The man and the Devil

The young man started the long walk down the seemingly endless flight of stairs into Purgatory. What exactly he had done to deserve this final punishment was quite beyond him. Aside from being an executive in charge of closing down many businesses and making people lose their livelihoods, and having an affair with his daughter, nothing else sinister sprang to mind.

As he neared the bottom of the stairs, he hoped he could make an appeal and get a shot at going the other way. It had worked for him on Earth, and he figured all the judges he had ever encountered were probably down here, so it was worth a try.

He walked into a large hall made of some stone-like material. Flames seemed to spring forth from every corner, casting strange patterns of light and shadow in an unsettling manner. It made him feel slightly nervous, but he realised he was in Purgatory after all. If for some reason he felt elated and joyous, he would probably consider filling out an application for a job rather than trying to get out.

At the other end of the hall was an archway leading into an ominous darkness. Beside the arch was a man. A man of sorts, he corrected himself. The man had 2 arms, eyes, ears and legs, and all the other things you would expect a man to have, but something about the way the man looked and carried himself left you with a feeling of dread and unease. This must be the Devil, the condemned man thought. Seeing nobody else in the hall, and glancing behind him, seeing the staircase vanish into the flames, the man braced himself to appeal to the Devil.

'Welcome, Welcome!' the devil said in an altogether too friendly tone. 'I have been awaiting your arrival! It's altogether pleasant to welcome in a man who has committed some proper sinning, not like the last few thousand souls who have passed through here, all snivelling and whining about how they haven't done anything wrong, and they must have been sent to the wrong place'

At this point, the man abandoned any hope of trying to get the devil to change his mind. Whatever he had done was properly sinful, and there wasn't much chance of it being viewed otherwise. He didn't view it that way, and just before the police came and arrested him and sent his daughter away to a trauma centre, he was commenting on how satisfying this relationship was for him. Obviously, others saw it differently.

'Let me give you a quick tour around our facilities here!' boomed the Devil. 'You're just the kind of man who would appreciate the lengths I have gone to ensure everybody here suffers, and knows just what they did when they were alive to deserve such torment! Come, Come!"

The Devil strode forth into the ominous darkness. The man stood still, unwilling to fall into the damnation awaiting him. He looked around, trying to see if there was any other avenue of escape, when suddenly a pair of glowing eyes appeared in the darkness.

'Well? What are you waiting for? Come, follow me around my humble home. I would advise you not to tarry here much longer, lest a worse fate befall you!'

Given that the man was halfway to Hell, he couldn't off the top of his head think of any worse fate, but given that this was the Devil speaking, he hurried off into the darkness. If there was a candidate for someone who could make your life hell, the Devil was surely the number one choice.

The blackness enveloped the man, but shortly his eyes adjusted, and he found himself in a dimly lit nightclub. On one side, a group of men were ordering drinks from the very well-stocked bar, and around the room, various other groups of men sat at tables and talked and drank. In one corner, a piano was playing, and drpaed over one end of the piano, a tall, curvaceous woman sang.

To call it singing was an understatement. Words flowed out of her mouth like liquid gold, filling the room with intoxicating harmonies. Any man who heard even a minute of this would surely have been swept up into her spell, and be nothing more than putty in her hands. The fact that she looked as lovely as she sang just cemented the deal, in the mans opinion.

Yet nobody looked at her. Nobody even gave her a sideways glance. It was plain to see that she was giving every ounce of herself into her singing, but it seemed all to no avail.

The man looked questioningly at the Devil. "Ah, well, you see. She's here because in her mortal existence, she was a bit like you. She sang her way into the hearts of any man she chose, entrapping their hearts completely. No matter whom she chose - rich, poor, married, divorced, handsome or ugly, they were hers entirely. She ruined marriages, destroyed lives, took money, property - anything she wanted. Now, no matter how hard she tries, nobody will pay her the slightest bit of attention. It doesn't stop her trying, mind you, but she will never succeed."

The man felt an overwhelming surge of pity for the singer. She was just using her talents to get what she wanted, and in light of his own behavior on Earth, he saw no real wrong in that. "Is there any chance that she can -" but was cut off by a glance from the Devil that made him regret he'd bothered asking. "Lets move on now, shall we?" the Devil said. I've got so much more to show you, and you'll appreciate why you need to see it when we're done."

