Bad form, Owen Wilson! (Link via Kittenpants.) I want to have slightly fewer of your babies now.
Great artists and other famous people who could (or couldn't) say the sentence "I am ridiculous."
Michaelangelo Matos holds forth on the June/July music issue of The Believer. Whereas I agree in theory that their indie-rock-centrism could stand to be toned down a bit in general, The Believer does tend to be extraordinarily good about featuring unconventional profiles of unconventional scientists and visual artists, which, coming from a "literary" magazine, seems ultimately more worthwhile to me than any attempt they could subsequently launch to provide unique and in-depth write-ups on the whole spectrum of cutting-edge musical genres. I mean, I would imagine that a large chunk of The Believer's readership consumes other magazines like Paste, Punk Planet, and Pitchfork (yes, I picked those three just for the alliteration), all of whose raison d'être is more specifically music-based, so it's not like we're hurting for music news and coverage on whatever microgenre we happen to be passionate about, y'know? But, I don't even know what I don't know about many interesting scientists and visual artists for the most part, so I'm perfectly happy to suffer through yet another interview with Jack White or Karen O if it means I can read an interview with the guy who sequenced the human genome. It just strikes me that Matos is looking a little too myopically through his own music reviewer lens here.
I finally finished Blink this weekend, and I luuurved it! I have a total nerd-crush on Malcolm Gladwell right now. He's a brilliant journalist. I'm in the mood to recommend this book to everyone.
CTLA, it's all you: a call for academic papers on Brad Pitt.
Never fear, I'll get to Mr. & Mrs. Smith in a moment, but I'd first like to rave about Mysterious Skin. It's definitely not a movie for everybody, but it's beautiful and challenging and rewarding for those who are willing to go with it to some unpleasant and uncomfortable places. It's one of the few movies I've ever seen where a character is repeatedly referred to by other characters as being "exquisite," "like a god," etc. without it being a cheap indicating trick from the screenwriter--when the character is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (yeah, I know; who knew?), he really is exquisite, like a god, etc., while still conveying multiple fucked-up layers of hurt, pride, mischief, loneliness, longing, confusion, boredom, frustration, and pure teenage lust. As pretty much all the reviews have mentioned, Gordon-Levitt gives an electric performance here, one that would be career defining if more people were likely to see it. Which isn't to say that he's the only reason to catch the flick.
I'm sure much of it can be chalked up to the source novel, but this movie deals with the issue of childhood sexual abuse in perhaps the least shrill and hysterical way I've ever seen. The film focuses on the parallel lives of two boys who share a lot of contextual similarities (absent father, doting mother, a close friendship with a slightly older woman) and how their paths diverge (and, of course, eventually converge again) after being molested in their youth by the same baseball coach. By tracking their respective paths, the film is able to present a provocative and well-rounded view of the ways that a traumatic event like that can completely redefine not just that person's perception of the world, but who that person is in relation to his world. It's also a beautiful illustration of the human impulse to force the circumstances of our lives to fit into our most gaping emotional holes in an attempt to, however imperfectly, get our needs met, to create meaning out of personal chaos. There's some clumsy dialogue and symbolism here and there, and, despite my love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I'm still not convinced that Michelle Trachtenberg could act her way out of a wet paper bag, but I have a feeling the overall impact of this movie is going to stick with me for a while.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a delightful, and delightfully lightweight, summer blockbuster. Though I vastly prefer the way the Kill Bill movies used two assassins' to-the-death rivalry as a metaphor for male/female relationships, Mr. & Mrs. Smith does achieve an approximation of screwball comedy's insouciant, double-entendre-laden banter. It gets a bit one-note after a while (the Missus shoots the Mister in the thigh and he's just kind of lovingly irritated with the accident), but I wasn't really expecting much else out of it to begin with. Yadda yadda, sex appeal, yadda yadda, are-they-or-aren't-they? All I have to say is, going back to Buffy [spoilers ahoy, CTLA, LBLA, KP, etc!], while superficially hot, the scene where Angelina and Brad have steamy and violent sex in the wreckage of their suburban home carries only a fraction of the weight that a remarkably similar sixth season scene between Buffy and Spike so famously does. Also, Adam Brody's "who are you people?!" was one of the best timed and delivered lines in the whole movie. And, yes, that's a fairly explicit slam on Vince Vaughn's movie-long Will Ferrell impression masquerading as a comedic foil performance. (Oh, snap!)
Monday, June 13, 2005
Friday, June 10, 2005
Working Summer Hours...In My Head
I'm totally loving Pink Is the New Blog right now.
Good news, music fans. The Double Door is safe (link via Gapers Block).
From Me Fuck Pretty One Day on Tiny Mix Tapes: "You should know that any sex that you will ever have in your entire life will NEVER be as hot as the sex that Brad and Angelina have. I would like to think that the sex I imagine for them in my head isn't even as hot as the sex they have in real life."
EDIT: Oh all right, and a bonus link, from Last Plane to Jakarta. "YELL YELL YELL I AM GONNA YELL AT YOU!" (Hilarious.)
Good news, music fans. The Double Door is safe (link via Gapers Block).
From Me Fuck Pretty One Day on Tiny Mix Tapes: "You should know that any sex that you will ever have in your entire life will NEVER be as hot as the sex that Brad and Angelina have. I would like to think that the sex I imagine for them in my head isn't even as hot as the sex they have in real life."
EDIT: Oh all right, and a bonus link, from Last Plane to Jakarta. "YELL YELL YELL I AM GONNA YELL AT YOU!" (Hilarious.)
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Anne Bancroft
Anne Bancroft, 1931–2005.
I would like to take a moment to memorialize the great woman with (quel surprise!) a stupid personal anecdote. Back in the days at the 1945, Pitchman was incredulous when we told him that she was, indeed, married to Mel Brooks. "Huh," he said. "I would have thought that he'd be married to some sort of Rhea Perlman approximation." The phrase "Rhea Perlman Approximation" so delighted me that it immediately shot to the top of my own personal prospective band name list.
Mrs. Robinson, may your seduction of wayward college graduates be eternal.
I would like to take a moment to memorialize the great woman with (quel surprise!) a stupid personal anecdote. Back in the days at the 1945, Pitchman was incredulous when we told him that she was, indeed, married to Mel Brooks. "Huh," he said. "I would have thought that he'd be married to some sort of Rhea Perlman approximation." The phrase "Rhea Perlman Approximation" so delighted me that it immediately shot to the top of my own personal prospective band name list.
Mrs. Robinson, may your seduction of wayward college graduates be eternal.
A Very Felusian Aviary
Birds That Aren't (link via Flip Flop Flying). The Grayscale Tiff is my favorite.
Save the Double Door! While not a regular attender of the venue, I do have some fond memories of nights out there and would hate to see it replaced by (the horror!) a Banana Republic.
Cary Tennis recommends a modicum of appropriately timed self-censorship on Salon.
Save the Double Door! While not a regular attender of the venue, I do have some fond memories of nights out there and would hate to see it replaced by (the horror!) a Banana Republic.
Cary Tennis recommends a modicum of appropriately timed self-censorship on Salon.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Recharging
Tiny Mix Tapes' Automatic Mix Tape Generator. My favorites thus far are "a mix of songs whose titles rhyme with other song titles in the mix" and jhox's response to "the file clerk's lament."
In related mix tape news, Giddy and I are planning to attend Quimby's mix tape event next weekend. Those who are brave enough to put your music taste where your mouth is (uhh...) are encouraged to meet us there.
Salon's recent article about Gunter von Hagen's Bodyworlds "exhibit" (and others of its ilk), which M&M, CTA, and I took in at the Museum of Science and Industry yesterday afternoon. I'm still recovering. **shudder**
Lisa Carver's essay about Chick Lit on Nerve, which starts out as your standard "this genre is crap!" harangue, but which turns into something much more interesting toward the end.
Michelle Collins on Mark Harmon.
The brilliantly sick individuals at Kittenpants weigh in on the Yale economist who's teaching monkeys how to use money.
Pick up one (or both) of their newly designed buttons and support the good folks at Chicago's own Gapers Block.
I have recently decided that kefir is the best thing on the planet.
Check out, bookmark, ponder, and enjoy the estimable Michael O'Donnell's new web page. (Now also featured in my sidebar at left.)
Clear your calendars, kittens--it's an F*IN Dance Party on June 30!
The Long Winters (or, more accurately, John Roderick) enjoys a small profile in this month's Paste magazine and a large one in the June/July double issue of The Believer. I'm already getting excited about the unnamed and unreleased third album.
