Review: The Menu

What the hell was that? Seriously: WTF? Is it avant garde or just somebody’s fever dream of combination revenge/suicide porn? Can’t say what the motivation was behind it, but there was no real story to tell other than a step-by-step ratcheting up of colorful absurdity leading to a final conflagration. I mentioned in my review of The Glass Onion an emerging trend toward depicting the wealthy as pathetic figures rather than aspirational ones. “Soak the rich” is transforming into something far more ugly (wait for it: heads on spikes soon enough). That seems to be the whole point of this otherwise pointless exercise of a film. Spoilers ahead.

The film trots out its cast of tired character archetypes: the sybarite and his last-minute date (a philistine), the haughty and dismissive food critic and her snobby companion, the politician and his wife who tolerates his infidelities, the trio of gauche, misbehaved tech bros, and the washed up movie star/producer and his coattail-riding personal assistant. Collectively, they are yet another set of Shitheads (to reuse the indelicate term from The Glass Onion), each willing to shell out $1,200 to experience a specially curated menu by the master chef while inexplicably being held hostage on yet another private island. (Seems the private island in the post-Epstein era has entered the public mind as the forbidden delight of the jet set.) But it gets worse, obviously. The chef and his minions apparently have come to abjection and remorse over their enabling of multiple groups of Shitheads over the course of time (multiple menus for years?) and have at last concocted a menu culminating in murder/suicide of all present at the dinner. That’s the story worth telling?

Each of the dinner courses is preceded by a creepy monologue by the chef to provide a narrative behind each item of haute cuisine. As absurdity gains momentum, the monologues turn to moralizing and accusation with the dinner party eventually recognizing that the chef is a maniac and the private island is an inescapable trap. Each Shithead has his or her moment before the mirror and is forced to recognize his or her awfulness, stripping away façades to reveal wildly distorted characters. Like I said: revenge porn. The sole exception is the philistine, who weirdly outwits the chef by sending back her dinner as unsatisfactory, ordering instead a cheeseburger and fries, and taking them to go. The chef’s strict personal integrity demands he comply, apparently, which contrasts with his otherwise ironclad control over the kitchen and dinner party. However, I had already checked out of the film. Its internal logic no longer mattered, which is why I wasn’t bothered when the rest of the guests wanly accepted their fates with essentially no self-preservation instinct. Sure, whatever.

Keep on Listening

This post was going to be a review of David Hurwitz but became more an appreciation than a review. Hurwitz is an author and music critic who reviews classical music recordings both on YouTube and online at ClassicsToday.com. I hear quite a few of his YouTube videos but pay scant attention to the website. I also don’t comment; he has an engaged commentariat already. Hurwitz signs off from each video with the exhortation “keep on listening,” which I’ve adopted as the title of this blog post.

Aside: Before I get started (and this will run only slightly long), let me admit fully that classical music is a niche cultural offering rooted deeply in Western historical practice but which does not speak to many people. Everyone has their tastes and predilections and no apologies are needed when preferring one category or genre over another. However, I’m not such a value relativist to lend support to the notion that all things are created equal. How one defines art or indeed high art is a contentious issue, not unlike what counts as religion or philosophy. I hew to a relatively narrow traditional standard that admits poetry, literature, music, architecture, sculpture, and painting but eschews martial arts, culinary arts, cinema, theater, and video games. Not an exhaustive list on either side of the divide and no need to argue. Caveat: my standards are my own and should not impeach or diminish anyone’s enjoyment of his or her own passions.

Further aside: Also, the recording industry is a latecomer in the history of high art (and for that matter pop culture) and has already undergone numerous transformations as physical media shifted from the long-playing record (the venerable LP) to CD before going virtual as electronic files and streaming media. In a nutshell, competing forms of recording and distribution make up the so-called format wars, which are by no means settled. The entire idea behind making a recording is to memorialize a performance for repeat listening and posterity, as opposed to a live performance in a concert venue. The anachronistic term record calls back to that origin, though the term is arguably less applicable with each passing decade as everything is recorded and memorialized somehow. In addition, recordings grant access to ensembles and repertoire that would be prohibitively expensive or impossible if experienced solely in live concert. Through recordings, I gained a deep appreciation of many orchestras and lots of repertoire never once heard live in person. The same effect doesn’t really apply to reading a book or watching a movie. Lastly, and unlike a lot of my musician peers, I became an aficionado of recordings in parallel with performance activities.

