(Author’s note: Welcome to Round Four. For our third installment last month we celebrated John Coltrane’s 1957 masterpiece, Coltrane. Each month there will be a new album, and if you’re a return visitor, you can skip the intro, repeated each month for newcomers!)

i.

The Vision

TL;DR. On the last Sunday of each month I’ll pick an album I endorse that is not only ideal for vinyl, but can be more fully appreciated in analog. And not (necessarily) on a pristine system; something cheap will do (see more below). These are not necessarily album reviews, per se, but opportunities to quietly rage against the machine of all-things-digital, our addictive devices, and our dwindling attention spans. Obviously, I reckon most folks will be doing something(s) as they listen, but for the best experience, just taking a half hour or so to let the sounds wash over you and embrace the thoughts that arrive is my suggestion.

ii.

The Backstory

I was early to the vinyl game. And I’m not just talking about rocking Kiss albums on a portable player in the ‘70s.

In my (exceedingly modest) platform as a tech analyst, I was the go-to guy for all-things audio just because I was that guy. I enthusiastically witnessed the slow but steady return of vinyl (circa 2010-ish) and watched the number tick upward, each year. And it became a bit of a joke in my department: once a year some outlet would call wanting to ask about…vinyl.

I’m a vinyl enthusiast, an advocate of old school without irony, and I make my living fully embracing the wonderful and democratizing possibilities all this technology makes possible. I’m not living in the past, but I like to visit as often as possible. Some music makes that easier; some music conjures up good times via nostalgia; some music seems specifically designed for introspection. These are the albums I’ll focus on for this series. Not just albums that are cool to have on vinyl (duh) but albums that live and breathe more comfortably, coming alive more fully on a turntable.

I’m preaching the choir of my sisters and brothers who are already down. For those thinking: yeah, like I’m going to go purchase a record player, I say: yes, you are.

A guarantee:

We all are going to spend money on a bunch of things we don’t need or like, and that’s baked into human experience. I’ll therefore make a gentleman’s promise that if you take my advice you will, at worst, not regret it. You should have a nice sound system with a respectable turntable. But these days you can get all-in-one systems for less than $50 and they are not novelties: you can get decent sound and they are easy-peasy plug and play.

If you buy one of these (I don’t endorse any particular brand) you can literally carry it from room to room, and this experience is intended for intimate space; if you don’t have a man (or woman) cave, or an office, this can easily be achieved at your kitchen table or just putting it on the floor next to the couch. Dial up a vinyl (new ones can be surprisingly expensive but you can acquire used ones online or in person at reasonable price points).

The criteria: albums I think are accessible or ready for discovery (for open-eared listeners); nothing too adventurous or esoteric; this endeavor is intended to convert happy fans, not show off how obscure and weird my collection is (guilty on both counts, clearly, but I also have tons of stuff that any average fan of music will know or can dig).

iii.

The Album:

Jimi Hendrix: Electric Ladyland

Who is this guy?

Long answer:

Attention, of course, must (and will) be paid, but the real question remains: what more can possibly be said, at this point, about Jimi Hendrix? Actually, it is entirely fair to propose that we have not yet said enough about him. As it has long since been established that he is the Alpha and the Omega of electric guitar, conversation tends to stop there: what more needs to be said, we say, when we don’t say anything more. As a result, the actual scope of his virtuosity tends to, however unintentionally, get reduced to stock phrases (see above) and the sorts of encomiums that preempt elaboration. So how do we explain the truly singular genius that is Jimi Hendrix? Aside from the innovation (he did it first), apart from the obvious (he did it best), what sets him apart?

When it comes to Hendrix, there is really no conjecture. The growth he displayed in only a couple of years is unlike anything we’ve witnessed from just about any other musician or composer, ever. We’re talking light years, the universe expanding; real quantum type shit. Put it this way: Miles Davis, who didn’t have many good things to say about even the best jazz musicians, made no bones about his desire to get Hendrix in the studio to collaborate. That’s like Michael Jordan saying he’d like to play some pick-up, or Sugar Ray Robinson asking you to spar with him.

Jimi Hendrix has been dead for a long time, and the only thing we have to reconcile the senselessness of how young he died is the legacy he left behind. This is true, of course, with any artist who goes away too soon, except that with Hendrix it is more so. The loss is unparalleled, but then, so is the music he made. Depending on whether you care to see the cosmic glass as more than half-empty or as one that forever runneth over, we celebrate him for what he did in direct proportion to mourning what we still should have received. It is selfish, but understandable. Hendrix with horns in the ’70s? With samples and scratching in the ’80s? Mentoring (or obviating the need for) the grunge movement in the ’90s? Collaborating with musicians from all over the world, releasing live jams on his website today? Or just continuing to do what he was doing practically until the last second he drew breath. Whatever it might have been, it would have improved the playing field, and he would likely still be eons ahead of his peers.

(There’s a lot more where that came from.)

Short answer:

THE answer:

By 1968 Hendrix has relocated from London to New York City and it was during the open-ended and generally unrestrained Electric Ladyland sessions that Chandler, ever the taskmaster, famously fled the scene. “Gypsy Eyes” alone allegedly required forty different takes before Hendrix was satisfied, an intensity surpassing obsession that literally drove Chandler out of the studio. This circumstance was inevitable, and frankly necessary. Hendrix absolutely needed and benefited from Chandler’s mentoring, but now he had more than come into his own and nobody could keep up with him (he could scarcely keep up with himself). The results scream for themselves and to say that Electric Ladyland is yet another major advancement (how do you improve upon perfection?) is of course a pallid understatement.

Just as little from Are You Experienced hinted at the next installment, Axis: Bold As Love seems almost pedestrian and conservative compared to the staggering triumph of style and sound that is Electric Ladyland.

This is Hendrix’s masterpiece, and it is on this double album that practically every trick in his oversized bag is employed to its fullest extent. The storytelling skills are displayed on tracks like “Crosstown Traffic,” “Long Hot Summer Night” and “House Burning Down.” The compositional prowess is evident in every note, most especially on the song suite that covers side three and spills over to side four. What Hendrix was able to achieve, despite the contemporary limitations of old-fashioned recording equipment is, on a song like “1983… (A Merman I Should Turn To Be),” heroic. It also offers the best evidence we have of what he saw and heard inside his always-teeming imagination.

What remains vital, and compelling, all these years later is the way Hendrix appropriates blues music, creating a template that copycats are still trying, in vain, to emulate. “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” and the live-in-the-studio riot of “Voodoo Chile” are rock music touchstones, and nothing anyone has attempted has come particularly close to them. Hendrix himself puts it best when he boasts “Well I stand up next to a mountain/And chop it down with the edge of my hand.” That is exactly what he did, and he remains king of the mountain he scaled, and then razed.

From “Purple Haze” to “Rainy Day, Dream Away” in less than two years still seems inconceivable, even impossible. But it happened.

And then he was gone. The magnitude of his loss remains unfathomable. There is no question, absolutely no doubt whatsoever, that he had years and years of untapped magic to explore and nourish. On the other hand, perhaps Hendrix did live and record for four decades; he just crammed it into four years. Hendrix and the gift of his music are subjects that can never be exhausted: the songs hold up, they should be studied and dissected, and above all they should be savored. They are, like the man who made them, incapable of ever being forgotten.

In the end, it always comes back to the same impasse: once we’ve gotten beyond the music (which we never get beyond, because, thus far, there has always been new material, causing us to celebrate our good fortune and hope we might get more) we catch ourselves asking the two questions that can never be answered: why and what. Why did it have to end so abruptly, so appallingly? And then, if and when we allow ourselves, the attempt at imagining what else there could have been… what else he would have left for us if he had not accidentally left us behind?

Jimi Hendrix’s Hair*

Would one single strand, swept off stage left, reveal

the mysteries of existence, or at least unlock the magic

of your mind, all sixes and nines, gypsy eyes, footprints

dressed in red, mirrored rooms, and belly button windows?

*

Were those drops of sweat acid-laced, doused by gods

in lab coats, or were uncanny causes in play—Voodoo

Soup—transmissions from a halo of ashes and inspiration?

*

Are we even meant to fully fathom the conception of all these

colors—without names, without sounds—content some amongst

us are selected, and given voice to an intelligence alien to our ears?

*

Did everything you’ve done happen so fast we scarcely saw it, or are we

still grasping at this electric air—midnight lighting and light years

of secrets and equations that we, for lack of other options, call Art?

*from my first poetry collection The Blackened Blues.

i.

I’m of course of a certain age (and have been for some time now) that just about any event may seem like it just happened yesterday. Certainly, memories that conjure profoundly positive or negative feelings are still fresh, and one need not be especially nostalgic to acknowledge this.

Still, twenty-four years is impossible to trivialize. I was 32 when my mother died, which means that more than one third of my life has passed without my mother being here.

There’s something about the shock and sorrow involving the death of a loved one that (understandably) changes the way you look at life, and even how you organize the way you look both forward and backward. In a chapter entitled “Calculus,” I reflected on this in my memoir:

My grief has made me, against all previous likelihood, into a half-assed mathematician. Numbers were never my bag, and I’ve got the report cards to prove it. And yet, ever since 2002, I find myself going over similar calculations, repeatedly.

There are the obvious, inevitable examples. For instance, on August 26, 2004: This is the second anniversary of her death; it is therefore seven years since her first operation. Then, with a combination of improvisation and OCD, other variations ensue: I was twenty-seven at that first operation; my nephew will be twenty-seven when I’m fifty-seven, which is two years younger than my mother was when she died. My mother’s funeral cost about (insert dollar amount here), which would buy (this many) trips to (this place). If we went to the various hospitals and treatment centers approximately fifty times over the course of five years, at roughly fifteen miles per trip, this distance would get you from D.C. to Chicago. We ate in the hospital cafeteria roughly twenty times, or enough to pay 2 percent of one of the cashier’s yearly salary. And so on.

And then this, revisited on a regular basis: If I get diagnosed at fifty-four, like my mother did, that means that effective immediately I have x years and y months to enjoy a cancer-free existence (although those malevolent cells could be coursing through my oblivious veins even as I type).

I can barely balance my checkbook, yet here I am, a poor-man’s Pythagoras, my busy brain co-opting or pre-empting the confusion and consternation cancer yields. And just like the bad old days during Algebra exams, I apprehend much less than I’d like. For example: How might my mother have lived her life if she’d known she was never going to see sixty? How might I have lived? How might I do things differently (i.e., better) if I could know how far off, or how unacceptably close my own death will be?

All of which is to reiterate the obvious: losing a loved one (particularly a parent) changes you.

Two things in particular have made this loss bearable, even positive in unexpected ways. One, I had abundant opportunity to express to my mother how much I loved and appreciated her. I’ve never had to agonize over things left unsaid, which –while not an issue even before my mother got sick– is not an inconsiderable blessing. Two, while this loss has affected me in subtle and obvious ways, it’s mostly proven that I’m the same person I already was, only more so. There is a peace and freedom there that would be inconceivable if I felt anything but affection and obligation for the woman who did the most to help me be the person I continue to become.

And on anniversaries and certain occasions, I’m relieved that—in ways I could never have comprehended before August 26, 2002—I was actually preparing for life without my mother long before I lost her.

ii.

I’ve written about my mother often, for all the right reasons (I love her, I cherish her memory, she’s a vital part of my ongoing existence, etc.), and I find myself obliged to return, not infrequently, to the subject of her untimely death (which begs the question: when is a death not untimely? Aren’t all of us fighting a battle against a clock we can’t control? Perhaps we can agree that any death is unwelcome, except when it isn’t, and that’s usually when illness is involved, and then things get profoundly complicated).

My mother was the subject of the memoir Please Talk about Me When I’m Gone, which I was honored to receive the Memoir Magazine Prize for Books for in 2022. In addition to writing about my favorite person, and the lingering influence she exerts over my life, I also hoped to share some of my family’s experience in the hopes that it might inform and inspire others. Suffice it to say, the way we deal, as individuals and as a society, with terminal illness leaves much to be desired, and the first remedy is open and honest communication, however unwelcome.

I’ve also dealt with my mom (and my grief, our loss, this love) via poetry. Several of them were published this spring, and I express huge gratitude, once again, to The Good Men Project for publishing more of my work. (Link to all the previous poems here.)

A Middle-Aged Boy Mourns His Mother

You know that woman you saw in the grocery store, stocking up on frozen vegetables and paper towels, tissue and toilet paper for her family? That was my mother, too.

That woman who waved at you when you stopped to let her cross the street in front of you? That was my mother, too.

That woman who cut you off on the freeway, then flipped the finger when you laid on your horn? That was my mother, too.

That woman on TV sewing a blanket for her first grandchild, or bringing out pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner? That was my mother, too.

That woman who carried you in her womb, raised you and then sent you off into the world, smiling beneath her tears? That’s my mother, too.

iii.

I visited my mother’s grave the first several years for the same reason I used to attend church: it was expected, it was meant to make me feel better, it was supposed to signify something. I stopped going for the same reasons I ceased attending weekly services. Catharsis by commission most likely satisfies only those who don’t realize the game is rigged, spiritually speaking. Or else, they do know it’s a game and they couldn’t imagine it any other way. (It is not the people with genuine faith the faithless have reservations about; it’s the folks who find their faith so onerous or insufficient that it causes them to act in ways antithetical to the precepts they purportedly approve.)

The historical intersections of culture and psychology suggest that there can be no archetypal way to grieve, just as there are no ultimate answers for how we might reconcile our place in the world, including the non-place before we are born and wherever we go when we die. But there is certainly a wrong way to grieve and grapple with the transient nature of existence. Anytime we are encouraged—or obligated—to follow a path someone else prescribes (particularly someone who is getting paid for the prescription), it’s a short cut to resolution we can only attain for ourselves.

Cemeteries are like churches: created to contemplate people not accessible to those still living. They serve as memorials, affording an opportunity to ponder this world and reconcile our place in it.

I’ve been to the cemetery, and I don’t mind going to the cemetery. From a purely aesthetic perspective it is a lovingly constructed memento for departed souls: names and ages and years connected by what all of us ultimately have in common. The cemetery is where my mother’s body rests. Anyplace else I go is where she lived; where she still exists. Wherever I go, she accompanies me.

But sometimes this is not enough.

So I return to the lake by my father’s house. The house I grew up in; the house where my mother helped raise me; the house where we helped her die. The lake where I once caught sunfish; where I swam and drank my first beers. The lake where I skinny-dipped with the girl across the street, not knowing what I’d do without clothes on dry land. The same lake I walked around during those last two weeks, my own routine once the August sun began its slow descent and most families sat down to dinner. The only place I was ever alone those last two weeks: a respite from crowded and uncomfortable thoughts; a retreat from the inevitable rituals of adulthood. The same lake my father and I ended up, later that final night, after it was over and my sister had returned to her family. The lake we silently circled, not saying much, not needing to do anything other than exist.

This is where I go. I return to this lake. It is my church, my sanctified place for reflection. The water flows and recedes, feeding and restoring itself. The trees surround the water, their leaves emblems of Nature’s enduring procession. The sky stares down impassively to see its ancient face reflecting up. At night the stars strain toward the earth, fulfilling their preordained purpose.

*More about this project—and more news in the months ahead, here.

Our Mothers, Whose Art is Heaven

If men ultimately succeed in burning this earth,
all our mothers will weep to drown the fire,
flooding every home and sidewalk and valley
with salted tears, turning a scorched landscape
into an ocean of accord, overwhelming the sea
itself, polluted to death with plastic and poison,
and all living creatures will learn to breathe
underwater, finally becoming formless beings
—a remedial evolution reversing eons wherein
this planet became a waystation for undeveloped
souls—as the sun implodes and the moon grows
numb in darkness, a silent peace holding sway
in the serenity of a deathless, maternal eternity.

*For Linda Murphy: 8/23/43 - 8/26/2002

I heard about Love’s Forever Changes before I ever heard it. Like many Gen Xers, I came up in a time when all the music ever made was not available, anywhere, anytime, for free. So I’d read about this important album, and always meant to get around to it, but for a variety of reasons (all of them awful) I waited and was older than I should have been by the time I saw the light. I also tend to believe certain works of art find you at exactly the right time, so it’s possible I wasn’t quite ready for this material until…I was ready. All of which is to say I became yet another convert—someone whose whole listening world was never quite the same, and I’ve never tired of seeking new acolytes.

When Lee (whose life was a veritable rollercoaster of highs, lows, and long periods of unfortunate silence) passed, in August 2006 at the too-early age of 61, I had been carrying the torch for some time. And maybe it was because it was 2006…far enough into the internet era for news to easily travel, but still pre-blog/social media ubiquity, so some cultural vibrations slipped through the cracks. I was not satisfied with the obits and encomiums I came across, and was left feeling that the relative lack of gravity surrounding Lee’s death was another regrettable entry in a life of near misses and should-have-beens. I was prompted to create the tribute I wanted to read, so I went ahead and wrote it. The fruits of an intense weekend of non-stop, obsessive diligence ended up getting published, and kicked off a two-decade and counting adventure of freelance journalism and criticism. I’ve revisited the original piece over the years, and have been reworking it to include in a larger project, coming soon.

So it was with the typical mix of sadness and shock (20 years, already?) that I noted Lee’s been gone two decades this month. Here’s the latest version of the forever changing appreciation of Lee and his legacy.

i. A Love Story

The Summer of Love was not the time for Love.

It’s never been the time for Love, and this one-two punch of bad timing and bad luck tends to encapsulate the band’s maddening legacy. Love could never quite get over, and this certainly contributes to the enigmatic air that hangs over their history.

Of course, the music they made (their first four albums in particular) insulates them from easy analysis, so it’s not possible to neatly pigeonhole them into a particular period. This is remarkable in itself, considering the year they made their masterwork, Forever Changes: it is, in so many agreeable ways, utterly of its time as a reflection—or, really, a refraction—of 1967, but it also remains fresh and unfettered, more than a half century later.

Don’t think so? Consider how much of the music, circa 1967, sounds not only dated but instantly identifiable. What might get lost in the discussion of Forever Changes is the fact that Love existed before that album, and more surprisingly, they existed after it.

Like so many similar origin stories, before the drugs and rock and roll, there was the sex—or at least the enticements of its possibility. Arthur Lee was a star athlete in high school, but when he saw Johnny Echols playing guitar and—in classic pop cliché fashion—saw the girls seeing Echols, he understood immediately where his future lay. Lee was precocious, with ambition to match his gifts, and his confidence made the subsequent success seem all but inevitable. By the time they got serious about their musical careers, Lee and Echols hooked up with Brian MacLean, a guitarist so keen on joining up with The Byrds he’d become one of their roadies.