Colin Meloy's strummy, acoustic cover of Joanna Newsom's "Bridges and Balloons" that appears on The Believer's 2005 CD comp makes me smile. Hard.
Please don't make fun of me when I start wearing these clogs. They're like butter for your feet.
Yet another hearty congratulations to HLo and the Daniel, who were wed on Saturday. Pictures soon to come.
In related mix tape news, Giddy and I are planning to attend Quimby's mix tape event next weekend. Those who are brave enough to put your music taste where your mouth is (uhh...) are encouraged to meet us there.
Salon's recent article about Gunter von Hagen's Bodyworlds "exhibit" (and others of its ilk), which M&M, CTA, and I took in at the Museum of Science and Industry yesterday afternoon. I'm still recovering. **shudder**
Lisa Carver's essay about Chick Lit on Nerve, which starts out as your standard "this genre is crap!" harangue, but which turns into something much more interesting toward the end.
Michelle Collins on Mark Harmon.
The brilliantly sick individuals at Kittenpants weigh in on the Yale economist who's teaching monkeys how to use money.
Pick up one (or both) of their newly designed buttons and support the good folks at Chicago's own Gapers Block.
I have recently decided that kefir is the best thing on the planet.
Check out, bookmark, ponder, and enjoy the estimable Michael O'Donnell's new web page. (Now also featured in my sidebar at left.)
Clear your calendars, kittens--it's an F*IN Dance Party on June 30!
The Long Winters (or, more accurately, John Roderick) enjoys a small profile in this month's Paste magazine and a large one in the June/July double issue of The Believer. I'm already getting excited about the unnamed and unreleased third album.
Colin Meloy's strummy, acoustic cover of Joanna Newsom's "Bridges and Balloons" that appears on The Believer's 2005 CD comp makes me smile. Hard.
Please don't make fun of me when I start wearing these clogs. They're like butter for your feet.
Yet another hearty congratulations to HLo and the Daniel, who were wed on Saturday. Pictures soon to come.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Monday, May 30, 2005
Long Weekend Pop Culture Binge
I've had at least two conversations in the past month that have started with people asking me, "so, what did you think of Crash?" And I've had to disappoint both people, and tarnish my cinemaphile's reputation, by admitting that I hadn't seen it yet. So I made a point of inaugurating my weekend of moviegoing with it. It's a lovely and thought-provoking piece of work, both topically and formally. Jonathan Rosenbaum's meta-review does a good job of parsing the ways a film's structure (and our awareness of structure as structure) is inextricably bound to its ultimate impact on its audience; I found his methodology especially helpful as I was examining my own reactions to this movie. Like Rosenbaum, though I had some concerns about the script's dependence on coincidence, as well as the questionable emotional manipulation inherent in some scenes involving a saucer-eyed young Mexican girl and a deus ex machina in the form of a red box of bullets, I decided that I was willing to overlook these contrivances as tropes of the "we're all connected" genre (perhaps best, and most familiarly, represented by P. T. Anderson's Magnolia) and because I liked so much of what the movie was trying to do and say. Sure, it can be construed as weepie liberal feel-goodism (as both The Onion A.V. Club and Salon don't hesitate to loudly whine), but with so many wonderful performances and with such an earnest attempt to interrogate racial issues that pretty much no one else in popular entertainment has the balls to touch these days (even though we so sorely need it), I was more than happy to go where the movie was taking me. I'd especially like to single out Michael Peña's exceptional performance--I remember him from a few episodes in the second season of Felicity (you best wipe that smirk off your face right now) and was delighted to see him rise to the challenge of being (for me, at least) the vibrantly beating heart of the film.
Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle made for an enjoyable Saturday afternoon matinee, though I share a lot of Andrew O'Hehir's ambivalence about its relative worth in the grand scheme of Hong Kong things.
I'm a sucker for rough-and-tumble gangster-ridden Brit-noir, so I was eager to see the quietly lauded Layer Cake; however, having already seen the modern apotheosis of that genre in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, there wasn't much left for me to get excited about here. It's clear the script was adapted from a book--it's way too talky, in the sense of "and now we will have ten minutes of spoken exposition." However, based on his performance as the never-named lead character in the film, Daniel Craig is the perfect choice for the next James Bond. And by that I mean he is a solid, competent, unflashy actor who looks stunning in his wardrobe. (Holy hell, can that man wear a suit. I'm not the most fashion-minded person on earth, but, as with Brad Pitt in Soderbergh's Ocean's movies, it's kind of hard not to notice the way even his slightest movements all but purr to the camera "this is how clothes are meant to be worn by a man.") If, as Doug Liman said in his recent interview in Entertainment Weekly, there's a "specific formula for James Bond where they [the producers in charge of the franchise] don't want it to be too original. . . . They want them to be just like the ones that came before," Craig was right to be chosen over Colin Farrell (too naughty), Clive Owen (too darkly smoldering), Hugh Jackman (too Aussie), or whoever else had once been up for the part because he's calmly and blandly appealing while still being enormously attractive and manly. But watch Michael Gambon mop up the floor with him as an actor, and it becomes apparent that he'll be right at home at the center of a splashy but mostly hollow blow-up franchise.
After finishing Denis Johnson's The Name of the World (lovely, spare prose, as ever, until he gets into the scenes where you have to spend time with yet another of his young, earthy, sexy, witchy, eminently desirable enchantress characters), I bowed to the zeitgeist and have just started reading Blink. I hope that I enjoy it as much as I enjoy a) the idea of the book, b) the synopses recounted to me by other folks who've enjoyed the book, and c) the idea of Malcolm Gladwell in general.
I continue to be enamored of Gimme Fiction, and I've begun to realize that a big part of it is that the album sounds to me the way that I always want Wilco to sound. I mean, I love me some Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but even that album just doesn't do it for me the way Spoon is doing it for me right now. (And three . . . two . . . one. . . . A and O, you can start posting your "heresy!" comments now.)
Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle made for an enjoyable Saturday afternoon matinee, though I share a lot of Andrew O'Hehir's ambivalence about its relative worth in the grand scheme of Hong Kong things.
I'm a sucker for rough-and-tumble gangster-ridden Brit-noir, so I was eager to see the quietly lauded Layer Cake; however, having already seen the modern apotheosis of that genre in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, there wasn't much left for me to get excited about here. It's clear the script was adapted from a book--it's way too talky, in the sense of "and now we will have ten minutes of spoken exposition." However, based on his performance as the never-named lead character in the film, Daniel Craig is the perfect choice for the next James Bond. And by that I mean he is a solid, competent, unflashy actor who looks stunning in his wardrobe. (Holy hell, can that man wear a suit. I'm not the most fashion-minded person on earth, but, as with Brad Pitt in Soderbergh's Ocean's movies, it's kind of hard not to notice the way even his slightest movements all but purr to the camera "this is how clothes are meant to be worn by a man.") If, as Doug Liman said in his recent interview in Entertainment Weekly, there's a "specific formula for James Bond where they [the producers in charge of the franchise] don't want it to be too original. . . . They want them to be just like the ones that came before," Craig was right to be chosen over Colin Farrell (too naughty), Clive Owen (too darkly smoldering), Hugh Jackman (too Aussie), or whoever else had once been up for the part because he's calmly and blandly appealing while still being enormously attractive and manly. But watch Michael Gambon mop up the floor with him as an actor, and it becomes apparent that he'll be right at home at the center of a splashy but mostly hollow blow-up franchise.
After finishing Denis Johnson's The Name of the World (lovely, spare prose, as ever, until he gets into the scenes where you have to spend time with yet another of his young, earthy, sexy, witchy, eminently desirable enchantress characters), I bowed to the zeitgeist and have just started reading Blink. I hope that I enjoy it as much as I enjoy a) the idea of the book, b) the synopses recounted to me by other folks who've enjoyed the book, and c) the idea of Malcolm Gladwell in general.
I continue to be enamored of Gimme Fiction, and I've begun to realize that a big part of it is that the album sounds to me the way that I always want Wilco to sound. I mean, I love me some Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but even that album just doesn't do it for me the way Spoon is doing it for me right now. (And three . . . two . . . one. . . . A and O, you can start posting your "heresy!" comments now.)
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Photoblogging Comedy
This is the fucking funniest thing I've seen all week. (Link via Kittenpants, whose own commentary on the matter runs a pretty close second.)
Happy birthday to my sweet HLo today!
Happy birthday to my sweet HLo today!
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Dolour
All right, kittens, I'd encourage you to queue up (no, there along the wall, th-there, to the right) for your complimentary helping of Next Big Thing. You heard me.
