In which we wonder if we're missing something

Between college graduation and my first job, I stayed with my parents in Florida in order to have three wisdom teeth extracted at the same time, after which I was in incredible pain. Pumped full of demerol, I spent three or four days on a couch reading the Foundation trilogy. (Back then, trilogies were defined as a set of three books; nowadays, a trilogy is the first three books of a series that can go on forever if it sells well enough.) My sense of reality and fiction, dreaming and waking, was severely put to the test. It was an experience I have never forgotten. For a while recently I was afraid to watch the "Foundation" series on TV for fear of experiencing a dental surgery flashback. 

After my single extraction yesterday, I took a few Advil, had a glass of wine, and woke up this morning feeling keachy peen. Who says there's no benefits to old age? 

NY Time Puzzles: 4/4/1 pangram. Boring.

Reading (paper division): I finished Psmith in the City quickly enough. I have mixed feelings, as I can't quite figure out the character of Psmith. More study is needed. Meanwhile, the saga of finding the next book was abbreviated yesterday morning when we were sorting some books that my daughter no longer wanted and I found a pre-publication copy of a China Mieville book, Embassytown. I haven't read CM for a while, but everything I have read I have enjoyed, especially The City & The City, which I highly recommend. In that one, two cities essentially occupy the same space, and their separate sovereignties are more a matter of psychology than geography. Embassytown got off to a great start in a most complex fictional reality, and I look forward to digging down into it. 

Speaking of sovereignty, back in my coaching days I always found this to be a fascinating subject. I knew of no great philosophical discussion of the idea; most of the writings I could find were realpolitik, which may help understanding how things are but no help in figuring how things should be. Sovereignty is in the news these days, of course, what with China waiting for the US to invade Greenland in order to provide them with enough cover to invade Taiwan. I always hesitate to use any version of the word "real" when thinking about our President these days, but he has really committed various naval war crimes, really threatened every city, state and country that he doesn't like, especially if they don't like him, and really lied about everything he can possibly lie about, even when he's standing next to the truth in a neon pantsuit. The thing about sovereignty is that it is indeed slippery, and depends as much on others recognizing it as anything else (although big guns don't hurt). That is, if enough sovereign states agree that you too are a sovereign state, then there you are, and if you can't see the problems with that argument, you don't have what I would call the Debate Mind. Oh, well. If we follow our government's guidance to focus our diets around beef tallow, it will all become moot soon enough. 

Listening (audit devision): I have tried now many times to get on board with Dennis Wilson's "Pacific Ocean Blue" but without any great success. I don't hate it, and I can listen to it easily enough, but not much of it sticks with me. I bought the 2-disc version when it came out in 2008, knowing little or nothing about it. I would put it on the box every now and then, stubbornly thinking that I must be missing something. Now I stream it every now and then. I still wonder if I must be missing something. 

In which we begin to recover from dental assault

I had a tooth pulled today. Way in the back, because it was old and giving up the ghost. It will be replaced in a few months by a more modern version. 

Feh.

Listening (audit division): The Beach Boys, "Sunflower." There are some artists that I simply cycle through because they're worth it. In pre-streaming days, one had a bunch of CDs arranged alphabetically by artist. You would cycle your way through them, and in the long run give your music a good turning out without too much thinking about it. Streaming requires a more deliberate approach, otherwise you'll forget all your favorites and, let's say, never hear "Pet Sounds" again. Not that "Sunflower" is "Pet Sounds" caliber, but it's not bad. To be honest, I think it's overrated, but it's got some good songs and I don't mind listening to it every few years according to my new system. (As for "Pet," the truth is, I'll be sitting around minding my own business, and suddenly I'll think to myself—as compared to thinking to someone else—that I ought to listen to "Pet Sounds" for the gazillionth time. Which I do, coming away every time the better for it.)

