Modernism Monday

Modernism Monday: “Learn Me Right,” Birdy, Feat. Mumford & Sons

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When in the course of a human’s events it becomes necessary to assess the path one is on, and one finds that one is in a bit of limbo, it can be a bit disheartening.  A wise woman once wrote that, really, you should take heart during stages like this.  “What is happening is that your old self no longer fits with who are you are becoming. What seems to be a state of limbo, is, in actuality, a spiritual journey, and it can only be navigated by surrendering into the ‘not knowing.’ It’s about learning to be ok with vulnerability, letting go of control, and trusting your interior guide.”

Who has two thumbs and is really super bad at this?  Me!  Hooray!  But who has two thumbs and tremendous friends who know me well enough to keep me together?  Also me.  Suddenly, limbo doesn’t seem so bad.

WALK-UP WEEK! Modernism Monday: “Seventeen Years,” Ratatat

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Baseball is my favorite professional sport.  “Why,” I hear you reluctantly mutter?  Because it’s easy to understand and doesn’t have the homicidal undertones that football and hockey have.  I’m also the most familiar with it, having played Little League and collected baseball cards as a kid.

The other major reason I love baseball is the awesome modern addition of the walk-up song – aka, the song that plays when a batter steps up to the plate.  I’ve had the same conversation for years with friends and family about what the perfect walk-up song would be, but I hate having to pick one.

WAIT OMG I HAVE A BLOG NOW.  HAH.  Welcome to Walk-Up Week, Part 1: The Non-Ironic Version.  (Part 2 will take place in a few months after my Minnesota Twins have once again blown their chances at the Series, probably after losing, again, to the Tigers or the White Sox, and I think baseball is a hateful and idiotic sport with which I wish to have no association.)  We begin the week with “Seventeen Years,” by Ratatat.  This is a song for that batter with a consistent record of pasting the ball high over the left field wall, but, being a little older than most, is only brought out when his* skills are absolutely imperative.

*His.  It’s always his.  Oh well.

Modernism Monday: “Dig Dig Daisy,” Daler Mehndi

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Gosh, it’s just swell to be back in the office.  Can you guess my favorite part of being back from a long vacation?  Digging out my inbox.  It’s the greatest ever.  I came back to an inexplicably large three-figure number of emails.  It took more than an hour to sort, and then another hour to figure out what actually mattered and what didn’t.  I had to create an Outlook folder called, “New messages to deal with.”  I’m really not an important person at all – no one has to keep me in any loop of any kind – and yet, so many people did.  It mentioned my dismay to my Dad.  “Go go gadget tragic computer failure that erases your inbox,” he replied.  Genius idea.

DAD WEEK! Modernism Monday: “Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit,” Darius Milhaut

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Ok. So this piece is goofy sounding. But the same instruments and the same symphony orchestra that first performed it might have played Mahler the next night. So what’s modern about it exactly?As the Yankette’s very cultivated readers well know, World War I is the event that delineates the 19th from the 20th century. Before the Somme: empires, confidence, letters, sonatas, and cavalry charges. Since the Somme: multi-nationals, irony, tweets, jazz, and Hiroshima.

Of course art never offers a starkly clear break: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring premiered in 1913, the year of the New York’s famous Armory art show. And George M. Cohan’s urged America to join the War with his stirring backward-looking Over There in 1917.

But I think concert-goers who heard Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde or Symphony number 9 in 1910 would have been surprised to hear, a few short years later, Darius Milhaut’s remarkable The Bull (or Ox) on the Roof.

To my ears this piece represents as much does Stravinsky the sound of the reassessment of Western cultural tradition. Sure, more austere Schoenberg reinvented the tonal system on which all Western music since Bach depended. But the many false starts, sudden stops, and scales leading nowhere is no less “modern.” This piece sounds to me what surrealism and even some of Dada looks like.

In addition, just as the 20th century gave rise to a one-world, global culture, here is piece written by a French composer drawing on Brazilian tunes, commissioned for a movie by Charlie Chaplin, a Brit making a name for himself in California. A world-wide web of artistic creation.
A sidebar: Dave Brubeck, one of the masters of mid-century jazz, the sound track of the “American Century,” learned composition from none other than Darius Milhaut. Imagine the jazz Brubeck might have conjured up after a year of study with Gustav Mahler. [Editor’s note: Good God, must I?]  The mind boggles.  [Editor’s note – again: That’s one way to put it.]

And what better condition of mind bring to this oddly compelling and strikingly modern piece.

Modernism Monday: “Over Yet Blues,” Brian Wright

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0S2vXUmJ48

 

I saw Brian Wright live in DC a few months ago and he was incredibly awesome.  I recommend picking up everything he’s done so far.  This particular track is my favorite one of one of his most recently albums, “Rattle Their Chains.”

