"Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succes­sion of more or less irritating sounds."

Wrote Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in "Who Doesn’t Like Music? Nabokov, For Starters On the Odd Case of the Musical Anhedonic" (via Metafilter).

The article is by Michel Faber, who says:

Musical anhedonics are thought to account for up to 5 percent of the world’s population....  The syndrome is often discussed in the same articles that pon­der the mysteries of autism.

"Do we at least get some royalties out of this? I don’t remember signing away my life rights for your little song. What if I was going to use this as material for my novel?"

Said Paul, a real estate novelist, quoted in "BILLY JOEL PLAYS “PIANO MAN” FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE BAR HE BASED THE SONG ON" (McSweeney's).

"What are they in line for? Is there, like, a celebrity here or something?"

Going to Williamsburg pic.twitter.com/EDWysArPyr

— josh (@katebushmegamix) April 25, 2021

ADDED: "Williamsburg" refers to the state of mind or the fashion or something — not the actual location of this popular photo-op.

AND: I thought of the song "I'm in a New York State of Mind." There's this idea that your mind could be in a particular place where your body is not. Actually, that song is about being in the mood to go to New York — physically — so it's not the right idea. Sure the idea was out there, I googled "i'm in a (blank) state of mind." 

That took me down a different rathole, to the psychological phenomenon of a blank state of mind: "Mind-blanking: when the mind goes away" ("when our minds are seemingly 'nowhere'"), "Blank Mind Syndrome – What to Do When You Have No Thoughts" ("Here’s a simple exercise you can perform to figure out if your mind is blank or not").

Suddenly, on my own, one example occurred to me: 

 

God, I love that song. And I love the idea that the place is in your mind, that the place is even more real if your mind is truly there that if your body could be there. I believe there are many other examples of songs (or poems) about being in a place where you are not. I'm trying to think of more, and I welcome suggestions, but don't name near-miss examples, such as merely dreaming of home or wishing to be in this other place. It must be the idea that the place as it is in your mind is the true place, and the actual place falls away as a meaningful destination. You don't want to go there. You are there. In your mind.

"Gonna keep finding new ways to play #pianoman until Billy Joel sees it."

Says Tess, at TikTok...

Why didn't Bill Maher — on his show last night — mention Harvey Weinstein?

I just watched the whole thing, because I was interested in what he would say, and the answer is nothing. He even had Billy Crystal as his main celebrity guest, and Crystal didn't have political topics, so there was plenty of time to talk about what's wrong in the movie business. Crystal and Maher ended up talking about how they were getting old and how it seems to still be acceptable to stereotype old people. (At the end of the show, Maher nevertheless made a joke that was nothing more than a stereotype about old people.)

I did a search to try to figure out if Maher has some connection to Weinstein, and stumbled into a Page Six piece: "Sanctum, a members-only sex club in Los Angeles, with celebrity clients like Bill Maher, is donating 100 percent of the proceeds for its next event to the victims of the Las Vegas shooting." Nothing about Weinstein there (except in teasers in the side bar).

Maybe Weinstein's problems hit close to home for Maher, but he was happy going after Bill O'Reilly last April...

How to photograph a celebrity.

From "Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)," the new David Sedaris book, this entry from May 5, 1994:

As part of the publicity I’m doing for the book (Barrel Fever), I was interviewed and photographed for Avenue magazine. The talking part I’m fine with, but I hate having my picture taken. First the photographer had me pose with Dennis (my cat) while wearing a cat mask. Then she had me pretend to hang from the antlers in the living room. Next I was told to close the louvered doors on my neck and then to hold my freeze-dried turkey head up to my nose. Just as she was running out of film, the photographer said, “Can we try something silly?”

That made me remember I wanted to promote this book Chris Buck sent me, "Uneasy: Portraits 1986-2016." It has 338 photographs of celebrities — including one of David Sedaris (that's not from 1994) — often photographed in some odd, quirky way.

