LETTERS FROM THE ROAD: Chris Velan
Guest post this week from a new fave artist (who I can’t shut up about) Chris Velan. AND… he’s Canadian 
:
Dear Frozen Winter Lake (a.k.a. Lac Mercier),
While you’re out there in the dark, crusted over with ice and snow, I’m in this warm lake chalet, cheered on by the requisite crackly fireplace. In this part of the world (the Laurentian mountains in Quebec), at this time of year, weather is everything and right now it’s a reasonable -5 on the Celcius tip (multiply by 9⁄5 and add 32 if you live in the US or Belize). I can’t help it, though, I really can’t. It’s what IS right now. It’s the is-ness of the situation.
I half-wish that I could be writing from the road with touring stories from towns named after Spanish saints. That will come later on in April when the great thaw begins and I head out to peddle my music. But for the moment, it’s just you and me — You with your (unheard but felt) Darth Vadar mouth-breathing in that unsettling primordial silence and me tippitytapping away, personifying inanimate objects such as lakes.
I chose an autumn-blooming plant called, Solidago, as the title for my latest album after leafing through an old faded book on horticulture. The plant’s more well-known name, “Goldenrod”, sounded like a porn take on a James Bond film so I opted for its Latin counterpart — which really jumped out from the page at me and captured my imagination anyway. The title (for the album) is a nod to this sense I’ve always had of myself as being a hard way learner in the more abstract lessons of life. There was something in the name that I found reassuring and calming — maybe it was the “solid”. Whatever it was, the name stuck and I kept it as a sort of gentle reminder that there is a place in this world for those who are slow to come around to their own truth — and that not all who wander are lost. I have since learned other things about the album’s namesake. It has healing qualities (it’s traditional kidney tonic) and produces dark strong honey (I love honey something fierce). It’s the state flower of Kentucky and Nebraska. And Thomas Edison experimented with it as a natural domestic source of rubber prior to the invention of synthetic rubber in WWII (apparently, Henry Ford gave him a Model T with Solidago tires). No shit.
Why do I even bring up the subject of a late-blooming plant? I guess it’s because I feel a little like you right now, Frozen Winter Lake. There’s all kinds of unseen activity percolating below your unmoving surface. But when that warm spring weather melts away your ice, it’s also going to heat you up and mix your thermoclines, raising life from your depths. That’s what I’m waiting for. And though I may need some time to get my bees together, come late summer I expect to be in full bloom.
Chris
Tags: Chris Velan, CUT THROUGH THE NOISE, KATE BRADLEY, LETTERS FROM THE ROAD, OUTLANDOS MUSIC —
2/2/09
Categories: CUT THROUGH THE NOISE • KATE BRADLEY • LETTERS FROM THE ROAD • OUTLANDOS MUSIC
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