Keepers of The Past - Winter Newsletter - 2022

Growing up, there was a kid's show on public TV called Zoom, not be confused with today's popular virtual meeting platform. One episode had a segment I remember to this day. Two children are challenged to look up the definition of a word. One must use a computer and the internet, while the other must use a little book called the dictionary. The race is on. The child using the computer is still dialing up the modem after booting up the machine by the time the child with the dictionary has found the definition. The message? That the old fashioned way is still more efficient. The “Old Fashioned Way” has only just been conceived of as being out-of-date. This is the dawn of the world-wide-web’s presence in homes.

"We're all plugged into one world now" - Zoom theme song
 

The segment makes clear a divergence. In the coming millennium, there will be two ways. The digital, and the analog. As a child, I understood this segment of Zoom as a rallying cry. Which side are you on? The year 2000 had scarcely hit, and I chose analog.

In late 2021, I’m watching a youtube video of a lecture by a catholic priest explaining the structure of ancient Celtic society in what is now called Ireland. I am curious about the metaphysical beliefs held by my ancient ancestors. Father Seán Ó’Laorie PhD explains the functions performed by three factions of the Celtic world in pre-Christian times. First, there are the Druids. These are the theologians, priests, healers, the keepers of The Now. Then there are the Ovates. These are the seers, the visionaries and prophets. Keepers of The Future. They were prophets whose job was not to foretell the future, but, Father Seán Ó’Laorie says in his soothing Irish lilt, to forestall it. To stop us from making stupid mistakes.

fabulous cape by MaidensPlayground, available on Etsy, should you want to become a druid or prophetess.

“The Prophet,” says he, “is a group that’s frightly needed on our planet right now.” Okay, he seems like a nice guy. His head is in the right place, and he’s received his doctorate in mystical Celtic stuff. I’m doing what I always do these late pandemic days. Lay in bed, soothing myself to sleep by watching sometimes educational youtube videos. I do this in a pretty removed state. But when the Father begins to speak of the third category of Celtic Society, of the Bards, I listen.

“The Bard,” he says, “was the person who made time travelers and mystics of the listeners.”

Excuse me?

“The bards are the keepers of The Past. That was their portfolio. They were historians, and they were genealogists, all in the oral tradition. There were no written records.”

Father Seán Ó’Laorie is an aging thin man with stubble and silvery hair down to his shoulders. It’s been a long time since I willingly listened to a catholic priest, but for him I’ll make this exception.

William Blake's painting he made of his cute little bard poem.

The bards, he continues, “...were also poets, minstrels, storytellers and performing artists. As far as the music was concerned, they had to be able to produce three kinds…”

I let these words seep in. It has been a hard couple of years for us. During a highly contagious pandemic wherein asymptomatic people spread the novel, and ever-mutating coronavirus during periods of breathing the same vapor - in and out, kissing and talking in close proximity - the concert halls, the country dances, the listening rooms, the warm taverns - these have all closed either forever or in awkward chunks of time. To add insult to injury, the category of individuals who could be considered today’s Bards are not recognized in our current society much, pandemic or not. We, The Bards, must scrape by, no matter what, at least in American Society. And in these long years of pestilence we have been backed into periods of forced silence. It doesn’t mean our music has died.

A friend of mine tells me that yes, she may be touring with an illustrious artist one month, but the next, she’s getting cake thrown at her playing a childhood birthday party in a backyard. She’s well into her career but her aging parents still hold out hope that she will no longer be a musician. She tells me, Melanie, someone’s got to do it. Someone’s got to sing the songs. And I feel part of a necessary but scorned populous.

Newspaper clipping from 2015 Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest, when I was "of Los Angeles"

But wait- how can I be so sure that I belong to The Bardic Class? Do I even qualify? To find out, I return to the video. The three categories of music a bard must be able make, in the words of Father Seán:

1. Music that can sooth the savage breast. Also lullabies that can let a child go to sleep.

2. Nostalgic music. That which would be able to make you weep for the past, or for people who are gone. To create tears for the past.

3. Music that made you feel happy, and makes you laugh.

On this most random of nights, here in my bed in Brooklyn, New York, watching youtube, tears form in my eyes. It’s not so much that I am seeing how my own songwriting fits into these categories. It is that I can call to mind countless other musicians from my time on this earth who also meet these bardic qualifications.

And I know them. Over my near fifteen years playing old songs I have shared intimate musical spaces with so many of them. And I know how they suffer. Penniless, laughed at, addicted to substances, or famous by stroke of luck and talent, and traveling, lodged into the public eye, a public for whom an artist’s downfall is a source of entertainment -

“The Bard,” repeats Father Seán, “was the keeper of The Past.”

The Past, The Past, why do you seduce me so?

I am not the only one either. My generation, the millennials, were the butt of jokes from the first instance of our making personal lifestyle decisions.

From The Hard Times Article, Folk Punk Band Announces Break-Up...

The complaint from older generations was that the millennials were hopelessly nostalgic. We didn't have our own culture. We recycled that of the past and fetishised it. We did a great job at fueling a resurgence of old time music, folk music, and old American traditional music. The richness of this creative culture can be seen analog at old time fiddle festivals, and virtually on youtube channels such as Gems on VHS and Western AF.

