Click Here For Part I

-Photo from Sheila Chandra Weaving My Ancestor’s Voices

I heard a story about music once and never forgot it. It was about a young Frank Zappa. The story goes that Frank had brought a Beach Boys song to his music teacher in grade school and asked a question: Why do I like this so much?

I find it fascinating that we can learn a great deal about how music works, analyze a song from every angle, understand and express it in fairly complex terms, and yet our fundamental relationship to music is still kinesthetic. It’s still about how it makes you feel. I recall a fellow student warning me my freshman year at school that the study of music would take away the magic, that I would never experience it the same way again.

That never happened to me. It doesn’t matter how closely I study the technical aspects of music, how fine my examination of the individual parts; I never find the man behind the curtain.

So, weren’t we talking about cinema, and the use of music and sound?

I find some directors are gifted visually, but should leave the musical choices to someone else. Some, however, have a real ear for music and can combine the two beautifully. In Henry’s first scene as a grownup in Good Fellas, Martin Scorsese used a version of the song “Stardust”, with Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci leaning up against a car, the crooning lyrics, “Sometimes… I wonder…” I have watched that movie so many times I wouldn’t even want to try and estimate, but this scene still resonates. In another, Mr. Scorsese juxtaposes violence with a serene melody by Donovan called “Atlantis.” He just repeats that chorus again and again, “Way down… below the ocean…”, while Pesci and De Niro viciously attack the character Billy Batts. The violence is not pretty, but the song is, and that contrast is pure Scorcese. I’m not sure why, but there’s something about Martin’s work that tells me I would love to have him in my audience. Of course anyone would; that’s no surprise, but Mr. Scorcese in particular because he seems uniquely supportive of music. There’s an obvious passion there.

Do you know the film Risky Business? That movie uses music brilliantly, and the opening titles may be the best example. Tangerine Dream’s moody, atmospheric theme blends so seamlessly with the rhythmic clatter of Chicago’s elevated train it’s as if they were made for each other. Also extremely evocative, seamless and satisfying is Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” layered over the entrance of beautiful call girls and well scrubbed high school kids into the Goodson’s home. It’s a sublime choice that works on a number of levels. First, the genuine, raw sexuality of the music is perfect for the scene. It’s also funny: Joel and his friends aren’t what we would normally picture when we hear Muddy Waters’ music. But it works. I feel it also speaks to Joel’s transformation from a boy to a man, later symbolized in his mother’s broken crystal egg. Talking Heads’ “Swamp” fits into that scene wonderfully, too.

Also exquisite is the Jeff Beck piece our filmmaker chooses when Joel and his friend Barry (played brilliantly by Bronson Pinchot; I loved him in this movie) first take Joel’s father’s Porsche out for a ride on the town. Who made these choices!? Was it writer and first time director Paul Brickman? He should win an award for his musical discretion, and for the atmosphere and stylishness of this film.

On top of all that, Tangerine Dream’s original scoring for this film is arguably their best. To me, this movie is a genuine accomplishment. I wondered what critics had to say and looked it up. Would they like it? I found most did, with some very high praise. Roger Ebert stated the film not only invited comparison with The Graduate, it earned it.

Interestingly, I also found this in Ebert’s review: “Paul Brickman, who wrote and directed, has an ear so good that he knows what to leave out.” Exactly! That’s what I’ve been saying.

There are a number of positive reviews at rottentomatoes, but for some reason this one from variety.com is first:

High schooler Tom Cruise could literally be a next-door neighbor to Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People on Chicago’s affluent suburban North Shore. That changes virtually overnight, however, when he meets sharp-looking hooker Rebecca DeMornay. On the lam from her slimy pimp, she shacks up in Cruise’s splendid home while his parents are out of town and, since he’s anxious to prove himself as a Future Enterpriser in one of his school’s more blatantly greed-oriented programs, convinces him to make the house into a bordello for one night.

Ultimately, pic seems to endorse the bottom line, going for the big buck. In fact, not only is Cruise rewarded financially for setting up the best little whorehouse in Glencoe, but it gets him into Princeton to boot. Writer-director Paul Brickman can therefore be accused of trying to have it both ways, but there’s no denying the stylishness and talent of his direction.