I appreciate David Hurwitz for being among only a few people (to my knowledge) giving honest and entertaining assessments of recordings (not just new issues), as opposed to what passes for music criticism columns in newspapers and online devoted to live performance. Hurwitz explains, compares, teaches, and jokes about recordings with concentration on German symphonic repertoire, which is also my preferred musical genre. His erudite remarks also enhance my listening, which ought to be the chief goal of criticism — something lost on columnists who draw undue attention to themselves as flowery writers and auteurs. Hurwitz also has at his disposal rooms full of CDs, which I’m guessing are either sent to him for review by the record companies or otherwise acquired in the course of his professional activities. Lots of them are giant box sets of the entire recorded oeuvre of a particular conductor or conductor/orchestra/label combo. Thus, his breadth of coverage is far greater than my own. I’ve made numerous purchasing decisions based on his reviews and streamed lots more for a quick listen to hear what’s so remarkable (or awful) about them.

Final Aside: When I was much younger, I stumbled into a record shop (remember those?) in Greenwich, Connecticut, that had in inventory essentially the entire current catalogs of the major classical music labels. That richness of options (pre-Internet) was quite atypical and unlike any other record shop I’ve known. Accordingly, I was feverish with excitement, looking at all those big square LP jackets with their enclosed vinyl and attractive cover art. Back then, the only way to hear something was to purchase it, and my limited budget demanded prioritization. Decisions involved a mixture of pain (financial sacrifice and awareness of those many LPs, now CDs, left behind) and anticipated pleasure that has hardly faded with time. How someone like David Hurwitz ends up as a full-time music critic surrounded by rooms of CDs is a puzzle, and I sometimes sometimes envy him. Sports fans who grow up to be sportscasters might be a similar track. Who can predict who will be fortunate enough to enjoy fandom as a career?

Review: Glass Onion

A few years ago, Knives Out (2019) unexpectedly solidified the revival of the whodunit and introduced its modern-day master sleuth: Benoit Blanc. The primary appeal of the whodunit has always been smartly constructed plots that unfold slowly and culminate in a final reveal or unmasking that invites readers to reread in search of missed clues. The two early masters of this category of genre fiction were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, both succeeding in making their fictional detectives iconic. Others followed their examples, though the genre arguably shifted onto (into?) the TV with shows such as Perry Mason, Columbo, and Murder She Wrote. No surprise, Hollywood transformed what might have been a one-and-done story into the beginnings of a franchise, following up Knives Out with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (subtitle displayed unnecessarily to ensure audiences make the connection — wouldn’t a better subtitle be A Benoit Blanc Mystery?). Both movies are entertaining enough to justify munching some popcorn in the dark but neither observes the conventions of the genre — novel, TV, or film — any too closely. Spoilers ahead.

I harbor a sneaking suspicion that Benoit Blanc is actually a bumbling fool the way poor, rumpled Columbo only pretended to be. Although I can’t blame Daniel Craig for taking roles that allow him to portray someone other than James Bond, Craig is badly miscast and adopts a silly Southern accent others complain sounds laughably close to Foghorn Leghorn. (Craig was similarly miscast in the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but that’s an entirely different, unwritten review.) So long as Blanc is a nitwit, I suppose the jokey accent provides some weak characterization and enjoyment. Problem is, because the film is only superficially a whodunit, there is no apparent crime to solve after Blanc figures out the staged murder mystery (sorta like an escape room) just after the vacation weekend gets started but before the faux murder even occurs. Kinda ruins the momentum. As a result, the film digresses to a lengthy flashback to establish the real crime that Blanc is there to solve. Maybe good mystery novels have partial reveals in the middle, reframing the entire mystery. I dunno but rather doubt it.

The plot is by no means tightly knit or clever as a whodunit normally demands. Rather, it employs lazy, pedestrian devices that irritate as much as entertain. Such as one of the characters (the real murdered character) having an identical twin who substitutes herself for the dead one; such as trapping attendees on a remote island without servants or transportation but largely ignoring their suggested captivity; such as uncovering an orgy of evidence better suited to misdirection and framing of an innocent; such as mixing faux violence with real violence, though none of the characters appears even modestly afraid at any point; such as bullets being fortuitously stopped by items in a breast pocket; such as sleuthing and detecting — done by the twin, not Blanc! — being presented in a montage of coinkidinks that demonstrate more luck than skill. I could go on. The worst cinematic trick is reprising scenes in flashback but altered to insert clues viewers would have noticed initially. Those aren’t reveals; they’re revisions. Moreover, instead of inviting viewers to rewatch, this gimmick jams supposedly unnoticed clues down their throats. How insulting. If Benoit Blanc is really an overconfident, dandified nincompoop, I suppose it’s better and more convenient (for bad storytelling) to be lucky than good. He doesn’t solve anything; he’s just there to monologue incessantly.

