Spitball Army

This humorous bit of promotional “marketing” was uncovered over the past weekend inside an advance package containing the 2005 Bodies and Minds CD by Great Lake Swimmers.  Undoubtedly, the folks at Misra Records, who decided to have this message printed on the promo’s tray card, merely intended to add a small amount of friendly levity to something they consider a serious issue.

The thought that was passing through my mind at the time I took the CD out of a box full of abandoned discs was answered – somewhat rhetorically – by the circular message shown above.

I know that this video has been circulating for a while, but I hadn’t seen it since it first appeared (about a year ago?).  It’s still funny, in a frightening kind of way, and was a nice respite from all the murder in the news.  Might be even funnier to know what Mario Lopez was thinking while this train wreck of a response was going on.  Also, notice that Miss Teen South Carolina’s firm hands-on-hips stance never wavers.

Man, that was a nice long 4th of July weekend, wasn’t it?  I don’t know about you, but I made sure to fit in some time for barbecue (Dreamland, which was delicious, as usual), a terrific movie (Before Sunrise, which I admired so much, I am ready to watch again), a few swims, a chilled bike ride with no automotive interruptions, a couple extra hours of sleep.

I hardly spent any time thinking about the sorry state of our city’s political machine, or how the Mayor might be spending his holiday out at his primary residence in Fairfield.  But I do know this: the Mayor and everyone in his office are likely having a good day today.  For the first time in quite a long while, the top five headlines on the Birmingham News feed do not mention Larry Langford, the city council, or the sewer mess.  Instead, at 2:30 p.m., they read like this:

• 16-year-old charged with capital murder
• Nine die in holiday weekend traffic accidents
• Man found dead was suspect in death of Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy
• Woman gets 12-month sentence in death of 3-year-old son
• Update: Birmingham police identify two men shot to death Sunday night

Teenagers, bar patrons, toddlers, law enforcement officers, people driving cars, mothers.  At some point in my life I’ve been a member of four of those categories.  You?  How safe is your city?

Given the choice, I think I would prefer some of those headlines about insane and corrupt government officials, please!

Yesterday, bought a pair of New Balance shoes – though didn’t go to the factory in Allston, which may or may not be there still.  I went to an independent shoe store right on Dunster Street next to Herrell’s.  I don’t think they are going to be there a whole lot longer.  The pattern here seems to be to muscle out the small, independently-owned businesses – the ones that have traditionally provided the color and personality that so greatly defined the Square in the past – and replace them with long-term tenants, generally big national chains with lots of money, brand-name recognition, and the desire and ability to renovate the retail property.  Gentrification, baby.  And I swear I’ve heard people cursing gentrification in the current context two or three times daily since I’ve been here.  It really does seem to have done some real damage here in Harvard Square, though my trip last night to Porter Square and Davis Square showed that, though there is some of that happening there, they still have their “own thing” – their character – going on.

12:08:24 p.m. on Friday, 21 September 2007.
This is a 90-second live-action snapshot of the activity in Harvard Square, a la Augie Wren.

Did some more walking around today.  Up Brattle Street toward Longfellow House.  Went by the Westheimers’ house.  It’s very sad that they are both dead now.  Don’t know who owns the house, but it is in terrible need of a paint job and the shutters on the front are falling apart.

They always made sure the house looked neat and attractive, both inside and out.  The house next door was for sale.

I took an afternoon nap.  It was for one hour, then made a couple of phone calls, and slept another hour like a slug.

Took the T to Porter Square later in the afternoon.  The subway system no longer takes tokens.  They have taken the “branding” approach, as well, as the tickets that you buy from a machine (automation again, as at the airport) are called “Charlie,” as in “Charlie on the MTA!!”  It took me awhile to figure out how to buy one.  The lines to buy with cash were very, very long, and no one was purchasing at the credit card line, so I did that.  It wasn’t easy, at first, all touch screen technology and menus, but I would be a pro a second time.  Bought a $10 ticket which scans each time you take the train.  Individually, they’re now $2.00, versus 50 to 75 cents last time I visited.

