Music Sunday: The Music in Movies Edition

I've been thinking about music in movies lately. Go figure. I love music and I love movies, so it makes sense that I would go there, either here or in Movie Mondays, eventually. And, of course, there are bits from movie musicals that I like and want to share with you.

There are really two different kinds of music in movies. Well, three. There is the soundtrack music - that dramatic swelling of music at dramatic moments, and that "danger music" that telegraphs that something bad is about to happen to the hero or heroine of the film, for example. I don't know a lot about instrumental music, so that's not what I'm here to write about today.

Then, there are movies that happen to have songs in them. A lot of those songs appear over opening or closing credits, or incidentally, as background music or accompaniment to montages during the action of the film. Or there are songs in the movie because the movie is about a musician or a band; a good fairly recent example is That Thing You Do (1996, distributed by 20th Century Fox). A little bit older an example is Victor/Victoria (1982), which I'll be using for purposes of comparison in just a bit. I'll probably write about that kind of movie music at some point. Some directors make really good choices about that kind of movie music, and some make abysmally bad choices in that regard, and the effect on the movies can be really interesting. But that's not what I'm going to be writing about today, either.

What I'm here to write about today are movie musicals.

I'll be honest. I love musicals. Some are better than others, and they've evolved over the years (boy, have they evolved...I'll get to that, too), but in general, I like the genre. So, people burst into song in completely unbelievable places and circumstances. It's a movie. What did you expect? Reality?

Julie Andrews has been in both kinds of movies, the kind with songs and the kind where people burst into song apparently inappropriately. She was in Mary Poppins (1964, Disney), which is a classic traditional musical. Mary Poppins bursts into song at the most unlikely of moments, as when she is trying to get her young charges to clean their nursery, coming out with "A Spoonful of Sugar" (please ignore the animatronic birds; they're creepy):



She was also in Victor/Victoria (1982), which I mentioned above and which has songs because it is about a "woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman", who is masquerading as a cross-dressing cabaret performer. The songs in this movie come in the form of her nightclub performances, as here in "Le Jazz Hot":



Just like it seems wrong to write about movie musicals of the past few decades (and I'm not going to go back further than the 1960s today, mostly due to limited space and time), it's just wrong to write about the genre without including something from Barbra Streisand. She has also been in both kinds of movies with music - movie musicals in the traditional sense, such as Funny Girl (1968, Rastar); Hello, Dolly (1969, distribted by 20th Century Fox), and Yentl (1983, MGM), and in movies with songs, such as A Star Is Born (1976, First Artists) (at least, I can't recall any bursting into song in inappropriate places in that movie).

Here, in a clip from Funny Girl (1968, Rastar), in which she portrays Fanny Brice (if you don't know about Fanny Brice, go look her up, becuase you should know about her), she sings "I'm the Greatest Star" when facing early rejection as a performer:



Again, this is very traditional.

One might be forgiven for thinking that movie musicals are passe, but they aren't. Enchanted (2007, distributed by Disney), makes fun of traditional movie musicals, but it is a gentle teasing, and it still retains the form of the traditional musical, for example when the characters burst into song and a production number in the middle of Central Park:



But some movie musicals that retain the traditional form are traditional in that way only. Of course, the best example of that has to be The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, 20th Century Fox). "Sweet Transvestite" is not your typical production number, yet it follows the form:



The musical, more or less in its traditional form, has even come to the Internet. It has been tried on television, as well, with various levels of success. There was Cop Rock (1990, ABC), which has been called one of the worst TV series in history, of course. And Joss Whedon's series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, famously did a musical episode, "Once More, With Feeling", in 2001.

Whedon is also the one who brought musicals to the Internet, with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008), which was relased in three episodes. From the first episode, this is "A Man's Gotta Do":



For someone like me, who likes musicals, it's kind of comforting to know that the form persists and is being perpetuated in new venues, such as on the Internet, while remaining traditional in significant ways.

Then, again, we've already established that I'm a geek.

In the name of God? Really?

I'm really not what you'd call a religious person. Even so, I don't have a problem with religion in general, and while I'm agnostic on the subject of deity, I tend to lean toward their being some kind of power that we don't yet understand, some kind of organizing force, in the universe. Might just be the laws of physics, might be something more godlike, as many people define that concept. I haven't seen conclusive proof of it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

At any rate, I don't go around dismissing or disrespecting religion in general or, usually, in specific.

I have my moments however, when I question the usefulness of some forms of religious belief, that some believers interpret as giving them the right to hurt, maim, and kill anyone who does not conform to their particular set of beliefs. So, stories like the one I read this morning on Yahoo! news, reported from an ABC News story, make me angry and sad, in turn. But mostly angry.

The story reports yet another incident in Pakistan where parents have been arrested for allegedly killing their daughter by pouring acid over her head and face, and all over her body. Then, then waited overnight to take her to a hospital, where she died in what was described as a "slow and excruciatingly painful" manner.

Her crime, as her parents perceived it? She talked to an "unknown boy".

Excuse me?

Yes, I know that rigid and strict interpretations of some forms of Islam regard a woman talking to, or even being seen with, a boy they are not related to by blood as a sin. One thing that has always puzzled me about these "honor killings", though, is that we never hear about the boys being punished for talking to the girl. But that's not the point here.

The point here is that people are going around killing, sometimes killing their own children, for something so trivial as talking to someone of the opposite sex that they aren't related to. That just isn't right. I don't care how ingrained in their culture or religion it is. It. Is. Just. Not. Right.

I'm NOT being anti-Islamic here, believe me. I would be saying the same thing if it were members of any other religion involved in something this stupid and horrible.

To make the point that this sort of thinking is not confined to Islam, let me remind you that there are people, advocates of what is called Christian Reconstructionism, who believe that the laws of the Old Testament should be enacted into secular law in the United States. This would include making such things as blasphemy (that would be cussing, among other things), adultery, children talking back to their parents, lying about one's virginity, apostasy (leaving your church or declaring unbelief in God), witchcraft, homosexuality, or bearing false witness in court, crimes punishable by death. Basically, they believe that anyone who does not conduct their life in accordance with the Reconstructionist interpretation of what God wants deserves to die.
Not that much different from many of the things that the most strict forms of Islam advocate, is it?

This philosophy also considers democracy to be incompatible with Christianity, by the way, and advocates institution of a theocracy in the United States. Just so you know where they're coming from politically.

And lest you think that this is just a small group of religious nut-jobs who have not had any influence on wider Christianity as it is practiced in the United States today, among those who have been influenced by Christian Reconstructionism and the related Dominionist Theology, consider that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and D. James Kennedy (all of whom are or were very widely known televangelists, with large followings) all spoke admiringly and approvingly of books advocating this religious philosophy. The "father of Christian Reconstructionism", Rousas John Rushdoony, was on Robertson's "700 Club" television show several time.

Additionally, David Barton, a revisionist historian whose most recent book, "The Jefferson Lies", was withdrawn from publication by its Christian publishing house for being largely made up out of whole cloth, is an adherent of Reconstructionism. Barton has had a huge influence on the Christian Right and has been supported publicly by people like former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and broadcaster Glenn Beck. So, it isn't as if the views of Christian Reconstructionism haven't found their way into what has become widely recognized, if not precisely mainstream, religious and political thought in the United States.

The point that I'm trying to make here, although it's taking me a lot more words to do it than I had anticipated, is that while religion and religious believers have made wonderful contributions to the world, religion also manages, sometimes, to bring out the absolute worst, and most vicious, in human nature. And that part of religion, I don't believe, should be immune from criticism just because it is rooted in religious belief.

So, no, it isn't okay, no matter if you believe, as those parents in Pakistan apparently did, to go around killing your kids because they were disobedient in ways that are a normal part of human nature. Girls are going to want to talk to boys, and boys are going to want to talk to girls. What is not natural is thinking that this desire to socialize is a bad thing, to be prevented by whatever means necessary, including homicide.

