Her (2013); Directed by Spike Jonze

Posted on December 7, 2013 by sheila

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Having found Spike Jonze’s Her to be boring and empty, I guess I should make it official before someone else does and call the time/date of Me being Dead Inside. Because it’s happened. Others I respect were blown away by it, swept away by it, calling it the Best Movie of the Year, etc. I thought it was pretty to look at (often totally arresting to look at: the landscapes are both familiar and alien, at the same time), and brought up interesting points about consciousness and love and alienation – concepts/themes that are very dear to my heart, but its hooks did not get into me. I did not perceive that there WERE hooks, although I did feel some minor snags here and there (one line in particular about how he is afraid that he has felt all the feelings he is going to feel in his life, that there is nothing new to feel anymore). Minor snags is not what Her is going for, and for me it skipped off the surface of its topic, skipped off and flew into the ether, un-grounded, un-attached, and ultimately un-memorable.

Lovely acting, it LOOKS gorgeous, but the spirit was missing. The aching heart was missing, although the language of the script and the music keeps pointing us in that direction. But for me, there was no there there. Stranger Than Fiction, a film with similar themes of identity, loneliness, and how hopelessly we are trapped in our own set of given circumstances (fictional or real), rocked me to my core and remains a favorite. Her wants to be that. Joaquin Phoenix, excellent as always, is playing that. But Her remains enclosed in its own autumnally-color-coded self-absorption. It does not break free from its own structure. The points are made in the language we hear in the script (often a red flag that something is wrong overall). But the film felt strangely static, silent, with no electrical charge between the various molecules. You may say to me, “But that is the point!” And then I would say back, “Then why the hell should I watch?” Plenty of films address alienation and isolation and loneliness in a way that makes me want to watch, however painful the topic may be. One could even posit that the only question worth asking while we are here on this planet is: “How can I connect with my fellow man? Is it even possible?” So the questions addressed in Her are not new or revelatory, and plenty of other films have done it way better. The only time Her really came to life for me was in the fragmented flashbacks we get, with no dialogue, where we see Phoenix and Rooney Mara having their relationship that has since broken up. These flashbacks are wordless glimpses only, a small flip-book of remembered fights and remembered whimsy and they feel alive and charming and heartbreaking, an impressionistic sketch, where we fill in the blanks. How do you “capture” a relationship without any dialogue? How do you present an entire marriage with no conversation? These moments seen (or, more accurately, glimpsed) are poignant because they feel so real, so fresh, so fully inhabited: these sections look like the way memories actually feel (if you follow me). Memories are not linear, memories are not neat. They are a collage of impressions. Her gets that. But to what end? It just made the rest of the film seem pale and colorless. And the ending was tone-deaf. [SPOILERY COMMENT] Two silhouetted figures staring at a sunrise, together, her head on his shoulder. Really? A joint plunge off the top of that tall building would have been better. Then I would believe that Her had the strength of its convictions.

It kept reminding me of other things. Sometimes this is good, other times not so much because what I was thinking was along the lines of: “God, this was done so much better in …” I kept thinking of Blade Runner, or, more specifically, Philip Dick’s original source novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? There is even a video game Phoenix’s character plays every night which has similarities to the all-encompassing “empathy box” in Dick’s novel, where you live vicariously and practice empathy through a Sisyphean type character struggling up a dirt hill. Dick’s book asks questions like: What is reality? Who can say what is real and what is not real? If I feel something to be true, and if I believe it to be true, and if I can actually touch and hold that thing, then who can tell me that what I perceive is not true?

Her approaches that territory but merely skates around on the pretty and alien surface of it, hoping we will fill in the blanks with our own yearnings and hopefulness. But the film is missing that ephemeral something, that vast and endless center that sets the echoes reverberating. I forgot half of the film 10 minutes after I left the screening.

I loved the trailer for Her, and have loved Spike Jonze’s other stuff. I was looking forward to Her with tremendous anticipation. This seems like a movie I would have thrilled to, responded to. I went in fully expecting to adore it. The theme of Unrequited Love is very personal to me, as well as the themes of isolation and prolonged heartbreak. But Her missed the mark.

Posted in Movies | 5 Comments

The Books: A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, “The Artist” by H.L. Mencken

Posted on December 7, 2013 by sheila

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Next up on the essays shelf:

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, by H.L. Mencken

Again and again, H.L. Mencken comes back to his pet themes, one being that America is a nation of prudes and morons, which is why art here lags behind the Europeans. He doesn’t believe that any good art has ever come from a “moral man”. Mencken hates a lot of things (he is a great hater), but the thing he hates most is small-mindedness and prudery. He hates do-gooders, he hates those who worry about the rest of us so much that they become professional do-gooders and “uplifters”, he despises religious cranks, and he despises those who try to impose rigid moralism onto his good time. Maybe his most famous quote is the one about Puritanism: “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Mencken was not kind to those Puritans who first settled this country, he found them to be a terrifying cultish sort who were religious fanatics, cranks, and bores. And, worst of all: anti-art to an extreme degree. No wonder art didn’t flourish here until Puritanism started to die out in the 19th century, with American giants (and heathens, really) such as Whitman, Mark Twain, and others, who helped give America its distinctive voice. Now I’m on board with some of this, and think Mencken is too hard in other cases, but he is certainly entertaining about all of it. It’s kind of fun to hear him haranguing the Puritans three centuries after the fact.

Mencken is on the side of the artist. He maintains that the artist is different from regular folks. They feel things deeper, they take things harder, and if the artist has talent (we presume that he does), then it is that deeper sensitivity to the small pains/joys of life that makes him the Artist that he is. The artist who tries to fit into the mainstream, or get approval from the petty bourgeois or whatever you want to call them, the grace-less nouveau riche set, is not an artist at all. The artist is supposed to be an outcast, an outlaw, a pervert, a weirdo.

