Kevan Manwaring's Blog: The Bardic Academic, page 28

Uncanny America: Day 5

 

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Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico

 

Guest Blog from Eliza Thomas, the Folk Whisperer.

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This blog is intended to be a true(ish) account of a road-trip taken from Asheville to San Francisco, early November, 2017. It’s a long journey – all 2594 miles of it – and so I’ve just focused on the highlights here, filtered by my own academic penchant. It was done in a 2001 Dodge Dakota Pickup 4WD, pulling a silver trailer, with London our mahmout bodyguard. Enjoy the ride!

Day 5: New Mexico

As we entered New Mexico the waves of heat rippled like mirages on the long road stretching to vanishing point ahead. We’d been on the road for nearly a week and were starting to flag a little. Perhaps the prospect of what waited for J made her increasingly apprehensive. We’d been driving hard and were in need of some serious R&R – and so I insisted we stopped at the Blue Hole. It’s an 81 feet deep natural artesian spring of crystal clear water – an oasis in the desert, and oh boy, what welcome relief! We splashed around in it – having got there early enough for it to be reasonably quiet – and lolled about on sun-loungers in our sunnies and skimpies, flipping through magazines (or reading Devereux’s book on Mysterious Ancient America in my case), sipping ice-cold drinks. We had left London with the trailer, plenty of water, a full bowl, and the air-con on full and he was wagging furiously by the time we got back – giving us a bark, as if to say, ‘Hell, why do you get to have all the fun?’ Somehow, I don’t think they’d let a mahmout in the Blue Hole. Feeling refreshed we went on our way.  We gladly sailed by the turn-off for Las Vegas (where everything bad about America is conveniently in one place) and decided not to take the big detour south – for the ‘obligatory’ pilgrimage Roswell and Area 51. We knew it was going to be cheesy and full of alien tat, (J had been there). Yes, it holds an iconic (an overused word) place in American popular culture and I used to love The X Files, but J said I’d find it disappointing (’just a few old hangars and lots of tacky alien truck-stops’). However, what we decided to go and see instead were the Very Large Array dishes – another cinematic landmark (as featured in Contact, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, etc). Truly awe-inspiring and enough to make anyone wonder if the truth was ‘out there’. We stopped here for an explore – the visitor ‘center’, was informative, and they served excellent coffee, where I made notes. That night I suggested we pitched up in the desert to do some star-gazing – because I’d been bitten by the bug. There was something about these wide skies that made you just want to look up. It is no wonder then that the earliest (Paleo-Indian) cultures seemed particularly obsessed with the movements of the stars and the sun. There is evidence of their presence here from 14,000 years ago. We spent the afternoon visiting the Petroglyph National Monument near Albuquerque, marvelling at the  estimated 24,000 pieces of rock art left by the previous inhabitants of this land. London was taken on a very long walkies as we trekked around the Western Trail. It was hot work, but worth it. These wonders had been here a long-time, preserved by the extra-ordinary climate and isolation. The petroglyphs often depict animal and human forms in geometric shapes swirling with patterns, thought to be a depiction of the entoptics resulting from trance-states – Peyote art. It is easy to imagine having a vision out here in this hallucinatory place.

Jody Foster is my Number One Heroine!

We concluded our day’s exploring with a real highlight of the trip – the World Heritage Site of Chaco Canyon, the ‘center of an ancient world’, as the official website boasts. This was the hub between 850 and 1250 AD of an intense level of monument building and ritual activity by the Chacoan people. There is too much here to go into – worthy of another blog by itself – but suffice to say, it was awesome. Go and check it out! We found a spot by the Three Rivers petroglyphs – strange carvings high on the rocks, truly in the middle of nowhere. Pulling up in the trailer amid a dusty canyon made me have a Breaking Bad moment. I felt tempted to say ‘Let’s cook!’ I would make a good Jesse Pinkman to J’s Walter White I reckon! After we fixed up some food, we settled in for the night. The stars came out in all their glory – as though they had been newly born, and not fading recordings of long-dead stars. A piece of rock art in Chaco Canyon depicting a many-rayed star, a crescent and a handprint apparently records the time when the Crab Nebula was born (or became first visible), back in 4 July, 1054. The Anasazi were active at that time in Chaco Canyon – and it would seem the petroglyph records this event.  The desert is the place where things are made or unmade. Religions were forged in the fires of such places. The prophets let themselves be purified by its harshness, tested, tempted and transformed. We huddled around a small brush fire – feeling the vastness of the wild, untamed night-desert around us filled with inchoate dangers. It was thrilling to think we were in Apache Country and the state boasted some of the most famous outlaws in the history of the Wild West – the Apache Kid, Geronimo, Cochise, Victorio, Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch…! The stuff of legend. And here I was. I was glad of the presence of J and her trusty hound. J got out her guitar (I was hoping she would) and began to strum away – guitars always sound good by campfires, but J can actually play hers well, and, boy, what a voice! It summed up the immensity and the intimacy of the moment. She dedicated to song (’Those Who Have Gone’) to the ancient peoples of this place, the Anasazi, the Hohokam, the Apache, the Navajo. It sent a tingle up my spine. The fire spat as the resin oozing out of the brushwood dripped onto the flames, sending swirls of sparks up into the night.

