Handling your hoe (rural version, ch. 1)

A couple days ago I was out weeding our two remaining beds of leeks. It was an odd weeding job because the deer had been grazing on the weeds they like to eat, leaving shortish weeds with fairly stout roots (hard to hoe and pull because of the deep-set roots, hard to pull, also, because of the lack of grip space to yank 'em up). Deer don't like to eat leeks (at least these don't), and most of the rest of the field has just recently been put into a cover crop of rye, vetch, and clover (all of which are mere seedlings), leaving the nightly congregation of deer in that field to munch on nothing but weeds. The main weed was a yellow-flowering fast grower (whose name escapes me) that just absolutely dominates our farm throughout most of the year; deer seem to love it, but they left others, like dock (deep, stubborn roots), to grow unabated. So, hoeing was rough. And the inevitable hand weeding that left many broken roots in the ground was discouraging . It was slow going.

I find that when you have such a weeding job in front of you, it's nice to slap on a pair of earbuds and let music help you along. For instance, Modest Mouse assisted me in the leek-weeding endeavor. The schizophrenic vocals over a steady funk-like beat helped rhythmize and energize my hoe strokes to efficiently uproot (or at least chop off sufficiently until the first frost comes) those pesky bastards. Neko Case helped me slow it down a little--let me feel the cool, pleasant breeze under the completely blue and sunny Carolina sky, helping me find some odd grace in my hoeing technique. Because, what's weeding without a bit of contemplative, sensual pleasure? And then Paul Simon brought me back to the rhythm, giving me that final push of energy to get the job done. Plus, there's no not liking weeding when Simon inquires about the 50 ways.

Sometimes I don't need music to accompany me. Often just being outside, doing real, meaningful work to survive is enough. But there are days when you'd rather be doing nothing, or else something easy. Though it's tempting to just give in to laziness (which happens sometimes), certain things just have to get done. And I really wouldn't want it any other way.

*****

The trees are really coloring up now in the higher elevations. The reds are out. But yesterday our high temperature hit 80, which was, um, perfect. Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, they're expecting snow and freezing temps. Love it here.

What do you want to listen to?

Though some might say I'm a luddite, don't believe them (well, just a little). Because I often love the Gore-invented interwebs. I also always love music, though I mostly hate MP3 iPod garbage, but you'll never see me picking up a record over a CD. Digression. Sorry. Found this cool site today that makes listening to all kinds of music really easy. When I say all kinds, I mean a crap load of songs. Not everything in the world, but plenty. Site is called JustHearIt. Seems like it's new, in beta at the moment. But according to their about section, it's all legal.

From what I can tell, the site gathers music from all over the Net, in audio and video form, lists it for you according to your search query, and lets you drag the song to a Flash player playlist in the same window.

It seems to work pretty well, but I couldn't figure out how to tell if a song was audio or video ahead of time, which was a bit annoying because almost every single one of the videos that I pulled up was from youtube and had buffering problems.

Anyway, pretty cool resource if it is indeed legal.

The making of Summer Camp (Rated R)

“There was a lot of tolerance for psychosis.” This statement comes from the History Channel show called Hippies. And though I'm not old enough to personally have experienced hippieness in its original state, I'm pretty familiar with its demented child... er, i mean its modern remnants.

Having not seen the History Channel program, I can't really comment on its content. But, as to the quoted bit of text above, I can say with certainty that psychosis is still tolerated, if not encouraged, in the community.

I spent Memorial Day weekend down in Chillicothe, Ill. at the neo/pseudo-hippie Summer Camp music festival, where approximately 10,000 people gather every year to camp, cook, imbibe, and smoke, and listen to some subpar bands. And, oh yeah, there's the portapotties, or "Little Johnnies" if you prefer, which, at certain horrifying parts of the weekend, inevitably end up filled to the brim with a foul brew of modern-day hippieness.

It was my third Summer Camp. Mostly I've been prodded into going every year. See, I used to be into the whole jamband scene, back when the bands were pretty good. I've seen Phish more times than I care to count, and I've seen scores of other noodly shows. But it got to the point where I felt most of the bands were either poor Phish/Dead imitators or just terrible, terrible songwriters and singers. While a few good bands still grace the scene, I now prefer my noodles in the form of unbleached whole wheat flour and appendages.

Don't get me wrong: I absolutely love improvisation, which is at the root of the type of music that hits the festival circuit every summer. But it's gotta be good, productive improvisation that takes you on a journey and challenges you to question the fabric of reality. I know, I'm a demanding listener, but that's what improvisation is to me. While not the worst of the bunch, Moe. and Umphrey's McGee, the "headliners" of Summer Camp, are far from challenging. And most of the lesser known bands suck even more. I enjoyed three sets of music all weekend (Drop Q, Brainchild, and Toubab Krewe), two of which I already knew I was going to enjoy. All of this detail is to explain just what mediocrity composes the modern hippie experiment.

It's pretty sad. All the drugs (and then some) of the original hippie movement flood the fields of modern festivals. And people just don't know how to take their drugs responsibly. Granted, this year wasn't as bad because the authorities cracked down pretty hard, but still, almost every drug you could think of was available without a prescription, no matter your age or mental state. In fact, I'd say drugs take center stage at these festivals, with the music an afterthought or, in some cases, a vehicle for the drug user.

And this is where psychosis is still tolerated. People want to trip so bad that they're willing to take all kinds of things in liquid, powder, and solid form on the word of complete strangers--many of whom are there mostly to bank. Then the trippers run around all night doing weird things until they're so strung out all they can do is walk around like zombies and fall into people's tents. (It never fails; I always see someone crash into someone's tent at a festival.)

