Bleeaaarrggghhh.....
Normally, I'm of the opinion that summer is a great time of year. And I can't help but feel that truly, it is. But fuck. It can't be over soon enough. For divers reasons, I present the following:
1. The heat. Oh, the heat. It's subsided as of late, but I pine for cool, October nights and chilly autumn breezes. And no more sweating.
2. Work. It isn't that bad, I really like the people, my work is sometimes interesting or at least stimulating, but Jeesum Crow, it is getting monotonous. I think I've also gotten better at it, so it takes less time, so I have more free time to do things like write in my LiveJournal. Thankfully, I've only done this once before at work.
3. My fucking house. I can't live there anymore for more than a few weeks at a time. It's way too exhausting. I honestly can't live like that.
Anyway, other than that, things are abso-tively peachy keen. I've been listening to a bunch of different music, thanks to co-workers, WERS Boston, and various musical websites I've come accross. Good stuff.
Hmmm...how do I make this more interesting for you handful of people out there? Do I lay out a well-thought out dissection of a death row inmate's plight or the campaign for a senatorial seat in a nothern New England state? Or perhaps I post some music or artwork I've recently created? I could go on and on and on and on about my own cause of celbre of late, which is trying to ignore the Red Sox and their horrendous play lately. But I could never do that for long, and besides, its mostly due to injuries. And immortal suckitude. I guess I'll just do what I do best: in lieu of creativity, I'll critique the art and work of others that I've come accross this summer and really enjoyed.
Films
Brick (dir. Rian Johnson)
- This is basically a noir movie, with expressionist lighting and 30's street dialogue transplanted to a California high school. Which might sound sort of corny, but it takes itself seriously and keeps everyone, audience and characters included, reminded that the stakes involved in the plot truly are high, unlike most movies starring and about teenagers and youths. It has great music, and the dialogue doesn't ever really falter. It's also good because it's very slow, methodical, and quiet for long stretches, which I've been into lately. Grade : A
Down By Law (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
- Jim Jarmusch (apparently pronounced "jar-mush") is probably my favorite director, a role which was solidified by this and a few other movies I saw recently. This film is about a trio of convicts (Roberto Begnini, Tom Waits, and John Lurie) who end up in prison for various reasons and plot to break out. Roberto Begnini is hilarious, sort of like a foreign, more inventive Robin Williams in his prime. Tom Waits and John Lurie are pretty good, but nothing special. Black and white, sparse, and funny moments interspersed. Grade : B
Mystery Train (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
- Jim Jarmusch seems to have an affection for cultural juxtaposition and frequently displays characters of different cultures in interesting contexts. Roberto Begnini's Italian who hardly spoke English in Down By Law, William Blake and Nobody in Dead Man, Italian Mafioso, Black urban culture and Japanese bushido in Ghost Dog. Mystery Train is basically the embodiment of that, with three vignettes intertwined to basically showcase cultural differences and the humorous and not-so humourous results. Set in Nashville, it involves Japanese tourists, a lost Italian Woman, a Northerner, an Englishman, and a lot of black and white Southerners. Again slow paced, and with Elvis, Carl Perkins, and other musicians of rockabilly's heyday as recurring motifs and musical cues, it is a funny and interesting film. Grade : A-
Primer (dir. Shane Carruth)
- The biggest shock of this movie was that it was only made for $7000 and wasn't even filmed digitally. Most movies that have interesting Sci-Fi ideas either suffer from poor fimmaking or are compromised by large budgets and studio influence [IMHO, of course]. Primer has a very interesting premise, that, without giving too much away, involves a homemade device that does something unexpected. Rather than exploit the nature of the device and its possible uses, the film slowly leads you along as if you are one of the characters and basically end-loads the whole film, making it difficult to understand the first time through but giving you a lot to think about. Grade : B+
Days of Heaven (dir. Terrence Malick)
- The Thin Red Line is the only war movie I truly enjoy, for a number of reasons. I was a bit dissapointed by The New World, although I enjoyed some of its ideas and especially liked the cinematography. Days of Heaven seems to take the best of both of those films, 20 years earlier, and make a better film. It follows a factory worker in turn of the century Chicago as he flees to Texas after committing a crime. He takes with him his girlfriend and his younger sister. The cinematography, which I believe (but can't be bothered to look up) won an Academy Award is gorgeous, and the plot which involves a romantic triangle is well thought out. My favorite part is the narration, by the 12-year old sister, who doesn't really grasp what's going on around her but still makes interesting and precocious observations. Grade : A-
Books
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)
- This book, while very good, is very, very, very similar to Everything is Illuminated. Both are about a young person searching an intimidating and unfamiliar world for information about an ancestor who was involved in a great tradgedy, with colorful, interesting and humorous guides along the way. It's funny, since its unreliable narrator is a 10 year old boy. It deals a lot with September 11, which the book uses as a major plot point (it takes place in NYC). Rather than meditate on the nature of the attacks or contemplate their specific elements, it simply analyzes the effects it had on the lives of New Yorkers. It also draws interesting historical paralells between 9/11 and other horrific disasters. And it doesn't question the motives, players and politics of attacks, only their results and victims. Grade : B-
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)
- This book had some very, very enjoyable sections. Following the true life story of the death of Eggers' parents within a month of each from different cancers and the packing up of his younger brother and older sister and move to California (total run-on), it is a memoir written very self-consciously. That the book is basically his self-aware musings on raising his younger brother and trying to find a profession is an interesting concept, but it gets old about half-way through. It is because he frequently has conversations with himself about why he's writing the book and what he's changed that it begins interestingly, but it is because he overuses this technique that it gets stale. Grade : C+ (I didn't read many books this summer).