Thanks to the beauty of the shuffle function in iTunes, I was recently introduced to the song stylings of Dolour, via their SXSW-approved MP3, "Cheer Up, Baby." On the strength of that single, which I've been listening to fairly relentlessly for the past two weeks or so, Giddy and I made the effort to catch their first-ever Chicago gig at the Abbey last night. (That's right, a Monday night rock show. I'd encourage you all to experience this phenomenon at your earliest convenience: ample parking, cheap drinks, enough room to stand on the main floor without an obstructed view, band members thankful to you for turning out at all.) Based on the combination of their strong, energetic set, ridiculously cute front man (songwriter and general Dolour mastermind Shane Tutmarc, all pointy Jimmy Fallon nose, bright white teeth, and complexion like a limpid pond tucked away in the Alps somewhere), hook-tastic songs, and go-get-'em rock 'n' roll attitude, I think they have the potential to be huge. Huge. I'm happy to be discovering them on their way up. (As touring bassist Robin Pecknold happily told us as we were chatting around the merch table at the end of the night, Giddy and I were the only two people there that they didn't already know. Points for us.) The new album is New Old Friends. You know you want it.
Openers (and Dolour friends) The Catch worked their self-awareness of being a chick band to the hilt, in the best possible way. Look for good things from them, too. (And, yes, before you cry sacrilege, lead singer Carly Nicklaus does earn her comparisons to a young Björk.)
Thanks to the beauty of the shuffle function in iTunes, I was recently introduced to the song stylings of Dolour, via their SXSW-approved MP3, "Cheer Up, Baby." On the strength of that single, which I've been listening to fairly relentlessly for the past two weeks or so, Giddy and I made the effort to catch their first-ever Chicago gig at the Abbey last night. (That's right, a Monday night rock show. I'd encourage you all to experience this phenomenon at your earliest convenience: ample parking, cheap drinks, enough room to stand on the main floor without an obstructed view, band members thankful to you for turning out at all.) Based on the combination of their strong, energetic set, ridiculously cute front man (songwriter and general Dolour mastermind Shane Tutmarc, all pointy Jimmy Fallon nose, bright white teeth, and complexion like a limpid pond tucked away in the Alps somewhere), hook-tastic songs, and go-get-'em rock 'n' roll attitude, I think they have the potential to be huge. Huge. I'm happy to be discovering them on their way up. (As touring bassist Robin Pecknold happily told us as we were chatting around the merch table at the end of the night, Giddy and I were the only two people there that they didn't already know. Points for us.) The new album is New Old Friends. You know you want it.
Openers (and Dolour friends) The Catch worked their self-awareness of being a chick band to the hilt, in the best possible way. Look for good things from them, too. (And, yes, before you cry sacrilege, lead singer Carly Nicklaus does earn her comparisons to a young Björk.)
Monday, May 23, 2005
CRP in the 'Fork
Ned Sublette's highly praised Cuba and Its Music gets another glowing mention in the press today, this time on the 'Fork. A nice Monday morning surprise.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Spoon
Damn you, indie tastemakers, damn you all to hell for being right yet again. Spoon's Gimme Fiction really is that good. Aurgh. (Stay tuned for the likely inclusion of "My Mathematical Mind" on my own year-end best-of CD comp.)
Friday, May 20, 2005
I'll Bring the Road, You Bring the Trip
OK, so who wants to go to St. Louis with me in late June to see Jonathan Richman perform at Blueberry Hill? I'm currently in the throes of a major Richman fixation (mostly thanks to his best-of collection Action Packed, with a healthy dose of Modern Lovers thrown in for good measure, of course) and would love, love, love to see him live. Alas, however, my lack of unsuspended license prevents me from just renting a vehicle and going it alone. So, c'mon--who's up for it?
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Revenge of the Coffee Wench
In stark contrast to the lovely, lovely male baristas (baristers?) who work at my neighborhood coffee shop, there is one particular woman who, for reasons unknown to me, hates my motherfucking guts. I have griped about her on many previous occasions (such as the time when I accidentally ordered, in Starbucks lingo, a "tall," rather than a "small," coffee, and she told me they'd be happy to break my kneecaps for me if I didn't break that habit) and she's actually a big part of the reason why I don't patronize that fine establishment as frequently as I used to. (Well, that and I've come to enjoy the ritual--and the savings!--of just making my own damn coffee at home.)
At any rate, I was running late this morning and decided to stop in on my way to the train. Oh, and was I ever so pleased to see Suzy Sunshine behind the counter. I quickly and efficiently ordered a small dark-roast with room, paid for my fix, and skedaddled toward the brown line. I drank about half the cup on the train and the other half after I'd arrived at the office. Well, even though I've been at work for close to two hours already, I still feel sluggish and have developed a low-grade headache.
DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU PEOPLE? THE WENCH SABOTAGED ME! I'M CONVINCED SHE GAVE ME A CUP OF DECAF!
Either that, or she's just got me so psyched out that my banner of paranoia and my standard of neurosis tend to fly a little higher after I've had a run-in with her. You be the judge.
At any rate, I was running late this morning and decided to stop in on my way to the train. Oh, and was I ever so pleased to see Suzy Sunshine behind the counter. I quickly and efficiently ordered a small dark-roast with room, paid for my fix, and skedaddled toward the brown line. I drank about half the cup on the train and the other half after I'd arrived at the office. Well, even though I've been at work for close to two hours already, I still feel sluggish and have developed a low-grade headache.
DO I HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU PEOPLE? THE WENCH SABOTAGED ME! I'M CONVINCED SHE GAVE ME A CUP OF DECAF!
Either that, or she's just got me so psyched out that my banner of paranoia and my standard of neurosis tend to fly a little higher after I've had a run-in with her. You be the judge.
Monday, May 16, 2005
2 More 5ives
Merlin updated his lists of five things today!
Five Things I'd Like to See Engraved on Little Rubber Bracelets
Five Favorite Spoodley-Spoodley Guitar Solos (Hee hee hee! "Spoodley-spoodley"!)
Five Things I'd Like to See Engraved on Little Rubber Bracelets
Five Favorite Spoodley-Spoodley Guitar Solos (Hee hee hee! "Spoodley-spoodley"!)
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Hitchhiker's Guide
After much anticipation, I finally got a chance to catch up with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy yesterday. While I can't say it lived it up to all my expectations, I certainly enjoyed it and consider it an afternoon and a few bucks well spent.
It's been an age since I've read the book, so my complaints are certainly not of the trainspotting variety. And "complaints" is even too strong a word, now that I see it sitting there in pixels. It just felt a little off to me, and I think that can be chalked up to a) a first-time director who's still working on a sense of how to pace a major, full-length motion picture and b) the way that this movie, almost inadvertently, is an object lesson in the competing strengths and weaknesses of American and British styles of acting for the camera.
The three main Americans actors in the film--Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, and Sam Rockwell--are these glowingly beautiful, absurdly magnetic forces of nature. Your eyes are drawn, almost against your will, to the vision of these exquisite bodies in motion. They are three naturally gifted, ridiculously charismatic performers who command your attention with the sheer force of their presence. But then, when these bodies are in motion, which they are fairly relentlessly for the full 110 minutes, they're doing way too much. They don't seem to have much control over their spastic, rangy movements, and, when projected onto a full-size movie screen, they almost feel like they're lacerating your eyeballs. For the most part, they're unfortunately not using their substantial power for the good of the piece. The goofball, calculatedly "wacky" overacting just starts to feel exhausting. Of course, a lot of this could have been edited around or otherwise toned down by the director, so they're not entirely to blame for these faults.
The Brits, on the other hand, are much more subtle with their genius for language and in giving the camera tiny little fillips of unexpected emotion. I'm glad that I went into the movie as one of the last comedy-minded Anglophiles in the States who hasn't yet watched the original BBC version of The Office on DVD because I had absolutely no expectations of Martin Freeman and his performance as Arthur Dent. As such, I was able to appreciate the fact that he was pretty much, well, um, perfect. He held the movie together in absolutely all the ways that it needed to be held together. Bumbling, hapless Brit-schmuck demeanor? Check. Enough instant chemistry with Trillian that you actually hope they end up together at the end of the movie (and, more importantly, believe it when she chooses him over the dumb-but-dashing Zaphod Beeblebrox)? Check. An emotionally and dramatically satisfying mix of annoyance and wonder at his travels through the galaxy? Check. It was a thankless and huge responsibility for an actor to shoulder, to unite the many different, zany characters and scenarios, yet he manages it seemingly effortlessly. One particularly gorgeous example of his restrained underacting occurs when Slartibartfast shows him the factory floor where customized planets are built. That moment alone is worth the price of admission. Arthur kind of hunches over and covers his mouth with his hand in an expression of awe and wonderment, clearly overcome with a reverential sense of beauty and appreciation for what he's privileged to witness there. It's a stunning piece of acting. (Then, not five minutes later in the scene, after a brief conversation about how mice are actually the most intelligent beings on Earth, Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast says, "I don't quite know what you mean when you speak of this . . . 'cheese'." He slips the comedy in way under the radar yet delivers the line with such unshakable conviction that he actually makes you believe for a moment that you don't know what cheese is either.) It's these little jewel-like interactions that gave the movie an emotional depth that I honestly wasn't expecting.
