Sunday Screening

I thought I was done forever with the Sunday Screening. I rather lost my momentum this fall; Sundays seemed better spent relaxing, watching real-life television, perhaps even doing "schoolwork." But after Tuesday's election, and the consequent earthquake in American politics, I've been thinking; no Sunday Screening? That's not change we can believe in! So without further ado:

What better time than now to look at 1980, birth year of the late, lamented Reagan Revolution? I love this clip both because it has a priceless few seconds of channel-flipping at the beginning (nothing gives you the sense of an era better than channel-flipping), and because the WPIX newscast is a great demonstration of the contradictions of the time. The theme, for instance, is the famous Move Closer to Your World tune used for decades by Philadelphia's WPVI; this song dates from 1970, and I can call it a song not only because it's danceable but because believe it or not it has lyrics:

Move closer to your world, my friend / Take a little bit of time
Move closer to your world, my friend / And you'll see...

Just a little bit of time / That's all it takes to bring your world together
Take a little bit of time / Don't turn away, my friend, tomorrows are forever

Get close to people / Your world needs you to care, to share it
Take the time / Join hands, my friend, with all the people in your world

Hard to reconcile this peace-and-love sentiment with the news of the day (in this instance, that America was being INVADED BY SCARY CUBANS). But the dominant cultural paradigm, and the Carter administration, still had that sensibility to it. (Now, TV news varied widely in the U.S., from the austere Midwesterners to the Boston lunatics, but you get my point.) By 1980 people were, understandably, feeling alienated both from their junk culture and their lame, ineffectual politics. And remember, it was an emotionally simpler time, a time when children could have long phone conversations with strangers--

--without consequence. So people were open to new frames in their politics, and vulnerable to an emerging politics of fear:

That's a hell of a thing. I hadn't seen that until today; amazing how closely it mirrors the scare-politics that Karl Rove elevated to an art form. (I keep thinking about Saxby Chambliss' famous 2002 ad against Cleland that used Osama bin Laden's face -- and not coincidentally, Chambliss' latest ad for his impending runoff against Jim Martin plays the decidedly retrograde 9/11 card. The more things change...) You are looking here at the start of conservative politics as we know it. My Indy article touched on this -- that 1980 began an aberrant, freakish period in our history, one which is just closing now.

But I don't mean to be too harsh on 1980. Sure, it was a pretty awful year in terms of music (not only did Zeppelin break up, but worse, ABBA didn't) and television (The Rockford Files was cancelled, and yet the year's best new show was Bosom Buddies with Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari); sure, John Lennon was killed and Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe. I just can't dismiss the year wholesale, though, for one simple reason:

Yes. Talking Heads released Remain in Light, which spawned the immortal "Once in a Lifetime." Not only is this a great song in its own right, it also gave us one of the most perfect and brilliant music videos ever. Let that one sink in, and enjoy the rest of your weekend. This is an open thread.

...What, you thought I was going to do a riff on Obama's victory being a once-in-a-lifetime moment or whatever? Jesus. Give me a little credit here.

Favorite music of the MA-Gov candidates

If you were to guess favorite music of Deval Patrick and Kerry Healey, who would you pick?   For Deval Patrick, one of his three albums is James Taylor's latest, October Road.  Apparently James heard about his statesman/supporter and gave him a shoutout at his concert in Boston last night: "I understand my candidate for governor is in the house!" after which Deval was highlighted by one of the many Wang Center spotlights.  After showing his support he dedicated his performance of "Fire and Rain" (Windows Media clip here) to him after a tough week of attack ads.  This is after Taylor made an appearance and performance at Deval's 50th birthday party this past July, continuing James' precedent of being politically active, as we saw with his endorsing John Kerry.

What is Kerry Healey's favorite band, you may ask?  The Talking Heads.   Somehow I doubt that they are going to dedicate "Psycho Killer" to her, but who knows, she's crazy enough.