4 Aug 2003
I went home for a while. I watched some movies, read some books, went to a Cubs game, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Ottumwa Public Golf Course.
I received, in the mail, the Postal Service EP Such Great Heights which features a B-side and one cover each by the Shins and Iron and Wine. In other news, I want to see My Morning Jacket when they return to the Ascot Room on 30 September. A lot. I'm worried that this show can't live up to my high expectations but maybe it can.
The Essex Green at The Quest is a possibility, as is Built to Spill at First Avenue. Then Death Cab For Cutie comes in October.
11 Aug 2003
Last week I watched Punch Drunk Love and liked it less than I wanted to. Adam Sandler playing it straight was not odd, but other touches in the movie seemed unnecessarily bizarre that didn't seem to fit with the earnest tone of the rest of the picture. It did have its moments though. Mash was as brilliant as I thought it would be from my preview of it last Thanksgiving. I enjoyed it a lot more than the other Robert Altman film I watched this summer, McCabe and Mrs Miller, a unique sort of western.
I ended up going home last weekend which made for the third weekend in a row I spent in Iowa. On the way home I reminded myself how good Pinkerton is, how good Source Tags and Codes is, and how much it owes to Sonic Youth, especially Daydream Nation. The Vanagon was filled with large speakers and amps and driven about town, specifically to the mall and an apartment complex downtown. Certain passengers rode backward with their feet out the windows. Sadly, no one took us up on our offers of a free ride. Then the transmission went out and we pushed it to a parking lot from which it could be towed later. On the way back to Northfield I was accompanied by the terrific post-punk/new wave of The Cure and Joy Division, greatest hits collections I'd not yet listened to. They were both terrific (Staring at the Sea and Substance, respectively). I've also been watching more Twin Peaks, care of Netflix, and it has continued to thrill me with its excellence.
The toilet of the future!
Today I am getting all my news from the Sydney Morning Herald. They provided me with this article and this delightful picture:
Last night I went to Electric Fetus to pick up Radiohead's Hail To The Thief, Fog's Ether Teeth and My Morning Jacket's At Dawn, which is so beautiful I want to go live inside of it. It Still Moves comes out in all its reverberating glory in September. I also went to Oak Street Cinema to see Une Femme Est Une Femme. I went to the gyro place next door and was quite happy with the results. And although I haven't yet actually seen him, it has been officially confirmed that Dan Edwards is now living in Lower Crack. Today I am reading The Hindu.
Une Femme Est Une Femme (A Woman Is A Woman)
Though not a backward "They don't make 'em like they used to" traditionalist, I do value and appreciate films of many eras. Specifically, I've been watching a lot of Humphrey Bogart films for the past few months and enjoy almost everything he does. One of the things I appreciate about films such as Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep is that they don't need to apologize for the period in which they were made. Birth of a Nation springs to mind as the greatest example of a masterpiece that has become so culturally dated as to detract from its value, and I therefore can only appreciate it to a certain extent. Bogart's dry wit and his presence are timeless and can be enjoyed by anyone, anytime with no explanation necessary.
Much the same could be said of A Woman Is A Woman. Frenetic, unique and full of energy, Godard's musical seems absolutely fresh 40 years on. Though Godard could be expected to be exceptional, A Woman establishes its own identity very quickly, with the soundtrack fading in and out on the spot relative to the dialogue and the position of the characters onscreen. The loud and upbeat music seems to have almost a life of its own, running willy-nilly throughout, though really Godard is putting it to use in unorthodox ways. This New Wave picture features the characters addressing the audience, alone and in pairs; camera techniques that shatter the laws of cinematography (at one point we assume the camera has taken Emile's point of view as Angela follows it around the room with her eyes and addresses it, yet Emile walks into the frame from the left, completely unsettling the viewer); and jokes such as Jean-Paul Belmondo mentioning that he is in a hurry because Breathless is being shown on television.
A Woman Is A Woman is the oddest and one of the best musicals I have ever seen. The songs are mainly sung in the cabaret, although a jukebox is featured prominently in one scene, even getting large amounts of screen time. The pacing is lightning-quick and never gets dragged down by the characters' emotional dilemmas, even though they are evident. I can't tell if it's a French sensibility or just Godard, but the way the characters interact is at the same time refreshingly realistic and at the same time completely off the wall. The biggest laugh in the movie comes when Angela and Emile are going to sleep, not on speaking terms, when one of them decides to get up, transport the lamp to the bookshelf and communicate through cover titles. Odd, yet almost plausible in the environs of the film. That a film can be so rule-breaking, so fresh and so real, from 40 years ago nonetheless, reminds me why I love the Oak Street Cinema.