For the record, here’s J’s song:

Those Who Have Gone

Can you hear them in the sage brush?

hear them in the rain?

Whispers in the canyon,

thunder on the plain.

Footprints on the desert floor

red hand in cave shadow,

Beasts seen from high above,

lines too long to follow.

They linger in the place names,

in old customs, in a word.

They speak to us in dreams,

in songs that cannot be heard.

They are the first people,

those who have gone,

they are the wise children,

those who have gone,

they are the silent stewards,

those who have gone,

they live on in us,

those who have gone.

 

The journey continues tomorrow…

Eliza Thomas is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are the connections between folklore and folk music in Lowland Scotland. She is the co-convenor of the now annual SIDHE (Scottish International Dialogues in Hermeneutic Ethnomusicology) Conference, and a contributor to The Cone and The Bottle Imp. She blogs and tweets as the Folk Whisperer.

 

Uncanny America: Day 4

 

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U-Drop Inn, Shamrock, Texas

 

Guest Blog from Eliza Thomas, the Folk Whisperer.

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Day 4: Texas

Four days into our trip and we’ve been cruising across the surreal vastness of Texas – past Amarillo out into the great empty spaces. Now and then the crushing emptiness is interrupted by a giant cowboy, eyeball, or other piece of kitsch Americana. The whole place has a Dali-esque quality to it.  Our first pit-stop, for breakfast of coffee and waffles was the Tower Station and U-Drop Inn  – an iconic Art Deco-style landmark on Route 66 (I can’t believe we’re travelling it!).  We make a slight detour for Boot Hill, the ‘Cowboy Capital of the Plains’, with its famous cemetery – and it’s like walking into a filmset. Such places are virtually ‘sacred’ landmarks in the mythologized Wild West. This is a Cowboy Dreamtime we’re entering, and I can’t but help feel a little out of place – I’m the anachronism here, the little English girl on the wrong side of the ocean. But J is a lovely travelling companion and makes me feel safe and welcome – she provides my ‘passport’. Doors just open for us, having her around – quite literally. Gentlemen know how to treat a lady round here – tipping their 10-gallon-hats to us, with a ‘Howdy, Ma’am’ and all that. J is being treated like the music star she plainly is destined to become. Texas is the place to ‘walk tall’ – to live up to your own legend. Its roots might be mired in blood and oil, but it reaches for the stars.

The journey continues tomorrow…

Eliza Thomas is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are the connections between folklore and folk music in Lowland Scotland. She is the co-convenor of the now annual SIDHE (Scottish International Dialogues in Hermeneutic Ethnomusicology) Conference, and a contributor to The Cone and The Bottle Imp. She blogs and tweets as the Folk Whisperer.

Uncanny America: Day 3

Uncanny America: folklore, fakelore and the bazaar of the bizarre

 

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Golden Driller, Tulsa

 

Guest Blog from Eliza Thomas, the Folk Whisperer.

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This blog is intended to be a true(ish) account of a road-trip taken from Asheville to San Francisco, early November, 20xx. It’s a long journey – all 2594 miles of it – and so I’ve just focused on the highlights here, filtered by my own academic penchant. It was done in a 2001 Dodge Dakota Pickup 4WD, pulling a silver trailer, with London our mahmout bodyguard. Enjoy the ride!

Day 3: Oklahoma

In the morning we crossed state lines close to the now-closed Fort Chaffee – the site where Elvis Presley had his famous buzz-cut when he joined the Army in March 1958. This ‘Elvis haircut site’ (Building #803 on the base) is currently being restored. It’s destruction, a close shave, it would appear – thanks to the success of a 50th Anniversary ‘GI Haircut Day’ when hundreds flocked to the once doomed Fort Chaffee Barbershop Museum where Jimmy Don Peterson, son of the barber who cut Presley’s hair, gave free G.I. buzz cuts to visitors.  A rag, a bone, a hank of hair resurrects these 20th Century saints. Curiouser and curiouser.

