“Lake Life”

“One By One”

Highbrow or lowbrow, take your pick.

We are deep into this Korean show on Netflix, “Stranger.” Felice says it can’t be recommended, I’m on the fence. First and foremost, not only is it in Korean, it’s the densest series I’ve ever watched, at some point you just have to let it flow, hope that plot points will resurface and you will figure them out. And, it’s a commitment. Each episode is over an hour, and the first season has sixteen episodes. But foreignness appeals to me. The locations can be exotic. And within the first ten minutes of the first episode Felice said “So now you want to go to Seoul?” And that’s exactly what I’d been thinking. Supposedly Jackie O. spoke six languages, that was part of the Kennedy hype. But checking on Wikipedia right now it says only four, English, French, Spanish and Italian. And in truth, those are all kind of close, at least the last three…but Korean?

So, if I learn Korean…it’s completely separate from Japanese, never mind Chinese. And to tell you the truth I’m bad with languages, some people pick them up right away, that is not me. I always wonder if I moved somewhere whether I’d learn the language quickly or not, but it pains me to know there’s no way I wouldn’t have an accent, and locals would know and see me as the other.

And the truth is in so many locations today everybody speaks English, or at least enough people. I went skiing in France in 1971 and only the Americans spoke English. I went skiing in France in 2011 and seemingly everybody spoke English, there was no problem getting your message across, being understood. But to be able to speak in the native language? Then again, Korean’s got a wholly different alphabet, there’s a steep learning curve.

But, if you’re going to watch TV, I reinforce you should begin with “Borgen.” I’m a fan of Aaron Sorkin, but I never watched “West Wing”…if it’s on network I’m hesitant. And U.S. TV is slick and too often compromised. But as good an actor as Martin Sheen might be, Sidse Babett Knudsen, who plays the lead character, Birgitte Nyborg, is better. She’ll smile for the camera and then do a one-eighty and go straight to a frown. And what’s great about foreign TV is the expected doesn’t happen, it doesn’t go the way you assume it will, both in the third season and in Nyborg’s relationships, but… Denmark has multiple political parties, not just two, and the key is to build a coalition and try to govern, to make the sausage, and it’s not so easy. Another thread is the media, they go inside TV and print news and you see how both have influence yet are compromised, how some outlets have agendas. And the spin doctors! If you watch “Borgen” that’s who you’ll want to be, Kasper Juul. Not that Birgitte is not savvy, but it’s Juul who crafts the specifics of the agenda, decides what can and cannot work, it’s fascinating to watch.

But bracketing streaming television shows I read books. And I was on another bad streak of mediocre books. If it’s not worth your time, or if it’s not the focus of media attention, why bother, just to show I watched/read it? But the two books linked to above, they’re really good, in their own unique ways.

“Lake Life.” It’s the story of a family on vacation in their double-wide of two decades, on a big lake. My mind pictured it as “Ozark,” but there’s no issue of crime and the only local who figures in is not dangerous at all. So, you’ve got the parents and two sons and their wives. What is everybody’s relationship? And you’ve been there. Not everybody gets along with the in-laws, certainly not in the same way.

And I’m loath to give away any plot points, because I read for plot, it’s the twists and turns, the surprises that excite me. But let me just say the kids are not winners, they’re not setting the world on fire. We always read about the winners and the losers, how about those in between?

You could compare “Lake Life” to Franzen. But without the overhanging heaviness. There’s not really a cloud in “Lake Life.” Nowhere is it said that BIG POINTS are being made. Yet, it’s these family dramas that reach me, that I’m most interested in reading. And normally I plow right through books I love, but in this case I’d stop after every chapter or two, to savor what had happened, to think about it. And the truth is about two-thirds of the way through “Lake Life” I got inspired to write something about it, and it would have been great, but it was after midnight and I hadn’t finished the book yet, what if the end didn’t satisfy as much? This happened to me with a book I recommended about the tech world/Silicon Valley, “Chaos Monkeys.” At first I was riveted, but then…you had to be interested in the subject to continue to read and enjoy, and that cut down the number of people who’d like it and I don’t want to recommend something people won’t like because it will affect my credibility, so, I don’t write until I finish, if at all.

But maybe I should change that.

