Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1.5 - #370
Guest Post by Rosecrans Baldwin (Meditations in an Emergency) + "Pique Dame" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - 02/25/22
Today I’ve come out of my month-long sabbatical because we have a very special guest post submitted by Rosecrans Baldwin, who is the author of perhaps the best recent book on LA and certainly my favorite: Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles!
Rosecrans and I met via Andrew Womack, who published some of my work in their online magazine, The Morning News, which you can read here, during the seemingly relatively more chill Obama years.
🇺🇦🕊
Rosecrans started following the Shuffle after Andrew’s guest post, which you can read here.
And he himself and his work then came up in post 187 and then again in post 238 once we started to play tennis together in LA.
I learned that he has a great Substack of his own Meditations in an Emergency.
And also that he is not just an avid player but also a writer of some of the best tennis journalism around right now like this GQ piece where he attempted to qualify for the US Open, LOL!
More on Rosecrans and I playing tennis in a bit.
But first a more formal bio!
Rosecrans Baldwin is the bestselling author of Everything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles. Other books include The Last Kid Left and Paris, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down. His debut novel, You Lost Me There, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
As a magazine writer, Rosecrans is a regular contributor to GQ. Several of his articles have been selected for the Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing collections, and he was a finalist for a James Beard Award in Journalism.
Rosecrans also works as half of a screenwriting team with his partner Rachel Knowles. They wrote the documentary Stone Locals, directed by Cheyne Lempe and Mikey Schaefer, and have developed feature and TV projects with Groundswell Productions, A+E Studios, Atlas Entertainment, Film 44, Gran Via, and CBS Studios, among others. They’ve also written podcasts for Luminary, Western Sound, and m ss ng p eces. For two years, Rosecrans was an on-air commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.
A MacDowell fellow, Rosecrans has taught fiction writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, nonfiction writing at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, and he was an author-in-residence at Miami Dade College’s Miami Writers Institute. In 1999, he co-founded the online zine The Morning News with publisher Andrew Womack and continues to help oversee its annual literary event, the Tournament of Books.
He lives in Los Angeles.
Okay, take it away, my friend!
Following instructions, I pulled up Apple Music and loaded all songs at random. For an added gambit, I decided not to allow myself to write anything longer than it took the song to pass.
“Free,” SAULT, Untitled (Rise)
Saturday nights, pandemic, we ate dinner with friends. Our apartment has a large terrace and for a year-plus, the Sault albums got heavy rotation. At some point in 2021 I stopped listening, it was too emotional, too reminiscent. But I have been listening to Mother by Cleo Sol, Sault’s lead singer (I think?), it’s wonderful.
“Just Like the Rain,” Richard Hawley, Coles Corner
For maybe a decade, I had a superstition on planes, that as long as I listened to a Richard Hawley song during takeoff, everything would go alright. Which, I suppose, it has. There’s something about the echo wash of his guitar, the bright colors of his voice, that always put me at ease. A photographer friend who’s afraid of flying once told me his secret of flying internationally: a Xanax and a Washed Out album. I guess my version is a Bloody Mary and some Richard Hawley, but same difference.
“Serse, HWV 40: Ombra mai fu, ‘Largo’” Renée Fleming, Handel Arias
I prefer opera that’s not in English. It’s easier to put myself into the emotion without it being named in a language I understand, though I wonder, is that more me, less the opera? I listen to contemporary opera, young composers, young librettists, but as soon as it shows up in English, I scurry away when the words feel trite, unable to support so much emotion. However, Renée Fleming singing Handel, dude, strap on the ox-head.
“Light’s in Your Hands,” SAULT, Nine
Lol. The algorithm wants me to write about a pandemic! “Can’t you see the light’s in your hands,” is the chorus, and yes, I see the light, and it’s telling me to bump to the next song. Sorry! Too soon.
