[Author's Note: The following review will appear in Friday's edition of the Wooster Voice.]
As I write this, I'm sitting on someone's senior I.S.—a piece of it, at least. Alexandra Cotter's “Collages: Exploration of Furniture Design Using Found Objects” is one of three senior exhibits currently on display at Ebert Art Gallery. The space is, as always, like none other on campus—a room abuzz with ideas, speaking through the breathtaking achievements of the featured student artists.
Cotter's furniture, constructed entirely of discarded materials, is beautiful both in concept and execution. Each of the five sets emphasizes the role of chance in art, the interaction between deliberate intent and serendipity. Relics of the materials in their past lives lend the furniture many of its most striking qualities.
“Each piece I incorporated into the collage has its own story,” she writes in her abstract. “All of these smaller stories are pieced together to create a new entity, which I find fascinating.”
Evidence of these stories are everywhere, in patterns which might connote lamps or crates reincarnated as stools or tables, raising countless questions about the way commercial or functional cues inform our understanding of art, or the way our interaction with materials shapes their destinies.
While “Collages” necessarily blends with the gallery itself, stepping into Dana Bustamante's “Imagorium for 'the Prince'” is like stepping into another world. Bustamante drew on the traditional imagorium, a Mouridiyya Senegalese space for images and objects both secular and sacred, and a single photograph of this “Prince,” a homeless man in Lamu, Kenya, whom Bustamante encountered during her study there. With almost fugal imitation, her iconic portrait of the man in profile is transposed seamlessly onto nearly every corner of the exhibit and explored in countless variations of medium, style, and implication.
More than an intense reflection on a single character, however, the Imagorium is a panorama of life, vibrantly captured, as Bustamante witnessed it in Kenya and Tanzania. The exhibit manages to be a testament to both the individual and the collective, and the fact that the two are not at war here contributes to the Imagorium's intended spiritual resonance.
The diversity of the work she displays, from patterned cloths and photographic collages to paintings and simple sketches, reveals the full spectrum of her processing her experience and the range of possibility that emerges from a single spark—an apt expression of the non-definitiveness of art.
Adrienne B. Livingston's “Clusters & Constellations: Music and Mixed Media” takes on another wholly distinct style set and visual language, at once sparse and provocative. In her abstract, she proclaims, “I believe that people's lives are political lives,” and she draws on the words of some of the sharpest and most unsparing musicians and poets as the framework for her examination of contemporary society.
Livingston's images are as big and bold as the lines with which they're paired. Ani DiFranco's snarling “My country 'tis of thee / to take shots at each other on primetime TV” is captured in a graffiti-like piece incorporating an angry Muslim face, the McDonald's “i'm lovin' it” slogan, and drooping, blood-red flowers. Next to it, DiFranco's “Just remember you were there / you were always there” is simply and memorably rendered as an elephant.
Each piece is mounted on formations of overlapping black circles, suggesting clouds or, ingeniously, LPs, reinforcing the centrality of pop culture to the language we use to render modern times.
All three exhibits are endlessly thought-provoking and transformative. Wooster students, particularly those who don't often get to see peers' artwork, owe themselves this experience.
2009/02/10
Susan Wallin & Peter Mowrey, "An Evening of American Art Song"
[Author's Note: This review of a faculty recital from Friday will definitely be appearing in this week's Voice. I'm decently pleased with both the way this one turned out and the ease with which I wrote it—I think I'm developing something of the habit behind journalism.]
“An Evening of American Art Song,” presented in Scheide Music Center February 6 by soprano Susan Wallin and accompanist Peter Mowrey, was an evening of rare musical delights, beginning and ending with a voice one would be privileged to hear anywhere, be it Gault Recital Hall or Carnegie Hall. Wallin is fundamentally an extraordinary singer and performer, armed with a beautiful coloratura, impressive range, and dramatic sensitivity—all of which were on full display throughout the rich and varied program.
The recital began with a series of songs by the late-Romantic composer Amy Beach, whose lush, melodic style recalls Puccini or Bizet. Wallin showed a deft attention to both the passionate and the reflective, and the conviction behind her performance more than carried the most traditional set of the night.
She moved into more interesting and surprising musical territory with five contemporary songs by Ricky Ian Gordon in an art-Broadway vein reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein. Gordon's “Coyote” was perhaps the highlight of the entire evening. Wallin threw herself in to the bizarre lyrics with a finessed blend of comedy and pathos—when she proclaimed, “I'll scream until I turn that moon to wax,” you believed it.
She also proved herself superbly attuned to Americanness of Gordon's songs, subtly adapting her tone to suit their unique contours and cadences, whether in the melancholy humming of “Once I Was” or the frenzied ascent of “Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed).”
The second half of the program dived into delightfully murky twentieth-century waters with Norman Dello Joio's “Three Songs of Adieu.” Imbued with a dark urgency and extending to the edge of tonality, these offered Wallin ample opportunity to explore their contrasts—really hitting words like “pain,” or fading into an impressive softness at the end of “Farewell.”
Following these was Laurie Altman's jazz-like “reimagining” of eighteenth-century Italian songs. Here, Wallin's voice occasionally fell into a breathier timbre in her only significant misstep of the recital, but the thoughtful attention she lent the syncopations spotlighted the hybrid nature of the work and distinguished her interpretation.
The jazzier songs were proof of Peter Mowrey's exceptional contributions as well. From one composer to the next, he managed each stylistic set distinctly, and while his unshakeable facility at the piano hinted at his own abilities as a soloist, he remained a sensitive accompanist who aptly complemented, but never overpowered, the vocal performance.
The last song of the evening took a sharp turn into light opera (itself a Wooster legacy), specifically Victor Herbert's send-up of the operatic diva, “Art Is Calling for Me,” arranged by Wallin herself. With intermittent quotations from a number of famous operas, among them La Bohème and The Magic Flute, Wallin alluded to her own vast repertoire, and, though she nailed the high Fs from the famous Queen of the Night aria, she proved unafraid to occasionally tweak her ability level to suit the comedy—providing a fitting and lighthearted capstone to a recital of unflagging quality.
“An Evening of American Art Song,” presented in Scheide Music Center February 6 by soprano Susan Wallin and accompanist Peter Mowrey, was an evening of rare musical delights, beginning and ending with a voice one would be privileged to hear anywhere, be it Gault Recital Hall or Carnegie Hall. Wallin is fundamentally an extraordinary singer and performer, armed with a beautiful coloratura, impressive range, and dramatic sensitivity—all of which were on full display throughout the rich and varied program.
The recital began with a series of songs by the late-Romantic composer Amy Beach, whose lush, melodic style recalls Puccini or Bizet. Wallin showed a deft attention to both the passionate and the reflective, and the conviction behind her performance more than carried the most traditional set of the night.
She moved into more interesting and surprising musical territory with five contemporary songs by Ricky Ian Gordon in an art-Broadway vein reminiscent of Leonard Bernstein. Gordon's “Coyote” was perhaps the highlight of the entire evening. Wallin threw herself in to the bizarre lyrics with a finessed blend of comedy and pathos—when she proclaimed, “I'll scream until I turn that moon to wax,” you believed it.
She also proved herself superbly attuned to Americanness of Gordon's songs, subtly adapting her tone to suit their unique contours and cadences, whether in the melancholy humming of “Once I Was” or the frenzied ascent of “Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed).”
The second half of the program dived into delightfully murky twentieth-century waters with Norman Dello Joio's “Three Songs of Adieu.” Imbued with a dark urgency and extending to the edge of tonality, these offered Wallin ample opportunity to explore their contrasts—really hitting words like “pain,” or fading into an impressive softness at the end of “Farewell.”
Following these was Laurie Altman's jazz-like “reimagining” of eighteenth-century Italian songs. Here, Wallin's voice occasionally fell into a breathier timbre in her only significant misstep of the recital, but the thoughtful attention she lent the syncopations spotlighted the hybrid nature of the work and distinguished her interpretation.
The jazzier songs were proof of Peter Mowrey's exceptional contributions as well. From one composer to the next, he managed each stylistic set distinctly, and while his unshakeable facility at the piano hinted at his own abilities as a soloist, he remained a sensitive accompanist who aptly complemented, but never overpowered, the vocal performance.
The last song of the evening took a sharp turn into light opera (itself a Wooster legacy), specifically Victor Herbert's send-up of the operatic diva, “Art Is Calling for Me,” arranged by Wallin herself. With intermittent quotations from a number of famous operas, among them La Bohème and The Magic Flute, Wallin alluded to her own vast repertoire, and, though she nailed the high Fs from the famous Queen of the Night aria, she proved unafraid to occasionally tweak her ability level to suit the comedy—providing a fitting and lighthearted capstone to a recital of unflagging quality.
A Defense of the Hipster
[Author's Note: These thoughts on the hipster, which appeared in Friday's Wooster Voice, sparked enough of a reaction in me, somewhat unexpectedly, that I decided I'd write a letter to the editor. I'm hoping they'll publish it on Friday, but here it is regardless. Edit: It will actually be published February 20. The Voice forgot to check their email....]
