Good Book Summer

No, that book is not "The Story Of The 2023 New York Mets"

Apparently in Wes Anderson's new movie, Asteroid City, there's a line uttered by a car mechanic which encapsulates the current mess we're living in at this moment in time. 

"It's all connected, but it's not working."

This. Technology, specifically the internet, was supposed to bring us all into one consciousness or something cool and weighty like that. Instead we're all arguing, even though I'm right and you're wrong 100 percent of the time. Rich dudes take over our favorite hellsites and ruin them. Hate abounds. The air outside is poison. It kind of feels like after the summer of 2022 was designated as the summer to get everything in that you couldn't in 2020, we're having ourselves a bout of depression from it not meeting our expectations. A hangover if you will. And don't get me started on the Mets.

(Gets started on the Mets) They are the most expensive team ever assembled, with a new comically-giant scoreboard and controlled smoke popping out to accentuate each starter's entrance onto the battlefield and speakeasies and goodwill from the year before. They're seven games under .500 at nearly the halfway point of the season. 

There can be no summer in 2023 named for a Met. They are collectively a disappointment. Mark Canha is still refreshingly an athlete who is not a moron troglodyte, and his bWAR at the moment is decent for a dude who doesn't play every day in mid-to-late June, at 0.7. He connects with the ball still. But the team, as a whole, is not working. Theme summers aren't supposed to fit, they're supposed to be aspirational. The Mets are definitely not aspirational.

The Anderson line might give us a clue to the true song of this summer. We can't do "Next to Normal" by Lucius again. As great of a tune as it is, there are no repeats, for no two summers are the same. Besides, personally I feel nowhere near normal these days. "It's all connected, but it's not working" reminded me of the last time a line nailed the zeitgeist on the head. It was from the 2019 Sleater Kinney number "Can I Go On." Pretty much all of the lyrics are spot-on. 

Everyone I know is tired

But everyone I know is wired

To machines, it's obscene

I'll just scream 'til it don't hurt no more

Everyone I know is happy

But everyone I know is napping

Half the day thrown away

But I can't find the thrill anymore

Everyone I know is funny

But jokes don't make us money

Sell our rage, buy and trade

But we still cry for free every day

Everyone I know is bored

But everyone I know is floored

Crawl around on the ground

Let the sound of your blood lead the way

The chorus is decidedly not summer-y, however.

Maybe I'm not sure

I wanna go on, I wanna go on

Maybe I'm not sure

I wanna go on at all

We run into a similar problem with another contender for the throne: BC Camplight's "I'm in a Weird Place Now" from 2018.

My eggs are fried, I can't seem to stay alive

I'm in a weird place now

I pet my dog, now he's on fire

I'm in a weird place now

My mind's a child, he isn't mine

I'm in a weird place now

And there's somethin' about, hanging around

Makes me feel like I'm already gone

Oh oh, I mean it, I'm sick of this shit

I'm in a weird place now

While truthful and capturing the emotions of the time, you can't say you're motivated by it. Not song of the summer material either. 

We're going to have to go back to 1977, with the help of 2019 technology and anxiety-induced energy. The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" originally came out the same year as New York was going through what author Jonathan Mahler called a "spiritual crisis."  The Bronx was burning to a crisp, New York City was fighting not to go bankrupt, and crime was mostly everyone's hobby. There was even a blackout. People thought NYC as we knew it was doneso. And of course the Mets traded The Franchise and sucked ass. It wasn't until Tropical Fuck Storm's awesome cover of the song that I realized the Bee Gees song wasn't just about walking down the street with your shirt half open eating a slice and inexplicably not getting mugged during the day and dancing to disco tunes on coke at night. 

TFS's interpretation gives the song a muscular sonic punch that fits perfectly with the lyrics that describe the inner turmoil and tension that seems to have come back with a vengeance the past few years. 

(Personally I prefer the studio version of the cover because you can hear clearly hear the incredible bass line. But you can't go wrong with either.)

The Austrlian rock band made me pay attention to the lines I missed the first time:

I've been kicked around since I was born

And now it's alright, it's okay

And you may look the other way

We can try to understand

The New York Times' effect on man

Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother

Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'

Well now, I get low and I get high

And if I can't get either, I really try

You know it's alright, it's okay

I'll live to see another day

Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me

So thank you, Aussies, for exploring how we feel: horrible, but kinda free and open to dancing in the streets.

I wouldn't go so far as to call for a Fuck It, Let's Dance Summer. There would be too much guilt in fiddling while Rome burns, you know? Besides, we can't go outside or our meat will turn inside out. I'd suggest staying in and watching Mets baseball, but we're trying to have a good summer of 2023. 

How about Good Book Summer? Reading a book is like exercise: we all know it's good for you, and you have confirmed this personally, so of course you don't do it nearly often enough. Pretty much any tome that isn't from Kyrie Irving or Mark Ravenhead's personal collection will do. Rick Perlstein's Nixonland/The Invisible Bridge/Reaganland triptych teaches us how the Republican party got to be the way they are in a lengthy, entertaining way that makes you realize the past was just as fucked up if not more so than now. I'm not a fiction person, but I didn't stop hearing about Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow novel, and oh man, it's like a great movie you see in a theater (memba those?) - it sticks with you for days and even weeks. It's a bit about the creative process, which I'm always interested in. How do you get from nothing to something? The boring and accurate answer is it takes time. It wouldn't kill us to unplug for awhile, to disconnect, to turn it all off and turn it back on again, and seeing if this time it'll work.