Do You Believe in Magic?

The word “magic,” in its adjectival form—the form used in most popular music—means to make or produce “as if by magic,” that is, to have the conjuring power of a magus, that is, a magician. For instance, you know of Madame Rue, that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth, the one who’s got the pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine—she uses magic, and she is a (female) magus. In “Love Potion No. 9,” for instance, the singer tells us, “She [Madame Rue] looked at my palm and she made a magic sign/She said, ‘What you need is Love Potion No. 9’.” Too bad: the singer ended up kissing a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine. Such is the power of magic.

The word magic is derived from the Middle English magik, from Old French magique, from Late Latin magica, from Latin magicē, from Greek magikē, from feminine of magikos, of the Magi, magical, from magos, magician, magus. And magus, of course, is the root of the word “magician.” In popular music, magic is mystery (and fear), magic is enchantment, magic is power, magic is a drug-induced hallucination (and the accompanying trip), magic is the ecstasis of erotic fulfillment. Aleister Crowley referred to the orgasm as “sex magick,” perhaps an intentional conflation of the categories of erotic and spiritual love. Popular musicians frequently confuse the erotic and the spiritual, revealing that as a culture we seek in profane love what we can only get from religious belief. To confirm these various uses, seek out and listen to the following songs:

America, “You Can Do Magic” The Complete Greatest Hits
Badfinger, Magic Christian Music (album, 1970)
The Beatles, “Magical Mystery Tour” Magical Mystery Tour (album, 1967)
The Cars, “Magic” Heartbeat City
Nick Drake, “Magic” Made to Love Magic
The Drifters, “This Magic Moment” All-Time Greatest Hits
Electric Light Orchestra, “Strange Magic” Face the Music
Fleetwood Mac, “Black Magic Woman” English Rose
Heart, “Magic Man” Dreamboat Annie
The Lovin’ Spoonful, “Do You Believe in Magic” Do You Believe in Magic
Ennio Morricone, “Magic and Ecstasy” Exorcist II: The Heretic (soundtrack)
Van Morrison, “Magic Time” Magic Time
Pilot, “Magic” Anthology
The Police, “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” Ghost in the Machine
Frank Sinatra, “That Old Black Magic” Come Swing With Me!
Snakefinger, “Magic and Ecstasy” (Morricone cover) Chewing Hides the Sound
Steppenwolf, “Magic Carpet Ride” Steppenwolf the Second
Tyrannosaurus Rex, “By the Light of the Magical Moon” Beard of Stars
The Who, “Magic Bus” Magic Bus

Forrest J. Ackerman, 1916-2008

This morning’s Los Angeles Times bore the news that Forrest J. Ackerman, the writer-editor who influenced a generation of horror movie fans with Famous Monsters of Filmland, who coined the term “sci-fi” (a pejorative term despised by fans of science fiction, incidentally), and who spent much of his life assembling a collection of SF and fantasy memorabilia, died Thursday night at age 92. Somehow I find it remarkable to observe that even if one were never to have read Famous Monsters, even if one were not aware of his name or precisely sure why he was held in such esteem by horror movie fans, Forrest J. Ackerman influenced the way an entire generation—my generation—consumed movies. He did for horror movie actors what fan magazines such as Photoplay, Silver Screen, Motion Picture World and others did for mainstream Hollywood actors: he transformed them into “stars.” Somehow, therefore, it is appropriate that he was born in 1916, the year Motion Picture Classic—not the first but among the first of the Hollywood fan magazines—began publication. It was also the year the United States—or rather “Hollywood”—became one of the top leading motion picture producers in the world, by which time the name “Hollywood” had become a synonym for the American filmmaking industry around the world.

My own close encounter with Forrest J. Ackerman occurred at a convention in 1991. The meeting was brief and unremarkable, and as I recall somewhat awkward. Seeing him standing alone amid a crowd, I introduced myself to him and offered him my hand, saying something banal regarding how it was a pleasure to meet him, finally, and as I did so someone standing behind me caught his eye—author David J. Schow, I believe, someone he already knew and most certainly a person much more famous than I was or ever shall be—a conversation ensued, and I quietly slunk away, realizing at the time that that moment was the first and last time I will have met Forrest J. Ackerman. Some years later my friend David Del Valle drove me past the Ackermansion in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles (prior to it being sold); those two moments are my sole connection to Forrest J. Ackerman, except of course for reading Famous Monsters when I was kid at the newsstand at the local drug store. I don't recall every purchasing a copy of Famous Monsters, primarily because I had a cousin who did, so I saved my money for other important items (I was one of those kids who purchased Classics Illustrated and such).