Debate: This weekend is the Lexington Winter Tournament, AKA Big Lex, or as I like to call it, Bigle X. It's a long weekend, driving up Friday afternoon, returning Monday afternoon. It's one of the few times I work directly on anything with Joe V, and it's sort of intricate, with mutual judge preferences and varying obligation commitments, which makes it fun. One of the high points of the weekend is always the walk in Antarctic level temperatures to the local ice cream shop down on the main drag. You can bring back somebody a cone and not one single drop will have melted. In the olden days the main drag had a pub where you could grab a burger and a beer, the perfect break from tabbing. Ice cream will just have to do until, if ever, Lexington gets its pub act back together. 

Gaming: While I do not consider myself a gamer, I do have a PS5 and I do always have a game on the go. Lately it's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This is my kind of game, more puzzles that combat and a long narrative that goes from place to place and fun characters, especially our hero Indy. The last time I played, a day or two ago, I think I was devoured by a giant snake. On other fronts, I do play Balatro regularly, especially during the empty moments at tournaments. And I see that Apple Arcade will be offering a version of Civilization 7 shortly. Civ, of course, is that game that takes no prisoners, and that many of us hide from as much as we can, because once you start a new game, your life is no longer your own. I have versions on all my devices—Civ 5 on my Macs, God knows what on my iPad. If this new Arcade version is playable while not turning in one's soul, it will be well appreciated. 

In which the morning starts out with wonders aplenty

I got birthday greetings this morning from a California psychiatric practice. It is not my birthday, I am not in California, and I am not one of their patients. I also got a daily ad to sign up for Mint Mobile. I've been a Mint Mobile customer for quite a few years now, and really don't need two different accounts for my one phone. And from the real world, an administrative request from tabroom to approve Rather Large Bronx on next's year's NYCFL calendar. I guess thinking ahead (it's in October, on the same weekend it's been on since time immemorial) never hurt anybody.

A great day for email, eh? On the other hand, I zipped through the puzzles, Wordle in 4, Connections in 4 (purple first), close to a personal record on the crossword and 2 pangrams in the Bee (and always to the genius level, because I won't eat breakfast otherwise). Based on this omen, the day ahead looks promising. 

Listening (audit division): Sagittarius, "Present Tense." I did not know this album back when it came out in 1968. If I had, it would either have become an all time favorite or if I heard it at someone else's place, I'd never talk to that person again. I've listened to it twice now and still can't decide. 1968 has a lot to answer for. 

Watching: A Haunting in Venice is probably the least of Branagh's Hercule Poirot movies. I had read somewhere that it was the best, but it wasn't. That would be Orient Express. But overall, I can't say I'm a fan of Branagh's interpretation of the Belgian detective. Yeah, sure, who isn't spoiled by David Suchet, but that doesn't mean that other people can't give it a go. But Branagh is too angsty rather than fussy, and that just doesn't grab me as what Dame Agatha would want. Nice to see Michelle Yeoh, though. 

In which we send another tournament into the books

Debate: The ODL tournament Saturday went off with only the most minor of hitches. One judge suffered a blackout the night before and didn't get online until around noon, but online he finally did get. A no-show student judge turned out to have been dropped by the coach not through the tournament email, which I always have in front of me, and not in my private email, which I check regularly, but in my old vestigial email that I check every few days without fail to follow the news from IGN. Otherwise, rounds were scheduled and rounds took place, and at the end of the day a swell time was had by all. I mostly handled this one alone, since I had nothing else going on. I've been known to work an ODL and a live tournament simultaneously, and while it can be done, it's pretty exhausting. This one was merely tiring, and the first thing I did when the last shot was fired was to hit my comfy chair and take a nice little catnap. 

Obits: This morning Times readers were treated to a double blast of 60s flashback. Bob Weir and Erich von Däniken both got write-ups that demanded to be read. I'm not a deadhead in the sense of quitting my job and camping out for a year with my little portable tape recorder, but I have been a fan since their second album, "Anthem of the Sun." (Their first album was nothing special, and nothing particularly Dead-ish.) I only saw them live once, and they were disappointing, but that was always the risk with them, that you might come away awed for life or totally cold. As for von Däniken, Chariots of the Gods was required reading in the 60s for anyone even remotely SF-ish. It wasn't that you took it with a grain of salt, but that you marveled that anyone in their right mind would take it even with that grain of salt. Apparently some people still do, but then again, being in one's right mind nowadays is a rarity few if any of us enjoy. Which is why, after the obits, I read little of the rest of the paper.

