Listener Input

Thoughts on Culture -

Erudite Listener #1's Opinion 

 http://traditionalfolkmusicorpoetryonthegjbs.blogspot.com.au/p/listeners-letters-comments-and.html

Date: 29/01/2012 Theme: Long

The Gypsy Jack Boggle Show

© 2012 Rjn

Theme: Long

Date: 29/01/2012

Artiste:	Title:
The Spinners	The Family of Man
Rolf Harris	Sun Arise, Raining on the Rock, The Indian Pacific, The Overlander, I’ve Been Everywhere
John Arlott, The Yetties	Out in the Green Fields, The Lark in the Morning
John Arlott, Cyril Tawney	The Ploughman, The Buxom Lass
John Arlott, Bob Arnold	All Jolly Fellows Who Follow the Plough
Masekela	The Boys Doin it, Mama, Excuse Me Please
Jean Redpath	The Lass of Eclefechan, The Slaves Lament, The Reel O’Stumpie, Green Grow the Rashes O, Tam Glen
Sandor Járók & His Gypsy Band	The Snow is Falling in the Bakony & etc, F Minor Lament Verbunk & Friss, Dances of Oltenia
Alistair Hulett	Around George Square, John MacLean & Agness Wood, the ghosts of Red Clyde
Ivan Rebroff	The Fish Catch, The Legend of the Three Robbers, Kalinka, Moldarian Suite
Cloudstreet	* Muckle John, * King Henry, * The Briar & The Rose - * Rjn prerecorded introduction given by John & Nicole
Effi Netzer & The Beit Rothschild Singers & Group	Hevenu shalom aleichem, Have netze bemachol, Krakoviyak, Horrah ne’urim
The Wurzils	Champion Dungspreader, I got my beady eye on thee, The Blackbird
Alan Bell	Here’s to You
Rjn pays homage to:	Robert Southey -The Cataract of Lodore J.K. MacDougall – In Retrospect, Affronters of Freedom

Date: 22/01/2012 Theme: World

The Gypsy Jack Boggle Show

© 2012 Rjn

Theme: World

Date: 22/01/2012

Artiste:	Title:
The Spinners	The Family of Man
Leadbelly	Black Snake Moan, Pig Meat Papa,Frankie & Albert
Claudia Bombardella Ensemble	Histoire d’un Souvenir, La Novia, Danze Di Magos, A la Luna
A.P. Elkin Collection	Women’s Djarada
Haydn Triio Eisenstadt	Peggy I Must Love Thee *, The Minstrel *, Gramachee. * English translation read by Rjn
N. American Tribes	Yeha Noha:Wishes of Happiness & Prosperity, Canto Chamamico:Heal the Soul
Red Army Choir & Orchestra	Russia My Motherland, Utuska Lugavaja, Hey Ukhnem
Joan Baez	House of the Rising Sun, Donna Donna, Henry Martin
Christine Dimbleby	No by Thomas Hood
Liz Farmer	Hot Cake by Shui Hui AD 265-306 Translated by Arthur Waley
James Barraclough	From the Eclipse of the Moon by Lu T’ung d. 835 AD
Rosa Balistreri	Filastrocca a lu bamminu, Diu vi la manna l’ambasciata, A la notti di natali
Utah Phillips	The Telling Takes Me Home, Yuba City, All Used Up
The Wurzels	Morning Glory, Twice Daily, The Back of My Old Car
Spiers & Bowden	Tom Padget
Bella Hardy	The Herring Girl
Bellowhead	The Two Magicians
Jon Boden	The Larks They Sang Melodious
Leonard Cohen	Seems so long ago, Nancy, Death of a Ladies Man
Cathie O’Sullivan	Lovely Nancy, Barbary Ellen
Alan Bell	So Here’s to You

Cultural Growth & Opportunity Damned

A note by Rjn to introduce correspondence held with the shire council at his last place of dwelling some years ago.

