The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Image combining two pictures. On the left is the cover of the Pink Floyd album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn from 1967. It shows the faces of the four members of the group, Waters, Barrett, Mason and Wright all with shaggy hair and paisley print shirts or brocade jackets. They are looking directly at the camera, and each image is repeated multiple times as if seen through a kaleidascope. There is blobby white lettering along the bottom saying "Pink Floyd". The right hand image is the cover of Graham Greene's The Wind in the Willows illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. There is a mustard yellow rectangular area at the top with the title, author and illustrator credits. Below is a painting by Shepard with the four principal characters. Toad, dressed in his motoring costume, and Badger, wearing the clothes of a country squire, stand on the green banks of the river. In the boat below them are Mole and Water Rat. Mole is wearing a tweed jacket perhaps, and the Rat is all in white with a white cap.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Wind in the Willows

cw: Wind in the Willows Spoilers

I recently went down some ratholes involving Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, The Wind in the Willows and the k-drama “When the Weather is Fine”. It was one of those serendipitous occurrences when a random conversation led me to discover (or rediscover) the exact literature and music I needed in that moment. At the same time I found these various forms of expression intersecting with my own particular interests. I guess it’s a gift of being retired that I have a certain amount of time and freedom to follow random flights of fancy. This one has been particularly fascinating, so I wanted to write a longer form piece than will fit in Mastodon’s 500 character limit.

When the Weather is Fine is a romance set in Hyecheon, a fictional rural town in Gangwon Province, Korea. While it incorporates many of the standard romance tropes it also has some dark, supernatural vibes, and a Bergmanesque “art house” feel. Most of the action transpires during the cold winter months, and the camera spends a lot of time observing small details of the stark landscape and the natural world. The dialog is often very sparing, and we get long shots of various characters gazing at each other, or wearing a faraway look as they sip coffee and observe some small detail in their surroundings. The male lead is Im Eun-Seop, who owns the Goodnight Bookstore in this tiny village. Female lead Mok Hae-Won has been teaching cello in Seoul. When she can no longer handle her mean and exploitive employer she returns to Hyecheon to stay with her aunt, essentially next door to the Goodnight Bookstore, where she ends up working. Early in the series she observes that Eun-seop has multiple editions of The Wind in the Willows. When she inquires of him, he replies that it is his favorite book. They don’t ever expand on why the Wind in the Willows is Eun-seop’s favorite, but it got me thinking about Graham Greene’s 1910 children’s book, The Wind in the Willows, which I had not read. I’m not going to go into a full scale review of the drama here, but it is a dreamy and deep romance which is worth a watch.

Still from the drama When the Weather is Fine. It features a 3/4 view of the two main characters dressed in light colored winter jackets - an attractive man and a woman who appear to be around 30 years old. Behind them is a pale blue sky with snowflakes. A little bit of snow covered forest is visible behind them, and some bare tree branches hang down from above. Male lead Eun-seop is on the left, his body towards the viewer, but his head is turned to his left in the direction of female lead Hae-won. Eun-seop is wearing a half smile, and holds a hard-cover book in his arm. Hae-won is smiling, and stands at an angle in the direction of Eun-seop. She has a fuzzy white coat, and brown furry mittens.

When the Weather is Fine

A week ago, while my wife and I were still in the midst of When the Weather is Fine, I stopped at my local natural foods market in Felton, California. I happened to be wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt that my kids had got me years ago – black with the iconic prism and rainbow motif from Dark Side of the Moon. The twenty-something checker complimented me on the shirt. I said “thanks (smiling), do you youngsters still listen to Pink Floyd?” (sometimes I lean into my status as a senior citizen). She replied affirmatively, and further that she was particularly into Syd Barrett, the brilliant but unstable co-founder of the band with Roger Waters.

Now as a teenager in the 70s, Dark Side of the Moon was the soundtrack to countless evenings of chemically induced euphoria in basements (or my rather snazzy 3rd floor room) in my small New Hampshire town. I loved Umma Gumma, too, but I rarely listened to the earlier albums. I could not have named one song on their debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which is the only Floyd record to feature Barrett, though he did write one song on the follow-up A Saucerfull of Secrets. After that he became too erratic, and was replaced by David Gilmour.

