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Archive for the ‘Film & TV’ Category

David Cross (Merriam Theatre, Philadelphia, PA, April 3, 2016)

Posted in Alvin and the Chipmunks, Arrested Development, Cigarettes, Comedy Album, David Cross, Funny (ha ha), Guns, Hitler, Holidays, Merriam Theatre, Mr Show, Murder, Philadelphia, PA, Political Humor, Politicians, Racism, Religion, Yuck! on April 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: April 3, 2016] David Cross

cross I have enjoyed David Cross since the old days of Mr. Show, and the as Tobias on Arrested Development and even in Alvin and the, well, actually I’m just happy for him that he got a lot of money for it.

When he released his previous stand up album, Bigger and Blackerer, Sarah and I listened to it in the car on a long trip and we had tears in our eyes from laughing so hard.

So when I heard he was touring I thought it would be fun to see him live.  And, yes, it was.

But we ran into a few bumps along the way.  We had to leave very late because our babysitter had car trouble.  She arrived just late enough that we weren’t sure if it was worth still driving the hour to Philly.  We decided if traffic was terrible we would just stop somewhere and have dinner instead.  I even called the Theatre to see if there was an opening act (nope) and if the show really started at 7:30 and not 8 (yup, he would start at exactly 7:30).  Traffic was light and the GPS said we’d get to the garage at 7:35.  I missed the turn for the alley that our garage was on, and then we got slightly lost on the walk from garage to theater and as we got there at 7:40… there were still a whole bunch of people milling about in the lobby.  And then they flashed the lights telling us to get to our seats.  We missed nothing!

And we even got to tsk at people who arrived later than us.  Cross even joked that he would wait to start his joke because “it’s not fucking distracting or anything” when people are being seated.  I was frankly shocked that people seemed to still be arriving around 8PM! (more…)

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Art Spiegelman–“To Laugh That We May Not Weep” (Harper’s, January 2016)

Posted in Art Spiegelman, Art Young, Bernie Sanders, Charlie Hebdo, Fantagraphics, Funny (ha ha), Harper's, History, Political Humor, Steve Earle, Tiny Desk Concert, Treme on April 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

jan2016 SOUNDTRACK: STEVE EARLE-Tiny Desk Concert #123 (April 25, 2011).

earleSteve Earle is pretty cool.  He’s a country outlaw who is a socialist and an outspoken Bernie Sanders supporter.  He is a vocal opponent of capital punishment.  He’s also written a song “directed towards the state of Mississippi and their refusal to abandon the Confederate Flag and remove it from their state flag.”

For this Tiny Desk it’s just him and his guitar as he sings songs from his then new album.

He opens with “Waitin’ On The Sky” and says it’s the first time he’s played it in front of people.  He has to restart the song because “debris from a Cobb salad shifted in his throat.”  He also forgets some of the words, but it still sounds great.

He is very chatty with lots of stories about the recording of the record and how a song that he mentions isn’t on the record, but it is on a download or vinyl.  “We used to make records for girls and now we make them for nerds.”

“Every Part Of Me” is a slow ballad, it’s quite pretty.  His voice sounds good and hard-worn as he sings.  He says it is “the song you’re most likely to hear on the handful of radio stations that actually play me.”

While tuning before his third song he says that he is  involved with a show called Treme “that’s ‘treme,’ just like it sounds… if you’re French.”  In the show he’s a street performer in New Orleans.  He says that there are non-traditional buskers–professional musicians who sing on the streets for tips (hundreds of dollars a day).  And he tells about the turf wars that began in the 80s.  Eventually an agreement was reached between the players.   That’s all a lead in to a song that is on the Treme soundtrack called “This City.”  It’s a touching song about New Orleans.

I’d always thought that he was much more “country” sounding, and maybe he is on record, but at least here, he is simply singing well writing and well-though out songs.

[READ: February 23, 2016] “To Laugh That We May Not Weep”

This is a brief essay about cartoonist Art Young.  Young would be 150 years old this year and Spiegelman says that Bernie Sanders would have been the best birthday present we could have given him.  Because Art Young was a radical! Political !! Cartoonist!!!  (the oblivion trifecta).  The only concept less inviting is a political radical.

Spiegelman says that once upon a time political cartoonists were very powerful (although in some respect they still are, as you can see by the the murdered Charlie Hebdo artists).

