Hermenautic Circle blog

BISHOP PERRY TILLIS "I Found a Solid Rock in Jesus"

Woah, how did I ever miss this song by Bishop Perry Tillis on the compilation Traditional Music from Alabama's Wiregrass, a gift from esteemed scholar/ gentleman Kevin Nutt? Here I thought I'd never heard Tillis until I got sent the swell Perry Tillis disc that Birdman released last November. My brain's a sieve, apparently. Anyway, that disc is rad, the Alabama wiregrass one, and I guarantee you'll be the first on your block to own a copy. Plus it's only ten bucks, and the $$ goes right to the folklore society people themselves.

I wrote about Tillis a bit here a few months ago, if you care to know more. Nice to hear him in this 1995 service excerpt backed by drums and a congregation! This here song is about as raucous as I've heard him Tillis get, FYI. Part of his appeal is actually how subtle and "soft" his style is. Tillis actually played with Blind Willie Johnson. According to Bengt Olsson (awesome Swedish music fan who discovered / recorded Tillis some thirty-five years ago) Johnson himself hunted the dude down to play with him in the '40s! Wow. I wonder if BWJ was performing "Dark was the Night" live at the time (or really, ever)?

Most small children go through a phase where they ask "why?" about every last thing, but I really wasn't prepared for the hurricane force of two incessant, insistent little questioners.

The "why?" thing hit us suddenly, and hard, while we were travelling over the past three weeks.

Desmond has taken the lead. He'll generally start with solid, interesting questions -- say, "Why is that truck carrying pipes?" But, especially when he's tired, the questions will often become, um, a little less penetrating: "Why is that car green?" "Why does that car have wheels?" "Why is there a man in the car?" The queries come in long staccato bursts, one after the next -- mainly from Desmond, but with Nini chiming in frequently.

Sometimes, when Desmond gets excited, the questions come so fast he can hardly articulate them. When we were riding a cable car in San Francisco last week, he got so worked up that his inquiries about the brakeman and the grip and the bell and the tracks and the hills eventually degenerated into nothing more than the repeated word "why? why? why? why? why?!"

Of course, I'm delighted to have such inquisitive little children. But oh, can it get irritating. Even the most saintly, patient parent -- which I am decidedly not -- must tire of so many questions.

I've come to realize, though, that not all the questions are the same. Desmond doesn't actually expect a response every time he asks "why?" -- even he seems to know, at some level, that some of his queries are just idle chatter.

And at a certain point I figured out what was going on with the most irritating thing of all, his habit of asking the same question over and over again, well after I had given two or three increasingly detailed answers. In a slight fit of pique, I turned the question around and asked him: Des, why do you think the man is putting gas in his car?

He was delighted to be asked -- so much so, it was as if he was asking to be asked.

I've avoided, for the most part, the practice of quizzing my kids to test their knowledge -- I'm persuaded by John Holt's argument that such quizzing is often pointless or even harmful. But I'm realizing that my kids are also eager for ways to show what they know and to describe things in their own words.

So now when the "whys" come in big, long bursts, I'm learning to turn it from an interrogation into a conversation -- and finding that we all get more out of the exchange that way.

READING
How Children Fail by John Holt
This unschooling classic details the many ways that traditional educational techniques can unintentionally drain away children's self-confidence and joy in learning. Remember being bored and peeved by stupid worksheets and quizzes when you were in school? Read this book for great insights into how not to subject your own kids to the same mind-numbing stupidities.

