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The notes for Real Nighttime are written in the style of the last novel (if "novel" is the right word) by Scott Miller's favorite writer James Joyce: Finnegans Wake. (By the way, there's no apostrophe in that title: it's a pun on the Irish folk song "Finnegan's Wake," but in the song, the title is a possessive proper noun plus a noun; Joyce's title is readable as plural noun and imperative.) The novel is the nighttime counterpart to Joyce's previous novel, Ulysses, which took place during the course of a single day (June 16, 1904, for those who care - a date that's come to be known as "Bloomsday" after one of that novel's main characters, Leopold Bloom). As such, the Wake's language is dreamlike, oracular: in just the manner that a dream-image might meld two seemingly separate figures into one, so Joyce mixes two, three, or more words or ideas into single portmanteau words. So is Real Nighttime Miller's nocturnal meditation on...whatever? And is it the real nighttime, as opposed to Joyce's dream-nighttime? Or is Our Scott's title a reference to the good and child-loving doctor Chilton's "Nightime"? Hey, I dunno, I'm just your humble annotator, not Lamont Cranston. Enjoy. These notes are a collaborative effort: I've put together the final product with contributions from Steve Holtebeck, Doug Mayo-Wells (his mom calls him "!"), Donald X. Vaccarino, Stewart Mason, Jon Tveite, the scholarly Dennis McGreevy, and an anonymous friend of the lloud ffamily, whose waling Wake-cup calls contribute greatly. But first, oscillate palindromically. Superscripted numbers link you to mostly Scott-specific annotations, while highlighted text links you to Finnegans Wake annotations. Note: the Alias reissue "corrects" some of Scott's "misspellings," ruining the effect of many of Scott's puns. The text below is taken from the Restless CD release (in the teensy, eye-straining print). |
Friends, you are about to read off a case of the Black Ditch.1 Sqemish and feignt of heart hid for the hells.2 First, the Patient Wakes with a sense of separation of churn and statement.3 Second, ages of youth prolonged past his prime time (postmature I Ching) distort his deapth-perception.4 Third, the girls are ready to leave (and if they couldn't, it wouldn't be nice).5 Fourth, earrational fear of paternal patronization of his rabid eyemusement (the Bach stops here) comes between the Patient and his Friends.6 Fifth, some journals (though you can only trust the books you write yourself) report instamelity at the original sinapses, inclining the Patient to fall down fights of stares.7 Sixth, heartsick and briandead, the Patient is now a rubbersouled sneaker of the unwashed class, not a namey to his pen.8 Seventh, in lou of treatment for Upside-Down Syndrome, medicine is indicated (the Hero intakes of all). No freedom of movement in between smiling, but in this world too much sound can make you def.9 Eighth, his motor skill is less active, requiring a Velvet Highway replacement.10 Ninth, the Patient goes completely to help! (cf. Cases of Lennin, McArxney, Kharrischev and Starlin vs. the demoman Metaphorstopheles).11 Tenth, an imbalance of pistofsterone sends some Patients off boycotting the American Notsee Party (in Deus Neurotica).12 Eleventh, thanks to the work of Dr. Ilikes Children, he begins riding the road to re-covery (making lots of friends).13 Twelfth, he experiences one last-of-its-kind amotional upevil of all his wasted wants and what-not (Stupid Einstein relates). Pour him a large glass of indylgance, and he should soon syd down, shut off, and let us all get some shut-eye.14 |
1. The phrase being punned on here seems to be "read of a case of the Black Ditch." I'm reminded of "to write off" i.e., to ignore. So to "read off" is something like "to be branded a failure." More literally, we're reading off a case - the record sleeve - and it's a "Black Ditch" (or was): a grooved record. "Case" here begins the medical discourse that continues throughout. Also, we are "reading...a case of the Black Ditch" in that we're reading an example, a case of, Joycean wordplay. And Joyce is, of course, the muse of Dublin - which comes from a Gaelic phrase meaning "black pool" or ditch. The medical reference is probably "the Black Death" or the Plague. (For a while, I thought Scott had embedded a triple pun in "Black Ditch": the British town Blackpool's name is exactly cognate with Dublin's, and I was hoping the "Liver-" of "Liverpool" would mean something similar. Linguists disagree: George A. Stewart in his Names on the Globe claims "liver-" means "muddy, or clotted": I guess that's kind of like "dark" or "black." Nearly the first Beatles reference, then. 2. "Sqemish" (as spelled on the Rational issue) suggests "schemish," and "feignt" combines "feign," "feint," and "faint," suggesting that the "faint of heart" are also deceptive...and perhaps covering up their real, intended target. "Hid for the hells" switches the vowels of the first and last words; it's a pun on "head for the hills." Perhaps the deception of the faint-hearted is hidden, the better "for the hell" of the deception to make its real, deadlier thrust (which might lead to the creation of yet another YAHFA by our poor besieged penman). 