Ian and I

Let me tell you an unremarkable piece of news: I sent an email at 4:30 this morning.

That I can do so will raise no one’s eyebrows, nor cause anyone to question anything more than “what were you doing, for God’s sake, awake at 4:30 in the morning?”

All right, then let me tell you something that I, at least, think is astonishing. There is a successful musician in the Fernández-Newhouse family—a guy who frequently travels to Miami, the center of his musical world, to perform. And no, despite the years of practice rooms, cello lessons, conservatories, it’s not I. It’s Ian, Raf’s nephew.

Still not astonished?

Try this: he doesn’t play an instrument.

Or rather, I think we’re going to have to think of his MacBook Pro as his instrument, though I’m not sure of that as well. It may be that his real instrument is the software he uses to generate the sounds that are—to him—music.

This is the moment you stiffen, ‘here it comes,’ you think, ‘another screed against the idea of popular culture and musical relativism….’

Or perhaps you don’t think that; how should I know? Nor am I very clear what I am thinking myself. I talked to Ian about his music last night for two reasons, the first being that it’s the safest—most of his other interests would have provoked howls of protest, as well as cheers of delight, from some part of the family. Ian, you understand, is 27, has dreadlocks that make Marley look like a Wall Street lawyer, and is immersed in the counter-culture.

The second reason? Well, Ian tends not to talk about stuff he isn’t interested in, and guess what? Why should he? So right, it was gonna be music, except that these two musicians were in different worlds, different cultures, speaking different languages.

He’s an intelligent and articulate man, and I know too little both of music and of his kind of music to pass judgment on it. And I wonder, too, whether that word “judgment” doesn’t strike at the heart of it all.

I grew up, as Stegner would say, believing in history. I thought that every piece of art, of music, or that any action would exist in time, be filtered through time, and receive an imprimatur. There was a ranking of composers—who’s gonna say that Vivaldi is “better” than Bach?—and there wasn’t any relativism at all.

There were problems with it, of course. It was very Euro-centric, it was unabashedly elitist, and mistakes or omissions could occur. Bach had to wait around half a century until Mendelssohn strolled into the picture and conducted and championed him. But that was part of the process—a correction that validated the essential strength of the system.

If you think that way, then anything you do is up against daunting competition. I’m not writing this as Marc, but as Marc seen against all literature in contrasting cultures and times. Shakespeare, Saki, Stegner are reading this and snorting over my shoulder; they’re also the lens through which you’re reading this.

Such a view leads you quite naturally into practice rooms, which will lead to competitions, and which will lead you—temperament and talent allowing—onto a concert stage in a room built for one purpose only, where a rigid social system rules. Try chatting with your partner during a Beethoven Symphony or the Well Tempered Clavier.

Ian’s world is not like that. At least I don’t think it is, in the two minutes of his music that I heard, or at least experienced. For one thing, it’s woven into other things—a bar or club scene where music is just a part of what’s going on. Nor do I think Ian has the long hand of history—musical or otherwise—breathing down his neck. I suspect what he values is the overall experience of it all—the scene, the music, the people, the altered consciousness produced by I-don’t-know-what.

The clip I heard was heavily percussive, which Ian had led me to expect; he courteously referred me to another composer working in his genre whom Ian though would be more pleasing to my aged ears. So I checked out Nicholas Jaar, a young Chilean / American, who claims as a musical influence Erik Satie, very much a heavy weight, but also a composer quite often borrowed into popular culture.

OK—and the music I heard?

Look, there has to be another term, another label invented. I don’t want to dismiss what Ian is into, what Ian is doing, what Ian values.

I also don’t want to call it music. My point is that Ian’s sounds are too radically different to be seen or heard in the same way that music is heard.

I started this post by saying that I wrote an email at 4:30 this morning. What if I had said that I had written a poem? We’d see it as two entirely different things. And it occurs to me, somehow we don’t make that distinction very well in sounds / music.

I’m now at a café, which has been playing The Beatles for several minutes. Of the two, I prefer Nicholas Jaar; I’ve always thought The Beatles were the most inane group of the last fifty years, though The Monkees do have a strong claim. And I am considering the English Mystical poets, principally because I ran into the Vaughan Williams clip below.

I knew nothing about George Herbert, not even roughly his dates. And it took several readings before I got, I thought, the poem below. And I’ve listened to the Vaughan Williams piece several times and found interesting things in it.

“Hey Jude” is now playing. Silence would be preferable. I’ve just found the clip of Hey Jude on YouTube—it has 19 million hits. The Vaughan Williams has less than 2000.

