While I found “Where is Joe Merchant” to be trying too hard, the earlier “Tales from Margaritaville
” is one of my favorite books by doing just the opposite: The stories here — often little more than vignettes — pour out as easily as Jimmy’s songs, which isn’t surprising, since many of them are expanded versions of songs off his album “Off to see the Lizard.”
Taken together, we get an extremely good vision of the Gulf Coast and the lives of the characters in Jimmy’s musical world, where a big heart is worth more than a fancy car or the nicest clothes, and where good music and good food and good company are more important than who one is in the community or how successful they are.
The book only falters when it leaves the more realistic settings behind for the more fantastic, something that threatens to swamp the novel he wrote as a follow-up to this work, “Where is Joe Merchant.”
No, this isn’t brain surgery, and Jimmy didn’t win the Pulitzer for fiction for this work, but it’s more-than-pleasant summer reading and a worthy companion to his music.
My mother sent this to me, and I repost it here so as not to carry on the shameful family legacy of being someone who sends these sorts of things out by e-mail. Also, as much as I am embarassed by not knowing some of these things — although, really, who sees a rotary phone dial regularly any more in 2005? — I find the notion that the average score is seven to be a somewhat dubious claim.
Anyway, the evil e-mail list thing:
There are 25 questions about things we see every day or have known about all our lives. How many can you get right? These little simple questions are harder than you think — it just shows you how little we pay attention
to the commonplace things of life.
Put your thinking caps on. No cheating! No looking around! No getting out of your chair! No using anything on or in your desk or computer!
Can you beat 20? (The average is seven.) Write down your answers and check answers (on the bottom) AFTER completing all the questions.
REMEMBER – NO CHEATING!
BE HONEST! That means no looking at your phone or anything on your desk …
If you have both an Internet-capable computer and a rotary telephone on your desk, I want to shake your hand and take your picture.
Then, before you pass this on to your friends, change the number on the subject line to show how many you got correct. Forward to your friends and also back to the one who sent it to you.
LET’S JUST SEE HOW OBSERVANT YOU REALLY ARE – If not, just have fun! Here we go!
1. On a standard traffic light, is the green on the top or bottom?
2. How many states are there in the USA? (Don’t laugh, some people don’t know.)
3. In which hand is the Statue of Liberty’s torch?
4. What six colors are on the classic Campbell’s soup label?
5. What two numbers on the telephone dial don’t have letters by them?
Rotary telephone; a similar question about touchtone phones is coming later. This list has to have been passed around pre-Internet, back when people tied up office fax machines with such things.
6. When you walk does your left arm swing with your right or left leg? (Don’t you dare get up to see!)
7. How many matches are in a standard pack?
8. On the United States flag is the top stripe – red or white?
9. What is the lowest number on the FM dial?
10. Which way does water go down the drain, counter or clockwise?
In the Northern Hemisphere, in this case.
11. Which way does a “no smoking” sign’s slash run?
12. How many channels on a VHF TV dial?
13. On which side of a women’s blouse are the buttons?
14. Which way do fans rotate?
Answer as if you are looking at a fan blowing in your direction.
15. How many sides does a stop sign have?
16. Do books have even-numbered pages on the right or left side?
17. How many lug nuts are on a standard car wheel?
18. How many sides are there on a standard pencil?
19. Sleepy, Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc. Who’s missing?
20. How many hot dog buns are in a standard package?
21. On which playing card is the card maker’s trademark?
22. On which side of a Venetian blind is the cord that adjusts the opening between the slats?
23. There are 12 buttons on a touch tone phone. What two symbols bear no digits?
24. How many curves are there in the standard paper clip?
25. Does a merry-go-round turn counter or clockwise?
Assume you were looking down from above the merry-go-round.
ANSWERS
1. Bottom
2. 50
3. Right
4. Blue, red, white, yellow, black and gold
5. 1, 0
6. Right
7. 20
8. Red
9. 87.7
10. Clockwise (north of the equator)
11. Towards bottom right
12. 12 (no #1)
13. Left
14. Clockwise as you look at it
15. 8
16. Left
17. 5
18. 6
19. Bashful
20. 8
21. Ace of spades
22. Left
23. *, #
24. 3
25. Counter
Now send it to some of your friends and put your score in the subject box!
