Afternoon links, retweets and goodies

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Start with this beautiful tourist video of our fair city from 1977, courtesy Philebrity:

@AnswerDave is one of the great sports humorists I follow on Twitter.  He and the folks at Big League Stew have found a great animated feature of Doc Ellis’ 1970 no-hitter for the Pirates, supposedly while he was tripping on acid.  There is an online petition urging MLB to find and air a video of the game.  It’s a veritable certainty that the poswers-that-be will not want to glorify Ellis’ claimed drug use, but it is a charming part of Baseball lore.  Here’s the animated feature, which should clearly win an Oscar of some kind:

In the world of F1, Jenson Button will be driving for McLaren next year.  This will be the first time two British champions will be on a British team since Graham Hill and Jim Clark back in 1968 – RULE BRITANNIA!

Here’s two links to Synthtopia that made me smile.

  1. First one is a live Berlin School jam with Moog modulars.  The set-up may not be as big as Tangerine Dream or Kieth Emerson, but it’s still pretty cool how people can pull this off, even in the age of computer synths and sequences.
  2. The second is a beautiful glimpse of Vangelis current virtual orchestra set-up, including great footage of the genius at work.

Here’s an AP article, via The American Blues Blog, that provides information about the birthplace of Robert Johnson.

Last week io9.com put up a bunch of artwork by Shusei Nagaoka, who created artwork in the 70’s for Deep Purple, ELO and Star Trek.

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Finally, there’s a whole mess of great music available for immediate download over at ParisDJs.  What are you waiting for?

‘An Education’ – memorable performances, clumsy ending

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For me, the buzz and whether or not a film is Oscar-worthy bears no relation to my enjoyment.  I want to be moved by extraordinary performance, story, dialog and imagery.  This movie succeeds in a few of those areas, but fails notably in the ending.  We got an amazing performance from young Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a gifted high school senior with dreams of a glamorous life in Paris.  Peter Sarsgaard was his usual, reliable, top-notch self.  And then there were two great treats in smaller roles from Alfred Molina as the well-meaning, but misguided father and Olivia Williams as the supportive but concerned teacher.

Mulligan’s performance alone is enough tojustify seeing the film. The script is subtle, but her face and body movement, in short, what she does without dialog, really makes this something special.  And the story is presented with a tender touch and the specter of bad things (deceipt, betrayal) is managed carefully.  In the span of a feature film we see a lot of genuine character growth, packed into a stylish and entertaining film.

The problem is with the ending.  And, as one of my companions mentioned, that’s the impression with which you leave the theater.  It’s not a disaster, but it’s a disappointment.  The turn in the plot is perfectly fine, but the smooth flow of story-telling stops abruptly.  The movie’s resolution, which is perfectly reasonable is so haltingly portrayed that we couldn’t help but wonder what happened.  Did a test audience tell them to put a tighter bow on it?  Was the movie cut down or elongated?  It’s hard to say, but something is clearly wrong with the ending.

Aside from that significant criticism, it’s still a nice movie with an impressive lead performance.  Sarsgaard is positively generous in facilitating Mulligan’s big moment.  He just does a great job of keeping the focus on her.  And even with all she goes through in this coming-of-age story, the transformation never covers up the little girl that you meet in at the beginning of the film.  It’s just a shame, that by the end, her story has inadvertently run off the tracks.

Continuing to wrap up 2009 – the Reads!

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That’s right, folks! I read seven books this year!  Considering how slowly I read, that is actually a bit of an accomplishment for me.  Oh sure, I also read a lot of Jim Bouton’s iconic Ball Four (which I will finish some day) and a zillion articles about the Phillies.  There were also a few short stories, cartoons, comic books, tweets, status updates, briefs, cases, opinions, blog entries, articles and instruction manuals along the way.

But, ever since high school, I’ve really loved the novel – with it’s long format and character development, it is a feast for the mind, a smorgasbord for the imagination.  The problem for me with novels is that I usually read a book so slowly, I want to be as certain as possible that it will be worth my while.  That’s where John Scalzi’s Big Idea project has proven to be quite helpful.  Scalzi is a real professional with the written word.  He was writing for money well before ‘making it’ as a sci-fi novelist.  After gaining huge success, he has devoted a great deal of attention to directing his fans to more good ‘genre’ fiction.  All seven of these titles are sci-fi/ fantasy and four come from Scalzi’s Big Idea.

The Dark River, by John Twelve Hawks; this is the second book in the Fourth Realm Trilogy, and embodies a lot of the same intense paranoia that worked so well in book one – The Traveler.  The world looks these characters inhabit looks like ours, but under the surface there is a desperate battle between evil corporate forces that would rid the world of Travelers, a spiritual master that can go between parallel realities and bring enlightenment.  Although this second installment didn’t have the punch of the original, these books both offer the most horrifying concept of panopticon that I have yet come across.  Imagine a world where literally everything you do is monitored and digested by corporate interests who know everything you’ve said, every place you’ve been and everything you’ve done.  There is no where to hide and there is no escape!

