Thoughts in Progress

Think what you want about Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize for literature (and believe me, the blogosphere is awash with polarising opinions) but the famously recluse troubadour has unwittingly opened up an interesting and necessary debate: can song-writing be considered literature in its own right?

My gut feeling would probably shout out to let songs be songs and let literature be literature. Yet, somehow with Bob the lines get pretty hazy. He is one of the few performers who can lay claim to having a foot on both genres.

I first came to Dylan in uni. When I say “I came”, I mean that I began to listen actively to Bob in my first year of university. Before that, the only tune by Mr Zimmerman I knew was “Blowin’ in the Wind”. I think it was also the only one most Cuban radio DJs were acquainted with. Certainly it was the only one they played. Through a series of recommendations from friends in my freshman’s year, my journey through Dylan’s back catalogue started and I can safely say, I’m still on the same trip.

I cannot write about Dylan’s work chronologically, for I got stuck in his 60s phase and I still have not managed to get out. I did listen to his 80s collaboration with George Harrison, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison, namely, The Travelling Wilburys, but that was not as satisfying as listening to his early albums. My first Dylan tape, recorded at one of my classmate’s, with randomly added Janis Joplin’s songs at the end (remember how we used to record from long play to cassette, or cassette to cassette, filling up the remaining empty space with whatever was at hand? In those days most albums lasted between 45 and 60 minutes and tapes were sometimes 90 minutes long. I still have silence-cancelling mini-compilations I used to make, some of which were better than the record that preceded them. Go figure) was The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The album opened with, yes, you guessed it, Blowin’ in the Wind, but by track 3, Masters of War, I knew that there was more to Bob than just a man asking too many questions.

This first Dylan shared space with my very tiny, minuscule, almost invisible cassette collection. It was 1990s Havana and a tape could set you back between 15 and 20 Cuban pesos. Add to that the fact that I still lived with my mum, cousin, her mother and my grandmother in a cardboard-sized, one-bed flat in downtown Havana and any collection-building ambitions were dealt an immediate harsh reality check. Yet, my lifelong affair with Bob’s music was born in this confined space.

I used the word troubadour in my opening paragraph on purpose. It is not a term often used in English. Most critics and music enthusiasts prefer to talk about “singer songwriters”. In Spanish, though, the word “trovador” still denotes a musician who writes complex, poetic compositions in which both the music and poetry worlds are indivisible. To me, that is Dylan. Let us take for instance one of his signature melodies, Masters of War.

He sets the pattern very early in the song. He is talking directly to the weapons manufacturers, the arms traders; the big businesses that cash in on creating and fomenting wars in order to make money (Come you masters of war/You that build the big guns/You that build the death planes/You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls/You that hide behind desks/I just want you to know I can see through your masks). His tone is defiant throughout the song; his narrative is stern and edgy. I love the totally uncompromising (from a humanist point of view) last stanza (And I hope that you die/And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket/By the pale afternoon/And I'll watch while you're lowered/Down to your deathbed/And I'll stand o'er your grave/'Til I'm sure that you're dead). Show that to an impressionable eighteen- or nineteen-year-old and you have an immediate follower.

But Dylan is capable of writing more than passion-stirring lyrics. On Bringing it All Back Home we have a perfect example of composition as an existentialist statement. The track It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) contains some of the more pessimistic - and yet, beautifully poetic - words Bob has ever written such as: Temptation's page flies out the door/You follow, find yourself at war/Watch waterfalls of pity roar/You feel to moan but unlike before/You discover/That you'd just be/One more person crying. It is also one of those pieces that works very well as a standalone poem, especially when the only musical backing is an up-and-down two-chord folk-blues riff. Personally speaking, it is one of my favourite Bob’s creations. I used to have the line “And if my thought-dreams could been seen/They'd probably put my head in a guillotine/But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only” on my blog banner. It meant a lot, especially for a young Cuban growing up in the shadow of Fidel’s totalitarian state at the tail end of the 80s and beginning of the terrible 90s.

The true measure of an artist should not be gauged only by their immediate impact – hits and accolades – on the music world and the fanbase they create, but also by their epoch-defying legacy within and without their own geographical borders. In this sense Dylan has transcended his own time and place as both a singer-songwriter… and writer.



©2016

Next Post: “Diary of Inconsequential Being”, to be published on Wednesday 2^nd November at 6pm (GMT)

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

What to do about the poor? There they are, ignoring the bailiffs knocking on the door, soon to kick it in. Enjoying their cold showers (that’s not a euphemism, by the way). Enjoying? What do you mean “enjoying”? Nobody enjoys cold showers in January! Haven’t they ever heard of warm water running smoothly down your body on a chilly winter morning? Ah, they can’t put the water heater on. Can’t afford it. All right, then. OK, how about this, how about all that greasy food they put in their fat bodies? It’s a disgrace. Oh, comfort food, you say, cheap food, you say, whatever is available, you say, from the local food bank, you say. Whatever. Whenever. Wherever.

What is poverty? Or rather, what isn’t? The latter is less difficult to define than the former. It surely isn’t yet another banker or CEO pocketing another billion-pound bonus.

I have realised in my many years living on planet Earth as a fully functional human being that in order to attain a degree of normality certain social groups must be occasionally demonised. The way it works is as follows: we create a problem, then, we come up with a scapegoat, or scapegoats, to masquerade the problem we can no longer solve. But the problem doesn’t go away, in fact, the problem comes back at us as strong as the urine that damps our clothes when we take a leak against the wind. But instead of acknowledging the problem (pissing against the wind, or the micturition dilemma to put it more politely) and our role in it, we look for another patsy to blame. All the time with our clothes reeking of urine.

Let’s establish a fact first of all: nobody wants to be poor. I have never met a single person in my entire life whose main aspiration is to live below the breadline. The opposite? Yes. All you need to do is turn your telly on and almost every channel on both terrestrial and satellite television will have its own “reality” show where contestants compete against each other to win a prize that will make them instantly rich. Or at least recognisable, which is a way to become famous and therefore rich. But poor? There is no programme called How to Become Poor and Be Really Good at It (although Channel 4 might already be working on it). Which means that poverty can be caused by many factors: redundancy (voluntary or not), learnt culture (born into a household where dependency on state handouts is chronic), loss of an industry upon which a whole region relies, i.e., mining. The list goes on. Why, then, the vilification of the poor as if deprivation could be explained by one single element?

