TVOTM: Could it Be Magic? || Manilow Wants YOU to Pledge to PBS

It’s that time of year when public television pledge drives start to feel like a conspiracy. We arrive at channel 13 or 21 to find that the soothing sounds of Boyd Matson on Wild Chronicles and Sunday's digestif, Lidia’s Italian Table, have been elbowed out by more viejo-friendly fare such as the ubiquitous Doo Wop Love Songs (clocking in at two hours), and Ageless Skin: Secrets from Dr. Denese (whose extraterrestrial affect can make even the most graceful feel monstrous). I’m especially missing my dose of hot papi Marc Bittman—and here I publicly out my crush—even though he needs to shake Batali loose and fast. I have confirmed reports that a posse of Italian nonnas would like to take the Orange Monster to court for his particularly nasty theft of their intellectual property. Plus, when I bought the hype and patronized Lupa, chicken Ragu was a special. Major caca.

And yet, there’s nothing like making new friends. It is also that time of year when treasures such as BOWFIRE and Twelve Girls Band become an intimate part of your world—two musical extravaganzas that will most definitely grace the pages of Oh Industry in its virtual lifetime. For now, however, I’d like to revisit last friday and the glittery haze that followed Consuelo Mack: Barry Manilow’s Songs of the Seventies. The show could best be described as having a marsh effect: soon after wading in, you realize you’re stuck for the duration.

One would think that a proper South Florida upbringing would have involved an intense relationship with he who wrote the songs. That I should finally be hailed by Manilow's spell via Chopin's "Prelude in C Minor" that softly guides “Could it Be Magic?” is far from accidental. This prelude was a staple of my early years at the piano, a piece when played made me feel very serious. It was a major sonic repository for my 'tween angst and despair, the only piece I would practice after spending hours-in-darkness with Pink Floyd. This prelude will forever mark my early desires to be an intellectual, when I though that part of being an intellectual involved gravitas, and before I came to learn that Chopin is dismissed as the cheesy composer. Apologies for the confessional: I felt all this, by which I mean Chopin and Manilow, occupies an important place in the goth arsenal.

While the excerpt below is not from the PBS special from last Friday, it more than captures the gut-busting power of Manilow in the live. There are a few moments of this performance that I’d like to call attention to that beg to be theorized further: the raspy iterations of “now,” the Chopin-segue-into-Disco via a deep citation to Donna Summer, the pelvic thrusting at minute 3:28, and the giving way of the stage to the amazing back up singers. Screw Lou Reed. At least Manilow has the “colored girls” come front and center.





This month, I’d like to ask you all to support public television—let’s join together and help shape the airwaves. Let’s thank those whom we’ve come to rely on, like Priscilla Patrick from Priscilla’s Yoga Stretches for helping us to finally drift off after a long night of insomnia. - (ATV)