The Porter T station was filthy!  I remember when it was brand new – now the blue and white bird murals that lined the ceilings above the longest-escalator-in-the-world have turned brown and gray, and all they appear to be now is dirty.

Above ground, the whole Star Market lot has been completely re-developed.  The new buildings go all the way up to the house next door to my old tri-decker at the corner of Acadia Park.  The people that own that house could make a mint worth of dough if they ever sold that corner building.

Walked from Porter to Davis Square through a neighborhood that I had never even seen before.  There were some beautifully restored old houses that were most likely at one time multi-tenant slums.  The obvious transformation was pretty amazing.  The yards were all neatly landscaped and many had graveled drives and garden units behind them.  It was a shock to come out of this idyllic neighborhood into the noise and grime (and construction) of Davis Square.  Davis is still retaining a lot of its “townie” character – not so much of the polyglot character of Harvard Square, nor the sophistication.  I was hearing LOTS of that lazy Boston curl from the speech of the people I passed on the streets.  I ran across a bookstore called McIntyre & Moore that was all used books, and it was massive.  They had very little fiction, but tons of more academic-leaning stuff.  I imagined that this is one of the places where personal academic libraries come to rest after their owners either die or move away.  I found a volume of Omar Bradley’s A Soldier’s Story for $7.50, in hardcover.

By default – as the two pizza places I walked to had lines out the door – I went to a joint called Diesel Cafe and had a mozzarella/pesto/tomato sandwich, toasted, that was really tasty.  I’m thinking, by the looks of the people working at the last two places I’ve been (bookstore and Cafe), that Davis is still home to a lot of Bohemian types – several piercings, idealistic t-shirt slogans (for example, “Free the Jena 6”), and snotty 23-year-old post-college attitudes.  I’m imagining that they are battling the townies for dominance in this neighborhood, and while they expend all of their energies and resources attempting to eliminate one another, some other group of people will move in and replace the pubs and sub shops with garden shops, crepe cafes and Starbucks outlets.  It just might happen.

[regarding the previous day]

I sat for awhile on the steps of the Fogg, checking my e-mail on the blackberry.  Classes were changing, and it was around 4-5:00 p.m.  So many students were walking on the street and across the street in the Yard, probably getting ready for the dinner hour.  It was fun to watch them and remember doing that myself.

Went back toward Mass. Ave. and hit the Grolier Poetry Bookshop.  Talked a while with the owner, searched for some good contemporary poetry volumes to get for B.  The owner introduced me to a few new writers whose work was very prose-like, ironic, humorous and dark.  I like quite a bit of it, especially surprising as I’m not a big poetry buff.  This kind of work I could really sink my teeth into.  [Two of the books were by Noah Eli Gordon, who I previously mentioned here.]  I bought four volumes, plus a book of poems by Jack Kerouac, who I never thought of as a “poet,” though it makes perfect sense.

I had only had a cup of Starbucks coffee and a muffin at the Memphis airport, so I was ready to eat!  I’d been wanting that incredible steak sub made with sirloin tip that I used to treat myself to occasionally at Mr. Bartley’s Burger Cottage, so I went around the corner for that.  Once there, I found out that…THEY NO LONGER HAVE IT ON THE MENU!!  I was crestfallen.  I settled on the Tom Brady (a burger with cheddar and guacamole) with onion rings and a lime rickey.  The menu was hilarious: the Ted Kennedy is “a plump, liberal amount of burger with cheddar cheese, mushrooms and french fries,” the Arnold Schwarzenegger is described as “(this is no girly burger) a double swiss burger with french fries.”

Read through the Boston Phoenix, and there was a review of a new book about the Boston rock scene called The Sound of Our Town.  The title is a reference to a Del Fuegos song.  I stopped in the Harvard Book Store to get a copy, and it doesn’t come out until next week.  Bummer.

I don’t think I bothered to eat dinner.

