Friday, October 24, 2008

Andrew Bird Plays With Yo Yo Ma, Mt. Vernon Blogger Pees His Pants




Holy crap for freakin'-crap people! Andrew Bird and Yo-Yo Ma TO-FREAKIN'-GETHER??? No seriously, I'm pausing this post for just a moment to go change my pants.

*pause*

Okay. Back. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, YO-YO MA AND ANDREW BIRD PLAYING TOGETHER! If you didn't recognize the tune, it's a little hymn in the round that, when I've heard it, is sung with the words "Dona Nobis Pacem Pacem, Dona Nobis Pacem," which effectively translates to "Give us peace."

So apparently there's an interview to come with this down the road, but for the moment I'm delighted to have my favorite songwriter perform with one of the world's greatest classical musicians. Yo-Yo Ma is to be respected for his enormous skill. I listen to his recordings of Bach's cello suites and am taken into an entirely different world. One where only good things exist and meals consist of fresh picked berries and chocolate.

As if that wasn't enough good news for one evening, this video came to my attention via an Andrew Bird fan letter which announced his new album titled "Noble Beast." Am I excited? Yes, yes I am.

And along with that announcement, Pitchfork has posted a song from the album.

Why, oh why, does the world love me so much today? What have I done to deserve such sweet treatment? Nothing good enough, I assure you.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Watched: "Spirit of the Beehive"


I'm a sucker for a good film about little kids trying to understand the world around them, especially when faced with conflicting information.

Be it Ponette where a small French girl tries to figure out what happened to her mother after she died or Pan's Labyrinth where a Spanish girl loses herself in an imaginative fantasy world as a way of dealing with the violence surrounding her during the Spanish Civil War.

I decided to watch Spirit of the Beehive because of Pan's Labyrinth, and really, to call it an influence is understating the connection. It's clear to me after watching it how important this film is to Pan director Guillermo del Toro and his compatriot Alfonso Caurón.

Clearly this film resonated with both directors strongly, and one theme has continued through all of their films that has its roots here — telling a story that is directly influenced by, but not directly about surrounding war-time violence or political distress.

Caurón has mastered this with films like Y Tu Mamá También which takes the characters on a road trip past the economic and political discorse in Mexico, and in Children of Men a pregnant woman and the protagonist find themselves passing through a war in the future spurred by the infertility of humanity.

This film is more significant to Del Toro however, who has placed two films against the same political backdrop as Spirit of the Beehive. On top of Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone tells a ghost story at an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War, which Guillermo has called a "spiritual prequel" to the former.

In Beehive, Ana goes to see Frankenstein at a mobile theater. She becomes obsessed with the character and wonders why he killed the little girl and then why the people killed Frankenstein. Either to comfort her (unlikely) or another scheme in that warped little head, her older sister, Isabel, tells her that Frankenstein never died. He's really a spirit, and lives in an abandoned farm building near by.

Ana visits the building after school, and eventually finds a fugitive soldier she believes is the spirit of Frankenstein, and befriends him.

But don't let the skeletal plot points bog down what this film really accomplishes. It takes almost the full 97 minutes of filmtime to get to this point. While Ana becomes locked in this spiritual fascination with Frankenstein, her mother obsesses over a lost lover who appears to be involved somehow in the war (perhaps as a soldier?) and her father obsesses over his beehives, staying up late and writing and re-writing a poem about a glass-enclosed hive he keeps in his office.

It's a visually stunning movie, and for those who have watched a lot of movies with me, they know that's all it takes really. And without spoiling the ending much, the whole thing left on an ambiguous note for me, even moreso than Pan's Labyrinth which (some would argue) begs the question of whether the fantasy elements were truly real or a way of the girl trying to cope with a violent reality. I think examining Pan's against the Beehive, it seems to me that both became obsessed with these spirits and fantasies almost as a way of grappling with what surrounded them.

If all these elements aren't enough to outline just how much Beehive influences Pan, just take a look at these two images from each film. In the top, Ana is going out to her balcony in yet another attempt to call out to the spirit of Frankenstein, and on the bottom, Ofelia is heading into the tunnels under a tree as yet another task ordered by a really scary looking faun.


With this film out of the way, it's on to the next on my queue. You'd think with 200 films on my list, I'd be able to pick one easily. Not the case.

Friday, October 17, 2008

It's time to admit it — I like Broken Social Scene.

We've all been there. You get the recommendation, and you ignore it.