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It was hard to imagine it getting hicker, but Oklahoma managed to pull it off. Up in Beaver they have the ‘cow chip throwing capital of the world’ – what a USP! We detoured to Tulsa to see the ‘Golden Driller’ a gi-normous oil man, one of the largest statues in the States apparently. For some reason he was crotchless, and so looked more like an oil woman to my eyes. Nearby was the not to be missed Blue Whale of Catoosa – one of many ‘Route 66 attractions’, for here the iconic road converged with other interstates. What stood out for me in this county was the Woody Guthrie statue in Okemah – their famous ‘Commie’ son was not honoured until those who vehemently disliked him at passed on. J sang an impromptu version of ‘This Land is Your Land’ by the side of it, and even got some dollars thrown into her case, thinking she was busking.  What haunted me more than anything were the First Nation place names – Choctee, Shawnee, Tecumseh, Lake Thunderbird – poignant reminders of the original residents of this land. Their ghosts are everywhere – and the kitsch attractions, like the ‘World’s Largest Totem Pole’ in Durant serve to only rub salt in the wound.  Near the OK/TX border we pass through a ghost town called Texola – literally, it’s advertised as such. Run down, abandoned properties. Beat up old store fronts. A bar with a sign: ‘There’s no other place like this place anywhere near this place so this must be the place.’

The journey continues tomorrow…

Eliza Thomas is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are the connections between folklore and folk music in Lowland Scotland. She is the co-convenor of the now annual SIDHE (Scottish International Dialogues in Hermeneutic Ethnomusicology) Conference, and a contributor to The Cone and The Bottle Imp. She blogs and tweets as the Folk Whisperer.

Uncanny America: Day 2

Uncanny America: folklore, fakelore and the bazaar of the bizarre

 

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Elvis Week, Memphis

 

Guest Blog from Eliza Thomas, the Folk Whisperer.

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This blog is intended to be a true(ish) account of a road-trip taken from Asheville to San Francisco, early November, 20xx. It’s a long journey – all 2594 miles of it – and so I’ve just focused on the highlights here, filtered by my own academic penchant. It was done in a 2001 Dodge Dakota Pickup 4WD, pulling a silver trailer, with London our mahmout bodyguard. Enjoy the ride!

