Last week a friend and I went to the National Zoo for Zoo Lights—for
the month of December, various corporations sponsor thousands of light displays
at the zoo. This was the first time I’d been there since shortly after the
first panda arrived in the last century—on short trip to DC that was one of my
must-dos, seeing the panda. (I also went to the first club in the country that
had male strippers. I much preferred the panda.)
Anyhow, my friend is a big fan of the zoo, and going at night,
when I can’t see incarcerated animals, is about the best time for me. And it
was quite a sight. I’m just gonna lay some pix out for you. The best things for
me were the “animal lanterns”—lighted from the inside.
A couple of the animal lanterns moved.
One other highlight of that outing: as we were making our way to
the exit, a toddler (in a stroller, maybe two-ish?) started screaming. Not
crying, full-throated empty-your-lungs screaming. And the kid kept it up for at
least 20 minutes—they followed us across Connecticut Avenue all the way to the
Metro station. I have no words.
Today is the final Gratitude Monday of 2019. What a ride, eh?
A year ago all I could hold onto was that I’d
discovered Pousse Rapière on my take-it-or-lose-it vacation. Because I was
still working with the Clown Car, where I was ignored at best and disrespected
at worst.
And then—I don’t quite know what happened, but I just started to
turn things around. Perhaps something to do with scoping out the IT
infrastructure the program would require—despite the Clown Car being
collectively dismissive of what that represented—reawakened my sense of product
management. Even though I’d been out of the field for nearly five years, it was
like catching a scent that suddenly transports you back to a place where you
were happy.
I began my job search more actively, including reaching out to
people I didn’t know well, but who had offered help. I connected with someone
who really energized me and gave me the #playingtowin
construct. So that when the Clown Car organization announced they’d be laying
me off due to lack of funding, I was so ready to move on.
I was reminded of Jesus telling the disciples to go forth and
spread the Gospel, but “whosoever shall not receive your words, when ye depart
out of that house or city, shake the dust off your feet.” Look—I have no
delusions of grandeur, but if anyone had their ears closed to what they needed
to know to get their program off the ground, it was this lot. And I definitely
shook the dust off my feet when I walked out that door.
For perhaps the first time in my life, I waded into the job search
with confidence, notwithstanding the challenge of moving into a new (and extremely
competitive) field, and the fact that I was going to have to a lot of dot
connecting if I wanted to be a product manager again. But I was open to it, and
I ran that search like a military campaign. The stars, as they say, aligned: I
now have my aspirational
job with my aspirational company in my aspirational field. I work with
people who are committed, supportive and welcoming; they make me want to do my
best.
This year I have so much to be thankful for—all the people who
helped and encouraged me, old friends and new; taking a fork in the road that I’d
never thought I’d be able to see, much less travel. New things to learn; some
things to teach. This year has been a gift to me, and I’m deeply grateful for
it.
This struck me while I was driving around NoVa a while ago: some
sort of stealth contact system:
I mean—no direct/mobile, no office and no website.
Maybe you’re meant to stop them in traffic and strike up a conversation. Or send up the bat light. I’d imagine that it’s hard to drive lead generation this way, but I could be
wrong.
Let’s cap off this Advent season with the really big gun of
Christmas music. The Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach.
“Unser Mund sei vol Lachens”—“Let our mouth be full of laughter”
is the theme, which seems appropriate. Mary and Joseph made it to Bethlehem,
they found a place to spend the night, the prophecies have been fulfilled. The
final chorale is “Gelobt sei Gott”, “God be praised”, which says it all.
Here we’ve got the J.S. Bach Foundation of St. Gallen,
Switzerland, performing the oratorio in a church in Trogen. I do not know why
they feel obliged to point out that it’s a Protestant church (all their videos
on YouTube seem to be so designated), but it’s a good recording nonetheless.
It’s time to pull out the stops, crank up the volume and rejoice.
As I mentioned yesterday, Hanukkah began at sundown on Sunday. I
missed a Hanukkah post because the 22nd was also Annunciation
Sunday, and the yahrzeit of my friend David’s death. But the beauty of Hanukkah
is that it lasts for eight nights, so I’m still in the bracket.
