22 December 2024: The three latest written interviews of me are here, here and here.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The Americans Season 5 Finale: The Little Things

Well, in an excellent season 5 finale last night, The Americans resorted to a chestnut of many a classic piece of fiction:  with the main wheels of motion all taken into account on what looks like a major move or development, everything changes because of one little detail that we haven't been paying too much attention to.

Kim and her father were barely in the story this season.  There's a good scene in the finale of Philip in disguise saying goodbye to her - goodbye because he and Elizabeth have definitely decided to go back to the USSR.  But, as Philip is going over what he thinks will be his last round of surreptitious recordings of Kim's father, he discovers something which Elizabeth and even Philip agree just can't let them leave just now: Kim's father is moving up to be head of the U. S. anti-Soviet spying division.

It's a good thing, too, that our point-of-view couple aren't leaving, because Henry's acceptance by that high-class prep school and Philip's sudden reversal on that - because Philip still thought at that time that they were leaving - was left hanging like worse than a big hangnail last night, with no easy resolution.  So Philip and Elizabeth's staying at least will allow Henry to go off to school.

In a significant parallel, Stan is also talked out of leaving his division of the FBI by Renee, which pokes at another significant question that Philip and Elizabeth and we the audience haven't yet resolved: is she just Stan's good fortune, or is she another Soviet spy, called in to get what she can from Stan?  It will be fun to see how that plays out next season.

And last but not least: good to see Martha edging toward some happiness in Moscow, as her translator introduces her to the possibility of adopting a Soviet orphan girl.   "We want you to be happy," he says to her, revealing a surprising humanity in the Soviets, which we had seen previously only in Gabriel (and of course Philip).

And I'll see you all here with reviews of the final season next year.






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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles 4 of X: Paradox George

I don't want to get too far into Rob Sheffield's addictive book without posting another review, so I thought I'd check in here after finishing a chapter on George, which comes after discussions of Ringo (which I talk about in my last review) and Paul and John, which are of course a part of every chapter.

Sheffield in effect tells us that George is the Beatle he most identifies with, mostly or most likely because George was a Beatles' fan, too (before and during George's tenure as a Beatle).  This of course raises the question of who is your favorite Beatle - or, what Beatle or Beatles produced work that you most admire.  And this gets at the very heart of everyone's experience with the Beatles. For me, I always found George's contribution almost impossible to gauge in comparison to John and Paul's.   Although some of George's songs - both as a Beatle (Taxman, While My Guitar Gently Weeps) and after (All Things Must Pass) are among my all-time favorite songs/recordings, period, I still see him as a little below Paul and John because their contributions were either somehow even a little better, or definitely more numerous (She Said, Penny Lane, Across the Universe, every Lennon-McCartney song on Rubber Soul for starters).

So George is in the paradoxical position of being at the top of the human game of music, yet still being secondary, at least in my mind, to John and Paul.  Further, there's no doubt in my mind - and I'm sure everyone else's - that The Traveling Wilburys were light-years better than Wings, even though Wings was great, and this is not a shot against Linda or Denny Laine.  The Wilburys were astonishing in significant part because of George's songwriting, and the sound he contributed to this superstar group, which often sounds just like him.

Sheffield also notes that George's fame as the "Underrated Beatle ... raises the question of how famous it's possible to get for being overlooked and still qualify," which is a great example of another kind of paradox, and one that deepens our difficulty in understanding and evaluating George and his contribution.  Ringo became and is still very famous, too, but there's nothing paradoxical about that, since no one would consider him "underrated".

Sheffield quotes John in 1980, about how George before the Beatles used "to follow me" after school, "hovering around like those kids at the gate of the Dakota now".  Quotes like that can bring you to tears, not only because of what would soon happen to John, but because George died far too early, too.

The Beatles Channel and books like Sheffield's can provide some measure comfort.  But there's not a day that goes by when I don't wish that all four of The Beatles were still around.

And I'll be back soon with more.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ...  5 of X: The Power of Yeah ...  6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023



 
lots of Beatles in this time travel

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Monday, May 29, 2017

Twin Peaks: The Return 1.3.-4: Coffee and Cole

The second installment of Twin Peaks: The Return - aka episodes 3 and 4 - continued tonight in the unmitigated gonzo, steampunk, B-movie style to which we became accustomed last week.

