The Beatles and History
MIKE GERBER • Devin's excellent post on James Marcus' graceful, slightly Slate-only-smarter Letting Go of The Beatles spurred some thoughts, which were too long to put in a comment. I wrote this in haste and I can feel the dullness of my tools (doing a lot more business-stuff than writing-stuff these days), but I paste them below. It was fifty years ago today… [...]
I’m So Tired: Responsive Notes on the Phenomenon of Beatle Fatigue
There's no fatigue like Beatle fatigue. DEVIN McKINNEY • Beatle Ed points me to this most interesting, warmhearted, clear-eyed essay by James Marcus, “Letting Go of the Beatles,” posted yesterday at the Harper’s site. Even we, the besotted, must accept the validity, as we cough the exhaust fumes of the recent 50th-anniversary ballyhoo (which Hey Dullblog did its share to [...]
“Chaos and Creation in the Backyard”: Or, music to confront a small-scale void by
NANCY CARR * Never was an album more aptly named. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard finds McCartney facing the void and trying to wrest something positive from the encounter—but in a modest, domestically-focused way quite different from Lennon’s or Harrison’s more cosmic grapplings. Based on my experience, it may be just the thing if you’re staring down a garden-variety void yourself. [...]
John Lennon and Attachment Disorder
Lennon, in a pensive moment Attention all armchair Lennonologists: Commenter Karen recently discovered a therapist with an interesting angle on what made John Lennon tick. "Having worked with families with children who demonstrate attachment disorder," Karen wrote, "I've long hypothesized that much of John's behavior can be explained by the attachment process gone awry." Anyone who studies John's behavior in any [...]
“Understanding Fuddy-Duddy Beatle Haters”
Buckley: not merely awful Scott Galupo over at The American Conservative has posted an article sure to raise the ire of normally oh-so-placid HD readers: "Understanding Fuddy-Duddy Beatle Haters." The occasion is, of course, the 50th anniversary silliness...and, perhaps, a sneaky attempt to rehabilitate William F. Buckley. To quote Jeffery Lebowski, "This aggression shall not stand, man." "The crowned heads [...]
“I’ll have whatever Yoko’s having”
I hate Beatle cheese worst of all cheese. So, much to my surprise I loved CBS' "The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles." And perhaps my favorite part were the cutaway shots to Yoko late in the evening, which showed her doing a couple of weird, great dance moves. There was a slow swim through the seas of consciousness, a [...]
New York Beatlefans: Stop reading this and go to The Fest!
The mothership. Longtime readers of Hey Dullblog know that I am just bonkers for The Fest for Beatles Fans, colloquially known as Beatlefest. The New York gathering, at Manhattan's Grand Hyatt Hotel from Friday to Sunday, kicks off this afternoon at 5:00 PM EST. It looks pretty incredible. Dig this line-up: Freda Kelly. She'll never tell...or will she? Will the combined [...]
Michael Tomasky on the Beatles as the “sound of freedom”
Michael Tomasky, former editor of The American Prospect and The Guardian America, is getting into the Beatles’ 50th anniversary racket. His ebook, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Beatles and America, Then and Now, has just been released; in it, he puts forward the idea that the Fabs were "the sound of freedom," catalysts for (and participants in) the vast cultural opening that occurred [...]
The Beatles Invade America: CBS News celebrates the 50th Anniversary
DEVIN McKINNEY • To mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ arrival in America, a mere two days away, CBS News plans a live multimedia event from the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York, site of a certain world-claiming triumph on February 9, 1964. In anticipation of both anniversary and event, CBS has amassed an impressive collection of video and audio chronicling [...]