Trunkworthy's Finale: Elvis Costello's Best, Least Remembered Songs, 81-86

Trunkworthy's series on undiscovered gems in Elvis Costello's vast catalog pulled me like a sled dog. I grabbed ahold early and held on for the lo-o-o-o-o-o-ng haul: 229 weeks in all! 

Recently Jorge Farah, one of the authors of the re-boot series, found this blog and dropped a nice comment. The exchange caused me to realize that I still owe the Universe one final post. You see, I had published recaps of the songs in groups of twenty. After song #80, I was geared up, anticipating the Fifth Twenty... 

But after two years on the beat, Jorge and his co-author Kevin Davis announced that they had achieved what they set out to do. They closed out the column after Song #86, "Suspect My Tears" from EC's latest album at the time, 2018's Look Now. 

So here is the chart of the last 6 songs of the series to complete the set:

Here are links to the 

• First 40, 
• the Third 20. and 
• the Fourth 20.

The Song of the Week grand finale includes this Author's note (emphasis added):

"After two years of (sometimes very) intermittently writing the Elvis Costello Song of the Week column, we feel that we’ve reached a point where we’ve managed to cover a pretty thorough cross-section of Costello’s work, having now written (we think!) about at least one song from each album which, by extension, has given us the opportunity to talk about each of the albums themselves."

How well did Trunkworthy do at covering the oeuvre? I combined Shows 1 to 53 and 54 to 86 into one big group, and here are the stats:

At the time the Trunkworthy series ended, Elvis had produced 32 studio albums from MAIT through Look Now. The EP, Purse and Hey Clockface (due out in October 2020) were produced after Jorge and Kevin tossed in the towel. The authors of Parts 1 and 2 covered an impressive 28 of 32 albums, all but these four:

There were a total of 86 "weekly" episodes stretched out over a period of 229 weeks. 

• Part 1 by Gary and David covered 54 songs in 52 weeks
• Part 2 by Jorge and Kevin added 35 more songs over 115 weeks
• The gap between parts 1 & 2 was 62 weeks and we are so grateful to Jorge and Kevin for picking up the reigns and running the reboot!  

There were actually 89 songs in the series. Two versions of  "Blue Chair" were compared in Show 31. Three versions of "Favourite Hour" were presented in Show 56. Additionally, two songs in Part 1 were repeated in Part 2.

•  "How Much I’ve Lied" from Almost Blue (1981) was played in shows 22 & 58
• "Stella Hurt" from Momofuku (2008) was played in shows 39 & 83

So, 89 songs, less 2 repeats and 3 additional versions yields 84 unique titles. All of them are hidden gems among the 600-song (and growing) catalog. 

The authors set out to highlight some of Elvis' best, least-known songs from his 600-song discography. They did not announce an explicit goal to distribute the highlighted songs across the decades. I took a glance at that and invite you to have a look at the results below. Over the 44-year span, there were slightly more songs from 1986 (6) than from any other year. The real story is the wide distribution. You'll see some songs from five decades: 70s, 80s, 90s, aughts, and teens.

I am grateful to Trunkworthy co-founders Gary Stewart and David Gorman, who started this project. Beginning on Elvis' 60th birthday (Aug 25, 2014) and continuing weekly for a year, these two set out to shine a little light on some of the underplayed gems in Costello's repertoire. Sustained by passion and fan support, they took the project as far as they could. But the crowd wanted more! Thankfully, fellow Costellophiles Jorge Farah and Kevin Davis picked up the gauntlet and ran with it. 

Perhaps there will yet be more stories in this book. Elvis is still creating compelling music, so who knows? Maybe we'll soon need a third pair of writers to continue the Trunkworthy quest with a mix of songs including material from the 20s and beyond. One can only hope. And if they do, PhilosFX will be right there with them, providing a hub from which summaries of all of the separate posts can be easily viewed. 

I am also grateful that Jorge took the time to write a nice comment on PhilosFX. You can read that and my reply under this post. By way of thanks, I thought of linking to Jorge's blog, "Every -ist and Every -ism." The blog is on a temporary hiatus. Please check back later...

