Who not to submit to.
Besides authority, that is.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Battle of the Decades
The battle of the icons. John goes up over Fats by 9-5. Only slightly less iconic, the Tempts get 2 votes, and only slightly less iconic than that, one for the Dave Matthews Band. Some strong temptation to vote for Duran Duran, but they didn't quite break through. Oh, well, Hungry Like the Wolf or James Bond will hit BOTD at some point, and they'll come roaring back.
This time around:
40s on 4*
Cab Calloway
Blues in the Night
50s on 5*
Elvis Presley
Can't Help Falling in Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7VG4I_b2Fk
60s on 6*
Blood, Sweat & Tears
You Made Me So Very Happy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y168CNQyO7g
70s on 7*
The Eagles
Peaceful, Easy Feeling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrc8XOlJsm0
80s on 8*
Naked Eyes
Promises, Promises
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJP2PH8WKaI
90s on 9*
House of Pain
Jump Around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQbPgouUYo
I hate David Clayton-Thomas's voice, and his style, and his songs. One down.
Naked Eyes -- hey, if I were going to vote for an Eagles-sounding group, I'd vote for the Eagles.
House of Pain -- ah, Irish hip-hop. A Big Ten football fight song, for the Wisconsin Badgers, and I still have my Big Ten roots. Lively and angry, always good qualities in a song. And the guys are ugly, which is a nice change of pace from Naked Eyes. I do think that Naked Eyes and House of Pain are both good group names.
Elvis and the Eagles. These are a couple of listenable songs. "Peaceful Easy Feeling" is neither lively nor angry -- in fact, it's peaceful and easy, "Can't Help Falling" is really peaceful and really easy, but it's one of Elvis's better ballads. Written by Hugo and Luigi, perhaps the most soulless bandleaders in America, but it turned out they could write a pretty nice ballad. Also, to my surprise, it turns out they produced the Stylistics, and the Isley Brothers' "Shout." Maybe they weren't quite so soulless. I really like the Eagles, although many have accused them of soullessness too. But if someone asked me to put on Eagles record, this isn't the one I'd choose.
Harold Arlen. Johnny Mercer. Cab Calloway is great even with mediocre material -- how can he not be great with great material? Even without the Nicholas Brothers. "Blues in the Night" gets my vote.
This time around:
40s on 4*
Cab Calloway
Blues in the Night
50s on 5*
Elvis Presley
Can't Help Falling in Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7VG4I_b2Fk
60s on 6*
Blood, Sweat & Tears
You Made Me So Very Happy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y168CNQyO7g
70s on 7*
The Eagles
Peaceful, Easy Feeling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrc8XOlJsm0
80s on 8*
Naked Eyes
Promises, Promises
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJP2PH8WKaI
90s on 9*
House of Pain
Jump Around
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQbPgouUYo
I hate David Clayton-Thomas's voice, and his style, and his songs. One down.
Naked Eyes -- hey, if I were going to vote for an Eagles-sounding group, I'd vote for the Eagles.
House of Pain -- ah, Irish hip-hop. A Big Ten football fight song, for the Wisconsin Badgers, and I still have my Big Ten roots. Lively and angry, always good qualities in a song. And the guys are ugly, which is a nice change of pace from Naked Eyes. I do think that Naked Eyes and House of Pain are both good group names.
Elvis and the Eagles. These are a couple of listenable songs. "Peaceful Easy Feeling" is neither lively nor angry -- in fact, it's peaceful and easy, "Can't Help Falling" is really peaceful and really easy, but it's one of Elvis's better ballads. Written by Hugo and Luigi, perhaps the most soulless bandleaders in America, but it turned out they could write a pretty nice ballad. Also, to my surprise, it turns out they produced the Stylistics, and the Isley Brothers' "Shout." Maybe they weren't quite so soulless. I really like the Eagles, although many have accused them of soullessness too. But if someone asked me to put on Eagles record, this isn't the one I'd choose.
Harold Arlen. Johnny Mercer. Cab Calloway is great even with mediocre material -- how can he not be great with great material? Even without the Nicholas Brothers. "Blues in the Night" gets my vote.
Charting Opus 40's Place in the Universe
I'm not sure exactly what VizWiki is, or who makes up these charts, or what their purpose is, but I found it fascinating.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mole on the Web
In Episode XXII of Situations, our story takes a dark turn. Wisdom comes at a steep price, and we say a farewell.
Recently on NY Writing Examiner, tributes to John Cheever, Marilyn French and M.F.K. Fisher, some bloggers who've turned their blogs into books, how to raise the stakes in your fiction, the death of literature (again), and Sit, Click, Drive!
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Random New Paltz Memory: an Old Tramp Named Bob
It’s probably late afternoon, and I’m in the Homestead. George Montgomery is tending bar. In walks a gentleman, tall, shabbily dressed but with excellent posture, unshaven but with an exquisitely shaped mustache. He looks like an oversized Lord Buckley. He sits down on a barstool and says, in a sonorous voice, “Does anyone here have a beer for an old tramp named Bob?”
George does not for a moment question his mandate, but places a beer in front of the old tramp.
