Introduction
Life is a pause and no one knows of the time or place of the next action. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, the past however is full of memories that shape the person that we are today. People look at their state I life and react as one of two ways, as in the book they are not pleased with their state in life or the other alternative is to be completely happy with your life as it is now. Pause is powerful beyond imagination as if a shuffle playlist keeps haunting you. Because of the uncertainties, people may regret on things they have done. However, music offers an escape for people because music is a time machine for people. Music enables people to travel back and forth as it moves us back instantly to periods of our lives that are only happy memories now.
The play shows the viewer this is the character of Bennie Salazar. Through breaking down Bennie Salazar, the reader makes it progressively through the years through the music. It is in Bennie's dialog that we discover the title of the content — regardless of the way that it was said before—in Bennie's dialog it has enough energy to make it comprehend the group of onlookers the fundamental importance of the book. In addition, Bennie is at the focal point of the music business, which she straightforwardly utilizes as an innovative motivation for the structure and topic of the content
Music can transcend time. There are many pieces that are considered timeless. They belong to no particular time or place and are available to all for the generations who appreciate the classics. Before the world adopted the internet and all life turned toward immediacy the internet served as s tool and not as a player of timeless treasures. With the RealPlayer many of the classics can be enjoyed over and over. This helps to keep the timeless of music alive. The Internet and quest for immediacy is overshadowed by the ability to encourage oneself listen to the timeless music of Bach, Mozart and others.
In these timeless classics the sensitive ear will note some of the modern commercials or quips from these classics that have been reformatted for more modern times. This adds to the complete enjoyment of the timeless music. Even with the Internet most everything has a date of expiration, some more pronounced than others.
When music is considered timeless is often in reference to universal subjects. The subjects that make it timeless are often those most notably inherent in human feelings and nature. Additionally events that are significant in one’s life that they are always relevant such as love, losses, happiness and fortitude are some of the timeless life experiences. People like to hear the music that reminds them of the life changing or life altering events in their own lives. These events serve as parts of life that all people can relate too. In the story of the “Visit from the Goon Squad” many of these timeless events occur.
Bernie and Scotty are two of the main characters that are singled out for the demonstration of the timelessness of music. Egan through these two characters shows that music marks the passage of time and that music is truly endless. Music for them marked the time together then separate and then finally together again.
Bennie is a record producer who was formerly a punk rocker in his teenage years. The problem is that he has lost the thrill of working in music. This loss comes at a time which can be attributed to just working with music for so long of a time that he is bored or from a myriad of other reasons. Too many of us when we have a dream job or work in the field that we had hoped to this happen. We lose interest. This is a normal course of life for some more than others. However, it appears that this happens more often with creative people and that they simply burn out of their creative endeavors and is felt lacking in ambitions toward the field. For most the lack of excitement is reached in all types of work but he creative endeavors seem to burn out faster.
Bennie is married and has a son, Chris. His wife is Stephanie, a tattooed suburban housewife sneaks off to play tennis with the Republicans, who divorces Bennie because she feels that his loss of sex drive with her must be related to his fooling around with other women. She does not connect his loss of interest in sex to his loss of interest in music. He tries to maintain a relationship with his nine year old son throughout the book.
Bernie listens to the sounds of his youth of a washed up band in his own basement in suburban USA. He wonders about the guys that were in the original band and what they are doing and throughout the book we are given images of the lives and accomplishments or failures of many of them. They revisit him back to 1979 and the timeless of the music creates a sense of reminisces of when his interest in music was heightened. In Chapter three of the story the band is back together in the basement of Alice’s house when they were teenagers. Pretty typical of high school kids is the remark, ”After my freckles are gone all of life will be like this”(51) The house was proverbial hangout for the group and talks go about the Flaming Dildos rehearsal in Scotty’s garage. The love of music for these teenagers is remarkable and timely as the youth of their lives is marked by music that unbeknownst to them this was the best times of their lives. This music is etched forever as a great experiences for them and each time that they hear the music that they plays each is transformed back to ta happy time.
Another main character that is in the band is Scotty, whose life is out of sorts and he drifts about in his thinking. In their later years, Scotty hears from Bennie in a note that was probably written by his secretary, “Scotty baby, thanks for the noteI still think of the Dildos years, sometimes. I hope that you’re still playing that guitar” (93). When Bennie gets to talk with Scotty after many years apart, the first thing that Bennie asks him is “You still doing any music, Scotty?” (102) as Bennie is obsessed with the idea that his music is not doing anything for him anymore.
Scotty’s mother died when he was just a young boy and most of his life remained unremarkable except for getting to marry Alice. Alice was young and pretty. The punks that she hung out with in her garage seems a far cry from the appearance of Alice as she had long blonde hair. To prove that she was blonde she loved frogs. Scotty is in love with her from day one, marries and divorces her.
In their teen years all of them were basically on the same path but as the years turned into adult years, Bennie went on to be a record producer and Alice and Scotty married. Scotty quits playing music and showed up at Bennies, dirty and forlorn. They almost went through the same process as Bennie and Stephanie, together, apart and then reunited. Music provided the means for the full circle. The music was their power to overcome all other obstacles and it was a timeless part of their lives. Music guided them through life at a parallel and at polar opposite times, but it was always a part of their adventures on the journey.
In the final chapter of the book, the music is prevalent in the reunion of Scotty to the music industry. The music helps Bennie accomplish this feat. The two perform together again and both discover that their lost passion for music was truly still very much a part of them. The words of a timeless love song come to mind in that the reunited song lyrics explain the feeling that they are reunited and it feels so good, reunited and it is go for you.
