Facility

I've been listening to Billy Joel at Shea Stadium in 2008, again. One thing that has struck me is how most of the people I know like his music, which mostly seems natural and unforced even when it's being odd or schlocky.

The counterstrike, so to speak, is noticing that some critics have an issue with this: his music seems inauthentic to them because it is so facile. It's not innovative enough, not edgy enough, not strange enough, not tortured enough. Yeah, what a criticism; it's only in the arts that someone can be -too- good at what they do.

So it's great stuff, and in the man's own words, "Don't take any s**t from anyone!"

Head Pain

Some days you wake up with a great and blinding pain in the head. I woke up this morning asking myself why Angelina Jolie's father was Richard Clayderman. And then I really woke up and spent some time wondering why I thought that was true. And now my head hurts.

Oh yes. I was on a Billy Joel binge last night (and that has nothing to do with my head pain, by the way). I came away laughing and feeling high after finishing off with The Downeaster, Alexa — especially this verse:

So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel...

There's a marvelous thought hidden in there, one of the many in that song.

New York State Of Mind

The funny thing is that I never thought of myself as particularly enamoured of America, or at least the United States thereof. But I have visited several of the 48 contiguous mainland states, and I've tasted life there in the West, the East and the Middle (or is that the East, the West and the Midwest?) and Tennessee (I guess that's South, or is it 'mid-South'?)

But I miss New York the most, I think. Its amazing variety of peculiar life, deep history and melting-pot culture continues to inform and surprise me. It was the gateway to America for many people, many peoples; it continues to be one of the maybe two or three greatest cities of the world.

Part of it, I suppose, has to do with people like Billy Joel. Part of it has to do with odd stuff like this: a cheat-sheet to life in NYC. The only other city I've met which has enough depth for a multi-cultural mythology of its own is London, and that isn't fair because it was probably a Stone Age settlement along the Thames, occupied by wave after wave of immigrants or invaders.

Well, here's Mr Joel's take on his hometown:

Some folks like to get away, take a holiday
From the neighborhood
Hop a flight to Miami beach or Hollywood.
I'm taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River line—
I'm in a New York state of mind.

I've seen all the movie stars in their fancy cars
And their limousines,
Been high in the Rockies under the evergreens,
But I know what I'm needing and I don't want to waste more time—
I'm in a New York state of mind.

It was so easy living day by day
Out of touch with the rhythm and the blues,
But now I need a little give and take,
The New York Times, the Daily News...

It comes down to reality—and it's fine with me
'Cause I've let it slide,
Don't care if it's Chinatown or Riverside
I don't have any reasons, I've left them all behind—
I'm in a New York state of mind.

Well, there you have it.

Crossing The River

'Crossing The River' is an old meme, and a profound one. I have written about the significance of the Latin word terminus before – 'boundary', which we now think of only as a discrete end or a discrete beginning (whether discreet as well is a different matter). The point really is that we tend to think of life's rites of passage according to one of very few metaphors: the Terminus, as a gate in a wall or a river crossing, is the pre-eminent one.

With that in mind, I spent this morning thinking of the various crossings I've made over the years. It strikes me that these years are critical in that the river to be crossed is the widest I've ever seen. I once had a dream, when I was about six, and it went something like this: a small boy crosses a drain by jumping over it; he becomes older and it is a sewer with a bridge across; he is even older, but now he is crossing a crocodile-infested river while hanging onto a thin rope. I woke up in a fervid sweat.

Right now, it seems that I have been hanging in a reasonably comfortable lodge overlooking a turbulent stream. I am doing well here; I do my job as a jungle guide and all that, and the customers are mostly satisfied and have a fair amount of fun. But perhaps one night I will be shot in the back or knifed by someone I ought to be able to trust. That being so, my nice secure job at the lodge is likely to get me killed; it is where my enemies know where to find me.

Regarding enemies, there are two schools of thought: the first says, "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"; the second says, "God bless and keep the Tsar... far away from us!" I have seen both these quotes in novels, plays and musicals; they are very much part of our common humanity.