Young was a talented cartoonist who drew for all kinds of publications.  He was never convicted for his drawings, but he was put on trial for libel.  He was found not guilty; he drew a picture of himself sleeping with a caption “Art Young on trial for his life.”

Spiegelman contends that political cartoons are usually short-lived and timely but that Young’ are more timeless–and perhaps sadly still relevant.  And that he was never shrill or humorless. (more…)

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Mercè Rodoreda–“The Hanged Man” (Harper’s, November 2015)

Posted in Ben Sollee, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Death, Excerpt, Harper's, John Edgar Wideman, Mercè Rodoreda, Sex, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence, William Shakespeare, Yuck! on April 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

harpnovSOUNDTRACK: BEN SOLLEE-Tiny Desk Concert #141 (July 11, 2011).

solleeI’d never heard of Ben Sollee before this Tiny Desk and I’m a little surprised by that–he seems like the kind of musician I’d have run into somewhere.  For this set (I have no idea what his sets are usually like), they are a trio.

Sollee plays cello  and sings (!), Phoebe Hunt plays violin and sings backing vocals and Jordan Ellis plays drums (in this case one of cool those snare drum boxes).

But despite the strings-dominated sound, the songs feel very rock-oriented.  Although as the blurb says, they are kind of genre defying.  Each song has a very different feel.

On “Hurting” Sollee opens with some great big plucked bass notes from the cello.  Then Sollee switches between plucking and bowing the cello.  And that transition really impacts the overall sound, making it sound like more than a trio.  The violin plays some accented notes and then some big long notes (like the cello).  But it’s the drums (brushes on the box) that add a lot of character to this song.  Sollee has a good strong voice and it fits the song well.

“Captivity” is about being in prison (he wrote it after watching a documentary about a maximum security prison) both physical and metaphorical.  For this song he strums (in an interesting, folky way) the cello.  He plays some bass notes while strumming the rest of the instrument–it’s a great sound.  And I love how different this sounds from the first song.  Once again the percussive sounds add so much.

“The Globe” about the Globe Theatre and how it was burnt down twice.  So he wrote a story about a frustrated loverboy burning it down.  The song names checks some of Shakespeare’s characters and while not comical is kind of funny too.  Musically the song is great with builds and sudden stops.  It’s also quite funky at times, with all kinds of different rhythms from the cello and violin as well as the percussion (which in this case is hand claps).  He says that they’ve been having fun playing it live and that really comes through.  I really like the sounds that Sollee makes from the cello at the end of the song.

“Inclusions” is an a capella song.  He says they’d been working on it in the van on the way down.  I expected a simple song, but they have wonderful harmonies as well.  For percussion, Phoebe is rattling a can of cacao nibs. (There was recently a very funny cacao nibs joke on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, otherwise I’d never have heard of them–I like that Sollee beat Brooklyn by five years though).

This was a wonderful find and I definitely want to hear more from Sollee–I’m curious to see what he gets up to in the studio.

[READ: January 10, 2016] “The Hanged Man”

November was a dark month for stories in Harper’s.  This story along with the one I posted a while back from John Edgar Wideman both deal with suicide.  This is an excerpt from War, So Much, War, and it opens with a man cutting down a sack which was hanging in a tree.

The sack contains a body–“his face was white, his tongue black, his lips purple.”  When he cuts down the sack, the body’s head hits a rock and the protagonist is worried because the body is actually alive and he’s afraid it is now damaged.

The body doesn’t speak for a long time. But when it does it is angry that the man has cut him down. (more…)

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Ellen Rosenbush–“On Being a Stepparent” [Forum: How to Be a Parent] (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in A. Balkan, All Songs Considered, Ben Lerner, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Claire Messud, Declan McKenna, Ellen Rosenbush, Emma Donoghue, Essays, Gwen Austin, Harper's, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Michelle Tea, NPR/PRI/PBS, Pamela Druckerman, Parenting, Rivka Galchen, Sarah Manguso, South X Lullaby, SXSW on March 22, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK: DECLAN McKENNA-“Brazil” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (March 22, 2016).

mckennaDeclan McKenna is 17 and recently won the Glastonbury Contest with this song.  I’ve never heard the original, although it is described as more rocking than this version.

This is just McKenna and his acoustic guitar.  The melody is great and his guitar playing is good too.  His singing voice reminds me a lot of the guy from the Arctic Monkeys.  Although there’s moments in this version where he really seems to be straining/affecting his voice, which would probably work in a rocking song but which sound kind of rough in this little lullaby version—especially since his normal singing voice is really nice.

