Doin' the Friday Shuffle
1. "Goodbye Until Tomorrow" - Lauren Kennedy (song by Jason Robert Brown) - Songs of Jason Robert Brown
Big, emotional, energetic musical theater song with a real pop feel.
2. "Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out) - John Mellencamp - Big Daddy
I remember this as a hidden track on my original cassette. Very fun romp of a song.
3. "Flowers" - Danny Elfman - Batman (Score)
Sweet, romantic, melancholy music from Elfman's score, still one of his best to me.
4. "Fresno Beauties (Part Two) - Frank Loesser - The Most Happy Fella (2000 Studio Cast)
Short snippet of a song with a real old-world celebratory Italian feel.
5. "Shot With His Own Gun" - Elvis Costello - Trust
Odd song, with a kind of old-west, saloon piano player, melodramatic feel, just Elvis singing and Steve Nieve on piano.
6. "I Didn't Understand" - Elliot Smith - XO
A capella piece with Smith, I'm assuming, dubbing himself into a kind of white Boyz II Men vocal group.
7. "The Sermon" - Rodgers & Hammerstein - Carousel (1994 Broadway Revival Cast)
Short dialogue snippet.
8. "Et exinde quaerebat Pilatus . . . " - Arvo Part - Johannes-Passion
Stark, solo choir stuff with a kind of medieval feel.
9. "Lea's News/Light of the Force" - John Williams - Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (Score)
Tender bit of writing from the end of the last Star Wars film, with bits of Han Solo and Lea's theme, the force theme, and others I'm sure I'm not recognizing.
10. "Beetlejuice" - Danny Elfman - Music for a Darkened Theater - Vol. I
One of Elfman's best-ever isolated themes, and one that's been stolen God-knows how many times. Simply brilliant.
Until Whenever
Friday, January 06, 2006
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Music Morsels Vol. XIV - North
The wide range of musical styles and genres Elvis Costello has dabbled in, in addition to his core recordings of rock/pop, has been well-noted. These side projects, which have included a cycle of art songs with a string quartet, a pop album by an opera singer, and a ballet score, have received mixed reviews--some glowing some scoffing--and North, Costello's 2003 album of "original standards" was no exception. I think many of the negative reviews may have been the result of false expectations. This was an album of songs clearly written to play as old-fashioned, classic. "standards"-style pop songs, true, but Costello's intent wasn't to write an album of unforgettable, classic-style melodies. What he was after was a more personal, confessional style that in some ways combined the more tempered, unobstrusive melodies of the art song with the soft jazz style of a Gershwin or Ellington. So critics expecting an album of "new classic" melodies were disappointed.
But for what he was aiming to do, the album was a success. North was written in the wake of Costello's whirlwind romance with jazz singer Diana Krall, and the echoes of new love, and the tribute to Krall's own understated slow jazz style are unmistakable. So, while none of these songs are destined for posterity, together they form a powerful album, and one that stands as one of our better examples of the power of love to inspire an artist.
Until Whenever
The wide range of musical styles and genres Elvis Costello has dabbled in, in addition to his core recordings of rock/pop, has been well-noted. These side projects, which have included a cycle of art songs with a string quartet, a pop album by an opera singer, and a ballet score, have received mixed reviews--some glowing some scoffing--and North, Costello's 2003 album of "original standards" was no exception. I think many of the negative reviews may have been the result of false expectations. This was an album of songs clearly written to play as old-fashioned, classic. "standards"-style pop songs, true, but Costello's intent wasn't to write an album of unforgettable, classic-style melodies. What he was after was a more personal, confessional style that in some ways combined the more tempered, unobstrusive melodies of the art song with the soft jazz style of a Gershwin or Ellington. So critics expecting an album of "new classic" melodies were disappointed.
But for what he was aiming to do, the album was a success. North was written in the wake of Costello's whirlwind romance with jazz singer Diana Krall, and the echoes of new love, and the tribute to Krall's own understated slow jazz style are unmistakable. So, while none of these songs are destined for posterity, together they form a powerful album, and one that stands as one of our better examples of the power of love to inspire an artist.
Until Whenever
Movies I Saw in 2005
I REALLY don't see a lot of movies anymore:
February 2005 Releases
Hitch
Harmless little rom-com. Amusing that it's OK for Will Smith to be the romantic lead opposite a Latino, but not a white woman. I seem to remember said Latino costar, Eva Mendes, talking about it in some interview around the film's release. Kevin James was funny, but I don't know if I see any real breakout for him on the horizon.
April 2005 Releases
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
As I posted here, very underwhelmed.
May 2005 Releases
Crash
Brilliant. See here.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Ditto. See here.
June 2005 Releases
Batman Begins
Very good. See here.
July 2005 Releases
Fantastic Four
Worth a rental. As others have mentioned, they screwed up Dr. Doom pretty badly, and handled the main four with varying degrees of OK competence. For some strange reason, I have a feeling that the planned sequel will actually be much better.
November 2005 Releases
Pride & Prejudice
Excellent. I haven't read the book, so I wasn't put off, as some were (the wife) by Keira Knightley's inappropriate beauty, or by the slightly increased romantic heat and focus from that found in the book. Knightley was wonderful, and that young teen from the Julia Roberts-Susan Sarandon tearjerker Stepmom has become a very good actress, and one who can pull off a flawless British accent to boot.
Pathetic, no?
Until Whenever
I REALLY don't see a lot of movies anymore:
February 2005 Releases
Hitch
Harmless little rom-com. Amusing that it's OK for Will Smith to be the romantic lead opposite a Latino, but not a white woman. I seem to remember said Latino costar, Eva Mendes, talking about it in some interview around the film's release. Kevin James was funny, but I don't know if I see any real breakout for him on the horizon.
April 2005 Releases
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
As I posted here, very underwhelmed.
May 2005 Releases
Crash
Brilliant. See here.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Ditto. See here.
June 2005 Releases
Batman Begins
Very good. See here.
July 2005 Releases
Fantastic Four
Worth a rental. As others have mentioned, they screwed up Dr. Doom pretty badly, and handled the main four with varying degrees of OK competence. For some strange reason, I have a feeling that the planned sequel will actually be much better.
November 2005 Releases
Pride & Prejudice
Excellent. I haven't read the book, so I wasn't put off, as some were (the wife) by Keira Knightley's inappropriate beauty, or by the slightly increased romantic heat and focus from that found in the book. Knightley was wonderful, and that young teen from the Julia Roberts-Susan Sarandon tearjerker Stepmom has become a very good actress, and one who can pull off a flawless British accent to boot.
Pathetic, no?
Until Whenever
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The U2 Canon - Achtung Baby
I still remember the first time I heard this album. It had been a few years since I fell head over heels in love with the band, and I was no a senior in high school. My mania for The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum had rubbed off on my sister and we both were eagerly anticipating the new U2 album. The day it was released I rushed off to buy a copy at a local record store and returned home with the tape. My sister and I sat on my bed, removed the cellophane, and put the cassette into the small boom box.
What was that? Not actually saying the words, this was what we were asking each other after playing the tape through. What was that? This didn't sound like the U2 we had come to know and love. This sounded weird, harsh. Messy. We didn't like it. At all.
Flash forward a few weeks. This being U2, I hadn't tossed the tape, but kept listening, and, of course, I began to hear the U2 I knew, not buried so much as lightly masked by the new sounds they had discovered. After a while I realized how good this music was, how gripping and powerful and album this really was. (And, yes, I was able to convince my sister of the same.)
Today, Achtung Baby stands as my second-favorite U2 album, just ever-so slightly edged out by The Joshua Tree. Many critics (not all) seem to place the album as the best of U2's career, but I do think there's a certain snobbishness at work there. I've seen Achtung Baby praised (and The Joshua Tree criticized in comparison) for being experimental, and for the way it showed how much the band could shine in the way they discovered new sounds and made them their own. Fair enough. But what often gets ignored is that The Joshua Tree was just as experimental--only it was American blues and R&B sounds that were being transformed into U2 music, not European industrial sounds.
Be that as it may, this is one remarkable album, and a career highlight to be sure.
1. "Zoo Station" - The opening track starts off with what sounds for all the world like someone clinking a glass with the edge of a fork to get a room's attention. And then the Edge crunches in, with a simple riff (note, down an octave and a step and up the step to the lower octave) made powerful by the heavy distortion laid on top of his guitar. This riff is repeated, then answered by a pounding, static- and distortion-heavy backbeat. Boom-boom-boom. This pattern repeats and slowly an insistent guitar figure is introduced into the mix, the drums pick up a beat, and eventually the whole collage collides into a heavy, driving beat with Bono crooning over it.
