London 2012: the opening ceremonies

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I think the Olympics are great. I especially like the opening ceremony.

 

 

Actually, the opening ceremony is pretty much the only thing I like. I find the athletic events dull. (Over the past few days I have watched bits of volleyball, and cycling, and swimming, and I cannot stifle my yawns.)

 

 

But the opening ceremonies – yowzah! They are an opportunity for the host country to tell a story about itself. We all remember the powerfully choreographed opening of the Beijing Olympics, with 2008 drummers in sync with one another, and later the adorable children from all over China, in ethnic costumes. (I vaguely recall that one of the children was lip-synching a song, but let us not speak of that.) I also recall the Vancouver Olympics, with a sort of rippling pool of light in which we saw Native American images, and a huge bear, and fiddlers, and – well, all kinds of things.

 

 

The London ceremony was huge, and sloppy, and very endearing. We knew in advance that it was going to be the “English countryside,” and snippy commentators were predicting sheep and cottages. Well, we did in fact get sheep and cottages. We also got the countryside (literally) rolled away. We got the World-Tree ripped from the top of Glastonbury Tor. We got Blake’s “dark Satanic mills” growing out of the floor. We got suffragettes, and the Jarrow Marchers, and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

 

 

Danny Boyle, the director of “Slumdog Millionaire,” did a wonderful thing: he tried his very best to include everything. And I think he may well have succeeded. (I think he put up a posterboard: “What is the UK?” And he, and everyone, put up notes, for days and days. And he included everything that everyone suggested.)

 

 

We got music, and weather reports, and Sir Edward Elgar’s “Nimrod,” and “Jerusalem.” We got J. K. Rowling. We got Tim Berners-Lee. We got the Stones, and Cruella de Ville. We got Paul McCartney! We got the Sex Pistols. We got the Queen (the actual Queen!) and her corgis, with Daniel Craig as James Bond. We got allusions to Austin Powers and J. R. R. Tolkien. We got Kenneth Branagh as Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

 

 

We got an elaborate salute to the UK’s National Health Service, right in front of Mitt and Ann Romney, and I would have loved to ask them how they enjoyed it.

 

 

The Beijing ceremony in 2008 was about unity and power. The London ceremony was about diversity. The choreography – dear God! – was elaborate in the extreme, but it seemed almost random: groups of marchers drifting together, marching through one another’s ranks, and separating again.

 

 

One of the Financial Times commentators last weekend said, nicely: “The parts that didn’t work highlighted the parts that did.” Exactly right. The rock-and-roll section was a little long, and maybe Rowan Atkinson / Mister Bean was a little over-the-top, but it all worked. (A lot of people on Tumblr seem to think that the Olympic cauldron, which only came together in the last moments of the ceremony, was the Eye of Sauron. I don’t think so. But – who knows?)

 

 

Sadly, I had to watch this ceremony on American television, on NBC. Matt Lauer (whom I thought was smarter than this) treated it as the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, and  giggled and talked through the whole thing. Bob Costas (to whom I am used by now, after many Olympics) thinks he has to do color commentary through the whole thing. My Tumblr idol, wellthatsjustgreat, wrote some wonderfully scathing commentary on Messrs. Lauer and Costas, which I encourage you to read. In effect, they almost ruined the thing, especially the Parade of Nations. (Well, NBC helped; they decided that we didn’t need to see whole chunks of the ceremony, and dumped in a fatuous interview with Michael Phelps. Also, I am told by a correspondent in the UK that the BBC coverage was even worse.)

 

 

I have the ceremony on the DVR. I have already watched bits over again. I still haven’t gotten all of the British-culture references. I probably never will.

 

 

It was wonderful, nonetheless.

 

(And now I have to go back and watch the Vancouver ceremony from 2010, because I still don’t have all of that one figured out either.)

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For Valentine’s Day: Paul McCartney sings “Martha My Dear”

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I couldn’t think of anything appropriate for today.

 

 

Then I thought of this: Paul McCartney’s love song to his sheepdog Martha.

 

 

Hold your hand out, you silly girl; see what you’ve done . . .

 

 

Happy Valentine’s Day.

 

09_Track_9.mp3 Listen on Posterous

 

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Sunday blog: “Goodbye,” sung by Paul McCartney

 

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This is a song you may or may not remember. Mary Hopkin had a moderately good run with it in the late 1960s. It was written by Paul McCartney, and it almost made it onto one of The Beatles’ albums.

 

 

There’s nothing like a sad song in a major key, performed in a bouncy up-tempo way.

 

 

Here, you can hear the Beatles themselves (well, mostly Paul) performing it.

 

 

Happy Sunday.

 

30_Goodbye.m4a Listen on Posterous

 

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Beatle John vs. Beatle Paul

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My sister Susan, ten years older than me, was a huge Beatles fan in the early 1960s. She especially liked Paul.

 

Later, when I was in college and discovered the Beatles myself, I bought a copy of the White Album, which contained four terrible cheesecake photos of the Fab Four. I had the bright idea of mailing the dewy-eyed picture of Paul to Susan, who was then a farm housewife in Pasco, Washington. She sent it back to me hidden in a box of cookies. I sent it back to her in something else. We kept the back-and-forth up for years and years, right up to the time she passed away in 1995. She sent it to me one last time, and told me on the phone that evening: “I win!” She died soon after.

 

Like Susan, I love the Beatles. I have absorbed all kinds of abstruse Beatles lore over the years. (White Album quiz! Who was “Martha”? Who was “Julia”? Who was “Sexy Sadie”?)

 

Paul and John wrote together, of course. They critiqued each other’s work, very sarcastically sometimes, and ended up writing brilliant songs.

 

But sometimes you can tell who was in charge on any particular day.

 

Paul was (and is) a showman with vaudevillian inclinations. He likes broad gestures, peppy tunes, bright lyrics. Listen to “Martha My Dear” for an extreme (but very likeable) example.

 

John was moody. He liked slow, bluesy, simple tunes. His lyrics are darker. (EXPERT TEXPERT CHOKING SMOKERS DON’T YOU THINK THE JOKER LAUGHS AT YOU HO HO HO HEE HEE HEE HA HA HA!) Listen to “I Want You” for a polar/extreme example.

 

And then, of course, there is “A Day In The Life.”

 

The story goes like this: John had a poignant melody and some moody mysterious lyrics. Paul had a bouncy little riff and some chirpy little lyrics. Neither could make any headway. So they just jammed the two into one another. John’s sad quasi-pentatonic lament – “I heard the news today, oh boy” – is the opening and ending. Paul’s cute piano-driven tune – “Woke up, fell out of bed” – is the bridge. George Martin, their very smart producer, introduced echoes of either in the other. Those sighing riffs in the bridge passage are echoes of John’s melody; the piano chords in the opening and closing sections, that begin so quietly and become more and more pronounced, are Paul’s contribution. And then there’s that huge dissonant orchestral crescendo that ends both sections: George Martin’s own creation.

 

I am still amazed at the creativity of the Beatles. Even fifty years later (fifty years!), they still sound fresh and new and interesting.

 

Susan would be pleased.

 

And, Susan, if you’re listening: Paul’s a jerk. I always liked George better.

 

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