Day 2: Tennessee to Arkansas

The next day we made pilgrimage to Graceland – more for my culture-vulture benefit, than J’s whose been there before. She stayed in the trailer with London while I did the ‘stations of the cross’. It’s incredible to see what an icon the ‘King’ has become, and how the minutiae of his lifestyle have become the relics for modern day pilgrims to idolise, perhaps feeling they will imbibe some of his shamanic aura. He had such powerful charisma, whatever you think of his music. I’ve never been a massive fan, I must admit – my Dad liked him, so I associate him with that generation. He seems to appeal to over-the-hill menopausal males with their beer bellies and dyed quiffs. It brings out the pub-singer in all of us. Fortunately, we hit Memphis during ‘Elvis Week’ and so the streets were swarming with lookalikes – a wonderfully surreal experience.  Less joyous was the KKK ‘Great Wizard’ memorial – an unsavoury monument to an unpleasant chapter in America’s past, reminding me I’m deep behind ‘enemy lines’, here in the Bible Belt. Racism, jingoism, small-town xenophobia. These are some of the negative values that linger here like a bad smell. And yet the majority of folk we meet seem pleasant and easy going – but don’t talk to them about liberal politics or religious tolerance! As we crossed the border into Arkansas I breathed with relief – whether this was misplaced, who knows, but I must admit it was a relief to escape the kitsch for a while and head to the Hot Springs national park. To be surrounded by real natural beauty again was balm to the soul. We pulled up outside the tourist ‘mecca’ of Little Rock, the state capital, in a leafy picnic area that London was delighted with. We went for a dip and dried off in the sun. It felt a million miles from anywhere. It turns out this neck of the woods is ‘Clinton Country’ as the tourist signs proudly state – the childhood home of the former Chief Executive. Presidents are the equivalent of Kings and Queens over here (maybe one day they’ll have a female in the White House? Please!). You can visit where they studied (Bill Clinton’s High School is just up the road), ate, slept, danced, drank, dumped… America seems to like it’s heroes to have feet of clay. Perhaps it makes them closer to the common man – and thus feeds into the American Dream, that everyone has a shot at the top, everyone can make it, and even a son of Arkansas can become President of the USA. Arkansas is a peculiar place – alongside the Clinton arcana, Hot Springs boasts as its other attractions Mermen (well, a dodgy stitched-together freak show exhibit at the Alligator Farm), telepathic racoons (in the ‘Zoo with IQ’), and a tiny town.  We were not tempted by these delights, but wended our way to ‘authentic’ attractions like the Boggy Creek Monster (a local Bigfoot-type, now with his own Monster Mall and photo-opportunity: I gurned for the camera from inside it); and the supposedly runic stone of Paris, Arkansas. Yet the highlight of this Hick-chic state was unquestionably Aza – the Gaudy Goddess of Feminine Cosmic Energy. Adora Zerlina Astra (“Beloved One Created of the Stars”) manifested in her corporeal form at Turpentine Creek. Created in late 2012 by sculptor Bruce Anderson, She is ‘a non-denominational goddess’, a composite of various deities that Anderson says ‘celebrates the feminine energy of the cosmos’. Despite her cosmic pedigree, Aza was built for the owners of Eureka Springs’ chilli restaurant on their lawn, which overlooks a downtown park. From it, Aza looks down upon us Earthlings with an inscrutable gaze. J and I took a stroll up to pay our respects. Our Lady was made of turquoise stained cement. She holds an orb in one hand and a heart-shaped sceptre in the other. Up close we notice the hand-cut tiles which cover her, inspired apparently by the Hubble Telescope. Astronomer bling. Aza has a Mona Lisa-esque smile – perhaps inevitably when you know the punchline of the Cosmic Joke. She’s been variously interpreted as Roman Catholic, Hindi, Egyptian, even Atlantean, yet she’s hardly mermaid material. Here J and I reflected on our day, enjoying a cosmic ice-cream. Tomorrow we head onto to Oklahoma. But that’s enough cultural edification for one day.

The journey continues tomorrow…

Eliza Thomas is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are the connections between folklore and folk music in Lowland Scotland. She is the co-convenor of the now annual SIDHE (Scottish International Dialogues in Hermeneutic Ethnomusicology) Conference, and a contributor to The Cone and The Bottle Imp. She blogs and tweets as the Folk Whisperer.

Uncanny America

 

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Land of Oz theme park, North Carolina

 

Uncanny America: folklore, fakelore and the bazaar of the bizarre

Guest Blog from Eliza Thomas, the Folk Whisperer.

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This blog is intended to be a true(ish) account of a road-trip taken from Asheville to San Francisco, early November, 20xx. It’s a long journey – all 2594 miles of it – and so I’ve just focused on the highlights here, filtered by my own academic penchant. It was done in a 2001 Dodge Dakota Pickup 4WD, pulling a silver trailer, with London our mahmout bodyguard. Enjoy the ride!

 

Day 1: North Carolina to Tennessee

And off we go! My companion (let’s call her J) says there’s a theme-park north of Asheville called the Land of Oz. She went to it as a girl. Unfortunately, it’s off our route, but it feels like we’re going down our own Yellow Brick Road. We’d probably argue who was Dorothy, we’re down a Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow, and London wouldn’t want to be compared to Tonto – so the glamorous analogy is tenuous to the say the least, but that I suspect, looking at the ‘attractions’ to come, is probably going to be the through-line of this trip. Americans love to make something out of nothing – perhaps it’s a residue of their pioneering spirit, striking out across the Great Plain and forging their destiny with their bare hands from the primal ingredients around them1. And that spirit seems to live in the countless makeshift photo-stops and tourist honey pots that line the route (chiefly I-40w). Setting the tone was our first ‘landmark’ – the Big Red Rocker. The name appealed to us (it ‘minded me of J). I was expecting some kind of tipping stone like you get on the moors of England, but it turned out to a giant rocking chair. I’m already feeling like Alice in Wonderland – to use a homelier analogy – but this just emphasised that, as I sat in it, swinging my legs.  The big thing over here seems to be, well, big things – the ‘World’s Largest’ is an epithet applied to the most random of

This I think is a manifestation of the ‘nomad space’ Deleuze and Guattari talk of in A Thousand Plateaus (1988); Grant explores in Ghost Riders: Travels with American Nomads (2003); and Whitehead retools as a theory of creative process he terms ‘Nomadic Emergence’ (2013).

