Again, The Wisdom of Sirach

I'm still reading The Bible with Jacqueline...one page every night. Needless to say, progress is slow...but we're about halfway through, so we're getting there. We're still in The Wisdom of Sirach...which has kind of become my favorite Bible book, even though I'd never read it or even heard of it previously. In today's page, one of the main topics was the difference between a Good Wife and a Wicked Wife. A lot of that material sounded familiar, let me tell you. 

Most of what Sirach says is pretty direct, but he also gets a bit sly sometimes. When I read this in Chapter 25--

10 Keep a strict watch over an unruly wife, lest, finding an opportunity, she use it;

11 Watch out for her impudent eye, and do not be surprised if she betrays you:
12 As a thirsty traveler opens his mouth and drinks from any water nearby....

--I was thinking, Is he talking about what I think he's talking about?

And then I read the second part of verse 12:

   So she sits down before every tent peg and   

   opens her quiver for every arrow.

Yowza. 

Atomic Coincidence

 A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Ian W. Toll's Pacific Trilogy, and I was talking to my #1🌞 Jimmy about it, especially focusing on the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He wanted to know what I thought about the "necessity" of dropping the bombs, whether it was justifiable in light of all of the lives that would have been lost in fighting on the Japanese mainland, etcetera. I told him that I didn't think it was justifiable, for one thing because Japan was already on its knees, its economy was collapsing and its army and navy had been crippled. They didn't even have enough fuel to keep their ships at sea going. He seemed troubled by what I had to say... perhaps because my answer accentuated the immorality of dropping the bombs...but since I'd just read a couple of thousand pages on the subject, he seemed to defer to me.

Then today he sent me a video from a fellow named Thomas Sowell which talked about how there were "naive" Americans who journeyed to Hiroshima to apologize for the United States dropping the bomb, and how their were "revisionists" who minimized the projected casualties that would have been incurred had the US invaded Japan, and how these "liars" wouldn't admit that there would have been a million US deaths had we invaded...and another half millions Brits, not to mention the Japanese casualties. 

I sent back my answer, which did not agree with Mr. Sowell, and pointed out some possible flaws in his arguments.

Then I turned my tv back on to finish watching a John Coltrane documentary I had been watching before I got his message. And about a minute after I turned it on, there was a picture of Coltrane in Japan, going to a shrine in Nagasaki and laying a wreath there, then folding his hands and praying.

That was unexpected.

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (2021)

I'd wanted to see this documentary when it first hit the theater. I'd heard nothing before I saw the title on the marquee at the Village 8, but by the time I had found a free moment...three or four days later...it was gone. I searched the usual suspect platforms for it, gave up, and 
then kind of forgot about it. Until last night, when I was glancing at hulu , and there it was. I started watching right away. Didn't get far, as it's rare for me to have much tv time to myself, but even the first 30 minutes were enough to re-ignite my great love for Kurt, which goes back to my junior year in high school (1973 - 1974). 

I remember being in a bookstore in a mall in Baltimore, looking at the shelves, and then something on the floor level caught my eye. There stacked at the bottom of the shelves were various books, and the orange cover of one of them had flashed into my peripheral vision. I picked it up.

It was Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. I'd never heard of either of them before. But it amused me that someone had written a novel with the Wheaties' slogan as a title, so I picked it up. I flipped through a few pages...saw the primitive, Magic Marker pictures, maybe read a bit here and there, and decided to buy it. 

I began to read it, and was quickly struck by the way that Vonnegut would write "Listen:" sporadically throughout, because my then-girlfriend, June, did that on a regular basis. The next day at school I showed her a paragraph that began that way. Unfortunately, it was a paragraph about "buggery," and she, Christian soul that she was, was horrified and tried to take the book from me, because in her mind the only thing to be done was to destroy it. The ensuing quarrel didn't end our relationship, but it put a pretty good crack in the superstructure. 

As for me, I fell in love with Vonnegut and began to buy and read all of his novels. By the time Slapstick came out in 1976, I was buying hardcovers off of the New Books shelves, and that continued until his final book...the posthumous While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction, which came out in 2011. * 

I read all of those books except the posthumous Mortals (I stalled out halfway through and never went back) when I first got hold of them, and reread all of them while I was living in South Bend, Indiana, in the late 1980s. I'd started another full-on re-read a few years back, but got distracted shortly after starting Cat's Cradle and never did get back to it. Though I've thought about it quite a bit, and am determined to do it at some point in the near future, preferably before my death.