“Frauenliebe Und-leben Op. 42 - Du Ring an Meinem Finger,” Lorraine Hunt Lieberson & Julius Drake
Dammit, it seems like the algorithm wants me emotional. Tonight’s either neo-soul or opera? Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is a favorite singer. Her Neruda Songs, her Handel Arias – sorry Renée, but she’s the favorite! The obvious message, at least to me, is that in this period, let us be vulnerable. Let us be emotional. Let us be decadent, selfish, and flamboyant.
“Close all the Honky Tonks,” Charlie Walker
And let us drink cheap beer in cheap bars until dawn.
“Sweetie Cakes,” Count Basie, April in Paris
Oddly enough, my wife and I were just pricing tickets to France this afternoon. We lived in Paris for two years, 2007-2009, I had a job at a French advertising agency, I wrote a whole book about it, I’ve been back a couple times, but not since lockdown. I haven’t been anywhere since lockdown. So, if I read these songs like a horoscope, it seems like the space dust wants me on the move? Enjoying myself, cognizant of where we’ve been but invested in the tomorrow of where we’re going. To make it better. To enjoy it. To respect it. To close down the bars. I will do that.
Ayo!
Rosecrans!
What a post, man!
So much music here that I didn’t know and hasn’t yet been featured on the Shuffle.
The Opera! So gorgeous.
The Sault! So emotional.
And that Richard Hawley, what a vibe!
My mom wants me to fly to Mexico to visit her 🇲🇽🛫 where she is vacationing until March 11th.
I wonder what my music and substance would be if I flew all the way to the South East side of the country, Cancun/Playa Del Carmen?
I’m alcohol/drug/and caffeine-free 🥃🍀☕️ so it’d probably be water, LOL, but I shuffled to see what music it might be and got:
Pique Dame (Pikovaya Dama) by Pyotr ILyich Tchaivosky, Gegam Grigorian, etc.
An Opera song itself 🎭!
But from a Russian composer🇷🇺…oy😒!
Tchaivosky’s The Queen of Spades (Russian: «Пиковая дама»; Pikovaya dama) was adapted from a short story by the Russian writer, Alexander Pushkin.
It’s a somewhat supernatural story about human avarice 💰🤑.
The main character wants to win money gambling so badly 🃏 that he tricks a woman into falling in love with him in order to get access to her grandmother 👵🏻 who supernaturally knows the right three cards to bet on. After accidentally killing the grandmother in the process, he bets on the first two cards, 3 and 7, but then bets on the Queen of Spades ♠️ instead of the Ace of Spades ♠️, which looks like the dead grandmother 👵🏻, losing all of his money, the girl, and his mind, getting committed to a mental institution.
I have my own association with a Queen playing card and mental hospitals.
The Queen of Diamonds ♦️ via the movie 1962 The Manchurian Candidate, which is also about Russia in a way.
The plot centers on Korean War veteran Raymond Shaw, part of a prominent political family. Shaw is brainwashed by communists after his Army platoon is captured. He returns to civilian life in the United States, where he is triggered by the Queen of Diamonds card to be an unwitting assassin to kill the American President in an international communist conspiracy led by the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union, and incidentally his mother…
I myself watched it during a depression in college and while I was smoking way too much cannabis ☘️ which led to my own loss of my mind (in part a delusion about my mom, awww) and commitment to a mental hospital.
I think that’s the right photo?
My Google also turned up something called Terrence Tower, which appears abandoned now.
And quite spoooooky…
Not that I completely disagree with this sentiment below:
So what are the spirits telling me today?
What’s the difference between the Queen of Spades and the Queen of Diamonds?
Is it the change in my perception of my mom that I’ve written about due to the inner work I’ve been doing with the Enneagram and Esalen and more?
How our relationship has changed for the better?
Despite hiccups about consent in memoir?
Does it mean something that today is the three-year anniversary of her husband/my dad’s death?
Probably, LOL?!?!
