Never Seen It #345: Fiddler on the Roof

Tradition! Watching 500 movies we've never seen before. It's tradition! And chatting about the same episode of TV over and over. Tradition!!!

Fiddler on the Roof

1971

Norman Jewison

Part I

Sunny and I got together a few weeks ago to discuss the connection between a movie on the Film Club list and an episode of Reba that we had each seen a couple times. The following is a transcript of our conversation. Come back tomorrow for Part II, in which we dive into the Grannies Gone Wild of it all in a little more depth. Today, the focus is on the movie.

~~~~~~~~~~

Joe: Did you like the movie?

Sunny: I'd say I liked it. I wouldn't say I loved it, but I liked it. There were some things it did that were pretty good.

Joe: Do you like musicals in movie adaptation form?

Sunny: In general, I think just seeing three-hour musicals from the '70s, that itself was a pause for me. And then, I didn't know anything about what this was about, really. It's been in the ether for a while. A lot of TV shows reference it, I think I recognized that it's theater kid bait. I was watching it I think on a Sunday, I watched it from like twelve to five, with breaks. During the last hour, Kelsey came home, and looked on the screen, and was like, "Oh, Tevye!"

Joe: She knew.

Sunny: If I walked into this movie that someone was watching, I would have been like, "What the fuck is this? What is this old-timey bullshit?" [laughter]

Joe: So she had seen the movie before?

Sunny: I don't even know if she had. But she knew the play, the musical. Like Barbara Jean, earlier in her life...

Joe: Let's put a pin in the Reba thing for now. [laughter] If we can hold it.

Sunny: We'll see.

Joe: I definitely saw a community theater version of this.

Sunny: Was it also three hours?

Joe: I... don't remember anything. Which is funny. Like I remember being in the theater. I remember the man being on the roof, like the stage scenery roof, playing the fiddle. And I don't remember anything else. That might have been the play where I was like, I've seen enough of my friends' community theater productions, I'm not doing this anymore. [laughter] Not to say that it was bad! I just don't remember anything.

Sunny: I get it.

Joe: I liked it this time around. I also watched it in chunks, over the course of like four days. But it was easy to break it up. I actually accidentally paused it right before the intermission at one point, so when I popped it up again, there were twenty seconds till the intermission started. So it worked out well.

Sunny: Sure.

Joe: I... don't like musicals. Well no, I don't want to say I don't like them. I definitely am frustrated with the idea of adapting this thing that works very well on stage, into a movie. Despite the fact of what happened for me for Fiddler on the Roof in person, and I don't remember it—in general, when I go to see musicals in person, in the theater, I very much enjoy it. I think it's impressive that people are doing this on stage.

Sunny: There's something about the presence, and being in the presence, that elevates it, for sure.

Joe: Movies just can't capture that theater magic.

Sunny: It's a screen! Even with the movie magic.

Joe: It is a different type of magic, I think. And maybe that's why I'm not doing a Theater Club.

Sunny: Not yet, anyway!

Joe: I don't have the money for it. You can't steal a musical. I can't sneak into every Broadway show.

Sunny: But they're just giving away opera tickets now.

Joe: That's true! Opera Club. Coming soon to the blog. What else you got? Anything specific you want to talk about with this movie?

Sunny: Yeah. So I didn't know anything about it. I mean, just for the reader's sake, since they can't see us right now—we are eating at Laser Wolf in Fishtown. [laughter] Joe is in full kippah and tzitzit, and I brought [Editor's note: Sunny is more hip with the lingo than I am, I don't know what words he's using here] from home. I'm wearing a [Editor's note: see above].

Joe: I guess I had heard that what Laser Wolf was named after.

Sunny: That was the most I knew about this musical before watching it. [laughter]

Joe: It's a good name. A good reference.

Sunny: A great name for a restaurant. An okay name for a man and butcher.

Joe: I was glad that the movie didn't lean into the idea of Lazar Wolf being spurned by Tevye. They fought about it, but it was comedic that they were fighting over it. I think in a worse movie, that would've been the driving conflict.

Sunny: I mean, it would've been nice to see him find love I guess. But whatever. It's tough for Lazar.

Joe: I think... well, two parts. One, I think the idea of arranged marriages is interesting in pop culture. I don't have any personal experience with that type of culture that participates in that. You may have, with your ancestors?

Sunny: For sure.

Joe: And I only feel confident enough in bringing this up because of Yaadein.

Sunny: [laughter] Of course! It's a major plot point!

Joe: Yeah! It's like, here's a more modern movie—comparatively so—that is dealing with arranged marriages in a kind of similar way.

Sunny: Now that you bring it up... Yaadein is definitely the Indian Fiddler on the Roof.

Joe: Was that designed to be that way?

Sunny: I have no fucking idea. [laughter] Well, I think every Bollywood film is like that. Like 60% of them. It's the Hallmark movie version of Indian film. Because these ideas are so ingrained. But yeah, I definitely had that feeling of—this movie takes place in 1905, right? So it's two to three generations past... it's funny, Kelsey came home and was like, yeah, one of my college professors put this on, he was Jewish and he really wanted to talk about these characters, and he was like, you know, from my analysis, I only think this one daughter would have survived, because they might have been caught up in the Holocaust, and this that and the other. And she was like, wow, that's so somber. Then, watching the movie, Tevye was like, "We're going to New York City!" And I was like, wait a fucking minute... What was that guy talking about? Was he watching the same movie I was watching? [laughter]

Joe: Interesting!

Sunny: So yeah, they go to New York in 1910, right before the Roaring '20s, and then the Depression. Assuming they made it through that, which they probably would, just kinda squeaked it out in New York City. The oldest daughter would've come up with her kids in the '30s. Those kids would be of age in like the '50s. And so those kids would be Boomers. So you're thinking like four or five generations to today. It scans to me that that level of tradition—it took me a while to get to the point that this movie is both positing tradition as good and as something that should be kept together, and also sending it up and being realistic that the center cannot hold or whatever.

Joe: A major theme, I would say. We can get into it.

Sunny: Over five generations, I know very few people Jewish people who directly relate to this. In college I had a couple friends who for whatever reason I integrated with in the Russian-Jewish community, and even of them, maybe one in ten were very traditional, like "don't do anything on Sabbath," or have arranged or semi-arranged marriages, or at least matchmakers. Which I find interesting. I feel like the Indians are only two or three generations removed from it, so it's a little refresher. Which is maybe why Yaadein's a '90s movies as opposed to a '70s movie.

Joe: I'll be honest, I don't know anything about the history of arranged marriages. Is it prevalent throughout the majority of history?

Sunny: Yeah, I mean even something like Game of Thrones, right? In Anglo-Saxon times, even more so, with arranged marriages and the interbreeding of cousins and stuff, the Habsburgs and things? I'm not a historical expert, but from a materialist point of speculating, that after a while, after the accumulation of wealth and power became a thing, that it made sense to collectivize and formalize that through marriages and bloodlines. So marriage became very much a tool for that. And then over time, that became less important, and I think this movie brings it up, that there needs to be some other reason to get married then. So they're playing around with the idea of love. The movie focuses on the idea of "Did God create that love that facilitates marriage," or at least like togetherness and mating, with the lack of wealth and money exchange. And at the very start of the movie, in one of their songs, it mentions, wow, I have five daughters and none of them have a dowery. This sucks! And that's an interesting perspective to come at it, but a real perspective.

