Ordinary Ecstasy

Joy comes in packages of varying size and elegance

Here’s another post about the role of play in contemporary life. —Jim

Unsurpassed pleasure: Styx, “Blue Collar Man,” 1978

The longer I live the more awed I am by the sheer plenitude of ways we moderns have come up with to pass our spare time, a telling indication of our relative prosperity and the dazzling scale of commerce that has sprung up to cater to the most arcane desires. There are the obvious pastimes, like sports (whether as spectators or participants) or the arts (ditto). But there are plenty of others that don’t fit squarely into such categories: travel, cooking, car maintenance. And things that people find ways to be passionate about: cigars, fashion, memorabilia of all kinds. People spend fortunes on things on which neither you nor I would spend a dime. More than that: the powers of discrimination that are brought to bear on such things—the texture of the gold; the nose of a wine or a whisky; the rarity of a first edition Charizard Pokémon card. Certain pleasures, like a good meal or the presence of a loved one, are universal. But a great many of them are head-scratching in their appeal to all but aficionados.

There was a time when I was inclined to discriminate among these pleasures, to make distinctions between them, or even to rank them in moral worth. But this may be one of the few ways in which I’ve become more rather than less of a democrat as I’ve aged. One might think, for example, that there is an important qualitative difference between someone who plays a sport and someone who merely watches it. And in some ways that’s certainly true. (I’ve got a mental image in my head of an overweight fan complaining about an athlete’s performance while he reaches over to grab a fistful of corn chips.) But from the standpoint of sheer joy, it’s not necessarily the case that one who actually makes a winning play is experiencing more satisfaction that the person who witnesses it. (Here I’m imagining the dedicated fan who has waited a lifetime for a championship and the agile young player who’s thinking about a contract extension as the crowd goes wild.)

The other point I want to make here is that as much as we all recognize that connoisseurship allows those who achieve it to appreciate value quality in ways those who lack such connoisseurship cannot, such mastery can become a matter of diminishing returns. I’ll illustrate the point with an example from my own life. Like a lot of people my age, I became a passionate fan of rock & roll early in my adolescence. My introduction came by way of the Beatles, who had already broken up by the time I discovered them in the late 1970s. It was a good apprenticeship; my joy in this music has been a great gift that keeps on giving. In listening to Beatles songs to this day, I can experience pleasure in at least three ways:

• Encountering sheer sonic excitement of those chords, those melodies, those voices;

• Remembering where I was at earlier points in my life when I heard the songs (a source of appeal in music generally);

• Reappraising the songs in light of later knowledge or experience.

Inevitably, though, after an early, exclusive immersion in the music of the Beatles, I sought out bands who were actively recording and touring. Instinctively, I wanted to be part of dramas that were unfolding before me. But which ones? In retrospect, I can tell you that this was to a great degree predetermined based on all kinds of sociological factors of which I was barely aware, some of which you can instantly surmise: white, boy, suburbs, etc. Though this can never explain everything. If it could, there would never be any flops instead of a great many. Or, for that matter, surprise hits.

To make a long story short, I fell in love with the Chicago-based progressive rock band Styx. “Prog,” as it was sometimes known, sought to elevate the quality and prestige of traditional rock & roll by embellishing its blues core with self-conscious gestures from classical music. It has not aged well since its seventies heyday, and was widely attacked by rock cognoscenti even in its heyday. Here’s what the late, great rock critic Lester Bangs said about the 1978 Styx album Pieces of Eight in Rolling Stone at the time: “What's really interesting is not that such narcissistic slop should get recorded, but what must be going on in the minds of the people who support it in such amazing numbers.”

Allow me to tell you. In September of 1978, I was a high school sophomore who would return home from school to a delightfully empty house on what I recall as amazingly crisp fall days. I would get myself a snack, put Pieces of Eight on my cherished stereo system, and crank the first single from the album, “Blue Collar Man,” loud enough to make the house shake (I’ve got the better part of a lifetime of tinnitus to show for such habits). “Blue Collar Man” was a common specimen of rock anthem, this one sung from the point of view of an unemployed laborer who still holds fast to his American Dream. (Here’s a clip of Styx performing the song in its early-eighties heyday, and I must say that writer-guitarist Tommy Shaw is a hell of a singer.) I can still recite lyrics —lines about long nights, impossible odds, and having one’s back to the wall, among other clichés—from memory.

Here’s why I’m telling you this: as someone who went on to get a Ph.D. and develop powers of critical discernment about as good as any to be found on this planet, no musical experience I’ve ever had has exceeded the sheer ecstasy of listening to “Blue Collar Man” in an empty house at high volume on autumn afternoons. (Dennis DeYoung’s churchy organ riff! Tommy Shaw’s muscular guitar solo! All that righteous indignation!) I’m not indulging in nostalgia here; the point is not that I can still access such emotions—my enthusiasm for “Blue Collar Man” was that of a callow boy who’d never done an honest day’s work—but rather that I’ve spent a lifetime in an ongoing quest to at least match that euphoria, like an addict needing an ever-higher dose to get high. Fortunately, I’ve largely given up trying, generally settling for milder pleasures and savoring the unexpected excitement that occasionally comes my way. As with so much else in life, I play the percentages—which is to say I play it safe.

Listening to “Blue Collar Man” illustrates one facet of what might best be understood as a ritual: a repeated set of practices from which one derives pleasure precisely because they are repeated, fostering a sense of order and security in otherwise random, unchosen and/or unpleasant circumstances.  This rock & roll hobby included bike or bus rides to record stores, listening sessions with my buddy Rob—who would get a doctorate of his own and become a professional percussionist—or poring over magazines like Rolling Stone at the library, where I would be puzzled and disappointed by the likes of Lester Bangs dismissing the music I loved the most. (Have you seen Cameron Crowe’s classic 2000 film Almost Famous? Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a marvelous turn as Bangs—Hoffman was somebody who brought joy into my life every time I saw him act.) Eventually, I would conclude that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, and would ultimately publish a couple of reviews in Rolling Stone myself. In a sense, I got paid for playing; my instrument was a different kind of keyboard. I’m still playing, though usually smaller arenas, which include the classrooms where I ply my musical passions for a living. This particular piece of entertainment—I hope that’s what it is—comes to you free of charge. Value undetermined.

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