Yesterday evening, Ken Jennings became the first person to win $1 million on "Jeopardy!" More impressive, in my opinion, has been his winning streak of 30 consecutive games. In the old days - before this year - "Jeopardy!" contestants who won five days in a row were rare. So rare that five-day champions were feted and given an early retirement.
I'm not a big Jeopardy! watcher. So I was surprised when I happened to catch the show, and hear Alex Trabek announce that the pleasant-faced blond-haired fellow who overwhelmed his competitors had won his 23rd game. That's when I learned the new rules, probably a response to the high-stakes gameplay on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" But Jeopardy's new format makes for superior entertainment, because an outstanding contestant will potentially appear over and over (and over and over) on the television screens and by golly, he or she is just like the audience at home.
But Ken is not just like anyone. I know this from watching the 23rd episode. I know this from hearing excerpts on KROQ's usually inane "Kevin and Bean" show. In their rock-jock stupidity, they suggested half-seriously the game was rigged. But the very fact that two idiots were talking about Jeopardy! suggests that many other people are talking about the record.
Ken's not just like anyone. But he does resemble a number of people I know. In fact, he looked vaguely familiar to me. Turns out, he played quiz bowl in college around the same time I did. Now he helps run National Academic Quiz Tournaments, or NAQT, a main engine of the collegiate quiz bowl circuit. I played in the first NAQT National Tournament in 1997, for Berkeley. Upon returning to school at Oregon, I led that team to its first Nationals berth in 2001. Ken played quiz bowl between those years, which is why I remember him vaguely.
After a bit of research, I found that Ken and his Brigham Young University team played at the first Caltech summer tournament, nicknamed Quesadilla. Ken finished 5th in the singles tournament, but the record shows he lost only to Peter Freeman and Jesse Molesworth, an astrophysicist and a English literature grad student, respectively. (Summer tournaments allow participants to be "alumni", which I was in 1999.) Ken also finished behind 4th place Dave Farris, the wizard from Edison High/Harvard/Berkeley, and my good friend, Michael Bennett, now a grad student at Chicago. Michael, if you're reading this, here's an idea to pay your way through grad school... Incidentally, 6th place finisher Pat Friel (UCLA) was the minor celebrity then, having been on Jeopardy! in 1997 and winning twice. He lost to Berkeley professor (and eventual five-day champion) Art Malia. Yes, I watched a bit more back then.
I didn't play in the singles portion of the tourney. Instead, I was driving myself and Rob Hentzel from the Bay Area that afternoon. Rob, Peter, and I won the team competition. Incidentally, individual-champion Peter was the 3rd scorer on our three-man team. Rob averaged about 8 questions, I averaged about 4, and Peter about 2.5. The overlap in knowledge between Rob and Peter skewed the team results. Still, if I was better than Peter, and Peter beat Ken... Well, that was five years ago. Mr. Jennings definitely appears a stronger player now. Yet looking back at this seemingly insignificant Saturday in my life, five years ago, definitely inspires me to try out for Jeopardy, as many friends have urged me.
But you don't have to be a nerd to be inspired. I think it's great a young person is rewarded with fame and fortune because of his knowledge, rather than his or her ability to drink snake blood or cast someone off the island. And if it takes a nice Mormon computer programmer to show America that, more power to him, and bully for us.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch some TV.
The Original Scone Blog (plus some food for thought)
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Friday, July 09, 2004
"Lately, it's occurred to me..."
About ten years ago, Jennine told me her writing instructor suggested that improving one's writing involved doing it every day. It was something the instructor heard from Alice Walker. Or was in Ray Bradbury?
I was reminded of this advice when I saw Amy Tan at Cal Day a few years later. She also stressed the importance of writing daily, and first thing in the morning (though according to Oscar Hijuelos, she added, one should make an exception for conjugal purposes).
Concurring is Tan's bandmate in the Rock Bottom Remainders, Stephen King. After I read On Writing, a Christmas gift from Katy, I restarted my old journal and wrote every day. For about two weeks. That was three or four years ago.
Day is the key word. I'm finding that 1:00 AM is often NOT the best time to write. Fatigued and cluttered mind aside, one's best writing conveys a sense of joy, passion, precision. Extra stuff. When I write, sometimes something will happen - a turn of phrase, perfectly placed - that never could be otherwise planned.