things, somehow making it great (or worthy of a detour and a few bucks on drinks, snacks and tourist tat). If one wanted to get Freudian about this, one could easily suspect over-compensation – the classic shiny red sports car syndrome. The fallacy of the ‘phallus-see!’  Sadly, we were unable to visit the World’s Largest Chest (breast-substitute?) of Drawers (my life feels impoverished) but we were able to call by the World’s Largest 10 Commandments – emblazoned on a hillside, presumably for the religious edification of extra-terrestrials. Other ‘lesser’ Commandments have been so forged, blotting the landscape, but this is the bonafide original (excluding the ‘Made by God’ stone tablets, of course). Nth Generation Art doesn’t seem to be a problem here, so copies of Stonehenge (’Stonehenge II’) or the faux-Indian Caves are still touted as genuine attractions. For a country which seems to define its identity from movies, TV and comic-books that is perhaps not surprising. As soon as I landed in the airport, back in Asheville, I felt a strong sense of déjà-vu. This was the American familiar to me from countless films and TV shows. There is something pervasively filmic about the States – everything has the texture of the cinematic, and artificial. A membrane of glamour – even the seedier side – wraps everything like clingfilm. And so you see two Americas (at least) simultaneously: the Reel and the Ur-real. Reality is filtered through star-shaped sunnies. If there is a movie- or celebrity-association, then no matter how crappy it is, suddenly it is sprinkled in star-dust. In Britain I find this with literary landscapes – such-and-such a novelist lived here, such-and-such a poet walked there. This landmark features in that novel; this one was used in the film adaptation. Whatever the latest medium, the book is the cornerstone. Literature pervades. While here, the dominant filter is the silver screen. Like the iconic Hollywood sign – no more than over-sized letters on a hillside – the prosaic is pimped with imported magic. The sign becomes the signifier.

Sites missed: Creationist Taxidermy Museum; Ghost Town in the Sky; Monument to the last shot of the Civil War; Scottish Tartan Museum. Well, life is too short really. And the Road calls!

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Crossing our first state border was thrilling – at least for me, an American virgin. I was beginning to feel a little of that pioneer spirit as we head west with our trailer in tow. There is something enthralling about having the big open road before you – a whole continent to cross. The scale of things out here is mind-expanding (and the eat-all-you-can-buffets are waist-expanding).  We pulled over at a gas-station shaped like an airplane – once, a working fuel-stop – and took the obligatory photograph. We were tourists, just like the rest (no matter how much we might sneer) and it is hard not to get sucked into the ritual of the holiday snap. Another gas-station was shaped like a huge ‘Shell’ sign – and I wondered whether the icon was chosen not only as a reference to the fossil-fuels but also to the scallop shell of the pilgrim. At what point does tourism become pilgrimage? Our trip had a soul-full purpose, but it has started out frivolous and definitely at the ‘experience-junky’ end of the spectrum. Perhaps that will change as we go along. Yet, for now we succumbed to such tantalising attractions as the ‘grave of Beautiful Jim Key, the Education Horse’ – who could apparently spell his name and count. Lo, such edifying wonders! The Bell Witch Cave and Museum was slightly more interesting, although I couldn’t help think of Wookey Hole Caves, an ocean away in deepest Somerset – gave me a twang of homesickness for one second. Yet, this melted away as we reached the legendary Nashville to be greeted by … polar bears! There were statues of them everywhere, decorating roadsides and parks. Was this some kind of Climate Change awareness-raising public art initiative? Or was it just because they looked cutely incongruous in this hot land? This is the Kingdom of the Car here – the whole place is designed around the automobile. I don’t see many cyclists or pedestrians. Here, we called in on a bar on the drag J is a regular at – playing that is, and we received a warm welcome. After a long hot day of driving a cold beer went down well. We ended up staying for tacos and a great music session in the evening. J ended up doing a couple of guest numbers – she’s such a star. For a long time she’s played with a band, but it was great to see her stepping out as a solo act. Folk loved her, and who could blame them?

The journey continues tomorrow…

Eliza Thomas is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are the connections between folklore and folk music in Lowland Scotland. She is the co-convenor of the now annual SIDHE (Scottish International Dialogues in Hermeneutic Ethnomusicology) Conference, and a contributor to The Cone and The Bottle Imp. She blogs and tweets as the Folk Whisperer.

The Illustrated Novelist

The pictographical elements I encountered in Kirk’s 17th century notebooks inspired me to foreground the visuality of my PhD novel, The Knowing – A Fantasy.

