Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music. Show all posts

Monday, January 8, 2024

What Songs Make You Happy?

As a Notre Dame alum, I don't have a rooting interest in tonight's college football championship... except for one thing:

I hope all the Michigan fans are happy at the end of the third quarter.

I hope they all sing "Mr. Brightside." Because, inexplicably, this song makes me irrationally happy.

This past Saturday, my wife Nancy and I were at Jersey Girl Brewing in Mount Olive, NJ, where a local cover band, Not Enough Jeffs, was doing a great job playing popular party songs. People were dancing; everyone was happy. But Nancy was mortified when they started to play "Mr. Brightside."

She threatened to take a video of my reaction, but didn't... because she loves me. But if she had, there might now exist a forever-embarrassing clip that would look a lot like this notable scene from "The Holiday":


Two other songs that my family knows make me irrationally happy are "Thunder Road" by Bruce Springsteen and "River Deep Mountain High" by Tina Turner.

I've previously written about "Thunder Road" here, and "River Deep Mountain High" crept up on me recently (thanks to the Celine Dion cover version) when I attended the musical "Titanique" with my daughter.

My wife and I recently attended a fun and tasteful wedding reception where the couple employed a live fiddle player and a Scottish line dancing instructor. We tried our best to dance, and laughingly failed... but at the end of the evening, I had the urge to ask the otherwise unoccupied DJ if he might play "Mr. Brightside" to end the evening.

Nancy convinced me it wasn't the right setting, so I didn't. In retrospect, of course she was right.

Do I love her? My, oh my.

Not Enough Jeffs performing on a Saturday night in New Jersey

Still, I'm conflicted about these guilty pleasures. Not Enough Jeffs's playlist includes songs like "Flagpole Sitta," "What I Like About You" and "Sweet Caroline" (the "anthem" Trevor Noah cleverly sends up in his latest Netflix comedy special). So I'm thinking that perhaps I'm a cliche of a certain age.

Should I care, though? Isn't it wonderful some songs simply make people inordinately happy, for no rational reason?

What are some of your favorites?

I'm sure there are a few I should check out, to expand my horizons... and maybe learn how to dance.

Saturday, March 25, 2023

What's the Best (or Worst) Cover Version of a Song?

A busker in Helen, Georgia, singing "Angel From Montgomery"
as good as John Prine, almost as good as Bonnie Raitt.

What's the best (or worst) cover version you've heard of a favorite song?

I'm "asking for a friend" because -- somewhere in Bergenfield, NJ (I won't say precisely where or when to protect the innocent) -- I recently heard a performance of the worst cover version in the history of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind."

It was jangly and upbeat, and I rushed home just to play the original version to restore balance in the world. That's when I also stumbled up another cover of the same song by Johnny Cash. It was heart-breakingly good. Give it a listen...

 

Around the same time, Cash also recorded his famous cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" -- which is here, if you're not one of the several hundred million people who have already streamed it.

Perhaps my all-time favorite great cover is Springsteen's version of "Jersey Girl," originally by Tom Waits. Here are 10 others I love:
  • "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley (originally Leonard Cohen)
  • "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell (Gloria Jones, and "our song," according to someone I once dated)
  • "Angel from Montgomery" by Bonnie Raitt (John Prine)
  • Just about any cover version of "Creep" (although Radiohead's original version is classic)
  • "Mad World" by Gary Jules (Tears for Fears)
  • "The Sound of Silence" by Disturbed (Paul Simon, a bold choice, considering how Paul's "American Tune" is perhaps my all-time favorite song)
  • "Me and Bobbie McGee" by Janis Joplin (Kris Kristofferson)
  • "Hasten Down the Wind" by Linda Ronstadt (Warren Zevon)
  • "Sweet Jane" by the Cowboy Junkies (Lou Reed)
  • "Songbird" by Eva Cassidy (but only as a homage to Christine McVie)
How did I exclude anything by Tori Amos? Well, anyway, those were the first that came to mind on this, Aretha Franklin's birthday.

Aretha, after all, out-covers anyone, even Bruce and Tori, with her version of Otis Redding's "Respect." Did you ever hear her version of Elton John's "Border Song"? She changes the end lyric from "What's his color? I don't care" to the more challenging "What's is color? Do you care?"

As for bad covers, I think I remember The Muppets once singing "We Built This City" about a dozen years ago. But maybe I was hallucinating, and I never much liked original by Jefferson Airplane/Starship anyway.

Perhaps -- having just watched the final episodes of "Daisy Jones & The Six" last night -- I'll say my least favorite cover is U2's version of the otherwise haunting "Dancing Barefoot."

Covering a Patti Smith classic? Some things just shouldn't be done.

What do you think?

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Braided Essay*: 'Thunder Road' in 6 Scenes


Are You Scared? Are You Thinking That Maybe You Aren't That Young Anymore?


Scene 1:
The disambiguation page on Wikipedia lists 21 possible references to “Thunder Road.” But as anyone knows who grew up in New Jersey in the decade of the ’70s, there’s really only one. It’s the song recorded by Bruce Springsteen in 1975. A song without a chorus.

