Crushing Krisis

Category Archives: consume

(not my) Best Pictures

Friday, February 5, 2010

I love and hate media awards ceremonies like The Grammys and the Emmys.

What are they measuring, really? Whatever is “Best”? Best how? Most commercial? Strongest technically? Most likable?

Voters of the various academies aren’t any more interested in thinking hard about the merits of “Best” than the guy that sat next to you on the bus. They nominate and vote for what they like, and they like what they know.

Does that occasionally highlight the best work in a year or coincide with the zeitgeist? Sure. But one look at the Golden Globes and the Grammys tells us that’s not necessarily the case.

The Oscars are the one set of awards that can still excite me. The one that at least nominates the most worthwhile performances and works, even if some genre fare slips through.

However, equal to that excitement, the Academy Awards also introduce skepticism to my film diet. I love a great many event movies, serious movies, and indie movies, but I have a contentious history with Best Picture nominees. It’s a good year if I like 2/5 of them.

Maybe it’s because I already pre-judge movies pretty harshly – before they get heaped with incongruous praise. If I haven’t seen a movie before it gains steam as an Oscar front-runner I become commensurately more skeptical that it’s actually any good. I enjoy being proven wrong (The Queen, Juno), but more often my prophecy is fulfilled and I’m either ambivalent (Michael Clayton) or I hate the movie (The Wrestler).

In this year’s field of ten (of which I’ve only seen the pair of sci-fi flicks) that movie is The Hurt Locker. It may be great; I haven’t seen it. However, my sneaking suspicion is that it will be a tedious movie about THE REAL WAR (TM).

I guess I’ll see. Eventually.

(Seeing only the sci-fi flicks in cinemas is characteristic, as I hardly ever pay theatre prices to watch talking heads. I can safely say neither were best.)

(Okay, maybe Avatar, but not the heavy-handed, lazy bullshit of District 9. )

What should win? I’ll tell you next year, when I’ve seen most of them.

What might win? If Avatar doesn’t neatly sweep it will be splitting heavily with Hurt Locker, leaving an outside shot for one of the smaller films which isn’t too similar (i.e., District 9 and Up are both splintering Avatar votes just on genre/style).

What am I rooting for? I already know I universally despise Coen Brothers movies, and I could care less about Push, so of the remaining films I suppose I’m pulling for Tarantino, even though I suspect I won’t like his movie very much. I suspect I’ll like An Education the best of them all.

For what it’s worth, this was my take on 2008:
- Benjamin Button, my favorite director and lead actors, but it was shitty, pointless, and overlong.
- Frost/Nixon, a decent documentary that was really a movie.
- Milk, stunning, beautiful.
- The Reader, still avoiding, sounds soul-crushing.
- Winner, Slumdog Millionaire, a middling crowd-pleaser.

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Tuesday Tech Links

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Here’s the techier side of the links I re-remaindered out of last night’s remainders post.

Why did Duke Nukem’ Forever take forever? I’ve read some great articles on this vaporware legend (my fav example of which I cannot seem to track down), but none with a line so succinct and close-to-home as this one:

t’s a dilemma all artists confront, of course. When do you stop creating and send your work out to face the public? Plenty of Hollywood directors have delayed for months, dithering in the editing room. But in videogames, the problem is particularly acute, because the longer you delay, the more genuinely antiquated your product begins to look — and the more likely it is that you’ll need to rip things down and start again.

Substitute “pop music” for “video games” and you have the story of Chinese Democracy, or my long-promised LP. (Via Daring Fireball).

Indie acousta-rocker Scott Andrew got tired of trying to sync his blog to MySpace, so he wrote an app for that.

I’ve been seeing little boxes from LaLa on just about every blog albums-of-the-year/decade list, proffering handy audio samples. Apparently Apple just bought the La^2, and in the process scuttled a longstanding CD swap service. This is notable because they backed out of it in (what I considered to be) an apologetic, helpful fashion. Take note, MySpace/iMeem.

Via Contentious: An E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy charts what personal info different eBook services can track. This chart should be combined with “An E-Book Buyer’s Rights” guide that talks about what privileges can be rescinded by each service. For example, if you replace your Kindle it will not reload your purchased periodicals.

(For the record, I am anti-eBook – if I wanted to read something I don’t own from a screen I’d just keep sitting in front of my laptop.)

Also via the same Contenious post: Backupify to back up your Twitter, FaceBook, and Gmail … for free. That is, sign up for it now, get a grandfathered freebie account even when the service switches over to a paid model. Quote from Backupify president: “[S]torage is cheap while customer acquisition is very expensive.”

Smart guy.

In a similar vein: Download videos from YouTube with Gazzump I come and go on the usefulness of this service. I used to want to sit on my own personal archive of everything. While I still feel that way about my audio collection, I think I’ve sacrificed video to the cloud. Still, handy.

Finally, not strictly a tech link, but: The Flag of Earth.

Also filed in games, linkylove | | Comments (0)

Daily Demo: Falling Slowly (Live @ Rehearsal)

Monday, December 14, 2009

A few weeks ago Gina and I convened to brush up on our originals for the impending annual Shubin Theatre Holiday Revue, and in the process caught one of our newer covers on virtual tape.

The song is “Falling Slowly,” the Academy Award winning tune from Once.

Gina saw Once early in its theatrical run – before I had even heard of it. The next day she came to rehearsal and said, “I have to play you this song.” She proceeded to unfurl a beautiful, played-by-ear version of “Falling Slowly.” She narrated her way through: “Here the woman starts singing a higher harmony part.” “And, you see, in the chorus he goes up for falsetto -the lines cross.”

I was enamored with the song immediately, though less so when I heard the warbling official version from the soundtrack. I filed it in the back of my head as something to try as Arcati Crisis at a later date.

That later date came this summer, as we were casting about for some new covers to learn. “What about,” I queried with caution, “playing ‘Falling Slowly’?”

Gina was all over the opportunity, with the caveat that this was to be my chance to sing a song without playing guitar. Which sounds like a nice vacation, but it is actually TERRIFYING – partially because the song is tricky and I sing better harmony while I am playing guitar, but also because I’m simply not used to singing without an instrument (aside from karaoke, which is a different beast).

This live @ rehearsal demo of the song finds us at a late stage of the rehearsal process – we’ve worked out the road-map and harmonies, but we’re still fine-tuning the blend between our voices. We’ll debut our performance of it this Saturday at the Shubin Theatre.

Falling Slowly (Live @ Rehearsal): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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It’s good enough for whales, dude.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

We just got through sitting in our parked car eating dumplings, a queer little Saturday night date in the midst of this insanity of rock shows and serious theatre and made up awards.

Based on two visits, I love nearly everything from Vanessa’s Dumpling House on Eldridge Street, but my shrimp dumplings were not what I expected. I’m not sure what that expectation was, but it wasn’t a dumpling with dozens of teeny shrimp all nestled inside with no seasoning to speak of.

Ever since I saw District 9 I’ve been a little leery of shrimp eating, and the dumpling of a thousand shrimps was not making the shrimp-eating experience any less ooky.

I turned to E for some comfort.

P: These dumplings have, like, thousands of tiny shrimp inside of them. It’s a little creepy.
E: Like sea monkeys!
P: You’re not helping.
E: Or krill!
P: Okay, now I’m done.
E: Hey, it’s good enough for whales, dude.

