In Rancid Times, We Need Classic

1/2/2019

Robert-of-the-Purple-Heart Watches Over Us

In the final hours of an ugly year, I stuck with the tried and true.

Our local classical station, WQXR-FM, was playing the top 100, as chosen by listeners. It was reassuring to hear music that stirred people and soothed people in other dark times, with other crackpots and despots flailing around, and the music survived.

Then again, we have seen votes go wacko in a democracy. When the Gilbert and Sullivan spectacle, “Pirates of Penzance,” popped up in 10th place, my reaction was, “Wait, WTF, how did that get in there?”

The WQXR–FM web site had the same reaction:

Was it was the work of Gilbert and Sullivan superfan sleeper agents? Or is everyone just really excited about the end-of-year New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players production of Pirates at the Kaye Playhouse. (It turns out that it very well might be both, as the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players staged a campaign to launch the opera into the countdown — and it clearly worked.

Trolls. Bots. Hacking. Malware. Whatever they are. Sounds like a job for Super-Mueller, but Our Civic Protector is said to be otherwise occupied with his investigation into more serious shenanigans.

Other than the jolt of Gilbert and Sullivan coming in 10th in any classical music ranking, it was a joy to hear oldies soothe the dark days and nights as 2018 slunk off into history.

Beethoven had four symphonies in the top 10, including his Ninth, with the rousing “Ode to Joy,” now becoming a staple ‘round midnight on Dec. 31.

Some of the most familiar music can be considered chestnuts, but I was happy to hear them, knowing that new and adventuresome and inventive music will be presented by John Schaefer on “New Sounds” and by Terrance McKnight on his weeknight show.

Plus, as 2018 ebbed, I heard some of my favorites, Dvorak and Copland and Vaughn Williams and Smetana and Bartok and Barber and Ravel and Satie and Lenny Himself, conducting his “West Side Story: Symphonic Dances,” which always makes me feel 16 again, walking the streets of my home town, feeling, “could be, who knows?”

In the symphonic version, I could hear the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim:

Could it be? Yes, it could
Something's coming, something good
If I can wait
Something's coming, I don't know what it is
But it is gonna be great.

Happy New Year.

Josh Rubin

1/2/2019 05:08:35 pm

Happy New year, George, and to all the regulars here!
Much to my parents' chagrin, classical is not exactly my speed. I like it, but . . . Nonetheless, we found some comfort music of our own -- we ushered in the new year in the late Levon Helm's studio in Woodstock, at a concert of his daughter Amy and his final band, the Midnight Ramble Band, performing many classics by The Band and others. Great music, great vibe, and all the music deeply rooted in America history and culture. Enough to give one some hope and sustenance in these awful times.

George Vecsey

1/3/2019 10:53:40 am

Josh, thanks. I did not know his daughter is singing at the Rambles.
Never been to one. I miss Levon....his "Atlantic City" is the best version, including by Springsteen. Nice guy. We saw him backing up Loretta Lynn and Sissy Spacek at the "grand opening" in Louisville. He was happy to be a picker, behind them.
Speaking of classical, I worked out on New Year's Night -- with Sam Cooke on my headset. How classical is that?
Happy New Year, George

Mendel

1/4/2019 04:43:49 am

George,

Here's another notable Springsteen cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jub6cg_UhcQ

George Vecsey

1/4/2019 11:46:42 am

Mendel, John Moreland, never heard of him, very nice. thoughtful, understates, but emotional nonetheless.
I think the problem is that I really like Springsteen-the-guy, (from what I know), and I love many of his songs, but.....I'm not wild about his voice. I know, heresy, because I read about him, and respect everything he says and does....and I have friends who follow him everywhere, like Deadheads I could name. This song is lovely...from Springsteen...and performed by another fine musician....thanks, GV

Mendel

1/6/2019 02:29:05 am

Springsteen with better voices, George? Try this on for size:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LVW95Mxv6k

George Vecsey

1/6/2019 12:19:18 pm

Mendel, will do. I hope I did not come off too strong in that post....but I figured one Queens guy can tolerate brash opinions from another Queens guy. Be well, GV

Mendel

1/7/2019 03:33:00 am

Brash opinions? Fuhgettaboutit!

Josh Rubin

1/3/2019 11:33:54 am

George, we never made it to one of the actual rambles with Levon, either. Wish we had. It does not seem as though the rambles are a regular thing. Rather, the Helm studio hosts a variety of concerts more or less in that spirit with various performers. But the Midnight Ramble Band still functions as a continuation of both the Band's and Helms's spirit, performing at times at the studio and elsewhere. On NYE they played a mix of Band covers, Helm post-Band originals (have you heard Levon's album "Dirt Farmer"?), and a few other covers including Atlantic City, Mystery Train, Randy Newman's "Kingfish" and a rollicking New Orleans style romp. They sounded great. Amy Helm performs with them and seems to have a hand in various projects keeping Levon's legacy going. It was such a warm and convivial scene and the band sounded really good.

bruce

1/3/2019 05:43:03 pm

george,

happy new year from the great white north to you, your family and your regulars on your site.

for the record, the igloos are behind schedule this year; no snow in my part of the planet.

you've got 80 to look forward to in two days less than half a year, eh!

i chuckled thinking of a classical music top 100.

'it was #1 in 1824 and topped the charts again in 2018....ode to joy by ludwig van.....'

i enjoy classical tho i haven't been to any genre live recently...faure's requiem in paris in october at la madeliene and gregorian chants/medieval music at notre dame the previous october.

levon helm....hmmm. didn't a bunch of canadian guys make him famous?

enjoyed him in coal miner's daughter. didn't realize it was him until a seeing the credits back in the day.

bruce

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

In Rancid Times, We Need Classic

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