Iāll Sleep When Iām Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon (Books 2018, 2) ššµ
You know how they say you shouldnāt meet your heroes? Well it turns out that sometimes that includes not meeting them between the pages of a book. Iām not sure Iād call Warren Zevon a hero, but heās definitely a hugely respected and much missed singer and songwriter.
I knew of the tales of wild and crazy behaviour, though I hadnāt actually read any of them ā except inasmuch as they come out in the songs. And anyway, those tales are a dime a dozen in rockān'roll. A lot of this biography, though, is concerned with the people he hurt.
Which is fine, not least since the author ā his wife and the mother of one of his children ā is a major one of those people. Most of his bad behaviour happened while he was an alcoholic ā or while he was drinking, I suppose I should say, since the standard twelve-step narrative is that you never stop being one. Alcoholics Anonymous helped him to stop, though he eventually stopped going to meetings. He didnāt drink for seventeen years, and the opening chapter tells us that when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer he had a scotch. Who could blame him for stepping off he wagon at a time like that?
So he comes across as a far from pleasant character. But my disappointment with the book is more about the complete focus on the man and his relationships, almost to the exclusion of the music.
āThe man and his relationshipsā sounds like an important set of themes to address in a biography. But in the case of a creative person ā or really any person worthy of a biography ā a key part of the story of their life is their works. If itās a writer youāll expect to read about their books; a politician, their victories and defeats; a general their battles. And of course, a musician, their music. It would be strange to read a biography of Beethoven or the Beatles that told of their personal lives but largely elided the music.
Which may be the key: this isnāt a biography, as such. It makes no attempt to be comprehensive, and thereās no real narrative. Although there are plenty of reminiscences from Crystal, the vast bulk of the book is reminiscences from people in Zevonās life, directly quoted and preceded with their names; almost like a play script. Presumably Crystal interviewed them all, but she herself comes across as just one of the interviewees.
There are quotes from Zevonās diaries, but he either wrote them in a very fragmented, abbreviated way, or they have been heavily edited. An example:
Jan. 12, 1975
ā¦ Took Jordan, visited Father at the steam baths. He gave me a handsome Seiko watch and $135 ā¦ quarreling with Crystal ā¦ T-Bone came over for spaghetti and I quaffed vodka martinis all night. T-Bone trounced me soundly at chess which surprised and aggravated me, but pleased me, too, by mellowing my lonely-giant-of-the-intellect trip ā¦ Made love.
Jan. 15, 1975
ā¦ Snorted coke which kept Crystal awake all night ā¦ sheās thinking of pregnancy and worried about chemicals in her body ā¦
(All ellipses in original.)
After he gets sober the diary entries become more frequent, which is good. But as a fan of his music, I would have liked to read a lot more about it: its creation, how it was accepted or not at the time, stories of gigs and recording studios, and all that. Unfortunately Crystal wasnāt really involved in that part of his life, and the interviewees who were ā like Jorge CalderĆ³n or Jackson Brown ā either werenāt asked to talk about it, or werenāt quoted doing so.
So not quite the music biography Iād have liked, but not without interest.
12:00:00: Hamilton tickets go on sale. 12:00:01: Ticketmaster site grinds to a halt.
(12:10-ish: I book six tickets!)
I donāt suppose the government will listen, but this Brexit poll is interesting.
I just heard the harmonica on āGaragelandā for the first time. Iāve heard that song thousands of times overā¦ err, nearly forty years.
These Beats X headphones are really quite good. šµ
Iām wildly behind the TV curve, in that Iām just watching Stranger Things now. But Iāve got to say theyāre killing it with the music choices.
They were never quite my favourite band, but were always there or thereabouts
In Legend of the Fall: Mark E Smith kept swinging to the end, Dave Simpson sums things up well. šµ
The Fallen
2018 is working hard to be the new 2016. First Ursula Le Guin; now Mark E Smith has been taken from us.
The Fall were one of the great bands, no matter what lineup. Itās just sad that the last time I saw them, about two years ago, they were terrible.
Sadder, of course, that Smith is dead.
So it goes.
