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Archive for the ‘Musicals’ Category

The Understudy (McCarter Theatre, Princeton NJ, October 15, 2014)

Posted in Adam Green, Danielle Skraastad, Funny (ha ha), JD Taylor, McCarter Theatre, Meta, Princeton, NJ, Romance, Set in New Jersey!, Spamalot, The Understudy, Theresa Rebeck on October 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 15, 2014] The Understudy

understudyI feel like we haven’t been attending as much live theater this year (this year was more about concerts), but I was happy that McCarter was showing this comedy (they just showed Antony & Cleopatra which I just was never quite in the mood for).  I got good seats and off we went.

I didn’t realize this was a preview performance (and what exactly that means I’m not sure–we saw a preview performance of Spamalot on Broadway and it was wonderful).  With our programs was a survey of things we liked/didn’t like or suggestions we might have about the show.  I though the show was wonderful and wouldn’t change anything.

The premise of the play is fantastic, especially if you like plays about the theater and acting.  The story is that one of the lead actors and his understudy are going to have a rehearsal of their upcoming play.  There are only three characters: the lead, the understudy and the stage manager.  Any behind the scenes type of story is bound to be funny, and so this was.  But what elevated this story to levels beyond a simple behind the scenes comedy was that the play the the actors are rehearsing for is a recently uncovered play written by Franz Kafka called The Man Who Disappeared.

The play is looking to be a huge success (Broadway loves Kafka!) especially since it stars two movie stars (there’s jokes about movie stars being on Broadway).  The main lead of the Kafka play is never seen, but we learn that he makes $20 million per picture.  The second lead is Jake–his recent film made $68 million in the first weekend and he is considered a major draw.  The understudy is Harry, a down on his luck artiste who is really happy to just get paid, even if he will likely never go on.  The third character is Roxanne.  She is the stage manager and she has a very compelling back story that is slowly revealed.

The fourth “character” is Laura. We never see Laura, but she is in charge of the lights and set during this rehearsal.  She is apparently high and is constantly causing trouble–missing light cues, bringing down incorrect sets.  For a nonexistent person, she is a highlight of the show. (more…)

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George Saunders–“Liner Notes” (New Yorker, June 23, 2014)

Posted in Andrew Lloyd Webber, Beyonce, Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Funny (ha ha), George Saunders, Led Zeppelin, Meat Loaf, Monty Python's Flying Circus, New Yorker, The Allman Brothers Band, Tim Rice, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Tom Waits, Word usage on September 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

june23SOUNDTRACK: MONTY PYTHON-“Rock Notes” (1980).

mpThis skit (more of a monologue) comes from Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album, the first Python album I ever bought.  It’s not my favorite bit from them, but it’s short and wedged in the middle of the rest of the album which means that I know it by heart.  Now, the skit is most famous for naming Toad the Wet Sprocket (Eric Idle says he tried to come up with the most absurd name he could think of and there it was).  The band featured Flamboyant Ambidextrous Rex who fell off the back of a motorcycle.

What I tend to forget is that the rest of the joke is all about one band Dead Monkeys who have just broken up again.  They were together for ten years, but for nine of those years the band had other names.  Primarily, the names are fishy: Dead Salmon, Trout, Poached Trout in a White Wine Sauce, Dead Herring.  Then they ditched the fishy references for Dead Loss, Heads Together, Dead Together and ultimately Helen Shapiro.

This extended riff is rather silly and I’m not even sure it’s appropriate for a joke on bands.  I can’t think of many bands who have broken up and reformed under new names (I mean, yes, there’s a couple, but not enough to warrant this extended joke).

And yet, I still remember the joke, so it must be something, right?

What do I think of Dead Duck? or Lobster?

[READ: September 16, 2014] “Liner Notes”

This Shouts & Murmurs piece begins so strongly that I was super excited to read it.  Saunders riffs on liner notes in albums, specifically failed albums.  His liner notes are for the album 2776: A Musical Journey Through America’s Past, Present & Future which is just another attempt to “engage with the vast sweep of American history” via the musical epic.

