penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
Surveying a selection of new television shows for the 2006-2007 season:

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
'SNL' reversed:
Sorkin turns sketch comedy
Into dull drama.

Heroes
Like a comic book,
It's scary, silly and bold --
A geeky pleasure

Friday Night Lights
Season's best new show
For people who like football
And people who don't.

30 Rock
Getting impatient:
How long 'til Alec Baldwin
Makes Tina Fey cry?

The Nine
Ugh, enough whining.
Please just tell me what happened
In the goddamned bank.

Six Degrees
Okay, we get it.
New York City is awesome.
Is that the whole plot?

Ugly Betty
I've never seen it.
I'm afraid I might like it,
And become a girl.

Shark
Like his show's namesake,
James Woods chews the scenery
Leaving only scraps.

Kidnapped
Already cancelled,
This show is taut and complex.
Never had a chance.
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
Why are they called "reviews" when I don't view the CDs, I listen to them? Or, if it's a reference to my "views" on the album, why is it called a "review" when I only do it once?

October 26, 2006: The Evolution of Robin Thicke by Thicke

October 19, 2006: Straight Outta Lynwood by "Weird Al" Yankovic

October 5, 2006: Ray Swings, Basie Swings by Ray Charles and the Count Basie Orchestra
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
Little Miss Sunshine:
Smart indie picture,
You toyed with my emotions –
I love you for it

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang:
Film noir with a twist:
Triumphantly unique, but
Still shrill and violent

The Break-Up:
The plot: boy meets girl,
Boy gets girl, boy loses girl,
Audiences yawn.

Superman Returns:
Like the man himself,
You are good, solid, righteous
And totally bland.

The 40-Year Old Virgin:
The vital organ
Is heart. Without that, this is
Just a bunch of dicks.

The Ice Harvest:
Sad and repugnant.
Like hernia surgery,
Very hard to watch.

Thank You for Smoking:
Acidic satire
Perfect for sharp D.C. crowds.
Will others get it?

Midnight Run:
Most underrated
Of the last twenty-five years.
Among my top ten.

Munich:
Brilliantly conceived,
Directed and acted, but
Oy, what a bummer.

House M.D. – Season One DVD:
Roguish Doctor House,
You could kick Doctor Grey's ass
Even on one leg.

Veronica Mars – Season One DVD:
Critical darling,
You are clever and witty,
But Buffy's better.

Undeclared – The Complete Series DVD:
Freaks and Geeks redux
Gave us more sweet laughs and sighs –
Why the same cruel fate?
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
This is my latest batch of CD reviews for the grand old Hartford Courant newspaper. I'm not necessarily saying it will be the last, but it's going to be increasingly more difficult to review these albums if the record labels keep applying these increasingly obtrusive security measures to the discs. My past two subjects have been so aggressively watermarked that they refuse to play in anything but my circa-1991 Sony Discman -- which runs like my 86-year old grandfather -- or J's demonically posessed stereo. At this point, I think it would actually be easier to download the album illegally than use their promotional copy.

May 25, 2006: Stand Still Look Pretty by The Wreckers

May 18, 2006: Words Came Back to Me by Sonya Kitchell

May 4, 2006: Goodbye Alice in Wonderland by Jewel

April 26, 2006: For Me, It's You by Train
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
Look Ma, I'm the Release of the Week.


November 10, 2005: 12 Songs by Neil Diamond

And, previously...

October 20, 2005: Where You Live by Tracy Chapman

October 11, 2005: Catching Tales by Jamie Cullum

October 6, 2005: Wildflowers by Sheryl Crow

September 22, 2005: Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking? by The Like

September 15, 2005: ¡Bastardos! by Blues Traveler

Hi-ho.

Oct. 13th, 2005 12:21 pm
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
The Washington Post ran a pretty interesting article yesterday about my all-time favorite author and the world's worst humanist, Kurt Vonnegut. I've read 12 of his books. From my least- to most-favorite, they are:

12. Hocus Pocus (1990): I don't really remember much about this book, which is as powerful a statement as I can make. I just know that the plot -- about escaped criminals taking over a university campus -- was all over the place, and the characters lacked any sort of depth.

11. Player Piano/Utopia 14 (1952): His first novel and by far his most dark. There is barely a whisper of the casual wit he demonstrates in his maturity. This dystopic vision of a mechanized society is cold, sterile and bleak.

10. God Bless You Mr. Rosewater or Pearls Before Swine (1965) A bizarre tale of greed and redemption, I found it to be sanctimonious and under-developed.

9. Slaughter-House Five; or, A Duty-Dance With Death (1969): Vonnegut's most revered work, it is a brilliant half-satire/half-eulogy on the horrors of War. It represents his most earnest, impassioned writing, and perhaps his most imaginative, which is really saying something. But it bounced a little too jarringly between reality and fantasy for my personal taste.

8. Welcome to the Monkey House (1968): Actually a collection of short stories, there are some brilliant pieces of work here, especially "The Euphio Question" and "Epicac," but the shorter format fails to convey the complex themes that make his larger work more interesting.

7. The Sirens of Titan (1959) His treatment of organized religion was brilliant and the characters were vivid. But plot is labored and the characters just weren't very likeable, which made the novel hard to read.

6. Timequake (1997): People refer to this as his final novel, but that's really kind of a misnomer, because Vonnegut barely bothers with a narrative structure. He frequently digresses from his interesting but embryonic plot to discuss philosophy, science, geography, personal anecdotes, etc. His folksy-but-brilliant observations show that he can still string words together, but at this point he's obviously just too lazy to work very hard at it.

5. Galápagos (1985): Seldom do people talk about this novel, perhaps because it is sandwiched between Vonnegut's prolific peak and his deliberate decline, or perhaps because it is possibly his most optimistic work. The premise is clever enough: a natural disaster strands a tour boat on the Galapagos Islands, and the castaways form their own society as they adapt to the new surroundings. It probably doesn't hold up as Literature, but it remains an enjoyable read, especially for beginners.

4. Slapstick; or, Lonesome No More! (1976): An amalgam of two stories: A man's struggle with his separation from his beloved sister in childhood, and that same man's efforts to unite the nation as the President of post-apocalyptic Manhattan. His theme here is the importance of families, extended families and communities, and he executes it with comic precision.

3. Mother Night (1962): In my opinion, his most underrated novel. It is probably not as outlandishly ironic as his other works, but it is as emotionally powerful as anything Vonnegut has written. A tale of a U.S. World War II hero who poses as a Nazi officer and is subsequently tried for war crimes, this novel is also the only work for which Vonnegut states the theme up-front: "Since we are what we pretend to be, we should be very careful about what we pretend to be."