Is Brickman trying to have it both ways? I didn’t get that. Joel notes early on that his friends seem only interested in money, and show a failure of interest in helping others. I think we get the impression that Joel is different. Lana’s ability to manipulate him, for example, though certainly based on her beauty and smarts and his naivete, also comes out of his empathy for her and her friend. Joel’s acquiescence and subsequent success in providing said service for his wealthy friends, as well as a Princeton admissions officer, seems to me more the coming of age in a corrupt society than an affront to that compassion and character.

All of this playing out over Muddy’s visceral, sexual Mannish Boy. This is good filmmaking. But wait, did I get off on a tangent about movies and lose the thread of music? Well, hopefully you liked what you heard.

Tristan L. Sullivan

Music

Paradise
What Does God Sound Like?

Photo by Norbert Rosing

Canada’s cruel, inhumane seal hunt is over. It is not called off forever, only over for this year, but there is something very encouraging and hopeful afoot. As a result of an outpouring across the globe from people like you, there is a high likelihood that the European Union will pass a ban on all seal products in June. This does not prevent Canada from this inhuman practice of course, but it would effectively end it as there will be virtually no market for seal products. It would also have strong implications for other nations like Russia who practice this atrocity.

Regarding this, please consider taking a moment to send a quick letter:

http://community.livejournal.com/action4animals/93120.html

Thank you for your attention at Imagine Weblog during this difficult time.

Tristan L. Sullivan

Photo courtesy of Rolf Hicker

If a heavenly creature plucked you from where you are right now and lifted you up to a higher, wider perspective: if you could see the whole world and your own life in it, you would understand beyond a shadow of a doubt that your role in the universe is crucial.

You make a difference. You are the difference. It is only individuals like you, those who work with Sea Shepherd, the people who signed the petition below and who drive the outpouring of compassion and activism by people across the world who have ever brought about change.

Suppose I see a hungry dog on the way in to buy groceries. She obviously needs help. Now suppose I’m with a friend and in a hurry, and although my friend says he wants to help her I scold him. “You can’t help every animal in the world,” I tell him. I am so wrong to say that. God has not asked me to help every animal in the world. The Universe delivered me to this animal, at this time, right now. It’s called opportunity. Once I decide to take action, reach down to pet her and ask her how she is, a plan already forming in my mind for how to take action and help her, I will immediately feel gratitude and peace. I will understand that what I’ve done affects every other feeling being on the planet. This is why I met up with her. I had a job to do. The same will happen to you. Try not to let yourself think about big things. Know that there are many others like you, that you are supported, that in fact most people on this planet feel the same way you do. A vast majority of people are sensible, compassionate, resent the ravages and viciousness of empire and oppression, sense the deception underneath. Do not feel isolated; don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. Just take action, and know that if we do what we can when we’re presented with the opportunity, and chose to first do no harm, for example by eating ethically raised meats and insisting on cruelty free shampoos and cosmetics, we are on our way to healing the world. We will always start from exactly where we are at this moment.

http://www.stopthesealhunt2007.com/donor-form.php?type=join

Please also consider this website, www.animalattraction.com . It’s a fun place, with fellow pet lovers posting their pictures and stories, and just for joining they donate 1 dollar to the animal welfare organization of your choice, plus a penny a day for each day you log in! It’s also a fun place to meet other pet parents and network, or if you’re single, find other pet parent singles for dating.

Help Protect Baby Seals

https://community.hsus.org/humane/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=20706339

Tristan L. Sullivan

Photo by Norbert Rosing

Today is a painful and horrible one: the Canadian Seal Hunt began this morning.

Revenue from this horrendous practice will represent only a fraction of the fishermen’s livelihood. This practice simply would not exist without human arrogance and brutality, without ignorance of our extraordinary potential here on this planet.
Atrocities like this always result from a closing off of our potential, of the wealth of talent and resources that have always been available to us; they result from fear. They are a product of zero sum thinking, and are only possible through complicity of the false authority of governments and officials, in this case Canada’s Minister of International Trade, David Emerson.

