La fête des fous / The feast of the mad ones

Third in a series of three

The Cape Carnival or Klopse (Pr. Klawp-sa) as it is specifically known, is probably the reason for these three posts.  There are few things that touch me as the experience of these disciplined, wildly colourful musicians and singers marching along in a strict platoon, singing and playing the traditional January, February, March song.  For all my travels, there a few moments like this for me.

On the surface, the Klopse is clearly an inheritance of the Mardi Gras in New Orleans – the instruments, the hats, the costumes.  But most often the songs are in Afrikaans, the language first spoken as a derivative from Dutch, by the slaves.  “Al die meide hol da’ bo in Boomstraat, Boomstraat.  Wat maak julle so laat daar bo, in Boomstraat, Boomstraat?”  [Trans.  All the girls are running ’round up there in Boom Street.  What are you doing so late up there in Boom Street?]  Always, with a tongue in cheek, a glint in the eye –  an old folk knowing.

Perhaps the most fascinating for me in the Klopse festival is the “front-walker”, in Afrikaans, Voorloper, a single man (I think he has to be young) who is the total opposite of the orderly platoons of musicians.  His movements seem truly unhinged as he becomes the rhythm of the music behind him.  Here is the inheritor of the Dionysiac tradition  –  the insanity of ecstasy.  At times it seems that he has four legs and four arms, a disorder of elbows and knees, on an impossibly supple body.  His head twists and thrusts, as his body gyrates and convulses.  My theory is that this does not come from the Atlantic Ring and ultimately from New Orleans.  I would suggest that it is a convergence of African, Indian and Indonesian traditions,  a grotesquerie to frighten away the evil spirits.  It is spectacular to witness.

Voorloper

 

©  Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

May, 2021

 

Images

My drawings 

Klopse – source unknown 

 

La Fête des fous / The feast of the mad ones

Second in a series of three

These cathartic public expressions have been with us from forgotten ages and perhaps as long there have been those who would stop them.   As the original intention of the Mardi Gras  –  the public confession of sins  –  faded, so the church was less inclined to approve of what gradually became more raucous.  In recent years, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro uttered anti-festival sentiments.  In the 1970s and 80s the apartheid government in South Africa tried to segregate the many observers and limit the areas in which the carnival took place.  In each of these cases it was barking against thunder.

Mardi Gras masks

This letting down of the hair, letting go, being a little mad, generally speaking, has a good effect on a population.  Of course, the way in which this happens has evolved into different forms.  I believe, for instance, that rock ‘n roll serves the dionysiac urge in us.  Then too, there are modern-day sports events and protest activity the latter which, unfortunately, sometimes turns violent.  Drug-taking and alcohol seem to provide the necessary release, but more often than not end in tragedy.  This is because it is chemical and not emotional.

If the festival and its madness grow organically from a community and serve to affirm people in a fun way, it is a good thing and probably the reason that it is as old as it is.

© Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

May, 2021 

 

Images

My drawings

 

See also

Septentrion  http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com    13.10.2019

 

 

 

 

La fête des fous / The feast of the mad ones

First in a series of three

Festivals that have a touch of madness seem to be universal, from the grotesquerie of the Chinese New Year to the Feast of St John throughout Europe and into North America.  Prior to this there was the centuries-old cult of Dionysus in the Mediterranean which thrived on ecstatic worship.  The Mardi Gras in New Orleans spawned festivals in the Caribbean, Venezuela, Rio, all the way down to Cape Town.

The Feast of St John in the mid-year

Some observe that such festivals are connected to seasons, for example, the festivals of harvest, and that they originated in the Middle Ages.  It is probable that festivals, though they have changed entirely, have a far older origin and might even be pre-historic.  What is clear is that the need for festival madness persists.

Dionysus, a mask found at Antibes

Of the Atlantic Ring festivals, Rio is the best-known and largest.  Cape Town is a proud inheritor of this colourful tradition and has added elements from the East.  It adds colour to an otherwise puritan country and the traditional songs (“January, February, March”)  touch me deeply.

 

©  Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

May, 2021

 

Images

Feast of St John –  marieandree.centreblog.net

My photograph, drawing

 

See also

Septentrion   www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com    13.10.2019    Here we see the tragic extent to which Dionysiac madness can go.  My drawings of the event.

 

 

“The Chain” – Fleetwood Mac

This song was the opening number on the Rumours album in 1977.  Today’s You Tube informs us that the song has been listened to 79 million times.  So, if I attempt to cast my thoughts on the song and there is a wakey-wakey response (“This song is 43 years old”), I have reason.

“The Chain”, together with “Bohemian Rhapsody” (1975), pre-dates Disco, Reggae and, later, Rap, and style is entirely different.  For me, “The Chain” is visual music with dramatic textural contrasts  –  a moment of total silence, perhaps unique in the history of popular music, contrasted with vein-splitting fuzzy guitar hard-drive rock ‘n roll.  These contrasts I sorely miss in the music that followed from the late-1970s.

Start with the spare lyrics  –  from “Listen to the wind blow  /  Watch the sun rise  /  run in the shadows”  – strangely wind-like singing  –  to the teeth-clenched “Damn your love, damn your lies” ; from the steady, muted “footfalls” (see “running in the shadows”) of the opening moments to the burrowing bass guitar motif, the music builds to a crescendo that splinters into a dazzling display of the fuzzy guitar solo.   Add to this the telling break in the lyrical lines “Never break the Never break the chain.”

The lyrics that end the song “Chain, keep us together” are trimphant (?) after the verbal violence.  The word “chain” is sung over three different chords (E, D, A ?)  Do these chord shifts make a further point?  The repeated line “Running in the shadows” keeps sentimentality at bay.

If one of the criteria for classifying art is staying power, then “The Chain” is doing fine.

©  Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

May, 2021

 

Source

Wikipedia Fleetwood Mac, The Chain

 

Images  

My graphics

The beehive tombs, Micene, Greece

Perhaps the place is haunted, I thought at the time I visited the beehive tombs on the Micene penisula in Greece.  It’s not that I was scared.  I was calm, but curious.  It was that first view of the tomb that made me uncertain.  I looked at the entrance at the end of the long uncovered passage-way between stone walls.  I knew I was looking at prehistory.

The entrance itself is as narrow as it is tall, with the triangular opening at the top making it look taller.    I entered the tomb and was struck by the high-domed roof.  It was built with decreasing circles of limestone bricks, looking much like a beehive.  The construction, considering when it was made, was impressive.  The people of Micene buried their dead here, long before the Greek civilization flourished, at least 1500 years b.c. in the late-Bonze age.

These tombs – there are several of them – have the floor space of a small church, with the dome 13 metres above the ground.  There must have been wooden structures on which the dead were placed.  These structures disappeared over the centuries.  The well-known 19th-century archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann maintained that he had found the grave of Agamenon  –  he who featured in Homer’s Iliad as a mythological personage.  Schliemann’s theories have been criticized.

My footsteps sound on the limestone floor.  The acoustics is remarkable.  I call out to make a test and the echo is sharp.  How did it sound, three thousand years ago, when chants sounded at a burial?  What did these people look like?  What did their labguage sound like?  All that is left is the silence hanging from the limestone dome … and the passing of all things.

 

©  Will

http://www.willwilltravel.wordpress.com

Les Semboules, Antibes

May, 2021

 

Source

Wikipedia

 

Images

Entrance – historywiz.com

Cut-away  –  wikipedia.org

Interior  –  hiddeniac.atours.com

Roof – hipgreece.com

Interior  –  giclarhistorty.blogspot.com

 

Was this Agamenon’s grave?