We're all stories in the end

Fictional person of the year: Amy Pond

"...when I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend ... the raggedy Doctor, my raggedy Doctor. But he wasn't imaginary. He was real. I remember you. I remember! I brought the others back, I can bring you home, too. Raggedy man, I remember you -- and you are late for my wedding!"

Inspirational Quotes (I)

"I'm going to start by telling you a story about a young lad, a bit of a tearaway, a bit rebellious, a bit of a loose cannon. People were always telling him, 'Settle down. Do as you're told. Don't challenge authority. Don't rock the boat. Don't smash the system.' He didn't listen. He did his own thing. They said, 'He won't amount to anything!' You might be surprised to know that that man went on to become … Sid Vicious. And although he died at the tender age of 21 from a heroin overdose having possibly murdered his girlfriend, I don't think that detracts from the fact that ... you know, it shows that a certain amount of skepticism toward authority ... you know, can be beneficial ... you know, in small measures, obviously ..."

Culling the heard, 2010

So you finally learn to stop caring whether the clerk at the record store is judging you. And then you start downloading all your music anyway. Favourite albums of 2010, in no particular order: The National, High Violet ** Sleigh Bells, Treats ** Spoon, Transference ** LCD Soundsystem, This Is Happening ** MIA, Maya ** The Fall, Your Future Our Clutter ** Arcade Fire, The Suburbs ** Surfer Blood, Astro Coast ** Titus Andronicus, The Monitor. Favourite songs of 2010: Kanye West, "Runaway" ** Elizabeth Cook, "Heroin Addict Sister" ** The National, "Bloodbuzz Ohio" ** Dessa, "Children's Work" ** The Hold Steady, "The Weekenders" & "We Can Get Together" ** Drive-By Truckers, "Birthday Boy" ** [List subject to change based on random whim, sudden mood changes and the possibility that new favourites are buried somewhere in the pile of stuff I haven't got round to listening to yet.]

Some things that did not suck, 2010 edition

Why gosh, yes, I am a gigantic nerd. Had I not mentioned that before?

Drive-By Truckers @ Lee's Palace, April 6

Shed Brewery & Restaurant, Stowe, Vermont, May 15

Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium, St. Johnsbury, Vermont

Trash Palace, Friday Nights, 89-B Niagara Street

(The movie was pretty good, too ...)

Turducken!

... and some things we once loved will always remain indefensible

Who knows where the time goes?

So the magical carousel of pop fashion turns, as carousels do, and now it appears that the British synth-pop of my Eighties youth is back in favour. This is happy news for those of us who couldn't bring ourselves to stop listening to Heaven 17, OMD, Depeche Mode and pre-arena-rock Simple Minds. But sobering, too, when the realization that the sleek young men of the genre's heyday have grown balding and paunchy is followed swiftly by the realization that the same thing has happened to you while you weren't looking. If you stand still long enough, fashion may swing around to meet you. But don't count on being in a position to enjoy it much.

Heaven 17 then ...

...and now.

R.I.P.

2005-2010

Evil in our time, part 2,691

Nancy Franklin in The New Yorker on Sarah Palin's new reality series: "... And there are those whose objections have a physiological basis as well as an ideological one: the pitch and timbre of her voice, the rhythms of her speech, her syntax, and the way she coats acid and incoherence with cheery musical inflections join together in a sickening synergy that distresses the listener, triggering a fight-or-flight reaction. When Palin talks, my whole being wails, like Nancy Kerrigan after Tonya Harding’s ex-husband kneecapped her: 'Why? Why? Why?'"

Vinyl jeopardy (1)

So, blogging: not a lot of it lately, what with work and ... well, work.  Anyway, the results of today's prowl through the vinyl bins downstairs at Sonic Boom. It's the album you didn't know you needed: the space disco version of The Wizard of Oz.

Gleanings: October 3, 2010

Rachel Slajda on the roots of anti-Sharia hysteria.

Ginandtacos.com uncovers the original draft of the GOP's "Pledge to America."

Steven Thrasher is forced to conclude that "White America Has Lost Its Mind."

Kevin Drum: The Tea Party movement is nothing new.

As Matt Taibbi points out, it's not exactly a bona fide grassroot movement, either.

Heather MacDonald demolishes Dinesh D'Souza's "Luo tribesman" nonsense.

David Frum doesn't think much of D'Souza, either -- or Newt Gingrich.

Songs for music lovers

How had I managed to miss Marianne Faithfull's 2008 album Easy Come Easy Go? I blame the too-tasteful cover and the coy "Songs for Music Lovers" subtitle, which suggests that what you're in for is a collection of freeze-dried standards.