Of course, nothing I've written above is in any way applicable to the acting style of John Malkovich, who, I think, must actually be from the same planet as his character.
Also, I'm happy to report that Neil Hannon is in exquisite vocal form on his heavy-swinging version of "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" that plays over the closing credits. (However, I'm rather annoyed with iTunes for declaring it an "album only" track, in effect forcing me to pay $9.99 for the entirety of the instrumental soundtrack if I want to be all completist about having the song in my collection. Fleh. Isn't that the whole point of iTunes? To be able to cherry-pick a specific song or two without forking over the cash for a bunch of other stuff that you're honestly never going to listen to?)
In other music news, John Darnielle all but revivalized me at the Mountain Goats show at the Logan Square Auditorium on Friday night. It was a great night out, all springtime humidity, Jim Beam on the rocks, Darnielle's peculiar voice, and his phenomenal little songs like emotional bottle rockets. Also, opening band Shearwater turns out to be something of a side project for Okkervil River's keyboard player Jonathan Meiburg, whose voice I vastly prefer to Will Sheff's. (Plus, as I told Meiburg and violinist Travis Weller at the merch table at the end of the night, I'm instantly a fan of any band who can rock a melodica the way they did.) Their brand of rootsy emo (earnest stream-of-consciousness lyrics, guitar feedback, and overly dramatic dynamics) isn't something I tend to want to listen to on my own time, but it's enjoyable enough live. Plus, Meiburg used to be a graduate student in ornithology, which is just another instance of the weird bird-related synchronicity in my life this spring.
And, a hap-hap-happy birthday to BAK today (you sexy thang)!
It's been an age since I've read the book, so my complaints are certainly not of the trainspotting variety. And "complaints" is even too strong a word, now that I see it sitting there in pixels. It just felt a little off to me, and I think that can be chalked up to a) a first-time director who's still working on a sense of how to pace a major, full-length motion picture and b) the way that this movie, almost inadvertently, is an object lesson in the competing strengths and weaknesses of American and British styles of acting for the camera.
The three main Americans actors in the film--Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, and Sam Rockwell--are these glowingly beautiful, absurdly magnetic forces of nature. Your eyes are drawn, almost against your will, to the vision of these exquisite bodies in motion. They are three naturally gifted, ridiculously charismatic performers who command your attention with the sheer force of their presence. But then, when these bodies are in motion, which they are fairly relentlessly for the full 110 minutes, they're doing way too much. They don't seem to have much control over their spastic, rangy movements, and, when projected onto a full-size movie screen, they almost feel like they're lacerating your eyeballs. For the most part, they're unfortunately not using their substantial power for the good of the piece. The goofball, calculatedly "wacky" overacting just starts to feel exhausting. Of course, a lot of this could have been edited around or otherwise toned down by the director, so they're not entirely to blame for these faults.
The Brits, on the other hand, are much more subtle with their genius for language and in giving the camera tiny little fillips of unexpected emotion. I'm glad that I went into the movie as one of the last comedy-minded Anglophiles in the States who hasn't yet watched the original BBC version of The Office on DVD because I had absolutely no expectations of Martin Freeman and his performance as Arthur Dent. As such, I was able to appreciate the fact that he was pretty much, well, um, perfect. He held the movie together in absolutely all the ways that it needed to be held together. Bumbling, hapless Brit-schmuck demeanor? Check. Enough instant chemistry with Trillian that you actually hope they end up together at the end of the movie (and, more importantly, believe it when she chooses him over the dumb-but-dashing Zaphod Beeblebrox)? Check. An emotionally and dramatically satisfying mix of annoyance and wonder at his travels through the galaxy? Check. It was a thankless and huge responsibility for an actor to shoulder, to unite the many different, zany characters and scenarios, yet he manages it seemingly effortlessly. One particularly gorgeous example of his restrained underacting occurs when Slartibartfast shows him the factory floor where customized planets are built. That moment alone is worth the price of admission. Arthur kind of hunches over and covers his mouth with his hand in an expression of awe and wonderment, clearly overcome with a reverential sense of beauty and appreciation for what he's privileged to witness there. It's a stunning piece of acting. (Then, not five minutes later in the scene, after a brief conversation about how mice are actually the most intelligent beings on Earth, Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast says, "I don't quite know what you mean when you speak of this . . . 'cheese'." He slips the comedy in way under the radar yet delivers the line with such unshakable conviction that he actually makes you believe for a moment that you don't know what cheese is either.) It's these little jewel-like interactions that gave the movie an emotional depth that I honestly wasn't expecting.
Of course, nothing I've written above is in any way applicable to the acting style of John Malkovich, who, I think, must actually be from the same planet as his character.
Also, I'm happy to report that Neil Hannon is in exquisite vocal form on his heavy-swinging version of "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" that plays over the closing credits. (However, I'm rather annoyed with iTunes for declaring it an "album only" track, in effect forcing me to pay $9.99 for the entirety of the instrumental soundtrack if I want to be all completist about having the song in my collection. Fleh. Isn't that the whole point of iTunes? To be able to cherry-pick a specific song or two without forking over the cash for a bunch of other stuff that you're honestly never going to listen to?)
In other music news, John Darnielle all but revivalized me at the Mountain Goats show at the Logan Square Auditorium on Friday night. It was a great night out, all springtime humidity, Jim Beam on the rocks, Darnielle's peculiar voice, and his phenomenal little songs like emotional bottle rockets. Also, opening band Shearwater turns out to be something of a side project for Okkervil River's keyboard player Jonathan Meiburg, whose voice I vastly prefer to Will Sheff's. (Plus, as I told Meiburg and violinist Travis Weller at the merch table at the end of the night, I'm instantly a fan of any band who can rock a melodica the way they did.) Their brand of rootsy emo (earnest stream-of-consciousness lyrics, guitar feedback, and overly dramatic dynamics) isn't something I tend to want to listen to on my own time, but it's enjoyable enough live. Plus, Meiburg used to be a graduate student in ornithology, which is just another instance of the weird bird-related synchronicity in my life this spring.
And, a hap-hap-happy birthday to BAK today (you sexy thang)!
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Cover Me
Oh my nerd, I am totally geeked out with excitement about this:
Shins, Decemberists, Spoon Head Believer Comp.
**swoon** They had me at "Bridges and Balloons."
(Also, a belated happy b-day to both Nick and Mike O'D. Love you guys!)
Shins, Decemberists, Spoon Head Believer Comp.
**swoon** They had me at "Bridges and Balloons."
(Also, a belated happy b-day to both Nick and Mike O'D. Love you guys!)
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
OCD
I often do not use the office supplies on my desk for the purposes the great office supply god, in his infinite wisdom, intended them. (Anyone who was around the day when I was slicing the plastic off an advance copy of a book with an Xacto knife and then punctured myself in the finger so deeply, and with such force, that bright crimson blood coursed down and around my knuckles can attest to this.) As such, my office supplies show a lot more wear and tear than the average person's.
Just for a change of pace, though, today I actually wanted to use one of my two silver letter-openers for the purpose of opening an actual sealed letter. I looked at both of them and realized they were both covered in a gooey, gummy substance. (Most likely remnants of packing tape that I'd tried to slice through on a previous occasion.) So, I went to the supply closet to fetch a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towel, then came back to my desk and started carefully and meticulously wiping off the gunk. A coworker walked past my cube and glanced down at me, my brow furrowed in concentration. With a quick, sharp sense of horror, I looked up at him, then burst out laughing, and said, "I bet this looks really obsessive-compulsive, doesn't it? Me, cleaning my letter-openers?"
Just for a change of pace, though, today I actually wanted to use one of my two silver letter-openers for the purpose of opening an actual sealed letter. I looked at both of them and realized they were both covered in a gooey, gummy substance. (Most likely remnants of packing tape that I'd tried to slice through on a previous occasion.) So, I went to the supply closet to fetch a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towel, then came back to my desk and started carefully and meticulously wiping off the gunk. A coworker walked past my cube and glanced down at me, my brow furrowed in concentration. With a quick, sharp sense of horror, I looked up at him, then burst out laughing, and said, "I bet this looks really obsessive-compulsive, doesn't it? Me, cleaning my letter-openers?"
