The man who played trombone with Glenn Miller and the theremin with The Beach Boys...

... was Paul Tanner, who has died at the age of 95.

Tanner's involvement with electronic musical instruments began in the '50s, when he was drawn to the sound of the theremin, with its eerie, sliding notes. (It was notably present in the film scores for "The Lost Weekend" and "Spellbound.")

Fond of its unique tonal qualities, he was bothered by the theremin's playing technique, which required the performer to control it by waving one's hands. Working with inventor Bob Whitsell, Tanner designed an instrument that initially he called the electro-theremin. Eventually, it also received the name Tannerin, although Tanner preferred the title Paul's Box. Unlike the theremin, its method of playing was closer to that of traditional keyboard instruments.

Much as I understand the ease of the keyboard, I love the hand waving used on the original Theremin, which you can see played here by its inventor Leon Theremin:



Here's a terrific documentary about the Theremin. And here's how it looked when The Glenn Miller Orchestra played "In the Mood":



Not an electronic instrument in sight. This was my parents' favorite music, and I wish I had videos of the arguments I had with my father in the 1960s in which he took the position that if the instruments were electrified, it was — as a matter of definition — not music at all, and I got extremely exasperated, staunchly refused to submit to the playing of his old records, and repeatedly asserted that I liked rock and roll because of "the sound." The sound? Define your terms!

Here's a 10-CD set of Glenn Miller music for less than $20. You'll have to use electricity to play it, but I think my father would approve.

"That's Why God Made The Radio."

A beautiful new song by the (surviving) Beach Boys — Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine (with Bruce Johnston and David Marks). You can listen to it at the link.

If you're lucky, you can hear The Beach Boys on tour — the band began a world tour for their 50th anniversary last night in Tucson, performing an astonishing 42 songs!

"Happy Jack."

I'm listening to "Happy Jack" this morning, mainly because I was just listening to The Beach Boys' "You're So Good to Me" and the "la la la la" in "Good" reminded me of the "la la la la/lap lap lap lap" in "Jack." Then, I realized I'd never been able to hear the lyrics properly in "Happy Jack" and this was my big opportunity to check the lyrics on line. Here. But are those the right words? I always thought Happy Jack was a dog, and I never heard anything about a donkey.

Now, quick! Eat all the strawberry shortcake before the cops come!

My 2 favorite "nice" songs.

"You Didn't Have to Be So Nice":



"Wouldn't It Be Nice?":



Very 1960s, of course. If there are "nice" songs from earlier or later eras, you'll have to flag them for me. I do know this one, but it's hardly the same thing.

Meanwhile, let's vote on my "nice" songs. Just the songs. Don't count the video, which for both is nicely low quality. And don't give the Lovin' Spoonful extra credit for Peter Noone.

Pick a "nice" song.
	"You Didn't Have to Be So Nice"
	"Wouldn't It Be Nice?"
pollcode.com free polls

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

We were just talking about change. Change in general, change in Obamology, and change in Sitemeter. And as I'm slowing getting caught up in reading the comments that collected when I was enjoying a change in scenery -- traveling to South Carolina for a wedding -- I ran across Joe's comment on that "America wants change" post. He was quoting those famous lyrics:

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes....
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

So I wanted to watch the video:



This got me thinking about songs with stuttering. I'd like to see a big list. Here's one. But I want more. And I'd like to know who started it. I always think of "My Generation," but there must be a lot of other earlier songs that filled out the beats with the nice idea of just stuttering. There's "Barbara Ann," originally done by The Regents (in 1961) and famously covered by The Beach Boys, The Who, and John McCain.

But "Barbara Ann" is kind of a late Doo Wop song. Doo Wop was full of nonsense syllables, and some of those old Doo Wo songs must use the syllables from the non-nonsense words and thus be the precursors of the very memorable stuttering songs like "My Generation," "Changes," "Benny and the Jets," etc., etc.

