One of the things I really like in TV shows is poetry. Now, I don't mean I like shows that are compilations of poetry. Rather, I like situations where a show has a poem (or song) that was created for the show is recited or performed. I'd like to share a few of my favorites.
But before I do so, let me note that these have to be poems or songs that are part of the show, and that were created for it, by the writers, to exist within the show's universe. So I don't consider such things as Mr. Spock's recitation of William Blake's "Tiger." On the other hand, if he had recited "Zimfiron" by Heeblewenzinko of the Orion Colony, that would have been okey dokey. Also, I am not considering songs from TV series that are built around songs. So no Partridge Family or Monkees here.
And, of course, these are weighted toward TV shows that I liked because, well, that's what I liked.
1) "Clouds" from Taxi
This is my favorite. Elaine has been receiving anonymous love poems. After she admits that they're getting her hot, Louie thinks he can get her into bed if she believes he wrote them. Hilarity ensues:
2) "Another Christmas of Agony" from Cheers
A close second. Diane's friend, a student of Russian poetry is depressed. So depressed that she can't even be cheered by her favorite poem. Which she recites.
3) "Go Back" from Star Trek
I mentioned Star Trek above. In the Halloween episode ("Catspaw") from season 2, the landing party meets what appear to be floating disembodied ghost heads who present a warning in poem form. Because it's hard to make out the words -- heck I've seen this dozens of times, but had to look up the words on the internet -- I'm including them here. You're welcome.
Wind shall rise
And fog descend.
So leave here, all
Or meet your end.
4) "Pump Your Blood" from Happy Days
Potsie is in danger of failing a biology class. He just can't remember the material. So the gang, realizing that he has a musical brain, help him by writing songs about the material. That, he can remember. Warning: This episode comes after the series had jumped the shark. And it shows.
5) "Happy and Peppy and Bursting with Love" from The Odd Couple
Felix, finding out how much successful songwriters make, decides to write a song. Somehow (I forget how, and I'm too lazy to look it up), he has a connection to get the song to Jaye P. Morgan. Unlike the material above, this song is the actual focus of its episode, so there are several performances of it, as well as an extended (hyserical) scene, in which we see Felix writing it.
Any thoughts? If this proves to be a popular post I'll follow up with another. Of course, I may do so even if it's not popular. So, whatever.
Any one who knows me and m,y musical tastes knows that I am endlessly fascinated by cover songs. I love hearing reinterpreatations of well-known songs, done by new artists.
With that in mind, I present a post listing a few of my favorite cover versions. WIth any luck this will be the first of several such posts. The idea here is to present the original version followed by the cover version and a little commentary.
But first, a few comments about what considerations informed these choices.
A cover tune wins bonus points if it is very different, stylistically, than the originals. If, to take an extreme, the two versions are indistinguishable from each other, then why bother. Juice Newton's and Dave Edmunds' versions of "Queen of Hearts" are so similar that I am not including them -- even though I love both recordings.
I am avoiding bands whose raison d'etre is to do covers -- even if I love them. Thus I am not considering anything by Big Daddy (who do 1950's style covers of more recent songs), Me First & the Gimme Gimmes (who do alt-punk styled covers of various hits) and Hayseed Dixie (who do bluegrass covers of AC/DC songs), even though I love those bands' canons.
All else equal, I give bonus points for recordings that were hits.
I am avoiding songs taken from tribute albums. Because I want to.
That said, I am not labeling this as "the best covers ever" or even "my favorite covers." On any given day I will have a different list of favorites than the day before.
1) Born A Woman
The original version by Sandy Posey
And a cover version by Nick Lowe
Sandy Posey's ballad is reworked as a happy upbeat tune full of jangly guitars and happy vocals. It seems incongruous, but recall that at around the same time, Nick recorded a happy-sounding jangly-guitar-filled song about a movie star getting eaten by her dog.
2) Daydream Believer
The original version by The Monkees
A cover version by Shonen Knife
Until this recording, I was only peripherally aware of Shonen Knife. I kind of knew them as an alt-punk band from Japan. Then, one night I was watching Viva Variety on late night TV, and Shonen Knife was the guest. They performed a kickass version of this classic Monkees song. I looked it up on the internet, and confirmed that they had a new album out with this song. When they closed out the show with "Sushi Bar," which was also great, I was convinced to buy the album, Happy Hour. The good news? It's a killer album. The bad news? I bought a bunch of their other albums, and none approached HH in quality. This is one of those covers that took one great record and made it into a new, and very different great record.
3) כשאת בוכה את לא יפה -- You're Not Pretty When You Cry
The original by Arik Einstein
A cover version by T-Slam
From the world of Israeli pop music. A 1960's romp becomes a hardered-edged 1980's rocker. I love both versions of this song. I had heard the T-Slam version long before I knew of the original, and was surprised to learn that it was cover. That kind of thing has happened to me a lot.