3. The capitalized "Wakes" here is a reference to Finnegans Wake, of course. "Churn and statement" is probably a pun on "church and state"; the "sense of separation" the Patient awakes with may be the separation that is birth. "First" refers to the first "song" on Real Nighttime, "Here Comes Everybody" - itself a reference to the main character of the Wake, Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, whose initials reappear in various guises throughout that text. (All the ordinal numbers refer to the disc in this way.) The "churn" could refer to the fragmented, mixed-up quality of this track on the disc (which itself reappears in various guises throughout Scott's catalog) - or it could refer to the indirect, evasive qualities of Scott's lyrics and music, opposed to plain, direct statement. "Churn" gains intellectual interest, perhaps at the cost of emotional statement: another separation. 4. The phrase as a whole seems to align with the mood of "24": sort of a step outside time, looking at oneself changing, aging, as life seems to pass by. "Ages of youth" also may refer to R.E.M.'s song "Ages of You," recorded (with Mitch Easter) half a year before the RN sessions. "Youth prolonged past its prime time" echoes "youth up long past his bedtime," echoing the youth/age dichotomy of the song's lyric, as well as doubts about being "past one's prime." The parenthetical "postmature I Ching" puns "aging" and "I Ching" (and "premature" as well). The I Ching - also called "The Book of Changes," apt to both the lyric and music of this song whose chords change twice per bar - is a means of foretelling the future; "postmature I Ching" might be a paraphrase of "20/20 hindsight." (And might not game theory describe the workings of the I Ching?) The distortion of depth-perception - shortsightedness - is also a means of avoiding one's own mortality - death-perception. "Everything is in terms of next time/ 25,000 more miles to the dateline"; i.e., wait until tomorrow (but here it is...). 5. The first phrase refers to Scott's earlier song, "T.G.A.R.T.G." (the girls are ready to go); the substitution of "leave" for "go" recalls the similar substitution in John Lennon's "She Said, She Said" ("even though you know what you know/ I know that I'm ready to leave"). The parenthetical remark seems to refer to another 1966 song, the Beach Boys "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" The Scottsong in question, "Waltz the Halls Always," also contains a similar phrase in its first line, "I think I saw the movie where you learned that you can't be nice." All three songs perhaps question relationships, whether they should end (Miller's phrase negates the Beach Boys', which wants to initiate - or at least, consummate - a relationship: "wish that every kiss was never-ending"), whether they should continue: issues of commitment vs. freedom ("waltzing the halls"?). The parenthetical reference to the Beach Boys' song strikes me as typically Scott: questioning the value of something if it's regarded as compulsory, if there are no other possibilities. The Beach Boys' song questions its day's mainstream strictures against adolescent sexuality; Scott seems to argue that, far from casting aspersions upon girls who express their sexuality, the cultural pendulum can swing far enough in the other direction that (like certain ex-hippie advocates of so-called "free love" that I've known) women's right to say "no" is denied, viewed as a sign of rear-guard repression 6. "I Mean It This Time" is a song about defying parents (and other authority figures?); thus, "paternal patronization." The interplay between "earrational" (a record company plug? originally released on Rational Records) and "eyemusement" suggests it's irrational to believe what you hear when your own eyes tell you otherwise. "Rabid eyemusement" is, of course, a pun on "rapid eye movement," the sleep state in which dreams occur. It's also what R.E.M. stands for (or not: the band says not really). Calling something "rabid amusement" suggests condescension, patronization: fear that one's "betters" might not approve. Perhaps the reference to R.E.M. (and to Chilton) refers to an "anxiety of influence," more fear of merely creating "insta-melodies" (see below) of no substance or originality (yeah, right...). "The Bach stops here" is a pun on both "the buck stops here" and a reference to the Boxtops, where Alex Chilton served his internship. And of course, on the Chilton record Bach's Bottom, whose title itself puns on AC's past. A specific reference to Bach as musician, Bach as "serious" (vs. pop) musician, as figure of the past, may work here: I can't really tell exactly how, though. As for "comes between the Patient and his Friends," since "the Patient" is "Scott Miller," and since the reader is addressed at the beginning as "Friend," perhaps there's a reference to the "earrational fear" coming between Himself and his fans; i.e., stopping the Bach, the music, from bad advice. 