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You are here: Home / Guest Posts / Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Summer!

Medium Cool with BGinCHI – Summer!

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In case you’re new to Medium Cool, BGinCHI is here once a week to offer a thread on culture, mainly film & books, with some TV thrown in.  We’re here at 7 pm on Sunday nights.

On The Road - UncleEbeneezer - Pismo & Shell Beach CA 3

Well, it’s after Labor Day, and the summer is winding down. At least the season, if not temps in the West!

What’s the most summery artwork you can think of?

There are films where it’s damn hot, where people sweat, where the heat drives them mad. There are books and plays, paintings and songs that try to capture the essence of summer. What says “summer” to you?

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    I suppose mentioning Vivaldi’s most famous work would be cheating.

    Instead, I’ll go with Summertime from Porgy and Bess.

  5. 5.

    CaseyL

    As someone who is no longer* a fan of summer, the one thing that sums it up best for me is the old classic song “Summer in the City.”  I can almost feel (and smell!) the heat rising up off the pavement and the sweat dripping down my back.

    *Not since I stopped going to Atlantic City every summer (my grandparents had a house there), where I used to spend the entire season on the beach, on the boardwalk, or in the ocean.

  8. 8.

    Scout211

    Stolen  from Gizmodo

    In the Heat of the Night.

    This cop mystery film follows Black city detective Virgil Tibbs, who ends up in Mississippi during an especially fraught time for racial tensions across the American South. He becomes the unlikely detective working on a murder investigation, having to put up with discrimination and side-eye from other cops and locals. The characters are visibly sweating in the film, and the heat is as palpable as the scrutiny Tibbs has to endure.

     

    Rear Window

    This Alfred Hitchcock classic starts off during a hot summer, when news photographer L.B. Jeffries has hurt his leg. While he’s stuck at home recovering,he gazes into the rear windows of his neighbors’ apartments. He’s seen sweating in his wheelchair, while people in the other units have their windows flung wide open in hopes of staying comfortable in the awful heat. Through his observations, Jeff realizes that he may be witnessing a crime in progress.

  15. 15.

    Delk

    Hilts beat me to it. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte but only because yesterday was the Von Steuben day parade.

  16. 16.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @CaseyL:  I’ve become more of a fan of summer and less enamored os snow as I’ve gotten older and that is THE song of Summer! Thanks for the memory.

  21. 21.

    scav

    Various music by Souza as they generally play it in parks, round about the 4th of July.  Especially if sitting in lawn chairs.

  24. 24.

    Almost Retired

    While I appreciate the higher-brow responses above (Vivaldi, Gershwin, Seurat), I’m going with bubble gum/ear worm 70’s pop song  “Beach Baby,” by some forgotten band who have probably all retired to The Villages in obscurity.  An exuberant celebration of youth and Summer, although why they kicked off Summer with “we couldn’t wait for graduation Day.  We took the car and drove to San Jose..”.  San Jose?  Probably because Santa Barbara is harder to rhyme.

  29. 29.

    Matt McIrvin

    Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing”. The heat pushing everyone almost to the breaking point is an essential part of the setup.

  30. 30.

    arrieve

    Lots of songs make me think of summer, but Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly and the Family Stone always makes me remember driving through Golden Gate Park on a (rare) sunny summer day singing along to the radio. A perfect summer memory.

    And Summer Breeze by Seals and Croft, though it’s a little too woo-woo for my taste now.

  32. 32.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Summer, it turns me upside down
    Summer, summer, summer
    It’s like a merry go round.

    Oh oh it’s magic!

  34. 34.

    Rachel Bakes

    Can’t argue with Summer in the City. Our favorite version is Joe Jackson’s live album of the same name.

    Annual summer reading here is Van Reid’s “Cordelia Underwood: or the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League.” Lovely niche series about nice people jaunting around 1896 Maine on adventures. Picaresque in style and fun, pleasant.

  39. 39.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @prostratedragon: Was going to mention Do the Right Thing but you beat me to it. What a great movie. From the same era only slightly earlier and much sillier One Crazy Summer. 

  40. 40.

    frosty

    Hot town, summer in the city…

    ETA I see I’m not alone so I’ll add “It was the third of June, another sleepy dusty Delta day …”

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Almost Retired: I just recently saw a Todd in the Shadows “One-Hit Wonderland” video that mentioned the genesis of “Beach Baby”–but it wasn’t actually the song the video was ostensibly about, and now I can’t remember what that song was. I got the impression that the “band” that produced it was the ephemeral studio creation of a producer who had spawned several such pseudo-bands.

