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This

































is Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's (biological) son.
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I watched Twilight with the audio commentary on last night but gave up after about a half hour. Most audio commentaries are drivel, which is a shame, because the good ones can enhance a movie a lot. I was thinking about what makes an audio commentary worthwhile (cause I know Scorsese is a regular reader):

1. DO talk about directing decisions: lighting, approaches to character, visual elements, symbolism.

2. DO talk about acting, how a role was developed and what it was like to interact with other actors.

3. DON'T talk about special effects, how a certain trick was carried out, what is CGI and what isn't. Leave it for the technical commentary if there is one.

4. DON'T be incessantly self-deprecating (this seems to be a problem with actors in particular, who are chary of seeming self-important).

5. DON'T reminisce about anecdotes relating to the filming but unrelated to the movie itself. Not that these things can't be interesting or amusing, but they cut into the time the director and actors could be talking about, you know, directing and acting.

The best commentary I've heard is the one by David Cronenberg on his film Spider (with Ralph Fiennes). It illuminated the film so much.
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Linguistic tidbit: Apparently "Becks and Posh" is not only the nickname for David Beckham and Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham but a Cockney rhyming slang for a snack (nosh). It's possible I'm the last person to know this.
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I love the new U2 album. It's creative, different, stretchy, but still U2. One of my favorite cuts is "White As Snow," and its lyrics are just the kind of thing I like---kind of atmospheric and oblique, but not so artsy-fartsy as to be totally incomprehensible. Here are the lyrics:


White as Snow Lyrics
by U2


Where I came from there were no hills at all
The land was flat, the highway straight and wide
My brother and I would drive for hours
Like we had years instead of days
Our faces as pale as the dirty snow

Once I knew there was a love divine
Then came a time I thought it knew me not
Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not
Only the lamb as white as snow

And the water, it was icy
As it washed over me
And the moon shone above me

Now this dry ground, it bears no fruit at all
Only poppies laugh under the crescent moon
The road refuses strangers
The land, the seeds we sow
Where might we find the lamb as white as snow

As boys we would go hunting in the woods
To sleep the night shooting out the stars
Now the wolves are every passing stranger
Every face we cannot know
If only a heart could be as white as snow
If only a heart could be as white as snow
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I like how the theme of the song, redemption and hunger for goodness within oneself and others, is tied in with the concrete fact of the landscape. And isn't it true that when we see newly fallen snow there's something magical about it, something that inspires belief in (or at least a wish for) perfection and beauty. And then the next day the trucks have rolled over it, and the dogs have peed on it, and the plows have pushed it around, and we're back in our old pedestrian, imperfect, always-ruining-things world. But the momentary sight of that peace and beauty lodges in our hearts and tugs at our desire to something better.
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Readings: Robert Harris's The Ghost, a thriller about a ghostwriter helping a Tony Blair-like figure with his memoirs. I don't read many popular thrillers, but I love Robert Harris. I've also read his Pompeii and Fatherland.

Listening: Just now really getting into Chris Cornell's new album Scream. LOVE it, especially "Time" and "Sweet Revenge."

Eatings: Made my mom's chili recipe last night; best chili ever. And next weekend I've receiving my eighth of a cow (in roasts and ground beef) from a small, local farmer.

Viewings: We saw Coraline in 3D on Friday afternoon, which was fantastic. WAY too scary for kids, but really brilliant animation. And I got Jay to watch Twilight last night, which he pronounced "excellent."
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Simon Cowell, quoted in EW this week:

"It's fine being artistic, just not on this show."
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I love this article by Carl Wilson (and reprinted in The Week) about musical taste, in particular his recent succumbing (succumption?) to the charms of Celine Dion.
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Is it possible that Paula Abdul is actually the best judge on American Idol?

Hear me out.

Randy is solid. I almost always agree with him, and he manages to insert some musical commentary into his assessments.

The new woman is good, but undistinguished at this point.

Simon is worthless, in my opinion. There is no logic to what he thinks is fantastic versus rubbish, and he hates anything that is artistic. If it's outside the mainstream at all, it's "self-indulgent." He doesn't actually seem to like or know music very much; he just likes the music biz. He called the Beatles' "Blackbird" "a song about a bird."

Paula, on the other hand, is an artist. She started as a choreographer and songwriter, and only later became a singer herself. A lot of her commentaries are insipid or reaching (if you know what I mean) but then again, a lot of the performances are just okay; and how many times can you say that something is nice or fine or okay? She tries to see something unique or deeper into what each person has to offer, which is difficult when they don't have that much unique to offer.

But when a performance is unusual or actually artistic, Paula comes through. She gave the first review of Adam Lambert's rendition of Ring of Fire this week, and it was spot on. She said it was like a Kashmiri Led Zeppelin, and I thought, "Yes, that's exactly what it's like." Once a season or so, she has these very insightful comments, and you can see that she's actually much more astute and musical Simon.

