So Lord of the Rings won every one of the 11 awards they were nominated for -- not surprising. I was really rooting for Bill Murray for best actor, but pretty much every other prediction I made came true. [APPENDED: Alison pointed out in the comments that I got 6/16 right in her Oscar poll, so the previous statement is, in fact, untrue. I changed my mind on a couple categories after participating in the poll, but I know I didn't vote for Lord of the Rings across the board, so I guess I should've said that most of my actor/actress/picture/director choices came true (all except for Best Actor). I did get "Finding Nemo" right for Best Animated Film, but I gave "Girl with a Pearl Earing" the cinematography and art direction awards. I guessed on all the other major awards.]
A couple things:
1. What was that musical instrument Sting was playing while accompanying Alison Kraus during the best song presentations? It looked like some sort of crank-run medieval guitar.
2. What's up with having actors from the Best Film nominees introduce the films they were in? It struck me as kind of odd to see Ian McKellen and Tobey Maguire give calm, postive but impartial descriptions of LOTR and Seabiscuit. Just sort of...strange.
3. It was interesting to hear so many award winners thank their spouses. It was almost like there was a concerted effort to make it a family affair.
Alison's story about her senior prom reminded me (not that I'd forgotten) about my junior prom -- the one I crashed.
I went to prom three times in high school -- all for my school, not someone else's as a favor or anything. Sophomore year I went as my friend Mary Beth's date, and my senior year I went with Suzanne (who came in plaid silk pajamas and slippers with white puffballs on the toes, but that's another story). Junior year I wasn't dating anyone (my girlfriend, a senior, broke up with me so she could go with her ex-boyfriend; my heart was broken) and didn't have the cash to go stag, so I was planning on skipping it. My friend Jill and I were heading downtown for some not-prom excitement. Some of our friends were going to join us afterwards.
However, Jill asked to drive by the hotel where prom was being held so she could take pictures for the yearbook (she was on staff). She went inside while I waited outside, car still running. After about 20 minutes or half an hour, I decided to go in and check on her. Keep in mind, she was dressed in what could have passed for a prom dress and she had a semi-official for being there. I, on the other hand, was wearing khaki shorts, hiking boots, a blue chambray shirt and a bright floral print tie. There was no way I was going to blend in. The monitors allowed me in, with a strict warning to be back in five minutes, and I searched out my friends.
I found them at a table on the far side of the ballroom. Jill was with them, and quickly told me she planned on staying. I was a bit annoyed, but then all our friends implored me to stay, too. I had absolutely no idea how to do that, though -- after all, I stuck out like a sore thumb.
No problem! Bryant lent me his tuxedo jacket. Another friend's date, who went to Catholic school, went out to his car and grabbed the extra pair of black dress pants he had stashed there. Someone else gave me a bowtie. Soon enough the there was no way the monitors, who were now wandering around looking for a kid in shorts and an ugly tie, would spot me. Enough people were wearing unconventional tuxes that a blue shirt didn't stand out. I stayed the whole night, and when we left I even got a cheap plastic picture frame to commemorate the experience.
I fully expected to be charged for a ticket at school the next week, but I never was; I think they decided I must have left without them seeing me. To honor the scheme, I went to senior prom wearing custom-made tuxedo shorts. The monitors looked at me funny, but never said a word.
Sorry, just a little meta for you.
At the end of December, Jason Kottke solicited suggestions for a year-long project: He is reading a different magazine each week for 52 weeks. Three-hundred fifty magazines were recommended, many more than once. Here is a list of the magazines that received five or more nominations (totals in parentheses):
• Adbusters (7)
• Atlantic Monthly (7)
• The Believer (6)
• Cook's Illustrated (10)
• Dwell (6)
• The Economist (5)
• FOUND (6)
• Giant Robot (6)
• Harper's (6)
• McSweeney's (5)
• Mother Jones (7)
• NEST (6)
• Readymade (9)
• Rolling Stone (6)
• Sight and Sound (5)
• Wallpaper (6)
• The Wire (5)
Let's assume Jason's readers are trying to tell him something based on their suggestions. Of 17 magazines getting five or more recommendations, we have four (Dwell, NEST, Readymade, Wallpaper) focused on interior design. We're apparently of the opinion that he needs to redecorate. There are two and a half magazines (Rolling Stone, The Wire, and a half for Giant Robot) on music -- is his musical taste that bad, or do we just like music?
A larger trend is evidenced in the six (Adbusters, Atlantic Monthly, Economist, Harper's, Mother Jones) with a strong political bent -- you could argue that Atlantic Monthly and Harper's aren't political, but who are we kidding? -- and all but one is liberal. So I guess we either think that Jason is too conservative, or it could be just more evidence of the vast left-wing conspiracy all the warbloggers would have you believe permeates the rest of the "blogosphere."
