Get Inside the Kingdom: Silver Jews in Pittsburgh

When I saw Mr. & Mrs. Berman last, it was at the Starlight Ballroom in Philly, one of the earliest shows they played. There was a little more hype, it being their first real tour (I recall an off-stage announcer introducing them in an old timey showbiz manner, and Bob Nastanovich’s guest/gimmick appearance on drums), and a lot more nerves. Berman stayed planted by his music stand, reading the lyrics, and apologized for it a few times, tapping the side of his skull as explanation. The crowd was so adoring, though, that I can only imagine this latest tour reflects a growing ease with live performance and not just continued financial hardship.

Berman definitely seemed more relaxed this time around. The venue was a lot smaller-- the William Pitt Student Union, which was essentially like a small hotel conference room where some boring seminar/convention would be held-- so maybe that helped. He dispensed with the music stand, wandering the stage and pantomiming along with the lyrics, telling corny jokes here and there. He even threw fun-size candies into the crowd! (During "Candy Jail," of course.) Cassie looked more confident on bass, too, though she did have the same indulgent, ever-so-slightly embarrassed “Aw, look at my crazy husband” expression that I remember. What other kind of face can you make, though, when your man is fixing you with a super intense stare of devotion and/or singing “I love you to the max” literally nose-to-nose with you?

I tried to get a good photo of his crazy love-stare, but fate/lighting was not cooperative. This is as close as I got:



The rest of the band didn’t really talk, and they had on matching suits, so apparently they have no qualms with being relegated to the background. The couple, singing front and center, was certainly the main focus. Actually, Berman focused more on Cassie than the audience about half the time.

That’s the thing about the Silver Jews. There’s so little separation between David Berman and any sort of artistic persona. The Silver Jews is less a band than a way of documenting his life. Roommates with Stephen Malkmus? He collaborates on your album (and you get written off as a Pavement side project for ages, although I think that’s not an issue anymore, especially among people my own age and younger who never listened to Pavement while they were actually together). Fall in love and get married? Your wife becomes a central member of the group. I’m hoping this means that as long as there’s David Berman, there will be Silver Jews albums. Also I heard a book of his cartoons is coming out in the near future, though I cannot for the life of me find corroboration of this on the internet right now.

Oh yeah…what songs did they play? I’m not the seasoned concert reviewer that Alex is, so it didn’t even occur to me to write the set list down. But as I recall, it was quite healthy in size and variety: they opened with “Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You,” then “What Was Not But Could Be If,” then…in some order or another, Smith and Jones Forever, Trains Across the Sea, Candy Jail, Horseleg Swastikas, My Pillow is the Threshold, Random Rules, Slow Education, Strange Victory Strange Defeat, Wild Kindness (I think maybe?), Aloysius Bluegrass Drummer, K-Hole, We Could Be Looking for the Same Thing, and San Francisco B.C. The encore (they did an encore this time!) was Tenneesee, Suffering Jukebox, and Punks in the Beerlight. A veritable greatest hits indeed. I’m not the biggest fan of Aloysius Bluegrass Drummer or San Francisco BC -- they’re a little too witty/wordy for me, when what I really love about Berman’s lyrics is how he can condense so much into a single line, and how the humor is more usually more subdued and weird than in either of those songs. But they worked in the set, nice bouncy numbers to bring up the energy, considering the bulk of the Jews’ catalogue is a little, uh, melancholy.

Also of note: new logo. On the drum kit and the t-shirts.

This must relate to Berman’s recently intensified/renewed interest in Israel. The video for “Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You” is just shots of him and Cassie strolling around Jerusalem. There’s a documentary coming out on this topic in a couple weeks, so I’ll wait til I see that to write about this further cause I don’t really know what the deal is.

D.C. Berman quotes for the road -- slightly paraphrased as they are from memory:

“I googled that phrase, ‘my pillow is the threshold,’ when I was writing the song, because I thought someone must have already used that metaphor. But no hits. It’s what I call google-pure.”

“It’s not sexual harassment, she’s my wife!” Rim shot. This is after pawing Cassie during a song.

[After “Smith & Jones”] “This next song, Horseleg Swastikas, we were in Germany and I wasn’t sure if we should play it. Just because, you know, it has the word swastikas. But then someone asked me if Smith and Jones was about white supremacy. So I thought we’d play those two together tonight.”

“I saw this old Italian man sitting on his stoop today. And he has this tiny grill, and he’s turning a chicken on a little rotisserie. Then this hippie walks by and says, ‘Hey man, your monkey’s on fire and the music’s stopped.’” Say what?

Also, I own the same dress as Cassie was wearing but in a different color! OMG we’re so alike!!!

Alex, I expect you to write up the Philly show. I am usurping your blog in a major way.

