The Talk of Creatures

WE ARE GOING AT THIS ONE DAY AT A TIME!

of course, you can talk about multiple days in one post. no biggie. i get how it is.

kind of a weird project, i'd say! at the time of writing this, i haven't started my listening but i presume by the end of today i will have. so.. there's that.

happy holidays/chrimbus/brumailia/candlenights to all of you!

Day 2 has a cohesive, almost danceable sound to it. consistently sticking to one rhythm? classic. iconic. wow. i love it.

the guitar work is that stuff i DO like.

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There was an accident with a bottle. It was eighteen years old and filled with port. The Importers, Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman, provided the contents. I provided the liver. Late-bottled vintage port, eighteen years in the making. This leads to questionable behaviour. The innovation of creating a Port that requires no filtering ensures that the questionable behaviour is entirely facilitiated.

Then, of course, the best way to consume Port is to provide cheese to go with it. Frequently Stilton. But this was going to be the first time listening to Brumalia. So, I collected together twelve different cheeses and a bottle of Taylors.

The plan was to sample the Port along with a lump of cheese on a cracker. A Jacobs Cream Cracker.

The Rosie Hackett Bridge (Irish: Droichead Róise Haicéad) is a road bridge across the Liffey (Irish: An Life) in Dublin in Ireland. Alternative names such as the Bram Stoker Bridge and Willie Bermingham Bridge were rejected in favour of the Trade Union organizer Rosie Hackett who worked for some years as a messenger for Jacob's. On 22 August 1911 Rosie helped organize the withdrawal of Women's labour in Jacob's factory to support their striking male colleagues. A fortnight later, at the age of eighteen, Rosie co-founded the Irish Women Worker's Union (IWWU) with Delia Larkin. During the 1913 Lockout Rosie helped mobilize the Jacob's workers to come out in solidarity with other workers, they in turn were locked out by their own employers. In 1914 her Jacob's employers sacked her over her role in the Lockout. Jacobs Crackers are subversive foodstuffs.

The Plan did not go to plan. Drunkenness ensues when one is gargling port and changing cheeses every three to six minutes. It was not a good plan. It was a plan. Cracker and cheese, some Port. Repeat. The first fault with the Plan was Epiphany. The Epiphany required and additional, and absent, cheese. In consequence, the Brumalian Binge - the Saturnalian Blow Out - was not the disciplined toping of, for example, Guy Debord or Alfred Jarry. The attraction of Port is that it encourages more port. Thus the discipline of listening to Brumalia over a number of days was lost.

It was a disaster. But one with a terribly excellent sound track. The one thing that The Residents always provide is a soundtrack to reality. Brumalia is no different. Worse disasters happen - at Sea and on the Railroads. The Sea Shanties of Snakefinger - as can be found on the 1987 Night of Desirable Objects, in the form of Sophies Playful Pipes and Sawney's Death Dance. Brumalia is an excellent accompaniment to minor, domesticated disasters.

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Penicillium candidum, Penicillium camemberti and Brevibacterium, make rich, creamy sour milk unsuitable for people with strongly reactive allergies to Penicillins. There is a recommendation to never eat Brie if it has mold on it. It really is nice melted. With Port, you get a really nice, long lasting aftertaste. The enjoyment is the first step in the disaster.

With the First Day of Brumalia announcing a dissonant parallel to the twelve days of Christmas. In England, the Lord of Misrule, in Scotland, the Abbot of Unreason, in France as the Prince des Sots - was an officer appointed by lot at Christmas to preside over the Feast of Fools. In charge of Christmas revelries, including drunkenness and wild partying, in the pagan tradition of Saturnalia. The Traditional disasters of the Prince des Sots.

The Feast of Fools is a great disaster.

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Yarg is a Cornish Cheese that gets wrapped in Nettle Leaves or sometimes wild garlic leaves. Named after Allan and Jenny Gray, the couple who gave the recipe to Pengreep Farm in the 1970s, the original recipe is thought to date back to the 13th century. The nettles are not unpleasant. The hard cheese is not mass manufactured and so there is a legal obligation to wear a large, hipster style beard when eating it.

Which may be a delusion that occurs after a few units of port.

