Category Archives: Philosophy
Wind-Blown Notes: Rush’s Grace Under Pressure
My favorite Rush album has been, at least going back to April 1984, Grace Under Pressure. I realize that among Rush fans and among prog fans, this might serve as a contentious choice. My praise of GUP is not in any way meant to denigrate any other Rush albums. Frankly, I love them all. Rush has offered us an outrageous wealth of blessings, and I won’t even pretend objectivity.
I love Rush. I love Grace Under Pressure.
I still remember opening Grace Under Pressure for the first time. Gently knifing the cellophane so as not to crease the cardboard, slowly pulling out the vinyl wrapped in a paper sleeve, the hues of gray, pink, blue, and granite and that egg caught in a vicegrip, the distinctive smell of a brand new album. . . . the crackle as the needle hit . . . .
I was sixteen.
From the opening wind-blown notes, sound effects, and men, I was hooked, completely. I had loved Moving Pictures and Signals–each giving me great comfort personally, perhaps even saving my life during some pretty horrific junior high and early high school moments.
But this Grace Under Pressure. This was something else.
If Moving Pictures and Signals taught me to be myself and pursue excellence, Grace Under Pressure taught me that once I knew myself, I had the high duty to go into the world and fight for what’s good and right, no matter the cost. At sixteen, I desperately needed to believe that, and I thank God that Peart provided that lesson. There are so many other lessons a young energetic boy could have picked up from the rather fragile culture of the time and the incredibly dysfunctional home in which I was raised. With Grace Under Pressure, though, I was certainly ready to follow Peart into Hell and back for the right cause. Peart certainly became one of the most foundational influences on my life, along with other authors I was reading at the time, such as Orwell and Bradbury.
Though I’m sure that Peart did not intend for the album to have any kind of overriding story such as the first sides of 2112 or Hemispheres had told, GUP holds together as a concept album brilliantly.
The opening calls to us: beware! Wake up! Shake off your slumbers! The world is near its doom.
Or so it seems.
Geddy’s voice, strong with anxiety, begins: “An ill wind comes arising. . .” In the pressures of chaos, Pearts suggests, we so easily see the world fall apart, ourselves not only caught in the maelstrom, but possibly aggravating it. “Red Alert” ends with possibly the most desperate cry of the Old Testament: “Absalom, Absalom!” Certainly, there is no hope merely in the self. Again, so it seems.
The second song, gut wrenching to the extreme, deals with the loss of a person, his imprint is all that remains after bodily removed from this existence. Yet, despite the topic, there is more hope in this song than in the first. Despite loss, memory allows life to continue, to “feel the way you would.” I had recently lost my maternal grandfather–the finest man I ever knew–before first hearing this album. His image will always be my “Afterimage.”
It seems, though, that more than one have died. The third song takes us to the inside of a prison camp. Whether a Holocaust camp or a Gulag, it’s unclear. Frankly, it’s probably not important if the owners of the camp are Communists or Fascists. Either way, those inside are most likely doomed. Not only had I been reading lots of dystopian literature in 1984 (appropriate, I suppose, given the date), but I was reading everything I could find by and about Solzhenitzyn. This made the Gulag even more real and more terrifying.
Just when the brooding might become unbearable, the three men of Rush seem to offer a Gothic, not quite hellish, smile as the fourth song, “The Enemy Within” begins. Part One of “Fear,” the fourth track offers a psychological insight into the paranoia of a person. Perhaps we should first look at our own problems before we place them whole cloth upon the world.
Pick needle up, turn album over, clean with dust sponge, and drop needle. . . .
Funk. Sci-fi funk emerges after the needle has crackled and founds its groove. A robot has escaped, perhaps yearning for or even having attained sentience. I could never count how many hours of conversation these lyrics prompted, as Kevin McCormick and I discussed the nature of free will. It’s the stuff of Philip K. Dick, the liberal arts, and the best of theology.
More bass funk for track six and a return to psychological introspection, “Kid Gloves.” But, we move out quickly into the larger world again with the seventh track, “Red Lenses,” taking the listener back to the themes of paranoia. When the man emerges for action, will he do so in reaction to the personal pain he has experienced, or will he do so with an objective truth set to enliven the common good?
In the end, this is the choice for those who do not lose themselves to the cathode rays. Is man fighting for what should be or he is reacting merely to what has happened, “to live between a rock and a hardplace.”
Unlike the previous albums which end with narrative certainty, Grace Under Pressure leaves the listener with more questions than it does answers, though tellingly it harkens to Hemingway and to T.S. Eliot.
Given the album as a whole, one might take this as Stoic resignation–merely accepting the flaws of the world. “Can you spare another war? Another waste land?”
Wheels can take you around
Wheels can cut you down. . . .
