he really needs,
21st Century Schizoid man. . ."
After which we have complete breakdown.
Followed by , "I Talk to the Wind."
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Two Films from the Ice Storm
Sent by a friend:
And I'm getting a little worried here--we've had to run our air conditioner on and off through both December and January. Today it's expected to be 82 with a thunderstorm in the afternoon leading to cool off--that means a really wretched flea and mosquito season and who knows what other seasonal anomalies.
My prayers go out to those affected by these terrible storms.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
One I Left Out
You know in all that blather a couple of posts down, I managed to leave out a real favorite:
Alan Parson's Project, Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
I first encountered them with I, Robot and never liked Tales as much--but I've concluded, perhaps incorrectly, that I was wrong. I'll need to listen to I, Robot again and see where it falls out.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 1:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2007
The Beauty of Creation--The Everglades almost fin
From morning prayer:
God, our Father,
Yours is the beauty of creation
and the good things you have given us. . .
I had anticipated part of my story in the photographs I recently posted, and I thought perhaps that I would not get around to writing it. And yet the subject compels my mind day by day in a way that few things have for a very long time. Even amid all of the distractions of the day, I return to this place, this river of grass at least once a day. And I think about the next time I will visit. (There's a Jewish and Christian artifact exhibit at the museum in Ft. Lauderdale--another excuse to visit?)
Upon arriving at the center, the first thing we did was look for the tram tickets. We were a few minutes away from the next tram and we were in fairly full tourist season--the trams would be full. After we had gotten the tickets, we had a few minutes to wait and wandered over to one of the exhibit buildings which fronted on a small, probably artificial waterway.
At the back of this station there is a small boardwalk that overlooks the waterway. In the nearby trees two anhingas rested, wings spread to dry out from the morning's fishing. At the base of another tree a great blue heron stood, unblinking, unmoving, just waiting. Waiting for what?
There's a stir in the water--suddenly, splashes--not ripples of fish coming near the surface to scoop up succulent mosquito larvae or other food--full fledged splashes, as though leaping to get out of the way. Ten, eleven, twelve splashes in a progression from far away to near. And then the cause--silent and slow-moving, the black back of an alligator as it moves with hardly any stirring.
It's hard to capture the excitement of seeing this kind of thing in the wild. Naturally, one goes to the gator parks and sees alligators swimming around. But this was the first time I had seen such a large animal in the wild moving. I had, a couple of summer ago, walked over a sleeping gator in Corkscrew swamp--but I had never see a living gator in the wild so close.
Additionally, through the tea-colored water of the canal, you could also see the strange, elongate forms of the Florida gar, hovering out of harm's way. At first the gator swam at the surface as though enjoying the morning sun, but as he approached the ranger station, he gradually submerged and finally vanished beneath the water.
That was our introduction to the wildlife of the Everglades. My description here cannot do it justice, nor do I think still pictures nor even movies. The only way to experience something like this is to go for yourself. And I would encourage everyone to take the time to do so. Go and see what is being argued about and fought over. Go and see first hand what is really present.
In the course of our tram-ride we were to learn that in the ten-year history of the particular guide who accompanied us, there had been only two minor incidents with alligators and tourists--both of them the result of sheer foolishness. In neither case were the tourists seriously injured. The rule, respect the space of the gators and they will, fairly reliably, respect your space. And that makes sense--we are as alien to them as they to us--and because they have little or no reasoning ability, we are far more frightening because we tower over them--they want as little to do with us as they can. But don't come between a mother and her offspring; and for heaven's sake, don't put your child on a gator's back for a photograph.
Next time, I'll try to finish this with a description of the seven mile ride into the Everglades to the observation tower--the triumph of the Army Corps of Engineers, with also was a triumph of construction for the habitat itself.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Prayer Request
If you have a moment during the day, please remember DM and his family as they struggle with the loss of a dear family member who passed away late last week. Thank you.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Rediscoveries--Annie Haslam--Still Life
Annie Haslam was the lead singer for the progressive group Renaissance (I don't know if some version of Renaissance still exists.) On the album A Turn of the Cards, they introduced the idea (or at least perfected the idea which had actually been made prominent by Procol Harum in "A White Shade of Pale") of singing lyrics to classical music that wasn't meant to be vocal. The song, "Cold is Being," was sung to the tune of Albinoni's famous Adagio.