The Blackpool Wurlitzer Organ steamed up into power with a magnificent high wire acrobat's waltz. It may not have been a waltz. It may not have been a Wurlitzer. It may have, in fact, been sound effects culled from a 1950's B-Movie. Something about Flying Saucers and Earth invasions. It was almost a conspiracy of coherence.

The Yarg was bloody marvellous. Like having your mouth stung clean and disinfected with alcohol from the last millenium. Unfortunately, that merely compounded the disaster. The oncoming disaster.

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Cheddar. Good old fashioned rat trap cheese. Hard and strong when mature. Sharp and rich with Port. But always a little more than difficult when disaster begins to strike.

The first intimations of disaster came with the words, "So there was this chick...". Straining to hear it. Tempted to relisten to the same piece over and over until the words made sense. "So there was this chick...". That is the only real thing I remember. Because, almost immediately, I was trying to work out why I had never listened to the original in 2003.

Perhaps it was the Lord of the Rings that distracted me. Samwise Gamgee marriaging that Rosie Cotton was bound to be more important than Brumalia. Maybe it was The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrating over Texas. I have no idea.

The only thing I remember is being surrounded from November 27th 2003 to January 31st by big computers. Staring at images like this:


Realistically that is where the disaster begins. In the Cheddar and a third glass of Port. Sensible folks, like those from Shreveport or San Francisco, would not have necked glasses so quickly. Certainly not at the rate of one per track. Not Three glasses of Port.

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Before the "There was this chick..." had finished resonating through my cognitive cabbage, The Fourth Day of Brumalia had begun and I was stacking some creamy chalky crusted camemberet onto a wheaty cracker when the Crime Scene Music kicked in.

In a drunken state, slightly jazzy, slightly 1950's sounding music always turns into some kind of crime scene reconstruction. Get Carter or something from the Mitchell and Kenyon stable. Whose slogan, "Local Films for Local People" predates Royston Vasey by almost a century. Trading under the name of Norden, they became the largest producers of films in the Empire.

Mitchell and Kenyon's most innovative film was The Arrest of Goudie in 1901. The world's first filmed crime reconstruction. The film used the actual crime locations and depicts the arrest of Thomas Goudie. Goudie was a Bank of Liverpool employee who embezzled £170,000 while involved in a gambling ring. The Arrest of Goudie was shown at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Liverpool, three days after Goudie's arrest.

In 1994 a hoard of films made by Mitchel and Kenyon were discovered while the Mercers toy shop was being demolished. Mercers toy shop in Northgate, Blackburn, was and is famous. Like most things in Lancashire it is in decline. Mercers had been in business for 169 years before the inevitable. Two workmen were clearing out the basement during demolition of the Toy Shop and found three metal drums like milk churns. Being Builders, they were inclined to opportunism and looked inside to see hundreds of small spools of film. But the churns were salvageable scrap.

On their way to the Lethbridges Scrap Metal Processors - an Oklahoma of the Fylde - was Magic Moments Video which did cine to video transfers, so the workmen dragged in a churn in and asked the proprietor if the films were of any value. Turns out they were the 'archived' contents of the Mitchel and Kenyon film making business. After being stored in a chest freezer to prevent explosion they were taken to the British Film Institute. After adventures and diversions, the collection is stored in Berkhampstead, Berkshire.

Camembert is nice. When it gets the balance between the crust and the centre right there is the merest hint of ammonia left on the tongue that washes away with the Port. The only problem with washing away with Port is the small problem of the Liver. An organ of much fortitude and utility. Unfortunately, also an organ intoxicated by cheeses as much as fine wines.

Which is when I came to notice the bottle was over half empty. The disaster began to unfold: there would be insufficient to hear all of Brumalia in a single evening. The curse of Duodecimal Works began to occur to me. Perhaps the intention - the original intention - of the Residents, had been for Brumalia to be listened to over twelve separate days; not in some cheese and port splurge of idiocy. I had, by dint of enjoying the Port and the Cheese, failed to control the amount of port imbibed.

The Gangster Jazz reminded me that The Twelve Days of Christmas was most accurately portrayed by Fay McKay and the becoming progressively more drunken was the best approach. By the end of a bottle it would be possible to plausibly misremember things that happened mere minutes ago.

