Monochordo

      He brushed back the flakes of a jelly doughnut from the sides of his mouth and said while licking his lips, “So tell me again what you’re trying to say or do with this poster? It is a poster, right? This is not some sort of spooky cult thing?”

                    I sat up straight in my chair and replied, “Mr. Antonelli.”

                    He immediately stopped me by waving both his coffee and his doughnut and said, “Joe, please call me Joe.”

                    Feeling a little more relaxed I continued. “Ok, well Joe, I’m trying to entice you and of course your wonderful poster shop to possibly carrying my Pythagorean Monochord poster. I’m very proud of this work and I can assure you, Joe, that you will be the only store on Columbus Street to have such an esoteric item for sale.”

                    Joe put his doughnut down, placed his hand on his chin, and gave my poster a once-over and said, “Yeah, I know you’re trying to get my interest in your product but words like Diapente Materialis and Diattessaron Formalis somewhat confuse me. And this funny-looking instrument being turned by a hand coming out of a cloud, could anyone besides you know what this is all about? Yeah, I know, this New Age thing is popular and we are in San Francisco but I’m not quite on board with your creation. How will anyone figure all this out?”

                    “Oh well, Joe, that will be very simple as I’ve written a three-page epistle explaining what all the terms mean. See, it’s right here, and each copy is held neatly together by a little blue ribbon, and there’s no extra charge, none at all. All one has to do is read my small treatise to understand that terms like Diapason Materialis, Diapente Formalis, and Diatessaron Materialis refer to the octave, the fourth, and the fifth. They are both musical terms and the relationships of the planets to one another. For example, Diapason Materialis or Proportia Dupla is the celestial octave that extends from the Earth to the Sun. However, when one gets past the Sun the octaves, fourths, and fifths go from Materialis (as in our material universe) to Formalis as they are now in the realm of spiritual or speculative realities.”

                    Joe continued consuming his doughnut, sighed a gentle sigh, took a sip of coffee, and said, “Ok kid, tell me in just one sentence what this is about.”

                    I was ready for that and quickly responded, “It’s about the mystical construction and manipulation of the universe based on Pythagorean principals.”

                    Joe once again moved his head in a sort of questioning arc and answered, “You know kid, I love the universe as much as any man can, but why would anyone choose to buy this over Farrah Fawcett in a tight bathing suit or Lynda Carter showing a lot of, you know, of what men like to look at?”

                    I then sat in a lightly stunned silence and reflected upon my undertaking.

                    What Joe couldn’t see was how inspired I was when I first opened Robert Fludd’s work Utriusque Cosmi Historia and made the connection between the ancient Pythagorean monochord and the mountain dulcimer. Shortly after this moment of illumination I took a copy of Mr. Fludd’s illustration to a graphics house, where I had the image expanded and then printed on 17 x 22 parchment paper. After I picked up my 500 posters I hired my friend Peter to airbrush 100 of them. We ran a clothesline on my deck in Felton and pinned them up and painted them all in an assembly line fashion. First we sprayed on all the yellow, then the blue, and so on. As we watched them all come into fruition we were convinced that thousands of people would treasure this ancient image in their homes. We were certain that our creation was a large step forward from mood rings and pyramid hats, both of which seemed to be very popular in the early 1980s.

                    Joe offered me a maple-iced glazed and said, “ So did you draw this?”

                    Smiling and looking up at the ceiling I humbly replied, “Oh no, this is the work of Robert Fludd,” as I reached out for his sweet offering.

                    Joe’s eyes lit up and he said, “Fludd, Fludd—was he some kind of beat poet here in the city back say some twenty years ago? He hung out with Ferlinghetti, right?”

                    With a mouth full of jelly and sugar I immediately replied, “No, he was a Renaissance man from the 17^th century,” while blowing little flakes of sugar and pastry in front of my face. “Fludd was a really interesting guy. He was a Christian, an alchemist, a Rosicrucian, a Paracelsian, and in 1598 he received an M.A. in medicine from St. John’s College, Oxford.”

                    Joe continued to nod his head and said, “I’m almost afraid to ask what a Paracelsian is. Should I?”

                    Swallowing the rest of my sweet sinker I responded, “Well, Paracelsus was like Fludd, a philosopher of esoteric knowledge. He’s credited with the creation of laudanum and was an early practitioner in the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine. Truly a fascinating individual.”