2. Breakfast of Champions; or, Goodbye, Blue Monday (1973): Okay, maybe the plot is a little flimsy, but that's sort of the point. Vonnegut weaves dozens of different stories and characters together to demonstrate how each person's little breakdowns, mistakes and moves affect everyone else. It's like a preamble to Pulp Fiction, without all the bloodletting.

1. Cat's Cradle (1969): Accepted as one of the great counter-culture novels of all time, Cat's Cradle covers it all -- art, politics, science, war, journalism, family, religion -- all in the context of a the world's acceleration toward military disaster. It is a thriller and a philosophy, masterfully composed. Just thinking about it makes me want to read it again for the fourth time.

Incidentally, this is how Vonnegut grades his own books, from his essay "The Sexual Revolution":

Player Piano: B
The Sirens of Titan: A
Mother Night: A
Cat's Cradle: A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A
Slaughterhouse-Five: A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House: B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D
Breakfast of Champions: C
Slapstick: D
Jailbird: A
Palm Sunday: C
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
Everyone out there who feels like they wasted at least $25 on the "Star Wars" prequel-trilogy -- that onanistic amalgam between CGI and C-Span -- please raise your hands.

Everyone who wants to remember what really good science fiction storytelling is supposed to be, particularly those of you with your hands up: Go see Serenity. Now. And if you still don't like it, well, I'm sorry to say, there's just no hope for you.
penfield: (pants)
[livejournal.com profile] sacrednoise recently suggested that I list my recent Hartford Courant CD reviews on this Web page.

Good idea.

August 11, 2005 Mr. A-Z by Jason Mraz and Looking for Lucky by Hootie and the Blowfish

August 4, 2005 Mr. Hollywood Jr., 1947 by Michael Penn

June 30, 2005 Hearts on Parade by American Hi-Fi

May 26, 2005 Before the Robots by Better than Ezra

May 5, 2005 Joe Perry by Joe Perry

April 21, 2005 Nature by Dave's True Story

March 31, 2005 Atom Bomb by The Blind Boys of Alabama

March 3, 2005 Make Do With What You Got by Solomon Burke
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
I finally saw Batman Begins last week. As it turns out, the 15 of you who declined to see the movie with me were probably better off. With apologies to Phunwin, who is indeed spot-on in at least some of his praise, I actually disliked this movie. It wasn't total guano, by any means, but there were enough cricital things about the film that made it unusually difficult to watch. Such as:

The plot. Obviously they had a lot to cram into two and a half hours. Bruce Wayne's coming-of-age, his transformation, and the genesis of Batman are all covered here, plus they have to mix in the actual present-day drama and action. But golly, this was a convoluted mess. It made me long for the dry political maneuvering of Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones. That was confusing, yes, but at least I knew who was who. An hour after this movie ended, I was discussing it with my companion -- who had just seen it for the second time -- and we were arguing about whether one guy was another guy or the same guy as before, and if he was the real guy, who was the fake guy?

The dialogue. I make allowances for the fact that this movie is essentially adapted from comic books, a genre with such a casual approach to literary craft that it makes Tom Clancy read like Charles Dickens. But some of the exchanges are laughable. The writers seem particularly lost when it came to writing for Liam Neeson, whose faux-philosophical pablum sounded like it was cribbed from a series of fortune cookies.

The casting. Don't even get me started on Katie Holmes. Her Brown-Eyed Girl Power wore off about five years ago. It took all the suspension-of-disbelief I could muster just to imagine her as a college student in "Dawson's Creek." Now I'm supposed to believe that she's an assistant district attorney? As a jury member, would you believe a lawyer who only talks out of the right side of her mouth? I also thought that Tom Wilkinson and Gary Oldman, brilliant actors both, were badly misused, and the casting for The Scarecrow left me scratching my head, befuddled.

The sound. Plainly: this is the loudest movie I have ever watched. It felt like I was watching this movie while listening to Limp Bizkit, during an air raid drill, inside a working helicopter. The fight scenes, which were myriad, were at times so loud that I was literally plugging my ears with my fingers. And then, seconds later, the actors would whisper their overly complicated lines in such a furtive tones that you would have thought they were playing "telephone."

On the upside, I think there is promise for the franchise again after the colossal turd that was Batman and Robin. Maybe with an improved female lead and a charismatic Joker -- and without all the laborious exposition -- the next Batman could be a winner. For now, though, I'll stand by Batman Classic as the real super movie.
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
R.I.P., Anne Bancroft. You were great.

Everyone else: rent "To Be or Not to Be."
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
So, I finally got around to starting – and finishing – David Foster Wallace's essay "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," a nonfictional masterpiece of comedy and vocabulary.

It was commended to me once upon a time by the same person who in fact once compared me favorably to Wallace. (Too late, [livejournal.com profile] mearth, it's out there; you can't take it back now.) The comparison, in fact, grows more flattering with every word, and I thank her for it and the recommendation.
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
I first thought about getting tickets to the Rilo Kiley concert before they were even posting it on their advertisements. Wayyy back in early April, The E-Train called my attention to the booking date, Saturday, May 28.

I had grown quite fond of the band, starting with the indie hit "Portions for Foxes" off their most recent LP, More Adventurous. After roughly 7,000 consecutive spins of that one song on my mp3 player, I grew interested in a wider swath of their catalog. As a process of my entirely retail-based fear of commitment, I illicitly downloaded [1] a number of selections from this and their prior albums, and was delighted to find that I was further delighted, enough to actually purchase More Adventurous.

I'm not really sure how to describe their music. It's sort of lush and melodic, but at the same time it can be strident and raw. They are probably a tad too sophisticated for mainstream radio, but not nearly artsy enough to be lionized like Radiohead.[2] I like to think of them as a sort of hybrid of Weezer and Portishead, or possibly like Evanescence with severe-to-moderate bipolar disorder.

Anyway, Over the course of April and May, I dillied and dallied about purchasing tickets – for a relatively paltry $15 – partially because I was not entirely sure whether my Memorial Day weekend plans would take me out of town. By the time I discovered that my Saturday evening was free, the show was, of course, sold out. My only hope was the ice-pure commercialism of the black market.

I scoured various local Web sites such as Washington City Paper and Craig's List[3] to find tickets for sale. To my glee, there were a few listings for people selling Rilo Kiley tix at face value, but by the time I contacted them those tickets had already been bartered away. In rapidly compounding desperation, I placed my own ad on Craig's, alongside all the other beggars and procrastinators, asking for the opportunity to pay $20 for a single ticket. By Saturday morning, I had received not a single bite.