Scene 2:
It’s sometime after 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 9, 1976. I am standing right next to one of most unobtainable women on the Notre Dame campus. She barely knows me. We’re in Section 11, Row 7, of the Athletic & Convocation Center. I know these logistics because I still have the ticket stub in 2022, with its faded price of $6.50. More vivid is my memory of fair Rosie from Phoenix, AZ. The goosebumps and raised, wispy hairs on her bare, freckled arms almost graze my face as she raises her hands and we shout in unison, “Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night. You ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re all right.”

Scene 3:
People magazine has named the actress Julia Roberts the most beautiful woman in the world five times, beginning in 1991 and most recently in 2017.

Scene 4:
In 1972, I leaned in to kiss Bobby Jean on her coral-red lips during a game of chess in her living room in Shrewsbury, NJ, where she’s lived forever. Bobby Jean’s all right; she always fit in. In 1974, I arrived on the Notre Dame campus 725 miles to the west, having never lived outside of New Jersey. I was immature for my young age. I grew a mustache to appear older; I didn’t fit in. By 1975, Bobby Jean and I were an uncoupled sonnet, doomed to be friends. Alone in my dorm room, like a Roy Orbison lyric, I donned corded, freakishly oversized headphones to listen to “Thunder Road” again and again. Eyes closed, haunted by Shakespearean ghosts, I’d imagine driving 725 miles to the east to rescue Bobby Jean from all the losers who pretended to love her. Just like me, I realized by the end of the decade. Just like me.

Scene 5:

In 1974, Bruce Springsteen wrote “Thunder Road” at his living room piano in Long Branch, NJ. His band’s first two albums had made him a critical darling but still an acquired taste outside of rabid fans in New Jersey and pockets of Arizona. In August 1975, a stripped-down arrangement of the song opened the band’s next album, “Born to Run.” By October 1975, Bruce appeared simultaneously on the covers of both Time and Newsweek magazines. In October 1976, he performed before 12,002 fans at the ACC on the Notre Dame campus. Soon thereafter and to this very day, when performing “Thunder Road,” he simply lets the crowd sing the lyrics beginning, “Show a little faith…”

Scene 6:
In 2022, my wife of over 35 years is scanning celebrity news on her iPad after sunset in our living room in Hackensack, NJ. In the spotlight of a table lamp, Mary is sprawled across her favorite chair, her right leg hanging over one of the armrests, like Hyman Roth in 1974’s “The Godfather: Part 2.” “Listen to this,” she laughs. “Julia Roberts was once asked which song lyric described her most accurately, and she chose my favorite line from ‘Thunder Road’: ‘You ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re all right.’” Mary laughs. “Isn’t that the best rock and roll lyric EVER?” she asks rhetorically, then adds that Bruce could only have written “Thunder Road” when he was young, because it’s filled with so much passion and promise. I tell her I disagree, then cross the room. Our eyes meet, and I brush aside a strand of her dyed red hair to steal a kiss. “Show a little faith,” I whisper. “I think you’re more beautiful than Julia Roberts.” Then I take Mary by the hand and turn out the light, revealing an ordinary New Jersey night.

“Baby,” I say, “let’s go for a drive.”

---------

*- As I learned in the personal essay course I wrote this for last week at Project Write Now (it's a great, New Jersey-based organization, and I highly recommend their online courses), a braided essay weaves threads together into a written work that's a cohesive whole. In this case, the prompt was for one paragraph to be simply factual, and the next to be personal. Today is also the anniversary of the day "Born to Run" was released in 1975.

My previous two posts on this site (the "hermit crab" essay posing as a pharmaceutical ad and the poem about prayers) are also based on writing I did for the PWN course.

Sunday, January 30, 2022

2 Poems: Experiments in Creativity for Fun, Not Profit

Ghosts playing chess in New York City
 
Poetry is a monetarily thankless pursuit.

This past weekend in 1845 the New York Evening Mirror published "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. "It was a huge sensation," writes The Writer's Almanac. "Abraham Lincoln memorized it, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a fan letter to Poe. He was paid $9 for 'The Raven,' and it was extensively reprinted without his permission."

Yet as monetarily thankless pursuits go, I find poetry more rewarding than, say, sports betting (where seemingly all Internet advertising directed at me insists my interest should lie).

I must be the wrong demographic for poetry. I admire Emily-in-Paris Peyton Manning, and question the Caesars-Sportsbook Peyton Manning who shills for a business based on customers losing money.

Lately, I've stumbled upon poetry in unlikely places. Listening to music this past week, I'm been enchanted by Lin-Manuel Miranda's outstanding lyrics from Disney's "Encanto" and Taylor Swift and, an old favorite, Paul Simon.

"Miracle and Wonder," an audio book of recent Malcolm Gladwell interviews with Simon, examines the intriguing premise that there's a type of creativity that improves with age. Not to diminish the conceptual breakthroughs of young artists, another type of creativity requires experimentation over time based on an accumulation of knowledge. Writing earlier on this topic, Gladwell examines a study of how Picasso produced his greatest works at the beginning of his career, and Cezanne at the end.

