Modernism Monday

Modernism Monday: “Jellyman Kelly,” James Taylor

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Yesterday was Father’s Day and I couldn’t very well post a song about my Dad during Shame Week, that’s just not nice.  But I obviously want to acknowledge him.  Happily, it took all of four seconds to hone in on the song that, to me, embodies what it has been like to have my Dad as, well, my Dad.

It.  Is.  So.  Much.  Fun.  OMG.

When I was a little kid, I decreed – kids love to decree – that Saturday was forever to be known as “Dress Wild Day.”  This meant that everyone had to wear outlandish outfits around the house or even outside (though I can’t remember if I tried that, or even wanted to).  This was right around the age in which I realized that civilized life had rules, and some of those rules were okay, and some of those rules were fun to break.  So, Dress Wild Day basically translated to Wear Your Underwear Over Your Pants day.  Dad joined in without hesitation.  We would walk around the house together with our underwear over our pants.  Dad asks me from time to time whether Dress Wild rules are still in effect.  I assure him they are.

Dad let me do his hair (putting barrettes in it, combing it thoroughly beforehand), pitched the wiffle ball to me in the backyard and gave me a high five when I clocked it through the kitchen window, quizzed me on the nationality of the composer playing on the record player during dinner (the usual choices were British, French, German, and Italian), got Abrams tank-shaped firecrackers for the 4th of July (they rolled around on the ground shooting sparks), and got to know who I was as a person so well that his teasing always made me laugh so hard I got a cramp.

Since I’ve become an adult, we have traveled through half a dozen countries together when we’re not having wit-offs about philosophy, and when he’s not scraping mysterious black goo off my kitchen floor with a spatula (sorry again about that, Dad).  We also have text conversations that are so funny that I take screen-captures of them and send them to my friends, who will quote back to me things my Dad has said months or years later.  Below are three of my favorite examples.

Me: Off to vote in the DC mayoral primary!  Woohoo!

Dad: Cool.  Vote no.

Me: Nuh-uh!  I’m pro mayor!  I’m really pro non-corrupt mayor.  I have discerned there are, like, two choices for non-corrupt mayor.

Dad:  Well hell.  That changes everything.  Vote “both.”  Many people don’t know that’s an option.  But it is.  I published poli sci textbooks.  I know.

Another favorite, from when I had a cold:

Dad: Feeling any better?  I’m drinking gin; hope that helps.

Me: That just clinched it – I’m cured.  Actually am feeling much better.  Went in to work today, which is where I am now.

Dad: Don’t kid yourself: it’s the work that’s making you better.  No better tonic than that work.  Gin and work: mmmm.

Me: It’s what won the war.

Dad: We won!?!  Gin all around!

And finally, after I made a bracelet that said “Pueri Sunt Amente”:

Dad:  Wow.  Most impressive.

Me:  Know what it says?

Dad: “Boys are dumb?”

Me: Yep!  I didn’t want it to be that obvious so I put it into Latin.”

Dad:  “Excellent.  Rigorously educated boys will at last have something useful to talk with you about.  Carry on.”

So, in sum, the greatest gift Dad has ever given me is making me feel that who I really am is just awesome, and that what I’m interested in is worth being interested in.  It has made me into a person who is really, really enthusiastic about life – a lot like those little kids are enthusiastic about yelling the chorus of that song.  That little kid yelling those words is me, his only child, thinking about going to college in another country, the most pivotal decision I have made in my life to date, and James Taylor is my Dad saying, “kid, yell as loud as you want.”

SHAME WEEK! Modernism Monday: “Life in a Northern Town,” The Dream Academy

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I recently got a few boxes delivered from a storage unit I had more or less forgotten I had.  One of them had photos in it.  It was marked, “Photos.”  Another had scratch-and-sniff stickers in a jewelry box, an orange stopwatch in a plastic bag with some loose Euro coins, and approximately seven different guidebooks of Washington, D.C.  It was marked, “Random.”  The third box was marked “DO NOT PUT ANYTHING ON TOP OF THIS BOX” and was filled with all of my old CD binders dating back to senior year of high school.  Oh man.  This was going to take some time.

Leafing through page after page of CDs was way more intense that looking at old snapshots of myself and my degenerate college friends.  It was a tour of my innermost thoughts and – worst – tastes and preferences.  “Oh Christ” was a common thought that sprang to mind every three or four page-turns.  Talking about this with some friends over beers last week, it became clear that they – and therefore the entire universe of still-alive humans – have music that they still love but are too ashamed to tell people about.

I am not ashamed.  I am going to air my dirty musical laundry for all to see.  Welcome, dear readers, to Shame Week.  We begin our tour with the odd little British group The Dream Academy, whose song “Life In A Northern Town” is a nice pre-chewed bite of moodiness, punctuated by a howlingly out of place “African”-style chant in the chorus.  Oh, and there’s an oboe.  Okay.

