First of all, it's still Mike Love's birthday. Here he is with a beard, in probably the best version of this song ever put together.
But wait a minute. That is not a theremin!
"In the 1960s its sound made its way into popular music, most notably in the Beach Boys' song Good Vibrations - though it is believed the group may have used a Theremin-like instrument to mimic the sound, rather than the Theremin itself."
So it would appear, but the video isn't definitive. They may have recorded a theremin, and used something else in performance. A theremin, of course, is that science fictiony sounding instrument that you don't actually touch: you play it by waving your hands in the air. But how much do you know about its inventor, Leon Theremin?
For instance, he came to America from the USSR to promote his instrument. RCA actually went into the business of manufacturing it. As for Theremin, "he stayed in the US for a while working on other projects, and engaging in industrial espionage... Demonstrating the theremin instrument was just a distraction, a Trojan Horse, as it were."
No kidding! Theremin is a fascinating character: musician, inventor, spy, political prisoner. Martin Vennard gives the details in Leon Theremin: The man and the music machine.
Whether or not the Beach Boys used a theremin, there is no question that its sound was instrumental in the development of electronic instruments, and that, no matter how you slice it, that sound is the sound of extraterrestrials.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
The original Planet of the Apes
This is mesmerizing. Roddy McDowall was one of the stars of the original Planet of the Apes movie in 1968. He went on to make the sequels, and as you can tell from the video in the link, getting ready for the part back then bears no resemblance to what it's like today in the era of CGI. If the endless process of applying the makeup, which as I say is mesmerizing, doesn't convince you that these folks earned their apely salaries, then when you see them on the beach, with everybody else as naked as modesty would allow, and them all duded up in full ape drag, well, you get hot just thinking about it.The article with the video is from Dangerous Minds: ‘Planet of the Apes’: A behind-the-scenes home movie of the 1968 classic film. It's footage shot by McDowall himself. Remarkable.
Friendship porn
Why do we watch TV? In a lot of cases, it's to be among some familiar folks, not surrogate families but surrogate friends. There is a comfort to this that is undeniable, and everybody's aware of it. There are all kinds of buddy programs, be they in a work or home environment, that show us all these people who are, at the core of it, friends. Friendships that last for years, if the show is successful (and often a show is successful precisely because of the level of friendship its characters demonstrate).
There is something ethereal about these friendships. I think we watch out of envy; we believe that the fiction we are watching somehow represents someone else's fact. Somewhere, out there, there are all these close-knit friendships, unbreakable no matter what. Other people have them, but not us, and the closest we get is these TV shows.
Alyssa Pelish calls this friendship porn. And she nails it:
Over the multiple episodes and years of a show's existence, the friendship has time to evolve — even to be explored. Even more importantly, I think, is that within the show, and for the viewer, that friendship is always there. It recurs and endures in real time — over the course of years — for the people who are watching at home.... So these shows, within and without, mimic the kind of constancy and stability that we need and want from a relationship.
The article is We Like to Watch: Friendship on TV. Yes, it's about fictional friendships, but raises questions about real friendships as well.
How would one position Facebook friendships in all of this? I'm serious about that, but it's a whole 'nother subject.
There is something ethereal about these friendships. I think we watch out of envy; we believe that the fiction we are watching somehow represents someone else's fact. Somewhere, out there, there are all these close-knit friendships, unbreakable no matter what. Other people have them, but not us, and the closest we get is these TV shows.
Alyssa Pelish calls this friendship porn. And she nails it:
Over the multiple episodes and years of a show's existence, the friendship has time to evolve — even to be explored. Even more importantly, I think, is that within the show, and for the viewer, that friendship is always there. It recurs and endures in real time — over the course of years — for the people who are watching at home.... So these shows, within and without, mimic the kind of constancy and stability that we need and want from a relationship.
The article is We Like to Watch: Friendship on TV. Yes, it's about fictional friendships, but raises questions about real friendships as well.
How would one position Facebook friendships in all of this? I'm serious about that, but it's a whole 'nother subject.
Mike Love
Today is Mike Love's 71st birthday. He's the only original Beach Boy still out there on the road, but the word is that Brian Wilson will be back touring with him this year, the 50th anniversary of the band.
The one number one hit the BBs had after Brian left? You guessed it.
For the historians among you, one could connect Robert B. Sherman, who died last week, with the Beach Boys in a song I've never seen on any Beach Boys greatest hits collection, not even among the deepest cuts. The Monkey's Uncle, whatever its musical quality, does, however, provide us with some footage of group at their most popular. Somehow, their popularity survived this number. Read all about it at The Monkey's Uncle.
Happy birthday, Mike Love. And thanks for some great music.
The one number one hit the BBs had after Brian left? You guessed it.
For the historians among you, one could connect Robert B. Sherman, who died last week, with the Beach Boys in a song I've never seen on any Beach Boys greatest hits collection, not even among the deepest cuts. The Monkey's Uncle, whatever its musical quality, does, however, provide us with some footage of group at their most popular. Somehow, their popularity survived this number. Read all about it at The Monkey's Uncle.