E and the band were pretty good, although I can already tell she’s not going to like the video because she wasn’t happy with her vocals (she’s been pretty sick since Thursday). Every time I mention a good spot she has a bad spot to match.

I’m always inconsolable after a performance, for better or for worse. Either I know in my heart it was awful, and no coaxing can convince me otherwise, or I’m sure I was excellent and need no further discussion on the topic (Monday being a prime example).

I won’t rattle her cage any further about it being good or not. We’re off to peek into bro’s cast party to catch up with various sibling units before bed.

Also filed in Filmstar, Year 10, elise, food, memories, nyc, stories | | Comments (0)

Tuesday @ Smith’s

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

I stayed late at work last night, ostensibly to head with guitar in tow to the open mic at Time, but ultimately E and I wound up at Smith’s on 19th right above Chestnut. Tuesdays at Smith’s they serve mussels $2 by the dozen.

E and I didn’t understand the methodology at the top of the night, ordering single plates. Gina and Megan later showed up and showed us how it was done: “I’ll have two” “I’ll have three.”

The mussels were good – dressed in a simple, succulent white sauce. No competition with Monk’s or, my favorite, Nodding Head. Ultimately Smith’s is pleasant, but too immersed in the shadow of my building to make me feel like I’m really out anywhere. More like lunch break, circa 8pm.

Afterward I told E that I really needed some pastry. I was craving pastry. I could not live without pastry. So, she drove me to the supermarket, where I bought a cheesecake, a pumpkin pie, cinnamon rolls, and a strudel.

Hopefully I will not consume all of them before the next post.

We’ll see.

Also filed in Philly, elise, food, gina | | Comments (0)

This Is It

Thursday, November 5, 2009

I don’t think I had the right idea about Michael Jackson’s This Is It.

I thought it would be a performance blended with documentary – much like Madonna’s fantastic I’m Going To Tell You A Secret. Really it was neither – none of the songs in the film quite made it to being fully realized production numbers, and aside from brief thoughts from the dancers and band there was precious little behind-the-scenes or direct-to-camera interaction.

I still loved it.

It’s not an easy thing to articulate why. Michael is front and center throughout, leading his entourage through the all-hits set of his impending stadium concert. However, he isn’t in full performance mode. He is dressed down (which is still pretty impressive), frequently just “marking” his vocals (gently singing the top or end of each phrase), and working through his choreography (always amazing; in several instances we’re shown the day-to-day differences in split screen).

All of those were reasons I loved it. As you watch, you realize that any behind-the-scenes iteration of documenting Michael’s “real life” would be no more real than one of his music videos. Michael was real when he was engaged in his creative process, and here we get an unprecedented, unadulterated view of that.

The most breathtaking moments of the film are times when a performance begins or ends with no warning – as when Michael working the background vocals of “Human Nature” gives way to a glorious acappella verse of the song, or when he directs his tiny blonde guitarist Orianthi to shred harder and higher on “Beat It.” The line between personal Michael and performance Michael is eroded.

The film is documented by a jarring array of cameras, some high def with perfect angles on the stage, some grainy and far-away – like watching the show on YouTube. For the first few songs I caught myself wondering, They put out a movie of this?. But as This Is It continues I appreciated that it tells the story any way it can.

Since songs were synced to specific tempo tracks (likely from samples or in-ear for the drummer), the filmmakers could piece together the most compelling vocal take across the fiercest band performance, and combine it with video from multiple run-throughs – differentiated by the variety of Michael’s costuming (notably a blinged out Popeye t-shirt, a silver suit jacket with bright red pants, and a peaked-shoulder tuxedo coat that makes him look like Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas).

Unexpectedly, the film finds its greatest success when it incorporates the stunningly crisp background videos shot for the concert. They lend depth and context to the piecemeal performances. A silly take on Thriller falls flat mid-film, but the typically mediocre “Earth Song” is powerful and moving when combined with horrific images of a burnt-out planet.

The best production in the film is undoubtedly “The Way You Make Me Feel,” beginning with Michael adjusting the keyboards by singing the part note-for-note to his band, and giving way to a stunning digital backdrop of the dance-troupe lazing across a multi-story scaffold, silhouetted by the rising sun. Michael delivers one of his most un-marked performances, and you are transported.

Yes, there are familiar eccentricities on display. Jackson is flummoxed when his in-ear monitors are too loud on his first run through a Jackson 5 medley, seemingly nearing a breakdown before the director explains that the volume can simply be turned down. He gives music direction in a peculiar blend of vocal percussion and descriptions of texture, which often seem to leave the vocal director and band-leader puzzled, promising they’ll figure it out later.

All the big hits are covered, with few exceptions – no “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” (or anything else from Off the Wall), no “Will You Be There” or “Remember the Time,” and a curious lack of verses on his theme-song “Man in the Mirror.” Otherwise, it’s everything you would expect – the only surprise is the Jackson 5 medley ending on the relatively obscure (for younger fans, anyway) “Shake Your Body Down to the Ground.”

Perhaps the most genuine moment in the film comes when Michael goes all out on the end of “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” with phenom backing vocalist Judith Hill, whose voice is so eerily similar to MJ’s that she is surely doubling him on many of his songs. As she perfectly riffs through the song’s coda the performer in Michael can’t help but follow, egged on by a rapt cadre of dancers in the audience. After finishing out the intense duet, Michael gently admonishes, “You can’t do that to me. I have to save my throat. [To Judith] You’re fine, you’re wonderful. I have to save my throat.”

He smiles, and maybe finishes with “God bless you,” the punctuation on every piece of direction he provides. Every time you hear it you know he means it. This Is It shows Michael Jackson at home the only place he lived his entire life – on stage – and it makes evident not only his prodigious talents but also his depthless gratitude for the people who made it possible – both his crew and his fans alike.

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Our Battlestar Galactica Halloween as Baltar & Head Six

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Last night E and I dressed up as Head Six and Dr. Gaius Baltar, respectively, from the cult Sci-Fi hit Battlestar Galactica.

E is not in Six’s standard spaghetti-strap dress, but Six can be spotted in this style at least once in the series.

Also, note the spot-on bracelet and ring, which E made herself.

My costume was much more subtle, as I was effectively E’s accessory for the night. I simply grew some scruff and slicked back my hair. For fun, I carried two corner-cut Vice-Presidential memos (as we were ostensibly circa seasons one and two – post appointment to VP, but pre swearing-in as president).

One memo was the results of tests with the Cylon Detector. The other was a draft of Gaius’s inaugural speech, complete with parenthetical asides to Head Six (presumably floating over his shoulder in devilish fashion as he wrote it). Writing in the Dr. Baltar voice was very fun.

Out of two parties four people knew who we were. The best comment we received was by far:

I’m not sure who you are, but you both look really sexy. You should introduce yourself as, “Hi, I’m sexy.”

Oh, and SyFy – né Sci-Fi – the purveyors of the show we paid homage to, thought we were “Awesome!”

‘Nuff said.

Also filed in elise, memories, parties, stories, teevee | | Comments (3)

Primer, Primest

Monday, September 28, 2009

I love Primer. Primer Poster A

You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s an obscure, indie, sci-fi movie that’s 77 minutes long with a single special effect, shot on film for under $10,000.

It’s also the 2004 Sundance Grand Jury prize winner, critcally acclaimed, and maybe the best story about time travel ever conceived.

I found out about it in 2005 from Rabi on the day we first set up the DVD player in our house. I bought it that night and watched it three times consecutively.

