06 Nov 07

Parting Advice from T-Bone (2)

“I’m more likely to be hanging out at the library than at a club with women like that,” I said.
“You think people don’t do drugs at libraries?” T-Bone said. “At the Phoenix library these two guys started talking to me about Civil War history. We continued the discussion at a coffee shop. We were having an intense enlightening conversation. The next thing you know one of the guys goes, ‘I wanna do a line to wake up.’ So I leave 'em to it. I get in my truck and keep going. They weren’t my type of people. They were brainiacs like you. And if you are going back to university, so many people do drugs there, it’s unreal. It’s part of college life now to do glass to stay up.”
“I know.”
“You need to understand some simple things. All kinds of challenges are gonna come at you – bam! - ’cause you’re back out there again.”
“I’m not gonna worry about it. My mum’s more worried than I am.”
“That’s ’cause she loves you. You’re getting out, the weather’s gonna hit you, your mom’s face, your father’s face, your sister, the smell of the house, memories, memories good, memories bad, you’ll think about stuff that happened here – the American women – and your gonna miss that. There’s gonna be times when you feel bored, lonely, incomplete, and those are the moments when you’ve gotta make the right choices. In your little town there’s not gonna be a whole lotta things going on on the surface.”
“I know, but I intend to go back to university.”
“For what?”
“Creative writing.”
“You’re an intelligent man, you don’t need a professor to teach you something you already know how to do.”
“I need refinement.”
“And practice will bring you that. Find some interesting characters to write about. You’ll be like Dickens.
I’ve come to realise, patience is the key when you first get out of prison. You have to develop things, build things slowly. There’s people who are positive and negative that are going to be coming into your life – some will be sneaky, some will be outright. If they catch you in certain moods and situations and you make a bad choice, you will fall. It doesn’t matter if they’re in a stretch limo or a Mini Cooper, you hafta be able to size them up and make the right choices in every situation you are in. When I first got out, I thought I’d changed from my old ways, but I went back to it in a different way. There’s levels of stupidity. You think, Well, I’ve changed. I’ll do it this way now. I’ll go to the clubs, but not get in the mix. I’ll just get a drink, say hello to a few people and leave. But then you fall right back into it.”
“My focus is on writing, not clubbing.”
“So you’ve made a conscious decision that that’s what you’re gonna focus on in your life?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re set with that then you can’t deviate if things go south.”
“I won’t, I’ll persevere.”
“You never know what tomorrow will throw at you. There are levels of intensity you’ve gotta go through, like being a Royal Marine set on defending England. Or the guys with the bearskin caps that stand there without blinking. It takes a special man to be able to do that – English focus – and you have that in your blood. You have ability, just apply it. Apply the positive you’ve learned; the negative, get rid of it. Stay focussed on your objective. Don’t allow small-minded people to come along and bring you down. With a mind like yours, you’re gonna make money, but challenges will arise. And don’t forget to sit down with Mom and Pop.”
“I won’t.”
“I know you won’t go back to your old ways because if you do then you’re gonna have to deal with me.”
“Yikes!”
“I’m gonna miss ya, man.”
“I’m gonna miss you too. L ’n’ R, my friend.”
“L ’n’ R and God bless you.”
Through Yard 1’s perimeter fence, I shook one of the biggest hands I’ve ever seen - the hand of T-Bone.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Chasalow’s Piano Trios: Exploring Torts in Ensembles

W  hile my studio technique derives from Davidovsky, the musical character is quite different. My instrumental writing is often at an energy level drawn from my experience with improvised jazz. My recent electronic music reflects this as well. By adding layers of manipulated recordings of spoken or sung text, the sound of the human voice often emerges in surprising ways.”
  —  Eric Chasalow.

Chamber musical dialogue usually lacks textual reference to tangible things, but it abounds in internal references: expressions by each ensemble member directed toward the other members; associations among individual segments, lines, and instruments.

Look at the musical dialogue among ensemble members through the lens of musical segmentation and voice-leading. The approach to any given passage can be characterized by our answers to four questions:

1. Do individual segments form mostly within one instrument’s part or across two or more?
   
2. Are the strongest associations between segments mostly individual and ‘longitudinal’—within each part over the course of the composition—or sectional and ‘transverse’—between instruments on a shorter timescale?
   
