I like it when I realize that something or some action really means something else, something nicer, like an expression of love. My brother Jay spent every waking moment trying to get a laugh (and mostly failing). I only realized after he was gone that it was a way he had of telling you that he loved you. Today’s “Tiny Love Story” in The Times is a little bit like that. Since it’s tiny, I can reproduce it for you:
“When she was pregnant with me, my mother bought yellow and blue yarn, thinking she would make me a blanket despite not being crafty. She never made it, but kept the skeins thinking, “One day, maybe.” Every few years she would show them to me, proof that she loved me and had the best of intentions long before we met. I’ve kept them in a box since she died. I only recently noticed that the blue skein is called “heather yarn.” My mother could never remember what inspired my first name. Like her love, there it was, all along.” (Heather McClean)
Eerily, a week ago Friday (Jan. 20), in the New Yorker puzzle by veteran constructors Brooke Husic and Will Nediger, the clue at 17A was “Influential debut album by the art-punk band Television.” That was Tom Verlaine’s band, and the album was Marquee Moon, which I remember very much enjoying a hundred years ago. Then, just this morning, I learned that Tom passed away yesterday. He was 73.
He was Tom Miller at birth, but to distance himself from his past, he took the poet Verlaine’s name as a new surname, as Bob Dylan had done with Dylan Thomas, Verlaine said. Get this — he’s Jewish and was born in Denville, NJ, not far from Owl Chatter headquarters. His family moved to Wilmington DE when he was six.
He was musical from an early age but was only inspired to take up the guitar when he heard the Rolling Stones’ song “19th Nervous Breakdown” as an adolescent. He eventually became a groundbreaking and influential guitarist in ways it is beyond my capacity to understand or describe. Along with Patti Smith, the Ramones, and others, Verlaine’s band Television pushed CBGB’s into becoming a seminal punk rock venue and leave country, blue grass, and blues behind (which is what the letters CBGB stand for).
The Times obit was written by Peter Keepnews, and it contains this paragraph:
“The layered, often ethereal sound that Mr. Verlaine and the other members of Television developed was a far cry from the stripped-down approach of the Ramones and other leading lights of the punk scene. But that scene — which also included bands as disparate as Blondie and Talking Heads — was never as one-dimensional as it was often portrayed.”
Take a listen yourself, if you can spare a few minutes.
A clue today at 95D was “Sign unlikely to have been written by the person it’s attached to.” The answer was KICK ME, but someone said he first wrote in TOE TAG. Ha!
How about “Mountain lake” with the answer TARN? If I knew tarn once, I forgot it long ago. Welcome back, tarn.
And the sultry DUA LIPA popped by. I looked up sultry to make sure it was the right word: “Attractive in a way that suggests a passionate nature.” You decide:
Dua means love in Albanian, which is her native language. She is of Albanian descent, although born in London. Her dad was the lead singer and guitarist of the Kosovan rock band Oda. She was rejected from her elementary school choir. The teacher said she couldn’t sing. He was wrong. Her hit “Levitating” was so big that even I heard it from under my rock. She is also a top model. No surprise there.
Lipa’s support of the Palestinian cause has not endeared her to Israelis. A petition was presented to Israeli Army Radio demanding that her songs be banned, but it was rejected with the statement that it does not boycott any artists.
My football obligations and tickets to see Hilary Hahn perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the NJ Symphony are keeping Owl Chatter short today. I also saw Hilary about 15 years ago in NY performing I forget what. I’ll see if Sam remembers, he was there too.
Hahn was born in Virginia and is only 43. She started playing violin a month before her 4th birthday. Good move. She was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philly at age 10, and completed the requirements for a college degree by age 16. She started performing with major orchestras at age 11. Hilary Hahn‘s husband Volker Bertelmann is a German composer, pianist, producer, and artist. He is mainly known by his alias Hauschka. How come more of us don’t have aliases? I don’t know anyone with an alias. I don’t think I even know anyone with a nickname.
Anyway, they live in Cambridge MA, have two daughters, Zelda and Nadia, and make quite a striking couple.
A while back I shared a photo of Rex Parker with his cat Olive who passed away last year, and some words he wrote about her. Here’s a shot of him with his new cat, Ida. Sweet way to end today. See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 