Listening (audit playlist division): Sedaka comes after Diamond and then Young if you search for Neil in Spotify. Oh well. "Sedaka's Back" is a compilation of songs he released in England for Elton John's Rocket Record Company. As you listen to it, you realize that the man is a hell of a songwriter. Good songwriting, and good songs, contain things you don't expect, unusual chord changes or notes that other people wouldn't have put there, complete constructions that are musical narratives. It's a communion of craft and art and inspiration that results in something the listener will ultimately luxuriate in. It is not just a collection of great lyrics, although often the greatest popular songs are written both by the music person and the lyricist person. Some people, of course, could do both. Perfection is reached when you can listen to the music without the words, or listen to the words without the music, and still love every minute of it. It took George and Ira both to come up with "When every happy plot / Ends in a marriage knot / But there's no knot for me" usually sung as "there's no knot, not for me" while Cole alone wrote to ascending notes "flying too high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do" with all those eye sounds... But I digress. (I always digress. It's my inner Tristram Shandy.) Sedaka is in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, deservedly so. I will continue to listen to all of his work, and grab pieces here and there to add to my main playlist. He is irresistible. (Disney connection? Of course. Does the name Neil Moussaka ring a bell, Food Rocks fans?)

Listening (podcast division): I mentioned "A History of Rock in 500 Songs" a day or two ago. It is exactly what it sounds like, and it is excellent. I'm up to "Sympathy for the Devil," which means I've actually ived through everything the mind behind it, a guy named Andrew Hickey, has said so far. There was no question that people my age really cared about music in the 60s, and followed things as closely as one could when there was no internet. We learned from liner notes more than any other source, plus whatever we picked up on the street. And we didn't go behind the curtain all that much; it was the music that counted, not the producers or arrangers or even in many cases the artists. For instance, I couldn't have told you back then much about all those people were cited in Echo in the Canyon, or more to the point, that they were all in Laurel Canyon. But nevertheless I had all their records and knew their music intimately. So Hickey is, for me, filling in many gaps. He also does good technical analysis, and roots things in their historical time. I cannot recommend this one enough. 

In the Sympathy podcast (broken down into 4 long parts, and covering more than just that song or that album), there is discussion of "Their Satanic Majesties Request." It is, indeed, the least Stones album of any Stones album, and Hickey does talk about the whole psychedelic era where everyone was throwing the kitchen sink at their recordings, trying to achieve their own Sgt Pepper.  That the Stones next released "Beggars Banquet" was not necessarily, he says, a return to form, as the beginning of what over time would be their real form. I think there's a few songs before Banquet that, ten years later, would not have fit poorly in later albums, but one makes one's own judgments when it comes to taste and preferences. In any case, I mention it because the podcast got me wondering, because Hickey claimed that the mono version is better than the stereo. And of course, Spotify offers both. So yesterday morning I gave it a try, in mono. 

Verdict: better than I remember. Good? Well, okay. Pretentious? Well... But one can apply the old line, a bad record from the Stones is better than a good record from (mostly) everyone else. I can live with that.

I did own the original vinyl, by the way, with the reticular cover. I ended up passing it along to a collector when I was tossing out my mostly worthless vinyl, scratched into oblivion by a series of cheap stereos.

In which we roll along Merrily

I have this wonderful memory of seeing the revival of Kaufman and Hart’s original Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway in the 70s, thus beginning my relationship with the show. Alas, my research has uncovered that Merrily was never revived on Broadway, in the 70s or at any other time. My guess is that I am confusing it with Once in a Lifetime. Oh well. At least I got the Kaufman and Hart part right. 

I do know, however, that I first saw the original musical show at a revival at the Donmar Warehouse in London. This was 2000, and the show pulled down an Olivier for Best Musical. It was a small venue, and it was, as far as I could tell, roughly the original version of the show, with the leads played by young people going back in time. I certainly knew the original score from the record, and could bum-bum-bum-di-dum along with the whole show. The fact that we were in London and this Sondheim rarity was there at the same time made seeing it an imperative. Back then you got your Sondheim wherever you could.