Let me also say that one of the high points - perhaps the highest points - of David Lynch's work have been the singers on stage at one point or another in the narrative.  The Dean Stockwell character lip synching Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet, with Dennis Hopper's self-tortured character trying to sing along but taking the needle off the record, and Kyle MacLachlan's character in shock in the small, standing audience in the room, was so powerful that I've wanted to write a book about that scene as a transcendent moment in popular culture for years.  As it is, it's easily one of the best scenes in any movie.

Performances of original songs by unknown (to me) musicians and singers have ended every episode of Twin Peaks: The Return so far, and they've all been excellent.  But that Everly Brothers-like performance at the end of 1.3 was superb and to my ears and eyes already a classic.

Back to Kyle MacLachlan, the central story in episodes 1.3-4 was Agent Cooper's return to this planet.  It's unsurprisingly no easy return.  Part of the difficulty makes sense.  Cooper can't talk or think normally because he's been in that insane, other-dimensional room for 25 years.  Part of it, like all Lynch works, doesn't - or doesn't quite make sense.  Apparently, Cooper was "tricked," and his doppelgänger is still out and about on Earth, though soon locked up.  But the real Cooper seems to be making at least a little bit of progress, responding well to a cup of coffee in the morning, put on his breakfast table by his doppelgänger's wife (played by Naomi Watts, who starred in Mulholland Drive, generally recognized as David Lynch's second-best work - high praise - and I agree).

And speaking of Lynch, it was good to see him return as FBI Deputy Director Cole these two episodes (he was actually an FBI Regional Bureau Chief in the original), which got me thinking: how about Cole as Comey's replacement, now that Lieberman has bowed out?

Hey, if that actually happened, it would be a lot less strange than some of the developments in Twin Peaks: The Return, which I'll be back to offer a few more paragraphs about next week.

See also Twin Peaks: The Return 1.1-2: Superluminal Sans Cherry Pie

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Sunday, May 28, 2017

Sense8 Season 2: Sense8tional



[Note added June 13, 2017: Sense8 was cancelled, according to Netflix, because "A big, expensive show for a tiny audience is hard even in our model to make that work very long" (quoted in Polygon).  The following, written in May before the series was cancelled,  is as good a reason as any why Netflix made a bad decision.]

I realized a while ago that binge-watching, like all human activities, isn't the perfect strategy for all television watching.  It's almost never preferable to wait a week before the next episode of a compelling series is available, but sometimes watching a complete season in one or two seasons is not the best way to go, either.  Sometimes you want to savor each episode a little longer, let it slosh around in your mind a little, until it settles into some place or maybe keeps quietly percolating.
I'd intended to watch all of Sense8 season 2 in one swoop - that is, all the episodes after the Christmas special which aired late last year - but decided, after the first two new episodes (2.2-3), that I wanted it to last a little longer.
We saw and learned lots of things in these two episodes.  Among the most profound is that when one of the cluster is nearly hung -- that is, nearly choked to death at the end of the rope - the other members of the cluster start to lose consciousness, too.  This raises a crucial question: if Sun had indeed died in that noose -- if her cellmate hadn't rescued her (in a great scene) -- would the rest of the cluster had died, too?  I can't recall exactly what happens when one of the cluster falls asleep, but my impression is the others, though aware that one member is sleeping, stay awake.  If that's the case, why would the near-killing on Sun so viscerally affect the rest of the cluster?
The question is whether the effect is just mental, or physical as well.  Of course, mental and physical are always intertwined -- what we think and feel in our heads inevitably affects our bodies -- but in the case of the sense8s, is this so much in play that the violent death of one will kill the others?  I'd think not, but if this possibility remains open, our sense8s are even more vulnerable than we realized.
But they're making good progress in these two episodes -- Sun is free, Whispers is set back, and the sense8s continue to bring their talents to bear when one or two of them needs help, even in a difficult conversation with reporters.   And we're beginning to learn more about homo sensorium, and the deeper evolutionary significance of the sense8s.
***
One of the most significant secondary themes of Sense8 is the personal relationships our sense8s have to sapiens, as we humans are now increasingly known and referred to in the series. These range from significant other partnerships, as in Lito and Hernando, Nomi and Amanita, and Kala and her devoted but lackluster husband, to lifelong friends such as Wolfgang and Felix, to mortal enemies as in Sun and her monster-in-sheep's-clothing brother. 