Happy birthday, Mike Love. And thanks for some great music.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The numbers talk
We chezzed it up last night, and talked a little bit about recruitment, the time for which is now, vis-à-vis the Middle School (which sounds like the school the Hobbits go to). And we looked around and saw that there were exactly three debating Sailors. In my office at the DJ, I have a bunch of pictures of fleets past, and each one has maybe three or four kids from each year. We never set sail for a season with less than a dozen, and often there were more. Now there’s two freshmen and a junior.
Dire straits, indeed. We could, potentially, go out of the debate business. Thank goodness the Speecho-American Sailors remain strong.
A lot of the reason for this is the simple pendulum swing, the ebb and flow of interest in the school community as a whole. But when I look at all the people who have started on the team lately and then dropped out, I realize that, for all practical purposes, it is LD itself that has shooed them away. Contemporary LD, that is, LD as it is practiced hereabouts, LD rounds that they watched when the novices were encouraged to audit a varsity round, or LD rounds that they get trounced in, when sophomores hit seniors in random rounds and couldn’t even flow what was said, much less figure it out.
Let’s make an argument that LD, as it is practiced at the so-called highest levels, is the best possible version of LD vis-à-vis pure debate. That is, if you were going to design the activity and what should go on in a round, this is what you would design. I’m willing to grant that (although I don’t personally believe it). Today’s LD is as good as it gets. Okay, fine. The problem with this version of LD, unfortunately, is that it is extremely high maintenance, absolutely necessitating participation in intensive summer camps and requiring a dedicated staff of private or assistant coaches during the tournament season. And it is conducted in such a fashion that only those who are a part of this high-maintenance process of dedicated coaching can understand what is happening in the round. It is not that the participants are being secretive; far from it. They’re all proselytizers at heart, which is why they got into debate in the first place, and they’re as likely as not to want to bend your ear with their theories and paradigms. They publish their thoughts regularly, they critique ad nauseum explaining their thought processes following a round. This is not a closed cabal, in other words, insofar as admission truly is available to anyone, provided they are willing to participate at the necessary level of intensity.
But that’s the thing. That necessary level of intensity, even if it has arguably made LD as good as it gets, is inherently a turn-off to most people. Most students, when faced with something they feel that they should understand but that they can’t, find other ways to exercise their intelligence. Smart young novices see what is going on and a lot of them decide that it’s just not worth the effort. And it is absolutely true that the effort needed to succeed in LD in 2012 bears no relationship to the effort needed to succeed a decade or more ago. Back then, you could go to institute one summer, but if you didn’t, you’d catch up. Lone wolves could succeed at tournaments by scoping out the activity for themselves, not by hiring a battery of private coaches. People might talk fast, but you could pick up the style after a tournament or two, and the speed bore no relationship to the speed today. And the content of the rounds themselves was predictable based on the nature of the resolution: the odd debater who didn’t argue somehow what the resolution was about was, indeed, an odd debater. People actually affirmed or negated the resolution, in front of an audience that was not limited to former debaters. No one wanted to try to persuade an untrained parent judge back then any more than now, but a trained parent was a reasonable audience that a debater could handle if the debater were any good, and there were plenty of trained parents that started out when their kids were novices and learned what to do and learned it pretty well. Like me.
I blame LD for the size of my team. I’m moving over to PF, which certainly has its flaws, because at least those flaws are flaws that are not detrimental to attracting and retaining membership in a debate team. The flaws of LD, on the other hand, are detrimental to attracting and retaining membership in a debate team. Even granting LD its excellence, it is like policy with its particular excellence: virtue had better be its own reward, because when all is said and done, that’s all you’ve got.
I offer no solutions for this, if one perceives it as a problem. The numbers will speak for themselves. The more I go to tournaments where they’re breaking down the doors to do PF and we’re able to make room for them because of the ever dwindling size of the LD fields, the less I’ll care. We have, fortunately, a general debate activity. Maybe it’s not as pure and good as LD and Policy, and maybe it too will go down the road to perdition, but for the moment, it’s doing the job of grabbing the attention of a large contingent of high school students who are interested in adding forensics to their intellectual bag of tricks.
Thank goodness.
Dire straits, indeed. We could, potentially, go out of the debate business. Thank goodness the Speecho-American Sailors remain strong.
A lot of the reason for this is the simple pendulum swing, the ebb and flow of interest in the school community as a whole. But when I look at all the people who have started on the team lately and then dropped out, I realize that, for all practical purposes, it is LD itself that has shooed them away. Contemporary LD, that is, LD as it is practiced hereabouts, LD rounds that they watched when the novices were encouraged to audit a varsity round, or LD rounds that they get trounced in, when sophomores hit seniors in random rounds and couldn’t even flow what was said, much less figure it out.
