Kittens! Spring is springing here in Chicago and there's so much fun to be had in the next few weeks. Get out yr calendars:
King Sparrow will be playing this Thursday, April 1, at the Empty Bottle. Eric tells me there will be new songs + old faves, so basically, what more could you ask for? I'm forgoing the Spoon show at the Aragon that night to support my hometown boys, so you know that means it's gonna be epic. (No pressure, guys.) Also, if you haven't watched the video tour of the studio where they've been recording their new album yet, check it out here and get ready for LOLs.
JT and the Clouds will be celebrating the release of their new album Caledonia on Friday, April 16, also at the Bottle. I'm so excited for this I could just burst. I've basically been looking forward to this show since early December. They've been touring the East Coast and Canada the past few weeks and will soon be heading out for a lengthy jaunt through Europe, so it'll be nice to remind them how much they're loved here at home while we have the chance.
Tiny Magnets will be back at Lizard's Liquid Lounge later this month, on Thursday, April 22. Seriously, if you haven't been out to the bar yet, you must. It's the perfect combination of cozy and cool. In other Tiny Magnets news, we've been busily recording and have some nicer sounding tracks up on our MySpace page. We also have a new presence on Facebook; we'd invite you to become a fan of ours there if you're so inclined!
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Jackie Brown
OK, I was totally in tears within the first three minutes of rewatching Jackie Brown. That opening sequence at the airport has to be one of my favorite sequences in film ever. It just keeps expanding: it starts off as a clear homage to The Graduate, but then you see that, rather than being super-emo about a twenty-two-year-old white man's sense of spiritual stasis, it's updating the reference to make a comment on an aging black woman's inability to gain much traction against her life. But then the pace evolves, as she starts walking briskly, eventually breaking into a run. At that point I realized that her journey through the airport is also a metaphor for the journey of her life. First it's an unhurried glide when everything seems easy and progress happens without much exertion; then it's a strutting, confident stride on her own steam; then it's a panicked dash to the finish line, trying not to be late for her sense of responsibility to herself, for her outside commitments, and perhaps even for some perceived appointment with her own destiny--that rush to get it all in before it's too late. It's also one of Tarantino's few purely cinematic moments so far in his oeuvre. It's like watching him finally learn to really be a director, to trust his visual instincts without the snappy dialogue to back it up. He's reveling in film history here--again, with the fairly explicit bite from The Graduate, but also with the look and feel of '70s credit sequences via the typography and color palette, but I also even see California-style Altman here in those lengthy tracking shots and the way the sunshine gets all blown out as she runs past the window in silhouette. And, of course he's also reveling in the deliciousness of that fact that he has unfettered access to photograph a woman as stunningly beautiful as Pam Grier for as long as he wants to--a deliciousness that's thoughtfully tempered with clear respect and affection. You can almost hear him thinking, "let me shoot you like this so that I can make everyone feel about you the same way that I feel about you, so that everyone will remember how amazing you can be." As I watched all this unfolding, revisiting this much loved film, I started laughing at its brilliant audacity, its multivalence, its perfection, then crying because it was all kind of too much--then laughing at my crying, then crying some more for good measure. It's beautiful. (Check it out here on YouTube if you haven't seen it for a while yourself.)
Jackie Brown is probably the Tarantino film I've seen the most and am consequently most familiar with (and, depending on the day, it's probably the film I'd call my favorite of his), so there weren't a whole lot of surprises for me on the order of what I experienced in the past few weeks with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Watching it this week brought more a sense of pure joy to be revisiting this old friend. I was struck, though, with how much everyone in this film is aging with varying degrees of discomfort about it. The whole notion of taking these nearly forgotten '70s movie stars like Grier and Robert Forster is right there in front of your face, and it obviously comprised many of the talking points surrounding the movie when it first came out. But I don't think I'd ever really noticed the anguished enormity of the line that Ordell speaks to Louis right before he shoots him: "what the fuck happen to you? You used to be beautiful, man." Wow. It had never occurred to me to read their friendship in light of their past history together, but of course it makes sense. They've seen each other age through time wasted in prison and "career" changes, all leading up to this last proverbial chance to make one big score. Of course, there's also the meta-level commentary on DeNiro's own aging from skinny young punk lighting the world on fire with his Method ferocity into a portly, avuncular character actor taking roles that were more and more beneath him. "You used to be beautiful, man." This is the movie's battle cry. And not in a shitty, judgmental way--just in the way that taking a moment to observe the passage of time can be profoundly philosophically flummoxing.
This is also, of course, the film where Tarantino starts to transition more decisively away from men's stories and into women's, becoming, if not a feminist filmmaker per se, then at least one who keeps a deep and abiding love for all manner of female kick-assery close to his heart. And, pound for pound, give me this soundtrack any day of the week over Reservoir Dogs' or Pulp Fiction's!
In other news, I was delighted to have been asked back as a guest blogger over on eat!drink!snack! this week. I contributed to Shawn's newly launched "the musical fruit" column, where he's pairing songs with fresh produce. You can find my post on the Long Winters' "Blue Diamonds" and a lovely pint of blueberries here.
Jackie Brown is probably the Tarantino film I've seen the most and am consequently most familiar with (and, depending on the day, it's probably the film I'd call my favorite of his), so there weren't a whole lot of surprises for me on the order of what I experienced in the past few weeks with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Watching it this week brought more a sense of pure joy to be revisiting this old friend. I was struck, though, with how much everyone in this film is aging with varying degrees of discomfort about it. The whole notion of taking these nearly forgotten '70s movie stars like Grier and Robert Forster is right there in front of your face, and it obviously comprised many of the talking points surrounding the movie when it first came out. But I don't think I'd ever really noticed the anguished enormity of the line that Ordell speaks to Louis right before he shoots him: "what the fuck happen to you? You used to be beautiful, man." Wow. It had never occurred to me to read their friendship in light of their past history together, but of course it makes sense. They've seen each other age through time wasted in prison and "career" changes, all leading up to this last proverbial chance to make one big score. Of course, there's also the meta-level commentary on DeNiro's own aging from skinny young punk lighting the world on fire with his Method ferocity into a portly, avuncular character actor taking roles that were more and more beneath him. "You used to be beautiful, man." This is the movie's battle cry. And not in a shitty, judgmental way--just in the way that taking a moment to observe the passage of time can be profoundly philosophically flummoxing.
This is also, of course, the film where Tarantino starts to transition more decisively away from men's stories and into women's, becoming, if not a feminist filmmaker per se, then at least one who keeps a deep and abiding love for all manner of female kick-assery close to his heart. And, pound for pound, give me this soundtrack any day of the week over Reservoir Dogs' or Pulp Fiction's!
In other news, I was delighted to have been asked back as a guest blogger over on eat!drink!snack! this week. I contributed to Shawn's newly launched "the musical fruit" column, where he's pairing songs with fresh produce. You can find my post on the Long Winters' "Blue Diamonds" and a lovely pint of blueberries here.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Hey, That's Me!
I'm delighted to have been asked to contribute to this month's "snack away" series over on eat!drink!snack! My post is up today.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
The Omnipresence of Apatow
Sigh. Judd Apatow (or rather, the idea/signature style/cinematic sub-sub-genre of "Judd Apatow") is like that person from high school that you keep bumping into once, twice, sometimes three times a year, usually at other people's parties, sometimes out on the street somewhere, and whenever you see him/her you're like "WTF? Are we friends? Why are you still in my life?" But after those WTF moments have happened several years in a row, you just kind of give up and accept the fact that your social circles are inextricably and inexplicably linked, to the point where you almost kind of look forward to the random run-ins, despite whatever stress they may cause you.
Which is to say, for as many issues as I've had with Apatow and his loosely affiliated stable of cohorts over the years, somehow, on this rare weekend when I had both time and money to spare, I found myself taking in I Love You, Man and Adventureland at the theater. WTF? Are we friends? Why are you still in my life?
I Love You, Man, despite peaking early and featuring one of the worst end-of-movie wedding scenes since The 40 Year Old Virgin, is very funny, and Paul Rudd is absurdly charming (srsly, this is the kind of role I didn't even know I wanted him to play when I mentioned in my write-up on Forgetting Sarah Marshall that he needed to start carrying movies on his own again). But, perhaps predictably, it left me wondering why there isn't more space for female oddballs in these films. I mean, when I think of the majority of women I hang out with on a semi-regular basis, it's kind of awesome to realize that they are all extremely weird in totally wonderful ways. They're all super foxy and successful in their fields and many of them are in loving, functional relationships, and there's no doubt that they can match my dude friends pound for pound with The Funny. Obviously I'm biased and my control group is probably way skewed, but you get my point. Why is it seemingly so hard for writers and directors to represent this reality in these movies that have come to dominate our notion of contemporary film comedy? I'm sure Rashida Jones is a fine actress and it's cool that she's doing work on all these TV and film comedies, but her role as Paul Rudd's fiancee was so boring and lame. How much more interesting would this movie have been if she were swapped out for the "wacky" friend played by Sarah Burns (or hell, even Jaime Pressly, with her signature turbo intensity perpetually cranked up to 11), and then treated as the romantic lead, with all her tics and neuroses intact? To this date, Charlyne Yi in Knocked Up, who obviously wasn't even close to a having a prominent role, is the most memorable female character for me in any of these movies, and it's really because she was so gleefully fucking bizarre. More like her, please. This is the reality we live in. There's a reason why people love Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Kristen Wiig so much. They're the exceptions that prove the rule.