The Bardic Academic

Illustrations based upon Robert Kirk’s 17th Century notebooks by Kevan Manwaring, The Knowing, 2017

 

I have long been an appreciator of illustrated text. Being a writer coming from a Fine Art background, this is perhaps not surprising, as I enjoying doing both – playing with words and images in my stories and drawings – revelling in the incredible freight and flexibility of letters and the infinite potential of the line, the mark.

Motif for ‘Bethany’, K. Manwaring, The Knowing 2017

From Palaeolithic cave art onwards we have illustrated our lives, representing symbolically our fears and dreams, our gods and demons, or simply the miracle of our existence: the handprint that says I am here, I exist, I belong. We have used art to express what is significant to us. For a long time art was used to express the Divine, but also to make sacred narratives relatable: in…

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Lightning Strikes and Knee Pain

An attempt to review a book is to put into words what one thinks about it. One perhaps starts off by not having a firm opinion but by the end of the review, if all goes well, one has been formulated. This does not really change the nature of the book, but it may change the person writing the review, or possibly the person reading it. It may persuade or dissuade this hypothetical reader to buy (borrow or steal) the book, or it may affirm or conflict with their existing opinion about it, if they’ve already read it – or simply read lots of reviews. It is a chain of ghosts, drawing us further and further away from the book itself, itself an articulation of an experience (either direct, vicariously, or imagined), encoded into black marks, which we translate in our minds into thoughts, feelings, images, and sounds. A homeopathic dilution of real life – that could be a working definition of fiction, creative non-fiction and especially literary criticism. Dyer’s book is, in some senses, a critique and deconstruction of this hall of mirrors. It is an anti-biography, an apparently ‘failed’ attempt at a ‘book about DH Lawrence’ (that we all end up writing, sooner or later, in the Dyerverse of ever decreasing circles – the singularity of futility which is his MO), which, in its gonzo approach of endless digression, indulgences, annoyances, paranoia, and transgressions, actually ‘succeeds’ in channelling something Lawrentian. Dyer makes endless comic capital at of the vainglorious absurdity of ‘experiential research’, while actually undertaking it – globetrotting in pursuit of Lawrence in a form of protracted displacement activity, an endless deferment of gratification – by gratifying every deferment. By the pathological deconstruction of such an approach Dyer actually reifies it, as he finally admits: ‘Had we not seen and done all these things we would not be the people we are.’ (p231). Dyer’s antics is a form of invocation – though he protest too much (ad nauseam) his aches, pains, mishaps, moments of weaknesses, fury, frustration and many failings, all help to conjure Lawrence, to embody Lawrence, to live Lawrence: ‘ hoping by this Lawrentian touch to persuade my audience of the all-consuming bond between the subject and the speaker of the talk’ as he quips about a botched talk on Lawrence he gives (p206). He argues forcibly against the aridity of dusty academic studies, far removed from Lorenzo’s full-blooded approach to life – mocking the ivory towers even as he moves to ‘Dullford’ as he calls Oxford, his very own alma mater. His restlessness and neurosis are very much first world problems from the perspective of male, white privilege, at that (the modest lower middle class roots long since abandoned), and as such, his self-ironic posturing would be facile if it wasn’t so frequently funny. And despite his disingenuity – Dyer wears his erudition very lightly – this is only a performance of philistinism within the context of … a book about DH Lawrence. Yet there is method to Dyer’s madness and there are moments of genius, or at least, great wit: ‘Spare me the drudgery of systematic examinations and give me the lightning flashes of those wild books in which there is no attempt to cover the ground thoroughly or reasonably.’ (p105) And yes, Out of Sheer Rage is full of mini-lightning flashes as we observe the synaptic pyrotechnics of Dyer’s overheated brain. It is amusing, almost transgressive, like listening in to the ‘mad’ person at the party who says all the things everyone is thinking. This is writing as Tourette’s Syndrome. Dyer plays the court jester with gusto and perhaps makes some valid points amid his buffoonery. He is entertaining, but exasperating. To spend too long in his company would be grating, but for a while his Lawrentian ‘playback theatre’ is a gloriously irreverent read. And as an approach to ‘life-writing’ it has some originality and literary merit: it has a pulse. But that is perhaps only a reviewer seeking an ending to his review and wanting something positive to end on.

