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#Post#: 199--------------------------------------------------
12 DAY OF BRUMALIA (Project of the Week for 25th of December thr
ough the 6th of January)
By: moleshow Date: December 25, 2016, 3:46 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
WE ARE GOING AT THIS ONE DAY AT A TIME!
of course, you can talk about multiple days in one post. no
biggie. i get how it is.
kind of a weird project, i'd say! at the time of writing this, i
haven't started my listening but i presume by the end of today i
will have. so.. there's that.
happy holidays/chrimbus/brumailia/candlenights to all of you!
#Post#: 200--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: moleshow Date: December 25, 2016, 6:20 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
ok, uh.. wow. wow.
Day 1 has this... musical dissonance and rhythmic shift to it
that reminds me a lot of Baja... i think im also hearing some
tuned percussion? definitely weird.
#Post#: 203--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: moleshow Date: December 26, 2016, 6:39 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Day 2 has a cohesive, almost danceable sound to it. consistently
sticking to one rhythm? classic. iconic. wow. i love it.
the guitar work is that stuff i DO like.
#Post#: 204--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: moleshow Date: December 27, 2016, 6:52 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Day 3 is my favorite so far. kinda sad, kinda weird. reminded me
a lot of Tongue off of DDA. not sure what else it reminded me
of, but god, i would abso-lutely listen to an album of nothing
but stuff like that.
i should probably state that the project of the week extends
until the monday after the 6th, the 9th. those few days can be
for generalized, scattered discussion.
#Post#: 205--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: December 27, 2016, 11:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[hr]
There was an accident with a bottle. It was eighteen years old
and filled with port. The Importers, Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman,
provided the contents. I provided the liver. Late-bottled
vintage port, eighteen years in the making. This leads to
questionable behaviour. The innovation of creating a Port that
requires no filtering ensures that the questionable behaviour is
entirely facilitiated.
Then, of course, the best way to consume Port is to provide
cheese to go with it. Frequently Stilton. But this was going to
be the first time listening to Brumalia. So, I collected
together twelve different cheeses and a bottle of Taylors.
The plan was to sample the Port along with a lump of cheese on a
cracker. A Jacobs Cream Cracker.
The Rosie Hackett Bridge (Irish: Droichead Róise Haicéad) is a
road bridge across the Liffey (Irish: An Life) in Dublin in
Ireland. Alternative names such as the Bram Stoker Bridge and
Willie Bermingham Bridge were rejected in favour of the Trade
Union organizer Rosie Hackett who worked for some years as a
messenger for Jacob's. On 22 August 1911 Rosie helped organize
the withdrawal of Women's labour in Jacob's factory to support
their striking male colleagues. A fortnight later, at the age of
eighteen, Rosie co-founded the Irish Women Worker's Union (IWWU)
with Delia Larkin. During the 1913 Lockout Rosie helped mobilize
the Jacob's workers to come out in solidarity with other
workers, they in turn were locked out by their own employers. In
1914 her Jacob's employers sacked her over her role in the
Lockout. Jacobs Crackers are subversive foodstuffs.
The Plan did not go to plan. Drunkenness ensues when one is
gargling port and changing cheeses every three to six minutes.
It was not a good plan. It was a plan. Cracker and cheese, some
Port. Repeat. The first fault with the Plan was Epiphany. The
Epiphany required and additional, and absent, cheese. In
consequence, the Brumalian Binge - the Saturnalian Blow Out -
was not the disciplined toping of, for example, Guy Debord or
Alfred Jarry. The attraction of Port is that it encourages more
port. Thus the discipline of listening to Brumalia over a number
of days was lost.
It was a disaster. But one with a terribly excellent sound
track. The one thing that The Residents always provide is a
soundtrack to reality. Brumalia is no different. Worse disasters
happen - at Sea and on the Railroads. The Sea Shanties of
Snakefinger - as can be found on the 1987 Night of Desirable
Objects, in the form of Sophies Playful Pipes and Sawney's Death
Dance. Brumalia is an excellent accompaniment to minor,
domesticated disasters.
[hr]
[center]First Day
HTML https://youtu.be/EXk2VlcvlCA[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://cdn3.volusion.com/yhljt.fgycs/v/vspfiles/photos/GPG11807-2.jpg?1443515096[/img][/center]
[center]Brie[/center]
[hr]
Penicillium candidum, Penicillium camemberti and Brevibacterium,
make rich, creamy sour milk unsuitable for people with strongly
reactive allergies to Penicillins. There is a recommendation to
never eat Brie if it has mold on it. It really is nice melted.
With Port, you get a really nice, long lasting aftertaste. The
enjoyment is the first step in the disaster.
With the First Day of Brumalia announcing a dissonant parallel
to the twelve days of Christmas. In England, the Lord of
Misrule, in Scotland, the Abbot of Unreason, in France as the
Prince des Sots - was an officer appointed by lot at Christmas
to preside over the Feast of Fools. In charge of Christmas
revelries, including drunkenness and wild partying, in the pagan
tradition of Saturnalia. The Traditional disasters of the Prince
des Sots.
The Feast of Fools is a great disaster.
[hr]
[center]Second Day
HTML https://youtu.be/lljD8wWSTB8[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://gastronicks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Cornish-Yarg.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Yarg[/center]
[hr]
Yarg is a Cornish Cheese that gets wrapped in Nettle Leaves or
sometimes wild garlic leaves. Named after Allan and Jenny Gray,
the couple who gave the recipe to Pengreep Farm in the 1970s,
the original recipe is thought to date back to the 13th century.
The nettles are not unpleasant. The hard cheese is not mass
manufactured and so there is a legal obligation to wear a large,
hipster style beard when eating it.
Which may be a delusion that occurs after a few units of port.
The Blackpool Wurlitzer Organ steamed up into power with a
magnificent high wire acrobat's waltz. It may not have been a
waltz. It may not have been a Wurlitzer. It may have, in fact,
been sound effects culled from a 1950's B-Movie. Something about
Flying Saucers and Earth invasions. It was almost a conspiracy
of coherence.
The Yarg was bloody marvellous. Like having your mouth stung
clean and disinfected with alcohol from the last millenium.
Unfortunately, that merely compounded the disaster. The oncoming
disaster.
[hr]
[center]Third Day
HTML https://youtu.be/8tbck5UPJXI[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://canyoufreeze.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Cheddar-cheese.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Cheddar[/center]
[hr]
Cheddar. Good old fashioned rat trap cheese. Hard and strong
when mature. Sharp and rich with Port. But always a little more
than difficult when disaster begins to strike.
The first intimations of disaster came with the words, "So there
was this chick...". Straining to hear it. Tempted to relisten to
the same piece over and over until the words made sense. "So
there was this chick...". That is the only real thing I
remember. Because, almost immediately, I was trying to work out
why I had never listened to the original in 2003.
Perhaps it was the Lord of the Rings that distracted me. Samwise
Gamgee marriaging that Rosie Cotton was bound to be more
important than Brumalia. Maybe it was The Space Shuttle Columbia
disintegrating over Texas. I have no idea.
The only thing I remember is being surrounded from November 27th
2003 to January 31st by big computers. Staring at images like
this:
[center][img width=300
height=300]
HTML http://www.safesoftware.com/Rules.gif[/img][/center]
Realistically that is where the disaster begins. In the Cheddar
and a third glass of Port. Sensible folks, like those from
Shreveport or San Francisco, would not have necked glasses so
quickly. Certainly not at the rate of one per track. Not Three
glasses of Port.