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Danny Boyle
Will somebody please start giving Danny Boyle the props he deserves?
I was finally, belatedly, able to catch up with Millions last night, and, aside from the film being lovely and touching and all that, I was bowled over by just how Danny Boyle-ish it was, and by how much I meant that as a sincere and laudatory compliment. Trainspotting has long been one of my favorite films, and I think I paid to see 28 Days Later in the theater twice because I liked it so much, and for a few moments, I considered the possibility that part of the reason I enjoyed Millions as much as I did was because his directorial tics (those kinetic opening shots, the cozy lilt of Scottish accents, his penchant for casting gorgeously round-headed leading men) simply felt familiar and thus safe. But, nah, I enjoyed it because brutha knows what he's doing.
As I started churning over in my mind some of the most resonant aspects of the above-mentioned films (as well as Shallow Grave), I realized that one of Boyle's main strengths as an auteur (oh, that word) is his emotional intelligence about family (both biological and socially constructed). Accustomed as we are to being fed ham-fisted, sitcom-esque depictions of families and friends that come across as collections of people who mean more to an unskilled writer or director's agenda than they do to each other, it's so rare and refreshing to see a group of actors assembled to actually function and relate to each other as a Group. Boyle has a keen understanding of the entropic self-loathing that keeps unhealthy relationships afloat, as well as the deep well of feeling that's usually buried underneath the soured interactions and general disgust that pollute bonds that have long outlived their expiration dates. He is also masterful at using actors capable of giving the camera a character's entire complex interpersonal back story in a few simple words or gestures (case in point: has there been a more powerful father/daughter moment on screen recently than the scene in 28 Days Later when Brendan Gleeson has about two seconds to convey to his daughter how much he loves her before he changes into a zombie?).
Millions is concerned with an actual, biological family that we follow much more closely than we do, for example, Renton's parents in Trainspotting or even Frank and Hannah in 28 Days Later, but, similar to the family units from those films, we see this unit living through a moment of panic. Yes, it's the panic of finding a sackful of British pounds that they must spend and/or distribute before the deadline for the changeover to the Euro, but it's primarily the panic of carrying on after their wife/mother's death. (A familiar trope of dark, Brothers Grimmish fairy tales that are of a piece with Boyle's sensibilities.) The attendant emotions of that experience are a perfect vehicle for a continuation of the paranoia, hallucinations, and slowly creeping dread that are more easily recognizable as his stock-in-trade as a filmmaker. But it also allows him to more explicitly address the spiritual yearning (ahem, "choose life") that is usually so far under the radar in his movies that even the characters themselves would likely deny it. It takes bollocks of bloody steel to risk talking about religion in a specifically Christian context in a movie these days and to pull it off with a flair worthy of Salinger that leaves no taint of Gibson behind. But when little Damian has a bedside conversation with St. Peter about the miracle of the fishes and loaves and when water flows from a well in the African desert (both as a baptism and a benediction) in the film's final shots, the subtext, while not particularly subtle, is powerful and deeply felt.
Though I don't remember much of anything about it, I know I did see A Life Less Ordinary in the theater when it came out in late '97 (at the late, lamented Von Lee in Bloomington, where I also had the good fortune to see other personal favorites Hilary and Jackie and Rushmore in their initial runs), and I sheepishly admit to blindly following popular opinion in my failure to ever see The Beach. However, I now feel I have some DVDs to rent and some cinematic research to do to determine if Danny Boyle is, as I suspect, one of my favorite directors out there right now.
I was finally, belatedly, able to catch up with Millions last night, and, aside from the film being lovely and touching and all that, I was bowled over by just how Danny Boyle-ish it was, and by how much I meant that as a sincere and laudatory compliment. Trainspotting has long been one of my favorite films, and I think I paid to see 28 Days Later in the theater twice because I liked it so much, and for a few moments, I considered the possibility that part of the reason I enjoyed Millions as much as I did was because his directorial tics (those kinetic opening shots, the cozy lilt of Scottish accents, his penchant for casting gorgeously round-headed leading men) simply felt familiar and thus safe. But, nah, I enjoyed it because brutha knows what he's doing.
As I started churning over in my mind some of the most resonant aspects of the above-mentioned films (as well as Shallow Grave), I realized that one of Boyle's main strengths as an auteur (oh, that word) is his emotional intelligence about family (both biological and socially constructed). Accustomed as we are to being fed ham-fisted, sitcom-esque depictions of families and friends that come across as collections of people who mean more to an unskilled writer or director's agenda than they do to each other, it's so rare and refreshing to see a group of actors assembled to actually function and relate to each other as a Group. Boyle has a keen understanding of the entropic self-loathing that keeps unhealthy relationships afloat, as well as the deep well of feeling that's usually buried underneath the soured interactions and general disgust that pollute bonds that have long outlived their expiration dates. He is also masterful at using actors capable of giving the camera a character's entire complex interpersonal back story in a few simple words or gestures (case in point: has there been a more powerful father/daughter moment on screen recently than the scene in 28 Days Later when Brendan Gleeson has about two seconds to convey to his daughter how much he loves her before he changes into a zombie?).
Millions is concerned with an actual, biological family that we follow much more closely than we do, for example, Renton's parents in Trainspotting or even Frank and Hannah in 28 Days Later, but, similar to the family units from those films, we see this unit living through a moment of panic. Yes, it's the panic of finding a sackful of British pounds that they must spend and/or distribute before the deadline for the changeover to the Euro, but it's primarily the panic of carrying on after their wife/mother's death. (A familiar trope of dark, Brothers Grimmish fairy tales that are of a piece with Boyle's sensibilities.) The attendant emotions of that experience are a perfect vehicle for a continuation of the paranoia, hallucinations, and slowly creeping dread that are more easily recognizable as his stock-in-trade as a filmmaker. But it also allows him to more explicitly address the spiritual yearning (ahem, "choose life") that is usually so far under the radar in his movies that even the characters themselves would likely deny it. It takes bollocks of bloody steel to risk talking about religion in a specifically Christian context in a movie these days and to pull it off with a flair worthy of Salinger that leaves no taint of Gibson behind. But when little Damian has a bedside conversation with St. Peter about the miracle of the fishes and loaves and when water flows from a well in the African desert (both as a baptism and a benediction) in the film's final shots, the subtext, while not particularly subtle, is powerful and deeply felt.
Though I don't remember much of anything about it, I know I did see A Life Less Ordinary in the theater when it came out in late '97 (at the late, lamented Von Lee in Bloomington, where I also had the good fortune to see other personal favorites Hilary and Jackie and Rushmore in their initial runs), and I sheepishly admit to blindly following popular opinion in my failure to ever see The Beach. However, I now feel I have some DVDs to rent and some cinematic research to do to determine if Danny Boyle is, as I suspect, one of my favorite directors out there right now.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Triple Word Score
God bless Yahoo. This isn't so much a headline as it is the kick-assingest game of Scrabble ever:
Chlamydia Outbreak Kills a Dozen Penguins
(All due respect and sympathy to the zoo keepers and general lovers of polar fowl, of course.)
Also, Neal Medlyn's personal essay about male bisexuality on Nerve made me laugh out loud today with this paragraph:
Chlamydia Outbreak Kills a Dozen Penguins
(All due respect and sympathy to the zoo keepers and general lovers of polar fowl, of course.)
Also, Neal Medlyn's personal essay about male bisexuality on Nerve made me laugh out loud today with this paragraph:
"Bisexuality is a disappointing, suspect, utterly chaotic identity. It seems to exist in only the foggiest regions of people's brains, like Pol Pot or the geographic location of Myanmar. They're not sure what it is, but they're pretty sure it's lame and/or bad."
Now, I charge you, on Mike O'D's behalf, to go educate yourself on the wherefores and whys of Mr. Pot with Philip Short's recent biography, Anatomy of a Nightmare.
And the birthday train just keeps on a-rolling: happy birthday to my dear, sweet sister, who leaves her teen years behind today!
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Quintessence
It would be difficult for me to dream up a more quintessentially "Allison" night than the one I enjoyed yesterday: diagramming sentences at the bar in the Green Mill while sipping a Makers Manhattan and waiting for the Kurt Elling Quartet to take the stage. Delightful. May you all soon have a chance to blend a handful of your own disparate and eclectic loves into a night equally well-tailored to you.
(PS: happy, happy birfday, Mikow!! The committee volunteered me to give you your official welcome to the Early Late-Twenties, and I'm happy to oblige.)