As a trivial aside, by the way, while I was doing research for this post, I discovered that Rushdoony, the "father of Reconstructionism", grew up not far away from where I live now, in the small Central California town of Kingsburg. For some reason, I find that to be really creepy.

In which I gripe about writing styles...

As a writer myself, there are just some things about other writers' styles that bug the crap out of me (that's a technical term, by the way). One of those things is when an entire novel is written in the first person, present tense. It just irritates me. I don't write in that style, and I don't really want to read it.

I bring this up because I recently finished reading The Bone Bed (2012, Putnam; 463 pages), Patricia Cornwell's latest Kay Scarpetta novel, which is written in that style. It is a tribute to Cornwell's ability to tell a story that I stuck with the book to the end. I really wanted to know whodunit, and so I hung in there and finished. It was a good book. I have some quibbles with it, but they are insignificant beside the huge problem I have with the first person, present tense in fiction.

Actually, I should say "in novels", because I've read a few short stories over the years that are written in that style, and they don't bother me nearly as much. Not sure why.

I have finally figured out why it does bother me so much in novels, after thinking about it quite a lot. It's just awkward to read. It is also awkward to write. I've tried, and it just doesn't work for me. There are too many problems to deal with in keeping the story always in the present.

Also, there is the fact that it imitates the real world a little too closely for my taste. Really. We live our lives in the present tense. When I'm reading a novel, part of my reason for doing that, always, is to escape the real world and go live in some other world for awhile. And, in truth, even if a novel purports to take place in the everyday world, it really is creating an alternative universe. That universe might be almost exactly like the one we live in, but it isn't.

An example: I read a piece somewhere the other day...I can't remember if it was a comment on a forum, a blog post, or an article of some kind...that was complaining about the new television series "Elementary", which modernizes Sherlock Holmes and plops him down in modern-day New York City. Good show. I had reservations about it going in, but I like it a lot. The complaint of the writer in question was that no one in the series ever wonders why this modern-day consulting detective has the same name as the consulting detective in the novels and short stories that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They figured that someone, at some point, would think this was strange and comment on it.

What the writer did not account for is that in the universe of the television series, those books were never written. In the series, Sherlock Holmes lives in the 21st century and is a real consulting detective; he is not a character that Doyle made up over a century ago.

So...when I read a novel, I want to feel like I've gone somewhere else, am looking in on a world, a universe, that might be very much like the one I live in (or not very much at all like the one I live in). By writing in the past tense, the author gives me a clue that this is the case. It comforts me to have that clue, and it disturbs me to a greater or lesser degree when I don't have it.

Ah, well. It's probably just me. Maybe because I do write, this sort of thing has the capacity to bother me more than it bothers someone who doesn't write.

This brings up a question, however: As a reader, and as a writer if you are one, what bothers you when writers do it in a piece of writing?

It's NaBloPoMo, and I'm playing...and today I'm playing with history

Today is the first day of NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. The idea is, to write a blog post a day every single day in November. I figure, I wrote over 50,000 words last year in November for NaNoWriMo; this should be easy.

Which is to say, I'm sure it will not be easy at all.

I've got a lot of willpower and determination. On the other hand, some days I just can't find anything to write about that isn't whiny or self-absorbed or just plain boring.

I'm going to give it my best shot, though. We'll see how it turns out.

Anyway, I was thinking that since it is the first day of the competition (even though I'm really only competing with myself), I'd go see if there were any really notable firsts on November 1. Because, if you've been reading this blog for long, you know that among my geekdoms is history.

So I went merrily off to Wikipedia (yeah, I know), to see what they have to say about the date. Because Wikipedia has something to say about almost everything, I found several interesting events that happened on the first of November.

On November 1, 1512, Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were first exhibited to the public. This is especially interesting since this is one of those notable anniversaries that end in a zero, the 500th anniversary of the unveiling. There have been rumors recently that at some point, the Vatican might limit the number of people allowed to see the ceiling each day because the crowds that show up to see it each day - sometimes as many as 20,000 per day during the peak summer tourist season, according to one article - are causing the painting to deteriorate.

In another artistic first, William Shakespeare's "Othello" was first known to have been presented on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London. I have to confess that "Othello" is not one of my favorite of Shakespeare's plays. There is just too much meanness and nastiness in it for my taste. Iago is completely irredeemable, Othello is too gullible for words, and Desdemona is just too stupid for her own good. I'll admit that none of these opinions were popular in discussion when I had to read "Othello" for a literature class in college, but I can't think of any other way to describe those characters.

Moving on from the art world to the world of international conflict...The first bomb ever dropped from an airplane in combat was dropped on Turkish troops in Libya on November 1, 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War, with the two countries fighting over Italy's claim to Libya. It was the start of a long and nasty tradition, as our species once again furthered its quest to kill more people, more efficiently.

So, it is probably appropriate that November 1 is also the date when, in 1952, the first full-scale detonation of a thermonuclear device - a hydrogen bomb - took place at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, in 1952. A small, non-weaponized device nicknamed "George" was detonated the year before, but "Mike" was the first time a full-scale device that used fusion as part of its nuclear yield was exploded. The fireball from "Mike" was three and a quarter miles wide, and the mushroom cloud it created rose to 50,000 feet in a minute and a half and was 108,000 feet high a minute after that. At its greatest extent, according to Wikipedia (yes, I KNOW), the cloud was 100 miles in diameter and its stem was 20 miles wide. The device, which was housed in an aluminium building on one of the islands in the atoll, left a crater 6,240 feet in diameter and 164 feet deep, essentially obliterating the island. A seismometer in Berkeley, California, was able to detect the shock wave created by the detonation.

On a different sort of scientific note, Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico, the site of the largest radio telescope ever built, was officially opened on November 1, 1963.

And, on a completely different subject, the Motion Picture Association of America officially introduced its new film rating system, consisting of G, M, R, and X ratings, on November 1, 1968. It has been a point of contention ever since. If you haven't ever seen the documentary, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," and if you like movies, you really should try to see it. It is a fascinating examination of how movies get their ratings and who actually rates them.

So, anyway, all this is a long way to say that I will be here every day in November - and hopefully I'll be able to keep up that pace of posting even after the month-long blogging event is over. But I'm sure that one thing will be proved: It is very difficult to find something to write about every day of the week.

A small story gets me thinking about the big picture...

Earlier this evening, I was listening to NPR as I was on the way home from the grocery store. They were, of course, talking about Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath. Because of the devastation, and the problems that is causing in getting around in parts of New York and New Jersey, a reporter had taken to her bicycle to look around and see how people are coping in areas with a great deal of damage and, in many cases, no power.

She happened on a Chinese restaurant that had figured out how to keep cooking and stay open despite the power being off. Talking to someone who was on their way out of the restaurant with the food they had purchased, the reporter asked how the prices were; were they higher, lower, or the same as they had been before the storm. The response was that they were the same as always.

When I heard that, I burst into tears, right there in front of God and everybody.

That reaction puzzled me at first. It was nice that the restaurant owners weren't trying to price gouge, but it was nothing to cry about. Thinking about it as I made my way home, however, I finally realized why I had started crying.

Mitt Romney has been caught on tape, repeatedly, talking about how it's immoral for the federal government to spend money on things like disaster relief, and how he would defund FEMA, the agency that is charged with helping out in time of natural and man-made disaster. If he is elected president, he has said, he would put disaster response and relief on the states or, ideally, he has said, privatize it. And that's a big problem.

Why is that a problem?, you might be asking right now.