The Devil hastened out of the nightclub, and the man followed, somewhat unwillingly, behind. The light became brighter, to the extent that it appeared they had emerged into sunlight. Suddenly, the man found himself in a office tower, with uniform-looking office workers sitting at uniform-looking desks under a uniform light. Despite this, they were all working frantically, holding two telephones to either ear, entering information into a computer and occasionally scribbling notes down on a pad.

"These are all middle managers and office assistants that during their life handled factory closures, school mergers and benefit cuts with impersonality and detachment. All in the name of efficiency, they said. It must be done, they said. People didn't view their opinions too highly, it seems. But that's not what I came to show you. Follow me."

Again the man felt very sorry for these workers. They were just doing their job - if you wanted to take anger out on someone, take it out on the people who made the decisions, not the ones who carried it out. He walked past row after row of shouting, slamming telephones, cursing at the computers not working and other events that lead to high blood pressure. This was his idea of damnation, he thought. But it seems this wasn't to be his fate.

The man eventually found the Devil in a large, light-filled office. At one end of the room, a large mahogany desk sat, on top of which were several monitors, a large but organised pile of papers, and a couple of telephone handsets. This was nothing out of the ordinary, but upon looking behind the desk, the man drew back in horror.

Behind the desk was another man. Once upon a time, he might have been handsome in a GQ kind of way, but now, he was a shriveled shell. His hair, what remained of it was white and limp. At any moment, it looked as if it might all fall loose. He could see that some attempt had been made to style the hair, but at this point, it was far too late. The man behind the desk was wrinkled and hunched. At some point in time it was obvious that he walked strong and tall, but that time had long passed. Now, the man was bent over, mumbling and shuffling. Whatever he had done in life must have been especially cruel to deserve such a punishment.

"Now, this man here is my standout!" the Devil spoke aloud as if in answer to the unspoken question. "In life, he cottoned on early to the fact that money, when you have enough of it, can solve any problem. Health risks, engineering dangers, product flaws, bad reputations - money could make anything go away. Other people noticed his skill in using money in this way, and anytime anybody had a problem, they got this man and enough money together, and the problem went away. Tobacco companies, aircraft makers, boxing stars, carmakers - they all sought this man when they wanted a problem to not exist. And he delivered. Nothing was too big a concern for him."

"And so, when he came here, we said fine - if that's the way he likes to work, we'll just give him problems. So many problems in fact that as soon as he solves one, he makes three more. He has all the money and resources he needs to solve the problems, it's just that the problems don't stop coming. Forever."

The last word rang with a finality in the room. The man with the Devil felt especially sorry for the sight before him. He felt the punishment far outweighed the crime, and this was totally unnecessary, so much so that he turned to challenge the Devil. Everything he had seen had filled him with sorrow, but this was by far the worst.

"And so we come to what you will be doing in your time here!" boomed the Devil, forestalling any argument. "For what seems like an eternity, I've had to run around making sure that all the people you have seen are suffering in an appropriate manner, and from time to time, I find myself wanting to have a break to get on with more pressing matters. But I just couldn't find someone sinful enough with whom I could trust such matters - who understood what sin really was. But now you're here, the answer is at hand!"

"For the rest of time, you will be going from place to place, watching these people, and making sure their lives are as unpleasant and uncomfortable as possible. Nothing shall escape your attention, and no action on your part will be too intolerable. Does this sound agreeable to you?"

The man, in fact, did not find this at all agreeable. Of all the punishments, this was by far the worst thing he could imagine. He opened his mouth to protest, raised his hand to strike out, but found that he could not. Against his will, he found himself walking out the way he had come, and back toward the nightclub. Try as he might, he could not stop.

"Have a nice time!" the Devil called as the man left. He started chuckling as he went on to doing things that he now had time for. "Although, I get the feeling you probably won't. Oh well..."

The chuckling grew to a booming, echoing rumble.

Johnny Cash: The essay

I am in the throes of writing an essay on Johnny Cash and the 'Hurt' video, which is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go 

Johnny Cash is a remarkable man, both personally and musically, and doing the research for this essay has been mostly very satisfying, apart from when many people quote the one source, interpreting it differently.