It’s that kind of movie. I’ve watched it twenty or thirty times since then, almost always two or more times consecutively. It’s one of my favorite films of all time. I want everyone I know to see it, so I can debate it endlessly with them.

(If you have Netflix you can watch it right now, online, for free.)

The problem is, it’s challenging and obscure. For almost half its running time it seems to be about a needlessly-detailed, grown-up, science fair project. The final seven minutes introduce information that alters the rest of the film. By the time you realize its true intrigue, it’s over.

It’s a harder sell than any Nolan film – even though Memento and The Prestige each sketch a close iteration of its plot. Nolan gives the answers and lets you figure out the question. Primer gives you the concepts and let’s you figure out the question.

The answer is not given.

In interviews, writer / actor / director / composer Shane Carruth would say only what the movie was not. He also provided a forum on the movie’s website, where a steadily-increasing number of fans could debate the finer points of the film’s chronology.

(You could also check Wikipedia, but the answer given there is wrong. Maybe. Keep reading.)

Four years went by. Shane closed the forum to new registrants due to a flood of spam and porn. The debate kept churning. And then, something interesting happened: someone solved Primer.

Maybe.

In July 2008 a user posted to the forum that he had solved the Primer puzzle after many dozens of rewatches, and that he was writing a book about it – A Primer Universe. He claimed that he was receiving thousands of requests for the book (never mind that the forum – Primer ground zero – has only 1094 registered users). He claimed that he sent it to Shane and co-star David Sullivan, who both confirmed his theory in its entirety.

Eventually, he posted the book to a blog, leading to other forum users swearing fealty to his theory.

Primer Poster B I read the book. It only makes sense if you have the movie committed to memory. And if you do, it is mind-altering. Game-changing. It completely re-writes the movie, making significant some details that seemed routine and expository. It increases the perceived depth of Shane’s careful plotting exponentially.

If it is real.

This will be the single, most-detailed response to A Primer Universe registered on Google – and I haven’t given any details at all! All other references are mostly on social bookmarking services,a and could have easily been placed by the author. There are no reviews. There is no third party confirmation that Shane or David have read it. There is no evidence of a physical copy ever existing, though he was selling them for some time. The Primer forum users affirming it could be a series of accounts maintained by the author for this exact purpose.

The book itself is a riddle. It could be a fraud. It could even be written and maintained by Shane himself, frustrated that his fans never quite figured out his enigma.

Just like the movie, the riddle of the book is: what is the most prime? It is better to be primer, more prime than the competition.

It’s best to be primest – most prime.

And, when it comes to A Primer Universe it’s as hard to discern its primacy as it is to unravel the cinematic riddle it describes.

Also filed in essays, flicks | | Comments (1)

9 Reasons I Didn’t Like District 9

Sunday, August 16, 2009

I disliked District 9 from the start, but it took until about an hour in for me to reach the “I really might leave this theater” stage.

Mild spoilers, but not as many as the Rolling Stone review.

1. It’s a personal take on sci-fi, except we’re made to dislike the extremely unsympathetic protagonist very early on. A mid-flick attempt to humanize him (pun) didn’t work for me, as he only seemed repentant as a result of his torturous conditions and quickly reverted to being an ass whenever possible.

We’re left with only a vaguely personal connection to a shallowly defined alien sidekick and a well-executed CG tiny alien tot. (The best scene in the movie is when we first visit their home, and find the pair of them to be defiantly intelligent. Well-scripted and -played.)

2. The transition from documentary to omniscient perspective was clumsy – only made worse by continuing use of documentary devices, eventually leading to a transition back to documentary.

3. The documentary portion is too caught up in it’s tasteless racist (speciesist?) humor, and not interested in enough in its characters. Yes, we get it, subhuman treatment of non-humans is a lot like subhuman treatment of people that are different than us. Were you that afraid the theme wouldn’t play to the back row?

(That said, I did love the abortion joke. Most big summer flicks would never go there.)

4. The movie is gross just to be gross. Gore and splatter is one thing, but did we really need the constant vomiting, dripping, severing, and devouring of unsightly food? Again, gimmick in lieu of plot.

5. The major plot maguffin is a complete deus ex machina, which would maybe be forgivable if it wasn’t for all of the antogonists being completely fucking obsessed with the effects of said maguffin.

6. There isn’t a single good bit of dialog in the entire movie, which leaves the audience to be dragged along for the (yes, frequently compelling) ride rather than strongly engaged and eager to follow. They say “fucking” more than I say “awesome.”

7. Aliens are shown to be viciously strong, except where it doesn’t suit the continually contrived story.

8. The action set pieces just didn’t sizzle – lots of noise and wonderful effects, but the confrontations themselves were one-dimensional.

9. The exploding people trick was just done by Watchmen, though I think it was executed better here. Still, shock value was lost.

I’m in the minority to the tune of 80/20 per the TomatoMeter; the review I agree with most completely is Vancouver Voice:

It’s a bore. Blomkamp offers up an ugly world, poorly photographed. There is more debris, more smudged faces, more gore effects packed into this film than are conceivable in the worlds of, say, Ulli Lommel and Lloyd Kaufman. Worse, nothing happens in this film that the viewer can’t anticipate after the first 15 minutes. It’s mockumentary style is rendered inconsistently since there are scenes shot in mock style but to which the implied filmmakers couldn’t have had access. And, like most so-called science fiction these days, it is really a war story in scientific drag. … [T]he narrative eventually devolves into one of those long CGI fight scenes that at least a portion of the viewing public is finding repetitious and uncreative. The film is also achingly obvious in its political message.

Biggest plus? Constant subtitling, of both aliens and hard-to-understand humans. I’ve been watching movies with subtitles for over ten years; I’d watch every movie and tv show that way if I could.

Also filed in critique, flicks | | Comments (5)

breakfast of champions

Saturday, July 18, 2009

I’m awake at 8am, just like any other day of the week.

I briefly debated if I should eat some sort of special pre-jump meal, but given my general lack of stomach for breakfast it seemed like an unnecessary temptation of fate to eat anything unusual before skydiving. I settled on my favorite meal and number one comfort food, Special K Red Berries with Silk Soy Milk.

(ps: Why is it called “Red Berries” when it only has strawberries in it? Wouldn’t you say that strawberries are the red berry with the strongest draw? Like, “OMG, I’m going to get some red berries today, I hope there’s some strawberries in there!” Did some other cereal copyright “strawberries”? Anyhow…)

I’m also a bit torn about how to style my hair and what underwear to wear – two factors that are clearly not going to have a net effect on my jumping experience

A few months ago I was yelling at my mom for not having a living will. The most dangerous thing she does is perpetuate a three-decade long smoking habit. So, jumping out of a plane made me feel like a bit of a hypocrite for not putting any affairs in order.

(PS: No one, under any circumstances, should tell my mom I am skydiving. This is one of those occasions that justifies my blocking her on Twitter. If she finds out she will hit me with the Italian fear/guilt combo so fast and hard that I won’t even let the man strap himself to my back, let alone jump off of anything with him. Anyhow…)

On the off-chance I die today, here’s all that I could think of while I was brushing my teeth:

I don’t like coffins. I want to be disposed of in a green way where the earth can just reclaim me. If that’s not readily available in Pennsylvania I’d want to be donated to science – with the caveat that they can’t dissect or otherwise alter any of my boy parts, because that is just weird.