Came back to the hotel and showered.  I crashed on the bed for about an hour.  Then I walked up the street to see Pierrot le Fou at the Brattle Theatre.

It was good to go there.  It was exactly as it used to be.  Nerdy guy reading Kant across the aisle from me.  Annoying gay couple bickering at one another in front of me.  Puzzling, yet provocative, hence rewarding film on the screen.

I hadn’t seen a Godard film before, and if this is any indication of the body of his work, it will be tough slogging through the rest. It was entertaining, though, and had some interesting things to imply about the effect of pop culture on society/the individual.  Funny line that I don’t understand: “Poetry is a case of loser-takes-all.”  And a character near the end of the film said something like “my own private case of mass hysteria.”  I laughed out loud at that.

Went by Herrell’s and got a small malted vanilla cone.  A Thursday night and the drunk, homeless people were out en masse.  I came back to the hotel.

This a.m. I got a wake-up call at 7:30 that I hadn’t asked for, and then I couldn’t go back to sleep.  Took my time getting ready to go out.  Then went downstairs to Henrietta’s Table – a farm-to-table restaurant in the hotel – for breakfast.  It was wonderful.  The coffee was strong, fresh and “sharp.”  Fresh “squoze” orange juice.  Two scrambled eggs, sausage (links), raisin toast and the most wonderful hash browns I believe I have ever eaten.  The room was very “musical” – low ceilings, browns and greens and whites in several differing hues.  A skylight right in the middle of the room that played off the windows of the surrounding buildings, and as the restaurant sits in the plaza of the hotel courtyard, the surrounding windows were plentiful.  If I was Glenn Gould, I could have been inspired to write a string quartet by the sound and vision of that room – the time was 9:30ish, in case you ever want to re-create that experience, and I was sitting on the outside of the room with my back to the window.

When I was first seated, a man at the table next to me was speaking rapid-fire with barely a breath between sentences about how much money he’d been making (I heard the words “million” and “billion” a few times) at a company called Apax (sp?).  He was obviously trying to impress the woman across from him.  He was in a finely tailored suit with dreaded yellow tie – she was in a familiar denim jacket.  Turns out he is looking for further employment, she works for a firm he is interested in.  She had to interrupt him at one eventual point to tell him that she was going to have to leave.  She had hardly said a word – she couldn’t! – the whole time.  I don’t think he’ll be getting a job with that company.

After breakfast, I came out to the Charles Square veranda and wrote this.  Now, more exploring!

Fireworks over the Charles River, Boston, 4 July 1983  (photo: spitballarmy.com)

Had a Declaration of Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects . . . . We might before this Hour, have formed Alliances with foreign States. — We should have mastered Quebec and been in Possession of Canada …. You will perhaps wonder, how such a Declaration would have influenced our Affairs, in Canada, but if I could write with Freedom I could easily convince you, that it would, and explain to you the manner how. — Many Gentlemen in high Stations and of great Influence have been duped, by the ministerial Bubble of Commissioners to treat …. And in real, sincere Expectation of this effort Event, which they so fondly wished, they have been slow and languid, in promoting Measures for the Reduction of that Province. Others there are in the Colonies who really wished that our Enterprise in Canada would be defeated, that the Colonies might be brought into Danger and Distress between two Fires, and be thus induced to submit. Others really wished to defeat the Expedition to Canada, lest the Conquest of it, should elevate the Minds of the People too much to hearken to those Terms of Reconciliation which they believed would be offered Us. These jarring Views, Wishes and Designs, occasioned an opposition to many salutary Measures, which were proposed for the Support of that Expedition, and caused Obstructions, Embarrassments and studied Delays, which have finally, lost Us the Province.

All these Causes however in Conjunction would not have disappointed Us, if it had not been for a Misfortune, which could not be foreseen, and perhaps could not have been prevented, I mean the Prevalence of the small Pox among our Troops …. This fatal Pestilence compleated our Destruction. — It is a Frown of Providence upon Us, which We ought to lay to heart.

