Published more than five years after her 2018 congressional testimony, Blasey Ford’s new memoir, “One Way Back,” is an important entry into the public record — a lucid if belated retort to Senator Chuck Grassley’s 414-page, maddening memo on the investigation — but a prosaic one.
The book is important, lucid, belated, and prosaic, we're told.
"He believes that the work he does with Metallica is an extension of some sublime and omnipotent creative force. 'I put myself in this space where I take in all the creativity around me and I channel it to create more,' he said. His hope is that Metallica facilitates a healing sort of fellowship. 'We are so nondenominational,' he said, laughing. 'Come to the Church of Metallica. You’ll become a member and rejoice! You don’t have to direct anything at us. You can direct it at the experience that you’re having.'"
Writes Amanda Petrusich, in "The Enduring Metal Genius of Metallica/On the road with the band in its forty-first year" (The New Yorker).
We're told that "a new generation of music fans discovered them when Netflix's Stranger Things used their 1986 song 'Master of Puppets' during a pivotal scene."
This is another case of mainstream media reporting what's in social media. So just go straight to the social media. Here's Serena Trueblood on TikTok ticking off the sins of Metallica.
Or I'll just quote the hastily typed caption to the video: "I find it intersting that they only cared about gatekeeping in their fandom when they started getting big agaib from Stranger Things. Thy only care about what lines theor pockets."
1. A young woman demonstrates, in quick succession, the types of singers you find in jazz school.
2. Sometimes the murderous emu is sweet.
3. When you visit and your dad tries to keep you from leaving.
4. Setting the Chris Rock/Will Smith incident to music.
5. Metallica's James Hetfield sits for an interview with a cute kid.
James Hetfield - Vocals, Toy clarinetFor reference, here's the original "Enter Sandman" video.
Jimmy Fallon - Vocals, Bass Drum, Casio Keyboard, Kazoo
Lars Ulrich - Fisher Price Drum, Toy Cymbals
Kirk Hammett - Melodica
Robert Trujillo - Baby Electric Axe
Questlove - Hand Clappers, Kazoo
Kamal Gray - Xylophone
James Poyser - Melodica
Captain Kirk - Ukulele
Tuba Gooding Jr. - Kazoo, Banana Shaker, Apple Shaker
Mark Kelley - Kazoo
Frank Knuckles - Bongos
Black Thought - Tambourine, Brown Hat
Our new, modern Tribeca office was beautifully airy, and yet remarkably oppressive. Nothing was private. On the first day, I took my seat at the table assigned to our creative department, next to a nice woman who I suspect was an air horn in a former life. All day, there was constant shuffling, yelling, and laughing, along with loud music piped through a PA system. As an excessive water drinker, I feared my co-workers were tallying my frequent bathroom trips. At day’s end, I bid adieu to the 12 pairs of eyes I felt judging my 5:04 p.m. departure time. I beelined to the Beats store to purchase their best noise-cancelling headphones in an unmistakably visible neon blue.The most horrific part of that is "loud music." Later:
If employers want to make the open-office model work, they have to take measures to improve work efficiency... And please, let’s eliminate the music that blankets our workspaces. Metallica at 3 p.m. isn’t always compatible with meeting a 4 p.m. deadline.Jeez. Any music interferes with the kind of thinking you need to do to write. Of course, hearing other people talking is bad too, and the right kind of music can be used to exclude voices. Ten years ago, I worked hard on putting together a music-for-reading playlist. I've deployed Brian Eno many times — even to work in my office (which is not impervious to the sound of people talking in hallways and other offices).
Occasionally smiling and laughing, [his wife, Anna said] that she found strength in faith and had no doubt that he would recover.Faith... and heavy metal music.
"It's amazing, it's a miracle," she said of his survival. "Faith plays a big role. Without it, we wouldn't be coping. It's given us hope."
"Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" (the DVD of the documentary promises "over 10 hours of Metallica," 2 commentary tracks, 40 extra scenes, and a contest where the prize is meeting Metallica (but I don't want to meet Metallica!).
"Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" (a DVD that I ordered after writing this post).
Nick Hornby, "The Polysyllabic Spree," which is subtitled: "A Hilarious and True Account of One Man's Struggle With the Monthly Tide of the Books He's Bought and the Books He's Been Meaning to Read." (Don't we all know that problem? From October 2003 to October 2004, each essay begins with a list of the books he bought and a list of the books he read.)
For the first 30 minutes of ''Some Kind of Monster'' (roughly three months in real time), you see a band whose members don't necessarily like one another, struggling with a record no one seems completely enthusiastic about creating. But then -- suddenly, and without much explanation -- Hetfield disappears into rehab. Ulrich and Hammett have nothing to do in the interim except talk to their therapist. This is the point where "Some Kind of Monster' starts to change; what it becomes is not a glorification of rock 'n' roll but an illustration of how rock 'n' roll manufactures a reality that's almost guaranteed to make people incomplete. Metallica's massive success -- and the means through which they achieved it -- meant they never had to mature intellectually past the age of 19....Actually, what it reminds me of a bit is The Sopranos: the big tough guy's in therapy talking about his feelings.
[W]hen Hetfield returns to the band from rehab as a completely changed man ... the deeper issue of "Some Kind of Monster" emerges: Hetfield and Ulrich have spent their entire adulthood intertwined, but they've never been close; they've never needed to have a real relationship with each other. And that is what you mostly see over the last hour of this film: two middle-aged men fighting through their neuroses and confusion, earnestly talking about intimacy and emotional betrayal and how they feel about each other.
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