Into The Mystic - VAN MORRISON
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
"I Wanna Rock Your Gypsy Soul"
Would someone in the wide world of the interwebs please tab this song? I really want to add it to my repertoire.
Into The Mystic - VAN MORRISON
Into The Mystic - VAN MORRISON
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
"Music So Loud, Can't Tell a Thing"
A few months ago I was doing an acoustic set at a coffeehouse and introduced my next number with, "This next song is by one of the great American rock and roll bands of the 1980s - The Replacements. Any Replacements fans here?" Silence. "The song is named after the lead singer, Alex Chilton, of one of the great American rock and roll bands of 1970s - Big Star. Any Big Star fans here?" Silence.
Commemorating the reissue of Big Star's first two albums.
Back Of A Car - Big Star
Commemorating the reissue of Big Star's first two albums.
Back Of A Car - Big Star
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Film Update
Recent film screenings:
Star Trek - I entered the cinema moderately familiar with Star Trek mythology - I've seen a few of the films (First Contact is fave) and watched a handful of episodes from at least three of the series: TOS, TNG and Voyager. Nothing revolutionary in technique or profound in its observations, but the new Star Trek film provided a very exciting two hours and allows me to offer broad comment on the relative importance of plot in narrative. There is at least one major plot hole in the new Star Trek film, and I don't care. It didn't interfere in the slightest with my enjoyment of the film, because the filmmakers were successful in making me care about the characters and their predicament, in making me think that something vital was stake, so that the significant incoherence in the plot was far from my mind. We can only become so concerned if a film provides compelling characters, which Star Trek does, particularly in Spock, played with remarkable intelligence and grace by Zachary Quinto. I have friends who disagree, and who assess the quality of a film primarily on the originality, complexity and coherence of its plot - my concerns are usually style, character and theme, elements that can revive even the simple sequences of events. This is not to say that blatant incoherence cannot ruin a film - it can, but I believe that these other elements are in fact more important.
Up: I'll take on whatever criticism comes in revealing that WALL-E disappointed me. After a bold, witty and inventive opening, the film lost all direction, mixing contrived social commentary with a dull Saturday morning cartoon chase, amounting to the worst hour Pixar had yet produced. Whether the creators of the film indulged their low opinions of audience attention-spans or simply couldn't find another way to end the story is unknown. However, there is no such artistic compromise in Up.
Like WALL-E, the film opens with an extended sequence with almost no dialogue, a prologue presented as a series of vignettes of the the lives of Carl and Ellie Frederickson, so vivid and poignant that it left many audience members in tears. This sequence represents Pixar's coming of age in animation. The studio has long struggled with animating human characters, but here achieves a perfect synthesis of cartoon exaggeration and realistic emotion, primarily through the characters' highly detailed faces. This is also the most thematically adult material Pixar has explored, with aging and death at the core of this sequence and the rest of the film.
Though the somber opening eventually gives way to cartoon antics, these are integrally tied to events discussed early in the film and genuinely humorous and exciting. The film's villain hearkens back to the first Disney films - he is a terrifying and obsessive antagonist, not quite worthy of Snow White's wicked stepmother or Pinocchio's Stromboli, but of the same kind. The film's symbolism is gentle and effective. Up is among the best Pixar films, perhaps the very best.
2001: A Space Odyssey: I fall into the masterpiece category for this film, and would have been content to watch it for hours more. Given the rush for the computer, just one observation. Throughout the film, there's a motif of a small circle slowly rising above a larger one, always indicating a moment of human triumph and expansion. The circular "eye" of the computer, HAL is always shown up close with its top and bottom truncated, suggesting that it is less than human. Brilliant.
Star Trek - I entered the cinema moderately familiar with Star Trek mythology - I've seen a few of the films (First Contact is fave) and watched a handful of episodes from at least three of the series: TOS, TNG and Voyager. Nothing revolutionary in technique or profound in its observations, but the new Star Trek film provided a very exciting two hours and allows me to offer broad comment on the relative importance of plot in narrative. There is at least one major plot hole in the new Star Trek film, and I don't care. It didn't interfere in the slightest with my enjoyment of the film, because the filmmakers were successful in making me care about the characters and their predicament, in making me think that something vital was stake, so that the significant incoherence in the plot was far from my mind. We can only become so concerned if a film provides compelling characters, which Star Trek does, particularly in Spock, played with remarkable intelligence and grace by Zachary Quinto. I have friends who disagree, and who assess the quality of a film primarily on the originality, complexity and coherence of its plot - my concerns are usually style, character and theme, elements that can revive even the simple sequences of events. This is not to say that blatant incoherence cannot ruin a film - it can, but I believe that these other elements are in fact more important.
