Invention of Blues
0-2:33
Build around here, carnival space, and run until your legs hurt.
There’s not a promise in the world that can stop this from continuing.
Grids are plotted on rolled-up sheets, glossy paper
People are talking now; there’s a lot of buzz for this
Let’s not get too excited
But it’s hard to not – the pieces fall into place over time,
whether you think about them in advance or not. All of that
planning is not doing us any good, really – it’s a process.
The energy in the air is heavy. You can almost smell it like
dogs sensing weather patterns shifting. The thunder and lightning
trickles scents from skies above to the surface.
Stuff no one can really smell, but unique.
Something burbling, a collective build-up, eruption eminent.
Pencils scribble notes, paste things on everyone’s desk,
Rip down the old ways and stamp the drawings
The onset of human progress
Not a day passes where we cannot stifle our pride
Human engines spewing exhaust, heated, active, in perpetual
motion, coal-burning trains chugging across country,
to the uninvited a celebration presumptuous, a
well-deserved spectacle, magnificent, to draw people in
like moths, glittering and bright.
Light colors alternate in time to festive music and vivid imaginations
Circuitry toiled on for the enhanced experience of its users.
Come settle here, for the land is nubile and we
haven’t messed anything up yet, ferris wheel spinning deep in a clear, cloudless night, it’s a perfect night for walking outside,
dirt paths wind around cotton candy and popcorn stands, children
screeching everywhere, powered by sugar, circus games, and indulgent
parents. A prehistoric amusement park, turn of the century party.
2:34-3:24
I have not thought much about the true tenants, who
broke their backs to piece together the elaborations strewn throughout the field. Warm is the air to us, and a collective murmur passes. There is an electricity for them too, but it is not a simple carnival, not an always-joyous event. Chains are strapped to their legs and arms, although they have been free – for quite some time now actually – and allowed to roam where they please. Nowhere to really go, softly reminded of the traditions and roots already established, something stronger pulling those of larger, expansive visions to retreat to the comfort of the familiar song. The tune is ancient: inflected within the simple tones are the slight variations that bring out the individualities for each person involved in the complex, a stark contrast from the modal groundwork of lighter musics.
3:25-5:55
In the field, walking the rows, hands and feet sore
Brash behavior curtailed by the renditions of broken humanity, constraints on
life imposed by life’s progression, and the carnival leaders
Sing a song on the conditions of life, the place in the world fate has given to you, beyond your control, the unfortunate being that is.
A song for euphoria in struggle, pain scrambled along with work, productivity in its finest enslaving hour, rushing ahead and spinning gears while trampling on the people, the masses, the societies that hold themselves to a ritualistic standard, their own traditions, discarded for integration into the new progress.
A song for joy in death, celebration of life coexisting with the gruesome reality of living.
5:56-7:55
Some deep thoughts
The rhythms aggravated, syncopated, a native language on its own,
the drum circles started in open plains around the ceremonies of
ancient civilizations.
A human trait, to produce noise and motion as a collective decision, a group
mentality to converge on a singular goal.
Rhythms exposed in nature, compiled into a repetitive beat
Thumping of feet along the ground. Creatures chirp at night, buzzing, click-clack of
Critters in the natural landscape, pulsating hums of animals in all sizes:
Elephant foot and fly wing
Cut away from the wild and we have our own rhythms, the thud of a human
heart, pumping in time to the living beat.
So an inherent concept morphs into an idea, and then a tangible medium. Movement
interlocked with sound
It’s rain or shine, Monday and Friday, the deflation of spirits and the champions of soul. Take out the song an we are not able to cope.
Style is invented out of necessity, not whim, and the
sound carries far, so that it may live on, long after
the original producers have passed.
7:56-9:08
These children of a hardened family, descendants of mistreatment and cruel fate, watch from the trees, the bright lights attractive.
They come down to join the festivities, hand-in-hand. Hundreds rise to the hill and walk down to meet us, chanting their songs, the inflections strong, haunting and dramatic, hardly a work song anymore, but something much more powerful, far-reaching.