3. How many distinct streams of association are active simultaneously? and
   
4. How do the answers to (1), (2), and (3) change over time?

Chasalow’s piano trio ‘Yes, I Really Did’ (1998) is a great case for studying this—in part because it totally violates our conventional expectations for normal narrative and dialogue among the ensemble members. Characterized by the composer himself as a dialogue that develops among three instrumental personae, this trio at times seems a collection of individual voices—inadvertent, unwitting or unwilling acquaintances who are distinguished by characteristic rhythms, articulations, and intervals. At other times, it’s an ensemble whose members acknowledge the fact of their mutual situation and the impossibility of turning back the clock to undo the reality that has materialized, the predicament in which they find themselves together—and in which significant harmonic and motivic features emerge in the totality of the parts’ interactions.

Much has been written about the dialogical nature of string quartets and other chamber music genres, yet the dialogue itself is seldom subjected to a detailed analysis. Chasalow’s own comments on pitch structure in the trio give us clues as to what an analysis of dialogue of this piece ought to include or directions that such an analysis might ought to take. Subtle changes in the structure of voice-leading, cadences, and segmentation manifest cumulatively as changing modes of interaction among the parts and produce a series of shifts from instrumental individualism to integrated ensemble—and from contrapuntal to sculptural, texture-oriented writing. This is not your grand-daddy’s piano trio.

Note too that these aspects are not merely matters of form and compositional technique. They hint at Chasalow’s deep views on the nature of interpersonal dignity and respect, and at his philosophy regarding what it means to pick up an instrument and behave like a decent human being. These aspects are also consistent with the ‘moral’ qualities that arise in other of his compositions. Eric Chasalow compositions from the early 80s through 1992 are on his CD, ‘Over the Edge’, with Speculum Musicae String Quartet; Fred Sherry, cello; Patricia Spencer, flute; Christine Schadeberg, soprano; Bruno Schneider; horn; Amy Knoles, Arthur Jarvinen, percussion. Each piece is in the style of a character piece. For example, The Furies, consists of four pieces for soprano and electronica that set texts from Anne Sexton’s ‘The Death Notebooks’. It may require a bit more imagination on the listener’s part to ascertain the moral content of these musical essays, compared to apprehending the moral implications of Chasalow’s piano trio ‘Yes, I Really Did’. But the moral thread that runs through much of Chasalow’s writing is there if you look for it.


Chasalow’s ‘Yes, I Really Did’ (composed in 1998; performed by Christopher Oldfather, piano; Andrea Schultz, violin; Michael Finckel, cello) takes Beethoven’s techniques for orchestrating and voice-leading in Piano Trios (Op. 1, Nos. 1-3 (1792-4); Op. 38 (1802-3); Op. 44 (1792); Op. 63 (1796); Op. 70, Nos. 1-2 (1808); Op. 97 (1810-15); Op. 121 (1803-16) ) as a point of departure. There are ‘avoided cadences’ and other deceptions, sleights, and feints—standard stuff in composition and analysis textbooks. But here they are employed to call into question what the nature of dialogue among ensemble members is really about. This piano trio questions whether any member of the ensemble has any moral duty to the other members, what the limits of that duty might be, whether breaches of duty cause pain or injury, and what the value and remedies of these might be. Torts!

Musical drama like this naturally intrigues us. The drama arises from tonal relations that elicit our expectations, and proceed to subtly manipulate and subsequently fulfill or frustrate them. This happens regardless whether we’re Schenkerians or not. But contextual processes may elicit expectations of their own, producing allusive effects that contribute to the work’s fascination. Formed from ordered sequences of evocative events existing within Chasalow’s tonal fabric, these successions of distinct-but-similar moments are unique and present a narrative that complements the unfolding of the piece. These processes gradually reveal their goals as they unfold—they’re dynamic, progressive systems of organization.

M  usical ideas are … combinations of tones, rhythms, and harmonies that require a treatment like the main theses of a philosophical subject. [The musical idea] raises a question, puts up a problem, which in the course of the piece has to be answered, resolved, carried through. It has to be carried through many contradictory situations, it has to be developed by drawing consequences from what it postulates, it has to be checked in many cases and all this might lead to a conclusion, a ‘pronunciamento’… The furtherance of the musical idea... may ensue only if the unrest—the problem—[that is] present in the Grundgestalt or in the motive (and formulated by the theme or not, if none has been stated) is shown in all its consequences… Every succession of tones produces unrest, conflict, problems... Every musical form can be considered as an attempt to treat this unrest either by halting or limiting it, or by solving the problem.”
  —  Arnold Schoenberg, The Musical Idea, and the Logic, Art and Technique of its Presentation.