4) We Gotta Get Out of This Place
The original by The Animals
A cover by The Partridge Family
I can practically feel everyone rolling their eyes. But this saccharine-infused cover is part of the soundrtrack from my childhood, since my sister had the album on vinyl. Now I have it on CD. I also have vivid memories of singing this in the back seat of wthe car with my sister (while worrying about my father crining at the lines about Daddy being in dead and dying. Anyway, this is another example, where I had no idea that a recording was a cover version, and I was surprised to come across the original. By the way, that a;lso happened to me with "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo" and "American Pie." I acknowledge that the original is vastly superior to the original. But I don't care. I love the cover too.
EDIT: In reference to the covers of "Me and You..." and "American Pie," I meant to indicate that those were done by The Brady Bunch. When I say I love the cover, I was not referring to either of these.
5) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The original by Gene Pitney, which was,sadly, not used in the movie of the same name.
The cover by John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett
I love John Otway's off-kilter demeanor, and he was at his best when he was working with WIld Willy Barrett (with whom he had a tempestuous partership. I first heard this cover version on a Stiff Records compilation when I was in high school.
People of my generation grew up with nine planets. Pluto was one of them. And we knew it would always be so -- the part about Pluto being one of them. Not the part about there being nine. The number could grow if they discovered a new planet. But it wouldn't shrink.
And yet it did shrink after I became an adult. Pluto has been demoted, and we now have eight planets. For the longest time I had a hard time accepting that decision, since the only explanation I ever heard was that Pluto was much smaller than the other planets. That explanation didn't sit well with me. But now, thanks to the video below, I understand that it's not size alone. It has to do with the discovery of other objects whose orbits are in the same region as Pluto's orbit. And it parallels the demotion of Ceres as other asteroids were discovered.*
Yup. It finally makes sense to me, and I don't object to the decision not to include Pluto as a planet**.
*Perhaps this points to a need for me to read more about such matters. Maybe if I had read more about it I would have come across this information sooner.
**assuming, of course, that this video is accurate. Because we all know that there's no false information on the internet.
It wasn't easy, but I got my hands on the new possibly limited edition* Pop-Tarts -- Frosted A&W Root Beer and Frosted Orange Crush flavors.
Short answer? Meh. They're OK. But not great. They're certainly not in the neighborhood of Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, which is the Cadillac of Pop-Tarts. And the're not in the league of Frosted Strawberry, which is second in my book. They're OK. They taste kind of good. Kind of. Sort of.
OK, I admit that I had really high hopes. I really wanted to like these, and they disappointed me. Honestly, I'm not sure what I expected. They each taste like their respective sodas, with tastes shining in all their flavor-chemists-of-New-Jersey glory. So I can't fault them on that front, but I just found them underwhelming.
For the record, Ethan and Sharon said that they're inedible.
*I honestly don't know if they're limited edition. I saw that somewhere, and the stores near me sold out quickly (and didn't get more). On the other hand, the boxes don't actually say that they're limited.
In this week's cinema class we saw Werewolves on Wheels (trailer above), an strange bit of celluloid that attempts to bridge the gap between two very different genres -- horror and biker films.
Actually, WoW has a lot going for it, though I should acknowledge that I don't think I've ever actually seen a biker film before. Because of that, it's hard to judge the biker aspect of this and its place in that pantheon. And that can render anything I say here suspect, since the biker angle is definitely the dominant one here. Having given that caveat, I will say that I really gotta see some more biker films -- I just loved that part of it. The opening sequence (see below) is just dripping with testosterone, and it just goes on from there.
Another thing that's great about this movie is the soundtrack. I kept feeling like I was listening to a Johnny Mayall concert. The music in the opening sequence above is typical.
(Spoiler Alert -- but, seriously, are you really planning to watch this movie?) But the horror aspect of the movie was kind of muddled. Essentially, a biker gang trespasses on a satanist cult's property, so the satanists drug them and turn their leader's girlfriend into a werewolf. She, of course, infects her boyfriend. And hilarity ensues. The thing is, the way it's handled the horror storyline is a weird amalgam of satanism, voodoo and werewolf. And of the three, the werewolf is the least necessary part -- though I will admit that the visual of a flaming werewolf riding a motorcycle is priceless. At any rate, the werewolves are underutilized to such an extent that you could say that the title is an example of false advertising. In class we agreed that Satan's Biker Bride would have been a more apt title.