AND – in this essay from 1924, Mencken takes up this topic again and says that artists are usually un-patriotic to the point of treason. They hate the country in which they live, because they hate the status quo, and the country in which they live hates them in return. It is only when the pesky artist has reached the Pantheon of Legend that said country rushes to CLAIM said artist. Ireland very nearly ran James Joyce out of town on a rail (well: he fled its “priest-ridden” confines, so same difference), and now of course he is their greatest star, he was on their currency before the EU came along, he is as much everywhere in Dublin as Elvis is everywhere in Graceland. (Let’s also not forget that James Joyce, with all of his interests and passions, had one topic, and that was Ireland. It takes an exile to see things with clarity.) But, you know, Ireland wanted to be RID of him and his lascivious voice, and they did their best to ban him, censor him, shut him the fuck UP. When America finally ruled, in 1934, that Ulysses was “not obscene” and therefore allowed into the United States (12 years after its original publication in 1922), Joyce’s response was:

Thus one half of the English speaking world surrenders. The other half will follow … And Ireland 1,000 years hence.

Ireland does not have a good track record with its artists, but then, no nation does. Russia has an ever-changing gallery of stars, and those who were in yesterday are air-brushed out today.

So here’s Mencken on the role of artist as regards to his country. I am racking my brains to think of what Mencken had to say about Kipling, who, obviously, disproved all of these theories here. I should do some digging, it would be interesting. Still: he makes some interesting points.

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, “The Artist,” by H.L. Mencken

It is almost safe to assume that an artist of any dignity is against his country, i.e., against the environment in which God hath placed him, as it is to assume that his country is against the artist. The special quality which makes an artist of him might almost be defined, indeed, as an extraordinary capacity for irritation, a pathological sensitiveness to environmental pricks and stings. He differs from the rest of us mainly because he reacts sharply and in an uncommon manner to phenomena which leave the rest of us unmoved, or, at most, merely annoy us vaguely. He is, in brief, a more delicate fellow than we are, and hence less fitted to prosper and enjoy himself under the conditions of life which he and we must face alike. Therefore, he takes to artistic endeavor, which is at once a criticism of life and an attempt to escape from life.

So much for the theory of it. The more the facts are studied, the more they bear it out. In those fields of art, at all events, which concern themselves with ideas as well as with sensations it is almost impossible to find any trace of an artist who was not actively hostile to his environment, and thus an indifferent patriot. From Dante to Tolstoy and from Shakespeare to Mark Twain the story is ever the same. Names suggest themselves instantly: Goethe, Heine, Shelley, Byron, Thackeray, Balzac, Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, Dostoevsky, Carlyle, Moliere, Pope – all bitter critics of their time and nation, most of them piously hated by the contemporary 100 per centers, some of them actually fugitives from rage and reprisal.

Dante put all of the patriotic Italians of his day into Hell, and showed them boiling, roasting and writhing on hooks. Cervantes drew such a devastating picture of the Spain that he lived in that it ruined the Spaniards. Shakespeare made his heroes foreigners and his clowns Englishmen. Goethe was in favor of Napoleon. Rabelais, a citizen of Christendom rather than of France, raised a cackle against it that Christendom is still trying in vain to suppress. Swift, having finished the Irish and then the English, proceeded to finish the whole human race. The exceptions are few and far between, and not many of them will bear examination.

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On This Day: “December 7, 1941 – A Date Which Will Live In Infamy.”

Posted on December 7, 2013 by sheila

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Here is a cool fact about my home state, little Rhode Island:

There are only a handful newspapers in the United States that come out on Sunday afternoon, (as opposed to Sunday morning) and one of them is the local paper for Westerly, (a small town in Rhode Island), called The Westerly Sun.

Because The Westerly Sun comes out at the odd time of 3 pm on Sunday, it was the only newspapers in the entire country to report the bombing of Pearl Harbor, on the actual day of the attack, Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. If you look at that NY Times front page, the date, naturally, is December 8, since it didn’t go to the presses until the afternoon of December 7.

I am picturing that tiny clapboard newspaper office in Westerly, off route 1 … a place I have driven by many times … a newspaper with a miniscule circulation. It is a Sunday morning and the staff of the newspaper, who normally report on school committee meetings and water board issues and the local police beat are all there, on the forefront of a national catastrophe, putting the front page together on that historic awful day.

On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made what is now known as one of his most famous speeches (in a lifetime of famous speeches). Interesting factoid: The speech originally read “a date which will live in world history”, but Roosevelt crossed that out and put in “infamy” instead. Similar to the editing out of the word “property” in the Declaration of Independence, so that the statement then became not “life, liberty and property” but “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, the crossing-out of the words “world history” and changing it to “infamy” elevated the speech from the present catastrophic moment into something almost mythic. “Infamy” is a good word. It is propaganda, sure, like most great speeches are. What has been done to us yesterday will always live on “in infamy”. History, and posterity, are not in question, “world history” is a given with an event such as this one so it doesn’t even need to be mentioned: but history will always see this day as “infamous”. That is a moral judgment on the events of that day. It is a condemnation. Roosevelt’s notes and edits are preserved in the National Archives:

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The speech, as it was read:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounded determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

30 minutes after Roosevelt finished his speech, Congress declared war on Japan.

And here is a chilling telegram from the morning of December 7, 1941:

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Posted in On This Day | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Merry Christmas (2013)

Posted on December 6, 2013 by sheila

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Merry Christmas, a new film by Anna Condo, opens today in limited release.

My review is up at Roger Ebert.

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The Books: A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, “Schubert” by H.L. Mencken

Posted on December 6, 2013 by sheila

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Next up on the essays shelf:

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, by H.L. Mencken

Mencken refers to Franz Schubert as “one of the great glories of the human race”. In this essay, he discusses the diversity of Schubert’s work, as well as the sad fact that much of what he wrote (at least at that time) was not well-known, and rarely played by orchestras. Mencken starts off by saying that Schubert, unlike, say Mendelssohn, with his Wedding March, did not “suffer” from too much popularity. Schubert’s works are well-known but not so well-known that they are sapped of vitality.

Mencken, as should be clear by now if you have been following along, did not particularly care for Mob Wisdom. If 99% of the public declared that something was good, then Mencken would naturally greet that thing with a jaundiced eye. I know it’s upsetting in our ‘we are all equal’ age (which has its own issues because, no, we are NOT all equal. We are equal under the law, thank God, but we are not all equal in ability), but Mencken thought the majority of people were imbeciles, and their taste didn’t amount to much. This was part and parcel of his suspicion of fads. He was very much of his moment, of his time. He made guesses about which fad would withstand the test of time, and which would subside. He was often dead wrong. What is so great about Mencken’s stuff is that you feel the rip-roaring chaotic and interesting 1920s in all of his work (this Schubert essay was written in 1928): the culture swirling around him, Modernism spreading into every nook and cranny, technology exploding, our ways and means of communicating with one another proliferating … the changes were extraordinary in that post-war decade. Mencken was trying to make sense of it all. He dismissed some things which would become truly important, and he cherished others which would vanish. And yet, of course, sometimes he was bang on the money. But it’s the feel of the prose that I cherish – whatever the topic. The feel of a man truly engaged with his own culture. (Criticism is also engagement, and don’t let anyone tell you different. Speaking of which: this piece is magnificent. I wish I had written it. I know I have thought it.)

