Desert Island Discs: "More Songs About Buildings and Food" (Talking Heads)

I've spent the better part of today reading a book called "Marooned: Desert Island Discs," which is a sequel in spirit to an earlier collection of "Desert Island Discs" edited by Greil Marcus (who provides the forward for this collection), which came out in 1979. The newer collection dates from 2007, and quite frankly it includes a lot of music I'm not familiar with, at least so far (I have heard of My Bloody Valentine, even though I'm not familiar with them all that much). As is often the case when reading something like this, I started to think about what I might pick to be stuck with on a desert island (assuming there was a working soundsystem or my iPod was charged up and incapable of running out of power, at least until I was rescued). I guess I gave away my pick in the post title, but first a word about contenders:

The Modern Lovers, Precise Modern Lovers Order: this is a collection of two concerts done by the original Moder Lovers line-up (Jonathan Richman, Jerry Harrison, plus a couple of other guys) that I picked up because it boasted a live cover of the Velvet Underground's "Foggy Notion." It's a fantastic record, front to back, and "A Plea for Tenderness" is probably my favorite (though the live version of "Roadrunner" is no slouch).

The Velvet Underground, Loaded: speaking of the Velvets, the double-disc reissue of their final album with Lou Reed is a must-have. You've got "Sweet Jane," "Rock and Roll," "Oh Sweet Nuthin'," "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" (okay, it may just be me that likes that song) and so many others.

Joy Division, Substance: I wish I had the moment back when, arrogant because I'd recently bought the Heart and Soul boxset, I decided "nah, I don't need this anymore" and sold it for some extra cash. Any disc that has "Transmission," "Digital," and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (plus the only live recording of JD performing "Ceremony") is a must. Stupid me, selling it because I didn't think (running theme throughout my life).

The Who, Sell Out: nothing about this album should work (a bunch of songs stringed together with fake ads for products, all thumbing their nose at the idea of rock music being "art" by boiling it down as simple slogans, etc.), but it does. This was the first Who album that made me love the Who.

All fine choices, and I could go on (and trust me, it's my blog; I could do so), but in the interest of time, let me go ahead and explain my pick: Talking Heads, More Songs About Buildings and Food.

One of the requirements I'd have to have for an album that I was forced to listen to for the rest of my life (assuming the boat never does track me down) is mystery, or at least "non-familiarity," and as much as I love some of the other albums listed, I know them too well. I know Loaded has quite a few Doug Yule lead vocals; I know the expanded version of Sell Out includes one of Roger Daltrey's few songwriting attempts within the Who (where Pete Townshend did most of the work in songwriting). But I don't know More Songs as well as I'd like to. That's because, for a brief time, it stopped my fandom of Talking Heads in its tracks.

I bought Talking Heads 77 (red cover, only broken up by the title in green letters: harder to think of a less appetizing color scheme besides Never Mind the Bollocks' green on pink) and loved it instantly. It's such a non-punk "punk" album: there are songs about psycho killers, government employees, books to read, etc., which all seem outside the normal range of punk-rock topics (at least as handed down through the ages), but it's a fucking masterpiece of its time. The back cover features the band, looking as normal as possible (in fact, they look almost like the first couple of batches of nubile camp counselers who get chopped up in the Friday the 13th movies, down to Tina Weymouth being "the Final Girl" after Jerry Harrison and Chris Frantz have been dispatched, with David Byrne being the only suspect because he does, after all, sing lead on "Psycho Killer"). More Songs has the now-iconic image of the band reproduced in blocks, their forms distinctly human and yet not. It's my nominee for the case of an album's art being better than the music (a runner-up: Sgt. Pepper. Yes, it changed music when it came out, but saying it's the Beatles ' best album is wrong on so many levels).

That's because, when I got the album and started playing it...meh. I mean, "Take Me to the River" is easily one of the top ten best cover songs of all time (and it led me, years later, to get my hands on an Al Green best-of), but a lot of the album feels iffy. It's the first go-around for the partnership between the band and Brian Eno, and compared to the other fruits of that collaberation (Fear of Music, Remain in Light, and the Byrne/Eno side project My Life In the Bush of Ghosts), it doesn't have the same force, the same appeal. There are some great songs on there ("I'm Not In Love," "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," the mild-hint-of-lesbianism-or-just-frustration-with-men "The Girls Want to Be With the Girls"), but the overall feel of the album doesn't leave you with a satisfied grin, like the first album did. At least it didn't for me, not for a long, long time.

It took me a while to embrace the Heads (who had been part of my Eighties childhood: "Burning Down the House" was etched into my psyche thanks to music television long before I knew what "music videos" were). I picked up the 2005 "best of," which is honestly worthy of the title, and that led to Fear of Music, Remain in Light, and even My Life In the Bush of Ghosts. Talking Heads are now stuck in my record collection, no matter what. But through it all, I've rarely revisited More Songs. I have the feeling if, confined to a desert island for the rest of my natural days, I could probably revisit it to death (trust me, any work of music gets old if you hear it enough), but maybe before I'd worn out the grooves of "Take Me to the River," I'd end up appreciating the album more than I do now. One thing about music, it gets stuck in your head; I have no doubt I've got enough up there to recall it on my mental iPod, whether I want to hear it or not. But More Songs About Buildings and Food is an exception and, as of yet, one that I've not visited with in years. Maybe if I had no other option, I'd give it a chance.