At 3:00, though, I checked my e-mail again and found that an enterprising profiteer, C.K., had e-mailed all those Desperately Seeking Tickets, offering a single pass to the first bidder. I immediately called him to claim the ticket. At first, he insisted that I pick it up at his place in West Falls Church, which was not going to happen unless his "place" was the Metro information booth. Instead I convinced him to meet me there at 6:00 before the show. I said that I would be wearing a black t-shirt and a blue baseball cap. "I'm the Asian guy with long hair," he said. It did not occur to me until after I had hung up that we hadn't discussed the price of the ticket.

Overjoyed by my good fortune, I ventured off to the 9:30 Club via Metro. I had calculated my estimated transportation time so that I would get to the club with a few minutes to spare. As is typical weekend procedure, however, the system was running at a glacial clip, perhaps because it was carrying an aggregate 12,000 tons of tourists. I got to the U Street Station at a little past 6:00, and burned shoe rubber running to the club to get there by 6:07.

I didn't see C.K. waiting for me out front, but I did see the long line of at least 200 people itching for the doors to open so they could claim a spot at the rim of the stage. I took a quick pace down the line, to see if C.K. was waiting in there somewhere, but I didn't find him. All I found was an endless stream of provocatively attired post-adolescents, each very clearly trying to get back at their parents for what must have been years of emotional abuse.

I took a post on the club's busy corner and scanned incessantly for a long-haired Asian man. 6:15. 6:20. 6:25. 6:30. Still no sign of him. I was getting nervous, not just because I had possibly missed him by being seven minutes late, but also because there was an increasing collection of pathetic souls like me, begging passersby for extra tickets – and getting them. At 6:45 I was about to abandon my vigil for C.K. and join the scalp-ees, when a long-haired Asian man strode up to me confidently.

Though I was furious that he had kept me waiting on the corner like a hooker for 45 minutes[4], I was loathe to let any of these other moochers outbid me, I welcomed him warmly and whipped out my wallet as if it were on a holster and I was Roy Rogers.

"Twenty five bucks, right?" he said.

"Okay," I replied quickly. He probably thought he was ripping me off. Maybe he was. But I would have paid $30.

I went into the club and staked out my place on the ground floor, about five rows back from the stage and just a shade to the left. My timing was perfect; a thick crowd quickly formed behind me as the first opening band began to play.

They called themselves the Brunettes, a motley assemblage from Auckland, New Zealand. It was one of those groups without a single unifying image besides the practical ethos of pure eclecticism. The lead guitarist was a tousled pretty-boy alterna-rocker, the drummer a hipster Seth Cohen look-alike, the bassist a quirky reincarnation of Spin Doctors frontman Chris Barron. It was as if they had formed a supergroup along with that vaguely goth chick from your high school art class and the twerpy dweeb who kept falling off the rope in seventh-grade Phys. Ed.

The Brunettes took full advantage of diverse instrumentation including clarinet, trumpet, glockenspiel, castinets, harmonica and slide whistle, as well as the liberal use of finger snaps and hand claps. Their sound was a bit weak, and they struggled to stay in tune, but they carried themselves with such insouciance and self-effacing humor that I couldn't help but get swept up in their performance. Their catchy hooks and literate lyrics didn't hurt, either.

They were off stage within 30 minutes, leaving the juiced-up crowd with nothing to do but wait and watch as crewmen slowly ambled about, reconfiguring the stage for the next act, a band called Portastatic. Some of my fellow audience members took this opportunity to fetch drinks from the bar, or talk on their cell phones, or blow cigarette smoke in my general direction.

During the next 40 minutes, we were continuously teased by various band members coming out, picking up instruments, then putting them down and walking away. This taunting behavior gradually bloomed into a supremely irritating sound check, with the band occasionally gathering to play an actual chord or two before stopping. Finally, the house lights dimmed and the band started playing for real.

Then, as if to make me long for the romantic innocence of the sound check, Portastatic treated us to an excruciating 30-minute set of whiny, self-indulgent guitar rock. It did not surprise me much when the frontman and shameless guitar soloist, Mac McCaughan, took a backhanded swipe at the nonplussed audience for their disinterested clapping, nor did it surprise me when he introduced the drummer and the bassist as his brothers, which is the only possible reason they haven't kicked the guy off the tour bus yet.[5]

The band did include one woman, stationed far off to the side playing occasional violin accents and Moog flourishes. She was easily the most charismatic member of the group, despite the fact that she was required to do little more than absentmindedly press a key or two on her keyboard. She could have duplicated her performance in traction and it would have made little difference.

Midway through their set, a young blonde woman in front of me suddenly fell to the floor motionless, presumably passed out. Normally this kind of immature, irresponsible behavior would have made me furious. But I was actually thankful that something interesting was actually happening. Eventually we got her on her feet and off the floor – God damn she was heavy – and she returned a half-hour later in fair condition

Portastatic wrapped up their set in just over a half-hour, and not thirty seconds after the house lights came back up, my hip pocket buzzed. [livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos was calling. I answered.

He must have noticed the background noise.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at a concert."

"Who are you seeing?"

Now, you have to understand something. [livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos is a highly cultured, very erudite guy. He is an unimpeachable authority on musical theory and history. He probably knows more about Rimsky-Korsakov than you know about your dad.[6] He is, however, generally out-of-touch with the zeitgeist of "popular" music, which he reflexively regards as "juvenile." He considers Tom Jones to be "post-adolescent." Avril Lavigne? "Pre-natal."

Anyway, there was absolutely no chance in Hell that he was going to know who Rilo Kiley was, since they have never appeared in an iMac commercial. And I wanted to avoid that tedious exchange, which I was certain would have gone something like this:

[livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos: Who are you seeing?

ME: Rilo Kiley.

[livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos: Who?

ME (louder): Rilo Kiley.

[livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos: Who?

ME (shouting, drawing stares from bystanders): Rilo Kiley.

[livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos: Guy Smiley?

ME: RI - LO KI - LEY.

[livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos (dismissively): Never heard of him.

So I decided to skip to the end.

"You've never heard of them."

"Who is it?"

"Trust me. You've never heard of them."

"Tell me."

Frustrated that he was neither trusting me nor getting my hint, I sharply insinuated that he was not cool enough to know who anyone was, which I have to admit was a pretty laughable thing for me to say since I myself was just barely tepid enough to get past the 9:30 Club bouncer.

[livejournal.com profile] instant_ethos did not laugh, however. Instead he hung up, and I immediately regretted my tone, especially since arguing with him was at least preferable to watching another half-hour of hirsute DeVry graduates painstakingly arranging microphone stands.