I did regale the young cashier with my memories of seeing Pink Floyd’s Animals tour while flying on acid. They played the entire Animals album straight through, followed by all of Wish You Were Here. For the encore they played two tracks off Dark Side of the Moon, and they even played “Careful with that Axe, Eugene” off Umma Gumma as the final encore, which was pretty awesome. In any case, after this chance conversation I resolved to listen to some Syd Barrett era Floyd, and beyond that to learn a little bit more about the enigmatic Barrett and perhaps listen to some of his solo work.

I hunted around for a podcast about Syd Barrett, and found a very compelling conversation with his biographer Rob Chapman on the Strange Brew podcast. The teenage Chapman discovered Barrett before the formation of Pink Floyd, and was present at a number of storied early Barrett gigs. After Barrett left Pink Floyd, he spent the rest of his days at his family home in Cambridge. Chapman, also being from Cambridge, collected dozens of Barrett anecdotes. Although he never got to interview Barrett himself, it seems that Chapman’s A Very Irregular Head: The Life of Syd Barrett is the definitive biography, and he was able to interview many of the people who worked with and knew Barrett. Chapman is also an engaging speaker, and I encourage you to listen to the pod if that seems like your thing. One of the most interesting tidbits I learned from this is that Barrett’s favorite book is The Wind In The Willows.

I was now beyond ready to get my hands on a copy of The Wind In The Willows and see what all the excitement was about. It is on some level a charming story of various animals living in the English countryside – Mole, River Rat, Toad, Badger and others that Greene originally created as bedtime stories for his son. But let me tell you, beyond the humorous and tender interactions of the animals, we have some of the most lovely and compelling descriptions of nature that I have ever read. Greene’s prose, detailed observation and his love of nature leap off the pages – truly remarkable writing. Perhaps the most magical chapter of the Wind in the Willows is titled The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, which lends its name to Pink Floyd’s debut album. Our protagonists Mole and the River Rat have been rowing all night on the river, in search of an otter pup who’s gone missing. Just before the dawn, they hear a beautiful, unearthly melody and follow it to an island. On the island their senses grow keener, their awareness of every leaf, every creature seems to heighten. It’s like the whole island is bathed in a mystical energy. Suddenly, who should they see, but Pan himself, cloven hoofed, horned, with a mysterious yet warm aspect. At his feet is the missing otter pup, curled up asleep.

Now folks, I have not seen Pan myself, but I believe he is real, and this is exactly how he appears to people (cf. The Findhorn Garden). I don’t know much about Graham Greene, but I would wager that he’s one of the rare humans to whom Pan has appeared. I just love that he appears in this children’s book. Of course after they recover the otter pup, Pan casts a forgetfulness spell on our animal friends, so they are left with only a strange sense of wonder after they return from the island. I love this part so much.

I have listened to the Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn once or twice now as well as Barrett’s solo album The Madcap Laughs which he recorded after leaving Pink Floyd (David Gilmour produced it). They’re the kind of records that can be enjoyed when you get in the right mood. Syd’s lyrics are really quite magical and psychedelic, his voice is lovely and he’s a solid guitarist as well. I need to listen to these more before I could properly review them. However, I can say that they open a very compelling window into Barrett’s unique mind and lyrical art, and they evoke a time and place when psychedelic rock was new and gestured towards other worlds and other realms. And I am all for art with the potential to transport us to other worlds.

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Mastodon

Cute Mastodon plush toy, sitting in a camp chair in a green meadow.

Very many of us have been burned by social networking platforms that have let us down in some way. It’s been clear that Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk were horrid for some time, and spending time on Twitter and Facebook is downright unpleasant between the ads, algorithms and boosting of extremist content. The manner in which both have sucked up to the recently inaugurated Trump has been motivating many to part ways with the toxic platforms.

I have not deleted my accounts on X or Facebook, but as far as where I’m spending time I’m all about Mastodon. Mastodon is the decentralized, non-commercial social networking platform. Mastodon will never be owned by a private equity firm or a billionaire. It will never have advertisements, or mine user data for marketing or training AI. It does not have proprietary, unknowable algorithms designed to trap you and keep you scrolling.

Since making a more concerted effort to make Mastodon my primary online hangout in the Fall of 2024 I have made a lot of nice connections. Every platform has its unique character, and Mastodon is no different. It is definitely geeky, in the sense that most of the early adopters have some kind of tech background. I guess Mastodon has a reputation for being harder to use, and it may take a little more effort than the commercial alternatives, but not by much. I think that any extra effort is worth it. I will link to some explainers below, but I’ll just share a couple of words of wisdom, and leave it there.

