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Archive for March, 2012

Thomas Pynchon–[Week 3] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 1.19-2.3] (1973)

Posted in A Fish Called Wanda, Adam and the Ants, Army of Lovers, Beavis and Butthead, David Foster Wallace, Duran Duran, James Joyce, Military, Political Humor, Racism, Research, Rockwell Knuckles, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Thomas Pynchon, Twin Peaks, War on March 12, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: ARMY OF LOVERS-Massive Luxury Overdose (1991).

The only way that I, and I suspect any American, knows this band is because they were  mocked on Beavis and Butthead for their video “Crucified.”  In the video, which I have thoughtfully tacked on at the end here,  the three members of the  band are dressed up like extras from a  Duran Duran by way of Adam and the Ants music video (and maybe that’s not over the top enough).  This, by the way, seems to be their regular costumery (a French-seeming design despite their Swedish origins).

Beavis and Butthead cheer for the (impressive) cleavage and then gag at the lead singer’s  largely naked hairy body dancing in a bathtub.  It’s  pretty confusing.  But it’s also super catchy in a really over the top Europop way.

I have learned over the years that while I don’t really like pop music, I like Europpop a lot more than Ameripop.   It’s much crazier and outlandish, hence: Army of Lovers.

“Crucified” is a really fun, over the top bit of nonsense.  The chorus is incredibly catchy with a wonderful choral voice singing, and the verses are catchy too, they are spoken and in part French.   It’s good campy fun.

Having said that, the rest of the album is a mix of songs that aren’t quite as good as “Crucified” and songs that are just really bad.

The opening of “Candyman Messiah” is dreadful.  “Obsession” features a very mousey-voiced guy singing.  It’s a change and an interesting one, although like a lot of Europop, there’s not a lot of substance to it.

But it’s clear that the Army are not taking themselves seriously, “Dynasty of Planet Chromada” anyone.  The band has some really catchy choruses and I’ll bet it ‘s a hell of a lot of fun to dance to.  Especially if you have a pencil thin mustache.

Believe it or not, Army of Lovers were not just a one-hit wonder .  They released four albums.  And although their website seems to be updated often, I’m fairly certain the band broke up in 1995.  Well, why should that stop anyone?

[READ: Week of March 5, 2012] Gravity’s Rainbow Sections 1.19-2.3

I postulated that Section 1 (called Beyond the Zero) was a mostly expository set up (in one way or another).  And that seems to have been true.  Yes there was some plot development, but it was a lot of setting up new people.  New people are introduced in Section 2, but it is primarily about Slothrop (so far).  These first three sections don’t do a lot to advance the “plot” (I don’t really know what the plot is exactly but it must have something t o do with the war, right?)  Section 2 zooms in on Slothrop.  And while we do learn about the monitoring that goes on with him, for me, Section 2 is all about providing character depth and sympathy for Slothrop.

I found this week’s read to be the easiest so far, with only a few moments of stream of consciousness or reverie to get lost in.   And there were a lot of farcical moments–moments that were practically like a sitcom, which were fun to read and enjoyably insubstantial.

Towards the end of the reading, when Katje ultimately leaves Slothrop, she uses a metaphor comparing the rockets to sex.  And I wondered if maybe that’s why there is so much sex in the book–is it a physical manifestation of the theoretical idea?  Or does he just like using the word cock?

(more…)

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Dan Zanes (State Theatre, New Brunswick, NJ, February 20, 2012)

Posted in Aimee Mann, Dan Zanes, Dar Williams, John Doe, Lou Reed, New Brunswick, NJ, Set in New Jersey!, State Theatre on March 11, 2012| 1 Comment »

[ATTENDED: February, 20, 2012] Dan Zanes at State Theatre

President’s Day was Family Day in New Brunswick.  And despite the bitter cold, we had a nice time walking around, seeing the Philadelphia Zoo exhibit and, most of all, seeing Dan Zanes.

We have loved Dan Zanes since we were first introduced to him (like everyone else–as soon as we had kids).  I knew that Zanes was in the Del Fuegos, although (even though I lived in Boston for many years) I’d never heard them.  I have since listened to them but found them to be lacking, especially compared to Dan Zanes’ solo stuff.