We’ve all got to try and fill the void.
But, this doesn’t fit Peart. We all know whatever blows life dealt Peart, he stood back up, practiced twenty times harder, and read 20 more books. That man did not go down for long. And, neither should we.
In the spring of 1987, much to my surprise, one of my humanities professors allowed me to write on the ideas of Peart. I can no longer find that essay (swallowed up and now painfully lonely on some primitive MacPlus harddrive or 3.5 floppy disk most likely rotting in a landfill in central Kansas), but it was the kind of writing and thinking that opened up whole new worlds to me. My only quotes were from “Grace Under Pressure,” drawing a distinction between nature of the liberal arts and the loss of humanity through the mechanizing of the human person. It dealt, understandably, with environmental and cultural degradation, the dangers of conformist thinking, and the brutal inhumanity of ideologies. It was probably the smartest thing I’d written up to that point in my life, and even my professor liked it.
Of course, the ideas were all Peart’s, and I once again fondly imagined him as that really great older brother–the one who knows what an annoying pain I am, but who sees promise in me anyway, giving me just enough space to find my own way.
I’m fifty seven, and I still want Neil to have been my older brother.
And, if you want more on Rush, here’s my book on Neil Peart at amazon.com.
The Citadel of Fear – Classic Dark Fantasy
Francis Stevens is the pen name of Gertrude Barrows Bennett. The Citadel of Fear was her first and most famous novel, published in 1918. It features a “lost city” in Central America, along the lines of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. However, where the main threats in Doyle’s adventure were dinosaurs, Stevens’ tale features a lost civilization – the ancient city of Tlapallan – which is inhabited by peoples who still practice human sacrifice and worship the ancient Aztec gods.
You can read the rest of my review here.
Dave Kerzner’s New Lamb/IT
I’ve been into music—mostly progressive rock and jazz—for as long as I can remember. As I’ve mentioned before, my first love was YESSONGS—owned by two older brothers. I loved everything about it—the music, the lyrics, the art. It also just seemed like a super science-fiction project to my very young mind. I would’ve been six when YESSONGS came out.
After Yes, my second loves were Kansas and then Genesis. I encountered Kansas in 1975, sometime around age 8. In fact, living in Kansas, there was no escaping Kansas. Americans don’t often realize it, but Kansans are as proud of being Kansans and their fellow Kansans as Texans are about being Texan; they’re just not loud about it. So, yes, we lived and breathed LEFTOVERTURE and POINT OF NO RETURN.
Genesis, though, didn’t come to me until about 1978, me aged 10, when I fell in love with “Follow You, Follow Me” and purchased AND THEN THERE WERE THREE. That was one of the first albums I ever bought. Followed by DUKE, by ABACAB, by GENESIS. From there, worked backward to TRICK OF THE TALE and WIND AND WUTHERING and, especially, SECONDS OUT. I loved SECONDS OUT. I even had video recorded—through the USA Network—a concert from the SECONDS OUT period with Bill Bruford on drums.
I also really liked Peter Gabriel—especially SECURITY—but for some reason I was reluctant to take a deep dive into Gabriel-era Genesis. Honestly, I have no idea why, except that I so admired the Phil Collins period—especially TRICK and WIND.
I love the Peter Gabrel era of Genesis so much now, however, that I can barely remember a time when I didn’t love them.
So, right before I went to college (fall of 1986), I bought LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY. To state that my mind was boggled, would be an understatement. I knew “Carpet Crawlers” of course, but to listen to it in context truly floored me. At the time (remember, I was 18), I thought Lamb was either the greatest statement of prog ever written or a statement of chaos and madness. Either way, I wasn’t surprised that Gabriel chose to leave after making the album. Clearly, the album means something profound and deep in the history of prog.
It’s a strange album lyrically, as a young Puerto Rican male wants to escape from the corporate conformity imposed at every level of his life. Ah, you “progressive hypocrites.”
When Kevin McCormick—one of my all-time closest friends, a professional classical guitarist, a key contributor to this website—and I first talked Genesis (this would’ve been the fall of 1986), I expressed my love of Lamb, and he thought I was crazy. Only a true Genesis weirdo would like LAMB, just as only a true Yes weirdo would like TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS. It was a funny conversation. Kevin, it should be noted, was the first friend I had who could talk music as much as I could. A high school friend, Joel, came close, but Joel was mostly into college rock and alternative music, not rock or prog. So, his opinion (or, given LAMB, his anti-opinion) really meant a great deal to me. Still, I continued to love LAMB as an act of mad genius.
