Happy New Year

I hope 2007 was good to you, and 2008 will be even better. Photos from a Flickr search for the most interesting photos tagged 'explosion.'

Happy New Year!

2007: Music

Sixteen years of musical fanaticism and (shamefully, I suppose), since making the modest shift from angst to melancholy, from Nirvana and Pearl Jam to Dinosaur Jr. and Luna in 1994 or so, I can't really say that my tastes have evolved all that much. When I flip through my year's purchases and play lists, it's still very much indie rock. And I get deeper in to Dylan. Ah, well. Here's 2007 for you, recommended, in all its glory:

Albums Released in 2007:
Fort Nightly, White Rabbits
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Spoon
Night Falls Over Kortedala, Jens Lekman
Person Pitch, Panda Bear
Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, Of Montreal
Challengers, New Pornographers
Friend Opportunity, Deerhoof
Boxer, The National
23, Blonde Redhead
Asa Breed, Matthew Dear
The Shaky Hands, The Shaky Hands
Live At Massey Hall, 1971, Neil Young
Let's Stay Friends, Les Savy Fav
Mirrored, Battles
Weirdo Rippers, No Age
Woke on a Whaleheart, Bill Callahan

Albums Discovered/Re-Discovered in 2007:
The Greatest, Cat Power
New Morning, Bob Dylan
Bringing It All Back Home, Bob Dylan
Dongs of Sevotion, Smog
Ce, Caetano Veloso
Writer's Block, Peter, Bjorn & John
Absolutely the Best, Ike & Tina Turner
The Remains, The Remains
The dBs, Stands for deciBels
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, Arctic Monkeys

Notable Songs:
If I were with it, a music critic, this list would be littered with hip-hop and country songs, M.I.A. and Gypsy-influenced emo. Sadly, I'm not. I still buy CDs, don't listen to the radio, and don't hear many singles. So you'll get mostly more indie rock. Sorry:

"Senor," Willie Nelson & Calexico
"Goin' to Acapulco," Jim James & Calexico
"I've Been Out Walking," Nina Nastasia & Jim White
"Myriad Harbor" and "Failsafe," The New Pornographers
"The Underdog" and "Rhythm & Soul," Spoon
"Pots & Pans" and "Brace Yourself," Les Savy Fav
"A Postcard to Nina," Jens Lekman
"No Cars Go," Arcade Fire
"Weird Fishes / Arpeggi," Radiohead
"Sycamore," Bill Callahan
"Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider," Of Montreal
"Up Against The Wall," Peter Bjorn & John
"Bros," Panda Bear
"Tourist Trap," White Rabbits

Lessons learned? I'm a sucker for kick drums and horns...

If you want to know what the cool kids like (some of which I like, some of which I'm not as smitten by), here are the year end comps from Pitchfork, Stylus, Slate, and AllMusic.com.

2007: Movies

Movies enjoyed (and recommended!) in 2007, both old and new. Caveats at the end:

In the Theater:
I'm Not There
Rescue Dawn
Ratatouille
Hot Fuzz
Michael Clayton
The Lives of Others
Notes on a Scandal
No Country for Old Men
Zidane

On DVD:
The Siege
Batman Begins
Extras
Ong Bak
Once in a Lifetime
A History of Violence
The Science of Sleep
An Inconvenient Truth
Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
The TV Set
Match Point
Grizzly Man
Out of Sight
Me And You And Everyone You Know
Idiocracy
Planet Earth
Why We Fight
Pan's Labyrinth

And, having done the once-over of Dana Stevens' list over on Slate.com, a few films that I have every intention of seeing, and simply haven't at year's end, but I'm guessing will make the list: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Persepolis, and There Will Be Blood.

2007: Books

A good year for reading, on subways and airplanes, in India and Rhode Island and New York and California. My recommended reads, if you haven't already got to them (very few 2007 releases, since I read in paperback):

Fiction:
A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipul
Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara
Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion
The Insanity Defense, Woody Allen
In Persuasion Nation, George Saunders
Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carre
Giraffe, J.M. Ledgard

Non-Fiction:
Fiasco, Thomas Ricks
The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
Prime Green, Robert Stone
Class Matters, Correspondents of the New York Times
Planet of Slums, Mike Davis
Kafka Was the Rage, Anatole Broyard

Little write-ups of each book can usually be found in the month in which I read the book. Search the site if you are interested in more detail on anything listed.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Since everyone seems to have either left the city or gone into hiding, I headed down to the Angelika last Friday to see Sidney Lumet's Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. The movie has gotten exceptional reviews, particularly for the performances of Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was good, not great. I appreciated how cold and brutal it was, but perhaps even a little too heavy? And while Philip Seymour Hoffman is great, I definitely enjoy when his heavy-set, hard-luck with issues schlubs have a halo of good humor surrounding them. Not so here. It was actually Albert Finney who I thought was the most excellent of the lot (for all of the rave reviews of Ethan Hawke's acting, has the bar for praise been set at believable?). And while the opening scene with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Marisa Tomei may have been completely gratuitous (sure, we understand his motivation), if Sidney Lumet wanted to make a two hour movie of Marisa Tomei walking around in her underwear, well, I'd watch it.

