Anacoustic Mind is "Funky Celtic Reggae"
Celtic: harmonium, whistle, bodhran, harp.
Funky Reggae: Guitar, bass, drums
A Universal Message delivered by a Funky Reggae Celtic Bard on a mission: Freedom and Peace shall reign.
Visit www.immortalmemory.net

Here's how it's going Mike - I am in New York pulling together the elements of an Afro-Scot, Celtic-Reggae based trilogy of performance with Scottish culture as the launching point  for a broader discussion of how cultural differences can be points of unity when viewed through the lens of art. With stories, songs, art and some drama I have drawn a lot on my early life in Kilmarnock, growing up with Burns's immortal memory ever present and how I had it with me during my career as a drummer with Simple Minds and later when I came to the US as a sound engineer and now in New York returning to my first love Singer/Songwriter so that the story may be told through the medium I know and love best. With an acoustic guitar and a few talented friends we are spreading the message that Scottish culture can be more than short-bread, kilts and whiskey. The US in particular has a very intimate historic connection with Scotland as does the Caribbean, Canada and other countries and audiences are always thrilled to hear about it.

Representing the Bard Of Peace I try remind audiences of the spiritual message in Auld Lang Syne, that by letting bygones be bygones we allow peace and reconciliation to enter negotiations. I'm doing a version of the song that is a reggae mash-up of Auld Lang Syne and Give Peace A Chance. While I perform this as a concert piece the over-reaching mission is to carry such a concept performance into schools and diplomatic arenas as a mini-workshop where, through simple study of Burns and a brief contextual history of the Scottish connection and learning of Auld Lang Syne, the creative juices are encouraged to flow and each particpant is invited to express their own vision of multi-cultural Peace for Auld Lang Syne.

This is an exciting project which can start small and expand to embrace countries and cultures around the globe and I am only telling you the tip of the ice-berg. At the moment I am in the process of creating a concept / press kit that represents what I am talking about in such a way as to create garner interest in and investment for the project.
So, yeah, that's how it's going.
You?

The offal truth about American haggis
By Jon Kelly
BBC News Magazine, Washington DC

Traditional Scottish haggis is banned in the United States. With Burns Night looming, how do fans satisfy their taste for oatmeal and offal?

For aficionados, it is the "great chieftain o' the pudding-race".

To sceptics, however, it is a gruesome mush of sheep's innards - and for decades American authorities have agreed.

Authentic Scottish haggis has been banned in the United States since 1971, when the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) first took a dim view of one of its key ingredients - sheep's lung.

While millions of people around the world will enjoy, or endure, a Burns Night helping on 25 January, those in the US who want to celebrate Scotland's national bard in the traditional manner are compelled to improvise.

Some choose to stage offal-free Burns suppers, and for most people not raised in Scotland, the absence of the dish - comprising sheep's "pluck" (heart, liver and lungs) minced with onion, oatmeal, suet and spices, all soaked in stock and then boiled in either a sausage casing or a sheep's stomach - might be no great hardship.

But for many expat Scots and Scots-Americans, the notion of Burns Supper without haggis is as unthinkable as Thanksgiving without turkey.

According to custom, the haggis should be paraded into the room with a bagpiper before Burns' poem Address to a Haggis is recited and the dish is served as the main course.

To purists, removing the haggis from the equation, or replacing it with vegetarian version, is heresy.

"It would be difficult to do an address to the chicken," complains the Spectator's Alex Massie, who each January uses his column to rail against US haggis prohibition.

At one time it might have been a marginal issue, but a Scottish heritage movement of Americans eager to connect with their Caledonian ancestry has been in the ascendency since the first Tartan Day was celebrated in New York in 1982.


Bagpipers at Tartan Day in New York
Native-born Scots may cringe at plaid-draped Americans proclaiming kinship with ancient clan chiefs, but Highland games across the US can attract crowds of up to 40,000 and Scottish societies exist in virtually every state and major city. In 2008, President George W Bush officially proclaimed 6 April as Tartan Day on which "the contributions of Scottish Americans" should be celebrated.

Against this backdrop, a mini-industry has emerged with American firms from Texas to New England manufacturing lung-free haggis for the US domestic market each January.

Retired healthcare executive Ronald Grant Thurston, 76, started producing McKean's Haggis in Bangor, Maine, after a visit to Glasgow, the birthplace of his wife Isabella.

He uses imported Scottish cereals and US-reared offal - British beef and sheep products having been banned from import since 1989 - and insists the product is none the worse for the absence of its missing ingredient.