But on the other Hand, the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. — The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. — Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. — This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

– Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776

Friday  9.21.07

After landing at the airport yesterday, I got a taxi to the Charles Hotel.  The old tunnel that used to connect the airport to the North End is now closed and undergoing repair, according to my cab driver.  The new tunnel, which we took, connected directly to the – apparently – massive underground transit system of tunnels created in the “Big Dig.”  So massive, in fact, that I didn’t see any daylight after going below ground at the airport until we surfaced a few blocks east of Massachusetts General Hospital, right on the Charles River.

It was an absolutely glorious day, weather-wise, and the clarity of sky and sun gave practically everything the appearance of a post card photograph.  And the cab ride was appropriately frenetic, as I sat on the edge of my seat, craning my neck to see what I could along Storrow Drive.  Hatch Shell.  Mass. Eye & Ear Infirmary.  Rowers.  My favorite bike trail along the south side of the river.  The “inkwad.”  Finally, the Kennedy Street bridge came into view, and it looks like it could really use some repair.

In the lobby of the Charles, I met a fellow as we waited to check in who seemed to be a musician – the big bass fiddle and three unpacked bows among his luggage gave it away.  Turns out he is the bass player in Michel Camilo’s jazz trio, who are playing here at the hotel all weekend.  Nice guy.  He was digging the fact that the hotel was playing “A Love Supreme” over the house system.  Something you likely wouldn’t experience in Alabama.

I checked in and dropped off my stuff in the room.  Damn room had a feather bed, if you can believe that!  Many other nice amenities, like a TV screen in the bathroom mirror, but I’m doubting that I’ll get a whole lot of use out of these things.  There is a “cube” directly across the hall from my room – a cubicle – with a computer and free internet access.

Went randomly walking with little purpose, and noticed several places I used to go to that are now either vacant buildings or replaced by other businesses.  There are hardly any of those great used music or book stores left.  I especially miss the one on Church Street, which is now a bunch of offices.  Thank God there seems to still be no McDonald’s in the Square, but there are plenty of Starbucks storefronts, which is just plain odd in an area with sooooo many great small indie coffeehouses.

Walked through the Yard, saw Thayer Hall [my Freshman dorm], went by the Fogg Art Museum.  Then decided to go in – I don’t think that I went into the Fogg more than two or three times during the nine years I lived up here.  And I didn’t have to pay to get in then.  There was a fascinating Rembrandt painting entitled “Bust of an Old Man.”  I must have stood in front of that painting for at least five minutes.  The lighting within the painting is very poetic.  Lots of travel in that man’s face.

Rembrandt Harmensz, van Rijn  Bust of an Old Man (1632)

There was also an exhibit of contemprary artists upstairs.  I especially liked the works there of one Sol DeWitt (or maybe it was LeWitt) [it turns out to have been LeWitt, even though there is an artist named Sol DeWitt].  One was an intricate series of straight-edge pencil lines on a white wall that was in the shape of an arched doorway.  Maybe I’ll try to make that someday.  He also made a sculpture that appeared made of ½-inch by ½-inch strips of wood.  It occupied a corner of one room.  It looked like this,

one on each side of the corner.  Nine cubes across the top, tapering down to one at the bottom.  Wood, painted white.  It was quite magical in prescence, even though it was so obviously mathematical and “perfect.”  I imagine that this is where texture comes in: if the material was metal, or even some kind of composite, it may have seemed somewhat more sterile and less “alive.”  Very nice.

There was also an exhibit room devoted to 20th century German art.  It included some Max Beckmann paintings that were very Weill/Brecht.  Loved the self-portrait.

Max Beckmann  Self-Portrait in Tuxedo (1927)

Also, some crazy contraptions that were some kind of “light machines,” constructed from disparate pieces of polished steel or chrome that would spin slowly, while a fixed white light would project their changing movements as shadows on a wall.  This was displayed in a dark room, with heavy velvet curtains for doors.