  43. 43.

    Scout211

    @prostratedragon: Luckily, the heat wave is over here in California. In NorCal we are back to normal temps (90s).  But next week we are in for an actual cool down for a few days (80s).  It was a brutal heat wave, for sure.

  45. 45.

    prostratedragon

    @Scout211:  Glad to hear it, though it’s been years since I have thought of the 90s as “normal” except in a statistical sense for certain months. Maybe because I was mostly without a/c until well into adulthood, I’ve got a lot of musical a/c in the memory banks.
    “Watermelon Man” (original)

  46. 46.

    FastEdD

    Ugh, here in SoCal we are back to “only” 90’s instead of the 100’s for the last two weeks but the scary part has been the rattlesnakes everywhere. First there was a big one in the garage, another in the bushes in front of the house, and last night there was a baby rattler in the hall outside my room. Grab the dog and the cat, move them to safety, and grab the snake with a pooper scooper and throw it down the hill. I really don’t want a trip to the ER!!!

  47. 47.

    kalakal

    For me it’s

    Lazy Sunday Afternoon – Small Faces

    Itchycoo Park – Small Faces

    Brown eyed girl – Van Morrison

    Sunshine of your love – Cream

    Sunny Afternoon – KinksKinks

    Summertime – Stanley Clarke

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Not my favorite group or my favorite song, but Saturday in the Park always says Grant Park and summer to me. I like this post Labor Day time because I start to hear and feel the harbingers of fall. And so September Song. Yeah, I went with Lotte Lenya because that’s how I roll, bitches.

  52. 52.

    Scout211

    @FastEdD: In your house?!  That is freaking scary! We’ve had them in the garage and on the front porch but never in the house. We have snake tongs for easier removal than a shovel.  It really works great and is safer.  You can get them in different lengths, too.

    We have had fewer problems since we have chickens free ranging our property but we do see them on our walk. Last week we got buzzed by a really huge one on our evening walk.

    It always surprises me when they don’t sound like those rattlers that plagued the Cartwright family on Bonanza.  LOL. They sound more like a cell phone on vibrate than a baby’s rattle.

  53. 53.

    zhena gogolia

    I’ll second Amir with Sandy. Also any Motown song of the classic era sends me back to listening to a transistor radio in the driveway. I love the scene in That Thing You Do where they’re all listening to their song on their transistors

  56. 56.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Little Willy will always be associated in my mind with swimming lessons in the summer of ’73 when I was eight turning nine.  There was a kid named Willie in my group and the instructors always sang it at him.

  58. 58.

    West of the Rockies

    How about the flawed but engaging Summer Lovers?  It had a very young Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah and (she left much too soon) Valerie Quennessen.

  59. 59.

    BGinCHI

    Sorry for getting here so late, everyone! Flooded basements in our neighborhood and had to lend a hand next door and didn’t take my phone (stupidly).

    CRAZY day here.

  64. 64.

    prostratedragon

    @Omnes Omnibus:  No, I think more surprising that it’s rather gentle, despite not being sentimental about time passing. Showed what an artist she was, the impression it gave me the other day.

  68. 68.

    BGinCHI

    My favorite “it’s so damn hot” movie (beyond Do the Right Thing and Cool Hand Luke), is Kurosawa’s “Stray Dog” (1949). Terrific film and SO HOT.

  70. 70.

    prostratedragon

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    That’s a favorite of which I haven’t heard a poor version. Most others, like Shirley Horn or Barbra Streisand, hit this same sultry mood, but here’s one by Grant Green that swings it a bitty bit while staying good and lazy:
    “Lazy Afternoon”

  71. 71.

    Raven

    The Tami Show  

     

    Filmed in 1964 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, this is arguably the very best rock-concert movie ever made, packed start to finish with nearly two hours of absolutely essential performances by an unprecedented group of American and British rock, pop, soul, and Motown legends. Dig this lineup: Marvin Gaye, the Supremes (look for Teri Garr as one of the dancers during “Where Did Our Love Go?”), Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Leslie Gore, Jan and Dean, a phenomenal James Brown and the Flames, followed (!) by the Rolling Stones rising to the occasion after Brown’s legendary performance (Keith Richards has said that performing after Brown was perhaps the biggest mistake the band ever made). Never released on home video, The T.A.M.I. Show was the holy grail of rock-concert movies. Those who have had to make do with substandard and incomplete bootlegs will agree that it was worth the wait for this collector’s edition that restores the long-lost Beach Boys set (listen to director Steve Binder’s audio commentary for the story behind its removal). —

  72. 72.

    prostratedragon

    @Raven:  Heh, every American act on that bill probably thought of that as The New Guy treatment. That is a legendary concert, I didn’t realize it had been made into a feature-length movie.