I have a theory. I think that one of the reasons is classism. Throughout history different groups have been maligned for various reasons: blacks, Jews, Arabs, women, you name it. But in the case of the poor disapproval of their status and lifestyle has been constant. Why? Because the poor are a reminder of the flaws in our society, especially in the so-called developed world.  In developing nations, like Cuba, my country of birth, the existence of poor people is not a welcome sight, but it is understandable. After all we are “developing” as a country. Plus, the Cuban government can always be trusted to blame the US embargo for this situation, even if the big shots have never had to put up with hardship. But in the case of western polities, the poor are a stain that refuses to go away. They are that class with which the middle and upper classes have to contend every day even if they don’t share the same postcode. It doesn’t matter whether you sit on the left or on the right of the political spectrum. Whilst you might think twice about using inappropriate language when discussing race or sexual orientation nowadays out of political correctness, when it comes to the poor, anything and everything goes. Those of a blue-tinted hue (conservative, for those not au fait with British politics) condemn poor people and label them as lazy, good-for-nothing and scroungers. If only they got off their fat backsides and look for work! The red side (Labour) doesn’t fare better. It is constantly chasing the middle ground and therefore cannot make up its mind as to what to do with those who have fallen on hard times. When the liberal, progressive, forward-thinking brigade opens its collective mouth to talk about the poor what comes out is usually draped in condescension.

What to do with the poor, then? Well, the question is, what to do with them when they finally break through? When they come off benefits and find their own feet (again, for some). I tell you what, they still get a kicking.

The poor: damn if you do, damn if you don't

Enter Jack Monroe, the doyenne of one of the better blogs around, A Girl CalledJack. Ms Monroe is a dynamic, clever and feisty woman who, as a single mother of one, has unintentionally incurred the wrath of the rightwing press. All because she has dared to raise her head above the parapet and bring a much-needed empirical angle to the discussion about the welfare state. Oh, and she’s a lesbian with lots of tattoos.

When Jack writes about being on the dole she does not use figures or statistics. She lets readers know exactly what she had to go through when her housing benefit payments were delayed, leaving her in arrears. Monroe’s life is not the “Benefits Fantasy Island” parliamentarians debate about in Westminster, where apparently all claimants wear the latest Nikes and have Samsung 32-inch LED televisions in their living rooms. Hers is the real face of poverty in Britain in the 21^st century.

I do not deny that some people abuse the welfare system. Sadly they give a bad reputation to those who really need it, but we have to accept the fact that fraudsters do exist. That is why we need the likes of Jack Monroe to tell us about her experience of watching her son eating the only food available in the house whilst she went hungry. We hear too much about the person who cheats the system of a few hundred pounds but less of the many claimants who can’t even make ends meet because they lack the ends.

To carry on with Jack, her blog was picked up by a few media outlets and before she knew it she had a column in TheGuardian and was fronting a Sainsbury’s ad. You would have thought that the rightwing media would have been happy with how her life turned out. After all, she got on her bike and found work! No more feckless and unemployed Ms Monroe but a proper full-time employee contributing, through her taxes, to the safety net from which she had benefited. She was still a tattooed, lesbian single mother, though. Oh, well, you can’t please everybody all the time, can you?

So, was the rightwing media happy? Hell, no!

The Daily Mail has been at the vanguard of the onslaught against Jack Monroe in the form of Bigot-in-Chief Richard Littlejohn. Jack’s problem apparently is that she talks. And she doesn’t just talk, but she talks, articulately, about problems this government would rather people forget about. Like, for instance, how over 5,000 people have been treated for malnutrition in the past year in the UK. Jack’s problem (in the eyes of The Mail and other reactionary newspapers) is that, although she belongs to the underclass, she’s dared to rise above her station. Monroe is expressing opinions to which her ilk is not normally entitled. In the eyes of the rightwing media this is a mortal sin.

There is, however, another side to this coin. Welcome as it is that Jack Monroe has made The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Mirror her natural home, one - unintentional - reason for her acceptance is the existence of a different type of snobbery against poor people, this time from the well-meaning left. Monroe ticks all the boxes that would rile the average The Daily Mail reader: "lefty, liberal, lezzer cook" (her words) . (We) Guardian devotees love this. There is nothing we enjoy more than putting one over The Daily Hate. But scratch the surface and I know that many of my fellow Guardianistas would not be seen dead in their local sink estate talking to the heavily-tattooed bloke, hoodie up, staffs let loose in the park terrorising families, smoking a roll-up and expressing himself in monosyllables with the f-word cameoing in almost every short sentence. That is also the face of poverty in Britain. Unfortunately it does not come accompanied by toasted pitta bread topped with chunks of fried sardine and a runny egg.

Jack is not to blame for this state of affairs. She is doing a sterling job. She is not only a brilliant cook (I will be nicking one of her recipes for my food and music section soon), but also a much-needed feminist model in times when most girls look at Rihanna and Beyoncé as women to emulate. To me the issue remains the same: what do we do about the poor? Answers on a postcard, please.

© 2014

Photo taken from The Guardian

Next Post: “Living in a Multilingual World”, to be published on Wednesday26th February at 11:59pm (GMT)

Greatest Hits - Track 12

I wonder if Germaine Greer ever read my response to her feature on Bob Dylan. But in case you, my dear reader/blogger, missed it the first time around, here it is again. I've returned now from my holidays and it's good to re-post a Killer Opening Song when that'll be precisely my first column next week now I'm back on the saddle. Read you soon.

Open letter to Ms Germaine Greer from Killer Opening Songs:

Dear Germaine,

For a long time now I have followed your writing avidly, especially your regular column in The Guardian newspaper every other Monday. Your insight into arts and literature is fascinating and thought-provoking. Your book 'The Female Eunuch' is currently sitting on my bookshelf and it won't be long before it and I become a temporary item, wandering around the streets of London arm in arm, metaphorically speaking. I even felt sorry for you the other night when you cameoed on 'Have I Got News For You', the BBC's flagship political satire programme, because of the rough time, I believe, you were given by your (male) counterparts.

