Envoi

"She sang the song slowly, as if she in fact did not really remember it, but was trusting each word to take her to the next, relying on the melody - and in her quivering voice, there was no melody anyone but she could hear - to give her the story... For as long as the song lasted, she made you forget that anything outside the song existed at all." - Greil Marcus, in Envoi

Looking up the literal meaning of envoi, I come upon some hints: "a short stanza concluding a ballad," coming from envoyer in French, meaning to send. It is related to the word, envoy, "a messenger or representative." Where we've been, where we're going, we're here to pick up and send messages through time and space in some way, sometimes through music and image, sometimes composed as song and place. 

I Ride an Old Paint performed by Carl Sandberg, 1938

I ride an old paint, I lead an old Dan
I'm goin' to Montan' for to throw the hoolihan
They feed in the coulees, they water in the draw
Their tails are all matted, their back are all raw

Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow
For the fiery and snuffy are a rarin' to go

Old Bill Jones had two daughters and a song
One went to Denver, the other went wrong
His wife, she died in a poolroom fight
Still he'd sing from mornin' to night

Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow
For the fiery and snuffy are a rarin' to go

Oh when I die, take my saddle from the wall
Put it on my pony, lead him out of his stall
Tie my bones to his back, turn our faces to the west
And we'll ride the prairie that we love the best

Ride around little dogies, ride around them slow
For the fiery and snuffy are a rarin' to go

I think this particular song perfectly captures the idea of envoi - the cowboy, who has lived and witnessed loss, wishes to send his bones into the distance. Out of connection to his pony and prairie and out of love, the cowboy sends his story, humble bones upon his most precious companion. Without knowing exactly where it will go, or how it will be received, the message is sent in faith. Somehow, the theme of envoi, reminds me of the following poem:

Night Highway Ninety-Nine by Lew Welch

...only the very poor, or eccentric, can surround themselves with shapes of elegance (soon to be demolished) in which they are forced by poverty to move with leisurely grace. We remain alert so as not to get run down, but it turns out you only have to hop a few feet, to one side, and the whole huge machinery rolls by, not seeing you at all.

The construction of moments as exact echoes of other times and places, seem to be captured in the basic language of folks songs - in their lyrics, syntax, tone, and rhythm. The amazing thing about the echo is that something so specific as a song is able to maintain itself in rapidly changing contexts. Lew Welch mentions a "whole huge machinery" that in this case of envoi, could be taken as commercialization and co-opting of the messages and messengers of song. Learning about the specific songs from specific people and specific places this past semester has helped me to become a little bit more alert in positioning myself on some kind of path, hopefully off to the side to experience it for a moment. 

Chicago City Blues

NOTES:

William Ferris quoting Shelby Brown: 

One thing about Chicago, people told me that money was even growing on trees there. I went and got me two sacks to carry with me for that money tree in Chicago. I went there and my brother, he saw me with two sacks. He say, "Shelby, what you carrying them sacks for?"... He grabbed the sacks and throwed them in the garbage can and said, "Don't do that. You let the folks make a fool out of you. Chicago is a free place, but don't come looking for money on the tree. They'll know you ain't nothing but a country fool."

The story of migrating people from the Mississippi Delta into Chicago at the promise of prosperity reminds me of how my parents ventured into the city and to the United States, eventually getting me here. In 1960, my mother moved on her own to Taipei to attend junior high. She was coming from the country side in Miaoli where my grandpa worked for an oil company and my grandma ran a grocery store. In the country, they had a house with three rooms for two large families. The floors were made of compacted, swept ground, and everyone had tatami mats to sleep on. Everyone got enough water, rice, vegetables, and sometimes, the oil company would host film screenings for the neighborhood. When Christmas came, Western missionaries would visit the neighborhood and give out food and treats. My mother recounts getting used Christmas cards with beautiful prints of Western families on them enjoying Christmas and words written in English. 

My father's side also ended up in Taipei. My grandpa sold lunch boxes at the Taipei train station as a child, and my grandma was a maid for a Japanese family. In 1960, my father had made it through high school and entered a college for technology. He eventually became an engineer for Fairchild, a prestigious American company, and was the first one to afford a car while giving the majority of his income to his mother until he was married in 1976. My parents moved to Fresno with my brother in 1980 with ambitious hopes to make it rich, followed by ups and downs, and me, here, wondering why I became a gardener and why my brother became an auto mechanic.

My parent's story is vastly different from the Mississippi-Chicago route, but at the heart of it may be a hope for a better life, for money or freedom, and an eventual sequence of reality checks of sorts that are grounded in one's relationship to a place, home, and history. 

Taipei in 1960 -

Delta Blues

 

Woody Guthrie

NOTES:

p. xiv - "The songs Woody sang and wrote all his life were inexorably bound to his own being."

p. xxiv - "Let me be known as just the man who told you something you already knew."

I wonder if it is possible for folks these days to wander and observe the world the way Woody Guthrie did. You need time and commitment and a certain level acceptance of spontaneity, I imagine. With digital navigation systems at my fingertips, I find it really difficult to be in a position where no one knows where I am, including myself. I wonder if in order to command a language of observation that is independent in the way Woody Guthrie's might have been, one would need to create their own map of the places they traveled, figuring it out step by step. Not to say that Woody Guthrie didn't have maps he could read, but that the presence of maps at particular moment would have been limited to the weight and volume of those maps.

Leadbelly

NOTES:

The scenes from the re-enactments of Leadbelly's story are striking. The March of Times Newsreel production makes me think of a term I'm not sure is correct: the term, exceptionalism, where narratives that are few and far between are tactically used to dispel certain harsh realities amongst the public consciousness. It seems that Leadbelly's story may have been especially fascinating to the American newsreel viewers because it is a narrative that is dramatic enough to fit within the racial narrative of the time - he is characterized, understood, and made comfortable within White American media. The snapshot of the stage scene where Leadbelly says his lines, acting as "himself," to the patriarch character, Alan Lomax, is especially fascinating. The composition of the frame exposes the dynamic while keeping it hidden in plain view. What else is hidden in plain view? 

Anthology of American Folk Music

NOTES: 

Anthology, from the mid 17th century, meaning 'flower' + 'collection' via anthos + logia

The songs in the anthology strike familiarity, giving contemporary popular music some context. As a whole collection, it is difficult to imagine it was compiled in 1952, before its aftermath. When consuming contemporary music on a daily basis from place to place, I find that I overlook the connections between music and the dimensions of time and place, fetishizing the commodity like a free packet of sugar. 

The idea of commoditization is not new to me, but the realization of it comes slowly. This week, I was introduced to the idea that space can be succinctly framed by the words, be here now. In being, in place, in time. As simple and mundane as that sounds, I find it very difficult to acknowledge it in day to day experiences; the cues deflect. Maybe there later. 

Back to the idea of the flower collection, Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music offers a collection of precious, homegrown pieces that make up a powerful arrangement of texture and color. A poem by Czeslaw Milosz comes to mind. 

By the Peonies, 1945

The peonies bloom, white and pink.
And inside each, as in a fragrant bowl,
A swarm of tiny beetles have their conversation,
For the flower is given to them as their home.

Mother stands by the peony bed,
Reaches for one bloom, opens its petals,
And looks for a long time into peony lands,
Where one short instant equals a whole year.

Then lets the flower go. And what she thinks
She repeats aloud to the children and herself.
The wind sways the green leaves gently
And speckles of light flick across their faces.

Mississippi John Hurt

NOTES: to come