Pattern and Variation and Pattern Again…
I used to enjoy following the NCAA tournament, and also pro basketball and pro baseball, and hockey and football, to a lesser degree, and by “follow” I mean the way other people might follow the twists and turns of a soap opera. It’s funny how many men I know bristle when I compare pro sports to soap operas, usually after listening to someone express great outrage at a recent coaching change or some other bit of arcana, followed by a genealogy of all the coaches team X has ever head, their various and sundry vices and virtues, and then, depending on levels of inebriation, a tear or two for days and coaches gone by. I never followed sports to the degree that true fans do, but I took some pleasure in following story lines, reading stats in the paper, and putting games on TV with the sound down while I did other things. But I seem to have lost almost all capacity for following sports this way: I forgot the super bowl was on, and wasn’t interested anyhow; I will probably watch some of the final four of the NCAA tournament, but last year I tried that and couldn’t pay attention for the life of me; I will likely watch at least some of the World Series, if only because of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest; and I will keep up with the drama of the Bills and Sabres by osmosis, because their story lines drift through the air in Western NY like plankton–but basically whatever it was held my interest in sports before is gone. I watched some of the Olympics, and really liked curling (perhaps because it requires very little of your attention to watch?), but was never particularly engaged. I am attributing at least some of my waning sports-watching ability to pattern satiation, which I’m using to mean something like semantic satiation but for rule-bound, integrated visual and conceptual phenomena: the visual patterns of a baseball game, for example, are predictable within a set of rules, and pleasing because they are predictable, and are furthermore integrated with other conceptual patterns, like the “how are the small-market Pirates going to do this year” narrative arc, creating a series of patterns meant to involve fans on as many cognitive levels as possible. And, I have grown so used to the patterns at this point that I am experiencing something like semantic satiation, in as much as the experience of watching a sporting event is strangely meaningless, I am inhibited from giving meaning to, for example, someone shooting a basketball through the hoop. Part of my mind knows what this means, knows the rules that define it, but I can’t connect that aspect of knowing with the part that makes it mean something more to me. Oh well, more time to listen to all these CDs, I guess.
251) Johnny Guitar Watson: Ain’t That a Bitch
Aside from the completely offensive cover, and the fact that Johnny can’t sing on key to save is life, this is a fun CD; three of the seven songs have “baby” in the title. Noting that JGW is a crappy singer makes more devoted fans of his upset, but since it’s impossible to argue, they usually just shake their heads and look at the floor.
252) Dr.Demento: The Very Best Of…
I wasn’t sure I would be able to sit through this, but I really enjoyed it, actually, probably because there’s only one Weird Al Yankovic song, and two by Zappa… I even laughed out loud a bunch of times, like when this one came on:
253) New Order: Substance
I still love these songs, no pattern satiation here, despite having heard most of them for 20+ years in various discos, house parties, headphones, and in a panoply of cover versions. Danceable–you can feel, rather than listen, if you choose–but also well-written and arranged in curious ways, so you can also listen, if you don’t feel like dancing, and still feel stimulated.
254) The Meters: Good Old Funky Music
I’ve had this CD for at least 20 years… and I do believe everything I said about Substance holds true for this recording too, danceable but interesting even when just lieing on the couch. Zigaboo Modeliste!
255) Van Morrison: Avalon Sunset
This year’s annual Van Morrison CD purchase has several great songs, a few duds, and the kind of flat, bubble-squeak production that characterized a lot of Van’s work from the 1980’s. Still, lifeless production can’t drain all the joy out of songs like “When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God,” or “Coney Island”…