[hr]
[center]Fourth Day
HTML https://youtu.be/BHj3C_gYYFs[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Camembert.JPG/250px-Camembert.JPG[/img][/center]
[center]Camembert[/center]
[hr]
Before the "There was this chick..." had finished resonating
through my cognitive cabbage, The Fourth Day of Brumalia had
begun and I was stacking some creamy chalky crusted camemberet
onto a wheaty cracker when the Crime Scene Music kicked in.
In a drunken state, slightly jazzy, slightly 1950's sounding
music always turns into some kind of crime scene reconstruction.
Get Carter or something from the Mitchell and Kenyon stable.
Whose slogan, "Local Films for Local People" predates Royston
Vasey by almost a century. Trading under the name of Norden,
they became the largest producers of films in the Empire.
Mitchell and Kenyon's most innovative film was The Arrest of
Goudie in 1901. The world's first filmed crime reconstruction.
The film used the actual crime locations and depicts the arrest
of Thomas Goudie. Goudie was a Bank of Liverpool employee who
embezzled £170,000 while involved in a gambling ring. The Arrest
of Goudie was shown at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Liverpool,
three days after Goudie's arrest.
In 1994 a hoard of films made by Mitchel and Kenyon were
discovered while the Mercers toy shop was being demolished.
Mercers toy shop in Northgate, Blackburn, was and is famous.
Like most things in Lancashire it is in decline. Mercers had
been in business for 169 years before the inevitable. Two
workmen were clearing out the basement during demolition of the
Toy Shop and found three metal drums like milk churns. Being
Builders, they were inclined to opportunism and looked inside to
see hundreds of small spools of film. But the churns were
salvageable scrap.
On their way to the Lethbridges Scrap Metal Processors - an
Oklahoma of the Fylde - was Magic Moments Video which did cine
to video transfers, so the workmen dragged in a churn in and
asked the proprietor if the films were of any value. Turns out
they were the 'archived' contents of the Mitchel and Kenyon film
making business. After being stored in a chest freezer to
prevent explosion they were taken to the British Film Institute.
After adventures and diversions, the collection is stored in
Berkhampstead, Berkshire.
Camembert is nice. When it gets the balance between the crust
and the centre right there is the merest hint of ammonia left on
the tongue that washes away with the Port. The only problem with
washing away with Port is the small problem of the Liver. An
organ of much fortitude and utility. Unfortunately, also an
organ intoxicated by cheeses as much as fine wines.
Which is when I came to notice the bottle was over half empty.
The disaster began to unfold: there would be insufficient to
hear all of Brumalia in a single evening. The curse of
Duodecimal Works began to occur to me. Perhaps the intention -
the original intention - of the Residents, had been for Brumalia
to be listened to over twelve separate days; not in some cheese
and port splurge of idiocy. I had, by dint of enjoying the Port
and the Cheese, failed to control the amount of port imbibed.
The Gangster Jazz reminded me that The Twelve Days of Christmas
was most accurately portrayed by Fay McKay and the becoming
progressively more drunken was the best approach. By the end of
a bottle it would be possible to plausibly misremember things
that happened mere minutes ago.
[hr]
[center]Fifth Day
HTML https://youtu.be/-xFe1lLTGl0[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://www.cheesemaking.com/images/recipes/66Trappist/Pics/pic06.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Port Salut[/center]
[hr]
The Jazz gave way to duck's quacking. Possibly fearing they
might be stabbed by Glen Miller or savaged by Buster. The
disaster had not abated. In comparison to previous disasters,
this was about Number four on the Bristol Scale
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale.
A normal
disaster. Nothing inflammed or backed up waiting for a deluge.
But, a disaster involving Alcohol is a disaster. There were
drums and the increasingly fuzzy consciousnesss. The disaster,
approaching and impending, was the end of a fine bottle of Port.
The stinky Port Salut could, by etymological magic, mean Port
Salvation or Port Greeting. But what it really means is Trappist
Monks. The Abbey of Notre Dame du Port du Salut in Entrammes is
the origin of the stinking cheese. The cheese was produced by
Trappist monks along with Beer. The name of their society,
"Société Anonyme des Fermiers Réunis" (S.A.F.R.) is found on the
truckle of the genuine article. Like most good things, it came
to an end and the Trappists sold out. Not to a Major Record
Label but to a Creamery.
Trappists are cloistered contemplative monastics who follow the
Rule of St. Benedict. Most notably they do not take a vow of
silence but simply do not speak. If anything, it is a vow of
reticence: speaking only when necessary; thus idle talk is
strongly discouraged. Apart from the Cheese, they make Beer. The
48th chapter of the Rule of Saint Benedict states, "for then are
they monks in truth, if they live by the work of their hands".
Which is a rule the Trappists take seriously. Trappist beers
contain residual sugars and living yeast, and, unlike
pasteurised beers, they improve with age. But getting a beer out
of the Trappists is a trial. In 1838 at the Trappist Abbey of
Saint Sixtus in Vleteren, Belgium, not far from the
hop-producing town of Poperinge, Trappists produce the finest
beer in the world: Westvleteren.
Westvleteren was originally limited to ten 24-bottle crates of
the beer per person. As the beer increased in popularity, this
was reduced to five, then to three and now to two or one crate.
For the Westvleteren 12 in 2009, it was limited to one case.
Sales are limited to one order every 60 days per person per
license plate and phone number. Also, the beer must be reserved
on their "beerphone" beforehand. This is all the hallmarks of
the most obscure of beers. One of the important aspects of the
Trappist Beer is that it is a Bavarian: bottom brewed.
Westvleteren is also the only Beer permitted to be sold without
a label. The cap contains the coat of arms of the Trappist
Brewery.
Seven times each day, Trappist Monks gather in the chapel for
small services of communal prayer called Offices or Hours. Music
plays a great role in the Offices. Which is the Trappist means
of avoiding the disasters of the secular life. The combination a
kind of anonymity of Holy Orders and Beers with the almost Music
of Chanting gave rise to the thought that Nigel D. Senada was
not merely a wandering Musicologist.
By the time the Fifth Day of Brumalia had finished, I was most
definitely drunk. Any Trappist Temperance had fled my body. But
I was now equipped with a definite theory about the Theory of
Obscurity and the Theory of Phonetic Organisation. Born in 1907
and dying in 1993, Senada proposed that an artist can only
produce pure art when the expectations and influences of the
outside world are not taken into consideration and that musician
should put the sounds first, building the music upwards rather
than developing the music, then working downwards to the sounds.
His Early Years would have been form 1907 to 1924 or there
abouts. Quite clearly influenced by the Trappist ethos, the Beer
and the Cheese and the Chanting, Senada was, to all intents an
purposes, destined for Holy Orders until something happened.
Something in the Woodlands where the birdsong was twittering.
Something snapped. Something snapped. Senada drank a little and
listened to the Birdsong.
if you observe the behavior of very young children or people who
are like children - such as Trappists wrecked on Bavarian Beer -
you will observe a very basic melodic pattern: the descending
minor third. Children around the world vocalise, to taunt, or
speaking in that sing-song way, they use a very similar
interval: the descending minor third. The earliest attempts of
children less than three years old result in one-tone litanies;
melodies of two notes a narrow minor third apart. The lower not,
of which, is stressed and frequently repeated. At the age of
three, children produced melodies of two notes a second apart,
and even three-tone melodies. This is how Senada discovered the
Theory of Phonetic Organisation. Listening to the "nyah, nyah,
nyah-nhay, nyah" of Birds in the Black Forest.
