Movie Star

 A few days ago was the fifth anniversary of my Mom's passing, which doesn't seem possible, both that is seems like yesterday and yet also feels longer. As is pretty well-documented, my son was Mimi's favorite person in the world, and not by a slim margin. I remember years ago Gary and I drove down to see my Mom for a visit. A couple days earlier I had shaved off my beard for the first time in something like seventeen years. We were there for around three hours when my Mom finally looked at me and said, "You look different today." The Boy was in the room and I existed only as a means of conveyance. I get it, as my both my grandmothers were that way with me. One time when Mom was in the hospital we came to visit her, and I'm thinking Gary was probably in high school. Mimi woke up, looked at the crowd around her, focused on my son, and said, "You look like a movie star." It became a foundational bit of Scudder mythology.

The other day we stopped by to do laundry, which may have just been an excuse to check up on his old man; he's reached that stage where he's far more worried about me than I am about him. At a certain point he had to run to the store, and I took advantage of his absence to switch over the loads and fold his clothes. When he came back his was very apologetic. I told him that it was a pleasure, and the dream of every parent of every adult child to somehow play a role in their lives, even if it's just folding laundry. Of course, I was sincere. It's why we fight to pay the check every time.

To be fair, he is awfully handsome - or at least a lot more handsome than this father.

Gary Beatrice Discography #4

We've made it to April, and we might, somehow, potentially, theoretically, inshallah, survive the pandemic. It won't be easy, even now, considering that 46% of Republicans say that they're probably not going to get the vaccine, which means that herd immunity is not an option (heavy sigh). Still, we're a hell of a lot better off that we were a year ago, or even three months ago for that matter. It will be interesting to see if the musical mood of our band of intrepid Discographers improves to match better news on the pandemic front. Generally, we're not a shiny, happy crew under the best of circumstances, but maybe we'll rally for a fourth movement Mozart level emotional explosion (yeah, I'm not buying it either - too many Alt Country fans here - but we can dream).

This is one of our regular free form months, so folks are (to quote the esteemed Sanford) just talking about what they're talking about. May will be a theme month, and said theme will be revealed in the fullness of time. It's from Mike Kelly, so you've been warned.

Oh, and we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge and celebrate the birthday of the routinely excellent Cindy Morgan, who is 29 or 39 or some year that ends in a 9 (it's not a prime number so I wasn't paying that much attention). 

Dave Kelley

Katie Pruitt. "Look The Other Way"

 

For George Floyd and a just verdict and countless others whose killers were not held accountable.  Nothing else to say that the song doesn't say better.

Phil Seiler

Talk Talk

Eden

The Spirit of Eden

I needed to check my notes but it really does look like for all the posts I have done for this effort, I have never featured one of the best bands to ever record albums, Talk Talk (they did get a shout out from me in the desert island disc thing a while back. But that clearly does not count.) Originally a synth pop outfit from the early 80s, Talk Talk evolved into a band that surely must have driven their record label insane. Each album they released became more introspective, more committed to exploring the boundaries of what pop music could be and indeed how much power in music there is from the spaces, the silence, in the wall of sound. It's hard for me to pick a track to write about from their later career as it is all brilliant and is best appreciated in full album form. In fact, I highly recommend you don't follow my track link above and instead use this one which is the full A side of the album (ripped from vinyl!) as the tracks are meant to be experienced together, as movements of a large piece. But Eden from the Spirit of Eden album is as good a representative of their work as any so if you just want one track, here you go.

Get headphones for this and give yourself the full almost 7 minutes to just listen. Mark Hollis and the band will find spaces in between the notes to engage you. He will breathlessly tell you of his joy and pain, building to crescendo and then fading into the ether.

Everybody needs someone to live by
Everybody needs someone
Everybody needs someone to live by

Rage on omnipotent

Just listen to him barely whisper that last line as everything crumbles into space and air and light. RIP Mark. You left behind some beauty and truth and that's probably the best any of us can hope for.