Despite being billed as "from the director of Superbad," I was really, really delighted to find that Adventureland is a sweet and sensitive little movie, full of tenderness and sadness and a nonjudgmental attitude toward the very true-to-life and occasionally morally compromised situations the characters find themselves in. I think if I were just a few years younger, it probably would have knocked me out even more. Jesse Eisenberg is perfect (I gotta check out Roger Dodger again sometime; I remember loving it when I saw it in the theater and totally forgot Eisenberg was the kid in it), and it's so cool to see what a smooth, unforced actor Ryan Reynolds has become, even in this small role. Though I, of course, understand why the movie needed its last scene, part of me wishes it would have seized the ambiguous ending and faded out just before that, with Eisenberg's character on the bus to New York, gazing out the rain-streaked windows, with the lights of the city shining through the raindrops like hundreds of light-emitting diodes, with the Replacements' "Unsatisfied" blaring on the soundtrack. It was such a beautiful moment.
In case you missed it last week, over on Fluxblog, Matthew Perpetua, man of the people, in his infinite wisdom, gave the Internet what it truly wants: kittens, cheeseburgers, and dreamy photo montages of President Obama.
Also in case you missed it, Shawn has been rolling out many exciting changes and additions to the Eat! Drink! Snack! empire: a site redesign, the daily "Nosh Nook" entries, a Twitter feed, and, every Wednesday this April, entries written by special guests from around the world (the first from Germany's very own Jonesalicious).
I AM A LLAMA; YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
Which is to say, for as many issues as I've had with Apatow and his loosely affiliated stable of cohorts over the years, somehow, on this rare weekend when I had both time and money to spare, I found myself taking in I Love You, Man and Adventureland at the theater. WTF? Are we friends? Why are you still in my life?
I Love You, Man, despite peaking early and featuring one of the worst end-of-movie wedding scenes since The 40 Year Old Virgin, is very funny, and Paul Rudd is absurdly charming (srsly, this is the kind of role I didn't even know I wanted him to play when I mentioned in my write-up on Forgetting Sarah Marshall that he needed to start carrying movies on his own again). But, perhaps predictably, it left me wondering why there isn't more space for female oddballs in these films. I mean, when I think of the majority of women I hang out with on a semi-regular basis, it's kind of awesome to realize that they are all extremely weird in totally wonderful ways. They're all super foxy and successful in their fields and many of them are in loving, functional relationships, and there's no doubt that they can match my dude friends pound for pound with The Funny. Obviously I'm biased and my control group is probably way skewed, but you get my point. Why is it seemingly so hard for writers and directors to represent this reality in these movies that have come to dominate our notion of contemporary film comedy? I'm sure Rashida Jones is a fine actress and it's cool that she's doing work on all these TV and film comedies, but her role as Paul Rudd's fiancee was so boring and lame. How much more interesting would this movie have been if she were swapped out for the "wacky" friend played by Sarah Burns (or hell, even Jaime Pressly, with her signature turbo intensity perpetually cranked up to 11), and then treated as the romantic lead, with all her tics and neuroses intact? To this date, Charlyne Yi in Knocked Up, who obviously wasn't even close to a having a prominent role, is the most memorable female character for me in any of these movies, and it's really because she was so gleefully fucking bizarre. More like her, please. This is the reality we live in. There's a reason why people love Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Kristen Wiig so much. They're the exceptions that prove the rule.
Despite being billed as "from the director of Superbad," I was really, really delighted to find that Adventureland is a sweet and sensitive little movie, full of tenderness and sadness and a nonjudgmental attitude toward the very true-to-life and occasionally morally compromised situations the characters find themselves in. I think if I were just a few years younger, it probably would have knocked me out even more. Jesse Eisenberg is perfect (I gotta check out Roger Dodger again sometime; I remember loving it when I saw it in the theater and totally forgot Eisenberg was the kid in it), and it's so cool to see what a smooth, unforced actor Ryan Reynolds has become, even in this small role. Though I, of course, understand why the movie needed its last scene, part of me wishes it would have seized the ambiguous ending and faded out just before that, with Eisenberg's character on the bus to New York, gazing out the rain-streaked windows, with the lights of the city shining through the raindrops like hundreds of light-emitting diodes, with the Replacements' "Unsatisfied" blaring on the soundtrack. It was such a beautiful moment.
In case you missed it last week, over on Fluxblog, Matthew Perpetua, man of the people, in his infinite wisdom, gave the Internet what it truly wants: kittens, cheeseburgers, and dreamy photo montages of President Obama.
Also in case you missed it, Shawn has been rolling out many exciting changes and additions to the Eat! Drink! Snack! empire: a site redesign, the daily "Nosh Nook" entries, a Twitter feed, and, every Wednesday this April, entries written by special guests from around the world (the first from Germany's very own Jonesalicious).
I AM A LLAMA; YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
How Much Joy Can the Heart Handle Before It Explodes?
Beautiful things from this past weekend:
~LK and I finished watching the first season of The Wire, and gah. I have nothing critical or intelligent to say about it; I'm just completely awestruck. And from what I understand, it only gets better. How is this even possible?
~Man on Wire on DVD. Yeah, I know it won big at the Oscars on Sunday (missed 'em again this year, more on which soon), but watching it on Saturday afternoon, curled up on my couch while the snow fell and the wind blew like a maniac outside, I was utterly transfixed, captivated. I was also loving its parallels to, of all things, Chappelle's Block Party: there's the New York setting on a superficial level, of course, but also the charismatic Pied Piper that sets everything in motion and keeps everyone inspired, the rag-tag, ad-libbed nature of it all, and the fact that they spent so much time and effort to create a moment of fleeting beauty that can never be repeated or recaptured. I was totally dissolved in tears by the end of it. Such a magical little film. I loved its philosophical/existential Frenchness and its very intentional heist film structure--with the "heist" being benevolent mischief and a contemplation of the ineffable. It would be like if, at the climax of Soderbergh's Out of Sight, after all the goofiness and flashbacks, there were no uncut diamonds in the fish tank, just fish. And rather than it being a big letdown (for both the characters and the audience), it was actually a solemn moment of meditation on the sublime, on the mysteries of the sea and the ephemeral nature of the fishes' lives and how that relates to our own mortality. And then everybody goes home and never speaks to each other again. (Thought of in this way, I guess it's almost like the emotional obverse of The Limey, actually, with speechless joy and delight standing in for slowly dawning horror and the full weight of homicidal complicity.) Check it out before Philippe Petit gets annoying and overexposed.
~Juana Molina live at the Morse Theatre on Sunday night. (Yes, instead of the Oscars. It was an infinitely more rewarding way to spend the evening.) It's rare that a concert is so good that it actually makes me want to be a better person, but I left the show completely in awe of how balanced she seems to be as a person (at least on stage) and wishing I could find a way to integrate all the weird, misshapen quirks of my own personality into a similarly satisfying whole. She was really relaxed, really focused, really funny, really serious, really talented, really committed to her art--I kept waiting for her to shed her skin, revealing this glowing orb of harmony and perfection. But instead, she's just this tiny lady with perfect pitch and an army of looping pedals. Her fixation on her guitar being in tune actually read less as an obsessive diva thing than as a literalization of what her main project as a musician seems to be--working really hard to hit that razor-thin sweet spot where an intricate confluence of factors joins together to appear inevitable and effortless. (She also told a musical "joke" at one point when she started playing her guitar, then singing slightly flat; no one even picked up on it until she started cracking herself up and exclaimed, "if I were totally out of tune, no one would care!") But, of course, what she's doing is nowhere near effortless; it's demonstrably effort-ful. All it took was a slight tempo shift, and one of her songs nearly catapulted into chaos. She shot a look full of lasers at her bassist and drummer, and then they careened off into a wild improvised section built around the weird distortion in the time signature before segueing gently back into the original song. The audience cheered like she'd just landed a plane in the Hudson River.
I'm so deeply grateful to have first been introduced to Molina through the brief interview in the June/July 2006 music issue of The Believer because it's really informed the way I approach her music. Her discussion of being both a talented mimic as well as a really good listener helps me pay better attention to all the tiny sounds folded into her songs, above and beyond just the pleasantness of her melodies and grooves. In a broader sense, though, she also plays right into the thing in me that responds so much to Joanna Newsom, Laura Veirs, and even the author Annie Dillard. They all share a beguiling combination of power, femininity, reverence for the natural world, and an oddball sensibility that they're completely comfortable with, almost oblivious to. I really wish I would have had more time to live with Un Dia before I made my 2008 year-end mix; surely something from that album would have found its way on there.
~Birthday, birthday, birthday! That's right, kittens, I turned 30 last week and was lucky enough to be able to celebrate the event with a huge cross-section of my very favorite people in Chicago. Big, big thanks to all of you who were able to make it; you've warmed this February for me immeasurably.
~LK and I finished watching the first season of The Wire, and gah. I have nothing critical or intelligent to say about it; I'm just completely awestruck. And from what I understand, it only gets better. How is this even possible?