I don’t like funerals. We went to a beautiful wake for Wes’s father last year that was full of music and might not have mentioned the “G” man even once. I really liked that.

If I get killed doing this I blame Drew’s cancer.

I didn’t get to far past that, because (a) I don’t think I’m going to die (and would like to keep it that way so, please mom, no calls), and (b) I was really hungry for that bowl of Special K.

I’m going to go take a shower now, and mull more over the hair and underwear dilemma.

Also filed in blamedrewscancer, day in the life, food, mom, religion, thoughts, vanity | | Comments (1)

not-so-prompt prompts

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

In my Google Reader I have a tag called “PROMPT” that I affix to posts that made me think or feel something that I might like to share on CK.

I’ve discovered that prompts are best served fresh – ideally I should be writing a post about that intangible thought or feeling within a day or two of having it.

There are presently prompts on my list from as long ago as September. That is scary. It is sitting in the way of me being prompted to tell you about new thoughts or feelings. I need to flush out all my prior prompts so I can post about prompts promptly when they prompt me.

Let me see if I can string some together in a way that makes sense to us both.

Spezify is a visual search engine, but that doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. Spezify searches the web for text, photos, and social media mentions of your search term, and arrays the results in a collage on your screen. It’s a great way to catch a quick snapshot of a person, place, musical artist, or brand. See what it has to ~~say~~ show and tell about crushing krisis or Philadelphia. Link via Fresh Arrival.

The imitable Maggie of Mighty Girl posted about her husband’s project, Typekit. Typekit seems to still be in a closed alpha, but the gist of it is that it allows you to dynamically embed text in any font onto any webpage, regardless of if you (or the end user) has that font. You can follow the development on the Typekit blog.

In my humble opinion, Mighty Girl continues to be one of the definitive personal blogs on the internet.

Geekadelphia (an excellent blog) recently posted a mammoth interview with J. C. Hutchins. Hutchins parlayed the net-success of his podcasted 7th Son trilogy into a publishing deal and subsequent tangible book. Said book – Personal Effects: Dark Art – comes complete with an intricately crafted alternate-reality game component that expands the narrative far past the boundaries of the book. Probably the next piece of fiction I will read, and setting the bar high for the next evolution of the novel.

(PS: M. Hutchins dropped by to comment less than twenty minutes after this was posted. Nice to see his publishing deal hasn’t changed his net savvy :)

Matthew Sheret (who I found via Warren Ellis) is a writer and photographer with an intriguing list of projects. I am fascinated by his recent post This is a Souvenir, in which he details writing songs for an imaginary band, and how he’d like to take it a step further and have an imaginary record label.

I love that sort of thing – a simulacrum of the footprint left by actual media, but in the absence of said media.

(Speaking of Ellis, I enjoyed his dissection of what it means to be a “digital magazine,” and how that ought to be different from a bells and whistles flash interface with whosits and whatsists. His point (and mine)? You can change the method of delivery, but “magazine” should still mean “magazine.” But, can “newspaper” still mean “newspaper”? Compare to a recent Conversation Agent post about what happens when your local paper goes entirely online.)

Lane is a remarkable photographer I have been a fan of for a long time. Today she posted an unreal photo of a rainbow seen over the New Mexico desert. Recently she volunteered with Review Sante Fe, a local photography exhibition. She posted a sampling of RSF photographers, and their work was uniformly amazing.

Now that Lane is back in the US I need to buy a print from her.

I saw what was perhaps my first double rainbow ever a few Saturdays ago on the way to E’s show at The Saint in Asbury Park. It was so close it seemed like we could drive right to the end of it.

Also filed in Philly, art, flicks, linkylove, memories, photo, weblinks | | Comments (3)

The Happinomics of Magneto

Monday, July 6, 2009

Today on the bus an attractive, muscle-bound, black man was sitting across from E and I rocking to an unknown sort of music. He was wearing a muscle-shirt version of this Magneto t-shirt.

I turned to E and said, “That guy’s shirt is awesome.” She nodded in agreement.

Then I motioned to the man to take off his headphones.

“Your shirt is awesome.”

“You know who it is?”

“Magneto!”

“Yeah!”

We chuckled at each others fanaticism. He replaced the headphones in his ear and I went back to talking to E.

He smiled until we got off the bus.

Happinomics is an Ad Busters article about how small changes to the way we interact with the strangers around us can make us tangibly happier. In their example, the interaction is talking on the bus.

Also filed in Philly, Year 9, comics, thoughts, weblinks | | Comments (0)

holiday tsunami

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Funkin’ Donuts update: Elise has arrived to appreciate a beet donut, as have a charming pair of older women eating the Fourth of July lunch special.

And suddenly it is hurricane-crazy rain outside. The rain is all you can see in any direction – up the road or over the mountains.

Both of us walked here from the farm, but I have the upper hand, as I am wearing swim trunks.

Unfortunately, I don’t drive, so me walking back to the farm in my swim trunks really only helps me, and it doesn’t help me to get back here with my guitar to record a “Live @ Funkin’ Donuts” video-cast.

Meanwhile, I still have a lot more Vermont milkshakes to drink. I need to get started.

Also filed in day in the life, elise, food, rain, vermont | | Comments (0)

very serious donuts

Saturday, July 4, 2009

It is almost ten in the morning, and I am eating a bacon donut.

Kat and Jeremy currently farm enough to support three or four families, but they have enough eggs to stock said three families, a small market, and a donut shop.

Conveniently, Kat works at a donut shop. It’s actually the nearest landmark to their house, which was convenient on Thursday when we had been driving for eight hours and discovered that state roads in Vermont don’t have a lot of clearly labeled cross streets.

If my biggest weak spot of culinary frivolity is ice cream, donuts are not too far behind. As a kid I would clench my entire body in genuflecting hope every time our car passed the Dunkin’ Donuts. I was under the impression that was the only source of donuts. Like, in the world.

Now, I know better – I know that homemade donuts are a different beast entirely. On certain Fridays my boss brings in a particular kind that – if I should be bold enough to eat a filled variety – causes me to lose my voice for over an hour.

They are serious donuts.

So, when Kat mentioned that she worked part time at (and supplied eggs to) the donut shop down the road, my Fouth of July plans solidified: I would spend the morning eating donuts, perhaps bookended by a tacit jog to and from the shop to give the illusion of offsetting the 1000+ calories of breakfast I’d be consuming.

Such is the story, and here I am at Trademark-Infringement Donuts. I don’t want to advertise the name, as they’ve been flying under the legal radar thus far. Let’s call them “Funkin’ Donuts.”

Here is today’s Funkin’ Donuts menu:

Cinnamon Sugar

Honey Glaze

Maple Caramel

Plum Homer *

Beet Homer *

Chocolate

Maple-Bacon

Lemon-Poppyseed

Orange Sourcream

Cake

* Homer donuts are crafted to look as similar to the legendary Simpson’s donut as possible. The Beet Homer has beet icing. I am eating it presently. It’s great.

However, it is the Maple-Bacon donut that approaches the donut hall-of-fame. It is a plain, circular donut with a middle hole, iced liberally with light-brown maple icing, and sprinkled with bacon sprinkles from local pigs.

My meat-avoidance is pretty specifically predicated on a distaste for pork, but when we’re talking about less than an ounce of bacon from a local pig probably well-cared-for enough that he had a name I can make a brief exception.

And that exception was really, really good.