The best joke is citing Meat Loaf’s “Ben Franklin Makes Love in a Foggy Grove of Trees” (which failed to translate to live performance).  [I would totally listen to that song].  He then talks about a Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber production of “Johnny Tremain” which was too intellectual for a nineteen-seventies audience.  But I feel like Saunders goes off track when, instead of staying with the slightly absurd realism, he jumps the shark by saying that the songs were too risqué “for a staid culture that, at that time, still believed that babies came when you left a pastel turtleneck rolled up in a wad overnight.”  It broke me right out of the exaggerated realism into the realm of outrageous farce.

Which is a shame because returning to real artists like Tom Waits making a biography of Jesse James called “A White-Trash Rambling Christ Figure Just Shot Your Brother, Amigo” is pretty darn funny. (more…)

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Michael Robbins–“Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives: A poet’s guide to metal” (Harper’s, May 2014)

Posted in Baroness, Carcass, Charles Baudelaire, Chelsey Minnis, Christopher Logue, Converge, Cryptopsy, Deafheaven, Death, Dissection, Essays, Frederick Seidel, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Grave Miasma, Guns n' Roses, Hammers of Misfortune, Harper's, Iron Maiden, James Dickey, Jesus Christ Superstar, John Ashbery, John Milton, Kvelertak, Lord Byron, Manilla Road, Mastodon, Michael Robbins, Ozzy Osbourne, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Pig Destroyer, Poetry, Poets, Poison Idea, Punks, Rainer Maria Rilke, Religion, Repulsion, Slayer, Technology, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Violence, Voivod, William Blake, Yuck! on April 19, 2014| 2 Comments »

may20014SOUNDTRACK: CRYPTOPSY-“Slit Your Guts” (1996).

cryptI had never heard of this band until I saw the song mentioned in the article.  The song is impossibly fast with speeding guitars, super fast (inhuman) drums and an indecipherable growl as vocal.  In other words, a typical cookie monster metal song.  And yet, there is a lot more to it and, indeed it took me several listens before I could even figure out what was happening here, by which time I had really fallen for the song.

There’s a middle section which is just as punishing and fast but which is basically an instrumental break–not for showing off exactly but for showcasing more than the bands pummel.  It has a short guitar solo followed by a faster more traditional solo (each for one measure, each in a different ear). Then the tempo picks up for an extended instrumental section.  The melody is slightly more sinister, but it sounds great.  There’s even a (very short) bass solo that sticks out as a totally unexpected (and fun) surprise.

Then the growls come back in, staying with the new melody.  The vocals are so low and growly that they are almost another distorted instrument rather than a voice.

After that there’s a lengthy proper guitar solo.  As the song comes to a close,  it repeats some previous sections before suddenly halting.  It’s quite a trip. And it definitely makes me want to hear more from them (whatever their name means).

[READ: April 14, 2014] “Destroy Your Safe and Happy Lives”

Robbins, who is a poet, but about whom I know little else, takes us on a sort of literary tour of heavy metal.  His tone is interesting–he is clearly into metal, like in a big way (at the end of the article he talks about taking his writing students to see Converge (although he doesn’t exactly say why)), but he’s also not afraid to make fun of the preposterousness of, well, most of the bands–even the ones he likes.  It’s a kind of warts and all appreciation for what metal is and isn’t.  many people have written about metal from many different angles, so there’s not a lot “new” here, but it is interesting to hear the different bands discussed in such a thoughtful (and not just in a fanboy) way.

His first footnote is interesting both for metal followers and metal disdainers: “Genre classification doesn’t interest me.  Listen to Poison Idea’s Feel the Darkness followed by Repulsion’s Horrified and tell me the main difference between hardcore punk and metal isn’t that one has a bullshit positive message and one has a bullshit negative message.”