Joe: And I appreciate how they went to the other end of it, Tevye did anyway, where he starts realizing the role of love in marriage. And then he asks his wife, through song, do you love me?

Sunny: That was a tender scene.

Joe: I appreciated thinking about arranged marriages in that way. In that it's like any other relationship, friendship, anything that you would have with someone else. The circumstances in which it starts are less important than what happens when you keep going. So, we talk about, in our current culture, love at first sight. That's not necessarily the case in the vast majority of relationships, even with people who eventually fall in love and get married. You might have a spark, you might be coworkers for years, and that relationship blossoms into something. I thought that was interesting, thinking about relationships in general. How arranged marriages could work in that context.

Sunny: I agree completely. When you think about the Greeks—they're big and gay, right? They had, I don't know how many, six or eight or ten different words for "love," to characterize that there are all these different things. There's infatuation, versus whatever comes from marriage, versus friendship, versus the love of a father to a child, whatever. And I think that nuance is talked about a little bit in this movie, I think that nuance is lost in your Hallmark movies in the West. In the same way that every Indian movie is about arranged marriage, whether that's interesting or not, every Hallmark movie is the same, in that it's about them "coming home" or whatever. Me, Sam, and Pat saw the History of Concrete movie, [and in it, John Wilson] goes and watches a seminar about those Hallmark movies, and they're like "Yeah, these are cookie-cutter! This are how it works." Even the lady says, "This is not art. This is for money, this is to deliver a certain product."

Joe: But Fiddler on the Roof is not.

Sunny: Right, I think it's playing with some different ideas! It's not a Hallmark cookie-cutter movie. To me, I was worried that it was going to be an overly chastising nod to conservative values and how that's better. But actually, I don't think it was. It played both sides pretty fairly, and did a send-up of a lot of things.

Joe: It starts with talking about tradition, you mentioned that. They set that up as the theme, because maybe Tevye spends the whole movie starting to question tradition. Not explicitly, but the tradition of marriage, he's questioned in a bunch of different ways, to the point where it kind of breaks him with the third child. I would also argue that the conclusion of it, where they have to leave their home, is technically breaking tradition too. Against their will, obviously. But it's something that they have to accept, that they can't continue this tradition, with the Rabbi crying in the synagogue because they can't continue. The community is going to continue their tradition of religion as they see it, but a piece of that tradition is ruined. Overall, I think that the film is making the case that tradition is made to be questioned. And just that. Not that it's meant to be broken, because there are traditions that—

Sunny: That they are useful in ways, yeah. But I think "question" is exactly the right word. As opposed to dogmatically following them.

Joe: I would have assumed that Tevye would be that person, so I was surprised that he was eventually willing to consider other points of view.

Sunny: Yeah, the movie did a good setup of, what's his name, Perchik, the Communist rabblerouser from the big city, and the rest of the villagers are the foil to him, doing the conservative thing. And then you're right, Tevye is a surprising person who was able to see around. I guess partly because his daughters, and his love for his daughters.

Joe: Which in itself is a tradition. An important one, that families are supposed to love each other, and look out for each other. That's a tradition that he's able to hold onto. I dunno, all that stuff, thinking about that, and ignoring the whole "oh now we have ten minutes of people dancing..." It's the story itself that was worth watching.

Sunny: Agreed!

Joe: I put words to this recently, that I'm driven in my opinion on movies because of the story. The movies we watch in Film Club, I'm focused on the story, as opposed to the filmmaking itself. I'm still so weak in that, because I don't focus on it. Was there anything in the filmmaking that stood out to you, maybe a particular shot, this scene, or whatever, as opposed to the story?

Sunny: I mean, it did set a sense of place. This did feel like a turn-of-last-century tiny Jewish village. As it went through the seasons and customs, those felt well-recreated. Without a lot of special effects or extras. Closer to the fashion of theater, but it did work well on screen.

Joe: It's definitely being shot on... what do you call that, when it's not on a set...

Sunny: On location?

Joe: Yes! At the time it was made—I forget when this movie was made, early '70s?—the time period was just ending of movies like... Ben-Hur, what was that, the late '50s? A big, sweeping epic that was clearly on a soundstage. I feel like it was nice that a musical, which is originally on a stage, that it felt very natural to be outside. In a natural location.

Sunny: Agree completely. Just because it's not in my wheelhouse, I can't comment on costumes, choreography, singing and dancing. Good enough? But am I going to say it's amazing? I wouldn't be able to. I liked some of the bits and some of the songs. Some were totally, totally overdone. Like, "here's an easy thing to cut out." But I had no idea that the Gwen Stefani song, that it was ripping off Tevye?!

Joe: [laughter] I guess I did recognize that song from this. What was the name of that song?

Sunny: "Rich Girl"? I think she's covering another song from someone else, which is heavily sampling this song, "If I Were a Rich Man."

Joe: The songwriters of this song here, I wonder if they got credits.

Sunny: They to had to have. [Editor's note: Okay, so "Rich Man" by Gwen Stefani is a remake of the 1993 song "Rich Girl" by Louchie Lou & Michie One, which in turn interpolates "If I Were a Rich Man." Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick wrote the Tevye version, and they indeed gets a songwriting credits on Stefani's song.]

Joe: I don't like that. One of my least favorite songs in the past ten years is "7 Rings" by Ariana Grande, because they, ya know, with the Rodgers and Hammerstein whatever. The Sound of Music!

Sunny: The carnivalization of America.

Joe: I don't like it. I don't like it in pop music.

Sunny: Not one of my favorite things, no.

Joe: Do you think it's easy to sympathize with the characters in this movie?

Sunny: I think I can sympathize with Tevye pretty quickly, despite... yeah, not empathize though, I can't imagine being a poor, Jewish milkman with five daughters, right? But his situation felt real. And his constant bargaining with god felt earned, and real. Just from a play-development standpoint, I appreciated that in the start, he was very explicit, like, "Yeah, I'm talking to you, God. I'm complaining." And by the middle of the movie, he's sort of staring into the distance, no vocal track, nothing. And you know what he's doing!

Joe: It's definitely a good way to... fuck, what's the phrase, when you provide information directly to the audience? What's that called? I'll look it up. I'll pretend I knew it.

Sunny: We'll get it in post.

Joe: It was a good way to do... that. Fuck! What is that called? You're not supposed to do it, in good storytelling.

Sunny: Show, not tell? Not sure if there's an actual name for it.

Joe: I'm just blanking under the pressure. But, it was a good way to do it, talking to god. As opposed to, like, just talking out loud on the stage for artistic reasons. [Editor's note: I think the word I was looking for was "exposition"?] With the sympathy stuff, I think it's very easy to sympathize with oppressed people.

Sunny: Yeah, for sure.

