Random Word Wednesday I

Welcome to Random Word Wednesday I.  Every Wednesday on this blog, I put together a list of ten words selected at random and write a blurb about each of them as sort of a tool to help my creativity along and help me become a better writer.  That kind of was my New Years Resolution, after all.  So, without further ado, let the random words begin!

1.  CLEAR

Look up, look waaaaay, and I'll call Xenu.

To be in a state of "Clear" in Scientology means that you are now, congratulations, reaching a state of being which is free of engrams (Engram?  Er... Um...  Well.  You see.  Um...  Well, we'll just call them painful and/or traumatic memories that have been etched into your mind), unwanted emotions, unwanted emotions not readily available to the conscious mind.  Yes, I suppose it's nice to be free and clear of all that crumby stuff, but on the other side of the coin, I've always been a proponent of the idea that what we are and what the human experience is consists of this whole amalgam of experiences, and do sort of deny and escape these parts of yourself really doesn't make you a better person.  It seems less like healing and more like denial, in this regard.  The idea is not to be clear of your demons, but rather to understand them.  This is, of course, just a cursory refutation.  If I had more time, I'd continue, but I don't, so I won't.

2.  EXHIBIT

There's normal cool.  There's hipster cool.  And then there's Warhol cool.

Andy Warhol looks a scream, so they brought a bunch of his work over to our dusty little prairie city a little while ago and I leapt at the chance to go see it, and it was pretty darn cool.  It doesn't get much more hipster than Warhol and it's easy to dismiss him based on that alone, but in reality I have to say that he did some pretty cool things.  He was sort of like a modern day Lorenzo de Medici, only without the fabulous wealth and in New York instead of Florence.  It's a pretty cool thing to be at the centre of this huge art explosion with all these exciting new mediums popping up everywhere, having your hands in painting, photography, music, film, society.  I think that as much as he was an innovator he was a catalyst for many others.  It's easy to see the soup can and the picture of Mao with lipstick, but when you take a step back and look not at the pieces by themselves, but at the broad picture of who he was and what he meant artistically, he was a pretty cool dude.

3.  GAS

AUGH!!  Jesus, that's a creepy sign!  I've gonna have nightmares about this blog entry.

Poison gas as a weapon of war had been around for centuries, but not until World War I did it come into widespread use.  The war saw the use of gases such as tear gas, mustard gas, phosgene, and chlorine to suppress or kill enemy troops, and their use became accelerated as the war dragged on.  Mercifully, counter-measures (gas masks, etc) were simple enough to deploy, so chemical warfare only counted for about 4% of all deaths during WWI.  No, the machine gun was still king.

4.  INTERIOR

No one in this painting is "Clear".  Guaranteed.

"Interior" is the generally accepted name of this Edgar Degas work, painted in 1868-1869, but it also goes by a much more sinister name: "The Rape".  If you take a moment to look carefully at it, you'll start to see why.  The man, who bears the posture of one who is not a happy camper, is blocking the doorway.  The, face hidden from the viewers eyes, is partially naked while clothes have been strewn about the room.  Take special note of the lighting in the room, highlighting the woman's bright white undergarments while the man broods ominously in the shadows.  While this is not a happy work, it is nonetheless intense one.  The whole painting has the feeling of a powder keg that could go off at the slightest spark.  A masterpiece of fear, and definitely no Warhol.

5.  WELL

Google some pictures of Thelonious Monk.  Go ahead!  Now that man could wear a hat!

"Well, You Needn't" is the name of a jazz standard written by Thelonious Monk in 1944.  Apparently the song was named after singer (not ball player) Charlie Beamon.  When Monk said that he was naming the song after Charlie, the singer's reply became the name of the song instead.  The song itself is really cool because the chord progression throughout moves up and down by semi-tones.  I've always admired this style.  Very, very mid-fifties to listen to.  This version by Bud Shank is a little more down-tempo than most and smoother than any, for my money.  Also, another song using a similar chord progression is "Way Out Basie", written by the late, great Ernie Wilkins.  Cool, huh?

6.  MAJOR

Peter Ustinov, ladies and gentlemen!  ...  Well, the voice, anyway.