 These couplings in effect represent the hope and perils for sense8/sapiens on the planet-wide, species level. So far, we've seen only the perils for sense8s, and the general unawareness that our species has about the very existence of sense8s. But, as of the end of episode 2.5, that appears set to dramatically change. 

 In some ways even more crucial to the story are the relationships members of our cluster have to other sense8s. The decision to go public as a way of vanquishing their mortal enemies stems from Will's realization that there must be, if not a myriad of sense8s, a number large enough to attract such powerful enemies. 

 My favorite new sense8 in season 2 is Lila, and not only because she appears totally nude in an attempt to seduce Wolfgang. She earlier tempts Wolfgang when he's telepathically communicating with Kala, providing a fine example of a simmering, tempestuous triangle, totally sense8-style. Love flows in all kinds of ways in this story.

 ***
Every action movie, every police drama, every thriller needs a shootout. Since Sense8 is all three and much more, it gets a one-of-a-kind, multi-valent shoutout in 2.6, and it's a thing of violent beauty to behold.
The cinematography, always a splendid eyeful in Sense8, is especially good in that bar, where it all begins with Wolfgang and Lila across the table. Her new seduction attempt erupts into a gunfight, between Wolfgang and Lila in physical space, and their clusters whirling like dervishes and firing away in mental space at every opponent they can see.   The shots of the two clusters, menacingly walking behind their live anchors, drawing closer together, almost into a single line, then spreading apart and shooting, makes for a veritable gunfight at the OK coral, Sense8-style.
Just to be clear -- though that's never really completely possible, given the speed of thought and the inherent multiplicity of the story -- there are players in the bar who are on Lila's team (though whether sense8 or sapien not completely clear).  So Wolfgang is physically outnumbered, and he and his/our cluster have to fight not only Lila but other physical people in the room bent on killing him.
The upshot: both Wolfgang and Lila survive, and we learn that locating other clusters can just as easily be death as salvation for our sense8s. Not only are some sapiens out to kill sense8s, but some sense8s are out to kill our sense8s, too.
At some point, not in the bar, another sense8 not in our cluster remarks that sapiens invented Google in the 1990s, but sense8s were instantly communicating worldwide (what Marshall McLuhan and I would call a global village) back in prehistoric times.  Earlier this season, someone explained that just as homo sapiens exterminated Neanderthals, so our kind sought to eradicate homo sensoriums aka sense8s.
Which got me thinking -- what if in our reality, some Neanderthals had survived?  Hmm ... there's an idea for a novel.
***
Sense8 season 2 came to a cliff-hanging, mid-scene conclusion, with a smart turning-of-the-tables on the sense8 strategy in their battles against sapiens and sense8s.
That strategy, deployed throughout the series, and one of the key and especially enjoyable mechanisms of the story, entails one sense8, under physical attack or in some kind of social crisis, deploying the talents and powers of the other seven sense8s to succeed or at least get an upper hand.  In the final few episodes, we see this done to excellent effect in one of the best scenes of the series -- a car chase -- as Sun tries to put away her evil brother.  And we see what happens when one of the sense8s -- Will -- is not able to pour his talents into the action, as Capheus almost loses his life in a campaign-rally riot in Kenya.
So it was particularly smooth to find that Will's declaration of war on BPO and Whispers is a physical declaration, with Will and the other six sense8s and their allies literally on the way to mounting an in-person attack in their efforts to free Wolfgang.   It begins with Will surprising and getting the better of Whispers by being actually physically in the room with him, and ends with ... well, we'll need to wait for Season 3.
One question is why doesn't Will just kill Whispers and be done with it, but part of the answer to that is that people - that is, sense8s - don't seem to completely die in Sense8.   In fact, not only do they not die, but they seem to change sides -- reverse loyalties -- in a way that harkens back to one of the mainsprings of the Dune saga.
I've seen it said that Sense8 is enjoyable if you don't pay too much attention, but I'd say it's just the opposite: the complex, multi-dimensional and multi-layered narrative works best when you give its elements careful consideration. Indeed, one of the joys of the second season, which I thought was better than the first (high praise, since I liked that one, too), is that it is beginning to uncover some of what Noam Chomsky might call the deep structure of sense8 grammar.
And I'll be back here some time in the future with reviews of season 3.
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Saturday, May 27, 2017

