7. Play it again, Sam... and again... and again...
Humphrey Bogart (again) didn't actually say "play it again, Sam". He said, "You Played it for her, you can play it for me". Anyway, when he said that, he was talking to Dooley Wilson...
Nothing too heavy or existential for our final Cynical Self-Help post of 2023, though it is about something our brain does, and I imagine it's something we all experience from time to time... probably with greater frequency as time goes by.
You go upstairs to get something from the bedroom. By the time you reach the bedroom, you can't recall for the life of you what it is you want or why you came upstairs in the first place.
It doesn't have to be upstairs - it can be as simple as going from the lounge into the kitchen. Or even opening the fridge door. Why did I come here? What did I want?
For a long time, I believed this frustrating phenomenon was the result of advancing years. Then again, considering that it's been happening for as long as I can remember (although, as we've just discussed, "as long as I can remember" is a relative term), I've long worried my years actually started advancing at a very early age.
Turns out it's nothing to do with old age at all though... it's what scientists call The Doorway Effect. A series of experiments by Gabriel A. Radvansky and David E. Copeland which commenced in 2006 concluded that...
Memory was worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance within a single room.
One explanation for this effect is down to what neuroscientists call episodic memory...
Episodic memory involves the ability to learn, store, and retrieve information about unique personal experiences that occur in daily life. These memories typically include information about the time and place of an event, as well as detailed information about the event itself.
Simply put: if you have a thought in one room, then try to carry that thought to another room, it becomes harder to remember. You wouldn't have forgotten what it was you were looking for if you'd stayed in the room where you first realised you'd lost it. Of course, that causes something of an issue when it comes to looking for them...
Louise gets very frustrated when she asks me to do a job, or add an item to the shopping list, and the first thing I do is run for a notepad to write it down.
"Why can't you remember?"
At last - I have an answer to that question! But will I be able to remember it when I go downstairs to tell her?
Another potential explanation for the doorway effect involves a slightly more complex understanding of how our brains are organised. BBC Science expounds...
As we move through our days, our attention shifts between [different levels of thinking] – from our goals and ambitions, to plans and strategies, and to the lowest levels, our concrete actions.
That's a clumsy generalisation of the different levels of thinking, but the fact is that our brain switches effortlessly between these different levels throughout the day. That's why we can drive home some days without thinking about the journey (or the mechanical process of changing gear or swapping pedals) at all. Other days though, our thoughts might be dominated by those things - if traffic is bad or our car is making a strange noise.
The way our attention moves up and down the hierarchy of action is what allows us to carry out complex behaviours, stitching together a coherent plan over multiple moments, in multiple places or requiring multiple actions.
They liken this to the old metaphor of spinning plates... but every so often, a plate falls and we can't remember what we're doing or why we're doing it.
Our memories, even for our goals, are embedded in webs of associations. That can be the physical environment in which we form them, which is why revisiting our childhood home can bring back a flood of previously forgotten memories, or it can be the mental environment – the set of things we were just thinking about when that thing popped into mind.
The Doorway Effect occurs because we change both the physical and mental environments, moving to a different room and thinking about different things. That hastily thought up goal, which was probably only one plate among the many we’re trying to spin, gets forgotten when the context changes.
If you want to remember more - stay exactly where you are! (Sidebar: would I have done better in my GCSEs if I'd done all my revision in the hall where I eventually sat the exam?)
No. This is the frustration we feel when we leave a room after an argument or contentious conversation and - too late! - come up with the pithy reply or put-down we should have used at the time. I'm kicking myself I didn't say...
A fire officer came to visit our workplace last week. When he looked at our fire plan, he complained that it wasn't a procedure, it was just a series of actions. I wish I'd thought to hand him a dictionary and ask him to look up the actual definition of "procedure". Too late now...
Yes, I'm using the same picture I did yesterday. Because I'm too lazy to change it, and because sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude, in Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide. But sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man. Aw. I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. Here's this week's answers...
10. Cat sits on white wine.
Cats sit on mats. As readers of the Oi, Frog! books will know.
These are The Bens, a super-group comprising of Ben Folds, Ben Lee and Ben Kweller, artists who all did time in my record collection before joining together like the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers into a huge unstoppable indie robot of destruction. Or something.
Anyway, they seemed the perfect choice to illustrate our choice of Ben, Benjamin and Benny songs, although you guys were also kind enough to suggest...