Also by this time, the muscles in my back had started to tighten up, such that I was shifting my weight from right leg to left leg to right leg as if I were slow-dancing. At one point, I attempted to inconspicuously bend over and stretch, but I immediately felt awkward and uncomfortable, and when I straightened out again two women behind me were eyeballing me as if I were a rather unwelcome ankle fetishist.

Finally, just past 9:00, the house lights dimmed again and the place erupted into a chorus of claps and squeals. The lead singer, Jenny Lewis, sheepishly approached the microphone clad in a black miniskirt, a spangly sequined pullover and red bangs that practically covered her eyes, and the band launched into its More Adventurous opener, "It's a Hit."

And thus began the 9:30 Club's one-night love affair with Rilo Kiley. Each song elicited substantial cheers from the crowd, even the ones from their old albums, which I am guessing some in the audience must have acquired legally. On the one hand, I was astonished and impressed by the band's ability to replicate their familiar studio sound. Lewis' voice, for instance, is no studio creation; that girl can wail. On the other hand, because they didn't venture much from the sheet music, there were not a whole lot of surprises once a person figured out what song they were playing.

I knew almost every song they played, but for one or two here and there. Of the 30 songs in their catalog that I know well, there's only one that I don't like very much – "Love and War," off of Most Adventurous, which to me sounds like an ambulance crash – so I was hopeful that they'd clip it from their 75-minute set. No such luck, though it was immediately followed by an amusing moment in crowd interaction.

One particularly amphetamic girl in the front row kept screaming that it was her friend Stephanie's birthday and waving a cell phone in the air. Finally, whether he was being playful or just trying to shut her up, guitarist Blake Sennett asked her to toss her cell phone to him so that he could sing her Happy Birthday. Our eager audience member enthusiastically threw him her phone, hurling it so hard that he dropped it on the floor and it cracked into at least several pieces. He tried to put it back together and call her back ("Hello, Stephanie, this is Rilo Kiley." "Who?" "Rilo Kiley." "Guy Smiley?") but it was to no avail.

Toward the end of the set, Rilo Kiley broke into their song "With Arms Outstretched," a grungy torch song accompanied (on the album version) by an enormous choir. This afforded the crowd another opportunity for interactive sing-along fun, and everyone was getting worked into a pretty good lather when I noticed a surge in shrieking.

I looked to the corner of the stage where some random guy had wandered on stage and started singing along with everyone else. I turned to two girls next to me.

"Who is that? Why is everybody freaking out?"

I couldn't hear their response over the screaming.

"Who?"

"It's Conor Oberst. Of Bright Eyes."

This answer sated me, even if I had no idea what Bright Eyes was. Judging by the thunderous applause he received, I can only assume he helped develop the polio vaccine or something. He left after that song, but did come back on stage during the encore, along with the Brunettes, the roadies, tour managers, bodyguards, second cousins, bouncers and everyone else who worked in the building, apparently, to join the band in an impromptu rendition Pete Townsend's "Let My Love Open the Door" It was a nice moment.

It would have been even cooler if someone's love had opened the door, because apparently someone left it locked. After the house lights went up, all 1,200 people tried to leave the club at the same time, resulting in near Irish-soccer-level trampling. While I had thoroughly enjoyed the experience, I was most eager to get moving and go home.

I had Brunettes songs to download.
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
I like watching TV. I'm not ashamed to admit it. There are plenty of cultural snobs out there who turn up their noses at television, as if they're too good for mass broadcast entertainment. "I don't even own a TV," they will sometimes say, as if this qualifies them for Mensa.

Well, those people can have their books and their chess and their opera. I'll be sitting on my couch, munching a salty snack and enjoying a good laugh or an action-packed moment provided by our overpaid friends in Hollywood. Who's entertaining you? Ayn Rand? Luciano Pavarotti? I'll take Jennifer Garner and Homer Simpson, thanks.

TV is important to me. It is not only my release after a long day of toil and sweat, it is also a window to – and, yea, a mirror of – today's culture. I am fascinated by its trends, mesmerized by its values, occasionally horrified by its obvious plastic surgery. It is who we are as a people, writ large.

And I do mean large. Because I have a big TV. 52 widescreen inches of high-definition power, blasting me with Dolby 5.1 surround sound, slowly scorching my retinas like a solar eclipse. If I'm going to like watching TV, I want to enjoy liking it.

(Some folks might suggest that my entertainment system is a feeble attempt to overcompensate for certain anatomical inadequacies. That is a fair assumption. But let me tell you, a large TV is not going to help anyone's feelings in that department; you have never felt so puny as after seeing how a 52" television magnifies a porno actor's already massive wang.)

As you might expect, I have a pretty sophisticated cable package to go along with my home theater. Recently, I was offered the opportunity to add DVR, or Digital Video Recording, to my system. Similar to TiVo, it allows you to pause live TV, fast-forward through commercials, orient defense satellites, etc. It is also the only real way to record high-definition programming. (This is pretty critical for me. I have gotten pretty used to Hi-Def by now, and switching from that to VHS is like going from First Class to dangling off of the landing gear.)

I signed up for the trial period, and now I am hooked. And as part of my DVR experience, I can set it to record certain shows every time they appear, without having to worry about setting my VCR, which would also require me to set the clock on my VCR. What follows are the shows on my auto-record list:

Arrested Development, Sundays at 8:30 p.m. on FOX
I'd like to take formal responsibility for being one of the first people to find this show and spread its gospel. I'm gratified that my recommendations for this show seem to have taken root somewhat, especially since people are generally somewhat skeptical of my television preferences – for reasons that may become more evident as you scroll further down this list.

Though I was wary of Jason Bateman-as-lead character (he hadn't really been any good in anything since Silver Spoons), I was enamored by the depth and inspiration of casting (I'm still shocked that David Cross isn't starring in his own show already) and the absence of a laugh track. I instinctively trust any situation comedy that has the courage to function without a laugh track.

The show is also "edgy," which is a code word in the entertainment business for being a pain in the network's ass. The language is daring and often profane, the themes are of an obliquely adult nature, and the show takes every possible opportunity to bitch-slap the network that is keeping it on the air. Thematically, it is basically The Simpsons with a larger makeup budget.

Predictably, the show is on the precipice of cancellation. Even now that Arrested Development won the Best Comedy Emmy, the show still struggles with droopy ratings and recently had their episode order cut back from 22 to 18 episodes. Truthfully, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The show went through a somewhat self-satisfied lack of focus around the middle of the season, relying strongly on crass bodily functions and Special Guest Stars, gags not typically indicative of a creative apex. But the rush to wrap everything up has made the most recent episodes tighter and funnier. Not that anyone is noticing.