ERNST PHIPPS & HIS HOLINESS SINGERS "A Little Talk with Jesus"

You know, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Super Rarities & Unissued Gems (subtitle: The Dead Sea Scrolls of Record Collecting!) really should have topped my little list of favorite albums from last year. I didn't dig into it until January of this year, however. I guess I'd heard that the presumed-lost Son House find of a few years back, "Clarksdale Moan,"* was on a compilation somewhere, but... you know, you get busy, you move around a few times and aren't on anyone's promo lists anymore. And that's mostly fine by you since publicist emails and phone calls are maybe not worth the "free" discs after twenty-plus years of such stuff. Plus hardly anyone sends finished product anymore, it's all CD-Rs in the mail or lo-bit advances streamed on choppy proprietary players -- it's not like the old days of fancy lunches based on the boxes of discs loaded into your shiny Amazon cubicle weekly, daily. Just saying I'm a little out of the loop, and do not always hear everything months before it comes out. I wrote about this collection a touch here, months after it came out.

If Phipps' name sounds familiar, well he's on The Anthology, in Social Music of course, ruling on a ragged send-up of "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Aone" which they called "Shine on Me." And here, "A Little Walk" has become "A Little Talk." Not sure if this was because of royalties or just the natural desire to put one's own stamp on something? Phipps and his crew were part of Ralph Peer's mindfuckingly important Bristol sessions. If you like this, check out their few other numbers, especially "I Want to Go Where Jesus Is."

* That song is awesome, by the way -- worth the wait, even!

PON DAO, JUEN "Sad Love/ Gungteng & Voice"

Everyone and their househeld pet is going gaga over Sublime Frequencies’ Omar Souleyman release, and with good reason. This past week, while prepping the full text of an interview with the Sun City Girls I did a few years ago for a Seattle weekly cover story, I spent a lot of time revisiting the SF records, and #27, which has the Nonesuch Explorer-ish title of Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia, has been kicking my ass: it's meditative and lovely.

On their own website, the SF folks have this to say: For the first time, here is a recording that documents the ceremonial animist music from the mysterious tribal villages of Northeast Cambodia. The Tampoans, Krungs, kavets, Braos, and Jaraîs of Ratanakiri Province and the Phnongs in Mondolkiri Province have been living amidst each other in this region for centuries preserving and expanding their unique cultural heritage, sometimes at peace and other times in conflict with one another or with foreign invaders. The music includes hypnotic gong ensembles, guitar ballads, bamboo flute, and unique local instrumentation such as the “Gungteng” and the “Mum”. The superb singing styles and vocals present throughout are absolutely mesmerizing. These tracks sound like nothing you’ve heard before, all magnificently documented transporting the listener into the heart of each performance. Recorded on location by Laurent Jeanneau over a 2-year period from 2003-2005 with his revealing liner notes and a detailed tracklist included within.

JOHN BERBERIAN AND THE MIDDLE-EASTERN ROCK ENSEMBLE "The Oud & the Fuzz"

How about an Armenian-American psychedelic jamlet to help you get through hump day? It's no Mogollar, but it's definitely worth hearing. F.E. has a bootleg reissue for pretty cheap, via the label with the best name ever, Acid Symposium (World's Leading Terr0r1st State). They have this to say about it:

An inspired fusion of Middle Eastern rhythms and the fuzz guitar blasts so dear to fans of psychedelia resulted in this the most accessible album by accomplished oud player John Berberian and his troop of skilled musicians. First released on Verve/Forecast in 1969 this exotic album features music based on traditional themes from Turkey, Armenia, Greece, Arabia and North Africa blended with the terrific improvised energy of psychedelia. So what you end up with here is bustling bazaars and scorched sands passed through the prism of the lysergic sensibilities of the late 60's.

Note on Commerce: Sometimes people ask me if they can buy things pictured here. Some items are already owned by others, but anything here (except the Large Glass, which is a collaborative design) can be reproduced or modified for sale, and I LOVE commissions for new designs. I'll try to go through and put sizes on everything soon, and meanwhile, just ask about sizes, prices and options. --Mimi



Los Angeles Freeway Map (approx. 8" x 10")

ALEX CHILTON "The Walking Dead"

I am a little, tiny bit disappointed upon hearing this for the first time in about sixteen years. It's just not how I remember it, somehow. Either the song sounded rawer, crazier and a tad more "jointed" to my younger ears (which of course had yet to listen to the Rev. Overstreet for days on end) or it's the magnification process in the space in-between owning the song on vinyl then finally finding it on disc? Most likely it's a bit of both -- or perhaps the version I used to have was different?