So my music today is “Ocho Kandelikas”, which is a Ladino Hanukkah
song. Ladino is the language of Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula. (We’re
more familiar with Yiddish, which is the language of Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern
Europe.) Just as you can limp along understanding Yiddish if you speak German,
if you speak Spanish, a lot of Ladino words will make sense.
So, “Ocho Kandelikas” means “Eight Candles”.
The song was written in 1983 by a Bosnian named Flory Jagoda, who
fled with her family following the Nazi invasion of then-Yugoslavia. She
married an American soldier after the war and lives somewhere in Northern
Virginia (according to Wikipedia).
The lyrics are not rocket science; I think a lot of the attraction
is the energetic tempo. Although I cannot argue with the line, “We’re going to
eat little pastries with small almonds and honey.”
Here is “Pink Martini” performing it. Crank up the volume and let
loose a little.
My friend David, who died
two years ago yesterday, despised religion. But he also had two young sons,
so I know he celebrated Christmas, after a fashion. Well, his partner was
Jewish—maybe the light sabers the boys got one year were for Hanukkah (which
also began last night). I dunno.
Regardless, I think David would appreciate today’s Advent piece, “The
Rebel Jesus”. Jackson Browne wrote it for the Chieftains’ 1991 Christmas CD, The
Bells of Dublin.
The lyrics certainly apply to the state of Christmas and evangelical Christianity today—where the money-changers that Jesus threw out of the temple
have taken over mega-churches to preach the gospel of prosperity. Well,
prosperity for them, at least. Guarding the world with locks and guns—check.
Guarding fine possessions—yepper. The kill shot, though, is the line about
anyone interfering with the business of why the poor are poor: “they get the
same as the rebel Jesus.”
If anything, that’s only got worse in the decades since this song
was released. That gospel of prosperity’s added an amendment: if I can’t be
prosperous, please, God, at least make someone else worse off than me.
David understood that acutely.
Well, here’s the cut from that Chieftains album.
And I’m still grateful for my friendship with David. What a grace that was.
Well, we’re rounding the turn into the final stretch of Advent.
Today is Annunciation Sunday, the night we light the fourth candle in the
wreath and consider what it might have been like for a very young woman in
Nazareth to be paid a visit by one of God’s biggest guns, the Archangel
Gabriel.
Gabriel was one of the guardians of Israel. In the Old Testament,
he appeared to Daniel, to interpret his visions. He also was sent (as recounted
in the Book of Ezekiel) to destroy Jerusalem. In the New Testament, he appeared
to Zacharias, to tell him that his wife Elisabeth would bear a child (John the
Baptist). Elisabeth being Mary’s cousin, I suppose it’s possible she’d heard
about Gabriel’s visit, so maybe she wasn’t completely laid out by having an archangel
show up in her room and telling her that she’d been chosen to bear the son of
God. Without any kind of sexual activity.
Well, maybe, but I think it must still have been quite the BFD back
in those days, in the backwater of civilization, and it must have been overwhelming.
“Gabriel’s Message” is a Basque carol that’s based on a 13th
Century Latin carol. I’m giving you Sting’s take on it.
It’s the Winter Solstice today—the longest night and shortest day
of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Humans have been marking the turning
back of night around this time for millennia—celebrating the resurgence of
light and hope over darkness and despair. Because no matter how black and cold
it might seem at this moment, they know that the seasons will revolve; spring
will follow winter; there is life beneath the frosted landscape.
Advent is very much a period of banking the fires, focusing inward
and holding out through the dark time, knowing that light will return, good
will bloom and hope provides the continuo.
The English poet Christina Rossetti wrote “In the Bleak Midwinter”
in 1872, although it wasn’t published until 1904. The imagery of the first
stanza just makes you shiver—earth hard as iron; moaning, frosty wind; water
like stone; snow piled deep on itself. It’s a frozen world, an absolutely
perfect description of the Winter Solstice. As Rossetti goes on to describe the
mother and child, the stable beasts and the angels, you can just about see
their breaths billowing misty into the night air.
