Murphy's Law

Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, 1st Movement

Grant Green, “Exodus”

Rahsaan Roland Kirk, “Balm in Gilead”

John Coltrane, “Psalm”

Philip Glass, “String Quartet No. 5”

Jimi Hendrix, “Beginnings”

Bob Marley, “Revolution”

Bad Brains, “Leaving Babylon”

Living Colour, “Wall”

Antibalas, “NESTA (Never Ever Submit To Authority)”

Blogs are, or can be, like diaries.

Except that diaries, by nature, are private. Which begs the question: do people who blog censor or soften the observations, complaints or critiques that in other times would exist inside a document designed to remain unread by others? (Or more to the point, should they?) To be certain, only a few years ago, thoughts like the ones I’m about to express would have been safely ensconced inside a journal, not read by anyone else, even including myself (I don’t often return to old journals, hopefully because I’m too busy living in the here and now). And for whatever it’s worth, I am humble enough to know that small numbers of people visit this blog, and I have enough sense (or self-respect) to instinctively acknowledge that nobody is well served by overly earnest airing of personal trivia.

Put another way, I don’t begrudge anyone else documenting every last detail of their existences (no matter how mundane or mawkish); I simply remain uninterested in reading about it. In that regard, blogs are self-regulating: if you don’t write things that others will find interesting, you won’t have an audience. And who cares anyway? In that regard, blogs are like diaries: people post on them because they want to, or need to, and the concept of friends or strangers reading their innermost thoughts won’t necessarily hamper their willingness to compose. Still, only the sensation-seekers looking for notoriety (usually the already famous, and even those folks have a shelf-life of about six months) go out of their way to wax solipsistic in a public forum.

When it comes to the death of my mother, I of course have meditated on the loss privately and publically, and anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) understands that her life and death are an unequivocal component of my ongoing existence. Nothing remarkable about that, really: it is what it is. I am not alone; in fact, one need not suffer the untimely death of a parent to understand that their presence is inextricable from one’s own. That said, it’s not because my feelings or experiences are unique, but because they are the opposite that I have little compunction sharing some thoughts on this plaintive anniversary. Indeed, for me these occasions are much more a celebration of her life (and her unambiguously positive influence in my life) than any sort of disconsolate meditation on death. It is what it is.

 

As I have mentioned in other pieces (most recently on my birthday), one of my earliest and most positive memories of art and discovery is associated with my mother: listening to Nutcracker Suite and drawing pictures. Tchaikovsky has a real Proust-like effect on me (and, I suspect, a great many grown-ups who have indelible memories of the Nutcracker or Fantasia, or both), but on a purely aesthetic level it is like Bizet’s Carmen: I can (and do) enjoy it on purely musical terms. Moreover, I prefer it that way (and having seen my share of holiday performances and the opportunity to enjoy a full performance of Carmen, I’m happy to have those experiences and need not go there again). Anyway, there are more than a handful of favorite moments (coincidentally or not, conductor Fritz Reiner’s version from 1960 is the first compact disc I ever purchased, in 1986), but the one that gets me every time is the sombre yet majestic ”Coffee: Arabian Dance”.

There’s no shame in my game. I cannot deny my past and the fact of the matter is, back in the ’70s I thought Jesus Christ Superstar was pretty awesome. Moms, sis and I knew this one by heart (at least Side A of the 8-Track, which received heavy airplay in the Ford Grenada). This was in the pre-Kiss and post Fantasia time period, and of course before I discovered the original “rock opera” Tommy (not the last time ALW would be influenced by a rock band). In any event, this was my first and last dalliance with Andrew Lloyd Webber and while I can hardly stomach it now, oh how I loved it then. And you know what? A handful of moments are still worth reliving.

I’ve also alluded to the fact that we worshipped at the altar of the White Album, and we’d listen to the cassette (taped from the original double record) constantly in the car. Our favorite singalong was (obviously) “Rocky Raccoon”, but one of my favorites that I can never hear, now, without thinking of my mother and those million car rides is another great song by McCartney, “Mother Nature’s Son”:

It was pretty cool to watch movies with my mom, who was much more lenient than Pops when it came to the Rated R ones. One we watched many times (which I haven’t seen in ages and suspect I’d like much less now) was The Big Chill. Of course, the soundtrack was ubiquitous at that time and did for Motown what soundtracks like O Brother, Where Art Thou? did for bluegrass and Goodfellas did for oldies (or at least Tony Bennett). It’s silly to contemplate now, but it was almost a novelty to hear Smokey Robinson and The Temptations in the very arid early years of the ’80s. Indelible baby steps for an impressionable young honky:

