That's my friend Ryder strapping my friend Jenny's mattress to the roof of my Subaru Outback two Sundays ago. Surprisingly, driving her mattress to Belmont was relatively easy and my car had no problems. My move, happening tomorrow, has been a long slog of packing, somewhere between John Cusack's line in "High Fidelity" that "It's not what you're like, it's what you like," and Fugazi's proclamation that "You are not what you own."
Fortunately, the move comes after a wonderful summer in Boston, brief tropical storm, earthquake and heat wave aside. There have been lots of crisp, sunny days that are a good reminders of why it's worth staying. And tonight is the Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, when the city comes together at a scale that it rarely does. I even fall for the mid-inning interviews with people from companies like Millenium Pharmaceuticals, but then, I'm overly sentimental.
...And the best album of the summer. Friedberger's main band, the Fiery Furnaces, which she leads with her brother Matthew, sometimes deserve the criticism they take for their inscrutable and occasionally impenetrable whimsy. Their debut album, "Gallowsbird's Bark," had a wonderful rush to its pop songs, but since then, the Fiery Furnaces have switched styles and approaches so many times mid-song, mid-album and mid-career that I find it tough to keep up. They've also maybe been a bit too prolific -- seven albums in eight years
Not so on Friedberger's first solo album. It's playful, but also simpler, with a lovely, slightly sweaty pulse. There are still times where I want to tell Friedberger to take a deep breath and others where she loves the weird sounds her keyboards make a bit too much. But Friedberger knows what she wants the whole time and gets there in a direct and charming way. That this is a great summer album is no mistake -- it's titled "Last Summer," with personal references to her apparently wonderful summer 2010 and lyrical references to the places in outer Brooklyn you explore on hazy summer evenings. It sounds like it was recorded on her brownstone's front stoop (also suggested in this music video) -- a warm, sticky and carefree session, surrounded by friends. She also composes the song very well, with keyboards and saxophone arriving to provide lifts just when they're needed.
Maybe nostalgia is overrated, used to create an airbrushed past. But Friedberger realizes that the summer is the most nostalgic of seasons, when you remember running and swimming in the sun as a kid and staying out late, and when you create new memories. She's captured this perfectly here, with music sweet and tart, and the promise of a kiss in there somewhere. The music video for the single, which is by far the album's best song, "My Mistakes," is above. Her forehand appears at the 1:05 mark.
No wonder our country finds itself in such monumental gridlock: In the New York Times' poll published shortly after Congress reached its compromise on the debt ceiling, 72 percent of respondents disapproved of Republicans' position on the matter, but 63 percent said the amounts of cuts weren't enough or sufficient, 44 percent said the bill should've relied on cuts alone, and 63 said they support raising taxes on households earning more than $250,000. Then there's Stanley Oland, a 62-year-old Republican from Kalispell, Mont., who told the Times, "Unless you have working people, you don't have revenue from taxes. If you cut spending, jobs will be eliminated and you won't get any revenue. Every dollar spent creates jobs."
It's impossible to rationalize these opinions: If you don't support Republicans on this fiscal policy, then you can't say the bill should've only consisted of cuts. Yet somehow 72 percent said the former and 44 percent said the latter; um, that adds up to 116 percent. And if you didn't find the cuts to be adequate in size, I doubt that you also want to raise taxes on the upper middle class. Trying to make these opinions compatible is remarkably difficult. It reminds me of goofy children's adventure movies where characters chase a bad guy, stop someone on the street to ask where he went, and the person replies, "He went that way," while pointing in each direction. When it comes to affairs of state like sovereign debt, it's very difficult to collectively support two stridently opposite positions at the same time and expect solutions. Politicians then find it easy to stay on the sidelines and shout, as they're wont to do.
As for Mr. Karabell, someone should send him a note telling him that one can't be a Republican in 2011 and believe that government spending helps create in jobs in some capacity. This is heresy to the party today. At least on fiscal and economic policy, what he believes fundamentally conflicts with the party's position. He should change his voter registration or otherwise he'll be a disappointed Republican for a long time.
Paul LePage, Maine's governor, is a succinct summary of the present-day Republican Party: He ordered his state's labor departmentto remove its historical murals of mill workers, shipyard hands and other laborers because Maine's industrial past wasn't sufficiently pro-business for his taste. Yet LePage is thrilled by the number of private jets landing at small runways around Maine as parents leave their kids at summer camp because they may stay the night and spend some of their wealth shopping and eating (even though the point of renting a private jet is to leave as quickly as possible). "Love it, love it, love it," he told the Times. "I wish they'd stay a week while they're here this is big business." LePage shuns working families who live in Maine while hoping to cement the state's reputation as a vacation playground for the rich. Hopefully his economic development team has the courage to tell him that this approach is good economic development policy in reverse.
State governors offer insightful but overlooked windows into politics and governing. D.C. has imploded this summer because so few congressman, most especially Republicans, are willing to move off their party lines and there are so many of them -- 535, House plus Senate -- that compromise is too difficult to coordinate. But in states, the legislatures are small and often only in session for part of the year, leaving their governors to take some of their party's most strident positions and their states' quirks and run in strange directions. Most infamously this year, Republican Scott Walker tried to end Wisconsin's public labor unions. Texas' Rick Perry, who's about to join the Republican presidential primary, presided over a massive prayer session, which is the most bizarre twisting of the First Amendment that I can remember. Here in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick advocates to allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at state colleges, which I support but I also suppose is on the far left flank of the Democratic platform.
