[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt #015
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(That is, either this is the PDF edition or that is a link to it.)
25 December, 2020
This is issue number fifteen of the newsletter. Yup.
The reviews are back, mostly because I wanted to tell the Spinal Tap story.
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Onward (egging on Nog?)!
Contents
This Week's Posts
Friday, December 18th, 2020
An unofficial picnic has sprouted on the lawn outside the mall. The cafe inside is open, but with no seating. People have brought their food outdoors. They are sitting on the grass, as well as on what looks like bright plastic children’s furniture that has mysteriously appeared. A tall metal fence surrounds the lawn’s perimeter, but one space is open so people coming from the bus stop can get in. The nearest entrance to the mall is functioning again. I don’t need to go around to the other side anymore. When I get in, I go directly to the supermarket, to be sure to get what I need from there before it closes for the Sabbath. It’s busy, but not badly so. Produce there is cheaper than elsewhere, and quite good. Clementines are finally in season, somewhat late, shades of orange rather than green. They have just about everything I’m looking for. The endcap with flavored syrups for my seltzer maker is gone. I suspect that the syrups are elsewhere, but they aren’t anywhere that I look. The challah from the bakery is still hot. I have to take it off the rack carefully, grasping it with a plastic bag and wriggling it loose from where the bottom has stuck to the baking paper. I shop efficiently. When I get in line to check out, the person in front of me tells me, in English, that she is going to take a while, but that the lane next to mine is almost empty. It is. I thank her and move over. I head back through the mall and stop at the cafe. I think of getting coffee and something to eat. I don’t know how much of the regular menu that they have, though. What I usually get wouldn’t work well to go. My bag of groceries is heavy, and I’m not sure that I would find a good spot to eat outdoors. I continue on outside and catch the next bus home.
Saturday, December 19th, 2020
The Sabbath cafe is open, though only for coffee and pastries and only for take-out. I spot the open doors as I walk past. I wander in. At first, I don’t see anyone there. A young woman comes out from the back. She’s wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, not the usual uniform. She steps behind the counter to the coffee machine. “What would you like?” Coffee and a pastry. “Large or small coffee?” Large. She makes a large cappuccino. That’s the default if you just order coffee. “Which pastry?” There are two left in the case. I get the almond danish. “Heated?” Yes. She steps back out and goes to the register. It’s at the far side of the room. Another man comes in as she’s ringing up the check. He peppers her with questions. “Are you open?” Yes. “Do you have sandwiches?” No, just coffee. “Salads?” No, just coffee. “Smoothies?” No. He walks away. She comes over to me with the check. It’s twenty five shekels, twice what I would pay elsewhere. But they’re the only place open, and their food is good. I pay cash. She goes back to the register and gets my change. I put sweetener in my coffee and find a lid that fits. I cross the street to the city square and sit down. It’s quiet. A couple of families bicycle past. I can relax. I have time. The cleaner won’t be at my house for a few more hours. From one of the open windows above the square, I can hear a family singing the traditional hymns sung at Sabbath lunch. They’re out of tune. It doesn’t matter. They sing. I eat. It isn’t raining. It’s a good afternoon.
Sunday, December 20th, 2020
I don’t get very far before the elevator opens again. A teenage boy approaches, sees me inside, and stops. He steps forward, then back, then forward, and stops again. I nod to him. Two unrelated people are allowed on an elevator at once. A young girl walks toward him, then an older man. The man raises his hand. It’s OK. They're together. They’ll wait. On the ground floor, at the coffee shop to one side of our doors, people sit outside with their drinks. The moveable furniture still isn’t there, but the yellow police tape that had blocked the built-in benches has come down. I get my usual snack at the supermarket. The woman in front of me in the express line has what I see at first as two cereal boxes. Looking more closely, I see that they’re the kind of slipcases that might hold art books. They have branding from vodka. Maybe there are two bottles in each, or something in addition to the vodka. She takes a long time to count out the cash to pay and then to put them in her shopping bag. When I get on the elevator again, so does one of my bosses. Once again, the doors open on the next floor. Someone approaches. My boss holds up two fingers and sternly shakes her head. The door closes. She lowers her hand. “I only use my hands. I don’t talk. When you don’t talk, they can’t argue.” We ride the rest of the way in silence.
