Disorientation: The Video Text.


Moosetracks
Sometimes when we tell and retell our favourite stories, we change the story. 
And sometimes the story changes us.
One of my favourite stories to tell, again and again, 
is about when I moved to Ontario from Quebec.
I discovered the Change of Pace coffee house 
and Ian Tamblyn touring through there one night. 
He did a song about (being) a northern boy lost in a southern town. 
It expressed exactly how I felt then. 
The song was nowhere to be found after that, except untrusted, in my memory.
When the internet was born, I emailed Ian Tamblyn and asked him about it. 
He said it was a song called Moosetracks from his first-ever record, he is about 40 records in now. 
He made 500 copies of the first record 
and thought it was terrible, so he bought them all back. 
We concluded that the song would only exist in the stains of my memory chemicals. 
That was an uneasy resolve.
A few years after that I discovered that his archenemy friend, The Great Sneezy Waters, 
did a rousing version of Moosetracks on an Ian Tamblyn tribute album. 
The Great Sneezy Waters took it from dirge to celebration, 
from disorientation to a new orientation. 
Incidentally, Ian Tamblyn did background vocals on the chorus.
The song is about being lost in the woods, metaphorically. 
In reality, it is about a northern boy lost in a southern town. 
It is about an inner disorientation, a loss of one’s orientation.
What is the way out of the Wilderness?
What is the way out -- when you have lost your sense of orientation?
Those in a state of (dis)orientation inhabit our daily lives. 
Mostly they disguise their disorientation with feigned orientation. 

A second story:
Everyone used to tell me that I should listen to Radiohead – 
I would be the kind of person who would really like them and their music, they said. 
Sometimes music is not about the music, it is about the artist’s reach exceeding their grasp. 
There is a fascinating story about Radiohead playing a concert in front of thousands of people and playing the introduction to their song Videotape. 
Thom Yorke needs to play, and repeat, the first four quarter notes on the piano. 
But he simply cannot do it. 
He is completely disoriented. 
The situation seems absurd. This goes on for some time. 
What is happening is not what appears to be happening. 
Those four quarter notes are written, in each case, 1/8th note ahead of the downbeat where they are expected. 
They are employing syncopation. 
But the syncopation has been intentionally hidden. 
When they play, they are moving like they are playing a fast dance track, 
but it is a very slow song. 
It is incredible to hear them unpack the strange process. 
It's not about the music, 
it is about how they are fighting against their own brainwaves. 
Even though the song can make Thom Yorke become completely disoriented in front of thousands of fans, 
Videotape is his favourite thing that he has created. 
The depths of their disorientation are because they are challenging themselves in the extreme, to excel, to explore. 

The Praxis Project is supposed to be about challenging yourself, your beliefs and your actions, in the extreme. 

Here are Four Contemplations and one Request.
Consider what it might mean to experience the loss of these four things: your vocation, your household, your community, or your body. 
The central issue here is loss. 

One Request: 
Tell me a story about a time in your life characterized by extreme disorientation? When your compass had gone awry… 
Did it lead you to grow as a person?