I’m going to spend the rest of the morning celebrating America by seeing how many donuts I can eat in one day (previously: 10), talking to Kat about her neighbor’s diabetic cat, and plotting a concert I’m going to play in the donut shop when I come back in the fall.

Also filed in Year 9, food, vermont | | Comments (0)

Have an Infinite Summer

Monday, June 22, 2009

Once I was in a very bad place, and also in the hospital, and I asked my mom to walk to B&N to buy me David Foster Wallace’s massive masterpiece Infinite Jest.

It kept me sane through three days in the hospital, and kept me awake at night for another month – which, at my faster-than-light speed of reading, is quite the feat. Try as I might, I could not devour it in a few sittings like I can with any other book. It was a novel that required digestion.

This summer has been declared Infinite Summer, which gives you an entire solstice-to-equinox season to read the book at a snailish increment of 75-pages a week.

As I understand it, your reading will be accompanied by encouraging blog pep-talks like this one from Kottke:

So sure, it’s a lengthy book that’s heavy to carry and impossible to read in bed, but Christ, how many hours of American Idol have you sat through on your uncomfortable POS couch? The entire run of The West Wing was 111 hours and 56 minutes; ER was twice as long, and in the later seasons, twice as painful. I guarantee you that getting through Infinite Jest with a good understanding of what happened will take you a lot less time and energy than you expended getting your Mage to level 60 in World of Warcraft.

Is that more or less haranguing than my Beatles screamo diatribe from last week? I think the Big K was meaner than me.

In any event, it’s a wonderful, maddening read, there are nifty bookmarks bearing the schedule, it makes a wonderful pillow and/or doorstop, and I might re-read it too if I can find a spare moment or two to read the second half of Outliers.

Also filed in books, linkylove, weblinks | | Comments (2)

Play at playing with The Beatles. Or, just play with The Beatles.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The pair of surviving Beatles recently appeared at E3 to hype the impending The Beatles: Rock Band, out on September 9. It represents a remarkable milestone – mass licensing of Beatles songs to a third party, cooperation of all four Beatles estates on new intellectual property, release of new studio chatter from the band, and creating multi-tracked masters of songs originally recorded live in mono or stereo. (see the full fact sheet)

In the game, you and your friends can take the Beatles from the Cavern Club days all the way to the rooftop in your own living room, not mention traipsing through their imagined acid trips. You’ll start out with 45 Beatles songs in-game, but many more will available as downloadable content – starting with the complete Abbey Road.

Assuming you already have a plethora of plastic video game instruments lying around the house, the a la carte game will cost you $100. If you need all of the plastic instruments to go with it, you’ll be dropping $250 for the full kit.

Seems like a bargain to play along with 45 of your favorite Beatles tunes, right?

Not really. Because, if you have an actual instrument lying around the house, you can buy The Beatles: Complete Scores hardcover tome for half the price of the a la carte game and learn how to play the actual music to every single Beatles song.

If you need an actual instrument to go with it, you can pick up a starter guitar or bass package plus the book for about $250 – yes, even including a replica Hoffner bass! (The scores plus drums will run you a bit more – $300-$500).

Herein lies your dilemma. Do you want to have a primary experience with the music you love, or a secondary experience?

If you’re a non-musician, you might argue, “I don’t really have a choice,” but I think you do.

You might argue, “I don’t read music,” yet you’re willing to learn an arcane method of notation in Rock Band that’s not too different from reading guitar tab, which is included in the score book.

You might argue, “I don’t have nimble fingers, a sense of pitch or rhythm, or a decent voice,” yet if you expect to surpass even easy mode on Rock Band you’ll need to hone some or all of those skills just as you would playing actual music. In fact, Rock Band is much less forgiving of mistakes with drumming and vocals than a jam with friends would be.

You might argue, “I don’t have time to practice music enough for it to be worthwhile,” yet you have time to play Rock Band two or three hours a week. That same time would serve you equally well training on an actual instrument. You could probably learn how to play “I Want To Hold You Hand” on guitar in the same time it takes you to reach your first save point.

Convinced yet?

Other Rock Band titles offer the allure of collecting disparate, virtuosically-difficult music into a video game – much of which is impossible to track down as printed music. None of that is true this time around – the music comes from a single source, the virtuouosity is in the ease of playing, and it’s all collected in a single, relatively cheap book. It’s a completely level playing field for anyone – novice to expert.

You can’t say that about any other Rock Band game or for any other artist in the history of music.

Essentially, you have no argument to buy The Beatles: Rock Band other than perhaps, “I already know how to play all 213 originally released Beatles songs, and now I’m bored.”

The game does have some redeeming features in the areas of drumming and singing – the two bits of Beatles that are the hardest to master on your own. Designers worked closely with Ringo to make the game a tutorial for his unique drumming style. Also, the game features a harmony training mode, which will allow you to voice any part in the band’s remarkable multi-part harmonies.

Based on that, if you’re a Beatles-loving singer or drummer starting from scratch I can appreciate wanting to purchase the game for some guidance. If only the game also allowed you to plug in an actual midi-guitar in to test your chops against the recordings … then I’d buy it in an insant!

Otherwise, if you’re a Beatles-lover who wants to experience playing their music yourself, my advice would be to actually play it yourself.

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whiling away the hours

Thursday, May 28, 2009

(1) A few years ago I saw Malcolm Gladwell deliver a speech at the New Yorker Festival that is largely recapitulated in the second chapter of Outliers, called “The 10,000 Hour Rule.”

In it, Gladwell draws our attention to a data point converged upon by countless studies of experts in a variety of fields. He says, “In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” He goes on to quote neurologist Daniel Levitin:

In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. … It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Gladwell supports the rule using Mozart, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, and the Beatles as his examples. Not to say that their genius and success is purely a result of 10,000 hours of practice – the book as a whole explains other facets – just that it was an essential component of their expertise.

(2a) 10,000 hours is a long time.

If as a child starting at age five you had piano lessons two times a week (an hour each) and also practiced an hour a day, you would clock nine hours a week. 468 hours a year. 4,680 hours a decade.

If you kept that up until age 26 you’d finally have served your time.

(2b) 10,000 hours can go by before you know it.

Maybe you got into video games at age 11. You played them every night after homework and dinner, let’s say from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m. on most nights, plus extra on the weekend. That’s more than 25 hours a week. 1,300 plus a year.

You’d be a master by the time you started college. Most kids are.

(2c) Time is relative.

(3) In the car today Gina and I were singing in harmony to the amazing Hezekiah Jones album Hezekiah Says You’re A-OK, on the way to see his band split a bill with the equally fantastic Up the Chain.

“You know, Gina,” I said, breaking from my lead vocal, “I’ve been thinking about this 10,000 hour thing. Not everyone’s an expert at something. I mean, what do most people spend 10,000 hours doing by the time they’re 25? Watching teevee, I suppose.”

“More than likely,” she replied.

“But, think about me. I watched a lot of television, sure. Mostly, though, I read until I was old enough to write, and then I wrote and read. That’s what I spent my 10k on.”

(Perhaps she interjected, “Oh, I remember.”)

“And, you know, is it any surprise that I’m good at communications? I’m not an expert, but no wonder it’s my calling. I spent my whole life practicing for it.”

We sat and sang for a moment, contemplating that.

“What about you?”

Gina paused in her harmony. “Hmm, me?”

“Yeah. What did you spend 10,000 hours doing?”