WWW:Wake by Robert J. Sawyer; this title comes right off The Big Idea list and does nothing more than hypothesize a way in which the internet (you know, the internet) wakes up and begins to form a consciousness.  Talk about HEAVY!!  This is also the story of a young girl who is blind and is learning through technology, to see.  She becomes the webs first friend.  If all of this sounds like it’s a bit far fetched, then you don’t know Robert J. Sawyer.  All of his science checks out and holds up – no senseless psychobabble allowed.  Despite the amazing tech, Sawyer manages to bring the emotional side into play as young Caitlin and her big friend try to find their way in a frightening world.  This was a GREAT read.

Zoe’s Tale, by John Scalzi; this book tells the same story of Scalzi’s previous effort “The Last Colony” but from the point of view of another character.  Young Zoe is not the main player in the action of Lost Colony, but she does play a pivotal role that happens outside the action of the story.  Scalzi pulls a neat trick by now revealing what that action consisted of.  His professionalism and skill allows him to deftly shift gears and give the story a sincere freshness with this young girl’s voice.  It must help that Scalzi has a daughter routinely plays a role in his various blog entries.  Like all of his other books, Zoe’s Tale is tremendous fun, but with an added sense of genius that elevates the storytelling from pure escapism to enriching pulp.  I just love carrying around those little mass-market paperbacks.

Norse Code, by Greg van Eekhout; this is a great first novel that retells the awesome battle of the gods Ragnarok.  Neil Gaiman’s American Gods did such a beautiful job with the character study of Shadow, but didn’t succeed as well in the cataclysmic part of the myth.  No such problem for van Eekhout’s debut novel.  We get big battles that rattle California almost to ruin.  The characters left me wanting a bit more, but I realize that in a 290 page novel about the battle that brings about the end of the world, you can only do so much.  Suffice to say that the dialog and action are just what I wanted and I sped right through this selection from the Scalzi Big Idea list.

Mark of the Demon, by Diana Rowland; this is another debut and it was great.  The book is part X-Files, part CSI.  There are no little green men, but there is a whole lot of magic.  The setting is Louisiana and the main character is a young detective who also just happens to have the magical skills to summon demons from other realms.  It may be a crazy premise, but it is set up with such careful development and deliberate pacing that it all works beautifully.  There are certain aspects that seem to be a bit contrived detective novel stuff, but then I come back to the insane premise and I can’t get enough.  This is another selection from the Scalzi list and it just kept getting better and better.  I’m waiting to see if Ms. Rowland can get the series picked up.  Writing is no easy game!

Sandman Slim, by Richard Kadrey; this book was an absolute riot.  As slow as I read, I plowed through this bloodbath in just a few days.  Stark, a young magician, got sent to Hell by some unscrupulous associates and now, after eleven years of murder, mayhem and torture, he’s back for revenge.  Kadrey is a total rock star with the one liners and his taste for violence is varied and expansive.  It was great to read this book right after the Diana Rowland because a lot of the magic is similarly described.  But Kadrey goes the extra mile by referencing spaghetti westerns, samurai stories, Dirty Harry, Tom Waits, and everything in between.  Somehow, this books is really offensive and really likable at the same time.

Green, by Jay Lake; I save the best for last, even though it’s already been a few months since I finished Green.  This is one of the best things I’ve ever read, and the ending made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my eyes fill with tears.  A young girl from a fictional land is sold by her father to become the property of an ageless tyrant in a far away civilization.  From that horror, she goes on a journey that will form her into a young woman, a religious zealot, a merciless killer and a potential savior of gods and men.  This is a book of extraordinary power and emotion and it deserves it’s own post, which I will try to attend to before the year is out.

    Woah! It’s almost the end of 2009 – what the hell have I been listening to this year?

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    This post is more of a reminder to me to make a comprehensive review of books and music that did me right over the past twelve months.

