Bob Schwartz

August 16, 2013

Bowie and Gaga: The Shoulders of Giants

Bowie Gaga
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton

Scroll below today’s news about Egypt or the NSA or dozens of other significant stories and you will come to the contest between the new singles from Katy Perry (Roar) and Lady Gaga (Applause). Which is Number 1? Which is better? Listen if you want, or don’t. Life goes on either way. But music and excellence matter, so a related note.

Depending on whether you want to go back centuries or decades, we are now in the nth generation of popular music. Individual songs or entire genres, music and the styles that go with it are invented, perfected, synthesized, inspired by, borrowed; there is some balance between the entirely new and the entirely old.

The question is whether a listener can take a current artist at face value, without reference to what came before, without knowing (in Newtonian terms) what giant shoulders are stood on, or whether a listener should be aware of the influences, precursors, originators. This becomes particularly important when the earlier or original version was, once it is experienced by comparison, simply better art.

David Bowie’s extraordinary artistry can be summed up in two points.

He has six albums among the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. And each of these is created in a different style than the others.

Which brings us to the second point. Aside from creating superb music, Bowie devised the process of total artistic reinvention in pop—not only in musical style, but in performing personality. Up to that time, the assumption was that fans wanted a degree of continuity in their stars. The Beatles had broken through this assumption with a few changes during their short career, but Bowie smashed artistic continuity entirely: Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, etc. A review of his album covers is a roster of these personas.

Above is an image of Bowie as Ziggy Stardust. Next to it is an image of Lady Gaga from her current ARTPOP album period (all caps from her; it’s that important).

All artistically painted faces are not related, of course. But Gaga acknowledges David Bowie as an artistic influence. This presumably explains the various Gagas during her brief career: the artist dressed in meat, the artist emerging from a plastic womb, etc. Change all the clothes and makeup you want, and say all the right things that make you seem like an artist (Bowie, by the way, let his style do his talking), and it still comes down to music.

So, Gaga fans, if you are reading this, listen up, literally. While she may be copying only his approach to style and not his music, nothing she has done measures up artistically to Bowie. This isn’t a song-by-song, style-by-style comparison. It is a reminder, not just about Gaga but about music new and old, that tastes vary, but excellence doesn’t. With the release of the rest of ARTPOP, maybe there will be some artistic gems. Gaga is actually a talented singer and performer, so it is possible.

But for the moment, and pending further developments: Gaga, we’ve seen David Bowie, we’ve heard David Bowie, and you are no David Bowie. Or Isaac Newton.

(For fans of Isaac Newton, who may be wondering why his picture isn’t included, below is something from his CALCULUS period.)

newton

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August 15, 2013

The Republican Health Care Plan Is Obamacare

National Health System for America - Heritage Foundation (1989)

Say something once, why say it again?
Talking Heads, Psycho Killer

Sometimes making a point means repeating yourself and not saying you’re sorry.

The current situation is that Newt Gingrich yesterday criticized attempts by some Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, saying that the party had to offer alternative plans and unfortunately had not one idea.

He is of course wrong. As pointed out in an earlier post Heritagecare, the Republicans at one time did have a big idea about health care reform. It was developed at the conservative Heritage Foundation in 1989, as a market-based alternative to any sort of single-payer national health plan. The centerpiece of this reform was a national mandate requiring everybody to have insurance. With some refinement, this Heritage plan is at the heart of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare is a version of Heritagecare.

Following the development of the Heritage plan, this is what happened.

Bill Clinton was elected President. First Lady Hillary Clinton promoted the adoption of national single-payer universal health care. This proved to be a political disaster and embarrassment. Health care was taken off the table for years.

Mitt Romney was elected Governor of Massachusetts. He used the Heritage plan—a Republican idea— as the basis for a state health care program. By all accounts, it was a success.

Barack Obama was elected President. He made health care reform a priority, but with single-payer dead in the water—maybe forever—he promoted a program based on the Heritage plan. As proof of concept for the Affordable Care Act, he could point to Massachusetts, where such an idea had worked.

Republicans intent on eviscerating Obama and his presidency used what they called “Obamacare” as a prime example of totalitarian socialism in action. They ignored the conservative origins of the plan. These Republicans were aghast when the Supreme Court narrowly allowed the plan to proceed as constitutional, but continue to do whatever they can to thwart it, including the dozens of attempts to repeal it—the same useless attempts that Gingrich criticized.