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 3 of X: Dear Beatles

In the next chapter of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles - I just realized that the chapters are not numbered, which means that each chapter is a piece of a hologram, a snapshot of the whole, like a verse in many a song - we get a deconstruction of "Dear Prudence," which Sheffield holds to be one of The Beatles' best, and I agree (though they have so many bests the term hasn't the usual meaning for me).

The gist is that the song, contrary to what we think we know about it, isn't about the real Prudence Farrow (Mia's sister, in India with the Beatles) at all.  It's really about the Beatles themselves (note: I'm on Cape Cod, and lazier than usual, so I'm not going with the capital T).   When the Beatles sing can you come out to play, they're really beseeching themselves, not Mia's sister.  And, in a particularly effective acoustic point by Sheffield, when the Beatles sing look around, they're looking for Ringo, who had just quit the group (I heard that questing harmony in my head when I read Sheffield's words).

Now, every song that anyone has ever written is really more about the writer than the subject of the song, and Sheffield has to know that.  So what he's saying here is not a truism, but a penetrating piece of Beatles biography: the Beatles were on the verge of breaking up when Lennon wrote and John, Paul, and George recorded the song (with Paul not Ringo on drums, as Sheffield explains). And the three very much didn't want to lose Ringo, because they saw that on some level as losing themselves. The result: well, Ringo came back (because of a letter from the Beatles not the song), but his leaving was prelude to the real break-ups ahead.

Which raises a question that Sheffield has not (yet) addressed, but which always occurred to me. Why did the Beatles so value Ringo?  In their letter, they tell him he's the greatest rock 'n' roll drummer, but that's probably not true.   But John, Paul, and George saw him as essential to their band and I've always wondered why.

Not that I would have rather seen any other drummer with the Beatles.   The band including Ringo was every bit as remarkable and unique and towering in importance as Sheffield says.  But - Ringo didn't write many or any of their songs, didn't sing much if any harmony, sang leads that were enjoyable enough but not extraordinary (though I've always considered his "Back Off Boogaloo" - which he not only sang but wrote - one of the best post-Beatle songs).  So what magic, then, did Ringo somehow contribute?   If the Beatles, as Sheffield correctly says, got the world to fall in love with them, how did Ringo get John, Paul, and George to fall in love with him?

The song - I'm still on "Back Off Boogaloo" - was supposed to be a shot at Paul, which Ringo denied, but I've always agreed with I. A. Richards' thesis that the author is the last person you should ask about the meaning of a work.   Which is another reason that Sheffield's analyses of the real meaning of "Dear Prudence" and other Beatles songs is so appealing.

And I'm off for Cape dinner, and will be back with more soon.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 4 of X: Paradox George ...  5 of X: The Power of Yeah  ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023







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Friday, May 26, 2017

The Americans 5.12: Back in the USSR

Well, I couldn't resist, and I'm sure I'm the zillionth person to have this song in my head as I watched The Americans - not to mention that I've been hearing it a lot on the new Beatles Channel on Sirius/XM Radio - but this season in general, and episode 5.12 especially, has been veering towards the Soviet Union.

The scene with Oleg and his father was wonderful.   The father wants to help his son, destroy his enemies, but Oleg knows the forces that he's dealing with.   In many ways, Oleg in Moscow is a parallel to Philip in Washington - both men are struggling to do the right thing, against the same ruthless forces.   And Stan, with a different boss in Washington, has a lot in common with these anti-heroes becoming heroes, too.

Also in Moscow, Philip's son at the dinner table with Philip's brother was good to see, too.   You get a real sense, from yet another angle, of what life was like in the Soviet Union - and how different it was from life in America.