The alchemy was immediate: MacLean’s folky influences embellished Echols and Lee’s R&B leanings, creating a sound that was both bigger and better than it might have been. The name the band chose was not only a no-brainer for a west coast group in the mid- ‘60s, but it was also more than a little appropriate for the first racially integrated rock outfit. Love started gigging on the sunset strip, catching the attention of Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman, who quickly signed them to his label (which, to this point, had primarily focused on folk music).

Entering the studios, the band was tight and focused from months of steady gigging. Their self-titled debut was recorded quickly—the band essentially came into the studio and performed their regular set. From the first, there was never the slightest question about who was in charge: Love was Lee’s band. MacLean was an accomplished—and determined—musician in his own right, and a natural, if inevitable, competition evolved. For a while, it was a fruitful partnership, and the two men brought out the best in each other.

The hit from their first album (1966) was the band’s annihilation of “My Little Red Book,” giving Burt Bacharach a menacing edge a few years before Isaac Hayes did his own extraordinary deconstructions of songs like “Walk on By,” and “The Look of Love.” Another dark, unique tune is the appropriately entitled instrumental “Emotions,” with guitarist Johnny Echols creating something like surreal surf music; it sounds like The Ventures after a sketchy acid trip. And here was another harbinger of Love’s unique M.O.: taking the (mostly) sun and fun vibes of guitar-heavy surf rock and giving it a solemn edge, turning something simple inside out, exposing the shadow beneath the glow. This ability to see, and insinuate, the less blissful side of the free love ethos is arguably what made Love difficult to fully embrace, and what makes them still sound unique, now.

ii. “¡Que Vida!

Love quickly became the Kings of Los Angeles, with celebrities like Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane dropping by “The Castle,” the large house up in the L.A. hills the band shared. They immediately commenced work on the next album, partly to capitalize on the collective energy and excitement, but also (crucially) because the band was not interested in hitting the road to promote the first record.

Da Capo is an album that most fans consider a 50 percent masterpiece: the six songs on side one are stunning, representing incredible forward steps full of sophistication and inventiveness. Other bands were paying attention: The Rolling Stones blithely stole/honored Lee’s words in “She Comes in Colors” for their own hit “She’s a Rainbow” and there’s little doubt Robbie Krieger studied “The Castle”—a song that introduced flamenco guitar to rock music—before composing the music for “Spanish Caravan.”

What remains noteworthy about these six songs is how untarnished they remain, by time or trends. Certainly, there’s a west-coast psychedelic vibe emanating, and no one would confuse these songs from any decade but the ’60s. The sound was—and remains—so singular; no one else did anything like this, which speaks both to other bands’ limitations but also the individual but expansive ground Love was covering circa ’66. More importantly, no one else really tried. They quite possibly invented punk (or at least thrash punk) here, with “Seven & Seven Is.” Surf music meets the mosh pit, an atomic explosion and the coolest blues fadeout ever, all in under three minutes!

The musicality is in full effect (this early use of flute remains striking), and the compositions crackle with cheeky ebullience. Still, there’s something more: these songs are ethereal without being facile, they are serious with being (remotely) ponderous, clever without being coy. Arthur Lee, of course, was simply blessed with the pipes golden gods are made of; you can’t beg, borrow or steal any amount of money to acquire a voice like his.

Special mention must be made of the irresistible could-have/should-have been a hit “She Comes in Colors.” As noted above, it was nicked by The Stones, the ultimate compliment and proof people around the world were picking up what these upstarts were putting down. Another infectious, irresistible groove, this is a pop song that combines brains, balls and Style with-a-capital-S. What the hell is Lee singing about? Who cares? This song nails the precocious wave of insight and abandon at the crest of the wave about to crash on the Summer of Love before the idiot winds blew the detritus to all corners of the cultural landscape.

The entirety of side two is taken up by “Revelation,” notable as the first side-long track (an innovation that was embraced by other acts, much to the rock critics’ collective disdain when this practice reached its prog-rock apotheosis the following decade), was, according to Lee and Echols, a scorcher in their live set. They failed to capture the energy—or whatever it was that captivated the crowds—in the studio, and the result is a kind of half-assed blues romp with plenty o’ noodling that mostly goes nowhere. Nevertheless, the sum of Da Capo is far greater than its parts; or, perhaps, the parts, assessed one a time, constitute six songs out of seven that are home runs, and no athlete (or artist) could ask for much more than that.

Around this time another young group was starting to develop a reputation on the strip. Lee took them under his wing, going so far as to convince an initially unimpressed Jac Holzman to sign them. This band, led by a charismatic young man named Jim Morrison, famously stated that their original ambition was to be “as big as Love.” The rest, of course, is history.

In interviews, Echols and Lee have expressed bitterness that Elektra latched onto The Doors, ignoring the band that had delivered them on a platter. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to give a great deal of credence to these sour grapes: by all accounts the escalating internal tensions, Lee’s control freak tendencies (in and outside the band), and of course the increasing drug use—along with the aforementioned refusal to tour—arguably combined as an imperfect storm to prevent Love from striking while the zeitgeist glowed.

iii. You Set the Scene

The subsequent Forever Changes sessions almost never happened. By the time they returned to the studio, Lee’s band was a mess: exhausted, apathetic and strung out. Eventually, Lee cajoled them into pulling themselves together and, against some serious odds; they hung in there long enough to make one of the greatest rock and roll records of all time. The album failed to break the Top 100, and Lee was crushed. According to Jac Holzman, people simply needed to see the band performing the songs, but it wasn’t to be.

Lee has admitted, in addition to his band mates, “I was kind of spaced in those days.” To a certain extent his defiant nature is understandable, or at least explicable. When you’re that naturally talented, it must be more than a little challenging to jump through the necessary hoops in order to connect the dots of pop star accessibility. Many years later, Lee would acknowledge, and regret, his self-defeating intransigence. To Holzman’s credit, he flew Lee out to New York City, but the singer was the opposite of Woody Allen in Annie Hall: allergic to the Big Apple and only comfortable in L.A. Lee was not unlike rock music’s Jake LaMotta: he understood the game, but because he saw through it, or felt above it, or was willfully sabotaging himself or—most of all—he simply couldn’t be bothered, he never seized the gold ring that was gleaming right in front of his face.

Forever Changes failed to connect, though, and the band disintegrated shortly after its completion, with Lee soldiering on in increasing obscurity, his moment mostly come and gone. How then, has his magnum opus, so insufficiently received, managed to inspire such loyalty and enchantment over the decades among its admirers? For starters, it’s worthy of repeated listens; it deepens and intensifies well after an initial connection has been established.

Although none of the songs on Forever Changes crept onto the paisley playground of its time, it’s impossible to quibble with the confident brilliance of miniature gems like “Andmoreagain” or “The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This,” which showcase Lee’s immutable gift: his voice, which had an almost extraordinary sensitivity and authority.

For all his quirks and contradictions, Lee was a taskmaster in the studio. Listen to the demo version of “The Good Humor Man” and compare the sparse acoustic take with what the song would become with understated brass and strings, and the longing in Lee’s delivery. If you don’t get it, Forever Changes will never speak to you. But it’s not enough (nor should it be) to merely gesture toward an art work’s ineffable qualities. What makes Forever Changes indelible is first and foremost its unmistakable honesty. The Los Angeles streets that broiled with heat and inspiration brought intimations of a severity largely absent from the rose-colored commentary that emerged from San Francisco.

The songs on Forever Changes have a soul and sly élan that most of Love’s contemporaries were incapable of conjuring. Lee described what he saw with disarmingly straightforward lyrics that always evoked the feelings of an outsider. Lee, a black man, recognized what Chris Rock would later articulate, that no matter how many people profess to admire and envy you, few, if any, white folks would choose to trade places with you. This keeps the distance between what should be and what is foremost in one’s mind; no amount of applause or plaudits or utopian hippie thinking can compensate for that disparity.

But the sad staying power of his somber vision is unassailable. The music on Forever Changes is by no means morose, though the merciful scarcity of saccharine free-love fantasia augments its staying power. Part of the album’s perverse charm lies in its contradictions. For instance, its most assured and ebullient songs are belied by Lee’s lyrics. On this album, Lee — like Barrett on Piper — displays an uncanny facility for concision, capturing a larger truth somehow by not quite saying it. Lee’s audacity, at 22, in employing non sequiturs creates an unfiltered vision, revealing a lack of cynicism and trust in his abilities as well as those of his listeners. “And I’m wrapped in my armor / But my things are material/ And I’m lost in confusions / ’Cause my things are material.” The lines may not make immediate sense, but Forever Changes is a treatise from the trenches, capturing the dodgy promise that anything is possible. The Summer of Love, after all, was the American Dream redux, replacing all that boring humility, hard work and redemption of the Horatio Alger story with a strategically ingested tab of acid.

Lee not only captured what he saw on the street, he anticipated the darkness around the corner, so it’s understandable the more starry-eyed in his audience weren’t picking up what he was putting down. Though Forever Changes doesn’t conform to the nostalgic picture of Summer of Love as drug-fueled ecstasy without consequences, Lee managed to relate the less sexy banality of the morning after before most hippies even knew what was about to hit them. You never know when you might awaken from your reverie with snot caked against your pants, as Lee sardonically sings about in “Live & Let Live.” Lee depicts the big high and the lesser lows—or what the more pragmatic among us might call actual life. And it’s this gray middle ground between compromise and revolution that provides Forever Changes its appeal. If it’s hot or you’re hungry or you have the rest of your life to sort out, then a concert or a hit record or the sudden insight to see through the charade may not be enough to get you safely to the other side.

The news today will be the movies for tomorrow.

This single line, from “A House Is Not a Motel,” could well be the most succinct—not to mention prophetic—articulation of the so-called counterculture, circa 1967.

And for everyone who thinks that life is just a game: / Do you like the part you’re playing?

This question, from the optimistically named “You Set the Scene,” is directed at the listener, and Lee’s answers, which end the album, reveal he had no intention of turning his back on the promised land, even as it splintered into a billion bad trips. The full orchestral freak out that concludes the album and ushers it into immortality has a classic literary flourish, bringing full circle the motifs introduced with the innovative trumpet stylings that accompany the opening track, “Alone Again Or.”

This album, always ripe for reappraisal, had an opportunity to be further and more fully appreciated when an expanded version, with outtakes and bonus tracks, was released in 2001. One of these tracks, the deceptively deep and evocative “Wonder People (I Do Wonder),” perhaps should have been included on the original release (begging the question: which song might it have supplanted?). At first blush it may seem to be grasping a bit for that feel-good/up-with-people vibe. And to be certain, there is some feel-good/up-with-people vibe emanating here, but it goes further than that. This has the Burt Bacharach stylings, which Love literally, and successfully tapped into on their first hit, “My Little Red Book.” It also has that happy-go-lucky Brady Bunch singalong thing (as did the big hit from ’67, “All You Need Is Love”; in fact, play them one after the other and ask yourself which one sounds more fulfilling, and enduring).

But it has something more. First off, it has the same acoustic assault that propels Forever Changes. The acoustic backing does not merely provide the engine for the song’s melody, there is an extended, extraordinary acoustic guitar solo that recalls the Spanish stylings of album opener “Alone Again Or.” It’s so tasty, at once aggressive and understated; this was the pleasant dissonance Love mastered on their first three albums. The strings sound too saccharine and the “Tijuana” brass too mannered, at first. But after the song has sunk in, they provide a wistful commentary that complements Lee’s vocals (and lyrics).

There’s something ephemeral going on, under the surface; that same nagging suspicion that all the free love hijinx would come to an abrupt end. Forever was about to change. People come and go, and I do wonder, yeah. Wander to and fro like you do. And you know it’s true, just like I know you. When will you realize the things you are doing, I am doing… Like virtually all the songs on Forever Changes, one gets the impression (especially with the benefit of hindsight, and knowing how things broke down, literally and figuratively, in the months and years ahead) that Lee was among the first artists to sense there would not –and could not– be a happy ending (to the summer of ’67, or to hippy dream, or to the average American’s dream). Even with his often-angelic voice and the disarming beauty of the arrangements, you can still smell the stale bong smoke, see the exhaust fumes from the cars stalled on Sunset Blvd. and hear the resignation of a thousand broken promises. And there, above it all, floats Arthur Lee, like a corrupted angel.

Like virtually all the songs on Forever Changes, one gets the impression (especially with the benefit of hindsight, and knowing how things broke down, literally and figuratively, in the months and years ahead) that Lee was among the first artists to sense there would not—and could not—be a happy ending (to the summer of ’67, or to hippy dream, or to the average American’s dream). One can still smell the stale bong smoke, see the exhaust fumes from the cars stalled on Sunset Blvd. and hear the resignation of a thousand broken promises. And there, above it all, floats Arthur Lee, like a corrupted angel. Bonus: much of the above can be applied to the follow-up B-side from ’68, “Laughing Stock.”

For a variety of reasons, some typical, some inexplicable, Love seemed to implode just as their ship was set to sail, and they never quite fulfilled what seemed their practically limitless potential. While other bands made history during the Summer of Love, Love was busy living through incendiary months, and on the album that resulted, Forever Changes, Lee documented in real time and in living color the Daily Planet of the hippie scene, or at least its underbelly — which is perhaps the same thing. In other words, the album stands as the most accurate American version of the era, post Monterey and Haight-Ashbury.

If Arthur Lee had been savvy enough to pull the businesslike burn out or the fortuitous fade away or—cleverest career move of all—die in spectacular fashion in, say, early ’68, it would be safe to bet that Forever Changes could have become a central part of the collective consciousness. That’s the only rite of passage we ask of our best artists: Die so we can wake up and get around to appreciating what you accomplished. It’s what we talk about when we talk about the lack of love and the fact that forever never changes.

Key Discussion Points

• Backstory of the Book: Miller shares that this book is part of a broader research project focused on virtue and moral character, which he has been studying for years.

• Defining Honesty: Miller emphasizes that honesty is more than just “not telling a lie.” It involves not intentionally distorting facts and encompasses motivations behind behaviors, including cheating, stealing, and self-deception.

• The Honesty Crisis: Miller describes the honesty crisis as a situation where dishonesty is easier and more tempting than before, exacerbated by technology. This crisis affects various areas including politics, relationships, and education.

• Plagiarism Among Students: He notes that students are increasingly submitting AI-generated work, which constitutes plagiarism. To combat this, educators may need to ensure assignments are completed in class without technology.

• Cheating with AI Chatbots: A concerning trend is emerging where individuals engage with romantic AI chatbots, leading to emotional dishonesty in relationships. Many users fear their partners discovering these interactions.

• Importance of Honesty: In a study conducted at Wake Forest University, honesty emerged as the most valued trait among participants, underscoring its essential role in trust, respect, and social cohesion.

  ---

ABOUT CHRISTIAN MILLER

Christian B. Miller lives in Winston-Salem, and is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University. His research primarily has to do with virtue and moral character, and for five years he was the leader of The Character Project, one of the large research projects in the world on these topics.

X (formerly Twitter): @CharacterGap

Website: https://christianbmiller.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CharacterGap/

ABOUT SOME THINGS CONSIDERED

Award-winning author Sean Murphy in conversation with creative thinkers, spanning the literary, music, art, politics, and tech industries. As a cultural critic, professor, founder of a literary non-profit, Sean is always looking to explore and celebrate the ways Story is integral to how we define ourselves, as artists and human beings. This Substack newsletter and weekly podcast peels back the layers of how creativity works, why it matters, how our most brilliant minds achieve mastery. Join us to explore how our most successful and inspired storytellers engage by discussing craft, routines, brand, and mostly through authentic and honest expression.

ABOUT HOST SEAN MURPHY

Website: seanmurphy.net
Substack: seanmurphy.live
X: @bullmurph
Instagram: @bullmurph
Facebook: facebook.com/AuthorSeanMurphy
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sean-murphy-4986b41

(Author’s note: Five years certainly flies by, does it not?

Here’s a piece I wrote on the occasion of the great Charlie Watts’s passing, August, 2021.)

I was recently involved in a discussion about Led Zeppelin’s least understood and appreciated album, In Through the Out Door (a topic I covered exactly a decade ago for a feature entitled “Ten Albums That Supposedly Suck (But Don’t”), and although no sane person with working ears would ever doubt the brilliance of John Bonham, I found myself pointing out that one of his most impressive performances occurs during a song that not only didn’t require bombast, but the opposite. The song in question, the loved/loathed “All My Love” (and put me firmly in the former camp when it comes to this song). Check it:

I wrote:

And Bonzo. There’s nothing he plays on this song that a competent high schooler couldn’t duplicate note for note but it would never sound ANYTHING like him; that touch, that feel; and I adore how the song should actually be a beat slower (to work as a “ballad” or whatever) but Bonzo propels it from the jump, and it’s a half-step faster, instilling urgency as opposed to bathos.

Which brings us to the late, great Charlie Watts.

It’s understandable Watts never got the attention or credit he deserved, what with the larger-than-life characters (and egos) that stood center-stage; plus, how often do drummers not named Bonham, Moon, or Peart get equal approbation? More, it would be exceedingly difficult to identify a more restrained, less ego-driven icon than Watts. Finally, he was about flair, not flash, and it’s for his restraint and taste (and always impeccable touch) that he must be understood, and celebrated.

As such, the comment about Bonham, above, applies to virtually everything Watts did. Certainly, he has some all-time, for-the-ages performances, but his super power was subtlety, taking near-perfect songs to the next level where they become Rolling Stones songs.

Exhibit A, “Wild Horses.” Indelible; unimprovable. But give this one a spin (for the hundredth or thousandth time) and really listen to Watts, and how he sharpens the edges, cleans the corners, and brings the entire proceedings into sharp, solid focus.

One difficult thing writing about music is it’s so much easier (and more effective, not to mention honest) to just roll the tape. Appreciating Charlie Watts is simple enough, but properly appreciating him is the difference between a domestic light beer and a Guinness, perfectly poured, preferably in a coal-warmed bar in Dublin.

Q: Why is Charlie Watts, so difficult to describe to non-musicians, one of the premier, first-tier drummers in all rock?

A: Check out, just to list some extremely low-hanging, very tasty fruit, “Get Off My Cloud,” “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (was there a better drummer on slower songs and ballads?), “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?” and, of course, “Paint it Black.” I mean, the riff heard ’round the world gets all the love, but try to imagine the band’s breakout tune, “Satisfaction,” without Charlie’s driving, insistent propulsion?

Want to get yer ya-ya’s out? Put this is in your pipe and smoke it. (One of the all-time live performances from one of the all-time live recordings featuring one of the all-time great album covers featuring you-know-who. My very long appreciation of this album, on the occasion of its 40th anniversary, here.)

Not unlike Ringo, it’s easy to overlook the one ostensibly making the least amount of noise (with their instrument; with their mouth), but once again, it’s all but impossible to imagine The Rolling Stones without Charlie Watts — something neither Mick nor Keith have ever hesitated to acknowledge.

