In love with love ... and Debbie Harry

Face It by Debbie Harry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I confess that I am puzzled by some of the Goodreads reviews I have read of this book. Lackluster? Unemotional? Really?! This is a memoir by *Deborah Harry.* There is nothing lackluster about her! Some of us are more expressive than others, and I've always thought (rightly or wrongly) that Ms. Harry had a sly, ironic, even Cheshire Cat-like quality that perhaps is read as "flat affect." But it's all in the arch of her eyebrows, the curl of her smile. The quip. The wry observation. It's subtle. It's sublime.

And, yes, I am a fan.

But a fan who knew very little about Ms. Harry post-1990. And even pre-1990. For example, I did not know about her time in New York on the Downtown Scene. Sure, I knew she came up through the punk era, was there at CBGB's, was mentioned in the same breath as Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine, but I really had no idea how deeply involved she was with the people and places of that lost era--her memories of which certainly made me emotional at times.

And I didn't know as much about her career after Blondie broke up in the early '80s, despite owning copies of KooKoo and Rockbird, despite watching her in concert at Gay Pride in New York in 1990 (at least that's what I recall--she sang "Sweet and Low," I'm fairly certain), and despite seeing and hearing Blondie in concert at the Palace Theater in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, for one of my birthday celebrations in the early 2010s. (Debbie, the gods bless her, actually smiled for the camera when I tried to take her picture!) There have been movies, plays, and TV shows; recordings with the Jazz Passengers; the showcase at the Carlyle (for which I would have moved heaven, earth, and Delta Airlines to have been in the audience); the activism; the friendships.

And while reading this book, I couldn't believe that it's already been 20+ years since Blondie regrouped in the late 1990s and recorded the album No Exit (an album that now appears to be out of print). Time flies when you're sleepwalking through life in pointless meetings and unsatisfying relationships. (Thankfully, one of those scenarios has changed over the years. Hint: It's not the pointless meetings.)

There is certainly more than I want to know--more details about Parallel Lines and Eat to the Beat, Blondie's two best albums (in my opinion) from the Early Era; more details about the transition from Eat to the Beat to AutoAmerican, which seems drastic even now, although it was probably something completely normal in the evolution of the band; more of her thoughts on the reaction to KooKoo, which even now seems mixed, despite it being something of a quirky, musical milestone in pop history. More, perhaps, about what she likes to read and listen to and whether she still paints. And some pics of her dogs would not be amiss.

It may be the case, as Harry notes, that some of the Early Era was a blur because the band was so busy. It may be the case, as Harry notes, that this would be a better memoir if she'd kept a journal over the years.

Nevertheless, I was enchanted by her girlhood in New Jersey and somehow making the decision after high school to become an artist (of a genre to be determined) in New York in the 1960s--and, despite all odds, actually accomplishing it. I felt moved by her losses over the years and about her coming to terms with childhood trauma. I was entertained by her storytelling and (sorry, Debs!) her inherent nerdiness (comics and the space program, oh my), something you would never think possible in the life of an Icon of Cool like Debbie Harry. I felt pride in her inherent, unapologetic Americanness, a quality as post-modern Americans we dismiss too easily.

So if you found this book "unemotional" or "lackluster," I don't know what to tell you. I rarely give a book 5 stars, and the rational being in me might not award this one with that many. But my emotional self values this book and Debbie Harry's revelations more than 4 stars, maybe even more than 5 stars.

Maybe you had to be there--and I really wasn't, as I was marooned in Mayberry in the '70s and early '80s. Maybe you had to want to be there, which I most certainly did but didn't know how to. So this memoir is one way to get a taste for an era I lived through and yet still somehow don't know very well at all. As a result, I'm grateful to Debbie Harry for sharing her life stories with us.

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This weekend's read--And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records

I'm going to try something new with this blog--start writing more about what I'm reading.

It's not that you've been missing much. Simply stated, I've lost that reading feeling over the last couple of years. My normal explanation is that it's an occupational hazard--for me, as a librarian, information, words, text, are just so much "product" and so much noise at the end of a long day. Books are a commodity. Information = work. I get tired of seeing text all day

No, I don't read books at work, despite the idealized stereotype of the librarian at work. (I have shushed a couple of people in my time--and been shushed myself by library patrons for being a little too loud and boisterous.) However, I do read screens, memos, articles, websites, reports, e-mails, what have you. The thought of doing this even more when I get home, especially on a device like a Kindle or a Nook, is rather horrifying--or maybe just depressing. Or possibly both.

Couple this with the vague concept of ownership surrounding e-books (do you really own that book or are you just renting and borrowing it for a period of time?), preservation issues (will you be able to read that book in the same e-format 20 years from now? 10 years from now? Probably not), and not having a lot of room for books/wanting to travel light on any future moves, and I just find myself feeling indifferent to the printed word. Shocking, I know.