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The Jazz gave way to duck's quacking. Possibly fearing they might be stabbed by Glen Miller or savaged by Buster. The disaster had not abated. In comparison to previous disasters, this was about Number four on the Bristol Scale. A normal disaster. Nothing inflammed or backed up waiting for a deluge. But, a disaster involving Alcohol is a disaster. There were drums and the increasingly fuzzy consciousnesss. The disaster, approaching and impending, was the end of a fine bottle of Port.

The stinky Port Salut could, by etymological magic, mean Port Salvation or Port Greeting. But what it really means is Trappist Monks. The Abbey of Notre Dame du Port du Salut in Entrammes is the origin of the stinking cheese. The cheese was produced by Trappist monks along with Beer. The name of their society, "Société Anonyme des Fermiers Réunis" (S.A.F.R.) is found on the truckle of the genuine article. Like most good things, it came to an end and the Trappists sold out. Not to a Major Record Label but to a Creamery.

Trappists are cloistered contemplative monastics who follow the Rule of St. Benedict. Most notably they do not take a vow of silence but simply do not speak. If anything, it is a vow of reticence: speaking only when necessary; thus idle talk is strongly discouraged. Apart from the Cheese, they make Beer. The 48th chapter of the Rule of Saint Benedict states, "for then are they monks in truth, if they live by the work of their hands". Which is a rule the Trappists take seriously. Trappist beers contain residual sugars and living yeast, and, unlike pasteurised beers, they improve with age. But getting a beer out of the Trappists is a trial. In 1838 at the Trappist Abbey of Saint Sixtus in Vleteren, Belgium, not far from the hop-producing town of Poperinge, Trappists produce the finest beer in the world: Westvleteren.

Westvleteren was originally limited to ten 24-bottle crates of the beer per person. As the beer increased in popularity, this was reduced to five, then to three and now to two or one crate. For the Westvleteren 12 in 2009, it was limited to one case. Sales are limited to one order every 60 days per person per license plate and phone number. Also, the beer must be reserved on their "beerphone" beforehand. This is all the hallmarks of the most obscure of beers. One of the important aspects of the Trappist Beer is that it is a Bavarian: bottom brewed. Westvleteren is also the only Beer permitted to be sold without a label. The cap contains the coat of arms of the Trappist Brewery.

Seven times each day, Trappist Monks gather in the chapel for small services of communal prayer called Offices or Hours. Music plays a great role in the Offices. Which is the Trappist means of avoiding the disasters of the secular life. The combination a kind of anonymity of Holy Orders and Beers with the almost Music of Chanting gave rise to the thought that Nigel D. Senada was not merely a wandering Musicologist.

By the time the Fifth Day of Brumalia had finished, I was most definitely drunk. Any Trappist Temperance had fled my body. But I was now equipped with a definite theory about the Theory of Obscurity and the Theory of Phonetic Organisation. Born in 1907 and dying in 1993, Senada proposed that an artist can only produce pure art when the expectations and influences of the outside world are not taken into consideration and that musician should put the sounds first, building the music upwards rather than developing the music, then working downwards to the sounds.

His Early Years would have been form 1907 to 1924 or there abouts. Quite clearly influenced by the Trappist ethos, the Beer and the Cheese and the Chanting, Senada was, to all intents an purposes, destined for Holy Orders until something happened. Something in the Woodlands where the birdsong was twittering. Something snapped. Something snapped. Senada drank a little and listened to the Birdsong.

if you observe the behavior of very young children or people who are like children - such as Trappists wrecked on Bavarian Beer - you will observe a very basic melodic pattern: the descending minor third. Children around the world vocalise, to taunt, or speaking in that sing-song way, they use a very similar interval: the descending minor third. The earliest attempts of children less than three years old result in one-tone litanies; melodies of two notes a narrow minor third apart. The lower not, of which,  is stressed and frequently repeated. At the age of three, children produced melodies of two notes a second apart, and even three-tone melodies. This is how Senada discovered the Theory of Phonetic Organisation. Listening to the "nyah, nyah, nyah-nhay, nyah" of Birds in the Black Forest.

Which is exactly the kind of theory that appeals to someone who has drunk a little over a half bottle of a vintage Port and become hopped up on cheeses. There in the Black Forest, Bavaria: Senada discovered that even the bird songs mock. Dating the exact moment would be a challenge. But, an entire musicological theory was forming.