7. I'm not sure about the "some journals" part (one correspondent suggests a reference to the Rolling Stones' Some Girls, by phonetic resemblance), but "instamelity" is a pun on Chris Stamey and the dB's, to whom Game Theory were often compared. Perhaps the first part of this sentence, along with the reference to originality, is a reply to critics who might have claimed Game Theory were just dB's knockoffs? The parenthetical remark about "you can only trust the books you write yourself" alludes to two Elvis Costello titles, 1980's Trust and 1983's "Everyday I Write the Book." Some more phrase-doublin' here: not only "the books you write yourself" (not written by someone else) but "the books you write yourself" (not written to anyone else; written to yourself). Besides the obvious pun on "instability," I persist in hearing "insta-melody" here, as if "some journals" claim that "the Patient" is too facile.... A "sinapse" is a synapse, perhaps a sin lapse, or a sin apse, the apse being the recess at the back of altars, in which holy articles are often kept. A "sin apse" would be somewhat perverse; an "original sin apse" would be a sort of reliquary of decline. At any rate, the last part refers to at least one dB's song ("The Fight"). "Friend of the Family" chronicles a headlong descent into some sort of nightmare (auto/auto metaphor?); here, the pun on falling down flights of stairs (and "inclining"). Our Scott's self-consciousness is perhaps alluded to in "stares," as if these precipitate the staircase precipitations. And that reference to "original sin" - perhaps it relates to the "fall" here? 8. "Briandead" alludes to the death of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones (or that of Brian of Nazareth, for all I know...), and "rubbersouled sneaker" references both the Beatles and Chris Stamey and Mitch Easter's early band, Sneakers. Or "briandead" might refer to Brian Wilson, to the fear that his genius had fallen into "braindeath." "Sneaker of the unwashed class" puns on "seeker of the unwashed glass," i.e., the opposite of the Holy Grail. Its unwashed status also marks it as used, borrowed, not new. And "sneaking" is appropriate, since the borrowed class (or sophistication) is not his own (which gives us "rubber soul" where "rubber" is used as in the phrase "rubber check": no good, the facade only, not the essence). So it follows that our hero cannot truly endorse what he signs: "not a namey to his pen" is, fittingly, the next phrase. "Namey to his pen" puns on "penny to his name," and suggests a drying up of creativity. Furthermore, the phrase is close to "not enemy to his pen": which reads as "accepts his confinement." The confinement is nameless, even unnameable - and escapable until it can be named (in the sense of "recognized").Folk beliefs in many cultures hold that knowing another's true name gives the knower power over that person: the name is the soul. "Pen," in the sense of confinement, suggests an animal state - creatures who, some believe, lack souls. It's also possible to read the pun "not enemy to his pen" as "friend to his pen," i.e, to his writing. This reading may offer something to counter the generally pessimistic notes of decline and anonymity - then again, writing itself can be viewed as a substitute (hence bogus) memory, a standing-in-for an absence. Once more, we have form without essence, shell without soul. (More trivially, and literally, the phrase "not a namey to his pen" might refer to the breakup of the original Game Theory lineup.) 9. The Patient is treated for "Upside-Down Syndrome" (a pun on Down's Syndrome - following on "briandead"?) because, back in the old days, before the invention of the digital steam megaphone, you would have just turned the record over (thus the paragraph break). Another plethora of song references here: Lou Reed, Dream Syndicate (Medicine Show was that band's most recent release at this time; "When You Smile" was a song from their previous issue, The Days of Wine and Roses). The capitalized "Hero" might refer to the early draft of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, entitled Stephen Hero; run together with the beginning of the next word, the Velvets' "Heroin" is spelled out. And "the Hero intakes of all" puns on a Bangles song-title, "Hero Takes a Fall" - here, hero becomes heroine in homage to that band. (Notice, too, the continuating of the "falling" narrative from the original "Finnegan's" ballad.) "No freedom of movement in between smiles" connects to the tired mood of the lyrics to "Curse of the Frontier Land": the smiles seem false, flickers of artificial light on an otherwise gray and vacant landscape. More literally (and more likely...), "movement in between smiles" is speech: this perhaps relates to the last lines of the the song in question, "I don't like quiet rooms but I just can't take that sound." I don't think "def" had its hip-hop connotations as an intensifier when these notes were written, so chalk that one up as another question mark, so far. Or maybe it's a reference to kajillion-selling faux-metallistes Def Leppard. But why? 10. The "motor" here corresponds to "drive" in "Rayon Drive"; "Velvet Highway" is a sort-of paraphrase for that title, as well as another VU allusion. Or replacing the rhythm section? "Less active" puns on that Mitch Easter guy's band, Let's Active. The densely-worded lyrics are in a sort of Dylan/Reed vein (hero intake?); thus the "Velvet Highway" might also suggest Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. 