Up: I'll take on whatever criticism comes in revealing that WALL-E disappointed me. After a bold, witty and inventive opening, the film lost all direction, mixing contrived social commentary with a dull Saturday morning cartoon chase, amounting to the worst hour Pixar had yet produced. Whether the creators of the film indulged their low opinions of audience attention-spans or simply couldn't find another way to end the story is unknown. However, there is no such artistic compromise in Up.
Like WALL-E, the film opens with an extended sequence with almost no dialogue, a prologue presented as a series of vignettes of the the lives of Carl and Ellie Frederickson, so vivid and poignant that it left many audience members in tears. This sequence represents Pixar's coming of age in animation. The studio has long struggled with animating human characters, but here achieves a perfect synthesis of cartoon exaggeration and realistic emotion, primarily through the characters' highly detailed faces. This is also the most thematically adult material Pixar has explored, with aging and death at the core of this sequence and the rest of the film.
Though the somber opening eventually gives way to cartoon antics, these are integrally tied to events discussed early in the film and genuinely humorous and exciting. The film's villain hearkens back to the first Disney films - he is a terrifying and obsessive antagonist, not quite worthy of Snow White's wicked stepmother or Pinocchio's Stromboli, but of the same kind. The film's symbolism is gentle and effective. Up is among the best Pixar films, perhaps the very best.
2001: A Space Odyssey: I fall into the masterpiece category for this film, and would have been content to watch it for hours more. Given the rush for the computer, just one observation. Throughout the film, there's a motif of a small circle slowly rising above a larger one, always indicating a moment of human triumph and expansion. The circular "eye" of the computer, HAL is always shown up close with its top and bottom truncated, suggesting that it is less than human. Brilliant.
"I Work Through the New Contruction"
Unfortunately, I'm finding this album a little less consistent than just about everyone else on the internet. This track, however, is brilliant.
Temecula Sunrise - Dirty Projectors
Temecula Sunrise - Dirty Projectors
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Literary Update
I began my liberal arts education as a near illiterate. A new college freshman, I had little idea of why one ought to read, what was worth reading and how one ought to go about reading it, nor did I have a particular passion for reading beyond political columns and music criticism. How fortunate then that my assigned work and activities in college took up enough of my time to prevent my reading anything of my own choosing during the academic year, and how fortunate that I met two excellent instructors during the last four years, Professors James Pethica, whose "Modern Drama" remains my favorite undergraduate course, and Harold Bloom, whom I encountered only through published works. Through my busyness and their wisdom, I came to realize that I was not always an illiterate, and have steadily regained the passion and ability for reading that secondary education had stifled. Now I have graduated and know everything worth knowing and that of course includes knowledge of what books to read.
Appropriate then that the first book I read after my final exams was JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, which I first read 12 years ago, and believed then to be the finest work ever written. Sadly, I recant that assessment, but I have never taken more pleasure in a book than I did in that first reading, and I still think that it is a fine tale. I first loved The Hobbit because it was so strange, difficult and terrible, because my the fear and labor of my experience as a reader seemed to mirror Bilbo's quest as a burglar. I now retreat to The Hobbit because it is familiar, warm and inviting. In this reading, I noted a clever parallelism within the novel that underscores Bilbo's development as an adventurer. In chapter 1, Bilbo slowly receives an unexpected band of dwarves into his home, and they tell of their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain, and in chapter 7, Bilbo becomes part of such a band seeking lodging from skin-changer Beorn, and gradually telling him of their recent adventures. Similarly, Bilbo causes the dwarves' capture by trolls in chapter 2 and must be rescued by Gandalf; in chapter 8, he evades capture and rescues the dwarves from ravenous spiders. A nice touch. The writing is often quite witty, and though Gollum is only lightly sketched in this novel, this is excellent preparation for his brilliant development in The Lord of Rings. Gandalf, however, seems rather silly and eccentric in this tale, a far cry from the sage figure he later becomes. However, Tolkien may intend for our perception of Gandalf to follow Bilbo's in this story, and later to follow Frodo's. However, I do not reread The Hobbit for new observations and experiences, but to revisit old ones, and I will do so for the rest of my life.