You see the same thing happened with “One by One.” I was so excited but then…the person I thought did it was the one who did and the last quarter of the book just wasn’t as riveting, but before then…every night I looked forward to reading “One by One,” it’s great to have such a book in the wings, on the nightstand.

So, the muckety-mucks would call “Lake Life” literature, not that it’s hard to read, whereas “One by One” is genre, as in mystery/thriller/whodunit. People compare the author, Ruth Ware, to Agatha Christie, but I did not know that until after the fact, that’s when I do my research, otherwise it affects the reading experience, especially reviews, which tend to tell two-thirds of the plot.

I stay away from genre. And non-fiction. Not that I never read them, but oftentimes when I do I end up disappointed, certainly when I read mystery/thriller stuff, and when I read non-fiction…I’m all excited, I buy the book and then it’s a slog to finish it. Happens over and over again. Maybe I’ll explain the details sometime, but not today.

Anyway, “One by One” centers around skiing and tech/music, what’s not to like?

Not that I knew this going in. I’m just constantly trolling for stuff to read. And when I find something that is interesting, I download a sample chapter to my Kindle. And most stuff I chuck right away, the books are not readable enough, as a matter of fact, most of the vaunted literature I find unreadable, they’re about style, they’re overwritten, laden with metaphors, but that was not “One by One,” I got hooked right away, so I bought it.

I did not know it revolved around skiing. I did not know the app centered around music, those were surprises. But I read and I pictured the landscape, I had it in my mind’s eye. And that’s one great thing about reading, you can divine your own pictures. And when they make the movie, it’s almost never the same. Maybe the movie stands on its own, but it’s rarely the book.

So, you’ve got everybody in a chalet and they’re there on business and vacation and if I tell you any more, I’ll ruin it.

I had a suspicion who the culprit was right up front, and like I told you, I was right. But it wasn’t until two-thirds through the book that it truly came clear. Which had me, as well as the characters, constantly guessing.

And some of these genre books are nothing more than the plot. But in “One by One” the characters are fully defined, you think you know them and…if you’re looking for a book to take you away, that cuts like butter in these quarantined Covid times, I highly recommend “One by One.”

As for “Lake Life”…

“One by One” has 1,313 ratings on Amazon. That doesn’t mean it’s terrific, a lot of junk gets a lot of ratings, even good ones. And speaking of stars, if it has fewer than four I’m extremely hesitant, maybe I’ll go for something with three and a half, but that’s rare.

“One by One” has a solid four. As does “Lake Life. But, “Lake Life” only has 88 ratings, and it came out back in July.

This happens all the time, you read a great review and you go to Amazon and almost no one is reading the book. And almost always, that’s a bad sign. That usually means the particular reviewer resonated, but most people did not. Of course it can mean that word hasn’t spread about a book, but if you’ve gotten a review in the “New York Times”…the industry knows about it.

So I waited to finish “Lake Life” before I rendered a final judgment. And it’s not five star best of the year, but it’s really damn good. But there appears to be no word of mouth on it.

And, one of the reasons you read fiction is for the wisdom contained therein. So to close, I’m gonna quote a few lines from “Lake Life” that resonated. And as one must say in these blowback days, your mileage might vary. But it’s funny how those who complain always ended up reading the whole damn book, finishing the whole damn series…if it was that bad why didn’t they quit? Usually it turns out they didn’t dislike the work that much, but they just wanted to show me they’re equal to me and their opinion matters. Fine, but it’s always given with attitude. Hell, what do I know, I’m just another person on the planet, if I find something I think the majority of my readers will like, I call their attention to it, it’s an imperfect science.

Anyway…

“But this is the way of families – the inconsequential elevated to the imperative.”

Ain’t that the truth, especially on vacation, especially when the kids are out of the house and the only time you come back together is during vacation. When my father was alive, we always had a huge blowout during vacation, always!

“Except, that’s the thing about death – it reminds you you’re alive.”

I’m still messed up about Judd‘s death. But as I normalize, I realize emotionally as well as intellectually I should try not to sweat the small stuff and if I’ve got something to prove, something I want to do, not to waste time but to go for it.

“…the kind of argument art school students have when all they have to show for all the work they’ve done, so far in life, are their opinions and inflexibility.”

That’s one of the problems with arts education. It makes you feel you know something, that you’re better than the hoi polloi. But when it comes to creation, oftentimes schooling is unnecessary, at best it helps. And the uneducated start, but those with degrees are oftentimes too inhibited, yet because of that piece of paper they think they are better, and they’ll let you know it.