  

Instead of that link, I offer a link to Jorge's two and a half hour EC birthday show. This program is full of great music and interesting conversation from fantastic guests, such as Trunkworthy collaborator Kevin Davis, and Graeme Thomson, author of Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis Costello. 

Enjoy! Support the creative!  

Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance

 

Today's Meme of the Day is inspired by a conversation between comedian Russell Brand and psychologist Jordan Peterson. Billed as a "debate," this conversation is no battle or fight. It seems to me to be more of a spirited conversation between two intelligent people with slightly different views. I enjoyed this excerpt from Russell Brand's Under The Skin Podcast #46 With Jordan Peterson

At 3:10 in the excerpt, Brand raises the issue of how people in the media can misinterpret a speaker's words or intentions. Brand posited that both he and Peterson had been misunderstood at times, and he wanted to attribute this controversy to a lack of nuance in reporting. In turn, the lack of nuance in reporting can be attributed to either editorial direction or the short attention span of the audience, or both. The resulting tendency is for people to force other people into ideological categories (left, right) too quickly. 

Brand had worked with the Maysles brothers on a documentary film. (Interestingly enough, the subject was reportedly Donald Trump.) Brand recalled Maysles' quote during this portion of the conversation. Peterson was not familiar with the quote but took an immediate interest. Peterson remarked, "there's no nuance in ignorance but it's excusable because you just don't know any better. But when it's deliberate, that's a whole different story."

Ignorance, simply being unaware of the facts, is forgivable. Willful ignorance, choosing to remain ignorant in spite of facts, is certainly an offense against the pursuit of truth. deliberately obscuring facts from others keeping them ignorant would be worse still. Tyranny is even more nefarious for its subtlety, leaving facts but removing nuance. 

The lesson is to search for the truth, to ask questions, to trust only what is verified, and to be suspicious of motives until they are plainly exposed. Not coincidentally, these were the principles of the Maysles brothers' pioneering style of documentary filmmaking known as cinema veritas.  

For more information about Albert Maysles and his brother David, feel free to read this New York Times appreciation of their award-winning approach to documentary filmmaking. Albert died in 2015 at the age of 88. His brother and collaborator, David, died in 1987 at the age of 54. PBS published a list of their seven most important films. How many have you seen?

• “Psychiatry in Russia” (1955)
• “Salesman” (1968)
• “Gimme Shelter” (1970)
• “Christo’s Valley Curtain” (1974)
• “Grey Gardens” (1975)
• “When We Were Kings” (1996)
• “Iris” (2014)

Iconic Chrysler Building: Monument to Design

Read about the breakthrough in design that led to Manhattan's world-renowned Chrysler Building.

H/T: TJA, Notre Dame architecture classmate, a Stalwart of the Belallta Studio, roommate (if you count a passage in the library stacks as a room and hot bunking as sharing), fellow Army Corps of Engineers veteran, Captain of my saber arch, one of only three men who have ever ridden co-pilot with me on my skoot, and connoisseur of the built environment who, like me, prefers Sullivan over Gropius and who shares my adoration of the Ecole de Beaux Arts and the building which ushered in the Art Deco movement.

How to Say "ten" in Over 80 Languages

Ahoy! Happy 10th PhilosFX Day!

At midnight GMT (8 pm Eastern) between 6 and 7 Aug, we ended 10 years of blogging on PhilosFX. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

In our first decade, we've attracted at least one visitor from 224 of 242 countries around the world.

To celebrate both the 10-year milestone and our international audience, please find below a table for how to say the number "ten" in over 80 different languages, everything from Afrikaans to Zulu!  

References:

• In Different Languages (Russian is missing)
• Rocket Languages 

Here is a compilation of links to previous PhilosFX Day celebrations. Enjoy!

9. Happy 9th PhilosFX Day!    
8. Happy 8th PhilosFX Day!
7. Happy 7th PhilosFX Day!
6. Happy 6th PhilosFX Day!
5. The 2015 version
4. Musings from the Batman
3. Lots of stats
2. Basically, a one-liner
1. First-year in review 
0. Launch!


Cheers!

