Enter, Stage Right

Do you ever consciously or subconsciously assign your own leitmotif?

Periodically, when walking down the hallway at work, or sitting at my desk typing an e-mail, or pulling the Jeep into traffic, I hear the opening strings of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" in my head -- the forthright drums giving them a sense of purpose and expectation.

The other evening at the dinner table, my wife, who works in a tutoring program with local high school students, said one of the kids asked her what her theme would be is she could have a song played whenever she enters a room.

At professional baseball games, sometimes the players select a few bars of a favorite tune to blast over the speakers as they move from the on-deck circle to the batter's box.  I've always wondered what I'd choose in such a scenario (certain, though, I'd never have to wrestle with such concerns of professional athletes).

Darth Vader gets an imperial theme to accompany his presence in the Star Wars movies.  Brünnhilde and Siegfried are likewise musically announced in Götterdämmerung or Wagner's earlier operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

Should I go with gravitas?  Or whimsy?  Or perhaps a regal brass fanfare?

I'm still mulling.

Belongings in Bags

When you go to an ER because you've caused a severe auto accident, and you're all banged up, sometimes you arrive strapped to a gurney with your clothes cut off.

This happened to me nine years ago. The EMTs cut off my new Christmas clothes at the scene to examine me for compound fractures or any other injuries. It was freezing that night. (Once I was pulled from the back of the ambulance, it seemed as though I was left restrained on the gurney in the frigid weather of the hospital portico while the EMTs debriefed the nurses outside the ER.)

Anyway, when they release you from such an ordeal, they give you a bag of your belongings. It contains the possessions off your person, even if they’ve been shredded up by EMTs doing their job.
I saw someone handed his belongings bag the other night on TV, like a mom giving her third-grader his sack lunch as he heads out the door for the school bus -- or a prisoner emerging from his senetence and receiving the scant items of a displaced life, a former self. 
 
I find it a very existential exercise, to receive such a thing. It presents quite metaphysical scenario: summarily sent you on your way with a tidy bag of what represents you.

Opsimath & the Art of Jeep Maintenance

I've never been much of an auto mechanic -- or, truthfully, a mechanic of any kind.  Lately, I've more assertive and involved in diagnosing and finding solutions to trouble with my Jeep (thought I have to admit I really haven’t had much trouble with it until now).

After a recent episode, it seemed as though I was less a repairman than someone who tricked the Jeep into working properly.  My engine light came on, and the Jeep sort of stuttered, sputtered, and struggle of as I tried to coax it into accelerating.

From poking around online, I learned of a few possible culprits. But, the Gordian knot loosened some when I discovered a little trick for Jeeps.  If the engine light comes on, put the key in the ignition and (without turning it far enough to start the engine) turn it ON-OFF/ON-OFF/ON, leaving it in the ON position the third time.  Then, a code (or codes) will display where the odometer is located.  And these codes will indicate why the engine light came on.

I received two codes:  P 0301 and P 0302. A little cyber-sleuthing revealed the causes for these codes (misfire in cylinder 1, misfire in cylinder 2).  So, I learned a bit about distributors and how computers work on automobiles these days, and I devised a plan.

I disconnected the battery for about five minutes, hoping to reset the engine light and essentially restart the computer to its default settings.  If the engine light codes weren’t telling the computer there was a problem, I theorized, perhaps it wouldn't be attempting to advance or retard the timing of the cylinders. Next, I promptly purchased the most expensive fuel injection cleaner I could find and poured it in the tank.

I did all that right before my commute home, so the fuel injection cleaner would have a chance to work its way through the system.

There have been no recurring issues since my ruse.  All's well that ends well.

A Coupon-Induced Quest

When a buddy sent me a coupon in the mail for $5 off a purchase at Half Price Books  (HPB), I insisted to myself I was only buying one book.  I want to buckle down in 2011 and read through the stack of books piling up unread on my shelves and desk.  Then, I’ll venture out to buy some more.  I immediately knew what I wanted to buy -- a book whose mere mention was practically taboo where I lived on the brass buckle of the Bible Belt, simply because it had the word satanic in the title.