They're Not Role Models

Unless you've been living under a rock recently, no doubt you're aware that the NFL is in a bit of a downward tailspin into the deck of its own collective hubris. The Ray Rice incident (as well as the Adrian Peterson incident, and other high-profile cases of "athletes behaving badly) has done much to undercut the rule of Roger "I will get this right" Goodell, and that's a good thing. I am no fan of uncontested authority, and ole Rog has gotten by with far too much of it over the years. Down with the bastards.

But it brings up something that I think needs more addressing: the worship we afford sports performers, and why that adulation might be (hell, almost always is) misplaced.

Being an athlete is different than being an entertainer for a living (though some atheletes embrace both aspects). Sports are ephemeral, fleeting; a touchdown catch or a home run is over before you can say much of anything about it (nice try, Joe Buck), and no amount of highlights on Sports Center will make up for the obvious "well, that was nice but it's over now" aspect of any game. In art, the comparable examples are live theatrical or musical performances, or "performance art" like the kind Yoko Ono or Andy Kaufman performed: videotape or digital media might record it, but it's always at a degree or two removed from the actual moment of conception and execution.

So when we see Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant dunk a ball or make an amazing shot, we tend to think this tells us something about who they are, and that's not fair to them or to us. Talent does not always mean character (Jordan is notoriously competitive, and rumors about why he really left basketball to play baseball are rife with suggestions that it was to avoid a possible suspension for gambling; Kobe's just a hyper-egotistical dick, in many accounts). Charles Barkley famously said that he didn't want to be a role model. Maybe we should take him and all the others up on that.

This is not to say that we shouldn't admire their work on the field of play. Another corallary to artists: people, individuals, can be incredibly fucked-up and still do great things in their chosen profession. The idea of the artist struggling with his or her demons is fuel for great art, be it Lou Reed or Lord Byron. Art is a way to explore what tortures someone inside, to expose it to the light and connect with others because of it. Athletes, on the other hand, are supposed to be professionally numb to real life: they're told to "leave it off the field" if they're going through incredible emotional pain, to play through it. Sports can and should be informed by artistry, but it doesn't require that someone come from the wrong side of the tracks and have everything in the world against them. Some of the most painful and honest memoirs I've ever read were sports memoirs, which are usually just an attempt to cash in on their well-known names (Jerry West and Dr. J, for instance, write about how their talent and fame *didn't* solve all their problems, not by a long shot). It's not that we can't or shouldn't admire someone for what they do in their chosen profession; I just wonder if we need to keep reminding ourselves that what a person does, no matter how talented they are at it, doesn't mean that's who they *are*.

In the long run, hero worship is too ingrained in our collective DNA to be overturned overnight, or even within a generation or two. We'll always have that need for someone, be they an artist on canvas or with the written word or with a jump shot, that we can look up to, but let's try and make it more about the talent than the person. Because the person might not be someone that we want to emulate, when they're not performing.

Also, My Back Is Killing Me

Today, September 25, marks a month since I drove to the campus of my former university, ready to begin a career as a newly-minted "graduate student" and hopefully take my place among the great scholars who have contributed to intelligent discussions of Shakespeare, Milton, and Michael Bay. Granted, a month ago it was just orientation (classes started the next week), but I figure it's worth marking the occasion.

I started off sick to my stomach as I walked to the building, and for the first couple of weeks I seriously questioned what the hell I thought I was doing. I'd forgotten how nerve-wracking it can be to find yourself in a new situation, friendless and anonymous until the first awkward movements towards getting to know your peers (classmates or co-workers) are over and you can get down to the nitty-gritty of mocking things together (like, in my classmates' case, certain dead French philosophers who may or may not have been full of shit). It had been four years at my previous place of employment, four long years where I'd built up a certain amount of goodwill and simple "being-stuck-together-ness" with my work friends, and now that was gone (though I still try to keep in touch via Facebook, it's just not the same).

A month in, and I can say this: it's a lot more challenging than I thought it'd be, but in a good way. I likely will never read Derrida for fun (hell, I don't think Derrida read Derrida for fun), but I did get around to reading Roland Barthes' Mythologies and I think I understood most of it. I'm a month in and feeling like, if I don't end up being the world's best grad student or anything ridiculous like that, I can at least aim for doing good enough to land some kind of rewarding job after.

