What I watched: I watched a couple of old standup specials from two of my favorite comedians, George Carlin and Lewis Black. From George Carlin, I watched “You Are All Diseased” which was released in 1999 and was simultaneously prescient and quaint. From Lewis Black I watched Black to the Future from 2016 and Thanks for Risking Your Life from 2020. Of the two, Black specials, I think Thanks for Risking Your Life was better, mostly because it wasn’t a highly produced special, but was in fact a taping of material that Black was working through at a show in…Minnesota I think, just before everything shut down due to Covid 19. So, the performance is more raw and the audience seems to feel the jokes more viscerally.
What I read: Somebody stop me. It’s not a book, but I picked up a Rolling Stone special issue on Pink Floyd, “The Ultimate Guide to their Music and Legend.” This is essentially a compilation of all the interviews that the magazine did with the various and sundry members of the band throughout the years. As much as I already knew about the band and their music and how it was created, I was still pleasantly surprised to find a number of new gems in there that I hadn’t known before.
What I listened to: Our latest stop on the tour of the best engineered albums of all time brings us to Consolers of the Lonely by The Raconteurs. Released in 2008 and engineered by Joe Chiccarelli and Vance Powell, this album was recorded at Blackbird studio in Nashville (a very good room and relatively new by Nashville standards). This album received almost no promotion which appears to be a deliberate move by the band. Personally, I don’t get stunts like this because they essentially sabotaged the commercial success of the album. It might have had something to do with the fact that Jack White and Brendan Benson had their own bands. But, that’s not relevant to the sound which is excellent. This is not easy to do when you have a musician with the style of Jack White, which involves a shitload of distortion. Now, to be clear, distortion isn’t an inherent marker of bad sound—see Pink Floyd’s The Wall—but you really have to know what you’re doing to make it fit correctly within the sound stage so that it doesn’t just wash out everything else. Engineers Chiccarelli and Powell know what they’re doing. The snare drum is a masterclass in how to record this notoriously finicky instrument. The frequency range is very good, albeit a little weak on the high end. This is a meaty, solid sound that gets your attention.
Jack White has a new album out…
Finally watched Only Murders in the Building – it’s now my favorite show. Watched the first episode of House of the Dragon – have not formed a definitive opinion yet.
I read Crimson Steel by LPM Sinclair. It’s about a monster Huntress who is hired as a guide through the wilds by a Wizard. In this world, Hunters and Wizards are not meant to fraternize which is the perfect recipe for forbidden love. There are monsters to slay, an old flame love triangle to untangle, and societal norms to break free of. I couldn’t put the book down and was sad when it ended.
It’s a book that was released chapter by chapter on “Kindle Vella”. Have you guys heard of that format? You pay by the chapter with tokens. I bought the Kindle book instead and am irked that the second book is currently incomplete and being released in a slow trickle on Vella.
Scurries off to acquire Crimson Steel by LPM Sinclair…
The Kindle Vella thing is mostly just irritating, as far as I’m concerned. I accidentally started a book that is unfinished and the author is releasing a chapter at a time in unreliable fits and starts. We’ll get 3 chapters in a week and then nothing for 2 months. I feel like even the author has forgotten where she was going with this story. I know I have!
It’s not a bad idea… serialized novels are as old as magazines and newspapers… but if they’re writing it on the fly it just doesn’t work. Finish your darn book and THEN release it chapter by chapter!
Agreed!
I watched the documentary Class Action Park about the dangerous amusement park Action Park. Alternates between hilarious and horrifying.
I mentioned this before but a friend of mine is an attorney whose specialty is amusement park law. She told me to never ride anything anywhere. She said the number of accidents at parks is ridiculous.
This place was so sketchy the documentary mentions Trump wouldn’t invest in it.
…I somehow haven’t gotten around to the final episode of westworld…but I have seen the first couple of she hulk eps…& it’s pretty fun…& gets in a lot of solid digs at a great many things along the way from the absurdities of various things marvel to the sadly all-too-realistic rationale by which she might have a lifetime’s headstart over “cousin bruce” when it comes to controlling/coming to terms with rage in the face of provocative circumstance…so I’m optimistic about where that might be going…not to mention intrigued that they managed to pull tim roth into the thing pretty quick which seems like a reach in a couple of senses & hopefully suggests they’re pretty sure of their footing?
…& I saw the bonus double feature or whatever we’re calling it for the sandman…which I can’t really complain about…the caliope story (along with the interlude in hell where he finds himself face to face with an old flame he condemned) provide something of an odd juxtaposition[…I’d say more but haven’t figured out how that redaction wizardy is achieved & it would be spoiler-y, if only about stuff that’s aired]…but as an indication of how different the dream we’re seeing might be to the dream that had existed for a very long time indeed before his period of confinement I can see why they picked that…& the dream of a thousand cats I like a lot…cats “talking” when it’s speech bubbles on a still image might work a little better than actual speech but no mouths moving on an animation but it’s not overly distracting or anything…gotta wonder if there are more of the incidental stories that might get a similar treatment…kinda hope so, based on that pair?