Joe: In art, entertainment. I don't think you have to empathize with the specifics of Tevye's life. That to know what that community is going through. That there is an oppressive force that is giving them no choice but to leave their home, or die. I... won't dig too deep into it, but I was thinking about it within the framework of the Jewish faith, and how this movie would also play very well to a Palestinian audience too. It's not that they can empathize with the details of the faith, because they have a different faith. But they can sympathize with being told by a government agency, I guess, that they have to do things they don't want to do. That they have to leave their home. So I don't know! It might be interesting to get certain takes from people on it, and whether some people has different takes on it, on being able to empathize with Jewish characters. I'll leave it there.

Sunny: Alright!

Joe: That's what was on my mind.

Sunny: It's hard to avoid it. It's hard not to think about it.

Joe: You got anything else about this movie?

Sunny: Yeah, so what's the deal with the fiddler?

Joe: Hmm. Okay. I... don't know.

Sunny: [laughter]

Joe: That's one. Two, anything I can speculate about it would be me doing the whole bullshitting thing based on something saying something already.

Sunny: At least you'd be saying something.

Joe: Okay, I don't remember the exact opening, when the fiddler was introduced, but I believe it was something like—maybe Tevye was talking to god?—and he was like, our lives are like the fiddler, where we try to stay optimistic, basically. This is a symbol of our resilience, in our poor, humble lives. So that when there are difficult situations, like being told that the Russian czar is gonna be cracking down, or he's already cracked down and now you're leaving town, the fiddler is gonna be there to remind you, in a symbolic, emotional sense, that life goes on, and there are still good things, that the fiddler will be playing there in New York, when you go to live with the uncle.

Sunny: Yeah, but they'll have a naked fiddler there.

Joe: [laughter] Exactly. So that's, gun to my head... that's not an original thought, I know.

Sunny: It's as good as anything I got.

Joe: You're right, though, that that's important about, if that's the name of the movie.

Sunny: I guess I just thought that, based on the name of the movie, it would be a more important character. But he's sort of hanging out.

Joe: Did he exist?

Sunny: Right! Is he real? Maybe that's my real question. Does anyone else see him, or just Tevye?

Joe: I would assume no. I tried to make that argument in the Candyman Zoom, and no one was into it. [laughter] So I don't want to lean to hard on that again. But, like, he doesn't talk, right?

Sunny: Nope. He's just fiddling. No one else even looks at him or addresses him. Even though he's fiddlin' when they're all fiddlin' away. Fiddlin' to America.

Joe: He doesn't exist.

Sunny: Put it there.

Joe: Completely symbolic.

Sunny: And the roof is symbolic too...

Joe: Oh, and what would you grade this?

Sunny: Ehhh... 3.5.

Joe: I buy that. I'll stick with 3.5 pukes out of 5 too. That's usually the "I enjoyed watching this, enjoyed pulling some themes out of it, but didn't feel any of the elation that the true movie magic."

Sunny: Yeah, it didn't feel too deep. Not trying to cue it up again.

Joe: Okay, so.... Barbara Jean.

Sunny: Yeah.

Joe: Let's tap in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please come back tomorrow for the second half of our conversation, which is centered around a sitcom character from Reba, but also continuously ties in additional thoughts about Fiddler on the Roof. I'll update this sentence with a hyperlink once Part II is published!

NEXT TIME: Excited for another Linklater film, this time A Scanner Darkly, coming to you in only a couple days.

Wanderer, Sunny

Sunny: To quote the 2012 hit: "Not really sure how to feel about it."

Joe: What is that?

Sunny: It's the line from "Stay."

Joe: ...

Sunny: The song on the album.

Joe: ...

Sunny: The Rihanna cover?

Joe: Oh, is that... I don't know. Obviously it's been a while since we covered this one.

Sunny: Look it up later.

Joe: [laughter] Got it. Sorry. Go ahead.

Sunny: So that's how I feel. I mean—

Joe: That's a Rihanna cover?

Sunny: Yes! I heard it—and this is kind of the feeling I had for the whole album—this reminds me of something, and I can't quite put my finger on it. I heard that cover in particular, and was like, "Oh, I remember this from a long time ago." This was a very popular one, but got memory-holed. 2012? That's before trump! That's a different life. So I had to double-check, and it is indeed a shortened version of the Rihanna song.

It's not bad. The whole album's not bad. I appreciate the opening "Wanderer" thing, the low production singing, and then exiting on "Wanderer" too. It's just a big wandering album. It sort of dovetails nicely into our discussion on Nebraska. Whereas something I pulled out of that book was that Nebraska was an incidental display of wandering, this feels a bit contrived. The biggest criticism is that the two biggest song it are, one, the Rihanna cover—which, ya know, great, it's a strong feminist album, you have a strong Black woman writing a hit, so covering it is great.

And the other one is the "Woman" song, which, there ya go, co-written by Lana Del Rey. And there she is again. And so I thought, who is this album reminding me of? Is it Lana Del Rey? There's a little in there, but it's not that. Is it Maggie Rogers? There's a little in there, it's not that. Is it some homage to Dolly Parton? A little in there, but not that. Fiona Apple's probably the closest I've gotten, but it still doesn't feel quite right. Because of this whole feeling of "this isn't a uniquely personally product"—or if it is, it's not coming through—and it's sort of gesturing too much to other, slightly-more to mega-more popular artists. Even if you do consider the covers co-writes or not. It's just fine.

But you know what? Less than 40 minutes, I was able to listen like three times between yesterday and today, no problem. I can throw this on at an office party, no problem. I'm not gonna get a lot of pushback, or a lot of confusion. It's just fine. So that's my review for this. It's just fine.

Joe: Yeah, I mean I feel like it was definitely underrated at the time that Record Club did it, seven and a half years ago.

Sunny: One of the O.G.s.

Joe: Yeah! Underrated probably just because of the tone, that it was slow. Not necessarily something that I was personally used to at the time. I've gotten there, we've gotten there as a group. There's ways to appreciate this, without worrying about tempo.

Sunny: For sure. There's some great things you can do in a low tempo.

Joe: I read something that... Cat Power might be antivax?

Sunny: [laughter] See, that's an interesting twist! Another topic that probably wouldn't have come up too much in 2012. But now...

Joe: The classic "too far left," and not, like, following RFK or whatever. You know, proving the horseshoe theory, that the left and the right bend around. I don't often believe that theory. But with vaccines, sometimes... I don't think that affects the music.

Sunny: She's a wanderer, man!

Joe: That's right.

Sunny: Can't be locked down by autism!

Joe: She's definitely, uh, independent. Was it around this time that she might have had a kid?

Sunny: Okay. The album cover has a little kid on there. Something about motherhood, feminism... Maybe this is a criticism that's not fair to musicians, but sometimes, the music is making me do too much of the work for the theme-building. That's kind of their job!

Joe: That's a good thing to put a pin in, and save for our book club conversation.

In My Place 231

August 19, 2026. 40.08691, -75.12756. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

—do you remember when there were a hundred firetrucks here

I think it was maybe a dozen or two at most

—no dad, it was a thousand at least

haha okay

—why do you think they were there

honestly, kid, that's a great question. I have no idea.

