Category: Memory

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

by James Wallace Harris, 9/13/23

Do you ever think about why you watch movies? Do you ever think about why people make movies? The obvious answer is people want to be entertained and diverted and other people want to make money off those impulses. However, there are filmmakers with something to say, and audiences who want more than to be just entertained.

Alfred Hitchcock aims at pure entertainment. I don’t believe his films are philosophical, uplifting, meaningful, spiritual, or have anything specific to communicate. Hitchcock shows an evolution in the artistry over time, and his 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much is not as creative as his on 1956 remake. However, I don’t want to compare the two, I want to consider the 1934 film on its own.

The Man Who Knew Too Much is based on book title, a collection of detective stories by G. K. Chesterton. The film uses nothing of the stories.

The plot of the film is basic. Foreign agents plan to assassinate a prominent figure in London. A British couple vacationing in Switzerland with their adolescent daughter intercept a warning for the British consul. The agents kidnap the daughter and tell the couple if they relay the message to the police, they will kill their daughter. The couple return to London where British officials meet them. They have guessed the situation. They tell the couple they must tell them the message or else the assassination could cause a war like WWI. The couple refused, saying they only care about their daughter.

This hostage setup is common in thrillers. Hitchcock uses it clumsily. The criminals are willing to kill anyone at any time. Why didn’t they just kill the parents and leave the child? And why do the parents find the criminals almost instantly, faster than the police? And what’s with the silliness of the dentist scenes? Or the silliness of the cult of sun worshippers (nudists)?

Hitchcock switches between humor, violence, humor, violence, throughout the film. And for modern audiences, the stage and special effects are crude. They are on par with movies from 1934, but most modern film viewers won’t know that.

Hitchcock has said he was an amateur filmmaker when he made the 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, but a professional when he made the 1956 version. To me, the only reason to watch the 1934 version is if you want to have seen all of Hitchcock’s films.

My favorite film of 1934 is Treasure Island with Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lewis Stone, and Lionel Barrymore. Even still, most modern movie watchers will find it crudely made. Treasure Island is superior to The Man Who Knew Too Much in every way, plot, acting, costumes, sets, and special effects, but Treasure Island probably had five times the budget, and was made in Hollywood. The Man Who Knew Too Much is more comparable in quality to Charlie Chan in London from 1934.

The best thing about The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) is Peter Lorre. He couldn’t speak English yet and had to memorize his lines phonetically. He’s not particularly evil or menacing in this film, but he does stand out as a fun bad guy.

However, as I watch these Hitchcock films, I’m disappointed that they never try to rise above just being thrilling or funny. They give no sense of place, history, or society. They offer no psychological insights. Later Hitchcock films offer style, but not this early one.

Comparing it to Rebecca made just six years later in 1940, but in Hollywood, Hitchcock shows a tremendous evolution in filmmaking. It offered so much more, but then Rebecca was based on an impressive book. Then six more years, in 1946 Hitchcock made Notorious, which I found problematic. It wasn’t based on a book and the plot seemed silly.

My current hunch is Hitchcock on his own or working closely with a screenwriter, focuses on pushing just a few kinds of emotional buttons. He likes to create suspense and tension and uses comedy to keep things within control. That’s what we see in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934).

It’s okay if that’s what you like, but I wanted more.

JWH

A Dance to the Music of Time: Autumn by Anthony Powell

by James Wallace Harris

The Valley of Bones, The Soldier’s Art, and The Military Philosophers are books seven, eight, nine in a twelve-volume series called A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. The twelve books are about Nick Jenkins, written between 1951 and 1975, covering Jenkin’s fictional life from 1921 through 1971. The twelve volumes are sometimes published in four volumes named after the seasons. Books 7-9 are called Autumn, or the Third Movement. The series takes its name and theme from a 1640 painting by Nicolas Poussin.

The three books of the third movement cover the war years 1940-1945 and give a rather unique view of England during WWII. Nick Jenkins’ life somewhat resembles Anthony Powell’s life (1905-2000) and some of the characters are based on people he knew. Here is a description of Powell’s military career during WWII from Wikipedia. It is very much like what we read in the three novels. Although we aren’t told Nick won any awards or medals, but then he is a modest character that doesn’t like attention.

Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, Powell, at age 34, joined the British Army as a second lieutenant, making him more than 10 years older than most of his fellow subalterns, not at all well prepared for military life, and lacking in experience. Powell joined the Welch Regiment and was stationed in Northern Ireland at the time of air raids in Belfast. His superiors found uses for his talents, resulting in a series of transfers that brought him to special training courses designed to produce a nucleus of officers to deal with the problems of military government after the Allies had defeated the Axis powers. He eventually secured an assignment with the Intelligence Corps and additional training. His military career continued with a posting to the War Office in Whitehall, where he was attached to the section known as Military Intelligence (Liaison) overseeing relations with, and the basic material needs of, foreign troops in exile, specifically the Czechs, later with the Belgians and Luxembourgers, and later still the French. Later, for a short time, he was posted to the Cabinet Office, to serve on the Secretariat of the Joint Intelligence Committee, securing promotions along the way.

For his service in the Army, he received two General Service medals as well as the 1944 France and Germany Star for escorting a group of Allied military attaches from Normandy to Montgomery's 21st Army Group Tactical HQ in November 1944 three miles from Roermond, Holland then held by the Germans. For representing the interests of foreign armies in exile as a liaison officer he received the following decorations: the Order of the White Lion (Czechoslovakia), Oaken Crown (Luxembourg), Order of Leopold II (Belgium), and Luxembourg War Cross (Croix de Guerre -Luxembourg).[19]

After his demobilization at the end of the war, writing became his sole career.

I find Nick’s story of military training and life on the London home front quite fascinating since the last book I read was about a British bomber squadron and all the books work like a jigsaw puzzle to create one vast image. The most action Nick sees are air raids. In one sequence he describes how several of his friends were killed in a bombing raid, and in another he gives a description of living with V-1 attacks. I was particularly moved by Nick’s observations and contemplations when he attended the VE Day Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

But you don’t read these books for military history. Powell was an observer of people, and so was Nick. Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time is often compared to Marcel Proust’s seven-novel sequence In Search of Lost Time. However, Proust was very inward looking, and Powell was not. We learn little about Nick Jenkins in these novels because he likes to look outward. He is an observer of people, places, and society.

I love Powell’s books because there are so many characters that come and go. I am delighted whenever one returns. Powell’s characters are like real life people, reminding me of people I know who have come into my life and left, but sometimes I run into them again, or hear stories about them years later. That essentially describes the books in this series. It’s sad that in the third sequence, many of the characters I loved reading about die in the war. I was especially saddened by Charles Stringham story. Peter Templer tale ends too, in The Military Philosophers, but it is offstage and mysterious. and there’s plenty of Kenneth Widmerpool anecdotes. He’s everyone’s favorite, getting his own entry in Wikipedia.

The notable new character that enters in these three books is Pamela Flitton, a femme fatale of the first order. She’s a real piece of work and was based on Barbara Skelton, wife of Cyril Connolly. Skelton also wrote novels and memoirs, so now I must read her. Powell’s vicious portrayal of her makes me wonder if he got sued. Her character continues into the final three novels.

Powell’s reputation is on the decline, which is disappointing. He was friends with Evelyn Waugh, Henry Green, and other British writers of the 20th century, which means my TBR pile is growing. I’ve also discovered several articles about Powell and his friends on Google, but I can’t read those articles until I resubscribe to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. That could become a black hole that could capture me forever.

20th century British literature is gently pulling me away from science fiction. Part of that tugging comes from reading A Dance to the Music of Time. Science fiction is known for its world building and the vast fictional landscape created by English writers is becoming far richer and real than the sci-fi alien worlds I’ve lived with for six decades.

For the first six novels, I only rated them four stars in Goodreads, but these last three are five-star novels. I expect if I go back and reread the first six, I will bump up their ratings to five-stars too. And this is a series that I will need to reread. It has over three hundred named characters, and the web of interconnections they make is rich and baroque. It will draw me back in again.

JWH

Rebecca (1940)

by James Wallace Harris, 9/11/23

This is not a review, but my reactions to watching Rebecca, the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock movie with my friend Olivia. I’ve decided I don’t want to review books and movies because that would involve withholding spoilers. I want to talk about how I react to fiction — how fiction works on me.

