"Here There Be Dragons"

(This is an old post from my old web site.)

Who, in hearing the wailing notes of the cantador punctuated by the staccato of heels and the buzz of castanettes, has not felt the stirring in their blood of la vida tenida, or life possessed? Life held, life clung to, life tenuous and yet wholly lived? The Flamenco is where the Classical met the Wanderers, where the rigors of the mind crashed into the crying soul, and was born a dance of death. If a person does not understand Spanish, this dance looks like a dance of sexual passion; yet, to listen with understanding, is to suddenly be let into a world where love is torment and the darkness of the soul is set on fire. You can see by the attitudes of the bodies that it is "la danza orgullosa" or a dance of honor, arrogance, defiance and pride. Even those of the Americas who have never heard the cantador, immediately recognize the call of the soul; it is in the blood, that cry of death, to death, in spite of death, of the life grasped and held.

The Northwest, being not a body culture, but a verbose culture oriented around the mind, has its own form of "la danza orgullosa" which lies, not in the music, but in the lyrics. There are as many different forms musical lyrics as there are forms of mind, of course: the call of the heart, weeping, overflowing with joy, puzzled or hurt or inspired; the call of the body full of the sexual dance or drummed up on drugs or merely that tune to which you can't stop tapping your toes. However, the genius of the West is not in those favored expressions of music, but in the seepage of words and thoughts that get into the mind through this vehicle, often distorted, yet more often remembered for a very long time. What is it about the lyric that is easy to remember that the glut of prose lacks? It is my belief (but it may be a mental prejudice) that we invented poetry as a mnemonic and so, the lyric, is a very powerful tool.

Kings among the poets are many, but the poet who has the ability to instill the mind with a controversy of ideas is the king among kings. Often in a band like the Beatles, one of the lyricists will be a heart type or a body type, opting for lyrics that are easily remembered, sweet or sad, and universal. Such is Paul McCartney. Yet, even as a child, I took one look at Mr. Lennon here, and new that there was a mind. It was easy for me, even as a young teen to listen to the Beatles and say to myself, "ah, that was John." In my portrait of John Lennon here in Sgt. Pepper mode, I gave him that mind quality, that way of looking that said, "now, now, take me for a fool, will you? I grew up in the streets of Liverpool, where fools die common deaths." And John, as he is here, represents a kind of Brit with a heavy Celtic background who spawned language as they strode on stones, twisting and turning the word into a knife, a sneer, a political bomb, or maybe just a way of saying, "yeah, sure". This form of Brit, from Cockney to Dublin-down-and-out, is the mental backbone of the old Empire, the dragon's breath of those islands, and the reason that the British, were, well, the British. It was not so much the "stiff upper lip" that made the Brit so distinguished, but the disdain, the skepticism, the cynical look of "yeah, right." And the word infused the dragon fire with pungence, so that British humor, today (when it is not Bennie Hill) is so twisted and dense that most Americans look at it as if it might explode, not knowing whether to laugh or run away.

The power of John's work, like that of American Hip Hop, is that of the oppressed man. I find it a shame that brains are so beat up in American schools, where, in Britain, the brain survived the British school system. Yet, even on the playground, the wit can escape the ravages of peer pressure. In this day and age, I push teaching children the scathing comeback and the critical mind as tools of effective defense against all those who would come chasing dragons. St. George is alive and well, so better get that fire stoked! And I have this picture of Mr. Lennon on my wall, to remind me that fifteen hundred years was not enough to defeat the fiery edge of the word.