Kevan Manwaring 2018

Walking with a Friend

via Walking with a Friend

Walking with a Friend

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Anthony on Mynydd Du by K. Manwaring 2018

 

Going for a stroll with a friend – an amicable amble, as it were – is one of life’s great pleasures. With a good friend the logistics of the day (if it is a long hike) do not become an effort: there is an organic, spontaneous feel to things. Even if a general itinerary has been agreed upon (a rough loop around a valley, a hope to reach a certain interesting landmark) in-the-moment diversions may be taken, arborescent pathways, roads-less-taken, echoing the digressional quality of the conversation, which has a free-ranging spirit. Anything may be discussed –the profane to the profound, the intimate to the trivial, heretical thoughts and transgressive reflections. Nothing is beyond the pale of conversation’s wilderness garden. Nothing is judged weedish and inappropriate. There is no harsh judgement, cultural approbation, twitter-storm, or trigger-happy ‘outraged’ waiting to descend upon you if you say something that is not in line with the popularity morality (or perceived performance thereof).  You can enjoy a hashtag free dialogue for once, nuanced by non-verbal communication – embodied and ensouled in the actuality of the moment, not in some virtual sphere of imagined connection. Beyond the reductive dualism of the binary there is a prismatic spectrum. Bumbling along in our ‘meat-suits’ (as those who spend too long on line call them), at home in our bodies in the true eco-system of things, we ‘arrive in time’ (as Laurie Lee put it). Immersed in the world of the  senses, colours, shapes, textures, smells, sounds explode around you. You struggle up a slippery, muddy path – little more than stream bed – to emerge breathless above the tree-line, onto hoar-frosted heathland, blinding in its brilliance beneath the sharp winter sun in the naked sky. Talking clouds in the frozen air, you pause for a cuppa at a stile. Enjoy the Ice Age view and the burn in the limbs. Share tunnocks and jelly-beans. Ideas and feelings. Stand and stare in an animal state of beingness, like a wild horse on a hillside. And this is enough. With a good friend there are comfortable lacuna in the colloquy, companionable silences. These interstices, when you may walk ‘apart together’ are just as important as the moments of intersection. Critically, they allow us to expand our awareness beyond the anthropocentric, the human bubble, to our surroundings. In silent communion with a landscape, in time, we experience ‘heath-mind’ or ‘wood-mind’, ‘stream-mind’ or ‘rock-mind’. In an encounter with another form of life – a bird on a gate-post, a cow in a field, a butterfly on the breeze, a seal in the surf – our consciousness may flip for a moment. In a flash of fith-fath we may find ourselves experiencing the world from a non-human paradigm. As we walk along, alone, by ourselves, together, we may feel something start to stir, the presentiment of an idea, preparing to be born, given sufficient time and space. We may not be able to articulate it yet, but we know it is there. We incubate it deep inside, beneath layers of woolly hats, waterproofs, thermals, thick socks. Our winter plumage. The Spring in us, waiting in the wings. Too much talk, too much company, can cast these fledgling thoughts out of the nest too soon.  Inspiration needs space to grow. A good friend knows this, notices when you need a moment by yourself. In the same way that they don’t just talk about them self but allow you to respond, and show genuine curiousity and emotional engagement about your own life, so they know when you don’t wish to respond, when you would prefer to be peaceful for a while. Walking with a friend there is a leaning-out as well as a leaning-in. This mutuality, and ease of decision that goes with it, are the destressors of the day alongside the physical and mental health benefits of being outdoors, having a bit of exercise and getting away from it all. The Japanese notion of ‘forest therapy’ (“shinrin yoku,” literally “forest bathing”) walks hand-in-hand with ‘friend therapy’. A friend allows you to be yourself. With a good friend you can drop down into the deep well of your own being – without trying to be anything or prove anything, you are more fully yourself. They invite us to shake hands with our soul. We are reminded of who we truly are, of slumbering potentials and forgotten promises to ourselves. The voices and wishes we thought we’d honour – which once rang out but have been drowned by the clamour of the world, until, in a forest clearing, or by a glittering brook, we hear them again. And they were always there, patiently waiting for us.

Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2018

With thanks to Anthony Nanson

Riding the Wild part 5

Touring the Wild Atlantic Way and the Mythic Sites of Ireland

 

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Pitstop at Spiddal, County Galway, C. Smith, 2015

 

Before I turned to dust I wended my way further west, past Galway into Connemara’s epic landscape. My destination was picturesque Clifden, home of the Marconi towers, where aviation pioneers Alcock and Brown first made landfall after successfully crossing the Atlantic for the first time by powered flight. Here, I cooled my engine, enjoying a jar in a local bar where a merry session was taking place. My partner pitched in a couple of songs, and we felt part of the narrative.