    The music part is easy, since most of the goods came on board over the past couple months.  In no particular order (yet…)

    1. Transatlantic – The Whirlwind
    2. Beardfish – Destined Solitaire
    3. Black Bonzo – Guillotine Drama
    4. Gungfly – Please Be Quiet
    5. Squarepusher – Solo Electric Bass
    6. Marillion – Less is More
    7. U2 – No Line On the Horizon
    8. Trilok Gurtu – Massical
    9. SBB – Iron Curtain
    10. Riverside Anno Domini High Definition
    11. Neil Young – Fork In The Road
    12. Joe Zawinul – 75
    13. Heartless Bastards – The Mountain
    14. Glenn Tilbrook – Pandemonium Ensues
    15. Flaming Lips – Embryonic
    16. Dream Theater – Black Clouds and Silver Linings
    17. The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
    18. Chick COrea & John McLaughlin – 5 Peace Band
    19. Bruce Springsteen – Workin On A Dream
    20. Bob Dylan – Together Through Life
    21. Liam Finn – Champagne In Seashells
    22. Ronnie Earl – Living In The Light
    23. Duke Robillard – Stomp The Blues Tonight

    I maybe wasn’t nuts for everything on this list, but that’s pretty much the new stuff I heard in 2009.  Rankings and capsule reviews to come later.  Just looking at the list, it was a pretty good year for music.

    “We’re looking back.  We’re counting down.”   –every dopey radio DJ and TV host starting in about three weeks!

    ROTOR at Johnny Brenda’s – heavy instrumental rock on a Sunday night

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    Heavy instrumental rock from Germany, and the guys were about as nice as could be.  Thanks to Jake for coming down from New York and getting me off my butt on a Sunday night.  I was very happy not to have watched the Eagles “game”.

    Serpent Throne played before Rotor and sowed some very nice local riffs, again instrumental rock with the added fun of doubled guitar lines.  I couldn’t make it for Stinking Lizaveta, but have no doubt that they tore the place apart, as ever.

    I also need to state, for the record, that Johnny Brenda’s is the best place in town to see live music.

    Men Who Stare At Goats – magic mostly absent

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    There is no denying Mr. Clooney’s outrageous charm.  And it is not wasted here, in a movie that is, perhaps, played too much for cheap laughs and not enough for the beauty of its premise – soldiers who defeat enemies with love.

    I am tempted to say that this was an opportunity lost, but the movie is better than that.  Clooney and McGregor share genuine chemistry and Jeff Bridges adds shades of mysticism to the shamanistic Lebowski he brought to life years ago.  But, this is not a Coen brothers movie, and, while it flirts with genius, its success is more apparent in silliness and not in higher ideas.

    Clooney is one of a group of supersoldiers trained in the 80’s to use psychic powers to defeat an enemy without hurting him.  The group is the brain-child of Jeff Bridges’ Bill Django, who, after a near death experience in Viet Nam, realizes that his soldiers don’t really want to kill the enemy.  He goes on a drug-addled new age vision quest to form a plan about how to train soldiers to use psychic powers.  Clooney is his prize pupil who has genuine psychic ability.

    But all of this is related to McGergor’s reporter by unreliable Clooney as the two give us a buddy-movie, road-movie scenario in 2003 Iraq, with Clooney on top-secret mission and McGregor tagging along for his first big story.  We are supposed to ask whether the stories told to McGregor are true, but we are too distracted by the cheap laughs as Clooney attempts to demonstrate a psychic ability that may or may not be there.

    The story in Iraq progresses haltingly and without confidence, despite some brilliant satire featuring military subcontractors shooting at each other in a crowded city street and then blaming it all on the locals.  Robert Patrick has a tremendous cameo in this sequence as the profiteering suit whose soldiers of fortune are going to clear the way for Starbucks in Iraq as far as the eye can see.

    The story of the rise and fall of the Bridges’ supersoldier division is far more interesting, but presented without the appropriate amount of visual trickery that would really make the viewer think that none of this stuff really happened.  Kevin Spacey, who I have come to distrust as an actor, turns in a nice performance as the jealous runner-up to Clooney’s psychic ace.  His character’s bad temperament morphs into something altogether evil when we see him in the films final act, and this sequence cleverly echoes the black humor of Robert Patrick’s Haliburton-esque cameo.

    And to the final sequence – it is redeeming for a film that could have been more and left me with a pleasant feeling.  I walked out feeling that something had been accomplished with these characters and I was glad of it.  I mostly owe that feeling to the films invocation of M*A*S*H as the perfect referent with which to ruminate upon the absurdity of war.  Clooney’s bathrobe-wearing, goat-herding final scenes will remind anyone of Alan Alda’s iconic turn as Benjamin Franklin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce.  Believe me, that is a good thing.

    The casting works.  The sets and locations are beautiful.  In addition to Robert Partick, there are two other small roles that made me smile broadly – Stephen Root as a psychic crack-pot who tips McGregor off to the super-soldiers’ existence, and the under-utilized Stephen Lang as a by-the-book general who genuinely believes in Bridges’ mission.

    Is there magic in the world?  Can we stop wars with love?  Is it all just drug-induced craziness that is overrun by violence and greed?  I did not need this movie to answer these questions, but when they were, to my surprise, asked, I found myself wanting a bit more.