That difference is becoming increasingly crucial, as all of this is playing out with whether Philip and Elizabeth will go back to the USSR.   Unlike McCartney's song, which was cool and funny, there's nothing even remotely like that in what Philip and Elizabeth are trying to decide.

It's clear, after all these years in America, convincingly passing as Americans, that they'll never be at home anywhere - and that would be the case even if their children were not a crucial, decisive part of the picture.

Looking forward to season finale next week.





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Thursday, May 25, 2017

Peter Asher's From Me to You Show on The Beatles Channel: A Hit

I already knew Peter Asher had talent as a singer (Peter and Gordon) and record producer (Linda Ronstadt and many others), but I found out a few hours ago that he has lots of talent as a disc jockey!

I was driving up to Cape Cod, loving the new Beatles Channel on Sirius/XM Radio (Channel 18), when up pops Peter Asher with an hour show called From Me To You.   I've always loved a good dj - I had a fine time years ago when I put together sets of songs for Murray the K and Wolfman Jack in their brief stints on WNBC-AM Radio in the 1970s - but they've been few and far between in recent years.   Dennis Elas and the late Pete Fornatale put on excellent shows on WFUV-FM - I know/knew them both, because I'm a professor at Fordham - and Bob Shannon does a good job on WCBS FM in New York.

Well, Peter Asher is right up there with the best of them.  His "threads" (his name for what Murray the K called segues) were a grab bag of fun.   He played Manfred Mann - their "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" (written by Ellie Greenwich - who produced my group The Other Voices with Mike Rashkow in the late 1960s) - because Peter wanted to play a record he produced with Manfred Mann's lead singer, Paul Jones, which was the first record that Asher ever produced.   On this record was Paul McCartney on drums, which lead to Asher playing "Back in the USSR", which also segued from Linda Ronstadt's "Back in the USA" (a Chuck Berry song) which Asher produced and also played on his show.

The interconnections of records and artists are a vibrant labyrinth begging for explication and demonstration on radio.   Every record and artist has a life story that draws upon and pollinates others.  Manfred Mann, for example, is a band that recorded not only an Ellie Greenwich song, but Dylan and Springsteen songs as well.   Peter Asher has lived through and helped construct some fascinating parts of this - his show is another reason to listen to the Beatles Channel, which may be the best thing on radio since the Swinging Soiree.


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Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces

Among Rob Sheffield's many talents as a Beatles journalist - not historian, because, as Sheffield convincingly demonstrates, the Beatles are far more important today then when they were writing and recording as a band, which back then was extraordinarily important indeed - but among the delightful ways Sheffield makes his case is by fashioning his arguments from the Beatles' lyrics, so deftly that you don't even want a quote.  Talking about John Lennon's unquenchable need to make a girl care, to make her "feel something," Sheffield concludes "Because if he doesn't reach her, the song is worthless and so is he.  It's a love that lasts forever, it's a love that has no past".

And what that does, of course, is bring in the music and Lennon's voice in "Don't Let Me Down" as irresistible and utterly convincing accompaniment to Sheffield's point.

And that's just one example of many.  And I've only just finished the first chapter (or perhaps the second, if you count a Prelude as a proper chapter).

But what Sheffield's literally lyrical mode of discourse also does is support the very thesis he's making in this remarkable book as a whole: that the Beatles, like the love Lennon is singing about, will indeed last forever.   Evidence of this ticket to eternity is that the words of the Beatles are now so fully in our psyches that they don't require quotes.

But they do have a past.   As Sheffield explains, the Beatles invented all kinds of things - the totally self-contained band,  or one that not only plays its own instruments and sings, but writes its own songs, and the band that constantly re-invented itself, using its success as a platform to create new kinds of music which all but replaced rather than built upon their earlier successes.

We (I was born in 1947) knew this at the time - we were well aware of what rock music was like before the Beatles, when groups stayed with the genre that propelled them to fame, and most singers did not write their own songs.  (Roy Orbison did, but his music, though sublime, barely evolved. Buddy Holly sometimes did, but tragically didn't live long enough to evolve.)