Mitt Romney ran for President. He could no longer embrace Heritagecare/Romneycare/Obamacare. He explained that while the plan might be good for Massachusetts, it is no good for America. He was never directly confronted with a version of the question: Are you serious?

Newt Gingrich is a very complicated man and politician, but he should be given his due. He is joining a chorus of mostly old-school Republicans trying to tell the Young Turks to get real. In this case, getting real could actually work to the Republican advantage, though they seem to be too ideology-blinded (and Obama-hate blinded) to see it.

People really do have some serious and legitimate qualms about the Affordable Care Act, and its implementation is bound to be a rocky road. If the Republicans looked back to their own Heritage plan, and if they took seriously the lip service of “compassionate conservatism”, they might actually be able to offer some constructive, earnest and enlightened adjustments—all for the sake of the general welfare of the country. As it is, that won’t be happening now or anytime soon.

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August 14, 2013

Bandon by the Sea and Living Forever

Continuum Center
This is about a beach town and the possibility of living forever.

Bandon is a small beach town (about 3,000 people) on the southern coast of Oregon. It is special because of its beauty and spirit, including extraordinary rock outcroppings and stacks of bleached drift logs that hover in the sun and occasional fog. It is also special because few know about it. It is far enough from anywhere—248 miles south of Portland, 465 north of San Francisco—that there are other tourist stops better known and, to some, more exciting.

Bandon 4

The New Age is an ignored topic that deserves more than this brief discussion. In the 1970s, the movement toward a new consciousness coalesced around the concept of a New Age, a new era of human enlightenment and evolution that would move us forward, leaving some of the darkest aspects of our sometimes-sorry history behind. This included not only spirituality and religion, but psychology, art, music, mythology, earth, food, sex—anything that could help transform us and the way we live. By name, “New Age” has fallen into disuse; but as a matter of fact, many of the ideas and expressions are now part of our cultural fabric.

In 1979, philanthropist Hugh Harrison visited the Continuum Exhibit at JFK University in California. The exhibit showcased the Immortality Principle, the possibility of consciousness continuing after death. He was impressed and put the exhibit on tour, and also established a home for it in Bandon, in a building on Main Street called the Continuum Center. It was a splendid multimedia exhibit, state of the art for its time.

Continuum Book
One of faces of the New Age movement that is powerful though sometimes mocked is its music. New Age music was once a common category, though it has fallen into disuse. No good cultural development goes untortured. New Age music at its start and at its best is an attempt to coax, drag, push, pull and otherwise move your consciousness by the ear. In less talented hands it has been oversimplified and underpowered, but no different than with any other musical genre.

When I walked into the Continuum Center in Bandon years ago, I saw the oversized graphics and read about a vision of consciousness. But the very first thing I noticed was the music playing. It was, it turned out, the sublime Angel’s Flight by Shadowfax, and it was the first New Age music I had ever heard. The pictures and text of that visit are a little indistinct in memory, but that song isn’t, maybe because I’ve listened to it a few hundred times since.

A recent visit to Bandon, for the first time in a long time, revealed that not much had changed, a good thing. Maybe it was not a surprise that the Continuum Center as an exhibit is gone. But the building is still there, transformed into a small shopping plaza, but as you’ll see above, the name remains. Spirit abides.

So if any of this is interesting, here’s what to do. Listen to Angel’ Flight and other transportive music by Shadowfax and other worthy New Age artists. Learn a little more about the possibilities of consciousness and change, if you aren’t already doing so. Does consciousness survive death? Who knows, but what a beautiful question.

Last but not least, if your travels take you to the Pacific coast, visit Bandon. Unlike the Continuum Center exhibit, which lasted a few years, the beach and rocks and waves go on and on and on, waiting for you. They will wait forever.

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August 13, 2013

Jane Austen To Be American Idol Judge

Jane Austen

Jane Austen is actually dead; has been for almost two centuries. Whether or not that would stop American Idol from circulating rumors about her possible addition to the ever-changing panel of judges is unknown.

