In Concert — Double Feature: The Maccabees / The Noisettes

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I had actually bought The Maccabees album the other day when I was wandering Virgin and it was playing in the store but I hadn’t gotten around to listening yet, so it was a pleasant surprise to find they were playing before The Noisettes. The lead singer has an amazing voice, despite his bizarre stage antics. My friends were postulating various illnesses/handicaps/etc., but I think it was more a case of nerves / nowhere to put his hands. Maybe he needs something to hold while he’s on stage. Someone give that boy a tambourine! They’re being hyped as the next Franz Ferdinand/best new British band/etc. etc., which as you know can often spell a band’s downfall trying to live up to the hype (Arctic Monkeys?) . Based on their live performance, I have to think these guys have a chance: they were polished and together, none of the odd gaffes you often see in a band’s early tours. And they sounded great! Interesting lyrics, rockin’ guitar licks. Have finally started listening to the album post-show: Thumbs Up for “Colour It In”.

While equally compelling in concert, musically The Noisettes are an entirely different ball game. I’ve been racking my brain all morning trying to think of others to compare them to. Thrashing, yelling, jumping = super super high energy, loud, badass performance. I’d call them “punk” before anything else. (And in an odd coincidence of timing, one of their songs was on The Sopranos finale!) Here’s a review and this one describes the lead singer as “Billie Holiday on PCP.” A lot of fun but I don’t spend a lot of time listening to this album since a) I’m not going to the gym these days (I think it’d be perfect workout music) and b) stuff that is this high energy feels very POSITIVE to me and you know I’m all about the negative.

[p.s. and this site has a photo from the same concert.]

Opener: The Reds and the Blues. Nothing that inspiring, but definitely unforgettable. Come on, when was the last time you saw a bassoon on-stage in a rock band?

Summer Reading

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NPR has a number of summer book lists up, this one has a lot of good stuff on it: new Michael Ondaatje!; book #3 in the “Bangkok 8” series (oops, I haven’t read #2 yet); Bruce Chatwin is definitely great summer fare, always making his way through steamy places; this is the second place today I’ve read about “The Dud Avocado”; “The Children’s Hospital” sounds good; and I’ve been a fan of Anne Fadiman for quite some time now.

Now if it weren’t for the two stacks of books I bought at the Printer’s Row Book Fair this weekend, as well as the two shelves of unreads I’ve lately been giving books away from in despair that they’ll ever find a reader….

Definition #3 really does it for me.

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Brocha holds the braided candle, and Isaac says the prayer marking the end of Shabbat. After he says the last words, Hamavdil ben kodesh lihol, Nina asks, “What do you think is the best translation for that?”

“Blessed be he who separates the holy from the profane,” Isaac says.

“The sacred from the secular,” puts in Elizabeth.

“The transcendent moment from the workaday world,” suggests old Rabbi Sobel in his quaverying voice.

“Mm.” they pause around the smoking candle.

–from “Kaaterskill Falls” by Allegra Goodman

Fiction: “Kaaterskill Falls” by Allegra Goodman

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I think I picked up this paperback after Goodman’s more recent book “Intuition” started being reviewed all over the place. And as to why I decided to read it now, I guess Michael Chabon’s latest got me in the mood for random outbursts of Yiddish (and/or Hebrew) and explications of Talmudic law!

The plot was somewhat meandering (no big climax at the end) and predictable — surely all intelligent people must struggle at one time or another with belief and the irrationality of restrictive religions — but the intelligence and integrity of the writing kept me interested.
Elizabeth was a wonderfully written character, I really enjoyed thinking through her thoughts.

And if you yourself are now in the mood for some yiddish, how about a list of ways to incorporate Yiddish into bedroom talk, via Josh Berg, a friend of a friend.

Fiction: “Pippa Passes” by Rumer Godden

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Un petit roman about a young ballerina who goes to Venice and blossoms. Sweet and light. But pretty inconsequential.

If you are interested in reading Rumer Godden, an author of some renown although you don’t hear much about her these days, I highly (HIGHLY!!) recommend instead both “In This House of Brede” and “China Court” both of which are easy to obtain, in my experience, at any decent-sized used bookstore.

I’ve told you this before, but FYI the author is the namesake of Bruce & Demi’s child.

On Reuniting.

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You know, it takes time. You can’t just have coffee and expect… There’s just so much to work through. Trust has to be built again on both sides. You have to learn if we’re even the same people we were, if you can fit in each other’s lives. It’s a long important process…
Can we just skip it? Can you just be kissing me now?

-Tara, BtVS, 6:18 “Entropy”

Big Screen: Paris, Je T’Aime.

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According to the poster, 18 vignettes (the picture grid at the beginning & end was 4×4 so suggested 16. Felt more like 30). All set in different Paris neighborhoods, some concerned with Paris, some not. Some realistic and true, some purely fantastical and nutso. Some I liked, some I hated, but all short enough that just hold out for a few minutes and you’re on to a new one. A couple random shots at the end linking some of the stories to each other, but not all. Lots of famous faces popping up, some in unexpected ways. Overall = enjoyable. But quite wacky.

And tell me the Elijah Wood segment did not totally steal all its coloration ideas from Sin City (which he was also in). I cannot tell him or Tobey Maguire apart and they both kinda creep me out.

History: “Killing Pablo” by Mark Bowden

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I am becoming quite the Mark Bowden groupie, eh?

This book reveals the secrets of US government/military involvement in the hunt for and eventual murder of Pablo Escobar, former head of the Colombian cocaine cartel, and quite the terrorist. Bowden manages to take all these people’s memories and turn them into quite a page turner, it feels like you’re reading a story of what happened rather than a journalist’s report.

Good. Intriguing. But I would recommend both Black Hawk Down (love that book) and Guests of the Ayatollah over this one. This one feels a little stiff in comparison.