From my notebook....Ear Worms

Scanning the channels for something I can actually listen to on the radio during the early morning drive to the airport. Metal is too noxious, news too chatty, and the station that passes for jazz just took the last train to the coast. Somewhere on the dial, during a brief airing, I hear church music. Bad organ music. Reminds me of the quasi-Mexican place in my college's town that piped in hymns into the dining room. Onward Christian soldiers, marching towards the taco bar.... I hit the scan button not eager to hear what other audible atrocities awaited.

90 minutes later, I'm on the plane, starting to dose as the flight attendant goes through the security speech. What exactly is a cross-check? Whatever, I'm glad that it is done and we can pull away from the gates. I doze uneasily during take-off. Somewhere in my brain an ear worm has planted itself. Damn it! Of all the songs to have running through my mind, Amazing Grace is definitely not what I want to be humming during flight. Nor, did I hope the pilot might be singing:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I'm found/was blind but now I see

Now, understand, I don't have anything against church music, per se. I belong to a denomination with a rich tradition of great church music. I think back to when I was 20, studying in London: I would drag my then-agnostic self occasionally to Westminster Abbey to hear evensong. I didn't care about the words spoken in prayer. I didn't listen to them. I didn't realize, at least not on any sort of surface level of consciousness, that the music was sung prayer. I only cared about how the music rose to the vaulted ceiling, bouncing off of the damp stones; how it seemed as if the notes blended with the filtered sunlight streaming in the narrow windows to transport one's spirit to some sort of ethereal place. More than once I thought how it'd be cool to do yoga in the middle of the Abbey, or maybe in the cloisters, while listening to the chanting and singing inside. I would have laughed if anyone had told me that 20 years later I'd make an effort to go to evensong when I could, in places far different acoustically and culturally than Westminster.

But there are some hymns that I can't stand. I don't like the melody; I don't like the words; I don't like the pithy, saccharine distillations of faith. And Amazing Grace, with all of its well-intentioned meaning and historical reference, is one of them.

And it was going through my mind unceasingly. On a plane. At 6:30 in the morning. Bleeechhhh!

At dinner that evening, I joked with Catherine about the annoying ear worm. If anyone could give me another song to displace the current loop, it would be her. Most Annoying Songs or Show Tunes is her category. She did not disappoint.

Crackling Rosie you're a store-bought woman. You make me feel like a gee-tar hummin. Come on now girl, our song keeps running on. Play it now. Play it now my baby....

I asked for this? Neil Diamond in an endless loop is worse than Amazing Grace. I've always distinguished myself from other baby boomers a few years older than me by their like/dislike of Mr. Diamond. Few, I'd say, under 50 would count him as a favorite. Only a few years younger than those boomers, my age-mates in school detested him. Two, three years older and one could claim to really remember the Kennedy assassination -- and attending a Neil Diamond concert was on the calendar every August at the State Fair. I hadn't thought of a Neil Diamond song in a decade. That night, those few bars replayed at least 10 years worth of music in my head. Still, it did displace the lamenting church song.

Throughout the next day, I cursed Catherine for making me think of this song. I would be concentrating at work; it would crawl in. I would be looking out my office window at the sail boats on the river; it would wiggle in to share my thoughts. I'd hear someone's obnoxious ringtone, and my brain would transcribe the guitar chords into a MIDI file. Arghhhh!!!

That evening, returning uptown, I thought it was almost gone. The steady rhythmic sounds of the subway washed away all of my thoughts of the day. Work worries, what to have for dinner, silly pop tunes: all were gone.

I smiled as I switched trains at 42nd St. I had read something a few days earlier about observing where you walk. I paid writerly attention to my quick journey up the stairs and through the corridors. I made note of the people I passed -- what they were wearing, how they looked, snippets of conversation. I paid attention to the smells and how the squalid air in the stairwell felt as the train pulled away. So many images: there would be much to write about in my notebook that evening. I was surprised when I got to the wide open mezzanine area that there weren't musicians playing, just police officers with fierce-looking, but muzzled Alsatians.

I headed down the stairs to the 1. As I walked down the platform, I heard the lonesome sounds of a saxophone. An old Korean man, seated on a milk crate, was playing slowly. As I neared, I realized, too late, what he was playing.

Amazing Grace continued in endless loop in my brain for another three days until I boarded a plane to come home.

Baby Don't It Feel Like Heaven Right Now?

While watching Peter Bogdanovich's Running Down a Dream about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers the first time I think, 'Where on earth was I all those years and how could it be that I didn't realize what a great band they were?'. But, then after watching this four hour(!) documentary about the Heartbreakers' 30 years in Rock and Roll, I realized that I knew nearly every song featured in the film, could identify in what phase of my life I was, where I lived, how I made a living, who my friends were. Not once did I think 'oh yeah, I remember that song'. I didn't have to recall the songs; I knew them. Maybe they weren't a soundtrack to many years of my life, but they certainly were there in the background.

Running Down a Dream played one time in several theatres in mid-October. It played where I lived, but I didn't know about it. I probably wouldn't have thought much about it and would have questioned who in their right mind except a fanatic would sit through a four hour documentary about a rock band? I never would have gone to see it.

