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Music is a “ting,” a magic sound people hear together.

It’s interesting at this moment when Crowe talks about his apotheosis, he distinguishes his writing from discussing “victories” of the “happy/sad,” which is the real story (368). For example, the story about Bowie not remembering the 18 months in LA (310), nostalgia is uncool; survival is happy sad. Survival is standing on The Now side of a wall with your has-been self on the other.

After reading Sinatra‘s behind-the-back hand signals for a couple of weeks, the drummer asked the road manager if he could meet Sinatra. The road manager told the drummer, “no, Frank has met enough people” (367).

Henley compared songwriting to partners digging for “the stuff“: “Details and clues and images, invention, fresh ideas and melodies and intuitive understanding of people” (316).

Henley (“More matter of fact”) & Frey (“Watch it happen“), according to Crowe, “filled in each other’s creative potholes” (316),

Interesting how is Southern Californio like Crowe thinks of Henley and Frey as “carpet baggers” (315).

Crowe’s Led Zeppelin story hits a high-water mark and then keeps going with Jann Wenner’s criticism, which is surprisingly Lester Bangs-ish: “You wrote what they (the band and the fans) wanted you to write” (265). Crowe seems caught between being a fan and being a pro. In fact, he became a pro to gain access to the artist’s world.

Duke: “This is his pardon, purchased by such sin/for which the partner himself is in” (105). As succinct a description of Christianity as I’ve heard.

Where “Sweet Home, Alabama” is concerned, I’m on Team Neal & “Werewolves of London.” At Cruisin’ Grand 8/10, Tommy Kind had a coughing fit mid “Simple Man” and and coughed out, “take it,” to me, so I did in the simplest way I could: “My grandma told me
Use simple words,
So I told her,
The trees are full of birds
And the rivers
Are full of fish
And to catch one’s
My simple wish.”

Finally, Isabella agrees to provide Mariana for Angelo, more self-interestedly than Pompey provides Mistress Elbow to Froth. Does the Duke’s plan “grow” to what Isabella anticipates to become “a most prosperous perfection”? Nowhere is the play more problematic than in Isabella and the Duke pimping Mariana.

The triangle in Act III sc. ii embodies the problem of crossing state, church & family. First, what is the integrity of The Duke impersonating a friar to counsel Claudio to accept capital punishment for the sin of adultery? Second, measure for measure, Claudio would have his sister sin with Angelo—an eye for an eye—to avoid punishment. How perverse is that justice? Finally…

“We’re from fucking San Diego,” he said. “We’re uncool” (210).

“Shut up and deal” from The Apartment, Crowe’s “favorite movie”(208).

Quotes: honesty in the air (201).

“These thoughts (about Duane Allman, Jim Croce, Maury Muehleisen and Gram Parsons) would always lead back to Cathy,” Crowe’s sister who committed suicide. Professional depth leads back to family for Crowe: there is every place like home (193).

Crowe’s first interview is with Cameron Crowe.

After his sister Cathy’s suicide, music became a door that opened for Cameron Crowe (54).

Chp. 11: Alberto Ratto isn’t exactly a doppelgänger, but he and Tony are exiles together. When “Tonio” asks “Albè” to reveal the show’s magic trick, my skin begins to crawl. Magicians never reveal the trick to The Audience. Does that mean the favela was a performance (307)?

Chp. 11: in Brazil, TP gives a long meditation on cockroaches (“scarafaggi” 262-6) and meets Alberto Ratto (267) and his wife Bella Coimbra dos Santos (283).

Chp. 11: Tony lets the band go and never sings or phones Italy again. Is this like Jep turning 65 and deciding not to do anything he doesn’t want to again?

Chp. 10: Tony leaves Maria. Is the decision sufficiently motivated? What was the Rita Formisano interlude about? I get that the baroness turns him on to cocaine, but other than that, they are no reason to sing. They aren’t Beatrice.

I have to say Hand of God revises Chp. 9 admirably where Tony’s beloved is concerned. It’s good to see a writer working through his or her obsessions (225).

Chp. 9 begins with a lot of philosophical musings. Do I take them as Sorrentino’s through the prism of Tony’s unreliable persona? Baroness Eleonora Fonseca “was lazy as a band of Mexicans” appears as its own paragraph. I’m searching for clues in nearby paragraphs to let me say the racism is limited to the character and not his author. No luck.

Chp. 8 follows Tony’s sermon on education with a scene of reconciliation in Rituccia’s kitchen where she feeds him zucchine alla scapece and arouses him with a confession of infidelity with two traveling salesmen. When she ruins his fantasy by approaching him, he ruins hers by saying she reminds him of his mother and by holding her to become a “truly good man” (189).

Chp. 8 begins with Tony at his most philosophical: “ what is fabulous about adulthood, is precisely the scholar, the humiliation, the heart, Scrabble, and the grimness…. We wanted poetry, what we got was a bag, full of aches and pains…. A university professor is always a coward” (163-6)

Chp. 7: Disappointed at the soccer game, Tony visits Rita Fomisano, who disappoints him again, so he throws her around, flees to his lawyer cousin’s office, en route tells story about his brother in law shooting the cousin in the leg for shitting in his hallway. At the law office Mr. Heavy shoots an employee for calling Tony a “minstrel” (161).

Chp. 6: Tony breaks a bedside table (103);Maria wants a divorce because Tony’s “superficial” (104); Tony gives his parking attendant Attilio Colella 200,000 lire to meet a prostitute in Barcelona where Attilio plans to become a bullfighter (107); snorts cocaine on Mimmo’s doorstep (118); and gives Samanta a ride to school and a kiss (121).

Using a New Year’s Eve trying to seduce Antonella as a case study, Tony delivers a lecture that ends with him crying, not unlike Jep’s lecture about how NOT crying at a funeral ends with Jep crying (94).

Somewhere between between skewering academics and celebrating his own skill at seduction, Tony Pagoda lost me. I read at least two pages on autopilot. Who’s at fault, my eyes or his words? (83)

Chp. 4 begins the Beatrice saga of why Tony really sings. Yet his sex-at-first sight feels like satire (70).