Week nine for me was rather scattered, we were out of our home for much of it while we dealt with the mess of a burst pipe in the bathroom. It threw off everyone’s routine and this is the first time I find myself way behind in my post. I need to say thank you to my mom for taking us in for a week while all the fans and dehumidifiers dried out our house, and to my sister-in-law Lydia for helping get my copy of The Man Who Was Erdnase sent to me, and to Shawn for doing some great design work on the site for me.

I thought I was going to explain the tragic circumstances around Milton Franklin’s final day but then my copy of The Man Who Was Erdnase arrived and there is so much more to it that the couple of newspaper articles that I have read that I need to hold off a little longer. So instead of murder and death let’s have a musical interlude.

Years ago I used to listen to a CBC Radio show that was hosted by Bill Richardson. It is long enough ago that I forget which show, probably Richardson’s Roundup but I am not sure, but I do remember that every once in a while he would play strangely beautiful piece of music called ‘Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet‘. Gavin Bryars recorded an unknown homeless man singing and then looped the vocals over a classical composition. Over the years Bryars lengthened the piece from 25 minutes to 60 and then 74 minutes with the addition of Tom Waits.

While I was digging for newspaper articles I came across a mention of the BBC doing something about Erdnase. I thought that I was looking for a documentary so took a round about route to discover Gavin Bryars ‘A Man In A Room, Gambling’. Bryars name was vaguely familiar and it made sense as soon as I played the first track. The project involved Bryars music and Spanish artist Juan Munoz describing the manipulation of playing cards, including excerpts from Expert At The Card Table. Interestingly Bryars states ‘some of this material was culled from the writings of the extraordinary Canadian S. W. Erdnase’. It is the first mention of Erdnase being Canadian I have come across and I am I curious where that came from.

The project was modelled after the Shipping Forecasts that used, maybe still are, played before the news on the BBC. You can here Bryars talk a bit about it on soundcloud.

It is a strange album but has become a good soundtrack to shuffle and deal cards to.