The Pocket Square

It’s been noted before that Canadian prog rockers Rush are having something of a vogue right now. A prominent role in the new movie I Love You, Man, a daffy little recapitulation of their track “Limelight” in this week’s Adventureland, and a recent spate of other nods (a montage set to “Tom Sawyer” in Chuck and an homage in Freaks and Geeks to “Spirit of the Radio”) have the power trio set as the not-quite-ironically-not-quite-sincerely loved rock punchline of the moment. Geddy Lee’s astoundingly high tenor, the pretentious lyrics and a general sense of brainy bombast have always set Rush up for mockery, and though this recent bit of winking love comes coated with more reverence than disdain, it’s starting to smack of manufactured nostalgia. Perhaps the best pop culture Rush sighting of late came on the Colbert Report, fittingly a program whose line between admiration and mockery is both razor thin and ever-shifting. That Pavement showed a similarly ironic reverence back in their 1997 song “Stereo” now feels somehow more genuine and truly unusual.

In the early 00s Styx’s “Mr. Roboto” had the same kind of kitschy clout, appearing in a Volkswagen ad as well as getting a shout-out in Austin Powers: Goldmember. The meme cruised through the Net, a hundred thousand dormroom-made mix CD’s before finally coming to ignominious rest where all things seem to die: The King of Queens. A quick look at the song results for Denis DeYoung’s sci-fi confection at AllMusic reveal that between 2003 and say 2007 “Mr Roboto” was suddenly de rigeur for any 80’s rock compilation, a clear response to it’s newly-found left-field cachet.

I fear that the Rush love, particularly for “Tom Sawyer,” is no fly by night affair, and with box office comedy pacesetters like Apatow and Co embracing them, it’s only a matter of time before Lee, Lifeson and Peart find that though the royalty checks are bit bigger, their cred as hard rock elder statesmen heads south. Though they’re far too sober, mercurial and well, Canadian, to ever go the way of Bret Michaels, shamelessly pandering to adolescent hard-ons, Rush is back in the limelight for as long as the joke lasts, even if it’s on them. Once again, they owe their fame to moving pictures.

Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, a queer mid-flight find.

I flew to Washington DC last week on Virgin America. I love flying VA out of San Francisco International Airport because it leaves out of the International Terminal and one gets to skip all the turgid fits and halting starts of the rest of the airport. I also adore the little TV that awaits you in the back of the seat just ahead. Though getting all the channels over the course of a flight is a dicey proposition, the music selection is often pretty good–a solid mix of listenable pop and indie rock that won’t scare the parents.

As I went through my listening options I came across the occasional nugget, like a smattering for tracks by Frank Zappa including “Camarillo Brillo.” The classical music catalog was far smaller than the pop, and populated mainly by what you might expect: Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Chopin and Brahms. I was impressed to see a bit of Philip Glass, quite a bit of Steve Reich and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Boilerplate for 20th century music to be sure; when I met her, Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette called Pärt ”NPR approved” classical music, and not NPR in an “Isn’t Ira Glass just the coolest” sort of way. I liked her appending the derogatory “NPR” tag to classical music as well, particularly because I’m so fond of slighting NPR rock. Neko Case, Sufjan Stevens and Andrew Bird can all spend the rest of their lives playing to a festival of ever-rotating 40-somethings in Bennington, VT for all I care.

So I had Reich, Glass and Pärt to choose from in the adventurous listening category, but as I paged through my options I came across a wholly unexpected choice: Karlheinz Stockhausen. Difficult in an extreme sort of way, I’ve only really dabbled in his music. Gruppen was appealing, perhaps more so in premise than execution, but I found myself immediately drawn to what was there. Virgin America mustered only two or three tracks, as opposed to all of the Daniel Variations and Drumming by Reich, but nonetheless here was a chance to have a swig of the hard stuff free of charge. 

I later sent a note about my find to Alex Ross, the New Yorker’s classical critic, whose book and website The Rest is Noise which are, by my lights, required reading. He was pleasantly surprised at my find, but lamented being stuck on Continental, “which has yet to discover the twentieth century on the audio channels.” I can’t say that the Stockhausen, which pieces I can’t even recall now, was the most pleasurable listen, but good on VA for giving me the opportunity. Better yet, well done to the music curator who has clearly slipped one past the goalie here, while still serving all the Bloc Party, Brad Paisley and Alicia Keyes a wider audience craves.

I confess that after some Reich, Mahler and Tchaikovsky, Reich was especially pleasant for reading, though my book–A Nervous Splendor, on imperial life in Vienna 1888-1889–demanded Mahler. Eventually I turned to the music videos, a thin group whose only standouts are Beyoncé’s If I Were a Boy and Jennifer Hudson’s Spotlight. The things we do, and find, when ESPN isn’t available.

The 15th St. NW entrance to the Washington Post building.

One of my favorite things about my two and half years of living in Washington DC was waking up every morning to the Post on my doorstep. It’s hard to imagine a finer paper, one that is as stellar a national and international journal yet still serves it’s community as well as the Post does. Sorry, New York Times, you’re a lousy local rag. So imagine my glee yesterday as I got a tour of the newsroom and chance to chat finally meet cultural critic Philip Kennicott, who has become something of a pal, in person. He toured me around the fourth and fifth floors before showing me his desk, where I met classical music critic Anne Midgette, whose forthcoming Post blog Classical Beat I await impatiently. The New York Times is lauded perpetually for its arts coverage, and though it’s often quite good, those who think the Post is just a vehicle for Tom Toles should really peruse the arts and culture writing.

As Philip and I wandered around the fifth floor, admiring a massive aerial photo of the city and stumbling across a large poster of Shirley Povich, longtime Post sportswriter and a cousin of mine by marriage, I even further lamented the fact that I no longer rise to the dulcet prose of Ghivan, Robinson, Applebaum and yes, dare I say it, bellicose old Krauthammer.

I’ve long been a Post devotee, but wandering around the offices and then chatting with Philip about music, the city and architecture in a nearby Caribou Coffee (a most Washingtonian of rituals) my love for not just the Post but for papers soared. Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle has been a delight and the prospect of my city without it is a deeply worrying thought. Any major city without a proper paper is a strike against it. Bad for the arts, bad for we citizens, bad for our democracy.

Could it be that there’s a vogue for bass clarinets in the San Francisco avant-jazz and contemporary classical scene? Could these over-sized woodwinds be the pork belly, the cabinet of curiosities, the handlebar mustache of the band camp set?

The last three concerts of this kind I’ve attended, two of which featured Aaron Novik (he’s second from the left in the photo above, and he played a regular clarinet at my wedding) and others on the instrument playing a kind of left-field brand of jazz and cabaret.

The third was tonight: I went to the last night of the SF Sound Microfestival of New and Experimental Music only to find each piece featuring the thing. It was used to greatest effect during the Elliot Carter composition Triple Duo (the reason I went in the first place), though the pair of musicians who played it over the course of the evening did manage to ellicit all manner of puffs, skwanks and trills out of it. It’s a lovely instrument capable of both rich tones and enough breathy dissonance to make any fan of experimental music sing.

Any thoughts on this, team? I’ll be monitoring developments closely.