Crazy Image

From the South, one wonders? Those look like army tents.The soldiers having a ball.

from Act One Scene Four

(Austin unloads the rifle. Sets it in a corner.)

Austin: So what have you got there?

(Henry’s wrapped treasure. Everyone sits, somewhat uneasily. Henry hands over the object.)

Austin: All right. What’s this now?

(He unwraps it. First the burlap. Then the towel. Sits back to take a look.)

Austin: Huh.
You know, I hate to disappoint you young man, but I have never known, in a single instance, of a Negro of any moral tone who was fond of the banjar. You won’t find such things up here.

Henry: Oh.

(Henry is crushed. Cole laughs again.)

Henry: Why?

Austin: Why?
Well that’s a rather complex question.

Henry: I’m all ears, Mister Steward. From what I’ve heard, it’s a beautiful instrument, and it’s the one true thing to come out of this meeting of peoples..

Austin: You call the institution of slavery a meeting of peoples?

Henry: Collision of peoples? Look I’m sorry sir. I come for knowledge, that’s all.

Austin: As far as I’m concerned, the only suitable music is that which has been made in praise of the Lord above.

Henry: That’s a hard position.

Austin: Which has arisen out of the necessity to instill temperance into all our fellows.

Cole: So you’re one of those temperence folks.

Austin: I am. In the old days, Mr. Cole, such parties that this little instrument would inspire in some woodland hovel proved a danger to my brethren as well as yours. The revellers would secure themselves against ambush by stringing a line across the path to their party. Any slave-owner who came looking – not to mention more than one curious innocent – found himself maimed or even decapitated by the act.

Cole: Serves ‘em right, I’d say, trying to run the lives of their fellow men, like they were cattle.

Austin: Well that’s a very sensitive remark there, Mr. Cole, but an eye for an eye does not for justice make.

Cole: I still say serves ‘em right.

Austin: Even the innocent who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Cole: I don’t imagine any innocent would come rushing fast enough to do themselves any harm.

Austin: Sometimes it would be the horses that were so maimed.

Cole: Oh, in that case. Well, that’s different.

Henry: And you want to blame all that hurt and pain on the little banjo there? You want to banish it utterly from the land because of some old southern party tricks?

(Austin sees the scope of Henry’s disappointment.)

Austin: Well... of course, the climate’s got a little to do with it too. Let me take a look here.
(He picks it up.)
You see?
It’s split.

Henry: What?

Austin: The skin. And the neck is cracked.

Henry: Really?

Austin: Weather up here isn’t conducive to the banjar. It’s an instrument born of the dry southern heat, the heat of the African continent and the State of Virginia.

Henry: So it’s split.

Austin: Yeah.

Henry: I never even got to learn how to play.

Austin: So tell me then: What are your names?

Henry: Our -?

Austin: What do you go by? In this act of yours?

Henry: Er.

(Henry and Cole exchange a look.)

Austin: You do have an act, don’t you? Or do you blacken up your faces with burnt cork for some other reason?

Henry: I go by Liddle Brudder or Long Tail Blue.

(Austin looks to Cole.)

Cole: Me? I’s John Crow.

Austin: John Crow?

Cole: Come listen all you galls and boys
I’s jist from Toronto,
I’m goin to sing a little song,
My name is John Crow.

Austin: But that’s not so original, is it?

Cole: What you mean?

Austin: Is there not a famous cork dancer named Jim Crow making the rounds through the United States of America? ‘cept, if I’m not mistaken, he’s from Tuckyhoe, not Toronto.

Cole: W’ll he’s not up here, is he?
...
Anyway, I never heard of him.
...
What business is it of yours anyhow?

Austin: Oh, I sometimes used to go out for the entertainments, back in the State of New York... Civilization...

(He’s thinking about his wife. He goes into a bit of a reverie. Macey enters. Has a brief conversation with him, out of the past.)

Macey: Austin. When are you going to take us to New York City for own of those high falutin shows?

Austin: They’re having a balloon launch in Rochester tomorrow afternoon Macey.

Macey: Now you know that’s not what I’m talking about–

Austin: And I hear they’re going to be unwrapping an Egyptian mummy right in front of the town hall on Saturday evening.

Macey: Austin. I want to dress up in my finest clothes, and I want to go into a theatre and sit down in a chair to watch a performance of a piece of music, or a comedy...

Austin: The circus?

Macey: No.

Austin: There’s a man named Barnum making the rounds with the oldest woman in the world. Claims to have been a nursemaid to George Washington himself.

Macey: A tent is not a theatre, Austin.

Austin: And then there’s that Jim Crow fellow. A play called Bone Squash or something of that nature.

Macey: Jim Crow? Well... I might be convinced.

(Henry is bringing Austin back to the present.)

Henry: Mister Steward?

Austin: You were saying? My apologies. I drifted off for a moment.

(Macey disappears.)

Henry: I was saying I thought it was – I mean I reckon you would have found those kinds of shows somewhat - er - offensive, or... uh, I thought you said the subject didn’t interest you.

Austin: Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who goes by the name Jim Crow, speaks in the public realm as if he believes he truly is a black man. And has stirred up all sort of trouble for himself as a result. He attracts as many coloured people to his city performances as white. I’ve heard tell he’s the most popular actor in America. It strains credibility to say you haven’t heard of him.

(Henry nudges Cole as if to say, ‘See?’ Austin notices.)

Cole: I -

Austin: I do not fully approve of his brand of low comedy, but the man is forever in my debt for publicly ridiculing the argument that the play by Shakespeare called Othello the Moor is not a genuine tragedy depicting the fall of a great man, oh no, God forbid, but rather a cautionary tale of lust between races - the latter opinion popularized by no less a personage than former President John Quincy Adams.