12 Aug 2003
This is my new website because the only reason to have a website is to change it. Hopefully all the archives back to February 2002 will be organized and made to look more uniform. [Months later this, as you can see, has happened.]
I was reminded by Kevin's redesign that grey had gotten stale, as had the title. It was time to start over, because nothing is more beautiful than a blank slate. I'm thinking of confining the site to three main sections which consist only of a home page which will, after I get through the initial entries, have only the latest and, of course, greatest entry. The links will serve to increase traffic on sites I appreciate, and the archives to store past entries. I would like to keep entries in small, manageable chunks so if I post something I like and want to keep for the future and possibly alter, it can simply be referred to by its number, like the list of magazines. The entries are numbered as a courtesy to myself, since for the last while I have been posting willy nilly without any organizational system and as a result the archives are, while complete, somewhat bewildering.
If you don't have either the Rockwell or Verdana typefaces, you don't like the color orange, you are having browser-related issues and use Internet Explorer or an outdated version of Mozilla, you have a special place in your heart for Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle and/or Empire Records, you want to know why I have added capital letters and/or superfluous punctuation, you just can't comprehend something or other, you are offended by this list, or you didn't notice that the blue color on the links makes them seem to hover magically above the white print on the orange background, you are a useless fuck, go away. If, on the other hand, you have a link or something else helpful and welcome to contribute, submit it.
Today I woke up and went to the post office. I ate a cheese dog and a coney dog from Tiny's for lunch. I read The Source, Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report. Somebody got rid of the Economist, which upset me slightly because I had so enjoyed the first few pieces I'd read in this week's issue the day before.
Due to a lack of good reading material, I headed to the library where I checked out Mr. Strangelove: A Biography of Peter Sellers by Ed Sikov, the author of the text used for my class on Billy Wilder this spring. I finished two chapters before four o'clock which brought me up to his early twenties. There was also a Wells Fargo man on some sort of fact finding mission relating to their ATM in the Sayles-Hill lobby. He asked about phone lines and where they were connected or something mysterious. He also looked up the number for the engineer, whoever that might have been. I assume his people are thinking of putting the machine online or something, but he supplied no such information and I demanded none.
At four I returned to the library for my ritualistic afternoon internet session. I perused my usual list of sites as well as The Sydney Morning Herald, my random unfamiliar newspaper of the day. I learned that Athens is straining under the burdensome preparations for next summer's Olympics, and that druids restored the spiritual balance to a roadway in Austria that played host to a few too many automobile accidents. Australia and the surrounding island nations are considering a European Union-like type of multi-national currency, which would likely be the Australian dollar. Also, the Solomon Islands are in the process of being taken over by Australia due to their collapse in recent months. Apparently the negotiations have taken a slight downturn, but it remains to be seen how things will turn out in the end.
After the library closed I made my way to the Parkway Theatre in southeast Minneapolis to see Chaos, a recent French film about women taking charge of their lives, though it's far more interesting and less smarmy than that sounds. The story begins with Paul and Hélène hurriedly driving to some evening engagement when a scantily clad woman runs toward them screaming. Paul locks the doors and the woman is beaten to within an inch of her life before their eyes. Paul's only concern is that he not get involved in this sordid business and hurries off to wash the car, removing any evidence that he witnessed the crime. Hélène becomes obsessed with the plight of this prostitute and aids and protects her until she has recovered. Meanwhile, Paul and Fabrice, both denigrated for their idiotic ambivalence toward their partners go through trials of their own. There are a number of twists and turns in the film involving the family of the prostitute and her eventual "relationships" with both Paul and Fabrice. It was all brilliantly executed and captured my attention as much as anything I've seen for a good long time. See it if you get the chance.
The following is a list of magazines I've read regularly in the post office this summer ranked in order of quality:
- The Nation. I like their politics and views better than pretty much any other publication on the list. The weekly I'm most likely to read cover to cover.
- The Onion. Always brilliant.
- Harper's. Insightful, though somewhat full of itself.
- The New Yorker. A nice smattering of everything.
- Times Literary Supplement. For some reason I enjoy reading their reviews of books I have no intention of actually reading.
- London Review of Books. See above.
