The Fly Is Undeterred

Every year I consider writing about Christmas, but put it off until it’s too late. This year I seem to be rolling along a little farther down the path. Let’s see how far I can get.

As a child, whenever I would see some reworking of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, I would always wonder about the spirit of Christmas Future. The other two ghosts who come to visit Scrooge are obvious enough. The ghost of Christmas Past is shown as an angelic figure (male or female), and Christmas Present looks a lot like Bacchus, the God of Wine.

But the ghost of Christmas Future (or Christmas Yet To Come) is a black-robed grim reaper-like figure. Why should this be so? True, he does show Scrooge a possible vision of the future that foresees his own death, but are there other reasons? I think so.

Leaving aside the blatantly obvious faces of Xmas (birth of Christ, Saturnalia, the economic boost, etc.), Christmas is about death. Set only days after the beginning of Winter and the longest night of the year, the holidays are a solemn reminder of the transience of Man. Many of us can remember particular Christmas events, even when most of the rest of the year fades into a blur. It’s a time to stop and mark time, especially as one gets older. With more than a half-century of Christmas Days under my belt, I can easily recall specific ones – particular gifts, funny memories, sad times, etc.

While children revel in the materialistic aspects of the day, older adults look back and recall family members who are no longer around. When I was growing up, it seemed my family would last forever. But of course, eventually the child becomes the adult and leaves to start a new family. The older members pass on, and the cycle continues anew. I’ve lost more than one member of my family in December as well, which makes the absence at this festive time of year particularly difficult at times. I continue to mourn their loss, and a portion of my childhood is gone with them forever.

One of the most memorable aspect of Christmas to me has always been the music. The happy-go-lucky fun of Jingle Bells, the quasi-Medieval feel of We Three Kings of Orient Are, or the Victorian blunderbuss of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, I love ’em all. But it wasn’t until I heard a version of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by a New York City Gay Men’s Choir, that I really understood it:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Some day soon
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow
(Hang a shining star upon the highest bough).
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

I realized that the choir were singing about friends lost to AIDS. It’s a sad little song about loss and loneliness. The shining stars are the people you love who are gone, and they are terribly missed. It never fails to make me cry now, because it’s a stark reminder of those I’ve lost.

And that’s why the ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is a figure of death. I still love the holidays, the music, the decorating, the presents. It’s one small moment every year when the ideas of peace and family and goodwill are at least given lip service, which is more than they see any other day. A day to share with family and loved ones, to grow those fond memories for the next generation. While the religious value of Xmas fades away, it’s still an important day, and must always be so.

But as individuals, as we age, it’s also a day to stop and take a look back. To hang that shining star on the highest bough. To remember.

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas now.

Tonight I was listening to some masses by Palestrina, whom I was turned on to recently by a show on sacred music. Palestrina (d. 1594) was in service to the Pope for most of his career, singing in the Sistine Chapel choir, and writing great polyphonic choral music for church services.

Listening to music like this, the mind can’t help but wander back to the great cathedrals these pieces were meant to be heard in. I’ve been to quite a few fantastic cathedrals in my time – Westminster, St. Pauls (both in London), Salisbury, Lincoln, York Minster, Beverly Minster, and one of the greatest of them all, Canterbury, to name a few. I find them fascinating buildings, living reminders of a time and a people long gone to us now. How many generations of pilgrims have I followed in who have stood at the spot of the Martyrdom, or viewed the crooked tower of Lincoln? I gaze in awe at the English coronation throne, used by nearly every British king and queen since the 1300’s. Yes, covered in carved schoolboy graffiti now, but there sat Henry the Eighth; his daughter Elizabeth (at whose tomb I still genuflect); Edward IV, winner of the Wars of the Roses; Henry VI, who lost those wars (and his life); George III, the ‘tyrant’ of the American colonies, and so on. All of them sat in that nasty little chair.

The whole point of these giant churches, with their soaring naves and acres of stained glass, was to worship and glorify God. The music of Palestrina, its effortless grace and stirring complexity, was also created to celebrate a creator who returned to Earth in human form, and will supposedly return at the end of days.

But I venerate these lovely old piles and beautiful voices blended in harmony for a different reason. These are fantastic objects created by the mind and reason of man. The builders, authors, architects and musicians may be worshiping a deity, but I worship the ability of the human beings who left us these monuments in stone and song. The talent and creativity of those people reach across the centuries to us, and on into the future. How simply, utterly wonderful.