Jump forward fifty years. . . and the mighty and awesome Dave Kerzner has recreated and recorded a brand new version of LAMB simply called IT. If you don’t know the work of Kerzner, you really should. He’s the great touchstone or fountainhead of our era’s (third wave or beyond) progressive rock. From Sound of Contact, through his solo work (NEW WORLD DELUXE and STATIC), through his work with In Continuum, Kerzner is a genius. He knows how to write the best lyrics, and he also knows how to write the best hooks. But, there’s one thing about Kerzner that often doesn’t get recognized. He’s a perfectionist, an audiophile at the level of Steven Wilson. Don’t get me wrong, Steven Wilson has one of the best ears out there. But, Kerzner’s is equally good.
He just gets sound.
As far as I knew there’s nothing that Kerzner has released that I don’t proudly own. So, when I heard he was remaking LAMB, I was absolutely thrilled. And, there’s nothing about Kerzner’s version that doesn’t satisfy me. From his production to its use of real strings, it’s a glorious masterpiece, so very worthy of its now-fifty-year old original. Kerzner is exactly a year younger than me, and while I don’t know him, I wouldn’t be shocked if he and I encountered the album in much the same way.
In every way, Kerzner has done justice to LAMB. For 1975, it was immaculately produced, but that simply can’t compare to the immaculate production of 2025. IT—Kerzner’s version—replicates the entire album, again always advancing the production, especially with live orchestration. Additionally, Kerzner offers a third disc with alternative versions of the classic tracks.
Even the band of IT is an all-star cast of current prog royalty: Kerzner, Francis Dunnery, Nick D’Virgilio, Fernando Perdomo, Billy Sherwood, and special guests.
Spirit of Cecilia readers, it just doesn’t get better than this. Whether it’s genius or madness, who can say? Except to note, there’s always a bit of madness in all genius, and a bit of genius in all madness. LAMB/IT is smack-dab in the center. Since Kerzner first sent me the tracks via Bandcamp, I’ve been listening obsessively. That obsession—part madness and part genius—will continue for sometime, especially as we approach the end of the semester and with finals starting to loom larger. . . .
To order IT, please click here.
LIVES OF FIRST WORLD WAR (THOMAS MUNRO SR)
BARD OF SCOTLAND ; poet for all Mankind
By Richard K. Munro
Yes, there was a lad born in Ayr: Robert Burns.
To go to that rude cottage of Ayr the birthplace of Burns so near the Brig o’ Doon, is to experience a secular epiphany as to the essential equality of all humanity.
It is to experience awe at the true mystery of talent and genius. It is an affirmation at what secret treasures can be found hidden anywhere among any class, gender or race IF individuals are given a proper upbringing and decent education and chance to develop, discover and explore their God-given gifts.
As Burns’ father knew it is hard to be poor . At the age of 19 Burns’ father was a homeless migrant farm laborer but he was proud he could read, write and cipher and always carried the Old Book with him.
But Agnes Brown (Mrs. Burns) and her husband kept their entire family of seven under one roof and surrounded the children’s lives with care and tender love. Both mother and father displayed a piety that was neither excessive nor harsh, unlike the extreme Calvinism that was the mode of the established clergy of his time. In Burn’s house, physical labor was incessant, food and fuel were scarce. However, education and religion were not neglected; they were held rather by the Burns family as an essential, sacred duty.
And Mrs Burns “sang so sweet” Rab oft “couldna” sleep as she crooned “the Auld Scots sangs” to him.
Burns had no shame of his very humble origin:
From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings
An honest man’s the noblest work of God.
WORD STUDY EDUCATION
| WORD ORIGIN ETYMOLOGY –CIRCLE or ??? if UNKNOWN | Anglo-Saxon Or Germanic Or Other (unknown) | Latin (French or Romance) | Greek |
| Put word in correct category then list SYNONYMS if possible | School “lore”* house (originally Lat/Gr) (Grammar school/primary school) Or elementary school –k-6) SYNONYM | College SYNONYM | #1Academy* SYNONYM |
| DEFINITIONS/nuances Translations below (optional) | k-12 education escuela | 1)a school for special instruction such as the military academies. academia | |
| 2)all colleges and universities in general | 2) in France or Spain an secondary school NOT supported by the state. Public schools are called lycée “ lyceum” could be a place where public lectures are presented | 2) secondary school esp. a private one | |
| 3)a group of people, esp. writers,philosophers,artists Whose thought,work or style demonstrates a common origin,belief or influence. | politics/religion; Electoral College /College of Cardinals | 3) can mean university life or higher education in general “academe”* | |
| ***4) a shoal or large group of aquatic animals swimming together : *“a school of fish” GRUPO/BANCO | The Lyceum of Aristotle | Plato’s Academy | |
| IDIOMS | There are several schools of thought on this issue Sobre este tema hay varias Corrientes de opinión | ||
| Spelling problem , USUAGE QUESTION or FALSE COGNATE? | Often translated as ‘colegio’ Escuela primaria | Liceo/instituto=high school escuela secundaria |
The biggest challenge I will face in the next six months.