                    Trying his best to stay with me Joe reached for a dulce de leche and before placing it in his mouth he gently asked, “Did he smoke the same stuff as his buddy Fludd?”

                    I raised my hands to my chest and laughed with Joe and said, “Hey, you never know what these free thinkers will do.”

                    As Joe was pouring himself another cup of coffee he looked at me and said, “So tell me kid, when you’re not running around San Francisco trying to sell posters about heavenly geometry, what do you do?”

                    Feeling somewhat relaxed with a change of subject I replied, “Well I write musical instruction books on the mountain dulcimer.”

                     Joe consumed the reminder of his dulce de leche and replied, “What’s that?”

                    Leaning over to collect a few blueberry cake doughnut holes I answered, “Oh, it looks a lot like the instrument that the hand of Apollo in my poster is turning except it has more strings.”

                    Joe closed his eyes and replied, “Please don’t take offense at this, Neal, and I mean no disrespect, but why is it I’ve never heard of anything that you do?”

                    That last statement from Joe gave me a great sense of gravity. Maybe my girlfriend was right (I thought) when she mentioned to me that trying to market a poster about the modes, the planets, and human behavior might not be a viable way to make a living. This, coupled with my other job, which was dressing up in tights, a feathered hat, and pantaloons to sell dulcimers, rumble pots, and psalteries at the Renaissance Faire, did not inspire her to have a lot of faith in my future as a wage earner. Though my beloved might have had a point, the whole Pythagorean thing seemed quite logical to me.

                    From his work on the seven-string harp and his knowledge of mathematics, Pythagoras expounded the theory that the seven planets were in the same proportion to each other as to the seven notes of the then-known musical scale. The planets, he said, revolve in perfect circles upon invisible spheres. The harmony emitted by the interval and spacing of these planets produces a concordant sound, known to the properly initiated as the Music of the Spheres. The mountain dulcimer is played in modes and thus I found an even greater spiritual connection between all this ancient knowledge and my humble folk instrument of choice.

                    As a special bonus I had written instructions (included in my epistle) on how to play the five-note melody featured in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind—a provocative pentatonic riff, which (when played correctly), enabled interstellar communication between Earthly beings and their heavenly cousins. Second-Third-First-Octave-Fifth (Do-do-do-do-do).

                     It didn’t seem complicated at all, but as I sat opposite Mr. Antonelli I could feel that my career selling esoteric posters of the cosmos based on 16^th-century knowledge was quickly coming to an end.

                    It all seemed so promising when I started out that morning. I rolled up the California coast armed with the knowledge of the ancients, 500 newly printed Pythagorean posters and a heart full of inspiration. I sold two to a store on Geary and then after nine polite refusals in a row I decided to go to the mega poster store on Columbus Street, where I was currently receiving the truth from above, delivered by one Mr. Joseph Antonelli.

                    “So listen, Neal, are there places that people, say, like yourself go? You know, maybe you should be selling these to folks who play that thing, what do you call it, the doorchemer?”

                    I nodded a small sad nod and replied, “Yes, that’s a good idea, but most dulcimer players don’t share my interest in this whole musical cosmos thing, and then most people into cosmology don’t really play the dulcimer, so I’m sort of stuck, I guess.”

                    Joe smiled and reached out and put his arm on my shoulder, “Hey kid, let me unstuck you a bit. I sell posters of Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Brando, you know, movie stars, beautiful women, handsome men. I have to level with you, Neal, in all my years here on Columbus Street no one has asked for this Mondochordo Pythagorinio thing you got here. I guess the closest print would be the poster with all the stars and the arrow pointing to the words “you are here.”

                    I slowly nodded in agreement as I began to let go of my fantasy of becoming a New Age poster mogul.

                    “So tell me, Neal, how many of these did you print up?”

                    I took a deep breath and replied, “Oh, around 500.”

                    Pouring himself another cup of coffee, Joe said, “And how many do you have left?”

                    I sheepishly answered, “Oh, 498.”

                    “Ah kid, let me have 3, so now you just have 495 to go.” I insisted he take 6 for the price of 3, but he politely refused.

                    He patted me on the shoulder as I was leaving and said, “Hey kid, at least you gave it a shot. Don’t ever give up, and don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. You’re a gamer, kid—just keep trying and I’m sure it will all work out for you. Here, take a nice glazed sour cream doughnut for the ride home.”

