Dr. Rat

12. Accident in Hawaii The Brubecks had been living in an apartment near San Francisco and wanted to buy a home there, but Dave got a gig at Zardi's in Los Angeles, and they moved into a rented two-room house on the beach in Santa Monica. Then they put a down-payment on a house in San Francisco and drove all night, Iola slapping his face all the way, to make the closing in the city, but when they got there the deal had collapsed. They now had no place to live, and their things were in storage. In the spring of 1951 a job came through at the Zebra Lounge in Honolulu, so it was off to Hawaii. They were so hard up they had to buy cut-rate cases of baby food which had been in a fire. But the children wouldn't eat it, so Dave wound up eating the burnt baby food himself in Honolulu. The first week there he dove into a wave which suddenly disappeared, struck a sand bar with his head, and twisted his body. He sustained serious nerve damage, and ended up in traction in the hospital for 21 days. The Brubecks had to return to San Francisco, where Dave couldn't work because of his injury. Now he needed Desmond, since he was no longer capable of carrying off a trio by himself. He played fewer lines and more chords during his recovery, which lasted several years but did not tell anyone the reason at the time. from http://www.jssmusic.com/brubeck_bio.html

I agree with you, and I am not so sure we ought to suppose that this book has none of that attention to detail and context that you mention. In fact, jettisoning the Robert Johnson Legend, I think, is an important step in getting to a point where we CAN properly contextualize the story here. Thing is: in important respects the cultural past we're looking at isn't looking anywhere at all: it isn't anymore. All we've got are remnants and memories and consequences. To make it live again requires our imaginative intervention, and here is where things get complicated. Then when you throw in already received retrospective interpretations, things begin to get really complicated. NOT to say that the detail doesn't matter. It does. And the people who preserve it are crucially important. But there are stories we know much better from the standpoint of detail and context: the late 1960s, say. But if I ask you to give me the story of the 1960s, what are you going to tell me that is "True?" When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter what Armstrong said when he landed on the moon (detail), what matters is what that moment meant. Soon, we are reduced to some level of tendentiousness. Personally, I'd prefer to keep things reasonably civil. But, as I've said, that's not how things have been of late in this business. --eric

It has nothing to do with "post modern drivel about there being no such thing as truth." That's just a bugaboo anyhow. It has to do with the fact that books get written and published in institutional and social contexts that impinge in pretty big ways on the project of finding "truth." Truth may be out there, but what you write is an interpretation, not truth, and your interpretation is liable to be influenced by things like what'll get you tenure, or what will get your book reviewed, or what your peers (who may be pretty casually interested in your topic of specialty) are going to think is cool. These things have demonstrably influenced scholarship, even that written by men (used advisedly) who were quite effusive in their dedication to truth and beauty. Today, I may say I am absolutely dedicated to getting to the truth of the matter. In twenty years someone will come along and show just how distorted--and by what distorted--my idea of truth was. The generation of social critics and musical historians who built the Johnson myth had agendas (aside from uncovering truth) that are pretty obvious to me in retrospect, and at times they were pretty unabashed about putting these agendas forward (unlike their immediate predecessors). Well, that tendentiousness set a standard. That's the fact of the matter. Getting rid of that tendentiousness will make things work a bit more pleasantly and smoothly, I think. And it has gotten very old. But if you think returning to a dedication to truth will get us closer to it, I propose reading some scholarship from folks trained in the Victorian era or in the early part of the twentieth century. Their effusions on behalf of truth are rhapsodic. But of course they considered people like Robert Johnson to be veritable apes. Zero-tolerance for "outiside influence" on scholarly interpretation is just naive and misleading. Better to acknowledge it where one sees it with whatever equanimity one can muster and acknowledge there may be plenty of places where one doesn't see it. And this whole argument goes to style rather than matters of fact anyway--whether or not and how quickly scholarly disagreement ought to descend to ad hominem attack. Personally, I'd rather it be a slow descent. But that hasn't been the style for 30 or 40 years. Doesn't mean there haven't been lots of scholarly advances: there have. Just means that one generation always tries to trash the last. This is unjust, but the generation getting trashed now did it themselves. My sympathy for them is limited. Meanwhile, the book's thesis is interestingly suggestive.

Have you tried before? I read about 80% of it once and have regretted stopping ever since -- I can't get myself to start over! --eric

Unfortunately, that's how you make your way in academia and academic publishing. But critics who built Johnson's reputation were part of the generation who established tendentiousness (accusations and implications of racism abound in this literature) as a modus operendi for cultural critics. It may be tiresome, but I suppose it's only just that their tools should be turned against them. --eric

Have read through the Stowe piece and feel enlightened! A well-researched little piece. I think the theoretical aparatus (public transcript/secret transcript, etc.) might well have been jettisoned, but I guess that's just a sign of the times. He's very fair-minded on the leftist connection, I think: it seems probable, but we just don't know. I have to say I am still capable of being horrified by J. Edgar Hoover stories like: Now, I don't beleive the government has no right/duty to protect the democratic process, but this is Kafka-esque, in both the black-humorous and horrifying senses. Imagine Josephson really is playing from a Soviet script and that he really did use money raised by the Communist Party (no doubt domestically). This is reason to have him deported? This is reason to erase his real name from your records? Unbeleivable. Immediately starting casting Ashcroft in the role of Hoover. Not hard to do with all the Joe McCarthy apologias coming out from the right of late. --eric

