Pretty Random

I have three kids, a four-year-old boy and boy/girl twins who are one, and since they were born one of my main goals has been to expose them to a lot of music. The first song my oldest heard was “Norwegian Wood,” and at first we mostly listened to the Beatles and jazz (with a lot of other stuff mixed in, but a strong foundation of the Beatles seemed like a good place to start). But about a year ago something unexpected and awesome happened: my then three-year-old fell in love with the Beastie Boys. And I just want to highly recommend the Boys to all the other parents out there.

Now, I mean, I always liked the Beastie Boys, but if you had asked me a year ago to list my favorite bands, I don’t think they would’ve cracked the top 20. They were important to me at various stages: “Fight for your Right” came out when I was about six, and Licensed to Ill was one of the first tapes I ever owned. Check your Head came as I was discovering alternative/punk and skateboarding in middle school. And then in high school, as I began exploring psychedelia, I went back and found Paul’s Boutique. But to be honest, I’d kinda slept on the Boys since Hello Nasty. Until one day my son was doing the rap from “Everything is Awesome” (from the Lego movie), and I was like “You know what this reminds me of?”, and threw on Licensed for him. The rest is history.

I don’t think you could pick a better single artist for your kids to grow up listening to than the Beastie Boys. There are a few reasons why I think this. Musically, I can’t think of a more eclectic oeuvre, in terms of genre: listening to the Beasties exposes you to large doses of hip-hop (obvs), punk, instrumental funk, and smaller doses of all sorts of shit, from country (tongue-in-cheek, I think/hope) to bossa nova. They are a gateway, and they wear their influences on their sleeve. They open up whole musical universes.

They are also great for language: listening to them rap has gotten my son thinking about words and rhymes in a real, organic way. As an English teacher, I feel we should get kids learning poetry early. Why not start with “The New Style” and “Pass the Mic”? (To be fair, he’s also learned a lot of “bad” words, too, but I’m fine with that. We just tell him it’s okay to use those words to make art, but not so much at school.)

But there are also deeper lessons to be learned from the Boys. Like the lesson about friendship. All bands are driven by the creative friction of relationships; otherwise everyone would just go solo. The boys were together and creative for what, 30 years? And their relationship is the subject of a lot of their best rhymes.

And the lesson about growth. The early Beastie lyrics, as is well-known, are sometimes problematic, particularly in terms of their treatment of women. But who didn’t have some problem attitudes in their early 20s? The important thing is that we learn and grow, something the Boys did quite visibly: “Here’s a little something that’s long overdue…”

And the lesson about loss. Kids have to figure out the whole death thing, somehow. The tragic loss of MCA has given us a chance to talk about it, as a family, and in funny way, grieve together.

And, you know, bottom-line: their records are just a lot of fun to listen to. Sure, the kids tear up the living room listening to “Fight for your Right” and “Sabotage”, but I think the benefits outweigh the costs. I recommend it to everyone. Raise your children Beastie.

Here are my picks for the 10 most iconic jazz artists, in roughly chronological order:

1. Louis Armstrong
2. Duke Ellington
3. Billie Holiday
4. Charlie Parker
5. Dizzie Gillespie
6. Thelonious Monk
7. Charles Mingus
8. Miles Davis
9. John Coltrane
10. Ornette Coleman (R.I.P.)

I’ve had this list in my head since last June (Saratoga Jazz Fest), but I hadn’t filled the last spot; after this week’s Ornette Coleman Memorial Broadcast on WKCR, I’ve decided he really deserves the last spot.

I don’t know that much about real early jazz artists; my idea of “jazz” really begins with swing. And even then, my listening to #s 1,2,3 & 5 is pretty limited, though my respect is great. This isn’t a list of my “favorite” artists, but the ones I think are most iconic, the ones every American child should learn about in school. There’s a lot of people I love who aren’t on the list.

I spent about two hours a day in the car commuting to work this year, generally listening to top 40 / alternative radio stations. Here are some songs I hoped would get played more often.