And then there's my millennial hipster politico friend, Ben, who is way too young and cool to participate in blog-reading. He's of the podcast generation. Which, if you ask me, are just blogs for people too lazy to read. Anyway, Ben suggests...
Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie
Ben's choice of song is a b-side ("because, of course...") cover of a Freedy Johnston song...
I should take this opportunity to point out I have a Ben Gibbard live solo track in my hard drive (plus all the obvious Death Cab stuff) and it too is a cover...
Anyway, more from my millennial hipster politico friend, Ben later.
At this point, I feel I should remind you all of the rules to this game. We're not after artists with the name Ben (although I'm happy to give them a mention if they're of the calibre of the Bens above)... but songs that feature them.
The Bad: in We Didn't Start The Fire, Billy Joel (not Benny Joel) lists:
Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur
Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro
Edsel is a no-go
It runs to 4 verses before he realises that he's only got to 1963, so compresses the next 30 years into a single verse.
Now even if you didn't know (which you do) that Billy is one of my favourite artists, RD... well, I never understood the hate that's always thrown at this track. It's almost become cool to hate on it. But even though it's not Billy's finest hour, I will defend it to my dying day. It's a great pop song.
The bleedin' awful (although some may like it): that song by Wacko Jacko about a rat.
Yes, we'll get to that in a moment.
First though, here are the scrapings from my hard-drive...
As for Ben songs, I don't have much. Will there ever be a time when it's ok to enjoy MJ songs in a guilt-free manner? I always loved the rat song so hope it does end up in there but would understand why it might not.
What about my millennial hipster politico friend, Ben? If anyone can advise us on such a PC-minefield, surely it's him? Except... turns out it's a little more complicated than that.
I'm named after the Ben that Michael Jackson sang about in the 80s.
Ouch. So you're named after a rat?
No, that sick kid who died in the hospital in the 80s.
Now I have to admit that I have no recollection of this myself, but my millennial hipster politico friend Ben claims that MJ sang the song as a tribute to a sick child back in the decade he was only born right at the end of. I did question what he knew of the 80s based on his tender years, to which he replied:
I use Boys From The Black Stuff and Robert Palmer as the two extremes, then just make assumptions about what goes in between.
(This is the kind of reply that makes me feel like Ben and I should do our own middle-aged loser vs. hipster politico podcast... however, the likelihood of me ever having the time to indulge in such fripperies seems zero.)
Anyway, the point is, I never really got an answer on whether it's OK to listen to Michael Jackson songs these days. So I'll play this instead...
While The Soul Of A Collector offers a favourite of mine from years gone by...
If we are allowed to include clocks in the figurin', then I am guessing there are a number of songs alluding to London's famous timepiece, the best of which I can come up with is:
Ah, Ben/Benjamin, my first love was called Ben, and I have fond memories of holding hands with him on a Summer afternoon. I was only six (and so was he, I hasten to add!)
As for songs - I brought Mr SDS (who is not called Ben) in on this one and he came up with a slice of '60s garage pop called 'Ben Franklin's Almanac' by the Cryan' Shames. None from me, I'm afraid.
This one was suggested by my millennial hipster politico friend Ben, who always insists he isn't a Benjamin himself.
I should point out that when I asked him to contribute to this post, I did tell him that the choice of name for this week was in no way down to him. Subconsciously, however, it probably was, since our ongoing text chats about music, film, comics and the occasional bit of politics (which I only pretend to understand) over the past few months have been one of the only things that have kept me sane. I should thank him for that. But I probably won't because neither of us do sincerity very well.
British born rapper who wears a Doctor Doom mask to perform and the song features the line:
Getting Benjamins like Nettenyahu
...speaking to the absolute corruption of Nettenyahu as the leader of the Israeli state whilst putting a spin on the traditional rap conceit of hustling, suggesting it's not always a good thing.
Don't worry, I didn't understand that either. But I do like that he wears a Dr. Doom mask.
Oh, look, it's that Ben Folds guy again. I don't feel too bad about featuring him twice (as I've long been a huge fan) because Alyson emphatically stated:
Ben Folds for the artist.
And Martin added:
Plus anything by the always-excellent Ben Folds Five.
This isn't actually by the Five, but it does owe more than a little debt to this...
(As does Ben's whole career, come to think of it.)