“People at the funeral made things worse, the way well-meaning people tend to do.”

Bingo! They’re trying their best but what you really want is to be left alone, or to talk to one or two specific people. Yet, you carry on and listen to them, interact with them, because they mean well and you don’t want to offend them yet you wonder why you’re doing this, why you’re worried about their feelings when you’re the one who is hurting.

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What, is it 1969?

From: donald little
Re: Why BOOMERS Hate POP Music

I know you get hundreds of replies so I’ll keep this brief. I’m a guitarist who has played professionally for about 20yrs here in the UK. I was the guitarist for Paolo Nutini for many years. This track (recorded live) was a massive hit here in the UK. It’s had 55m views to date. I think you might like it. youtu.be/ELKbtFljucQ

Donny Little

So I clicked the link and played it. In the background. On the other screen. And then, about two-thirds through my brain woke up, I stopped reading my e-mail to watch. Whoa, this is good, this is what we used to call music, R&B with a heart, with a rhythm that locks into your body waves, that has you leaning back and forth in time and, and, when it was all over I had to hear it again.

Then I went to Wikipedia. “Iron Sky” didn’t make it in the U.S. And Paolo Nutini hasn’t put out an album since 2014.

So I decided to go deep, I needed to go deep, I was not Paolo proficient.

So I went to Amazon Music HD and played the top tracks, this is music that had to be heard in full fidelity.

And of course all the buzz was about 2006’s “These Streets,” that’s when Nutini’s arrival made waves on both sides of the pond. But “Iron Sky” is on the latest LP, 2014’s “Caustic Love,” and although I was enamored of the top tracks, “Caustic Love” knocked my socks off, from the opening track, “Scream (Funk My Life Up).” The greats can immediately grab you, and wasn’t that the Stones’s trick, to hit you between the eyes from the very start?

But that didn’t turn out to be my favorite track. Nor was the aforementioned “Iron Sky.” Rather, I was enamored of the “Mama Told Me Not To Come” groove of “Numpty,” a cut that was not made for Top Forty, not even the Spotify Top 50, but takes you to away on a flight into the stratosphere and makes you feel better than all that dreck.

But even better was “Diana.” And “Cherry Blossom.” Both nearly at the end of this thirteen track album.

And none of these three tracks have their own Wikipedia page. They’re hiding in plain sight. They were not hammered over the heads of the masses, you had to own the album to be aware of them, to uncover these jewels.

Now wait a second. This reminds me of the seventies. When you’d buy an album, maybe based on a track you heard on the radio, maybe on a review, and you dropped the needle and went on an adventure. Two or three tracks would jump out at you on the first play, and they’d make you play the whole thing all over again and then the rest of the album would start to make sense and as you continued to play it other cuts emerged from the morass, you got to the point where this was your favorite LP, what everybody else thought, what was on the radio was irrelevant. And when the act came to town, usually to play a club or theatre, you’d go, and tell everybody you’d been there from the beginning when they hit arenas.

This can’t happen in the U.S., only in the U.K. In the U.S. there are very specific verticals, very specific tribes, and you don’t cross genres. Sure, a country act might rap, but adult alternative ones don’t suddenly put out a hip-hop track, and one thing’s definitely for sure, the big business focuses on what is already selling, streaming, the Spotify Top 50 and hit radio, and if you don’t fall into one of these lanes it’s just too hard to break though, no one wants to put in the time and effort and money to push you into superstardom, even though Adele is so big, she’s seen as an outlier.

So, I’ve been playing “Caustic Love” for days. Sure, sure, it’s six years old, but welcome to the modern world where no one can know everything and what’s old can be new to so many people. I’ve been dying to write about “Caustic Love” but I didn’t know where to start, whether to be general or dig deep into each track, whether to do a post for each track, and then I heard Chris Stapleton’s “Cold.”

Although low key, you get it just like you get “Scream (Funk My Life Up).”

Actually, you’ve got to commit. This is not a hellzapoppin’ race of a track made for TikTok. It starts off slow, you don’t really get hooked until almost thirty seconds in. There’s nothing magical about the piano intro, it’s more than serviceable, that is until you’ve heard the whole track and go back to it, but then the drums solo, setting the beat and then those high piano notes sear your brain, telling you this is important, this is about pain, this is about human emotions, this is about human life.

