It was delightful to attend open mic on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and find the joint completely packed. I’ve never seen the Gem that busy. It was, as always, a good and encouraging crowd providing a wholesome experience for all. It was flannel (Grunge) night and we showed up. As per usual I did 2 songs. I apologize in advance for the crowd noise and poorer quality than usual. The place was so busy we had to put the sharpshooter mic in the balcony!
The first song I performed was an original. Named “The Cascades,” it was originally written circa 2002 with assistance from Bill Newmann. The original topic was an immersion story of love at the 1904 World’s Fair. Since the original writing, I had occasion to read “The Last Days of Night,” by Graham Moore. A fantastic read from start to finish. It got me to thinking about the Industrial Revolution and our fascination with all things big. The 1904 Fair was massive occupying some 1200 acres. St Louis was ready to show itself on the world stage and at the time it was keeping growth pace with Chicago (although a competing bridge and rail tycoon would see to ending that by buying the only bridges that could transport rail across the Mississippi at St Louis, and then choking them off – Fuck you, Lucius Boomer). I think I may have to write a post about that guy. In the meantime here is some background in the bridge-building world.
While in the song I call it “The Palace of Electric Light,” its real name was “The Palace of Electricity.” It was fortunate that Union Light & Power had built a 36MW power plant north of downtown that could power this monster. While there were local dynamos, the amount of pollution onsite power generation would have required would have rendered the air essentially unbreathable at the fair (coal smoke is not great for the lungs). Anyway, back to the story. I was taken by the idea we could take something like the fair and use it as a giant advertisement for how kickass we were at making new things. The sheer amount of waste is baffling to consider. The Fair cost nearly a half-billion dollars by today’s currency and was basically in operation for 8 months. While it was already underway, events like this would ensure the accelerated proliferation of electricity into homes everywhere.
I’m not suggesting we should live without electricity. Far from it. Were I required to go through the summer months without air conditioning I would move to Nova Scotia rather than brave it. But the point I was getting at in the song was more about hubris. In our haste to make things like this more expansive we rubbed a lamp not knowing what genie would emerge. Now we’re scrambling to find a way to have the genie without all the bad stuff. Renewables are awesome but show concerning progress at meeting the demands. Batteries come with their own wealth of problems. I am a supporter of nuclear but I also acknowledge it is far from perfect. And all the while there are the same tired arguments about cost of implementation, the American way, and denial of ill effects made by dudes who might as well be wearing the tophats of the tycoons.
21 years ago I started this song with an adoration of the Fair. I still have it. The amount of things we can do rapidly when we put our minds to it is truly stunning. The city built a new water treatment system, 1200 acres of massive attractions that looked akin to Greek palaces (using 1x lumber and plaster), a subterranean river, a train system, and countless other things because we wanted to.
Here we are now and the Fair has come to represent both what we can do when we decide to, and what we will do for money. I suppose the duality of morality in it exists in most things. I teamed up with my brilliant daughter to do the rewrite. It seems to me her generation excels at calling out the bullshit in past generations’ arrogance. And I’m here for it.
It’s okay to admit we created some cool things and also admit we screwed up some things. That’s how humanity progresses. We take the good things, admit and try not to repeat the bad things (accountability), and we move forward. When we don’t, we are just arguing with reality. What a foolish endeavour.
Far more worthy than my work, there was a fantastic ragtime named “The Cascades” written by Scott Joplin. It inspired the tone and initial drive of the piece. One of my favorite pieces of music, you can almost feel the water of the cascading waterfalls spilling from basin to basin. But, we also need to admit to the mistakes we’ve made. Scott Joplin would not have been able to attend the 1904 World’s Fair as it was strictly segregated. While it is uncomfortable to read, it goddamn should be. We should all be uncomfortable knowing the bad things our people have done without a thought. I recently read that, ‘if studying history always makes you feel proud and happy, you probably aren’t studying history, you’re reading propaganda.’ I had to paraphrase as I don’t have the original Tweet it came from, but that was the perfect way to phrase it.
Anyway, here is “The Cascades” as written by Dan Keller, Bill Newmann, and now also Josie Keller. At this point it should almost be uplifting in contrast to my post above…
For good measure, I performed T. E. Ford’s version of 16 Tons. One of my favorite staples of 20th century American folk, I took it a smidge uptempo and netted some clappers as a result! Who’d have thunk?
Beta Testing Adulthood 