Nevertheless, I'm trying to get the feeling again. Last month I devoured Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, with 600 pages flying by during a week away from work. I will try to write up my thoughts on that book soon; while it probably is not perfect, I really enjoyed it, more than anything I've read in a long while--which may not be saying much as I really haven't read anything substantial in a long while. The novel Triomf by Marlene Van Niekerk was the last hefty tome I took on--a book I bought at The Strand in New York in 2005 and finally finished in . . . 2011? And I still haven't written up my thoughts about that one, which has left a heavy impression on me.

I may even do something radical and finally move past page 25 in Le Libraire by Gérard Bessette, my first (short) novel in French or at least try to finish A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin, another short novel and one that is testing my new-found interest in and patience for reading.

In the meantime, I'm turning my eye to my first love and the original intent of this blog, pop culture, by reading And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records by Larry Harris, an executive at Casablanca during the mid- to late 1970s (co-written with Curt Gooch and Jeff Suhs). So far, so good--it's been an enjoyable read, although not one that I've read sequentially. Instead, I've skipped around to find and savor the parts of most interest--how Casablanca founder Neil Bogart started the label, the arrival of Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer on the scene, and bits and pieces about Alec R. Constandinos, Jacques Morali, and Henri Belolo, the latter two of Village People fame.

Along the way, I've been reminded that Casablanca Records was also the home of KISS and Parliament/Funkadelic, something I've mostly forgotten, and two groups that have had amazing staying power over the decades, KISS for its image and Parliament/Funkadelic for its wild, innovative, influential, and highly sampled sound.

Casablanca, too, had a "filmworks," having produced not just the lamentable (or maybe just lame) Thank God Its Friday, but also the summer of '77 blockbuster, The Deep, among others.

What I've enjoyed most, of course, is gaining some insights into the personality and work ethic of Donna Summer. Harris writes that, based on her early recordings with Giorgio Moroder, Neil and he weren't that impressed with Summer on initial listen. Later, once that realized how talented (and invaluable) both were, Harris describes Summer as having a certain amount of drama surrounding her. Later, he notes that her marriage to Bruce Sudano settled things down and made her very happy. The author also seems to bear no ill will toward her for jumping to Geffen Records, which, along with the (alleged) death of disco, was the beginning of the end for the label. Rather, he seems to have facilitated her leaving for (according to him) altruistic reasons.

I also like his positive takes on Paul Jabara and Jacques Morali and his not-unexpected takedown of Village bully Victor Willis, the one straight member of the group (other than producer Belolo) who by numerous accounts, here and elsewhere, seems like an asshole of the first order.

There are some surprises along the way--Harris noting that despite seeming and mostly being a gay-friendly record label (pretty much unknown heretofore), there were those in Casablanca management and staff that were indeed homophobic (not Neil Bogart, however). And there were those who didn't initially get that the Village People were a very gay act.

Interesting, too, is to read how often the music was viewed as "product" by executives, promoters, staff, and others (although seemingly not the artists themselves). Disco wasn't taken seriously at first (if ever), but it became a huge money-maker for the label, at least for a time. However, even KISS, a "serious" rock-and-roll act (OK, not really) was viewed in terms of money, product, risk, liability, promotion--the mechanics of the record industry.

Of course this shouldn't be such a surprise; it's just me being quite naive about how business works. It also shows my naivete about pop culture--it is often commerce that we attach deeper meaning to. Is that justified? Or does the meaning exist upon inception and creation of the work and the response to the creation is commercial? I can't really say; it's probably something of both. I'm unlikely to know unless I finally get that master's degree in popular culture from Bowling Green State University I've promised I would for years now.

Then again, in my profession, am I any different than a record company exec or flunky? I surround myself with literature, scholarship, and information, but they are really just product, commodities, costing money, requiring promotion, incurring liabilities and risks? Etc., etc., etc.

I don't mean this to sound negative about my profession or even the record industry. It just is what it is. Nevertheless, in my case, it's not too late to remember to appreciate books and information for the treasures that they truly are.

Which probably means a career change at some point, or retirement, or that master's degree from Bowling Green. I think it's plenty obvious that I'm not close to either of those events at this phase of my life. Alas and alack.

So in the meantime, I'll keep reading And Party Every Day and then hopefully quickly move on to Turn the Beat Around and The Disco Files (for which I am not paying the going rate), finally making it onto my suddenly rejuvenated reading list.

Get up and boogie, y'all.

Fifty Shades of Green

Anne of Green Gables gets made-over.

Into Traci Lords, ferchrissakes.

Read all about it on the CBC website.

Such a bargain!

And yet, even at 50% off, I still can't be arsed to read this.

My biggest amazement at seeing a copy of this on the shelves? Well, heck, who knew you could now craft a lying sack of shit and venom into a book-like object.

Actually, truth be told, I was tempted to buy a copy. Then take said copy out into the woods, get drunk, and shoot it in the face with my hunting rifle.

Just for giggles.

And, by the way, Dick, you got that title right: In My Time.

As in, your time--the Cold War, the 1950s, the Vietnam era, the Nixon and Reagan reigns of error--passed a long time ago. It's just that you wouldn't let go of it and somehow convinced and coerced a nation to believe you still knew what you were talking about, long after you ceased to be relevant.

Bravo, I guess.