In Florida, Rick Scott'sapproval ratings have been hammered into the low 20s as he tries to rip apart any semblance of the social safety net. This disproves the generally accepted storyline of the past two years that the voting public has forcefully rejected the Obama administration's expansionist view of domestic policy. Floridians have seen austerity up close and even more vehemently said no (if one can use approval ratings, where Obama's are still much higher than Scott's, as the barometer). That the man who led a companyresponsible for one of the country's largest frauds ever in the health care industry would mishandle his state's health care system isn't much of surprise. Unfortunately, Florida is learning this the hard way.
Scott says his anemic approval rating is the consequence of making tough decisions, though I think this is good evidence that the rest of the country doesn't welcome austerity, as federal Republicans claim they will. People have much more direct relationships with their governors than they do with Congressional leaders. They see their governors on TV nearly every day and know their names, while Congressmen, even those as prominent as Boehner, Cantor and Pelosi, are still from foreign districts. Consequently, when governors make drastic changes such as Scott's, they react genuinely. When the Republican Party emerges from its minority position, either by taking the White House or both houses of Congress next year, I think people will respond to national austerity the same way and reject it even more angrily than they have the stimulus bill.
Not surprisingly, the two governors who seem to be doing best these days, Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York, embody their state's personalities better than anyone else. Christie's brash conservatism doesn't fit New Jersey's traditional politics, but then, he's an archetypical New Jersey guy -- blunt, a bit overweight, loves Springsteen and wants to get it done, diplomacy be damned. Cuomo is much the same, but trimmer and with a greater love of working on his car. Governors can reflect their states, but federal politicians can't do this -- there are too many people to represent, so they can't win the day on charm.
Sufjan Stevens, he of the aborted 50-album cycle about each state, probably has greater insight into this than I do. He was right to recognize that each state has rich veins of the political and personal to mine. For now, I'll settle with the above video of his song "For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti."
My wife has bought a new cell phone for the first time in at least nine years! She bought a new one after the old one's reception began to falter and on two separate occasions this year, waiters in restaurants marveled at her phone sitting on the table, wondering aloud that such phones still exist and work. Her new phone even includes a camera -- the most basic of features these days that the old one nonetheless lacked. Even for someone who rarely buys new technology, I was pretty astonished how long her phone lasted. Then again, I don't understand many people's urge to continually buy new gadgets: Why the regular need for the upgrade? What does it genuinely improve? Isn't obsolescence much further away than we typically claim for these products?
Above is a photo of the ancient phone, taken with the camera on my relatively rudimentary cell phone.
Already there's a tribute album for "Is This It"? Sure, I think the record captured a moment in time better than any other of the past 20 years has. But its songs, no matter how catchy they are, aren't expertly written, and that moment seems almost quaint now, with New York on edge, the country united around it, and the U.S.'s economy and international status relatively secure. In the end, the Strokes flamed out around 2004, and even when cultural cycles zoom by at hyper speeds, 10 years is a brief amount of time to wait before canonizing a piece of art.
Released at the same time as "Is This It," but to much less fanfare, was Death Cab for Cutie's "The Photo Album." No one should make a tribute album for this one, either, but it might actually be the record with the longer-lasting influence. Surprisingly enough, Death Cab for Cutie's career arc has become the template during the past 10 years for how indie rock bands ascend to widespread popularity: Value production quality from the start; write lyrics that appeal to teenagers but are nonetheless meaningful; have your songs featured in the background of TV shows and commercials (for Death Cab, it was "The O.C."); jump to a major label when the timing seems right; release a wildly successful side project (though I'd take lead singer Ben Gibbard's EP as All-Time Quarterback, with a great cover "Why I Cry," over the Postal Service; good luck finding that one!); and tour, tour, tour. Over time, you become erudite and ubiquitous.
At the time of its release, my friend Drew and Pitchfork wrote in their reviews that "The Photo Album" was an appropriate title for the record because photo albums are there for you to leaf through and recall treasured moments, and "The Photo Album" reminds you that "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes" is the easily superior record. Nonetheless, "The Photo Album" stands the test of time well, with its nostalgic, pensive opener, "Steadier Footing," the sweetly drum-machine-heavy paean to sunny early spring spring days, "Coney Island," and the shredding of L.A. in "Why Would You Want to Live Here?" That this album is also now 10 years old makes me feel old. I remember listening to it freshman year of college, as I dived too deeply into the world of indie rock. That was 10 years ago?! I probably have a photo album somewhere to memorialize it, though not on Facebook.
Coincidentally and humorously, after listening to "The Photo Album" two consecutive nights this week, the next day standing outside the bike shop in my building was a young man wearing a Death Cab T-shirt, looking right at me. I wonder if he knew I was listening to the record. Above is an independently made video of "Coney Island."
Those fall days in Boston when it gets a bit warmer and the leaves are a deep color but the sun hits at a lower angle and everyone is out walking and you need an extra layer at night. Corners and layers and reverb.