During the day, I am more likely to ponder aloud the thoughts swirling in my head: my 5K training regimen, the last settlement I mediated, a missing recipe for gazpacho, the current New Yorker with David Remnick's article on the prospect of Islamist politics in Egypt and Tad Friend's report on turning SF's Lusty Lady into a worker's utopia, the disappointing portrayal of native Hawaiians in entertainment media, and my thoughts on the omission of Adrian Beltre from the National League All-Star team.
I wish I could say something pithy tonight. Hmm, guess I just did.
I was reminded of this advice when I saw Amy Tan at Cal Day a few years later. She also stressed the importance of writing daily, and first thing in the morning (though according to Oscar Hijuelos, she added, one should make an exception for conjugal purposes).
Concurring is Tan's bandmate in the Rock Bottom Remainders, Stephen King. After I read On Writing, a Christmas gift from Katy, I restarted my old journal and wrote every day. For about two weeks. That was three or four years ago.
Day is the key word. I'm finding that 1:00 AM is often NOT the best time to write. Fatigued and cluttered mind aside, one's best writing conveys a sense of joy, passion, precision. Extra stuff. When I write, sometimes something will happen - a turn of phrase, perfectly placed - that never could be otherwise planned.
During the day, I am more likely to ponder aloud the thoughts swirling in my head: my 5K training regimen, the last settlement I mediated, a missing recipe for gazpacho, the current New Yorker with David Remnick's article on the prospect of Islamist politics in Egypt and Tad Friend's report on turning SF's Lusty Lady into a worker's utopia, the disappointing portrayal of native Hawaiians in entertainment media, and my thoughts on the omission of Adrian Beltre from the National League All-Star team.
I wish I could say something pithy tonight. Hmm, guess I just did.
Thursday, July 08, 2004
in a democracy, there are means which no ends can justify
In the process of unifying China over 2200 years ago, its first emperor Qin Shi Huang Di attempted to crushed all dissent and debate. The great Chinese historian Sima Qian records the Qin Emperor's chief adviser, Li Si, saying thus:
Ah, the good old days. While Li Si's doctrine may be abhorrent to modern minds, his rhetoric is clear and uncomplicated. That's because in the ancient world, the idea of absolute rule was accepted and desired. That emperors could have banned the different schools of philosophy is not questioned, only its desirability.
Of course, since the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the individual has displaced the ruler at the center of government. Governing required consent of the governed, and hence, appeals to the interests of the governed. So political philosophers and the rulers who employed their ideas (and sometimes them) have had to invent schemes to increase their power using the language of individual liberty and political equality. So they invented doublespeak.
Starting almost three years ago, however, many Americans have been made to feel such fear that they "freely" expressed a desire to give up some individual rights. In this timorous climate, certain members of our government dropped their coded language and began to speak frankly about the desirability of certain speech. They would spout atavisms like:
And later, they objected when anyone questioned their authority to denigrate those who questioned anything at all:
The first quote is from John Ashcroft, and the second comes from his spokesperson, Mindy Tucker. The second in some ways scares me more than the first, because through his mouthpiece Ashcroft moved beyond targeting certain criticisms of the war on terror, to denigrating anyone who questioned him.
The quotes, which I've cut and are analyzed in full here, are from December 2001. But the same people still run the Department of Justice, and their views have not changed. In fact, those views have not changed in over 2000 years.
"Now the August Emperor has unified all under heaven, distinguishing black from white and establishing a single source of authority. Yet these adherents of private theories band together to criticize the laws and directives. Hearing that an order has been handed down, each one proceeds to discuss it in the light of his theories. At court they disapprove in their hearts; outside they debate it in the streets. They hold it a mark of fame to defy the ruler, regard it as lofty to take a dissenting stance, and they lead the lesser officials in fabricating slander. If behavior such as this is not prohibited, then in upper circles the authority of the ruler will be compromised, and in lower ones cliques will form. Therefore it should be prohibited.