In these bards I see us. A bunch of kids who grew up having to navigate that divide between the old and the new. We were well-suited for the ancient role of bard, those who carry the past into present, who move mountains with melody, who make time travelers of listeners. We were well-suited, having lost childhoods of hard-back books to adulthoods of digital information passing rapidly by in the endless scroll. Do not scorn us, for we can take you back and forth across the river, and set you down easy in your longing and laughter with the gentle pressure of a song.

an selfie, January 3rd, 2022

News From Life in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn:

San Benedito Beach is my second full-length album. It was released on October 23rd at an amazing sidewalk community concert meltdown called People's Beach Day. You can purchase and hear the album on Bandcamp.

I am offering Music Lessons, virtually and in-person. One of my students says this is the first time she's had fun playing music. That means a lot to me, and I'd love to work with you on banjo, guitar, fiddle and / or singing. 

I had one of the most wonderful concert experiences of my life on the Maine Island of North Haven. I was accompanied by fiddler and friend from the Pike Place Market busking days, Annie Ford. Check out the Crabtree Sessions Songwriter Series for an amazing living-history documentation of some of the greatest songwriters working today. I feel so honored to have been part of the roster. 
 

Recommendations:

vernon subutex
My tolerance for reading got zapped deep pandemic. It was reawakened by this insane delicious book series about an intertwined cadre of post-compact disc parisian rock and porn stars, degenerates, journalists, etc. The series by Virginie Despentes solidifies hunches I've had about French culture while living there. The books gives a lens on the rise of the alt-right in the country that is also cool-y antifascist radial. She writes, "They [banks/religions/multinationals] have managed to get a citizen with no heritage to give up all their rights in exchange for access to nostalgia for empire." among many other badass sentences.

winter yoga nidra
I love this pracitioner Ally Boothroyd's yoga nidra videos. If you haven't tried it, it's basically conscious sleep and relaxation. I know this time is really stressful, and a half-hour long guided spiritual nap is a gift for the nervous system. I love this particular winter solstice yoga nidra as it reminds me that right now is a time for deep rest. Outside, everybody is resting. Buds, animals, you name it. So should we.

joan didion
Joan Didion passed away. She was a hero to me. A guide. As a writer who writes about culture, about people in groups, her work has been the template for me for many years. I feel grateful to have lived in an overlap of her era. She is very special. I recommend starting with her essay collection The White Album. Rest in Peace Angel. bell hooks also passed. I haven't read enough of her work, so I am recommending her to myself.

maid
This is a TV series on Netflix about poverty and the domestic abuse cycle set in the Pacific Northwest. It is also a magical realism story of a young woman's realistic hope of embracing her dream as a writer. It hit close to home. Close to home. It's takes place in pretend Port Townsend and pretend Whidbey Island. They may be actually using the BC ferries, but I know all those characters from my actual life. The barefoot bandit episode is especially harrowing. But like in a good, beautiful redemptive way? I binged it.

how black women reclaimed country and americana music in 2021
Black Women are the queens of country music. No surprise. But Country Music the entity, the business model, the culture, is just starting to catch up. Check out these marvelous artists.

the mary wallopers
I love love love this band. Just watch n' listen.

ireland beyond colonialism podcast

I've only listened to the first episode of this, but it was pretty an engaging conversation. In episode one, a settler descended permaculture kid from Washington State attempts to return to the land of his indigenous ancestors in Scotland, so as to not cause more colonialism in Skagit Valley. His experiences are... complicated... It's an interesting glimpse into the life of someone who is attempting to belong in a world where people like me, like him, like most Americans, have to learn to live less brutally, and soon.

what's duskin doing?
My partner duskin has a great newsletter. He is an ecological philosopher, a writer, an artist, an activist, a great cook, lots of other things, and his thoughts and ideas are beautifully organized into these missives. They are a treat to receive.



Take care to all of you
may you be healthy and well-rested
sending love and light in these darkest days

-Melanie


PS
This newsletter comes seasonally, four times a year. Feel free to sign up and share it with anyone you think will enjoy it!

Glenswilly - a new old song

Glenswilly by Melanie Curran

fare thee well my honey where ever you may travel

may you never want for money far across the sea

remember to tread gentle don't take more than is owed you

nothin’ comes for nothin in the land of the free

chorus!

when you see the house of the rising sun

or lie your head in the fields of green

remember me as the one who loved you best

back in old glenswilly

take good care of this fine hewn leather satchel

remember say a prayer for your arrival at the shore

lend your hand to the ones who come behind you

never turn your back on the ones who’ve come before

chorus

when you breathe that air well you’re not the first to breathe it

when you take that train well you’re not the first to ride

take your time with the pangs of bereavement

glenswilly’s not a place so easily let behind

chorus

when you’re old and grey and your poor bones grow brittle

and they lay you in the clay and mark you with a stone

I’ll be there to meet you in the middle

and guide you on your way as you take the long way home

chorus

— I wrote this song for my great grandpa Frank Curran, coming from the perspective of his caregiver back in Glenswilly, County Donegal, Ireland. Maybe these words are the words of parting that were never shared but always felt. He left for America when he was about 13.