Feeding the Monster (Seth Mnookin)
- Newsflash! I like baseball! I love the Red Sox! Blah blah blah blah! Stop reading if you're a knee-jerk reactionary anti-basebite. That said, Feeding the Monster is basically just a behind-the-scenes look at the Red Sox, from the beginning of the current ownership to the start of the 2006 season. Sheds a lot of light on the mindset of the current ownership group, as well as their plans for the future and general way of going about business. Makes you like the following more: John Henry, Theo Epstein, Manny Ramirez, Bill James, David Ortiz, Billy Beane, Jason Varitek. Makes you dislike: Trot Nixon, Kevin Millar, Alex Rodriguez, George Steinbrenner, Grady Little. Grade : B+
Music
Begin to Hope - Regina Spektor
- I'm not going to pretend to know an awful lot about music. I've recently come to the realization that while I can lay out (what I consider) well thought out reviews and critiques of literature and film (potentially because I'm much more adept/familiar with their creation processes), I sometimes find it hard to articulate what I like about music. I also don't want to sound like a reviewer on Pitchfork Media. So I won't overreach: Regina Spektor is playful, humorous, and sweet. I enjoyed the intimacy of Soviet Kitsch, which was her, a piano, and occaisonally various other minimal instrumentations. Begin to Hope, to me, seems to fill out what was left to the imagination on other albums like Soviet Kitsch and Songs, as well as various live performances. She is an excellent storyteller, and I enjoy telling others that I've converted to Regina fans the plots of some songs like "Samson" as much as I do listening to them. Grade : A+
At War With the Mystics - The Flaming Lips
- The Flaming Lips started out as punk rockers, quickly became involved with psychadelia, experimented with 4 CD's playing simultaneously as one album, and finally settled down with 1999's The Soft Bulletin, one of my favorite albums of all time. It's referred to as a concept album, although all the songs really have in common are dense orchestrations and lyrics vaguely about the nature of life and love. It's not as much a concept album as Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is, but it has a unified sound and doesn't get overly complicated and devolve into abstract instrumentations. At War With the Mystics does. It is a bad album. There are a few decent songs. Anyone who though Wayne Coyne had gotten over his psychadelic/punk rock phase was wrong. Grade : D+
When It Falls - Zero 7
- This is basically really mellow instrumentations with great guest vocals on every track. The best way to describe it is basically funk, techno, and other good stuff rolled into one. It's pretty mellow, and iTunes lists it under "Ambience" as a genre. I'm not a big jazz fan, but it's about as deep into jazz music I would get. Grade : B+
Other musicians I've listened to songs of and very much enjoyed this summer: Sufjan Stevens, Deltron 3030, Sigur Ros, Tori Amos, Rilo Kiley, dj BC/The Beastles, Camera Obscura, Jolie Holland, Casey Dienel, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, and a bunch of other stuff.
Television
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
- I first came accross this show when I had a temperature of 104, and while I enjoyed it, I secretly suspected that it was invented in my head and nowhere near as funny as I imagined. But that turned out to not be the case. It's basically about a brother, a sister, and two guy friends who own a bar in South Philly. That's about it. One of the guys is pretty vain and egotistical, one is vaguely right-wing and religious, and one is mopey and goofy. The girl is the only one even close to having a conscience. For the second season, Danny DeVito comes aboard as the father of the brother and sister. It's concepts and ideas are probably more funny than anything, including joining an anti-abortion group to get with a girl (and pretending to kill abortion doctors), getting yourself addicted to crack to become eligible for welfare, and sleeping with each other's mothers and other family members as a means of revenge. Grade : A-
I didn't watch that much TV.
