I wish I could have seen Talking Heads live

Sometimes I take time off during exam week

Here's the best part of 30 Rock from Thursday.  Enjoy.

My Approach to Exams

Obama Dirt Off Yr Shoulder Remix

Positive Points

- Great basic concept

- Excellent editing throughout

- Ghost, Morrissey cameos

Negative Points

- Should have stopped after the first song

- Excessive use of memes (lolcats, breast pans)

- Is there any other clip of Obama dancing except on Ellen?

Recently Heard Roundup

The Black Mages; The Black Mages III: Darkness and Starlight

The obvious flaw of any Black Mages album is that unless you're a Final Fantasy fanatic, you are not going to be familiar with all of the songs.  Yet, those that you are familiar with are going to be mind-blowingly awesome.  This rule holds for the third album, but unfortunately for me, I am familiar with fewer songs than ever.  This album continues the band's oddly disproportionate fixation on Final Fantasy VIII and IX, and even includes a song from XI.  That said, the title track is impressive, though less viscerally appealing than other formerly progged-out opuses, such as J-E-N-O-V-A, Zeromus, One-Winged Angel, and, of course, Dancing Mad.  From a musical standpoint, they have only marginally advanced, but how much can you really ask for from a band like this?  For objective purposes, the best tracks are Grand Cross and KURAYAMINOKUMO.

M83; Saturdays = Youth

The consensus appraisal of this album, simply put, is completely wrong.  M83 is not the new Thompson Twins.  M83 is the same M83, except with aspirations to make nice, concise pop songs.  Even taken out of context, the album hearkens much more to a more ethereal version of the Killers.  Definitely much closer to of Quick Step & Side Kicks.  Those meta-criticisms aside, this album is simply okay.  There are a couple of good tracks, but the ostentatiously airy layers of synth that constituted old M83 return on this album in the less focused songs.  The tragic consequence is that any momentum built up by good songs is immediately diluted by multiple, repetitive 8+ minute long instrumental interludes.  Yea, guys, we know you really only wanted to make an EP, but please try harder next time.

Cut Copy; In Ghost Colours

I didn't like the first time I heard these guys on my local rock radio station.  I still don't like them after downloading their album.  It might just be me, but there's nothing unusual or interesting about these songs.  Worse than that, they aren't even catchy.  This could be the sort of thing that would take me three or four listens to completely comprehend, but I'm not willing to invest that sort of time in a band that gives me no reason to care about.  Please don't use the word 'horny' so prominently in any of your songs ever again.  That they're from Australia is the only conceivable explanation of their popularity.  I'd rather see these guys, personally.

LCD Soundsystem; LCD Soundsystem

Sound of Silver was great, but the three or four listens I gave to the original album led me to believe that it was a sprawling, focusless mess that doesn't really compare to James Murphy's newest album.  Turns out, my first impression was true, but that it is a focusless mess with five or six incredibly catchy and amusing tracks.  Even your mom has heard Daft Punk Is Playing at My House, and it is good, but Losing My Edge is the song you wish you could play to every tyrannical hipster who was a PiL fan before you were, Yeah is good enough to warrant including two separate versions of it on one (double) album and to clock in at 20+ minutes total, and Disco Infiltrator is worthwhile if only for one superb sample.  The concept of a dance album that spans two CDs is undeniably ridiculous, but, at times, it possesses the unique energy and creativity that a limitless palette can offer an artist.  Utterly unfocused and at times openly derivative, but then again, Sound of Silver was also derivative to its merit. 

Bonus Songs:

Rock of Love 2 Final Analysis

Ok, I really liked the first Rock of Love, but could hardly bring myself to watch Rock of Love 2 from week to week.  The bottom line is that not only was the most compelling character from 2 less compelling than about three or four girls from the original, but she got kicked off about 2/3 of the way through.  Even Bret was less Bret.  It's going to take a while for me to get into another reality show. 

Happy Holidays

Exam Hiatus

Fewer posts for a while due to exams.