For now, it remains the best sitcom on TV, at least it is cancelled or until Curb Your Enthusiasm comes back on the air.


24, Mondays at 9:00 p.m on FOX
The brilliance of this show's design still holds up in its fourth season, as long as you can set aside the fact that, throughout the course of 24 straight hours, we never see any of these characters eat or use the bathroom unless it's an elemental part of a CTU tactical operation.

Once this disbelief is suspended, the show is a whirling dervish of suspense and action. It is also refreshingly honest, in that It doesn't pretend to be "smart." Yes, there are people talking about protocols and systems and whatnot, but it always seems to come down to people beating the shit out of each other. Don't think about it too much, or you'll just end up yelling at the screen. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

One of the cool things about this year's ride – besides jettisoning the sexy-but-absurd Elisha Cuthbert/Kim Bauer character – is that they premiered the show in January, meaning 24 straight episodes without a hiatus, pre-emptions or reruns. The only thing you have to be careful of is accidentally tuning in too early and seeing the last thirty nauseating seconds of American Idol.


Everwood, Mondays at 9:00 p.m. on The WB
Everwood is everything that 24 is not: slow, sensitive, gauzy and precious. It centers on a widowed New York City doctor who moves his teenage son and young daughter to a quaint mountain town and documents their interactions with the quaint mountain people. Think Northern Exposure + Dawson's Creek. In fact, it is a direct descendant of the latter show in that it was developed by a former "Dawson" producer and features the same hyper-literate, extraordinarily self-aware dialogue between teenage people who are clearly not of this earth.

I can't figure out why I like this show, since the two main characters are so insufferable. Treat Williams is so gentle and wishy-washy as Dr. Andy Brown that I can't believe it's the same guy who played Critical Bill. And Gregory Smith as his son Ephram is such a smug, snot-nosed little punk that he actually resembles a real teenager.

Part of the appeal has got to be Emily Van Camp as Amy Abbott, the most endearing TV teenager since Joey Potter. (Though that title is now being challenged by Everwood's newest cast member, Sarah Drew as Hannah, who is cuter than a button factory.) Meanwhile, Amy's father, the tightly-wound Dr. Harold Abbott Jr. as played by Tom Amandes, is the show's most reliable source of comic relief.

Plots vary in quality from episode to episode, but I give the producers credit for building season-long story arcs that are both juicy and compelling. Everwood is a lot like a salad; not bad for you, but not really hearty enough to be a satisfying meal.


Scrubs, Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. on NBC
I just recently started watching this oft-lauded show starring everyone's newest favorite neurotic-hipster-geek-genius, Zach Braff.

(Aside: I keep hearing how brilliant "Garden State" was, like he's the next Woody Allen or something. Please. "Garden State" is a movie for twentysomethings who just want to say that they liked something. For anyone who says it was such a great movie, I dare you to tell me what it was about. Give up? You can't, because it tried to be about 14 different things but never really decided what to say about any of them, so it ended up being about kissing Natalie Portman. I could write three scripts a day about that if I wanted to. And I kinda do.)

But "Scrubs" is pretty good, especially since it subscribes to my "no laugh track" policy. The supporting cast is top-notch, and their Special Guest Stars are effective without getting in the way (a lesson "Arrested Development" could stand to learn). I look forward to its entry into syndication, so I can catch up on everything I've missed so far.

Smallville, Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. on The WB and Weekdays at 7:00 p.m. on ABC Family
I have never in my life read a Superman comic book, so I don't know whether the show is holding true to the serial legend of the Man of Steel. I started watching the show last year when it preceded the now-cancelled "Angel" and have since been trying to catch up on the show's own mythology by watching the syndicated episodes.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that this show desperately wants to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer in terms of scope and style. Their early episodes even copied the "mutant/freak/demon-of-the-week" formula. But because Smallville's action is never quite so elegantly rooted in reality like Buffy's was, it will never be as smart and incisive as Buffy (Which is a pretty high standard anyway, since it is one of the top 50 shows of all time, according to TV Guide). That's understandable, because not only must Smallville adhere to the pulpy ethos of its source material, but it is also part of a larger story, where the universe is finite and the conclusion is forgone.

It's this rich mythology that makes it addictive. And there may be no more interesting character on TV than Lex Luthor, and I'm not just saying that because he's bald. His incipient transformation from ally to villain is the fuel that keeps the series going.

And speaking of characters, everyone assumes that the nubile Lana Lang, as played by Kristin Kreuk, is a major drawing card for me. Sure, Lana is hot in a weird, exotic sort of way. But what I don't understand is why Clark isn't totally in love with Chloe like I am.


Alias, Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. on ABC
Another show I just started watching this season, Alias has been dismissed by me in the past for being nothing more than an excuse to put Sydney (Jennifer Garner) in a series of increasingly preposterous outfits and increasingly preposterous situations. I meant that as an insult at the time, but I have come to realize that it makes for pretty good TV.

Unlike many fans of the show, I don't really care about the romantic and family interactions between the characters; I'm just in it for the outfits and the action. That said, if those interactions would make people on the show a little less sullen, it would be nice. Michael Vartan's character and Jennifer Garner's character get to have hot spy nookie on a regular basis, and somehow they both always look like someone just ran over their puppy.

One thing I find very interesting about this show is the opening credits. It's basically a flashy sequence of Garner in all those different outfits, set to a hot techno beat, while the cast names flash in the lower right hand corner. To this day, I still don't know the names of the other actors on that show, because I'm too busy watching all the Jennifer Garners to read anything.


The O.C., Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. on FOX
Since before its premiere, this show has been compared to Beverly Hills 90210, a show I must say I have never ever seen. But I can't imagine any show, past or present, being as eye-candy-coated as The O.C., and this is coming from someone who watched a solid three seasons of Melrose Place. Everyone on screen has such magnificent bone structure and lean muscle mass that I sometimes forget it's not a Soloflex commercial.

I think every guy who watches this show thinks of himself as Seth Cohen (played by Adam Brody), in much the same way male "Friends" watchers liked to think of themselves as Chandler Bing: smart, sarcastic, funny and attractive in a non-threatening way. And the truth is, most of us really are like that. But the rest of that truth is, girls in real life don't actually like that so much, which is why guys like Ryan Atwood and Joey Tribbiani are the ones always getting laid.

Like most kids today, these O.C.ers are moving way too fast. They're midway through the second season, and there have already been strippers, porno movies, mental institutionalizations, unwed pregnancies, fugitives from the law, teenage runaways, trial lesbianism, drinking problems and illegitimate children popping up all over the place like Culkin siblings. At this rate, by the middle of next season Marissa Cooper will be having coked-up sex orgies while Sandy is named attorney general of California. Of course, Seth will continue dating Summer, simply because she's the only remaining cast member he's not somehow related to.


