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Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

Peter Benchley [adapted for young people by Karen Wojtyla]–Shark Life: True Stories about Sharks & the Sea (2005)

Posted in Adventure, C., Children's Books, Daredevils, Death, Drownproofing, Fears, Jaws, Karen Wojtyla, Nature, No BS! Brass Band, Ocean, Peter Benchley, Scientists, Sharks, Swimming, The American Sportsman, Threats, Tiny Desk Concert on February 26, 2017| Leave a Comment »

sahrakSOUNDTRACK: NO BS! BRASS BAND-Tiny Desk Concert #280 (June 15, 2013).

nobsWith a name like No BS! Brass Band, you think you know what you’re getting: brass and lots of it.  And while that is true, the Band goes way beyond what I anticipated a brass band would sound like (nothing like the far more traditional Canadian Brass for instance).

The blurb states:

Funky and danceable, the NO BS! Brass Band takes after the full black-music continuum you hear in groups like Rebirth or the Hot 8. But it’s also proggy, and a bit brutalizing, and full of pride in a different Southern outpost. The group’s new album is called RVA All Day, after all.  [I don’t know what that last line refers to].

Recently, Koehler, Pace and nine other musicians piled into a bus and journeyed up the freeway to NPR Music’s Tiny Desk in Washington, D.C. They blasted us with songs from the new album — it was so loud, you could hear the music on the other side of the building, a floor down.

The band includes:  Lance Koehler, drums ; Reggie Pace, trombone ; Bryan Hooten, trombone/vocals ; John Hulley, trombone ; Dillard Watt, bass trombone ; David Hood, alto saxophone ; Marcus Tenney, trumpet ; Sam Koff, trumpet ; Ben Court, trumpet ; Taylor Barnett, trumpet and Stefan Demetriadis, tuba.  And they play three super high energy largely instrumental songs that are obviously jazzy but which also have elements of the most fun marching band you’ve ever heard along with some rapping, some chanting and lots and lots of clapping.

The first song is all about “RVA All Day.”  And yet since that’s all they chant, I still don’t know what it means.   While the whole band plays loudly and powerfully, there’s a few solo moments as well.  First a trombone solo followed by a sax solo, then a trumpet and a super wild trombone solo (he gets some truly great, crazy sounds from that thing).  And then a huge surprise, midway through the song is a rap through a megaphone.

“Run Around” has a sing along to begin the song (and again, vocals through the megaphone).  It is also lively and a lot of fun.  The final song, “Infamous”sounds a lot more jazzy/big band.  It’s got a really nice groove.  The middle has a section with just tuba and trumpet where the rest of the band claps and shouts “Ho!” and it sounds great.  It’s also interesting watching how the different players “store” their instruments in different ways while clapping.

No BS! Brass band will totally make you wiggle your hips.

[READ: August 20, 2016] Shark Life

C. had to pick a book for summer reading and he chose this one.  He enjoyed it so much, that he encouraged me to read it too.  And I’m really glad I did.  Although it wasn’t until writing this that I realized that this book was adapted for young people by Karen Wojtyla.  And yet I can’t find any mention of a grown up version of this book anywhere.  So who knows.

Anyhow,  Peter Benchley (who died in 2006) is the author of Jaws, and this book is full of stories of his life in and on the sea.  For, in addition to being an author, Benchley was a diver and explorer.  And his tales are both exciting and full of conservationist ideas.

The book opens in 1974. After the success of Jaws, Benchley had been invited to Australia to be on The American Sportsman.  He was going to be swimming in a cage with sharks feeding around him.  They put him in the cage, strapped all kinds of good food to it and left him there (okay they were close by).  But a few things went awry and suddenly things weren’t quite as safe as they could be. The shark got caught in Benchley’s air line and then panicked.  And a panicking shark is never a good thing. (more…)

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Maile Meloy–The After-Room (2015)

Posted in Adventure, Communists, Culture Shock, Johann Sebastian Bach, John Keats, John Williams, Magic, Maile Meloy, Nicola Benedetti, Schindler's List, Supernatural, Tiny Desk Concert, Trilogy, War, YA Books on February 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »

after-room SOUNDTRACK: NICOLA BENEDETTI-Tiny Desk Concert #274 (May 6, 2013).

nicolaNicola Benedetti is a Scottish violinist who has had a storied career already.

Benedetti was mentored by Yehudi Menuhin starting at age 10, and won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Award a decade ago.  She plays a 1717 Gariel Strad. (It’s worth some $10 million.)

