Gary Beatrice Discography #7

 The other day I was talking to someone and had the sobering revelation that school started in a month; it's also rather amazing because I've been teaching for forty years and apparently still don't understand how the calendar works. Yes, the summer is getting away from us. I'm not a summer person by any means, but I think with each passing year I mourn its passing a little bit more. It might be part of a grand metaphor - or maybe my weary bones just aren't looking for another long Vermont winter (which starts in about three weeks). The passing seasons also make me appreciate my friends all the more, and you're certainly all in that crew. I like this month's selections, which definitely have a more old school feel than the last couple months. The Discography is like the Food Shelf in that way, you never know what's going to show up, but you know it's going to be good and necessary.

Lynette Vought

Rene Marie

Surrey with the Fringe On Top

 

   In honor of the Dog Days of summer and the quest for laziness, I offer Rene Marie’s rendition of The Surrey with the Fringe on Top. Compared to the first part of the Gordon MacRae version in O…..klahoma!,  this is more of a seduction and a request, a “Baby, take me for a ride in that excellent surrey of yours, will you?“, instead of a boast and a pitch to get a date.

    In a later part of MacRae’s performance, after Shirley Jones has beaten him about the face and neck for fibbing about the existence of the beautiful carriage and snow-white horses, he slows down and tells her the dream of it. Perhaps this part was Rene Marie’s inspiration. In any case, both of their voices and interpretations are excellent.

   I appreciate the encouragement to slow down. It has been a lovely summer so far, and whenever the business of fall tries to edge into my days, I find myself thinking, please, not yet. Slow is good. Lazy is good. Let’s make it last.

   I hope you all will remember that, until fall rolls around.

Pedro Carmolli

Lissie, When I'm Alone

How do you find and hear good new music today? This is a problem I have.  My daughter has good musical taste and sometimes gives me a clue to something good.  But that happens too rarely.  Radio stations are too specialized and you have to slog through a morass of garbage to hear one thing that sounds okay.  What I am finding "new" musically is through TV shows via broadcast or streaming.  I was watching an episode of Loudermilk through Amazon Prime and heard a character sing.  I was surprised at how good it was and wondered who was actually singing the song.  It turned out that the actress is actually a singer songwriter named Lissie.  I looked her up online and wow is she good.  So  I am recommending her song " When I'm Alone."  To me it is a new song but to the world it is 10 years old.  I have to get used to the idea that great rock and roll music is not dead it is just mostly underground.  I suppose that is where it really should be.

Jack Schultz

Donald Byrd—Here I Am

One of the things I love about Pandora is the exposure it gives me to new (to me) music.  A few months ago, this song popped up on my Miles Davis station.  The horn playing of Byrd is excellent, but what really grabs you is the baritone sax by Pepper Adams, which anchors the entire song.  I like this song and I plan to further explore Donald Byrd in future listening sessions.  I hope you enjoy it.

Dave Kelley

"Impossible Germany"  Wilco.

 

  I saw Wilco touring behind "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and was relatively underwhelmed.  That was an excellent record, but the band was just not exciting in a live setting.  Not long after the tour ended, Tweedy replaced virtually in the band.  Strong work Jeff!  I saw them years later touring after "Sky Blue Sky" was released.  (Easily my favorite Wilco record.)  They had become a fantastic live band.

 

I am not a musician, but god damn Nels Cline is a beast.  "Impossible Germany" is a great showcase for him.  Brilliant song to boot.

Gary Scudder

Neil Young, White Line

Note: this was originally written for February, but, as so often happens in the Discography, other songs and ideas took over.

With the exception of Bob Dylan, I don't think any singer or band from the rock era has produced as much mythology as Neil Young. Recently, Young has released a fair amount of older material - I'm assuming that he, like the rest of us, is getting stir crazy from the pandemic. One of the "new" albums is Homegrown, the unreleased follow-up to Harvest. Because it was never released, with the exception of a couple songs on Decade, Homegrown has over the years developed a mythic quality. There were two main theories to explain the album never seeing the light of day. The main theory was that Young was so horrified by the success of Harvest and the pressure to produce a similar album, and slide so effortlessly into the middle of the road, that he headed for the ditch (in the liner notes on Decade Young famously wrote, "Heart of Gold put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride, but I saw more interesting people there."); this resulted in what has become known as the Ditch Trilogy of Time Fades Away, Tonight's the Night, and On the Beach, which I still argue is his best work. So, I do think there's something to this theory. Secondly, it is proposed that Homegrown was simply too personal in that it reminded him of his failed relationship with the actress Carrie Snodgress, and it's hard to argue with that, although he released other songs about the same time that referenced her: A Man Needs a Maid and Motion Pictures. There's also a reason that is so obvious that it barely needs discussion: Young is just really weird. He didn't release a CD of Time Fades Away for decades (it often made lists of best albums to never be released as a CD) for reasons of "sound quality," which seems like an odd defense from someone known for maximum distortion, and who once released an album of just feedback. To all of this I'll add one more option: it's simply not that good of an album, although it has some real bright spots. And, after that way too lengthy introduction, I'd like to talk about the song White Line from Homegrown. I first heard the song on Ragged Glory (an underrated album) in a different form that definitely fits the album, but which I don't like nearly as much as this stripped down version which was recorded with Robbie Robertson one afternoon when Young was killing time. I don't think it's a great song, and the original (that is, the later version) didn't even make my infamous list of 110 Neil Young songs better than Heart of Gold, but for some reason it just speaks to me at this particular moment of uncertainty, loss, and pain.

