Rapid Transit

This entry, hewing closely to the Sepia Saturday theme of tunnels, is primarily audiocentric rather than photographic, but bear with me! I just wanted to share...

Some background: Last year I traveled to the Bay Area to meet some long lost relatives. That alone was a cosmic experience.

But I was particularly shaken -- and not just physically -- while traveling on the rapid transit system from the airport to Oakland. The sound -- the pure noise, if you will -- that the train makes, especially as it passes through its long tunnel beneath the bay, is extraordinary. Not only almost painfully loud, but the otherwordly microtonal polyharmonics and polyrhythms that emanate from the rails chilled my soul.

I recommend that you put everything aside for 11 minutes, put on some headphones, turn the volume up to maximum, and then sit back as this video plays. Close your eyes to fully appreciate the subtle, metamorphing complexity of the sound.


...There, wasn't that effing amazing?  I could not help, as I sat there in my train seat, but be reminded of the dramatic, magnificent cacophony of Gyorgy Ligeti's "Requiem," popularized in "2001: A Space Odyssey." (Here's the pertinent excerpt.)


...Interestingly, many scenes accompanying the Ligeti look remarkably like you're travelling down a cosmic tunnel...

While we're at it, here's another terrific maelstrom of a composition that I was reminded of during that ride, by the European group, Magma.


...And magma of course is known to create "lava tubes."

(Photo from http://www.campingroadtrip.com/outdoor-living-newsletter-august-2012/best-caves-and-caverns)

Songs My Father Taught Me

Well, not so much taught as burned into my skull.  He was forever launching into these hoary old ditties.

(Just in time for a musically themed Sepia Saturday!)

Don't

Wade in the water

A tip of the bathing-cap to the aquatic theme of this week's Sepia Saturday.

My folks, pictured deep in the land o' lakes above (Michigan), bought me this record when I was a kid -- selections from the TV folksong revue, "Hootenanny."

I grew very fond of several of the more upbeat folky songs on it ("Katie Cruel" in particular), but my least favorite (at the tender age of 10) was Judy Henske's rendition of the gospel song, "Wade in the Water." Between the intense lyrics and her growling performance, it terrified me.

At any rate, 50 years later I love Henske's performance. She foreshadows by several years another powerful emulator of black blues hollerers, Janis Joplin, who I also simply couldn't bear the first time I heard her, in 9th grade. (I was a sheltered child in the '60s... in addition to this record, my parents bought me Miles Davis and Schubert...an attempt, I suspect, to lure me away from the likes of Elvis Presley.)

I was quite pleased when the great '80s American band The Replacements stole the Hootenanny cover design for one of their own records.

Here are some interesting other renditions.

• Traditional: Ella Jenkins
• Rocking: Big Mama Thornton
• Jazzy: Ellen McIlwaine
• Electro hip-hop! Rudy Jimenez

For more water wading of various sorts, don't forget to visit the afore-linked Sepia Saturday!

Memory and Music

This week's Thursday Theme (not to mention Sepia Saturday) involves Memory. While some will argue that smell is closely tied with memory, I maintain that music is just as strong a signifier of times past.

My father was born in 1918. He grew up with a piano in the house, one of the few luxuries his family could indulge in, and spent his childhood listening to the radio.  As an adult he seemingly had the following songs from his youth running through his head at all times, for he would burst into sentimental song at odd moments. These are all old 78 RPM recordings found on YouTube.








Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra



Far Above Cayuga's Waters (Cornell Alma Mater)