Five from Sam Francis

Happy Birthday JJK + Robot Love

JJK, I hope you are preparing your woman for the day that you will have to leave her:

Here's a prediction that'll make you squirm: In the future, people will fall in love with robots. Robots will not be cold, predictable machines, but actual lovers -- precocious, sexy, and remarkably humanlike in appearance. Humans will even marry robots in certain obliging jurisdictions. Now send the kids into the other room while we mention the obvious, bizarre implication: Someday, people will have sex with robots.

And not just cold, mechanical sex that barely incites a feeble meep-meep-meep from your robot lover: No, we're talking about real elbow-pads-and-helmets sex. Electrifying sex! (And afterward the robot will take a drag on a cigarette and say, "That really recharged my batteries.")

Another book that I think I will have to read, this time from David Levy, entitled Love and Sex with Robots.

PS - Mrs. JJK, if you can incorporate enough robot come-ons into your bedroom repertoire, perhaps you can fool JJK into thinking you're a robot well into the future...

PPS - Another quote from the author:

"Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans," Levy writes, "while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach us more than is in all of the world's published sex manuals combined."

Shouldn't there be a law for a picture of the author of these kind of works to be published alongside the review, so we can imagine if it is Professor Frink making these predictions or someone more along the lines of James Cromwell's character from iRobot? And didn't this scenario already get predicted by Johnny 5 coming on to Ally Sheedy in Short Ciruit?

The White Castle

When I was young, 14 to 17, I loved Kafka and Borges. I have to assume that I still do, although I haven't revisited either in four or five years, at least. So why do I have such little attachment or reaction to the obvious antecedents of these writers? Orhan Pamuk's The White Castle (not to be confused with Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, which was hands-down funnier, probably did a better job of evoking early 21st century New Jersey than The White Castle did for Istanbul, and maybe even handled issues of Western influence on the Eastern mind with equal aplomb [OK, that's debatable]) is a novel that is built on the slim shoulders of Kafka and Borges. Abstract, employing narrative in the service of ideas, symbolic, attempting to fold itself into an origami of narrative logic, demanding very little emotional attachment, evocative of generalities, not specifics.

While the novel has enough character to engage throughout, it's great intellectual questions never rise above mild interest, and the plot and setting offer so much promise for texture and depth of understanding, which are never really delivered. The wink-wink literary intellect supporting the whole thing never pays off, making the novel tough to write about -- it feels like a novel that requires investigation and response, except that it simply does not elicit that response. Perhaps this essay on Pamuk's new collection of essays probably does a good job of summarizing feelings that I don't feel strongly enough to want to summarize.

Drinker's Peace + 2

The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and Christoper Hitchens. I may read all three with a certain mixture of regard and disregard, but rarely do I link over. Today I'll make an exception, for Hitchens' review of Eric Felten's forthcoming Cocktails, Culture, and the Art of Drinking Well. RM has long been an admirer of Felten's reviews in the WSJ, I believe, and I am duly excited by the arrival of this book. I'm sure it will be well-worn copy, referenced often by Mssrs. M and W and myself. From Hitchens' review:

His remark about one or two but never three has been, I hope, lifted from my own axiom about the relationship between martinis and female breasts. One is too few. Three is too many. Two seems somehow superbly right. His second observation, about the girlie factor, is something that greatly preoccupies Felten. When all is said, isn't there something very slightly fussy about all this mixing and shaking and measuring: something, perhaps, fractionally light in the loafers?
Borrowing from an old Esquire distinction, he suggests that masculine cocktails involve whiskey whereas feminine ones "lean heavily on cream, fruit juices and crème de this-and-that." That seems fair enough, except that both he and Kingsley Amis (about whom there was nothing limp-wristed) demonstrate a high degree of affection for the "Irish Coffee" cocktail and the exquisitely careful means of making it. Of course whiskey, which Felten calls "that least feminine-seeming of spirits," is involved, so the honors here can be reckoned as about even.

I believe we are all agreed. And to off-set the war-mongering behind all of this, three from Uncle Bob and GBV, everyman's drinking man.

Clark and Michael

If someone made an Internet-only series of shorts in which a 20-year old George Michael from Arrested Development and a 20-year old David Brent from The Office were best friends trying to make it as a writing team in Los Angeles, having their awkward interactions and quixotic efforts filmed and edited, in blatant rip-off of The Office, would you watch it? If one of the creators and stars of this particular effort was the adorable and so-far, so funny Michael Cera, and he was able to convince the likes of Andy Richter, Tony Hale, and David Cross to make cameos, would you watch it? Or would you just get angry? The rich get richer, and all that?

