Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

Lyrical revenge

I realized that this was some sort of cosmic payback.

I was at a church meeting recently, which hadn’t really started. I was sitting next to one guy, and it seemed that every other sentence uttered by the others was a cue for a song lyric to pop into my head. It was coming so fast and furiously that I stopped citing the song and would just mention the artist. “Fleetwood Mac!” “Led Zeppelin!” “Jackson Browne!” Indeed, after a while, I only noted every OTHER song I was hearing from the discussion.

It’s fun, but it’s also a curse. I don’t go listening for songs; they just well up in my brain. I used to subject my mother to this torture when I was growing up, but it was a bit of a wasted effort since she usually didn’t know my reference point.

A few days ago, the Daughter was lying on the sofa and said something I thought was funny, so I chuckled. She said, with a straight face, “How can you laugh when you know I’m down?” She was quoting lyrics from the Beatles, and an obscure song at that, the B-side of the single Help.

I realized that this was some sort of cosmic payback.

The graphic above I stole from Facebook and indeed reposted. Someone commented, “I can vouch that it’s true.”

I’m Down – the Beatles (1965).

M is for the Monkees: 1967

In 1967, the Monkees had the #1 album far longer than any other group, and More of the Monkees was #1 longer than any album, including Sgt. Pepper.

 

1967 was a stellar year in popular music. According to Robert Christgau and David Fricke, the former billed as the “dean of American rock critics”, the “40 Essential Albums” of that year included albums by the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Who, the Velvet Underground, and, of course, the Beatles. As it turns out, none of the albums released by the Monkees made the list.

The Monkees was a band formed by television executives to have a loony TV program in the tradition of the Beatles’ first movie, A Hard Day’s Night. The program which ran from 1966 to 1968 was quite popular, and even more so in eventual MTV reruns. I watched it occasionally, I will admit. But the group was derided as the “pre-Fab Four,” as opposed to the “real” Beatles.

Interestingly, the listening public did not seem to care about the controversy. On this weekly list of number #1 albums of 1967, the 1966 album The Monkees continued as #1 for five weeks (plus 8 weeks at the end of the previous year). It was replaced by More of the Monkees, which was #1 for 18 straight weeks. After a week of the Tijuana Brass, and a week by the Monkees’ Headquarters album, the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper ruled for 15 weeks. Then two weeks of Ode to Billie Jo by Bobby Gentry, and five weeks of Supremes Greatest Hits. The last five weeks of the year, the top-selling album was the Monkees’ Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.

In other words, in 1967, the Monkees had the #1 album far longer than any other group, and More of the Monkees was #1 longer than any album, including Sgt. Pepper.

Fast forward to the early 1980s. One of my co-workers gave me some Monkees’ greatest hits album. I must admit that I liked it enormously. I wrote it off as a “guilty pleasure,” but now I proclaim that there are lot of songs by the Monkees that I enjoy a lot.

And BestEverAlbums.com even gave the group a modicum of respect, with Headquarters considered the 38th best album of 1967, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. at 39, and More Of The Monkees at 85.

From More of the Monkees
Mary, Mary (Michael Nesmith). The song was first recorded by The Butterfield Blues Band for their 1966 album, East-West. The Monkees were derided for doing a Butterfield song until it was shown that a Monkee had actually written it.
(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone (Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart). Boyce & Hart wrote a number of Monkees songs. This went to #20 in the US, making it the first Monkees B-side to chart.
I’m a Believer (Neil Diamond). #1 in the U.S. for the week ending December 31, 1966, and remained there for seven weeks, becoming the biggest-selling single record for all of 1967.

From Headquarters
Randy Scouse Git (Micky Dolenz). The songwriter says it was written about a party that The Beatles threw for the Monkees, with references to the Beatles (“the four kings of EMI”) and to others such as Cass Elliot of the Mamas and Papas.

From Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
Words (Tommy Boyce, Bobby Hart). One of my favorite songs by the group.
Pleasant Valley Sunday (Gerry Goffin, Carole King). The single got to #3 in the US. Even though it’s about a street in New Jersey, I always pretend that it’s from upstate New York, where I have visited often. And how can I not love the lyrics: “And Mr. Green, he’s so serene. He’s got a TV in every room.”
***
And for no reason except that it would have been John Lennon’s 72nd birthday: Strawberry Fields Forever – the Beatles (1967).

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Columbus Day 2012

I guess I’ve gotten to the point that I find it an overreach to blame the near genocide of a people on Christopher Columbus.

Ever since I was old enough to discern things independently of what my teachers taught me, I’ve been utterly fascinated by Columbus Day. This piece notes that Columbus Day has been celebrated in the United States as early as 1792.