—they were right there, right past the building we're driving past right now, when was that

oh, it was a while ago kid, a couple years maybe

—i remember it

you'll always remember it, probably. isn't the brain funny that way

The Highwomen, Sunny

I picked the album for today because we did the Brandi Carlile album. I didn't read the post, but I scanned through it and saw a Blind Spots post on the Highwaymen. I'll come back to that. I ended up liking this album more than the Brandi album. That might be because I had more time or openness to it this week. But it's also this interesting experience of coming into a supergroup album not really knowing any of the artist, not really being into the genre, not really being into the themes.

I listened to the album maybe three and a half times total, but after the first time, I remembered that Blind Spots post, and I went back and read it, and listened to the first song. I was like... oh, I see. It's an homage/parody that the Highwomen are doing. I didn't know about that either. Clearly my adult autism brain paused for a moment, and was like, "If it's the Highwaymen, then it should be the Highwaywomen." Highwomen is something else. Highwomen sounds much better than Highwaywomen, so that probably matters more. But that did get stuck in my craw for a bit.

So rethinking about the album in that sense, through the second and third time, I came to liking it. The first two songs really do answer the question of "what is a Highwomen?" Ya know, "Highwoman, she was in Iran-Contra, and she escaped." "Highwoman, she was in the Salem Witch Trials and hung." "Highwoman, she was a freedom rider in the South." It was nice seeing Yola in there! What a delight. I was like... okay. I don't really remember what Johnny Cash and Willie were talking about in the other song, but maybe that's the analogous.

And then Track 2 redoubles into it. I think it's literally called "Redesigning Women." It's like, "Here's what the Highwoman is again." I thought that was good. It's a thesis-based project. Which, again, the project, I don't really care about, but from that detached perspective, I can still kind of enjoy. Then immediate go into Track 3, which is just a typical country radio song. "I'm not your loose change, I'm your lucky penny!" It still falls into the theme of "womanhood," but we're just bouncing around, having country fun.

Track 4, that one even sounds like a parody of country songs! For the next four or five tracks, that's mostly what I noted down—"this feels like a different kind of country song." Like, Amanda has a touch of the Reba, a little bit of the Reba flair. There's a couple big tracks, "Wild Child," "Old Soul." Big anthems. It ends on a big anthem too. Those were fun, although they were a bit long. But then you had more country standards. "Don't Call Me," which is a swinging, honky-tonkin', jug-tootin'-type song. A couple times I wrote down: "This is another jug-hooter." Which is... it's a country album, so you expect some jug-hooters, but in the relief of this opening of "We're the Highwomen, and that means something!" What does it mean? Now we're jug-hooters too, I guess.

I'm still enjoying it. I love the "1-800-GO-TO-HELL," I'm gonna use that. Then there's a sad song on death or whatever toward the end. I didn't care for it, but I understand it has to be in there. I really liked the one song that was like "Don't call me mama, I like wine and I'm hungover, and I can't deal with you right now." So if I went ahead and said, "What is a Highwoman?" I guess from the Highwaymen, from what I remember, it was all these men doing crazy stuff. One dude is building a dam and drowns, another guy gets crushed by a steamroller in Looney Toons or something. Whereas the Highwomen were like "I'm going to be my own lady, and go out and do stuff." Which is great! Maybe it's culturally on point.

So overall, good album. Not my genre, but good album. I appreciate the supergroup nature of it. Brandi and Amanda Shires in particular were very good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe: I feel like for some of these albums, I go back and I wish Sunny had been part of it. Because I feel like that's the important question: what are they trying to do here? The people who did it that week dismissed it—myself included—and maybe my thought at the time was an album about power to women. Do they do this enough? Like you said, there are songs that are just fucking country songs, that don't speak to the power of women. So maybe viewing it that way is a sign of failure on their part. Whereas I was thinking today—and what I think you would've gotten to first, if you were there in November 2019—is that this is country album in the way that the Highwaymen did a country album, in that they are taking the tropes of country, and applying them to a certain gender. So the Highwaymen were explicitly masculine in the way they were doing it, because that's what country was at the time, whereas the Highwomen are presenting those same tropes, but from a different perspective. This isn't an album about women, but it's reimagining the country tropes as centered by women.

Sunny: There's that one track toward the end, I forget what the name of it was. "I love this woman, and she doesn't know I love her." And the first time I listened to it, I was like, are they just doing a cover of a male-perspective song, or is this a lesbian femme-love thing? And by the end of the song it's very clear it's the latter. And I think that reaffirms what you're saying, that it takes the tropes—this is a classic type of country song—and then bringing it to them, and playing on perfume vs. cologne, and all these other little things.

Joe: I don't know why I assumed that Brandi Carlile was the mastermind behind that song, as the lesbian of the group.

Sunny: That would be my assumption without looking into it.

Joe: I looked it up. Amanda Shires and her then husband Jason Isbell wrote that song, and Shires is the lead on that.

Sunny: Interesting.

Joe: This is something I looked up on Wikipedia on the car ride here—

Sunny: As all good research is done.

Joe: —and I think that that speaks toward the togetherness of the Highwomen. That they are expressing empathy toward the whole of the woman experience. Just because Amanda Shires is straight doesn't mean that she can't empathize with her bandmate Brandi Carlile. And in a winking way too.

Sunny: You're right, the song is a little tongue-in-cheek, which definitely plays into that. So all these Highwomen are speaking to this universal woman experience, flush with the country thing. If someone is to be over critical, you could call it tokenizing. The one criticism is, ya know, country is racist, the South is racist, and all these women are white. So on Track 1, they immediately try to combat that. 

Joe: "We need Yola!"

Sunny: "We gotta get Yola in there." Maren isn't in there! She doesn't have a verse about the first woman to discover radioactivity or something like that. It's just Brandi, Amanda, and Yola on there.

Joe: She's not singing about hitting number one on a Chainsmokers song.

Sunny: Exactly.

Joe: I guess it's interesting to think about Maren Morris has purposefully removed herself from the genre of country. Not that she is doing Chainsmokers songs again or anything. But she's definitely been very expressive about how country is dominated by Morgan Wallen types, and I don't want anything to do with that shit anymore. Which makes me sad, in a way, that maybe the mission of the Highwomen has failed. If the purpose of this was to present it from a different perspective, then you have bad faith actors like Morgan Wallen who are purposefully leaning in the other direction. A more traditional direction... not saying that Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash were racist at all, they seemed to be pretty liberal. I guess just the idea that masculinity, like if you value that, then that seems to be more of a conservative thing. So masculinity looks different in country music.

Sunny: And there's a performative nature to everything we're talking about, but these are all performers. So I think to your point, one could say that the Highwoman project, if that was the point, was a bit of a failure. Or they weren't able to fight against all the culture that... I mean, they are one band, with one album, versus the whole country that's gone in a certain direction.

Joe: That genre specifically, I guess. I know that the Brandi Carlile album we listened to came out well before The Highwomen, but that didn't seem very country to me.

Sunny: Yeah, a lot of pop sensibilities, a lot of rock sensibilities.

Joe: Amanda Shires isn't really... she's more Americana, which is rooted in country but removed from the traditional outlaw country. Less familiar with Natalie Hemby. She was more of a country writer. She has since released an album of her own, since this. So I don't know, I can't really speak to her experience. I feel like maybe, instead of seeing this as four country artists that are coming together to reclaim the genre that they work in, it's more like four musicians who work slightly outside the genre, who admire people like the men in the Highwaymen, and are trying to reclaim it for them.

