F. Scott Fitzgerald/Spinoza, Canon Alberic/Count Magus, Big Star/White Stripes, Miles Davis/Cannonball Adderley, Dickens/Beatles, Orson Welles/Kafka, Green Day/Mussorgsky, Bob Dylan/Star Wars

Friday 9/25/26

One of the most withering lines in literature is in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Crack-Up” essay when the narrator—who is both Fitzgerald and not Fitzgerald—says, “Baby et up all her Spinoza?” to someone on whom the joke and the criticism will be lost; one of those people who perform sympathy to feel better about themselves. And, too, it would be lost on virtually every person now, both because they are performative and have no self-awareness, and because they can't comprehend what they read, never mind understand a literary/philosophical reference. Are there a dozen people living who would get this?

The Joy Division Eternal box set is here. Only two shows (crowdsourced AUDs) will be new to true believers who'll already have the rest of it, but it's essential Joy Division, which is to say essential art. Unflinchingly human. For atmosphere (not a pun), Preston is one of those "you are forever there" tapes. (I love when the woman says the last bus is about to leave.) The Paris gig may be their finest musical moment, which is also to say, just about anyone's.

In M.R. James’s “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book” and “Count Magus”—both of which appeared in his 1904 collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary—characters stare at each other in silence for what is described as a full minute. I love James, clearly, but this has long amused me. Do you know how awkward that would be? A minute is a long time in that context. Also: these characters just met. Each of the main characters--scholarly, traveling single men--in these two stories talk to themselves. You know what characters get excited about in James stories? We're talking pumped up here. Reading. Cataloguing or exploring a library. A night of learning.

The verger--or sacristan, as Dennistoun prefers--in "Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book" is this hardy fellow who doesn't mind being in the cold church for hours (with a demon, no less), but we're told he dies just a few months later. He didn't seem like he was on his way out. And things had taken a turn for the better for him being clear of that demon at his back. But that's often how it goes.

Was at the cafe the other day when Big Star's "Thirteen" began playing. It knocks you back into your seat how authentic it is. True art at the most human of levels with a timeshare on a supernal one as well. People usually want to write and sound like other musicians or writers. I've never gotten that. This is a song that only sounds like, and could only be, itself. The part about "Paint It Black" in what's tantamount to a musical short story of youth is so dead on. It's better writing than you'll see in decades of short stories from The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, etc. The White Stripes' "We're Going to Be Friends" is like the younger sibling version of "Thirteen."

For early autumn: Vol. 2 of the Art Tatum Group Masterpieces. The session featured the pianist working with trumpeter Roy Eldridge, bassist John Simmons, and drummer Alvin Stoller. If you've only heard Tatum solo, you might think he couldn't function within a band context, but these sessions cut for producer Norman Granz dispel that notion. This date has that knowing wistfulness of fall, a sort of major key melancholia.

Another: the Miles Davis album that wasn't but sorta was, that being Cannonball Adderley's Somethin' Else from 1958. Adderley gets full marks for this inspired LP, but it was also tantamount to the Miles Davis show. The trumpeter selected most of the material, wrote the title track, and played some of his finest solos. The album is an ideal complement for fall. Put on a sweatshirt, have a cup of black coffee, savor the cool air, and enjoy the opening "Autumn Leaves."

And one more: Brahms' late piano sonatas, as performed by Paul Lewis. These pieces are shot through with that lived-in, "ah, the things I have seen as a leaf long on the branch" wisdom of autumn; meditative, melancholic but in the life-affirming, rather than life-limiting, way. A potent musical reminder of the importance of presence.

That fellow saying, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome Columbia recording artist...Bob Dylan!" at the start of all those Dylan gigs was a bit like the 20th Century Fox fanfare playing before Star Wars. Listen to how Dylan and his band come firing out into "Absolutely Sweet Marie" in San Jose on 5/19/98 after that guy does his thing. It's practically part of the performance. I suppose it was.

Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers is such a fun hodgepodge, a kind of add-anything-you-like salmagundi. It reminds me of those early Beatles bootlegs where you'd have a BBC cut from 1963 next to a Get Back outtake followed by some phoner interview from 1965.

The Shirelles' "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" is arguably rock and soul's most romantic, intimate song; so intimate that it's almost as if it isn't meant for us to hear, like the "shared" phone conversation between George and Mary--with Sam Wainwright on the other end of the line--in It's a Wonderful Life. The level of vulnerability is something we should all aspire to in the important areas of our lives.

Orson Welles achieved much of what he thematically wanted to in his 1962 adaptation of The Trial with the film's pinscreen animated preface of Kafka's "Before the Law" parable; it really could have been its own thing.

Those extended performances of "Paper Lanterns" from Green Day--with the nods to the various covers like Survivors' "Eye of the Tiger"--are akin to the punk version of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. A tip to the curious (M.R. James play on words): check out the 2/26/94 LA AUD tape a few weeks after Dookie's release and before it had taken off. The "promenade" (interconnecting) portion, if you will, of "Paper Lanterns" just sounds like life to me.

That part in John Keats' "To Autumn" when the narrator tells the season not to feel overshadowed--pun somewhat intended--by spring with her ballyhooed songs. "Think not of them, thou hast thy music too..."