Albums With a Personal Importance Completely Disproportionate to Their Musical Greatness

Interpol; Antics

I kind of liked Turn on the Bright Lights when it came out, but Antics just must have came out at a particularly vulnerable time of my life, because anytime I hear any song off of that album, I turn into a stuttering, emotional mess.  In the alternative, Antics turns me into the most giddy, bouncy person you've ever seen.  Upon reflection, Antics quite rightly reflects my own volatile situation around the time it was released.  That said, Our Love to Admire kind of sucked and the two times I saw Interpol live, they were terribly emotionless.  However, play Evil, Slow Hands, or C'Mere around me at your own risk - chances are those songs will elicit some sort of extreme reaction, and you might not like it.

Saves the Day; Through Being Cool

Most close acquaintances know that I was pretty intensely emo between the years 2000 and 2004, give or take.  Saves the Day certainly was not my favorite emo band at the time, (The Impossibles) but they are the band that has endured the best in public appraisal and my own regard.  Just to bolster my emo cred, I was in a band that, after my very appropriate departure, developed into a pretty solid emo band in its own regard.  (And by that I mean they played at the Vienna Community Center a few times.)  Anyway, I've seen Saves the Day probably about four times live, all during high school.  I don't think it's terribly crazy to have developed some sort of subconscious vulnerability to the tunes that contextualized your adolescent years.  Their other albums are also pretty badass.  However, My Sweet Fracture, The Last Lie I Told, and Rocks Tonic Juice Magic just totally slay me.  God, I wish I had the Saves the Day shirt I bought back at St. Andrews.

The Magnetic Fields; 69 Love Songs

This album is difficult for me to talk about for many reasons.  First of all, it is simply a complex album that would take me quite a while to completely explain on its own terms, regardless of any personal meaning.  The fact that this album devastates me on a personal level only adds to the intricacy.  Needless to say, if you want me to go crazy, put on How Fucking Romantic.

Weezer; Pinkerton

Like everything else Weezer, the memory of their old albums is comprehensively tainted by their modern albums, which are inferior in every way.  However, I would be completely remiss if I did not mention the relevance Weezer had on my life in, say, 2001.  Pinkerton possesses all of the most emo qualities of Through Being Cool times twenty minus its temporal and physical immediacy.  So there's a bit of balancing going on.  

? and the Mysterians; 96 Tears

This might be the one song whose importance to me personally is equal to its musical greatness.  On a daily basis while studying abroad, I woke up to 96 Tears as an alarm clock.  I'm almost certain that my roommate (we shared bunk beds) was driven crazy by the song, especially the day that I was away and he later admitted to me that he listened to the song three consecutive times.  Beyond its mechanical importance, as an emo kid and a classic rock kid, I can totally empathize with the sentiment of crying "too many teardrops for one heart to be crying."  Furthermore, 96 Tears reigns as the greatest karaoke song ever made, given the right performer, i.e., me.

The Specials; More Specials

Particularly, I Can't Stand It.  Breaks me up every time.

The Smashing Pumpkins; Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

It would really be disrespectful of me to address a band that had such an important impact in my life in the last entry of a subdivided blog post.  They deserve about three posts of their own, but I can't finish this particular post without at least mentioning Billy Corgan's excessive emotional outburst.  

Ghostface Killah; Strawberry

Some things are best left unsaid.

Items on my coffee table

- Two highball glasses, empty

- Xbox 360 headset

- Cook's Illustrated web membership card

- Nariman's plaid #5 hat

- Two fortune cookies, in wrappers

- One take-out box of brown rice, unopened

- Four packets of soy sauce

- Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger, spine pointed up and opened to page 130

- The Best International Recipe

- Insurance Law and Regulation by Kenneth Abraham

- Eyedrops

- Bottle of Motrin IB

- Surgical tape

- The Age of Innocence DVD, sealed in its Netflix envelope

Why I Love My Chemical Romance

I've frequently mentioned that My Chemical Romance is my biggest musical guilty pleasure.  (Really similar to the Smashing Pumpkins in many ways.)  The pleasure of MCR is nowhere more evident than in that they waste all of fifty seconds in Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge before getting to the first mall-punk, faux-goth, over-ridiculous chord change.  That's the sort of emotional economy I can appreciate.

