The Second Coming: The End of The World
In 1912, in Shreveport, Louisiana around the time when the Titanic went under, Leadbelly, a local musician would maneuver into a tavern with a guitar and a small accordion to ply his trade. Instead of a using a PA, he would start with a opened-tuned 12-string in G and an “Oh…” delivered booming and straight at the folks gathered there. “The Midnight Special” a song knocking around for years with ever-changing verses was put forth. Whatever else going on at the time would pause, then cease altogether and Leadbelly, managing a wide repertoire of everything anyone would possibly wish to hear, would gather in the spoils over the course of the night and move on to the next spot where people would instantly go from not ever having heard of him to high whistling over this man they had just heard.
Leadbelly possibly wrote “The Midnight Special” or “Take This Hammer”, or maybe even “The Rock Island Line”. He wrote “The Bourgeois Blues” “Fannin Street”, and “Cotton Fields”. He may have written “C.C Rider” and he did co-write “Goodnight Irene”. But after a while it gets confusing to ferret out precise authorship of the long catalogue of songs Leadbelly could issue in an evening. He may not have known at times himself. Although, if someone wished to put something up for a song and no one else was speaking up, he might remember that he wrote that particular tune back in Texas.
There is no such thing as a “Traditional” tune. To refer to a tune as such is simply lazy scholarship. Someone, somewhere arranges the lyric and phrasing and melody in a manner just so it catches. Others afterward hew to the original phrasing when able and the whirring, mystic machinery of the tune does its work again and again and anon. “I Wish I Was In Dixie”, a song Leadbelly might be obliged to play at the drop of a dime, was supposedly written by Daniel Emmett, the first blackface minstrel, in 1860, but it is perhaps more believably written by Thomas and Ellen Snowden who were black and had a homestead adjacent the Emmett place in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Lyrically, it certainly makes more sense written from the humorist perspective of a freed slave than as something written by a middle class white boy who ran off and joined the circus.
The importance of original authorship cannot be underestimated. The context in which a song is heard and understood comes from the writer’s story. Somewhere within their story, their daily walk, an idea sticks and they spend time dwelling on it and lo and behold: a new thing wakes in the world. What is an “Oral Tradition”? It is a catchy line that bears repeating; it is a top-forty song quickly making its way through the dancehalls and music parlors; it is Abraham Lincoln humming “Dixie”, a wildly popular tune at the time, as he trots about his office during the war. It is next summer’s hip-hop club hit being passed around now in circles until it develops some real form and flow. The oral tradition is where the price of certain actively traded lyrical commodities is being decided now. It never went away. It is always with us. Leadbelly practiced the trade, Lil’ Wayne practices it, Dylan is no stranger to it, and neither was Jesus of Nazareth.
Who was Homer? Who was Solon? We have only hints of fragments, nothing historical. Plutarch places Homer at around 555 BC reciting his 16-song epic poem to Peisistratos, Chief of Athens, the man who introduced Tragic drama to the Greeks. Solon, an earlier Greek archon on or about 594 BC, was The Poet Reformer, who brought forth early Democracy by including lower classes in making law and giving them access to courts. He was fond of tune and it brought him great wealth and riches.
Aristotle could only guess at who Solon was, but he still had the lyric intact thanks to The Oral Tradition, our eternal jukebox. Who creates? A million little pieces strewn about until someone creates something whole and useful. Homer was possibly a star Rhapsode sewing his songs together and taking it all on the road. He wrote some of his own stuff, covered some stuff, stole other stuff. The same can be said of Shakespeare, who is maybe more legend than historical fact moreso than Homer. It is nothing to get in a froth about and become peculiar. Shakespeare writes or borrows a catch. It sticks inside the inner ear. Bob Dylan did not write “Stuck In The Middle With You” , a Gerry Rafferty song, but he may as well have. There. Now the tune is in your head without want of instrumentation and performance, all complements of the eternal jukebox.
It is as it has always been. O I long to hear the story… The song is sewn together and travels around. What’s the best form of advertising? What travels quicker than bite-sized gossip? But with each performance lending itself to certain improvisations how is fidelity kept? Leadbelly would not be Leadbelly if he didn’t add his bits. This may be a puzzle but isn’t. What being more indelible is typically kept and other bits are then thrown in to make the show. The essential substance is preserved at all times. Fates keep watch. It is mysterioso to the upmost, and is reliably infallible. It is essential to the working of the mechanism. If that doesn’t work, then nothing does. We know because Homer exists, although until his exhaustive recording session with Peisistratos in the mid 6th Century BC he did not exist. Now he does.
* * *
“What is thought cannot be unthought”
— Anonymous
What is a great line? The above can be variously ascribed to Heidegger or Dostoevsky or others. It is a great line. To me, a great line is one you instantly wish you had written yourself. On a recent night, I turned up at the Abbey Pub Open Mic much like I have done on many a Tuesday night over the last thirteen or so years and sang my tunes. Or in this case, I sang a Lefty Frizell song called “Saginaw, Michigan” and a mash-up of Townes Van Zandt’s “To Live Is To Fly” and John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery”. My set concluded, I gave a nod to the next-up, a fellow by the name of Shannon Fortune making his Abbey debut who proceeded into an original song called “Full of Live” containing the line, “Life is full of disappointments, and I am full of life.” It is a good line. A useful thing, and it was already being used right there in the open in front of me. I couldn’t use it, so I waited for Shannon’s set to end, bought his CD, went to his website and became a fan. To use it otherwise would be to suggest his song did not exist and it so clearly did. To preserve honor, having been blown off the stage, I bowed to him and began to tout his prowess of song.
