March 21, 2021
Now continuing from where we left off last week:
The Ballad of Weaves #53: Part 2
After last week's lament that I no longer with it music-wise and a paean to the small concert venue, here is short summary of how what I was with, stopped being "it".
- The death of record stores. (R.I.P. Ear X-tacy)
- No longer checking Pitchfork on a daily or weekly basis. I cannot overstate how much Pitchfork dominated college music in the early to mid aughts. Also, this and this. They were maybe self-aware... sometimes... on occassion.
- The 3 deaths of WOXY:
- First, losing the terrestrial signal in Oxford, Ohio
- Second, losing their first internet broadcast out of Cincinnati, OH
- Third, losing their second internet broadcast out of Austin, TX
- For me, it actually died a fourth time when its spiritual successor WNKU died in 2017. Of course people that liked the more folk/roots heavy format might argue WNKU really died in 2015.
- I still miss recognizing Shivvy at concerts.
- Picking up podcasts as a way to kill time while working in an underground physics lab. This was after WOXY's final death.
I essentially swapped music for glorified talk radio (everyone's got a podcast) in my mid to late twenties because that's what it means to grow up. The one thing I held onto to over the years to try and stay with "it", was listening to the All Songs Considered podcast (see?), which was genuinely entertaining during the Carrie Brownstein era* of the late aughts - I remember laughing out loud during the explanation of "Belt or Skirt?" - a game of attempting to discern where the article of clothing encircling the midriff of a young lady of SXSW (aka South by Skank) was a belt or a skirt.
*Note: This was the first mention of Carrie Brownstein that ended up being edited out last week. For those keeping track, my bad.
Anyway in 2017, I heard a song on the show I liked. It reminded of something in good way. In a fit of nostaligia combined with the dying embers of a desire to stay "with it", I bought the song. Said purchase was made via the Google Play Music store, since I had significant credits for the store available.
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(Quick Aside - The Google Survey app: Am I stupid for using it?
Point: I use Firefox and DuckDuckGo out of privacy concerns, but this is really only half-assing security since I don't bother with a VPN because of performance degradation and monetary consideration.
Counterpoint: Google knows everything about me anyway (I have an Android phone), why not get a little something back?
Countercounterpoint: I am probably very literally selling my identity to a corporation 20¢ at a time.)
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Google Play Music has since been shuttered, but it was a pretty good service from 2011-2020. When the shuttering of the service was announced, we were told to download our libraries or transfer them to YouTube Music. Well, I am a CD buyer, so I uploaded 99% (maybe more) of what I had stored on Google Play Music was music that I owned and uploaded, not purchased from the store. Early on, I would "purchase" tracks or albums from Google more often because they offered some stuff either for free or that was highly discounted as a promotion, but that died off a year or two after launch. I thought I was all good when Google Play Music shut down. I did bother to transfer the library to YouTube music just because it was trivial to do so, but I discovered YouTube music was a pile of suck and lacked many of the basic features of the Google Play Music like navigating or sorting your library.
And then disaster struck...
Cliffhanger! Stay tuned for the exciting (?) conclusion (?) to The Ballad of Weaves #53.
Now onto the CBS Sunday Morning Power Rankings:
How did Connor Knighton snag the top spot when today's episode not only included a Teichner segment, but a Teichner segment about art? Teichner art segments are why we get on up on Sundays.
I'm probably something of an environmentalist even though I have no activist in me and while I'm not sure you can call yourself an anything-ist without action. Let's just say sympathies lie with nature. It may also help that I am related to somebody who works in conservation, so let me again plug the Audubon Society and specifically Audubon Florida. It's always fun to make fun of Florida, but the biodiversity of the state really is quite astounding.
The Knighton segment is about rediscovering and reestablishing animal species that were thought to be extinct. Not in the sci-fi Jurassic Park sense, but in the sense of what once was lost now is found. The nearly extinct species have always been there. Just few in number and apparently good at hiding from humans, probably to their benefit. Anyway, like climate change, it's not really scientifically arguable that we are in the middle of an extinction epoch cause by the changes humanity has imposed on the planet. You can argue the morality or immorality or amorality of it all, but not really the fact that's happening or that humans are the cause. This makes me sad. Thankfully, this story is about hope. The damage done may not have to be permanent and species can be brought back from the brink. I firmly beleive this is a good thing and am thankful for the people who have devoted their lives to it. Because isn't it cool that the greatest joy two birders in Arkansas have ever experienced is seeing an ivory billed woodpecker that was previously though to be extinct. Don't take that away from them. Don't take that away from me.