For example, there's Billy Joel sitting on the end of a bed holding one of those theater "applause" signs, there are separate photos of Moby and Ike Turner doing that old little boy's trick of positioning a finger to make it look like his naked penis, there's Margaret Atwood pushing the side of her face and outspread hands against a screen door (photographed from the other side of the door), Casey Affleck lying on a table pushed into the corner of a gaudily wallpapered room, Russ Meyer burying his face in cake shaped like 2 breasts, Philip Seymour Hoffman half-hiding behind underpants hung on a clothesline, and George McGovern wearing just a Speedo and (apparently) doing the twist. Much more!

I recommend it highly, having looked at all the pictures and admired the great variety and the gameness of the celebrities. Since they are mostly not actors and models but writers, musicians, and politicians, people who haven't spent their lives figuring out how to look interesting, it takes some ingenuity: Where can you put them, what can you say to them to try to get a photograph that will affect us in a way that has something to do with who this person is?

I encounter 5 items of celebrity news.

1. The snake that bit one of the dancers in a rehearsal of the Nicki Minaj song "Anaconda" was a "boa constrictor named Rocky who has been in the entertainment business for 15 years." A boa constrictor is not an anaconda, but the snake had no way to know the song was celebrating some other species of snake. Nor do I think the snake could take offense at the lyrics and think something like: That's all I am to you, something that reminds you of a body part of one of your kind, not as a unique individual with many facets to my serpentine being other than serving as a hyperbolic metaphor for the human penis? Do you even know about the snake's penis? Am I simply a big penis to you? Do you even know who I am? I am Rocky, a veteran of 15 years in the entertainment business! I think a boa constrictor bites when it feels threatened, so if the 15-years-in-the-entertainment-business snake bit a dancer, he must have felt really scared. He doesn't know his name is Rocky, a name that connotes a tough guy. He's just a snake. He doesn't know what snakes mean to us, and he's not really in the business, is he? Not from his perspective. He's not getting any coins, as Nicky might put it. He's a confused, frightened creature in an incomprehensible environment, fighting for survival. And that's our favorite phallic symbol.

2. Jennifer Lopez says: "I like being in a relationship. I’m not one to like, whore around, and stuff like that — that’s not my thing." Is she calling other ladies "whores"? Is that allowed these days? She used "whore" as a verb, naming the action, not the person. That might be a love-the-sinner/hate-the-sin kind of attitude, but then she didn't ever say whoring around is bad, only that it's not her "thing." Do your own thing. That's what we said in the 60s, often along with its corollary: Let it all hang out. The Isley Brothers sang: "It's your thing/Do what you wanna do/I can't tell you/Who to sock it to." Some people — like Jennifer Lopez — find that their thing is having sex with their own spouse. No judgment. It's all good. You whores.

3. That bad old billionaire racist Donald Sterling had fallen out of the news, and here's V. Stiviano rescuing him from that fate and averring that the old man is gay and she was his beard. This is not attention whoring — is that word permissible? — because Stiviano is fighting against a lawsuit filed against her by Sterling's wife Shelly, who accuses her of being "a thief and an embezzler," which provides the basis for a counterclaim of defamation.

4. To stop his descent into into a condition I think is called Jack Nicholsonism, Leonardo DiCaprio must lose 10 pounds. "He has given up pasta – and he loves pasta... He also plans on working out more and he is taking his bike wherever he goes." DiCaprio is about to turn 40, and his girlfriend is a 21-year-old model named Toni Garrn, who apparently either wants to make very sure we pronounce the "r" in her name or is a pirate. We're told of Garrrrrn that "Of course she doesn’t care" that Leo is fat. Why would Leo be with anyone who would say she cares that he's fat when he's fat? I love you just the way you are. That's what Billy Joel sang, back in 1979, stealing, he admits, the last line of the 4 Seasons song "Rag Doll," which was inspired by a squeegee-man girl who extracted $20 from Bob Gaudio. Did Joel have any particular person in mind? Yeah. His first wife, and she didn't even like the song. Joel went through 2 more wives, including a 23-year-old that he married when he was 55. Oh, but don't be too mean to Mr. Joel. He has "battled depression for many years," and once tried to kill himself by drinking furniture polish. Furniture polish? "It looked tastier than bleach." But good luck to DiCaprio, whether he chooses to remain boyishly cute or become the jolly roué. Flabby or toned, he'll always be cuter than Billy Joel, and good for him for never divorcing anyone. He has never married.