Alice Neiley

Ontario just entered yet another full lockdown last week, so I'm fighting the Covid blues a bit. All the songs I was thinking to submit and write about were sad, slow, contemplative, and, of course, lovely -- which, if I'm honest, I'd probably write about anyway, even if the pandemic blues hadn't struck. There was one in particular that I stumbled upon called Little Bit of Rain by Fred Neil, which is so spare and lovely that I sat back, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes while listening. The low notes his voice hits are almost inhuman, but in an ethereal, magical being sort of way. The whole tune is grounding and deep, but those bass notes vibrate and spread through the chest like gongs. It turns out that the simple beauty of that tune was such a comfort and improved my mood so much that by the end of the day, I couldn't decide whether to share it, or to share what I was listening to while mixing martinis for Karen and myself...so...I'm sharing both. 

Par for the course of this pandemic emotional rollercoaster, the second tune has a completely different vibe -- a throwback in the best sense of the word -- Leon Bridges's Smooth Sailin'. Now, those of you who know me know how much I love soul music, motown, etc., and when Leon Bridges burst on the scene about 7 years ago (yes, in the 2000s, not 1970s, shockingly), he certainly soothed my nostalgic, old soul. This tune is the most fun on the album, not only musically, but also visually. Seriously. I mean, there's upbeat and cool, and then there's UPBEAT and COOOOOL. 

Lynette Vought

Dear Trouble

The Big Lazy

 

After a year of Trouble, The Big Lazy’s ambling nonchalant nod to it in this song, accompanied by Marco North’s well-crafted views of New York tough, remind me that life goes on in spite of it all.

 

I’m not sure which I like better, the music or the film. Maybe it is the combination that is the best. Some of my favorite moments are when the film matches the music, like when the geese skirt along the bank in step or when the rhythm of the song matches the windshield wipers in the video. But also, there are human moments, when comfort is offered and adversity is faced head on.

 

Together, music and video combine to make something greater than either one alone, one that tells Trouble to bring it on, and the band will still be playing in the back.

Bill Farrington

My submission(s) for edition #4 are John Barleycorn Must Die (Traffic) and Gallows Pole (Page & Plant / Led Zeppelin).  

 

The British musicians that dominated album oriented rock fm stations in the early 70's had an interest in old english folks songs. I have a number of albums from this time period which included one song which was their cover version of these folk songs. 

 

John Barleycorn is pretty straightforward.  No other comment on this song.

 

One comment on Gallows Pole.  The tempo of the song increases throughout the song - as the prisoner gets closer to the Gallow Pole.  I have read this was meant to represent his blood pressure as his execution became more imminent.  

 

If either of these songs made you smile, there are other examples from Jethro Tull, and the Small Faces, among others.

 

Bill

 

Gary - for your amusement and bemusement - I discovered a version by Neil Young and Crazy Horse while searching for the spotify links above.  It's kind of rockabilly meets old English folk songs.  I regret to admit - I didn't make it all the way through this rendition.

Miranda Tavares 

There have been many excellent songs from tv shows. Way down in the hole from The Wire comes to mind immediately (the Tom Waits version is my personal favorite); Regina Spektor from Orange is the new Black; fuck, who doesn't still love the Cheers theme song?! Of course, the reverse is also true. The Rembrandts can go fuck themselves with a semi trailer sideways for their Friends theme, and I'll live to see 438 before I forget the theme from The Facts of Life. But I present to you a highly underrated song to accompany a highly underrated show: the Terriers theme song. Performed by a generic soundtrack generator as opposed to a stand-on-their-own artist like Tom Waits or Regina Spector (no I didn't bother to look up who did the cheers theme song, this post comes from the heart, and from the booze, with no room for Google and limited room for proofreading), this song is the epitome of surf rock: catchy yet edgy, nod your head or shake your fist. Highly recommend both the show and the song. Both have appealing layers. 

