The Diagnosis of a Papal Gesture

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C4 | Saturday/Sunday, September 26 - 27, 2015 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. THE WEEK****

WORD ON THE MY WEEK: LYNDAOBST STREET: hotel-stage-hotel-home,repeat) ev- BEN ZIMMER eryday. TodayisWednesday—our “Mon- ‘Covers’ Are day” afterour absurdMonday- Tuesdayweekend. Weekends are very low-status formeatthe hotel, KeySounds I’velearned, because in NewYork, youare your transportation. When Of PopEra Herbie is on, everyone smiles at me and thinks Iamadeal. On my day THIS WEEK, in- off,Iwalk or take acab to Pilates, die rocker Ryan and the doormen arebereft. Adams delivered Idon’t knowwhat Brad or Clint an unusual re- do,but on my drives with Herbie,I lease: a full re- sit shotgun, sometimes with my make of Taylor legsonthe dashboard, sipping cof- Swift’s “1989,” consisting of feehehas picked up at Sant Am- cover versions of all the songs broeus.Wediscussphilosophy, from her top-selling album. sportsand our kids—but most of While Mr. Adams takes a musi- all, Herbie gives me adviceabout cal homage to extreme lengths, the day. Thereisnothing about the the “cover” has been a basic showhedoesn’t hear about. bit of music-industry lingo for *** Y

nearly 70 years. IL It is our third-to-last day, and

As the U.S. emergedfrom GW all is going well with our difficult World WarII, big-band music TH final scenes. We emerge from our RU gaveway to pop songswith a producers’ trailer after lunch to focus on vocalistslikeFrank Si- see an ambulance outside the natraand PeggyLee. Competi- stage door—never good. Was an tion heated up among the ma- The Curses of Producing a TV Pilot actor hurt? A crew member? I jor labels to capturethe rush to talk to our medic. burgeoning audiencefor pop IOFTEN SAY that Icurse likea ture—they’reaping those tough old Thefun part: Producersget “What’supwith the ambulance?” music,aswell as forthe newly Teamster.But this summer,while Hollywood moguls.” treated likethe starsand have our Iask. dubbed fields of “rhythm and driving with my favoriteactual He’sright. Rough languageislike hair and makeup done by pros— “Anextrahad amental break- blues” and “countryand west- Teamster,Herbie Lieberz—who,for carrying aclub intothe ape house. that is,when the starsaren’t having down on set,” she answers as a ern.” Theindustrymagazine our eighth TV project together,is First-generation Hollywood women their hair and makeup done forthe woman is carried away. Billboardranked recordsac- getting me safely to the set—I dis- likemeoften needed those clubs to showand their ownEPKs,which are Huh? This is anew one.Wehave cording to record sales,radio coverthat my habitual excuse for protect ourselves in the ones that actually getused. alot of “background,” as we call the airplayand jukeboxspins. dropping an F-bomb is abig fat lie. the testosterone- Producerstry to plan something extras. Therecordlabels developed I’m in New York to produce an filled rooms to forthe night we getour hair and “What happened?” Iask. awinning strategy: riding on Amazon pilot called “Good Girls which we were just makeup done.Ispend much of the “She wasconvinced that three the coattails of another label’s Revolt.” On this Thursday morn- gaining access. daytrying to makeplans formy producersonset were trying to hit by rerecording it with their ing, Herbie is taking me from my But Herbie has hair’s big night, but sinceit’slate mind-manipulateher intosexual ownartists. Billboardbegan re- Manhattan hotel to our stage in real testosterone, summer,and we’reshooting on slavery,” the medic replies. Bethpage, Long Island—in traffic so he doesn’t need weekends,and it’sFriday, everyone I Ilook at my two producing part- that has no rhyme or reason no afakeclub. Maybe knowisinone Hampton or another. ners. Does Elvis’s matter the hour. I suddenly realize Idon’t either, I Iretreat to my hotel, order room “Are you[expletive] kidding wildlypopular that I’m cursing and Herbie isn’t. think. Maybe my cursing club is ves- serviceand watchbaseball. The me?” Iexclaim. In fact, I realize, I’ve never heard tigial. waiter doesn’t noticemygreat hair And with that, I’vefailed myself. ‘Hound Dog’ him use the F-word. Thenextday,Itell Herbie: Iwill andmakeup.The Orioles lose.Still I Worse, I’vefailed Herbie. count as acover? At dinner that night, Idiscuss trytostopusing the F-word. I’ll let curse not. the origins of my dirty mouth with youknowhow Ido. *** Ms. Obst has produced films and TV an eruditeeditor and his philoso- *** Herbie has befriended the door- shows including “Interstellar,” pher-king husband. This editor, Today, we have the EPK on set— men at my hotel, with whom he “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Contact” and ferring to this practiceas“cov- who knows everything about ev- the Electronic PressKit, in which gossips until I’m ready to leave for TV Land’s “Hot in Cleveland.” Her erage” as early as 1948,the erything,isfor some reason deeply everyone is interviewedfor public- the set. He arrives at 5:30 a.m. from most recent book is “Sleepless in idea being that labels sought to steeped in the mores of the movie ity (tobeused somewheresome- his home in Bethpage(to beat the Hollywood: Tales from the New Ab- “cover” the consumer market business. “It’sthe agents,” he pos- time) as if they’reon“TheView,” morning traffic), thereforeperform- normal in the Movie Business” (Si- by peddling different versions tulates.“It’satestosterone cul- except without amoderator. ing aquadruple commute(home- mon &Schuster). of apopular tune. Theterm “coverage” soon entered Billboard’scapsule re- cord reviews that attempted PHOTO OF THE WEEK to predict which songswould do well on the charts. In 1949, Struck by when the Chicagosinger and Lighting pianist Al Morganfound suc- cess on the hit parade with a A visitor pop rendition of “Jealous photographed Heart,” Billboardassessed one of the manyknockoffs: “Jef- a light frey Claydoes the solo honors installation in this good coverage of acur- rent hit.” at a Tuesday As the snappy lingoofBill- preview board’srecordreviewers got even snappier in theearly of the 2015 1950s,they began referring to NightFest such remakes as “cover jobs,” “cover versions” or simply festival “covers.” And the covers them- in Canberra, selves were proliferating—now

