Spent the day walking and moving around as if nothing hurt. Note: everything hurt. Every possible joint and muscle involve in digging eighteen holes, they hurt. So I just did a long treadmill session at the gym, and was informed by Matt, one of the two trainers, this is called “active recovery,” wherein you move around but do not tax the affected and afflicted portions. Wrote and researched an essay of middling consequences and small historical interest, although I see that subsequent annotators of the tale have taken a turkey-breast injector and attempted to pump it full of gender politics.
You'll hear about her in approximately six weeks.
I also took the daily Microsoft Edge quiz, which gets me points that can be spent on non-tangible things. It’s a real stumper, this one. No wonder the points are so valuable.
KFC is made with a special blend of forks and spices
There was also a poll, which asked whether I would rather live in a world characterized by Magic, or “Steampunk.” That took me by surprise, as I had just googled Steampunk the other day, looking for a plot summary of a 1990 book set in that era.
On the way home I listened to a true-crime podcast, and 35 minutes into it the main suspect is described as dressing up like a Steampunk character. I suppose there’s a word for this, the condition of noticing something more because it is somewhat unusual and appears by coincidence in quantity that stands out, but it’s odd.
Would you like to know something that has been annoying me for weeks, and has marinated in gripe juice long enough that I can make a big deal about its deleterious effects on society and individuals? Yes, or you wouldn’t be here.
It’s music on short internet videos. On Twitter you watch a video, and you can flick to see the next one. Random, but perhaps connected to a theme depending on the temperament of the people you follow. The video you want to watch starts with music, of course, often a familiar piece. It fits the mood of the clip, or it does. You flick to the next.
Cute cat. Music is cute and bouncy. No, don’t want that. Next. Fish in an aquarium. Music is unrelated. Next. Two dogs staring each other down over a scrap of food. Music is Good Bad Ugly, lasts 9 seconds. Next. Commercial, with stock surging music. Next. And so on.
The end effect is to be constantly revved, tweaked, piqued, dumped, and prodded by music cues that run the gamut of styles. It fragments your attention span even more, because the ears reset and reset and reset 8 times in less than a minute. And it continues as long as you scroll, so you get locked in this loop wherein you expect the slight jolt of the reset.
I’ve mentioned a show called “The First 48,” dedicated to the proposition that homocide detectives want to get a lead in the first 48 hours, or their chances of solving the case drop dramatically. It’s an interesting look at the absolute pointless, needless nature of most murders.
Solving a murder in 1952: do we have any leads?
"A lady on the second floor looked down when she heard an argument, and saw two men scuffling. She said one of them wore a hat. The vic didn’t have a hat and there wasn’t one on the scene."
"Anything else?"
"That’s all."
"What kind of hat?"
"Brown."
(Two years later, murderer is arrested for a robbery, serves five in Q, is never suspected in the murder)
Solving a murder in 1952: do we have any leads?
"Security cameras got a picture of the car the murderer drove. We didn’t get the full plate but we got a partial, and we cross referenced it with the make of the car, and got the driver’s name. Based on this we got up on his phone and got a dump on his movements that night; his phone puts him in the location."
"Anything else?"
"He posted a video to Facebook an hour before the murder, waiving a .45, and we know a .45 was used in the murder, wearing the same clothing with the large distinctive logo we got from the security camera that shows him running to his car."
"That's it? C'mon, get out there, start knocking on doors. Someone saw something."
It’s the filming of one's self gyrating with a pistol and flashing the pouty-mean scowl that always makes you stop and think how some people never stop and think. I mean, it’s like a guy in 1947 who films himself waving guns and bragging about crime, then goes down to the neighborhood theater and puts the reel of film in the stack of reels so it runs between the newsreel and the cartoons.
It’s 1982.
This is absolutely the worst way to describe these two.
Ah, but Jon who? There was but one Jon to us, and that was the lead singer for Yes. It seemed likely he’d work with Vangelis. I wonder if I’m right.
Jon and Vangelis was a music collaboration between British rock singer Jon Anderson (lead vocalist of the progressive rock band Yes) and Greek synthesiser musician Vangelis. The duo released four albums between 1980 and 1991.
