The Last Dance (2000)

So, yeah, this is helping to answer my questions about the end of the 87th Precinct series of police procedurals by Ed McBain (Evan Hunter, which wasn't his real name either)—not bad, but maybe a little tired. As it happens, this is also a milestone in the series, the 50th book, so perhaps McBain was unusually up for it. The main case is a pretty good tale of murder for greed. Fat Ollie Weeks has more than ever become a character of interest, and generally that's for the good. He represents an adroit balance of loathsome and fascinating. Lots of nice touches here such as some misdirection about Houston, Texas, or the Broadway-style panache of a stage show producer and his minions. I'm not sure I hear the same hum and crackle of earlier titles, but it's still plenty serviceable as a procedural thriller. Multiple bodies are involved, the cruelty is wanton but comes in a variety of styles. I love the feeling of Isola as an alternative universe New York City that somehow exists with New York City in this world, though little is said (that I've seen or recall) about New York in detail. Steve Carella feels a little tired or exhausted. They all do, a little, those left. I was particularly happy to see Law & Order referenced, as I was curious about his take. It seems to be a favorite of at least two characters, the longstanding Bert Kling and his love interest, a highly accomplished African-American surgeon liaison with the police, Sharyn Cooke. One of the detectives is shot and injured. But that and the Kling thread do feel a little pro forma. So overall maybe a B+ for this one, upped a notch simply for making it to 50 in reasonably good style.

In case it's not at the library.

Rolling Stones, "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1968)

June 15, 1968, #3
(listen)

There are times I'm pretty sure this is the greatest rock 'n' roll song ever made. There are other times when it only seems overplayed and trite—the penalty for loving a song too much and too well perhaps, though to date it remains resilient enough to stage occasional pulsating comebacks every few years. Part of the reason I like it so well I'm sure is that it came of the Beggars Banquet sessions, an album that takes regular turns for me as favorite Rolling Stones album (trading off generally with Sticky Fingers and Out of Our Heads, though others butt in as well now and then). Why "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was not released on the album is anybody's guess, as far as I know. I'm willing to take the mythologizing route at this point and make the extravagant claims: It's too big to be contained on an album. It is an album. It rewired our brains and forced us to redefine the very concept of what an album is, etc. Yes, I know. But there is a tremendous amount packed into this three and a half minutes. It's the kind of song with the power to inspire one to sweeping statements. That impossible trebly crashing guitar, that stomping back beat, the way it finds a space that logically belongs to somebody else a long time ago and puts its stamp all over it, Grade AAA prime rock 'n' roll. It glides, it soars, it struts and preens. Can't take your eyes off it. Older than rock 'n' roll. Older than the 20th century. But work the focus and there it is again: the Stones, Mick Jagger a-leaping about the place, cranking out the mocking, jeering, irresistible sounds of bitter envy and revelry. For better and for worse. And in sickness and health too, for that matter. In other words, and to get right to the point, "Jumpin' Jack Flash is a gas gas gas."

Mansfield Park (1814)

In many ways I find I approach Jane Austen novels much like mystery stories. Where the latter has a murder or other crime, the former will have a marriage. There is always a plucky, handsome, and most sensible heroine—in this case one Fanny Price, an impoverished niece of a "great" family—and one or two or three prospects, at least one of whom will turn into some variety of rat. The pleasure for me is all in the subtleties of character, which Austen is so good at conceiving situations to show. Good people turn out to be something less than good, and bad people can mend their ways, so it's never clear where things are headed, except generally toward the sacred altar of betrothal. The most interesting character for me in this one is a Miss Mary Crawford, who is lively and spirited and seems capable of an interesting development. Unfortunately (and I think unfairly) she turns out to be something of a villain, doing things I don't think fit with her character as I understand it. Now and then the judgments (of the author? the characters?) are blurred and distorted and hard to read—antiquated, I guess. The way "theater" is routinely deplored as corrupting, for example, and indeed shown to be so. That seemed on the wrong side of ridiculous to me, and I particularly thought Miss Crawford's skepticism about religion was sharp, apt, and well-placed. But I think it is also intended to make her villainous. Thus, alas, I run somewhat afoul of what I believe are Miss Austen's own biases and morality. I am altogether just a little cockeyed to her judgments here. But honestly that's part of the engrossing appeal for me of her work. These are generally well made worlds she has left us, and it's fascinating to feel through the moral labyrinths to find how one is aligned. The resolutions reached in Mansfield Park may feel off to me, but I'm sure many find them by and large satisfying. But I don't. I would like to speak up again for Miss Crawford, and gently remonstrate against the felicity of first cousins marrying. But there you have it. Now I'm trying to write like Jane Austen. She casts that strong of a spell. Mansfield Park is not as good as her gold standard Pride and Prejudice but it's plenty fine.