It is a problem because privatized disaster relief on a scale needed in the wake of events like Sandy would necessarily fall into the hands of big companies. And big business is out to make big profits, first and foremost. And so they would charge for their help. Not only would they almost certainly overcharge for their help - unlike that Chinese restaurant in the NPR story - they would almost certainly only help those who could afford the help. And in the process, those big companies would probably put that Chinese restaurant out of business to eliminate the competition, however small. Which fits right into the Romney philosophy of "if your poor, you're on your own". Not to mention one of his main specialties as a businessman, that is, taking apart smaller and underperforming companies and selling off the remains for a profit. But that is another problem, for another blog post.

This is not the way it should be. In a disaster as big as Hurricane Sandy, it is really only the federal government that is big enough to coordinate the recovery efforts and to make sure that recovery does not take years...or decades. And to make sure that the recovery reaches everyone, and does not further enrich the already wealthy on the misfortune of others.

As I commented elsewhere in the past couple of days, I really wonder when people are going to realize that "looking out for number one, and everyone else is on their own" is not a sustainable life plan in the long term. We're all in this together, and that includes the government. If we follow Mitt Romney's philosophy of politics, and probably his philosophy of life, it's going to be every individual for him or herself, and God, or whichever deity you believe in, help us all.

That is why I was crying on the way home from the grocery store this evening. That is not the America I was brought up in, and if it turns into that, any more than it has already become that, heaven help us all.

As a postscript, the Romney campaign released a statement earlier today (Wednesday) saying that if he is elected president, Mitt will support and fully fund FEMA. If he thinks people won't notice that he is changing his story...again...just because he thinks that the position he stated earlier is sure to be unpopular in states where he needs votes, he is, I hope, sadly mistaken.

How do you define "celebrity"?

I'm probably destroying my own argument here by even writing about this, but I need this question answered:

Why does anyone, anywhere, think it is necessary to report nationally that Levi Johnston got married Sunday in Wasilla, Alaska? No, really?

Just because he fathered a child with the daughter of a failed vice-presidential candidate and ex-Alaska governor who quit partway through her term, are we doomed to be subjected to reporting about every life move of Mr. Johnston's for the next, oh, thirty or forty years? What relevance does anything he does have to anyone that is not his immediate family?

I'm hard-enough-pressed to figure out why Bristol Palin, Mr. Johnston's former girlfriend and the mother of his son, Tripp (and, while I'm here, who names their kid after a stumble-and-fall, and even misspells that?) was invited - twice - to appear on "Dancing with the Stars". But, I'll give them that her mother was, indeed, a vice-presidential candidate and governor, and so that imparts some sort of notoriety to her.

But, still...how do you explain Levi, and the continued reporting of the things he does? He has never done anything even slightly notable. Really.

People do exciting and wonderful and notable things all the time, and never get so much as a mention in the media. Things that are actually of benefit to their community, to the country, sometimes even to the world. But this...this...hanger-on...why do the arbiters of what gets reported think they must breathlessly report everything he does?

Come on. There are important things going on in the world. There are interesting things going on in the world that, while probably not important, are still much more relevant to report than the fact that Levi Johnston got married.

Movie Monday: The "Klaatu barada nikto" Edition

So, I'm thinking about 1950s "flying saucer" movies today. I probably do that more than most people, since I was brought up on science fiction films, but today's reflections on the genre, or sub-genre, I suppose, since there were other types of science fiction movies that were popular in the Fifties, were prompted by my viewing last night of "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" (1956) on Turner Classic Movies.

It's the time of year for movies like this, I suppose, since we're only a couple of days from Halloween. This is when all of the science fiction, horror, monster, and slasher movies get dragged out of the vaults in an attempt to scare the living daylights out of us. But, I'm always happiest to see this particular sub-genre, even though I've seen the three films I'm highlighting here today countless times.

No, really. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers", "Invaders from Mars" (1953), and the granddaddy of them all, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). You see, we had this thing called the Million Dollar Movie on channel 9 when I was growing up in Southern California. Every week the show would present a movie, and then show it every weeknight and two or three times each on Saturday and Sunday. People complain now about how often cable movie channels, especially, show particular films, but for those of us who grew up in SoCal in the 1960s, it isn't a new thing at all.

Anyway, those three movies got shown a lot on the Million Dollar Movie, and I'd be right there watching them. Now, I might not watch every weeknight, but I'd see the movie of the week at least two or three times on the weekend. Since all three movies were in fairly heavy rotation there, I saw them frequently.

Actually, "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" is my least favorite of the three. I think that mostly has to do with the fact that the main female character, Carol Marvin (played by Joan Taylor) spends most of her time either screaming or hiding her face in the chest of her husband, Dr. Russel A. Marvin (played by Hugh Marlowe). Dr. Marvin, who is in charge of Project Skyhook, which puts research satellites into orbit, is the one chosen by invading aliens to be their contact with the governments of Earth. This puts him in danger from both the aliens and from his bosses in the government, who order him not to contact the aliens as they have requested. Of course, this being Hollywood, he goes ahead and contacts them anyway. There is a climactic saucer attack on Washington, D.C., the saucers are defeated through the ingenuity of human (American, of course) science, and the day...and the Earth...is saved.

Earth is also under attack in "Invaders from Mars", but the aliens in this film are much stealthier than those in "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers". In this one, the Martian ship burrows into a sandpit near where a boy, David MacLean (played by Jimmy Hunt), lives with his parents. David sees the landing, but when he tells his parents the next morning, they pass off his story as a dream. But David soon sees changes in his parents and tries to get help. Of course, none of the adults he goes to with his story believe him. Some of them have already been taken over by the aliens, and others just regard him as a boy with an overactive imagination. Again, finally the day is saved...maybe. One of the cool things about this movie is that the resolution, at least in the American version, is left ambiguous. Was it a dream? Was it real? And, if it was real, is the invasion really over?

There was a remake of "Invaders from Mars" in 1986. It is not nearly as good as the 1953 original, which was made on a budget of around $293,000. Possibly the only notable thing about the remake is that Jimmy Hunt, who played David in the original has a one-line role as a police chief in the remake.

There was also a recent remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". I've avoided it on general principles, seeing as the original, from 1951, is a classic. I wrote an argumentative paper for a critical thinking course once which argued that the original 1951 film is not only the ultimate first-contact movie, but the perfect science fiction film. It is a little different from "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" and "Invaders from Mars" in that the aliens here are not invaders, exactly. Instead, they have noticed that scientists here on Earth have developed nuclear weapons, and have used them, and they are concerned that we are going to carry those weapons, and their destructive power, out into the rest of the universe. A representative of the aliens, Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie), has been sent to Earth to warn its inhabitants that if we insist on exporting our violent tendencies and weapons into space, the Earth will be destroyed. But, Klaatu is injured by a trigger-happy soldier and taken to a government hospital. He escapes, of course, and turns up at a boarding house claiming to be a Mr. Carpenter. He befriends a boy (played Billy Gray) and his mother (played by Patricia Neal) who live there, much to the dismay of the woman's boyfriend (played by Hugh Marlowe), who is convinced that Mr. Carpenter is up to no good.

The escape of the spaceman is big news, of course, and it doesn't take long for the boy to start suspecting that Mr. Carpenter might be the spaceman. With the boy's help, Klaatu/Carpenter contacts Dr. Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe), an Einstein-like figure, and charges him with bringing the world's leaders together so that he can deliver his ultimatum. But no one believes the scientist and Klaatu must arrange for a demonstration to convince the world that they must listen. The message is delivered, but Klaatu is killed. But, being alien, there is technology that resurrects him, at least temporarily, and Klaatu and Gort fly off, leaving Earth to make their decision.

It has been said that there are allusions to Christianity in the character of Klaatu because he takes the name Carpenter and then is resurrected after being killed despite his message promoting peace in the universe. Screenwriter Edmund North has been reported as saying that he did insert the references deliberately, but as a sort of subliminal private joke rather than as a serious theme of the film. But, the story goes that the references were overt enough that the Motion Picture Association of America censor at the studio (20th Century Fox) objected to them and a line was inserted into the film which indicated that Klaatu's resurrection was only temporary.