So back to Schubert.

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Mencken discusses the critical reception of Schubert, as well as the man’s natural talents, which were abundant. Also, he repeatedly references the “Tragic” symphony (a favorite of mine. The chords!).

Mencken also addresses one of my pet topics: how biographers tend to look to the life story to explain the work. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine. It’s so reductive and really seems, as its goal, to discount genius. Genius makes people nervous. They don’t like it. It makes them feel bad about themselves. Biographers are not immune to that, in fact they may suffer more than others since they spend the majority of their time in the (imaginary) presence of geniuses. So they scour through the childhood, the romances, looking for “clues” as to how on earth so-and-so created such a beautiful symphony, or novel, or whatever. When genius, for the most part, cannot – refuses to be – explained away. No matter what you uncover, it still cannot explain the mystery of talent and vision. Sorry, biographers. You’re stuck with it!

There is a lot to digest here, and I have only a cursory knowledge of classical music. I can’t express how excited I am to have you all talking about this stuff in the Beethoven post. I am learning a lot.

Here is an excerpt from the much larger essay.

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, “Schubert,” by H.L. Mencken

Great stretches of Schubert’s music, indeed, remain almost unknown, even to musicians. Perhaps a hundred of his songs are heard regularly in the concert-hall; the rest get upon programs only rarely. Of his chamber music little is heard at all, not even the two superb piano trios, the octet, and the quintet with the two ‘cellos. Of his symphonies the orchestras play the Unfinished incessantly – but never too often! – and the huge C major now and then, but the Tragic only once in a blue moon. Yet the Tragic remains one of Schubert’s masterworks, and in its slow movement, at least, it rises to the full height of the Unfinished. There are not six such slow movements in the whole range of music. It has an eloquence that has never been surpassed, not even by Beethoven, but there is no rhetoric in it, no heroics, no exhibitionism. It begins quietly and simply and it passes out in a whisper, but its beauty remains overwhelming. I defy anyone with ears to listen to it without being moved profoundly, as by the spectacle of great grief.

Schubert paid the price that all artists pay for trying to improve upon the world made by the gods. “My compositions,” he once wrote in his diary, “spring from my sorrow.” Biographers, finding that sorrow in the lives of their victims, search for its sources in objective experience. They hunt, commonly, for the woman. Thus such a colossus as Beethoven is explained in terms of the trashy Giulietta Guicciardi. It is not necessary to resort to these puerilities. The life of an artists is a life of frustrations and disasters. Storms rage endlessly within his own soul. His quest is for the perfect beauty that is always elusive, always just beyond the sky-rim. He tries to contrive what the gods themselves have failed to contrive. When, in some moment of great illumination, he comes within reach of his heart’s desire, his happiness is of a kind never experienced by ordinary men, nor even suspected, but that happens only seldom. More often he falls short, and in his falling short there is agony almost beyond endurance.

We know little directly about what Schubert thought of his compositions. He was, for a musician, strangely reserved. But indirectly there is the legend that, in his last days, he thought of taking lessons in counterpoint from Simon Sechter. The story has always appealed pleasantly to the musical biographers; mainly ninth-rate men, they delight in discovering imbecilities in artists. My guess is that Schubert, if he actually proposed to seek the den of Sechter, did it in a sportive spirit. Going to school to a pedant would have appealed charmingly to his sardonic hour. What Sechter had to teach him was precisely what a Hugh Walpole might have taught Joseph Conrad, no less and no more.

It is astonishing how voluptuously criticism cherishes nonsense. This notion that Schubert lacked skill at counterpoint seems determined to go on afflicting his fame forever, despite the plain evidence to the contrary in his most familiar works. How can anyone believe it who has so much as glanced at the score of the Unfinished? That score is quite as remarkable for its adroit and lovely combinations of melodies as it is for its magnificent modulations. It is seldom that one is heard alone. They come in two by two, and they are woven into a fabric that is at once simple and complicated, and always beautiful. Here is contrapuntal writing at its very best, for the means are concealed by a perfect effect. Here is the complete antithesis of the sort of counterpoint that is taught by the Sechters.

No doubt the superstition that Schubert had no skill at polyphony gets some support from the plain fact that he seldom wrote a formal fugue. There is one at the end of his cantata, “Miriams Siegesgesang,” and in his last years he wrote another for piano duet. The strict form, however, was out of accord with the natural bent of his invention: he did not think of terse, epigrammatic subjects, as Bach did and Beethoven afterward; he thought of complete melodies, the most ravishing ever heard in this world. It would be hard to imagine his making anything of the four austere notes which Beethoven turned into the first movement of the C minor symphony. He would have gone on to develop them melodically before ever he set himself to manipulating them contrapuntally. But that was not a sign of his inferiority to Beethoven; it was, in its way, a sign of his superiority. He was infinitely below old Ludwig as a technician; he lacked the sheer brain-power that went into such masterpieces as the first movement of the Eroica and the allegretto of the Seventh. Such dizzy feats of pure craftsmanship were beyond him. But where he fell short as an artisan he was unsurpassed as an artist. He invented more beautiful musical ideas in his thirty-one years than even Mozart or Haydn, and he proclaimed them with an instinctive skill that was certainly not inferior to any mere virtuosity, however dazzling and however profound.

Posted in Books, Music | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

R.I.P. Nelson Mandela

Posted on December 6, 2013 by sheila

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Invictus
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

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Stuff I’ve Been Reading

Posted on December 5, 2013 by sheila

– “I think she is a terrible driver + an ENORMOUS PIECE OF SHIT MOTHERFUCKING ASSHOLE. How fucking entitled do you have to be to behave like this? She should be arrested and have her license revoked, and if I were in the position to make that happen, I would do so, with pleasure.” Captain Awkward says what I feel. If you text while you drive, you deserve to die. You deserve to die, you hear me? I have zero sympathy if anything happens to you while you are engaging in such a blatantly dangerous activity. Unfortunately, your dangerous activity puts ME at risk and so it has to be my business that you think typing “LOL” on your FB page is more important than the safety of your community.