As a critic, you speak your mind and you do it, usually, in a coherent and intelligent way. That's why I was so surprised to find your recent feature on Bob Dylan so lackadaisical and ill-informed.

Please, note that I am not questioning your right to like or dislike Bob's music. What I am bringing to the fore, rather, is the futility of the arguments you used in order to back up your theory.

First one in line has to be your certainty (or belief) that Dylan 'thought that rhyme equalled reason'. I disagree on all counts. The example you give, 'Visions of Johanna' is a chronicle in musical form, rather than an attempt to pair up words that rhyme. How's this for an intro?

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?/We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it/And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it/Lights flicker from the opposite loft/In this room the heat pipes just cough/The country music station plays soft/But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off/Just Louise and her lover so entwined/And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

Secondly, it seems to me that your aversion to Bob's music stems rather from the fact that he kept his fans 'waiting at the Isle of Wight festival in 1969 for three hours, from 9 o'clock till midnight, before he would sing a word'. Notice the use of the possessive pronoun 'his'. You were not amongst those fans, so this is really 'animus by proxy'.

You also aver that Dylan's texts cannot be considered verse, not even doggerel. You then go on to assert that his prose makes no sense. But then you compare him to Morrissey, he of The Smiths, towards the end of your article. To me that's a contradiction. Although, I am not a The Smiths person, even I cannot fail to notice the long tradition of good story-telling that both Dylan and Morrissey draw from. How else to explain the obvious and in-your-face pessimism underpinning 'Heaven Knows I am Miserable Now'?

What she asked of me at the end of the day/Caligula would have blushed/"You've been in the house too long" she said/And I (naturally) fled. By the way, does it make any sense, Germaine?

You then compare Dylan to that stalwart of the Romantic period, William Blake. Just to be on the safe side, Ms Greer, Blake's works were at first considered to be the works of a madman. It was only years after he died that his poetry and painting acquired the high status they rightly deserved. Dylan, too, suffered misunderstanding when he began his career on account of his early compositions. Not everyone 'got' him. I have no idea why you had to dig out Blake's 'The Sick Rose' from his 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' to put one over the American troubadour. Your analysis of the fragment quoted is flawless, but it adds nothing new to your argument because one is verse and the other one is a song (Visions of Johanna). As to the difference between lyrics and words, which seems to me to be you main gripe, the online dictionary I normally default to, defines a lyric as having the form and musical quality of a song, and esp. the character of a songlike outpouring of the poet's own thoughts and feelings, as distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry. So, song, first, lyric after. And therein lies the importance of both poet and troubadour. Their works are usually short, romantic (broadly speaking) and, if possible, humorous. Pope knew it, so did Shakespeare. Facetiousness is present throughout Dylan's oeuvre, as well as in other modern poets/singer-songwriters' work. Listen to Ursula Rucker and you will hear sarcasm mixed with pain. This is not poetry/music for the faint-hearted. Listen to Dylan's 'It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)' and the line 'But even the president of the United States/Sometimes must have/To stand naked' provokes both mirth and pensiveness.

Further on in your feature you attempt to explain the differences between a singer-songwriter and a poet's creative process by pointing out how the former 'transforms his words in the way he writes the music and the way he sings his song' whereas the latter encapsulates this whole process in silence. What a lot of balderdash! To partially quote you, Ms Greer, 'fustian of this ilk' is what makes my blood boil. Poets also carry a musical voice inside. They might not use it in the same way a singer-songwriter does, but, believe you me, their poems have an innate musicality.

Lastly, these are your very own words in regards to the difference between lyrics and words of a song: 'The other aspect of a lyric is its mystery. A lyric does not explain itself, nor does it tell a story, except by implication(...)When Morrissey sings a Morrissey song, he knows exactly what colour every part of every word is meant to be(...)the music catapults the repetition towards us like a javelin. The music does what the words alone cannot do. To present the words without the music is to emasculate them.

No.

You can still present the words without the music sometimes and they would still be considered lyrics. Two examples come to mind and both of them include repetition as a means to provoke a reaction in the listener. One is 'The Mercy Seat' by Nick Cave which includes the lines: 'They are sick breath at my hind/They are sick breath at my hind/They are sick breath at my hind/They are sick breath gathering at my hind' (notice that 'gathering' in the last line, a clever, little device from Nick, playing a mind game on the listener). The other example is Maya Angelou's anthemic poem 'Still I Rise' which contains the following verses: 'You may write me down in history/With your bitter, twisted lies/You may trod me in the very dirt/But still, like dust, I'll rise(...)Just like moons and like suns/With the certainty of tides/Just like hopes springing high/Still I'll rise.

As for Bob Dylan, the American poet, singer-songwriter who is visiting the Killer Opening Songs lounge this week, I think it would be more fitting to allow his most powerful and inspiring K.O.S. ever to do the talk for him. And believe me, Germaine, there're no hard feelings from me to you whatsoever. Enjoy.