And, while we're on the subject of plot, I should note that the plot here is kind of weak. For a lot of the film, this is disguised by long sequences of the bikers riding, and of weird LSD-inspired visuals. But then you get to the ending, and it's like...is that all there is? I'm watching the movie. And watching. And I'm digging it, even though I'm aware that the plot is weak. But then it's building to a climax. And I'm thinking this is it. Here comes the payoff. I can't wait to see how it winds up. And then it just ends in a weird anticlimactic jumble.
I have to wonder if part of the weak plot had to do with budgetary concerns. I do get the impression that they wanted to do more with this than they did. Early on, there were a couple of lines that I was sure were meant to foreshadow later events. Some of them paid off. But others didn't. I was looking forward to seeing one of the female leads (I forget her name) get struck by lightning on top of the satanists' church. Also, there were a whole bunch of hints at a gay relationship between two of the bikers, but that aspect was never really explored satisfactorilly. Do biker movies from the early 1970s typically have scenes of male homosexuality? I would think not, though (as I admitted above) I am not really familiar with the genre.
I'm kind of hoping that Keith finds a way to do a month of biker flicks.
I'm not much of a gamer. These days, pretty much the only video game I play is Trivia Crack. Yeah,
years ago I liked arcade games -- Dig Dug, Tempest, Qix. But those games are a far cry from the amazingly intricate worlds in today's video games.
That being the case, I'm hardly the perfect test subject for a new virtual reality console. But Sony was demonstrating the Playstation VR (which is scheduled for October release) at a GameStop in Hazlet, NJ. So off I went with the kids...
I should note that this was also being promoted by the Northern New Jersey chapter of Stack-Up.org, a charity we're involved with that supports the military and veterans through love of video games.
So how was the PS VR? In some ways, it was amazing. With the visor on, it really looked and sounded like I was in the virtual world of the game. I was playing Battlezone, which is loosely based on the old Atari arcade game of the same title. Of course, the graphics were snazzier -- even putting aside the VR angle. But seriously. You could look up, down, behind you...wherever you looked the image seamlessly adjusted. I was totally blown away.
There is, however, the issue of nausea -- one of the reason I never got into the POV games. I remember trying Doom about twenty years ago, and it literally made me nauseous. I've read explanations. Apparently it has to do with the mixed signals the brain gets. Some signals say you're sitting still while others say you're moving. This somehow confuses the brain, so you have to yack. Sounds plausible. With this I didn't get sick while I was playing, but almost as soon as I got the mask off, I felt it. Let's just say that I won't be playing the PS VR again in this lifetime.
The kids loved it and were not bothered by nausea. Young constitutions, I guess. Of course, they also tried other games -- The Heist and Tetris. I am not looking forward to the fall when they start clamoring to get this.
In cinema history, we continued our werewolf month with Werewolf Shadow aka The Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman (see trailer above). This was a 1970 European production written by and starring the legendary Paul Naschy.
There was a lot to like in this movie. It was definitely a mood piece, and that worked well. The classic style wolfman makeup was done well, as was the time-lapse animation that was used for the transformations. I also admit that I loved the scene where one of the female vampires emerged from a tomb, looking like Lene Lovich channeling Wednesday Adams (see it starting at about 21 seconds into the trailer above). The slow motion effects, which kind of reminded me of the Six Million Dollar Man, worked well. And even the wolfman's sister, looking all Gloria Steinemy was interesting.
But despite the strong points, this was just weak on story. In some ways it tried to do much -- being both werewolf and vampire story. And yet it didn't do enough. What's the story? I still can't tell you. Suffice to sday it involved vampires and a werewolf. Oh, and blood.
Next week we're doing Werewolves on Wheels, a 1971 biker werewolf movie. I'm looking forward to it...
In my last post, I talked about writing "Five Missing One," which started as a project to translate an Israeli song from Hebrew to English, and ended with me writing a full-fledged song that stood apart from the Israeli work. And I ended up with a rough demo produced in a friend's bedroom.
Bobtown is New York (Brooklyn?) based band that does a mix of country and folk, with a heavy does of harmony. When I first heard of them they had two albums out. They had funded the second through Kickstarter, and I was bummed that I hadn't heard of them in time to use their Kickstarter campaign to get a demo of one of my songs. To get a taste of Bobtown, enjoy the following video of them doing "Kentucky Graveyard," which is my favorite song of theirs:
When they announced a Kickstarter to fund a third album, I was over that like frosting on a Poptart. DFor the right pledge I could have them record a usable demo of one of my songs. In my arsenal I already had a demo, produced by Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby of another one of my songs ("Do You Think of Me (Now and Again)" -- that'll be another blogpost or two). The only question was what to have them record. I had a few finished songs and a few more that were nearing completion that I could prioritize. But I decided to go with "Five Missing One."
In some ways it was an illogical choice. I already had a demo of the song, albeit a flawed one. But there were three considerations that won the day:
The demo I had was rough -- possibly too rough to use for selling the song. But good enough to provide to them as a guide for the melody.
