The Weekly Croissant: Revised Opinions
Art Hoes Love to Change Their Minds
Hello Dear Croissants,
I am writing to you from the Oakland Airport, which has the feel of an upscale hospital waiting room. In my monthly column for No Depression Magazine, I recently did a run-down of arbitrary awards for various US airports, and this one did not make the cut, but I’m not sure I’ve actually been here before, so it’s a bit unfair. ANYWAY,
In the croissant last week, I reviewed Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead, and said that I had failed to connect with it, and was finding it very slow. I was validated with a response from a reader saying “Hallelujah!!! I tried Drive Your Plow… as well. I wanted to like it so badly. But alas. I enjoy a good, slow burn…But you need at least an ember!!”. This comment made me laugh, and feel very seen.
However, I have continued to “plow” (good one right?) through the book this week, and last night reached the climactic scene. Although I had guessed at the plot reveal, there were some details that touched me deeply, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the main character today. I think because I spent so much time laboring through her life in the form of laboring through this book, I feel a sudden sense of connection that I had thought was missing from my reading experience. Out of nowhere feel immense and deep sorrow for her loss and her feelings of uselessness and otherness and I think that even though I can’t say I have *enjoyed* the book, it is kind of brilliant. After all, our main character’s life experience hasn’t been interesting or fast-moving. Maybe the reader’s experience is part of the character's development, making you slow down to give a perspective on our heroine (?)’s pace of life.
This has got me thinking about the process of changing one’s mind…how an opinion that has been interrogated and changed over time might be the most powerful of all opinions, a moment of real and difficult growth.
This week, I’ve been teaching songwriting workshops out in California, and I had one especially challenging and hilarious student, let’s call him Stu. Stu is exactly who you might imagine to be a difficult student, an 80-year-old white man sitting in the class of a younger woman telling him what to do, It’s a classic play, as Waxahatchee might say.
Teaching songwriting is challenging in the best of circumstances. There’s no one way to write a song, so I can only really teach my own strategies and opinions. I usually start by asking students to get into the mindset and perspective of a very specific character facing a very specific internal conflict. On the second day of class, I asked students to share a four-line chorus based on this character and conflict.
Stu says he’s written twenty-two verses…. (twenty-two!!!)
Wow! I say. Why don’t you share your favorite three along with the chorus?
He looks at me and proceeds to read all twenty-two verses (of course). The song is basically a treatise on Buddhist principles (or his interpretation of them). He tells us that he has been studying and practicing Buddhism for over sixty years.
Okay, I say, Yea! So that’s a really interesting example of a different way to approach a song. You’ve essentially written a spiritual.
Well, human experience isn’t real. It’s all an illusion of ego. he says
Right, I say. So… instead of addressing human conflict, you’ve created something to aspire to, to try for…
There’s no such thing as trying, he says. You just relax into it, the truth is already happening. Everything I’m saying is verifiable fact.
After exhausting all attempts to relate Stu’s song to the topics of the class (This feels like a song about the answer… let’s think about living in the question..), I give up and politely move on to the next student.
The next day, Stu shows up with a new song. Thirteen verses about how he’s been wronged by me in songwriting class.
After all my study and effort I’m told that I’m all wrong/ Nothing that I’ve written, makes for a good song….I thought that I’d be welcomed but instead, I’m shown along…
(again, not his actual lines, just a general vibe)
I’m so proud of you! I say. You’ve really dug into your emotions for this one.
Despite seeming quite hurt by me, Stu continues to attend my classes and even joins me for dinner in the dining hall. Then, on the last day of class, he insists on reading yet another long composition. This one is about his immense gratitude for the class.
Thank you to my classmates, and their patience in this hall/ and most of all to Rachel, who stands so very tall…
(Again, not actual words) But it seems that Stu has come full circle and changed his mind. He tells me that he’s found a process, that he’s inspired to write all the time. This is maybe the most powerful thing that has happened in a week of very powerful artistic experiences. Changing your mind isn’t fun, but it’s growth.
I’m thinking now about how much time I spend editing and improving songs or writing or mixes or chord progressions. Maybe I need to start treating my opinions to the same critical review… It’s certain that I could find some much better ones in there somewhere….
In love and pastries,
Rachel
Rachel-- have you met Dan Bern? He has written 12,000 songs. I said to him once last month that I read he had written 1,000 songs, according to the press and he said that was a long time ago.
Possibly he has written one song, with 12,000 parts.
I am the promoter doing Dan Bern and Rachel Baiman back to back, Oct 8 and 10. Four miles apart.
I did make a little speech at a recent show about graphic design "kerning" which I said was a thing designers did before computers and Adobe to look at three letters in isolation, out of context of the word. Like it the word WRITER, you look at w r I then you look at r I t then you look at I t e then you look at t e r. (to check the printing design...)
I said coming to a concert series you should think about the show in context of the one before and the one coming up.
See you, in Palo Alto at the beautiful Johnson Park in 37 days.
Adding kiwi to my yogurt parfait for no apparent reason
Ram Dass headass