Beethoven. I’ve spoken often in regards to my worship of Ludwig Van. Everyone encounters the symphonies first, but once I latched onto the piano sonatas, that was it. It still is. I’m not sure if I ever succeeded in getting my mother to really appreciate the immortal  Mondschein, but she at least tolerated how often it was played during the late ’80s and early ’90s in her house. Since I’ve already thrown Barenboim a bone, I’d like to give props to Freddy Kempf’s superlative rendition of one of the truly sublime compositions ever written:

The other great discovery and love of my life around this time was Bob Marley: kind of like Beethoven and the symphonies, it’s impossible to have ears and not be exposed to Legend at some point in high school or college. When the amazing Songs of Freedom (by far the best box set of all time) came into my life during grad school I latched onto it like a remora. This career-spanning set opened a large door wide on Marley’s music (particularly the mostly unknown, and remarkable, work from the late ’60s and very early ’70s), and eventually, reggae. Moms needed no convincing, she formed her own deep love and appreciation for Marley and would sing his songs on my answering machine. Suffice it to say, our shared love of the great man is one of the very special bonds in my musical and spiritual life.

I think she saw pretty quickly that I was going to be a special case, and there is little doubt that regardless of anyone’s opinion, I was off and running early on, and little could come between me and music. Nevertheless, her encouragement (from Kiss to The Beatles to The Doors all the way through classical and then jazz) was generous, ceaseless and always appreciated. It’s kind of neat to consider that a CD she originally bought for me my senior year of college (when I explained to her that it was very important for both my studies and my sanity to procure this album) is one I wrote about almost twenty years later. I can’t think of a more beautiful song from a more perfect album to commemorate my gratitude.

Not too much needs to be said by way of introduction to Jimi Hendrix, but my mother definitely dug some of his (less experimental? more accessible?) work. This one was, and is, a no brainer: a song he wrote about his mother (who passed away when he was ten years old): “Angel”:

August 27, 2002 was the first day of the rest of our lives. Anyone who has lost a loved one will recall (or half-reall) the blur of events that come after, all of which are a blessing in the disguise of distraction. I did a lot of driving: driving from father’s house to my place, from funeral home to father’s place, to the airport to pick up relatives. The emotions and sensations would become overwhelming at times, and there are those awful moments when you wonder how you can possibly find peace or make sense of anything ever again. During one of these episodes I was coming or going somewhere and I had not been paying attention to my car stereo, and then this song (by the great Israel Vibration) broke through that haze like the sun and saved my life:

Finally, and this one is the most important, for me.
The ’70s: this one reminds me of coming home from school and spending time in the house in between games of soccer or kickball or whatever else I was up to in those days. I have a memory: it was either autumn or winter, but it was a day I couldn’t play outside, so I was stuck inside the house and my mother had first dibs on the sounds. She was a huge fan of Janis Ian (as I would become, and remain) and I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider Between The Lines one of the better albums of that time, or anytime. “At Seventeen”, “Tea and Sympathy”, “Light a Light”: this is as good as it gets. But it’s the swan song, “Lover’s Lullaby” that affects me most; it haunts and restores me in equal measure. This one makes me think of my mother, so young; myself, so young, and even the beautiful Janis Ian, so incredibly young and so unbelievably beautiful. Sentimental? Not so much. True, this is wistful on multiple levels, and while my nature is to embrace or confront things that I consider cliche, it still took me quite a while before I could bring myself to listen to this song after my mother’s death.

I can, now, and when I do I naturally think of her. And inevitably I think about myself:

Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

 –Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”

Ten years is a long time.

Imagine something you love, or crave. Then imagine ten years without it.

Some cravings (indeed, most cravings, it might be argued) involve things like Big Macs or Coca Cola or candy that aren’t good for you and you don’t (or shouldn’t) miss once you jettison them from your wish list. Once you get them out of your system, they are like any bad relationship: you don’t miss them and wonder why it took you so long to move on. In the case of fast food and soft drinks, I went cold turkey on the former more than fifteen years ago and stopped drinking Coke back in college (still had a lingering fondness for Sprite until the mid-90s and only now will occasionally have the random ginger ale, particularly when I’m sick. Ginger ale, and old school Campbell’s Chicken with Stars, are the two things I still tend to require when I have a seriously sore throat). I don’t miss any of those old indulgences, and in fact, can’t believe I ever used to drink this junk (I say this without judgment, especially for my myriad Diet-Coke dependent friends, but just considering how much sugar is actually involved in creating this chemical swill remains revolting). I still have the ephemeral pangs (mostly sentimental, I’d imagine) for Big Macs; kind of the way an amputee will feel the phantom limb that is no longer there. In the case of the Big Mac it’s probably not all that complicated: they were good, then, and I associate the days I ate them with a much simpler time (for both myself and the planet).