So that's it. My summer has been a cultural rollercoaster. Thanks for being my neighbor.
1. The heat. Oh, the heat. It's subsided as of late, but I pine for cool, October nights and chilly autumn breezes. And no more sweating.
2. Work. It isn't that bad, I really like the people, my work is sometimes interesting or at least stimulating, but Jeesum Crow, it is getting monotonous. I think I've also gotten better at it, so it takes less time, so I have more free time to do things like write in my LiveJournal. Thankfully, I've only done this once before at work.
3. My fucking house. I can't live there anymore for more than a few weeks at a time. It's way too exhausting. I honestly can't live like that.
Anyway, other than that, things are abso-tively peachy keen. I've been listening to a bunch of different music, thanks to co-workers, WERS Boston, and various musical websites I've come accross. Good stuff.
Hmmm...how do I make this more interesting for you handful of people out there? Do I lay out a well-thought out dissection of a death row inmate's plight or the campaign for a senatorial seat in a nothern New England state? Or perhaps I post some music or artwork I've recently created? I could go on and on and on and on about my own cause of celbre of late, which is trying to ignore the Red Sox and their horrendous play lately. But I could never do that for long, and besides, its mostly due to injuries. And immortal suckitude. I guess I'll just do what I do best: in lieu of creativity, I'll critique the art and work of others that I've come accross this summer and really enjoyed.
Films
Brick (dir. Rian Johnson)
- This is basically a noir movie, with expressionist lighting and 30's street dialogue transplanted to a California high school. Which might sound sort of corny, but it takes itself seriously and keeps everyone, audience and characters included, reminded that the stakes involved in the plot truly are high, unlike most movies starring and about teenagers and youths. It has great music, and the dialogue doesn't ever really falter. It's also good because it's very slow, methodical, and quiet for long stretches, which I've been into lately. Grade : A
Down By Law (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
- Jim Jarmusch (apparently pronounced "jar-mush") is probably my favorite director, a role which was solidified by this and a few other movies I saw recently. This film is about a trio of convicts (Roberto Begnini, Tom Waits, and John Lurie) who end up in prison for various reasons and plot to break out. Roberto Begnini is hilarious, sort of like a foreign, more inventive Robin Williams in his prime. Tom Waits and John Lurie are pretty good, but nothing special. Black and white, sparse, and funny moments interspersed. Grade : B
Mystery Train (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
- Jim Jarmusch seems to have an affection for cultural juxtaposition and frequently displays characters of different cultures in interesting contexts. Roberto Begnini's Italian who hardly spoke English in Down By Law, William Blake and Nobody in Dead Man, Italian Mafioso, Black urban culture and Japanese bushido in Ghost Dog. Mystery Train is basically the embodiment of that, with three vignettes intertwined to basically showcase cultural differences and the humorous and not-so humourous results. Set in Nashville, it involves Japanese tourists, a lost Italian Woman, a Northerner, an Englishman, and a lot of black and white Southerners. Again slow paced, and with Elvis, Carl Perkins, and other musicians of rockabilly's heyday as recurring motifs and musical cues, it is a funny and interesting film. Grade : A-
Primer (dir. Shane Carruth)
- The biggest shock of this movie was that it was only made for $7000 and wasn't even filmed digitally. Most movies that have interesting Sci-Fi ideas either suffer from poor fimmaking or are compromised by large budgets and studio influence [IMHO, of course]. Primer has a very interesting premise, that, without giving too much away, involves a homemade device that does something unexpected. Rather than exploit the nature of the device and its possible uses, the film slowly leads you along as if you are one of the characters and basically end-loads the whole film, making it difficult to understand the first time through but giving you a lot to think about. Grade : B+
Days of Heaven (dir. Terrence Malick)
- The Thin Red Line is the only war movie I truly enjoy, for a number of reasons. I was a bit dissapointed by The New World, although I enjoyed some of its ideas and especially liked the cinematography. Days of Heaven seems to take the best of both of those films, 20 years earlier, and make a better film. It follows a factory worker in turn of the century Chicago as he flees to Texas after committing a crime. He takes with him his girlfriend and his younger sister. The cinematography, which I believe (but can't be bothered to look up) won an Academy Award is gorgeous, and the plot which involves a romantic triangle is well thought out. My favorite part is the narration, by the 12-year old sister, who doesn't really grasp what's going on around her but still makes interesting and precocious observations. Grade : A-
Books
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jonathan Safran Foer)
- This book, while very good, is very, very, very similar to Everything is Illuminated. Both are about a young person searching an intimidating and unfamiliar world for information about an ancestor who was involved in a great tradgedy, with colorful, interesting and humorous guides along the way. It's funny, since its unreliable narrator is a 10 year old boy. It deals a lot with September 11, which the book uses as a major plot point (it takes place in NYC). Rather than meditate on the nature of the attacks or contemplate their specific elements, it simply analyzes the effects it had on the lives of New Yorkers. It also draws interesting historical paralells between 9/11 and other horrific disasters. And it doesn't question the motives, players and politics of attacks, only their results and victims. Grade : B-
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)
- This book had some very, very enjoyable sections. Following the true life story of the death of Eggers' parents within a month of each from different cancers and the packing up of his younger brother and older sister and move to California (total run-on), it is a memoir written very self-consciously. That the book is basically his self-aware musings on raising his younger brother and trying to find a profession is an interesting concept, but it gets old about half-way through. It is because he frequently has conversations with himself about why he's writing the book and what he's changed that it begins interestingly, but it is because he overuses this technique that it gets stale. Grade : C+ (I didn't read many books this summer).
