Given that this was a free show at Ribfest, I knew better than to expect a great mix or clear soundsystem. That said, although I thought the lead guitar was amped too loud and the vocals too low, “See These Bones” sounded even better than I imagined it would be (damn I love that song a ridiculous amount of love), and I really enjoyed the energy of the rest of the show (the rest that came before it, See These Bones being saved for almost the very end). “Ice on the Wing” and “Beautiful Beat” were other highlights. Lowlights were primarily a) the Amazon who kept shifting to stand in front of me no matter where I moved and b) her incessant pawing of her equally Amazonian boyfriend. Ew.
Big Screen: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
As lame and predictable as you would expect. Total schmaltz. Some of it was fun because it pointed back to those old (much better) movies: say, for example, the bit with the snake. But some of it was so ludicrously off pitch, it stuck out like a sore thumb: say, for example, the bits with the gophers. And the monkeys.
I always expect lame dialogue from anything that George Lucas is in anyway connected to, but the animal bits were pure Disney channel. Trying to attract a younger audience? Then perhaps you should have rethought using your original star, who certainly looks his age, if not more.
It was fine for staying in out of the alternate periods of a) torrential rain and b) torrential heat that strafed the city yesterday. Enjoyable enough for that, I guess. But unless you find yourself in similar straits, I couldn’t recommend it.
Fiction: War with the Newts, by Karel Capek
Our June challenge book.
Really sharp political/societal commentary. First section is really rollicking fun. Second and third, a bit darker. Sometimes very sad.
Poignantly predictable, in a way, given world history now in 2008, but probably less predictable and more predictive in its time (first published in 1936).
Loved it.
By the way, Capek is the dude who came up with (created? originated? whateva!) the word “Robot” (in his play R.U.R.). This is also the first book to cause some random stranger to come up and talk to me on public transportation IN MY LIFE and given that I have 5 yrs in Chitown and 13 yrs in NYC reading on public transit every work day, that’s saying something.
Short Stories: The Collected Stories, by Isaac Bashevis Singer
The May challenge book. I had the ’96 Farrar Straus edition so we went off its TOC for what we read (Dad has the Complete vs. the Collected).
Very entertaining, really liked a lot of them. Intensely detailed, plotted down to the last moment (even when there’s not much of a plot), really great dialogue, and lots and lots of crazy neurotics (“The Admirer”, for example. nuts!).
That said, they were arranged (way) too thematically. I mean four or five stories into dybbuks and devils tormenting innocent jews (I really didn’t realize there were that many devils in Judaic tradition) and they all start to seem a little too much the same (and you’ve still got another 20 on that topic to go). Then at the other end of the book, all the NYC stories were lumped together as well. Mixing the disparate types together might have made it an more enjoyable read (or I could have instituted my own mix and read out of order, but how was I to know they were grouped by type?) — not that it wasn’t enjoyable, but there were definitely stories where I thought “another one of these? just like the last four? really?”.
When you get to the NYC stories, there are quite a few where you suddenly see the influence he’s had on Philip Roth. “Old Love” for example shares so many of Roth’s current themes and similar personal details on the part of the protagonist. Dad thinks Singer (rather than Malamud) is really the model for Roth’s E.I. Lonoff (an elder writer who appears in some of Roth’s Zuckerman books).
Snip To Dos [Half Done][as done as it’ll ever be!!] a.k.a. Personal Barriers Against Senility (How else will I remember?)
Write up April and May books (holy frakkin hell, I’ve read 11 books since the last one I posted about. FRAK.)(from here to here (and all the posts between) and now I’m all caught up)
- Write up remaining
MayApril gigs (andonetwo fromJuneMay) (here, here, here and here)
Entire FamilyReaction on Iron Man (Bonus MomReaction! Extremely rare!).Last year I went to 57 movies. This year so far = only 10. WTF? And, hello, how sad. (here and a bonus movie here)
April Best of (hello when was April again?)(here)
New Currently(here)
March albums(here)
- Current favorite tunes [was I kidding with this one? WHATEVA.]
À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…
Eating: Lots of eggs. Hard-boiled, cooked atop rice, what have you.
Making: [to repeat from last time] Sooooo close to being done with Amy’s Friendship Star quilt (only the binding to go)…but yet soooo far (the binding to go!!!).
Reading: The June challenge book with Dad: “War with the Newts” by Karel Capek. First published in 1936, it’s quite brilliant. Some non-PC words clue you into the age of this book, but otherwise I think it would be topical in any age. The first half was rollicking and so much fun. The middle section got a bit bleaker. Only the last bit to go and then my whole month will be freed up for pleasure reading. Crazy considering I stretched May’s book out as far as I possibly could (but it was stories, so there ya go) [yes, I’ll write it up soon].
Watching: Battlestar Galactica (old and new). CSI (old). That’s about it.
Listening: Spending so much time obsessing over BSG (oh you have no idea), I’ve barely been listening to anything, other than SModcasts while quilting and occasionally listening to stuff I bought in March since I didn’t do any listening that month so I felt bad for those albums (not because I’m three months behind on anything in life! No, not me!).
March Album Reviews
So turns out I didn’t buy that much music in March. Not only did I not buy much (some of what’s below was gifted to me), but I didn’t listen much either… Maybe that 9-day trip to Japan had something to do with it? (And, no, before you ask, I still haven’t listened to much of the music I bought there [mostly rap], I’ve been too busy reorganizing music while home to listen to new stuff [and didn’t put those on the Pod/iTunes yet].)