Henry: I thought John Adams was against slavery.

Austin: He is against slavery. He is also, it seems, against the notion of the so-called uppity Negro.Mister Rice may show a lapse of taste when he blacks up his face, but his heart is the heart of an emancipator, no less than William Wilberforce himself. Of course, the same cannot be said for his many somewhat crass and bigoted imitators.

Cole: I ain’t no imitator. I am myself alone.

Austin: Well, let’s have a look then.

Cole: I beg your pardon?

Austin: I would like to see your rendition, your interpretation of the Negro.

Cole: No thanks.

Austin: I abash you then.

Cole: Pf. No.

Austin: But isn’t this what you want?

Cole: What’s that.

Austin: To top our famous Mister Dartmouth Rice? To embody the genuine black man in a kind of transubstantiation? To get the edge on that upstart New Yorker Jim Crow, even as you all strive to beautify yourselves with our feathers?

Henry: Er.

(It’s clear this is exactly what Henry wants. Cole laughs.)

Cole: (re Henry) This one does. He does.
(Henry smacks him.)
Hey - You do!
He came all the way here into this god-forsaken wilderness because he thought he might absorb a little of the true, unadulterated l’esprit de Negro. And he dragged me along with him.

Austin: That true?

Henry: Er.

Austin: Show me.

Henry: Er.

Austin: Sing for your supper, and I’ll see if I can’t give you some assistance in recreating through your art the legitimate, genuine Negro.

Henry: Are you proposing... ?

Austin: An evening’s idle entertainment. I’m expecting a call somewhat late. I have to find some means to abbreviate the hours.

Henry: Er.

Austin: Don’t worry. You needn’t bother with your cork. That’s your surface, that’s your gloss. Give me a little number.

The Problem with the Long Neck

It throws my lower back out. The lumbar region. If I'm not careful. Especially in combination with motorcycle boots. That's what I get for trying to learn two new songs in a week. See, this is precisely why I'm not a professional musician. I don't want to suffer for my art.
By the way, Running Up That Hill is in C-minor, and there's a D-sharp drone that runs all the way through it. So naturally I'm playing it in double-C tuning with the 5th string tuned down to D-sharp. Trying to play melodically with as many chords as possible, to keep that driving sense of rhythm. There are some beautifully dissonant chords. It's going to be a favourite. But I'm going to have to go see a chiropractor first.

From the Celestial Monochord

Part of a promised series on banjos and repression. The rest yet to come.

A Pastoral Visit

Painted in 1881 by Richard Norris Brooke. From here and here, thanks to the anonymous commenter a few posts back. But wait a second. Where's Steve Martin? Didn't he invent the banjo? They sure don't look happy like Steve Martin. Banjo players play permanent bluegrass, with permanent grins glued to their faces, or at least that's what I heard.

News from Wilberforce

A letter from the Blyth Festival out on the West Coast of Ontario, near Lake Huron:

Mr Dix,

Just was thinking of you...realized I have never responded to Wilberforce, and imagined the anxious ether that surrounds such auspicious hand offs. I adore it. I would love to hear it read and think we should push Eric for a reading next summer, (if you want to). I'm not sure how to specifically articulate it, but I love the style of it, the cadence, both in terms of language and scene structure, it flows with a particular lilt that I think has the potential to be deliciously potent. I don't know if you're looking for specific feedback, or if Eric already has you on a regime of dramaturgy, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Hope you guys are well,

Gil

PS The Perlman Clawhammer book is pretty fantastic, I started around Liberty and at first I was moving forward but I since have backed up some and picked up some excellent tunes, Soldier's Joy, Last Cold Whiskey, Bill Cheatum, June Apple, great fiddle tunes.

Next Up

Is it even possible to play Running Up That Hill on Clawhammer Banjo? I tried to find a big pot to step on with my foot to make a boing boing sound to replicate the simulated horns in Kate Bush's song, but the pot in my house that used to do it doesn't do it anymore. A change in the weather I guess...
Anyway, I'm working on it. C-minor? E-flat major? Who the hell knows...

ps I've just found a site that confirms there are no banjos in Kate's music.

Back in Banjo

Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I've been away in actor-land and teacher-land all fall. There is much to say about teaching I suppose, but now is not the time. It has also been so long that I took a good look at the long neck that I found it bowed almost beyond belief. It took several days of truss-rod turning (clockwise!), plus half a Yukon Gold potato with the banjo in the closed case (yes I do that, and it doesn't smell or rot, it just dries up nicely until it's like a rock, only somewhat softer), plus a few short prayers to - um - Uncle Dave Macon? to make things right.

I've returned to the blogosphere though mostly to celebrate a new song I'm learning to play for a wedding on Saturday. It was written in 1966 by a feller name a Roger Miller. It's called Husbands and Wives and sometimes the only way you can celebrate someone's happiness is by singing a sad song. It's got a very sweet progression that's made me a somewhat better banjo player just by the effort to grasp it. There might be a few dissonant notes in my chord stylings, but I like dissonant notes. My banjo wouldn't be my banjo without them.

Here are the words:

Two broken hearts lonely, looking like houses
where nobody lives
Two people each having so much pride inside
neither side forgives

The angry words spoken in haste
such a waste of two lives,
It's my belief pride is the chief cause
in the decline in the number of husbands and wives

A woman and a man, a man and a woman some can,
and some can, and some can't.

And then it just repeats. You could go on and on with it forever. And believe me, I already have. Kat's sick of it.

Oh yeah, and the image above is from here. It's been so long I'd forgotten how to do that 'a href' stuff. Seems to me that bit of stitching, while nice, looks more like me than Roger Miller.