Which is exactly the kind of theory that appeals to someone who
has drunk a little over a half bottle of a vintage Port and
become hopped up on cheeses. There in the Black Forest, Bavaria:
Senada discovered that even the bird songs mock. Dating the
exact moment would be a challenge. But, an entire musicological
theory was forming.
Pity it would vanish in the disaster.
[hr]
[quote]Join us after the break ocassioned by the exceeding of
20,000 characters[/quote]
#Post#: 206--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: moleshow Date: December 28, 2016, 3:06 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
WELL, HEY. if CH is going to have a fancy post where he edits
with his comments on the day's track, i might as well too...
minus the feast.
DAY 4/DECEMBER 28TH
very jazzy and relaxed. i get the impression that this is a nod
to The Residents' inspirations. i assume it is simply a happy
coincidence that i listened to Sun Ra more than i usually do in
the time leading up to me listening to this track.
on a note that is only mildly related, i don't like how it is
"hip" to hate on jazz. jazz is fine.
DAY 5/DECEMBER 29TH
woooooah there, this track is intense. it gets nice and
dissonant about halfway through. the drums are nice, although a
bit odd since this sort of beat is hardly ever present in
Residents tracks! and oh, those sounds at the end? wonderful.
abso-lutely wonderful. pleasant contrast to Day 4. all of these
tracks have such wonderful texture!
DAY 6/DECEMBER 30TH
danceable, but dissonant. reminds me of bird calls for some
reason in its instrumentation, and Just 4 U in the lyrics. out
of all the things i would like to become recurring motifs, those
types of lyrics are not on there.
unfortunately, im not feeling well at the time of writing this,
and i fear that that is influencing what i have to say about
today's track. halfway there, though!
DAY 7/DECEMBER 31ST
this track is... creepy. the vocals (is that Molly?) MIGHT be
from Tortured off of that bonus CD, but im most likely wrong
about that. the dissonance that it starts sounds like some sort
of circuit-bent instrument. it borders on not-creepy for a few
seconds before those ghostly vocals kick in. definitely
unsettling, but the passage of time is unsettling and it is NYE.
happy/scrappy/flappy/ new years, folks... i guess?
DAY 8/JANUARY 1ST
LITERALLY just Jelly Jack. but a very weird Jelly Jack. is it
live? is it a remixed live track? i think its Way We Were...
toyed with. definitely Way We Were. but that's kind of
interesting. playing with something that already exists.
definitely weird to take a studio track's live version then
return to the studio to play with it again. i think the cheers
are partially real.
DAY 9/JANUARY 2ND
ok, this is going to drive me nuts. they SEEM to be revisiting
Tortured again, but the lyrics are changed. can i decipher them,
though? H-E-L-L-N-O! thats ok, though. that song has potential,
so why not try different directions with it?
DAY 10/JANUARY 3RD
another odd story! reminds me of the one from Day 3. minus the
part that is sort of Betty's Body but not really? but also very
much Betty's Body. lots of revisiting happening here. i also
take kindly to the fact that the guitar sounds like its being
played in a cave and you're outside of it. this day was Just
Kind Of Weird!
DAY 11/JANUARY 4TH
this is just DDA Bonus Disk: Hey, Remember This Edition? i LOVE
this song, though. almost a little scary? i like the beach
sounds, but it isn't soothing. sounds like a cloudy day. but the
transition is! but back into chaos we go! dissonance and
repetition is a consistent theme in Brumalia it seems. also, the
2nd transition is INTENSE! this track is really a wild, wild
ride. the abrupt end is wooooonderful. (chef kissing
fingers.png)
DAY 12/JANUARY 5TH
MOMENTS BEFORE EPIPHANY, THERE WAS THE FINAL DAY. and the final
day had a beat that quite honestly bumped, instrumentation with
the strong taste of finality throughout, clapping, people
cheering.... and some talk that isn't in english. and more looks
back on DDA... over the sounds of what i'd assume is a dinner
party. there is a strong sense of festive-ness to this day. and
the crowd cheers because they love it.
tomorrow, there will be a post where i listen to all of the
days, comment on those in retrospect, and then comment on The
Feast of Epiphany... and hopefully have one of my own. so heres
to Brumalia! (clink)
#Post#: 208--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: December 30, 2016, 11:17 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote]Returning after the break[/quote]
[center]Sixth Day
HTML https://youtu.be/Qbw0wxfdHxY[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00233/85595449_a_233973c.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Stilton[/center]
[hr]
There is a point during intoxication where all the alcohol
rushes into one part of your body. Usually your brain, but it
can be your genitals. As Day Six of Brumalia chuntered into
action I realised, that the Trappist Sign Language had
translated into whistling. Carla Fabrizio is bound to be the
worlds best whistler. A bit like James Abbott McNeill Whistler,
whose Libel Trial saw Whistler examined by the Attorney General
Sir John Holker.
In Whistler v. Ruskin: Art and Art Critics (1890) talks of a war
between the Brush and the Pen, there is some marvellous
diatribe: "a life passed among painting does not make a painter
- else the policeman in the National Gallery might assert
himself"; and, "mediocrity flattered at acknowledging
mediocrity". Whistler, The Artist, sued Ruskin, the Critic for a
thousand guineas. He won the case and was awarded a farthing.
Sir John Holker was, for better or worse, among the first MPs to
be elected by secret ballot after the 1872 Secret Ballot Act.
The Ruling Classes had been able to use their sway over
employees and tenants; by being present themselves or by sending
representatives, to check on the cast votes. Radicals, such as
the Chartists, had long campaigned for this system to end with
the introduction of a secret ballot. The Chartists also wanted
Women to have the Vote. But that was too radical even for the
Radicals. Far too radical for Whistler whose social circle was,
in general, inamicable to such things as Chartists, Diggers,
Levellers, Ranters and Muggletonians.
There is belief in the "Seven Whistlers". Seven mysterious birds
or spirits who call out to portents of great calamity. Swifts
and plovers have been accused of being the whistlers -
principally plausible as plovers are the incarnation of those
assisting at the crucifixion in Christian mythologies. Others
claim the whistlers are wigeon or teal. Nobody really knows even
if they are Birds in The Trees. In Shropshire and Worcestershire
they say there are six birds in search of a seventh and when
they find it the world will come to an end.
In September 1874, the Miners at the Bedworth Mine refused to
enter the Mine after hearing the Seven Whistlers. Records show
continuous working mines at Bedworth since the 13th century,
particularly between Tamworth and Bedworth. The community had a
long tradition of working the black seam. The Coventry to
Bedworth canal opened in 1769 and so stimulated output and
subsequent canal construction made Warwickshire coal competitive
in London. But, whistling was always a taboo. Whistling for a
wind on a ship would be to invite catastrophe.
Morfa Colliery in South Wales had similar problems with the
Seven Whistlers. The Seven Whistlers were heard there during the
1860s before the great explosion and then again before another
explosion in 1890 where over one hundred miners were entombed
while working down below. In 1895 the Miners heard the Seven
Whistlers again and went on strike until the Government
Inspector could could inspect the mine. The same, again,
happened in 1902 - as reported in The Ellensburgh Capital on
July 16, 1904.