Pity it would vanish in the disaster.

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Join us after the break ocassioned by the exceeding of 20,000 characters

Returning after the break

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There is a point during intoxication where all the alcohol rushes into one part of your body. Usually your brain, but it can be your genitals. As Day Six of Brumalia chuntered into action I realised, that the Trappist Sign Language had translated into whistling. Carla Fabrizio is bound to be the worlds best whistler. A bit like James Abbott McNeill Whistler, whose Libel Trial saw Whistler examined by the Attorney General Sir John Holker.

In Whistler v. Ruskin: Art and Art Critics (1890) talks of a war between the Brush and the Pen, there is some marvellous diatribe: "a life passed among painting does not make a painter - else the policeman in the National Gallery might assert himself"; and, "mediocrity flattered at acknowledging mediocrity". Whistler, The Artist, sued Ruskin, the Critic for a thousand guineas. He won the case and was awarded a farthing. Sir John Holker was, for better or worse, among the first MPs to be elected by secret ballot after the 1872 Secret Ballot Act.

The Ruling Classes had been able to use their sway over employees and tenants; by being present themselves or by sending representatives, to check on the cast votes. Radicals, such as the Chartists, had long campaigned for this system to end with the introduction of a secret ballot. The Chartists also wanted Women to have the Vote. But that was too radical even for the Radicals. Far too radical for Whistler whose social circle was, in general, inamicable to such things as Chartists, Diggers, Levellers, Ranters and Muggletonians.

There is belief in the "Seven Whistlers". Seven mysterious birds or spirits who call out to portents of great calamity. Swifts and plovers have been accused of being the whistlers - principally plausible as plovers are the incarnation of those assisting at the crucifixion in Christian mythologies. Others claim the whistlers are wigeon or teal. Nobody really knows even if they are Birds in The Trees. In Shropshire and Worcestershire they say there are six birds in search of a seventh and when they find it the world will come to an end.

In September 1874, the Miners at the Bedworth Mine refused to enter the Mine after hearing the Seven Whistlers. Records show continuous working mines at Bedworth since the 13th century, particularly between Tamworth and Bedworth. The community had a long tradition of working the black seam. The Coventry to Bedworth canal opened in 1769 and so stimulated output and subsequent canal construction made Warwickshire coal competitive in London. But, whistling was always a taboo. Whistling for a wind on a ship would be to invite catastrophe.

Morfa Colliery in South Wales had similar problems with the Seven Whistlers. The Seven Whistlers were heard there during the 1860s before the great explosion and then again before another explosion in 1890 where over one hundred miners were entombed while working down below. In 1895 the Miners heard the Seven Whistlers again and went on strike until the Government Inspector could could inspect the mine. The same, again, happened in 1902 - as reported in The Ellensburgh Capital on July 16, 1904.

So the Sixth Day of Brumalia was a mixture of all the alcohol rushing to my legs - which would have been fine had I not attempted to used them - and a marvellous rush of flavour from the Stilton. I would have whistled in appreciation but I had fallen on my arse. In the words of William Wordsworth, Poet Laureate and general purveyor of fine literature:

     THOUGH narrow be that old Man's cares, and near,
          The poor old Man is greater than he seems:
          For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams;
          An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
          Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer;
          The region of his inner spirit teems
          With vital sounds and monitory gleams
          Of high astonishment and pleasing fear.
          He the seven birds hath seen, that never part,
          Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds,
          And counted them: and oftentimes will start--
          For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS
          Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart
          To chase for ever, on aerial grounds!
                                                              1807.

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Stinking Bishop Cheese stinks. It smells because the cheese is bathed in a pear cider - a perry - made from the Moorcroft pear. Stinking Bishop is one of the pear's many other names, including Malvern Pear, Choke Pear, and Choker. The Pear was posthumously named after the pear breeder, a Mr. Bishop, a man of ugly temperament. Charles Martell, the maker of Stinking Bishop cheese, related a story that Bishop got angry at his kettle one day and in retaliation shot it. Apocryphal illustration of the the sort of behaviour creating a reputation for irascibility. Stinking Bishop Cheese has no real name of its own, it merely hides behind the name of a Perry.