To confront the reality of this barbaric practice is extremely upsetting and heartbreaking. You can find photos of this here, but be aware they are profoundly heartbreaking. If you’re motivated to take action on this then you don’t need to look at photos or videos. If you feel you need to experience the reality of it in order to understand, then photos and videos have a definite purpose. The first thing to understand however, in confronting atrocity: you are not isolated, you are not alone. A dramatic illustration:

On 25 January 2007, the Belgian Parliament approved a ban on the trade in fur and other products (such as oil) originating from seals. An historic moment, since Belgium became the first EU country to impose such a ban. It was hoped to have a snowball effect: the more countries followed Belgium’s example, the more the markets for seal products would melt like snow in the sun.

This snowball effect has occurred: since September, the Netherlands no longer allow seal products into the country, and meanwhile, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom have also publicly stated that the trade which originates from the seal hunt must be stopped. This is a powerful signal to Canada, which still allows the cruel seal hunt.

http://wildlife-nannies.com/wildlife_community/story.php?id=155&PHPSESSID=6f35b4f68c5046ca974a426d2af4d5d1

Another article that details a possible ban on seal products by the European Union that could come as soon as June.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=b61ae675-cb1f-4589-9a6f-fe1107298b88&k=75579

Please consider joining us in signing the following petition regard the UK ban. If this ban goes through, it will virtually end the Canadian seal hunt, as there will be no market! You can sign from anywhere in the world:

http://www.hsus.org/about_us/humane_society_international_hsi/seal_trade_ban.html

I intend to continue to post links and resources that will help us reach people and take action. Governments and officials do not address atrocities on their own, but they do respond to popular pressure. The greater the groundswell of people, the more assured we can be that this ban will go through. Likewise, the greater our efforts and commitment to stopping this horrific attack on these beautiful, innocent creatures the more quickly we can get it done.

Atrocities like these inspire feelings of rage and a desire for revenge, and this is understandable and normal; we need not suppress those feelings. They are a step up from despair, so let them come. Let us direct that energy though, along with our compassion and our love for these beautiful, sentient creatures, to a solution. I wonder if it would be worthwhile to take a moment and contemplate these fishermen as no longer needing or wanting to club innocent seals to death for a few dollars. Contemplate the European Union ban as done, as passed. Then, talk about this

Please find links below to take action right now, and consider any talents you can offer to help these beautiful little guys.

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/trademinister_protectseals08?

https://community.hsus.org/humane/notice-description.tcl?newsletter_id=20706339

Tristan L. Sullivan

I watched a dusty old science film recently of a lady who takes a powerful hallucinogenic drug. The change is astounding: she goes from being a typical 50s housewife to, a few hours later, quietly gushing about how everything is connected, how the air is alive all around her with dancing technicolor molecules, connected to every other thing in the world. The researcher asks her, “Is it all one?” She pauses, considers this and says, “It would be if you weren’t here.” This is essentially how I feel about dominator culture. It has an intrusive, degrading quality that tends to homogenize people and trivialize real experience. I’ve never used those drugs, even the milder ones, but people ask me questions like his all the time. They act as if it’s some sort of inquiry, but what they’re really saying is, I wish I could feel that way too. They can, though.

I experience the whole world as inspired and alive. If I think about something I’ll get three hits on it that day, and I love the synchronicity. I walk around wondering why more people aren’t inspired and excited about their lives. It’s such a privilege to be alive on this planet.

The thing about feeling this way is that you look at someone or you look at something, and you are that thing. It makes for a real depth of connection and feeling in this world, but also overwhelming sadness when you see images of animals in a factory farm. I would do anything to help that beautiful baby calf in that crate, and I will spend the rest of my life doing all I can for him. I spend a lot of time trying to find ways to be of help in this world; but that’s not so strange. There are many who do a lot more than I do.


Welcome. I’m Tristan. I was raised in the woods of the Berkshires. I was a curious kid, a lover of animals and nature.
I fell in love and felt real heartbreak before I started playing music. I was nineteen when I started taking it seriously: a late bloomer. I threw myself into it. My first instrument was drums, and I was fortunate to study with a world class jazz musician named Randy Kaye. Randy Kaye was a poet on the drums: a true artist, especially with brushes. Graceful, subtle, very unique. From the start I got a highly creative, non-traditional perspective in my instruction, and I threw myself into the craft. I was lucky. Randy recognized my commitment and in a year or so, started sending me on subs for him.
I went to school and studied jazz and music theory. I focused on piano and keyboards along with drums as my concentration; I loved the way it let me play the riffs I’d been dependent on others to play. With a little keyboard knowledge I could figure out the harmony to the Miles Davis piece I was listening to day and night, play the bass line to the Sade song I was in love with. I would hear a song like Thelonious Monk’s Misterioso, get intensely curious about the intervals that drove its quirky, irresistible melody, and then get such a thrill when I got inside and could plunk it out.