To the editor(s):
I certainly enjoyed Molly Lehman's critique of the hipster—it was well-written and very funny. However, I find myself compelled to give a defense of the subculture lest we overlook any of its value or highly unique contributions to American youth expression.
The hipster inclination for irony is widely acknowledged, and while it can certainly approach overkill it remains a) frankly hilarious, and b) a tip-of-the-iceberg indication that “a smarmy bunch of 18-to-25's” has developed a keen sense of critical thinking and (dare I say) intellectual rigor.
Look at the centrality of culture, both high and low, to the hipster ethos—elevating it, revering it, critiquing it, tearing it down, building it up. Hard to imagine the same age group giving a damn about culture twenty years ago. Now it's the lingua franca of youth, our most basic commodity. We're all part of it, we're all participating in the same exchange of ideas.
Furthermore, look at the quality of the culture hipsters rally around. Wes Anderson films are phenomenally good.
My particular tastes and interests may not always align with that of true-blue hipsters. I'm not a hipster myself. The band I'll be seeing this summer is Phish. But the value that this generation places on cultish obsessions and cultural artifacts puts me in good (spiritual) company.
This is also, I believe, the first American youth movement that has recognizably elevated the nerd, that is fundamentally nerdy. Think of how that will shake up teenage social hierarchies across the nation.
Of course, it is evolving into a consumer-driven movement. But it's interesting and refreshing to reflect on what's now commercially viable. Think of the “Fantasy Football” shirts on BustedTees. Anachronism aside, would that have been popular twenty years ago?
Finally, one might be advised to get used to it. Nothing says Generation Y more than hipsterism—it's our biggest impact to date on the cultural landscape.
To the editor(s):
I certainly enjoyed Molly Lehman's critique of the hipster—it was well-written and very funny. However, I find myself compelled to give a defense of the subculture lest we overlook any of its value or highly unique contributions to American youth expression.
The hipster inclination for irony is widely acknowledged, and while it can certainly approach overkill it remains a) frankly hilarious, and b) a tip-of-the-iceberg indication that “a smarmy bunch of 18-to-25's” has developed a keen sense of critical thinking and (dare I say) intellectual rigor.
Look at the centrality of culture, both high and low, to the hipster ethos—elevating it, revering it, critiquing it, tearing it down, building it up. Hard to imagine the same age group giving a damn about culture twenty years ago. Now it's the lingua franca of youth, our most basic commodity. We're all part of it, we're all participating in the same exchange of ideas.
Furthermore, look at the quality of the culture hipsters rally around. Wes Anderson films are phenomenally good.
My particular tastes and interests may not always align with that of true-blue hipsters. I'm not a hipster myself. The band I'll be seeing this summer is Phish. But the value that this generation places on cultish obsessions and cultural artifacts puts me in good (spiritual) company.
This is also, I believe, the first American youth movement that has recognizably elevated the nerd, that is fundamentally nerdy. Think of how that will shake up teenage social hierarchies across the nation.
Of course, it is evolving into a consumer-driven movement. But it's interesting and refreshing to reflect on what's now commercially viable. Think of the “Fantasy Football” shirts on BustedTees. Anachronism aside, would that have been popular twenty years ago?
Finally, one might be advised to get used to it. Nothing says Generation Y more than hipsterism—it's our biggest impact to date on the cultural landscape.
2009/02/03
[Grateful Dead, 7/21/90 Tinley Park, IL: NOTES]
[Author's Note: As I have in the past, I'm posting my very detailed, unedited notes for the much more concise review posted below. Anyone really interested in song-by-song analysis of Grateful Dead shows might appreciate this level of scrutiny; for everyone else, let it stand as proof of my obsession.]
Grateful Dead
Tinley Park, IL 7/21/90
SET ONE
Touch. Perhaps because of its close association with the start of a Dead show, maybe because it's status as a bona fide hit—always lends an energetic punch as opener. The harmonies, as usual, fall somewhere behind the overall standard, but Jerry is individually in VERY STRONG voice, Brent's organ is nice and juicy, and Phil really smokes in some interesting bass counterpoint. Jerry's solo isn't too shabby. Some really weird effects during the second bridge! (SOUND QUALITY, by the way, is fantastic—this is a Miller, and it could pass for a Dick's Pick.) No true segue, but following soon is:
GSET. Brent's still suffering from whatever vocal ailment dogged him through July '90, during a month that was exceptional for his keyboard performances. (Hope he's saving up for Just a Little Light.) Bobby, however, is in as strong voice as Jerry, sounding fairly unstrained on a song that often gives him some trouble. Brent's keyboard tumbling kicks serious ass, and the intersection of him and Phil and Bobby and Jerry is right on during the instrumental. Even better than Touch.
Bottom line: Touch and GSET form an extremely well-played and energetic combo. I'm seriously pumped for whatever else this show might hold.
Jack-A-Roe. Starts off with a lot of energy and bounce! Jerry's guitar lines in between lyrics carry a lot of elegant menace. Again, this is about the best 1990 singing you could ask for. What's striking about instrumental action like such here is that is really has all the interweaving attentiveness of the early- to mid- 70's—the drummers' relative rigidity makes a difference, of course, but this is really fine playing from all (Bobby included).
Maybe I need to be more sparing with four-star ratings, because it eliminates a special class for material that's as excellent as this, but just barely shy of five stars.
Walkin' Blues. And into harmonic major. Wonderful swampy tone here, and it sounds like everyone's playing it with attentiveness and not by rote. Jerry and Bobby's skillful framing of Brent's solo is exquisite. I love Bobby's vocal performance in blues songs—idiosyncratic like Dylan's, but moderately convincing.
FOTD. I never tire of hearing this song in this era, for whatever reason. Starts fairly inconspicuously, as if the band isn't entirely sure if it's still prepping itself or if it's already begun in earnest. Every reiteration of the main riff, however, gains confidence. Jerry's voice sounds craggier here, but I think he's adjusting to the song. Almost inversely, the harmonies are stronger. The usual cycle of solos begin: Brent's more upbeat and barroom sounding than those from the early end of his tenure, which I confess to prefer (at least in this song), but however it doesn't perfectly suit the song, his playing is at its most virtuosic; Jerry jumps in with an awesome anticipating into what is, unfortunately, Bobby's solo slot, leaving the latter momentarily unsure of what he should be doing—it is, however, representative of the immense energy everyone's bringing to the show tonight. They've got their A game on. Jerry's solo is spiraling in a way that indicates he's following the tone set by Brent (though I swear he usually goes through two iterations of the solo). Very good altogether, but not 6/16/90, say.
Just A Little Light. Okay, I'm no fan of this compositionally, but it can still bring out a good performance. In the pre-song tuning, everyone adjusts to the right synth-tones. I like the collective timbre, I admit! Thick and funky. Brent's voice acquits itself decently, but it's not up to its usual standards; he sounds more than a little hoarse. And the difficulties in the singing somehow manifest itself in a considerable absence of keyboard work. Jerry's playing well, but the song continues to hobble as if everything's been thrown just a little bit out of sync. The keyboard playing is extremely thin, and the song loses a lot of energy. Brent seems unsure of when and where to come in. Let the man go back to his keyboard and leave his singing out of it tonight. (Uh-oh. We've got a Dear Mr. Fantasy coming up.) Low point of set so far.
Queen Jane. Let's hope this song picks the energy up since it came to a really unfortunate halt in the last song. Brent's still not playing like he was in FOTD, and Phil doesn't seem as prominent as he was in the first half of the set. Jerry is easily the strongest player tonight (which wasn't a given in the later years, of course). Brent's keyboard lines follow fairly basic established patterns for Queen Jane, until about halfway through, when things start to pick up more. Jerry's harmonizing his part well, too. Brent's solo is busy, but hardly inventive, and too fixed on the upper register. He leaves a gaping which Jerry fills with another solo. By the end of the song, everyone's packing some power, and it looks like the Bird Song to round things off, jam-heavy and Jerry-led, might keep this set in very positive terrain.
Bird Song. The tuning gives everyone ample hint as to what's to follow (and likely close the set). They all sound really prepped to kick into it, though. Brent's sometimes dizzying keyboard lines are much more appropriate-sounding here, but occasionally overkill. (This is, by the way, the longest GD Bird Song in my possession.) Jerry and Phil are weaving a very convincing Bird Song from the beginning of the jam, with Brent adding appropriate threats of dissonance, throwing in all possibilities of dangerous twists and turns and dark alleys. Jerry's the main player, but everyone's listening very attentively to him, following him and supporting him and mirroring him and filling in for him and giving him space as necessary. Jerry starts bending notes in all kinds of crazy ways, effecting this spacey kind of sublimity everyone's pushing toward. This is another song I really like to hear in '89-'90—less introspective than the versions of '72-'73 but equally well-played. Reaches some really piercing and resounding highs. From there, the intensity starts to come down for the last five minutes, but that's okay. They're talkin' their way back down—really a beautiful structure for a jam, too. Amazing what you can do modally.