Meditations #15

 What is evil? A thing you have seen times out of number. Likewise with every other sort of occurrence also, be prompt to remind yourself that is, too, you have witnessed many times before. For everywhere, above and below, you will find nothing but the selfsame thing; they fill the pages of all history, ancient, modern, and contemporary; and they fill out cities and homes today. There is no such thing as novelty; all is as trite  as it is transitory.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Seven

OK, so MA is being more than a bit of a down here, but, truthfully, it's hard to argue with him (and not simply because I have such a man crush on him). Of course, some of my agreement may be a reflection of my own immense frustration with my life at the moment. In my tiny apartment, surrounded by the ghosts of innumerable personal and professional failures, it's not hard to see everything as both trite and transitory. Or maybe - and in this case I guess I would be disagreeing with MA - this is an instance where all that matters of my perception of them (which, oddly, MA would completely agree with). I remember sharing my son's reflections on first reading the Meditations and that it helped him get out of his own head (and thus out of his own way). The other night I grabbed dinner with Mahmoud, one of my favorite former students (more on that later), and we talked about me popping over to Geneva (where he works) for Thanksgiving break. It's an incredibly kind offer on his part, and in many ways I feel I should say no, or at least put off the trip, but I also feel that I need to do something to shake things up, to get me out of my own head. Maybe life is trite because I've become trite.

Another Remarkably Bad Choice

 Giving myself the challenge of posting a different foreign travel picture on Instagram is having its intended result: it's making me go through the thousands of picture that I have squirrelled away. My immediate goal is to figure out the best ones so that I can print them off and frame them, although, as I said previously, I'm rapidly running out of wall space. It's so pointless to have all of these pictures hiding away, and even if I don't print off that many it's nice/important/essential/cathartic to look at them. Sometimes I find myself surprised - in that I don't remember ever going to a place, even though I apparently thought enough of it at that time to devote a lot of photographic evidence to it. Sometimes the pictures make me happy and sometimes they make me sad. The picture below, of Hong Kong, just makes me hate myself all the more (if that's possible).I had a wonderful offer from a first rate university - a position that would have formed the nature high point of my academic career - but I turned it down. I said no because of love and lies, but also because of fear and self-doubt. In the end I didn't have enough confidence in myself, either professionally or emotionally - essentially, on both fronts, that I didn't deserve it.

When I posted this picture on Instagram I added the hashtags "hongkong #travel and #isuckatlife.

B

 I mentioned that I was going through three big bins of old pictures, initially inspired by a mad quest to find my missing passport (which, thankfully, the djinn finally returned). I mean, I had to look through them because the need to find my passport was real, but I also didn't really want to go through them because was a lot of pain hiding in the bins. At the same time, there was also a lot of joy, I just had to have the courage to face it (there's a thinly-veiled metaphor in there somewhere). While I never found my passport in the bin (the djinn had hidden it elsewhere) I did find a ton of personal history, and maybe the ability to process it. I ended up pulling out many of the pictures and framing them, and now my small apartment is even more overstuffed with pictures (with more on the way). I found this picture of my ex-wife B, which I think was snapped in our first apartment in Cincinnati. Mainly I framed it for my son, but, truthfully, it's also been nice to have around the apartment. It's a painful memory in many ways, but I also don't think that simply because we didn't make it to death that somehow it was a great lie. There were some bad years, but also some great ones. In the end I think we had simply become very different people. My son asked me recently if I thought there was actually a One, that is, the One great love that you'll find (or maybe sadly not find), and I told him that if his mother wasn't the One then there is no such thing.

She was/is a very beautiful, intelligent, and caring woman, and certainly deserved a better husband.

Meditations #14

 When you are outraged by somebody's impudence, ask yourself at once, 'Can the world exist without impudent people?' It cannot; so do not ask for impossibilities. That man is simply one of the impudent whose existence is necessary for the world. Keep the same thought present, whenever you come across roguery, double-dealing or any other form of obliquity. You have only to remind yourself that the type is indispensable, and at once you will feel kindlier towards the individual. It is also helpful if you promptly recall what special quality Nature has given us to counter such particular faults. For there are antidotes with which she has provided us: gentleness to meet brutality, for example, and other correctives for other ills. Generally speaking, too, you have the opportunity of showing the culprit his blunder - for everyone who does wrong is failing of his proper objective, and is thereby a blunderer. Besides, what harm have yo suffered? Nothing has been done by any of these victims of your irritation that could hurtfully affect your own mind; and it is in the mind alone that anything evil or damaging to the self can have reality.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Nine