So Dan Zanes has been releasing children’s albums for a number of years, now.  He has access to some pretty high-profile guests (his album Night Time features Aimee Mann, John Doe, Lou Reed and Dar Williams).  But even without the high-profile guests, the records are fun, warm and very inviting. (more…)

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TV Winter 2012

Posted in 2 Broke Girls, 30 Rock, Allen Gregory, America's Next Top Model, Archer, Are You There, Chelsea?, Bob's Burgers, Breaking In, Chuck, Comic Book Men, Face Off, Glee, Grimm, How I Met Your Mother, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, Key and Peele, Modern Family, New Girl, Once Upon a Time, Parenthood, Parks and Recreation, Portlandia, Project Runway, Ringer, The Big Bang Theory, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, The Office, The Simpsons, Tosh.0, TV 2012, Up All Night, Workaholics on March 10, 2012| 2 Comments »

The TV Season scheduling continues to confuse me.  It’s February and two shows are done already.  And new shows are starting this week.  I actually appreciate this rolling schedule because it means new shows instead of repeats.

So hey, networks, why not go all the way and just let the shows run for twenty weeks and then end.  Stop showing reruns (or better yet, rerun them at like 2 in the morning so we can watch them if we miss them) and the introduce a new show for the next half a year.  We wouldn’t have this six weeks off nonsense of Community and Glee or three weeks of repeats of other shows.

I’m picking this week to write this simply because of the ending of the two shows.  We haven’t had a look at the new ones yet, so it’s a clean slate.

Somehow we don’t even have time to watch movies anymore, so the TV shows must be very good. (more…)

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F. Scott Fitzgerald–The Great Gatsby (1925)

Posted in Boredom, Death, Decadence, Drinking, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marriage Trouble, Military, Romance, Short Books, The Smiths on March 9, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK:SUPER MORRISSEY BROS (2012).

This is, as the title implies, a Smiths song done in the musical style of Super Mario Bros.  And, why yes, it certainly is.

This song is especially amusing to me as we just got a Wii for Christmas so I am now far more familiar with the Super Mario Brothers musical style than I ever expected I’d be.  The opening notes are spot on and while it is a bit long for something of a joke, at under 3 minutes it never wears out its joyousness..

The little sound effect of scoring points at about the 2 minute mark is as wonderful of a surprise as when you get the unexpected point in the game and it easily sustains the song until the end.

It doesn’t honestly warrant repeated listens, but two or three will certainly make you smile.

Check it out

[READ: March 6, 2012] The Great Gatsby

I knew I’d be reading Gravity’s Rainbow for a while so I wanted some shorter, easier works that I could use as occasional diversions.  I’d read The Great Gatsby in college and really enjoyed it, but clearly, as I learned by reading it again, I didn’t remember anything about it and what I remembered, I’d remembered wrong.

The other thing I was thinking about is that I didn’t read this in high school.  In fact, I didn’t read many books that I know people are supposed to read in high school.  I don’t think it’s because I didn’t feel like reading it (that;s possible), I think it wasn’t assigned to us.  My high school, as I recall, has a weird selection of texts that we read.  For instance, I recall reading Táin bó Cúailnge (and hating it).  Who is reading The Tain (which is an Irish epic) and not Gatsby?  Kids in Ireland, that’s who!

Anyhow, this book is considered number 2 in The Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century (Ulysses is #1–that’s a 1 and 2 that couldn’t be much more different!) and, as I said it’s on virtually every high school curriculum.

As I was reading it I wondered how well high school students could relate to this story.  There are two cases of infidelity, there’s murder and suicide, there’s bootlegging alcohol and false identities.  I mean, sure they should love it, but how well can they relate to it?

The novel opens with Nick Carraway reciting advice that his father gave him: “Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantage that you’ve had.”  This is an interesting quote to open with since the quote both applies and does not apply to the great Gatsby who is Nick’s neighbor. (more…)

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Midnight in Paris (2011)

Posted in Anachronisms, Cole Porter, Culture Shock, Decadence, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray, Midnight in Paris, Political Humor, Romance, Salvador Dali, Time Travel, Woody Allen on March 8, 2012| 2 Comments »

[WATCHED: March 5, 2012] Midnight in Paris

I took a course on Woody Allen’s films in college and, as a result, I had seen everything he had done (and a lot of what had inspired him).  After college, I made a point of seeing everything he released.  Often on opening day.  (My double feature of Deconstructing Harry and Good Will Hunting on Christmas Day is still a highlight).

