Letters from Quotidia Fractal 8

Welcome to Letters from Quotidia Fractal 8. I was a news junkie from my years in Seroe Colorado Junior High, Aruba, in the early 1960s where I haunted the library consuming books, of course, but also  magazines such as The US News and World Report. Later, I ate up Time and Newsweek, quality papers such as The Guardian, The Times, and The Independent. Radio and TV news bulletins and current affairs programs were also wolfed down as my appetite for content burgeoned.

But gradually my taste for such media began to cloy as my digestion rebelled against the increasing inflow of lies and propaganda. I turned to late night comedy hosts whose evisceration of the newsmakers cleansed my palate somewhat. But even this did not satisfy my need for something truthful. I had even started to envy my wife as she and Judge Judy set the world to rights as I turned in to get a good night’s rest.

Poet Fatimah Asghar thought the unthinkable in her short poem, The Mushroom Cloud’s a Rose The mushroom cloud’s a rose/ for a moment outside/the window where we once held hands/Now/we have the beautiful/ disarray/ of our bodies/ broken apart// There is an implacable beauty in the imagery of sleek war machines  and the destruction they wreak. But we need to resist the atavistic urge to cheer as we are treated to images of bombs and missiles blasting apart fortifications, trucks, tanks and planes and remember that people who are flesh and blood just like us are in those crosshairs.

Our family has never had to live through the horrors of war even though we were in Belfast when the Troubles first broke out in 1969 and in Northern Ireland during most of the 1980s where  sectarian violence was rife. I remember one occasion when I was traversing waste ground which was bisected by sectarian boundaries.  I was on the way to my fiancée’s house in Belfast in 1970 and I was confronted by two very large men who asked to look at the paper I was carrying under my arm. I showed them The Belfast Telegraph, and, after a pause, they handed it back to me and gestured me on my way. You see, had I been carrying The Belfast Newsletter or The Irish News, the former a publication read almost exclusively by Protestants, and the latter a publication read almost exclusively by Catholics, the outcome for me could have been dire depending on the religious affiliation of the menacing duo. The Telegraph was read by both sides, so I escaped a hiding or worse, I think. This reminiscence sparked a song about “news” which I now present. It’s called, Have You Heard the News [insert song]  

Most war poets are men, often soldiers who have experienced first-hand the conflict. A poem from the perspective of a woman caught my eye as I visited the site Interesting Literature by Dr Oliver Tearle. He writes, “Marjorie Pickthall (1883-1922) was Canadian, although she was born in London. She was regarded by some as the greatest Canadian poet of her generation, and her short poem ‘Marching Men’ is a moving …response to the sacrifice being made by thousands of men every week in the First World War.” I think at a time when Canada is being vilified by the 47^th President of the US, it’s worth remembering that 118,000 Canadians fell in conflict since the Boer War. The Canadian casualty rate for World War I, which is the subject of Pickthall’s  poem, is 66,000.

Here is her poem Marching Men Under the level winter sky/ I saw a thousand Christs go by./ They sang an idle song and free/ As they went up to Calvary.//Careless of eye and coarse of lip,/ They marched in holiest fellowship./ That heaven might heal the world, they gave/ Their earth-born dreams to deck the grave.// With souls unpurged and steadfast breath/ They supped the sacrament of death./ And for each one, far off, apart,/ Seven swords have rent a woman’s heart.// Most people have enough to contend with in the course of their lives without the added pain and dislocation of wars, which are decided way above their mundane lives. I wrote a song about quotidian lives fifty years ago. Here is that song, The Furnaceman. [insert song]  

The news I now value is the “Good News”. I point to the luminosity of The Beatitudes, the consolation of The Psalms, the insights offered by The Books of Wisdom and The Prophetic Books, the messages contained within The Parables of Jesus, and the enthralling account of the struggles of the early church in The Acts of the Apostles. As an unknown writer myself, I think about those many, many unknown scribes and seers and drudges who have left us with that magnificent piece of literature that we call the Christian Bible.