Overall, though, there's a tremendous variety in there; I might keep my eye out for some of those titles next time I'm at the newsstand.
If I were to suddenly become a deejay, my name would be DJ Jaded. (This was decided a couple years ago, when I did publicity for bands -- I became very hard to impress. Chris deemed me "DJ Jaded Fuck;" I shortened it.)
In my opinion, deejaying is all about the transitions, the matching of beats and blending and juxtaposition of styles. There's a nuance to finding a pairing that's interesting and fits together well -- the key isn't necessarily keeping the musical genres consistent, but rather finding commonalities in rhythm or melody.
Were I to throw together a kind of dark mix for people to dance to, here's a trio of songs I'd put together:
"God Is In the Radio" -- Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
"Strict Machine" -- Goldfrapp, Black Cherry
"Twist and Crawl" -- Death in Vegas, Dead Elvis
Despite the first being rock and the second being electronic dance, the beats are similar -- they share a rhythm in the drums that make them a match. "Twist and Crawl" picks up a weird little wobbling keyboard thing in "Strict Machine" and runs with it (and also benefits from being a slinky elctronic reggae.)
Another playlist I've come up with is this:
"Silly Things" -- Tom Spacey, Mars is Eden
"Svefn g englar" -- Sigur Ros, Agaetus Byrjun
"Like Spinning Plates" -- Radiohead, Amnesiac
"Food and Drink Synthesizer" -- Unrest, Perfect Teeth
The connection? It starts with a swirling, etherial jam, almost with a pulse (and literally with a heartbeat at the end of the Sigur Ros song). The swirling continues in "Like Spinning Plates," a song that features a sound effect -- some sort of tube being swung on a string for an odd whir -- which is front and center in "Food and Drink Synthesizer." I could also throw "We Dug a Hole" by OK Go in there, but it wouldn't quite fit -- too pop-y, too upbeat.
I have never seen someone die, and I hope I never do.
I guess I'm talking more about violent death than someone quietly passing away in a hospital bed. I would have liked to be there when my grandfather died; it would have been incredibly painful, heartwrenching, but I still would have liked to have been there. I could handle that.
But to walk up the street and find a bloody, lifeless body or to witness a shooting or stabbing is different. I can't imagine what that would be like. It may not be as personal as a loved one on the deathbed, but it's more like an attack. Violence is the key, I think -- to see it happen is almost like it happening to yourself.
On Friday night, I ran into an acquaintence from high school at a bar. As will happen, we traded news on people we knew, and it came up that an old friend is dying: she was diagnosed very late with stage four Hodgkin's disease.
Last weekend I finally gave Naz the Jehovah I owed him -- I finished it back in early January but couldn't give it to him till now. I took photos, but they turned out terrible; I should probably borrow the book back and rephotograph it.
Anyway, take a look here. (The first one is here.)
I was thinking about my music collection on my way back to the office after lunch today. I have probably around 1,000 CDs, plus around a hundred LPs and as many 45s, not to mention a bag of old tapes gathering dust in the basement. Perusing my collection, you'll find a surprising breadth of music, befitting my status as a generalist. Everything from classical and jazz to rock's many flavors -- ska, industrial, folk, rap, electronica and more share shelf space. I've even got a bagpipe album.
What you don't find a whole lot of is depth. There are only a couple artists/acts I have more than one or two albums by, and who they are may tell you more about me than the collection as a whole. In addition to a lot of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, I have most of, though usually not all, the albums by:
• Andrew Bird
• Bjork
• Ani Difranco (between Cinnamon and me)
• Brenda Kahn
• Mighty Mighty Bosstones
• Nine Inch Nails
• REM
• Squirrel Nut Zippers
• Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Tom Waits
How did this come to pass? Well, for one thing, I didn't collect them all during the same periods of my musical life. I lost my enthusiasm for the Bosstones (and ska in general) around the end of college, when I was no longer working at a sandwich shop and looking for music to keep me moving. Ditto for the Squirrel Nut Zippers though it helped that their last album, "Ballroom Bedlam," sucked. It hurt selling that one for a measly dollar after buying the special edition for $18. Brenda Kahn remains a personal favorite, but she hasn't released an album since 1998.
Toad has a soft spot in my heart that dates back to high school, and I've been nurturing an interest in Tom Waits ever since I heard "The Black Rider" riding through the night in the back of Foersterling's Fairlane on a September night nearly ten years ago. Likewise, one of my best friends made me a mix tape of Ani songs and I fell in love. Haven't picked up her newest yet, but I look forward to it.
I was listening to Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile" while I thought about this. NIN grew out of my dabblings in industrial in late high school and early college, and "The Downward Spiral" was such a hit among my friends and I that I eventually declared a moratorium on its play in my presence, just to get some distance. "The Fragile," in my opinion, is not a great album, bloated and frought with the expectations of greatness following the preceding smash. I hadn't listened to it for at least a year (in fact, I hardly listened to it when it was new, even after seeing NIN live up in Madison, an incredible show I won't soon forget.)