For earlier editions of Killer Opening Songs click on any of the links below

Killer Opening Songs (D'Angelo's Brown Sugar)
Killer Opening Songs (Sinéad O'Connor's 'Fire on Babylon')
Killer Opening Songs (Queen's Mustapha)
Killer Opening Songs (Caetano Veloso-Haiti)
Killer Opening Songs (David Bowie - Unwashed and S...
Killer Opening Songs (Massive Attack - Safe From H...
Killer Opening Songs (Bob Brozman)
Killer Opening Songs (Vanessa da Mata - Vermelho)
Killer Opening Songs (The Beatles-Help!)
Killer Opening Songs (Souad Massi-Raoui)
Killer Opening Songs (Habib Koité - Batoumambé)
Killer Opening Songs (Mary Black - No Frontiers)
Killer Opening Songs (Chico Buarque & Milton Nasci...
Killer Opening Songs (David Gilmour - Shine On You...
Killer Opening Songs (Ernesto Lecuona - 'La Compar...
Killer Opening Songs (Chopin 'Fantaisie-Impromptu ...
Killer Opening Songs (He Loves Me by Jill Scott)
Killer Opening Songs (Tracy Chapman - Talkin' 'bout A Revolution)
Killer Opening Songs (Patti Smith - Gloria)
Killer Opening Song (Silvio Rodriguez - Canción del Elegido)
Killer Opening Songs (Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit)
Killer Opening Songs (Fela Kuti and Jethro Tull - Jam Session)

© 2008

Next Post: 'Killer Opening Songs', to be published on Tuesday 7th September at 11:59pm (GMT)

Greatest Hits - Track 9

This week I've decided to resurrect a post that first came out in March 2008. And as Cerys counsels in the last clip below (top to bottom), to me holidays, amongst other activities, are about getting some peace of mind. Enjoy. Yup, still away.


Thursday 6th March. 8.30am. A street in London. I am driving the children to school. My wife's gone to Italy with Creative Partnerships and it's up to me to do the school run whilst she is away. I roll down the car window to let in some air, just a couple of inches, mind, and then it hits me. Spring's here. Well, almost.

It's a bright morning and the British birds' Commonwealth anthem is at full blast. Their singing accompanies the fluttering of wings. They look so busy, building or re-building their nests up in eaves.

The morning wind caresses my face. It is not a warm breeze yet, oh, no, but it is not a freezing one either. It is a chilly air, pleasant enough for me to withstand its strokes with a smile on my face. Outside, kids rush to school, cars zoom past, buses cut in in front of me. But inside, I am radiating the type of energy which, if discovered, could see me persecuted by countless thugs trying to patent it and sell it.

Streets curve seductively out of sight, houses stand tall and proud with binding ivy weaving its way around the building and people go to work carrying their sandwiches and newspapers, some of them with ciggies in hand.

On days like these, I remain silent and let the music in the car do the talking.

What if Dylan was booed during this performance at the Newport Festival? Try listening to this song with the wind sneaking into the car early in the morning and giving you that pleasant, mirthful feeling that everything is going to turn out all right, because you know what? I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. Everytime this track comes on, my fingers work out a drumbeat on the steering wheel and the whole car merrily swings side to side. Poetic.



I have referred previously on this blog to my need sometimes to have a song telling a story playing in the car. And this track, composed by the Argentinian pop singer Juan Carlos Baglietto about God and the Devil working together in a workshop, fits me like a glove. A real jewel. Magnífico.



Many times I catch myself humming a song with political or social undertones in the car. Not surprisingly, more often than not it is a track by Maestro Stevie. This belongs to an era when musicians were allowed to roam free unencumbered by commercial pressures or record sales. Nostalgic.



In this song, as soon as the guitar kicks in, the car window goes down and my hands relax their grip on the steering wheel. No need for introduction here. Majestic.



Do not be fooled by the title of this track. There's no ire in this song, it's just about how we should all take it easy in life and days like these inspire me to follow Cerys' edict. Husky.



© 2008

Next Post: Greatest Hits - Track 10 , to be posted on Sunday 22nd August at 10am (GMT)

Greatest Hits - Track 3 'Jung Chang'

Still on holidays and this week song number three holds its long and slender neck quite elegantly above the water. I hope you enjoy this post, which first saw the light in March 2008.


My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

'It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)'
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan (1965)

I close the book and shut my eyes. I clench my fists and open my soul. The tears in my eyes well up. My pulse races. My breathing increases. Outside, my body is inert. Inside, my body is a volcano about to erupt. But it's alright, Ma, I am just bleeding. I do not want to cry here, though. I am at the hairdresser's. My long single twists have not been touched for a few months and the untangling process is claiming my scalp as a victim. But my pain is not of the follicle variety. It has to do with the death of roughly 30 million people. 'Is it hurting?' 'No, it's fine'. 'You shouldn't leave your hair unattended for so long'. 'Yes, I know, but you know, lack of time'. 30 million people. Or maybe it was 20 or 40. Who cares? One man, supported by mainly an idea contributed to the demise of millions of his compatriots. What prices paradise? What prices Heaven? How can you measure a panacea in human lives? And is there a measure unit to assess how many humans are needed in order to achieve someone's utopia? 'I hope those watery eyes are not the result of my comb'. 'Oh no, don't worry, you have to do what you have to do and I have been too careless with my hair'. No, my watery eyes were the result of reading someone's story about worshipping a leader whose actions brought suffering and devastation on her family. For the next three hours as the hairdresser continues to do my hair I carry on reading (a different book now) but my mind wanders back to the one I have just closed. As soon as she finishes ('Well, remember, don't leave your hair tangle up so much, come back in six or seven weeks', 'OK, I will') I go out into the London night. It is drizzling (or spitting, as they say here), perfect weather to let out my tears. I switch the taps on and allow my feelings for those victims of utopias everywhere to show.

Certain books have the capacity to ask us questions, others, aim at providing answers. And then there are books that just open themselves to us, untroubled but with problems, blithe, yet serious. They deliver the content in ways we are unaccustomed to.

Wild Swans is one of those books.

Written by a Chinese woman, Jung Chang, the book traces the history of that Asian nation in the twentieth century through the eyes of three generations of Chinese women, Jung's grandmother, her mother and herself. From the time when concubines were still a commodity down to Mao's last years, Wild Swans is not just a memoir, but also a literary documentary with even a photographic feel to it. Jung Chang's descriptions of the Chinese countryside provide the book with a sentiment of infinity and vastness. The sheer size of the land serves as a background for all the political and economic battles that roll out in the fifty-odd years the memoir covers.

As the empire is overthrown in 1911, there follows a succession of historical events culminating in Mao's Cultural Revolution upon which the Chinese people have very little say and direct influence, yet bear the brunt of the fallout.

Needless to say it is the section that covers Mao's years where my attention focused the most. The reasons stemmed from a desire to know more about an event whose significance was hardly ever discussed in Cuba when I was younger, but there was also an appeal that felt more personal, since Jung's life and mine mirror each other up to a certain extent.