The song was a Western-style (or so I thought) story song, which seemed to me well-suited for Bobtown
I hated -- hated hated hated -- one line in the rough demo. In the final chorus I had the line "We're each other's fathers, brothers, sons." It was a hastily-written line meant to emphasize how the "we" of the song are extremely close. But it didn't sound right to me. After recording the rough demo I came up witjh the alternate, "We ride until the riding's done" which I liked better.
So I sent Bobtown a lyric sheet and the rough demo. Then I made a mistake. Since the song was originally inspired by "חמישה פחות אחד" ("Five Less One") by Benny's Friends. So in my head my idea of what the song should sound like was heavily influenced by that song. So I emailed one of Bobtown -- I forget who my primary contact was with -- to suggest what the arrangement should sound like. At the time, I couldn't find a video of the Benny's Friend's song, so instead I sent a link to "שירת הרוכבים" ("Caravan of Riders") by Hadooda'im and said I thought that my song should be stylistically like it. This is the song in question:
I shouldn't have gone there. Bobtown has their own style, and it's not the same as Hadooda'im's. Some days later I realized my error and wrote back to Bobtown that they should ignore the Dooda'im video, and arrange the song as they see fit. They're professionals. They're experts. And part of what I like about them is their talent for arrangement,
In due course, I got my demo. It's here as a lyric video:
Bobtown added some flourishes at then, and a vocal intro that I hadn't contemplated. And they changed a few words here and there. But the really important thing is that what they recorded sounds like a Bobtown recording. If they had followed my suggestion that they style it after the Dooda'im song, it would have sounded great, and I would have been happy. But this is much better.
Of course, that wasn't the end of the Kickstarter rewards. I also got copies of their first two albums (which I gave to a friend who I felt would like them) and the new album (which I kept. Duh!). I note that the new album has "Kentucky Graveyard" on it, which I consider a victory. There was also a Bobtown shirt (which one of my cats has since peed on -- sorry, guys) and pin. But what was really great (stuffwise) was a collection of early demos of the songs on the new album. I just love that kind of stuff -- early demo versions of songs I know and love. I find it fascinating to see how something developed, and I have shelled out money for album rereleases because they included early demos. I downloaded the demos, and intended to burn them onto CD. Since the new album was called A History of Ghosts, I figurwed I'd call the disc of demos A History of a History of Ghosts. You see, the OCD side of me won;t let me consider a recording to be part of my music collection unless I have it on a disc. It can be a homemade disc that I titled myself, but it has to be a disc. Unfortunately, some of those demos couldn't make their way onto a disc -- I got a message that I wasn't authorized to burn it. :(. So those tracks remain on my computer, but I haven't been able to think of them as part of my music collection.
I attended an album release party in Manhattan, at which they went through all the songs on the album. It was a good show, though the firend who was going to go with me bagged, citing exhaustion.
Finally, some time after that, Bobtown reminded me that I was still owed free admission to a concert. I didn't realize that, but -- hay, free concert. So they put me down for a show in Brooklyn on a weekend evening. I was to go with my daughter. That proved to be bad timing. We (the family) had been in Washington, DC, the night before, and were driving home during the day. No problem. Until we got home. D ead cat. It wasn't one of our cats -- it was one we were catsitting for. Never catsit for a 25-year-old cat. 25-year-old cats have really high forces of mortality. And if you do catsit for a 25-year-old cat during the summer when it's hot, don't go away overnight. Anyway, before heading off to the concert, I had to dig the grave. We weren't burying the cat yet -- we were catsitting him because he belonged to a boy whose mother had just died (yup, just whern you thought it couldn't get worse) and the boy couldn't take the cat with him where he was living. We couldn't bury him without giving the boy a chance to come and say his goodbyes.
A trip to Brooklyn for the concert, but my daughter and I weren't in the mood. It was a decent show. Ken Waldman (Alaska's fiddling poet) was also performing, accompanied by Charlie Shaw, without whom I wouldn't know about Bobtown. I spent a few minutes chatting with Fred Stesney (Bobtown's bassist) who told me that they recordedd "Kentucky Graveyard" for the new album in part because I had suggested it, Yay! But I was exhausted and my daughter was feeling sick, so we left during an intermission. It was an anticlimactic end to my experience as one of the band's Kickstarter supporters. But the fact is I got that great demo, which is what I wanted in the first place. Everything else was gravy.
I really have to go see Bobtown perform again -- they put on a great show. But between family and work, it's hard to find the time. Heck, I skipped seeing Nick Lowe when he was in town recently, and I won't be going to see Wreckless Eric this Sunday when he's in New York. C'est la vie.