What if it was pretty good, charming and generally funny? And had a couple of nice touches, like Michael Cera throwing a couple of unseemly temper tantrums, dropping a couple of deadpan, really laddishly dirty moments, and had Clark Duke doing a great job being a 20-something L.A. wannabe-writer, drunken escapades, wrestling matches, and unwarranted hubris included? You'd have Clark and Michael. According to CNN's 2007 Top 10 lists, this was a hit, but I missed it. If you did, too, then check it out. Another good use of the internet.

Revisiting Max Headroom

I've been at my parents' house for the last three days, and due to a combination of suffering from work fatigue and wanting to shut my body and brain down, and being stuck in suburbia (although a beautiful corner of suburbia) and bored, I've watched a couple of hours of VH1's "Why I Love the 80s" programs. One segment visited the phenomenon of Max Headroom, which I remember quite clearly from my TV-addicted youth, and was a reminder of what a strange phenomenon it was.

Nothing was congruous about the character, nothing quite fit, from the too-blond, too-white, L.A. borderline-Nazi sheen of the character's physical appearance, the hyper-glitchy cadence of his speech, his altogether spectral appearance and back-story, and his weird commitment, in references and commercial engagements, to pop and consumer culture. I remember when he first came out, being struck at how thoroughly odd and slightly scary Max Headroom was, but finding a great appeal in that, particularly as a pop and commercial phenomenon. At second glance, the appeal still holds, and I'd go so far as to say that I prefer the disconcerting freakiness of Max Headroom as an aesthetic to they bored irony pervasive in so much contemporary popular culture.

Charlie Wilson's War

Thank god for Philip Seymour Hoffman and what a strange history of carelessness we have here in these United States is all I have to say about this otherwise forgettable movie. While womanizing is a step in the right direction, I'm still waiting for a really cut-loose evil Tom Hanks.

The Farnsworth Invention + Hairspray

Last weekend, I brought my parents down to New York City on the occasion of my father's 60th birthday. I was hoping to give my parents the royal New York treatment, but successful planning was badly impaired by work - a constant thorn in my side, where I can't find time in my life to be nearly as thoughtful as I would like. On top of that, the weather was absolutely horrendous, below freezing, sleeting, with a pile-up of snow and ice making New York City streets hazardous. Add to that the holiday crowds, and a perfect weekend was quickly downgraded to just pretty nice.

We did get a chance to take in Aaron Sorkin's new Broadway production, The Farnsworth Invention. Starring Hank Azaria, the play relates the story of the invention of television, depicted as a competition between one of the first media moguls, NBC-founder David Sarnoff, and a genius-hayseed inventor from Utah, Philo T. Farnsworth. Immersed in its historical context, well-staged, generally light and funny, the play was good, worth your half-off TKTS admission, if you can get it. The only quibble I had was the very odd and over-the-top scene invented by David Sarnoff, which was both anti-climactic, off-beat, and insanely melodramatic.

As the weather prevented us from venturing to far afield in the city, we caught a Sunday afternoon matinee of Hairspray. What can you say about "Good Morning Baltimore," "The Nicest Kids in Town," and "You Can't Stop the Beat"? I dislike musicals, but if you're going to see a musical, I guess this one is the one to see. Even three ex-teen heart-throbs and a crowd full of fourteen year old girls wasn't enough to damn it.

Don't Stop Believin'

The annual year-end Best Of conversations are starting to tumble out, and the culture nerd in me is excited. Given that I didn't watch The Sopranos, I was a little bemused by Jody Rosen's decision on Slate to lead off her year end discussion with Journey... and more concerned that the YouTube clip was actually both really tepid and dorky. Because that song really does rock. Which closing a night of karaoke out a few weeks ago at Lulu's in Brooklyn with "Don't Stop Believing" only reinforced. That said, given that the song endures, there isn't a parallel logic that says ridicule of Journey shouldn't also endure. Because they were a ridiculous band. I wish I could find that clipping from the Eggers comic strip about Journey that ran in the SF weekly papers in 1996. Damn it!

Funny how out of touch I am with any year-end music list that focuses on singles. Since I routinely visit a very narrow sliver of the rock world with reverence, I definitely find myself out of step with the goings on in pop and hip-hop, and a little uncertain about the enduring qualities of a lot of the hits. In the same way that Journey endures as an alcohol fueled sing-along, so do Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" or House of Pain's "Jump Around." Doesn't make them necessarily important or interesting, outside of the strictly populist sense. And just because most people can't sing along to "The Weight" or "Common People" or "Psycho Killer" or "Back to the Lake" (god help me if I ever find that in a karaoke bar...) doesn't mean I'll stop singing it.

In the meantime, awaiting the rest of the lists that come out that will simultaneously drive me insane and drive me to go directly to Other Music.

Five from Hannah Cole

Hannah Cole. I don't know her, but I like her paintings, from the windows of cars.