But since Robbins is a poet, he is interested in metal’s connection to poetry.  And in the article he cites William Blake (of course), but also Rilke and John Ashbery and (naturally) Milton’s Paradise Lost, as well as Shelley, Lord Byron and Charles Baudelaire.  He talks about them not because they are cool poets, but because they have also talked about because of metal’s “most familiar trope…duh, Satanism, which might be silly–okay, its’ definitely silly, but has a distinguished literary pedigree”.  Besides, he notes that Satan has the best lines in Paradise Lost (and I note that just as Judas has the best songs in Jesus Christ Superstar).

But sometimes this Satanism turns into a  form of paganism which then turns into nature worship.  From Voivod’s “Killing Technology” to black metal’s romanticism of nature (sometimes to crazy extremes–but that’s what a band needs to do to stand out sometimes).  Metal is all about the dark and primordial, a”rebuke to our soft lives.”

And yet, as a poet, Robbins has some quibbles with metal: (more…)

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Tori Amos and Samuel Adamson–The Light Princess: A Musical (2013)

Posted in Acrobats, Dance, Fantasy, Nature, Phish, Play (Drama), Rheostatics, Samuel Adamson, Sex, Short Books, The Light Princess, Tori Amos, Violence, William Shakespeare, tagged on March 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

toriSOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Boo Radley’s Guelph ON (December 3 1999).

booLike the previous show, this one is also a shortened set because of technical problems in the recording.  We don’t hear the technical problems–the bad songs were just left out.  There’s some static on the first song, but otherwise the sound quality is very good.

Dave tells everyone that Harmelodia is coming out on Tuesday.  They play a lot of songs from the album and some that are not, like “Used to It” and “Superdifficult” (which would eventually come out on Shooting Stars.

There’s some wonderfully crazy nonsense in “Four Little Songs.”  It’s practically Phish-like with the silliness they throw into it, and it ends with a great dig new wave sequence.  “Stolen Car” has been getting some great renditions in the last few shows, and this ne is no exception. There’s an excellent solo and an interesting ending which is basically a cappella.

This is another great show that nearly closes out 1999.

I have found real evidence that Boo Radley’s existed as a club as late as 2002, but amazingly there are no pictures of the place.  Someone needs to make a book out of small clubs across Canada.

[READ: March 6, 2014] The Light Princess

I had no idea that Tori Amos was involved in a musical.  I saw this book at work and was really intrigued.  Evidently it has been in the works for many years and was even supposed have been finished in 2012, but these things take time.  The book was a little vague about the history of the musical, but after a little searching I discovered that the story is based on a 19th-century Scottish fairytale (see a summary of the Fairy Tale from Wikipedia).  This version has music and lyrics by Tori Amos and a book and lyrics by Samuel Adamson.  They have morphed the story quite a bit but it definitely retains some of the original elements.

As it turns out those original elements were the things I liked best about it–maybe i should just watch the children’s version of the story that i saw on YouTube.  In this version the princess, whose name is now Althea,’ was the only person in her village not to cry when her mother died when she was 6.  This makes her lighter than air and she can only remain on the ground if she is tethered.  I liked this idea a lot and I was hoping for an interesting fantastical world to enter.

There are two countries which are at war, Althea’s country of Lagobel (which is rich in gold, but has no water) and Sealand (which has water, but no gold)–there is a dangerous Wilderness (full of dragons) that separates the two countries.  They are at war for resources (although we know that Lagobel is better because it is Sealand that starts the fight).  Sealand attacks Lagobel effectively destroying its military.  The King of Sealand believes that by killing Althea (the last in line to the throne), he will have all the gold to himself.  So the king sends his son Prince Digby to kill Althea.  (There’s a lot more backstory and deaths of family members which sets up this challenge). (more…)

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She Loves Me (Hamilton Murray Theater, Murray Dodge Hall, Princeton, NJ, June 20, 2013)

Posted in Acting, Dance, In the Good Old Summertime, Jerry Bock, Joe Masteroff, Marriage Trouble, Miklos Laszlo, Play (Drama), Romance, Sheldon Harnick, The Shop Around the Corner, Theater on July 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: June 20, 2013] She Loves Me

SheLovesMeI won free tickets to this show in Murray Dodge Hall, and olde theater in the heart of the Princeton University campus.  Sarah and I were delighted to discover that the theater held only 190 people and that our seats were in the fifth row!

