On April 23 a good man breathed his last, or as Chaucer himself might have written, he tooketh his last sote brethe. His name was Dr. Gary Culbert and he was 80 years old. Almost as far back in history as Chaucer’s own times, in an era known as “the late 1980s”, he was my high school British literature teacher, and it was on the very first day of his class my senior year that I encountered The Canterbury Tales.
Our first assignment was to memorize the opening 18 lines of that collection’s prologue. In the original Middle English. Because every single day, at the start of class, someone would be called upon to walk to the front of the room and recite it from memory, a horrifying prospect as a teenager. As the year progressed we added a few other pieces that we could recite instead of Chaucer (I know I selected a Shakespeare sonnet, but for the life of me could not tell you which), but we knew that on any given day we could get called upon via the randomness of Dr. Culbert’s patented Coin Flip Method®, in which a sequence of coin flips would divide the class into ever smaller and smaller halves before finally settling on the day’s bard.1 If you at least knew your Chaucer, you were good.
I took a class on Chaucer in college, and I can still riff those 18 lines of Chaucer today without any prep, as can Mrs. Life in the Vinyl Lane who took Dr. Culbert’s class the following year. And as so many of his former students have done, when we eventually visited the Canterbury Cathedral we stood outside and said the lines and laughed.
Dr. Culbert is also responsible in part for this blog, because he made us turn in writing four days per week on topics of our choosing (two graded, two ungraded), and this process made me realize that I enjoyed writing. When my first book was published, one of the first things I did was send him a copy.2
I suspect most good teachers have a handful of students over the course of their careers who they connected with in a meaningful way. But Dr. Culbert’s reach was so vast it’s hard to explain to someone who never took his class. He set very high expectations for us, treating us like young adults instead of kids. If you were making the effort, he had your back 100% even if you struggled. So many of us viewed him as the best teacher we ever had. I suspect his memorial will draw a significant number of former students.
So what does this have to do with the new re-release of Chaucerian Tale’s 2022 album St. George And The Dragon? I suspect it’s obvious, but in case there is any doubt, it would make the perfect soundtrack to Chaucer’s works. As near as I can tell he never specifically wrote about St. George, though on St. George’s Day 1374 King Edward III granted the poet a daily pitcher of wine for life, which is not a bad gift as far as gifts go. Oh, and in case you don’t know, St. George’s Day is… wait for it… celebrated on April 23. It all comes full circle.
Originally released on cassette in 2022 by Ancient Meadow, St. George And The Dragon has been tough to track down. When Fogged Entity announced their re-release, also on cassette and limited to just 60 copies, I stalked the label online for weeks until it went on sale so I could swoop in before these too were sold out. Bonus material includes a bookmark, sticker, and button (a subset of 10 copies also included a label button and a “mystery item”). The packaging is delightful – the J-card interior given over to an image of St. George lancing the dragon, and the flip side of the cassette imprinted with a fantastic block-print-like image of the same scene (see pic above).
St. George And The Dragon combines the best of dungeon synth and the simplicity of period music. That’s not meant to imply it’s “basic”, however. The opening track, “St. George’s Rhapsody”, incorporates a very jazz-like piano, which drops out and re-appears over the course of the song’s 12+ minutes. One of the things I enjoy the most is a section of horns arising mid-track that just give the slightest hint of imperfection – this doesn’t sound like precise MIDI but instead like a real person blowing into the instrument, giving it character and humanity. “The Dragon” begins ominously, a simple single note rising and falling with elements slowly added… first a chord, then a desolate horn, then a stringed instrument, the sadness building measure by measure, instrument by instrument. There are twists and turns over the course of the track’s 15 minutes, but we stay in minor keys causing the mood to gradually shift to quiet despair before ending with a wave-like tone and a single cymbal crash. “A Tale Of A Village” opens upbeat, conveying the feeling of a summer morning when everything is green and healthy and the day has not yet grown hot. Mid-song a very 8-bit MIDI is introduced, creating an intriguing disconnect between its sounds and that of a strummed harp following along.
As always, I enjoy the period aspect of Chaucerian Myth’s work along with the blending of simplicity and complexity. He also performs as Frogzard, which is worth checking out as well. While St. George And The Dragon is sold out, you can stream it and other Chaucerian Myth releases HERE.
I think Dr. Culbert would have enjoyed Chaucerian Myth. RIP, good sir.
Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde.
(Ever flees the time; it will wait for no man.)
And thogh youre grene youthe floure as yit,
(And though your green youth flowers as yet,)
In crepeth age alwey, as stille as stoon,
(In creeps age always, as still as stone,)
And deeth manaceth every age, and smyt
(And death menaces every age, and smites)
In ech estaat, for ther escapeth noon
(In each rank, for there escapes no one)
— Geoffrey Chaucer – “The Clerk’s Tale”
- I remember one day we asked Dr. Culbert if he ever “fudged” the coin flip. He sheepishly admitted that yes, but only one time, and for the most Dr. Culbert reason ever. A student approached him at the start of the year and said he wanted to try to memorize “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. Now, that’s insane – if you’ve never read it, that thing is LONG. But they reached an agreement. Dr. Culbert would not expect this student to memorize anything else beyond those 18 lines of Chaucer and, more importantly, on the very last day of class he would rig the coin flip to select this student for what would be a very big surprise for everyone. Dr. Culbert supported him during the recitation with a few prompts, and I think the whole thing took at least 15 minutes. Legend.
↩︎ - I was disappointed after sending Dr. Culbert a copy of my first book that I never heard back from him, as I’d included my email addresses. A few years later I randomly sent him an invite via Facebok to an annual “post holiday party” my wife and I used to host every January, and was pleasantly surprised that he accepted. When I asked if he’d received the book he said he did, but he was surprised that HE never heard back from ME in reply to his email! So he had in fact replied, though for whatever reason I never received it, and for years both of us sort of assumed the other was big-timing, which gave us both a laugh. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere. ↩︎