From Time and Date:
“Columbus Day celebrations are controversial because the settlement of Europeans in the Americas led to the deaths of a very large proportion of the native people. It has been argued that this was a direct result of Columbus’ actions. It is clear that the arrival of the European settlers led to the demise of a large proportion of the history and culture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

It has also been argued that Columbus should not be honored for discovering the United States, as he only went as far as some islands in the Caribbean and never got as far as mainland America.”

Not to mention that whole Leif Erikson thing.

I guess I’ve gotten to the point that I find it an overreach to blame the near genocide of a people on this one guy. At the same time, his bravery going out in the unknown, traveling west to find the East, was still a gutsy act and seems to have gotten lost in the discussion. Guess I’m looking for a more nuanced approach to Columbus, such as in this Biography piece. Or we can just accept Columbus Day as part of a three-day weekend and let it go at that.

Doctor: my eye…

Jackson Browne’s birthday is coming up.

 

Sometime last month, I suddenly experienced some real pain on the left side of my left eye. It was as though someone had poked me in the eye. It was still inflamed on the fourth day, so I went to my eye doctor on the fifth day.

She said that I was suffering from angular blepharitis. I said, “in English.” Angular I know, and I know that -itis is a suffix suggesting inflammation. Basically, I have a stye in the corner of my eye. I was to use warm compresses, massage, and use of prescription ointment two or three times a day.

From eMedicineHealth:

“A sty is an acute infection of the secretory glands of the eyelids. This common infection results from blocked glands within the eyelid. When the gland is blocked, the oil produced by the gland occasionally backs up and extrudes through the wall of the gland, forming a lump (chalazion), which can be red, painful, and nodular. Frequently, bacteria can infect the blocked gland, causing increased inflammation, pain, and redness of the eye, and even redness of the surrounding eyelid and cheek tissue.”

Incidentally, spelling-wise, both sty and stye are correct.

The treatment seemed to work well. It should, with a $25 co-pay for that tiny tube of antibiotics.
***
Jackson Browne’s birthday is coming up on the 9th. I should link to the obvious title, Doctor My Eyes.

MOVIE REVIEW: Robot and Frank

If you plan to see the film Robot and Frank, try to avoid the trailer, which I think gives away far too much.

The Wife and I had a Sunday afternoon date at the Spectrum Theatre to see Robot and Frank, as described in Rotten Tomatoes:
“Set in the near future, Frank, a retired cat burglar, has two grown kids who are concerned he can no longer live alone. They are tempted to place him in a nursing home until Frank’s son chooses a different option: against the old man’s wishes, he buys Frank a walking, talking humanoid robot programmed to improve his physical and mental health.”

Frank (the marvelous Frank Langella) is initially displeased with this turn of events. He’s also unhappy the way that the library is being automated into an “experience,” with the paper products virtually being eliminated, in an effort led by some well-to-do, condescending yuppie twit Jake (Jeremy Strong) to make the library an “experience.” At least Jennifer (Susan Sarandon), the librarian with whom he is smitten, still has a job.

Is Frank really losing it? The program of the robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard, based on the motions of dancer Rachael Ma) is to keep Frank’s mind occupied, with gardening and the like. Frank eventually has other ideas, though, involving his previous line of work, as a cat burglar.

Conflicted but loyal son Hunter (James Marsden) and world traveler daughter Madison (Liv Tyler) seem slight against Frank, but that could be in the writing. The robot, though, is quite engaging, in his/its own way, and becomes a worthy companion for Frank. (The machine’s HAL-like voice bothered Roger Ebert far more than it did me.)

I shan’t say more, except that if you plan to see the film, try to avoid the trailer, which I think gives away far too much, although there is one big reveal I did not see coming. It was an interesting treatise on aging and memory, family relationships, technology, and what makes a person a person. Oh, and, a few times it’s LOL funny. (And yes, when I write LOL, I MEAN LOL.)

There were things that bugged me, though. How the apparently aggrieved Jake essentially orders around the sheriff (Jeremy Sisto) is one example. The selection of Mozart’s Requiem, overused in film generally, was not particularly necessary here; yet the Ave Verum Corpus by Mozart was quite movingly applied. Obviously not the film’s fault, but at the end of the feature, in the beginning of the credits, they had real examples of robots working to care for people, yet about a third of the audience is walking out, which I just did not understand.

This is a good movie that might have been great. Still worth seeing, if not in the theater, then on video (or whatever they’re using these days).
***
My wife saw Frank Langella on Broadway in Dracula c. 1977. She loved the show, and was especially fond of the actor, it seems…

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