Or maybe I just think black footed ferrets are cute:
Care to argue the point? Which reminds me that I still need to do my indigenous Australian animal power rankings. Check out the pygmy possum. Seriously. Follow the link and watch the short video. How dare we let something that cute be pushed to the edge of extinction.
Last thought: I appreciate the efforts of Forrest Galante to track down species thought to be extinct and his general conservation efforts. I know he has to gin up the experience for his TV Show Extinct or Alive, however I find it difficult to believe this is the appropriate way to treat a tortoise regardless of how happy you are that it is exists versus not existing:
Leave the poor frightened tortoise alone.
Teicher on art. What could be better? (Nearly extinct animals, apparently.)
I'd like to be able to say something about art beyond, "I likes what I likes." If you want to read actual art commentary of high quality, check out Will Gompertz at the BBC. His essay on "Friendship" by Agnes Martin really helped me understand abstract art on a different level.
My understanding of abstract art (which is lacking) is that it is about the form, the shapes, the colors themselves rather than what they can be used to represent or construct. It takes a certain amount of contemplation to get much out of it because there is no obvious connection to anything "real". Of course, I think the point is that art itself is what is real. Abstract struggles to elicit a response in me because I have no strong feeling about the color red. Or to rectangles. I don't get Mark Rothko. I don't get Jackson Pollack's spatter paintings. I think I have a mind that craves structure and when I fail to understand the underlying structure, I tend to just walk away empty. I may not look at them deeply enough. Or perhaps I try to look at it too deeply.
Frank Stella's works do have a structure. In some cases, they are nothing but structure. I feel like I could connect with Frank Stella's work and Martha's segment gives me maybe the first good reason I've ever had to want to visit Connecticut - to see the installation of Stella's... sculptures? I guess that's the medium, but I would prefer to call them structures. It just seems more accurate. Sculpture seems less abstract. Some of Stella's early geometric pattern paintings actually remind me a little bit of the aforementioned "Friendship".
Pattern paintings are sometimes confounding to me on the other extreme. The structure is obvious - it is maybe the only component to the painting. We've had the ability to reproduce patterns prior to computers, although with computers it is now trivial. So these abstract art that is pattern based, often amounting to grids or lines at their most basic seem trivial because a computer could create it in a few microseconds. Meanwhile and artist may have spent months or even years on it performing what seems like a repetitive, even menial task. Is it the labor which makes it art or the concept or both? I am genuinely asking.
Anyway, the segment got me remembering times when certain pieces of art did have an impact on me. In the one afternoon I spent at the Met, the modern art section was largely lost on me except for painting "Bohemia Lies By The Sea":
Also from my brief time spent in Paris, the Louvre is all well and good, but I enjoyed the Musée d'Orsay much more. I like impressionists and post-impressionists, which probably explains why I liked "Bohemia" so much. I can get lost in Van Gogh for quite some time. Also, I think the most underrated painter is Pissarro.
Enough rambling art. I'm just being pretentious at this point and considering how little I actually know about it, a bit of a poseur.
3) David Pogue
Putting Pogue in the 3 spot is mostly an appreciation of his Lou Gehrig-esque streak of consecutive weeks with a segment. I've maintained that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but if you just keep chipping away at me, eventually I'll give. David Pogue is growing on me like an Andy Kaufman joke. If it's not funny at first, just keep doing it until you will it to be so. Respect the persistence.
The segment does come off a commercial for Masterclass, a product I don't really care about. But whatever, it wouldn't be the first time that a segment seemed corporately sponsored. See Etsy and Epic for previous examples. But I actually liked those segments, so that isn't bad in and of itself. I can see the pitch for the segment - it ties into the pandemic (Masterclass soared in popularity) and celebrity drives ratings.
Masterclass sounds like someone came up with a formula TED Talks + Cameo. I have a certain disdain for TED Talks, but there was a least one instance where a TED talk was self aware enough to understand that bullshit pedaled by these self-important lectures. Mea culpa: I'm just looking for an excuse to insert this awesome Reggie Watts clip:
This reaction by Pogue to something Helen Mirren says is definitely worthy of a high ranking:
Keep it up Pogue and you'll be shooting for #1 pretty soon.
4) Jane Pauley
If Reggie Jackson was the straw that stirs the drink, Jane is the glass that keeps it from spilling everywhere. It was a pretty light week for segments. The Sunday Almanac is still on indefinite hiatus, but I will not hold that against our beloved host, who gave us a pleasant introduction to Spring:
5) Newts/Anya Marina
What can I say? I like animals. And the newts of Los Gatos, California are in fact animals. Gimme more of that lizard action. Of course as soon as I wrote that, I know I am wrong. Upon further review, newts are salamanders making them amphibians, and not lizards/reptiles. The smooth skin and aquatic habitat is a dead giveaway.