I’m giving two versions of this one, both performed by the choir
of Kings College, Cambridge. The first set to music by Gustav Holst:
This one’s by Harold Darke:
They’re not markedly dissimilar. With both versions done by the
Kings College choir, this is like A/B testing. You can decide on your
preference to help you through the longest night.
The English composer John Rutter has pretty much got a lock on modern
“classical” Christmas music. I am not a fan, but he certainly doesn’t miss me.
Seems like every concert in the world has at least one of his carols, or arrangement
of an existing carol.
Rutter composed “The Shepherd’s Pipe” while a student at Clare
College, Cambridge. He was 18. Maybe that accounts for the lyrics not even
rhyming, I dunno. (Frankly, I got tired of the "On the way to Bethlehem" schtick.) But here are the Batavia Madrigal Singers with Macau
Orchestra performing it. I told you everyone in the world puts on his stuff at
Christmas.
As an aside, when I went searching for this, Google kept trying to
serve up shepherd’s pie. That old algorithm knows what I like.
The
focus of today’s post isn’t really Advent or Christmas related, but the subject
certainly is.
“Dona
Nobis Pacem” comes from the part of the Roman Catholic Mass (or Episcopalian or
Lutheran service) where congregants ask Christ to be merciful and bestow peace.
Agnus
Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus
Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus
Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.
Lamb
of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Lamb
of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Lamb
of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
The
song is a canon—a single line of melody, where different voices join in at a
different duration of time, thus forming a polyphony of sorts. “Dona Nobis Pacem”
is a repeating canon, so it’s a round. Like you used to sing at camp. In fact,
you may well have sung this at camp, because it’s not Christmas-specific.
A
friend of mine performs in the Washington
Revels most Decembers. Revels are put on in several cities in the US, each
year the local group decides on a theme. I went last year, when it was a French-Canadian
story, with a flying canoe and everything. During the show, there are a few
pieces that invite audience participation, and “Dona Nobis Pacem” is one of
them. The audience was divided into three parts and we sang the round, each led
by a section of the cast.
Here I’m
giving you a rendition by a children’s choir that may or may not be called “Funny
Voices” of the Children’s Exemplary Choral Studio “Kamerton”, of Saint
Petersburg, Russia. (Google Translate was not my best friend on this.)
But I’m
also giving you a version sung by some happy campers. It’s a little rougher,
but that’s the beauty of the piece: it’s very forgiving.
In my
opinion, we can all do with some divine peace.
“God
Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” dates back at least to the 16th Century.
It’s pretty straightforward. The “merry” doesn’t really refer to merry-making
or excess; it’s reminding people that their burdens are about to be lightened,
so they should likewise lighten up. You know, don't be so worried.
Here’s
a rather different take on the old standard, from Barenaked Ladies, with guest
Sarah MacLachlan. See what you think.
You know, I don’t think in all the years I’ve been doing music
posts for Advent that I’ve had anything from Africa. I don’t know why that is,
but it’s changing today.
I confess that I don’t know anything about this piece, “Bethlehem”,
and only marginally more about MozuluArt. They’re a group of three African guys
generally accompanied by a pianist, who fuse African traditions with classical
music. Zulu meets Mozart, see? Seems appropriate, somehow, for the day we believe
Ludwig van Beethoven was born, to pay tribute to expanding the parameters of
music.
From their website, the lyrics translate to:
Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem
He lies in a manger
He is a friend to us all
And he has come here to give us salvation
On this particular piece, they’re accompanied by the Ambassade
String Quartet. Not a lot to tell you about this, but I love it, and I love
them. Here’s how much: I’ve just ordered their African Christmas CD,
which includes this, from Amazon, and I’m paying $3.99 for incredibly slow
shipping, because this seems to be the only option.