But is it true that what is contemplated comes into being? Heidegger states, “Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.” We throw up our hands; we don’t know what Heidegger is talking about. “We do not say: Being is, time is, but rather: there is Being and there is time.” Can thought be unthought? Apparently not or not anymore.
Great lines preserve themselves and once something is thought it is a thing. Even if the thing is a mere thought it works in our imaginings and accomplishes what it wishes to accomplish.
Even the Disciples of Jesus could only somewhat fathom what he was saying. They mention he spoke in parables. More likely it was something more akin to exasperation.
Jesus: “If two trains leave the station Bound for Glory and Train A is going faster than Train B, which one gets there first?”
Disciples: (mumbling and confused) “O Teacher, we know not. We are confused.”
Jesus: (shaking his head and moving off) “Ask Mary to explain it to you.”
Disciples: (mumbling, confused, offended) “You favor her?! She gets special instruction? Are we not men?
And so it goes…
Jesus of Nazareth came about, or was made into being as Heidegger would have it, during the time of Augustus Caesar. We may say that Caesar’s reign began in 27 BC, but Jesus, although altogether wise, could not have made that distinction. In regnal years, we count the seasons of the reign of the presiding monarch who, in our case is Jesus—although this was not firmly and fully adopted until the 8th Century. Prior to that, keeping track of what year you were in was a real chore. If you want to place something crazy that happened to you in the mid-seventies, you might start by saying, “Back in the Carter administration…” Regnal dating is much the same thing. As a boy, Jesus would not presume to go around saying, “It is year 10 and all is well!” However, he rightfully could have.
We know little of the historical Jesus even with the robust efforts of some like Thomas Jefferson who, familiar with Gnostic principles, set about to construct a new Bible by taking a razor to a King James text and cutting and pasting together a version by redacting everything that was not reasonably a direct quote from Jesus. It is said that all the while the razor did its work Mr. Jefferson’s minister was of pained expression and loss of colour. Imagine what Jefferson could do with the Internet? Imagine him not inventing it given enough time. To this day, newly seated senators are handed a small, slim volume to keep. It is a Jefferson Bible. Quite a few immediately misplace it.
In the Jeffersonian Bible, given that it is simply the sayings of Jesus most attributable to Him, certain parts are omitted. There is no virgin birth, no proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God, and the resurrection is not mentioned. Freed from these difficult precepts, the teachings of the Lord (or teacher as it is variously translated from antiquity) gain somewhat instead of lose luster. The Sermon on the Mount is great. One great line after another great line. His cup so much runs over.
When Jesus took to traveling, things were not so well in the land. Augustus had left not a worthy heir. Tiberius had not wanted the task, but there it was. There were grain shortages and the ever-mewling cries of the disenchanted. The region of Galilee and all around it fell under the management of the Tetrarch, who brought in a steady profit, but was beset by the ever-mewling cries of the Pharisees whom he controlled. There was a problem with The Temple. No matter how much was Sacrificed, the economy did not seem to improve. They had a Sacrificial-based economy. The texts were carefully consulted as were the stars, more Sacrifices were ordered up and scheduled, and the grain shortages (largely caused by Tiberius’ use of grain barges in festivals commemorating himself) went unabated.
A fierce discontent was loose. John the Baptist had a noted ministry at the time that foretold the end of Time. People would be coming from miles around, just to get their head dunked when the sun went down. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he insomuch said, “Here is The Man! That’s what I’m talking about!” An Eschaton ministry was increasingly popular, and when the Tetrarch, obliging his impetuous stepdaughter, took John’s head from him, Jesus inherited his ministry spreading it all the way to the Hawaiian Islands. The teachings were about a Kingdom of God that would be “…on Earth as it is in Heaven”. In the New Testament, Jesus mentions the Kingdom over one hundred times. It is a central theme. Ask three Disciples what the Kingdom is and you get three different answers. Ask a dozen and you might get two dozen as some, confused, change their minds while retelling.
The Disciples rarely agreed. They were prone to worry and vexation although their immediate needs were largely met by the offices of Mary Magdalene who, through her ties to a solid, middle-class family of note supplied the movement with financial wherewithal in conjunction with what they would otherwise bring in through the daily take. Mostly the Disciples would fret over who would have sayso in the New Kingdom. Peter was certain it should be him. James was confident that it was he, as Jesus was his brother and had so much said so; Paul was indifferent to their conflict as he was certain it would be him since he was certainly to have the last word. Mary, perhaps having more understanding than all of those three together, saw to Jesus’ burial and afterwards lit out to the frontier and was rarely heard from. Although it is said that she had the power to be in two places at once, and you never knew when she might turn up, which was somewhat unnerving.
Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by the Romans acting on the counsel of the Pharisees who had had about enough of Him. During his Ministry, he had made some trouble for himself by cleansing the Temple. As this made trouble with the Sanhedrin, Jesus and his movement was eyed carefully and his days numbered. With crucifixion, the Romans knew how to kill a person so they stayed dead. This they did and the Disciples, moaning, perplexed, and confused, gathered together to ponder whither until in walked Mary proclaiming resurrection.
“Why does He appear to her and not us?” they indignantly moaned, truly vexed. “What does she got that we don’t have?” Nonetheless, they trotted out behind her and Lo and Behold: There was Jesus. Later John would record a Gospel beginning, “In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Great in reverence did John hold Jesus. Great in reverence did John hold the Word. Great in reverence did John hold God. After a while, according to John, it was all the same thing.
And so it was.
Jesus, having taught his Disciples as best he could and finding them petty and feuding about whom should succeed him, entrusted His teachings to the eternal jukebox as it were—and the Essenes whom he trusted as much as anybody.
