Pet Sounds

“Wouldn't it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long?
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong?”

    Beach Boys, “Wouldn’t it Be Nice?”

The 1966 album Pet Sounds, the brainchild of the Beach Boys’ troubled genius Brian Wilson, is considered a classic progressive pop concept album, but initially it received a lukewarm reception in the United States by those who foolishly dismissed the group as past its prime.  It opens with “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” – also the title of Brian Wilson’s 1991 autobiography – and most songs deal with various issues of teen angst.  Its sophisticated production resembled Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound and Beatle album “Rubber Soul,” which Wilson admired and hoped to surpass in sheer brilliance.  The track “Pet Sounds” is an instrumental, and one band mate joked that the obscure title came from Wilson being able to hear animal sounds that others couldn’t, while another claimed it referenced the sounds couples made when they were making out below the neck - petting.

    Isobel Crawley: Oh, just one more thing.  The dog.  What should we do to stop Isis getting into the patients’ room?”

    Robert Crawley: I can answer that.  Absolutely nothing.”

    Scene in Downton Abbey TV series referring to a convalescent ward the Earl of Grantham was funding

Several dogs appeared in the series “Downton Abbey” over the years as the Earl of Grantham’s constant companion, including yellow labs Isis and Pharaoh and then Teo, a present from the Dowager Countess played by the magnificent Maggie Smith. In the recently released movie, which Toni and I saw over the weekend, Teo is back by his master’s side to greet King George V and Queen Mary when they pay a visit.  The film tied up several loose ends, was utterly charming, and drew a large audience, which applauded when the credits came on.

 portrait of Great Britain's Queen Anne

 “The Favourite” (2018), now on HBO, stars Rachel Weisz as Lady Sarah Churchill and Emma Stone as Abigail Masham vying for the affection of England’s Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), who reigned for 12 years beginning in 1702 at age 37.  The last Stuart monarch, the daughter of James II, she endured 17 pregnancies that ended with miscarriages, stillborn births or the baby dying in infancy except for one who succumbed at age 11.  By that time she was overweight, suffering from gout and poor eyesight, and barely able to walk.  The rivalry between Sara and Abigail was based in fact.  Jealous over being replaced, Sara did accuse Queen Anne of having a lesbian relationship with her successor as head of the royal bedchamber.  In “The Favourite” the Queen has a menagerie of 17 bunnies representing the children denied to her, evidently a flight of fancy on the part of the director since rabbits were then considered garden pests sometimes eaten but not fit to be pets.  

Our friends Dean and Joanell Bottorff raised dairy goats when they lived in rural Valparaiso and distinguished between pets, livestock, and wild animals.  Never name goats you might later slaughter for food, they advised from experience, as we prepared homemade pizza topped with sausage made from a goat we once knew as Buttercup. 

Listening to a CD by Carly Rae Jepsen and reading Hanif Abdurrzqib’s  essay titled “The Weekend and the Future of Loveless Sex” in “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us,” suddenly I heard a dog barking upstairs.  It was Maggie May, arriving with Dave, Angie, Becca, James, and two new friends, Asher and Kaitlyn, from Valparaiso University.  After pizza and ice cream we played Telestrations, where you alternatively draw and guess pictures passed around the table and see how far the final drawing has changed from the original.  For example, three Little Pigs morphed into Three Blind Mice and ended up resembling billy goats, the eighth person thought.  I’m pretty bad at it and often was a source of confusion, but it’s mainly for laughs , with no winners or losers.  It was great seeing James and meeting Asher and Kaitlyn, roommates who graduated from Indianapolis Ben Davis, named for a railroad executive who in the 1880s obtained a railway stop for his Marion County community. 

Over the years I’ve had many pets, beginning with the family dog Smokey, which I remember mostly from old photos. When Hurricane Hazel flooded the street in front of our home in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, Smokey got caught in the current and finally escaped two blocks away.  I was in college when the news reached me that he had passed away of old age.  During Phil and Dave ‘s childhood we had a dog Slaughter that an asshole neighbor shot and killed when he wandered onto his property and a cat that I ran over when he was under our parked car.  Lasting longer were a dog Ubu that was scared of its shadow and a fearless outdoor cat Marvin that knew to be wary of racoons but fought any stray cat that invaded his territory, often necessitating trips to the vet.  Pets belonging to various family members are frequent guests, but Toni and I have resisted all efforts to take on the responsibility of another pet.   