And even before Doo Wop, there must have been some old novelty songs with stuttering. Ah! I thought of it!



There now, I've got us back to 1917. Can you find anything earlier?

***

Extras:

1. Here's a list of famous people who stutter (or stuttered)... including Joe Biden, whose strange smiling is connected to his efforts to overcome stuttering:

Biden’s most notorious feature is his mouth. But in his youth, he had a stutter. As a freshman in high school he was exempted from public speaking because of his disability, and was ridiculed by teachers and peers. His nickname was Dash, because of his inability to finish a sentence.

He developed an odd smile as a way to relax his facial muscles (it still shows up while he’s speaking today) and he’s spent his adulthood making up for any comments that may have gone unmade during his youth.

2. Here's a great episode of "This American Life":

Kevin Murphy is a college student in Idaho who stutters. Using the power of radio editing, he and the production staff of This American Life removed his pauses, stutters and repeats so that he could record a message in which he doesn't stutter at all. This allowed him to tape a message about something that's been bothering him, to send to one man ... a pizza guy, in Idaho.

3. Mel Blanc as Porky Pig sang "K-k-k Katy." It's so apt for the famous cartoon stutterer to sing the original (?) stuttering song. I could find video of that but I did find this:

Okay, everybody, elbows up!

Inflatable Bucky is here on Bascom Mall today:



Wiggle around:



He's got free doughnuts. And — in musical form, at least — tequila:



IN THE COMMENTS: george says:

Your god, he is large and inflatable.

We of the internet, too, raise our elbows in a moment of silent respect.

As well you should. Does your school have a better idol? You know, I was driving to work this morning, radio tuned to XM 60s on 6 (as usual), and they were playing The Beach Boys singing "Be True to Your School." Listen here and pay attention at 1:14. Does your school have a better song? The answer is no!

titusyourmoma says:

Does inflatable Bucky do or represent anything or is he just for school spirit?

Inflatable Bucky will fulfill your wildest dreams... if you truly believe... and raise your elbows in a moment of silent respect.

Middle class guy says:

Free doughnuts? The fat police have not arrived in Madison yet?

We flout authority.

Madisonman say:

Wow — you can open your window. I'm jealous.

I'm going to make a list of 10 things I like most about New York (which I return to today) and 10 things I like least. Not being able to open my office windows might make the least-liked list.

All that noise would be very distracting.

Well, there isn't a marching band playing out there all the time. You know, from my house, I hear the marching band when it practices and when it plays at the stadium.

And speaking of doughnuts, why did Ozzy give up for doughnuts?

It's Christmas Eve, and thus far the posts aren't looking too Christmasy."

So let's go back to the previously blogged Christmas Eves and republish the most Christmasy one from each year.

2004:

First Encounter with Santa Claus.

Here I am, the skeptical one in the center. I'm almost 3, and the year is 1953. My sister Dell is enjoying the moment, while I'm suspicious about that beard and the lack of convincing attachment around the mouth.

2005:

Blue Christmas.

The view from my window, tonight at nightfall:



It seems that every year, there's something that gets us started singing "Blue Christmas." Like last year, it was another photograph: here.

Now we're listening to various versions of "Blue Christmas" -- first Elvis (the best), then Ringo, then the Beach Boys (the second best), Jon Bon Jovi, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson (nicely zippy), Fats Domino, Low, Leon Redbone, the Platters, Chris Isaak, Dean Martin, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Harry Connick Jr., Sheryl Crow (the worst!), Booker T. & the MGs, John Holt (reggae does not fit this song), Tammy Wynette... I note that most artists try to sing the song like Elvis -- it's pretty much homage to Elvis for Ringo, Bon Jovi, and many others. Too many people make a big point of slowing the song way down (which is, apparently, a way of life for Low). Ah, now we're back to Elvis, with a different version, from the 1968 TV special. The greatness of Elvis really came through in that little exercise.

You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white/But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas.

2006:

Christmas Eve.