"Apparently Jesus and the Essenes [Yahad] saw their actions as constituting a new covenant. According to Mark 14:24 and Matthew 26:28 Jesus instituted at the Last Supper a 'covenant'. According to Luke 22:20 Jesus said, 'This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood'. The Qumran Essenes stressed the importance of 'the new covenant' that was established by God through the Righteous Teacher.' Each year the covenant was renewed, perhaps at the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), during a most sacred ceremony ([Community Rule] 1QS 1-2). To enter the Qumran Community was 'to pass over into the covenant' or 'to enter into the new covenant'. The Qumran Essenes thought of their community (Yahad) as the eternal covenant. Their unique theology, history, and social setting led them to talk about their community as 'God's covenant'. In a certain sense Qumran theology is covenantal theology."
- James H. Charlesworth, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), p. 12.
* * *
And so it was in 1945 after the conclusion of a great war that tore the world in two and consumed some 60 million souls, and that war had come at the heels of a Great War where Mankind was to be done with War, which had been followed by pestilence and a Great Depression only relieved by more War, two Egyptian peasants stumbled upon the discovery at Nag Hammadi. Unsure of their value, one brought these found texts home and placed them by the stove. Having not brought money or meat home, his wife began burning them in the oven and a certain screaming of oaths ensued. Ah, married life.
Four months earlier an atom bomb had exploded followed by another and Japan had signed on the dotted line. The war was over, and the Allies had won. What this meant for The Book of Thomas discovered among the pages not yet burned by an angry wife was nothing. The Book of Thomas could have cared less.
Two years later in the Qumran the Dead Sea Scrolls were revealed. The mid-point of their revelation was around 1948 when gasoline was $0.26 per gallon and the Dow was at 177. Some of the scrolls appeared shortly thereafter in a for sale ad in the Wall Street Journal:
"The Four Dead Sea Scrolls: Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 BC are for sale. This would be an ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group. Box F206."
But some of the scrolls were more precisely interred during the time of the Jewish/Roman war around 68 AD. They refer to a “Teacher of Righteousness” condemned by the Jerusalem priesthood. The find contained a copy of the Book of Isaiah 1,000 years older than any other.
The Word had returned.
An apocalyptic sect headquartered in the Wilderness seals up the Word of God shortly before the fall of The Second Temple to be revealed at a certain Time and lo and behold it bears mention at that Time in The Wall Street Journal. Yet another example of the workings of The Eternal Jukebox meshing to perfection.
1948: Mahatma Ghandi is murdered, the State of Israel born, RAND Corp. is formed, and the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Braves for the World Series. As good as time for the Second Coming as any I’d say. The Dead Sea Scrolls offered more of the Word. Taken with the scholarship that resulted from the find in Nag Hammadi, a new Word emerges. Jesus reborn as The Word just like he had been preaching all along. “Let those with ears hear.” The Kingdom is proclaimed!
But it seemed the world had not ended.
Certainly by 1948 Mankind possessed the knowledge of how to end the world. Namely, it could be blown to bits with nuclear weapons. In fact, in 1948 the Soviet Union set about in high gear to detonate her own device finally doing so in August, 1949. Stalin’s thought in 1948 was “get it done as quickly as possible no matter what the cost.” 1948 was quite a pivotal year. It was the end of the world insomuch that we had figured out how to end the world and a thought once thought cannot be un-thought. A thirteen year-old boy is proclaimed a man not because he has procreated with many a fulsome and lusty gal, but because he is fully capable of doing so, and so must be given some proper respect. It may not have happened yet, but soon enough it shall.
The appearance of The Word at the pivotal hour cannot be underestimated. Thomas Jefferson would have been beside himself. The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth for those who can discern it. Here is a Useful Thing! Once removed from the tyranny of fear of what is next to come, we are bidden to be ourselves, scratch our bellies and rummage about the fridge. Freedom. Heaven. What don’t sort out will wash out. Those wanting Heaven are free to build it. If we build it they will come. What, me worry? The Sanhedrin holds no sway. Peasants have gradually defeated all the monarchs. The last shall be first. It is a New Frontier.
But other than the mention in the Wall Street Journal, the Second Coming went largely unnoticed. Retrieved from careful scholarship of the new texts posited against the Septuagint and other revealed texts is a new understanding of Christ’s teachings. We can now posit them again with the teachings of Mohammed and others. What is revealed? A Kingdom Come, that’s what. The power of unspoken thought will bridge the crevassed ground we share; divisions shall all disappear. In one tribe and circle we are brought.
Jesus, an insightful Man, had seen it coming. He had entrusted his teachings to the Essenes, who faithfully preserved them. Others did as well. His sayings were currency among the faithful and preserved in the Eternal Jukebox. The remaining Apostles finally came to their senses and began jotting them down after they had taken on a life of their own. They immediately set about bickering over the proceeds and had a falling out. So many bands have come apart the same way.
No Second Comings have come before. Although ninety years prior the End of the World, Our Lady of Lourdes appeared to a fourteen-year-old peasant girl and her friends. Thousands were astonished. In 1531 Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, having previously witnessed the Mexican Conquest by Cortés firsthand, came upon The Virgin of Guadalupe on Tepeyac Hill. The local bishop was unimpressed by Juan Diego’s pleadings when he rushed into town to alert him until he had, at the instruction of the apparition, gathered roses out of season from the hilltop which she pressed carefully into his outer garment. When he presented the garment to the bishop, a not-so-vaguely vaginal image was super-imposed there. The bishop fell silent.