I don’t think I’ve seen Rebecca before. I’ve started it a few times recently, but in recent years I have had trouble watching movies by myself, so I didn’t watch it all the way through until Olivia wanted to see it too. I’m thankful she came over to join me. Over the past year I’ve encountered several women friends who have told me they’ve read the 1938 novel Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. They all loved the book, and I bought a copy. I started the book a couple of times but didn’t stick with it. I loved the writing. I adore the open paragraphs. du Maurier description of nature taking over the old estate is exactly how I picture nature taking back cities when civilization falls.

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited. 

No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done, but as I advanced I was aware that a change had come upon it; it was narrow and unkept, not the drive that we had known. At first I was puzzled and did not understand, and it was only when I bent my head to avoid the low swinging branch of a tree that I realized what had happened. Nature had come into her own again and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the borders of the drive. The beeches with white, naked limbs leaned close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church. And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognize, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered. 

The drive was a ribbon now, a thread of its former self, with gravel surface gone, and choked with grass and moss. The trees had thrown out low branches, making an impediment to progress; the gnarled roots looked like skeleton claws. Scattered here and again among this jungle growth I would recognize shrubs that had been landmarks in our time, things of culture and grace, hydrangeas whose blue heads had been famous. No hand had checked their progress, and they had gone native now, rearing to monster height without a bloom, black and ugly as the nameless parasites that grew beside them. 

On and on, now east now west, wound the poor thread that once had been our drive. Sometimes I thought it lost, but it appeared again, beneath a fallen tree perhaps, or struggling on the other side of a muddied ditch created by the winter rains. I had not thought the way so long. Surely the miles had multiplied, even as the trees had done, and this path led but to a labyrinth, some choked wilderness, and not to the house at all. I came upon it suddenly; the approach masked by the unnatural growth of a vast shrub that spread in all directions, and I stood, my heart thumping in my breast, the strange prick of tears behind my eyes. 

There was Manderley, our Manderley, secretive and silent as it had always been, the gray stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and the terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls, nor the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand. 

The terrace sloped to the lawns, and the lawns stretched to the sea, and turning I could see the sheet of silver placid under the moon, like a lake undisturbed by wind or storm. No waves would come to ruffle this dream water, and no bulk of cloud, wind-driven from the west, obscure the clarity of this pale sky. I turned again to the house, and though it stood inviolate, untouched, as though we ourselves had left but yesterday, I saw that the garden had obeyed the jungle law, even as the woods had done. The rhododendrons stood fifty feet high, twisted and entwined with bracken, and they had entered into alien marriage with a host of nameless shrubs, poor, bastard things that clung about their roots as though conscious of their spurious origin. A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners. Ivy held prior place in this lost garden, the long strands crept across the lawns, and soon would encroach upon the house itself. There was another plant too, some half-breed from the woods, whose seed had been scattered long ago beneath the trees and then forgotten, and now, marching in unison with the ivy, thrust its ugly form like a giant rhubarb towards the soft grass where the daffodils had blown. 

Nettles were everywhere, the vanguard of the army. They choked the terrace, they sprawled about the paths, they leaned, vulgar and lanky, against the very windows of the house. They made indifferent sentinels, for in many places their ranks had been broken by the rhubarb plant, and they lay with crumpled heads and listless stems, making a pathway for the rabbits. I left the drive and went onto the terrace, for the nettles were no barrier to me, a dreamer. I walked enchanted, and nothing held me back.

du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca (pp. 1-3). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

This is why I wanted to see the movie and finish the book. I wanted to see it even more when I discovered there was a 2020 remake with Lily James, and a 1997 Masterpiece Theater version. What makes this story so compelling that it gets filmed many times? It’s immensely popular, and Hitchcock’s film won an Oscar for best picture. I find such enduring tales intriguing to study. Watching Rebecca with Olivia was just my beginning of studying du Maurier’s novel.

I didn’t know that when I watched Rebecca last Thursday, but reading about the film reveals that Rebecca was the movie David O. Selznick produced right after Gone with the Wind. Two movies about strong-will women. Gone with the Wind could have been titled Scarlett. Rebecca is never shown in Rebecca, but I now picture her as Vivian Leigh.

I was somewhat disappointed with Rebecca. It’s slow to get into. My wife Susan bailed on it after the first hour and left Olivia and I to finish it on our own. But more importantly, it’s the kind of story that withholds information to create suspense, and I dislike that plot trick. Overall, I did enjoy the film.

