1. I had my first teacher meetings this week. Next week starts classes, though with shortened days.
2. In a rather melancholy mood for one reason or another.
3. Reading Dickens, I occasionally stumble across moments that show how masterfully understated he could be, when he took the trouble. Most of the time, when he wants to evoke emotion, he goes for the bombastically maudlin approach, the equivalent of conducting an assassination mission with a rolling bombardment (in that, whatever else you can say about it, it does usually get the job done). It seems that’s what the audience of his day liked. Every so often, though, he manages to get a small commando raid that shows how well he could manage it. In Nickelby, this takes place in Mr. Crummles’s farewell. Up until then, Crummles is distinguished by being continually hammy and utilizing his professional theatrics in day-to-day conversation. But, in his final scene, he’s reserved and straightforward as he shakes Nicholas’s hand and bids him farewell with a short, moving speech:
“We were a very happy little company, Johnson. You and I never had a word. I shall be very happy tomorrow morning to think that I saw you again, but now I almost wish you hadn’t come.”
It’s a memorably bittersweet moment, one that stands out to me as a highlight of the story. Dickens really did that sort of thing uncommonly well, only he usually forgot about it except every now and again.
4. I’m wondering, as the Boomers exert less and less influence on the cultural scene, will people continue to care about the Beatles? I’m not a musically educated person, so I can’t give a full examination of them, but I’ve always thought the attitude toward them was bizarrely overblown; as if they were a sort of modern-day Mozart crossed with Shakespeare, instead of a reasonably talented teen-idol rock group. The impression I’m getting is that fewer and fewer people regard them as anything special.
5. Speaking of things that are overrated, I do think 2001: A Space Odyssey is a very good film and interesting science fiction. But… be honest, is there anyone who has seen that final sequence without looking at the ‘time remaining’ indicator and saying “That can’t possibly be right…”?
6. I’ll admit, I have a soft spot for ‘stunt casting,’ at least if it shows some thought (e.g. The Black Cat, with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff going head-to-head). One idea that occurred to me this week would be Christina Ricci and Fairuza Balk doing a horror or dark fantasy film together.
7. On that note, I really, really wish someone had thought to pair Tim Curry and Christopher Walken in a film at some point, but alas, with Curry’s health, that is no longer possible.
Serpent's Den 
OK, you hit one of my buttons. Stand by for a modest rant. 😉
The Beatles were far more than a “reasonably talented teen-idol rock group.” To judge them solely on the basis of comparing their music with that of later eras, as most who did not live through the 60s and 70s tend to do, is to miss nearly the whole story. Were they the most talented band of their day? Probably not. (Arguably, the Rolling Stones, Chicago, The Who, and a couple of other bands from the 60s can lay claim to that distinction.) Did a lot of their influence result from amazingly perfect timing, in that their emergence with a new style of rock and roll and a totally different “look” coincided with massive cultural changes throughout the Western world? Probably so. Nevertheless, their influence cannot be overstated in terms of helping to lead what truly was a popular musical revolution, and in terms of lasting influence on many of the artists still regarded as among the greatest ever in rock music. The list of household names in rock who credit the Beatles with inspiring them to pursue music as a vocation is impressive, to say the least, as is the list of professional musicians from the ranks of jazz and classical masters who have expressed admiration for the technical skills the Beatles demonstrated in compositional techniques, some of which they either pioneered or helped, along with others, to establish as “standard” in rock/pop music going forward. I remember as a youngster, probably around my early teens (I was ten when they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show), watching a televised “Young Peoples’ Concert” by the New York Philharmonic, during which no less a musical titan than Leonard Bernstein used the Beatles song “And I Love Her” as a teaching example on composition and harmony. That was almost sixty years ago, but I still remember it! My father, a Juilliard-trained baritone and lifelong church choir director, used to listen to my records along with me because he often found the Beatles’ music fascinating from a technical perspective. He was amazed by the fact that none of them had extensive musical training.
I’m probably wearing out my welcome here, but will close with a suggestion I normally would not make: Look them up on Wikipedia, the article entitled “Cultural Impact of the Beatles.” The entry is overly long and, as the title suggests, focuses mostly on the cultural and social changes that were taking place in the 60s, and in my view attributes too much influence to the Beatles. So be it. But if you scroll down to the section “Music and Recording Aesthetics”, which actually talks about their music per se, you can get a sense of their truly gigantic influence on rock and popular music as a whole. They are not simply a “boomer” phenomenon. They helped to change popular music profoundly and forever. That is no exaggeration.
LikeLiked by 1 person