Like it. LIKE it.
Edgier / less positive and bouncy than their previous outings. More of a downer (more what I like, really). Not until about “Red Rabbits” (song 6) does it start to bounce…and then only momentarily. Don’t get me wrong: I love the Shins, bouncy or not. The general feel of this one is less that way.
p.s. and “Girl Sailor” …SOUNDS LIKE… the Smiths (and Morrissey)! Bonus!
Category Archives: Recommending
Au Musée: David Hockney “Portraits”
At the National Portrait Gallery (London). One of the best art exhibits I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been (dragged sometimes) to Many).
Really truly amazing; blew us all away. Portraits in oil, in acrylic, in pen, in crayon, in charcoal, in photo. Different styles, techniques, formats. Sitters repeating throughout the years; you can see how their relationships to Hockney change and grow, how they themselves change and grow.
What an amazing artist. If you can’t get to London, the exhibition book is well worth the price (I paid 35 pounds, so about $70).
Theater: Pirates of Penzance
A Chris Monks production. The pirates were dressed as ’50s mobsters. The Major General’s daughters looked ready for yoga (except for Mabel, of course). Performed at a very small theater in the round (the Orange Tree in Richmond [outside London]), but masterfully filling the space with movement and sound.
Really well done: well acted / well sung. Well updated: the present day politics inserted into “For I Am a Major General” were hilarious and the ending (“For We Love the Bard”) was just perfect.
Loved it.
Theater: (Tom Stoppard’s) Rock ‘n’ Roll
Great, great show. Worth the trip to London all on its own.
Dominic West is great. The rest of the cast is compelling. The music (functioning as scene breaks) is a thrill to hear (as loud as if you were hearing it live). The story unfolds as the characters’ lives do. Written based on a conversation with Vaclav Havel about a rock band dissenting (in their own way) under communism: the Plastic People of the Universe.
Pink Floyd fans will enjoy the Syd Barrett side story (my mom didn’t know who Syd Barrett was of course).
Really well done.
Fiction: “Blameless in Abaddon” by James Morrow
One of the funniest books I have ever read in my life. If I had underlined every phrase I thought was funny, there would be ink on every page, in almost every paragraph.
The second part of a trilogy that began with “Towing Jehovah.” Exploring a world where God’s dead body is the hot topic. Incredibly funny, culturally aware, poking fun at every race, age, religion, and stance.
Particularly loved the bits written from the Devil’s point of view: The one thing he got wrong was my age. While poets commonly produce their best work in their thirties, and mathematicians typically tend to burn out in their twenties, miscreants tend to be late bloomers. Hitler didn’t get around to invading Poland until he was fifty. Ceausescu got the hang of atrocity only after turning sixty-four. I am an eternal seventy-two.
Highly recommended.
Best of…2006
Best CDs: I already posted an extensive list of my favorite tunes from 2006. My top 3 albums were Gnarls Barkley “St. Elsewhere”, Gomez “How We Operate” and Golden Smog “Another Fine Day.”
Best Gigs: I saw a lot of great shows in 2006, including Lollapalooza. Trying (desperately) to narrow it down, I’d say the two tied for “funnest” were Gnarls Barkley and Beck (hello, puppets!). The best was Joan Baez. And runner-up was The Raconteurs on December 30. Sadly I did not keep a list just by 2006, but you can see a (supposedly) comprehensive list of what I’ve seen live here.
Best Books: [Limiting myself MOSTLY to books published and read this year, as opposed to all the books I read this year.] The best NON fiction books I read this year were “Guests of the Ayatollah” by Mark Bowden and “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. The best novels I read were “Black Swan Green” by David Mitchell, “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn and “Towing Jehovah” by James Morrow [that one was not pub this year]. The best short stories I read were “In Persuasian Nation” by George Saunders and “When the Messenger Is Hot” by Elizabeth Crane (not from this year either). The best poetry was “Strong Is Your Hold” by Galway Kinnell. You can view the entire list of what I read here and you can read my last mini-reviews here (reviews will be posted to Snip from now on).
Best Films: By far, the best film I saw this year was “The Departed”. For drama, I also highly recommend “Inside Man” “The Queen” and I personally loved “Marie Antoinette”. For a smaller film “Come Early Morning” was very well done. For comedy “Scoop” and “Clerks 2” were both quite funny, in their own ways. “Casino Royale” was the Best Bond, perhaps ever. And “The Prestige” was a good movie about just how horrifically awful human beings can be. So you’d have to keep that in mind, should you choose to see it. There were other movies I liked also.
I’m pretty good at not going to movies I can tell I’m not going to like, in my old age. I’d have to say “Last Kiss” (yuck) and “Match Point” (“Scoop” is so much better!) were my least favorite movies in the theater this year and “The DaVinci Code” was about how I expected: not good, but not as bad as I had heard. Average. Middling.
For Keanu lovers like myself, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with “The Lakehouse.” You can see the whole list of what I saw here or you can view Snip by category “Flicks”; although I oddly forgot to write up a LOT of the concerts I saw, I pretty consistently reported back on movies.
And I’ve already seen my first movie of 2007 although I haven’t written it up yet. Soon! 🙂
Currently Recommended Reading.
Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow. Sci fi with a religious focus (but you don’t have to BE religious to understand the references/jokes/etc.).
Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn. A murder mystery and psychological thriller-type novel, but very much literature rather than “just genre fiction” as some would pejoratively say (probably including me).
KEXP: The Long Winters (8/14)
This is a great podcast. The performances sound good and the banter between the lead and the emcee is just pure hilarity – they’ve obviously known each other for a long time. If you’re a fan of this band, then you need to listen to this! I may have just been convinced to buy their (his, really) new album!
Random Recommendation: Scissor Sisters
Good for dancin’. Workin’ out. Being happy. Smiling. Bouncing.
Super high-energy. In concert, similar to Gnarls, they suck up the crowd’s energy and spin it back out times 10,000.
Their new album came out today: if it’s even half as fun as their last one, it’ll surely be worth my while. And yours!
Have you ever heard anything as gorgeous as this?
Get yourself Joseph Arthur’s cover of “There Is a Light that Never Goes Out” (Smiths). Swoon.
And if you like melancholy girls as well as melancholy boys, go get Imelda de la Cruz “Noise, Noise, Noise” which is quite the lovely album. We have a mutual friend and I can’t thank him enough for giving me this. Love it.