Down the Wormhole
8 dispatches of mental ephemera
Welcome to Wormholes, the newly weekly Deep Voices feature where I offer thoughts on books, movies, concerts, stuff to buy, websites to browse. All of the mental ephemera that passes through my eyes and ears that doesn’t necessarily fit into the framework of Deep Voices that I think is worth sharing. Think of me as the Martha Stewart of the mind garden.
These weekly posts will be paywalled in the future, but for now I’m sending them to all subscribers. Sign up for a paid subscription to Deep Voices for exclusive playlists, a discount on merch, and these weekly missives. For this week, subscriptions are 20% off.
Happy Sunday. Here are eight dispatches from this week’s Wormhole.
This scene from Beginners where Christopher Plummer calls his son and asks him what house music is. I keep thinking about this scene lately, though it’s been years since I’ve seen (the very good) Mike Mills film Beginners. Maybe it’s the amount of All Fours stuff in the air? Regardless of the reason, I was glad to revisit this very endearing slice of life.
If you’ve not seen it, the premise of the film is that, in his seventies, Plummer’s character, after the death of his wife, comes out of the closet. His relationship with his son, played by Ewan McGregor, strengthens with this newfound freedom. One day, after going to a club, Plummer calls McGregor and describes this wonderful sound he heard—untz, untz, untz—and asks McGregor what it is. “House music,” he responds. “House music!” Plummer says, and feverishly writes it down. Not something you want to forget.
When my wife and I got married, we wanted to play music after the vows that felt buoyant, something graceful, deep, but something markedly fun, music that represented the wholly absorbing way our love felt. So we played Mr. Fingers. House music!The Microphones in 2020 (both the original version and this live performance). As you may know, I interviewed Phil Elverum of The Microphones earlier this week. In preparing for that interview, I became obsessed with his album The Microphones in 2020, which is one 45-minute song. I am a stan, so this piece, where Elverum sings about his own musical indoctrination, as well as his pointed observations about purpose, is basically catnip. For some reason, I missed it when it was released four years ago. I bought the audio on Bandcamp, but I’ve also enjoyed watching this live version, recorded in the woods, on YouTube. Elverum plays with another guy, Jay Blackinton, backing him up on guitar. I had never heard of Elkington and so I looked him up. Turns out he is much better known as a chef than as a musician. He’s a six-time James Beard nominee and a best new chef according to Food and Wine in 2017. Will have to stop by Houlme next time I’m in Anacortes.
The Philip Glass references in Beautyland and the “Get Lucky” references in Creation Lake. The most recent two books I’ve read, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland and Rachel Kushner’s Creation Lake, both contain ample references to music. In Beautyland, Adina, the main character, repeatedly listens to Philip Glass, whom she first hears as a girl. Without knowing what the music is, this is how she first describes it, after encountering it at a planetarium: “Made out of choppy, repetitive phrases, sturdy in the middle and fragile around the edges, so soothing she can’t believe a human has made it. Every nerve and question she has settled by the organizing effect of its tones. … Homesick and wild, she locks herself in a bathroom stall and breathes, trying to keep the song in her memory.”
In Creation Lake (which I actually haven’t finished, so no spoilers in the comments, please), Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” is constantly playing in France, where the book takes place. Out of car speakers, usually, though also at a beach club for the ultra-wealthy. Inescapable. Kushner never comments on the song’s value or lack thereof, she simply adds it to the background, a marker of the book’s time and space. It feels a bit like she is trolling us. But that’s not her thing, really. So maybe she thinks the song, and its ubiquity eleven years ago, was itself a troll. “I’m up all night ’til the sun.” Perhaps that’s the reason I am always so tired.This 2017 Guardian article by Geeta Dyal about pianist Charlemagne Palestine’s obsession with stuffed animals. I’m wondering if Turnstile copied him? Palestine says the stuffed animals are “divinities” and compares sound to an everything bagel.
Oh, Mary, on Broadway last Sunday at five PM (which is the correct time for a play. Doesn’t mess with either lunch or dinner). I feel like I am the last person on Earth to talk about this, but just in case, Oh, Mary is a play about Mary Todd Lincoln where she is a drunk longing to return to cabaret singing and Abe, closeted and conflicted, is wrapping up the Civil War. As someone generally allergic to musical theater (and who fell asleep at Hamilton) I am not the target audience for this. It’s not a musical, but it does feature enthusiastic singing. But Oh Mary is primarily, to borrow the word of the play’s creator and star Cole Escola, “stupid,” which is my preferred adjective for entertainment. Worth seeing!
The Phil Lesh “Box of Rain” T-shirt I wore the day after Phil died last week. That song, which he wrote with Robert Hunter as Lesh’s father was dying of cancer, sweetly if sadly became an apt memorial for Lesh himself. I got my shirt on eBay probably a dozen years ago, before Dead shirt prices went through the roof. They’ve recently come back down again as trends move on, but I think Lesh’s death has given the vultures some fuel. The person asking $449 dollars for the shirt is ridiculous, but one sold for a much more reasonable $75 (with a best offer accepted—eBay doesn’t always show the accepted best offer price). So keep an eye out. “Box of Rain” is eternal. A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through.
Joy to the Polls playlists. These celebrity playlists were organized by a get out the vote group. The tagline on each playlist is, “Joyful songs to get people fired up to vote.” None of them include “Let’s Lynch the Landlord” by Dead Kennedys, which I think is an oversight. Setting aside both that premise and omission, I was curious about what these public figures had put on their playlists. So I poked around. Alison Roman’s feels fairly basic, with the surprising exception of a song from one of Poly Styrene (of X-Ray Spex)’s solo albums. Did not expect that. Ilana Glazer’s playlist is a paltry four songs. Abbi Jacobson’s is only slightly better at six. Big Daddy Kane’s is nine Big Daddy Kane songs.
I was most interested in the playlists by two womenswear designers, Mara Hoffman and Ulla Johnson. Hoffman’s playlist is a collection of groove-heavy songs, including a relatively funky number from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Johnson’s playlist is the best of the bunch. It moves from the mainstream to the underground, across time and genre, all while maintaining a similar vibe of dusty and yearning. It has Lumidee, Black Moon, Bohannon, Eddie Kendricks. It’s 54 songs long and coheres, which is the achievement of a real deal music nerd. If anyone wants to pass her a link to Deep Voices, I’d be grateful.Finally, I was mesmerized and genuinely touched by these videos of a nugget of dog named Piccolo taking slow walks in the Italian hillside. Godspeed, Piccolo.
Thanks for reading. If you have thoughts on this new feature, comment below or send me an email. If you like Deep Voices, forward it to a friend.
You can also subscribe to Deep Voices for 20% off, join the chat, or buy a T-shirt.
Piccolo!!