                    It was a beautiful ride down the coast that evening. I stopped to look at the Seven Sisters and saw a shooting star.
                    That night as I lay in my bed I dreamed a dream of all the muses—Calliope, Terpsichore, Urania, Erato, Clio, Thalia, and Polyhymnia singing to their respective planets. And there reaching out from the clouds and tuning the string of the monochord to the voices of the heavenly muses was Mr. Antonelli, and in his other hand was a chocolate cream donut glazed with stars.

Neal Hellman

mailto:neal@gourd.com         

Liberating Richard

The part of my life I miss the most is when I was fearless. Not necessarily intelligent or insightful, just fearless. To be righteously fearless one must have a cause, and mine was the mountain dulcimer. My partner Sally and I wrote Life Is Like A Mountain Dulcimer while squatting in a hikers’ cabin in Squamish, British Columbia. Under the dim but warm glow of an oil lamp we scratched out forty arrangements in crayon and colored pencil. A few weeks after finishing my first draft, I was deported from Canada for working without a visa. Ten days later my little blue Volkswagen bug threw a rod in Winnemucca, Nevada. But I was not one to be stopped by legalities and expired automobiles, for I had a folio full of mountain dulcimer arrangements, and I was going to New York to get it published. I had no doubt that I would succeed.

The publishing industry in my hometown did not greet me as I’d expected. My first three rejections were a sobering experience, and my financial conditions dictated that I obtain some form of work. So I did as many unemployed actors, poets, musicians did—I drove a cab. And I soon concocted a plan to use the cab to help me find a publisher.

A few nights a week I’d put my dulcimer in a case and take it to work with me. I’d then sit the case up on the front seat. On any given night I’d have between 25 and 40 fares, which meant as many as 240 fares in a six-day week. During a given evening many folks in the back seat would ask, “Hey, what’s in the case?” And I’d reply, “ It’s a dulcimer, and I’ve just written a book for this instrument, would you know a publisher who might be looking for a dulcimer book?”

Sometime during my third month of rolling up and down New York in a checker, an attorney who specialized in books gave me a number to call. Within two weeks I signed my first contract with the Richmond Organization for my aptly named book Life Is Like A Mountain Dulcimer. I was now part of the little remembered dulcimer “boom” of the midseventies, which was sparked by the album Blue by songwriter Joni Mitchell.

I was fearless and confident, which basically made me into a mountain dulcimer zealot. And like any inspired zealot I had to keep creating. While driving a cab and living upstairs in my parents’ house in Brooklyn, I decided to write a book of arrangements based on my dulcimer hero, Richard Fariña. This project would be both my homage to the departed bard and a big money-making idea. Who wouldn’t (I thought) want to own a book of Fariña’s dulcimer arrangement and his poetry?

Richard George Fariña was born in 1937 and brought up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on Linden Boulevard less then a mile from my parents’ house. His father, Liborio Ricardo, was from Cuba, and his mother, Theresa Crozier, was from Northern Ireland. He went to high school at Brooklyn Tech and won a regent scholarship to Cornell University.

While at Cornell he quickly changed his major from engineering to English and began writing poems and stories for the college literary magazine, The Cornell Writer. The junior editor for the magazine was Thomas Pynchon. Fariña and Pynchon soon became close friends and drinking buddies and influenced each other’s work. In time Fariña would dedicate his instrumental composition V to Pynchon, and Pynchon would dedicate his novel Gravity’s Rainbow to Fariña. In 1959 Fariña dropped out of Cornell, went to New York, and worked for a short time in advertising, but he was soon drawn into the folk scene happening in Lower Manhattan.

One evening he saw the Kentucky folk singer Jean Ritchie perform at folk club in Greenwich Village and became smitten by the mountain dulcimer. This, he decided, would be the perfect vehicle for his poetry. He soon married and toured with Carolyn Hester, but the relationship proved a disaster and ended in 1962. Folk legend has it that Carolyn pulled a gun on Richard in their Paris apartment shortly after he flirted with a young girl in a café. There are many stories like that surrounding the short life of Richard Fariña, all of which only added to his mystique.

