WHAT A RELIEF!: By the time you read this, the Mariners may have clinched the AL West championship and secured a role in the baseball playoffs. They were damn close to the clinch when this was written, but with the state of the Ms’ bullpen all year long nothing was sure. For just such jittery situations, Queen Anne-based Beadle Enterprises now offers Ninth Inning Worry Beads. These translucent plastic beads on a metal string come in Mariner blue and tourquoise, with a tiny wooden baseball and bat attached. The company claims they’re just the thing to “soothe nasty symptoms associated with penant fever. Twirl them. Rub them. Jiggle them. Hold them in your hands and pray. They’re almost guaranteed to work.” (Sales info: 217-9002.)

A SCHMICH IN TIME: Earlier this summer, a humorous text document was disseminated on the Internet far and wide, labeled as a commencement address to MIT graduates by author Kurt Vonnegut. Then, Net news sites (and mainstream news media) reported it was a hoax: Vonnegut never spoke at MIT, and the witty words-O-advice to today’s youth were from a Chicago Tribune column by Mary Schmich. Earlier this month, the Seattle Scroll ran a story about Internet rumormongering, claiming (via an email message from one Jem Casey, purportedly reprinting a Chronicle of Higher Education article) the hoax story was itself a hoax–that Vonnegut really did give the speech at MIT, and nobody named Mary Schmich had ever worked for the Tribune. From there, Scroll writer Jesse Walker uses the case to chastize the media for their collective “Internet hysteria.”

Walker’s arguments are well-taken and I agree with most of them. Too bad the anti-hoax message he opens his piece with is, you guessed it, a hoax. All Walker had to do was look up the Tribune‘s Schmich page (www.chicago.tribune.com/columns/schmich/archives/97/803.htm) to learn she’s real, she really wrote the words-O-advice (which included a plea to be sure and use sunscreen), and Vonnegut was nowhere near MIT this past June.

(After this was originally posted, Walker wrote in to say he knew the anti-hoax statement was a hoax, and that careful readers of his piece could have discerned that he knew.)

NOT THE SAME OLD SONG:Some weeks back, Misc. asked your input on formerly-popular musical genres that haven’t yet been turned into hip revivals. Some of you continued to write in past the initial deadline. Here’s some more of your nominations, with some more of my comments:

• Calypso. The aforementioned Walker writes, “I hereby predict that by the end of 1998 we will have been treated to a spate of headlines that announce, `Generation X Is Discovering Harry Belafonte!'” Actually, Belafonte was rediscovered almost a decade ago, with the Beetlejuice soundtrack. Calypso tuneage (particularly the bizarre Robert Mitchum LP Calypso Is Like So…) gets heavy play at neo-cocktail venues.
• Hawaiian music. King of Hawaii is a local instrumental group that’s halfway between ’60s surf music and more traditional Island sounds; its second CD comes out this week. The Oahu-lounge sound of Martin Denny has, of course, been a cornerstone of the whole “cocktail culture” thang. More authentic material can be heard on an Internet streaming-audio show, with the ever-so-urbane title Hawaiian Jamz.
• Indian ragas. Thanks to India being an ex-UK colony, the lushly over-the-top sounds of Indian movie musicals are common in London immigrant neighborhoods these days. These tunes are starting to infiltrate London’s white-hipster DJ clubs. There’ve already been raga nights at Seattle dance clubs like the Vogue; they’re bigger in Vancouver, with its bigger Subcontinent immigrant community.
• Truck drivin’ songs. The roots-country revival chronicled in No Depression magazine seems to have passed by such gems as C.W. McCall’s “Convoy” and Red Sovine’s “Teddy Bear.” ‘Tis a pity. From the ridiculous to the sublime, we go to…
• Bluegrass. Reader James Freudiger, describing himself as “an old fart of a beatnik, and in my fifties,” says he remembers “nothing more in the spirit of D.I.Y. than sitting around someone’s living room… shamelessly attempting falsetto harmonies while two or three friends plucked away at banjo, mandolin, etc. Even if you didn’t play an instrument there was always the jug, spoons, and inverted pots.” Sounds almost like a typical early-week night at the Tractor Tavern.