I'll start with the obvious one, said Charity Chic, and indeed it was, so a few of you also suggested it. It's a great live performance, lyrically satirising the music industry of the 70s, with more than just a passing nod to Ziggy Stardust, I reckon, care of Bernie Taupin.
And if you don't like that, perhaps you'll prefer the Beastie Boys... ahem... "sloppy version"...
Top of Brian's list and almost at the top of mine. Brilliant stuff.
He's saving up for a new Ben Sherman He says he'd like to fuck Uma Thurman I don't think that he'll get too far With either those dreams He's got his eyes on a pair of Pumas He says I should cut my hair like Uma's If he thinks I'd go along with His sordid fancies
1. Shack - Streets Of Kenny
I've got to give this week's win to John Medd though. It's only a lyrical nod (in a song already featured in Kenny Wednesdays, way back when)... but what a song!
Looking for the boys again
Can't find Joe or Benny
NEXT WEEK: OUR TOP TEN BARBARA / BARBRA / BARBIE (!?) SONGS
Once again, there will be an obvious Number One. But what else can you find to fill out the 10...?
The latest Mercury Rev album is a bit of a curiosity. A reworking of Bobbie Gentry's second album, The Delta Sweete, it sees regular Rev vocalist Jonathan Donohue hand over his mic to a stellar range of guests, including Norah Jones, Phoebe Bridgers, Beth Orton, Margo Price, Vashti Bunyan and Lucinda Williams. This patchwork quilt of a tribute album shouldn't really work, and I half-expected to be grumbling that "none of them (even Lucinda) can hold a torch to Bobbie's originals", yet I've found myself getting sucked in with progressive listens.
As you'd expect from a Mercury Rev record, the arrangements are lush and sparkly and trippy, like something out of a dream, a hallucination, or a David Lynch film. For the most part, the guest vocalists rise to the occasion, either by being faithful to Bobbie's interpretations... or, particularly in Lucinda's case, being true to themselves. Actually, Lucinda is given the toughest draw - a cover of Ode To Billy Joe, which wasn't even on the original album but... well, it's Ode To Billie Joe. How could they resist?
Only occasionally does the odd vocalist betray her more contemporary roots by indulging in the kind of histrionics favoured by modern chart divas and X-Factor contestants... but I won't name names. Bobbie wouldn't approve. For the most part though, I think she'd be pretty chuffed with this tribute. We may never know, since she's shunned the celebrity life for over 40 years now. But let's at least hope she earns a few pennies towards her retirement from this...
C cracked the cryptic clue, then claimed to have blanked any memory of Pseudo Echo's "hit" from her mind. Brian came to the rescue, saying, "We are laughing our asses off listening right now. Worse than I even remember." Now remember, Brian, every record featured in Saturday Snapshots comes from my own personal collection. I'd never feature an artist here that I don't own at least one song by. So watch what you...
No, you're right. It's pretty awful.
7. A Rutger Hauer film makes Mica hot.
No, this is not The Hitcher. Or Blade Runner. It's Ladyhawke.
At the end of The Empire Strikes Back, the ghost of Yoda tells the ghost of Obi Wan, "that boy was our only hope." Ben replies, "no, there is another..." His sister...
I was reading Huey Morgan's excellent music book Rebel Heroes: The Renegades of Music & Why We Still Need Them and was impressed by the respect he gave Bobbie Gentry for being one of the first ladies of country music to take serious control of her own career, writing and producing a lot of her own work. I wasn't familiar with much of her work, beyond the big hits (Ode To Billie Joe, her Number One cover of Bacharach & David's I'll Never Fall In Love), so I picked up a CD that combined two of her most successful albums, Ode To Billie Joe and Touch 'em With Love.
There is lots to love on that record, but The Girl From Cincinnati is definitely a favourite at the moment. A bonus track, not on either of the albums, but released as a single in 1972, though it never charted. It's the classic story of a small-time girl lured to LA with big promises only to find it a real struggle to survive. One thing's for certain: she ain't going back to Cincinnati...
I was friendly with producers And was heading out with the stars I played the backseat heroine In a thousand different cars
From Cavalier to Playboy To the Johnny Carson show To holding up some dogfood For a firm in Idaho
I've a screen-test every weekend And I'm constantly on call I'll be twenty-five next summer And thirty-five next fall