CSI, Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. on CBS
I used to be able to watch this show without any sense of shame or irony. I enjoyed the slick style, the no-nonsense characterizations, and the clever plot twists. It made science seem fun.

Then I read Phunwin's blog post about the show and now I can't watch the damn show without thinking that the dialogue was written by chimps. Or scientists. They're both about equally good at stringing words together.

Like Alias, this show seems to be populated by people with very unsatisfying personal lives. The main character, Grissom, has all the warmth of a Sno Cone. The Sara Seidel character has developed a perma-scowl that would frighten away Mr. T. The Catherine Willows character is actually sort of sweet – when she's not whining about being a single mom. And the writers keep threatening to include more of this personal drama with the usual caseload, as if we want to be invited in to this dysfunctional funhouse. Just stick to bullet wounds and carpet fibers, okay?


Joan of Arcadia, Fridays at 8:00 on CBS
When this show first premiered last year, I resented it, because I was sure it was going to be all pious, like an afterschool version of Highway to Heaven. Then I watched it, and the characters were kind of sweet, especially Amber Tamblyn's abundantly human portrayal of Joan Girardi, and I started to like it. Now we're halfway through the second season, and I'm getting a little bored with it. And that's really saying something, because this season has featured plot points such as murder, infidelity, and teenage sexuality.

Much of the entertaining adolescent angst evaporated this season, with Joan and Adam as boyfriend and girlfriend and Luke and Grace hooking up. Instead, all the juicy conflict has revolved around Joan and Luke's parents, who seem like very nice people but are excruciatingly dull. The Kevin Girardi character arc, the most consistently deep and interesting aspect of the show, has been given as much attention this season as I have given it in this blog.

Finally last week, Joan and Adam broke up, which could generate some interesting drama, although it's probably more likely to generate more general weeping. Given the show's ratings slump this year, it's probably a safe bet that they'll still be weeping come cancellation season.

The themes I liked most about this show – about the struggles of misfit teenagers to cope with the world around them – were explored more deftly and humorously in the late Freaks and Geeks, a vastly superior show that NBC cancelled years ago. You should check it out on DVD. If Joan of Arcadia can not successfully recapture the charm of those themes, then it basically becomes "Touched by an Angel," which is the television equivalent of strained carrots.

Jukeboxing

Mar. 7th, 2005 03:32 pm
penfield: (pants)
One day, I decided to take note of the next five songs that randomly cropped up on my mp3 player. I was able to write pretty voluminously on all of them, which tells me one of two things: (1) Every song, or at least every song I like, speaks to me in a very specific and explicable way, or (2) I am a loudmouthed blowhard. You make the call.

End of the Line The Traveling Wilburys

I have a hazy recollection of watching VH1 -- back in the late 80s or early 90s, when it was still MTV Lite and I didn't know Beatles from beetles -- and seeing a video with a bunch of dramatically aged, vaguely furry musicians strumming their guitars and singing along in what was supposed to be the vacant bed of a cargo train. They were singing "End of the Line," which is a sort of rollicking but unremarkable song about living each moment to the fullest. 'Cause everything is "alllllll-right," they tell us.

What makes the song interesting, and what I couldn't have appreciated at the time, is that it was performed by the Traveling Wilburys, which was the supergroup to end all supergroups. People can talk all about bands like The Thorns (made up of three blonde dudes whose solo careers have gone cultish or tepid) or Velvet Revolver (made up of Slash and several very gaunt gentlemen on furlough from rehab). But no one can ever top the Wilburys lineup:

Bob Dylan. Tom Petty. George Harrison. Roy Orbison. Jeff Lynne. (Okay, so most of you don't know who Jeff Lynne is. He was the lead force behind the Electric Light Orchestra, which sounds like it might be some kind of Muzak factory. But he is also a fairly well-respected producer, responsible for both re-released Beatles singles in the mid-90s, and has a totally kick-ass afro for a white british guy.)

Harrison, Petty, Lynne and Orbison share the lead vocals on this particular track, leaving Dylan to gargle with salt water. I think it's interesting that while these gentlemen are obviously rock legends, and easily some of the best songwriters and performers of the last 50 years, of these five, only Orbison has a voice that would not double as a duck call.

There is one couplet toward the end of the song that I always found to be curiously direct and ultimately sort of creepy. Jeff Lynne sings:

Well it's allllll-right
If you've got someone to lay
Well it's allllll-right
Every day is judgment day


Um, okay.


End of the Movie Cake

From their latest album "Pressure Chief," this song is a bit of an oddity. At just under two minutes and sparsely accompanied by a finger-plucked guitar and tinny melodica, it represents a departure from Cake's typical stridently ambitious sound. But the standard unblinking honesty of John McRea's lyrics soon shatters any illusion that this is feel-good folk.

People you love will turn their backs on you
You'll lose your hair, your teeth
Your knife will fall out of its sheath
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie.

People you hate will get their hooks into you
They'll pull you down, you'll frown
They'll tar you and drag you through town
But you still don't like to leave before the end of the movie.
No, you still don't like to leave before the end of the show.

[repeat second verse]


I once told my friend C.C. that this song reminded me of her, and she became indignant. " 'People you love will turn their backs on you?' " She said. "What the fuck? Is that what you think of me?" But she missed my point. This isn't a song about how everything sucks. Well, okay, maybe it is about that a little bit. But more importantly, it's about knowing that everything sucks, and not giving up anyway.

But what separates it from other songs about "not giving up," like REM's "Everybody Hurts" or even the Wilbury's "End of the Line," is that it doesn't suggest that things are really okay, or that they're going to be okay. Because let's face it. Some people hurt more than others. And everything is not going to be "allll-right."

This song isn't really even encouraging the audience one way or the other. It is merely making an observation about human nature and why we don't give up. It's not really because we have faith or because we feel someone else's empathy or because we really like deep dish pizza. It's because more than anything we just want to know what's going to happen next.

It's that curious perseverance that links human existence together, and more profoundly, me to my friend C.C., who by the way would never turn her back on me, not that I'd ever notice, because she lives all the way out in Wisconsin and hasn't visited me yet.


Gone House Jacks

When young people go away to college, away from the sheltering influences of parents and small towns, they are inevitably exposed to a variety of nefarious influences. Drugs. Alcohol. Sexuality. And a capella music.

For some reason, it's okay to like a capella music in college. In high school, it's geeky. In real life, it's gay. But during those four years of higher education, individuals who can harmonize and simulate snare drum sounds get to live like rock stars.