There was a thousand year compositional period from, say,  the ninth century BC to the first century AD in which the Bible we know today was compiled.  To this add the copies laboriously made, such as The Book of Kells, in European monasteries until the invention of the printing press ensured that the Bible will never disappear as over 7 billion copies have been printed so far and 100 million are added to that total every year. I wrote a song of thanksgiving to the unknown writers who first set down the words, that some call inspired. It’s called Thanks. [insert song]

Gerrard Manley Hopkins in Dappled Beauty wrote, Glory be to God for dappled things –/ For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;/For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;/Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;/ Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough/And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.//All things counter, original, spare, strange;/ Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)   With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;/He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.// Thanks to our poets as well as the scribes. Take care, stay safe, be well.

Have You Heard the News (words and music Quentin Bega)

Am                                                          G

A man came by on horseback and said have you heard the news

Am                                              G

The enemy are defeated, believe me they are through

Am                                                           G

We won’t have to hide in cellars we won’t have to hide our kids

Am                                              G

Believe me when I tell you, they are on the skids

F               C                     G            F                    C                G

Then I noticed on his sleeve insignia that chilled my soul

     F                        C                         G         F                     C             G

I saw the silver glint of skull and bones and I nearly lost control

Why stand you there in silence why stand you there so mute

When you should be cheering and you should salute

The bringer of these tidings, the best you’ll ever hear

Why just stand there open mouthed why is there no cheer

Forgive me sir but I have lately heard that we are at our utter end

Our foes have greater power and might against which we cannot defend

They were so smug as to a man they rested in their fort

From which they would sally forth to kill us for their sport

But they forgot a chain’s as strong as just its weakest link

But we found it and we used it causing them to sink

A greedy warder’s lust for gold opened a secret gate for us

We stormed the camp and slew them left and right/

Victory is ours you’ll have to trust

And so I threw my hat up high into the air

I’m sure you’d have done the same had you been there

Don’t you know I threw my hat up high into the air

And you’d have done the same had you been there

Oh you’d have done the same had you been there

The Furnaceman (words and music Quentin Bega)

Just like the way that you hold me, and we talk late at night

When I’m tired you soothe my soul then I’m all right

And in the morning, you wake me with a weary smile

That says maybe this day our luck will change our ship come in

I keep the furnaces blazing that is my job

Yes, those fires are burning although it’s not hell

It’s the closest to damnation I hope to come

Came to this country in ’60 full of hope that I could build

something good for you and our two young kids

But Rikki died at the big plant in my sight dear God

Will that memory ever let me be and fade away

I keep the furnaces blazing that is my job

Yes, those fires are burning although it’s not hell

It’s the closest to damnation I hope to come

Maria left with her boyfriend and for years I’ve hoped

She would come back or even phone to say hello

The way that you come to me oh you make me feel

When you make love to me a true man of steel

I keep the furnaces blazing that is my job

Yes, those fires are burning although it’s not hell

It’s the closest to damnation I hope to come

The years have taken their toll on me each day leaves a trace

You make a new world for me each night in this place

The years have taken their toll on me each day leaves a trace

You make a new world for me each night in this place

Thanks (words and music Quentin Bega)

C                                       Em                          F                          G

Thanks to those who wrote it down on clay or stone or slabs of wood

C                                   Am                  F                              G

Papyrus, leather, parchment too, then on paper for us to read

Fm7                                 C                      Fm7                        C

Were you struck by lightning, hear voices from a cloud

Fm7                                  C                       Dm                                 G

Or did you write for money,  just set down what you were told.

                 Em7                                                       Am

Fellow scribes whatever moved you then it matters not to me

Em7                                                        Am

Marks you made so long ago have helped to set me free

                       F                                            Bb

From these chains of ignorance that weighed me down so long

Eb                                                  C                                  G

Darkness held me in its grip until I saw the light

I give thanks to all of you no matter what compelled you to

Write the words that down the ages have inspired us after you

Did you feel a purpose, did you feel the urge

To wonder what the point was would it ever do some good

Fellow scribes whatever moved you then it matters not to me

Marks you made so long ago have helped to set me free

From these chains of ignorance that weighed me down so long

Darkness held me in its grip until I saw the light

Credits: All written text, song lyrics andmusic (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.

Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.