Since I like innocent and mollycoddling, I next read John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960) and Rabbit Redux (1971). Several things are immediately striking about the former. Updike's style in the first novel is original, at least to me, and I think best described as phenomenological. That is, he sequences and paces his descriptions of objects and events in parallel with the sequence and pace of perception, aided by the exclusive use of present tense. This is unlike stream of consciousness writing in that these perceptions are not chaotically ordered, and do not always reflect the point of view of a character, but perhaps that of an undetectable bystander. This style requires a great deal of work to follow, and this first novel was a slow read. The sequel, Rabbit Redux, maintains the present tense, but I'll describe its style as comic realism, the self-consciously difficult descriptions absent, and the events are ordinary and rendered in simple language, but conveyed with ironic detachment.
There is much to praise in these novels, but what is most startling to me is Updike's ability to manipulate my attitudes toward characters and events. The protagonist, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, is a thorough asshole by any rational assessment, casually unfaithful to his wife, neglectful of his son, occasionally violent, and yet I like him and sympathize with his plight and many of his decisions. Furthermore, I thoroughly detest his wife Janice, whose unfaithfulness and mindless conformity are at the very worst only equal to Harry's sins. One could easily my attitudes to sexism - mine or Updike's, or perhaps to the simple fact that we come to like characters that we spend a lot of time with, and we spend far more time with Harry than with Janice. However, I think that it is Updike's emphasis on Harry's incontinence that generates this sympathy. We know that Harry realizes that his actions are wrong and that the cultural trends with which he gradually complies are destructive, and yet his is too lazy or too foolish to act differently - his sinfulness is a lot like ours. In contrast, Janice seems to lack even this knowledge, as Harry so often points out. Updike also manipulates our attitudes toward deaths. Each novel concludes with a fatal accident, though the death in the first novel is tragic, and the death in the second is not humorous, but not so devastating. Ultimately, I think that this is a function of narrative type - the first novel is a tragedy, the second not quite satire. The death in Rabbit, Run is the death of a human - the death in Rabbit Redux is the death of a lifestyle. Hopefully, these observations will win the novels a few more readers.
I hope to read the other two novels in the series at some point this summer, but I've temporarily moved to Robert Jordan's infamous and unfinished Wheel of Time series. The series is notoriously long (11 books, with a 3-volume final book on the way) and supposedly its pacing becomes excruciating around book 9, but about 25% of the way through Book 1, it's great fun with mediocre writing. This is actually my second time through Book 1, but in the two years since reading it, I completely forgot everything that happened, and being unemployed, I have a lot of free time. I intend to read another work after each of these novels until I finish the series, ensuring that I maintain grasp of the plot without boring myself too much. I'll surely have much to write when Book 1 is finished.
Film update soon.
Appropriate then that the first book I read after my final exams was JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, which I first read 12 years ago, and believed then to be the finest work ever written. Sadly, I recant that assessment, but I have never taken more pleasure in a book than I did in that first reading, and I still think that it is a fine tale. I first loved The Hobbit because it was so strange, difficult and terrible, because my the fear and labor of my experience as a reader seemed to mirror Bilbo's quest as a burglar. I now retreat to The Hobbit because it is familiar, warm and inviting. In this reading, I noted a clever parallelism within the novel that underscores Bilbo's development as an adventurer. In chapter 1, Bilbo slowly receives an unexpected band of dwarves into his home, and they tell of their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain, and in chapter 7, Bilbo becomes part of such a band seeking lodging from skin-changer Beorn, and gradually telling him of their recent adventures. Similarly, Bilbo causes the dwarves' capture by trolls in chapter 2 and must be rescued by Gandalf; in chapter 8, he evades capture and rescues the dwarves from ravenous spiders. A nice touch. The writing is often quite witty, and though Gollum is only lightly sketched in this novel, this is excellent preparation for his brilliant development in The Lord of Rings. Gandalf, however, seems rather silly and eccentric in this tale, a far cry from the sage figure he later becomes. However, Tolkien may intend for our perception of Gandalf to follow Bilbo's in this story, and later to follow Frodo's. However, I do not reread The Hobbit for new observations and experiences, but to revisit old ones, and I will do so for the rest of my life.
Since I like innocent and mollycoddling, I next read John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960) and Rabbit Redux (1971). Several things are immediately striking about the former. Updike's style in the first novel is original, at least to me, and I think best described as phenomenological. That is, he sequences and paces his descriptions of objects and events in parallel with the sequence and pace of perception, aided by the exclusive use of present tense. This is unlike stream of consciousness writing in that these perceptions are not chaotically ordered, and do not always reflect the point of view of a character, but perhaps that of an undetectable bystander. This style requires a great deal of work to follow, and this first novel was a slow read. The sequel, Rabbit Redux, maintains the present tense, but I'll describe its style as comic realism, the self-consciously difficult descriptions absent, and the events are ordinary and rendered in simple language, but conveyed with ironic detachment.
There is much to praise in these novels, but what is most startling to me is Updike's ability to manipulate my attitudes toward characters and events. The protagonist, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, is a thorough asshole by any rational assessment, casually unfaithful to his wife, neglectful of his son, occasionally violent, and yet I like him and sympathize with his plight and many of his decisions. Furthermore, I thoroughly detest his wife Janice, whose unfaithfulness and mindless conformity are at the very worst only equal to Harry's sins. One could easily my attitudes to sexism - mine or Updike's, or perhaps to the simple fact that we come to like characters that we spend a lot of time with, and we spend far more time with Harry than with Janice. However, I think that it is Updike's emphasis on Harry's incontinence that generates this sympathy. We know that Harry realizes that his actions are wrong and that the cultural trends with which he gradually complies are destructive, and yet his is too lazy or too foolish to act differently - his sinfulness is a lot like ours. In contrast, Janice seems to lack even this knowledge, as Harry so often points out. Updike also manipulates our attitudes toward deaths. Each novel concludes with a fatal accident, though the death in the first novel is tragic, and the death in the second is not humorous, but not so devastating. Ultimately, I think that this is a function of narrative type - the first novel is a tragedy, the second not quite satire. The death in Rabbit, Run is the death of a human - the death in Rabbit Redux is the death of a lifestyle. Hopefully, these observations will win the novels a few more readers.
I hope to read the other two novels in the series at some point this summer, but I've temporarily moved to Robert Jordan's infamous and unfinished Wheel of Time series. The series is notoriously long (11 books, with a 3-volume final book on the way) and supposedly its pacing becomes excruciating around book 9, but about 25% of the way through Book 1, it's great fun with mediocre writing. This is actually my second time through Book 1, but in the two years since reading it, I completely forgot everything that happened, and being unemployed, I have a lot of free time. I intend to read another work after each of these novels until I finish the series, ensuring that I maintain grasp of the plot without boring myself too much. I'll surely have much to write when Book 1 is finished.
Film update soon.
Friday, June 12, 2009
The WUFO Blog, Pt. 3
3 weeks later, a summary of WUFO at Nationals. We arrived seeded 19 of 20 teams in the tournament, undaunted by our low seed and the online jabs that we were in the "happy to be there" category.
Pool Play
Day 1:
Game 1: Williams vs. Texas
Texas plays in one of the weakest regions in the country, but dominated that region and played a very tough schedule in the regular season, with mixed success. We're going into this game blind. Texas plays an astonishingly fast and creative offense built around break-throws. Our exhaustion after a rushed finals period leads to a couple of breaks, and though Texas has its share of turns, we can't quite take back the game. Texas 15, Williams 12.
Game 2: Williams vs. Wisconsin
We're up against the national champs from the previous two seasons, but this Wisconsin squad lacks the dominant speed of previous incarnations, and we go in believing that the game is within our grasp. Indeed, we force several turns in the first few points and seem poised to take an early lead. However, Wisconsin uses the self-refereeing to their advantage, regular calling fouls on our D-blocks, and travels on our scores. After a few points of questionable calls, our concentration breaks, never to be regained. We toss the disc away, and Wisconsin is successful in the air. A extremely frustrating loss. Wisconsin 15, Williams 7.
Day 2:
Game 3: Williams vs. Pittsburgh
We come into day 2 well-rested and eager to avenge the previous losses, but Pitt's defenders have a fire in their bellies we haven't seen before, and actually force a few turns. Their air game is solid and soon the game gets out of hand. Pittsburgh 15, Williams 8.
Game 4: Williams vs. California
Our last chance to do what Williams has failed to do since 1996 - earn a victory in pool play at nationals. Cal is the 6 seed in tournament, but made a poor showing the previous day, choking with a lead against Wisconsin, and being beaten badly by Pitt. We quickly exploit our superior athleticism, force a few early turns and play our smartest offense of the weekend, coasting to a win. Williams 15, California 13.
Day 3:
Game 5: Williams vs. Kansas
Finishing fourth of five teams in our pool, we do not qualify for the championship bracket and are now playing for ninth place. Kansas looks like a tough team - a bunch of tall, thin clean-cut guys. They run fast, they jump high and they regularly botch throws between handlers. Williams 15, Kansas 10.
Game 6: Williams vs. UC-Santa Barbara
We've lost to UC-Santa Barbara by two earlier in the season and the two teams have similar offensive styles. Finally playing up to our potential, we do not commit a turnover for the first ten points of the game and continue to play polished, conservative offense in the second half. Williams 15, UC-Santa Barbara 12.
Game 7: Williams vs. Luther
The tournament bracket directs us to play Tufts in this game, but given that we play in the same region, the director decides to mix things up and we play Luther. Luther makes a show of throwing the disc out of bounds and calls into question the number of bids allotted to the Central Region. A leisurely end to my college ultimate career. Williams 15, Luther 8.
Pool Play
Day 1:
Game 1: Williams vs. Texas
Texas plays in one of the weakest regions in the country, but dominated that region and played a very tough schedule in the regular season, with mixed success. We're going into this game blind. Texas plays an astonishingly fast and creative offense built around break-throws. Our exhaustion after a rushed finals period leads to a couple of breaks, and though Texas has its share of turns, we can't quite take back the game. Texas 15, Williams 12.
Game 2: Williams vs. Wisconsin
We're up against the national champs from the previous two seasons, but this Wisconsin squad lacks the dominant speed of previous incarnations, and we go in believing that the game is within our grasp. Indeed, we force several turns in the first few points and seem poised to take an early lead. However, Wisconsin uses the self-refereeing to their advantage, regular calling fouls on our D-blocks, and travels on our scores. After a few points of questionable calls, our concentration breaks, never to be regained. We toss the disc away, and Wisconsin is successful in the air. A extremely frustrating loss. Wisconsin 15, Williams 7.
Day 2:
Game 3: Williams vs. Pittsburgh
We come into day 2 well-rested and eager to avenge the previous losses, but Pitt's defenders have a fire in their bellies we haven't seen before, and actually force a few turns. Their air game is solid and soon the game gets out of hand. Pittsburgh 15, Williams 8.
Game 4: Williams vs. California
Our last chance to do what Williams has failed to do since 1996 - earn a victory in pool play at nationals. Cal is the 6 seed in tournament, but made a poor showing the previous day, choking with a lead against Wisconsin, and being beaten badly by Pitt. We quickly exploit our superior athleticism, force a few early turns and play our smartest offense of the weekend, coasting to a win. Williams 15, California 13.
Day 3:
Game 5: Williams vs. Kansas
Finishing fourth of five teams in our pool, we do not qualify for the championship bracket and are now playing for ninth place. Kansas looks like a tough team - a bunch of tall, thin clean-cut guys. They run fast, they jump high and they regularly botch throws between handlers. Williams 15, Kansas 10.
Game 6: Williams vs. UC-Santa Barbara
We've lost to UC-Santa Barbara by two earlier in the season and the two teams have similar offensive styles. Finally playing up to our potential, we do not commit a turnover for the first ten points of the game and continue to play polished, conservative offense in the second half. Williams 15, UC-Santa Barbara 12.
Game 7: Williams vs. Luther
The tournament bracket directs us to play Tufts in this game, but given that we play in the same region, the director decides to mix things up and we play Luther. Luther makes a show of throwing the disc out of bounds and calls into question the number of bids allotted to the Central Region. A leisurely end to my college ultimate career. Williams 15, Luther 8.
"Up the Interstate, He's Been Awake and Pretty Drunk for Three Whole Days"
Back to blogging, with much to tell. The demo version of this song was titled "The Devil is Beating His Wife", a title I greatly preferred.
Cold Beer And Cigarettes - David Bazan
Cold Beer And Cigarettes - David Bazan
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