From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V12 #429 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Thursday, March 21 2013 Volume 12 : Number 429 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill ["cvz" ] Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill ["Michael & Linda Marmer" ] RE: [RS] Final round ["Sue Maskaleris" ] Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill [Laurence Krulik ] Re: [RS] Indian Boulder [Laurence Krulik ] Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill ["cvz" ] [RS] Final Vote [Jim Thomann ] [RS] My Final Answer... [Carol Love ] Re: [RS] Which war? [Howie ] [RS] Last Song People [Bart Gallagher ] RE: [RS] Final round [susan koval ] Re: [RS] Which war? [Rongrittz ] Re: [RS] Casting RS Characters [Carol Love ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 07:44:17 -0400 From: "cvz" Subject: Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill Thanks Kevin and Bernadette. I believe your interpretations are correct. I don't think the name of the hill is that important to be taken so literally. It doesn't really matter who named it. It is important to the song though as an ambiguous name such as Piropo Hill certainly wouldn't clarify why she was there. At the beginning of the song she watches him -from RH- cross the valley so obviously it has an excellent view of a large expanse of land before the trees come into play. The husband vows to come back and this is an obvious place to watch for his return. Re: Indian boulder. I believe it helps set the time/place/mood. Perhaps it just looks like an indian head in shape? Carrie b'The problem with Internet quotations is that many are not genuine.bbAbraham Lincolnb - -----Original Message----- From: Kevin B. Pease Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2013 1:32 PM To: shindell-list@smoe.org Subject: Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill Here's my take on the naming of Reunion Hill: In a Civil War era setting, travel would have been largely on foot/horseback on the roads. And there would have probably been only a few major roads into & out of the town where the narrator lives, too. It's never struck me as that extraordinary that a hill overlooking the main road in & out of town might have acquired that nickname - it's the place where people would have had the best view of people approaching on the road, and the place where numerous "reunions" would have occurred as a result. In a modern setting, it would seem anachronistic or downright nonsensical - after all, you don't watch for your loved ones' return home on a hill overlooking the road anymore, you wait in Baggage Claim, or the Greyhound station, or the Amtrak station. Or you just wait for them to turn into your driveway. (Note that "Reunion Terminal B (International Arrivals)" would make a *terrible* tongue-twister of a song title.) In terms of how it acquired the name, consider that most of the adult male population of your town marching off to war would be a pretty damn significant event, and the return of the survivors would be, too - enough so that that hill might have acquired the nickname as a result of those events. I imagine the narrator waiting with a crowd on the hill, all excited to see their husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers finally returning home - and then I imagine the narrator searching in vain for her husband's face in the crowd of returning men. The hill's name would become, for her, a reminder of loss - the fact that the reunion she's been waiting for hasn't (and will never) come. But she keeps "haunting" Reunion Hill anyway, because it's the place where she last saw her husband as he left, and where some stubborn part of her refuses to accept that he's really gone - that if she keeps going back, someday he'll show up and it'll turn out to be some sort of giant mistake that kept him away so long. As far as "real places" with the name - a little messing on Google Maps turns up two roads named "Reunion Hill Lane," both in western North Carolina (Cheoah and Black Mountain). I'd guess that either there's a developer building homes down there who really likes Richard's music, and so is naming streets after his songs, or there actually are/were places named "Reunion Hill" that gave those lanes their names. (For what it's worth, my money's on the second - I doubt that those are the literal locations of the song, but I'd bet they acquired their names by virtue of offering the best view of people approaching the particular communities that named them.) Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:21:15 -0400 From: "Michael & Linda Marmer" Subject: Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill Lincoln used the internet? WOW, I had no idea. Mike b'The problem with Internet quotations is that many are not genuine.bbAbraham Lincolnb ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 09:55:24 +0000 From: Dave McKay Subject: Re: [RS] Casting RS Characters Carol wrote: > [Brits] play bad guys in Hollywood movies > because of the Revolutionary War. I'm pretty sure Sir Anthony didn't get the role of (Lithuanian) Hannibal Lecter because of George III. Nor Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons as Die Hard's (German) Gruber brothers! Still, at least the template of Brit=evil has been broken in recent years, even if we have to take on US accents to do it. Damian Lewis in Homeland; Andrew Lincoln in The Walking Dead; Stephen Moyer in True Blood; Hugh Laurie in House; Dominic West in The Wire. And most viewers assume they're American! Just yesterday we were watching White Collar, and FBI Agent Diana Berrigan prepared to go undercover as a British graduate of a Manchester university. Possibly remembering Anthony LaPaglia's appalling "Mancunian" accent as Daphne's brother in Frasier, my wife bristled. But then she was unaware Marsha Thomason is from Manchester! Dave. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 10:47:59 -0400 From: "Sue Maskaleris" Subject: RE: [RS] Final round Tough choice, both songs are so different. While I find Transit the more complex song, Reunion Hill is the one that grabs you by the heart and won't let go. I'll have to go with Reunion Hill, just because. BTW, I 've always interpreted that the name "Reunion Hill" predated the war in question, which makes their parting on that hill even more poignant, because a reunion, in their case, would never happen. Sue M ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 12:43:20 -0400 From: Laurence Krulik Subject: Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill When I was in college, the most popular bar and social venue was > located on Water Street...and the bar was flooded during my senior year and > had to be closed. (The "water" in the street name referenced a nearby > creek, and had nothing to do with the events of the flood.) That kind of > thing happens. Seems pretty natural that a name as simultaneously vague and > evocative as "Reunion Hill" would wind up being the stage for multiple > partings and unions throughout history, as the result of both coincidence > and conscious choice. Just like any other place anywhere, with or without a > particular name. > Fair enough although I always pictured the hill very close to her home [Its ten years since that ragged army Limped across these fields of mine"]. Which led me to believe not many people would have had experiences there to justify an unofficial name. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:12:21 -0400 From: Gene Frey Subject: [RS] Indian Boulder Hey you guys, Lawrence replied: >> I always assumed Indian Boulder wasn't named by her. Simply because that name had nothing to do with her husband.<< That's my point. She named the hill, but used a previously accepted name for a boulder on the hill? Makes no sense to me. More likely, in my mind, she chose to climb Reunion Hill because of its name. Gene F. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:54:28 -0400 From: Laurence Krulik Subject: Re: [RS] Indian Boulder > That's my point. She named the hill, but used a previously accepted > name for a boulder on the hill? Makes no sense to me. More likely, in > my mind, she chose to climb Reunion Hill because of its name. > > We can agree to disagree here. Indian Boulder sounds like a more "standard" name to me and just a place which has always been in her community. Next time someone has Richard's ear, can you ask him? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 13:02:59 -0400 From: "cvz" Subject: Re: [RS] Indian Boulder & Reunion Hill oops! forgot to remove. carrie Lincoln used the internet? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:54:59 -0400 From: Jim Thomann Subject: [RS] Final Vote Tough choice as Transit was the first RS song I could play on guitar, but Reunion Hill has always been the highlight of every live show I've attended. Going with Reunion Hill by a nose. Regards, Jim T. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:23:38 -0400 From: Carol Love Subject: [RS] My Final Answer... I would have liked to have seen Courier or Wisteria make it to the end. I like my Shindell melodic and mournful. My first gut reaction in this round was to vote for Reunion Hill, but I wanted to let things marinate. Laurence and I believe it was Vanessa put forth very valid arguments for Transit. It is the more difficult and sophisticated piece of songwriting. It also carries key Shindell themes of despair and redemption. It's a great song. However at the end of the day, I just like **Reunion Hill** more. The melody is beautiful and the theme is simple, yet as old as time. Boy meets girl. They fall in love and then he leaves to fight and never return. The love never dies though, even if it's just embodied my an all seeing hawk now. You are left to decide what war or what side the story represents, although the implication is pretty heavy that it is not a modern war. And as I said in earlier rounds, not many men can write in the feminine voice convincingly, but RS can. Also like my personal favs, Wisteria & Courier, it is again the message of what we've lost to time and the collateral damage of war. ~ Carol ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:46:03 -0400 From: Howie Subject: Re: [RS] Which war? Actually, it just sounds like a civil war song. During the revolution, songs were Yankee Doodle, Johnny Has Gone For A Soldier, Hail Columbia. Civil war songs include Battle Hymn of the Republic, Dixie, Oh Shenandoah, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, John Brown's Body. I can imagine Ken Burns using it in The Civil War! - -Howie At 02:38 PM 3/20/2013, you wrote: >For me, the passage that suggests the Civil War is, "even now, I >find their things..." > >Given the relative death tolls of the Revolution (~30k American & >British combined, if I recall correctly) and the Civil War (~650k), >I've always felt that commonly finding these sorts of personal >effects "ten years since that ragged army" passed through, the >number of wounded & dead soldiers involved would have to be enormous >to leave that long-lasting a mark in a single passage across her fields. > >It's certainly possible to interpret it against wars in the colonial >era, but the Civil War just feels like the right time frame to me. > >Kevin > > >On Mar 20, 2013, at 1:43 PM, Norman Johnson wrote: > > > I also think the names predate her husband leaving for war. > > > > But I wonder.. Why do we think it's the American Civil War? > > > > Could it be the Revolutionary War? The French and Indian War? The > latter would be an interesting tie in with Richard's cover of > Acadian Driftwood (one of my favorites). > > > > Norman ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:00:01 -0400 From: Bart Gallagher Subject: [RS] Last Song People Transit Bart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:01:41 -0400 (EDT) From: susan koval Subject: RE: [RS] Final round Hi all, My vote is for Transit. As I've mentioned before, it's been a favorite since the first time I heard it. I can't write as eloquently about a song as many on this list do, but I'll still state some reasons I like it. I completely enjoy listening to both the words and the music. I love hearing those first few notes and knowing the song is coming. I love how it builds throughout. It contains one of my favorite Shindell lyrics "Law and decorum constraining nary a one" And a line that always makes me chuckle "Thank God the traffic was light" due to the irony of no traffic due to all the other cars being sucked into the vortex. As I live in NJ I enjoy the references to the Turnpike and the Delaware Water gap. I've been there! (And the turnpike regularly!) I suppose that's just an added bonus. Sue K ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:13:18 -0700 From: Rongrittz Subject: Re: [RS] Which war? A joke. A reference to the overproduced "Royal Canadian Fife & Drum Oompah Marching Band Halftime Show, Featuring Jay-Z on Digeridoo" studio version. On Mar 21, 2013, at 12:35 AM, Chris Foxwell wrote: > I don't hear a fife, or any wind instruments at all for > that matter, whereas the violin still heavily flavors the song. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:35:58 -0400 From: Carol Love Subject: Re: [RS] Casting RS Characters Dave wrote: > I'm pretty sure Sir Anthony didn't get the role of (Lithuanian) > Hannibal Lecter because of George III. ....Uh, I was doing a bit from your countryman, Eddie Izzard, whom I love as dearly as RS. ~ Carol ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V12 #429 ************************************