Yesterday I picked up my car from my local mechanic’s shop and there on the wall surrounded by Christmas lights and atop a shelf holding a vase of dried roses was the same image. It does not bear casual mention of the other resemblance. That is an altogether unnecessary fight to have on your hands. The Mexicans adore Our Lady. Best leave well enough alone.
* * *
In my view, we are now in year 60 and the Second Coming announcing the end of the world has come to past. What of Armageddon? Doesn’t 60 Million dead in WWII mean anything? Is that not a large enough carnage to be sufficient? Who was the Anti-Christ? Adolph Hitler makes a fine accidental Anti-Christ. Heidegger was his brethren. What of the seven-headed serpent and the sounding of Gabriel’s trumpet? Once again, Thomas Jefferson could easily dismiss most if not all of what he characterized as the insane rantings of the Johnine final Gospel. The trumpet part was true, however…well, cornet anyway.
Back at the Turn of the Century in New Orleans, Buddy Bolden blew a mean cornet. No recordings are extant, but a pre-trumpeted Louis Armstrong was getting loose of his mother and standing outside a music hall to hear Buddy’s tone, which he replicated as best he could when he found an instrument. You want to hear Buddy Bolden? Listen to Louis Armstrong. His entire catalogue is available on Amazon. Jelly Roll Morton was present and paying attention as well. He grabbed the sound and took it out of New Orleans, the only place it could have been born, and livelied up St. Louis, then Kansas City, California State, then finally in 1923 to Chicago where a new music was gathering steam and a sensation was proclaimed.
The sensation was no less sensational than it had been in around 1906 when Buddy would start blowing a syncopated line that was less studious recital of a march than exhortation of a new and glorious gospel. Women were said to have risen up from their chairs and begun swaying about with no dance partners present. The entire social fabric of Turn of The Century New Orleans would have to be restructured to accommodate this new thing. Bolden had a hit in 1904 called “The Funky Butt”. In 1904! George Clinton may have been able to skirt by with a title like that in ’75, but in 1904?! In 1906 Bolden lost his mind and threw down his cornet in the street. By then the sound was loose on the world.
It was a fresher sound than Ragtime. Ragtime didn’t even sound like ragtime. Scott Joplin had studiously and metrically composed Ragtime tunes, but musicians then were familiar with a style called Ragged Time that was enthusiastically played at the end of the night when drunk and when keeping time was either not wished for or impossible. Bolden embodied this new style and gave it a rich, tart tone that immediately said, “Here it is!” He may as well as said, “Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty I am free at Last!” Syncopations both before and after the beat began to make their appearance. By continually adjusting the accent and dynamics of a phrase, a musician could alter the thrust of a piece. Women would begin a low moan and rise up swaying. Men would get roaring drunk. Armies would fall. The Church couldn’t stop it. People rushed to the store to buy cornets, saxophones, or anything that could make that sound. Jelly Roll smiled. He was going to make a fortune off of this stuff, but he never did. He didn’t make a bag of beans off of it in the end. Others did, though.
Musicians of other ilk heard the new sound and appropriated it. It was called “Jazz”. Although the word jazz was something that wasn’t much mentioned in mixed company in 1906. It could mean something else entirely. Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Rock-n-roll, the fall of the Berlin Wall all followed. You want Gabriel’s trumpet? Buddy Bolden struck up the band and, baby, it was HOT.
And now in year 60 a New Gospel is proclaimed. Gas prices are high; War flourishes; this Summer, for the first time in the history of Mankind, the Arctic ice is no longer contiguous; massive debt threatens to enslave all the poor to the mightier; George W. Bush of the Bush Family of War Profiteers is President of The United States. If this be Heaven, how is it so?
Jesus saith, If ye say that the abode of God is in the sky, the birds will arrive there before you. If ye say it is in the sea, the fish will arrive there before you. Know ye that the kingdom of heaven is within you and without you, and ye shall know that which is within. When ye have found the Light within yourselves, ye will know as ye are known. Then ye will know that ye are the sons of the living Father and that your destiny is to be as He. He who knoweth not himself, is poor in Spirit, for he is his own poverty.
Whether you find it or build it, once you have it, it is yours to keep. The knowing will know. A tune by the songwriting team of Walter Donaldson and George Whiting sums it up well. Walter Donaldson, who along with other lyricists such as Gus Kahn was also responsible for “My Buddy”, “Making Whoopee”, “My Baby Just Cares For Me”, and “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby”, in 1927 put forth “My Blue Heaven”.
Day is ending, birds are wending
Back to the shelter of
Each little nest they love
Nightshades falling, lovers calling
What makes the World go round
Nothing but love
When whippoorwills call
And evening is nigh
I hurry to my Blue Heaven
Just a turn to the right
And a little white light
Will lead you to my Blue Heaven
You’ll see a smiling face, a fireplace, a cosy room
A little nest that nestles where roses bloom
Just Molly and me
And baby makes three
We're happy in my Blue Heaven
(Orchestral Break)
You’ll see a smiling face, a fireplace, and a cozy room
A little nest that nestles where roses bloom
Just Molly and me
And baby makes three
We're happy in my Blue Heaven
(Whistling)
To me, the only thing left out in this Heaven on Earth are the voices of those I miss. For this Heaven to be complete, I would desire them heard. If in the New Frontier those voices carry to my ears, I need no other Heaven. I miss them. I miss them all.