“This. Listening to music. Singing harmony.”

“Really your whole life, right? Your mother singing, your father playing guitar…”

“Yeah, since I can remember.”

“Right. So, no matter how much I rehearse, you’ll always have the edge. It’ll always come easier to you, until I reach that threshold.”

“I suppose.”

We paused as the song wound down.

“What do you think Hezekiah spent 10,000 hours doing?”

We thought on that for a few moments, and then sang together to “Albert Hash.”

(4) We’re not all Mozart. I might not ever be Hezekiah Jones. But, we’ve all spent 10,000 hours doing something other than sleeping, and hopefully other than watching television. Maybe something incidental that we do out of necessity or habit. Driving? Social-networking? Cleaning? Taking care of children?

I’ve put in more than my share on communications – reading cereal boxes and trashy fantasy novels, writing stories at eight on my manual typewriter and almost nine years of blogs.

I got an early start on 10,000 hours of being Gina’s best friend, which I keep padding. I’m really good at that. More recently I’ve attained well-in-excess of 10,000 hours of being in love with Elise.

I hope eventually I’ll reach my 10,000th hour of serious focus on music. It’s a large piggy-bank of time to fill.

What about you? What have you spent your life mastering, intentionally or unintentionally?

Also filed in Philly, Year 9, betterment, elise, essays, gina, habits, philly music, stories, teevee, thoughts | | Comments (5)

Grudge Match

Monday, May 18, 2009

My friend Rob Baniewicz (of killer improv comedy duo Meg & Rob) shared an article from the Onion A/V Club Q&A titled “Lifetime Grudges.”

The article caught my interest because it’s about lifelong, subjective, sometimes irrational grudges that people develop against artists. Many of the Onion’s regular contributors shared their personal grudge matches, from Sofia Coppola to U2.

Surely you’ve done it. A movie star whose weird mouth-shape you just can’t get past? A musician whose utterly terrible new album forces you to lose faith? The reason doesn’t matter so much. just that they’ve jumped your personal shark permanently, never to return to your good graces.

A few spring to my mind immediately. Alanis Morissette – by her fourth US record she had entirely quit writing catchy, interesting music, so I gave up. Chuck Palahniuk – wrote too many overly-convenient, repetitive books for me to care that he might eventually get better. Jason Mraz – I found his songwriting schtick underhwhelming from the first second I heard him.

The grudge article is an interesting counterpoint to something else that has been on my mind lately: permanent “must-buy” policies. Lifetime subscriptions, let’s call them.

Surely you have these too – an unflinching desire to consume everything by a specific artist. I’ll buy any song by Garbage, watch any movie by David Fincher, and love any print by Mucha, no questions asked. It’s a form of brand-loyalty – these artists appeal to some aspect of your personal aesthetic, and you’ll support them forever for it.

Who is your #1 Grudge, and why? What about your most major undying, devoted subscription? Could the grudge ever (re)earn your trust? Could the subscription ever fall from the pedestal?

Also filed in flicks, garbage, thoughts, weblinks | | Comments (3)

Classic Modern Classics

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

There is a wonderful meme sweeping the illustrators of blogland wherein they render an antiqued paperback cover for a modern classic.

I first caught this meme earlier in the month from the blog of author Martha Wells, who pointed to these clever Harry Potter covers, in the style of classic Penguin books. The same artist – M. S. Corley – also took a shot at Lemony Snicket and Spiderwick. I recommend spending a few minutes with Corley’s blog during which you scroll down to some of his prior work, much of which is fascinating.

However, that one blog didn’t push my to my posting tipping point – I needed a reminder. Earlier today I caught a link from Neil Gaiman for illustrator Mike Baker’s entry for a classic Coraline.

Apparently Baker caught the bug from Spacesick, who rendered covers for cult cinema classics like Back to the Future and Highlander. Some of them are particularly excellent – I might print a set and wallpaper my cube.

Finally, Storyteller’s Workshop offers a primer on how to achieve the effect on your own.

If you have seen this meme elsewhere on the web please point me towards the art so I can update this post or pen a sequel.

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Almost watching the Watchmen

Monday, February 23, 2009

Despite my lengthy jag as a comics fan I was a latecomer to Watchmen. I was certainly aware of it, and the archetypes that it played out, and I had paged through it a few times in book stores or on friends’ shelves. It took me until seeing the magnificent trailer on The Dark Knight to get truly and viscerally interested in the film.

For a while I insisted I would stay completely spoiler free so as to best enjoy the movie version, but we all know my will is weak when it comes to these things. I bought my own copy of the graphic novel at Newbury Comics during my birthday weekend with Erika, and devoured it promptly (it had been long sold-out within the city limits of Philadelphia, at that point).

I concede the masterwork that is the novel, but remain pretty skeptical that the film will pull a Matrix-level March shocker out of the bag – good action films simply don’t come out in March, unless they’re going to be huge sleepers that play through Memorial Day.

All that said, here’s two ends of the spectrum:

(1) Harry @ Ain’t It Cool goes typically apeshit over a clip of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre breaking into a prison – just about the only present-tense action sequence in the entire book. The problem is the clip sucks – the slow-mo is completely overblown, and the score is awful. Watch:

Movie Trailers – Movies Blog

(2) On the other hand, IGN sneaks a overwhelmingly positive Australian review of the flick past the ~~supposed~~ misdirected US press embargo (usually not a good sign, especially for genre flicks).

While other purported reviews are cobbled together based on inferences from the trailer and knowledge of the book, this one seems to be the real deal – more detail about the performances behind Rorschach and Nite Owl, and even acknowledging that Dr. Manhattan’s penis got enlarged for the screen (an overly astute observation – he’s only truly full-frontal a handful of times in the book).

(I wonder if they’ve also kept in the awkward Ménage à trois from Chapter III; that would definitely be ooky on screen.)

Less specifically, Wil Wheaton heartily endorsed it in a spoiler-free review, stating:

Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is as close to a perfect film adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen as we were ever going to see, and when his super-ultimate-here’s-everything cut comes out in the fall, I think it will be perfect. But what I saw yesterday is truly remarkable: a big studio movie adaptation of one of the most — if not the most — important graphic novels of my lifetime that not only didn’t fuck it up, but brought it to life brilliantly.

And, furthermore, so did my fucking television-as-literature idol Jacob Clifton in his FaceBook status of moments ago:

Jacob Clifton liked the movie even more than the comic, yet again. By a lot.

(Stalking? What? Me? I have no idea what you’re talking about.)

So, will it suck, or not? I’m trying to avoid my typical habit of passing judgment before I make it to the theatre next week with Wes and Gina, but I have my doubts that Zach Snyder has the nuance to get past the construction of comic book panel dioramas with no emotions inside. I’ll be quite cheery to be proven wrong.

[Ed. Note: I wound up absolutely loving it in the theatre, though I found the extended Director's Cut unnecessary.]

Also filed in comics, flicks | | Comments (1)

abnormally attracted to sin and debunking bestsellers

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Breaking news: Tori Amos’s new disc will be titled Abnormally Attracted to Sin.

Like, duh, Tori.

However, in the “un-duh” department, each song on the disc – will be paired with a “visualette” shot in HD and Super-8. Amanda Palmer did a YouTube version of same on her last disc, which I dug. And, Tori never does anything half way.

Abnormally Attracted to Sin is the first disc in Tori’s deal with Universal Republic Records, which is primarily for distribution – she won’t be signing away masters or publishing rights ever again.