Anyway, these are MY ISSUES, and I hope you enjoy this song. It's surely one of the five best paeans to zombies ever written (the other four being, I don't know, most likely Misfits songs). Dude clearly sounds out of his skull here, and once I relax and just accept the thing for what it is rather than what I thought it maybe was going to be, it's not half bad at all, especially delivery of the line "it gets stuffy in the lab." Hope you like, and many thanks to Douglas and Jason for saying 'welcome back' to me in the comments section! PDX represent, and stuff.

We're in the San Francisco Bay Area now, after having first spent a week in Austin, TX. I brought my computer along thinking that I'd write at night in the hotel room after the kids went to sleep ... but somehow, each night, I've collapsed into bed instead. Though we've traveled a great deal with Desmond and Nini ever since they were wee wigglers, I tend to forget how much more energy an adventurous day of travel requires than an ordinary day at home.

And we've had many adventures, mainly outdoor ones. The wildflowers were beginning to bloom in Texas, including the bluebonnets, and we spent a lot of time enjoying their beauty and fragrance and talking about how they get their names. The flowers are blooming here in California, too. Desmond has been the most excited about them, asking lots of questions about the difference between wildflowers and cultivated flowers and making wonderful observations, like when he remarked that the inside of a California poppy looked just like a sea anemone.

We've seen lots of animals, too: Red-eared slider turtles and even one big snapping turtle in Texas; Austin's raucous flocks of grackles, which the kids chased while quoting from A.A. Milne: "Shoo, silly old dragons!"; pink starfish and porcelain crabs in the tidepools near California's Half Moon Bay; the famous sea lions of San Francisco's Pier 39.

We've basked in warm sunshine, marveled at a dramatic Texas thunderstorm, talked a lot about San Francisco's fog. We've ridden a miniature train, an airport monorail, a cable car, and an electric bus, which for some reason was an extra big hit with Desmond, who called it a "tremble bus" and was fascinated by the overhead wires that powered it.

I can't imagine anything my kids could be learning in a school setting at this age that would compare with these experiences. We're exceedingly fortunate in the amount we're able to travel, but one doesn't have to travel far to stimulate a three-year-old and expose him to something new and engaging. A trip to the farmer's market, the hardware store, a freight yard, a botanical garden, an art gallery, or even something as quotidian as a drainage ditch can be as thrilling to a small child as a trip far from home.

And in the middle of all these adventures, when you're not even paying attention to whether you're teaching the shapes or the numbers or the alphabet, your kids will unexpectedly reveal that they've been learning more than you realized. Though we're usually huge readers, we've been too busy out in the world during this trip to spend much time with books -- yet the other day, Desmond picked one up and, when he thought no one was watching, read out to himself, for the very first time: "C - A - T. That spells cat!"

Large Glass (22" x 38")
Designed in collaboration with Antonio Beecroft

verpabunny posted a reply:

That was great!

arts enthusiast posted a reply:

Thanks, Paula. I absolutely loved it!!!

leifpeng posted a reply:

Congrats, Paula! :-)

Paula Wirth posted a new topic:

Whoo hoo - we are the first result on google, out of 11,600 returns, for "Her Secret Past" - no wonder we get plenty of hits ;-)

www.google.com/search?q=%22her+secret+past%22&ie=utf-...

This photo of my daughter, taken almost exactly a year ago, rotates regularly through my computer's screensaver. It's a cute enough picture, but mainly it's a reminder to me that my kids learn best when I don't push it too hard.

The night before the photo was taken, I had stayed up late and made a special alphabet set-up on the kids' play table. Streamers divided the play space into four long rectangles, each devoted to a letter. I filled the spaces with everyday items that started with the letter in question: a block, a ball, and a bus for the letter B; carrots and cars for the letter C; and so on.