In case it's not at the library.

Sonatine (1993)

Japan, 94 minutes
Director/writer/editor: Takeshi Kitano
Photography: Katsumi Yanagijima
Music: Joe Hisaishi
Cast: Takeshi Kitano, Aya Kokumai, Tetsu Watanabe, Masanobu Katsumura, Susumu Terajima, Ren Osugi, Tonbo Zushi, Ken'ichi Yajima, Eiji Minakata

There are at least two other movies named Sonatine. One is a 1984 Canadian feature described on IMDb.com as "Two teenaged friends have separate difficult experiences that make the girls seriously consider suicide." The other is a French short described on its Facebook page as "A once successful actress has taken refuge at her sister's home. Her presence triggers deep-seated feelings that lead to a tragic outcome." It is also the name of a piece for piano by classical composer Maurice Ravel. Try looking up the word and you soon arrive at "sonatina," defined as follows: "As a musical term, sonatina has no single strict definition; it is rather a title applied by the composer to a piece that is in basic sonata form, but is shorter, lighter in character, or more elementary technically than a typical sonata."

Pursuing: Sonata, according to Wikipedia, "literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung." And so, as best I can tell, we have arrived at the fiction writer's shibboleth, "show, don't tell," with some overlying implication of insubstantiality, in terms of what the intriguing title is intended to convey. As much as anything Sonatine works like a musical piece—not to mention that it also contains wonderful music. Director, writer, and editor Takeshi "Beat" Kitano has created a befuddling movie that sits quietly and observes—observes contemporary (for 1993) Japanese yakuza gangster life, and more particularly observes the existential crisis of one specific mid-level chief, Aniki Murakawa (played by Kitano, which makes him a four-tools moviemaker at least).

Eric Burdon & the Animals, "See See Rider" (1966)

Oct. 1, 1966, #10
(listen)

Eric Burdon & the Animals had to go to the back of a long line in terms of getting their bite at this song, written by Ma Rainey in 1924 and recorded over the decades by LaVern Baker, Wee Bea Booze, Big Bill Broonzy, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, Lead Belly, Peggy Lee, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, Sonny Til & the Orioles, and Chuck Willis (who had a #12 pop hit with it in 1957 as "C.C. Rider"). It is so old it has sprouted a garden of alternative titles: "See See Rider Blues," "Easy Rider," "C.C. Rider." The theme is old too: look out for the faithless sexual wanton woman, aka "easy rider," 'cos she's wrecking marriages. Everything else is a play on that—the "C.C.," for example, is said to stand for "country circuit" preachers, who carried the good word and that old time religion on horseback from town to town. Nevertheless, not understanding any of that, I liked the Animals version so much that for many years I kept reflexively including it on short lists of my favorite songs, remembering the giddy heights it sent me to whenever it came leaping out of the radio, too infrequently. I love the surging, high-stepping thrust of it, the headlong tempo, the ballsy confidence. The band is in great form. The Animals were initially my favorite of the British Invasion bands of the time (after the Beatles, always after the Beatles). "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" was my first exposure, but it wasn't long before I caught up with the shivery-good "House of the Rising Sun" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." "See See Rider" is a strong point in a strong run, which also included "It's My Life," "Don't Bring Me Down," "When I Was Young," and I stuck around even for the San Francisco-addled period, which I still enjoy too, and beyond.