Ever since I was introduced to the idea by the wonderfully pro active Gosford, NSW, city cultural development officer  Mr Elio Gatti, I have for many years advocated the idea of Citizen's Cultural Exchanges. Like a Stock Exchange or Money Exchange, a Cultural Exchange is a place where people can exchange, share, buy or sell differing cultural gifts of performance, of artifacts, of lifestyle or belief. Simply put, these Exchanges encourage artists of every stripe and hue to come together and create events where residents of an area can enjoy an interchange of all forms of culture, be it visual, kinetic, singing, drama, dance, poetry recital or even olfactory. Such events would improve community connectivity, bolster social inclusion (particularly for newcomers to an area), and give interested participants and spectators access to art forms they may only have heard about previously (or did not know existed at all). People from all walks of life would converge and be given time to showcase their talents and wares in a nurturing, sharing and constructively critical environment.

When I moved to Nhill in Western Victoria some three and a half years ago, I thought it the ideal place (being a remote rural village located on the main road between Adelaide and Melbourne) to institute such an Exchange. Accordingly, the Hindmarsh Shire Council, supposedly responsible for the health and wellbeing of some 6000 residents (how else would you describe the benefits of regular exposure to cultural events other than as a marvellous fillip to one’s ‘health and wellbeing’?), was sounded out about making its Community Memorial Hall available for a regular series of such Exchanges. What I am writing now testifies to the consequences of my overtures and serves as a brief introduction to the correspondence exchanged with the Council.

As you will see from the letters received from the Council and now posted on this blog, I was met with ignorance, incredulity, hostility and recalcitrance at every opportunity. I was accused of being rude, my idea was flatly rejected for being unviable economically, the Council refused my modest request for ‘funding’ to help inaugurate the project, I was personally abused, discriminated against and psychologically battered by a council supposedly there for the benefit of its citizens. I had tried to think locally for the global benefit of mankind and give all and sundry a chance to tell their own intrinsic stories through performance. I had tried to bring some sort of renaissance to a town often mired in petty internecine political squabbles, beset by the dislocations caused by ‘cliques’, ready always to fund and promote sport (especially Australian Rules Football) but averse to sponsoring anything else, insisting time and time again that only old-fashioned, ‘time-honoured’ cultural pursuits like tired musicals and operettas or Jazz festivals designed more as a sly means of advertising a local industry than as a real way to engage people with culture were what people in the village and surrounding areas needed or wanted.

I was refused access to the Memorial Hall, even though the ‘money’ required to hire it was available from the Council (they ultimately own the building anyway, and so could easily afford to rent it to me with ‘moneys’ that would simultaneously be received back into the council's bank account or simply be effected by a book keeping contra-entry recording the "gift" to the citizens). I was told there weren’t enough people in the Hindmarsh Shire to justify such an audacious programme. I was informed that my scheme would pressure performers into producing works of little or no interest....

When I rightly queried the basic ignorance and biases behind such a response, I was accused of being rude and effectively silenced by the Council. At no stage did I become pettily personal and name wrongdoers in some sort of orgy of peevish retaliation. I merely argued that such wrong-headed refusal to countenance my idea spoke to the unsophisticated ignorance of a selfish cabal of high-powered locals who have little interest in culture and no desire to support it (especially not when it is being spearheaded by an alien of foreign appearance, who had not ‘paid his dues’ in the shire). What such people failed so spectacularly to realise, what UNESCO has enshrined in its desire to engage all people with cultural activities at a grass-roots level, is that culture need not only refer to the reified artefacts and habits of the past. One does not need to go to an opera house or a museum or gallery to be exposed to ‘culture’. It is all around us, everyday, everywhere, in the stories and skills all of us have. Such stories and skills only need an environment in which they are encouraged and allowed to be set free. This I tried to do and in fact am now doing with this segment of the blog. Whether it be defined as tragedy, comedy or drama I am do not know. The results you will see in more detail below. I think you will agree with me that it augurs very badly for the continued future of cultural creation in Australia and the world at large if the attitude of the Hindmarsh Shire Council is allowed to spread unchecked like some kind of totalitarian virus stifling all creativity (whenever I re-read the Council’s correspondence I am reminded of Joseph Goebbels’ famous dictum: “whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun”)…..for the sake of our continued investment in the future of this planet, we need to overcome the prejudices of people like the Shire Clerk….though I am not by nature a man with Utopian proclivities, who would dispute with me that culture of the sort described above and nurtured by things like the Cultural Exchange isn’t absolutely vital to our ongoing survival and humanist development?© 2012 Rjn