  • Mastodon is decentralized, so you need to chose an instance where your account will live. All the Mastodon instances are part of the Fediverse, which connects users from all the instances (and the sister platforms like Peertube, Pixelfed and so on) and you can follow and interact with users across all instances. You can also move your account to another instance if you feel the need to do so later. I joined mastodon.social which is one of the oldest and largest, and I’ve been happy with it. I do think it’s worth spending a few moments to consider if you want to join a smaller, or more specialized instance, but I wouldn’t agonize over it. The full list of instances is here.
  • Once you sign up, you will want to fill out your profile. Add a profile picture and a bio with some of your interests. It is also recommended to make a post with the hashtag #introduction. Many people follow this hashtag and it’s a good way to connect with folks who may share your interests. Hashtags are very popular on Mastodon, and it’s a good practice to use appropriate hashtags in your posts. Hashtags are also a good way to find people who are posting about things that interest you. For instance I have made a number of connections from following #kpop.
  • Mastodon does have a reputation for being kind of “woke” of “politically correct” which is well deserved, but also not a bad thing in my opinion. Obviously bigotry and abuse are not appreciated, and presumably will get you blocked or kicked off. Putting alt text for the visually or hearing impaired is strongly encouraged. Content warnings for disturbing or adult content are pretty universally used. So if you have a problem with pronouns, LGBT+ folks, climate science or anything like that, then maybe Mastodon is not for you.

If this all sounds good to you, a good place to start is Fedi Tips.

You can find my profile here. Hope to see you on Mastodon!

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Aquadolls, Hoity Toity and Sluttony at the Catalyst, April 14, 2022

The Aquadolls, a rock band, performs at the Catalyst Atrium. The three performers have expressive outfits.

The Aquadolls at the Catalyst Atrium

Hey, 2nd show of 2022 “post” pandemic period. I arrived in time to see openers Sluttony perform what must have been most of their set, but they were at it when I got to the Catalyst Atrium. I liked them a lot. Not a lot of polish, but great rock and roll energy and a good sound. The singer was very charismatic and had a great RnR voice. She was tall with chin length hair in a nail-polish red color. The second song I watched them play was Add It Up (Violent Femmes cover), which was great. I had watched that on YouTube. Sluttony are maybe local, so perhaps I’ll see them play again?

Hoity Toity were up next. Another 4 piece band. From Southern California. Another very charismatic vocalist with a powerful voice. She played a few parts on the keyboard as well. I really liked this band, and they rocked very hard. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know any of the songs, but after about halfway through their set they started to sound the same kinda? Or it was that the energy level remained at the same pretty intense pace. There weren’t really nooks and crannies in the music that you could drift into, if that makes any sense. But I thoroughly enjoyed their set.

Next up were the Aquadolls, who took the stage while Dancing Queen by Abba blasted. And queens they were. Such a solid, charismatic performance by the Aquadolls. They did look fantastic. Melissa was kind of like an anime character, with some fancy thin braids in her blond hair and a striped dress. Keilah and Jackie were on the goth punk spectrum, and they both looked really hot! Jackie had slacks and a skin tight and kind of sheer top that kind of looked like all over body tattoos? Anyway, it was very cool. Jackie had side buns and John Waters level eyelashes (actually all the girls did). Keilah wore a kind of corset thing and she looked great.

Set List

  • Our love will always remain
  • Troubled Valentine
  • Guys Who Sk8
  • Cover from Freaky Friday
  • Wander
  • Cry Baby
  • Sick Sad Motherfuck
  • Communication is Sexy
  • [and a couple others I didn’t recognize, or forgot]

I liked how all three band members took a turn at stage banter and introducing songs. Jackie really rocked some vocals, both as backup and lead. I think the Freaky Friday song was where Jackie played bass and Keilah drums? They’ve been on tour for 6 weeks, and I think their musical chemistry is really strong. They seemed to really be having a great time, too. They can do sweet love songs, surfer bops and then slamming rockers. Melissa’s guitar playing was really on fire – intense but really musical. Anyway it was a totally satisfying set.

I left before Sitting on Stacy. I watched one or two videos and they were very cute, but the music was kinda forgettable in my opinion. So I don’t think they’ll be the next Strokes, but if they do I suppose I can retrospectively castigate myself for not staying around for their set.

Sluttony, a 5 piece rock band on stage at the Catalyst.

Sluttony at the Catalyst Atrium

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