Two Octobers ago, I attended a lecture in Tallinn at which my friend, Tiit, was speaking. Two people lectured before him. Well, lecture is not a proper term. They made presentations concerning their life among indigenous peoples elsewhere. The first was a woman who had spent most of her live in northern Siberia.
I’m referencing this entry. During the conference / presentation / whatnot, I wrote a number of short entries hoping to get back to them and elaborate. Predictably, I never did.
Places are not immutable, but they are less immutable than the people who occupy them. They are arranged by their occupants to reflect traditions. In this instance, the places are named after people buried in them. As time passes and other humans pass to the soil, the name of a village or region drifts. I’d like to think they first become combinations or hybrids of two dead humans’ names. Distortion happens and history changes. At times, maybe two or three humans become one in the minds of the present occupants.
In a way, I wish art was the same way. And, actually, folk music pretty much is. Traditional folk music, that is. It drifts through time and is reinterpreted again and again, reowned over and over. Printing, publishing and the internet has decayed mutation of art. Reinterpretation is frowned upon except in specific contexts, and even then rigid frameworks always remain (see – jazz).
I want to lay my hands on something / anything, and claim it, remould it into my own. Perhaps its fundamental will be retained. Maybe not.
Fuck um.
