Martyr Dumb Enough To Cry For

Ok so I am feeling more than usually melancholic this post meridinal Friday. Who cries for thee if not thine own self and thy mother? I hate it when people pity me. Mostly because they do it so earnestly; and isn't sympathy like pity and are not both empathic extensions of self-pity? How else can human sympathy and compassion work unless we imagine ourselves in the same plight. Self-pity, it seems to me, is the only human emotion that is shared by no other animal ... although no doubt there are many contrary opinions. One thing only is certain: we cannot ask them and get an answer!

I began with the premise that a good way to begin would be to examine that which clutters the My Music labyrinth of goodness on my PC. I have a truncated selection to choose from; a larger selection is available on my older computer which is currently gathering dust in my other living room. It shares the space with an exercise bike (used once -- literally! The saddle was far too uncomfortable); a Yamaha keyboard that is played far less often nowadays I regret to admit (although I hasten to correct any impression that I ever possessed a scintilla of actual talent! My musical skills are solely of the appreciation kind. On the practical front I possess as much of a sense of rhythm as a badly tutored, under-rehearsed elementary school orchestra. I was, however disconcerted to discover more of a talent for pitch than I previously suspected, having been labelled, more than once in my youth, as criminally tone deaf.)

That room is a clutter freak's paradise. There are encyclopedia covering wildlife and wars and technology, posters depicting Celtic culture, curious brass objects, bags and baskets and piles of clothing, boxes of files, cases of music cassettes, a cupboard full of towels and household linens ... and a fully articulated plastic miniature industrial robot. The latter serves to remind me that my brain is the last refuge of my essential me-ness as it is rapidly becoming apparent that all other human functions can be performed as easily, if not actually better, by machines.

None of this, of course, explains how or why I came upon the My Music sub-folder named Earrings For Susan and its sole occupant, the darkly morbid mp3 named "Respect For The Martyr". I first found this choice morsel of introspection some time in 2003 when I was still going through the motions of pretending that the status quo wasn't as scary a state as a post-Perrinesque existence that has been as utterly stripped of its camouflage as a Victorian pine dresser with a colourful and eventful history that has been boiled in lye down to the knotting compound ... or deeper!

Recently I have been reading a biographical account of life in German occupied Picardy during WW1 and one passage seemed especially apt. A matronly woman whose complexion belied her years claimed that her fresh complexion was bequeathed to her as the result of a serious burn. Her whole face was badly scalded and she was weeks in hospital being treated (palliatively since the accident occurred in the late 18th century ). At length she was discharged with her face a mass of blackened scab; presumably she expected to live out her life thus. However after a few months she snagged her lip on a chicken bone and pulled and "Voila! Merci beaucoup a Notre Dame de Lourdes!" (Presumably!) Because under all the black scabbyness her face had regrown soft and pink and, miraculously, utterly innocent of the capacity to wrinkle. Anyway, I have been trying to shuck off my own "scabs" (both the psychological and those of the ennui of milieu) these last two years. I have mostly been been shirking the job. I hate pain and I hate work. Both of those "mises" are somewhat of a handicap, she said sardonically. What I need is a metaphorical chicken bone; I already know that I possess in spades the stupidity to tug on it.

The artist is, who calls himself 'Earrings For Susan' is actually Dave Rupert whose addictive blog, howdy mr nippon (link in the RH column), is the only known source for this hauntingly depressing and strangely alluring piece. Until recently 'martyrs' was the only song available ... there are now two more but martyrs will always remain my favourite. It's the one that has never yet failed to galvanise my reluctant creation gland.

Whatever the case, it started playing in my media player and since it petered out I have been typing away for 30 or more minutes, performing my usual drunkard's walk through my creation as I shamelessly exploit the largesse of word-processing to rework ad infinitum phrases, sentences and paragraphs as the whim takes me. For me composition is like cooking. The whole is more like a family celebration meal. The guests sit down to dine with no need to know of the order in which the recipes were decided on, the order ingredients were bought in and the dishes cooked. The end can, indeed justify the means and today the means were the enigmatically named artist whose song of doleful melody and mournful lyric has so cheered me as to make me right enough to write today. Cheers Dave. Konichiwa. Kon ban wa! Dozo goziemashita. (Whatever that means, it probably doesn't mean exactly what I think it does which is something like: "G'day mate and thanks very much!")