I write poems simply to try to contribute something. Steve Jobs once said that people express their appreciation to the rest of humanity by creating something of worth and putting it out there.

Below are two latest efforts I've submitted to poetry contests. Which I never win. I'm like Charlie Brown running to kick off with Lucy holding the football. I always wind up flat on my face, but then I'll try again next year, against my better judgement. Perhaps, with more experimentation, someday I will create something of value.

I revised the following poem based on a prompt from Paterson, NJ's poet laureate Talena Lachelle Queen. During a virtual poetry workshop earlier this month, she read the poem "On the Other Side of the Door" by the late Jeff Moss, best known as a composer and lyricist on "Sesame Street." It's largely a young adults' poem, beloved by educators -- and, hey, Taylor Swift even wrote a song with the same name.

It inspired me to write a few lines that improved a poem I had written last year, based on a photo I took at the height of the pandemic lockdown (the image posted at the top of this page). Here's my submission to the 2022 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards, sponsored by The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College:

100 Words (Exactly) About Writing 

 

On a blank page, 

I can do I anything. 

 

I am bold. 

The way you always wanted me to be. 

And I can make you love me. 

And you would never leave. 

 

You would never leave, 

And I would never wonder. 

Because I create new worlds, 

And conjure you at will. 

 

Here we are at dusk in New York: 

 

We are ghosts, 

Playing chess in a vest-pocket park. 

Phantom dogs roam at our feet. 

Occasional cars form shooting stars 

Along the FDR. 

 

On a blank page, 

I wait forever for your next move. 

On a blank page, 

I never lose.


---------

Arno River, 50 years ago

Below is another experiment, based on something I wrote years ago. I submitted it to the "100 Days of Dante" poetry contest, sponsored by the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing with the Society of Classical Poets.

My original sonnet had stanzas loosely suggesting Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. I was inspired to revise several lines last week when I discovered the first photos I ever took (now fading 35mm slides), from 50 years ago.

Dad had let me borrow his camera, and my little sister and I were with my grandmother and uncle in Italy.

One day we visited Florence, and I (unknowingly) took blurry photos of the Ponte Vecchio, where Dante, who began his own epic journey in middle age, saw young Beatrice in the late 1200s. He fell in love with her at first sight. She died soon afterward of The Plague, but she inspired his writing forever:

Dante in Reverse

 

Adam was a madman; and paradise,

a fraud. In only this do I believe:

the rhythm of your heart. Oh Beatrice,

your eyes alone could prove infinity.


It is our love that has unraveled all.

It haunts my sleep. At first, a stolen glance,

with stars beneath my feet. And then, I fall

from you toward earth -- my dream, a graceless dance.


Before I land, my senses gain control.

Alone in bed, I fear the rustling sound

of insubstantial leaves, like wind-swept souls.

My heart (alive or dead?) seems strangely bound.


This is the slow, uneven beat of Hell:

I have loved you always, but never well.


Sunday, November 14, 2021

'New Jersey Fan Club' and Churches of the Garden State


25 years ago this past week, Bruce Springsteen returned to Freehold, NJ, to play a concert in the gym where he attended parochial school at St. Rose of Lima parish.

I know this because I'm both a Springsteen fan and a collector of images of New Jersey churches.

I took this photo of St. Rose of Lima Church a few months ago, and posted it on Instagram with the tag #njchurcheverysunday, where it joined about 200 other images of churches that have stopped me in my tracks in my travels over the past few years.

Why do I do this?

That's exactly what I explore in an essay (with photos) that will be published next year as part "New Jersey Fan Club," a Rutgers University Press anthology of artists and writers celebrating the Garden State.

Edited by Kerri Sullivan, founder of the popular Instagram account @jerseycollective, this is "an eclectic anthology featuring personal essays, interviews, and comics from a broad group of established and emerging writers and artists who have something to say about New Jersey. It offers a multifaceted look at the state’s history and significance, told through narrative nonfiction, photographs, and illustrations."

That's the way Kerri describes her labor of love at this site, where you can read more information about the project, access links to pre-order the book, and sign up for the Jersey Collective newsletter.

I'm proud to be associated with the many talented people who contributed to "New Jersey Fan Club." The cover was recently unveiled (see photo above), as well as the list of contributors. I'm already a fan of many of these talented artists, photographers, and writers.

Which brings me back to Bruce, who grew up in a house (number 39 1/2, see photo below) behind the St. Rose of Lima school parking lot.

As he wrote in his autobiography, "We live, literally, in the bosom of the Catholic Church, with the priest's rectory, the nuns' convent, the St. Rose of Lima Church and grammar school all just a football's toss away across a field of wild grass." He added, "Though he towers above us, here God is surrounded by man—crazy men, to be exact."

Crazy men, like me, who post images of churches every Sunday on Instagram.

Bruce Springsteen's childhood home, Freehold NJ

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Reflections on a Visit to 'Springsteen: His Hometown'


Act 1: Greetings From Freehold

You should grab a $15 ticket to "Springsteen: His Hometown" at the Monmouth County Historical Association, located in Freehold, NJ.

Highly recommended. With a limited run through July 31.