I am really surprised at the lack of written material, scholarly or otherwise, about the man, and right at this point in time, I could see myself doing a thesis on some of the stories that have accumulated around Johnny Cash that I don't think have been well-covered. These include:

•   Popular music and social taboos. By this I mean the fact that Johnny Cash is one of the few popular artists to have sung about topics such as murder, wrongful imprisonment, death and sinning. Other artists have covered taboo topics, but none has covered the breadth of topics that Cash has.
•  Image and perception versus reality. Johnny Cash has been described as " ...a face that might have been ripped off a wanted poster, a voice that sounds like it's coming through a bandana mask, songs that may as well be fired from six-guns, and a Bible under his writing arm..." (Urbanski 82). In fact, the reality was that aside from drug addictions, short jail spells and marital issues, issues which nearly all music stars face as part of their career, he was essentially a good man. The image of him is quite another thing.
• Genre and exclusion. Johnny Cash started out as a rockabilly singer, along with the likes of Buddy Holly and Elvis, but soon found his own career as a country music superstar. During the later part of his career, Nashville essentially ignored him, in its quest for the young listener, and did not play Johnny Cash on their stations. In my opinion, this was shameful, and Rick Rubin, Cashs producer during the American albums, put this ad in the major music magazines saying as much: 

The other topic I would like to explore is just how much of an impact his persona and music had on the music industry. I feel Johnny Cash has had much more of an impact on the music scene than the books and journals I have read would suggest, and I think more research is necessary (if not exactly easily achievable....)

Anyhows, it's been very interesting and satisfying so far. I'm looking forward to finishing it, and getting some feedback on my ramblings.
 

When you grow up son, what do you want to be?

(Grow up? What's that?)

Going to talk with one of the Humanities staff next week to start talking about what degrees I want to do in the years to come. I want to do a shitload of things, but realistically can only do a couple, so at this point, I'm looking at B.Mus (Voice), and B. PerfArts.

Basically, I have the voice - I have a loud, expressive body - it's a shame not to put those things to good use. If I can, I'd like to slip in Music Tech or Computer Science there as well, but we'll see. We'll start with these two, and look at Summer School for some bits on the side, because a bit on the side is always good, darling...

It's been a process trying to sort myself out, but it's actually *really* nice being spoilt for choice.

Scars of dishonour

I had to cycle down Castle Street today, and had to ride over what you see here - the patchy tarmac which marks the final resting place of some unfortunate bed / couch / desk that was burned to a cinder on the road during some party that got out of hand. 

Castle Street is full of such patches, the battle scars of a piece of road that has seen more than its fair share of young students who do something because it's a cool thing to do. It looks like the council hasn't bothered to fix the road in many years, so in times to come even more of these scars will surely appear.

Ah Dunedin, how I love thee so...

 

Dance Schmance!

Just started a new part of Performing Arts Studies today, that relating to dance. It hasn't got off to a good start, as I disagree with my tutor from the off on a couple of what I think are important points.

The first is the assertion she made which says dance as an artform is very gender-based, mostly toward females. I disagree with this, as I know plenty of male dancers, and if you look at dance generally, in the last 20 years or so with the rise of rap music and such, a mans not a man if he can't bust a move. It may not be dance in the sense of no body fat and black tights, but it's dance nonetheless.

The other point she made was talking about Maori dance as an artform. This really riled me because it seemed to me she was talking about it in a Western sense, where dance (and most of the arts for that matter) are in a separate category from everyday life, and one can choose to either do or not do these things.

My take on this is that Maori life involves song, movement and dance as a part of living. It is not something that you choose to do or not do, that's 'over there, and maybe I'll do it' - it is something that is part of who you are, and how you live.

In that respect, I feel talking about Maori dance is rather condescending, as it implies it follows the Western model, which it most definitely does not.

(Takes deep breath)

Right. Rant over - it's warmed me up somewhat, which is nice in the current climatic conditions. Off to the library to bury my nose in books.

Lunches for the financially inept

Just had a hot lunch for $4. The Students Association and the Hare Krishnas make a hot pasta and apple crumble meal for $4, that's made of good stuff
(lets face it - the Hare Krishnas are hardly going to make meals out of high fructose corn syrup and monosodium glutamate, now are they? - unless they become the Mc Krishna Donalds, but I won't go there (Welcome, welcome kind sir - what type of peace, love and food poisoning would you like today))

The meals are a damn sight better than I could make for myself, the company is interesting, and the music is peaceful (again with what would you expect? - Hare Hare Exit light! Enter night! Take my hand we're off to neverneverland!)

A very satisfying way to get into classes this afternoon.

Winter!

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The onset of winter in Dunedin.
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1.30 in the afternoon, grey and raining outside, and no more than 5 degrees.
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If I were a musical interval, I would be diminished, but for me, that's just dandy. The alternative is being Augmented, which is the equivalent of 30 degrees and no breeze - and that's not cool!
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(draw raindrops around post...)