I was really surprised when the song switched to the third part (the Brazil part).  It switches the tone of the song quite a bit and he does some nice falsettos too.  “Playing the beautiful game in Brazil” is quite different from “The guy who lives down the river with six cars and a grizzly bear.”

Okay I just listened to the proper song–it’s much poppier with all kinds of harmonies.  The song is much hookier this way.  His vocals  work better, although I’m not sure I’m sold on them entirely.  In fact, when I was watching the video of the song, one of the comments (NEVER READ THE COMMENTS!) says, “Settle down McLovin” and, yes, that’s it, he sounds like Christopher Mintz-Plasse straining, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unthink that.  And now, neither will you.

[READ: February 10, 2016] “On Being a Stepparent”

The August 2015 Harper’s had a “forum” called How to Be a Parent.  Sometimes these forums are dialogues between unlikely participants and sometimes, like in this case, each author contributes an essay on the topic.  There are ten contributors to this Forum: A. Balkan, Emma Donoghue, Pamela Druckerman, Rivka Galchen, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Ben Lerner, Sarah Manguso, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush and Michelle Tea.  Since I have read pieces from most of these authors I’ll write about each person’s contribution.

I don’t know Ellen Rosenbush’s work (she is an editor of Harper’s so I don’t know how much else she has “written.”  Rosenbush talks about the pros and cons of being a stepparent. (more…)

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A. Balkan–“Self-Portrait with Daughters” [Forum: How to Be a Parent] (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in A. Balkan, All Songs Considered, Ben Lerner, Boats, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush, Emma Donoghue, Essays, Harper's, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Michelle Tea, Mt. Wolf, NPR/PRI/PBS, Pamela Druckerman, Parenting, Rivka Galchen, Sarah Manguso, Sigur Rós, South X Lullaby, SXSW, The Big Lebowski, Vacation on March 19, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK:  MT. WOLF-“Hex” NPR’S SOUTH X LULLABY (March 19, 2016).

mtwolfMt Wolf breaks with the tradition of the Lullaby by playing their song in a hotel room!  This is the band’s single.

It’s a 6-minute beautiful song notable for singer Sebastian’s Fox’s soaring falsetto.  His voice is really quite amazing.

The second guitarist plays the quiet melody and then Fox plays a kind of solo over the top of it. After the initial falsetto of the first verse, the second verse shows the range of his voice, as he starts a little lower before soaring the heights once again.  The band has a female backing singer who actually sings high notes that are lower than his.

By four and a half minutes the songs starts to rocks out (and no doubt the room next door starts to wonder WTF)

The feel reminds me a bit of Sigur Rós, with that kind of soaring intensity.  This is definitely a love it or hate it song, but I think it’s quite beautiful.

[READ: February 10, 2016] “The Grand Shattering”

The August 2015 Harper’s had a “forum” called How to Be a Parent.  Sometimes these forums are dialogues between unlikely participants and sometimes, like in this case, each author contributes an essay on the topic.  There are ten contributors to this Forum: A. Balkan, Emma Donoghue, Pamela Druckerman, Rivka Galchen, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Ben Lerner, Sarah Manguso, Claire Messud, Ellen Rosenbush and Michelle Tea.  Since I have read pieces from most of these authors I’ll write about each person’s contribution.

Anyone who reads this blog knows I don’t know poets very well. A. Balkan is a poet whom I had never heard of.

Imagine my surprise to find out that his essay was the most dramatic and exciting and went in directions that I never would have guessed.

He says that when his twin daughters were born, he and his wife were exhausted from all the work.  So his family and friends invited them t0 a cabin where they could relax and have other take care of the kids for a couple of days.

Sounds ideal.  Except that on their second day there, a tornado came through and destroyed the cabin they were staying in (for real!)  Fortunately they were not in it. (more…)

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Austin Smith–“Leap Day” (Harper’s, August 2015)

Posted in Alan Sparhawk, Austin Smith, Brokeback Mountain, Gaelynn Lea, Harper's, LGBTQ, Low, Short Story, Suicide, The Murder of Crows, Tiny Desk Concert, Tiny Desk Contest on March 15, 2016| Leave a Comment »

augSOUNDTRACK: GAELYNN LEA-Tiny Desk Concert #514 (March 11, 2016).

graeGaelynn Lea won the Tiny Desk Contest and within a few days she was ready to appear for her formal Tiny Desk Concert.

