¡Los Oscars del Academio!

A few brief thoughts on last night's Oscar ceremony:

* How fucking pissed would you be right now if you were Annette Bening? 'Cause it's not even like you could chalk your second loss to Hilary Swank up to sheer babe factor alone--Swank actually has mad skills. Ms. Bening is a gracious, beautiful woman, and a truly stunning actress, so I have to believe that she's taking it all in stride, but there's still a part of me that imagines her completely flipping the fuck out, much like her character from Being Julia probably would have.

* Clint Eastwood's mother?

* Charlie Kaufman's meta-commentary on his own acceptance speech ("...28...27...26...this is very intimidating...") while he was still giving it was pure genius. I couldn't be more pleased that Eternal Sunshine (which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite movies) was given even a little bit of mainstream recognition, and that Kaufman, who is one of the few auteurs worthy of the title working in Hollywood (who isn't also a director), has license to keep on following his weird, wonderful muse.

* The duet between Beyoncé and Josh Groban is the reason why I watch the Oscars. I was drunk on the giddy, cheesy glee of it all. A horrifying train wreck (no pun intended) of melisma and overemoting and Glen Ballard power balladry that delighted from start to finish.

* Chris Rock's opening monologue was, though topically tame, kind of exactly what they hired him to do. The anti-Bush stuff, calling Tobey Maguire "just a kid in tights," suggesting that Russell Crowe star in a period piece about three weeks ago--all gold. However, I do think it's telling that the biggest laugh of the night in my living room (well, the biggest laugh that didn't go to a bit of snark that one of us heckled toward the TV screen) went to Johnny Carson. I can't remember the exact wording, but his bit about "this is day 164 of the Oscar telecast," likening it to the Iran hostage crisis, really, genuinely tickled us. The joke was smart, sophisticated, and delivered with more poise than most of the jittery, fidgety, still-alive presenters could muster combined. (Jeremy Irons, delectably, excepted.)

* Why did Barbra Streisand insist on speaking to Dustin Hoffman entirely in her Mrs. Focker character for pretty much the entire time she was on stage? Though not as outright point-and-laugh-worthy as her "songs are amazing things" bon mot from the Oscars in 2003, she is definitely getting weirder by the year. And I loved Hoffman's barely concealed eye-rolling about the whole thing. There's something kind of comforting about the fact that even though he's 67 years old, he's still got more than a healthy amount of sneering, snotty, 1960s rebel attitude left in him.

O'Ds? Cassius? Benji? What am I forgetting here?

Fame!

Googled myself today (like you do) and discovered that a review I wrote way back when (uh, early 2001, I think) is linked from the IMDB, with my name prominently displayed in the link itself. Kinda sexy, huh?

In related linkage news, Brendon got a shout-out on Alex Ross's blog the other day. (It's the second oboe blog he exclaims about.)

Man, it's February in Chicago, for fuck's sake--I think I'm allowed to get excited about little triumphs like this, don't you?

Dwayne Johnson

In my ongoing effort to catalog the assortment of Things They Didn't Tell You Were Going to Happen to You as You Get Older, I'm about to list another one, for the record, here. Apparently, someone neglected to inform me that, upon turning twenty-six, you discover that you really, really love The Rock.

I've known for at least several years now that I've harbored a latent affection for the man, and even despite today's realization, I still enjoy him more as a concept than anything else (which is my roundabout way of saying I don't watch professional wrestling and haven't seen any of his movies), but there was just an undeniable amount of Rock-centric synergy this weekend.

First, the card.

The Great Benji Kelnardo gave me this card for my birthday. (Note the little bit of chocolately fingerprint on the right side. You just know some spazzed-out kid grabbed the card in the store and was waving it around screaming "The Rock! The Rock!" before his mom made him put it back. Gross, but kind of perfect.) My spontaneous, drunken reaction was one of pure glee. I was so delighted when I opened the envelope that I shrieked and laughed almost to the point of tears.

Ben, unaware the card would provoke this response (he was just banking on your average hipsterrific ironic appreciation), then played Wyclef's
It Doesn't Matter for me, which, it turns out, is like the fucking hottest song I've heard in ages. The Rock screaming "it doesn't matter!!!" every few bars only made it that much better.

Then, I finally had a chance to see the preview for Be Cool on Sunday afternoon, and later read in the just-delivered February 25th issue of Entertainment Weekly what Mr. Johnson himself had to say about his part in the film: "For me, it was an opportunity to play a role where, number one, I could be fearless and take on the challenge. . . . I thought it was cool to play someone who was not only gay but a proud gay man."

As a twenty-six year old woman, am I continuing to grow more fully into the twelve-year-old-boy part of my personality? Perhaps I'm merely more aware of it (to use the phrase M.O. and I found ourselves going back to rather frequently during other discussions over the course of this last weekend). But, gee, you know, I feel just that much better about my life today. There's a peacefulness, a calm, that comes with being able to admit that I think The Rock is just about the coolest thing in the world.

Happy Birthday to Me

I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,
Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,
I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,
Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of the friendship I take again.

--Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

Life on Mars?

I'm hard-pressed to explain why I'm as excited as I (actually) am about the possibility that there may be life on Mars (link via Boing Boing). I tend not to think too much about, um, y'know, aliens and space travel and whatnot (my bipolar relationship with all things SF being what it is). But, goddamn. Life on Mars? Even if they're just little bug things living below the surface of the planet, that's some thrilling shit.