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Leadbelly possibly wrote “The Midnight Special” or “Take This Hammer”, or maybe even “The Rock Island Line”. He wrote “The Bourgeois Blues” “Fannin Street”, and “Cotton Fields”. He may have written “C.C Rider” and he did co-write “Goodnight Irene”. But after a while it gets confusing to ferret out precise authorship of the long catalogue of songs Leadbelly could issue in an evening. He may not have known at times himself. Although, if someone wished to put something up for a song and no one else was speaking up, he might remember that he wrote that particular tune back in Texas.
There is no such thing as a “Traditional” tune. To refer to a tune as such is simply lazy scholarship. Someone, somewhere arranges the lyric and phrasing and melody in a manner just so it catches. Others afterward hew to the original phrasing when able and the whirring, mystic machinery of the tune does its work again and again and anon. “I Wish I Was In Dixie”, a song Leadbelly might be obliged to play at the drop of a dime, was supposedly written by Daniel Emmett, the first blackface minstrel, in 1860, but it is perhaps more believably written by Thomas and Ellen Snowden who were black and had a homestead adjacent the Emmett place in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Lyrically, it certainly makes more sense written from the humorist perspective of a freed slave than as something written by a middle class white boy who ran off and joined the circus.
Dar's buck-wheat cakes an 'Ingen' batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Den hoe it down an scratch your grabble,
To Dixie land I'm bound to trabble.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land
The importance of original authorship cannot be underestimated. The context in which a song is heard and understood comes from the writer’s story. Somewhere within their story, their daily walk, an idea sticks and they spend time dwelling on it and lo and behold: a new thing wakes in the world. What is an “Oral Tradition”? It is a catchy line that bears repeating; it is a top-forty song quickly making its way through the dancehalls and music parlors; it is Abraham Lincoln humming “Dixie”, a wildly popular tune at the time, as he trots about his office during the war. It is next summer’s hip-hop club hit being passed around now in circles until it develops some real form and flow. The oral tradition is where the price of certain actively traded lyrical commodities is being decided now. It never went away. It is always with us. Leadbelly practiced the trade, Lil’ Wayne practices it, Dylan is no stranger to it, and neither was Jesus of Nazareth.
Who was Homer? Who was Solon? We have only hints of fragments, nothing historical. Plutarch places Homer at around 555 BC reciting his 16-song epic poem to Peisistratos, Chief of Athens, the man who introduced Tragic drama to the Greeks. Solon, an earlier Greek archon on or about 594 BC, was The Poet Reformer, who brought forth early Democracy by including lower classes in making law and giving them access to courts. He was fond of tune and it brought him great wealth and riches.
Some wicked men are rich, some good are poor;
We will not change our virtue for their store:
Virtue's a thing that none can take away,
But money changes owners all the day.
Aristotle could only guess at who Solon was, but he still had the lyric intact thanks to The Oral Tradition, our eternal jukebox. Who creates? A million little pieces strewn about until someone creates something whole and useful. Homer was possibly a star Rhapsode sewing his songs together and taking it all on the road. He wrote some of his own stuff, covered some stuff, stole other stuff. The same can be said of Shakespeare, who is maybe more legend than historical fact moreso than Homer. It is nothing to get in a froth about and become peculiar. Shakespeare writes or borrows a catch. It sticks inside the inner ear. Bob Dylan did not write “Stuck In The Middle With You” , a Gerry Rafferty song, but he may as well have. There. Now the tune is in your head without want of instrumentation and performance, all complements of the eternal jukebox.
It is as it has always been. O I long to hear the story… The song is sewn together and travels around. What’s the best form of advertising? What travels quicker than bite-sized gossip? But with each performance lending itself to certain improvisations how is fidelity kept? Leadbelly would not be Leadbelly if he didn’t add his bits. This may be a puzzle but isn’t. What being more indelible is typically kept and other bits are then thrown in to make the show. The essential substance is preserved at all times. Fates keep watch. It is mysterioso to the upmost, and is reliably infallible. It is essential to the working of the mechanism. If that doesn’t work, then nothing does. We know because Homer exists, although until his exhaustive recording session with Peisistratos in the mid 6th Century BC he did not exist. Now he does.
“What is thought cannot be unthought”
— Anonymous
What is a great line? The above can be variously ascribed to Heidegger or Dostoevsky or others. It is a great line. To me, a great line is one you instantly wish you had written yourself. On a recent night, I turned up at the Abbey Pub Open Mic much like I have done on many a Tuesday night over the last thirteen or so years and sang my tunes. Or in this case, I sang a Lefty Frizell song called “Saginaw, Michigan” and a mash-up of Townes Van Zandt’s “To Live Is To Fly” and John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery”. My set concluded, I gave a nod to the next-up, a fellow by the name of Shannon Fortune making his Abbey debut who proceeded into an original song called “Full of Live” containing the line, “Life is full of disappointments, and I am full of life.” It is a good line. A useful thing, and it was already being used right there in the open in front of me. I couldn’t use it, so I waited for Shannon’s set to end, bought his CD, went to his website and became a fan. To use it otherwise would be to suggest his song did not exist and it so clearly did. To preserve honor, having been blown off the stage, I bowed to him and began to tout his prowess of song.
But is it true that what is contemplated comes into being? Heidegger states, “Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.” We throw up our hands; we don’t know what Heidegger is talking about. “We do not say: Being is, time is, but rather: there is Being and there is time.” Can thought be unthought? Apparently not or not anymore.
Great lines preserve themselves and once something is thought it is a thing. Even if the thing is a mere thought it works in our imaginings and accomplishes what it wishes to accomplish.
They said to Him: "Shall we then, being children, enter the Kingdom?" Jesus said to them: "When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, then you shall enter the kingdom."
“The kingdom of heaven is spread out across the earth, only people don't see it.”