I wouldn’t quite go so far as suggesting that Big Macs are for me what the madeleines were to Proust, but you get the picture. In any event, I don’t miss fast food burgers one bit. (I saw the light more than a decade before I encountered Eric Schlosser’s incredible and highly recommended Fast Food Nation but reading that book certainly obliterated any possibility that I may one day backslide.) Being human, however, I would never turn my nose up at some fast food french fries. I mention that just so you know I’m not insane.

 

However facile it may sound, I have always readily conceded my obessesion with books, movies and music. Especially music. Always music. That is readily apparent to anyone who knows me or has read my work at PopMatters, or just this blog. Aside from the financial implications of being hopelessly, unabashedly addicted to the appreciation and acquisition of art ones loves, it’s difficult to deny this is a very positive thing. It certainly has enriched me in far greater proportion than the filthy lucre I’ve coughed up in exchange for it.

Plus, I know Ludwig Van has my back:

As does infamous Beethoven lover Alex from A Clockwork Orange (as well as Anthony Burgess, not to mention Stanley Kubrick):

 

So, obviously, when it comes to compulsions there are two extremes (the ones that are inexorably bad for you, like fast food, and the ones that are almost entirely wholesome, like Art-with-a-capital-A). Where it gets a tad more interesting, or complicated, as usual, is when one considers that vast gray area. What about the things that are not necessarily good but not necessarily bad?

Exhibit A: Fisherman’s Friend. In case you are unfamiliar and need the history of these mysterious and alluring lozenges, they are not for the weak-willed, the unimaginative or the salubrious. In other words, not for normal people. But if, like Baudelaire, Rimbaud or Verlaine (just to name some of the famous Frenchmen), this world never quite sits right with you, there is eventually going to be a craving that you cannot contain. For these gentlemen it was Absinthe; for me it was Fisherman’s Friends.

At first it was only for those occasions when I was really sick; in the throes of bronchitis or some combination of extreme indulgence and reduced sleep resulting in a minor case of walking Bubonic Plague, common to the post-college/waiting tables finding oneself phase. When it hurt to breathe, or eat, or drink fluids, or to simply think, it was time to pop in a Fisherman’s Friend, that oddly licorice-like lozenge that (I fancied) did to my bacteria-laden esophagus what scrubbing bubbles did to the soap scum on my bathroom tile: it overwhelmed it. And so, at that time, they were only for special occasions.

You see where this is heading. Eventually, no doubt aided by the sheer regularity with which a young twenty-something with a young twenty-something’s habits tends to fall ill, a tolerance was built. And then the seeds of dependence were planted. Soon, it was a matter of course to step beyond the original flavor and experiment.

Who knew there were so many flavors?

I did. And I tried many of them. Some were interesting, like the Aniseed, some not so great, like the sugar free mint. But it always came back to the original, with its strangely soothing, menthol powers. Not unlike the occasional glass of wine or bummed cigarette becomes a bottle or pack a day, the lozenges ultimately wielded their odd influence. At first it was nice to “take the edge off” the morning coffee: post caffeine buzz and pre-tooth brushing, it was an elixir to ease one into the day. But eventually that little white box was following me to work and I was developing a pouch-a-day habit. I had no reason to suspect these posed any health risks but they were so…strong that I was never entirely certain what they contained–no matter what the ingredients listed on the back. That, and the aftertaste is sufficiently strong you have that heavy licorice-menthol taste on your tongue all day. Not a bad proposition if you are on the crew of the Pequod or the Edmund Fitzgerald or this guy.

If you are sitting in a cube all day, not so much. So I set out in search of a new addiction. Fortunately, as I eased myself off the FF about a decade ago, I came to discover the joys of Ricola. The original flavor is like a thinking man’s version of the original Fisherman’s Friend lozenge; a tad sweeter, a tad cleaner and doesn’t leave you wondering if your lungs are turning brown. But Ricola has really branched out in the last decade or so, dropping a ton of new varieties, all of which are recommended without reservation: Orange-Mint, Honey Lemon with Echinacea, Honey Herb and especially Lemon Verbena with White Tea. Healthier than Altoids, less intimidating than Fisherman’s Friends, and better than virtually anything people with oral fixations tend to stuff in their mouths, Ricola is where it’s at.

