Dispatches from the Forgotten Stars: the newsletter of author Kelly Sedinger - Issue #6
kellysedinger.substack.com
Hello, everyone!It's been about a month since the last issue, which is again longer than I'd planned...but I never much intended for this to be a specifically formal thing, so for now I'll just keep to my current approach of "Huh, been a while, maybe I should send out a newsletter. As I write this, the Bills are gearing up to face their new Eternal Nemesis, the Kansas City Chiefs, in a game at Arrowhead Stadium. (They sure do seem to wind up playing in Arrowhead a lot, don't they? Blame the NFL's weird scheduling.) We're at the time of year when my meal-planning shifts from focusing on the grill to the crock-pot, the Instant Pot, and the Dutch oven (though tonight I'm firing up the waffle iron). Leaves are falling, the sun is setting much earlier now, and the coffee is tasting the way it's intended.In short, Ahhhhhhhh.First, a few links, to posts on ForgottenStars.net::: Highlights of a Fall Train Ride. If "autumnal color" is a thing that happens where you live, and these kinds of train rides exist there, I can't recommend one highly enough. (And I can't help noticing once again how the folks who built Interstate 90 in New York, the "New York State Thruway", managed to put it through the state's most boring continuous strip of land. Seriously, you get, like, a quarter of a mile to one side or other of the Thruway, and you see beautiful stuff. Ditto the trains that follow the same general course.:: Thoughts on "Democracy", my favorite Leonard Cohen song.:: Highlights of our annual trip to the Ithaca Apple Festival. My fall vacation is generally the longest I take of the entire year, and the Apple Festival in Ithaca is our usual destination. This was our first AppleFest since 2019--COVID canceled the 2020 one, and the 2021 version wasn't finalized until after we had to commit to a hotel room and we ended up picking the wrong weekend--and we had a wonderful time.:: A history of my laptop life. Since the last issue, I've got myself a new laptop! Huzzah!:: A bit of silliness: Can you identify famous people when their faces are covered with pie? I have an odd affection for the pie-in-the-face gag, so this was a fun post to put together.Here are a few links to other things out there that I found interesting or compelling::: A profile of the world's greatest stone-skipper. Not only was I never aware that competitive stone-skipping was a thing, but this article hit home because the man in question's life unfolded (and continues to unfold) not far from my original home of New York's Southern Tier. I've been through many of this man's haunts and can picture the landscapes of his life quite readily.:: An article in The Atlantic about the actual lessons of Avatar's success. I've noted a strange delight people take in dumping on what was a huge hit of a movie, but whose sequels have been over a decade in the making. This article pushes back on that a bit.What else has been happening? Well, we continue to miss our late greyhound Cane, whom we had to put down on September 11. We miss him terribly but we seem to be reaching the point where we can remember his antics and quirks with smiles and laughter rather than tears and the sharp pain of having lost him so quickly. I've also found myself turning, as I often do in sad times, to music...and as I listened anew to one particular favorite album of mine, I remembered that this exact album played a role in my first real experience with grief.The album is Van Halen's 5150, which came out in early 1986. I didn't know anything about Van Halen at that time, being mostly a classical and movie-music listener who was just starting, at the age of 14, to explore rock and pop, just a bit. But a guy a year ahead of me in the high school band, a trombone player named Kevin Parker, took me under his wing a bit as a fledgling rock fan--seriously, I didn't know anything about pop or rock at the time, beyond what was on MTV--and he introduced me to Van Halen, whose new album with the band's new lead singer, Sammy Hagar, had just come out.While I did, in pretty short order, fill out my Van Halen record collection with all six of the David Lee Roth-era albums (and yes, that's some of the best rock music ever made), I was able to love the Sammy Hagar era equally, partly because that's where I entered the whole Van Halen thing to begin with. 5150 was a huge album in my life, and I learned to love just about every single song on it. (The last song, "Inside", is a weird one that I must admit stopping early many times when I'm playing the record.)This was all in late winter and spring of 1986, and I explored Van Halen more over the summer, along with others. Then, in September of that year, in the very first week of school, my grandmother (on Dad's side) died. Now, we had always had cats as a family--sometimes a lot of cats--so I was familiar with the grief of pets dying. But when Grammy (she was Grammy, and my other grandmother was Gramma) died, that was my first experience with a human member of the family dying. It was hard, and I really had little idea of how to process it.It was September 5, 