It's the third Christmas Eve for this blog, and I was just looking back to see what I did last year for the occasion, and I see that I looked back to the previous year and saw that I decided to repeat this photo I put up the first time I blogged Christmas Eve:



There, now, it's definitely a tradition.

Which child is me? The more skeptical one.

ADDED: And remember Palladian's version

<

Now, my echo has acquired an echo.

"On cultural issues, Richardson has the distinct advantage of not setting off any culture war vibes."

"He was in college in the late 1960s, but he was listening to the Beach Boys, not Janis Joplin."

David Brooks on Bill Richardson. (TimesSelect link.)

I like the idea of giving Richardson more attention, but I want to talk about this shorthand: the Beach Boys, not Janis Joplin. Is this some way to say clean-cut, straight-arrow, drug-free, "Wouldn't It Be Nice If We Were Married?"?

The Beach Boys sang:

Though it's hard I try not to look at my wind chimes
Now and then a tear rolls off my cheek
Close your eyes and lean back now listen to wind chimes
In the late afternoon you're hung up on wind chimes
Though it's hard I try not to look at my wind chimes

I tend to think there were some drugs in the picture. Meanwhile, Janis Joplin was singing:

Whoa, I need a man to love me.
Don’t you understand me, baby ?
Why, I need a man to love.
I gotta find him, I gotta have him like the air I breathe.
One lovin’ man to understand can’t be too much to need.

You tell me who had their head on straight. Nothing against Bill Richardson. I'm just monitoring memes from the 60s.

I'm gonna be round my vegetables
I'm gonna chow down my vegetables
I love you most of all
My favorite vege-table

That's the Beach Boys. And here's Janis:

I ain’t the kind of woman
Who’d make your life a bed of ease, ha ha ha ha!
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I’m not the kind of woman, no,
To make your life a bed of ease.
Yeah, but if you, if you just wanna go out drinkin’, honey,
Won’t you invite me along please.
Oh, I’ll be so good to ya babe, yeah!
Whoa, go on!

Which leftever 60s heart would you prefer?

And, by the way, just as an aside, I'd like to say I ain’t the kind of woman who’d make your life a bed of ease. Ha ha ha ha!



IN THE COMMENTS: Gerry says:

This is one of the rare times where I see sexism in something you do not. Much more frequently are the cases where we both see sexism, or that you do and I don't.

Joplin is viewed as an aggressive, sultry, sexually aggressive woman, not like those guys who were only into surfing, driving, sex, and pleasure-seeking (including drugs). You know, just beach boys being boys.

Interesting. Yes, well, you can detect in my writing here that I was bonding with the Janis mindset and feeling threatened by the elevation of the Boys. And I was thinking about bringing in the subject of Hillary Clinton as I was adding those "Turtle Blues" lyrics and identifying with them.

About those pop culture law school exam fact patterns.

I'm always basing my Civil Procedure II exam on some pop culture thing. CivPro2 here at UW covers jurisdiction and related topics, and I always need a fact pattern -- it doesn't matter what the substantive law is -- that involves a lot of people and places so I can generate some questions about who can join together in a lawsuit and where they can bring the suit and so forth.

In any given year, students could take bets on what pop culture phenomenon will turn up on the exam. If they'd done it this year, it would have been terribly easy to guess. It's "Borat." I changed the name, but basically it's a comedian traveling across the country provoking encounters... and sowing the seeds of lawsuits. It never matters whether the claims are sound or not. (I hope they're not!) I've simply got to create a controversy that has a somewhat complicated mix of people and places.

Does it add some fun to exam-taking, or is it annoying? I hope that, afterwards, it doesn't spoil the fun of the movie for the students. Ack! That was my Civil Procedure exam! I don't mean to do that.