Chang left China when she was 26 in 1978. I left Cuba when I was twenty-six years old in 1997. Jung majored in English language. So did I. The Chinese author found her 'knight without armour' in Britain. Although I found my 'lady under no distress' in Cuba, I can identify myself with her feelings for her other half. From an early age she showed a passion for books and it was this zeal that kept her sane throughout her hardship. In the early to mid-nineties as the Cuban economy nose-dived I was commonly found on buses, backs of lorries and any other means of transport reading placidly a novel by Jane Austen or George Orwell (the latter, in secret for reasons we all know) whilst all around me the world collapsed.

En brèf, Wild Swans was a reminder of a bigger truth. Whether it be a socialist, fascist or theocratic state, people's oppression and the means to carry it through changes very little. One of the most telling moments in the book is when Jung Chang, still a firm believer in Mao Zedong's policies, wonders how it is possible to whip up the frenzy that most of her compatriots seem to suffer from and that leads them to carry out violent acts. What is it that turns normal, law-abiding citizens into beasts whose thirst for blood overcomes even the minutest sense of respect for fellow human beings?

The only possible answer I have is a cynical one. We already have those traits and provided the puppeteer is capable enough, he/she will be abel to trigger off a series of emotions and feelings that will act as a catalyst for us to carry out these hideous deeds. That will irremediably lead to chaos and destruction. Recent events support my theory. Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Rwanda. The situation is probably all the more despondent if the main colluding element is the state, the one body in charge of protecting us.

According to Jung Chang, Mao Zedong did not have a secret police, Stasi-, G2-, or KBG-style. He did not need to. His own people acted as both aggressor and defender at the same time. This fact reminded me of a comment made by Milan Kundera in his outstanding novel 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', already quoted on my blog a few times. On referring to the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, when Soviet troops invaded the country and comitted all kinds of atrocities, the author says:

'Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they executed many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.'

There is no doubt that Mao was a murderer. Whether he knew what was happening in China or not (the excuse that some apologists and revisionists like to hang on to) under his mandate, the truth is that many innocent people died as a result of his narrow-minded and totalitarian attitude. But what about those who helped him? Let's go back to Kundera:

'Whether they knew or not is not the main issue; the main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn't know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool?'

And now let's read Jung Chang's comment on Mao's 'success' as a leader:

'He was, it seemed to me, a really restless fight promoter by nature, and good at it. He understood ugly human instincts such as envy and resentment, and knew how to mobilise them for his ends. He ruled by getting people to hate each other. In doing so, he got ordinary Chinese to carry out any of the tasks undertaken in other dictatorships by professional elites. Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship.'

From which my conclusion is, in the making of a dictator we all collude. Some, more passively than others, but we are all in it together. And no, this is not a pleasant thought. Because when I was reading Wild Swans (which I had to put aside a few times as there were parts too painful to read) I was suddenly reminded of the time when I could have done something. And yet, I remained silent. Or rather, I sat on the fence.

In 1992, on my way to my twenty-first birthday and half-way through my English course, I came across the subject Scientific Socialism, already downgraded from Scientific Communism, in uni. The lecturer was affable and friendly and we did not think much of the content of his classes. He was a joker and that was enough. One day, my classmate Luis Gustavo, who had been at El Saúl Delgado College with me and whom I knew very well, stood up to answer one of the teacher's questions: Was there freedom of speech in Cuba? Luis had a brilliant mind and he gave him a really thorough reply as to why he did not think that people in Cuba enjoyed the benefit of discussing and debating their ideas freely. The lecturer's reaction was curt and abrupt. I was called next to comment on Luis' remarks. Since year 12 when I spoke against one of my classmates' expulsion from college I had garnered a reputation for being something of an articulate and rational person. Now it was my big moment of showing the same capacity for oratory to defend my friend. However, I failed. I chickened out. At the eleventh hour I looked into my future and forgot his. I babbled incoherently about a different matter, thus, diverting attention from the real important issue my friend had just called attention to. The lecturer understood, my class understood, I think that even Luis Gustavo understood. There are many tales like mine in Wild Swans and this was partly the reason why Maoism triumphed where other systems had failed. Because they had people like me who put their personal interests above the ideals they cherished: the rule of law, independence of mind, rationality, accountability and respect for human and civic rights. As a consequence of his remarks, Luis Gustavo was expelled from uni. The lecturer was never the same again. I was never the same again, either. A sense of guilt overwhelmed me for a long time thereafter. After a while, though, that feeling of culpability subsided. Wild Swans brought to mind what happens when we all become bricks of the same wall. Our solid surface provides the façade against which everyone crashes. And those who crash today will probably be bricks tomorrow.

The ending of Wild Swans serves as a reminder that sometimes happiness is found elsewhere, even if one is separated from one's country of birth. Even if one, Ma, is still bleeding.

Copyright 2008

Killer Opening Songs (Bob Dylan - Blowing in the Wind)

Open letter to Ms Germaine Greer from Killer Opening Songs:

Dear Germaine,

For a long time now I have followed your writing avidly, especially your regular column in The Guardian newspaper every other Monday. Your insight into arts and literature is fascinating and thought-provoking. Your book 'The Female Eunuch' is currently sitting on my bookshelf and it won't be long before it and I become a temporary item, wandering around the streets of London arm in arm, metaphorically speaking. I even felt sorry for you the other night when you cameoed on 'Have I Got News For You', the BBC's flagship political satire programme, because of the rough time, I believe, you were given by your (male) counterparts.

As a critic, you speak your mind and you do it, usually, in a coherent and intelligent way. That's why I was so surprised to find your recent feature on Bob Dylan so lackadaisical and ill-informed.

Please, note that I am not questioning your right to like or dislike Bob's music. What I am bringing to the fore, rather, is the futility of the arguments you used in order to back up your theory.

First one in line has to be your certainty (or belief) that Dylan 'thought that rhyme equalled reason'. I disagree on all counts. The example you give, 'Visions of Johanna' is a chronicle in musical form, rather than an attempt to pair up words that rhyme. How's this for an intro?