Joe Cocker sings for the clear-headed:

clip from Woodstock (1970)

Thanks for the tip, Cuz!

• Ed Harcourt will be performing on The Tonight Show (hosted by Taylor Hicks’ uncle, Jay Leno) this evening (it’s a repeat from June 6th)!  Word from the NBC website states that Harcourt will be playing a song from his amazing ”new” album The Beautiful Lie, which actually was released in England in 2006…it just took the United States record industry two years to get it here.  I’ll post the video right here if it is made available later.

  In the meantime, here’s an AOL Sessions performance from Ed, played on March 21, 2002.  It’s a rewarding view: primarily just voice, piano and…trumpet.

• The Workplay Theatre here in Birmingham, Alabama, just announced today that Tift Merritt and Teddy Thompson will be playing a joint date on Sunday, September 7th.  Who’s headlining?  Dunno.  My guess would be that Merritt will be the headliner, as she has quite a bit more history in this town, but it would be great to see a co-headlining show similar to those awesome Nick Lowe/Ron Sexsmith concerts that peppered the country over the last year.  Tickets for the Tift & Teddy Show go on sale on Friday, July 4th, and they’re only $13.00!  The venue’s website can be found at www.workplay.com.

Well, the year is officially half-over: thus it is also officially more half-full than half-empty, meaning that there is no hope for pessimists.  Little joke there, ahem.

As discussed somewhere on this blog recently, I am today submitting to you my favorite music of the year, so far.  Anyone who has frequented this website over the past several months will not be surprised by any of these choices, but here they are anyway, committed to paper, if you will.

Why no Top 10, you ask?  Honestly, there have not been ten releases this year that caught my attention in the way that the following five have.  Among albums getting a lot of notice, the new My Morning Jacket LP left me confused, and the Coldplay CD has one really great song (the title track), but the rest of the album just blended into the background for me.  The good news is that I have six more months to listen to many of these records again, and to hear lots of new, potentially wonderful, works.

Let’s compare notes: what has made the grade for you so far in 2008?  I’m listening…

Kathleen Edwards  Asking for Flowers
After I spent two or three afternoons in a row listening to this album repeatedly, relentlessly focused on the distraction while I pulled weeds in my front yard, I was ready to crown Kathleen Edwards as the next great hope among the current young crop of songwriters.  My opinion of her work on this album has not wavered.  Though I do not know if she gathers all of her material from real-life experiences, there is a wide streak of experiential wisdom in many of these songs.  “Alicia Ross,” inspired by a highly-publicized murder and abduction case in Canada, is imbued with sorrow for the small, lost details from a tragically unfulfilled life.  The elegiac “Scared at Night,” describes a farmyard shooting accident that seems much too horrific to have been fabricated, and its subsequent life lesson.  And the epic “Goodnight, California,” sounding at any moment as if it is going to explode into a 21st century version of “Cortez the Killer,” plays like a taut maelstrom of late night inertia during an encounter at a bar.  Accompanying all of this wistful, dark imagery are some of the most elegant melodies likely to be heard all year.

“Oil Man’s War” could lazily be interpreted as a musical diatribe against corporate and national policies regarding fuel, money and war.  In fact, the song is most intimately concerned with the tentative details between a young man and woman who decide to marry and flee the United States for a safe haven in Canada where they can live peacefully and raise a family.  The war, and the political concerns, are – as Alfred Hitchcock would call them – the MacGuffin.  The poignancy of the song is created in the small, personal details: Bobby borrowing a neighbor’s round toe shoes for the wedding, Annabel’s second-hand white dress, the wrist corsage, Annie’s fearful anticipation of her first sexual experience.
[audio:Kathleen_Edwards___Oil_Mans_War.mp3]
“Oil Man’s War” from Asking for Flowers

The title track from Asking for Flowers is currently available as a free download from Amazon, in an exclusive acoustic version.
[audio:Kathleen_Edwards___Asking_for_Flowers_(acoustic).mp3]

Fleet Foxes  Fleet Foxes
My guess is that the principal members of this band come from families where the parents love music and play it often.  How else would such young people be able to create work that shows influences from not only some of the better independent rock bands of recent years (My Morning Jacket, Great Lake Swimmers), but the soaring harmonies of Crosby, Stills & Nash, the baroque folk textures of Fairport Convention, and the majestic anthems of The Band.

