Great Exudations

Everything has its plan, either way….

I would classify my position on Wilco over the years as “like-hate.” Certain songs, at certain times, rose almost to love-levels, but something was always holding me back. I had long felt their output uneven, a mix of the inspired (some by way of Woody Guthrie) and the insipid. But two other factors come to mind straight away. The first was at one of their shows in the early 00’s at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago, the band’s home town and also my own at the time. After a particularly warmly received song, front man Jeff Tweedy went full “doucher” and said, “if you love us that much then go out and buy our records!” TILT. Not his finest moment, to be sure, and I couldn’t have been alone in my disapproval. Second, fairly or not (the Grateful Dead come in for this sort of criticism so regularly that it’s priced in), is their fan base. How does one discern between true lovers of an artform and those who wish to bask in the reflected glory of local heroes? And while not mutually exclusive, would they have been embraced so fervently in — the necessarily restricted hipster circles of — Chicago had they hailed from, say, Tampa or Tulsa? I have my doubts. Anecdotally, their burnished reputation left more than a few outside of Chicagoland scratching their collective head.

Yet I’ve chugged along, buying (ah-hem!) a good number of their records and also attending 3-4 of their live shows, which were all very good (indeed liked, not loved). And when “Sky Blue Sky” landed, I fell immediately for the catchier songs like “Either Way” and “Impossible Germany.” I also enjoyed the track “Sky Blue Sky,” in part because it reminded me of Badly Drawn Boy. And “Please Be Patient With Me” still sounds like he deconstructed McCartney’s “Blackbird.” But, hey, I love the Beatles and have always been a Macca guy, so let’s just call it an homage… but the CD sat collecting dust with only the few selected tracks vying for space on my iTunes playlists. A sign of the times, no doubt. And it was almost 15 years later that I came to realize that, as the best ones do, “Sky Blue Sky” is outstanding as an album when played in its entirety. It is a truly remarkable work of shifting tones and intensity modulations, of lyrical flights, of feints and attacks, and it all somehow coheres. Not as a concept album, such as “Dark Side of the Moon,” or in the loose story-telling of “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” but as completed mood-arc. And in that way, I would liken the finest albums to a perfect dinner party — with all the ebbs and flows, the fits of laughter, the periods of pitched debate, and the moments of quiet contemplation (in the bathroom when checking your texts!). I’m going on a year, now, of heavy rotation and show no signs of tiring. And isn’t it true that some things we hold most dear are those that we at first rejected or only selectively tolerated. So it’s a convert’s zeal for this album! As for Tweedy and the band itself, I still hold them at half-arm’s length.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

“OZYMANDIAS” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Corporate advertisers wanted to try a direct marketing campaign to doctors, so they started hanging banner ads on radiology reports. To their shock and dismay, however, they learned that clinicians were often not reading the reports at all (and when they were, it seemed it was mostly to check for typo’s). But with a genius stroke, they began subtly embedding their logos into the images themselves. A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words…

“When life gives you lemons, just say ‘FUCK the lemons!’ and bail.”

— Kunu/Chuck (Paul Rudd) in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (2008)

EMILY DICKINSON (#591):

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air –

Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset – when the King

Be witnessed – in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away

What portion of me be

Assignable – and then it was

There interposed a Fly –

With Blue – uncertain – stumbling Buzz –

Between the light – and me –

And then the Windows failed – and then

I could not see to see –

Now, a word or two about re-contextualization. You might divide the world into two camps: there are the purists and then there are the marketing-advertisers (with the rest of us between the trenches, guns and barbed-wire to either side, trapped in no-man’s land). The former resent any co-opting of art for commercial purposes, or even its benign juxtaposition as I have done here with Emily Dickinson and a random photo (perhaps an opportune comment on the blindness of youth to aging/death and the obtuseness of the material world as regards the spiritual). The ad-men, on the other hand, are pure opportunists and will risk ruining your favorite song by repetition and product association for cash. For example, I have a difficult time with Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” due to a strong mental link with that United Airlines campaign. But consider Paul Anka’s (did you know he’s Canadian?) hit song “Times of Your Life” (1975). Written by Roger Nichols and Bill Lane, it has the lovely lilt of nostalgia embedded in its DNA, and those of a certain vintage will recall its use in Kodak ads from the era. But I only just learned that it BEGAN life as a jingle and Paul Anka subsequently recorded it to great success (reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100). Since then, it has been used, quite apropos, in “Mad Men” and more recently in the (terrific) show “Severance” to deep effect. And in each case, the song both retains an essential, stand-alone quality while simultaneously recombining with visual images, novel context, to create the frisson of old + new. And for those of us stuck in the middle/muddle –when it works, it works.

My wife, acting fast, snapped the photo as we sped east along I-70 from Denver to Baltimore back in the summer of 2020. The name is a fun portmanteau of Kansas and Colorado, as it sits near the state line in western Kansas. To the city-slicker, life sure looks simpler out on the prairie, at least as regards the topography and town naming. That said, so many city names back east are ripped straight from the maps of Europe (Athens, Dover, Portsmouth, Rome, New York, New London, etc.), so points here for originality. And I find something hopeful about the picture. It’s Exit 1. A new beginning. Re-birth, of sorts (of course, driving west on the same road it would still be exit 1 but also the last exit in Kansas). You could run in those fields for days on end… although you might well be trespassing.

I finally decided to Google the place to uncover what the LACK of fuss was all about. In 2016 (per Wikipedia), the State of Kansas House of Representatives passed Resolution #6033 to designate Kanorado as the “Top City” of Kansas — due to it having the highest elevation at 3,907 feet. Now that’s funny! As of the 2020 census the population was 153 people, holding level since 2010 but down sharply from 2000 when it was a relative burgeoning 248. As the nosy outsider whom nobody asked, this was cause for some concern; but I was determined to remain optimistic. At least, that is, until I read the “Notable People” section. It lists but one lone soul. A Nancy Pfister who was murdered in 2014 with a hammer, axe, and lamp. Jesus, that is so damned deflating. A lamp?! I had hoped for a state finalist in something or other (wrestling, rodeo, auctioneering?). Or the per capita leader in Bible sales west of the Mississippi River. Or home to the the world’s largest _________ (you pick it)! Some small nugget even the passersby could feel proud of (“Did you know??”). Alas… Yet despite this tragic turn of a chance-narrative, I choose to believe that this city’s best days lie ahead. Kanorado, my thoughts are with you… Now go out and fucking WIN something!!