The cheese was, before 2005, obscure and found at Farmers' Markets. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, in which it was used to revive Wallace from the dead. Stinking Bishop demand rose by 500%. There is a rumour that Stinking Bishop goes well with Smoking Bishop - made from port, red wine, lemons or Seville oranges, sugar and spices. The citrus fruit was roasted to caramelise it and the ingredients then warmed together. All I had was port. A nice vintage port, to be fair. And legs that had ceased to work properly. Because of the Port.

All I had was the Seventh Day of Brumalia and an increasing sense of, this may have been a bad idea. A disaster. There are some magpies outside. They chase the Yellow ****, Thrushes and Hybrid Squirrels. I was rapidly attempting to count the number of birds. There were more than seven - which was a good thing, given the disturbing revelations of Brumalia, Day Six. So a crackerful of Stinking Bishop Cheese and a temperant sip of port later, I was attempting to contemplate the Cattle and String Section of the Seventh Day and what exactly the woman was singing about whereupon it abruptly ceased.

The tale is a love story between Zhinü (織女) the weaver girl who symbolises Vega and weaves clouds for a living; and, Niulang (牛郎) the cowherd, who symbolises Altair and herds Oxen who sometimes talk.Theirs is a forbidden love. The whole prohibition on mortals making whoopie with immortals being strictly observed. Thus they were banished to opposite sides of the Silver River (symbolizing the Milky Way). Yearly, on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, a flock of magpies forms a bridge  (鹊桥) to reunite the lovers for one day. It works perfectly with the Seventh Day of Brumalia, not because it is true but because drunk people make poor decisions.

Festivals are popular. Everybody likes a good festival. The Divje Babe Flute is a cave bear femur pierced by spaced holes that was found in 1995 at the Divje Babe archeological park located near Cerkno in northwestern Slovenia. In an essay in 1997, Bob Fink claimed, based on spacing, that the bone's holes were "consistent with four notes of the diatonic scale". Which is a good thing for a festival, a flute. If Bob was right then the Divje Babe Flute might play the scale FCGDAEB - even though there is no consensus about what the Flute actually is: a bear femur or a flute. In Jiahu (賈湖), they discovered The Jiahu gǔdí (贾湖骨笛) is the oldest known musical instrument from China, dating back to around 6000 BC, if The Divje Babe Flute is a real flute then it is 45,000 years old. Which means festivals are probably older than Industry.

It is here where the disaster happens. Having attempted to rise to my feet and discovered my legs to be unresponsive, I sat down again. Stinking Bishop and Port in hand. Memory in cognitive cabbage. Something about the Third Day of Brumalia. When I banged my head. Sometimes banging your head is not that serious. Other times it leaves you in hospital for a few days with people worried that you might die. Then, afterwards, you have a slow return to your former self. Which, you regard as luck and unlucky. Lucky because you have a self and unlucky because you have a blank gap in your life. It also explains why this, with a bottle of port and some cheese, is the first time you have ever heard Brumalia: you were someone else when Brumalia first emerged. Someone who had not been kicked in the head.

Which is not so bad. Not as bad as the fate of Mister Red Eye. Transformed by the magic of abduction into the Dada Head of Death Himself: Mister Skull. Whose first incarnation, in 1918, in Berlin, was a formative image for one N.D. Senada. Who would have thought that George Grosz would be central to malfeasance decades after his departure.



Not as bad as the disagreement between Carlos and Randy. At least I got to be here after Der Sandman stole eyeballs to the moon, among other things. All in all, being kicked in the head was not the worst thing to happen. Even if, sometimes, you get to lose balance when standing up, especially if you make your legs unresponsive with a fine Port. Even if, some other times, noises become unbearably loud. Worse things happen at sea.

Which is an outstanding reason to live in a Port: the worst things take place offshore.

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Wensleydale cheese was first made by French Cistercian monks from the Roquefort region, who had settled in Wensleydale. Which is chagrin-making; given the prior appearance of Trappists and Stinking Bishops. Recollection of Port addled experiences are rarely lucid. The Eighth Day of Brumalia was something like a tintinabulation with the grackling of a picnic in a jungle somewhere while an audience from a wine producing region of Spain cheerfully, lustily, announce their presence. Something like an epiphany. As if explaining names could make sense of the world. The School of Names (名家 Míng jia) thought that explaining names could explain the World; but, little of their work remains extant. One of the few surviving lines from the school, "a one-foot stick, every day take away half of it, in a myriad ages it will not be exhausted," is a variation on Zeno's Paradox. The main philosophical project of the School of Names was the proper semantic relations between names and the things or kinds of things to which they refer.

