Far And Away

Neil Peart

Description

Rush drummer Neil Peart lets readers ride along on his numerous road trips through North America, Europe and South America, sharing his experiences in personal reflections and full-colour photos. Spanning almost four years, these 22 stories are open letters that recount adventures both personal and universal - from the challenges and accomplishments in the professional life of an artist to the birth of a child. A love of drumming and the open road threads through the narrative as Peart explores new horizons - both physical and spiritual.

Sujets

• Travel writing

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781770900219
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 33 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © Neil Peart, 2011 Published by ECW Press 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2 416-694-3348 / [e-mail] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. All photos copyright Neil Peart, with the exception of those noted in the Photo Credits. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Peart, Neil Far and away : a prize every time / Neil Peart. ISBN 978-1-77090-021-9 Also issued as: 978-1-77090-020-2 (PDF); 978-1-77041-058-9 (bound) — ISBN 978-1-77041-059-6 (pbk.) 1. Peart, Neil—Travel. 2. Motorcycling—North America. 3. Motorcycling—Europe. 4. Drummers (Musicians)—Canada— Biography. 5. Lyricists—Canada—Biography. 6. Rush (Musical group). I. Title. ML419.362A3 2011 786.9’166092 C2011-900515-8 Far and away : a prize every time / Neil Peart. — Limited ed. ISBN 978-1-77041-064-0 (bound) ML419.362A3 2011a 786.9’166092 C2011-901104-2 Cover design: Hugh Syme Typesetting: Tania Craan Editor: Paul McCarthy Editor for the press: Jennifer Knoch Proofreader: Crissy Boylan Producer: Jack David Production: Troy Cunningham

To Olivia Who makes my heart three sizes bigger

A PRIZE EVERY TIME

INTRO

Once upon a time, around the nineteenth century, authors like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy serialized their novels in monthly magazines, and they were hugely popular. Another ce lebrated author of the time, Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White, The Moonstone), outlined the preferred design for audience response: “Make ’em cry, make ’em laugh, make ’em wait—exactly in that order.” (Scheherazade may actually have pioneered the technique.) In 1841, when the serialization of Dickens’The Old Curiosity Shopwas nearing its tragic finale, New Yorkers were said to have lined up at the docks to ask arriving British sailors, “Is Little Nell dead?” Oscar Wilde famously remarked, “One would have to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without dissolving into tears—of laughter.” In that case, the order of events would be “Make ’em wait, make ’em cry, make ’em laugh.” That works, too. The old-time serialized novel occurred to me as one way to describe the nature of these stories—a seri alized autobiography, perhaps, though not recollected in one’s dusty old age, but captured along the way. By design, these stories are not an attempt to list the facts and incidents of my life, like diary entries. My inspiration always comes from the world around me, driven by the recurring thought, “How can I put this intowords?” I am more interested in describing what I do and see, how it makes me feel, and sharing it with the reader—almost like a personal letter, with more time spent on the craft. So it’s a book of letters, and a serial memoir, and a travel book that includes motorcycling, drumming, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, natural history, human history, birdwatching, hiking, driving, church signs, amateur philosophy, and . . . pretty much everything. This collection of wide-ranging stories began more or less accidentally and did not follow old paths—of mine, or anyone else’s. I made it up as I went along, not knowing where that road would lead. The acorn began to sprout in 2005 with the creation of a website, at the urging of my tech- savvy friend and frequent riding partner, Michael Mosbach. I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do with a website, but it seemed like the thing to do, and I could seepossibilities, all right. However, I didn’t know if I would be inspired by those possibilities—if I would want to write regular updates on what was going on in my life and work, for the uncertain interest of strangers. One happy coincidence in the beginning was that Michael’s research into claiming domain names found NeilPeart.net to be held by a gifted young multi-media artist (“Master of All Things Creative,” he modestly proclaims), Greg Russell. Greg would become the site’s designer and engineer, as well as a good friend, fellow motorcyclist, drummer, hiker, and artful conspirator. As the site grew over time, Greg’s increasingly creative presentation of the stories, and the entire site, helped inspire me to raise my aim.

The first piece I wrote for the site, in early 2005, was tentative and insubstantial—promising nothing, and delivering little more. In an update for July of that year, I first used the title “News, Weather, and Sports,” under which all subsequent stories would appear. I announced that I had finished the first draft of a book,Roadshow, and was about to start work on a new instructional DVD,Anatomy of a Drum Solo. I ended the news with some jokes about weather and sports—

Some guy took some performance-enhancing drugs and hit a triple into the end zone during the fourth quarter with a four under par, but was whistled down for interference. Then there was a fight.

