The Beatles, “Dig a Pony” - 1.30.69

March 5, 2010


Let’s just say, you’re given any time and any space and any band and any concert and the power to be right there, in the thick of it. You could pick Beatles at Shea (though no one could hear them) or Cheap Trick at Budokan, or Woodstock or The Rolling Stones at Altamont, or any other obvious choice for “concert you wish you’d have been at.”

Me, I’d go a completely and totally obvious route. Especially after watching this, one of my favorite songs. Dig it, right?

The Beatles. Rooftoppin' it.

Tags: Concerts, Music |

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What I’ve Been Reading - Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs/Master of Reality

March 2, 2010


What I’ve Read:
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
Master of Reality by John Darnielle

Though I’d like to claim differently, pop culture is not my forte. I say this with caution – the last thing I need is a billion more useless references clouding up my head – but with certainty: I don’t want to use pop culture (as in, drop canny comparisons on unsuspecting friends) as much as I simply want to understand the joke.

I just don’t know that much about pop culture. I mean, I get the grand schemes. I understand the obvious jokes, and when it comes to music and Web memes and certain genres of television and film, I can hold my own. (And don’t get me started on professional wrestling, 90s video game culture or The Beatles/Pink Floyd. Seriously. You don’t have enough time.) Overall, I’d say I only get about 50% of pop culture references*.

So, when Bill Simmons talks at length about Hoosiers and Jersey Shore and The Bachelor and early 80s butt-rock videos, I’m at a loss. My frames of reference don’t fit. They’re barely even sturdy enough to hold glass, let alone a free exchange of chuckles.

This is the mindset I brought into Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a self-proclaimed “low culture manifesto,” though – let’s be honest, here – the book’s filled with enough high-minded theories to make a stoned group of film majors giddy with argument. These essays aren’t low culture in thought as much as they use pop culture as a vehicle for explaining human nature.

I, for one, enjoyed it. But I fear not as much as most of my friends would.

The essays take the standard “Rob Gordon in High Fidelity” approach to things, using music and film and television situations as similes for how life plays out in real life. What Klosterman does differently – and it’s what drives me to seek out more of his writing – is that he doesn’t use pop culture as a crutch. Indeed, he does the opposite, deftly explaining how pop culture helps shape our life – through experience and, ultimately, disappointment – all while shaping life’s more complex issues in a way that dullards like myself can understand.

Klosterman explains: Romantic comedies set us up for an unrealistic look at real love; everyone in the real world can be boiled down to a Real World doppelganger; Star Wars is responsible for Generation X’s attitude (and Luke Skywalker is probably the first grunge slacker).

However, the best essays move away from high-minded manifesto and into true journalism. “Appetite for Replication” follows a professional Guns N’ Roses cover band on the road, exposing every musician’s need for acceptance and sheer love for the material. “I, Rock Chump” takes the cover band mentality and applies it to Klosterman himself, throwing him deep into a circle of True Music Reviewers (and utter bores) at a national conference.

It’s inspired, and while I felt the essays tried a little too hard upon first reading, I find myself going back to them, reassessing them post-read, appreciating them for what they were: thoughts on real life using the common language of pop culture. I said “whatever” as I read them, but that “whatever” hasn’t stopped me from wanting more Klosterman.

John Darnielle, like Klosterman, isn’t a True Music Reviewer. Instead, he’s simply an indie darling, the voice and guitar and piano of The Mountain Goats and author of a 33 1/3 book on Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality. A self-proclaimed metal maniac, Darnielle’s take on MoR moves away from the standard 33 1/3 review – thankfully, as I’m not sure how long I could handle a 100-page look at Ozzy Osbourne’s songwriting habits.

Instead, Darnielle goes back to metal’s roots. By which I mean, “the cassette players of young, angst-filled boys with a penchant for trouble.” This isn’t a review, it’s a love letter – written in the voice of Roger, a teenager thrown into a mental institute, forced to keep a journal and obstinately refusing to write about anything aside from his love for MoR and Black Sabbath in general.