11. Why the names of the obscure Liverpool quartet are crossbred with communist leaders is...well, obscure...but in order, that would be Lenin, Marx, Khrushchev, and Stalin. I can't imagine anyone reading this doesn't know the names of the Beatles.... Another in the chain of odd Soviet references on this album: another is in "I Mean It This Time," the line running "as in Soviet Russia failing to watch the things you say." In an interview in The Bob, Scott said that this song ("She'll Be a Verb") is "about going to hell in a very Beatle-like manner." Curiously, the next song, "Real Nighttime," musically bears some resemblance to "Help!" (tempo, rhythmic feel). Anyway, from that same interview, Scott says that "Metaphorstopheles" is the demon of stopping metaphors. Apparently, in Athens today, you can ride from one part of town to another on a subway system called the Metaphoroi. (Or at least, that's what I read once: any Athenians (Greek, not Georgian or Ohioan) or visitors thereto care to confirm that one?) "Demoman" can also be read as "de-mom man": the Motherless Child (a "Lennon archetype" per one of my correspondents), man robbed of his creator - or perhaps his creativity (thus, stopping metaphors). And as a number of cognitive linguists hold (see Lakoff & Johnson's Metaphors We Live By), metaphor is crucial to language. "Metaphorstopheles" renders one mute, speechless, silenced. Perhaps this explains the Soviet reference: Stalinism, as an extreme expression of statism against individualism, denies to individuals their own right to express, to be. "Demoman" can also be read as "demo-man": perhaps recording a song is a process of verbifying the noun of the demo. So a verb puts things into action (as does, in a different way, metaphor), but there's no guarantee when that action might stop. Perhaps "demon" here is used in the older, un-evil sense; kinda like Maxwell's demon, an agent of sorts, containing or controlling a chain reaction? Another possibility is that "demo" is "the people," as in "democracy": maybe (continuing the Soviet theme) a "demoman" is a demon falsely representing the people ("People's Republic of Yeah Right"). 12. "Pistofsterone" would be, of course, that hormone controlling being pissed off (a pun on "testosterone"). "Notsee" is a pun on "Nazi," implying that they're blind: perhaps this refers to the darkness of Chilton's "Nightime." (That title itself might be a pun: "night time" and "nigh time.") "In Deus Neurotica" puns on the Three O'Clock song, "A Day in Erotica." No real musical similarities, although both songs' choruses contain the word "run." The medical discourse is continued with the reference to neurosis. I'm not sure why "in Deus," except that the song contains an implicit reference to suicide ("if I should look down from my ledge") and some might say that commiting suicide is playing God (neurotically). A stretch. 13. "Dr. Ilikes Children" is, of course, Alex Chilton: why he might be "Ilikes Children" is, well, more than we need to know... (unless it refers to Chilton's cover of "Hey! Little Girl"). The Patient is on "the road to re-covery" because this song is a cover: Big Star's "You Can't Have Me." I'm not sure why he's "riding" that road: because, the song being a cover, he can't be driving; or whether there's a pun on "writing." "Friends" might be a reference to another song from Big Star's third album, "Thank You Friends": as I mention above, this album's title might be an homage to Chilton. 14. As these last two sentences suggest, the album ends on another downbeat note, retrospective this time ("I Turned Her Away"). "Amotional" puns on emotional and suggests both an inability to move (on?) and an inability or unwillingness to be moved, to get involved. "Upevil" puns on "upheaval" and suggests the return of bad thoughts. "Wasted wants and what-nots" echoes and mixes up "waste not want not" (relating to the idea of dissolution here). "Stupid Einstein" is a Three O'Clock song: perhaps Scott's noting some similarity between this song and that Three O'Clock song? There's some similarity in their lead guitar sounds (kind of a shimmering acoustic), but that's about it. Einstein/Quercio might relate not only in the sense of "understand" but also "tell": the latter in a sense because Quercio sings backing vocals on this song. Also, "Einstein relates" is a joke on "relativity." "Indylgance" is an idyll of indulgence in Dylan (or maybe it's an indie glance of elegance); to "syd down," perhaps, suggests that his glass of indylgance makes his malady appear to be blowing in the wind, increasing the Patient's ability to Barrett, should it return. (Sorry: couldn't resist.) "Shut off" is, again, a reference to listening to a record (or CD for those of us with digital ears - not to be confused with those, fingers in ears, yelling at us to shut off the record). I find it amusing that the CD really does end riding the road to re-covery, from Liverpool to Philadelphia (the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand," Todd Rundgren's "Couldn't I Just Tell You"). |
