Gift-giving

Have you decided against giving "The Clapper" or a Chia pet this holiday season? Are you finding it difficult to locate the perfect gift for the person who has everything? You might come across something of interest here: www.oxfamamericaunwrapped.com. Buy a camel, goat, sheep, cow, or some other beast that can improve the lives of impoverished people.

Happy holidays!

Cheap coffee for those with vocal chords

Jumpin' Juice and Java in Richmond (intersection of Patterson and Parham, near Bruster's) has agreed to a fun promotion. Anyone who sings the chorus to my song, "Weak Coffee," at J J & J can procure a cup of coffee for $0.50.

You can hear the song at www.cdbaby.com/mikeferry.

Here are the lyrics of the chorus:

"Life's too short
It's no eternity
Life's too short
To drink weak coffee."

Keep it in mind for your next caffeine run!

December 7 - Jumpin' Juice and Java

Next show: Dec. 7 at Jumpin' Juice and Java in Richmond. Free! It should be a blast.

Heels (and other items of note)

The Tar Heel hoopsters tip-off tomorrow night against the Wildcats of Davidson. This could be a difficult early test for Roy's boys, as the Wildcats return all five starters from last season's March Madness team. I hope that 2008 will be a "banner" year in the Dean Dome!

I'm thinking ahead to my next album. I have no idea when it is likely to be completed, but I am working on several song and album titles. "Plague Doctors (We Have Funny Noses)," dedicated to the memory of Black Death quacks, has been on my brain for awhile now. I'm also putting together the composite pieces of "Capybara (World's Largest Rodent)." These are but two of the songs to come! I'll keep you posted.....

"Songs for Quirky" is on iTunes

As of this week, the new album is on iTunes and many other digital download sites. Click away!

Also, the New York Mets are poised to blow an incredible lead in the NL East. Tough times may await those in Flushing.

What Fun!

Thanks to everyone who turned out for my recent CD release party at Jumpin' Juice and Java. It was a fine time. I'm sure that I will perform there again, and probably fairly often.

CD Release Party!

I will release "Songs for Quirky" to the world on Friday, September 7 at Jumpin' Juice and Java in Richmond! Needless to say, I am quite excited that this project has been completed. The album will be available on iTunes and other digital music outlets within a few weeks.

The show will start at 7:00. There is no admission fee. Come one, come all!

By the way, I intend to set aside a section for "air" instrumentalists of all sorts to perform! Bring your air bagpipes!

Song explanation: Belle Isle

I've had several questions about Belle Isle, a song from my latest album, "A Feather." Belle Isle is a public park on the James River within the city limits of Richmond, VA. It's the perfect spot for a nature hike, bag lunch, fishing expedition, and many other means of passing time. Belle Isle is, without a doubt, one of my favorite places in my adopted hometown.

The urban James, interestingly, is the only place in the United States where one can participate in whitewater rafting through the heart of a city. Depending on the height of the water, the rapids near downtown can be treacherous.

More song explanations to come.....

Summer!

Ah, summer. Here it is. Baseball, watermelon, and sweating.

Work on my next album, "Songs for Quirky," is nearly complete. I plan to include 16 songs on the upcoming record. I'm not sure when it will be available, but I hope to have the CD out by the end of September.

Today I checked out the folk festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C. The featured regions this year are rural Virginia, Northern Ireland, and Mekong. Aside from the oppressive heat, the event was outstanding. My kids dug the Vietnamese Dragon Dance Team and the Freer Art Museum's air conditioning.

Next post: Who knows? Enjoy the season!

Scholarship

I'm not sure that anyone would be truly interested in reading this, but I thought I would post it anyway. It is an assignment I recently completed for a graduate class I'm currently taking. Perhaps it will float your boat, especially if you find early American history interesting.



Review of: Commerce and Culture: The Maritime Communities of Colonial
Massachusetts, 1690-1750. By Christine Leigh Heyrman. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984. Pp. 431.)



