just GO!!! [was:] [F_minor] autobiographical statement (source?)

["Robert Merkin" <bobmerk@earthlink.net>]

But have you ridden GG's "Idea of North" train from Winnipeg to Churchill?

In each direction, two and a half days through one of the world's most vast
virgin wildernesses. Endless forest until finally the train passes through
a dwarf evergreen forest that's waist-high, that you can look down on --
and then finishes its route in stark treeless tundra.

But for the track itself -- the most excellent scar on the land, a modest,
focused scar we can take pride in for all it shows us and how little harm
it does to the wilderness --  wherever you look, almost no sign that a
human being has ever been there. But lots of rare and remarkable things --
with eyes and minds -- will watch you pass by, and you will see them, or,
at night, their glowing eyes.

On this thrilling, rugged (yet quite sufficiently comfie, even cozy)
circa-1955 train, there's no firewall of segregation between Tourist and
Local, particularly in the packed dining car. You'll practically be sitting
in the laps of Swampy Cree and Inuit, or vice-versa, and meeting the
Canadian Euros who chose to dwell here. The conversations you will have,
the things you will learn. 

Bring stories to tell in return for theirs; they are as curious about you
and your life as you are about them; this is the social currency on this
adventure.

No amount of scholarship, no amount of reading, no amount of listening can
approach the intimacy with Glenn Gould and the things that so moved him as
a trip on this train. It's easy to make piligrimage to Toronto and
understand why he embraced it. Let GG be your tour guide to show you what
he loved about The Canadian North.

In Churchill I met a married pair of schoolteachers who told me the
wilderness teaching job was public-service payback for their college
tuition. I asked how long they'd been in Churchill. Thirteen years. They
owed the government two.

GG's spirit will sit next to you late at night on the train in any season,
but the most famous moment to travel to Churchill is the cusp of
October/November, when polar bears, waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze so
they can hunt seals, migrate through town. For a few days, you'll be Less
Than Number One on the Food Chain, so Nikes are more sensible footgear than
boots. If you want to book train and hotel for polar bear season, don't
tarry; the train is jammed with tourists from around the world.

On this List we push CDs and DVDs and books on each other routinely, but if
I could twist your GG-loving arms for just one thing, it would be this
amazing adventure. I urge everyone to consider it seriously.

The train is always in peril of being discontinued. Though it's the
lifeline of the locals, the affordable transportation spine that connects
them over vast distances with weddings and funerals, school and jobs in the
southern cities, hard economic and harsh political times could pull the
plug on the train with little warning.

Go ahead, let the train tempt you a little and infect your imagination:
http://www.viarail.ca/trains/en_trai_prai_wich.html

You can fly to Churchill. 

But why?

And now a new and miserable peril, the documented drownings of polar bears
as distances increase between the ice masses they must swim to as they hunt
seals. My wonderful "Idea of North" adventure -- my camera lens was a meter
from polar bear snouts -- will not be available forever.

If I haven't bored you enough about the greatest thrill of my travels,
here's more:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030707191541/users.rcn.com/bobmer.javanet/xform
.htm#churchi

Just Go! Ride the train to Hudson Bay with Glenn Gould!

Bob Merkin
Massachusetts USA

P.S. In surfing around for this post, up popped a most interesting review
of "A Quiet in the Land" by some dude named Bradley Lehman: 

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/QITL.htm

> [Original Message]
> From: junichi miyazawa at walkingtune <walkingtune@bigfoot.com>
> To: <f_minor@email.rutgers.edu>
> Date: 4/3/2007 6:44:58 PM
> Subject: [F_minor] autobiographical statement (source?)
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I am now working for a new Japanese edition
> of _Glenn Gould, Music and Mind_ 
> by the late Geoffrey Payzant,
> and checking the content.
>
> I am looking for the souce of the following passage:
>
> "In 1975 he [Glenn Gould] volunteered the information that 
> _The Solitude Trilogy_ is an autobiographical statement, 
> or at least that it is as close to an autobiographical 
> statement as he expects ever to come on radio."
> Geoffrey Payzant, _Glenn Gould, Music and Mind_ 
> (Toronto: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1978), p.139 (footnote).
>
> There is no note for the footnote by Payzant, 
> so the 1975 source where GG claimed that
> his _Solitude Trilogy_ was autobiographical 
> cannot be identified.
>
> Gould's texts published in 1975 are:
> "Glenn Gould Talks Back"(_Toronto Star_ Feb.15, 1975)
> "Krenek,...Ernst Who?."(Toronto _Globe and Mail_, July 19, 1975)
> "The Grass Is Always Greener in the Outtakes"
> (High Fidelity, 25, August 1975).
>
> I don't find any related passages in these texts.
>
> Perhaps an article written in 1975 by someone else quoted
> Gould's comment.  Does anyone of you happen to know?
>
> As far as I know, the following discourse shows
> that the documentaries are autobiographical:
>
> "g.g.: [...] After all, you did create "The Idea of North" 
> as a metaphoric  comment and not as a factual documentary.
> G.G.: That's quite true. Of course, most of the documentaries 
> have dealt with  isolated situations--Arctic outposts, 
> Newfoundland outposts, Menno- nite enclaves, and so on.  
> g.g.:Yes, but they've dealt with a community in isolation.
> G.G.: That's because my magnum opus is still several 
> drawing boards away.  
> g.g.: So they are autobiographical drafts?
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> G.G.: That, sir, is not for me to say."
> "Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould,"
> in Tim Page, ed., _The Glenn Gould Reader_ 
> (New York: Knopf, 1983), pp.325-6.
>
> Do you think _this_ is the very source for the reference?
> It appeared in _High Fidelity_ vol.24, no.2 (February 1974),
> and, in fact, Payzant make a reference to the same text
> in the book.
>
> So, if any one of you identify the source of
> Payzant's reference on Gould's "biographical statement,"
> please let me know.  I would be grateful.
> Thank you in advance.
>
> Regards,
> Junichi
>
> P.S. Recently, I took a Ph.D. on my Gould studies 
> at the University of Tokyo.
> Thank you for all the f_minor people who helped me
> to understand Gouldian texts and share various ideas.
>
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
> Junichi Miyazawa, Tokyo
> http://www.walkingtune.com
> * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *



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