Nini went straight for the letter-A apple and bit right into it; I don't believe she even noticed the letters, and I'm certain she attached no particular significance to them. Desmond, when he bestirred himself from bed, merrily rolled the little cars along the streamer dividers, squawking with joy at the cool racetrack Mommy had made.

My kids were not quite two years old, and not nearly ready to grasp the concept I was trying so hard to illustrate.

Certainly it wasn't a bad thing that I set up this little table -- the kids had fun with it, in their own way. But it wasn't necessary. I was trying too hard.

It's only now, a year later, that they're starting to ask me what letter various words begin with.

In between, I learned a lot of things: that quizzing them about their knowledge of the alphabet only made them tense up; that when they were ready and felt unpressured, they eagerly started pointing out letters on their own, and asking about the ones they didn't know; and that the best way to introduce them to new and challenging things is to pay careful attention to their interests, desire, and pace.

To the extent that I've been conceiving of this time with my kids as "school" at all, I've considered it Preschool-in-the-World as much or more than Preschool-at-Home. But during the cold weather of recent weeks, we've been cooped up in the apartment for days at a time, and I've gained a renewed sense of how much a great play surface means to a small child.

We've had a train table for more than a year, since my twins were about 2 1/2, and it's been their favorite play spot. They're getting a little tall for it, though, and we're fortunate to have a big open space in our living room, so I recently ordered an actual preschool table from a school supply company to supplement what we have.

It's fabulous. It has folding legs, so I can store it away when I want. The height adjusts, so the table will grow as the kids do. And it's super sturdy, so they can climb all over it, bang on it, smear it, and slime it.

From the minute I opened the box, the kids gravitated to it -- for everything from painting to building block towers to putting together jigsaw puzzles, they'd much rather stand at a table than sit on the floor. In less than two weeks in our apartment, it's been a fort, a bed for stuffed animals, a reading spot, and an art space.

It wasn't cheap -- with shipping, it was more than $150 -- but where I live, that sum wouldn't even cover half a week of preschool tuition for my twins, so I consider it a very worthwhile investment.

Now I'm just waiting for the weather to warm up so we can drag it out to the back yard and use it as a water table ....

Yesterday, late in the day, we went tromping out in the woods next to my parent's house. We were studying some fungus on a fallen log when our exuberant noises startled a very large bird. "Must be a hawk," my dad said.

Something about the bird's flight didn't seem very hawklike to me, so I started looking up at the bare-limbed trees to see if I could spot where it had landed. To my amazement, I saw an enormous Great Horned Owl, gazing placidly down at us from its high perch with what seemed like a mix of irritation and bemusement.

I couldn't believe our good fortune. I've only ever spotted owls in the forest twice before in my lifetime. But as I excitedly held up each of my twins and helped them locate the majestic creature in the treetops, they seemed interested and pleased, but not really all that impressed.

Indeed, the more I tried to explain to them how extraordinary it was to see an owl in the wild, the more my kids seemed to tune me out, in a two-going-on-twelve kind of way.

I was a little disappointed by their reaction, but I realized later why they would take an owl sighting seemingly for granted.

They are, after all, at an age where their mental universe is to a significant degree a world of storybooks. They reference real people and their own lived experience in their play, of course, but not to nearly the same extent as the characters and events they've learned about from books.

The world they know teems with wild animals. Owls? You can readily encounter one squeezing into a snow-white mitten with a host of other creatures, or playing games with a firefly, or offering sage advice from his perch in the Hundred Acre Wood. When I exclaimed to them about the impressive size of the owl we saw yesterday, they countered by saying it was in fact Bill, the smallest and most babylike of Martin Waddell's Owl Babies.

Here I was trying to point out a bit of magic in the everyday to them, and they -- without quite realizing they were doing it -- ended up reminding me how wondrous the world of their imagination is.

Fair enough. Let them be blase, protected as they are for now from the sobering realities of a world whose wildlife has been decimated: It was still very cool to see that owl.