Here's a list of a few things I've used for CivPro2 exams in the past: "The Apprentice," "The Blair Witch Project," "America's Funniest Home Videos," the Beach Boys' legal problems with Eugene Landy, "Supersize Me," "The Real World," the Cat in the Hat balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, paparazzi and the deaths of Princess Diana and Sonny Bono, stage diving at the Rave, the U.S. News law school rankings.

Have some Psapp.

I've been listening to Psapp. I love when musicians play objects that are not musical instruments. Many years ago, I saw the Incredible String Band perform a song where instead of drums, they just had an old trunk. I can't remember if they kicked it or what, but it seems to have imprinted a lifelong love of music made with nonmusical objects. Psapp is perfect for me:

[T]heirs is a cosy, dusty, otherworldly realm -- a clutter of home-made toys, doll's house ephemera, somnolent cats, glinting laptops, and incalculable bric-a-brac of mysterious provenance. And that's not to mention the duo's veritable junkshop have of arcane musical instruments and "sound emitters" that range from gleaming pianos and pot-bellied ouds to children's xylophones, dusty retro guitars, farmyard noise-makers, mechanical ashtrays and squeaky rubber poultry...

(Oh, yeah, remember the "famous ashtray" in the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"?)

Here, watch the video for Psapp's "About Fun." It's fun. Maybe you'll think it's twee. I like twee... sometimes.

Is there anything else to say about the Beach Boys?

Bruce Handy thinks not, judging by Peter Ames Carlin's "Catch a Wave." So why is there another book on the subject? Handy has a grip on that:

I must own 40 books about the Beatles, another 30 about Bob Dylan, and maybe 20 more about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Then there are the CD’s and DVD’s by these artists overflowing my meager New York City shelf space, not to mention the back issues of Mojo and Uncut piled up beside my bed. (Those are popular British music magazines that pretty much cover only 60’s bands, though they occasionally leaven the mix with stories about contemporary groups like the Clash.) All of which raises questions: How many live versions of “Gotta Serve Somebody” do I really need to own? How much more insight do I need into Ringo’s reasons for briefly quitting during the “White Album” sessions? Am I not an adult? What’s wrong with me?

And I thought I had a thing about the 60s. I'm sure I haven't read more than 10 books about the Beatles, 5 about Bob Dylan, and 3 about the Beach Boys.

Bob's flower theme.

Bob's theme today -- on "Theme Time Radio With Bob Dylan" -- was, officially, flowers. But nearly every song was about roses. What happened? Did he start out with roses as the theme and run short? He missed plenty of rose songs, though. He did not play "Kiss From a Rose" or "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or even "some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed blah blah blah in the spring becomes the rose." There's "Sally Go Round the Roses" and "Roses Are Red" and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." There must be a thousand rose songs he didn't play.

To fill in his non-rose slots, he used two grass songs. I don't think grass ought to count as a flower. Then the only other plant/flower I remember him doing was tulips. In keeping with the first syllable of the word, he played two tulip songs. Duke Ellington, "Tulip or Turnip." And Tiny Tim, "Tiptoe Through the Tulips."

I felt that "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" was the emotional high point of the show. We know from reading "Chronicles" that Bob Dylan was friends with Tiny Tim, and introducing the song, he swept aside the superficial view of Tim as just a joke. He was a great historian of music, Dylan said. He knew a lot of songs that were available only on sheet music, and when he died, he took a lot of songs with him. It's not like Tim died in a fire of burning sheet music, so I don't really understand how the music was lost, but it felt very profound and poignant when Dylan said it.

