Rebel's Yell
Musings from a mouth in the South.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Introducing Holy Name Chants
Pardon this post out of the blue, but I thought you might be interested in my Holy Name Chants project released earlier this month. I really like how these songs turned out!
Chant music has a long history. Think Gregorian chant in the Middle Ages, but also the chanting of mantras in the Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, a traditional that goes back thousands of years. The point of the chant is to calm and quiet the mind and focus on a few sacred words. In modern times, the Catholic group Taize has had a lot of success with their form of chant music. In some Buddhist sects, the initiate is given their own personal mantra to repeat as a way to achieve stillness. One of the most famous Buddhist mantras is Om mane padme hum. In Hare Krishna circles, devotees gather to sing many different versions of the “maha mantra” as a way to call upon the mercy and energy of Lord Krishna.
My Holy Name Chants project is a mix of religious traditions and musical styles. Each is designed to calm the mind and focus the attention on a few sacred words. Most of the chants feature synthesizers and drum beats, but From Out of the Depths is based on Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”Most of the chants feature two vocal parts, if not three or more. (And yes, that’s me singing; I tried to get some folks to help out with the vocals, to no avail, so I decided to do them myself - and throw a lot of filters on them to disguise my voice as much as elecronically possible since I normally sound like Bob Dylan being strangled by a goatherder.)
You can find Holy Name Chants on digital platforms like Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Youtube, Apple Music, Pandora and other services. Search for me by name, “Rex Wilgus.” The songs are free to stream for subscribers of different services; you can also buy a digital copy of the album. My music is released under my own record label, Wilgus World Productions, so whatever you stream or purchase supports me directly; all streams and purchases are much appreciated!
Thanks for listening!
Spotify
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2geDlzfDAdBVy4Kf9YDL81
Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA-cJhBiTPuiN6TiOPaIbYQ
or
https://www.youtube.com/@nickwilgus
My website
https://sites.google.com/site/wilgusworld/home
Tuesday, August 22, 2023
Let it burn
Surging about in the back of my mind like flotsam and always just out of reach is My Big Idea. An idea for a novel. It tantalizes and teases, but never delivers.
That’s the one indispensable thing about writing: the idea. It’s not enough to throw words at a page. It has to be about something. It has to be a story. What do you want to say? Need to say? And why should anyone be bothered?
It starts with the idea. The thought. The few wisps of a scene. A character. Something that happens. Something that will happen. You grab Gentle Reader by the throat and choke him with your brilliance. You make him see. You tell him what’s going on. You convince him that he needs – no, he must! -- keep reading, because if he doesn’t …
It’s the idea.
And this idea, this little torturer of an idea:
First person. Present day. Man wakes up and … everyone is dead. Everyone. Everywhere. Spouse. Kids. Neighbors. The mayor. The homeless lady who spends her day sitting on the sidewalk near the filling station. The young lady across the street who always walks her perfectly-manicured poodle in the mornings before she goes to work.
They’ve all gone to glory.
I’ve tried to write it but it comes out flat. Uninspired. I can’t find the right words. Man walks around the city. Dead bus driver at the corner, still wearing his Metro hat. Dead police officers at the Police Station. Everyone dead. Man walks around in disbelief. It can’t be happening. It can’t be real. But … it is real. A day goes by. Another day. The smell … oh goodness, the smell. Thousands of bodies left to rot. The purplish faces. The bloating. The indignity of it all. The incomprehensibility. The sheer impossibility.
Why? Man screams at sky. Sky has no answer. Apocalypse? Virus? Bird flu? Mother Nature has a bee in her bonnet? What answer could there possibly be? Does an answer matter? Would comprehension numb the horror? Would a complete and full understanding make the situation bearable?
