And We Saw The Midnight Sun

How many times
Do I have to contemplate my own reflection
And say; I have been blind
— Emperor

A country’s relationship between the sun and moon often produces strange effects on its inhabitant’s psyche. How else can a region like Scandinavia account for producing an IKEA, innovators in consumer logistics and mass-market furniture design or the savvy wireless technologies from the likes of Nokia?

The solar rays not only beam down on businessmen but for artisans as well. Halldor Laxness won the Nobel Prize in 1955 for literature while successful crime writing team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo wrote thriller after thriller during the ‘60s and ‘70s.

I am Not Stiller put Swedish author Max Frisch on the literary map as one of the most widely read authors in Europe. Henning Mankell’s gumshoe Kurt Wallander is still solving shocking murders in his fictitious town Ystad.

In the land of the midnight sun, Norway, Christian churches burn and steeples topple. Set afire by the arsonist hands of anti-Christian ideologists, misanthropic beliefs or as some authorities have pointed to — people who play black metal music, though it’s a bit speculative. The members of the black metal band Gorogoth think more churches ought to burn, and believe there will be more as times passes.

Black metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal featuring fast tempos, heavily distorted guitars, synchronized double-kick drums, bass, and vocals typically sung in what’s called a death growl — deep and guttural from the girth of the bowels.

The lyrical content consists of morbidity, death, pain, depression, nihilism, atheism, Satanism, antitheism, paganism, and suffering. There are some black metal artists who write poetic compositions about winter, forests, nature, folklore, mythology, and fantasy.

The black metal scene started around the mid-eighties and evolved during the ‘90s in Norway. Bands like Bathory, Darkthrone, Emperor, and Mayhem slowly developed the music from a lo-fi sound production to a clean, slick quality for CD buying hip scenesters.

Mayhem often considered the founding fathers of black metal were the first to establish the musical rules: corpse paint for the face, musical opposition to Christianity, poor sound production, and alternative names for band members like Euronymous, Dead, and Hellhammer.

As the story, legend or conjecture of Mayhem goes Hellhammer worked in a mental hospital. Dead, the singer committed suicide slashing his wrist and swallowing a shotgun barrel.

Upon discovery of the body Euronymous made necklaces of the singer’s shattered skull and distributed among black metal musicians he deemed worthy. Necrobutcher landed in prison for stabbing a homosexual who apparently made a pass at him around Lillehammer Stadium. Thirty-six knife wounds were counted in the dead man’s body, and so black metal was born.

Everything here is so cold
Everything here is so dark
I remember it as from a dream
In the corner of this time
— Mayhem Freezing Moon

As black metal gathers momentum talented bands like Opeth, Enslaved, Katatonia, Dark Tranquility, Satyricon, and Amon Amarth are using aspects of Norse paganism, Viking imagery, Nordic folk music, and elements of classical music achieving sonic depth and qualities ranging from silence to chaotic din much like Mahler or Carl Ruggles used to add color and emotion in their work.

Audiences are discovering a music not only serious in lyrical content but innovative musicianship which quite frankly hasn’t been heard much these days.

In orbit they pass around – the memories from abandoned past
Images from within your mind bring unknown feelings into your veins
Delve into thy twilight past, a voyage done before
The borderland ‘twixt life and death – existing evermore
— Dark Tranquility

Black metal is definitely not your father’s rock-n-roll. Gone are the popular themes of sex, chicks, cars, and fast times. Pardon the pun, but I think this is the one bright spot going on in contemporary music. More bands and musicians are entering the scene contributing dynamic musical complexities, a unique lyricism, and new stylistic approaches to their craft.

Who can say how much longer black metal will be around and replaced for the next new thing. I’m hoping this movement will act as a catalyst to morph new musical attitudes sustained by well-crafted tunes, innovative playing, and thought provoking ideas.

One can only hope the planetary orbs continue to rotate, eclipse, and crash into each other to keep producing new talent from a region ensconced in cold hell.

J. Prock

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The Snow Melted: Passing of Andrew Wyeth
January 16, 2009
J. Prock

I grew up close to where Wyeth painted. I never met, saw him or went to Hank’s Place where he ate. Of the entire art world, Wyeth has had the most profound influence on my work. He’s helped shape my outlook towards creativity, and how one approaches the creative process.

It’s a belief of trusting one’s own instincts. You shut out the peripheral, meaningless opinions, what if scenarios, and work from the nature of your experiences. It seems selfish; it has to be — it’s personal; it’s your work. During the creative process work can’t be shared — a contamination of sorts sets in.

1966, I saw Wyeth’s Temperas, Dry Brush and Drawings Exhibition in Philadelphia. I was a little kid. A few years later my parents had Christina’s World on the wall. I’m still attracted to the spatial planes, an off-center Christina, muted colors, linear perspective, textures, and the macabre notion — what exactly is this woman doing?

I went to see Christina’s World in New York at the Museum of Modern Art 1984. She was hanging in a hallway, around a corner as kind of an after-thought. I got the impression that the curators had to do something with it — couldn’t rightly throw it away. I found the painting, and studied it intently.

Most articles about Wyeth I’ve read never asked him interesting or probing questions. They focus on working with egg tempera, using local talent as models, being a Wyeth, where’s the inspiration come from, why Chad’s Ford and Maine?

If I had a chance to talk with him, I’d of asked a few personal questions about the times: did he try pot in the ‘60s, what did he think of rock music, did he look at cartoonists, where did he get those cool Nehru-like jackets, and maybe if he could show me where Howe’s army marched during the Battle of Brandywine in 1777. And, could we have a glass of apple cider together, the kind with a little kick.