And then Chris starts to sing.

This ain’t no TV competition show, Chris Stapleton can both sing and WRITE! He’s not trying to impress the judges, just himself, he believes if he gets it right it will resonate, and even if it doesn’t he’s been doing this so long that he knows he’ll survive.

And Stapleton is seen as a country artist. But this ain’t country, unless you retreat to the sixties and Muscle Shoals, this kind of stuff worked back then, before country music became a retread of the rock music of the seventies, in the twenty first century.

And “Cold” is anathema to radio. Slow and long. But it’ a burner. It’s the kind of music the audience actually wants to hear, when selling advertising isn’t the primary component, when it’s purely about what comes out of the speakers and goes into your ears.

And the track starts to build, the strings come in and then the solo guitar…this sounds similar to something Jerry Wexler or Tom Dowd might have cut in their heyday, something that Ahmet would understand, back when music was a calling about the sound as opposed to the money.

These extended blues tracks were a part of the landscape in the late sixties, they were embedded in all those LPs that built album rock, when it was about albums as opposed to hits, when you didn’t even lead with the single, when if you got enough traction with a track the label might cross it over.

Not that “Cold” is a giant leap forward. But it is a giant leap back. To the past. When you didn’t have to add computer sounds, computer drums to dense up the sound, when air allowed not only the track to breathe, but your mind. “Cold” is analog in a digital world.

Maybe you know all this, maybe I’m late to the party, but I’m not even sure I want to be a member of the club. I want to be an individual, that’s the essence of the listening experience, alone, not smiling at your brethren, shooting selfies, but letting your mind go free, closing your eyes and reveling in the music, and only the music, it demands your attention, anything else will infringe upon the experience.

That’s right, Killer Mike and El-P talking about hip-hop, muscle cars, politics, albums, how they got together and get along…dive deep with these raconteurs!

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That was scary.

Of course it was laughable. Of course Trump was out of control. Of course Biden could barely get a word in edgewise. But the content is irrelevant. Biden’s performance is irrelevant. It’s all about Trump.

Bill Maher has been saying for years that there’s no way Trump is leaving. Tonight confirmed it.

Trump has redefined the game, and nobody in mainstream media has caught up with it. It’s been four years already, what is wrong with these people. Democracy is dying and they’re treating this like a student council election, as if the government, the country, were bigger than the president. But right now, they’re not.

Trump has done everything he’s said he was going to do. So why don’t people listen to him and believe him? He’s saying outright, even tonight, that the election results are a fraud. Do you really expect him to roll over come November 3rd?

And who is gonna stop him? The lame Democrats who can’t even come up with a strategy to neuter Amy Coney Barrett?

The Democrats are afraid. Just like Biden tonight. They pussy-foot. Biden was best tonight when he got overheated, the rest of the time he looked anxious, a guy who was overprepared running through the mental rolodex to try and find the sound bite he’d been prepped with.

As for Trump’s lies… No one was prepared for this, even though they should have seen it coming. No one was prepared for Trump to talk so much, interrupt so much, that the other side couldn’t even make its case, that the other side couldn’t even fight back.

Maybe you’re thinking that Biden won because Trump alienated women. Maybe you’re thinking that Biden’s calm demeanor was his ace in the hole. Maybe you’re thinking Biden scored a few points. THAT’S ALL IRRELEVANT! The debate was purely about style, and what we’ve got is a fascist doing his act on national television and no one calling him out on it.

Yes, that’s what Umair Haque says day after day, that the Democrats should call Trump the f-word, but they won’t! They’re afraid of alienating some potential swing voter in the hinterlands, so they lay back. Did you see Trump laying back? Trump’s act was a huge victory for his acolytes, they ate it all up, this was the guy they believe in.

The debates are supposed to inform and influence voters. That didn’t happen tonight. Not only because there was little substance, but because everybody’s already made up their mind!

So, you’re college-educated. One of the elite, or the mini-elite, the six figure minions working with their brains as opposed to their hands. You’re laughing. This guy would get blown out of college, would get blown out of high school, no one would put up with him. But the truth is learning institutions are run with an iron fist. But the world is not. What we’ve seen over and over, even in the case of Trump himself, is that there are two systems of justice in America. One for the rich and one for the poor. Most people could not even afford an hour with one of Trump’s accountants, never mind not itemizing deductions, never mind their employers deducting their taxes right up front. Trump has run unfettered his entire life, why should he stop now, it’s working for him!