It’s not that the cameras love Mick Jagger (though they certainly do); it’s that he mugs the cameras so he can mug into them — and who are we to complain? What would you do; what could you do if you were blessed with such superhuman charisma? It’s not even personal, it’s strictly business. Keith, too, wants that love, but he doesn’t need it like Mick does, which is one reason everyone loves Mick but worships Keith. What really makes the Stones work, and arguably why they’ve endured through the decades, is that all the supporting players know their roles, and were mostly content to operate behind the scenes, stoking the coals and greasing the engine.

Charlie Watts served as the reliable, impeccable, reticent timekeeper, and he made that train run on time, every time, since the early ’60s. By far the least flashy member of the world’s flashiest band, Watts was a pro’s pro (he was the Rock of the Rolling Stones) and seemingly the most secure and self-contained superstar in rock history. He’s arguably the least appreciated, too, but he passes the ultimate test: cue up any of the group’s best songs and try to imagine them without his solid, impeccable support.

I’ve always loved this clip for a number of reasons. One, it closes probably the greatest pop culture documentary of its decade; two, it shows the best band in the universe at the absolute peak of their powers, fully aware of how untouchable they were at that time. It’s also a succinct mini-documentary of the different personalities: Jagger unable to help himself from being self-conscious—but also adorable and irresistible; Keef being Keef: just too cool to even open his eyes, happy to let his blissed out lip synching (and his snakeskin boots) speak for him, and then the man who couldn’t be less impressed with the charade, old Charlie. The cameraman has the Glimmer Twins right there, every impulse must be screaming: turn the focus to them (!), but he stops at 2:01 and lets the lens stay on Watts for a full 50 seconds. Those 50 seconds show us how unaffected, disarming, and authentic Charlie Watts always was. At the end of the day, the two most camera-friendly icons of an era are passed over for a long, loving close-up of the drummer who needed nothing and gave everything. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Rocks Off” may not be the best opening track from any album ever, but it’s definitely in the top One.

It’s an introduction and announcement, but also a declaration: The Beatles are (long) gone and we are the greatest band in the world, hear us roar.

This also caps a decade of growth only matched by the Fab Four in terms of humble if ambitious beginnings, where world-class talent combined with restless creativity and a desire to grow, stretch, absorb, and channel seemingly everything into a vision that’s at once singular and elastic. To go from mediocre and very white covers of classic blues singles, paying more dues (and second fiddle to the Fab Four), to finally putting the jigsaw pieces together on Beggar’s Banquet and then through the looking glass for the Holy Trinity of Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and, of course, Exile on Main Street. They matched the Beatles blow for blow, but outlasted them, and if you give ’67-’69 to Lennon/Mac, you have to contend with the Stones in ’70-’72. Who’s better? Who cares. Not sure any band put together three albums in a row that can stand with the Holy Trinity, pound for pound, song for song, sound for sound.

There are so many songs that could be said to showcase (illustrate?) what made the Stones so special (take any number from the Holy Trinity, and dozens upon dozens before or after) but “Rocks Off” is like the sonic flypaper that reveals seemingly every influence they mainlined, their inimitable ability to combine glamor and gutter, deep, deeply felt blues and raw rock, unabashed aggression, seduction (always, always about the fucking with Jagger), and—no pun intended—dissatisfaction, a shrug for the charade of fame (“the sunshine bores the daylights out of me…”) and the reality that we’re all alone, no matter how famous we are (“I only get my rocks off when I’m dreaming.”). This joint grooves for days and stays groovy; it’s impossible to ignore, it gets everything moving.

And driving it all, that irresistible beat? Charlie MF Watts.

What a relief to be mere mortals; we not only can sit back and bask in the glory of the gods amongst us, we also don’t have to go into battle. Sure, there are some for whom genius is sui generis and it unspools seemingly without effort (Paul McCartney, though I’d be the last to deny his work ethic and the lifetimes of industry he displayed all throughout the ’60s, if not beyond, still, by his own account, has just been able to tap into a Mozart-esque vibe and channel these gifts that arrive from some great beyond); for others, it’s earned, and while we understandably envy the wealth and fame, how many of us would want to log serious hours beneath the underground, where the real shit goes down, and then emerge, hours or months later, with material like “Sway”?

Did you ever wake up to find

A day that broke up your mind

Destroyed your notion of circular time…

It’s almost impossible, aesthetically: it’s a romp but it’s also a descent into the sludge; it’s a short, guided tour of a narcotic comedown — the edge taken off with cigarettes and whiskey; it’s a survival manifesto (I mean Holy Shit!: “Ain’t flinging tears out on the dusty ground / For all my friends out on the burial ground”), and a statement of purpose: rock stars don’t have business cards or resumes–they have albums and concerts. I half-believe that most folks, had a drop of Keith’s sweat fell on their tongue in the studio during the ‘Sticky Fingers’ sessions, would have expired on the spot.

One of the enduring glories of Sticky Fingers is how a band can take such dark, occasionally disturbing material and make it sound like a house party. If you read the lyrics of “Sway” or “Sister Morphine” (or “Brown Sugar” for God’s sake), you’d think this is a kind of poetry that would give Baudelaire pause, a vibe that makes both Dylan and Lennon look like boys about to drown in the kiddie pool.

Speaking of St. John…..there’s an insecurity about Lennon, the original hippie flashing peace signs while driving a Rolls Royce; as though he’d spray some mud on his face for the photo shoot but then clean up right quick for afternoon tea. One might be tempted to say the same about Jagger, but –and here’s the document that proves it– you simply can’t fake this; you have to be living like a naked and raw nerve to create music that sounds like a naked and raw nerve. Jagger, for all his prancing and posing, undoubtedly got in the filth, wallowed around, and discovered he not only enjoyed it, but *needed* it. More, and miraculously, he was brave enough to do multiple tours of duty; he was strong enough to bear witness, and the material from ’69 – ’72 is his diary from the trenches

Incidentally….eternal props for the egregiously uncelebrated Mick Taylor. Newsflash: that’s all MT on this track (Keith, as ever, supplying the best backing vocals, but not slinging here): one of the great rock solos and possibly the best rock guitar outro of the ’70s (ever?): an absolute tour de force of expression, through the glass very darkly. Brutal, bloody, beautiful.

Oh, and—as always—holding it all together, with perfect time and incomparable touch? Charlie MF Watts.

The essence of Charlie Watts? Right here.

Q: How can you epitomize “less is more” and show off at the same time?

A: Tumbling Dice.

(Plus: it’s not showing off if that’s just how you roll. When you have it, you do it. It stays done. That’s genius.)

That’s a legacy: always doing exactly what was needed, no more and no less, every single time.

He will be missed. He won’t be forgotten.

Rest in peace, Charlie.

Another batch of poems were recently featured at The Good Men Project, and I once again offer them my gratitude for being a safe and receptive place for my musings. I’ll post one each Thursday until we get caught up. Enjoy!

When mothers and daughters don’t speak

It’s ultimately up to the daughters

to understand their mothers tried—

using the tools nature equipped them

with—and no matter how we resist it,

each of us grows older every second.

*

Since time moves only in one direction,

even when the moon tires of speaking

to the sea her love moves the tides,

which wordlessly renew the world—

because everything depends on this.

i.

When R.E.M called it quits back in 2011 (yikes), I was both obliged and delighted to put my stake more firmly in the sand and stand by an earlier assessment: REM is the best (and/or greatest, most important) band America has produced.

In terms of influence and output, no one else can touch them. And here’s the thing: just about everyone knows the hits, and unlike most bands (even some of the better and best-loved bands) R.E.M could easily fit their “greatest hits” on a double-disc set. In terms of influence, is there any debate? R.E.M. has the ultimately winning combination of their sound(s) and the underground aesthetic that helped inspire more American bands than Velvet Underground and The Ramones combined (I can’t quantify that assertion but I still feel confident in proclaiming it).

Actually, how about this: REM inspired more bands who could actually play their instruments and make worthwhile albums than Velvet Underground and The Ramones combined (throw in the Sex Pistols as well, for bad measure). Where R.E.M—like any band—really distances themselves and makes their true case for greatness is in the lesser-known and semi-obscure songs. That is where we settle into the real meat and potatoes and start to get a handle on how unbelievably diverse, progressive and brilliant the band was for such a long time. Has any band been that good, that consistently, for that long? To me it’s not particularly close: R.E.M is it.

ii.

So what’s their best album? Why bother? Who cares? Well, those of us who care are always bothered and it’s because matters like these are so insignificant that they are so imperative.

It’s difficult to deny that Murmur, their very gentle yet earth-altering debut, is something few bands, including R.E.M. did—or needed to—improve upon. Nobody needs to read another historical analysis citing the far-reaching influence (it is not debatable), and little more is left to be said about the inimitable world the band created here. Like Love’s Forever Changes it’s not necessarily the individual sounds so much as the place that gets conjured up; by the album, by the listener as she listens to it. Even though this is their opening salvo, it somehow seems less “southern” than their next two albums, and it does (no, really) have that timeless vibe. A word every writer, including this one, leans on too often, if any album of the last forty years (and change) can be called “timeless” in the sense that it seems to have just arrived and remains impossible to adequately describe or even celebrate. It doesn’t sound like it could be made today, or in the ’60s (I don’t think that is what people mean when they say a particular work is “timeless”); rather, it makes itself—by virtue of its sheer quality and inscrutability—impervious to fads and critical trends. It just is and few albums of any era have ever just been the way Murmur manages to be.

At the end of the day, I still listen to a song like “Perfect Circle” and just shake my head, awestruck and grateful. How did something like this happen? Where did this come from? How is this possible?

iii.

Here’s the thing: if it wasn’t for Murmur there would be little disagreement about what album best represents everything so great about R.E.M. Enter their fourth effort, Lifes Rich Pageant, which celebrates its 40th birthday this year.

To be sure, there are songs you can isolate and put on a mix (or hits collection) but the full power of this one—like any masterful album—should be experienced from start to finish. The cumulative effect of these 12 songs represents a high water mark of the ’80s and while it is not out of time (pun intended) in the way(s) Murmur manages to be, that’s okay. For starters, Murmur is among the handful of sui generis statements from a rock band, and in some regards, the fact that Pageant at times screams 1986 is a very good thing. When we remember how much awful music was made in that decade it becomes refreshing almost to the point of hero worship status that there is nary a snythizer to be found. And just because a song like “Fall on Me” became anthemic doesn’t mean it was (necessarily) written with an eye on radio play. This work caught on because it was too powerful and significant to be ignored. The band had not hit pay dirt yet, but they had, without question, arrived.

After the so-called jangle-guitar (an oft-invoked but facile charge) era, there is no question that R.E.M. was evolving with each album. Arguably, this was the first quantum leap, stylistically and sonically. The urgent, almost menacing tone of Buck’s guitar dispenses with all pleasantries: this joint is rocking from jump street. And then there is the moment that Berry’s drums crash in: the ethereal, occassionally unintelligible quirkiness of the earlier work has been supplanted in favor of a crystalline sound and booming back end. This is a direct, and very confident, call to arms.

Even ostensible throw-aways like “Underneath the Bunker” (less-is-more showcasing for Buck, as always) and the cover of “Superman” (Mills on lead vocals!) help transition and end the onward, irresistible rush of this album. There are mini anthems like “These Days” and “I Believe,” which illustrate how much Stipe is growing as a singer; the earlier mumblings were delightful (even addictive) in their way, but one senses he means—and believes—what he is saying now. Indeed, the social consciousness is in full effect, as evidenced by two stunning tracks. The first, “Cuyahoga” is equal parts history lesson, lament and rallying cry. The second, which is on the short list of songs that have been played into the ground, is “Fall On Me”. Even after so much exposure little can take away from or tarnish the sublime harmonies (some of Mills’ finest work) and the poetic indictment of a careless (or worse, uncaring) society: it is an incrimination that manages to sound vulnerable and very human.

Then there are the two tracks that tend to defy description. First, the almost painfully raw yet gorgeous “Flowers of Guatemala”: this is, in many ways, the apotheosis of everything R.E.M. had achieved, and represents an apex of the aesthetic they were steadily working toward. Where later songs of this sort tended toward preciousness or self-conscious sermonizing, the band, perhaps because of where (and who) they were at this time, are able to balance earnestness and elegance. Peter Buck’s solo is a case study of how a musician’s musician makes magic happen without pyrotechnics or power chords.

Finally, “Swan Swan H”, an archetypal R.E.M. moment that conjures up the Deep South from another century, specifically the Civil War era (Johnny Reb). It is straightforward yet surreal; disorienting yet deliriously familiar, like a smell or sound prompting a memory you can’t quite place. The vocals here could not be more opposite from the approach on Murmur and while it’s still not entirely clear (nor should it necessarily be) exactly who and what Stipe is describing, there is little doubt he’s articulating the thoughts and feelings (and fates) of the soldiers and civilians who did not get mentioned in the history books. It’s an unequivocal embrace of the underdog, a position R.E.M. would make a career out of in part because they understood what it means to be an outsider. It remains a bit ironic, yet oddly perfect, that this sensibility was fully explored on an album that saw the underground’s favorite band forever leave the alternative scene.

i.

Another batch of poems were recently featured at The Good Men Project, and I once again offer them my gratitude for being a safe and receptive place for my musings. I’ll post one each Thursday until we get caught up. Enjoy!

ii.

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the day I officially married the love of my life. It was perfect: a low-key wedding (strictly family affair) at the best place in the world, on the cheap due to good luck, shrewd planning, and seizing the opportunity of those rare times the universe bestows fortune and you’re smart enough to smile and play your hand. The only bittersweet aspect was the absence of my beloved mother, the first woman in my world, to whom I wrote and celebrated (this memoir is getting revamped for a special edition—much more on that in the months ahead).

Having lost my mother entirely too soon has meant occasions (once in a lifetime, like a wedding; annual, like Mother’s Day or birthdays) are equal parts somber and celebratory: I mourn we what lost and I’m grateful for what we had (and even if I desperately wish she was still around, I’m so happy she was ever with us, and fully aware of how much we loved her).

And, of course, one of the things I love best about my wife Heather is what a remarkable mother she is. Her care and concern for Ben and Ellie is ceaseless (and contagious), but her love and motherly energy extends to her friends, students, and animals (especially our own ever-expanding brood); in every little act she is giving and available to those around her.

Not last, while it fills me with the sadness of missed opportunities—knowing how much my mother and Heather would have adored each other—I believe Heather represents the fulfillment of my mother’s most fervent wish for her son: that there’s an abundance of love in my life.

The Day I Got Married (One)

It started with a fight, of course

couples fighting is a cliché—but better

than the reverse. Consider the things

we fight: illness, ignorance, death and all

the things that die when we fight them—and don’t.

*

Couples that don’t fight don’t exist, or else

don’t care enough to defeat indifference—

which is slow death by suffocating distress.

*

We fight because we don’t like what we see

looking back, across the table or in the mirror.

Fighting is seldom peaceful, but peace at all costs

is apathy, and at least the death of certain peace

serves a function, it’s something worth fighting for.

*

What, after all, is the purpose of a heart,

sustaining the ceaseless calm of countless

could-have-beens, stalemate the default

of an existence unburdened by deliberation,

conscience, consideration or, finally, cliché?

*

We fight to make our nostalgia matter,

the past a concordance of best intentions

and achievement—a story worth telling,

since the way we earn memories informs

the future: the decisive fight of our lives.

The Day I Got Married (Two)

I think I’ve figured it out.

I hope I’ve figured us out.

*

And I’m at peace not knowing

secrets I’m not meant to solve.

*

I’m okay with some suspense,

I’ll reserve the right to hope:

*

There’s still so much to see.

That I’ll learn more as we love,

*

That I’ll love all what we find,

That I’ll find ways to recall

*

How discouraged I once was,

And I’ll nurture this accord

*

‘til death, too soon, does its part,

A disruption, not an end.

I’m a big fan of Greg Luce—poet, editor, jazz aficionado, and arts advocate—and I appreciate the lifting he’s done, for many years, to support the local and international writing community. He and Norah Vawter co-founded and run Washington Unbound, a lively and growing publication that celebrates writing, writers, and community.

Naturally, I was thrilled to meet with them both to discuss, in no particular order, 1455, our hot-off-the-presses Young Poets Anthology, and my own various projects. Below is a transcript of the conversation (lovingly and painstakingly pieced together from a lengthy conversation by Greg—proving that an editor’s work is never done!).

With huge gratitude to them, and a genuine feeling of solidarity, I’ll paste the conversation, below—but encourage you to check out the amazing work they’re doing and support the cause!

An interview with Sean Murphy, director of 1455 Literary Arts

by Gregory Luce

We here at Washington Unbound like to celebrate and acknowledge literary citizenship. So it was only natural that we would want to have a conversation with Sean Murphy, an exemplary literary citizen if ever there was one. Founder of 1455 Literary Arts as well as a prolific writer, podcaster, and promoter of literature and the arts, Sean has now added yet another feather in his cap. He has recently published 1455’s Young Poets Anthology 2026. We managed to get him to pause and talk with us about the anthology and the history and future of 1455. He even had a few kind words about Washington Unbound.

WU: Thank you for taking time out. We know you’re very busy, so we really appreciate this conversation.

First, give us a little bit about your background. Where are you from? How did you get started as a writer? Anything that might be of interest.

SM: The million dollar question, or in the case of an independent author, the 100-dollar question. [Laughter.] I am in Reston. It’s the town I grew up in. So mostly by choice, I’ve never left this area. It’s just a hub of cultural activity. I put roots down, and I love it. So my backstory. I think is like most writers, especially with the benefit of hindsight. When I look back, I’m living the life I was destined to lead. But that sounds too romantic by half. The way I like to describe it is, I learned pretty early on that I love to read and write, and the older and more experienced I got, the more I realized those were probably the only two things I was any good at. So I shaped a life that I was able to equip myself for tolerably well. So that meant in high school I was on the school paper staff. In college I was taking creative writing classes, doing well in English, leading to my getting a master’s in literature at George Mason. Shout out to my alma mater. After that, getting some short stories and poems published, and realizing you know, pretty early on, like most writers do, probably not going to be able to pay the bills by writing.To keep my creative pursuits alive and pay the bills, it was right around the time when the tech industry was ramping up. So I had a day job for decades that was very different, but in hindsight it was perfect because it enabled me to have stability and some focus, and learn some things, which came in handy later when I started a nonprofit. So I have some acquaintance with a business environment. But I was always nurturing those creative dreams, and then poem after poem, story after book, you start to build a life. And I started a nonprofit almost 10 years ago, and really that grew out of an almost selfish desire to remember what it was like to be in grad school and that camaraderie and solidarity.