– The nerd linguist in me thrills to discussions such as this one. Seamus Heaney interpreted “hwæt” as “So”, which gives Beowulf the feeling of its oral tradition, the fact that it was a story told over and over again, by individuals and by groups. You are starting up a story by saying, “So.” It’s an attention-getter. But other Nerds have other Ideas. I hope the conversation never stops.

– A hell of a fine piece of writing by Chuck Klosterman. Can’t be excerpted. Not really. My take on the whole Eminem-college-football thing was similar to Klosterman’s. In awkwardness is often truth. Slick smooth capability is often just indicative of the presence of facile lying. At least that’s my experience and is why I am drawn to awkward people and can be quite awkward myself. Yes, it can make social gatherings horrible. You have to wait it out, you have to white-knuckle your fight-or-flight response. But if you do, then awkwardness can sometimes be drawn to awkwardness, and a kind of comfort can then arise in such encounters. Had a tremendously awkward and yet totally gratifying one-hour conversation with a guy I have a crush on at a party. Neither of us sidled away, or made excuses to move on, even though we experienced awkward silences, awkward interruptions and talking-over one another, awkward searching for the next topic. It went on forever. “Soooo ……….. been reading anything good lately?” was an actual moment after a long awkward silence. I don’t know, there was something Zen about the whole thing. The awkwardness felt truthful and somehow authentic. Anyway, go read Klosterman’s piece. Packs a pretty big punch.

– I love Stephanie Zacharek’s writing so much. Here she is, in her review of the new Coen Brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis: “If Llewyn had a bell, he most definitely would not ring it in the morning; he’d be too hungover, or at least just too pissed off at the world.”

– My great friend Rachel Hamilton on her ass-kicking great-grandmother, Florence Bates. You may remember her from Hitchcock’s Rebecca (her debut!), but there are so many other films. And her acting career (which began at the age of 50) was only one of her many incarnations. An amazing woman.

– Finally reading Donna Tartt’s 1992 novel The Secret History. From the first page, I knew I was hooked. (If you’ve read it, then you remember that prologue, and you remember the opening lines.) Please don’t tell me what happens. I am about 200 pages in now and it is pulling me along, compelling me to turn the page. The best part is: it acts sort of as a thriller, almost a whodunit: you only see what the narrator sees, and from the outset, the narrator is only shown a small sliver of the important events. His confusion, then, is ours. And it makes you need to keep turning those pages to find out what the hell is going on. I can’t believe I haven’t read this book before, and I also can’t believe that more people haven’t said to me, specifically, “You, OF ALL PEOPLE, should read this book.” It is a brilliant evocation of a cult-like atmosphere, and how the brain is lulled to sleep by the seductive power of one man who holds sway over his students. I have zero idea what is going to happen and have to force myself to put the book down and go to sleep. It will wait until tomorrow. I know Donna Tartt has a new one out, but this is the first of hers I have read. I am not a big contemporary fiction person, so it sometimes takes me a long time to get around to something. So glad I picked up this book.

Posted in Miscellania | Tagged | 12 Comments

The Books: A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, “Beethoven” by H.L. Mencken

Posted on December 4, 2013 by sheila

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Next up on the essays shelf:

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, by H.L. Mencken

After reading all of the essays that come before, it is a shock (and a pleasure) to come across the section entitled “Music”, where Mencken discusses the classical composers who seem to him most interesting. Well, and the ones he is in awe of, as well. While Mencken never loses his critical facility, and can still sense things he doesn’t think quite great about this or that composer, his admiration far outweighs his criticisms. And when it comes to Beethoven, Mencken can’t hold himself back. I love hearing him praise like this. It’s exciting. It’s not that I don’t think Beethoven deserves it, it’s just an entirely different tone, and it suits Mencken just as well as the Crankypants Curmudgeon.

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Beethoven is a constant reference point for Mencken and comes up in every other essay. He is the Gold Standard as an artist, he is the Gold Standard of integrity. (Clifford Odets’ journal, The Time is Ripe, is as much a contemplation of Beethoven, and how Beethoven spurs Odets on in his own work, as it is a description of the rehearsal process for Night Music, the last Group Theatre production. You can peruse some excerpts here.) Mencken yearns towards Beethoven in his mind, he stands in awe of the music, and not just that – but the character of the man himself. That is one of the points he addresses in this essay about Beethoven. Mencken feels that the music is better than Beethoven’s contemporaries and rivals – not because of the music so much as because he was a superior sort of man. Beethoven’s concerns were big and universal, whereas other composers’ concerns were domestic and trivial. And so their music may be beautiful or soothing but they can never reach the thunderous questioning heights that Beethoven’s did, because they aren’t asking the same big questions.

In this essay he keeps coming back to the Eroica, and how far and beyond that piece of music is from anything else going on at the time, and at any time, really.

But Mencken can say it all better. This is just an excerpt of a larger essay. I am glad to see that people are buying the Chrestomathy from my links! It’s a great book to have lying around.

A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, “Beethoven,” by H.L. Mencken

What ails the music of the Tschaikowskys, Mendelssohns – and Chopins? What ails it is that it is the music of shallow men. It is often, in its way, lovely. It bristles with charming musical ideas. It is infinitely ingenious and workmanlike. But it is as hollow, at bottom, as a bull by an archbishop. It is the music of second-rate men.

Beethoven disdained all their artifices: he didn’t need them. It would be hard to think of a composer, even of the fourth rate, who worked with thematic material of less intrinsic merit. He borrowed tunes wherever he found them; he made them up out of snatches of country jigs; when he lacked one altogether he contented himself with a simple phrase, a few banal notes. All such things he viewed simply as raw materials; his interest was concentrated upon their use. To that use of them he brought the appalling powers of his unrivaled genius. His ingenuity began where that of other men left off. His most complicated structures retained the overwhelming clarity of the Parthenon. And into them he got a kind of feeling that even the Greeks could not match; he was preeminently a modern man, with all trace of the barbarism vanished. Into his gorgeous music there went all of the high skepticism that was of the essence of the Eighteenth Century, but into it there also went the new enthusiasm, the new determination to challenge and beat the gods, that dawned with the Nineteenth.

