The Muse

I’ve heard both the studio and concert versions of this song, plus the Reprise version, and I always come back to this one. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” is the third track of the 1966 album Sinatra At The Sands with Count Basie and his Orchestra. In 1966, Sinatra had been through enough to sing most any song with authority. He’d been to the top, bottomed out, and back up again – and that’s just professionally. Personally, one might argue that he had a tendency to get someone under his skin. I always think this song could be applied at any point during his life.

The original recording in 1956 (Songs for Swingin’ Lovers) with the Capitol orchestra and trombonist Milt Bernhart is a standard, but lacks the intense emotion of the concert performance. Bernhart’s solo there is fantastic. Don’t get me wrong. But Basie’s trombonist really puts raw emotion into it.

The music is in keeping with the album’s mood…breezy but focused. Basie’s signature sound is there. The orchestra is at ease with the chart but adds an underlying sense of urgency not present in the ‘56 version. This is important, given the song’s subject matter.

Sinatra starts with a simple declaration, matter-of-factly but with what I imagine as a knowing smile on his face. Basie’s brass punctuates the admission that the song’s muse is “really a part” of the singer. From “I’ve tried so, not to give in” to “never will go so well” grows in urgency slowly, but is resolved with “But why…” — as though he is giving up, but will enjoy giving in. Sinatra drags the next line, emphasizing “skin” with a warm, sensual tone that leads to the first run of the repeat verse.

Now we’re to acknowledging the pangs of sacrificing anything to have one near, and Sinatra sounds almost joyfully complacent in his anguish. He’s okay with being led. But the “warning voice” comes after the orchestra builds–a small crescendo for what’s coming, the pounding heart, the futile attempts. The orchestra drops back to a basic riff as Sinatra, as the warning voice, forcefully orders to “use your mentality,” as he “never can win.” His voice softens and the woodwinds transition us as he again acknowledges the recurring thoughts of his muse. Basie’s orchestra throws in a perfect punctuation after “stop.”

A major transition occurs here. Sinatra’s voice decrescendos and warms as he sings “’cause I’ve got you / under my skinnn” — holding the last syllable for several beats and diminishing. The orchestra builds, this time the woodwinds stepping aside for the solo trombone, other brass, and rhythm.

The trombone solo itself seems to channel what the singer couldn’t form into words. Of Bernhart’s studio performance, Will Friedwald (Sinatra! The Song Is You) writes, “the trombonist plumbs the depths of emotion that, at the end of his sixteen bars, we tell ourselves that no mere words could ever reach.” Basie’s trombonist outshines Bernhart in this regard.

Sinatra outdoes his studio performance as well. He comes in after the orchestra resolves the angst of the solo, but it’s not fully put to rest. The orchestra ups the tempo and dynamic and Sinatra dives in. His catharsis comes at the last “But you know” and “wake up, step up” — again, the warning voice, but now spoken as the singer being warned. You can hear the pain and heartache, and the logic. He continues in the singer’s voice, bridging the line with a long “and,” as though he’s taking time to think–or emphasize his own resolve.

Either way, his fate is set. A percussion emphasis is made at “each time” as though to make clear this is how it’s going to be. A pause after “just the thought of you,” then a quick run through “makes me stop” — it’s time to stop deliberation and let things be. The orchestra rests long enough for FS to breathe (just as his vocals on the collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim) “because I’ve got you” — a drastic shift from the high emotions of just a few measures ago. He’s wrestled with it, thought it over, and now turns to his muse to surrender. The remainder of the phrase is accompanied by soft rhythm and instrumentation. A quick bass run and a piano chord to say, “That’s all,” and the song is over.

It is swing, longing, machismo, turmoil, acceptance, and resignation.

        

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In today’s Dining In section of the New York Times, Sarah Kershaw writes about “menu psychology” — the science (or art?) of designing a menu that will most entice diners. So, really, someone does understand that the “99″ in just about every price (not limited to food items) does very little to promote quality.

One concept that strikes me is the similarities between a simple menu and a well-crafted manuscript. Kershaw brings up the analogy of music and lyrics, where one may be great but is utterly destroyed by the other (think of a ear-catching pop tune with absolutely horrendous lyrics), and the same may be said for a manuscript. Think carefully about the layout. If your story is about love and the human condition, you probably don’t want a font that is sharp-edged and bold. Or, if you’re going for an academic journal, you don’t want your tracking or leading so far apart that the page looks as though it’s mostly empty space.

A quarrel I have with the way some restaurants mentioned in this article do things is the melodramatic wording in the menu. Saying something is “slammed with flavor” is a turn-off for me, because I appreciate the nuances in food. (You’ll notice that places such as Applebee’s and Huddle House go for the thick wording, while higher-end places go for simple and pithy copy.) I can go to the local supermarket and pick up a Little Debbie cake that is “slammed with flavor,” or I can visit my local baker and get a blueberry scone that has many different flavorful, quality ingredients that work together. One is dominated with sugar and chocolate, the other allows me to experience many of the quality ingredients that the baker uses. I prefer nuance.

When creating your manuscript, I suppose you could ask yourself, “Do I want the equivalent of a laminated chain restaurant menu the size of a legal pad, or a simple, cogent menu from a quality independent place?”

        

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I don’t normally eat at Hardee’s, but it was a favorite stop as a kid, and I was taken back to childhood after stopping for a biscuit last week.