And …
Now that everyone is dead, what is like to be alive? In a world of corpses and rotting flesh, in a graveyard of ghosts and yesterdays and what used to be, in a world irretrievably lost, what does it mean to be, to exist, to have breath? What does it feel like? What do you do? What can you do? How long before you tire of walking around in a daze? How long before it becomes normal? How soon before you get back to the business of living? What do you tell yourself about what happened and what it means and why you were spared? What is your purpose in life? Does your life even matter if no one else is there to witness it? Who do you talk to? Where do you find meaning? How does it change you? Will you go mad? How soon before the electricity dies? How long will water flow through the taps? What happens if you get sick? And how do you pray? And what do you say to the God who let this indescribable madness happen? Do you comfort yourself with the idea that this happened before during the Great Flood when the entire world save Noah and his family were drowned? How do you square this thought with the Biblical injunction that God is love?
I want to put this idea down on the page. I want to see it come to life. I want to know how the story ends. But I get stuck. Each time I try to write it, I whip out a few pages, I’m off and running, the muse is dancing, the words are coming, and … I get stuck.
Words fail me.
I’m reminded of some of the characters in my novels. I think I know who they are and what they want to say. I put words into their mouths. But they insist on speaking for themselves. They make it clear I was wrong about them. They come alive. They say what they want to say. They don’t care about my ideas. They don’t give a toss about my plot plans. They know who they are and aren’t happy until I go back and rewrite their scenes and get it right. They have their own thoughts and motivations, their own ways of speaking and being in the world, and they will settle for no less.
Each time I try to wrestle My Big Idea to the page, the characters sit there. They don’t like the words I’ve put into their mouths. They are silent. Like they don’t want their story told. Like I’m not the one who should tell it. Like they’re waiting for someone better, someone with the right words, the right touch.
And what’s with this apocalyptic, let-it-burn fiction filling our book shelves and movie screens: The Walking Dead, The Stand, Left Behind, The Hunger Games, Resident Evil? What is this fascination with the end of the world, the collapse of civilization? Do we sense something in the wind? Is it some deep, primal intuition? Are we trying to prepare ourselves for our own demise? Is it the outpouring of a generation raised during the Cold War when the possibility of nuclear bombs raining down from the sky was very real? Are we trying to say something about the ravaging of the natural world, the rape of the earth? Have we spent too much time pondering the Book of Revelations?
What is this darkness?
What sort of writer feels frustrated and tortured because he can’t find the words to write a novel about every single human being on the face of the earth giving up the ghost?
Maybe it’s a story that can’t be told. Ought not to be. Maybe something inside me rebels at such a bleak depiction of human life.
Is it dark? Indeed it is. And maybe it says things about me that make me uncomfortable. But what is the job of the writer if not to march into the darkness and tell the truth about what’s there?
Maybe the only way to truly celebrate life is to consider its complete opposite. Maybe light has no meaning without darkness.
But in the end, perhaps trying to imagine life without other human beings is impossible.
It lingers there. In the back of my mind.
Let it burn!
Yes, but … how?
Saturday, June 11, 2022
On the impossibility of being gay and Catholic
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
About that "putting Christ back into Christmas" thing ...
Sunday, July 12, 2020
This horrible year, this year of grace and sorrow
Growing up, I read with horrified fascination accounts of the Nazis and the Holocaust, and I used to wonder: How would I have responded to those events? Whose side would I have been on? Would I have tried, like so many courageous souls, to help the Jewish people being persecuted? Would I have gone along with the Nazis?
I read about life behind the Iron Curtain, life in the Gulag Archipelago, life under the murderous Stalin and crushing totalitarianism. I read about courageous Catholics and others who risked their lives to practice their faith. Would I have been one of them? What sort of person would I have been? What would my values have been?
I read about Jim Crow laws in the deep South, about "whites only" drinking fountains and swimming pools, about lynchings and cross burnings and the KKK, about "separate but equal." Whose side would I have been on? What would I have done, as a white man, had I known my white neighbor was a member of the Klan?