Still Life (1985) is an album of such songs. It features songs sung to the tunes of Mendelsohn's Overture to the Hebrides (aka Fingal's Cave), St. Saen's "The Swan," Wagner's "Seigfried's Rhine Journey," and Satie's "Trois Gymnopedies No. 2." She reprises the use of Albinoni's Adagio in a song titled "Save Us All." There are other melodies that I can't so easily place--famous and immediately familiar if not leaping directly to the memory. In addition she does a treatment of "Ave Verum Corpus."
Annie's voice may require a bit of getting used to for some. I find it pure and lovely while not so ethereal as the voice of, say, Sissel or even Sonja Kristina. There is a robust quality and roundness of tone. While I'm not wild about some of the vocal choices she makes, they do tend to grow on you as you listen.
The classical melodies do tend to make for overly dramatic lyrics at times and occasionally some overly dramatic vocal choices. However, overall, it is very pleasing to hear familiar melodies with an interesting overlay of words. Annie's voice has always had a tremendous appeal for me--it is pure and clear, light and delicate, while still being robust and full bodied. It's an interesting combination.
When I first heard her solo work, I was so used to her work with Renaissance, I didn't care for it; but now, upon a relisten with years between and the memories of Renaissance not nearly so close to the surface, these are very appealing and lovely songs. It is so nice to make their reacquaintance without the patina of ingrained preconceptions.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2007
Reprint from The Journey Website
I don't, and I won't make a habit of this; however, this morning I received an e-mail that provoked me into reading something that surprised me. So, I'll share it here and hope that it surprises you as well.
from the journey website
The Catholic Calendar for Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Wednesday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time
St. Francis de Sales, bishop, doctor of the ChurchScripture from today's Liturgy of the Word:
Hebrews 10:11-18
Psalm 110:1, 2, 3, 4
Mark 4:1-20A reflection on today's Sacred Scripture:
The mystery of the Kingdom of God has been granted to you . . . .
We are privileged. We have been granted access to the inner sanctum. We know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, and while we may not fully comprehend them, they are part of our lives every day. We have a fully functioning missionary and teaching Church that proclaims the mysteries of faith and helps us to live them even when we cannot fully encompass them.
Not so with many. They are trapped in the prison of implacable scientism--reason gone awry. The mysteries of faith are beyond them because they are beyond the realm of the simply demonstrable. They cannot comprehend God, because God falls outside of their realm of study.
To these lost sheep everything must be presented as parable. No, we don't tell stories, but rather, being part of the mystery of faith, our very lives are a parable. Think for a moment of the very poor woman who gave two pennies to the poor. Her action, her life was a parable.
We are living parables, our lives teach. What do they teach? They teach out of the fullness of our hearts. If our hearts are filled with Jesus, then Jesus is proclaimed to the world in a way that the world can see and begin to understand. When we start our day with prayer, we can more effectively pursue our mission to be living examples to a world in chaos.
The other day, Tom at Disputations wrote about being "lowercase a" apostles and what that meant and how that might be done. Becoming living parables is one way to do the service that we owe in Love.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:34 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 25, 2007
The Ur-sin of Pride and Church Teaching
A while back, in another place, I made one of those occasional forays into the wilds of passionate ignorance that mark my journey around God. (I say around because it sometimes seems like a spiral with a very small fractional decrease toward the center.) This particular episode characterized itself by seeming to demean the small-t sense of Catholic tradition.
There were two reasons for this--both of them good; however, what I ended up saying was not really what I intended to say. First, the reasons: we are cautioned against the traditions of men that get in the way of the gospel. And whether or not we like that, it is possible that some of these traditions, which do not fall under the category of sacred tradition can be just such things as throw up a roadblock. In the particular instance I was arguing--the content of the tradition of Church teaching--this was certainly not the case, and thus the point is not germane.