I recall when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa against Salman Rushdie for blasphemous novel The Satanic Verses, at the end of the '80s.  In a Vanity Fair article, Christopher Hitchens posited that the fatwa was issued in a bid to regain some Islamic street cred after reneging on his vow to never sign a treaty with Saddam Hussein.  Suddenly, with the utterance, Khomeini recast himself as the Defender of the Faith and shifted focus from his dealings with Hussein to the outrage of a novelist's heresy.

While I never heard the expected news of Rushdie's murder, what I didn't know about until reading the Hitchens article, was the deaths of "supporting cast" players.

The fatwa didn't merely suborn Rushdie's murder, but was "fat" enough to encompass those "involved in its publication."  Khomeini might have tossed in those "who read the blasphemous text," too, had that not opened the door on complicated explanations about whether or not he had read the offending novel himself.  If so, he'd call for his own death.  If not, how could he know?

The Japanese translator of Rushdie's novel, Hitoshi Igarashi, was stabbed to death.  Ettore Capriolo, the Italian translator, was knifed in Milan.  And The Satanic Verses publisher in Norway, William Nygaard, was shot thrice in the back outside his home in Oslo.

After reading about the plot of the lyrical novel, it has intrigued me enough to read the object of all the controversy, the frothy calls for censorship, the religious indignation -- except it was not to be found at the few HPB stores I visited.

Instead, I picked up and carried around the 2007 edition of the Houghton Mifflin Best American Essays, edited by David Foster Wallace, whose 2008 death was a profound disappoint me to me.  

Just a few days before his death, I spoke with a friend about Wallace's measured and thorough "Host" essay. We both praised it for being informative and fascinating.  It not only gave me a lot to consider, but I felt it armed me with new, detailed insight where I previously had none at all.

(Read the essay here.) [1]

Typically, death is a tragedy.[2]  I mean, there is always grief for those survivors left to make sense of the loss.  The perplexity of processing it is compounded in cases of suicide.  (I was also inexplicably affected by Spalding Gray’s suicide. [3]) Answer-searching seems more complex, more futile when the deceased was not the victim of a random accident, disease, medical complication, or other likely causes of demise -- ones that can be accounted for, even if it is ascribed to the profound misfortune of time and place wherein a freak accident cuts a life short.[4]

Then, I spied on the shelf an edition of the Billy Collins book of poems, Picnic, Lightning, which had one of my favorite pastoral paintings for cover art:  “Newburyport Meadows,” by Martin Johnson Heade.  For years I have been a fan of Billy Collins, whose poetry never fails to buoy me with phrases and imagery.  The serendipity of the cover art suggested perhaps I should purchase that book instead of the essay collection.

But, the quest concluded when I found a book I have wanted for some time, Fred Kaplan’s 1959: The Year that Changed Everything.

___________________________________

[1] Though it was originally published in Atlantic Monthly, I read the article in the collection New Kings of Nonfiction, edited by Ira Glass of NPR and Public Radio International's This American Life.

[2] I say "typically" because for some persons severely wounded -- on a battlefield or in a remote area, for example -- or inflicted with a painful and terminal illness, there seems to be some comfort for survivors knowing their loved one is no longer suffering.  And, for a would-be assassin killed in the act of attempted murder, tragedy hardly seems the appropriate word.

[3]  I read an article about Gray that revealed some of his habits and perceptions...and some of the circumstances that led up to his disappearance.  Previous to that, he already held some fascination to me in his talent as a monologist.  It was heartbreaking to imagine what his wife and children were coping with in his final months, throughout the period of his disappearance, and beyond the discover of his body.  But, Gray’s suicide came as no real surprise, though the finality of such an act reverberates through the emotional landscape of all who knew and cared for him.

(Read the article on Spalding Gray -- "Vanishing Act" -- from New York Magazine.)