At the end of the show last week, when this week's theme was announced, I tried to guess which songs he'd play. The first flower song that sprang to my mind was that atrocious song about going to San Francisco and making sure you show up already besprigged with flowers. Then I thought of the song that deeply enchanted me when I was a young girl: "Sweet Violets." I wrote about it back here, embedded in a long simulblog of an episode of "American Idol" where the contestants had to sing songs from the year they were born:

I start thinking about what songs would be available to me, if I could be on the show. I'm way too old and I'm a horrible singer, but still ... Here's the list from my year, and my song from that list is "Sweet Violets." I remember hearing it once. I was in bed and overheard my parents playing it. I loved it deeply and the next day asked my parents about it. They told me, it was not for children and I couldn't hear it. Was it about sex? Death? Oddly, though I've always remembered it, I have never bothered to find the song and listen to it. I can still hear it in my head from that one listen, but I've never heard it again. I rush over to iTunes. The Dinah Shore hit is not there (only a Mitch Miller version). Ah! here are the lyrics. It's a bizarrely veiled filthy song from the past! Good thing my parents protected me, or protected themselves from having to deal with my questions.

That's an unusual old song, and it has a flower other that rose, tulip, or grass. Too bad he missed it.

Next week the theme is cars. If I had to bet on one song -- taking into account that Bob likes to tell the life story of the singer -- I'd bet on "Rocket 88." But that wasn't the first car song that popped into my head when I heard the theme. (What was yours?) That was "Little GTO." Looking up the lyrics, I land right on a page of "Muscle Car Songs." Nice! I should have thought of "409" first. My office number was 409 for a long time, and I thought it was really cool that my room number was a Beach Boys song. Students would ask me what my office number was, and I liked to say "It's a Beach Boys song." No one ever said, "409!" But it would have made me happy if they had. I would have picked up good vibrations.

Having found a page of muscle car songs, I think of looking for a page of death car songs. That fateful night the car was stalled upon the railroad track... I couldn't stop, so I swerved to the right... We were buggin' each other while we sat out the light/We both popped the clutch when the light turned green/You shoulda heard the whine from my screamin' machine!... Look out! Look out! Look out! Look out!...

Wait. That last one's a motorcycle. Can motorcycles get in on the car theme -- the way grass got in on the flower theme? Or it motorcycle crashing a very special theme for Bob, due for it's own show some day.

Brian Wilson's "new lease on life came with a deed restriction."

And now that landlord is dead:

Eugene Landy, the psychotherapist who was variously called a savior and a snake oil salesman for his unorthodox, round-the-clock treatment of Brian Wilson, the famously dissolute leader of the Beach Boys, in the 1970's and 80's, died on March 22 in Honolulu. He was 71....

"Landy definitely transformed Brian's life and knocked him off of what was a suicidal death spiral in the early 1980's," Peter Ames Carlin, the author of a forthcoming book about the Beach Boys, said in a telephone interview yesterday. "But his new lease on life came with a deed restriction, which was that Landy wanted to be part of Brian's creative and financial lives."

You can find more lurid versions of the story than this NYT obituary, but the man just died, and I'm not going to go looking for them.

Blue Christmas.

The view from my window, tonight at nightfall:



It seems that every year, there's something that gets us started singing "Blue Christmas." Like last year, it was another photograph: here.

Now we're listening to various versions of "Blue Christmas" -- first Elvis (the best), then Ringo, then the Beach Boys (the second best), Jon Bon Jovi, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson (nicely zippy), Fats Domino, Low, Leon Redbone, the Platters, Chris Isaak, Dean Martin, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Harry Connick Jr., Sheryl Crow (the worst!), Booker T. & the MGs, John Holt (reggae does not fit this song), Tammy Wynette... I note that most artists try to sing the song like Elvis -- it's pretty much homage to Elvis for Ringo, Bon Jovi, and many others. Too many people make a big point of slowing the song way down (which is, apparently, a way of life for Low). Ah, now we're back to Elvis, with a different version, from the 1968 TV special. The greatness of Elvis really came through in that little exercise.

You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white/But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas.

Things retrieved from a car wreck.