Don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the film or read the book, because I’m going to give away big spoilers.

The film begins by recreating the dream sequence I’ve quoted above from the book, but it’s shortened and somewhat changed. There are clues to what happens in this dream sequence, but the real mystery is why the dreamer can’t return to Manderley.

The story then cuts to Monte Carlo where a young naive woman (Joan Fontaine), a paid companion to a Mrs. Van Hopper, meets the mysterious Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), aged forty-two. At this point in the movie, the scenes are light and somewhat humorous. Joan Fontaine plays the unnamed young woman as drab, skittish, fearful, clumsy, and innocent. We don’t know why the older, rich, sophisticated man takes an interest in her, but he does, and they quickly marry. This opening is a kind of Cinderella story, and I assume why women like the picture so much.

I didn’t buy it. Maxim came across as a tortured soul, both wise and educated, but mentally imbalanced. If age of consent was based on a relative scale of maturity, then the young girl should have been out-of-bounds. But a discerning Sherlock Holmes might have guessed something here. If Maxim was honest with Mrs. de Winter 2 the whole rest of the picture which turns into a gothic torture tale could have been avoided and we could have continued with a light romantic comedy.

Now we arrive at Manderley and slowly learn about Mrs. de Winter 1, who was named Rebecca. This whole middle 80% of the film is about misdirection. Both the audience and Mrs. de Winter 2 slowly learns about Rebecca and gets an entirely false picture of her. This is exactly the kind of plotting that Alfred Hitchcock loves. He tells this part of the story with many tense sequences, building us up, and then backing off a bit. Hitchcock has hooked an enormous fish and reals us in slowly.

A good part of this action involves Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who is the creepy housekeeper of Manderley. She loved Rebecca. Obviously, du Maurier was a huge fan of Charlotte and Emily Brontë. It’s worth reading the Wikipedia entry on Rebecca, especially the sections on “Derivation and inspiration” and “Plagiarism allegations.” Du Maurier was jealous of her husband’s former lover and claimed it gave her the idea for the novel. Other people thought differently.

Finally, the movie takes a weird twist. We were told Rebecca had drowned and her body recovered. Eventually, her sunken boat is found by divers, and her body is found inside with clues to suggest she was murdered. Jack Favell (George Sanders) shows up and we learned that Rebecca had been fooling around with him. Favell starts accusing Maxim of murdering Rebecca and the plot really thickens. Poor Mrs. de Winter 2 starts going crazy trying to figure out what was going on. It’s then that Maxim confesses what happened.

Up till then Mrs. de Winter 2 thought Rebecca was an angel and perfect wife she could never measure up to. Maxim tells her that Rebecca was a cheating sack of shit who began destroying his life just days into their honeymoon. Mrs. de Winter 2 is immensely relieved because she finally realized Maxim loves her for herself. Of course, there’s the matter of Maxim might be a murderer. But she still loves him. In fact, these revelations empower her to fight for her man.

The film goes through a few more twists and turns to wrap things up with a happy conclusion after the crazy housekeeper burns down Manderley with herself inside. That’s why people can’t go back.

If du Maurier and Hitchcock had not withheld information at the beginning of the story, we wouldn’t have had such a tortured-tension plot. If Maxim, back in Monte Carlo, had told the innocent lady’s companion that he liked her because his dead wife was everything he hated, we would have needed a different plot. That would have been the natural thing to do for most men.

And it’s illogical that Maxim kept Mrs. Danvers on, who worshipped Rebecca and kept half of Manderley as a shrine to her. Most guys would have fired her and gotten rid of everything that reminded them of Rebecca. In fact, the premise that Rebecca could do what she wanted because Maxim wouldn’t want her indiscretions to ruin his reputation is also ridiculous. Maybe it’s better explained in the book, but I find that to be an extremely weak point of the story. Divorce was common enough in England in the 1930s.

Why didn’t Maxim pull Rhett Butler and tell Rebecca he didn’t give a damn about her threats? Both Maxim and his new bride are weak and retreating. Is there another story here? What if Rebecca wasn’t bad? What if Rebecca had to live with a mentally ill husband, the reverse of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre?

