eBay item of the week, or, the other Mr. Oswald
The time has come for me to finally rid myself of the strange vinyl I’ve accumulated over the decades. And they don’t come much stranger than this particular item.
The Oswald Case: Mrs. Marguerite Oswald reads Lee Harvey Oswald’s Letters from Russia is an LP with an exemplary descriptive title. It dates from 1964 and features Mrs. Oswald reading Lee Harvey’s letters aloud and commenting on them. I’m not exactly sure how the LP is supposed to make a “case” for Lee Harvey Oswald being innocent of the murder of John F. Kennedy, but it is nevertheless a riveting listen as we hear Mrs. Oswald give her side of the story and, between the lines, express not only her frustration and disappointment with the way the assassination turned out, but also with the way her marriage turned out. It’s not very good history, perhaps, but it is a deeply sad, personal document of a love gone wrong and a country gone mad.
Readers of this journal are under no obligation to buy anything, as we are supposed to be gathered here to discuss screenplay structure, but if it turns out anyone here is interested in buying stuff, mention in your offer that you read about the item here and I’ll give you a hefty discount.
In a bizarre coincidence, Elvis Costello wrote a song about this Oswald as well.
UPDATE: I am a blithering idiot. Mrs. Marguerite Oswald is Lee Harvey’s mother, not his wife. Which would explain why she sounds so old on this recording. And which adds another layer of psychodrama to it.
Speaking of Elvis Costello…
“Calling Mr. Oswald with the swastika tattoo…”
Some additional material on the father.
Full lyrics here.
iTunes Catch of the Day: The Raconteurs
I first became aware of Jack White when his band The White Stripes were garnering praise for their 2001 album White Blood Cells. Back in those carefree and innocent days, the White Stripes were grouped by lazy critics with a then-emerging bunch of white-guys-playing-electric-guitars bands that I liked to call “The Silent-E Bands” because they all, mysteriously, had names ending in a silent E: The White Stripes, the Hives, the Vines, the Strokes. I bought all the records by all those bands because, well, I like to hear music by white guys playing electric guitars and that thing was at the time becoming an increasingly rare commodity.
(A big spark for my interest in the White Stripes in particular was this video for “Fell in Love with a Girl.”)
Here it is seven years later and I’ve sold all those CDs by all those bands back to the used-CD store, except for the White Stripes. The Vines? I couldn’t even tell you what they sounded like, and they made it to the cover of Rolling Stone. But the White Stripes? As far as I can tell they just get better and better, with no upper limit in sight that I can detect.
Jack White, I have found, is what I like to call “the real thing,” a serious, long-term artist exploding with a kind of talent that I think still hasn’t been adequately measured yet. As a songwriter he has a comprehensive understanding of popular music forms to stand beside that of Bob Dylan or Elvis Costello (two anchors of my collection), plus he can play guitar like nobody’s business and sing better than either of those two guys. That, in my book, is quite a formidable package.
A couple of years ago he announced a side project, The Raconteurs, a band with him a bunch of other guys I’ve never heard of but who I am sure are all talented musicians. Their first record I bought and enjoyed but there was something a little pale about it, like the elements weren’t quite gelling somehow. It was a side project and it sounded like a side project. This is not the case with their new album, Consolers of the Lonely which appeared out of nowhere a few days ago (it had no advance publicity) and has not left my attention since. It is dense, loud, poppy, bluesy, rootsy and irresistible. They sound like a real band, mixing together more influences than I can accurately name. It is not a side project, or it doesn’t sound like one at any rate. It sounds like a major release from a major band and I unreservedly recommend this record to the musically inclined.
UPDATE: I thought the Beatles references on this record might have been accidental or unintentional, but check out the vest Jack White wears in this video and compare it to the one worn by McCartney in Magical Mystery Tour. I knew Jack was the cute one.
