ralphiesralphiesRALPHIES

 My view of America 2025 is best summed up by two pop-cultural references.  One of them is the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life,"wherein everyone is afrad of the monster child who shapes to world to his (and only his) satisfaction.  The other is the Marvel Comics Dark Reign storyline, wherein the reins of power are handed to evil billionaire Norman Osborn, who replaces super heroes with super villains.  Let the reader understand.

BOOKS: So many books to choose from.  For non-fiction I'll give the Ralphie to Ian Leslie's John and Paul: A Love Story.  I don't think I agree with the basic premise, but a book can be a little whack and still fascinating.  By the way, I consumed this book via audio, which some claim isn't really reading. As frequently with definitions, there are fuzzy boundaries.  Me, I take it as reading, so. Honorable mention goes to Loudon Wainwright III's Liner Notes: A Memoir. And that is one that really should be listened to, rather than read, because the author himself reads it and illustrates songs by playing them. For fiction, I have to give it to The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (2024), an absorbing mystery wherein the suspense is maintained at a high level throughout without forsaking character development (which indeed is crucial). 

MOVIES/TV: I don't know if there is any distinction in this age of streaming between movies and TV, since both are consumed the same way (by and large).  For both, I give the Ralphie to Shetland, a TV? series set in, uh, Shetland.  The stories are well-developed over several episodes (the first few seasons based on novels by Ann Cleeves), and Shetland (it was filmed on location) is so vividly evoked, the islands are almost like a character in their own right.  I binged through the whole thing in a few months. I did see a movie an actual theatre, though,  A Complete Unknown. Verdict: meh. 

MUSIC: So much good music.  Some that caught my ear: "Just Two Girls" (Wolf Alice), "Oom Sha La La" (Haley Heynderickx), "Idiot Box" (Sharon van Etten), "Bovine Excision" (Samia), "Tunnel Vision" (Beach Bunny), "Arm's Length" (Sam Fender), "She's Leaving You" (MJ Lenderman). But the Ralphie I will give to "Slow Talkin'" (Haley Heynderickx), which stuck with me so long it became my mental theme song. 

SPORTS: There were no aporting events in 2025. 

I don't know what the future holds for 2026. Regimes come and go, mountains fall and valleys are raised up.  But the Ralphies, God willing, will be back next year around this time.  Thanks, you've been a great audience!

Blowin' in the Howlin' Wind

Back in 1974—before the flood—I went to hear Bob Dylan in person for the first time, in Fort Worth, Texas, backed by The Band. The set list is here .( I notice that they quote Bob as saying, before “It Ain’t Me Babe,” “This is another lasting song.” I can tell you that that quote is incorrect.  What he said was, “Here’s another message song.”)

Among the numbers he did was “All Along the Watchtower,” with a nod to the Jimi Hendrix arrangement.  But honestly I prefer the album cut to the live version; it sounds lonesome and spooky in a way that the latter-day guitar pyrotechnics seem to bury. 

And that eerie song is truly a song for our time, I mean right now. Consider: in the first verse, a joker complains to a thief that his property is being stolen; in the second verse, the thief suggests  to the joker that although some feel that “life is but a joke,” “you and I” no longer do. In fact, the thief answers in a series of stilted cliches: “this is not our fate,” “let us not talk falsely,” “the hour is getting late.” He doesn’t respond to the joker at all; there is no communication between the two.

In the third verse, princes keep watch from a tower, with women and "barefoot servants" moving around in the background. “Outside in the distance” two riders are approaching, and … we’re back where we started. “There must be some way out of here,” but the song forms a closed loop. There is no way out.

It’s actually kind of terrifying, in the same way that the American scene today is kind of terrifying.  Two sides talk in incommensurable codes, while elites look on impassively from a height. There must be some way out of here.  Hey, maybe the answer is blowin’ in the wind, which has begun to howl.