So I came to this documentary with the skin of my blivit attenuated to the point of translucency.  

Which is probably never a good way to start. Satisfaction seems to have an inverse relationship with expectations most of the time. Which probably explains the whole high divorce rate in the US of A. (Full disclosure: I personally have a 100% divorce rate.)

But as I said, I was really delighted with the first 30 minutes or so of Unstuck in Time. 

Then we got to the aftermath of Kurt's amazingly generous and beautiful act of adopting his sister's four children after her death. The "kids" were interviewed, and they all talked about how Kurt could be fun and playful, but that he was more often mean and intimidating. One of them even said that he hated Kurt when he was growing up. Then it got worse. Kurt finally achieved great success in his writing with Slaughterhouse-Five. A great deal of his success could be directly attributed to his wife, Jane Marie Cox, who had unrelentingly encouraged him through all of the hard years. Although it's not directly stated in the documentary, it seems that she, who had aspired to be a writer herself, completely sublimated her artistic desires in order to support Kurt. But shortly after his big success came, he divorced her and married photographer Jill Krementz, who was 18 years younger than he was. ** 

That really hurt me. To think that the man I had followed and pretty much worshipped for almost 50 years was a guy who was regularly nasty to his children and was not loyal to his long-suffering wife really galled me. It made me feel like I never wanted to read his books again.

Fortunately I didn't stop watching at this point.

And fortunately the director, Robert B. Weide, had inserted himself into the documentary. Because Mr. Weide's heartfelt monologues brought me back to loving Kurt. Weide was so sincere about his life and his relationship with Kurt...was so obviously a good person...that it  made me understand that if this guy loved Kurt, then Kurt was still worth loving.

So yes, this is a movie well worth seeing. 

And now I think I'm going to get back to Cat's Cradle. Might have to start over, though.

* Well...kind of his last book. You know how that goes. Various publishers have combed through Kurt's life to create some other books: Kurt Vonnegut: The Cornell Sun Years 1941–1943, a collection of his writings as editor of his college newspaper; We Are What We Pretend to Be: The First and Last Works, which included two unpublished works, "Basic Training" and "If God Were Alive Today"; Sucker's Portfolio: A Collection of Previously Unpublished Writing, which includes 7 previously unpublished pieces (six stories and one non-fiction piece); and If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice to the Young, which is a collection of his commencement speeches. Pretty slim fuckin' pickins, I'd say, and even an OCD like me hasn't yet felt compelled to throw the money down for any of those. 

** As a man who was briefly married to a woman 25 years younger than myself, I don't cast this aspersion lightly. The fact is, though, that (1) I wasn't married when I began messing around with a much younger woman and (2) she started it; I just didn't resist.

DDR: Toward Jazz by André Hodeir

I ended my first Hodeir book by listening to some Charlie Parker tracks while reading the final chapter of the book, which was about the state of Jazz in the wake of Charlie Parker's death.

After spinning the cd through, I listened to it again. Then I had some bidness to attend to, so I did that. When I got home, I started up the CP CD again. That sixth track sounded SO familiar, but I couldn't place it. I checked the track listings: "A Night in Tunisia." Of course. I'd heard several versions of it. I wondered which versions I'd heard previously, so I Googled. Found a Dizzy Gillespie version (of course--he wrote it). Found cover versions by Art Blakey (with Lee Morgan!) Clifford Brown, Dexter Gordon, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Erics Dolphy, and Sarah Vaughan. I knew those names, but I was pretty sure it would have to have been Miles Davis that I heard, since I haven't really listened to a lot of Jazz music. Or possibly Eric Dolphy. ANYway...I then went on and listened to a couple of different versions of the song, and it was really interesting. You know how when you listen to a cover version of a song and you wonder why the cover version exists, because it's just a weak attempt to sound like the original? That happens to me a lot. Most of the time. But that wasn't the case with these versions. I felt like each of the musicians was trying to find his / her own way into the song, and it was exciting and inspiring to listen to them working it out. 

And then...I felt the pull of Toward Jazz, and it was too strong to resist. I opened it up and started to read, thinking I would just go through a few pages and then let it sit until tomorrow.