Let’s make an argument that LD, as it is practiced at the so-called highest levels, is the best possible version of LD vis-à-vis pure debate. That is, if you were going to design the activity and what should go on in a round, this is what you would design. I’m willing to grant that (although I don’t personally believe it). Today’s LD is as good as it gets. Okay, fine. The problem with this version of LD, unfortunately, is that it is extremely high maintenance, absolutely necessitating participation in intensive summer camps and requiring a dedicated staff of private or assistant coaches during the tournament season. And it is conducted in such a fashion that only those who are a part of this high-maintenance process of dedicated coaching can understand what is happening in the round. It is not that the participants are being secretive; far from it. They’re all proselytizers at heart, which is why they got into debate in the first place, and they’re as likely as not to want to bend your ear with their theories and paradigms. They publish their thoughts regularly, they critique ad nauseum explaining their thought processes following a round. This is not a closed cabal, in other words, insofar as admission truly is available to anyone, provided they are willing to participate at the necessary level of intensity.
But that’s the thing. That necessary level of intensity, even if it has arguably made LD as good as it gets, is inherently a turn-off to most people. Most students, when faced with something they feel that they should understand but that they can’t, find other ways to exercise their intelligence. Smart young novices see what is going on and a lot of them decide that it’s just not worth the effort. And it is absolutely true that the effort needed to succeed in LD in 2012 bears no relationship to the effort needed to succeed a decade or more ago. Back then, you could go to institute one summer, but if you didn’t, you’d catch up. Lone wolves could succeed at tournaments by scoping out the activity for themselves, not by hiring a battery of private coaches. People might talk fast, but you could pick up the style after a tournament or two, and the speed bore no relationship to the speed today. And the content of the rounds themselves was predictable based on the nature of the resolution: the odd debater who didn’t argue somehow what the resolution was about was, indeed, an odd debater. People actually affirmed or negated the resolution, in front of an audience that was not limited to former debaters. No one wanted to try to persuade an untrained parent judge back then any more than now, but a trained parent was a reasonable audience that a debater could handle if the debater were any good, and there were plenty of trained parents that started out when their kids were novices and learned what to do and learned it pretty well. Like me.
I blame LD for the size of my team. I’m moving over to PF, which certainly has its flaws, because at least those flaws are flaws that are not detrimental to attracting and retaining membership in a debate team. The flaws of LD, on the other hand, are detrimental to attracting and retaining membership in a debate team. Even granting LD its excellence, it is like policy with its particular excellence: virtue had better be its own reward, because when all is said and done, that’s all you’ve got.
I offer no solutions for this, if one perceives it as a problem. The numbers will speak for themselves. The more I go to tournaments where they’re breaking down the doors to do PF and we’re able to make room for them because of the ever dwindling size of the LD fields, the less I’ll care. We have, fortunately, a general debate activity. Maybe it’s not as pure and good as LD and Policy, and maybe it too will go down the road to perdition, but for the moment, it’s doing the job of grabbing the attention of a large contingent of high school students who are interested in adding forensics to their intellectual bag of tricks.
Thank goodness.
Colonel Mustard in the library with the lead pipe. And the rope. And the wrench.
We read a lot of books in our Day Job away from Grinwout's. And a lot of them are mysteries and thrillers. And here's one trend that we've seen for the last few years: books don't have an ending anymore. They have multiple endings. You think you've found out what was going on, and then the writer pulls a fast one, and presents a totally different explanation of what was going on. And some writers, still not satisfied, pull yet another fast one, and provide yet another totally different explanation.
It's exhausting. And it doesn't always work, either.
I like the way Agatha Christie used to handle this. You read the book and thought you had figured it out and that you had outsmarted her, that you were on to her tricks, but in fact, her real trick was luring you into thinking you had outsmarted her, and when it came out, the solution was something totally different. You always metaphorically patted her on the back for getting away with it. Again.
Author Sandra Parshall writes a piece for Poisoned Pen Press called The End, where she discusses modern-day endings, and how writers have to deal with them. She talks about different things than the serial twists that bother me, and she makes some good points about how the ending has to hold up, or the whole book is a failure. She's right. If a mystery book doesn't end well, the whole enterprise goes down the tubes...
It's exhausting. And it doesn't always work, either.
I like the way Agatha Christie used to handle this. You read the book and thought you had figured it out and that you had outsmarted her, that you were on to her tricks, but in fact, her real trick was luring you into thinking you had outsmarted her, and when it came out, the solution was something totally different. You always metaphorically patted her on the back for getting away with it. Again.
Author Sandra Parshall writes a piece for Poisoned Pen Press called The End, where she discusses modern-day endings, and how writers have to deal with them. She talks about different things than the serial twists that bother me, and she makes some good points about how the ending has to hold up, or the whole book is a failure. She's right. If a mystery book doesn't end well, the whole enterprise goes down the tubes...
How to be a sommelier
There's a job for you: helping people pick the perfect wine. Of course, it requires that you understand wine and have a pretty good palate, and it also requires that you can put up with people. For example: ""Can you recommend a wine that my wife hasn't tried yet?"