It’s a pretty brilliant approach. Unfortunately, it’s also a short one. It’s by far the skinniest of the 33 1/3 books I’ve seen, and what should be a deep look into the heart of a confused teenage kid is truncated by the fact that the confused teenage kid is the one doing the talking. Sure, Darnielle captures the boy’s lack of emotional maturity, but it’s that same lack of emotional maturity that keeps us from seeing a little further inside.

Why Master of Reality? Why Black Sabbath? It’s explained as you’d expect: BECAUSE I THINK IT’S COOL BECAUSE YOU SUCK BECAUSE I HATE THE WORLD. And that’s about as far as the feelings get. Cool idea. But awkward execution.

That being said, both books took steps I couldn’t possibly attempt, co-opting the emotions of popular culture and parlaying them into an exploratory narrative of human nature. How does music play an important part in a locked-up kid’s psyche? How does Zach Morris represent America’s ability to suspend reality only when it’s convenient?

Don’t ask me. Let me finish this episode of Jersey Shore and I’ll let you know.

*This statistic = made up.

Tags: Books, Journalism, Literature, Music, What I've Been Reading |

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On the empathy of a toddler

March 1, 2010


I couldn’t do it any better. None of us could. Not one, not a single person.

Not unless you, too, were two years old. Not unless you, too, were so filled with innocence; your heart still sporting an unbroken seal, the cotton still lodged firmly in the top, clogging the cynicism, soaking in the barbs.

Still shielding doubt. Still accepting the pain of others as your own.

This is still how Sierra sees the world, and it might be both the tenderest and the most genuine thing I’ve ever seen. Her friends? Their hurt is her hurt. Her parents? Our sadness is her sadness.

“When Isaac cries, it makes me sad,” she says. And it’s that honesty – that unbridled empathy – that I have yet to experience in anyone else.

As we grow and live and understand that some people use emotions as weapons and every unit of communication can be a war, we can’t help but to sometimes doubt sadness. We lose our ability to empathize. Little by little, it calluses. The seal long gone, all that remains is a quarter teaspoon of aspirin dust and the dull shake of the remaining pills.

Outside of a few select friends and loved ones, we protect ourselves from being manipulated. And just like that, our culture begins seeing empathy as weakness.

I still like to think I feel it. I know I do with those I love. With those in awful situations. I might even be more sensitive to others’ pain than most, if routinely tearing up during certain Ben Folds songs is any indication.

But not like Sierra. Not like any two year old. Unwilling to accept that people can be bad, they still believe in empathy. And they use it without understanding how much it means to the rest of us.

Tags: On..., Sierra |

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Who needs comfort food when you’ve got comfort books?

February 25, 2010


We repeat foods. We repeat outfits. We watch our favorite movies multiple times, pour over the same season of Arrested Development until we’ve memorized casting cues, listen to albums even after the magic of hearing them for the first time is as distant as a Prohibition Era speakeasy.

We do it because they comfort us. We repeat them because they’re familiar and awesome and part of what makes us, you know, US.

But we rarely do this with books.

Why?

Don’t say length. You can’t say length. Not when a season of Lost or House or whatever can last up to 24 hours straight through. Not when we listen to an album 30 times over a span of a few months, adding up to not hours, but DAYS of time. Not when we’ll wear the same after-work clothes day after day after day until, oh, man, seriously, let’s get those in the washing machine BUT THEN WHAT WOULD I HAVE TO WEAR WHILE I WATCHED SEASON THREE OF HOUSE FOR THE FIFTH TIME?

Length doesn’t work. Perception does, though.

Books seem long. Yet, despite their length, they also seem disposable, like a magazine, or a reality program. They’re commonly ingested and passed along without a second thought. They’re the worst combination for some people: drawn out and forgettable. (Those people, of course, are wrong, if you want my honest and totally unbiased and also totally right opinion.)

I can’t help it, though. I have comfort books. I have comfort books that mean more than any comfort food or comfort album or comfort television program. I have comfort books that are as far from comfortable in subject matter as you could imagine, yet still draw me in, time and time again, despite my need to finish whatever book is in need of finishing.

