Bookstore music

I have little tolerance for what I call "bookstore music" -- the tepid, unobtrusive stuff one hears when browsing in Borders. And nothing seems to say "bookstore music" more plainly than "Norah Jones." Jones is, in truth, a distinctive singer (her "Don't Miss You at All," a lyrical setting of Duke Ellington's "Melancholia," is one of the most moving recordings I've ever heard). But she's being marketed as background music. Here, sentence by sentence, is Borders' pitch for Jones' new CD:

With its laid-back beauty, sly musicianship, and honeyed singing

"Sly"? "Honeyed"? Those adjectives grate. Given the sexy overtones in this opening phrase, I wonder whether "its" was originally "her."

Norah Jones' latest album is as comforting as a summer breeze on a winter day.

It's odd to refer to an "album's" singing, which strengthens my suspicion about "its" and "her." And in light of global warming, I'd think twice about calling that breeze "comforting."

On Not Too Late, Jones shares in the writing of each track

One doesn't write tracks; one writes songs (or fugues, sonatas, symphonies, and so on).

for a personal recording

I'm not sure what defines a "personal recording," but given the ability of great singers (Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra) to make songs their own, composer credit is hardly necessary for a "personal recording."

that indulges her honky-tonk side.

"Honky-tonk" startles a bit: suddenly I smell cigarette smoke in the summer breeze, a breeze that is now even less comforting than it was when it was reminding me of global warming.

It's a lovely set

"Lovely," on the heels of "honky-tonk"? Ah, what lovely honky-tonk! This CD promises to be all things to all people.

that sounds perfect whether you're enjoying a dinner party or the Sunday paper.

Yes, middle-aged listener, you there with the newspaper spread all over the living room, this CD's for you. You want music that's comforting, but you too have a honky-tonk side waiting to be indulged. And yes, it's the 21st century, in which music is mere background to accompany other, more important endeavors, like sipping a latte, or doing the crossword puzzle, or browsing in a bookstore.

Would this CD still sound "perfect" if one were just listening to it, and not practicing continuous partial attention?

"Customer service" in higher education

From a piece by English professor Rob Jenkins on the use of the phrase "customer service" in higher education:

After 20 years as a community-college faculty member, I think I can speak for most of my colleagues when I say it's not the "service" part of that thoroughly despised phrase we object to. We all understand that teaching is, at heart, a service profession. That's why most of us got into it in the first place.

What bothers us is the suggestion that our students, while sitting in our classrooms, are customers. Because words have meaning, and that particular word carries some pretty dangerous connotations in an educational context.

For one thing, when students hear it, their first association is with that famous if not necessarily correct adage, "The customer is always right."

You can read the rest via the link.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Instructor (Chronicle of Higher Education)

There'll always be an England

There'll always be an England
While there's a country lane,
Wherever there's a cottage small
Beside a field of grain.
There'll always be an England
While there's a busy street,
Wherever there's a turning wheel,
A million marching feet.

Here's news that gives new meaning to the "turning wheel": Manchester has been chosen as the location of Britain's first Las Vegas-style casino.

Manchester wins super-casino race (BBC News)
"There'll Always Be an England" (Wikipedia)

Catalog card generator

Catalog Card Generator (blyberg.net)

Diana Higgins

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Joyce Randolph

[From left: Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, Joyce Randolph]

Joyce Randolph, 82, is the last of the Honeymooners:

She signs her name to Playbills and cocktail napkins. “But I know what they really want is the name Trixie Norton,” she said. “So I sign that, too.”

It has been 56 years since Miss Randolph assumed the role of Trixie, yet she is still revered as the surviving goddess of the celebrated screwball comedy from the golden age of television.

“I am the last one left,” Miss Randolph said a bit later, without drama. “Even the girl who held the stopwatch, Joan Reichman Canale, is gone.”

From an article in today's New York Times:

For TV's Trixie, the Honeymoon Lives On

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Ralph Kramden on Christmas

Glenn Gould's chair again

"It is a boon traveling companion, without which I do not function, I cannot operate. It has been with me for 21 years."