[4]  I certainly don't intend to imply there aren't complex and seemingly unanswerable questions of survivors (i.e., friends and family) from non-suicide deaths.  It's just that the purposefulness of the deceased's actions is at once angering and inexplicable -- and, in some ways, a thing survivors are likely to wrestle with and continually imagine how they might have said or done something differently to redirect the deceased from that option to another one that involved living.

The Herd & The Nerd

"Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one. "

-- Bill Gates

I’d always sorta considered myself a nerd. Or a geek. Though I never thought of either as a negative connotation. But, lately, I’ve encounter more than one person who cast the label around as an insult, or generally conceded it was an allegedly bad thing to be considered nerdy.

I subscribe to a completely different perspective. But, I guess, like most labels, each person can determine its value and power in their own mind. And a pervading atmosphere can make some people more susceptible to group-think, or the nuances of a given region.

I listen to a lot of podcasts (a nerdy pastime), and I heard the author of American Nerd: The Story of My People interviewed in an episode of American Public Media's THE STORY. The author had some very specific ideas about what constitutes a nerd, and I often found myself disagreeing with him.

I've always intuitively felt there was some manner of distinction between nerds and geeks. In my mind, the nerd is someone dedicated to knowledge and who somewhat (or wholly) eschews a deep connection to sports or outdoorsman activities -- except, perhaps, bird-watching. And, really, that's outdoors, but not outdoorsman. Bookish. Nebbish, even. Content to forego (or oblivious to) the trappings of the popular clique. Also, I think nerds find solace in worlds outside the mainstream and becoming fascinated with comic books, or science fiction television, or J.R.R. Tolkien, or anime, or message boards in the corners of cyberspace.

The geek, I figure, is more of a techno-nerd. Able to program computers and up on the latest gadgetry and technology. Dedicated to scientific awareness.

Sure, the two share a common subset. But, being one is not necessarily being the other, in my opinion. But, being either is a good formula for success. Perhaps not social stardom, but often career/life happiness.

And I'm at a loss to comprehend why some members in society view nerds disparagingly. What's not to love?

I realize there are competing definitions out there. And it is hard to pin down a thing when there are ten different descriptions of it across the crowd of a dozen people. But, I still assume I’m a nerd. Or part nerd. But, not so much geeky. Though perhaps infected with an attenuated toxin of geekiness.

Or maybe I'm just a dork.

Bleak House

I lived in a duplex in the summer of 1987. I was on summer break from college, and (in a dedicated move of independence) I didn't want to move back in with my parents. So, I got my own place.

I was working two jobs and often arriving home close to midnight. And even though in the eyes of any observer I was living alone, there was another presence in the place. Bruce Springsteen was my de facto roommate, waiting patiently whenever my day was done. My little 9-inch black-and-white TV only picked up one local station, since I didn't have cable. So, my entertainment came from the old jambox, and I was a devout listener to the tales told by The Boss.

I had a cassette tape of Nebraska. And I played that thing ragged. The fad that Born in the U.S.A. had become was still lingering in the nation's collective mind. But, for me, it was all about Nebraska. It felt like I had unlocked an old trunk in the attic and found a treasure that no one knew about.

In that musty old duplex, late at night, I was baptized in the bleakness of the Nebraska tracks, austere and unforgiving. I'd wake in the middle of the night and shuffle around vacant rooms and darkened hallway. The wooden floors creaked, and there was no furniture other than my twin bed and the sleeper sofa in the living room left by a previous tenant.

That time, that summer -- it was very transitory.

And now Springsteen is back with a CD (The Promise) commemorating the recording of Darkness on the Edge of Town. This new album includes more than 20 unreleased tracks recorded during those 1970’s sessions for Darkness.

Bag O' Bark

I recently drifted into that no-man’s-land known as Impulse Buy.

While in the supermarket checkout line, I spied some pretzel-like treats in a nostalgia-infused, quaint bag. "Okay," I thought. "I'll bite."