The other theme in this first chapter is the preeminence of girls in the Beatles' story - not just as the essence of whom the Beatles most wanted to impress (or, Paul and John, anyway), but in the sheer variety of girls/women who appear in Beatles' songs.  "Does the 'Martha My Dear' girl fall in love with the boy?  Or does she leave him like the 'For No One' girl does?  Does the 'Ticket to Ride' boy ever get her back?" (Or maybe they're all the same girl, a heroine with a thousand faces - it amounts to the same.)  (To matters even more interesting, Paul at some point famously said Martha was a canine, but when people first heard the song, no one knew that.)

Well, you get the picture - and not only that.  Sheffield also sees part of the very persona of The Beatles as feminine - after all, look at their long hair.

Hey, I gotta end this now.  We'll be off to the Cape tomorrow.  But I'll be driving with The Beatles channel on.   And the next part of this review will be written just a few feet from the shoreline. Which should work out well, seeing as I heard the Beachboy-Chuck Berry-inspired "Back in the USSR" for the first time in years today.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ...  5 of X: The Power of Yeah   ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023


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Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair

I've always loved The Beatles.  First as a fan, always as a fan.  How much as a fan? Well, I was delighted to find a subscription to Sirius/XM  Radio in my new car, early this month, and I promptly tuned it to MSNBC. Until The Beatles channel checked in on May 18, and that's what I listen to when I'm driving now.  Even when I'm not driving - I just came in from my driveway, because I wanted to hear the end of "Baby You Can Drive My Car".  I'd probably still be there, if the urge to write this review had not been so strong.

Yeah, writing soon blended into my love of The Beatles.  First as a singer and songwriter, in the early 1960s through the early 1970s (produced at one point by Ellie Greenwich), and then as a writer of nonfiction and about two decades later of science fiction.  My first published article - "A Vote for McCartney" in The Village Voice in 1971 - took on the Voice's dyspeptic, tone-deaf critic Robert Christgau. who had savaged Paul's debut solo album, McCartney.  (Christgau had a habit of missing the forest - at some point, he also lashed out at Phil Ochs, a lyricist second only to Dylan, for his guitar playing).   My Loose Ends Saga - arguably my best-known science fiction (arguable in the sense that many people deny it) - has a time traveler faced with the choice of either saving John Lennon or stopping September 11.

So, I was primed to read Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles: The Love Story of One Band and the Whole World since 1963, but my son Simon, who edited at Rolling Stone and knows Sheffield, pushed me over the top this weekend when I was raving about The Beatles station.   My wife had already purchased the hardcover and the audiobook, and I knew I would love it - a perfect accompaniment to my own continuing love story with The Beatles.

Sheffield is a masterful writer on all kinds of levels.  He has a knack for spot-on record reviews in less than a sentence - noting "the brash aggression of 'And Your Bird Can Sing'" and "the hair-curling harmonies of 'I Don't Wanna Spoil the Party'".  He has an assumption that The Beatles were and are in a class by themselves, which, though it may seem obvious to true-believers, Sheffield turns into a galvanizing and even surprising organizing principle.  He has a photographic, watercolor eye, describing how Ringo's wife Maureen was  "freezing her ass off" on the roof in the Get Back concert in a way that makes you want to grab your coat and get your hat on a hot Spring day.

There's so much in this book, in fact, that I decided after reading just the first 11 pages, that it warranted more than a single review.  After all, The Beatles were and are about songs, which is a short form, but even if not, who says a book has to be reviewed all at once, in one big review?   So consider what you've been reading here as an introductory review, of just the Prelude and part of the next chapter of the book, and I'll be back with more, soon.   I'll likely have the whole book reviewed in the next weeks, maybe the next months.  It probably won't take years, but you never know.  (See my series of reviews of The Perversity of Things as an example of another series of reviews in progress.)

And that's it for now.  Get the book. (I'm sure I'll disagree with some of Sheffield's views but I disagree with some of everyone's except mine, and even I change my mind.)  I'm going to watch a little of MSNBC, and then get back in the car.

See also Dreaming the Beatles 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ... 6 of X: The Case for Ringo ... 7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride ... 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney, Again ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance .. 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023



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