— Jesus of Nazareth Gospel of St. Thomas
Even the Disciples of Jesus could only somewhat fathom what he was saying. They mention he spoke in parables. More likely it was something more akin to exasperation.
Jesus: “If two trains leave the station Bound for Glory and Train A is going faster than Train B, which one gets there first?”
Disciples: (mumbling and confused) “O Teacher, we know not. We are confused.”
Jesus: (shaking his head and moving off) “Ask Mary to explain it to you.”
Disciples: (mumbling, confused, offended) “You favor her?! She gets special instruction? Are we not men?
And so it goes…
Jesus of Nazareth came about, or was made into being as Heidegger would have it, during the time of Augustus Caesar. We may say that Caesar’s reign began in 27 BC, but Jesus, although altogether wise, could not have made that distinction. In regnal years, we count the seasons of the reign of the presiding monarch who, in our case is Jesus—although this was not firmly and fully adopted until the 8th Century. Prior to that, keeping track of what year you were in was a real chore. If you want to place something crazy that happened to you in the mid-seventies, you might start by saying, “Back in the Carter administration…” Regnal dating is much the same thing. As a boy, Jesus would not presume to go around saying, “It is year 10 and all is well!” However, he rightfully could have.
We know little of the historical Jesus even with the robust efforts of some like Thomas Jefferson who, familiar with Gnostic principles, set about to construct a new Bible by taking a razor to a King James text and cutting and pasting together a version by redacting everything that was not reasonably a direct quote from Jesus. It is said that all the while the razor did its work Mr. Jefferson’s minister was of pained expression and loss of colour. Imagine what Jefferson could do with the Internet? Imagine him not inventing it given enough time. To this day, newly seated senators are handed a small, slim volume to keep. It is a Jefferson Bible. Quite a few immediately misplace it.
In the Jeffersonian Bible, given that it is simply the sayings of Jesus most attributable to Him, certain parts are omitted. There is no virgin birth, no proclamation that Jesus is the Son of God, and the resurrection is not mentioned. Freed from these difficult precepts, the teachings of the Lord (or teacher as it is variously translated from antiquity) gain somewhat instead of lose luster. The Sermon on the Mount is great. One great line after another great line. His cup so much runs over.
When Jesus took to traveling, things were not so well in the land. Augustus had left not a worthy heir. Tiberius had not wanted the task, but there it was. There were grain shortages and the ever-mewling cries of the disenchanted. The region of Galilee and all around it fell under the management of the Tetrarch, who brought in a steady profit, but was beset by the ever-mewling cries of the Pharisees whom he controlled. There was a problem with The Temple. No matter how much was Sacrificed, the economy did not seem to improve. They had a Sacrificial-based economy. The texts were carefully consulted as were the stars, more Sacrifices were ordered up and scheduled, and the grain shortages (largely caused by Tiberius’ use of grain barges in festivals commemorating himself) went unabated.
A fierce discontent was loose. John the Baptist had a noted ministry at the time that foretold the end of Time. People would be coming from miles around, just to get their head dunked when the sun went down. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he insomuch said, “Here is The Man! That’s what I’m talking about!” An Eschaton ministry was increasingly popular, and when the Tetrarch, obliging his impetuous stepdaughter, took John’s head from him, Jesus inherited his ministry spreading it all the way to the Hawaiian Islands. The teachings were about a Kingdom of God that would be “…on Earth as it is in Heaven”. In the New Testament, Jesus mentions the Kingdom over one hundred times. It is a central theme. Ask three Disciples what the Kingdom is and you get three different answers. Ask a dozen and you might get two dozen as some, confused, change their minds while retelling.
The Disciples rarely agreed. They were prone to worry and vexation although their immediate needs were largely met by the offices of Mary Magdalene who, through her ties to a solid, middle-class family of note supplied the movement with financial wherewithal in conjunction with what they would otherwise bring in through the daily take. Mostly the Disciples would fret over who would have sayso in the New Kingdom. Peter was certain it should be him. James was confident that it was he, as Jesus was his brother and had so much said so; Paul was indifferent to their conflict as he was certain it would be him since he was certainly to have the last word. Mary, perhaps having more understanding than all of those three together, saw to Jesus’ burial and afterwards lit out to the frontier and was rarely heard from. Although it is said that she had the power to be in two places at once, and you never knew when she might turn up, which was somewhat unnerving.
Jesus of Nazareth was put to death by the Romans acting on the counsel of the Pharisees who had had about enough of Him. During his Ministry, he had made some trouble for himself by cleansing the Temple. As this made trouble with the Sanhedrin, Jesus and his movement was eyed carefully and his days numbered. With crucifixion, the Romans knew how to kill a person so they stayed dead. This they did and the Disciples, moaning, perplexed, and confused, gathered together to ponder whither until in walked Mary proclaiming resurrection.
“Why does He appear to her and not us?” they indignantly moaned, truly vexed. “What does she got that we don’t have?” Nonetheless, they trotted out behind her and Lo and Behold: There was Jesus. Later John would record a Gospel beginning, “In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Great in reverence did John hold Jesus. Great in reverence did John hold the Word. Great in reverence did John hold God. After a while, according to John, it was all the same thing.
And so it was.
Jesus, having taught his Disciples as best he could and finding them petty and feuding about whom should succeed him, entrusted His teachings to the eternal jukebox as it were—and the Essenes whom he trusted as much as anybody.
