“A lot of spaces” between Taylor Swift and James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake”

When Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia died on 9 August 1995, Bob Dylan wrote a moving statement that included this point that has stuck with me ever since: "There’s a lot of spaces and advances between The Carter Family, Buddy Holly and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes but he filled them all without being a member of any school." That is, Garcia's music ranged from folk to rock and roll to free jazz, and everywhere in between. I remembered this on Wednesday when I went from my Taylor Swift course in the afternoon to my Finnegans Wake reading group in the evening – there's "a lot of spaces" between them. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 1 March 2024)

A metrosexual Swiftie

One day when Miles was four, we went to the swimming pool. After some splashing, he began playing in a sandbox; I watched him and enjoyed the weather. Then I noticed that three boys who were maybe ten or eleven years old were looking at me and whispering to each other. That week, my visiting niece had painted my toenails, so I wondered if that had gotten their attention. Sure enough, one of them then pointed at my toenails and asked, "Are you metrosexual?" I remembered this story yesterday when I had all my fingernails painted in the ten colors Taylor Swift associates with her ten albums. I'm a metrosexual Swiftie! (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 29 February 2024)

The difficult but rewarding narrative promised by the opening of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “An Artist of the Floating World” (1986)

In our first discussion today of Kazuo Ishiguro's "An Artist of the Floating World" (1986), we concluded that the opening sentence of retired painter Masuji Ono's narrative not only provides directions to get to Ono's house but also offers instructions and encouragement for how to read the narrative as difficult but rewarding: "If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as ‘the Bridge of Hesitation’, you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees." This may be a "steep climb", but it promises visibility. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 27 February 2024)

Weaknesses for the sake of the despicable in “Great Expectations” (1861) and in my own life

In Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations" (1861), when blacksmith Joe Gargery plans to visit his upwardly-mobile brother-in-law Pip in London, Pip is happy Joe will visit him at the apartment he shares with Herbert Pocket, and not at Herbert's parents' house, where the unpleasant Bentley Drummle also lives. Pip fears Drummle would look down at working-class Joe: “So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.” I'm reminded all too well of my schooldays: bullied myself, I rejected the interest of a charming girl who was just as unpopular as me, because my bullies would have made fun of us. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 26 February 2024) 

Music from the Alex Sipiagin Quartet at the Bird’s Eye, plus a marriage proposal (and some Taylor Swift)

Last night at the Bird's Eye in Basel, Alex Sipiagin (trumpet and flugelhorn) played two wonderful sets last night with a superb band: pianist Antonio Faraò, bassist Makar Novikov, and drummer Sasha Mashin. Sipiagin's son Nikita played alto saxophone on one tune. But one couple will remember more than the music: after the first set, a man proposed to his partner from the stage. She accepted; he gave her a ring. But I remembered the proposal rejected in Taylor Swift's "champagne problems": "Sometimes you just don't know the answer / 'Til someone's on their knees and asks you." Anyone making a public proposal better be sure the answer will be "yes". (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 25 February 2024) 

Ed Yong’s “An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us" (2022)

In his brilliant book "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us" (2022), Ed Yong dedicates chapters to senses humans have as well as those only other animals have: smells and tastes, light, color, pain, heat, contact and flow, surface vibrations, sound, echoes, electric fields, and magnetic fields. The next-to-last chapter, "Uniting the Senses", considers how the senses an animal has come together to form each individual's view of the world, with an especially fascinating discussion of how animals distinguish their perceptions of the world from their perceptions of their own actions. The conclusion addresses "Threatened Sensescapes": how humans disrupt the senses of the world's other animals. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 24 February 2024)

The sound of Taylor Swift’s early and recent albums

In my preparation for my Taylor Swift course, which starts next week, I keep going through her albums in chronological order. Whenever I get to the end and go back to the beginning again, I experience a small shock: from the mostly sparse and often ambient textures of the three latest albums ("folklore", 2020; "evermore", 2020; "Midnights", 2022) back to the power pop country of 2006's "Taylor Swift" and 2008's “Fearless”). I don't dislike the latter; in fact, I find much in them to admire and appreciate. But to me, there’s much less space in the sound of the early records, less room for my kind of listener, in a sense. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 23 February 2024) 

"He prophets most who bilks the best” (“Finnegans Wake”, 305.1-2)

"He prophets most who bilks the best": This line from James Joyce's “Finnegans Wake” (1939, 305.1-2) parodies the Rotary Club's 1911 motto, "He profits most who serves best." Instead of coming from service, Joyce's profit comes from fraud. And it is not just being the best fraud, but also defrauding the best people. Then, "profits" as "prophets" makes prophets not servants of the divine but rather frauds themselves, and prophecy becomes being "practiced at the art of deception" (to quote Mick Jagger in a Rolling Stones song from thirty years after "Finnegans Wake"). The combination of profit and prophecy – of capital and religion – thus makes for the best deception of all. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 22 February 2024)

After The Grateful Dead broke out “All Along the Watchtower” at Berkeley’s Greek Theater in June 1987

The Grateful Dead did a six-show tour with Bob Dylan in July 1987, first playing one or two sets and then backing Dylan for a final set. One way they began to prepare to be Dylan's band was to introduce "All Along the Watchtower" into their repertoire on 20 June 1987 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, California. As I was walking out of that show, I overheard a young woman say to a friend that it was cool they had played "that U2 song". A young man next to them piped up that it was "a Jimi Hendrix song". I chuckled and told all three it was a Dylan tune. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 21 February 2024)

Andreas Schärer & Kalle Kalima in Romanshorn, 18 February 2024

On Sunday, 18 February, I went to Romanshorn to hear singer Andreas Schärer and guitarist Kalle Kalima perform as a duo. When Kalima took solos, Schärer would often become a percussionist with his multifaceted beatboxing mixed with other sounds – and again and again, I found myself laughing at the joy and humor of it. That in turn reminded me of my thoughts last year about listening to jazz as a comic rather than a tragic form. (For an excellent example of Schärer's mouth percussion, go to the five-minute mark of "Ukuhmaba" on the 2017 album "Out of Land", by Schärer, soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien, accordionist Vincent Peirani, and pianist Michael Wollny.) (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 20 February 2024)

When the right-wing militia suddenly came down from the hills

When the right-wing militia suddenly came down from the hills and swarmed through the town, I was home alone, and taken by surprise. All I could do was put on my shoes and a warm coat and grab my phone, my passport, and my allergy medication. I had no idea where my family was. I slipped out the back door of the apartment building and saw pillars of smoke rising in several places toward the Rhine, with flames sparking through some of them. Slipping through the allotments and past the psychological clinic, I walked the half-kilometer to the border and made it across minutes before French soldiers began to close it. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 19 February 2024) 

Ages Hence

Ages Hence

 

At the corner of the bar, an old man in a gray suit and blue tie sits upright on his stool, a tall beer between his hands. Although he's by himself, his voice is loud. His patter shifts from the weekend's football games to a singer whose voice he's never liked, from long-lost bands he once loved to stories from his life, which all seem to come down to how he lived on a farm when he was younger and rode his horse down country roads. Each story ends with him sighing and wondering about moments when he had to make decisions that, he says, "made all the difference." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 18 February 2024)

The parody of small-town Christmas movies in Taylor Swift’s “’tis the damn season” (2020)

Taylor Swift's "'tis the damn season" (from "evermore", 2020) reads like a parody of Christmas movies where a big-city professional goes to her hometown for the holidays and discovers wholesome smalltown values and true love. The woman in Swift's song does return to her childhood home and an old boyfriend from her school days: "I'm staying at my parents' house / And the road not taken looks real good now / And it always leads to you and my hometown." But she's not going to change what road she's taken: "I won't ask you to wait / If you don't ask me to stay / So I'll go back to LA." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 17 February 2024) 

Two perspectives on a dress: Greg Brown’s “If I Had Known” (1990) and Taylor Swift’s “Dress” (2017)