The weekend party is hosted by a character patterned after … oh never mind, you know who. I decline to provide the name of that real-life narcissist. Members of the entourage are mostly sycophants, originally good friends but later ruined in different ways by proximity to a hyper-successful fraud. As a group, they’re known as The Shitheads, which just about sums it up. Critics have observed a shift in entertainment toward depicting super-wealthy pretty people as heels of the highest order. Not sure what makes that entertaining exactly. I enjoy no Schadenfreude witnessing the high and mighty brought low, much as they may deserve it. It’s just another lazy cliché (like its inverse: the dignity of the downtrodden everyman a/k/a the noble savage) trotted out in the absence of better ideas.

Review: Blonde

Like another show I dubbed SufferFest, if you haven’t yet forfeited the nearly three-hour run time, save your effort and skip Blonde unless you enjoy watching people suffer. This pointless, highly selective biopic on Marilyn Monroe depicts her solely as struggling under the so-called tyranny of the lurid male gaze. (No real acknowledgement of her participation in that dynamic.) Yeah, it’s been long established that the old Hollywood studio system and the devouring public can’t avoid destroying their most iconic creations — especially the females. That’s the bitter end of the hype cycle if one is unfortunate enough to succumb. Oddly, the film omits Marilyn Monroe’s death at a relatively young age under questionable circumstances.

To its extremely modest credit, the film separates Norma Jeane Mortensen (or Baker) from Marilyn Monroe, meaning that the blonde bombshell character was an act, a Hollywood fiction — at least until it stopped being one. Whereas most would probably prefer to be remembered in a positive light (e.g., an Irish wake), this film insists (and insists and insists and then insists some more) on its subject being a victim and sufferer, which makes the audience into voyeurs and accomplices. A couple brief moments suggesting her exceptional, incandescent talent on multiple levels were reframed as yet more suffering. The film probably fits the contemporary Woke narrative of victimhood and is wholly unenjoyable. I regret having watched it. Earns a negative recommendation: stay away.

Review: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Watched Everything Everywhere All at Once (DVD version) at home on my TV, which is where I see most films these days. Very few inspire me to trek to the theater anymore to overpay for seats and popcorn. Was pleased to enjoy this film quite a bit — at least before turning an analytical eye toward it. Let me provide a fun, glossy assessment before getting bogged down in troublesome detail.

The film introduces and trades heavily on characters from a supposed multiverse (a multitude of parallel universes branching indiscreetly from arbitrary decision points into an infinity of possibilities) “verse-jumping” into our universe to fix and repair damage done in one or more of the others. As plot devices go, this one is now quite commonplace and always (perhaps inevitably, given our preoccupation with ourselves) positions our universe (the only one we know until someone from outside intrudes) at the center of the others and as the linchpin in some grand plan to save the space-time continuum. It’s a worn trope yet allows storytellers immense freedom to conjure anything imaginable. Everything depicts disorienting alternative universes quite well, most of them (for no particular reason beyond having fun, I surmise) absurd variations of the familiar. Indeed, unlike most films where I sit in stone silence no matter what is presented, this one generated laugh-out-loud moments and gestures across the couch to the effect “did you see that?” In short, what that means is the film produced reflexive responses (it goosed me), which is quite unusual considering how most films, despite lots of overwrought action and drama, fail to register more than a checkbox “yup, got it.”

Actors portraying the three or four main characters do well in their respective jobs, playing several versions of themselves from different universes with diverse experiences. Most of the film is chase-and-evade, devolving at times into a familiar martial-arts punchfest that has frankly lost all possibility of making an impact in the era of overpowered, invulnerable superheros and magical unpredictability. Why filmmakers believe audiences want to see more of this drivel is beyond me, but I guess the animal curiosity to find out which make-believe character will prevail in a battle royale never gets old with mouth-breathers. I’m quite over it. The central conflict, however, wasn’t about the strongest punch. Rather, it was about persisting in the face of revealed meaninglessness a/k/a nihilism.

So here’s where hindsight analysis kinda ruined things for me. Although I recognize storytelling as elemental to modern cognition and consciousness, I don’t regard most narrative forms as art. Cinema, because of its financial interests and collaborative nature, rarely rises to the level of art. There are simply too many diverse elements that must be assembled under a unified aesthetic vision for that to occur often. Cinema is thus more entertainment than art, just like sports and games are entertainment, not art. Impressive skill may be demonstrated, which often produces enjoyable results, but I don’t conflate skill or mere craft with artistry. (I also tire of everything that provides moral and epistemological orientation being conflated with religion). So when films introduce super-serious subjects that really trouble me (e.g., overpopulation, institutional corruption, the climate emergency) but treat them lightly, I’m bothered. Everything does that with philosophy.

