THE MUSICOLOGIST

You may have heard that this is the Age of Ultra: the age in which there is so much information to absorb that some kindly people (and, lest we forget, corporations are people in the eyes of the law, which is itself famously blindfolded) have determined for us that they should save us the painful time and confusion involved in thinking for ourselves by homogenizing and interpreting our experiences for us. These people seem to be happier if we do not make any independent decisions at all, except for how much we are willing to spend for the label (or, if you will, their brand). Some find this perhaps more help than they would like, and they long for reminders of simpler, slower, safer times: farm fresh eggs, GMO-free produce, news that is just the news (and is about something, rather than being that fake stuff we are now being told to worry about), and car windows that roll mechanically. So we find ourselves even more sentimental than our forebears about the simplicity of the (capital P) Past: the musicians of yesteryear, musicians whose rawness we equate with purity: not homogenized into pulp by the machine; unspoiled by agents, contracts, record labels, or, for that matter, fame or financial security. In fact, the more obscure they are, and the poorer they died, the purer we believe them to have been.

In this Age, ethnomusicology is a growth industry. It seems that every day someone discovers a long-lost pioneer musician, most often a black man, who has lived in obscurity and died in poverty, the poorer, more obscure, and the deader, the better – without, as we say, “a Wikinote to their nickname” – and extols the purity of their vision on an unsuspecting public. There also seems to be a direct relation between the artist’s poverty and obscurity and the need his new audience feels to pay homage, among other, more concrete benefits, whether or not the artist will profit directly from his achievements.

A LETTER TO THE GEOGRAPHER-AT-LARGE FOR KCYMAERXTHAERE REGARDING THE LOST PORTAL OF NISHNABOTNA

Recently, I ran across an article in the BBC news titled, “A Bizarre Journey Beyond Earth’s Borders?” It seemed silly on its face, and the question mark that punctuated the title merely amplified its potential for intrigue, so I jumped right on it, hoping for kittens in spacesuits or vertigo-inducing orreries, with planets, or even cats, hurtling across my laptop screen. I was only briefly disappointed, realizing shortly that my original hopes had been shallow, indeed.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190819-a-bizarre-journey-beyond-earths-borders?ocid=ww.social.link.email

After reading and then re-reading the article and scrutinizing the associated website,  https://kcymaerxthaere.com/

(kai-merricks-theer)

I have contacted Eames Demetrios, the Geographer-At-Large.
I share the following letter with you, as persons interested in ethnomusicological matters, even though they be only peripherally connected to matters Dietziological.

A Timely Reminder re: The Lost Portal of Nishnabotna
Regarding your currently and understandably incomplete heritage landmarks
Eames Demetrios, Geographer-At-Large
Dear Sir:
I feel obligated as a dedicated observer of such matters to alert you to a site that has been neglected, probably unintentionally, unless your Oversight Committee has been perplexed by the paradox presented by the significance of the site and by the paucity of authoritative supporting evidence for it. In either case, may I take this opportunity to applaud you on your program and to offer my own, first-hand account of Ethnomusicology College, the placement of which institution is relevant to your organization’s mission. Ethnomusicology College was founded on what were once the banks of the Nishnabotna River at the point at which it departs from the Missouri River (at 40∞28’58.4″N 95∞41’42.6″W), and before it passes Hamburg, Iowa, and splits into its two branches, the East Nishnabotna River and the East Nishnabotna River (at 40∞39’08.5″N 95∞37’25.7″W). The cartographic confusion that led to two identically named branches of the river also attracted the attention of the Brotherhood of International Ethnomusicologists and then led, after considerable discussion, to the location of the college on its banks, some forty miles south of Omaha, Nebraska.

The Brotherhood of International Ethnomusicologists (and some of the younger and more flippant of the brothers have been known in their banter to reference the near-acronym therein and volunteer that, “yes, it’s cheese, but it’s good cheese”) decided on the college’s placement after having concluded that during the great blues migration from New Orleans and the Mississippi delta to St. Louis and onward toward Chicago, at least some of the finer musicians, possibly being illiterate and probably not paying the closest attention, as dedicated as they would have been to their instruments and to their roots music, certainly took the wrong turn at the fork of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and headed northwest on the Missouri, toward Omaha. It was pointed out repeatedly, and progressively more loudly, and with local maps and legends waved in support, that a surprisingly large number of locally influential people had clearly been significantly directionally challenged. It is worth noting on the side of this argument that the first settlers of the town of Hamburg believed that they lived in Missouri, rather than in Iowa. It was also postulated that many of the original cartographers who may well have insinuated themselves among the legions of other prospective immigrants were also quite possibly only marginally literate, leading the unsuspecting if not to Hamburg, then to Omaha, which must as a result be a veritable hotbed of as yet undiscovered blues musicians.