The older I grow, the more I am convinced that the most portentous phenomenon in the whole history of music was the first public performance of the Eroica on April 7, 1805. The manufacturers of program me notes have swathed that gigantic work in so many layers of banal legend and speculation that its intrinsic merits have been almost forgotten. Was it dedicated to Napoleon? If so, was the dedication sincere or ironical? Who cares – that is, who with ears? It might have been dedicated, just as well, to Louis XIV, Paracelsus or Pontius Pilate. What makes it worth discussing, today and forever, is the fact that on its very first page Beethoven threw his hat into the ring and laid his claim to immortality. Bang! – and he is off. No compromise! No easy bridge from the past! The Second Symphony is already miles behind. A new order of music has been born. The very manner of it is full of challenge. There is no sneaking into the foul business by way of a mellifluous and disarming introduction; no preparatory hemming and hawing to cajole the audience and enable the conductor to find his place in the score. Nay! Out of silence comes the angry crash of the tonic triad, and then at once, with no pause, the first statement of the first subject – grim, domineering, harsh, raucous, and yet curiously lovely – with its astounding collision with that electrical C sharp. The carnage has begun early; we are only in the seventh measure. In the thirteenth and fourteenth comes the incomparable roll down the simple scale of E flat – and what follows is all that has ever been said, perhaps all that ever will be said, about music-making in the grand manner. What was afterward done, even by Beethoven, was done in the light of that perfect example. Every line of modern music that is honestly music bears some sort of relation to that epoch-making first movement.

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9:30 a.m.

Posted on December 3, 2013 by sheila

It was cold and silvery, the sunlight having not burned off the fog. Everything had a shimmer to it, the city looked like a mirage. I happened to have my camera (my good camera, not my phone) in the car. I was taking a run along Boulevard East and had to stop and take some pics, including one of my gorgeous dead boyfriend. I love visiting him. Today is good. Some semi-bad news, some really good news. Managing it. Exercise is one of the keys and I’ve been really getting into it. And shrinking in size, which is freakin’ great! I have a long way to go, but I’m on the road back to being the muscly little bitch I was in Chicago, running 10 miles a day. It feels good. Lots of writing and meetings and screenings over the next couple of days. I wanted to start off the marathon right, and the morning was just so beautiful. I’m pretty psyched how these came out.

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I mean, for real? It looks like an urban Narnia entryway. Mr. Tumnus will make his appearance shortly.

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It’s rare you read a book that so changes how you look at the place that you actually live. Mark Helprin’s “Winter’s Tale” was one of those books and it was all I thought of this morning as I looked at that city through that haze of mist. Magic.

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Hi, honey! How are you?

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Our new-ish nearly-finished skyline. I’m not used to it yet. I still find myself starting sometimes, startled, when I get a glimpse of downtown from far away. But I’m glad it’s fucking taller, I will say that.

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Thanksgiving Week Shuffle

Posted on December 3, 2013 by sheila

“Save the Last Dance” – The Troggs. Lester Banks’ massive essay on The Troggs has almost more relevance now than it did when it was first published … it’s still a throw-down against mediocrity and playing it safe. Here The Troggs sing “Save the Last Dance”, turning it into a macho demand (most of their songs are macho demands) as opposed to a girlish request. Hot.

“Doncha’ Think It’s Time” (take 39) – Elvis Presley. Yes. Take 39. It was a tough one. This from the 1958 sessions for 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong, with the famous album cover of Elvis in quadruplicate wearing his gold suit. I love this performance of his because it’s pleading, with that small note of brattiness that I always love in him.

“Think For Yourself” – Beatles (in mono – thank you, cousin Liam). The weird thing is that this song feels like it shouldn’t work. It has this weird structure: herky-jerky slow opening, and then sudden groovy twist-n-shout chorus. But the melding together of those two different sounds is so THEM and of course it totally works.

“Harbor Lights” (alternate take 3) – baby Elvis, in 1954. One of his very first recordings at Sun Records. He’s still drenched in The Ink Spots style. He’s crooning, and you keep waiting for him to let loose, which … he doesn’t, because he’s not there yet. He’d be there in about a hot 2 seconds.

“This Time Could Mean Good-bye” – Stevie Wonder. So sweet and sad and beautiful.

“8 Mile” – Eminem. So excellent, relentless, driving.

“Wang Dang Doodle” – the Willie Dixon Orchestra. That piano. There’s a party in that piano, a party that goes on forever.

“A Mess of Blues” – Hot aching rhythm & blues from Elvis Presley. On his great album Elvis is Back!, put out when he returned to the States after the army. The diversity of song styles is breathtaking, but the album also has an underlying theme and structure (which many of his other albums do not have, where every old B-side is thrown together to keep the public happy). Elvis is Back is superb. This is one of my favorite Elvis tracks ever. Listen to what he does with his voice on “I gotta get myself together.” Into his voice he puts all of the quivering loneliness of a guy on the verge of losing it. But it’s also funny, a goofy PARODY of said emotion. Elvis was so good at that balance.

“She Can Talk To Me” – The Beatles. What sounds like a rehearsal, working out the arrangements, harmonies. This is in the batch of stuff cousin Liam sent to me. I am not sure the context. Date is 1968. Anyone?

“Selfless, Cold and Composed” – Ben Folds Five. This is lovely and sad.

“He’s My Friend Until the End” (alternate take 2) – Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers. Gorgeous. Here is where you hear that crossover thing happening, where gospel starts to become indistinguishable from pop, doo-wop, rhythm & blues. Sam Cooke may have been a douche as a man, but boy is he a smooth performer, filled with the light of energy, creativity, and inspiration. You can hear the smile inside when he sings. It translates.

“Starting Over Again” – Dolly Parton. Let’s give a warm welcome to the first woman on this Shuffle. And what a woman!

“On the Street Where You Live” – Dean Martin. Back to the testosterone. I’m not complaining! Dino, no surprise, turns this ballad from My Fair Lady into a finger-snapping swing.

