I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— an exhibition entitled Layered Abstraction: Margo Allman & Helen Mason will be at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington through January 17th.
GOOD LUCK to the reform candidate Maia Sandu in this Sunday’s presidential runoff election in the eastern European nation of Moldova— a former Soviet satellite — where she may prevail over the Putin-friendly incumbent by garnering the votes of those who have emigrated in the wake of rampant corruption.
THURSDAY's CHILD is the late Marty the Cat— who had ruled-the-roost at the Mt. Washington Observatory here in New Hampshire for a dozen years. He had been named after a local icon, Channel 8 TV weather reporter Marty Engstrom, who worked at the summit from 1964-2002 and now lives in Fryeburg, Maine.
SIX NATIONS in the Balkans (Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Albania) are seeking to create their own common regional market— with the hope that gaining future entry into the EU will be eased by (1) already having adopted the EU’s standards and (2) created a unified market of 18m people (rather than six small ones) that can be added as a bloc.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this essay in Foreign Affairs with the self-explantory America’s Treacherous Transition: How Trump’s Recalcitrance Threatens U.S. National Security.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Panda the Cat— a Washington state kitteh who wandered into a vehicle’s shipping container and wound up a week later 2,500 miles away in Kenai, Alaska …. yet fared well and was flown home for free.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz (w/o common questions).
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this lengthy essay by the Irish journalist Fintan O’Toole — who famously wrote last spring that “The world has loved, hated and envied the US. Now, for the first time, we pity it” — this week, writing a lengthy essay on the election and what he sees as key for the future.
SEPARATED at BIRTH— Fox host (and Bill-O’s former stalker) Jesse Watters and TV star Josh Radnor (“How I Met your Mother”).
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… two mini-profiles for this week: the first of which as a request from a Top Comments colleague of mine, as to the songwriter Tandyn Almer. Quickly, I realized why: as there is a lack of information about much of his life.
Born in Minneapolis in 1942, he moved to Chicago in hopes of becoming a jazz pianist. After hearing the music of Bob Dylan in the early 60’s, he moved to Los Angeles, where again his story is cloudy.
He eventually tries his hand at songwriting and in 1965 found a willing ear in the form of “sunshine pop” producer Curt Boettcher. Almer wrote a song that (for a demo) Boettcher hired guitarist Jules Alexander (of The Association) to play on. Alexander asked if he could bring it to the attention of his band mates.
The hit single that resulted (which will be featured later) coulda/shoulda made Almer a star, in the eyes of the All-Music Guide’s Jason Ankeny … yet he never quite caught-on, despite several psychedelic pop compositions recorded.
In the early 1970’s he became one of the few people in this period to earn the trust of Beach Boy musician Brian Wilson during some difficult times for him. Almer was part of the songwriting team (including Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks and others) that composed Sail On, Sailor for the Beach Boys in 1973.
Almer and Wilson had a falling-out (over alleged charges of theft and an affair with Wilson’s wife) and he eventually moved to Washington, D.C. And from there … his life again became obscure, with bipolar disorder eventually taking over his life (though he continued to write songs).
Tandyn Almer died in January, 2013 at the age of seventy. Later that year, a compilation of his early demo songs was released entitled Along Comes Tandyn.
And here is that song that The Association brought to #7 in 1966, Along Comes Mary— and there is a cottage industry as to whether it refers to marijuana, or Wolfram von Eschenbach's medieval poem Parzival, or merely about Almer’s moody disillusionment (save for one woman). Either way, after its release none less than Leonard Bernstein— in one of his Young People’s Concerts— described the song as being of a Dorian mode. Judge for yourself.
Every time I think that I'm the only one who's lonely Someone calls on me And every now and then I spend my time in rhyme and verse And curse those faults in meAnd then along comes Mary And does she want to give me kicks, and be my steady chick And give me pick of memories Or maybe rather gather tales of all the fails and tribulations No one ever sees
When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks Whose sickness is the games they play And when the masquerade is played and neighbor folks make jokes As who is most to blame today
And then along comes Mary And does she want to set them free, and let them see reality From where she got her name And will they struggle much when told that such a tender touch as hers Will make them not the same
And when the morning of the warning's passed, the gassed And flaccid kids are flung across the stars The psychodramas and the traumas gone The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars
And then along comes Mary And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains She left the night before Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them Realize their urgent cry for sight no more
==============================================================
Speaking of which, along comes Mary …. Halvorson, a guitarist I had little knowledge of despite her hiding-in-plain-sight. Nine years ago I wrote a Top Comments essay on the growing legions of female blues guitarists and — just a year later — an essay on the dearth of female jazz guitarists, with many stories of how the sexism tends to make it a male-centric scene. Mary is a great find!
The Boston native Mary Halvorson had a rock background (upon discovering Jimi Hendrix) and has kept it as a part of her playing ever since. As a student at Wesleyan University, she came under the instructional tutelage of the free jazz multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton— if you were a doctrinaire performer beforehand ... you wouldn’t stay that way with him. Later, he utilized her in some of his ensembles outside of the classroom (possibly why she flew under radar).
Over time, she developed a correspondence with the English musician Robert Wyatt— the drummer for the art-rock band Soft Machine, who fell from a window in 1973 and (now wheelchair-bound) began a solo career as a singer-songwriter. Although officially “retiring” in 2014, he has agreed to some guest performances.
Along the way, although her music is primarily instrumental: she has written free verse poetry to serve as lyrics (using other singers). After several album releases, in 2018 she formed her own band Code Girl — and their self-titled release won her a MacArthur Genius grant in 2019 (just short of age forty).
This year, her band released the disc Artlessly Falling— and one of the songs (Last-Minute Smears) used parts of Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony (Reap the whirlwind ... last-minute smears ... this is a circus ... I have been a good judge).
On three tunes she wanted a male singer, and asking Wyatt received the reply: “Yeah, I’d love to”. His voice shows all of his seventy-five years … yet still ...
And from that album, the song Bigger Flames— sung by Robert Wyatt — is one that Mary Halvorson readily admits is about both climate change as well as you-know-who … yet adds that she avoids lyrics that are “super explicit”, since “I like that people can take different meanings from it”.
Orange head secretes a lie above you Sentencing the lacquered sky above you Reflected in your stretched out hand in hand Trees-to-logs cartwheel and die above youFluster of sailboats chop half-speed upon Rose leather ocean, fake dry, above you A coy curtsying earthquake kneels the ground Yo-yo-ing trees liquefy above you
Well, now it's your house: set neatly on fire Its blistering heart bloats high above you Atrophied crucibles, charrеd Russian dolls A necklace of flames comply abovе you