See you in ten years.

Beethoven again.

It seems impossible to believe that Daniel Barenboim is only 66 years old. It feels like he has been around forever. Possibly it’s because the music he plays–the music he’s spent most of his life playing to the extent that it seems inextricable from the man himself-seems to exist outside of time. Revered for completing a recorded cycle of the Beethoven piano sonatas while still in his 20’s, he then tackled Beethoven’s piano concertos, and then the piano sonatas and concertos of Mozart. For good measure he also handled the piano concertos of Brahms and Bartok. Barenboim cemented his legacy as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from the early ’90s through 2006. Want more? He was married to the famous, and beautiful, cellist Jacqueline du Pre until her premature death.

All of which is to say: he’s the only thing cooler than a rock star; he’s a classical music star. You want to hang with Mick and Keith? I’ll hang with Wolfgang Amadeus and Ludwig Van. I’d rather spend a half hour listening to Barenboim discuss his experiences than a free week pass on tour with any rock band on the planet. But I’m weird like that. Then again, check this out:

“Rubinstein read Cervantes in Spanish, Dostoyevsky in Russian, Voltaire in French,” Mr. Barenboim said. “Music has become specialized today. There used to be a different notion of musical culture. I believe that Furtwängler genuinely felt — maybe he was naïve, but he felt that he personally could save German culture from the Nazis. He wrote about the introduction to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony in relation to the Greek idea of chaos and catharsis. How many musicians think that way today?”

Barenboim shows no signs of slowing down, and the profile of him in todays New York Times here (from which the above quote is taken) reveals a man who is always looking for a new challenge. You think Ozzy Osbourne is controversial? Barenboim broke the half-century taboo of performing Wagner in Israel (in 2001) and has used his influence, and the profoundly positive influence of the music he conducts, to promote dialogue and understanding amongst nations. To put it simply, his work with Palestinian intellectual Edward Said arguably did more to advance relations between Israel and Palestine than 90% of our world’s politicians.

But all of this is just backstory (amazing and life-affirming though it is). Before I knew anything about Barenboim’s politics or his iconoclastic journey, I knew him through Beethoven. Or vice versa. My first exposure to Beethoven’s piano sonatas was courtesy of Barenboim’s initial take on the works (from ‘67; he revisited the cycle many years later). It was that time in my life (age 17), it was that era in general (1987, one of the very first compact discs I owned) but mostly it was the music. Indelible and unforgettable. Then, and now. Bottom line: this is my favorite music in the world, and if there was one set of works I had to take with me to that cliched desert island, it would be Barenboim’s set of Beethoven sonatas. If the person sending me to this imaginary island was particularly sadistic and insisted it could only be one disc, it would be this one:

 

Not winter yet, but it’s close. Dark even before the sun sets, cold even when you turn the heat on.
You know better than to try to sleep, so it’s just you and the music. Listening once again to the one person who always pulls you through, no matter what. You can listen to the symphonies or the string quartets anytime, but the sonatas, the Pathetique, especially appropriate for nights like tonight, nights when no sleep will come. That sublime suffering, the solitude, the sacred requital of this illimitable expression. The music, always the music.
After a while, before you can stop and think about it, you fall asleep.

Dreaming:
Beethoven. Not the celebrated facsimile of the consecrated composer (the image that often accompanies this effulgent music) staring down sternly at an adoring audience—the people to whom he had dedicated his great gifts—as the applause he can no longer hear surges through a breathless auditorium, but a frail, confused old man, huddled over a candle, awakened from an uneasy slumber and called into the darkness, again, to wrestle with the terrible, silent voices that fill his head.
What sort of God would suffer a man so great to be stripped of the very faculties that once compelled his creations? That refractory grace: continuing to conceive music, in the mind, yet prevented from hearing the sweet crescendo of the final coda. Agonizing over those last movements in the isolation of a lonely hour, perhaps looking to the sky, beseeching supplication, a respite, a return of the courage that once restored him.
A man whose reputed last words were I shall hear in Heaven. Proof of God’s existence for the faithful; proof of life’s capricious, inscrutable fate, for the faithless.