Another Night of Vomiting With Yo La Tengo

ED, TL, and LC drove out to Maxwell's on a cold and rainy evening to see the 6th night of YLT's Hanukkah celebration. After circling Hoboken twice in search of parking, we finally made it to the club. We grabbed a bite to eat, and then ducked into the backroom to catch the last three or four songs of Redd Kross' set. Heather Lawless then came on, and she was OK (the Variety Shac stuff is more charming, I think). TL slipped out mid-set. Then YLT came on. It was hot in the club. TL had come back, but LC left. After a while, TL went to find out what was wrong. YLT opened with a cover of "Eight Days A Week." They played a great version of "Autumn Sweater" and the droned-out but rhythmic sprawl of "Pass the Hatchet." TL had not come back. LC had not come back. ED and I went to find out what was wrong. Food poisoning!

If this was the first time that a guest had been poisoned at a YLT show, I wouldn't hold it against them. But it's not! (We don't blame Maxwell's. ED and I were fine. We blame Joe's Pub.)

In the meantime, satisfy yourself by reading Ira's blog about the shows, or this interview with James from AllMusic.com. Key quote:

JM: It's pretty shocking. In America, maybe above any other country in the world, people will just talk during a show. When I go out to see bands play, people will just talk through the whole thing. And text. Actually, texting isn't so bad just because it doesn't make any noise. It still boggles my mind that people will pay $20 each to get into a show and talk the whole way through it. When I'm elected mayor, I will make that...well, certainly a ticketable offense. Maybe more. I haven't decided exactly what the punishment would be for that.

And, yes, I can refer to them by first name like I know them because, goddammnit, I once awkwardly introduced myself to them at the Commonwealth bar. So there. And now I'll fall asleep to "And Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out."

The Whalehunt + Basik Group's City of Light

There was a point where I may have been skeptical of Jonathan Harris' self-stylization as an internet artist or digital artist or whatever, but he consistently produces elegant, dense, engaging pieces that fully utilize the potential of Internet as medium. His latest, The Whalehunt, is well worth a look.

Basik Group's holiday gift contained a link to their City of Light project, which I found to be another altogether charming and worthwhile use of the internet.

Inside Fashion

"Sales are more important than media" - MM, Fashion Designer.

THAT'S MY BOY!!!

Relationship Between Money and Problems

Dear readers -- well, I won't be posting much until later this month, my life has been consumed by the devil work. Will try to push a few things out this week, mostly the November reading and raves lists, and maybe a few notes on recent activities (tonight's YLT concert, for example). So, until then, you'll have to be satisfied with this chart, and the unyielding maxim "Mo Money, Mo Problems." Graphical illustration of other such bits of wisdom can be found here, courtesy MC.

The November Raves List

Hooray for Henry!

Music
I'm Not There Soundtrack
Stands for Decibels, the dBs

Movies
No Country for Old Men
Grizzly Man (DVD)
Out of Sight (DVD)

Books
Giraffe, J.M. Ledgard
Planet of Slums, Mike Davis
Faceless Killers, Henning Mankell

Food & Drink
Little Dishes, Brooklyn, NY

Misc.
Grails at Knitting Factory / the return of WS
Black Watch
Fat Suits
HH Modern Art Lecture
Weekend in SF
Thanksgiving in RI / Thanksgiving eve's train ride
The arrival of Henry Emmet! (technically, December!)

The November Reading List

Faceless Killers, Henning Mankell
Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
Planet of Slums, Mike Davis
Giraffe, J.M. Ledgard
The Best American Poetry of 2007

This write-up is past due, and as it creeps further past deadline, I can only guess that I don't really want to write it. Not because the books I read this month were bad. They weren't. They ranged from the really excellent (Giraffe) to the good (Planet of Slums, Faceless Killers) to the grudgingly good (Amsterdam) to the about as good as I expected it to be (The Best American Poetry of 2007). I really have no excuse for balking at this, beyond over-work and holiday malaise. So here goes.

I've already written about J.M. Ledgard's debut novel Giraffe. It was everything I like in a novel - cleanly written, mysterious, elegant, smart, relating the bizarreness of our worlds, internal and external, with the drabness of our worlds. Read it.

Planet of Slums was an onslaught of dispiriting statistics, anecdotes, and analyses of macro-development trends, also very good, if not exactly heartening. A worthwhile look into what will surely be one of the most relevant and emotionally affecting stories of development in the next fifty years.

I picked up Faceless Killers on a whim in Penn Station, needing a good book to read over Thanksgiving. I had no context for Henning Mankell's murder mystery, set in the ice-blue winter of southern Sweden, and purchased the book solely on the strength of its appealing cover design, dust jacket accolades, and the desire for a wintry murder mystery. Faceless Killers was good in exactly the way murder mysteries are good. It managed to create suspense and an internal propulsion and gravity, from nothing in particular, other than brutal and senseless acts of violence, half-presented and unaccountable facts, speculation, an ensemble of odd, reticent characters, and the anxiety of the movement inherent in solving a mystery (or so I gather). The cold Swedish winter and the political color added by Europe's growing xenophobia in the face of an influx of immigrants and refugees added some, if not significant, texture to the novel. A more than worthwhile travel read.