Which is not something you can readily narrate after almost five and a half glasses of Port.

But it all started making incredible sense. Because of the Wensleydale.  Jervaulx Abbey is in East Witton near the city of Ripon, was a Cistercian abbey of dedicated to St. Mary - in 1156 - although the name had been Jorvalle in 1145; a name which meant "Ure Valley" which may have been a ropey Norman translation of the English "Ure-Dale" or "Yoredale". The Valley is now called Wensleydale. Which, if you take the Ming jia approach, is a useful insight into the Theory of Obscurity: no matter how many names they have the Residents will always be like a good Cheese on the interior.

The Monks built a monastery at Fors and later the moved to Jervaulx in Lower Wensleydale. Their recipe for making cheese from sheep's milk changed over the next two centuries to use cows' milk. The character of the cheese began to change: cows milk with a little ewes' milk was - to give a more open texture -and allow the development of the blue mould. Wensleydale, historically,  was almost always blue with the white variety almost unknown and now the blue Wensleydale is rarely seen. The monastery was dissolved in 1540 - when Henry the VIII fell out with the Pope - but the local farmers continued making the cheese right up until the Second World War. The Recipe went into Obscurity. Much like the Occultation of Le Collège de ’Pataphysique from 1975-2000.

The Government Cheddar was a disaster for Cheese. From 1940 until 1954 there was a ban on making cheese except for Cheddar. In 1974, there were just 33 farms in South West England making Cheese - from the same recipe - compared to 514 in the same region just before the war. Before the First World War, more than 3,500 cheese producers were in Britain; fewer than 100 remained after the Second World War. The collapse of Cheese was the single greatest disaster of the Third Reich. There are millions of dead who would disagree. There are millions of refugees who would disagree. But the disaster of self centred, self indulgent cheese addicts would disagree. Cheese Production hardly recovered until the 1990's. When it was, again, possible to get more than two kinds of stale milk.

A 2009 European Food Safety Authority report on casomorphins stated that it’s unknown whether the casomorphins found in cheese escape from the gastrointestinal track in large amounts.  Casomorphins produce some effects such as pain relief and learning delays in newborn mice by activation of the opiod receptors of the brain - estimated to be 20 times less potent than morphine. But who knows: perhaps cheese addicts are merely apathetic morphine addicts. Not prepared to go the whole hog. Not prepared to dive into the Laudanum addled universe of Lord Byron, Percy Blythe Shelley, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, William Taylor Coleridge, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. laudanum was 10% opium and 90% alcohol - frequently Brandy - flavoured with cinnamon and sometimes also saffron. Available over the counter, without prescription, it was recommended by doctors for everything from menstrual cramps to tuberculosis. Cheese and Port, by comparison is a picnic.

Which is what the Eighth Day of Brumalia reminded me of: Picnic in the Jungle.

"...Aft four wards, eats like a dream
You canned remember bud it seems
To stray a life insight your mind
And pray and pawn your leisure time

It happens inner open spot
The urine sticky and it's hot
First they take away your clove
Then they lay us down in rows..."

Which is how Brumalia seems: something magnificent waiting for a Person from Porlock to interrupt the vocal gymnasium. Insisting the lyrics should be not quite the same each time.

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Caerphilly features in Sex Pistols mythology: protests and prayer meetings were held outside the Castle Cinema on the evening of 14 December 1976, protesting about the Sex Pistols playing a concert there. At this point in time, Caerphilly, Leeds and Manchester were the only places the Sex Pistols could get licences to play.

It was a Tuesday.

Under The Moon Of Love by Showaddywaddy was topping the hit parade and the world had disintegrated so much that the Sex Pistols were playing Caerphilly. Why would you even care: it would be eleven days to Chrismas and three decades until Brumalia. Sara Jane Moore was in prison for playing Charlotte Corday to Gerald Ford's Marat. Nothing was worth remarking upon. Ford was shilling for Nixon and nobody cared. Until they replaced him with a Peanut Farmer. The nightmare of the Hippies had been defeated by the triumphant forces of Law and Order and Civilisation. In the burgeoning, reactionary culture, Timothy Leary would be extolling the virtues  of no longer turning on or tuning in or dropping out.