My song, "Five Missing One" didn't begin as an attempt to write a song; it started as an attempt to translate a song. חמישה פחות אחד ("Five Less One") was a song by Benny's Friends (which, as near as I can figure out was a loose group consisting of members of The Duda'im and The Parvarim -- early pioneers of Western flavored pop music in Israel). By "Western flavored" I mean "like American Western music." I do not mean it as a generic reference to all pop music of Western Europe and North America. A video is here:
Following is an imperfect loose translation:
Soon the light, the light
My pretty endless black night
This light is what we are waiting for
And why we are here
Soon the time, the time
The counting starts at the sign
This time is what we are waiting for
And why we are here
We're five less one
We gave heart in heart and hand in hand
We had a friend who had no fear
We're five less one.
Soon the song, the song
Flying over the sea, over the city
This song is what we are waiting for
And why we are here
We're five less one
We gave heart in heart and hand in hand
We had a friend who had no fear
We're five less one.
I liked the song enough that I wanted to create an English translation -- true to the spirit of the original, but loose enough to sound right when sung to the same melody. I wrote a chorus:
We're five but we're but missing one.
Ride together under moon and sun.
We had a friend who wouldn't run.
We're five but we're missing one.
But at some point, instead of translating the verses I switched gears and decided to turn the whole thing into a new song. I knew it had to be something with a Western theme. But I had to make it different enough from the original that it would be a truly different song (spoiler alert: I think I succeeded). Maybe a story song.
But story songs are a problem for me. It takes a certain discipline to tell enough of the story for it to work, but not spell out every detail. I remembered some of the songs I wrote when I was in high school -- these ten-verse monstrosities because I didn't know how to hint at things and leave the details to the listener's imagination. It took a while (meaning a few years -- I'm not fast), but I eventually finished it. A couple verses -- two and a half actually -- and a bridge. I liked the idea of having the thing end in the middle of the third verse as the vocal trails off.
At this point, the song was as follows:
Guiding horses with able hands
Through valleys and tablelands.
Another night by the fire
With the freedom we desire.
We're five but we're but missing one.
Ride together under moon and sun.
We had a friend who wouldn't run.
We're five but we're missing one.
He thought it was all for fun
Then in a moment gone.
A day I won't forget
But a life I can't regret.
We're five but we're but missing one.
Ride together under moon and sun.
We had a friend who wouldn't run.
We're five but we're missing one.
He knew the risk. He took a chance
And gave us his last dance.
So we drink to the family we found
And to the one who's not around.
And we ride on...
At the end of 2012 we were visiting a friend who happened to be a musician, and he agreed to record a rough demo with me. It was just him and me, a guitar, a mic and a mac. He suggested that, instead of ending with "And we ride on..." we have that lead to a quick pause, and then have a chorus. I rewrote one line for the final chorus (by the way, in retrospect, I hate that line), I played guitar while he sang. Then we went back and he added another vocal track for some harmonies. It's serviceable as a rough demo, though I think it's too fast. That's my fault, since I have a hard time regulating the speed at which I strum. Anyway, this is the recording we made:
I think I did a decent job of making this sufficiently different from that original Israeli song that I don't have to worry about copyright issues.
After that I eventually got a fully-produced demo courtesy of Bobtown. That will be the subject of a future post. Hopefully the next one, but I make no guarantees.
It appeared very briefly in the fourth episode of the first season of The Americans. It's visible in this teaser for the episode (assuming you don't blink at the wrong moment):
At 19 seconds in, there's a scene at night, with a policeman shining a flashlight at Elizabeth. There's a brick colonial house in the background. That's my house.
Now, with a moment like that, I realize you really have to know tpo look for it, or there's no way you'll notice it. And I acknowledge that I knew to look for it. Because I saw the full episode. I'd already known that the show does a lot of its filming in Queens (despite being set in and around Washington, DC. That became apparent to me early on, as I recognized the style of street signs, elevated subway lines, Forest Park, etc. Then I got confirmation somewhere on the intertubes. Maybe it was Wikipedia. I forget exactly where.
But watching episode 4 I noticed that they had filmed an exterior scene down the block from me. There's a scene where Phillip and Elizabeth go to a hospital staffer's home, posing as staff from Vice President Bush' office. I easily recognized where that was from. And in a couple shots I could see the hill of my front yard, the front of what was my car when the scene was shot, the house across the street from me, But not really my house, since I live on a corner, and my house is set back a bit farther than the house next to it (which was fully visible).
So, how do I parlay that into getting listed on IMDB?
So there's a new Star Trek movie coming out. Whoop-dee-frickin'-doo,
This will be the first Star Trek movie that I won't bother to see. Just to keep the full disclosure going, I don't mean I won't see it. I might see it. Like, once it's available on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime. But I'm not going to rush out to the theatre to see it, and I won't spend money to see it. So that is a fundamental change from prior Star Trek films.