There is a new Idol connection to one of the most popular of British authors. The headline from the Daily Mail:

Anonymous donor gives $150,000 to stop U.S. singer Kelly Clarkson buying Jane Austen ring and keep in the UK

An anonymous donor has handed a Jane Austen museum £100,000 so that it may try and buy one of the author’s rings back from U.S. singer Kelly Clarkson who wants to take it out of Britain.

Earlier this month, the British government placed a temporary export ban on the gold-and-turquoise ring in the hope that money could be found to keep it in Britain.

The Jane Austen’s House museum said it had raised £103,200 of the £152,450 asking price since launching a fundraising campaign on Friday, most of it from a single anonymous donation.

Clarkson, a big Austen fan who reportedly owns a first edition of Persuasion, was top bidder for the ring in a Sotheby’s auction. The museum appreciates that the attention of an adoring pop star will help further raise awareness of the already-trendy author (see the newly-released indie film Austenland). But it also bemoans how much of Austen’s legacy has already left Britain, and how little remains there.

Two of the many thoughts this sparks:

Is there an Austen-inspired Kelly Clarkson single or album in the offing? One can imagine tracks inspired by each of the novels.

Should American Idol give up on judges with musical backgrounds (or in at least one case, a comedy/talk show one), and go instead with literary types? It could be current authors (J.K. Rowling, for example). Deceased authors may be out of bounds, although technically they could go with holograms or “tribute” judges pretending, i.e., if Kelly Clarkson won’t be a judge as herself, she could appear as Jane Austen. Given some of the judging antics past, this sort of thing might not be a reach too far.

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July 31, 2013

The Failure of the American Autopilot

Otto the Autopilot

Congress is going on vacation, again. Will we miss them?

Maybe the greatest thing about America is its ability to run on autopilot, the brilliant way that it manages to handle whatever may come, internally or externally, to right itself, and move forward. Politics, corruption, war, economics, inequities—they have been painful, damaging and upsetting, but America was somehow able to get to tomorrow, and rise a little bit higher when it was all over.

Only once in the past century, before this moment, has the autopilot failed. The Great Depression required action and intervention, and we got it. Since then, and with the victorious end of World War II, it has been onward and upward. We’ve overcome so many mistakes that an entire generation now takes the American autopilot for granted.

This has lulled some into a sense that doing the wrong thing or doing nothing can’t hurt in the long run because, based on history, nothing can hurt in the long run. The problem is that we have hit one of those very rare moments when the autopilot is not doing its job. So that when we have a conspiracy by some in Congress not to do their job—confident that doing nothing is just the sort of medicine that an overactive American government needs—we are in a seeming tail spin. But they simply don’t believe that’s possible, because they have never lived in a time when the autopilot failed and, despite their embrace of vintage America, they may be poor students of history.

The least effective Congress in generations, maybe ever, is about to take another break. The country will still be here when they get back to non-work, and they will continue to engage in embarrassing their opposition, petty insults, ideological blowhardery, and mostly just trying to get elected again.

The American people are much smarter than them. For the most part, we know the autopilot that we’ve depended on is not working, and we know that Congress doesn’t seem to know that, or at least won’t admit it. We also know that Congress isn’t working, and if not them, who exactly is supposed to keep this country running straight, on and up?

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Bob Dylan

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July 22, 2013

Diana’s Grandson

Diana, William & Harry

An ecstatic caller to the BBC said that Diana would be so proud to see the birth of William and Kate’s son.

No one in the royal family, and few elsewhere, can be far from thinking about William’s mother, the most influential British royalty in recent history. She changed the culture of modern monarchy, making the most of her position even as she navigated the waters between outrageous global fame and real life. She also raised two decent young men under impossible circumstances, one of whom became a father today.

Diana would be a grandmother today. And she would be proud.

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July 22, 2013

Kate’s Baby

Rosemary's Baby

Meaning no disrespect (and if in any way disrespectful, hopefully less so than ten thousand other privacy-invading media sources). For some reason, the frenzy surrounding every detail of the birth of Kate Middleton’s baby, heir to the British throne, brought to mind the final scene of the movie Rosemary’s Baby.