Which is much what the Ninth Day of Brumalia sounds like: the casual footfall of the Stormtroopers arriving. By 1979 Carter would have achieved SALT II; brokering an Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty at Camp David; granted amnesty to Vietnam draft-dodgers; and, presenting a plan for universal health care. Carter also managed to flex the military mucles of Freedom! in Zaire, Guatemala and East Timor in 1977; Angola in 1978; Afghanistan in 1979; and El Salvador, 1980.

Archbishop Oscar Romero wrote to Jimmy Carter on the 19^th of February 1980:

I am very worried by the news that the government of the United States is studying a form of abetting the arming of El Salvador by sending military teams and advisors to ‘train three Salvadoran batallions in logistics, communications, and intelligence.’ If this information is correct, the contribution of your government instead of promoting greater justice and peace in El Salvador will without doubt sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people which repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their most fundamental human rights.

On the 28^th of February 1980, Romero was gunned down at the altar while holding the Eucharist above his head. At his funeral, snipers opened fire on defenseless mourners, killing at least 30 people. This is what Brumalia Day Nine brings to mind: Snipers and Stormtroopers.

Alcohol and cheese make for introspective bedfellows. While it is rambling obliquely about the Feast of Fools or the naming of cheeses like some bewildered technician of animated space flight, this introspection is harmless and garners no shuffling of feet or sharp intakes of breath; but, when the Cows are the sacred cows of politics then it all becomes quite fraught.

Then said Gangleri: "Where dwelt Ymir, or wherein did he find sustenance?"
Hárr answered: "Straightway after the rime dripped, there sprang from it the cow called Auðumla; four streams of milk ran from her udders, and she nourished Ymir."
Then asked Gangleri: "Wherewithal was the cow nourished?"
And Hárr made answer: "She licked the ice-blocks, which were salty; and the first day that she licked the blocks, there came forth from the blocks in the evening a man's hair; the second day, a man's head; the third day the whole man was there. He is named Búri".


We are the cheeses of Auðumla. That is what Brumalia was telling me; or, perhaps it was the Port. Depressing the central nervous system and all that sort of thing. Obliging a brute introspection. The strain of attempting to discern lyrics among the strings and synthesiser oingo boinging had finally taken its toll. We had arrived at the real disaster.

Around the time the Sex Pistols were being told to fuqoff ever so politely, by the no marks of local politics, I was Meeting the Residents. Not just the Residents but a panoply of different music. When Johnny Mathis was warbling "When A Child Is Born" I was already lost. Port reproduces that sensation...

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REVIEWING THE 12 DAYS LEADING UP TO EPIPHANY
DAY 1
midi-riffiic. with the idea that all of these weren't songs for the "public", really... they have a different taste. this one has the feeling of a collage... an auditory quilt. one would get the impression that it aims to deny musical comfort... landing into rhythms and immediately abandoning them when they become comfortable. the tune that starts around the 2:30 mark is my favorite. the tune that it turns into is one that feels very Bobuck. and of course, some fun drumming slides right on in as i get comfortable with it. then that veers into its own direction. The Residents as a whole, as a concept, do this frequently. the moment that the listener/viewer/whatever-er becomes comfortable with and adjusted to the content, they pull back and move in another direction, perhaps for a little longer or a little less time than they spent on the previous one.

DAY 2
this song reminds me of Animal Lover. due to the nature of that album... i wouldn't be surprised if this was a scrap left unused. but the organ (?) is nice. the song has two/three ideas running at each other at once, pauses for a new tune, and resumes, and intensifies. an auditory replication of how i imagine their creative process is. of course, that doesn't hold up, since there are no Residents.

DAY 3
WENDY! i wish they would do an album about dogs and their owners. weenie weenie weenie dogs! such a creepy, lovely story. if this is a scrap, i would love to know from what. the giant heart made of weenie dogs is really touching. feels like a peek into a story that we will never get to fully know. ol' Singing Resident's voice really rumbles in this one. has a Bunny Boy sound to it, sorta.

