So What, Who Cares (vol 2, issue 34) Who wants an all-pop culture issue? (Besides me?)
Hello! If this issue is even more typo-riddled than usual, let's all scapegoat Daylight Savings Time.
Which, by the way, I wrote as "Daylight Davings Time" twice before managing to type the name correctly. Part of my brain is now imagining some guy named Dave putting us on Dave Standard Time. Are you named Dave? What would your system of time-keeping entail? Matins? High tea? An extra six hours on weekends? I need to know what [Your Name Here] Standard Time would be -- tell me via Twitter or email.
And now, a longer-term programming note: I am now covering the show Bates Motel for Previously.TV, and it airs on Monday. So while the series is airing, I'll be writing So What, Who Cares? on Tuesday-Thursday.
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Today in nostalgia pop culture: "We Are The World" is thirty freakin' years old, and it has spawned two delightful pieces in modern media. The first, via Vulture, ranks all 37 contributors in order of what they brought to the proceedings, and it's amusing to see the 1980s appraised through the lens of time.
But the story that is a delight is the minute-by-minute breakdown that Rolling Stone published. There are so many great details in this story, it is hard to pick a favorite. I have narrowed it down to a top five list:
1. "[D]uring a break from recording, when Ray Charles asked where the bathroom, [Stevie] Wonder said, "I'll show you where it is, Ray. Follow me!" Wonder took Charles by the hand and led him down the hall to the appropriate door, while the other stars watched gobsmacked at the blind literally leading the blind."
2. Lionel Ritchie recounting the story of writing the song with Michael Jackson and getting ambushed by Jackson's pet boa constrictor. Ritchie really doesn't like snakes, and Jackson was all, "Aww, he was just hiding!" Says Ritchie, "It took me about two hours to calm my ass back down."
3. "While most of the stars arrived in limousines, accompanied by security guards, Springsteen drove himself in a pickup truck, parked it nearby in a grocery-store lot, and walked into the studio by himself."
4. Everyone getting into a scrum over whether or not to include a verse in Swahili, and when Bob Geldof points out that Ethiopians don't actually speak Swahili, Lauper nails the case shut with "It's like singing to the English in German."
4b. Steve Perry completely fanboying out over how Lauper sings and how her jewelry manages to harmonize along as she bounces in front of the mike is surprisingly adorable.
(Side note: Cyndi Lauper is an angel sent to guide the rest of us toward the light. This is the same woman who once defused an angry mob at an airport by leading a sing-a-long of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." She is the Dolly Parton of pop, in my opinion.)
5. Ray Charles, setting priorities: "he had one of the night's funniest lines, when he stepped out of the studio around 2 a.m., announcing that he hadn't had no good lovin' since January. It did not go unnoticed that it was, in fact, January."
For those of you who were too young to be sick of this song back in 1985, here's the video.
And for those of you who want to further wallow in the 1980s-pop wading pool, I give you Dave Holmes' look back at the Top 40 songs of February 23, 1985.
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Today in pop culture bracketology: It's Mammal March Madness -- see who will win the Mighty Mini Mammals Bracket, then wonder if small will prevail against the winner of the Mythical Beast bracket. Thrill to the bouts between Sexy Beasts! Cry a little as you realize that the people who put this together had to narrow down the field to a mere sixteen candidates for Critically Endangered.
Animal fans, this is your moment.
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Today in pop culture: I am going to use this article about the casting news for Story of Your Life -- a movie about talking to aliens -- to tell you all that sure, you can eagerly anticipate a movie starring 2/5 of the American Hustle cast, OR you could read the story the movie is based on. "Story of Your Life," by Ted Chiang, is available in the collection Stories of Your Life And Others.
Chiang is not prolific (just 14 short stories over 25 years), but his writing is exquisite -- imaginative, meditative, transgressive and full of heart. One of his recurring themes: the tension of free will versus predestination; more than one story explores what it's like to be a single entity coming to terms with the existence of a larger, closed system or how a specific technological development alters the nature of what it means to be human.
You can read some of his stories for free, and back in 2011, we spent 76 minutes discussing the short story collection for an Incomparable Book Club podcast. During the podcast, I also waved the flag for another brilliantly boundary-erasing writer with heart, David Marusek. His novella, "We Were Out Of Our Minds With Joy," is Chiang-like in both thematic structure and emotional resonance. It has remained on the fringes of my memory for the past 20 years.
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Did you miss an issue of So What, Who Cares? The archive is here. Are there typos? I apologize in advance.
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