Loved Sandman!
I’m watching the current season of Reservation Dogs. It’s a great show with smart writing, humor and tugs at the heart.
Read another dark book, Ryu Marukami’s Piercing. I’m gonna need a palette cleaner after this one. A young father struggles with a compulsion to murder his infant son and looks for a way to stop himself. It’s very disturbing, violent, contains child abuse, child sexual abuse, and a short but horrible description of an animal death. Overall it’s extremely sad.
i watched happy death day 2u
it had its moments…but was fairly mediocre
netflix calls it a horror comedy…but theres nothing horror about it…i mean sure..it starts out like a slasher…but theres no gore to speak of and it kinda turns into more of a i love my mom movie after….
probably not the best splainer
and listening to
Started She-Hulk.
Why are these episodes so short!!!!
…seconded
…I think after a couple of lines in the first one they might have decided that half-hour episodes fit with the lady-lawyer-show they’re sort of playing against type…but thus far I’d just as soon have bigger portions & considering they’ve sometimes used the fact it’s straight to streaming & has no ad breaks to consider to have extra-long episodes of some of these shows…if there’s a good reason for the short run times I’ve not guesses what it might be yet?
Reading – Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan. Unfortunately, I only got to chapter 12 before the library yanked it back (ebook borrow), so now I have to wait 3-4 weeks (or cave and finish it on one of those read-free-online sites) before I know what happens next!
Watching – been watching lots of Disney movies when Grandbaby is here and for background noise. Last night was Tangled, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Mulan. After his mama picked him up, I ended up watching Ghostbusters 1 and 2 with my boys until 4am. BabySmacks fell asleep draped across the end of my bed halfway through the first one (he had a full 9 hour shift at work and then walked home. He was beat!) KS3 and I rounded off the evening by watching a couple episodes of New Tricks (Brit crime show).
Listening – I realized that I can borrow music through hoopla so I got a Pentangle album I used to listen to as a kid, and From the Choir Girl Hotel by Tori Amos.
…tangled would be last place for me…but I liked mulan a fair bit when I last saw it some time ago…watched raya a good bit more recently & might be hard put to pick which of those two I prefer?
…there’s some special degree of scenery chewing in ghostbusters II that’s oddly charming but I think I’d have to pick the first one of that pairing
…& is new tricks the one with cold case department with dennis waterman in…not the end I’d have guessed to that particular marathon but seem to remember they were kinda fun(ny)?
Yep, that’s New Tricks. I’ve watched the first 2 seasons several times but never got further than that, so I’m trying to watch the rest, now.
Mulan, Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Robin Hood (or Sword in the Stone… don’t make me choose!) are probably my top 5 favourite Disney movies.
…I’m really bad at picking my top however-many let alone the ranking part but I think I’d have to make room for the jungle book…& I know it wouldn’t be robin hood that’d be making space for it…& I loved the sword & the stone, too
…but I might need more room for…hmm…maybe the emperor’s new groove…& I’m kind of fond of hercules to some extent…& the wreck-it-ralph-s…& zootopia…& big hero 6 wasn’t bad…or brave…so…umm…yeah…possibly I may have watched too many cartoons but I’m pretty sure it’s just that I’m genuinely bad at ranking favorites?
No worries… I watch kid movies all the time! It’s comfort food for the brain. I’ve seen most of them 8 billion times so I can work on a project or go in and out of the room and not miss anything.
Saw Outland. Not to be confused with Outlander.
A 1981 movie directed by Peter Hyams. High Noon in Space is the plot. Starring Sean Connery as the Scottish sounding Irishman Space Cop (tune up for The Untouchables?) and Peter Boyle as the big bad (might come as a shock for those who only saw him in Everybody Loves Raymond.)
It didn’t do well at all in the box office, but I enjoyed it (my taste in SF might be classified as questionable as I also like GhostBusters 2016.)
Also starred Clark Peters (The Wire), a brief scene of John Ratzenberger and Frances Sternhagen as the grizzled drunkish country doctor. Both John and Frances later starred in Cheers as son and mom Clavin.
Saw it before on cable as it was a staple of late night movies rerun endlessly.
READ
Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World by Barry Lopez. A posthumous release of essays from a great nature writer. I enjoy his shorter essays in this book and Arctic Dreams more than his longer works like Horizon. Would highly recommend the book, although there are a couple of essays that go in directions that most of his other stuff doesn’t. This was a library e-book, but I might have to buy a soft-cover version in the future.
LISTEN
Been basically streaming a mix of old and newer Suede. Really love the instrumentation in their music. They really stand out against Brit-pop (when they first hit the scene) as well as the current stuff.
WATCH
I didn’t do any backpacking this year, and barely any day hiking. I’ve been living the trail life vicariously through this fellow Idahoan.