All 21 pages of chapter ten of High Fidelity, which I'm reading for the very first time and wtf took me so long I know I know. If only all one-night-stands in our lives were this aware and sweet and wise, however awkward afterwards, we might be better people. Maybe.
WoT once coined the above to describe the joy one takes in really crappy songs. Butch Walker addresses this concept somewhat in his latest blog entry. So Shakespeare, as usual, was right: there really is nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so.
Northeastern. You're probably from somewhere near New York City, possibly north Jersey, or Connecticut or Rhode Island. If you are from New York City you may be one of the types who people never believe when you say you're from New York.
Northern. Whether you have the world famous Inland North accent of the Great Lakes area, or the radio-friendly sound of upstate NY and western New England, your accent is what used to set the standard for American English pronunciation (not much anymore now that the Inland North sounds like it does).
Walking home last night, ever edging out an approaching rainshower, with Leonard Cohen's "The Guests" in my cans, the sky gray but surprisingly bright in a masked sunset, I felt somewhat unreasonably but nevertheless blessedly happy. Never look a rush of gratitude for living in the mouth. Then the music segued into Sly's "Family Affair," reminding me of the end of Madonna's Truth or Dare where she uses the first verse of that song as a bridge into "Keep It Together." And what pops up after? "She's Madonna" by Robbie Williams. Coincidence or harmonic convergence of a kind? One of those choices is far less boring.
It was that spirit that undoubtedly led me to feel bad for Sanjaya getting kicked off American Idol last night. Sure, he was dreadful 99.9 percent of the time to the point where it pained me to even watch him, and his bizarre mix of naïveté and arrogance made my skin crawl in equal measure. But seeing him cry as he watched his sadistic "I'm Goin' Home" recap video, I realized, oh, crap, he's not a fascist dictator, he's just a kid. And hearing him sing "Let's give them something to talk about/Other than hair" made me feel almost fond of him. So good luck to you, Sanj. Just promise me when you tour this summer that you'll stay the hell away from "Sweet Child O'Mine."
Gruyere has been kind enough to treat us all to the dubious spectacle of Charlotte Church and Amy Winehouse duetting on "Beat It." I got a kick out of it, anyway, but it can't hold a candle to this:
Heart-Shaped Box: Not bad. Hill gets points for not making too big a deal out of his pop culture references, unlike his dad. Also unlike his dad, he knows how to end the damn thing satisfactorily. The story has momentum, but I didn't find it all that scary. Neat, perhaps, but not shiver-inducing or aww-this-is-not-gonna-be-pretty like The Ruins. I'm leaving the supernatural behind for a while in favor of horny treeplanters.
Watched Thank God You're Here last night. Could do without the shots of America's Funniest Whatevers reject audiences guffawing a bit too hard, but otherwise pretty damn amusing. I figured Wayne Knight would be on top of things, but I had no idea Bryan Cranston was that fearlessly goofy. Or that Mo'Nique could be funny at all.
Understatement of the year: "Damn, Jack." - Ricky Schroeder.
I think it was Larry Kramer who quoted Dr. Mathilde Krim as having said everything about the response to the AIDS epidemic was depressingly predictable, or something like that. In any event, "depressingly predictable" is an apt phrase to describe what goes on in Max Brooks' World War Z. One might take offense at even the slightest suggestion of a parallel between a real-life viral outbreak and a fake account of a war against zombies. But monster stories have always been metaphors, intended or un-, for something else, whether it's Godzilla putting Japan through the horrors of Hiroshima again and again or George Romero using vampirism as the murky middle ground between immature and mature sexuality in his undersung Martin. (There's also Anne Rice insisting in her preamble to the video version of Interview with the Vampire that the film's really "about us," but I think it's more specifically about a really hot "us.") And so the zombie war in World War Z could indeed be a stand-in for a surprise attack by a human enemy, a weather disaster, a virus - anything. And as it pertains to Z, "depressingly predictable" isn't necessarily a bad thing. From the underthought military actions to the inhumane survival-of-the-fittest scenarios and even a celebrity compound where a definitely-not-Bill-Maher is having end-of-the-world sex with a definitely-not-Ann-Coulter, I'm getting vertical whiplash from so much nodding and thinking, yep, that would happen. Thus far the optimistic stuff is scant, apart from a Roxy Music tune providing an unexpected morale boost (and no, the tune wasn't "Do The Strand," and too bad), but I'm about halfway through and clearly "we" win, so hope can't be too far around the corner. Kudos to Brooks, though, for taking something potentially very passé (that's French for "depressingly predictable," dontcha know) and making it feel surprisingly au courant.
All kitchen paraphernalia, aside from the stuff we need to get through the week, is at the new place. Took five trips but we did it. All we have left is office tchotchkes, videos/CDs/cassettes/DVDs, and clothing. The rest we leave to the big guns. So far, so good, and feeling much more relaxed in general about the whole thing. Not to mention the new place just freaking rawks every time we're there.
And Slings & Arrows pulled it together for a very satisfying final ep. Maybe there were a couple contrivances too many to make sure there were endings, happy and un-, where they belonged, and as consistent as some of them may have been to the characters, a couple of the un- ones seemed a little unfair. (Like Joe Gideon before me, I ask, "Whatsamatta, don't you like musical comedy?" And they must at least a little, because Godspell got a bit of a pass last season.) For all that, though, the love of theatre - even theatre sans argent - and the potential of theatre to move and transform shines blindingly through. And not only do you get some splendid glimpses of Lear, but also scenes between Stephen Ouimette and Paul Gross that were pitch-perfect and, ultimately, heartbreaking. Good show, all. Come back and see us again, please, and next time more love for your musical brothers and sisters.
We haven't received mail for the past four days. Either our soon-to-be-ex-landlord is hoarding our mail just to be petty (unlikely but possible), or the USPS put our forwarding in too soon (more likely and more possible).
And my keycard at the dayjob stopped working. Apparently I received three separate emails from head honchos asking for my keycard number so they can update the databse. "Don't read your email, huh?" said Miss Helpful 2007. As anyone who knows me can attest, I live for email, so that's not even a factor.
And, despite my having charged the damn thing last night, the Beast is down to half-battery capacity after only an hour's commute. I'd take some deep breaths, but ...
Okay, not all, but $80. That's practically a fifth, which in my present circumstances might as well be all. U-Haul isn't very forthcoming about this mysterious $80 deposit they automatically debit from your account when you rent their trucks - not a peep on their website - so imagine my surprise finding myself that much poorer this morning. And this on top of the $41 they charged me for actual usage of the truck. I have been assured by someone named Carmen that my poverty is temporary and that this deposit will be credited back to my account, but considering how down-low they kept this charge I'm inclined to be suspicious. And, of course, this raises the age-old question of, "Well, you took it out on the day of, why can't you just put it back in?" I'm sure it will all end neatly, but I can't help but wonder what else U-Haul might decide to charge to me. A manager's Bahamas vacation, I shouldn't be surprised. In any case, with a move on the horizon and $200 more than usual in rent due at the end of the month now is not the time to be fucking with my finances. I hope to have cause for more hatred retraction by the end of the week.
This last season of Slings & Arrows is bugging me, too. If I were being generous, I would say the six-episode limit they've set themselves is no longer to their advantage, as they've spent so much time setting up characters and situations that require more than one more episode to wrap up neatly. They need four to six months to do these particular arcs justice. As it stands, they're ending just as they're finally getting interesting. I know the last two seasons proceeded in the same fashion, culminating in an evening of satisfying performance and summary. I guess there's only so much obnoxious-narcissistic-musical-theatre-performer trope I can take, however true it may be, before it starts to feel like water treading. Then again, I felt a little let down about season 2, and on repeated viewings I discovered it to be much deeper in total than I thought.
I'm just grumpy. Eighty bucks in limbo and 11 days left to pack. I want Julie fucking Andrews to crash through the window with a kilo of "sugar" to help the medicine go down.
And here comes the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambulance ...
Thoughts on the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame show last night:
If Patti Smith's mom vacuumed to "Rock N Roll Nigger," then I don't feel so bad about using it on the elliptical at the gym. I wonder if Mama Smith also preferred Trent Reznor's Natural Born Killers remix.
Patti made a reference to forgetting the words a lot, but apparently Ronnie Spector can't even read "People Have the Power" off a teleprompter. Sammy Hagar may have gotten a little lost in there but at least he was on key. And he gets major props for being in somewhat puppyish awe of Patti.
The Velvet Revolver Van Halen tribute was strange strange strange. I never imagined "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" being sung by a guy who sounds like Bryan Ferry covering Motorhead. Then again, I guess that's what David Lee Roth kind of sounds like anyway.
Eddie Vedder is like Bono and Springsteen without the I-am-rock-legend self-consciousness. He seems like the go-to guy for the memorable all-night rambling conversation about Subjects With Capital Letters.
I never realized just how much of my youth was scored (in more ways than one) to R.E.M. until last night. Each of the three songs they played took me vividly back to very specific places, times, and mindsets. Strange, because I don't listen to much R.E.M. nowadays, comparatively speaking. Considering the rush I got hearing "Gardening at Night" and "Begin the Begin" again, maybe I should.
And please, someone, anyone, remaster The Message pronto.
But-We're-Ever-Hopeful Edition, Friday Random Ten:
Goldberg Variation No. 19 - Scott Ross Welcome to my Nightmare - Alice Cooper A Long December - Counting Crows A Higher Power - Jens Lenkman Spaced Cowboy - Sly & the Family Stone Satie, Gymnopedie I - Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo Explode and Make Up - Sugar 3's A Charm - Bleu Iolanthe - James McMurtry Beethoven, Symphony #9, Third Movement - Simon Rattle, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
McCauley kind of dwindled to a well-meaning whimper, so a bit of a disappointment. Moved on to this. In times of upheaval, y'know, reach for the familiar.
Digby thinks the conservatives are doing a better spin job on the Libby trial for anyone's comfort level. Apropos of that, I was switching channels last night and happened upon the end of the O'Reilly show wherein the Blotch was giving a 30-second dissertation on Sandy Berger, followed, strangely enough, by an ad for Sean Hannity's new show that promised to go in-depth about the "socks scandal." This is, of course, a child's strategy - "Yeah, sure, I ate cookies before dinner, but Danny didn't take out the garbage last week!" - and it must be the warm fuzzies we get from such throwbacks to our youth that this crap still works on people. So Digby has a point - a depressingly unsurprising one, but still a point - and one he expounds upon somewhat, I think, in this.
But there's no getting around that this is very entertaining and sharply observed without patting itself on the back for it. Apropos of our current situation is this: "I sometimes wondered if people wouldn't be happier if housing were run more like an adoption. You put in an application with certain requests and requirements, and when something comes up, it's handed over to you, and you make it yours. It becomes the perfect place to live, not because it meets certain criteria, but because it's yours." Amen to that, Stephen.
The Blessings-Not-Just-For-The-Ones-Who-Kneel Edition:
NYC - Interpol City of Blinding Lights - U2 Stand! - Sly & the Family Stone Good Fortune - PJ Harvey Blue You - Magnetic Fields Sweet Lady Mary - Rod Stewart Life Can Be So Nice - Prince & the Revolution Down on the Corner - Johnny Marr & Neil Finn Suite from Anna Magdalena Notebook: Minuet in G Major - Wendy Carlos Ain't Goin' Down to the Well - Tom Waits
It's Purgation Weekend #1 at the Soon-To-Be-Someone-Else's-Grail. Books, clothing, and paperwork. No mercy.
Food-poisoning-weight-loss still holding steady, thanks to a week of consistent gym visits and less extravagant dinners after 8PM. Go me.
Saw Babel this week, finally. Excellent filmmaking and acting all around, and I got what everybody was going for, the idea that even when we speak the same language we are still determined to separate ourselves from one another no matter how closely we really are connected. Admirable sentiment, but I was unmoved by the whole enterprise. Maybe it was because this is the third straight film I've seen from Iñárritu that does the whole shuffle-out-of-sequence thing and it's getting tired. Or maybe I just didn't find the connections between the characters all that surprising, although one of them was a bit of a stretch, to say the least. Whether I was distancing myself from the film or the film was distancing itself from me, I can't quite tell.
Also saw Grudge 2, which, like Babel, has a fractured narrative and diminishing returns on an initially effective idea. After four Ju-On movies, these are pretty one-trick poltergeists. Shimizu does set up a couple of shivery moments where a white shirt hanging in a dark corner of a closet is really Kayako's ghost, or Kayako is spotted in the shadows of a group of people, but otherwise it's the same boy-crouching-under-table and long-haired-croaking-chick-spidering-down-the-stairs crap. Shimizu has yet to really trump his own striking image from the first Ju-On, where a woman is trapped in bed by the ghost boy crouching at her feet and Kayako bending over almost at a 90-degree angle at the head of the bed with her hair dangling in the poor woman's face like prison bars. Good opening, though, with Jennifer Beals - although you'd really have to be laboring under a curse to not see that bacon grease death coming.
New album title, "Bacon Grease Death Coming." I called it first, Mod!
Shut Up and Sing is sneaky. You think it's going to be a nonstop Bush-bash but it's much more complex than that. Maines' off-the-cuff comment hardly seems as inflammatory as the Freepers characterized it at the time, and it's interesting to see just how far the Chicks are pushed (or push themselves) in the opposite direction of what is considered their fan base as a consequence of this tempest teapot. It's also rather fascinating to see how creatively vitalized the Chicks seem when they go to work on Taking the Long Way, even as they're battling country radio excommunication and the occasional death threat - not to mention the oh-come-on-that-was-elegant-Swiftian-hyperbole of Bill O'Reilly suggesting they need to be slapped around a bit. (Even better is blondie right-wing ass kisser Rebecca Hagelin swooning in response, "Oh, absolutely!" I guess Mr. Hagelin has carte blanche to buckle-whip Becky the next time she gets nervy, which should be any second now...) It seems that country radio and its listeners generally insist on an either/or proposition between "loudmouth" Natalie and the nuances of Toby "she said anybody can write 'boot-in-your-ass' but she didn't" Keith. At this late date I still don't know why it's treason to love this bar and the silent house.
Singing with your mouth shut isn't singing. It's humming. Eventually you gotta open your mouth.
The Beast has been very empathetic today. This morning it soothed me with George Winston and Handel, and on my way out of the audition this afternoon (at which, though I was underinformed about the play, I think I acquitted myself rather well) I was serenaded with Richard Thompson's "Dry My Tears and Move On" (scroll down) and the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Very nice. I think I should have those two programmed to play after every audition. Y'know, as opposed to "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" and "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me."
Spending Oscar night with the NSBD and the NSBDBF. Yes, I know, I know - but this time it's at their apartment, which should make any excesses easier to bear. In theory.
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scottmichael's journal
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