In the spirit of LOOSE, here is a new song that came knocking this past Monday. After you take a listen, keep reading to learn a little about the path I took to find it.
Oh, by the way … I challenge you to find a word that rhymes with “angel.” If you are having a hard time, let me suggest that we invent some rhyming words along with definitions, something like: strangel – an angel who makes you wonder who is handing out the wings.
Martin Shaw is a mythologist and storyteller who produces a podcast called The Smoke Hole Sessions. I have no idea how I came upon this podcast but was intrigued by the description of the first in the series. Shaw chose to lead off interviewing an Irish stand-up comic. At first glance, this seemed an odd choice.
I’m ambivalent about stand-up comedy and don’t follow the artform. I tire easily of the high-volume intensity of most comics, where crudeness can sometimes take the place of humor. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate well-placed vulgarity. I’m not a prude. What I like best about comedy is its ability to tell the hard truth lubricated by laughter so we can absorb it. I envy that talent in the best of comics.
Martin Shaw’s guest was Tommy Tiernan, a successful comedian with a rigorous touring schedule, a TV show and podcast. Martin Shaw is also a popular author, teacher and storyteller, so much of their conversation revolved around their common interest in the life of a performer. In the midst of Covid, all of us who perform have been thinking about the gift of performing before a live audience. I’m conflicted. I miss touring and yet I also value this solitary life.
The conversation between Shaw and Tiernan took a turn towards religion and spirituality when Tiernan quoted a philosopher, Moriarty who exclaimed, “I’ve hurt more people from my heights than from my depths.” That idea stopped me in my tracks, it rang so true. Tiernan went on to mention the Jerusalem Syndrome where “people visit the Holy Land and come back convinced they are Christ.” I began to like this guy and wanted to hear his comedy to see how he employed these ideas into his humor. (Warning, if cursing offends you, stay away). Here’s a sample of Tommy Tiernan with a routine called, “Irish Stories Make No Sense.”
Moriarty
But even more than a laugh, I wanted to find the mysterious Moriarty. It turns out I was looking for John Moriarty 1938-2007. He grew up in County Kerry, Ireland, a farmer’s son with an early love of language. He showed an unusual aptitude for study and made his way to university and then to Canada where he taught English literature. After a few years, he became disillusioned by the Western culture and knowledge that was once his passion. With the reality of social and environmental degradation, he resolved to start anew, learning from the air, the land, and the animals. Over the next years he reinvented himself with the same rigorous study he had developed as a scholar. He was a gardener. He wrote down his observations. He lived close to the earth. In an interview with RTE radio, he outlined his criteria for a life well-lived:
“When people ask me are you happy, I’d say that isn’t quite the question. The real question is, am I still growing? Have I become a finished creation? Am I dead or am I still growing? Is my life still an adventure, an adventure full of trouble, full of joy, full of pain, full of cataclysm? Am I still living dangerously? So am I still growing is the real question.”
At some point on his journey, he became lonely and wanted shelter. And by shelter he meant that he needed the wisdom and spiritual strength you can’t learn on your own. He moved as a live-in gardener to a Carmelite monastery in Oxford where he began study of the Christian mystics.
John Moriarty was an outsider but increasingly is being recognized as one of the great Irish thinkers of the 20th century. I’m grateful to have discovered him. This new song, “The Lonely Art” came soon after I heard him interviewed. And I have begun reading his autobiography, Nostos.
I would recommend you listen to recordings of Moriarty on YouTube. You might get stuck in his thick County Kerry accent and frequent mythological references which, as The Guardian says “could be dense and difficult, requiring a knowledge of myth and religion similar to his own, but there are so many passages of such intense and vibrant beauty, one can forgive such heavy going.” A good start is this RTE radio interview. Just listen and let his voice flow over you like music, music listened to with rapt intension, and I do mean rapt intension and attention.
The Lonely Art
Follow your nose, Follow your eyes
Follow the railing with your hand
Into the dark, it will help you down
Down onto bless-ed sands
It is the scent, the scent of truth
That takes you far into the wild
You’re on your own, you’re all alone
You’ve gone right back, you are a child
Chorus
Wing-ed angels, monsters lurking
Jet black night is all around
You keep on going, finding starlight
Keep the hope, you’ll find the dawn.
Let it go, just let it go
That old railing had its uses
You’re on the sand, its soft and smooth
And you can lose those old excuses
Except the ones that fear the truth
You cannot look straight in the eye
You may have time, or maybe not
There are some things you can’t defy
Chorus
Perhaps a gainful angel? Lovely song sung by a purely authentic voice. I enjoyed the idea of the scent of truth and following it into the wildness of childhood. I love stand-up comedy and I enjoyed Tommy Tiernan. I listen to certain routines over and over. Hannah Gadsby is a favorite, as is Tig Notaro and Kathleen Madigan.
How about pagal--a pagan angel!