Dec/090
Mid-week Briefs
This is the start of a weekly post featuring a bunch of cool things which are too small to write about in full, but too funny or moving to never mention.
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Dec/091
Anticipated Movie: Babies
About a month ago, when I went to see the child-like masterpiece which is Where the Wild Things Are, I was given an unexpected joy before the film even started.
After trudging through the introductory advertisements for a new straight to DVD Tinkerbell movie and the obligitory US Army ad, suddenly a pair of African babies appeared on screen. The audience looked on in curiosity and confusion as the camera remained fixed upon the assumed siblings giving us a rare unhindered view of the two bickering, biting, crying children.
Compared with the typical lighting fast trailers one becomes accustom to at the cinema, the shot continued to remain, without any explanation, before finally shifting into a montage of other babies to the tune of "The Perpetual Self" by Sufjan Stevens.
The rest of the trailer explained that the movie being so joyfully advertised was a feature length documentary following four babies, from four different parts of the world, from birth to first steps. A study in the earliest moments of human life.
Trailer after the jump:
Oct/091
Glory and Hope Abundant – The Acorn
The Acorn have been a band since 2003, and Glory Hope Mountain was their first full-length, released in 2007. I didn't hear them until earlier this year.
I was first introduced through an mp3 playlist posted on the music blog, lineofbestfit.com.
The playlist, titled Dog Day Afternoon, opened up with Crooked Legs, a track by the Acorn from GHM. I was immediately taken aback by the contrast of the swift finger picking and bursts of auxiliary counter-rhythms to the melodic vocal line.
And then the horns came in. I was hooked. (video and mp3 after the jump)
Sep/091
To Capture the Feeling of What It is to Be Nine
“It’s like the studio was expecting a boy, and I gave birth to a girl...And now they’re learning to love and accept their daughter.”
~Spike Jonze on the conflict over the creation of "Where the Wild Things Are"
Where do I begin with Jonze. I believe the beginning was in the back section of a Hollywood Video back in my hometown in Wisconsin. There, in the special interest section, amid foreign films and technicolored anime, the Michel Gondry Director's Label DVD caught my eye. This was Freshman year of highschool, the same year I met Stephen Paar, joined his little after-school Film Club, and first toyed with making movies. I didn't rent the DVD on that occasion, but the cover stuck with me. It featured a still from the lego-tastic music video for the White Stripe's "Fell in Love With a Girl", directed by Gondry.
This was the time when I was first becoming well versed with the internet and spent most of my time poking around "Yahoo Music" watching pop-punk music videos.
I wouldn't return to the DVD for another year or so, after I briefly dated Stephen's sister and was thereby introduced to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". The relationship ended akwardly, as they do before one understands who they are, but the film changed my life. Upon purchasing the long forlorn Director's Label DVD, I was introduced to a sort of sheer creative intensity I hadn't experienced since i hit puberty and ceased playing with Legos. I suddenly had an urge to explore film making in ways I had barely dreamed.
Aug/090
Unrelated Essay: Flying
Reaching down through the frame into the museum miniature still life, I pick up a small semi truck from the traffic-stalled highway, brush my hand across the green, bumpy fuzz of a forested park, and gingerly avoid being pricked by radio towers and power lines.
Or at least I picture it so.
I haven't flown in quite some time and had forgotten how blissful it can be. It seems each time I use air travel, it is better than the last. From the first fear and awe and chewing gum of when my family traveled together to Disney World, to the High School Youth Group Missions trip to Belize, to the overnight flight to London with the Tosa East Marching band.
Maybe my view is skewed by my anticipation of seeing my girlfriend again for the first time in several long summer months. Maybe the knowledge of my pending arival in the foreign land of New England leaves me blinded by the excitement and irrational fear of men in three-cornered hats. Maybe they're pumping something into the air.
Aug/090
The National: Slow Growers
The National are slow growers. Slow in all definitions of the word. Their music has a particular drone to it. It ebbs and flows of late-night car rides, streetlights slowly gliding past. They've been playing on the verge of the spotlight for years and are only just now garnering a large amount of acclaim for their music. Moreover, they're music doesn't really strike you right off.
It took a few full listening sessions of The Boxer before I really realized how amazing it was. But after that point, I was hooked.
I watched the Take Away Shows, bought the subsequent Vincent Moon directed documentary, invested in the band's back catalog, learned how to play Slow Show on the guitar, got the band designed shirt from Yellow Bird Project, tried to catch them when they opened for REM at the United Center but got stuck in Chicago construction traffic and missed their set entirely, and then felt a little bit better about myself when I got the Dessner brothers produced Dark Was the Night records.
There are few groups of musicians which inspire me to make music as much as the boys in the National do. Thus, when Pitchfork '09 announced that the National filling the Saturday night closing slot, I pounced on tickets for the entire weekend.
Jess, a close friend of mine from New York, and I met up and eventually managed to stake out front row space for the National's set. When the band took the stage we soaked in the melancholy drones and smiled with glee. Our minds were blown to perpetuity and we both left with a pleasant "I just had my head rocked off" ringing in our ears.