Last Monday I took a day off work just because I had a lot of
stuff to do. And by God, I did it: by 1130 I’d mailed two packages at the Post
Office (got there 15 minutes before it opened; by the time they did open, there
were 15 people behind me in line); gone to Costco and ordered two pairs of
computer glasses (sorely, sorely needed) and picked up a few bits and bobs
(they moved the unsalted butter, the toerags, and I wouldn’t have found it
except a guy who was snapping pix of prices caught me as I was leaving the chiller
area to say he’d found it (yes, I buy butter four pounds at a time; you got a
problem with that?); exchanged my empty Sodastream cannister at Bed, Bath and
Beyond; and picked up some more bits and bobs.
Back at home I did some vacuuming and other stuff, and it was a
great, great day off.
Well, despite the Costco optical guy telling me that it would
probably be two weeks before my glasses were ready, on Friday I got a text
saying that one pair was waiting for me. I shuddered—going to Costco on a
Saturday in December is not for the weak. But I really, really need those
computer glasses.
So, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and by 1145 I’d
picked up both pairs of glasses (I cannot recommend Costco Optical too much—everyone
I’ve spoken there is professional, knowledgeable and candid. Dinh, who helped me
pick out the glasses on Monday, steered me away from a $169 pair of Burberry
frames—“Too round!”—and showed me a number of lower-priced but still stylish
frames. Anthony, who helped me on Saturday, was completely thorough in fitting the
glasses to my head) and bought the zip-loc sandwich bags I should have got on
Monday; filled up my car at the Costco petrol station; did my grocery shop at
Wegman’s; dropped my holiday tip off at my newspaper carrier’s house (this guy
never misses a delivery and double bags the paper on days of inclement weather;
I would go with digital-only except that I want this fellow to keep his job);
and picked up a prescription (which my new insurance throttled; I suspect for
90-day scrips they want me to use their mail-order service; I hate them all).
And I did it in Saturday morning’s rain.
So, here’s what I’m grateful for today: after years of feeling
incapable of doing more than one or two errands at a time, I’ve rediscovered
that I can mow these errands down like Saint Augustine grass when I focus on
it. May not seem like much to you, but this is huge for me.
Today’s Advent piece originated with plainsong back in the mists
of Christianity, so: Latin. The opening lines of “Rorate Caeli” translate to “Drop
down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just. Let the
earth be opened and send forth a Saviour.”
The chant featured in regular Advent services devoted to Mary,
known as the Rorate Mass. I don’t recall ever having attended one (they were weekday/Saturday
masses, and kinda got sidelined during the Second Vatican Council), but I would
like to. They used to be held in the early morning, which seems to me to be a
good way to start out a workday during Advent.
In the Anglican tradition, the opening lines translate to “Drop
down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.” I
believe we could use some of that these days.
Anyway, seems appropriate to have a version sung by Maîtrise Notre
Dame de Paris, which is a music school in Paris. Notre Dame meaning Our Lady.
If you’d like something closer to the original, here’s one (cannot
tell who the group is):
Today is Gaudete Sunday. Since Advent is meant to be a period of
preparation, reflection and quiet (hahahahahahaha—no, really, that’s what it
was for centuries, but we’ve totally blown past that in the past hundred years
or so), the third Sunday is the break from all that. You add a pink candle to
the two purple ones you’ve lighted already, and you focus on rejoicing.
I can think of no better entry for today than Aretha Franklin
singing “Joy to the World” at Rockefeller Center. Turn up the volume and rejoice.
Today’s Advent hymn comes to us from 17th Century France.
Charles Coffin was principal of the college of Beauvais and rector of the
university of Paris; both cities have astoundingly beautiful cathedrals, so it
makes sense that he’d write something like “On Jordan’s Bank”. This piece just
cries out for cavernous space to fill up with joyful music.
This hymn is typically sung on Advent 2, Annunciation Sunday, so I’m
a little late. You can see why in the opening lines—instead of Gabriel
appearing to Mary, we have John the Baptist (son
of Mary’s cousin Anne—she who was thought to be too old to conceive) standing
at the River Jordan, proclaiming that the Lord is coming. It then goes on to
speak directly to the Saviour and urging us all to prepare for him. You know: Advent.