I have been wrapped up in grad school, almost to the point of forgetting that there's other things beside it. I have classes Monday through Wednesday, at night, and once I swing by Taco Bell I'm heading home (though I might cut back on the TB; last night I had a dream where an alligator bit off my right arm, or maybe I dreamed that I was writing a short story where that happened to the main character; paging Dr. Freud!). I still try to read for fun, though nothing that distracts me for too long from my main objective of Trying to Read Foucault And Understand Him (almost a lost cause). I kinda wonder if I'm getting late-in-life ADD, because I like to read with the TV at home but sometimes it hurts more than it helps. Which is why, a lot of times, I head to the on-campus library to get bulk reading done (your lit theory, your short story from a classmate in Fiction class, etc.). My grandmother said something yesterday about how I can't spend my whole life reading; she doesn't know how appealing that sounds some days.

At any rate, I like what I'm doing, it's a lot more responsibility than I've had for four years or so. I wouldn't mind making the dean's list, but right now I'm just trying my best. You do the best with what you got, so what I got right now is being put to use. Also, my back is killing me, because my Lit Theory book could flatten a small country off the face of the earth. But then I've had back problems for years.

Updating the Canon With More Dead (and Not-Dead) White Guys

In a class discussion last night, we sat around debating the merits of the traditional "canon" of writers one should study in college, because for one thing Shakespeare has been done to death and also because the canon seems to lean disproportionately towards "dead white guys," mostly pre-WWII (so you got your Homer, your Hemingway, and your whatever anonymous asshole who wrote Beowulf). I was thinking afterwards about how we could update the canon not just to include more multicultural aspects (Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, just to name three that I encountered in undergrad classes not strictly devoted to the "Western literary canon") but also more relevant Dead White Guys, because if I have to hear one more time about Grendel I'll jump off a castle parapet (though it did inspire John Gardner's Grendel, which is fucking excellent by the way). So let's start with my picks for the Recently Dead (i.e. post-1945) White Guys, and then I'll throw in some Still-Alive (or Not-Dead) White Guys for balance (because I want to avoid the suggestion that we English majors are necrophiliacs).

Recently Dead White Guys

Vonnegut springs to mind immediately, you could have an entire class devoted to him (and should; I've only read about six or seven of his books but my god, what books!). Never dull, always engaging, and really challenging your perceptions (but not in quite the same shrill way as a contemporary, Gore Vidal).

David Foster Wallace, whose non-fiction I'm more familiar with (though I swear, I'll get around to Infinite Jest eventually).

Walker Percy is one of my personal favorites, I'm sure he's covered in Southern Lit classes but I think it's time to add him to the "essential reads" list.

Hunter S. Thompson and George Plimpton - whoa there, I can hear you saying, weren't those two journalists? Well, yes (though HST's flights of drug-induced fancy could be said to straddle the border between fiction and non-fiction), but they showed that "literature" needn't be confined to such distinctions. Plus, they're really fucking good at what they do (I'd throw in Tom Wolfe, except that he's very much alive, and responsible for some doorstop-length novels that, like his namesake from earlier in the twentieth century, I've personally found unreadable).

It pains me to include Kerouac, but if you're going to have Burroughs and Ginsberg (especially in a Beats-heavy course), you gotta have him and his On the Road. Read it when you're in your twenties, you'll love it. Thirties? Not so much.

Not-Dead White Guys

Now, the fun part for me is in leading with Jonathan Lethem, who is currently my "author that I bore people by telling them how good he is." But really, he's that good: The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn will be required reading for college courses in fifty years, assuming a massive asteroid hasn't destroyed us all.

Thomas Pynchon, since the death of J.D. Salinger, has become the "reclusive writer in residence" for American letters, and he's still churning out interesting, dynamic material. Like Vonnegut, I think a course could be devoted to him alone. I'd like to teach that course, come to think of it (though I still need to tackle Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, Vineland, and Slow Learner).

Charles Portis is a fucking master of the written word, I read True Grit in one sitting. Some of his other books aren't quite up to that level, but The Dog of the South is closest. Do yourself a favor and read either of those, now.

Jonathan Franzen I respect more than I like, I read The Corrections with some "professional jealousy" (back then I was still thinking about tackling the Great American Novel), but Freedom was quite beautiful. He's pretentious as hell and an asshole to boot, but you don't have to like your authors on a personal level in order to read their work.

Chuck Klosterman has written some fiction, yes, but I'm more interested in his non-fiction. Again, a guy primarily known for non-fiction should get in because he's that fucking good. In my imaginary canon, it's a tie between him and Greil Marcus in the "writing about music" wing, and if I had to choose one...sorry, Greil.

Michael Chabon is big in my book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is one of the books that restored my faith in fiction. A must-read, even if he doesn't make it in for covering comic books and music in his novels.

Those are the Dead White Guys (and Not-Dead White Guys) I came up with, they don't have to elbow out the Even Deader White Guys or any Non-White Guys already in the canon (though I think we can all agree that Lord of the Flies should be put out of its misery). I'm not in charge and I don't get to pick, but I do get to daydream when I should be working on actual grad-school stuff.