We later went on to see the version of the Menier Chocolate Factory production on the West End. Half-price tickets at Leicester Square and the next thing you know, there’s this whole new and way better play, different music, a great show, mature actors going back in time making for a much better fit. I don’t think this was terribly different from the Roundabout version at roughly the same time, aside, of course, from being fully staged. Merrily had been revolutionized. It could raise its head as one of Sondheim’s best. 

I did not see the Harry Potter version in the theater, but instead this week saw the film of that version. It’s changed some more, but it’s fairly well set now as what I’ve already seen. I enjoyed it, of course, and all the actors were great, especially Lindsay Mendez, although while Radcliffe and Groff did manage to collect a pair of Tonys, Mendez, who was nominated, lost out to Kecia Lewis. So it goes. (Mendez did win one in 2018, so it’s not like her mantelpiece is exactly bare.) But while I enjoyed the movie, which was sold out because someone at our local art house doesn’t understand what people will do to see a Sondheim show and therefore scheduled too few screenings, I didn’t love it. It is, precisely, a filmed play. What this should mean is that we, the film audience, get to see the play that the theater audience was watching. But for reasons that I understand but don’t agree with, the director has chosen to focus in way too much on one performer at a time, regardless of the number of people on stage at that time. It’s not as if the other performers turn their backs and have a quick smoke and check their phones while the lead performer is singing or whatever. It’s an ensemble. I want to see the ensemble. I want to see the whole thing. I don’t want to miss anything. In this version, you miss a lot. 

Anyhow, the question raised above is one that will keep Companyheads up at night. What are the top 5 Sondheim musicals? Should that include only Sondheim words and music, or should we count the pure lyrics ones? Should you allow the film versions to shade your opinion? I mean, Sweeney Todd with no chorus is, as far as I’m concerned, no Sweeney Todd at all. Does the documentary of the recording of Company cast album count? All I know for sure is that in my listing, I do not include Passion. Do you?

 

In which we tee off with Bing, sing "Kumbaya" with the Weavers, namedrop "The Great One," and fail to find Ry Cooder

LISTENING (Morning audit edition): Once the Andrews Sisters were joined by Bing Crosby on my playlist, I lost interest in them. Despite my attempts to understand Der Bingle, and I think I do, I don't necessarily care to listen to him. I would not be bringing him to my desert island, regardless of how important he was to popular singing. One of the great musical juxtapositions is a visit to Seattle's Museum of Popular Culture, where locals especially lauded are Crosby, Hendrix and Nirvana—there's a Supergroup for you. There's other subjects of interest in this Gehry-design building on the grounds of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair, including a science fiction museum. And when you're finished your visit, you can ride up to the top of the Space Needle. FYI, there's a sign on the ground floor explaining that you will be perfectly safe if there happens to be an earthquake during your visit. Who doesn't breathe a sigh of relief reading that?

Following Bing and the sisters were the Weavers. God knows why I felt I needed to listen to them. It was 1963 again, when I saw Peter, Paul and Mary perform at a local high school. I think I'm over the whole hootenanny thing now, and I only made it through a couple of tracks before skipping out during "Goodnight Irene." You would have done the same.  

Next up, "Friar Tuck and His Psychedelic Guitar." And no, I've never really wanted to hear an ironic (?) cover of Tommy Roe's "Sweet Pea," so I didn't get far with this one. The music ranged from gentrified rock music for the June Taylor Dancers that you might hear on the Jackie Gleason Show in the 1950s to punk noise to some actually decent psychedelic guitar riffs that seemed to come out of nowhere. This one was on the playlist because of the connection to the ubiquitous 60s figure (and present-day virtual unknown) Curt Boettcher. (This is what happens when you listen to "A History of Rock in 500 Songs." You just follow the leads wherever they take you.) I followed this one for about four tracks, just trying to figure out what in tarnation it was supposed to be. Tarnation offered no answers. 