Sadly, I sampled the honey wheat braided twists and judged them to be repurposed driftwood -- or, on their best day, Graham Crackers from some 1830's time capsule arriving in my hand a few decades short of their bicentennial mark. Dust from the floor of a frontier cabin has more flavor.

In an effort to save my investment, I jabbed one into a peanut butter jar, and it tasted pretty good. But, really, then it just becomes a mechanism to deliver peanut butter to my mouth.

Schemes to Gain the Motherland

In college, I was in a philosophy class that met on the second floor of the campus library.  And, because it was a very small class (perhaps twelve students), its setting and size made it more intimate than other college courses I attended.

My philosophy class was my first encounter with the notion that, as humans, a base goal is our own happiness.  Doesn't sound too out of line on the surface.  I mean, of course, we all wanna be happy.  But, our class discussion would push that into selfishness, self-centeredness, and other words and phrases that include the word "self" and the suffix "-ness."

"What about an altruistic person?"  Someone asked.  "What about the selfless person who gives their time and energy to help those less fortunate?"

"Don't you think that person is happy?"  The instructor countered.  "Don't you think seeing the results of his or her sacrifices and efforts fills him or her with happiness and worth?"

"I guess."

"So, his altruistic behavior is merely the means one's own happiness.  Some people gain happiness by buying new sports cars, some by working in soup kitchens."

There seemed to be a dark current of intention implied by our instructor.  He could make the most selfless person appear to be calculating and self-involved.  (But, by semester's end, I'd come to understand he simply debated and challenged us to make us provide stanchions of logic for our own positions or reconsider them.)

My ruminations began again in earnest last year, after I pulled over to the shoulder of the road to buy a birdhouse from a man whose mental capacity was clearly below average.  He was an older man.  If he wasn't in his late sixties, then life has treated him much more harshly that I had initially imagined.

I'd seen this man before.  And I always told myself I should stop and buy one of his birdhouses, which came in the unpainted, efficiency-apartment basic model or the two-story, red and white deluxe model.  I finally stopped at his roadside booth one day, when I realized I had some cash in my pocket. I figured it would serve a better purpose in his pocket.

But, why was I really buying that somewhat shoddy birdhouse (that now hangs on a tree outside my daughter's bedroom)?  Certainly not because I wanted it.  Was it really to help that man generate a little income?  Was it to make me feel better about myself?  Was it a calculated move to make me look like a good guy?  Was it an act of compassion?

I suppose, had I truly wanted to be helpful, I could have suggested he use a second coat of paint on the deluxe model.  It seriously needed it.  And perhaps he could pay a little attention to the details.  Those sorts of recommendations might help him sell more merchandise in the long run.  But, I didn't want to come down on him, I wanted him to feel uplifted when I hopped back in the Jeep and drove away down the road...the one paved with good intentions.

Charis Wilson's War

In November of 2009, I read the New York Times obituary for Charis Wilson, who died at the age of 95.

Born on May 5, 1914, Wilson led a life entwined with the charmed and the disenchanted.  Though she got little affection from her divorced parents when she was young, she benefited culturally from being raised by her grandmother and great-aunt, writers connected to the literary community in San Francisco (which included Jack London).

Wilson gained some celebrity and a role in artistic posterity as both model and wife of photographer Edward Weston.  She was merely a teenager when she met Weston, who was in his late 40s at the time.  But, she soon began posing for his photographs and started living with him the following year.

They were together for nearly a dozen years and married for roughly half that time.  It was a great chapter in their lives, as she served as his muse, and his successes included being the first photographer awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

However, the day after she divorced Weston in 1946, she married a labor activist.  That second marriage also ended in divorce in 1967, which is the same year her daughter from that marriage died (a possible murder victim).

Charis Wilson climbed high to the mountain peaks of life and stumbled low into many valleys.  I guess that is the type of roller-coaster existence some are meant to live:  happiness, love, and success are at war with insecurity, dissolution, and tragedy.

Some romanticize the give-and-take of halcyon days and turbulent times, but I wonder if peace is not the more appealing option.  Perhaps the gravitas of our decisions is only revealed in retrospect.

