dannydmc

You know, its funny; I've lived my life long enough to realize that my interests and moods have a tendency of running in cycles. Cycles strong enough that I can tell you, with some certanty, what my interests will be at a certain time, up to a year in advance. This isn't exact, of course, but there are general trends. October, for instance, is usually the start of my spiritual mood which lasts up until Christmas were I do a lot of reading on mythology and religions, and become much more introverted. In January I usually turn to psychology and begin analyzing myself and so forth. March....well, March seems to be a bit odd.
This is a round about way of introducing the topic of today's blog; I've fallen into one of my morbid moods again. I do this periodically, and have since I was a young child, but I've only now begun to notice that it seems to happen at certain times of the year. Whats more, is that this morbidity is not of the usual variety, but seems to be tied into the spring season, of all things; also, I always have a tendency of slipping into it unawares.
This year it began when I suddenly rediscovered my old love of folk music and ballads. For those of you who are not into this area, you might be suprised. After all, the general conception of Folk Music is tied up pretty strongly to the 60's and the counter-culture. Most seem to believe that folk music is tied to either protest songs or songs about peace. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I was searching iTunes last week when I came upon an old singer, Jean RItchie and am album of old ballads she had sang. Figuring it was only 10 dollars and that I hadn't bought any music in several days, I decided to go ahead and give the CD a try. I haven't been able to decide if this was a mistake or not. After listening to the first two songs I stood transfixed and the old fire was burning inside of me again; my students have since become sick of hearing this album playing in the background during free reading time or, for that matter, any time I can get away with playing it.
I love this music; the pure oldness of it excites me in a way which few other things can. It taps deeply into my love of history, folklore, mythology and nearly all of the other interests which I have. Unfortunately, as I said, it is also deeply morbid music; much of it songs about doomed lovers, doomed warriors and more, if someone if doomed, there is a folk ballad about it, I'm sure.
Naturally, in my curiosity, I decided to do more research and learn as much as I can about this music; or, at least, refresh what I already knew. This has lead me on a path, lately, which has caused me to now know much more than I needed to about medeval seriel killers, dark folklore and even werewolves (don't ask). Whats worse is that my normal tendency, when I become interested in something, is to talk about it; this is much harder when your interests take this route. At the very best if you spend all of your time talking about Lord De Rhys, werewolf sightings in France, or the constant death of many a lover, people are going to think you are odd. At worst, they begin to call for the men in the white jackets to take you away. This is all the more true if you happen to be a teacher; I highly doubt my students' parents would take kindly to me discussing with my class a song which involved the following lyrics "And he cut off the head of his bonny brown-haired bride/ and kicked it across the floor". Yep, man, thats DARK!
On the bright side, and there is always a bright side, my recent meanderings have given me a good idea for a novel to write once my epic poem is done; a werewolf stalks a small Northern Wisconsin town. The different avenues that that story could go down and endless and its an exciting thought; I just hope that, if I do write and publish it, that it doesn't damn my chances of getting elected someday