My sister and I were floored.
Bono's voice is distorted here, with heavy effects over top, but eventually it smoothes out to a more recognizable timbre. This is a great U2 song, and a superb way to open the album, to announce, in effect, that a new U2 is in town.
2. "Even Better than the Real Thing" - Not one of my favorites, it's nonetheless a high-energy way to keep the album moving, and a nice complement to the more heavy opener. I love that cymbal-y sound in the percussion--don't know what it is, but it works.
3. "One" - It's becoming increasingly clear that 50 years from know, a 100 years from now, this will be the song that U2 is remembered for this will be their standard, their contribution to the annals of popular song. It's a simple song really, with a basic four chord structure, but the way the Edge picks out two different complementary melodies over top of the strumming acoustic gives the song real shape and form. And Bono delivers, for him, an understated vocal, full of real feeling and emotion. What I often forget about this song is the real soul it possesses--listen to the way the full band gels more and kind of takes over in the second verse. It's got a great build too, with that addition and then, in the third verse, the more prominent synths adding to a more robust soundscape. And this may be Bono's ultimate bit of malleable lyric writing. This heartfelt song about love and loss has received (fairly gotten to) political readings, romantic readings, and personal readings. I have a hunch artists will be reinterpreting this song for decades to come.
4. "Until the End of the World" - A great end-of-the-world song with a great intro--a distorted wail of a vocal and then ominous bongo-sounding drums before the riff proper kicks in. The lyric, famously, is sung from Judas' point of view as he addresses Jesus, presumably right after the betrayal. "In the garden, I was playing the tart/I kissed your lips and broke your heart." Bono's vocal is inspired here, in the way he adopts a lower, less operatic tone for this Judas character.
5. "Who's Gonna Ride Your wild Horses" - My favorite break up song of all time. Listen to the way the intro combines the ragged pain of a breakup with the more tender memory of love through the sweet strings in the right channel and the distortion-heavy guitar in the left. Some of Bono's best lyric writing ever - "You're dangerous, 'cause you're honest." "You're an accident waiting to happen." It's also a vocal triumph, one of his best ever--listen to the bridge, and the way he just completely nails, without falsetto, in full open voice, an emotionally naked high C. Brilliant.
6. "So Cruel" - That rare piano-dominated U2 track, this song is pretty underrated, even by the band (it was one of only two from the album that weren't played on tour). A slow, sad, shuffling ballad with a tender vocal.
7. "The Fly" - The album's first single, and the real announcement to the world that a new U2 was in town. I love the way the song opens as if a mistake has been made--that Fly riff is started, abandoned, and then brought back--almost as a tease (this isn't really the new U2 sound--yes it is). The tribal beat, low and primal adds a lot to the atmosphere, but that insinuating riff really defines the song. This song also features the debut of Bono's "fat lady" falsetto, here married nicely with his lower vocals on the verses.
8. "Mysterious Ways" - I think this may have been the album's biggest single. It's a great U2 song, with a funk and propulsive Edge riff driving away over a belly-dancing fat Adam Clayton bass line. It's funny, "You Light Up My Life" gets mocked for being a love song that's really about God, but it sometimes seems like half of U2's canon could be classified the same way, and this song is a prime example. Who moves in mysterious ways?
9. "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" - A tender respite from the high energy that's come before. A late-night, tired sigh of a song that played wonderfully late in concerts on tour.
10. "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" - The bag of riffs the Edge keeps pulling from was well-stocked. Yet another quintissentially U2 riff dominates this urgent song, a song that quite nicely starts to set up, in a very subtle way, the dark turn the album takes at its end. For those who think Bono's opera obsession (as demonstrated on the new album's "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own") is new, don't miss the "When I was all messed up/And I heard opera in my head" line.
11. "Acrobat" - One of U2's best. Larry's almost jazzy tapping on the cymbals opens the song before the Edge and Adam pound in with their relentless, hammering riffs. The song just keeps pounding away, as the Edge lays ringing, desperate tones on top of that driving figure, and Bono sings with as much passion and hurt as he ever has. I can never get over how underrated this song is.
12. "Love Is Blindness" - And what a closer. It's a song about suicide. It's that simple, and complex. The song opens with a funereal organ line intro before the dark, beating bass line and skittering drums kick in. Once the vocals start, so does the lovely, sad piano line. Bono sounds so tired, so sad--it's a remarkably effective vocal. And the Edge pulls off what he's been promising since "I Will Follow" - a guitar solo of one note. Beautiful.
Until Whenever
I still remember the first time I heard this album. It had been a few years since I fell head over heels in love with the band, and I was no a senior in high school. My mania for The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum had rubbed off on my sister and we both were eagerly anticipating the new U2 album. The day it was released I rushed off to buy a copy at a local record store and returned home with the tape. My sister and I sat on my bed, removed the cellophane, and put the cassette into the small boom box.
What was that? Not actually saying the words, this was what we were asking each other after playing the tape through. What was that? This didn't sound like the U2 we had come to know and love. This sounded weird, harsh. Messy. We didn't like it. At all.
Flash forward a few weeks. This being U2, I hadn't tossed the tape, but kept listening, and, of course, I began to hear the U2 I knew, not buried so much as lightly masked by the new sounds they had discovered. After a while I realized how good this music was, how gripping and powerful and album this really was. (And, yes, I was able to convince my sister of the same.)
Today, Achtung Baby stands as my second-favorite U2 album, just ever-so slightly edged out by The Joshua Tree. Many critics (not all) seem to place the album as the best of U2's career, but I do think there's a certain snobbishness at work there. I've seen Achtung Baby praised (and The Joshua Tree criticized in comparison) for being experimental, and for the way it showed how much the band could shine in the way they discovered new sounds and made them their own. Fair enough. But what often gets ignored is that The Joshua Tree was just as experimental--only it was American blues and R&B sounds that were being transformed into U2 music, not European industrial sounds.
Be that as it may, this is one remarkable album, and a career highlight to be sure.
1. "Zoo Station" - The opening track starts off with what sounds for all the world like someone clinking a glass with the edge of a fork to get a room's attention. And then the Edge crunches in, with a simple riff (note, down an octave and a step and up the step to the lower octave) made powerful by the heavy distortion laid on top of his guitar. This riff is repeated, then answered by a pounding, static- and distortion-heavy backbeat. Boom-boom-boom. This pattern repeats and slowly an insistent guitar figure is introduced into the mix, the drums pick up a beat, and eventually the whole collage collides into a heavy, driving beat with Bono crooning over it.
My sister and I were floored.
Bono's voice is distorted here, with heavy effects over top, but eventually it smoothes out to a more recognizable timbre. This is a great U2 song, and a superb way to open the album, to announce, in effect, that a new U2 is in town.
2. "Even Better than the Real Thing" - Not one of my favorites, it's nonetheless a high-energy way to keep the album moving, and a nice complement to the more heavy opener. I love that cymbal-y sound in the percussion--don't know what it is, but it works.
3. "One" - It's becoming increasingly clear that 50 years from know, a 100 years from now, this will be the song that U2 is remembered for this will be their standard, their contribution to the annals of popular song. It's a simple song really, with a basic four chord structure, but the way the Edge picks out two different complementary melodies over top of the strumming acoustic gives the song real shape and form. And Bono delivers, for him, an understated vocal, full of real feeling and emotion. What I often forget about this song is the real soul it possesses--listen to the way the full band gels more and kind of takes over in the second verse. It's got a great build too, with that addition and then, in the third verse, the more prominent synths adding to a more robust soundscape. And this may be Bono's ultimate bit of malleable lyric writing. This heartfelt song about love and loss has received (fairly gotten to) political readings, romantic readings, and personal readings. I have a hunch artists will be reinterpreting this song for decades to come.
4. "Until the End of the World" - A great end-of-the-world song with a great intro--a distorted wail of a vocal and then ominous bongo-sounding drums before the riff proper kicks in. The lyric, famously, is sung from Judas' point of view as he addresses Jesus, presumably right after the betrayal. "In the garden, I was playing the tart/I kissed your lips and broke your heart." Bono's vocal is inspired here, in the way he adopts a lower, less operatic tone for this Judas character.