(PS: happy, happy birfday, Mikow!! The committee volunteered me to give you your official welcome to the Early Late-Twenties, and I'm happy to oblige.)
Monday, May 02, 2005
CTLA & LBLA
Weddings rule.
(Incidentally, so do showers.)
More pictures of the Larson/Andrews wedding can be found at the official photographer's site.
To paraphrase a line from Sports Night, if you have half as much fun looking at these pictures as we had taking and being in them, well, then, we had twice as much fun as you. And, boy, did we ever!
Love and hugs to the new bride and groom!!
(Incidentally, so do showers.)
More pictures of the Larson/Andrews wedding can be found at the official photographer's site.
To paraphrase a line from Sports Night, if you have half as much fun looking at these pictures as we had taking and being in them, well, then, we had twice as much fun as you. And, boy, did we ever!
Love and hugs to the new bride and groom!!
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Entropy's a Bitch
For those of you who still don't quite understand why I named my blog what I named it, Michael Barrish will explain it to you. No, I am not acquainted with Michael Barrish. And, no, to the best of my knowledge, Michael Barrish is not acquainted with me. (The real history of this blog's name actually goes back to my sophomore year in the English department at IU, but that's a much longer story for a much longer post at a much later date. Actually, the story isn't that long and won't require an altogether lengthy post, but I just don't have the time to go into it at the moment.)
Hydrate Yourself...With Water!
John Darnielle made me laugh out loud this morning.
In other Mountain Goats news, last night I found the old issue of the The Believer that he was interviewed in (July '04, which also features an interview with Slavoj Žižek--how can you not love a magazine that successfully juxtaposes a pair of interviews like that!). He's interviewed by Daniel Handler (known to many, including myself, as Lemony Snicket), and, between the two of them, there's so much warmth and humor and fascination with the oddities of the human condition in the exchange that the pages fairly radiate. Check it out if you have the means.
Chris Walla interviews Sarah Vowell on Salon this morning. It's like the journalistic equivalent of your two favorite friends from two separate social groups finally meeting and hitting it off and holding hands kind of shyly and embarrassedly while they're walking down the street, wearing slightly battered hoodies and soft, faded jeans. Love it.
Now that I finally got around to downloading (legally! from iTunes!) The Mysterious Production of Eggs, I am so, so disappointed in myself that I blew off Andrew Bird's CD release show at the Metro earlier this month. I'm, obviously, still digesting the album, but I bet he's fucking phenomenal live. I have a deep, irrational aversion to the sound of people whistling, so obviously that's a bit of a stumbling block for me in some of his tunes, but he uses his many musical gifts so tastefully and so sparingly that there's plenty of other stuff for me to relish.
In other Mountain Goats news, last night I found the old issue of the The Believer that he was interviewed in (July '04, which also features an interview with Slavoj Žižek--how can you not love a magazine that successfully juxtaposes a pair of interviews like that!). He's interviewed by Daniel Handler (known to many, including myself, as Lemony Snicket), and, between the two of them, there's so much warmth and humor and fascination with the oddities of the human condition in the exchange that the pages fairly radiate. Check it out if you have the means.
Chris Walla interviews Sarah Vowell on Salon this morning. It's like the journalistic equivalent of your two favorite friends from two separate social groups finally meeting and hitting it off and holding hands kind of shyly and embarrassedly while they're walking down the street, wearing slightly battered hoodies and soft, faded jeans. Love it.
Now that I finally got around to downloading (legally! from iTunes!) The Mysterious Production of Eggs, I am so, so disappointed in myself that I blew off Andrew Bird's CD release show at the Metro earlier this month. I'm, obviously, still digesting the album, but I bet he's fucking phenomenal live. I have a deep, irrational aversion to the sound of people whistling, so obviously that's a bit of a stumbling block for me in some of his tunes, but he uses his many musical gifts so tastefully and so sparingly that there's plenty of other stuff for me to relish.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Flickr
Once you figure out how to rock the functionality of Flickr, it becomes much more enjoyable to play with.
Inspired by Bushman's photo essay from Puerto Rico, I spent some time dicking around online and organizing the random stuff I'd thrown in there. The new "sets" function is enormously sexy, and I was able to group together snaps of the apartment (back when it was still new to me) and reorganize B&K's wedding album from last November. I might have gone a little overboard with the notes feature, but such is my wont. That feature just seems made for me to abuse!
Inspired by Bushman's photo essay from Puerto Rico, I spent some time dicking around online and organizing the random stuff I'd thrown in there. The new "sets" function is enormously sexy, and I was able to group together snaps of the apartment (back when it was still new to me) and reorganize B&K's wedding album from last November. I might have gone a little overboard with the notes feature, but such is my wont. That feature just seems made for me to abuse!
Friday, April 22, 2005
Yo La Tengo, Etc.
Though I continue to wish that more of the show meant more to me than it did (just because I wasn't previously familiar with the band), seeing Yo La Tengo last night was still a blast. Lots of loud, lots of soft, better lights than I've seen during a concert in ages, and a hilarious mixed-bag of a crowd. (The quote of the evening that best summed it up--thanks, DS--was, "I think they thought it was 'Yo La Dave Matthews.'") The band came out for a first "gimme" encore (like ya do), then were actually lured back out two more times for two actual encores, which was a refreshing thing to see from any band. And, ain't nothin' hotter than a chick drummer.
Any other fans of Kanye's "Jesus Walks" in the house? This McSweeney's list really made me laugh, mostly because I think the lyrics it's riffing on are so brilliantly hilarious in the first place.
Is "awesomest" a word? If so, I nominate this as the awesomest thing I've seen all week: the Mr. T. rubber duck (link via You Can't Make It Up).
Though I don't know the Mountain Goats' music all that well, I've been dipping into John Darnielle's blog periodically during the past week or so. I'm fascinated by his fascination with thrash/death metal. I don't remember which issue of The Believer he was interviewed in, but I remember reading his description of some band that's exclusively focused on writing anti-Christianity songs, and his appreciation of the twisted purity in it. I just love hearing people talk about the minutia of some weird little corner of a genre that they're fixated on, because it means they just don't give a damn if anybody else is interested in it and are consequently free to roam around in the parts of it that fire their imagination and speak to a part of their soul that's underserved by "acceptable" pop culture (either mainstream or indie). It also reminds me of the way I talk about movies like The Wisdom of Crocodiles and Birthday Girl, movies I've lumped together in a category of my own invention--that is, a kind of deeply flawed Eurotrash erotic thriller that becomes captivating and almost hypnotically beautiful precisely because of its failure to cohere as anything resembling an actual movie. Anyway, "Last Plane to Jakarta" is a fine read, and I guess the Mountain Goats have a new CD out that's supposed to be great.
Any other fans of Kanye's "Jesus Walks" in the house? This McSweeney's list really made me laugh, mostly because I think the lyrics it's riffing on are so brilliantly hilarious in the first place.
Is "awesomest" a word? If so, I nominate this as the awesomest thing I've seen all week: the Mr. T. rubber duck (link via You Can't Make It Up).
Though I don't know the Mountain Goats' music all that well, I've been dipping into John Darnielle's blog periodically during the past week or so. I'm fascinated by his fascination with thrash/death metal. I don't remember which issue of The Believer he was interviewed in, but I remember reading his description of some band that's exclusively focused on writing anti-Christianity songs, and his appreciation of the twisted purity in it. I just love hearing people talk about the minutia of some weird little corner of a genre that they're fixated on, because it means they just don't give a damn if anybody else is interested in it and are consequently free to roam around in the parts of it that fire their imagination and speak to a part of their soul that's underserved by "acceptable" pop culture (either mainstream or indie). It also reminds me of the way I talk about movies like The Wisdom of Crocodiles and Birthday Girl, movies I've lumped together in a category of my own invention--that is, a kind of deeply flawed Eurotrash erotic thriller that becomes captivating and almost hypnotically beautiful precisely because of its failure to cohere as anything resembling an actual movie. Anyway, "Last Plane to Jakarta" is a fine read, and I guess the Mountain Goats have a new CD out that's supposed to be great.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Friday, April 15, 2005
The Shins
As much as I instinctively bristle at all the "this song will change your life" bullshit fandom that was birthed from the precious loins of Garden State, there is something legitimately magical about the Shins. I think Better Propaganda's short bio puts it best, describing them as keepers of the goddess Gaia's rings of power representing Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Heart. Um, and they also rock mightily.