1986. No, I don't remember the date, but I was able to Google it because it was a Friday night and the MTV Music Video Awards were airing that very night. My parents went out, and I watched the show alone, not with a great deal of enthusiasm...until they cut to one of their featured live performances. It was Van Halen, from a show in New Haven, CT, on their tour for 5150. They did "Best of Both Worlds", which is one of the best songs on that album, and the live performance that night was an absolute joy to watch. You can see the sheer delight on the faces of the entire band, but especially Sammy Hagar, who looks as if he can't believe his sheer luck in getting to sing with this band whose guitar player is one of the greatest ever. Watching that performance--which you can watch and hear right here!--was, on that sad night, a balm for me. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a reminder that there is still music in the world. And joy. There was still grieving to do, a whole lot of it...but Van Halen's 5150 helped me through, starting with that very night.Of course, the history of Van Halen is a messy one, and things would eventually get bad between Hagar and the Van Halen brothers, leading to his departure some years (and four albums) later. The post-Hagar era got even messier, and remained something of a mess until Eddie Van Halen's sad passing. I remember reading an interview with Sammy Hagar not long after his first departure from the band, in which he said something like, "I know I'll never make music again that's as good as what I made with Eddie, Michael, and Alex."I didn't listen to 5150 the night Cane died, or even in the first couple of weeks. But a Twitter discussion led me to this Rolling Stone interview with Sammy Hagar (I think the link is paywalled now, sorry) in which Hagar talked with frankness about is reconciliation with Eddie toward the end of his life, his ongoing hopes for reconciliation with Alex, and his thoughts in general on Van Halen from the distance of years and death. Reading this interview put me in a mind to listen to 5150 anew...and once again, I found in it some rocking balm in a sad time.Especially "Best of Both Worlds".And hey, Kevin Parker? Thanks for introducing a trumpet player who didn't know a damned thing about rock music to Van Halen. It's a lesson I've never forgotten.That's all for now. See you 'round the Galaxy!-K"I want the best of both worlds,And honey, I know what it's worth!If we could have the best of both worlds,we'd have heaven right here on earth...."
Dispatches from the Forgotten Stars: the newsletter of author Kelly Sedinger - Issue #6
Dispatches from the Forgotten Stars: the…
Dispatches from the Forgotten Stars: the newsletter of author Kelly Sedinger - Issue #6
Hello, everyone!It's been about a month since the last issue, which is again longer than I'd planned...but I never much intended for this to be a specifically formal thing, so for now I'll just keep to my current approach of "Huh, been a while, maybe I should send out a newsletter. As I write this, the Bills are gearing up to face their new Eternal Nemesis, the Kansas City Chiefs, in a game at Arrowhead Stadium. (They sure do seem to wind up playing in Arrowhead a lot, don't they? Blame the NFL's weird scheduling.) We're at the time of year when my meal-planning shifts from focusing on the grill to the crock-pot, the Instant Pot, and the Dutch oven (though tonight I'm firing up the waffle iron). Leaves are falling, the sun is setting much earlier now, and the coffee is tasting the way it's intended.In short, Ahhhhhhhh.First, a few links, to posts on ForgottenStars.net::: Highlights of a Fall Train Ride. If "autumnal color" is a thing that happens where you live, and these kinds of train rides exist there, I can't recommend one highly enough. (And I can't help noticing once again how the folks who built Interstate 90 in New York, the "New York State Thruway", managed to put it through the state's most boring continuous strip of land. Seriously, you get, like, a quarter of a mile to one side or other of the Thruway, and you see beautiful stuff. Ditto the trains that follow the same general course.:: Thoughts on "Democracy", my favorite Leonard Cohen song.:: Highlights of our annual trip to the Ithaca Apple Festival. My fall vacation is generally the longest I take of the entire year, and the Apple Festival in Ithaca is our usual destination. This was our first AppleFest since 2019--COVID canceled the 2020 one, and the 2021 version wasn't finalized until after we had to commit to a hotel room and we ended up picking the wrong weekend--and we had a wonderful time.:: A history of my laptop life. Since the last issue, I've got myself a new laptop! Huzzah!:: A bit of silliness: Can you identify famous people when their faces are covered with pie? I have an odd affection for the pie-in-the-face gag, so this was a fun post to put together.Here are a few links to other things out there that I found interesting or compelling::: A profile of the world's greatest stone-skipper. Not only was I never aware that competitive stone-skipping was a thing, but this article hit home because the man in question's life