Sunny: And trying to take back a bit of this genre. To your point, they are not all in it all the time. Which is probably why they can produce a project like this. They have a little bit of outside perspective. Did they make any more music after this?

Joe: Together? No. I mean, they probably have worked together, in certain combinations. So, okay, I looked up Yola's most recent album, the 2021 album. What was that called? [Editor's note: Stand for Myself.] Rachel S. picked the Yola album before that for Record Club, Walk Through Fire. And then there was one that came out around the time we covered Walk Through Fire. Fuck, what was that called? I looked it up because, since then, Yola has also not really done any country stuff. Those two albums were produced by the Black Keys dude, Dan Auerbach. And she has since said, yeah that dude's a piece of shit, I'm never gonna work with him again. And I wanted to look up her two best songs, "Diamond Studded Shoes" and "Stand for Myself," and they are co-written by Auerbach. So I don't know. Where was I going with this?

Sunny: Artists outside of country... oh, do these people work together again?

Joe: Oh yeah. On that album, Natalie Hemby co-wrote a song as well.

Sunny: So they're still in contact.

Joe: Yeah, they're all pals.

Sunny: But the Highwomen project is not an ongoing thing.

Joe: Right, it is not. They did all they could. And I don't blame them for not wanting to put up with that shit. Like, if they're not within that genre firmly, and they released an album right now that was explicitly pro-feminist, people like us would be like, oh that's cool, let's listen. But that genre...

Sunny: Marketing it in the circles that it would be marketed in would be very difficult.

Joe: Fox News would have a field day. They'd have Morgan Wallen on the talk show to do his thing. They'd have Jelly Roll on there!

Sunny: It would be an easy target, sure.

Joe: Yeah man, I think I agree that it's not the best album ever. But that's more genre, not purpose behind it.

Sunny: And not talent. Clearly these people are making good music, and displaying it.

Joe: Is that something that comes in time? I know we were talking about how long you've been doing this, how long we've been doing this. I got the sense that, back then, listening to The Highwomen, I did not have the capacity to understand that you can appreciate art, or knowing the purpose behind the art, without liking the art itself. I don't know if that's my way of coping with having to do a review every week for the rest of my life, and the boredom that would come from saying "this is a shitty album, fuck this, I'm never listening to it again," like not considering the depth of it. Or, if it's actually true. Do you get that sense? In book club, film club, whatever, that you're at the point where you can appreciate art even if you don't like it?

Sunny: Yeah. Listen, I don't know anything. [laughter] But I would say two things. One, the repeated process—and Record Club for me was probably the biggest jump, and you've posted about this too—I've certainly previously been an "anything but rap and country" person, and now I kind of like rap and country, in the right context. So that in itself is a marker of change. I think doing art appreciation, art criticism, and just enjoying art, is a muscle like anything else. In the same way you'd go to visual art school and seeing a bunch of paintings you might not like, being exposed to them still helps you develop taste, helps you understand them, helps you understand the history around it, and all of that helps you appreciate all the stuff you do like even more. And so, yeah, I'm big on saying that doing this for however many years has helped sharpen that tool. And it's also revealed the Dunning-Kruger Effect of it all: the more I know, the more I realize I don't know anything. There's even more depth to music and art than I could ever wrap my head around. I try to be humble about that too. But yeah, that's a big reason I keep doing Record Club. It exercises muscles of art appreciation, being able to extemporaneously write, and also being able to take 40 minutes and listen to music intently. Which is a harder thing than you'd give credit for!

Joe: Apparently! Based on the fact that very few people do this. Especially week in and week out.

Sunny: I mean, I know very few people who sit down, put on a record, even one side of a record or album, and just listen to it. Maybe doodle around with it, or write with it, but just listen to it. Not do their chores or their laundry while they're listening, not thinking about work while they're doing it, not being on the computer while they're doing it, or on their phone. Just listen to the music. That speaks to more our greater culture, but I think this project does ask for it. I don't do it every week, and there are definitely some weeks I just listen to it on the way to work. But the weeks that I do, it's nice.

Joe: Do you feel like you like the album more when you have those moments for concentration on the music? Is that just a given?

Sunny: I think it's hard not to. In the same, if it's a piece of music, one that I don't like in the same way, it's not as sweet or enjoyable, I might like it or appreciate it more, having given it that time and attention, and find at least something... even on the worst album, there's usually at least one track or one chorus or verse where I'm like "that's kinda catchy and fun, they're doing something."

Joe: I wonder if you—and I know we've talked about a similar theory with the Reba thing, but more specifically to liking something, as opposed to the more philosophical stuff—does that argument become "I don't like this because I did not devote enough time to it"? Could any album improve, could any album get to the point where you like it for what it is, not what it tries to do, if given enough time and space? And should the assumption be that if somebody who doesn't do Record Club every week, and decides to pop in, and says "You know what, this Highwomen album kinda sucks!" Can we assume that that is because they didn't listen to it forty times over six years?

Sunny: I can almost definitely assume that they haven't. [laughter] I think so, though. I think there's something to that. So the question is, what does it mean of the quality of music that it's able to hook somebody, maybe a lot of people, in that first time? I guess that's Taylor Swift. She's able to, for millions of people on the first listen, people will be like, I like this. Whereas there's a lot of other music, like Buckethead for example. There's a lot of depth in there, but a lot of people here would be like "I'm not going to bother with any more of this, and don't bring it up to me again."

Joe: [laughter] Amazing example. Nah, it just feels like there's a responsibility, if like... I don't want Record Club to be a conduit to irresponsibility, that this would just be a place to talk shit on something you don't know about. Which is fine, ya know, it happens. And sometimes there are albums that I listen to 20 times and I still fucking hate them.

Sunny: Sometimes I totally understand where they're coming from, and I hate that they came from that place.

Joe: It's just the limiting nature of Record Club, it just feels like too much of a constraint sometimes. You have five days to do it. And then something like the Highwomen comes along that... I didn't like. At the time. I literally said in my review, this is a bad album. But I... I don't do this anymore, but at the time, Martha was being born, and I wrote it in advance, because I knew I wasn't going to be dealing with this stuff in the hospital. I have since had another child, and dealt with it in the hospital, because that's what I do now. But I certainly did not give this the time that it deserved. And now, I've been listening to it again, a couple times this morning, all these years later, and it just feels something was missing. Which isn't fair to these artists, and it isn't fair to my experience, our experience...

Sunny: Yeah, but like you said, one of your daughters was being born that week, you know what I mean? Everything you said is true, and also it's in contrast with having some value in a project that is time-constrained and runs every week. And that creates a different experience. I guess you can't have both. Or you can't have both at the same time. You do summer projects that run a bit longer to have that space. For Record Club, which one is better? Or which one would you get more engagement? Or more interesting writing from? That I'm not sure.

Joe: I don't know why I'm hung up on it for this particular one. Maybe because we covered a couple of the Highwomen's, and a couple of the Highwaymen's, albums since then, and I treated them with more respect, as a piece of art. And I don't like the idea of someone going back and reading my November 2019 review of The Highwomen, and being like, oh no, you didn't do this right.

Sunny: Sure, but that's why they can look at your November 2024 reappraisal. [laughter]

Joe: There you go. I took that as a syllable thing, by the way. Highwomen vs. Highwaymen.

