Short Takes

March 29, 2012

Holly Gleason celebrates Earl Scruggs (1924-2012)

This much you know:

Holly Gleason, who knows all things music, has the bigger story: Earl Scruggs might’ve been a master musician and innovator of the same caliber as Miles Davis or Coltrane, but he was more a man who sought to bring people together. As a player, his first break came in 1945 with Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys on the Grand Ole Opry, but it wasn’t long until he and Lester Flatt teamed up and spent the ’50s and ’60s barnstorming the country, popularizing the Appalachian musical form that was all ache and flying fingers. Flatt & Scruggs were icons. Standard-bearers. Gospel-carriers. And then there were the hippies. When the ’60s folk movement hit and the hippie generation erupted, he took the Earl Scruggs Review to colleges across the nation. Who he was transcended what he was. Always a player of high execution and credibility, Scruggs also believed in music’s transcendence. When country was as right as you could get and Jane Fonda the only woman more radical than Joan Baez, Scruggs couldn’t wait to make music with Baez. He also played with Ravi Shankar, the Byrds and Bob Dylan; Eastern music and inscrutable lyrics engaged him in new and thrilling ways. Which was really all Scruggs wanted: to be engaged, pushed, challenged, to see how far music could go. He was there when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded "Will The Circle Be Unbroken." When Steve Martin got serious about bluegrass, Scruggs was there. When Elton John wanted to play with a banjo man, he was there. Indeed, he was as comfortable with Billy Bob Thornton as he was with Vince Gill or Marty Stuart –– and folks like John Fogerty and Leon Russell clamored to play with the man who’s in the Country Music Hall of Fame, has received the National Medal of the Arts, recorded "Red, Hot & Country" for the Red Hot Organization, which supports AIDS charities, and received a Grammy for his 1968 “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” as well as writing and recording “The Ballad of Jed Clampitt” for “The Beverly Hillbillies.” It is vast, this legacy. Marks left in places most would never think of, yet when you pull back and consider… of course. [To buy the CD of his best music from Amazon, click here. For the MP3 download, click here.]
  

March 27, 2012

In Brief: “The Prophet of Tenth Street”

Tsipi Keller and I were on a literary committee. After the meetings, we talked baseball, sealing our non-literary friendship. So I was stunned that this Israeli-born writer whose bio is dotted with grants and prizes would write a novel as sexy — really: as dirty — as Jackpot. Her new novel couldn’t be more different. “The Prophet of Tenth Street” is Marcus Weiss, a New Yorker who sells his business and becomes, of all things, a novelist.  It is beyond difficult to write fiction about a fiction-maker; not only do you have to get into the guy’s head, you’ve got to create a plot in which something actually happens. Keller does both, and in a way that’s unnerving — how does she know so much about what it means to be a man, trapped in his head, convinced he will find and reveal the essential truths of life? [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]

March 26, 2012

Letter from Los Angeles: The Head Butler Fan Club

It was Spring Break for The Child. That means two things. 1) Go somewhere warm on 2) Jet Blue. Los Angeles was anything but warm last week, but my mother and brother joined us, so it was at least cozy. And fun, especially the Wax Museum and the Getty (do NOT rent the taped audio guide, which will take you to furniture and sculpture but not to anything as un-correct and astonishing as James Ensor’s Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889.)

For me, the high point of the trip was a brunch given in my honor by The Head Butler Fan Club. You may wonder how there came to be a HBFC. Like this: A friend wrote about a show at her gallery, some Butler readers dropped in, they compared notes and, suddenly, they had an impromptu group. Cool for them. For me, this was an out-of-body experience. Like John Cheever, I write for "unknown friends" — that you actually exist is stunning to me. This crew not only existed, they presented me with a lovely wood sculpture of a butler, told extravagantly amusing stories and let me ride shotgun in a black Porsche. A thrilling event for unworthy me and — even better — an eye-opener for The Child, who was convinced I’d be the only one to show up at the brunch. 

March 25, 2012

Who says one person can’t make a difference?

In Washington and Israel, politicians with short memories are desperate to bomb Iran. Last week, in Israel, graphic designers Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir created a poster and put it on Facebook: “Iranians. We will never bomb your country. We love you." It moved fast — including to Iran, where Iranians started responding with warm wishes. Then Edry posted a video…. 

March 15, 2012

The movie to see: DETACHMENT

The trailer is a knockout. If the film is a tenth this good, it’s …mandatory. It opens in New York 3/16, in Los Angeles 3/23.