By Richard K Munro
I am 69 and in reasonable health but recently I hurt my back and leg and for the first time in my life I have difficulty in walking. (I can walk with a cane but some days are better than others). So I went to the doctor and he recommended Physical Therapy which I have started. I have six more weeks of Physical Therapy (thank God for Anthem Blue Cross insurance. The prognosis is good but I am a little anxious. I don’t want to be in a wheelchair or use a walker quite yet! I want to get back to long walks an swimming in the pool this summer! So the biggest challenge is getting back on my feet!
Daily writing prompt
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
Don’t QUIT ! THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFORT
By Richard K Munro
No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages
1) Cervantes was 58 when he wrote Part I of Don Quixote
2) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
3) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5.
4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. One of the poignant things about her diary is the promise she showed at so young an age. She symbolizes many thousands who lost their lives prematurely and so their contributions to humanity were wiped out.
5) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28
18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world
19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter
20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean
23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream.”
24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics
25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world’s first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight
26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions.
27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon.
28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, and 49 years old when he wrote “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas
93% of Workplace deaths….
by Richard K Munro
Who is MUCH more likely to die on the job? A woman? Or a man?
FACT: 93% of workplace deaths are to men. Why?
Because men take the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs and work the longest hours to make as much money as they can while they can. I know because it was what I did. I could have been in those workplace death certificates. I did some dirty and dangerous jobs.
They say your 20s are the best time of your life but for me, there were years of frustration and suffering and separation from loved ones. But I just stoically carried on. Getting your first full-time job is sometimes very difficult. People are surprised but I would say in my early life I was turned down for every job I applied for. I was too qualified or not qualified enough. It was humiliating and a chastening experience. So I left home and went West. I told my mother I would keep going until I got a full-time job and if I had to go to Alaska or Australia, I would do that. I ended up in Washington State and later California. But by following the economic magnet and moving where there were SOME job openings I got work and for over forty years I always worked. It was hard to leave home (essentially never returned) but working felt a lot better.
After I left the service I had very little money (a few thousand dollars) and an old Chrysler (free and clear). I worked in construction for five years. I started by unloading rail cars $6 an hour I recall (then stacking over 1000 bags of Owens-Corning fiberglass insulation); then I dug trenches under a place called Yesler Terrace with an e-tool.
The first day my partner and I got ZERO PAY. That’s right ZERO pay.
We were paid by the square foot of insulation installed.
But we worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday and finished the job (a job no one else wanted). Monday morning at 5AM we got another job.
And we gained the respect of the foreman (a tough ex-Marine) because we did not complain. We knew the job had to be done and we knew the terms of the contract.
We also knew it was no good to complain; to get more work you had to finish the job you were on satisfactorily. Even the guy I was with was surprised but I told him hauling loads and digging in the dirt was nothing new to me. In fact, the quiet of the Yesler Terrace underfloor was almost soothing compared to the noise and explosions of Marine Corps maneuvers.
We crawled into a little entrance with a long series of extension cords and a light. The kid I was with said to me, “what if there is an earthquake?”
And I told him, “Kid, if there is an earthquake we are dead and they will never find our bodies. But you can’t live forever. Let’s dig and get out of here as soon as possible. We can do this job if we work 10 hours a day.”
We finished Sunday evening about 6PM. We spent most of three days in the semi-darkness digging and then stocking (with tubes of insulation -Certainteed was the only thing we could fit in the trench) then installing the batts. It was a huge job. I think we made about $2 an hour. Piece work in construction or farm labor is the low end of the job market.
Above us were lounging welfare families. The kid asked me what I thought of them and I said,
“I feel sorry for them; they don’t know the pride and dignity of work. Anyone can run away. Anyone can be AWOL but its the man who stays and does the job who can be proud. If you work you get ahead; if you sweat you get; things at rest remain at rest. If you stay here with them you will be miserable and ashamed your whole life. Kid, get a job do a job. Be reliable and on time. Get what education you can and finish whatever level you start. High school, Certificate programs. Don’t have any kids until you are married and when you are married stay married. You may not get rich but you will never be poor if you are lucky enough to stay healthy. Quien joven no trabaja viejo duerme sobre paja……work when you are young so you are not homeless when you are old.”
I never got rich but I have a roof over my head, money in the bank and money coming in.
And it all started because I wasn’t afraid of dirty and dangerous jobs. I had a family to support and it was what I had to do. I still have the scars from those years. But later on, I really appreciated paid vacations, benefits and a regular hourly wage.
Spirit of Cecilia 
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