July 2017 - Page 6 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Music Throwback: If You Love Somebody…

If You Love Somebody, Set Him or Her Free is TERRIBLE scansion.

After the rock group The Police broke up, Sting put out his first solo album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, in mid-1985. The jazz-infused LP was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic, getting to #3 in the UK, and #2 on the Billboard chart.

The first single was If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free, which was a bigger hit in the US (#3 pop, #17 R&B) than it was in the UK (#26). “Sting said that he wrote the song as an ‘antidote’ to the Police’s 1983 song, ‘Every Breath You Take’, which he also wrote.”

At the time, I was struck by what would have been considered incorrect grammar, but would now be thought of as an an elegant solution. It was certainly better than If You Love Somebody, Set Him or Her Free, which is TERRIBLE scansion.

The video for the song was “directed by Godley and Creme in 1985. It was shot in Paris on a soundstage, with each of the musicians performing separately and the footage then overlaid onto the final version.” I thought it was very cool.

In fact, I liked this tune so much that I bought the 12″ single, which I still have, but have not listened to for quite some time. Besides the single version, it contains two remixes of “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free”: the “Jellybean Mix” by John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez and the “Torch Mix” by William Orbit of Torch Song.

The single B-side consists of a studio recording of the song “Another Day”, which also appears on the 12″. That song appeared in 1986 “in a live version on Sting’s live album Bring On the Night.”

Listen to 12″ US single (SP-12132)

“If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” (Extended Remix by John “Jellybean” Benitez) – HERE or HERE

“If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” – single version HERE or HERE

“If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” (Torch Song Mix, Produced by William Orbit) HERE

“Another Day” HERE

MOVIE REVIEW: Beauty and the Beast

a smart, independent woman sticking with a partner who’s prone to unpredictable bouts of violence…

The three of us saw Beauty and the Beast on the marquee of the Madison Theatre, not too far from our house. I’d seen the 1991 animated film when it was released, though not since.

Still, I was ambivalent about seeing the live-action adaptation. I feared that it would be, in the words of one critic, “a straightforward retelling of the original, with a few cosmetic changes tacked on to make it look like something else.”

Not so, IMO. Some old songs were in, including one of my favorite Disney villain songs ever, “Gaston,” – Josh Gad’s sycophant is used well here – but other tunes were switched out, making it aurally satisfying.

Maybe it was getting to hear six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald sing very early on, but I bought into the magic almost instantly. Then I got to enjoy Emma Watson in a role other than that of Hermione Granger. There was a dinner scene between the principals which reminded me of some Esther Williams film.

Somehow, I was more intrigued by her rejection of Gaston (Luke Evans) here than in the animated version. This Belle was more clever, with her back story better explained, including her relationship with her father (Kevin Kline) and late mother.

Now, an article in Sojourner points to a fundamental flaw in Beauty and the Beast, and worse in its predecessor: “[It] still ends with the heroine finding her prince charming, the titular Beast, in a way that isn’t entirely healthy. Their relationship starts out with her being held captive in his castle…

“It would take a monster overhaul to fix what’s always been the central problem of this story — a smart, independent woman sticking with a partner who’s prone to unpredictable bouts of violence… That uncomfortable aspect [is] a problem that added musical numbers won’t solve.”

The piece isn’t wrong. Yet I choose to appreciate what joys the film provided. Hearing Stanley Tucci, Ian McKellan, Emma Thompson, and Ewan MacGregor, then seeing them at the end. The one thing I will note is that, in seeing [spoiler?] the Beast (Dan Stevens) transformed to human form, I’d gotten so intrigued by the look of his alter ego that the prince appeared pretty bland.

Faith and science: compatible?

Religious Americans by and large support science.

For Ask Roger Anything, Chris asks:

How do you spiritually reconcile your faith with your acceptance of science?

I don’t really see a problem with this. Faith is what I believe, and science is what I know, or what is reasonably knowable. There’s no contradiction. My running joke used to be “God allowed the Big Bang,” which is overly simplistic, I suppose.

This Slate story about a 2015 Pew Research Center survey on religion and science, indicates: “Highly religious Americans are less likely than others to see conflict between faith and science.”

I think this is true: “The people who are farther away from religion themselves tend to see stronger conflict, because they’re not as close to actual religious people… They aren’t seeing all those people who don’t have a conflict.”

The problem happens, I think, when people use, for instance, the Bible as a history book – mostly, it is not – or as science book – surely, it is NOT – rather than as a series of stories, written by a bunch of different writers, over a long period, that help shape a theology.

And of course, this was established long ago, well before Galileo and Copernicus got jammed up with their heliocentric “heresy”.

