Sum-Sum-Summertime
The warm weather has finally arrived in Wisconsin, even along the shores of Cooler-by-the-Lake-Michigan. So this week’s Friday Five is not going to recommend diving into that Thomas Pynchon novel that’s been nagging you from your nightstand. Here’s some suggestions for winding down after a morning on the golf course, an afternoon washing the car, or an evening under the stars.
Haydn Seek
Looking for just the right soundtrack for a sun-drenched afternoon? Music that doesn’t thump-thump you into the latest dance move, but politely offers you the option of tapping your toes— if you’re so inclined. A song that might soothe you into that half-adoze, afternoon-nap state-of-mind, but then can sparkle you awake when the lawn-chair webbing starts to dig in to the back of your thighs.
Jean-Efflam says, “25 down, 47 to go!”
Well, I’d like you to meet my friend, Franz Joseph Haydn, profligate master of the piano sonata. Unlike that hothead Ludwig van Beethoven, FJ didn’t think of his sonatas as grand interrogations of the mysteries of the universe. He wrote over 60 of them, after all. Some are quite substantial, but most of them are elegant and modest little constructions: Write a melody, fool around with it, turn it upside down and sideways. Maybe mix it up with another melody and have the notes goof around together. Play it in this key, then that key, then come back to the original melody in the original key. Well….there’s the first movement. Find a melody that goes well with the first one and fool around with that. There’s a second movement. Only 180 or so movements to go!
Fortunately, the French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet recently finished recording all of Haydn’s piano sonatas (with a few Theme and Variations and Fantasias and thrown in for kicks). It took him about 13 years to do it, and it will take you over 14 hours to listen to it (if you’re so inclined). They are charming and technically dazzling. They mix well with the sounds of windblown trees or Lake Michigan waves. Mash them all into one giant playlist, grab a portable speaker and head to the beach. Even that Coppertoned crowd a few towels away might turn down their Duo Lipa and lend Frankie Joe an ear.
The Diplomat
Rufus Sewell and Keri Russell in The Diplomat
Seeking a cool, fizzy nightcap after a day in the sun? Debora Cahn’s Netflix series is just waiting for you to shake briskly and pour. Yes, it’s about an international crisis in which the words “tactical nuclear strike” get tossed around. But as they say on TV, it’s all in good fun. The story is full of trans-Atlantic intrigue: Britain and the U.S. negotiate their response to an attack on a British aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. The treading is light because it may have been orchestrated by Russia. That’s the backdrop against which the new U.S. Ambassador to Britain, no-nonsense Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) moves into her new job. Along with the Gulf mess, Wyler must deal with her collapsing marriage to former diplomat husband (Rufus Sewell), and resist (or not) pressure from Washington insiders to run for Vice President. Showrunner Cahn has cut her teeth (and won awards) as a writer for The West Wing, and The Diplomat shares that show’s snappy repartee and ricocheting moods. Russell and Sewell have a blast with the push-pulls of their on-again, off-again marriage. And the supporting cast—particularly Rory Kinnear as the blustery, but unpredictable, British Prime Minister—is jolly good.
Springsteen, “I Wish It Would Rain”
Bruce’s latest album is a soulful tribute to R & B classics—some well-known and others waiting to be rediscovered. And he tackles them with all the studio dressing they deserve: killer horn section, oooh-y backing singers and a crack rhythm foundation. His 73-year-old vocal chords give him a powerful gravitas, appropriate to these sad, sad, stories about loves lost. On The Temptations’s classic, “I Wish It Would Rain,” Springsteen starts with easy humming over a gentle piano riff, but then erupts into raspy, stone-cold sorrow. The Boss can’t replace the quintet’s matchless original, featuring the great David Ruffin. But here’s a great playlist idea: pair Bruce’s versions with their originals for your very own bonanza for the bereft.
The Lonely Palette
Tamar Avishai of The Lonely Palette.
After a six-month hiatus, this lovely and illuminating podcast has returned and I am so happy about it. Tamar Avishai is an adjunct lecturer at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. In 2016 she started turning her gallery talks into a podcast that offers a deep dive into a single work in the MFA collection. Sixty-some episode later (including a few detours to other museum collections), she is still offering lucid, personal and enlightening takes on this ever expanding virtual museum—everything from a 12th-century Bodhisattva statue to a Yoko Ono performance piece.
You might ask, “Can Avishai really help me see a piece of art in new ways? Without the thing sitting in front of me?” You bet she can. There is drama in her descriptions. Poetry, even. Stop by the website before you listen and have a glance at the work in question. Then plug in and take a walk or a drive. You’ll be delightedly surprised. Avashai is a great storyteller and finds just the right keys to crack open a piece that might otherwise remain in that esoteric realm of ART.
Judd and Mel
Apatow and Brooks
Judd Apatow is a funny guy. He’s also a very curious guy, particularly about being funny. When he was in high school, he hosted a show on his school radio station and called up famous funny people and asked them about being funny. Apatow went on to become very funny himself, writing and directing movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up.
But he kept talking to these funny people, eventually collecting his conversations in—to date—two books. And recently, he talked again to one of the funniest of these funny people, Mel Brooks. Their conversation can be found in the July/August issue of The Atlantic, where they talk about many things, some funny and some not: Brooks’s time diffusing mines during World War II, his struggling early years doing standup in the Catskills, his friendship with Carl Reiner. And, of course, his movies.
Late in the interview, Apatow asks him, “What was the arc of your acquiring wisdom, the big lessons you had to learn along the way?” Brooks had an enlightening answer:
“You just can’t spout at the mouth. There is a thing called manners, which is very hard to understand why they invented this thing that held you back. It held me back. You can’t live a real life if you’re just a bunch of firecrackers going off. You got to play ball with the universe. So I settled down.”
So settle down…..And have a great week.