As described at the link above on the MCHA website, the exhibit gives a comprehensive look at how the Freehold area has been thematically woven into Bruce Springsteen's music and art throughout his career. Over 150 unique items are on display.

Here are some photos I took during a recent visit, beginning with this Facebook post:


Below are two favorites on display. The scrapbook compiled by Bruce's mother Adele, and a ring of hotel keys from the E Street Band's early tours (although I couldn't find one from South Bend, IN, and the 1976 Lawsuit Tour, see Act 2):


Act 2: Bruce and Me


Driving to the exhibit from Bergen County, my wife and I followed Waze's directions off the Parkway and down Route 9.

I didn't realize Freehold was as far inland. I thought it was closer to Asbury Park, which I've visited often in recent years. I remarked to my wife, "I don't think I've ever been on this road before."

Then it occurred to me, this was the very "Highway 9" made famous in the lyrics to "Born to Run." (Also featured in that song is a reference to Asbury's Palace Amusements, demolished 17 years ago this weekend. Here's a great nj.com video about the Palace and the iconic Tillie.)

I've been a Bruce fan all my life... or, I should say, from the time I first played "The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle" on my record player while at the University of Notre Dame, garnering the approval of the music-aficionado roommates from Canada who lived down the corridor at Pangborn Hall.

A group of us snapped up tickets for his performance on campus in October 1976. It was the first rock concert I had ever attended, and it was so good, no other concert has since measured up. It's an irrevocable memory that inspires me to this day.

That's why I call him simply "Bruce." And why, when I finally visited Freehold, I also took photos of his old house at 39 1/2 Institute Street, his old high school, and St. Rose of Lima, his family's parish church:



Act 3: Howling at the Moon


Just this week, there's more of Bruce in the news, with the announcement that "Springsteen On Broadway" will return with a limited run through Sept. 4.

Now that I've written this homage to Bruce, and posted my masked and smiling face at the Monmouth County Historical Association, I'm going to take a moment, put aside the photos, and howl at the moon in a block of text few might ever read.

I want to consider this: is Springsteen a poet for the rich?

We've all grown up now, and it seems we can afford the starting price of $600 a ticket* for a few hours of entertainment.

Does that make it worth it? Does that make it right?

As homelessness continues to sprawl on the streets off Broadway, the harsher realities of our world become harder to ignore.

It's not how much people earn. Few people seem concerned with Bruce's wealth. Not in a world where Jeff Bezos earns more than $2 million every 15 minutes, every day. It's not just Bruce, after all. Many people will benefit from New York City's revival, in many ways.

What concerns me is, how much we will pay? And for what?

A song? A story? Free shipping?

We are desperate for something of value.

Mine is a stolen moment that evokes a $6.50 ticket to a concert on an October night in Indiana, when everyone was young, and I was surrounded by friends, and everyone sang along.

The more time passes, the more money I might pay to try to recapture the past.

Bruce, the poet of the rich, knows this about me.

What he may not know is that the better me, the me I'm still trying to become, walks the streets off Broadway with more desperation each day, longing for words of hope from a poet of the poor.

I believe there's something of more value to be found in a town full of losers when we're not inspired to pull out of there to win.

---------

*- Prices started at $600-$850, with just a few at $75. The lowest priced ticket on seatgeek.com today for the June 26 performance is $649, with prices up to $2,500. The $600 coincidentally matches what eligible individuals received in the federal government's recent Economic Impact Payment.

Friday, November 6, 2020

Cue the Violins: Lessons From a Life Well-Lived

Arthur Samuels (1926-2020)
Arthur Leon Samuels of Tenafly, NJ, would have been 94 this week.

To me, he is forever ageless.

Arthur died peacefully in the arms of Harriet, his loving wife of 55 years, just three months ago.

In my memories of him, I've discovered lessons that are more relevant in my life today than when he first tried to teach me how to play the violin.

---------

I met Art (I called him "Art" -- which is very meta -- although I now realize he was "Arthur" to his family) on a hot August day in 2007.

I had replied to an ad placed by a luthier in the Twin-Boro News. A man with an older, slightly accented voice called back immediately to ask if I wanted to stop by for an estimate. He gave me an address, but instead of providing directions, he said, "You have a GPS, right?"

Arriving at a suburban home, I knocked on the door with my grandmother's violin case in hand. I had rescued the violin from a potential garage sale, and I was looking for someone to restore it.

Art had kind eyes. He politely directed me inside a house decorated with religious artifacts. "I'll look at the violin," he said, "but you must know that an instrument is meant to be played. I will only restore it, if you promise it will be played."

He also mentioned that he happened to give beginning violin lessons. He asked to see the fingernails on my left hand. "Too long," he commented, as if I had already disappointed him, then asked that I accompany him to his basement.

I did, contrary to everything I had learned from watching horror movies. We walked through "Bubbie's Kitchen" (as a wall sign proclaimed) and down a steep, narrow staircase. It opened to a room filled with old violins, violin parts, books about restoration, and a workbench. The clutter and the smell of aged wood reminded me of my grandfather's workshop.