In some cathedrals you can take tours up into hidden parts, to see things that most tourists don’t get to see. Things like the walkway over the roof of the nave in Lincoln; it’s like walking over great piles of rubbish, except those are the arches towering 80ft. or more above the ground. The great chain Wren wound around the inner dome of St. Paul’s, to make sure it would be strong enough to resist the weight of the outer dome it has to bear forever. Towers with their endless tiny spiral staircases lined with rough-hewn rope banisters, or the narrow walkways, with openings cut into the columns, far up above the gentry below, threading through the church walls like stone blood vessels. I’d love to spend the night in Westminster, with a set of keys to all these little doors barring me from the exciting bits.

While the aim of the creators of these hulking emissaries from another time may have been to remind themselves (or us) of God, the message I hear from them loud and clear instead is, “Remember Us”. And so I think not of some supernatural being who may or may not exist at all, but of the flesh and blood stone masons, or woodcarvers, glassblowers, painters, composers, and all the rest.  I know they existed. Sir Christopher Wren, the designer and builder of St. Paul’s, is buried in a very nondescript little corner of the crypt of that great palace of religion. The Latin inscription over his tomb slab would suffice for all the builders of the great cathedrals:  “If you seek his monument, look around”.

I guess I really am getting old if I think that music today is deplorable. I stopped listening to the radio about three or four years ago, and don’t miss it. Most of what I listen to is from my collection (several hundred CDs) or music made by myself or people I know. I have several friends who have CDs that should be available world-wide, but don’t. Such is the nature of the biz. I’ll get to them another time, because they deserve some mention.

For now, I’m listening to much older music. I’ve grown to appreciate what would be considered “classical”, altho most of what I like really isn’t “classical”. It’s baroque, it’s medieval, it’s ancient, it’s Renaissance, it’s Elizabethan. I find it takes me back to those days, perhaps literally. If you believe in past lives, then it’s nothing new, just remembering a glint of sunlight on a lock of golden hair. If not, then it’s just good music; truly timeless.

At the moment I’m listening to one of my favourite discs –
On the Banks of Helicon: Early Music of Scotland by the Baltimore Consort. It’s a collection of songs and instrumentals, mostly from the mid-15th to mid-16th century (the newest song is from 1719). It would have been considered ‘folk’ music of its day, and you can hear echos of it in Appalachian music such as Bluegrass and the like (brought over to the hills by emigrated Scots in the 18th and 19th centuries). The title of this entry is one of the selections on the disc.

Listening to their music reminds me that once this was their world, when they were alive and experiencing it. Now it’s our world, and yet we can still hear the songs they sang. I get the same feeling when I look at old paintings or architecture. Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to cathedrals. I don’t go to any church, but I enjoy walking the naves and aisles that people long dead once trod through. It’s an amazing thing to wonder if all these things will still be here in the 25th century, long after we’re gone, and it’s somebody else’s world. I really hope so.

I’m a 60’s child. I was born in the Sixties, grew up in the Sixties, I remember the first moon landing. The music of that era still resonates in my bones. You’d be hard pressed to find a non-Beatles song that best sums it up like Scott Mackenzie’s When You Go To San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair). Written, by the way, by the late great John Phillips of Mamas & the Papas fame.

Anyway, I was musing the other day about the people of my generation. What the hell happened to us? As we are now rapidly approaching the deep end of ‘middle age’, it seems we have somehow lost our way. Or perhaps never really got started. It seems that so many people I went to school with never really ‘became’ anything. We just grew up and started getting old. What about our dreams? We were going to do so much, and now we’re stuck with a moron in the White House, the world is labouring under the illusion of the ‘war on terror’, and most of us are content to watch American Idol. Huh?

Not everyone fell through the cracks – I have a very good friend who became an accountant. While not the most glamorous job title, he works for a very large and well-known company. They pay him pretty @#$% well, and he’s constantly traveling around to look at client’s books. Said clients will wine and dine him, and he makes a pretty comfortable living. But he’s an exception. Too many others just twiddle away their time. Me too, I guess. Another fellow I know has lived on both coasts pursuing an acting career. Except for a few shots as “guy leaning on bar in background” on some tv shows, he seems to spend most of his time partying (and lying about his age). A girl I used to date is living alone now that her daughter is in college. She looks like a Grandmother. I saw a recent picture and didn’t recognize her. Another is singing with a tired looking band in a bar in Georgia.

Maybe this happens to every generation – they come out ready to rock the world, and in the end just whimper away to eke out an existence until death mercifully claims them. Maybe I’m indignant because it’s finally happening to us. Maybe I’m frustrated because I recall all those idyllic summer days and know we’re getting a bit short on those. Maybe I should have been an accountant.