The second and much stronger argument came only after much reflection and refinement of what I was originally trying to say. My argument came down to the fact that the particulars of a church instruction when it was not definitive, dogmatic, or otherwise universal for all times and places, were particulars that related to the time and culture of the place and thus were apt to change as understandings surrounding the circumstances changed. Just as St. Thomas Aquinas is not to be blamed for his opinion about "the quickening" which engendered life--so the Church is blameless in its time and place about a variety of teachings that indeed do constitute tradition. One example of this is the view of the universe that made possible the equitable and just treatment of the incomprehensibly arrogant Galileo. Church tradition in this matter was simply wrong--it was not culpably wrong, but it was required to change as new data entered our understanding--and it did, with time change, because the Church saw that what they taught regarding the structure of the solar system was not, after all, a matter of faith and morals.
So Church teaching and tradition can change--things can fall out of it as the Church's understanding of itself and of the world at large grows and matures through time. But even this point is utterly irrelevant to the argument.
The final place I came to with regard to Church tradition and how it is often invoked to refute, challenge, or subtly alter a definitive teaching was that tradition was not a matter with which I really needed to be engaged at first. Indeed, my initial assumption upon receiving ANY church teaching is that the tradition of the Church's teaching on the matter had already been considered and incorporated into the document at hand. That said, I would give greater weight to "more definitive" documents. That is, I would consider that this tradition had been given a far weightier consideration in the course of the drafting and redrafting of an encyclical than in say a common local pastoral instruction. Which is not to say that the local pastoral instruction is to be immediately scrutinized for errors of tradition.
For myself, the recourse to traditional teaching would mean only one thing--the intrusion of pride, the father and progenitor of all sin. If I find myself questioning a teaching based either upon worldly understanding or my own profound and expansive (not) understanding of tradition, I must see in that merely my own rebellious fleeing from proper instruction. I have related in the past and refer often to my experience with the Encyclical Veratatis Splendor, which I came to question through my understanding of how the world works. I was wrong then, and I have been shown to be wrong in nearly every instance in which I have questioned Church teaching. Most often I am not wrong about what I am saying is true, but rather I am wrong in attributing the "faulty logic" to the Church. Too often I read something and interpret it not in the light of the thought of those who drafted it, but in the light of my own reasoning and interpretation of phrase.
Part of critiquing anything is understanding the statement that is being made in the way it is intended by the person making the statement. For those who venture over to Disputations often, you'll note that when I get engaged in some discussions, I am sometimes simply off-track. I don't fully understand what the person writing is trying to say and so my arguments are not so much counter-arguments to the points being made, but counter-arguments to the ghosts and shadows I have thrown up around the arguments through my own ignorance. I don't necessarily disagree with the real point--I disagree with what I think is the real point.
Which leads back to Church teaching. I have said elsewhere that often upon receiving Church teaching I rant and rave and thunder and moan and lament the vast idiocy of the world that would result in so profoundly ignorant a teaching. I throw myself against the wall of it again and again, seeking to find entrance, battering myself endlessly against the stones of the fortification.
And then, a little later, with some help from some friends and some time for reflection and serious prayer about the matter, I walk around to the other side and go in through the door. It often seems that there are very few people who really disagree with what the Church teaches, but a vast multitude who disagree with what they think it teaches. And very often their recourse is, "Tradition has not taught this." In making such a statement they presume to know tradition and its details better than those who formulate the teaching. Now, this may be the case, I cannot say. But it does seem to me that Jesus promised the protection of the Holy Spirit for the Church and its magisterium, not for every person who thinks they are a theologian.
This is not to say that there can be no disagreement. However, I do believe that the immediate, knee-jerk and continuing disagreement of the rank and file is indicative more or the Ur-sin than it is of the validity of the teaching they are considering. Now that is, I suppose, a form of judgment, which if applied to others certainly applies to me. I rarely question church teaching on the basis of Her tradition, but rather on the basis of the tradition of the reformation and of secular thinkers. When I finally realize which reformation creed or realist philosopher has crept in and guided my thoughts, I can put a filter to screen out that reasoning and suddenly begin seeing the splendor of the truth.
I am so profoundly grateful for the teaching magisterium of our Church. Because of it, it is more difficult for the entire church to go the way of our Episcopalian brothers and sisters. Because of it, I am not left on my own to try to deal with very difficult matters--embryonic stem cell research (although there are perfectly good, reasonable, and scientific reasons to oppose this as well as moral reasons), the problem of the poor, war, the death penalty, and other things on which the Church both advises in the individual instances and gives a profound teaching principle by which to make our own judgments.