Though it’s unwieldy and awkward, the seventy billion pound monster that is The Beatles Anthology book is something I return to quarterly. Graphic novels with heady themes – think Jimmy Corrigan and both Maus books – seem to keep ending up in my hands. British travelogues like Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island or Theroux’s The Kingdom by the Sea are on the list, as are short stories like Lorrie Moore’s “People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk” or Dan Chaon’s “The Bees.”

After thinking about, I’d bet you probably have some comfort books too. And for those of you that don’t, why not?

Why not find yours right now? You’ve got time while those pajamas finish drying.

Tags: Books, Literature, What I've Been Reading |

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Atelier: a method of craft

February 22, 2010


ate·lier
Pronunciation: \ˌa-təl-ˈyā\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French astelier woodpile, from astele splinter, from Late Latin astella, diminutive of Latin astula
Date: 1699

1 : an artist’s or designer’s studio or workroom
2 : workshop

Great word, though this only hints at the way it was used by Jeffrey MacIntire from Predicate, LLC in his editorial strategy presentation “The Day 2 Problem.”

In that presentation, MacIntire set “atelier” against “factory,” comparing both as opposites in editorial production models (in simple terms: how articles are created). Positioned as one of the five arguments of editorial strategy, the message was clear: there’s a major issue on whether your copy is manufactured or alive. You can churn out fluffed up writing with little heart and a high Lowest Common Denominator factor, or you can spend time crafting copy as if it was something worth paying attention to. A work of thought and intelligence. Of (* gasp! *) substance and (* shudder *) art.

As if it was something you conjured up in a small, cozy workshop.

I like that.

Tags: Content Strategy, Words, Writing |

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On trying not to let a second child’s accomplishments go without fanfare

February 21, 2010


Poor, poor Isaac.

Every day was a new experience with Sierra. Every single day, every single noise and movement and milestone was fresh. Uncharted and unknown; an unfilled captain’s log, we learned to figure things up as we go.

And as we scribbled in notes and made adjustments on the fly, like coaches throwing everything we could at an undefeated team, we couldn’t help but stand back and marvel at the growth – that this child had not only completely taken over the game, but had also improved from quarter to quarter, beating our psyche into submission, forcing us to let go of the assumptions we had brought in.

Sierra didn’t learn how to be a person as much as she taught us how to be parents. To let things happen. To reach only when reaching seemed productive.

Sierra got all of the attention. And even now, as the first of our children to grow older, always poised to be the first child to break through each checkpoint, she still commands most of it.

Isaac is eight months old. And it doesn’t feel like he’s even been around that long. His milestones come and go. We notice them. We celebrate them. But they don’t last as long.

There’s no time to dwell.

To be honest, there never was. Much of it is perspective. Isaac grows just as Sierra grew. We react just as we did the first time around. But the reaction isn’t as drawn out, not as noteworthy. It’s just as special. It’s simply not as singular.

But I still feel bad for the little guy sometimes. I guess if Sierra taught us to calm down and let life happen, Isaac’s furthering the lesson by reminding us not to let it happen too fast.

Poor, poor Isaac.

Tags: Isaac, Sierra |

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Who got the funk?

February 20, 2010


Impromptu soul/funk iTunes genius mix for a Saturday afternoon photo editing session.

“I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)” – Stevie Wonder
“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” – Otis Redding
“Save the Children” – Marvin Gaye
“A Change is Gonna Come” – Sam Cooke
“Flash Light” – Parliament
“Sign ‘O’ the Times” – Prince
“That’s the Way of the World” – Earth Wind & Fire
“You Are the Sunshine of My Life” – Stevie Wonder
“I Want You (live)” – Marvin Gaye
“Night Time Is the Right Time” – Ray Charles
“Just A Thought” – Gnarls Barkley
“Jungle Boogie” – Kook & the Gang
“You Keep Me Hangin’ On” – The Supremes
“Mustang Sally” – Wilson Pickett
“Try a Little Tenderness” – Otis Redding
“Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” – Marvin Gaye
“Spanish Harlem” – Ben E. King
“You Haven’t Done Nothin’” – Stevie Wonder
“Alphabet St.” - Prince

Conclusion: despite it’s inability to stray too far from convention, sometimes iTunes Genius is pretty great.

Tags: Music, Steinbeck on Random, The Top... |

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