Fame is Fleeting

It's the birthday (1896) of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He wrote short stories, novels, and screenplays. He moved around a lot -- St. Paul, New York, Paris, Los Angeles. He drank too much and died young. He's still famous around these parts because of his connection to St. Paul.

Here's a picture of the lovely brownstone on Summit Avenue where he lived for a while.

When he was in town, he hung out at the bar in the Commodore Hotel a few blocks away. The building has been converted to condominiums but the bar has been restored and is open to the public. They're having drink specials today, I assume. I have not yet visited the Commodore but it's on the bucket list.

Today is also the birthday (1934) of Arne Carlson, former Governor of Minnesota and frequent commentator on local affairs. Arne was born in New York and went to Choate prep school back east. He came to Minnesota for grad school and never left. He's a sharp-tongued iconoclast, which makes him fun to watch even when he's wrong. Arne has been known to frequent the Commodore bar.

Bob Dylan mentions F. Scott Fitzgerald in this song. I do not know if Bob has visited the Commodore, but I can picture him brooding silently in a corner there.

And in this time-travel scene from Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris," Scott and Zelda make a cameo appearance. Enjoy!

The Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul is named for F. Scott, as is a little pub on Selby Avenue called, simply, The Fitz. I've heard The Fitz has good deep-dish pizza, which has nothing at all to do with F. Scott.

Youth Will be Served

On this day in 2012, little Bobby Tufts was elected mayor of Dorset, MN. At four years old he was very likely the youngest mayor in the country. Two years later, he was re-elected, but lost to a 16 year old rival in 2016. The townsfolk had apparently had enough of Mayor Tufts' temper tantrums and disjointed speeches, so they opted for maturity.

This is not as remarkable as it first appears. Dorset, a tiny village in the beautiful lake country of north central Minnesota, surrounded by five state forests, holds its mayoral elections in a unique way: Names of nominees -- dozens, usually -- are placed in a hat during the town's biennial fair and a name is drawn to challenge the incumbent. The winner is elected by acclimation, which usually involves some beer and much shouting and laughter. Sounds like a pretty decent way to do it.

I'd put the age of our current President at about six. Give me pretty much any 16 year old instead.

Mayor Tufts grew up not far from Hibbing, which as every school child knows is the town where Bob Dylan grew up. Dylan wrote a song about being young.

Here's a poem by Richard Brautigan that's kind of related.

"Ah, Great Expectations!"

Sam likes to say, "Ah, great expectations!"
at least three or four times in every
conversation. He is twelve years old.
Nobody knows what he is talking about when
he says it. Sometimes it makes people
     feel uncomfortable.

Naming things Minnesota-style

On this day in 1806, Alexander Faribault was born in Wisconsin. As a young man, he moved to the wilds of Minnesota and established a fur trading post where the Cannon and the Straight rivers meet. A town grew there and it is named Faribault in his honor. It is the county seat of Rice County, MN.  A bit further to the southwest is Faribault County, named for Alexander's son Jean-Baptiste Faribault, also a fur trader. The county seat of Faribault County is Blue Earth, MN. Just to the north of that is Blue Earth County, the county seat of which is Mankato. Is this confusing enough? No? Well, to bring us full circle, the little town of Rice, MN is not in Rice County.

And the Straight River is not even close to being straight. And the Cannon river has nothing to do with cannons -- the name comes from a mangling of the French word for canoe.

The furs that the Faribault fellows were after were beaver and mink and river otter, which ended up in Europe where they were made into hats.

Speaking of fur hats...

Seven and a half songs

On June 17, Penelopedia tagged me with a ‘meme’ and I didn't know it until yesterday. And I didn't know until today what this even means. Tagged? Meme? Hey, this doesn't hurt a bit! I don't mind being tagged with a meme, especially if it has to do with music and bragging. So I'm supposed to blog about seven songs I'm listening to. I guess the vast legion of readers will jump right over to iTunes and buy these songs, eh?

1. All The Time In The World by The Subdudes from the CD Primitive Streak (High Street Records 1996). An eclectic group with New Orleans roots.

2. High Water by Bob Dylan from Love & Theft.

3. Too Soon To Tell by The Subdudes from Primitive Streak. Bonnie Raitt appears on slide guitar and backing vocal. Nice.

4. March of the Lost Children by Joe Zawinul & The WDR Big Band on the CD Brown Street (2007 Heads Up Records), featuring the justly famous Alex Acuña on percussion. This tune is a good bridge to the next one because it has kind of a 60's jazz feel to it.

