"Feminism, in short, doesn't just empower women. It empowers me."

"It allows me to take on roles that have traditionally been associated with women. It gives me more flexibility in my career. As a man, feminism has had a huge positive effect on my life. It seems like the least I can do in return is own it."

Writes Noah Berlatsky under the heading "All the Selfish Reasons to Be a Male Feminist," posted at Slate's XXfactor. He's certainly not telling us all the selfish reasons, since I can think of at least one additional reason: You can get your free-lance writing published at Slate's XXfactor.

Berlatsky talks about having a wife with a full-time job and health insurance benefits and his own role as primary caregiver for their child while he does his writing, and that catches my eye, because it's the family life I had from 1981 to 1987. He says:

There was a time not so long ago where doing any of those things would have made me the object of ridicule, and quite possibly self-loathing as well. Today, though, it's no big deal — and the reason for that is feminism.

Well, there was feminism back then too, but it didn't save men from the inner turmoil of switching traditional gender roles. We thought we were really sophisticated, advanced, hip, and evolved in the early 1980s. Does that come as a surprise to you, Noah? You say, "it's no big deal," but you're writing at XXfactor, where it's in your interest — you have a selfish reason — to say that. But these things work until they don't work, so don't be smug, and good luck. Have you really thought deeply about your masculine self-esteem? Because, to my ear, your thanks feminism sounds shallow.

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Records From My Father, Part 5: "Remember How Great...?"

Do you remember the old Lucky cigarette ads? Remember how great cigarettes used to taste? Luckies still do. I can't find the old jingle, but I'd sing it for you if I you were here. Lucky Strike was my father's cigarette brand, back in the days when the greatest music stars recorded for Columbia, which put out a collection of greatest recordings purportedly "specially selected by Lucky Strike Cigarettes." (Here, you can download it for $7.)


Look at that yellowed Scotch tape. This record was played and played, and I remember hearing it, back in the 1960s. What a collection! Unfortunately, this record, my 5th choice for this Records From My Father series, has a chunk taken out of it, and so I can't listen to Count Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" or Dinah Shore singing "Buttons and Bows."



I'll have to start with "Sentimental Journey," with Doris Day and Les Brown's Band of Renown. This was the song my parents always identified as "our song," and I shrugged that off and let them pass on without ever telling me exactly why. Wikipedia says:

Les Brown and His Band of Renown, with Doris Day as vocalist, had a hit record with the song, Day's first #1 hit, in 1945. The song's release coincided with the end of WWII in Europe and became the unofficial homecoming theme for many veterans. 

My God. My father was drafted in 1945, and he met my mother in the Army — she was one of the first WACs — and they married 2 weeks later. Anyone reading that can construct a better idea of why that was their song than I had, growing up hearing that and hearing those seemingly silly old fools calling it their song.

A couple songs later is something I remember loving as a child. "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," sung by Mary Martin — whom I (and maybe you) mostly think of as Peter Pan. I didn't understand the idea of a sugar daddy. The adults understood the song on that level. To me, a girl was devoted to her father... to the point of calling him "da da da da da da da da daddy."

There's much more on this immensely pleasurable album, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellignton, and Xavier Cugat, and Cab Calloway, "that Hi-De-Ho man," as the liner notes remind us...



You can see the handwritten initials in the top left corner: RAA. My father's name was Richard Adair Althouse. "Adair" is also my middle name.

So I want to warn you laddie
Though I know that you're perfectly swell
That my heart belongs to Daddy
Cause my Daddy, he treats it so well

This is a broken record, but my heart is not broken. I only wish I'd figured out, before it was to late, that there were things I could have talked to my father about, but I am talking about these things now.

Gonna take a sentimental journey
Gonna set my heart at ease
Gonna make a sentimental journey
To renew old memories.

(Comments invited... and moderated.)

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Records From My Father, Part 4: "Manhattan Tower."