Resemblance?

Maybe I am trying too hard to connect two of my greatest pop culture loves, but I swear to God I see it...

The Most Important Literary Journal of Our Time

is craigslist. I've had theories about this for a while, but today they were pretty much proven.

Of course craigslist is great for all the unintentional humor of some poor soul, known to history only as fateiswithyou@aol.com, trying to sell his pet hairless rats. The Best Of section, though, is full of posts that are pure creative energy, written for no actual useful purpose. (Ok, lots of them lame jokes and rip-offs of previous entries...as with thrift shopping, one must love the hunt).

This is one of my recent favorites:

who put the dead bird in my mailbox? - w4m
Reply to:
Date: 2008-04-20, 12:56PM

a) how did you get into my mailbox in the first place, it is locked
b) did you kill the bird
c) it died horribly, that much was clear
d) you're psycho
e) do I know you
f) if I do know you I don't want to know you
g) if I don't know you, what did I do to inspire you to put a dead bird in my mailbox
h) I don't know how to disinfect a mailbox from a dead bird, I'm worried about diseases and have used five different kinds of cleaner but still feel like the bird's still in there still and like my bills and my catalogues and my coupons have dead bird on them
i) it was a hummingbird, I looked it up - they don't even live in New York - this is so f*ing psycho, I can't believe this
j) are you the mailman?
k) I'm always nice to the mailman
l) the super didn't care when I told him what happened
m) the neighbors didn't care either
n) do you have some kind of problem with birds
o) don't put anything else in my mailbox
p) unless it's an apology
q) no, I take that back, I don't even want an apology
r) what am I supposed to do with this bird - it's in bubblewrap in a bag in a shoebox in the freezer right now - am I supposed to bury it - where? how? in a construction site where they've jackhammered through the concrete - where is a person supposed to bury things in this city?
s) I could drop it in the Gowanus canal, but that seems undignified
t) I could drop it in the ocean, but the ocean is so big and it is such a small bird
u) I could drop it in the toilet but it would probably get stuck
v) I hear this whirring around my ears every time I go to the mailbox and I'm pretty sure it's ghost bird, and I'm all "it wasn't me that killed you, bird!" but still the whirring doesn't go away until I get to the stairwell
w) am I supposed to eat it - maybe you were trying to feed me - don't you know I'm a vegetarian
x) if this was Ricky, I'm gonna beat your ass, mama told you stop bothering the zoo
y) if this was Gina, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, how many times I gotta say I'm sorry
z) I could drop it off the roof, maybe it will reincarnate while falling and I can start reading my mail again

It kind of breaks down at the end, but I guess the author really wanted to go with the alphabet thing. Based on the fact that the location is listed as Crown Heights in Brooklyn, let's assume that this was written by a young artsy type who accessorizes well and perhaps has ambitions. Now, back in aught-one or -two, such a person would have been submitting their cryptic short pieces to McSweeney's Internet Tendency (oh heyyy... did i just do that oh yes i did). It's an interesting trade-off between prestige, such as it is, and sheer number of people who might read the anonymous thing you wrote -- the CL fact sheet claims it's the 8th most-read English language website, with 40 million users per month. Not exactly the community forum for furries and nerds that it once was.

Today I saw something while browsing the Missed Connections that I hadn't seen before -- a bald-faced attempt to get in the Best Of, written by some Carnegie Mellon "grad student" that I highly suspect is actually a freshman or sophomore. (Then it would confirm my thesis that pretentious 18 year olds are the most direct cultural barometers.)

It isn't exactly comedic gold, but made me snort in the library today and half-consider sending the guy an email, out of air mattress solidarity if nothing else (though I have in fact obtained a real bed, my back has yet to fully recover). Maybe his post will make it to the Best Of, and then I will email him and ask how it feels, and why he stayed up til 2 in the morning writing such a thing, and why does anyone write anything, and why is reading craigslist more interesting than 90% of short stories I've tried to read lately...

Rancho Relaxo

It seems I am not the only one fascinated by the Divorce Ranch. On the one hand, we have an absolutely God-awful looking remake of The Women, the 1939 film that first brought the D.R. to my attention. Eva Mendes is purty an all, but she is no Joan Crawford. And then on the other hand we have this mysterious Sevigny/Deschanel vehicle, which at least will entail some interesting red carpet ensembles at the premiere, I’m sure.

Apparently Nevada had divorce laws just as lax as the marriage ones for which it is famous (google legwork courtesy of ben f). I had never considered the relative restrictiveness of such state laws, but in most places it must have been a lot harder for a woman to be granted a divorce back then. However if one were to establish Nevada residency, which took a mere 6 weeks, the state would sever one’s marital ties with no questions asked. Which is why the beleaguered wife played by Norma Shearer ends up on a Divorce Ranch in Reno during the second act of The Women, along with assorted other broads with similar intentions. Cue catfight with Rosalind Russell!

