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April 2008
What’s the best CD you’ve bought lately?
You know, there’s no reason I should be the only one who tells you what I think of new music… You’re out there listening to it, too…
Sooooooooooooooooooo, share share share: What’s the best new disc you’ve picked up, bought, borrowed, downloaded or burned of late?
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Don’t do the brown acid!
For some reason, I thought of the movie “Woodstock” when I read this obituary…
Golly, wonder why?
102? Really? I will let you provide your own LSD joke here…
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Miley Cyrus: A coldly calculated career move.
A few thought on the Miley Cyrus “scandal.”
It’s not a scandal. It’s a made-up mini-non-event whipped up as the hysteria du jour by a shallow media-celebrity culture fuelled by TV talking heads that needs a new overhyped narrative to chew on every day or so, and which will make one up from nothing, if there isn’t something good and real worth biting onto.
Doesn’t anybody else see this as the cold, calculated career move by the Cyrus clan that it so obviously is?
They know that nobody remains a squeaky-clean teen star for very long, and that little Miley’s 15 minutes are ticking down. Her audience is aging past her even as we speak, and she needs to do something about it now. Any and all young female popsters who have had any kind of crossover success to adult stardom have had to time and manage the way in which they first present themselves to us, the public, as sensual beings (ie: “stars,” all of whom we see through that lens) so that we can get our heads around the idea and decide if we will keep buying their product.
Miley, her dad (who has seen career ups and downs, and knows how they feel) and their very smart handlers are clearly testing the water on Miley’s coming-out as a woman. If they’re doing it a bit too soon, that is mostly a testament to how huge Cyrus has gotten so quickly (and what she’s got to lose by misjudging her next steps), and also a statement on the public’s tolerance and appetite for sexualized teenagers, male and female alike.
That’s right … the American viewing/purchasing public has long made it very clear that it prefers PG-13 to G when it comes to spending its money. It also long ago made very clear that it will voyeuristically indulge in watching sexy teens doing sexy things. Just watch any prime-time TV show, if you think I’m wrong. Miley is 15 now, but are there any 17-year-olds who can sell themselves as cool to 11-year-olds, as she’s doing for the moment? To keep the money flowing she needs to figure out how to keep moving with the culture and her aging audience. The Vanity Fair photos are step 1.
She isn’t topless. C’mon. We’ve all seen topless, and that’s not it. The photos are tastefully done, in my opinion, and consistent with the sort of high-gloss celebrity shots that magazines do these days. Why is anyone surprised?
My guess is that the Cyrus clan and the Disney suits (who let a slightly older, young adult Vanessa Hudgens apologize for full-nude Internet fotos not too long ago, btw) engineered this whole brouhaha to get just the response, and headlines, that they predictably did. Nothing sells like a little bit of overcooked, sensationalized semi-sleaze, and the public really loves a good girl who is breathlessly “sorry” for having been a little bit naughty. Miley’s the whole package, now. Before, she was just a kid.
Money will win out here. Miley will be fine. Buy your tickets now for next summer’s tour, kiddies … they’re sure gonna be going fast.
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FRAZE SUMMERFEST ANNOUNCED
Ahoy, music fans, this just came in to the newsroom from the Fraze…. If you loved bands in the ’80s, this one’s for you:
It’s the biggest SummerFest ever! We’re excited to announce the great performers coming to the Fraze for the all-day concert event! MIX 107.7 celebrates its tenth year at the Fraze this summer and we’ve lined up ten popular bands to play starting at Noon and continuing until 11:00 PM. Imagine your favorite ’80s bands playing for you at this rock and roll party. Act fast! Tickets go on sale this Wednesday, April 30 at Noon!
Just Announced! Mix 107.7 SummerFest Ten Saturday, July 5 - Noon - 11:00 PM TICKETS GO ON SALE Wednesday, April 30 at Noon P - $75, O - $65, L/T - $45 Limit 4 tickets per person, first day of sale.
The Bands: Night Ranger - “Sister Christian,” “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” Lou Gramm, former lead vocalist and co-writer of Foreigner Survivor — “Eye of the Tiger” Taylor Dayne — “Tell It to My Heart” Howard Jones — “What is Love” Patty Smyth & Scandal — “Good Bye to You” The Fixx — “One Thing Leads to Another” The Romantics — “What I Like About You” A Flock of Seagulls — “I Ran (So Far Away)” Naked Eyes — “Always Something There to Remind Me”
Be sure to check out the Fraze website, www.fraze.com, for more information on this fantastic SummerFest!
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Happy Birthday, Harper Lee!
Today is Harper Lee’s birthday… Down below you’ll find a nice little blurb on her courtesy, as always, of our very good friends at The Writer’s Almanac.
You know, before I offer that I must make the following literary confession: I have never been able to finish “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
I have tried, many times. Five or six, at least, dating all the way back to high school. I’ve seen the movie, of course, and like it. But I have never been able to get through the book. I know it’s good, but I always bog down in the middle. It seems too simple to me, and a bit too goody-goody. I know, I know… I’m awful. I’ve been told. And I’ll probably try it again… But I’m starting to think it might be the book, not me.
BTW, if you haven’t seen the portrayals of Harper Lee in the recent films about her cousin, Truman Capote, in “Capote” and “Infamous,” you definitely should. They’re both worthwhile.
Here’s the bio.
Now I feel bad, just talking about the book. Maybe I’ll try again this week.
It’s the birthday of (Nelle) Harper Lee ) the author of To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), born in Monroeville, Alabama (1926), the daughter of a local newspaper editor and lawyer. She was a friend from childhood of Truman Capote, and she later traveled to Kansas with him to help with the research of his work for In Cold Blood (1966). In college, she worked on the humor magazine Ramma-Jamma. She attended law school at the University of Alabama, but dropped out before earning a degree, moving to New York to pursue a writing career. She later said that her years in law school were “good training for a writer.”
To support herself while writing, she worked for several years as a reservation clerk at British Overseas Airline Corporation and at Eastern Air Lines. In December of 1956, some of her New York friends gave her a year’s salary along with a note: “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” She decided to devote herself to writing and moved into an apartment with only cold water and improvised furniture.
Lee wrote very slowly, extensively revising for two and a half years on the manuscript of To Kill a Mockingbird (which she had called at different times “Go Set a Watchman” and “Atticus”). She called herself “more a rewriter than writer,” and on a winter night in 1958, she was so frustrated with the progress of her novel and its many drafts that she threw the manuscripts out the window of her New York apartment into the deep snow below. She called her editor to tell him, and he convinced her to go outside and collect the papers.
To Kill a Mockingbird came out in 1960 and was immediately a popular and critical success. Lee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. A review in The Washington Post read, “A hundred pounds of sermons on tolerance, or an equal measure of invective deploring the lack of it, will weigh far less in the scale of enlightenment than a mere 18 ounces of new fiction bearing the title To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Lee later said, “I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I’d expected.”
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Godless heathens!
Here’s an interesting story on the current state of atheism, if such a hard-to-pin-down thing (by its very decentralized nature) can be said to have a current state…
Anyway, it’s worth a read, I think, regardless of your orientation. What do you think?
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I resisted the urge…
… it was tough, but I managed to get through the wonderful Dayton Visual Arts Center Art Auction last night without buying anything…
I had to fight it … fight … urge … to … buy … more … art …
… more … art …
… need … more … art … walls … empty … not …
… must … take … art … we … already … have … down … to … make … room … for … new … art…
… must … resist … urge … to … buy … buy … buy …
Whew! That was tough. I had my eye on one of Richard Malogorski’s great wide-view, open-spaces photographs, but let somebody else have it who seemed to want it a lot more. Sigh.
I looked at Anita Tresslar’s lovely still life, but decided I liked the one in our house enough that I didn’t need to get another one quite yet.
I saw a Barrish across the room that looked pretty sweet, and was barely able to avoid the Burroughs…
But somehow, my will prevailed.
Today, however, I have non-buyer’s remorse. I hate that.
Next year, I may not be able to resist…
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“Spamalot”!!
Mye sonn und mee ve spend a nacht mit de Schuster play kulled “Spamalot” on Thursday nachten mit de fanni Knights uf de Rounden Tablen met der vackey King Arrthuurmeister und de fanni bigge rabbit mit de vooden und de kookoonutzen clack clack.
Und de VolkzenSchustern dey laffed und laffed at allen de fanni jokenhaben mit de sillii Frenchies avec de Conehedhelmetten und de fanni farten in mein general direction mit de naughty gestures mit de finggerroutenpoken und eet vas fanni und the VolkzenSchustern dey laffed und laffed und laffed hahahahahahahaha.
“Ooooopsaaadaysii” I vas shoutenmitten ven we saw the “Spamalot” cuz I cconnffesse I vuz nott surre mit I be’s liiken it so much beffor it startenuppen at de Schusterencenterre. Mye sonn und me be’s fannelargenmeisters uf the telly proggramme liikke we are Pythonista Montymeisters of verry larrge und a badde or unfunneye playye de would maekken us moste sadde und forcenvommitt our Spamme. Ick!
But de Spamme stayed im our stomachs, you know, cuz de playye, it vaz yuummii und we laffffffffffffffffffed hahahahahaha.
Vot did right, you is wondderitzen? Vell I telle you … de Playmeisterpeeples kepten ze Spiritutzii uf de Original filme mit de Graillen und all mit ze Blacke Knighte und ze Knightes Who Say “Nii!” und ze Godde im Hebben mit de fanni Bigge Voice.
You know: sophisticated British humor.
Hahahahahaha!!! Und Playmeisterpeeples, dem nutzen, they added sum a lotten kookiii Broadwayye Musicalsonggen mit de staging and de fannii jokken that werre even betterr den somme uf de humorstuffen in the Grailienfillmmen. “No wayye Jose!” I been screamen. Und de mannii VolkzenSchustern dey screamen too mit de jokken und de vulgar offensenlafffies und de additions mit de Juden und de Gayyegiiys und de Sexenjokken (ach!) und de Britnii Spearse und de niikkidshowgiirlsii und even de Oldenfolksen mit de Schusterencenterre laffed und laffed und laffed hahahahaha.
But true.
De Olden Tymes vaz fanni, ja, mit sillii Pythonjokken und intelligentii BBC hahahaha yet now mit de ModernneHummor iss allen insulten und de Nastii Meanne Schtuffe mit de Raunchen und de F-wordde alles tyme und now de 70s siim so innocenten mit de fanni Knightes and hahahaha. Ve laffed und lafffed und later a moosse bitten mein sonne. Fannii!
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More songs we’re tired of…
Still getting mail from last week’s post re: pop songs I’m sick of hearing.
Here are a few new contenders from y’all in Reader Land…
I don’t necessarily dislike Sheryl Crow, but a couple of her songs make me want to worship the porcelain goddess. And those are the overplayed “Soak Up The Sun” and my most despised: “All I Wanna Do”. I hope that that radio station at the far right (in more ways than one) end of the dial is paying attention to this list you are compiling. They are one of the main offenders when it comes to “overkill”.
Uh-huh. I still like “Soak Up the Sun,” but I do think she has a point there… Presume the station in question is WMMX, in which case if I hear them play another damn Journey song, I’m gonna reach through the radio and strangle them. Jeeeeeeeez.
This is from Steve:
On your subject of songs. I grew up in the 70’s and the big song was FREE BIRD. Loved it , nows its to the point that the second I here the first note I can’t change the channel fast enough. also anything buy Bruce Springsteen (accept Born to Run) which i’m sure i’ll get sick of to. Over rated and played over and over …….
OK, now … Bruce??? Them’s fightin’ words, pardner.
Keep ‘em coming, kids!
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Miley Hanna Cyrus Montana!
Ahhh, you can always count on The Onion for a good, stoopid belly-laugh….
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Spam, spam, spam, spam…
Woohoo! Our ace theater critic, Terry Morris, caught the opening night of “Spamalot” Tuesday night and loved it.
We’ve got tickets for Thursday, and I must say it’s the Schuster/Victoria show we’ve most been looking forward to all season.
Anybody seen it yet? Will we be disappointed?
And does anybody not love Monty Python?
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Jay Jr. and Baby Beyonce someday?
Oh! This is by far the coolest celeb wedding to come down the pike in ages … even more so for the quietude of the doing of it…. Makes me like these two even more, and I already liked them quite a lot.
Here’s to the happy couple. Long may they be.
Quoth the AP:
SCARSDALE, N.Y. — A village clerk says a marriage license for Beyonce Knowles and Jay-Z, dated April 4 and signed by the person who officiated at the wedding, is being filed with the state.
The license was received by mail last Friday, says Scarsdale Clerk Donna Conkling. She would not say who officiated.
The celebrities and their representatives had refused to confirm widespread rumors about the marriage. But there was a lavish party at Jay-Z’s Manhattan apartment on April 4, with guests including Gwyneth Paltrow and Beyonce’s former Destiny’s Child bandmates, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams.
The couple have apparently been dating for six years. Knowles, 26, and Jay-Z, 38, whose real name is Shawn Carter, have collaborated on the songs “‘03 Bonnie and Clyde” and “Crazy In Love.”
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What’s your favorite Clint Eastwood?
A co-worker friend just mentioned that he spent a very satisfying Monday evening rewatching “High Plains Drifter.”
“My favorite,” he said. “Absolutely.”
Hmmm. I think mine would be “Dirty Harry,” though I know the westerns are probably better movies. In that case, for me it would be “Unforgiven,” though I do indeed like “Drifter” quite a lot.
Ah, Clint…
Hey, wait. Do his directed movies count as “Clint Eastwood movies”? In that case, “Mystic River” was pretty good…
What’s YOUR favorite?
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New live Stones CD
Today’s disc du jour, sports fans:
The Rolling Stones
SHINE A LIGHT
Question: Why have another live Stones album?
Answer: Because Martin Scorsese wanted to do concert film about the band, and when he calls you listen. Even if you’re the Stones.
Or especially if you’re the Stones. I mean, really — who else would Martin Scorsese want to make a concert film about? Which other band would be worthy of his attention and time?
We haven’t seen the movie yet, but the album that accompanies it — the band’s fifth live disc, at least — exists as a kind of testimonial reinforcement for the Stones’ belief in their own greatness. Do they make the case? After several spins through the album, I must say I’m really not sure. I guess so.
Certainly, there is a lot to like about it, and one way to approach “Shine A Light” is as a blueprint for how the group has modified its act to accommodate age and longevity. To compare them to Bob Dylan — the only other rock artist from their age and of their stature who’s still at the same game and still touring regularly — they have not had to make the same changes to their act and sound. Any Dylan fan knows he’s come up with a long-slow-moan singing style to overcome his shot voice; Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie have no such need. They’re still musically very strong and more than manage to crank up an energetic, smartly performed set with plenty of high points.
Jagger can’t really sing anymore, but his articulation and phrasing are better than ever, and the twin-guitar interplay between Richards and Woods sounds more bluesy and trim than it did when they were younger, not at all a band thing.
But it’s the material itself that doesn’t feel as good anymore. While there is a certain poignancy that a man in his 60s brings to “As Tears Go By” that a man in his 20s couldn’t muster, there is also more than a bit of creepiness to having the same guy singing “Start Me Up.” In fact, now it sounds like a Viagra commercial.
Sometimes the result is such a mixed bag that one doesn’t know what to think — such as when Christina Aguilera pops in for a stormin’ duet on “Live With Me.” It’s great, and it’s icky, all at once.
As you could say, I suppose, about so much else in the Stones’ long, weird and purely novel career. Maybe, now that I think of it, this is a better and more fitting album than it seemed, at first.
Grade: B
iPod picks: “Live With Me,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Sympathy for the Devil.”
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Still flying, no longer fearful
Erica Jong’s famous (infamous?) novel “Fear of Flying” is getting some anniversary buzz in critical circles, all of it good — or at least better than what I think she got back when the book came out in 1973.
I just recently read the book … I was 13 when it came out, and for one reason or another I never caught up to it till middle age… I really, really liked it. The thing is compulsively readable, insightful into people in general (not just women) and spectacularly good fun, and in fact I had a hard time figuring out just what it was that made the book so darn controversial when it came out. Maybe it was just the age I was at the first reading, or that things have gotten so much nuttier since the days when it was first published, but really — sex seemed to be the least of what the novel was about.
Oh, well… Pick it up if you get a chance. It’s worth the time.
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“Bodies” in Cincy: Kinda creepy
Had a free afternoon on Saturday, and so my son and I went to see the “Bodies” exhibition at the Museum Center in Cincinnati. To tell the truth, I’m not quite sure what I thought of it.
It’s expensive, for one thing ($23 for adults). For another thing, I didn’t really learn that much. Apparently, I paid more attention in high school biology class than I thought.
I mean, sure. I learned some things from “Bodies.” Like how tiny the pituitary gland really is (dime-sized, apparently), and what a breast-cancer tumor looks like. As an ex-puffer, it is interesting to see what blackened lungs really look like, and as a jogger it’s fascinating to see the tendons, joints and sinews in the legs and feet, and wonder how they put up with all that pounding. But overall, my general knowledge of the body and how it works wasn’t really vastly increased. My son had pretty much the same impression.
I was impressed, however, at how interested people seemed to be in these dissected, plasticized corpses. They wanted to be close to them, to nearly touch them, to look inside and also stand back and marvel at the complexity and beautiful intricacy they revealed. To see a healthy young person examining a body and watch them figuring out what makes their own physique work was rather satisfying people-watching of a rare and truly unique sort.
But there was something also not quite right. An itch. A metaphysical stone in my shoe that kept me from fully plunging in and enjoying the show.
Namely, that it was a show. Maybe it was the fact that my physician father spoke often to me over the years about the sanctity of the body, and the awe-inspiring mystery of its workings… but there was, it struck me, simply something not right about this exhibition.
Who were these people? Whose bodies were we looking at? Whose flesh had been flayed and flouted for my — for my what? Education? Insight? Not really. As I said, beyond the first blush, there is fairly little the average educated person will learn about the body from “Bodies” that they did not know before.
So, then … for my entertainment? Yes, I’m afraid so. I go to a museum to be entertained, friends, and if it’s by art or photography or sculpture or dinosaur bones or historical artifacts, then fine. But should the human body, the thing that once held a life, be turned into a mere artifact? Or displayed like a sculpture?
It all felt so … Victorian. Like the Elephant Man put on display in a parlor. So Ancient Roman. So … uncivilized, even in its glossy sheen of arm’s-length professionalism.
Sorry, but it didn’t feel right.
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R.I.P.: E-Streeter Danny Federici
Sad news for Springsteen fans…
Longtime E Street Band keyboard player Danny Federici, who’s had cancer for some while, died overnight according to Backstreets.com, the main Springsteen fan site.
A real loss, too. He’d been playing on some dates on the current tour, but missed the recent shows in Cbus and Cincy, though Bruce acknowledged his friend’s struggle and the audience gave him a hand in absentia.
I’ve seen the man play a lot over the years, and he was a bedrock in a great band that a lot of people love.
Rest in peace.
Here, too, is the Los Angeles Times story:
The New Jersey musician, ‘through his playing and personality, contributed an essential element’ to the spirit of Springsteen’s band. From Times Staff and Wire Reports April 18, 2008 Danny Federici, one of the original members of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, died Thursday. He was 58.
The keyboardist passed away at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City after battling melanoma for three years, according to a posting on brucespringsteen.net.
His organ-playing can be heard in the classic “Born to Run,” the 1975 song that launched Springsteen’s career. He also played the organ and glockenspiel in the 1984 hit “Born in the U.S.A.”
Robert Hilburn, former pop critic for the Los Angeles Times, said Federici brought a “soulful seasoning” to the band. “Sometimes it felt like the New Jersey shore, where he came from: sometimes bright, sometimes melancholy,” Hilburn said.
“Danny was a marvelous musician, but for fans … his importance went beyond his keyboard work,” Hilburn said. “There has long been a sense of brotherhood and community surrounding the E Street Band and Danny, through his playing and personality, contributed an essential element to that spirit.”
Hilburn said of Springsteen’s concert last week in Anaheim, “You couldn’t help but miss Danny’s presence. Without him, the band was not whole.”
Federici, who has played with Springsteen since the late 1960s, dropped out of the group’s U.S. tour in November to undergo treatment for the skin cancer. He made a special appearance in Indianapolis on March 20.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band began last year its first full-scale U.S. and European tour in four years.
Federici was born in Flemington, N.J., a long car ride from the Jersey shore haunts where he first met kindred musical spirit Springsteen in the late 1960s. The pair often jammed at the Upstage Club in Asbury Park, N.J., a now-defunct after-hours club that hosted the best musicians in the state.
It was Federici, along with original E Street Band drummer Vini Lopez, who invited Springsteen to join their band.
Federici became a stalwart in the E Street Band as Springsteen rocketed from the boardwalk to international stardom. Springsteen split from E Street in the late ’80s, but they reunited for a hugely successful tour in 1999.
Concerts scheduled for Friday in Ft. Lauderdale and Saturday in Orlando were postponed.
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Oh, yeah. “Hotel California,” too.
Nice little string we got started yesterday on which songs you just don’t need to hear anymore…
I can’t believe I left “Hotel California” off my list. Glad somebody nominated it. It’s one of those thought-it-was-deep-when-I-was-17 songs that really sounds stupid now. Good guitar solo at the end, I guess … but now we’re back to the original premise: How many times to you need to hear something again that you already have note-for-note in your head?
Keep ‘em comin’, fans….
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Which songs do you hate?
It struck me as funny the other morning when we had the radio on during our morning routine and my wife slapped it off when Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” came on … especially since I’d started to happily hum along.
“Whatdeheck?” I said.
“I hate that song,” she said.
“You can’t hate that song. Nobody hates it.”
“All right, but I’ve heard it too many times.”
And then I knew what she meant. There are, indeed, many many fine songs that all of us have simply heard tooooooo many times, to the point that even though you like them OK, you just don’t need to hear them any more.
High on my list: “Stairway to Heaven,” “Hey Jude,” and “Rocket Man.” Don’t dislike ‘em. Just won’t listen to ‘em anymore.
What’s on your list?
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Happy Birthday, Leo!
Nooooo, not Dicaprio. Da Vinci!!
Courtesy of our good friends at The Writer’s Almanac, here’s the skinny on today’s special guest:
It’s the birthday of a brilliant man who had a hard time finishing things, Leonardo da Vinci , born in the Republic of Florence (1452). Though he lived for 67 years, only 17 of his paintings are known to exist, and only a few of those were finished to his satisfaction, including The Last Supper and Mona Lisa.
He kept notebooks full of ideas about architecture and technology of all kinds. Even the doodle pictures of parachutes he drew in the margin of his notes turned out to be technically perfect designs. He drew up plans for an assault battleship, a construction crane, a trench-digging machine, a revolving bridge, and a deep-sea diving suit. He made architectural sketches of churches that looked like seashells or blossoming flowers, none of which got built because they were too impractical. Most of his ideas were too ambitious for the tools that existed at the time.
In 1482, Leonardo began a sculpture of a horse. It was extremely difficult to design because the final product would weigh many tons when cast in bronze, and Leonardo wanted the horse to be rearing back on its hind legs. He spent 11 years sketching out the solution to the problem of the horse’s balance, but when he tried to cast the horse in bronze, he found that all the bronze in the city had been used to build cannons for an impending war. So the sculpture went unfinished until 1999, when a Japanese-American sculptor used Leonardo’s drawings and plans to build the horse. The finished product was 23 feet high, weighed 15 tons, and was perfectly balanced.
In 2001, builders completed a Leonardo da Vinci bridge supported by huge rings outside of Oslo, Norway.
Leonardo is best known for his painting the Mona Lisa, which is generally considered the most recognizable work of art in the world. He kept it with him for most of his life, working on it now and again. Today, it is probably the most analyzed work of art in history. For centuries, scholars have tried to determine the identity of the woman in the painting. A computer graphics consultant analyzed the painting and found that the nose, mouth, forehead, cheekbones, and eyebrows all lined up with a portrait Leonardo painted of himself. So he may have used himself as the model.
The most extensive works that Leonardo left behind were his notebooks, more than 3,500 pages of sketches and writings. Scholars aren’t sure why, but most of what Leonardo wrote in his notebooks was written backward, so that it could only be legible when held up to a mirror.
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Dayton Jewish Film Festival … hoorah!
Alas, I was only able to get to one event for the 8th Dayton Jewish Film Festival, but I really enjoyed it.
It was Sunday’s afternoon panel discussion at the Neon Movies, at which filmmakers discussed works in progress … the local artist in question was none other than Aileen LeBlanc, who many of us remember as the host of “Sounds Local” and other news programs a few years back on WYSO-FM.
These days, she has turned her talents and attentions to filmmaking, and with the support of the Levin Foundation, is working on a documentary called “Take Us Home.” it tells the story of the Ethiopian Jews who are gradually being relocated to Israel, where they can live better lives economically and also practice their faith without the discrimination they experience in their homeland, where many had to become Christians against their will.
The Israeli government is letting them in a few families at a time in an effort that has lasted for several years, settling them in Tel Aviv … where, once they start new lives, these people find that there are things they lose as well — old culture, family ways and familiarity with a way of life that falls quickly away as modern trappings come their way.
It’s a compelling human tale that LeBlanc is telling magnificently, judging from the 15-minute work in progress excerpt she showed at the Neon. We can’t wait to see more as it happens. Stay tuned.
And hoorah, meanwhile, for the organizers of the Dayton Jewish Film Festival, which runs for two weeks and is an excellent, unique event.
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Telling a book by its cover
I’ve never really thought that you could, conventional wisdom aside. Tell a book by its cover, that is. Presuming that they have the correct cover on the correct book, in fact you can often tell a lot about what’s going to happen inside the book from what the publishers have decided to put on the front of it.
This is especially true in genre fiction, don’t you think? I mean, don’t those pulpy paintings of busty dames with guns and cigarettes that they put on the covers of Mickey Spillane and his ilk pretty well reflect the stories they illustrated and sold? And sold pretty well, at that?
Don’t most bodice-rippers souund and feel a lot like the cover art? In fact, what came first? Where the covers illustrating the bodice-ripping, or did they name the type of story after the covers that seemed to so perfectly match the contents? Dunno.
Look, I’m not saying that the cover tells you everything … of course not. But admit it… it’s important enough to help you decide whether to read or not, right? To that end, here’s a blog from an editor at Penguin that gives some insights into the thoughts that go into cover art and design, particularly interesting since it’s for a book we’ve all read. Or should have, anyway.
Tell me what you think. I Iike what they came up with.
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those goofy oldies…
Found this interesting…
thoughts? comments? critiques?
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The riddle of the sphinx…
Remember the old Riddle of the Sphinx? What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs it the afternoon and three in the evening? My new-music listening of the past week has felt rather sphinx-like.
Coming in on four legs was a hot young band that’s all the rage in the indiesphere, Vampire Weekend — four guys from New York who tend to mix the laid-back, vaguely ironic and precisely rendered rock of privileged white kids with the skittery kick of 1980s Afropop. They sound like Pavement backed by King Sunny Ade — and, happily, it works.
Just as happily, R.E.M. is back. After more 14 years of slow, shuffing albums that sounded dull and sold poorly, the new “Accelerate” is fast, furious and great fun. It reminds me of the R.E.M. I fell in love with years ago. We’ll see if it can pull them back from the brink.
The Rolling Stones, meanwhile — who’ve never even heard of a brink, let alone been close to one — have hobbled in with their ninth live album, “Shine A Light.” It’s like most other Stones work from the last 20 years or so: simultaneously enjoyable but extraneous.
Now, these bands have nothing necessarily in common other than having all crossed my path at the same time, and I don’t mean to force imaginary connections. But in my mind, they crowded together in a way that made me reflect upon the rock biz in its current state, now that it has been around as long as a human life span.
I found myself identifying with R.E.M., three mid-career guys my age, taking stock and old past and potential future, and trying to strike a creative balance between comfort and creativity — planning out the next decade and imagining themselves as one day being … what? The Stones?
I wondered if the Stones have ever really considered calling it quits, or if they’ll forever keep trying to redefine the aging process for people in their business, and succeeding about half the time.
I wondered how I would feel about Vampire Weekend if I were young and just learning my tastes, as I was when I first heard R.E.M., and felt my socks being knocked off. Does any band any more knock anybody’s socks off? Does any new group feel instantly iconic? Do any feel much more than temporary?
Vampire Weekend is the sort of band that, years ago, might’ve had a shot at becoming an R.E.M., but today such at thing seems as unattainable as it does unimaginable. Not just for them, but for anyone.
R.E.M. might respond, “That’s OK. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.” The Stones might say, “Pour another drink, mate!” All of them, in their own way, have got it right.
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Big Read info!
Are you doing the Miami Valley’s Big Read this year? Tis the fourth annual, and the book this year is “Funny in Farsi,” by Firoozeh Dumas, a memoir of growing up as an Iranian immigrant to the USA.
I haven’t read it yet but will… my wife recently finished it and recommended it, though conditionally. “Not as good as ‘The Glass Castle,’” she said, referring to last year’s Big Read tome… We tend to agree on these things, but hey … always looking for an excuse to read something good. I’ll give it a try soon.
Meanwhile, here is information that just came our way about the last two big events for this year’s areawide event:
Big Read Finale - Two Chances to Meet the Author
Ticketed Event
Friday, May 2
6:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Dayton Masonic Center, Main Dining Room
Sponsored by Books & Co.
Presentation and book signing by author Firoozeh Dumas
Classic Persian Dance Demonstration
Persian Art/Crafts on display
Visit Iran through music & video
Sample Persian & American cuisine
Cash Bar
Tickets will be available Friday April 11th at: two Dayton Metro Library locations - Main downtown and Huber Heights, Project READ, Xenia Community Library, Troy Public Library, Washington-Centerville Public Library and Wright Memorial Library. Advance tickets are $12. Pick up tickets at the door for $15.
For more information call (937) 512-3104 or 512-3211.
Free Event
Come out to meet Firoozeh Dumas at our free event!
Date: Saturday, May 3 Time: 2:00 p.m. Place: Books & Co. at the Greene
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Katie Couric: Is she or isn’t she?
Well, tongues are waggin’ as to whether CBS is trying noodge highly paid, underperforming anchor Katie Couric out of her job…
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that she was on the way out, or at least that the network was looking for ways to ease her aside before the end of her contract… Now CBS denies any such thing and says they’re standing by their gal…
Do you watch Couric? Where do you think she rates in the anchor three-way?
Come to think of it, do you even watch network news anymore?
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Did you see the Cityfolk Festival sked?
The lineup this year looks pretty interesting, full of some familiar Cityfolk faves and some new faces as well.
I was surprised to see Marty Stuart in the lineup … not because he doesn’t belong, which he very much does, but because he is better known than most of the names that play the festival, by its very design.
Nothin’ wrong with that…
Will you be going this year? What’s your favorite part of the festival? It’s always been a favorite at our house.
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Sin ye no more, heathens!
Maybe I will go to hell for saying so, but I wish I’d written this. It’s pretty funny.
Anyway, P.J. O’Rourke is a fellow alum from my alma mater (Miami U!), so let me just say: The guy knows wherefore he speaketh when the subject is sin.
Got any sins you’d recommend? We won’t tell.
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New R.E.M. CD: Fast, fun and about time
It’s our disc du jour! This is one I was really looking forward to:
R.E.M.
ACCELERATE
Most bands, like most people, have a fast speed and a slow speed, and mix these up a bit to keep music, and life, interesting and balanced. It’s both a compliment and a criticism to observe that R.E.M. has never really been like most bands, though — and as even their most loyal, die-hard fans must have to admit by now, they have taken the fast/slow thing to an extreme.
Said another way, the last album they recorded with a lot of pep to it was “Monster,” a great fun noisy blowtorch of a record that came out back in 1994. If it seems even longer ago then that, it’s because nearly all their work since has been soooooooooo sleeeeeeeeeeepy and reeeeeeeeeeally boooooooooooooring.
Mind you, that is the assessment of a patient fan. I imagine anybody who was only passably interested in the group dating from its outre, muffled-jangle persona from the ‘80s gave up on them a decade ago, at least. Some of us hung in there, wondering why-why-why? and kicking around theories ranging from the departure of Bill Berry’s kick-butt drumming to Michael Stipe’s evaporation into middle-age zenification to the fact that once you’ve been paid $40 million in advance, you can find all kinds of reasons not to sweat the details.
Whatever. Our waiting has paid off, more or less, with “Accelerate,” an album unlike anything since … well, since “Monster.” As you’ve read in just about every other review of it out there, it’s fast, it’s tight, it’s bouncy and it rocks, coasting high and wide on Peter Buck’s heady guitar playing — just when R.E.M. had apparently given up on all those things. Its 11 songs clock in at just about 30 minutes, and the music feels like some of R.E.M.’s best mid-career work on albums like “Green,” “Document” and “Lifes Rich Pageant.”
At the end of the day, though, it’s not quite as good as any of them. Not quite. Where those discs were cloaked in atmosphere and were fueled by youthful brio, “Accelerate” has maturity, wisdom and a certain sophistication going for it — meaning, alas, that for all its speed, it lacks anything that resembles fire.
Too much time past for that? Well, as we said— R.E.M. isn’t like other bands, never has been. I’m not saying to count them out; just don’t count on this new change to end up meaning all that much. As we’ve seen, that ain’t the way they play it.
Grade: B+
iPod picks: Actually, I like every song. download “Living Well Is the Best Revenge,” “Man-Sized Wreath” and “Accelerate” if you’re choosy.
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New Counting Crows CD sounds smart
Here’s the latest disc on our desk… enjoy:
Counting Crows
SATURDAY NIGHTS & SUNDAY MORNINGS
Counting Crows’ fifth album since first getting our notice in 1993 finds them much the same as ever, not that that’s a bad thing. As expected, and hoped for, they’re still a combo of tight, dedicated and very talented folk-rockers who revolve around the brainy, brittle sentiments and torrential wordplay of singer Adam Duritz.
On this disc, they’ve divided the material into a quick side (Saturday Nights) and slower (Sunday Mornings), and since this is Counting Crows, both song sets are equally bracing and intelligently done.
Counting Crows is one of those fine, steady bands that one can truly admire without absolutely loving, which means while they rarely engender passion in one, they are almost always worth a revisitation. Like we said, that’s not a bad thing.
Grade: B
iPod picks: “1492” from Saturday, and “One a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago” from Sunday.
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Back in action: Keep WYSO Local
This is interesting… This press release arrived at the newspaper on Tuesday, from the organization that several years ago pulled together to protest what its vocal members deemed to be negative changes in WYSO, the public radio station based at Antioch University.
Keep WYSO Local holds meeting
Keep WYSO Local will hold an organizational meeting on Tuesday, April 15 at 7 PM at the Bryan Center, 100 Dayton Street, Yellow Springs on the second floor in the A/B room. The meeting is open to everyone.
Discussion items will the negotiations between Antioch College and the Antioch University Board of Trustees, the possible sale of the station’s license, and upcoming Keep WYSO Local activities.
For more information, contact Larry Halpern at 328-5282.
For a little context, we haven’t heard a lot from Keep WYSO Local lately, since the controversy at the station died down after a new GM, Paul Maasen, arrived and met the approval of the group and enacted a number of its suggestions… But during the administration of Steve Spencer, the former general manager they disliked, Keep WYSO Local did its fair share of sign-carrying, protesting, letter-writing and speechifying. They had an impact on the situation, no doubt, though Antioch officials always tried to say otherwise.
Now the station seems in jeopardy again, though what may happen to it isn’t clear. Maasen has taken a job in another state, just recently leaving the Yellow Springs station, and how of course Antioch is in the headlines every other week or so as the future of the school (for sale/not for sale/open/not open) is up in the air, to say the least.
To be fair, everything may turn out just fine for the station, which thousands of listeners in the Dayton area tune in to every day.
But with any measure of uncertainty about its future, especially after the station had seemed stable and fresh once again, it’s not surprising that the concerned folks at Keep WYSO Local have decided to start poking around again.
Anybody going to this meeting? And what’s your take on all this?
Are you worried about the future of the station?
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Batman? Gay?
Well, I never really thought about it … but why not?
Cast your eyes upon this Slate.com story about the comix crisis of the 1950s, which is getting a lot of press lately on the basis of a new book or two that harken back to it…
You know, he did look pretty good in those tights. I mean, really.
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Enjoy this gorgeous day!
Oh my, but isn’t it lovely outside?
This is the spring day we’ve all been waiting for.
I just had the wonderful experience of helping my neighbors plant a new pear tree, which might be the best way I could have thought of to start this wonderful new season. There are few things I like doing better than planting trees — making the hole, getting your hands dirty, arranging the tree in the hole, helping root new life in place. You don’t get the chance to do it all that often, and you remember it for the rest of your life. Besides, the tree is there to remind you every day that you planted it! And trees tend to be grateful.
OK, now that you’ve read the paper and browsed the site, and had your cup of coffee, get outside and enjoy the sunshine, the birds, the new buds on the branches and the clear blue sky. Drink it all in and keep it inside you. It’s what you hoped for, a few weeks ago when all that white stuff was falling on us. Everything in its season, and that season is mercifully past.
Ahhh. Spring is here!
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The best party in town
Just got home a while ago from the Wright State ArtsGala, and as in past years we had an absolute blast … the perfect combo of food, art, dancing, music, entertainment, all for a great cause — and the Final Four on the big screen TV! And not the results of THAT that we expected, either…
More later … I’m tired…
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That superbad gangster, John Adams
The new-greening season is here at last in all its blustery glory, and I’ve got spring fever so bad that I can’t keep my mind on anything long enough to wring an entire column from it. Instead, here’s a smattering of stuff I’ve seen, heard and sampled lately.
The best movie I saw this winter was one that came out last year and disappeared nearly overnight: “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”A hollowed-out Brad Pitt plays James as a charismatic ghost of a man who knows his fate felled at the hand of a friend; Casey Affleck is mesmerizing as Ford, who gradually comes to realize that his reason for being born was to make that fate come true. Pitch-perfect in tone and gorgeously acted, scored and shot, it is ineffably sad and deeply moving. I watched it again as soon as it was over.
Speaking of Casey Affleck, Ben’s little brother had a great 2007. We also recently caught his other movie, “Gone Baby Gone,” a gritty-streets-of-Boston crime drama (burgeoning genre, that) in which he’s superb as a young PI who has to grow up fast. I’ll go see anything he’s in from now on.
Speaking of crime dramas, “American Gangster” was far better than nearly every review of it that I read. I’m starting to wonder about critics more than I wonder about movies.
The critics have been right, though, about the wonderful HBO mini-series “John Adams,” in which Paul Giamatti plays the second president as a cranky optimist who played a bigger part in the birth of the nation than you might’ve thought. One wonders, though, whether Adams was truly always the smartest guy in the room, with people like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin around.
Speaking of smart guys, if you ever get a chance to catch Garrison Keillor on one of his visits to the area, take it. Thursday night, April 3, he opened the University of Dayton’s Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop with his dry growing-up-Minnesotan stories that hilariously mix understatement and overstatement. There are comedians and there are humorists, and Keillor reminds one that the latter is usually what you want.
Speaking of the workshop, hoorah to UD and organizer Tim Bete for putting Dayton on the writer’s map where it belongs.
Speaking of humor, and again of movies, I also finally caught up recently with “Superbad.” Toooooo long, and after the first 20 minutes, not too funny. What was up with the hype? Those critics, again….
Speaking of funny, I thought of Woody Allen’s quip that “Half the secret of success in life is just showing up,” when I read this week that Mariah Carey has outcharted Elvis with her 18th No. 1 hit, and is just two songs from lapping the Beatles. Does Mariah claim to be better than either? Nope, but she does get full credit for sticking around, honing her craft and keeping at it. Good for her.
And finally, speaking of talented singers, here’s to local hero John Legend, who addressed a Congressional committee this week to boost the National Endowment for the Arts. He said the secret to his success was being in a school play as a kid. Next time you read about we spend on bombs vs. the arts, think back to that.
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An important weather Event
As we were watching the TV news last night and heard the excited weathercaster declare, with wide-eyed, spaniel-like agitation, that our forecast included a “rain event,” I wondered:
When did we start to define nearly any commonplace happening as an “event”? Didn’t the word used to suggest something special? As in, “The inauguration of the new president every four years is a noteworthy ceremonial event.” Sure, depends on the president, I know, but you see what I mean.
For some time now, however, I have sensed the slow, steady and definitely unfortunate creepage of event devaluation. I trace it back to the old WB Network, which I recall advertising the impending broadcast of two regular programs on atypical evenings to be “an event.” As in, “Don’t miss the special two-hour Buffy-Angel Event!” Well, all right, just because it worked doesn’t mean that now I have to schedule my enjoyment of a spring shower, does it?
The WB nonsense, which is what it was, was at least a sort of gleeful hype-puffery that seemed to work in a breathless commercial context when promoting shows about good-looking teen vampires, and it got picked up as verbal gimmick by other networks. After a while even the WB cut it out, about the time they morphed in the CW. For what it’s worth, I have never heard HBO say that it is broadcasting an event, though reasonable people might argue that they, of all networks, could properly make the claim. They won’t.
That won’t stop the locals, though. Now, the deregulation and normalization of Event-hood has been scooped up by overwrought weather-ditherers who have too many minutes to fill and probably wouldn’t know how to properly swear if their cars broke down at rush hour on the Brooklyn Bridge, as my mother used to say when she was trying to make the younger me think twice about improper language; I mean, really — if a bit of gentle overnight rain is an event, even if it leaks into a few basements, then what the hell do you call a tornado?
Hmmmm… have you ever heard a local weathercaster scream? Some day, I’m guessing we will.
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Better than Elvis or the Beatles? Mariah Carey?!?
Music fans of all sorts will note with interest, and possibly a raised eyebrow, that Mariah Carey has now passed Elvis Presley as a chart-topper, with the Beatles next in line. Eventually, unless something odd happens, she will pass them, too.
This is the sort of thing that raises the hackles of blue-haired Elvisites and all the Beatles fans who think there has never been any other band in the world other than their fab faves (I tire of them…).
But give ol’ Mariah credit where due. She does not at all claim to be better than either Elvis nor the Beatles, not at all. Her comments in the story are properly modest. She isn’t the greatest pop artist of all time, not be a long shot, and knows it. We all know it.
What this is about is consistency, focus and longevity. She has taken good enough care of herself that she didn’t flame out healthwise, as fat Elvis finally did, and she has kept her career together better than the fractious, squabbling Beatles turned out to be able to do. Ta-da! She’s been around longer, doing what she does.
As somebody … Lincoln? Einstein? I forget … once said, the main part of getting the job done is just showing up. Mariah knows that. She’s a pro, whether you think she’s a great musician or not. I happen to like her, too, but in this case she gets the headline for not having screwed up her good deal.
Whaddayouthink?
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Eddie Murphy had it right!
I’ve never been poor and hope to never be, but like most non-poor people (I think; I hope) I’m interested in how poverty works. Certainly, it is one of the most interesting questions in any monied society.
Along comes an interesting story from the Boston Globe that offers one economist’s suggestion on how poverty works … it’s not why you think.
Read and discuss… and am I the only one, or does this whole article remind you of “Trading Places,” that movie from the 80s with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd? Wasn’t this basically the very plot?
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Happy Day After April Fool’s Day!
So… what did you do to celebrate April Fool’s Day?
BTW, this is a scratch-and-sniff blog entry. If you scratch your computer screen right now, you will be enveloped by the smell of money.
Try it!
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R.I.P, the encyclopedia
I admit that I have always been a fact geek, back to my nerdy days as a kid when I pored through my parents’ World Book from front to back in my spare time, soaking up everything from the population of Gabon to the reign of Charlemagne, and I think back to those times a lot … namely, every time I’m playing Thursday night trivia for points at Bosco’s.
But I also admit that the same impulse has driven me to the web as a Wiki freak and a nutty late-night surfer … which led me a New York Times story that made me feel a little sad, a bit nostalgic and a whole lot not at all surprised.
After all, why would anybody plunk down all that money anymore for a huge family encyclopedia, when the entire world is now at their linked-up fingertips?
But then, but then… I felt a little sad… And I guess I still do…
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Today’s National Poetry Month poem
Today, as noted, is the first day of National Poetry Month! Here’s one I like. Enjoy!
“Samurai Song” by Robert Pinsky, from Jersey Rain.
When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.
When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.
When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.
When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.
When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.
When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.
Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.
