Animal Lover is not a work to take half heartedly. Either you jump in from the accapella
On The Way To Oklahoma and let the psychogeography well up in an eruption; or, you would be better off listening to the later works of Arvo Paart. There are fifteen tracks: twelve animal and three are people. Imaginary Jack is some sort of sixteenth Track. When you are doing numerology, these things are important. It can get confusing if you just jump in and explain: there are 12 Chinese Zodiacal Characters, Three Residents without stories and then Imaginary Jack who is the Fourth, and most Anonymous, Resident. As Demonstrated by Penn Jillette when Juggling at the Mole Show. But this fourth is slightly diminished - the Devils Interval. The key to understanding this was demonstrated on the grimy stage of The Royal Court, Liverpool, in the 1980s. Once you know that Penn Jillette can juggle it all becomes clear. The rest just hammers on past.
Animal Lover, arrived between the Loneliness of Demons and The Patmos Bunnies. There were others My copy of
Animal Lover came from His Master's Voice (HMV) Records. Probe Records having ceased to shelve Residents sometime around the bad years. These were the years of 'managed decline'. When the Government decided that Liverpool could slowly depopulate and cease to exist. Some time between the Moles and
Wormwood, the City had become a morgue. We had all migrated to other places. Our Chub overlords had destroyed our Mole Culture. Really. By Animal Lover time, things were changing again. Which was a good thing. There was the promise of a Liverpool becoming the Capital of Culture for the whole of Europe. Which attracted quite a number of migrants back. Moles were coming home.
The Mute Records sleeve was a small - and to my mind, satisfying - hard backed book. Nice to hold and read while listening. With a shiny new Red Car, that had it was even possible to take a drive and listen on the shiny new Compact Disk Player. So I went to
利物浦 中国城
There I was, in a car, just off 納爾遜街, looking at the entrance to 中国城. The biggest 牌坊 outside 中國. It was a kind of episode of Firefly but in real life. Now, I know that San Francisco has a Chinatown. But nothing like this. The gate to the Town is huge. Made in Shanghai to recognise the importance of the Oldest Chinatown in Europe.
Chinatown Entrance
It is bragging, but it is bigger than the Gate in San Francisco. Which is tiny in comparison. But no less important. This gate is the only authentic Chinatown Gate in North America. Which says something. San Franscisco has a real Chinatown; and a real quote from Sun Yat Sen: "ALL UNDER HEAVEN IS FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE". The Gate in Liverpool has no such excitement.
Chinatown Entrance
Both gates are obviously linked by an imaginary line. Which ensures that whatever happens in one place is mirrored in the other. Liverpool had the Beatles and San Franciso the Residents and Chinatown has the Pagoda Orchestra.
Pagoda Orchestra
The whole system of things being in balance works. Which is why the
Animal Lover reading and listening needs Chinatown.
Nelson Street is not the best place to listen to anything. But this is home. In the 1960s and 1970s this was where the family Doctor was to be found. Liverpool being, for better or worse, a Port. It meant that Doctors tended to be immigrants from one place or another. For a while there was a Polish Doctor but she got pregnant and ran off with a man who owned a Restaurant. When you grow up in a Port you get used to foreign voices and culture being a mixing pot. When people get upset by Lennon's
Woman Is The N_gg_r Of The World - and software hides the word behind stars- they fail to appreciate the cultural and historical background. John Lennon is responsible for the lyrics but his phrase was not at the time deemed to be racist. He was also able to be deeply offensive without resorting to racism. Lennon also came from a City where there was deeply entrenched racism and deeply antiracist sentiments. When Toxteth erupted in 1981 it was because of decades of racism; but there had also been riots in the City in the second World War, defending Black Airmen from their more racist White Comrades.
In Chinatown the Doctors were Lithuanian and Irish with mostly Chinese Patients. Going to the Doctors involved hearing lots of different accents. From the Tonal to the weirdly European. Seeing men - Chinese Men - of a certain age, looking shifty because they worried they would be repatriated to Communist China. It had happened before when the Holt Shipping Line had sent the Chinese Merchant Seamen back to China at the end of the Second World War in an act of cattle boat racism. But here was home. The best possible place to listen to Animal Lover. It is on the way to the Doctor's which was near Number 10 - the Boarding House. The magical connections never really cease.
The boarding houses in Chinatown were not all, for want of a better phrase, very welcoming. Some were Opium Dens and others were Flophouses or Brothels. At the Top of Chinatown was the Scandinavian Hotel. So called because it was Scandinavian.