Set one in review: Total time 67:32. Generally very strong. Highlights are Bird Song followed by Touch>Greatest followed by Jack-A-Roe. Everything else very good except for Little Light, which in context is a real downer that takes just about the whole of Queen Jane to recover from (for both band and listener). I'm calling it a 7 on the whole.
SET TWO
Scarlet. Jerry's singing well, and the whole thing is crisp, but Brent's organ is really all that stands out instrumentally during the singing. As usual for July, Brent's harmonies are somewhat weak. Jerry's solo won't take your breath away, but Phil supports him nicely, and you can hear the crowd digging it, even in the soundboard—maybe why the band seem to warm into it as the instrumental goes on. Brent switches to keyboard for the jam, which I appreciate in Scarlet. The jam takes an easygoing course. It's nice, but not too lengthy (the 6/16 China Cat is about as long as this Scarlet). I'm liking Brent's touches here more than in the first set (and Jerry's only slightly less). Bobby adds some really nice color, too. It's a fine thing they have going before they hit >
Fire. Scarlet may be a better composition, and yield a more obviously "interesting" jam, but Fire often outshone its prerequisite in performance. Brent's failing harmonies really mar the chorus, but in between verses, wonderful things happen. Jerry's got that wonderful "Fire"-specific tone—he's playing for VOLUME, and Brent's right with him, and Bobby knows just how to stoke the intensity even more. This is HOT. Brent's flurries or stabs of notes come off not clumsy but inspired and "ablaze." Bobby's playing is really elegant, too, and his more distorted tone is a wonderful foil for the clarity of Jerry's declamations. That Scarlet reprise-thing ends the pairing with bounce and poise, an interesting pairing to the catharsis of the past couple minutes.
In essence, this "Fire"'s on fire.
Playing. Yay—Funiculi tuning. Just a little bit. Looking ahead at the setlist, this is a nice three-part Playing, with a jam and a reprise to follow post-Drumz. Obviously, this song isn't what it once was, and I prefer many of the Bruce versions to late-Brent ones, but this is at least crisp, unflubbed. I really prefer the direct dive into D minor in the jam, too—a D major jam feels much more like just an afterthought to the "song" portion much more suitable to an unfinished Playing. The jam here starts off even more low-key than the one out of Scarlet, but by about halfway through things start to get harrier, more chromatic—Brent and Bobby responsible as much as Jerry. Bobby's dissonance occasionally robs Jerry of some inspired melodicism, but we do need some envelope-pushing if this jam is going to be worth our while. It's not badly handled at all, of course. The latter jam portion, incidentally, would be a great pre-Drums jam—I'm hoping He's Gone rises to the occasion. About nine minutes in we get some pseudo-Terrapin jamming—undoubtedly very much a possibility. Jamming cools off considerably in the last minute and sounds like something late in Space–tonal, searching for the next path to take. >
He's Gone. Interesting overlap between the end of playing and the start here. Brent's still trying to carry the high line, but he's very hard to hear. The verses can be a little monotonous, for all the neatly executed playing. The instrumental gains considerable interest. Phil starts to speak up more than he has in a while—contributing a really cool run to the second "steal your face" line. The vocal coda comes off quite well, in spite of a series of questionable uses of the dominant chord in Garcia's guitar accompaniment. Leaves us about 2:40 to get us to Drums. Very pleasant stuff. Hints at Eyes, Stella, maybe even the upcoming Miracle. Phil is very prominent and they really make this a nice, if brief, little jam. Bobby last man standing before >
Drums. Drums and Space probably best serve their function if they can pretend not to be a rote fixture—that is, if they can masquerade as the natural jam that lies between, in this case, He's Gone and Miracle. I suppose if they take on a really successful life of their own, that clinches it on different terms. I'll admit, I don't think most do either, but this is a fairly interesting Drums, and it may well belong in that second positive category. It's indicative of Mickey's world music interests, certainly, and parts recall that really cool "And" jam from Drumz featured on Terrapin Limited. >
Space. The MIDI effects really work well here, and the drastic fluctuations in volume and timbre sound really cool on these headphones. '90 Space could be pretty scary (3/19 comes to mind, not to mention 9/20 leading into Dark Star). I'm always glad to spend more time on Space than Drums, as here. Still, it's just atmospheric—it doesn't have the boldness that define a few excellent examples that solidify into a more musical statement. You'll get a cool passage or two, and they're listening to one another, but it just doesn't add up as much as one would like. My ears perk up for anything suggesting E: E is where we came from, and E is where we're going. We need to find our way back there. The transition amounts to about 20 seconds Miracle riffing at the end. >
Miracle. Nothing beats the coolness of "Lunatic Preserve">Miracle coming up on 9/16 of that year, but this show has its own draws, of course. Phil's fairly loud '90 tone is a lot of what makes this song. I just can't help tapping my foot along to Jerry's solo, giving the slightest inclination toward head-banging even though my roommate's around. This is actually one of my favorite exits out of Space, and this one really ROCKS. This is a lot of fun, and a good way to kick off what is typically the weakest third of the show. The G major transition provides a good hint as to the coming song, and it's a beautiful, natural segue into >
Crazy Fingers. I've very seldom heard a Crazy Fingers post '76 that turned out as I would have liked, but I do like them post-Space. The instrumentation during the singing is mostly just chords, and one or two isn't quite right. Brent is the best bit to listen to. And Jerry no longer sounds like he's owning the vocals. The choruses would really benefit from Brent's voice being there. Jerry's solo is weak and spindly. The instrumental outro is better. Really brief Main Ten jam/fakeout into >
Dear Mr. Fantasy. Brent doesn't sound nearly as wrong-footed as he did in Just A Little Light. Jerry really tears up the rather easier material in this song. Everyone does really well in this kind of three-chord rock environment at this point in the show. I wouldn't have minded a straight nosedive from Miracle into this (I also wouldn't have minded the Crazy Fingers if it had just been better). If you weren't looking at the set list, of course, you would think a Hey Jude reprise were on its way; Jerry's first guitar line in the coda is almost straight "na-na-na"s. >
Playing. I shouldn't have expected more of the 30-second "jam" earlier. Let's see how they bring this string of music together. It's crisp, but the coda isn't as impassioned as I would like to hear. And sounds really weak next to any ending to Playing in the 70s. No segue whatsoever into:
Saturday Night. Not as intensely rockin' or well-played as any number of earlier versions, but Phil's into it, and no one's really messing up. Probably a fun ending to the show for those there. It's certainly got more balls than the Playing Reprise which preceded it (alas—the show could have just ended with a GOOD Reprise). They milk that last C chord for all it's worth.
ENCORE
Quinn. It's a fun encore. Brent's keyboard playing really suits the happy-sloppy mood of the song. Jerry's guitar isn't there as much, even when he's not singing. It's a pity that Bobby's voice is the one on top.
Set two/encore in review: Total time 103:43. Very solid pre-Drums, moderately disappointing post-Space, in spite of rockin' fun in Miracle and Mr. Fantasy. Highlight of the set was the incendiary Fire, aforementioned rockers, and nifty little jam out of He's Gone. Overall, it blows its load at the beginning and doesn't leave me feeling as good as set one, so I'm calling it a 6.
Show in review: Total time 171:15. A fun, uneven show worth hearing for its share of really stellar playing. Does not have enough to recommend itself over many other summer '90 shows. B-.
Grateful Dead
Tinley Park, IL 7/21/90
SET ONE
Touch. Perhaps because of its close association with the start of a Dead show, maybe because it's status as a bona fide hit—always lends an energetic punch as opener. The harmonies, as usual, fall somewhere behind the overall standard, but Jerry is individually in VERY STRONG voice, Brent's organ is nice and juicy, and Phil really smokes in some interesting bass counterpoint. Jerry's solo isn't too shabby. Some really weird effects during the second bridge! (SOUND QUALITY, by the way, is fantastic—this is a Miller, and it could pass for a Dick's Pick.) No true segue, but following soon is:
GSET. Brent's still suffering from whatever vocal ailment dogged him through July '90, during a month that was exceptional for his keyboard performances. (Hope he's saving up for Just a Little Light.) Bobby, however, is in as strong voice as Jerry, sounding fairly unstrained on a song that often gives him some trouble. Brent's keyboard tumbling kicks serious ass, and the intersection of him and Phil and Bobby and Jerry is right on during the instrumental. Even better than Touch.
Bottom line: Touch and GSET form an extremely well-played and energetic combo. I'm seriously pumped for whatever else this show might hold.
Jack-A-Roe. Starts off with a lot of energy and bounce! Jerry's guitar lines in between lyrics carry a lot of elegant menace. Again, this is about the best 1990 singing you could ask for. What's striking about instrumental action like such here is that is really has all the interweaving attentiveness of the early- to mid- 70's—the drummers' relative rigidity makes a difference, of course, but this is really fine playing from all (Bobby included).