She began her set with the prize winner, “Someday We’ll Linger In The Sun.”  The song was beautiful and haunting in the video, and it sounded just as good live.  She joked that with a loop pedal you have to be perfect, and it was.  Watching her play these notes is even more interesting than hearing them.

Gaelynn is clearly a little nervous, but she is still charming as she tells us how she got started in the music world.  She started fiddling because she had a crush on a boy who fiddled.  Simple as that.  She had been in a number of bands in Minnesota.  Then someone gave her a looping pedal and that changed everything for her.

She says that she began experimenting with the old and the new, and that the looping pedal allowed her to do things like play “Southwind.”  The song is 100 years old.  She loops a beautiful melody and then plays an excellent solo over the top it.  I think there’s something about the way she plays–her bowing seems to make her violin sound more like a cello or something–that makes her notes sound more haunting than another violinist might.

After the first two songs, Bob comes out to introduce Gaelynn.  He explains that she is a violin teacher and she has been playing for years and years.  And then he explains that she’s going to have accompaniment for the next two songs–Alan Sparhawk from Low!

Here’s how they met.  Gaelynn was playing at a farmer’s market with a guitar player.  Alan Sparhwawk who is also based in Duluth, MN, heard her playing.  Some time later, he called her (while she was at a wedding) and asked if she’d want to work on a project with him.  They made musis for a silent film and then formed the band The Murder of Crows.

And so Alan joins her for the last two songs.

“Bird” is an upbeat song with a lively lopped violin riff.  Alan plays slow guitars which flesh out the low end.  And then Gaelynn sings as the violin loops and Alan plays low notes.  Alan takes the second verse and then Gaelynn sings a round over the top of his voice.  It’s quite lovely.

She says she never wrote any songs until she met him, and she’s very grateful.

The final song is “Moment of Bliss.”  I really like the melody and vocal line of this song.  And again, the lyrics are really thoughtful.  Sparhawk’s slow guitar and low harmony voice really add depth to this lovely five minute song.  When she plays a looped solo at the end, it’s really beautiful.

[READ: January 25, 2016] “Leap Day”

I don’t think I’ve read too many stories where the plot of a movie is as instrumental to the story as it was in this one.

And when I say that that movie is Brokeback Mountain, it gives you a ton of context clues.

The story is a simple one.  Ernie Boettner is climbing up a grain silo in February.  And then we find out why.

Ernie is a farmer.  The townspeople of Park City, Illinois noticed that he seemed to get a lot of visits from the veterinarian Chester Bradbury.  There was nothing wrong with that per se, but it seemed like sometimes the vet’s truck was there over night.  Which seemed unusual. (more…)

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P.G. Wodehouse/The Goodale Brothers–Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense (2013)

Posted in David Goodale, Funny (ha ha), Hugh Laurie, Julieta Venegas, Marriage Trouble, P.G. Wodehouse, Play (Drama), Robert Goodale, Stephen Fry, Tiny Desk Concert, Unreliable narrator on March 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

woosterSOUNDTRACK: JULIETA VENEGAS-Tiny Desk Concert #126 (May 9, 2011).

julietaJulieta Venegas has a sweet voice.  She plays accordion and guitar and, for this show, is accompanied by a clarinet and flute.  The whole concert is delicate and lovely.

She sings threes songs in Spanish but describes them in English.

“Si Tú No Estas” features her on the accordion.  She plays a delightfully simple riff that sounds jaunty on the little accordion.  The clarinet is a fitting accompaniment to her on this quiet song.  I love that it feels vaguely French, even though it is sung in Spanish.  This is about the people you leave at home when you travel.

“Debajo De Mi Lengual” (Under My Tongue) is a bit more folk sounding because she plays the song on guitar and is accompanied by a flute.  The song is about being insecure to talk to others.  The melody is simple, but the flute adds some lovely notes.

For “Bien O Mal” she stays on guitar but this time is accompanied by the accordion.  This song is the most rollicking (not very rollicking at all, of course, but the tempo is much faster.  The accordion mostly plays chords to flesh out the song.  The song sounds lovely, which is why it’s especially funny that at the end she seems unsure of just how good it was.

