What with the move and all—thanks to Salma, Dan, Kris, and Sarah—I haven’t had a lot of time to write. (Summary of my new apartment: I really like living off the ground again.) So here’s a short post, a roundup of what I’ve been watching, reading, and listening to this week:
Merry Krismix: For which I have Kris to thank. This is Kris’s half of our mix CD exchange, and compared to mine, it has a lot more, you know, mix. The 16 Horsepower, Go Team!, Asha Bhosle, and Gorillaz songs are my favorites. Plus, “Rudie Can’t Fail” reminded me that I need to pick up London Calling. (But the artist on the last song got cut off—who played “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left”?) And Hank is on the cover. Thanks, Kris!
On the Waterfront: Kinda boring. Marlon Brando spends the whole movie looking like he just got struck in the face, so when he actually does get struck in the face, it’s really bizarre. The whole thing suffers from 1950s-brand soundtrack overload, where every emotion is cued by a string crescendo that comes through the speaker distorted.
Abbey Lincoln, Abbey Is Blue: I heard “Afro-Blue” on the Current a few months ago and had to check it out. The song, which has a great horn riff, outshines the rest of the CD, which is mainly supper-club jazz with sad melodies that would sound better if the accompaniment were louder in the mix. She has a great voice, though.
Victory at Sea, All Your Things Are Gone: Aimee Mann without the Aimee Mann. A couple of really good piano-pop songs, a couple of other songs that aren’t quite as good. iTunes, my good people!
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being: So. Very. Boring.
Bo$$, Born Gangstaz: I’m writing (mentally) a post on why this is such a good album, but for now: It’s such a good album. I had it on tape (!) in high school, lost it for a long time, and just this week got the CD again. It holds up. It’s pretty violent, though—kind of hard to take in one sitting.
3 Responses to The Lazy Man’s Version of Posting
“A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left” is by Andrew Bird, who I’ve only heard on the current and subsequently downloaded two of his songs (which are awesome).
Abbey Lincoln sounds good, too, if you want to, er, loan it to me for personal use without distribution or reproduction (just in case the RIIA is listening . . . actually, just making the mix tape is illegal now, I think, uh-oh).
I got curious about Andrew Bird and have downloaded two of his albums. It’s great – but who can resist a man and a violin?
Not me. Two albumns puts you way ahead of me — I’m now at three songs, total, all from “The Mysterious Production of Eggs,” which I plan to buy in full, anyway, but even more so if you tell me its one of the two you got and liked . . .