I think any writer that does it long enough has to do the work, but it’s a very solitary life that’s filled with a lot of rejection and a lot of silence. So 1455 really grew out of this desire to nurture community and put myself in the center of a community that hopefully could connect other writers. And it’s just kind of grown out from that.

WU: That’s so consistent with our mission here at Washington Unbound too. The community is there. We can certainly always add to it, but we also enjoy just bringing it together and being of service to it. So that‘s an excellent transition to the next question. What was the actual process of starting 1455 Literary Arts, and what’s the significance of the name?

SM: I love that question. 1455 is the year that Gutenberg’s famous printing press first began to mass produce. I don’t know how mass-produced the printing was then, but it soon became that. That’s a touchstone in world history because for the first time, and it took centuries for this to play out—It’s probably still playing out—but that took the creation and distribution of books and writing out of the hands of the clergy and the elite, and at least set the framework where anybody could be a writer. Now, as we all know, there’s a lot of factors, a lot of cultural and financial factors, but at least in theory, the printing press made that possibility something we could aspire to. So I came up with that name. Total cliche. I was in the shower one day thinking about what to name this thing, and when I hit on that, I thought I had a winner. So I ran with it.

WU: That’s great. 1455 was a great, great starting point. Could you tell us a little bit more about exactly what 1455 engages in now on an ongoing basis? Publishing podcasts, whatever you’d like to tell us about.

SM: Sure, and again, I appreciate the questions very much. I love to talk about this stuff. So 1455 actually grew out of an experience I had in 2015 and 2016 where I went to a a writing retreat up at Martha’s Vineyard and that was really the first time, other than a conference or a long weekend or a getaway, where I spent a couple of weeks with other writers, and it did awaken something in me. It was that hunger that I alluded to of missing that real sense of communal mission and being around other people, whether they were poets or novelists or journalists, people that took the written word as seriously as I did. It’s a real luxury. So honestly, 1455 really grew out of an initial desire to see if I could start something like that in Virginia, and a year-round retreat where it could be a community center event space. And frankly, things were going pretty well, but then COVID happened.

And so, long story short, that vision of trying to create something where people can physically come and read and do things has been backburnered. I haven’t given it up, but COVID helped me lean into programming. And what I realized at the time was this is actually an opportunity to be even more inclusive, and suddenly we can have global events via Zoom or the internet where you can be connecting with and talking to and featuring people who in a physical environment was impossible. So there were a lot of negative aspects of COVID that we’re still dealing with. But one of the good things was all of us recognizing you don’t have to leave the house to connect with other people, so I leaned heavily into free programming. So that’s what we did and still do, which is any opportunity when we can celebrate a new book release or have a workshop or an e-magazine—Movable Type, which at one point was monthly, then it was bi-monthly. Now it’s annual. We used to have lit fests, which were in person and online. But what I decided a couple of years ago was to leave a real mark and really be inclusive and make a statement: publish a book. So 1455 Books has grown out of the existing mission. But I’m now really focused on the question: Can we build something where we’re actually publishing writers of all ages from around the world? So, on one hand, very modest. On the other hand, incredibly challenging, but it keeps me very motivated.

WU: I actually just received my copy of the Youth Anthology, which we’re going to talk about very shortly. I haven’t had a chance to read much of it yet, but it really looks fabulous. And I have read a few of the excerpts and seen a couple of the videos that you posted when it first came out. Are your books available in other formats besides print? Are there e-books or audio books?

SM: E-books for sure. Audio books I want to do. I’m trying to figure out the best way. For an anthology, the fantasy to me would be: Can we get every single poet to record and use their voices? Needless to say, that’s extraordinarily logistically complicated. I still love the idea, and I think it’s something we should aspire to. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to make it happen.

WU: Maybe sort of a YouTube channel with selected readings from the contributors who have the ability to do that.

So tell us about this anthology. We probably already have a sense of what gave you the idea because it’s part of that overall mission you have. But if you want to say anything more about it, please do.

SM: Truthfully, it was a very easy decision. Again, on one hand, anyone can do it, and I want to make that clear. I’m a big fan of how technology, despite AI, despite a myriad of things we need to be very vigilant about and cognizant of, the landscape is radically different than it was when you and I were younger. Someone can throw their hat in the ring, and it’s not going to cost millions to start a press. So that’s the democratic impulse that I celebrate. But that being said, to do it well is pretty audacious and is a lot of work. But for me to do it and combine doing it hopefully successfully, however you measure that. I certainly don’t mean money, but to do it well and to do something that I personally feel invested in. I mentioned the lit fests and the programming we’ve done every year when we had the literary festivals. Again, both in person and online, my favorite part every year, not surprisingly, was that we’d always have a young poet contest, and so I would read hundreds of poems from around the world, from people ages ten to 21 and every year the quality of that was overwhelming, and it would always redeem my faith in the future. So when it came time to think, well, what kind of books are we going to publish? And the answer to that, full transparency, is everything and anything. I don’t have any limitations, but what seemed to make sense was: What about an anthology so that you can get more bang for your buck, publish as many people as possible? But it was a no-brainer for me that the very first book out of the gate is going to be a young poets anthology. So, a lot of thought went into it in terms of what do I do? How do I do it? I was always aware that was where I wanted to spend a lot of my energy.

WU: You and I have a very good mutual friend, Holly Karapetkova, who, in her term as poet laureate of Arlington, put together a wonderful though much smaller anthology of high school poets. She went to each high school in the county, and they all had poetry clubs, and collected the best work she was able to get from all of them. And Day Eight, the organization I’m also affiliated with, did the actual publishing. So I didn’t have a whole lot to do with actually gathering or putting it together, but I certainly helped with the marketing. And there were a couple of really great readings. And I already knew from other work that there’s a lot of young voices out there that desperately need to be heard, and that we desperately need to hear. But it really hit home for me when that anthology came out. And so, of course, when I heard you were putting together this larger one that would be more worldwide, I thought we’re long overdue for something like this.

We have both taught creative writing to kids at different points over the years, and I’ve seen just how impactful it is not just to work with young people, but to publish their work even in a small way. So, I’ve done things like helping a group of of kids who I worked with either in a summer camp or after school program put together their own literary magazine and just printing out a copy for all the kids and their friends and parents is so exciting, you know they love just seeing their words in print and seeing how special they are. It’s just a great feeling. Kudos.

SM: Amen to that. And I’ll just add that I think you know we’re certainly amongst ourselves preaching to the choir, and probably many of the people who will read this. But I feel obliged to point out also that yes, it is a wonderful use of time and resources to publish any young voice. Full stop. But what I hear a lot, and it’s meant as a compliment, is oh that’s so nice of you. And I want to point out that I am doing it because I love it and believe in it. These poems and these writers are extraordinary. Adults can and should support this. They can learn a lot, and I purposely picked a theme of hope because I had a feeling we should call for something that’s both very easy to understand and also broad enough that it can be interpreted in many ways. What we got was not only fortunately a very diverse range of voices economically and geographically, but also these variations on what does hope mean in the abstract? What does it mean in 2026? What does it mean ten years from now? Yes, it’s a noble endeavor to celebrate and teach and work with youth. But boy, I’ve learned a lot more from a lot of these young writers than from, say, our political pundits, so there’s my little two cents for the wisdom that is behind these pages.

WU: Absolutely, I couldn’t agree with you more. And the other thing, which I think is probably so obvious that maybe we wouldn’t even think to say it, but I’m a better writer because of my exposure to the voices of young poets and and other kinds of writing, but especially since my thing’s poetry, the more of it we can get, the better. It’s good for us and for the world. So I think, oh yeah, well, it is a noble enterprise, but on the other hand, pure self-interest dictates that I do things like this because it is sheer joy at the same time. I gain professionally as well.

So now to get down to a little bit more about the actual process of putting together the book. How many submissions did you get? Or first of all, how did you put the call out? I know you said you encountered many young poets along the way in the lit fests, but how did you actually create the call for this particular book?

SM: As I said earlier, and I’ll repeat: The barrier of entry for anyone out there trying to do something like this is low, it’s doable. That being said, I think if I had started 1455 in 2017 and said I’m going to publish a book, I think I could have and would have done it. But part of what the contemporary publishing world is having a brand, having some kind of network or mechanism where you know you’re reaching some people. So I had the advantage of nine years of goodwill and programming, so that I at least knew if I put something out there, there was a modest but engaged audience I could count on. And I don’t only mean to buy it. I mean literally to help spread the word and be aware. Like I would encourage anyone anywhere to try to create art, but I think to set yourself up for success, if you have a long term plan and you’re cognizant of PR and marketing and sales and having a vision of how it goes from idea to execution.

We did have the advantage of me being in this game, and I think that gives me a competitive advantage because I’ve been in the academic art world for decades now. So again. I didn’t count on support or participation, but I knew that it wasn’t a total non sequitur to ask how am I going to do this. So the more succinct answer to your question is we used our social media, we used our presence, to make a call, and then we put some resources into really identifying sources. So one of my colleagues helped me track down the names and email addresses of deans around America, and we were really trying to discover how we could get this call for submissions into as many inboxes as possible. Making the submissions free obviously is good, as is having a system on the back end set up so the barriers to submit were very low. Essentially, people could log in and send us their stuff, and then we would edit it and do all the work.

But I still don’t know if I’ve answered your question. The real basic answer is we put the call out and then worked at it, and hoped we got a response. And thankfully, the response was significant, and it was very humbling.

WU: Sohow many submissions did you end up receiving?

SM: We got almost, gosh, we were close to 300 submissions worldwide, and to invoke an editor cliché, the hardest part always is making decisions and having to turn some down. In this case, I’m happy to say a lot of the poems we didn’t take either weren’t on the theme or the people weren’t in the age range. There were some pretty easy to disregard, but ultimately some impossible choices had to be made. And as you can see, it’s not a small book, but in order not to turn it into a phone book, we did have to make some choices. But in hindsight, I’ll say that it’s much better as a publisher and an editor to have too many to work with than not enough. The ideal balance is to be successful enough that you take anyone who wants to get published who is on theme. The goal is to publish more voices. So I took this as not only a mission accomplished, but I think it bodes well for the future. With a little more PR, a little more goodwill, we can make an even stronger call in subsequent years.

WU: Besides yourself, did you have co-editors/curators who helped winnow and edit ?

SM: No, we were a very small team at 1455, but for this particular endeavor, I felt a responsibility to really roll up my sleeves and and be the guy, but also I will say it’s a real labor of love, and I had done it before for Movable Type (the magazine) and the lit fests. It was a process I was familiar with, so it wasn’t as daunting, but it was extremely time consuming. So I put the call out in November, knowing that we probably wouldn’t be making decisions till late winter. So I gave myself a lot of time to be with these poems.

WU: It must have been a challenge though.

SM: It was, but rather than toot my own horn, I’d say I think that with any writer it comes down to decisions. So for me, it was, am I going to start this new Netflix series, or am I going to spend a few extra nights this winter spending a couple of hours each night going through the submissions, and for me, again, it was very selfish. Like it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. But I think anyone doing this kind of work, as we all can attest to, whether it’s teaching or writing or publishing, it has to be more important than other things in your life. And then you just make a priority out of it.

WU: Yes. As you probably know, we publish on a weekly basis, and so there’s a constant flow of work to do. Norah and I do the bulk of it, although we do have some outside contributors conducting interviews and writing reviews. And you’re right. I get up in the morning, and I know I’m not going to be bored that day because not only do I have my own work, and I do have to prioritize that, but there’s almost always something to be done for Washington Unbound, or at least something to think about, to make a note of, to talk about with Norah, We walked into what we didn’t even quite realize was a built-in network because we both know so many people in the community already; what we didn’t anticipate was the enormous need for what we’re doing.

That’s one of the reasons why I wanted us to interview you because you’re doing something similar with maybe a broader community. So anyway, to get back to the book itself, how’s the reception been? It’s been out for a couple of months now, or a month?

SM: It came out on June 21, so just over a month.

Before I answer that question, though, I do want to acknowledge both of you. The reality is, most people that do what we do would say it’s a labor of love. You’d be insane if it wasn’t. But litmags and nonprofits are folding every day. So the fact that you’ve seen growth and and you’ve seen engagement speaks volumes about the professionalism and the enthusiasm and the good work you’re doing, So I want to acknowledge and celebrate that. In one breath, I’m saying everyone can and should be jumping into this fray to support art, but it’s hard work. So cheers to both of you for that.

WU: Thank you!

It’s hard when you’re the person behind the person behind the scenes. I think again, as writers, we only see the mistakes, you only see the ways you didn’t hit certain milestones. But that being said, I’ve had the grace to stop and say, first of all, we were able to do it, right? The book exists. Almost 200 young poets around the world are now published. Many of them for the first time. They’re very excited. That alone was cause for real, real satisfaction. But I’m humbly delighted to say that we’re doing well. It’s been in the top 25 poetry anthologies on Amazon. It’s been in the top 200. We are being read and we’re moving some units. And it would be ridiculous to suggest that that’s never a goal. I mean, you why do something if it isn’t going to get read? But that was kind of secondary. So now I think the work becomes, and again we all can kind of attest to this, right?

There’s the curation, there’s the production, then there’s the promotion, and so my only goal now is to continue to celebrate these writers, and just do my level best to make sure people that might want to find this book are able to find it.

WU: What’s next for Sean Murphy and 1455?

SM: Our next anthology comes out in the fall, and it’s a women writers anthology. We had that call also go out last fall, and have been reading. We’ve made the selections. Similarly, it’s going to be almost 200 women writers from around the world. I think it’s 18 countries, which is extraordinary and so cool. We’ll be producing and then releasing and promoting that through the fall.

And 1455 is just trying to continue to have a presence. I think it’s germane. You know everything we’ve talked about, we’ve covered everything except for the fact that the work you guys are doing, the work that I’m doing, the work that our kindred spirits are doing…. Things aren’t great in American culture right now. It’s never been easy for the arts. It’s never been worse in some senses in terms of funding. So part of my goal is to at least make myself available and visible as a partner or collaborator or recipient of largesse if it’s out there. I mean, you’ve got to be in the game.

WU: I always like to end interviews by asking people, “What are you reading right now? What are you watching? What are you listening to?” You know, give us some recommendations.

SM: So I’m usually flummoxed by that, and I’ve talked to other writers. I think it’s like a weird anti-OCD thing where when you’re asked—and you read all the time—and I can’t think of anything.

But I can actually name [something], and it was a very purposeful decision. I was just out of town, and I knew that I at least had the chance to be a little bit off the grid, so I’m revisiting Faulkner for the first time in a long time. So I reread As I Lay Dying for the first time this century, and I’m actually working on a piece talking about how , in the age of AI, reading Faulkner is like the perfect antidote because you have to be engaged. You can’t do it quickly, and it’s a complete throwback thematically, stylistically. You know you are not in the here and now. So I read As I Lay Dying, and now I’m deep into Light in August.

We went on to discuss music and other non-literary subjects. Sean is a Renaissance man in terms of cultural interests. For more of the interview, subscribe to our premium Substack, where it will be posted in the next few weeks. In the meantime, order 1455’s Young Poets Anthology 2026. To learn more about Sean Murphy and 1445, visit the website.

Happy to share my second monthly article for 3 Quarks Daily—a site I’ve long read and admired (and I’m not alone in my approbation; some of my favorite writers have contributed to and/or endorsed their work).

I thoroughly enjoyed this cycle of the World Cup and have read (and mostly enjoyed) the myriad takes, some purely sports-related, some political, some cultural, some a bit of all, but I’m pretty sure mine's the only one that incorporates Pele, Maradona, and...St. Elmo's Fire. Hope you enjoy.

The Beautiful Game

i.

I learned about death and taxes later but first; I understood that there was also the World Cup. It loomed almost as large as reality and, for large segments of the world, was as important as existence, was existence—at least every four years. Those of us in the states didn’t have those emotional or historical attachments, but in the ‘70s we all had Pelé.

It’s difficult to explain to someone raised in this century, but it’s not enough to merely suggest Pelé was the Michael Jordan of his time. He was much, much more: an amalgamation of every single athlete in every sport, as well as the coolest rock star, actor, politician, and superhero. He was Pelé, and he didn’t wear a cape. He played football, or Jogo Bonito (The Beautiful Game, translated from the Portuguese and the Brazilian team that, for a decade as golden as their shirts, epitomized the ethereal grace of this sport, elevating to its own artform.)

Pelé was among the first icons who could be—and always was—known by a single name, and he was ubiquitous before attaining ubiquity was the apotheosis, after achievement and wealth, of any celebrity’s career. It’s all but impossible, in 2026, to articulate how well-known, and beloved, Pelé was in a pre-internet world. As the man himself once remarked, the arrogance underscored by its unassailable truth: “Wherever you go, there are three icons that everyone knows: Jesus Christ, Pelé, and Coca-Cola.”

Pelé also did the impossible on more than one occasion. No, I’m not referring to his bicycle kicks, or his single-handedly making soccer gain traction in the United States (that it still languishes as the least popular of our major sports is a travesty that he can in no way be faulted for), or his winning role as a big-time movie actor (via the seminal young man’s soccer fantasy flick Victory); no, Pelé was even able to make Henry Kissinger, the seemingly unkillable cretin who never found an opportunity or occasion he could not personally sully, seem prescient, even brilliant.

It was Kissinger who helped convince Brazil to let their hero practice the beautiful game in America (Brazil had, in 1961, actually declared Pelé a non-exportable national treasure). To get a handle on the chain reaction of sports, culture, and surreal celebrity that ensued, the miraculous documentary Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos cannot be more highly recommended.

All of which is to say, in the late 1970’s soccer never had a better chance than it did here in America. The NASL, for a time that, in hindsight, was almost embarrassingly brief (how quintessentially American: we came in hot, made bets impossible to bank, then walked away to greener pastures, or at least the unholy spectacle of astro-turfed stadiums where our baseball and football players made their bones, and broke them, during the subsequent decade).

ii.

By 1980, soccer was increasingly like jazz music: something a small and shrinking number of fanatics loved (or understood), and the only thing more off-putting to the non-initiated than the game itself was listening to these fanatics explain it. Still, we’d always have the World Cup. Many of us who cared had a rooting interest in Brazil, in part because we pretended to be Pelé on the playground, in part because their brand of football was, especially compared to the staider and more sluggish European teams, a joy to behold.

It was around 1982, on the cusp of adolescence, that I first learned superheroes weren’t invincible. When hugely favored Brazil fell, impossibly, to Italy, it was like figuring out there was no Santa Claus, only more so. And worse, that the bad guys sometimes win. Paulo Rossi going from disgrace to hero? Mio dio.