The last two movies, the reboot films, just haven't been Start Trek. At least as far as I'm concerned. They have the name, and the characters, and the same basic universe. But they're different. It's like someone took Star Trek, put it in a blender and threw the results up on the big screen.
In all fairness, I'm not saying the new movies are bad. They really aren't. Pine, Quinto and Urban are actually quite impressive as Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The rest of the cast aren't as good, but that's the B squad anyway. And the storytelling is really quite good. Both films were enjoyable as science fiction action movies. They were certainly a damn sight better than the last two pre-rebbot movies, Insurrection and Nemesis.
If they had dropped the Star Trek name, characterizations and universe -- and especially the sly nods -- they would have been better. But they're not Star Trek, and I'm not into science fictiony action movies. At least not enough to pay movie theatre prices for them.
Questions are swirling about transgender rights, and the world of school athletics is not immune, as demonstrated by these stories from Alaska and the IOC.
It reminds me of an incident from my freshman year of college. As a reporter from one of our campus newspapers, I was covering a Jello-eating contest. There were separate competitions for males and females, and for some reason there weren't enough female contestants. Now, to be honest, I don;t know why they needed to have a minimum number of contestants (at least, beyond one). If there are only x contestants (with x>0), let them compete. But no. They needed one more. And I was asked to compete. In the women's competition.
Always game, I did it. And I won. For years, I jokingly told friends that I had been the Queens College women's Jell-o-eating champion. Of course, people laughed, and it was all good fun. But now, if I tell people, it takes on a different meaning...
Today we visited the Adelson Galleries in midtown Manhattan to see the exhibit, "Animals and Friends in Pencils, Books and Bullets." The exhibit, which featured the works of Colombian artist Federico Uribe, featured works created from broken pencils, torn books and (most impressive) spent bullet casings and shotgun shells.
The stuff made from the books and pencils was OK, but I didn't find it particularly interesting. The bullet shells and casings, though, were amazing. Uribe somehow managed to imbue the pieces with a lifelike look. Staring in the taxidermy eyes of the leopards and wolves, they seemed like living animals.In some pieces, Uribe was able to get different colors through controlled corrosion. He used those effects to create such things as spots on leopards. Sadly, the price tags mean that none of these works will be gracing my home anytime soon.
We did this as an event for our chapter of Stack Up, a charity that Ethan got us involved with. Stack Up supports our country's armed forces (both active and veteran) through a passion for video games.
If anyone in the New York area has any interest, go to the gallery's website. It says that this closes on Saturday (6/11), but we were told that it's been extended another couple of weeks.
In my evolving relationship with gardening, there is one very definite change I have made this year --
how I handle daylily blooms the day after.
In the past, I left them on the plant. Yeah, theyu looked scraggly, but some of them would develop seed pods, which needed nutrition. Now, there are three ways of getting new daylily plants in my garden:
I can buy them. This has the advantage of letting me know what I'm getting, but it costs money.
I can let the existing daylilys spread. Well, that's not really an option so much as a requirement if you have daylilys. That's free, but what you get are genetically the same as what you already have.
I can let the seeds from existing plants grow new plants. That has the advantage of creating variety. If one cultivar pollinated a different cultivar, you can get some new variety.
I've been following the theory that all three methods are helpful. Of, course, the third has a few pitfalls, some of which I hadn't considered. Not all seedpods are viable. If the pairing is between a diploid cultivar and a tetraploid, then no plants will results. And even if plants will result, it takes several years before you get blooms -- even if you go to incredible lengths to nurture the seeds. And that's on top of the fact that not all of the blooms have even been pollinated in the first place.
These will be in a salad tonight
But even with those downside, I didn't see any harm in letting the old blooms slowly shrivel, and then letting the seedpods develop. Until a LIDS meeting earlier this year. It was explained to me that I am more likely to get reblooms if I deadhead the blooms early on.
So my new strategy? In the evening I snip off all of the day's blooms. My first bloom this season was two days ago. I ate it in a salad. Yesterday brought three more blooms. Salad. Today there are two more. They'll be in a salad this evening.
I suppose it's partially a function of my age, but I have had a hard time getting myself comfortable
with downloaded media.
Music? I've ripped my entire CD collection so I can listen on computer, but I want to have the physical CD. If there's something that's only available as a download, I feel compelled to burn it onto a disc just so I can pretend I have it on disc. Similarly, I like to have physical books rather than read things on a kindle or nook or whatever those reader thingys are called. Actually, in some ways it's stronger for books than music, since having the physical copy makes a bigger difference in the reading experience than the listening experience.
But I broke down and read a book on Kindle. Or, at least, on the kindle app of my phone. Spoiler alert: I found it to be an unpleasant experience. Why? For a book that was only available as a download.