Gary Scudder

Songs: Ohia, Hold On Magnolia

OK, so this wasn't my first song choice for the week, which isn't particularly surprising. In fact, it's probably the norm. While I collect everybody's songs and commentaries in a word doc as they come in and then eventually transfer them, when I write my own I tend to just do it here on the site (which makes sense because I pop in here to write all sorts of trivial stuff during the course of a week). However, this leads to a pretty sloppy process, especially when I change my mind, which I guess mirrors my writing style or, well, my life. The temporarily discarded songs get pushed off until later, with this week's original song now sitting in the yet to be published June edition of the GBD. 

This week's song is inspired by a text and accompanying song suggestion sent along by my son: Just Be Simple, by Songs: Ohia, on their great album The Magnolia Electric, Co. Now, I was unfamiliar with the band. Well, actually, I had forgot that the esteemed Mike Kelly had actually introduced me to the band a couple years ago, and somehow it got lost in the thousand of so songs we've featured on the Discography since its inception. The funny thing is that as I listened to the album, and fell in love with it, I immediately thought of MK, and assumed that he must have written about one of their songs - which, of course, he had. Songs: Ohia and eventually Magnolia Electric, Co, the band, not the album (it's a bone of contention exactly when Songs: Ohia officially became Magnolia Electric, Co.), were the brainchild of the prolific singer/songwriter Jason Molina, originally from northern Ohio. MK could no doubt speak more eloquently about his/their evolution (as he could most things). In a text the other day I described Songs: Ohia as some wonderful and dark combination of Mike Cooley, Freedy Johnston, and On the Beach-era Neil Young. I've been listening to the album continually for the last week and I'm appalled that I didn't know about it before (it's understood that of the Discography crew I have by far the most limited musical range; most of my knowledge about music comes either directly or osmotically from my friends). Songs: Ohia has now joined Uncle Tupelo in the Great Bands During My Lifetime That I Didn't Know Were A Thing Until They Were No Longer A Thing Museum. The thing that struck me this week is that throughout the album there is an invisible but still almost tangible Other that is accompanying Molina, and I'm not talking about his band. The album came out in 2003, and while he had a drinking problem before, this is when he began to seriously drink himself to death. Molina held on until 2013, but as early as 2009 he had withdrawn from public life and into an endless series of rehab centers, before dying in Indianapolis at age 39. The album is not your typical rock paean to bad behavior, but rather an elegy to a life slipping away.  Opening with Farewell Transmission (which would fit in comfortably on Young's Tonight's the Night) and ending with Hold On Magnolia the album is a mirror of the flickering candle of our mortality. I guess I'm suggesting that as surely as Thomas Wolfe or Marcel Proust or Yukio Mishima were writing love letters to death, Jason Molina was as well.

Cold Currents

 I have nothing profound to add here, other than my mind has been filled with memories of travel lately. Obviously, that's true most of the time, but as the Great Isolation drags on my wanderlust is settling in as an almost tangible ache. The other day I was thinking about the morning of my last day full day in Swakopmund when I went for a long walk on the beach. It was a cloudy, brisk day, exactly not the type of day you'd expect in a country that most people would equate with the desert. It was such a pleasure to make it to the coastline, and thus see a very different vision of Namibia.

As we've discussed, although the interior of Namibia is awfully hot, the coastline is cooled by a current that flows up from the Antarctic, which leads to some oddly cool days, especially since I was there in high summer.