Sunny: These are musicians first, not literary majors.

Joe: Is "highway woman," could that be misconstrued as a prostitute or something?

Sunny: It could be, I guess. But maybe that would be an appropriate person to sing a song about. And redeem.

Joe: What are you giving this album?

Sunny: I'd probably give it a 3 out of 5. I like two or three tracks a lot, I appreciate what they're doing, but there are at least four or five tracks that I thought were just stupid. Or, if it is a parody, then I get it! I don't have to keep watching it!

Wuthering Heights, Joe

I need you to tell me about the movie.

I can't do that without spoiling it. I know how you are with spoilers.

No, it's okay. I'm okay with being spoiled about this. I don't think I'm going to watch it.

You'd probably get more out of the album if you watched it.

That's my point. I haven't gotten a lot out of this album and I want to. Girls, dinner! I don't have time this week to watch another movie. I wish I could.

What kind of cheese is this? Taco cheese?

It's shaky cheese, kid. There's something to do with a house?

Yeah. Okay so it's—

explanation

—and he brings home a kid, Heathcliffe, like adopts him, and—

explanation

—she's dying of—

explanation

—and she haunts the moors moaning Heathcliffe's name.

It's dinner time, let's go!

But it's da Barbies' dinnertime too.

Your spaghetti is going to get cold! I'm so tired of this. Okay, so she dies in the house.

I want to sit next to Mommy.

Basically. I didn't want to spoil it for you.

Can we have pickles after this?

One second, Mommy is telling Daddy something. So the house is—

But Daddy I want pickles.

One second! The house is literally where she dies. The song is foreshadowing what happens. Is the song in the movie?

I forget. I think?

So you think I would get more out of the album if I watched the movie.

I think you just have to think of it like a soundtrack.

I'm finished.

I didn't even sit down yet. Do you want more?

Yes please.

dishing out more spaghetti and red sauce:

I get it. I just don't want to think of it like a soundtrack. I don't like soundtracks.

You're getting cheese all over, c'mon, I'm gonna have to sweep again!

Sit down.

Okay!!!!

So is the story trying to make a point about anything? Or is it one of those old stories that's like "and then this happened, and then this happened"?

I guess that, yeah.

Is Emma Farrell trying to make a point about anything?

Who?

The director.

Emerald Fennell??

Yes.

I'm finished, can we have dessert?

No.

But why not?

No, I was talking to Daddy, you're interrupting. No, I don't think she's trying to make a point.

It's just, like, a stylish thing?

Sure.

That's helpful, to think about the album that way.

Charli XCX is pretty stylish.

Daddy?

Yeah kid.

What's the name of this song?

getting up and going over to the iPod:

"Dying for You."

Oh.

Do you like it?

Yeah.

It's the soundtrack to a movie that Mommy watched. That's what she's trying to tell me about.

No dessert yet.

I'm just getting an ice cube!

How was summer camp today?

Good.

What did you do?

I don't know.

Well, it's no brat.

I don't think it's supposed to be.

I get it. I get that it's for the purpose of something else. That it's c'mon kid you gotta eat more than that that it's, um, supplemental material. I just wish there was something to hang my hat on. There's a song that is like "unbelievable tension" over and over, and it really does feel like it's leading up to something, but please I'm begging you eat some more or else you're not gonna get any dessert but it doesn't actually lead up to anything, you know? The tension just lingers.

The tension is released in the movie.

Maybe I'll watch it at some point.

You should!

Lulu no!!!

Get out of here!

Get off the table Lulu!

Daddy she's trying to eat your chicken.

Kicking the cat off the table:

It just doesn't make for a satisfying music experience.

Can we please have dessert now?

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

In My Place 177

June 26, 2026. 39.54863, -75.65506. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

daddy what are you doing

nothing

daddy are you taking a pick-tcha?

yeah

why are you taking a pick-tcha?

i've been taking pictures of things that i think look cool lately, i don't know

oh

yup

mommy, i have to go potty

you have to hold it

but i have to go SO BAD

Sunny Daze for President, Kait

Chicago's got this music venue called the Hideout. Lots of people love it. I myself have been there once, on a date, with a guy who I think would like this album. Here's how a date with that guy to see Sunny Daze & the Weathermen would play out: 

Guy: Hey, I have extra tickets to see this band, wanna go?

Me: Sure yeah, what kind of music we talking?

Guy: Idk. Maybe flower punk.

Me: Idk what that means.

Guy: Me neither.

[no communication until I'm on train to venue a week later, sick] 

Me: On my way to the venue, see you soon.

Guy: I'll pick you up from the train.

Me: "Oh alright. Great, thanks. Train's in at 8p." 

[ride to venue, it's crowded, I grab us some beers in a can, I wish I didn't wear a jacket] 

Me: So, how's your— 

[music starts, oh that's a groovy little riff, how Austin Powers of them, wait—does this band not sing? no problem, they're fun! look at me at a concert!] 

Me: [yells over to guy] They're fun! 

Guy: [nods his head]

[I can't stop thinking about Austin Powers, how old was I when I first saw that film? this band reminds me of the Heavy Heavy, I dig it, toe tapping, pretty rad, wait am I sure this is even a date?] 

Me: Remember the movie Austin Powers? 

Guy: What?

Me: Austin Powers, you know, "Do I make you horny baby?", "One millionnn dollars."

Guy: Sure yeah, why? 

Me: Couldn't you see this band playing on the soundtrack? 

Guy: Not really.

[band plays more songs that kind of sound the same, but it's fun enough, show ends, I'm glad I went and heard this band, have not interacted with this guy really at all] 

Guy: You're welcome to stay the night at my place tonight. 

Me: Um, like what in your bathtub? 

Guy: [laughs out loud, LOOK OUT HE'S INTO YOU, HERE COMES THE CHEMISTRY] No, I mean if you want you could but I just figured it's pretty late so if you didn't want to head back to the suburbs. 

Me: Oh, um, thanks for the offer but I don't have any of my overnight stuff, like my glasses. Rain check?

Guy: Sure, yeah.

[then I don't see this guy again and kinda forget about this band other than the voice memos I recorded on my phone during the show, Austin Powers is a great movie.] 

Tillllllllll Death #26: "Tale of the Tape"

A review of S02E04 of the American sitcome 'Til Death.

[Zendaya voice]

Marvin thought he wasn't capable of love.

[close up of Marvin as a kid, slow motion camera work]

Ever since he was little, Marvin knew that he lacked something that he saw in others. He would watch TV and he would see what it was like to fall in love, to want to spend your life with someone, to give small gifts and smile when that person walked in the room and feel a deep and everlasting obligation to the person you love.

It was just that Marvin couldn't imagine what that was like.

[shot of Marvin standing in the middle of a party, large crowds moving around him while he stands still]

That was until he met:

Heather.

[the camera pans around and finds Heather, also standing in the middle of the crowds of that party, facing Marvin]

For the first time in Marvin's life, he understood the emotion that had thus far alluded him.