This is student theater, but, as I said to Sarah, these are seriously good acting students (better than most of the students that I went to school with, anyhow).

She Loves Me is a musical based on the drama Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo.  Before being adapted in 1963 as She Loves Me, (Music by Jerry Bock, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, Book by Joe Masteroff) it was previously adapted as the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner and the 1949 musical In the Good Old Summertime.   It was also revisited in 1998 as You’ve Got Mail.

If you’ve seen any of these adaptations, yo know the story.  And if you haven’t, it is this: two shop workers who dislike each other are secretly each others’ pen pals.  In this version, they each write to a lonely hearts column, and plan to meet for the first time very soon.  It’s a simple enough story.  But what sold me in this version was the music—which was simple and catchy and very very funny. (more…)

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Dav Pilkey–Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot vs the Mecha-Monkeys from Mars (2002), Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot vs the Jurassic Jackrabbits from Jupiter (2002), Ricky Ricotta’s Might Robot vs the Stupid Stinkbugs from Saturn (2003)

Posted in Adventure, Boredom, Children's Books, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dav Pilkey, Funny (ha ha), Mad Scientists, Musicals, T., Threats, Yuck! on March 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: “Me Ol’ Bamboo” (1968).

bamboo  rickymarsThis song comes from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the movie.  It is a strange little set piece in the early section of the film.  In terms of the movie it is utterly absurd: Caracticus Potts (Dick van Dyke) is looking to make some quick cash.  He heads to a carny circus (that has just popped up) with his crazy haircutting invention.  A brawny guy sits down and gets a terrible scalping.  Potts runs away through various parts of the circus and ultimately ends up in the chorus-line-type set up with a dozen or so guys getting ready to sing this song.

When the song starts Potts is able to follow the routine fairly well, although he’s always a step or two behind. But by the second verse he is now in charge of the song, singing extra lyrics and then doing a bit of a solo routine which the other guys then follow.  Now, I realize it’s a musical and as Clark asked the unasked question, “how do she know the song they sing when she is hearing it for the first time?” But even in the logic-defying world of musicals, shoehorning this set piece into Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a stretch.

And yet, if you’ve been reading, you know we watched this weeks ago and I can’t get it out of my head.  The song (weird as it is being about a bamboo pole) is really catchy.  And the dance routine is, simply, amazing.  I don’t know much about Dick van Dyke’s performing skills, but man he knocks it out of the park.  And, more amazingly, there are some really long takes before they cut away.  And ensemble of 12 or so doing a very complicated routine for more than a few measures is really impressive.

The more I watch it, the more impressed I am and the more I understand why they shoehorned it in.  Check it out:

[READ: February 22, 2013] Ricky Ricotta Books 4-6

This is the second set of three Ricky Ricotta books.  They don’t vary all that much from the first three–Ricky and his Might Robot get in trouble, and then they save the day.  What I did like was that Pilkey adds some valiant assistants who add a new dimension to the rather simple story.

In Book 4 Ricky and his Robot are bored of playing hide and seek so they decide to go skateboarding   The Robot uses the Ricotta’s minivan as a skateboard and of course, he crushes it.  His parents hold them responsible for paying for it (which Ricky calculates will take 259 years).  Meanwhile on Mars, Major Monkey hates living on a cold, dead planet and he wants to take over Earth.  But he has been watching what’s been going on down there and he knows what happened to the three previous villains (I though that was a nice touch).  He also knows that the Mighty Robot has stopped all of their plans.  So he sends a decoy to distract the Robot.

