Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…(The Raven, 1845)

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.

 – Edgar Allan Poe

Hi All,

Hope everyone is well and leaning into the shift of the seasons. We’re in that weird place where the pants that worked at 8am no longer do at 3 in the afternoon. With the shift, I can feel the Stereophile cycle winding down. The experience since its release in February has been a lot of things. Mostly, it’s been a means to connect with people in real time. Whereas in the past I’ve used my records/writing substantially as a means to professionally promote myself and the work, this time I’ve done very little of that. Some of you lovelies bought the record and book hot off the press. You da best. Since then, I’ve given a bunch of books away to folks I meet here and there. It’s been a means to communicate and exchange.

Grip the Raven is the second track on the record. Inspired one snowy Sunday morning while sitting in the window at the local. I’d just before writing the song come across the story online of Edgar Allan Poe’s pet raven, Grip. The bird was Poe’s companion, never far from the author. After Grip’s demise, Poe had him stuffed. Bought privately at an estate auction after Poe’s death in 1870, Grip now lives at the Free Library in Philadelphia. Fitting he should end up among the books as his permanent place of rest.

While the black bird makes an appearance in Grip the Raven’s chorus, the song, like all my songs, is about a bunch of other stuff. Layered along with the namesake are all of the things happening in my life at the time. The observations, the sifting, the love, grief, rage, care and tenderness any sufficiently sane human might feel, magnified through the lens of a sensitive musical soul.

Speaking of magnifying lenses (groan), I’m currently reading The Uncollected Sherlock Holmes. It’s a gathering of speeches and writings (including letters to his dear Mum about his pains around killing off the great detective), where Doyle waxes about his Sherlockian experience. The book is peppered with outside info around the publications of the books, woven into Doyle’s musings about the creations as they happened. For any Sir Arthur nerd, it’s a really, really great read. In it, I discovered that Doyle touts Edgar Allan Poe as the master of the modern detective story and cites him as a major inspiration…

~ Random Sidebar and Second Magnifying Glass Reference: I’m writing this on a Saturday in early September, sitting in the window at the same local that Grip the Raven was penned in. It was cloudy this morning. Now, the sun has come out and is slow-cooking my person through the glass. When fall arrives, the earth’s axis sits differently and the early afternoon sun comes mercilessly into this particular spot, incinerating anyone caught unawares like so many ants. End of Random Sidebar ~

Having read about Doyle being a fanboy of Poe, I did some digging. I found out that The Murders In The Rue Morgue (1841) is the first story to feature the OG sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin. I logged into my Toronto Public Library account stat and had the book sent to my branch. I’ve yet to tuck into it. I’m working on finishing The Uncollected Sherlock before getting started. I don’t know if I can hold out til then, but, so far, so good.

Grip the Raven is one of my favourites on Stereophile. It’s one of those that turned out sounding like it did in my head when it was written those many moons ago. It was also a first crack at arranging strings. The celli move the song along like a drumbeat, rumbling underneath the singer/songwriter as the tune moves through. The mood is on.

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Here’s to music. Here’s to Arthur and Edgar. Here’s to the matchless literature of the Victorian age. Most of all here’s to me finishing this blog before I become the desiccated remains of my former self while sitting in this damned window.

As always, thanks for coming along…

K. xo