Christine Leigh Heyrman’s book, Commerce and Culture: The Maritime Communities of Colonial Massachusetts, 1690-1750, is an impressive study of two New England seaside towns in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Heyrman presents her discussion from social, cultural, and economic perspectives. The book, published in 1984 by W.W. Norton & Company, contradicts widely held notions concerning the interactions of religion and community with commercial success and modernity. Heyrman contends that, rather than dissolving religious and community bonds, capitalism in New England strengthened Puritan traditions of belief and societal organization. The Massachusetts towns covered in this analysis, Gloucester and Marblehead, rose into prominence as fishing villages. Developing communal cohesion after earlier periods of disorganization, these Puritan enclaves defied expectations that historians have ascribed to them. Heyrman herself expected to find a diminished role for spirituality and provincialism as Gloucester and Marblehead experienced steep economic success; yet, Heyrman’s research, drawing significantly from primary sources including tax records, sermons, and diaries, illustrates that a conservative and fundamentalist reaction to change occurred. Puritanism flourished during this period, demonstrated by increasing church memberships and interest in religious revivals. Acceptance of all religious traditions, however, did not come to pass. Quakers and Anglicans, perceived as outsiders in both communities, suffered myriad discriminatory episodes in Glouchester and Marblehead. Despite their contact with the outside world, and contrary to previous viewpoints of historians, these Puritans became more insular and less tolerant of competing opinions. While Heyrman defends her argument with appropriate primary and secondary sources, the book’s thesis may not translate universally among New England fishing communities. Claiming to represent viewpoints throughout society, this book relies too heavily on evidence gained from elite New Englanders to assume that it applies to the “middling” classes as well.
Essex County records have provided for much of Heyrman’s argument. For example, the “Distribution of Real and Personal Wealth Among Glouchester and Marblehead Decedents, 1690-1770,” a table derived from Essex Probate Files, supports the claim of a more egalitarian distribution of wealth in Glouchester. Both median and mean estate values rose in Glouchester, suggesting that the financial successes of the town extended to most members of the population. In Marblehead, however, these measurements of economic stature declined during this period. Evidence from the Essex County Court of Common Pleas upholds another view; namely, that fewer civil litigations in Glouchester, compared with Marblehead and Salem, indicate strong community ties persisting throughout the eighteenth century in that town. Heyrman uses these findings to describe the litigiousness of Marblehead. While Marblehead civil cases most often featured wealthy plaintiffs and poorer defendants, “all classes made liberal use of the law to sue one another with staggering frequency.” Other primary documents, which include diaries, church sermons, and influential books such as those by Cotton Mather and Nathaniel Morton, offer perspectives directly from the actors in Heyrman’s narrative.
Central to Heyrman’s thesis is that residents of Glouchester and Marblehead clung to religious tradition and belief, despite the push towards secularism that many have widely assumed inevitable. In “Status and the Social Order,” Heyrman recounts how affiliation with one’s parish mirrored his status in Glouchester society. Preferred seating, deference in matters of church politics, and other senses of propriety accompanied the elites. Interestingly, parish leaders remained in their privileged positions even after other members of the community achieved greater wealth. Family ties and tradition, rather than the completely objective pound, determined one’s place. Preferential treatment in Gloucester is evident from examining the Middle Street meetinghouse’s seating reorganization plan. Captain Jabez Baker, one of Gloucester’s wealthiest men, would have commanded a pew in the front row had the meetinghouse’s seating been based merely on money. However, “the placement committee awarded this newcomer from Beverly only half a pew in the Middle Street meetinghouse, a seat worth just six pounds sterling,” while established residents with lesser estates had better luck.
Rather than adopting secular behaviors, citizens of Glouchester and Marblehead embraced outward displays of religiosity during this period. The outpouring of interest in both villages during the first Great Awakening proves this point. In Gloucester, reaction to the Awakening was strongest in two areas of town: Gloucester harbor and the Third Parish. Heyrman’s explanation for these sections of particular fervor is that they were susceptible to extremism, given the stressful First Parish separation. She also suggests a link between the Awakening and commercial importance. While the harbor had long served the fishing trade, “the Third Parish was quickly becoming a second center of the local fishing trade.” Local politics and geography did not determine an ardent response to the Awakening in Marblehead, however. Interestingly, the residents most taken by the New Light there were lower- and middle-class women. Heyrman discounts the view, however, that women of the middling classes were ushering in “an early stirring of social and political egalitarianism.” Otherwise, the gains made by women during this episode would have permanently altered Marblehead society.
Another critical element of Commerce and Culture is the intense opposition to Puritans, Catholics, Episcopalians, and any other outsiders lurking in Gloucester and Marblehead. Rival religious adherents posed a threat to Anglican society. Not only did they offer differing sets of philosophy of faith, these outside religions created “not just an alternative to the Congregational church but also to the local community itself.” Non-natives, whether secular or religious, offered entirely oppositional worldviews. In this context, according to Heyrman’s thesis, New Englanders turned inward as a means of combating this affront to traditional sensibilities.
Heyrman’s book, well-researched and justified, is a mostly believable piece. However, given the lack of perspective from poorer contemporaries, it is somewhat weakened. Of course, diaries and other literary works of “middling” folk are hard to find. Yet, critical questions remain surrounding Gloucester and Marblehead. Were all Puritan citizens of Gloucester united regarding the unity of the town? According to Heyrman, the diary of James Parsons indicates that “townspeople maintained a sense of obligation to each other.” Does this “sense of obligation” apply to members of the upper classes in Gloucester? Would a poor fisherman, for example, feel this bond with a wealthier merchant? We do not know. Heyrman draws the conclusion from Gloucester’s relative economic egalitarianism that everyone in town considered himself of equal importance. A sense of togetherness pervaded, according to her analysis. Yet, if Gloucester were as tight-knit as Heyrman would have us believe, why did six years pass before the western separation controversy subsided? Heyrman reports that “westerners implemented a policy of persuasion” as they attempted peacefully to encourage others in the town’s environs to adopt their position. Members of a truly unified community, one might suspect, would recognize and meet the needs of others in their midst, especially if such hardships resulted due to uncontrollable circumstances like geography. Perspective from a non-elite, then, might illuminate a more precise sense of Gloucester’s collective ties. Marblehead’s social climate, on the other hand, was far more complicated than that of Gloucester. As Heyrman relates, Marblehead did not experience an increase of average estate values. In fact, as civil litigation increased, holdings of wealth for average citizens decreased. Primary sources from Marblehead’s merchant class, religious elite, and public documentation supply Heyrman’s evidence in this segment of her discussion. Again, had more data from the fishermen, shoremen, artisans, mariners, and farmers entered the examination, a far more exact picture would emerge.
Despite the failure to include a completely balanced point of view, Heyrman has put forth a fascinating and illuminating work. Contradicting a formerly prevalent perspective of colonial historians, Commerce and Culture shows how capitalism and modernity fell short of revolutionizing New England’s Puritan society. While these findings may not extend to all maritime communities, Heyrman’s work in this area has contributed greatly to the understanding of this period.