~Man on Wire on DVD. Yeah, I know it won big at the Oscars on Sunday (missed 'em again this year, more on which soon), but watching it on Saturday afternoon, curled up on my couch while the snow fell and the wind blew like a maniac outside, I was utterly transfixed, captivated. I was also loving its parallels to, of all things, Chappelle's Block Party: there's the New York setting on a superficial level, of course, but also the charismatic Pied Piper that sets everything in motion and keeps everyone inspired, the rag-tag, ad-libbed nature of it all, and the fact that they spent so much time and effort to create a moment of fleeting beauty that can never be repeated or recaptured. I was totally dissolved in tears by the end of it. Such a magical little film. I loved its philosophical/existential Frenchness and its very intentional heist film structure--with the "heist" being benevolent mischief and a contemplation of the ineffable. It would be like if, at the climax of Soderbergh's Out of Sight, after all the goofiness and flashbacks, there were no uncut diamonds in the fish tank, just fish. And rather than it being a big letdown (for both the characters and the audience), it was actually a solemn moment of meditation on the sublime, on the mysteries of the sea and the ephemeral nature of the fishes' lives and how that relates to our own mortality. And then everybody goes home and never speaks to each other again. (Thought of in this way, I guess it's almost like the emotional obverse of The Limey, actually, with speechless joy and delight standing in for slowly dawning horror and the full weight of homicidal complicity.) Check it out before Philippe Petit gets annoying and overexposed.
~Juana Molina live at the Morse Theatre on Sunday night. (Yes, instead of the Oscars. It was an infinitely more rewarding way to spend the evening.) It's rare that a concert is so good that it actually makes me want to be a better person, but I left the show completely in awe of how balanced she seems to be as a person (at least on stage) and wishing I could find a way to integrate all the weird, misshapen quirks of my own personality into a similarly satisfying whole. She was really relaxed, really focused, really funny, really serious, really talented, really committed to her art--I kept waiting for her to shed her skin, revealing this glowing orb of harmony and perfection. But instead, she's just this tiny lady with perfect pitch and an army of looping pedals. Her fixation on her guitar being in tune actually read less as an obsessive diva thing than as a literalization of what her main project as a musician seems to be--working really hard to hit that razor-thin sweet spot where an intricate confluence of factors joins together to appear inevitable and effortless. (She also told a musical "joke" at one point when she started playing her guitar, then singing slightly flat; no one even picked up on it until she started cracking herself up and exclaimed, "if I were totally out of tune, no one would care!") But, of course, what she's doing is nowhere near effortless; it's demonstrably effort-ful. All it took was a slight tempo shift, and one of her songs nearly catapulted into chaos. She shot a look full of lasers at her bassist and drummer, and then they careened off into a wild improvised section built around the weird distortion in the time signature before segueing gently back into the original song. The audience cheered like she'd just landed a plane in the Hudson River.
I'm so deeply grateful to have first been introduced to Molina through the brief interview in the June/July 2006 music issue of The Believer because it's really informed the way I approach her music. Her discussion of being both a talented mimic as well as a really good listener helps me pay better attention to all the tiny sounds folded into her songs, above and beyond just the pleasantness of her melodies and grooves. In a broader sense, though, she also plays right into the thing in me that responds so much to Joanna Newsom, Laura Veirs, and even the author Annie Dillard. They all share a beguiling combination of power, femininity, reverence for the natural world, and an oddball sensibility that they're completely comfortable with, almost oblivious to. I really wish I would have had more time to live with Un Dia before I made my 2008 year-end mix; surely something from that album would have found its way on there.
~Birthday, birthday, birthday! That's right, kittens, I turned 30 last week and was lucky enough to be able to celebrate the event with a huge cross-section of my very favorite people in Chicago. Big, big thanks to all of you who were able to make it; you've warmed this February for me immeasurably.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
King Sparrow, Tonight at Bottom Lounge
This just in: my boys King Sparrow will be playing the Q101 Twisted Christmas/Eagles of Death Metal afterparty at the Bottom Lounge tonight. Details here. I'm actually, hilariously, going to the Q101 Twisted Christmas show at the House of Blues (Cold War Kids, Eagles of Death Metal, and Scott Weiland headlining--yup, I'm 17), so this is just extra geekily exciting icing on the cake. Chicagoans, this should be a good way to warm your hearts and loins on this cold, cold December night. Check it out!
(Also, confidential to Jakob: happy birthday! I wanted to e-mail or send a text, but couldn't find any of your info. Hugs!!)
(Also, confidential to Jakob: happy birthday! I wanted to e-mail or send a text, but couldn't find any of your info. Hugs!!)
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Ballad of Vina and Italo
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Recent Concert Roundup
Kittens, I've been to a number of concerts in the past month that, for one reason or another, I haven't had a chance to tell you about yet. Let me do so now.
Early in August I made the last minute decision, prompted by an invite from work pal MS, to catch the She & Him show at the Park West. I hate to get all backlashy about it, esp. given how much I genuinely like that album, but . . . I'm gonna do it anyway. First off, the audience was ridiculous. It's the same problem I had the two times that I've seen Eddie Izzard perform live--everyone there is just a bit too amped to see the celebrity on stage, which skews the energy in the room all out of whack. The performer isn't required to win anyone in the crowd over, which, unless you're, I dunno, Nick Cave or somebody, means you're probably going to pander a bit. Zooey's got an undeniably fine voice (which comes off even better than expected live, despite the fact that she definitely oversings, a la Adele), but with the audience ready to go into ecstasies over every note out of her mouth, she was able to hide behind her charm a bit more than I would have liked. Give the people what they want, I guess.
That being said, I'm convinced that there is no more generous musician working in the loosely defined realm of indie rock right now than Matt Ward. Seriously, you guys, for as enormously talented as the dude is, there seems to be not a shred of ego in him. Even though he's at least 80 percent of the draw, for me, to this group, he was just hanging back at the side of the stage in a truly supporting, one might even say subordinate, role. It's really a beautiful thing to watch him make so much space for Zooey to shine. It's truly a testament to how much he clearly adores her and believes in her talent. And not just her talent, but the talent of all the musicians he's surrounded himself with. I can't remember what the last song before the encore was ("Sweet Darlin'" maybe?), but he pulled his by now familiar leaving-the-stage-before-the song-is-over move, which allowed the band to jam on the outro and receive all the audience's (well deserved) adulation at the end of the song. From anyone else (like, say, Beyonce), it would feel shrewd and bordline manipulative ("it's my spotlight to give and now I will give it to my underlings"), but it always comes off as completely classy with him.
Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond opened and sang backup for most of She & Him's set. Talk about a fucking dynamo! She was totally gorgeous and endearingly batty. With her old timey songs, upscale thrift shop fashion sense, and aw-shucks stage demeanor that was so painfully earnest it felt like there just had to be some wickedness underneath it all, she came across as nothing so much as a burlesque performer minus the striptease. I'm definitely planning on checking in with her Lavender Diamond material.
Later in the month came my favorite musical one-two punch in recent memory: Joanna Newsom performing Ys with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Friday, then Aesop Rock at the Abbey Pub on Saturday. At first blush, of course, they couldn't seem more opposed, but it didn't take long for me to realize how truly complementary they are--two supremely gifted wordsmiths exploding the boundaries of their chosen genres, making slobbering fanboys and -girls out of diehards and casual listeners alike.
As for Joanna at the Symphony Center--what a treat. I find myself returning to Ys in the oddest moments (such as the early morning prep time of my juice fast earlier this summer), and the brilliance of its through-line as a musical/thematic statement was utterly undeniable in a live setting. I just sobbed and sobbed during personal faves "Sawdust and Diamonds" and "Cosmia." I paid a little bit of extra money for a better seat with some good sight lines, and, boy, was it ever worth it. I've steadily warmed to her unconventional voice over the past few years and will now officially no longer hold truck with anyone who talks smack about it. There's just everything a person could want in a vocalist there: warmth, character, spirit, sensitivity, not to mention killer intonation.
Aside from the overhwhelming brilliance and clarity of the CSO buoying her throughout the performance of Ys, she also brought along four other musicians who contributed to those songs, then accompanied her on a bunch of stuff from The Milk-Eyed Mender, as well as some more recent material, after a brief intermission. Drummer Neal Morgan particularly blew me away for his ability to get more music out of a kick drum, floor tom, and some cymbals than I've seen a lot of jackasses get out of a full guitar rig. Plus, he plays barefoot in a three-piece suit, which is, OMG, like totes adorable in its twee mash-up of high-brow earthiness. I also couldn't help but smile at the thought that this was probably the first time out at Symphony Center for a lot of the greasy haired indie rock kids in attendance, which has to count for something.
Aesop totally lit me on fire the next night. The fact that he performed "Fumes" would have been enough to make the show worthwhile in itself (remember those 27 perfect songs with a five-star rating? yeah, that's one of 'em), but dude is such an amazingly magnetic performer it would be hard to overstate just how enjoyable he is to watch. (Plus also, tall.) The genius of his lyrics, the sly, twisty sophistication of his character sketches and narratives, and the devastating sexiness of the soda-pop fizz in his voice all hardly need to be mentioned, but I just couldn't get over how much fire he puts into his physical performance on stage. (Check out my pictures from the night and hopefully you'll see a bit of what I mean.) On the basis of the crowd's reaction, I was definitely one of the few neophytes there. Everybody was loving the stuff off None Shall Pass, without question, but the place really went bonkers whenever he started spitting rhymes from the previous two albums, with call-and-response all over the place, no matter how intricate the syntax and meter. I've also acquired new artwork for the apartment, which always makes me happy.
Oh. I also went to a wedding. And it was fucking awesome.
