9/25/97 Stranger Misc.
Stress Relievers
WHAT A RELIEF!: By the time you read this, the Mariners may
have
clinched the AL West championship and secured a role in the baseball
playoffs.
They were damn close to the clinch when this was written, but with the
state of
the Ms' bullpen all year long nothing was sure. For just such jittery
situations, Queen Anne-based Beadle Enterprises now offers Ninth Inning
Worry Beads. These translucent plastic beads on a metal string come in
Mariner blue and tourquoise, with a tiny wooden baseball and bat attached.
The
company claims they're just the thing to "soothe nasty symptoms associated
with
penant fever. Twirl them. Rub them. Jiggle them. Hold them in your hands
and
pray. They're almost guaranteed to work." (Sales info: 217-9002.)
A SCHMICH IN TIME: Earlier this summer, a humorous text document was
disseminated on the Internet far and wide, labeled as a commencement
address to
MIT graduates by author Kurt Vonnegut. Then, Net news sites (and
mainstream news media) reported it was a hoax: Vonnegut never spoke at
MIT, and
the witty words-O-advice to today's youth were from a Chicago Tribune
column by Mary Schmich. Earlier this month, the Seattle
Scroll
ran a story about Internet rumormongering, claiming (via an email
message
from one Jem Casey, purportedly reprinting a Chronicle of Higher
Education article) the hoax story was itself a hoax--that Vonnegut
really
did give the speech at MIT, and nobody named Mary Schmich had ever worked
for
the Tribune. From there, Scroll writer Jesse Walter
uses
the case to chastize the media for their collective "Internet hysteria."
Walker's arguments are well-taken and I agree with most of them. Too bad
the
anti-hoax message he opens his piece with is, you guessed it, a hoax. All
Walker had to do was look up the Tribune's Schmich page
(www.chicago.tribune.com/columns/schmich/archives/97/803.htm) to
learn
she's real, she really wrote the words-O-advice (which included a plea to
be
sure and use sunscreen), and Vonnegut was nowhere near MIT this past
June.
(After this was originally posted, Walker wrote in to say he knew
the anti-hoax statement was a hoax, and that careful readers of his
piece could have discerned that he knew.)
NOT THE SAME OLD SONG: Some weeks back,
Misc. asked your input on
formerly-popular musical genres that haven't yet been turned into hip
revivals.
Some of you continued to write in past the initial deadline. Here's some
more
of your nominations, with some more of my comments:
- Calypso. The aforementioned Walker writes, "I hereby
predict that by
the end of 1998 we will have been treated to a spate of headlines that
announce, `Generation X Is Discovering Harry Belafonte!'" Actually,
Belafonte was rediscovered almost a decade ago, with the Beetlejuice
soundtrack. Calypso tuneage (particularly the bizarre Robert
Mitchum
LP Calypso Is Like So...) gets heavy play at neo-cocktail venues.
- Hawaiian music. King of Hawaii is a local instrumental
group
that's halfway between '60s surf music and more traditional Island sounds;
its
second CD comes out this week. The Oahu-lounge sound of Martin
Denny
has, of course, been a cornerstone of the whole "cocktail culture" thang.
More
authentic material can be heard on an Internet streaming-audio show, with
the
ever-so-urbane title Hawaiian Jamz.
- Indian ragas. Thanks to India being an ex-UK colony, the
lushly
over-the-top sounds of Indian movie musicals are common in London
immigrant
neighborhoods these days. These tunes are starting to infiltrate London's
white-hipster DJ clubs. There've already been raga nights at Seattle dance
clubs like the Vogue; they're bigger in Vancouver, with its bigger
Subcontinent
immigrant community.
-
Truck drivin' songs. The roots-country revival chronicled in No
Depression magazine seems to have passed by such gems as C.W. McCall's
"Convoy" and Red Sovine's "Teddy Bear." 'Tis a pity. From the ridiculous
to the
sublime, we go to...
-
Bluegrass. Reader James Freudiger, describing himself as "an old
fart
of a beatnik, and in my fifties," says he remembers "nothing more in the
spirit
of D.I.Y. than sitting around someone's living room... shamelessly
attempting
falsetto harmonies while two or three friends plucked away at banjo,
mandolin,
etc. Even if you didn't play an instrument there was always the jug,
spoons,
and inverted pots." Sounds almost like a typical early-week night at the
Tractor Tavern.
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