"I therefore request that all records of the historians other than those of the state of Qin be burned. With the exception of the academicians whose duty it is to possess them, if there are persons anywhere in the empire who have in their possession copies of the Odes, the Documents, or the writings of the hundred schools of philosophy, they shall in all cases deliver them to the governor or his commandant for burning. Anyone who ventures to discuss the Odes or Documents shall be executed in the marketplace. Anyone who uses antiquity to criticize the present shall be executed along with his family. Any official who observes or knows of violations and fails to report them shall be equally guilty. Anyone who has failed to burn such books within thirty days of the promulgation of this order shall be subjected to tattoo and condemned to 'wall dawn' [convict] labor. The books that are to be exempted are those on medicine, divination, agriculture, and forestry. Anyone wishing to study the laws and ordinances should have a law official for his teacher." An imperial decree granted approval of the proposal.
Ah, the good old days. While Li Si's doctrine may be abhorrent to modern minds, his rhetoric is clear and uncomplicated. That's because in the ancient world, the idea of absolute rule was accepted and desired. That emperors could have banned the different schools of philosophy is not questioned, only its desirability.
Of course, since the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the individual has displaced the ruler at the center of government. Governing required consent of the governed, and hence, appeals to the interests of the governed. So political philosophers and the rulers who employed their ideas (and sometimes them) have had to invent schemes to increase their power using the language of individual liberty and political equality. So they invented doublespeak.
Starting almost three years ago, however, many Americans have been made to feel such fear that they "freely" expressed a desire to give up some individual rights. In this timorous climate, certain members of our government dropped their coded language and began to speak frankly about the desirability of certain speech. They would spout atavisms like:
to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists - for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends.
And later, they objected when anyone questioned their authority to denigrate those who questioned anything at all:
Anyone who reported this morning that he criticized anyone who opposed him was absolutely wrong and in doing so became a part of the exact problem he was describing.
The first quote is from John Ashcroft, and the second comes from his spokesperson, Mindy Tucker. The second in some ways scares me more than the first, because through his mouthpiece Ashcroft moved beyond targeting certain criticisms of the war on terror, to denigrating anyone who questioned him.
The quotes, which I've cut and are analyzed in full here, are from December 2001. But the same people still run the Department of Justice, and their views have not changed. In fact, those views have not changed in over 2000 years.
Sunday, July 04, 2004
taking the fourth
Tonight, I took my parents to see the fireworks from the panoramic outlook just north of Dana Point Harbor. It's too bad Vicky couldn't be here - she heard about a place along the south county coast where a 360-degree view was possible. I found such a lookout point on my San Clemente ride. Just a bald clearing, flanked by the ocean on the southwest and PCH on the northeast. And walking a few yards to the south, you'll overlook the harbor and the marina. Perhaps you'll see a replica of the Pilgrim, which carried Richard Henry Dana as a seamen on a hide-gathering voyage from Boston to what was then Alta California.
That was then. This is now. But "then" reminds us that not all the land was America at once, nor all Americans. But this - who and what we are now, and have come to be - is what counts only. In first or second grade, I learned the words to "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" and every time the words "land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride!" I shuddered a little. They were serious words. But my ancestors did not die here, and they definitely weren't Pilgrims. We only sang one verse. I never learned those lines in the third, "Let mortal tongues awake, let all that breathe partake."
For all my political passion and cultural angst, I do believe America is different from every other place that came before. There is no literal "American race" or "American language". Here, citizenship confers nationality, not the other way around. The poet Shirley Geok-Lin Lim wrote that "If you come to a land with no ancestors/to bless you, you have to be your own/ancestor." That instruction confronted my parents even more than it affected me. Sometimes I forget the distances they travelled, and chasms they leaped, in so many ways, to have American children. And the person who has American children, they're Americans too.
Here's a poem by Ms. Lim which I really like.
That was then. This is now. But "then" reminds us that not all the land was America at once, nor all Americans. But this - who and what we are now, and have come to be - is what counts only. In first or second grade, I learned the words to "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" and every time the words "land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride!" I shuddered a little. They were serious words. But my ancestors did not die here, and they definitely weren't Pilgrims. We only sang one verse. I never learned those lines in the third, "Let mortal tongues awake, let all that breathe partake."