- The Economist. If you can get past the condescending, somewhat negative tone, it's very comprehensive and well done.
- The New Republic. Interesting politics and a good arts & culture section.
- The Atlantic Monthly. Some interesting pieces and overlong articles.
- Spin. Reviews almost as bad as Rolling Stone. Better features, but still mostly pap.
- The Source. About hip hop, of which I know relatively little. Interesting but a little showy at times.
- Rolling Stone. Bland, useless reviews. Uninteresting music news. Reporting and features I'd rather get from a real newsmagazine.
- CMJ. Godawful eternally glowing reviews. Formulaic and repetitive.
- ESPN The Magazine. Better regular features than Sports Illustrated and much better, more modern design.
- Sports Illustrated. All the sports news I've read elsewhere.
- Newsweek. All the news I've read elsewhere. Scare tactics (terrorism, social malaise, you're a fat fucking worthless slob so get in on the latest fad diet/snake oil/idiot pop culture thing) used to up sales.
- Time. See above.
This is the line of demarcation below which no links are provided because I don't like the magazines. It's not just because I'm lazy.
- U.S. News & World Report. See above, add a Republican slant.
- Entertainment Weekly. Unintelligent.
- Movieline. Expensive tabloid.
- Weekly World News. Cheap tabloid. Pandering and awful.
- Maxim, Stuff, FHM. No.
17 Aug 2003
Thursday I went to Swimming Pool at the Uptown Theater. I enjoyed sitting in the balcony, but I didn't really enjoy the movie all that much. Although there was plenty of exciting skin to be seen, the story didn't intrigue as much as it wanted to. None of the characters did much for me in the way of creating empathy or even interest, they were just up there on the screen. It seemed as if some key element had been accidentally left on the cutting room floor because the suspense didn't really exist, i.e. I was not at all surprised nor even that interested in what happened. The ending tried to be sort of weird and, I think, creepy, but it just seemed irrelevant. I was kind of suspecting that might happen anyway, so I wasn't thoroughly disappointed.
Friday I saw The Real Inspector Hound at Arena Theater which I liked but I don't think as much as the rest of the audience did. Rather like with Swimming Pool, I understood that it was odd, in this case for critics to enter a play mid-performance, but it didn't strike me with the force it should have. It was well done, however, and I have nothing but the highest praise for the "actor" who spent the entire evening face down on the floor of the stage.
Due to a nap and a large quantity of coffee I'd consumed earlier that evening, I was unable to fall asleep and therefore watched, care of Netflix, Bergman's The Seventh Seal. I had vague recollections of watching it at a much younger age, though I can't figure out why and I certainly didn't get it at the time and I could only recall seeing the first few minutes anyway. I enjoyed the sound of spoken Swedish, and also because I could relate some of it to what was going on because it is a somewhat close relative of both German and English. It was surprisingly less morbid than it had a right to be, since the entire thing was about death. I mean, Death is a character, there is a burning at the stake, the Black Death is ravaging the countryside and almost all the dialogue relates in some way to, you guessed it, death. I enjoyed it, not as a morbidity-fascinated sort, but because of its intelligence and because of the honesty of the characters. It left me with a feeling both that I had enjoyed it and that, when I see it again, I will enjoy it all the more, which is a sure sign of a great film.
Saturday I went through my CDs that had been piling up in different places and sorted them all out. Now I have them in three sections: valuable, questionable and disposable. There is also a fourth category of discs that I don't currently have access to but will take a look at after I move to Evans. Thankfully I only had to add three or four to the disposable pile. Someday I will perhaps revise my all-time favorites, which I believe I posted some time but don't remember when. There may also be a summer retrospective, similar to the two-disc compilation I put together for the last schoolyear, which I still enjoy and appreciate; there are very few things I would change, if I could, and it still gives me perverse pleasure to know that I have a hidden track on a CD I made by myself, for myself. I also watched Heavenly Creatures, my first all-English-speaking movie in along while, Peter Jackson's film about two Kiwi girls with a somewhat peculiar relationship. The picture bounces along with a goodly amount of subjective and fantastic imagery, especially the clay people of the imaginary royal family Pauline and Juliet create for themselves. The attitude of the film, and especially the performance of Melanie Lynskey as Pauline, is just so likeable that I had to watch. Although notably younger, at least by age of the characters, the pair reminded me, at least in their portrayal as genuinely interesting teenage girls, of the "heroines" of Ghost World. Far from being some awful coming-of-age melodrama about the tragically romantic perils of adolescence, Heavenly Creatures is simply about two wild and crazy kids, itching for a way out of their restrictive schoolgirl lives, and their ultimately horrific plan to achieve it. Luckily for all involved, though this was Kate Winslet's debut film, it was in fact the much better Melanie Lynskey who carried the movie.