Schoenberg once suggested that a musical idea, by nature, embodies some sort of conflict. Such an idea—which Schoenberg regarded generally as a unified combination of tones, durations, and harmonies, and sometimes also referred to as a Grundgestalt, or basic shape—expresses a musical ‘problem’ that demands a contextually coherent ‘solution’. For Schoenberg, a musical idea is a discrete entity that can be recognized and agreed upon by a majority of listeners, often as a component of a theme. The ‘problem’ that corresponds to a musical idea, in turn, entails/requires a motivic ‘force’—one that, if it is sufficiently effective at pushing or pulling us, stimulates meaningful collateral response(s) within the unfolding music, within the performers, and within the listeners.

Ensemble balance is a fundamental feature of ‘conventional’ trios, quartets, quintets, etc.—and Chasalow’s work does not dispute this. But traditional chamber musical texts seldom create situations where the composer deliberately intends that one or more players should exchange the honorable role of respectful discussants for that of virtuoso-narcissist, bully, or other deviant character. In ‘Yes, I Really Did’ we do not have banal theatrics. Instead, we get an 8-minute dialogue that suggests that ‘established’ Truth must be continually open to honest dissent, self-doubt, and Schoenbergian inter-voice drama and conflict. Chasalow’s composition asserts that such openness and healthy tension are fundamental to a civil society in which the dignity of the individual, the dignity of the group, and the dignity and moral standing of the environment (or other species) are all respected.


In the liner notes for the ‘Left to His Own Devices’ CD, Chasalow says that ‘Yes, I Really Did’ is about “misdirection ... [and] withholding [by ensemble members, from each other].” Listening to this wonderful piano trio, we cannot doubt the authenticity of this remark. In a genre that routinely and implicitly exalts the virtues and satisfactions of mutual ‘words’ and ‘deeds’ between ensemble members or pits a righteous ensemble in solidarity against external conflict and politics, here is a deeply meaningful piece that explores the nature of discord, admissions of wrongdoing, breaches between the ensemble members, redress, and forgiveness. The work achieves a remarkable textual plausibility that is a credit to Chasalow’s writing and to the skill and empathy of Oldfather’s, Schultz’s, and Finckel’s playing. We trust that they are all still friends and that no real torts were involved in the creation of this fascinating trio.

• Eric Chasalow website
  
• Chasalow page at Brandeis Univ
  
• Chasalow E. Left to His Own Devices. (New World, 2003.)
  
• Chasalow E. Over the Edge. (New World, 1995.)
  
• Athanassoulis N. Morality, Moral Luck and Responsibility: Fortune's Web. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
  
• Card C. The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck. Temple Univ, 1996.
  
• Denis L. Moral Self-Regard: Duties to Oneself. Routledge, 2001.
  
• Dobbs D. The Law of Torts. Westlaw, 2000.
  
• Finkel N, Moghaddam F, eds. The Psychology Of Rights And Duties: Empirical Contributions And Normative Commentaries. APA, 2004.
  
• Gardiner S, ed. Virtue Ethics, Old and New. Cornell Univ, 2005.
  
• Hursthouse R. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford Univ, 2002.
  
• Jacobs J. Choosing Character: Responsibility for Virtue & Vice. Cornell Univ, 2001.
  
• Madden M, ed. Exploring Tort Law. Cambridge Univ, 2005.
  
• Magnani L. Morality in a Technological World: Knowledge as Duty. Cambridge Univ, 2007.
  
• McIvor C. Third-Party Liability in Tort. Hart, 2006.
  
• Mellema G. Beyond the Call of Duty: Supererogation, Obligation, and Offence. SUNY, 1991.
  
• O'Dea J. Virtue or Virtuosity?: Explorations in the Ethics of Musical Performance. Greenwood, 2000.
  
• Postema G, ed. Philosophy and the Law of Torts. Cambridge Univ, 2001.
  
• Schoenberg A. The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique, and Art of its Presentation. (Patricia Carpenter and Severine Neff, eds.) Columbia Univ, 1995.
  
• Shapo M. Tort Law and Culture. Carolina Academic, 2003.
  