Man.  I remember reading Animal Farm.  That was not the most pleasant book to read, but it wasn't meant to be nice.  Dictatorships are not nice, and that's the point that is being made here.  In reality they are brutal, brutal things.  The character of Old Major is sort of a patriarchal one where the old stalwart envisions a place that may not be paradise, but will be better for everyone if everyone bands together.  Well, once he was gone, Napoleon (aka. Stalin) deforms Old Majors ideals and slowly warps the paradise into a prison.  This tale is a chilling one, and the more I think about it and remember it, the more that Animal Farm seems like a book that I doubt will ever, ever see the relevance of its message fade with time.

7.  SING

Stop for a moment.  Relax.  Clear your mind.  Now, can you think of a bigger goofball in jazz than this guy?

Now for another musical interlude and the name of this ballad is 'irony'.  There aren't many people who haven't heard the song Sing, Sing, Sing!  Whether you've gotten it from a movie or watching Glee, this song is one of the most famous from the big band jazz era.  Who wrote it?  Why, Louis Prima in 1935, of course.  Who made it famous?  Benny Goodman in this recording that I have linked here.  The irony of it all is that the famous arrangement of the song is an instrumental containing no singing whatsoever.

This isn't the first time one of Prima's songs got remade and became bigger hits (arguably) than his original arrangements, though.  Just A Gigolo got David Lee Roth-ed in what seemed like a good idea at the time, Jump, Jive, and Wail got significantly spiced up with the Brian Setzer treatment, and Sunday Kind of Love really found its perfect match with Etta James.  However, if you think Louis was only a star vicariously, check out some YouTube videos of him with Sammy Butera and Keely Smith and you'll see a dude who didn't need no stinking cover band to get the job done.

8.  PIPELINE

See those eyes?  Those cold, remorseless, unforgiving eyes?  That thousand-yard stare?

Well, that ends the musical interlude.  If you hate yourself, and I mean really hate yourself, rejoice!  I have a one way ticket to making your life even more miserable.  Tune in to BBC Radio Scotland at 9:05 pm local time every single Saturday night and listen to Pipeline as torture-master Gary West (pictured above) spends the next fifty-five excruciating minutes blasting out "top quality" bagpipe music for your listening annoyance.  Knock yourselves out - you may want to five minutes in.

9.  TRY

Next to Joe Clark, he's my favourite lovable loser of all time.

Speaking of thousand-yard stares, it is the opinion of Raccoon Inc. that to say that Ernest Shackleton tried and failed is not an entirely fair assessment.  Sure, his goal in 1914 was to set out from one end of Antarctica, cross the continent over the pole, and end up on the other side, and in that sense, yes he tried, and yes he failed.  However, when his ship, the Endurance, was trapped in an ice floe, he did not give up.  Nor did he give up when the ship sank after being crushed in the ice for just over ten months.  Nor did he give up hope when the ice floe they were on broke in half.  Nor did he give up hope when he and his crew reached inhospitable Elephant Island, the first time any of them had set foot on dry land in 497 days.  Nor did he give up hope at any point on the 800 mi. voyage the took over three weeks to arrive at South Georgia Island.  Nor did he give up during the 32 mile hike over mountainous terrain that took them 36 non-stop hours to get to the whaling station and safety at Stormness, and don't forget that they were just in a lifeboat for three weeks.  The really remarkable thing out of all of this is that despite everything that they had to endure, they did not lose a single man in the expedition.  Now that is what trying means.

Also, speaking of whaling, 'trying' is the name of the process whereby one renders the oil from whale blubber by boiling it in large pots, called try pots, and skimming the oil off the top as it rises to the surface.  Mmm...

10.  COOKY

Kinda looks like what the Beatles would see if they could see themselves walking across Abbey Road.

Gee, there sure is a lot of music in this list.  Anyway, the last entry is that of Cooky Puss, the 1983 EP by the Beastie Boys.  This record, while relatively insignificant on its own merits, marked the group's transition from punk rockers to rappers.  Their next album, 1985's Rock Hard, would be their first foray into what would become the form that they would find their true mojo: hip hop.  However, they did not abandon their punk roots entirely.  The Sounds of Science compilation features several punk songs, and "Sabotage" is often credited for kicking off the genre of music which would become a scourge for the remainder of the 90's: goatee metal rap.  Yuck.  In spite of this, the Beastie Boys have just recently been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, being the most diverse act to be inducted this year.