She does, however, have Aging Star Syndrome. Women can have a hard time dressing themselves as they get older, and she needs help in this department. She's still really beautiful but is overstyled, which doesn't help the appreciation of her talents.
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I realized today that I'll be off of work about the same amount of time I was in Italy last year . . . ten days. But after two days in Rome, I felt like I had been gone a lifetime; I could have gone home right then and still felt I had a grand adventure. On furlough, I think I'll go back after ten days and it will feel like no time has passed.
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(herein be spoilers)

With most book or movies series, I like the first one best: The Fellowship of the Ring, the original Star Wars, and definitely Twilight. The first installments have freshness on their side, and the characters and plot are vivid. Also, they seem crafted with a completeness, a kind of full arc, that later installments don't have.

As the Twilight saga went on, I missed the modesty of the first volume. When James, Laurent, and Victoria enter the ballfield in the original Twilight novel, it's a very simple event, but incredibly fraught with tension and danger. No flash, no crazy powers, no black robes or pomp, yet crackling with menace. I'm not a huge fan of the whole Volturi angle, which introduces a Harry Potter feel of fantasy to what had been a very grounded narrative.

Breaking Dawn is definitely my least favorite of the Twilight books. After two books (New Moon and Eclipse) that focused heavily on Jacob Black, I was ready for the last book to return to a strong focus on Edward and Bella. Jacob features too prominently in Breaking Dawn for my taste, and there are other plot developments that muddy the waters. The repetition is still there (Alice and Jasper take off, and they secretly wonder if they've bailed? I don't think so; and Jacob once again gets ready to kill Edward when he thinks Bella has been hurt? Again?).

That said, Breaking Dawn was a good conclusion to the series. Most of all, I love the way it ended. Very unexpected and very brave of Stephenie Meyer to end with diffusion rather than a bang. And so in keeping with her philosophy.
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I was thinking about this question a few weeks ago, when my friend Rose talked about why Chris Cornell's music never grabbed her. She said it was missing something in the high range that her ear seems to want. So interesting . . . There's definitely a lot of music that is critically acclaimed, and I believe intellectually is good, but that falls flat on my ear. I'd love to be able to figure out what it is that unites the music that I like. Maybe it would even extend to other art forms.

Here's one stab: I like art that is complex but unified. Some art (songs, books, paintings) are too straightforward. But at heart I lean Apollonian and chafe at art that is too all-over-the-place, has too many diverse elements, random bits, is out of proportion. Every once in a while there's a piece of art that is so diverse and rich that is almost---not but quite---tips Dionysian; that's my sweet spot. Here are some examples:

1. Cloud Atlas (novel): This book contains something like 10 different sections. It starts with historical narrative A, then jumps forward in time to historical narrative B, then forward to C, and so on until E. At that point, the next section is E again and it starts going backward: Next is historical narrative D again, then C again, and so on back to A. Each of the five historical narratives is really, really different. The novel is kind of an exploding bomb of voices, syntax, places, and characters. But it's strongly united by theme, and so instead of bursting to pieces it's held mid-explosion, so to speak, with everything existing together in harmony. It's an awesome achievement, one of my favorite novels ever.

2. DC Talk (music group): DC Talk was a Chrstian rock/pop/rap band that was huge in the 1990s. It was formed by three strong personalities: the rapper/producer Toby McKeehan, the pop powerhouse Michael Tait, and the eccentric Kevin Max. What I love about their music is that it's got so much going on. It's not just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus, chorus. It's intro, verse, chorus, verse, rap, chorus, bridge, chorus, coda, appendix, surprise. It was always almost too much, but walked that line between richness and schizophrenia.

3. Jack Joseph Puig's production of Heavier Things (CD by John Mayer): This is on the list because I was listening to it this morning. It's a quiet CD but not a bland CD. Puig was the perfect producer for John Mayer, and added layers upon layers of musical touches to what, very easily, could have been left alone. The songs are strong, and a lesser producer would have just relied on that strength. But Puig adds the subtle horns, the occasional sound effect, the occasional twinning of vocal and bass, all sorts of effects that enhance and fill out the songs without sounding like tricks or feeling just tacked on.

I'm going to think on this more and see if there are other principles I can come up with.
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. . . that Bernie Madoff is "deeply sorry and ashamed"?

To jail, worm, to jail.
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When discussing whether each of us was Team Edward or Team Jacob this afternoon, my sister Sally reminded me of why my mom said she named my brother as she did: "I never met an Edward I didn't like."
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We had a great weekend. Eve, Ryan, and Lindsey came down on Saturday for a sleepover. There was hiking to the river, Candyland, pizza, hot chocolate, stories in bed, and also a late-night romp in the yard. Ryan and Lindsey were in their pajamas, and we put on their crocs and played sticks with Rocky out in the warm night air. Rocky was in puppy heaven. I'd creep up to one of them and say, "Look---isn't that a giraffe?" and when they'd turn to where I was pointing, I'd scoop them up and swirl them. We did this for about a half hour, and I myself was in aunt-heaven. There's something magical about a suburban yard on a warm night.

On Sunday we took another hike, went out for lunch, and then they dropped me off around 2:00. I immediately took a four-and-a-half-hour nap. When I got up I was groggy and drank perhaps just a teensy tiny bit too much coffee. This led to me reading the third book in the Twilight series, Eclipse, ALL NIGHT long. I literally read it until I finished it, at about 7:30 Monday morning.