Nine days ago, I wrecked my car. I was physically and mentally together enough to retrieve some things from my car -- my handbag, the hang tag for parking on campus, the registration and insurance materials. But there were still some things left. Yesterday, we went over to the towing company's car lot and had a chance to empty out the car. A man who worked there helped me eject the cartridge from the CD player, and I was glad to find a shopping bag -- from Soulman -- in the trunk to stuff all the various items in. Today, I dumped all these things on my living room floor:















There's the gold flower that was in the vase by the steering wheel and landed on the car's floor after the crash. Dumped out of the Soulman bag, it lands on top of the image of an autumn leaf on the cover of the atlas, where it looks so fallen, so over. Simultaneously, a man comes to the door to deliver a bouquet of flowers. It's from the man who sold me the new car, the car I must transfer my love to. Do I feel a new thrill with my new love, Silvio? Ah, I'm still a bit shaken from the accident. I bought Li'l Greenie to replace a boring old car (a Honda Civic), and I felt such a happy thrill as soon as I started driving him around. People would smile at the cute fun car. It was July, and I drove with the windows down and the moon roof open, and played music that went with the car: the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, even Herman's Hermits.



My new car is so much more adult. But it's a sports car! It should be a big thrill. I'll tell you something about a sports car, something I didn't really understand before. It does not give you an exciting sensation of speed. What it gives you is a feeling of solid ordinariness at a high speed. Seventy feels like thirty-five. Silvio gives me security, along with a sense that now I -- and not just those other people -- have a luxury car. So, quite the opposite from the feeling I got from Li'l Greenie, Silvio gives a feeling of privileged adulthood, serious maturity. But perhaps it's too soon after the accident to feel overwhelmed with thrills and fun. We need to go on a long honeymoon together, Silvio and I.



I pick up the atlas from the living room floor and look for some routes out into the beautiful landscapes of the west.

A white Christmas.

Only once all season had there been even a slight trace of snow on the ground, so the chances for a white Christmas seemed low. But at dawn, a pretty dusting of gently falling snow could be seen from the deck:



UPDATE: On looking at this picture again, I said it should be called a "blue Christmas," which touched off a round of Elvis impersonating.

AND: Now we're listening to various versions of "Blue Christmas" -- first Elvis (the best), then Ringo, then the Beach Boys (the second best), Jon Bon Jovi, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson (nicely zippy), Fats Domino, Low, Leon Redbone, the Platters, Chris Isaak, Dean Martin, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Harry Connick Jr., Sheryl Crow (the worst!), Booker T. & the MGs, John Holt (reggae does not fit this song), Tammy Wynette... I note that most artists try to sing the song like Elvis -- it's pretty much homage to Elvis for Ringo, Bon Jovi, and many others. Too many people make a big point of slowing the song way down (which is, apparently, a way of life for Low). Ah, now we're back to Elvis, with a different version, from the 1968 TV special. The greatness of Elvis really came through in that little exercise.

"In a restless world like this is."

What a very touching appearance by Brian Wilson on The Larry King Show last night:

KING: When you say you heard voices can you describe what that's like? Because we read stories like that about people who -- what happens?

B. WILSON: Well, a voice is saying: "I'm going to hurt you, I'm going to kill you." And I'd say: "Please don't kill me."

KING: It's an actual voice.

B. WILSON: Actual voice in my head. Yes.

KING: Not your voice?

B. WILSON: No. No.

[Brian's wife Melinda] WILSON: That's called auditory hallucinations and if somebody's depression is deep enough that's what happens to them.

KING: And at the same time you're still writing songs?

B. WILSON: Yes, I could still write songs, yes, during that period.

KING: [Write] hit songs.

B. WILSON: Yes.

M. WILSON: That's the thing that's amazing. Right now when he goes out on tour I can look at him and I say to myself: "Oh my God, I can tell just by his face he's hearing voices."

KING: You still hear them.

B. WILSON: Oh yes. I still hear them. ...

KING: Do they ever tell you to do things?

B. WILSON: No.

KING: Just, "I'm going to kill you," or...

B. WILSON: Yeah, right.

KING: That's all they -- it ever says?