So I downloaded and read A Meep in Manhattan, by Mary Pat Campbell (AKA Meep). The price was right. Free. I like free stuff. Also, Meep is a friend of mine. We used to work together. We were irregular members of the same lunch group at work. And she's still one of my few go-tos when I have a question about Excel.
aMiM is essentially Meep's journal from the fall of 1996, when she was a first-year grad student in Mathematics at NYU. It was a breezy read that I went though on a lazy weekend morning.
There are a few factors that contributed to my enjoyment of the book. The fact that I'm friends with Meep helps. I read most of the book in her voice, which kind of adds a feel of authenticity to it. Also, in a couple respects, I have experiences that mirror hers -- I also was a grad student in math going to a school in a city very different than what I was used to.
But all that hints at the fact that aMiM is inherently of limited appeal. These are Meep's journals, which she wrote for herself and her friends and family -- not for a general audience. It's hard to see how someone who doesn't know her will really care. And I will note that she has acknowledged that this is of limited appeal, but she put it together primarily to see what she could do with the format.
By the way, I preferred the original cover (second picture), which had a picture of a young Meep looking pained. The new cover (pictured at top) looks more professional, but there's something about that first one.
Now, I know what everyone's thinking: You're thinking "Golly, I want to download this book and read it! But I want to read it in Meep's voice, and I have never heard her talk! What can I do?" For those of you thinking that, here's a Youtube video of Meep explaining how math is done. Enjoy!
In cinema history, we screened The Beast Must Die, a 1974 werewolf movie starring Calvin Lockhart. The film was an Amicus (competitor of Hammer) release. This was Keith's opening of a month of werewolf films. He billed it as a strange one, and he was right.
While this was a werewolf movie, it wasn't really a monster movie in the traditional sense of the word. It bore more of a resemblance to some of the more modern slasher movies, but with less slashing. That may sound contradictory, but the point is that this revolves around a group of people stuck together in a remote setting, worrying about a monster that may or may not be there, and may or may not be one of them.
That said, this was strange mix of genres. It was part mystery, part action movie and part crime drama. It also had a car chase, though speaking as someone who grew up watching The Dukes of Hazzard, Smokey and the Bandit and CHiPs, I found the car chase to be oddly slow-moving. Not quite OJ Simpson/white Bronco slow, but slow nonetheless.
Calvin Lockhart stole the show with an odd turn as an egotistical and flamboyant adventurer that had me thinking of Tim Curry. That was aided by the setting in a large estate that wasn't quite Gothic but had Gothic elements, and by the way he lithely, almost erotically, moved through the forest -- part cat and part man.His inflections when he levelled accusations were wonderful. I w ould have liked to have seen Peter Cushing have a bigger role. In fact, I was looking forward to this as a Peter CUshing film. But Cushing was no match for Lockhart.
The film did a wonderful job of misdirection. Lots of little touches were thrown in to make the viewer think one thing (and often get confused because the thing being thought makes no sense) only to later be led in the other direction. This was suspenseful until the very end.
On the other hand, it does start out slowly, and it takes a while for the action to really get underway.
Less than a week after the new Monkees album, Good Times!, is released, Rhino puts out a "deluxe" edition with two extra tracks, in a nakedly transparent attempt to get fans to buy two copies in quick succession.
Now, I am not immune to the completist tendency, and there are lots of albums that I have bought multiple copies of. Since we're talking about the evil Monkees, let's look at the case of their first album, The Monkees.
When I was in high school and getting interested in music, I bought a used copy. It was out of print, so new copies were unavailable. At the time, I generally bought my records used.
When I was in college and the evil Rhino Records rereleased all nine of the classic albums (on vinyl, given the times), I got a copy. Maybe we shouldn't count that; I got that one for free. I got all nine for free, since I was reviewing them for the college newspaper.
Once CDs got a foothold, and the album was released in that format, I bought a copy.
In the 1990s, evil Rhino rereleased all nine classic albums on CD,each with bonus tracks. I bought them all, including the album in question.
Ten or so years ago, evil Rhino put out the first four evil Monkees albums as two disc sets. Each contained the original mono album (with bonus tracks) and the original stereo album with bonus tracks. Of course, I bought them.
A couple years ago, evil Rhino put out the album as a three disc set. This had the original album in bo th mono and stereo formats, bonus material, lots of session stuff (which, admittedly, should never have been released to the public for actual money), Davy Jones' pre-Monkees' solo album (in both mono an stereo), some Michael Blessing (evil Mike Nesmith, using his pre evil Monkees pseudonym) singles, and some other crap. Check!
So, yeah, I've bought material I already owned in order to get other material.
But this? Less than a week later? That's just too blatant for my taste.