Clarissa Wildwood is a part-time sommelier, and writes for The Hairpin on what exactly her job entails. Most writing about wine is inherently snooty, so it's nice to read someone who is down to earth. Big question: what about those people who claim to get a headache from drinking wine? First of all, WIldwood explains, wines of lesser quality can contain all sorts of things that aren't exactly wine, which will give you a headache just reading about them. And second, in addition to the rule about not drinking and driving, there should probably also be a rule not to drink when you're not eating. You need food and water both to ameliorate the potentially negative side effects of wine-drinking.
There's a lot to learn in The Moonlighting Sommelier.
Clarissa Wildwood is a part-time sommelier, and writes for The Hairpin on what exactly her job entails. Most writing about wine is inherently snooty, so it's nice to read someone who is down to earth. Big question: what about those people who claim to get a headache from drinking wine? First of all, WIldwood explains, wines of lesser quality can contain all sorts of things that aren't exactly wine, which will give you a headache just reading about them. And second, in addition to the rule about not drinking and driving, there should probably also be a rule not to drink when you're not eating. You need food and water both to ameliorate the potentially negative side effects of wine-drinking.
There's a lot to learn in The Moonlighting Sommelier.
Man(?)'s best friend - a tragic tale
From the archives, Electro, the Westinghouse Moto-Man:
The reason the Electro never caught on is probably due to his early death from lung cancer. Smoking nowadays isn't what it used to be.
Of course, if you were creating Electro, you'd immediately decide that he needed a dog, and so you would also create Sparko. And here's where it gets interesting (if you didn't think that a smoking robot, who needed a dog, was interesting enough). Esther Inglis-Arkell tells the tale: "All the Sparkos were modelled on Scottish Terriers and meant to be shown off with their master, a smoking robot, at the 1939 World's Fair. They were supposed to follow any light, and chase after visitors playfully. The last Sparko was lost in 1957. The fate of one remains a mystery. But the first to perish died tragically before the Fair even began."
Sparko died tragically? Yes indeed. We couldn't put it any better: In 1939, a robot dog was killed while chasing a car. Really.
The reason the Electro never caught on is probably due to his early death from lung cancer. Smoking nowadays isn't what it used to be.
Of course, if you were creating Electro, you'd immediately decide that he needed a dog, and so you would also create Sparko. And here's where it gets interesting (if you didn't think that a smoking robot, who needed a dog, was interesting enough). Esther Inglis-Arkell tells the tale: "All the Sparkos were modelled on Scottish Terriers and meant to be shown off with their master, a smoking robot, at the 1939 World's Fair. They were supposed to follow any light, and chase after visitors playfully. The last Sparko was lost in 1957. The fate of one remains a mystery. But the first to perish died tragically before the Fair even began."Sparko died tragically? Yes indeed. We couldn't put it any better: In 1939, a robot dog was killed while chasing a car. Really.
Qu'est-ce que c'est WTF?
(Qu'est-ce que c'est que le "f" mot?)
In answer to a comment, it's Victory Briefs. It's sort of mentioned in the glossary on the right.
http://victorybriefs.com/
It's not what it used to be, ever since O'C left to join Japonica. ("O'C" is also in the glossary. "Japonica" is the name of his apartment in NYC.) I promise to update the glossary soon.
In answer to a comment, it's Victory Briefs. It's sort of mentioned in the glossary on the right.
http://victorybriefs.com/
It's not what it used to be, ever since O'C left to join Japonica. ("O'C" is also in the glossary. "Japonica" is the name of his apartment in NYC.) I promise to update the glossary soon.
Bob and Ray
Set aside a little time for these greats of radio and TV. First, the worst interview ever:
Then there's the slow talker:
They were the voices of Bert and Harry Piel for many years:
And here's what they really look like:
A tip of the hat to SplitSider's article Revisiting the Long Careers of Bob and Ray for starting us on this tangent.
Then there's the slow talker:
They were the voices of Bert and Harry Piel for many years:
And here's what they really look like:
A tip of the hat to SplitSider's article Revisiting the Long Careers of Bob and Ray for starting us on this tangent.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Grumble grumble grumble
I read these LD essays on WTF, and I have no idea what they’re talking about. Of itself, this wouldn’t normally bother me, because there’s plenty of things in the world I have no idea about, but in this case, you’d think at least I’d be interested enough to want to understand them. But I’m not. I’m not putting down the writers here, because they seem to know their stuff. It’s the content. They’re writing about things that have nothing to do even remotely with what is supposedly the content of the rounds. Why even bother to have resolutions, if the core of your argument is that you ought to win because you’re aff or neg, on the basis of some rhetorical observation/analysis unrelated to content? Has LD really gone this far off the track? If this stuff is what’s really happening in rounds, I have to admit that I just don’t care.
