Friends: I happened to be driving about and turned the radio on halfway through Beethoven's ninth. This was followed by Debussey's 'La mer'.
I found myself swept back to 1956 -- I had purchased a "hi-fi" record player (at the time I thought a fairly jazzy set) that was reasonably portable. I took it to Marilyn Novak's in Newcastle and played those very pieces for Clark and company (the Toscanini set of all 9 symphonies had just recently been released -- also Wanda Landowska playing all 48 of the "Well-Tempered Clavichord" of Bach - complete sets were big in that era as well as LP reproductions of the great singers of the early recording days -Caruso, Galli-Curci, et al). Clark loved it, and at the line "uber'm sternenzelt muss ein lieber Vater wohnen..." where the parts open in a glorious cascade of sound, and where the girls get to hold a high "A" for 14 measures, he was absolutely transported, saying "that's what the cosmos sounds like!" -- during the Debussey it was, "I have been here before ..." - I am always amazed at what things will prompt a little recollection - as from out of nowwhere -
I have also recalled that he had seen the Olivier "Hamlet" (My heart a haunted Elsinore...") but I don't think he had seen "Henry V", or "Richard III" (the first nationwide color broadcast). He had also seen Orson Welles "Othello" - those he had seen in the early '40s when they came out. I vaguely recall that Marion Sully had taken him.
Right now as I right this my mind is flooding with images from those days and I must stop e'er I say too much.
Best to you all.
Dr. F

Was a performer like Bix Beiderbecke ever considered? Or was that in a class and dimension far from yours and Smith's?

I am trying to understand Smith's state of mind, from a musical perspective. If his upbringing of refined English manners also meant an attraction focused to classical music. Or if he was also fond of popular culture streams, bodily loose and jazzy.

Then perhaps there is a parallel in his taste in literature. And outlook perspective in general.

(From reading his stories I sense partly a rebellious attitude in opposition to refined manners, a desire to abandon to other more primitive, lush, or uncontrollable forces.)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 17 Dec 05 | 03:21AM by Ludde.

Perhaps there is something in the quotation "Sweet are the uses of obscurity" you have mentioned elsewhere that can be applied here, unless I have misunderstood it. A pleasure in the suggested and hinted, more than the bodily manifested that often turns out gross. Still, in some stories he is very graphic and presents fleshy details in fully exposing light.

I have heard of Bix Beiderbeck, but I could not tell you a thing about his music or whether he was contemporary with Clark or not - I can tell you Clark did not have a radio, and the only regular source of listening to music would have been the Juke Box in the Happy Hour bar - the pop music of the 50's was unutterably inane (I don't want no ricochet romance) or merely noisy and/or maudlin (Presley), and "country music" both then and now revolve around the same themes - somebody's cryin', dyin', or going someplace - boooooring. Clark's favorite waterhole was occupied by plain folk whom he really enjoyed, but it was also his laboratory for observing the human condition, and for getting the working man's take on world affairs -- anyone who has spent any time in a neighborhood saloon should be well aware that after a few drinks, the fellows are disposed to pontificate on any subject, issuing such wise edicts that the world would be at peace if there were only a hidden microphone so that Washington could listen in. In short, Clark did not care about contemporary anything really since it all was part of the forces that had destroyed the world he knew and loved -- all the centaurs and unicorns had been driven out.
The Quote you mention was Clark's play on Shakespeare's "sweet are the uses of adversity" spoken by the exiled Duke (I think) in "As you Like It". He meant it to be taken on many levels - especially his satiric poetry.

Beiderbecke's flame burned for only a few brief years, and he performed between 1923 - 1930. He drank too much, and died prematurely at the age of 28. His instrument was the coronet. Sensitive, vivid, and energetic. Some of the swinging tunes he and his band performed are called Clarinet Marmalade, Ostrich Walk, Riverboat Shuffle, and Goose Pimples. Their names give an indication of the content. Far removed from howling teardropping "country", or buttery maudling Elvis. It's lighthearted, life celebrating, footstomping. But doesn't stir deeper or composite pleasure in me like Chopin, Beethoven, or Bach.

CAS must have been a very strong individual to stand all on his own, against decaying society pressing in from all sides! Note his magnificient stature in this photo: [www.eldritchdark.com]
Interesting how he, as a hermit, mingled in the local bar. In spite of his refined manners, I bet he was at ease there and exhalting in the expressive and prententiousless human company, and maybe even to a degree joining in unrestricted laughter and flippancy, although surely at the same time with a certain observing distance and without being completely swept away (except maybe at times if he had a lot to drink). Do you agree?


Quote: "...where the girls get to hold a high "A" for 14 measures, he was absolutely transported, saying "that's what the cosmos sounds like!"

"The House of Sounds" by M.P. Shiel;

"I remember one little maid...who, until the age of nine, did not differ from her playmates; but one night, lying abed she whispered into her mother's ear: "Mama, can you hear the sound of the world?" It appears that her geography had just taught her that our globe reels with an enormous velocity on an orbit about the sun; and in this sound of the world of hers was merely a murmur in the ear, heard in the silence of the night. Within six months she was mad as a March-hare."

"Another case... A young man, toymaker from St.Antoine, suffering from consumption - but sober, industrious - returning one gloaming to his garret, happened to purchase one of those factious journals...This simple act was the beginning of his doom. He had never been a reader: knew little of the reel and turmoil of the world. But the next night he purchased another journal. Soon he acquired a knowledge of politics, the huge movements, the tumult of life. And this interest grew absorbing. Till late into the night, every night, he lay pouring over the the roar of action, the printed passion. ...He grew negligent, irregular at work... Rags overtook him. As the grand interest grew upon his frail soul, so every lesser interest failed him. There came a day when he no more cared for his own life; and another day when he tore the hairs from his head. ....... Too cruel to some is the rushing shriek of Being - they cannot stand the world. Let each look well into his own little shred of existence, I say, and leave the monstrous Automaton alone! ... Grand was that Greek myth of 'the Harpies' - by them was this creature snatched away - or say, caught by a limb in the wheels of the universe, and so perished. ... Only remember that the member first seized was the pinna - he bent ear to the howl of the world, and ended by himself howling. Between chaos and our shoes swings, I assure you, the thinnest film! I knew a man who had this aural peculiarity: that every sound brought him some knowledge of the matter causing the sound: a rod for instance, of mixed copper and tin striking upon a rod of mixed iron and lead, conveyed to him not merely the proportion of each metal..., but some knowledge of the the essential meaning and spirit... of copper, tin, of iron and of lead. Him also did the Harpies snatch aloft!"

This warns me to stay away from politics!! It's better not to give a dang about the large connections. Better to care for, tend and cultivate, the little things in life, in your immediate surrounding. The things that can be handled and affected. Appreciate them, the little things; the good food, the gentle smile, the flowering trees. The cosmos can give otherworldly thrills, but if ones tries to become overlord then surely madness takes over.





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 18 Dec 05 | 05:39AM by Ludde.