DBD

Flag Counter Update

Understandably, my home country of the USA has the most (52,260) unique visitors. Within the USA, the state of California leads the pack with 3X the unique visitors as Virginia and as many unique visitors (10,540) as the next four countries (Canada, UK, Germany, and France) combined.

As of 18 December 2019 when Greenland joined the ranks, PhilosFX has  collected 224 of 242 country flags. There are now only 18 remaining countries without at least one visitor! 

When will the next new country visit PhilosFX?

1000!

1000!

Grazie Mille!

This, our 1000th post, is a Major Milestone for PhilosFX. 

A thousand thanks!

or, as we might prefer to say,

Thanks a million!

May I offer an interesting commentary on the use of the letter "M" to represent the quantity of 1,000 as I have done for today's celebration? I am aware that this choice is not without controversy.

Most readers will be more familiar with the use of lower case "k" to mean 1,000. In this case, "k" is an abbreviation for "kilo" which in turn is derived from the Greek word χίλιοι (chilioi), meaning "thousand." Side note--a capital "K" is the abbreviation for Kelvin, a unit of heat, so don't sign up for a 10K run. You'll freeze! 10K is -441.7 deg F. Stick with the traditional 10k runs, as they are much more comfortable.

Meanwhile, the letter "M" is also used to represent the quantity of 1,000. This is distinct from the lower case "m" which means meters. In this case, "M" is an abbreviation for mille, the Roman word for 1,000. Investors and accountants will be familiar with "MM" which means a thousand thousands, or one million. The Italian expression, grazie mille does not transliterate to English well. We don't say, "Thanks a thousand." However, "a thousand thanks," seems too formal for the American tongue. Instead, we say, "Thanks a million."  May I suggest a twist? How about, "Thanks MM"?

My work here is (almost!) done. If you want symmetry (and really, who doesn't?), the Cyber Dictionary defines KK to mean okay, as in, message received. This expression may have originated from the use of KK in Morse Code (a communications system developed in the 1800s) to mean "End of message."

Now we know the differences between

KK, K, k, m, M, and MM

Or, do we? 

When you see $10M are you thinking 

$10,000

or

$10,000,000?

Minds blown. Mayhem prevails. Madness reigns.

Meanwhile, the folks at English Language & Usage are tossing up their hands on the k vs. M controversy. Dr. Peterson of the Math Forum has offered a rational solution that does not seem to satisfy all readers. Experts at Quora advise checking with local customs and traditions  That works for moi.

Moving along...

Metrics: The first of 1,000 (thousand? kilo? mille?) posts here on PhilosFX was published Saturday, August 7, 2010 (3,412 days ago). Since then, new posts have been published at the rate of one every third day, garnering an average of 416 views each (range is 0 to 62,829). PhilosFX get about 3,662 views per month (range is 300 to 11,589). Not bad for the mishaps and meanderings of a mercurial madman...

Motivation: I have 149 posts in various stages of pre-publication right now, and a seemingly endless supply of topics to write about. I only wish I had more time to explore the fascinating universe we share. Intelligent and curious people are always welcome here. Thanks for reading along and encouraging me with your comments and suggestions!

On to 2,000! 
aka 2k! aka 2M! 
Why not 2MM? 
KK!

Don't Worry, Be Happy--Right!?!

Today's Meme of the Day is inspired by the "Woman Yelling at a Cat" meme template that is all the rage today.



On December 5th, 2011, episode 14 "Malibu Beach Party From Hell" of season two of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reality TV series premiered in the United States. In the episode, cast member Taylor Armstrong cries during an argument, with cast member Kyle Richards attempting to calm her down.

On June 19th, 2018, Tumblr user deadbefordeath posted a photograph of a white cat (later revealed to be named Smudge) with a confused expression sitting in a chair in front of a plate with vegetables in it, titling the post "he no like vegetals." The post gained over 50,300 likes and reblogs in one year.

On May 1st, 2019, Twitter user @MISSINGEGIRL made a post containing both images, writing "These photos together is making me lose it.“ The tweet gained over 78,900 retweets and 276,800 likes in two months.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/woman-yelling-at-a-cat

If you haven't seen this meme template yet, you will!