TIME SHE OWNS

TIME SHE OWNS
By DAN AQUILANTE
IT'S easy to be upbeat when everything is going your way. The test comes in the face of adversity.Singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith has had two bouts with cancer - breast and thyroid. Both her grandmothers died in the last two years, and her mother is terminally ill.

Though misfortune has been the constant recent companion of this 47-year-old singer from Austin, Texas, she's been anything but complacent.

Besides writing and recording a new album, "Clock Without Hands," which features all new material and was influenced by a poem her late grandmother wrote (and the novel by Carson McCullers of that title), she has been active in efforts to eliminate land mines, a campaign that took her to Vietnam last year.

Griffith, who gained fame on the folk circuit, says she squeezes as much as she can into 24 hours because "now is the only time we own" - a sentiment that echoes the poem.

The poem, which is printed on the "Clock" CD, reads: "The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop. Now is the only time we own. Live, love, toil with a will; place no faith in tomorrow, for the clock may then be still."

Griffith also performs at the Beacon Theater tonight.

Post: On the booklet to "Clock Without Hands," you make it clear that this album's theme is fighting complacency. Is complacency all that bad?

Griffith: It's not necessarily bad, but we humans are built to take risks. We're built to go out and live in life. Sometimes, it seems to me that if you allow the human con***ion to atrophy, then you're not really living the life.

Post: What about the happily complacent -those lucky folks who've found love and attained their goals?

Griffith: If you found your dream, you did your human part. But everyone who's gotten that far has already taken the risks in life. Nobody finds a dream without taking risks.

Post: Have you ever been complacent?

Griffith: I was, but after getting diagnosed for cancer and being treated for that, you really wake up to a lot of things. That kind of experience makes you want to do, to live.

Post: How did you get back into recording after your cancer treatments?

Griffith: I did an album ("The Dust Bowl Symphony") with the London Symphony (Orchestra) because I felt there might not be another tomorrow. It was something I really wanted to do.

Post: What motivated you to get involved in the fight to eliminate land mines?

Griffith: Take a look at the state of humanity and you will find a challenge. My work for the past two years for the Campaign for a Land Mine-Free World has been overwhelmingly inspirational. Hold a child in your arms for a day who is being fitted for an artificial leg after he stepped on a land mine while playing in his own backyard and that really brings things home. It places things in perspective.

Post: Are land mines that big a problem?

Griffith: It is an amazing human tragedy that mankind has made these little monsters and littered the world with them in conflict and never retrieved them. What bothers me most is that many of the casualties happen to the local people long after the conflict is over.

Post: You worked in Vietnam. Did you pick the country or were you assigned?

Griffith: I've always been interested in Vietnam and Cambodia. We all have places we have an affinity for, and I think Southeast Asia is one of mine.

Post: What did you see of the U.S. involvement there?

Griffith: We are very involved with research and studies about Agent Orange, and I find that admirable. But we are not doing anything in getting unexploded ordinances or land mines out of the ground. There are American groups doing that, but our government is doing nothing on that front.

Post: Do Vietnam vets approach you?

Griffith: I get a lot of comments by mail because of the song "Traveling Through This Part of You." That song isn't just for my ex-husband, Eric Taylor, but for every Vietnam veteran out there and their families.

Post: Your song "Pearl's Eye View" is quite moving. What's it about?

Griffith: It's the story of Dickey Chapelle, who's a great inspiration to me. We grew up seeing her incredible war photographs in magazines like Life. Nobody who saw those pictures even knew Dickey Chapelle was a woman. I found out about her in the book "Requiem" about photojournalists killed in Vietnam. She was the only female American photojournalist killed in Vietnam.

Post: Recently, you've lost close family members, including both of your grandmothers. And now your mother is terminally ill. In the liner notes to you album, you tell your departed family members that you will see them all again, "When I join the club." Do you really believe you'll see them again?

Griffith: Definitely. For the month before my grandma died, she was actually talking to her family who had gone on before her. And they were welcoming her, helping her to get ready.

Post: You sound as if you have no fear of death.

Griffith: I have no fear of it. I'll miss the people I know here on this plane. Other than that, flying away is no great fear.

Never trouble about trouble
until trouble troubles you!
​

Được sửa chữa bởi - milou on 24/09/2001 03:01