I admit it, I too fell under its spell. I tried out for the men's a capella group three times without success. I was even desperate enough to try out for the comparitively retarded barbershop quartet, losing out on the final callback and therefore barely dodging a nerd-shaped bullet.

Ultimately, I did find an outlet for my vocalizations. My fraternity happened to be populated with a few musically-inclined brothers, and together we comprised the Gentleman Callers, charged with serenading sororities before socials and mixers. It was actually the perfect setup for me, since it involved a very high girls-to-practice ratio.

Not all our gigs were so romantic, though. In the spring of my freshman year, an undergraduate woman was accidentally killed in a medical center experiment gone awry. She happened to be a close friend of the Callers' musical director, who volunteered us to sing at the campus wake. The song we sang was "Gone" by House Jacks, a slightly badder version of Rockapella (Which, incidentally, is like saying Air Supply was a badder version of Christopher Cross).

We only sang the song once, and I think it was the best song we ever sang together. Not only did we sound really good, but it's also a really good song. A capella music is not known for poetic insight or thoughtful language, but I think it's genuinely beautiful, like when they sing

I passed the blame;
it's past the time
to cross my heart
and walk across that line

whose will is this?
which poet's lines pull at you?


The next year, the Gentleman Callers got lazy and stopped performing. Or at least I thought they had stopped performing. It turns out that a few members of the group started recruiting outside singers and practicing behind everyone else's back. Soon they announced themselves as a new campus all-men's a capella group. I was not provided an honorary membership, but they were kind enough to offer me an audition, which I politely suggested they suck on, along with my dick. That was pretty much the end of my a capella phase.

But sometimes, when I hear "Gone," I still sing my part.


Vienna Billy Joel

This is my favorite song from my favorite Billy Joel album. I think "The Stranger" still receives critical acclaim as his greatest work, although it doesn't seem to have attained the cult cred of "Turnstiles" or "Glass Houses." Anyway, "Vienna" is one of the few songs on "The Stranger" that never became a radio hit, which perhaps only amplifies its mystique for me.

This song, for me, is the perfect song for mix CDs, because nobody has ever heard it and everybody ought to. Especially young women. I've never met a woman, aged 18 to 29, who didn't need to hear this song and memorize it. It would probably work for guys, too, although the music is probably a little too wussy to hold their attention.

Mostly this song is just about relaxing. If Billy Joel had been Limp Bizkit, the song would be called "Chill the Fuck Out." The first lines are:

Slow down, you crazy child
You're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart
Tell me why are you still so afraid?


What I think he's saying is that too many people are so wrapped up in where they're going that they never realize where they are. They're too afraid to stop and look around because they're afraid – of what, I'm not quite sure. Getting separated from the leader? Getting caught from behind? Realizing that they're actually in New Jersey?

The song sort of seems like a backhanded slap at ambition, which may be a key reason why it resonates with me personally. I've never had much use for the question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I've always been a lot more interested in the journey – the process – than the destination. You can call it laziness if you want. I'll call it something else when I get around to it.

Anyway, Joel ends one of his verses with this flourish:

You got your passion, you got your pride,
But don't you know that only fools are satisfied
Dream on but don't imagine they'll all come true, ooh,
When will you realize,
Vienna waits for you.


I haven't the foggiest idea what the title means. What does an Austrian city have to do with anything? It must be some kind of symbol; a representation of something like a state of grace or peace that may be different for each of us. For some people, maybe Vienna is wealth. For some people, maybe Vienna is true love. That's for each of us to decide. For me, Vienna can only mean one thing: The International House of Pancakes.

Separately, this song does have sentimental value. In ninth grade, the National Junior Honor Society took its class trip to Washington D.C. via bus. It was a wild and wooly time that none of us will soon forget. It meant long bus rides down and back, with little more for entertainment than people taking pictures of other people making out.

On the ride home in Bus #1, we obnoxious geeks whiled away some of those transit hours by singing songs into the bus's P.A. system. I vaguely recall three cheerleaders taking 40 mintues to complete the entire Tone Loc catalog. At one point, someone – maybe 'Spec – convinced me and my friend Sir G. to give it a go. Vienna was one of the few songs we knew all the words to, and as we sang it into that stupid walkie-talkie-looking microphone, everyone on the bus started to shut up. By the time we were done the bus was silent. And if you've never heard a bus full of 15 year olds completely silent, it's like walking into a pet shop and not smelling anything.

For the right price, Sir G. and I are available for classrooms, doctors' offices and babysitting gigs.


Mr. Brightside The Killers

This song is relatively new, so I don't have much to say about it. I first heard it on an early season episode of "The O.C.," – when Seth buys tickets for Summer and her new boyfriend in what is designed to be a demonstration of goodwill and generosity but is actually a pretty transparent attempt to get her back, which doesn't work, at least not immediately, which is too bad because they're really ridiculously cute together – and I remember thinking that the song sucked.

One thing did stand out, as I was listening to it, though. This verse:

Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke
And she's taking a drag
Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his chest
Now, he takes off her dress
Now, let me go


I thought it was pretty clever how the author uses the lyrics and the rhyme scheme to fool the listener into thinking that he's going to say

Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his dick


Anyway, then E-Train put the song on one of his annual music samplers, and I got around to listening to it again, and I realized, hey! I like this song after all. And I mentioned this to E., as well as my admiration for the nifty lyricist, and he didn't know what I was talking about. He didn't think the author or the singer were going for "dick" at all. Then he made some ungentlemanly suggestions about my state of mind.

So now I wonder, is it just me? This is a pretty popular song right now, so hopefully many of you have heard it. If you hear what I hear, send E. a message by entering a comment below.

Thank you.
penfield: Dogs playing poker (Default)
Folk singer Dar Williams sings a song called "Iowa." SKB had introduced me to the music of Dar Williams by playing me the girl-power anthem "As Cool As I Am" and the sentimentally relevant "Southern California Wants to Be Western New York." But it wasn't until I bought the album "Mortal City" that I found "Iowa," which rung me like a bell. It's a pretty song, but more than that, to me it sounds like Truth. Writing the lyrics don't really do it justice; maybe someone will be kind enough to link to an mp3 or something. Until then, my take:

Iowa by Dar Williams

I've never had a way with women
but the hills of Iowa
make me wish that I could


The first line of this song is always a little jarring to me. Dar Williams, for the uninitiated, is a woman. I don't wish to suggest that there's something wrong with women getting along with each other. But "having a way" with women usually implies a certain kind of way, a romantic way, a seductive way, a way that commonly results in kissing. Still, it resonates with me. I mean, what man doesn't want to have more of a way with women? Even if you already have a way, guys are always looking for a better way, a different way, or a variety of ways. So it's still a great line. The initial gender-bending simply makes me wonder if she's writing this song from a man's point of view, or if it's just coming from an earthy and feminine place.