I do not know what space the OCP Session Choir occupies, but this
is the best recording I could find, and that includes
processionals/recessionals from the Washington National Cathedral and the Basilica
of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, also in D.C.
Today is Saint Lucia’s day, honoring the virgin martyr of the Diocletian
persecutions in the Third Century. Saint Lucia/Lucy is associated with a crown
of lights or candles, especially in Scandinavia. So last week, when my company
had its holiday party at a local eatery and an Ugly Holiday Sweater contest was
part of the schtick, I went full Lucy. (I have no holiday sweaters, ugly or otherwise.)
No, I didn’t put candles in my hair, but I did wrap a string of battery-powered
IKEA lights around my head and that seemed to pass muster. (No one took pix;
sorry.)
Well, but back to the saint. Saint Lucia is also the name of an
island in the eastern Caribbean, so I believe I’m going a bit Calypso today. I
just love “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy”, and why not have the King of
Calypso sing it?
Belafonte is of Jamaican heritage, and the carol is Trinidadian, but whatever.
Today’s Advent piece brings up the dark side of the Nativity story—the
part that’s usually left out of the festivities.
On their journey following the star, the three Wise Men stopped
for a spell in Jerusalem and asked King Herod for directions to where they
might find the child about to be born who would rule the world. This turned out
to be a costly mistake, because Herod—so the Gospels tell us—followed the time-honored
Middle Eastern custom of ensuring security of his administration by ordering
the slaughter of all male children up to two years of age in the vicinity of
Bethlehem. (Joseph was warned by an angel, and he, Mary and Jesus fled to
Egypt, where the government did not separate them or put them in cages.)
(On a side note, imagine Mary, having just endured an uncomfortable journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem and given birth to her first child, must have felt having to pick up and run all the way to Egypt. No returning to the comfort of her home and the support of friends. She's got to manage with a newborn, on that dag-blamed donkey for hundreds of miles, to a strange country where she doesn't speak the language, and where the hell is she going to get diapers? We should really hear more about this.)
“Coventry Carol” is from a mystery play put on annually in the
city of Coventry. Not sure about the precise date, but it was documented in the
16th Century. It’s the only song to survive from that particular
play, and it was sung by three women, representing all the mothers trying to
reassure the children they knew were doomed.
I’m giving you two versions. The first is pretty traditional, from
the Irish choral group Anúna.
This version, by Annie Lennox and the African
Children’s Choir is…different.
Moving from Appalachia to the Old World, today’s Advent music was
written in the 17th Century by French cleric, playwright and poet
Simon-Joseph Pellegrin. There’s a lot of energy and excitement in “O Come,
Devine Messiah”. And this recording, by the Cape Breton band, Barra MacNeils,
is an interesting take on it. (I could not find any choir version that I
thought did justice to the piece.)
We’re heading to Appalachia today for our Advent music. “Jesus,
Jesus, Rest Your Head” was collected by the American composer, singer and
folklorist John Jacob Niles, some time in the first decades of the last
century. Like his “I Wonder as I Wander”, it’s short, simple and haunting.
I had a bit of a time finding a recording that isn’t
over-arranged. And I have to confess I have no idea who this Jean Watson is,
but I like her version of the song.
On this day in 1906, Grace Brewster Murray was born in New York
City. An extremely curious child, at age seven she took apart seven alarm
clocks to see how they worked; she would have kept on, but her mother caught
her. That curiosity led her to a pioneering career in computer science, where—among
other things—she developed the compiler and pushed the idea of developing
English-based programming languages rather than machine-based ones.
As Grace Hopper (the husband lasted only 15 years, but she kept
his surname) she retired from the US Navy three times before they quit calling
her back to active duty. I watched her final retirement ceremony on TV in 1986.
It was held on the USS Constitution and it probably made the evening
news because she was such an anomaly—a female Rear Admiral who’d been working
years beyond the Navy’s mandatory retirement by Congressional fiat and because
the service bloody needed her expertise. She went on to become a consultant for
DEC, and died in Arlington, Va., in 1992. (For a year, I lived near the
apartment block that was her last residence. They’ve turned the grass in front
of the building into Grace
Hopper Park.