But after The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, which was okay, but just barely, I basically gave up on him.  I watched Match Point in three parts (no time at the time) and really enjoyed it, but I never really got back on track with Woody.  And then came Paris.

Despite its huge popularity, I knew nothing about this Woody Allen film.  I knew Owen Wilson was playing the Woody Allen character in this one and it was getting amazing reviews.  Now, it’s very true that critics don’t always get Woody Allen, but when they unanimously get his film it’s pretty safe that it’s a good one.

And boy was it ever. (more…)

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Alice Munro–“Haven” (New Yorker, March 5, 2012)

Posted in Alice Munro, Bidiniband, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dave Bidini music, Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Rheostatics, Short Story on March 7, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: BIDINIBAND-The Land Is Wild (2009).

Dave Bidini was a driving force behind Rheostatics.  Although when I think of the band, I think of Martin Tielli’s wackiness and Tim Vesely’s hits, which kind of makes Bidini the sort of stable, middle of the road guy.  But I don’t think that’s right either as Bidini has both a wacky side and a hit-making side.  But this “solo” project focuses mainly on Bidini’s storytelling skills.  Most of the songs are little narratives, which is always enjoyable.

“Desert Island Poem” is actually a story of the dissolution of the Rheostatics–when they survived a plane crash in Drumhella and ate the drummer.   “Memorial Day” surprises because of the clarinet solo (which works wonderfully).  “We Like to Rock” and “Song Ain’t Any Good” are the other kind of song that Bidini writes–songs about playing music.  These kind of songs are always dopey and “We Like to Rock” is no exception–I think I ‘d like it more if it weren’t so tinny sounding.  “Song Ain’t Any Good” is kind of funny, especially if you get through the whole song, although I don’t know if multiple listens are rewarded.

On the other hand, “The Land is Wild” is a great song about Bidini’s other passion: hockey.  This is a lengthy (nearly 7 minute) story about Bryan Fogarty, a young hockey player who was a star at 21 but a forgotten addict by 31.  It’s a sad, cautionary tale about how the hockey establishment all but ignored him as he wasted away.   “How Zeke Roberts Died” is a very similar song,  it’s an 8 minute biography of Liberian singer Zeke Roberts.  This song has lead vocals by a variety of singers.

“Last Good Cigarette” is a delightful ditty about smoking with famous people (and it is super catchy–ha-cha!).  “Pornography” is a funny political song about George W. Bush that is also quite catchy.  And the wonderfully titled, “The Story of Canadiana and Canadiandy” is about living close to America.

Although the album is mostly folky and kind of mellow, “Terrorize Me Now” shows some of Bidini’s more wild guitar noises.  And the final song, “The Ballad of 1969” is a great song that is reminiscent of the kind of highs that the Rheos would hit.  There’s a bonus untitled song [later called “The List (Killing Us Now)”] which is a simple song of people who have aggrieved him.  It’s funny, especially in the live context it is given.

While not as great as a Rheostatics album, this release is like an extension of the band.  Bidini has a new album out which I haven’t heard yet, but I’ll certainly be checking it out.

[READ: March 5, 2012] “Haven”

Munro is back (talk about prolific!) and she has created a darkly claustrophobic house in which to place the young protagonist of this story.

The story is set in the seventies.  The protagonist is from Vancouver, but her parents are heading off to Africa for a year so they have sent her to live with her Uncle Jasper and Aunt Dawn.  Despite this mission to Africa, they are not going there for a missionary purpose, they are going there to teach (and haven’t come across many heathen).  They’re also Unitarian.  Uncle Jasper, on the other hand, insists on saying grace before meals and gets on the protagonist when she starts eating before the prayers.

It turns out that Uncle Jasper is the man of the house.  Aunt Dawn does not begin eating her meal until the discussion of grace is over (after receiving an invisible nod from Jasper).  More examples of her deference are given, but the quote that sums up Aunt Dawn (whether she said it or not) is “A Woman’s most important job is making a haven for her man.”  Although, given that, Jasper does show her some affection: a gift and some closeness towards the end of the story. (more…)

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Thomas McGuane–“A Prairie Girl” (New Yorker, February 27, 2012)

Posted in Calla, LGBTQ, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, New Yorker, Pregnancy, Prostitution, Scenic, Short Story, Thomas McGuane on March 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: CALLA-Calla (1999).