The first chapter was about Charlie Parker. It formed such a natural bridge with the last chapter of the original version of Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence that I was even more baffled as to why it had been excised from the later printing. This time around, Hodeir was still mourning what had become of Jazz, but there were indications that he would be moving beyond that as well. Good thing, since what would there be to write about if he didn't intend this?

Near the end of my reading for today, he compared two versions of Duke Ellington's "Koko." The first, recorded in 1940, he regarded as a masterpiece. The second, recorded (by Duke Ellington) in 1956, he regarded as a sham, as evidence that Duke Ellington had lost his musical sensibilities. I listened to the 1940 version twice before spinning the 1956 version. And I definitely got what Hodeir was talking about. The 1956 version, which has been speeded up considerably, sounds thin and hokey. You can imagine Ellington giving cheesy grins (and winks, of course) to the audience as he conducts his orchestra. 

Hodeir has basically been saying that this is what happens to musicians in most cases: they go from unpopular because their sound is different to being accepted, and when they are accepted they cease to innovate and begin to fail as musicians. The only way to avoid that fate is either to flee from success or die young. 

Makes you think, doesn't it? I mean, so many of the great musicians have died so very young, and often at their own hands. Does that verify what Hodeir is saying here? Dunno, but sounds like at least maybe to me.

Oh...so this was Day 1,591 for my DDR, but it was both Day 13 of Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence and Day 1 of Toward Jazz. Read to page 30. I'm guessing it's only going to take me a week to finish this book off. 

Maybe less.

Oh...P.S. At the end of Jazz: Etcetera Hodeir made reference to jazz as being "an example of the triumph of primitivism over the European tradition...." (245) It's awfully hard not to hear that as racist. Which is puzzling. Hodeir clearly loves Jazz music...reveres the Black musicians who created and perfected Jazz...and yet there's a steady beat of racism throughout this book. Is it just me being an overly sensitive 21st century liberal...or is it the realism that is so pervasive that the speaker doesn't even think that it's racist...or something else? I dunno.

Day 2 (Jazz Day 14 / DDRD 1,592) March 11, 2022

Read to page 70.

Here's a thing which I found to be pretty fuckin' funny:

"The practice of giving 'stars' is justified only on the lowest levels of criticism, such as record tips for busy readers." (47)

I am really thinking hard about starting a new blog now: Record Tips For Busy Readers. I'd kind of like to include Movies, TV Shows, Books, & Comic Books as well, which would logically necessitate changing the title...or perhaps truncating it to Tips For Busy Readers... but that's just not as funny to me for some reason. So logic be damned, full speed ahead, right? News as it happens.

I was also quite fond of this bit:

"...it is not the object of our affections which determines our stupidity, it is our manner of being affectionate." (52) 

It's actually Henri Bernard's words--in a letter to Hodeir. Hodeir's response was kind of snooty, which forced me to find out who Henri Bernard was. And?

Well...there are a lot of Henri Bernards, actually. My best guess is that the one who wrote this letter was a not very famous French jazz musician. Still...no need to be snooty to him, André.

Okay. I guess I'd better get to work on that new blog, hmmm?

Day 3 (Jazz Day 15 / DDRD 1,593) March 12, 2022

Read to page 100. I haven't really made any effort to up the ante to 30 pages a day in this book. It just kind of pulls me along. Also, I timed myself, and it's only taking a little more than a minute per page, so obviously the pages are less dense with text than, say, The Pacific War Trilogy.

Encountered a new term in today's reading: the one-armed pianist. Hodeir used it in reference to the playing style of Count Basie, saying that his right hand did most of the work while his left hand would just add some deft touches now and again. Seems like One Armed Pianist would make a good title for something or other.

Day 4 (Jazz Day 16 / DDRD 1,594) March 13, 2022

Looks like Friday the 13th come on a Sunday this month...as a character in Pogo used to say regularly. (Once a month, I'd guess.) 

Read to page 130. Hodeir spent quite a few of the past thirty pages trashing Benny Carter and Art Tatum...even though he had many complimentary things to say about them. Yes, I found that puzzling, too. It made me feel the way I used to feel after reading a record review in Rolling Stone. It would either say This is a great record and then proceed to trash it or say This is a terrible record and then proceed to point out all of the wonderful things about it. Sheesh. In the course of the trashing, Hodeir made reference to Count Basie's "Basie's Basement," which certainly is a very interesting piece of music. Basie's piano in the beginning part sounds as if it's being cut off after the sparse notes...it made me think the recording was defective at first. Later on the rest of the band does the same thing. It's kind of dissettling...and kind of cool, too. Worth looking up. There's also a pretty cool jazzy organ going on here.