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?/We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it/And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it/Lights flicker from the opposite loft/In this room the heat pipes just cough/The country music station plays soft/But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off/Just Louise and her lover so entwined/And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

Secondly, it seems to me that your aversion to Bob's music stems rather from the fact that he kept his fans 'waiting at the Isle of Wight festival in 1969 for three hours, from 9 o'clock till midnight, before he would sing a word'. Notice the use of the possessive pronoun 'his'. You were not amongst those fans, so this is really 'animus by proxy'.

You also aver that Dylan's texts cannot be considered verse, not even doggerel. You then go on to assert that his prose makes no sense. But then you compare him to Morrissey, he of The Smiths, towards the end of your article. To me that's a contradiction. Although, I am not a The Smiths person, even I cannot fail to notice the long tradition of good story-telling that both Dylan and Morrissey draw from. How else to explain the obvious and in-your-face pessimism underpinning 'Heaven Knows I am Miserable Now'?

What she asked of me at the end of the day/Caligula would have blushed/"You've been in the house too long" she said/And I (naturally) fled. By the way, does it make any sense, Germaine?

You then compare Dylan to that stalwart of the Romantic period, William Blake. Just to be on the safe side, Ms Greer, Blake's works were at first considered to be the works of a madman. It was only years after he died that his poetry and painting acquired the high status they rightly deserved. Dylan, too, suffered misunderstanding when he began his career on account of his early compositions. Not everyone 'got' him. I have no idea why you had to dig out Blake's 'The Sick Rose' from his 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' to put one over the American troubadour. Your analysis of the fragment quoted is flawless, but it adds nothing new to your argument because one is verse and the other one is a song (Visions of Johanna). As to the difference between lyrics and words, which seems to me to be you main gripe, the online dictionary I normally default to, defines a lyric as having the form and musical quality of a song, and esp. the character of a songlike outpouring of the poet's own thoughts and feelings, as distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry. So, song, first, lyric after. And therein lies the importance of both poet and troubadour. Their works are usually short, romantic (broadly speaking) and, if possible, humorous. Pope knew it, so did Shakespeare. Facetiousness is present throughout Dylan's oeuvre, as well as in other modern poets/singer-songwriters' work. Listen to Ursula Rucker and you will hear sarcasm mixed with pain. This is not poetry/music for the faint-hearted. Listen to Dylan's 'It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)' and the line 'But even the president of the United States/Sometimes must have/To stand naked' provokes both mirth and pensiveness.

Further on in your feature you attempt to explain the differences between a singer-songwriter and a poet's creative process by pointing out how the former 'transforms his words in the way he writes the music and the way he sings his song' whereas the latter encapsulates this whole process in silence. What a lot of balderdash! To partially quote you, Ms Greer, 'fustian of this ilk' is what makes my blood boil. Poets also carry a musical voice inside. They might not use it in the same way a singer-songwriter does, but, believe you me, their poems have an innate musicality.

Lastly, these are your very own words in regards to the difference between lyrics and words of a song: 'The other aspect of a lyric is its mystery. A lyric does not explain itself, nor does it tell a story, except by implication(...)When Morrissey sings a Morrissey song, he knows exactly what colour every part of every word is meant to be(...)the music catapults the repetition towards us like a javelin. The music does what the words alone cannot do. To present the words without the music is to emasculate them.

No.

You can still present the words without the music sometimes and they would still be considered lyrics. Two examples come to mind and both of them include repetition as a means to provoke a reaction in the listener. One is 'The Mercy Seat' by Nick Cave which includes the lines: 'They are sick breath at my hind/They are sick breath at my hind/They are sick breath at my hind/They are sick breath gathering at my hind' (notice that 'gathering' in the last line, a clever, little device from Nick, playing a mind game on the listener). The other example is Maya Angelou's anthemic poem 'Still I Rise' which contains the following verses: 'You may write me down in history/With your bitter, twisted lies/You may trod me in the very dirt/But still, like dust, I'll rise(...)Just like moons and like suns/With the certainty of tides/Just like hopes springing high/Still I'll rise.

As for Bob Dylan, the American poet, singer-songwriter who is visiting the Killer Opening Songs lounge this week, I think it would be more fitting to allow his most powerful and inspiring K.O.S. ever to do the talk for him. And believe me, Germaine, there're no hard feelings from me to you whatsoever. Enjoy.




For earlier editions of Killer Opening Songs click on any of the links below

Killer Opening Songs (D'Angelo's Brown Sugar)
Killer Opening Songs (Sinéad O'Connor's 'Fire on Babylon')
Killer Opening Songs (Queen's Mustapha)
Killer Opening Songs (Caetano Veloso-Haiti)
Killer Opening Songs (David Bowie - Unwashed and S...
Killer Opening Songs (Massive Attack - Safe From H...
Killer Opening Songs (Bob Brozman)
Killer Opening Songs (Vanessa da Mata - Vermelho)
Killer Opening Songs (The Beatles-Help!)
Killer Opening Songs (Souad Massi-Raoui)
Killer Opening Songs (Habib Koité - Batoumambé)
Killer Opening Songs (Mary Black - No Frontiers)
Killer Opening Songs (Chico Buarque & Milton Nasci...
Killer Opening Songs (David Gilmour - Shine On You...
Killer Opening Songs (Ernesto Lecuona - 'La Compar...
Killer Opening Songs (Chopin 'Fantaisie-Impromptu ...
Killer Opening Songs (He Loves Me by Jill Scott)
Killer Opening Songs (Tracy Chapman - Talkin' 'bout A Revolution)
Killer Opening Songs (Patti Smith - Gloria)
Killer Opening Song (Silvio Rodriguez - Canción del Elegido)
Killer Opening Songs (Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit)
Killer Opening Songs (Fela Kuti and Jethro Tull - Jam Session)

Copyright 2008

Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music, Ad Infinitum...

Before going any further I must declare an expression of interest. I am nuts about nuts. I am very fond of prawns. And lemon rice is ever so nice. So, there you have it. If you read more any recipes in this space containing the above ingredients it is because I am very, very, very biased. Extremely biased. And I do not care one jot.