5. "Who's Gonna Ride Your wild Horses" - My favorite break up song of all time. Listen to the way the intro combines the ragged pain of a breakup with the more tender memory of love through the sweet strings in the right channel and the distortion-heavy guitar in the left. Some of Bono's best lyric writing ever - "You're dangerous, 'cause you're honest." "You're an accident waiting to happen." It's also a vocal triumph, one of his best ever--listen to the bridge, and the way he just completely nails, without falsetto, in full open voice, an emotionally naked high C. Brilliant.
6. "So Cruel" - That rare piano-dominated U2 track, this song is pretty underrated, even by the band (it was one of only two from the album that weren't played on tour). A slow, sad, shuffling ballad with a tender vocal.
7. "The Fly" - The album's first single, and the real announcement to the world that a new U2 was in town. I love the way the song opens as if a mistake has been made--that Fly riff is started, abandoned, and then brought back--almost as a tease (this isn't really the new U2 sound--yes it is). The tribal beat, low and primal adds a lot to the atmosphere, but that insinuating riff really defines the song. This song also features the debut of Bono's "fat lady" falsetto, here married nicely with his lower vocals on the verses.
8. "Mysterious Ways" - I think this may have been the album's biggest single. It's a great U2 song, with a funk and propulsive Edge riff driving away over a belly-dancing fat Adam Clayton bass line. It's funny, "You Light Up My Life" gets mocked for being a love song that's really about God, but it sometimes seems like half of U2's canon could be classified the same way, and this song is a prime example. Who moves in mysterious ways?
9. "Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World" - A tender respite from the high energy that's come before. A late-night, tired sigh of a song that played wonderfully late in concerts on tour.
10. "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" - The bag of riffs the Edge keeps pulling from was well-stocked. Yet another quintissentially U2 riff dominates this urgent song, a song that quite nicely starts to set up, in a very subtle way, the dark turn the album takes at its end. For those who think Bono's opera obsession (as demonstrated on the new album's "Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own") is new, don't miss the "When I was all messed up/And I heard opera in my head" line.
11. "Acrobat" - One of U2's best. Larry's almost jazzy tapping on the cymbals opens the song before the Edge and Adam pound in with their relentless, hammering riffs. The song just keeps pounding away, as the Edge lays ringing, desperate tones on top of that driving figure, and Bono sings with as much passion and hurt as he ever has. I can never get over how underrated this song is.
12. "Love Is Blindness" - And what a closer. It's a song about suicide. It's that simple, and complex. The song opens with a funereal organ line intro before the dark, beating bass line and skittering drums kick in. Once the vocals start, so does the lovely, sad piano line. Bono sounds so tired, so sad--it's a remarkably effective vocal. And the Edge pulls off what he's been promising since "I Will Follow" - a guitar solo of one note. Beautiful.
Until Whenever
Take That, Billy "Coasting" Joel
I loves, loves, loves me my Stephen King.
I loves me my John Mellencamp - The Lonesome Jubilee is one of the most underappreciated albums to come out of the 80s, says me.
So this news - which was originally announced a few years back, but which now seems more solid, is most welcome, although I wish there was more to report on actual timing.
Good for Mellencamp to try to create an actual theater score, and not to just lend his songs out so that someone can fashion a lame jukebox musical out of them. And good for King, as he ages to seemingly take on an attitude of wanting to try pretty much anything new, rather that just turn out novel after novel. A baseball book? Why not? A comic book? Sure. A musical? Bring it on.
Color me very excited.
Until Whenever
I loves, loves, loves me my Stephen King.
I loves me my John Mellencamp - The Lonesome Jubilee is one of the most underappreciated albums to come out of the 80s, says me.
So this news - which was originally announced a few years back, but which now seems more solid, is most welcome, although I wish there was more to report on actual timing.
Good for Mellencamp to try to create an actual theater score, and not to just lend his songs out so that someone can fashion a lame jukebox musical out of them. And good for King, as he ages to seemingly take on an attitude of wanting to try pretty much anything new, rather that just turn out novel after novel. A baseball book? Why not? A comic book? Sure. A musical? Bring it on.
Color me very excited.
Until Whenever
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
The Undiscovered Sketch
There's been much buzz on the 'ol Internets about the last December episode of Saturday Night Live, the one with Jack Black as host, and the very funny "The Chronic (What?) -Les of Narnia" video featured within. But that episode (one of the best SNLs I can remember in a long while) also featured other good stuff, as Nat notes, including a Jack Black King Kong song and a great Darlene Love-sung Christmas song and cartoon ("Christmastime for the Jews").
But the funniest sketch of the evening was, for me, the final one (and how often does THAT happen), with Will Forte playing a nervous young spelling bee contestant. After some humorous back and forth mocking the predilection of bee contestants to ask for every bit of info they are allowed to ask for (origin, use in a sentence, definition, etc.), the Forte character attempts to spell the word given ("business"). Here's the transcript of that moment (taken from this indispensable-to-the-SNL-fan site):
" 'Business,' b-r-d-t-f-k-l-m-g-h-r-k-w-t-f-n-y-l-k-p-q-w-q-r-t-d-f-p-l-m-k-q-k-w-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-s-t-f-j-r-q-m-t-s-d-t-q-m-p-r-f-t-d-p-d-p-m-h-r-k-t-b-t-f, "business."
Not funny on paper, but in performance it killed. SNL rarely does this kind of absurdist sketch humor, but sometimes it hits perfectly. This was one of those times.
Until Whenever
There's been much buzz on the 'ol Internets about the last December episode of Saturday Night Live, the one with Jack Black as host, and the very funny "The Chronic (What?) -Les of Narnia" video featured within. But that episode (one of the best SNLs I can remember in a long while) also featured other good stuff, as Nat notes, including a Jack Black King Kong song and a great Darlene Love-sung Christmas song and cartoon ("Christmastime for the Jews").
But the funniest sketch of the evening was, for me, the final one (and how often does THAT happen), with Will Forte playing a nervous young spelling bee contestant. After some humorous back and forth mocking the predilection of bee contestants to ask for every bit of info they are allowed to ask for (origin, use in a sentence, definition, etc.), the Forte character attempts to spell the word given ("business"). Here's the transcript of that moment (taken from this indispensable-to-the-SNL-fan site):
" 'Business,' b-r-d-t-f-k-l-m-g-h-r-k-w-t-f-n-y-l-k-p-q-w-q-r-t-d-f-p-l-m-k-q-k-w-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-q-s-t-f-j-r-q-m-t-s-d-t-q-m-p-r-f-t-d-p-d-p-m-h-r-k-t-b-t-f, "business."
Not funny on paper, but in performance it killed. SNL rarely does this kind of absurdist sketch humor, but sometimes it hits perfectly. This was one of those times.
Until Whenever
Things to Which I Am Looking Forward to Engorging Upon
As always, Christmas brings for this blogger a veritable smorgasbord of pop culture miscellany that leaves me in January feeling a little overwhelmed--so much goodness, so little time--and where to start?
Here is a (partial) list of the generous gifts my wonderful family has bestowed upon me. Aren't I a lucky little blogger?
Philips HDRW720 DVD Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive
I'm far too cheap to spring for TiVo, no matter how tempting it is--one more monthly fee is one more too many. But when I saw this baby on heavy discount at a local electronics chain in the week before Thanksgiving, I begged the wife for an early Christmas present (had to strike while the sale iron was hot) and we grabbed it. I love my wife. TV Guide supplies the subscription info for free (they post a small ad on the listing screen for the privilege--a price I'll gladly pay in lieu of that monthly fee), and it seems to work just fine. Pause TV, rewind, one-touch recording, dump my camcorder contents onto the hard drive--it does everything I wanted it to. Technology is grand.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Of course.
In a Silent Way - Miles Davis
I've been surprised at how much I like this. This album was apparently the beginning of Davis' fusion phase, of which I know little, but the electronic keyboards and guitars here work very well with that muted trumpet sound.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2005
I get the yearly edition of this every year and it's always a favorite. So far I've read absolutely wonderful pieces on the return of the two American astronauts who got stuck on the International Space Station when the shuttle exploded ("Home," by Chris Jones in Esquire), on a man falsely imprisoned for child rape for two decades-plus ("The Wronged Man" by Andrew Corsello in GQ--that one was a stunner, had me teary at the end), and a man who gave away his kidney to a stranger ("The Gift" by Ian Parker, in The New Yorker).
The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2005
Haven't dug in yet.
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Eager to read.
Cinderella Man (score) - Thomas Newman
Yet to listen.