It was owned by a Doctor. Whose medical practice was host to most of the Chinese communuity. There, at the corner of Nelson Street (納爾遜街) and Duke Street (公爵街) in the part of the City that was, essentially, the Baltic Quarter. Thus is the way with ports. Full of people. Full of Life. The Boarding Houses in and around Chinatown were empty by the 1970s. The deported Sailors haunting them. It is a strange place to listen to evocative musics.
The Symbolism of fifteen - the tracks excluding Imaginary Jack - include some remarkably necessary clues. The Lo Shu, magic square, was found on the back of a turtle by some Chinese Emperor or other. Since it did not happen in Liverpool or San Fransico, we can pass over the detail. But, it is right there in the Chinatowns of the Cities: the numbers of the Lo Shu add up to 15 - horizontally, vertically and diagonally. This is an astounding revelation. There in Animal Lover.
Lo Shu Map With Turtle
Which reveals the secret names of the Residents: horizontal, vertical and diagonal. Perhaps not the most Human of names, but secret names rarely are. Like Tigers, being curious or Bats being fascinated with the stench of burning night flesh. Nobody mentions a Turtle. Not really.
The Lo Shu originated around 2205 BC when the Emperor discovered the magic square on the back of a turtle. First we need to remember the Fifteenth President, James Buchanan, unmarried, active Freemason and most criticised for the handling of the Crisis that lead to the American Civil War. During his last month, seven States left the Union. He was followed by the Sixteenth President, Lincoln, who was shot in Ford's Theatre Washington D.C. and died on the 15th of February 1865. James is a variant name of Jack and Lincoln, a dead president, becomes the Imaginary Jack of Buchanan's Real Jack. which is just like being Mister Skull. The big revelation is not the origin of Mister Skull in Abraham Lincoln, but that the Fifteen Tracks other than Imaginary Jack reveal that one of the Residents is, in fact, a Woman.
Which is where diligently reading might lead to the question, "why are these oriental connections in the slightest relevant". To which I merely remember that the second track - "Olive and Gray" - has a marvellously Chinese sounding introduction. So why not simply accept the chinoiserie. It is there. You just need to deanonymise it.
Quinceañera – The very important birthday - is birthday number fifteen. Quinceañere is a grand fancy dress celebration when a girl turns 15 years old and means “one who is 15”; which is much the same as the Residents: a grand fancy dress. This is the day the young girl officially enters womanhood. Often the birthday girl will give away 15 candles. It is an important day in many countries including Mexico where the Residents are rumoured to have been found on more than one occasion. The Fifteen Tracks of Animal Lover conceal the identity of Imaginary Jack. They are candles. Fifteen Candles. Which is proof enough that one of the Residents, probably the Juggling Resident of Gillette's legerdemain, is female; or would be if the theory is true.
The Proof, if proof be needed, that
Imaginary Jack is a Jill:
Imaginary Jack is split into 6 pieces which are a single track. Tracks, particularly sporting tracks go round. Which makes
Imaginary Jack six things to a cycle. Women have cycles. Which is not really the most appropriate subject for polite conversation.
Six Things To A Cycle graces the pages of
Fingerprince, which ensures that the parallel creation of
Imaginary Jack and
Six Things To A Cycle result in the most appropriate obscurity of all: nobody realising that Jack is a Jill and that she hides in plain sight. This is not the standard of proof required in, say, Science; but it is sufficient to get past an Alcoholic Justice of the Peace on a Sunday Morning after a particularly Hard
Days Night the previous Saturday.
So the Total sixteen tracks contains twelve tracks about animals and four about the Residents. It also reveals that the Secret Resident, the one juggling all the other Residents, is a Woman - so not a Jack but a Jill - and that the other three Residents are, nominally, called horizontal, vertical and diagonal. There, hidden in plain sight so that nobody would ever know. Everybody just assumes the Residents are Male or that they are anonymous. With effort they always have a face. Which was the lesson of the Dog watching Olive and Gray.
The thing about the twelve Animal Lover Animal Tracks - aside from the three about the Anonymous - is that they form a calendar. That means we can reconstruct the entire back catalogue of Residential Output in a unique Residential Calendar. Each Track names an Animal. Which, given the, by now irrefutable, Chinese Connection, forms the Residential Calendar. Which they must have ripped off from the Chinese Animal Calendar. Which means that all of the Residents Back Catalogue has a unique dating system: which makes sense if you recall that Senada was off researching something or other in that Arctic Air - a Tribe of Mongolians. Whose Calendar is made from the same stern stuff as the Chinese one.
