Songs To Die For

 

Three of us went from Richmond to the Baltimore Civic Center to see what was my first big-name arena concert, starring Cream (you can guess how long ago that was!).  It was disappointing, as have been more than half of such events since:  terrible seats, too loud and too short.  Didn't have binoculars then, either.  One of the best shows I've been to was on the far other end of the spectrum at a short-lived venue nearby called The Local Beat.  There were several acts on an intimate stage with fine sound; the standout was a pair of sisters who announced they were going to do "Appalachian murder ballads."  That was a transcendent fifteen minutes.

 These came from England and lowland Scotland before proliferating on these shores and probably had a Germanic or Scandinavian origin.  I did not know when hearing such songs as "Tom Dooley," "Lord Randall," and "The Ballad of Hollis Brown" during the folk era that it was a deep genre.

Unfortunately, I have only one CD (by The Chieftans) which contains two of these, but they are good ones:  Ry Cooder  sings "The Lily of the West" and Mick Jagger does "Long Black Veil," which sounds like an old anonymous tune but was written in 1959.  Its first recording by Lefty Frizell is still regarded as the best.  Johnny Cash's version would have to be second only to that one.  The narrator of the story is the victim's ghost -- chilling.

 Songs which mention deadly events but do not tell the story are close to but do not fit the genre, such as Neil Young's "Down by the River" and Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues."  Johnny Cash's "I Hung My Head," Charlie Monroe's traditional "Down in the Willow Grove" and Waylon Jennings' "Cedartown, Georgia" definitely do.

The Dixie Chicks had a little fun with it in "Goodbye, Earl," where the woman was not going to be the victim and turned the tables on the mal-intentioned Earl.

Murder ballads made their way to the popular record charts with "Mack the Knife," "Stagger Lee" and "Hey Joe," along with many set in the Old West.  The subject matter was definitely there for those cowboy tales of thievery, shootings and hangings, but very many were never published or performed more than locally, and disappeared.

We can't forget to mention Ralph Stanley's "O Death," perfectly done in a primitive Appalachian acapella style.  It goes way back, but the dialogue between the mortal and relentless Death is timeless.

  

Missed a Turn

 The other week I missed a turn and had to make two lefts to get back on the right track.  Speaking of right tracks, in front of a house on one of those back streets there was a massed display of flags, one a standard national one and the rest what you may call "message flags."  You've seen them proliferate, some employing historical tropes from the 18th and 19th centuries, but more often some questionable alterations of Old Glory.

The usual red and white stripes are changed to black, red or blue where a white one should be, indicating "support"of police, firefighters, emergency responders, etc.  Nothing wrong with supporting those who risk their safety and lives for their fellows -- all of ours locally are as professional, efficient and dedicated as you could want.  But behind that seemingly positive message other things lurk, and those are really the intended message.  They are tribal colors, marking a line between their groups and others; a throwback to primitivism: a rejection of peaceful processes, community-wide unity, and as we have seen, civilized norms.  During much of human history, a stranger unknown to you was fair game for violence to quickly eliminate any possible or perceived danger to your people. Folks don't need to be so riled up that we return to those times.

Uses and misuses of the flag are spelled out in Title 4 of the U.S. Code.

Section 8g reads, "The flag should never have placed upon it, nor any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, picture or drawing of any nature."  So a picture of a Presidential candidate (grinning, scowling, or dressed as Rambo) on the U.S. flag is a violation of the law.  I guess the Department of Justice missed that.

The use of the flag design on hats and other apparel is discouraged (not to mention tasteless) but is not forbidden.  However, the practice at the Olympics and other events of wearing the actual flag as a cape or cowl is expressly illegal, under Section 8d.  The Olympic committee and universities should know that, don't you think? 

I hope I'm not misunderstood about the above, but there's a possibility of my first troll comment appearing. Maybe I should stick with the usual obscurities you find here...

 

 

From The Attic

 

The "Just Sayin'" attic of unused blog topics is overflowing, so it's time to clear them out.  Lucky you!

Did you ever wonder about America being named after Amerigo Vespucci?  That given name goes way back to an unexpected source -- the Visigoths, to whom it was Amalric.  Their 300 year rule over Spain left many such:  Adalfuns (Alfonso), Alewar (Alvaro), Hrodric (Rodrigo), Gundislav (Gonzalo)... along with the endings -ez and -es (Gonzales), which denotes "child of."  The term "hildago" (a gentleman or minor noble) may mean "child (hijo) of Goths."  Another interpretation is "child of someone" (hijo de algo) -- that is, not the offspring of a nobody. 

Speaking of words, "dog"has 161 meanings in slang.