The time waiting between ‘82 and ‘86 was agonizing, at least for the dwindling fans of what, we were reminded every four years, was the most popular sport everywhere else on the planet. Of course, the rest of the planet didn’t have MLB or NFL or even NHL, so what did they know? They knew then what everyone knows now: America was still growing into what it might become, and no one would deny it was very pleased with itself. A few recessions and Iran Contra debacles aside, being America was our business and business was good.

By 1986, I was certain Brazil was going to win the Cup (and I was not alone). Naturally, they went out early, to France no less. Mon dieu. Of course, that year’s tournament only had room for one man and his name was Diego Maradona. No one was calling him the next Pelé just yet, but we were watching his metamorphosis from undersized caterpillar into The Supreme Butterfly in real time. His two goals against England are the stuff novels aren’t made of, because even novels can scarcely contain such multitudes. Revenge, on the biggest stage, for England’s grotesque remake of The Empire Strikes Back, also known as Guerra de las Malvinas? Check. Getting away with a blatant hand ball (something that, even four years later, would have been caught by refs)? Check. Argentina, during a decade when everything south of the border was depicted in movies and media as less than, got their own back, big time.

As this year’s knockout stage reminds us, the World Cup is undefeated at humbling favorites and turning cads into conquerors. And occasionally, the best team wins. Thank you, Spain; gracias a Dios.

iii.

Getting back to the ‘80s. Like any bully on the global stage (football pitches excluded) we did not need to ask any questions because we already had all the answers. We didn’t know how much we did not know, but we knew what everyone else seemed to understand, however reluctantly. Such as, the U.S.A. could kick some Soviet ass if it had to (ask Rocky IV), that God existed (and, assuredly, was a Capitalist God), that He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins (ask Gordon Gekko). Also, high schoolers high on this jingoistic supply predicted exactly what we’d become after graduating from our first- or second-choice colleges: some of us would be practicing L.A. Law, some of us would be sporting Top Gun bomber jackets, some of us would get wealthy on Wall Street, and the rest of us would have the old-fashioned types of jobs that you could actually describe in one or two words. What we were not going to be was forgettable. We did not know where we were headed, but we were emboldened by an instinctual understanding that our parents’ wallets would insulate us from too much reality—or at least break our fall if any of us tripped climbing up that American ladder.

Right around this time an execrable movie arrived stateside that, in hindsight, is an ideal cultural time capsule. St. Elmo’s Fire didn’t represent what America was, circa 1985, in any meaningful way. Rather, it represented what certain (very privileged, untalented, opportunistic) types of Americans wanted the country to be, and not surprisingly, it looked a lot like themselves: white, wealthy, able to stroll away from the real fires they started. We have a (literally) crooked line tracing from The Great Gatsby’s Buchanans to the Brat Pack, again all leading to the apotheosis of everything Ugly American in Donald Trump.

In this sense, not much has changed since 1985. Or 1925. Here we are, still being sold an American Dream that talks a big game and continues to count the bucks being made off this mirage. This is America’s version of Jogo Bonito, except it’s not beautiful in any way. During this last decade, a narrative that used to be easily dismissed as either reactionary or self-defeating has been increasingly codified: being a red-blooded American means not having to consider other nation’s history or History itself; we’re always-already better by virtue of being American.

This desire to remain comfortably numb, both intellectually and morally, is seldom on better and more appalling display than during wars or sporting events. As it happens, this summer we had both, which coincided with the 250^thanniversary of our founding—a welcome chance for self-reflection (just kidding). As a recalcitrant soccer fan, it felt at once unfamiliar and jarring to see fellow Americans whose default setting is “what is soccer?” realizing our team might actually be good this time. During a surreal summer when patriotic zeal was ramping up like the price of gas and groceries, what might have been a positive learning experience provided the ugliest kind of America.

Was there a moment, for instance, when fans of Trump’s preferred immigration policies reflected on the fact that, if things were the way MAGA voters fantasize about, some of our team’s best players—including Folarin Balogun, the very man our president put his short, vulgar fingers on the scale to reinstate from suspension—would not be a legal citizen? Or any calm acknowledgment that six of the 26 players on the 2026 Team were born outside the U.S.A., and more than a third of the squad are children of immigrants? Of course not. Whatever modest appetite this spectacle—the humility of hosting so many nations—might have provided for dialogue, the bandwagon was too noisy for such trivial and uncomfortable things.

Until Team U.S.A. lost, eventually, inevitably. We were then treated to the spectacle of scapegoating, but also the truly perverse argument by the loudest (and whitest) voices that America is not a soccer superpower because…we don’t make it a priority and invest in it. For once, just being American isn’t sufficient to declaring victory, so it must be an issue we can throw money at. Or, ignore the usually infallible free market which, for over a century, has put soccer last place in the hearts, minds, and wallets of its paying customers.

The World Cup forces a very specific subset of Americans to confront the fallacy that our exceptionalism is axiomatic, established, incorruptible. Usually, it requires a failed military campaign (see Vietnam or Iraq or, for those late to this game, Iran), or the collapse of entire industry bubbles (like we saw in 2001 and 2008), but the World Cup can condense the cycle with ruthless, impossible to deny efficiency. So, the collective mob howled, who’s the scapegoat? The team? The coach? The sport? The system? For once, not only can’t we conveniently blame immigrants, but we must also accept—at least on some level—that without our immigrants, our soccer program would be in (more) dire straits. There’s abundant irony here, as well as opportunity for engagement, but the smart money says we’ll table these concerns for another four years So it goes.

All the way back in the before times (circa 1991) the brilliant British novelist Martin Amis wrote “Being more or less unembarrassable, Americans are fatally attracted to the embarrassing.” The World Cup exposes this phenomenon as much as, say, Donald Trump does, but it goes deeper, and gets at the dark heart of why soccer simply won’t catch on over here. Dominating this sport is not something we can buy, or bribe, or market, or slogan, slip into a happy meal, or turn into a mini-series. Because soccer can and will embarrass the most earnest fan, it never had a chance in such a cynical, fickle nation. We can’t hate the players, so we hate the game. And we love ourselves too much to give our hearts to a beautiful game, anyway. If that means we choose to be led by a man who bankrupted a casino, that’s the sales pitch we’ll play on.

Assessing Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black (for a project appraising the best 50 albums of the decade that took up way more time and energy than I expected or had the bandwidth for but which, like so many creative endeavors, I’m grateful I took the time to accomplish—more on that whole endeavor another time) in early 2010, I wrote:

Between the pre-release hype and the post-release meltdown, it’s almost difficult to remember how many naysayers this album humbled. Trust me, I was one of them. I recall reading a rapturous review a month or two before the CD dropped (and seeing her for the first time in the accompanying photos and thinking, Hey she’s kind of hot in a coke binge, bar-crawling, tat- sporting, wig-wearing, hot bowl of mess kind of way) and acknowledging that serious marketing money had her pegged as the story of the year.

And then I heard the thing. Yeah, the rehab song was okay, I guess. And this album definitely isn’t a masterpiece, because there are some serious clunkers on there. But my God there are some flat out stunners as well. It got overplayed (through no fault of its own) but there is no denying “You Know I’m No Good” (holy shit what a songwriter! Are you kidding me with those lyrics? That is some sardonic self-loathing that gives even Morrissey a run for his money) and the title track and especially the most hilarious song of the decade “Me & Mr. Jones”:

What kind of fuckery are you? Aside from Sammy you’re my best black Jew!

Quite frankly, nobody in the world could ever in a million words write a line like this and actually pull it off. And then there is straight-up one of the best songs of this decade, or any decade, “Love Is A Losing Game.” I remember reading that Prince had begun covering this in his live shows. Repeat: Prince. Yes, that Prince. Just to be clear, people cover Prince’s songs, Prince does not cover other people’s songs. Get the picture? It’s one thing to emulate and imitate the old Phil Spector girl group vibe, but to craft a tune that can easily stand alongside any of them? Wow. And, astonishingly, Winehouse saves the best for last, literally. “He Can Only Hold Her” is an out-and-out masterpiece, a perfect song. Every second, every syllable, every sound: utter perfection. Check out those lyrics: can you say “less is more”? That is not just a short story, that is a fucking novel in three minutes. If you know anything about anything, you simply shut up and marvel at genius (yes, genius) like that.

Look, Winehouse was already at Defcon-4 by the time this album broke big; to a certain extent she earned her excess and the sadly predictable tabloid soap opera her life became. Let’s hope, for her sake and ours, that she gets her act together and makes an attempt to do the unthinkable: making another album half as great as Back To Black.

7/26/11

(Flashback: I wrote this on my “netbook”—remember those? when the news broke the internet: waiting for a return flight on a Boston biz trip, downing a few Wachusett Blueberry Ales in an airport lounge, not listening to AW b/c I didn’t have a smartphone yet)

***

Well, we’ll never get the chance now, will we?

Whenever an artist dies too young, particularly when it is a self-inflicted surrender, there is an inevitable (irresistible?) tendency to romanticize or lionize. That Winehouse joins the infamous “27 club” (Jimi, Jim, Janis, Cobain, etc.) only ups the ante and ensures that the same folks who salivated at her death-spiral will now weep amphibious tears.

I’m disappointed, as a fan, that we won’t get a chance to hear her mature and evolve from the immature chanteuse whose destructive and self-loathing tendencies overpowered the better (and prettier) angels sulking deep inside. I’m sad, as a fellow human being, that a woman with so much talent and potential was not able to love her life—and herself—enough to see how much discovery and excitement lay ahead of her. I sincerely wish she could have listened to her own music and felt the same thrill and astonishment so many millions of people felt. It may not have been enough to save her, but it might have been enough to help. And sometimes help is the first step to salvation.

I hope, and trust, she is sleeping well. And if there is any karmic justice she is able to feel some measure of peace and fulfillment that in some small way approximates the pleasure she was able to provide so many of us, despite the pain she was so obviously in for so long.

In early 2014 I took a deeper dive into the whole “27 Club” thing, courtesy of a new book which I reviewed. (I still recall reading it in one sitting, somewhat appropriately, on the way back from Vegas—mostly business via the CES I attended every year from ‘04 to ‘16, which means I never need to see Vegas on any level for the remainder of my life). A bit more about Winehouse and some of her infamous partners in infamy/immortality, below.

“You’re drinking with number three,” Jim Morrison allegedly declared, equal parts sardonic and prescient, following the successive deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix in 1970. As it happened, he was correct. In less than a year these superstars were gone, all at the age of 27.

For his new book, 27, Howard Sounes researched the number of musicians who’ve actually died at 27 and discovered the total was 50. But the list of famous, or infamous cases comprising the so-called “27 Club” is much shorter, six to be exact. They are, in chronological order, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse.

What ties these six artists together, aside from their obvious ages and occupations, is the fact that some measure of controversy dogs each death, and Sounes sets out to examine the various coincidences and conflicting stories, seeing what they all add up to.

Conclusion: not much. Despite the considerable talent, promise and tragedy we can attribute to each of these artists, they all serve as cautionary tales of excess, poor judgment and wasted potential. In the cases of Morrison and Hendrix, enough material was recorded to ensure a definitive legacy; with Cobain and Winehouse we are left wondering how many years, even decades, of genius they forfeited.

In the cases of Jones and, to a lesser extent Joplin, they seemed hell-bent on self-destruction, and might well have viewed death as a refuge of sorts. And while Joplin arguably did her best work at the end, Jones had ceased to contribute much of anything, and was a bloated, neurotic mess long before his ill-advised midnight swim.

Sounes constructs mini-biographies of each musician, making Winehouse, who receives quite a bit more attention and time, the centerpiece. The author admits that he has more personal interest in Winehouse, particularly as a fellow Londoner, and it was presumably much easier to find family and friends to speak with. For the four who died between 1969 and 1971, he relies on myriad sources, and his bibliography is impressive, if intimidating. Make no mistake, Sounes did heavy lifting to make this book as authoritative as possible.

If you are already familiar with these musicians, there are not a ton of new or especially interesting insights to be found. On the other hand, if you want exhaustive, at times exhausting detail regarding their collective debauchery, 27 may have that kind of perverse train wreck appeal.

Interestingly, or not, while Winehouse gets more than twice as much ink as the others, much of it is spent in the service of depressingly redundant recollections of her binges and outbursts. Not unlike with Joplin, Jones and Morrison, one comes away wondering not why they died so young, but how they managed to live as long as they did.

Indeed, Sounes betrays a soft spot for Winehouse, at times acting like a priest or psychiatrist, where he is mostly content to dismiss Morrison and Jones as burned out buffoons. In the latter’s case, there weren’t too many people willing to say many nice things: Jones comes off as a petulant, abusive bully, a man-child who might have ended up in jail or in a ditch if not for his musical skills and fortuitous association with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Morrison, on the other hand, warrants more nuance and empathy than Sounes is capable of conjuring. True, the Lizard King was, by most accounts, all too often a braying, inebriated ass. On the other hand, there are plenty of friends and acquaintances who describe him as the proverbial Jekyll and Hyde: when not drunk, he was capable of humor, kindness and generosity. And he was also capable of ethereal brilliance; lost on Sounes are the ways Morrison channeled his vices into unique and affecting visions. A simple assessment of his material dealing with alcohol reveals a trifecta of masterful songs that also work as poetry: “Roadhouse Blues”, “End of the Night” and especially what might rank as rock music’s finest meditation on the irresistible pull of drink, “The Crystal Ship”.

Like Hendrix, Joplin simply seemed to get caught up in the chaos that accompanies life in the spotlight; unlike Hendrix, she had deep-rooted insecurities and a profound self-loathing (like Cobain and Winehouse) that led her to seek solace from miscellaneous chemicals. Hendrix is the only one who seems relatively well-adjusted and mostly in control of his faculties throughout. He enjoyed the party because he could, but he took his life, and his music, very seriously. More, he harbored no apparent desire to harm or annihilate himself, so his death still seems a genuine misadventure, a freak incident that still stings to this day.

Sounes helpfully demolishes any/all conspiracy theories, ranging from the familiar (Morrison lives!) to the far-fetched (Hendrix was murdered), and while we’ll never know exactly what happened to Jones and Joplin, the drugs found in their systems combined with the backstory of their final months in this earthly form leave little to the imagination.

27 also serves as a corrective of sorts for the half-assed mythologizing, particularly of Morrison and Cobain, both of whom have, for a variety of understandable if facile reasons, been posthumously anointed as voices of their generation. Both Cobain and Morrison had upbringings that left them ill-prepared for adulthood, much less celebrity. But there was no shortage of self-indulgence as well, and while anyone with a heart can feel genuine empathy, the record leaves no question these men were surrounded by concerned support systems, and wealth, that might have made a difference.

In a fascinating twist, just about all the maligned parents obtain an odd, non-rock and roll vindication, courtesy of their offspring. In the cases of Joplin, Hendrix and Morrison, all were estranged from their parents, all of whom ended up wealthy beneficiaries of careers they never approved of, but perhaps unintentionally did much to inspire.

As mentioned in last week’s post, and to repeat: I enjoyed the New York Times take, earlier this month, on identifying the quintessential American movie (talk about a fun and impossible task). Some obvious and unobjectionable choices, including There Will Be Blood, Dazed and Confused, and Nashville; some inexplicable, and stupid choices, like Dirty Dancing, Zabriskie Point, and…Disclosure Day??

(Not my first rodeo, either: I “tangled” with the NYT last year, taking a deep look at the best movies of the 21st Century: it’s a five part series that concludes here.)

So I could neither respect nor live with myself if I didn’t voice my objections the old fashioned way: by making a list of my own. With obvious conditions and constraints: to keep it remotely manageable, I’d limit myself to the second-half of the 20th Century (this time), but to keep myself from cherrypicking (or worse, cutting and pasting), I’d avoid choosing movies I’ve already celebrated at length—movies that I could happily select as quintessential American films, including Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, Serpico, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, They Live, Goodfellas, Caddyshack, The Insider, and Dead Man (more on Taxi Driver later this summer…).

So, two movies from each decade. None of these choices should seem especially controversial, most or all recognizable by name and capable, by that alone, of making a case for themselves. I’ll include succinct assessments and a clip from each which, needless to say, should be more convincing than anything I can accomplish.

Ten Definitive American Movies from the Second Half of the 20th Century

The Searchers (1956)

The closing shot? I mean my goodness. What more do we want from a movie, from art, from life? It could be only semi-facetiously offered that the entire film is a delivery device for the perfection of its ending. Or that every western was a prelude, or all of American history, etc. And to a Gen X’er with a certain disposition to loathe just about everything John Wayne did or stood for, it takes on whole other layers of meta and meaning to just shut up and celebrate this perfection. Period.

Vertigo (1958)

Ditto James Stewart. I mean he’s insufferable except when he’s ideal and I’m both capable and willing to concede he was ideal many times. Oh well. Point being, I’m not a big fan, except when I am, and the fact that there’s so much complex meta stuff happening alone makes Vertigo a sort of Sui generis effort, singular in Hitchcock’s canon. Like The Searchers, Vertigo can—and must—be adored on its own terms, but the stories inside the story (both fictional and about the director, the stars, the circumstances, the psychology, and so on) can fill books and endless conversation.

Also: best soundtrack ever? For my money, it’s surpassed only by Taxi Driver (also, of course, courtesy of Bernard Herrmann—and again, more on him and that movie in a couple of months…)

So…another “delivery device” moment? Even if the movie offered little else, this museum-worthy shot of an America that’s, sadly, long, long gone is worth savoring, but also that wallpaper and the swelling music and the regal, miraculous Kim Novak and…oh my God.

Bonus content and shout-out, with spoilers (don’t watch if you’ve never seen the movie and if you’ve never seen the movie, see the movie). I’ve celebrated this on my blog many times over the years as an uncanny and astonishingly clever mash-up; a great example of how art can be in conversation with itself.

Dr. Strangelove (1964)

In a longer piece entitled “Making the Case for Kubrick”, I assessed his remarkable career (find that HERE). Also, strictly speaking this isn’t an “American film” so much as it’s a British-ish or tag team—but since the subject matter (and ostensible locales) are American, it counts.

*

Is it possible to get tired of a tour de force like Dr. Strangelove? Understanding that Kubrick intentionally asked George C. Scott to add one “over the top” take for each scene (knowing full well that those were the takes he planned to use) causes one to further appreciate the perfection.

This truly is one of those exceedingly rare movies that can be enjoyed, over and over, for the simple joy it provides. It’s hilarious, and the intelligent viewer innately understands—and appreciates—the grim alternative reality simmering constantly below the surface. It is one of the out-and-out funniest films ever made, boasting what has to be one of the all-time great casts. For much of this, Kubrick deserves credit and kudos. His ultimate achievement, aside from the steady craftsmanship and originality, might be the realization that Dr. Strangelove had to be a comedy. The novel he adapted, Red Alert was a dead-serious potboiler; Kubrick instinctively understood how poorly that would play on screen (at least in most directors’ hands) but also how crucial it was to satirize. The results, equally a tribute to that crackerjack cast, are a testament to Kubrick’s intelligence and vision.