Prairie Wind - Neil Young
So far, no Harvest Moon, but still very good.
The Simpsons - Season Six
Ah, the merriment that awaits.
A bottle of sparkling blueberry juice
Delicious.
A wireless router
Surfing the net from anywhere in the house is just as cool as reported.
Until Whenever
As always, Christmas brings for this blogger a veritable smorgasbord of pop culture miscellany that leaves me in January feeling a little overwhelmed--so much goodness, so little time--and where to start?
Here is a (partial) list of the generous gifts my wonderful family has bestowed upon me. Aren't I a lucky little blogger?
Philips HDRW720 DVD Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive
I'm far too cheap to spring for TiVo, no matter how tempting it is--one more monthly fee is one more too many. But when I saw this baby on heavy discount at a local electronics chain in the week before Thanksgiving, I begged the wife for an early Christmas present (had to strike while the sale iron was hot) and we grabbed it. I love my wife. TV Guide supplies the subscription info for free (they post a small ad on the listing screen for the privilege--a price I'll gladly pay in lieu of that monthly fee), and it seems to work just fine. Pause TV, rewind, one-touch recording, dump my camcorder contents onto the hard drive--it does everything I wanted it to. Technology is grand.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Of course.
In a Silent Way - Miles Davis
I've been surprised at how much I like this. This album was apparently the beginning of Davis' fusion phase, of which I know little, but the electronic keyboards and guitars here work very well with that muted trumpet sound.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2005
I get the yearly edition of this every year and it's always a favorite. So far I've read absolutely wonderful pieces on the return of the two American astronauts who got stuck on the International Space Station when the shuttle exploded ("Home," by Chris Jones in Esquire), on a man falsely imprisoned for child rape for two decades-plus ("The Wronged Man" by Andrew Corsello in GQ--that one was a stunner, had me teary at the end), and a man who gave away his kidney to a stranger ("The Gift" by Ian Parker, in The New Yorker).
The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2005
Haven't dug in yet.
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Eager to read.
Cinderella Man (score) - Thomas Newman
Yet to listen.
Prairie Wind - Neil Young
So far, no Harvest Moon, but still very good.
The Simpsons - Season Six
Ah, the merriment that awaits.
A bottle of sparkling blueberry juice
Delicious.
A wireless router
Surfing the net from anywhere in the house is just as cool as reported.
Until Whenever
More U2
But brief and satirical, not wordy and over-praisy.
Do read this article from The Onion in its entirety, but the headline is pretty funny on its own:
Rest Of U2 Perfectly Fine With Africans Starving
But brief and satirical, not wordy and over-praisy.
Do read this article from The Onion in its entirety, but the headline is pretty funny on its own:
Rest Of U2 Perfectly Fine With Africans Starving
Until Whenever
To Host Or Not to Host
We're back!
I know some folks are applauding Dick Clark's appearance on his Rockin' New Year's Eve show Saturday night, but I guess I have a contrary take on the whole thing. As others have said, it seems that he appeared because he wanted to - that he certainly didn't need to, for financial or other reasons, and that it doesn't seem likely that ABC insisted upon it. And, to me, it was just a bad decision, and it read on New Year's Eve not as a brave, defiant, inspiring choice, one that spoke of resilience in the face of tragedy, but of a much more simple hubris - as if Dick Clark was convinced that we needed him back, and that "New Year's Eve wouldn't be the same without him." I saw an ego convinced of its own importance, and wish he would have just passed the baton on.
I'm all for doing things as long as you can do them well - that Ricky Henderson, for example, continues to play baseball because he loves it and is good at it, even if he's no longer great by pro standards, is inspiring to me. But to do something you can't do well anymore, just to show off in a way (and Clark's job as host is, basically, to talk--which he obviously can not do well), is to me, well, kind of sad.
Until Whenever
We're back!
I know some folks are applauding Dick Clark's appearance on his Rockin' New Year's Eve show Saturday night, but I guess I have a contrary take on the whole thing. As others have said, it seems that he appeared because he wanted to - that he certainly didn't need to, for financial or other reasons, and that it doesn't seem likely that ABC insisted upon it. And, to me, it was just a bad decision, and it read on New Year's Eve not as a brave, defiant, inspiring choice, one that spoke of resilience in the face of tragedy, but of a much more simple hubris - as if Dick Clark was convinced that we needed him back, and that "New Year's Eve wouldn't be the same without him." I saw an ego convinced of its own importance, and wish he would have just passed the baton on.
I'm all for doing things as long as you can do them well - that Ricky Henderson, for example, continues to play baseball because he loves it and is good at it, even if he's no longer great by pro standards, is inspiring to me. But to do something you can't do well anymore, just to show off in a way (and Clark's job as host is, basically, to talk--which he obviously can not do well), is to me, well, kind of sad.
Until Whenever
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Uses of Language I Don't Get
From John Lahr's New Yorker review of the current revival of Sweeney Todd on Broadway. In the sentence below he discusses a benefit of the very abstract staging of the classic musical (bolding mine):
"In this production, which sheds the eggy trappings of naturalism, even the star-crossed young lovers, Anthony (Benjamin Magnuson) and Johanna (Lauren Molina), who usually come across as ninnies, take on a refreshing, compelling sweetness."
Eggy? What in the world does that mean?
Until Whenever
From John Lahr's New Yorker review of the current revival of Sweeney Todd on Broadway. In the sentence below he discusses a benefit of the very abstract staging of the classic musical (bolding mine):
"In this production, which sheds the eggy trappings of naturalism, even the star-crossed young lovers, Anthony (Benjamin Magnuson) and Johanna (Lauren Molina), who usually come across as ninnies, take on a refreshing, compelling sweetness."
Eggy? What in the world does that mean?
Until Whenever
Appearing in Your Own Story
Slate has an interesting piece up in which Jack Shafer takes a look at the New York Times child pornography article I linked to yesterday and debates the ethics of the Times' reporter's involvement in the story. Specifically, Eichenwald, the Times reporter, helped the subject of his article get immunity and to be come a witness for the prosecution in going after some of the pedophilic predators that had targeted him. Shafer takes issue with this, and asks the reasonable question of whether or not a reporter would do the same for, say, a teen prostitute or drug addict they were writing a story about. Give it a read.
Until Whenever
Slate has an interesting piece up in which Jack Shafer takes a look at the New York Times child pornography article I linked to yesterday and debates the ethics of the Times' reporter's involvement in the story. Specifically, Eichenwald, the Times reporter, helped the subject of his article get immunity and to be come a witness for the prosecution in going after some of the pedophilic predators that had targeted him. Shafer takes issue with this, and asks the reasonable question of whether or not a reporter would do the same for, say, a teen prostitute or drug addict they were writing a story about. Give it a read.
Until Whenever
Questions in the Theme of Four
Taken from the estimable (and recently recovered from a health scare--happy news), Terry Teachout, and his cohort in crime, His Girl in Chicago.
Four jobs you've had in your life: Airline menu writer; Actors' Equity membership representative, accounting proposal writer, high school musical director.
Four movies you could watch over and over: Star Wars, It's A Wonderful Life, Beauty & the Beast, and The Shawshank Redemption.
Four places you've lived: Jersey City, NJ; New Brunswick, NJ; Bogota, NJ; and Midland Park, NJ.
Four TV shows you love to watch: Gilmore Girls, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, and The Simpsons.
Four places you've been on vacation: Jamaica, Orlando, New Hampshire, and Lancaster County, PA.
Four websites you visit daily: Byzantium's Shores, Tom the Dog, True Hoops, and Dave's Long Box.
Four of your favorite foods: Bacon, Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream, rack of lamb, and blackened shark.
Four places you'd rather be: Home, browsing through a very large Barnes & Noble with lots of time, in a sunny, warm beachfront house with the fam, seeing Kig Kong.
Until Whenever
Taken from the estimable (and recently recovered from a health scare--happy news), Terry Teachout, and his cohort in crime, His Girl in Chicago.
Four jobs you've had in your life: Airline menu writer; Actors' Equity membership representative, accounting proposal writer, high school musical director.
Four movies you could watch over and over: Star Wars, It's A Wonderful Life, Beauty & the Beast, and The Shawshank Redemption.
Four places you've lived: Jersey City, NJ; New Brunswick, NJ; Bogota, NJ; and Midland Park, NJ.
Four TV shows you love to watch: Gilmore Girls, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, and The Simpsons.
Four places you've been on vacation: Jamaica, Orlando, New Hampshire, and Lancaster County, PA.