There must have been a real moral panic surrounding the Divorce Ranch, because the last three old movies I’ve seen have a common theme of Re-Marry Your Ex-Husband, No Matter What He Did To You.

All three films present divorce as the woman’s (irrational, impulsive) choice. In The Women, the unseen husband had an affair with Joan Crawford. In The Philadelphia Story (1940), Cary Grant was an alcoholic. In His Girl Friday (1940), Cary Grant…was a smartass? I forget Rosalind Russel’s reasoning for that particular trip to Reno -- oh right, too devoted to work. All three husbands accept their wives’ decisions to kick ‘em to the curb unhappily and then are ready to renew vows when the silly ladies come to their senses.

So, we’ve got 2 out of 3 that show or mention the fateful trip to the Ranch (in The Philadelphia Story all we see is Hepburn throwing Grant out of the house and breaking his golf club, and then him shoving her to the floor. Classy!). 2 out of 3 with Cary Grant smarming around as the ideal mate. 2 for 3 also feature this girl as the sassy-but-moral voice of reason (a little schmaltzier as the daughter in The Women, a little snappier as Katherine Hepburn’s kid sister in The Philadelphia Story).

Was she the only working child star that year or something? The Dakota Fanning of 1939?

The Women is the most interesting as a movie, I think. First there’s the whole all female cast thing, and also the insane, totally gratuitous Technicolor fashion show plonked down halfway through. Rosalind Russell exhibits a genius for physical comedy (whereas in HGF the laughs are more in the dialogue and the amazing speed with which she delivers it). And at the end of the day, I’ll usually take a melodrama over a romantic comedy, "screwball" though it be. But of the three, it has the most explicit and depressing message: “A woman in love can never have any pride!” cries Shearer as she walks towards the camera in a soft-focus haze, arms outstretched to receive her man. Fade to credits. I’m not really opposed to loveless marriages maintained for financial/social reasons -- whatever works, eh -- but let's call a spade a spade instead of "love and devotion."

His Girl Friday is the easiest to read as at least somewhat feminist -- Rosalind Russell’s character is actually rewarded rather than punished for her desire to have a career. She and Grant aren’t just a couple but a crack team of reporters, so their reunion actually makes sense. There’s also the whole exonerating the wrongfully accused guy on death row thing, which maybe makes the movie more engaging if you’re bored by the romantic plot. I have to admit though, this one’s supposedly filled with witty/sexy banter but they talk so damn fast I missed half of it.

I was really expecting to like The Philadelphia Story, but found it the most infuriating/befuddling of all. Part of it might be that I rented it in a fit of insta-nostalgia, thinking it would actually have something to do with the city of Philadelphia. But all the actions takes place in a mansion somewhere on the Main Line (Merion maybe?). Katherine Hepburn is awesome, true, because she’s basically awesome by definition, but Grant is not half as appealing as in HGF. He doesn’t really do much except hire Jimmy Stewart and his girlfriend (a tabloid reporter and photographer, respectively) to ruin Hepburn’s wedding, and sit back and laugh at her the whole time. Ok, so obviously she’s not going to marry her fiancé. But then she gets weirdly involved with Jimmy Stewart -- turns out he’s a novelist, she loves his book, they get drunk and kiss and “go swimming” the night before her wedding. I totally thought she would get with him, and his girlfriend and Cary Grant would run off together. But after Hepburn’s fiancé dumps her for being a lush-- and oh no there is a whole crowd of people there and "Here Comes the Bride" is playing, what to do? -- Stewart proposes and she is like, “Oh hell no, you are from the working class,” and trots down the aisle with Grant.

Stewart’s girlfriend, Ruth Hussey (who also has a bit part in...The Women!), has been standing aside, smoking cigarettes and looking kinda pissed this whole time. Presumably she takes him back.



Sucks to be you, lady.


Obviously the topic of Divorce Ranches On Film requires more research. I haven't even begun to explore Norma Shearer's pre-Code career of playing a more adventurous sort of divorced woman. (Hysterical trivia fact from Wikipedia: Joan Crawford used to bitchily call her "Miss Lotta Miles," referring to her stint as the spokesmodel for Springfield Tires.) If nothing else, hopefully putting all these older movies in my Netflix queue will make them stop listing "Erotic Foreign Films" as my preferred genre. I rent one Catherine Breillat movie and look what happens, jeez.

A Very Long Book

Last night around 1 a.m., I joined the small and pedantic club of People Who Finished In Search of Lost Time. Alex suggested I share my thoughts. Would I recommend this feat of endurance to others?