Art put on thick reading glasses and examined the violin. He commented on every aspect of its construction and what work it would need. He pronounced it a good violin; it deserved to be played.

---------

I agreed to the violin lessons, of course. Over the next three years, I learned much about Art (both upper and lower case). And now, out of respect, I will forevermore call my friend Arthur. 

Here's an excerpt from his obituary:
Drafted into the United States Army in his senior year of high school during World War II, Arthur served in the 3rd Army, 15th Corp. As a musician in the Special Services division, he performed with USO shows throughout Europe. [A graduate of Julliard], Arthur taught music in the NYC Public School System for over 20 years, becoming... a highly sought after private instructor in violin. In addition, Arthur was the Concertmaster of the North Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
A multifaceted person; he published several short stories, enjoyed metal detecting, riding his motorcycle, photography, building model trains and airplanes... He was also a member of the Tenafly Rifle & Pistol Club.

Arthur's first lesson: The best people will surprise you.

For all the time I spent with Arthur, and for all the stories he told me, absolutely everything in the above second paragraph was unknown to me until I read his obituary. 

I didn't know that he wrote (like me) or rode a motorcycle (unlike me). Or that he enjoyed building models (like young me) and photography (like older me). Or (and this would have been great to have known when I first followed him to his basement) that he liked guns.

Violin
My grandmother's violin
Before I read his obituary, I honestly thought I knew everything about his life. It turns out I probably know a bit about his life as a professional musician and his theories of music and love of the violin. But I didn't really know Arthur.

He was complicated. Aren't we all more complicated than other people think?

Repeat after me: "Underestimate me. That'll be fun."

Do we ever really know or appreciate the people we love? The first lesson of Arthur Samuel (and, spoiler alert, it's related to the last lesson) is that our lives would be better, and more interesting, if we tried.

---------

Arthur's second lesson: Strive for, and appreciate, excellence.

I've taken many hours to write this post because of all the things I've left out: all the details about violins, and great violinists (many of whom Arthur knew and played beside), and music in general and classical music in particular.

I kept a diary during the time I took lessons, but I'd need thousands of words to recount those stories here.

So let me -- like music, like poetry -- try to compress things.

Imagine it's before sunrise on Saturday morning. You are home, practicing a violin in a downstairs bathroom with high ceilings and excellent acoustics. Behind a closed door, you aren't disturbing the rest of your family.

You struggle, but the music doesn't come.

Violinists can play a simple "C" note a thousand different ways, depending on finger placement and pressure and bow movement. All the ways you play a "C" sound awful.

Then you pack your grandmother's restored old violin in the new case that you bought (because your teacher said that other musicians will judge you on your case... it's one of those unwritten rules, reminiscent of when dads explain the secret etiquette of golf). And you drive to a suburban home in a neighboring town and ring the doorbell that is the wake-up call for your violin teacher.

Arthur Samuels, now in his 80s, shuffles to answer the door and leads you to his studio. He smells like sleep. He absently reaches for his violin.

Loud and clear, you hear the "C" you were trying to replicate. It's followed by note after note after note in quick succession, and each tone is graceful and effortless and evocative.

It's Arthur, playing a simple warmup exercise. You get goosebumps.

Malcolm Gladwell will tell you that what Arthur just did resulted from a lifetime of experience and at least 10,000 hours of appropriate, guided practice.

I will tell you, it's magic.

Hard as I tried, I could never replicate that magic. Still, the hours I spent with Arthur taught me to appreciate the violin, and this has been a blessing to me and has extended to other areas of my life.

Midway through my second year of lessons, both Arthur and I realistically concluded that I was a horrible violinist. I am impatient; I have no sense of rhythm and, most damning of all, my middle-aged fingers and wrist movements physically could not produce even an approximation of what Arthur could literally play in his sleep.

But Arthur would tell me stories about the great violinists. Stories about his own career. He played tapes and records for me. What Arthur lacked in computer literacy, he made up for in curiosity, so I taught him how to find and download YouTube videos. I'd project violin performances to his TV and we'd listen and watch them together. He'd critique each one, except for performances by Jascha Heifetz, which were always flawless.

My old violin case

I learned to love the violin.

I remember trying to hold back tears during a recital I dragged my wife to in Teaneck, NJ. A twig-armed young violinist tuned up by playing pitch-perfect phrases from Vivaldi at a very fast speed. Her bow bounced from one non-adjacent string to another with the faintest flutter of her slender forearm, with seemingly as much effort and interest as if she were flicking a butterfly from her shoulder.

My corollary to Arthur's second lesson: Sometimes, when I am at my very best as a writer, I hear his encouraging voice in my head.

This mitzvah is a constant reminder to be confident and ever-curious as a writer. Many years after he stopped giving me "violin lessons" and to this very day, Arthur still encourages the belief that I can transcend my own mediocrity, even as the limits of my abilities and my accomplishments come more into focus with the passing of time.

Arthur tells me that when I write, I can do anything.

My words can keep pace with the young violinist in Teaneck. They can be just as fancy as her grace notes. I can provide the countermelody and add perspective to her careless perfection.

All this, and I'm just warming up.