The science-fiction community is dispossessed tonight. Ursula K Le Guin RIP.
Star Doctors
It was drawn to my attention a couple of weeks ago that I have not yet expressed (publicly) an opinion on either Star Wars: The Last Jedi or the Doctor Who Christmas special. That is both true, and very remiss of me. Trouble is itās now been quite a while since I saw them both.
Still, I should be able to gather together a few memory cells.
The Last Jedi
I went on opening night, as I microblogged. It was great. There are some points that could have been done differently, or left out, or speeded up; and it had the weird effect towards the end of there being a series of times when I thought it was finished, and it still wasnāt. But all in all a fine work. Not as good as The Force Awakens, maybe. But thatās partly because that one raised our expectations so high.
āTwice Upon A Timeā
Peter Capaldiās last episode. It was damn fine, loads of fun. Great to see Bill back, even if not exactly. Unnecessary Daleks, but quite a good use of them ā or āit,ā I should say.
And the introduction of āTestimony,ā scooping up peopleās memories and saving them, is great. Though how many computer-simulated afterlives can one series have?
And what a dramatic start Jodie Whittakerās Doctor is going to have.
There you go, only a month or so after the events.
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (Books 2018, 1)
The worst thing about this book is that it tells you, two or three chapters from the end, that itās only the first half of the story. Now, I knew there are two other books in the series, but I expected the first book to be at least capable of standing alone. Turns out it isnāt: the ending leaves us hanging right after the big reveal.
The other worst thing about this book is that Iām not really that compelled to read on. I mean, I probably will, but itās not like when I read Hyperion, say, and had to scurry around the city trying to find a copy of the second volume.1
After all the fuss about it not being published in the UK, and me not being able to get it, I had high expectations. Probably too high, as it turns out.
Donāt get me wrong: itās by no means a bad book, and itās astonishingly accomplished for a first novel. I did enjoy reading it. Its true weakest pointā ignore all that complaining above ā is that it can be a little bit hard to understand the world she creates. Not impossible, though, and Palmer does go to some efforts to explain it with minimal infodumping. Or at least with infodumping disguised as a conversation with the reader, which works quite well.
Itās about four hundred years in the future, and since the Church War some two hundred or so earlier, the world no longer exists as countries in the way that we know them. Instead people are members of one of seven āhives,ā which they can choose to align themselves with at majority. Or not: some people are hiveless by choice.
Countries mean less at least in part because of super-fast international transport by ācars,ā which I think are probably suborbital rockets or similar. Though they may have a more advanced propulsion system. The most confusing thing is probably that the leaders of the seven hives are characters and each of them has several names. For any given one of them, each of the others might know them by a different nickname, and the narrator uses these interchangeably. It gets hard to keep track of whoās who.
Global warming appears to have been conquered, or ameliorated to the point where itās not a major concern. In fact it seems to be very close to a post-scarcity society. People only work at things they want to, and seem to be able to live OK without having to work.
Apart from āServicers,ā that is. Our narrator, Mycroft Canner, is one of these. People convicted of sufficiently serious crimes can end up as one of these. They are essentially public slaves. They are required to work for seemingly anyone who asks them, and are paid in food and board ā and occasionally other treats such as cinema tickets. But they have no other way to get these things.
I found it quite a disturbing an idea; though it would almost certainly be better than being in prison; and at least they donāt have the death penalty.
Thatās not the most disturbing thing in the book. But Iāll say no more about that.
As I write about it, my estimation of it is going up. Isnāt that strange? If I write enough about it Iāll probably stop to download Seven Surrenders, the next volume.
Oh, yes, as I said, it says itās āthe first halfā of Cannerās story; but there are two more volumes. Are they both short, or is the third one more standalone? Thereās only one way to find out.
But I have a stack of other things to read first. Also I realise I have no idea what the title has to do with the story. š
- If memory serves: it was a long time ago, and it may not have happened exactly like that.Ā ā©
Clarke Kickstarted
The Kickstarter for the Arthur C Clarke Award is already fully funded, but now theyāre pushing for a stretch goal.
What you get already is pretty good: an anthology of original SF stories of exactly 2001 words each, by a host of great names including past Clarke winners.