Tonight I will see one, perhaps two, Rainer Maria Fassbinder shows at Oak Street.
Oh yes, and I'm reading Lester Bangs' Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung and he is as fantastic as I'd heard.
18 Aug 2003
I didn't dislike Die Ehe der Maria Braun, but neither was I thrilled by it. I think, for the most part, this can be attributed to the fact that I believe I've discussed post-World War II Germany in almost half my classes over the past year. There is only so much discussion and literature one can take in a particular area before the brain starts to melt and the only response left is a dull sort of diffidence. This is the reason I think I cared about the movie less than I was meant to: I already know all about the treatment of German women after the war, what they went through physically, emotionally, spiritually, and what it must have done to them. The main focus of the story being on a woman whose husband of two days is "killed" in the war, only to find months later (or years, the passage of time in the film was very quick and very confusing) that he has returned. Sort of like with Swimming Pool it was the case that I didn't care for the characters, and therefore the lack of excitement provided by the other aspects of the film, e.g. setting, style of dialogue, cinematography, etc. did not suffice to entertain me. It wasn't bad, but I doubt I'll think about much again.
Then 90 and at the height of his powers...
19 Aug 2003
Today the Economist told me that there are 750,000 bloggers. Also, I finished Season I of Twin Peaks last night and now I must wait until I can get my hands on either the two-hour pilot or the second season. Either one will be exciting. And I was just filmed for my walking ability.
At college with the president(s)...
And just to inflame my anti-Dean passion all the more, which exists mainly because he is politically vague, he is apparently considering doing away with spending limits for himself:
"Howard Dean, who has proved surprisingly adept at raising campaign money, appears to be having second thoughts about his pledge to participate in the nation's program for publicly financing political campaigns.
"The former Vermont governor told the Associated Press that although he intends to keep his pledge, he is also still willing to consider opting out of the program. "Could we change our mind? Sure," Dean said.
"The program, designed to lessen the importance of campaign fundraising, provides federal dollars to qualified candidates who agree to spending limits. Earlier this year, Dean said his campaign would join the program.
"But he has since proved a prodigious fundraiser. And Democrats have long feared that participating in the program during their primary would put their candidate at a disadvantage, since President Bush is expected to opt out.
"Democrats fear their candidate could emerge from the primaries, as early as March, nearly penniless and unable to match the president's unrestricted campaign efforts for months -- until they receive their general election money later that summer, after their presidential nominating convention. It was that scenario that appears to have given Dean second thoughts.
"'I think public financing is a good thing. The question is what do you do with an opponent who can murder you for months,' Dean said."
- Washington Post
Since he already seems to be a McCain style pseudo-populist who rallies voters by disagreeing with the right people, with somewhat hazy liberal credentials, his sheepish disavowal of spending limits seems suspect, for leftists if not for his opponents. Certainly it would be nice to get rid of the current White House full of imperialist, obnoxious, disingenuous jerks, but replacing them with a group of pandering lightweights isn't going to do that much good once there is no figurehead to sneer at. If he can't even stick to his "principles" before the elections when everybody and his brother are full of wild-eyed promises, what would he do in office?
I was thinking about the concept of Audioslave today because their "Like A Stone" was on the radio in the post office and it somehow got into my head and wouldn't leave. I, like many rock fans I'm sure, was saddened at the break-ups of both Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine. Though either could at times get a little repetitive, boring, or just a little too MUCH, they both had excitingly loud, soothingly abrasive sounds and generally good and listenable songs and albums. I remember vividly the anticipation with which I read that Chris Cornell would be replacing Zack de la Rocha, and imagined what sort of beautiful merger this should have been. For at least two years there was inner turmoil, as well as trouble with the label, but they finally released the album and went on tour. I didn't really want to believe the reviews at the time of release because they all sounded so negative; but what I heard on the radio didn't do much to inspire confidence in me either. Which is to say that I didn't buy the album, but have heard a chunk of it and am not terribly impressed, especially with what theoretically could have been an amazingly loud and thrilling concoction. The whole affair strikes me as lacking the fire and freshness of either of the original bands, as if they are still taking some sort of break from really making the sort of music I'm sure most people expected. There really isn't a point to this except that Cornell does have a great voice for hard rock vocals, which I notice at times on "Like A Stone", and which was probably what attracted me to Soundgarden ("Burden In My Hand", "Blow Up The Outside World") at first back when I was thirteen or fourteen. Maybe something magical will appear next time.
