As I head out of town for the holiday weekend (at least here in the States), what better gift can I leave behind, but a little Jon Brion? I’ve written about this gifted producer-songwriter on previous occasions, chiefly in connection with two albums he produced: the unreleased version of Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine and Kanye [...]
The shining
A little summin’ summin’ on the soul tip. Southern California native Aloe Blacc has been the emcee for the rap group Emanon for the last decade, with his partner DJ Exile. Now he’s releasing a solo album, Shine Through. It’s reminiscent of John Legend’s retro soul thang, but with a greater hip-hop influence and a [...]
Good Dane
Recently, I had an accidental Claire Danes double-bill, with back-to-back viewings of Shopgirl and The Family Stone. She can be an interesting actress, but she can also seem somewhat vapid, if not utilized properly. Shopgirl was not bad, but it teetered right on the edge of being pretentious twaddle. Steve Martin wrote the screenplay, based [...]
“Put another nickel in…”
Today, I attended an event at the National Press Club, featuring a number of people from Nickelodeon speaking on “diversity in children’s television programming.” I didn’t know exactly who was going to be there. As I was standing in the hallway outside the room, I suddenly became aware that Tom Kenny was standing near me. [...]
Songs in flight
It’s birds today, with two summer songs. Charlie Byrd is notable for two things. He brought classical guitar techniques to jazz (he went to Italy in 1954 to study with the great Andrés Segovia). And he helped bring bossa nova and samba to American audiences. During a 1961 South American concert tour of the Charlie [...]
Shirts off my back
I had a really international Father’s Day this past weekend. Having apparently maxed out my book/CD allotment for my birthday (I keed, I keed), I received shirts. As you will note, in a sign of the times, they were made in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Egypt. As you may also note, I’ve gotten into [...]
Dan and I Debate
Dan Dorman and I have been having two mini-debates in the comments sections this week: Taking off on the post on composer Bernard Herrmann, we trashed/praised various Hitchcock movies. Herrmann and Hitch worked together on The Trouble with Harry (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), Vertigo (1958), North by [...]
Witchy woman
This weekend, I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which I discussed on this site before it opened. It was okay. Tilda Swinton as the White Witch was magnificent, and Georgie Henley as Lucy was terrific. I didn’t care for Peter and Susan much. There’s a ridiculous scene where [...]
Paris Is Burning.
I meant to post this link last week, but I just never got around to it. The first single from Paris Hilton’s upcoming album leaked and — much to my shock — it’s not terrible. Mind you, it’s just fluffy pop, but if you heard it on the radio, you’d never think it was Her [...]
Great moments in literacy
In the far-flung future, linguistics experts will look back and note a sea change in the way we communicate, due to our new digital world. The Internet and e-mail have changed the way that we communicate — specifically, the style with which we communicate. I cite as one example, this exchange which took place in [...]