Early in August I made the last minute decision, prompted by an invite from work pal MS, to catch the She & Him show at the Park West. I hate to get all backlashy about it, esp. given how much I genuinely like that album, but . . . I'm gonna do it anyway. First off, the audience was ridiculous. It's the same problem I had the two times that I've seen Eddie Izzard perform live--everyone there is just a bit too amped to see the celebrity on stage, which skews the energy in the room all out of whack. The performer isn't required to win anyone in the crowd over, which, unless you're, I dunno, Nick Cave or somebody, means you're probably going to pander a bit. Zooey's got an undeniably fine voice (which comes off even better than expected live, despite the fact that she definitely oversings, a la Adele), but with the audience ready to go into ecstasies over every note out of her mouth, she was able to hide behind her charm a bit more than I would have liked. Give the people what they want, I guess.
That being said, I'm convinced that there is no more generous musician working in the loosely defined realm of indie rock right now than Matt Ward. Seriously, you guys, for as enormously talented as the dude is, there seems to be not a shred of ego in him. Even though he's at least 80 percent of the draw, for me, to this group, he was just hanging back at the side of the stage in a truly supporting, one might even say subordinate, role. It's really a beautiful thing to watch him make so much space for Zooey to shine. It's truly a testament to how much he clearly adores her and believes in her talent. And not just her talent, but the talent of all the musicians he's surrounded himself with. I can't remember what the last song before the encore was ("Sweet Darlin'" maybe?), but he pulled his by now familiar leaving-the-stage-before-the song-is-over move, which allowed the band to jam on the outro and receive all the audience's (well deserved) adulation at the end of the song. From anyone else (like, say, Beyonce), it would feel shrewd and bordline manipulative ("it's my spotlight to give and now I will give it to my underlings"), but it always comes off as completely classy with him.
Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond opened and sang backup for most of She & Him's set. Talk about a fucking dynamo! She was totally gorgeous and endearingly batty. With her old timey songs, upscale thrift shop fashion sense, and aw-shucks stage demeanor that was so painfully earnest it felt like there just had to be some wickedness underneath it all, she came across as nothing so much as a burlesque performer minus the striptease. I'm definitely planning on checking in with her Lavender Diamond material.
Later in the month came my favorite musical one-two punch in recent memory: Joanna Newsom performing Ys with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Friday, then Aesop Rock at the Abbey Pub on Saturday. At first blush, of course, they couldn't seem more opposed, but it didn't take long for me to realize how truly complementary they are--two supremely gifted wordsmiths exploding the boundaries of their chosen genres, making slobbering fanboys and -girls out of diehards and casual listeners alike.
As for Joanna at the Symphony Center--what a treat. I find myself returning to Ys in the oddest moments (such as the early morning prep time of my juice fast earlier this summer), and the brilliance of its through-line as a musical/thematic statement was utterly undeniable in a live setting. I just sobbed and sobbed during personal faves "Sawdust and Diamonds" and "Cosmia." I paid a little bit of extra money for a better seat with some good sight lines, and, boy, was it ever worth it. I've steadily warmed to her unconventional voice over the past few years and will now officially no longer hold truck with anyone who talks smack about it. There's just everything a person could want in a vocalist there: warmth, character, spirit, sensitivity, not to mention killer intonation.
Aside from the overhwhelming brilliance and clarity of the CSO buoying her throughout the performance of Ys, she also brought along four other musicians who contributed to those songs, then accompanied her on a bunch of stuff from The Milk-Eyed Mender, as well as some more recent material, after a brief intermission. Drummer Neal Morgan particularly blew me away for his ability to get more music out of a kick drum, floor tom, and some cymbals than I've seen a lot of jackasses get out of a full guitar rig. Plus, he plays barefoot in a three-piece suit, which is, OMG, like totes adorable in its twee mash-up of high-brow earthiness. I also couldn't help but smile at the thought that this was probably the first time out at Symphony Center for a lot of the greasy haired indie rock kids in attendance, which has to count for something.
Aesop totally lit me on fire the next night. The fact that he performed "Fumes" would have been enough to make the show worthwhile in itself (remember those 27 perfect songs with a five-star rating? yeah, that's one of 'em), but dude is such an amazingly magnetic performer it would be hard to overstate just how enjoyable he is to watch. (Plus also, tall.) The genius of his lyrics, the sly, twisty sophistication of his character sketches and narratives, and the devastating sexiness of the soda-pop fizz in his voice all hardly need to be mentioned, but I just couldn't get over how much fire he puts into his physical performance on stage. (Check out my pictures from the night and hopefully you'll see a bit of what I mean.) On the basis of the crowd's reaction, I was definitely one of the few neophytes there. Everybody was loving the stuff off None Shall Pass, without question, but the place really went bonkers whenever he started spitting rhymes from the previous two albums, with call-and-response all over the place, no matter how intricate the syntax and meter. I've also acquired new artwork for the apartment, which always makes me happy.
Oh. I also went to a wedding. And it was fucking awesome.
Monday, May 05, 2008
In Which AMF Once Again Must Contend with the Disillusionment Wrought by Becoming Overly Enthusiastic About Certain Movie Previews
Gak. So, The Forbidden Kingdom was awful, awful, awful. So disappointing. It totally felt like it was made by committee, which is to say it felt utterly bland and almost messianically bent on being as inoffensive as possible. The preview fails to intimate that the whole reason white boy Michael Angarano is in the movie in the first place is because of a ridiculous Wizard of Oz-esque framing device wherein he's transported from his seemingly sad life in present-day Boston (why Boston?) to the vaguely mythical China that finds him teamed up with the Jackie Chan and Jet Li characters so he can return some mystical staff to its rightful owner and, in so doing, restore peace to the kingdom, etc., etc. Ugh. It started out promisingly enough, with a kicky, self-aware, pseudo-70s credit sequence inspired by the vintage Hong Kong action movie posters that decorated the Angarano character's bedroom walls, and I hoped that maybe the movie was going to do some interesting stuff with the way that young white dudes so fetishize HK action movies, but...no dice. You know me, I like to try to come out of a movie with at least one nice moment that I can remember about it, but I'm hard pressed to be able to point at anything here. Jet Li when he's in character as the Monkey King, perhaps? At least there's some life on screen then. Aside from that, not much else. I never felt emotionally involved with any of the characters, and even the fight sequences weren't that interesting. A shame.
The Music Box hit us this weekend with the first of a series of Jimmy Stewart flicks, beginning with Call Northside 777. What a treat--set in Chicago (where the skyline shots were all just, like, the Tribune Tower, the Merchandise Mart, and the river), revolving around a whole bunch of Polish characters and their attendant crazy last names and cozy Polish neighborhoods, featuring a textbook (which is to say charming, engaging, and sharp) performance from Stewart as a hard-nosed newspaper journalist. I loved that, even though the movie has the happy/expected ending, the narrative never explains why the crime went down the way it did or why Wanda Skutnik altered her testimony to indict the wrong guy. I also loved Stewart's few all-too-brief scenes with Helen Walker as his wife; they had great chemistry and she was feisty as all get-out. I'd need a grad student to do the research for me, but I'd love to know where this film falls in the continuum of "cutting edge technology saves the day" movies. I'm bad with remembering plot in much detail, but somehow the climax revolves around Stewart's character needing to prove that Wanda Skutnik saw the fall guy a day before she claims she did, and they do this by enlarging a photograph 200x or more in order to read the date on a newspaper being held by a paper boy hovering somewhere in the background. So, not only are they zooming in on the photo, but then they have to transmit these enlargements over the wire from Chicago to a newspaper office in the state capital. It's tempting to chuckle at how wowed the characters are by this great new technology, but shit--I'm just impressed that they were doing this kind of stuff in the late '40s at all. Indistinguishable from magic, indeed.
John Darnielle at LPTJ on Jamie Lidell's new album: "…one thing pop music is good for is remembering that somewhere inside us is the potential for unvanquishable joy: clearing a space for that remembering, broadening that space. Jamie Lidell’s present project seems to be focused on illuminating that joy-containing space, hanging signs that point toward it." OMG, bring it. After his set at the Pitchfork fest last summer, I've decided that, if I can possibly help it, I just can't miss his live show whenever he tours through Chicago. I'm counting the days until June 4. Abbey Pub. See you there, bitches.
Also, a great big happy birthday to my boy Michael, captain of the Geeks, today. Be sure to celebrate your Cinco de Mikow in style!
The Music Box hit us this weekend with the first of a series of Jimmy Stewart flicks, beginning with Call Northside 777. What a treat--set in Chicago (where the skyline shots were all just, like, the Tribune Tower, the Merchandise Mart, and the river), revolving around a whole bunch of Polish characters and their attendant crazy last names and cozy Polish neighborhoods, featuring a textbook (which is to say charming, engaging, and sharp) performance from Stewart as a hard-nosed newspaper journalist. I loved that, even though the movie has the happy/expected ending, the narrative never explains why the crime went down the way it did or why Wanda Skutnik altered her testimony to indict the wrong guy. I also loved Stewart's few all-too-brief scenes with Helen Walker as his wife; they had great chemistry and she was feisty as all get-out. I'd need a grad student to do the research for me, but I'd love to know where this film falls in the continuum of "cutting edge technology saves the day" movies. I'm bad with remembering plot in much detail, but somehow the climax revolves around Stewart's character needing to prove that Wanda Skutnik saw the fall guy a day before she claims she did, and they do this by enlarging a photograph 200x or more in order to read the date on a newspaper being held by a paper boy hovering somewhere in the background. So, not only are they zooming in on the photo, but then they have to transmit these enlargements over the wire from Chicago to a newspaper office in the state capital. It's tempting to chuckle at how wowed the characters are by this great new technology, but shit--I'm just impressed that they were doing this kind of stuff in the late '40s at all. Indistinguishable from magic, indeed.
