As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here –. . .
Emily Dickinson, ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’
As close as I can get, I play Mike Westbrook’s ‘The Cortège’ and Graham Collier’s ‘The Day of the Dead’, composed around the same time.
Collier uses the writings of Malcolm Lowry read by John Carberry so well, pissed on mescal.
Westbrook spreads the load. Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton sing poems by Hesse, Lorca, Blake, Clare in their languages, loosely following a New Orleans funeral parade with music to ‘cut the body loose’.
As it happenned, over a week later, the Guardian had an article on Westbrook’s achievement.
At the Taranta Festival, Uncle Micklo and Luke Rhodes are singing in Gumbaynggirr, a giant is walking around the festive space. We celebrate as war and violence circulates like capital around the world.
My recording
Is music as close to remembrance, joy, ecstasy as you can get? Lunchtime, I talked to Nawres Al-Freh, told him how much I enjoyed his playing an Iraqi kemanche at Friday’s jam. Told him I tried to get a visa to Iraq many times, applied from London, Sydney, Tehran and Damascus, but was always turned down. He was in Baghdad three months ago, the city is vibrant, I must go. I had wanted to see the old Mesopotamian stones.
Ages ago, on All Saint’s Day, I asked what was happening for the Day of the Dead. No-one knew what I was talking about. The Mayans in this Yucatan fishing village hadn’t heard of Día de los Muertos – an Aztec tradition whisked with Catholicism.
Late afternoon, the King Parrot is back encompassing the scenery, delicately sipping water from the bird bath, part of our lives, all of our lives without waiting.