"Apparently Jesus and the Essenes [Yahad] saw their actions as constituting a new covenant. According to Mark 14:24 and Matthew 26:28 Jesus instituted at the Last Supper a 'covenant'. According to Luke 22:20 Jesus said, 'This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood'. The Qumran Essenes stressed the importance of 'the new covenant' that was established by God through the Righteous Teacher.' Each year the covenant was renewed, perhaps at the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), during a most sacred ceremony ([Community Rule] 1QS 1-2). To enter the Qumran Community was 'to pass over into the covenant' or 'to enter into the new covenant'. The Qumran Essenes thought of their community (Yahad) as the eternal covenant. Their unique theology, history, and social setting led them to talk about their community as 'God's covenant'. In a certain sense Qumran theology is covenantal theology."
- James H. Charlesworth, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992), p. 12.
“Let those with ears hear.”
—Jesus of Nazareth
And so it was in 1945 after the conclusion of a great war that tore the world in two and consumed some 60 million souls, and that war had come at the heels of a Great War where Mankind was to be done with War, which had been followed by pestilence and a Great Depression only relieved by more War, two Egyptian peasants stumbled upon the discovery at Nag Hammadi. Unsure of their value, one brought these found texts home and placed them by the stove. Having not brought money or meat home, his wife began burning them in the oven and a certain screaming of oaths ensued. Ah, married life.
Four months earlier an atom bomb had exploded followed by another and Japan had signed on the dotted line. The war was over, and the Allies had won. What this meant for The Book of Thomas discovered among the pages not yet burned by an angry wife was nothing. The Book of Thomas could have cared less.
Two years later in the Qumran the Dead Sea Scrolls were revealed. The mid-point of their revelation was around 1948 when gasoline was $0.26 per gallon and the Dow was at 177. Some of the scrolls appeared shortly thereafter in a for sale ad in the Wall Street Journal:
"The Four Dead Sea Scrolls: Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 BC are for sale. This would be an ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group. Box F206."
But some of the scrolls were more precisely interred during the time of the Jewish/Roman war around 68 AD. They refer to a “Teacher of Righteousness” condemned by the Jerusalem priesthood. The find contained a copy of the Book of Isaiah 1,000 years older than any other.
The Word had returned.
An apocalyptic sect headquartered in the Wilderness seals up the Word of God shortly before the fall of The Second Temple to be revealed at a certain Time and lo and behold it bears mention at that Time in The Wall Street Journal. Yet another example of the workings of The Eternal Jukebox meshing to perfection.
1948: Mahatma Ghandi is murdered, the State of Israel born, RAND Corp. is formed, and the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Braves for the World Series. As good as time for the Second Coming as any I’d say. The Dead Sea Scrolls offered more of the Word. Taken with the scholarship that resulted from the find in Nag Hammadi, a new Word emerges. Jesus reborn as The Word just like he had been preaching all along. “Let those with ears hear.” The Kingdom is proclaimed!
But it seemed the world had not ended.
Certainly by 1948 Mankind possessed the knowledge of how to end the world. Namely, it could be blown to bits with nuclear weapons. In fact, in 1948 the Soviet Union set about in high gear to detonate her own device finally doing so in August, 1949. Stalin’s thought in 1948 was “get it done as quickly as possible no matter what the cost.” 1948 was quite a pivotal year. It was the end of the world insomuch that we had figured out how to end the world and a thought once thought cannot be un-thought. A thirteen year-old boy is proclaimed a man not because he has procreated with many a fulsome and lusty gal, but because he is fully capable of doing so, and so must be given some proper respect. It may not have happened yet, but soon enough it shall.
The appearance of The Word at the pivotal hour cannot be underestimated. Thomas Jefferson would have been beside himself. The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth for those who can discern it. Here is a Useful Thing! Once removed from the tyranny of fear of what is next to come, we are bidden to be ourselves, scratch our bellies and rummage about the fridge. Freedom. Heaven. What don’t sort out will wash out. Those wanting Heaven are free to build it. If we build it they will come. What, me worry? The Sanhedrin holds no sway. Peasants have gradually defeated all the monarchs. The last shall be first. It is a New Frontier.
But other than the mention in the Wall Street Journal, the Second Coming went largely unnoticed. Retrieved from careful scholarship of the new texts posited against the Septuagint and other revealed texts is a new understanding of Christ’s teachings. We can now posit them again with the teachings of Mohammed and others. What is revealed? A Kingdom Come, that’s what. The power of unspoken thought will bridge the crevassed ground we share; divisions shall all disappear. In one tribe and circle we are brought.
Jesus, an insightful Man, had seen it coming. He had entrusted his teachings to the Essenes, who faithfully preserved them. Others did as well. His sayings were currency among the faithful and preserved in the Eternal Jukebox. The remaining Apostles finally came to their senses and began jotting them down after they had taken on a life of their own. They immediately set about bickering over the proceeds and had a falling out. So many bands have come apart the same way.
No Second Comings have come before. Although ninety years prior the End of the World, Our Lady of Lourdes appeared to a fourteen-year-old peasant girl and her friends. Thousands were astonished. In 1531 Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, having previously witnessed the Mexican Conquest by Cortés firsthand, came upon The Virgin of Guadalupe on Tepeyac Hill. The local bishop was unimpressed by Juan Diego’s pleadings when he rushed into town to alert him until he had, at the instruction of the apparition, gathered roses out of season from the hilltop which she pressed carefully into his outer garment. When he presented the garment to the bishop, a not-so-vaguely vaginal image was super-imposed there. The bishop fell silent.
Yesterday I picked up my car from my local mechanic’s shop and there on the wall surrounded by Christmas lights and atop a shelf holding a vase of dried roses was the same image. It does not bear casual mention of the other resemblance. That is an altogether unnecessary fight to have on your hands. The Mexicans adore Our Lady. Best leave well enough alone.