The question is—at least the way I see it—will anyone be listening to Hey Jude in 2113?

The answer?

No.  

Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life;

Such a Way as gives us breath,


Such a Truth as ends all strife,

Such a Life as killeth death.

Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength;


Such a Light as shows a Feast,


Such a Feast as mends in length,


Such a Strength as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart;


Such a Joy as none can move,


Such a Love as none can part,


Such a Heart as joys in love.

The Might of the Mitas

Well, for reasons that should be obvious to everybody, religion seems to be moving into my weekend.

The pope, for example, is infuriating traditionalists in the Catholic Church by washing the feet of two women last Thursday. And apparently people have been requesting that for years, and it’s been strictly forbidden, because it’s a slippery slope indeed. You remember—Jesus washed the apostles feet, and the apostles were all guys, and so therefore if the pope washes anything but male feet, it’s an instant and infinitesimal leap to the ordination of women.

What? You don’t see the logic of that! Well, heavens, anybody can see that!

The pope is something of a loose canon, it seems. For the moment, he’s saying “screw it”—or the pontifical equivalent thereof—to the papal apartments. He strolled through them—I saw it on CNN—shook his head, and all but tut-tutted. (Hmm, and I was sure I was gonna get a red squiggle there….).

Even worse, after all Ratzinger did to move the church right back to the 1950’s (or was it 1550’s?) what’s the new pope doing? Taking the bus to work; wearing white shoes, not the famous Prada red; and what about that Latin Mass, so dear to Ratzinger’s heart? Apparently, the new pope couldn’t give squat.

Yes, there’s every indication that this will be a dangerous pope. He’s got the right moves, he’s playing the media and the publicity machines as well as Rostropovich did a cello. What you won’t see, though, is any budge on doctrine. He’ll be a John Paul II—all charm on the outside, cold steel within.

Well, I was musing on all this yesterday, as the procession moved down the street. Each year it gets a little bit better, or at least tarted-up.  The Roman Centurions were wearing quite rich gowns, and the whips that they were using on the cross—unlike the Philippines, we reign in the sadism, here—weren’t visibly from the adult bookstore. The only thing that marred it was the music—if the liturgy is as bad as the music, post Vatican 2, I’ll cast my vote with Ratzinger on that score.

But the real dish, the big news is that yes, Aaron is the father of Samuel Beníquez.

This is a true Puerto Rican thing—the burning question of whether Aaron, who is the Holy Spirit, the Mita (new word for you, computer!) and who is also 91 years old is the worldly father of a guy named Samuel Beníquez.

“Well, of course he is,” exclaimed Mr. Fernández, when I questioned him on the subject. “Everybody knew he was, and anyway they just came out in court with DNA testing that proved it….”

OK—here’s the deal. In 1897, in a small town west of San Juan, a child named Juanita García Peraza was born. She had a sickly youth, and so she prayed—good child of two ardent evangelicals, of course she would—to God. She made the standard deal—heal me and I’ll serve you.

God, of course, came through right on call, and Juanita began preaching in her church. And she was a whiz—or must have been—because pretty soon she was pissing off the guys. So they told her to take a hike, and she did; in 1941 she started her own church, with eleven others. In 1947, she moved her church to the business district of San Juan.

Now then—having a church is one thing, but you also have to cook up a theology to string along with it. And here, with great Puerto Rican zest, Juanita let fly with a lovely, completely ridiculous piece of nonsense for which the adjective “errant” was utterly made.

Juanita, you see, is the Holy Spirit in its third manifestation. Yes, the first manifestation was Jehovah—definitely respectable—the second was Jesus—also no slouch!—and the third was Juanita, now to be renamed “Mita!”

I hear you, you infidels, sniggering out there—suggesting that the Holy Spirit may have let things slip just a bit, by choosing a lowly girl from Hatillo, Puerto Rico, as his or her or its next residence. For shame! Have you forgotten the lowly birth of one Jesus Christ!

Oh, and one other thing. Juanita, before moving to San Juan, is praying away one day, but wait—let me copy and paste from the church’s own website. They tell it better than I ever could….

Teófilo came from a family with scant economic resources. He liked commerce and sold everything he could buy or was given to sell, in order to help his parents. His father was a sugar-cane cutter and often when he went to work in the early hours of the morning, Teófilo would take him breakfast in the fields. In the afternoons, he worked with his father in the family's corn field, where he was assigned chores since his early years. As a child, he was an exemplary student; he loved his teachers and his teachers admired him. His conduct was blameless and he was punctual and responsible.