• Steup M, ed. Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue. Oxford Univ, 2001.
  
• Stevens R. Torts and Rights. Oxford Univ, 2007.
  
• Walker R, Ivanhoe P, eds. Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems. Oxford Univ, 2007.
  
• Weil S. The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind. 2e. Routledge, 2001.
  
• White G. Tort Law in America: An Intellectual History. Oxford Univ, 2003.
  
• Widmer P, van Boom W, eds. Unification of Tort Law: Fault. Kluwer, 2005.
  
• Williams B. Moral Luck. Cambridge Univ, 1982.
  
• DSM. Chadwick: An Ideology-Free U.S. Thanksgiving. CMT, 22-NOV-2007.

07 Nov 07

Cell Search

“Attwood,” said a female officer, “step outside of your cell in your shower shoes. You have been chosen to have your cell searched.”
“OK,” I said. I stepped out onto the run and continued to read my book.
Two guards entered my cell: the female and a male.
“Oh,” the female said, nose raised, sniffing the air, “so you’ve been smoking in your cell.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Like I can’t smell the smoke,” she said.
“It comes through the vents,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” she said.
I felt a flush of irritation and thought, No matter what I say I’m just another lying inmate to her, so I’d better say nothing at all.
“When did they move you from D run?”
“The last time I was on D run was on Yard 4.”
“I’m talking about Yard 1. You’re the one always hanging out on D run.”
Here she goes again, I thought. “I think you’ve got me confused,” I said.
“No. I remember seeing you always hanging out on D run. You were over there all of the time.”
“I stay in my cell reading and writing.”
Her face pinched with disbelief. I stayed silent.
“Where’s your TV at?”
“I don’t have one.”
“You don’t have one?”
“No. Like I said, I read and write all day.”
“Aren’t you getting out soon?” the other officer asked.
“Next week,” I said, and immediately the guards looked at each other with the same expression that said, He’s getting out next week so he must have sold his TV.
“So you don’t watch TV, eh?” she said, smiling knowingly.
“No, I don’t. I try not to waste my time,” I said.
“You’ve been down long enough to get a TV.”
“I don’t have one by choice.”
“Hmm,” she said. “It must be inconvenient to have us come along and disrupt your day.”
Why is she provoking me? I thought.
“What, are you tongue-tied now?” she said.
I ignored her. They eventually left my cell. Then, antagonising all of the prisoners and a few guards who knew I didn't have a TV, she had every cell on the yard searched for the TV set of mine.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

06 Nov 07

Parting Advice from T-Bone

“One of the things,” T-Bone began, “you need to do is to sit down at the table with Mom and Pop and learn who they really are as human beings.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“How long have they been married?”
“Nearly forty years.”
“Can you imagine all the ups and downs they’ve been through over the years? Yet they are still together. They are successful people. Learn how they did it, so you can grow and obtain wisdom and knowledge and understanding. You’ve been through some things in the States and you didn’t connect with your family in the right way. I’m telling you as a man, you need to sit down with them over a cup of tea. Do you have the guts to do it?”
“I hope so.”
“And when you’re talking with them, if your heart doesn’t jump with pride, honour, and astonishment then you’re empty inside ’cause what they’ve done takes strength.
You also need to stay away from chicks who are party girls, and to focus on one woman. What are you gonna do if you meet some chick in a flimsy little outfit, a fishnet dress maybe, and she’s five-seven, nicely built, up on heels and with plenty of makeup on, and she has a bunch of X, and she comes to you and says, ‘Bring your pretty little butt over here, Jonny?’ You have to make a choice. She’s mesmerizing. She’s tantalizing. She’s sexy. Her breath smells like cinnamon and jasmine. Her bed is perfumed with myrrh and aloes like the harlot in Proverbs 7. Are you gonna go for the temptation that leads you down the path of destruction?”
“No!”
“Are you gonna allow her perfume and drugs to seduce you, to take you to the demonic realm?”
“I’m out of that lifestyle.”

To be continued…

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

4 Nov 07

The Royo Romance (19) Continued

Click here for Part 18.