---------

Arthur's third lesson: Everything is secondary to love.

This past Monday night during the Giants' game, a Caller ID message flashed across my TV screen. It read "SAMUELS, ARTHUR" followed by his telephone number.

I looked at my wife and waived my hands skyward in surrender. "I can't believe these spam callers," I said. "This has to be a spoof."

But curiosity got the best of me, so I answered the phone, anyway.

It was Harriet, Arthur's wife.

I had made a donation in his name to a local community center after reading his obituary. Harriet was calling to thank me.

She said she was writing thank-you cards, but she couldn't recall who I was.

I explained that we had met only once or twice for a moment at her house, but that I was one of Arthur's last violin students.

"Oh, you're that Bob," she said. "I thought it might be. Of course, I remember you!"

We talked for several minutes about Arthur. Harriet spoke with warmth and affection. She also informed me I was not quite his last student. Arthur had even given a violin lesson to his granddaughter from his hospital bed just days before he died after complications from a fall.

Harriet said, "Of course, since the spring, we quarantined together in our house. You know what? COVID brought us closer. I've never been more in love with Arthur than the last few months we had together."

This, too, gave me goosebumps.

Arthur and Harriet Samuels were married 55 years before his death three months ago. In the end, they grew more in love every day.

Nothing else matters.

Friday, September 18, 2020

3 Tweets: The Capitol Theatre in Passaic

I posted the above on Twitter, feeling nostalgic on a Friday morning. Then I noticed Van Morrison trending, because of this:


 A little more research, and my descent into melancholy was complete.

 

Monday, July 27, 2020

The Evolution of a Poem, Decades Apart

Scenic overlook of Paterson, NJ
Scenic overlook of Paterson, NJ, from Garret Mountain,
with New York City in the distance.

As I rooted through old boxes to clean out my garage during this pandemic lockdown, Neil Young's song "Vacancy" began to play on Sirius XM.

I lifted my head.

I didn't recognize the song... surely, it was new. Yet something about it seemed different than recent Neil Young songs.

His voice was immediate and clear, and the opening riff and beat seemed straight from the mid-1970s, reminding me of his first famous band, Buffalo Springfield.

"That's extraordinary," I thought, given that Neil is now 74 years old... but not entirely surprising, considering his continued passion. Witness this performance of "Mr. Soul" just nine years ago.

Then the DJ explained that "Vacancy" was a song originally recorded in 1975 but released only last month as part of the "Homegrown" album.

How does aging impact creativity?

I admire the art Paul Cezanne produced toward the end of his life. But his career was rare, almost magical.

In the world of music, Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road" is a favorite song of mine and my wife, Nancy (just another reason I love her). I think, and Nancy agrees, it's a song he only could have written when he was young. It's about beginnings, an invitation to a journey that can't be replicated later in life.

Could he write a better song now that he's 70? Perhaps, because Bruce is Bruce. Still, it would be a different song by a different Bruce. And, sigh, "different" is different than "better."

Steve Jobs sometimes compared two versions of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" performed by pianist Glenn Gould early in his career in 1955 and as a mature artist in 1981. Jobs considered the later version more nuanced and soulful.

I wonder.

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Manuscript found in garage
Found poem.
Cleaning out my garage has been a revelation: Boxes of old photos (see Saturday night's post) and old papers. I found a folder of writing assignments I had submitted many years ago in classes taught by a Notre Dame literature professor, the talented poet Sonia Gernes.

Reading my poems decades later, my writing voice, like Neil's singing voice, seemed more immediate and clear in college. Clumsy too. Much of my early writing seems creepy and obsessive when I was shooting for "tender and evocative." That probably explains a lot about my past love life too. 🙂

I also, apparently, thought I knew everything. Despite helpful and insightful comments made by Professor Gernes, I never (except once) tried to revise my poems.

I will now.

In fact, I have to: I told friends in a local photo-journaling class I would, and I feel I owe it to my social media friend, journalist Laura M. Holson, who has often written about embracing creativity, especially as we age.

Here's a poem titled "Scenic Overlook," in which I tried to describe the arc of a relationship in terms of someone who exited a highway to admire a panoramic view.

You can see my struggles in the "found poem" photo. I didn't have a panoramic view of life when I was 20. The original read like this:

Scenic Overlook

In the distance, in the
break in the clouds on the horizon,
I can see laughter.
A sunset.
I had forgotten about that.

It's an old story --
separating the forest from the trees.
It seems to me now that there are
a lot better places I can be than
standing here, surveying my past,
when the only thing within my reach
are the cold, damp car keys in my hand.

I have a plan.

Don't get me started on the cliches and sloppy language: "separating the forest from the trees... it seems to me now that there are a lot better places I can be..."

However, I still like the idea behind the setup of the poem. I'm not throwing away my shot.

Here's a re-do, written last night during a heatwave in New Jersey:

Revised in 2020


Scenic Overlook


This is a dangerous place to stand.

 

In the distance,

in the descending dusk on the highway's horizon,

I see a house fly

alight on your thigh.

 

It's 40 years ago, and you are in bed at my side,

languid and nude.

