CultureHack

Entr'acte:Lucinda Williams' World Without Baggage

In which the full moon causes the Author to
channel Creem-era Lester Bangs for no good reason . . .

Deep down within me words move in phrases
Frozen and still ‘til they decide
To melt and drip over the pages
Until that moment they live inside . . .
When my words are hiding between the lines
Then I’m afraid they won’t hear me call
What if they fail me without a sign
What if they hardly surface at all . . .
--Lucinda Williams, "Words "

I think I lost it
Let me know if you come across it
Let me know if I let it fall
Along a back road somewhere
--Lucinda Williams, "I Lost It "

I'm learning how to live
without you in my life
--Lucinda Williams, "Learning How To Live"

There's a handful of recording artists who never disappoint--well, almost never--and Lucinda Williams is long-time a member of that exclusive club. Since her self-titled third album, she's never let me down (the count starts there because I've never warmed to her first two releases; I like my blues shouters with more authenticity than she was able to muster in those early days). Even when the roots contingent of her fan base bitched about West, I appreciated what she was doing and admired how she pushed past the genre stances that had endeared her to fans. Given the polarizing affect of West, the country-rock regrouping of Little Honey, Williams latest release, is its least surprising attribute. In a way, it recalls World Without Tears--a similar retreat into the tried and true after the more experimental Essence. But where the homecoming of World Without Tears left Williams' considerable songwriting talents intact, she arrives at Little Honey without the baggage that has provided inspiration for her best work.

Reviews needn't be structured like murder mysteries, so let's cut to the chase: There's a fine EP buried in Little Honey. But unfortunately there's also that other 40 minutes of music. The songs neatly fall into four categories: Lucinda In Love, Lucinda Dispensing Advice To Other Pop Stars, Lucinda Classics Old and New, and, well, a Lucinda/Elvis Costello comedy routine. The problem is that most of the new material is the stuff of B-sides and bonus tracks. And trust me, it almost physically hurts to admit this . . .

The quality of the Lucinda In Love material suggests that Paul McCartney was right all those years ago--it's a world filled with love songs that are indisputably silly. And while I'm pleased Lucinda is personally happy these days, there's good reason why great art rarely (if ever) flows from Being Happy. Happy has few nuances, which is a polite way of saying Happy is one-dimensional, which is also another way of saying that Happy is conflict-free, which is yet another way of saying Happy lacks drama, which is bad news if you're trying to write four-minute lyrical narratives. No conflict, no narrative--and I have no patience with songs that don't evolve across their verses and recontextualized choruses.

Recognizing the Patterns

Part three of an accidental meditation on writing
(and the limits of contextually useful "R" words) . . .

I'm sick of love but I'm in the thick of it
This kind of love I'm so sick of it
I see, I see lovers in the meadow
I see, I see silhouettes in the window
I watch them 'til they're gone and they leave me hanging on
To a shadow
I'm sick of love; I hear the clock tick
This kind of love; I'm love sick . . .
Could you ever be true?
I think of you
And I wonder
I'm sick of love; I wish I'd never met you
I'm sick of love; I'm trying to forget you
Just don't know what to do
I'd give anything to
Be with you
--Bob Dylan, "Love Sick"

This has been a week of substantial breakthroughs with regard to The Work: A newly deepened, newly understood resolution to Beatrice's story arc has occurred, along with a more clearly seen and portrayed connection between Tony and Beatrice (transformed into something both simpler and more complex--the usual result of true insight). Lastly, a minor theme--Beatrice's writing--has been elevated to important-motif status; portrayed in parallel with Tony's art, critical elements of their relationship are examined from the oblique angle of their respective art. (This has forced me to rough-in what will be a body of Beatrice's poems. Thankfully, all those hack-saturated years of putting words in other mouths and pens--speechwriting and ghost-writing--made me a very good mimic: As models, I had certain actual poems in mind, and I think I've pretty much nailed their voice and approach--similar to the Beatrice horoscopes, which nod to at the tone of a specific astrological series.)