Nothing could be further from the truth. A haunted version of Ellington's "Solitude" is about as close as this gets to polite, Willie Nelson-sings-Stardust territory. Mostly, Faithfull chooses material from the here and now: Neko Case, Morrissey, The Decemberists. The closest comparison that comes to mind is Caetano Veloso's 2004 collection A Foreign Sound, which had a similarly eclectic spirit, its selections ranging from Gershwin to Elvis to DNA to Nirvana. Veloso's work was deeper and richer, but what I hear in both records is a sheer delight in making music with sympathetic collaborators, freed from commercial expectations or artistic vanity. There's something to be said, I guess, for being a sixtysomething artist with enough money to live on, nothing much to prove to anyone, and cool friends like Nick Cave or Antony Hegarty who'll maybe drop by the studio to add some backing vocals.

Oh, and it helps when you've got one of pop's great voices. Not technically-accomplished great, mind you. More sounds-like-nobody-else-and-you'd-recognize-her-even-if-she-was-singing-in-Swahili great. It's a voice that's been to exotic places, ingested hallucinogens in the company of thieves and brigands, awakened in a Marrakesh hotel with no memory of having arrived there, is ashamed of nothing and doesn't much care what you think about that. Which is to say: how many sixtysomething Englishwomen do you know who can sell Merle Haggard's death-row ballad "Sing Me Back Home"?

"This is not America"

I'm late in getting to this, but Nicholas Kristof's recent NYT column is one of the saner things written, to date, about this spasm of Islamophobic hysteria we seem to be enduring.

On New Republic editor Martin Peretz's recent suggestion that Muslims need not be accorded First Amendment rights because they don't respect life the way the rest of us do:

Thus a prominent American commentator, in a magazine long associated with tolerance, ponders whether Muslims should be afforded constitutional freedoms. Is it possible to imagine the same kind of casual slur tossed off about blacks or Jews? How do America’s nearly seven million American Muslims feel when their faith is denounced as barbaric?

This is one of those times that test our values, a bit like the shameful interning of Japanese-Americans during World War II, or the disgraceful refusal to accept Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe.

The view from here: Sunday, September 12

College and Bathurst Streets, Toronto, 5:14 pm.

The view from here: Saturday, September 11

Ossington & Queen St, Toronto, 3:02 pm

Also, Envy Adams is much hotter in the book. Sorry, but she is.

...and then, Honest Ed's imploded

So OK, I saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. It's ... pretty good. Funny, sweet, generous and remarkably true to the spirit of the original graphic novel.

It would be wrong and misguided and insufferably fanboyish to argue that the book is better. But the book is better. It's a miniature masterpiece that turns the most unpromising of subjects -- a slacker's halting progress toward maturity -- into something heartfelt and human and true. The movie is great fun, but it's very, very slight. Unavoidably so: when you telescope a six-volume novel down to two hours of screen time, stuff gets lost. Characters drop out or get shortchanged, textures get coarsened, the story has less room to breathe.

Most of the movie's compromises come at the expense of its female characters (though, SPOILER ALERT HERE, I also miss Stephen Stills' coming-out). Envy Adams doesn't register as much more than a cartoon. Kim Pine (played by the wonderful Alison Pill) doesn't have enough to do. Knives Chau (Ellen Wong, also terrific) is absent from much of the movie's second half. And Ramona seems weirdly limp and passive in the final act. Why is Scott fighting for her, again? (On the up side, Aubrey Plaza makes an awesomely bitchy Julie Powers.)

As a hometown fan, I guess I also wanted more of Toronto. This post from the Guardian film blog gives the movie due credit for all stuff about Toronto that it gets right. But I miss how specific the book is: about the crappiness of the food at Sneaky Dee's, the shabbiness of the Dufferin Mall, and so forth. And more than anything, I miss Scott and Todd Oldham (evil ex number three) fighting it out amid THE STARK EXISTENTIAL HORROR OF HONEST ED'S. (To be fair, I understand why this scene got left out: it doesn't advance the plot much. Besides which, who'd ever believe that such a place existed anywhere in the real world -- let alone Toronto?)

The view from here: Monday, September 6

Buenos Dias! El Radio Republic!

Great lost singles of the 1980s: David Johansen's "Heard The News," from the album Sweet Revenge. "Have you heard about the government / Do you know just who it represents?"

Just press shuffle (1)

Tom Waits, "All The World Is Green"
The Comsat Angels, "Independence Day"
That Petrol Emotion, "Can't Stop"
The Beach Boys, "Wouldn't It Be Nice"
U2, "City of Blinding Lights"
Luna, "Time to Quit"
Morrissey, "Seasick, Yet Still Docked"
T-Bone Burnett, "After All These Years"
Soul Coughing, "Mr. Bitterness"
Blake Babies, "Lament"
Lou Reed, "I Love You, Suzanne"
Tricky featuring Ambersunshower, "You Dont' Wanna"

(Is it just me, or is Morrissey starting to look a bit like DCI Hunt from Life on Mars?)

Texas Love Triangle

Most excellent-ish thing I've heard in a while: Tommy Boy's Texas Love Triangle Mix. Who knew the great state of Texas has a thriving techno/electro scene? Not me.