  73. 73.

    Raven

    @West of the Rockies: Yes and Gary Busey in form as a total lunatic. The draft board sequence is great. It’s a John Milius film and the scene at the kia Nam vets grave was filmed at Jeremiah Johnson’s actual grave. A school teacher in Wyoming found out about it and they dug him up and reinterred him in Cody Wyoming. Robert Redford was a pallbearer among a great group of real mountain men. I have pictures.

  78. 78.

    Raven

    Well, I’m about to get sickFrom watchin’ my TVBeen checkin’ out the news until my eyeballs fail to seeI mean to say that every day is just another rotten messAnd when it’s gonna change, my friends, is anybody’s guess
    So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’Hopin’ for the bestEven think I’ll go to prayin’Every time I hear ’em sayin’That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every dayNo way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
    Wednesday I watched the riot, I seen the cops out on the streetWatched ’em throwin’ rocks and stuff and chokin’ in the heatListened to reports about the whisky passin’ ’roundSeen the smoke and fire and the market burnin’ downWatched while everybody on his street would take a turnTo stomp and smash and bash and crash and slash and bust and burn
    And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’Hopin’ for the bestEven think I’ll go to prayin’Every time I hear ’em sayin’That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every dayNo way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
    Well, you can cool it you can heat it’Cause, baby, I don’t need itTake your TV tube and eat itAnd all that phony stuff on sports and all the unconfirmed reportsYou know I watched that rotten box until my head began to hurtFrom checkin’ out the way the newsmen say they get the dirtBefore the guys on channel so-and-so, further they assertThat any show they’ll interruptTo bring you news if it comes upThey say that if the place blows upThey’ll be the first to tellBecause the boys they got downtown are workin’ hard and doin’ swellAnd if anybody gets the newsBefore it hits the street they say that no one blabs it fasterTheir coverage can’t be beatAnd if another woman driverGets machine-gunned from her seatThey’ll send some joker with a brownie and you’ll see it all complete
    So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’Hopin’ for the bestEven think I’ll go to prayin’Every time I hear ’em sayin’That there’s no way to delay that trouble comin’ every dayNo way to delay that trouble comin’ every day
    Hey, you know something people?I’m not black but there’s a whole lots a times I wish I could say I’m not white
    Well, I seen the fires burnin’ and the local people turnin’On the merchants and the shops who used to sell their brooms and mopsAnd every other household itemWatched the mob just turn and bite ’emAnd they say it served ’em rightBecause a few of them are whiteAnd it’s the same across the nation, black and white discriminationYellin’ “you can’t understand me!”And all that other jazz they hand meIn the papers and TV and all that mass stupidityThat seems to grow more every dayEach time you hear some nitwit sayHe wants to go and do you in’Cause the color of your skinJust don’t appeal to himNo matter if it’s black or white because he’s out for blood tonight
    You know we gotta sit around at home and watch this thing beginBut I bet there won’t be many left to see it really end’Cause the fire in the street ain’t like the fire in the heartAnd in the eyes of all these people don’t you know that this could start?On any street, in any town, in any state if any clownDecides that now’s the time to fightFor some ideal he thinks is rightAnd if a million more agree, there ain’t no great societyAs it applies to you and meOur country isn’t freeAnd the law refuse to see if all that you can ever beIs just a lousy janitorUnless your uncle owns a storeYou know that five in every fourJust won’t amount to nothin’ moreThan watchin’ rats go across the floorAnd make up songs about being poorBlow your harmonica, son!

  83. 83.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @p.a.: I was just about to name the same song. Great song evoking a hot summer night.

    “House Burning Down” on the same album also speaks to the long hot summer.

  84. 84.

    prostratedragon

    @BGinCHI:  Never seen that one, but I see it’s available through Prime, so I will soon. Just recently saw High and Low, in which the constant fanning and brow-mopping of the working-class detectives is contrasted with the cool a/c apartment of the young tycoon, to the point of being a running joke. Then there’s Tokyo Monogatari [Story]. Man were those people ever hot most of the time.