The newts must share the 5 spot with the end credits music: Anya Marina's cover of "Waters of March" - a bossa nova hit from the 70s. Sometimes, I don't want a voice to go big. Sometimes, I want it to be wispy.
Oh, you're not familiar with bossa nova from the 70s? Well, I certainly didn't spend 20 minutes after the episode typing in the lyrics to figure out what the song was then going through YouTube and Wikipedia to track down the exact cover used because it's just common knowledge.
6) Tracy Smith
I have no real opinion on Demi Levato except that the neck tattoo brings her one step closer to becoming a Brazilian goalkeeper, which, I don't know, may be her ultimate goal if this whole pop start thing doesn't pan out.
Tattoos aside, I actually remember the Tracy Smith conversation with Levato from 2016, and I gotta say, I did not think it was that long ago. I just assumed it was Demi Levato had overdosed in 2018 and not 2 years before that happened. I'm not addict, nor am I a doctor, so I am wholly unqualified to talk about such things, but if someone overdoses, it seems to be an indicator of addiction. So color me concerned when Levato says that she's doing great even though abstinence from drugs is apparently not her thing. I'm not passing judgment, but I feel Tracy's reaction to the phrase "California sober":
Who had the better reaction shot this week: Smith or Pogue?
Unfortunately, it's a story as old as time, or at least as old as celebrity because celebrity is not a normal state of existence and the most well adjusted celebrities seem to be the ones that choose to ignore the fact that they are celebrities. Of course, celebrity and it's trappings are especially harsh on the young female pop stars demographic. Britney Spears begat Kesha, which begat Demi Levato, which will begat someone else, I'm sure.
While I don't mean to bring up the bad times, I do kind of miss when Kesha was Ke$ha. "Tik Tok" may be trash, but at least it was fun trash and I would never disparage fun trash. Her contribution to Pitbull's "Timber" cannot be overstated. In case you are wondering where I am going with this aside on Kesha, it's just to link to the this article: remember when ESPN/ABC had of the moment artists rework songs to promote the NBA playoffs? The remix of "Timber" into "Playoffs!" truly was the zenith of the artform.
7) Seth Doane
Seth ganders at ancient marble sculptures from the Roman empire - the .
Should I be surprised that one of the biggest collections of Roman antiquity is privately held? As Indiana Jones would say:
Well at least for a little bit, they will be.
8) Luke Burbank
20 states have legalized sports gambling. Ohio is not one of them. I'm not sure what the hold up is for the other 30. I'm not a bettor myself and while I think gambling can be dangerous for people with addictive personalities, I'm not going to take some moralistic stand against it, especially if revenues from it help keep rivers in Colorado looking pretty. (Conservation!) The segment involves a decent chat with Brent Musburger. Clips of Musburger from the 70s and 80s are pretty great, but the real hero of the piece is a guy name Nard (Short for Bernard, I guess. If not what? For the love of god, WHAT?!) I think Nard said St. Louis was a good pick for the NCAA tournament. But St. Louis did not make the tournament, unless I am in some parallel universe.
9) Rita Braver
In general, I'm very pro-adoption. Give as many kids loving homes as possible. The people that adopt kids and care for them as their own are saints to me. But it can be messy. I have some relatives through adoption (not in my immediate family) so I'm vaguely aware that the process is not easy. I often think it should be easier to encourage more adoptions, but it is a truly difficult and confounding problem to balance the best interests and rights of all parties involved. I just hope questions about birth parents can be dealt with in an open and loving way. I can see why someone may not want those adoption records to be made public, but I don't really see how hiding the truth is in a person's best interest. Sigh. It's frustrating when there isn't an easy answer.
Braver looks at the darker side of adoption from a time when unwed mothers had to hide children and pregnancy and were sometimes coerced into giving up the children for adoption. I'm a little surprised the documentary Three Identical Strangers wasn't referenced since the Lois Wise adoption agency referenced in this story also played a central part in that film's story. Lots of shady stuff going on at Lois Wise.
ingénue during the 1970s. In the late 70s, she made a movie about tennis called Players. This was not covered in the segment. I just know about it because of a Racquet Magazine article (highly recommend Racquet) about Dick Van Petten's tennis playing sons. One the Van Patten's was supposed to be cast in Players but ended up not doing it because the age difference between him and McGraw seemed too large, so Dean Martin Jr. got the part. By the time I was born McGraw had stopped making movies. She seems like a fairly well adjusted human. Ryan O'Neal on the other hand...
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