Speaking of earthy and feminine places, she goes on to talk about the hills of Iowa and how it makes her wish she had a way with women. I've never been to Iowa. I'm willing and eager to believe that the lush, rolling hills, carved by glaciers eons and eons ago, are emblematic of a woman's curves. It's a very sensual image. I grew up in the suburbs of Western New York, which I suppose has its share of hills, and all they ever made me long for were a toboggan or anti-lock brakes.

And I've never found a way to say "I love you",
but if the chance came by, oh I,
I would


I could think of a zillion ways to say "I love you," most of which are not illegal. I've tried roughly half of them. But I know exactly what she means. She's talking about those times when you want to grab someone and wrap them in your coat, kiss them so the hairs stand up on the back of their neck, but. But the timing just seems wrong. Or you're too wrapped up in feeling it to communicate it. Or the other person isn't ready to hear it, or believe it, or want it.

And then, even if and when everyone is ready, you wait for that moment, that obvious moment to make your move, and it never comes. Or maybe you look back and realize that you missed it. Man, does that suck.

Personally, it has always been my policy to tell people how I feel about them at every opportunity, as soon as possible, because you never know when you're going to get another chance. This inevitably, understandably, gets me in a lot of trouble. But when the game is over, I'm going to know that I didn't hold anything back or leave anything unsaid. That, to me, would be the greater tragedy.

But way back where I come from
we never mean to bother,
we don't like to make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people
and at night we walk into our houses and burn.


Williams comes from Cambridge and Northampton, Massachussets. But I don't think that's really important. To me, the place she's talking about sounds a lot like any big city. We walk to work and school en masse, totally ignorant of each individual's drama. We are in fact insulated by the excess of humanity, so overwhelmed by the hugeness of the crowd that we turn our thoughts inward. Meanwhile, we naturally assimilate ourselves into that crowd, blending in, trying not to let our fears and desires reach the surface where everyone can touch them. And at the end of the day, even after our meals and our TV and our socializing, we lay in our own beds and confront the things we've been avoiding.

(chorus:)
Iowa, oh-ohh. Iowa, Oh-woh-oh-woh, I, Iowa
Iowa, oh-ohh. Iowa, Oh-woh-oh-woh, I, Iowa


Iowa.

How I long to fall
just a little bit,
to dance out of the lines
and stray from the light


The first inkling of love is always the best, because it's so brand new. That first discovery, like learning a secret nobody else knows, is a wonderful fall indeed. And, counter-intuitively, it brings with it a sense of freedom and independence because new love is a celebration of that you-ness; to be loved by another person, to be someone's favorite, is a validation of all the things that makes you so unique. "Somebody loves me. Fuck everything else, I'm gonna dance."

But I fear that to fall in love with you
is to fall from a great and gruesome height


To fall in love with anyone is to fall from a great height, which is what makes the experience so intoxicating. But the gruesomeness of the fall illustrates the inherent dangers. It's a brutally accurate metaphor, really: when you fall and no one is there to catch you, you can practically hear and feel the terrific SPLAT. I don't know that there are some people for whom the jump is higher -- it's pretty easy from any height to make an adequately satisfying SPLAT -- but it always feels like each jump is special and especially gruesome.

So you know I asked a friend about it, on a bad day,
her husband had just left her,
she sat down on the chair he'd left behind
She said,
"What is love? Where did it get me?
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."


(chorus)

Williams has a remarkable talent for writing characters and story and dialogue into her lyrics, and she paints a vivid picture here. You can practically see the poor woman scrunched in a crappy old chair -- a chair now stained by his mere fleeting ownership of it -- shaking off tears long enough to wax cynical about love. And if you haven't said these same words to yourself at some point and really believed them, then my friend, you haven't lived enough.

I have no doubt that this woman believes what she's saying. I've believed it. And yet, this woman, this jaded girl, this shipwreck, will eventually pull herself out of that chair and try again. And so, what is the greater delusion: to believe that love is fallacy, or to believe that love is a savior?

Is there something in between -- an acceptance of love as a flawed but useful societal construct? Maybe this idea exists subconsciously, or on a primal level, but I don't think anyone knowingly operates that way. I think we all thoughtfully shift between believing and not believing, and popular art, music, religion and entertainment are designed to keep the believers outnumbering the non-believers. This imbalance probably makes for a more peaceful world, though perhaps less interesting.

Once I had everything
I gave it up
for the shoulder of your driveway and the words I've never felt


This is what it feels like to pursue another person, to leave behind everything we have and everything we know in order to play a game in which the odds are aligned against us. We are dumb and desperate enough to perch on the outskirts of a driveway, coiled like a spring but filled with little more than disorganized thoughts and potential energy.

And so for you, I came this far across the tracks,
ten miles above the limit and with no seatbelt (and I'd do it again)


Told in retrospect, the pursuit gets hotter and scarier. We have ventured "across the tracks," into dangerous territory. Fueled by urgency, we raced to our destination; the world around us a blur except for a single point on our horizon. In our haste, we discarded all notions of safety, not out of recklessness but because these moments are simply what we stay alive for.

These chase scenes are thrilling and spectacular -- while they last. They rarely actually end well. Steep odds, as I said, rarely make for big winners. We all know this, really. And yet, we will do it again and again and again, sometimes with the very same person, not just for the chance at victory but for the thrill of the chase itself.

For tonight I went running
Through the screen doors of discretion
For I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see:
You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa
and you were not thinking of me.


(chorus x3)

I love that image, a person obliterating all sense of propriety as if they were tearing through a screen door. A screen door is the perfect analogy for discretion, really, because through it you can see the other side, feel the heat, smell the perfume, hear the voices. But still, you know there's something tangible -- if flimsy -- between you and outright lunacy.

To make this leap requires either great courage or a frenzied lack of self-awareness -- the latter of which could be dramatized by the awakening from a nightmare. But it is an unusual kind of nightmare that Williams sings about here; there is no violence or disfigurement or destruction here. It is a more subtle, core-shaking tragedy she speaks of: when the object of our affection simply does not see us. Call it blindness, indifference, bad taste or bad timing, it all means the same thing. SPLAT.

But then we pick ourselves up and come back to Iowa, where we start to think about our way with women -- or someone else's way with us -- and eventually we climb out of that chair (which is not making us any less sore), maybe believing now, and we resolve to do it again.

And again, and again.
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