So. Flying saucer movies. Of course, all three of these movies contain overtones, one way or the other, of the Cold War that raged during the 1950s and beyond. These are interesting, just like the allusions to Christianity in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" are interesting. But, ultimately, and overtones and allusions aside, all three of these movies are just plain good fun. Some are better than others, but all three are classics of their genre, a permanent part of pop culture, and stand on those credentials alone.

Do yourself a favor. If you haven't seen them, give them a look. If you haven't seen them in a while, revisit them. You'll probably be glad you did.

Music Sunday: Another View of the Rolling Stones Edition, plus a book review

I've never been that big a fan of the Rolling Stones. It isn't that I don't like their music; some of their songs are classic. I think it's mostly because I've always had the impression that Mick Jagger can be sort of an ass. On the other hand, I've always been sort of intrigued by Keith Richards, who seems to be a walking, talking set of contradictions. He has this reputation as being "bad, mad, and dangerous to know" (I don't know who said that first, but I've heard it over and over gain), but he is, by all accounts, extremely well read and fairly articulate for someone who has ingested the amount of liquor and drugs he reputedly has.

Well, last week, I read another book about the Stones, sort of, Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with The Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell About It) (2009, Villard Books; 354 pages), by Bill German. Like the book I read about Led Zeppelin's 1975 US tour, and reviewed here recently, Under Their Thumb is really more about the writer than the band. Unlike the author of the Zeppelin book, Bill German acknowledges in the title that the book is really about him and his adventures as writer/editor/publisher of the fan newsletter "Beggars Banquet", which he put out more or less on his own beginning in 1978, on his sixteenth birthday, and continuing until 1996. During that time, German became friends with the band, especially with Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, even ghostwriting an art book with Wood along the way.

It's a good book, with interesting insights into the life of the band and the lives of its members during a time that doesn't get that much attention. German was there during the years when it seemed that there might not be any more Rolling Stones, as the band struggled through personality clashes and disagreements and then came back bigger, but indebted to big corporations in ways that changed the band and its relationships with the music and the fans in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. It is also the story of how a teenage boy, through hard work, persistence, and luck, got to hang out with his favorite rock band and make a living writing about them. Not that it was much of a living. Even though his newsletter was the Stones' official newsletter for a period of about a year and a half, he never made much money from it. It's expensive, following a bad around the world amid ever-higher ticket prices (again, thanks to its association with corporations), after all.

By the time German began to hang with The Stones, a lot of their more controversial work and behavior was behind them. They had not, individually at least, gotten any less interesting, even if they didn't quite live up to the "bad boy" image that had cultivated since their earliest days as a band, not least through the songs they recorded early on in their career.

For instance, I found this oddity, from a television performance in 1965, of "Play With Fire", that presents all kinds of mixed messages, illustrating fairly well why The Stones were the band that your parents didn't want you listening to:



Things didn't get any better when they recorded "Let's Spend The Night Together" in 1967, and then got positively dire when they released "Sympathy For The Devil" in 1968. Unlike the Beatles, the Stones were not out to play nice.

Here is a performance of "Let's Spend The Night Together" from Top of the Pops the year it was released:



Of course, Mick Jagger was not above altering the lyrics of the song to "let's spend some time together" for The Ed Sullivan Show in the US. He wanted the exposure, after all, and at that time, the Sullivan show was the ultimate in exposure. Jagger showed, however, by some pretty dramatic eye-rolls during the performance, that he thought the whole idea of having to change the lyrics was really pretty damn stupid:



"Sympathy for the Devil", of course, started rumors that The Stones were Devil-worshipers, despite the fact that it is one of their best songs, here in a much later live performance:



The Stones' reputation was not enhanced after their free concert at Altamont Speedway in California in 1969, which essentially ended the Sixties when a concert-goer was stabbed to death by Hell's Angels. Well, the bikers were serving as security (not necessarily the wisest choice for that role), and the victim, Meredith Hunter, had been waving a gun around near the stage (a stupid thing to do even before the days of terrorist threats), but The Stones took a lot of the blame for the incident, especially after rumors spread that the band had been singing "Sympathy for the Devil" at the time of the stabbing, something that a viewing of the concert footage proves to be untrue.

The picture Bill German paints of the later Rolling Stones in Under Their Thumb is much less threatening. Sure, Jagger is "a nice bunch of guys", as German is told by Richards and Wood at one point in the book, referring to Jagger's variable personas and an inability for even those closest to him to predict which one of those guys they were going to get on any particular day, or even from one hour to the next. And there is a lot of drug use and drinking, although German insists that he never did drugs with The Stones - never did drugs period. German further claims that Richards defended him in that when others accused German of maybe being a narc when he refused to snort a line. All in all, the members of the Stones as portrayed by German are much nicer, and much more human, that their reputation would have us believe.

How many days left until the election?...

...because things are just getting stupider out there.

Former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu said on CNN Thursday that he believes that former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired General Colin Powell has again endorsed President Barack Obama for a reason other than those Powell stated in an interview on CBS television earlier in the day.

The reasons Powell gave for his endorsement included his concern that Mitt Romney is a "moving target" on foreign policy issues and that he does not want to see Obamacare "thrown off the table." Powell also said that he supports Obama because the president got us out of one war, is in the process of getting us out of another, and hasn't gotten the country into any new wars, and that Mr. Obama's record on terrorism is "very, very good."

Powell's endorsement of Mr. Obama came even though Powell is a registered Republican.

And what was Sununu's take on the endorsement? He said that the real reason that Powell endorsed the Democratic Party's candidate for President is that they are both African Americans.

Now, this declaration from Sununu should not be surprising, considering earlier remarks from the former governor about Mr. Obama, including his comments that the President is "lazy" and that Mr. Obama needs to "learn how to be an American."

Of course, Sununu later moderated his comments about Powell's endorsement of Mr. Obama, allowing that he thinks that Powell endorsed the President because Powell supports Mr. Obama's policies. Neither the walk-back, nor the fact that it wasn't much of a walk-back and certainly not any kind of an apology for his earlier remarks, should be much of a surprise, given the Romney campaign and it's supporters' record of saying something outrageous and then pulling back without ever really disavowing what was said in the first place. It is a long record, much too long to reprise in full here.

The problem I have with all of this is that if someone from the Democratic Party got up on CNN and said that a prominent member of the Mormon church had endorsed Mitt Romney's candidacy for president only because they are both Mormon, the Republicans would be out for blood, claiming religious bigotry and who knows what else. There would be outrage and angry accusations, at the very least.

How did Mr. Obama react to Sununu's remarks? He said in a radio interview today (Friday) that he would let Powell's statement stand on its own and that Sununu's remarks didn't "make much sense". Cool, calm, and collected. I doubt that we could have seen such equanimity from Romney, had the situation been reversed.

Vote, damn it...

With nearly two weeks to go, I'm ready for the election to just be over, already. Between the incessant political ads on television and radio, more campaign signs seeming to pop up on the landscape every day, and people getting less and less civil on the campaign trail and on social media of all kinds, I Just. Want. It. To. Stop.

I thought it would be better after all the debates were over. But, no. If anything, it's worse. Dueling analysts, polls that contradict each other, certain candidates who act like they don't have an obligation to explain themselves, or even outline how they intend to do the things they say they are going to do if they are elected.

Get a clue, guys. You're engaged in an extended job interview. You wouldn't hire a job applicant who refused to answer your questions; why do you think we should hire you to be the leader of the free world when you won't even supply a few details about how you intend to up spending and cut taxes to the wealthy at the same time. You know who you are; I'm not going to name names.