The This-N-That Book Club

I thought I'd chat up some books I read in 2010, since I offered up a movie and some music.  Perhaps I'll compose a post on my audio books, too, since I heard so many on my long commute.

FICTION

Traditionally, I dig Stephen King. From my first foray into his short stories when I was a nerdy junior high school student, and my subsequent readings of his novellas, novels, and non-fiction, I've most often enjoyed the experience.
However, two-fifths of the way through Under the Dome, I'm was done with it. Moved on, as ol' Steve himself might say. A not-so-Constant Reader.

It's not the first time this has happened with one of Uncle Stevie's books. When I was reading Needless Things, at one point I just yawned so hard, I think I forget where I set the book down. Sometimes, his tale gets a bit much sprawl to it for my tastes. It becomes so broad and unfocused, that I completely lose interest.
And I don't like to lose interest.

I realize there are those who like a generous helping of meandering in their storytelling, a little tangential exploration. And there's a place for that. But, it's sometimes a place I don't like being.

When a book is really working for me, I like to regret setting it down to do things like eat or sleep. Or, if I'm listening to the audio book version, I enjoy that frustration of reaching my destination, because I wanna keep listening. I like that gnawing need to get back to it as soon as possible to find out what happens next. If I start detecting a dreary regret about returning to the book, if it seems a chore, I've learned to take that as a sign, cash in my chips, and get the heck out of the casino.

Now, I know what you are thinking. My mental capacity must be too pedestrian to wrap itself around the plot of a thick tome. But, I rocked my way through large offerings like Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, or Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth -- or even King's own unabridged edition of The Stand (the reading of which was a veritable 'event' for me).



I'm an adherent of what Anna Quindlen calls the mere brute pleasure of reading. And I don't like the notion that I have to strike a bargain with a book. 



"You may not enjoy me now, Paul. But, if you read all the way to the end of me, I promise there's a not-disappointing denouement. In fact, there's even catharsis ahead. Of sorts. Eventually."



"No thanks, book."

NONFICTION

This all crossed my mind while reading the collection of essays in The New Kings of Nonfiction, edited and introduced by Ira Glass (of This American Life fame). With an almost perfect record, each time I read one of the essays, it became my favorite. I was engrossed in its subject and convinced it was the most compelling of the lot. Until, of course, I read the next one, and it became my favorite.

I started with the Michael Lewis essay that opens the collection. And I figured it was so riveting in its glimpse at the events of its topic that I ought to simply put the book down and walk away. How could I not be let down by subsequent selections?

But, oh.

Lee Sandlin's essay on World War II was awe-inspiring in its ability to encapsulate the roiling events and sequences of decisions and happenstance that conspired to make up The Great War -- illuminating aspects of the conflict and its consequences I'd never considered or read before.

Michael Pollan's essay ("Power Steer") provided a very intimate peek behind the curtain of the industry that puts a steak on your plate. I'm a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. I regard it as the quintessential meal, which may be viewed as brutish and simple-minded. But, my simple mind would happily eat a juicy sirloin and loaded baked potato at every brutish meal. (Until, that is, I collapsed from having eaten meat and potatoes at every meal.)

Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman have always had my respect. And their respective reports on social power and eccentricities of celebrity are such satisfying reads, you need not read anything else for a while. You'll be reflecting on what they had to say and how they said it.

And the list goes on.

Each one a towering achievement of the written word. Each essay in succession providing the reader new insight and food for thought. After reading each one, you wanna run find somebody to tell them about it.

Well, perhaps not run, but certainly e-mail or text.

Bring Out Your Tunes: 10 from 2010

Here are ten songs from 2010 that made me happy.  In some cases, they were new music for 2010, but others were just new-to-me music.  From English ingénues and smoky jazz vocals to a rapper's rhythms and rhymes, I am glad to have encountered these artists and been exposed to their work, as I have found I like much of their respective catalogues.

Click the links to enjoy the songs.  I like to think you might find something from the list that will pique your ear.  And perhaps it will make your personal favorites for 2011.

