February 11, 2021
"'Love is strange,' wrote Thomas Pynchon, citing the 1956 Mickey and Sylvia hit single, in his 1988 New York Times review of Gabriel García Márquez’s novel 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'"
"As we get older, he continued, 'we may begin to regard love songs, romance novels, soap operas and any live teenage pronouncements at all on the subject of love with an increasingly impatient, not to mention intolerant, ear.'
This sort of marginalization of love stories — that, for one thing, they don’t qualify as 'legitimate' novels — threads through the 125 years of The New York Times Book Review. And yet there are lessons to be learned about the necessary ingredients for a good love story from even these sorts of condescensions — along with the review that took them more seriously, of course."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
43 comments:
Love potion number 9 was a Sandra Bullock movie. As I recall they were worried it was just the drug.
Love in a time of chlamydia.
That's the adult take.
Love in the Time of Cholera, the main character is so despicable that I don't want him to find happiness.
Love potion? The current FDA would like a word...
Japan news is continuously embroiled about the Olympics official who said women talk too much. Hundreds have resigned in protest, and outrage brews.
He's apologized I think but not recanted.
rhhardin is correct, VD is skyrocketing in senior rest homes.
I followed Pynchon through Gravity's Rainbow. Definitely not a crowd-pleaser.
Narr
Now I wonder, is he still alive?
Orange Man Bad?
So did love potions 1 through 8 just really suck?
Love in the Time of Wimbledon, with the two Williams (Venus and Serena), a tale of the court.
"'Love is strange,' ...the 1956 Mickey and Sylvia hit single,
It was first performed by Bo Diddly and was entirely or partially written by him. (His version)
Pynchon now? What? Are we going through the whole canon today?
Fernandinande... Super Bo! Thanks
Death in Venice was a story of unrequited love that took place in a cholera epidemic. He dies at the end, (Sorry if I spoiled it for you) when he gets sick of the restrictions and can’t resist eating a fresh strawberry.
I noticed that Barnes and Noble had about a dozen copies of Love in the Time of Cholera laid out up front, but no Death in Venice, it’s obvious homophobia!
"'Love is strange,' wrote Thomas Pynchon, citing the 1956 Mickey and Sylvia hit single..."
Oh, cripes! This means Sylwester's going to show up with Dirty Dancing posts soon!
I would honestly rather read a similar piece by rhhardin. I think it would not only be better, but more useful to aspiring writers.
"This means Sylwester's going to show up with Dirty Dancing posts soon!”
Some of us like his Dirty Dancing posts.
Narr - yes, Pynchon is still alive at 83 years old. I also see in his bio that his earliest American ancestry goes back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That makes me think about Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables in which the Pyncheon family lives in Salem around the time of the witch trials up through the early 19th century... just a small spelling discrepancy in the names... I wonder if there is any family name connection there from that region.
Indeed
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pynchon
A deeper dive
https://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/inferno.htm
Thanks, fellows; of course I was going to check on Pynchon's status myself sooner or later.
I usually know when authors I have enjoyed have died, but in the last few years I've missed some.
Narr
Love is a long and slender thing
Some have said my writing is pythonesque in its intricacy.
This sort of marginalization of love stories — that, for one thing, they don’t qualify as 'legitimate' novels — threads through the 125 years of The New York Times Book Review.
Seriously, why do you read crap like the NYT or its book reviews?
The song "Love Is Strange" is an important element in the movie Dirty Dancing.
In my blog about the movie, I generally analyzed the song in this blog article.
In another blog article, titled Ballroom dancers are better "dirty dancers", I explained why the song is an important element of the movie.
In the movie, Johnny Castle teaches Baby Houseman how to do ballroom dancing -- specifically, the Mambo. They do not do "dirty dancing" with each other.
However, since Johnny has taught Baby how to do ballroom dancing, she becomes able to invent her own clever dance, which she teaches to him as the song "Love Is Strange" is playing on a record-player.
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
From another sage
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/3241350-i-detest-love-lyrics-i-think-one-of-the-causes
Love stinks.