I introduced Barry to Royo Girl, and said, “So how are your sons doing?”
“Jay just got a ticket for peeing in public.”
“Oh no!” I said.
“A two-hundred-and-thirty-three-dollar ticket.”
“What happened?”
“He went into a Circle K to use the bathroom and they wouldn’t let him, so he went around the corner and peed right in front of an unmarked cop car.”
Royo Girl and I laughed.
"That's an expensive pee."
The conversation got round to showers.
“Are the showers in here," Barry asked,"a column with a bunch of showerheads coming out and everyone’s running around naked?”
“No. They’re tiny cubicles with doors you can shut. Half of them don’t work, and they’re full of bugs. But at least there’s privacy, unless someone opens your door.”
“Has that happened to you?”
“Oh, yes. On Yard 4, Xena and George and Frankie were always trying to barge in the shower with me. And you see men going in the shower with men.”
“What?” Barry said.
“I can’t begin to describe all the stuff that goes on in here. There’s people who have sex with shampoo bottles in the shower, the bottles get stuck, and they end up at Medical.”
“I imagine you’ve seen it all,” Barry said.
“I’ve seen or heard enough.”
“And have you still not gone with a cheeto?” Royo Girl asked.
“No. But Xena was demanding a parting kiss before I leave, and when I told Kat, Kat said, 'We can go one better than that'.”
Watching Royo Girl and I talk, Barry suddenly said, “You two would be perfect for each other.”
We both blushed, but I felt more happy than embarrassed. Then I felt proud.
“He’s too wild,” Royo Girl said.
“But you’re the perfect calming influence on me.”
“I think she would be a good influence,” Barry said.
Turning to Barry, Royo Girl said, “He needs to focus on himself.”
“I’d rather focus on you.”
Flustering slightly, Royo Girl said, “He sometimes acts like I’m being mean or something.”
“I like it when you put me in check. I would thrive if I were with someone like you. Don’t be fooled, Barry, she has a wild side too. She has a tattoo on her tailbone.”
“They call them,” Royo Girl said, “tramp stamps these days.”
Barry and I laughed.
While they joked about tramp stamps, I examined the tattoos on Barry’s arms: a band of barbed wire, flames around seven skulls, and a green dragon below a moon.

I enjoyed the company of Barry. After sharing hugs, he left half an hour before the end of the visit.
“Did you put Barry up to that?”
“To what?”
“To saying we would be perfect for each other?”
“I didn’t even know he was coming. He must have formed his own opinion. Do you disagree with what he said?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I feel there is something between us. Something I can’t put in words.”
“But you put it into words on the blog.”
“Last time I let my feelings for you flow, you backed off. You don’t want a fawning man, you want someone who's tough.”
“But not too tough. Did you really say those things to T-Bone you blogged?”
"Yes. T-Bone knows how I feel about you. He’s encouraged me all along, even when you backed off he said you were coming to see me because you love me and we’d end up together somehow.”
“And how do you feel about me now?”
“Look what happened last time I laid my cards on the table. I’m not going to act like that again. I just hope we meet in England, and see what happens. I gave you my heart once, and I even blogged it.”
“I feel my intentions have been misconstrued at the blog.”
“I know you have good intentions and maybe you intend to visit me in England.”
“That’s not a maybe. I will – eventually.”
“And then what?”
“Who’s to say what the future holds. We will always be good friends.”
“Say we become more than that?”
“Why live in hypothetical worlds?”
“Good answer, but it doesn’t have to be hypothetical.”
“I knew you would say that, and that’s not quite what I had in mind.”
“Visitation is over!”

We stood up, and embraced. I was captivated by the scent on her neck and the softness of her skin. Her lips found mine with a passion I had not expected. The kiss seemed to confirm her feelings for me - or was I imagining things? I broke off the kiss but still held her close. We kissed again with the same passion and my mind wobbled. The second kiss crushed any doubts I had – and as I write this two hours later I’m still full of excitement.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Chadwick: An Ideology-Free U.S. Thanksgiving

During a career that spanned over 50 years, George Whitefield Chadwick was prominent among American composers from the 1880s until the 1930s. He composed in nearly every genre, including operas (7), orchestral music (17 works), songs (100+), and many choral and chamber works. During his life, Chadwick’s reputation was secured by frequent performances of his music—particularly by the Boston Symphony Orchestra—but his music is now seldom performed. His obscurity in the past 60 years is likely due to the modesty of scale of much of his work as much as to the nostalgic imagery, which seems out-of-sync with contemporary sensibilities.