I liken Ian McEwan's novels to M. Night Shyamalan's movies (I was going to suggest Spielberg, but I would be selling Spielberg short) -- accomplished, displaying an absolute mastery of form, engaging from start to finish, marvelous in construction, but more than a little contrived, and leaving me without a clear sense of purpose, at novel's end. So with Amsterdam. I can't dis-recommend the novel. It was good, generally interesting. It's necessary trope, at the novel's climax, was more than a little forced, and other than painting touches of the general anxiety of aging and nodding its head at the machinations of modern political intrigue, I'm not entirely sure what was holding the center of the novel. Probably nothing.

In this season of Best Ofs, well, you get a good sense of their worth. Compendiums for the uninitiated. Something to thumb through for those with a sense for what they like. So with The Best American Poetry of 2007. Not entirely clear why this is a recommended purchase over simply picking up a literary quarterly, but, hey, it wasn't bad, either.

The Best American Poetry 2007

While I think it is pretentious to sit in a bar (or on a train) and discuss poetry, if you are not a poet, I still do it anyhow. I am one of the very few people I know (RM and MP being the only others that come to mind), who actively care about and consistently engage with poetry. And, for good or bad, we have largely different tastes in this regard.

When it comes to poetry, I tend to like a few different kinds of poems. I enjoy poems that are written because the poet loves language - ranging from the clever, surprising, or inventive use of words to poems that are mostly just about the sounds of the words, treating them less as vessels of meaning, and more as things, that you might drop from a third story window, just to see what happened. I like poems that shine a light, that reach through time and space to allow you, the reader, and him/her, the poet, to share a moment of recognition, understanding, wonder, joy, or clarity. I do not, however, tend to like maudlin poems. I like poems that rattle a conceit, be it poetic, linguistic, literary, metaphysical, or whatever, in order to project a world. I tend to prefer a spare poem to a dense one, but I will take density if it offers entertainment.

I do not tend to read anthologies of poetry, more often flipping through magazines, and diving deeper into the body-works of poets who engage me. So, it was a bit of a whim that I bought The Best American Poetry of 2007, and I have to say, I was largely disappointed. A lot of poems, few of them bad, but only a handful really hit home. Here is a sampling of a few of my preferences:

Scumble by Rae Armantrout

What if I were turned on by seemingly innocent words such as "scumble," "pinky," or "extrapolate?"

What if I maneuvered conversation in the hope that others would pronounce these words?

Perhaps the excitement would come from the way the other person touched them lightly and carelessly with his tongue.

What if "of" were such a hot button?

"Scumble of bushes."

What if there were a hidden pleasure
in calling one thing
by another's name?

A Voice From The City by Louis E. Bourgeois

And why, Nephew, does this engine make you sad?

The night before the Communists invaded the city my uncle sat at the
stone table and was transfixed by a dozen ripe bananas lying there.
"Aren't they wonderful, Nephew? Isn't it wonderful that we should
have such fruit in our house? We are luckier than all the kings who ruled
over Cambodia -- they could have all the bananas they wanted but as
sated as they were, they could never eat them." My uncle was not an
optimist; he had simply grown unclear in the head. He didn't sleep, he
sat up all night at the stone table staring at the bananas -- two days later
they dragged him to the outskirts of town and shot him in the face for
wearing eyeglasses.

1975

Etymology by Marilyn Nelson

The filth hissed at us when we venture out --
always in twos or threes, never alone --
seems less a language spoken than one spat
in savage plosives, primitive, obscene:
a cavemob nya-nya, limited in frame
of reference and novelty, the same
suggestions of what we or they could do
or should, ad infinitum. Yesterday
a mill girl spat a phrase I'd never heard
before. I stopped and looked at her, perplexed.
I derived its general meaning from the context,
but was stumped by the etymology of one word.
What was its source? Which demon should we thank
for words it must be an abomination to think?

Learn English

Three sections of YouTube that are enjoyable wastes of time when you are bored.

1. "Banned Commercials"


2. "Real-life Fights"


3. "Pavement Videos"

Gorilla Suit

I caught up with JWW for a brief moment the other night to return the cell phone he left in the back of a cab. Suited up and overworked, I must have been a sight. JWW asked "Why don't you just go into advertising? They pay well, and it's more fun." Why don't I go into advertising?

Expectations of a Kentuckian

Ian Svenonious interviews Will Oldham (and Chan Marshall and Kevin Shields and Mark E. Smith and so on and so on...) on an internet TV channel that I've never heard of before... Ultra-hip gets totally wired.

EDIT: Oh, fuck this. I should read further -- VBS is VICE magazine, dominating the uber-hip landscape for ever and ever... ah, well.