Rebecca is essentially a thriller with a major plot twist. That’s the trouble with thrillers and mysteries, they often depend on unbelievable plot points. They contrive and contort their stories. I understand why Hitchcock does this because he loves to manipulate his audience. But I’ve got to ask: Why does the audience accept being manipulated? In one interview I saw with Hitchcock he compared what he did to scary amusement rides at carnivals. Riders know they are safe but love to pretend to be scared. This suggests that most moviegoers loved to be manipulated. I’ve gotten tired of it.

I’m anxious to read the book to see if du Maurier makes the same kind of contrivances in her story. Did Hitchcock bend it to his needs, or did du Maurier have better explanations? Her opening describing how plants take over is very realistic. I’m hoping to find more of that realism in her novel.

Plus, I’ve thought of some things after watching the movie. Why does the crazy housekeeper trick Mrs. de Winter 2 into dressing up as Rebecca for the costume party? She probably knew that Maxim hated Rebecca. On my first viewing of the film, I assumed that Maxim loved Rebecca and blew up at Mrs. de Winter 2 for recreating a painful good memory. But as we know now, it’s a painful bad memory. We knew Mrs. Danvers wanted to kill Rebecca’s replacement, so I should have guessed a different motive for her getting Mrs. de Winter 2 to dress as Rebecca.

This is why rereading books and rewatching movies are important. Since I know the information that du Maurier and Hitchcock withheld, will the story still work? Or will it fall apart? Or will it even work better as I see deeper into a multidimension structure?

JWH

The Personal Insights Found in Watching the YouTube Meme Videos: 10 Albums I’ve Played the Most

by James Wallace Harris

There’s a meme challenge going on YouTube over the past couple of weeks for YouTubers who have channels devoted to collecting albums — What are the ten albums you’ve played the most? Some YouTubers take that to mean over their entire lifetime while others choose to interpret it in various other ways. No one seems to be able to answer the question asked, and I won’t be able to either. I’m going to give ten albums I played the most in the 20th century, and four I’ve played the most in this century. But in all honesty, the ten from the past century were played far more than any this century.

This is an almost impossible task. It challenges those who take up the task to push their memories to their limits. It also reveals delusions we have about what we think we know about ourselves. And it shows how we change over time, even when we think we haven’t. And to be completely honest, we fudge on the selection in favor of what we want to be remembered remembering. Even if you aren’t a record collector, try to adapt the task to something you love, and then give an honest answer.

One thing I found startling about watching these videos is how unique and different the lists are. Humans are truly diverse creatures. When I was growing up in the 1960s there were only three TV channels and AM Top 40 radio. It was easy to find other people who like the same TV shows and songs that you did. That’s almost impossible now. Any Top 10 list you make will be as unique as your fingerprints.

I’ve watched several of the videos and so far, I don’t think there’s been any overlap of albums. Isn’t that wild? And several YouTubers listed ten albums I’ve never played, and some listed albums I’ve never even heard of before.

Visit YouTube to watch some of these videos.

I believe it’s delusional to think we know which albums we’ve played the most if we only go by what feels true. I’m sure people might think “I’ve played that album a million times” it’s obvious that such a statement is hyperbole. I’m not even sure its within reason to say, “I’ve played that song a thousand times,” even though I’ve thought it true about “Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan.

I doubt anyone has kept a diary of when they played an album and have trusted statistics. But that’s what’s fun about this challenge, trying to analyze a pattern that spans a lifetime. Google tells me there’s been 21,183 days since I started buying records in 1966. I was given a few between 1962 and 1965, but I don’t really remember them. Google also says there were 3,026 weeks, and 58 years in that period. There is no album I’ve played every week, but I’m confident there are albums I played at least once a year. Knowing those numbers will help me verify my memory.

I’ve been buying albums since 1966 and I have owned between 3,000 and 4,000. But making even that guess is psychologically revealing. I do know years ago when I ripped my CDs to MP3s that I ended up with over 1,900 of them. I’ve bought many since. I think I’ve bought around the same number of LPs but that’s only a guess. LP buying was dominant for about twenty years, as compared to thirty-eight years of buying CDs. Until the advent of streaming, I often bought 2-4 new albums a week, and during my LP buying years, I often bought used LPs, so that number was higher.