The grand 16-hour Ken Burns documentary Country Music opens with a shot of Thomas Hart Benton’s mural depicting musicians playing the fiddle, banjo, mountain dulcimer, and guitar as well as dancers, gospel singers and in the background a riverboat and train.   The banjo player is African American is playing a version of an instrument brought to America by slaves, and beyond the railroad tracks a group of black women can be seen dancing by the riverbank.  Benton painted the mural at age 84 for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and meant for it to be enjoyed  by those who do not normally visit art museums. Burns discusses the influence of legendary black blues performer DeFord Bailey.  Born in Smith County, Tennessee, Bailey learned to play the harmonica at age three, and developed a distinctive style while bedridden for a year with polio.  Listening to stray animals and trains passing by, he developed an uncanny ability to imitate their sounds. During the 1920s Bailey became the first black musician to appear on the WSM radio program Barn Dance, which morphed into the Grand Old Opry.  He performed “Pan American Blues,” named for a train that ran between Cincinnati and New Orleans in 24 hours.  In 1928 Bailey recorded “John Henry” for Victor Records, which was released both in its “hillbilly” and “race” series. 

ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” paid tribute to the incomparable Cokie Roberts, who appeared on the program for many years with David Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, and George Will.  As Cokie once quipped, “They were looking for a skirt” and got much more than they bargained for.  Cokie more than held her own, as Donaldson’s anecdotes made clear.  Once when questioned about rumors of his womanizing, Texas Senator John Tower asked Donaldson to define womanizing.  As he was having trouble answering, Roberts simply said, “You know it when you see it.”  An attorney for President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal was trying to explain Clinton’s argument that oral sex wasn’t really sex, and Cokie interjected, “Would your wife buy that?”  The guest was speechless as the blood drained from his face. Donaldson recalled that when Clinton asked Cokie’s mother Lindy Boggs, retired from Congress and in her 80s, to serve as Ambassador to the Vatican, she was cool to the idea until Cokie said, “Take it, you can do two things you love, go to Mass and attend parties.”  Lindy accepted the assignment.

Ethyl Ruethman with Jordan Ramos; NWI Times photo by Steve Euvino; below, Greta Thunberg

A hundred supporters attended a Youth Climate Strike rally at the open-air pavilion in Portage, the NWI Times reported.  Organized by IUN student Ethyl Ruethman, it was part of a worldwide demonstration in advance of the United Nations Summit on Climate Change inspired by 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.  Ruethman indicted the industrial plants, killing Lake fish, and  polluting the Calumet Region’s air, land, and water resources.  As her sign declared, “Time is running out.”  When Thunberg spoke in front of world leaders at the UN, she told them, “You have stolen my childhood with your empty words. We are at the beginning of a mass extinction and all you talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth – how dare you!”

In Nicole Anslover’s class on Fifties Baby Boomers I discussed coming of age during the birth of rock and roll.  Like most of my peers I preferred the rhythm and blues originals of such songs as “Goodnight Sweetheart” by Gary’s Spaniels to lame cover versions by the Maguire Sisters and, worse, Pat Boone (shudder) butchering Little Richard’s “Tutti Fruitti.”  I told of seeing Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan show from only the waist up singing “Hound Dog,” originally Big Mama Thornton tale and about a cheatin’ husband, not a lazy hunting dog.  Presley’s version of the 1957 hit “One Night” was first recorded by Smiley Lewis with the line “One night of sin is what I’m paying for” changed to “One night with you is what I’m praying for.”  To his credit, Elvis sang the original lyrics at live appearances and acknowledged his debt to black blues and gospel forebears.  According to writer Peter Page, Elvis was devoted to pets over the years, “including a turkey named Bowtie, a mynah bird that repeated the excuses he heard for Presley being unavailable (‘Elvis is asleep,’ ‘Elvis isn't available,’ ‘Elvis isn't here.’), two wallabies from Australian fans (he donated both to the Memphis zoo), various farm animals and many dogs - Sherlock, Brutus, Snoopy, Edmund, and Get Lo, a Chow he once had flown back and forth to Boston on his private plane for kidney treatment. He often gave dogs as gifts, such as the poodle, Honey, to his wife, Priscilla, for Christmas 1962.”

Cousin Tommi Adelizzi, 83, sent me a jpeg of a Lane Christmas card from when I was a teenager.  Tommi (Thomasine) would have been named James Buchanan Lane IV had she been a boy.  Instead, I carried on the name, of my great, great, great uncle, the country’s fifteenth President.   My grandson insists on being called James rather than some nickname. I haven’t seen Cousin Tommi since I was a kid and she a sophisticated teenager when her family came east from San Diego, California, where Uncle Jim had was a co-founder of Chicken of the Sea Tuna Company.  She planned the family reunion in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the home of Wheatland, President Buchanan’s estate, then was unable to  attend.  It was nice to see Smokey in the picture, one I  had forgotten about.