But although we've all been there, I must admit I am the king of ignoring recommendations. It's one of my greatest faults. Let's look at the list of recommendations I initially ignored (even derided on occasion) but eventually realized I loved to death:


Each of these I mark as some of my favorite music. Hell, I count "Money Jungle" on my top 20 albums of all time. Because that track "Fleurette Africaine" is the musical equivalent of falling raindrops. For serious.

So it is with great humility that I must confess, after years of my youngest of brothers pushing it on me, I think Broken Social Scene's "You Forgot It In People" is really damn good. Really, really damn good.

It came out in 2003, so it's only taken me five years to figure out what Pitchfork Media figured out immediately. (they gave it a 9.3 out of 10)

In the last week, this has become my Come-Home-After-Work-And-Relax album. It's my I'm-On-Deadline-Please-Don't-Distract-Me album. It's my Driving-To-Renton-To-See-My-Wife album. It's on pretty consistent rotation. (At this very moment, it's my Awwww-My-iPod-Is-Dead-Now-What-Am-I-Supposed-To-Do? album)

Why? Because it's this beautiful sonic hybrid of everything I love about Yo La Tengo's Electr-o-pura and Modest Mouse's (now out of print, and running about $50 on Amazon for used copies, suckas!) Interstate 8 all rolled into one. Sonically experimental, harmonically good to the ear, each instrument sharing as strong and forward a role as the lead vocals (definitely see the Yo La Tengo for more of that brilliance).

It certainly helps that the electronics-meets-banjo breakaway hit (which KEXP played the hell out of) "Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl" hits right in the middle, right at the moment you're in the mood to start singing "Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me."

So there ya go Ben, you win this time... You may now, and for one week only, rub it in my face that I used to mock you incessantly for your music taste. (In my defense, I think even you realize now that Fuel and Blink 182 really suck.)

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

The Quilt, Part 8

So a major part of creating a quilt is, ahem, well, quilting. So now that the whole thing is pieced together I'm embarking on the arduous task of sewing some kind of pattern through the whole thing.

The backing I chose is a thick denim. There was a much thinner denim I preferred, but it was too small of a piece to fit my quilt, so thick it is. Already it's a warm quilt that sits nice and heavy on me. Even unfinished Megan and I have thrown it over our laps watching TV.

I opted to just stitch a quarter inch in on all of the squares. I've selected a color of thread to go with each color of fabric.

This process is of the most frustrating steps. It's not as difficult as cutting the segments and praying that you don't run out of one bit of t-shirt fabric that's pretty much irreplaceable. In this case a wrong stitch can be torn out and re-sewn. But that takes time.

To preserve my sanity, I've decided to simply quilt the whole thing, and tear out anything that needs a redo later.

There's really only one major step left, which is selecting the binding and sewing it down. Really, this is my favorite step. It's when I get to sit down, watch a movie and just sew one side of it down by hand. Takes little time, and it's immensely satisfying seeing the completed work.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

Music Quiz

Courtney pointed out how ridiculous it is that I did not do this for Andrew Bird, so I'm adding my second quiz just below this one, Andrew BIRD style! YO!

Friend Jon posted this, and I decided to follow suit.

Rules of the game:
- Choose a singer/band/group
- Answer using ONLY titles of songs by that singer/band/group

I choose R.E.M., because I've been listening to them since I was 13. Though I was sorely tempted to choose Journey, and put "Don't Stop Believin'" for every single answer.

1. Are you male or female?
"I Am Superman"

2. Describe yourself.
"Man on the Moon"

3. What do people feel when they're around you?
"Strange"

4. How would you describe your previous relationships?
"Everybody Hurts"

5. Describe your current relationship.
"At My Most Beautiful"

6. Where would you want to be now?
"Half A World Away"

7. How do you feel about love?
"I Believe"

8. What's your life like?
"Losing My Religion" (though I also wanted to answer "So Fast, So Numb")

9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish?
"Life and How To Live It"

10. Say something wise.
"It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

LEONARD BERNSTEIN!

And now done with Andrew Bird titles:

1. Are you male or female?
"I"

2. Describe yourself.
"Heretics"

3. What do people feel when they're around you?
"Self Torture"

4. How would you describe your previous relationships?
"MX Missiles"

5. Describe your current relationship.
"Satisfied"

6. Where would you want to be now?
"Way Out West"

7. How do you feel about love?
"Don't Be Scared"

8. What's your life like?
"A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left"

9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish?
"Wishing For Contentment"

10. Say something wise.
"Why?"