Maybe I need to be more sparing with four-star ratings, because it eliminates a special class for material that's as excellent as this, but just barely shy of five stars.
Walkin' Blues. And into harmonic major. Wonderful swampy tone here, and it sounds like everyone's playing it with attentiveness and not by rote. Jerry and Bobby's skillful framing of Brent's solo is exquisite. I love Bobby's vocal performance in blues songs—idiosyncratic like Dylan's, but moderately convincing.
FOTD. I never tire of hearing this song in this era, for whatever reason. Starts fairly inconspicuously, as if the band isn't entirely sure if it's still prepping itself or if it's already begun in earnest. Every reiteration of the main riff, however, gains confidence. Jerry's voice sounds craggier here, but I think he's adjusting to the song. Almost inversely, the harmonies are stronger. The usual cycle of solos begin: Brent's more upbeat and barroom sounding than those from the early end of his tenure, which I confess to prefer (at least in this song), but however it doesn't perfectly suit the song, his playing is at its most virtuosic; Jerry jumps in with an awesome anticipating into what is, unfortunately, Bobby's solo slot, leaving the latter momentarily unsure of what he should be doing—it is, however, representative of the immense energy everyone's bringing to the show tonight. They've got their A game on. Jerry's solo is spiraling in a way that indicates he's following the tone set by Brent (though I swear he usually goes through two iterations of the solo). Very good altogether, but not 6/16/90, say.
Just A Little Light. Okay, I'm no fan of this compositionally, but it can still bring out a good performance. In the pre-song tuning, everyone adjusts to the right synth-tones. I like the collective timbre, I admit! Thick and funky. Brent's voice acquits itself decently, but it's not up to its usual standards; he sounds more than a little hoarse. And the difficulties in the singing somehow manifest itself in a considerable absence of keyboard work. Jerry's playing well, but the song continues to hobble as if everything's been thrown just a little bit out of sync. The keyboard playing is extremely thin, and the song loses a lot of energy. Brent seems unsure of when and where to come in. Let the man go back to his keyboard and leave his singing out of it tonight. (Uh-oh. We've got a Dear Mr. Fantasy coming up.) Low point of set so far.
Queen Jane. Let's hope this song picks the energy up since it came to a really unfortunate halt in the last song. Brent's still not playing like he was in FOTD, and Phil doesn't seem as prominent as he was in the first half of the set. Jerry is easily the strongest player tonight (which wasn't a given in the later years, of course). Brent's keyboard lines follow fairly basic established patterns for Queen Jane, until about halfway through, when things start to pick up more. Jerry's harmonizing his part well, too. Brent's solo is busy, but hardly inventive, and too fixed on the upper register. He leaves a gaping which Jerry fills with another solo. By the end of the song, everyone's packing some power, and it looks like the Bird Song to round things off, jam-heavy and Jerry-led, might keep this set in very positive terrain.
Bird Song. The tuning gives everyone ample hint as to what's to follow (and likely close the set). They all sound really prepped to kick into it, though. Brent's sometimes dizzying keyboard lines are much more appropriate-sounding here, but occasionally overkill. (This is, by the way, the longest GD Bird Song in my possession.) Jerry and Phil are weaving a very convincing Bird Song from the beginning of the jam, with Brent adding appropriate threats of dissonance, throwing in all possibilities of dangerous twists and turns and dark alleys. Jerry's the main player, but everyone's listening very attentively to him, following him and supporting him and mirroring him and filling in for him and giving him space as necessary. Jerry starts bending notes in all kinds of crazy ways, effecting this spacey kind of sublimity everyone's pushing toward. This is another song I really like to hear in '89-'90—less introspective than the versions of '72-'73 but equally well-played. Reaches some really piercing and resounding highs. From there, the intensity starts to come down for the last five minutes, but that's okay. They're talkin' their way back down—really a beautiful structure for a jam, too. Amazing what you can do modally.
Set one in review: Total time 67:32. Generally very strong. Highlights are Bird Song followed by Touch>Greatest followed by Jack-A-Roe. Everything else very good except for Little Light, which in context is a real downer that takes just about the whole of Queen Jane to recover from (for both band and listener). I'm calling it a 7 on the whole.
SET TWO
Scarlet. Jerry's singing well, and the whole thing is crisp, but Brent's organ is really all that stands out instrumentally during the singing. As usual for July, Brent's harmonies are somewhat weak. Jerry's solo won't take your breath away, but Phil supports him nicely, and you can hear the crowd digging it, even in the soundboard—maybe why the band seem to warm into it as the instrumental goes on. Brent switches to keyboard for the jam, which I appreciate in Scarlet. The jam takes an easygoing course. It's nice, but not too lengthy (the 6/16 China Cat is about as long as this Scarlet). I'm liking Brent's touches here more than in the first set (and Jerry's only slightly less). Bobby adds some really nice color, too. It's a fine thing they have going before they hit >
Fire. Scarlet may be a better composition, and yield a more obviously "interesting" jam, but Fire often outshone its prerequisite in performance. Brent's failing harmonies really mar the chorus, but in between verses, wonderful things happen. Jerry's got that wonderful "Fire"-specific tone—he's playing for VOLUME, and Brent's right with him, and Bobby knows just how to stoke the intensity even more. This is HOT. Brent's flurries or stabs of notes come off not clumsy but inspired and "ablaze." Bobby's playing is really elegant, too, and his more distorted tone is a wonderful foil for the clarity of Jerry's declamations. That Scarlet reprise-thing ends the pairing with bounce and poise, an interesting pairing to the catharsis of the past couple minutes.
In essence, this "Fire"'s on fire.
Playing. Yay—Funiculi tuning. Just a little bit. Looking ahead at the setlist, this is a nice three-part Playing, with a jam and a reprise to follow post-Drumz. Obviously, this song isn't what it once was, and I prefer many of the Bruce versions to late-Brent ones, but this is at least crisp, unflubbed. I really prefer the direct dive into D minor in the jam, too—a D major jam feels much more like just an afterthought to the "song" portion much more suitable to an unfinished Playing. The jam here starts off even more low-key than the one out of Scarlet, but by about halfway through things start to get harrier, more chromatic—Brent and Bobby responsible as much as Jerry. Bobby's dissonance occasionally robs Jerry of some inspired melodicism, but we do need some envelope-pushing if this jam is going to be worth our while. It's not badly handled at all, of course. The latter jam portion, incidentally, would be a great pre-Drums jam—I'm hoping He's Gone rises to the occasion. About nine minutes in we get some pseudo-Terrapin jamming—undoubtedly very much a possibility. Jamming cools off considerably in the last minute and sounds like something late in Space–tonal, searching for the next path to take. >
He's Gone. Interesting overlap between the end of playing and the start here. Brent's still trying to carry the high line, but he's very hard to hear. The verses can be a little monotonous, for all the neatly executed playing. The instrumental gains considerable interest. Phil starts to speak up more than he has in a while—contributing a really cool run to the second "steal your face" line. The vocal coda comes off quite well, in spite of a series of questionable uses of the dominant chord in Garcia's guitar accompaniment. Leaves us about 2:40 to get us to Drums. Very pleasant stuff. Hints at Eyes, Stella, maybe even the upcoming Miracle. Phil is very prominent and they really make this a nice, if brief, little jam. Bobby last man standing before >
Drums. Drums and Space probably best serve their function if they can pretend not to be a rote fixture—that is, if they can masquerade as the natural jam that lies between, in this case, He's Gone and Miracle. I suppose if they take on a really successful life of their own, that clinches it on different terms. I'll admit, I don't think most do either, but this is a fairly interesting Drums, and it may well belong in that second positive category. It's indicative of Mickey's world music interests, certainly, and parts recall that really cool "And" jam from Drumz featured on Terrapin Limited. >
Space. The MIDI effects really work well here, and the drastic fluctuations in volume and timbre sound really cool on these headphones. '90 Space could be pretty scary (3/19 comes to mind, not to mention 9/20 leading into Dark Star). I'm always glad to spend more time on Space than Drums, as here. Still, it's just atmospheric—it doesn't have the boldness that define a few excellent examples that solidify into a more musical statement. You'll get a cool passage or two, and they're listening to one another, but it just doesn't add up as much as one would like. My ears perk up for anything suggesting E: E is where we came from, and E is where we're going. We need to find our way back there. The transition amounts to about 20 seconds Miracle riffing at the end. >
Miracle. Nothing beats the coolness of "Lunatic Preserve">Miracle coming up on 9/16 of that year, but this show has its own draws, of course. Phil's fairly loud '90 tone is a lot of what makes this song. I just can't help tapping my foot along to Jerry's solo, giving the slightest inclination toward head-banging even though my roommate's around. This is actually one of my favorite exits out of Space, and this one really ROCKS. This is a lot of fun, and a good way to kick off what is typically the weakest third of the show. The G major transition provides a good hint as to the coming song, and it's a beautiful, natural segue into >
Crazy Fingers. I've very seldom heard a Crazy Fingers post '76 that turned out as I would have liked, but I do like them post-Space. The instrumentation during the singing is mostly just chords, and one or two isn't quite right. Brent is the best bit to listen to. And Jerry no longer sounds like he's owning the vocals. The choruses would really benefit from Brent's voice being there. Jerry's solo is weak and spindly. The instrumental outro is better. Really brief Main Ten jam/fakeout into >
Dear Mr. Fantasy. Brent doesn't sound nearly as wrong-footed as he did in Just A Little Light. Jerry really tears up the rather easier material in this song. Everyone does really well in this kind of three-chord rock environment at this point in the show. I wouldn't have minded a straight nosedive from Miracle into this (I also wouldn't have minded the Crazy Fingers if it had just been better). If you weren't looking at the set list, of course, you would think a Hey Jude reprise were on its way; Jerry's first guitar line in the coda is almost straight "na-na-na"s. >
Playing. I shouldn't have expected more of the 30-second "jam" earlier. Let's see how they bring this string of music together. It's crisp, but the coda isn't as impassioned as I would like to hear. And sounds really weak next to any ending to Playing in the 70s. No segue whatsoever into:
Saturday Night. Not as intensely rockin' or well-played as any number of earlier versions, but Phil's into it, and no one's really messing up. Probably a fun ending to the show for those there. It's certainly got more balls than the Playing Reprise which preceded it (alas—the show could have just ended with a GOOD Reprise). They milk that last C chord for all it's worth.