No Country For Old Men

Went down to BAM with ED last weekend to see No Country For Old Men. Having not read the novel and been underwhelmed by the last few Coen brothers' movies, in comparison to my always high standards for them, I didn't have much by way of expectation. I must say that I always admire the dark humor that the Coen brothers use to line their violence, and their return to Texas was welcomed. While they might not be as vital as they were in their earlier films, the Coens have certainly mastered the period piece, at least when the period is the 80s or early 90s. Combined with the strange temporal context in which their films get absorbed, the desolate landscapes of West Texas form an evocative backdrop for the brutality and general weirdness of Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem's cat-and-mouse game. Tommy Lee Jones' weathered face and odd, funny ramblings, adds a third distinctive performance to the film, and the off-tempo philosophical coda ("some things happen for no reason / but obey the same calculus"), while somewhat disappointing in its lack of avenging bloodbath, provided an excellent close to the movie. That's my rambling take: Worth your while.

Something in the Ordinary

Five from Eggleston. Can't say that I'm finding it, but I'm glad someone did.

The White Men and the Indians

It's been a strange few weeks. KS noticed (I'm not sure anyone else did) that I haven't been posting much. Mostly, I've been working -- pretty much (and literally) from 9 am to 11 pm every Monday through Friday, and then stints on the weekends. Why? It's hard to say. At its core, something to do with pride, I guess. That when you make a commitment, you see it through. All in service of a corporate website, so it makes it hard to justify in big picture terms. Put another way, the picture keeps getting smaller.

With that as my maudlin backdrop, a few strange things have unsettled the strain and tumult of the past few weeks. A correspondence renewed over Facebook and email with one of the few friends from high school with whom I shared sensibilities was left hanging when I got word through the small-town grapevine that he had died suddenly in Colombia. RIP, ABS. Very strange to look at the last un-replied to email.

Catching up with BS over Thanksgiving, at the Knitting Factory, to see his band play. A friend of over nine years, and strange that, from the audience, I couldn't recognize him. Over dinner later in the week, we caught up and it was great -- one of the real pleasures in my life are my friends, and the ease with which old friendships can be continued, even after years absence. Long may that run.

Running into two old friends on an over-crowded Amtrak train to New England on Thanksgiving eve, and taking the excuse to get a little more drunk on that long ride home (which then continued on into the night with my father and our friend from Nepal).

Thanksgiving dinner with my family and the Ps, which has turned into quite a wonderful tradition -- truthfully, five generations at the table (three of theirs, two of ours) -- and the accompanying conversation, at which I seem to have to play the fulcrum, but in which everyone plays a role. Food was great, people was great, even if the evenings, as we push on into the years, are draped in the garments of getting older: age-wrought changes in memories and expectations.

Still, a lot to be thankful for, and I'm glad that I can continue to celebrate this particular holiday in New England, where it feels most right.

Zidane et Platini

Why? Because its easy, sure. Certainly not because of the French techno (who the hell scores these videos, anyhow?) But mostly for Platini's goal at the 2:04 mark. Wow.

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

I loved the premise of this article, but didn't like the article itself. I'd buy multiple DVD compilations of great moments in banter -- from the odd, unfortunate breakdowns, to transcendent moments, to the just plain unusual. Of contemporaneous indie rockers (i.e., who I go to see in concert most often), the best performers for on-stage banter would be Malkmus and Craig Finn, of the Hold Steady, in runners-up position, and the legendary Bob Pollard holding the title aloft. That's my opinion.

Another reason for loving this article is this pretty great Elvis clip. Watching a performer who died before I have any context for them is really interesting... and substantively different from watching a performer who just happened to have his prime before my time. I feel like I have a good sense for Bob Dylan or even the Beatles, as performers, but very little for the magnetism of Elvis or, say, Hendrix.

Fat Suit

Why do it? Why fly to San Francisco, on a Friday night, on the last flight out of JFK, for the weekend? Why rent a car, sit in traffic on 101, and then show up at a dingy karaoke bar in the outer Mission at 1 AM in time to join MM for the chorus of "Hound Dog?" Why get open-hand slapped in the face by CC, at 3 AM, and then when you show CC the blood on your face, get slapped again? Why stay up to 4 AM, trying on a hand made fat suit, and then wake up early the next morning to finish making a second one? Was it worth it? Well, JWW has the tapes. We'll soon find out.

One thing I know for sure: when Baby M shows up, I hope it provides more occasion for impromptu and lightly advised cross-country flights, not less. We don't have to stay out all night, but we'll make baby a star.

The San Francisco trip was a success, for all of the reasons mentioned above, including a full day filming in the cold rain in Noe, a little blood spilled, a chance to reprise the great SPR motifs -- me shirtless and full-bellied, CC jogging, JJK's heavily orchestrated set pieces, oddly homosexual (through rarely erotic) reveries, low-fi props, hand-drawn storyboards, and no audio or video coverage shot. And, of course, a lesson learned.