So the Sixth Day of Brumalia was a mixture of all the alcohol
rushing to my legs - which would have been fine had I not
attempted to used them - and a marvellous rush of flavour from
the Stilton. I would have whistled in appreciation but I had
fallen on my arse. In the words of William Wordsworth, Poet
Laureate and general purveyor of fine literature:
[tt] THOUGH narrow be that old Man's cares
HTML http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mez.aspx,
and
near,
The poor old Man is greater than he seems:
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams;
An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer;
The region of his inner spirit teems
With vital sounds and monitory gleams
Of high astonishment and pleasing fear.
He the seven birds hath seen, that never part,
Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds,
And counted them: and oftentimes will start--
For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS
Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart
To chase for ever, on aerial grounds!
1807.[/tt]
[hr]
[center]Seventh Day
HTML https://youtu.be/I8fPtyIh4MQ[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML https://www.cookipedia.co.uk/wiki/images/thumb/f/f5/Stinking_Bishop_cheese.jpg/300px-Stinking_Bishop_cheese.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Stinking Bishop[/center]
[hr]
Stinking Bishop Cheese stinks. It smells because the cheese is
bathed in a pear cider - a perry - made from the Moorcroft pear.
Stinking Bishop is one of the pear's many other names, including
Malvern Pear, Choke Pear, and Choker. The Pear was posthumously
named after the pear breeder, a Mr. Bishop, a man of ugly
temperament. Charles Martell, the maker of Stinking Bishop
cheese, related a story that Bishop got angry at his kettle one
day and in retaliation shot it. Apocryphal illustration of the
the sort of behaviour creating a reputation for irascibility.
Stinking Bishop Cheese has no real name of its own, it merely
hides behind the name of a Perry.
The cheese was, before 2005, obscure and found at Farmers'
Markets. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, in
which it was used to revive Wallace from the dead. Stinking
Bishop demand rose by 500%. There is a rumour that Stinking
Bishop goes well with Smoking Bishop - made from port, red wine,
lemons or Seville oranges, sugar and spices. The citrus fruit
was roasted to caramelise it and the ingredients then warmed
together. All I had was port. A nice vintage port, to be fair.
And legs that had ceased to work properly. Because of the Port.
All I had was the Seventh Day of Brumalia and an increasing
sense of, this may have been a bad idea. A disaster. There are
some magpies outside. They chase the Yellow ****, Thrushes and
Hybrid Squirrels. I was rapidly attempting to count the number
of birds. There were more than seven - which was a good thing,
given the disturbing revelations of Brumalia, Day Six. So a
crackerful of Stinking Bishop Cheese and a temperant sip of port
later, I was attempting to contemplate the Cattle and String
Section of the Seventh Day and what exactly the woman was
singing about whereupon it abruptly ceased.
The tale is a love story between Zhinü (織女) the
weaver girl who symbolises Vega and weaves clouds for a living;
and, Niulang (牛郎) the cowherd, who symbolises
Altair and herds Oxen who sometimes talk.Theirs is a forbidden
love. The whole prohibition on mortals making whoopie with
immortals being strictly observed. Thus they were banished to
opposite sides of the Silver River (symbolizing the Milky Way).
Yearly, on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, a flock of
magpies forms a bridge (鹊桥) to reunite the lovers
for one day. It works perfectly with the Seventh Day of
Brumalia, not because it is true but because drunk people make
poor decisions.
Festivals are popular. Everybody likes a good festival. The
Divje Babe Flute is a cave bear femur pierced by spaced holes
that was found in 1995 at the Divje Babe archeological park
located near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia. In an essay in
1997, Bob Fink claimed, based on spacing, that the bone's holes
were "consistent with four notes of the diatonic scale". Which
is a good thing for a festival, a flute. If Bob was right then
the Divje Babe Flute might play the scale FCGDAEB - even though
there is no consensus about what the Flute actually is: a bear
femur or a flute. In Jiahu (賈湖), they discovered
The Jiahu gǔdí (贾湖骨笛) is the
oldest known musical instrument from China, dating back to
around 6000 BC, if The Divje Babe Flute is a real flute then it
is 45,000 years old. Which means festivals are probably older
than Industry.
It is here where the disaster happens. Having attempted to rise
to my feet and discovered my legs to be unresponsive, I sat down
again. Stinking Bishop and Port in hand. Memory in cognitive
cabbage. Something about the Third Day of Brumalia. When I
banged my head. Sometimes banging your head is not that serious.
Other times it leaves you in hospital for a few days with people
worried that you might die. Then, afterwards, you have a slow
return to your former self. Which, you regard as luck and
unlucky. Lucky because you have a self and unlucky because you
have a blank gap in your life. It also explains why this, with a
bottle of port and some cheese, is the first time you have ever
heard Brumalia: you were someone else when Brumalia first
emerged. Someone who had not been kicked in the head.
Which is not so bad. Not as bad as the fate of Mister Red Eye.
Transformed by the magic of abduction into the Dada Head of
Death Himself: Mister Skull. Whose first incarnation, in 1918,
in Berlin, was a formative image for one N.D. Senada. Who would
have thought that George Grosz would be central to malfeasance
decades after his departure.
[center][img height=300
width=200]
HTML http://images.tate.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/george_grosz_dada_death.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Mister Skull 1918[/center]
Not as bad as the disagreement between Carlos and Randy. At
least I got to be here after Der Sandman stole eyeballs to the
moon, among other things. All in all, being kicked in the head
was not the worst thing to happen. Even if, sometimes, you get
to lose balance when standing up, especially if you make your
legs unresponsive with a fine Port. Even if, some other times,
noises become unbearably loud. Worse things happen at sea.
Which is an outstanding reason to live in a Port: the worst
things take place offshore.
[hr]
[center]Eight Day
HTML https://youtu.be/TvLwREPaXb4[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://www.yorkshirelife.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.4064145.1430993118!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Wensleydale blue[/center]
[hr]
Wensleydale cheese was first made by French Cistercian monks
from the Roquefort region, who had settled in Wensleydale. Which
is chagrin-making; given the prior appearance of Trappists and
Stinking Bishops. Recollection of Port addled experiences are
rarely lucid. The Eighth Day of Brumalia was something like a
tintinabulation with the grackling of a picnic in a jungle
somewhere while an audience from a wine producing region of
Spain cheerfully, lustily, announce their presence. Something
like an epiphany. As if explaining names could make sense of the
world. The School of Names (名家 Míng jia) thought
that explaining names could explain the World; but, little of
their work remains extant. One of the few surviving lines from
the school, "a one-foot stick, every day take away half of it,
in a myriad ages it will not be exhausted," is a variation on
Zeno's Paradox. The main philosophical project of the School of
Names was the proper semantic relations between names and the
things or kinds of things to which they refer.
Which is not something you can readily narrate after almost five
and a half glasses of Port.
But it all started making incredible sense. Because of the
Wensleydale. Jervaulx Abbey is in East Witton near the city of
Ripon, was a Cistercian abbey of dedicated to St. Mary - in 1156
- although the name had been Jorvalle in 1145; a name which
meant "Ure Valley" which may have been a ropey Norman
translation of the English "Ure-Dale" or "Yoredale". The Valley
is now called Wensleydale. Which, if you take the Ming jia
approach, is a useful insight into the Theory of Obscurity: no
matter how many names they have the Residents will always be
like a good Cheese on the interior.