One thing led to another, and... well, you're normal. You know what love is. You know how the story goes.

[montage of moments from the last fourteen years of Marvin's and Heather's lives together, including: riding bikes in the park; wedding cake on the tip of Heather's nose, both of them cracking up; snuggled on the couch looking at their respective phones; Marvin holding Heather's leg as she pushes to give birth; Marvin smiling while mixing baby formula; family picture in the backyard, all five of them]

It wasn't something that Marvin ever expected to have, or even wanted, but he had stumbled into it. He had it. And he loved the feeling. Love. It wasn't going anywhere.

The love felt so permanent that nothing could stop it. Not even—

[quick shot of Heather having sex with another guy while Marvin watches]

There were a lot of emotions involved, and Marvin felt particular adept at processing them. He had already done the love thing. It was still there. It was the foundation of his life at this point. There were other factors, like pleasure and friendship and connection and death and taboos and horniness and kindness and comradery. But not love, nowhere else outside his home. Romance was foreign elsewhere. So it worked. All of this worked.

But that requires other people to feel the same way, and that, of course, wasn't always the case.

[title shot of the name of the TV show flashes across the screen while a loud Playboi Carti song plays, then the music cuts off abruptly and we hone in on a conversation that is happening in a car, with Marvin driving and Kat Foster's non-monogamous cousin in the passenger seat]

KFNMC: I guess it just kind of freaked me out.

M: What freaked you out?

KFNMC: I just don't know how or why you ended things with Ali. I know you tried to explain it, like multiple times, but I still don't really understand what you're saying.

M: Okay, so let me break it down for you.

KFNMC: [laughter] No, I feel like you already did that. You need to make it more complicated this time.

M: No, no, I'm gonna make it simpler but in a different way. I'll rephrase. Is that complex enough for you?

KFNMC: I'll live with it, sure. Go ahead.

M: So, as you know, humans are complicated.

KFNMC: [smirking] True. Yes. Bold insight.

M: [smirking] Right. Okay, and, like, that's good, right? That humans are complicated. I would describe that as a good thing. Life would be boring if we were all simpletons. If someone were to show me that they were a complicated being, I would say that's a good thing. I would appreciate that. And then, like, when you're out there, and you're searching for love, at the beginning, when you're younger, that complicated stuff is okay. It's necessary to weed through it, because you're committing your life to someone. It makes sense to have those deep, sometimes challenging talks. Because you're invested in that specific way. Didn't you have conversations like that with Victor? Back when you got together at eighteen?

KFNMC: Yeah, for sure.

M: Right. Because you wanted to be with him forever, live with him, raise a family together, and so on. Those complicated feelings were always a good thing, and you worked through them together. That was part of the whole process. We both did that with our spouses. But now you're married, kids, the whole thing, and you're open and non-monogamous. Do you really wanna go through that again? Do you have to, is my question.

KFNMC: I guess what I don't understand is why you can't explore that. Why someone wanting to have that conversation with you was something that turned you off. I mean, I know you at this point. You're used to feeling big, complicated feelings. Didn't you grow up in a funeral home or something? I picture that like a crucible of human complexity.

M: Sure. I did, and I do, appreciate big feelings. And I don't feel uncomfortable around big feelings. My dad used to give eulogies at like every funeral or viewing that happened at our place, even for people he didn't know. He pulled it off because he knew his way around human feelings. I picked that up from him. I get it. I can have those talks. It's just a matter of whether I want to. That's the thing.

KFNMC: So when you're dating people who aren't Heather, you're saying that you don't want to have to explore those feelings. Got it.

M: No! No, that's not it either. [deep breath] Okay, so I'm out here, seeing other people, right? I have so much love for Heather that it fucking hurts, and the way that our love looks is that it's big and broad and has so much room for other connections. Which is what I'm doing now. I'm not shy about feeling feelings. I like you a lot and I like hanging out with you. I like other people and I like hanging out with them. I understand that people are complicated, and if a friend like you or a friend who I am platonically and non-sexually friends with expressed complicated emotions to me, say in a long text or email, then I have the right to have a reaction to that. For people I want to keep spending time with, I'm gonna feel good about that, I'm gonna feel engaged in that conversation. For people I don't want to keep spending time with, I'm gonna feel bad about that, like I don't feel like dealing with that. It's all a gut reaction. I'm trusting my gut here.

KFNMC: You're thing with Ali, that was a gut-reaction thing?

M: Yeah, and note that I did not feel shy at all about expressing that gut-reaction out loud. I expressed that it was too much for me. I see what you're trying to say here, though. You, [name of Kat Foster's non-monogamous cousin]. You're worried that I have the same gut-reaction to you, and you're feeling like I'm preparing to build a wall between me and you, that if you try to have a complicated conversation with me, I'm going to react poorly, or break things off with you.

KFNMC: Okay, sure, fine. What say you to that?

M: I say that it's been, what, almost a year at this point hanging out with you? I think we're way past that point.

KFNMC: I figured, I just wanted you to say it, that's all.

M: Well I'm saying it. I like you. Feel free to express any complicated emotions to me that you so please.

KFNMC: Okay, here's a complicated feeling. I was watching my cousin's old sitcom again last night. You remember. The American sitcome 'Til Death?

M: Of course. I think about you every time I watch that show (which is often).

KFNMC: You remember the porn tape episode?

M: I think so. Refresh my memory.

KFNMC: So the pasty piefucking dude, and his wife, played by my cousin, character actress Kat Foster, she tells him that they're gonna watch a porno that night to spice things up, and piefucker is nervous, because he's, uh, never watched porn before. Which is hard to believe, but we're just going with it at this point, you know how it is.

M: Is that a reference to the American Pie film series, you think? The porn stuff? Piefucker's character in those movies would have absolutely watched porn.

KFNMC: I've never seen the movie, actually.

M: You've never seen it—? Actually, no, nevermind, keep going.

KFNMC: So the tall guy, you know, um, the guy from Marsupilami, he does the voice of Santa Claus, you know who I'm talking about, he takes an active interest in the porn tape thing, he watches the tape first before handing it off to pasty piefucking neighbor, but he gets caught by hot wife first, hot wife is all pissed off, like, okay maybe fucking you should watch a porn with me, that'll spice things up in our boring fucking sex life.

M: Dude, Marsupilami Santa's wife is so fucking hot, it's wild.

KFNMC: Right, isn't that always the case? How are so many average dudes, or even below average dudes, landing such hot wives?

M: It's sort of a trope in sitcomes.

KFNMC: But it's in real life too! You've been to the club. It's wild.

M: Yeah, I don't get it. Speaking as an average dude with a hot wife, I don't get it.

KFNMC: Anyway, so this all plays out, and everyone expresses their insecurities, ya know how it goes, sitcome plots barrel toward a tidy solution. And the whole time I'm thinking... man, this all seems pretty complicated.

M: Complicated in the same way that I broke it off with Ali for?

KFNMC: Only tangentially, I think. Complicated in that... well, these people are monogamous, no?

M: Yeah. Is that why piefucker was so nervous about watching fictional characters in a porno fuck?