I got this album when a patron donated it to the library.  I had never heard of this band, but the other CDs he donated were really cool so I grabbed this one, too.  This is an almost entirely instrumental album (vocals are whispered when present) that feels like a soundtrack to a futuristic Western.  “Tarantula” opens with some creepy, ghostly sounds and then what sounds like spurs walking across the landscape.  When the guitar comes in it sounds like an old Western.  In many ways this album reminds me of a great band called Scenic, although this one makes more use of electronics, which gives it a more eerie feeling.

“Custom Car Crash” has a very Western feel.  Over creepy scraping sounds, a clean guitar plays very simple guitar lines and chords.  When the keyboard lilts over the noise, it’s quite eerie.  This song has vocals; deep, almost whispered vocals, and I can’t really make them out,  There’s also a live bonus version at the end which really captures the studio version, but which I think is better.  “June” has a slow droney sound: more atmospheric than anything else–it seems maybe ten years ahead of its time).  The 8 minute “Only Drowning Men:” introduces more guitars and a lit of tension.   From the noise a delicate guitar pattern emerges for the last minute of the song.

“Elsewhere” is full of buzzy guitars; there’s a live version at the end of the disc as well.  “Truth About Robots” is my favorite track, a real melody over the noise.  Despite its length (just over 2:30), it tells a full story.

“Trinidad” comes a surprise because it opens with bass (you don’t hear much bass on this album).  But “Keyes” is so quiet as to be almost not there.  “Awake and Under” on the other hand has a great guitar and bass sequence with spoken lyrics (reminiscent of many indie bands of the 90s) but which is very effective here.  There’s a live version as a bonus track and it is a highlight.

This is more interesting music for creating atmosphere, but not something I’d listen to a lot.  I was surprised to find out how many albums they had out.

[READ: March 2, 2012] “A Prairie Girl”

I’ve enjoyed Thomas McGuane stories before, but I wasn’t sure if I’d like this one as it opens with a brothel.  Since I’m thinking about the implications of sex in Gravity’s Rainbow, the last thing I needed was a hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story.  But this isn’t that.  And it has a brothel with a very funny name: The Butt Hut .  The Butt Hut closes down when the madam dies.  Most of the women moved away (either with local men (to the dismay of many) or on their own).  But one girl who stayed was Mary Elizabeth Foley.

Mary Elizabeth attended church weekly, but most of the people gave her a wide berth—literally an empty pew.  It was finally decided that someone should speak to her since she wasn’t going away.  And so Mrs Gladstone Chandler, wife of the town’s bank owner and all around respected individual, sat near her during the mass.  Afterward, she asked Mary Elizabeth: “Where are you from?”  Mary Elizabeth answered “What business is it of yours?”  And she soon had her pew back. (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 2] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 1.13-1.18] (1973)

Posted in Chuck D, David Foster Wallace, Ice-T, James Joyce, Megafaun, Military, Political Humor, Racism, Research, Rockwell Knuckles, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, The Flaming Lips, Thomas Pynchon, War on March 5, 2012| 8 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: ROCKWELL KNUCKLES-You’re Fucking Out I’m Fucking In (2011).

I downloaded this disc a while ago because I really liked “Silly Human“

I listened to it again recently and realized just how much I like the whole disc.  Rockwell Knuckles has a great delivery style—a basso profundo voice—and a great sense of melody both in his delivery and his backing music.  He captures the best of Chuck D and Ice T.  “Bullet Train Army” has such a cool melody line—and the fact that he raps along with it is fantastic.  Apparently the Bullet Train Army is his posse or something, because it appears a lot on the disc.

“Silly Human” is a fantastic song—a wispy futuristic keyboard riff fizzes away behind Rockwell’s super fast delivery and funny (but not really) lyrics.  The chorus is delivered super quickly in a cool descending melody line.  And I love that someone in the background is shouting Yes Yes! YES! as he deliveries his lines.  It reminds me in strange way of The Flaming Lips.  “Play Catch” shows off his diversity of styles with this more gentle song.  I like the way the verses end with a repeated word which seems like it’s going faster because the beasts speed up,  It’s a cool trick.

“Baking Soda” has a guest rapper (I really don’t like guest rappers, I’m here for Rockwell not Tef Poe, who immediately lost my respect by having his first rhyme end with bitch—lazy!).  I don’t really care for the music behind this one either—cheesy sax and horns.   It’s made up for with “Point of No Return.”  This song has a sung chorus with a weird sci-fi-sounding melody and some great lyrics.  I haven’t really mentioned the lyrics yet but they stand out here “the early bird catches the worm, but the first sponge catches the germs) and a reference to Sojourner Truth.

