An Almanac a Day…

In these days when little news is good news (is it ever?), may I suggest spending time in the days of yore, or at least a curated version that highlights the best, brightest and perhaps bizarre-est of human activity in centuries past.

My mornings lately have been spent with a couple of literary almanacs that list events both weird and wonderful that happened on the day. If you were to pick up Tom Nissley’s A Reader’s Book of Days this week, you might discover that on October 10, 1939, George Orwell harvested five eggs from his hens and made two pounds of blackberry jelly. Or on that same day in 1986, J.D. Salinger sat through an hours-long deposition with his biographer, Ian Hamilton, and his lawyers, to haggle over the use of quotes from dozens of personal letters. Yes, the notable and notorious had their bad days, too.

Garrison Keillor. Photo by Eric Hageness

For a second dose of timely trivia, I turn to Garrison Keillor’s “A Writer’s Almanac,” which is still available online. The programs are old “reruns,” but each morning, I listen to five minutes of Keillor’s Midwestern baritone briefly describe the lives of writers who were born on this day. It’s followed by the reading of a sweet-tempered, contemporary poem. I understand that Keillor is not everyone’s cup of tea, but in these days, some small-town hokum—however romanticized—can be as soothing as some fresh buttermilk biscuits.

Inisherin and Tár

Looking for a potent pre-Oscar double header? I suggest Banshees of Inisherin and Tár.

Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in Banshees of Inisherin.

Worlds apart in many ways, they each brilliantly zero in on that timeless question: What is great art worth? In Banshees, Colm (Brendan Gleeson) decides that his musical calling is suffering from his social habits, which mainly consist of sitting in the local pub with his friend Pádraic (Colin Farrell). For Pádraic, hoisting a few daily pints with his friend is his life’s sole joy, so he resists, only to have Colm assert his artistic commitment with an astonishingly brutal threat (one which might be a bit counterproductive to his musical aspirations). Martin McDonagh’s dialogue is rich and punchy, showing his allegiance to playwrights like Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. And the film’s four acting nominations—Gleeson, Farrell, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan—are well-deserved.

Banshees’s main conflict becomes even more focused when set alongside Tár, Todd Field’s savvy portrait of the rise and fall (mostly fall) of a symphony conductor. When we first meet Lydia Tár, she’s at the top of the classical music world, preparing to record the final installment of her Mahler symphony cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic. The film follows her day-to-day life, offering hints that she’s not exactly a stellar human being. Tár has been vilified by many for focusing on a woman conductor (Marin Alsop, who bears many resemblances to the character, has condemned it), but for me (I know, a guy), it’s a thoughtful exploration of a particular tension between life and art. The history of classical music is filled with revered musicians who were less-than-stellar human beings, many of whom are mentioned in the film (Leonard Bernstein is Lydia Tár’s mentor and inspiration, and there is chit chat about similar figures: James Levine, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Herbert von Karajan). How do we balance the value of their great art against the real human damage they may have caused others? There are few positions of power in the world that are as unbridled and imperious as a classical conductor. Does that power corrupt absolutely, whether it’s in the hands of a man or a woman?

Whether its an ambitious conductor finishing a monumental symphony cycle or a rural Irish fiddle player seeking to compose a perfect song, how much are we willing to tolerate. How far does the idea of “creative license” go before we as a society demand that license to be revoked?

Poetry Unbound

Pádraig Ó Tuama. Photo by Trevor Brady.

David Wagoner’s “Lost,” a poem I shared last week, came to me via Pádraig Ó Tuama’s podcast, “Poetry Unbound.” Ó Tuama’s wonderful weekly reflections on a single poem is part of the indispensable “On Being Project,” an expanded collection of podcasts and online material that is back in full force after a hiatus. The expanded project, which promises “to help you become more fluent in your humanity,” includes “Poetry Unbound,” which offers a close, soulful look at a different poem every week. Ó Tuama is no dry academic. He reads the work in a gloriously melodic Irish brogue and offers deeply human insights about the language and ideas. It’s 15 minutes well spent. Here is his show that features “Lost.”

Time Marches On

Fragment from a portrait of Commodus. Hadrian᾽s villa, Cento Camerelle.

I’m reading Marguerite Yourcenar’s “novel,” The Memoirs of Hadrian about the life of the Roman emperor. If you want a taste of her beautiful perspective on history, check out this short essay about the meaning of ancient statues damaged by centuries of wear and tear. Here’s an excerpt:

These hard objects fashioned in imitation of the forms of organic life have, in their own way, undergone the equivalent of fatigue, age, and unhappiness. They have changed in the way time changes us. . . . To that beauty imposed by the human brain, by an epoch, or by a particular form of society, they add an involuntary beauty, associated with the hazards of history, which is the result of natural causes and of time. Statues so thoroughly shattered that out of the debris a new work of art is born: a naked foot unforgettably resting on a stone; a candid hand; a bent knee which contains all the speed of the footrace. . . . The entire [sculptor] is there . . . . What he intended affirms itself forever in the ruin of things.

Marguerite Yourcenar, “That Mighty Sculptor, Time.” 1983.

Time Marches On, Part 2

My basement, where my son lived and worked and played until he moved into his own apartment a few months ago, is now filled with boxes and paper grocery bags full of LP records. They are being liquidated, so to speak, along with hundreds of CDs, some of which are waiting to be “burned” so that I can listen to them on another device.

“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories,” wrote Walter Benjamin in his 1931 essay, “Unpacking My library.” He was reflecting on moving his collection of almost 2000 books into a small apartment after his divorce, and was writing about books that stayed with him for his entire life.

Books are books, irreplaceable in a sense. But recorded music has been technologically transformed over the decades. And so I no longer need to hold the beautiful LP cover for Chick Corea’s “Return to Forever” in my hands while I listen to “Spain.” But looking over those beautiful, glossy squares, I can’t help but wade a bit through my own chaos of memories.

Here are my college years (John Prine, Spyro Gyra, Joni Mitchell). There, my efforts at building a proper “jazz library,” relying on several “Best 100 of…” lists (John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong). Here, my years-long obsession with Bach’s keyboard music (Glenn Gould). There, my passion for Keith Jarrett.

There are signs of fruitful, satisfying times with music that nurtured my spirit (the ECM records of Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie). And testaments to well-intentioned folly (dozens of opera LPs from the discard sales at the UWM Library). There are reminders of old loves (Deep Purple, “Godspell,” Bob Marley); tough times (Lucinda Williams), transcendent memories (Stephen Sondheim).

The music remains, forever preserved and accessible in the digital cloud. But the records—transported over the years from dorm to apartment to home—are expendable. As they leave, they take a part of me with them.

“For a collector,” writes Benjamin,”—and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be—ownership is the most intimate relationships that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.”

As Mr. Keillor would say: “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

—Paul