Liars and Saints

  "What Can You Lose?" is a quarrel that the poet has with himself. What can you lose? Only the blues. Why keep concealing everything you're feeling? Say it to her--what can you lose? The speaker is miserable because he has not declared his love. But, because the writer is Sondheim, there isn't any easy solution. The song pivots: Maybe it shows. She's had clues, which she chose to ignore.  Maybe, though, she knows-- And just wants to go on as before.  (As a friend, nothing more.) So she closes the door. In other words, a declaration would just be a source of embarrassment. The beloved "doesn't want to hear it." Once the words are spoken-- Something may be broken... Leave it alone. Hold it all in. Better a bone-- Don't even begin. With so much to win-- There's too much to lose. An ambivalent semi-courtship is "just a bone"--just the scraps from a chicken dinner. But the scraps are better than an empty plate. The last sentence revisit...

 The "Ray of Light" album--widely regarded as Madonna's magnum opus--uses "Frozen" as a lead single. This is a sequel to Madonna's own "Open Your Heart," and in fact, it employs the words "open," "your," and "heart." You're so consumed with how much you get. You waste your time with hate and regret. You're broken, when your heart's not open. The new lover has one foot out the door, and a part of Madonna is really irritated. But: ...Now there's no point in placing the blame. And you should know I suffer the same. If I lose you, my heart will be broken. It's interesting to see that, in some ways, Madonna has compassion for this guy ("There's no point in placing the blame"). There is a hint of Buddhist detachment between the lines; elsewhere, at this point in her career, Madonna is making allusions to "being an Ashtangi." Indeed, Madonna *empathizes* with the lover; she understa...

  The first time I saw my son dance, the music video was "Vogue," by Madonna. To me, "Vogue" seems like a response to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy." In his 1984 song, Prince acknowledges the grimness of existence: "In this life, things are much harder than in the afterworld...." You may not like "the world you're living in...." Madonna is similarly blunt: "Look around. Everywhere you turn is heartache. It's everywhere that you go. You try everything you can to escape the pain of life that you know...." Prince has an answer to sadness: just go crazy, just get nuts. "Better live now before the Grim Reaper comes knocking at your door..." And, similarly, here's Madonna: "Let your body move to the music. Let your body go with the flow...." "Vogue" was an afterthought; Madonna needed something to pad out her album "I'm Breathless," which had an Oscar-winning Sondheim song (...

 I had my doubts about music class with the baby. A big benefit seems to be social time, but the kid can't really socialize if he is in a Covid bubble. Also, can you learn anything about music if you're *one* year of age? But I attended lessons because (a) this was my husband's ardent wish and (b) a part of me was curious. That part of me was delighted--off and on. Being in baby music lessons was like stepping into an asylum. The babies stare off, glassy-eyed; sometimes, they shriek. Their nannies covertly check little iPhone screens. Basically, no dad ever, ever attends--and here I am bragging. My husband and I were DADS OF THE MILLENNIUM. A teacher--with extraordinary grace and patience and energy--would dust off her tambourine week after week, and she would ignore the stratospheric thermometer readings, and she would work for her money. She would shout at us about galloping ponies, burping frogs, twinkling stars. Around the thirty-minute mark, each class, she'd get t...

As I mentioned yesterday, Madonna--like Aslan--is on the move. She is sixty, but, still, she is going to put on her face and sing for the masses, on tour, once more. As I mentioned yesterday, Madonna's news has me thinking about a curious moment in her career--"Dick Tracy." As I recall, "Dick Tracy" doesn't really work. I'm not sure why. It has Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, and Mandy Patinkin. It has a Sondheim score--for which (or for one part of which) Sondheim was justly handed an Academy Award. "Dick Tracy" has bright colors and opulent noir sets and larger-than-life characters, but, as I recall, the movie is a slog. You can't always make smart Hollywood predictions. Such is life. Madonna didn't make much of an impact in "Dick Tracy," but she did apparently have an affair, backstage, with Warren Beatty. Perhaps this affair was invigorating: Around this same time, Madonna released an album, "I'm Breathless," a...