As for more debates, why. If Biden’s team was smart, and it’s not, they’d cancel further debates, show some cojones. Because Biden can only lose, Trump controls the debates and nothing’s gonna change that, even if his mic’s turned off. By standing up to the bully Biden would score points. But his advisors are afraid, this is not how it’s been done before. Don’t they get that the past is no longer prologue?

And watching this screamfest, one recalled the Democratic debates of the past year. Where Biden got killed. I’m glad it’s now known that he has a stutter, how about some more news on that please. But tonight Joe did look old and over the hill, and I’m gonna vote for him, because it’s a vote for democracy, but how come Democrats can’t admit this, that they’ve been screwed by their own party? This is the best they could come up with? Tonight I yearned for Warren or Sanders, almost anybody other than Biden, because they know how to fight, how to zing, and that was Warren and Sanders’s message, they were gonna fight the bullies for the little people. Meanwhile, Biden couldn’t even stand up to the bully in chief tonight!

If you attack the messenger it just demonstrates how ignorant you are. If you don’t think the right is gonna make hay on Biden’s performance tonight, you probably think that Trump’s lies and interruptions this evening alienated his core…THEY DIDN’T! We’ve got no future until we start addressing the real issues of this country.

And it’s not like the Republicans are gonna stop Trump, they’ve already proven that. Furthermore, it’s the Republicans who got us into this mess, they refused to approve Obama’s judges, meanwhile Trump says otherwise and twists the real story to his advantage. Sure, the newspaper will print the truth tomorrow, but Facebook rules and like every multinational business it and its social media brethren believe they’re bigger than any government, and they’ll change position to satisfy whomever is in power. If you’re waiting for Zuckerberg to save the country, forget it.

And if you’re waiting for the vote to save the country, you’re delusional.

Right now, all these vote campaigns have to be restructured, they must be changed to VOTE BIDEN! Enough of this bipartisanship. The wink of the eye. Just come out and say it. You celebrities, you wonks, this is typical, you’re afraid of offending someone when that’s Trump’s modus operandi, to offend.

As for the crucial contest, November 3rd, the Democrats still don’t have a plan. And they’re afraid if they verbalize one they’ll lose votes. That’s another thing that bugged me about Biden tonight, he was so afraid of offending some nonexistent swing voter that he wouldn’t even bring up Merrick Garland’s name when it came to Supreme Court nominees. The right is cheering Trump on, the left is wincing.

So, Trump isn’t leaving. End of story. Enough with the horse race, the polling, the discussion of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, et al. Who is gonna save the country, who is gonna save democracy?

And let’s admit it, Hillary was much better than Biden in the debates AND SHE LOST THE ELECTION!

The Democrats need to start mobilizing NOW! They’ve got to line up their offense NOW! Trump surely is. The Democrats must call Trump a fascist and have a plan to get him out of the White House when he loses. And, AND, if Trump rigs the election itself, which he is wont to do, never mind throwing it to the Supreme Court or the House of Representatives, THEN WHAT? Are we wall gonna just wring our hands and accept it?

And when the chaos begins, who can we trust to make things right? Certainly not the military, and if the military comes out, it’s all over.

The Democrats are ceding power every damn day. The game has been redefined and Trump is ensuring, just like Mitch McConnell, that it’s his way or the highway.

Enough. Tell everybody Trump won’t go. Tell everybody the votes probably won’t be counted accurately. No one should be surprised on November 3rd, NOBODY!

Trump said as much tonight. He’s been laying the ground for months. First with the Post Office and then with the “ballots”…so he can’t lose, there’s no way his people will accept it. And, AND if it goes to the House there are more red voters than blue. AND the tyranny of the minority has tilted the table for years. And now, we’ve got a fascist dictator in charge. CAN’T YOU SAY IT?

Umair did. Sarah Kendzior did. Bill Maher did. But they didn’t spend years in the club of D.C. insider media so their cries were ignored. It’s not only the government that has lost touch with the will of the people, but the media too.

This is it folks. If you think I’m being an alarmist you’re sadly mistaken.

This is war. Fight for your future or…

Forget it.