ENCORE
Quinn. It's a fun encore. Brent's keyboard playing really suits the happy-sloppy mood of the song. Jerry's guitar isn't there as much, even when he's not singing. It's a pity that Bobby's voice is the one on top.
Set two/encore in review: Total time 103:43. Very solid pre-Drums, moderately disappointing post-Space, in spite of rockin' fun in Miracle and Mr. Fantasy. Highlight of the set was the incendiary Fire, aforementioned rockers, and nifty little jam out of He's Gone. Overall, it blows its load at the beginning and doesn't leave me feeling as good as set one, so I'm calling it a 6.
Show in review: Total time 171:15. A fun, uneven show worth hearing for its share of really stellar playing. Does not have enough to recommend itself over many other summer '90 shows. B-.
Grateful Dead, 7/21/90 Tinley Park, IL
[Author's Note: I've finally done what I'd promised myself to do for ages and distilled my notes on a Grateful Dead show into a coherent review. Reviewing live music was the principal intended purpose for this blog, so I hope to make this something of a regular occurrence. This post is first in a planned three-part series dissecting Brent Mydland's last shows with the Grateful Dead.]
Grateful Dead
Tinley Park, IL 7/21/90
Brent Mydland's Last Stand: Part I of III
There's a lot to love about set one tonight. In the first fifteen minutes, the band delivers a truly wonderful string of uptempo songs: "Touch" and "Greatest Story" show both Jerry and Bobby in excellent voice, as well as energetic and attentive playing from all, which spills over into an infectiously bouncy "Jack-a-Roe." In the last fifteen minutes, we get a beautiful and expansive "Bird Song," which reaches some piercing and resounding highs at the end of its long, cathartic climb, hinting along the way at startling wells of dissonance and space—it's about as good as the song ever got.
In between these extraordinary bookends falls half an hour of more uneven fare. "Walkin' Blues" is fun and fresh, and "Friend of the Devil" is even better, if not 6/16/90. The show comes to the first of two considerable crashes, however, with "Just a Little Light." Brent's voice is showing a lot of strain this entire show, as it was throughout July, and these difficulties somehow sap his keyboard playing which in turn throws the band out of sync and derails the song. It takes them the entirety of the following "Queen Jane" to fully recover.
The second set starts off at least as promisingly as the first. After an average, low-key "Scarlet," the band creates magic with a "Fire" that truly lives up to its name. Bobby and Brent know just how to poke Jerry for maximum intensity, and tonight they really succeed—his playing is simply ablaze. "Fire" is the absolute highlight of the show and a wonderful reminder of the copious treasures of Summer 1990.
There's still a "Playing" and "He's Gone" to come before "Drums," and both are well-played, especially in the last few minutes of each. The former dissolves into a jam like something from late in "Space" as they search for the next path to take; the latter resolves into a gorgeous, E-major dew with generous contributions from Phil, hinting at at "Eyes," "Stella," maybe even the coming "Miracle."
Post-"Space" isn't nearly as successful. In between a head-banging "Miracle" and a juicy "Dear Mr. Fantasy" comes the second great crash of the show, an all-around weak "Crazy Fingers" followed by a whimper of a "Playing" jam. To round out the set, we get the conclusion to "Playing," which is crisp but flat, and an average "Saturday Night," which, along with the average "Quinn" encore, still makes for a fun end to the show.
7/21/90 offers a relatively attractive package of Grateful Dead from the end of the Brent years and boasts its share of really stellar playing. However, its frustrating unevenness, particularly in the second set, takes a heavy toll on the show, which ultimately does not have enough to recommend itself over many others from that tour.
SET ONE. 7
SET TWO / ENCORE. 6
SHOW. B-/B
The recent remasters of this run by Charlie Miller sound fantastic, on par with, say, Dick's Picks, Vol. 9. This is unquestionably the version you will want to seek out.
http://db.etree.org/shninfo_detail.php?shnid=95809
Grateful Dead
Tinley Park, IL 7/21/90
Brent Mydland's Last Stand: Part I of III
There's a lot to love about set one tonight. In the first fifteen minutes, the band delivers a truly wonderful string of uptempo songs: "Touch" and "Greatest Story" show both Jerry and Bobby in excellent voice, as well as energetic and attentive playing from all, which spills over into an infectiously bouncy "Jack-a-Roe." In the last fifteen minutes, we get a beautiful and expansive "Bird Song," which reaches some piercing and resounding highs at the end of its long, cathartic climb, hinting along the way at startling wells of dissonance and space—it's about as good as the song ever got.
In between these extraordinary bookends falls half an hour of more uneven fare. "Walkin' Blues" is fun and fresh, and "Friend of the Devil" is even better, if not 6/16/90. The show comes to the first of two considerable crashes, however, with "Just a Little Light." Brent's voice is showing a lot of strain this entire show, as it was throughout July, and these difficulties somehow sap his keyboard playing which in turn throws the band out of sync and derails the song. It takes them the entirety of the following "Queen Jane" to fully recover.
The second set starts off at least as promisingly as the first. After an average, low-key "Scarlet," the band creates magic with a "Fire" that truly lives up to its name. Bobby and Brent know just how to poke Jerry for maximum intensity, and tonight they really succeed—his playing is simply ablaze. "Fire" is the absolute highlight of the show and a wonderful reminder of the copious treasures of Summer 1990.
There's still a "Playing" and "He's Gone" to come before "Drums," and both are well-played, especially in the last few minutes of each. The former dissolves into a jam like something from late in "Space" as they search for the next path to take; the latter resolves into a gorgeous, E-major dew with generous contributions from Phil, hinting at at "Eyes," "Stella," maybe even the coming "Miracle."
Post-"Space" isn't nearly as successful. In between a head-banging "Miracle" and a juicy "Dear Mr. Fantasy" comes the second great crash of the show, an all-around weak "Crazy Fingers" followed by a whimper of a "Playing" jam. To round out the set, we get the conclusion to "Playing," which is crisp but flat, and an average "Saturday Night," which, along with the average "Quinn" encore, still makes for a fun end to the show.
7/21/90 offers a relatively attractive package of Grateful Dead from the end of the Brent years and boasts its share of really stellar playing. However, its frustrating unevenness, particularly in the second set, takes a heavy toll on the show, which ultimately does not have enough to recommend itself over many others from that tour.
SET ONE. 7
SET TWO / ENCORE. 6
SHOW. B-/B
The recent remasters of this run by Charlie Miller sound fantastic, on par with, say, Dick's Picks, Vol. 9. This is unquestionably the version you will want to seek out.
http://db.etree.org/shninfo_detail.php?shnid=95809
2008/12/06
Prescribed Identity in "Brother, I’m Dying"
[Author's Note: This is the second essay I've written this semester that I feel is worth sharing, this one from late November. Written for a class on memoir and the construction of self, it examines various issues of identity in the memoir Brother, I'm Dying. I've left in page references that should correspond to both hardback and paperback editions, and I'd certainly recommend the book, if not quite rave about it.]
Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying is a memoir of frustrated dreams and cruel ironies, especially those lived out by its two protagonists, the narrator’s father and “second father” Uncle Joseph. Edwidge is left to sort through their histories, questioning, analyzing, perhaps eventually fulfilling them in ways they could not—but her own life story (as the title attests) is not the basis of the memoir’s exploration of love and loss. Rather, Edwidge’s interpretation crystallizes around issues of self-identity as it relates to her family history and to Haitians both in Haiti and the United States. At the culmination of the tragedy, we find both brothers irreversibly displaced. Edwidge’s father, Mira, long since spurred by violence and poverty to take up residence in the United States, lives in isolation from his homeland and the brother he barely knew as illness weakens him. Her uncle Joseph, who remains behind in Haiti, realizes that his homeland has turned against him and that he too must flee to the United States, where he meets a sudden, humiliating death. Just months away from his own death and soon after the passing of his elder brother, Mira tearfully reflects, “If our country were ever given a chance and allowed to be a country like any other, none of us would live or die here” (251). A moment before, Edwidge speculates of her uncle, “Did he think it ironic that he would soon be the dead prisoner of the same government that had been occupying his country when he was born? In essence he was entering and exiting the world under the same flag. Never really sovereign... never really free” (250). This displacement is the cumulative result of actions, both momentous and seemingly insignificant, that are motivated by characters’ conceptions of racial, ethnic, or national identity. That greater societies remain so sensitive to these distinctions forces the central players of Brother, I’m Dying to accept them, even as they contradict one another, as fixtures of their own selfhood.
In the first, telling alignment of fate, the echoes of which will haunt him all his life, Joseph is born into an American-occupied Haiti. From childhood on, his ideals for himself and his country are defined in direct opposition to the United States as foreign oppressor—and the impact of this occupation even on his earliest years is highly significant. His father is a committed fighter for the resistance movement and absent, for extended periods, from his children’s lives. Meanwhile, Joseph and his sisters are sheltered from harm but are given no information about their father’s whereabouts or safety. Most revealingly, Joseph’s first encounter with Americans (or, indeed, whites) involves a group of soldiers kicking around a severed Haitian head—a traumatic experience for any young boy. Interestingly, the understanding Danticat imparts on her young uncle is that “then, as now, the world outside Beauséjour was treacherous indeed” (247). Already, Joseph sees that the outside world has taken something from Haiti and of his own innocence—denied them the “chance” his brother later speaks of.
This leaves Joseph with an inexorable future ahead: confronted with the bloody works of “others,” he has to define an “us” with reference to “them.” His actions, his choices for himself, his ideas of himself—all indicate an effort toward undoing the trauma of his earliest past (perhaps even more than avoiding future crisis). He is, for the bulk of his life, committed to Haitian reform and populist politics (in opposition to the kind of iron-fisted government that would, as he recalls, make arrests for growing one’s hair out or going barefoot). In a similar spirit, he later turns to the church, a pastor at his own Eglise Chrétienne de la Rédemption, though his primary role might be more accurately described as “community builder.” Having taken on a strict but rewarding Baptist lifestyle and identity, certainly a relic of white influence in Haiti, Joseph can now access American missionaries as fellows, and manages to solicit from them “a monthly contribution for a free lunch program for [his] students,” serving his people while laying the seed for later conflicts of selfhood (34). Amidst the increasing political unrest of Haiti in the early twenty-first century, he remains resiliently behind, so deeply has he forged his own niche in and as a part of that society.
His final flight from Haiti, then, is ironic from a number of perspectives: he is condemned by the people for whom he has given so much; he is accused of giving aid to the UN forces, next in a series of foreign occupants, in their violent struggle with Haitian gangs; and he is forced, by threat of death, to turn to the United States, to a thin and somewhat troubling thread of his identity, where he will die. Edwidge herself realizes the weight of these contradictions years earlier while talking to an American consul as she is about to emigrate:
Mira’s story begins and ends somewhat differently, despite some thematic overlap with that of his brother. Notably, he is born twelve years after Joseph, after the end of American occupation and the period in which his father, Grandpè Nozial to Edwidge, was away from his children fighting for the resistance—altogether a very different childhood landscape. From his perspective, violence in Haiti is a product of internal turmoil—he is harassed and threatened at his modest job as a shoe salesman by President “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Macoute militia, and when he is soon charged additionally with supporting a family, he feels that for their safety and economic prospects he will have to look to America and eventual emigration—a decision, perhaps, to which his never brother could never have committed. Mira is bounded by a sense of obligation not to the Haitian community, which would have at the forefront of a country engulfed in a foreign war, but to his own ambitions, interests, and concerns—already a somewhat more American notion of priority. Along these lines, he devotes himself fully, missing out, as does his wife, on most of Edwidge’s childhood to pave economic inroads in the United States, an action that could only have been undertaken with a more fluid sense of national and cultural identity.
This dissonance in identification is apparent to both brothers. Of Joseph’s immediate withdrawal to Haiti after undergoing radical laryngectomy in New York, Mira reflects, “Our lives were now even more solidly on different tracks…. I don’t think he ever really wanted to leave Bel Air for any place in or outside of Haiti” (42). But his conclusion after Joseph’s funeral and burial in Queens reflects a more certain, and mournful, understanding: “He shouldn’t be here” (251). What is interesting to consider is the process that informed this development.
Mira’s story in America is arguably one of disillusionment. On his first visit back to Haiti since his departure, years before Edwidge and her younger brother Bob emigrate, Mira regales a captive audience with violent urban legends of New York, confirming a claim that New York is “as dangerous as it can be with the macoutes here” (92). While he does this with more than a touch of grandiosity, he nonetheless admits into his dichotomy of America and Haiti a shared presence of violence. In another twist of irony, his work as a taxicab driver leads him to encounter threats against his life, much the way his work as a shoe salesman did in Haiti. He is also subject to unwarranted and unchecked cruelty from his employers: he is fired from a factory job when his boss won’t let him leave early to pick up his children at the airport, and his cabdriver’s license is revoked when he fails a drug test on prescription codeine—despite a written appeal from his doctor. The treatment to which his race, class, and ethnicity consigns him is the undoing of his optimism for America, forcing him, in the process, to revert to an identity scheme similar to Joseph’s—one of Haitians struggling against and reluctantly turning to the same multilateral oppressor. At the end of his life, it is of Haiti Mira thinks tragically as “our country” and longs for the life in which “none of us would live or die [in America]” (251).
Edwidge Danticat’s account of the separate lives of her two fathers, unified ultimately by the twin arc of their long, slow deaths, takes on the weight of tragedy principally through the seeming futility of their actions, or more accurately the identity they are handed down, challenged by, and frustrated by for the rest of their lives. Both Joseph and Mira’s early development and negotiation of selfhood left them with distinct sets of aspirations for effecting permanent change to their worlds, neither of which was fully realized. The memoir, however, does not belong in the class of absolute tragedy: there are more than a few glimmers of redemption. Danticat leaves the reader with the understanding that however our identity, and our treatment as the same, is largely determined by societal divisions, varying experience sets matter enormously. Just as Joseph and Mira were initially set apart by different childhood circumstances, so will Edwidge’s life, and that of her infant daughter Mira, be lived out in different, and unpredictable, terms.
Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying is a memoir of frustrated dreams and cruel ironies, especially those lived out by its two protagonists, the narrator’s father and “second father” Uncle Joseph. Edwidge is left to sort through their histories, questioning, analyzing, perhaps eventually fulfilling them in ways they could not—but her own life story (as the title attests) is not the basis of the memoir’s exploration of love and loss. Rather, Edwidge’s interpretation crystallizes around issues of self-identity as it relates to her family history and to Haitians both in Haiti and the United States. At the culmination of the tragedy, we find both brothers irreversibly displaced. Edwidge’s father, Mira, long since spurred by violence and poverty to take up residence in the United States, lives in isolation from his homeland and the brother he barely knew as illness weakens him. Her uncle Joseph, who remains behind in Haiti, realizes that his homeland has turned against him and that he too must flee to the United States, where he meets a sudden, humiliating death. Just months away from his own death and soon after the passing of his elder brother, Mira tearfully reflects, “If our country were ever given a chance and allowed to be a country like any other, none of us would live or die here” (251). A moment before, Edwidge speculates of her uncle, “Did he think it ironic that he would soon be the dead prisoner of the same government that had been occupying his country when he was born? In essence he was entering and exiting the world under the same flag. Never really sovereign... never really free” (250). This displacement is the cumulative result of actions, both momentous and seemingly insignificant, that are motivated by characters’ conceptions of racial, ethnic, or national identity. That greater societies remain so sensitive to these distinctions forces the central players of Brother, I’m Dying to accept them, even as they contradict one another, as fixtures of their own selfhood.
In the first, telling alignment of fate, the echoes of which will haunt him all his life, Joseph is born into an American-occupied Haiti. From childhood on, his ideals for himself and his country are defined in direct opposition to the United States as foreign oppressor—and the impact of this occupation even on his earliest years is highly significant. His father is a committed fighter for the resistance movement and absent, for extended periods, from his children’s lives. Meanwhile, Joseph and his sisters are sheltered from harm but are given no information about their father’s whereabouts or safety. Most revealingly, Joseph’s first encounter with Americans (or, indeed, whites) involves a group of soldiers kicking around a severed Haitian head—a traumatic experience for any young boy. Interestingly, the understanding Danticat imparts on her young uncle is that “then, as now, the world outside Beauséjour was treacherous indeed” (247). Already, Joseph sees that the outside world has taken something from Haiti and of his own innocence—denied them the “chance” his brother later speaks of.