The Ignominy of the Neti-Pot

 As if I don't need more health issues, this weekend I suffered from either an abscessed tooth or the mother of all sinus infections - considering how my last two years have played out my bet is on both. I won't bore you with the entire story because, well, it is boring, but it was pretty dreadful. The pain was so out-sized, with waves running across my face, that it made me wonder if something else were not involved, either some inflammation response to my first COVID shot (which I received a couple days earlier) or a bizarre aspect of my polyneuropathy (I felt like less of a lunatic on this issue when the nice doctor at Urgent Care brought it up as well; as my excellent friend CB opined, "Your nerves are confused.").  Anyway, my doctor had put me on some antibiotics, but I was still in a ton of pain, so I did something I don't like to do (must be my experience as the son of a doctor): I called my dentist at home on Sunday. He very graciously talked about what it might or might not be, accepting that it might be an abscessed tooth but also arguing for the possibility of it being a bad sinus infection. During the conversation he strongly proposed that I get a Neti-Pot to clear out my sinuses. Of course, what I'm thinking is actually: "Seriously, does living in Vermont just make everybody as hippie?" For the uninitiated, the Neti-Pot is that little teapot where you pour a concoction in one nostril that quickly flows out the other nostril, and in the process cleans out your sinuses. I've known people that used them but I had never considered them. Actually, I reached out to several people on the issue and some surprising folks said that they loved them - and a few people said they either sounded horrible or were in fact horrible. Nevertheless, I actually bought one, but when I reached home I realized that you're only supposed to use them with distilled water (which made sense), so I viewed this as God's way to giving me a pass on actually using the Neti-Pot. My dentist was kind enough to slide me in for an appointment early in the week to give me an x-ray to see if we could actually figure out what was up. In the end, my sinuses were so stopped up that he couldn't even see the roots of the tooth that were giving me the most discomfort. He gave me another antibiotic prescription, gave me a referral to a dentist with a better x-ray machine, and, yes, brought up the Neti-Pot again. OK, I was now cornered, and, well, I had nothing to lose, so I swung by the store and picked up some distilled water and gave it a try. The main ingredient, pictured, is the little blue teapot, where you mix the concoction: some powder and the distilled water (my dentist had told me to heat the water in the microwave for a few seconds - I've discerned the Correct Answer is 24 seconds - so that it's more soothing, but not too hot). Then you tilt your head slightly forward and to the left, and then pour half the little teapot in your right nostril - and in about two seconds it begins to flow out your left nostril. Then you blow your nose, and repeat on the other side. Actually, I didn't find it horrible or unpleasant, but instead mainly silly, and I often start laughing. And, lo and behold, it does make me feel better. I keep waiting for the moment when it turns into a spring Vermont ice break and the gnarly brown chunks (my imagination of what's happening in my sinuses) start to flow out and the world changes instantly for the better. I have a long history of sinus and ear infections, so, like I said, this is worth the experiment. And the ignominy hasn't been as bad as I thought; I hope this means I'm not turning into a Vermonter. 

It doesn't look that insidious or demeaning . . .

I chose this mainly because it's from Dr. Mehta, although not the THE Dr. Mehta of Stone Town in Zanzibar hospital fame.

 

Out and About in the Natti

 I've mentioned one of the things that has given me joy - and kept me reasonably sane - during this long pandemic has been my Monday evening video chats with my oldest friends, Jack and Dave. Jack always sets up the Zoom meetings, mainly so that he I can include amusing/childish backgrounds (and get some sort of perverse joy that Dave hasn't mastered the art yet). Inevitably we blow through the first forty-five minute session and the queue up for a second. Last night, however, we were limited to one because I had to run off to Pedro's for Iftar (a couple posts back) and Dave had to go out and meet folks, who turned out to be my son and my nephew Garrett. Now, my nephew lives in the Natti, but Gary had driven back to the Midwest to visit his mom (which always makes me very happy when he does).

Garrett, The Boy, Dave. I just wish I was there to join in the fun.

Tiny Woman

 I just wanted to include a link to a blog post, entitled Tiny Woman Takes on the Middle East, from my former student Kayla that chronicles her adventures on our last trip to Jordan (sadly that was in November 2019, and we're not going back, at the earliest, until March 2022). She does a great job discussing the day to day trials, tribulations, victories, and joys of the trip. I told her that it would not be required reading for students and parents on all future Jordan trips.

Petite Madeleines for Iftar? But Of Course.

 And another Iftar treat: petite madeleines. I was swapping emails with my friend Lynette and two separate conversations, one about Ramadan and one about Proust, merged into petite madeleines for Iftar (it makes sense if you think about it). Lynette and I met in Beijing over ten years ago, probably talked for a grand total of around a half-hour, and have carried on a running email dialogue ever since. Such is life in the 21st century. She's another one of my non-Muslim friends who so kindly thought of me during Ramadan.

They arrived the other day and are quite delicious.