Next up, the Rising Sons. I think their presence in the queue was an attempt to listen to a group of that name featuring Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, recorded early in their careers. (Ry Cooder—talk about ubiquitous figures!) This does not seem to be them, and some serious digging came up with nothing on Spotify or Apple Music, except that Rising Sons seems to be the name of about half the groups that have ever recorded. None of this would matter much but I sort of enjoyed this music, which sounded to me like an early 70s group that just missed the boat of popular 60s music. And when I looked, the issue date was indeed 1971. I may never learn more about them, but I'm definitely giving this one a more serious second listen. It all sounded worthy of another look. 

(And studying the poster above, I find it hard to believe that the Hootenanny Hoot dance never caught on. Incidentally, director Gene Nelson played Will Parker in the movie of Oklahoma! You know, "Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City." That Will Parker. Nelson went on to direct more TV shows than you can shake the proverbial stick at.)

In which we confront one of life's greatest challenges

The question is, what to read next?

I find the Jackson Brodie novels a little bit of work, but a good kind of work. Atkinson writes these in a circular fashion, where one doesn't so much follow the plot as follow the characters in their individual narratives, a sort of literary quadrille where you have to keep your eyes closely on everyone for fear of heading off in the wrong direction and throwing the whole dance out of whack. None of the characters are simple, no matter how minor. And no character is all that minor. No wonder I love her work.

Finishing off a Brodie, therefore, Big Sky in the case at hand, causes one to take a deep breath. One is always reading a book: there is no discernible gap between ending one and starting another. But the book that gets started has to contrast in a good way with the book just finished. Normally I wouldn't go for a mystery to follow a mystery; I like to shake things up a bit. But going through my unread Kindle books (my metaphorical nightstand), nothing jumped out. SF as a genre was out, because I'm still listening to Chambers's Record of a Spaceborn Few. A nonfiction title might make sense, but I just wasn't in the mood. In these situations, there are two possibilities. The first is to pull something out of a short story collection. Even if the genre were still mystery, the commitment is so short, usually a single sitting, that the potential genre conflation is not particularly problematic. The second option, the one I took, was to grab a Roderick Alleyn novel. In fact, I have a whole folder of nothing but Ngaio Marsh, as these were practically being given away for a while on Kindle daily deals. 

So why Marsh and Alleyn, obviously dead center in the detective mystery genre, to follow the Atkinson detective? Well, here's the thing about the Alleyn novels. If Atkinson is choreographing a quadrille, Marsh, although juggling plenty of characters, maps out a step-by-step marching narrative in which it becomes almost a surprise when the enterprise turns into a detective story. She creates a setting and fills it with characters different from story to story, and then lets those characters go about their rather unified business—putting on a performance, moving from New Zealand to England, whatever—for roughly about half a novel. And then something goes horribly wrong, as we theme park fans like to say, and she brings in the series regulars of C.I. Alleyn and D.I. Fox, and maybe Troy (artist spouse) and journalist Nigel Bathgate, and the mystery is now pursued most intricately. For me, it is the first half of these novels, which read as simply mainstream period tales, that are the best part, and which remove it from the curse of genre, and thus allow it to follow straight on the heels of a previous mystery without a great collision. 

As noted previously, the Marsh chosen was Surfeit of Lampreys. I read it pretty quickly, and then, well, there we were again, having to pick another book. For a few days I took the other option and read some SF stories. And then, wanting something to last for more than a single sitting, I riffled through the Kindle once again and turned up P. G. Wodehouse's Psmith in the City. There's a little more cricket than I can follow easily—pretty much any cricket is a little more cricket than I can follow easily—but then again, it's Wodehouse, and one bears with it. Old Plum never fails to satisfy; I've read all the Jeeves and Woosters, and many of the Blandingses, on paper and then in audiobooks, and even enjoyed them in dramatizations. (The Fry and Laurie Jeeveses seem to be unaccessible on my streaming services, but Amazon has a quite enjoyable Blandings series to make up for it.) (And speaking of Fry, oh, well, I'll save that for another time.)

And thus the great conundrum of what to read next is, for a few moments, solved. Of course, in a day or two we'll have to go through the whole thing again. So be it. 