I’m grateful today for the example of Grace Hopper, for her
unapologetic brilliance, her strength her biting wit, and her utterly
no-bullshit attitude.
I sometimes wonder about Mary’s strength, as she journeyed to Bethlehem.
I mean—it’s a lot to take in, a teenager (at least that’s the supposition)
being visited by an archangel who announces she’s been chosen to bear the son
of God. Then being pregnant—no one bothers to tell us what the pregnancy was
like, but there’s no reason to imagine that carrying the Messiah is any
different from carrying an ordinary baby. So, morning sickness, frequent
peeing, fatigue, hormonal extremes.
Plus, now she’s on this freaking journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem—160km,
on a donkey, in your ninth month, just so you and your husband can be counted
in the census. (Thanks, Caesar!) First pregnancy—she had to be anxious; she’d
have known of other women who had difficult births, maybe some who died. Gabriel,
in the Annunciation, made no mention of an easy birth. And he’s representing
the same God who told Abraham to kill his son Isaac and only pulled back at the
last minute—“Ha, ha, just joking. You can keep the kid.”
So, what kind of strength did it take to be in the final trimester
of her first pregnancy, traveling to a strange town, with a husband who
presumably knows nothing about childbirth; to be so young and so out of her
element in every respect? We do not know, because none of the New Testament
writers could be arsed to tell us.
Okay. Today’s Advent music is a Nordic take on one
I’ve given you before “Maria Var Ei Møy Så Ren” describes a different trip, the one Mary took
early in her pregnancy to visit her cousin Anne, who was also experiencing an
unexpected pregnancy. (She was considered much to old to conceive; her son
would be John the Baptist.) Evidently the road to Anne’s house took Mary
through a thorny wood.
The artist is Marian Aas Hansen, a Norwegian singer. And I’m sorry
(not sorry), but the picture on the cover of this album reminds me of the Leverage
episode when the team was pulling off a job in Nashville and Parker was playing
a Björk-like diva. This clip does not do the kookiness justice, but it’s
apparently the only one on the web:
Today is the second Sunday in Advent. This is the one focused on preparation.
Making yourself ready for the birth of the Saviour. Whatever it is that you
need to do to make room for welcoming the baby, the spirit of God; that’s what
this week is about.
So today’s music is “Praeparate corda vestra”, written in the 16th
Century by one Jacobus Gallus Handl. The words tell us:
“Prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve Him only
And He will save you from the hands of your enemies.
Turn to Him with all your hearts
And banish strange gods from your midst.”
And it’s sung by the Benedictines of Mary, which seems
appropriate.
Today’s Advent offering should probably come closer to Christmas,
because it’s about the shepherds. But I feel shepherdy now, so… Also, there’s
another one slotted for later.
“Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow” was sung by African-American
slaves in the ante-bellum South. It was first published as “A Christmas
Plantation Song” in Slave Songs of the United States, in 1867. The songs
in this collection were gathered during the War Between the States, and the melody
is probably from the coastal islands off South Carolina and Georgia. A lot of
those songs would have been call and response, which is how “Rise Up, Shepherd”
is framed.
Back in those days so glorified now by Republicans, slaves were
property, to be used and disposed of at their master’s pleasure, like cattle
and sheep. White owners, almost always professing Christians, were conflicted
about converting their slaves. In one respect, it made no more sense than spreading
the gospel to their cattle or sheep; property’s property, duh. But in another,
preaching Christ’s teachings was downright radical—all that talk about all of
us one under the Lord kinda runs contrary to the whole master-slave thing. What
if—and bear with me on this for a minute—what if all those black people got the
notion that spiritual liberation should be followed by, you know, actual
physical liberation? Scary stuff, right?
So it was not at all uncommon for colonial legislatures to enact
laws to ensure clarity on this issue: white guys = free; black guys = not free.
Ordained by both God and man; end of. Maryland was the first colony, in 1664,
to legislate that baptism had no effect on the social status of slaves.