The first piece she plays was instantly recognizable–where had I heard it before?  Ah yes, the mournful and harrowing music from Schindler’s List.  [Williams: Theme from ‘Schindler’s List’].  She plays it perfectly, of course.  It’s evocative and instantly brings back scenes from the film.  And then apologizes for it being a bit of  sombre start.

 Then she plays a piece by Bach–he wrote six sonata and partitas trying to emulate many instruments at once.  This one is Bach: “Chaconne from the Partita for Solo Violin in D Minor.”  She says she’s not playing the whole thing because it’s 16 minutes long.  But she plays the first third which is also recognizable.  Once again, it sounds beautiful.  The blurb speaks of “the way she makes room for silence in Bach’s Chaconne before tearing deep into its dense warp and weft.”  And it is indeed enchanting.

[READ: May 30, 2016] The After-Room

This is the final book in a trilogy (what is it about trilogies that are so popular?) that began with The Apothecary.

This book is set in 1955.  (Sarah and I were commenting on how this era of history is an unusual one for stories to be set and how that’s a nice change).  Janie and Benjamin are safely back in Michigan after the deadly exploits of the previous book.

Benjamin’s father was killed at the end of the previous book and Janie’s parents have agreed to take care of him–so he is living with them.  Janie’s father is quite suspicious of a romance between the two of them and he has every right to be.  Janie is certainly in love and Benjamin probably is too, but he has other things on his mind right now.

I had planned to read this book when it came out, but I was involved with a very big book when it came out.  But I was at the library with nothing to do so I grabbed this and started reading it and I was hooked immediately.  In fact, I found this book so good, so fast paced and exciting that I put down my other reading and just flew through this. (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Squish: Fear the Amoeba (#6) (2014)

Posted in Advice, Allison Miller, Boom Tic Boom, Children's Books, Fears, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Science, Short Books, Tiny Desk Concert, Walter Salb on February 10, 2017| Leave a Comment »

squish-6SOUNDTRACK: ALLISON MILLER’S BOOM TIC BOOM-Tiny Desk Concert #223 (June 7, 2012).

boom I hadn’t heard of Miller–who is a drummer primarily in jazz circles.  Although the blurb says that she has also played live with Ani DiFranco so it’s very possible that I saw her play a decade or so ago.

But this band is all about the jazz.   The quartet has an upright bass, piano, sax and of course Miller’s drums and percussion.

And yet for a band which has her name in it, the drums and percussion are not very prominent.  This was a little disappointing as I wanted to hear some wild percussion, it also makes sense since she’s writing these tunes with melodies in mind.

They play three songs. “Big And Lovely” is primarily a sax song with a few moments of piano playing by itself.  The drums are certainly present but they don’t seem like the centerpiece of this song (and I gather they are not meant to).  It is fun to watch Miller play, though—jazz drummers really do seem to smile a lot more than rock drummers.  This was written for Miller’s friend, musician and activist Toshi Reagon.  During the end of the song—when it’s just bass and piano, Miller breaks out all kinds of bells and percussion which is neat.

“Spotswood Drive” is where a man named Walter Salb once lived; “he was a beloved and respected drummer, and by most accounts a larger-than-life character.  His 2006 Washington Post obituary ran with the headline ‘Drum Teacher Was Scurrilous, Rude — and Greatly Admired.'”  Salb was her drum teacher.  She says he was a “mentor and great guy… sometimes great guy.”  The blurb tells us that “Salb’s mentorship remains so important that Miller started a scholarship fund in his name, and recently dedicated a new tune to him — a searching, slow-burning meditation with lots of percussive coloring between the lines.”  It’s a slow song with lots of interesting percussion which sadly doesn’t really make it to the forefront in the song.  There are gongs and bells and other interesting things—its fun to see Miller scrambling around back there to grab different items.   A few minutes in, there’s a cool bass line (which I’d also like to be louder) that rides under the sax.

She introduces “The Itch” by saying “There’s a story behind this too, (laughter) it’s a little personal…”  Bob says you can stop there.  This was my favorite of the songs.  It opens with a Miller playing the floor tom—but the floor tom has all kinds of things on it—a cymbal, bells, a gong of some sort and she hits them all while keeping rhythm on the tom.  Then she gets to do some really snappy drumming—nice paradiddles and whatnot.  It was a little funny to watch the sax player just standing there watching her for the first minute and a half before joining in. After she gets a rhythm going the bass joins in.  The sax and keyboard lines are interesting and a little wonky sounding.  There’s some piano soloing and then a dissonant section with the sax and the keys playing off of each other.

Overall, this was an enjoyable set.

[READ: March 18, 2016] Squish #6

This book is about admitting to your fears.   Everybody in town wants to go see The Water Bear, a scary horror movie–with a great scary poster.  It’s all anyone can talk about.