John Darnielle at LPTJ on Jamie Lidell's new album: "…one thing pop music is good for is remembering that somewhere inside us is the potential for unvanquishable joy: clearing a space for that remembering, broadening that space. Jamie Lidell’s present project seems to be focused on illuminating that joy-containing space, hanging signs that point toward it." OMG, bring it. After his set at the Pitchfork fest last summer, I've decided that, if I can possibly help it, I just can't miss his live show whenever he tours through Chicago. I'm counting the days until June 4. Abbey Pub. See you there, bitches.
Also, a great big happy birthday to my boy Michael, captain of the Geeks, today. Be sure to celebrate your Cinco de Mikow in style!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Deadwood, Destroyer, Record Store Day
Finally finished watching the third season of Deadwood this weekend. Holy hell. That show absolutely makes me quiver with glee. It's an incredible work of art, surely one of the best things on television ever (and you all know what a huge Buffy fan I am). I'm seriously going to be mourning the loss of these characters from my life for a little while. Highly, highly, highly recommended for those of you who haven't indulged yet. I guess it's finally time for me to get into The Wire now.
The Destroyer show on Thursday night at the Logan Square Auditorium was much fun. I just stood there grinning the entire time. Dan Bejar is one crazy bastard, and the drummer is a monster. Seriously. This guy was doing some of the most sensitively aggro shit I've heard in recent memory. (Mr. Perpetua has already geeked out about the drums on "The State," and, as usual, he's right on the money.) I'm sure part of it was the very muddy sound mix in the room, but the beats were just exploding all over the place, but tightly, precisely, each one a little prison yard with spider's web barbed wire wrapped around it. Incredible. They played a good chunk of songs from the wonderful new Trouble in Dreams and generally kept riding that tension that I so adore about them that leaves me constantly wondering, "wait, are they for real about this?" Plus, on the train platform on the way home, I had the pleasure of running into the inimitable Jeff Harms, who shared with me a copy of his second CD, The Myth of Heroics, which drops soon. It's got kind of a Willy Mason thing going on, or maybe Matt Berninger fronting a less ecstatic Okkervil River. The songs are sweet, smart, and quirky and convey an abundance of warmth and gentleness. Be sure to put May 26 on your calendar, Chicago kittens, and get yourself to Rainbo for his CD release party.
Speaking of CDs, did anyone make the effort to observe the Record Store Day holiday on Saturday? I was running errands anyway so it was relatively convenient for me to stop into Laurie's Planet of Sound and pick up a copy of the new Man Man album. I would've grabbed a copy of the new Cadence Weapon too, but they didn't have it currently in stock. (Say what you will about iTunes and its DRM, but it does allow me to legally get my instant gratification rocks off when I decide I need some specific music at that very moment, especially when eMusic doesn't carry the album I want.) I usually try not to let record store snobbery bother me too much, and Laurie's usually isn't as bad about it as some, but as one of the clerks was running my credit card, I heard another clerk ask the dude in line behind me if he owned a turntable and then mentioned the stack of Record Store Day 7"s they had available. Now, admittedly, I don't happen to have a turntable right now, but I totally resented the somewhat sexist assumption that I wouldn't. I mean, maybe the clerk and the guy were friends or casual social acquaintances already, but still, not cool. Gripe, gripe--support your local record store anyway.
Compare Your Genitals to Musicians! (My faves are Frank Zappa and Leonard Cohen, though Television has a certain foul charm to it as well.)
"PETA declares truce with Beyonce: Under the terms of the agreement, PETA will admit she was 'pretty good' in Dreamgirls and Beyonce will stop whaling." --Entertainment Weekly "Hit List" for April 25/May 2, 2008.
The Destroyer show on Thursday night at the Logan Square Auditorium was much fun. I just stood there grinning the entire time. Dan Bejar is one crazy bastard, and the drummer is a monster. Seriously. This guy was doing some of the most sensitively aggro shit I've heard in recent memory. (Mr. Perpetua has already geeked out about the drums on "The State," and, as usual, he's right on the money.) I'm sure part of it was the very muddy sound mix in the room, but the beats were just exploding all over the place, but tightly, precisely, each one a little prison yard with spider's web barbed wire wrapped around it. Incredible. They played a good chunk of songs from the wonderful new Trouble in Dreams and generally kept riding that tension that I so adore about them that leaves me constantly wondering, "wait, are they for real about this?" Plus, on the train platform on the way home, I had the pleasure of running into the inimitable Jeff Harms, who shared with me a copy of his second CD, The Myth of Heroics, which drops soon. It's got kind of a Willy Mason thing going on, or maybe Matt Berninger fronting a less ecstatic Okkervil River. The songs are sweet, smart, and quirky and convey an abundance of warmth and gentleness. Be sure to put May 26 on your calendar, Chicago kittens, and get yourself to Rainbo for his CD release party.
Speaking of CDs, did anyone make the effort to observe the Record Store Day holiday on Saturday? I was running errands anyway so it was relatively convenient for me to stop into Laurie's Planet of Sound and pick up a copy of the new Man Man album. I would've grabbed a copy of the new Cadence Weapon too, but they didn't have it currently in stock. (Say what you will about iTunes and its DRM, but it does allow me to legally get my instant gratification rocks off when I decide I need some specific music at that very moment, especially when eMusic doesn't carry the album I want.) I usually try not to let record store snobbery bother me too much, and Laurie's usually isn't as bad about it as some, but as one of the clerks was running my credit card, I heard another clerk ask the dude in line behind me if he owned a turntable and then mentioned the stack of Record Store Day 7"s they had available. Now, admittedly, I don't happen to have a turntable right now, but I totally resented the somewhat sexist assumption that I wouldn't. I mean, maybe the clerk and the guy were friends or casual social acquaintances already, but still, not cool. Gripe, gripe--support your local record store anyway.
Compare Your Genitals to Musicians! (My faves are Frank Zappa and Leonard Cohen, though Television has a certain foul charm to it as well.)
"PETA declares truce with Beyonce: Under the terms of the agreement, PETA will admit she was 'pretty good' in Dreamgirls and Beyonce will stop whaling." --Entertainment Weekly "Hit List" for April 25/May 2, 2008.
Friday, April 04, 2008
I Feel Good!
I think everyone needs to take a moment to enjoy this wonderful piece of Post-It art I found at work today. Happy Friday, my kittens!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Snow Angels
A new David Gordon Green movie is just such a gift. He's so good and his work is so vital; I hope everyone is giving him his due now as one of the defining filmmakers of the aughts rather than waiting to fawn in retrospect. Anyway, as this might lead one to believe, I saw Snow Angels this weekend, and, yes, it's remarkable. Sad and funny and terrifying and thoughtful and lyrical. Everything you'd expect. Based as it is on a novel (about which I know nothing), it has a bit more of an internal engine to it than his three previous features (which is a retarded way of my saying that it's ever so slightly less meandering and more explicitly plot-based and narrative-driven; in different hands, it could have ended up as one of those middle-class, middlebrow prestige pieces Kate Winslet does from time to time when she's keen to rack up another Oscar nomination).
It's shocking, but also quite nice, to see a film in which a bunch of characters are genuinely angry. Not just filled with self-righteousness or vengeance or generalized bile of the "fuck me? no, fuck you" variety like characters in most of the loud, ugly movies Hollywood attempts to feed us on a regular basis, but real, everyday, bone-deep anger. That band director's monologue about having a sledgehammer in his heart was a fucking brilliant way to open the film and set that tone. (When's the last time you've seen a high school teacher yell at a bunch of students in a movie in a way that's not just "ooh, what a jerk" or "ah, it's inspirational tough love that will lead them to victory in the end"? Many of us denizens of Wrestling Entropy know from being yelled at by high school teachers, especially in the context of extracurricular activities, and it was usually fueled by plain old unreflective anger, with maybe the merest shell of motivation painted on if we were lucky.) And, what's even more beautiful and shocking and almost exciting in its truthfulness is the way that the eruptions of anger don't serve as any sort of cue to judgment here, especially when it comes to the Kate Beckinsale character. Her flashes of rage made my stomach churn, but only because I recognized how they were such dead-on accurate manifestations of the frustration and impotence and regret and selfishness that I've felt in myself on many occasions--but we were never supposed to judge her harshly for these rages the way so many of the other characters (incl., often her own mother) did.
And though we were never being baited into judging her, I think the movie is asking us to consider how and when anger becomes unproductive and, therefore, its own prison, rather than, as it's intended to be, a tool to air out wrongs and resentments that otherwise would have festered internally, in an effort to achieve greater compassion for oneself and better relationships with loved ones. I think that scene when the main kid (the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Michael Angarano) yells at his dad about abandoning their family is one of the most important ones in the movie. Both because we get to see that kid--who is absolutely the film's moral center--practice using an additional set of adult emotions (on the heels of his mother's gentle imperative that he let himself live and breathe through his feelings instead of bottling them up like most people do, including, she freely admits, herself) and because the dad closes the door to the college lecture hall they've been sitting in. It's a subtle, but absolutely necessary, cue, that family business should stay private, not go exploding into front lawns and other public spaces like the rage and violence we constantly see around the Sam Rockwell character especially (which implicitly includes Nicky Katt as well, not to mention the way the entire high school gets enlisted in the search for the missing child). Angarano's character, at his core, clearly has a pretty solid sense of self, and he's being equipped, however fumblingly and imperfectly, by his parents with the tools he's going to need to become a more complete and self-actualized adult, the kind of adult that's clearly in short supply in the small town they all live in. This--this is a heroic, subtle, mature, uncommodifiable message, my kittens: that despite growing up in a dead-end town with separated parents and (the horror!) occasionally indulging in some clandestine beer and weed consumption, it is still entirely possible to become a good person. Life may try to guide you to fall into formation like the marching band does, but a willingness to be open to your emotions makes a part of your soul inviolable. Not to mention that he willingly goes down on his high school girlfriend when they spend a lazy morning in bed together, which is one of the very few instances of female-directed heterosexual tenderness in the entire movie.
