beyond magazine

Flashback: Magazine Writing

Original blog entry from January 2003:

I am reading through The Best American Magazine Writing: 2001. I read two pieces last night - both on music. The first article was called "Forever Young" by James Wolcott. It was a profile of Bobby Darin:

With Freed dethroned, the reigning ambassador to youth became Dick Clark whose American Bandstand showcased the latest crop of "teen twerps" (Goldman's term), wholesome role models who looked as if they had been squirted from the same cake-decorating gun. Unnaturally peppy, they were pop singers, not rock 'n' rollers, their very names sounding carbonated. Fabian. Frankie Avalon. Paul Anka. Bobby Darin. Bobby Rydell. Pat Boone. Connie Francis. Shelley Fabares. It was as if Elvis Presley had sired a litter of squealing albinos.

The best article was by Rian Malan and entitled "In the Jungle". I tried to look for a copy online without any luck. It was originally published in the May 2000 issue of Rolling Stone. and tells the story of the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". If you ever had any doubts about the importance of copyright and what ruthless people will do if you don't have one, this is the article for you. Here's an excerpt until you can find the real deal:

Once upon a time, a long time ago, a Zulu man stepped up to a microphone and improvised a melody that earned many millions. That Solomon Linda got almost none of it was probably inevitable. He was a black man in white-ruled South Africa, but his American peers fared little better. Robert Johnson's contribution to the blues went largely unrewarded. Lead Belly lost half of his publishing to his white "patrons." DJ Alan Freed refused to play Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" until he was given a songwriter's cut. Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" was lifted from Willie Dixon. All musicians were minnows in the pop-music food chain, but blacks were most vulnerable, and Solomon Linda, an illiterate tribesman from a wild valley where lions roamed, was totally defenseless against sophisticated predators.(page 81-82)

Salon writer, Greil Marcus puts it this way:

From Malan, the capitalist odyssey of a 1939 song its creator sold for "about one pound cash" and which to this day has made tens of millions for others: the song generations of campers know as "Wimoweh." In the annals of theft and fraud that make up at least half the story of popular music, what's astonishing is not that Linda (1909-62) reaped so little, but that, today, his family receives anything at all; what's uncanny is that the Evening Birds' dignified, stately original is instantly recognizable as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," the cheesy 1961 No. 1 by the Tokens. I heard it three times in one day recently; the voices on the verses are still embarrassing, but after Malan's piece, the chorus sounded glorious.

And his pig, Marmite.

If you tend to get lost in the all-links, all-the-time world of blogging you may be pleased to see something that promotes the tiny, or in Dave Eggers' case "the short short". The Guardian presents a short-short story contest entitled To the Point with finalists selected by Dave Eggers. One of the introductory sentences:

To the point of breaking, the rope was stretched. At the end of which hung a twitching, whey-faced Arthur, and his pig, Marmite.

Moon is Down

Beyond ICU member and Five Foot Bookshelf contributor, David Shepherd offers up the following recommendation:

John Steinbeck's book, The Moon Is Down,  is about a Norwegian town occupied by German troops during World War II.  This short novel, only about 100 pages long, explores the relationships of the soldiers and officers and the people of the town they're assigned to. Eventually the hatred of the townspeople begins to wear down their sanity as they succumb to isolation, frustration, and the exhaustion that comes from constantly having to be on their guard against everyone around them. They slowly realize that nothing can stem the hatred of a conquered people.  It's a smart, incisive novel. Some quotes:

'We trained our young men for victory and you've got to admit they're glorious in victory, but they don't quite know how to act in defeat.  We told them they were brighter and braver than other young men.  It was a kind of shock to them to find out that they aren't a bit braver or brighter than other young men.'

Loft said harshly, 'What do you mean by defeat?  We are not defeated.'

And Lanser looked coldly up at him for a long moment and did not speak, and finally Loft's eyes wavered and he said, 'Sir.'

...and Lanser said, 'Don't talk for a moment.  I know what it is.  You didn't think it would be this way, did you?  You thought it would be rather nice."

'They hate us,' Prackle said, 'They hate us so much.'