And perhaps that is why I dither on this side of the river. I know my enemies and my friends, and I know that all that saves me from damnation is the conscience that restrains. It is very hard to realise that the only reward I get is a stay of execution, and yet I have to trust that it will count for something in the end – on the other side of another river.

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River of Dreams

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
From the mountains of faith
To the river so deep
I must be lookin' for something
Something sacred I lost
But the river is wide
And it's too hard to cross
even though I know the river is wide
I walk down every evening and stand on the shore
I try to cross to the opposite side
So I can finally find what I've been looking for

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the valley of fear
To a river so deep
I've been searching for something
Taken out of my soul
Something I'd never lose
Something somebody stole
I don't know why I go walking at night
But now I'm tired and I don't want to walk anymore
I hope it doesn't take the rest of my life
Until I find what it is I've been looking for...

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep
I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night...

I’m not sure about a life after this
God knows I've never been a spiritual man
Baptized by the fire, I wade into the river
That is runnin' to the promised land...

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the desert of truth
To the river so deep
We all end in the ocean
We all start in the streams
We're all carried along
By the river of dreams
In the middle of the night...

by Billy Joel, in River of Dreams (10 Aug 1993)

Nightwinds

Tonight I turned my face to the wind and the rain. And I thought of ravens and ships and storms and the face of God. It is times like this, near the turning point between the years, when the fabric of reality has worn thin and has not been resurfaced, that one feels the immanence of the numinous.

Perhaps one of the songs that captures this odd sense of loss and future loss is Billy Joel's The Downeaster 'Alexa'. As Ambrosius said to Brian Duffy in The Drawing of the Dark, "Much has been lost, and there is yet much to lose." I've appended the lyrics to Alexa at the bottom of this post.

It's all about the Sea and an honest living, you see. The Sea, in my context, is my professional environment. Metaphorically, I was brought up in four generations of those who laboured at sea to make a living for themselves and others. As BJ puts it, "I was a bayman like my father was before..." and his father before him, and even before that, but it's a case of "...can't make a living as a bayman anymore..." Simply put, you can engineer it so that there are more people working in the industry, but if the industry is bust, it's bust. Kaput.

I spent a couple of hectic months writing about this sea. At the end of it, I was happy to have written something. But the sense of fin de siècle creeps up on you. It is like the end of the 'long 19th century', that curious period from about 1776 to 1918, in which British power oscillated from world-spanning and all-conquering to fragile and on the verge of extinction without knowing it. The French called it la Belle Epoque – but they would, of course.

I feel that the Sea, as my ancestors – my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents – knew it and loved it, is gone. Its waters recede, just as the Sea of Faith does in Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. Soon, the age of post-postmodernism, of a deliberate attempt to destroy the things of faith, will launch its eagle-taloned bid to strike and seize the heart of the world. That is what struck me tonight as I dreamt thoughts of ravens harrowing an eagle in the purple skies of the night, as the wind flung the rain like spears against the tall towers of my life.

Yes, "There ain't no future for a man who works the sea / But there ain't no island left for islanders like me..."

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The Downeaster 'Alexa' by Billy Joel

Well I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"
And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound
I have chartered a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone

So I could own my Downeaster "Alexa"
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel

Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they told me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me...

Two Thousand Years

Aha. The Dancer decided to link Billy Joel and his song from River of Dreams, the one titled Two Thousand Years. I like it because it is one of the best millennium anthems I've heard – it combines the longing for peace and love with the knowledge that both are possible but fleeting, and this is what humanity is about. (Oh yes, by the way, check out BlinkBox for some interesting stuff. Thanks, Nadine!)

Two Thousand Years

In the beginning
There was the cold and the night
Prophets and angels gave us the fire and the light
Man was triumphant
Armed with the faith and the will
That even the darkest ages couldn't kill

Too many kingdoms
Too many flags on the field
So many battles, so many wounds to be healed
Time is relentless
Only true love perseveres
It's been a long time and now I'm with you
After two thousand years...