The Monks built a monastery at Fors and later the moved to
Jervaulx in Lower Wensleydale. Their recipe for making cheese
from sheep's milk changed over the next two centuries to use
cows' milk. The character of the cheese began to change: cows
milk with a little ewes' milk was - to give a more open texture
-and allow the development of the blue mould. Wensleydale,
historically, was almost always blue with the white variety
almost unknown and now the blue Wensleydale is rarely seen. The
monastery was dissolved in 1540 - when Henry the VIII fell out
with the Pope - but the local farmers continued making the
cheese right up until the Second World War. The Recipe went into
Obscurity. Much like the Occultation of Le Collège de
’Pataphysique from 1975-2000.
The Government Cheddar was a disaster for Cheese. From 1940
until 1954 there was a ban on making cheese except for Cheddar.
In 1974, there were just 33 farms in South West England making
Cheese - from the same recipe - compared to 514 in the same
region just before the war. Before the First World War, more
than 3,500 cheese producers were in Britain; fewer than 100
remained after the Second World War. The collapse of Cheese was
the single greatest disaster of the Third Reich. There are
millions of dead who would disagree. There are millions of
refugees who would disagree. But the disaster of self centred,
self indulgent cheese addicts would disagree. Cheese Production
hardly recovered until the 1990's. When it was, again, possible
to get more than two kinds of stale milk.
A 2009 European Food Safety Authority report
HTML http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2009.231r/epdf<br
/>on casomorphins stated that it’s unknown whether the
casomorphins found in cheese escape from the gastrointestinal
track in large amounts. Casomorphins produce some effects such
as pain relief and learning delays in newborn mice by activation
of the opiod receptors of the brain - estimated to be 20 times
less potent than morphine. But who knows: perhaps cheese addicts
are merely apathetic morphine addicts. Not prepared to go the
whole hog. Not prepared to dive into the Laudanum addled
universe of Lord Byron, Percy Blythe Shelley, John Keats,
Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, William Taylor Coleridge, and
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. laudanum was 10% opium and 90% alcohol -
frequently Brandy - flavoured with cinnamon and sometimes also
saffron. Available over the counter, without prescription, it
was recommended by doctors for everything from menstrual cramps
to tuberculosis. Cheese and Port, by comparison is a picnic.
Which is what the Eighth Day of Brumalia reminded me of: Picnic
in the Jungle.
"...Aft four wards, eats like a dream
You canned remember bud it seems
To stray a life insight your mind
And pray and pawn your leisure time
It happens inner open spot
The urine sticky and it's hot
First they take away your clove
Then they lay us down in rows..."
Which is how Brumalia seems: something magnificent waiting for a
Person from Porlock to interrupt the vocal gymnasium. Insisting
the lyrics should be not quite the same each time.
[hr]
[center]Ninth Day
HTML https://youtu.be/-xJfWSYo144[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://www.dragonwales.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/large-caerphilly.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Caerphilly[/center]
[hr]
Caerphilly features in Sex Pistols mythology: protests and
prayer meetings were held outside the Castle Cinema on the
evening of 14 December 1976, protesting about the Sex Pistols
playing a concert there. At this point in time, Caerphilly,
Leeds and Manchester were the only places the Sex Pistols could
get licences to play.
It was a Tuesday.
Under The Moon Of Love by Showaddywaddy was topping the hit
parade and the world had disintegrated so much that the Sex
Pistols were playing Caerphilly. Why would you even care: it
would be eleven days to Chrismas and three decades until
Brumalia. Sara Jane Moore was in prison for playing Charlotte
Corday to Gerald Ford's Marat. Nothing was worth remarking upon.
Ford was shilling for Nixon and nobody cared. Until they
replaced him with a Peanut Farmer. The nightmare of the Hippies
had been defeated by the triumphant forces of Law and Order and
Civilisation. In the burgeoning, reactionary culture, Timothy
Leary would be extolling the virtues of no longer turning on or
tuning in or dropping out.
Which is much what the Ninth Day of Brumalia sounds like: the
casual footfall of the Stormtroopers arriving. By 1979 Carter
would have achieved SALT II; brokering an Israel-Egypt Peace
Treaty at Camp David; granted amnesty to Vietnam draft-dodgers;
and, presenting a plan for universal health care. Carter also
managed to flex the military mucles of Freedom! in Zaire,
Guatemala and East Timor in 1977; Angola in 1978; Afghanistan in
1979; and El Salvador, 1980.
Archbishop Oscar Romero wrote to Jimmy Carter on the
19[sup]th[/sup] of February 1980:
I am very worried by the news that the government of the United
States is studying a form of abetting the arming of El Salvador
by sending military teams and advisors to ‘train three
Salvadoran batallions in logistics, communications, and
intelligence.’ If this information is correct, the contribution
of your government instead of promoting greater justice and
peace in El Salvador will without doubt sharpen the injustice
and repression against the organizations of the people which
repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their most
fundamental human rights.
On the 28[sup]th[/sup] of February 1980, Romero was gunned down
at the altar while holding the Eucharist above his head. At his
funeral, snipers opened fire on defenseless mourners, killing at
least 30 people. This is what Brumalia Day Nine brings to mind:
Snipers and Stormtroopers.
Alcohol and cheese make for introspective bedfellows. While it
is rambling obliquely about the Feast of Fools or the naming of
cheeses like some bewildered technician of animated space
flight, this introspection is harmless and garners no shuffling
of feet or sharp intakes of breath; but, when the Cows are the
sacred cows of politics then it all becomes quite fraught.
Then said Gangleri: "Where dwelt Ymir, or wherein did he find
sustenance?"
Hárr answered: "Straightway after the rime dripped, there sprang
from it the cow called Auðumla; four streams of milk ran from
her udders, and she nourished Ymir."
Then asked Gangleri: "Wherewithal was the cow nourished?"
And Hárr made answer: "She licked the ice-blocks, which were
salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came
forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second
day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is
named Búri".
We are the cheeses of Auðumla. That is what Brumalia was telling
me; or, perhaps it was the Port. Depressing the central nervous
system and all that sort of thing. Obliging a brute
introspection. The strain of attempting to discern lyrics among
the strings and synthesiser oingo boinging had finally taken its
toll. We had arrived at the real disaster.
Around the time the Sex Pistols were being told to fuqoff ever
so politely, by the no marks of local politics, I was Meeting
the Residents. Not just the Residents but a panoply of different
music. When Johnny Mathis was warbling "When A Child Is Born" I
was already lost. Port reproduces that sensation...
[hr]
[quote]and now a message from our sponsor[/quote]
#Post#: 219--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: January 2, 2017, 9:04 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote]...aqnd now the conclusion...[/quote]
[center]Tenth Day
HTML https://youtu.be/HpiCp-wz7uE[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://gazegillorganics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/IMGP8830.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Lancashire Crumbly[/center]
[hr]
The traditional method of making Lancashire Cheese was
standardised in the 1890s by a County Council Employee, Joseph
Gornall (1856-1928) of Garstang and Pilling.
[center]
HTML http://www.acmelogos.co.uk/life/family-tree-joseph_cheesema.jpg[/center]
The "Gornall Patent Cheesemaker" was sold between 1892 and 1919.