Four websites you visit daily: Byzantium's Shores, Tom the Dog, True Hoops, and Dave's Long Box.
Four of your favorite foods: Bacon, Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream, rack of lamb, and blackened shark.
Four places you'd rather be: Home, browsing through a very large Barnes & Noble with lots of time, in a sunny, warm beachfront house with the fam, seeing Kig Kong.
Until Whenever
Monday, December 19, 2005
Odd Modesty
An article in today's Times by Kurt Eichenwald on the proliferation of child pornography on the Internet (teens selling pornographic webcam images of themselves), an article that discusses, among other things, how children have sex and masturbate on camera for pedophiles, includes this sentence:
"Unnerved by menacing messages from a fan of his first site, Justin opened a new one called jfwy.com, an online acronym that loosely translates into 'just messing with you.'"
In a serious article, one that talks about serious issues, couldn't they have run with just "f---ing with you" as a description of the acronym? Does the Times editorial policy proscribe against even the use of dashes to describe profanity?
I don't get it.
(The article itself, by the by, is good--if creepy.)
Until Whenever
An article in today's Times by Kurt Eichenwald on the proliferation of child pornography on the Internet (teens selling pornographic webcam images of themselves), an article that discusses, among other things, how children have sex and masturbate on camera for pedophiles, includes this sentence:
"Unnerved by menacing messages from a fan of his first site, Justin opened a new one called jfwy.com, an online acronym that loosely translates into 'just messing with you.'"
In a serious article, one that talks about serious issues, couldn't they have run with just "f---ing with you" as a description of the acronym? Does the Times editorial policy proscribe against even the use of dashes to describe profanity?
I don't get it.
(The article itself, by the by, is good--if creepy.)
Until Whenever
Fifteen Things About Music
Now why didn't I think of this?
1. Until the age of, I dunno, fourteen or so, I had almost zero interest in music.
2. My first inkling of just how much fun it is to sing came in a fourth-grade production of a somewhat abridged version of Hello Dolly! I was Ambrose Kemper and so had no solos, but singing "Elegance" with three other students was fun.
3. I didn't start to really get into singing until high school, when choir and the yearly musical started to demonstrate for me how much fun singing was.
(For the record--my musical theater roles have been:
Fourth grade - Ambrose, Hello Dolly!
Fifth grade - (?), Best Foot Forward
Sixth grade - Abner, Lil' Abner
Eight grade - Chorus, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown
Ninth grade - Older Patrick, Mame
Tenth grade - Pirelli, Sweeney Todd
Eleventh grade - Hugo, Bye, Bye Birdie
Twelfth grade - Sanjar, The Apple Tree
College - Anselmo, Man of La Mancha
College - Potiphar and Judah, Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Community Theater - John, Godspell
Community Theater - JB Biggley, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
Community Theater - Mr. Schlegel, Carnival
4. Probably my most treasured musical memory is of singing in the choir for a performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony. Awe-inspiring.
5. Probably my second-most treasured musical memory is of singing sacred music in a centuries-old church in Warsaw as part of an Eastern European tour with the Rutgers Glee Club.
6. I didn't like Sondheim when I first encountered his music, but sometime in college I got bit hard and became a full-fledged Sondhead.
7. Listening to Sondheim's "Next," the finale in his Pacific Overtures, really loud makes me cry--not because the music is sad, but because it is so powerful.
8. In grade school I remember performing in a recorder ensemble concert and completely pretending to play--I wasn't actually blowing through the instrument.
9. I love to play piano, but can't play piano. Ironic, hm? The pieces I have sheet music for that I most like to fumble my way through are: Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here," Williams' "Schindler's List (Main Theme)," Sondheim's "Loving You," Menken's "If I Can't Love Her," and Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata."
10. Probably my most treasured musical memory (solo category) is singing "Brotherhood of Man" in a community theater production of How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying)
11. I used to absolutely love Bon Jovi. So unclean.
12. My favorite group is U2 (really?); favorite classical composer is Beethoven; and favorite musical theater composer is Sondheim.
13. In high school I was tenor, but in college I started to lose some notes on top and moved into the baritone voice. In a high school production of Sweeney Todd I had to hit a high b-flat as Pirelli; that was hard.
14. I always wanted to sing in a rock band; never did.
15. I used to be able to read and write with music on much more effectively; nowadays anything with lyrics trips me up.
Until Whenever
Now why didn't I think of this?
1. Until the age of, I dunno, fourteen or so, I had almost zero interest in music.
2. My first inkling of just how much fun it is to sing came in a fourth-grade production of a somewhat abridged version of Hello Dolly! I was Ambrose Kemper and so had no solos, but singing "Elegance" with three other students was fun.
3. I didn't start to really get into singing until high school, when choir and the yearly musical started to demonstrate for me how much fun singing was.
(For the record--my musical theater roles have been:
Fourth grade - Ambrose, Hello Dolly!
Fifth grade - (?), Best Foot Forward
Sixth grade - Abner, Lil' Abner
Eight grade - Chorus, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown
Ninth grade - Older Patrick, Mame
Tenth grade - Pirelli, Sweeney Todd
Eleventh grade - Hugo, Bye, Bye Birdie
Twelfth grade - Sanjar, The Apple Tree
College - Anselmo, Man of La Mancha
College - Potiphar and Judah, Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Community Theater - John, Godspell
Community Theater - JB Biggley, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
Community Theater - Mr. Schlegel, Carnival
4. Probably my most treasured musical memory is of singing in the choir for a performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony. Awe-inspiring.
5. Probably my second-most treasured musical memory is of singing sacred music in a centuries-old church in Warsaw as part of an Eastern European tour with the Rutgers Glee Club.
6. I didn't like Sondheim when I first encountered his music, but sometime in college I got bit hard and became a full-fledged Sondhead.
7. Listening to Sondheim's "Next," the finale in his Pacific Overtures, really loud makes me cry--not because the music is sad, but because it is so powerful.
8. In grade school I remember performing in a recorder ensemble concert and completely pretending to play--I wasn't actually blowing through the instrument.
9. I love to play piano, but can't play piano. Ironic, hm? The pieces I have sheet music for that I most like to fumble my way through are: Guaraldi's "Christmas Time Is Here," Williams' "Schindler's List (Main Theme)," Sondheim's "Loving You," Menken's "If I Can't Love Her," and Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata."
10. Probably my most treasured musical memory (solo category) is singing "Brotherhood of Man" in a community theater production of How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying)
11. I used to absolutely love Bon Jovi. So unclean.
12. My favorite group is U2 (really?); favorite classical composer is Beethoven; and favorite musical theater composer is Sondheim.
13. In high school I was tenor, but in college I started to lose some notes on top and moved into the baritone voice. In a high school production of Sweeney Todd I had to hit a high b-flat as Pirelli; that was hard.
14. I always wanted to sing in a rock band; never did.
15. I used to be able to read and write with music on much more effectively; nowadays anything with lyrics trips me up.
Until Whenever
Best Of . . . ?
This blog is something of an oxymoron. It's purportedly a pop culture blog, in which I write about movies, TV, music and any other pop culture ephemera that hold my somewhat easily distracted interest. And yet, as the father of twenty-one month old twin girls, my weekly dosage of current pop culture is in reality pretty thin on the ground. To wit; the thought occurred to me to write up a post of the year's ten best movies. And then I remembered that I only went to the theater twice, I think, this year (Revenge of the Sith and Pride and Prejudice). Any year's-best list I tried to trot out would no doubt be mightily hampered by the fact that I haven't seen much of what any specific category had to offer in 2005.
So. What follows is in no way, shape, or form a "Best Of" 2005 (the misleading title to this post notwithstanding), but much more narrowly and honestly a "Favorites" list--the 10 pop culture/entertainment products that I loved the most in 2005. In no particular order:
1. Star Wars - Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
I actually just saw this again, on DVD, and was struck anew by how daring, and contradictory, the story Lucas told in these prequel films actually was. I, for one, and most other Star Wars fans too, I'd reckon, were expecting some big, world-changing event to have happened to Anakin to turn him from the good Jedi he was to the bad Sith he became. We were all expecting some huge story point to explain the creation of Vader. Indeed, over the years I expounded in several venues my own pet theory for what might have turned him (1). Instead of one clear event, though, what Lucas gave us was a very gradual, imperceptible drift from Anakin to Vader--suggesting that the line between good and evil is not completely clear. What I love about this is how wonderfully it addresses a longstanding criticism of the Star Wars films and the fantasy genre in general--that the bad guys are always cartoonishly bad, with no shadings or grays to their all-consuming evil. The prequel trilogy makes a strong case that the line between a good man and an evil one isn't in any way clear, but vanishingly thin.