  86. 86.

    raven

    Chad and Jeremy

    A Summer Song
    Trees swayin’ in the summer breezeShowin’ off their silver leavesAs we walked by
    Soft kisses on a summer’s dayLaughing all our cares awayJust you and I
    Sweet sleepy warmth of summer nightsGazing at the distant lightsIn the starry sky
    They say that all good things must end somedayAutumn leaves must fallBut don’t you knowThat it hurts me soTo say goodbye to you?

  88. 88.

    zhena gogolia

    In the Heights plays with the motif of the hot summer a lot. Too bad the movie wasn’t better.

  96. 96.

    BGinCHI

    @prostratedragon: ​
      I love High & Low (that train sequence!), and I’ve noticed all that heat in those films as well. Don’t think of Japan as a hot climate country, until I watch them. Stray Dog is really good.

  99. 99.

    raven

    @BGinCHI: I think if I ever get off my ass a write I’ll have to start with the summer of 66. The old man let me buy a Honda 150 Dream because, unlike a car, I’d only kill myself and one other person on it. I rode the shit out of that machine, sold in and went in the big green machine.

  105. 105.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Weezer’s first album (the Blue album) is one that I always associate with Summer.  It even has a song about going surfing.  When I first moved to Southern California (many years after it was released) I played the shit out of that album on my car CD player.

    For songs, I always think of Hot In The City by Billy Idol and Vacation by the Go Go’s.  As well as anything from the Caddyshack soundtrack.

    For Summer movies, nothing beats JAWS.

  106. 106.

    Ishmael

    @BGinCHI: No, but will definitely look for it. I respect them as activists, philanthropists, and actors. Interesting, with a great sense of humor, they are always on my list of people I would have loved to have over for dinner.

  107. 107.

    raven

    @BGinCHI: Mine was red with a blue seat  

    this one has a black seat but it was the same bike. I rode that tiny bike from Villa Park to Lake Geneva with no glasses or a helmet. I crashed in a hotel lobby and drove back and my old man popped me because he thought I’d been drinking because my eyes were so bloodshot!

  108. 108.

    prostratedragon

    The Twilight Zone, “Midnight Sun”
    “Norma –please paint something cool today. Please paint something pastoral. With a waterfall, and trees bending in the wind. Please paint something cool.”

  110. 110.

    delphinium

    Otis Redding: (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay

    The Hooters: And We Danced (although not technically about summer, the video features a drive in and has a summer romance kind of feel to it)

  112. 112.

    prostratedragon

    @UncleEbeneezer: ​ Summer of Sam? I was in NYC the summer of that blackout and yeah, it was hot alright, the kind of hot that explains a fair amount of my playlist.

  114. 114.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @BGinCHI: Have you seen Kimi?  It’s a modern adaptation of Rear Window that takes place during the early days of the Pandemic.  Not amazing, per se, but interesting and a good watch.  Zoe Kravitz plays a speech analyst who works for a Siri/Alexa type program who overhears a crime on one of her feeds.  But she’s paranoid from Covid, to leave her loft.  Pretty suspenseful.

  121. 121.

    Craig

    I always think of American Graffiti. End of summer going back to school. The world is gonna change at the end of summer, the biggest summer of their lives. Biggs is going off to college and Luke is going to stay home and be a fuckup.

  125. 125.

    Tehanu

    @hilts: ​
      The Who’s version of Summertime Blues is great, but I’ll hold out for the original Eddie Cochran version — an acoustic guitar and a drum pad: the essence of rock ‘n’ roll.

  129. 129.

    prostratedragon

    @Sandia Blanca:
    It’ll explain why “tubular” is a superlative. I’d been thinking of surfer music as fitting the subject. A related a/c theater movie is The Big Blue with Jean Reno.

  132. 132.

    dm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVjnBo96Ug

    Otis Redding, “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” (I see delphinium best me to it)

    Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary”

    And here is a weird one: Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren — just because it’s all outside, with open windows, and night-time wandering of urban streets.

    Ray Bradbury’s Something wicked this way comes, the opening pages invoke the oppressive ozone sense of an impending summertime thunderstorm.

  133. 133.

    jonas

    I have to go with everyone who’s nominated Do the Right Thing for evoking everything about a hot, broiling NYC summer (Dirty Dancing for a Catskills summer). And Dazed and Confused for an early Texas summer. And then of course there’s Wet Hot American Summer…

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