When they finally get to the movie, I love that the first scare is a cat jumping out at you (classic horror movie trope).  But then everyone is terrified by the genuinely frightening Water Bear.  A footnote informs us that the Water Bear is entirely real.  Fortunately, it is also only 1 mm long (click if you dare)

The movie is super scary and Squish is terrified for days afterward. However, his friend Pod thought it was cool and Peggy thought the kitty was cute (Squish notes that it was cute until it got eaten). (more…)

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Taj Express: The Bollywood Musical Revue (Mayo Performing Arts Center, Morristown, NJ, February 7, 2017)

Posted in A.R. Rahman, Mayo Performing Arts Center, Morristown, NJ, Shruti Merchant, Slumdog Millionaire, Taj Express, Vaibhavi Merchant on February 7, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENtaj1DED: February 7, 2017] Taj Express

I saw this advertised at MPAC a few months ago.  I was really intrigued by it and thought that it might be fun for all four of us to go.  Going in, I had literally no idea what to expect.  I imagined we see some fun dancing, some extravagant costumes and some exotic music.

I didn’t even know that there would be a story.  I just assumed it would be 2 hours of fun Indian entertainment.  So imagine our surprise to get there and discover that there was not only a story, but a very funny one at that.

And all four of us really enjoyed the show a lot–even Clark!  The music was outstanding–super up-tempo and fun. And the dancing was magnificent–the energy, the costumes, the special effects–what more could you want.

(more…)

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Seth Meyers (Mayo Performing Arts Center, Morristown, NJ, February 4, 2017)

Posted in Late Night with Seth Meyers, Mayo Performing Arts Center, Morristown, NJ, Seth Meyers on February 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: February 4, 2017] Seth Meyers

sethI’d always liked Seth Meyers on Weekend Update, but I never thought all that much about him beyond that.  But when he started hosting Late Night, I realized that he was really really funny.  And in the past year or so he has been outstanding.  Whether political or personal, his jokes are usually right on the money.  And, even better, when they fail, he knows how to make fun of himself and his writers perfectly.

So, when I saw that he was going to be doing standup at MPAC, I grabbed tickets pretty quickly.

This event wasn’t on the MPAC main calendar, because it was listed as The Drew Forum Speaker Series.  I had no idea what this was, but I didn’t care, I wanted to see Seth.

When the show started, a woman, presumably from Drew came out and gave a pretty lavish introduction–atypical for a standup.  And she said that other people who have spoken in this series include Jon Oliver and a guy from Fox whose name I won’t mention.  And then I got worried that this was some kind of Q&A panel or something like that.

But it wasn’t.  It was Seth doing standup. But, I have to gripe that his set was really short.  See the end. (more…)

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Parquet Courts (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, January 31, 2017)

Posted in Beck, Dave Matthews Band, Matchbox 20, Napoleon Dynamite, Parkay Quarts, Parquet Courts, Philadelphia, PA, Smashing Pumpkins, The Rolling Stones, Toadies, Union Transfer on January 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: January 31, 2017] Parquet Courts

2017-01-31-21-54-46I was under the impression that Parquet Courts had been around for a while (they have 4 LPs and 3 EPS out), but they formed in 2010 and their first album to gain notice was released in 2012.  They’re just really prolific.

When I heard they were playing Philly I grabbed tickets right away assuming it would sell out.  I don’t think it did, but that didn’t stop it from being a really enjoyable, if brief, first concert of 2017.

I thought of Parquet Courts as a pretty  punky band–some of their songs are quite noisy and fast (and short).  But just the other night I watched them play, “Human Performance” on TV and I was quite surprised to see how kinda dorky they all looked–Oxford shirts and sweaters and the like–not stereotypical punks at all.  Which was cool.

I had arrived plenty early and was only one person from the stage when they started (not always great for sound but great for pictures).  (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“Where is Luckily” (New Yorker, June 6 & 13, 2016)

Posted in Amélie, Books about writers, Child Development, Children's Books, Essays, Herman Melville, Kathe Recheis, Language, Mo Willems, Nostalgia, Parenting, Rivka Galchen, Tiny Desk Concert, Tove Jansson, William Shakespeare, Yann Tiersen on January 17, 2017| Leave a Comment »

6616 SOUNDTRACK: YANN TIERSEN-Tiny Desk Concert #219 (May 21, 2012).

yannYann Tiersen scored the soundtrack to Amélie.  But he also writes and sings lovely chamber-pop music.

