“Just read your advice column, if that's what we're calling it, with the entry about friends and music that mentioned ‘I Wish I Were A Mole in the Ground.’ Coincidentally I happened to sing it out loud this afternoon as I helped dig the hole where we buried a friend's ashes. You don't need to be a good singer to sing that one, or at least not if you're manning the postmortem shovel hacking at a snowy patch of grass. Now I'm trying to decide between clipping my gray fingernails because they're crammed with the remains of a friend I had for forty years, or just keeping him on my person for a while. Anyway, good song. When we were done clawing the mud back into place I grabbed the shovel and asked if I should tramp the dirt down. The dead guy would have gotten that.”
"Stan Draenos writes in on friendship and rock ‘n’ roll: The story is that in my high school days, I used to have a terrific collection of 45 hits and, when the local radio stations published their weekly Top 40 lists, I created a bar chart comparing my record collection to the various hit lists. FYI: The DJ for our school dances even used some of my 45s that he didn't have. A girl I was dating at the time (still trying to be hetero), borrowed my entire collection (around 50 forty-fives) for a party she didn't invite me to and never gave them back. I have her email address and occasionally think about asking her to return them, but never have.
"I was arrested in San Jose, where my parents moved when I started Berkeley. The arrest happened at their place. I had suspicions that one of my colleagues in the Greek movement had turned me in. But it is pretty certain that it was my own stupidity, since I had mentioned my plans over the phone, which I knew was tapped because of my frequent calls with Andreas Papandreou. Also, PAK (Andreas' resistance organization), was not a "terrorist" organization. It was a resistance movement, which did have a militant network inside Greece, but my involvement was limited to the political branch. Our protest bombs were not aimed at causalties, civilian or otherwise. But the Truman statue did suffer repeated assaults.
When I was in southern Oaxaca in my mid-twenties, backpacking around for a month, I was drinking a beer in a rooftop bar, watching the sun slide into the ocean, listening to my Walkman. A middle-aged guy asked what I was listening to, I said Sonic Youth. He smiled and asked if I knew their cover of “Hotwire My Heart.” I said sure, Sister was my favorite of their albums. He said, “I wrote that song. I’m Johnny Strike.” And it was true, he was the leader of Crime, the fairly obscure San Francisco punk band. He had tons of stories. We talked for a few hours then said our farewells. If I’d met him today, we’d have exchanged email addresses & kept perfunctorily in touch until the correspondence died. I prefer the way it happened. (Greil might recall that I wrote about this in my poem “Walkman.”)
The person who brought up the topic of Graham Parker a few newsletters ago resulted in my digging through my collection of GP Records. I stuck with Parker through many of his recycled live albums and even more mediocre newer albums. I was at the legendary Old Waldorf concert in support of “Squeezing out Sparks” which was spectacular as Joel Selvin wrote in his column following the concert. Id have to admit that of all the GP records I’ve purchased over the years only the live concert backed by the Figgs recaptured his lightning in a bottle. Im done buying any more Parker records. The new Johnny Blue Skies record is far more thrilling.
I would add Killer Angels, Lincoln by Gore Vidal, Lincoln’s biography by Hay and Nicolay as well as the one by Carl Sandburg.
Of course, a lot depends on what you want to learn about the Civil War. All of those mentioned by this editorial are good except Moby Dick (too much of a slog for me).
I would also suggest a reading on reconstruction (Eric Foner is the go to, but Howard Fast’s fictional Freedom Road is excellent) and every American should have to read Taylor Branch’s fantastic trilogy on the civil rights era.
Wow, so Greil Marcus never liked Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands!?!? Gobsmacked. I feel the same way I felt when I read Lester Bangs in his review of the third Velvets album say he was unimpressed with Pale Blue Eyes. Honestly, these takes on my two favorite Dylan and Lou Reed songs are unbelievable.
Interesting comments on Murder Most Foul. Key West certainly does seem like a more natural closer and has always struck me as being part of the dying-of-the-light through-line from Highlands to Sugar Baby to Ain't Talkin'.
I remember reading (presumably on Expecting Rain) someone purporting to have inside information say that MMF was originally intended to be the title of the album and the first track (plus, shockingly, JFK as the front cover). No idea if it's remotely true, but it puts an interesting twist on the album.
