They ate their corned beef on rye and cream cheese with lox in a diner peopled by waiters who looked like they'd met with utter disappointment and became attached to it.
-Mary Gaitskill, from "An Affair, Edited" a short story in her collection Bad Behavior.
[*Response to a comment (thank you, Yair) on the previous post. And, because on greater reflection, as the gleam of that Big Apple starts to fade, I wonder how many struggling artists never do get to sell that script.]
Friday, April 30, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Radiohead - Through the Albums
A brief history of my relationship with what has to be my favourite living band.
1. Pablo Honey: you bought it as a CD, cause that's
what you did back in 1994 (yes, the album came out a year earlier; you've never been that quick off the draw, what can you say?). "Creep" was the hit song, the reason you bought the CD. A good tune still, though back then it could have easily been a Stone Temple Pilots song. For all you knew Radiohead were from Seattle, and there weren't two great songs on the whole album.
2. The Bends:
and the world comes to understand that this is a very, very good band. Maybe the best in the world. Guitar driven, it both rocks and it also dips deep into ultra sad territory and with what has to be one of the most beautiful songs to be written in the last few decades with "Fake Plastic Trees."
3. OK Computer: The music critics got this one right away. I didn't. First few listens it was difficult, strange, a bit disturbing, nothing like the Bends. Where had the guitar driven songs gone? What had they done? Yet I knew, from the first there was beauty in there.
Only the strictly guitar-listening-to fan was truly hurt, troubled, bothered, cause as with time, you came to see this was the best album of its generation. It's got it all: the complex and interesting, the gorgeously melodious, the ups, the downs. A full ride, a total album.
4. Kid A: obtuse is a good word for that first listen. It made OK Computer sound like bubble gum pop it was so awkward
and tricky. As a musician friend put it, the opening track "Everything In Its Right Place" is an ironic name, since musically everything is in exactly the wrong place. I still have no idea what this means, but then, I can't play House of the Rising Sun on guitar, so why would I understand anything musically? Still, I like the idea. It makes a kind of impossible sense. And the album, too, with time, and just a hint of patience revealed its brilliance.
5. Amnesiac: neither time nor patience helped me on this one. Next.
6. Hail to the Thief: you gave it little time or patience. Radiohead's best days were now long behind them.
7. In Rainbows:
in which all will be forgiven. No, perhaps they are not treading new ground. But for me this is just polished advance on OK Computer and more sonically comfortable, warmer than Kid A. It has been my favourite album since its release 3 years ago.
1. Pablo Honey: you bought it as a CD, cause that's
what you did back in 1994 (yes, the album came out a year earlier; you've never been that quick off the draw, what can you say?). "Creep" was the hit song, the reason you bought the CD. A good tune still, though back then it could have easily been a Stone Temple Pilots song. For all you knew Radiohead were from Seattle, and there weren't two great songs on the whole album. 2. The Bends:
and the world comes to understand that this is a very, very good band. Maybe the best in the world. Guitar driven, it both rocks and it also dips deep into ultra sad territory and with what has to be one of the most beautiful songs to be written in the last few decades with "Fake Plastic Trees." 3. OK Computer: The music critics got this one right away. I didn't. First few listens it was difficult, strange, a bit disturbing, nothing like the Bends. Where had the guitar driven songs gone? What had they done? Yet I knew, from the first there was beauty in there.
Only the strictly guitar-listening-to fan was truly hurt, troubled, bothered, cause as with time, you came to see this was the best album of its generation. It's got it all: the complex and interesting, the gorgeously melodious, the ups, the downs. A full ride, a total album. 4. Kid A: obtuse is a good word for that first listen. It made OK Computer sound like bubble gum pop it was so awkward
and tricky. As a musician friend put it, the opening track "Everything In Its Right Place" is an ironic name, since musically everything is in exactly the wrong place. I still have no idea what this means, but then, I can't play House of the Rising Sun on guitar, so why would I understand anything musically? Still, I like the idea. It makes a kind of impossible sense. And the album, too, with time, and just a hint of patience revealed its brilliance. 5. Amnesiac: neither time nor patience helped me on this one. Next.
6. Hail to the Thief: you gave it little time or patience. Radiohead's best days were now long behind them.
7. In Rainbows:
in which all will be forgiven. No, perhaps they are not treading new ground. But for me this is just polished advance on OK Computer and more sonically comfortable, warmer than Kid A. It has been my favourite album since its release 3 years ago.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
COMING TUESDAY: A Legendary Hollywood Story
It's the '70s. He is just another struggling actor, poor as dirt, lucky as Job of the bible. He happens, however, to also be a budding writer and has spent the last 3 years writing a script...
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Big Words
To conclude his lecture on George Orwell's "1984," Dr. Arthur Haberman of York University said (and I paraphrase; it was 12 years ago):
But Orwell got it wrong. Big Brother isn't watching us. He doesn't need to. We're watching him.
And with that he left the lecture hall.
But Orwell got it wrong. Big Brother isn't watching us. He doesn't need to. We're watching him.
And with that he left the lecture hall.
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