Late night punk listening party

Creepy tendencies

Why is it that I really enjoy Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange:

Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd:

but as anybody else, e.g., her role in Mighty Aphrodite, she does nothing for me?  I must have a penchant for evil and death.

As for Sweeney Todd, I found it well-made with several good performances, but Sondheim is simply not for me.

Stay Gold, Ponyboy: Why I Love Pre-Potter Youth Lit

I recently watched the film version of The Outsiders (a decent watch for reasons I won't get into here), which caused me to reflect on the young-adult literature of my youth.  It seems that all has changed since the arrival of one Harry Potter.  At the age of 14 when the first Potter book was released, I was much too old to catch it on its first wave of popularity among kids.  ("Why should I bother with such trifles when I'm reading 1984 for Honors English and writing an article on girls' lacrosse for the Panther Press?")  However, as I was forming a legitimate taste in literature in those heady turn of the century years, it was not a terribly long time ago that I was knee-deep in some of the greatest young-adult literature that my local library had to offer. 

Matt Christopher

When I was a kid, I loved sports.  I mean, I'm really into sports even today, but as a kid - sports was everything.  And to Matt Christopher, also, sports was everything.  The dude wrote a book about every goddamn sport you could think of.  I personally would only read the ones about baseball, basketball, soccer, and hockey maybe, but there are books with the Matt Christopher name on them about golf, tennis, running, and all manner of extreme sports.  

I haven't touched a Matt Christopher book in a long time, and I certainly don't own any now.  However, even at the time I think I kind of felt that this guy was probably exploiting sports-mad children.  The books weren't particularly well written in any way.  You could pretty easily guess what was going to happen based on the title alone.  The storylines were just exciting enough to get you fantasizing about scoring a goal for your youth soccer team, but that's where their appeal largely ended.  Even so, Matt Christopher held his own in the competition for space on my bookshelf.

The Great Brain series

I'm not sure if I'm the only kid who ever read The Great Brain series or not.  I found The Great Brain at the Academy in my aunt's basement one holiday afternoon, though, and there was no looking back from there.  The Great Brain is a profoundly weird series, however, the type of weird that could have only come from a work that is semi-autobiographical.  It takes place in Utah at about the turn of the century, and the main character, the Great Brain, is the middle child in the only Catholic family in the town.  In that respect, I guess, it was a pretty appropriate book for me, an utterly precocious, Catholic youth.  Anyway, he spent all his time tricking other kids out of their money and possessions.  Hence, the Great Brain.  What a weird series.

R.L. Stine

My little brother's friends were more into R.L. Stine than I was, but I still certainly read my fair share of the Goosebumps series.  Goosebumps was cool because it was kind of like the book version of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, which every kid knew was quite a bit more truly scary and less cartoony than Goosebumps.  Despite this, they definitely shared more than a couple of storylines, usually having to do with cameras that steal people's souls or scary clowns.  Each, of course, had the completely de rigeur twist ending.  But as in Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, the twist endings were awesome, and kids loved them.  

In the early 90s, kids where I lived loved sports more than anything, but freaky stuff was a solid second.  R.L. Stine was more than happy to provide us with more than enough freaky stuff.  Goosebumps clearly peaked somewhere around when Stine started publishing third entries into his most popular sub-series (i.e., Monster Blood III, Night of the Living Dummy III).  I will say, however, that I quite enjoyed the Goosebumps TV series revival on Cartoon Network this past fall, especially while being lonely in hotel rooms while on interviews.

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl is probably the most legitimate author in this entire list.  I'm almost completely certain that he has inspired the most movies from his books, anyway.  Anyone who is reading this probably knows more than I do about Roald Dahl, but he's too important not to include.  If I had to make a hierarchy of Roald Dahl books I've read, it would go something like this:

1. James and the Giant Peach

2. Danny, the Champion of the World

3. Fantastic Mr. Fox

4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

5. The BFG

6. The Witches

7. The Twits

8. Matilda (also probably the inspiration for the stupidest of all Roald Dahl movies)

9. Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

The thing I remember most about Roald Dahl is his weird vocabulary.  Snozzberries.  Even as a child, it struck me as too grotesque.  Something slightly off.  Even though he was a ridiculously popular author, he had about two or three books that no kid had ever read.  I was never sure why that was.  Also, according to Wikipedia, he's anti-Semitic.  Just to let you know.

Redwall series

For some kids, Lord of the Rings was a bit long and complex, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was too boring to read another Narnia book, Watership Down was a little too weird, A Wrinkle in Time was way, way too weird, and The Wind in the Willows was too goofy and excessively English.  For those kids, if they were up to the task of tackling massive book after massive book, there was the Redwall series.  Taking the strangest part of each series menioned above, Redwall placed mostly mice and other rodent characters in the middle ages and forced them to fight rats and cats.  Awesome, awesome stuff.

The coolest thing about Redwall, besides the fact that you felt like a badass carrying around a 400-page book, was that they kept continuity throughout the entire series.  Brian Jacques (whose name would be the source of endless pronunciation debate) would come out with a new saga every year that illuminated a new piece of Redwall lore.  It went into the future, it went into the past, but in every era there were sword-fighting mice, moles with indeterminate (I think maybe Welsh?) accents, rabbits with Australian accents, and odd religious overtones. 

Redwall eventually became too complex for its own good.  No self-respecting middle schooler would ever be caught reading a book about sword-fighting animals, anyway, so there was kind of a built-in expiration date for my Redwall fandom.  These books, for me, have probably aged the worst out of all.  But I definitely enjoyed them at the time.

A Bit of Björk to Brighten Your Day

I head this on the radio to school this morning.  It brightened me up, so hopefully it have the same effect on you.

On a side note, I'm pretty sure that Post, overall, is my favorite Björk album.  My interest peaked at the release of Vespertine and kind of dwindled after that.  I don't know what it is about Medulla or Volta that just failed to grasp me.  Maybe it's the Matthew Barney effect.

Gilmore Girls, or why I'm not afraid of girl-comedies

Although Gilmore Girls is my foremost secret, guilty pleasures, it isn't that secret, especially now.  I'm not the only guy I know that likes the show, but I am one of very few.  I first saw Gilmore Girls in the context of an assignment for a class on film and television.  I was required to analyze a television show and reveal how it subtly encouraged consumer tendencies and formed a complete advertisement that reinforced the show's actual, paid advertisements.

I don't know for sure whether or not that paper had any legitimacy, but my tastes have definitely changed since freshman year.  Criticism grew into adoration, and before I knew it, I found myself debating girls (pretty much always girls) about whether Logan was a worthy mate for Rory.  (I would say yes; he is far superior to Jess or Dean.)  

So, instead of enumerating the actual ways that Gilmore Girls is an excellent television show (amazing dialogue, cultural consciousness, overwhelmingly charming quirkiness), I'll go over a few totally superficial and insubstantial reasons why I love Gilmore Girls.

1. Rory Gilmore is my fantasy girlfriend.  It is a little known fact that a scientist working for CW spliced the genes of this lemur (massive eyes), an Argentinean model, and Kim Deal to create Alexis Bledel.  In reality, though Argentinean, Alexis grew up in Houston and even has a small part in Rushmore.  A true thinking man's pinup.  The series ends with Rory still being single, giving me a false hope that someday she will make the transition from fictional to actual, and that I will be at the right place in the right time when that happens.
2. I aspire to live a bourgeois bohemian life in suburban/rural Connecticut while not appearing to do any real work.  Lorelai's ability to run a hotel without any serious training or a college degree (at first) is admirable.  However, it's pretty clear that even in the early years, before she because a wildly successful entrepreneur, the younger Gilmores never really had to worry about money.  For a single mother at the age of 16, Lorelai has certainly done quite well for herself.  Even if not every character in the show is expressly rich, they all certainly dress rich and have rich tastes.  Even Rory's father randomly falls into ridiculous, excessive wealth.  That all these people are living extremely well is comforting to me.
3. I am a total sucker for indie rock references.  While few aspects of the show deal with music in a substantive way, all it takes is a few cameos (The Shins, Sonic Youth) and some off-hand references to Elvis Costello for me to become completely infatuated with a show.  These references indicate to me that there may be a like-minded individual there on the other end of the hierarchical relationship between producer and viewer.  Granted, an assiduous critic at this point might reintroduce his freshman year study on marketing in television shows, but I prefer to ignore that.  To me, Amy Sherman-Palladino (producer) is a rabid fan of the Magnetic Fields, despite the fact that she used to write for Roseanne.
4. I really like the confused look in people's eyes when they are looking through the DVDs owned by my roommate and me and they finally get to the Gilmore Girls box-set.  Very few people can easily comprehend complete incongruity.

BSG, or why I'm a frakking geek

Yes, despite the fact that I'm posting about anime and sci-fi back to back, I don't consider myself a classic geek in that sense.  I would classify many of my friends as those sorts of geeks, so this claim is not some sort of expression of pride or superiority.  However, I think that being a geek in general just means putting an excessive amount of energy into any one given pursuit or interest, and in that respect, I am certainly a geek in more than a few areas.

I can easily geek out over great television shows.  Evangelion and Battlestar Galactica (quite possibly the geekiest television title this century from a sci-fi perspective) are two such shows.  Though both shows focus greatly on robots (an abbreviated description for the sake of simplicity), they both also employ more nuanced moral themes.  

There are shows with more realistic settings that also employ themes of morality.  A recent show that people have gone crazy about that meets this description is The Wire.  The obvious difference between The Wire on one hand and BSG and Eva on the other is setting.  In a fantasy setting, BSG and Eva are free from reality-based restrictions and can manufacture situations that could never occur on our Earth in 2008.  This is obviously a trade-off; I've frequently extolled the realism of The Wire.  But I think this trade-off is acceptable.  Every show takes place in its own universe and operates according to its own rules.

Any series which takes the effort to set up its own rules and adhere to them has the proper structure to deal with the more universal themes that all good dramas bring into play.  BSG is marked by an extreme attention to detail and a wildly diverse range of characters.  It's what caused me to geek out over it initially and it continues tonight at 10pm. 

Dancing mechas bring mirth

Playing a heavy geek card here, and I don't even like Napoleon Dynamite.  Also, I have the new Eva movie but can't understand it, because I don't speak Japanese.

Recent Viewings Roundup

Interiors

Are Woody Allen characters clichéd late 70's New York intellectuals or are late 70's New York intellectuals clichéd Woody Allen characters?  Either way, Sam Waterston hates renovations but loves flat bottomed ties and this movie gets a thumbs up.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

This 1989 Woody Allen drama employs many of the same themes that he used in Match Point to great effect.  While it lacks the glossy sheen of Match Point, the performances are quite impressive and a bit of humor is mixed in.  A worthwhile watch.

Ed Wood

The director of Plan 9 From Outer Space gets the biopic treatment from Tim Burton, but the real star of this movie is Johnny Depp, who enters an incredible performance, though makes a lot of the other actors seem shameful by comparison.  Odd enough without being weird, funny and even somewhat heartwarming.

No Country for Old Men

I think that this movie is meant to be seen in a theatre.  I enjoyed it, but didn't get feel overwhelming awe that I felt while watching There Will Be Blood.  Then again, I didn't read the book either.  At any rate, this is a solid entry though I'm probably going to have to watch it again to see if I really don't like it as much as everyone else.

Gone Baby Gone

Ok, so clearly Ben Affleck is an amateur director, but tried not to let this impact my thoughts.  This movie gets off to a slow start, but eventually builds toward a climatic ending that seems designed to get people to discuss ethics after the movie is over.  For the record, I think Casey's character did the right thing.  Solid, not great.

Atonement

An average romance script shot beautifully and with incredible audio.  A bit heavy with the glass/water/mirror motifs, but a bit of sophistication never hurt anyway.  The meticulously detailed sets shot with a definite eye toward being consciously impressive are the star in this film.  A question: does sending a dirty note really get that sort of reaction from a girl?

Divorce, Italian Style

I can't help but compare this black and white film starring Marcello Mastroianni to a Fellini film.  After all, the film itself makes the direct comparison.  While the movie is amusing enough in and of itself, the visual imagination, along with the script and audio, fall short of the two most noted Fellini features with Mastroianni.  An ancillary film at best.  Besides, Marcello doesn't look right with a shady mustache and never once wears badass glasses.