An American Tragedy (1925)

Theodore Dreiser's "first novel since 1915" is genuinely a great American novel of the 1920s and inevitably invites comparison with The Great Gatsby, published the same year. At something like five times the size, Dreiser's novel is certainly the most imposing. In a comparison of language, perhaps, is where Dreiser's nagging reputation as a poor writer may find some origins. Not only is Fitzgerald's lustrous language one of the fine points about Gatsby, but also An American Tragedy does have some remarkably deplorable passages—I had always wondered why Dreiser had the reputation, and now I think I know. Most of the last third seems to refrain from direct verbs altogether, preferring to use the gerund form, which begins to feel like moving through pitch—the judge deciding, the lawyer presuming, the gallery gasping, the defendant worrying, the investigator scheming. I think it might be the worst I've ever seen, at least within the bounds of formal literature. Still, it does not diminish the blunt force with which Dreiser imagines and moves his characters about. Clyde Griffiths, at the precipice of a career that could have shot to the skies like Jay Gatsby's, is instead felled, by his circumstances—the inferiority of his upbringing in the naturalist fashion, at which Dreiser has never been better—and equally by his choices. Together they sketch Clyde's character, unique yet of an unmistakably 20th-century American stamp, indeed archetype. An American Tragedy is a big fat tome, with clunky writing, but it is a pulpy, breezy, gripping read, as all the forces of the narrative are brought to bear. All of Clyde's decisions, good and bad, are arrived at transparently. The predicament in which he finds himself is aching and relentless. At some point, likely, readers depart from Clyde's choices and begin to disapprove—strongly. But the route to that place is so lullingly banal that it's really hard to say that moment is going to be the same for everyone. The second of the book's three sweeping movements was most interesting to me, a novel of manners that studies American class distinctions closely. The crime and courtroom drama are fine, but increasingly wordy. Still, obviously, this is one not to miss if you care anything about Dreiser and/or 20th-century American lit.

In case it's not at the library.

Robert Cray Band, "Smoking Gun" (1987)

March 21, 1987, #22
(listen)

I am a fan of Robert Cray and his one and only hit is no exception, not least in that it comes from probably my favorite album by him, Strong Persuader. I like to think of that album, and Cray more generally, as one analog to the Beatles' work of the mid-'60s in terms of the broad and varied approach taken to love and relationship song to song, which I informally dubbed the puppy love song project. Call Robert Cray, especially on Strong Persuader, the all grown up love song project. As with the Beatles, the scope is appreciated only across the songs, as each one is more or less a unique point unto itself. For example, in "Right Next Door (Because of Me)," the singer is the outside disrupting agent in a married couple, who live in the next apartment, from which he can hear them fighting. The singer has been sleeping with the woman. He hears the man accusing her of being unfaithful. He listens to the fight and fills in the circumstances for us with a blend of regret and satisfaction. He takes no action. In the #22 hit "Smoking Gun," by contrast, the singer is the cuckold realizing he is in an adulterous marriage. In the classic spectrum of grief, denial is giving way to anger, though by and large it is still just simmering anxiety. But the singer seems to know if he presses the issue now he's liable to catch her with "that well-known smoking gun." I like the way the lyric traffics in one of the most difficult aspects of these situations—the images one conjures (or, God help us, sees). The singer is not yet the abject figure of "I Guess I Showed Her," a bruised cuckold now living in a motel (to make another comparison from the Strong Persuader album). But he's surely on his way, though the guitar playing suggests the person in this song may have the greater portion of rage about him.