Chadwick’s piano works and string quartets, for example, are on a small scale like Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words or Grieg’s Lyric Pieces—they are nineteenth century romantic minatures. Chadwick’s chamber music is written in the style of the ‘Character Piece.’ Each is a brief sketch of one particular mood or image. We have representational essays, like The Frogs, In the Canoe, and The Rill. This may not be important music, but it’s characteristic americana. And, on a nostalgic day of celebration like Thanksgiving in the U.S., these pieces are suitable—nostalgic in a way, but expressing a sort of nostalgia and romanticism that still has its eyes wide open.

This brand of romanticism resembles Edward MacDowell’s—and others in the generation before Charles Ives. Chadwick’s writing has been associated with the Realist movement in painting and the graphic arts, characterized by a down-to-earth portrayal of ordinary occurrences in people’s lives. To me, his miniatures hark back to a time when the American scene was not overrun with hubris. These modest pieces evoke romantic images, yes, but images undistorted by rose-colored glasses. They propound specific ideas but without insisting upon a particular ideology or a desultory rhetorical stance—something for which we can be thankful and to which we can still reasonably aspire.

[Chadwick began at the New England Conservatory in Boston as a ‘special’ student in 1872. ‘Special’ meant he could study with NEC faculty members—Carlyle Petersilea (piano) and Stephen Emery (music theory and composition)—without meeting Concervatory entrance requirements and without committing to completing a degree. In 1876, Chadwick was appointed to a faculty position within the music program at Olivet College. While on faculty at Olivet, Chadwick was affiliated with the Music Teachers National Association, founded by Theodore Presser and more than 60 other men and women who met in Delaware, Ohio, on December 26, 1876. Later, Chadwick studied in Leipzig at the Royal Conservatory of Music under Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) and Salomon Jadassohn (1830-1902). Two of his string quartets were written during his years in Germany. In 1897, Chadwick returned to Boston and became Director of the New England Conservatory of Music.]

• New England Conservatory of Music
  
• Music Teachers' National Association website
• Betz M, ed. George Whitefield Chadwick String Quartets Nos. 4-5. A-R, 2007.
  
• Betz M, ed. George Whitefield Chadwick String Quartets Nos. 1-3. A-R, 2006.
  
• Faucett B. George Whitefield Chadwick: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood, 1998.
  
• Kairoff P. American Character: Piano Music of George Whitefield Chadwick. (Albany, 2005.)
  
• Kohon String Quartet. Early String Quartet in the U.S.A. (Vox, 1992.)
  
• Pollard F. The Literary Quest for an American National Character. Routledge, 2008.
  
• Portland String Quartet. Chadwick: String Quartets Nos. 4 & 5. (Northeastern, 1994.)
  
• Portland String Quartet. Chadwick: String Quartet No. 3. (Northeastern, 1995.)

21 Nov 07

Moved to Florence

Jon has been moved to Florence (Not in Italy!) immigration holding centre. He is expecting to be there for three to four weeks. He has asked us to post his address for anyone who would like to write to him. He couldn't say goodbye to his friends at Santa Rita, and he is feeling quite lonely, but happy to be on his way home soon.

Shaun Attwood # A75693747
SPC Florence
3250 N. Pinal Parkway Ave
Florence
AZ 85232.

05 Nov 07

Wild Man

The closer I am to getting out, the more I'm thinking about when I first arrived at the Madison Street jail.

“Where they taking us?” Cody asked.
“The Horseshoe,” Wild Man said. “We’ll be stuck in filthy holding cells for days while they process us.”
“Why they call it The Horseshoe?” Cody asked.
“’Cause you go in at one end, and work your way round the cells in a horseshoe shape,” Wild Man said. “They kept me in there for a week one time ’cause I wouldn’t tell them my name.”

The van parked in a subterranean lot. A transportation officer allowed the women out first. The thirty or so male arrestees waiting to go inside the jail stopped heckling the prostitutes in the line and focussed on my female friends:
“Ooh, babies!”
“Nice ass!”
“Show us your titties!”
“Come and play with the bad boys!”
“This way, honey!”
“With those boobs, I’m surprised you ain’t got two black eyes!”
Shuffling toward the men, the women cowered. The last woman out of the van was Wild Woman.

From inside the van, Wild Man watched his fiancée. Other than an eyebrow reacting – one shot up and stayed up, while the other didn’t budge – he seemed unperturbed. But I knew that particular eyebrow formation meant he was about to do something in character with his name.