For those who haven’t seen Roman Polanski’s masterful study of subtle scariness—as good as any Hitchcock—the simple plot explanation is that Rosemary’s husband has made a deal with the devil. He will succeed as an actor and his wife will, unwittingly, give birth to the devil’s baby. The entire local satanic coven dotes on her pregnancy, and when the baby is born, they show up en masse to take photos and rejoice at the prospect of a new leader.

Once again, no disrespect, no suggestion that Prince William is the devil or that Kate is implicated in any arcane and complex birth ritual that goes back centuries. This is a bright, happy and hopefully healthy occasion. It’s just a thought.

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July 19, 2013

Detroit: Motown and Corvettes and Tigers, Oh My!

Stingray 1963

Sometimes the best way to tell a story is not to tell it. The news about Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy, the biggest ever in America, is like that. Others will tell it at length. Sometimes the best way is to offer a few items that are interesting and related, and let readers and listeners make the connections, draw the lines, complete the picture.

Just in case your dot-connecting doesn’t make it clear, the story of Detroit’s bankruptcy is the biggest American story of the day, and possibly one of the biggest in many years. It is bigger than the story of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, bigger than last fall’s story of the rich son of a former Michigan governor disastrously running for President (and loving those Michigan trees, though not Detroit), bigger than the continuing economic malaise, but related to all of them.

Fifty years ago, in July 1963, Motown Records, Hitsville U.S.A., released the single Heat Wave by Martha and the Vandellas. It reached #4 on the Billboard Top 100, but did top the R&B chart. Like so many Motown records, who cares about the numbers? Motown is some of the best pop music ever produced in America. Want proof? Just play Heat Wave, or other irresistible tracks by the Vandellas, the Temps, the Tops, or put on another Motown single from fifty years ago that did go to #1, the astonishing Fingertips (Part 2) by 11-year-old phenomenon Little Stevie Wonder. Motown founder Berry Gordy was not just a model of black entrepreneurship in a white country, at a time when black voting rights had still not been established, but was the model for some of the hugest entertainment moguls in the world, including Jay-Z. But that was fifty years ago in Detroit.

Fifty years ago, the Corvette Stingray was introduced. Edmunds not only rates it the best Corvette of all time; it says “A full half-century after its debut, the 1963 Corvette coupe remains one of the most alluring automotive designs ever conceived.” The ad above shows an airline pilot in Los Angeles (back when being a pilot was super-special manly, and LA was the city of the future) ogling the new Stingray. He was envying the Motor City vision. But that was fifty years ago.

This very day, as the second half of baseball season begins, the Detroit Tigers are one of the best teams in baseball, with maybe the best pitcher (Max Scherzer) and certainly the best hitter (Miguel Cabrera), who may be on his way to becoming the first player to win consecutive Triple Crowns. Detroit fans appreciate this, and have been showing up for home games at a solid pace, about 37,000 a game—equal to the attendance for the Los Angeles Angels and way more than the 17,000 fans per game that show up in “ultra cool” Miami.

Saying that Detroit will be back from beyond the brink isn’t just wishful thinking. The idea that Detroit can fail but that everybody else in America will be alright is all wrong. The 17th century poet John Donne said it:

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

And if you don’t go for old poetry that you hated in high school, and would rather forget the troubles of Detroit and the world, Motown has lots to offer, especially on a sweltering July day.

Whenever I’m with him
Something inside starts to burning
And I’m filled with desire
Could it be a devil in me
Or is this the way love’s supposed to be?

It’s like a heat wave, burning in my heart
I can’t keep from crying, it’s tearing me apart

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July 18, 2013

Preston Sturges on TCM Today

Preston Sturges

If you are quick, and have never seen any of the irreplaceable movies written and directed by Preston Sturges, Turner Classic Movies is devoting part of today to him. If you don’t manage to catch them there, and love movies, and can find the best of these elsewhere, find them and watch them.

As TCM describes his work

Featuring razor-sharp wit and astringent dialogue, writer-director Preston Sturges ranked as one of American cinema’s most gifted creative talents.