-J. Geils
I have read Crying of Lot 49 twice; around when it came out, and about four years ago. I have tried and failed to get into Gravity's Rainbow. I was curious about Mason and Dixon, and I went out to the Starfinder's Stone a couple times to look at where they did their work in southern Pennsylvania.
But I think he has taken a set of gimmicks to their farthest reach of allure. I puzzled over 49 when I was young; laughed a lot when I reread it more recently. For my money, though, the next real human character Pynchon creates will be his first. And without those, I have trouble caring about any of the rest of it.
This excerpt echoes my reservations about him. I have the opposite reaction. Silly love stuff is a reinforcement of all the best of human life. I'm not going to read any more crapola from NYT, I had my fill by 30 years ago, but this fits their 2nd-rate formula too -- get a onetime cultural status symbol and try to ride on whatever's left of his coattails as far as they can. Yecch.
This means Sylwester's going to show up with Dirty Dancing posts soon!
Yes, indeed!
And yet . . .
The 1987 movie Dirty Dancing ends with Johnny Castle and Baby Houseman dancing a mambo. They had had rehearsed this mambo for the talent show, but Johnny was fired shortly before the talent show. However, he broke into the talent show, and so Johnny and Baby danced their rehearsed mambo after all -- to the song "Time of My Life".
However, in an earlier script (dated July 1986), the movie would end with Johnny and Baby doing a "dirty dance" that seemed unrehearsed. They danced to some other song, which I think was Lionel Richie's "Dancing on the Ceiling".
I think the ending was changed at the request of Patrick Swayze. Since the movie's producers could not pay Swayze what he was worth, they compensated him partially by allowing him to change the script however he wanted (and by including his song "She's Like the Wind" in the movie).
I think that Swayze insisted on changing the final song and dance. Swayze caused the movie to end with a Mambo instead of a "dirty dance".
After the filming began, there was a period of time when the other final song had been rejected but "Time of My Life" still had not been selected as the final song. During that period, when filming already had begun, there was some experimenting with ideas, and thus the "Love Is Strange" scene was developed.
This scene turned out to be so charming that the producers immediately decided to buy the song's rights. In order to afford that purchase, the producers had to gave up the rights to Leslie Gore's performance of "You Don't Own Me" (that song is in the soundtrack, but it's not Gore's performance.)
Anyway, since Swayze changed the movie's ending, the movie is only barely about "dirty dancing". Rather, the movie is mostly about ballroom dancing -- specifically the Mambo.
However, the unplanned inclusion of the "Love Is Strange" scene was thematically fortuitous, because that scene is a "dirty dance". Johnny and Baby are writhing around spontaneously on the floor.
Also, that particular dance is depicted as Baby's (not Johnny's) invention. Thus, the scene teaches a lesson that by learning ballroom-dancing techniques, Baby became able to create and perform a "dirty dance".
I'm thinking of doing with "The Quiet Man" what Sylwester does for "Dirty Dancing."
On second thought ... nah.
P.S. I just noticed how he spells his name. Heretofore I thought it was "Sylvester," like the cat.
Mike, interesting if off point. At risk of incurring moderator wrath (but don't most folks associate that song with that film/soundtrack?), question. Do you think the switch in dance number at the end was right thing to do?
"Love is a long and slender thing”
You are gonna get canceled for that, It’s “Love is a many gendered thing” now.
Readering at 1:31 PM
Do you think the switch in dance number at the end was right thing to do?
I generally think that Swayze's changes improved the movie.
The movie's original idea was that a large portion of the Catskill resort's manual employees were doing "dirty dancing" at their after-work parties in 1963. That idea is not true. In fact, such employees danced the Twist. Only a very few employees would be doing something like "dirty dancing".
On my blog, I provide many video clips of party dance scenes in young-adult movies around 1963. All the characters dance only the Twist. That movies show how young adults actually did dance at their parties in the early 1060s.
So, it was not realistic that Johnny and Baby would use the talent show to reveal to the Catskill resort's adult guests some sensational "dirty dancing" that the manual workers were doing at their after-work parties.