Monday, December 21st, 2020
I get three items rather than the usual two at the supermarket. The cashier asks me if I need a bag. I say I do not. I use the wrong form of “not.” The cashier corrects me. What she says makes sense in Hebrew, but would translate to “Not ‘Not.' ‘Not.’ Not ‘Not.’” I understand what she means. After work, as I cross into the city square, I hear Christmas songs. That’s unusual. The caregivers and elders are in their usual spot at the front of the square. The music is playing from a speaker attached to a caregiver’s phone. Most of them are from outside the country. They’re unlikely to be Jewish. I head off to their left, to the store with the odd sandwiches and good sachlab. I see that they still have burekas left. I get one. The teenaged worker takes it out of the warming cart. With a metal spatula, he cuts it into eight pieces, once the long way and three times the short way. He shells the egg that had rested on top of it in the cart and slices it up. I take a grapefruit juice from the refrigerator. The burekas and juice come to thirty shekels. I hand him a hundred, fresh from the ATM. He hands me thirty back. I put the change in my wallet. We realize at the same time that there’s been a mistake. I take the change back out. He hands me another two twenties. I take the bag with the burekas to a chess table and reach inside. There’s no fork. I think of going back and getting one, but decide against it. I put my headphones back on and bring it all home.
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2020
In a lull at work, I see an emailed announcement of a book that I can’t resist. I order the book from a site in England. An almost immediate automated response says that they won’t be able to send it for a while. As of today, all shipping from England to here has been shut down due to the new virus mutation. At least they sent me the ebook as a freebie. Downstairs in the supermarket, another customer asks me something. I think it’s about the container of yogurt he’s holding. I can tell he’s speaking Hebrew, but his unfamiliar accent makes it completely unintelligible. I end up in the checkout line behind him. He answers his phone in English. He’s from somewhere in the southern US, with a drawl so thick that he could probably talk to alligators. Had I known that, I probably could have understood and helped him. After work, in the pizzeria on the city square, a woman raises a ruckus about something in her order. People scurry around behind the counter. I wait. When they finally get to me, I just want one of the slices of sicilian pizza that’s on display. After all that hassle, they seem thrown off balance by an order that’s so easy. The cashier blanks on how to ring up a single slice. Another worker explains it to him in English. They put the slice on the cardboard carrier facing the wrong way. I have to do some tricky juggling until I find a free table and sit down.
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2020
The coffee shop around the corner from the Sabbath cafe has a full takeaway menu. I’m only there for a hot drink, but I notice the menu on the counter. I ask about it, but fumble the Hebrew. The worker answers in English. “Yes, we have sandwiches, salads, other things. We have a menu in English if you want to see.” I don’t, but it’s good to know. That chain has a good inexpensive Israeli breakfast, but it wouldn’t really work as takeaway. I get a coffee and sit in a sort of park on the other side of the shop from the city square. It isn’t much. Wide brick sidewalks, with chairs and two picnic tables, run around the north and west edges of a parking lot. A planter runs down the middle of the northern leg. Beyond that, a low fence with an open gate separates it from another similar park, down a few steps, around another parking lot. I remember the coffee shop building, or another similar building in the same spot, from a visit here a decade or so ago. I shot video of graffiti on its walls. One set, in Hebrew, in flowing black handwriting on cement, says “Life’s what you make of it.” Another wall, or perhaps the same one but a distance away, says in English “This is not a rebellious statement.” I think the same person wrote both. All that is gone now. And I may be completely wrong about where the graffiti was. I look over at the coffee shop again and think of getting something to go. I don’t. I have food that I should eat at home. This place is in the same chain as the one at the mall. They probably have a full takeaway menu, too. I may get something there on Friday and join the picnic on the lawn.
Thursday, December 24th, 2020
I throw on my hoodie and head off to work. When I’m halfway up the stairs, it starts to rain. I head back inside and switch into my raincoat. As I head up the stairs again, the rain stops. I keep going. I spend the day at work on a tedious task. I have to keep opening files, fixing them, closing them, and going on to the next. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of files. I occasionally lose my place. Sometimes the repetitive process makes me zone out completely. I lose time as I stare blankly at the screen. My mind goes someplace else entirely. Fortunately, sound from the environment brings me back. The programmer across the aisle sneezes frequently. That works. After I leave, I stop at the burger joint. Another lockdown starts on Sunday. I don’t know when I’ll get to have another mushroom burger. The cashier appears to be one that I’ve spoken with in the past, who is fluent in English. I start to order in English. It isn’t the same cashier. The two look identical behind the masks. She turns and calls for the boss to translate. He’s busy. I end up doing most of the order in Hebrew, though she tries to speak to me with what English she has. The loud music makes it more difficult. I could understand her better if I could hear her. Commercial rap-metal from decades ago is taking up the whole sound spectrum. The shop suddenly becomes busy. Flocks of teenagers enter. The phone rings with large orders. I finally get my supper. I carry it home. I’m a little too warm in my raincoat, but I can’t effectively take it off. When I get inside, I take it off and hang it up. As I close the door, the rain starts up again.
On writing as if in dreams
I don't have any new insights on the writing this week. I just keep doing it. Something always happens to write about. So I do. It's more a path of stubbornness and craft that continual artistic revelation. But there's something to be said for that.