And, looking into this, I learned that there are another two tracks that were released as a limited edition single just for those who bought the album on vinyl from Barnes and Noble.
Hillary Clinton's nomination for the presidency is becoming more and more inevitable (unless you read yesterday's Wall Street Journal, but let's ignore that for the moment). And so I turn to the question of who her running mate will be. Before I go any further, let me note that I am not endorsing or undorsing any candidate or position. I am posting this because of a particular question that I find interesting and that I think most of the punditocracy gets wrong.
The question is of whether Bill Clinton can be her running mate. Back in 2008 (the last time her nomination was inevitable), Hillary went on some talk show and was asked about whether she would pick Bill as her running mate. Or maybe Bill was on a show and asked about whether he would be her running mate? I don't remember which one was asked, and I can't find the clip. Anyway, whichever Clinton was on the show, (S)he answered that it's been looked into and Bill can't be veep. And most pundits agree. But they're wrong.
Now, since I'm saying that they're wrong, I suppose I should explain why. So let's start with the reasoning that has Bill ineligible. It comes down to the 12th and 22nd Amendments to the Constitution. The relevant language of the 22nd Amendment is:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
Since Bill was elected twice, he is no longer eligible to be elected President. So how does that speak to his possible candidacy for the number 2 spot? That's where the 12th Amendment comes in. The relevant language is:
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
So, the logic goes, Bill is ineligible to be President (22A), and therefore ineligible to be Vice President (12A). Seems pretty straightforward. So where do I disagree? The assertion that Bill is ineligible to be President (courtesy of 22A) is wrong. To see why, let's imagine a mirror universe (but leave out the Spock beard. That was always creepy). Bill, after leaving office decides to run for Congress. Popular as he is, he gets elected, and then gets elected Speaker of the House. Finally, in a tragic day for this country, both the President and Vice President die of food poisoning. What happens? Bill Clinton is next in line for the Presidency. I contend that he becomes President, since 22A prohibits him from being elected President but it does not prohibit him from becoming President.
Now that we've established that Bill can be President (assuming he is elevated to that position through some process other than being elected to it), 12A does not prohibit him from being Vice President.
QED.
Having said that, I note that Hillary would never choose him as running mate. Since they are both residents of New York, none of New York's electors would be able to cast votes for both of them. That's also courtesy of 12A, which states:
The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves;
But I still think it's an interesting question, moot though it may be.
I love Pop Tarts. It's one of the few kinds of junk food that I like. The others are:
Anything with lots of sugar
Anything with lots of fat
Anything with lots of salt
Seriously, though, I just love Pop Tarts. Frosted Pop Tarts. Especially frosted brown sugar cinnamon. And frosted strawberry. And frosted strawberry. Before I get to the point of this point of this post, let me share a few Pop Tart-related experiences and thoughts.
Years ago, when I was writing letters to celebrities, politicians and captains of industry (under the name "Joey Thumpe"), I once wrote to Kellogg's about some of their Pop Tart packaging. A box suggested trying all the Pop Tart flavors, and listed about six, split into two categories (fruity -- e.g., strawberry, and junky -- e.g., brown sugar cinnamon). I wrote to ask why they left out my favorite flavors, and listed three savory flavors. I think they were broccoli and cheddar, liver & onions and pepperoni pizza. I was sure that I would get back some kind of letter explaining that such flavors don't exist and I must be confusing their product with something else. Instead I got back a very nice letter thanking me for my interest. They didn't even send me a coupon. Bastards.
Have you ever put butter on a Pop Tart? It's so freakin' good!
Some time ago I thought of making ice cream sandwiches using Pop Tarts as the outside. Vanilla ice cream between two frosted brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts. Strawberry ice cream between two frosted strawberry Pop Tarts. I posted about it on Facebook, though I never actually tried making and eating such a concoction.
Anyway, the point of this post? Now Kellogg's has released Pop Tarts in two new soda flavors: A&W root beer and Orange Crush. I'd say they've finally given up the last vestiges of pretense that Pop Tarts are a breakfast food. But, seriously, with flavors like Chocolate Fudge and S'mores, I think that ship sailed a while ago. Anyway, I want to try these new flavors. And today we went out in search. And, a dozen supermarket stops later, I couldn't find them. We stopped at Fairway. We even dropped more than a hundred bucks on produce, milk and the like for Sharon. But no A&W root beer Pop Tarts or Orange Crush Pop Tarts. We stopped at C-Town, Because of Food* and a whole bunch of other supermarkets whose names I can't remember. Blair looked it up online, and it looks like I can either pay an exorbitantly large sum of money to have them delivered to my home. Or I can wait until the mania dies down and then buy it at a normal price.
Or I can write about it on my blog, then tweet a plea to Kellogg's and hope they send me a free box.