In the spring of 1962 while still in Paris he met a sixteen-year-old dancer named Mimi Baez, and within a year they were married. The Baez family was skeptical of Richard at first, but in time his charm and wit won them over. Mimi and Richard composed music together on guitar and dulcimer, and by 1964 they were becoming a well-known folk duo. They recorded two wonderfully inspired and well-produced recordings for Vanguard Records—Celebrations for A Gray Day (April 1965) and Reflections in a Crystal Wind (December 1965). Their music consisted of Richard’s songs of political and social commentary as well as instrumentals he created for the mountain dulcimer. Mimi added her soprano harmony and played guitar and autoharp. They reached their peak at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, where even a massive thunderstorm could not keep the crowds from dancing to their music, all in various forms of undress.

Shortly after the Newport Festival Fariña completed his novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, which was published by Random House. In just four years Fariña became a recording artist and a published author with a cabin in Big Sur, and was touring the folk scene with his beautiful young wife, Mimi. Fariña was a contemporary of Bob Dylan, who was living just down the road with Mimi’s sister, Joan.

As with most brilliant souls Fariña had his demons as well. One of them took hold of him on April 30 1966. Shortly after signing books at the Thunderbird Bookstore in Carmel Valley, he jumped on the back of a Harley motorcycle driven by his friend Willie Hinds. Somewhere on Carmel Valley Road Hinds lost control of the bike, and Fariña died instantly while the driver survived. Fariña hadn’t lived to see thirty.

He took the dulcimer out of the Appalachians and made it accessible to city kids like me. To anyone over forty who plays the dulcimer, Richard Fariña has earned patriarchal status. The publisher of my first book was not interested in my Fariña idea, nor was any other music publisher in New York. Being the eager fan that I was I decided to publish the book myself. In order to do so I had to license the rights from Warner Brothers. I can still remember the man at WB smirking the entire time we discussed, or rather he dictated the terms to me. He asked me a number of times why I didn’t want to license someone like Joni Mitchell or Neil Young as it would be the same price. “No,” I would reply, “I’ll pay the 12.5 percent per book for the music of Richard Fariña since I have a handle on the dulcimer world.”

“Suit yourself, kid,” he replied as I signed off on the deal and handed over $750 in advance. I then borrowed $1,000 from my folks and threw in $2,000 from my cab-driving career. I had an artist friend (Jude Brae) from Vancouver do all the illustrations, which were based on Fariña’s liner notes from his recordings.

After having the music engraved, Sally and I took all the music and illustrations over to Faculty Press in Brooklyn. They were an old New York socialist printer who printed Sing Out, The Pete Seeger Banjo Book, and a number of other political journals. The staff at Faculty Press appreciated the fact that we were putting out a book on Richard and Mimi’s music and treated us like kindred spirits. They never charged us for all the prepress work they did. I’m sure it was due to the fact that so many of the songs in the book were political. I printed up 5,000 copies and quickly became aware of how little I knew about book distribution. I soon realized that most dulcimer players were not interested in Fariña. When I left New York City I loaded up all the books and took them back to Canada. Two years latter I loaded them up again for my migration to Santa Cruz.

Shortly after moving to Santa Cruz I made an appointment with Mimi Fariña and drove up to Mill Valley to present her with a copy of the book. As she scanned through the work, I noticed she stopped on the page that had an illustration of a woman in a cabin in Big Sur cooking on an old wood stove. As this image was based on Richard’s liner notes I realized it was she.

Mimi stared at the picture for minute and I could tell she was moved by it. She thanked me for producing the book but told me it was really all his music. “I was nineteen when we recorded these albums, it seems like a different life ago,” she said as we shook hands before I left her office.

By 1997 I still had over 3,000 of my inspired creation living under my bed and in various closets around my home. Then a few small miracles happened.

Shorty after hearing a Richard and Mimi recording of “Reno Nevada,” Douglass Cooke (yet another Brooklyn native) created a Mimi & Richard Fariña web page and a book on his life. Positively Fourth Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña by David Hajdu was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In December 2009, I sold my last copy.

We were both from Brooklyn, and we ended up in the same area of California playing the dulcimer. We also both broke down in Winnemucca, Nevada. What better zealot is there than I to digitally give to the world some of the classic arrangements of Richard Fariña, which will include “Another Country,” “Bold Marauder,” “One Way Ticket,” “Tuileries,” “A Swallow Song,” “Chrysanthemum,” “Raven Girl,” and “Joy Round My Brain”?

This book is available on my Square Site for $4.95 (digital only). The same price it was when we first produced the work in 1973.