First disc of a newly freed Tori, who ended her last tour with a full band in fierce form and is coming back with her first integrated multimedia product launch. Preliminary verdict? Probably awesome.

Good luck getting into the SXSW showcase featuring the debut of new tunes – as of this morning it just became the hottest ticket of the entire festival.

Personal Tori-worship aside, I’d probably hit PJ Harvey’s instead.

In other news, yesterday my old-skool blogging pal Martha enthused about BSG and Malcolm Gladwell, two things I can very much get behind.

Except, the NYT dinged Gladwell’s newest, Outliers, right out of the gate – causing me to back off my haste to snap it up. (Later another NYT writer liked it more, and Gladwell responded.)

Martha claims the book is enrapturing, causing her to miss her bus stop twice. Coming from Martha, this is a sufficient endorsement. However, one of her commenters felt the need to respond with a general debunking of his Tipping Point.

The debunking employs my favorite example from Tipping Point (“Broken Windows“) versus Freakonomics (crime v. abortion) – a book I panned as being superfluous.

I’m not sure the debunking convinced me in one direction or the other. Yes, Gladwell skirts direct links to causation in Tipping Point, but that’s anecdotally the point of the whole anecdotal book – causation isn’t a single, lonely factor.

That said, the debunking did convince me that A Smart Bear is a rare sensible and practical marketing blog. Sample their intelligence for yourself: ignore the wisdom of crowds or act like your price just doubled.

Also filed in PJ Harvey, books, linkylove, tori | | Comments (1)

how far from your star to mine?

Monday, February 16, 2009

Okay, three remainders from that post.

First, I bought the set of Le Complexe du Chimpanzé graphic novels for me and bro to read. I made it through the first one with my English/French dictionary gripped firmly in one fist. It’s a future tale of a relic of past space exploration coming back to haunt NASA, and how the ordeal splinters the relationship between America’s top astronaut and her young daughter.

I imagine he’ll get through them a bit more quickly than I will, being the better French-speaker of the two of us due to fact that he’s still taking French. (Luckily, most of my pre-Honeymoon French exposure is from watching subtitled sci-fi movies, so I had more of the vocabulary than I thought I would.)

Second, this article is ancient, but it’s still excellent: Image Story, by Michael Dean.

If you were a Marvel comics reader in the early nineties names like Lee or McFarlane meant you were definitely buying a book (but, not Liefeld, who has always been a hack). Suddenly, all of those names formed a super-group, left “the plantation” of Marvel, and set up their own shop – Image Comics. The article offers a detailed account of how Image came to be, what their business model looked like from the inside, and how they unwitting destroyed the comic industry.

(Incidentally, Jim Lee remains one of my favorite comic artists, but the artist who supplanted him on X-Men – Andy Kubert – ranks higher on my list.)

(Incidentally^2, Andy is currently pencilling a Batman arc with recent Newbury-Award-winning author, film-inspirer, and prolific blogger Neil Gaiman that is apparently selling out as quickly as it hits the shelves. They previously collaborated on 1602, which means I should probably own it. Despite my general Batman-comics distaste I will certainly buy the brief two-issue collection published in July (ISBN 1401223036))

Lastly, a webcomic I’ve never read before: Subormality. As recommended by Desh, who I trust implicitly on such matters (but not on music – there we differ substantially). Note the Rob Liefeld joke buried in the first panel.

See, I actually can’t resist fictional universes.

Also filed in comics, weblinks | | Comments (0)

weekend braindump

Monday, February 16, 2009

My biggest weakness – bigger than any weakness in character, or for spending money, or really even for wasting time – is that I’ll always stop to read something.

It’s such a subtle flaw. We’ve been over how as a child I felt compelled to read cereal boxes as I ate breakfast, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s my voracious reading – how on vacation as a child my mother would pack an entire suitcase of books, because you never wanted to encounter a me with nothing to read.

In adulthood it manifests a little differently. I’ve lost patience for fictional universes, so slow to unwind before me. Now the communications major has taken over. I’ll read Rolling Stone while tying my shoes, and even carry my laptop into the bathroom if I haven’t quite finished reading an article.

Okay, maybe that was over sharing.

Where once I was limited by my physical ability to store words, now I’m only limited by bandwidth and time.

The awful side of my habit is getting caught up in junk words. Trolling through FaceBook status updates. Reading comments from the misanthrope TalkBackers on Ain’t It Cool News. Are these altering my life in a positive way? Am I better person for consuming them?

All that said, here are the more substantial words that have kept me occupied over the weekend.

First, there is Battlestar Galactica. There are a scant six episodes left of this genre-shattering drama, and the press has belatedly gone into overdrive to promote the show (you know, just in case people have time to watch four seasons worth of backstory so they can catch the last six episodes live).

If you are amongst that demographic you probably shouldn’t even be reading these articles, as they are spoilers-galore if you aren’t all caught up through this past Friday’s doozy of an ep. I’ll try not to put spoils into the links, but if you aren’t up to Season 4.5 please don’t click through anything.

Jenna Busch has a fantastic interview with the alluring and well-spoken Kate Vernon, who has always been spectacular on BSG. Battlestar.tv goes on at great length with Grace Park, who reveals lots of interesting production details – including what its like to act as Sharon and Boomer within minutes of each other.

A thoughtful in-canon letter to the editor about Why Tom Zarek Was Right during the course of recent events on the show (I happen to agree). a brief one with Katee Sackoff, who reveals that she was battling thyroid cancer at the end of the series, adding to the emotional weight of her performance.

OS news has a lengthy chat with Nikki Clyne, who played Cally. I love how all of the BSG actors are more than just actors – Nikki is working on some kind of social networking site? They’re all such renaissance people. For example, scroll towards the bottom of composer Bear McCreary’s interview with some of the actors to read a hilarious tale of how Michael Trucco (Anders) helps launch a historical ship with Michael Hogan (Tigh). Also in that interview, the stunning (in beauty and as an actor) Rekha Sharma dishes that she spent weeks hanging out together in L.A. with Kate Vernon – I can’t decide if that’s better as an intellectual fantasy or an erotic one. ?

Okay, I also read some interesting things not about a fictional universe.

Lincoln’s Laws of War challenges you to recall your AP History as it outlines how the rights that Team Bush so ably dissected were first put in place by Obama’s presidential idol.

A compelling (if a little too detached) piece of longform from VF writer Vicky Ward on the serpentine tale of Esther Reed, a girl who ran away from one troubled life into another in a quest to find some suitable outlet for her secret genius.

A surprisingly personal (at least, to me) take on Michelle Obama, from Vogue, of all places. I love this woman so much. It is surely my goal to meet her at some point in my life.

Nate Silver – of my preferred election website, 538 – uses similar predictive modeling to guess the outcomes of Oscar.

The Academy’s PR team is making a lot of noise about how intimate and different their ceremony will be this year, but I don’t know if they can capitalize on the success of the Grammys because movies are experiential in a completely different way than music is. On the Grammys people tune in to hear songs. On the Oscars people tune in to see stars. Unless Titanic is nominated they could take or leave the movies. Their only hope might be holding the Supporting Actor trophy until later in the program than usual, since it’s the only major award their voters deigned to offer to Dark Knight.

I won’t be watching because – lack of live teevee aside – I only watch award shows with Erika. That said, I do love Hugh Jackman.

Also filed in flicks, journalism, teevee, thoughts, weblinks | | Comments (0)

best [...] ever

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

[British Belgian restaurant]
We found an amazing Belgian restaurant where I had truly phenomenal mussels. The couple beside us told us they come from outside the city just to have dinner there, and then go home.

[American bragging rights]
Every conversation we’ve had so far in London includes, “What do you think about Obama?” to which we reply in chorus, “We love him!” We have a pretty set script we’re working from at this point. In France it was more polite questioning, but here people have been probing a bit more.

[away-from-home mattress streak]
The wedding hotel mattresses were absolutely heavenly. Like, even the night before with all the nervous energy and whatnot I slept like a rock. I would have tied one to the roof of our car if I could have. Then in Paris we had the sort of ultra-firm Ikea futon mattress that we have at home. And now we’re on a comfortably soft, well-appointed deluxe queen. Seriously, this is highly improbable success.

[water served below room temperature]
Finally, water with ice. I mean, Paris was definitely the best place ever, but I can only drink so much room temperature water in any given week.

[honeymoon timing]
France’s public transit workers and teachers went on strike about an hour ago. We were about four Metro stops from anything of interest; we would have been stranded if we had stayed an extra day.

[drunken plans to write a musical of a movie we watched on our first date seven years ago]
We got sortof drunk over dinner on Beglian beer and, much to the delight of our neighboring couple, debated at length how we would go about writing and staging a musical of The Princess Bride. We got as far as breaking out the songs and their titles and arguing over appropriate voice parts. We’re very into the idea at the moment, but let’s see what happens when we sober up in the morning.

Anything you’d like to add?

Also filed in Honeymoon, alchohol, flicks, food, stories, thoughts | | Comments (3)

how the Musee d’Orsay is like an unexpected vagina, and other adventures

Saturday, January 24, 2009

I know I’m still down about three Louvre posts as well as the Eiffel and Latin quarter, but if I don’t keep up with the new stuff none of it will ever get written.

So, today.

After our amazing day yesterday, which ended in giggles and me seeing how much crepe I could fit into my mouth at one time, Elise and I concur that today has been our one crappy day of the honeymoon thus far.

We woke up early and I made the best scrambled eggs ever made, with gouda, brie, chevre, and maybe manchego? It was really cheese with eggs as connective tissue. Best ever.

Afterwards, perhaps as a result of the 3000% increase in my dairy intake over the last few days, I fell back into a deep slumber from which I could not be roused. Even after I was finally dragged back out of bed at noon I was in a complete haze, and kept drifting off on the couch while Elise counted out our coins for the ticket machine. My grump had mostly lifted by the time we were off the Metro, but I was still sluggish.

Today’s big adventure was Musee d’Orsay, which is the modern art museum. With apologies to my sister-in-law and our dear friend Francesca, d’Orsay blew. In a word, Elise describes it as “ungratifying.”

Rather than a word, I choose to describe it in an illustrative allegory:

In the ground floor gallery I was looking from one room into the next, and I thought I spotted a Munch. It was pretty far away, but it was in the general shape of a Munch I recalled.

I approached the gallery, and as I neared the painting it became apparent it was not the Munch in question, but a massive, close study of a disembodied vagina.

That captures my feelings on Musee d’Orsay exactly: not the thing you thought it was, but actually some other thing, which in other settings is an awesome thing, but in this instance not awesome in the manner in which it is presented.

The main sculpture hall is magnificent to look at from afar, but the actual rooms were claustrophobic, especially on the fifth level. I realized as we jostled our way through (and on a Saturday – without any groups!) how much I really appreciated that Louvre had seating in every gallery.

Also, the collections were simply overwhelming – like, not in the sense of “the Louvre is so large; it’s overwhelming,” but in the sense of, “there is too much Degas in this room to focus on any one of them; it’s overwhelming.”

D’orsay features a lot of impressionism, including pre- and post-, and it’s not really my favorite period. There’s only so many times I can appreciate that something looks like its subject in a subjective way before it all just comes off like a torturous, never-ending labyrinth of Magic Eye (which is not meant as a dig on pointillism, which I actually do appreciate).

I was excited for Room 60, which included a Munch and a Klimt, who are two of my top artists in general, and especially from this period. All through the impressionists I was like, “it’s okay, I’m going to get to see a Munch, it will be so cool.” Lo, we arrived in 60 to find that neither painting was on display. (Thus, the vagina incident is revealed to be even more painful.)

Also, the major special exhibit at the moment is basically just about how Picasso was a twisted psychotic and spent two years copying Manet’s Le déjeuner sur l’herbe over and over again in increasingly abstract ways until he was literally creating cardboard cutouts of the deconstructed characters.

There were a few high points.

Even though the volume of Degas was tiring, I enjoyed watching the evolution of his work. I was endlessly fascinated by The Pedicure, because it has a very specific, photographic depth of field. It’s quite fascinating – Elise and I had a lengthy discussion about how he might have conceived of the technique, as it’s not something easily observed with the naked eye.

I’m sure Jenny can explain it to us.

I also loved the dance class, which has a similar specific focus along the shoulders of the girls (plus, the tutus are incredible).

I also delighted in my discoveries of Gustave Caillebotte, and I say “discoveries” because three times I found paintings that I loved and subsequently realized they were by him.

I’ll definitely be buying a book as soon as we can find one (D’orsay puzzlingly, had nothing to speak of, even though they have two of his major works on display).

The upper restaurant was fantastic, and may merit its own post. There was also an appropriately-sized section of beautiful art nouveau furnishings that I would have killed to have Francesca guide me through.

Finally, there was one room of “symbolism,” a period/style that neither of us were especially familiar with. From what I could discern on a brief pass it’s an allegorical style that casts modern situations with clear historic or mythological analogues. I loved the entire room, but my favorite was a painting that claimed to be about some sort of pastoral school yard, but that I have retitled, (and all the apostles sang) Rock Me, Sexy Jesus, for obvious reasons. Behold:

(I implore you to click through for a closer look. The allegorical only begotten son homoeroticism is unparalleled.)

Okay, one last point of suckitude: d’Orsay claims to be open until six, but shortly before five thirty they rope off many of the individual exhibits and start shooing you towards the exits.

Like I said, it blew. I’m thankful for being introduced to Caillebotte and symbolism, but otherwise would have preferred a second day in Louvre.

Afterwards we walked along the river for a bit, terminating in my ideal shot of Eiffel (it’s on Elise’s camera, so you’ll have to wait), and then we detoured past Grand & Petit Palais (which will have Warhol from March to Bastille) to get to Champs-Élysées.

Champs-Élysées was a bit of a paradox. We were expecting faire du shopping to net some of the wonderful fashions we’ve been encountering on the Metro all week. However, despite a few browses in both French and international stores, we didn’t settle on anything. I felt like we kept seeing the designer versions of indie trends, which I suppose is entirely the point of Champs-Élysées? I’m certainly happy to have walked the street, especially since I finally got to see Arc de Triomphe up close, and it was definitely a sight to be seen. I just thought I’d buy more stuff.

By the end Elise was barely standing, and we rode an assortment of Metros to get back home.

Maybe we were just predisposed to grumpiness, but today just didn’t bring the awesome of yesterday, despite a similar slate of activities. I hold out hope that we’re heading back out for a late night jaunt to the Moulin Rouge, but Elise may be down for the count – and she has all of our money.