For all my political passion and cultural angst, I do believe America is different from every other place that came before. There is no literal "American race" or "American language". Here, citizenship confers nationality, not the other way around. The poet Shirley Geok-Lin Lim wrote that "If you come to a land with no ancestors/to bless you, you have to be your own/ancestor." That instruction confronted my parents even more than it affected me. Sometimes I forget the distances they travelled, and chasms they leaped, in so many ways, to have American children. And the person who has American children, they're Americans too.
Here's a poem by Ms. Lim which I really like.
Learning to Love America
because it has no pure products
because the Pacific Ocean sweeps along the coastline
because the water of the ocean is cold
and because land is better than ocean
because I saw we rather than they
because I live in California
I have eaten fresh artichokes
and jacarandas bloom in April and May
because my senses have caught up with my body
my breath with the air it swallows
my hunger with my mouth
because I walk barefoot in my house
because I have nursed my son at my breast
because he is a strong American boy
because I have seen his eyes redden when he is asked who he is
because he answers I don't know
because to have a son is to have a country
because my son will bury me here
because countries are in our blood and we bleed them
because it is late and too late to change my mind
because it is time.
Saturday, July 03, 2004
the far side of the world
My sister arrived in Australia yesterday. She will be studying biology at the University of Tasmania for a semester. Vicky called us on her first morning in Hobart, which has made a pleasant first impression. Apparently, it's a bit like Sausalito: a laidback, resort town. She went grocery shopping at Salamanca Market, a bustling public market which reminded her of Pike Place in Seattle. She had not seen the university yet. We got an email from her today, sent out to all her friends. I'll take the liberty of sharing a part with you.
I'm sure she'll soon write more about her Tasmanian adventures in her fabulous journal. A moment's glance through it makes me realize that she's become her own adult person. My parents and I are thrilled for her. No, Vicky, it does not suck to be you...
Hobart, Tasmania is very nice. It looks like a new england town that
people visit on holiday-- a little too quaint for my lifestyle but small
enough that I can walk around. It is at the foot of Mt Wellington,
which doesnt seem that high, but right now it is snowcapped. Hobart is a
30 min drive to the top, and also a 20 minute drive to the bay, which i
think is pretty cool. It's wintertime here, which is comparable to so
Cal's winter, about 9 degrees Celsius, but way more sunlight. Damn
hole in the ozone layer. It is also windier so you'd have to wear 3
layers instead of 2. and gloves. and a hat.
The people have been pretty friendly so far, but I havent met my
flatmates yet, or any other students. my room has a nice view of the river
and the city, and I will post pictures on my geocities or livejournal
when i have the means.
(to her housemate): i wish i had gone to see a rugby match with you
because the aussies are really into "footy" which i gather is sort of like
american football and soccer and rugby.
...I am glad i got to hang out with most of you before i left. it was
good times and I miss you already. for those i whom i did not see, well,
it sucks to be me.
lost in translation:
give way = yield (traffic sign)
rubbish = trash
toilet= restroom
chemist = pharmacy
take away= takeout
no worries= no problem = ain't no thang
hope to hear from you!
vix
I'm sure she'll soon write more about her Tasmanian adventures in her fabulous journal. A moment's glance through it makes me realize that she's become her own adult person. My parents and I are thrilled for her. No, Vicky, it does not suck to be you...
Friday, July 02, 2004
Open House
I would like to welcome everyone to my new weblog. You may notice a link to February 2004, when I wrote my first entry, but today is the first time I am promoting it. Besides, if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears, does it really make a sound? Or as NBC executives cynically advertise their reruns, "It's new to you!"
Why the long wait? I wanted to make sure that I was inviting my friends and interested strangers to something worth their while. To meet that threshold, I needed to find subjects and ideas that were worth my while to write about them consistently. At the same time, I hoped to develop a way of approaching serious issues and significant moments without letting myself become too heavy, dull, or both.
My favorite novelist, Italo Calvino, dealt with a similar problem as a young writer:
He goes on in his essay "Lightness" to champion writing with a light touch, with agility, to countenance the weight of the world. That's my rough summary. You can find that essay among his Six Memos for the Next Millenium, which he composed for the 1985-86 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. Before Calvino could deliver them, he died suddenly.