Coming to grips with nihilism and the absurdity of existence is the central feature of more than one 20th-century philosophy (and their variants). Downstream (or parallel?) are artistic genres that also express the idea, though in far less overt terms. One can easily get lost down a hole, seeking the bottom (alternatively, the root of things) but finding only the abyss. For that very reason, I have acquaintance with philosophical themes but have not truly sunk into them deeply. Nihilism is not something to mess with, even as a thought experiment or intellectual inquiry — especially if one is inclined to connect strongly with those same things. In Everything, the nihilist conclusion (i.e., that nothing matters) manifests absurdly as a giant, black, everything bagel that can literally suck a person into its hole. Well and good enough; probably best not to overexplain that McGuffin. But it demands a conclusion or resolution, which comes in the form of the mother rescuing the daughter. Ironically, it was the mother (from an alternative universe) who had introduced the daughter (also an alternative) to verse-jumping, who then (the daughter) got lost down the hole and threatened to collapse the multiverse into the everything bagel in a final gesture of despair. In effect, the mother had tinkered with powers well beyond her control, unwittingly created the daughter-monster with out-of-control feeling and unexpected powers, and had to clean up her own mess. How does she (the mother) do it? Through the power of love.

OK, fine. Love (especially unconditional love, as opposed to romantic or familial love) is a universal salve capable of healing all wounds. Except that it’s not. When the film finally depicts the rescue, saving the daughter and multiverse from destruction, it comes across as flat, obvious, and ineffectual (to me at least) and breaks the tone and pacing of the film. Lots of films resort to the power of love to save the day (typically just before the stroke of midnight), but they usually (not always) have better set-ups, which is to say, their film universes cohere and deliver cogent conclusions rather than waving a magic love-wand over everything to solve and resolve. The writers of this film are adept at the enjoyable absurd parts that launch and propel the story but could not stick the landing. Introducing (albeit comically) doomsday philosophy but then failing to treat it seriously enough left me deeply conflicted and dissatisfied. Perhaps it’s a case where my suspension of disbelief was not complete enough. Or maybe I brought too much into the film from outside, but we all have inescapable frames of reference. I wasn’t exactly triggered, merely frustrated. YMMV

Review: West Side Story (2021)

Was surprised to learn a while back that West Side Story (1961) was being remade by none other than Steven Spielberg. Yeah, that Steven Spielberg. Among the spurious reasons (I gather) for the frankly unnecessary remake was a desire to recast with actors of the proper ethnic origin. Ugh. Sure, the original actors who portrayed Bernardo and Maria were Americans of Greek and Russo/Ukrainian descent, respectively. So what? Spielberg’s casting didn’t get much closer (Canadian and American/Colombian, respectively), though the newly cast actors certainly look like they could be Puerto Rican. Any further updating of this particular adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (one of many) for today’s woke sensibilities was also foiled considering the plot (starry-eyed, ill-fated, would-be lovers divided by rivalrous families/gangs) remained essentially unchanged and the original 1950s NYC setting was kept. In addition, the original musical score (altered — more on that below) and choreography (updated? I can’t tell) were used. It wasn’t a shot-for-shot remake, and I presume some of the dialogue was changed, but I didn’t make direct comparisons. Lastly, considering the 1961 original won numerous awards, who exactly was crying out for a remake? Unsurprisingly, the remake was also nominated for awards.

Aside: In arts and entertainment media, remakes are restricted to cinema. No one rewrites a book. Restaged theater and musicals are merely new productions. Rerecording a pop song is understood as a “cover” of the original, not a remake. The rather large discography of classical music includes many, many different versions of the same works, e.g., Beethoven symphonies. (Some suggest, “Does anyone really need yet another version of Beethoven Symphony No. 5?” That question loses legitimacy when asked about live performance.) One might argue that those, too, are remakes, except that there is rarely such a thing as a definitive original. Moreover, consider that music is a dynamic art typically practiced live, in real time. A musical recording fixes that experience, whether live in concert or in the recording studio, on a playback medium intended for repeat play. Comparison of different performances can be quite interesting and enjoyable. Further, a recording of a sporting event might be made for more convenient rebroadcast shortly afterwards and/or for archival purposes, but repeat experience (i.e., rewatching the 1985 Super Bowl vs. listening repeatedly to a favorite music album) is anathema when the outcome has already been seen. Similarly, repeat viewing of TV shows and movies is best at wide intervals, after memory of original viewing fades. Cinema, in contrast with music, has always been a fixed form. Cinema is also not understood as a recording of a live experience. Its genesis as playback differs from stage theater or musical theater. (Some critics and superfans — especially the YouTube variety — don’t wait but instead immediately go back in search of Easter eggs and continuity errors.) Finally, only a modest number of TVs shows have been remade or rebooted, whereas remaking and rebooting movies is comparatively commonplace, which has been characterized as “Hollywood out of ideas.” Take note that West Side Story was first a stage musical and only later committed to film.