The lyrics are even better on “Unstoppable” (which has a cool synthy sound over the chorus): “My competition ‘s delayed I’m rocking digital/
Ive been around the world in a day not in the physical/Artistic freedom in what I say y’all are to literal.”

The simple riff behind “Intergalactic” is also cool.  At first I wasn’t sold on Theresa Payne’s backing vocals but I think it works quite well.  I particularly love the chorus of “Supercalifragilisticexpiala-futuristic”

There’s another great delivery melody on “Motto of Today” with more cool sci-fi backing music.  “You Got It” has the great fast beats and delivery that I love out of Atlanta, even though Rockwell is from St. Louis.  There’s even a cool binary joke in the lyrics (1001001).  Guest rapper Vandalyzm fares better, although there’s more curses than actual lyrics in his verse, I think.

“Nomanisan Island” also features Tef Poe, but I like him better on this track.  But maybe that’s because the chorus is great: “No man is an island and we are never stranded”  I’m not sure though that Tef Poe should be singing the line “black tea party, we’re coming to impeach” with Obama in the white house.

“Controlled” I assume has a sample for a chorus, it slows things down nicely and the sound of the drums is fantastic.  I’m partial to the lines “Stone cold like Medusa” and  “Shows about to start, I don’t know when it will end, son/ Puppet on a string controlled by Jim Henson” (whatever that means, I like it).

“Every Angle” has a groovy chorus that I like despite itself.  Rockwell makes it flow wonderfully.  And the final track, “Natural Born Leader” opens with a simple rocking guitar riff.  When the lyrics kick in, the song soars with 70s keyboards and big guitars.

This album is really fantastic.  And while there are plenty of deserving artists out there, Rockwell Knuckles is amazing and should be huge.  Don’t be put off by the album title or the cover, this album is more about melody than a cursing.

You can download the whole album here for free.

Oh, and the reason I chose this is because of a note I had written in the margins of GR, which I thought had read No Man is an Island, but which didn’t.  Oops.

[READ: Week of February 27] Gravity’s Rainbow 1.13-1.18

I found a few of this week’s sections to be more challenging to get through.  There are a lot of long passages that are meandering–often with an unclear narrator (although the narrator usually becomes apparent by the end).  During these section, it feels like the book is just drifting of into a reverie for a while before snapping out of it and getting back to the business at hand.  And that seem apt given all of the crazy stuff that happens in the book (all of the mental/psychological ideas).

After reading a few of the posts at Infinite Zombies this week, I have new eyes for the book.  When I first read all of the sex in the book, I thought again about Joyce’s Ulysses and all of the sex that he described (shockingly for the time) and how modern writers seem to revel in writing about sex–not pornographically, just “real.”  But now, after reading Christine’s post, I had to rethink this attitude on sex.  I’ve been surprised by Pynchon’s frequent use of the words “cock” and “cunt” as anatomical names.  “Cock” in particular is a word I don’t hear used all that often in fiction and it has (to my ear) a kind of crass/vulgar connotation. And what more needs to be said about “cunt.”  I wondered if this was a Pynchon thing or a 70s thing or an I’m-too-uptight thing, but in Christine’s post she writes: “One of the things I most loathe about the other Pynchon books I’ve read is the latent, creepy, old-man sex fetish” and “the constant phallic status updates (noted in my paperback as I.P.R.s [infantile penis reference]” (which is hilarious, by the way).  This has made me even more aware of all the sex in the book–although to what end I’m not sure yet.

Jeff’s post at Infinite Zombies focuses on Roger and Jessica (I know that wasn’t the point of the post, but the mind takes what it will) and makes me think of Roger as more of a protagonist of the story.  Even more than Pirate (who, coming first, I assumed was the focus).  And  this week’s reading reveals more importance for Roger.

So on to the read: (more…)

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Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer–“Laikas” (Significant Objects, April 26, 2010)

Posted in Canadian Content, Dogs, Huh?, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Los Campesinos!, Significant Objects on March 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: LOS CAMPESINOS! We Are Beautiful We Are Doomed (2008).

This is Los Campesinos! second disc in a year (after the smashing success of their debut).

