Happy Birthday, Ian Anderson

Ian Anderson was born on this day in 1947.

Jethro Tull performs Ian's "The Secret Language of Birds"...

Released.

I have Kurt to, um ... thank ... for the fact that I, um ... appreciate ... that Jon and Vangelis released The Friends of Mr. Cairo on this day in 1981.

The title track (listen with caution, you'll need a musical exorcism to be performed after this) ...

Jon Anderson, "Awaken"

Amidst disunity, riots, and people putting beans in chili, joy still exists.

It's been a month since I saw Jon Anderson perform this live -- in full voice, without electronic gimmicks, just human exuberance.  

The man is 80 years old.

It still gives me chills to remember the sound of his clear, clean voice.

Thanks to my buddy, Kurt, for bringing me along.

Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks

Speaking of long-living ...

Thanks, Kurt.  That was a blast.

Released.

Yes released Talk on this day in 1994.

"The Calling"...

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

Thanks, Steve.

Reminder.

Friend, this isn't meant to be grim.

Just a reminder that you are building something that 

        will one day be 

whole and complete,

So, build with purpose.

Jarod K. Anderson, from "End Point"

Thanks, Steve.

Exiled.

One day there arrived a large parcel for the Emperor; on it was written, "Nightingale".

"Here now we have another book about our celebrated bird," said the Emperor; but it was not a book, it was a little machine, that lay in a box—an artificial Nightingale made to resemble the live one, but all set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. As soon as ever the artificial bird was wound up, it could sing one of the strains the real one sang, and its tail moved up and down and glistened with silver and gold. Round its neck hung a little ribbon, and on it was written: "The Emperor of Japan's Nightingale is poor beside that of the Emperor of China."

"That is charming!" said everybody. And the man who had brought the artificial bird immediately received the title of Chief Imperial Bringer of Nightingales.

Now they must sing together; what a duet it will be!

So they had to sing together; but it wouldn't go right, for the real Nightingale sang it its own style, and the artificial bird went off into waltz-tunes.

"No blame attaches to it," said the bandmaster; "it keeps excellent time, and is entirely of my school." So the artificial bird was to sing alone. It made as great a success as the real one, and was, besides, far prettier to look at; it glittered like a bracelet or a brooch.

Three-and-thirty times over did it sing the self-same melody, and yet it was not tired. The people would have liked to hear it over again, but the Emperor said that now the live Nightingale should sing a little—but where was it? Nobody had noticed that it had flown out of the open window, away to its own green wood.

"But what is the meaning of this?" said the Emperor. And all the court people scolded, and said the Nightingale was a most ungrateful creature. "Still, we have the best bird, after all," they said; and the artificial bird had to sing again. It was the thirty-fourth time they had heard the same piece, but they didn't quite know it yet, for it was very difficult, and the bandmaster praised the bird in the highest terms, and assured them that it was superior to the real Nightingale, not only as regards the plumage and the many beautiful diamonds, but also internally.

"For observe, your lordships, and the Emperor above all, with the real Nightingale one can never calculate what will come next, but with the artificial bird all is definite; it is thus, and no otherwise. It can be accounted for; one can open it up and show the human contrivance, how the waltzes are set, how they go, and how one follows on another."

"Exactly what I think," said everybody; and the bandmaster got permission on the following Sunday to exhibit the bird to the people. They too should hear it sing, said the Emperor. And they did hear it, and were as delighted as if they had got drunk on tea (which is the genuine Chinese fashion), and everyone said "oh" and pointed the finger we call lick-pot up in the air and then nodded. But the poor fisherman, who had heard the real Nightingale, said: "It sings pretty enough, and it's like it too; but there's something wanting, I don't know what!"

The real Nightingale was exiled from the land and realm. The artificial bird had a place assigned it on a silk cushion close to the Emperor's bed. All the presents that had been made to it, gold and jewels, lay round it, and it had risen to the title of "High Imperial Nightingale Songster" and in precedence was Number One on the Left Hand Side; for the Emperor accounted that side to be the most distinguished on which the heart lay, and even an Emperor's heart is on the left side. And the bandmaster wrote five-and-twenty volumes on the subject of the artificial bird. The work was very learned and very long, full of the most difficult words in the Chinese language, and everyone said they had read it and understood it; for otherwise they would have been accounted stupid and would have had their stomachs stamped upon.

Hans Christian Anderson, from "The Nightengale"

Happy Birthday, Anderson

Jon Anderson was born on this day in 1944.

"Soon" ...

John Anderson, "True Messenger"

Jon Anderson, "Shine On"

Courage.

“Have you really courage enough to go out into the wide world with me?” said the chimney-sweep; “have you thought how large it is, and that we can never come back here again?”

“Yes, I have,” she replied.

When the chimney-sweep saw that she was quite firm, he said, “My way is through the stove and up the chimney. Have you courage to creep with me through the fire-box, and the iron pipe? When we get to the chimney I shall know how to manage very well. We shall soon climb too high for any one to reach us, and we shall come through a hole in the top out into the wide world.” So he led her to the door of the stove ...

Hans Christian Anderson, from "The Shepherdess and the Sweep"

Sea.

Anderson, Sea, 2021

Happy Birthday, Anderson

To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,

To gain all while you give,

To roam the roads of lands remote,

To travel is to live.

Hans Christian Andersen, born on this in 1805

Synthesis.

There are two paths to magic: Imagination and paying attention.  Imagination is the fiction we love, the truths built of falsehoods, glowing dust on the water's surface.  Pay attention is about intentional noticing, participating in making meaning to lend new weight to our world.  An acorn.  The geometry of a beehive.  The complexity of whale song.  The perfect slowness of a heron.

Real magic requires your intention, your choice to harmonize.  Of course it does.  The heron cannot cast starlight onto the dark shadows to entrance the bluegills.  Not unless you do your part.  You must choose to meet her halfway.  And when you do, you may find that magic isn't a dismissal of what's real.  It's a synthesis of it, the nectar of fact becoming the honey of meaning.

Jarod K. Anderson

Thank you, Steve.  That's good.  The sixth-graders'll get a taste of this tomorrow.

Ian Anderson, "Life's a Long Song"

But the tune ends too soon for us all.

Two.

Sampson, Where Are They?, 1999

The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum remembers the Fitzgerald ...

Then the Anderson just raised up and shook herself off of all that water - barrooff - just like a big dog. Another wave just like the first one or bigger hit us again. I watched those two waves head down the lake towards the Fitzgerald, and I think those were the two that sent him under. 

Jon Anderson, "And You and I"

Folk.

Wyeth, Bonfire, 1996

Keep your eyes open

And prick up your ears

Rehearse your loudest cry.

There's folk out there

Who would do you harm

So I'll sing you no lullaby.

There's a lock on the window;

There's a chain on the door:

A big dog in the hall.

But there's dragons and beasties

Out there in the night

To snatch you if you fall.

Jethro Tull, from "No Lullabye," off Heavy Horses

Ian Anderson, "Budapest"

Jethro Tull-ish backing ...