Urban Woman Blues
Posted: October 22, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment(Don’t Wanna Be Stuck in the Suburbs Forever)
Some years ago I was dating a charming gentleman who sealed his fate with me by insisting he could only live in the suburbs and assuming I would want to do the same. He had a beautiful house and had already planned that I would love it too. The relationship didn’t last long but I wrote this bit of doggerel at the time. It’s either a poem or a song, if someone will just compose some music to go with it.
Don’t carry me off to the suburbs.
I’m an urban woman now.
City limits are my boundaries.
I’m an urban woman now.
Shopping malls give me agoraphobia.
Trees belong in the park and animals in the zoo.
I want my grass measured by the square inch.
I’m an urban woman now.
I gave up flea markets, farmstands, freeways forever.
I traded them for skyscrapers, coffeehouses, used bookstores,
Taxis and sidewalks and theatres in old storefronts.
I’m an urban woman now.
I buy my clothes on the top floor of an old mansion
Surrounded by hundreds of expressionistic paintings
By an émigré Hungarian painter.
I’m an urban woman now.
Don‘t drag me to the suburbs, please.
Don’t tempt me with discount centers, flea markets and flower gardens.
Don’t lead me astray on the freeway of love.
I’m an urban woman now.
I might lose my way in the geometry of strip malls and parking lots
And never again find my way back to grit, crime and all night joints.
I don’t want to be stuck in the suburbs forever.
I’m an urban woman now.
Don‘t carry me off to the suburbs
I’m an urban woman now.
City limits are my boundaries
I’m an urban woman now.
Typos that make my teeth hurt
Posted: October 17, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 CommentI confess that in the past I carried a marker so I could edit the signs in my local supermarket. Potatos got an e; green bean’s got an apostro-ectomy. Typos still make my teeth hurt, but technology has stymied my shopper editing. Now I have to send helpful texts or emails to serious offenders, while trying to do it with good humor or at least some grace.
Today I sat in a one-hour webinar where the speaker repeatedly described the easy-to-use software as “simplistic.” Not “simple,” which would have been correct. Simplistic means over-simplified or treating something complex as if it’s simpler than it really is. (I did take the opportunity to point out the teeth-grating error in my webinar evaluation.) Read the rest of this entry »
Glory Days!
Posted: October 10, 2012 Filed under: Rock and roll 2 CommentsI spent a recent long weekend in one of my favorite places in the world besides Chicago: The Jersey shore, especially Asbury Park and West Long Branch. Of course, we had a few great meals at restaurants on the shore and heard bands at The Stone Pony (a bar that deserves to be an historic landmark). The main reason I was there was to attend the third Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium at Monmouth University organized by the University of Southern Indiana with Monmouth and Penn State Altoona. (Previous symposia were held in 2005 and 2009.) Read the rest of this entry »
Vivian Maier, photographer
Posted: October 9, 2012 Filed under: Art & architecture | Tags: photography Leave a comment“Vivian Maier, nanny photographer.” Maier’s dramatic photographs are everywhere today — on gallery walls, in books, on TV and film. The constant references to her as the nanny photographer cruelly demean her work and talent. She was a street photographer, period. And a very good one, with a remarkable eye for composition, lighting and texture in scenes of everyday urban life. Read the rest of this entry »
Can creepy be high quality?
Posted: October 8, 2012 Filed under: Movies Leave a commentMy question of the day, after seeing the film The Master, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is this: Can a film that felt really creepy to sit through also be a masterpiece? Not saying that The Master is a masterpiece, but it has some excellent qualities and has received some four-star reviews. There were several fine acting performances (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams). The cinematography was terrific, even though I saw it in digital format rather than the 70mm in which it was filmed. Unfortunately many theaters are switching to strictly digital projection. Read the rest of this entry »
David Byrne, reinvented
Posted: September 29, 2012 Filed under: Music, People Leave a commentSome performers keep doing the same thing for decades. They relive their past successes over and over again, to the delight of their longtime fans, who only want to hear the old favorites. Some performers (and fans) are more adventurous. They constantly develop new music, perform in new formats with new bands, and even reformulate their past catalog to the point of unrecognizability.
Bruce Springsteen is in that latter category. He plays with new bands, in new musical genres, and constantly writes new material and revamps old. And so is David Byrne. The frontman for the late great Talking Heads is a curious, creative, ingenious performer who seems to enjoy playing with new material. He has proselytized for bicycling in cities all over the world (including via his book Bicycle Diaries) and even turned a building into a musical instrument. http://tiny.cc/aggglw
Me and the Spanish Civil War
Posted: September 18, 2012 Filed under: Movies, Politics | Tags: Abraham Lincoln Brigade, Movies, No pasaran!, Spanish Civil War 1 CommentI don’t know what it is about the Spanish Civil War. Did I participate in it in a prior life, as a nurse or photographer? I was born just about the time the war was heating up, and I find it hard to believe in past life stories, no matter how fanciful and charming. However, that war and events surrounding it have always fascinated me.
Always is too strong a word. I never learned anything about the Spanish Civil War in history classes at Harriet E Sayre Elementary School or Steinmetz High School in Chicago, or at any of the universities I attended (Drake, UIC and Mizzou). It’s shocking how few Americans know anything about this part of our history. I’ve had people say “Do you mean that time in the 1890s when America sent boats into Cuba?” No, that was the Spanish-American war. Kinda different. Read the rest of this entry »
Wrigley x 2
Posted: September 12, 2012 Filed under: Rock and roll | Tags: Bruce Springsteen, rock and roll 6 CommentsOh, give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away.
No, Bruce Springsteen didn’t perform the great pop-rock song “Drift Away” in his two Wrigley concerts. But I did get lost in his rock and roll for two nights and it was sublime.
You can find plenty of reviews of these concerts online, as well as complete setlists. http://www.backstreets.com/setlists.html and http://brucespringsteen.net/. Both were epic nights with setlists highlighted by songs like the 1978 version of “Prove It All Night” with its long instrumental opening, “Spirit in the Night” and “Blinded by the Light” from Springsteen’s first album, Greetings from Asbury Park. And rarities like “My Love Will Not Let You Down” and even “None But the Brave,” which really surprised me. Fifty-five songs in two nights — a total of 42 different songs in the two setlists.
On both nights, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Tom Morello, the Nightwatchman, of the late great Rage Against the Machine, joined Bruce on stage. Morello and Springsteen played the powerful electric version of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” both nights. Morello’s frenetic solos on his old custom-made “Arm the Homeless” guitar produce sounds you rarely hear out of a guitar. I’m a big Morello fan.
Eddie Vedder performed two songs with Springsteen each night. Fine duets on “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Atlantic City” and “My Hometown.”
Photo at right: Bruce, Eddie, Tom and drummer Max Weinberg. (Photo by Lois Bernstein from backstreets.com.)
For our family, the highlights were Saturday night. My grandson James (he’s 14) went to his first Springsteen concert with me. And it rained. But most significant was the fact that my 7-year-old niece was on her dad’s shoulders when Bruce sang Hungry Heart and made his way down a platform out into the field seats. He was singing to the crowd and high-fiving fans as he walked. And he stopped and high-fived Juliana and said something like “you go” to her. It was a priceless moment.
The difference between the two shows, of course, was the rain. Friday night was clear. Saturday night was too, until about two-thirds of the way through the show when a light rain started. And continued. It never poured. It just rained and rained. But it didn’t spoil the show and everyone got wet, including the frontman, who spent plenty of time out in the crowd, performing on the platforms built out among the pit and field seats.
Oh, give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away….
¡No pasarán!
Posted: September 2, 2012 Filed under: Politics, Punk rock | Tags: Pussy Riot 13 CommentsThe Pussy Riot trio is pictured as they went to trial. We see the double confluence of music and politics in the shirt worn by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, on the right. Not only is Pussy Riot demonstrating against Putin’s Russia. Her shirt celebrates the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. “¡No pasarán!” They shall not pass.
I’ve posted an essay here about my special interest in the Spanish Civil War, which was an important period in American political and intellectual history. Many Americans, unfortunately, are not knowledgeable about or even aware of this war. The civil war in Spain in 1936-39 was the first act of the wars, both cold and hot, that followed for the next 50 years.
Great truck!
Posted: August 30, 2012 Filed under: Rock and roll | Tags: Bruce Springsteen Leave a comment
Springsteen fans on Twitter all wanted to hire this fellow fan for their carpet cleaning chores. Thanks to Steph Brown (@stephrah) for the great photo catch. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
The photo was taken in England, specifically Surrey, for those who have been trying to figure out the geography of the license plate or phone number.
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