DAY 4
Mystery Elevator Music. so jazzy, so nice. the wild sax business reminds me of N. Senada, but also the Icky Flix live version of Constantinople. wonder if he ever got that instrument figured out? this track is a little strange, but the texture is so much fun! has a delicate sense of chaos to it... that's always kinda tough to pull off. moderation is probably key. there's a nervous energy to it that i can dig. i can SO dig it.

DAY 5
the intense one! the sound equivalent of nausea, dizziness and headache. in a pleasant way. the 2nd bit of it seems to descend into something more conventional for a moment, although it is offset by a strange dissonance to keep the listener in line. WE WON'T GET TOO NORMAL. ends with texture.

DAY 6
aww, this one starts off kinda sweet and cute. it doesn't seem to stop being cute and sweet. realized he was saying Turkey Eater. you don't want to know what i thought he was saying originally. i like it when his voice gets like that. makes me feel safe.

DAY 7
this track doesn't seem to want you to get the wrong idea - it ain't no Perfect Turkey Eater sweetness. once again, dissonance runs through the music. it seems that The Residents were going back and examining these Bonus CD tracks... taking those back, playing with them... and hell, for the holidays, unleashing them upon the unsuspecting public.

DAY 8
ACTUALLY HAD TO SEARCH WHEN WAY WE WERE HAPPENED. seems like the thought of that manifested a year later, since that version is a cover of the Fillmore one. Molly's singing is lovely in the Fillmore version, though. you can SO taste the thoughts of the Triple Dub'ya version of it in here. how fun would it have been to hear this in 2004, and then... next year, March, it blooms in full for some (but not all) to see.  i can even see how the WoW version bloomed out of this, too.

bloomin' onions. mmm.

DAY 9
this song just sounds like ghosts. this is music by, for and about ghosts. once again, they seem to be giving us a taste of what happens when they dare look back. tracks shift. tracks morph. evolve. i found the original Tortured to be fittingly cold.

DAY 10
as i approach the more recent songs, i recall what i had to say about them. yeah, guitar still sounds like it is being played in a cave. Singing Resident's voice has a weeeeeird sort of distortion on it. i like it. once more, we see them look back on, place a gentle kiss on a track. Demons Dance Alone seems to keep coming back. i have a feeling that, due to the way the album was done, it has a lot of scraps and loose ends. perhaps they tried to clean those up in many ways.  this one sounds more pleasant than it did 3 days ago.

DAY 11
Sleepwalker... might be from something earlier. its emergence within the DDA bonus disk may have been an attempt to share it with the audience, but it came back 2 times after that. this is one of those times. i feel a taste of that Bobuck ability to construct spaces with sound in this track. that statement doesn't mean anything, since up until (sob) 2016, that was his thing. composers compose. but he is sort of a builder. he makes CONTRAPTIONS. the soundscapes, almost tangible, are contraptions of his.

DAY 12
i cannot mask my excitement for Epiphany. this song FEELS like buildup. makes me excited. joyful.




THE FEAST OF EPIPHANY/JANUARY 6TH
the final day arrives at last.

for some reason, the first thing i am reminded of is Revelation, off of Wormwood. the dissonance of Day 1 haunts us. im hearing some Day 12, some Day.. 2? i think? thematically, of course. and then the aggressive guitar, reminding us that they still sometimes might look back on DDA and pick pieces out of it. that guitar guitar gets real strong there. and then we get into a sound not unlike Bobuck's modern compositions. leads me to believe this may have been into a similar vein to his later solo projects. i would say Residents albums have a diluted Bobuck sound to them. but here, his tastes and artistic inclinations seem obvious. of course, this train of thought serves no purpose. THERE ARE NO RESIDENTS. THERE HAVE NEVER BEEN ANY RESIDENTS. the song seems to battle itself, with lots of big, beautiful horns all mixed in there. violin too. a nice beat to this one, but it has an intensity that is almost violent in nature. this song is a beast. there is actually something very cinematic about it. perhaps orchestral. it comes in, intensifies, withdraws...

...and stops.

just as The Residents do, over and over and over. musically, this track communicates blatantly to the listener that it has done what it wanted to do and leaves us saying "...hm." my CD goes on a bit longer with extra tracks, but those have nothing to do with this. all in all, a nice project. it was my first time hearing any of it, and im quite pleased.