In a Liverpudlian brogue that sounded as if she were hawking phlegm, Wild Woman scolded the men, who responded by turning up the volume of their chant, “Show us yer boobs!”

“Get out of the van!” a transportation officer yelled.

Wild Man stooped out, stopped on the top step, and unfurled the physique of a bear. He cocked his head back, targeting the men over his Viking’s beard. “If you don’t pack it in and leave my woman alone, I’ll have any of you when we get inside those cells.” He pointed at The Horseshoe, and grinned. “If you think I won’t, just keep it up and see what happens.” Wild Man laughed in a way that said he really knew how to hurt someone. That shut up most of the men.
“You, get down those steps!” a transportation officer yelled. "Fuck you, pig!” Wild Man said, and stepped down.

Email comments to writeinside@hotmail.com or post them below

Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

La Catrina Quartet and Àlvarez: Collage Against Nationalism

J avier Àlvarez reveals influences of popular cultures that go beyond the borders of our own time and the place.”
[beyond the Borders of
Time
  and place;
     of anyone’s time
        and place — beyond
our ‘own’ ]
  —  John Adams.

Javier Álvarez combines conventional instrumental idioms with the acuteness of technology, elaborating an eclectic vision that originates as much from various non-musical disciplines as from music collected from other parts of the world.

At present Álvarez lives and works in Mérida, Yucatan. Born in Mexico City in 1956, he studied composition with Mario Lavista before coming to the United States in 1980 where he studied with John Downey at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Subsequently Álvarez moved to the U.K. where he continued his studies at the Royal College of Music with John Lambert. His first electroacoustic works were composed then—for example, Temazcal (1984). Mannam (1992) uses cítara, mixing rhythmic elements of traditional Korean music with materials and techniques of Mexican harp—this won second place in the Prix Ars Electronica in Austria in 1993. Most of his works incorporate sonic elements of other music, such as mambo (Mambo a la Braque, 1991). Papalotl (1987) combines piano and electroacoustic sounds.

This is not novelty for novelty’s sake. Álvarez’s textures are not ‘merely’ interesting or seductive: Their appeal for our attention is not strident. They have a point. He creates collages of vernacular music that emulate a folklore—a Borges-like abcediary of imaginary creatures—a factitious folklore so fantastical that it calls into question our notion of folklore itself. Álvarez’s transgressive textures work to undermine the very notion of cultural identity and ownership. In the process, he demolishes the exclusionary and disenfranchising politics of nationalism and tribal culture—affiliation and disaffiliation.

Metro Chabacano (1991), performed by La Catrina in Albuquerque on Sunday, is a case in point. Derived from Álvarez’s 1986 piece for string orchestra, Canción de Tierra y Esperanza, the composition was created to accompany sculptor Marcos Limenez’s kinetic installation art, to be displayed in Mexico City’s biggest and busiest subway station, Metro Chabacano. The piece was subsequently performed on tape there for a period of three months during 1991. Metro Chabacano has a continuous eighth-note ground from which short lyrical passages appear in each of the parts. The repeated notes confer a deceptive minimalistic simplicity, out of which the organic, unstoppable, inevitable individuality of each voice in the quartet flourishes. The effect is, on balance, an optimistic world view—albeit an elemental, fatalistic or ‘vegetal’ one, on a par with the experience of watching a garden grow or watching children grow up. La Catrina Quartet’s account of Metro Chabacano was simultaneously inspiring and poignant, in precisely that elemental way.

Because of La Catrina Quartet’s profile, they are well-positioned to facilitate Latino and minority students’ progress—students who might otherwise fall through the cracks of the educational system. It also is consistent with their devotion more towards ‘nurture’ rather than ‘nature’ in their teaching. As a Latino string quartet, they strive to offer young minority audiences positive role models in opposition to gangs and negative stereotyping, corrosive influences in youth culture.

I n a country where the ‘melting pot’ phenomenon is all but unavoidable, it is essential to show the younger generations of today that immigration can be a positive force, one that enriches our culture rather than impoverishes our society.”

  —  La Catrina Quartet.

