http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8zwnXjIjPM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNXDPVyqWu0
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
AMERICAN LOGRES CULTURAL HISTORY PART 1
AMERICAN LOGRES CULTURAL HISTORY
During the 1700’s English, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish culture began to “morph” into a new kind of people; characterized by sharp talkin, yarn spinnin’ story tellers. Everything from nonsense humor, one moment, to pious the next; a new kind of humor, always brimming with optimism, cropped up along the eastern half of young nation. These were people inventing stuff. Yankee ingenuity.
Pioneer families, carving out a new nation.
Logres conquering the “Anti-logres” of an oppressive England, followed by the birthing of the most unlikely, strikingly different new baby into the family of nations.
But we mustn’t point the finger at England for too long. The young America was already harboring its own “infection” of Anti-Logres, right from the very beginning.
The world of the African Slave, with his own culture of distinctive sounds, rhyhms, instruments, and musical forms, pollinated the slave master culture with a richness of Logres that has impacted the music of the entire planet.
This was a Logres that in supreme irony, (perhaps the greatest irony in the history of America) enriched enormously, intermarrying with the British folk and hymn music, combining in a hybrid, destined to nurture the now emerging, distinctive American Logres. The rhythms, the song forms, the instruments, the singing styles; Everything was impacted! African Logres.
Logres, now flourishing over the land, was turning us into “America”, the newest nation on earth, a new kind of nation, exciting to behold, and still very, very young, with much more to come.
Between our new form of government, our national documents, and our about to emerge cultural melding of different cultures, the rest of the world beheld is in wonder and admiration.
Our form of government: it was new in the world.
Over time, our own, distinctive “melting pot” of art forms: they were new in the world.
Truly, it was us. American.
As long as the Logres was welcome, and held in reverence, our richness of national soul deepened.
Where is our country today? Are we enjoying the presence of Logres?
This is my first major blog entry on “Logres”. I’ve tried to introduce some of the themes I’m hoping to explore with you in years to come.
Please contact me, if you “feel” any of this stuff. I’m sure I’m not alone.
Leslie
AMERICAN LOGRES HISTORY PART 1
AMERICAN LOGRES HISTORY
OUR ROOTS
America has had its seasons of Logres.
THE PILGRIMS
The Pilgrims received a vision of “Logres”. but it was for “over there.” Across that ocean. Strangers in a strange land they would be. but the “call” was there. They went. And faithful they were, to the Logres.
THE PURITANS
The Puritans saw the “Logres.” a “City on a Hill.” Logres won’t come unless we “seek” after it.” The Puritans did. But they made the mistake of compelling everyone else to submit to the “vision.” That is not the way of Logres.
You’ve gotta let people come around to things. They may not.
Free will must always be honored. Liberty.
THE FOUNDING FATHERS
The Logres, in a powerful manifestation, blew a vision of liberty into the souls of many in the English controlled colonies over here. It was the passionate and courageous birth of what would become the Logres of an American Nation.
A new nation. Free from tyranny. Self- government. Community. Commitment to one another. Individualism. Ingenuity. (Yankee, at first. But it turned out to be the entire country.)
The young nation followed a “vision” of how democracy in action, under God’s guidance, might work. Equality. Liberty. Community. All three… working together in harmony. creativity.
At first we copied England and the rest of Europe. But after a while, something new emerged; that quality, those characteristics the whole world sees as “American”. In fact, American “Logres.”
All of America’s ideals proceed from the “Logres.”
Whenever America has welcomed the “Gleam” of Logres, peace and creative growth have followed.
Whenever we have bowed to serve the idols of greed for power and devotion to money, the “Gleam” of Logres has receded. Inspiration and goodwill depart, followed by a quickly withering decay of the culture into a “wasteland.”
Anti-Logres pervades the people, the whole way of life. The poor are oppressed. The people become angry, breaking into factions where contempt festers. The arts grow anemic and uninspired. Dark cynicism infects the music and the films. People’s hearts grow cold and self-absorbed.
The prospect of Logres lies before us. Americans have always needed to choose between the two.
John Kay and his band, Steppenwolf, are remembered around the world for their classic 60's anthem, "Born to Be Wild." Far less known is their title song, "Monster", from their third album.
I wonder if John and the others had any sense of what they were touching on, when they created their story of American History. I believe they were plotting the very map of the presence of "Logres" in America. That song probes far more deeply than the 60's concerns with the Vietnam War and governement surveillance of radical activists. These hard rockers were observing with insight the very struggle between Logres and Anti-Logres, with both compassion as well as indictment towards America, unusual for those polarized times.
The "Monster" of the Anti-Logres was oppressing American society, splitting us apart in the 1960's. Where are we today?
John Kay, your anthem has been "haunting" me for 39 years. I wonder if my theory of the Logres is connecting for you at all.
If perchance, this blog reaches your attention, please contact me, if you feel I might be on to something.
I strongly recommend everyone reading this blog to purchase the song, "Monster/ Suicide/ America."
Here are the words to the final anthem of the song:
“America, where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know we need you now?
We can’t fight alone against the Monster.”
And finally, from my heart:
‘O Logres, where art thou?” We need you now.
LOGRES IS...
Logres
is
a spiritual climate that,
when longed for, by an individual,
or by a nation,
rains down upon the earth,
watering the soul of the people with
vision, new ideas,
like saplings, ready to pop up, in the arts.
Inspiration blows through a region.
shared vision binds people together into
working communities.
each individual’s talents
find a place within a mosaic,
a pool of talents that will build the vision.
The “form” is made into “substance”.
The “idea” is crafted into a “work of art”.
The harvest of these new works of art
are the permanent monuments to
this moment, this time and place,
where Logres moved through the land.
inspired people lived and created in
a land, blessed by peace and joy,
much like England’s “Camelot,” of long ago.
Golden. Heavenly. Wondrous.
Logres.
If Logres “descends” upon us again, emerging in pockets across America,
we’ll gain a greater identity awareness.
We’ll find out more of who we are;
We’ll become more of what we were always destined to be:
as individuals, as a community, as a nation.
Identity. Yes indeed.
One of the prime fruits of Logres.
Logres is the glory and splendor of what human beings on earth can attain to;
if only we’ll follow the “Gleam,” the Gleam of Logres.
When Logres “lights” up our land and its culture, our neighbors will behold, up to 202 other nations, each one with a Logres, ready to blossom forth.
We Americans will desire to visit them, thrilled to share in their
“new thing that’s happening.”
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