Much like Ted Leo, James Mercer has one of those voices that really thrives during a live performance. His diction isn't quite as mushy and you just feel a little more viscerally how powerful his range is. His upper register is clean, clear, and stunning. He was also elusive and un-chatty during last night's show (which I chose to interpret as his being shy and artistically aloof—"everything I have to say I can say through my music"—rather than standoffish or lacking in good concert etiquette), letting keyboardist/guitarist Marty Crandall step up (literally) front and center. Drummer Jesse Sandoval is appealingly effortless behind the set. Listening to Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow all week, I found myself focusing on the impeccable percussion and imagining a flamboyant indie rock showman as the author of those spinal-cord-liquifying beats (a la Sam Fogarino of Interpol). Instead, Sandoval was cool, cool, cool—letting the rhythm shoot from his wrists without much intervention from the rest of his body, yet not sacrificing an ounce of excitement.
The band as a whole seemed maybe a bit cold at the start of the show, but then warmed throughout the set, as they let their (slightly awed) appreciation for the size of the venue and the size of the crowd energize them. They extended the instrumental endings of a few tunes (without descending into guitar wankery), and played a handful of non-album cuts. (Which will perhaps appear on the third album they're promising to write and record after they finish this tour???) Though they came back out for a three or four song encore, their songs are so good and so diamond-sharp—so consistently—there wasn't really that sense of "and now we will really rock out" that encores often yield (like, say, when the Decemberists pull out "The Tain"). They just played a few of the songs that they hadn't gotten around to in the set proper, and finished with, I think, "Gone for Good." Which might have felt like an anticlimax if, like I said, all the previous stuff hadn't been of the exact same (high) caliber.
I found openers The Brunettes adorable, hook-laden, and irresistible, if more than a bit twee, while some folks without hearts took exception to the profusion of hand-claps and finger-snaps in their songs. (For the record, I am of the mind that there can never be too many hand-claps in a pop song!)
One of the more fascinating aspects of last night's show had nothing to do with anything that was happening on stage. There was a collection of people standing in front of me I couldn't take my eyes off. (Well, I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to; they were kind of unavoidably in my line of sight.) There was a slightly pudgy, geeky, tech-support looking guy with a quiet, normal looking girl I'm assuming was his girlfriend on his left. To his right were two girls who, I can only imagine, actually thought they were coming to an Aerosmith show and ended up at the Congress Theater sheerly by chance. Dressed in yards of glitter and sparkles and leftover Mardi Gras beads, wasted out of their gourds, they spent most of the show dancing wildly, doing outlandish pantomime routines, waving their arms around (nearly burning me with their lit cigarettes a couple of times), and complaining loudly that, "NO ONE ELSE IS MOVING! IT'S KIND OF CREEPING ME OUT!" When they weren't doing that, they were teasing Mr. Tech Support with a kind of icy, biting edge that I'm sure instantly flashed him back to the interactions he probably had with other pretty, mean girls throughout middle and high school. I couldn't tell if they all knew each other and had come to the concert together or if they just happened to end up in the same row. It was alternately transfixing, disgusting, depressing, and hilarious to watch.
And, another excellent print to add to the burgeoning collection.
Much like Ted Leo, James Mercer has one of those voices that really thrives during a live performance. His diction isn't quite as mushy and you just feel a little more viscerally how powerful his range is. His upper register is clean, clear, and stunning. He was also elusive and un-chatty during last night's show (which I chose to interpret as his being shy and artistically aloof—"everything I have to say I can say through my music"—rather than standoffish or lacking in good concert etiquette), letting keyboardist/guitarist Marty Crandall step up (literally) front and center. Drummer Jesse Sandoval is appealingly effortless behind the set. Listening to Oh, Inverted World and Chutes Too Narrow all week, I found myself focusing on the impeccable percussion and imagining a flamboyant indie rock showman as the author of those spinal-cord-liquifying beats (a la Sam Fogarino of Interpol). Instead, Sandoval was cool, cool, cool—letting the rhythm shoot from his wrists without much intervention from the rest of his body, yet not sacrificing an ounce of excitement.
The band as a whole seemed maybe a bit cold at the start of the show, but then warmed throughout the set, as they let their (slightly awed) appreciation for the size of the venue and the size of the crowd energize them. They extended the instrumental endings of a few tunes (without descending into guitar wankery), and played a handful of non-album cuts. (Which will perhaps appear on the third album they're promising to write and record after they finish this tour???) Though they came back out for a three or four song encore, their songs are so good and so diamond-sharp—so consistently—there wasn't really that sense of "and now we will really rock out" that encores often yield (like, say, when the Decemberists pull out "The Tain"). They just played a few of the songs that they hadn't gotten around to in the set proper, and finished with, I think, "Gone for Good." Which might have felt like an anticlimax if, like I said, all the previous stuff hadn't been of the exact same (high) caliber.
I found openers The Brunettes adorable, hook-laden, and irresistible, if more than a bit twee, while some folks without hearts took exception to the profusion of hand-claps and finger-snaps in their songs. (For the record, I am of the mind that there can never be too many hand-claps in a pop song!)
One of the more fascinating aspects of last night's show had nothing to do with anything that was happening on stage. There was a collection of people standing in front of me I couldn't take my eyes off. (Well, I couldn't have even if I'd wanted to; they were kind of unavoidably in my line of sight.) There was a slightly pudgy, geeky, tech-support looking guy with a quiet, normal looking girl I'm assuming was his girlfriend on his left. To his right were two girls who, I can only imagine, actually thought they were coming to an Aerosmith show and ended up at the Congress Theater sheerly by chance. Dressed in yards of glitter and sparkles and leftover Mardi Gras beads, wasted out of their gourds, they spent most of the show dancing wildly, doing outlandish pantomime routines, waving their arms around (nearly burning me with their lit cigarettes a couple of times), and complaining loudly that, "NO ONE ELSE IS MOVING! IT'S KIND OF CREEPING ME OUT!" When they weren't doing that, they were teasing Mr. Tech Support with a kind of icy, biting edge that I'm sure instantly flashed him back to the interactions he probably had with other pretty, mean girls throughout middle and high school. I couldn't tell if they all knew each other and had come to the concert together or if they just happened to end up in the same row. It was alternately transfixing, disgusting, depressing, and hilarious to watch.
And, another excellent print to add to the burgeoning collection.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Quickly
This isn't a lightbulb-above-the-head inducing essay by any stretch, but I'm glad it says what it says: that the boundaries between the roles and functions of critic, artist, and fan are becoming increasingly blurry and irrelevant.
Judy Garland's famous blue gingham dress from The Wizard of Oz is being auctioned by Bonhams & Butterfields in London.
Death Cab are going (adorably) out of their minds in rural Massachusetts prepping their new album (and major-label debut), Plans. (Link via, where else, Pitchfork.) [EDIT: Giddy and I were also wondering if the Grinnellians had anything to do with the naming of this album. . . .]
The Rabbit never fails to crack my shit up. I gotta get me one of those childless whore t-shirts.
Has anybody seen, or otherwise heard from, John Roderick lately? I'm having a serious Long Winters jones these days.
Is there anyone left on planet earth who doesn't have a Gmail account but wants one? I was able to palm one invite off on a friend recently (OK, at his request, but still), and that successful transaction reawoke in me the burning desire to GET THE FUCK RID OF my other forty-nine invites. Any takers?
EDIT: Right after I posted this entry, I, gleefully, discovered some more yummy Decemberists/Colin Meloy goodness: an interview in The Onion A.V. Club's "The New What's Next Music Issue." Accusations of pathetic obsession will be dismissed with a wave of my restraining order.
Judy Garland's famous blue gingham dress from The Wizard of Oz is being auctioned by Bonhams & Butterfields in London.
Death Cab are going (adorably) out of their minds in rural Massachusetts prepping their new album (and major-label debut), Plans. (Link via, where else, Pitchfork.) [EDIT: Giddy and I were also wondering if the Grinnellians had anything to do with the naming of this album. . . .]
The Rabbit never fails to crack my shit up. I gotta get me one of those childless whore t-shirts.
Has anybody seen, or otherwise heard from, John Roderick lately? I'm having a serious Long Winters jones these days.
Is there anyone left on planet earth who doesn't have a Gmail account but wants one? I was able to palm one invite off on a friend recently (OK, at his request, but still), and that successful transaction reawoke in me the burning desire to GET THE FUCK RID OF my other forty-nine invites. Any takers?
EDIT: Right after I posted this entry, I, gleefully, discovered some more yummy Decemberists/Colin Meloy goodness: an interview in The Onion A.V. Club's "The New What's Next Music Issue." Accusations of pathetic obsession will be dismissed with a wave of my restraining order.