5. Speaking of fat, Warner Brothers is in trouble for "fat shaming" in its new direct-to-video Scooby-Doo movie "Frankencreepy." Some curse causes Daphne Blake to go from size 2 to size 8, but size 8 is depicted more like size 22, and Tom Burns of The Good Men Project writes: "It's sad to think that my daughter can’t even watch a cartoon about a dog solving mysteries without negative body stereotypes being thrown in her face." But apparently, there's an argument that the curse is that each character loses what she (or he) is most afraid to lose, and the only reason Daphe loses her fine figure is that she's too damned in love with it in the first place. This notion of curses tailored to each psyche is familiar. In one of my favorite movies, "The Witches of Eastwick," Satan (the above-mentioned Jack Nicholson) curses the various women with their own fears, and in the case of Cher, the fear is snakes. Watch Cher wake up in a bedful of snakes. Can somebody check the IMDB page on those snakes? I want to know how long they've been in the entertainment business and what are their degrees of separation from Rocky?

"As we round the corner into Sunday night's low-hype, low-suspense Academy Awards..."

"... is there anything you're hoping to see on Sunday? Any viable surprises that would delight you? Any level of expectation for Billy Crystal's hosting?"

I don't think I have ever been less interested in the Academy Awards than I am this year.

Are you excited about the Oscars?
	Yes, very.
	Kinda.
	Blah.
	I'm completely uninterested.
	I wouldn't watch the Oscars if you paid me.
pollcode.com free polls

"The Beatles, 'Revolution,' cut up, scrambled, and looped. The Beatles sing 'one two three four' for an hour."

"All of Billy Joel's greatest hits played at once. Celine Dion screams for 1.5 minutes. Please enjoy responsibly."

Yes, indeed. You can end up feeling a little ill.

Like, if you go here: "Have you ever wondered what each Beatles album would sound like if you played all the songs together at the same time? No way! Me too!"

And they recommended this...



... which seems pretty entertaining while it's going on, but I don't feel so good now.

Respect for "We Didn't Start the Fire."

"[Billy] Joel is the perfect vehicle for Baby Boomer self-possession and his choice of 20th century landmarks has led to more history essays than Millard Fillmore's presidency.... Joel does a fantastic job recreating a modern Gilbert & Sullivan patter song. These are not easy to make, with their every-word-that-we-can-think-of lyrics. Joel's succeed because he keeps the words crisp and the ideas relevant to (at least some of) his audience. Sure it is just a list, but what a list!"

Ha. I didn't know you were allowed to like that much-hated song, but it's #108 on the Top 200 #1 songs of all time.

I still prefer this version:

An art installation in NYC: pianos plunked down in 50 different places where anyone can step up and play.

Art is important, but it's not more important the real hour-to-hour life of the people who must live with big and intrusive works of public art. Consider:

The concept, devised by British artist Luke Jerram, has put more than 130 pianos in parks, squares and bus stations since 2008 in cities including London, Sydney and Sao Paulo. And now it's New York City's turn to play, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Thursday.

"There's going to be a huge amount of talent here," Jerram said in an interview. "The piano's actually a blank canvas for everyone's creativity, really, so I just hope that the city enjoys it."

So I just hope.... I just hope, if your apartment or office is within earshot of one of those pianos that you like "Chopsticks," "Für Elise," Billy Joel songs, and the way it sounds when someone drags their fingers the full length of the keyboard. Why do Jerram and Bloomberg think that saccharine everyman "creativity" will blossom? Hey, New Yorkers, have you seen this extremely popular YouTube tutorial — "How to play EXTREMELY annoying songs on piano"?



Oh, why am I so cynical?

Jerram got the idea at his local coin-operated laundry, according to a website about the project. He saw the same people there every weekend, but none of them talked to each other. He thought a piano might help bring people together in places like that.

You know, years ago, when we remodeled the law school building here at the University of Wisconsin, some lawprofs — I won't say who — thought it would be a wonderful idea to put a piano in the atrium — a big open space where the students hang out to talk or rest or study. These professors enthused about the existence of perhaps one student who was an accomplished classical pianist. They imagined bringing people together through the music that would be unleashed from the hulking object. I was horrified. It was one of the few times over the years — and I've been here for a quarter century — when I spoke out and told people — in person — that their well-intended project was unlikely to produce the human happiness they envisioned. (I hope a metaphor alert is unnecessary, but... liberal policies....)