I'm about to go make a playlist of these tracks for my iPod, an aural time capsule from my previous twelve months.

Brandi Carlile, Give Up the Ghost -- "Bend Before it Breaks"

Loved her breakout single, "The Story."  And this track form her latest album captures that same lilting, raspy vocal styling that drew me to her in the first place – and that soul-touching melancholy.

Melody Gardot, Worrisome Heart -- "Worrisome Heart"

Simply listening to this track, or Melody Gardot in general, transports you to a small table in a darkened nightclub...which really isn't my scene.  But, her sounds is so captivating.

Meaghan Smith, The Cricket’s Orchestra -- "I Know"

Just listen to it.  Go on.  Listen.

Mos Def, The Ecstatic -- "Quiet Dog (Bite Hard)"

Mos Def lays it down here.  Samples and rhythms and rhymes.  He unleashes percussive raps that force you to nod your head to the beat.

Angels and Airwaves,  We Don’t Need to Whisper -- "Hallucinations"

Grand swell of sound.  Epic. Blends with the sort of whiny vocals that are a staple of the music on teenagers' iPods, but here it's given a richer musical background.

Augustana,  All the Stars and Boulevards -- "Boston"

Light piano intro, almost music box-ish.  Then, the raspy vocals.  The chorus is catchy and has a certain emotional investment that suggests there's a good story behind this song.  And, I can always be plied with some cello in the background.

Emerson Hart,  Cigarettes and Gasoline -- "Friend to a Stranger" [Clicking link downloads .mp3]

I don't know why this song wasn't at the top of the charts.  It should have been a hit.  If I ever make a movie, I'll put it on the soundtrack and give it exposure.

Georgia Fields,  Something Borrowed, Something Blue -- "Something Borrowed, Something Blue"

Fun and inventive use of a child's farm toy.  Bouncy.  Catchy.  This is insidious in all the proper ways.

Caro Emerald,  Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor -- "That Man"

This throwback has a Raymond Scott vibe.  The vocals and melody are a real treat.  Oh, you’ll be singing this one for at least 17 days, if not the next two months.  You're welcome, in advance.

Kate Rusby,  Make the Light -- "Let Them Fly"

I love the sound of this folksy gem from Yorkshire, England.  It's like her music has some calming effect.  It's hard to be in a disagreeable mood when you have her tunes piping through your headphones. I shared another tune of here in a previous post. 

The Business of Blood and Bullets

I never would have guessed it when I emerged from the darkened theater of a matinee one Friday in 2010  -- but, THE AMERICAN (with George Clooney) is the movie that lingers with me from last year.

If my Italian served me appropriately, a fleeting seen in the film had George Clooney tell a local villager he was "the American"...and the gentleman politely corrected the visitor's Italian by explaining he was "an American," not "the American."

This film was a very internalized and thoughtful movie in a manner that caught us off-guard.

It was visually stunning, as though the film was a string of incredible photos.  Lots of amazing long-shots, impressive and subtle lighting, and plenty of beautiful settings.

There were many moments where an absence of musical background drew me in and made me more alert for any sound that might be coming.  And there were several passages with minimal dialogue.  However, I felt I could sense what the characters were dealing with in their own minds.  It was as though I was being prompted to fill in the unspoken thoughts of characters dealing with the turmoils of their situations.  I could divine their thoughts – or at least think to myself "They must being thinking about this, or suspicious of that, or processing how to make sense of these developments."

Superb.

That's how I would distill it.

It is absolutely not an action film.  It's almost an inaction film punctuated by moments of activity, with a helping of gratuitous nudity.  So, it isn't for everyone. But, I encourage potential viewers to consider it as a sort of art form -- a visual work of art from which we extract a storyline.

So as not to reveal too much plot, I'll only note that George Clooney's character is mired in the business of bullets and blood.  And he's feeling the effects of the lifestyle he has chosen, as his necessary distrust and wariness of everyone has exiled him from humanity...a humanity he yearns to reclaim.