2. Star Wars - Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith (score)
Williams best Star Wars score since Empire, full of lushly dark, ominous, tragic music that fit the story completely perfectly. A triumph coming after his Episode II score, which aside form the wonderful love theme was very recycled and uninspired.
3. Battlestar Galactica
Haven't seen any of season two yet, but season one was wonderful--engaging stories, well-shaded characters, and a refreshing take on a sci-fi universe. And Katee Sackhoff is one of the casting finds of the year--pretty in a very non-traditional way, and a very rare instance of that now-cliche character--the pretty girl who kicks ass--who actually looks like she could kick ass. I love me my Buffy, but I wouldn't be frightened is Sarah Michelle Gellar attacked me. Sackhoff not so much.
4. U2 Vertigo - Live from Chicago
I didn't get to see the band live this tour (first missed tour since I got into them in the late 80s), so this DVD of their stint in Chicago has been a godsend. City of Blinding Lights kills as an opener.
5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Rowling continues to spin one hell of an epic story--stuffed to the brim with interesting characters and twisty plots all inhabiting a wonderfully realized world.
6. The Light in the Piazza
A gorgeous score by Adam Guettel. I still have faint hopes of seeing this on stage before it closes. Guettel's next score will be for a musical adaptation of The Princess Bride. I can't wait.
7. No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7)
The soundtrack to the Dylan doc is better than the doc itself. The highlight for me is Dylan's very early, stark-yet-somehow emotive take on Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."
8. Crash
What I loved perhaps most about this film is how it took a sensitive, volatile topic (race); refused to dumb it down or metaphorize it; dealt with it through very, very real-sounding characters; and yet still did it all within a defiantly "Hollywood" sensibility--this wasn't a dark, post-modern indie film, or a dry, scratchy plotless film all about character, but a bold bit of old-fashioned, too-many-coincidences-to-be-actually-credible storytelling, in the best possible sense of the word. The film made you think, and hard, about race and how you react to other races, but it also delivered Potter-esque twists and turns worthy of Dickens.
9. Bob Dylan live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, April 19
First time I've ever seen Dylan live (and only concert attended this year). Seeing him ensconced behind an electric keyboard for nearly the entire show was odd, but the musicianship and daring were inspiring.
10. Lost
The mix of storytelling, world-building, and character development has been near-perfect so far, and I only hope they can keep it up. I'm jonesing for a new episode hard.
Until Whenever
(1) The short version: When Kenobi is killed in the original film, the music we hear at that moment isn't the Force Theme, isn't Luke's theme, but is, oddly, Lea's theme. Why? My theory centered around the notion that there was a buried reason for this musical blip in Williams' otherwise strong use of motifs--that he was clueing us in to the hidden truth that Ben was Lea's father, not Anakin. My theory was that Lucas was holding this final surprise for the eventual Episode III, and that basically, Anakin and Padme would have spent the night together before the final and defining battle of the Clone Wars (conceiving Luke); that in the battle the next day, Anakin would be thought to have been killed; that Ben Kenobi would personally bring this news to Padme that day; that in their mutual grief they would comfort each other, ahem, physically; and that Anakin would turn up miraculously alive, witness the betrayal and go nuts. Seems I was wrong.
This blog is something of an oxymoron. It's purportedly a pop culture blog, in which I write about movies, TV, music and any other pop culture ephemera that hold my somewhat easily distracted interest. And yet, as the father of twenty-one month old twin girls, my weekly dosage of current pop culture is in reality pretty thin on the ground. To wit; the thought occurred to me to write up a post of the year's ten best movies. And then I remembered that I only went to the theater twice, I think, this year (Revenge of the Sith and Pride and Prejudice). Any year's-best list I tried to trot out would no doubt be mightily hampered by the fact that I haven't seen much of what any specific category had to offer in 2005.
So. What follows is in no way, shape, or form a "Best Of" 2005 (the misleading title to this post notwithstanding), but much more narrowly and honestly a "Favorites" list--the 10 pop culture/entertainment products that I loved the most in 2005. In no particular order:
1. Star Wars - Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith
I actually just saw this again, on DVD, and was struck anew by how daring, and contradictory, the story Lucas told in these prequel films actually was. I, for one, and most other Star Wars fans too, I'd reckon, were expecting some big, world-changing event to have happened to Anakin to turn him from the good Jedi he was to the bad Sith he became. We were all expecting some huge story point to explain the creation of Vader. Indeed, over the years I expounded in several venues my own pet theory for what might have turned him (1). Instead of one clear event, though, what Lucas gave us was a very gradual, imperceptible drift from Anakin to Vader--suggesting that the line between good and evil is not completely clear. What I love about this is how wonderfully it addresses a longstanding criticism of the Star Wars films and the fantasy genre in general--that the bad guys are always cartoonishly bad, with no shadings or grays to their all-consuming evil. The prequel trilogy makes a strong case that the line between a good man and an evil one isn't in any way clear, but vanishingly thin.
2. Star Wars - Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith (score)
Williams best Star Wars score since Empire, full of lushly dark, ominous, tragic music that fit the story completely perfectly. A triumph coming after his Episode II score, which aside form the wonderful love theme was very recycled and uninspired.
3. Battlestar Galactica
Haven't seen any of season two yet, but season one was wonderful--engaging stories, well-shaded characters, and a refreshing take on a sci-fi universe. And Katee Sackhoff is one of the casting finds of the year--pretty in a very non-traditional way, and a very rare instance of that now-cliche character--the pretty girl who kicks ass--who actually looks like she could kick ass. I love me my Buffy, but I wouldn't be frightened is Sarah Michelle Gellar attacked me. Sackhoff not so much.
4. U2 Vertigo - Live from Chicago
I didn't get to see the band live this tour (first missed tour since I got into them in the late 80s), so this DVD of their stint in Chicago has been a godsend. City of Blinding Lights kills as an opener.
5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Rowling continues to spin one hell of an epic story--stuffed to the brim with interesting characters and twisty plots all inhabiting a wonderfully realized world.
6. The Light in the Piazza
A gorgeous score by Adam Guettel. I still have faint hopes of seeing this on stage before it closes. Guettel's next score will be for a musical adaptation of The Princess Bride. I can't wait.
7. No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (The Bootleg Series Vol. 7)
The soundtrack to the Dylan doc is better than the doc itself. The highlight for me is Dylan's very early, stark-yet-somehow emotive take on Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."
8. Crash
What I loved perhaps most about this film is how it took a sensitive, volatile topic (race); refused to dumb it down or metaphorize it; dealt with it through very, very real-sounding characters; and yet still did it all within a defiantly "Hollywood" sensibility--this wasn't a dark, post-modern indie film, or a dry, scratchy plotless film all about character, but a bold bit of old-fashioned, too-many-coincidences-to-be-actually-credible storytelling, in the best possible sense of the word. The film made you think, and hard, about race and how you react to other races, but it also delivered Potter-esque twists and turns worthy of Dickens.
9. Bob Dylan live at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, April 19
First time I've ever seen Dylan live (and only concert attended this year). Seeing him ensconced behind an electric keyboard for nearly the entire show was odd, but the musicianship and daring were inspiring.
10. Lost
The mix of storytelling, world-building, and character development has been near-perfect so far, and I only hope they can keep it up. I'm jonesing for a new episode hard.
Until Whenever
(1) The short version: When Kenobi is killed in the original film, the music we hear at that moment isn't the Force Theme, isn't Luke's theme, but is, oddly, Lea's theme. Why? My theory centered around the notion that there was a buried reason for this musical blip in Williams' otherwise strong use of motifs--that he was clueing us in to the hidden truth that Ben was Lea's father, not Anakin. My theory was that Lucas was holding this final surprise for the eventual Episode III, and that basically, Anakin and Padme would have spent the night together before the final and defining battle of the Clone Wars (conceiving Luke); that in the battle the next day, Anakin would be thought to have been killed; that Ben Kenobi would personally bring this news to Padme that day; that in their mutual grief they would comfort each other, ahem, physically; and that Anakin would turn up miraculously alive, witness the betrayal and go nuts. Seems I was wrong.
Friday, December 16, 2005
Doin' the Friday Shuffle
Click. Bang!