And then there are the games that are still being played (by partisans on both sides, I'm ashamed to say), attempting to prevent people they think might not be voting for their candidates and issues from voting at all. Cut it out, guys. You don't deserve to call yourselves Americans if you support, much less engage in, this sort of voter suppression. Another clue: voter fraud is virtually non-existent, so quit acting like it's rampant on the landscape. You're just making yourselves look like goons.

I'll be out there voting on Election Day, and if you are eligible to vote, you should be, too. I don't care if you support the same candidates and issues that I do. You should vote regardless. And you should support the right of everyone to vote, not just the right to vote of the people who agree with you. That's the way they did it in the bad old Soviet Union.

You can even vote early in a lot of states. I'm not really sure how I feel about that. I was raised that you vote on Election Day, and unless your are incapacitated or know you will be away from home on the day, you go down to your local polling place and you vote on that day. But, the option for early voting is there. Use it, if you can, or if you think your boss won't let you off to vote on Election Day. They are legally obligated to do so, but many still don't.

Just vote.

There are some other things I would like to say, but I'm really trying to not contribute to the ridiculous amount of partisan rambling that has been going on leading up to the election. I also don't want my head to explode when I start thinking about some of the stupid things candidates have been saying this election cycle. You know who you are, too.

So, I'll just leave this here for you.

And, VOTE.

I wonder what grades Mitt made in geography class...

Apparently, Mitt Romney slept through his geography classes in high school and college.

In last night's debate with President Obama, Mr. Romney said that Syria is Iran's route to the sea. Did the fact that there is a big chunk of Iraq or Turkey between Iran and Syria, depending on how far north or south you are on Iran's western border, completely escape Mitt? Has he not noticed that Iran has about 1,500 miles of coastline along the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that gives that nation a clear water path to the Arabian Sea and then to the Indian Ocean?

Basically, this means that Iran doesn't need a land route to the sea through another country. Not even to get to the Mediterranean Sea to menace Israel, if that's what Mitt had on his mind. Because, you know, there's always the Suez Canal. Why use a land route to get to the Med when you can, oh, sail there?

Maybe it's just me, but this whole thing has given me a mental image of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad schlepping a warship across Iran and Syria to the Mediterranean Sea. Funny, but not very practical.

Of course, Romney's crack team of campaigners have ridden to their candidate's rescue (something they seem to do a lot), insisting that what Mitt really meant was that Syria is of strategic importance to Iran. Which is probably the case.

But, you know, if that's what Mitt meant, then that's what Mitt should have said. Because what he did say, that Syria is Iran's route to the sea, just makes him sound ignorant of the basic facts of geography, at the very least.

Now, me? I want a president who shows at least some evidence of knowing his geography.

Movie Monday: The I Can't Not Watch Edition

Over the weekend, I ran across a discussion online regarding the movies that we just can't seem to resist watching whenever we find them on television, be it broadcast, cable, or on demand.

I think it is true that we all a list like this if we like movies at all. If you're like me, and you love movies, you probably have a long list of them. They're those movies that you love and will watch whenever you can, not because they are necessarily good movies but just because there is something in them or something about them that speaks to you, one way or another.

In the discussion online, participants were asked to stick to a list of ten movies. There is no way I can do that, but I managed to limit my first list to thirteen, and then added another to that after stumbling on That Thing You Do! (1996) late last night on cable. It's one of those movies that I've loved ever since the first time I saw it in the theater when it first came out.

Thinking about it this morning, I added a few other movies to the list. I can't rank them from best to worst, or most liked to least liked but will watch any time, and so here is my list in order of when they were first released. They are:

The Mummy (1932)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
The Trouble With Angels (1966)
The Doberman Gang (1972)
The Turning Point (1977)
Grease 2 (1982)
The Right Stuff (1983)
Road House (1989)
Empire Records (1995)
Twister (1996)
That Thing You Do! (1996)
Almost Famous (2000)
Zoolander (2001)
The Princess Diaries (2001)

As you can see, some of the movies on this list are not what anyone would consider great cinema. Those are the movies that I will watch because of some personal or locational connection I have to them. For example, the reason I will watch The Doberman Gang anytime, anywhere is that it was filmed in the town where I grew up. It's a bank-heist movie, and the bank branch that was robbed in the film was the branch where I had my savings account as a child and teenager. The theater shown at one point in the movie was the theater where I went to the movies on a weekly basis for years. In fact, it was the theater where the premiere of the movie was held, and which I attended. It was kind of funny, because they had used the real tellers from the bank to play the tellers in the film, and they were sitting right behind me at the premiere. Every once in awhile I'd hear an astonished, or a gleeful, "There I am," as one or another of them came on the screen. There are several other places I knew well growing up that appear in the movie, including a quick glimpse down the street I lived on at the time and an equally fast look at the side and back yard of the house where I babysat regularly.

I've also got a personal stake in viewing Grease 2, which really is a pretty bad movie. However, it was filmed at the campus where my high school graduation was held. It was not the school I attended my senior year, but my school didn't have any facilities to hold graduation ceremonies, and so we used the football field at the "other" high school in town. So, whenever I want to see where I graduated, all I have to do is pull out the DVD of Grease 2 and it's there, in the scenes that take place on the football field and track.

The other movie on the list that I have a locational tie to is Road House, part of which was filmed in and around the town I lived in and the town where I went to college for awhile. While I never saw any of the filming or ran into any of the cast or crew, I got a lot of laughs from the women in the small central California town I lived in who, for the duration, were intent on tracking down Patrick Swayze, who starred in the film. Personally, I would have been much more excited to meet Sam Elliot, who was also in the movie, but that's just me.

I also noticed as I was keyboarding the list here, that there are several films that center around music one way or another. A Hard Day's Night, That Thing You Do!, and Almost Famous all center around bands, while Empire Records chronicles a day in the life of an indie record store. This should be no surprise, since anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I love music.

There are also some classics on the list, of course. I'm sure you can pick them out. And the others? Well, I just like them. Sometimes I'm not quite sure why. The Princess Diaries is really a movie meant for teenage girls but, although I can't put my finger on why, there is just something about it that makes me go back to it again and again. With Zoolander, on the other hand, I know exactly why I like it enough to see it again and again: it is possibly the most absurdly funny thing I've ever seen. It is the performances and the fact that I love the ballet that brings me back to The Turning Point again and again.

So. Now you know which movies I cannot resist seeing over and over again. My question to you, readers, is what does your list look like? Feel free to share in the comments section.

Music Sunday: The Magnitude 5.3 Edition

This week's Music Sunday is brought to you by Mother Nature.

No, seriously. Last night at nearly midnight, my region of the world experienced a 5.3 magnitude earthquake. The quake was centered near King City, California, but some of us here in Fresno felt it as a sharp jolt followed by fifteen or twenty seconds of sort of quivering ground motion, during which my floor lamp continued to sway. My poor stomach continued to quiver for some time after that, since I don't like earthquakes at all - probably a function of having been in too many of them, which is a topic for another day.

Anyway, as always happens when I feel a quake, Carole King's song "I Feel The Earth Move" popped into my head shortly after the tremor and has been running on a loop ever since, and so I decided that it was only fair and proper to share some of King's music with you all today.

King has been writing, by herself, with her former husband Gerry Goffin, and with others since the mid-1950s, and her work has been covered by singers and bands in virtually every genre of music. She wrote or co-wrote 118 songs that made the Billboard Hot 100 between 1955 and 1999, and she has four Grammy awards and has been inducted into both the Songwriter's Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Those are some serious credentials. Also, it means that there is a lot of her music out there to choose from.