When we speak of Kubrick we inexorably address his fixations and obsessions and his (IMO, at times self-defeating) perfectionism that lends certain famous scenes a certain chilliness. But what might not get mentioned enough is his masterful deployment of irony. Some see pessimism, but attentive viewers understand that Kubrick, for all his precision, always removed himself from the acting and the action. If his films have moments that are more aesthetically perfect than emotionally convincing, Kubrick could never be accused of being cynical. Like our very best directors, he consistently conjures up other times and places while offering profound comment on the here and now.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

A rare miracle that sums up a previous America, comments pointedly on the present, and is quite prescient about the future. There’s a fairly crooked line connecting Clyde Barrow to everyone from Gordon Gekko and Donald Trump to O.J. Simpson and Luigi Mangione. Americans have a soft spot for sociopaths, and the charismatic ones can make careers out of it (it also never hurts if you’re as handsome as Warren Beatty).

Bonus dose of self indulgence, from a longer piece on my favorite crushes: By 31 I’d been there, done that, at least figuratively speaking. I was already a lost cause, a sad clown whose fate lay in recognizing all his soul mates had been born before his time (or had never been born at all, literally speaking). Still, perhaps because we long most for what we can never attain, I carried a tragic-comic torch for Faye Dunaway. Back to the future: 1967, Bonnie Parker, the perfect woman. Did any actress ever look as good in any movie? Not for all the money I don’t have in my bank account. And even though I wasn’t as exciting or nearly as pretty as Warren Beatty, I understood her pain. I could give her what she really needed (sorry, Clyde); I could help her help herself. I could help her help myself. Or something. I suspected, then, and know, now, that like me, she was simply searching for something she couldn’t find, something she could never have.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)

Warren Beatty, again? Well, I could also have chosen another Altman movie (Nashville, M.A.S.H., or The Player all leap to mind), or Beatty (in Shampoo or The Parallax View). We also are about to see Faye again (and already saw her via Chinatown which, I’ll never tire of repeating, is the most perfect American movie—ever). All of which is to say, for about ten years there were only a handful of actors who left their mark via more acclaimed films than Warren & Faye. Attention must be paid.

What I love most about this movie is how much doesn’t happen, and how it obliges reflection on all the things that are happening (offscreen and in our minds). Without preaching and without pretense, Altman offers up a coruscating indictment of capitalism, the myth of western “expansion” and discovery, colonialism, sexism (on many levels), a story within a story about celebrity and received wisdom, and so much more. A lot going on for such a quiet, languidly paced film! And there’s a great deal of humor, too.

Spoiler-ish alert for the uninitiated, but no primary characters are involved in this scene which, well, contains multitudes—all of them ugly, predictable, familiar, and heartbreaking. Altman captures an entire history lesson in under three minutes, which is what geniuses do.

Network (1976)

Right now Paddy Chayefsky is:

a. Rolling over in his grave

b. High-fiving Peter Finch in heaven

c. High-fiving Peter Finch in hell (where it’s Happy Hour 24/7)

d. All of the above

There are any number of examples that could be (and probably have been) offered up to illustrate how prescient Chayefsky’s screenplay for Network really was. Think of phony purveyors of moral outrage ranging from Morton Downey Jr. to Jerry Springer, and the whole concept of infotainment to the hastening-of-the-apocalypse proliferation of Reality TV, etc. Stage it and they will come is now the (un)official mantra of media’s M.O. And, in the end, it’s all pretty much a tempest in a teapot. Or, a tempest in a tea party. Which brings us, inevitably, to Fox News. Of course, fabricated indignation has been good business in America since Jonathan Edwards first perfected the formula with Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God back in 1741, shortly before the advent of cable television.

Capitalizing on the nervous consciences of the faithful created steady work well into the 20th Century, and Sinclair Lewis codified the archetypal character in Elmer Gantry (1926). That pernicious tradition was carried on faithfully by Confidence Men like Pat Roberston, Jerry Falwell, Benny Hinn and Rick Warren. But of course this act has always been too tempting for politicians not to embrace with every inauthentic bone in their bodies. The only hucksters that can outhustle the pols are the preening simpletons who rile up the credulous citizens who dial in each day for another dose of bad medicine. At the appointed hour, the idiot box transfigures into a burning bush and these rapt minions who otherwise behold Christ in their breakfast food (or, proving how crafty and omnipotent the Lord can be, at lunchtime too), get their Godhead on in the form of third-rate carnival barkers.

As incendiary, and insufferable, as all of them, ranging from Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly to Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, and the truly, spectacularly cretinous Jesse Watters are, you tend to appreciate how they sometimes can’t keep a straight face as they shovel the horseshit, whipping simpletons into a righteous lather for a steady paycheck. Yes, they are contemptible and yes, they wield their petty power over the powerless in incredibly irresponsible fashion. But with them you know to expect less than little in terms of originality, integrity, or intellectual rigor. Thus, you have to remain content, in a free country, to let them hold sway over a semi-sentient audience who would crawl over molten coals for them. A pox on all these empty suits with empty minds, offering regurgitated jeremiads and faux populism to a genuinely distressed viewership looking for answers but disinclined to trust the dirty Socialists who want to ensure they have a semblance of security and a modicum of healthcare.

Anyway, Network used to be difficult to enjoy simply because it was too on the nose; in 2026 it’s a depressing watch because we realize, in quintessentially American fashion, we’ve taken the absurdity further than fiction ever dares contemplate.

King of Comedy (1982)

The Joker would have been terrible, anyway, but the ways all of its unreached potential was already done to perfection courtesy of two Martin Scorsese movies made it insultingly bad (that it made tons of money, generated tons of discussion, and got tons of critical and commercial love only proves why we can’t have nice things). If it was intellectually dead on arrival as an exceedingly poor man’s Taxi Driver; it also had precisely the kind of provocative social commentary served up on a platter by King of Comedy.

Anticipating everything from social media to Reality TV, it supersized the uniquely American pathology of mediocre people willing to immolate their dignity to be famous or be in close proximity to fame. It rubs our faces in the style over substance ethos that came to dominate the last quarter of the 20th Century, and goes even deeper, showing that some (most? all?) of these wealthy celebrities are equally miserable in their way. It’s a unique example of a film that would have aged terribly except for the fact that America, unable to help itself, not only supersized, but turbocharged the neuroses and sociopathies on display.

The Mosquito Coast (1986)

There Will Be Blood was one of the NY Times selections, and it’s widely regarded as one of this century’s best movies. It’s also one of the most American—specifically as it traces the twin evils of organized religion and (take your pick) unregulated capitalism, the corrupting machinations of monopolies, or just Money being the root of all Evil (bringing the symbiotic, always uneasy relationship with Religion full circle). More on this film another time, and my only real quibble is that the two antagonists are a bit extra. Yes, by design, but also because the director can’t help himself.

For a bit more nuance and a movie that has two powerful forces (one representing religion but also its colonialism and exploitative tendencies; the other a—take your pick—proxy for The Individual or The Genius or Hubris or The Last Honest Man Driven Insane by the Insanity of the World, etc.) playing off each other, The Mosquito Coast covers a lot of ground with much of the subtlety and ambiguity TWBB lacks.

It is also prescient in its way; Allie Fox (Harrison Ford doing some career best work) starts out lamenting the ways America is outsourcing everything to Japan (how 1985), which seems quaint to the point of comedy in a country polluted by 24/7 content, appalling health care, and riding a greased rail to oligarchy. (Imagine what Fox would make of Fox News or Elon Musk, much less Bezos or…Trump).

Bob Roberts (1992)

This was too intelligent a movie, most likely, to become a blockbuster; it was also entirely too on point—putting everything from politics, the media, the religious right, and even Saturday Night Live in its sights. Much like Network and King of Comedy, it’s still an instructive, if depressing watch: like certain sci-fi novels and dystopian fiction, things that might have seemed worst-case fifty or one hundred years ago now seem…cute. Nothing in this movie was over the top in the early ‘90s, but we’re so far through the looking glass (George W. Bush seemed like an embarrassing apotheosis, little did we know what was still coming down the pike).

I can’t recommend this enough: it’s America looking at itself, through the glass darkly. An essential treasure, and a tribute to Tim Robbins, who truly caught lightning in a bottle (added bonus: he did career defining work in Altman’s The Player, which not only could also easily make this list, but came out the same year!)

Malcolm X (1992)

Watching this movie over three decades later, at least we can say we left racism in the rearview mirror. Just kidding! This film—based of course on X’s seminal autobiography—is an American story on myriad levels. It manages to inform, infuriate, and inspire—sometimes all at once. It being a Spike Lee Joint, there’s unbelievably cliched dialogue at times, totally over the top indulgence, and an unbearably maudlin soundtrack. But Lee, for all his often intolerable faults and excesses, knows how to frame gorgeous scenes and make a picture pop. He also had the energy and ambition to understand the assignment and Go Big for a topic that warranted such extravagance. Featuring God Level work by Denzel Washington, this has all the ingredients. It’s a masterpiece and necessary medicine to take, if for no other reason than to keep the rust off and remind you why we’re alive.

What did I miss? Whaddya got? LMK in the comments.

(Author’s note: Welcome to Round Three. For our second installment last month we celebrated Prince Far I & the Arabs’s Dub Encounters Chapter 3. Each month there will be a new album, and if you’re a return visitor, you can skip the intro, repeated each month for newcomers!)

i.

The Vision

TL;DR. On the last Sunday of each month I’ll pick an album I endorse that is not only ideal for vinyl, but can be more fully appreciated in analog. And not (necessarily) on a pristine system; something cheap will do (see more below). These are not necessarily album reviews, per se, but opportunities to quietly rage against the machine of all-things-digital, our addictive devices, and our dwindling attention spans. Obviously, I reckon most folks will be doing something(s) as they listen, but for the best experience, just taking a half hour or so to let the sounds wash over you and embrace the thoughts that arrive is my suggestion.

ii.

The Backstory

I was early to the vinyl game. And I’m not just talking about rocking Kiss albums on a portable player in the ‘70s.

In my (exceedingly modest) platform as a tech analyst, I was the go-to guy for all-things audio just because I was that guy. I enthusiastically witnessed the slow but steady return of vinyl (circa 2010-ish) and watched the number tick upward, each year. And it became a bit of a joke in my department: once a year some outlet would call wanting to ask about…vinyl.

I’m a vinyl enthusiast, an advocate of old school without irony, and I make my living fully embracing the wonderful and democratizing possibilities all this technology makes possible. I’m not living in the past, but I like to visit as often as possible. Some music makes that easier; some music conjures up good times via nostalgia; some music seems specifically designed for introspection. These are the albums I’ll focus on for this series. Not just albums that are cool to have on vinyl (duh) but albums that live and breathe more comfortably, coming alive more fully on a turntable.

I’m preaching the choir of my sisters and brothers who are already down. For those thinking: yeah, like I’m going to go purchase a record player, I say: yes, you are.

A guarantee:

We all are going to spend money on a bunch of things we don’t need or like, and that’s baked into human experience. I’ll therefore make a gentleman’s promise that if you take my advice you will, at worst, not regret it. You should have a nice sound system with a respectable turntable. But these days you can get all-in-one systems for less than $50 and they are not novelties: you can get decent sound and they are easy-peasy plug and play.

If you buy one of these (I don’t endorse any particular brand) you can literally carry it from room to room, and this experience is intended for intimate space; if you don’t have a man (or woman) cave, or an office, this can easily be achieved at your kitchen table or just putting it on the floor next to the couch. Dial up a vinyl (new ones can be surprisingly expensive but you can acquire used ones online or in person at reasonable price points).

The criteria: albums I think are accessible or ready for discovery (for open-eared listeners); nothing too adventurous or esoteric; this endeavor is intended to convert happy fans, not show off how obscure and weird my collection is (guilty on both counts, clearly, but I also have tons of stuff that any average fan of music will know or can dig).

iii.

The Album:

John Coltrane: Coltrane

Who is this guy?

Long answer: get thee to…nah, I got this.

From one of the many, many essays I’ve written about Trane, this one, from 2010, entitled “No One Has Ever Done Anything as Well as John Coltrane Played the Saxophone,” I write:

For those whose definition of genius is either too encompassing or excessively narrow, John Coltrane poses no problems: there isn’t anyone who knows anything about music (in general) and jazz (in particular) who would contest that he is among the most prominent, impressive and influential artists to ever master an instrument. Furthermore, to put Coltrane and his unsurpassed proficiency in its simplest perspective, it might be suggested that no one has ever done anything as well as Coltrane played the saxophone.

Plus, he was an exceptionally gifted composer and bandleader and, by all accounts, he was a generous and gentle human being, as well. All of which is to say, if there is anyone worthy of celebration in our contemporary American Idol Apocalypse, Coltrane should serve as both antidote and inspiration.

Coltrane’s prime years, the decade between 1957 and 1967, seem concise enough by typical human and even artistic standards. However, he recorded so much and went through so many profound changes, it’s near impossible to convey the scope of his achievements—and impact.

It was all over far too quickly. As is too often the case with our greatest artists, Coltrane fell ill and passed away long before his time should have come. It scarcely computes, even now, that the man making the music he recorded in early 1967 (particularly the shattering if cathartic Interstellar Space was months from losing a battle with cancer. Where he would have headed had he lived is truly difficult to imagine. It remains instructive, and more than a little startling, to consider the growth and refinement he demonstrated every few years, commencing in the mid-to-late ‘50s. Where he might have gone next is anyone’s guess, but it’s also safe to surmise that he took his instrument, and music, as far as anyone possibly could.

Short answer: Still not convinced or sufficiently intrigued? Scroll all the way down for more links and words.

Medium answer: from Wiki: Coltrane had been fired by Davis in April 1957 for drug abuse, and had returned to Philadelphia to end his habit. He returned to New York City for mid-May sessions with Prestige, this one taking place the day after Memorial Day. By the summer, Coltrane would be recording with Thelonious Monk and playing as a member of Monk's quartet for the rest of the year.

(Author’s note: fired in April; clean—and recording this masterpiece—in May: the official opening salvo that includes a decade’s worth of masterpieces it would take several lifetimes to both appreciate and understand. Laid down in one day, like these dudes did; another day at the office, like a satellite touching down to report on its findings and then back into space.)

THE answer: all of the above, plus this: there’s so much jazz I could and would (and will!) recommend but I hesitate only because I know jazz isn’t everyone’s bag (and I not only accept this, I’ve written about it, and even worse, I’ve written a poem about it!)

But we’re still talking about the analog experience and it’s a reminder that any of the albums I’ll recommend are freely available via streaming, so you can always take a test drive.

So while this is neither the best nor my favorite Coltrane album, it’s important for at least two huge reasons. One, it’s an opportunity to hear—and experience anew, each time—what it sounds like to be part of a tsunami forming, one that will take almost another decade to crash blissfully, with a loudness, intensity, and purpose we’re still attempting to fathom; the sound of an artist in full beginning to grasp the fullness of his artistry, having sufficiently suffered, woodshedded, paid dues, practiced, and dug deeply inside himself to put together, bit by bit, the language of a unique style, the famous “sheets of sound” that begin here, explode in ‘58, and then inform every second of everything he played thereafter. Second, you can (and I can, and have and will) completely enjoy any of these tracks on a digital stream, but I can’t adequately describe what it feels like to listen to track 5, the sublime ballad “While My Lady Sleeps” unless you hear it, all distractions cleared, on analog, with the faint (or, if you acquire a vintage product, persistent) hiss and scratch of vinyl.

The unfettered sound of Coltrane’s tenor which, at times, was equaled by the world-burning clarity & purpose of Sonny’s sax, and perhaps rivaled in terms of emotion and import, by Wayne Shorter’s soprano (or, for that matter, Ornette’s alto), something that almost requires being enjoyed via the original offering: something made by man and tactile, tangible, something you need to pick up with your opposable thumbs, place on a machine, press play, and let wash over you the way music does. It’s a religious experience, and if you, understandably, have no time for religion or don’t believe anything we do as people approaches whatever some of us think of when we discuss things that are either spiritual or mystical or miraculous, you are, because you probably are both sensitive and intelligent, most in need of this reminder: art like this exists and more, it exists specifically to be there for you right now, this moment. This is what we’re here for: to love one another, to appreciate the quirky uncertainty of life, even as we puzzle and occasionally bluster our way through the hurt and sorrow and bliss, and some of us are here or sent here to leave messages that, as much as food or shelter or survival, insist that there’s something more to this grand adventure; that being here we bore witness, and it was better than anything that could or will happen before we got here or after we’re gone.

For the uninitiated or vaguely interested, more here, here, and here. You’re welcome—and encouraged—to fish through the archives here.

John Coltrane’s Cancer

Coltrane’s calling: all he did was everything

In his power, throwing sparks at the darkness,

Extolling what he alone conceived—the Divine

Alchemy of his own design, sheets of sound

with no barriers between pursuance, his spirit,

and interstellar space, this gift a supreme kind

Of Love.

*

But like some indefatigable oyster, filtering

the sins from a fathomless sea, he transformed,

instigating storms no human being can contain.

And like any authentic prophet, with fire cloaked

as expression, every revelation must supersede

the messenger, even mortality, ever insatiable as

It Is.

*

And so, those bilious juices grew emboldened,

their corrosive wake drowning him in everything

he tried not to be, leaving him earthbound and

anchored, even as his soul strained, relentlessly

toward infinity. And death, etiolated in the end,

silenced him much as a passing shadow consumes

The Sun.

(from my collection The Blackened Blues.)

Another batch of poems were recently featured at The Good Men Project, and I once again offer them my gratitude for being a safe and receptive place for my musings.

Tornado Watch, Washington D.C.

We’re not accustomed to this kind of alarm

on the coasts, heavy weather being something

one reads about, mostly in the past tense—

after damage is done in parts of the world

we don’t bother knowing much about.

*

The sky has assembled like an army: furious

clouds in formation, cruising past the horizon

like commuters watching the clock, late

for meetings and too busy to hear our world

speaking in ways language never could.

Lots of Americana of late, and—having thrown my tricorn in the ring to cover the obligatory sociopolitical angle—I’ve been especially interested in critics covering the arts & culture angles. If nothing else and as ever, the entire enterprise of making lists invites pushback and…more lists.

First, I enjoyed the New York Times take, earlier this month, on identifying the quintessential American movie (talk about a fun and impossible task). Some obvious and unobjectionable choices, including There Will Be Blood, Dazed and Confused, and Nashville; some inexplicable, and stupid choices, like Dirty Dancing, Zabriskie Point, and…Disclosure Day??