All right. You’ll accuse me of being a dinosaur, and there is certainly some reason why the image at the top of this page is what it is. And I’m sure you can provide all kinds of analysis why this is good material for the activity. But the way I see it, the ultimate extension of your case is that LD is now no different from automobile mechanics. It’s entirely about the workings of a machine qua machine workings, and not at all about driving around from place to place. Me, I’m more of a traveler. Then again, I would posit that being knowledgeable about the various topics—targeted killing, domestic violence, etc.—is more educational than being knowledgeable about argumentation per se. These days it seems that a minimal amount of effort goes into studying the topic area specifics, and a lot of effort goes into studying how to argue the topic area generalities. The result? Meh.
Meanwhile, there is a problem on the PF side, where all we’re supposed to have is the resolution, and no overarching/underlying value proposition. April’s topic is mandatory vaccinations. The problem here is that the science has pretty much sorted itself out, and the nutters, if they haven’t gone to ground, don’t have any science to support them anymore (because, well, they never did). Which means that one has the numbers of this and that on either side, to be weighed out on a CBA, but nothing meaningful to tie it into. When this was an LD topic, you could argue the justice or morality of forcing populations to do something, and tie it into an ethical framework of some sort (and I’m using the word framework here in the normal sense of the word, not the LD sense, which is, I gather, itself no longer clearly defined). In other words, I would want to argue what is right and wrong about vaccinations deontologically, but I am prohibited from that by the nature of PF itself. I can only weigh consequences, even when those consequences are virtually identical, or non-comparable, because first, no framework, and second, the language of basic ethics is not inherent in the language of PF, as it once was in LD. Sigh.
So what does one do in all of this? Well, if all I’m able to do is weigh which side has the most flaws, modern-day LD is the clear winner/loser. It’s arcane and progressively limits itself to a smaller audience at its perceived highest levels. It may break out of this—it has changed dramatically a number of times in its history—or it may just solidify. PF, on the other hand, remains generally accessible, which as its sole virtue (if it is its sole virtue) is a damned good one. It might not be as classically sophisticated rhetorically as LD, but I’ll go back to the metaphor above: when it comes to car races, the auto mechanics are absolutely essential, but it’s the drivers who get the fans and the glory.
(Okay, it’s not the best metaphor, but members of the VCA are used to that by now.)
All right. You’ll accuse me of being a dinosaur, and there is certainly some reason why the image at the top of this page is what it is. And I’m sure you can provide all kinds of analysis why this is good material for the activity. But the way I see it, the ultimate extension of your case is that LD is now no different from automobile mechanics. It’s entirely about the workings of a machine qua machine workings, and not at all about driving around from place to place. Me, I’m more of a traveler. Then again, I would posit that being knowledgeable about the various topics—targeted killing, domestic violence, etc.—is more educational than being knowledgeable about argumentation per se. These days it seems that a minimal amount of effort goes into studying the topic area specifics, and a lot of effort goes into studying how to argue the topic area generalities. The result? Meh.
Meanwhile, there is a problem on the PF side, where all we’re supposed to have is the resolution, and no overarching/underlying value proposition. April’s topic is mandatory vaccinations. The problem here is that the science has pretty much sorted itself out, and the nutters, if they haven’t gone to ground, don’t have any science to support them anymore (because, well, they never did). Which means that one has the numbers of this and that on either side, to be weighed out on a CBA, but nothing meaningful to tie it into. When this was an LD topic, you could argue the justice or morality of forcing populations to do something, and tie it into an ethical framework of some sort (and I’m using the word framework here in the normal sense of the word, not the LD sense, which is, I gather, itself no longer clearly defined). In other words, I would want to argue what is right and wrong about vaccinations deontologically, but I am prohibited from that by the nature of PF itself. I can only weigh consequences, even when those consequences are virtually identical, or non-comparable, because first, no framework, and second, the language of basic ethics is not inherent in the language of PF, as it once was in LD. Sigh.
So what does one do in all of this? Well, if all I’m able to do is weigh which side has the most flaws, modern-day LD is the clear winner/loser. It’s arcane and progressively limits itself to a smaller audience at its perceived highest levels. It may break out of this—it has changed dramatically a number of times in its history—or it may just solidify. PF, on the other hand, remains generally accessible, which as its sole virtue (if it is its sole virtue) is a damned good one. It might not be as classically sophisticated rhetorically as LD, but I’ll go back to the metaphor above: when it comes to car races, the auto mechanics are absolutely essential, but it’s the drivers who get the fans and the glory.
(Okay, it’s not the best metaphor, but members of the VCA are used to that by now.)
Pot Pourri
Sometimes Grinwout's doesn't have terribly much to say about a site, but feels it should be recommended anyhow. Hence, the occasional pot pourri entry.
Beginner's guide to Steely Dan. Why aren't they everybody's favorite group? Now I know. (A couple of the links in the article didn't connect, for some reason. Don't let that deter you.)
*
More music that not everyone loves, which just amazes me: one of my favorite pianists, Thelonius Monk. What is he thinking when he plays those notes that he seems to be discovering as he plays them? And why aren't those notes on my piano? Thelonious Monk in His Prime: Copenhagen, 1966. The rest of the band ain't bad, either!