The expression "the whole nine yards"was first recorded in 1907, and we usually think it means a cement or concrete truck's capacity, though some may conjure up an image of a part of a football field where, however, ten yards is the critical number  But those trucks range from eight to 12 1/2 cubic yards, and even 15 yard capacity trailers (pretty rare, though).  So...

Albania's name for itself is "Shqiperi."  That one would eliminate quite a few contestants in a spelling bee.

Have you always wondered where Portugal got its name?  No?  I had to know, for reasons unexplainable.  It comes from its second largest city, Oporto, which the Romans called "Porto Cale," meaning either warm or tranquil seaport.  Another explanation holds it was known as the Port of the Gauls, after the Celtic people who were there before the Roman takeover. 

 I recently came across a British travel writer using the word "brick" to denote a bar.  That was a new one to me, but we remember the sign for The Brick tavern in the opening of the TV show Northern Exposure.  Its inspiration actually exists and has been a fixture in Roslyn, Washington State, since 1889 (above).  I have no idea how that term came about, but there are many hotels, pubs and even pizza places using the word, including  an adult Lego bar (plastic building bricks).  The Brick in a Northern Exposure episode was nearly shut down by the health department; its namesake has a 23-foot running water spitoon gutter in front of the stools --  maybe a health department should look into that!  

 

Jump Start

 

What do a seaside resort and 12,000 metric tons of orange peels have in common?

They both are successful "greening of the desert" projects,  The photo above is what an area in the southern end of the Sinai peninsula looked like (as you would expect) before tour guide  Maged el Said decided to open a resort by the Gulf of Aqaba in 1994.  But he saw an opportunity to do much more, making the land around productive and green again.  So began, in 2007,  the Habiba Organic Farm, where a good deal of food is produced in an improving environment with the help of permaculture volunteers, guests and the locals.   As in many other areas around the world, increasing desertification had so disrupted the water cycle that  normal years were rare; it was becoming a case of no rain at all or destructive floods.  And today:

  The intense coastal tourism development of Spain's Mediterranean coast -- miles of concrete buildings and roads, the marshlands eliminated -- has had the same effect of drought inland.  Another unexpected result was the redirection of the usual rains from the sea to the northeast, bringing flooding to Germany. The need for green has been demonstrated in Scotland, where they were looking at increasingly wet winters and warmer, drier summers (i.e., too much or not enough moisture).  With significant reforestation, the water cycle is being brought to a more normal balance. 

In 1998, a seemingly odd experiment was conducted in Costa Rica to re-green some acres of rocky semiarid land in a national park.  Some people from the University of Pennsylvania asked the Del Oro fruit company, which was building a new orange juice plant,  if they would agree to deposit a thousand truckloads of orange peels and pulp on it rather than building a waste processing plant.  The project hardly lasted a year before a rival company shut it down through the courts; the land sat forgotten for 15 years.  But some magic happened.  Upon returning to see if there was any positive change over that time, the researchers saw an almost 200% increase in biomass, fertile soil instead of hardpan and erosion as well as 24 species of trees where there were eight before.

  Costa Rica has a benign climate, unlike the Sinai, and what works in one environment probably will not in a very different one.  A bold group called The Weather Makers is developing a plan to re-green the northern end of Sinai by dredging a silted-up lake, depositing that soil on the surrounding desert, and channeling water in from the Mediterranean.  Obviously more costly than orange peels or a slowly expanding farm, that will require Egyptian government approval as well as sources of equipment and capital.  Today the region is militarized, food insecure and nonproductive -- let's hope they give it a try.  There sure isn't much to lose.

               

From One to Eighteen

 

I've only known one person who rode a unicycle.  I wasn't tempted to try it, knowing they couldn't make enough Band Aids.  Did drive an 18-wheeler in a back lot once -- that was fun.  In the range between those two numbers of wheels, people have come up with some pretty crazy things:

Here is Grand Duke Alexis Romanov in 1899 Paris,  riding in a two-wheeled carriage being pulled by a four-wheeled electric cart.  It didn't catch on.  Another anomaly, made in York PA in 1903, was the six-wheeled Pullman automobile.  It came to a quick end since it handled like a barge on sand.

A steam powered tricycle, the Phaeton Moto-Cycle, was made by Lucius Copeland (200 of them!) in the 1880s.  A newspaper writer saw one in Philadelphia, saying "It was certainly a most beautiful vehicle and the steam apparatus the very acme of ingenuity."  Top speed was 10 mph, so your top hat would not blow off.