The decoy says that Mars is in trouble so the Mighty Robot flies off to help.  But when he gets there he is trapped by Major Monkey’s ambush and he is stuck on Mars!  Then Major Monkey flies aback to Earth knowing no one can stop him. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #41 (2012)

Posted in Aimee Bender, All Songs Considered, Boredom, Cassandra C. Jones, Chris Flynn, Death, Deb Olin Unferth, Drinking, Drugs, Eileen Van Neerven-Currie, Essays, Excerpt, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Gracia Lam, Henry Bean, History, J. Malcolm Garcia, Jess Walter, Jesus Christ Superstar, John Brandon, Jowhor Ile, Kelsey Dake, Letters, Marriage Trouble, Matt Rota, Max Shoening, McSweeney's, Memoirs, Native Americans, Racism, Robots, Ryan Boudinot, Sex, Short Story, Sibylla Brodzinsky, Steven Millhauser, Swans, Tara June Winch, Thomas McGuane, Tony Birch, Track, Violence, Viveca Mellegard, War on December 14, 2012| Leave a Comment »

41

SOUNDTRACK: SWANS-Live at All Tomorrow’s Parties, October 2, 2011 (2011).

swansatpBefore Swans released this year’s amazing The Seer, they toured supporting their previous album (with a number of songs from The Seer included). This set has two songs from The Seer, “The Apostate” and “The Seer, Pt 1” together they comprise 50 minutes of the nearly two hour show.  The set also includes “No Words No Thoughts” (24 minutes) and “Jim” (a teeny 6 minutes) from 2010’s My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky.  The final track is an eleven minute version of “I Crawled” which goes all the way back to 1984’s Young God EP.

I would never have thought of Swans as a jam band, and yet here they are, with 5 songs in 2 hours.  Although unlike jam bands, they aren’t showing off their musical chops or noodling solos, they are created expressive and moody soundscapes–not as scary as in days of old, but very intense nonetheless.

The set sounds great, although I imagine this would be more enjoyable to watch than to listen to (there a great swaths of music where there’ s not a lot happening).  I wonder what Gira is doing during these stretches.  My friend Phil (or Phillipe Puleo as Gira calls him here) plays drums on the album and on this tour, and I have to say he must be exhausted–man he hits the drums hard.

I listened to this show before I heard The Seer, but it didn’t prepare me for what the album would contain.  Now having heard that album, I appreciate this live show even more–they really master these long songs.  I am going to have to try to see them the next time they swing by.  I admit I used to be afraid at the thought of seeing them because their early music was so intense, but this seems to be a different Swans now, one that an old man like myself could even handle.

The set is no longer available on NPR.

[READ: December 10, 2012] McSweeney’s #41

The cover of this issue has a series of overlapping photographs of lightning.  I didn’t really look at it that closely at first and thought it was an interesting collage.  Indeed, Sarah said it looked like a science textbook of some kind.  But when I read the colophon, I learned that Cassandra C. Jones finds photographs of lightning and (without manipulating them digitally) places them together so that the lightning bolts create shapes.  And indeed, that is what is going on.  And it’s amazing!

The cover’s pictures create a greyhound running (front and back covers show different stages of the run).  There’s also circles and a rabbit running.  It’s incredibly creative and very cool.  You can see some of her work at her site.

The feature of this issue is that there are four stories from Australian Aboriginal Writers, a group that I can honestly say I have never read anything from before.  There’s also beautiful art work accompanying most of the longer stories, three gritty non-fiction pieces and some letters, most of which aren’t very silly at all.

LETTERS (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–Third Reich (1989) [translated 2011]

Posted in All Songs Considered, Boredom, Death, Drinking, Drugs, Foreign Books, Games (Non Video), History, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Once, Roberto Bolaño, Short Books, The Swell Season, Threats, Translation, Unreliable narrator on December 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SWELL SEASON-Strict Joy (2009).

I bought this disc for Sarah after it came out.  I didn’t think that I would enjoy it that much because while I loved the movie Once, I wasn’t sure if I needed more from Glen and Marketa.  But then I found a whole slew of free concerts from NPR and I became hooked on the band.