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When you hear the term DRM, you most likely think of music. That connection has been reinforced by the digital rights wars of the past couple of years. While Amazon has a fair shake at online music sales, Apple’s domination of the pay-for-play music market has made it a major player in DRM negotiations with content providers. Between the iPod and iTunes (proprietary devices that incorporate their own licensing model), Apple has become the premier digital music outlet.

But what of digital books? E-books vary in definition from an unsecured PDF on a website to a DRM-protected work on Amazon’s Kindle. In between is a myriad of proprietary licensing models and content management solutions, the most prominent of which are Adobe and Mobipocket. Neither offer a solution solid enough to bet on in five years. Publishers must step in, says Bill Rosenblatt in Copyright and Technology:

If publishers don’t act quickly, they face two alternatives, neither of which is very pleasant.  In one, Amazon succeeds in emulating Apple’s success in music and takes control of e-book business models.  In the other, excessive fragmentation leads to confusion, frustration, angry pieces from the blogosphere about the evils of DRM, and a limited market.

But is DRM even worth pursuing? Imagine downloading a PDF from an emerging author’s website. You pay a modest fee and are given a password to access the content. Excited about the read, you share it with friends. You bought a paperback before and did that–why not do it with a PDF? What’s stopping a friend from buying his own copy if he likes what he read? On the flip side, though, what’s stopping him from emailing it to all his friends?

Rob Beschizza, of Wired.com, predicted this dilemma way back in 2007:

Book publishers, scared of the ease of cut, paste, send, demanded it. Understandable. But few customers wanted locked-down devices, or bizarre file formats that offered nothing over plain text, Word documents or Adobe’s PDF.

In short, free copies are acceptable risks. As an emerging author, unless you’ve got enough cash to sink into publishing hard-copy books or setting up sales through Amazon.com, you’re probably going to post an E-book on your website. Be prepared to take the loss. Readers of new authors aren’t going to pay big bucks for someone they’ve never read before, so your first e-book on the market should probably be considered a free sample. If you get paid for a few copies, fine. Just promote your site and e-book until you are blue in the face and get your readers hooked. Then move to a more secure sales solution.

If you don’t bend a little, you may wind up killing your potential sales before they’ve had a chance to start. Eric Lai of Computerworld has a solid analogy, from the perspective of the potential consumer:

Imagine bringing home a music CD from Best Buy and discovering that it will only play on some of your stereo equipment. Moreover, you’re limited in the number of times you can switch the CD from one stereo to another.

Bottom line? In the interest of building a reader base, don’t get bogged down with DRM. Be snobby with your e-books when you can afford it.

        

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Fall comes. We gently retreat. The sun hides behind the clouds, sometimes peeking out enough to remind us that it’s there, but usually is in retreat behind the gray veil, thin enough to just see the pale circle.

We become slightly more introspective. Our patios and back yards are carefully covered with tarps and strewn with leaves. We are inside, eating warm comfort food, thinking a lot about ourselves. The church year gently pushes this along–bright Spring music moves to more somber tunes of Advent and Lent. We wait. Gently.

When we venture out, we have retreated from our shorts & flip-flops, now nestled in jackets and clogs. The trees, once brilliant with buds and green leaves, pull life into themselves, leaving a dappled mark of death, celebrated by long drives and countless photos. Under the falling, speckled canopy, we contemplate home improvement, the crisp air flecked with coffee and sawdust.

        

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I stopped on the way to work this morning for a Cinnamon ‘N’ Raisin biscuit from Hardee’s. (I still refuse to buy Thickburgers because of their ad campaigns, but the biscuits are hard to beat.) I haven’t had one of those for a very long time.

At first bite, I was immediately taken back to when my Dad and I would go to Hardee’s on our way to my elementary school. If I was dressed early enough, we would go and have breakfast there as a treat. I remember the smell of the dining room, the sweetness of the icing, the cold orange juice on my otherwise empty stomach, and the fact that I would wait for the icing to cool before I ate the biscuit. I preferred my icing a little thicker than it was served.

        

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It’s no secret that a bit of tweaking is necessary in iTunes to effectively manage a decently-sized classical music library. Being somewhat OCD, my initial imports of classical music into iTunes really put me in a funk, because the metadata imported from CDDB just made things almost impossible to sort through. After some thought about how I wanted to arrange the music, a good bit of trial & error on my iPod, and some help from more organized music fans, I’ve come up with a viable solution. Read more…

        

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I live in South Carolina, home of the missing governor who now has made me unable to say “hiking” with a straight face. Sanford, along with Alaska governor Palin, have made very public (and rambling) statements in the past weeks, and the media dissection would still be going had Michael Jackson not died and the spree killer in Gaffney not appeared. What of these public confessions? What’s wrong with believing them at face value. Stanley Fish argued the same in a recent blog post:

So what’s the bottom line story? Simple. Sanford is in love. Palin is in pain. Sometimes what it seems to be is what it is.

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Something so basic and simple as rain can help us frame our own lives against the perspectives of others. It can also help us realize how far we’ve come in life.

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Today I sat with my father and grandfather (and the rest of my family, of course) and had a great lunch, followed by a few hours of family time. I came home and looked at the news, and out of what must have been a sick sense of curiosity, I saw the YouTube video of what will undoubtedly be the poster incident for the Iran election protests: a young girl named Neda cut down by a policeman’s bullet, her father crying over her as her life slips away.

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