Oh yes, and somehow spam protection completely failed on my Carleton account so I have received a total of 25 junk-mail messages today.
And I'm looking around on Ebay for audio electronics type things and it's exciting, but I think I'll wait until I've moved to an environment safer for electronics to actually purchase them.
I've been listening to a bunch of teenybopper radio recently. It is, indeed, rather awful, but not really that much more awful than repeatedly listening to Drive 105 or Cities 97 or some other sort of "alternative", which are really and truly awful after you've heard every song on their playlists and again, and again, and again. I've realized that I enjoy 50 Cent quite a bit, I've remembered how much I hate Nelly, and my disdain for mall punk has not really heightened so much as I simply realized that a pop group can't just be a pop group if it is to be marketed to adolescents, it must project an image, no matter how irrelevant or just plain wrong it seems in relation to the actual music. Good Charlotte provides a good example of this but what really got me thinking was Simple Plan's "Addicted". It has almost nothing to do with punk rock; that is with independence, the D.I.Y. aesthetic, or nonconformism. It's not even that loud or effective as a punk song. What it is, instead, is just what it strives to be: a nice little pop song with a hummable melody, even some harmony (though I haven't listened closely to it), and far more in common with lite power ballads than with, say, "Anarchy in the UK". If you aren't put off by the fact that it's not actually a punk song, they aren't actually punks, and there's nothing to gain from it that you can't get from any other decent tune on the dial, it's sort of a harmless little diversion. Which is not to say that I don't really wish that I could be listening to something GOOD when I'm at work for seven hours a day, rather than waiting for an hour to hear something that's not trash or debasing myself and sinking to the level of the DJs, whose voices I never ever want to hear again.
24 Aug 2003
So, you ask, what have I been doing lately? I probably don't really remember. I did read Nicholson Baker's Vox, Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick and Voltaire's Candide this week. I think that brings me to twelve or thirteen books I've read this summer, which doesn't seem like very many, but when I take into account the inordinate amount of movies I've watched and all the time I spend reading stuff on the Internet as well as magazines and newspapers, I think I'm doing all right. Although it should be a little boring I will post lists of movies and books I've consumed this summer and, of course, music I've purchased. Speaking of music, I definitely enjoyed Modest Mouse's The Moon and Antarctica as well as The Marshall Mathers LP this week, both of which I've had sitting on my hard drive for a while but hadn't previously listened to closely. I've been meaning to listen to attempt more wholeheartedly get into Modest Mouse for awhile, since I know a number of people who already do so. Previously, I'd listened only to Building Something Out of Nothing and it struck me as too dissonant and crashing, especially because I'm very particular about lead singers and Isaac Brock's voice can grate a little, at times, but I did Antarctica may have turned me into a fan. Also, though I doubt the worth of the skits on Marshall Mathers, and "Kim" is such an assault that I don't really enjoy listening to it that much, it is otherwise fantastic. I was enamored with "Stan" when Eminem did it on Saturday Night Live and still like it, though it's probably not quite my favorite track. That honor probably belongs to "Kill You" although there are many others that come close. I prefer Eminem to pretty much all of his guest vocalists (I detest D12) and enjoy him most when he sounds angry but not homicidal, 8 Mile's "Lose Yourself" rather the aforementioned "Kim". Although the beats are worthwhile, I have to wonder how much Eminem controls them and how much Doctor Dre and others have to do with them, and realistically, he could probably rap over nothing and still be terrific. I also realized that I severely need to purchase SOME hip hop because, well, I enjoy it yet don't seem to actually own hardly any at all which is a situation that needs to be rectified. And finally, I remembered this week as I was looking at some admittedly pretty worthless punk-pop groups on allmusic.com that their star ratings are not actually ranks of quality but relative ratings within the genre and to other work by the same artist. That is probably the only way that I can imagine that IDM seems to get dumped on in their star system, yet Blink 182 gets terrific marks. Or something. And speaking of punk, which we technically weren't I have been enjoying The Clash and The Buzzcocks, but I think I need to sell Ramones Mania and get their first album because listening to thirty songs at a time, some of which I really dislike, is not the best way to get into a band.