When I was a child I wondered why music had such a strange power over me. When I started to study it I was like a lifelong drug addict finally learning to grow his own plants and synthesize his own chemicals. It doesn’t take much to understand the Dorian mode, but for me it was like decoding the subtle mechanics of falling in love.
I found my passion was playing funk music and blues shuffles. Right out of school I started a blues band and we did just that. This was with three of the most creative, gifted people I knew. Looking back, one of the interesting things is that we had each (except our singer Ed Moran, who needed no schooling) studied and played jazz, and had a fairly complex understanding of music theory. But rather than exhibit this in the music, we chose to simplify. We found that when you channel that much intensity and passion into a simple structure, the results are fascinating and powerful. I loved that band. I look back on those years like a scene in a movie. Blues music is still my favorite in the world. It’s a misperception that Blues music is sad; a 12 bar shuffle is the most ecstatic music on the planet.

I love music. I dream of it. I’ve had anxiety dreams where I’m playing my drums on a steeply pitched roof, and I’m grabbing at the cymbal stands trying to hold it all together but it’s just falling apart. Other times I dream I’m listening. Most often though, I mean regularly, I dream that I am music. The dream plays out while I score it with evolving music literally pulsing out of my body. I wake up with whole songs, chord structure, a groove and bass line in my head, and if I lay still I can keep it going for minutes. In my waking life I have sonic ideas in my head all the time. You know how you go to the grocery store and get a song stuck in your head? I think we get songs lodged in the body. You have to hit the reset button to get it clear again. I like joyful, expressive, colorful works of art. Stuff where the artist is just in love with what he or she is doing. I feel it’s the best reason to do anything. Like Van Goth’s Sunflowers. If you watch old films of Art Blakey’s band playing Moanin’, you’ll see what I mean.

What follows are some thoughts of mine on life, culture, the world of arts and music. You can dive in if you like, or just move on and listen.
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If you were mine
If you were mine
I wouldn’t want to go…
to heaven.

-Sade “Cherish The Day”

I was born with a love for the human voice. Sound thrills me, especially the divine phenomenon we call music, and above all else when expressed by a vocalist.

A voice has tone and inflection, but it also has character. Actors are easy to recognize, even if you’re just walking through a room and can’t see the television: Annabelle Sciorra, Keith David, Charles S. Dutton, Debra Winger. It’s as if you’re recognizing someone you know. Then there’s the voice-over crowd; these people have very distinctive vocal quality. In documentaries and nature programs you often hear a guy named Peter Coyote. You might know Coyote as the wheelchair bound hellraiser in a Polanski film called Bitter Moon. Great voice: slightly gritty with a certain warmth, a storytelling presence, and that’s why they use him. Keith David, also. Powerful screen presence, and great for voice-overs.

Annabelle Sciorra has one of the silkiest voices on this planet. If an angel appeared on earth as a tiger, woke up and stretched after a long nap and started to speak, it would sound like Annabelle Sciorra.

When you take that extraordinary instrument and make music, I feel the most intense kind of ecstasy. When I work with a singer, writing and recording, I am in a room with a creature who intrinsically manufactures my drug of choice. As you can imagine, I get excited.

Movies combine sound design, speech, and music; I get excited about that. In a scene with music there’s a potential to reduce me to a shuddering mass of ecstasy.

In a movie called MirrorMask you will find a fascinating remake of the Burt Bacharache written, Karen Carpenter classic “Close To You.” The arrangement is striking and unusual, a voice manipulated, slightly robotic yet somehow still vulnerable and human rendition that wakes you up and delivers the drug at the same time.

