My choices yesterday – since I wanted to stay in the neighborhood, so that I could have lunch at the museum afterward and take a look at some of the new shows that have opened this Fall – were American Gangster and Dan in Real Life. I chose the latter, because American Gangster was berated by everyone save (predictably) the Wall Street Journal for its faulty moral compass. Well, the same might be said of Dan in Real Life, although I’m probably going to be the only one to say it. Dan in Real Life is obviously about a family of professional-class people, but all explicit references to such a background have been effaced, presumably in the interest of making more proletarian audiences feel at home with the comedy.  The class neutrality of Dan in Real Life amounts to the outright denial of intelligence as a virtue, and I found it both irritating and offensive.  

¶ Dan in Real Life.

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Catching up with what’s going on over at kottke.org (and wondering just who Joel Turnipseed is), I came across a little list of the “50 essential classical music CDs.” Ted Libbey, whose NPR work I’ve discussed before, is still at it, hyping his bird’s nest of manly masterpieces (he begins with Beethoven’s Fifth), accessibilia (West Side Story), and tough nuts (the Goldberg Variations). Only the most sophisticated music lover could possibly be comfortable with this particular mix of music, and that’s possibly what Mr Libbey has in mind. In the nature of things, however, his prescription is far more likely to be taken for a shopping list by folks who don’t know much about serious music and are looking for a little direction. I expect that many of them will not make it past Entry Nº 3: Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, not because there’s anything wrong with the music per se, but because it does not belong in the third slot on a beginner’s list.

Outrageously – but not at all surprisingly – Mozart doesn’t appear until Nº 20, with The Magic Flute, of all things. And then not again until 44 (piano concertos) and 50 (symphonies). Although there are plenty of solo piano recordings (and a Dowland CD for the lute), the chamber music is for strings only: Schubert’s Quintet (15) and Beethoven’s Quartets (24) – all of ’em! Speaking of Schubert, Mr Libbey has included Winterreise (46). That’s very noble, but wouldn’t Die schöne Mülllerin been a sounder choice? And why, come to think of it, doesn’t Dvorak’s beloved “New World” Symphony figure at Nº 3, instead of at Nº 40?

I’d say, “Don’t get me started,” but it’s too late for that. I’ll be back for more.

Catching up with magazines this week, I came across two pieces that, while no longer strictly current, seem worthwhile to look at together. One is Jim Holt’s essay, “It’s the Oil, Stupid,” in the next-most-recent – current on this side of the Atlantic – issue of the London Review of Books. The other, which appears in September’s issue of The Atlantic (I can’t find October’s anywhere, but I’ve got the big fat sesquicentennial issue*), is Matthew Scully’s outing of his fellow Bush-regime speechwriter, Michael Gerson, as a credit hog (“Present at the Creation“).

¶ Jim Holt and Matthew Scully on the American Press – Indirectly, in the London Review of Books and The Atlantic.

* Am I crazy to think that the only people who are truly comfortable with the word “sesquicentennial” were childhood philatelists?

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A serene view of the loony bin, don’t you think?

Kathleen will be away every weekend this month. To be sure, I’ll be away with her for two of them, around Thanksgiving. But that’s even worse: that means that I’ll have to travel, too. So I begin the month with the solemn wish that I could give it a pass, and wake up in December. (Although Kathleen will be away the first weekend in December, too.)

Did I just say December? Christmas? During the summer, I thought that I just might be ready for Christmas when it came round, but, now that November is here, I’m not so sure. I haven’t done anything about Christmas cards – that’s always Step One. And Kathleen and I haven’t decided whether to re-launch the Christmas Day at-home that we hosted earlier in the decade. And will we have a tree?

It’s a familiar split. Half of me believes that, if I take a deep breath and think as clearly as I can, I’ll be able to devise a satisfying but not arduous plan for Christmas. And half of me wants to run away.

(I’m struck by how willing I am to settle for “satisfying” these days. “Satisfying” is good. For one thing, it is often about as good as things get. It makes a far more realistic objective than “wonderful” or “unbelievable.” Beyond that, though, it’s about all I can take. Anything that’s better than “satisfying” is really too much!)

And, mind you – we don’t do Christmas presents anymore! It’s not as though we had that to worry about!

Having broken my neck in September, of course, I have a perfect excuse not to do anything at Christmas. Seeing that my life has not so much returned to normal as re-launched in New and Improved form, it’s a totally bogus excuse, but it still sounds good, and nobody would dare argue with it.*  Kathleen least of all. If you think that I’m skittish about Christmas – !

And, if we have a tree, can we put up the nice ornaments? When Kathleen’s father retired, and her parents downsized, Kathleen came into a small treasure of beautiful old glass ornaments. They might be worth a great deal, but probably not to us. (It’s the difference between “used,” as they are in our hands, and “antique,” in a dealer’s.) If Kathleen has no intention of peddling them at eBay, though, she’s also disinclined to hang them on spindly spruce branches from which they might be knocked by clumsy visitors, or tumbled by a faulty tree stand.

When did we last have a tree? The old Daily Blague doesn’t cast much light on the matter. It has seen three Christmases come and go without leaving a record. Certainly there have been no snapshots. I wonder if Kathleen will remember… and if she’ll let me use at least a few of the good ornaments this year.

If, that is, we have a tree.

* People would be far more likely to think that I’m deluded about the “New and Improved” part.