In which we throw together another ODL

  

We closed registration for the fifth of our Online Debate League events last night. The tournament is Saturday.

I can go back way into the darkest days of the pandemic and find my musings on what we might do with the idea of virtual tournaments after it was all over. It was something that had never before been possible, that was devised and pretty quickly institutionalized by the reigning arbiter of debate activity, the National Speech and Debate Association. The tools were—and still are—there. In-person events are inarguably preferable, but we now had an engine for something else altogether. How to enable that engine was the question. 

A few regular tournaments on the calendar, for one reason or another, have simply gone completely virtual. Space is the usual reason for this. It seems that it has become ever harder for hosts to find enough rooms for a tournament. Colleges and high schools, after the forced hiatus of the pandemic, see no reason to reopen their doors to the thundering horde of forensicians anymore. There's liabilities and custodial concerns and at times even simple ignorance of what these debate people are actually talking about. You want what? When? For the whole weekend? Some venues haven't disappeared completely, but they've split up into partially in-person, partially virtual. Maybe one or two divisions are on the campus, the others are on the computers. There's even the option of hybridization, where some of the participants are there and others are online, which I think is the least attractive of the possibilities, offering neither the benefits of a live tournament nor of a virtual tournament. I showed up in an empty classroom in Paducah after a five hour bus trip to debate some schmegeggie on my laptop? Na'ah. 

The calendar, at least in the Northeast, has more or less completely gone back to live, although some folks have moved toward live for most of the tournament and virtual for the last few elims. This allows everyone to get home after the main body of the event, and limits the virtuality to the elite handful of top performers and judges. This seems to please everyone, more or less. It allows for gentler scheduling of the main event, it empties the buildings, and it gets people home at the most decent hour. 

And then there's our ODL, the Online Debate League. As I said above, thinking about what we could do virtually after virtual was no longer a necessity was the genesis of the project. The thing that especially started it was the simple reality that the northeast has practically no live policy debate anymore. Few schools have policy teams, and few tournaments offer policy divisions. Once upon a time policy was the only debate. Now it's not. (The reasons for this are complicated and a whole other discussion, so we'll table that discussion for now.) But there still are schools, mostly big programs, that still have policy teams. So we created the Online Policy League to provide rounds for those schools. The price is virtually at cost (we do have to pay to use the NSDA's tools), and location is of no consequence. We'd offer novice, intermediate, and varsity divisions. And we'd see what would happen.

The OPL did pretty well. We ran some tournaments, and people came, not crazy high numbers but enough to warrant continuing to do it. Over time we polished up the back end of what we were doing as we got the hang of it. And from there arose the ODL, which aimed to bring LD and PF into the arena. An argument could be made that LD is on the same diminishing track as Policy (again, a subject for another day), and offering rounds seemed like a good thing. And at that point, why not throw in PF too? Yes, PF, unlike LD and CX, is thriving and probably the default high school debate activity these days, and once you've opened your virtual doors to everyone else, what's the harm of including PF? Additionally, we officially folded the league into the infrastructure of the NYCFL, so we'd have some way to handle the financial side of things, operating under the umbrella of a real institution. Et voila, ODL. 

We're rounding the final turn of this season's set of tournaments. I'll be honest with you: I wish it were bigger. I wish more people were taking advantage of it. We had to do a bit of juggling for Saturday's tournament to make it viable, combining a division or two, that sort of thing. Ultimately it will be fine and it will achieve the express goal of the league, to provide rounds, and the educational experience that comes with the rounds, to any interested school. My thing has always been, the more rounds the better. Want to get good? Practice. (What a revolutionary idea.) ODL, if nothing else, is good practice. It is something to prepare cases for, it is a place to try out your ideas, it is a place to get the hang of things, to maybe get judged by someone who will be judging you later in the month at a live high-stakes event. Whatever. I don't feel a terrible need to justify its existence. I just wish I knew of ways to get more people aware of that existence. 

Oh, well. This was, realistically, only year one. I don't think any of us are planning to throw in the towel just yet. At least I'm not. I've got nothing to lost.