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There are those who maintain that the Chelsea Hotel was the hippest place on earth. You can judge for yourself from this: 1981 documentary on the Chelsea Hotel: The vortex where it all came together
*
Thinking of moving to Malibu? Got $3.5 million? And want to live like the Flintstones? Then you might want to buy Dick Clark's house. Here's the listing, and here's a slideshow. The perfect place for your modern stone age family! (Via)
Beginner's guide to Steely Dan. Why aren't they everybody's favorite group? Now I know. (A couple of the links in the article didn't connect, for some reason. Don't let that deter you.)
*
More music that not everyone loves, which just amazes me: one of my favorite pianists, Thelonius Monk. What is he thinking when he plays those notes that he seems to be discovering as he plays them? And why aren't those notes on my piano? Thelonious Monk in His Prime: Copenhagen, 1966. The rest of the band ain't bad, either!
*
There are those who maintain that the Chelsea Hotel was the hippest place on earth. You can judge for yourself from this: 1981 documentary on the Chelsea Hotel: The vortex where it all came together
*
Thinking of moving to Malibu? Got $3.5 million? And want to live like the Flintstones? Then you might want to buy Dick Clark's house. Here's the listing, and here's a slideshow. The perfect place for your modern stone age family! (Via)
How to title a TV show
At some level, the right title for a television show is the title of a show that is very popular. (Sam Goldwyn said something similar in describing how to title movies.) The rules are that a title has to be snappy and memorable and to some extent indicative of the contents. So, on just hearing the name, what exactly are House and Castle about? Isn't the former supposed to be the latter—but I guess the answer to that is no, and for that you'd have to come up with a show called Home.
Some shows have had exhausting paths to their final entitling. The story of Everyone Loves Raymond is especially entertaining; Ray Romano hated it as something the show would fail at out of the gate. He could just imagine audiences immediately responding: "'Oh yeah? I don't." And that's just the beginning of that particular show's saga.
From 'Lost' to 'Friends,' The Strange Art of Picking a TV Title tells this story and a bunch of others, like the genesis of Friends and That '70s Show. It's all inside baseball, but it does provide insight into the minds of producers and performers and audiences. Imagine the burden of a title like Smash, for instance.
Interesting stuff.
Some shows have had exhausting paths to their final entitling. The story of Everyone Loves Raymond is especially entertaining; Ray Romano hated it as something the show would fail at out of the gate. He could just imagine audiences immediately responding: "'Oh yeah? I don't." And that's just the beginning of that particular show's saga.
From 'Lost' to 'Friends,' The Strange Art of Picking a TV Title tells this story and a bunch of others, like the genesis of Friends and That '70s Show. It's all inside baseball, but it does provide insight into the minds of producers and performers and audiences. Imagine the burden of a title like Smash, for instance.
Interesting stuff.
Poe's lock on culture
You can't escape Edgar Allan Poe. He died in 1849, and he was a pretty good writer but not the world's greatest writer; nevertheless, he has a hold on our imaginations that, in itself, is worth examining. Why are we so caught up with this guy?
Philip Horne writes in Telegraph: What Poe represents is perhaps a doubt about the all-explaining power of rationality. His ironic, knowing version of Gothic repeatedly plunges us into abysses of the unknown, making us doubt the reality of… well, of reality.
A lot of what we think we know about Poe is untrue: he wasn't mad, and he wasn't a drug addict, for instance. But he does look sort of crazy, and there was the marriage to his young cousin, and he was a bit of a drinking man. And let's face it, some of the stories, the good ones, do grab a hold in your mind. Nothing like a good premature burial, or being walled up in the cellar (a more proactive premature burial), or a little Arsene Lupin-ish ratiocination to get the blood flowing, so to speak.
Horne's article is informative about the history of the image of Poe. You probably should read it before watching John Cusack (!) play the part of the author in the upcoming The Raven. Edgar Allan Poe's stranglehold on popular culture.
Eurovision 2012
Eurovision, if you're new to it, is something like musical soccer: European countries participate in it as if their lives depended on it, and to the uninitiated, sometimes it doesn't make a lot of sense, but as often as not, it is mesmerizing.
This year's competition is in May, but there will be plenty of lead-up and hoo-ha, and Grinwout's promises to pass along the best of it, as it comes to our attention. We'll start with the Buranavo grannies (via), whose goal in life is to build a church. They certainly get the audience excited, which is why we at Grinwout's remain a little baffled by the whole Eurovision paradigm...
This year's competition is in May, but there will be plenty of lead-up and hoo-ha, and Grinwout's promises to pass along the best of it, as it comes to our attention. We'll start with the Buranavo grannies (via), whose goal in life is to build a church. They certainly get the audience excited, which is why we at Grinwout's remain a little baffled by the whole Eurovision paradigm...
Monday, March 12, 2012
It's not over till it's not over
In all my moping about over the end of the season, I forgot about NDCA, the weekend after Easter. That will be my swan song for the year.