One day, some years later, while walking through Arecibo, Teófilo saw two ladies, and one of them, Juanita García Peraza, caught his attention because of her honest bearing. It was God's will that his parents should attend the same church that she attended. When Teófilo heard her speak, his soul vibrated, and even though he was only a child at the time, he understood that the awaited Christ was the one he heard through her. He felt an inexplicable bond to her and followed her everywhere she went.

During a visit Juanita made to Don Pedro and Doña Concepción, she said to Zion: "In your prayers you offered me your son and I have come to find what you promised me." Zion and Pedro realized they were indebted to God and from there on, Teíto, as he was affectionately called, without abandoning his love for his parents, dedicated his life to the Lord's service.

Teíto was in the habit of visiting sister Juanita García Peraza. During one of his visits, as he watched her pray, he knelt silently in a corner of the living-room so as not to interrupt her. Suddenly, the Lord's Holy Spirit entered Juanita took her out and, through her, searched for the ointment (which the Holy Spirit has always used to anoint His chosen instruments). The Lord's Holy Spirit addressed Teíto and, through sister Juanita, anointed him to the Lord's Ministry. Teíto's soul filled with joy. Later, the Lord's Holy Spirit changed Teíto's name to Aarón. Shortly thereafter, Aarón and his parents were part of the group of eleven who left the Pentecostal Church with the person of Mita. Despite the Minister's call for him not to follow Mita, because he realized that Aarón had great spiritual potential within the Pentecostal movement, Aarón categorically refused to stay, because he understood that he had to heed the Lord's call before that of another man.

Bíjte? as we say down here—you see?

Well, the devil prowls everywhere, and is it a surprise that when Mita died there were some who succumbed to the wickedness of suggesting that Aaron might not be the anointed one? Well, yeah, everybody knew about the affair he had had—the one that produced Samuel. Actually, says Mr. Fernández, the rumor is that he had two more children besides Samuel.

Mr. Fernández also may not entirely believe the version of the succession put out by the church’s website. Here it is, the lovely, true and teaching story:

Mita sowed in Aarón the seeds of all those qualities that a prophet must possess: integrity, firmness of character, disposition to sacrifice, courage to face trials, wisdom and divine discernment, temperance, benigness, kindness, charity and, above all, an immense love for souls. He learned every day; he had Mita to follow as an example.

Having been chosen before birth and having been anointed to be a Minister of the Kingdom of God, when Juanita García Peraza passed away, the Lord entrusted his People to Aaron, saying: "Care for my children and I shall reward you".

In 1970, when Juanita García Peraza passed away, Aaron courageously assumed the leadership of the Mita People. Under his leadership, there has been a great expansion of Mita's Work in Puerto Rico, the United States, the Dominican Republic, Canada, Curaçao, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador and Mexico. He has used all his energy and courage to the praise-worthy effort of taking this proclamation to far away lands. The Mita temples in Puerto Rico and abroad have been built under his leadership and supervision. He founded the Colegio Congregación Mita (Congregación Mita School), the El Paraíso Shelter and Institution, and the Office for Counseling and Social Assistance. He has faithfully fulfilled the prophesies of Mita, promoting the integral development of our People.

Wow—what a guy!

Mr. Fernández, his ear perhaps polluted by the filth the Devil has spilled into it, disputes this. So does the article in Wikipedia—perhaps a bit more balanced. What is known is that after Mita’s death, the whole church waited around three days for her to resurrect. Mita, however, chose the subtler strategy of incorporating into another body; the Holy Spirit has no need for cheap carnival tricks.

At any rate, the Mitas are as easy to spot as their church—which is a six-story affair with a temple accommodating 6000 people. The men dress in white, the women in long dresses, long hair, and utterly no make-up. Oh, and right—they don’t drink, smoke or gamble.

Well, I’m thrilled to report that the news that Aaron is after all the father of Samuel Beniquez has not dented an inch the faith of the mighty Mitas—a newspaper article states that they are more united than ever. I leave you with this last gem from the doctrine page of the website:

On Faith, the Mita Church believes the Lord's Holy Spirit is on earth, that His new name is Mita and that, through Aarón, He governs His Church and guides it through truth and justice towards salvation. The Mita Church is founded on the spiritual environment of human beings. It is the continuation of the Primitive Church of the Apostles and Prophets that performs a work of good, acts on faith and is uplifting. By this means, God extended to the human beings the opportunity to attain what their lack of faith makes inaccessible: salvation and a full life in complete communion with the Creator. Such a life knows no limits because it is guided by the Lord's Holy Spirit.

See? When you have that on your side, what’s an out-of-wedlock child or two?