Absolutely Love & Adore:
Jesse Malin “Glitter in the Gutter” – One of those (increasingly rare) albums that just WORKS all the way through. Really love it. I actually like it so much, I couldn’t even narrow down a favorite song for ya. Today it may have been “Happy Ever After” but other days it’s been “Black Haired Girl” and sometimes “NY Nights” and other times… Uh huh. It’s that good.
Gnarls Barkley “The Odd Couple” – The more I listen to it, the more I like it. It’s not getting the press or the play their first one did, but I think it’s just as good. A little darker, but still delish. Cee-Lo just has such a great voice, I think that boy could sing anything and make it beautiful. Favorite song: definitely “Going On”.
Favorite Singles (not on any of the above albums):
- “Rat Within the Grain” Damien Rice
- “Wonderwall” Noel Gallagher, singing the Ryan Adams’ arrangement of Noel’s song
- “Hideaway” The Weepies
- “Buckets of Rain” (my favorite all-time Dylan song) covered by Redbird (Peter Mulvey)
- “The Silence Between Us” Bob Mould
- “Changing Your Mind” Bob Schneider
- “Don’t You Worry” Jim Noir
- “I Woke Up Today” Port O’Brien
- “Vision in Red” Thao Nguyen
Other Albums I Liked:
- Hot Chip “Coming on Strong” (and) “Made in the Dark” – I kept reading about this band everywhere and wondering if I should be listening and CCB took pity on my lazy ass and sent me both of these. The former (CoS) is not what I was (for some unknown reason) expecting. Instead it’s melodic, kinda jazzy with some background fuzz, sweet and smooth. The second (MitD) is more what I had in my mind: disco-y electronic, rhythmic. Fun! 🙂
- Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks “Real Emotional Trash” – I never listened to Pavement back in the day; got turned on to them last summer thanks to Rob Sheffield’s lovely book so I’m new to the Malkmus fan club. On the rough, edgy side of rock. The first four songs don’t really pull me in but then we hit “Baltimore” and “Gardenia” and I’m a total goner… I could listen to those two (and the songs that follow) over and over!
Not really for me / but maybe for you!:
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss “Raising Sand” – Hmmm. You know, people kept occasionally playing me singles off this album and I thought “hey, maybe it IS as good as people are saying.” But apparently I only like it in singles because I almost fell asleep the three times I tried to get through the album as a whole. Pretty. But boring. Maybe I will like them better in person? We’ll find out in a few weeks…
Foo Fighters “Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace” – I was a big big Foo fan…a long time ago. (Their live show was one of my faves of my NY years.) And although it seems odd to say about music, sometimes I just grow out of a certain band or sound. When I put this on, I think “oh yeah, sounds exactly like some Foo stuff I was listening to 10 years ago.” (Loved their first two albums. Loved.) So while this album is perfectly fine and good and enjoyable enough (and could easily be in the above category instead of here), I just don’t find myself listening to it. I’ve kinda moved on.
Shamefully have either not listened to at all, or not all the way through, or so few times that I can’t legitimately offer an opinion:
Just the stuff I bought in Japan. 🙂
À la Nick Hornby, books in/books out for May.
Bought:
- Just One Look, by Harlan Coben
- Bad Luck and Trouble, by Lee Child
- A Circle Is a Balloon and Compass Both, by Ben Greenman (stories)
- Bad Luck and Trouble, by Lee Child (whoops)
- Sleeping It Off in Rapid City, by August Kleinzahler (poetry)
- Unmentionables, by Beth Ann Fennelly (poetry)
- Dragon Blood, by Patricia Briggs
- Raven’s Shadow, by Patricia Briggs
- One False Move, by Harlan Coben
- The Final Detail, by Harlan Coben
Read:
- Just One Look, by Harlan Coben
- Bad Luck and Trouble, by Lee Child
- Slam, by Nick Hornby
- The Devil of Nanking, by Mo Hayder
- Dragon Bones, by Patricia Briggs
- Dragon Blood, by Patricia Briggs
- One False Move, by Harlan Coben
- The Final Detail, by Harlan Coben
- The Collected Stories, by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Big Screen: Sex and the City
Bittersweet. Disappointing.
- Given the events of the middle, I thought the unspoken “message” of the end was complete crap.
- Charlotte really got gypped in terms of storylines; hers had no tension whatsoever.
- It felt both superficial and rushed, and considering it went over two hours, it should have been neither.
That said, the other six girls in our group (no I do not know seven girls to go to the movies with in Chicago; I knew one of them) all seemed to like it. So take from that what you will.
Best of April
Just in time for June!!
The best movie I saw in April was Leatherheads, which might seem like it’s not saying much since how hard is it to be the best of only two, but on the other hand, I thought it was really really good. It’s not its fault my lack of movie viewing didn’t give it much competition.
The best book I read in April was Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos but Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Goff was also good and a bit more high-brow if that’s what you’re looking for.
The best gig I went to in April was Bon Iver. A beautiful album done even more beautifully live.
My favorite tunes in April…. You know, at this point I’m not sure what I was listening to then, probably stuff I bought in February and/or March. The memory, it ain’t what it used to be.
Random personal highlights: The yearly trip to Portland, yay, including burgers, beers and brunch; trying out my new camera (Hasselblad, yo). Not much else good happened; it was a rough month.
Lowlights? Had the punes; which seemingly caused a mysterious shoulder injury (look for “physical therapy” in May’s highlights); had a LOTLOTLOT of stress at the secondary browsing location. And, I’m sure, airport delays on the way to Portland because you KNOW planes are delayed in every direction if I am flying on them.