This week, The Washington Post offered up a very ambitious, encompassing feature that identifies “The 25 most influential works of American culture.” This is more like a college survey, or Ken Burns documentary, in terms of scope and scale. Again, disagreement with the selections (needless to say, I took exception to many of them) is fodder for conversation, and more list-making. What’s not to love?

In a longer piece that focused on ‘70s cinema, I rhapsodized about a class I taught in spring ‘24 which, by design, was ambitious, encompassing, problematic, quixotic. Et cetera. I wrote:

“Creativity in Culture” looked at the 20^th Century, decade-by-decade, assessing the most significant (artistically, politically, aesthetically, etc.) pieces of music, media, and literature. It was, needless to say, both exhilarating and impossible. How can you make a reasonable list of the best works in a given year, much less an entire decade? Any act of list making involves compromise and a concession to failure, but also opportunity: we can acknowledge what’s left out while focusing on what—and why—things made the final list. And it’s instructive in ways that might not be anticipated: it was genuinely revelatory to consider vampire movies in the ‘30s in the wake of Wall Street’s Great Depression inducing meltdown, and how the weasels of Wall Street were, appropriately, referred to as vampires even as they had their intentional, unconscionable follies paid back in full during Obama’s first term.

Some decades, as you can imagine, were more difficult than others to summarize in one or two lectures, but other decades offer so much data, at once conflicting and connected (that, of course, is the point of art), you feel like you’re taking a teacup and dipping it in the ocean. Depending on how one looks at it, does what’s collected represent the whole or just hint at the hidden and expansive depths? Both, which is the point of such endeavors.

We had a wonderful time discussing and debating as the semester progressed: which decade was most influential, which years had the most heft, which ones both reflected their era and anticipated trends to come? Some powerful cases could be made for any individual decade, obviously. Still, some seemed undeniable. The ‘20s, that extended celebration with a welcome inclusivity of non-white cultures and influences, like a collective national exhale after The Great War; the inevitable intoxication and hangover, the gasp of exhaustion before the shit hit the fan—all summed up in the gift that keeps giving, the Great Novel of the century, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (more thoughts on that seminal text here).

Still, the types of sweeping generalizations that cultural aficionados are usually allergic to become inevitable. Thus, we appraise the ‘50s, broadly, as a time of conformity, of art that sought to establish a normality (again, a response to the next great war), a time of ostensible peace & prosperity despite the suffocating racial and sexual constraints. Thus, the ‘60s reflected a certain response to stasis, the combination of righteous indignation and optimism. The ‘70s: inexorable malaise and a holding pattern (were we making progress or taking two steps back, the art of the time saying same as it ever was?). And then the ‘80s, a weird combination of ‘50s follow-the-leader fealty and those iron guardrails of American shame (inculcated from our Puritan roots) beginning to loosen, aided by the Greed is Good ethos underpinning the Reagan Revolution (Government is The Enemy, etc.) and immortalized by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. Who knows what, exactly, happened in the ‘90s: cable TV and the weird wide web opening a fissure in our spiritual ozone layer, making everyone the star of their lonely fantasy life. The 21^st Century? Check back in a decade or two.

Here’s the list I came up with, the curation of which recalls an unbearably cold and dark stretch of winter days in January, 2024. It isn’t—and isn’t meant to be—definitive; it was designed with undergrads in mind, and certain titles weren’t necessarily “best” or “most” in any specific category, but all of them had to mean something, and were selected because they had discernible impact on culture, on art itself, and boy did we have some fun discussions.

*Note: not all choices were by Americans, but every selection invariably made a mark on world culture

1900’s

Upton Sinclair: The Jungle

Scott Joplin: The Entertainer

A Trip to the Moon

1910’s

William Butler Yeats: The Second Coming

Irving Berlin: Alexander’s Ragtime Band

All Quiet on the Western Front

1920’s

F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby

The Lindy Hop (dance)

Nosferatu

1930’s

John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath

Robert Johnson: Cross Road Blues

Frankenstein

1940’s

Richard Wright: Native Son

Charlie Parker: Now’s the Time

It’s a Wonderful Life

1950’s

J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye

Chuck Berry: Maybellene

On the Waterfront

1960’s

Malcolm X: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Bob Dylan: Like a Rolling Stone

Night of the Living Dead

1970’s

Stephen King: The Shining

Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On

Taxi Driver

1980’s

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale

Michael Jackson: Thriller

Wall Street

1990’s

Tim O’Brien: The Things They Carried

Dr. Dre: The Chronic

Pulp Fiction

Another batch of poems were recently featured at The Good Men Project, and I once again offer them my gratitude for being a safe and receptive place for my musings. This one seems particularly timely as we are suddenly worried about buying lettuce because, well, DUH I mean DOGE.

Greens

Folks who lived through the ‘80s will remember two things not even P.T. Barnum would have predicted: that cheap vegetables and cheaper wine could be marketed properly and sold at premium prices. Seemingly overnight, there were things called wine coolers and salad bars sold all the unsexy produce, do-it-yourself style. It was as though the very concept of fresh greens offered some salvation Americans had been deprived of—which, of course, it did. Suddenly, everyone was on the verge of a health attack, and we couldn’t get enough of making our own masterpieces, priced by the pound. Who knew iceberg lettuce was the tip of the iceberg, a Choose Your Own Adventure that might lead to more dangerous meals, beginning with Romaine and ending up with varieties that might one day be bad PR for a president? Precious real estate, previously utilized for overstocked cans of protein, was reconfigured in grocery stores across the country, miniature gardens of eating—equal parts display and distraction: this, mid-decade, was where the action was. And this is where M. worked, the first girl to allow me past second base (and the first one with whom I tried, or, further disclosure, had the opportunity to hit or miss with), both of us focused on, in no particular order, preparing for college, having fun, making money, fooling around, checking all the boxes possible before our parents no longer controlled where we went or when we came. A summer featuring the sort of education I daydreamed about all through high school: sneaking out after curfew, borrowing beer from older brothers, thinking deeply about the kinds of drugs one might grow in a backyard garden—no dress rehearsal for the roles we were born to play, suburban seekers parked on unlit streets, fumbling toward something between obligation and release; too scared to go all the way, too dumb to be oblivious, worried about everything except what mattered, too inexperienced to appreciate all we had in our hands and mouths. Everything, when you’re green, seems freely available, but young lovers always pay a price—and it’s not until we’re older that we understand all we give up to get what we want.

She nodded. “Make it extraordinarily squalid and moving,” she suggested. “Are you at all acquainted with squalor?”

I said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form or another, all the time…

–J.D. Salinger, “For Esme—with Love and Squalor” (1950)

Everyone talks about how reading The Catcher in the Rye is one of those seminal rites of passage. I would be a phony, I figure, not to include myself (and all). For starters, what do you call a rite of passage involving a lot of middle-aged (or older) folks talking about the passing of an author who wrote one of the ultimate rite of passage novels? Indulgent? Inevitable? Ironic? All of the above?

By the time I got around to Holden Caulfield, I was already a senior in high school. Too young? Too old? Just right? For better or worse, I was either too old, or not alienated enough, to feel the full force of Salinger’s operetta of adolescent angst. Of course, I’m selling it short (or am I?), but I’ve heard very few adults whose opinions I admire mention falling under this novel’s spell while revisiting it as an adult. Myself, I couldn’t tell if it was too obvious this book was the result of a grown man trying (diligently, and in that overly mannered, oft-imitated style) to sound like a disaffected but acutely sensitive sixteen-year old, or if it’s because he succeeded so thoroughly that, even as a seventeen-year old, I wasn’t especially simpatico with his anguished, if solipsistic observations. Which is not to say that his plight did not move me, or that his situation is not, at times, rendered with profound artistry by Salinger.

Perhaps it would be a bit unfair, if mostly accurate to conclude that The Catcher in the Rye is the archetypal novel of adolescent alienation for teenagers/young adults who don’t read a great deal of fiction. Just as there are certain types of movies and music that, through a perfect storm of critical consensus and a groundswell of contagious public approbation, get anointed as authentic touchstones of a particular moment in time (I would say “tapping into the zeitgeist” but I try to avoid using the dreaded z-word if at all possible).

Regarding the almost half-century of silence that followed his initial burst of creativity, Norman Mailer decreed Salinger “the greatest mind to ever stay in prep school.” That is harsh but it is also—based on the available evidence—all but indisputable.

On the other hand, when people hold up The Catcher in the Rye (or even Franny and Zooey) as the zenith of Salinger’s oeuvre, they are overlooking (or more likely, have never read) “For Esme—With Love and Squalor”, in my estimation one of the five best American short stories of the 20th Century. Indeed, what Salinger accomplishes in those twenty-odd pages greatly exceeds the sum-total of Mailer’s voluminous, if mostly perishable output.

Everything that Salinger didn’t do, or didn’t do convincingly, or didn’t do well enough to reward subsequent readings by a more mature audience, in his canonized novel, he does in spades with this short story. It is a compact, devastating illumination of the cruel machinery we, for lack of a better or more appropriate word, call adulthood. How fittingly ironic, then, that a writer celebrated (and minimized) for being the consummate chronicler of what Pete Townshend later called “teenage wasteland” actually wrote a shattering treatise from the trenches (literally and figuratively) that endures well into a new millennium.

If The Catcher in the Rye does (or does not) offer the ideal, if occasionally uncomfortable, source material for making that awkward (but earnest!) leap from adolescence to young adulthood, “For Esme—with Love and Squalor” is among the handful of indispensable short stories (along with Hemingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” Tolstoy’s “The Three Hermits,” Kafka’s “First Sorrow,” James Joyce’s “Eveline,” and especially Joao Guimaraes Rosa’s “The Third Bank of the River”) that resonate on profound and permanent levels with a certain type of person at a certain age.

And it’s a novel that has dearly earned its cult and/or classic status, as it resonates with generation after generation; at worst, it is a gateway of sorts into literature (in general) and a certain type of book (in particular) that intends to rend the hearts of the reader. If it was simply a matter of hype or stereotype, or worse, it wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t be worth arguing about. And, as I get older and assess the…state of things, any book that speaks to any young person for any reason is a worthy cause for both appreciation and celebration.

Perhaps, as already acknowledged, I simply came to The Catcher in the Rye too late (although, as already suggested, I am uncertain it was capable of working its celebrated charms on me, not because I didn’t relate to Holden Caulfield on some levels, but more because as I read I kept thinking “Yeah? Is this all you got?”). There can be no doubt that I came to “Esme” at exactly the right age: after digesting Catcher and spending many a session (and, the writer would be remiss to overlook, at least one enchanted, and mycologic evening) uncovering the ultimately not so mysterious mysteries of Aqualung. I was, inevitably, an ardent if confused soul quite concerned with “again becoming a man with all his fac– with all his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact.”

Like the very best literature, “For Esme—with Love and Squalor” is every bit enjoyable and edifying to adult eyes as it is to, say, the wider eyes of a college sophomore. In fact, Salinger’s achievement is that much more poignant (and devastating) to an older audience who has actually known people who have been wounded or killed in war. But the narrator of this story is reeling from actual experience in the real world, so it resonates to a young reader about to enter it, and certainly a more mature reader who has seen and felt some of those proverbial slings and arrows. If there is a more quietly coruscating image in literature than the narrator lifting Esme’s (KIA) father’s wristwatch, which has shattered in transit, out of the care package, I’m not aware of it. The question, as the story ends, is: does that broken glass represent the narrator’s spirit, or will he rally to once more become part of the world?

This is the question so many (but apparently not enough, considering we are still fighting wars and still taking less than acceptable care of our veterans) young adults grapple with at a crucial time in their lives.

This is the question J.D. Salinger may or may not have answered, in his own inscrutable fashion, once he turned his back on fame—and his fans—and spent the last decades of his life in a golden cage of his making. Whether or not he was quietly desperate, or just quiet, will presumably be answered once those elusive and much-discussed manuscripts see the light of day.

In the spirit of two quintessentially American inventions (obsessions, really), baseball and rock and roll, what if one were to imagine fielding the ultimate all-star team comprised of the greatest “players” from the roster of rock music history? How would one begin?

Well, for starters, this project could best be understood as falling somewhere in the spectrum of compulsive list making, a passionate engagement with rock music, and the increasingly ubiquitous phenomenon of fantasy teams that exist in the shadow universe of sports freaks. This discussion might begin with the innocent posing of an impossible question: who is the all-time MVP of rock and roll?

Or, who are the chosen ones who would find their way onto the roster of any respectable short list? Most people, once the considerable pool of candidates was properly examined, could quickly reach consensus, right? Keep dreaming. The only thing more inimically American than sports and music is our unquenchable compulsion to compete, to choose a side and see what happens.

The whole idea, initially, was simply to have fun with the process. Immediately, I found myself fighting my choices and second-guessing my gut instinct. I realized that an endeavor like this is not dissimilar from what someone (probably a professor) once said regarding the infighting in academia: the battles are so bloody because the stakes are so small. Still, I am, admittedly, one of those idiots who spends an unreasonable amount of time contemplating the various criteria that renders certain artists (and works of art) viable, indelible, immutable. So, the question became: what was I thinking? Especially since I’m the type of person who would probably have an easier time deciding which digit to hack off if the alternative was isolating the one album I could not live without. No man is an island, but my imaginary desert island is all-inclusive: it’s all coming with me or I sink under the weight of its excess, drowning happily with those songs echoing in my mind. In sum, I should have known better. This, of course, is ultimately an agonizing endeavor, and (I know) if I ever saw someone else making a list like this, I’d certainly have a reaction (invariably a visceral one). So with that said, I serve up this offering with the encouragement of any responses, questions, critiques and most of all, alternate suggestions.

Part Two: The Bench, Bullpen and Pitching Rotation

In the interest of fairness (and sanity), some parameters quickly became imperative. The roster: American bands only. The time period: post 1960. Naturally, and necessarily, this eliminates some of the most important artists, the progenitors. But any competitive team must start with proven leaders, right? We need coaches! Problem solved. Question: who is going to oversee this ultimate all-star team? Answer: why look further than the true godfather and indisputable king of rock and roll, Chuck Berry? He pretty much invented the game, so all of the players are by default his acolytes and apostles. Plus, there is nothing that will surprise or faze him; he’s been there, done that. Also, he is eccentric and irascible, as so many of the great skippers in any sport seem to be. He certainly is not lacking for self confidence: if someone needs to ride the pine due to poor performance, are they going to second guess Johnny B. Goode? Finally, there is always the tantalizing possibility of him duck walking out to home plate to argue a close call with the umpire. (That umpire, incidentally, is Rick Rubin. Who else has successfully mediated so many fruitful proceedings involving some of the biggest egos on the planet?)

Chuck Berry’s coaching staff represents the roots of rock music: the ones upon whose backs the British invasion and whitewashed American imitators climbed for profit. Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley make a formidable bunch. The pitching coach is Roy Orbison and the hitting coach is, of course, Jerry Lee Lewis. Buddy Holly, forever young and good-natured, is bench coach. But what about soul brother number one, the fan’s choice as most valuable playa? James Brown, the hardest working man in show business, could be nothing other than Commissioner. As such, he supervises all internal affairs, speaks for the Players Association and oversees the relations with other leagues, including Blues, Funk and Country. (This explains the absence of fellow Commissioners Muddy Waters, George Clinton and Johnny Cash, all of whom have their own franchises and farm teams to organize.) In related news, if the Motown/Soul squad ever got involved, the slaughter rule might need to be put in place. Still, there is one glaring omission. What about the great white hope, Elvis Presley? Elvis, alas, is out: call it the revenge of the Negro Leagues. Not to worry, Elvis — along with Frank Sinatra and John Wayne — is safely ensconced up in the skybox, carousing with the owners and their obsequious entourages.

Before introducing the starters and bullpen, let’s give a shout out for the deep and formidable bench, players who could step in at any time to make key contributions. In alphabetical order we have Alice in Chains, The Allman Brothers, The Cars, Kiss, Metallica, The Pretenders, Santana, Sleater-Kinney, Van Halen and Wilco. Our Triple-A affiliates are confident that up and comers such as The Black Keys, The White Stripes, The Fiery Furnaces and Iron and Wine are attracting attention and are all likely to have long and prosperous careers.

And so, without further ado, let’s have a look at the pitching rotation. These are the badasses who can shut down any lineup, and these studs all bring the noise via electric guitar. Starting with the cornerstone, the most important player on the field, our staff ace Jimi Hendrix. Plain and simple, this unhittable southpaw has the best ERA in the history of the game. His career was cut tragically short, but in his prime if you needed to win Game 7 of the World Series, this is the man you wanted on the mound. His complete dominance has never been debatable, and his stuff remains unmatched and inimitable. Next in the rotation is a proud product of Texas, Stevie Ray Vaughn. Another maestro cut short in his prime, he is nevertheless a first ballot hall of famer. Along with Hendrix’s patented machine gun delivery, SRV could always be counted on to release the Texas Flood. The third spot in the rotation is occupied by the quirky and impossibly prolific provocateur, Frank Zappa. Celebrated as much for his guile and élan, Z’s approach was always more cerebral: you never quite knew exactly what he was going to serve up, but more often than not, this long-haired hurler would be laughing at your expense before you realized the ball had left his hand. Vital for more than three decades, there is no question that Zappa was most definitely notin it only for the money. The rotation is balanced out by two insufficiently celebrated living legends, each employing opposite styles to similarly devastating effect. If Vernon Reid can reliably dazzle a lineup with his lightning-fast licks and mastery of an assortment of pitches, Buzz “King Buzzo” Osbourne is the ultimate grinder: his methodical, torrential barrage is on par with the best knuckleball — it is instantly identifiable but exceedingly difficult to master, much less describe.

The bullpen is stocked with singer/songwriters, all of whom are masters of finesse, capable of taking over a game in the late innings. The set-up men, Kurt Cobain and Mike Patton, represent two of the more important and influential voices of the ’90s. Like too many of his teammates, Cobain’s career was cut short, but Patton is settled in for the long haul, and it seems safe to assume that he’ll own many records by the time he hangs up his spurs. As the game winds down, two old school options emerge: from the east coast we have Lou Reed while representing the gold coast is Jackson Browne. Reed tends to give up too many walks, but he lives on the wild side; Browne serves up the occasional long ball when he’s running on empty. Ultimately, despite some less successful outings, these two veterans are there for you when you need them most. Every bullpen needs the situational specialist (sometimes lovingly referred to as the LOOGY, or Lefty One Out Guy), and on this squad Don Van Vliet (sometimes lovingly referred to as Captain Beefheart) always provides enough Electricity to induce that one crucial out. Last but far from least, the team requires a fearless closer to shut ’em down and seal the deal. All energy, emotion and raw ability, Janis Joplin is an unflappable and intimidating as anyone who has ever played the game. Big Brother and the Holding Company knew how to hold a big lead, and there was never anything cheap about the thrills Janis delivered.