All of these qualities are found in the song “He Doesn’t Know Why,” where they are blended into a heady mix that sounds simulaneously triumphant and as comforting as a warm embrace.
[audio:Fleet_Foxes___He_Doesnt_Know_Why.mp3]
“He Doesn’t Know Why” from Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes also released a five-song EP entitled Sun Giant this year, and it matches all the qualites of Fleet Foxes, in miniature.

Ry Cooder  I, Flathead
Ry Cooder has found himself a groove over the last few years, creating song cycle prisms through which he can spin yarns about American everymen while indulging his voracious interest in all aspects of this country’s musical heritage.  Last year’s My Name is Buddy and his prior release, Chavez Ravine, focused on depression-era Americana and Chicano culture, respectively.  I, Flathead outdoes both its predecessors by offering a hardbound novella written by Cooder that manages to encompass his many interests, from car racing to country musicians to political subversives to…well, the list seems endless.  Each song on the accompanying CD seems to exist in its unique musical universe, and several reach back as far as Cooder’s 1974 masterpiece Paradise and Lunch for a stylistic touchpoint.

In “Spayed Kooley,” Ry Cooder injects his droll humor into a song that musically recalls both Chet Atkins and Bob Wills, with a Jerry Reed-like vocal.  The subject?  Homeland security, in the form of his trusty guard dog.
[audio:Ry_Cooder___Spayed_Kooley.mp3]
“Spayed Kooley” from I, Flathead

Teddy Thompson  A Piece of What You Need
Each Teddy Thompson album is better than the last.  Piece boasts some deceptively complex production work, wise and world-weary lyrics, and one of the most affecting vocal talents in the recording business.

“Don’t Know What I Was Thinking” shows off Thompson’s remarkable emotional range as a singer, a facet of his talent that, until this album, has merely been respected.  It deserves more rewarding notice than that.
[audio:Teddy_Thompson___Dont_Know_What_I_Was_Thinking.mp3]
“Don’t Know What I Was Thinking” from A Piece of What You Need

I almost hesitate to mention one problem that I have with this release, as it has nothing to do with the audio content, but what the heck.  Joining a growing trend in the CD market, A Piece of What You Need comes housed in a standard jewel case containing the disc, a tray card with the track listing, and a single-fold booklet containing only a two-panel photograph on the inside…there are no liner notes!  For lyrics and musician and production credit information, Verve directs purchasers of the CD to Teddy Thompson’s website, an insulting move that I equate with Random House, or any book publisher, sending book readers to the internet for footnotes or the index.  Stop it!!

Mason Jennings  In the Ever
Mason Jennings has crafted a handful of songs that are immediately likable and artfully ambiguous.  I talked a bit already about this record and my struggle to resist Jennings’ charms here.  More evidence, ladies and gentlemen of the jury: Jennings’ “In Your City,” in which you can hear the ghosts of Tin Pan Alley, Dooley Wilson and Tom Rush converge and walk off into the sunset with Charlie Chaplin.
[audio:Mason_Jennings___In_Your_City.mp3]
“In Your City” from In the Ever

The following albums have also gotten some prime, and well-enjoyed, listening time in my home:

• Elvis Costello  Momofuku
• Jackson Browne Solo Acoustic, Volume 2
• Bill Frisell  History, Mystery
• Erik Truffaz  Arkhangelsk
• The B-52’s  Funplex
• The Dexateens  Lost and Found
• The Raconteurs Consolers of the Lonely
• Sun Kil Moon  April
• Pat Metheny  Day Trip
• Death Cab for Cutie  Narrow Stairs