Also, this is exactly the kind of role I didn't even know I was referring to when I mentioned last fall that I didn't know what kind of a career Sam Rockwell was supposed to be having. He's similar enough here to the kind of charming, nervous fuck-up he was as Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind that I hope he doesn't get typecast in that sort of role, but, that all being said, he's really, really perfect in this movie. Nicky Katt likewise has been somewhat pigeonholed as the clueless, butch guy who fancies himself sort of sensitive and enlightened, but he's just so hilariously good at it that I can't complain. And Amy Sedaris, who usually kind of bugs me, could not have been used better here, her off-kilter sensibility not coming off as an end in itself but as an arresting bundle of legitimate personality traits in a truly fundamentally decent character.
This film is highly recommended, my kittens. A strong early(ish) start to the '08 movie year.
All the cool kids are doing it: I made you a Muxtape. I know you're probably so over such a January 2008 tracklist by this point. What can I say; I'm just not that hip. I mean, I put the fucking uncool as all get-out Kings of Leon on there, fer cryin' out loud. Um, but enjoy? Oh, and because it's apparently mandatory to link to now when referencing Muxtape: Catbird's list. It's kind of the same joke as the "Top Ten Best Ever" I linked here, but it's still worth it for the scroll-down punchline laugh.
DS makes a girl (that girl = me) blush over at the recently un-hiatus'd Overthrown Device. Being respectfully disagreed with by the likes of him is one of the highest compliments I can conceive of. Not to mention that he's also turned me around on some stuff (like The Life Aquatic and Michael Haneke) that I otherwise would have remained contentedly stick-in-the-mud about if left to my own devices. (Ha ha, y'like that pun?) Go, read, poke around for a bit, and be enlightened while you're there.
I haven't seen it in a number of years, but I'm glad to read Scott Tobias speaking out over at the Onion AV Club on behalf of the deeply, gorgeously weird Babe: Pig in the City, which I love unreservedly.
"Your momma ain't name you no damn Barack."
Kick-ass collection of pictures of knuckle tattoos and the stories behind them (via).
It's shocking, but also quite nice, to see a film in which a bunch of characters are genuinely angry. Not just filled with self-righteousness or vengeance or generalized bile of the "fuck me? no, fuck you" variety like characters in most of the loud, ugly movies Hollywood attempts to feed us on a regular basis, but real, everyday, bone-deep anger. That band director's monologue about having a sledgehammer in his heart was a fucking brilliant way to open the film and set that tone. (When's the last time you've seen a high school teacher yell at a bunch of students in a movie in a way that's not just "ooh, what a jerk" or "ah, it's inspirational tough love that will lead them to victory in the end"? Many of us denizens of Wrestling Entropy know from being yelled at by high school teachers, especially in the context of extracurricular activities, and it was usually fueled by plain old unreflective anger, with maybe the merest shell of motivation painted on if we were lucky.) And, what's even more beautiful and shocking and almost exciting in its truthfulness is the way that the eruptions of anger don't serve as any sort of cue to judgment here, especially when it comes to the Kate Beckinsale character. Her flashes of rage made my stomach churn, but only because I recognized how they were such dead-on accurate manifestations of the frustration and impotence and regret and selfishness that I've felt in myself on many occasions--but we were never supposed to judge her harshly for these rages the way so many of the other characters (incl., often her own mother) did.
And though we were never being baited into judging her, I think the movie is asking us to consider how and when anger becomes unproductive and, therefore, its own prison, rather than, as it's intended to be, a tool to air out wrongs and resentments that otherwise would have festered internally, in an effort to achieve greater compassion for oneself and better relationships with loved ones. I think that scene when the main kid (the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful Michael Angarano) yells at his dad about abandoning their family is one of the most important ones in the movie. Both because we get to see that kid--who is absolutely the film's moral center--practice using an additional set of adult emotions (on the heels of his mother's gentle imperative that he let himself live and breathe through his feelings instead of bottling them up like most people do, including, she freely admits, herself) and because the dad closes the door to the college lecture hall they've been sitting in. It's a subtle, but absolutely necessary, cue, that family business should stay private, not go exploding into front lawns and other public spaces like the rage and violence we constantly see around the Sam Rockwell character especially (which implicitly includes Nicky Katt as well, not to mention the way the entire high school gets enlisted in the search for the missing child). Angarano's character, at his core, clearly has a pretty solid sense of self, and he's being equipped, however fumblingly and imperfectly, by his parents with the tools he's going to need to become a more complete and self-actualized adult, the kind of adult that's clearly in short supply in the small town they all live in. This--this is a heroic, subtle, mature, uncommodifiable message, my kittens: that despite growing up in a dead-end town with separated parents and (the horror!) occasionally indulging in some clandestine beer and weed consumption, it is still entirely possible to become a good person. Life may try to guide you to fall into formation like the marching band does, but a willingness to be open to your emotions makes a part of your soul inviolable. Not to mention that he willingly goes down on his high school girlfriend when they spend a lazy morning in bed together, which is one of the very few instances of female-directed heterosexual tenderness in the entire movie.
Also, this is exactly the kind of role I didn't even know I was referring to when I mentioned last fall that I didn't know what kind of a career Sam Rockwell was supposed to be having. He's similar enough here to the kind of charming, nervous fuck-up he was as Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind that I hope he doesn't get typecast in that sort of role, but, that all being said, he's really, really perfect in this movie. Nicky Katt likewise has been somewhat pigeonholed as the clueless, butch guy who fancies himself sort of sensitive and enlightened, but he's just so hilariously good at it that I can't complain. And Amy Sedaris, who usually kind of bugs me, could not have been used better here, her off-kilter sensibility not coming off as an end in itself but as an arresting bundle of legitimate personality traits in a truly fundamentally decent character.
This film is highly recommended, my kittens. A strong early(ish) start to the '08 movie year.
All the cool kids are doing it: I made you a Muxtape. I know you're probably so over such a January 2008 tracklist by this point. What can I say; I'm just not that hip. I mean, I put the fucking uncool as all get-out Kings of Leon on there, fer cryin' out loud. Um, but enjoy? Oh, and because it's apparently mandatory to link to now when referencing Muxtape: Catbird's list. It's kind of the same joke as the "Top Ten Best Ever" I linked here, but it's still worth it for the scroll-down punchline laugh.
DS makes a girl (that girl = me) blush over at the recently un-hiatus'd Overthrown Device. Being respectfully disagreed with by the likes of him is one of the highest compliments I can conceive of. Not to mention that he's also turned me around on some stuff (like The Life Aquatic and Michael Haneke) that I otherwise would have remained contentedly stick-in-the-mud about if left to my own devices. (Ha ha, y'like that pun?) Go, read, poke around for a bit, and be enlightened while you're there.
I haven't seen it in a number of years, but I'm glad to read Scott Tobias speaking out over at the Onion AV Club on behalf of the deeply, gorgeously weird Babe: Pig in the City, which I love unreservedly.
"Your momma ain't name you no damn Barack."
Kick-ass collection of pictures of knuckle tattoos and the stories behind them (via).
Friday, February 29, 2008
Happy Leap Day
All right, former Pirates of Penzance cast members, sing it with me: "for I was born in leap year / and that birthday will not be reached by me til 1940!" "Oh, horrible!"
Do something ridiculous and indulgent today, my kittens, and enjoy your extra 24 hours.
Do something ridiculous and indulgent today, my kittens, and enjoy your extra 24 hours.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Michel Gondry @ the Apple Store
This isn't so much a post as it is a fan-girl gush. (People! When am I going to get my medical bracelet!) Prompted by Chicagoist, I headed to the Apple Store after work tonight to catch Michel Gondry basically shilling for his upcoming Be Kind Rewind (starring Mos Def and Jack Black, not these shoes). The line was down the block and around the corner by the time I got there, and I felt certain they'd cap attendance before I'd be able to squeak through the doors, but I was somewhat surprisingly able to make it in. Of course the place was totally jammed, though. I could barely even hear (much less see) from where I was standing way in the back, I got quickly overheated in my coat, my boots had no arch support, my messenger bag full of crap was weighing on my shoulders, blah blah blah. There were about fourteen times I was going to walk out in frustration and annoyance. But, my obsessive reverence knows no bounds, and I just couldn't bring myself to actively give up. I'm glad I didn't; the herd started thinning before long, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss the brilliance that was Gondry's own version of the trailer, starring himself in all the roles. (I'm sure it'll eventually end up on the DVD if it's not floating around on the intertubes somewhere already.) Not to mention that, after standing around for a while at the end of the event, watching him sign autographs and politely indulge all the rest of the beautiful dorked-out hipsters crowding him for a moment of attention, I was able to sneak my way over, shake his hand, and thank him for Eternal Sunshine. Never let it be said that my spazz-outs are not completely heartfelt and sincere, regardless of decibel level.
