April 30, 2008
The Singing Neanderthals
I love when a book completely alters my perception of the world. It is rare, but occasionally I am so awestruck by concepts in a book that I become instantly more aware of my own being and environment. This book, by Steven Mithen, brings our evolutionary history to light and illuminates specifically the origins of music in our species. He describes our earliest ancestors and our minds, bodies and interactions from ape to homo sapien. What an incredible lineage we are part of! Consider the community that we have formed through communication... and how! Our society today is based on complex and world-wide technologies, but there was a time when technology meant a hand-axe. Period. Kill meat. Butcher meat. Eat meat. Make baby. Baby cry. Soothe baby... the same way we do it today: with a melody. We sing, or speak words in a melodic contour, to appease or scold a child. Music is emotional and bonding. It is communicative in primal ways that language is not. To live together in groups, our ancestors relied on each other-which requires trust and support- but for hundreds of thousands of years, they used nothing but stone carving tools for survival, so there was no need for complex logic or language. How could they stir emotions and build a community without words? Even if language has become the dominant means of expression in mankind, music is still very much a part of us.
But what really blew my mind was imagining a book, or whatever popular media format may then exist, written in 100,000 years describing homo sapien as the ancient ancestor to whatever dominant species may then exist: How will our existence and social lives be dissected?
April 27, 2008
Mother-Earth-in-Law
Yesterday, friends and family of Gail Buckland gathered to surprise her for a 60th birthday celebration. It was celebrated in Pine Island, NY at a farm dedicated to organic farming and sustainable agriculture. A few miles away, Gail is building a house that incorporates many environmentally friendly aspects into the design and should be an example and inspiration for future home construction. I have noticed a general swell in environmental awareness over the past few years and it seems like it is really beginning to affect people's decisions and choices. Consumers are more conscious of earth-friendly marketing and as a result, companies have altered policies. Recycling has become a part of our quotidian life and the possibility of hyper-fuel efficient transportation seems more and more plausible every day. Maybe it's not too late to save our fragile earth...
April 16, 2008
African-American
When I was 10, I listened exclusively to Whitney Houston. Then I got "Graceland" for Christmas. Hearing those songs today brings me back to a time when I was just beginning to make my own musical discoveries. I remember hearing the story of Paul Simon travelling to South Africa with his producer and finding all these amazing musicians to play with and thinking about how exciting that experience must have been. Did it change my life? Maybe. My interest in African music intensified during my college years, but my first exposure was in the cross-cultural collaboration of this album. BAM has brought Paul Simon into its orbit for a month long residency, playing three different programs: The Capeman, Under African Skies, and American Tunes. On Saturday night, I had the opportunity to see him play his "Graceland" and Brazilian "Rhythm of the Saints" music, and it definitely did not disappoint. He had a number of guests, notably Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Cyro Baptista, and David Byrne, who sang a very David Byrnesque version of "You Can Call Me Al". The band was great and the experience reminded me of how much I loved the music when I first heard it 20 years ago. It was inspiring then and it is inspiring now.
Two days later I had another, perhaps even more inspiring, concert experience. The Maru-a-Pula Marimba band, consisting of 8 high school studens from Botswana, is touring to raise money and awareness of a mind-boggling AIDS related consequence: 1 out of 5 children in Botswana is an orphan. 1 in 5. They also make some incredible music by hitting pieces of wood with sticks. The Marimba is such a pure instrument and an orchestra of them is an awesome aural experience. The cultural exposure that these students are providing is crucial to realizing a future where Botswana will someday have an orphan rate similar to our own and will be recognized for their great musical traditions which have melded with our own.
Another recent example of Afro-influenced American pop: Vampire Weekend. Great tunes with an African flavor to them, simple polyrhythms carrying guitar melodies that could be off Ghanaian High Life records from the 70s, except the songs are about Columbia University and Cape Cod.
April 4, 2008
Spring!
The weather is not yet perfect, but spring is in the air. I judge mostly by the blossoming plantlife, which seems to have a better sense than day-to-day weather fluctuations. It always feels great to see the first tree exploding with flowers after a long hibernation; it is contagious and soon all of them will join the spring symphony. I have lived my whole life in the Northeast and part of what gets me through the introverted winter months is the assurance that I will shed my bulky layers and open up to the golden glory of summer. Although it would be possible to live in sunshine year-round, I can't imagine that I would appreciate the perfect weather quite as much as I do after knowing at least some degree of winter, not to mention the other side of the cycle when trees are painted beautifully by their withering photosynthetic energy converters. It is a reminder that, although we shield ourselves effectively from the elements, we are living in the same environmental cycle as all of nature.
I went to see George Clooney/John Krasinski's latest, "Leatherheads", about the early days of the NFL, when college football ruled the roost. It's a fun look at a game that has grown into America's most popular spectator sport, complete with scandals, unsavory agents and prying reporters. The game was never just a game...