You can find another example in a sci-fi movie called Mimic. I don’t have a lot to say about the movie, but there is one scene where Charles S. Dutton descends with a scientist into an abandoned subway, dark and subterranean, and he shouts out a vocal phrase to comfort himself. “Yeah, yeah!… got a telegram this morning. Sayin’ my wife was dead…” It is pure blues, my favorite music in the world, and as often happens with the genre it takes something painful and makes it into the most beautiful expression of humanity on earth.

Mr. Dutton is what you call a “Blues Shouter,” someone who sounds best when he’s just belting it out. He just nails it. It’s a wonderful little interlude, one he may not have thought much of… but I recommend you rent the movie just to hear it. I don’t know if Dutton takes singing gigs or not but I would like to hire him, record a phrase like that and compose a moody, filtered, funk inflected piece for it… Dutton’s voice belting out over the top, looped so it repeats again and again, the groove and harmony pulsating support underneath. This is how I worship.

Tristan L. Sullivan

Music
Broken Arrow

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

Last night, The History Channel ran a show on the 16th century French apothecary and astrologist, Michel de Nostredame. Michel is known to many as Nostradamus: the great seer and prophet who depicted in his drawings and writing many events that would later come to pass. They interviewed scholars, dramatized aspects of the man’s life, and we saw prints of his well done drawings and his text.

I have rarely seen such a laughable piece of racist, propagandist trash in all my life.

It got to the point where I could predict what they would roll out next, and then watch them do it. Just before a commercial break we learned (and then waited breathlessly through ads for Verizon Wireless and pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb) that de Nostredame had predicted an apocalypse, spurred by a powerful Antichrist! There was much talk about the great Apocalypse (and for the record I think that part may well turn out to be correct), and about this powerful catalyst, the Antichrist. Obviously, this couldn’t be a Christian man, like Mitt Romney. Our distinguished experts confirmed: Nostradamus intended for us to understand that this great Antichrist would be Muslim. We know that, they explained, because Monsieur Nostedame drew a picture of a half moon next to a serpent.

Then they rolled out the image of the Real Life Antichrist we face today. I thought to myself… No, they won’t do it. Will they? It’s too obvious! I mean, I know his face sells PBS specials like Frontline, but will they be that predictable? And who’s image did we see next? Take a guess.
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Many thanks to my loyal readers during this time of transition. I have been doing a lot of work on my website, blog, fiction, music and videos. I’m making a splash at youtube with my first ever public release. I’m excited to announce to that my fiction is now for sale online! Please feel free to visit anytime. You can also navigate from this page, which has descriptions and sample reading. I will be adding more titles soon.

This work represents my most intrinsic ideas and feelings, so it is very gratifying to have the opportunity to reach people.

By the way, any comments on the stories? Feel free to post them below.

Tristan L. Sullivan

A very bright man named Christopher posted a well written comment on this thread, which inspired me to follow up on the original essay. Christopher’s last paragraph:

I think the problem most have with “Christian” music is that the vast amount of songs just arent very good, lyrical or not. I’ve personally always found their melodies soft, their sound soft, their sentiment soft. it’s a preference for me, but it’s a great cause of concern for the genre because I think it’s created a stigma that’s difficult to outrun.

Christopher’s description reminds me of programs they showed us in grade school about drugs, or safe sex, or something similar. They tried to be down with the kids. You could hear it a mile away. It had no power.

In my opinion, an experience of enlightenment and connection with the divine means acknowledging all aspects of one’s self. We can’t remove one aspect and keep another. Deepak Chopra points out that we need to acknowledge both the sacred and the profane, the divine and the diabolical, and I think he’s correct.

I think art has two aspects to it: power and beauty. A given piece might be stronger on one or the other, and that’s fine. Frank Zappa’s “Dirty Love” speaks to a fairly different part of us than Karen Carpenter’s version of “Close To You”, but both are great songs. Each plays to different aspects of our humanity, but each is wonderful in its way. Completely remove either power or beauty from a piece however, make it completely dark or insipidly bright, and you’ve lost your resonance. If an artist wants to achieve anything truly meaningful, she has to embrace the dark side as well as the light.

Sometimes you walk into a nightclub, and the music just pulls you in it’s so alive up there. Spontaneous, driving. Beautiful. In my opinion, the players up on that stage are revealing everything. There is lust in their playing; there’s anger, there is compassion and kindness at the most sublime level.
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