B. WILSON: Yeah.

A moment later he contradicts himself and says that sometimes the voices say nice things like "We love you, we love you, we can't do without you." He says several times that he doesn't hear the voices when he is singing and that he can work despite his illness. He says that he doesn't listen to the old Beach Boys records.

B. WILSON: No, we don't wallow in the mire over the Beach Boys. I used to listen to Andy Williams and Kenny Rogers and stuff like that. Perry Como and Nat King Cole, of course, that was our song, "When I Fall in Love" was our song. "When I fall in love, it will be forever" -- you know, that song.

KING: "Or I'll never fall in love/In a restless world like this is ...

B. WILSON: Yeah.

KING: I know that.

B. WILSON: Yeah, it's a beautiful tune.

KING: You're a beautiful guy.

No drinking game yet, but ....

Why is Slate teasing us with the line "Play the Jeopardy drinking game!" when its TV writer Dana Stevens hasn't come up with the game yet? But I don't care so much because it made me click on the link to Stevens column and read his comments on the Emmy nominations, which are really clever! I never noticed Stevens before. I particularly loved this:

In an unintentionally comic juxtaposition, Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm finds himself up against a dead guy, John Ritter, who appeared in only 3 episodes of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter before his untimely death last fall. When I read this, I could only think what a perfect plot it would make for a future Larry David episode: the hopeless plight of competing with a beloved dead actor, and Larry's increasingly difficult-to-conceal resentment that his moment in the sun was being overshadowed by awards-show piety. I wonder if he'll have the courage and/or bad taste to take this real-life gag on as material next season.

That really is Larry David. And as for that drinking game, I'll be looking for it. I've started TiVoing Jeopardy, which, I don't mind saying, I used to watch back in the 60s when it first started and Art Fleming was the host. We used to find the announcer, Don Pardo, especially amusing, long before he became the ironic version of himself that announced Saturday Night Live. By the way, are we hoping Ken Jennings keeps winning or do we root for anyone new who starts off halfway sharp, like that guy with the Marx Brothers tie last week? The main reason for wanting Jennings to keep prevailing, in my opinion, is to keep up the pressure on Alex Trebek to let it slip that he's irritated by Jennings and his mannerisms. I'd like to see Trebek go all Howard Beale.



UPDATE: Dana Stevens is female, contrary to the impression give by my use of pronouns above. Why did I assume a "Dana" would be male? Have I watched "Radio Days" one too many times? No, there was just a picture of what looked like a guy to me at the top of the page that seemed to illustrate the activity of "Handicapping the Emmys," which was the title of the piece "by Dana Stevens." Didn't the email address "surfergirl" in the body of the article make me think otherwise? No! I was perfectly ready to believe a guy would adopt the nickname surfergirl. A Beach Boys fan, presumably.

Zombies!

Hey! They are finally re-releasing The Zombies' great album "Odessey and Oracle"--the album so druggy they misspelled the title and never even noticed. The 1968 album is said to be a "perfectly balanced song cycle." The one song you probably know that is on the album is "Time of the Season," so imagine a perfect set of songs like that, and you can see that if it is the sort of thing you're inclined to like at all, it is indispensible. So go buy it right now. I did.



UPDATE: Okay. Number 1: that link I provided for buying the CD is not a link to the re-release the NYT wrote about. Having ordered it, I now see it is a release from the late 90s (which means the album hasn't been nearly as hard to find as I had thought). I'm not seeing anything more recent on Amazon, so maybe the Times was referring to something that isn't out yet. That's pretty annoying, the way it caused me to assume the older one was the new one. Number 2: I've listened to it now, and I do not think it is nearly as good as it's cracked up to be. The song "Time of the Season" is far, far better than the rest of the album, which seems quite unfinished to me. The rest of the album seems to be a rather pathetic attempt to copy the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds." You could say, but "Pet Sounds" is the greatest album ever, so can't something like it but not as good be good enough? Theoretically, yes; in this case, no. And is anything preventing you from listening to "Pet Sounds" again?