I read about the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, about the Black Death sweeping through Europe and leaving millions of dead bodies in its wake, about Catholics and Protestants fighting and killing each other, about heated, angry, deadly religious disputes over doctrine and practice. How would I have navigated such circumstances?
I read about the Salem Witch Trials, the treatment of Native Americans, the practice of slavery, world wars, the Civil Rights era, the assassination of Martin Luther King and so many others ...
I suppose I wasn't the only child to wonder what it would have been like to live through perilous, difficult times, times of war, times of strife, times of sorrow, pain and despair.
And now, this year: this annus horribilis, this year of horrors, this year of sorrow, of unrest, of anger, of disease, of fear -- how am I responding to this horrible year of 2020?
A pandemic rages from sea to shining sea in this country and 130,000 souls have perished with countless others getting sick and fighting for their lives.
Economic ruin lurks in the shadows with millions having lost their jobs and many businesses closing their doors.
Racial tensions are high, provoked by far too many instances of police brutality and an addiction to racism that we can't seem to shake.
Leadership is chaotic, at best, and downright deadly, at worst. We have come to the realization that we are on our own and those we have elected to guide us through such crises are missing in action.
As a country, we've taken one body blow after the next this year.
What is my response?
How do I help, rather than get in the way?
Who are the vulnerable people in my life, and have I reached out to them?
If I walk into a store or a gas station, and no one else is wearing a mask, should I still wear my mask? Should I do the right thing even when no one does?
When I know my black brothers and sisters are hurting, do I stand with them? Do I march with them? Do I challenge the racism that is so ingrained in American life?
This has been a year of sorrow, but also a year of grace. I've been presented with opportunities to answer some of these questions that have always haunted me.
Adversity shows us who we really are. Einstein said "Adversity introduces a man to himself."
This year sucks, yes. But it has also provided -- and will continue to provide -- endless opportunities for growth and grace.
If ever there was a time to pray for the world we live in, this is that time.
If ever there was a time to reach out to neighbors and friends, to those who are vulnerable, those who might need an errand run or someone to drive them to a doctor visit, this is that time.
If ever there was a time to put self aside, and think of others, and the needs of others, and the well being of others, this is that time.
This is a year for the history books, a year we will be talking about for a long, long time.
What will they say about my response?
What will they say about yours?
Friday, January 3, 2020
If It Bleeds
“Your story on the homeless man down by the railroad tracks has our numbers up,” granddad said as he lit his pipe with one of his many gold lighters and smiled at me. “Nice to know that fancy education of yours is paying off! Of course, in my day you didn’t need no education to be a reporter, but I guess things is different now.”
Charles Moorehead, aging editor and owner of the weekly Port Moss Post, sucked on his pipe and blew out a satisfied cloud of smoke. “Our numbers are good,” he added, “but they’d be better if we had a really good story.”
He gave me a searching look.
“You’re the third generation of this family to work at the Post,” he went on. “It’s a family business. People rely on us, you know. Not much has been happening lately, but sometimes you just have to make things happen. Don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Now’s as good a time as any,” he announced, getting to his feet.
I picked up my reporter’s notebook.
“You won’t be needing that,” he said with a smile.
We drove to the railroad yard.
Joe Floyd was the homeless man we had featured in the newspaper. I had spent a lot of time talking to him. Now that the piece had been written, I’d had a feeling my grandfather would want to “see” him.
Among other things, my grandfather was predictable.
“You realize everything we have depends on the newspaper, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s where your father messed up. He forgot that. But the newspaper pays the bills. It paid for your education. It gives us standing in the community - it’s our bread and butter. And the more papers we sell, the more bread and butter we get to put in our pockets. And it’s a bit of a strain, trying to pay your salary and pay mine too, things being the way they are these days. It’s not exactly rich pickings in these parts. And you know if we can’t get the numbers up, I may have to move you to part time.”
“I know,” I said dutifully.
“And we don’t want that,” he said.
No, we most certainly did not.