1. "Under Your White Stars" - Mandy Patinkin - Mamaloshen
A delicate ballad from Patinkin's all-Yiddish album.
2. "The Gloria from the Mass of St. Bernard" - Chuck Mangione - Land of Make Believe
I get the feeling that Mangione's brand of melodic, big, full jazz sound is considered a bit cheesy, but I love it. This combination of swinging' jazz and choral odes to God is an odd mix, but one that works for me.
3. "Mad World" - Tears for Fears - Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits)
The original, not the big UK X-Mas hit of a few years back.
4. "November 22, 1963" - John Weidman - Assassins (Original Cast Recording)
The original cast CD of Sondheim's Assassins featured this full-length scene from the play in its entirety. It's a riveting, theatrically imaginative scene, in which John Wilkes Booth magically appears in the Texas Book Depository and convinces Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate Kennedy. Creepy, chilling stuff. I used an edited version of this for my standard audition monologue in college.
5. "Lucky Town" - Bruce Springsteen - The Essential Bruce Springsteen
Not one of my favorites, but in truth it's not a bad rock song.
6. "How Long Has this Been Going On?" - Elvis Costello - Kojak Variety
Elvis does standards better, and more often, than any other rock singer I can think of.
7. "Like Spinning Plates" - Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings)
I love this live rendition of the Radiohead song, it's a somber, dark read on the song, with a lovely piano accompaniment running through.
8. "Love Is Everything" - K.D. Lang - Hymns of the 49th Parallel
Gorgeous cover of the Jane Siberry ballad (I've never heard the original).
9. "Swimming in Your Ocean" - Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet
Whatever you think of this band, the album title is just great.
10. "So" - Tracy Chapman - Matters of the Heart
Chapman's most underrated album. This is an urgent song with some interesting percussion in the background giving it a real drive, making up for (mostly) the overstated lyrics ("So you made a little money/Off of someone else's sweat/Watching people starve/While you got fat, while you got fat")
Until Whenever
Click. Bang!
1. "Under Your White Stars" - Mandy Patinkin - Mamaloshen
A delicate ballad from Patinkin's all-Yiddish album.
2. "The Gloria from the Mass of St. Bernard" - Chuck Mangione - Land of Make Believe
I get the feeling that Mangione's brand of melodic, big, full jazz sound is considered a bit cheesy, but I love it. This combination of swinging' jazz and choral odes to God is an odd mix, but one that works for me.
3. "Mad World" - Tears for Fears - Tears Roll Down (Greatest Hits)
The original, not the big UK X-Mas hit of a few years back.
4. "November 22, 1963" - John Weidman - Assassins (Original Cast Recording)
The original cast CD of Sondheim's Assassins featured this full-length scene from the play in its entirety. It's a riveting, theatrically imaginative scene, in which John Wilkes Booth magically appears in the Texas Book Depository and convinces Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate Kennedy. Creepy, chilling stuff. I used an edited version of this for my standard audition monologue in college.
5. "Lucky Town" - Bruce Springsteen - The Essential Bruce Springsteen
Not one of my favorites, but in truth it's not a bad rock song.
6. "How Long Has this Been Going On?" - Elvis Costello - Kojak Variety
Elvis does standards better, and more often, than any other rock singer I can think of.
7. "Like Spinning Plates" - Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings)
I love this live rendition of the Radiohead song, it's a somber, dark read on the song, with a lovely piano accompaniment running through.
8. "Love Is Everything" - K.D. Lang - Hymns of the 49th Parallel
Gorgeous cover of the Jane Siberry ballad (I've never heard the original).
9. "Swimming in Your Ocean" - Crash Test Dummies - God Shuffled His Feet
Whatever you think of this band, the album title is just great.
10. "So" - Tracy Chapman - Matters of the Heart
Chapman's most underrated album. This is an urgent song with some interesting percussion in the background giving it a real drive, making up for (mostly) the overstated lyrics ("So you made a little money/Off of someone else's sweat/Watching people starve/While you got fat, while you got fat")
Until Whenever
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Music Morsels, Vol XIII - Myths and Hymns
I rhapsodized here about Adam Guettel's latest theatrical score, The Light in the Piazza. Today's morsel is the cast recording of his second theatrical work, which was performed after the well-received off-Broadway and regional semi-hit Floyd Collins. Unlike Light and Floyd, Myths and Hymns was not a real musical, per se, but instead a kind of song cycle comprising theatrical songs written by Guettel around the twin themes of, well, myths and hymns. The result is a spotty, uneven piece, especially on disc, but nonetheless one that offers up some real gems.
The real highlight here is a new "hymn" of Guettel's, "Migratory V," which, with a simple yet elegant metaphor, makes a beautiful point about faith. But the real offering the song has to give is it's pure, equally simple yet achingly gorgeous melody, a tune Guettel's granddad, Richard Rodgers, would be proud of. The album features Guettel himself singing, well enough if not exceptionally, on a few tracks, including the bluesy and passionate "Saturn Returns" and the abortion mini-drama "Come to Jesus." The middle section of the album includes a few relatively straightforward musical retelling of classic myths, including "Icarus," Pegasus," and "Sisyphus." The best of these is the jazzy, funky "Icarus." Some of the musical experiments work better than others, with a gospel-inflected "There's a Shout" a particular weak point, but there's more than enough here to really admire--and in the case of "Migratory V" one song, and melody, for the ages.
Until Whenever
I rhapsodized here about Adam Guettel's latest theatrical score, The Light in the Piazza. Today's morsel is the cast recording of his second theatrical work, which was performed after the well-received off-Broadway and regional semi-hit Floyd Collins. Unlike Light and Floyd, Myths and Hymns was not a real musical, per se, but instead a kind of song cycle comprising theatrical songs written by Guettel around the twin themes of, well, myths and hymns. The result is a spotty, uneven piece, especially on disc, but nonetheless one that offers up some real gems.The real highlight here is a new "hymn" of Guettel's, "Migratory V," which, with a simple yet elegant metaphor, makes a beautiful point about faith. But the real offering the song has to give is it's pure, equally simple yet achingly gorgeous melody, a tune Guettel's granddad, Richard Rodgers, would be proud of. The album features Guettel himself singing, well enough if not exceptionally, on a few tracks, including the bluesy and passionate "Saturn Returns" and the abortion mini-drama "Come to Jesus." The middle section of the album includes a few relatively straightforward musical retelling of classic myths, including "Icarus," Pegasus," and "Sisyphus." The best of these is the jazzy, funky "Icarus." Some of the musical experiments work better than others, with a gospel-inflected "There's a Shout" a particular weak point, but there's more than enough here to really admire--and in the case of "Migratory V" one song, and melody, for the ages.
Until Whenever
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
15 Things About Me and Books
Stolen from Scalzi, who stole it from others.
1. I feel very guilty if I start a book and don't finish it--an odd compulsion that I've gotten better at ignoring over the past few years.
2. I love to re-read books I've loved, and I've read several more than twice (and Stephen King's It what has to be 6-7 times.
3. I learned to read at an early age, and when I was three my father used to sit me on the counter at the deli he owned in Jersey City and have me read the Daily News headlines to customers.
4. I worshipped the Curious George books as a kid, and have recently taken great pleasure in reading them to my twin girls.
5. I credit The Electric Company with teaching me to read; my father credits the fact that he did all the voices from Sesame Street.
6. Two aunts did much to inoculate my love for reading: My Aunt Maureen, who had many a Shel Silverstein book in her home and who always gave me books for birthdays and Christmas, and my Aunt Christie, who lent me The Neverending Story at a young age.
7. I own many books, but do the vast amount of my reading through the munifecence of my local library system. Libraries are remarkable institutions. Just minutes ago, I clicked my mouse a few times, and within a week, my local library will have for me the first three volumes of Loeb's Superman/Batman stuff and his Hulk: Gray.
8. I own relatively few hardcovers--mainly stuff I know I'll want to re-read and pass down to my kids (Stephen King's books and the Harry Potter stuff among others).
9. I have a real aversion to writing in books--I pretty much never do it.
10. I love used books (the same words for half the price), and have a hard time not buying something whenever I visit one.
11. I love that my niece, to whom I had read Sobel's Frog and Toad stories out of my own copy, which my Aunt Maureen had given me, wanted her own copy for Christmas one year - but only if I would inscribe hers on the inside cover the same way my aunt had inscribed mine.
12. I pine for big, fancy, expensive prestige books (The Complete Calvin and Hobbes) but can't justify the cost to myself.