Here's a thing Hodeir said about what he perceived to be "...the real meaning of Basie's rejection of melodic invention....": 

"He may well have deliberately deprived his music of any harmonic and melodic charm in order to concentrate entirely on experiments in rhythm." (103) 

That made me think of Philip Glass. I saw Mr. Glass speak at my alma mater, Bellarmine (then College), and a student asked him, "Why doesn't your music change?" Mr. Glass replied, "My music changes constantly; it just doesn't change in the ways that you are expecting it to change" or something like that. 

Wow...I think I only have two days left in this book. Have to say that this one, for all its faults, has really flown by. 

Day 5 (Jazz Day 17 / DDRD 1,595) March 14, 2022

Read to page 170. Which leaves 37 pages for tomorrow. And then... more Jazz, of course. 

Many of today's forty pages were devoted to Thelonious Monk. Hodier, being Hodeir, had me thinking that he really hated Monk at first, then he made a hard turn and started extolling his virtues...and seemed to see Monk as one of the greatest of all Jazz innovators. I don't know Monk's music at all...though I did have that album he did with Joni Mitchell for a while way back when. 

Here's a bit which I particularly liked...and which I think explains Trump's ability to get people on his side:

"The best method of convincing an audience whose average mental age is under twelve is to comply with that norm yourself. If you happen to have the intellect and sensibility of an adult — even those of a backward adult — a shadow of a doubt, something resembling a conscience is likely to creep into your mind and that will be the end of your capacity for expression." (157)

Oh, Hodier. You are one wascally wabbit.

Day 6 (Jazz Day 18 / DDRD 1,596) March 15, 2022

Oh, look: it's The Ides of March. 🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡🗡

Read to page 224, aka The End.

First, this:

Well. That's pretty high praise, isn't it? Further on, Hodeir has this to say:

"...one of the great composers of our time" (whom he identified only as "a man who can hardly be accused of any indulgence for jazz") listened to Monk's solo in "Bag's Groove," and when the record was over, he said that it was "shattering." 

Hodeir also observed that this solo, "...for all its brevity, constitutes one of the purest moments of beauty in history of jazz. " (177)

So I reckon I need to listen to that, don't I?

And of course this being the 21st century, that only took a few seconds. (I found it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF74qucsaWY if you'd like to have a listen.)

Also, you'd think I'd have noticed before the last few pages of this book, but I didn't: the binding is sewn. A paperback book with sewn binding. 

Of course, it was published in 1962, when people still gave a shit about things. And it was a Grove Press book (Evergreen Imprint), which probably had something to do with it. Still....

Also also: Hodeir made a passing allusion to writer Herman Broch, who seems like a guy I should look into. Unfortunately he isn't all that easy to find Out There, so we'll see what comes of that. 

And finally, also also also, this was tucked into my copy of Toward Jazz:

Strange thing: it's got a 1992 date, but the sales tax is figured at 7%...so I'm guessing that reflects a purchase in a big city, like New York, maybe. Just another of life's Little Jazz Mysteries.

☮📤

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages 
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages

(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages

(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages

(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages 

Sub-Total: 13,945 pages. So as of Day 578 of The Second 1,000 Days, I've already passed (by a substantial amount) the number of pages I read in all of the first 1,000 Days. Woo-hoo. 

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages

(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages

This Week's Comics: Special Announcement

I've been singing the praises of Action Comics for awhile now--most recently of issue #1040, which came out at the end of last month. A minute ago I opened up  hoopla  and checked to see which RECENT comics were up--a list which changes frequently--and one of the new titles was

Now, #1035 just came out five months ago...and this collection itself just came out yesterday (aka March 8th), so this is Johnny-On-The-Spot. Also, while I don't regret the $30 I spent on these six issues at all...this is some really great stuff...isn't it Super Cool that you can read all of this for free? Thanks again, Louisville Public Library. 

If you haven't given Action Comics a shot lately, this is a great place to start. It's one of the best Superman stories I've read in a long time... and I've read one hell of a lot of Superman comic books.