The results in other cities have been surprising and life-changing, [the artist] said in an interview. A woman in Sao Paulo heard her daughter play for the first time on one of Jerram's pianos in a train station. The mother had worked to pay for lessons for four years, but the family had no piano at home.

In Sydney, a couple met at a piano and are now married, Jerram said.

So 4 individuals had a warm experience that they could have had in some other way. But then it wouldn't have pumped up the egos of the artist and the mayor.

"It seems like a good idea that brings a sense of fun and playfulness to the city," said David Rosenfeld, who was riding his bike in the area.

A man on a mechanical device that will scoot him right out of there if somebody's granddad decides to play "Woolly Bully" or "96 Tears."

Most pianos will be open for song until 10 p.m.

Oh, fine then. 10. After your nerves have been jangled for — what? — 14 hours, you can try to settle down to get enough sleep before it all starts again.

At least "Tilted Arc" was quiet.

9/11 is not a punchline.

For a long time after the events of September 11, 2001, I avoided using the shorthand "9/11" to refer to what had happened. Recently, someone close to me heard me use the term 9/11 and said, "I thought you didn't say that." I admitted that over time, I'd gone to the shorthand. Didn't he use the shorthand? No, in fact, he never did. The profundity of what had happened was still present enough in his mind that he continued to say "September Eleventh."

This conversation came to mind when I read an article in the NYT this morning about a fundraiser that took place this past Thursday, in which "an A-list of Hollywood celebrities shared the stage in the architectural splendor of Disney Hall to raise a show-stopping $5 million for Senator John Kerry and the Democratic National Committee." It looked like Oscar night, the Times writes, with Billy Crystal "cracking wise about movies and politics, money and baseball." But a joke about Bill Clinton "fell flat." The audience, as the Times put it, "had paid too much ($2,000 to $25,000)... to laugh at itself."

Fun was to be had, sure, but at the Republicans' expense.

So Mr. Crystal fared much better when he recalled having met President Bush at Yankee Stadium during the third game of the World Series in 2001 and realizing, "911 is also his SAT scores."

I know brilliant comedians need some leeway as they search for new ways to share the important political insight that Bush is stupid, but 9/11 is not a punchline.

(If you can't remember how that night in Yankee Stadium felt at the time, and perhaps the image that comes to mind is the oft-shown clip from "Fahrenheit 9/11" in which Bush makes a comment about fighting terrorism and then returns to his golf game, read this.)

The dreadful Oscars show. The Oscars show was even duller than the SAG Awards. Was there even a single surprise? Billy Crystal's return reminded me of some of the sad returns Lucille Ball made to TV in her waning years: she was doing the same sorts of things that used to be so funny, but now it just seemed wrong for her to strain herself to do it. Crystal seemed to want to throw out lines about current movie happenings, but how much comic traction can you really get out of "The Passion of the Christ"? Everyone seemed afraid of offending, as if they were all massively overshadowed by Janet Jackson's epic breast. Only Errol Morris said anything with any political sting, and his speech revealed that his true outrage really lay more in the area of the way the Academy has been slighting him all these years. (Of course, he was right about that, but it wasn't all that lovely for him to be the one saying it.) Tim Robbins restricted his politics to concern about child abuse, and Sean Penn only made an oblique reference to WMD. Nearly everyone just thanked people endlessly, tediously. Then more time had to be wasted, lamely, by having Jack Black and Will Ferrell sing about how the thank you speeches are boring. And, oh, the songs, those songs-non-songs that extend the already horrible longueurs of the show's midsection.

I had to read about Sean Penn's statement, because I bailed out before he appeared, somewhere in the show's fourth hour, when I calculated all the awards that had yet to be given, and how long I would need to wait for the big four awards. The show was quite simply torture--impossibility of making "The Passion" quips noted--the least entertaining Oscars show in memory. I enjoyed some of the early red carpet stuff: Jennifer Garner had a lovely tangerine dress and Renee Zellweger looked painfully swaddled in white cardboardish cloth. But it was pretty much downhill from there.