Gornall drew on farming experience and his own research and a
determination that the Lancashire cheese industry should
flourish despite severe competition. He once said; "if every
cheesemaker in Lancashire would be determined to make nothing
but fine, free, mellow cheese of good flavour, we should not
need to fear any competition with Cheshires or American
cheeses." To this end the famous Gornall Patent Cheesemaker was
invented. A popular piece of dairy equipment that substantially
reduced the time and effort required to draw the whey from the
curd.
Crumbly Lancashire was only made in the 1970's. It let the
Farmer get the cheese to market faster. Ignoring the dictum that
Cheese, like Port, should age well before eating. Or, drinking.
Liverpool, for better or worse, left Lancashire in 1974.
Liverpool became Not Available. Historically, the towns of
Manchester, Lancaster, Ribchester, Burrow, Elslack and
Castleshaw had all been part of the Kingdom of Rheged, the
Brythonic Kingdom of the Brigantines. The extent and form of the
kingdom was endlessly in dispute. The whole of Lancashire was a
ferment of Music Halls and Theatres and Temperance Meeting
Places and Pubs to make Hogarth Weep.
That all ended in 1914.
In 1914, Gavrilo Princeps - a Serbian Nationalist - assassinated
Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By 1918 about a Million people from
the UK had joined 37 Million others from across the globe in
dying in the War to End All Wars. US deaths numbered about a
quarter of a Million. Which is about the same number of Soldiers
as Ireland sent to the trenches. It is no simple point scoring
tally to make one country better than another, merely
recognition that if one country suffers the grief of death there
should be sympathy for other countries. Like the 20,000 Chinese
Labourers - the Chinese Labour Corps - who were buried in France
as part of the British War dead. The last surviving member of
the Chinese Labour Corps, Zhu Guisheng, who also served in the
French Army in World War Two, died in La Rochelle on 5 March
2002 at 106 years old.
The Chinese Labour Corps were lodged in camps without rights to
leave. They were subjected to military discipline. They carried
out the hard work needed to maintain the immense network of
trenches, while under fire; seven days a week, ten hours a day,
for three years. Their only days off were for Chinese national
holidays. Harshness that was mirrored in the Lancashire
Regiments. The number of the Chinese Labour Corps who died is
about equal to the number of Lancashire Soldiers. We pretend
other peoples' dead are no cause of grief.
Lancashire was decimated. All across the County there are huge
monuments commemorating the thousands who were ground in the
machines of the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele and all the rest of
the Great War. The War to End All Wars. They were telling the
truth, the disasters of war ceased to be visited upon the
Military. By 1939, the form of War had become increasingly
systematised civilian slaughter.
A Roman punishment was decimation. The execution of every tenth
person. The Tenth Day of Brumalia had become, by the power of
Cheese and Port, a decimation of memories. The Great War and
Betty came together in Manchester and moved onwards to Broadway
from October the third until November the twenty fifth , 1916,
with sixty three performances. Betty - fresh from the 1914
Manchester Prince's Theatre Production. Butlers and Maids sang
about The High Life Downstairs and Lord D'Arcy Playne sang about
Some Time. Merlin Morgan kicked out Three Acts of Betty. The
Tenth Day of Brumalia was a death on a tinier scale: petite
mort. Nothing, it seems, could pollute the happy home of the
Beverly household in Regent's Park, London nor the Bal Chinoise
at Lord Playne's Manse. Decimation for anybody but Betty.
Anybody but Betty.
Gerard, Earl of Beverley, philanderer and rake is confronted by
his father, the Duke of Crowborough. The Duke demand that the
younger man settle down with a wife and take on some
responsibility. The inebriated Earl, proposes to kitchen maid
Betty - spiting his father. The Earls plan to disobey the Duke
by sending Betty away and resume his profligate lifestyle. The
Duke gives the Earl's allowance to his wife, Betty. Hi jinks
ensue with the inevitable ending of a Happy Home.
I see her every morning
And watch her fingers forming
Shapes that are as graceful
As a baby's face full
Of hope until it turns to
A neediness that burns through
Your heart like it was butter
In the mouth of someone's mother
[i]
CHORUS: Oh, his Lordship rather keeps things up,
MEN: He keeps things up,
GIRLS: They come to sup--
ALL: Lots of ladies and of noblemen,
That's life in the Upper Ten!
GIRLS: Veuve Clicquot on the go,
Until three A. M.
All on ice, and the price
Doesn't bother them!
MEN: If my Lord can't afford it some day
GIRLS: As people say,
ALL: Then the Duke will have to pay!
Oh! and after they have done, you know,
MEN: There'll be some scraps
GIRLS: For us perhaps!
ALL: When we clear away the plates and chairs,
You'll see high life down stairs!
MEN: For no one cares--
GIRLS: What goes down stairs.
[i]A certain scent of perfume
Makes me think of her room
And how I'd like to be there
Lightly touching her bare
Back and gently soaking
In the sweet unspoken
I could be her lover
If it weren't for Mother
Lancashire cheese is never a good idea when you have consumed
too much alcohol. The maudlin and the shadows lurk in: "Upward
to the sun we grow, careful plants, be careful plants."
[hr]
[center]Eleventh Day
HTML https://youtu.be/kY99PVibxfI[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://itscheese.com/images/reviews/oct09/agedwensleydale.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Wensleydale[/center]
[hr]
Plain Wensleydale differs sharply from the blue veined sort of
the Eigth Day. This is an Eleventh Day sort of cheese. One which
comes after the Decimation of Betty's Body being twisted by
Broadway. Which seethes into incomprehensible confusion when the
Port percolates.
In his essay "In Defence of English Cooking", George Orwell
rates Wensleydale as second only to Stilton among British cheese
varieties:
What else? Outside these islands I have never seen a haggis,
except one that came out of a tin, nor Dublin prawns, nor Oxford
marmalade, nor several other kinds of jam (marrow jam and
bramble jelly, for instance), nor sausages of quite the same
kind as ours.
Then there are the English cheeses. There are not many of them
but I fancy Stilton is the best cheese of its type in the world,
with Wensleydale not far behind. English apples are also
outstandingly good, particularly the Cox’s Orange Pippin.
And finally, I would like to put in a word for English bread.
All the bread is good, from the enormous Jewish loaves flavoured
with caraway seeds to the Russian rye bread which is the colour
of black treacle. Still, if there is anything quite as good as
the soft part of the crust from an English cottage loaf (how
soon shall we be seeing cottage loaves again?) I do not know of
it.
Orwell had been party to the unpleasantness in 1936 in Spain.
Which led to the abolition of Wensleydale and the need for pity.
Which is where the Eleventh Day of Brumalia left me. In a
wallowing state of self pity. The disasters of war as the ship
went down and all those other things had comprehensively reduced
me to the repetition of the words:
[quote]Pity opened up my heart and pity recognised him[/quote]
Which became a mantra. Marvellous, calming mantra as the
seagulls soared over the sea. And the lyrics suddenly made
incredibly lucid sense. The self pity had vanished in a moment
as I realised that Brumalia was not simply a series of remixed
or reimagined reissues of residential past masterings. Brumalia
was an illustrated guide to the Theory of Obscurity.
