March 1st 2010    Tim Candler

    "Rabbit, Rabbit,"  inoculates against the sincerity of the Easter season, as does chocolate.   And though they are very delicious, spare a thought for lambs.   An analogy of an innocence slaughtered to reaffirm the commitment of a forgiving deity.   Oddly for me that deity currently is having breakfast.  Soon he or she will make the commute to work.  There will be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of us to process.

     In distant memory I see an ancient radio wired to a car battery.  It took a while for the valves to warm, longer to tune and sometimes sunspots or other adverse condition reduced the signal to a disappointing whistle.   Yet everyday at six in the evening this device would be hooked up and silence from little boys was expected, because the BBC was broadcasting world news.

     Probably while watching grown ups I first heard the expression United States and John Foster Dulles.   And probably it was while watching grown ups that I heard Sandy Nelson drumming.   And I think I recall reckoning upon these radiances emerging from somewhere South of us.  A greener place that had more rain, electricity and probably Elephants.  

    The BBC world News always began with 'Lilli Bolero'.   An Irish tune I have always been able to hum.   But in Sandy Nelson's drums I saw earth, and I could see him in my imagination dancing with a spear as the Teso could.   That kind of thing pours like a tear for long gone wishes.    It's those tunes that mark moments of chance.  And cynical I am these days when I hear the expression "our song", because then it becomes "itsy bitsy yellow polka dot bikini" and comprehension quickly vanishes.

     But maybe I could reduce "Socrates was right" to "Let There Be Drums."   This way I might join with a truer representation of those things which form a being that wants to belong.  Those little scratches of thought which identify the preconditions of empathy rather than of dominance, and how Nietzsche would sneer at me.

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