In other news, I watched the Twins lose to the Royals 3-4 last night. Jose Lima got blasted, allowing three runs early and getting replaced in the fifth, which surprised me, but the Royals came back later on and MacDougal shut the Twins down in the ninth. I had been planning to get a $6 upper deck general admission ticket but I couldn't pass up a guy outside trying to get rid of a $21 seat; I took it for $15 and sat in the fourth row down the first base-line about 200 feet from home plate, a far cry from against the back of the upper deck in Wrigley earlier this year, with a restricted view. The guy did have a loud and annoying friend, but at least he wasn't a lunatic. It was a pretty good game, close most of the way, and fourth row for $15 is terrific.
Tuesday I watched The Godfather which, like Citizen Kane last year, I don't have much to say about. It was entertaining with no bad spots, the acting was very good, but it didn't do anything special for me. The circular touch with the son finally taking the father's place, closing with a scene very similar to the first, was nice, but I can't personally rank as one of my all-time favorites. Thursday I was going to see Northfork, but I got caught in traffic, so I saw The Secret Lives of Dentists instead. It was a domestic drama about a married pair of dentists whose marriage is falling apart. For much of the movie the entire family (three daughters as well as the husband and wife) have the flu and are vomiting everywhere. The puking is surprisingly well-done and not disgusting, just kind of quietly humorous and touching, maybe. Also, Denis Leary plays a disgruntled customer who becomes an imaginary, and hilarious, sidekick for David, the father and protagonist, as his family situation worsens. I enjoyed it, although for some reason, imdb.com shows a bizarre 5 out of 10 ranking; I think someone had it out for this film and got their friends to give it zero stars. Interestingly, 20% of the audience gave it a 10, over 60% of the audience gave it 8 or higher, and 70% of the audience gave it a 7 or higher, it got an arithmetic mean of 6.5 and a median of 8, yet it gets a mysterious "weighted average" of 5. Women seem to hate the film as well as minors. According to the IMDB, "Various filters are applied to the raw data in order to eliminate and reduce attempts at 'vote stuffing' by individuals more interested in changing the current rating of a movie than giving their true opinion of it," though it seems unthinkable to me that a critically well-received film such as this one could receive such a tremendously low rating. I mean, Charlie's Angels 2, the worst movie I've seen in a good long time, got a 5.4, with a lower mean and median. This all only serves to remind me how awful summer movies are in general. I even wanted to see a movie in the theater this weekend and could only find a very few I hadn't seen that didn't look either trashy or poorly done. Ah well, hooray for Netflix all the more, and the Northfield Public Library. I watched Le Diner de Cons last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. It got dangerously close to preciousness and moralizing at the end but steered clear. It actually reminded me more of TV sitcom than a feature film, possibly owing to the fact that most of the film takes place in a single apartment.
The Observer's Ed Vuillamy on America...
It seems that I was the victim of the notorious Sobig virus but the spam onslaught ended this weekend and my inbox is back to normal.
I forgot to say that my favorite moment in The Secret Lives of Dentists had to have been when Cat Power came in singing "I Found A Reason" from her Covers Record and, before that, the Velvet Underground's Loaded. I find that songs always strike me more powerfully when I hear them in films even if they don't seem to fit with the images on the screen or they're playing over the credits. I suppose it's a form of emotional synthesis, which would imply that instead of combining images to create a broader effect, the emotion of the film is combined with the tone of a song to create something even stronger in the listener.
And I listened to Recovering The Satellites last night, which got me to thinking that I believe that is the album I have owned and enjoyed the longest. In other words, of the CDs I still listen to on a regular basis, I don't think I owned any of them before the Counting Crows' second album, which I bought about six years ago, I think. It's a relatively complex album to listen to carefully on headphones with eight or nine different tracks generally going at the same time. Two or three guitars, one of them possibly acoustic, bass, drums, one or two of the following: keyboards, organ, piano or accordion, lead vocals and often some backup, along with the occasional mandolin and steel or pedal steel guitar. Although a few songs drag a bit, it holds up very well for me even at an hour. I don't feel that there is as much to like in This Desert Life, although it's still a good record. I've yet to discover anything but disdain for Hard Candy, but I need to listen to August and Everything After, which everyone claims is their best, but I think that may just be because it came first.