Maybe I'll relisten to Rough & Rowdy Ways this morning starting with Side 4, with JFK staring out from the vinyl display stand.
Does end of the LP song work for other artists too? Beatles had Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver) Day In The Life (Sgt. Pepper) Goodnight (!) (White Album) and the medley if one avoids Her Majesty on Abbey Road.
And I also have always appreciated the Empire Burlesque songs and wonder why if Dylan is criticized for having a modern (mid 80's) sound on the LP, no one seemed to mind the disco beat Leonard Cohen employed on I'm Your Man to huge success? The songs on that album are undeniably great IMO although I know Greil is not a fan of the late Leonard C. although his contemporary, Robert Christgau, is a huge Cohen fan.
I don’t know who you were sitting near, but that Berkeley Foucault panel (which featured all three authors of then-recent biographies, not just Miller) was nothing remotely like overwhelmingly hostile.
There were definitely *some* people who were hostile (most depressingly, Paul Rabinow), but most were curious. (Rather more than curious were the grad students who were present, most of whom were truly delighted to learn that our hero was even more sui generis than we’d thought. Épater le professorat.)
"The panel certainly felt to me unremittingly hostile—but in fact I had an ally onstage, in Alexander Nehamas, who was at Cal delivering the Sather lectures, and who had written an enthusiastic blurb for my book. Indeed, Burt Dreyfus afterwards privately expressed some sympathy for my point of view (and he has co-authored the canonic English-language monograph with Paul Rabinowitz, who was rabidly hostile on the panel, in tandem with Didier Eribon).
"I remember my relief that you were at the after party, so I could confide in someone that onstage I just wished I were a mole in the ground, so to speak."
Sharing a comment from Sarah Vowell via Greil:
“Just read your advice column, if that's what we're calling it, with the entry about friends and music that mentioned ‘I Wish I Were A Mole in the Ground.’ Coincidentally I happened to sing it out loud this afternoon as I helped dig the hole where we buried a friend's ashes. You don't need to be a good singer to sing that one, or at least not if you're manning the postmortem shovel hacking at a snowy patch of grass. Now I'm trying to decide between clipping my gray fingernails because they're crammed with the remains of a friend I had for forty years, or just keeping him on my person for a while. Anyway, good song. When we were done clawing the mud back into place I grabbed the shovel and asked if I should tramp the dirt down. The dead guy would have gotten that.”
Your memory of the girl singing "Angel Baby" rocked me. Snippets of memory about rock and roll are sonnets. That was one.
Sharing a comment from Stan Draenos via Greil:
"Stan Draenos writes in on friendship and rock ‘n’ roll: The story is that in my high school days, I used to have a terrific collection of 45 hits and, when the local radio stations published their weekly Top 40 lists, I created a bar chart comparing my record collection to the various hit lists. FYI: The DJ for our school dances even used some of my 45s that he didn't have. A girl I was dating at the time (still trying to be hetero), borrowed my entire collection (around 50 forty-fives) for a party she didn't invite me to and never gave them back. I have her email address and occasionally think about asking her to return them, but never have.
"I was arrested in San Jose, where my parents moved when I started Berkeley. The arrest happened at their place. I had suspicions that one of my colleagues in the Greek movement had turned me in. But it is pretty certain that it was my own stupidity, since I had mentioned my plans over the phone, which I knew was tapped because of my frequent calls with Andreas Papandreou. Also, PAK (Andreas' resistance organization), was not a "terrorist" organization. It was a resistance movement, which did have a militant network inside Greece, but my involvement was limited to the political branch. Our protest bombs were not aimed at causalties, civilian or otherwise. But the Truman statue did suffer repeated assaults.
"Just for the record, Greil."