My record playing habit has always been to search for albums I love, play them over and over for days or weeks, and then burn out on them. However, I’d say less than 1 in 10 albums I bought excited me enough to play them over and over like that. Looking at the numbers, I’m guessing I’ve only loved about three hundred albums out of all those I bought, and of that three hundred, only about 30-50 are ones I like to play all the way through when I play them. That means I need to figure out which ten out of fifty I played the most.

The odds are some of the ten from the 20th century are the actual albums I played the most.

Playing around with numbers, I’m going to set my rule of thumb to thinking any pre-2000 album I played more than fifty times is a possibility, and any post-2000 album I’ve played more than thirty times.

20th Century

I know I’ve told people I’ve played “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan at least 1,000 times. That’s only playing it once a day for three years, out of the possible 58 years since I first heard it in July 1965. But if I press my memory hard, I know I never played it daily for three years. And I know I haven’t played it even weekly. But I’ve bought Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde twice on vinyl, once on CD, and once on SACD. I’m confident I’ve played those two albums once a year, and more than likely two or more times each year. That means I’ve easily played them more than one hundred times since they came out.

Now it’s easy to pick the next two albums I played the most, since they are both from the 1960s, and I’ve been playing them ever since. In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s I played Everybody Knows This is Nowhere by Neil Young whenever I needed an emotional boost. It was like cocaine. Playing it just pumped me up, and I played the hell out of it. But I don’t play it much anymore. “Cowgirl in the Sand” is on my standard playlist, so I listen to it regularly.

The Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink by Janis Ian made me a life-long Janis Ian fan. I still play it regularly, and I love hearing the whole album. I even bought it again on vinyl several years ago when I got back into vinyl. (I’ve sold my entire vinyl collection more than once.)

Here’s where the YouTube meme becomes more challenging. My main clue is I’ve had this habit of buying an album and playing it repeatedly until I was tired of it. For many albums that was once. But for some that would be a week or two. In rare exceptions it might be a month. It was always until I found another album, one I had to hear in repeat mode too. I know I used to drive anyone living with me crazy because this habit. All ten of the albums I picked were ones I couldn’t stop listening to for weeks.

In the 1970s, The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East and Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen were those albums I played the most. And I got to see the Allman Brothers live in 1971 before Duane died, and Springsteen live in 1975, during the Born to Run tour. I’m still playing both albums after all these years.

After I burn out on an album I could go weeks, months, or years before I played it again. The best albums would be gotten out again and put on repeat play for a while again. I’m sure I’ve had at least fifty albums I’ve played repeated for weeks. I love soundtrack albums, and Tubular Bells and Gattaca are the ones I’ve played the most, so I’m going to represent all my jazz and soundtrack albums with these two albums.

For most albums I never played them whole but repeated played one or two songs. Boy did I love CDs and having a remote. And streaming made this even easier. I have one Spotify playlist of just songs I love that I put on random play because I love hearing them over and over.

But for the 10 Albums I’ve Played the Most meme I’m pushing my brain to remember only those albums I love playing whole. Gypsy by Gypsy was a double album, but I would play it all the way through almost every time I played it, especially after I got the CD. But to be honest, I only play the first side of What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye — however, that one side is the most perfect side of any album I know.

21st Century

I think many YouTubers didn’t want to tax their memories, so they only pick ten albums they play the most currently or in recent years. I think that’s a cheat. The ten albums I picked for the 20th century are for the fulfillment of the meme. I just can’t let people think I don’t listen to contemporary music. The next four albums are ones I play whole, and over and over since I got them.

I bought young in all the wrong ways by Sara Watkins on LP a couple of years ago when I was giving vinyl another chance. (I’ve abandoned it yet again.) I loved playing young in all the wrong ways every night when I went to bed. I did this for weeks. I have several albums by Sarah Jaffe, but The Body Knows is the one I play most. I still play both albums regularly.

My new obsession is Kings of Leon, and When You See Yourself is the one, I play the most. I have several of their albums. I just love Adele, but 30 was special. I love to play it loud. Well, I love to play everything very loud. Loud for me is eighty-five decibels.

And most YouTubers were emphatic that they were not picking the Top Ten Best Albums. The meme really is about the albums we play the most. But it’s hard to pick a single album you played the most from artists or groups where you love many of their albums. For this meme, the ten selected don’t necessarily mean they are from my favorite artists or groups either.