This is our moment
Here at the crossroads of time
We hope our children carry our dreams down the line
They are the vintage
What kind of life will they live?
Is this a curse or a blessing that we give?

Sometimes I wonder
Why are we so blind to fate?
Without compassion, there can be no end to hate
No end to sorrow
Caused by the same endless fears
Why can't we learn from all we've been through
After two thousand years?

There will be miracles
After the last war is won
Science and poetry rule in the new world to come
Prophets and angels
Gave us the power to see
What an amazing future there will be
And in the evening
After the fire and the light
One thing is certain: nothing can hold back the night
Time is relentless
And as the past disappears
We're on the verge of all things new
We are two thousand years

It's good to realise that this last verse is surely intended to be ironic; and if it isn't, it ought to be.

A Room In The Heart

In every heart there is a room, and it sometimes has more than one nature. To Chesterton, in his epic poem Lepanto, it is

The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.

Chesterton, of course, speaks of the Pope in his chapel, at the centre of the storm that rages as the forces of the Caliphate collide head on with Don John of Austria's Christian navy at the Battle of Lepanto. But on a different level, he speaks of the place in our inmost being from which we look out and see that the world is beautiful and fragile. From this place, we see that the people we love, the things we delight in, the activities which are life to us, are all easily reft from us – and we learn to pray that we are protected from the fearful pain of their loss.

To Billy Joel, this place is also a sanctuary – but of a different kind. It is a refuge from that pain, not a window upon it; it is a place of healing in between the hurts. Perhaps he and Mr Chesterton were more alike than we can ever know. Here is Mr Joel's take on that room:

In every heart there is a room
A sanctuary safe and strong
To heal the wounds from lovers past
Until a new one comes along

I spoke to you in cautious tones
You answered me with no pretence
And still I feel I said too much
My silence is my self-defence

And every time I've held a rose
It seems I only felt the thorns
And so it goes, and so it goes
And so will you soon, I suppose

But if my silence made you leave
Then that would be my worst mistake
So I will share this room with you
And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed
It's just as well for all I've seen
And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you
That's if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes, and so it goes
And you're the only one who knows.

For me, that place conceals both the painfully beautiful and the beautifully painful. I remember old roses of all kinds, their smiles, the planes of their faces, their curves of mind and body; I remember sexuality and spirituality and somatic intensity. For these some of all the kinds of beauty that have been given to mortal men doomed to die; and God has made all things beautiful in His time.

Why did He give us all this beauty, these things that we have died for, or felt like dying for, or felt that we have died from? It is clear that there are two gifts of doom (in the Anglo-Saxon sense, I suppose) – the two Trees in the Garden were of moral knowledge and eternal life. But in Ecclesiastes it is written that firstly, God has made everything beautiful in its time; and secondly, God has set eternity in the hearts of men. The two things to be contrasted are not beauty and eternity, but time and eternity. All beauty has been given to us to enjoy in its time, regardless of variety – but the enduring foundation of our secret room is eternity.

And so, now older and a little wiser, when I see the brightness – the beautiful intellect and power and grace and strength (and so many other wonderful things!) in each of my students – I think of eternity. I think of how each aspect, each attribute might decorate the vault of infinity, and I thank God that He has made us all beautiful.

Moving Along

At 0400h this morning, I officially completed moving house for the eighth time in my life. All the while, I determinedly stuck to my plan of deliberate packing, placement and unpacking. And everything more-or-less worked out, even my rewiring. But in the face of this admittedly traumatic event, I discovered a kind of Zen-like detachment as I threw out stuff and ignored the world of work.

Meanwhile, somewhere at the back of my mind, some lyrics just refused to stop playing...

It seems such a waste of time
If that's what it's all about
If that's movin' up then I'm movin' out.

(from 'Anthony's Song' in Billy Joel's album The Stranger)

This one reminds me of a certain Mosaic individual:

Moving along in our God-given ways,
Safety is sat by the fire,
Sanctuary from these feverish smiles,
Left with a mark on the door,
Is this the gift that I wanted to give?

(from 'Passover' in Joy Division's album Closer)