As to the Quartet’s name, according to Mexican Folklore, ‘La Catrina’ is a name for Death. La Catrina can show herself in many different ways. Sometimes she is dressed in a elaborate, festive clothes. Sometimes she appears as just a skeleton, to take us away when we least expect it. Generally, though, in Mexico death is thought of as a natural guest on certain occasions, such as the Day of the Dead, or Día de los Fieles Difuntos. The memory of one’s “fieles difuntos” (‘faithful departed’) is the source of familial and cultural identity. La Catrina, with her mischievous smile, exhorts the living to seize the moment and, through music, to find life’s meaning.

Founded in 2001, the La Catrina String Quartet frequently performs new music by living composers and promotes and performs Mexican and Latin American art music in Mexico as well as in the United States and abroad. This summer La Catrina was string quartet in residence in San Miguel de Allende, México, where they collaborated with the Brentano Quartet for a performance of the Mendelssohn octet and the Brahms sextet Op. 36. Their residency duties included giving private instruction to string students from Mexico and the United States and teaching chamber music and strings masterclasses, as well as their collaboration with the Brentanos.

In the current season, the Catrinas will be featured in concert series in the United States and México. Currently, the quartet is working on developing an exchange program between the Conservatorio de Las Rosas, where they will be the Quartet-in-Residence beginning in Summer 2008, and Kent State University. This Fall the quartet relocated to Hickory, NC, where they continue developing their repertoire as well as commissioning new works and continuing with their commitment to bringing the string quartet out of the concert hall and into alternative venues.

[Daniel Vega-Albela was born in Mexico City and earned his Master of Music degree in violin performance from Western Michigan University, where he studied with violinist Renata Artman Knific. He holds a Master of Music degree in chamber music performance from Kent State University. From 1994 to 1997, he was instructor of violin at the Academia Yuriko Kuronuma in Mexico City, and in 1997, he joined the Conservatorio de las Rosas to teach violin performance and to play with the new music ensemble, the Ensamble de las Rosas.

New York native George Anthony Figueroa earned his Bachelor Degree from the University of Florida at the New World School of the Arts in Miami and currently holds a Master’s degree in violin performance from the University of Oklahoma. Figueroa has studied with Cathy Meng-Robinson, Ivan Chan, Yair Kless, Diane Pascal, Lucie Robert and Felicia Moye. He has participated in master classes with Monica Hughes, Charlie Castelman, Yuval Waldman, Fredell Lack and Lucie Robert. Mr. Figueroa holds a Master of Music degree in chamber music performance from Kent State University.

Born in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico, Jorge Martínez studied viola at the Conservatorio de las Rosas where he graduated with honors, under the tutelage of professor Gela Dubrova. In 2003, he completed his Master of Music degree in Viola Performance at Western Michigan University. Mr. Martínez has been a faculty member of the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Mexico, as well as instructor of violin and viola at Crescendo Academy of Music in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Martínez holds a Master of Music degree in chamber music and vocal performance from Kent State University.

Born in Mexico City, Alan Daowz started the cello with José Luis Gálvez at the Escuela Nacional de Música and the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia, Michoacán, where he obtained his Bachelor degree in cello performance. He received his Master of Music degree in cello performance from Western Michigan University, where he studied with Professor Bruce Uchimura. Mr. Daowz holds a Master of Music degree in chamber music performance from Kent State University. ]

• La Catrina String Quartet
  
• Chamber Music Albuquerque, Simms Center at Albuquerque Academy
  
• Ashbee E, Clausen H, Pedersen C, eds. The Politics, Economics, and Culture of Mexican-US Migration: Both Sides of the Border. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
  
• Benhabib S, Shapiro I, Petranovich D, eds. Identities, Affiliations, and Allegiances. Cambridge Univ, 2007.
  
• Brodsky Quartet. Elegie. (Silva, 2000.)
  
• Cuarteto Latinoamericano. Memorias Tropicales. (New Albion, 1994.)
  
• Delanty G, Jones P, Wodak R, eds. Identity, Belonging, and Migration. Liverpool Univ, 2007.
  
• Gannon M. Paradoxes of Culture and Globalization. Sage, 2007.
  
• Marinissen A. Traces of Culture. (Bvhaast, 2003.) [Temazcal]
  
• May T. The John Adams Reader: Essential Writings on an American Composer. Amadeus, 2006.
  
• Phillips A. Multiculturalism without Culture. Princeton Univ, 2007.
  
• Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. Danzón. (Dorian, 1998.) [orchestra version of Metro Chabacano]
  
• Webb H, Mead P. Alvarez: Papalotl. (Saydisc, 1994.)