I had made my selection for the next entry in the Records From My Father series before doing that last blog post, showing the New Yorker cover making an Anthony Weiner phallic joke out of the Empire State Building. Here's the album cover for "Manhattan Tower," showing the Chrysler Building.



This record might be the polar opposite of a Weiner sext. It's very grand and striving, with lush orchestration, florid singing, and spoken narration. It acts like it's telling a momentous love story, a story that could only happen in New York City, a story on the scale of the Manhattan skyscrapers, but there's nothing important at all about Steve and Julie, who meet in a bar, go to a few New York places, and then separate. This was very hard to sit through, and I have a hard time believing my father found it too amusing.




You can listen the whole thing at YouTube, broken up into 4 parts: 1, 2, 3, 4. I mean, I don't know if you can, but the music is there to be listened to. I am not recommending it, except to experience the weirdness of overdone banality. Jenkins was not a nobody:

[H]e regularly arranged for and conducted the orchestra for various Decca artists, including Dick Haymes ("Little White Lies", 1947), Ella Fitzgerald ("Happy Talk", 1949, "Black Coffee", 1949, "Baby", 1954), Billie Holiday ("Crazy He Calls Me", "You're My Thrill", "Please Tell Me Now", "Somebody's On My Mind", 1949, and conducted and produced her last Decca session with "God Bless the Child", "This Is Heaven to Me", 1950), Patty Andrews of the Andrews Sisters ("I Can Dream, Can't I", 1949) and Louis Armstrong ("Blueberry Hill", 1949 and "When It's Sleepy Time Down South", 1951).

The liner notes to Verve Records' 2001 reissue of one of Jenkins' albums with Armstrong, Satchmo In Style, quote Decca's onetime A & R Director, Milt Gabler, saying that Jenkins "stood up on his little podium so that all the performers could see him conduct. But before he gave a downbeat, Gordon made a speech about how much he loved Louis and how this was the greatest moment in his life. And then he cried."

He sounds sentimental, but how square could he be? Was it his job to impose some squareness on these artists? Later, he worked with Frank Sinatra:

[A]s rock and roll gained ascendancy in the 1960s, Jenkins' lush string arrangements fell out of favour and he worked only sporadically, though Sinatra, who had left Capitol to start his own label, Reprise Records, continued to call upon the arranger's services at various intervals over the next two decades, on albums such as All Alone (1962), the critically acclaimed September of My Years (1965), for which Jenkins won a Grammy, Sinatra's 1973 comeback album, Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back and She Shot Me Down (1981) - regarded by many "Sinatraphiles" as the singer's last great work.... Jenkins also composed the "Future" suite for Sinatra's 1980 concept album Trilogy: Past Present Future.

My parents loved Frank Sinatra. (As I've said before, my father looked just like Frank Sinatra in the 1950s, when Frank Sinatra was at his most handsome. Later, Frank Sinatra got a little puffy and bald, and — I know it's only me saying this — my father aged better, never losing his thick, wavy, black hair, though he did, late in life, go blind in one of his blue eyes.) Here's Sinatra doing "September of My Years," with the lush orchestration of Gordon Jenkins. I should have listened to some of this more accessible music before subjecting myself to "Manhattan Tower." Perhaps that's what happened to my father: He developed an attachment to the music as it backed up Sinatra (or some of those other great singers) and he read about "Manhattan Tower" as some sort of peak of the art of Gordon Jenkins.

But "Manhattan Tower" comes across as very musical theater. It's intended to sound modern... to people living in the 1940s, when it was originally written. It lacks any jazz inflection, though there's one song about the mambo, a dance that Julie sings about not being able to do — after Stephen sings of an inability to waltz — because she never knows when to do the "uh." Which I think is sexual innuendo (of the most deniable kind). This is really too wholesome. Maybe there's some ironic way to listen to this, but I'm never going to be the one who tries to do it.

(I'm inviting comments — which must go through moderation — for the posts in this series.)