Part Three: The Starting Lineup

And now, the starting lineup, complete with designated hitter (as it would somehow seem less American not to play by American League rules; all of the National League purists are encouraged to join the conversation about how the game used to be played over at Nogoodmusicwasmadeafter1960.com), organized by batting order:

NAME POSITION

Creedence Clearwater Revival SS
Bruce Springsteen CF
Steely Dan 1B
R.E.M. 3B
The Pixies DH
Bob Dylan C
Lynyrd Skynyrd LF
The Doors RF
The Beach Boys 2B

Question: Where are the Grateful Dead? Three answers: First, they are too busy patrolling the concourse, dispensing miracles, to participate in organized games. Second, and perhaps more to the point, what position, exactly, is Jerry Garcia going to play? Finally, the game needs a mascot, and what could be more appropriate than the Steal Your Face guy flying in and around the stadium, at once part of the game and calmly removed from it; like a beach ball, only trippier. Also, instead of the current trend of singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch, we’re pumping in Howlin Wolf’s rendition of “Smokestack Lightning” because, frankly, it doesn’t get any more American than that.

Leading off, at short stop, is the hits machine Creedence Clearwater Revival. In their relatively brief, but remarkably productive prime, they were not only a force to be reckoned with, but unparalleled as a positive force in American music. They led the league in hits and batting average over three seasons (1968–1970). Their highlight reel runs constantly on FM radio, and it’s worth recalling that these dudes rocked the flannel look long before it was cool (in the ’70s or in the grunge 2.0 fashion cycle).

Hitting in the number two spot, in centerfield, is Asbury Park’s own Bruce Springsteen. A promising rookie in ’73 who’d paid some serious dues for several years in the minor leagues, his breakthrough season came in 1975 when he garnered MVP honors for Born To Run. Since then he has seldom been out of favor, cranking out timely singles and infusing the game with his unmatched energy and integrity. If the team ever hits a losing streak, the Boss is often at his best when times seem the toughest: Bruce understands (and does his best to ensure) that the glory days are always in the future.

Batting third and flashing some serious leather at first base is the quiet but deadly duo Steely Dan. These guys were as close to a dynasty as anyone else in the much-maligned decade of the ’70s. Perfectionists, oddballs, studio wizards, the Dan put together a string of winning seasons that any band would happily emulate. Consummate team players (never ones to put their faces on albums), Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were such perfectionists that they stopped touring altogether in the ’70s so they could concentrate on crafting their meticulous string of albums. Every team requires the quietly obsessed, lead-by-example professional, and in the understated Dan, this squad has the perfect player to keep them grounded, and focused on what matters most.

The clean-up hitter and arguably most impressive player on the squad is that most American of bands, R.E.M. Not only the ultimate run producer and homeruns leader (from their rookie season in ’83 through at least ’96, their prime is one extended batting title). Consistency has always been their hallmark, and only the most versatile, fearless and original band could cover the hot corner year in and year out. If they’ve shown their age in recent years, it does not (cannot) diminish their credentials: a longer heyday than any other American band, hands down.

Batting fifth is highly regarded designated hitter The Pixies. This perennial fan favorite would warrant inclusion in the lineup courtesy of their two masterworks Surfer Rosa and Doolittle. But to put their influence and reputation in proper perspective, consider the fact that Kurt Cobain once admitted that on the Nirvana hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, he was “basically trying to rip off the Pixies…I should have been in that band — or at least a Pixies cover band.” Factor in that this is also the band that (sort of) spawned The Breeders, not to mention Black Francis’s metamorphosis into Frank Black, and the considerably satisfactory solo career he’s had. When you contemplate a band that hit long bombs when given the chance (with the strikeouts that are an inevitable part of the DH position), you might be hard pressed to come up with a better slugger. If the bases are loaded with two outs in a tie game, all that needs to be said is “if man is 5, then the devil is 6 and if the devil is 6 than god is 7”. That (rally) monkey’s gone to heaven.

Team captain, and catcher, Bob Dylan hits sixth. To be honest, he could play anywhere and do anything he feels like. It’s rather unlikely that he’d want to be associated with any teams, as he owes allegiance to no one other than Woody Guthrie. Dylan is, in short, the consensus leader of this entire generation: he is the alpha and omega of post-‘60s American music. Everyone from The Byrds to the Beatles and singer-songwriters from Van Morrison to Neko Case are, in their own way, paying homage to everything the bard from Minnesota made possible.

Batting in the number seven slot, it’s the tough-as-nails, first off the bench in a brawl southern boys Lynyrd Skynyrd. And where else but left field for a band that took Neil Young to task for critiquing “sweet home” Alabama, only to befriend him later? Where else but left field for a group with ultimate southern street cred advocating that we toss all pistols to the bottom of the sea (“Saturday Night Special”)? These non-NRA endorsing rednecks wrote songs that were remarkably nuanced (“That Smell”, “Needle and the Spoon”) and unusually sensitive (“Tuesday’s Gone”, “Simple Man”) as well as the obligatory ’70s anthems (“Sweet Home Alabama”, “Give Me Three Steps”, “Free Bird”). Like too many of their teammates, tragedy derailed their run to glory, but the body of work is versatile, deep and enduring.

Hitting eighth and getting the mojo rising in right field are The Doors. Not too many groups have finished their careers as solid and strong as they began them, but L.A. Woman was almost as perfect a swan song as The Doorswas a debut. Overlooked and easy to dismiss (Jim Morrison was to rock music what the oft-suspended and self-immolating prima donnas are to today’s sports), they cast an immense and influential shadow — often on the short list of younger band’s role models. And while right field is arguably the least exciting and uneventful position in the field, when you need that long throw home on a rope, or that perfect song at the end of the night before you slip into unconsciousness, the Lizard King is always ready to light up the fire.

The Hits Machine at Second Base: Brian Wilson

Finally, batting ninth and turning double plays at second base, it’s the forever young angels from the gold coast, The Beach Boys. Obviously, they had enough ammo, early in their career (another runs factory) to warrant serious consideration for inclusion on this team. But some historical perspective is imperative when really assessing the Beach Boys’ place in history: while The Beatles are (correctly) credited with creating rock music’s first commercially embraced work of art with Sgt. Pepper, it is well documented that Paul McCartney’s initial inspiration was to somehow make a record as incredible as Pet Sounds. A second baseman is counted on to stir the pot and produce timely singles, and The Beach Boys delivered some of the most crucial hits ever in postseason play: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”, “God Only Knows”, and, of course, “Good Vibrations” — the single still hear ‘round the world.

So there it is: the ultimate lineup of American rock music legends. While I reserve the right to second-guess myself (that, after all, is pretty much the point — along with instigating discussion!), I am happy to make the case that this team represents the best possible players, based on the various criteria. What do you think?

*This piece originally appeared in PopMatters on 10/22/08.

**I would concede, almost two decades later, it would be acceptable, if not preferable, to nudge Skynyrd for the Allman Brothers, and I could easily be convinced to put The Cars or The Talking Heads ahead of The Pixies. Let the debate rage (against the machine).

I’m happy to share my first monthly column for 3 Quarks Daily—a site I’ve long read and admired (and I’m not alone in my approbation; some of my favorite writers have contributed to and/or endorsed their work). For the occasion, I used my recent experience reading what many well regarded writers and critics consider a seminal (if not the seminal) novel of the 20th Century, Stoner. I have, as they say, thoughts, and my piece is entitled We Do Need Another Hero: The Moral Ambivalence Of Stoner.

John Williams’s Stoner is having a moment.

Or, it’s always been having a moment, but right now, in 2026, only more so. With the recent awareness that it was the monthly pick for the (amazing, awesome) Anthony Jeselnik’s Book Club, it seemed time to dive in.

You can usually tell you’re dealing with a cult classic—either unjustifiably obscure or egregiously overhyped—by how often it comes up in conversation. Over the years, I’ve noticed not only that Stoner is among a handful of books routinely mentioned, it’s never equivocal. Each person doing the recommending deeply loves the book and is happy to predict the ways it will change my life.

An observation about cult classics. Certain treasured works never capture the zeitgeist in part because they’re not easily identifiable with a particular time or place. Stoner, when it arrived in 1965, was describing a largely extinct America; to contemporary readers half a century later, Williams’s Missouri is as remote and unfamiliar as Hawthorne’s Massachusetts.

The most common and consistent accolades I hear or read involve the novel’s nuanced and loving portrait of a man whose passion—in this case for reading and teaching—transcends material wants. In our contemporary climate of social media, vapid influencers, and academic self-censorship, Stoner sounded like just what the doctor ordered, equal parts throwback and antidote.

And therein lies the rub. What disappointed me so immensely about Stoner is that I was predisposed to adore it. I’m the target audience; I’m that guy. A book about someone who loves art more than life itself? You had me at hello. I was, through the first half, disappointed and, by the end, astonished that this is the book, this is the character capable of changing lives.

I find William Stoner unremarkable except for the ways he’s an ironic anti-hero.

Let’s look at the scorecard: failed marriage, troubled and alcoholic daughter, no relationships, except one, with any of his colleagues, no scholarship of note, a self-acknowledged lack of resolve and ambition. At no point does he attempt to reconcile his failings or the limitations of his peers. More, he’s no Job: the slings and arrows of his misfortune are, if not trivial, commonplace.

If this is the Platonic ideal of introverts and aesthetes everywhere, we are in desperate need of a better class of heroes. Fortunately, world literature is replete with characters better suited to the task.

Here’s the thing. Most folks would concede that yes, William Stoner is a throwback to the oldest of schools—the stiff upper-lipped, emotionless male. This archetype has aged poorly, but it’s not judging him by the standards of 2026 to note he was an unsavory stereotype even for the early twentieth century.

To my reading, there’s both cowardice and denial in his refusal to push harder against the typical challenges of any life, much less one that has resulted in a tenure-track position. While the pettiness of academic rivalry is clearly depicted throughout, these same issues exist on all campuses, not to mention corporate America—and even within the micro-community of writers. Rising above the haters and malcontents is the first, not final step, especially if you supposedly have an unquenchable passion.

Once again, Stoner’s recalcitrance has less to do with being stoic than a resigned lethargy. Stoicism, it seems to me, suggests accepting what we can’t change: we will die, we all suffer, we’ll grieve, hope for love, see beloved friends and family pass away. But those are the inexorable realities all of us, scholars and philistines alike, must face; they’ll happen no matter how much we wish or pray otherwise. It’s the wishing and praying that our best art explores: what happens to people who turn to religion to quell their angst? What becomes of people born into cultural straightjackets, whether financial or religious or academic? And what of the people who know better and do nothing? Are we capable of not succumbing to stereotypes, and whatever limitations are imposed upon us?

What does it say about a sensitive man who falls in love with literature and then accepts he doesn’t have the resolve to write his books, be a better teacher, be a better father or lover or friend? Or is the point that a purposeful retreat into the mind is the only path, however much misery it guarantees?

Can we read of his unwillingness to intervene on behalf of his daughter without disgust? Grasping she too has a loveless marriage, is content to let the (now deceased) husband’s parents raise their child, and is on a rapid descent into alcoholism, he has this epiphany: And Stoner came to realize that she was, as she had said, almost happy with her despair; she would live her days out quietly, drinking a little more, year by year, numbing herself against the nothingness her life had become. He was glad she had that, at least; he was grateful that she could drink.

Again, and granted, Stoner was written almost a century ago about a time in America that occurred more than a century ago. In this regard it’s a valuable document concerning the inherited fears and limitations of those not fortunate to be born into wealth or security.

I certainly did and do have empathy for any human being who lacks the advantages to even advance to the starting gate; I have nothing but admiration for everyone who perseveres through seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become better than “fate” would otherwise decree.

It is, in fact, Stoner’s father who epitomizes a kind of stoic nobility, but also the classic American immigrant experience: each generation hoping, if not expecting, the next would carry the proverbial torch, elevating the entire family lineage in ways that redeem and justify the sacrifice.

Even the novel’s attitude toward both world wars is detached and weirdly sterile. There is plenty of room to explore and interrogate whether the “Great War” was folly, sacrificing millions of lives for nothing—and many classic works have done exactly that. But the Second World War is treated as equal parts distraction and distant misadventure; proof that humanity is lacking. Stoner’s disinterest seems incongruous: even pacifists would have a difficult time denying something had to be done about Hitler.

The worst part, and here I want to be clear that I despise anyone faulting an author for failing to write the book they would have preferred. I am simply flabbergasted by how little Stoner’s apparent life-altering appreciation of books explodes into life on the page.

The magic so many of us recognize in the books that move us is virtually nonexistent in this novel.

I kept wondering, what is it about medieval texts that speaks to Stoner? How does literature help him make sense of the world he does not understand? What is it, aside from the teaching of it, that books awaken in him?

Few writers would want to deny the ways art ignites an impulse to engage. To question. To rectify. To act. To find in poetry what we don’t read in the news.

We get none of this.

Indeed, that Stoner’s life was transformed by literature is simply implied, which seems a graver sin than inadequate expression.

Put more bluntly, I shudder to think any writer or professor would tell an enthusiastic and curious student: want to understand what passion for the arts is all about? Read this book.

At the end, as he’s dying, he asks: What did you expect?

Here, allegedly, is a kind of courageous affirmation of how little we control our destinies.

To me it reads as cynical if not nihilistic.

Where Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilyich illustrates that we shouldn’t—and can’t—avoid this question if our priorities are misguided, this registers less as a sort of peaceful acceptance and more a lack of accountability, a moral ambivalence.

Reading Stoner in 2026 does this sentiment no favors; defending if not advocating for disengagement rings supremely hollow on aesthetic, political, and personal levels. The disappointment is not that William Stoner fails to become extraordinary (yawn). Literature is not a meritocracy, and some of the greatest novels ever written concern ordinary people living ordinary lives. The question is not whether a character becomes famous, wealthy, influential, or successful. The deeper, more useful interrogation involves exploring whether a life is examined, whether consciousness itself becomes a form of action.

This is precisely where Stoner leaves me cold, and it seems worth pushing back on a novel that delivers so little of what’s promised, particularly when there are so many worthy candidates on the dance card.

Consider the aforementioned Ivan Ilyich. Here is a man who, by design, is recognizable both in his ambitions and foibles. He checks the prescribed boxes, receives the superficial but hollow accolades reserved for the entitled, and mostly fills in the blanks for a predetermined existence. As death approaches, he belatedly addresses his unhappiness and a ruthless accounting ensues. He methodically revisits the inculcated metrics for success and understands, unequivocally, how the world failed him and how he’s failed himself. With unparalleled clarity and economy, Tolstoy renders a portrait of an unhappy man, and we watch Ivan grapple with the question he refuses to avoid: what I’ve lived incorrectly?

Even Ishmael in Moby-Dick, drifting aboard a whaling ship for reasons ranging from hunger for adventure to desire to shirk responsibility, exhibits a restless curiosity absent from Stoner’s world. Through Ishmael, we see Melville’s insatiable interest in human beings. With humor and at times devastating clarity, we’re treated to a sustained investigation of everything from religion to cultural mores, from courage to cruelty and, through Ahab, the type of megalomania we recognize in certain industry icons and politicians. Ishmael is deliberately presented as the anonymous eyewitness, bearing witness to his world—but it’s his very obsession with detail that illustrates his passion for life, his humanity.

In the last century we could look to many of Saul Bellow’s novels to find anti-Stoners. Herzog, for instance, spends an entire novel systematically questioning and at times dismantling his own assumptions. Like a more obsessive, intellectual Ishmael, he writes letters to philosophers, politicians, friends, enemies, and the dead. What makes him compelling is not that he possesses answers but that he cannot stop asking questions. The novel becomes a testament to the act of a mind refusing surrender.

Perhaps the most successful and enduring American study of an individual navigating forces beyond his control is Ellison’s Invisible Man. The narrator is repeatedly manipulated and confounded by institutions and ideologies, but is constantly in physical or spiritual motion. He is forever revising his interpretation of experience: every betrayal becomes a lesson, every illusion disproved creates the possibility of deeper insight. His struggle is not simply against racism or power but against false narratives of every kind, including his own. Ellison, of course, presents a coruscating deconstruction of racist systems, but also manages to delineate the corrupted myth of the American Dream.

These examples, to me, represent what the examined life looks like in literature. It is not stoicism mistaken for resignation or acceptance confused with acquiescence. It is not the withdrawal from conflict into private consolation, but the ongoing effort to understand how one ought to live and what obligations one owes to others. The great novels are not instruction manuals, but they dramatize this struggle. They remind us that consciousness is not merely a condition; it is a responsibility.

Perhaps this is why Stoner ultimately frustrates me. The novel presents a man devoted to literature, yet rarely conveys the transformative power literature has supposedly exercised over him. We are told books changed his life. We are seldom shown how. We see a man who loves literature, but we rarely witness literature acting upon him in ways that enlarge his capacity for courage, empathy, action, or understanding.

And that absence feels especially significant now. At a moment when public life rewards disengagement, cynicism, and learned helplessness, I find myself less interested in literary figures who endure than in those who wrestle. Less interested in resignation than inquiry. Less interested in departure than participation.

The best books do not merely reflect life. They deepen it. They compel us toward greater awareness of ourselves and our obligations to one another. They remind us that attention is a moral act. If literature cannot inspire that kind of engagement, what exactly are we defending when we defend it?

More, in our contemporary miasma where we watch institutions obeying in advance and both wealthy icons and universities cowing to the worst and most cynical political pressure, is Stoner’s listlessness the everyman we ought to seek guidance from? Emulating passivity when choosing apathy is not merely a personal matter, but a tacit assist to the worst kind of cretins? At a time when the Humanities are under relentless assault, AI threatens job markets in an uncertain economy, and funding for the arts is straight up LOL, it seems, putting it charitably, an inopportune time to elevate this novel.

Perhaps, in the final analysis, Stoner does hold a mirror of sorts up to the average American. If so, it reveals more about us than the titular anti-hero, and little of it is affirmative. Our world preys upon those without agency made to suffer it silently; corruption depends upon indifference. Whatever nobility we collectively claim derives from the fight itself, a protest, our insistence that the only thing less tolerable than injustice is abetting it.

We are, after all, inspired by literature to see things more clearly so that we might rally, not retreat.

With full props to the aforementioned Anthony Jeselnik, who I adore (as a comedian, as an intellectual, and especially as a person with a platform advocating for books, reading, and engagement), here’s his assessment which, while I obviously don’t agree with, I respect. Suffice it to say, I’d love and welcome a chance to chop it up with him—on this and other literary topics.