- Profess love for Marnie Stern’s In Advance of the Broken Arm [see above] despite missing her house show in West Philly tonight. See also, minus concert-going: Orthodox’s Gran Poder, Deerhoof’s Friend Opportunity.
- Come to appreciate Pazz & Jop comment joke about U.S. outsourcing pop to Canada, Sweden. [Link?]
- Visit friends in New York City tomorrow, take pictures, enjoy “warm” weather, Burritoville, Brooklyn lager.
- Finally finish Flaubert’s Parrot. Better understand diminishing returns of prolonging enjoyment of books, movies, albums through procrastination and ignorance.
- Finish reviewing Shining’s “Winterreise.” Explain “death jazz” concept to friends, family. Bask in Jorgen Munkeby’s brilliance. [Thanks for the lovely interview!]
- Realize that it’s Friday again.
We agree that Darth Vader displayed greater emotional range.
Wandering into Pan’s Labyrinth is not the same as trying to find Frankenstein’s monster, but it’s close. I’m not really sure why del Toro’s critics would compare his work to a Spanish film with superficial similarities; I’m guessing that many of them, like myself, were only recently made aware of Erice’s masterpiece thanks to the Criterion Collection, meaning that they joined anyone with a Netflix account in their ability to make this assertion. So while both are based on a little girl’s [or girls’] escapist fantasies under Franco’s reign, del Toro’s treatment avails itself of the frightening brutality of Grimm’s fairy tales, while Erice’s lingering elegy to youth has the feel of Antonioni’s existential meditations.
If a complaint should be lodged against Pan’s Labryinth, it’s that del Toro shortchanges its audience with too little fantastical allegory and too much of the cookie cutter strongman we’ve all seen before. As is pointed out in the comments on Cinemarati’s fifth best movie of the year, del Toro fails to connect the the two halves of the film in a way that meaningfully contributes to the action of the story. Too literal by half, del Toro applies the pulpy Hollywood model to a film that should rely on some dark majesty and falls short of making the crypto-political masterpiece with which he’s being credited.
And then I joined the beta test band.
Dear Cingular,
You’re commercials suggest that you have few dropped calls. This is wrong. Your service is so bad in my neighborhood [19125, holla at your boy] that I’ve considered keying the Cingular-branded truck that’s often parked at the intersection of York and Cedar. Your new music service is idiotic, and I think Apple made a pact with Satan when they chose your company of all companies to provide cellular service to the iPhone. I’m hopeful that Apple can overcome your rank stupidity.
In the meantime, here’s what I thought of your phone and its mp3 capacity. The short answer? They both suck, though there’s a soft spot in my heart for a phone that can’t properly queue mp3s in the order they ought to be played. That’s daring, which is how I know it was unintended. The web 2.0 beta test? Also daring, and you put your fate in the hands of democracy. You’re learning a tough lesson. Best of luck going forward.
XOXO,
Blackmail Is My Life
P.S. Calling your beta test website My Blue Notes makes no sense. Is it supposed to be a jazz phone? It’s about as much fun to use as a Jaz drive!
This could end up being something I truly regret.
Here’s me praising a band that’s following the same career arc as Guided By Voices. I guess it’s nominally “punk.” Times New Viking’s Present the Paisley Reich is the sort of album that will either pleasantly surprise you for sounding so fresh yet familiar or make you roll your eyes for seeming so derivative.
The longest song is 3:35. The funniest song title is “Imagine Dead John Lennon.”
Wherein we repeat “The Story of Yo La Tango.”
Having woken up late for breakfast the morning indie rock was served, I totally missed out on Yo La Tengo. By rights, Yo La Tengo and the Matador cohort should’ve been mainstays of WDRE playlists, yet somehow they were lost in a miasma of Morrissey, Belly and other early nineties alternative rock faves. Some say that critics are the art of pretend forgetfulness, but the formative years of critical listening are often those that are most embarrassing. So consider this post my mea culpa for being so late to the table that fateful day.
In short, Yo La Tengo may be the most durable and versatile band to ever suffer the “indie rock” hairshirt. Their ability to shift from art rock guitar torture one moment to the Fauxtown sound the next is more than a little mindblowing when you consider how few bands in the genre succeed at doing either.