Plus! We're talking icing-on-cake here, people--I ran into and finally had a chance to have a nice long conversation with Kirstiecat, who took this beautiful portrait of the man.
Plus! We're talking icing-on-cake here, people--I ran into and finally had a chance to have a nice long conversation with Kirstiecat, who took this beautiful portrait of the man.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
A Few Notes on the '07 Movie Year
Happy new year, my kittens!
I had hoped to be able to cobble together some notes on the movies I saw in '07 like I did for '06, but I'm even less confident this go round in my ability to say anything remotely meaningful about any of them. For a number of reasons: I missed out on catching a bunch of flicks I think I probably would have liked while they were in theaters and just haven't gotten around to renting them yet (Zodiac most esp., though Away from Her also comes to mind; I heard surprisingly great things about In the Valley of Elah, and, shit, has Margot at the Wedding disappeared already?), I just haven't found time to see the current crop of requisite Oscar bait yet (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Charlie Wilson's War, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and over and above even those excuses, as I mentioned a little while back, I simply haven't been bowled over by much of anything recently. With all the blather about how great a year this has been for film, I really have to wonder where I've been these past twelve months. Or, am I letting the hype get to me against my better, more intuitive judgment? At any rate, I did have a chance to see a few things recently (though I've been unusually busy and unfortunately haven't had a chance to schedule any of the daylong binges at the theater I generally like to indulge in this time of year).
I can see why a lot of people really liked Atonement, but it just left me cold. I think part of it is that I'm finally beginning to realize that "redemptive power of fiction" movies kind of bug me; this is probably why I didn't much care for Pan's Labyrinth either. (CTLA, as my unofficial Boswell, I'll rely on you to remind me if I've conveniently forgotten anything out of this subgenre I actually do like.) McAvoy continues to impress me, though, and of course the mise-en-scene was utterly lovely. But, for the most part, it felt like the most spot-on example of Eddie Izzard's priceless "arranging matches" bit since the heyday of Merchant Ivory.
I had high hopes that Juno would be the feminist response to Superbad that I've been waiting for, but...it doesn't even manage to be a feminist response to Knocked Up (which needed the corrective less). It's...cute? I dunno. For all the excitement about Diablo Cody's writing style, a lot of the attitude felt flat--when it wasn't feeling forced, that is. I think the thing I liked most about it (aside from Cera, obvy) was Juno's relationship with the Jason Bateman character, mostly because, OMG, I have so been that girl (pregnancy to one side, of course) who didn't quite want to admit to herself that just hanging out and talking shit about music and movies with a married or otherwise committed guy can actually be really inappropriate in certain situations. Also, thumbs all the way up for Allison Janney.
I'm wholly unqualified to say absolutely anything meaningful about I'm Not There, but I'm glad I saw it nonetheless. It's a complete mess, of course, but it's a 100% worthy experiment and I gotta give credit where credit is due when directors are really swinging for the fences. Though, aside from perhaps Velvet Goldmine (which, for me, is really more about the yummy homoeroticism anyway), I don't really go in much for Haynes--I loved Rosenbaum's line in his review of I'm Not There that "Widely described as a tribute, it frequently comes across as a series of insults" and think it could apply equally well to Far from Heaven. (Also, RIP Rosenbaum's tenure as chief critic at the Reader.) For me, the film succeeds best when it's least insulting, and that's during the musical sequences: the paranoid nightmare of "Maggie's Farm," the almost painfully allegorical vaudevillian Old West funeral of "Goin' to Acapulco," and OMG the slightly creepy but not unmoving "Pressing On." A propos of which, jane dark's sugarhigh! is, as ever, correct in the assessment that Christian Bale is the best faux-Dylan of the bunch (yes, eclipsing even the lovely Ms. Blanchett). I'm sure there's a more sophisticated meaning in this than I'm able to parse, not being terribly well-versed in Dylanology, but I found it fascinating that Bale's "Jack Rollins" is the only Dylan who's allowed to age discernibly. (Time clearly elapses in the course of Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg's subplot, but it's nowhere near as marked.) Anyway, blah. I can't say I wasn't bored at times, especially in the final stretches, especially during most of Gere's scenes, but it gets major points for ambition.
Sweeney Todd, on the other hand, gets a huge wet kiss for its absolute lack of ambition. Srsly. As a dyed-in-the-wool musical theater dork, I've found it kind of difficult to get behind the movie musical revival of the past few years mainly because most of them feel like they're trying too hard to be clever or sexy or contemporary or whatever. Sweeney Todd, though, just kind of gets in and gets the job done and gets out. Which I never would have thought Burton would be capable of at this point in his career. I don't think I've ever seen the show performed on stage, and I don't even know the score all that well, but as soon as I started hearing those weirdo Sondheim chord voicings, I felt all snug and warm and ready for the blood to flow. Depp's singing is competent but limited (I lost count of how many times he fell into the typical amateur's trap of putting a little scoop and a growl on a note in an effort to shoehorn some intensity in it; nice try, but not so much). Bonham Carter is competent and somewhat less limited; plus also, she's just got that look. Put a crazy dress and some crazy hair and some crazy makeup on that lady, and half the work is done right there. Helps of course to be reminded, as here, that she's still capable of putting that look into the service of her performance, rather than the other way around. The ingenues absolutely nail it to the wall with their fluty singing voices and swoony-moony-googly eyes; I forgot how much pleasure can be wrung out of the standard-issue earnest young lovers subplot when the roles are well cast and don't really try to carry too much of the weight of the piece. I know we're supposed to be disturbed by Judge Turpin's murderous inclinations and incestuous advances, but Rickman is almost too legitimately sexy to be creepy. In a different movie, that would probably have played as an interesting and vital shade of gray, but here I think it's just a slightly misfired consequence of the casting. It doesn't ruin the movie by any means, but I did kind of find myself distracted by it. And, going into the movie, I thought Baron Cohen would probably be the only thing I'd like about it, so, given how much I actually enjoyed myself throughout, his performance was just icing on the cake. I don't mean to rave about Sweeney Todd too much, but these days I'm just happy when I don't immediately forget about a film as soon as I leave the theater.
And, with memorability as a main criterion (or, a movie's ability to "stick with me," as I usually put it), I'd have to say one of my surprise favorites of the year, after Inland Empire, would be Into the Wild. The Holbrook performance, sure, of course, but I find myself thinking really fondly on the always-appealing sense of open-road freedom it celebrates and revels in, as well as the way it gets that elusive tone just right--the combination of "devil-may-care charisma and pernicious youthful idealism," to quote myself. (Barf.)
Quickly:
DS blogs--hurrah!
Dear Jesus, white girls is bitches who will not let me love them. O Jesus, King of Kings, please make the bitches appreciate my style. Amen.
Be sure to check out Kirstiecat's Best 2007 Music Photography set over on Flickr. Gorgeous, compelling shots from a photographer who's been nothing but a joy to track these past months.
I had hoped to be able to cobble together some notes on the movies I saw in '07 like I did for '06, but I'm even less confident this go round in my ability to say anything remotely meaningful about any of them. For a number of reasons: I missed out on catching a bunch of flicks I think I probably would have liked while they were in theaters and just haven't gotten around to renting them yet (Zodiac most esp., though Away from Her also comes to mind; I heard surprisingly great things about In the Valley of Elah, and, shit, has Margot at the Wedding disappeared already?), I just haven't found time to see the current crop of requisite Oscar bait yet (No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Charlie Wilson's War, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and over and above even those excuses, as I mentioned a little while back, I simply haven't been bowled over by much of anything recently. With all the blather about how great a year this has been for film, I really have to wonder where I've been these past twelve months. Or, am I letting the hype get to me against my better, more intuitive judgment? At any rate, I did have a chance to see a few things recently (though I've been unusually busy and unfortunately haven't had a chance to schedule any of the daylong binges at the theater I generally like to indulge in this time of year).
I can see why a lot of people really liked Atonement, but it just left me cold. I think part of it is that I'm finally beginning to realize that "redemptive power of fiction" movies kind of bug me; this is probably why I didn't much care for Pan's Labyrinth either. (CTLA, as my unofficial Boswell, I'll rely on you to remind me if I've conveniently forgotten anything out of this subgenre I actually do like.) McAvoy continues to impress me, though, and of course the mise-en-scene was utterly lovely. But, for the most part, it felt like the most spot-on example of Eddie Izzard's priceless "arranging matches" bit since the heyday of Merchant Ivory.
I had high hopes that Juno would be the feminist response to Superbad that I've been waiting for, but...it doesn't even manage to be a feminist response to Knocked Up (which needed the corrective less). It's...cute? I dunno. For all the excitement about Diablo Cody's writing style, a lot of the attitude felt flat--when it wasn't feeling forced, that is. I think the thing I liked most about it (aside from Cera, obvy) was Juno's relationship with the Jason Bateman character, mostly because, OMG, I have so been that girl (pregnancy to one side, of course) who didn't quite want to admit to herself that just hanging out and talking shit about music and movies with a married or otherwise committed guy can actually be really inappropriate in certain situations. Also, thumbs all the way up for Allison Janney.
