Folking myself

I have found myself returning once again to my folksy state-of-mind, thinking about telling tales and playing the flute. For the most part it has been inspired by books by Charles de Lint.

de Lint writes about what he enjoys, it seems, and what he enjoys are folk music, folk tales, myth, and modern city life. His books (for the most part) are about characters in a modern world dealing with things that are not to be explained by rational thought. The first bookI read of his is called Dreams Underfoot - a collection of short stories about urbanites coming across creatures of folk tales and having to deal with implications of that - thoughts of insanity, depression, enlightenment, horror, etc. I do them no justice at all with my explanation, but if you have any interest in gritty, lessons-for-life fables set in the slums and artist's quarter of a modern city, than you may enjoy his stuff as well.

Anyway...
Being that he is a folk musician and artist, he draws a lot of connections between his characters, their ability to accept the unknown, and their art. It seems that anyone in his books who can accept what is seen-beyond-sight(?) focuses on one form of artistic expression or another. Though I am not planning on seeing any goblins, sasquatch or ladies- in-the-water anytime soon... (note I said planning)... his descriptions of art and music have inspired me to once again practice at these things.

I have had a penny whistle for some time now and once a week or so I will annoy the neighbors with a poorly rendered Little Drummer Boy in the middle of the summer, or show off my nerdy side by practicing the theme from Lord of the Rings. But I haven't really sat down with the intent to learn much. It is sad that it took this long, but I am finally truly realizing that no matter what level of talent you think you may find within yourself, you have to start from the beginning when learning anything. No one is a master-by-nature. Ike, case-in-point, does happen to be a master of sleeping, but he practices it gruelingly(sp... is that even a word?) every day. So I found some resources on-line. The cool thing about the penny- or tin-whistle commuity is that because they are folksy people, they like to teach without any specific reciprocity. They just put info out there for all to see and help you learn. That is awesome.

I also was driving by the art shop and bought some modleing clay and fiddled around with it for an hour on Saturday. It is funny the process of shaping form from a ball of nothing.

So within a few months if you happen to be walking through a park and hear some chump squeeking about on a tin whistle, it just might be me and you just might recognize the song...

...if you are a LOTR fan (if you were, you would catch the reference).