13. I leave the book I'm currently reading out on my desk at work in the hopes someone will notice and remark on it, and it's worked, a few times.
14. I've written a short novel (40,000 words) that I hope to expand one day.
15. My most prized book is the copy of The Giving Tree that my Aunt Maureen, who died when I was seven or so from a sudden brain aneurysm (she was about the age I am now), gave me. It's a wreck, given that as a youngster I wasn't the kindest to books, but it's treasured.
Until Whenever
Stolen from Scalzi, who stole it from others.
1. I feel very guilty if I start a book and don't finish it--an odd compulsion that I've gotten better at ignoring over the past few years.
2. I love to re-read books I've loved, and I've read several more than twice (and Stephen King's It what has to be 6-7 times.
3. I learned to read at an early age, and when I was three my father used to sit me on the counter at the deli he owned in Jersey City and have me read the Daily News headlines to customers.
4. I worshipped the Curious George books as a kid, and have recently taken great pleasure in reading them to my twin girls.
5. I credit The Electric Company with teaching me to read; my father credits the fact that he did all the voices from Sesame Street.
6. Two aunts did much to inoculate my love for reading: My Aunt Maureen, who had many a Shel Silverstein book in her home and who always gave me books for birthdays and Christmas, and my Aunt Christie, who lent me The Neverending Story at a young age.
7. I own many books, but do the vast amount of my reading through the munifecence of my local library system. Libraries are remarkable institutions. Just minutes ago, I clicked my mouse a few times, and within a week, my local library will have for me the first three volumes of Loeb's Superman/Batman stuff and his Hulk: Gray.
8. I own relatively few hardcovers--mainly stuff I know I'll want to re-read and pass down to my kids (Stephen King's books and the Harry Potter stuff among others).
9. I have a real aversion to writing in books--I pretty much never do it.
10. I love used books (the same words for half the price), and have a hard time not buying something whenever I visit one.
11. I love that my niece, to whom I had read Sobel's Frog and Toad stories out of my own copy, which my Aunt Maureen had given me, wanted her own copy for Christmas one year - but only if I would inscribe hers on the inside cover the same way my aunt had inscribed mine.
12. I pine for big, fancy, expensive prestige books (The Complete Calvin and Hobbes) but can't justify the cost to myself.
13. I leave the book I'm currently reading out on my desk at work in the hopes someone will notice and remark on it, and it's worked, a few times.
14. I've written a short novel (40,000 words) that I hope to expand one day.
15. My most prized book is the copy of The Giving Tree that my Aunt Maureen, who died when I was seven or so from a sudden brain aneurysm (she was about the age I am now), gave me. It's a wreck, given that as a youngster I wasn't the kindest to books, but it's treasured.
Until Whenever
Recent Reading
What's been on my nightstand/in the bag I take to work over the last few weeks?
(Yes, I'm envisioning this as a recurrent feature. Yes, I know you didn't ask for it. Sorry.)
New Avengers (1-6), Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch
Read this last night before going to bed. I've recently discovered that my local library system houses many a new comics collection, and I've been playing catch up with a whole bunch of titles I had abandoned when I gave up comics a few years back. I had read a fair bit of negative stuff about this one, but I liked it, if not wildly. Bendis writes the characters really, really well, and that's for me a key piece of any comic. The randomness of the team, and the kind-of-lameness at Cap assembling a new Avengers after Marvel went to all the trouble of blowing up the old one was assuaged in large part by the great character writing.
Paradise Lost, Philip Roth
I read The Human Stain when it came out a few years back and liked it, but was somewhat put off by how Roth would just abandon his narrative for pages at a time to indulge in long, wordy essay-like diatribes against race, class, or whatever other thematic elements the story was mucking about in. He does it here too, and, I'm supposing, throughout his work. And it's, for this reader, at least, a bit of a shame, since the actual plots and characters themselves are well worthy of the verbiage he instead spills pontificating outside of the narrative's confines.
Here there's also another twist--the main story, that of the terrorist act committed by the main character's daughter and what that act does to him and his family, isn't begun until a 100 or so pages in. The big front piece of the novel is taken up with Roth's doppelganger writer character, the version of himself he also plopped into The Human Stain, reminiscing for us about the main character as a high school sports God. And when the narrator (finally) begins to tell us the main story, it appears (and I haven't finished the novel yet--I've got another 100 pages to go, so I could be wrong here) that he's making it up, as away to explain what had happened to this hero from his youth to explain some odd behavior the narrator witnessed the hero engaging in. Very off-putting, and, again, sad, given that the actual story--that of the terrorist daughter and her family--is quite engaging.
The Man in My Basement, Walter Mosley
I've never read any Mosley, but had heard so many good things that I felt the need to check him out. This was a great short novel, with very well-drawn characters and a slightly absurdist situation that Mosley makes very real-feeling. My next step is to figure out the order of the Easy Rawlin's books and start diving into those.
Ultimate Fantastic Four, Volume II: Doom, Warren Ennis, Stuart Immonen
I love this take on the Four with one big exception--this whole "Doom has powers brought on by the same accident that created the FF" thing is just, well, dumb. And the notion that Doom was turned into some kind of metallic, hooved being by the accident is just blech. I'm looking forward to reading the Doom-less volumes three and four.
Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx
I hadn't read any Proulx, but the universal acclaim the film's been getting and the fact that The New Yorker put her short story up on their website for free spurred me to read it. As good as advertised. It's a powerful, moving, sad story that works in large part because of her ability to make the relationship, and the powerful lust and love between the two cowboys, real and not gimmicky. One of the better short stories I've read in a long while.
Until Whenever
What's been on my nightstand/in the bag I take to work over the last few weeks?
(Yes, I'm envisioning this as a recurrent feature. Yes, I know you didn't ask for it. Sorry.)
New Avengers (1-6), Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch
Read this last night before going to bed. I've recently discovered that my local library system houses many a new comics collection, and I've been playing catch up with a whole bunch of titles I had abandoned when I gave up comics a few years back. I had read a fair bit of negative stuff about this one, but I liked it, if not wildly. Bendis writes the characters really, really well, and that's for me a key piece of any comic. The randomness of the team, and the kind-of-lameness at Cap assembling a new Avengers after Marvel went to all the trouble of blowing up the old one was assuaged in large part by the great character writing.
Paradise Lost, Philip Roth
I read The Human Stain when it came out a few years back and liked it, but was somewhat put off by how Roth would just abandon his narrative for pages at a time to indulge in long, wordy essay-like diatribes against race, class, or whatever other thematic elements the story was mucking about in. He does it here too, and, I'm supposing, throughout his work. And it's, for this reader, at least, a bit of a shame, since the actual plots and characters themselves are well worthy of the verbiage he instead spills pontificating outside of the narrative's confines.
Here there's also another twist--the main story, that of the terrorist act committed by the main character's daughter and what that act does to him and his family, isn't begun until a 100 or so pages in. The big front piece of the novel is taken up with Roth's doppelganger writer character, the version of himself he also plopped into The Human Stain, reminiscing for us about the main character as a high school sports God. And when the narrator (finally) begins to tell us the main story, it appears (and I haven't finished the novel yet--I've got another 100 pages to go, so I could be wrong here) that he's making it up, as away to explain what had happened to this hero from his youth to explain some odd behavior the narrator witnessed the hero engaging in. Very off-putting, and, again, sad, given that the actual story--that of the terrorist daughter and her family--is quite engaging.
The Man in My Basement, Walter Mosley
I've never read any Mosley, but had heard so many good things that I felt the need to check him out. This was a great short novel, with very well-drawn characters and a slightly absurdist situation that Mosley makes very real-feeling. My next step is to figure out the order of the Easy Rawlin's books and start diving into those.
Ultimate Fantastic Four, Volume II: Doom, Warren Ennis, Stuart Immonen
I love this take on the Four with one big exception--this whole "Doom has powers brought on by the same accident that created the FF" thing is just, well, dumb. And the notion that Doom was turned into some kind of metallic, hooved being by the accident is just blech. I'm looking forward to reading the Doom-less volumes three and four.
Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx
I hadn't read any Proulx, but the universal acclaim the film's been getting and the fact that The New Yorker put her short story up on their website for free spurred me to read it. As good as advertised. It's a powerful, moving, sad story that works in large part because of her ability to make the relationship, and the powerful lust and love between the two cowboys, real and not gimmicky. One of the better short stories I've read in a long while.
Until Whenever
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