The disc opens with a blast in “Make It Through the Walls”–great male and female shared vocals as well as gang screamed vocals; and by the end: violins.  It’s like the Los Campesinos! catalog packed into four minutes.  It’s followed by “Miserabilia” a perfect three-minute pop song (except for all those rough edges, of course), but it very nicely combines melody and punk attitude.

The title track continues with the frantically happy sounding music that backs off for lyrics like “We kid ourselves that there’s future in the fucking, but there is no fucking future.”   Meanwhile, “You’ll Need Those Fingers for Crossing” emphasizes their low end, which doesn’t often get a lot of emphasis.  “It’s Never That Easy Though, Is It?” has some great violins and group vocals (not screamed for a change).  “The End of the Asterisk” is an under two-minute blast of fun nonsense (with a fun chorus).

I’ve talked about the music but not much about the lyrics–but rest assured they are just as literate and darkly comic as on Romance is Boring.  Although the titles are certainly a giveaway, none sum up Los Campesinos! as much as “Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #1” (which has some very cool sound effects thrown in too).

“Heart Swells–Pacific Daylight Time” is one of their achingly slow songs that reminds me of “The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future” (I know, that song came later, but I’m reviewing them backwards).  Although this one is much shorter.  The disc ends with “All Your Kayfabe Friends” which has these fun triplet notes that ascend and descend with each line.

My copy came with a bonus DVD.  The disc contains a 30 minute home movie of the band on tour.  It’s nothing terribly revelatory, although it is amusing in places.  The home movie quality of it makes it a bit more personal, but also means that some shots are totally missed, which is a shame.   There’s also a few minutes of the band on various stages, which is quite a treat as I’ve never seen them live–they really embody their music and Gareth Campesinos! is a great front man.

At only 32 minutes, this is certainly a short release.  Wikipedia says that they argued that this was not a cash grab after the success of their first album.  And that’s believable, even if the only thing that makes this more than half an hour is the fiddly instrumental “Between an Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky.”   Nevertheless, Los Campesinos! released some wonderfully cool songs.

[READ: February 28, 2012] “Laikas”

I complained recently that although Kuitenbrouwer calls this piece “Laikas” when you click on the link to Significant Objects, it is listed as “Greek Ashtray-Plate.”  This evidently has something to do with the nature of its publication.  Although I don’t know the pre-publication information, underneath the story it says:

The bidding on this object, with story by Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, has ended. Original price: 69 cents. Final price: $30. Proceeds from this auction go to Girls Write Now

So, one assumes that Kuitenbrouwer wrote this short (very short) story about the ashtray-plate–after all, the full name of the website is Significant Objects…and how they got that way–so it all pieces together nicely.

As I said this is a very short piece (a page and a half, tops) that works as a quick sketch of why the ashtray-plate looks the way it does as well as a brief sketch of its owner. The details about the ashtray-plate are wonderful, vivid and violent in ways that I wouldn’t have expected–the placement of the burns is wonderfully described.

The rest of the story is strange, though. (more…)

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Harlem Globetrotters (Prudential Center, Newark, NJ, February 18, 2012)

Posted in Basketball, Harlem Globetrotters, Newark, NJ, Prudential Center, Set in New Jersey! on March 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: February 18, 2012] Harlem Globetrotters

When I was a kid, The Harlem Globetrotters were the coolest thing ever.  I played basketball in grammar school, but I was pretty bad (short with no vertical leap), so seeing guys who were amazing ans also silly at basketball was wonderful to me.  I whistled “Sweet Georgia Brown” a million times.  I showed off my amazing “trick” shots at friends’ houses and during gym.  I tried to bounce basketballs off of everything.  Of course, I never did learn a lay up, but that’s beside the point.

And the Globetrotter commercials were on TV seemingly all the time.  Like this one:

How cool, to slide across the floor, roll a ball down your back and make crazy baskets.

Of course, I think I remember the Globetrotters more from this show, which featured the voices of the all-time greats: George “Meadowlark” Lemon, Freddie “Curly” Neal, Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, J.C. “Gip” Gipson, Bobby Joe Mason, and Pablo Robertson (okay, these last three I don’t remember).

Twenty-two episodes were made in all, and I’m pretty sure I saw all of them (the old lady and the dog never made much sense but that’s okay too).

Suffice it to say, the Globetrotters left an indelible stamp on my world.  But I never saw them live.  So, imagine my delight when a few weeks ago, I won a contest for four free tickets to see the Globetrotters!  I was pretty psyched. (more…)

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