But the stretch goal adds a specially-commissioned soundtrack, which is a great idea.
Why are you still reading this? Go and sign up.
Maybe this change to Facebookās feed will take it back towards just showing what family and friends post, as I was asking for back in October.
My guess is it still wonāt give us what we want: all the things our Friends post, in reverse-chronological order.
If only there were a special word that described posts presented in that wayā¦ or a special protocol, or feed format, that made it easy to share the postsā¦
Lana, What?
Turns out Lana Del Rey wasā¦ mistaken? about Radiohead having brought a lawsuit against her. After me leaping to her defence. Iām very disappointed.
Amanda Petrusich, writing in The New Yorker, tells us:
Eventually, Warner/Chappell*, Radioheadās publisher at the time of the songās release, refuted her claim: āItās clear that the verses of āGet Freeā use musical elements found in the verses of āCreepā and weāve requested that this be acknowledged in favor of all writers of āCreep,ā ā the company said in a statement. āTo set the record straight, no lawsuit has been issued and Radiohead have not said they āwill only accept 100%ā of the publishing of āGet Free.ā ā
Which seems fairly clear. Read the whole article, though. Itās interesting.
I love that, on Touch Bar MacBooks, you can set things up so that you use your fingerprint to authorise sudo in the Terminal.
I Never Thought I'd See the Day...
When Gmail launched several years ago offering a free gigantic storage plan of, I think, 1 gigabyte, it seemed impossible that anyone could ever fill that much space with email. Since then, of course, the free allowance has quietly grown and grown. So too has the volume of email, and the average size of individual emails.
Until today, when I see this:
99% of 15 GB. Whoops! Of course, seven years of using it as a repository for daily backups from WordPress will do that. (Itās not the most elegant of backup solutions, but itās easy and it works.) I deleted everything before 2017 and now itās down to 60%.
Crazy Copyright Claim
Gotta say I hope Radiohead (or their lawyers) lose this case:
Pop star Lana Del Rey says sheās being sued by Radiohead for copying their breakthrough single, āCreep.ā
Iām not a fan of Lana Del Rey, but I just listened to her song, āGet Free,ā and the only similarity is the chord progression in the first verse. You canāt claim copyright in a chord progression. Or if you can, you shouldnāt be able to.
If the chords and the melody were the same, theyād have a point, but even then apparently they want 100% of the publishing royalties; donāt the words count? Del Rey has offered them 40%, and I think thatās way too much.
Iām amused that the album containing the song gets its title from a doubtless much better one by the same name: Lust for Life. Thereās no copyright in titles, of course.
2017 in Bitface Blogging
Well hello. It’s been a while. That daily posting thing didn’t work too well in the latter part of the year, and was particularly weak in the last couple of weeks. Weak weeks.
In fact I posted 261 times in 2017. It’s surprisingly hard to find that kind of thing out from Wordpress itself. I had to dig into the database and run some simple SQL:
select count(*) from devilgate_posts
where post_status = 'publish'
and post_type = 'post'
and post_date_gmt like '2017%';
261 is 72% of the days of the year, which is not too bad. Certainly the most posts in any year out of the past fifteen(!)
Here’s the monthly breakdown:
| Month | Posts |
|---|---|
| Jan | 32 |
| Feb | 33 |
| Mar | 33 |
| Apr | 18 |
| May | 27 |
| Jun | 15 |
| Jul | 21 |
| Aug | 17 |
| Sep | 18 |
| Oct | 18 |
| Nov | 23 |
| Dec | 6 |
A strong start, tapering off in the middle, with a rally in November and then a complete collapse in December. I suspect the last is from a combination of post-nano slump and the festive season.
If you’re interested, here’s the SQL that got me that table:
select
date_format(post_date_gmt, '%b') as Month,
count(*) as Posts
from devilgate_posts
where post_status = 'publish'
and post_type = 'post'
and post_date_gmt like '2017%'
group by date_format(post_date_gmt, '%m');
As to this year, we’ll see how it goes. I hope at least to keep the frequency reasonably high. And improve both code and table formatting.