When I was in southern Oaxaca in my mid-twenties, backpacking around for a month, I was drinking a beer in a rooftop bar, watching the sun slide into the ocean, listening to my Walkman. A middle-aged guy asked what I was listening to, I said Sonic Youth. He smiled and asked if I knew their cover of “Hotwire My Heart.” I said sure, Sister was my favorite of their albums. He said, “I wrote that song. I’m Johnny Strike.” And it was true, he was the leader of Crime, the fairly obscure San Francisco punk band. He had tons of stories. We talked for a few hours then said our farewells. If I’d met him today, we’d have exchanged email addresses & kept perfunctorily in touch until the correspondence died. I prefer the way it happened. (Greil might recall that I wrote about this in my poem “Walkman.”)
The person who brought up the topic of Graham Parker a few newsletters ago resulted in my digging through my collection of GP Records. I stuck with Parker through many of his recycled live albums and even more mediocre newer albums. I was at the legendary Old Waldorf concert in support of “Squeezing out Sparks” which was spectacular as Joel Selvin wrote in his column following the concert. Id have to admit that of all the GP records I’ve purchased over the years only the live concert backed by the Figgs recaptured his lightning in a bottle. Im done buying any more Parker records. The new Johnny Blue Skies record is far more thrilling.
I would add Killer Angels, Lincoln by Gore Vidal, Lincoln’s biography by Hay and Nicolay as well as the one by Carl Sandburg.
Of course, a lot depends on what you want to learn about the Civil War. All of those mentioned by this editorial are good except Moby Dick (too much of a slog for me).
I would also suggest a reading on reconstruction (Eric Foner is the go to, but Howard Fast’s fictional Freedom Road is excellent) and every American should have to read Taylor Branch’s fantastic trilogy on the civil rights era.
Wow, so Greil Marcus never liked Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands!?!? Gobsmacked. I feel the same way I felt when I read Lester Bangs in his review of the third Velvets album say he was unimpressed with Pale Blue Eyes. Honestly, these takes on my two favorite Dylan and Lou Reed songs are unbelievable.
Greil: Any thoughts on The Gun Club?
Tell me wah u ting a dis https://kseen3o.bandcamp.com/track/of-history-where-are-we-now
Interesting comments on Murder Most Foul. Key West certainly does seem like a more natural closer and has always struck me as being part of the dying-of-the-light through-line from Highlands to Sugar Baby to Ain't Talkin'.
I remember reading (presumably on Expecting Rain) someone purporting to have inside information say that MMF was originally intended to be the title of the album and the first track (plus, shockingly, JFK as the front cover). No idea if it's remotely true, but it puts an interesting twist on the album.
Maybe I'll relisten to Rough & Rowdy Ways this morning starting with Side 4, with JFK staring out from the vinyl display stand.
I had not heard "Angel Baby" in a few light years. Brought me back to when I was a teenager in small town Westerly R.I. Thanks!
Does end of the LP song work for other artists too? Beatles had Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver) Day In The Life (Sgt. Pepper) Goodnight (!) (White Album) and the medley if one avoids Her Majesty on Abbey Road.
And I also have always appreciated the Empire Burlesque songs and wonder why if Dylan is criticized for having a modern (mid 80's) sound on the LP, no one seemed to mind the disco beat Leonard Cohen employed on I'm Your Man to huge success? The songs on that album are undeniably great IMO although I know Greil is not a fan of the late Leonard C. although his contemporary, Robert Christgau, is a huge Cohen fan.
I don’t know who you were sitting near, but that Berkeley Foucault panel (which featured all three authors of then-recent biographies, not just Miller) was nothing remotely like overwhelmingly hostile.
There were definitely *some* people who were hostile (most depressingly, Paul Rabinow), but most were curious. (Rather more than curious were the grad students who were present, most of whom were truly delighted to learn that our hero was even more sui generis than we’d thought. Épater le professorat.)
Sharing a comment from Jim Miller via Greil:
"The panel certainly felt to me unremittingly hostile—but in fact I had an ally onstage, in Alexander Nehamas, who was at Cal delivering the Sather lectures, and who had written an enthusiastic blurb for my book. Indeed, Burt Dreyfus afterwards privately expressed some sympathy for my point of view (and he has co-authored the canonic English-language monograph with Paul Rabinowitz, who was rabidly hostile on the panel, in tandem with Didier Eribon).
"I remember my relief that you were at the after party, so I could confide in someone that onstage I just wished I were a mole in the ground, so to speak."