The dish below comes courtesy of Vicky Bhogal, a British Asian woman who has done a lot to raise the profile of South Asian cuisine in the UK. Her passion for cooking owes a lot to her mother, who, apparently, instilled the same type of devotion for food preparation in her daughter. Vicky's intention is to replicate many of the recipes that her mother used to make when Vicky was younger.

Cashew, prawn, brazil nut and lemon rice

This is dinner party food. It is also comfort food that is as virtuous as it is heart-warming. You just put everything in the pan together, quickly stir-fry, add water, steam and voilà, there you have it! These quantities make enough for two, so double them if you're cooking for four, or six, or eight, or the whole troop. Note to readers: I tend to cheat a little bit and add more nuts such as: hazelnuts, chestnuts, peanuts... the list goes on. Refer to the first line. I am nuts about nuts.

2 tbsp mild and light olive oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

½ onion thinly sliced

Zest from 1 lemon

250g cooked and peeled prawns

2 tomatoes, diced

1 handful fresh coriander, chopped

75g cashew nuts

60g toasted brazil nuts, chopped

1 tsp dried red chilli flakes

½ teaspoon salt

100g basmati rice, washed until the water runs clear, drained

250ml water

Heat the oil in a pan and add the cumin. When sizzling, add the onion and lemon zest and fry until translucent. Add the prawns, tomatoes, coriander, cashews, brazils, chilli and salt, and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Then add the rice and stir-fry for a further 30 seconds.

Now add the water, bring up to a boil, turn down the heat to very low, cover and steam for 15 minutes. Once cooked, graze the rice gently with a fork, to loosen the grains, and serve piping hot.

Playlist. It goes without saying that the music has to be as sizzling as the dish. These are my suggestions:

Oscar Peterson - Honeysuckle Rose
Karen Dalton - When a Man Loves a Woman
Souad Massi - Yemma
Janis Joplin - Me and Bobby McGee
Stevie Wonder - Higher Ground
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
Los Van Van - Dale Dos
Baaba Maal - African Woman



Copyright 2008

Road Songs (Variations) (2nd Part)

This is the follow up to last week's column and there might even be a third part next week. Enjoy.

Copyright 2008

Road Songs (Sonata)

Thursday 6th March. 8.30am. A street in London. I am driving the children to school. My wife's gone to Italy with Creative Partnerships and it's up to me to do the school run whilst she is away. I roll down the car window to let in some air, just a couple of inches, mind, and then it hits me. Spring's here. Well, almost.

It's a bright morning and the British birds' Commonwealth anthem is at full blast. Their singing accompanies the fluttering of wings. They look so busy, building or re-building their nests up in eaves.

The morning wind caresses my face. It is not a warm breeze yet, oh, no, but it is not a freezing one either. It is a chilly air, pleasant enough for me to withstand its strokes with a smile on my face. Outside, kids rush to school, cars zoom past, buses cut in in front of me. But inside, I am radiating the type of energy which, if discovered, could see me persecuted by countless thugs trying to patent it and sell it.

Streets curve seductively out of sight, houses stand tall and proud with binding ivy weaving its way around the building and people go to work carrying their sandwiches and newspapers, some of them with ciggies in hand.

On days like these, I remain silent and let the music in the car do the talking.

What if Dylan was booed during this performance at the Newport Festival? Try listening to this song with the wind sneaking into the car early in the morning and giving you that pleasant, mirthful feeling that everything is going to turn out all right, because you know what? I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more. Everytime this track comes on, my fingers work out a drumbeat on the steering wheel and the whole car merrily swings side to side. Poetic.



I have referred previously on this blog to my need sometimes to have a song telling a story playing in the car. And this track, composed by the Argentinian pop singer Juan Carlos Baglietto about God and the Devil working together in a workshop, fits me like a glove. A real jewel. Magnífico.



Many times I catch myself humming a song with political or social undertones in the car. Not surprisingly, more often than not it is a track by Maestro Stevie. This belongs to an era when musicians were allowed to roam free unencumbered by commercial pressures or record sales. Nostalgic.



In this song, as soon as the guitar kicks in, the car window goes down and my hands relax their grip on the steering wheel. No need for introduction here. Majestic.



Do not be fooled by the title of this track. There's no ire in this song, it's just about how we should all take it easy in life and days like these inspire me to follow Cerys' edict. Husky.



© 2008

Wild Swans (Étude)

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.

'It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)'
Bringing It All Back Home
Bob Dylan (1965)

I close the book and shut my eyes. I clench my fists and open my soul. The tears in my eyes well up. My pulse races. My breathing increases. Outside, my body is inert. Inside, my body is a volcano about to erupt. But it's alright, Ma, I am just bleeding. I do not want to cry here, though. I am at the hairdresser's. My long single twists have not been touched for a few months and the untangling process is claiming my scalp as a victim. But my pain is not of the follicle variety. It has to do with the death of roughly 30 million people. 'Is it hurting?' 'No, it's fine'. 'You shouldn't leave your hair unattended for so long'. 'Yes, I know, but you know, lack of time'. 30 million people. Or maybe it was 20 or 40. Who cares? One man, supported by mainly an idea contributed to the demise of millions of his compatriots. What prices paradise? What prices Heaven? How can you measure a panacea in human lives? And is there a measure unit to assess how many humans are needed in order to achieve someone's utopia? 'I hope those watery eyes are not the result of my comb'. 'Oh no, don't worry, you have to do what you have to do and I have been too careless with my hair'. No, my watery eyes were the result of reading someone's story about worshipping a leader whose actions brought suffering and devastation on her family. For the next three hours as the hairdresser continues to do my hair I carry on reading (a different book now) but my mind wanders back to the one I have just closed. As soon as she finishes ('Well, remember, don't leave your hair tangle up so much, come back in six or seven weeks', 'OK, I will') I go out into the London night. It is drizzling (or spitting, as they say here), perfect weather to let out my tears. I switch the taps on and allow my feelings for those victims of utopias everywhere to show.