25 Aug 2003
I got license plates today which means I don't have to stop driving which is nice. Also, I watched Fellini's 8½ last night. About forty minutes in I was ready to shut it off and give up, but decided that since I didn't have anything better to do, I'd stick with it. I must say I was pleasantly rewarded. The black and white photography was gorgeous all the way, as great as the traditionally bad Italian lipsynching was not. Since it is a film about a director who can't decide what he wants to do with his next project, it includes a lot of restive nothingness and sometimes boring scenes of dialogue that add to the tone of the film, but not to the "plot", though that is to be ignored. Rather than plot, the movie builds up the director's relationships with other people, and his seeming failure at them, and as it nears the end, is able to comment on his lack of love for those around him, as well as on the film that is actually being produced. I found that by the end I felt that everything had worked together for the best and it turned into a cohesive (as far in that direction as this film is able to go) experience. My favorite attribute of the movie is its self-referential and self-mocking tone. That Fellini deals with doubts about his own selfishness and the value of the film within the film as he makes is as postmodern as it gets, which I, for one, enjoyed.
Last but certainly not least, 9 September becomes even huger with the release of not only the new My Morning Jacket, but also a new Iron & Wine EP! And apparently the new Guided by Voices album (not a 9 September release) is worth my while, at least according to Pitchfork! And then there's the Blue's Clues album!
27 Aug 2003
Today ESPN The Magazine talked about Bo Jackson's prowess on Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl for N.E.S. Apparently the claim was first made last year. They are right. According to the columnist whose name I can't remember and isn't mentioned on the internet, "Video Bo"'s prowess as a virtual athlete was unchallenged until Madden 2004's Michael Vick, though he still claims that Bo is the all-time champion. I agree. Tragically, I don't think Drew Hill got any mention, but then his team wasn't even in the first Tecmo Bowl. Kyle Willett, however, will attest vociferously to Drew Hill's unchallenged greatness as a video game receiver.
Last night I went to the Parkway Theater to see I Capture The Castle which Roger Ebert really liked, but I didn't think was so hot. It seemed to me formulaic and not very exciting or surprising or original. The characters were for the most part "types" without much inner development. Some of the actors were egregiously awful, especially the Americans. It was thrilling though when the film got off track and the image slowly moved to the side of the screen and then stopped and there was this sort of ring of film tinged blue on the right and bright orange on the left with blank white in the middle. It was very nice; I'd like to have a picture of the people in the theater sitting and looking at that.
28 Aug 2003
I finally got stuck on the Legend of Zelda because I can't figure out what the old man means by, "There is a secret in the tip of the nose." In other N.E.S. related news, I played some Bo Jackson-powered Tecmo Bowl recently. He gained 490 yards on 18 carries to score 9 touchdowns in regular Tecmo Bowl and scored 6 times with 271 yards on 13 carries in Tecmo Super Bowl. I'm not sure what went wrong in Tecmo Super Bowl, but at least I have already provided evidence that he can do better than that. Drew Hill racked up 441 yards with 6 touchdowns which was pretty good but I think he could break 500. I also photographed the first level of Super Mario Bros., but it's not on here and neither is the Zelda map. I think I might just wait until I get a network connection for my own computer to upload any more images.
I also got Hard Day's Night from the Northfield Public Library. It wasn't bad, but the twenty different extra interviews and things they include with the movie seems excessive for something that was such a tossed-off piece of fluff.
29 Aug 2003
I seem to really enjoy the intro to the Dashboard Confessional single from the new album. I don't mind the rest of the song either but seems to not quite live up to whatever the intro is promising. Spin came today and it was mostly worthless like always except for an OK record list by Tom Morello and a brilliant romantic advice section by Ween. The New Yorker had some very good letters to the ethicist along with a fascinating piece on the New York City water system. The story by Dave Eggers seems to be pretty good but I didn't have time to finish it. The last Harper's had a brilliant transcription of some guy messing with people looking for cybersex. I had a similar encounter last year which I very much enjoyed. It was, I think, in the guise of Clyde, who hasn't been heard from for a long time. He may have something to say after I finish the book I'm reading about the Norse gods but it's hard to say.
Also, KRLX received the new My Morning Jacket CD today which means that of course I opened it and commandeered it for the trip home this weekend. Tomorrow I may grill and watch Ohio State take on Washington. I'm not sure what Sunday and Monday portend.