Things of Possible Interest
One thing I'm watching
Composer Robert Sheff, better known as "Blue" Gene Tyranny, passed away this month. I'd been more familiar with his work as a pianist in New Music circles, specifically from his work with Robert Ashley on his operas. Much of that work was composed in a sort of collaboration. Working together in a way that happens more in popular musics, Ashley created a structure of meters and chord progressions. Tyranny created parts from that. The text of Ashley's opera for television, Perfect Lives, frequently refers to his character as "The World's Greatest Piano Player." From these excerpts, you can get a sense of why.
Just a few months ago, a new documentary came out about his life and work: Just For the Record: Conversations with and about “Blue” Gene Tyranny. It's quite good, giving an overview of everything he did and how he did it. There's a lot that I didn't know, including that he worked with Iggy Pop, back before the Stooges. The two of them came up with their stage names together.
I have several of Tyranny's albums in my collection, though I had only listened to the first, Just for the Record, which came out when I was in college. I was a DJ on the college station at the time. I contacted his record label at the time, Lovely Music, asking for something else on it, and they sent me a box of everything they had released. It was a deep dive into wonderful work. I've been following the label ever since.
One thing I'm hearing
Some ideas are just too awful to succeed. We are, somehow, still drawn to them like rubberneckers on the highway.
When I stumbled across a recording of Pink Floyd's complete The Wall, arranged for solo cello, I couldn't resist. I put it on, wondering for how many tracks I could tolerate it.
I listened to the whole thing. It's pretty good. The cellist, Trevor Exter, knows what he's doing. It's almost all pizzicato, with the needed lines and harmonies brought out well. I think I hear some overdubbing at a couple of points and some processing, but it's subtle enough that I could be wrong.
In writing this up, I ran across an article in Stereophile magazine about the Solo Sounds label. This is all they do, and they do a lot of it.
Here's the album on Spotify. Give it a listen. It looks like you can buy it on Amazon, and perhaps other more reputable places.
One thing I'm reading
In 2013, composer Robert Carl gave an address on "Eight Waves a Composer Will Ride in This Century". He later expanded it into an excellent book that I'm now reading, Music Composition in the 21st Century: A Practical Guide for the New Common Practice. I don't know Carl's own music, but he also wrote quite a good book, about a piece he considers a turning point in music, Terry Riley's In C.
In the talk, and in the book, Carl looks at eight factors in contemporary music: Technology, Globalism, Cross-Disciplinary Creativity, Sonic Essentialism, Collaboration, Openness, Multiplicity, and Tension between the Individual and the Collective.
This all sounds like it could be dry, but it isn't. Carl's writing is engaging and even fun. He knows how to write both for people who are in touch with what's happening in this area of music (and the ways in which it influences and reflects what's happening in more popular music) and those who are new to it.
I'm enjoying reading it and looking on how it reflects on my own composing and work in other media. I'm increasingly convinced that every new idea that I've had, someone else had in the Sixties and Seventies. That's strangely liberating. I don't have to worry about absolute newness. I can just reflect what I'd learned. And I was told years ago that my path in music seemed to consist of finding others' ideas, trying them out, and getting them wrong. That's one form of evolution, I suppose.
One more thing
From what I can tell from the Web (though not from anything in my environment), today is Christmas. That always reminds me of this incident, which I might as well write down already:
Sometime in April, 1984, a tiny ad appeared in the Village Voice. Spinal Tap, a band that several comedians had put together for a successful "rockumentary," would be playing live at CBGB in New York. Tickets were free, but you had to pick them up at the Voice office on a particular day at noon. I was free that day, though I don't remember why. I may have been between jobs. I got a ticket.
On the day before the performance, May 5th, the band played Saturday Night Live. Continuing with their impression of the world's stupidest musicians, they picked that performance to premiere their Christmas single, "Christmas with the Devil."
The next evening, they showed up at CBGB. We were waiting. When they emerged from their cars to go in, the crowd on the sidewalk went nuts. It was as if they were the Beatles. They seemed taken aback. I don't think they were ready for this.
They began the show, as befits a band of dolts, with the song that the audience would be least likely to know, the new one premiered the night before. We were ready. It seems that most of the audience had caught the performance, taped it, and rewatched it several times that day. The audience sang along. The whole thing. We knew all the words.
The band didn't quite know what was happening. Even for the rather smart actual musicians, this was a surprise. They exchanged looks as if they'd been hacked. One thing they knew: if they were going to play the part of Spinal Tap, we were going to play the part of a classic Spinal Tap audience.
The band dug in. They could really play. (Somehow, the drummer failed to explode.) It was one of the finest rock concerts that I have ever seen. And the best part was the interplay with the audience. We were egging them on. They were winging it, but improv comedy was their forte.
I wish I still had the ticket stub. People tend not to believe that it happened. But it did. I was there. And it rocked.
(I've found an article about the show, though no video. I had forgotten that the movie only premiered a few days before. But we were ready.)
Colophon
(Unchanged from last week, except for this line!)
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