This coming weekend is the CFL qualifier. This is potentially a nightmare. First, there’s the wrinkle that, if there’s over 20 entries in a division, we have to use 3 judges. A few years ago we changed the rules so that 20 or fewer we could use 2 judges. The result was a major headache turned into child’s play. Assigning 2 judges per round, when the judge/team ratio is 1-1, simply requires paying attention. Assigning 3 requires mind-numbing attention to detail, lots of room-switching, watching a team you've seen but on the other side, you name it, because the field is so small (but not small enough to lose a judge). We’ll know tomorrow, when registration closes. There will either be a happy tabroom or a glum tabroom. Time will tell.
I’ve gotten back into the swing of the link blog, which I trust you are visiting religiously (defined as faithfully, not as on your knees, you filthy heathen). I realize that, for instance, Facebookers can see all the links they want if they never leave home, but that’s merely one source, and, depending on the number of people you have befriended, a fairly hit-and-miss one at that. I go for long stretches barely visiting the site, although lately I’ve been religiously (i.e, faithfully) updating my status to point over to the link blog. I need to get some traction there. The last time I did this, prior to going official for the DJ, the number of hits was quite remarkable. I like to think that the enterprise is entertaining on its own. But I guess you’ll be the judge of that (you filthy heathen). The point is, please go try it out. There's some fine stuff there.
This coming weekend is the CFL qualifier. This is potentially a nightmare. First, there’s the wrinkle that, if there’s over 20 entries in a division, we have to use 3 judges. A few years ago we changed the rules so that 20 or fewer we could use 2 judges. The result was a major headache turned into child’s play. Assigning 2 judges per round, when the judge/team ratio is 1-1, simply requires paying attention. Assigning 3 requires mind-numbing attention to detail, lots of room-switching, watching a team you've seen but on the other side, you name it, because the field is so small (but not small enough to lose a judge). We’ll know tomorrow, when registration closes. There will either be a happy tabroom or a glum tabroom. Time will tell.
I’ve gotten back into the swing of the link blog, which I trust you are visiting religiously (defined as faithfully, not as on your knees, you filthy heathen). I realize that, for instance, Facebookers can see all the links they want if they never leave home, but that’s merely one source, and, depending on the number of people you have befriended, a fairly hit-and-miss one at that. I go for long stretches barely visiting the site, although lately I’ve been religiously (i.e, faithfully) updating my status to point over to the link blog. I need to get some traction there. The last time I did this, prior to going official for the DJ, the number of hits was quite remarkable. I like to think that the enterprise is entertaining on its own. But I guess you’ll be the judge of that (you filthy heathen). The point is, please go try it out. There's some fine stuff there.
Do we need to know about the author?
That's an important question. Does learning more about an author somehow allow us to better understand his or her work? For a book to succeed, of course, it has to succeed first in the continuum comprising the page and the reader's mind. But readers certainly take books and connect them to their own lives. Why shouldn't they try to connect them to the writers' lives? If—underscore that if—it first succeeds purely as a book.
When Jonathan Franzen wrote about Edith Wharton in the New Yorker (a fine article, by the way), he theorized that her own plain looks somehow guided the creation of her characters. The thing is, being a guy, he was summarily attacked for using an female author's looks to explain her work. Wouldn't do that with a male author, would he?
Laura Miller discusses the controversy, and does seem to believe that, at least to some extent, a writer's private life can and should be taken into consideration if one wishes to dig deeply into that author's work:
Great novelists, male and female, often have personal qualities that sideline them socially but that also offer them a quiet perch from which to observe others. Frustration can spur them to write about what they see... Given that the handsome, the charismatic and the well-connected already enjoy so many other advantages in life, it seems only fair that this perk should devolve to the world’s oddballs.
The fact that we know virtually nothing about Shakespeare doesn't seem to deter us from interpreting his works, but if we actually did have some serious biographical facts, would we interpret Hamlet or Othello in their light? Bet your boots on it.
Take a look at The private lives of great writers. It'll start you thinking.
When Jonathan Franzen wrote about Edith Wharton in the New Yorker (a fine article, by the way), he theorized that her own plain looks somehow guided the creation of her characters. The thing is, being a guy, he was summarily attacked for using an female author's looks to explain her work. Wouldn't do that with a male author, would he?
Laura Miller discusses the controversy, and does seem to believe that, at least to some extent, a writer's private life can and should be taken into consideration if one wishes to dig deeply into that author's work:
Great novelists, male and female, often have personal qualities that sideline them socially but that also offer them a quiet perch from which to observe others. Frustration can spur them to write about what they see... Given that the handsome, the charismatic and the well-connected already enjoy so many other advantages in life, it seems only fair that this perk should devolve to the world’s oddballs.
The fact that we know virtually nothing about Shakespeare doesn't seem to deter us from interpreting his works, but if we actually did have some serious biographical facts, would we interpret Hamlet or Othello in their light? Bet your boots on it.
Take a look at The private lives of great writers. It'll start you thinking.