I'm wholly unqualified to say absolutely anything meaningful about I'm Not There, but I'm glad I saw it nonetheless. It's a complete mess, of course, but it's a 100% worthy experiment and I gotta give credit where credit is due when directors are really swinging for the fences. Though, aside from perhaps Velvet Goldmine (which, for me, is really more about the yummy homoeroticism anyway), I don't really go in much for Haynes--I loved Rosenbaum's line in his review of I'm Not There that "Widely described as a tribute, it frequently comes across as a series of insults" and think it could apply equally well to Far from Heaven. (Also, RIP Rosenbaum's tenure as chief critic at the Reader.) For me, the film succeeds best when it's least insulting, and that's during the musical sequences: the paranoid nightmare of "Maggie's Farm," the almost painfully allegorical vaudevillian Old West funeral of "Goin' to Acapulco," and OMG the slightly creepy but not unmoving "Pressing On." A propos of which, jane dark's sugarhigh! is, as ever, correct in the assessment that Christian Bale is the best faux-Dylan of the bunch (yes, eclipsing even the lovely Ms. Blanchett). I'm sure there's a more sophisticated meaning in this than I'm able to parse, not being terribly well-versed in Dylanology, but I found it fascinating that Bale's "Jack Rollins" is the only Dylan who's allowed to age discernibly. (Time clearly elapses in the course of Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg's subplot, but it's nowhere near as marked.) Anyway, blah. I can't say I wasn't bored at times, especially in the final stretches, especially during most of Gere's scenes, but it gets major points for ambition.
Sweeney Todd, on the other hand, gets a huge wet kiss for its absolute lack of ambition. Srsly. As a dyed-in-the-wool musical theater dork, I've found it kind of difficult to get behind the movie musical revival of the past few years mainly because most of them feel like they're trying too hard to be clever or sexy or contemporary or whatever. Sweeney Todd, though, just kind of gets in and gets the job done and gets out. Which I never would have thought Burton would be capable of at this point in his career. I don't think I've ever seen the show performed on stage, and I don't even know the score all that well, but as soon as I started hearing those weirdo Sondheim chord voicings, I felt all snug and warm and ready for the blood to flow. Depp's singing is competent but limited (I lost count of how many times he fell into the typical amateur's trap of putting a little scoop and a growl on a note in an effort to shoehorn some intensity in it; nice try, but not so much). Bonham Carter is competent and somewhat less limited; plus also, she's just got that look. Put a crazy dress and some crazy hair and some crazy makeup on that lady, and half the work is done right there. Helps of course to be reminded, as here, that she's still capable of putting that look into the service of her performance, rather than the other way around. The ingenues absolutely nail it to the wall with their fluty singing voices and swoony-moony-googly eyes; I forgot how much pleasure can be wrung out of the standard-issue earnest young lovers subplot when the roles are well cast and don't really try to carry too much of the weight of the piece. I know we're supposed to be disturbed by Judge Turpin's murderous inclinations and incestuous advances, but Rickman is almost too legitimately sexy to be creepy. In a different movie, that would probably have played as an interesting and vital shade of gray, but here I think it's just a slightly misfired consequence of the casting. It doesn't ruin the movie by any means, but I did kind of find myself distracted by it. And, going into the movie, I thought Baron Cohen would probably be the only thing I'd like about it, so, given how much I actually enjoyed myself throughout, his performance was just icing on the cake. I don't mean to rave about Sweeney Todd too much, but these days I'm just happy when I don't immediately forget about a film as soon as I leave the theater.
And, with memorability as a main criterion (or, a movie's ability to "stick with me," as I usually put it), I'd have to say one of my surprise favorites of the year, after Inland Empire, would be Into the Wild. The Holbrook performance, sure, of course, but I find myself thinking really fondly on the always-appealing sense of open-road freedom it celebrates and revels in, as well as the way it gets that elusive tone just right--the combination of "devil-may-care charisma and pernicious youthful idealism," to quote myself. (Barf.)
Quickly:
DS blogs--hurrah!
Dear Jesus, white girls is bitches who will not let me love them. O Jesus, King of Kings, please make the bitches appreciate my style. Amen.
Be sure to check out Kirstiecat's Best 2007 Music Photography set over on Flickr. Gorgeous, compelling shots from a photographer who's been nothing but a joy to track these past months.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Bushman on Baba
Quoth Bushman, who's been listening to the Who a lot lately: "If anyone tells you that they felt the influence of classical minimalism because of the synthesizer part in Baba O'Riley, you have my full and utter permission to KICK THEM IN THE HEAD. A repetitive ostinato over COMPLETELY FUNCTIONAL POP HARMONIES does not minimalism make. :) Yes, I know the title is supposedly in reference to Terry Riley, and as such the band claims such influence. I'm just saying, the concept lost something- oh wait, EVERYTHING in the translation. Great, they used a bloody synthesizer and looped it- but its usage has no position of importance in the development of the song, and even gets transposed around to go with the riffs. Awesome tune? Certainly. Great texture? Truly. Minimal? For fucks sake, it's THE WHO. Everyone is tearing it up, and you end with a time change and a fade to a needless (but fun) violin solo."
I love having friends who know more about stuff than I do.
I love having friends who know more about stuff than I do.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
"Enough With This Cicada Bullshit"
From the brilliant and twisted mind of Dr. Benji Kelnardo, a few thoughts on cicadas:
This has to stop. Every single fucking day I turn on the news and some jackass from Schaumburg is fryin' up a pan of the little fuckers or covering them in chocolate and arranging them on a silver platter. People keep sending in pictures of cicadas doing all sorts of gross things. They are making cakes in the form of cicadas and finding dead ones and dressing them up like a rock band and then freezing them (seen on channel 5, worth checking the website). They have made their appearance in Crown Point and buzz and hum all day long (this is actually kinda neat, it echoes through the whole neighborhood). However, they are so fucking hideous I don't even know where to begin. This is some biblical shit. They are big, ugly, stupid creatures that fly haphazardly into windows, screens, cars, etc. And they shed their exoskeletons. Um, just in case you didn't get that the first time--"they shed their exoskeletons." And they leave them wherever they feel like, driveways, bushes, porches. Yuck. And, matters got much worse today and yesterday as the filthy fucking sea-chickens discovered them. It looks like our neighborhood is a beach or the Southlake Mall parking lot, covered in the flying rats as they peck at the ground and fight each other for the creatures. It is Mother Nature at her ugliest. This sea-chicken phenomenon is apparently happening all over the area according to the
news. That's some sick shit. Fuck them. All of them.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Boxer, and Other Bits & Bobs
Required reading: Joss Whedon's short and impassioned essay about the Dua Khalil murder.
Great interview at the Onion A.V. Club with one of my fave contemporary comedians, Louis C.K.
My opinion of Boxer hasn't really crystallized yet, which is as it should be, considering the way Matt and the brothers like to hide little time bombs of feeling throughout their songs that are designed not to explode on you for months. But, man. I just hear those opening piano chords of "Fake Empire" and instantly feel like I want to burst into tears. That's got to be a good thing. So far the album seems to breathe best over actual stereo speakers, rather than through headphones. All the empty space around Matt's vocals comes through a little more clearly, and poignantly, that way. And, though I take exception with the way Pitchfork asserts that this is "a drummer's album" with the phrase "Bryan Devendorf becomes a main player here" (emphasis mine), as if he's suddenly gotten good out of nowhere, as if the previous albums aren't chockful of brilliant drumming, the point is well taken. Those snare snaps and other fills in "Mistaken for Strangers" are every bit as likely to get stuck in your head as the chorus.
Happy Towel Day, everybody!
And, of course, happy 30th to my girl HLo-M. (That looks like the symbol for some sort of chemical compound.)
Enjoy your holiday weekend, my kittens!
Great interview at the Onion A.V. Club with one of my fave contemporary comedians, Louis C.K.
My opinion of Boxer hasn't really crystallized yet, which is as it should be, considering the way Matt and the brothers like to hide little time bombs of feeling throughout their songs that are designed not to explode on you for months. But, man. I just hear those opening piano chords of "Fake Empire" and instantly feel like I want to burst into tears. That's got to be a good thing. So far the album seems to breathe best over actual stereo speakers, rather than through headphones. All the empty space around Matt's vocals comes through a little more clearly, and poignantly, that way. And, though I take exception with the way Pitchfork asserts that this is "a drummer's album" with the phrase "Bryan Devendorf becomes a main player here" (emphasis mine), as if he's suddenly gotten good out of nowhere, as if the previous albums aren't chockful of brilliant drumming, the point is well taken. Those snare snaps and other fills in "Mistaken for Strangers" are every bit as likely to get stuck in your head as the chorus.
Happy Towel Day, everybody!
And, of course, happy 30th to my girl HLo-M. (That looks like the symbol for some sort of chemical compound.)
Enjoy your holiday weekend, my kittens!
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Ys
Oh yeah. Ys finally really clicked for me this morning. Crying on the train--not just for hangovers anymore!
Speaking of oh yeah: our girl LK recently won the Bellevue Literary Review 2007 Goldberg Prize for Fiction for her story "Presidents, Space, Medical Miracles." It's a wonderfully sweet and sad little gem of a story, and she deserves every bit of recognition she's received for it. (Recognition from Amy Hempel no less!) Please join me in advising her to continue rocking the fuck on.
Speaking of oh yeah: our girl LK recently won the Bellevue Literary Review 2007 Goldberg Prize for Fiction for her story "Presidents, Space, Medical Miracles." It's a wonderfully sweet and sad little gem of a story, and she deserves every bit of recognition she's received for it. (Recognition from Amy Hempel no less!) Please join me in advising her to continue rocking the fuck on.
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