Yes the Opies seem to be it. Thanks, Maren. Here's a link to the new edition of The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren for anyone who may be interested. Later in the book there's even a chapter called “Unpopular Children: Jeers and Torments,” no doubt containing a detailed accounting of nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah and its many local variants. --eric

Yet another book question: I am looking for the scene in a book (by Stanley Dance?) where Ellington and Strayhorn collaborate on a score. I beleive it takes place in a train car between dates, and is interestingly informal. Anyone know where this is. Thanks, --eric

I think the white critic/black artist element may be a bit out of place and exploitative (though elsewhere I find this line of argument to be interesting and enlightening). But I think the time is long since past when "Old Blues" stops meaning "Robert Johnson." Personally, I've never thought his music stands out to the degree that his retrospective fame does. How much more ink gets spilled on Johnson that on Patton and House? Or Weldon or McTell or . . . I think we could go on quite a bit. Was Johnson great? Yes. Was he better than his elders and peers? Maybe (personally, I think not). Was he that much better? I think the answer is "no." Not that standout musical figures don't exist, I just don't think Johnson was one of them. Johnson was an important practioner of and innovator within a tradition that existed before him and after him. The crucial factor is his rise to legend status was not the color of the critics, but their desire for a good story to tell about the origins of the blues. Johnson was the vehicle for that story. (Though I do begin to wonder about the race factor, as one of the architects of the Johnson legend was John Hammond, whom I think of as one of the great encouragers of misplaced primitivistic interpretations of black American art. Though he was a lot more than that.)

Cool. This begins to look like what i think I remember. Somebody I was casually acquainted with in grad school gave me the rundown in the smokers' lounge one day (I don't smoke, but I always preferred the smokers' lounge) and let me leaf through the book. I have always cherished this image of a permenant "underground" culture that we all, temporarily, participated in. --eric

Not really ... we could all be living in the Matrix! And try proving we're not. Ok. Back to the conspiracy theories! --eric

Marquis of Queensbury rules? (Of course, you've only got to obey the rules as long as they feel right to you) --eric

What I say is the truth. What these other guys say, it might be amusing, but unless it exactly corresponds to what I say, it is untrue.

No, I think something more like the book in the photo, but I don't think this is THE one I was thinking of, but anyhow

Serious question from a non-Christian: Exactly how "pre-ordained" was it? I mean, I know there is a lot of debate regarding free will, etc., in religion ... how do Christians who believe in free will reconcile that with the idea this was all pre-ordained? It isn't easy! Well, theologically the Catholics end up throwing it into the "mystery" category, but not before all kinds of theo-philosophical gymnastics. Before the emergence of football, this was the big sport in Christian Europe. --eric

Wait for it now . . .

This reminds me, There's a book on children's culture--arguing that many things like this get passed down over the generations from child to child withOUT MUCH (edit) intervention by adults. Does anybody know it? I can't rember the title or author. --eric

I think the Gnostics invented the phrase "If you have to ask, you'll never know." --eric

Well, I'm just trying to say that having control over a situation, having created every element of that situation, having pre-ordained that situation for symbolic purposes--that's different than having the opportunity to defend yourself. Dispensing blame here just seems complete beside the point. --eric

Wow good point Alex. If someone has the power to defend themselves but chooses not to (like, say a black belt martial artist) it absolves their murderer of the responsibility of the crime. I beleive an omniscient, omnipotent deity will admit of no metaphorical substitutes, black belt or not.

I've been really struggling lately. I keep obsessing on the thought that according to my faith, my son could end up in Hell. If that happened, there is no way I could hold nothing but hatred towards God. Maybe it's time to read some of the Nag Hammidi texts again... When I look at the provenance of religious strictures and texts, (how, historically, they get made) I think you've got to question deeply the "rule" side of conflicts like this. Strict Catholics (what I'm most familiar with) always press the "If you don't have the rules, you don't have the religion" line, but there has to be more to the religion than that. I have some respect for spirituality--my uncle, whom I admire a lot, is deeply religious--but I think sometimes you get to break the rules for the right reasons (not, say, because you are lazy or can't control yourself, but for good reasons). I think Christianity is all about changing the rules, anyhow. Which is why my uncle eats shellfish -- though gout may change him!

You're making him sound like a precursor of Bill Gates. Kind of spiritual monopoly capitalism or something. We need a law suit. Simon Weil Alright, Bill Gates, too. Now we're getting somewhere. --eric

And there he established the masons who have been in control of world history fro the past 2000 years? I knew it! --eric

isn't all of this just in your perception? just like mine doesn't allow me to hear anything of what you are writing about? I have the impression you take the "feminin-masculin" thing as something everyone can observe; that my dislike of Miles's tone has something to do with its feminin character. It doesn't. Sorry, your thread has gotten away from you! You are an abberant case we'll account for later. Everyone else is obsessed with sex.

Yeah, I think that's what ambiguity refers to: our inability to resolve. The ambiguity probably has a source in some quality of Miles's, but it doesn't necessarily have a two faced or unclear quality in itself. But I DO think aside from ambiguity we perceive, Miles had an ambivalent relationship with "the establishment" as a public figure, but I am of a mind that his artistic expression was not at all ambivalent, but represented, as you say, both at the same time. --eric