"Do you actually mean it's been as close a companion to you as Bach has been in your musical career?"

"Oh, much closer actually."

I just found a wonderful clip on YouTube, Glenn Gould talking about his chair with filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon. I suspect that this conversation, like other Gould-Monsaingeon conversations, was scripted by Gould.

Glenn Gould talks about his chair (YouTube)

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Glenn Gould's chair

WALK

In a small town without public transportation (semi-rural sprawl, it could be called), getting into one's car or mini-van or pickup-truck or SUV to drive a mile or two to "the store" seems to most people as necessary and unremarkable as breathing. My wife Elaine and I prefer to walk, whenever possible, to do this sort of errand. And we thus become, at times, figures who prompt curiosity. For we are simply walking, not in exercise clothing but, more conspicuously, in what my high-school gym teacher used to call "street clothes." People tell us that they saw us walking back from the grocery store and wondered if our car was in the shop. Then, they say, they realized that we were just walking.

Our town is not friendly to walkers. The traffic signals at our major intersection (which spans four lanes of traffic and two turning lanes) flash WALK only briefly before beginning to hammer out a warning. Even the fastest of walkers (me) cannot cover more than three lanes before the warning begins. A major thoroughfare near our college has nothing more than a flashing yellow light to make it easier for people to cross, and for most drivers yellow seems to mean Keep Going, Don't Slow Down -- certainly not Yield.

And speaking of college -- college students are about the only people in town for whom walking is a standard mode of transportation. In our elite subdivisions, one can drive on street after street and never see a biped. In my more modest neighborhood, there are many people whom I have never seen leaving the area on foot.



The saddest indication of our town’s preference for wheels: the only parts of town with significant foot traffic (older streets with student-rental properties) are also the parts with the poorest sidewalks.

[Photograph by Rachel Leddy]

Related, antithetical reading

A city before cars (Sign Language)

Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, vegan chef, on chickens, eggs, and Brooklyn:

“I would love to live in a world where I knew the eggs came from happy chickens. But in Brooklyn? That’s not going to happen."

From a profile in today's New York Times:

Strict Vegan Ethics, Frosted With Hedonism (NYT)
The Post Punk Kitchen (Isa's site)

He's back

Jeanne Meyers called my attention to this news item:

A clutch of modern pagans honored Zeus at a 1,800-year-old temple in the heart of Athens on Sunday -- the first known ceremony of its kind held there since the ancient Greek religion was outlawed by the Roman empire in the late 4th century.

Watched by curious onlookers, some 20 worshippers gathered next to the ruins of the temple for a celebration organized by Ellinais, a year-old Athens-based group that is campaigning to revive old religious practices from the era when Greece was a fount of education and philosophy.

The group ignored a ban by the Culture Ministry, which declared the site off limits to any kind of organized activity to protect the monument. But participants did not try to enter the temple itself, which is closed to everyone, and no officials sought to stop the ceremony. Dressed in ancient costumes, worshippers standing near the temple's imposing Corinthian columns recited hymns calling on the Olympian Zeus, "King of the gods and the mover of things," to bring peace to the world.

Modern pagans honor Zeus in Athens (AP)

Thanks, Jeanne!

"A lot out there is conspiring to distract you"

More on continuous partial attention and reading habits:

I recently spoke with a junior who was stressed about her decreasing ability to focus on anything for longer than two minutes or so. I tried to inspire her by talking about the importance of reading as a way to train the brain. I told her that a good reader develops the same powers of concentration that an athlete or a Buddhist would employ in sport or meditation. "A lot out there is conspiring to distract you," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "That's your opinion about books. It doesn't make it true." To her, the idea that reading might benefit the mind was, well, lame.

A library's neglected shelves reveal the demise of something important, especially for young readers starved for meaning -- for anything profound. Still, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

From a piece by librarian Thomas Washington in the Washington Post:

A Librarian's Lament: Books Are a Hard Sell