It is hard to write the things of this world, sometimes harder to write about one's own life. The word petrify doesn't seem out of place, both in striking fear into your soul (can I really do this?), and silencing you with weight (will I ever read this?). I've been told that I write well, but I don't know if that's true. However, it's also true I have few other talents. So why don't we get this party started?
Hello, my name is Philip. I grew up in Orange County. I live in Irvine, which promises to be the setting of many amusing stories. Often, I'll write about current events, from the tragedy in Madrid to this year's elections to the infant formula lobby. News can get too heavy to write or even think about. Sometimes I'll talk about favorite music or my adventures in mediation. And once in a while, I'll reflect on a life well lived. I hope such a life can be mine.
Please, add your thoughts in the comments section. Make suggestions, requests, and of course, comments. This journal, like my writing, my career, and my life, is a work in progress. Unlike certain leaders of the free world, I am quite glad to recognize certain aspects of life as team work. Wrote Emily Dickinson,
Why the long wait? I wanted to make sure that I was inviting my friends and interested strangers to something worth their while. To meet that threshold, I needed to find subjects and ideas that were worth my while to write about them consistently. At the same time, I hoped to develop a way of approaching serious issues and significant moments without letting myself become too heavy, dull, or both.
My favorite novelist, Italo Calvino, dealt with a similar problem as a young writer:
When I began my career, the categorical imperative of every young writer was to represent his own time. Full of good intentions, I tried to identify myself with the ruthless energies propelling the events of our century, both collective and individual. I tried to find some harmony between the adventurous, picaresque inner rhythm that prompted me to write and the frantic spectacle of the world, sometimes dramatic and sometimes grotesque. Soon I became aware that between the facts of life that should have been my raw materials and the quick light touch I wanted for my writing, there was a gulf that cost me increasing effort to cross. Maybe I was only then becoming aware of the weight, the inertia, the opacity of the world -- qualities that stick to writing from the start, unless one finds some way of evading them.
He goes on in his essay "Lightness" to champion writing with a light touch, with agility, to countenance the weight of the world. That's my rough summary. You can find that essay among his Six Memos for the Next Millenium, which he composed for the 1985-86 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University. Before Calvino could deliver them, he died suddenly.
It is hard to write the things of this world, sometimes harder to write about one's own life. The word petrify doesn't seem out of place, both in striking fear into your soul (can I really do this?), and silencing you with weight (will I ever read this?). I've been told that I write well, but I don't know if that's true. However, it's also true I have few other talents. So why don't we get this party started?
Hello, my name is Philip. I grew up in Orange County. I live in Irvine, which promises to be the setting of many amusing stories. Often, I'll write about current events, from the tragedy in Madrid to this year's elections to the infant formula lobby. News can get too heavy to write or even think about. Sometimes I'll talk about favorite music or my adventures in mediation. And once in a while, I'll reflect on a life well lived. I hope such a life can be mine.
Please, add your thoughts in the comments section. Make suggestions, requests, and of course, comments. This journal, like my writing, my career, and my life, is a work in progress. Unlike certain leaders of the free world, I am quite glad to recognize certain aspects of life as team work. Wrote Emily Dickinson,
A sepal, petal and a thorn
Upon a common summer's morn-
A flask of Dew-a Bee or two-
A Breeze-a caper in the trees-
And I'm a Rose!
Thursday, July 01, 2004
A song of experience
In my Blakean year
I was so disposed
Toward a mission yet unclear
Advancing pole by pole
Fortune breathed into my ear
Mouthed a simple ode
One road is paved in gold
One road is just a road
In my Blakean year
Such a woeful schism
The pain of our existence
Was not as I envisioned
Boots that trudged from track to track
Worn down to the sole
One road is paved in gold
One road is just a road
by Patti Smith
There's a record store called HEAR Music in Santa Monica. It started in Cambridge, and popped up in Berkeley during the late 90s. I spotted one at the Metreon in San Francisco during the boom days, but now it's gone. Relatively few people have ever set foot in HEAR Music. But more than a few have heard their Artist's Choice compilations (Ray Charles, Lucinda Williams, Sarah McLachlan), courtesy of the frothy caffeinated juggernaut and its owner Howard Schultz, who now runs it.