The next installment did not appear until April 2006, but was a proper story this time, describing me hosting my bandmates at my house in Quebec, where we discussed the launch of a new project that would become ourSnakes and Arrowsalbum. Then followed a description of attending a jazz performance featuring eighty-one-year-old drummer Roy Haynes, and relaying the inspiration I felt from Roy and other great drummers. Inspiration was taking root in the writing, too, along with its usual partner, ambition, and the next story arrived quicker, in June of that year. This one also aimed higher—describing the collaboration of working with my bandmates, and w ith my friend Matt Scannell, recording three songs for his band, Vertical Horizon. A passage on Canadian hockey foreshadowed the events recounted in “Fire on Ice,” three years later. That June 2006 “News, Weather, and Sports” story al so featured the first use of photographs—a device that was to grow into a major feature in these stories. (It’s noteworthy that only the previous year, while writingRoadshow, a book about a concert tour, I had deliberately avoided using any photographs, aspiring to capture the experience in words alone.) A few more stories that year crystallized the approach—photos were used as illustrations, but also as narrative touchstones, to introduce episodes, conclude them, move the story along, or change direction entirely. By 2007, I was more committed to getting those photographs, assisted early on by a friend, Rick Foster, who rode with Michael and me that summer. Rick captured the first images of Michael and me riding together—the perfect complement to the next story, “That’s the Way We Roll,” which introduces this collection. Late in 2006, the stories had finally gained titles, like “At the Gate of the Year” and “The Count of Words,” but it wasn’t until “That’s the Way We Roll,” after two years of experimentation, that I arrived at the template I would follow from then on. The combination of words and photographs was similar to a magazine story, perhaps, but the photos were chosen by the writer to bepart of the story, and the scope was unfettered by any limitations of space or time. Publishing online was soimmediate—I could spend the time to make a story just how I wanted it to be, then Greg would post it within days, sometimeshours. A book could take a year or more to emerge in print, and I had always been way too impatient for that. With the aim of getting closer to “just how I wante d it to be,” I began submitting the stories to my e steemed prose editor, Paul McCarthy, with whom I had worked exclusively since 2001, starting withGhost Rider. Paul also brought his “critical enthusiasm” to help guide and improve the increasingly ambitious book reviews that appeared in another department on the site, “Bubba’s Book Club.” (I remarked to my friend Brutus recently, as I set to work on an overdue issue for the Book Club, “It’s the hardest kind of writing there is—‘being smart about books.’”) Along the way, I was heartened to learn of an online art movement called Slow Blogging. Inspired by the Slow Food artisans who rebelled against fast food, Slow Bloggers spent time crafting their words or images before displaying them in front of all the online world. That was how I had been approaching the “New s, Weather, and Sports” stories: truly as a labor of love, along with the book reviews in Bubba’s Book Club, and a food department Brutus and I “cooked up” for the site, “Bubba’s Bar ’n’ Grill”—a beginner’s guide to cooking “Good Simple Food.” (We hope to see that in print one day, too.) When selecting the shape of this collection, I decided to leave out the early, experimental work and start with “That’s the Way We Roll”—the one that established the pattern all the others would follow. In Ernest Hemingway’s introduction to a collection of his short stories, he mentioned a few of them that he particularly liked, then admitted there were others, too: “Because if you did not like them you would not publish them.” Exactly. “That’s the Way We Roll” (the title being both comment and segue, in this case) begins in the summer of 2007, on the road with the band on theSnakes and Arrows tour, which also provided the next two stories. There was a winter sojourn in Quebec, “The Best February Ever,” with cross-country skiing and snowshoeing described and depicted—employing a photographic innovation called the “Ski-Cam™,” giving the viewer more of a skier’s-eye view.

Around that time I added the subtitle “Tales from the Trails” to supplement the “News, Weather, and Sports” title for the story department. The May 2008 edition, “South by Southwest,” continued theSnakes and Arrowstour into that summer, and the photography was becoming more ambitious. I made myself pause to capture the scenic beauty of my two-wheeled travels on American roads, and coached Michael in framing portraits of me motorcycling through the Big Bend country of Texas, or the Everglades, so I could use them in upcoming stories. (I take many photos of Michael riding, but it’s clear that having a photograph of me in the middle of the landscape I’m describing makes a more powerful statement. See Greg’s photo on this book’s cover, for example—it wouldn’t be the same if it wasn’t ofme.) I refined another new technique I called the “Action Self-Portrait,” in which I motorcycled along a straight, empty road and held the camera out beside me in my left hand, to frame my helmeted head in front of the passing landscape. (Don’t try that at home, kids.) There were many failures, but occasionally I got lucky and captured the kinetic moment I wanted to describe. From then until the November 2010 story that ends this collection, “The Power of Magical Thinking,” I continued writing about . . . what I could not help writing about, really. Many times the writing itself was a welcome relief from month-long runs of a concert tour, a chance to sit in one place, reflect, and craft something peacefully—without the violence and sweat of drumming. And while I rode the back roads of North America, Europe, or South America, I would be thinking about what I wanted to write— what I wanted to try to share with others. Seeing the stories posted so artfully by Greg, illuminated on the backlit screen, and knowing there were tens of thousands of people reading them (in November 2010, we attracted a new record of 63,000 visitors) truly made for “a prize every time.” That phrase dates from my teenage years, a couple o f summers working on a carnival midway (“Lakeside P ark,” for the Rush archivists). The first year, at about age fourteen, I stood under the raised flaps of the Bubble Game kiosk all day and called out, “Catch a bubble—prize every time!” In 2007, for the essay to introduce ourSnakes and Arrowsalbum, I recollected that phrase and used it to describe making music, listening to music, or playing the game of life—“a prize every time.” Now that description seems to embrace the making of these stories—and an attitude toward life, too. As a lyricist and prose writer, it is a rare thrill when I produce a line that not only endures, but continues to gather resonance over time. One example I often cite is from our song “Presto,” from 1989—a line that each year seems to pulse with more depth and truth: “What a fool I used to be.” (Oh, man.) Likewise, I believe these stories continue to celebrate the refrain of “A Prize Every Time.” No matter where I travel, or what I choose to write about, there is the joy of doing, and the joy of sharing. In the foreword to the story collection mentioned earlier, Hemingway described some places that had been good for writing, like Madrid, Paris, or Havana, but added, “Some other places were not so good but maybe we were not so good when we were in them.” I know that feeling, too. Many good places are described in these stories, carrying this happy traveler over mountain roads, desert highways, and snowy trails to fine meals and cozy accommodations. Other days and nights were not so good, but maybe I was not so good when I was in them. Still, there was a prize every time . . .