What we wanted -- well, what I wanted -- was for granddad to retire, and for me to move to the big office with the big desk and the big title. After all, granddad was getting sloppy in his old age and what the newspaper needed most was fresh blood and new ideas. Not to mention an editor who had a basic grasp of grammar.
We found Joe sitting in a camp chair and minding his own business. Granddad went up behind him, pulled a wire out of his coat pocket, and before I could say anything, he had strung it around Joe’s neck and choked him to death while the poor man jiggered about like a fish on a hook.
I had expected something with more finesse.
I sighed.
I had one of granddad’s gold lighters in a plastic bag. While he waited for Joe to stop jerking about, I removed this bag from my jacket pocket and let the lighter fall onto the ground. I had been very careful not to get any of my prints on it.
When granddad was finished, he turned back to me, panting from the exertion. “When you’ve got a dead body on the front page … it’ll be good for a month or two of headlines. And the editorials will write themselves. You’ll see.”
He wiped his hands on his pants as if trying to get rid of the feel of death.
“Now you call the chief and tell him you came to see Joe so you could show him the newspaper,” he ordered. “You tell him you found him like this. And don’t be getting squeamish like your dad. Look what that got him! This poor homeless sucker’s gonna help us pay the bills, and that’s how the world works. You understanding me, boy?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “It’s just that Joe was a nice guy.”
“Nice?” Granddad spat on the ground. “What does nice get you? Does it pay the bills? Nice! A crock of crap, you ask me. Sometimes, you want something, you take it. That’s what I know.”
Granddad left on foot -- his house was only a mile or so away through the woods. But of course he knew that, which was doubtless one of the reasons he told me to interview Joe in the first place.
I fished out my cell phone and called Hoyt Hood, the Port Moss chief of police.
“Chief?” I said when he answered, “It’s Henry Moorehead from the newspaper. I’m out on the railroad yard. I came out here to visit Joe -- I wanted to show him the newspaper with that story we did on him. But … well, I think you’d better get out here. He’s dead.”
The chief made me promise I would remain with the body until he could get there.
I said I would.
We didn’t put a picture of Joe’s dead body on the front page in the following week’s edition of the newspaper, but we did use photographs of the scene: the chair in which he was strangled; the campfire at which he had sat; his various belongings in sad plastic bags. In light of his violent end, there was a poignant quality to these still life scenes. We wrote about an unknown killer stalking homeless people in small towns. We talked about how defenceless they were, at the mercy of the elements. We wrung our hands about how Joe might have been targeted because of our own profile piece. We encouraged the public to come forward with information they might have about this sad, terrible business.
The papers flew off the shelves.
New subscriptions poured in.
Granddad was pleased -- until Chief Hood showed up at the newspaper office with two of his deputies and an arrest warrant.
My grandfather had a thing about gold lighters. If you wanted to get in good with the old man, offering him a personally inscribed gold-plated lighter was the way to go. Over the years, he had collected about a dozen in his role as editor of the local newspaper.
It took the chief a while, but I knew he would eventually put two and two together and start to wonder why one of granddad’s lighters had been dropped close to Joe’s dead body.
The chief had also received an anonymous call placing granddad at the train yard early on the morning of the murder. I had placed the call myself. Chief Hood didn’t have a whole lot of butter on his biscuits, if you know what I mean, and I wanted to make sure he got the point.
He did.
“He was dead when we got there!” granddad thundered in a self-righteous fury as the chief and his deputies put him under arrest. “Henry saw him -- he was there too! Tell him, Henry!”
Granddad looked to me for reassurance.
“Granddad, you know I was alone when I found him,” I said. “I didn’t see you till later when I got to the office to write up the story. You remember how I called and told you about it and you told me to get my butt to the office?”
Granddad’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something.
There was a desperate look in his eyes.
“Of course, we went out there later so we could take some more pictures,” I added, giving him an out, “but that was late in the afternoon and they had already taken Joe away.”