“California” – Rufus Wainwright. Any song that includes the lyrics “and my new grandma, Bea Arthur” gets my vote.

“Number Nine Train” – the great Dale Hawkins. Naturally, I must point you to Kim Morgan’s latest. Not to be missed.

“Dust Bowl Dance” – Mumford & Sons. I am not on the Mumford & Sons train, although I do own a couple of their songs. This is nice. I am not sure what the big deal is, though. I don’t mean that with hostility. I am baffled as to what they are tapping into that have made them so huge with people. Can someone explain it?

“Dreams” – The Cranberries. This band brings me back to such a time and such a place, so specific. Chicago, making new friends, staying out all night, rolling around in M.’s bed, and driving around in his jalopy having adventures at 3 a.m. involving kung fu movies, towed cars, scary pool halls, hickeys (so immature) and a conversation style that was a mixture of Dada and Borscht Belt. M., I salute you across the years. The Cranberries always seemed to be on the radio at that time.

“Lawdy Miss Clawdy” (take 3) – Elvis. Recorded in 1956, of course. It still doesn’t sound like anything else by anyone else ever.

“A Wedding in Cherokee County” – Randy Newman. Sometimes his music is too sad for me. It cracks me open like a walnut – it doesn’t even matter what the lyrics are. It’s the SOUND. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But his stuff hurts.

“Workin’ Man Blues” – Merle Haggard. Sexy. Blues/country. It has that defensiveness so typical of a lot of country music, that vibe of “Let me list to you all of the facts of my life to show all you urban snobs what’s what”. Merle delivers it with great and cynical authenticity. The guitar! His voice!

“You Oughta Know” – Alanis Morissette. I’ve hung in there with Alanis, which is incredible considering I have this whole love/hate thing with her and her list-making and weirdo phraseology and New Age psychologizing. Not to mention the immaturity on display in this song. “And are you thinking of me when you fuck her?” Don’t ask questions if you don’t want to hear the Truth, Alanis.

“Take My Hand, Precious Lord” – Elvis getting all gospel, which somehow seems wrong coming on the tail-end of Alanis. This is extremely church-y. There’s an organ, everything is very soft and earnest, the chorus backing him up. Elvis means every word. It’s beautiful. I love Godly Elvis.

“Bring It On Home to Me” – Sam Cooke. Absolutely classic. Untouchable.

“Marguerita” – Elvis Presley, from the movie Fun in Acapulco, which actually lives up to its name. Not only that, but the soundtrack, filled with different Latin beats, is pretty high quality for the soundtracks (there’s a whole story behind it, which I won’t bore you with). Elvis singing tangos, and calypsos, and rhumbas, and I don’t know what, it’s all quite silly, but Elvis did silly really well. There was a blank-ness to him (from the start) that allowed him to be open to all influences in a way that is still extraordinary. To say he was a “sponge” does not even come close to what he had going on. He was accessible and vulnerable on some other plane. He sings the shit out of this song and he sounds pheNOMenal.

“Angel” (takes 1, 2) – Elvis Presley, for Follow That Dream, a movie I love. A FB pal of mine called it “Elvis’ Occupy movie”, which is hysterical and apt. “Angel” is a bit of a snooze-fest. Swoopy soprano supporting him. Millie Kirkham? I think so. She’s the one who did the funny background on “Blue Christmas”. Anyway, these are a couple of blown takes. I love the blown takes, and Elvis’ comments, and the musicians comments. You feel Elvis’ work ethic.

“Then We Are Decided” – from Jesus Christ Superstar. Jesus is dunzo.

“Sweet Caroline” – Elvis, live in Vegas. As a Red Sox fan, listening to Elvis do this song is a distinctly strange experience. Look up the footage of him doing this number. He really did move like a burlesque performer, and his 70s drummer, Ronnie Tutt, talks a lot about how his job was keeping his eye on Elvis and highlighting/underlining Elvis’ various wild movements. Tutt said it was like working in a strip joint, which is hysterical.

“Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” – The Beatles. It still comes screaming out of the speakers at you. Ragingly authentic, almost scary.

“Sweet Emotion” – Aerosmith. I find these guys to be blatantly florid, and blatantly decadent. I kind of love them, even when I find some of their lyrics super offensive. I’m not one to get offended all that much by sexist lyrics in rock ‘n roll (if you aren’t gonna let it out in rock ‘n roll, then where will you let it out?) but sometimes Aerosmith’s lyrics are like a vision of rock star decadence and entitlement that, frankly, grosses me out.

“Tommy, Can You Hear Me?” – The Who. I’m so glad that this whole project exists. I’m so glad it happened.

“Hey Wow Yeah Yeah” – the great, the superb, Robbie Williams. This from Take the Crown, a recent album, and he already has a new one out – Slow down, Robbie, I can’t absorb it all!! But this is a great rocking dance number.

“I’ll Be Home on Christmas Day” (alternate take 9) – Elvis Presley. Great slow bluesy sad Christmas number. It’s not Elvis at his bluesiest (I’d put “Santa Claus is Back in Town” at the top of that list), but it’s pretty damn bluesy. It’s great.

“I Need Somebody to Lean On” – Elvis Presley, from Viva Las Vegas. A beautiful performance from him (not just vocally, but acting-wise). Peter Guralnick nails it. Now Guralnick doesn’t like the movies, so you have to take some of what he says with a grain of salt, but that’s why that piece from him is so spot on.

“Act Naturally” – The Beatles. I have such a vivid memory of doing karaoke with my O’Malley cousins (an experience and a half, look out, we all take over the joint whenever we do karaoke, and Bogart the mike for hours), I have no idea where, and cousin Liam sang this one. He took the mike and strolled around the joint, totally owning it.

“You Gave Me a Mountain” – Elvis Presley. One of his standbys during the 70s. He was unable to phone this one in, even when he was clearly ill and tired (as he was here. This is from that last-ish concert that ended up being televised, and while he still was able to pull out the stops – “My Way” – my God – you could just see the struggle. It’s outrageous.) But even with all of that, even with the illness and the struggle, he pours his entire self into this number. It calls him to do so, and he obeys the call. He always did. He always was an obedient soul: his ace-in-the-hole, his Achilles heel, and his abiding secret.

“My Generation” – Count Five. I love the stutter/hesitation built into the lyrics. This is an ear-grabber. A hit.