'...you thought it would be fun, didn't you?...You're not a man anymore. You are a soldier.  Your comfort is of no importance and, Lieutenant, your life isn't of much importance.  If you live, you'll have memories. That's about all you will have.  Meanwhile you must take orders and carry them out.  Most of the orders will be unpleasant, but that's not your business.  I will not lie to you, Lieutenant.  They should have prepared you for this, and not for flower-strewn streets. They should have built your soul with truth, not led it along with lies.'

_________________________

Orden fingered his gold medallion.  He said quietly, 'You see, sir, nothing can change it.  You will be destroyed and driven out.'  His voice was very soft.  'The people don't like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be.  Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat.  Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles, and the free men who win wars.  You will find that is so, sir.'

___________________________

Tonder said, 'I mean this: we'll be going home before long, won't we?'

'Well, the reorganization will take some time,' Hunter said.  'The new order can't be put into effect in a day, can it?'

Tonder said, 'All our lives perhaps?'

And Prackle said, 'Don't let him start it again!'

...'He's making out his report.  He's asking for reinforcements,' said Loft.  'It's a bigger job then we thought.'

Prackle asked excitedly, 'Will he get them - the reinforcements?'

'How would I know?'

Tonder smiled, 'Reinforcements!' he said softly.  'Or maybe replacements.  Maybe we could go home for a while.'  And he said, smiling, 'Maybe I could walk down the street and people would say, 'Hello' and they'd say, 'There goes a soldier,' and they'd be glad for me and they'd be glad of me.  And there'd be friends about, and I could turn my back to a man without being afraid.'

...Tonder went on, 'You really think replacements will come, Captain?'

'I didn't say so.'

'But you said they might.'

'I said I didn't know. Look Lieutenant, we've conquered half the world.  We must police it for a while. You know that.'

'But the other half,?' Tonder asked.

'They will fight on hopelessly for a while,' said Loft.

'Then we must be spread out all over.'

' For a while,' said Loft.

...He [Tonder] said, 'I had a funny dream.  I guess it was a dream. Maybe it was a thought.  Maybe a thought or a dream.'

Prackle said, 'Make him stop, Captain!'

Tonder said, "Captain, is this place conquered?"

"Of course," said Loft.

A little note of hysteria crept into Tonder's laughter.  He said, "Conquered and we're afraid; conquered and we're surrounded."  His laughter grew shrill.  "I had a dream - or a thought - out in the snow with the black shadows and the faces in the doorways, the cold faces behind curtains.  I had a thought or a dream."

Prackle said, "Make him stop!"

And Loft & Hunter laughed together and Loft said, "The enemy have found out how crazy.  I'll have to write that one home.  The enemy have learned how crazy the leader is."

And Tonder went on laughing. "Conquest after conquest, deeper and deeper into molasses...maybe the Leader is crazy. Flies conquer the flypaper. Flies capture two hundred miles of new flypaper!"

Preaching to the converted.

Thank you to Darren at Long Pauses for bringing this brilliant Tony Kushner quote to our attention:

Since I started doing interviews, I’ve answered the "preaching to the converted" question more than any other. It seems to me predicated on an unthinking use of the terms "preaching" and "converted." It’s not as if all preachers, including for instance John Donne, were merely dispensers of predigested, soundbite rhetoric and cliche; good preachers are gifted articulators of the thorniest, juiciest, most dangerous, most contradictory problems, dilemmas, controversies.

It’s not as if the "converted" are always only Moonies lacking any sort of spiritual liveliness or freedom of thought. Quite the contrary. The converted, the congregation, united by certain beliefs, share amongst themselves bewilderment, despair, hope needing amplification, confusion needing examination and elucidation, and avenues of interesting and productive inquiry. Lockstep congregations are a sure sign of a moribund faith, of the absence of anything Divine. A good preacher rattles her congregants’ smugness and complacency, and congregants to do the same for the preacher. Good preachers are exhilarating to listen to, and the converted have a lot to think about. So this "preaching to the converted" question doesn’t address all religious practice, or all theater — just crummy religion and inept theater.

From 10 Questions for Tony Kushner