Review: Soylent Green

Watched Soylent Green (1973) a few days ago for the first time since boyhood. The movie is based on a book by Richard Fleischer (which I haven’t read) and oddly enough has not yet been remade. How to categorize the film within familiar genres is tricky. Science fiction? Disaster? Dystopia? Police procedural? It checks all those boxes. Chief messages, considering its early 70s origin, are pollution and overpopulation, though global warming is also mentioned less pressingly. The opening montage looks surprisingly like what Godfrey Reggio did much better with Koyaanisqatsi (1982).

Soylent Green is set in 2022 — only a few months away now but a relatively remote future in 1973 — and the Earth is badly overpopulated, environmentally degraded, overheated, and struggling to support teeming billions mostly jammed into cities. Details are sketchy, and only old people can remember a time when the biosphere remained intact; whatever disaster had occurred was already long ago. Science fiction and futuristic films are often judged improperly by how correct prophecies turn out in reality, as though enjoyment were based on fidelity to reality. Soylent Green fares well in that respect despite its clunky, dated, 70s production design. Vehicles, computer screens, phones, wardrobe, and décor are all, shall we say, quaintly vintage. But consider this: had collapse occurred in the 70s, who’s to say that cellphones, flat screens, and the Internet would ever have been developed? Maybe the U.S. (and the world) would have been stalled in the 70s much the way Cuba is stuck in the 50s (when the monumentally dumb, ongoing U.S. embargo commenced).

The film’s star is Charlton Heston, who had established himself as a handsomely bankable lead in science fiction, disaster, and dystopian films (e.g., The Omega Man and The Planet of the Apes series). Though serviceable, his portrayal is remarkably plain, revealing Heston as a poor man’s Sean Connery or John Wayne (both far more charismatic contemporaries of Heston’s even in lousy films). In Soylent Green, Heston plays Detective Robert Thorn, though he’s mostly called “Thorn” onscreen. Other characters below the age of 65 or so also go by only one name. They all grew up after real foodstuffs (the titular Soylent Green being a synthetic wafer reputedly made out of plankton — the most palatable of three colors) and creature comforts became exceedingly scarce and expensive. Oldsters are given the respect of first and last names. Thorn investigates the assassination of a high-ranking industrialist to its well-known conspiratorial conclusion (hardly a spoiler anymore) in that iconic line at the very end of the film: “Soylent Green is people!” Seems industrialists, to keep people fed, are making food of human corpses. That eventual revelation drives the investigation and the film forward, a device far tamer than today’s amped up action thrillers where, for instance, a mere snap of the fingers can magically wipe out or restore half of the universe. Once the truth is proclaimed by Thorn (after first being teased whispered into a couple ears), the movie ends rather abruptly. That’s also what makes it a police procedural set in a disastrous, dystopic, science-fiction future stuck distinctively in the past: once the crime/riddle is solved, the story and film are over with no dénouement whatsoever.

Some of the details of the film, entirely pedestrian to modern audiences, are modestly enjoyable throwbacks. For instance, today’s penchant for memes and slang renaming of commonplace things is employed in Soylent Green. The catchphrase “Tuesday is Soylent Green Day” appears but is not overdriven. A jar of strawberries costs “150D,” which I first thought might be future currency in the form of debits or demerits but is probably just short for dollars. Front end loaders used for crowd control are called “scoops.” High-end apartment building rentals come furnished with live-in girls (prostitutes or gold-diggers, really) known as Furniture Girls. OTOH, decidedly 70s-era trash trucks (design hasn’t really changed much) are not emblazoned with the corporate name or logo of the Soylent Corporation (why not?). Similarly, (1) dressing the proles in dull, gray work clothes and brimless caps, (2) having them sleep on stairways or church refuges piled on top of each other so that characters have to step gingerly through them, (3) being so crammed together in protest when the Tuesday ration of Soylent Green runs short that they can’t avoid the scoops, (4) dripped blood clearly made of thick, oversaturated paint (at least on the DVD), and (5) a sepia haze covering daytime outdoor scenes are fairly lazy nods to world building on a low budget. None of this is particularly high-concept filmmaking, though the restraint is appreciated. The sole meme (entirely unprepared) that should have been better deployed is “going home,” a euphemism for reporting voluntarily to a processing plant (into Soylent Green, of course) at the end of one’s suffering life. Those who volunteer are shown 30 minutes of scenes, projected on a 360-degree theater that envelops the viewer, depicting the beauty and grandeur of nature before it had disappeared. This final grace offered to people (rather needlessly) serves the environmental message of the film well and could have been “driven home” a bit harder.

