Lands

Camping is different from backpacking in this: While camping, I had my banjo and a book to read. Which was good, because I wasn't spending the majority of the day's hours walking to the next place where I could sleep and find water. So I needed something to do.

I. Summerland

In my continuing effort to read his complete works, I brought along Michael Chabon's YA novel, Summerland. It's 500 pages, so I thought it would do for the four days. I forgot that it's a YA novel. After day one, I had to ration my consumption, finishing the night before we left.

It's not a great book -- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Mysteries of Pittsburgh are, as far as my reading has taken me, Chabon's best. It is, as one New York Times reviewer disparaged, "busy," but it is tons of fun, and the NYT reviewer must have some sort of axe to grind, because it does not deserve the kind of punishment that he gives it.

That said, you have to want it to all hang together. In a great book, it would all hang together on its own, but this lack makes sense to me; the book is about the power of stories, about "valorizing the mundane," as Denise Iris, my filmmaking professor says (about things in general, not about this book). It makes sense that, like fairies, the book's power will not become evident until you believe in it.

II. This Land

In How to Play the Five-String Banjo, Pete Seeger includes a chart for "This Land Is Your Land," the old Woody Guthrie favorite. More because it was easy than because I chose it, it became the first song I've played on the banjo. That said, it's a great first banjo tune for me: "As I went walking that ribbon of highway..." "I rolled and rambled / and I followed my footsteps..." it fits with this upcoming (traveling) stage of my summer.

"This Land..." is used as a patriotic anthem, so it's often forgotten that Woody was not always a big fan of American style capitalism/democracy. Consider this, my favorite verse:

There was a big high wall there, it tried to stop me / there was a sign there, sayin' "private property" / but on the other side, it didn't say nothin' / This land [or that side] was made for you and me.

There are, according to wikipedia two other "controversial" verses, both of which I love and hope to learn soon. Here they are:

Nobody living can ever stop me,

As I go walking that freedom highway;

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

This land was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

Your Help Needed:

1) I realize I'm using no consistent style for titles of movies, songs, books, etc. Any favorite styles out there anyone? MLA? APA? Chicago?

2) Seeger writes out this "This Land" in C, using C, F, and G7 chords. But the G7 sounds off to me. Anyone with music theory knowledge want to recommend a different chord? Or is my drummer's tin ear doing me in, and the G7 is fine?