“Survival” – Eminem, from his latest (which I covered here). He calls it: this is an anthem. FIERCE. And the chorus! With the crowd shouting. It sounds political, like a mob about to get violent. Awesome.

“Shout It Out” – Elvis Presley, from Frankie and Johnny, a tired movie, filmed during the height of Elvis’ religious fanaticism, when he was actually considering becoming a monk of some kind, deeply entrenched in spiritual matters and praying and reading. The movie is so deeply silly it would drive me to want to join a cloistered community and take a vow of silence too.

“You Know, I Know, You Know” – Bleu. God, I love him. This is an achey ballad, old-school.

“Blue Moon of Kentucky” – Elvis, during his first performance with Scotty and Bill on the Louisiana Hayride. He had barely performed live at this point, and most of that were small local Memphis shows. And here, in this first broadcast, when it really counted, he emerges fully formed as a performer. He needed no gestation period. He arrived fully bloomed.

“Love Me Do” – The Beatles. So classic. It doesn’t get old.

“My List” – The Killers. Brandon Flowers has a great rock voice. Big, emotive. But maybe the songs aren’t good enough. Not sure. They don’t grab me, although I like them, and like him a lot.

“California Gurls” – Katy Perry, with Snoop Dogg. I don’t know what’s going on here.

“Light of a Clear Blue Morning” – Dolly Parton. Oh Dolly, you slay me. “Day-ayyyy”. It cuts to the quick. The song starts slow and almost sad, and then starts to MOVE, and the place this song goes! She can do anything with that voice of hers. Talk about always being yourself. You cannot manufacture authenticity like hers.

“Your Cheatin’ Heart” – Elvis Presley, one of his many orphan tracks. I don’t think he liked this one very much, although some of you Elvis experts may correct me. I like it though. He SWINGS that country tune.

“Something” – Jim Sturgess singing the Beatles song in the Julie Taymor movie Across the Universe, which I loved (much to my surprise). Thought it was great, and surprisingly moving. Great covers, too, and great imagining of the world created by Beatles songs.

“Jambalaya” – Hank Williams. That little yodel in his voice is ear-grabbingly sexy and charismatic. His personality comes through whatever he does.

“Padre” (take 2) – Elvis Presley. Maybe his best vocal effort. I mean, who can choose, right. But this is superb. Hard, this song is hard. The different takes show Elvis perfecting the more difficult passages, notes, trills. The song is a monster and could easily get away from him. He wrestles it to the ground so he owns it.

“Give It To Me (All Your Love)” – The Troggs. I feel like Lester Bangs still dominates how we talk about these guys. I can’t separate my thoughts from his. I love them and I love their sex-positive energy – if I can even call it that. Let’s just call it Happy Fucking for Everyone music.

“Hand In my Pocket” – Alanis Morissette. Alanis, try to write a song that is not a list. Just try. Also, really? What it all comes down to is everything’s going to be fine? Tell that to the folks in the Sudan.

“If I Were a Carpenter” – Johnny and June Carter Cash. The energy they create, the warmth, the intertwined emotions and experience … It’s amazing. What a pair.

“Dead In the Mornin’” – Bleu. A sad morbid song about death with a rocking beat and a chorus of girls screaming in the background. He is such a life force, even when he’s death-driven.

“Twelve Days of Christmas” – Jane Siberry and friends, from her lovely live album called “New York Trilogy” (I think? I’ve had it so long). It’s a Christmas concert she gave at the Bottom Line. It’s one of those weird albums that comes up on Shuffle too much (why does that happen?) But there’s so much good stuff here. You can feel the good-spirited vibe in that small club.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water” – Elvis, from That’s the Way It Is. I can’t imagine how Paul Simon must have felt hearing Elvis cover this. It’s beautiful and simple. Elvis wasn’t a big embellisher. Hell, he wasn’t a big “interpreter” either. He didn’t have to put his “spin” on anything because the mere fact of him singing anything became its own spin. In fact, he was so influenced by how others sang that his producer pals would keep the demos away from him. Elvis would hear a demo song, fall in love with it, and then just want to do exactly what he heard on the demo. And, because he was who he was, his sheer force of personality and belief would then wipe out the memory of the original. He was just one of those rare people whose personality was so unique and so huge that the fact of him “showing up” was enough. So you hear him singing this song, and he’s not veering from the original, but the BELIEF he pours into every word … He pours new energy and life into the song merely by singing it.

“I Wouldn’t Dream of It” – Split Enz. This was the soundtrack to my freshman year in college.

“Santa Claus Is Back in Town” – Elvis. This is not the famous 1957 recorded version. This is from a rehearsal for Vegas, Elvis just messing around in the studio with his band. He goes so dirty on “You be a real good little girl” that he can’t keep a straight face. So even with Elvis, there was a line.

“I See a River” – the cast of Urinetown. So ridiculous, so awesome. A gospel song, yet singing about a river of … urine. My family went to see this show when it was first on Broadway and had a blast.

“Jet Lag” – Brendan Benson. One of my favorite songwriters/singers working today. He will always be on my radar. Forever.

“Back to Black” – Naya Rivera, from Glee, covering the great and tragic Amy Winehouse. Rivera can obviously sing, but without Winehouse’s sleazy dark energy, the song doesn’t pop. It needs to be dark, it needs to be sexy and dark. I miss Amy.

“We Will Rock You” – Robbie Williams, live at Knebworth, covering Queen to an absolutely massive crowd (the biggest crowd in England for a single concert ever – yes, EVER). I love that he did this song. The crowd sounds like an unruly mob, which, of course, they are.

“What’d I Say” – the ferocious Jerry Lee Lewis.

“The Green Leaves of Summer” – Nick Perito’s remake of the famous song from John Wayne’s The Alamo. Quentin Tarantino used this in Inglourious Basterds.

“Papa, Can You Hear Me?” – Babs, from Yentl. I always think of the story of her showing the film to Spielberg for his feedback. His response? “Don’t change a frame.” She didn’t.

“Big Bright Beautiful World” – Pat McCurdy, in a very nice pep-talk song that actually works if you listen to those lyrics.

“Steady As She Goes” – The Raconteurs. I love these guys. I love them individually and I love who they are together.