unfolded (and continues to unfold) not far from my original home of New York's Southern Tier. I've been through many of this man's haunts and can picture the landscapes of his life quite readily.:: An article in The Atlantic about the actual lessons of Avatar's success. I've noted a strange delight people take in dumping on what was a huge hit of a movie, but whose sequels have been over a decade in the making. This article pushes back on that a bit.What else has been happening? Well, we continue to miss our late greyhound Cane, whom we had to put down on September 11. We miss him terribly but we seem to be reaching the point where we can remember his antics and quirks with smiles and laughter rather than tears and the sharp pain of having lost him so quickly. I've also found myself turning, as I often do in sad times, to music...and as I listened anew to one particular favorite album of mine, I remembered that this exact album played a role in my first real experience with grief.The album is Van Halen's 5150, which came out in early 1986. I didn't know anything about Van Halen at that time, being mostly a classical and movie-music listener who was just starting, at the age of 14, to explore rock and pop, just a bit. But a guy a year ahead of me in the high school band, a trombone player named Kevin Parker, took me under his wing a bit as a fledgling rock fan--seriously, I didn't know anything about pop or rock at the time, beyond what was on MTV--and he introduced me to Van Halen, whose new album with the band's new lead singer, Sammy Hagar, had just come out.While I did, in pretty short order, fill out my Van Halen record collection with all six of the David Lee Roth-era albums (and yes, that's some of the best rock music ever made), I was able to love the Sammy Hagar era equally, partly because that's where I entered the whole Van Halen thing to begin with. 5150 was a huge album in my life, and I learned to love just about every single song on it. (The last song, "Inside", is a weird one that I must admit stopping early many times when I'm playing the record.)This was all in late winter and spring of 1986, and I explored Van Halen more over the summer, along with others. Then, in September of that year, in the very first week of school, my grandmother (on Dad's side) died. Now, we had always had cats as a family--sometimes a lot of cats--so I was familiar with the grief of pets dying. But when Grammy (she was Grammy, and my other grandmother was Gramma) died, that was my first experience with a human member of the family dying. It was hard, and I really had little idea of how to process it.It was September 5, 1986. No, I don't remember the date, but I was able to Google it because it was a Friday night and the MTV Music Video Awards were airing that very night. My parents went out, and I watched the show alone, not with a great deal of enthusiasm...until they cut to one of their featured live performances. It was Van Halen, from a show in New Haven, CT, on their tour for 5150. They did "Best of Both Worlds", which is one of the best songs on that album, and the live performance that night was an absolute joy to watch. You can see the sheer delight on the faces of the entire band, but especially Sammy Hagar, who looks as if he can't believe his sheer luck in getting to sing with this band whose guitar player is one of the greatest ever. Watching that performance--which you can watch and hear right here!--was, on that sad night, a balm for me. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a reminder that there is still music in the world. And joy. There was still grieving to do, a whole lot of it...but Van Halen's 5150 helped me through, starting with that very night.Of course, the history of Van Halen is a messy one, and things would eventually get bad between Hagar and the Van Halen brothers, leading to his departure some years (and four albums) later. The post-Hagar era got even messier, and remained something of a mess until Eddie Van Halen's sad passing. I remember reading an interview with Sammy Hagar not long after his first departure from the band, in which he said something like, "I know I'll never make music again that's as good as what I made with Eddie, Michael, and Alex."I didn't listen to 5150 the night Cane died, or even in the first couple of weeks. But a Twitter discussion led me to this Rolling Stone interview with Sammy Hagar (I think the link is paywalled now, sorry) in which Hagar talked with frankness about is reconciliation with Eddie toward the end of his life, his ongoing hopes for reconciliation with Alex, and his thoughts in general on Van Halen from the distance of years and death. Reading this interview put me in a mind to listen to 5150 anew...and once again, I found in it some rocking balm in a sad time.Especially "Best of Both Worlds".And hey, Kevin Parker? Thanks for introducing a trumpet player who didn't know a damned thing about rock music to Van Halen. It's a lesson I've never forgotten.That's all for now. See you 'round the Galaxy!-K"I want the best of both worlds,And honey, I know what it's worth!If we could have the best of both worlds,we'd have heaven right here on earth...."