Archives for April 2018

From 2008:

Making art–and a biography is a work of art, more or less–is a strange sensation. During your working hours you really do watch the rest of the world from a window, yet at the same time you don’t fully feel the act of creation in which you’re involved. Hours slip by without your being aware of their passing, and all at once you look up and the sun has set. On Wednesday I got up at eight, went to work at eight-thirty, and stopped writing at six-forty-five to dress for the theater, and the only person I spoke to during that time (except for a brief call to Mrs. T in Connecticut at midday) was the waitress from whom I ordered my lunch. When I was done I’d written eight thousand words, the equivalent of eight Wall Street Journal drama columns, yet I barely noticed that I was writing them until I was through….

Read the whole thing here.

“Everything tends toward catastrophe & collapse. I am interested, geared up & happy. Is it not horrible to be built up like that? The preparations have a hideous fascination for me. I pray to God to forgive me for such fearful moods of levity. Yet I would do my best for peace, & nothing would induce me wrongfully to strike the blow.”

Winston Churchill, letter to his wife, July 28, 1914

It would be an understatement to say that I don’t often sound off at length about rock and roll, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in it, and I recently made a very big exception: I’m the guest on the latest episode of Political Beats, the National Review podcast in which “Scot Bertram and Jeff Blehar ask guests from the world of politics about their musical passions.” It isn’t quite right to say that I hail from the world of politics—that’s putting it mildly—but it’s true that I’ve been writing for NR for most of my adult life, and when I was asked to talk about the Band, my favorite rock group, I couldn’t very well say no, and didn’t.

Here’s how Scot and Jeff describe the episode:

This week the gang hops on board the mystery train and takes a journey deep into the unknowable heart of America as they discuss The Band, one of the true sui generis phenomena of the rock era. The Band is a rock group that, despite their relatively short (and variable) major-label career, has called forth more profound verbiage from music and cultural critics than most other North American artists save Bob Dylan, so the gang understands that they are walking paths already trodden solidly into shape by others (hello, Greil Marcus!). Nevertheless, attention must be paid: Terry, a child of the ’50s growing up in southeast Missouri, tells the story of growing up in a non-“rock” household and suddenly becoming cognizant of the great cultural ferment playing out on the radio and on vinyl. An early ’70s purchase of the original edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide having piqued his interest, he mail-ordered The Band’s first two albums and nothing was the same after that.

The three of us did some serious talking on line last week, and the result is a lengthy episode (it runs for two and a half hours, including generous helpings of music) in which we work our way through the recorded output of the Band and express a wealth of strong opinions.

Along the way, it hit me that I’d been listening to the Band for nearly half a century—I discovered Music from Big Pink and The Band in 1971, give or take a year or two—and that I love their music as much now as I did when I was a boy. That’s staying power.

To listen online, download the podcast, or subscribe to “Political Beats,” go here.

To read more about my youthful discovery of rock, go here.

The Band performs “Up on Cripple Creek,” written by Robbie Robertson, on The Ed Sullivan Show. This performance was originally telecast by CBS on November 2, 1969:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Fancy living in one of these streets—never seeing anything beautiful—never eating anything savoury—never saying anything clever!“

Winston Churchill, in conversation with Edward Marsh after walking through a Manchester slum (quoted in Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh, Patron of the Arts: A Biography)