The Chinese order of the years is given as starting with the Rat. Which sometimes gets translated as mouse. The Residents, not being native Madarin speakers - and overwhelmed by the choice of dialects - never really translated the years properly. How could they: too busy making Art.
So the Chinese order of the years is this:
| 甲 申 | Monkey | Jan 22 2004–Feb 08 2005 | 乙 酉 | Rooster | Feb 09 2005–Jan 28 2006 | 丙 戌 | Dog | Jan 29 2006–Feb 17 2007 | 丁 亥 | Pig | Feb 18 2007–Feb 06 2008 | 戊 子 | Rat | Feb 07 2008–Jan 25 2009 | 己 丑 | Ox | Jan 26 2009–Feb 13 2010 | 庚 寅 | Tiger | Feb 14 2010–Feb 02 2011 | 辛 卯 | Rabbit | Feb 03 2011–Jan 22 2012 | 壬 辰 | Dragon | Jan 23 2012–Feb 09 2013 | 癸 巳 | Snake | Feb 10 2013–Jan 30 2014 | 甲 午 | Horse | Jan 31 2014–Feb 18 2015 | 乙 未 | Goat | Feb 19 2015–Feb 07 2016 |
|
And we know the order of the tracks on Animal Lover is this
On The Way (to Oklahoma) |
Olive and Gray |
What Have My Chickens Done Now? |
Two Lips |
Mr. Bee's Bumble |
Inner Space |
Dead Men |
My Window |
Ingrid's Oily Tongue |
Mother No More |
Dreaming of an Anthill (Teeming) |
Elmer's Song |
The Monkey Man |
The Whispering Boys |
Burn My Bones |
And we even bothered to read the Book of stories instead of sitting in a Red Car at the Gate to Chinatown just listening to the Residents; we also know the Residential Order of Animals from the Tracks are this
THE TIGER |
THE DOG |
THE CHICKENS |
THE ANT |
THE MOUSE |
THE OWL |
THE PIGEON |
THE CAT |
THE CHIMPANZEE |
THE MONKEY MAN |
THE BAT |
THE WOLF |
And we also know that the Chinese Year Cycle starts with the Rat but the Residential Year Cycle starts with the Tiger we can conclude that the correspondences between Chinese Years and Residential Years are as follows:
Chinese | Name | Dates | Residential |
甲 申 | Monkey | Jan 22 2004–Feb 08 2005 | THE TIGER |
乙 酉 | Rooster | Feb 09 2005–Jan 28 2006 | THE DOG |
丙 戌 | Dog | Jan 29 2006–Feb 17 2007 | THE CHICKENS |
丁 亥 | Pig | Feb 18 2007–Feb 06 2008 | THE ANT |
戊 子 | Rat | Feb 07 2008–Jan 25 2009 | THE MOUSE |
己 丑 | Ox | Jan 26 2009–Feb 13 2010 | THE OWL |
庚 寅 | Tiger | Feb 14 2010–Feb 02 2011 | THE PIGEON |
辛 卯 | Rabbit | Feb 03 2011–Jan 22 2012 | THE CAT |
壬 辰 | Dragon | Jan 23 2012–Feb 09 2013 | THE CHIMPANZEE |
癸 巳 | Snake | Feb 10 2013–Jan 30 2014 | THE MONKEY MAN |
甲 午 | Horse | Jan 31 2014–Feb 18 2015 | THE BAT |
乙 未 | Goat | Feb 19 2015–Feb 07 2016 | THE WOLF |
Which reveals some marvellous facts. We are currently in the Residential Year of THE TIGER, once again; and, the Mole Tour was, largely, in the Year of the Ant. next year, from some time about February, we will be Dogs. Happy, smiling Santa Dogs, once again. Which leads to one tiny, final mystery. R. Bhakti Klein. Apparently there for the Group Vocals, but found nowhere else. Not for me to cast aspersions - for I am no Priest. But R. Bhakti Klein is an anagram of Thinkable Irk. Which, for overthinking the meaning of Animal Lover suggests knowing what R. Bhakti Klein means.
So, sitting reading, again in the Residential Year of THE WOLF (Chinese Year of the Goat), I discover that Bhakti is Sanskrit for "attachment, participation, fondness for, homage, faith or love, devotion, worship, piety" - which describes the ambience of Animal Lover in several ways. Well Klein is in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana which is closer to Shreveport than either San Francisco or Liverpool. Admittedly the Klein in Ouachita Parish is a little mixed up and more like Kline, but then so is this.
Animal Lover is a more religious and cultural experience than other things like, perhaps,
Not Available. Perhaps it was the influence of
Wormwood or just the word Parish.
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