All of the Days of Brumalia are reminiscent of something. But
not quite. They are not mashups or remixes but the gurglings of
what you would hear if you heard the originals. These are the
tracks made without considering the audience. They were not to
be stored or to be archived because they were transient. Like
the Sculptures of Andy Goldsworthy
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy
in his
peripatetic drift northwards. The only real way to hear the
Twelve Days of Brumalia, now that they had been torn from their
moment, would be to only listen to them during transitory,
recurrent, experience.
The Eleventh day of Brumalia was the Feast of Apathia: "freedom
from suffering". The recognition of Eudaimonia and feelings
eupatheia. Or even Good Loving
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Lovin'.
The alcohol and my
liver were discussing how I might resolve the situation. There
was nothing definitive but a period of the insensate might just
be appropriate: some sort of big chill. But onwards. The
disaster was firmly entrenched.
It was the penultimate Day of Brumalia and I had managed to
consume far too much Port, thus becoming any Storm around a
Port. Even the ability to say anything was vanished. It had
become clear why the Twelve Days of Brumalia were, in fact,
Twelve Days and not Twelve Hours or even Twelve five minutes.
Which is an hour of toping Port and drifting in the vagaries of
milks in which microbes have been encouraged to have sex. The
big disaster was the failure to eat for the prior day. Which has
a tendency to make cheese more crafty in its ways.
It was about this time that the entire nature of Brumalia as
Twelve Days struck me.
[hr]
[center]Twelfth Day
HTML https://youtu.be/urTPwtdEXFA[/center]
[center][img width=200
height=200]
HTML http://www.mumsnet.com/cms/uploads/food/parlickfellcheese.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Parlick Fell[/center]
[hr]
There is a bundant good advice for what to do when you are
drunk. One such piece of advice would have served me well. As it
happened, the Twelfth Day of Brumalia was a fanfare of Juventus
fans cheering while the radio shimmied in and out of tuning just
before the New Orleans Jazz Band arrived to play something
almost, slightly, familiar.
It was as if the vacuities of Carmina Burana had suddenly all
arrived at once and thrown bricks onto a vacant lot. Five gold
rings... ...The story goes that from the Sixteenth to the
Nineteenth Century, being a Catholic was a crime in Protestant
England. So children would sing the Twelve Days of Christmas to
profess forbidden faith. But that seems to be a recent rumour. A
rumour from the mills of the internet. One that Snopes would
poo-poo with piffle. Edward Phinney, a professor of classics at
the University of Massachusetts, and now conveniently post
mortem, put the first publication at 1868. The Verses also shows
up, in slightly differing forms, in Mirth without Mischief
(1780), and James Orchard Halliwell’s The Nursery Rhymes of
England (1842). It might have even started out as a game of spin
the bottle. Nobody is all that sure.
After a bottle of Port - gargled without regret - and a passel
of cheeses theories become incredibly clear for one moment and
then they vanish. Forever. Which is how I managed to get from
listening to The Twelve Days of Brumalia for the first time
ever, to the true origins of the Theory of Obscurity. The
important thing being the disaster.
Attempting to write while intoxicated is not that easy. Ernest
Hemingway managed it. Although six word sentences are crap. They
convey a sense of action. They are like children belching jokes.
Longer sentences are more fun and, comparatively, more difficult
to compose under the influence of alcohol. Hunter S. Thompson,
Raymond Chandler and even John Cheever had the hang of it. There
is a suspicion that Effie Klinker tossed off a few bottles as
well; but nobody really knew. It tends to be that vast acres of
words vanish, gobbled up in gookery. It means the entire, faked,
Theory of Obscurity was lost.
At some point while shovelling Parlick Fell Cheese down my
gullet the disaster really happened. There was a moment in which
the relationship between Oscar Wilde, Alfred Jarry and ND Senada
hoiked into consciousness. It was fully formed and magnificent.
It was, without a doubt, a theory that underpinned every single
piece of work from the Residents ranging from Santa Dog to Voice
of Midnight. A theory that married the compostional techniques
of the musician to those of the librettist and those of the
graphic artist. it was the Complete Obscurity for Dummies guide.
Sadly it vanished.
There was no waking up in a pool of body fluids. But there was a
handwritten set of lyrics. Apparently, this - according to the
Complete Theory of Obscurity - would be the "Original Lyrics"
before they were forgotten. The Lyrics that presaged the
recorded version. But how they were devised is a mystery.
Something dissolved in the Port and Cheese. This was the
original, actual, Not Available only now forgotten by the
Residents. More likely, it was the delusions of indulgence. The
residue of excess.
Which is how I came to finish listening to The Twelve Days Of
Brumalia. Not Properly and not as, clearly, instructed by
Moleshow. But in a frenzied one night stand. Thereafter eking
out the half recollections amid a barrage of ephemera that might
have been relevant. Twelfth Night traditionally saw the
presentation of entertainments by masked players - mummers - who
would entertain the King of the Bean and the Queen of the Pea.
Whose Offices were filled by a man an a woman who ate a Pudding
with a concealed bean and a concealed pea.
Mummers can be traced back at least to 1296 and the marriage of
Edward I's daughter at Christmas. The "mummers of the court"
along with "fiddlers and minstrels" provided entertainment.
Which, if the vanished Complete Obscurity is to be believed, is
where the history of the Residents begins.
Either that or I was drunk.
[hr]
[center]Pentecost
HTML https://youtu.be/iP6u2PH_HKw[/center]
[center][img width=400
height=200]
HTML https://files2.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_65/659655/file/cream-crackers-original-little-cracker-small-65782.jpg[/img][/center]
[center]Lots of Jacobs Crackers[/center]
[hr]
This is the first part of Brumalia I have listened to sober.
After, disasterously, running out of port and cheese at the end
of the twelfth day. Day One to Day Twelve were all listened to
in a furiously self indulgent evening of toping and eating. The
only thing left unexplored is the Crackers. W & R Jacob were
Quakers - and quite strict on the idea of temperance - started
as a small bakery in Waterford. Biscuits began to be made in
quantity in Dublin in 1852 and “Cream Crackers” were introduced
in 1885. Jacob’s became one of the best known brand names in
Ireland. By the early 1900s employment was above 1,300 with
memorable welfare service for the staff. A second factory was
opened in Liverpool in 1912. In 1948 the Jacob and Bewley
families who by then were running the business floated it as a
public company. So, perhaps, the secret life of Crackers should
be an unexamined life.
Each of the days of Brumalia were recollected from that first
day. A task made less reliable by the quantity of alcohol
consumed while hearing the first twelve days of Brumalia. Which
means each of the days is a hazy recollection of what I actually
thought and what my unreliable cognitive cabbage claims I
thought and what my dissembling sober brain would like to
pretend that I thought. It is an unreliable sort of thing.
Epiphany is Twelfth Night: January the Sixth. The New Born Jesus
was visited by the Three Wise Men and his divinity revealed.
Epiphany derives from a Greek word, epiphainein - 'to manifest'.
It was used to record the appearances of gods and goddesses.
James Joyce became interested in Epiphanies and recorded them in
Stephen Hero and so made Revelation a more secular thing.
Epiphany did not reveal magnificent and dramatic insights to me.
Apart from the need to listen to Brumalia again, because I know
I have missed so much, I am unenlightened. The introit reminds
me of Fanfare for the Common Man but only because it reproduces
the kind of grandeur of Aaron Copland. Perhaps a fanfare so
understated that nobody realises it until the last guitar and
horn riff dies away.