But the other night we were flipping channels and found this film starting on The Sundance Channel. We intended to watch it for only a few minutes. Who would have thought four hours later we were still there at the closing credits. The pacing of this film is such that you don't notice that four hours have slipped away.

The film has plenty of concert footage, and tells the story of the band from when the struggled, through legal battles with record companies, and band changes. It highlights Petty's solo career -- which was never separated much from The Heartbreakers -- and his collaborations with other music greats like the always cool George Harrison, the magnificent Roy Orbison, the iconic Bob Dylan and the one and only Man in Black Johnny Cash. It also is about how the songs were written and what the band was striving to create. If you are a big Tom Petty fan, this might feel like heaven. But, this is not a movie just for Petty fans; it is a film for anyone interested in music, songwriting and artistry.

I hardly ever watch a movie twice, and usually repeat viewings are separated by months or years. This afternoon was the third time this week I've watched all or part of this film. It is that good. This afternoon's viewing is the last that I know is scheduled at this time, but the DVD is for sale at Best Buys. It's worth seeing. At the time I'm posting this, it's not too late to catch the last hour of this terrific film.

Oh baby don't it feel like heaven right now
Don't it feel like somethin from a dream
Yeah I've never known nothing quite like this
Don't it feel like tonight might never be again
We know better than to try and pretend
Baby no one could have ever told me 'bout this
~The Waiting Tom Petty

Edit: Here is a link to an interview with Bogdanovich (with IFC.com) on the making of this movie. I find it interesting that he didn't know much about Petty and was not a fan when he agreed to make the movie.

"Only A Dog Could Sing Such Notes": High Tech, High Def Opera

"Only a dog could sing such notes, they are so high." That is what Beverly Sills commented regarding the "mad scene" in Bellini's I Puritani, currently at the Metropolitan Opera, during last Saturday's "Live in High Definition" broadcast from The Met stage.

The notes were high and beautiful soprano Anna Netrebko sang wonderfully. How Netrebko can sing such notes -- any notes -- while lying on the floor, her head hanging over the orchestra pit, is amazing. In the middle of 30 minutes of all-out singing! If you have the opportunity to see I Puritani while Netrebko is singing the lead at the Met, don't miss it. Eric Cutler, Franco Vassallo, and John Relyea were very good too -- but Netrebko was amazing! I now understand why some people rave over Bel Canto opera. Truly Beautiful Singing.

I wasn't familiar with I Puritani, and frankly, the subject of the opera -- good grief the English Civil War? How interesting could that be? -- didn't interest me at all when I first read about it. But, the fact that the Met was broadcasting live to theatres around the globe: that fascinated me. What a great idea - bring great quality opera to people not in the NYC area via live high-def feeds. The Met will be broadcasting a few other operas in the next several weeks. If you've never gone to the opera, here is a chance to experience it without the cost, potentially the travel since opera isn't available in many places, and you can do something that you'd never do in an opera house: Eat popcorn!

Eating popcorn during intermission was okay, but I did feel a little weird when the singing started. In an opera house or a concert hall, you don't want to rustle a cough drop wrapper less you make a slight sound, much less chew noisily on popcorn! The ridiculously sized 'small' bag went immediately under the seat. It's been a long time since I went to a movie in a mainstream movie theatre (usually it's an art house/indie type film that I enjoy), but when did a small soda become 32 ounces?

A few thoughts struck me when watching the opera:

- I'd never see, even with theatre glasses, such close-ups of the singers. I was amazed that they weren't sweating more under the lights.

- I realized how much of an art film direction can be. I had no complaints about the camera shots, but I realized how I might do it differently if I were choosing. I found my self thinking a few times: move the camera to the other singer! Had I been in the house, I could have chosen where to focus my attention. That freedom is eliminated with the broadcast. It made me realize how I take the camera's role in film for granted; it really does complement the narrative and action but the viewer often doesn't notice how the camera manipulates what you are seeing.

- The interviews were an interesting feature, although I'm not sure that they knew who the audience would be. Some of the commentary was very good, but people in the audience laughed at some of it. Probably fair to say that many of the people were aficionados and the commentary tended to aim for the novice. Still, seeing the activity backstage between acts was interesting. Definitely not something most would have the opportunity to see in the theatre.

- In opera, the voice is the chief element. Many opera singers are not known for their acting abilities. Sills, in the pre-show talk (makes it sound like a football pre-game show, doesn't it?), talked about how in some operas, one should just move to center stage and sing. While it wasn't the case with this opera -- all of the principal parts seemed to have a reasonable stage presence -- I could see how some singers would be just awful to watch up close.

- In the theatre where we saw the broadcast, it was difficult to read the subtitles because of the seating arrangements. But, I was reminded of the time I saw Rigoletto in Paris. With no supratitles as is common in opera houses in the States, and with the libretto in French, I could only listen to the opera. Reading the synopsis before each act was a help, but I soon realized that I should just let the music wash over me: the emotion in the voice, accompanied by the orchestra sets the feeling and one shouldn't rely on the English titles to follow along. In some ways, it reminds me of a poetry reading where the work read is new. It isn't always possible for the reader to get every line, every allusion, but it doesn't distract from the overall experience. Listening to the opera is a similar experience.

Info on other Live from the Met High-Definition broadcasts can be found here. Consider going to one of them.