"As an American who's not used to eating lungs, it's an improvement," he says.

Critics, however, complain that this Transatlantic version can never match the authentic Scottish product.

Massie, who staged numerous American Burns Suppers during his five years as The Scotsman's Washington correspondent, concedes the US versions often "aren't bad".

But he says their texture tends to resemble that of pate more than the haggis he grew up with in Scotland.

"Without the sheep's lung it's not authentic," he says. "It's too sausagey. It lacks the lightness the lungs help create."

Scottish politicians, eager to encourage both exports and tourism, have led efforts to overturn the ban. Holyrood's Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead has repeatedly lobbied Washington to reverse its policy.

As it stands, however, lungs are "considered an inedible item" in the US, says a spokesman for the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

And it would be difficult to argue that the US is currently clamouring for haggis on the shelves of its superstores. The market for Thurston's haggis - expat Scots, Burns enthusiasts and Highland games attendees - is passionate but somewhat niche.

A 2003 survey suggested that a third of US visitors to Scotland believed the haggis was an animal. Nearly a quarter thought they could catch one.

Even on Burns Night, getting Americans to eat the most Scottish of meals is no easy task, explains Paisley-born Jim Short, 76, who attends a Burns Supper in LaGrange, Georgia, organised by The Order of the Tartan, a local Scottish heritage society.

The majority of attendees are US-born, however, and out of deference to their palates, haggis is not served as the main course.

"We're lucky if some of them take more than a mouthful," laments Short, who once had three cans of tinned haggis confiscated by customs officials on arrival at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport.

After the US-manufactured pudding is piped in and the Address is delivered, a helping is left in the centre of each table, for those brave enough to nibble on crackers. The main course might be beef, or cottage pie.

Of course, American culinary culture is far removed from Scotland's.

Jo Macsween, director of Edinburgh-based haggis manufacturer Macsween, observes that the US does not share the tradition of "nose to tail" cooking, in which no part of the animal is wasted.

"I think Americans tend to be bit fussier about their meat - they'd rather have steak and prime cuts," says Macsween, who briefly lived in Boston, Massachusetts, after leaving university.

But she notes that US visitors invariably sample haggis on trips to Scotland and are usually pleasantly surprised at the result.

For Massie, it is a "grotesque double standard" that French Andouille sausage - which traditionally comprises the intestines of a pig - is permitted on American shores and afforded culinary respectability while haggis is not.

He believes the answer lies in liberating haggis from the confines of the Burns Supper and celebrating it as a delicacy in its own right.

"Its qualities can be overshadowed by the pomp and ceremony of the event," he says. "But actually, it's a very fine dish."

If all else fails, he suggests, "it shouldn't be too difficult to organise a cross-border smuggling operation" to bring the authentic product to US palates.

Native-born Scots may cringe at plaid-draped Americans proclaiming kinship with ancient clan chiefs, but Highland games across the US can attract crowds of up to 40,000 and Scottish societies exist in virtually every state and major city. In 2008.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21128089

Ludwig Van Beethoven and Robert Burns - Hidden Work Brought To Light.

What follows is a brief blog about events whose details and back-story could be expanded upon and developed into the screen-play for a major motion picture full of drama, intrigue, romance, travel, money and more.
After his death in 1796 the Scottish poet Robert Burns's Edinburgh publisher, George Thompson, had sent selections of Scottish poetry and song to the great composer Handel commissioning him to set them to music. The idea being that Thompson would be able to sell such works as new musical interpretations of classic Scots songs by the great Handel himself. However, Handel died before he could complete the project so Thompson, not to be deterred, offered the commission to the great German composer Ludwig van Beethoven who agreed and composed musical settings for 25 works. One of the songs was called "Farewell Bliss, Farewell Nancy" written by a Mrs Grant of Laggan, a prominent literary figure in Edinburgh at the time. However, the song lacked a third stanza so Thompson had the "bright" idea of tacking on some lines from one of Robert Burns's most beautiful romantic poem "Ae Fond Kiss And Then We Sever" as a 3rd verse to fill out the song. THE BARD's IMMORTAL WORDS BEING THROWN IN AS FILLER. When I saw this I was a wee bit shocked and decided to set the entirety of "Ae Fond Kiss..." to Beethoven's music and reclaim the work in it's entirety for Burns. Thus a sublimely beautiful hidden work was brought to life for the first time. As far as I know no one has ever arranged or performed "Ae Fond Kiss" in this way, so I am proud in my own little way to have made this discovery and be the first to give it voice.