This leaves Joseph with an inexorable future ahead: confronted with the bloody works of “others,” he has to define an “us” with reference to “them.” His actions, his choices for himself, his ideas of himself—all indicate an effort toward undoing the trauma of his earliest past (perhaps even more than avoiding future crisis). He is, for the bulk of his life, committed to Haitian reform and populist politics (in opposition to the kind of iron-fisted government that would, as he recalls, make arrests for growing one’s hair out or going barefoot). In a similar spirit, he later turns to the church, a pastor at his own Eglise Chrétienne de la Rédemption, though his primary role might be more accurately described as “community builder.” Having taken on a strict but rewarding Baptist lifestyle and identity, certainly a relic of white influence in Haiti, Joseph can now access American missionaries as fellows, and manages to solicit from them “a monthly contribution for a free lunch program for [his] students,” serving his people while laying the seed for later conflicts of selfhood (34). Amidst the increasing political unrest of Haiti in the early twenty-first century, he remains resiliently behind, so deeply has he forged his own niche in and as a part of that society.
His final flight from Haiti, then, is ironic from a number of perspectives: he is condemned by the people for whom he has given so much; he is accused of giving aid to the UN forces, next in a series of foreign occupants, in their violent struggle with Haitian gangs; and he is forced, by threat of death, to turn to the United States, to a thin and somewhat troubling thread of his identity, where he will die. Edwidge herself realizes the weight of these contradictions years earlier while talking to an American consul as she is about to emigrate:
Sensing that it was the right thing to do, we both nodded, as if bowing to the flag that our grandfather had once fought against, that our mother and father had now embraced for nearly ten years, that we were about to make our own.... I felt my old life quickly slipping away. I was surrendering myself... (106)This demonstrates not only that Edwidge and Joseph feel the weight of a new, inevitable, and troubling sense of self pressing in on them, one that is (at least in part) American or reliant on America, but moreover that there was a pre-existing self that was defined strongly as un-American and informs this reaction. Joseph was the automatic inheritor (as was Edwidge under his parenting) of a distinctly Haitian identity.
Mira’s story begins and ends somewhat differently, despite some thematic overlap with that of his brother. Notably, he is born twelve years after Joseph, after the end of American occupation and the period in which his father, Grandpè Nozial to Edwidge, was away from his children fighting for the resistance—altogether a very different childhood landscape. From his perspective, violence in Haiti is a product of internal turmoil—he is harassed and threatened at his modest job as a shoe salesman by President “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Macoute militia, and when he is soon charged additionally with supporting a family, he feels that for their safety and economic prospects he will have to look to America and eventual emigration—a decision, perhaps, to which his never brother could never have committed. Mira is bounded by a sense of obligation not to the Haitian community, which would have at the forefront of a country engulfed in a foreign war, but to his own ambitions, interests, and concerns—already a somewhat more American notion of priority. Along these lines, he devotes himself fully, missing out, as does his wife, on most of Edwidge’s childhood to pave economic inroads in the United States, an action that could only have been undertaken with a more fluid sense of national and cultural identity.
This dissonance in identification is apparent to both brothers. Of Joseph’s immediate withdrawal to Haiti after undergoing radical laryngectomy in New York, Mira reflects, “Our lives were now even more solidly on different tracks…. I don’t think he ever really wanted to leave Bel Air for any place in or outside of Haiti” (42). But his conclusion after Joseph’s funeral and burial in Queens reflects a more certain, and mournful, understanding: “He shouldn’t be here” (251). What is interesting to consider is the process that informed this development.
Mira’s story in America is arguably one of disillusionment. On his first visit back to Haiti since his departure, years before Edwidge and her younger brother Bob emigrate, Mira regales a captive audience with violent urban legends of New York, confirming a claim that New York is “as dangerous as it can be with the macoutes here” (92). While he does this with more than a touch of grandiosity, he nonetheless admits into his dichotomy of America and Haiti a shared presence of violence. In another twist of irony, his work as a taxicab driver leads him to encounter threats against his life, much the way his work as a shoe salesman did in Haiti. He is also subject to unwarranted and unchecked cruelty from his employers: he is fired from a factory job when his boss won’t let him leave early to pick up his children at the airport, and his cabdriver’s license is revoked when he fails a drug test on prescription codeine—despite a written appeal from his doctor. The treatment to which his race, class, and ethnicity consigns him is the undoing of his optimism for America, forcing him, in the process, to revert to an identity scheme similar to Joseph’s—one of Haitians struggling against and reluctantly turning to the same multilateral oppressor. At the end of his life, it is of Haiti Mira thinks tragically as “our country” and longs for the life in which “none of us would live or die [in America]” (251).
Edwidge Danticat’s account of the separate lives of her two fathers, unified ultimately by the twin arc of their long, slow deaths, takes on the weight of tragedy principally through the seeming futility of their actions, or more accurately the identity they are handed down, challenged by, and frustrated by for the rest of their lives. Both Joseph and Mira’s early development and negotiation of selfhood left them with distinct sets of aspirations for effecting permanent change to their worlds, neither of which was fully realized. The memoir, however, does not belong in the class of absolute tragedy: there are more than a few glimmers of redemption. Danticat leaves the reader with the understanding that however our identity, and our treatment as the same, is largely determined by societal divisions, varying experience sets matter enormously. Just as Joseph and Mira were initially set apart by different childhood circumstances, so will Edwidge’s life, and that of her infant daughter Mira, be lived out in different, and unpredictable, terms.
Visions of China in “Heaven” and “Persimmons”
[Author's Note: In order to stave off writing a new essay, I've decided to seize this busy moment to post a couple I've written this past semester that I'm decently proud of. This one's from late September, for my "Imagining America" English class. I'm sure you could find both poems discussed below online—it might be helpful to reference them (I've left in line citations). I think this is a fairly insightful analysis, and I really love the phrase "stern matron of disambiguation."]
Poets Cathy Song and Li-Young Lee share a curious number of biographical similarities, many of which notably inform their work. Born two years apart, Song in Hawaii and Lee in Indonesia, they both predominately claim Chinese heritage and American upbringing. They emerged as part of a larger wave of Asian-American writers in the Seventies and Eighties and scored critical acclaim with their inaugural collections, Song's Picture Bride (1982) and Lee's Rose (1986). Over the course of their careers, both have continued to ruminate on themes of cross-cultural identity and concerns that, while universal, are deeply rooted in the Asian-American experience. In “Heaven” (from Song's sophomore collection, Frameless Windows, Squares of Light) and “Persimmons” (from Lee's debut), they examine the divisions that lay not only between but within individual Americans in a larger society that encourages assimilation and uniformity. Mired in dissatisfaction and isolation, the speakers in “Heaven” and “Persimmons” are able to transcend their often mundane or tiresome surroundings through the unifying fixations of the poems' titles, each recalling something of their ancestral Chinese homeland that is now lost to them.
In its surrealist, dreamlike contours, “Heaven” implicates three generations of Chinese-Americans across two continents in an integrated, cyclical vision of departures and returns. The speaker considers both her grandfather, who left China to build railroads in the old American West and never returned, and her son, of mixed race, who envisions China as heaven—peaceful, awaiting, and just out of sight. In evocative, visual language, Song draws a sharp contrast between the drab nearby and the idyllic remote. The speaker's home “just east of the Rockies” is rife with impermanence, decay, and inadequacy—“reedy aspen with light, fluttering leaves” for vegetation, “the broken fences, the whiny dog, the rattletrap cars” for possessions, and “this creek they call a river” for environment (17, 23, 29, 38). America is portrayed as a failed homeland, a mean, inhospitable surrogate for the China the speaker and her son have never known. The speaker's ambivalent feelings for her country are emphasized in her somewhat ironic reference to words and cultural relics that are uniquely American. She locates her home “on the pancake plains,” amidst “landlocked, makeshift ghost towns,” and describes a Wild West bustling with “shootouts and fistfights in the back alley,” characterizing the nation not only in its breakfast, geography, and mythos but in its hard-sounding and ruthlessly functional compound words (16, 49, 32).
The distant, unknown China fares distinctly better by the speaker's imaginative rendering. In the first stanza, China is described as “that blue flower on the map, / bluer than the sea,” and the rest of the poem alludes to China, whether directly or indirectly, by referencing both blue, classically associated with heaven, and the sea, the Pacific Ocean being the physical barrier (or bridge) between such separate poles of existence (6-7). The speaker describes the Rocky Mountains as “shimmering blue above the air,” leading her son to the poem's metaphysical conclusion that “you can see all the way to heaven” (58, 63). The sea remains largely as faraway as the China with which it's associated: their “landlocked” American home is “a mile above the sea” (49, 19). But the sea has also the power to transport—the speaker's grandfather came from Guangzhou, a port city navigable to the South China Sea, and as her son envisions heaven, he is described as “leaning out from the laundry's rigging, / the work shirts fluttering like sails” (61-62). Just as heaven is always a foil to the worldly, so is China-as-heaven a dream of escaping a dingy and unfulfilling lifestyle, fueled by a complex relationship and fixation with the past.