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KA 6.A, 7.D, 8.A, 9.C and MikeStoller and sung by LU Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thorn- ton. As it shot up the R&B charts, “Little” Esther Phillips quickly remade “Hound Dog” forthe Federal label. “This is a R&D: DANIEL AKST coverversion of the Willie Mae Thornton disk,which has been one of the fastest breaking hits The Diagnosis of aPapal Gesture in some years,” Billboardwrote, adding,“This one will be hard- pressed to compete. It fails to FOR PHYSICIANS, the gesture ing it into an enduring tradition. ural curling of the fingers is a Peter, drawing on aJewish tradi- build the same excitement of used by some popes to confer a Some papal historians are dubi- strong sign of neuropathy, Dr. tion that wasprobably familiar to the original.” blessing, with the hand raised but ous, arguing that there is no proof Futterman says. him, might have been trying to em- Threeyearslater,anew ver- the last two fingers curled inward, that Peter used the benediction So which nervewas the culprit? ulatethe gestureused forritual sion of the song would build looks a lot like the deformity gesture, which might have arisen Dr.Futterman suggeststhat it was blessingsbyIsraelitepriests(ages- unprecedented excitement, called main-en-griffe, or later from the desire to bolster pa- the ulnar nerve, which runs turelater made famous by theac- when Elvis Presley released his clawhand—a sign of nerve damage. pal authority by differentiating a through the arm. Damagetoit tor LeonardNimoyasthe Vulcan ownrocking “Hound Dog.” It Dr. Bennett Futterman, a profes- pope’s blessings from those of causes involuntarycurling of the salute,with the words“livelong would go on to be one of the sor of anatomy at New York Insti- lesser clerics. But Dr. Futterman, a last two fingers. and prosper,” in “StarTrek”). Be- best-selling singles of all time. tute of Technology’s College of Os- former orthopedic surgeon, points Dr.Futterman speculates that cause of his ulnar damage, Dr. But wasPresley’s version teopathic Medicine, was long to a variety of ancient depictions Futterman says,Peter wouldn’t even a“cover”?Inher contri- puzzled by the similarity. How, he of Peter using the gesture (all have been able to split his four fin- bution to the 2010 essaycollec- wondered, did popes start using made, admittedly, one or more gers intothe traditional Vshape. tion “PlayItAgain: Cover Songs this peculiar gesture? centuries after Peter’s death). Dr. Futterman notes that the in Popular Music,” the sociolo- Now, in time for Pope Francis’ Some of the images, says Dr. clawhand gesture was used by gist Deena Weinstein argues visit to the U.S., Dr. Futterman has Futterman, show the last two fin- some of Peter’s successors, at least that one criterion of a“cover” published a paper arguing that the gers flexed even when Peter’s hand judging by religious art and photo- is that listenersknowthe origi- gesture goes all the way back to was at rest. The paper cites a graphs of later pontiffs. But he’s nal, and most Elvis fans were St. Peter. He believes that Peter fresco of Jesus and his disciples at not aware of Francis having used unaware of Thornton’sversion. used it not for theological reasons Rome’s Catacombs of St. Domitilla the gesture since becoming pope. GES

It’ssafetosay,though, that but because he suffered from that shows Peter’s hand, in con- Analysis of the Papal Benedic- IMA anyone listening to Ryan Adams nerve damage, perhaps as a result trast to all the others’, in the bene- tion Sign: The Ulnar Neuropathy of cover“1989” is quitefamiliar of leprosy, and that subsequent diction position even though he BYZANTINE MOSAIC of St. Peter, St. Peter, Bennett Futterman, Clini- with Ms.Swift’soeuvre. popes emulated his gesture, turn- isn’t blessing anything. The unnat- circa 700 AD, Vatican City cal Anatomy (June 28) BRIDGEMAN