Walt Whitman's voice barely breaks the sound of the primal wax recording. “Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? / Pioneers! O pioneers!” Who knew that the eternal nature of a haunting voice could be as frail as wax? The distant sound is captured and bottled up unto the voice of an American past-life. Then static.
That voice—his voice—is our voice, and it is worn and faded as Levi jeans: as American as backyard barbecues, or suburban sprawl, or James Dean in a white shirt with slick-backed hair, or malt shops frequented by local tan-faced youths, or the awestruck believers of fireworks on a Fourth of July. My friends, I give you Americana.
As for Native Americana, I give you Jacob Black. My ancestors shake their head in exasperation.
But they sell "Team Jacob" t-shirts on the dusty roads leading to the Peace Pipes Casino.
Red-tailed Hawk soaring proud and signing out.