Although I doubt I'll listen to many of the albums I have more than once a year -- if that -- I don't want to get rid of them. They're important to me, a library I can dip into whenever I want, just as someone else might a library of books (which is a whole 'nother story). What would be nice, though, would be a way for all those CDs to take up less room. I might have to invest in a whole lot of slimline cases, just so I don't have to buy more shelving.
Emeril Lagasse is really starting to bug me.
We are loyal Food Network watchers in the Huffencooper household; very night after the news, we switch over to FoodTV for Good Eats, and usually catch a good portion of Emeril Live! before heading to bed. In case you've never seen it, Emeril Live! is not actually live. The "live" refers to the studio audience for the show -- who act, along with Doc Gibbs and the Emeril Live Band, as a huge foil for Emeril's antics. He cooks several dishes, vaguely describing the process as he goes along, while the audience applauds wildly every time he adds garlic or some sort of booze to the dish.
Why garlic should elicit such enthusiasm is beyond me, but then again my Italian roots guaranteed a good portion of the stinkin' rose in my food, so maybe I'm just desensitized to it. Maybe the majority of the country is only now discovering garlic, only now putting the lemon pepper and Lawry's Salt away. Whatever.
Because it's a "live" show with an audience, Emeril I guess feels he has to play to the crowd a bit. So he goes out in the audience and shakes hands with people. And here is where he starts to annoy me: Every night, he visits the people stage right of the kitchen, shakes their hands and says, "See, and you thought these were the cheap seats!" to mild laughter. Every night.
Now, I'm sure this is totally new and amusing to those ten or so fans in the "cheap seats," but to the audience at home, who are seeing the show every night, it's not a new experience. It's annoying.
Throughout his show there are other little phrases he uses with stunning regularity. "I don't know where you get your _____, but where I get mine it don't come seasoned." "Use your nobs!" (taking the nob off the stove to demonstrate.) "See, we're really cooking here, not like that other show." I won't even get into the whole "kick it up a notch!" shtick.
The funny thing is, he's cooled off on his trademark "Bam!" even as he trots out these other, less catchy catchphrases. The repetition is annoying in a way that "Bam!" was not -- sure, the explosions of confectioners sugar and "essence" with their accompanying "Bam!" were playing to the audience, but they were fun, visceral, appropriate. More importantly, they stood up to multiple applications. "You thought these were the cheaps seats" gets old after one use. The fact that the director hasn't interevened is incredible.
I caught back-to-back episodes of A&E's new reality show Airline Monday night. (I should mention that when I say "reality show" here, I mean actual reality -- real people in real situations, not some contrived game.) It's a pretty interesting show, worth catching at least once.
What I find interesting is that it's on at all. The airline in question is Southwest -- no other airline is shown. The LUV plane gets prominent coverage throughout the half-hour show, essentially taking product placement to its logical conclusion. Which, of course, is really just a return to the roots of television, when most shows had corporate sponsorship.
In public relations, there's something called a video news release, or VNR. Essentially, it's a prepackaged news story custom made for TV news programs to use. Much of what you see on your local news' "health beat" segment is at least based on a VNR. VNRs are, of course, produced in such a way as to paint the subject matter in the best possible light. After all, the subject (the client) paid for it.
From a certain angle, Airline is a VNR -- it's all about Southwest Airlines, and often the company is shown in very positive light. I was all prepared for gushing descriptions of the airline and its employees. However, there's a lot in Airline that is the very antithesis of a VNR -- in other words, Southwest looks pretty darn bad on more than one occasion. We're talking uncooperative, downright rude customer service. In other words, the show may be in bed with its subject, but it doesn't pull any punches (even as I mix metaphors).
That said, the customers come out looking a lot worse. Drunks were featured on one of the two episodes, and boy, humanity doesn't look much worse than when it's under the influence of booze. In another segment, a family and a counter manager got into it over whether an 18-month-old could fly free without proof of age (Southwest lets kids under 2 fly free, but you have to prove your kid's age). The manager looks pissy and mean, but the parents flip out and get obnoxious rather than trying to work things out reasonably. Of course, with some creative editing the situation may have appeared much worse than it really was, with tempers flared immediately instead of building over a period of time, but no matter.
The one moment I found most shocking was in the episode with the drunks. It's a policy of most airlines that if a passenger seems intoxicated at boarding, they may be denied departure. The show showed a visibly drunk passenger get kicked off a flight to Las Vegas. The camera then follows the guy out of the airport to his car -- and watches him drive away. Drunk. I know it's not very documentarian to interfere with a subject, but couldn't they have kept this drunkard from driving? Call him a cab or something? Or at least call the police?