Feeding the Monster (Seth Mnookin)
- Newsflash! I like baseball! I love the Red Sox! Blah blah blah blah! Stop reading if you're a knee-jerk reactionary anti-basebite. That said, Feeding the Monster is basically just a behind-the-scenes look at the Red Sox, from the beginning of the current ownership to the start of the 2006 season. Sheds a lot of light on the mindset of the current ownership group, as well as their plans for the future and general way of going about business. Makes you like the following more: John Henry, Theo Epstein, Manny Ramirez, Bill James, David Ortiz, Billy Beane, Jason Varitek. Makes you dislike: Trot Nixon, Kevin Millar, Alex Rodriguez, George Steinbrenner, Grady Little. Grade : B+
Music
Begin to Hope - Regina Spektor
- I'm not going to pretend to know an awful lot about music. I've recently come to the realization that while I can lay out (what I consider) well thought out reviews and critiques of literature and film (potentially because I'm much more adept/familiar with their creation processes), I sometimes find it hard to articulate what I like about music. I also don't want to sound like a reviewer on Pitchfork Media. So I won't overreach: Regina Spektor is playful, humorous, and sweet. I enjoyed the intimacy of Soviet Kitsch, which was her, a piano, and occaisonally various other minimal instrumentations. Begin to Hope, to me, seems to fill out what was left to the imagination on other albums like Soviet Kitsch and Songs, as well as various live performances. She is an excellent storyteller, and I enjoy telling others that I've converted to Regina fans the plots of some songs like "Samson" as much as I do listening to them. Grade : A+
At War With the Mystics - The Flaming Lips
- The Flaming Lips started out as punk rockers, quickly became involved with psychadelia, experimented with 4 CD's playing simultaneously as one album, and finally settled down with 1999's The Soft Bulletin, one of my favorite albums of all time. It's referred to as a concept album, although all the songs really have in common are dense orchestrations and lyrics vaguely about the nature of life and love. It's not as much a concept album as Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots is, but it has a unified sound and doesn't get overly complicated and devolve into abstract instrumentations. At War With the Mystics does. It is a bad album. There are a few decent songs. Anyone who though Wayne Coyne had gotten over his psychadelic/punk rock phase was wrong. Grade : D+
When It Falls - Zero 7
- This is basically really mellow instrumentations with great guest vocals on every track. The best way to describe it is basically funk, techno, and other good stuff rolled into one. It's pretty mellow, and iTunes lists it under "Ambience" as a genre. I'm not a big jazz fan, but it's about as deep into jazz music I would get. Grade : B+
Other musicians I've listened to songs of and very much enjoyed this summer: Sufjan Stevens, Deltron 3030, Sigur Ros, Tori Amos, Rilo Kiley, dj BC/The Beastles, Camera Obscura, Jolie Holland, Casey Dienel, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, and a bunch of other stuff.
Television
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
- I first came accross this show when I had a temperature of 104, and while I enjoyed it, I secretly suspected that it was invented in my head and nowhere near as funny as I imagined. But that turned out to not be the case. It's basically about a brother, a sister, and two guy friends who own a bar in South Philly. That's about it. One of the guys is pretty vain and egotistical, one is vaguely right-wing and religious, and one is mopey and goofy. The girl is the only one even close to having a conscience. For the second season, Danny DeVito comes aboard as the father of the brother and sister. It's concepts and ideas are probably more funny than anything, including joining an anti-abortion group to get with a girl (and pretending to kill abortion doctors), getting yourself addicted to crack to become eligible for welfare, and sleeping with each other's mothers and other family members as a means of revenge. Grade : A-
I didn't watch that much TV.
So that's it. My summer has been a cultural rollercoaster. Thanks for being my neighbor.