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Records From My Father, Part 3: "Memories Are Made of This."

For Part 3 of this series, I chose "Memories Are Made of This," a 1960 album by Ray Conniff/His Orchestra and Chorus. This is extremely, possibly insanely cheerful music.



There are vocals, but no words, indeed, no individuality. We hear blended voices bopping along, making "ba" and "ah" sounds, as if they were another section of the orchestra, a section less important then the trumpets which get way out in front at times. Whoa! Settle down, you might want to say to Doc Severinson, blaring out in "Three Coins in the Fountain."

The idea is to take "biggest hits of the past ten years" — like "Three Coins" — and put them through the Conniff-grinder, which processes familiar songs into bright, incredibly perky instrumentals. Check out "Tammy."

My favorite rendition was "Unchained Melody," which you can listen to here. If you're used to The Righteous Brothers' achingly soulful version, you might find this hilarious or awesomely refreshing. Since, as noted, the words are never sung, you can use this as a karaoke background track, perhaps inspired to revise the words to fit the very cheerful instrumentation:

Time goes by so quickly
But time can't mean too much
Are you still mine?
I need your love
If not your love
Some other love for me!
Oh, my love, my darling
I'm hungry for some lunch
It is lunch tiiiiiime!

Like both of my parents, Ray Coniff served in the U.S. Army in World War II.  I was 9 years old when this album came out, and I conveniently avoided living through the Depression and WWII, so I was in no position to understand the emotional impact this music had on the people it was designed for. When I look at the 1960 Top 100, I remember liking "The Twist," "Cathy's Clown," "Running Bear," "Puppy Love," "Ally-oop," "Chain Gang," and "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini." I liked the singers and the words of these songs (whether I knew what a chain gang was or not, I got "Give me water! I'm thirsty!")

But my father enjoyed the wordless Conniff, who explained his musical revelation like this:

"One time I was recording an album with Mitch Miller - we had a big band and a small choir. I decided to have the choir sing along with the big band using wordless lyrics. The women were doubled with the trumpets and the men were doubled with the trombones. In the booth Mitch was totally surprised and excited at how well it worked."

I love the front cover of "Memories Are Made of This." That lady in what we used to call a bulky knit sweater is charmed by her charm bracelet. But the back cover is pretty dull, so I'm hiding it below the jump:



The back covers for albums often had, like this, advertisements for other albums. In this case, lots of other albums by Ray Conniff. When I finally got around to buying my own record albums — this was my first — in 1962, I did not like seeing any ads for records my father might buy. I wanted clear separation from the things that were his and the things that were mine. In the 1960s, this was called the "generation gap." This series, "Records From My Father," is a belated effort to bridge that gap.

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Records From My Father, Part 2: "Velvet Carpet."

For the second effort in this series, I chose "Velvet Carpet," by The George Shearing Quintet with String Choir. I wasn't sure whether to capitalize "string choir," because it sounds generic, but what's a string choir? There are no vocals on this album, but perhaps there's an idea that the strings are singing. The strings are definitely in the background, with Shearing's quintet out in front. I take it the strings are more the plush, lush carpet...



... and the lady is the quintet. The lady is also perhaps the woman to be seduced by this lovely, charming music, over which a man and a woman can converse, wittily, and if there are any gaps in the conversation, they can snuggle and listen and feel elegant and sophisticated. And doesn't this woman look like a present day starlet?

The liner notes tell you how sophisticated you are:

To the sophisticates, [Shearing's] urbane piano seems to emanate from a penthouse high against an awesome city skyline.

There's a high-low ethic here too. In contrast to "the sophisticates," there are "those who like jazz." What Shearing offers them is "a beat as basic and danceable as any that rolled out of the open windows of Basin Street on a sweltering summer night."