“Deep Water” – Seal. Well, why not tell everything. This reminds me of making out with a guy who was my ex-boyfriend at around 7 in the morning at his apartment in Boston. Coffee brewing. We had been up all night. I was flying out of Boston back to Los Angeles that morning and somehow we had re-connected via phone over the holiday, and we said, “Hey, let’s get together the night before you fly out – for drinks and talk about old times!” We did, with predictable results. It was nice closure. Gentle and sweet. So this comes on and I remember that pearly-aired early morning with him.

“Bitch Please II” – Eminem and Dr. Dre and others, from The Marshall Mathers LP. It’s got that sneaky sound so many of his songs around this time had: creepy minor-key sneakiness, upping the emotional intensity. They all sound like brats. It’s all peacock bullshit: “I am the baddest, I am so tough, you don’t want to fuck with me!” Okay, boys, okay, your penises are all huge, we get it! Thanks for sharing! But it’s catchy as hell!

“Brown Sugar” – The Rolling Stones. I defer to Glenn Kenny’s recent comment in a post on the script of 12 Years a Slave: “In any event, this may sound flip, but I defy anyone who sits through this movie to ever be able to comfortably listen to the Rolling Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’ again any time soon.” Yup.

“Welcome to Burlesque” – Cher, from the awesome and super-fun Burlesque soundtrack. She sounds great, in true Cher form. She hasn’t sounded this great, this much herself, in years. I like when she goes up the octave. It’s such classic bullshit.

“Scandal” – Queen. This is from the late 80s, when rumors/scandal were swirling around different members of the band. Divorces, health problems (to completely understate the situation). Mercury wails this shit. I’m not crazy about the synthesizer sound here.

“Enough Space” – Foo Fighters, from their album The Colour and the Shape which so took over my life that I listened to it every single day for a year, maybe more. The same thing happened with The Eminem Show. And I still haven’t listened either of them “out”, the way I did with, say, Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes, which I listened to so much in 1995 that I feel like I’m done with it. Not Colour and the Shape. Still a completely thrilling album.

“Tender Feeling” – Elvis Presley, from the Kissin’ Cousins soundtrack. Snoozefest, pal, but I imagine you already know.

“Sin City” – Everclear. This is really heavy for them, with a metal grinding going on in those guitars.

“Blue Moon” – Sha-Na-Na. Oh for God’s sake.

“Swimming Song” – Kate & Anna McGarrigle. Wonderful bluegrass feeling, a banjo, big harmony lines. This was included in the concert film in tribute to Kate McGarrigle, Sing Me the Songs That Say I Love You, directed by Lian Lunson (my review here).

“Lovely Ladies” – the cast of Les Miserables. I always think of my Internet pal JessicaR who said she loved this song when she was little, but was too innocent to know what the song was all about.

“Good Rockin’ Tonight” – Elvis Presley. It still leaps at you. HE leaps out at you. Guralnick makes the point somewhere that what the song is about, and what Elvis represented, was a rebellion, an anti-social energy, the youth culture doing their own thing and not caring what the grownups said. And here he is the Town Crier: “Have you heard the news?” But, interesting, the song also includes the lyrics “I won’t do you no harm.” The whole thing is presented as a good fun sexy party where no one will get burnt/hurt/destroyed. Hard to argue with the appeal of something like that.

“My Name Is” – Eminem. I still remember the ranks of blonde Eminem look-alikes streaming into the VMAs as some vision of a robotic Eminem-esque future. This is Slim Shady at his most obnoxious. “God sent me to piss the world off.” The hook, though, it’s a hell of a hook.

“Mercy Mister Percy” – the great Varetta Dillard. She’s got that great squeak on the edges of her voice. Rock and roll.

“Riot In Thunder Alley” – Edie Beram. Those drums. Those guitars. Makes you want to drive real fast. Blow your mind out so no thoughts are left.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” – Michael Buble. I don’t care. I’m a fan. I know he’s a tool. I love him. And his duet with Robbie Williams on Robbie’s latest is FANTASTIC. However: nobody can sing this like the original, which is sheer Joy Bottled Up. Who can explain why something is magic? That original track is magic. He’s lovely here, and the song is great. But it’s missing the Mariah Magic.

“I’ll Get Over You” – Pat McCurdy. No comment.

“Love Me” – Buddy Holly. Why do I find him eerie? Just because he died so young? Probably. But that early death is impossible to remove from the context of Buddy Holly. His voice still cuts through all the extraneous bullshit of our culture. The freshness is still there, and maybe that’s part of the eeriness.

“Old Flames Can’t Hold a Candle To You” – Dolly Parton. Ouch, Dolly. Come on, cut it out.

“Paddy on the Railway” – The Dubliners. “Me corduroy britches I put on …” NERD. This is the music of my childhood, although we were more of a Clancy Brothers family. But The Dubliners were everywhere too. And the Chieftains.

“Johnny Feelgood” – a great rock song from the great Liz Phair.

“Love Will Come to You” – Indigo Girls. This one is a bit too loaded for me, a bit too intense. I drown in associations with a Love gone by and how heartbroken I was. This song validated how I felt, it expressed what I thought and felt. And so when I hear it, I don’t even hear the song. I just see myself in my late 20s, lying in bed, pressing my hand down onto my heart, hoping that that would ease the pain.

“Since U Been Gone” – Kelly Clarkson. Rockin’. I love how most of her best songs are like, “Puttin’ you in the rear view mirror where you belong, pal.”

“Rockin’ the Boogie” – Freddie Slack. How I love my couple of volumes of piano boogie boogie.

“She Came In Through the Bathroom Window” – The Beatles. I love the opening, the “Look out!” Launches you right into the world of the song. Look out, here she comes!

“Any Way You Want It / Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’” – the cast of Glee. This is excellent, lots of voices.

“Memories Are Made of This” – Dean Martin. God, who is smoother. I love the background guys, too. Dino just swoops around them, easy, smooth, sexy.

“Harbor Lights” – The Platters. With the crazy fog-horn in the opening. So dramatic!

“Someday We’ll Look Back” – Merle Haggard. Yeah. Someday. I’m not counting the minutes, Merle, but I’ll take your word for it. And that one tiny minor note on the word “come” in “If we both pull together, tomorrow’s sure to come” … ACHE. In that one tiny minor note, we hear how tough the journey is going to be.

“The Price of Love” – The Everly Brothers. Hot.

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