The disc opens with “Low Rising” (what I think of as the “Van Morrison” song).  It gets better with each listen.  It’s a slow ballad which is followed by “Feeling the Pull,” a more up-tempo song that really highlights Marketa’s beautiful harmonies.  “In These Arms” is a gorgeous song.  The verses are downbeat and somber “if you stay…with that asshole…it will only lead to harm” but again the harmonies are gorgeous.  “The Rain” is a more rocking tune (within reason, of course).  It has an interesting middle section that quiets down, but it’s a solid folk rocking song.

“Fantasy Man” is Marketa’s first lead vocal song on the disc.  I like her voice but sometimes I find her lead songs to be a bit too wispy, too quiet.  I like this song, but it feels long (and at 5 minutes, it is).  “Paper Cup” is one of Glen’s quiet ballads.  It’s a pretty song.  “High Horses” is one that I didn’t know from the live sets, I guess it’s not too popular with the band, but I think it’s strong.  It runs a little long but that’s because it has a cool middle section that keeps building and building with more instruments and voices.  “The Verb” is another song that I didn’t know.  It has a cool intensity to it and while it doesn’t stand out as a hit, it’s certainly an enjoyable song.

“I Have Loved You Wrong” is another pretty Marketa song, but again it’s very slow and very long.  I don’t think I could buy her solo album because although her voice is lovely and her melodies are nice, they’re just so ephemeral I can’t really get into them.  “Love That Conquers” is an interesting song.  It sounds nothing like The Swell Season (must be the banjo).  It’s a nice addition to the album and should maybe have been placed a little earlier to break up the sound style a bit more.  “Back Broke” ends the disc very strongly.  Although I think the song works better live (with audience participation), the melody and tone of the song are somberly beautiful.

There are moments of this disc when it turns out to be what I feared the whole disc would be–bland folkiness. But overall this is an enjoyable album for a rainy day.  And Hansard really has an amazing voice.  However, I really like them better live.

[READ: December 26, 2011] Third Reich

I was pretty excited when I heard about this book, although I must admit I was a little concerned by the title.  Bolaño has a kind of weird Nazi fascination.  There is Nazi Literature in America and then a whole section of 2666 is given over to Nazi Germany.  He doesn’t like Nazis or anything but he writes about them a lot and it can be a little exhausting.  So it was with some relief that I learned that Third Reich is the name of a game that the main character plays.  It is a kind of historical reimagining kind of game (I guess like Risk but more specific and with more at stake).  It is set during the time of the Third Reich and the players represent various countries (or perhaps even powers).

I am giving up on explaining the game from here on because a) there’s a lot about the game in the book and b) I’m not sure if it wasn’t explained very thoroughly or if I just missed out on exactly what was happening.  During the book he talks about Hexes 65 through 68 and so on.  So I assume the map of the world is a hex grid.  But he never gives any context (or even a picture!–and this makes sense as it’s written as the diary of a well-regarded player who is not trying to teach us the game).  So while I understand the general tenets and play of the game (there’s a die (or dice) and tokens that reside on the board), the specifics are completely nebulous.  But that’s okay.  Because the game specifics don’t impact the book, but the game overall is at the heart of the book.  I think it’s neat that Bolaño invented a game (and several others games are named, but no details are given).  He is clearly very gifted at inventing people, games, things.

But as I said, the game is only a part of the book and in fact, the game details don’t enter into the book until about half way through. (more…)

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Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm–Babymouse: The Musical [#10] (2009)

Posted in Annie, Cats, Children's Books, Cupcakes, Duplex!, Fears, Funny (ha ha), Glee, Graphic Novel, Jennifer L. Holm, Matthew Holm, Mice, Musicals, Phantom of the Opera, Set at School, Short Books on December 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DUPLEX!-“Freaky Rhesus” (2005).

This strange littles song comes from the Duplex! album called Ablum (no typo there).

I’ve been aware of the disc for a while, but never had a chance to listen to it.  Duplex! is a kind of Canadian indie supergroup for kids (although I actually don’t know music from the bands that the members are originally from).  I’m going to investigate this album a little more, but for now, I’ve got this song to enjoy.