The first song “The Gutter”  opens with Tiersen playing a swirling violin melody accompanied by an acoustic guitar, a ukulele and keys.  Tiersen doesn’t sing, but the lead singer’s voice is yearning and delightfully accented as well.  (No names are given for the rest of the band).  I liked the way the song built in intensity even while his voice retained that quiet style of singing.

For the second song, “Monuments” everyone switches around.  Tiersen plays a lead 12 string acoustic guitar, the ukulele player is on keys and all four sing harmony lead.  You can tell that Tiersen is not American because of the way the word “Monuments” is sung “all monYOUments…” which adds an exotic flavor to the song.  The delicate keyboard sounds float nicely over the acoustic guitars.

They stay with this lineup for “Tribulations.”  The singer from the first song and the acoustic guitarist sing lead.  And everyone else joins on harmony.  “The Trial” opens with the four singing a beautiful “ooh” in harmony.  Then the other three sing a complex backing vocal while Tiersen sings lead.

There’s some really lovely melodies in this concert.

[READ: January 12, 2017] “Where is Luckily”

The June 6 & 13, 2016 issue of the New Yorker was the Fiction Issue.  It also contained five one page reflections about “Childhood Reading.” 

Having a child is like rereading your own childhood.

Galchen has a young daughter and that daughter has a some favorite stories.  One is a Moomin (which I love), another is a Piggy & Gerald.  Galchen says that if you read children’s book enough times, “they start to seem like Shakespeare.”

But she says that her daughter doesn’t read in a linear fashion.  “What happens next” doesn’t seem to cross her mind.  She reads them more like eternal landscapes: “In that sense, nothing is happening, and she reads for that nothing.” (more…)

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Janet Frame–“Gorse is Not People” (New Yorker, September 1, 2008)

Posted in Delusions, Huh?, Janet Frame, New Yorker, Short Story, The Simpsons, Tiny Desk Concert, William Bell on January 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »

sept1 SOUNDTRACK: WILLIAM BELL-Tiny Desk Concert #563 (September 7, 2016).

william-bellI’d never heard of William Bell before this show, although I see that he is apparently a classic soul singer with hits from Stax records back in 1960s.

Bell has a new album out this year and the title song “This is Where I Live” is a kind of autobiographical story of his life.  He sings of growing up and hearing Sam Cooke and then writing songs of his own that have taken him around the world.

I love the idea of “The Three of Me”: “Last night I had a dream and there were three of me.  There was the man I was, the man I am, and the man I want to be.”

The first two songs sound great–classic soul with horns and lots of bass and backing vocalists.

Bell’s voice sounds great as well.  He sounds like a veteran soulmaker.  And although he sounds timeless, I’d never guess he was 77 years old. And yet, he co-wrote “Born Under a Bad Sign,” which I thought was older than 70 years.

Either way, he plays it here.  I think his is the version I know least well (he mentions that even Homer Simpson has done a cover of it).  Bell’s version is, of course, great.

And here I have to mention his backing band  There are about 12 people all wearing bright yellow shirts.   And just about every person with an instrument gets to do a solo during “Bad Sign” which is why the song clocks in at about 10 minutes.

It starts with a great bluesy guitar solo, and then in turn we get to hear bars from saxophone, bass, organ, piano, bass sax, soprano sax and trombone.  The backing band is called The Total Package Band.  And they sound perfect for Bell’s music.

[READ: March 1, 2016] “Gorse is Not People”

Here’s another case of the same author being published just a few months after their previous story (June).

This story had a date at the end of the story–1954.  I had to look up some details about Janet Frame.  Turns out that she is an author from New Zealand and she began writing in the 1950s.

I don’t know if that’s what makes her stories seem so alien to me or what.  I found her previous story to be pretty inaccessible.  And this one is also pretty out there.  It also seemed very un-PC–which makes sense if it was written 60 years ago.  But the previous story was all about someone in a psychiatric home.  And this one is also about someone who is in a special place “in the yard where they put people who were strange in shape and ways” (more…)

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Janet Frame–“A Night at the Opera” (New Yorker, June 2, 2008)

Posted in A Night at the Opera, Dementia, Huh?, Janet Frame, New Yorker, Sloan, The Marx Brothers, Tiny Desk Concert on January 5, 2017| 1 Comment »

62SOUNDTRACK: THE JAYHAWKS-Tiny Desk Concert #556 (August 8, 2016).

jayhawksWhen The Jayhawks first had a hit back in 1992 (“Waiting for the Sun”), I actively disliked it.  I’m not sure why but at the time something about it really rubbed me wrong.  Now, I happen to really like the song. But more interestingly, I think that their newest album, especially “Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces” is fantastic.  It’s one of my favorite songs of 2016.

