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The insanity in my office last week over the World Series and the
breaking of the Curse of the Bambino (yes, people really do talk like
that) got me thinking some more about baseball. Not about the game
itself, which doesn't interest me,
but about the way art portrays it. And my thoughts turned to
Van
Lingle Mungo, a song whose lyrics consist entirely of the
names of baseball players. A lot of sports writers think there's
poetry in the game; Dave Frishberg's the one who proved it. And the
more I thought about the song, the more I wanted to hear it. That
led, as it must (or there'd be no point in writing about it here), to
the iTMS. Which led me to an entire album of Mr. Frishberg's songs.
I knew nothing about Dave Frishberg beyond Van Lingle Mungo,
which I quickly discovered is just one of several compositions that
mention baseball. With his quirky voice and his accountant look, at
least on the album cover, Mr. Frishberg seems an unlikely artist.
Which I think is a big part of his appeal. And then there's his piano
playing, which is every bit as smooth as his voice isn't. And yet it
all works, the songs and the piano and the voice, sort of like a
Tabasco smoothie would.
(If a Tabasco smoothie worked. Which it doesn't. So don't try it.
Better yet, do. Then you can tell me all about it.)
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