A Short Blog Post About Love

"He went on and on about his girlfriend. 'I like this girl, I think I love this girl--but I've got two kids and a wife, and there's certain obligations there. And on top of everything else, I love my wife. I'm gifted with love. I love my kids. I love all my relatives.'" --Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son

Here's hoping that, in your own way, you also feel gifted with love today. (Yes, in the book these words are put in the mouth of a drugged-up, philandering traveling salesman, but, in Johnson's world, that's no reason not to honor the purity of the emotion. In fact, it may be an indication to embrace it even more fully.)

Audiofile

Let us rejoice, er, um, something, now that Tommy Bartlett has a fucking daily column at Salon, called Audiofile. Similar to Salon's other newly launched feature The Daou Report, which gives a "greatest hits" glimpse into the daily developments in the political blogosphere, Audiofile aims to provide a digest of current happenings in the online musical world by offering a daily download "followed by sporadic postings of music news, artist lists and interviews, mixes, concert reviews, and whatever else strikes my (and your) fancy."

Is it just me or does this sound like it's trying to be a one-man version of Pitchfork?

Salon's new editor-in-chief Joan Walsh says that the decision to upgrade Wednesday Morning Download to a daily feature was due to its popularity on the site. I have no doubt that WMD was extremely popular. There absolutely does need to be someone out there combing through the scads of exciting MP3 blogs with an unbiased eye and a true passion for the revolution in musical fanship that becomes possible with responsible yet unfettered access to free downloads. However, this someone is not Tommy Bartlett.

Though his youth explains a lot of the attitude problems in his writing voice (go look 'im up on Friendster--according to the limited version of his profile you're allowed to see if you're "not closely connected" to him, he's only 23), I'm still convinced that he's mostly interested in furthering his own agenda and disseminating his own snobbishly limited ideas of what is artistically valid and noteworthy in the tiny, Gotham-centric realm of his awareness/experience. This is obviously impossible to prove or quantify in any way, but I just don't feel any love emanating from his writing. I don't know how he came to be hired at Salon, and I'm sure he's happy to have achieved this much prominence as a writer at this point in his career, but his stuff always reads to me like he thinks he's, begrudgingly, doing his audience this gigantic favor by gifting us a glimpse into his superior tastes. (You don't earn the right to that kind of shitty tone until you change your name to Clinton Heylin. And even Clinton readily acknowledges in print what an ass he can be.) Many music journalist-types are cranky, to be sure, and there seems to be little point in reading music criticism if you're looking for humility, but, gosh, you know, do we really need one more young white guy who thinks so highly of himself that he can't help looking down his nose at the rest of us? Why do his columns have to come off as these withering efforts to **sigh** finally set the record straight, to provide the **sigh** definitive take on whatever is indie-as-fuck du jour, rather than as an eager and excited chance to share something fun and interesting and perhaps not yet widely known that the rest of us might get a kick out of too and if we don't oh well we're all in this together?

Sidenote: Though it would obviously be a flagrant conflict of interest to post Doveman downloads on Audiofile--despite the fact this hasn't stopped him from pimping friends and fellow musicians like Sam Amidon and Nico Muhly in the past--when is he going to get around to providing some MP3s of his band on the official Doveman site? Put your money where your mouth is, sport, for the benefit of those of us who aren't as spectacularly blessed as you are to live in NYC and therefore can't see you perform live at Tonic or Sin-E.

Really, I know this sounds like sour grapes from an equally music-minded blogger with a small (but fucking mighty! I lurv you guys!) readership, a blogger who can't (and wouldn't want to) begin to pull in the kind of numbers that Salon can, and I know I'm not saying much of anything new here about my issues with Dr. Bartlett that I didn't say during September's crusade. But, honestly, I would love nothing more than to be able to respect and support a column of this nature, even when I disagree with it. (Hello, cf the many, many links I've provided to articles and interviews on the 'Fork.) It just irks me that his ego and abrasive opining have been given a pass (especially by a site as sharp as Salon) because of the merits of the column's concept and current need it fills.

Arthur Miller

"Attention must be paid": Arthur Miller, 1915--2005.

May the master rest in peace.

Anti the Anti

I'm just letting it be known publicly that—while such things as alcoholic haikus and snarky cards and "Bittersweets" are fine for a laugh or two—I've made a conscious decision to be anti the anti–Valentine's Day bitterness this year. I'm all about the love in 2005, kittens, the love, I say!!

Kid A

Suck on it, haters: Pitchfork declares Kid A the #1 album of the first half of the '00s.

I know it's somewhat ridiculous to get excited about a pointless exercise in masturbatory indie list-making, and I know that my enthusiasm here only reconfirms my place squarely in the crosshairs of Ms. Petrusich's observation that "in certain circles, you were only as credible as your relationship to this album," but, damn, if I ain't going to go listen to it with my headphones right now and proceed to weep shimmering robotic tears onto my pillow of intergalactic ice.

The Demise

Does anyone else long for the halycon days when you could flip on the telly at random and virtually be assured of hearing the melodious, spazz-tastic sounds of "WE LUV DA SUUUUUUUBS!!!"? Apparently, yes. Slate's ad report card mourns the demise of the Quiznos Spongmonkeys.

(Rest assured, you can still see them in their original, non-corporate shilling incarnation here.)