When people ask why I'm not angrier, or even angry, about some of the things that have happened to me I usually reply that I am not by personality, philosophical training, nor religious inclination a person who holds grudges. Of course, on one level, this is complete bullshit because they're not seeing me sad or frustrated or depressed or mad on my own time. At the same time, I suspect that as compared to most folks I don't wallow in self-pity or impotent rage over bad things that have occurred - and certainly I know folks who simply can't get past something, and some who hold grudges that seemingly span generations. One of the reasons why I've always told folks that the Meditations is a foundational book for me, and one of the few books that actually made me a better person - and a book that everyone should read - is that it taught me a ton of lessons early on. One of the biggest is that, as MA reminds us, "it is in the mind alone that anything evil of damaging to the self can have reality." In reality the vast majority of these events actually lasted a minute, but they achieve timelessness because we foster them in our minds; we feed them and keep them present, and they plague us, but only because we allow them to do so.

Paying Off

 Well, it took a while, but I was finally able to pay off my truly excellent friend Phil (his wife Kathy is equally excellent, obviously) for winning the Trip of Mystery competition. Phil should have been celebrated for his gifts of prophecy much earlier, but the pandemic had other ideas. As we can all recall, I turned my 60th birthday into a Trip of Mystery competition, essentially not telling anyone where I was going and selling $5 bets (with all the proceeds going to our non-profit, Techdren). With about two days before departure no one was within five hundred miles of the actual 7 January destination when Phil swopped in with the exact location: Swakopmund, Namibia. It was some serious prophecy, and then I remembered that a few years earlier I had given Phil a Lonely Planet Guide to Namibia in a vain attempt to convince him to go there with me. Still, that was some serious detective work. He didn't say Namibia, he actually chose Swakopmund. That morning I woke up in Windhoek, rented a truck, and drove across the Namib Desert to Swakopmund on the coast. I have a legion of flaws, too many to detail here, but I am a man of my word. It was a delight to pay off Phil for his excellence, and, of course, I paid for Kathy's dinner as well, because, well, she's also excellent. Plus, they put me up in their basement for two months after returning from India in the midst of a global pandemic.

Yes, yet another visit across the lake to Chez Lin & Ray's.

Meditations #13

 As a part, you inhere in the Whole. You will vanish into that which gave you birth; or rather, you will be transmuted once more into the creative Reason of the universe.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four

As usual, MA hits it out of the park. The notion that God is some gray-haired dude sitting on a throne, dispensing judgment, is absurd and insulting, especially to God. I suspect, as I long have, that the Hindus and Buddhists have it right when they speak of the concept of the divine and merging with it after we've finished our journey, both in this world and the next. Does it mean that Islam is suddenly incorrect? No, or course not. They're just different metaphors trying to get us to the same place.

Jack

 Lately I've been working my way through three huge bins that were in my storage space. Partially I was hoping that I'd somehow find my missing Passport (I need to just give it up, admit defeat, and order a replacement) but also to try and sort out my own beleaguered history. It's been a slow process, partially because there are so many of them but also because a lot of them bring back painful memories. That said, some of them have brought tremendous joy, including the one below. It was snapped at Brenda and my wedding reception, and featured the irrepressible Jack Schultz, clearly burning down the house.

It's funny to think that we've been friends for fifty years, and yet neither of us have ever gotten within walking distance of maturity.

Senator Cote

 As I've pointed out many times, one of the best things about teaching is keeping in contact with students after they graduate, to follow their paths. This is especially true if you had the students when they were first year students. Yesterday I was blessed to get to meet one of my all-time favorite students, Carolyn Cote, for coffee down on Church Street. We had been gabbing on Facebook and she told me that she was passing through BTV, and we made arrangements. Of all the many students I've taught over the last forty years Carolyn is the one who is most clearly going to be in Congress some day. She's flourishing, not surprisingly, and I told her that I was so proud of her.

My plan is to spend my dotage in undeserved but lucrative sinecure positions provided by Senator Cote and Mahmoud Jabari (who, as I've long predicted, will be the leader of a free Palestine).

Meditations #12

 We have three relationships: one to this bodily shell which envelops us, one to the divine Cause which is the source of everything in all things, and one to our fellow-mortals around us.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Eight

As you know, I've proposed that there are three books that made me a better person: the Qur'an, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I often tell my students that while Islam and Buddhism may seem worlds apart, when it comes to the day to day business of living your life and making decisions on a second by second basis they're remarkably similar. Truthfully, I would make the same argument about how Islam and the Stoicism operate on a day to day basis, and the passage above is a good example. The Stoic "divine Cause" is not an exact match for Allah, but in both cases we're instructing to consider the divinity within the world (and maybe ourselves) and our relation to it. Not surprisingly both emphasize looking after the "fellow-mortals around us." They both place weight on looking after this bodily shell. The other night in class we were discussing the categories of actions and values in Islamic law, and Nasr reminded us, as part of the five categories, "Obligatory injunctions include the 'pillars of Islam,' or the rites to which we shall turn later, and taking good care of one's health of the extent possible." (The Heart of Islam, p. 126) Both of these belief systems are activists, and you are required to make, as much as you can, the world a better place, and it starts with your ability to do that physically.