5. Cool Blues by Jimmy Smith from the CD of the same name (Blue Note 1958; 2001 re-issue). Lou Donaldson on sax, Art Blakey on drums. I've written before about seeing Blakey and Donaldson play. This record is quintessential Jimmy Smith.

6a. Procession by Joe Zawinul from Brown Street. Fine use of a barking dog.

6b. The Clothesline Saga by The Roches on A Nod to Bob tribute CD (Red House Records). This is a little-known Dylan song, done with great mystery and humor by The Roches.

7. Interesting by Mavis Staples from Time Waits for No One. Paisley Park Studios (year?). Prince himself, who produced the album, plays drums on this number.

Best use of [blank] in a song

Lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums: This has become the de facto standard for rock and roll band instrumentation. Is there some unwritten rule about this? If a band shows up at the bar for a gig and one of the members is carrying, say, a banjo or a saxophone, are they barred at the door? Bouncer says “We didn’t hire no bluegrass band and don’t allow no jazz, neither.”

To encourage them (yeah, like they read this blog), here are just a few examples of atypical instruments or sounds in some songs I like. Additional nominations are encouraged.

Best use of a banjo: Bob Dylan in "High Water" on his 2001 Love and Theft CD. That song is excellent for many reasons, and the banjo is a nice bluegrass reference. Honorable mention to Jim White in his song "Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi" on the 2001 No Such Place. Favorite lyrics from that song:

My Trans Am is missing
My Trans Am is missing
I guess no more kissing
the girl who loves my car

Best use of a siren: Joni Mitchell in "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" from the 1991 CD Night Ride Home. If a siren can be subtle, it is on this tune, adding to the foreboding tone. Makes me shudder. Honorable mention to John Hiatt for "Tennessee Plates" on the 1998 release Slow Turning. Clever phrase from that song:

We crossed the Mississippi like an oil slick fire.

Best use of a cricket chirp: Joni Mitchell again, for "Night Ride Home" on the CD of the same name. Story is that the recording engineer leaned out a window of the building that housed the studio, sampled the cricket chirp, then put it on a loop behind the song. Nature's own tambourine.

Other stuff: The jazz combo Oregon used an udu drum to great effect in "Vessel" on the 1979 record Roots in the Sky. That’s appropriate because the udu is a clay vessel slightly modified to become a unique instrument. The flamenco group Ojos de Brujo uses a staggering array of percussion instruments up to and including the kind of turntable (for ‘scratching’) found in hip hop music. My favorite is the cajon. That's a picture of a cajon, also known as a box drum, at the top of this post.

I try not to miss the annual recital of the St. Olaf College percussion ensemble, in part because I'm a washed up former percussionist but really because it is always an enjoyable musical experience. Under the direction of David Hagedorn, the ensemble's next recital is Thursday, November 15, 2007 at 8:15PM in Urness Recital Hall.

I want a cajon drum for Christmas.

The Wind Howls Like a Hammer

That's a line from a Bob Dylan song, which has little if anything to do with this poem.

Spotlight

I want to go back in time and be interviewed by Dick Cavett or David Frost. They would be their charming and impish selves and I would expound upon the pressing need for weed control in southeast Colorado or the plight of the blue whale or the mid-term elections. I would be sincere, compassionate, handsome.

I want to be interviewed on public television. Charlayne Hunter-Gault could look me in the eye and ask pointed questions about the middle east peace process or good restaurants in Sao Paulo or the state of Italian opera. I will be smooth, clever, confident.

I want to be the sole eyewitness when the local TV reporter runs breathlessly up and asks for my first-hand account. I’ll tell her about the getaway car and rain and sirens or about the daring rooftop rescue or the tense hostage negotiations. I will be accurate, erudite, unruffled.

I want to testify at a high-profile trial and be questioned by high-powered attorneys. I’ll awe the courtroom with riveting details about my boss’s indiscretions. I’ll single-handedly expose the corporate corruption, intrigue, and greed. I will be steely-eyed and relentless.

America will not be able to get enough of me.

And then I will disappear like Butch Cassidy into the Andes or the south Pacific or the Georgia swamps.

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