1| THAT’S THE WAY WE ROLL

JULY 2007

With only a few dayshome after the first leg of the at Snakes and Arrows tour (sixteen shows, 7,257 miles of motorcycling), this will definitely be the “short version.” Still, I wanted to try to put upsomethingnew. Photographs of the performances are plentifully available elsewhere (my view of the audience this tour is studded with innumerable cell-phone cameras, sticking up like periscopes), so I thought I might just display a couple of motorcycling photos. On this tour Michael and I haven’t even carried cameras with us on the bikes, let alone bothered to ease our steady pace to take photos, but recently we had a camera-happy “guest rider,” Richard S. Foster. The name might ring a bell to dedicated readers of album credits—our song “Red Barchetta” had a note on the lyric sheet: “Inspired by ‘A Nice Morning Drive’ by Richard S. Foster.” Rick (as he is known to his friends, among whom I now number myself) tells our long story in another forum, and it’s quite an amazing sequence of coincidences and synchronicities. (See photo credits for details.) The short version (I keep saying that) is that despite my attempts back in 1980 to contact the author of the short story that had inspired “Red Barchetta”—a story I had read in a 1973 issue of Road & Track—we only recently managed to actually make contact. Rick rode with Michael and me through the back roads (the very back roads) of West Virginia for a couple of days between shows in near-D.C. and near-Pittsburgh (so many of those amphitheaters are in the exurbs), and then he attended his first Rush concert in (ornear) Boston. But that’s his story, and I’ll leave it to him to tell. Michael only left Rick with one request, from the movieAlmost Famous, when the singer says to the young journalist, “Just make us look cool.”

(How well Rick succeeded with that challenge, the reader may judge by his story.) For Michael and me, it was great just to have some photographs of us riding—something we do every day, after all, so it is nice to have it documented like that. After last tour, when I was constantly so intent on note-gathering for the book that becameRoadshow, this time I have been feeling a real sense of freedom—the freedom of not having to document anything. I can simply experience it, think about it or not, and let the day flow by me as it will. That being said, so far this tour has certainly been worthy of a book, too, in its way. I kind of wish someone else was writing one about it, but I don’t think it will be me. My journal notes consist only of our daily mileages—though I couldn’t resist noting a couple of church signs: “GIVE SATAN AN INCH, SOON HE’LL BE A RULER,” and one I just love: “TO ERR IS HUMAN, BUT IT CAN BE OVERDONE.” So good. And I admire it not only for the worthy sentiment, but for the perfect phrasing, too. Another church sign caught my eye because of the word “faithless,” as in our song onSnakes and Arrows. This one seemed kind of mean, though: “AND JESUS REPLIED, SAYING, ‘YOU ARE A FAITHLESS AND PERVERSE GENERATION.’” I assured Michael that he was the only one of us who wasboth.

Also, we now know that “VBS” stands for “Vacation Bible School,” as the back roads and small towns of America are full of signs for that exciting-sounding activity. We were once bemused at passing a yellow school bus full of kids, the side of the bus displaying a banner reading “Soccer With Jesus.” (What position do you suppose the Son of God would play? He’d have to be the coach, I suppose. And would that make Mary, the Mother of God, a soccer mom?) (And if that’s sacrilegious, it’s certainly not more so than the banner on that bus.) One Sunday morning in southern Pennsylvania, Michael commented on the Amish carriages we had been passing, with the little boys in their blue shirts and straw hats waving shyly at us from the back. Michael said he wanted to “save” those kids—by buying each of them a BMW R1200GS motorcycle.