It was much more realistic that Johnny and Baby rehearsed a Mambo for the talent show and then eventually did perform their rehearsed Mambo. Furthermore, Baby is dressed an a pink, ultra-feminine ballroom dress -- not in some androgynous "dirty dancing" outfit.
The replacement the ending's "dirty dance" by the Mambo was fortuitously compensated by the "Love Is Strange scene, which can be categorized as a "dirty dance".
-------
In the earlier (July 1986) script, some time had to be spent showing the movie audience that Johnny and Baby were rehearsing a "dirty dance". That time was not needed in the final movie, because the movie audience already understood that Johnny had taught Baby the Mambo.
In that earlier script, while Johnny and Baby are rehearsing a "dirty dance", Baby's father is shown trying to catch Baby and Johnny spending time intimately together. (Baby's father had forbidden Baby to spend any time with Johnny.) I think that depiction of Baby's father trying to catch them portrayed him negatively.
-------
As it turned out, that "Time of My Life" Mambo has become a very popular wedding dance. Engaged couples can learn that Mambo and dance it for their wedding guests.
If the movie had ended instead with a "dirty dance", then that dance would not have become such a popular wedding dance.
Readering at 1:31 PM
Do you think the switch in dance number at the end was right thing to do?
I generally think that Swayze's changes improved the movie.
The movie's original idea was that a large portion of the Catskill resort's manual employees were doing "dirty dancing" at their after-work parties in 1963. That idea is not true. In fact, such employees danced the Twist. Only a very few employees would be doing something like "dirty dancing".
On my blog, I provide many video clips of party dance scenes in young-adult movies around 1963. All the characters dance only the Twist. Those movies show how young adults actually did dance at their parties in the early 1960s.
So, it was not realistic that Johnny and Baby would use the talent show to reveal to the Catskill resort's adult guests some sensational "dirty dancing" that the manual workers were doing at their after-work parties.
It was much more realistic that Johnny and Baby rehearsed a Mambo for the talent show and then eventually did perform their rehearsed Mambo. Furthermore, Baby is dressed an a pink, ultra-feminine ballroom dress -- not in some androgynous "dirty dancing" outfit.
The replacement of the ending's "dirty dance" by the Mambo was fortuitously compensated by the "Love Is Strange scene, which can be categorized as a "dirty dance". So, there is that one scene where Johnny and Baby do a "dirty dance".
-------
In the earlier (July 1986) script, some time had to be spent showing the movie audience that Johnny and Baby were rehearsing a "dirty dance". That time was not needed in the final movie, because the movie audience already understood that Johnny had taught Baby the Mambo.
In that earlier script, while Johnny and Baby are rehearsing a "dirty dance", Baby's father is shown trying to catch Baby and Johnny spending time intimately together. (Baby's father had forbidden Baby to spend any time with Johnny.) I think that depiction of Baby's father trying to catch them portrayed him negatively.
-------
As it turned out, that "Time of My Life" Mambo has become a very popular wedding dance. Engaged couples learn that Mambo and dance it for their wedding guests.
If the movie had ended instead with a "dirty dance", then that dance would not have become such a popular wedding dance.
Your blog post with embedded clips is fun.
"Leslie Gore's performance of "You Don't Own Me" (that song is in the soundtrack, but it's not Gore's performance.)"
Instead, we got the equally wonderful version by The Blow Monkeys, whose Digging Your Scene was one of the first songs about the AIDS epidemic.
That announcer was Steve Allen, who is under appreciated for his role in introducing new musical talent of all types. I used to watch Steve and Jack Parr religiously from the 50s into the 60s. Not bad for a college dropout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Allen
Also funny as a mofo!
"pythonesque"
No but perhaps C++esque.
Steve Allen with guest Frank Zappa (1963). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF0PYQ8IOL4
Check Frank's eyebrows.
Friends,
Mickey Baker and Sylvia Vanterpool Robinson led important musical lives.
Baker’s Complete Course in Jazz Guitar is alive and well after 50 years.
Robinson and her Sugar Hill Records brought us HipHop.
Best,
Q
Post a Comment