My wanderings around 4th Street's HEAR Music figure prominently in my post-graduate Berkeley days. Sometimes after running to the Marina, I'd stop in and listen to a record I'd never heard before. I believe that store held the record for most listening stations per square foot. That's where I first heard albums by Lucinda, Belle and Sebastian, Nick Drake, Townes Van Zandt, Pink Martinis, Billy Bragg, Caetano Veloso, Art Blakey and the Messengers... This eclectic array of musicians ensured that my adult tastes did not calcify at 22, nor grow bland with radio.
I didn't buy a lot of CDs during those Bay Area boom years. After all, I was a teacher. My road was just a road. Or so it seemed. Those exciting tech jobs held by many friends and acquaintances don't exist anymore, nor in many cases do the companies. But the institutions where I worked are still around, and still needed. My biggest regret? That I virtually stopped writing for an audience, or a cause. I suppose I am trying to, ahem, start up again.
Yesterday afternoon, Jukka and I ran the east-west length of Santa Monica and strolled down the 3rd Street Promenade. HEAR Music's appeal hasn't faded with time and taste. If anything, SoCal's cultural shortcomings make the record store even worthier of a visit. And so I was rewarded with a new discovery, Patti Smith's "Trampin".
This is not a CD review. I and my slight Manichaean tendencies in writing are not suitable for aesthetic criticism. (See what I mean? Not suitable!) I will say a little about why I like her lyrical writing, and what her example means to me.
A look at her discography shows the Patti Smith Group made four albums in five years, the last (1979) capped off by a stadium concert of 70,000 cheering Italians. I knew none of this when I heard "Because the Night" as a college freshman, almost fifteen years later. Or when KFOG played "Dancing Barefoot" or her version of "Gloria", with its defiant opening line torn from her early poem, "Oath": "Jesus died for somebody's sins/but not mine." Or when I discovered her Early Work, and one of my favorite lyrics about being American, "Notebook". Or when I saw her at the Bridge Concert, leading Neil Young and Pearl Jam and the Bridge School children in a rousing rendition of "People Have the Power".
I did not know that she had spent a decade and a half as a housewife in suburban Detroit, with her husband Fred "Sonic" Smith. The godmother of punk and guitarist of the proto-punk MC5, playing house and raising two kids. Imagine that. What is true of most people is also true for most artists: the most fruitful or personally rewarding life may not always be the most ambitious or artistically productive. "I never did miss fame," she has said. "What I really missed was a good cup of coffee."
Or to quote "Oath": "I can make my own light shine/and darkness too is equally fine"
We can take that line to mean confidence in one's ability to choose the good and the "sinful". Or perhaps also, comfort in choosing the path of fame and fortune or a life of obscurity. And not regretting the choice of either. But it is either. And many people are not comfortable with that, because they think they can have both, when in reality not many can live with either well.
If I consider the quiet and fairly happy life of obscurity that was Patti Smith's life, or that William Blake earned a living from engraving in order to support his poetry habit, then I scorn to change my state with kings, or Supreme Court justices. And for a moment I cease to regret that I didn't write in 1999 or whenever, because hey, I was teaching kids algebra in a neighborhood the New Economy forgot. I can make my own light shine, and darkness too is equally fine...
So. What I like uniquely about Patti Smith, is that her voice, her energy, is neither male nor female. Like many 70s icons (David Bowie, for one), her image is essentially androgynous. But I'm talking beyond image, about the music itself. Her voice and lyrics pulse with intelligence and passion. And those qualities are neither male nor female. Often you can read a poem or song lyric and say, oh a guy wrote it, or a girl wrote it. And many fine lyrics are like that. But what a feat of the universal to transcend the experience of gender, how pure is that? How pure is white light? Or the human heart? Or grief? Or being American? And to transcend it in popular music, with a voice both wise and vigorous and kind.
I was so disposed
Toward a mission yet unclear
Advancing pole by pole
Fortune breathed into my ear
Mouthed a simple ode
One road is paved in gold
One road is just a road
In my Blakean year
Such a woeful schism
The pain of our existence
Was not as I envisioned
Boots that trudged from track to track
Worn down to the sole
One road is paved in gold
One road is just a road
by Patti Smith
There's a record store called HEAR Music in Santa Monica. It started in Cambridge, and popped up in Berkeley during the late 90s. I spotted one at the Metreon in San Francisco during the boom days, but now it's gone. Relatively few people have ever set foot in HEAR Music. But more than a few have heard their Artist's Choice compilations (Ray Charles, Lucinda Williams, Sarah McLachlan), courtesy of the frothy caffeinated juggernaut and its owner Howard Schultz, who now runs it.