And the trip was no less a success for seeing ready to burst EM, newly-minted SF-er EBC, JT, CC (who is sorting our her man-troubles, nice work!), MF, ES, and the whole crew. It's hard to have your heartstrings tugged just a little... across the country. Ah, well. We'll just have to reprise, once the M's have strengthened their numbers by one.

A quick of-interest note from the Wikipedia page for 'Fat Suits:'

It [a fat suit] is also used in the training of attack dogs.

Could this possibly be a good idea? Is there any way that attack dogs don't have a higher incidence of attacking fat people?

Giraffe

From the back cover:

In 1975 secret police dressed in chemical warfare suits sealed off a zoo in a small Czechoslovakian town and orchestrated the slaying of forty-nine giraffe, the largest captive herd in the world.

Such is the premise for J.M. Ledgard's outstanding first novel, Giraffe. I am completely enamored of the novel, and may have only one quibble -- which is that while exposing the inhumanity and illogic of totalitarian (or, specifically, Communist) regimes has not slipped fully into irrelevance, it also lacks the immediacy that it once had. Beyond that, the novel is a gem: dreamlike in its prose, alternating passages charged with lyrical, political, and personal reflection, quiet desire, and electricity. The elements that I love best about prose writing and novels find a confluence in Giraffe: an elegant and understated style, a narrative that bends and blurs the edges of reality, without ever forcing us into the territory of the incredulous, an intense, indirect engagement with deep questions, and grounding it all, tethers to science, politics, and those utterly human things that drive the world, and provide the framework for those things that drive our hearts forward. Baroque praise, I'm sure, but well-earned. Giraffe is easily one of my favorite novels of the past few years.

Musical Theater

My intention was to see more theater. Actors, treading the boards. Sweat and spittle and human emotions. What I had foolishly imagined, when purchasing tickets for the Civilians' Gone Missing at a little downtown theater and Black Watch at St. Ann's Warehouse, was grit. Stark, raving grit. Maybe something akin to the time when Charlie took the nerds of Head of the Class to see a production of Hamlet, and it was modernized, and vital, and harrowing, and terrible. What I was expecting was something like that, minus the modernized, and the terrible. What I got, instead, were two very engaging and enjoyable performances, but, both, surprisingly musicals!

Eventually, I am going to praise both shows. First, I am going to state my shock and dismay that everything these days, apparently, has to be a musical - with both song and dance, even if the dance is Devo-inspired. I guess it's 2007. I guess, and I think ED laughed as she said it, I should read the reviews. I was trying not to spoil anything.

So, Gone Missing. This show had two non-performance related highlights. First, JWW and JZ, who came down from the slumberbs to join me at the show, well, what's the best way to describe their behavior? Like released prison inmates? Sailors on furlough? They hit the city around 5, I gathered, and by the time I met them for dinner at 7, the were tipsy. Two margaritas and dinner later, when we rolled into the theater, they were ready for naps. And they did not hesitate in taking them. Not even to be disturbed by the second highlight, the gaggle of ladies directly behind us, who put their bodies' alcohol content to the use of loudly commenting on how good a performer their sister was, throughout the show. Now, these two highlights were complemented nicely by the show, itself. Their sister, who I believe played the Puerto Rican junk yard owner, among people, was excellent. And the dream-like qualities of the non-linear narrative arcs allowed my friends to drift in and out of the show with little damage done.

About Gone Missing, in brief. The shows origin, as I understand, comes from a multitude of taped interviews that the troupe conducted with people - family, friends, acquaintances, strangers - asking the question "What have you lost?" The lost thing having to qualify as a thing, not a loved one or a memory. The show then compiled the best of those interviews, with the six players, three men and three women, occupying the roles of multiple characters, intertwining their fragmented narratives with songs, a re-enacted Terry Gross interview, and a few off-kilter dance numbers. Each wearing a nondescript gray suit, all against the backdrop of an empty stage. All in all, I enjoyed the show quite a bit. The character sketches and anecdotes were compelling, sometimes sad, sometimes touching, sometimes funny. The performers were all talented, and inhabited their charges with ease.

Black Watch was also an engaging performance, although quite a different production. ED and I were pleased to see Liam Neeson and a somewhat suspect Tom Wolfe-like character (must every bird-like, white-haired man in a white suit be Tom Wolfe?) in the audience with us. The play, performed by the National Theater of Scotland, recounted the experiences of the Black Watch, one of Scotland's army regiments with a long and illustrious history, through their tours of duty in Iraq, ultimately ending in the disassembling of the regiment.