[READ: December 14, 2015] Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense

I have never read any of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, although I have seen most of the series starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (incomparably played).

This play is a “new” story written by the Goodale Brothers.  It is based on a bunch of Wodehouse’s pieces, particularly The Code of the Woosters (1938).  Robert and David Goodale were asked to put the above story on the stage.  So they worked on it and modified it and came up with this version.

They came up with the idea of Wooster telling one of his tales and Jeeves “helping” as only Jeeves can.  So in this production, there are only three actors.  But they play multiple parts each trying to flesh out Bertie’s story.  Wooster is Wooster, Jeeves is Jeeves and several others, and their friend Seppings plays many many roles, including some women and a nine foot tall man.

The story itself is intentionally convoluted and hilarious.  It involves an expensive creamer, a police officer, Bertie’s aunt and the ghastly woman Bertie might jut have to marry. (more…)

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Jesse Eisenberg–The Spoils (2015)

Posted in Beer, Drinking, Drugs, Fraud, Funny (ha ha), Gaby Moreno, Jesse Eisenberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sex, The Big Bang Theory, The Spoils, Tiny Desk Concert, Unlikable main character, Work on March 8, 2016| Leave a Comment »

spoilsSOUNDTRACK: GABY MORENO-Tiny Desk Concert #149 (August 15, 2011).

gabyGaby Moreno surprised me in this set.  Her first song “No Regrets,” begins like a gentle bossa nova sung in Spanish.  The song switches to English about midway through, but it retains that lovely bossa nova feel.  Morena’s voice is lovely and clear. She plays guitar and sings and is accompanied by Adam Levy, also on guitar.

So far, so good.

The second song, “Ave Que Emigra” begins as a gentle ballad, but quickly morphs into a kind of upbeat folk song also sung in Spanish (Moreno is from Guatemala).  It is a lovely song with some beautiful oooohs.

It’s the third song the surprised me.

“Sing Me Life” opens in a much darker vein–rough strummed guitars and a blues solo from Levy.  Even Moreno’s voice has gotten deeper and bluesier.  The song is sung in English and although she sounds like herself, she also sounds really different–not exactly angrier, but less sweet, more intense.  The “Hey hey hey’s” are a far cry from the sweet “ooooohs” of the previous song.  Levy plays a nice bluesy solo on this song as well.

Moreno has a great deal of diversity in her set and she handles it all really well.

[READ: October 20, 2015] The Spoils

I have enjoyed Eisenberg’s writing in the past.  But this was the first full play I had read by him (he has two others). It is very funny (and surprisingly vulgar).

There are five characters. Ben (played by Eisenberg when it was performed) owns the apartment where the action is set. He is the son of a wealthy man, going to college for “film” and basically enjoying himself as much as he can. He drinks, he smokes pot and he picks on his roommate (who might just be his only friend). His language is shockingly vulgar, dropping curses left and right.

His roommate is Kalyan (who in the performance was played by Kunal Nayyar (from The Big Bang Theory). Kalyan is from Nepal. He has come to NYU to study business and has even written book about economic conditions in Nepal. Kalyan is a bit dorky (he loves PowerPoint, which is used to great comic effect throughout the story). And he is trying to win over Reshma.

Reshma is Indian, but she has lived in the States all of her life, so she is really American.  She has high hopes for Kalyan, but it seems she fears he might not live up to his potential.

In the opening scene Kalyan is showing her a PowerPoint and being incredibly sweet to her.  When Ben walks in he is all crass and vulgar—funny but very unlikable.  He essentially makes Reshma leave (although as soon as he shows up we know she wants to leave anyhow) and then begins his tale. (more…)

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Disney’s The Little Mermaid (Montgomery High School, February 27, 2016)

Posted in Funny (ha ha), Montgomery High School Theatre, Montgomery, NJ, Non-Dicktion, Ocean, Sesame Street, Set at School, Set in New Jersey!, T., The Little Mermaid on March 1, 2016| Leave a Comment »

mermaid[ATTENDED: February 27, 2016] The Little Mermaid

I pass by the Montgomery High School every day on my way to work.  And for years I have seen them put signs out about upcoming plays.  I’ve always been impressed by their selection of works, but I’ve never considered stopping in to see one.  I guess it seemed weird to go to a high school performance at a school where my kids don’t go (and won’t go).