While this supposition has not ultimately borne fruit, and, in fact, has resulted in some degree of ridicule at the hands of competing contemporaries, that mistake was not acknowledged until well after the school’s foundation had been poured and its marketing efforts had been launched. It was then that the Brotherhood decided that sequestration should feature prominently in the novitiates’ term at the college and that they could cut expenses considerably if they removed windows from their architectural plans. This, too, led to snickering in certain circles and was referred to at conferences and in occasional white papers as “The Great Defenestration.”

As a result, during the time I spent in the novitiate I had regrettably little first-hand experience with the area, although I was told (a) that the absence of windows was to remind us to return our wandering gazes to the proper objects of our studies, and (b) that it was, ultimately, for our protection, because the wilderness that surrounded us was at best disturbing and at worst deadly.

It was from this vantage point that I uncovered Ottoman “Blind Squirrel” Dietz, a musician from central Virginia whose adventures have since become my life’s work (https://blindsquirreldietz.com). I have vowed to winnow myth from mere eccentricity, exposing, translating, and interpreting the Blind Squirrel’s exploits in the hope of discovering something about the human condition, or of at least recovering some of the losses I have since sustained at Dietz’s hands.

None other than C. W. McCall, whose contributions to the cultural mainstream include such classic works as “Convoy” and “The Old Home Filler-up and Keep on a-Truckin’ Café” has devoted his considerable talents to describing our river in his song, “Nishnabotna.” Representative lyrics include “We jumped into that dirty water an’ I thought we might be able to swim in it, but we quickly discovered that we could not even begin to dog-paddle in it, because right where we was, the Nishnabotna was only four-an’-a-half inches deep.î One cannot help noticing that McCall, while operating contemporaneously, makes no mention of the college, either as a going concern, as a structure, or as a ruin. Earlier in the song he asserts that he is in the West Nishnabotna, and one might draw one’s own conclusions about McCall’s directional challenges, but one might also consider the possibilities that Mr. McCall was too genteel to cast aspersions on the river in its entirety, or that he was offering a surreptitious clue to an alternate possibility.

It is this utter absence of credible evidence, as though the first explorers passing through a major musical causeway, and those who followed them, had been removed in their entirety, that is the final proof I needed. When I drop this piece into the puzzle, the entire puzzle disappears in a flurry of red herrings. To begin with, there is the unusual cartographic error. How can one publish and then permit the perpetuation of a map which displays two distinct branches named “East” Nishnabotna? Then there is the Fellowship’s acceptance of their failure ñ their conventional, institutional dismissal of their major premise. How could there be no musicians whose migration took them to Omaha? Finally, there is McCall’s misdirection. A man whose professional integrity depended on deep knowledge of truckers and truck driving culture would be highly unlikely to make such a fundamental error, particularly when referencing the original misnaming of the Nishnabotna’s branches would have been an additional source of humor in his song. Together, these factors point to one, and only one, conclusion: that there exists in the immediate vicinity a sort of localized, sublime interference that will be familiar to your Oversight Committee, not unlike other portals memorialized through your organization’s efforts.

With this overwhelming absence of evidence as my support, I therefore respectfully request that an ethnomusicological expedition be mounted with the goal of finding and breaching the portal to Kcymaerxthaere which must be in the vicinity; the missing musicians, their heirs or assigns be contacted; and their lost works recovered. All publication rights, naturally, will fall to me. Your project will then also have the requisite information for describing these musicians’ doubtless influential roles as Kcymaerxthaereian bards and balladeers.

If, however, we do not possess the necessary equipment or enjoy the serendipitous timing to pass through the portal, a gifted ethnomusicologist is available to offer his services in describing their probable history and impact on Kcymaerxthaere for purposes of memorializing their contributions in stone or bronze, which will surely be an acceptable alternative, at least in the short term.

On yet the other hand, if the above referenced site is already on your list but simply has not been acknowledged publicly, please accept my profound apologies. My services are at your disposal, and I will begin my pilgrimage upon your notification.
With warmest regards,
Charles Wilkinson

I anticipate Mr. Demetrios’s enthusiastic reply and will communicate it to you when it arrives.