Well, only if you enjoy feats of endurance. I myself have been known to watch an entire Ken Burns documentary in a sitting and attend bikram yoga classes in the hideous Philadelphia summer (not to mention personal quests of the "I will drink this whole bottle of wine and NO ONE CAN STOP ME" variety). For what it's worth, yoga classes are a much, much bigger waste of time and money than Proust. Seriously, let this stand as my public vow not to spend money on yoga ever again. It's just stretching. Christ.

So assuming you like to set long-term goals: Yeah. Do it. Read the book. It's kind of...awesome.

For starters, it is gay as hell. It's so fascinating to me that this book isn't ghettoized in some Special Interest section in Borders, you know? I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that not so many people make it past the first couple sections, and homosexuality doesn't become a major theme until Sodom and Gomorrah. Sure, everyone knows the author was gay, and there are all those theories that Albertine = Albert, gasp, whatever. But seriously: it's kind of incredible that the work is considered a major pillar of modernism first and of queer literature second. Nearly every male character besides the narrator turns out to be a homosexual (or "invert" in the book's lingo) sooner or later; Marcel's whole obsession with keeping Albertine captive is based on his fear that she sleeps with women -- a fear which turns out to be thoroughly justified. Proust's meditations on the life of a gay man in pre-war Paris high society are interesting enough on their own to merit a stab at reading.

But interest in that theme -- or any other particular theme that strikes your fancy, like the study of aristocratic society and its fluctuations, or French anti-semitism, or the nature of art -- isn't gonna get you through several thousand pages, because there are bound to be huge sections about nothing but precisely what doesn't interest you (for me: reallllly long dinner party conversations about contemporary political/academic affairs, the Dreyfus stuff sometimes excepted). I advocate skimming. You have to be willing to go with it though; as a friend of mine who somehow read the whole thing in high school and several times since has put it, it's sort of like living an entire life along with someone. Life is boring sometimes, and doesn't that just really mean we are sometimes conscious of time passing?

Proust doesn't really spell it out til the end (and when he does, it's a bit strange, to have read so many many pages and then have his views on literature laid out so succinctly and the whole story wrapped up in an and-then-I-wrote-the-book-that-you-now-hold-in-your-hands sort of convention), but in a way the characters are the least important part. As he puts it, "in a book which tried to tell the story of a life it would be necessary to use not the two-dimensional psychology which we normally use but a quite different sort of three-dimensional psychology...the mighty dimension of Time which is the dimension in which life is lived."

So yeah, according to the Internet there are over 2,000 characters in In Search of Lost Time, but you only need to bother remembering the names of a dozen or so. And it's only how they change over time in relation to each other that really matters. And Albertine -- the more you read about her the less you know. She only becomes increasingly fragmented and increasingly internal to the narrator, until she's not a person at all but an infinitely multiplying memory: "In order to be consoled I would have to forget not one, but innumerable Albertines. When I had succeeded in bearing the grief of losing this Albertine, I must begin again with another, with a hundred others."

It's the exact opposite of what any self-respecting fiction teacher would say -- they want characters to emerge slowly, to become whole through your masterful writerly observations. But here the characters disintigrate! This book is crazy!


Well. Goodness I've been prattling on, although long-windedness is appropriate enough here. And it's not like I can exactly bring this stuff up in casual conversations with all the new Pittsburgh friends I hope to make. It'd be like tattooing I AM AN ASS on my forehead. Let me just say, as soon as I finished, the first thing I thought -- and I realize this may be some form of literary Stockholm Syndrome -- was "I want to read it again."


next time: DIVORCE RANCHES!!

Update!

The illustrious Michelle, freshly relocated to Pittsburgh, will soon be guest/co-blogging in this space. So GET READY.

Coming attractions/intent to distribute/Philly klezmer

So I'm still gonna post a recap of some of the badass concerts I've seen lately -- especially since Zoilus has had a debate about Destroyer's relationship to rock, and I have a few thoughts on the issue after seeing them (most recently) in Philly. Also, my photos of some of the more intimate (ie, in the Hazel basement) performances!

Inbetweentimes, an update on my favorite corporate tool shenanigans of late. There are stirrings in the university community in the face of a recent inundation of complaints from record companies, who are still targeting college students and their sinister high-speed internet connections.

University officials suspect that record companies are working from a newly expanded criteria that includes what's basically "intent to distribute." Although this regulation has been struck down in some court cases, the record industry is still pushing their desperate allegation that the mere act of putting mp3s in a shared folder is tantamount to sharing, regardless of whether anyone downloaded from you or not. Odious. [via Machinist]

In ethnomusicological news, I'm volunteering at the Philadelphia Folklore Project's mother-daughter Ukrainian klezmer performance on Sunday, May 11. 6 p.m. at World Cafe!