“Persimmons” taps into many of the same feelings of alienation and disillusionment, but Lee's approach is entirely different. Rather than focusing on setting and the sharp division between China and America, “Persimmons” concerns itself with the individual and the fracturing of Chinese and American identity within the narrator. This sense of disorientation and uncertainty becomes part of the structural map of the poem in the narrator's repeated confusion over pairs of English words. Doubling the crisis, however, is his loss of Chinese words as he forges an American identity; as he and Donna lie naked in the yard, says the narrator, “I teach her Chinese. / Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I've forgotten. / Naked: I've forgotten” (22-24). American experience comes as his Chinese self is blanked over. This fundamental confusion and disarray, a concern for things misplaced, forgotten, or misunderstood, is echoed in several carefully laid parallels. Mrs. Walker herself, that stern matron of disambiguation, is guilty of “not knowing the difference”: she presents a persimmon to the class as a “Chinese apple,” when in fact that term is ascribed to pomegranates (4, 43).
As in “Heaven,” the eponymous image of the poem is a kind of redemption that reconciles the reality of life in America with the narrator's longing to hold on to his Chinese past. That Lee used the persimmon in particular to achieve this effect is no accident: persimmons have historically been associated with Chinese herbal medicine and, in that field, are widely recognized for their restorative powers. The narrator's mother describes how “every persimmon has a sun / inside”—it is this metaphorical sun, classically representative of light, power, and goodness, that can penetrate the father's blindness as he recalls perfectly, in painting, the fullness of ripe persimmons (46-47). This image resonates in the cardinal's song (“The sun, the sun”) as the persimmons ripen on the windowsill; the sun imbibes the fruit with a sense of sublime perfection, as would be missing from the unripened fruit the careless Mrs. Walker serves and which the narrator must decline (53). The sun, then, represents China, stamping the persimmon with its memory. This is perhaps why the narrator tells the American Donna that “she is beautiful as the moon” (28). The moon and the sun occupy separate times and spaces, and he is learning to accept the duality of night and day, of American existence and Chinese heritage.
The titles “Heaven” and “Persimmons” are more than chance or arbitrary attempts to grasp at the “subject” of each poem. They represent two narrow but meaningful points of access for Chinese-Americans living estranged from any one culture to retain something, even if only a vision, of a purer and brighter Chinese past. Both poems are simultaneously an indictment of the shortcomings of a homogeneous, uncomprehending greater America and an acceptance of that reality as their future—heaven and persimmons can only be substantive enough to impact the speakers' attitudes towards their situations, not the situations themselves. It is telling that each poem ends on a note of clarity, tranquility, and closeness—as if Cathy Song and Li-Young Lee were reconciling with their own split identities, arriving at some intersection with the past that seems to transcend the present.
Poets Cathy Song and Li-Young Lee share a curious number of biographical similarities, many of which notably inform their work. Born two years apart, Song in Hawaii and Lee in Indonesia, they both predominately claim Chinese heritage and American upbringing. They emerged as part of a larger wave of Asian-American writers in the Seventies and Eighties and scored critical acclaim with their inaugural collections, Song's Picture Bride (1982) and Lee's Rose (1986). Over the course of their careers, both have continued to ruminate on themes of cross-cultural identity and concerns that, while universal, are deeply rooted in the Asian-American experience. In “Heaven” (from Song's sophomore collection, Frameless Windows, Squares of Light) and “Persimmons” (from Lee's debut), they examine the divisions that lay not only between but within individual Americans in a larger society that encourages assimilation and uniformity. Mired in dissatisfaction and isolation, the speakers in “Heaven” and “Persimmons” are able to transcend their often mundane or tiresome surroundings through the unifying fixations of the poems' titles, each recalling something of their ancestral Chinese homeland that is now lost to them.
In its surrealist, dreamlike contours, “Heaven” implicates three generations of Chinese-Americans across two continents in an integrated, cyclical vision of departures and returns. The speaker considers both her grandfather, who left China to build railroads in the old American West and never returned, and her son, of mixed race, who envisions China as heaven—peaceful, awaiting, and just out of sight. In evocative, visual language, Song draws a sharp contrast between the drab nearby and the idyllic remote. The speaker's home “just east of the Rockies” is rife with impermanence, decay, and inadequacy—“reedy aspen with light, fluttering leaves” for vegetation, “the broken fences, the whiny dog, the rattletrap cars” for possessions, and “this creek they call a river” for environment (17, 23, 29, 38). America is portrayed as a failed homeland, a mean, inhospitable surrogate for the China the speaker and her son have never known. The speaker's ambivalent feelings for her country are emphasized in her somewhat ironic reference to words and cultural relics that are uniquely American. She locates her home “on the pancake plains,” amidst “landlocked, makeshift ghost towns,” and describes a Wild West bustling with “shootouts and fistfights in the back alley,” characterizing the nation not only in its breakfast, geography, and mythos but in its hard-sounding and ruthlessly functional compound words (16, 49, 32).
The distant, unknown China fares distinctly better by the speaker's imaginative rendering. In the first stanza, China is described as “that blue flower on the map, / bluer than the sea,” and the rest of the poem alludes to China, whether directly or indirectly, by referencing both blue, classically associated with heaven, and the sea, the Pacific Ocean being the physical barrier (or bridge) between such separate poles of existence (6-7). The speaker describes the Rocky Mountains as “shimmering blue above the air,” leading her son to the poem's metaphysical conclusion that “you can see all the way to heaven” (58, 63). The sea remains largely as faraway as the China with which it's associated: their “landlocked” American home is “a mile above the sea” (49, 19). But the sea has also the power to transport—the speaker's grandfather came from Guangzhou, a port city navigable to the South China Sea, and as her son envisions heaven, he is described as “leaning out from the laundry's rigging, / the work shirts fluttering like sails” (61-62). Just as heaven is always a foil to the worldly, so is China-as-heaven a dream of escaping a dingy and unfulfilling lifestyle, fueled by a complex relationship and fixation with the past.
“Persimmons” taps into many of the same feelings of alienation and disillusionment, but Lee's approach is entirely different. Rather than focusing on setting and the sharp division between China and America, “Persimmons” concerns itself with the individual and the fracturing of Chinese and American identity within the narrator. This sense of disorientation and uncertainty becomes part of the structural map of the poem in the narrator's repeated confusion over pairs of English words. Doubling the crisis, however, is his loss of Chinese words as he forges an American identity; as he and Donna lie naked in the yard, says the narrator, “I teach her Chinese. / Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I've forgotten. / Naked: I've forgotten” (22-24). American experience comes as his Chinese self is blanked over. This fundamental confusion and disarray, a concern for things misplaced, forgotten, or misunderstood, is echoed in several carefully laid parallels. Mrs. Walker herself, that stern matron of disambiguation, is guilty of “not knowing the difference”: she presents a persimmon to the class as a “Chinese apple,” when in fact that term is ascribed to pomegranates (4, 43).
As in “Heaven,” the eponymous image of the poem is a kind of redemption that reconciles the reality of life in America with the narrator's longing to hold on to his Chinese past. That Lee used the persimmon in particular to achieve this effect is no accident: persimmons have historically been associated with Chinese herbal medicine and, in that field, are widely recognized for their restorative powers. The narrator's mother describes how “every persimmon has a sun / inside”—it is this metaphorical sun, classically representative of light, power, and goodness, that can penetrate the father's blindness as he recalls perfectly, in painting, the fullness of ripe persimmons (46-47). This image resonates in the cardinal's song (“The sun, the sun”) as the persimmons ripen on the windowsill; the sun imbibes the fruit with a sense of sublime perfection, as would be missing from the unripened fruit the careless Mrs. Walker serves and which the narrator must decline (53). The sun, then, represents China, stamping the persimmon with its memory. This is perhaps why the narrator tells the American Donna that “she is beautiful as the moon” (28). The moon and the sun occupy separate times and spaces, and he is learning to accept the duality of night and day, of American existence and Chinese heritage.
The titles “Heaven” and “Persimmons” are more than chance or arbitrary attempts to grasp at the “subject” of each poem. They represent two narrow but meaningful points of access for Chinese-Americans living estranged from any one culture to retain something, even if only a vision, of a purer and brighter Chinese past. Both poems are simultaneously an indictment of the shortcomings of a homogeneous, uncomprehending greater America and an acceptance of that reality as their future—heaven and persimmons can only be substantive enough to impact the speakers' attitudes towards their situations, not the situations themselves. It is telling that each poem ends on a note of clarity, tranquility, and closeness—as if Cathy Song and Li-Young Lee were reconciling with their own split identities, arriving at some intersection with the past that seems to transcend the present.
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