I was surprised how much I enjoyed this music, even as I remember feeling perfectly annoyed at my father for listening to something that seemed so inanely smooth and pleasant. Here, listen to "'Round Midnight." What must he have thought of my finding these things manifestly bad? Now, I realize that I'm thinking about how I felt about his records when I was a teenager, but this album came out in 1956, when I was only 5, and I'm sure none of this annoyed me back then. In fact, I think I know that I loved it when the strings played pizzicato. And I thought everyone loved it. Everyone anticipated the switch to pizzicato and experienced delight. Listening to this record, I believe that George Shearing believed that sophisticates and jazz lovers alike would thrill when the strings went pizzicato.

Let's take a closer look at that little drawing of George Shearing:



Do you think George is giving you a sly look? If so, you are wrong. George Shearing was born blind. 

Born in Battersea, London, Shearing was the youngest of nine children. He was born blind to working class parents: his father delivered coal and his mother cleaned trains in the evening. He started to learn piano at the age of three and began formal training at Linden Lodge School for the Blind, where he spent four years.

Though he was offered several scholarships, Shearing opted to perform at a local pub, the Mason's Arms in Lambeth, for "25 bob a week" playing piano and accordion. He even joined an all-blind band during that time and was influenced by the records of Teddy Wilson and Fats Waller....

In 1947, Shearing emigrated to the United States, where his harmonically complex style mixing swing, bop and modern classical influences gained popularity.... In 1949, he formed the first 'George Shearing Quintet'... Shearing credited the Glenn Miller Orchestra's reed section of the late 1930s and early 1940s as an important influence.

Shearing's interest in classical music resulted in some performances with concert orchestras in the 1950s and 1960s, and his solos frequently drew upon the music of Satie, Delius and Debussy for inspiration. He became known for a piano technique known as "Shearing's voicing," a type of double melody block chord, with an additional fifth part that doubles the melody an octave lower....

I expected this album to be Muzak — schmaltzy, embarrassing junk. But it was detailed and crisp, and I asked the spirit of my father to forgive me for my deafness to the things that he loved.

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Records From My Father, Part 1: "Make Love to Me."

I told you here that I was about to start a new project. I'm going to call it "Records From My Father." I inherited a big stack of record albums that my father bought in the 1950s and 60s and that were part of the home I grew up in. I didn't really understand what I was hearing and what these things meant to my father, who has been gone a long time.

I decided to listen to one album at a time — not that I'll endure all of them — and see what I think. I don't expect to recall my childhood memories or to reconstruct the inner life of the man who existed in ways that couldn't be understood by me at the time. I don't expect anything, really. The idea is simply to encounter these albums, because I have them, because he bought them, and because I know they have meaning, even though I don't think it is possible to find that meaning.

The first selection is "Make Love to Me," a 1957 collection of "standards" and "new pieces," sung by Julie London.



I pulled this one out of the stack because Julie London was my father's favorite singer. As a child, I had reason to believe that she was the most compellingly beautiful woman in the world. As I heard her singing, she was whispering. That was the gimmick: Whispering. Listening to it now, I hear how sexy it is intended to be to a man. I'm not sure whether it's completely subtle or a sledgehammer of sex. It's trying to be both in a way that would seem ridiculous or naive today, unless you could convince yourself that it's ironic. But it's not ironic.

The liner notes invite the listener — the male listener — to imagine Julie as an idealized young woman available for sex. Each song is connected to a city, even though the song lyrics are not about any particular place. The dreamy man — if he reads the liner notes — can picture himself in one city after another with the beautiful, love-seeking woman: "So steady your hand, pour the martinis — let your imagination go...."



My favorite song on the album was "Lover Man" — listen to it here — which the liner notes tells us is "Switzerland at sunset." I see little inked checks next to some of the songs — not including "Lover Man." I think I recognize my father's handwriting, and I assume he made cassette tapes and checked off the songs he wanted to copy. My second favorite is "Body and Soul," which did get a check.