Commodores, "Easy" (1977)

June 25, 1977, #4
(listen)

For me, this is not hard. It's "R&B" because it's on the Motown label, but it's adult contemporary to the marrow, proceeding from the lyrical sentiment and carrying all the way through to the surprisingly hard-edged (yet always tasteful, and tasty) guitar solo. It could not have happened in another era and it was perfect for it. Yes, Jake, I know, it's Lionel Richie. And while I have to acknowledge my lack of regard for him and all his projects (but especially his solo projects)—yes, I am one of those—there is no point in denying how wonderful I find this one. It is beautiful, open, rolling, warm, soft, buoyant, and caressing, floating on its own good feeling. It's charged with a sexuality that's healthy and casual, but incidental to its greatest pleasures, the celebrations of the small, treasured moments. (Or so, anyway, I had always taken it, until I read how it's about a guy at peace with having dumped someone, which puts a different spin on it. But too late now!) I memorably heard it in a grocery store once on a Sunday morning and all my life since I have loved to do my grocery shopping on Sunday mornings. In fact, I will probably go grocery shopping tomorrow morning. I forget this song for years at a time and then I happen to hear it again. At this point it might be useful to bring up Keith Carradine's smaller hit of one year earlier, "I'm Easy," but I don't see why, beyond that both use the same word and also both traffic in country and western stylings. There's no contest on this one. It's the Commodores—it's Lionel Richie—all the way. Play again, please.

Soft Cell, "Tainted Love" (1982)

May 22, 1982, #8
(listen)

"Tainted Love" started life as a swaggering, uptempo '60s post-Motown pop soul number, recorded by Gloria Jones, written by Ed Cobb (also involved in writing "Dirty Water" and "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" for the Standells, among others for others), released on Champion, and going nowhere fast. Or slowly. In the early '80s the Soft Cell duo of Marc Almond and David Ball ran it through the Gary Numanizer for the biggest hit of their (and the song's) careers, spending most of a full year bouncing around the Billboard Hot 100. OK, maybe it's the mix I'm pointing to that has the Gary Numan qualities (or maybe not). Later Marilyn Manson had a turn with "Tainted Love" too, so the thing has been around the block, 50 years and counting. Its resilience has to be counted as a given at this point. I was more relieved than surprised to get the detail on its pedigree, because at some point in the years since it was a hit I had relocated it in my memory all the way back to the '60s. I made someone show it to me in a book that it came from the '80s. As such, perhaps, I think of it now as one of those infinitely malleable songs. I have almost entirely lost track of the "original" Soft Cell version in all the welter of mixes (extended and otherwise), covers, live (clonking) rave-ups, and whatnot. It's a very silly song in many ways, with robot beats and a whole swollen narrative embedded in use of the word "tainted"—very silly but too often a stone winner in the clutch to be written off. Close the loop. Look for the versions that work the Supremes song in, "Where Did Our Love Go," which start with the earliest.

Deep Purple, "Hush" (1968)

Aug. 28, 1968, #4
(listen)

Written by Joe ("Walk a Mile in My Shoes") South, originally for Billy Joe ("Down in the Boondocks") Royal, it's a bit of a crooked line to Deep Purple, which has incidentally made something of a career itself of crooked lines. "Hush" was an early top 40 hit for the hard rockers, and their biggest until "Smoke on the Water" matched it five years later. (For that matter, "Smoke on the Water" found its home on my favorite Deep Purple album, Machine Head, which also contains my favorite Deep Purple song, "Lazy," but that wasn't a hit.) For me "Hush" stood with "Itchycoo Park" as a kind of sinister, undertowing milestone of psychedelic music, drugs, and looming adult awareness. It seems quite serious, a transgressive menace of some kind though hard to put one's finger on why. "Hush" is not concerned nearly as much if at all with a drug experience, but attacks with an alluring and mysterious quality, opening up as it pleases for instrumental breaks. It is beautiful and ugly at once—homely ugly, not dangerous. I thought I didn't hear it nearly enough on the radio at the time, which has left me vaguely convinced it's overlooked or underrated, though it's hard to argue with a #4 (if you're inclined to accept the premise). More recently it has become popular among filmmakers, who have inserted it into Apollo 13, Children of Men, and other movies. Sure, I guess it's a little overdone in the dramatics department, with the arrogant guitar and heavy organ and the booming rattletrap drums and the freaking wolf howling in the distance in the overture. More operatic for sure than I would have expected from a de facto collaboration between Joe South and Deep Purple.