Frankenstein's mother
The story of the writing of Frankenstein is well-known, but maybe not correctly. Given how important the story is to our cultural myths, and how often it has been played out in theme and variation in books and movies and plays and the stories we tell our children to scare the wits out of them when we should be trying to put them to sleep, you'd think we'd know more about it. Quick! Was the author married to Shelley on that dark and stormy night when she conceived it?
Speaking of conception, that is one of the things the book is about, of course. But not necessarily humanity conceiving life and taking the role of God in the universe, but childbirth itself, plain and simple. Ruth Franklin, in making this case, writes:
Not only was Mary Shelley pregnant during much of the period that she was writing Frankenstein, but she had already suffered the birth and death of an infant. Unsurprisingly, she was tormented by the loss: A journal entry in 1815 reads, “Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lives.” The echoes of Frankenstein—in which the scientist, who hopes to “infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet,” at last sees it open its eyes and breathe—are unmistakable. And the birth of the “creature,” as he calls it at first, occurs only after “days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue”; later he refers again to the “painful labor.”
There's more to it than that. Was ‘Frankenstein’ Really About Childbirth?
Speaking of conception, that is one of the things the book is about, of course. But not necessarily humanity conceiving life and taking the role of God in the universe, but childbirth itself, plain and simple. Ruth Franklin, in making this case, writes:Not only was Mary Shelley pregnant during much of the period that she was writing Frankenstein, but she had already suffered the birth and death of an infant. Unsurprisingly, she was tormented by the loss: A journal entry in 1815 reads, “Dream that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lives.” The echoes of Frankenstein—in which the scientist, who hopes to “infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet,” at last sees it open its eyes and breathe—are unmistakable. And the birth of the “creature,” as he calls it at first, occurs only after “days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue”; later he refers again to the “painful labor.”
There's more to it than that. Was ‘Frankenstein’ Really About Childbirth?
The Decline and Fall of the Mall, and more
Serious students of cities, shopping and modern society, which are inextricably related (as are also architecture, design, crowd control and Disneyland) are fascinated by malls. Malls are posited by many as city-killers, at least in suburban areas where small town centers were replaced by malls far from the center, on the less expensive real estate at edge of town. Some of these went by the name Town Centre or something similarly robber-baronish, which adds to the whole postmodern interest. Then malls themselves died, or metamorphosed into collections of Walmart type big boxes. Meanwhile cities as such have their own ups and downs, but we seem to be in a revival of interest in literal city life, that mishmash of activity defended by Jane Jacobs against the brutal singularity of Robert Moses back in the day. (Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities is canonical in this whole area of study.)
Aaron Gilbreath has written a nifty piece in the Paris Review, Pleasure Domes with Parking, that does a nice job of outlining the mall's rise and fall: Malls adorned themselves in gaudy architecture and country-and-western motifs, presented themselves as shopping experiences rather than just places to shop, and capitalized on Americans’ aspirations toward glitz and glamour... The first mall Gruen designed, named Northland Center, included avant garde giraffe sculptures, extensive landscaping, and spinning mobiles. Southdale Center went further. It had a twenty-one-foot birdcage containing fifty colorful birds, tropical plants, costumed Hawaiians serenading crowds, and a huge central square named the “Garden Court of Perpetual Spring.”
One thing I would add, though, in addition to mall's vis-a-vis the cities, is malls vis-a-vis department stores. That's the original, Wanamaker's, on the left. In terms of retailing, that is what malls replaced. At one point, it was the department store that was the capitalist pleasure dome, with everything anyone could want available for a price, and displayed to make you want it at any price. Malls began their lives with the last vestiges of the golden age of department stores as anchors, but this was a mug's game because the entire mall itself became a virtual department store that no single store, however large and complex, could match. Add to this the thought that department stores themselves had been instrumental in establishing town centers in the first place, and it all goes full circle. Small town — big town — mall — big town — small town...
Aaron Gilbreath has written a nifty piece in the Paris Review, Pleasure Domes with Parking, that does a nice job of outlining the mall's rise and fall: Malls adorned themselves in gaudy architecture and country-and-western motifs, presented themselves as shopping experiences rather than just places to shop, and capitalized on Americans’ aspirations toward glitz and glamour... The first mall Gruen designed, named Northland Center, included avant garde giraffe sculptures, extensive landscaping, and spinning mobiles. Southdale Center went further. It had a twenty-one-foot birdcage containing fifty colorful birds, tropical plants, costumed Hawaiians serenading crowds, and a huge central square named the “Garden Court of Perpetual Spring.”
One thing I would add, though, in addition to mall's vis-a-vis the cities, is malls vis-a-vis department stores. That's the original, Wanamaker's, on the left. In terms of retailing, that is what malls replaced. At one point, it was the department store that was the capitalist pleasure dome, with everything anyone could want available for a price, and displayed to make you want it at any price. Malls began their lives with the last vestiges of the golden age of department stores as anchors, but this was a mug's game because the entire mall itself became a virtual department store that no single store, however large and complex, could match. Add to this the thought that department stores themselves had been instrumental in establishing town centers in the first place, and it all goes full circle. Small town — big town — mall — big town — small town...
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