Friday, April 08, 2005
The Decemberists Rock Kansas City (Um, Chicago)
Don't really have anything terribly clever to say about the Decemberists show last night, other than restating the simple fact that I love them and am so happy to be alive and in my concert-attending mid-twenties while they're out doing their thing, which they do better than pretty much anyone else.
New drummer John Moen, of Malkmus's Jicks, while possessing perhaps a less fluid sense of rhythm and style than dearly departed Rachel Blumberg, is nonetheless an impressive and powerful player, a worthy addition to the band. And, was probably the most entertaining person on stage last night. His antics during "The Mariner's Revenge Song"--sitting on the floor, generally thrashing about, then running increasingly sloppy circles around the tom that he was beating with a mallet and a tambourine--were hilarious until I realized, with a growing sense of awe, "holy fuck, he hasn't missed a single beat in the midst of all this nonsense."
In stark contrast to openers Okkervil River, who seemed to have a million people on stage, none of whom were doing much of importance, every single member of the Decemberists is totally integral to the sound and the success of the band. Nate Query's skills on the upright bass make me weak in the knees; Chris Funk wields his impressive arsenal of instruments with a Zen-like effortlessness; if Jenny Conlee's accordion did not exist, it would be absolutely imperative to invent it; Petra Haden's violin gently heightens the drama of the narratives and her vocal stylings fill the harmony hole left by Blumberg's departure; and Mr. Meloy is, well, we all know my high, high regard for his talents. "The Engine Driver" may well be one of the best songs he's written yet, with "On the Bus Mall" running a close second.
It was a great night of great songs and great energy and great feelings. Oh, and did I mention they played the entire fucking Tain as an encore? It's one of those things that just makes me want to pass out every time I hear it, it's so huge and so good.
In other Decemberists news, Colin posted a note on the official site today, giving updated details on the Great Instrument Recovery Effort of Aught Five and giving thanks for the monetary donations that have rolled in after the theft, and Pitchfork announced that the Decemberists will be part of the lineup for the inaugural Intonation Music Festival in Chicago this summer.
I'm also turning into one of those limited edition silkscreen concert poster people, and purchased a gorgeous one last night designed and printed by Ryan Nole at Kangaroo Press. Rawk.
EDIT: My sources (read: grad students) have informed me that Moen was actually sick as a dog during the show that night. He, apparently, went directly to the hotel after the show rather than hanging out at the afterparty where Jenny and Chris were spinning from their iPods. Dude, somebody get that motherfucker some vitamin C or Pepto Bismol or something and let me know when he's better--I want to see what he's capable of then.
New drummer John Moen, of Malkmus's Jicks, while possessing perhaps a less fluid sense of rhythm and style than dearly departed Rachel Blumberg, is nonetheless an impressive and powerful player, a worthy addition to the band. And, was probably the most entertaining person on stage last night. His antics during "The Mariner's Revenge Song"--sitting on the floor, generally thrashing about, then running increasingly sloppy circles around the tom that he was beating with a mallet and a tambourine--were hilarious until I realized, with a growing sense of awe, "holy fuck, he hasn't missed a single beat in the midst of all this nonsense."
In stark contrast to openers Okkervil River, who seemed to have a million people on stage, none of whom were doing much of importance, every single member of the Decemberists is totally integral to the sound and the success of the band. Nate Query's skills on the upright bass make me weak in the knees; Chris Funk wields his impressive arsenal of instruments with a Zen-like effortlessness; if Jenny Conlee's accordion did not exist, it would be absolutely imperative to invent it; Petra Haden's violin gently heightens the drama of the narratives and her vocal stylings fill the harmony hole left by Blumberg's departure; and Mr. Meloy is, well, we all know my high, high regard for his talents. "The Engine Driver" may well be one of the best songs he's written yet, with "On the Bus Mall" running a close second.
It was a great night of great songs and great energy and great feelings. Oh, and did I mention they played the entire fucking Tain as an encore? It's one of those things that just makes me want to pass out every time I hear it, it's so huge and so good.
In other Decemberists news, Colin posted a note on the official site today, giving updated details on the Great Instrument Recovery Effort of Aught Five and giving thanks for the monetary donations that have rolled in after the theft, and Pitchfork announced that the Decemberists will be part of the lineup for the inaugural Intonation Music Festival in Chicago this summer.
I'm also turning into one of those limited edition silkscreen concert poster people, and purchased a gorgeous one last night designed and printed by Ryan Nole at Kangaroo Press. Rawk.
EDIT: My sources (read: grad students) have informed me that Moen was actually sick as a dog during the show that night. He, apparently, went directly to the hotel after the show rather than hanging out at the afterparty where Jenny and Chris were spinning from their iPods. Dude, somebody get that motherfucker some vitamin C or Pepto Bismol or something and let me know when he's better--I want to see what he's capable of then.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Piss
Shit, damn, hell. The $35 Lollapalooza tickets are sold out already.
But, I can't tell if that means there is a special reserve of additional, more expensive tickets that will be made available at a later date, or if those of us who had better things to do than jump online at midnight last night or first thing this morning are actually just plain old screwed.
Little help here? Anybody know anything about the situation that I don't?
But, I can't tell if that means there is a special reserve of additional, more expensive tickets that will be made available at a later date, or if those of us who had better things to do than jump online at midnight last night or first thing this morning are actually just plain old screwed.
Little help here? Anybody know anything about the situation that I don't?
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Geek-o-Meter
Oh, brutha! My geek-o-meter is on overload. Whereas before I likely would have declined, in polite company (or on the internet), to reveal the true degree of my excitement about the forthcoming movie version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, now I have no choice but to, proudly and defiantly, push my glasses as far up the bridge of my nose as they'll go. For I have just discovered that my boy Neil Hannon, lead singer and songwriter of the Divine Comedy, has provided vocals for two songs featured on the soundtrack. Not only this, but Neil's frequent (and gifted) collaborator Joby Talbot has written the score. You can understand my conflicted feelings here. "Downplay, for coolness's sake, what a fan-girl I am or preach the gospel of Hannonomics?"
I choose to preach.
(Coming soon to Wrestling Entropy: twelve-sided dice and Renaissance fair costumes!!!)
I choose to preach.
(Coming soon to Wrestling Entropy: twelve-sided dice and Renaissance fair costumes!!!)
Monday, April 04, 2005
April Deluge
So much going on.
The pope. Ah, the sweet little pope. My sadness is not quite religious in origin; it's more the general sadness of the loss of any major cultural icon. The fact that he's a Polish cultural icon only adds to the poignancy. (Gotsa represent for my people.) I've had this picture hanging on my refrigerator for about a year now (thanks, Benji), but now it's also a little bittersweet in addition to being fucking hilarious.
One of the high points of watching the Final Four on Saturday night was seeing the ad for CBS's Elvis miniseries. This, in and of itself, wouldn't have been terribly noteworthy for me but for the fact that it happens to star one of the most outrageously gorgeous humans on the planet, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (not to be confused, of course, with John Rhys-Davies, of Lord of the Rings fame--though it would be funny to see him digitally imposed into the Brian Slade costumes in Velvet Goldmine). My only connection to Elvis is from having edited this book, but I will be GLUED to my television on May 8 and 11.
Go Illini!
Since I am generally averse to large crowds of people and thus not particularly into the idea of attending gi-normous music festivals like Coachella, Bumbershoot, and Bonnaroo, I paid absolutely no attention to last week's Pitchfork headline celebrating the return of Lollapalooza. Well, I made a prompt one-eighty about that particular irrational prejudice when Giddy took the time to explain to me that the festival will be held only in Chicago, over the weekend of July 23 and 24, and that tickets will go on sale this Thursday (April 7) for thirty-five freaking dollars for BOTH days. (That's 70 bands at $0.50 each.) The official web site limits you to two tickets per credit card, but...well, I've got three credit cards...maybe, as CTA suggested, I'll be able to parlay a few "extra" tickets into a few "extra" months of rent this fall....
Tom Stoppard's Travesties at the Court Theatre is stunning. It runs until April 24, and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a passion for theater and literature and history and general intellectual yummy goodness. It will make your brain buzz and hum.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Since U Been Gone
I finally had a chance to check out that MP3 of Ted Leo covering "Since U Been Gone" that's been bouncing around the internet for the past few weeks, and it is unspeakably awesome. His falsetto has rarely been put to better use.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Discarded Landscape
Holy fuck, go see Discarded Landscape at the PAC/edge Festival while you still can. It runs tomorrow at 3:30, and the next two weekends (Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 3:30) at the Athenaeum. Tickets are $15. Prepare to be deeply moved.
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