Of course, I have to share "I Feel The Earth Move", which went to number one on the Hot 100 in 1971. And, although the song is not about earthquakes, at least not the geological kind, the beginning of the song is used in an earthquake exhibit at the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry in Portland, Oregon. This performance comes from the BBC in the year the song was released:



"I Feel The Earth Move" was actually a double A-side single with "It's Too Late", which King co-wrote with Toni Stern, and which also hit number one in Billboard in 1971. This performance is from the same 1971 BBC show as the previous clip:



Here's another performance of "It's Too Late" that I found. This time, King performs with James Taylor, in 2007 at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, thirty-six years after the BBC performance:



James Taylor recorded what is probably the most famous of the covers of another Carole King song, "You've Got A Friend", a song that has been covered by singers and bands in just about every genre of music that exists. This performance looks like it was given around the time that Taylor's cover of the song was released, also in 1971, which was a big year for King. If you look closely, you can see King playing piano in the background:



And, because I'm fascinated by the way singers and songs grow and evolve over the years, here is another live performance of the the song by James Taylor, this time from 2009:



In another aspect of her career, some of King's songs written with Gerry Goffin turned up, along with songs from other writers of the era, as songs for The Monkees. Some were love songs; this one, for example, from 1966, is "Sometime in the Morning":



On the other hand, "Pleasant Valley Sunday", also by King and Goffin, was a piece of fairly sharp social commentary, proving that they could write good songs that were not love songs and that The Monkees might not be as harmless and "prefab" as most people assumed they were:



One of these days, I'll do a Music Sunday post on why I think The Monkees were not the blight on pop music so many critics at the time, and now, seem to think they were. But that will be another day. For now, enjoy your day, and here's hoping you don't experience any earthquakes.

In which your faithful writer gets philosophical...

You never know where you are going to come upon something that just blows you away with its message. That happened to me today when another knitter posted the follwing video over on a board at Ravelry. This is a slightly longer version of the same bit, with a little context at the beginning, with the narration from the audio book version of the book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994, Random House), by Carl Sagan:



Now, some people might argue that all the perspective given in this clip does is make us seem obscure, insignificant, and without meaning or purpose.

I don't think that is true. I think it points out an important truth. We are all here. "Every human being who ever was," as Carl Sagan puts it in this clip, has lived and died here. A few have left for a few days, weeks, or months and ventured out and down the street a little bit, cosmically speaking, but they started here and ended here, on planet Earth. We're all stuck here.

The Spaceship Earth meme got overdone in the 1960s and 1970s, as those few of us began to venture out beyond the Earth's atmosphere, so much so that it became a cliche. But, for all that, it isn't any less true. We are all, very literally, in the same boat. Every ethnic group, every religion, every nationality, has to share this little bit of living space. And the truth is, if we don't start learning to be nicer to each other - all of us - the boat is going to sink and we will all drown in our own animosities.

During the L.A. riots after four Los Angeles Police Department officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King during an arrest, Mr. King himself asked: "Can we all get along? Can we...can we get along?" And people laughed. The quote became a big joke. But it isn't very funny. As Nick Lowe wrote in a song from 1974, "What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?" How did we become so hard and cynical that asking for those things is treated as stupid?

Historically, we haven't been very nice to each other. I know that. But you would think that as species, we would have learned a little bit in all the millennia that we've been "civilized". But, no. We still maim and torture and kill each other for the stupidest things. One of our US presidential candidates recently and famously expressed his feeling that some of his fellow human beings are not entitled to food, shelter, and health care, just because they don't have as much money as he does and haven't had the fortune in life that he has had. Kids regularly bully each other on the playground just because they look different or talk different or are interested in different things.

Why haven't we learned to be excellent to each other, rather than being cruel and petty and nasty over the most insignificant things?

Does asking that make me hopelessly naive? Doesn't matter to me. I'm just fine with being a naive idealist. So much better than being a jerk.

Hat tip, by the way, to AZHikerChick, over on Ravelry, for turning me on to the video from Pale Blue Dot.

Coffee? No, Thanks...I'd Rather Not Torture My Taste Buds

Making my usual rounds of the Internets this morning before I start on the list of things I need to get done today, I came upon this post from John Scalzi, over at his blog, Whatever, in which he proclaims that coffee "tastes like ass".

It is so nice to find someone else who agrees with me about coffee. Which is to say, someone else who thinks coffee tastes nasty.

I get so tired of people looking at me like I've suddenly sprouted a second head out the top of my regular head, complete with a third eye in the middle of its forehead, when I say that I don't like coffee. I have to confess that I haven't really researched the history of coffee - I don't care enough to put in the time to do that - but I have wondered from time to time what the deal is...how did our culture here in the United States come to the point where it is assumed that everyone drinks coffee, and that people who don't do so are somehow wrong. No, really. I've heard people insist that unless you drink coffee, you are not a proper adult.

It is just as tiresome when people ask me, "Is it because you used to be Mormon?"

No. My distaste for coffee - for all hot beverages, for that matter - came long before I ever was a Mormon. My dad started trying to turn me into a coffee drinker when I was about ten years old. My mom didn't drink coffee, and so he tried to get me started on it so that he would have someone to have a cup of coffee with in the morning.

His efforts never succeeded. Even getting past the fact that coffee is hot, which is difficult enough for me to get beyond, it just tastes awful. I don't care how much you dress it up with cream, sugar, or other flavors, there is still that underlying bitter, acidy taste that Is. Just. Not. Right.

The funny thing was that my mom always used to say that while she didn't like the taste of coffee, she loved the smell. I've heard others rhapsodize about how wonderful coffee smells.

No it doesn't. It smells as bad as it tastes.

But, you know, I'm not the judgmental type. So, go ahead. Drink that coffee. I don't understand the attraction, but whatever. Just don't act like there is something wrong with me because I don't drink it. Would you like it if I insisted that you are not a proper adult because you don't like the thing you really, really don't like? Say, broccoli? Peas?

I didn't think so.

Music Sunday/Monday: The Flying High Edition (and that's not a drug reference)

If you're looking for Music Sunday, I have to apologize for being a little tardy this week. I was busy for much of today with other things, chiefly watching Felix Baumgartner taking the most awesome skydive in the history of, well, skydiving.

I have to admit, I did not watch the event live. There were just too many things that could have gone wrong, and I could not make myself watch. However, once I knew that everything had gone as planned and he was back on the Earth safely, I sat down and watched the rebroadcast of the event. It was amazing.

I also have to confess that I've never, ever had any desire to skydive. I just don't understand why anyone would want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Yes, I know; that's not an original observation. It does, however, sum up my feelings about the subject perfectly.

Baumgartner's jump today is something orders of magnitude different, though. He rode a pressurized capsule, tethered to a helium balloon, up about 24 miles and then stepped out on a little platform said to be about the size of a skateboard before stepping off for a descent that started with a free-fall of over four minutes. Along the way, before deploying his parachute, Baumgartner exceeded she speed of sound by a significant amount, the first time anyone not in an aircraft has broken the sound barrier. And, after all that, he landed on his feet.

Being the history geek that I am, I think a little historical context is a good thing. And that context is this: Baumgartner's jump, and his achievement as the first human to break the sound barrier without benefit of aircraft, came on the 65th anniversary of Chuck Yeager's flight to become the first human to break the sound barrier with benefit of aircraft. I just hope I don't have to explain who Chuck Yeager is. If you don't know, go watch the film, The Right Stuff, or read the book of he same name, by Tom Wolfe.

Some people see what Felix Baumgartner did today as a stunt, on a par with Evel Knievel's jumps over rows of cars or his attempt (much less successful than Baumgartner was today) to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in some sort of souped-up, rocket-propelled motorcycle. And there is little doubt that Baumgartner was partly motivated by the challenge of doing something no one has ever done before.

But today's achievement was much more than just thrill-seeking. What Baumgartner proved today that can be achieved could be the first step in making space flight safer than it now is. This might have been a stunt, but it was a stunt that collected scientific data that could someday save lives.