Old Bob starts to open up to me and George and Larry the Fluff – I don’t recall all that much of it, but I remember that he was a logger from the Adirondacks – how he had happened through New Paltz, I don’t remember. I drift off at some point, but later in the evening I wander back past the Homestead just as Old Bob is walking out the front door. He gets halfway down the path, suddenly turns stiff as a board, pitches forward flat on his face – directly between Henry Cavanagh and Michael Weissberg, as it happens.
I go over to see if he’s OK, and so does a scruffy young kid. He’s not OK. Between the kid, me, Weissberg and Cavanagh, none of us are really qualified to deal with this situation – too bad someone like Ron Fields isn’t there, but we’re all he has. The kid and I try to help him to his feet, and more or less succeed, but he’s still out of it. What are we going to do next? “Let’s take him back in the Homestead and prop him up in a booth,” the kid suggests.
“We can’t do that…” but I don’t have a better suggestion.
Old Bob stirs into consciousness. “You’d better get me to the police station, boys. I’m an epileptic.”
The obvious answer – but none of us are really police station-oriented enough to think of it. So the kid and, supporting him with his arms around our shoulders, half-walk, half-carry him to the police station. The kid is terrified – he’s a junkie, he informs me later, and he’s terrified that they’ll see the tracks in his arm. But he hangs in there. We get him to the police station, and they’re no better prepared to deal with the situation than we are. Louie Olson is there, I forget who else. So we stay, the kid and I. We lay him down on the floor, and hold him gently so he doesn’t hurt himself when he starts thrashing. He has a can of beer in his pocket, which we remove for the same reason.
And he has plenty of time to thrash. An ambulance is dispatched from Kingston Hospital, but it takes about an hour and a half to get there. I find out later that the first ambulance driver dispatched had a heart attack on the way down, so they had to dispatch a second one to take care of him before dealing with Old Bob.
But finally he’s on the way to the hospital, and the kid and I leave. Louie Olson gives me the warm can of beer, sort of like the state trooper giving Johnny his motorcycle trophy at the end of The Wild One. I drift back down to the Homestead.
It’s after hours, and they’re not serving any more, but they let me in. Fluff is there, and I tell him the story. “And here’s Old Bob’s last beer. I guess I’ll take it home for a souvenir – and someday I’ll bring it back into town and give it to some other old tramp for whom it will have no symbolic meaning.”
There’s a girl there – I don’t remember who, now, but someone who was around town a lot for a short time, and she asks, “Can I have it?”
I think for a moment. It occurs to me that this is exactly what I had planned to do with the beer, just not quite so quickly.
So I give her Old Bob’s last beer, and call it a night.
George does not for a moment question his mandate, but places a beer in front of the old tramp.
Old Bob starts to open up to me and George and Larry the Fluff – I don’t recall all that much of it, but I remember that he was a logger from the Adirondacks – how he had happened through New Paltz, I don’t remember. I drift off at some point, but later in the evening I wander back past the Homestead just as Old Bob is walking out the front door. He gets halfway down the path, suddenly turns stiff as a board, pitches forward flat on his face – directly between Henry Cavanagh and Michael Weissberg, as it happens.
I go over to see if he’s OK, and so does a scruffy young kid. He’s not OK. Between the kid, me, Weissberg and Cavanagh, none of us are really qualified to deal with this situation – too bad someone like Ron Fields isn’t there, but we’re all he has. The kid and I try to help him to his feet, and more or less succeed, but he’s still out of it. What are we going to do next? “Let’s take him back in the Homestead and prop him up in a booth,” the kid suggests.
“We can’t do that…” but I don’t have a better suggestion.
Old Bob stirs into consciousness. “You’d better get me to the police station, boys. I’m an epileptic.”
The obvious answer – but none of us are really police station-oriented enough to think of it. So the kid and, supporting him with his arms around our shoulders, half-walk, half-carry him to the police station. The kid is terrified – he’s a junkie, he informs me later, and he’s terrified that they’ll see the tracks in his arm. But he hangs in there. We get him to the police station, and they’re no better prepared to deal with the situation than we are. Louie Olson is there, I forget who else. So we stay, the kid and I. We lay him down on the floor, and hold him gently so he doesn’t hurt himself when he starts thrashing. He has a can of beer in his pocket, which we remove for the same reason.
And he has plenty of time to thrash. An ambulance is dispatched from Kingston Hospital, but it takes about an hour and a half to get there. I find out later that the first ambulance driver dispatched had a heart attack on the way down, so they had to dispatch a second one to take care of him before dealing with Old Bob.
But finally he’s on the way to the hospital, and the kid and I leave. Louie Olson gives me the warm can of beer, sort of like the state trooper giving Johnny his motorcycle trophy at the end of The Wild One. I drift back down to the Homestead.
It’s after hours, and they’re not serving any more, but they let me in. Fluff is there, and I tell him the story. “And here’s Old Bob’s last beer. I guess I’ll take it home for a souvenir – and someday I’ll bring it back into town and give it to some other old tramp for whom it will have no symbolic meaning.”
There’s a girl there – I don’t remember who, now, but someone who was around town a lot for a short time, and she asks, “Can I have it?”
I think for a moment. It occurs to me that this is exactly what I had planned to do with the beer, just not quite so quickly.
So I give her Old Bob’s last beer, and call it a night.
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