Certain books have the capacity to ask us questions, others, aim at providing answers. And then there are books that just open themselves to us, untroubled but with problems, blithe, yet serious. They deliver the content in ways we are unaccustomed to.

Wild Swans is one of those books.

Written by a Chinese woman, Jung Chang, the book traces the history of that Asian nation in the twentieth century through the eyes of three generations of Chinese women, Jung's grandmother, her mother and herself. From the time when concubines were still a commodity down to Mao's last years, Wild Swans is not just a memoir, but also a literary documentary with even a photographic feel to it. Jung Chang's descriptions of the Chinese countryside provide the book with a sentiment of infinity and vastness. The sheer size of the land serves as a background for all the political and economic battles that roll out in the fifty-odd years the memoir covers.

As the empire is overthrown in 1911, there follows a succession of historical events culminating in Mao's Cultural Revolution upon which the Chinese people have very little say and direct influence, yet bear the brunt of the fallout.

Needless to say it is the section that covers Mao's years where my attention focused the most. The reasons stemmed from a desire to know more about an event whose significance was hardly ever discussed in Cuba when I was younger, but there was also an appeal that felt more personal, since Jung's life and mine mirror each other up to a certain extent.

Chang left China when she was 26 in 1978. I left Cuba when I was twenty-six years old in 1997. Jung majored in English language. So did I. The Chinese author found her 'knight without armour' in Britain. Although I found my 'lady under no distress' in Cuba, I can identify myself with her feelings for her other half. From an early age she showed a passion for books and it was this zeal that kept her sane throughout her hardship. In the early to mid-nineties as the Cuban economy nose-dived I was commonly found on buses, backs of lorries and any other means of transport reading placidly a novel by Jane Austen or George Orwell (the latter, in secret for reasons we all know) whilst all around me the world collapsed.

En brèf, Wild Swans was a reminder of a bigger truth. Whether it be a socialist, fascist or theocratic state, people's oppression and the means to carry it through changes very little. One of the most telling moments in the book is when Jung Chang, still a firm believer in Mao Zedong's policies, wonders how it is possible to whip up the frenzy that most of her compatriots seem to suffer from and that leads them to carry out violent acts. What is it that turns normal, law-abiding citizens into beasts whose thirst for blood overcomes even the minutest sense of respect for fellow human beings?

The only possible answer I have is a cynical one. We already have those traits and provided the puppeteer is capable enough, he/she will be abel to trigger off a series of emotions and feelings that will act as a catalyst for us to carry out these hideous deeds. That will irremediably lead to chaos and destruction. Recent events support my theory. Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Rwanda. The situation is probably all the more despondent if the main colluding element is the state, the one body in charge of protecting us.

According to Jung Chang, Mao Zedong did not have a secret police, Stasi-, G2-, or KBG-style. He did not need to. His own people acted as both aggressor and defender at the same time. This fact reminded me of a comment made by Milan Kundera in his outstanding novel 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', already quoted on my blog a few times. On referring to the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, when Soviet troops invaded the country and comitted all kinds of atrocities, the author says:

'Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they executed many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.'

There is no doubt that Mao was a murderer. Whether he knew what was happening in China or not (the excuse that some apologists and revisionists like to hang on to) under his mandate, the truth is that many innocent people died as a result of his narrow-minded and totalitarian attitude. But what about those who helped him? Let's go back to Kundera:

'Whether they knew or not is not the main issue; the main issue is whether a man is innocent because he didn't know. Is a fool on the throne relieved of all responsibility merely because he is a fool?'

And now let's read Jung Chang's comment on Mao's 'success' as a leader:

'He was, it seemed to me, a really restless fight promoter by nature, and good at it. He understood ugly human instincts such as envy and resentment, and knew how to mobilise them for his ends. He ruled by getting people to hate each other. In doing so, he got ordinary Chinese to carry out any of the tasks undertaken in other dictatorships by professional elites. Mao had managed to turn the people into the ultimate weapon of dictatorship.'

From which my conclusion is, in the making of a dictator we all collude. Some, more passively than others, but we are all in it together. And no, this is not a pleasant thought. Because when I was reading Wild Swans (which I had to put aside a few times as there were parts too painful to read) I was suddenly reminded of the time when I could have done something. And yet, I remained silent. Or rather, I sat on the fence.

In 1992, on my way to my twenty-first birthday and half-way through my English course, I came across the subject Scientific Socialism, already downgraded from Scientific Communism, in uni. The lecturer was affable and friendly and we did not think much of the content of his classes. He was a joker and that was enough. One day, my classmate Luis Gustavo, who had been at El Saúl Delgado College with me and whom I knew very well, stood up to answer one of the teacher's questions: Was there freedom of speech in Cuba? Luis had a brilliant mind and he gave him a really thorough reply as to why he did not think that people in Cuba enjoyed the benefit of discussing and debating their ideas freely. The lecturer's reaction was curt and abrupt. I was called next to comment on Luis' remarks. Since year 12 when I spoke against one of my classmates' expulsion from college I had garnered a reputation for being something of an articulate and rational person. Now it was my big moment of showing the same capacity for oratory to defend my friend. However, I failed. I chickened out. At the eleventh hour I looked into my future and forgot his. I babbled incoherently about a different matter, thus, diverting attention from the real important issue my friend had just called attention to. The lecturer understood, my class understood, I think that even Luis Gustavo understood. There are many tales like mine in Wild Swans and this was partly the reason why Maoism triumphed where other systems had failed. Because they had people like me who put their personal interests above the ideals they cherished: the rule of law, independence of mind, rationality, accountability and respect for human and civic rights. As a consequence of his remarks, Luis Gustavo was expelled from uni. The lecturer was never the same again. I was never the same again, either. A sense of guilt overwhelmed me for a long time thereafter. After a while, though, that feeling of culpability subsided. Wild Swans brought to mind what happens when we all become bricks of the same wall. Our solid surface provides the façade against which everyone crashes. And those who crash today will probably be bricks tomorrow.

The ending of Wild Swans serves as a reminder that sometimes happiness is found elsewhere, even if one is separated from one's country of birth. Even if one, Ma, is still bleeding.

Copyright 2008