Also on my Ah-Ha! List this week was a sudden, unexpected comprehension of the relationship between the theater piece and the novel. Conceptually, I'm dealing with a triptych--the same themes and characters seen through three different media and three different stories. Each,, will have stand-alone artistic integrity (fingers crossed), but taken as a whole--as a three-part-single work--larger truths emerge. (By way of explanation, here is my long-held theory about the Star Wars films: With enough installments, in a large enough fictional time frame, the main characters of the story become the robots, C3PO and R2D2. Whether intended or not, the 'droids will eventually become central in much the same way Tom Stoppard shifted the focus of Hamlet from the Prince to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In a similar fashion, bigger truths are in evidence in my triptych--stuff not as obvious in any specific iteration.)

But having said this--having established three artistic "panels" and grouping them in such a way that each provides context for the others--what actually connects them? Pretend my project is like a Byzantine religious icon that folds up, providing portability for pilgrims. What functions as its hinges? Beyond juxtaposition, how do the panels touch each other?

A Young Person's Guide To Formal Absences

In which the evolution of the
theater songs is amply displayed . . .

I'll root-toot-shoot myself to fame
Every kid alive gonna know my name
An overnight phenomenon like there's never been
A motivated supersonic king of the scene
I'll be a teenage idol, just give me a break
I'm gonna be a teenage idol no matter how long it takes
You can't imagine what it means to me
I'm gonna grab myself a place in history
A teenage idol that's what I'm gonna be
--Elton John/Bernie Taupin
"I'm Going To Be a Teenage Idol"

I'm beginning to worry about Bazz--he's been barricaded in the studio for weeks now, and his escalating requests for provisions and assistance have taken increasingly dodgy turns: Things like cases of Wild Turkey, the San Francisco City Ordinances, Eric Clapton (or Phil Manzanera, if Eric is out of the country), rough designs for a prospective Bazz Rulezz! tattoo (to be featured in finer tat parlors across the country), a complete 1957 edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica, and--most disturbing to me--Bernie Taupin's phone number. . .

Meanwhile, I'm down the hall in Atlas/Sheridan World Headquarters, simultaneously working on a libretto and a novel (and wisely sticking by my original and sole request for Tilda Swinton--circumstances to be determined). Dramatically, I'm facing all sorts of challenges--for example, having succeeded in making emotional blackmail danceable, can careful duplicity be played for Big Laughs--sort of A MidSummer's Night Dream, but with psychological scarring?

After yelling at Bazz through the wall, telling him to pipe-down about how crowded it is in there with the London Symphony Orchestra, it occurred to me that much has transpired theater-piece-wise over the past few months. So see this as a one-stop update on Formal Absences--not to be confused (yeah, right) with The Formal Absences of Precious Things, the CD, or Formal Absence, the novel.

Sad Songs Say So Much

A song for Beatrice and one for me:
Update on the ongoing music project . . .

Turn them on, turn them on
Turn on those sad songs
When all hope is gone
Why don't you tune in and turn them on

They reach into your room
Just feel their gentle touch
When all hope is gone
Sad songs say so much
--Elton John & Bernie Taupin, "Sad Songs"

For those of you who have asked about the status of the latest songwriting reunion between Bazz and I, it's going--touch wood-- fabulously. Once again proving that it really is darkest before dawn. A couple of months ago, I was ready to leave my pop-music pen in its inkwell for good. Who knew? Certainly not me.

Artistically, this collection of songs is the nexus of a complex series of projects: The Formal Absence of Precious Things, a CD designed to be its own listening experience; Formal Absence, a novel about the fluidity of memory of a retired songwriter whose last set of songs was The Formal Absence of Precious Things; and Formal Absences, a theatre piece (containing some of the songs from The Formal Absences of Precious Things along with other songs) that tells a story different from either the song cycle or the novel.

As an artist, I am experimenting with the radical repurposing of my own work, imposing on it three different media and teasing-out three different messages.

Years ago, the Australian artist David Hockney photographed large objects like desert cacti with a handheld Polaroid camera, moving it slightly between shots until, say, 45 photos captured the scene. When Hockney then assembled the photos into a mosaic, a cubistic vision was revealed that often said more than an Ansel Adams silver print of the same subject. In a similar fashion, these three art projects are the equivalent of me circling around the a single set of themes, cubistically capturing them in ways that shatters the smooth surfaces of reality and fractures the stories we like to tell ourselves about our lives.