Like other aspects of the film’s back story, how agriculture systems collapsed is largely omitted. Perhaps such details (conjecture) are in the book. The film suggests persistent heat (no seasons), and accordingly, character are made to look like they never stop sweating. Scientific projections of how global warming will manifest do in fact point to hothouse Earth, though seasons will still occur in temperate latitudes. Because such changes normally occur in geological time, it’s an exceedingly slow process compared to human history and activity. Expert inquiry into the subject prophesied long ago that human activity would trigger and accelerate the transition. How long it will take is still unknown, but industrial civilization is definitely on that trajectory and human have done little since the 70s to curb self-destructive appetites or behaviors — except of course talk, which in the end is just more hot air. Moreover, dystopian science fiction has shifted over the decades away from self-recrimination to a long, seemingly endless stream of superheros fighting crime (and sometimes aliens). Considering film is entertainment meant to be enjoyed, the self-serious messages embedded in so many 70s-era disaster films warning us of human hubris are out of fashion. Instead, superpowers and supersuits rule cinema, transforming formerly uplifting science-fiction properties such as Star Trek into hypermilitaristic stories of interstellar social collapse. Soylent Green is a grim reminder that we once knew better, even in our entertainments.

Review: The Handmaid’s Tale

In four seasons (so far …) of The Handmaid’s Tale (a/k/a SufferFest), a Hulu streaming TV show based on Margaret’s Atwood’s dystopian novel (1985) of the same title and not the 1990 movie, everyone suffers under bootheel oppression and tyranny. And suffers … and suffers … and suffers. Did I mention the suffering? EVERYONE! Including the tyrannizers.









OK, more of a capsule review, but frankly, that’s all you need to know.

Review: Back to Our Future

David Sirota, author of Back to our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now — Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything (2011), came to my attention (how else?) through a podcast. He riffed pretty entertainingly on his book, now roughly one decade old, like a rock ‘n’ roller stuck (re)playing his or her greatest hits into dotage. However, his thesis was strong and appealing enough that I picked up a copy (read: borrowed from the library) to investigate despite the datedness of the book (and my tardiness). It promised to be an easy read.

Sirota’s basic thesis is that memes and meme complexes (a/k/a memeplexes, though Sirota never uses the term meme) developed in the 80s and deployed through a combination of information and entertainment media (thus, infotainment) form the narrative background we take for granted in the early part of the 20th century. Children fed a steady diet of clichés, catchphrases, one-liners, archetypes, and story plots have now grown to adulthood and are scarcely able to peer behind the curtain to question the legitimacy or subtext of the narrative shapes and distortions imbibed during childhood like mother’s milk. The table of contents lists four parts (boldface section titles are Sirota’s; descriptive text is mine):