Currently, “the media tends to focus on those rare flashpoints of controversy, such as fights over evolution and the content of science textbooks, and to highlight the most outspoken conservative fundamentalists. For the nonreligious, these strong voices become the faces of religion, and these flashpoints become evidence that religion and science are in conflict. In fact, religious Americans by and large support science.”

What was your favorite or most memorable science demo as a kid?

It was almost certainly at the Corning Museum of Glass, an hour west of Binghamton, with a bunch of “I didn’t know they could do THAT with glass” moments. We went there at least four times before in 1972, when it was damaged in the flooding caused by Hurricane Agnes and was subsequently rebuilt.

Sears, where America used to shop

It later gave me an odd case of melancholy, that first representation of fiscal adulthood.

The sad, but unsurprising, news that the Sears at Colonie Center in Albany County, NY would be closing in September 2017 made me sadder than I would have thought, given the fact that I can’t remember the last time I entered the building. Certainly, it was before Sears leased out part of its footprint to the Whole Foods chain in 2011 because I’ve never been to Whole Foods.

After I graduated from college in 1977, I had difficulty paying back my student loans, some low-paying jobs and a stretch of unemployment facilitating that. As a result, I didn’t get my first charge card until 1982. And that first card was from Sears.

I bought EVERYTHING from Sears. The first item I got was a clock-radio; it cost $12, I think. Somehow, it suffered some external damage- something melted the case – but it still worked. When I got married in 1999, my spouse insisted we toss it out, and I did, but it later gave me an odd case of melancholy, that first representation of fiscal adulthood.

Still, there were plenty other items that ended up in my various apartments: a television set that I had for over 20 years; a microwave or two; my first VCR; at least two bicycles; Craftman tools, of course; and countless other necessities, big and small. Most of my clothes came from there. I could find anything in that place better than most salespeople.

In fact, I even got a Christmas tree, on December 24, 1991, which I hauled home on a CDTA bus. I didn’t ask, and the driver said nothing.

Sidebar: Final JEOPARDY! November 10, 1998: Native New Englander seen here, modeling for his company’s catalog sometime before WWI. Two people said, Sears. I knew that was not possible; Sears was founded in Chicago, as I well knew. (The correct response was “Who was L.L. Bean?”, which I got.)

And since I was a good customer, Sears offered me the opportunity to get one of the first charge cards from this new entity that was going to try to compete with MasterCard and VISA. It was called Discover, and back in 1986, it wasn’t accepted in too many places besides Sears, though FantaCo, the comic book/mail order store I worked at was an early acceptor.

But eventually, that Sears store started cutting back some categories, moving things around as though people wouldn’t notice what was missing. The last time I know for sure that I went in there was around 2003, when I bought a power lawnmower I eventually returned – a rarity for me anywhere – because it kept clogging up.

And now, Sears nationwide is in serious trouble. Some analyst I read suggested that, given the Sears catalog’s once-dominant place in the American economy and psyche, the company was in the best position to evolve into what Amazon, in fact, did become, the monster of online retail.

Now I don’t even bother to read the weekly ads Sears sends me. And the latest closures also include the store in my home county, Broome (Johnson City, NY).

“Their just powers from the consent of the governed”

Political parties would “push a narrow, self-interested agenda that would block the national interest” and “create a deadlocked and dysfunctional democracy” that would “leave citizens frustrated by inefficiency and ineffectiveness.”

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I have found many things that have taken place on the political landscape in the last six months or so worthy of celebration.

There have been protests, many of them local, for banning the bomb, upholding women’s rights, protecting the immigrant and the refugee, saving the environment, and several other causes.

People are becoming actively engaged in the political process, working on special elections, running for office, or at least considering it. They are showing up at town halls when members of Congress come back to town.

The veil is coming off FOX “news”. Yet other news outlets are thriving.

A couple interviews on the Daily Show with Trevor Noah in June 2017, on successive days in June 2017, gave me encouragement. William J. Barber II is shifting the moral conversation about the poor, a group neither major candidate for President talked about last year. Among other things, Rev. Barber is the architect of the Forward Together Moral Monday Movement.

I was also taken by John Avlon. The Daily Beast’s Editor-in-Chief was promoting his new book “Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations.”

George Washington feared, he explained, that political parties would “push a narrow, self-interested agenda that would block the national interest” and “create a deadlocked and dysfunctional democracy” that would leave citizens “so frustrated by the inefficiency and ineffectiveness that it could open the door to a demagogue with authoritarian ambitions.”

And by demagogue, I mean “a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.”

So on this Independence Day, it is important to note the words of another of our Founders, Alexander Hamilton: “Of those men who have overturned the liberty of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by playing an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”

We must always push back against tyranny.