I know back in the 1960s I played Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and The Beatles the most. But I stopped playing The Beatles as much since. I’ve had two or three Beatles playing jags in the last 50 years, but I never stopped playing Dylan or The Byrds. However, I don’t think I’ve ever played any Byrds album more than fifty times, but it’s close.

To appease my memory and maybe lie to myself mathematically I’m going to pick albums I’m the most emotionally addicted to, the ones I know I return to the most because they sooth my soul. They are the true album forms of heroin. And this might be the solution many YouTubers chose.

There are individual songs I’ve played more than any album by far. Two, “Fresh Air” and “What About Me” by Quicksilver Messenger Service were on two different albums. And they were the only songs on the albums I liked. So, I hate to use those albums for this meme. I could use a best of compilation, but I would consider that cheating on the game too.

There are albums I’m sure that I’ve played more than fifty times that I don’t want to list in my ten. The first album I bought with my own money mowing lawns was the soundtrack to Our Man Flint with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. I just don’t listen to it anymore but back when I first bought it, I wore it out.

It’s hard to be honest answering questions like “What are the ten albums you played the most?” Like I said, I guess there are at least forty other albums that I might have played as much. I hate that I shouldn’t mention them, but I’ve already cheated by giving four albums for this century that I played the most.

If you’re curious, here’s my Spotify playlist of songs I play the most.

JWH

Thinking Outside of Our Heads

by James Wallace Harris

I believe recent developments in artificial intelligence prove that many of the creative processes we thought came from conscious actions come from unconscious mechanisms in our minds. What we are learning is computer techniques used to generate prose or images are like unconscious processes in the human brain.

The older I get, the more I believe that most of my thinking comes from my subconscious. The more I pay attention to both dreams and my waking thoughts, the more I realize that I’m very rarely making conscious decisions.

I might think “I am going to walk across the street and visit Paul,” but I have no idea how to make my body walk anywhere. But then, I’ve always assumed muscle actions were automatic. It was mental actions I believed were conscious actions. I used to believe “I am writing this essay,” but I no longer believe that. This has led me to ask:

Just what activities do we perform with our conscious minds?

Before the advent of writing, we did all our thinking inside our heads. Homer had to memorize the Iliad to recite it. Prehistory was oral. How much of thought then was conscious or unconscious? Have you ever read The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes? I know his theories have lots of problems, but they do imagine what I’m thinking about.

How often have you worried over a problem, say a math problem, or a programming problem, and gave up, but then later, usually after a nap or sleep, the solution came to you? That’s the classic view of unconscious thinking. But even when we’re thinking we’re solving a calculus problem is it really being done at a conscious level? Are you consciously recalling all your math lessons over a lifetime to solve the problem?

How often when working on a Wordle or Crossword does the word magically come to you? But sometimes, we are aware of the steps involved.

In recent years I’ve developed a theory that when we work with pen and paper, or word processor or spreadsheet, or any tool outside our body, we’re closer to thinking consciously. Sure, our unconscious minds are helping us, but making a list is more willful than just trying to remember what we need at the store.

Writing an essay is more willful than woolgathering in the La-Z-Boy. Authoring a book is far more willful still. Engineering a submarine by a vast team of people is an even more conscious effort. Sure, it involves a collective of unconscious activity too, but a vast amount documentation must be worked out consciously.

I’ve written before about this idea. See “Thinking Outside Your Head.” That’s where I reviewed different techniques and applications we use to think outside of our heads.

Many people want to deny the recent successes with AI because they want to believe machines can’t do what we do. That humans are special. If you scroll through the images at Midjourney Showcase, it’s almost impossible to deny that some of the images are stunningly beautiful. Some people will claim they are just stolen from human creativity. I don’t think that’s true.

I think AI developers have found ways to train computer programs to act like the human mind. That these programs have stumbled upon the same tricks that the brain evolved. Many great writers and artists often talk about their Muse. I think that’s just a recognition of their unconscious minds at work. What those creative people have learned is how to work consciously with the unconscious.

What some creative people are doing now is consciously working with two unconscious minds – their own and an AI. There is still a conscious component, the act of working with tools outside of our head. Where the action is, is that vague territory between the unconscious mind and the conscious one.

JWH