 

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At the grave of WB Yeats, Drumcliffe, Sligo. C. Smith 2015

 

            From Connemara we pushed on north – making pilgrimage to key Yeats’ sites in the year of his 150th anniversary. Sligo was making a big deal of it, the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann was just about to kick off and his face was everywhere (as Dylan Thomas’ was in Swansea last year for his centenary). Riding past the roadside banners it was moving to finally make it to his modest grave in Drumcliffe graveyard, where his father had delivered sermons from the pulpit. And then onto Glencar, the beautiful waterfall that inspired ‘The Stolen Child’ (and our own writing as we sat in earshot of its soft thunder). This ‘pink noise’ is most conducive to creativity – affecting the brainwaves from alpha to theta, making the synapses leap like Irish dancers.

 

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Glencar Falls, Sligo, K. Manwaring 2015

 

Most thrilling of all for me was the visit to Lough Gill, the site of the ‘lake isle of Innisfree’. Here Yeats played as a child, but it was in London, on Fleet Street, that he was inspired to write the poem of longing, after the sound of a fountain reminded him of the  ‘lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore’.

 

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(The) Hazel Wood (of The Song of Wandering Aengus), Lough Gill, K. Manwaring, 2015

 

Also in the cauldron of his imagination at the time was Thoreau’s Walden, which describes the American’s attempt to live a ‘life in the woods’ for a year, building his own cabin. And when ‘Innisfree’ is read in this context, it echoes across the Atlantic, from Sligo to Massachusetts, where Thoreau built his small cabin and lived alone (except for visits from his mother who lived close by) in a ‘bee loud glade’. That dream of independence, however realistic, resonates with many of us who find ourselves like Rilke, ‘alone in the world, and yet not alone enough/to make every moment holy.’ The shore-line presents the possibility of escape from a world that places its demands upon us; and it can appear in unexpected places. Yeats stumbled upon the littoral in the middle of a busy London street. It can occur in any place, at any time, and is ultimately a state of mind, a moveable feast. Such routes as the Wild Atlantic Way provide a tangible visual analogue for this quality – but the littoral can be experienced wherever you are. All we have to do is, in the words of supertramp poet, WH Davies, ‘stand and stare’ and notice what novelist Colum McCann phrased: ‘the miracle of the actual’.

 

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Reaching the end of the Wild Atlantic Way, Kinsale Head, Ireland’s most northerly point. C. Smith, 2015

 

 

Kevan Manwaring ©2015

 

  References:

‘Leisure’, WH Davies http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/leisure/ [accessed 11/09/15]

Carr-Gom, Philip, Talk at Druid Camp, Glos., August 2015

Clements, Paul, Rough Guide to Ireland, Rough Guide: London, 2015

McCann, Colum, TransAtlantic, Bloomsbury: London, 2014

National Library of Ireland, Dublin, The Life and Works of WB Yeats: http://www.nli.ie/en/intro/exhibitions.aspx

Rilke, Rainer Maria, The Selected Poems of, Picador: London, 1987

The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, Wordsworth Poetry Library: Ware, 1994/2000

The Tain, trans. Thomas Kinsella, Oxford Paperbacks, 2002

Thoreau, Henry David, Walden, or A Life in the Woods, 1845

Wild Atlantic Way http://www.wildatlanticway.com/

Yeats Society/WB Yeats Memorial Building, Hyde Bridge, Sligo, Ireland: http://www.yeatssociety.com/

 

 

See the show inspired by our trip!

‘The Hallows’ performed by Bríghíd’s Flame (Kevan Manwaring & Chantelle Smith).

When the world ends what stories will you tell around the fire?

The land is a wasteland – a kingdom of crows. B, a raggedy young survivor on the run, is tired, hungry and cold, and it is getting dark. Then she hears an eerie singing …

Irish mythology meets Post-Apocalyptic Myth-Punk!

Storytelling, Song, Poetry, & Music (Harp, Guitar, Shruti Box, Bodhran, Bones).

31 Jan: Glastonbury Assembly Rooms http://www.assemblyrooms.org.uk/event/brighids-flame/?instance_id=323

10 Feb: Enchanted Market http://theenchantedmarket.com/

1 Mar: Rondo Theatre, Bath http://rondotheatre.co.uk/whats-on/

http://brighidsflame.co.uk/