As it turns out, I am also wrong about this album being wrong:
The title track and its accompanying music video serve as an ode to classic Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s, including references to the classic film noir The Maltese Falcon. Joel Cairo (Mr Cairo) is the character played by Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon. The track incorporates sound effects and voice impressions of the stars of the era, most notably Lorre, Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, and Jimmy Stewart.
MAGNUM
Fact: they had "sophisticated orchestral arrangements." Not neccessarily what Beavis et al wanted.
Punk band, also known (lol) as the Yobs. By the time they got to the States, they apparently were interested in money rather than RAW PUNK AUTHENTICITY. When I played this one, expecting crude buzzsaw thrash, I almost spit up my coffee.
The periodic Stones Resurgence. They’re back with a new energy! They were always coming back with a new energy.
It was a live album, “not critically well-received, being admonished for sounding too slick and lacking any rough edges expected in a Rolling Stones performance.” Admonished indeed. Yeah, I didn’t like it. They could play their instruments, stay in time, and everything was in tune.
Oh look who’s staying relevant, that’s so cute. From Pinball to video arcades!
I was a Who fan for a while - inasmuch as one is always a Who fan, but loses touch when the output lags - and I do not remember this one. But I remember the single, the interminable Eminence Front.
In 1994, Daltrey said "It's Hard should never have been released" and that he also had arguments with Townshend over the release of the album. He stated the record company wanted them to make a new record, then do a tour for the album, so in many ways they were forced to release it.
In a 1985 interview, Townshend said, "Face Dances and It’s Hard were made by a band who were very unsure about whether or not they wanted to be making a record, and I think that’s a terrible doubt.”
The first song, Athena, was about Townsend getting drunk and being rejected by Theresa Russell.
They took some flak, perhaps for their name and haircuts, but they weren’t bad at all. This was some icy stuff.
Bill Nelson of Be-Bop Deluxe produced one song, and if they were good enough for him, they were good enough for me. This was modern! Clanky mechanized beats and synths and songs about telecommunication! I loved it.
Another side of 1982: side by side with the Stones and The Who and Flock, you had this amazing chanteuse doing the crossover:
Her previous album was better, I think.
Whoooo boy
Before we get to the song, please note the absolute other perfect 1982 image, which has GEOMETRIC SHAPES to connote modernity.
I think we laughed at the time, because this was just pretentious as hell, and we always regarded Steve Miller’s use of synths to be leagues behind what the real guys were doing. He was a guitar mechanic, and his riffs were workmanlike, his vocals unremarkable. And he made a bajillioon dollars!
The song is said to have been inspired by the American singer Diana Ross, whom Miller had met when they each performed on the same episode of the pop music television show Hullabaloo in the 1960s.
“I was thinking about Diana when I went home for lunch, and I just thought about what the Supremes would do with this song,” he describes to Guitar Player. “After that, I wrote the lyrics to ‘Abracadabra’ in 15 minutes. I just sat down and I could see them saying, I want to reach out and grab ya.
“I’ve never had a chance to see Diana since then. I’d tell her that they were very inspiring when I was a kid and I saw them play on Hullabaloo,” Miller adds in the Vulture interview. “They were magical. I loved Motown, of course. I could see the Supremes doing ‘Abracadabra’ very easily.”
Those are two different things.
Speaking on The Howard Stern Show in June 2016, Miller said at first his record company Capitol Records did not see the potential hit it would become. "Capitol didn't believe in it and didn't want to release it. I had a different deal with Phonogram in Europe. When it came out in Europe, I cancelled my American tour because it was No. 1 everywhere in the world, except the States.” After seeing its success overseas, Capitol released it in the U.S. and it also climbed to No. 1.
Something else I learned: I was always annoyed by Miller's long synth intros, which had nothing to do with the song that followed. Well:
Miller developed a high degree of music business acumen. He knew that songs earn individual publishing royalties no matter what their length and separated the 57-second electronic introduction from the song "Sacrifice" on Book of Dreams, named it "Electro Lux Imbroglio", and published it separately earning thousands of extra dollars as a result.