Call for papers, etc.

I've decided to start a "quirky community" on this blog. There aren't enough outlets for poets, short story writers, historians, and others who create out-of-the ordinary literary works. Email your masterpiece, provided that it is not objectionable, and I'll do my best to post it!

Go, quirky, go!

Happy 2007!

The Tar Heels hoopsters are doing fairly well these days, both in the Dean E. Smith Center and in Carmichael Auditorium. It's shaping up to be a fun spring!

Here's an article someone recently wrote about me:


Mike Ferry: Music Man

1/12/2007
Ideas fly at Mike Ferry from all angles. They enter his head when he’s driving, when he’s fishing in the pond behind his house, making lesson plans, watching television, teaching, or even standing in line at Starbucks.
“The best ideas often come when you least expect them,” he says. “I can’t stop them sometimes. Occasionally, they’re so good that I frantically find a pen and paper before I lose them. There’re times when it’s overwhelming, but I’d rather be drowned by ideas than be in a desert.”
Ah, the life of a songwriter.
For most of his waking hours, you’ll find Ferry at his day job as a Middle School history teacher, class advisor, and coach of Cub soccer and basketball at Collegiate. While his attention is always focused on the task at hand, though, the musician in him is never far from the surface.

As a 4-year-old, he began classical violin lessons after he saw a picture of young musicians in his hometown Greensboro News & Record and expressed an interest. He started piano instruction when he was 10 and developed a passion so strong that for several years he dreamed of making music his life’s work.
As high school seniors in 1995, he and five friends – a drummer, two guitarists, a bass player, and a lead vocalist – created Weekend Excursion, a pop rock band.
They soon headed off to college – Ferry to UNC-Chapel Hill and the others to Appalachian State – but they met whenever their schedules allowed and gigs within reasonable driving distance presented themselves. Their senior year, armed with an impressive repertoire of original work and covers, they began touring heavily throughout North Carolina. After graduation, they hit the road full-time.
As their popularity increased, especially among the college-aged crowd, they often drew as many as 1,000 fans in some venues around the state. They were even commissioned to provide background music for Dawson’s Creek (on the WB Network), The Real World (MTV), and, most recently, Scrubs (NBC).
“Based on our popularity, we though it would be our career,” he said, “but outside North Carolina we were anonymous.” In 2001, Ferry left Weekend Excursion to get married and enter the real world. Two years later, facing the harsh realities of earning a living through music, the group disbanded, The old friends keep in touch, however, and even gather occasionally as they did December 22 in Raleigh to do reunion shows.
Now, Ferry’s days are no less full than they were a few years back when he dreamed of rock stardom. He’s at Collegiate, it seems, from dawn ‘til dusk, and he juggles family life – he and his wife Jenny Nuckols Ferry '96, a Collegiate Middle School Latin teacher, have two sons, Joseph (4) and Jack (1½) – with graduate work in the interdisciplinary studies program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Several times a month, he plays in various Richmond locales with The Atkinsons, an alternative country group.
About a year ago, he began a record label – Emerald Heel Music – and late last summer released an album entitled A Feather for which he did all the writing, performing (keyboard and violin), and vocals. He calls his style “geek rock for people who laugh” and describes it as a blend of The Beatles, Randy Newman, The Cars, and a group called They Might Be Giants. Check it out on www.mikeferrymusic.com. Navigate the website, listen to his offerings, and even type in your thoughts.
With his myriad responsibilities, Ferry finds little time during the school year to create as he’d like, so he fields his ideas, collects his thoughts, and saves them for a rare quiet moment. “I’m constantly bombarded by the rough draft of songs,” he says. “Hours, days, weeks, months, or even years later when I take these disjointed ideas and make them into coherent compositions, it’s really exhilarating.” — Weldon Bradshaw


See you later,

Mike