Okay enough about Brian Wright.  Two more days until I’m on vacation…just two…more…days…

Modernism Monday: “La Marseillaise,” Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle

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Happy Bastille Day, Tune-Up fans!  Joyeux Fête Nationale!  France’s National Day is known as the Fête de la Fédération and commemorates France’s transition from a monarchy to a republic.  The reason the day is colloquially known as “Bastille Day” is because it was following the storming of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789, that the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was written, formally abolishing feudalism.  It’s a pretty awesome holiday and deserves an equally awesome anthem, which Rouget de Lisle certainly provided.  Written in 1792 and adopted as the French National Anthem in 1795, it evidently got its nickname from the volunteers from Marseille who marched through Paris, singing the song.

I do love the above version, but the scene in Casablanca when they start singing the Marseillaise is probably my favorite film scene of all time, so I’m exercising editor’s privilege and posting it, too.

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Allons enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’etendard sanglant est levé
Entendez vous dans les campagnes,
Mugir ces feroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras
Egorger nos fils, nos compagnes!

Refrain:

Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons!
Marchons! Marchons!
Qu’un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

Amour sacr de la patrie,
Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs!
Libert, Libert cherie,
Combats avec tes defenseurs!
Sous nos drapeaux, que la victoire
Accoure tes males accents!
Que tes ennemis expirants
Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire!

Refrain

Nous entrerons dans la carrire
Quand nos ains n’y seront plus;
Nous y trouverons leur poussire
Et la trace de leurs vertus.
Bien moins jaloux de leur survivre
Que de partager leur cercueil,
Nous aurons le sublime orgueil
De les venger ou de les suivre!

Refrain

Arise, children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny’s
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

Refrain

Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!

Sacred love of France,
Lead, support our avenging arms!
Liberty, beloved Liberty,
Fight with your defenders! (repeat)
Under our flags, let victory
Hasten to your manly tones!
May your dying enemies
See your triumph and our glory!

Refrain

We will enter the pit
When our elders are no longer there;
There, we will find their dust
And the traces of their virtues. (repeat)
Much less eager to outlive them
Than to share their casket,
We will have the sublime pride
Of avenging them or following them!

Refrain

Modernism Monday: “Live and Learn,” The Cardigans

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncnJpYTi-hY

 

Every problem can be compartmentalized into bite-sized chunks.  You take care of the problem one chunk at the time.  Some chunks are fly-swattingly easy.  Other chunks are boulders.  None of this is news to you, Tune-Up fan.  But what’s news to me is that each individual problem chunk has a separate timeframe to solve.  That is the crux of the suck.  That is a new lesson for me.

I’m not a very patient person by nature.  I am goal-oriented, I am anxious, I dislike uncertainty, I want to know the future, and I put far too much mental energy into controlling how others perceive me.  I sometimes care more about being considered A Person Who Solves Problems Quickly than solving the problem at hand.  I’d rather have a guaranteed 70% solution now than a 100% solution in a little more time with maybe one or two variables out of my control.  It’s really weird and it gets in my way and it makes me nuts.  

One of the myriad benefits of getting older is that the cumulative experience of living longer and longer allows you to take the long view.  You can benchmark a bad day, a success, a heartbreak more accurately, having had more of them.  This context can cool you off and help you break apart problems into their components and attach importance and timeframe to each.  So, while I might be an anxious person today, I was a high-powered tension rod a few years ago: one slight readjustment could have me shooting off into space.  I’m grateful for the difficulties that have provided the necessary context to unwind myself.

The greatest thing I’ve learned, so far, is that once you’ve attached the timescale to each problem chunk and set your solutions in motion, the best and most Zen thing to do is just throw your hands up in the air and say “f$%& it.”  And I mean doing this literally – physically throwing your arms in the air and saying “f$%& it” out loud.  It feels wonderful.

Live and learn.

Modernism Monday: “Beautiful Place,” Rockapella

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXRswVpRGVM

 

Happy Summer, Tune-Up fans!  Oh – yes, it’s true, I used to watch Carmen Sandiego.  And yes, it’s true, a lot of my early musical tastes were created in the forge of the Carmen Sandiego cassette tape.  It’s also true that this song always goes through my head every time summer rolls around and it’s just immorally hot in D.C.  (It may be steamy but it’s still – a beautiful place.  ((Doo doo doo n doo n dooooo…))

This song also reminds me of lying in my bunk at camp in Vermont and listening to this tape on loop for the entire time I was there.  One morning I woke up early and looked out the window and saw baby ducks walking down the dock.  That really has no bearing on this song, or really anything at all, but I got a sunburn on the hike yesterday, so I’m a little loopy.