My wanderings around 4th Street's HEAR Music figure prominently in my post-graduate Berkeley days. Sometimes after running to the Marina, I'd stop in and listen to a record I'd never heard before. I believe that store held the record for most listening stations per square foot. That's where I first heard albums by Lucinda, Belle and Sebastian, Nick Drake, Townes Van Zandt, Pink Martinis, Billy Bragg, Caetano Veloso, Art Blakey and the Messengers... This eclectic array of musicians ensured that my adult tastes did not calcify at 22, nor grow bland with radio.
I didn't buy a lot of CDs during those Bay Area boom years. After all, I was a teacher. My road was just a road. Or so it seemed. Those exciting tech jobs held by many friends and acquaintances don't exist anymore, nor in many cases do the companies. But the institutions where I worked are still around, and still needed. My biggest regret? That I virtually stopped writing for an audience, or a cause. I suppose I am trying to, ahem, start up again.
Yesterday afternoon, Jukka and I ran the east-west length of Santa Monica and strolled down the 3rd Street Promenade. HEAR Music's appeal hasn't faded with time and taste. If anything, SoCal's cultural shortcomings make the record store even worthier of a visit. And so I was rewarded with a new discovery, Patti Smith's "Trampin".
This is not a CD review. I and my slight Manichaean tendencies in writing are not suitable for aesthetic criticism. (See what I mean? Not suitable!) I will say a little about why I like her lyrical writing, and what her example means to me.
A look at her discography shows the Patti Smith Group made four albums in five years, the last (1979) capped off by a stadium concert of 70,000 cheering Italians. I knew none of this when I heard "Because the Night" as a college freshman, almost fifteen years later. Or when KFOG played "Dancing Barefoot" or her version of "Gloria", with its defiant opening line torn from her early poem, "Oath": "Jesus died for somebody's sins/but not mine." Or when I discovered her Early Work, and one of my favorite lyrics about being American, "Notebook". Or when I saw her at the Bridge Concert, leading Neil Young and Pearl Jam and the Bridge School children in a rousing rendition of "People Have the Power".
I did not know that she had spent a decade and a half as a housewife in suburban Detroit, with her husband Fred "Sonic" Smith. The godmother of punk and guitarist of the proto-punk MC5, playing house and raising two kids. Imagine that. What is true of most people is also true for most artists: the most fruitful or personally rewarding life may not always be the most ambitious or artistically productive. "I never did miss fame," she has said. "What I really missed was a good cup of coffee."
Or to quote "Oath": "I can make my own light shine/and darkness too is equally fine"
We can take that line to mean confidence in one's ability to choose the good and the "sinful". Or perhaps also, comfort in choosing the path of fame and fortune or a life of obscurity. And not regretting the choice of either. But it is either. And many people are not comfortable with that, because they think they can have both, when in reality not many can live with either well.
If I consider the quiet and fairly happy life of obscurity that was Patti Smith's life, or that William Blake earned a living from engraving in order to support his poetry habit, then I scorn to change my state with kings, or Supreme Court justices. And for a moment I cease to regret that I didn't write in 1999 or whenever, because hey, I was teaching kids algebra in a neighborhood the New Economy forgot. I can make my own light shine, and darkness too is equally fine...
So. What I like uniquely about Patti Smith, is that her voice, her energy, is neither male nor female. Like many 70s icons (David Bowie, for one), her image is essentially androgynous. But I'm talking beyond image, about the music itself. Her voice and lyrics pulse with intelligence and passion. And those qualities are neither male nor female. Often you can read a poem or song lyric and say, oh a guy wrote it, or a girl wrote it. And many fine lyrics are like that. But what a feat of the universal to transcend the experience of gender, how pure is that? How pure is white light? Or the human heart? Or grief? Or being American? And to transcend it in popular music, with a voice both wise and vigorous and kind.
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