• Liking Ike, Hating Woodstock. How the 50s and 60s decades were (the first?) assigned reductive demographic signifiers, handily ignoring the true diversity of experience during those decades. More specifically, the boom-boom 50s (economics, births) were recalled nostalgically in 80s TV and films while the 60s were recast as being all about those dirty, hairy hippies and their music, drugs, and sexual licentiousness, all of which had to be invalidated somehow to regain lost wholesomeness. The one-man promotional vehicle for this pleasing self-deception was Michael J. Fox, whose screen personae (TV and film) during the 80s (glorifying the 50s but openly shitting on the 60s) were instrumental in reforming attitudes about our mixed history.
• The Jump Man Chronicles. How the Great Man Theory of History was developed through glorification of heroes, rogues, mavericks, and iconoclasts who came into their own during the 80s. That one-man vehicle was Michael Jordan, whose talents and personal magnetism were so outsized that everyone aspired to be “like Mike,” which is to say, a superhero elevated beyond mere mortal rules and thus immortalized. The effect was duplicated many times over in popular culture, with various entertainment icons and political operatives subverting thoughtful consideration of real-world problems in favor of jingoistic portrayals.
• Why We (Continue to) Fight. How the U.S. military was rehabilitated after losing the Vietnam War, gifting us with today’s hypermilitarism and permanent wars. Two principal tropes were deployed to shape public opinion: the Legend of the Spat upon Veteran and the Hands Tied Behind Their Backs Myth. Each was trotted out reliably whenever we needed to misremember our past as fictionalized in the 80s.
• The Huxtable Effect. How “America’s dad” helped accommodate race relations to white anxiety, primarily to sell a TV show. In contrast with various “ghetto TV” shows of the 70s that depicted urban working poor (various ethnicities), The Cosby Show presented an upscale black family who transcended race by simply ignoring the issue — a privilege of wealth and celebrity. The Obama campaign and subsequent administration copied this approach, pretending American society had become postracial despite his never truly being able to escape the modifier black because the default (no modifier needed) in America is always white. This is the most fraught part of the book, demonstrating that despite whatever instructions we get from entertainment media and pundits, we remain stuck in an unresolved, unhealed, inescapable trap.

Review: The Wing Cycle

The Anton Bruckner symphony cycle recorded by the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan (the Wing Cycle to some collectors) has long been known to me and cherished. Based on Amazon reviews noting remastered and improved sound over previous releases of the same recorded performances, I decided the relatively low cost was worth trying out Blu-ray Audio, my first such disc. Although the entire cycle fits on a single Blu-ray Audio disc, nine CDs are included in the box. Duplication seems unnecessary, but the inclusion of both may be desirable for some listeners. Pleasingly, original cover art (the aforementioned wing) from the LPs appears on the 2020 rerelease. Shamefully, like another recent set of Bruckner symphonies, DG put the conductor’s name above the composer’s. This practice ought to stop. This review is about comparing versions/media in addition to reviewing the performances. Caveat: a superior stereo system is a prerequisite. If listening on some device not intended for high fidelity (phone, computer, etc.), save your dollars and find the recordings on a streaming service. Both CD and Blu-ray players in my system are connected to the preamp via digital cables to use the better DAC in the preamp rather than those in the players.

My comparison involves four releases of the cycle: (1) original LPs from the 1970s and 80s, (2) 1990 CDs, (3) 2020 CDs, and (4) the sole 2020 Blu-ray Audio disc. All are the same works and same performances. Direct A/B/C/D comparisons are difficult, and I didn’t listen to every version of each, which would have required far too many hours. Rather, I focused on two representative movements well established in my ear: the 2nd movt. (Adagio) of the 5th and the 4th movt. (Finale) of the 8th. Because every recording has its own unique characteristics borne out of the era (typically divided by decade), the engineering team, and the producer, it’s normal for me to attempt to “hear through” all the particulars of a recording to the actual performance. For a recording to be badly flawed or unlistenable is fairly exceptional, and I still tend to make mental adjustments to accommodate what I’m hearing. Similar perceptual adjustments in the visual spectrum known as “white balance” reflect how outdoor lighting and color shift as the sun transits across the sky. Accordingly, there is probably no such thing as authentic or natural sound as one’s perceptual apparatus adjusts automatically, accommodating itself to what is heard to fit circumstance. That said, it’s obvious that some recorded media and listening environments are superior to others.

Easy part first: comparison of (2), (3), and (4) revealed only minor differences at best. A tendency toward bright, treble-heavy equalization was not ameliorated with (3) or (4) as other reviewers suggested remastering had accomplished. With the 4th and 9th symphonies especially, sustained timpani rolls often mask the orchestra and were not appreciably rebalanced or improved. For ease or due to laziness, I tend to cue CDs before any other media. The Blu-ray disc offers substantially the same sound but lumps all the tracks together in one extended, numbered sequence (no track titles). Selecting a particular track is a minor inconvenience and requires the TV screen be on, at least initially. Given that, CDs will likely continue to be the first medium I reach for. Perceptual accommodation may also account for my inability to detect much difference among any of the CDs and/or Blu-ray Audio. However, no surprise to audiophiles and despite their drawbacks, LPs proved to be the warmest, most pleasing sound. A huge amount of gain (volume) was needed to bring the LPs up to the sound level of other media, which overcame surface noise handily. Of course, LPs wear and become distorted over time, and quality of the playback equipment matters quite a lot. But for focused listening sessions, LPs win the media challenge handily.