Do it and I’ll get you back with endless chain letters. You’ve been warned. My mom’s got some headed her way right now.
In completely unrelated news, Wired has a fascinating article about the birth of Google.
I’d heard nothing but bad things about “The Beach,” from people who’d apparently come to it expecting “Titanic II.” It’s certainly not that, but it’s also not a terrible movie. The problem is that it’s the “Trainspotting” director giving us a story that’s an odd hybrid of “Six Nights, Seven Days” and “Trainspotting” — with a contempt for ordinary travelers that even the movie eventually acknowledges if fatuous — that veers off unexpectedly to become “Lord of the Flies” or “Apocalypse Now.”
Which isn’t to say that there’s nothing good in the movie. The setting is breathtaking, and many of the performances — by a who’s who of indie film regulars — are extremely well-done. Even many of the story and directorial conceits work well, most notably a videogame sequence late in the film.
But ultimately, the movie’s lack of focus makes for a frustrating experience. There are flashes of a great film in here, although too often they’re flashes borrowed from other, better movies.
According to the ratings, I’m the only one watching Rock Star: INXS. And that’s a shame, since as the band winnows down the candidates, it really seems like they have a shot at getting a new lead singer who could credibly take over for the late Michael Hutchence.
(On the other hand, I guess this saves us from Rock Star: Velvet Revolver next year.)
That said, COME ON, GUYS! Daphna Dove had charisma and stage presence to burn, and if she didn’t give her best performance this week, she didn’t deserve to be in the bottom three, much less get cut. Hopefully some indie label will give her a ring and she’ll get an album deal of her own. (It’s funny, but it was rare that I felt that way about also-rans on American Idol, other than Bo Bice.)
Rock Star Go Home lets people bet on who’s next to get kicked from the show. Of course, I was surprised to see Daphna in the bottom three, so maybe there’s not a lot of chance of me winning here.
If you’re going to be inspired by other artists, you could do worse than to be inspired by the ones Liz Phair has been.
Her original album, “Exile in Guyville,” was famously a response to the Rolling Stones‘ “Exile on Main Street.” (It’s a comparison that, at times, has been done to death.) Now, on her new album, “Somebody’s Miracle,” coming out October 4, she’s responding to Stevie Wonder’s amazing album, “Songs in the Key of Life,” although it’s not a literal song-for-song response.
Here’s what she tells Rolling Stone magazine:
In writing the new material, Phair says she “talked a lot about the weaknesses that we have as human beings, and the weaknesses in relationships, and doubt and cruelty and betrayal,” but still aimed to create a record that was “hopeful and positive.” She attributed that optimism to the influence and richness of Wonder’s music.
“I thought, ‘This is what I wish music were today,'” she says of listening to Key of Life. “I was so blown away. I seriously had a real passion for it. So I wanted to just put a little more soul into what I was doing.
“And obviously with Stevie Wonder I was like, ‘How the hell am I going to do that?'” she continues. “Clearly, when you find a record like that, the first thing — and the most immediate thing — is how inadequate you are. But that’s why I did it. It’s like taking a course with the best professor in the world.”
I remember my parents playing Wonder’s album on the car stereo seemingly endlessly when it first came out. That’s a lofty goal to be aiming for, but I have to admire her for trying.
Amazon doesn’t yet have “Somebody’s Miracle” listed yet, but they do have the Japanese import version. As with the Japanese version of whitechocolatespaceegg, it will contain an exclusive track. It’s also an expensive $36.99. Decisions, decisions.
Billboard has a write-up on “Somebody’s Miracle.” It sounds like the album may try to appeal to both halves of the Liz Phair fanbase. Me, I see her recent stuff in a continuum with her other work, and not a sharp break, but that’s obviously not a unanimous opinion. Note that “Part of Me,” which was distributed on the album sampler now appears to either have been renamed or to have gotten cut from the album.
Liz is apparently an object of lust for Macintosh aficionados. Who knew?
