Halloween is a laugh in the face of mortality, the gluttonous consumption of candy a spit on the Grim Reaper's loafers. Still, the spitting's done from behind the eyes of a costume; it's hard to look in the mirror and know time is limited.
This year I raise a toast to River Phoenix, who died on a sidewalk in front of The Viper Room in L.A., a blossoming mortal plucked just in time for All Soul's Day like a handful of marigolds. River overdosed 18 years ago this Halloween.
I was a skinny, bruise-kneed, 12-year-old girl when River was in his prime, but I read about his death in a glossy spread in People magazine and felt sorry for the boy I knew from Indiana Jones. I wasn't familiar with River's heavier movies yet, but he met me at mile-markers in my life like poor Mike from My Own Private Idaho, and is still hitching a ride in my heart.
Today, this Day of the Dead, I give you Grant Lee Buffalo singing our love for River, still fresh in sorrow as we've passed any age he'll ever reach.
You were like my own James Byron Dean
Private Idaho was my East of Eden
Hit me like a stone when I heard you passed on Halloween
Let that full bassline and the golden vocals of Grant carry you, full sadness and ebullient celebration.
"Orpheus...is the only mortal to
have roamed the underworld, and by the power and charm of his song,
return again to the living." -From Scott Walker: 30th Century Man
I am fascinated by the pain writers put themselves through. It's no mystery to anyone that writing takes a lot of time and hard work, that the muse is elusive and plain old blood, sweat, and tears are necessaryin the battle to produce great works. But, there's the added wrinkle: writers have to put their characters through hell- they have to allow them to make bad choices, pick the wrong romantic partners, miss the clues that would give them understanding, and sometimes authors even have to allow characters to lose and destroy themselves. When I think about this on personal level, I quail; it takes a staunch soul to allow a character to experience pain and suffering, and readers are savvy to writers who will only go half way.
Is it evidence of a great artist that we will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a character who is walking through fire? If a character's suffering resonates within us like a drum beat, or discomforts our hearts like overloud bass?
I wonder if it is my fear of going to dark places in my own writing that causes me to want to walk in Orpheus' shadow. What is it that's lurking in the fire? And what am I down here looking for anyway?
Dave Gahan, Faith and Devotion era
Most of the time I'd rather not know...but when a songwriter holds out their hand to me, to exorcise the primeval, the raw stuff of humanity, I will take their hand gladly.
A person doesn't have to go far to realize the underworld is tangible, but few tell the tale faithfully, truthfully, and as any Orpheus will tell you, there's something sacrificed to sing the song.
The descent might be for love or enjoyment, and the path initially easy, or none would venture there. Songs are sent thrumming across the airwaves frequently, as numerous as the feet of pigeons on a telephone wire, and nobody sings songs from the descent better than The Rolling Stones.
Some songwriters send stories of terror to us from the depths-- the every day reality of the world-- songs desperately frightening in their truth, car crashes we can't look away from, but can't fully see.
Some sing the songs of resignation, pools of sadness, bodies of water all are familiar with.
Some songwriters bring us Orpheuses (Orhphii?) who have been looking so long for a glimpse of Spring in Hades, that they've forgotten what the sky looks like; these are the characters that might glance back on their way back to the world, and lose their chance at Spring forever.
Almost any song from Songs of Faith and Devotion echoes this, because while the lyrics sound positive and full of reinvigorating sunshine, the music turns the lyrics upside down.
Sometimes songwriters sing people down into the darkness, with obsidian eyes reflecting the rivers of fire crawling beneath our feet.
And then there is an Orpheus who inhabits the space between the dark places and the sun, singing to us of the release that is coming if we keep climbing, the warmth that will return to our hearts and spirits, the light spotted in the distance.
Standing beside these characters, my heart resonates with their journeys; I have seen what they have seen, felt what they have felt, and their stories have become a mirror. I have wandered in tunnels characters have gotten lost in, and sometimes gotten lost in tunnels and been shown the way out through their songs. I follow Orpheus to know humanity, to know myself, better.
It is the power of a writer, having looked into dark places, to sing songs of darkness and desperation, of sunlight and joy, of that which is true, acknowledging the entire experience of being human. And, as Ana says, "
I think that ironically, it is people who...have
often had a wide scope of life experience, much of it painful, that
advocate for the goodness in humanity, the most."
The bravest writers invert the light/dark metaphor: by choosing to let their characters walk the path of suffering, they choose to allow all parts of their characters into the light. In the midst of suffering the universal desires for love, understanding, security, and forgiveness are being affirmed. This is a journey I am glad to join.
When I walked into Skip's Records a few days ago, the first songs off Reckoning were playing. Well, R.E.M.'s broken up, so it makes sense to throw on a classic album. I hadn't been into the store for a while, so there were lots of nooks of vinyl to investigate; while in the rock section I found myself flipping through records, singing
So don't go back to Rockvi-i-i-lle!!
Good times. I'm digging this album, cause it pretty much rocks.
In easy listening, absentmindedly- and accompanied by involuntary head movement-
Seven Chinese brothers swallowing the ocean
Seven thousand years to sleep away the pain
And then, in classical music, I realize that I am enjoying R.E.M. in a way I haven't been able to in years. What's happening?
Did you never call? I waited for your call
These rivers of suggestion are driving me away...
....I'm SORR-Y! I'm SORR-Y!
Ryan was behind the counter, pen scribbles and upper-lip-biting concentration, but came to the register when I heaved my stack of records onto the counter. For the first time in the passage of three mediocre albums, a smile found my lips at the same time R.E.M. escaped them.
"Ryan, I finally know how I feel about R.E.M. breaking up...relieved!"
Dorm room Colleen had a heart-expanding love for a band who created two of its best albums after losing their center, Bill Berry, but college graduate Colleen had to witness them deliver disappointment and unnecessary bombast for seven years.
One of
the first albums Ryan lent me was Fables of the Reconstruction. I stalked every record store in P-town filling in my collection of their cds. I remember early R.E.M. albums jangling into my subconcious ("up the
stairs to the landing, up the stairs, to the ha-i-wa-ah-aall"!) and humming through my extremities on cold hikes up the hill at Lewis & Clark. The first song I played on my beloved, be-stickered, Panasonic stereo in my dorm was, "Walk Unafraid," my favorite R.E.M. song. It's a song of release, courage, and grace.
R.E.M. and I have seen some highway miles together.
Finally, finally, the weight of R.E.M.'s last albums has been lifted off my shoulders; they are not becoming the next Rolling Stones. They knew they had to call it quits. My heart is filling up with the sweetness of R.E.M.'s songs again...and I've missed them so much.
How can I be
What I want to be?
When all I want to do is strip away
These stilled constraints
And crush this charade
Shred this sad masquerade
I don't need no persuading