“We found the lighter that morning,” Chief Hood pointed out. “He didn’t drop it there later.”
“I was with Henry the whole day,” Granddad argued. “Tell them, Henry!”
“Granddad, I know you’re forgetful sometimes,” I said. “You’re getting things confused.”
A look of murderous hate filled the old man’s eyes.
My office, I thought.
I put daddy’s photo on the desk and sat down in the expensive leather chair and picked up the phone. I called Parchman and asked to speak my father, who was incarcerated there.
“You were right,” I said.
“About what?” daddy asked.
“About doing my homework. You told me always to do my homework around granddad or he would get the best of me, like he did you. So I took your advice. And it took me a while, but I got him back.”
“Good,” daddy said.
He did not need me to explain.
“I guess you’re the editor now,” he added with pride.
I smiled.
(C) 2019 by Nick Wilgus
Saturday, October 12, 2019
The Snakes That Ate Our Public Discourse
The Smithsonian Magazine recently ran a fascinating story called "The Snakes That Ate Florida" about the Burmese pythons that have been released into the Everglades and are wreaking havoc there. With no natural predators to keep their numbers down, the pythons are gobbling up most of the mammals (rabbits and such) and are now moving on to bigger prey -- deer and crocodiles. They will fundamentally change the Everglades and they pose a problem for which there is no real solution.
It began with some folks wanting exotic pets and getting bored of those pets and not wanting to dispose of them properly - so they dumped them in the Everglades.
Being the political junkie that I am, I could not help thinking about the rise of right wing hate media, and the very similar effect it has had on the media in general. It began with voices with like Rush Limbaugh and has spread like a wildfire through the nation's media outlets, which had little defense against the onslaught. We were used to media outlets telling the truth. We expected journalistic integrity. We assumed these voices were being fair and balanced. What we've discovered is a hotbed of conspiracy theories and a whole lot of what mama used to call "stinking thinking." Given recent technological breakthroughs, literally anyone can plop themselves down in front of a microphone or camera and start broadcasting their views to the world -- and it shows.
In the Everglades, folks began to notice the rabbits had disappeared. And birds. And other small animals. There was a stillness to the Everglades - but beneath the surface of the waters, a genuine menace lurked.
In the world of media, we have reached a similar situation. Many voices have gone silent. Newspapers have, by and large, become cheerleaders for business interests; few bother with the hard-nosed investigative journalism that was once expected and considered the norm. Giant corporations have gobbled up most of the little newspapers and television stations and radio stations. There are few independent voices.
Our public space -- where we discuss issues and ideas and politics and policies -- is very much like the Everglades. Broad, expansive, with plenty of room. On the surface, it looks pretty good. But beneath the surface lurk predators against which we have little defense. We have pundits, politicians, and now even a president, who tell the most outrageous lies and promote and foster the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, and we are continually caught flatfooted and unable to respond. We seem to have reached a "post-truth" moment where the truth seems to be whatever we want it to be and we are literally bamboozled on all sides by a bewildering array of "talking points" and "spin," to such an extent that it's doubtful if anyone at all knows what the actual truth of any particular subject is. We are learning hard lessons about the power of propaganda. We have pastors and priests who seem to have nothing to say, or who say far too much -- indeed our most prominent pastors and priests are right there in the thick of it, spewing the most extreme views (and like all the other extremists, raking in endless piles of cash for their efforts).
Like the Everglades with its python problem, there's no way of knowing where it's all heading. What we do know, in both situations, is that nothing will be the way it used to be -- and the casualties are piling up.
One interesting fact researchers have learned about pythons: They can swim. For very long distances. One researcher told the story about fishermen who came across a python in the ocean -- 15 miles from the shore. Imagine being out on that ocean, thinking you are safely by yourself and far from the madding crowd -- and there, in the stillness and blessed quiet of your own thoughts, surrounded by miles of emptiness -- there, swimming alongside your boat, is a giant predator ready to tango.
Food for thought.