Told largely from the perspective of the young soldiers comprising a unit in the regiment, both during and after their tours of duty in the war, the play takes its power largely from the pitch-perfect performances of the soldiers -- young, rough, but jaded by and guarded due to their wartime experience, reflective in uneven measures, emboldened and scarred both -- and a riveting climax sequence which relates a scene in which the patrol of the young soldiers, up until now largely spectators in the war, fall victim to a car-bomb attack on their patrol. As the opening lines of the play relate, most people already have their mind made up about this war. I don't know if this play will likely change anyone's mind, but it does a wonderful job of relating the story, theatrically, from the inside. The play is also extremely effective in placing the regiment's role in the war in the context of its proud history, and its changed relationship to the Scottish public, through the overlays of media exposure, political posturing, and a new type of fighting which has changed the nature of armed conflict itself.

A couple of interpretive dance numbers aside (both of which ED found compelling, one of which I found compelling, the other slightly ridiculous), the play was excellent. Liam Neeson did not, however, laugh at any of the lighter moments.

Pulp Cut-Up

Great photos from Thomas Allen

Beard Team USA

1998 was the year I participated in my first (and only) beard growing contest. "Beardenal," it was dubbed, to find out who the grown ass men were. I failed miserably, placing in the scruffy middle of the pack. But it doesn't matter, because that was amateurland. This is for real.


And while we're on the subject, here's a related game for you: Jam Band Fan or Taliban? It is much harder than you might have thought...

Running From Camera

Sometimes genius takes very modest forms:

The rules are simple:
I put the self-timer on 2 seconds,
push the button
and try to get as far from the camera as I can.

Running From Camera

Steve Martin and the Avant-Garde

I have decided my act is going to go avant-garde.
It is the only way to do what I want.
- Steve Martin, "In the Bird Cage," The New Yorker Magazine

The movies that Steve Martin made from 1979 to 1991 comprise one of the funniest, smartest, and in some respects, touching bodies of work, in any form of popular entertainment. The more distance I get from these movies (and I regularly revisit The Jerk, L.A. Story, Three Amigos, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Roxanne, and Trains, Planes, and Automobiles), the better they hold up. For me, what has made these movies incredibly successful has always been Martin's ability to mix innocence and a knowing acknowledgment of the absurd in service of being funny and emotionally honest. The wide-eyed romanticism of Martin's leads paired with the total embrace of the ridiculousness of their situations have allowed Martin to transcend the wink-wink laughs, and create a resonance in exploring deeper themes. The Jerk and, particularly, L.A. Story have been the exemplars of this. The scene in which Martin and Victoria Tennant sneak out during the dinner party, and, as they make love, turn into children walking through a garden -- well, that's always struck whatever romantic chord is buried inside of me.

It was with great interest that I read the essay in the October 29th issue of the New Yorker (abstract online, although I imagine the essay, "In the Bird Cage" will be archived eventually), in which Martin provided a personal recollection of the very beginnings of his comedy career. While I've never quite had the belief or commitment to make it as a performer, I would characterize the way I think about the world as similar to a comedian's, in a lot of ways. Martin's remembrance of finding his way in comedy, and as a performer, have harmonic overtones for the time I spent actively thinking about comedy in college and my early 20s, and relevance to finding life in general. The quote above, written by a 21 year old Martin in the late 60s, lifted from the article, just about sum it up correctly, although even more accurately when paired with the qualification of that quote by a 60-something year old Martin:

I'm not sure what I meant, but I wanted to use the lingo, and it was seductive to make these pronouncements. Through the years, I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with delusions between moments of valid inspiration.

I suppose my lingering delusion is that I am in a protracted moment of charging up, definitely between moments of valid inspiration. Perhaps time for my act to go avant-garde.

If you have an admiration of Martin or an interest in comedy, the article is a worthwhile read: partly because Martin is such an intelligent and articulate comedian, and a decent writer, partly because Martin's comedy blossomed at that wonderful moment in American pop culture when everything else blossomed, after the Beats (and the Beatles), but just before the Summer of Love. For entertainment, I leave you with a few old Steve Martin clips, which will repay in diversion what they cost you in time, and a Lewis Carroll syllogism that Martin quotes in his essay, as a point of inspiration to a young collegian:

(1) No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste.
(2) No modern poetry is free from affectation.
(3) All your poems are on the subject of soap bubbles.
(4) No affected poetry is popular among people of real taste.
(5) Only a modern poem would be on the subject of soap bubbles.
Therefore are your poems are uninteresting.

The October Raves List

Autumn Version, Cold Spring, NY

Music
Night Falls Over Kortedala, Jens Lekman
Let's Stay Friends, Les Savy Fav
Mirrored, Battles

Movies
Michael Clayton
Zidane
An Inconvenient Truth (DVD)
Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (DVD)
The TV Set (DVD)
Match Point (DVD)

Books
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John LeCarre

Food & Drink
Olea, Brooklyn, NY
Flatbush Farm, Brooklyn, NY
Bar Sepia, Brooklyn, NY

Misc.
Chindogu
Jens Lekman at Webster Hall
Yo La Tengo at Brooklyn Lyceum
Fur Cups For Teeth record release party
Seasons changing