Here is the correspondence:-

And the reply five months later :-

My Response to Mr Miller:-

 Mr Miller's Christmas Eve Reply :-

And to this day the Shire's residents continue to be denied such benefits.

Date: 15/01/2012 Theme: English

The Gypsy Jack Boggle Show

© 2012 Rjn

Theme: English

Date: 15/01/2012

Artiste:	Title:
The Spinners	The Family of Man
Johnny Collins	What Will Become of England, Go to Work on Monday, The Key Above the Door
June Tabor	The Old Man’s Song, The Banks of the Roses, The King of Rome
Elsa Lanchester	Please Sell No More Drink to My Father, Catalog Woman, Little Fred
Cloudstreet	* Violet Sarah, * The Famous Flower of Serving Men, * Muckle John. * Rjn Recorded Introductions by John Thompson & Nicole Murray.
Valerie Lennie	A Glee For Winter by Alfred Domett
Benjamin Zephaniah	Talking Turkey by Benjamin Zephaniah
Liz Farmer	The Twelve Days of Christmas by Anon
Sandra Douglas Weir	New Year Snow by E. Nesbitt
James Barracllough	The Old year by John Clare
Colin Douglas	Twa Recruiting Sergeants, The Leaving of Liverpool, Young Musgrave
Danny Spooner	The Blackball Line, Shallow Brown, Reuben Ranzo, Whiskey Johnny
Dave Alexander	Northwest Passage, Process Man by Ron Angel, Rap ‘er to Bank,
Dave Alexander Timothy West Juliet Stevenson	Homage to Rudyard Kipling: Danny Deever The Way Through the Woods, The Roman Centurion, The Land My Rival
Wheeze & Suck Band	The Bristol Mail, Sailor’s Life, Sammy’s Bar
Viv Legg	The Broomfield Wager, Way of the World, The Prisoner Lad
Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger	The Manchester Angel, To the Begging I Will Go, Sheepcrook & Black Dog
Alan Bell	So Here’s to You

Date: 08/01/2012 Theme: Celtic

The Gypsy Jack Boggle Show

© 2012 Rjn

Theme: Celtic

Date: 08/01/2012

Artiste:	Title:
The Spinners	The Family of Man
Runrig	Chi Mi’n Geamhradh, Cnae na feille, Loch Lomond
Original Irish Boys	I’ll Tell Me Ma, The Old Bog Road, Spanish Lady, Muirshen Duirkin
The Rankin Family	Fare Thee Well Love, Mull River Shuffle, Tramp Miner
Evan Mathieson	Harry Robertson's Wee Pot Stove, Deep Sea Tug, Fred the Fitter
Kilmarnock	The Spey in Spate, Wooden Duck, Maggie Cameron
Stockton's Wing	The Humours of Clonmult
Christy Moore	The Voyage
4 Men & A Dog	Primrose Lass Selection, Donegal Breeze
Ewan MacColl	Hind Horn, The Laird O'Drum
Aled Jones	Plaisir D'amour, Bugeilior Gwenith Gwyn, The Children's Home
John Currie	Omah Town
Declan Affley	A Rake & Ramblin Man, The Flighty Tailor, Havanna
Eric Bogle	Scraps of Paper, A Reason For it All, If Wishes Were Fishes, Just Not Coping
Aly Bain	Dr James Donaldson, Anvil Reel, The Auld Noost, Margaret’s Waltz,
Dubliners	Buncloddy, Wild Rover, Lord of the Dance
Mill Weavers	Glencoe, Flower of Scotland
Leigh Gordan	Dark Island