Yeah, it’s an oldie, but it’s a fun video. With fire. And that is the mark of a quality video, in my book.
November 2, 2016. Some day for Cubs fans.
“I don’t know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them.”
– Don DeLillo, interview in the Paris Review, The Art of Fiction 135, Fall 1993
Life’s deepest questions, pondered right here.
I tend to end up with a fair number of rubber bands. As I think we all do. I got that nice black one from Field Notes as a gift with purchase. The red and white ones must have come with broccoli.
These thick ones seem excellent for serious banding needs. It’s just that I don’t have much call for rubber bands. (I already have a jar opener, and I don’t want to give away his job.)
Basically, there are only a few things I use rubber bands for:
1. Tying up unused extension cords. That adds up to two.
2. Flicking at people.
3. Threatening to flick at people. (More fun, actually.)
4. Pulling nervously during baseball playoff games. Useful, lately.
But … I’ve got nothing else.
What in the world do we do with these things?
This is so cool: Bob Dylan was just awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Wow.
Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota (a freezing cold, very small city on the shores of Lake Superior), and raised in the Iron Range of Minnesota. Only a year of college at the University of Minnesota before he moved to New York City. Singer-songwriter. Nobel Prize in Literature winner for 2016.
I think this is fantastic, energizing, out-of-the-box thinking by the Nobel committee, who picked the perfect recipient if they were going to pick a musician. Dylan is a genius at what he does, and he’s always forged his own path as musician and lyricist. Ironically he’s been a huge influence on other artists, but many times he’s had to drag the befuddled and protesting audience behind him.
Look up what happened when Dylan “went electric”: the “don’t change things on me” folk crowd went ballistic. Or when he made his (great) country-influenced album. The rock crowd groaned. Dylan didn’t care. He just went on making some of the greatest and most influential popular music of the 20th Century.
Now the complainers are fuddy-duddy “serious literature” snobs who somehow have missed one true thing that’s all around them. Popular music is an art form. And over the last six decades it has mattered as much to worldwide culture as traditional literature.
So, yes, I think the Dylan choice is right and deserved. But it’s also a shot across the bow and a wake-up call. Like literature itself can be.
And I bet more people will talk about the Nobel Prize for Literature today than they did in years past, when the winner was the brilliant J.M. Coetzee or the sublime Alice Munro or even the wonderful Gabriel García Márquez.
By all means go read one of those. Or your favorite Nobelist. Or your favorite non-Nobelist: I nominate the great Jorge Luis Borges. Or even a future Nobel candidate: I like Murakami.
But this is also great.
You know what really is lunacy? Being so busy you have no time for breakfast or saying anything more than “bye” to your family, but putting everything down for a bit because the new installment of your Field Notes quarterly subscription has just arrived. In this case, good decision.
The new Field Notes quarterly limited edition is called Lunacy, and it’s really a good one. Even for fountain pen users, who sometimes are left out of the Field Notes fan base.
(click Page 2 below to continue)
Due to unforeseen circumstances, my surely engrossing, or at least on-topic, fountain pen posts are going to be postponed. I hope not for too long.
But what do we do when the going gets tough? Turn on the radio. Or the turntable. Or Spotify.
Given the month, what could be more appropriate than the song up there, September Gurls by Big Star? This one is from way, way back in the 1900s — 1974. It’s from an album called Radio City, which was the second album from Big Star, and truly it’s a lovely song. Since September Gurls has been covered by other groups, you may have heard it.
So, okay, some trivia. Big Star was a little group and never became big stars. But one of its members, and the principal songwriter, was the late, great Alex Chilton. You may have heard of his earlier group The Box Tops. And Chilton happened to be friends with a guy named William Eggleston. Now, just a few years later, Eggleston would start being recognized as one of the greatest photographers ever. But back then Eggleston wasn’t particularly well-known, and he gave his friend a recent photo for the cover. That photo, The Red Ceiling, is surely the most famous thing about the record today.
But the 1970s ended, and we came to the 1980s. In 1987, the band The Replacements put out a tribute to Alex Chilton, called, appropriately enough, Alex Chilton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RYQ8Y-ObMw
The Replacements were the greatest American band of the 1980s. (I think that’s been scientifically proven). Also, totally wrecked. Fun fact: the band broke up for good during a concert, on stage, in Chicago.
I don’t like old music, but The Replacements are the bomb, even today. Scrolling through their YouTube videos, I’m in heaven. Merry Go Round. Kiss Me on the Bus. Unsatisfied. I’ll Be You. The whole of Let It Be. It does seem that they were never all sober at the same time, so if “on-key” or “well played” are important aspects to music, don’t even click.
But then the next decade came, the 1990s, and everything changed. Again. There was this little band, that became huge, called Nirvana. Back in the 1900s. And it’s very hard to believe this, but tomorrow will be the 25th anniversary of the release of their second album, a little thing called Nevermind.
Actually, if you watch the video, it does seem like 25 years ago. Because that is the most dated video ever. Check out the the hair flips. We could do a drinking game to the hair flips: “He/she flipped his/her hair; drink!” Except we’d all be passed out drunk within the first minute and a half.
So I’m not ruling it out or anything.
Hey, Macy’s, it’s September. The Nutcracker army stays in the barracks until November. Kthxbye.
When I was young and foolish, I wasn’t much different than I am now. But I did go to a lot more concerts. Back then, I really liked Bruce Springsteen. I used to like this song in concert, and I still think of it when July Fourth rolls around. This time, I’ll press play.
I always feel lucky to have been born an American, never more so than on the Fourth. And it’s always a fun day in our house, because we host a Fourth of July barbecue featuring my husband’s smoked ribs, pulled pork and beef brisket, and another friend’s homemade pies (usually red, white and/or blue). Then everyone packs up the coolers and troops over to our town’s fireworks at the beach. We look forward to this all year.
If you’re in the US, I hope you’re going to have a happy Fourth, and if you’re elsewhere, I hope you’re having a happy Monday.
Fountain Pen Follies 