Name that Tune

Dinner on the Molly is all about ye ye pop this morning and if France Gall's 'Laisse Tomber les Filles' sounds familiar, it should - an english language version of the same tune appeared in a certain 2007 film by a famous American director...any guesses?

France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg - Les Sucettes

I was searching for early Chantal Goya songs and stumbled across this french-pop gem instead.

Delicate Situations

Whilst google image searching the word "October," I came across this site with an abundance of interesting photographic images:
http://delicatesituations.blogspot.com/

Country Love In October

Since graduating, I have found that I greatly miss the ability to workshop. Thus, I'm including this poem I wrote in late October with the hopes more creative pieces to workshop will appear on the blog.

Country Love In October


I am not strong enough for the poetry I said
The words I thought I thought I knew were there
All gone to sleep with fishes and useless vacuum
  cleaner heads.
The vampire knells you at once wring from my
  longgone swansong neck
Remaining hollow as hollow harvests tonight shuck
  empty cobs for supper,
And everyone hears the angry belly in the cruel caw
  of murders.

Someday plan on a funeral,
Blind-date someone's mother, plan a garage sale,
Take the block from the butcher and make it a vase for
  everyday killers and their everyday flowers.
Watch your words grow to grey right there because of our
  solitary star –
Redundance has had a way with me.
I am universal standard.

I was planted to become a boiled sleep of a thousand years
 in the loose knit net
Of another's deeply tragic forever.
For your beautiful ways, like the small of your back or
  the way your hair dries
On your own pillow or in the sun, I began to disremember.
I am sorry.
Yet we sleep on heroically

For our causal reunion. My love,
There could be a million cardinals for every morning
  if they only had your eyes.
A mountain's shadow ate up my prettiest heartbeats. Love,
The very same shade that scratched my head
Like your hand, that shadow has lately left me.
It is good and it is bad. Mostly
I am here oftentimes.
I am here waiting

With the paper husks in October's gardens,
And the dust falling like snow,
Brown leaf ghosts stirring along a long dirt road
And then lightly disappearing into dark.

A Formal Apology

If anyone who follows this newborn blog was offended by my piece titled "Homeless People", I sincerely apologize. I perhaps took the problem of homelessness too lightly by associating it with phenomenological experiences I've connected together and creating an on-the-spot, somewhat tongue-in-cheek creative non-fiction piece. However, I do stand by my few experiences and opinions because I think they are empirically valid (insofar as I myself was offended).
To fix the homeless problem, and not just put a bandage on the wound, in America would be to completely readjust an American mind that has been corroded by advertising, consumerism, and political propaganda. Saying nothing of overpopulation, a true fix would mean a complete readjustment of our economic system, one that is more focused on community and mutual aid, not blind individualism and infinite waste. Like I said in the piece, homelessness is nothing in itself more than tragic and it warrants as much compassion as society can muster; it is, further, an indication of a greater problem in dire need of prompt solving. I don't believe any of the current political forerunners, who are spending billions of dollars each on campaigns paved with rhetoric and corporate funds, will or can make any of these changes. This tends to make me cynical. However, cynicism is not a persistent state, and again, if this piece came off as too cynical, I apologize, because I do not and have never despised homeless people categorically.
And I will say that living in the city should not lead us to not speak about homelessness, it should merely make the issue more acute and cause more discussion.

Kosher Coke: Fair Warning

Prepare yourself! Passover in 2008 will start on Sunday, April 20, and will be observed until Saturday, April 26. 'Kosher' Coca Cola made with real sugar will be made available at select retailers during this period. Coca Cola switched from pure cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup in April, 1985 and most Americans born in the 80s have probably either never had 'real' Coke or have no memory of it. You now have a three week head start to track down and try the real thing!

Listen here to learn more: NPR

Kosher formula explained: NY Post

Bono

"So, you like rich, altruistic Irish rockstars?"

I've just started Chuck Klosterman's latest book, IV, and I am enjoying it tremendously. His wit and wealth of trivial knowledge makes him one of the most incisive yet endearing pop culture critics out there. One of the chapters concerns an interview with Bono, which is simply hilarious. I won't paraphrase Mr. Klosterman because his prose is delicious, but I will recommend this book, despite just starting it.

Concert Review: Beach House

Last night I traveled to Cambridge to see Maryland duo Beach House play upstairs at The Middle East. Touring on their second album "Devotion" with San Francisco based band Papercuts, I put myself in the midst of the hippie facet of indie -scene sub-culture. If you have never heard Beach House before (I recommend their self-titled debut album), imagine Nico meets some British shoe gaze and perhaps a bottle of cough syrup. Their sound is beautiful yet chilling. Eerie keyboards align with twangy guitars and electronic drum beats to create something special. Live, Victoria Legrand's vocals are a distant second to the albums and she annunciates certain words to almost an annoyance if you pay attention close enough. For instance stairs becomes "sta-yerrrs" and who cares is a similar "who ca-yerrs". Musically they play live with a drummer which adds more texture to their basic sound. Guitarist Alex Scally dressed in a vintage white suit looked the most alive on the stage, moving almost waltz-like as he played his guitar. Although this may sound like a fairly negative review I enjoyed myself and they are really not horrible live. Legrand was very responsive to the tiny crowd and even made jokes about breaking the stage with her high heels. Opening band, Papercuts create a similar shoegaze like sound which made me want to listen to both bands from my bed with headphones on. Although I wouldn't recommend Beach House live I seriously recommend giving their first album a listen. You can find them here:

Beach House

or

Beach House

A Strange Coincidence

Today, while listening to my iPod on shuffle on the T, I discovered that in the song “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” Tammi Terrell croons “Oh, Marvin” during the final chorus; I had always thought she said “Oh, darlin’.” I’m not sure why, but this realization made me choke up a bit - maybe because it sounds so unscripted and heartfelt.

When I got to my office, I searched Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell on wikipedia and found that Marvin Gaye died 24 years ago today - and, tomorrow would have been his 69th birthday.

Movie / Soundtrack Review: McCabe & