Bored at Work, part 1

Lots of downtime at my new job (briefly interrupted by periods of OHMYGOD GETITALLDONENOWNOWNOW), so I'm going to start posting about what I'm doing in all this dead time, mainly because it's more interesting and uses more brain function than hitting refresh on my Google Reader every two minutes.

I've been using Spotify quite a bit, and the nice thing about it (aside from being free, of course) is that it's exposed me to a lot of music I might not normally hear. Right now, I'm listening to Childish Gambino's Camp. Childish Gambino is better known as comedian Donald Glover of that show Community everyone keeps saying I should watch but still haven't gotten around to yet. As rap albums by actors go, this one's much better than I expected.

I'm also reading Daniel Wilson's Robopocalypse (a novel set in the near future that chronicles sentient robots taking over the world and trying to wipe out humanity) on my iPad. Oh, delicious irony. Sadly, it's not as good as I'd like it to be — it's a pale imitation of Max Brooks' World War Z, by way of The Terminator. Swapping the walking dead for killer robots is already a downgrade, but if you're telling your story as an oral history, it works a lot better if your characters have distinct voices, which is where this book fails for me. Everybody (soldiers, senators, a 14-year-old girl from Chicago, a 45-year-old roughneck from Texas) sounds exactly the same: dry, unemotional, and way too quick with the exposition. Still, there's enough promise in the premise that I'll finish it and hope it gets better before the end.

The Year of Pleasant Surprises

Obama aside, 2008 was a difficult year all around, and pop culture seemed to reflect that. I started working on some top ten lists to close out the year, until I realized that in most categories, I couldn't come up with more than three things that really impressed me. In fact, so much of what was produced this year was uninspired, uninventive, or just generally disappointing that it was almost a surprise when something turned out to be good. So, in recognition of that, here are my 12 pleasant entertainment surprises of 2008.

Wall-E. A kids’ movie about cutesy, animated robots that chirp and beep more than R2D2. A post-apocalyptic sci-fi story about a trash-collecting robot and his pet cockroach left behind on a over-polluted planet. A cautionary tale about the environment and the evolutionary effects of technology and lack of exercise. A sweet romantic yarn about a Hello, Dolly-obsessed loner who finally meets the woman of his dreams and crosses the galaxy to win her heart. Wall-E is all of these and more. Add in the fact that the two main characters barely speak any dialogue in the first 45 minutes except to repeat each other’s names, and you would expect this would make for a deadly boring, convoluted mess. Enter Pixar. If ever you doubted the genius of this studio, here’s all the proof you need. Wall-E is an incredible piece of moviemaking. So much is communicated through the smallest gestures, toots, whistles, and slight changes of expression that the lack of dialogue is barely noticeable. Hands-down, one of my five favorite movies of all time.

The Rhumb Line, Ra Ra Riot. An amazing mix of strong songwriting, catchy melodies, and driving strings made this my favorite album of the year. There’s a surprising amount of world-weariness for such a young band, and it gives the songs a lived-in feeling, even if you're only hearing them for the first time.

“Spiralling,” Keane. This track is so undeniably catchy, I almost forgive them for the bad 80’s synthesizers. OK, who am I kidding? The synths make the song.

The Dark Knight. I knew it would be good. I just didn’t know it would be this good. Total game-changer for all comic book films to come.

“M79,” Vampire Weekend. Imagine Graceland-era Paul Simon scoring a Wes Anderson flick. This song encapsulates everything that is great about VW’s debut.

Feed the Animals, Girl Talk. The most incredible mashup mix I’ve ever heard. So dense and complex in its use of samples that Wired devoted a full-page chart to breaking down one track from the album.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Proof that even Joss Whedon’s free time doodlings are works of genius (he wrote this to keep his mind fresh during the writer’s strike). Joss Whedon + Neil Patrick Harris + a musical about a supervillain’s video blog = comedy gold.

“Viva La Vida,” Coldplay. Yes, this song is overplayed. Yes, it may have been plagiarized. Yes, the album as a whole is so-so. No, I don’t care. It’s still impossible to get out of your head.

Iron Man. Not as gritty as The Dark Knight, but still a hell of a lot of fun. Favreau took the source material seriously, and Robert Downey Jr. was born to play Tony Stark. I went in with high expectations, and they were all met.

Lyle Lovett at Red Rocks. I maintain the belief that all Red Rocks shows are automatically 10% better simply because of the venue, but Lovett didn’t need the help. Despite the fact that I hardly knew any of his music, I was enthralled. Lyle is a true entertainer, and his band is top-notch.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson. This book was recommended to me almost simultaneously by my mom and Stephen King, which is strange, but also a testament to its appeal. The variation on a locked-room murder mystery (in this case, it’s a locked island) kept me turning pages all the way to the end...which I really enjoyed, despite it’s non-Hollywoodness.

Alpinisms, School of Seven Bells. Former Secret Machines guitarist Ben Curtis teams up with twin sister vocalists to create a new genre: atmospheric New-Age indie rock. This album is a gorgeously dense creation, full of layers and textures. Yet when I heard the Bells play an acoustic set on KEXP recently that stripped away all the effects, the songs held up.

“The Greatest Man That Ever Lived,” Weezer. Rivers puts on his Freddie Mercury hat and writes a 21st-century “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Good luck not singing along with the chorus.


Biggest disappointments of the year:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Thanks for ruining yet another beloved franchise, George.

Chinese Democracy, Guns N’ Roses. We waited 11 years for this? It’s obvious Axl has a frustrated Stephen Sondheim hiding inside him. I just wish he wouldn’t put the G N’ R name on that stuff.

Less than 100 people showing up for Matthew Sweet’s October show at the Fox Theater. That’s just sad.

What A Year For A New Year

As a whole, I can’t say I’m sorry to see 2007 go. But at least it ended well. I had no problems traveling around the holidays, got to spend some quality time with the fam, slept a lot, ate a lot, and got some great Christmas presents. In fact, I’m using the biggest one to create this post. (Thanks, Mom and Dad and Christmas bonus check!)

As for the media/entertainment-type stuff, I’d say I did all right:

Raising Sand, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
El Corazón and Washington Square Serenade, Steve Earle
3D, Casey Driessen
The Song Remains The Same [Remastered and Expanded], Led Zeppelin
The Terror, Dan Simmons
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, Alex Ross
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
Lost: Season 3

Not too shabby. I also saw The Golden Compass while I was home, which was OK, but not amazing. I think I suffered from having read the book, because I sent the whole time comparing and not just watching the movie. As is usually the case, the book is better.

Misc.

It’s been a while since I last posted, and to be honest, I’ve been debating whether to give up on the blog entirely. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I think for now, I’ll just continue to post when the mood strikes, and not worry about how long it takes me to come back to it. After all, it’s not like the internet is going anywhere.

For now, here’s a few things I’ve been enjoying lately:

• Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon — An instant classic of an adventure novel, written in the vein of Sir Walter Scott or Robert E. Howard. I started and finished it on the plane ride home for Thanksgiving. Thoroughly enjoyable read.
• Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson — Eerily prescient cyberpunk novel that influenced everything from The Matrix to Heroes. Also a great read.
• The World Without Us, Alan Weisman — A well-researched and interesting look at what would happen to the Earth if humanity suddenly disappeared. Unfortunately, our legacy would mostly consist of all the plastic garbage we’d leave behind.
• the audio/video page on Andrew Bird’s bowloffire.com — All kinds of cool live stuff and remixes.
• Jerusalem, Steve Earle — The more Steve Earle I listen to, the more he becomes one of my favorite artists. I just recently downloaded this anti-war album he released in 2002, and sadly, the themes are still way too current.
• classic Christmas music — From Charlie Brown to the Chairman of the Board, they just don’t make ’em like they used to.
• Automatic For the People, R.E.M. — 15 years later, this is still an incredible album. “Sweetness Follows” has popped up in my playlists several times lately, and it especially crushed me with its greatness.
• The Jungle Book 40th Anniversary Platinum Edition — This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, so I Netflixed it this weekend. Disney did an incredible job with the remastering. The movie looks gorgeous, and I was happy to discover that I still knew the words to all the songs. My neighbors, on the other hand... probably not as happy.
• the performances of Scarlett Johannson — I never thought I was much of a fan, until I realized recently that she starred in six of the top ten movies in my Netflix queue. In the past few weeks, I’ve watched Scoop, Girl With A Pearl Earring, Match Point, and Lost in Translation, and I have to say, there’s something indefinably sexy about her that I find kind of mesmerizing. I’m having trouble deciding whether it’s her voice, her lips, or most likely, some combination of the two. Plus, she does voices on Robot Chicken, so she’s got serious nerd points. And hey, Woody Allen seems to love her. (Then again, he also loved his adopted daughter who was half his age, so maybe old Woody’s not exactly the best measuring stick.)
• the Iron Man preview — Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect choice for Tony Stark, and I love that Jon Favreau refuses to overuse CGI. If the movie is half as good as the preview, I’ll be happy.

Adaptation

I’ve said it before. No Country For Old Men is a great book. Now, thanks to the Coen Brothers, it’s an equally excellent movie. Both are bloody, violent, and not for the squeamish, but as I said in my review of the novel, the violence never feels out of character to the story. The film stays pretty faithful to the book, but the Coen Brothers manage to inject their particular brand of dark humor into the story. The cinematography is gorgeous, especially the shots of the landscape, which is such an important part of all of McCarthy’s books. It’s no different in this film, as the movie immediately establishes place, opening with shot after shot of the Texas plains in all their stark beauty. Throughout the movie, the quality of light made me feel as if I was standing in El Paso or along the Rio Grande, and that I could almost smell the grass and dust. I was definitely sucked in, and I wasn’t the only one. It was pretty incredible to sit in a packed theater that was completely silent for minutes at a time, only to hear the whole audience gasp as each character met their ultimate fate. Keeping an audience watching with bated breath is an impressive feat (especially these days). Javier Bardem is deservedly getting all the press for his turn as cold-blooded killer Anton Chigurh, but Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin give excellently understated performances as well. I won’t be at all surprised to hear a lot more about the film come Oscar time.

As an interesting aside, I couldn’t place the actress who played Brolin’s wife, even though she looked incredibly familiar. Thank goodness for IMDB. Turns out it was Kelly MacDonald, the Scottish actress who played the schoolgirl Ewan MacGregor hooks up with in Trainspotting. Lass does a pretty convincing Texas/white trash accent.

Overrated

Thinking back over the past few weeks, there seems to be a theme to the pop culture I’ve absorbed: too much hype. The most pleasant experiences were the things I wasn't expecting anything from.

Slan, A.E. Van Vogt. Apparently, this novel is an important part of the sci-fi explosion of the mid-20th century. Maybe so, but maybe readers had lower standards back then, too. Yikes. Thankfully, the genre has progressed quite a bit since those days. While the alienated-mutant-on-the-run-from-human-authorities theme was pretty familiar (having been repurposed many times since, most noticeably as the basis for the entire X-Men mythology), the writing was so stiff and stilted that I barely made it through the book.

Little Children. Why did the critics love this so much? It was creepy and disturbing, the narrator was jarring and disruptive, and there wasn’t much likeable about any of the characters. Guess that’s reviewer-code for “edgy” and “gritty performances”. Well, the Oscars can have this one.

National Treasure. Nicolas Cage in a Jerry Bruckheimer production. Two guys that are emblematic of everything wrong with Hollywood. Of course they’re making a sequel. It was good to shut my brain off for a couple hours, I guess, but that’s definitely all I got out of this.

American Dreamz. This spoof of reality singing shows one was actually decent, although there were probably some inside jokes I missed because I’ve never watched American Idol. Given that tradeoff, however, I was happy to miss some of the humor. And seriously, why does Chris Klein keep getting roles?

Blades of Glory. Will Arnett gets the funniest line of the year: “Not only did we embarrass Marky Mark, we let down the Funky Bunch.” The movie was stupid and silly, but sometimes stupid and silly is all you need. Besides, who cares if the movie was any good? Jenna Fischer in lingerie! If I wasn’t on Team Pam before (which I was), I sure as hell am now. Yowza.

Superbad. Not as funny as all the hype, but still good for a lot of laughs. Michael Cera (of Arrested Development fame) is going to be hurting when he grows out of being able to play the awkward teenager, but for now, he’s got that role locked down. And of course, Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow continue their hot streak.

And speaking of those two, September 25 is now looking like the most geektastic day of the year, and Apatow and Rogen are involved. Not only is Halo 3 finding its way into the hands of millions of gamer geeks that day, but Knocked Up hits on DVD. Something tells me Seth Rogen may be celebrating by playing a little Halo himself. (And by something, I mean the fact that I played an online game of Halo 2 with someone I’m 99% sure was him recently.) On the other hand, he’s a big Hollywood star, so he’ll probably celebrate with coke and hookers. Hookers who play Halo. Or something like that. That’s what I would do, anyway.

Wilco at the Fillmore Auditorium. And now we get to the pleasant surprise. I’ve always had a hot and cold relationship with Wilco’s music, but I saw them in Columbus, OH about 8 years ago on a double bill with Matthew Sweet. I was there for Matthew, but I remember Wilco putting on a pretty solid show. So I knew they were capable performers, but no memories from that Columbus show could have prepared me for the show they put on Saturday night. The lineup of the band has changed somewhat over the years, and they seemed a lot more willing to rock out, putting two and three guitars to work on songs that are definitely more mellow on the albums. Plus, not only is new lead guitarist Nels Cline an amazing player, smoothly handling a wide range of styles from Neil Youngish to Brian Mayesque, he’s got the showmanship thing down, too. I had a great time, so much so that I finally gave in, went home and hit iTunes to fill in the gaps of my Wilco collection. And now I know I’ll enjoy it all.

Summer Reading (and Watching and Listening)

In between naps and bodysurfing, I cranked through a lot of stuff at the beach:

Books:
Back in the USSA, Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne. An interesting idea that held my attention for 3/4 of the book, then lost me at the end. This book is a series of short stories that tie together at the end, but the overarching idea is flipping the script of the Cold War: At the end of World War I, Russia peacefully becomes a democratic monarchy in the British vein, while the US is taken over by a Socialist Revolution. The stories largely imagine how well-known Americans and Russians’ lives would have differed, but like many of Newman’s books, fictional characters appear in this world as well (i.e frequent humorous appearances by Jake and Elwood from The Blues Brothers).

The Children of Hurin, J.R.R. Tolkien. A “history tale” from Tolkien’s early days. Having previously read two incomplete versions of this story in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, I was prepared for the fact that this wasn’t going to be The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, but it was nice to read a complete and polished version. Being a Tolkien geek and a completist, I always like to fill in the backstory gaps.

The Devil’s Teeth, Susan Casey. In retrospect, maybe not the the best book to read right before a beach visit, but I had just finished watching Discovery’s Shark Week and wanted more scary fishes. Casey documents her time chasing Great White sharks through treacherous waters off a remote and dangerous group of islands 30 miles west of San Francisco. Non-fiction, but it reads like a good novel. I highly recommend this one.

Lisey’s Story, Stephen King. King just keeps getting better with age. Ever since I read The Green Mile and Bag of Bones, I’ve been convinced that in 50 years, King will be as much a part of the average American Lit class curriculum as Faulkner, Vonnegut and Salinger. Lisey’s Story did nothing to change my mind. King’s ability to interject the supernatural into everyday life just gets better with age.

DVDs:
Summer of Sam. I bailed on this movie after half an hour, but I can’t decide whether it was because of John Leguizamo (who I mostly can’t stand) or if it was just plain bad. Spike Lee is usually pretty hit or miss with me, but I find it hard to reconcile the fact that the guy who made this stinker also made a masterpiece like The 25th Hour.

Undeclared. Another Judd Apatow project, this series was on Fox for the blink of an eye back in 2001. Featuring pretty much everybody from Apatow’s previous series, Freaks & Geeks, Undeclared also has great guest spots from some turn of the century comedy royalty: Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Amy Poehler, and of course, a young Seth Rogen (P.S. I can’t wait to see Superbad), as well as guest directors like Jon Favreau and Jay Chandrasekhar (of Super Troopers fame). Although it’s still unpolished here, that same trademark Apatow sweet/raunchy back and forth is peppered throughout the series. Definitely worth the rental if you like any of Apatow’s other work.

The Host. This Korean monster movie is a perfect example of why sometimes it’s better to just let a movie be a movie and not have to be an “event.” If The Host was made in the US, it would have probably ended up being some giant summer tentpole, and all the whole focus of the movie would have been the overly CGI monster and giant battle scenes. Instead, the monster is mostly shown in brief glimpses, and the movie stays focused on one family’s attempt to rescue a young girl who has been captured by the monster. It’s not often that I’d call a monster movie “sweet”, but that’s exactly what The Host is.

Music:
All good, for different reasons that I’m too tired to write about right now.
Stars, In Our Bedroom After the War
Galactic, From the Corner to the Block
Ted Leo / Pharmacists, Hearts of Oak
Foamfoot, Live at the Troubador 1-8-94
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, Live at Radio City
Editors, An End Has a Start

And In The End...

Well, that’s that. I finished around 2:30 last night, and due to my extreme grogginess, I decided to give it a little time to sink in. Overall, I thought it was a fairly satisfying ending. Rowling was never going to be able to please everyone, and while I did have two big problems with the book, I thought she managed to do the series justice.

First, due to the necessity of following Harry’s storyline, there’s a lot of important action that happens “offscreen”. Because of this, I felt like a lot of the work Rowling had done developing some secondary characters in the past couple of books was wasted. By the time these characters appear in Deathly Hallows, there’s not much left for them to do except make brief cameos in the final battle, and what they do contribute mostly feels rushed and forced. Actually, that‘s the same problem the last couple of movies have had. I guess it was just a matter of trying to fit everything into one book without making it 1200 pages long (not that most readers, me included, would have minded).

Second, the body count is pretty high in this book, and while some of the deaths were surprises, others had been obviously coming since book 4 or 5. The problem is, the more characters died, the less their deaths impacted me as a reader. I understand Rowling’s need to show the severity of the situation, but eventually I lost any sense of shock or surprise when someone else was killed, and by the end, I was simply keeping a mental list of the dead. Also, Rowling knew her readers would be expecting deaths, and she had a bit a fun with fakeouts involving major characters throughout the book (including a big one near the end). Unfortunately, this only ended up adding to the lessened impact when characters actually did die.

On the other hand, Rowling was trying to end an epic series that has a large (and largely young) fan base, so while I may not have agreed with all of her choices, I understand the necessity for many of them. I don’t envy her that task. But most of all, I appreciate the fact that she actually gave us an ending and didn’t go all David Chase on us. I’m not sure I could have handled the final Harry Potter book cutting off in the middle of a sentence.

Potter-y

I moved recently, so pop culture has been very secondary, what with all my books in boxes, movies packed away, and Netflix on hold. Luckily I had the foresight to keep my Harry Potter close at hand. Unless you’re one of those “living under a rock” types, you may have heard something about this week’s double-shot release of the movie of Order of the Phoenix (currently riding the momentum of a rather exceptional box-office weekend) and the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. To get ready, I’ve re-read all 6 books and re-watched all 4 DVDs over the past two weeks, and it’s both interesting and somewhat humorous to see the way the books and the actors have developed along the way. I caught a matinee of OotP yesterday, and it’s definitely the darkest movie of the series. I thought it was pretty well done considering how much they had to cut down the book and cram what was left into a little over 2 hours, and it was an excellent way to whet my appetite for book 7 (which I’m assuming is exactly what the Potter Merchandising Empire was hoping for when they set these release dates). Suffice it to say, Pottermania is in full effect at apartamento del Leister, and it will stay that way until sometime in the wee hours of Sunday morning when I finish reading, assuming UPS brings me Deathly Hallows on Saturday as promised by Amazon.

Perhaps you’re saying to yourself, “Wow. Dedicating your Saturday night to the new Harry Potter book. How very pre-teen of you.” And you’d be right. But when it comes down to it, I’d rather give up one Saturday night reading than spend the next week with my fingers in my ears going “Lalalalalala” every time someone mentions Harry Potter. Priorities, people. Priorities. And you wonder why I’m still single.

Holiday Road

With an extra day off, I had planned a big post to catch up on all the stuff that’s been occupying my free time lately, but instead I spent the weekend watching the Rapids beat LA in front of a sellout crowd, getting drunk, suffering a bad hangover, and best of all... working. Needless to say, I’m a little worn out from this long weekend, so no pretty pictures this time, just a list. I’m sure you’ll all survive.

MOVIES
Just one, an oldie but goodie: Fistful of Dollars. I had never seen this groundbreaking Western from beginning to end, but spending all day on the couch yesterday gave me a chance to explore the free movie list in the OnDemand menu. When I saw they had a remastered widescreen version of Fistful, I couldn’t pass it up. The movie itself was decent, although I thought both Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa’s samurai masterpiece that inspired FOD) and Last Man Standing (a remake of FOD starring Bruce Willis set during Prohibition) were both a little better in providing motivation for the main character. On the other hand, Clint Eastwood was pretty bad-ass as the laconic but deadly gunslinger, but I kept getting distracted by Ennio Morricone’s eccentric spaghetti western score.

BOOKS
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke. Another re-read I pulled from my shelves recently. Here’s my original review. I didn’t get quite as caught up in the story this time, but that was partly because I was conciously reading slowly to appreciate the richness of the language. Clarke does some amazing things with her words, and more than once, I found myself longing for a return to the days of a more formal approach to the English language. There are some amazingly haunting passages in what is at times a dark and mysterious book, and the payoff was just as good the second time around. UPDATE: Happily, I’ve just discovered that Clarke has a collection of short stories, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories, that take place in or are related to the world of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and that she is also at work on a sequel of sorts that follow some of the lesser characters from the novel. Looks like I’ll be making a trip to the bookstore tomorrow.

COMICS
The Losers: Complete Series. A gripping and epic international espionage story about an Army Special Forces unit that goes “ghost” after the government tries to kill them. Since everyone thinks they’re dead, they are able to work under the radar to unravel the twisted threads leading back to the mysterious man with CIA ties who set them up. Kinda like the A-Team, only people actually die, and they don’t build some kind of crazy tank thing at the end of every issue. For a story told in comic book form, it was heavily cinematic (both in scope and in the way artist Jock made use of the frames), so it was no surprise to me to find out that a movie is in the works.

The Walking Dead, Vol. 6. More great post-apocalyptic zombie stuff. This story gets crazier and and life just keeps getting harder for the rag-tag band of survivors, much like I would assume the world would be if it was overrun with shuffling brain-chompers.

Spike: Asylum. Buffy’s second-favorite vampire gets tricked into entering an asylum where they claim to be able to “cure” vampires and demons. Predictably, this is not the case, and Spike meets some other wrongly-imprisoned peeps and helps them get free, smashing a lot of stuff in the process. Good solid fun.

Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 1. It’s 120 years after Return of the Jedi. The Empire has rebuilt itself and formed an alliance with a new order of Sith, who promptly betray the Imperials and take over the galaxy. Now the remains of the Empire, the Republic, and a new order of Jedi (including Luke Skywalker’s grandson, who has a rather rocky relationship with his Jedi heritage) must band together to fight the Dark Side once more. (Hey, I should write cover blurbs.)

MUSIC
Dinosaur Jr., Beyond. Awesome comeback album from the original lineup. J Mascis is a god.
Travis, The Boy with No Name. More mellow Brit rock, less politics than the last album. All good.
Bright Eyes, Cassadaga. Folky, rootsy, kinda mediocre.
Stars, Do You Trust Your Friends? Remixes and cover versions of Stars’ Set Yourself on Fire album, all created by (as the title implies) their friends in other bands.
Explosions in the Sky, How Strange, Innocence. More back catalog post-rock instrumentals from this Texas group.
William Parker & Hamid Drake, Piercing the Veil. Jazzy bass and percussion, with a slightly African slant. Maybe a little esoteric for my tastes. Dad, I’m sending this one your way.
Rush, Snakes & Arrows. Decent, but nowhere near their classic work. It might be time for these guys to coast on their greatest hits.
Adult Swim, Warm & Scratchy. A free mix from the Adult Swim website featuring bands like TV on the Radio and Asobi Seksu. One more reason to love Cartoon Network.

Book Smarts

Been doing a little reading here and there lately:The Pale Blue Eye, Louis Bayard. When a cadet is found murdered and mutilated at West Point in the mid 19th Century, the commandant contacts Augustus Landor, a former New York City detective who has retired to the countryside. As Landor begins to dig into the death, he decides he needs a youthful assistant from within the cadet corps, and recruits to his cause a young Edgar Allan Poe. The story cleverly unfolds through letters and journal entries by both Landor and Poe, and rather unsurprisingly, the story takes a markedly Poevian turn before it reaches its climax. Bayard established a clever grasp of Victorian literature with his first book, Mr. Timothy, a detective novel starring Tiny Tim of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. But The Pale Blue Eye feels more fully-realized, and I enjoyed the Poe allusions throughout.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole. I pulled this one off my bookshelf one night when I was in the mood for a comedy. It’s been 5 years or so since I last read it, and I had forgotten how wonderfully absurd this novel is. Toole created an amazing cast of misfits, then threw them into the chaotic cauldron of mid-century New Orleans, and the result is a rollicking farce that continually makes me laugh out loud. Every time I read the dialogue of the story’s main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, I always hear it in my head in the voice of Comic Book Guy, probably my favorite of all the secondary Simpsons characters. And I can’t help but think that in some way, The Simpsons writers owe a small debt to Toole’s writing. It’s a shame that Toole took his own life before writing another book. He truly was an amazing talent who was ahead of his time.

Infrequent Flyer

Between my ever-crazy work schedule, my new commitment to working out (for the moment, anyway), and a long weekend in Minneapolis, I haven’t had much time to post lately. I’ve also been watching a lot of The Wire: Season One, so my movie-viewing has been curtailed. On top of that, I’ve been trying to read more instead of vegetating in front of the Idiot Box so much. As a result, lots of books and my usual eMusic haul, and not much else this week:


The Ruins, Scott Smith. A taut thriller by the author of A Simple Plan (great movie) about some kids vacationing in Mexico post-college who take a day trip into the jungle that goes horribly wrong. Bad idea. Moral of the story: Unless you’re Indiana Jones, stay on the beach and enjoy your margaritas.


Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein. In my constant search for good books to read, I came across this list of the top 100 Sci-Fi books of all time, so I’ve decided to read the 81 books I haven’t yet gotten around to. I started with Heinlein’s rather controversial novel about a cadet training for Earth’s infantry 500 years in the future (#5 on the list). Forget the terrible movie that resulted from this book. I thought it was a decent read once I got past Heinlein’s facism-lite ideas about how society ought to be run.


Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke. #1 on the top 100 list, this novel from the ’50’s imagines the arrival of aliens on Earth who bring about a utopia of peace and prosperity, but at the cost of any semblance of creativity from a human race with nothing left to struggle for. Clarke’s frightening anticipation of the increase in TV viewing and the increasing apathy of humanity in the 21st century is uncanny, and made me rethink how much time I spend absorbing rather than creating.


Children of Men. The one movie I did watch over the past two weeks also happens to be based on another sci-fi novel, P.D. James’ story of a dystopian future where humanity has become sterile, and the youngest person on Earth is 18 years old. Riots have overtaken every country on the planet except Britain, where Clive Owen gets caught in a power play between the government, rebels, and refugees. Director Alfonso Cuarón does a great job of setting the tone with the cinematography and color palette, giving the movie a gritty feel that accentuates the story and makes it all the more powerful when it reaches its climax. And the movie’s echoes of the Iraq War certainly didn’t hurt.


Steve Earle, The Revolution Starts… Now. I’ve never owned any Steve Earle, but I’ve been listening to his stuff for years, ever since the first time I heard “Copperhead Road”. Revolution showcases the more mellow side of his recent stuff, but it still contains some powerful songs. My personal favorite is “I Thought You Should Know,” a ballad in which Earle warns his new lover that if she’s planning on breaking his heart, she may as well leave now, because someone else already beat her to it.

Plus, I figured it was about time to give Earle a little love since I’ve been enjoying his minor role on The Wire.


Sloan, One Chord to Another. Another band that I’ve listened to for awhile, Sloan has been making great power pop for years, but is one of those foreign bands (in this case, Canadian) who have never been able to match their international success here in the States. Sad, because they are worth a listen, but most Americans have probably never heard of them.


Godspeed You! Black Emperor, f#a# infinity. GY!BE was one of the earliest post-rock bands, influencing lots of music I’ve been listening to lately, like Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai. With a nearly orchestral-sized lineup (3 guitars, 2 basses, drums, keyboards, various strings, and some cleverly placed samples of dialogue), the band created amazing soundscapes in epic-length compositions. This album is three songs long, with the shortest track clocking in around 16 and a half minutes. Sadly, they haven’t recorded anything since 2000, but they left behind some amazing music.


Elvis Perkins, Ash Wednesday. I saw Perkins open for My Morning Jacket in January, and I was impressed by his stage presence. His album is a bit of a downer, but in a good way. In some ways, it reminds me of Damien Rice’s O, another stripped-down, low-key album of hauntingly beautiful songs. I think it’s going to take me some time to get into Ash Wednesday, but the songs I’ve heard so far have been a good start.

The Week in Review

Since the daily post thing just isn’t happening anymore, I’m going to shoot for a regular wrap-up of all my entertainment for the previous week. Here it is:
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson. The best “vampire plague brings about the end of the world” novel ever written, not to mention an inspiration for some of the biggest names in horror —including Stephen King. I wanted to revisit this book before the upcoming movie with Will Smith sullies its good name.
Fountains of Wayne, Traffic and Weather. A somewhat disappointing fourth album from one of my favorite bands. The whole album feels like a retread of the lamest songs from their previous albums. Uninspired, and nowhere near as catchy as their last disc.
Kings of Leon, Because of the Times. On the other hand, this album is a big leap forward for these southern rockers. Clearly, their recent stints opening for bands like U2 and the Rolling Stones has brought them some new maturity, and it shows here in a rich and well-crafted third effort.
DC United at Colorado Rapids. The bad: My dad and I stood in the sub-freezing temps and blowing snow to watch United lose. The good: 16,000+ other people showed up too, and went home happy (if slightly frostbitten) after seeing the hometown team open their spanking new stadium in style. Despite its horrible name, Dick’s Sporting Goods Park is a fantastic venue, and I’m looking forward to going back. The Rapids looked good, and I’ll have no problem supporting them when they’re not playing DC.
HBO’s Sunday lineup: The Sopranos and Entourage. Completely justifying the extra $8 a month on my cable bill.

Spring Cleaning

The windows are open, the sun is shining, and it’s time to clean out the clutter. In that spirit, here’s a bunch of stuff I’ve been meaning to review but just haven’t gotten around to:
iConcertCal. This plugin for iTunes has become one of my favorite technological advances of recent months. Install this puppy, enter the city where you live, and it will look at all the artists in your iTunes library and tell you when any of them are playing nearby. Unlike some other concert calendar plugins I’ve tried, this one actually covers all the major (and nearly all the minor) venues in Denver and Boulder. It’s also a timesaver, since I don’t have to go through and manually enter artists I’m interested in, and I no longer have to constantly browse multiple websites in search of shows to see. In the two days since I downloaded iConcertCal, it’s already led me to upcoming shows by Bloc Party and Rush (at Red Rocks!). Sweet.
The Wire: Season One. It’s taken me a while, but I finally started listening to everyone and their brother who have been telling me how amazing this HBO series is. You were right, OK? It’s a great show, and it’s eating up all my free time lately. I hope you’re happy.
Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Johnny Marr (formerly of The Smiths and The The) climbs on board for the latest (and poppiest) Modest Mouse album, and the result is a rollicking rock album that makes me want to dance every time I listen.
Citizen Kane. I picked this special edition up at Costco for the criminally low price of $8.99. It had been a long time since I had last seen this movie (universally accepted as one of the greatest films ever made), and this crisp restoration gave me a new appreciation for it. At first glance, the movie seems to be full of clichés (lighting, storytelling, camera moves), until you realize that in 1941, nobody else was doing this stuff. At the time, Orson Welles’ masterpiece was incredibly groundbreaking, and set the template for decades to come. (Apparently, the making-of documentary on the second disc is pretty good too, but I haven’t gotten around to watching that yet.)
Conan, Volumes 1 and 2, Dark Horse Comics. When I was a little kid, my dad used to tell me stories about Conan to put me to bed. I’m not sure what his source material was, but as far as I can remember, they always followed the same basic pattern (Conan comes to a village, a beautiful woman/village leader asks for his help from the monster/bandits/tyrant threatening the village, Conan defeats them, gets his reward, and continues on his way), and that since I was 4 or 5 years old at the time, they were about as G-rated as a Conan story can get. But thanks to Dad’s stories, interest in the barbarian’s adventures always stuck with me, and I’ve continued to read and watch Conan’s various incarnations through the years, mostly with differing levels of disappointment. So when I saw that Dark Horse was going begin adapting Robert E. Howard’s original stories in comic book form, I was a little skeptical. After all, Marvel Comics’s ongoing series in the 70’s and 80’s left a lot to be desired. But Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord have done a masterful job with this current incarnation, and have treated Conan rather faithfully to Howard’s original vision: A thief and a warrior, a lover of wine and women, at heart a bit of a country boy often confused by civilization, but never afraid to let his sword do the talking. More than any other version since Howard’s original stories, this series is truest to the spirit of Conan, and the gorgeous art only helps to make it an enjoyable read.
Hellboy: Blood & Iron. I’ve said before that Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy is one of the most underrated comic book movies ever made. Thankfully, a sequel is in the works, but until then, I’m happy to watch the latest in a series of animated movies from Cartoon Network starring the voices of nearly all the actors from the live action movie. For a “cartoon,” this movie (featuring a host of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and the goddess of death), is pretty damn creepy.
It’s Superman!, Tom de Haven. A reimagining of the Superman origin myth, set against the backdrop of 1930’s America (no “Metropolis” here, only real cities and cameos from plenty of historical figures). I’m not sure I agree with all of de Haven’s characterizations (Clark Kent as a intellectually “simple” farmboy?), but it was an interesting revisionist take on how Clark, Lois Lane, and Lex Luthor came together for the first time.

Hoop Dreams

Foul Lines, Jack McCallum and L. Jon Wertheim. This novel by a couple of my former co-workers has been languishing on my “To Read” pile for over a year now, mainly because I can’t say the idea of a novel about a fictional pro basketball team really piqued my interest. I’m ashamed to admit what finally got me to read it was, I was looking for some reading material for the bathroom, and this was the first book that came to hand. I figured it would at least be good enough to help pass the time. But 3 hours later, long after I had left the bathroom, I found myself halfway through the book and enjoying the ride.

The story follows the Los Angeles Lasers of the NBF (see what they did there? so clever), tracking a tumultous season through the eyes of the Lasers’ star player, their fresh-out-of-college PR director, and the young female business writer-turned-beat reporter at the LA Times assigned to the team. Despite the obvious hyperbole and players who are changed just enough so they don’t exactly match up with any real people, there is some serious craft in this book. McCallum and Wertheim know their stuff, drawing on their many years of experience covering basketball themselves. Once you peel back some of the layers of satire, the story really does offer a good look into the warped dynamic of pro basketball, where overpaid, undereducated and spoiled players are supposed to be watched over, coached, and in many ways, babysat, by people who make 1/100th of what the athletes are getting paid. The authors use that situation to full comedic effect, and in several cases had me laughing out loud, especially in the scene where a routine practice turns into a brawl. Foul Lines may not be Nobel Prize-winning literature, but it was still an enjoyable read, and sometimes, that’s all a book really needs to be.

Western Vengeance

Maybe it’s the move to a “cowboy town,” but I seem to have gotten on a Western kick without really knowing it, as the last two pop culture items I’ve consumed turned out to be violent modern-day Western stories.


No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy is slowly becoming one of my favorite writers. In the past few months, I read his first book (All the Pretty Horses) and his last (The Road, an amazing novel which I have yet to write about here—I’ll wait until I buy the paperback). Both very enjoyable books for different reasons, so when I saw Old Men at the Strand, I decided it was time to start filling in the gaps of McCarthy’s body of work. Old Men takes place along the Mexican border, as do most of McCarthy’s books. It begins with a drug deal gone bad and the theft of a suitcase full of money, the pursuit of which leads to a spiral of violence on par with The Departed or any Tarantino movie of your choice. But unlike those and most other bloody Hollywood films, in McCarthy’s work, the violence never feels gratuitous—just a fact of life for the paths his characters have chosen. As always, his terse prose lends itself well to the urgency of the situation the characters find themselves in, and he avoids the temptation to take the easy way out, going with the inevitable ending rather than a happy one. I was a little less absorbed by this novel than the first two novels I read, but it was easily good enough that I’ll continue reading the rest of his works.

Down in the Valley. I have to admit, I struggled with this one a little bit. If you’re a Netflix member, you’ll recognize this scenario. A movie arrives and sits by your TV gathering dust for a few weeks because you never feel like you’re in the right mood to watch it. That’s been the case with Valley for me, so finally, I decided this weekend I would either have to watch it or send it back. Yesterday I popped it in and was surprised at what I found. First surprise: It takes place in modern-day California. Given all the cowboy imagery associated with the marketing, I was expecting a period piece. Second surprise: I should listen to my gut. Although there were some strong performances, Down in the Valley is a pretty mediocre movie. No wonder I was in no rush to watch it.

Ed Norton (who I almost always enjoy, and still did somewhat in this film) plays a cowboy who drifts into an unnamed Valley town and begins an affair with Evan Rachel Wood’s teenaged ingenue. Norton begins to insinuate himself into her family, befriending Wood’s younger brother (Rory Culkin) over the objections of their father, a conflicted corrections officer who is struggling to maintain control of his children (David Morse). Despite the modern setting, all the standard Western archetypes are there: The mysterious drifter, the sheriff, the young boy who looks up to the stranger, the girl who falls for him. But Valley gives these archetypes a good twist, and no one is quite what they seem in this film. Tempers flare, events spiral out of control, someone gets shot, and the film culminates in a bloody running gunfight to rival the best Peckinpah western. All that’s missing is an Ennio Morricone score. Norton and David Morse both played their parts well, and Wood showed that Thirteen was no fluke—she’s an acting force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately, I felt like the film’s payoff was hollow, and Rory Culkin’s lack of any ability to show emotion hurt some of the key moments. I only wish I hadn’t waited so long to find this out. I could have watched five more enjoyable movies by now.

Lost in Translation

Captain Alatriste, Arturo Pérez Reverte. I spent a few days in New York last week and while I was there, I made some time for a trip to my favorite bookstore anywhere, The Strand. After wandering the aisles for an hour or so, I left with enough books to keep me busy for the next month or two. I started my stack with Captain Alatriste, the first in a series of swashuckling adventures from Spanish author Arturo Pérez Reverte. A few months back, I wrote about how much I enjoyed his book The Club Dumas, and the quality of that book led me to read some more of his work. Reverte has written several books about Alatriste, a Spanish soldier and sword for hire in the 16th century who finds himself becoming involved with the politics of the day, which of course leads to a lot of dangerous situations that can only be resolved with cold steel. This book was an enjoyable read all around, but as with The Club Dumas, I was highly impressed that Reverte’s prose, originally written in his native Spanish, is just as beautiful and enthralling when translated to English. It’s hard enough to be an outstanding writer in your native tongue, but his books hold up despite the change from the original language.

Old Friends

The Dead Zone, Stephen King. With the wacky winter we’ve been having, I’ve found myself with a little more inside time for reading, so I’ve been going back and revisiting some books that left a mark on me in my youth. I’ve been a Stephen King fan ever since my middle school days when Salem’s Lot scared me so bad I slept with the lights on for three nights in a row. I’ve read all of King’s fiction books (except for the last three Dark Tower novels, and I’m getting there, dear reader... someday). Sometime in the past month, I decided I’m long overdue to revisit King’s early work, and The Dead Zone happened to be sitting on a display table when I last visited the library, so I decided to start there. King has really grown in his writing as he’s gotten older, but I had forgotten how gripping I’d always found his early work to be, and I tore through this one in two nights. I really enjoyed the book this time around, but more than anything, it made me want to watch the DVDs of the TV series with Anthony Michael Hall just to see how they stretched it into a multi-season story. If you’ve read the book, you know the TV show can’t follow the plot too closely. On the other hand, there’s also the movie version with Martin Sheen and my man Christopher Walken. I know that stayed closer to the storyline of the novel. And did I mention it’s got Christopher Walken?

In the Drink

A History of the World in Six Glasses. I started reading this book a few months ago but put it down when I started reading something else, so I'm just getting back to it now. It's a really interesting idea, charting the ways in which beer, wine, liquor, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola influenced and, in some cases, shaped world events. The writing is a little (pardon the pun) dry in some spots, but I'm learning some interesting things. I knew that tea had played a large role in the expansion of the British Empire (and it's loss of the American colonies), but I had no idea that coffee and coffeehouses were so vital to the innovations of the Age of Reason and the beginnings of the French Revolution. Imagine going to your local Starbucks to debate your latest theories of gravitational force or the divine right of royalty with a bunch of other customers. Good stuff.

The New Year

After a long and relaxing holiday break, 2007 is finally here. And much like little Happy up there (of Rudolph's Shiny New Year fame, you heathens), I feel like it arrived awkwardly and not entirely comfortable with itself. Hopefully, that won't last long, and this year will quickly learn to straighten up and fly right. It would be nice to turn on the news and hear something good, as opposed to the doom and gloom of the past few years. For now, though, my biggest concern is going back to work after nearly two weeks off. Blech.

Lots of post-Christmas pop culture stuff to wade through, but I'm too tired from rearranging my bedroom today. New year, new room... er, or something like that. Here's some links:

WATCH
The Good Shepherd
Little Miss Sunshine

READ
An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Ivan Brunetti (ed.)

LISTEN
Songs for Christmas, Sufjan Stevens
The Information, Beck
Wolfmother, Wolfmother