One of my favorite songs by the folk singer-songwriter Greg Brown is "If I Had Known", the opening song on his riveting 1990 album "Down in There". The third stanza contains a wonderful image embedded in the story of a night of sex on the roof under an August meteor shower: "Summer was invented for her to wear that dress." I like that line so much that sometimes, when I play the song, I stop there and sing the line unaccompanied. Taylor Swift's "Dress", from her 2017 album "reputation", offers a possible flip side of the man's perspective in Brown's song: "Only bought this dress so you could take it off." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 16 February 2024) 

How the politics of scapegoating undermines the politics of responsibility

In “Die Politik der Schadensmaximierung“, his commentary in Republik on 10 February 2024, Daniel Binswanger connects a politics of maximizing damage with scapegoating: “Es gibt eine Politik, die Verantwortung übernimmt, und es gibt eine Politik, die nach Sündenböcken sucht.” But when a responsible politics serves people who need assistance of one kind or another (social welfare; unemployment compensation), a scapegoating politics will stigmatize the recipients of that receive assistance ("welfare mothers"; "lazy people on the dole"). Then those who support scapegoating will even refuse such assistance when they themselves need it – as when Republican-controlled states in the United States refuse to expand Medicaid even though it would help the states' citizens. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 15 February 2024)

 

“Never Grow Up” (Taylor Swift, 2010) and “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” (Tom Waits, 1992)

The first stanza of Taylor Swift's "Never Grow Up" (from "Speak Now", 2010/2023) addresses a toddler: "So I tuck you in, turn on your favourite nightlight." After the titular chorus, the second stanza addresses a teenager: "At fourteen, there's just so much you can't do." This adult perspective on a child or teenager reverses Tom Waits's similar "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" (from "Bone Machine", 1992), in which the child or teenager speaks: "Well, when I'm lying in my bed at night I don't wanna grow up." But Swift's final stanza shifts perspective to a young adult: "So here I am in my new apartment [...]. Wish I'd never grown up." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 14 February 2024)

Recent shenanigans by the Republicans in the United States House of Representatives

First, Republicans in the United States House of Representatives said that they would not consider a foreign-aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan unless it also addressed the immigration situation, especially on the border between Mexico and the United States. When Republicans and Democrats in the United States Senate put together an immigration bill that included many Republican demands, however, Republicans in the House of Representatives refused to consider it. Now Republican and Democratic Senators have passed a stand-alone foreign-aid bill – and Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refuses to allow a vote on it because of "the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 13 February 2024)

How you can tell that Donald Trump was never actually asked the question about a NATO country being attacked by Russia

At a presidential primary election campaign rally in South Carolina on Saturday, 10 February 2024, former United States President Donald Trump told a story about a question supposedly asked at a speech he supposedly gave about NATO: "One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, 'Well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?'" But I can tell that he was never asked that question. After all, it may have been asked by "one of the presidents of a big country", but if it had happened, then that president would have been a "big man with tears streaming down his face." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 12 February 2024)

Kings and queens in David Bowie’s “Heroes” (1977) and Taylor Swift’s “Long Live” (2010)

David Bowie's "Heroes" (the title song of his 1977 album) begins with a figure for the desire to experience power: "I, I will be king, / And you, you will be queen." But in this vision of a possible future, the power of romance is temporary: "We can be heroes, just for one day." Taylor Swift's "Long Live", from "Speak Now" (2010), which she has said she wrote for her band, turns to the same figure to capture an experience: "We are the kings and the queens." And again, that experience is fleeting: "'Cause for a moment, a band of thieves in ripped up jeans / Got to rule the world." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 February 2024)

The absence of music and lyrics in most journalism about Taylor Swift

When I was interviewed about Taylor Swift last month, I was struck by how all the journalists asked the same questions. Now I've noticed that if you've read one article about Taylor Swift, you've basically read them all. There's all the same information: from Grammy awards to dominating the charts, from her fans causing measurable seismic events to their effect on local economies where she performs, from her biography and her country beginnings to Travis Kelce and her possible influence on elections. But there's little about her music (she moves through styles as quickly as David Bowie) or her lyrics (whose themes range so much more widely than songs about romance). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 10 February 2024)

The vagueness of desire in Taylor Swift’s “Teardrops On My Guitar” (2006)

The first verse of Taylor Swift's "Teardrops On My Guitar" (2006) ends in vagueness: "Drew looks at me / I fake a smile so he won't see / That I want and I'm needing / Everything that we should be." The teenager doesn't name what she wants from Drew more specifically than that. "Everything" means being a couple: spending time together, going on dates, and seeing themselves and being seen by others as together. But that public side of romance also has a private side, where romantic desire is physical and sexual. The teenager may veil this physical undercurrent of desire in euphemism and abstraction, but its energy is still present. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 9 February 2024)

Lying in Taylor Swift’s “Tim McGraw”, “Picture To Burn”, and “Teardrops On My Guitar” (from her 2006 debut album)

The teenage girl in Taylor Swift's "Tim McGraw" responds to a boy's flattery by calling it "a lie". While this speaker recalls that relationship fondly when it's over, the speaker of the next song on Swift's eponymous 2006 debut album, "Picture To Burn", is out for revenge and says her ex is "really bad at lying". With lying established as a theme in relationships, the third song, "Teardrops On My Guitar, begins with a third kind after the flattery in "Tim McGraw" and the "bad lying" in "Picture To Burn" – lying for self-protection and the concealment of desire: "Drew looks at me / I fake a smile so he won't see." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 8 February 2024)

One possible Taylor Swift starter-kit

I have noticed many online comments from who are those unfamiliar with Taylor Swift's songs but curious about them. I've now settled on a three-step starter-kit. For a four-minute starter (3:55, to be precise), try "New Year's Day" from "Reputation" (2017). For a ten-minute starter (10:13), try "All Too Well (Ten-Minute Version)" from "Red (Taylor's Version)" (2021). And if you have an hour (67 minutes), try the album "folklore" (2020). Whichever you try, be sure to listen in whatever setting you have where you can really hear the music and the lyrics well (for me, on a walk or a cross-trainer). Listen for the storytelling, the images, and her Swiftian wit. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 7 February 2024) 

A Deadhead, a Swiftie, a Brownie, and a Schärer-sharer

I've been a Deadhead since 1982, when I first bought "Workingman's Dead" and then heard them live at Frost Amphitheater at Stanford that October. Until recently, I wouldn't have said I was a Swiftie – I was just someone who appreciated her music and lyrics. But my preparation for my course on her this spring has made me one. My other fandoms don't have standard names, although a Brownie could be a dedicated fan of Greg Brown, but what should a fan of Andreas Schärer be called, especially since I might be the only person who's seen him twenty-seven times? As a proselytizer about his music, I could call myself a Schärer-sharer. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 6 February 2024)

References to Robinson Crusoe in Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and Jane Austen

While reading Charles Dickens's novels, I was struck by what seemed to me to be the relatively frequent references to Robinson Crusoe (seventeen in all in his fourteen novels, according to the CLiC Dickens concordance). So as I began reading Thomas Hardy's novels, I immediately noticed the appearance of Crusoe in "Desperate Remedies" (1871), when Cytherea Graye is told that her benefactor Miss Aldclyffe is "in her soul [...] as solitary as Robinson Crusoe." A search of my e-book of Hardy's complete novels reveals only nine references to Crusoe in sixteen works. For contrast, another online concordance shows that Jane Austen never refers to Crusoe in any of her six novels. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 5 February 2024)

The standards recorded by Keith Jarrett’s Standards Trio at concerts between 1983 and 2014

122 different standards (along with Jarrett compositions and group improvisations) from their concerts between 1983 and 2014 appear on the twenty-one albums released by pianist Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio with Gary Peacock on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Thirty compositions appear at least twice, with five versions each of "Autumn Leaves" from 1945 (Joseph Kosma, Jacques Prévert, Johnny Mercer) and "When I Fall In Love" from 1952 (Edward Heyman, Victor Young). The oldest is "It's All in the Game" (whose melody was written in 1911 by Charles G. Dawes, Vice President of the United States from 1925 to 1929), the newest is "One for Majid" from 1965 (Pete La Roca). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 4 February 2024)

Acoustic versions of big pop songs: “State of Grace” and “Personal Jesus"

"State of Grace", the first song on Taylor Swift's "Red" (2012), is a booming, driving pop song, but Swift has also recorded an acoustic version focused on her voice and Mike Meadows's acoustic guitar. The contrast reminds me of "Personal Jesus" from Depeche Mode's "Violator" (1990). Back when it was first released, I stumbled on a maxi-single that included an acoustic version that, like Swift's acoustic version of "State of Grace", made clear what a solid song was hidden in the pop production. So I was later not surprised to hear the acoustic version of  "Personal Jesus" that Johnny Cash recorded for his 2002 album "American IV: The Man Comes Around." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 3 February 2024)

Walt Whitman in Thomas Hardy’s “Desperate Remedies” (1871)

"Edward Springrove the elder", the father of the Edward Springrove who eventually marries Cytherea Graye in Thomas Hardy's "Desperate Remedies" (1871), is introduced with a comparison to a contemporary of Hardy's from the United States: "Like Walt Whitman he felt as his years increased— / 'I foresee too much; it means more than I thought.'" The line is from Whitman's "So Long!", which first appeared as the final poem in the 1860 edition of "Leaves of Grass". I was surprised to see a reference to a Whitman poem in an English novel published so soon after its publication; I did not know that Whitman's work had crossed the Atlantic so quickly. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 February 2024)

The persona in Taylor Swift lyrics: Not “the Homecoming Queen”; more like another famous queen at a high school in the United States

I saw a comment on Facebook referring to Taylor Swift as "the Homecoming Queen". While this image fits her current relationship status (dating the star athlete), it doesn't fit the stories told her in lyrics: "She's Cheer Captain and I'm on the bleachers" ("You Belong With Me", from "Fearless", 2008). In the semiotics of the United States, the figure of the homecoming queen is the popular girl. The figure in Swift’s songs is never the popular girl. If she’s a queen, she’s Carrie the prom queen from Stephen King's 1974 novel and Brian De Palma's 1976 movie – and she wants to burn down the school to get revenge against her bullies. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 1 February 2024)

A “moral Gaza” in Thomas Hardy’s “Desperate Remedies” (1871)

Reading Thomas Hardy's "Desperate Remedies" (1871) last December, I came across a phrase with a different resonance than it would have had earlier in the year. In 1835, young architect Ambrose Graye falls for one Cytherea: "After passing through three weeks of sweet experience, he had arrived at the last stage—a kind of moral Gaza—before plunging into an emotional desert. The second week in January had come round, and it was necessary for the young architect to leave town." That "moral Gaza" seemed oddly contemporary in late 2023, even as I wondered what it meant back in 1871, the time of writing, or 1835, the time of the action. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 31 January 2024) 

Switching from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens for our Academic Writing in English II course

My colleague Peter Burleigh and I have used two Jane Austen novels for our Academic Writing in English II course at the University of Basel since Spring Semester 2014. At first, we varied things a bit between "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), "Emma" (1816), and "Persuasion" (1818), but from 2017 to 2023, we always used the last two. Although we still keep discovering new things in the novels, for this coming semester we're switching to Charles Dickens's "Hard Times" (1854) and "Great Expectations" (1861). It's time for a change – and perhaps we'll return to our Austen novels again for a year or two before we retire (in 2029). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 30 January 2024)

Struggling against emotions: Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (1813) and Pastor Maybold in Thomas Hardy’s “Under the Greenwood Tree” (1872)

In Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" (1813), Mr. Darcy's first proposal to Elizabeth Bennett begins with his "struggles": "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." She then rejects his proposal (but later accepts his second one). In Thomas Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree" (1872), Pastor Maybold's proposal to Fancy Day begins like Darcy's: "[...] I have struggled against my emotion continually, because I have thought that it was not well for me to love you!" Although already engaged to Dick Dewy, Fancy accepts him – but later retracts her acceptance. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 29 January 2024)

A chain of willful associations linking Taylor Swift, James Joyce, and The Grateful Dead

"And if I'm dead to you why are you at the wake?" (Taylor Swift, "my tears ricochet", from "folklore", 2020). When I noticed that line, I first chuckled at one of Swift's characteristic witty spins on a conventional phrase ("dead to you"). Then I added my own personal spin as if it were a reference to James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1939). My pleasure at this willful connection was doubled when I then made the line refer to two of my favorite things by spinning "dead" as The Grateful Dead – whose 1973 album was "Wake of the Flood". Then I rediscovered this lovely phrase in Joyce: "a houseful of deadheads" (FW.406. 35-36). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 28 January 2024) 

A thirty-second German introduction to Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer"

My second thirty-second introduction to a Taylor Swift song for Radio Argovia hasn't been broadcast yet (as far as I know), but it's for "Cruel Summer": In "Götzendämmerung" schrieb der Basler Philosoph Friedrich Nietzsche 1889, "Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker." 140 Jahre später ersetzt Taylor Swift in "Cruel Summer" Nietzsches berühmte Wendung und seinen "Wille zur Macht" im Rausch eines Fiebertraums mit ihrem eigenen "Wille zur Begierde": "What doesn't kill me makes me want you more". My own "fever dream" taking me to Basel and now to this text began in 1983 when I started learning German so I could read Nietzsche and other German philosophers in the original. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 27 January 2024)

A thirty-second German introduction to Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero"

After a live telephone interview didn't work out, I offered Radio Argovia two thirty-second introductions to Taylor Swift songs: "Anti-Hero" and "Cruel Summer". To time the texts, I recorded them with Garage Band, so I just sent them the recordings for their use. Yesterday afternoon, they broadcast a fragement of my "Anti-Hero" introduction. Here's the whole text: "Anti-Hero" möge ein Popsong sein, in dem Taylor Swift selber als "Antiheldin" scheinbar mit ihren Fans spricht. Aber die Reime und Bilder kreisen um psychische Probleme und die damit verbundenden Schuldgefühle ("I'm the problem"), Körperbilder ("monster on the hill"), Todeswünsche ("kills me for the money") und Rachefantasien ("She's laughing up at us from Hell"). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 26 January 2024)

 

Mandolinist Avi Avital and pianist Omer Klein at Basel’s Martinskirche, 24 January 2024

In Basel's Martinskirche last night, mandolinist Avi Avital and pianist Omer Klein performed wonderful mandolin-piano duos. But in the middle of their set, Avital played unaccompanied mandolin arrangements of four movements of Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita in D minor for solo violin (he left out the Chaconne because it was "too long" for the duo concert), and between those movements Klein improvised three solo piano pieces. Avital's Bach performance was riveting (coincidentally, I'd listened to violinist Ingrid Matthews's recording of that Partita earlier in the day). And Klein's third solo was singular: with only his right hand, he improvised a winding single-note melody with only a few chords near the end. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 25 January 2024)

Analytical listening to Taylor Swift shattered by “New Year’s Day” from “Reputation” (2017)

In preparing my Taylor Swift seminar, I've been putting on earburds and listening to her albums in chronological order. My focus is on identifying themes from song to song and from album to album, such as Swift's ongoing concern with how one can know what others are thinking. But this analytical mode can be shattered by a song I haven't previously paid much attention to, such as I experienced the other day with "New Year's Day", the last song on "Reputation" (2017): "I want your midnights / But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day." Here, Swift's lovers beautifully share not only intense "midnights" but quotidian domesticity. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 24 January 2024)

“We’ve never been a racist country”: Nikki Haley, Ruby Bridges, and the living history of United States racism

"We're not a racist country [...]. We've never been a racist country," said United States presidential candidate Nikki Haley (b. 1972) on Tuesday, 16 January 2024. Last night on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", Ruby Bridges (b. 1954) discussed being the first African-American student at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1960. Not only did white crowds demonstrate outside, Bridges was taught for a year in a one-on-one class with the only white teacher (Barbara Henry, b. 1932) willing to teach her. Both Bridges and Henry can attest that, along with many who demonstrated against Ruby's attendance at the school, United States racism is still alive today. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 23 January 2024)

 

Criteria to determine “the best band ever"

Around 2003, I had a long discussion with students about the idea of "the best band ever". They all began with claims that would put an end to such discussions: "everybody has their own opinion", and "it's all a matter of taste". But I argued that "best band ever" could imply a set of criteria, which we worked out: popularity, endurance, influence, and breadth of repertoire. With those criteria, they all ended up agreeing it had to be The Beatles. And even though my favorite band is The Grateful Dead and the most influential band ever is actually Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens from the 1920s, I agreed with them. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 22 January 2024)

 

[This is a revision of a 2018 Facebook post of mine that I had occasion to return to today. I revised it for the 111-word format because I decided I wanted to have a copy of it on my blog.] 

Buying a plane ticket in Saarbrücken in the 1990s

Once, when I was living in Saarbrücken from 1993 to 1995, I went to a travel agency to buy a plane ticket for a trip to the United States (probably from Frankfurt to Detroit). The travel agent and I worked out the details of our business in German, of course. When it came time to give him my name and address, I said what I always say in Germany and Switzerland: "Shields mit S-H." The travel agent laughed and said, in English with a British accent: "I've been living here too long. Even though you spelled it, I'd already typed S-C-H." He was from Bristol. We finished our business in English. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 21 January 2024)

The absence of “woke” voices in Susan Neiman’s “Left Is Not Woke” (2023)

In "Left Is Not Woke" (2023), Susan Neiman argues that the "woke" left has abandoned their essential "commitments to universalism, a hard distinction between justice and power, and the possibility of progress" (142). But when she writes that "[b]y the Fall of [2020] few voices speaking in defense of Black Lives Matter were universalist" (30) or that  "[m]ost woke activists reject universalism" (108), she offers no examples of such voices. Instead, most of the book argues that this unidentified "woke" left takes up positions – perhaps unknowingly – from Carl Schmitt, Michel Foucault, and evolutionary psychology that Neiman sees as opposed to the universalistic Enlightenment principles she sees as necessary to progressive politics. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 20 January 2024)

Listening to jazz and improvised music as comedy rather than tragedy

When I got into jazz in the 1980s, I understood improvised music as tragedy and its effect as catharsis: I wanted dark truths I had to go through pity and fear to understand; I wanted to be overwhelmed by the sublimity of live music. But now I have a different approach to listening to improvised music: I hear the musicians' interaction with each other's ideas as a matter of comedy and timing. Drummers, especially, comment with wit and laughter on their bandmates' playing, and like comedians, they find just the right moments to do so. Instead of being taken out of time by sublimity, I find myself in time with joy. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 18 January 2024) 

Opposition, the transfer of power, and the concept of democracy

On this morning after the Republican Party caucuses in Iowa, the first step toward the United States presidential election that will take place on Tuesday, 5 November 2024, when the leading candidate won over fifty percent of the vote even after having refused to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, it is striking to read the conclusion of German sociologist Armin Nassehi in the "Democratie" chapter of his book "Gesellschaftliche Grundbegriffe: Ein Glossar der öffentlichen Rede" that it is not elections themselves that constitute democracy, but the potential transfer of power to the opposition in any given election: "The positive value of democracy is the opposition, not the government." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 16 January 2024) 

Greg Brown’s 1990s visions of the future of technology in “Where Is Maria” and “Whatever It Was"

In "Where is Maria" from his 1996 album "Further In", Greg Brown sketched a dystopian future: "There'll be one corporation selling one little box. / It'll do what you want and tell you what you want and cost whatever you got." This was eleven years before Apple released the first iPhone in 2007, but perhaps it only began to "tell you what you want" when Siri was introduced in 2011. – One year later, in "Whatever It Was" from his album "Slant 6 Mind", Brown continued to prophesy about the technological future: "Gonna be a lotta roadkill on the Information Highway. / Someone stole the video of the everfresh and lovely dawn." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 15 January 2024)

Electric-guitar pioneer Adolph Rickenbacker was born in Basel in 1887

Here's a Basel connection I just learned about: Adolph Rickenbacker was born in poverty in Basel in 1887 as Adolph Riggenbacher and moved to the United States with relatives in 1891 after his parents died. In the 1930s, with George Beauchamp, he patented the first electric stringed instrument and founded the Rickenbacker company, whose instruments were later popularized by The Beatles, among others. Paul McCartney played a left-handed Rickenbacker bass, and George Harrison often played a twelve-string Rickenbacker electric guitar. Harrison's playing then inspired Roger McGuinn to use a Rickenbacker twelve-string with The Byrds, as in the distinctive sound of their version of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man". Basel, Beatles, Byrds! (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 14 January 2024)

 

Three great vault songs on Taylor Swift’s 2023 release “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)"

Three vault songs on the "Taylor's Version" (2023) of Taylor Swift's "Fearless" (2008) are so strong it surprises me she didn't release them in 2008. "Today Was a Fairytale" plays with the form of the song as she repeats the refrain lines in unexpected ways. "You All Over Me" is more explicitly about sex than other songs she released back then: "But no amount of freedom gets you clean / I've still got you all over me." And the play with forms of "Mr. X" and "Miss Y" on "Mr. Perfectly Fine" seems to me to begin to develop the wit that graces "Mine" and other songs on 2010's "Speak Now." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 13 January 2024) 

Taylor Swift’s ambition in “Tim McGraw"

In the story in Taylor Swift's "Tim McGraw" (the first song on her 2006 eponymous debut album), the speaker hopes that her ex will remember her when he later hears a song by the country singer Tim McGraw, one which was part of their relationship: "But when you think Tim McGraw / I hope you think my favorite song [...] / When you think Tim McGraw / I hope you think of me." The speaker may not be the singer, but the song also marks the teenage Swift's ambition: when her listeners think "Tim McGraw", they think of her and her song, rather than of McGraw and any of his songs. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 12 January 2024) 

Taylor Swift’s “Tim McGraw” and conventional rhetoric

"Tim McGraw", the opening song on Taylor Swift's eponymous debut album from 2006 (co-written with Liz Rose), begins with the flattery of a teenage boy for his date: "He said the way my blue eyes shined / Put those Georgia stars to shame that night." But the girl does not fall for this conventional comparison of her eyes and stars: "I said, 'That's a lie." Swift's first song thus begins with a rhetorical figure but immediately challenges the rhetorical. The discourse on love that runs through her work repeatedly takes this form: moments of conventional language keep coming up in contexts – both within songs and within albums – that question those conventions. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 January 2024)

My forthcoming seminar on three novels by Kazuo Ishiguro

Along with my seminar on Taylor Swift this coming term (which I'm co-teaching with Rachael Moorthy), I'm also teaching a repeat of my Spring 2019 seminar on three novels by Kazuo Ishiguro: "An Artist of the Floating World" (1986), "The Remains of the Day" (1989), and "Never Let Me Go" (2005). We will also discuss the films of "The Remains of the Day" (dir. James Ivory, 1993) and "Never Let Me Go" (dir. Mark Romanek, 2010). After my post yesterday about the Swift seminar generated several objections to the idea of taking her work seriously, I wonder if anyone might also claim that it's a waste of time to discuss Ishiguro. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 10 January 2024) 

Preparing for Taylor Swift’s Zurich concert in July by teaching a literature seminar on her lyrics

After we got tickets for Taylor Swift's concert in Zurich on Tuesday, July 9 (six months from today), I decided to go all into prepare for the show and teach a literature seminar with my student Rachael Moorthy on Swift's lyrics this spring semester (which starts at the end of February). Other university courses on her songs that I have read about seem to all focus on how they can be linked to other literary works, but while I'm happy to think about such issues when they come up  (as with the Romantic poets and in "The Lakes" from 2020's "Folklore"), I want to focus on close reading of the texts. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 9 January 2024)

John McWhorter’s misreading of the pressure that led to Harvard political scientist Claudine Gay’s resignation as president of Harvard University

John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at Columbia University and a "New York Times" opinion columnist, writes superbly about language, as in recent columns about "it is what is" or singular "they". But today, while arguing that African-American political scientist Claudine Gay "was not driven out" as president of Harvard University "because she is black", McWhorter refers to the role of "the right-wing anti-critical race theory crusader Christopher Rufo" without considering that Rufo is a notoriously proud racist. As novelist A. R. Moxon has argued, Rufo may claim his challenge to Gay is about plagiarism and academic anti-semitism, but such an acceptance of that framing disregards Rufo's "supremacist assumptions" and "eliminationist intentions". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 8 January 2024)

 

 

Workplace harassment as comedy in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine"

Between Christmas Day and New Year's, after I caught covid, I turned to rewatching "Brooklyn Nine-Nine", in part in honor of my old college friend Andre Braugher (1962-2023). I haven't yet finished the first season, but I've already noticed something that I hadn't registered before: the show plays workplace harassment as comedy. This first stood out for me when the character nicknamed "The Vulture" (Dean Winters) both repeatedly slaps Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) on his bottom and pesters Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) about how sexy he finds her. In the following episode, Peralta makes the first of his long-running "title of your sex tape" jokes in response to things Santiago says. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 7 January 2024)

Impressions from Bob Dylan’s “Desire” (1976)

As I learned from Liam Carson, yesterday was the anniversary of Bob Dylan's 1976 album "Desire". I often used to play "One More Cup of Coffee", and I still play it occasionally with my brother-in-law Bruce, who loves the song. Catchy phrases from three others pop up regularly in my head: “Hurricane” (“This is the story of the hurricane”), “Mozambique” (“I’d like to spend some time in Mozambique”), and “Oh, Sister” (“Oh, sister when I come to lie in your arms”). And for me, “Sara” doubles with Fleetwood Mac’s “Sara” as a reference to my sister Sara and my daughter Sara. – I guess that album has made an impression on me! (Andrew Shields, #111words, 6 January 2024) 

The Alps as figure and as a real place in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1851)

The Alps first appear in Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851) in a simile about "the Nantucker", who "climbs [the waves] as chamois hunters climb the Alps." Then they appear in a simile about keeping watch on the masthead, exposed "like an ignorant pilgrim crossing the snowy Alps in winter." But later, the actual mountains are referred to in a list of places where whale fossils had recently been found: "[...] at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama." First a figure of a landscape to be crossed, the Alps finally become an geographical and paleontological site. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 5 January 2024)

Following epidemiologists a few years ago

At some point in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, I read a tweet that in a few years people might well wonder why they followed so many epidemiologists on Twitter. When I remembered that the other day, I thought I'd try to find it again, but I deleted my Twitter account last July, and I prefer to look at X as little as possible. Back in 2020 at the time of that tweet about epidemiologists, the idea that people would have left Twitter instead had not yet come up. Still, on Mastodon, I do follow a lot of people who do critical research on Large Language Models and "AI". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 4 January 2024)

“The voters should decide”, say Trump supporters. But in 2020 they decided and he tried to overthrow the results

One thing I've seen people say about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's possible removal from the ballot for Republican presidential primaries or for the United States general election in November 2024 is that "the voters should decide". But as I've also seen noted several times, the voters resoundingly decided against Trump in the 2020 presidential election. His response was not to transfer power but to refuse to accept the voters' decision and to do everything he could to overturn the results, including the illegal actions that led to his indictments. He shouldn't be given another chance to accept the results if he wins and attempt to overturn them if he loses. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 3 January 2024)

Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic” (1974) and Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo” (1926)

The first Steely Dan album I ever owned was surely "Aja", which came out in September 1977 when I was 13. But at some point later, I must have picked up "Pretzel Logic" from 1974, as I remember I had the LP. Listening to it again today, I noticed as usual lately something I did not know back then: the piano riff that starts "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" is taken from Horace Silver's "Song for My Father" (1964). But I also noticed that I can add another moment to my early listening to jazz: the version of Duke Ellington's 1926 composition with trumpet player Bubber Miley, "East St. Louis Toodle-Oo." (Andrew Shields, #111words, 2 January 2024)

Reading Thomas Hardy’s “Desperate Remedies” (1871) after reading Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1851)

After I finished Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851) on 7 December 2023, I turned to Thomas Hardy's novels for my next long-term reading project. At 144,580 words, Hardy's first novel, "Desperate Remedies" (1871), is only seventy percent as long as "Moby Dick" (at 209,117 words), but it is much more plot-driven, so it only took me two weeks to read it (instead of fifteen for Melville). "Desperate Remedies" is also much more of a page-turner than "Moby Dick", though that might also have to do with my previous knowledge of each book's plot: I knew many of the details of the Melville already and nothing about Hardy's much less famous novel. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 1 January 2024)

My year of 73 concerts

My year of 73 concerts began on 10 January with Adele Sauros (with drummer Jorge Rossy) and ended on 10 December with the Neues Orchester Basel playing Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. I saw Rossy five times, but the two players I saw most were trombonist Lukas Wyss and guitarist Fabio Gouvêa at seven times each – in part because the band I saw most often was the Sarah Chaksad Large Ensemble when they played four nights at the Bird's Eye in July. The best show for dancing was Tinariwen in June; the best show of all was the Bill Frisell Trio with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston in Strasbourg in November. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 31 December 2023)

A break from daily prose turns into a break for Christmas and a break for covid

As I stumbled toward the end of the Fall Semester, I stopped writing my daily 111-word texts. I kept putting off starting again: first, until after my last classes; then, until after Christmas Day; and then, until after the covid outbreak in the family gathering at my father-in-law's house ended.  With eight people packed into the house, we knew when my son came down with covid that many of us would catch it. Despite my covid and flu shots at the beginning of December, I tested positive myself two days ago, as did my ninety-three-year-old father-in-law, who'd also recently had a covid booster. Luckily, our cases have been mild so far. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 30 December 2023) 

The “goney” or albatross in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1851)

When Ishmael in Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851) sees a “a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness” on the deck of a ship sailing near Antarctica, he is stunned by this "prodigy of plumage" and has to ask a sailor what the bird is called: a "goney". Later, he finds out that is another name for the albatross, and even later, he reads what he calls "Coleridge's wild Rhyme": Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798). For him, as perhaps for Melville himself on his own maritime voyages, the experience of the living bird both predates and anticipates the experience of the literary bird in Coleridge's narrative poem. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 16 December 2023) 

The horse race in Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (1973)

In Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (1973), the city of Omelas's Festival of Summer includes a horse race: "[...] boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit." For LeGuin, such young, naked riders using little gear may have been an image of freedom. But according to my horseback-riding daughters (and my horseback-riding students), the limited gear could only be the result of extensive training for both horses and riders – and riding while naked would also be extremely uncomfortable. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 15 December 2023)

Hermanos Gutiérrez: Gorgeous instrumental electric-guitar duos

Steve Johnson, a fellow Deadhead on Mastodon, posted a link today to the NPR Tiny Desk Concert by Hermanos Gutiérrez from 31 January 2023. I was immediately entranced by the intertwining guitars of the two brothers, Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez. When I went to check out their albums, I ended buying all five of them from Bandcamp, and then I discovered that they have an Ecuadorian mother and a Swiss father, and that they are based in Zurich (so we share a country). Their instrumental electric-guitar music has echoes of many of my favorites – from Neil Young and Ry Cooder to Bill Frisell and Marc Ribot, and even Tinariwen and Tamikrest. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 14 December 2023)

 

 

Running into a friend at Times Square subway station in December 1984: Andre Braugher (1962-2023)

In December 1984, on my way to see pianist Kenny Barron at the Sweet Basil jazz club in Manhattan, I was briefly confused about where to go in Times Square subway station. When I made a sharp left, I almost ran into someone, who then seemed to follow me while muttering as if angry. Turning to apologize, I instead called the name of a Stanford friend: "Dre!" We took the same train, so we chatted until I got off to go to the club. He had not been muttering with anger but practicing lines for a course at Juilliard. That was the last time I saw the wonderful Andre Braugher (1962-2023). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 13 December 2023)

The Pequot nation, the source of the name of Captain Ahab’s ship in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1851)

In Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851), Ishmael explains the name of Captain Ahab's ship: “Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians, now extinct as the ancient Medes.” The Pequot War fought from 1636-1638 between the Pequot nation and several of the New England colonies did lead to the dispersal of the Pequot, but two branches of the nation still today. But Ishmael, like the local, nineteenth-century New England historians studied by Jean M. O'Brien in "Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England", declares the Pequots extinct even as he refers to them as a well-known, celebrated memory. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 12 December 2023)

A trace in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (1851) of the desire to extend enslavement in the mid-19th-century United States

In Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851), while explaining how Nantucket whalers control two-thirds of the globe, Ishmael touches on the contemporary desires for expansion in the United States: “Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada [...].” In the antebellum South, many enslavers, such as Senator Albert Gallatin Brown of Mississippi in 1850, hoped to extend enslavement beyond Texas to the Caribbean and Central American countries: "I want Cuba, and I know that sooner or later we must have it. ... I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason–for the planting and spreading of slavery." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 December 2023)

Note: The Brown quotation is from James M. McPherson, "The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era", Oxford UP 1988, 106.

My seventy-third concert this year, and my first Beethoven symphony ever

For my seventy-third concert this year, I finally went to hear some classical music this afternoon. It was also the first time I ever heard a Beethoven symphony played live: the Seventh, performed at the Stadtcasino Basel by the Neues Orchester Basel, with Christian Knüsel conducting. It's a work I apparently know better than I thought, as I was humming along to its melodies all the way through. There was also Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Chouchane Siranossian, in which I especially liked the interplay between the violin and the tympani, played by Yuriko Hänni. Apparently, Siranossian liked Hänni's playing, too: she gave her the flowers she was given after the performance. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 10 December 2023)

Finishing “Moby Dick” on my fourth try

In English class in ninth or tenth grade, we read an abridged version of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851). Three times over the decades since then, I tried to read the whole book, but each time I didn't get very far before I stalled. Once, I even decided to stop (rather than just stumbling to a halt) because it seemed like it would be a book best read in a seminar with other people to discuss it. After I finished my reading of all of Charles Dickens's novels in August, I took up "Moby Dick" again, and on Thursday, I actually finished it, about 45 years after I read that abridgement. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 9 December 2023)

Durham Cathedral and English and Syrian music in Ken Loach’s “The Old Oak” (2023)

In Ken Loach's "The Old Oak" (2023), Syrian refugee Yara (Ebla Mari) goes to Durham with pubkeeper TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) to pick up donations for the community kitchen at TJ's pub  in their village. There, she goes into Durham Cathedral to hear the choir practicing their centuries-old music in the almost one-thousand-year-old cathedral, which moves her to reflect on the destruction of similar buildings in the ongoing civil war in Syria. Later, at that community kitchen, a man plays Syrian music on the oud during a slide show of photographs of the villagers taken by Yara. That music, too, is centuries-old, yet made new again every time it is performed. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 8 December 2023)

Donald Trump has only recently been frequently called a “fascist"

On the Daily Show on Tuesday, guest host Charlamagne tha God claimed that "Democrats have been crying 'fascist' for soooo loooong." He mentioned criticism of Republican Presidential candidates going back to George W. Bush in 2000. But while Democrats painted Republicans as dangerous from Bush to John McCain (2008) to Mitt Romney (2012), I don't recall any use of that "F" word among Democrats, pundits, and commentators back then. I don't have the resources to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that even the late-night comedians didn't say that before this year. I was really struck, at least, when Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers recently began calling Donald Trump a fascist. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 7 December 2023)

The Trump succession that was on a T-shirt during Donald Trump’s presidency

Even during Donald Trump's presidency in the United States from 2017-2021, his supporters were already in favor of a Trump dictatorship. I remember seeing a T-shirt someone wore at one of his rallies that was quite explicit: "Donald Trump, 2016-2024; Donald Trump, Jr., 2024-2032; Eric Trump, 2032-2040; Ivanka Trump, 2040-2048; Barron Trump, 2048-2056." (Tiffany was left out of the succession.) That timeline may have been expressed in keeping with the United States constitution's limits on presidents to two four-year terms (and it may have been inaccurate in its emphasis on election years), but it expressed – and expresses – the MAGA wish for unchallenged power to be given to Trump and his family. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 6 December 2023)

Jim Gordon, the drummer on Tom Waits’s “The Heart of Saturday Night” (1974)

"New Coat of Paint", which opens Tom Waits's "The Heart of Saturday Night" (1974), begins with a brilliant lick by drummer Jim Gordon and settles into a lovely shuffle. Gordon (1945-2023) played on many brilliant recordings in the 1960s and 1970s and even got a co-writing credit for the piano coda to Eric Clapton's "Layla" in 1970. Years ago, I learned he was serving a life sentence for murder, but when I recently found out he played drums on "New Coat of Paint", I looked further and also learned that he suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia when he murdered his mother in 1983, and that he died in prison this past March. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 5 December 2023)

“To take the world back into caves”: A metaphor from a fossil-fuel executive and from Old Man Warner in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery"

Sultan Al Jaber, the President of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, challenged former Irish President Mary Robinson on 21 November to describe “a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.” Old Man Warner, "the oldest man in town" in Shirley Jackson's short-story "The Lottery" (1948), responds similarly to talk "of giving up the lottery": "Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves [...]." Warner wants to maintain the murderous tradition of the story's deadly lottery; Al Jaber wants to maintain the murderous use of fossil fuels. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 4 December 2023)

 

The New York Times publishes a list of ten white men “behind the modern artificial intelligence movement"

When I saw a link to J. Edward Moreno's "The Who’s Who Behind the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement" on the New York Times Mastodon feed, I saw the picture of Elon Musk that promoted the article and wondered if the article would only refer to men. But I also hoped Moreno and his editors would have made sure to avoid such bias. But of course the "who's who" list includes ten men, all white (or at least, from their pictures, able to pass as white), from Altman to Zuckerberg. There's no mention of women doing important critical work on AI, such as Emily M. Bender, or non-white researchers like Timnit Gebru. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 3 December 2023)

 

A coalition to defeat Donald Trump: From Ocasio-Cortez to Cheney

In an interview published yesterday by the Swiss online news outlet Republik, Daniel Ziblatt, Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University, argues that, to defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election, a broad coalition is necessary: from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democratic Congresswoman from New York) on the left to Liz Cheney (former Republican Congresswoman from Wyoming) on the right. Coalitions are necessary to govern the United States, with its system that has come to be based on two main parties that bring many types of people together, and only such an inclusive coalition can be sure to defeat the minority MAGA coalition that has formed around Trump. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 December 2023)

“Space” from The Grateful Dead, the Bill Frisell Trio, and Sparks and Tides with Andreas and Matthias Tschopp

I loved the ten minutes or so of "Space" at concerts by The Grateful Dead, when guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir (and sometimes bassist Phil Lesh and keyboardist Brent Mydland) played free-improvised feedback and textures. It's great to hear other performers arrive at a similar "space" in their concerts, as in some of the passages guitarist Bill Frisell played in Strasbourg last month with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Roylston. Tonight at the Bird's Eye in Basel, brothers Andreas Tschopp on trombone and Matthias Tschopp on baritone saxophone, playing with their band Sparks and Tides, twice took their horns and their electronic devices into "space" for long, beautiful passages. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 1 December 2023)

How to write a headline about the death of Henry Kissinger (1923-2023)

"Sometimes controversial" (BBC) "Former US Secretary of State" (NBC News) Henry Kissinger (1923-2023) may indeed have been "America's most famous diplomat" (Politico) and a "Nobel winner" (Reuters), he can be said to have "shaped Cold War history" (New York Times) and "helped forge US Policy" (Wall Street Journal), and he may even have been "a dominating and polarizing force" (CNN) who "shaped world affairs under two presidents" (Washington Post). But those news organizations are being mealy-mouthed. This is a headline that puts his major achievement front and center: "Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies" (Rolling Stone). Or this: "Henry Kissinger, America’s Most Notorious War Criminal" (HuffPost). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 30 November 2023)

Note: Credit to this post for collecting the phrases used in headlines: https://tech.lgbt/@deilann/111497255749409137

Delving into Tom Waits again

For the last couple of days, I've been delving into my Tom Waits collection (which is complete). I began with "Franks Wild Years", the first Waits album I bought, and also the one I saw the tour for in San Francisco on 5 November 1987 (with Marc Ribot, Ralph Carney, Greg Cohen, and Michael Blair – my first Ribot concert). Now I'm listening in alphabetical order – "Alice", "Bad as Me", and "The Black Rider", and now "Blood Money". The arrangements are like nothing else, the ballads are as good as any ballads in the world, and the voice is inimitable – or at least when I try to imitate it, my throat hurts. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 29 November 2023) 

The poor journalism of recent newspaper attacks on the University of Basel

Today, after Rico Bandle's Basler Zeitung article Sunday about the supposed "Ideologisierung" at the University of Basel, Naomi Reichlin published another article critical of the University in the BZ. Neither journalist did any in-depth research on the issue. Bandle referred to a course on border policy in Switzerland from Spring Semester 2021 but did not interview the lecturer who taught the course. Reichlin, a member of the FDP Switzerland, made broad generalizations about how the University's scholars are supposedly unwilling to challenge their own ideology, but since she did not interview anyone from the University who might have disagreed with her, she ended up not challenging her own "liberal" ideology either. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 28 November 2023)

Borders between countries as instruments of discrimination

In an article in the Sonntagszeitung this weekend criticizing the University of Basel's Urban Studies program for its supposed "Ideologisierung", Rico Bandle discussed the "problem" that an instructor teaching a course on "Die Schweizer Grenzregime" also works with sans-papiers immigrants: "Überwachte Grenzen, so der Grundtenor, seien ein Unterdrückungsinstrument der rassistischen westlichen Staaten, inklusive der Schweiz." The reported speech implies that Bandle disagrees and perhaps even finds the idea patently absurd from his own ideological perspective. But the borders between countries, no matter how guarded they are, are tools of discrimination between insiders and outsiders, and that discrimination is often based on race and racial profiling, especially in "Western countries", including Switzerland. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 27 November 2023)

 

Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years” as recollection, not staggering

While I was grading essays this afternoon, shuffle sent me to a Steely Dan collection, "Show Biz Kids", and I started singing happily along with "Do It Again" and "Dirty Work", the first two songs. Then came "Reelin' in the Years", with its fantastic guitar playing, and while I sang along with its chorus, I realized I have always misunderstood "reeling" here: "Are you reelin' in the years, / stowin' away the time, / are you gatherin' up the tears, / have you had any of mine?" It's not "reeling" as in "staggering", as I long thought, but "reeling in" with a figurative fishing pole. This chorus is about re-collecting recollections. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 26 November 2023)

The “first people” in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948)

In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (1948), the box for the lottery is not the original: "There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here." The villagers see their settler ancestors as "the first people", but the Hutchinsons and Warners, the Delacroixs and the Martins, the Dunbars and the Zaninis, were not the landscape's original occupants. The actual "first people" were displaced and erased by the settlers and their descendants' stories, and the lottery's violence continues their violence against the land's indigenous people. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 25 November 2023) 

Lionel Loueke and his seven-string electric guitar at the Bird’s Eye in Basel

Lionel Loueke plays a seven-string electric guitar whose extra string is a low B below the low E on a standard guitar. This opens up his playing for funky bass lines over which he riffs on chords or plays melodies. At his solo concert at the Bird's Eye in Basel tonight, he used a pedal board to create live loops to play along to with long, winding lines of high notes. But he actually didn't use the loops that often; he could keep up driving rhythms without them, while playing and singing fragmentary bursts of melody and alternating between Herbie Hancock compositions (from his solo album "HH") and his own tunes. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 24 November 2023)

A series of Basel concerts with musicians from Senegal, Cameroon, Mali, and Benin

Last weekend, I heard Mory Samb from Senegal play ngoni at the Bird's Eye in Basel. On Tuesday, I heard Étienne Mbappé from Cameroon play bass there with Thomas Dobler on vibes and Nicolas Viccaro on drums. Last night at the Kaserne in Basel, I saw the Malian husband-and-wife duo of Bassekou Kouyate on ngoni and Amy Sacko on vocals. Samb's ngoni looked like a kora with a large, gourd-shaped resonator, while Kouyate said that his much smaller ngoni is an ancestor of the banjo. Tomorrow and Saturday, I'll continue listening to musicians from West Africa: guitarist Lionel Loueke from Benin will be playing two solo concerts at the Bird's Eye. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 23 November 2023) 

The politics of needs and the politics of stories in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (1948)

In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (1948), the old black box the villagers draw lots from is a problem for Mr. Summers, who runs the yearly lottery: "Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box." Mr. Summers identifies a problem and proposes a way to solve it. This politics of needs is about rights and justice. But for the villagers, the old box cannot be replaced because it is an essential metonymy of the coherent story they tell themselves about themselves. This politics of stories is about origins and authenticity. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 22 November 2023)

Seeing Marc Rothenmund’s “Wochenendrebellen” (2023) in a cinema full of children

In Marc Rothenmund's "Wochenendrebellen" (2023), Jason (Cecilio Andresen), a ten-year-old autistic boy, is asked by classmates what his favorite football team is, but he doesn't have one. He then gets his father Mirco (Florian David Fitz) to agree that they will go to all 56 German professional football stadiums (from all three Bundesligen) to determine his favorite. I saw the movie at the Kult Kino Camera in Basel on Sunday afternoon, and the cinema was full of children around ten years old. I wondered if this moving and powerful film that includes quite intense scenes of Jason being unable to cope with his surroundings is what they and their parents expected.  (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 21 November 2023)

Dancing alone to Mory Samb and Djam Rek at the Bird’s Eye in Basel, 17-18 November 2023

On Friday and Saturday, 17 and 18 November, I went to the Bird's Eye in Basel to hear Senegalese ngoni player Mory Samb and his band Djam Rek (with two horns, bass, drums, percussion, keyboards, and a singer). The first night, I sat in my chair during the first set and wondered how anyone could listen to this music and not dance, but for the second set, I found a spot to dance that didn't block anyone's view. Still, nobody else danced, and when I spent the whole second night dancing, nobody else danced either. I could see so many people moving in their chairs, but they left me dancing alone. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 20 November 2023) 

A baby sucks on the collar of his tie-dye jacket

When my son Miles was a baby, I made him a some tie-dye baby clothes. One of them was a jacket with a collar he would get into his mouth. Much to our surprise and concern, the dye stained his mouth. We'd never seen anything like that with our home-made tie-dyes before, so we contacted the dye company, Jacquard Products in California, and asked them if we should be worried. They said it was no problem, their Procion MX dyes are non-toxic (and, I would add, very long-lasting). They added that they'd never heard of this problem before, but maybe nobody had ever tie-dyed baby clothes that the baby sucked before! (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 19 November 2023)

Vanessa Droz’s “Octubre”, T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, and the joy of reading a great poem for the first time

In our seminar on "La Poesía de Puerto Rico" today, we discussed a poem by Vanessa Droz, "Octubre", which quotes T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land": "Una vez recordaste: 'April is the cruelest month.' / Y era octubre." We'd asked the students to read "The Waste Land" as well, and one student told us not only that she had read it for the first time yesterday, but also that it had blown her away. I often tell students who admit they haven't read some classic text that they "have something to look forward to"; today, I enjoyed the student's smile when she talked about reading Eliot's poem for the first time. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 16 November 2023)

The postponement of the Israeli men’s national football teams matches from October

After Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, two matches the Israeli men's national football team were scheduled to play the following week in the qualification for the 2024 men's European championship (against Switzerland and Kosovo) were postponed until November. Usually, national teams play two matches during a break for their competitions, but now Israel is playing four between Sunday, 12 November, and Tuesday, 21 November. The second one was tonight against Switzerland, who have to play three matches in seven days due to the postponement. Although Switzerland controlled the match, they weren't able to score a second goal, and Israel managed a draw with a goal in the 88th minute. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 15 November 2023)

Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler, vermin & Ungeziefer, and Franz Kafka & Gregor Samsa

When Donald Trump referred to "Communists" and others as "vermin", journalists and historians pointed out that the term was used by Adolf Hitler to refer to the Jews of Germany. The German term Hitler used was "Ungeziefer", which is also what Gregor Samsa turns into at the beginning of Franz Kafka's "Die Verwandlung". All three of Kafka's sisters died in the Holocaust: Elli and Valli in Chelmno in 1942, and Ottla in Auschwitz in 1943. The problem for Trump supporters who cheer his call to "root out" the "vermin" is that, in an authoritarian society, anyone can wake up one morning to find themselves, like Gregor Samsa, transformed into an "Ungeziefer". (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 14 November 2023)

Andreas Schärer, Kalle Kalima, and Tim Lefebvre in Strasbourg and Bern

At the two concerts by the trio of vocalist Andreas Schärer, guitarist Kalle Kalima, and bassist Tim Lefebvre that I attended in Strasbourg and Bern on Saturday and Sunday, the trio played material from their recent album "Evolution" (ACT Music). But the Saturday show was part of a double bill at the Jazzdor Festival in Strasbourg, so they had to keep track of time, with Kalima even pulling out his phone several times to see how much time they had left. As a result, the songs were brisk and tight. In Bern, they were the only band on the bill, and the songs were looser and more extended as a result. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 13 November 2023)

Bill Frisell, Thomas Morgan, and Rudy Royston at the Jazzdor Festival in Strasbourg, 10 November 2023

The trio of guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Thomas Morgan, and drummer Rudy Royston performed at Cité de la Musique et de la Danse in Strasbourg as part of the Jazzdor Festival last night. While they did play a series of specific tunes, they never stopped between tunes during their seventy-five-minute set. Again and again, Frisell would wrap up tunes with a coda built around loops, and the coda would turn into a segue. I think the tunes were (almost?) all Frisell's own compositions: I could name "Lonesome", "Strange Meeting", and the encore, "Poem for Eva", a simple and beautiful melody Frisell first recorded for his 1999 album "Good Dog, Happy Man". (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 November 2023)

Bill Frisell and “What the World Needs Now Is Love”

A highlight of guitarist Bill Frisell's duo concert on 23 April 2023 with bassist Thomas Morgan at the Stadtcasino in Basel was Burt Bacharach and Hal David's 1965 song "What the World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love". The song appears on "Valentine", Frisell's 2020 album with Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston. That trio is performing tomorrow at Cité de la Musique et de la Danse in Strasbourg as part of the Jazzdor Festival. Knowing Frisell's performances, I don't expect them to play any of the tunes from "Valentine", but if they do, I hope to hear Frisell's "Keep Your Eyes Open", which was originally released on his "Nashville" in 1997. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 9 November 2023) 

Reading Denise Levertov for three-and-a-half years

On 25 May 2020, I posted a quote from Denise Levertov's poem "Listening to Distant Guns", the first of the "early and uncollected poems" in "The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov": "That low pulsation in the east is war." As I'd previously done with Paul Celan and John Ashbery, I've since quoted one Levertov poem a day. and today I posted this from the last poem in her posthumous collection "This Great Unknowing": "When I opened the door / I found the vine leaves / speaking among themselves in abundant / whispers." It's been a joy to follow Levertov's attention to the world's "abundant whispers", whether natural, social, religious, or political. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 8 November 2023)

“Leave my children alone”: Trump, his children, and New York vs. Trump

When Donald Trump, Jr. (b. 1977), Ivanka Trump (b. 1981), and Eric Trump (b. January 1984) were called to testify in the New York v. Trump, the ongoing civil fraud trial in New York, former United States President Donald Trump complained online about Judge Arthur Engoron: "Leave my children alone, Engoron". As his sons and daughter, they are his children, of course, but they are also adults aged between 39 and 45. Even lawyer Alina Habba (b. March 1984) has played that card: "And now these children are being brought in, away from their families [...]." But laughably, Habba herself is two months younger than the youngest of those children, Eric. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 7 November 2023)

Note: I got the quotes from around six minutes into this Seth Meyers clip.

The private stories and language that could not be copied by deep-fake audio

The other day on the Late Show, Stephen Colbert talked about deep-fake audio that could be used for scams. While he was saying he wouldn't be fooled by such audio, his phone rang, and it was President Joe Biden, trying to scam him, but Stephen thought it was really him. – It made me wonder how I could tell if my family members on the phone were real or deep-audio fakes. For each of them, there are stories, as well as words and phrases, that are part of our private world together. This evening, my daughter Sara had a fun conversation about various private things we could use to identify each other. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 6 November 2023)

Where were your great-grandparents born?

Recently, I saw a Mastodon post asking people about their ancestors: "Where were your great-grandparents from?" My first thought was Holland, Michigan, and Illinois, but then I thought I should take the question to mean something more specific: Where were they born? I checked with my mother, my sisters, my brother, and my cousin, and we ended up not being sure about whether my paternal great-grandparents who lived in Illinois were actually born there. But my mother's mother's mother was born in Dinxperlo, Holland (her parents migrated to Ohio while she was still a child). And the rest of her great-grandparents were indeed born in Michigan. Where were your great-grandparents born? (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 5 November 2023)

Avoiding Jim Jordan and the Supreme Court to read about Simonides

Reading the latest issue of "The New Yorker", I turned the page to an article about United States Republican Congressman from Ohio Jim Jordan. Not wanting to read that, I picked up the 5 October issue of "The New York Review of Books" to an article about the conservative United States Supreme Court. Not wanting to read that, I turned the page and smiled to see A. E. Stallings's review of David Sider's "Simonides: Epigrams and Elegies". But then I read about Simonides on Danaë and infant Perseus at sea: "There are still women and babies fleeing war who try to cross the Aegean in boats little better than wooden coffins." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 4 November 2023)

“As an attorney who is also a Christian”: Jenna Ellis’s statement on entering her guilty plea in the Georgia election case

At the hearing where she entered her guilty plea in the Fulton County, Georgia, election subversion case, Jenna Ellis appealed to her religion: “As an attorney who is also a Christian, I take my responsibilities as a lawyer very seriously and I endeavor to be a person of sound moral and ethical character in all of my dealings.” As an atheist, I find such a statement both infuriating and telling: it implies that religion is necessary for good moral behavior (which it is not) and that, along with others who think like her, Ellis would behave immorally and unethically if she didn't have her religion to keep such behavior in check. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 25 October 2023)