Hard part second: these performances are remarkable for two principal reasons, namely, consistently excellent (even definitive, some say) interpretations and uniformly sumptuous orchestral sound. Karajan is renowned for his three Beethoven symphony cycles and how he grasps and communicates structure far better than most. The quality is subtle but unmistakable, and the same is true with Bruckner. Like Wagner, Bruckner performance style has developed into a cult of slow in two aspects: passages best realized at surprisingly slow tempos (difficult to maintain and control) and the stately pace at which symphonic form and discussion unfolds. Many individual movements top 20 min. in duration. The Berlin Philharmonic handles them exceptionally well, meaning without apparent impatience or hurry. The Adagio of the 5th is one such example, where the slow introduction exhibits breadth and beauty of tone and critical evenness of pulse (pizzicati in the low strings). Although quite slow, the intro holds one’s attention without flagging, meandering, or luring listeners away toward more obvious excitements. The string tutti that follows immediately is among several passages in Karajan’s recorded oeuvre that overcompensates (for what is unclear) in glorious fashion. My LP is decidedly worn from repeat playing of this movement. No other recording of the 5th (to my knowledge) dares to approach Berlin’s volume and intensity in these first few minutes. Similarly, the Finale of the 8th barrels in with a declamatory tutti that has never sounded better. Everything about this movement works to the credit of the Berlin Philharmonic, especially when the orchestra slots into an ideal combination of tempo and balance at 5:45. This particular passage rarely fails to inspire me, but no other recording captures quite the same authority. Similarly, the gorgeous Wagner tuba solo in the Adagio of the 8th and the rolling, swinging momentum of the Scherzo of the 8th, through many iterations of the same basic motif, are achievements unmatched by other recordings. Further observations could be made throughout the cycle, specifying moments that remain unparalleled.

Overall, none of the symphonies in the Wing Cycle is weak. Each possesses Karajan’s characteristic, dignified approach. Worth noting is that numerous flubs and misalignments are left in, which some critics assess as sloppiness — a quintessential characteristic often mentioned regarding Karajan recordings. To note counters, these represent unforgivable errors to be covered by retakes and/or editing. However, this human quality, audibly distinct from the overproduced and heartlessly punctilious perfection of many modern recordings (especially multitrack, quantized recordings found in pop and rock music), does not detract. Rather, a certain verisimilitude is presented, just like live performance. Truly being in the moment means accepting minor flaws to preserve the larger musical flow. Maybe this is how Karajan embodies a structural vision of the works, obliterated in other recorded performances by piecing together too many disparate parts. Hard to say.

Digressing somewhat, three orchestras dominate the field when it comes to recordings of Bruckner symphonies: the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (VPO), and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO). The BPO and VPO are similar in approach and sound and are well represented in their respective discographies. (The VPO lacks a unified cycle under one conductor.) However, the CSO achieves its fairly unique results with this repertoire through an unusually high level of technical mastery — both individually and in aggregate — and through sheer, overwhelming, even outrageous volume and focus in the tuttis, led by the storied CSO brass section. Critics may complain of brass players swamping the orchestra and turning the whole endeavor into a wind symphony, such an overweening approach being better suited to overt hysterics of Russian symphonists such as Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. That judgment is rather reductive, considering how Bruckner scored his orchestral works with ample time devoted to each section of the orchestra. As performer and brass player, the blazing thrills delivered by the CSO (in its heyday) have an extraordinary pull on my musical sensibilities.

The CSO’s two cycles under Barenboim and Solti are less consistently good than the Wing Cycle, but when individual entries are good, they’re very good indeed. For instance, the opening horn solo of the 4th (CSO under Barenboim) is perfection, as is the amazing modulating chorale undergirded by the tuba later in the movement. The main climax of the Adagio of the 4th (still CSO under Barenboim) is probably the most exuberant, shattering symphonic climax I’ve ever heard (Shosti 7 under Bernstein may exceed it but only by virtue of the double brass section). Solti’s highlights are the extended coda of the Finale of the 5th, the coda of the 1st movt. of the 9th, and nearly the whole of the 6th for its raw power and precision. Lots of other recordings I could mention, including Giulini’s two remarkable 9ths (frankly terrifying with the CSO but more cosmic with the VPO). The only orchestras that match the CSO for power and intensity are the BPO and VPO. However, European orchestras perform differently together and seldom display the same technical brilliance or volume of American orchestras. Instead, they sound more soulful. These characteristics are impossible to quantify, like the sound of LPs vs. CDs, but are readily apparent upon hearing. Further, both are valid approaches, able to satisfy musical tastes and objectives differently.