What of Rosecrans happening to relatively randomly submit his guest post for today?
Is there something about how he has become, even though he’s not that much older than me, a Gen Xer, a fatherly/paternalistic influence on the tennis court?
Sorry if that’s embarrassing, R!
Always providing new tips.
Like how to do a jump step before receiving a serve?
How to rotate your shoulders when hitting a forehand?
And book and Instagram follow recommendations like The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance and @patrickmouratoglou.
He was also super supportive of my founding of Doubles for Singles 🎾💘: a meetup group for lovers of tennis who also happen to may be looking for love in LA.
We had our first meetup last Friday, the 18th.
And it went well!
We had three women and two guys and so plenty of mixed doubles was played :)
There was one woman who was particularly sporty 👱♀️ and it was really fun to hit with her when she was so good at tennis.
Dare I say there was perhaps even a sexual tension about who could ‘dominate’ the other in the point/game/match?
And then a companionship vibe at other times when we were on the same team?
Afterward, though, when everyone went home, my sexual instinct started acting up a bit….
I texted a friend who I talked with the week before and her friends about how German TV shows show actors wearing shirts but no bottoms in random non-sexual nude scenes.
We sometimes send each other nudes, which I wrote about here.
I happened to be wearing one of my tennis sweatshirts but no bottoms, so I took a photo and offered to send it to her 🍆.
She said she wasn’t in the mood at the moment, LOL 🤷.
Then someone on a group text I’m on mocked the Trans swimmer 🏊♀️ from my college, Penn, who is winning all the female records.
And instead of defending her enough.
As someone who had just enjoyed a genderqueer graphic novel Witch Boy 🖌 🧙 that week.
As well as someone who had also just written a skit for Haggadot.com that’s coming out soon about a Jewish child ✡️ in Egypt who wants their father to recognize their non-binary gender in order to prevent the potential loss of their life when God passes over Egypt to slaughter 💀 the firstborn in houses that don’t put lamb’s 🐑 blood 🩸 on their door even though their father only considers them a girl.
And as someone who also feels somewhat genderqueer…
I merely went on Pornhub 🤭 and masturbated to some Trans pornography.
It wasn’t a particularly healthy depiction of Trans sex.
It involved self-shaming and self-humiliation.
Don’t search for this, LOL, it’s dark AF.
So anyway after that was over.
And I felt particularly low.
I shuffled and got…
No joke, no lie, all truth:
“Tennis Court” by Lorde
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I immediately thought of my dad/spirits/or whatever you want to call the mystery ?
The song, of course, has chorus…
Let's go down to the tennis court
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)Let's go down to the tennis court
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
Let's go down to the tennis court
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
Let's go down to the tennis court
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And also lyrics in the verses that make me feel OK to continue to write unvarnished about even the shadowy depths of my Self:
It's a new art form, showin' people how little we care (yeah)
And even mentions of airplanes 🛫🇫🇷 for Rosecrans, LOL:
Pretty soon I'll be gettin' on my first plane
I'll see the veins of my city like they do in space…
We're so happy, even when we're smilin' out of fear
But yeah, it’s really about that chorus, right?
Let's go down to the tennis court
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
Let's go down to the tennis court
And talk it up like yeah (yeah)
Tonight, Friday, 2/25, also happens to be the second Doubles for Singles meetup 🎾💘.
Who knows if that woman 👱♀️ will be there?
Who knows if I should be forcing a future on us (probably not, LOL)?
Who knows if anyone will be there (We have only 2 signups as of right now, LOL)?
Anyway, I’ll be at the Griffith Park tennis courts on Riverside Drive from 7 PM to 10 PM tonight.
If you want to talk it up, come down!
Thanks again for the guest post to the always interesting Rosecrans Baldwin who is also always so supportive…
Here’s one last link to his website.
And a 🎾💘 gif to vibe out on…
Okay, that’s the three hundred and seventieth Shuffle Synchronicities.