How would I rate this listening experience? It did not take me back into the past. I don't remember hearing it or having childish ideas about what these songs meant. There's something wistful about thinking of my father feeling deeply attached to this kind of singing, which seems to be about teaching a young man how to "make love" to a woman. Key song: "Go Slow." (Not checked.) "Go Slow" supposedly takes place in Casablanca, according to the liner notes. "When love is slow, oooooh honey, what a tonic for my nerves." What a bad song! And when Julie does that "ooooh," she sounds a bit grossed out, like maybe it should be spelled "ew."

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"I don't like being described as 'sniffing'?"

Says Meade, reading the last post. I'm going for vivid verbs, but I'm still attentive to image control. Meade's not a big language pedant, but he says: "I do object to the suffix '-wise,' like 'weatherwise.'"

"But when I said 'weatherwise,'" I say, referring to the time I said 'weatherwise' the other day, "I was making an allusion to that Frank Sinatra song. Weatherwise, it's such a lovely day... Come fly with me...."



When that album came out, in 1958, my father looked exactly like that. It's funny, when you're a kid — I was 7 — you can get the feeling that if someone looks just like someone else, that they kind of are that person. And not just in that jokey separated-at-birth way. (You never see them in the same place at the same time, ever notice?) But in some mystic way. Even when you know it's not true. It's still kind of true.

Did anyone ever come up to you and accuse you of being a celebrity and when you said that you were not, they insisted that you were? Meade had that experience. Here's Meade's 70s-era doppelganger. ("But you didn't have that hairy mole," I protest, questioning the story.)

Do you pop the bubble of fantasy or not? Would Frank Sinatra admit to being Frank Sinatra? If he were my father, he'd sign the autograph — Frank Sinatra — and get rid of the crumb.

The above-pictured album is somewhere in this pile of records that I inherited from my father, who was a terrible singer, but loved music:



I have a planned blog project related to these records, which I might roll out soon.

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"I didn’t go to Thailand, but the summer that I took the bar I did all my studying by the pool."

Writes Instapundit:

I was set to clerk afterward at the Sixth Circut [sic] with a friend from law school who was black, and my goal was to be darker than her when I started. I succeeded — and that was the last really serious tan I had. Subsequent summers in law practice weren’t congenial to tanning; I couldn’t do all that work beside the pool...

He's commenting on a NYT article about the law school graduates who study for the bar and simultaneously vacation.

After all the money spent going to law school and all the pressure in the job market, who can take a vacation? I understand how grads who are going to clerk have a time slot when they can relocate, but where does the money come from? Instapundit frequently writes about "the law school bubble," but that's eclipsed here for a story about racial healing and premarital friendship. The NYT loves to urge its readers to angst over the struggles of the less-than-affluent, but that alternates with stories about privileged persons engaging in some activity that can be perceived as trendy or at least a trend.

I've had far too many free summers to feel envious of those who managed to combine summer vacationing and studying for the bar, but I do vividly remember my time studying in the summer of 1981. I wouldn't have wanted to read those bar review outline books out in the sun. Even if the sunblock available at the time were as good as it is today — and it was not — I've never liked reading in the glaring sunlight, perhaps precisely because getting a tan was never something I could possibly do, unless you count the broken-up tan called freckles.

And quite beyond that, I'd had a baby, my first, in March of that year, and the bodily imperative was not tanning/freckling, but breastfeeding. I enjoyed the post-law-school calm of memorizing the black-letter law that was confidently outlined in those bar-review books. It was so refreshingly different from the complexities of the law-school classroom, and everything was different with a baby. It was nice to get away from the apartment — we lived here — for a few hours to attend the lectures — which were shown in videotape in some big classroom somewhere on the NYU campus. There was no swimming pool, but I self-drenched with milk. There was always that pressure — do you know how it feels? — to get back home, to my baby and to my husband, who had the baby but not the breasts.

Oh! The strange rigors of the summer of 1981.

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