Southern theologians intoned that slaves had no soul; ergo treating them as
property was copacetic, whether baptized or not.
Just like cattle and sheep.
(For the record, there are no reports to my knowledge of plantation
owners baptizing their cattle or sheep. It could have happened, I suppose, but
they didn’t document it in the parish ledger.)
Generally speaking, slaves were also kept illiterate; no need to
read to pick cotton, tend babies or shoe horses. Also—man, that Gospel; you do not
want anyone in captivity to have free access to that sucker, to parse and to
ponder and to come up with weird-ass conclusions like Jesus preached to the
poor and had no particular love for the rich, and what do we make of that? No,
no—none of that Protestant notion of putting the Bible into everyone’s hands so
s/he can build an individual relationship with God. You might as well give the
field hands guns.
Also, slaves were forbidden to gather in large numbers, where they
might talk with one another, share information about their conditions and maybe
discuss things that property owners would prefer that their chattel goods didn’t
discuss.
So being unable to write or congregate, generations of men, women
and children developed a musical code for communication with one another,
across geographical and chronological boundaries. This code would be spirituals
and gospel music. When you dig into some of these songs, they’re about as
incendiary as it gets; they’re just cloaked in metaphor. “Follow the Drinking
Gourd”, “Jacob’s Ladder”, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”—they all sound kind of
meek and pious, but they’re built on pain and anger and aspirations.
And so is “Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow”. I mean, how on earth
did slaveholders even hear those first two words without the hair on the backs
of their necks rising? The response to the call—twice in the verses and twice
again in the chorus—is literally telling the listeners to rise up. And follow
that star to freedom.
This is really clever—the star followers in the Nativity story
were the wise men, the three kings, the guys who’d have been identified with
the slave owning class; not shepherds, who clearly align more with the slaves. Also,
the star in the song is in the East, and the one slaves followed was in the
North, so a bit more subterfuge. No, no, massa—don’t worry your white head;
this song isn’t about slaves escaping or rebelling or anything like that. It’s
all about your blue-eyed Jesus.
The song urges the shepherds/slaves to ditch their
responsibilities to follow that star. I have to admit that it seems irresponsible
and unshepherdly to abandon their sheep; I feel bad for the animals. But if we’re
talking tobacco and cotton fields, I can totally see slipping away and hoofing
it north of the Mason-Dixon line. Massa can bloody well get up and milk the
cows himself. Or pay someone to do it.
In addition to the call/response framework, I also notice that “Rise
Up, Shepherd” has what I call a work rhythm to it. Like sea shanties—it’s
steady with a strong beat, which you could use to coordinate repetitive labor,
like swinging a scythe or pulling ropes.
I do not know why I can’t find a really good recording of this for
you; all the versions out there are way too far removed from the slave quarters—all
laundered and pressed, with no dirt or sweat in sight. Here’s the best I could
manage, from a Belgian choir.
Today is Saint
Nicholas Day, the day when we commemorate the 4th-Century bishop of
Myra, one of the participants of the Council of Nicaea. This is actually the
day he died, which makes a bit of a change for celebrations.
(Although his death is
kind of a thing; at least his corpse was. Because about 600 years after he
died, Italian merchants robbed his grave in Myra and took his body to Bari. I’m
not touching the issues around what possesses a group of people to do that kind
of stuff and expect to remain in God’s favor.)
He’s the patron of
sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers
and students. I’m trying to think of what commonalities connect those groups,
but without luck.
We of course have
conflated Saint Nicholas with major gift giving (which might explain the
children, merchants and pawnbrokers; possibly the repentant thieves, too), via
the Dutch version of his name, Sinterklaas. And today is the day
(instead of the 25th) when children in a number of countries get
their gifts (if they’ve been good; if they’ve been naughty, they get coal or
switches, depending on the local custom; you might even be eaten
by a giant cat).
To honor the good
bishop, we’re having the “Little Saint Nick”. I must confess that I don’t find
this the best example of the Beach Boys’ oeuvre, but I just feel like changing
it up this year.