And yet, why should that be?  It’s a fun way to spend some time watching talented actors doing a good show, right?  With Clark doing stage crew for his upcoming fifth grade play and Tabby really enjoying performing in the house, I thought that perhaps it would be fun for everyone.

Well, it turned out that neither Clark nor Sarah could go, so I took Tabby.  And we had a wonderful time!

Tabby was thrilled by the show and I enjoyed it very much (and was shocked to realize how much I did not know the music for this story–I guess we’ve watched other Disney movies a lot more than this one). (more…)

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Nick Bertozzi–Lewis and Clark (2011)

Posted in 19th Century, Ben Folds, Explorers, First Second :01, Graphic Novel, Guns, History, Live from Daryl's House, Memoirs, Meriwether Lewis, Native Americans, Ocean, Sacagawea, Thomas Jefferson, Tiny Desk Concert, Travel, Violence, William Clark, YA Books, yMusic on February 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »

SlewisOUNDTRACK: BEN FOLDS-Tiny Desk Concert #508 (February 16, 2016).

benfolds I’ve liked Ben Folds for many many years.  He’s funny, he’s amazing live and he plays a mighty good song or two.  He’s the kind of artist you say, Has he really not done a Tiny Desk Concert before? (He did an episode of Live from Daryl’s House after all).  But he’s finally here to bang the hell out of their piano and curse up a storm.

He plays several songs from his new album So There, which is  a collaboration with the sextet yMusic.  I haven’t actually listened to the record much because I gave it to Sarah and haven’t grabbed it from her pile yet.  Since there’s no strings for this Tiny Desk, these songs sound just like normal Ben Folds songs–clever lyrics, fun piano and unexpected twists.

The first song is “Phone in a Pool,” one of his rollicking stompers.  It’s catchy and fun to sing a long to and after one listen, you’re right there with him in New Orleans throwing a phone in a pool.  Midway through the song, he forgets the words and just starts laughing: “In a world where you get applause for fucking up.”  And then he makes up a verse about forgetting the words.

“Not a Fan” is a slower song with a beautiful piano melody and biting, funny lyrics (get your T-shirt signed, fangirl).

“Capable of Anything” is a fast, romping song.  He says on the record the vocals are very quiet, so he’ll see what he can do.  After a run through a verse he stops and realizes that he has knocked the piano out of tune.   And when he bangs on the keys at the end, its easy to see how.  There’s some really fast piano work (and you can hear him stomping along).

he says he’ll play some old songs.  He asks for a song and someone shouts “Emeline,” which he immediately starts playing.  And then about a verse in, he gives some story behind the song.  He says that when he was a kid 8 or 9, he wrote earnest songs, but when he was a teenager he wrote “cool”s songs like “Having Two Dicks is Cool.”

And then he started using songwriter vernacular, words you only use in pop songs, “why’d you make me cry, girl?”  Why do people do that? When he was 18 or 19 he started to write songs that were more natural, like Emeline, the first song he was proud of–using the word “stupid” or a money analogy–and which he still loves playing.

He’s willing to do more songs and asks for requests saying which ones he can or can’t do.  And then Bob points out that he’s going to miss his plane if he does more than one song.  So he chooses for everyone and plays an amazing version of “One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces.”  he says it can probably be done and will put the rest of the piano out of tune.  And he’s not kidding.  He really pounds the heck out of that thing–how does his own piano manage?

The song is bouncy and fun and he even jokes with the lyrics near the end.

It’s an amazing, invigorating set and has me really excited to see him this summer.

[READ: February 28, 2016] Lewis and Clark

In 2014, Bertozzi made the excellent Shackleton graphic novel.  But three years earlier he had created another historical graphic novel, this one about Lewis and Clark.

Like Shackleton, it aims to be truthful but not comprehensive.  Bertozzi himself explains that it is not meant to be a replacement for the scholarly recounting of the journey.  Rather, he hopes to show the “experience” of the journey.

The book doesn’t really include any historical context, so in a brief summary:

Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Jefferson commissioned a group of U.S. Army volunteers under the command of Captain Meriwether Lewis and his close friend, Second Lieutenant William Clark to explore the territory.  Their journey lasted from May 1804 to September 1806. The primary objective was to explore and map the newly acquired territory, find a practical route across the Western half of the continent, and establish an American presence in this territory before Britain and other European powers tried to claim it.The campaign’s secondary objectives were scientific and economic: to study the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and establish trade with local Native American tribes.

(more…)

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