I’m saddened by his passing. Over the years, I’ve looked forward to seeing new work. I never believed Wyeth was an “illustrational realist,” or his paintings were “formulaic stuff” as his critiques have written.

January’s snow has melted around Chad’s Ford, and the boy in Winter 1946 runs down the hill for the last time. The floating hand in the painting… finally joins the fathers’. The pumpkins have all rotted, autumn’s leaves have been carried down the Brandywine River, and the light is just right for Ground Hog Day.

Chester It Is

What wilt thou I should call this place?” ‘Chester,’ says Pearson. “Chester it is.”
— William Penn

It’s been drizzling all morning in Upland. The few houses near the banks of the Delaware River are awash in shades of gray mirroring hues from the drizzling sky and zinc colored river. The narrow streets Front, Post, Third and Fourth are muddy and saturated from days of rain.

Robert Wade’s brick house on Front Street faces the river. The three-bedroom house is a story-and-half high distinguished by small square windows with thick panes accented with bone white shutters. A small cupola adorns the roof. Adjacent to the house is the mouth of Chester Creek. The creek area is thick with trees, bushes, shrubs and growth. The cold creek currents feed into the Delaware River. Several water fowl fly low to the shoreline in search of food.
From his cupola Wade peers through a brass field glass pointed south. He gently scrolls the focus knob panning left, and a little right. There is nothing on the river today only endless rippling waves.

Wade’s an Irishman and a Friend, commonly called a Quaker. He’s the first member of the Society of Friends to settle among the Swedes and Dutch. Wade’s house has become the official meetinghouse for the Society and is named in recognition for the few meeting as The Essex House.

* * * * *

It’s a warm St. Martin’s day in Deal. William Penn’s long dark hair hangs from his black broad brimmed that. His hair and mustache catch the English seaside breeze blowing the same westerly direction as the ship’s flag.

Robert Greenway is the commander of the three-hundred-ton, 200 foot-long wooden ship named the Welcome. Greenway is hunched over his paper-strewn table writing. Several charts and maps are spread out on the table. He enters the date August 30, 1682 in the ship’s log. Greenway’s course is charted for New Castle, Delaware.

Penn boards the ship early morning. He holds a short prayer service at the bow with several Friends. He prays the Inner Light is with him and the one hundred members of the Society of Friends from Sussex who are making the journey with him. Among the Friends are: Daniel Milnor, Richard Townsend, Samuel Buckley, Sarah Clows, George and Eleanor Pownall and their children: Reuben, Elizabeth, Sarah, Rachel and Abigail.

The anchor is raised as the ship sways and creaks. The Welcome’s main decks are crowded with passengers waving to loved ones.

The main hold is a blend of smells that come from packed crates of vegetables, fruit, flour, dried beans, butter, oil, salts, salted meats, and casks of fresh water. There are chests of clothing, dishes, bedding, and some furniture, building supplies, tools, and seeds for planting crops; everything needed to start a new life. There are a few braziers for families to cook meals but if the sea gets rough they will be discarded and food will be eaten cold.

* * * * *

On October 27, the Welcome drops anchor at the banks of the Delaware River in New Castle, a place rich with thick supple grass accentuating the river’s jigsaw puzzle edge. The New Castle residents greet Penn with fanfare and ceremony. They’ve waiting for him and they are lined along the banks waving and cheering. As Penn steps down the gangway he’s presented with turf, twig and water, the feudal signs of his possession of the three lower counties by the town officials. Tonight he will sleep in a proper bed and have a delicious meal prepared.

Next morning with several rolls of parchment and deeds from the Duke of York under his arm Penn meets with lawyers John Moll and Ephraim Hasrmon. He spends several hours presenting the Dukes paper’s and discusses the matter of Lord Baltimore’s boundaries.

From his meeting he’s obtained the signatures needed to transfer New Castle and all adjoining lands within a twelve mile radius into his possession. With business finished and new relations established, Penn boards the Welcome at early dawn. Greenway pulls anchor and sets sail up river steering to starboard.

* * * * *

The air is still and humid, the river calm and languid. The Indian summer induces Penn to reflect as the ship gently rocks in a somnambulant fashion.

There are three troublesome tasks to confront: resolve this trouble in Upland with Sandelands , lay claim with Lord Baltimore on ownership of Upland and surrounding he says are his own, and on to Philadelphia for meetings to convince Friends to invest in a port on the Schuylkill River. This river reaches deep into the heartland, a natural highway for bringing out timber, furs and crops and on to ships on the Delaware bound for England. Much, much better situated than the topography along Chester Creek.

Penn’s thoughts turn to the long voyage that’s almost come to an end. In spite of all his ardent prayers and ministrations, the small pox took thirty souls; Dennis Rochford’s two daughters among them. He prays.

* * * * *

Robert Wade removes the field glass from his eye. He slowly collapses the extensions of brass tube. Finally, the ship on the river, the one he’s been expecting for so long. The sole passenger who will help and lead the Society of Friends.

A huge splash snaps his reverie. The Welcome drops anchor at the mouth of Chester Creek. Penn observes Upland’s hills and abundant trees growing right down to the river’s edge.
At long last he will see his staunch friend and Quaker ally Robert Wade. Leaning on the quarterdeck railing Penn reaches down and scratches a bite through his dark Gunnister stocking just at the top of the welt. Thomas Pearson, his surgeon joins him at the rail. Both stare at the shore as the Welcome glides to shoreline.

Pearson, providence has brought us here safe. Thou hast been the companion of perils. What wilt thou I should call this place?” ‘Chester,’ says Pearson. “Chester it is.”

The Introduction to a forthcoming work written by J. Prock. A short history of Chester, PA. and its people from 1949 to 1969.