Modernism Monday: “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” Ray McKinley

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8GKsMM67x4

 

I was going to hesitate to assert that this is the finest song one could listen to on Memorial Day, since it embodies the stereotypical Memorial Day activities of barbecuing and playing the clarinet, and then I realized that this my blog and I can assert whatever I damn well please.  So: this is the finest song one can listen to on Memorial Day – barbecue, clarinet, etc.  I will also assert that this is the finest version of this finest song.  I do love Jim Cullum and his Happy Jazz Band, but you have to love Ray McKinley’s panache.

Modernism Monday: “My Brain is Hanging Upside Down,” The Ramones

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Ever wake up and think, “oh, the hell with it?”  No?  Well you’re probably hiding a deep sadness so go see someone.  I’ll wait.

 

…Ever wake up and think, “oh, the hell with it?”  Yes?  Yeah, it’s a gross, hands-in-the-air, “I’m moving to Paraguay to raise llamas at this rate” kind of feeling.  So put this song on.  I recommend very, very loud.

Modernism Monday: “Delirium,” Euphoria

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqFbCXzjiQ0

 

It’s gonna be a big week this week, Tune-Up fans.  Work is picking up, a dear friend is moving across the country to start a new chapter in her life, another dear friend is interviewing for a new job – the list goes on.  This is a good song to boost morale and energy levels.

Modernism Monday: “Not Half,” Alfie

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Normally I’m pretty perky on Monday.  Today, though…man.  The problem is, this weekend was particularly fun, and I know this week at work will particularly suck.  So there’s really only one song I can think of that will make me feel like I’ve got a compassionate friend.  Check out the horn interlude (you knew it was coming) at 1:43.  I had this on my headphones when I was grocery shopping once in college and I actually literally started dancing down a vegetable aisle.  I regret nothing.

Modernism Monday: “Touch The Sky,” Julie Fowlis

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Oh, Tuners, I am on such a high.  I ran the Nike Women’s half-marathon yesterday and I can’t believe I did.  I honestly can’t.  It’s going to be an experience that I’m going to lean on for years to come.  This song came on my iPod just as I was getting into a sweet cruising zone, and so now whenever I hear this, I’m going to remember that feeling of, “holy crap, I can do this!  I am doing this!” Every now and again, it feels really, really good to see what you can do when you really push it.

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”  – R.W. Emerson

Modernism Monday: “Don’t Carry It All,” The Decembrists

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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what we require of ourselves and what we require of others.  What can we reasonably expect from other people?  What can we reasonably expect from ourselves?    And are our standards different?  I’ve always been aware that my standards are a bit skewed for certain emotions, by which I mean that I think I expect other people to be happy and allow myself a bit more breathing room.  Whereas, when it comes to sadness, it’s the complete opposite.  It is sometimes – most times? – easier for me to bear my neighbor’s burden than to ask them to help me bear my own.

But once we figure out what ratios are healthy for us, then the trick is sticking to it.  As my mother likes to say, “people don’t change – they just stand more clearly revealed.”  We have all had friendships sour because the person never stopped leaning on us, never started carrying their own weight again.  And maybe we’ve lost friends because we’ve done the same to others.  Do we slough off those friendships?  Or do we keep them?  It’s hard.

In the midst of all of this weird back-and-forth, this constant assessment, is the central fundamental truth that the only thing about a relationship that you can rely on is that it will change.  The Rector at my church, Luis Leon, gave a brilliant sermon on Easter Sunday in which he said that there is no such thing as absolute security.  I think that’s right, and I would gently bend that statement to fit this blog post by asserting that there is no such thing as an immutable relationship.  The best we can do, really, is to offer up an educated guess and see what happens.

This is what “Don’t Carry It All” reminds me of.

“So raise a glass to turnings of the season
And watch it as it arcs towards the sun
And you must bear your neighbor’s burden within reason
And your labors will be borne when all is done.”

Modernism Monday: “The Late Great Cassiopeia,” The Essex Green

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Certain songs make you want to dance.  The smallest subset of those songs make you want to learn how to actually dance.  Then there’s the rest of the set of songs that make you just want to jump up and down and flail your arms around like a spaz in a bouncy castle.  This is such a song.  (And I am such a dancer, no matter what’s playing, so I appreciate this song all the more.)

The Essex Green is a zippy little indie band from Brooklyn (from whence hail many other indie bands, and much of the “indie” scene in general, although according to most hipsters I know, Brooklyn is “over”) that I discovered back in 2005.  They’ve been pretty consistently awesome since then, but this song always cheers me up.  Note, however, that it’s really hard to not want to clap along with the song so you might not want to listen to it while taking public transit.  Or, hey, do listen to it while taking public transit.  The Tune-Up is a judgment-free zone.

Lyrics below:

I was born today, a northern constellation
A minor where a major wants to be
I stacked my words, manufactured legend
And walked along the water in my sleep
Till the news spun circles and there I saw you
Wrapped up in a New York magazine
Was that the page that tells how I was fallen?
Well maybe that part is not worth mentioning
Now…what will they say?
Now…what can they do anyway, anyway?
So let me down slow, let me down real easy
Even giants have to watch how they decline
I’d wheelie in the sky or anything else, I promise
I will until the day that I die
I will until the day that I die
What will they say?
What’s the world, gonna do anyway, anyway?