The Steve Reynolds Program - Issue #21
This Newsletter Just Hit Blackjack!
The 21st issue! Who would've thought that little old me, the man who likes to start things and then run far far away from them in their half-forms, would have the wherewithal to write an average of SIX rambling missives a year for three and a half years? And have subscribers in the DOUBLE DIGITS?!? Jump back, Loretta! We got a barn burner here!
Since last issue, we experienced the first day of middle school for my son (I never say "my son"; it's always "my kid," "my offspring." or "my teeny tiny bibby baby boy") and of course I'm emotional about this arbitrary time marker. I distinctly remember my first day of middle school and how nervous I was, plus how grown-up the eighth graders seemed-- "How is little me in a school with people with stubble?"
In the morning of that first day, I tried to paparazzi him from our yard (he's in the picture-hating phase now) and as I hugged him goodbye (at least he's not in a hug-hating phase too), from the corner of my eye I saw movement across the street. A red fox was creeping across the yard, probably drawn by the scent of a chicken coop the street behind us. I yelled "fox!" and it looked up and scampered back the way it came from to the ditch that carries water to the South Canadian River. Was seeing a fox on the first day of middle school an omen? According to this random site on the web it means both bad and good luck -- your standard astrologer tactic! I'm going with "it was a good sign" because it had a real bushy tail and maybe it'll take care of the asshole squirrels on our block who think my Cherokee Purples are delicious and they should eat every one of them and not leave any for me, the guy who planted the things.
The city I live in has always been a struggle between different groups-- bedroom community versus college town, inclusive community versus NIMBY, neighborhoody life versus being an offramp on the way to Dallas. I obliquely talk about it in my novel WAY I SEE IT, but I didn't really foresee what it would become. In college "greeks vs freaks" summed it up. When we moved back in the early aughts, I claimed the personality battle of Norman was hipster versus hippie-- at least it was in my bubble in the middle of the town.
Now the battle is what it is in all of America, red versus blue. There is a loud and dumb group of old angry folk who need to get off Fox News and its worse stepchildren and find a better hobby, rather than try to intimidate people different from them.
Everything in our lives is now filtered through politics, even getting a fucking vaccine. Remember that phrase we used in early 2020 "flattening the curve"? Why aren't we still saying that?
I feel like I'm watching the scene in the tour de force Rock 'n' Roll High School where Principal Togar demonstrates the dangers of rock music by playing to a mouse in a cage a Ramones song while slowly turning up the volume. A needle goes up a scale showing the equivalent music acts for said decibel level from softest to most rocking. When the needle goes past the second loudest and most rocking band, The Who, to the all-time greatest (as in the reality of this movie), The Ramones, the mouse blows up. Watching the chart of COVID cases go up each day is like watching the needle go up the list of bands. Where are we right now on the rockometer in this dumb analogy that makes sense only to me-- Foreigner? Jethro Tull? Instead of watching the mouse blow up, why don't we turn down the damn volume to and have intact mice?
Four Distractions
Boulevardiers - Every year, Imbibe magazine hypes this event in September, Negroni Week, like it's a real thing that people pay attention to. And by gum, they've almost succeeded. Negroni, the floral herby bittersweet heady concoction, is on bar menus everywhere. I like 'em fine but ..., you know how Rush songs are sometimes not songs, but three dudes all doing way too much at the same time? That's gin, Campari and sweet vermouth - three liquors that are a mouthful on their own with different ingredients. Combining them sometimes makes a drink too damn busy. That's where substituting smooth, caramelly bourbon in for botanical and medicinal gin can pay off. It'd be like subbing in Kim Deal for Geddy Lee. Now the backbeat is felt in the soul and the vocals are far better. (what a damn analogy I just made)
Raw Craft - I carried a long-time grudge against Anthony Bourdain. That's what happens when you read Kitchen Confidential when you're a vegetarian. I lumped him in with other lunkheads who equated manliness with eating meat, such a bad take. After that book catapulted him into stardom, he long redeemed himself in his travel shows with his generous spirit highlighting and celebrating a diverse array of people and cultures. Raw Cradt is a show I didn't know that I just found. It is sponsored by a whiskey company so the product placement is awkward and insistent, but the craftspeople they feature are great. And now I have a pipe dream of having the brah kind of job where you where you wear a black shirt and backwards hat while doing painstaking work with a specialized machine that costs thirty grand. Then having a brew behind the shop while playing a weird version of horseshoes with hand forged metal augmented by 3-D printed parts. Hey slow down there, Walter Mitty!
Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch - Rivka Galchen, a childhood friend's little sister (of whom I told her brother when she was 9 that she'd be president) excels in many areas. She's a New Yorker features writer (her article on fracking in Oklahoma deserves credit for helping stop that dangerous practice), medical doctor and author of short stories, an essay collection and now two published novels. This new novel is about the witchcraft trial of Johannes Kepler's mother, Katharina Kepler, in 1620. I wrote a review of it here on a site that is terrible in many respects. I won't expound on my review there, but will say someone gives it a low rating because the title made them think it was a young adult novel, which is a very bad reason to rank something low. Maybe if the title were "Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch: A Novel For Young Adults" or "Are You There, God? It's Me, Famed Astronomer Johannes Kepler, The Guy Whose Mother Everyone Knows Is A Witch," they'd have a point. But they DON'T. This book sparkles and makes you laugh and makes you sad and is rich with love and life. Check it out!
The weird versions of Terry Riley's In C - I have a special fondness for Terry Riley's minimalist masterpiece. I love its first recording with hippie par excellence Riley at the helm, a ramshackle run-through that reveals an orchestra taking on something brand new and seemingly not confident in this new work. Surprise! It did work. If you don't know In C, all the players are given "phases" to play. They move on when they feel like it, man. You just listen to the players around you and try to stay within a few phases of each other. What it means is every performance is different, but the same. Over the last twenty years I've listened to a few dozen recordings/performances and sometimes they hit me like a meditation session; sometimes the soundtrack to productivity. They all have that delicious tension they could fall apart, like an early Letterman show. Except the Bang On A Can version, that seems too pat and perfect. I'll take the ones with ukulele or Malian instruments, thank you very little.
Plugs
I've got nothing to really hype this time. I do have in the works a podcast that will interest two people in the world and we happen to be the people hosting the thing. And I keep writing. Hope to hit that finish line soon.
If you think anyone would like these, forward them on to them! And tell them to subscribe! I wanna get the numbers up on this for reasons.