We take for granted the unified title of film writer-director, but seventy years ago, Sturges invented and perfected that role. He was Woody Allen before Woody Allen, and with all respect for what Allen has managed to do, none of his work is funnier or more biting than the best of Sturges. There were misses, but the best of Sturges includes three movies released in just two years, between 1941 and 1942. Here’s a summary from TCM:

Sturges went on to direct “The Lady Eve” (1941), a complex romantic comedy about a bumbling snake hunter (Henry Fonda) who becomes the prey of a cool, sexy con artist (Barbara Stanwyck). Fonda and Stanwyck enjoy a shipboard romance but he rejects her when he learns of her unsavory past, and in order to win her man, Stanwyck reinvents herself as a British noblewoman. In one of the most memorable set pieces in film, Stanwyck takes a moment on their honeymoon to regale her new husband with a list of every love affair she has ever had. As the scene progresses and Fonda’s jealousy increases, Sturges skillfully employs the soundtrack as a counterpoint; the train enters tunnels with its wheels clacking and whistles blowing, a storm develops and the score swells. Marvelously acted, “The Lady Eve” was a hit for Paramount and boosted the stock of all involved.

 

Paramount gave Sturges free rein with his next films, starting with perhaps his most personal, “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941), a satire that focused on a comedy film director (Joel McCrea) who wants to make more meaningful motion pictures. Determined to experience poverty firsthand, he sets off as a hobo with an aspiring actress (Veronica Lake) in tow. For a comic piece, “Sullivan’s Travels” had a dark undertone with the ultimate moral being that people don’t want to be reminded of their situations, they want escapism. As Sullivan says near the end of the picture, “There’s a lot to be said for making people laugh.” The following year, Sturges wrote and directed “The Palm Beach Story” (1942), a satire on business and greed about a woman (Claudette Colbert) who leaves her inventor husband (McCrea) for a millionaire (Rudy Vallee). When the husband arrives in Florida, he is pursued by Vallee’s sister (Mary Astor) with unpredictable results. The film owed much to the French farces that once captivated a youthful Sturges.

If you see these movies, today or some other time, you won’t forget them, you will want to see them again, and you will wonder how you ever missed them. If you love comedy, and especially if you love comedy with witty language at its heart, and have been disappointed by those who say you “must” see this classic comic genius or other but come away thinking “boring”, “horribly dated” or “stupid”, these are for you. Brilliant, timeless, unforgettable. There was only one Preston Sturges.

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July 18, 2013

Relying on Ourselves and Not Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone - Tsarnaev

This is what upsets us? This magazine cover is our biggest problem?

As of today, some retailers—of those retailers who actually sell paper magazines any more—are refusing to the carry the new issue of Rolling Stone with a cover showing a youthful and attractive photo of Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. They, along with maybe millions in the socialsphere, are making a statement.

But what exactly is that statement, and why are they making it?

If it’s about not giving any more publicity to him, along with any coverage of the Boston bombing and the upcoming trial, you can make a case that that might be healthy for all of us. But since there’s been no call for less coverage, that can’t be it.

If it’s about continuing the coverage, but making sure the coverage only reflects one particular approach, what approach would that be, exactly? And if it’s about not “glamorizing” him, where is the directorate that is going to make sure that all photos, cover and otherwise, of the most despicable people look suitably evil and ugly?

We have reached a point, not unique in history but maybe more now than ever, where reaction to everything is often overtaking thought about everything. The theory of “the wisdom of crowds”—that individuals can be wrongheaded, but heads put together are self-correcting and frequently right—needs to be reconsidered, if not thrown out the window.

If this Rolling Stone cover is a threat to anything, we have a problem. If we think that this cover makes mass murder look “cool” and is a contributor to our social difficulties, we really don’t know what those difficulties are. If we think that we shouldn’t have magazine covers with social and political miscreants, the Magazine Cover Authority will have to make a much broader review of all publications, before they pass them on to the Magazine Content Authority.

We have to start relying on our own thoughts, and when that careful thinking leads to conclusions, on our own abilities to directly address what we find. If a Rolling Stone cover with Tsarnaev is emblematic of anything, it is that Tsarnaev is here, he did what he did, and we should be working on that, and not on choices that magazines make.

For more on self-reliance, you might read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s classic essay of the same name. There was a time when Emerson’s essays were widely taught in schools—back in the Stone Age, before America got so smart and well-connected, before we realized that science and technology were the key to the future, and that the musty, fusty words of some old fart from Boston really had nothing to offer us.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-Reliance (1841)

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