Which seems to be a collocation of the engine sounds from Third
Reich 'n' Roll, Wormwood and Demons Dance Alone. Perhaps, in the
technique of the Twelve Tone Serialists, Epiphany was created
from each of the Twelve Days of Bumalia. I would not know that
since I have never heard everything sober and hearing the whole
work drunk, once, is hardly reliable. In a fit of Phonetic
Organisation the Residents taking one element from each of the
Days of Brumalia and combining them in such a way that Epiphany
becomes a skeleton key to listening in the correct order. Twelve
Track Phonetic Organisational Serialism seems the closest to an
epiphany for this Mortimer Snerd.
But alcohol and cheese - which was very much enjoyed - has
clouded the possibility of forming such judgements.
So I have no epiphany. I can listen to it repeatedly until
Christmas Day and then begin to listen to the Twelve Days of
Brumalia in the hope that, in 2018, I can have an epiphany -
secular or otherwise. The Twelve Days of Brumalia is definitely
music for a specific time of year. Something to create a
Christmas Mystery and not something to be gorged upon daily with
no regard for the rarity of the thing. In 352 Days I can attempt
to achieve Epiphany again, I suppose.
[hr]
#Post#: 222--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: moleshow Date: January 6, 2017, 10:43 pm
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REVIEWING THE 12 DAYS LEADING UP TO EPIPHANY
DAY 1
midi-riffiic. with the idea that all of these weren't songs for
the "public", really... they have a different taste. this one
has the feeling of a collage... an auditory quilt. one would get
the impression that it aims to deny musical comfort... landing
into rhythms and immediately abandoning them when they become
comfortable. the tune that starts around the 2:30 mark is my
favorite. the tune that it turns into is one that feels very
Bobuck. and of course, some fun drumming slides right on in as i
get comfortable with it. then that veers into its own direction.
The Residents as a whole, as a concept, do this frequently. the
moment that the listener/viewer/whatever-er becomes comfortable
with and adjusted to the content, they pull back and move in
another direction, perhaps for a little longer or a little less
time than they spent on the previous one.
DAY 2
this song reminds me of Animal Lover. due to the nature of that
album... i wouldn't be surprised if this was a scrap left
unused. but the organ (?) is nice. the song has two/three ideas
running at each other at once, pauses for a new tune, and
resumes, and intensifies. an auditory replication of how i
imagine their creative process is. of course, that doesn't hold
up, since there are no Residents.
DAY 3
WENDY! i wish they would do an album about dogs and their
owners. weenie weenie weenie dogs! such a creepy, lovely story.
if this is a scrap, i would love to know from what. the giant
heart made of weenie dogs is really touching. feels like a peek
into a story that we will never get to fully know. ol' Singing
Resident's voice really rumbles in this one. has a Bunny Boy
sound to it, sorta.
DAY 4
Mystery Elevator Music. so jazzy, so nice. the wild sax business
reminds me of N. Senada, but also the Icky Flix live version of
Constantinople. wonder if he ever got that instrument figured
out? this track is a little strange, but the texture is so much
fun! has a delicate sense of chaos to it... that's always kinda
tough to pull off. moderation is probably key. there's a nervous
energy to it that i can dig. i can SO dig it.
DAY 5
the intense one! the sound equivalent of nausea, dizziness and
headache. in a pleasant way. the 2nd bit of it seems to descend
into something more conventional for a moment, although it is
offset by a strange dissonance to keep the listener in line. WE
WON'T GET TOO NORMAL. ends with texture.
DAY 6
aww, this one starts off kinda sweet and cute. it doesn't seem
to stop being cute and sweet. realized he was saying Turkey
Eater. you don't want to know what i thought he was saying
originally. i like it when his voice gets like that. makes me
feel safe.
DAY 7
this track doesn't seem to want you to get the wrong idea - it
ain't no Perfect Turkey Eater sweetness. once again, dissonance
runs through the music. it seems that The Residents were going
back and examining these Bonus CD tracks... taking those back,
playing with them... and hell, for the holidays, unleashing them
upon the unsuspecting public.
DAY 8
ACTUALLY HAD TO SEARCH WHEN WAY WE WERE HAPPENED. seems like the
thought of that manifested a year later, since that version is a
cover of the Fillmore one. Molly's singing is lovely in the
Fillmore version, though. you can SO taste the thoughts of the
Triple Dub'ya version of it in here. how fun would it have been
to hear this in 2004, and then... next year, March, it blooms in
full for some (but not all) to see. i can even see how the WoW
version bloomed out of this, too.
bloomin' onions. mmm.
DAY 9
this song just sounds like ghosts. this is music by, for and
about ghosts. once again, they seem to be giving us a taste of
what happens when they dare look back. tracks shift. tracks
morph. evolve. i found the original Tortured to be fittingly
cold.
DAY 10
as i approach the more recent songs, i recall what i had to say
about them. yeah, guitar still sounds like it is being played in
a cave. Singing Resident's voice has a weeeeeird sort of
distortion on it. i like it. once more, we see them look back
on, place a gentle kiss on a track. Demons Dance Alone seems to
keep coming back. i have a feeling that, due to the way the
album was done, it has a lot of scraps and loose ends. perhaps
they tried to clean those up in many ways. this one sounds more
pleasant than it did 3 days ago.
DAY 11
Sleepwalker... might be from something earlier. its emergence
within the DDA bonus disk may have been an attempt to share it
with the audience, but it came back 2 times after that. this is
one of those times. i feel a taste of that Bobuck ability to
construct spaces with sound in this track. that statement
doesn't mean anything, since up until (sob) 2016, that was his
thing. composers compose. but he is sort of a builder. he makes
CONTRAPTIONS. the soundscapes, almost tangible, are contraptions
of his.
DAY 12
i cannot mask my excitement for Epiphany. this song FEELS like
buildup. makes me excited. joyful.
THE FEAST OF EPIPHANY/JANUARY 6TH
the final day arrives at last.
for some reason, the first thing i am reminded of is Revelation,
off of Wormwood. the dissonance of Day 1 haunts us. im hearing
some Day 12, some Day.. 2? i think? thematically, of course. and
then the aggressive guitar, reminding us that they still
sometimes might look back on DDA and pick pieces out of it. that
guitar guitar gets real strong there. and then we get into a
sound not unlike Bobuck's modern compositions. leads me to
believe this may have been into a similar vein to his later solo
projects. i would say Residents albums have a diluted Bobuck
sound to them. but here, his tastes and artistic inclinations
seem obvious. of course, this train of thought serves no
purpose. THERE ARE NO RESIDENTS. THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN ANY
RESIDENTS. the song seems to battle itself, with lots of big,
beautiful horns all mixed in there. violin too. a nice beat to
this one, but it has an intensity that is almost violent in
nature. this song is a beast. there is actually something very
cinematic about it. perhaps orchestral. it comes in,
intensifies, withdraws...
...and stops.
just as The Residents do, over and over and over. musically,
this track communicates blatantly to the listener that it has
done what it wanted to do and leaves us saying "...hm." my CD
goes on a bit longer with extra tracks, but those have nothing
to do with this. all in all, a nice project. it was my first
time hearing any of it, and im quite pleased.
#Post#: 373--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (25th of December-6th of January): 12 DA
YS OF BRUMALIA
By: moleshow Date: April 20, 2017, 12:18 pm
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NEW TALK v
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