I didn't pull over for this. Despite all signs,

I find it a dizzying view.

 

The fly rubs its hands and plots its next move.

A dismissive twitch of your flesh shoos it in a flash. 

Then you disappear too, just like that,

as cars on Route 80 flee to the west.

 

I look to the east.

Behold this precipice: these wounds, dark and deep.

Alone on this road, alone in my bed,

40 years later,

 

I still watch you while you sleep.


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Finally, trimming a few words, adding a Gatsby reference, and answering the questions, "Why might she be sleeping?" and "How can her lover still watch her if she's disappeared?":

Revised in 2023


Scenic Overlook at Garret Mountain

 

This is a dangerous place to stand:

Cliffside in Paterson, in the descending dusk.

 

Past the highway below,

in the horizon of the city skyline at my feet,

I see a housefly alight on your thigh.

 

It's 40 years ago, and you are languidly napping in our room.

The road signs pointing here didn’t warn me of this.

I find it a dizzying view.

 

The fly rubs its hands, obsessed, plotting its next move,

until shooed in a flash by a dismissive twitch of your flesh.

Decades disappear, just as fast, as cars on Route 80 flee to the west.

 

As if an old gravestone, I face to the east.

Behold this vanished breast of a new world.

I hold my breath on the precipice… these wounds, dark and deep.

 

40 years later,

I still watch you while you sleep.


            -- Bob Varettoni



I caught a double rainbow there in 2021.


Wednesday, June 10, 2020

What Inspires You Lately?

Black Lives Matter rally
June 7 in New Milford, NJ

What has inspired you lately?

In these unique and challenging times, I am often inspired... and challenged to be better... by the good I see in others.

As communications director for the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, I see the great work being promoted recently on Facebook and Twitter by our grantees throughout New York State:




Restocking food pantries, supporting COVID-19 testing programs and providing additional nursing support are just some of the many initiatives supported by our Foundation. I am inspired by the self-sacrifice, dedication and community spirit I see among the grantees.

Last month, I was inspired when reading about Roman Suarez, a New Yorker who didn't leave the city during lockdown (as The New York Times noted so many residents had). He dedicated himself to picking up medication and groceries for three dozen family members in the Bronx. I posted more here, referencing "The Great Gatsby" to say he was worth the whole bunch of fleeing New Yorkers put together.

This past weekend, in my suburban hometown of New Milford, NJ, I was inspired by the peaceful, earnest resolve of those who organized and attended a Black Lives Matter rally on the grounds in front of our police station and borough hall.

Families with young children and babies in strollers, high school and college students, curious older residents and police officers stood in respectful silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The organizers spoke from a small gazebo (adopted and maintained by Girl Scouts Troop 97527), using a toy karaoke machine plugged to a portable generator in a van parked nearby.

---------

For further inspiration, I have my old standbys: literature and music and art.

Usually, I re-read "Gatsby" every Memorial Day weekend, but this year I settled for having recently watched the movie instead. I recalled on Twitter how once, driving my daughter back to college in DC, we had listened to the book together...


I can't seem to concentrate enough to read books lately, though. My mind frets and wanders.

Music is always a comfort. I've been enjoying the intimate "concerts" from the homes of some of my favorite musicians. I was also inspired by this story last weekend, again in The Times: "5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Cello."

The Times asked Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber and others to pick cello music that moves them. They posted brief commentaries about their selections. While viewing their words online, you could also listen to their choices.

Two of the selections from Bach reminded me of life after college. I lived in Manhattan, sharing a two-bedroom apartment with a concert cellist who loved Bach. On weekends, he would give kids cello lessons in our living room. Recalling those sounds from my bedroom on Saturday mornings -- when anything was possible -- is one of the best, most inspiring memories in my life.

Here's the haunting selection from Bach's Cello Suite No. 5 (choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's favorite), as included in The Times.

Finally, about art.

One local painter I admire, Said Elatab from Paterson, NJ, has a tendency to burn his work whenever he is sad or outraged. He posted this on Instagram last week, urging others to share it:


He wrote that this was his way of expressing his feelings until there is justice in America.

I am inspired by Said's passion. Mostly, though, I am inspired by the underlying message of his literal fire. "Nothing is permanent," the artist reminds us. 

We should support each other. We should value people, not things. We should appreciate what is here today.

I am inspired by these beliefs.

In these unique and challenging times, what inspires you?


Sunday, January 13, 2019

Epiphany in Paterson, NJ (2019)

This is a love letter to New Jersey.

It begins last Sunday morning, on "Little Christmas," while I was standing inside St. Bonaventure's on Ramsey Street, just off Route 80, in Paterson.

This beautiful but modest church is home to a Franciscan parish that celebrated its 140th anniversary in 2018.

I was there, mostly, to listen to the music.

The Chopin Singing Society Male Choir of Passaic, NJ, was scheduled to sing at the 11:30 Mass. Organized on March 10, 1910 (the 100th anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin's birth), it is one of the oldest male independent choral groups still active in the United States.

The choir had been scheduled to sing at the same Mass last year, but a snow storm canceled those plans.