Otherwise we are "like sheep without a shepherd." However, for every teaching that I can embrace, there are three I must struggle with to first understand and then, sometimes to force myself into line with. These latter more often fly in the face of personal experience and personal feelings and it takes time to reconcile the teaching with continuing to function as a compassionate and caring person to those whose habits or behavior may come under the scrutiny of the Church in the given teaching.
All that said, the point is simple. When the Church delivers a teaching, it seems both respectful and logical to start with the assumption that the tradition of the Church's teaching on the matter has already been considered and incorporated. If we do not see it, it may be because we are not as profoundly steeped in that tradition and the understanding of it as those who draft the documents.
Questioning is always a good thing--it is a necessary thing to bring about understanding. But a thousand questions are not even a problem, and a thousand problems don't even approach a doubt. And questioning takes two forms--one life-giving, one destructive. "How do I understand this and weave it into my life," is the questioning of obedience that can still sound off-key. "How do I do away with this which does not agree with my mind which is already made up?" is too often the questioning that I see any Church teaching get--this is the questioning of Satan who decided that he knew better how to run things.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 26, 2007
Who Is the Crimson King?--A Catholic Reading
Following in the line of my much "admired" and frequently sited "award-winning" "Devotional Reading of H. P. Lovecraft," I present for your delectation and delight and short excursion into In the Court of the Crimson King. Partly this was driven by the discovery of Robert Fripp's magnificent Pie Jesu album, which is apparently a compilation of other bits and pieces. And there are frequent hints throughout his oeuvre of a religious background if not of a religious feeling. Working on the premise that God uses great art often despite the intentions of the artist, I present this consideration of the first song on In the Court of the Crimson King.
I have no idea who composed the lyrics for this song, but as Fripp was always a leader of the group, no matter how many people swirled around it at a time, and considering that the album is a work of musical genius, we can find in it the fingerprint of the Creator. (All one needs to do is squint and look hard enough.) {Also a caveat: I won't pretend that this is a profound musicological understanding of the work as a whole--I haven't the background for that. I work with words, and so it is the interplay of the words and the music that I shall try to look at and open up for you what I see there.)
For our first class let's consider the first song: "21st Century Schizoid Man." For those who have not heard it, it is a rather grating introduction (as befits the subject matter) to a magnificent album. There is a very astringent guitar line with a voice altered in some way to create the sense of growling or screaming. The song proceeds for the first two verses indicated below in a very rigid, tense semi-melodic line--yes, there's a sort of tune to it, though I don't think one would typify it as hummable.
21st Century Schizoid Man
Robert Fripp/Ian McDonald/Greg Lake/Michael Giles/Peter SinfieldCat's foot, iron claw
Neurosurgeons scream for more
At paranoia's poison door
21st century schizoid manBlood rack, barbed wire
Politician's funeral pyre
Innocence [Innocents?] raped with napalm fire
21st century schizoid manDead sea, blind man's greed
Poets starving children bleed*
Nothing he's got, he really needs
21st century schizoid man
Now, if you haven't heard the song, you need to know that the first three lines of each stanza should be read as accented/stanzaic poetry in which there is a pause in the middle of the line--very common to Celtic Epic Poetry. Thus the effect is
Cat's foot
Iron Claw
Neurosurgeons
Scream for more
at Paranoia's
poisoned door
21st Century Schizoid Man.
This detail merely contributes to the image of the song. In addition, this first stanza (as well as the title) give us the immediate indication that whoever the Crimson King is, his court is not a thing of the past, but a very modern, very relevant occurrence. This is in opposition to some of the songs that follow in which there is a vaguely medieval or ethereal sense to what is happening. "I Talk to the Wind" seems a perfectly appropriate follow-up to this song, because to whom else will a schizoid (who, as we shall see, experiences a total psychotic break) talk to?
After the first two stanzas of this song, the music enters into a instrumental break that initially takes the form of a fugue, mimicking the state of some schizoid patients. The saxophone and guitar take off on their own and begin chasing one another in a free-form jazz mode. Initially the structure is quite tight, but the fugue state breaks down to bring about the musical equivalent of a total psychotic episode.