In my view, we are now in year 60 and the Second Coming announcing the end of the world has come to past. What of Armageddon? Doesn’t 60 Million dead in WWII mean anything? Is that not a large enough carnage to be sufficient? Who was the Anti-Christ? Adolph Hitler makes a fine accidental Anti-Christ. Heidegger was his brethren. What of the seven-headed serpent and the sounding of Gabriel’s trumpet? Once again, Thomas Jefferson could easily dismiss most if not all of what he characterized as the insane rantings of the Johnine final Gospel. The trumpet part was true, however…well, cornet anyway.
Back at the Turn of the Century in New Orleans, Buddy Bolden blew a mean cornet. No recordings are extant, but a pre-trumpeted Louis Armstrong was getting loose of his mother and standing outside a music hall to hear Buddy’s tone, which he replicated as best he could when he found an instrument. You want to hear Buddy Bolden? Listen to Louis Armstrong. His entire catalogue is available on Amazon. Jelly Roll Morton was present and paying attention as well. He grabbed the sound and took it out of New Orleans, the only place it could have been born, and livelied up St. Louis, then Kansas City, California State, then finally in 1923 to Chicago where a new music was gathering steam and a sensation was proclaimed.
The sensation was no less sensational than it had been in around 1906 when Buddy would start blowing a syncopated line that was less studious recital of a march than exhortation of a new and glorious gospel. Women were said to have risen up from their chairs and begun swaying about with no dance partners present. The entire social fabric of Turn of The Century New Orleans would have to be restructured to accommodate this new thing. Bolden had a hit in 1904 called “The Funky Butt”. In 1904! George Clinton may have been able to skirt by with a title like that in ’75, but in 1904?! In 1906 Bolden lost his mind and threw down his cornet in the street. By then the sound was loose on the world.
It was a fresher sound than Ragtime. Ragtime didn’t even sound like ragtime. Scott Joplin had studiously and metrically composed Ragtime tunes, but musicians then were familiar with a style called Ragged Time that was enthusiastically played at the end of the night when drunk and when keeping time was either not wished for or impossible. Bolden embodied this new style and gave it a rich, tart tone that immediately said, “Here it is!” He may as well as said, “Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty I am free at Last!” Syncopations both before and after the beat began to make their appearance. By continually adjusting the accent and dynamics of a phrase, a musician could alter the thrust of a piece. Women would begin a low moan and rise up swaying. Men would get roaring drunk. Armies would fall. The Church couldn’t stop it. People rushed to the store to buy cornets, saxophones, or anything that could make that sound. Jelly Roll smiled. He was going to make a fortune off of this stuff, but he never did. He didn’t make a bag of beans off of it in the end. Others did, though.
Musicians of other ilk heard the new sound and appropriated it. It was called “Jazz”. Although the word jazz was something that wasn’t much mentioned in mixed company in 1906. It could mean something else entirely. Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Rock-n-roll, the fall of the Berlin Wall all followed. You want Gabriel’s trumpet? Buddy Bolden struck up the band and, baby, it was HOT.
“Let those with ears hear!”
And now in year 60 a New Gospel is proclaimed. Gas prices are high; War flourishes; this Summer, for the first time in the history of Mankind, the Arctic ice is no longer contiguous; massive debt threatens to enslave all the poor to the mightier; George W. Bush of the Bush Family of War Profiteers is President of The United States. If this be Heaven, how is it so?
Jesus saith, If ye say that the abode of God is in the sky, the birds will arrive there before you. If ye say it is in the sea, the fish will arrive there before you. Know ye that the kingdom of heaven is within you and without you, and ye shall know that which is within. When ye have found the Light within yourselves, ye will know as ye are known. Then ye will know that ye are the sons of the living Father and that your destiny is to be as He. He who knoweth not himself, is poor in Spirit, for he is his own poverty.
Whether you find it or build it, once you have it, it is yours to keep. The knowing will know. A tune by the songwriting team of Walter Donaldson and George Whiting sums it up well. Walter Donaldson, who along with other lyricists such as Gus Kahn was also responsible for “My Buddy”, “Making Whoopee”, “My Baby Just Cares For Me”, and “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby”, in 1927 put forth “My Blue Heaven”.
Back to the shelter of
Each little nest they love
Nightshades falling, lovers calling
What makes the World go round
Nothing but love
When whippoorwills call
And evening is nigh
I hurry to my Blue Heaven
Just a turn to the right
And a little white light
Will lead you to my Blue Heaven
You’ll see a smiling face, a fireplace, a cosy room
A little nest that nestles where roses bloom
Just Molly and me
And baby makes three
We're happy in my Blue Heaven
(Orchestral Break)
You’ll see a smiling face, a fireplace, and a cozy room
A little nest that nestles where roses bloom
Just Molly and me
And baby makes three
We're happy in my Blue Heaven
(Whistling)
Jesus saith, This earth and its heaven will pass away and all will become new. Behold, in the beginning ye were made one body, and when ye became two, sin entered the world. Now ye are many, and sin aboundeth. Hear then my word! Ye must become a solitary man before me, if ye would dwell in the new heavens and the new earth which I shall create. He who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
To me, the only thing left out in this Heaven on Earth are the voices of those I miss. For this Heaven to be complete, I would desire them heard. If in the New Frontier those voices carry to my ears, I need no other Heaven. I miss them. I miss them all.
Labels: Buddy Bolden, Eschaton, Homer, Jelly Roll Morton, Jesus Christ, Louis Armstrong, Marlon St. John, Solon, The End of The World, The Second Coming
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posted by obelus at 6/30/2008 07:03:00 PM
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