No snow fell last Sunday. On this feast of the Epiphany, the weather was blustery and the mood at St. Bon's was festive.

A catering truck from Anthony & Sons Italian Bakery in Denville was parked across from the parish hall, a sure sign of an after-Mass "coffee &" reception. Soon the nine members of the choir arrived wearing black tuxedos and white shirts, with bright red bow ties and cummerbunds.

Fr. Daniel, who later delivered a thoughtful sermon, introduced the group, correctly, as the "Show-pan" choir. A lone dissenting voice from the congregation called out "Show-PEAN."

The pastor greeted the choir in Polish, pronouncing: "Nee-ekh benje pokh-va-lohn-ee Yezus Kristoos," meaning "Praised be Jesus Christ!" The men's response, pronounced "Na vee-ekee vee-ekoov, A-men," meant "Now and forever, Amen."

Then the dull, white noise of Route 80 traffic echoed through the church during Mass, until the music overwhelmed it.

When the choir sang "Lulajze Jezuniu," a traditional Christmas Eve lullaby to the baby Jesus, I thought of my mother, who grew up in a Polish-speaking household in nearby Garfield. Chopin sometimes used Polish religious music in his compositions and had included the melody of this song in his "Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20."

Last Sunday this was the soundtrack of everything around me:

  • the properly dressed men in the Polish choir...
  • the copies of "The Italian Voice" newspaper on a table near the entrance, next to church bulletins noting the Spanish-language Mass scheduled later that afternoon...
  • the Filipino and African American families in the adjacent pews....
  • the old woman who lathered her hands with Purell before the Sign of Peace...
  • the young altar girl, struggling to stifle her yawns, wearing a headband with be-glittered kitten ears.

I stood, taking this in, and realized, "I love living here."

New Jersey is extraordinarily ordinary. It's quirky and diverse. It's full of casual history from many sources.

No one around here is just like everyone else, and this reassures me that I'm home.

My faith isn't so much in religion. My faith is in the power of diversity, and in the beauty of ordinary things.

According to the Roman Catholic tradition, the Christmas season ends today on the feast of Jesus' baptism. "Ordinary time" starts tomorrow.

I can't wait.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

The Best Music You May Never Have Heard

Chris Freeman of Parsonsfield, King of the Alternative World
Last Thursday, at the Mercury Lounge, I saw folk-rock future. Its name is Parsonsfield.

With apologies to Jon Landau, on a night when I needed to feel young, the band made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.

This was the fourth time I’ve seen Parsonsfield perform, and each night I’ve headed for home afterward feeling renewed. It’s a wonder:

  • the same energy;
  • the same improbably clear and distinctive lead vocals by Chris Freeman;
  • the same on-stage camaraderie and joyful showmanship;
  • the same creative arrangements (interesting harmonies and tempo changes, and instruments as diverse as a pump organ, upright base, accordion, mandolin, banjo, synthesizer and handsaw).

On Thursday, the New-England-based band (I first saw them in Wellfleet on Cape Cod) performed in the East Village to mark the release of “WE” – an EP that includes the single, “Kick Out the Windows.”

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In a world of instant fame, often obtainable without any achievement, it’s amazing how many talented people – especially musicians – spend their careers flying under the radar.

Uncle Ange, early 1950s, piano and cigarette
Closer to home, I think of my grandmother’s brother, the late Angelo Mairani. I recently found black-and-white photos of him, along with frayed, yellow reviews of his piano playing from a New Jersey newspaper that no longer exists.

Uncle Ange played piano on local radio stations in the ‘40s and ‘50s – but there’s no record of this online, or recordings that I can find.

Still, I remember as a boy the ornate wall of sound Uncle Ange could create from my grandmother’s old piano. I remember the joy with which he played, and the joy he brought to others when he did. It was music as pure celebration -- a sound that pushed out the walls and made all our lives seem bigger and more hopeful.

Parsonsfield is like that.

Certainly, the band has already had success -- critically acclaimed and selling out smaller venues for several years. Their songs are easily found online. “Weeds or Wildflowers” was featured in an episode of “The Walking Dead,” and videos even include a cover of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me.”

Just watch this one-take-video performance of “Empty Rocking Chair”:



I think Parsonsfield deserves even more success, and an even brighter future.

The same applies to the band’s opening act at the Mercury Lounge (Scruffy Pearls, featuring lead singer Carly Brooke), and to Kyle Hancharick, whose earnest, soulful cover of my favorite song, Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” gave me goosebumps during a performance at an out-of-the-way winery in Rockland County, NY.

And especially to Ireland’s Ryan McMullan. It’s almost otherworldly how good he is. I’ve seen him perform in small settings, and I was in awe. I think Ryan will do OK, though. He’ll be the opening act when Ed Sheeran tours Australia later this month.

Who is your own favorite talented, under-recognized musician?

I think Uncle Ange should be the patron saint for all of them. And I think the prayer we should offer up to him on their behalf should be the words to the chorus of Parsonsfield’s new single:

Let’s kick out the windows
Let’s write on the walls
Climb over the fences
Run down the halls
In the light dying
We’ll rage and fight
Go kickin’ and screaming’
Into that good night