 Today we have these Can-Am three-wheelers, considerably more highway ready:

The bicycle craze of the late 19th century has evolved well, and you can now choose from a wide variety of electric models which solve that persistent problem of hills that turn your legs to rubber and your face red.  Not one of the best at all, but my favorite for its simplicity and cool, fat tires is the Sondors:

 Morgan Motorcars of the United Kingdom has made its three-wheel car/motorcycle since 1911 with a V-twin cycle engine and a beautiful retro interior, today with the superb Mazda five speed transmission.  This one's a keeper -- as Albert Ball, decorated WW1 British fighter pilot put it, "the closest experience to flying without leaving the ground."

Mustang Sally had a pretty good time on the usual four wheels, though.

.

One more...how about EIGHT wheels?  Sometimes you just have to wonder what people were thinking...

It Started With Felix

 On the 1967 LP he produced and played on titled "Hard Rock From The Middle East," Felix Pappalardi included an instrumental, "Miserlou," made famous by Dick Dale.  So this enquiring mind always wondered what that meant (someone named Lou was miserable?).  I had to wait until the arrival of the Internet to find that it meant "the Egyptian girl," Misr (actually Al-Misr) denoting Egypt.   What?

Of course most of us are aware that Germany, for example, is really called Deutschland by its residents, but we know more about the Americas and Europe in general.  So, I've gone on a little quest to find out what people actually call their own homelands.

Some have long formal names, like The Republic of the Union of Myanmar (formerly the more concise Burma), the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,  and Brunei Darusalaam.  Others in the native language look pretty strange, such as Kalaalut Nunaat (Greenland) and Sakartvelo (the republic of Georgia -- not the state with peaches and peanuts).

Switzerland has four languages, so it is variously Schweizer (or Schwitz), Suisse, Svizerra, or Svizzer.  On its coinage and stamps, it is the Confederation of Helvetica (the Latin name for the original Celtic inhabitants).  Belgium, with only two tongues to deal with is either Belgie or Belgique.  And with many more languages than anywhere else, India is Bharat -- in Hindi. Let's leave it at that.

China is Zhang Guo, meaning the Middle Kingdom, or a little more accurately, I think, the Central State.  In Mandarin they call us Mei Guo, "the beautiful country," not out of any great affection, but that's how "America" comes out phonetically.  In the southern Chinese language we're "colorful flag country."

BTW, ancient Egyptians called their riverside home Kemet.  You may need that for your next pub trivia night.

 

    

   

The Rogue States of Texas

 In 1836, after the loss at the Alamo, American settlers regrouped to drive the Mexican army under Santa Ana out, then established the independent Republic of Texas.  Two years later, Texas president Mirabeau Lamar was envisioning a western empire to rival the United States.  That proved to beyond their resources, and the republic joined the Union by annexation in 1845.  By 1861 they had changed course again, seceding to join the Confederacy.  

But there were several previous attempts to free Texas from Mexico, and the instigators were rascals all, whom Fess Parker would never have portrayed in a heroic film retelling.

The James Long Expedition flag

 

It starts in 1819, after the Adams-Onis Treaty between Spain and the U.S. defined the previously vague border of the Louisiana Purchase, ceding Florida to the latter and most of Texas to the former.  This did not suit Dr. James Long, a plantation owner from Vicksburg or other Mississippians at all.  He led an expedition of 300 men into Texas to declare a slave-holding republic independent of both nations.  But to no avail.  They had to soon surrender, Dr. Long being taken to Mexico City as a prisoner.  He was later shot by a guard.

Galveston rebel state's flag

With no higher ideals than those slavery proponents, French privateer Louis-Michel Aury set himself up as the ruler of Galveston Island, claiming to be a "republican," on the shaky authority of Mexican independence rebel Jose de Herrera who appointed Aury commissioner.  What he was actually about was, however, establishing a smuggling and piracy base under that   cover.   There was a skeleton government, but while he was away in 1817 pirate Jean Laffite moved  and Aury had to find a new occupatuion harassing the Spanish Empire around Florida.

After three years lobbying the Mexican government, another American planter, Haden Edwards,  secured a land grant in 1825 to bring settlers in and establish some going concerns.  What he really set about doing immediately was expelling the settlers already there, Spanish and American, in order to bring in slave-holding planters like himself.  Edwards along with his brother declared the Republic of Fredonia, raising its flag in Nacodoches.  His uprising did not last long after Steven Austin's Texans and a Mexican force arrived in 1827; Edwards fled back to Louisiana, his new state only lasting 40 days.

  
Fredonia's odd flag

  

As if all this were not absurd enough, Groucho Marx played Rufus T. Firefly, the president of the small, bankrupt country of Freedonia in the movie Duck Soup, which ends with a fruit fight.  Almost as crazy as what history records.