Martin Shaw & The Impossible Adventure
Plus, more upcoming screenings of The Village of Lovers.
Dear reader,
First - a big announcement: I’ve now moved my newsletter here to Substack! This is something I’ve considered for a while and have already moved my podcast The Mythic Masculine over here. I’m excited to streamline the process of publishing as well as make these newsletters more accessible for reading and engagement.
You’ll continue to get these in your inbox, though you can also read directly in the Substack app, which I recommend downloading.
Now about that photograph above. It’s a tin-type done by my friend Syd Woodward on Folk Lore Studio on Salt Spring Island. This merry crew (including I) were passing through on the west coast leg of the Codes From the Old World Tour, which I co-organized for The School of Mythopoetics.
It was in some ways an excuse to spend 10 days on the road with the incomparable Celtic storyteller Dr. Martin Shaw. And what better way to commemorate the occasion than with an old world technology like tin-type.
You can watch the magical reel of the process here.
This was just one moment of the impossible that happened again and again over these days. Alongside Martin was Reg Wilford (our trusty driver) and Tad Hargrave, who wrote a gorgeous rendition of our time.
I’m going to quote most of it here, because it’s just too good:
There was the ribald humour that runs constantly when you get four men in a truck. There were the late nights after the gigs sitting with Martin and basking in it all. There were the dinners and breakfasts together. There were the immediate ‘inside jokes’ that developed, disappeared and came back at the end of it all. There was the growing love and care we had for each other as we learned how to support each other along the way.
On multiple occasions, we had people ask us if we were in a band.
On Salt Spring, we stayed up late with two bottles of wine and a cigar on the back patio of a home, donated by a kind local who knew none of us, sucking the marrow our of life. After the first bottle of wine, I asked Martin, “Shall we open the second bottle?” “Of course we should! A bird can’t fly with just one wing!”
We visited bookshoppes and, mercy, didn’t I come back with a haul.
And then there was watching Martin tell stories on seven different evenings. In each show, Martin did the impossible and, paraphrasing William Butler Yeats, fashioned everyday out of nothing and taught the morning stars to sing. Every performance was different.
Every night, in front of us all, he swung from rope to rope, dancing in the air over a pit of spears. It was remarkable but here’s something even more remarkable: years of sitting with elders learning how to make rope, years hunched over in black tents and cottages outside of town making the rope of the dozens and dozens of stories he would tell as he learned both the matter of the story (the bones) but also crafting his own sense of them (his own style, interpretation and performance). And then there were the years of learning to climb those ropes. And then the years of learning how to swing from rope to rope while making it look easy.
There was almost no overlap of stories night to night save a couple.
Martin Shaw is a mix of punk rocker, stand up comedian, improvisor, street performer and storyteller. And he’s an absolute master at what he does.
He does what Jan Blake articulates so beautifully in that he uses one of his arms to hold and love all the people in the story and the other to hold and love everyone in the audience. In so doing, he loves everyone those stories came from and all those who might yet hear those stories.
From what I can see, Martin Shaw is going to inspire a whole new generation of young people to get back into storytelling like the Sex Pistols inspired a whole generation of new bands after their Anarchy Tour in 1970.
To spend ten days watching and learning from a man in the peak of his powers, flexing his muscle, demonstrating a skill he spent decades honing.
There’s an old Scottish Gaelic Proverb, “Ma tha thusa ‘nad fhear-ealaidh, cluinneamaid annas do làimhe.” (If you are a man of skill, let us hear your masterpiece.)”
I have seen his masterpiece.
Many were the times that Reg, Ian and I looked at each other with silent wonder in our eyes and said to each other, without words, "How is this happening?! How are we so lucky to be a part of this?" Stephen Jenkinson coined the term, “outrageous good fortune” and that fits for what I experienced.
It’s outrageous because I couldn’t afford the time. None of us could. Martin surely couldn’t improvise an entire ritual of words night after night making it up as he went. An entire Canadian tour couldn’t have sold out for a man practicing the antique art of storytelling. And, surely, I couldn’t have ten days, with many hours of alone time, with one of the most celebrated storytellers of my age (this seems the most impossible of all).
But I’ve come back from the land of the impossible with this bit of wisdom: if you ever get a chance to travel with a master the craft you, yourself, admire, go. If you can’t go, still go. It will cost you time and money but you won’t miss those things in the years to come. Throw the elbows you must to make room for it. Take a crowbar to the moment if you need to.
May you all find your way, by hook or by crook, into the marvellous as I have done this past ten days and find yourself growing young again as a result.
If you are a man, may you find yourself in the company of good men for a time and live out what Dylan Thomas described in his last words, "In the land of my fathers, the men have their arms around each other and they are singing."
May you all be so blessed as to learn from a master of the art you admire.
May outrageous good fortune crowd your doorstep.
That’s some mighty fine reflection.
If you were lucky enough to attend one of the evenings or the weekend immersion, you’re welcome to join us in The School of Mythopoetics as we unpack the mysteries together.
I would leave it there for now, but I must also tell you about two upcoming screenings of my new documentary The Village of Lovers happening this weekend in Victoria & Duncan on Vancouver Island.
We’ve just released the new artwork done by the immensely talented Vittoria Cardona.
And I’m currently putting the finishing touches on a brand new trailer that we’re very excited to release soon.
Please come attend one of the screenings if you’re in the area - you can find the details and ticket links here.
May 26 - Victoria, BC
May 28 - Duncan, BC
Thanks for reading.
IM
Love that Dylan Thomas line, Ian. Good stuff here and cheers to the wonder-filled days you picked from the pocket of the Magic.