Sia, “Chandelier”
Taylor Swift, “Shake It Off” and “Style”
Ariana Grande, “One Last Time”
Nick Jonas, “Jealous”, but then i got really sick of it
DJ Snake & Aluna George, “You Know You Like It”
San Fermin, “Sonsick” (not new, but new to me)
Shakey Graves, “Dearly Departed”
Alabama Shakes, “Don’t Wanna Fight”

I’m forgetting a bunch of stuff.

“Good Intentions Paving Company”
“Peach, Plum, Pear”
“Soft as Chalk”
“Emily”
“Does Not Suffice”

In my last semester of college, about a dozen years ago, I “read” all four of James Joyce’s major works in five months: it was in a graduate seminar on Joyce, and we spent about 8 weeks each on Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. (Dubliners and Portrait I read over Xmas break, in preparation; I think I also read The Odyssey.) I use the scare quotes around “read” because I think the later works of Joyce highlight the fact that you don’t really “read” anything when you read it for the first time, especially for a class – a better term would be “was exposed to.” People always laugh when I tell them we “read” the Wake in half a semester, but I think it was a great way to get a feel for it; I certainly fell in love. At any rate, since then I’ve been obsessed with Joyce, and I’ve also taught a number of college literature classes, so as you might have guessed, it’s my dream to teach a version of this seminar. I’d keep the 8 week structure for Ulysses, but I think I’d spend the first few weeks on the earlier works (in the class I took we went over them on the first day), and then spend the last 5 weeks on the Wake. How would we do the Wake in five weeks? Well, we wouldn’t read it all, and we wouldn't read it in order. Here’s what I would do:

WEEK 1: I.1 and I.8 – I think you should start from the beginning, of course, and get the “overture” out of the way, but then I think it’s a good idea to read ALP, the easiest and prettiest chapter (in my opinion). Also, then I would open the first session by listening to Joyce read the end of ALP, which should help.

WEEK 2: II.3 (end), all of II.4, and I.2 [optional: I.3 and I.4] – In the second session I would skip to the earliest sketches, “Roderick O'Conor” (380-382), “Tristan & Isolde” / “MaMaLuJo” (383-399), and "Here Comes Everybody" (30-33). This would be a good time to talk about the composition process and genetic studies.  

WEEK 3: I.5 and I.6 [optional: II.1 and II.2] – Then I would move to the more meta stuff, the Letter and the Quiz, which I find really opens the book up and clarifies things, in a weird way. At this point I would want to at least glance at the first half of book II as well, especially the opening section (which I think pairs well with the quiz), and "The Triangle" (which leads nicely into session 4).   

WEEK 4: I.7 and III.1 [optional: III.2 and III.3] – “Shem” and “Shaun”: ‘nuff said.

WEEK 5: III.4 and IV [optional: II.3] – And I would end with the end, probably the most difficult chapters we will discuss, but so important. Students who really want to abuse themselves can then go back and read II.3, which is the last chapter Joyce composed.

The Beatles, Abbey Road

The Beatles, Rubber Soul

The Beatles, “White Album”

Bjork, Vespertine

Jeff Buckley, Grace

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue

Grateful Dead, Europe 72

Jimi Hendrix, Axis: Bold as Love

Jesus Christ Superstar, Original Cast Recording

Nirvana, Nevermind

Nirvana, In Utero

Pavement. Crooked Rain Crooked Rain

Pixies, Doolittle

Radiohead, Ok Computer

Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street

Paul Simon, Graceland

Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream

Sonic Youth, Sister

Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation

Spoon, Gimme Fiction

At the moment I am reading (in order of most recently looked at):

Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany, for #AutumnalCity (reread)

Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace, by DT Max

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Suzanna Clarke (reread)

Before Watchmen, various authors (comics)

Tintin and the Secret of Literature, by Tom McCarthy

I Henry IV, Shakespeare

The Ambassadors, by Henry James (been working on this since January, kinda stalled)

Swann’s Way, Proust (working/stalled on this even longer, almost done)

Finnegans Wake (always)