KFNMC: I don't know, that's not my point. My point is that monogamy is complicated, and non-monogamy is complicated. Big feelings are universal. They aren't just specific to this thing we got going here, Marvin. And so why not just lean into it, if big feelings are all around us.

M: I guess.

KFNMC: Did I ever tell you about that dude Wayne I was seeing for a bit?

M: I think so. Weird dude who was blogging all the time?

KFNMC: Yeah, that's him. Did I ever tell you he tried to commit suicide one time?

M: Nah. Jeez, really? About what?

KFNMC: Something about my cousin. Does it matter? The point is that he felt big feelings. He was feeling something strong, and he dealt with it. Not in the right way, mind you, but he got help. The feelings are still there, and they are big. That's no reason to run away from someone, that's all I'm saying.

M: No, I get it. I don't think you have anything to worry about. I'm here. I'm feeling big about this. I'm good. I like it. I'm comfortable here, in this car with you. It feels good. Don't worry about this.

KFNMC: It's not gonna be like the 5 pukes out of 5 episode of the American sitcome 'Til Death, called "Tale of the Tape," in which tall Clause and hot wife say that they feel inadequate to each other?

M: No inadequacies here. I'm feeling good.

KFNMC: I am too.

M: Yo, can I just reiterate how fucking HOT Kat Foster is? Jesus christ. I mean, not even the fact that she's married to pasty piefucker guy can ruin that.

KFNMC: Dude, that's my COUSIN. That's fucking sick.

[created by, written by, and directed by Sam Levinson]

In a Time Lapse, Joe

I'm thinking about what I need from music. I know I like music, that's the foundation. I know that my life is better when I'm listening to music than when I'm not listening to music. I feel calmer. But do I need music to feel calm? Sometimes I think I do, and sometimes I think that I'm just pretending. That music is just fun, and then calm has to come from within. I was cut off a couple times by the same fucking prick today on my drive to Fern Rock, and I managed to find calm, eventually, there in the car, some inner peace in taking the loss and letting it go, and music was definitely playing in the car when that happened, but I don't even remember what, and that was only like two hours ago. So I'm thinking the music didn't really matter much in that scenario. I didn't find peace and calm from the music. It was just on the car stereo while I did the work myself.

I don't think it's the music. Maybe it's... the appreciation of music as art, like the act of the appreciation itself, that causes the calm. Akin to finding peace and solace while sitting in front of a painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The act of interpreting the art is the thing that brings wonder and joy and that is the thing that acts as a shield against all incoming worries and anxieties. But if we're making that the hypothesis here, then we can rule out the idea of music itself being "calming." What I'm saying is that I am much more at peace listening to some Midwest emo that's fucking my shit up, versus some boring-ass classical music.

Woah woah woah woah hold up now, no, am I saying that In a Time Lapse is boring-ass classical music? Well... I mean, yes and no. No in that there are concrete moments throughout the life of this album that are certifiably unboring. There is build-up and there is catharsis. There is momentum and there are climaxes. There are moments that feel alive, in a sense. There are moments that make you feel like you have something to grab ahold of, and thus, in grabbing ahold, you can do what we usually do with art, which is: interpret, and find calm.

But yes in that I can't really pull all that much from those moments beyond "this seems like it's supposed to be exciting." See, there's a fucking reason that this kind of music is typically relegated to movie and TV soundtracks presently. It's because it can more successfully act as supplementary music, the ingredient that makes a particular episode or scene or moment pop. I spent a lot of my week imagining that the music on In a Time Lapse was soundtracking a particularly harrowing episode of The Leftovers. Fuck, dude, I loved that show. And that soundtrack was so memorable. It sounded a lot like this (plus Justin Theroux doing Simon & Garfunkel karaoke). But when I talk about "the art" of The Leftovers, I'm not just talking about the soundtrack. That's one piece of it. And it doesn't make sense to me to separate that one piece and try to experience it by itself.

I don't even think it's a stretch to claim that this is soundtrack music, because that's Ludovico Einaudi's day job. He's making soundtracks. That shit is going to bleed into his studio albums. This is what he's good at. I don't blame him for making more music even though some of it's not even attached to a film. That's his right. And clearly some people have connected with it, deeply. I tried my best, and I can appreciate it for what it is, but generally speaking, I would pretty much prefer literally any other genre of music over this.

I went back and revisited by album review for Valtari from last summer, because that was a review I recall speaking to soundtracks and what they could mean in my life re: art and wonder. (I don't think it's coincidental that Gloria's hand is in both of these album picks, nor do I think it's coincidental that I'm leaning on the same idea in order to try to find some value in these works of art, instead of just being a prick about it and saying I fucking hated it.) I think that "this sucks because my life is boring" is a good take, still, even though I've taken strides in attempting to make this life as exciting as possible under the circumstances. It's possible that I don't like In a Time Lapse because I am boring as fuck and only boring people are gonna hate this shit. That's probably the safest way to express my opinion, especially opinion in the negative—it's all my fault.

I don't need this music, because it's beautiful music and really gives you a good sense of what it's trying to do and has hills and valleys and makes great efforts to keep you engaged, but I'm just not getting anything deeper out of this. Beauty sometimes doesn't have depth. I need depth. If the only depth I can find is within myself, then that means the music is a generic conduit at best, and worthless at worst. If the only takeaway is that I found meaning within myself, then what the fuck is the music even here for. For what, to put on in the fucking background? To listen to as I drive home and think about how shitty of a day I just had and how behind I am on everything and how I just wanna drive this fucking car into the Tookany Creek? I can achieve all that without Ludovico Einauldi, thank you. Put it on in the background, I don't care.

do you really want to drive into a creek? are you feeling that bad? you being serious?

nah, that's called hyperbole

hyperbole can still be scary

i mean i had a rough couple days but i don't think that's abnormal

i'm just making sure you're okay

i'm fine. i'm calm.

but not because of the music

exactly

even though the music was playing

right

but i don't understand how this is a criticism of the album, like if you're trying to say that there isn't any music that makes a difference as to how calm or uncalm you feel in any given moment, then why is in a time lapse under the gun here, why wouldn't you say that for your favorite albums too

no no i'm not saying they are completely disconnected, i'm saying that i need something different than this in order to find it interesting and spend time interpreting the art that i perceive as interesting, and that interpretation of said art is the thing that affects my mood in positive ways

then why not spend more time interpreting in a time lapse, wouldn't that help, by your own admission

what i'm saying is that i don't perceive there to be anything worth being interested in on this album, it's pretty simple and its objectives are made plain and i just don't feel like there is a lot of depth here in the subject matter itself

which is probably your fault, not knowing the nuances of the multitude of sounds that make up a classical album

sure, i'm not denying that, but i'm saying that if i don't have the experience or skills to interpret classical music in that way, then all i'm left with is doing a "what does this mean to me" and I can do that with fucking anything. i can look at a fucking curl of cat shit in a litterbox and write 1000 words about what this means to me, and that doesn't mean there's any fucking artistic fucking value in that goddamn cat shit

and you're saying that writing 1000 words about cat shit wouldn't bring you joy

ehhhhh, okay, you got me there. i would find joy in that exercise. actually, would that have been a better review here?

i think it would have been just as bad

yeah, maybe

GRADE: 2 pukes out of 5