This is a simple keyboard/drum melody (it sounds like a simple kid’s song), although there is a funny clarinet melody).  This might be like a weak They Might Be Giants song, except the lyrics are kind of fun.

Yes, it is about a monkey in the zoo.  The chorus is particularly funny:

here’s where the story gets a little boring
he only ever had one wish
he was dreaming of bananas all the time bananas
especially the Cavendish
which he ate and he ate and he ate until he finished.

This ablum came out before the huge spate of children’s music by indie folks, and perhaps it’s a little weak.  But it’s sure more interesting than Kidz Bop.

[READ: December 4, 2011] Babymouse: The Musical

I do admit to wondering what this book could have in terms of plot.  I mean, there’s going to be a musical and something will go wrong, right?  True.  Very true.

The plot seems a little thinner than most of the Babymouse books, but that’s more than made up for by the wonderful flashes to famous musicals.

Normally I try to mention the specific allusions in the dream sequences, but man, they are just all over the place here: from Phantom of the Opera to High School Musical (no Glee though, this book came out first).  (more…)

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Louise Erdrich–“The Fat Man’s Race” (New Yorker, November 3, 2008)

Posted in Cat Stevens, Dreams, Glen Hansard, Louise Erdrich, Marketa Irglova, New Yorker, Once, Short Story, The Frames, Van Morrison on November 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »

tny 11.3.08 cvr.inddSOUNDTRACK: Once Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007).

onceSarah and I saw a preview for this film a long time ago and promptly forgot about it.  Then, she remembered it was called One or The One or something….  Luckily Netflix set us straight, and we rented Once.  We were amazed at how much we liked it.  It’s clearly a labor of love for the creators.  You can tell it didn’t cost a lot of money to make, but the performances are top notch.  What was particularly cool about the movie (aside from the music) was that it starts like a typical romance of boy meets girl: they play music together and he falls in love.  But it very quickly deviates from that path and turns into a much more complex storyline.  It’s not hard to follow, but it’s a lot more complex than you’d at first think.  But clearly the movie is a showcase for these songs.

We were also delighted that about a week after we watched the film. “Falling Slowly” won the Academy Award for Best Song.  That was nice synchronicity for us.

“Falling Slowly” is a beautiful song, as are just about all of the songs on this soundtrack.  Glen Hansard (the redhead in the Commitments, currently of The Frames–who I’ve not heard aside from this disc, but who I’m led to understand are quite good) has a great, strong, rough voice that sounds a bit like Cat Stevens mixed with some Van Morrison.  Marketa Irglova (about whom more in a moment) is a Czech singer with a really heavenly voice.  Together, their harmonies are really something.  His, rough and strong, hers soft and delicate.

One of the strongest songs on the disc, and in my opinion better than “Falling,” is “When Your Mind’s Made Up.”  The movie shows the band recording this song in full in the studio.  I was happy that the scene wasn’t one of those where the band screws up and they do take after take.  Rather, they play it through solidly and it sounds great. It really makes the song stand out in the movie.  And, there’s something about the way that Hansard screams the chorus as it builds to an impossible crescendo that is really breathtaking.

The rest of the disc features more songs from the movie (there’s a special version of the disc with extra tracks but we didn’t feel compelled to get it).  And the selection is fairly diverse within the strictures of his acoustic guitar and her piano.  She has a ballad of her own, and they do many duets.

As for Marketa Irglova, I didn’t know this until I just looked her up, but apparently, she was “discovered’ by Hansard when she was 13, and she toured the Czech Republic and Ireland with the Frames.  Evidently she and Hansard started dating sometime around the filming of the movie.  I’m not really prudish but there’s something about the 38 year old Hansard dating the 19 year old Irglova that’s a little creepy.  Nevertheless, the music they make together is pretty great.

[READ: November 6, 2008] “The Fat Man’s Race”

The author’s name sounded familiar so I thought I’d give this a read.  Then when I saw it was about a page and a half long, how could I refuse?

Recently I’ve read a number of stories that seemed like the weren’t finished.  I am happy to say that despite its length, this story was clearly done.  (more…)

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