So he is no more. While my connection to him is slight, I nonetheless acknowledge his influence, both on my imagination and in the way I, even now, consume movies. The L. A. Times obituary can be found here.

Odds Are 4 In 100

On two occasions last month I posted blog entries concerning the latest call for proposals for books in Continuum’s 33 & 1/3 series examining classic albums of the rock era. A few weeks ago, the editor of the 33 & 1/3 series, David Barker, posted on his blog a list of the first ten proposals he’d received so far. Since that time, he’s received forty more proposals; I’ve re-posted the complete list below. Mr. Barker insists that those interested in writing a book for the series should not be discouraged if one of the artists on the list below is the subject of the proposal they are currently working on. The first ten artists listed below I posted earlier; proposals received since that earlier post are listed after the lacuna. Last time Continuum announced a call for proposals, 450 proposals were submitted, with about 20 of those being accepted (that is, roughly 4%). Assuming that figure still holds (and I assume it will), then only 2-3 of the proposals listed below have a chance for being accepted for publication. Your odds are hence about 4 in 100 (in other words, don't bet your life on being accepted).

Have I submitted my proposal yet? Not yet, but I’m getting close. And no, the artist whose album I’m writing about is not on the list—not so far. For those interested in submitting a proposal, you have slightly over three weeks left to do so. Redundant artists in the list below include Yo La Tengo and David Bowie (Low is already a title in the series, so these latest proposals are for yet another album(s) by him). I am pleased to see proposals for books on Devo, King Crimson, John Cale, and Van Morrison show up; there are not a whole lot of proposals on girl singers yet, but I'm sure that will change. In any case, I wish us all the best of luck.

The Fall
The Jam
Danzig
Van Halen
The Zombies
Against Me!
Run-D.M.C.
Jefferson Airplane
Mary Margaret O'Hara
Yo La Tengo

Wilco
Melvins
Low
Various Artists
Smashing Pumpkins
Wilco
Herb Alpert
De La Soul
David Thomas and Two Pale Boys
King Crimson
John Cale
Allman Brothers Band
Metallica
Songs Ohia
Iron Maiden
Yes
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
George Harrison
Van Morrison
The Rolling Stones
Devo
Paul Westerberg
The Cars
Incredible String Band
David Bowie
Cat Stevens
New Order
The Electric Prunes
Ol' Dirty Bastard
Beck
Sigur Ros
Red House Painters
Genesis
Big Black
Lou Reed
Yo La Tengo
David Bowie
Britney Spears
The White Stripes
Robert Calvert

Rock Candy

It has been observed many times by many music critics that the most successful popular music always has been sentimental. For an illustration of this insight, one need look no further than the Beatles. As Simon Frith observed (“Towards An Aesthetic of Popular Music”):

Twentieth-century popular music has, on the whole, been a nostalgic form. The Beatles, for example, made nostalgic music from the start, which is why they were so popular. Even on hearing a Beatles song for the first time there was a sense of the memories to come, a feeling that this could not last but that it was surely going to be pleasant to remember. (142)

I thought of Frith’s insight while driving to the store today, when I happened to hear on the radio Edison Lighthouse’s 1970 one-hit wonder, “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” (to hear, go here). Subsequently, I thought of the fundamental opposition between so-called “hard” rock and “soft” rock. The structural oppositions of hard and soft, of course, are designations of an underlying aesthetic distinguishing two distinct kinds of musical taste. While the sexual innuendo inherent in these designations can scarcely be denied, more importantly, each form comprises an aesthetic suggesting certain values. There are those who like their rock hard--that is, loud, and, by implication, their whiskey straight and their meat rare. In contrast, those who like their rock soft prefer the volume low, fish or chicken to beef, beer to bourbon, and are highly likely to be girls, pansies, or pussies (from the perspective of those who like hard rock). Thus their oppositional tastes are structured around the following sets of oppositions, and these structural oppositions determine virtually all discourse on popular music today:

Rock/Pop:
Hard/Soft
Raw/Cooked
Masculine/Feminine
Guitars/Keyboards (and Strings)
Tough/Effete
Straight/Gay
Authentic/Artificial
Feeling/Intellect
America/Europe