I really loved Eclipse. I was once again thinking about Stephenie Meyer's writing, how the dialogue sometimes has too much hyperbole ("'That can't be!', I shrieked") and too much repetition ("Edward, you can't blame yourself!" "Bella, you can't blame yourself!" "Edward, I'd never forgive myself if you blame yourself!" "Bella, I'd never forgive myself if you never forgive yourself!"). And yet there's this:

1. As one of the characters in The Jane Austen Book Club says of our beloved Jane: "She plots like a m*****f****r." Stephenie Meyer is a serious, master plotter.

2. The books are really thematically rich. They deal with---with subtlety and at length---tons of interesting questions. Like what does it mean to love someone, what do you owe your family, what compromises are acceptable and which not. I'm glad that I read Meyer's stand-alone sci-fi novel, The Host, right after the first book in the Twilight series. It made me see more clearly another of Meyer's themes, which is the possibility of building bridges between people (and peoples . . . that is, cultures) who seem to be irreversibly opposed and hostile. It's not a black-and-white, question-and-answer treatment either. It's a careful, close examination of how bridges might be built, brick by brick, by individual acts, common interests, little moments of trust, and little moments of doubt. I love this aspect of her work.

3. I can't remember the last time I was so compelled to keep reading a novel. As I finished Eclipse early this morning, I vowed to spend this afternoon reading the final installment, Breaking Dawn. And that kind of reaction to a novel is so rare . . . I was trying to think of other books and authors I've felt that with. I'm pretty sure I don't even feel it with Jane Austen. It might be that Tolkien is the only other author who provides that ineffable lure . . . it's magic.

Time for some laundry now. Then it's back to work tomorrow for an intense week of work before the furlough next week. Keep your fingers crossed for my company.
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Me and my namesake out on a hike this morning . . .

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When I heard that this book was a "sheep detective novel," I thought it would be fun and clever but also a bit of a novelty act. Not so. I loved this book to death. It was funny and charming but also meaningful and thoughtful. Here's the plot description from GoodReads:

"A witty philosophical murder mystery with a charming twist: the crack detectives are sheep determined to discover who killed their beloved shepherd. On a hillside near the cozy Irish village of Glennkill, a flock of sheep gathers around their shepherd, George, whose body lies pinned to the ground with a spade. George has cared devotedly for the flock, even reading them books every night. Led by Miss Maple, the smartest sheep in Glennkill (and possibly the world), they set out to find George’s killer."

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1. a usually temporary layoff from work

2. what I'll be on March 16-20
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Today I'm thinking:

Beatles
Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Nirvana
U2
The Police
The Who
REM
Audioslave
Stone Temple Pilots
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We now have in our refrigerator pull-out drawer about 10 or 12 different containers of cheese. Some are shredded, some are slices, some are blocks. Some are in their original packaging, some are in foggy, grimy ziploc bags, some are tossed in with other stuff. Most are undated and suspect. I realized this morning as I was getting my lunch together that I have confidence in NONE of our cheeses.
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Ed and Tim and I debated this on Sunday. Here's my take:

1. Mick Jagger
2. Madonna
3. Bruce Springsteen
4. Bono
5. Jim Morrison
6. Kurt Cobain
7. Robert Plant
8. Sting
9. Steven Tyler
10. Chris Cornell
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I like this bit of interview between Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend in Interview magazine. Rupert Friend plays Albert to Blunt's Queen Victoria in an upcoming movie:

RF: You’ve got to remember that Albert lives with an empress, and she’s someone who became an empress when she was just a girl. And she’s made one or two mistakes along the way, but she’s ultimately had the strength to continue being that empress, you know, for a fuck of a long time. And I think it takes quite a strong man to say, “My woman will always achieve more than I ever will, she will always have more power than I’ll ever have, and she will probably be more popular than I’ll ever be. And I don’t care.”

EB: Because he loved her.

RF: Yes. And that, to me, is about as close to the definition of a man as I’ve ever gotten.
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For Ed: Here's the best of the probable set list:

No Such Thing
You Know My Nmae
Out of Exile
Can't Change Me
Gasoline
Black Hole Sun
Billy Jean
Like a Stone
Doesn't Remind Me
Scream
Be Yourself
Disappearing One
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Chris Cornell Set List

This is from November 2008 but may be some indication of his set list for the April 9:30 Club gig:

PART OF ME
NO SUCH THING
YOU KNOW MY NAME
SET IT OFF
OUT OF EXILE
OUTSHINED
NO ATTENTION
SAY HELLO 2 HEAVEN
CAN'T CHANGE ME
GASOLINE
SEARCHING WITH MY GOOD EYE CLOSED
RUSTY CAGE
BLACK HOLE SUN
BILLY JEAN
LIKE A STONE
DOESN'T REMIND ME
COCHISE
WATCHOUT
SCREAM
BLOW UP THE OUTSIDE WORLD
BE YOURSELF
SPOONMAN
ENCORE
LIKE SUICIDE
IMMIGRANT SONG
DISAPEARING ONE
THE DAY I TRIED TO LIVE
REACH DOWN
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