| These notes are taken nearly verbatim from my anonymous correspondent: I've cross-referenced them to Scott's or my notes, as appropriate: (back to beginning of annotations) There are some striking similarities in theme between Finnegans Wake and Scott's notes. For one, the Patient metaphor could have been influenced by the Wake (and another source, which I'll mention later). The book (especially at the beginning) focuses on the elements of the Tim Finnegan tale, and Tim is somebody who has fallen and is now laid out on a table while people party around him and tell his story over and over. (This is the original "Finnegan's Wake.) These stories take various forms, extended right to the very Irish landscape of the book: a sleeping giant with his head the Hill of Howth and his feet in the Phoenix Park. I see many echoes of this in Scott's piece. In general, I think Scott identifies with the Joyce/Dedalus/Shem sort of character: the dedicated, strong-willed artist, with a highly developed personal vision. And I think he sometimes sees himself as persecuted, or at least misunderstood and unappreciated, thus making his most poignant "fall" Lucifer's fall - an idea I think gets elaborated in Lolita Nation, especially with "One More for St. Michael" and the title-phrase lyrics "When the shoulder upstairs gets cold/ If he had his way we'd all be old/ But he's got nerve/ Asking this Lolita Nation to bow and serve," where I hear an echo of Lucifer's (and Joyce's) "I will not serve." The Wake references are in the format (page#:line#). To RN notes * "Friends" -- could also be those who come to Tim Finnegan's wake: "all the hoolivans of the nation" (6.15) Back to RN notes * "Black Ditch" -- "grouching down in the living detch" (8.22) Back to RN notes * "hid for the hells" -- hills for the head, "humptyhillhead of humself" (3.20), and so on Back to RN notes * "prolonged past his prime time" - the wakers tell the giant (Finn or Finnegan) his time is over: "You're better off, sir, where you are, primesigned in the full of your dress..." (24.28) Back to RN notes * "earrational...eyemusement" - repeats one of the basic dichotomies in FW between "sound and sight" (to quote Scott from elsewhere): "of most eyeful hoyth entowerly" (4.36); "Our cubehouse still rocks as earwitness to the thunder of his arafatas" (5.14); Back to RN notes *Re "some journals...report" - FW consists in the "one thousand and one stories, all told, of the same," many of them written (as, for example, by the four annalists) Back to RN notes * "original sinapses" - "this municipal sin business" (5.13) Back to RN notes * "inclining the Patient to fall down fights of stares" - from the "FW" ballad (loosely) Back to RN notes * "the Patient is now a rubbersouled sneaker of the unwashed class, not a namey to his pen" is very reminiscent of the great description of Shem the Penman, beginning 182.30: "with his penname SHUT sepiascraped on the doorplate" and "the worst...for pure mousefarm filth" and "fallen lucifers" and "borrowed brogues" and so on. There's more about his being broke and in debt, beginning 172.11, and it continues to this amazingly coincidental phrase: "All the time he kept on treasuring with condign satisfaction each and every crumb of trektalk" (172.29). Back to RN notes * "but in this world too much sound can make you def": More of the eye/ear bit; the annotator makes a proleptic appearance: "Jute. - Are you jeff?... But you are not jeffmute?" (16.12) Back to RN notes * "his motor skill is less active" - like the sleeping giant: "the brontoichthyan form outlined aslumbered, even in our own nighttime..." (7.20) Back to RN notes * "the Patient goes completely to help!"; "an imbalance of pistofsterone" - the giant awakes, with angry indignation: "Anam muck an dhoul! Did ye drink me doornail?" (24.15) Back to RN notes * "Dr. Ilikes Children" - this was one of HCE's big faults Back to RN notes * "the road to re-covery (making lots of friends)" - again reminds me of the wake and the whiskey being splashed around (though here it sounds like he's taken the pledge) Back to RN notes * "one last-of-its-kind amotional upevil of all his wasted wants" - sounds like the final attempt of the sleeping giant to get up and wreak havoc - as echoed in the phrase "What clashes here of wills gen wonts" (4.1) Back to RN notes * "Pour him a large glass...he should syd down, shut off, and let us all get some shut-eye" - what the wakers say to the giant: "Now be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure like a god on pension and don't be walking abroad." (24.16) And: "Aisy now, you decent man, with your knees and lie quiet and repose your honour's lordship!" (27.22) And: "...O sleepy! So be yet!" (27.30) And: "Repose you now! Finn no more!" (28.34) Back to RN notes |