But, since it is still Sunday (barely, and not anymore in most of the world)...and there is a song for every occasion and an occasion for every song, I'll leave you with some flight music:

Even though this has nothing to do with skydiving or spaceflight, as I watched the balloon taking Baumgartner aloft today, I kept thinking about this song, "Up, Up and Away", by the Fifth Dimension, from 1967:



And then there's this, Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly", in a live performance from 2006. Some of the lyrics: "I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings/Coming down is the hardest thing", could be seen as appropriate to the day in their own way:



Pink Floyd also recorded a completely different "Learning to Fly":



And, not music, but I found this while I was looking around for some music to share with you. It is a dramatization, from The Right Stuff, of that first time the sound barrier was broken. Just, you know, so you really will know who Chuck Yeager (here portrayed by Sam Shepard) is, and what he did:



Well, it has slipped into Monday while I've been writing this, so I'm not sure what to call this. Music Sunday/Monday? It'll have to do, I guess.

Music Sunday: The Led Zeppelin Edition, plus a book review

As I mentioned a couple of days ago here, during the past week I read LZ-75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour (2010, Gotham Books; 217 pages), by Stephen Davis. Davis has written about the band before, in his Hammer of the Gods (1985), which was criticized as sensationalized and inaccurate by the members of the band. I haven't read that book, but due to its reputation, I didn't expect much from LZ-75.

As it turns out, LZ-75 isn't really about Led Zeppelin, but more about Davis's experience covering the band's 1975 American tour. He made it sound just a miserable time, and again highlighted the drinking (primarily by John Bonham who, of course, isn't around to defend himself), the groupies, and the difficulties both musical and technical, of the tour. He makes sure to point out that in its early years, Led Zeppelin was routinely discounted and criticized by Rolling Stone Magazine, a publication that Davis worked for during that time. I think it is interesting that Davis couldn't get an assignment from Rolling Stone to cover the 1975 tour after he was told that an assignment with a reputable publication was a requirement for him to have access to the tour, but ended up getting the assignment he needed from The Atlantic Monthly, not a publication known for its rock/pop music coverage. It is even more interesting that the article Davis eventually turned in based on his experiences on the tour was not printed by the magazine. Well, things like that happen in publishing, but one wonders exactly why they declined the article. Davis's excuse is that the "elderly" editor-in-chief of the magazine "hated" his article (p. 194).

LZ-75 was only ever written, according to the author, because he found his long-lost notes from the tour and thought that "there was a story that could be told" (p. 4). But, it seems to me that it is more Davis's story than they story of a band on tour. Which could have been interesting, but ultimately wasn't, especially. The most interesting thing in the book, from my perspective, is Davis's reporting, in a few pages, of a meeting between Jimmy Page and William S. Burroughs, in which the two men discussed, among other things, crowds and the control of them in the context of the live rock and roll show. In these discussions, Page seems most interested in balancing the energies of band and crowd so that things don't get out of hand, while Burroughs seems obsessed with the times when crowds have gotten out of hand, with disastrous results.

Other than that, I can see few reasons to recommend Davis's book. But, it gives me a chance to share some of Led Zeppelin's music. First up is "Kashmir", which is from the album "Physical Graffiti", which was released during the tour chronicled in Davis's book. I find it interesting that, while Davis makes a big deal about the fact that Rolling Stone Magazine was both critical and dismissive of the band in its early years, six of their songs placed on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. "Kashmir" came in at number 141 on the list. This live performance comes from May 24, 1975, at Earls Court in London:



Of course, the Led Zeppelin song to place highest on Rolling Stone's list is "Stairway to Heaven", the most requested song of the 1970s. It placed at number 31 on Rolling Stone's list and in 2000 it placed number 3 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs. I believe I shared this song a few weeks ago here, but with it's reputation as one of the greatest song ever, I feel comfortable sharing it again, especially since this is a different live version than I shared before, this one being from another of the 1975 Earls Court shows, on May 25, 1975:



"Whole Lotta Love" came in at number 75 on Rolling Stone's list of greatest songs:



The other three songs that made Rolling Stone's list were "Black Dog", at number 300; "Heartbreaker", at number 238; and "Ramble On", at number 440.

And, because I love drum solos, here is John Bonham's "Moby Dick" drum solo from Led Zeppelin's January 9, 1970 show at Royal Albert Hall in London:



Besides the six songs that Led Zeppelin placed in the Rolling Stone list of 500 Greatest Songs, at least three of the band's albums placed on its list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the band itself came in at number 14 on the magazine's list of 100 Greatest Artists, Jimmy Page placed at number 9 on Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, and Robert Plant came in at number 15 on the magazine's list of 100 Greatest Singers.

It seems to me that, in the end, Led Zeppelin won the argument with Rolling Stone about its worth as a band.

Three books in four days...

I haven't done that in awhile. Finish reading three books in four days, that is. You know, ignoring things that need to get done and staying up much later than I should considering the time in the morning the alarm is set to go off, all because the book I'm reading is just too good - or at least too involving - to put down.

Well, that was the case for two out of the three books I finished reading between Saturday and Tuesday just past. The other one got read just because it wasn't that long, was pretty easy reading, and I wanted to get through it to know if I could use some of the information from it to help construct next Sunday's Music Sunday post.

The first book I finished, on Saturday, was Summer of the Dragon (1979, Tor Books; 277 pages), by Elizabeth Peters. It's a romantic mystery from the same writer who has given us the Amelia Peabody mysteries, and while it is slight in many ways, it was a fun read. The story concerns D. J. Abbot, an anthropology student who secures a summer job working for eccentric billionaire Hank Hunnicutt. The main attraction of the job is the fact that Hunnicutt lives in northern Arizona, 600 miles away from her family. It isn't that D. J. doesn't love her family; she does. But they are, well, a bit eccentric themselves, and she would rather not spend the entire summer with them.

Hunnicutt is looking for a summer intern because he has found something in the desert. Although D. J. and her advisor at school suspect that this something probably isn't really anything, since Hunnicutt has a reputation for interests that are not entirely scientific and is known to surround himself with mediums, UFO enthusiasts, treasure hunters, and other fringe types. However, the pay is good and the scenery will be different, so D. J. takes the job. But, when she arrives in Arizona, D. J. finds more than she bargained for. Hunnicutt is being very mysterious about what he has found, most of the hangers-on at Hunnicutt's ranch are positively hostile toward D. J., and mysterious things are happening. But D. J. likes Hunnicutt from the beginning, and finds his right-hand man quite attractive despite his abrasive personality.

Developments move quickly, and soon D. J. is in over her head. It's a fun story. I won't claim that some of the characters are not rather flat and stereotypical, but that didn't hurt my enjoyment of the story overall. As a bonusm the archaeology is accurate; after all the author is an Egyptologist with a doctorate from the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. Summer of the Dragon, in short, isn't great literature, but it's a quick, fun read. Maybe it's just me, but sometimes a good story trumps great literature.

I'll only mention the book I finished - in fact, read in it's entirety - on Sunday briefly, because it is going to be part of Sunday's music blog post. I'll just say here that it was LZ-75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour (2010, Gotham Books; 217 pages), by Stephen Davis. It was another quick read, but not my favorite book about the music industry, a genre that I enjoy a lot. It isn't a bad book, but it seemed to me it was more about the author's experience on tour with Zeppelin rather than really being about the band or the tour itself. But...more about that in a couple of days.

The third book, which I finished reading on Tuesday, was Bones Are Forever (2012, Scribner; 288 pages), by Kathy Reichs. This book tells another story in the further adventures of Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, upon which the television series Bones is based. There are no similarities between the character in the books and on the TV series other than her name and her occupation, but that's okay. The books are very good, and I enjoy the TV series immensely. I just accept that they are two very different things.

In this, the fifteenth book in the series, Temperance finds herself investigating the deaths of four newborn infants over several years, all apparently born of the same woman. The mother has disappeared, and Brennan and detective Andrew Ryan, with whom Brennan has a past, find themselves searching all over Canada to find her. Starting in Montreal, they follow her trail to Edmonton and then to the far north, to Yellowknife, where, they find, things are not entirely what they seemed when their investigation began.