Bosco
The last character for review is Bosco is a character that never wants to grow old. Bosco fights the effects of age on his life especially in the poundage area as the years have helped him gain weight that he has no ambition to lose. Bosco turns out to be a fat man that has no limelight left in his life. It was not always like that but it is now. Bosco is a case in point for our thesis that life offers you pauses. In his youth he does not want to ‘fade away” instead he wants to flame away. He thinks that time’s a goon” (129).
It is not as though Bosco does not know that his life is fading away as he does. He has awareness about the things that happen to him. He is however very immature in the way that he handles it. One more tour and that will make him happy, He will feel young again. This immaturity leads him to want the tour to be a suicide tour to promote his final album and kill him in the same way that he used to live as a young person. He gets help from the fountain of youth so to say as the gets this sudden and overwhelming energy as he tries to explain his idea to Stephanie. Mentally he stays struck in this younger mental state even though his body is not.
In the end his appearance counted more than his talent. The value in the music industry changed also as the enthusiasm is not enough for the way that he looks and portrays himself. In the past all that audience looked for was his talent. Today he finds that the audience wants good looks and talent. “Jules had been wandering the loft, eyeing the framed gold and platinum conduit albums paving the walls” (126). As time changes though appearance is more important.
The feelings that Bosco elicits is a process that most people go through as they mature. That is what makes the music from our youth as important as that is the only reminisce from the past that stays constant. All people have changed as they grow up and take a place in society as an adult. The clothes don’t fit; their friends are not the same. The memories and the intrinsic feelings are the same though. It is almost as though the youth happened to someone else. And those are the feelings that Bosco is having while he is looking at the album covers, was that really him back then,
The music comes into play by bringing Bosco back to the time of his youth and helping him to engage in the feelings of nostalgia. This rather obese rock star wants Stephanie to help him with the Suicide Tour. Stephanie is trying to rehabilitate a genocidal doctor’s image though and does not want to help him.
Egan so wonderfully winds the stories of people’s lives with the interplay of music. They are embedded in the somewhat lopsided entrepreneurs who are the creative business people and the bohemians who are still playing the punk rock. The tales of all of their lives are so interwoven that the novel ends up being very complicated. It is the life of the musicians of the early rock scene coming to life before our eyes, punky and paunchy all at once. Bosco’s getting fat is one of the phenomena that he shares with rest of the rock age performed who have reached midlife crises dates of mind. The Suicide Tour that he dreams up and wants Stephanie to help him with is a good example of this. He says, “I’m done I’m old, I’m sad-that’s on a good day. I want out of this mess. But I don’t want to fade away, I want to flame away-I want my death to be an attraction, a spectacle, a mystery.” (129).
Music offers the escape to Bosco that makes him want to be back on tour. Gone are the extra pounds and the problems that they create, gone are the years, but back come the music and the feelings of euphoria that it brought in the days of his youth. The Suicide Tour had a big mission but it never was able to prove its point.
Life gives us pause
Jennifer Egan proved the idea that life gives us all pause. She portrayed the story of the main characters in the middle life and showed that they were shaped by their teen and childhood experiences. Bennie for example is portrayed as an aging executive for rock music which was a fate that he never wanted. Shasha and Lou grow older and they found that they had little control over who they turned out to be. They were simple acting out what they were during their youth.
The story shifts back and forth brilliantly as the reader is never lost as to where you are in the story line. The many different timelines do not get confused as the story progresses. The characters are seen listening to music of the time periods, like the sixties they were listening to the music of the sixties so that he reader always knows where the time line is at. Then the time shifts to a more modern day approach and the reader is given a look at the similarities and differences of the times. This is a brilliant way to show that the characters themselves have not changed in time nor are they about to change any time in the near future. The music may have changed in the main stream but to the characters it is still the same. At each and every step the story gives the reader a sense of the negative thoughts and feelings represented as a result of the difficulties that life put in their paths.
Music takes all of us back to a time in our lives. Memories can be bad, dull, and boring is forgotten when music transports up back to happy times. In our thoughts when words are not enough, music helps by speaking to a language that emotions understand. Music is not just the noise that instruments play. Music is for most people that feeling or language that offers a source of passion for life, that joie d’vivre that makes the mundane parts of life sparkle as we think of the music playing. Joust of images of a happy care, free teen years invokes as a song of the sixties is heard. Music inspires our passion to be the person that we thought we would be then and not the person that life helped us to become.
Music is a universal language that changes even the most obstinate of people. It transforms the major characters in the play even after their midlife years are confused and unfulfilling. The transformation allows for a reunion. This reunion would not have been possible without the separation and different life experiences. Music united all the various characters of the book. Even though their teen years were different they all understood the same language of music. As older adults their lives were very different but they all understood the language of music. That is because there is a certain type of unity that comes from music. There is a pause in the lives that transcends age, obesity, sex and other human characteristics and just concentrates on the music. Music encourages the unity of a diverse group of teenagers into an oneness in their teen years and in their adult lives.
Music elicits an emotional response from all of us. Music can change the hearts of people. Remember the times that you are sad, listening to your favorite tunes conjures up happier times. Music has been known to free the soul. Just think for a moment about your teen years if you were on a football team and you now hear a marching band. That sound of the band transcends you back to the football field. Maybe a favorite love song brings you back to the time of your first kiss, which is something that can only happen once in a person’s life. Nursing home patients are good examples of music being timeless. They respond to the music of their youth and many homes will hire a band or play music from the bygone eras to sooth the elderly. The look of excitement in their eyes when a young group comes to sing to them a song like “You are my sunshine” gives total credence to the argument that the song reminds them of fun times when they were younger.
Work Cited
Egan, Jennifer. (2010). A Visit from the Goon Squad. Alfred Knopf.