And then you've got the folks who think they are the gatekeepers of love and can see into the souls of everyone. They'll tell you your aura is bad or good (and then you're totally pegged!), or they'll talk about lightning bolts coming out of necks (not making this one up--no joke) and other such what I presume to be vague derivatives of vague derivatives of Eastern religion/philosophy that they use to establish their superiority.

And then there's the portapotties. While sanitation is probably one of the most crucial advances in our society, some people at Summer Camp don't care. They stuff all kinds of random stuff into the poop and pee receptacles, causing the latter to often clog, which is especially fun at night. Oh yeah, and let's not forget that someone always feels obligated to smear their crap around in there; don't know how or why, but it happens a lot.

Anyway, psychosis is the only plausible explanation for some of these actions. And people obviously love it: just consider the yearly increase in attendance for Summer Camp and other larger festivals like Bonnaroo. It's the modern incarnation of Woodstock. Hippies left a bad legacy in this regard.

All that said, this was my favorite Summer Camp. All our neighbors were awesome and kind (for a change) and there appeared to be less unstable druggies wandering around menacing others. Still, this will probably be my last Summer Camp. I'd rather spend my money on other, more satisfying experiences.

I'll take peace and love and communal living and jamming and saving the earth and enjoying myself--just without all the weirdness. Come on, you pseudo-hippies, it's not too late: don't bolster the Nuge's position, OK?

Woody on diversity

I've been getting into older American music lately: folk, old time, mountain music etc. I've also been getting into americana and alt-country. These interests led me to this album:

For those who don't know, Nora Guthrie, Woody Guthrie's daughter by his second wife, discovered thousands of unpublished Woody lyrics that he never got around to putting to music. She asked Englishman Billy Bragg to pick some of these lyrics and make 'em into music (I heard somewhere that Bob Dylan was initially asked, but turned Nora down for some reason--but don't take my word for that). Billy, in turn, got Chicago rockers Wilco in on the deal. Thus, Mermaid Avenue was born.

And what we were given here is some amazing music. The songwriting (what I mean is the instrumentals and vocals) is beautiful and deep and yet simple enough to remind you of centuries of music that came before it. The lyrics--well I've known about Woody for a little while now, but I guess I never paid extra close attention to what he was saying, because the lyrics on this album are often spectacular. Which brings me to the point of this post.

There is one particular lyric on this album that really grabs me: track six.

She Came Along to Me

Ten hundred books could I write you about her
Because I felt if I could know her
I would know all women
And they've not been any too well known
For brains and planning and organized thinking
But I'm sure the women are equal
And they may be ahead of the men

Yet I wouldn't spread such a rumor around
Because one organizes the other
And some times the most lost and wasted
Attract the most balanced and sane
And the wild and the reckless take up
With the clocked and the timed
And the mixture is all of us
And we're still mixing

But never, never, never
Never could have it been done
If the women hadn't entered into the deal
Like she came along to me

And all creeds and kinds and colors
Of us are blending
Till I suppose ten million years from now
We'll all be just the alike
Same color, same size, working together
And maybe we'll have all the fascists
Out of the way by then
Maybe so.

I'm not sure when this was written, but the window would be early 40s to mid-60s; if I had to guess from the content, I'd say some time in the 40s. Anyway, there's a lot of stuff going on in this song. Woody takes the individual experience and extrapolates it to the collective; he's talkin civil rights and feminism; he's a bit postmodernist; and, perhaps most striking, is this song's discourse on diversity.

Woody sez that diversity is the key to progress: the "wild and reckless" get with the "clocked and timed," the "lost and wasted" with the "balanced and sane." When different folks get together, they not only moderate, but they essentially change one another. The acceptance of diversity, here, is the engine of life: for if life were ruled by some monolith and nothing else, then we'd be missing out on a lot of variety, a lot of passion, a lot of things that makes living living--no matter your perspective.

Yet, the last stanza is difficult to put a finger on. Woody sez that "we'll all be just the alike" after years of mixing. Gone will be the kinds, creeds, and colors. We'll be one people. And where does that leave us? Perhaps we'll be rid of the fascists because we'll all inherently be fascists. We'll be one master race, one culture, all mixed up nicely in a brave new world of mass media, where we feel, through osmosis, hate for anyone trying to do anything that is nonstandard. Don't even mention beings from another planet. That would probably be the worst fear of all. Is that what Woody means?

Nah, I don't think so. Ten million years is such a long time. We probably won't even be around then. Woody knows this. It's the ideal; it's Platonic I suppose. As with Plato's Forms, the idea of some kind of beautiful perfection that is just out of our reach is motivation for finding the good*. Unlike Plato (perhaps--depending on how you interpret him), however, I think Woody recognizes his over-the-top idealism for what it is. When he talks about the unfathomable sum of 10 million years, he acknowledges the impossibility of his stated perfect mix of people. Even so, he can't say with any confidence that fascism will be dead. He "supposes" everything in the last stanza. It's no mistake that the whole song ends with "maybe so." What he presents is a land of pure conjecture. And what that leaves the listener with is only a focus on the process--one that has value in and of itself. It's a beautiful echo of ancient, timeless philosophy, but with lots of twists.

And it all comes back to the central theme of the song: the importance of one-on-one interaction. If we aren't willing to challenge ourselves by opening up to a different experience or by thinking deeply about something unfamiliar, then what, really, are we living for?

Anyway, I originally intended this post to be about hate in America, particularly how "in-group thinking" contributes to unbelievable divisions in this country and how it seems an inevitably perpetual problem. Maybe if I remember what the hell I intended to say, I'll continue this next time I have computer access. Happy weekend.



*Good is generally a bullshit term, in my opinion. However, sometimes the context requires it, and sometimes it is rhetorically useful. When I use it I'll try to stipulate exactly what I mean. In this case I mean Platonic beauty.