The patient recovers briefly--long enough for the final stanza, which may be the key stanza of the whole song, and perhaps one of the keys to the entire album:
"Dead sea, blind man's greed
Poets starving children bleed
Nothing he's got, he really needs
21st century schizoid man"
And within this one line on which hangs much of my thought about this as a fundamentally religious song--"Nothing he's got, he really needs." At once a biting criticism of modern society and the true schizoid state of the person who is a materialist and who has acquired all that he has through the pain and hardship of others and still seeks to fill the emptiness inside. None of it will. Ever. It cannot. You cannot put gold into the hole in your soul. And everything you acquire trying to fill that emptiness only rips the hole wider until it becomes a wound at the surface of the mind--the materialist becomes a schizoid personality, constantly fleeing reality in the pursuit of filling the void that he only succeeds in making larger.
Now, this is just as easily a secular criticism of a plutocratic society in which the pursuit of wealth is regarded not only as laudable but as something nearly holy. However, as I am a Christian, I tend to place a great deal of weight on "Nothing he's got he really needs," which conversely indicates that what he really needs, he does not have. If he does have all this wealth, if he really is within the Court of the Crimson King, what could he possibly be lacking?
Peace--peace that comes when the mind assents to the soul's prompting to look for what really matters. The 21st Century Schizoid Man lacks knowledge of God and desire for God. And what is truly frightening about this is that from my survey of many people within the Church, this is as true of them as of the hard-core materialist. We have surrendered, in many cases, the one-track, express-train pursuit of God for the pursuit of the legitimate, lesser goods of our present life. While we aren't in the full fledged auto-drawing-and-quartering that occurs to the ardent materialist, we have been sufficiently affected by his disease to have lost our own sense of belonging to God and pursuing His ends over our own. I can think of countless examples just from the blogging world, and I think each of you can as well.
Okay, to finish up--the last verse is sung, brought to a resounding screeching, scraping end, and then there is a total break. The interlude between verses two and three are a fugue state--a loss of self-control and self knowledge. The very end of the song, which features every musician flying off on their own riffs--the saxophonist not so much playing notes as torturing the instrument--the schizoid man has gone psychotic. And then, he "talks to the wind."
The ultimate end of pursuing material things is a total break with reality. In our language, were we to die in that state, it is called Hell. Hell is a state of being utterly opposed to the only reality. Hell is the continued anguish of trying to fill up a gaping hole, when all you are is that gaping hole. Hell is what is left of us when all we have done with our lives is to seek to make more of ourselves.
And the music seems to nicely mimic this as well. Hell is cacophony, the cacophony of self in the total absence of boundaries and freedom. Hell is being chained to our own wills for all eternity. "Neuro surgeons SCREAM for more at paranoia's poison door." All because we cannot surrender to love--we seek love from created things and create more pain for ourselves and for others in our pursuit.
In the Court of the Crimson King is a hard album. It has an adamantine brilliance--a high gloss that results both from the genius of the musicians and from the truth they manage to convey so clearly. Whether or not they buy into the truth, God has nevertheless used their music to convey a strong message to the person who takes it seriously. The flaw with the album is that no way out is shown--the Court of the Crimson King is simply the prison entered by the 21st Century Schizoid Man. In the title song, "In the Court of the Crimson King", the last song on the album, there is an initial promise of freedom:
The dance of the puppets
The rusted chains of prison moons
Are shattered by the sun.
But that is all done away with by the end of the song:
On soft gray mornings widows cry
The wise men share a joke;
I run to grasp divining signs
To satisfy the hoax.
The yellow jester does not play
But gently pulls the strings
And smiles as the puppets dance
In the court of the crimson king.
I cannot say where they were going when they composed this modern masterpiece, but I can say where they go for me. When we surrender to our materialist urges we are made puppets by the things we desire. We will do anything to have them because they will fill the void, or so we think. But that void, unless fill by the One, is a black hole--all that is fed into it strengthens it and enlarges it.
The only way out is to negate "nothing he's got he really needs," and to find the one thing necessary--Our Lord.
*Later Upon rereading this, I found this line very interesting. although it is pronounced
Poets starving
children bleed
I wonder whether it isn't a single thought regarding the starving children of poets? Thus:
Poets' starving children bleed.
Fascinating the way punctuation or lack thereof can lead to a productive and fruitful ambiguity. It works that way in scripture often as well.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack