References to the “weirdness” and “abnormality” of MAGA and the Right” from early 2024

Back in July, when Minnesota's Democratic Governor Tim Walz (now the party's candidate for Vice President) described leading Republican and MAGA politicians in the United States as "weird", the expression caught on, and there was much discussion of the use of the term. The usage seemed new at the time, but today, at the end of an opinion column in the New York Times about Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris, I saw links to two opinion pieces by conservative Times columnists from earlier this year: a January column by Ross Douthat about "the Right's abnormality problem" and to a February column by David French about "the profound weirdness of MAGA." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 12 September 2024)

Weird Beard’s excellent psychedelia at the Bird’s Eye Basel, 10 September 2024 (and again tonight, 11 September 2024)

At their concert at the Bird's Eye in Basel last night, Weird Beard blended styles into wide-ranging psychedelia: Luzius Schuler contributed electric keyboard textures and jazz-piano solos; drummer Rico Baumanm played rock grooves enriched with inventive jazz fills; Dave Gisler shimmered through electric-guitar sounds from choppy staccato to long, fast, fluid runs; and Florian Egli laid down steadily pulsing lines on electric bass guitar for the others to paint pictures around. There were only a dozen or so people in the audience, and all my Basel-area friends interested in psychedelic improvisations should go check them out tonight at 8:30 pm for the second of their two Bird's Eye shows this week. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 11 September 2024)

Weird Beard: Luzius Schuler, Florian Egli, Rico Baumann, Dave Gisler

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Thing Around Your Neck” (2009) and xenophobic urban legends about immigrants eating pets and wild animals

In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "The Thing Around Your Neck", the title story of her 2009 short-story collection, Nigerian immigrant Akunna hears from her "uncle" what his neighbors in a town in Maine once suspected about his family: "Your uncle [...] told you how the neighbors said, a few months after he moved into his house, that the squirrels had started to disappear. They had heard that Africans ate all kinds of wild animals." I remembered this moment in Adichie's story when I heard the urban legend spread by Republican Vice Presidential candidate J. D. Vance and other xenophobic politicians that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been eating their neighbors' cats. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 10 September 2024)

A good line in Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please”: "Don't bring me to tеars when I just did my makeup so nice."

I watched and listened to Rick Beato's countdown of the Spotify Top Ten, which he does every few months. While he pays attention to the details of the music, with comments about such things as chord progressions, the use of autotune, and the decade a recording sounds like, he never comments on the lyrics. That's my thing, of course, and one line in a song, Sabrina Carpenter's  "Please Please Please", stood out to me: "Don't bring me to tеars when I just did my makeup so nice." Variations on "don't make me cry" permeate pop music, but I have not heard the wonderful and convincing link to makeup running before. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 9 September 2024)

 

John Perry Barlow, The Grateful Dead, “Throwing Stones”, and Republican Dick Cheney’s endorsement of Democrat Kamala Harris for President

When Dick Cheney, the Republican Vice President of the United States under President George W. Bush (2001-2009), ran for Wyoming's seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1978, Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow worked on his campaign. But within a few years, Cheney's increasingly right-wing politics inspired Barlow's lyric for a 1982 Grateful Dead song by Bob Weir, "Throwing Stones". I hadn't heard of Cheney when I first heard the song then, but I've despised him since he was Secretary of Defense under President George H. W. Bush from 1989-1993. Yet now, that life-long Republican has endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 7 September 2024)

Dr. Seuss’s “The Lorax” and my son when he was three years old

When my son Miles was three years old, and my mother was visiting us in Basel, he asked her to read him "The Lorax", by Dr. Seuss. But they couldn't find our copy of the book it was in (a collection of Seuss stories that did not say "The Lorax" on the cover). My mother knew he had heard the story often, so she asked him to recite it to her: "I bet you know it by heart." Then he reeled off line and line of the book, until he stumbled two-thirds of the way through, lost the thread, and despaired: "I'm sorry, Grandma, I don't know 'The Lorax' by heart." (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 6 September 2024)

The Sullivan Act, John Dos Passos’s “Manhattan Transfer” (1925), and the United States Supreme Court’s Bruen decision

In John Dos Passos's novel "Manhattan Transfer" (1925), unemployed and broke Dutch Robertson, who is about to begin a series of robberies, is warned by his girlfriend Francie about carrying a gun in New York State in the 1920s: “Next thing some cop’ll see it on your hip and arrest you for the Sullivan law.” The Sullivan Act was a New York state law passed in 1911 that required people to apply for licenses "to have and carry concealed a pistol or revolver". But the United States Supreme Court struck down the Sullivan Act as unconstitutional in its 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 5 September 2024)

My favorite pop concerts, my favorite Grateful Dead concert, my favorite recent jazz concert, and the best band I’ve ever seen

The best pop concerts I've ever attended are Talking Heads in San Francisco in 1983, Leonard Cohen in Zurich in 2008, and Taylor Swift in Zurich in 2024. But for me, that category excludes all Grateful Dead concerts and jazz concerts. My favorite Dead show was 22 July 1984 in Ventura, California. The most recent exceptional jazz concert I've seen was Jason Moran on solo piano in Basel this past April. But for the quality of the musicians and the range of the material, the best ever was John Zorn's Naked City in New York and Philadelphia in 1988 and 1990 (with Wayne Horvitz, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, and Joey Baron). (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 4 September 2024) 

On hearing “Sultans of Swing”, by Dire Straits, in January 1979

I was 14 when the Dire Straits song “Sultans of Swing” came out in the United States in January 1979. I listened to Top 40 radio at the time (I hadn’t yet discovered anything else to listen to in Toledo, Ohio), and the song's guitars and driving beat and evocative story sounded so different than anything else that I heard on the charts. As I just found out, it peaked at number four. When I got the band's eponymous debut album featuring the song, I played it often. Now, at 60. I still turn to it once in a while, as well as to the band's third album, 1980’s “Making Movies”. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 3 September 2024)

A Japanese lantern lit by gas in Marcel Proust's "Du côté de chez Swann" (1913)

When Charles Swann has tea with Odette de Crécy in Marcel Proust's "Du côté de chez Swann" (1913), they ascend stairs that feature “une grande lanterne japonaise suspendue à une cordelette de soie (mais qui, pour ne pas priver les visiteurs des derniers conforts de la civilisation occidentale s'éclairait au gaz)”. In the mid-to-late nineteenth century France of the novel's "Un amour de Swann" section, the oriental fashion of the Japanese lantern hanging on a silken string may offer an exotic touch, but the practical comforts of occidental progress, here in the form of the gas used to light the lantern, are still maintained. Eastern ornamentation serves to decorate Western functionality. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 September 2024)

Songs about turning or being 64 or 22 or 18 or 16 – but none about turning or being 60?

A friend who turned 64 shortly before I turned 60 responded to my congratulations with "When I'm Sixty-Four", by The Beatles ("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", 1967). I couldn't think of a song about turning or being 60, so I responded with "22", by Taylor Swift ("Red", 2012). My friend countered with "I'm Eighteen", by Alice Cooper ("Love It To Death", 1971). Of course many songs have "sixteen" in the title, such as "You're Sixteen", which was written by The Sherman Brothers (who also wrote the songs for "Mary Poppins") and recorded by Johnny Burnette in 1960. I haven't found a song called "Sixty", so maybe I'll write it myself. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 1 September 2024)