The verses are simple and catchy, the chorus is mesmerizingly fun to sing.  And the way the band fills in around Gary Louris’ voice is just perfect (and those harmonies, wow).  The version here is perfect–feeling a little more  “live” than it does on record (as it should)

“Lovers of the Sun” mixes the verses of an unwritten Sloan song with a 1960s folk California chorus.  The e-bow (which they’re worried didn’t get picked up) sounds cool and eerie at the same time.

“Leaving the Monsters Behind” has a bouncy bassline that propels this song and everyone sings delightful harmonies.  There’s close harmonies with Louris and higher ones from the drummer.  The middle section (ostensibly the solo) is really interesting for the way it shifts dramatically and the bass plays something very different from the bouncy main part.  The parts work very well together.

“Comeback Kids” opens with a high riff on the guitar and a slow bass keeping the pace.  I love that keyboardist Karen Grotberg switches back and forth between piano and this little synth pad thing that plays cool theremin-like sounds.  The riff that leads to chorus is really dramatic as well.  The ending, in which everyone sings some “oohs” and the riffs build and build, is right on.

I’m delighted at how much I’ve changed my mind about The Jayhawks.  And it only took 24 years (and many many breakups, re-formations and personnel changes) for me to change my mind.

[READ: February 26, 2016] “A Night at the Opera”

I found this story to be rather unsatisfying.  And it may have just been that when I printed it out, the first section was on one page and the second section–the start of page two–seemed so different that I wondered if I had somehow printed the wrong second page.

The story opens with the narrator reflecting on watching the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera and how they laughed and laughed.

Then the second part jumps to a hospital known as Park House.  It is a place for people who need assistance all the time.  There are varying degrees of mental deficiencies in the hospital: the violent, the uncontrollably deluded, those who had murdered or who would murder, and the speechless. (more…)

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Woody Allen–“Over, Around, and Through, Your Highness” (New Yorker, May 26, 2008)

Posted in Fashion, Film & TV, Funny (ha ha), Kevin Morby, Lou Reed, New Yorker, Tiny Desk Concert, Woody Allen on January 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »

tny 5.26.08 cvr.indd SOUNDTRACK: KEVIN MORBY-Tiny Desk Concert #554 (August 1, 2016).

morby

I didn’t know Kevin Morby before listening to this concert.  He was in two bands that I’ve also never heard of: Woods and The Babies.

Morby plays a kind of smooth folk (but somehow not really folky because the low end feels a bit more rocking).  I found at least the song “Dorothy” to be kind of like Lou Reed–same style of delivery and groove, but on an acoustic guitar (and sounding far less like a disaffected New Yorker).

He plays three songs and his band consists of a drummer a bassist and a lead guitarist.  He sings and plays acoustic guitar.

“Cut Me Down” is a mostly acoustic-feeling song (you can barely hear the electric guitar).  He even takes the few leads that are there.  The song has  some good dramatic pauses, and then about half way through, it shifts to a new melody–the bassist and the electric guitar playing similarly high notes.

“Dorothy” is a much more interesting song to me.  Even if I do feel lit sounds bit like Lour Reed.  It’s on this song that guitarist Meg Duffy shines more.  Her guitar has a cool echo effect on it.  And while she’s not playing loud or hard, she’s got a cool sound, especially when she plays lead.  On this song her lead guitar “substitutes” for other instruments.  He sings that he could “get that piano” or “that trumpet” to play something like… and she gives a little solo (I particularly like the “trumpet” one).  She also gets a chill proper  solo.

But it’s the final song, “I Have Been to the Mountain” which is the most dramatic and interesting.  In addition to the minor keys chords he plays, the bass comes in with a cool riff.  And the chorus is intense.  With good reason.  The song is about the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner at the hands of a New York City police officer:

 That man lived in this town / Till that pig took him down / And have you heard the sound / Of a man stop breathing, pleading?

But it’s not overstated or melodramatic.  And Meg gets a cool solo in the middle as well.

[READ: February 23, 2016] “Over, Around, and Through, Your Highness”

I have gotten to the point where I pretty much don’t even read the New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs column anymore.  Most of the pieces are an extended joke that could best be summed up by a few paragraphs rather than a whole page.  But there are some authors who I will always give time to and Woody Allen is one of them.

His short funny pieces are not musings on a joke, they are actual stories that develop and usually reflect back on themselves by the end.

This piece opens with a movie producer bemoaning the state of things.  In typical Woody Allen fashion, he plays with pop culture, talking about the latest film “Mourning Becomes Electra on Ice.” He notes that if he’s not careful his next job will be an easy one in which he answers the questions “Did you work last week?  Did you look for work?” (more…)

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