I hesitate to say any more about the story, for fear of giving away too many spoilers. I will say that Bones are Forever is a good book, well worth the time spent in the reading. Reichs has once again constructed an exciting, engrossing mystery, something she is very good at. The characters are well-drawn. The plot is just convoluted enough to hold the reader's interest without going overboard with twists. For someone like me who has read most if not all of the books in the series, the main characters continue to grow and remain interesting, an unusual and not inconsiderable attraction in series mysteries.

Music Sunday: The Everybody's Got An Opinion Edition

Last week, I shared a few of my own favorite songs. It wasn't a "favorites" list, exactly, because I didn't rank the songs in any order and because there are songs that I like at least as much as some of those I shared that I didn't include. It also wasn't a "best" list, because I don't really believe there is any objective way of deciding what is the "best" in art of any kind.

It seems, however, that everyone has an opinion on what the "best songs" are. Of course, Rolling Stone Magazine has it's "500 Best Songs of All Time" list. And I happened on another "best" list, this time the "100 Greatest Songs Ever" list from a blog called Consequences of Sound, which made its list on the occasion of the 5-year anniversary of its existence. Reviewing the two lists, I found some interesting comparisons among the top ten songs from each list.

There are just two songs that made the top 10 on both lists.

Rolling Stone chose Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" as the greatest song of all time, while Consequences of Sound put Dylan's song in the third slot on its list. This live performance was at Newport:



The other song that made both top 10 lists is Aretha Franklin's "Respect". Rolling Stone puts it at number five, while Consequences of Sound rates it at number eight.



Three other artists made both top ten lists, but with different songs. Consequences of Sound rated the Beach Boys at number one, with "God Only Knows", from their classic album "Pet Sounds", while Rolling Stone placed their "Good Vibrations" at number six.





The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" comes in at number five on the Consequences of Sound list, while The Beatles don't show up until number eight on the Rolling Stone list, with "Hey Jude". You'll want to watch the video for "A Day in the Life" closely for some interesting, and perhaps unexpected, guest appearances.





Rolling Stone Magazine rates "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", by the Rolling Stones, as the number two song of all time in it's greatest list, while the Stones don't show up until number seven on the Consequences of Sound list, with "Sympathy for the Devil".





Otherwise, the two lists have some very different choices. For purposes of comparison, the Rolling Stone Magazine top ten reads, in full:

1. Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"
2. The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"
3. John Lennon, "Imagine"
4. Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On"
5. Aretha Franklin, "Respect"
6. The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations"
7. Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode"
8. The Beatles, "Hey Jude"
9. Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
10.Ray Charles, "What'd I Say"

The Consequences of Sound top ten list reads, in full:

1. The Beach Boys, "God Only Knows"
2. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"
3. Bob Dylan, "Like A Rolling Stone"
4. Michael Jackson, "Man in the Mirror"
5. The Beatles, "A Day in the Life"
6. The Velvet Underground, "Sister Ray"
7. The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil"
8. Aretha Franklin, "Respect"
9. The Notorious B.I.G., "Juicy"
10.Radiohead, "Idioteque"

The biggest different between the two lists, from my point of view, is that I know, well, all the songs on the Rolling Stone list, while there are three songs on the Consequences of Sound list that, to be honest, I had never even heard of before I read that list (those would be "Sister Ray", "Juicy", and "Idioteque"). I should probably go investigate those, to see what I might be missing.

What the two lists point out is that, everybody has an opinion regarding music. No two people have exactly the same taste in music, and that is to the good, I think. What I am wondering is, what is your top ten list of "best" or "favorite" songs? Drop me a comment and let me know. Did any of your favorites make either of these lists? What do you think of these lists? In relation to your favorites, do they match at all, or do these published lists miss the point entirely in comparison to the music you like?

Book Review: "How to Think Like a Neandertal"

As you know if you've read very much of this blog, I am a huge anthropology geek. It's what I studied in school. It's what I've loved since I was seven years old. And so, when a good friend who is currently studying anthropology at Cal recommended How to Think Like a Neandertal (Oxford University Press, 2012; 210 pages), by Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. Coolidge, I immediately requested it from my local library system.

Wynn and Coolidge, an anthropologist and a neuropsychologist respectively and both professors at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, have been studying the evolution of cognition for several years. Part of the result of their study is this book. It's fascinating stuff, written with enough rigor that it is a text for the course on Neandertal cognition that my friend is taking at Cal, but it is also accessible to the layperson. No, not just accessible. It is a well-written, informed, and witty look at how Neandertals might have lived and thought during their time on Earth, from around 200,000 (or a little earlier, depending on which expert you consult) years ago to about 30,000 years ago, when the last of their kind died, probably somewhere on the Iberian peninsula, where they had been pushed by the dominant anatomically modern humans who had arrived late in their history, from the Neandertals former range across much of Europe and western Asia.

The authors cover the expected ground: how Neandertals lived and hunted, including what their tools and weapons reveal about what kind of thought processes they might have used. And really, what the Neandertals left behind in the form of campsites, food remains, tools, and weapons, plus their own remains, are all researchers like Wynn and Coolidge have to go on to figure out how the Neandertal mind worked. Thoughts themselves, after all, do not fossilize. Wynn and Coolidge speculate on what kind of family life the Neandertals had, and point out that it is clear from the remains of some Neandertal individuals that they helped out their fellows who were injured or ill, at least in some cases. However, the authors also show that evidence earlier interpreted as proof that Neandertals buried their dead with religious ceremony and therefore had a concept of an afterlife really only shows that they took some minimal care of their dead but then probably later pushed the bones aside in a manner that was no more caring than their treatment of the bones of the animals they killed for food. And, in fact, they share evidence that at least some Neanderdertals practiced cannibalism at least some of the time.

Aside from matters of survival, Wynn and Coolidge also explore such topics as whether or not Neandertals had language, concluding that the Neandertals probably did have language, at least to some extent. They also explore what Neandertals' personalities were like, explaining their belief that Neandertals were probably stoic, pragmatic, unimaginative for the most part, empathetic and sympathetic to the extent that their pragmatism would let them be, but likely intolerant of change, not welcoming of those outside their local group, and dogmatic. The authors also take up the subject of whether Neandertals slept and dreamed as we do and what that says about their capacity for memory and ability to learn. The Neandertals probably did have REM sleep, but their dreams were probably not as creative as those of modern humans, and they probably did not have as much working memory capacity as we do. They also ask the question, could a Neandertal tell a joke or clown around? The conclusion Wynn and Coolidge come to is that the Neandertals could smile and laugh, as we do and as chimpanzees do, but they probably could not tell a joke, although they do say that there might have been some Neandertals who would clown around to elicit laughs from other Neandertals.

The authors also analyze what it would be like for a Neandertal to live among modern humans today, and what it would be like if a modern human could time-travel back to the time of the Neandertals. They conclude that adults of either species would not deal well living out of their time and with those not of their species. However, they also say that a baby Neandertal raised by modern humans or a modern human raised among Neandertals would likely be able to function in a society not naturally theirs, although not in all roles and not as well as natives to the society. They also say that a Neadertal raised in modern times would probably fit in somewhat better than a modern human raised by Neandertals.

This is a good book. It is not dry and dusty prose even though the science here appears accurate and rigorous. It is obvious that Wynn and Coolidge enjoy their subject, which they write about with humor and vitality. Just a glance at the chapter titles will tell you that - the chapter on humor is titled "A Neandertal Walked Into a Bar...". There is even a reference to time travel and Doctor Who in the chapter on how Neandertals would fare in modern times and we in theirs, with the authors providing a definition for "Doctor Who" in the glossary for their readers who are not Whovians.

More science writing should be like How to Think Like a Neandertal, and just for that it deserves to be read widely.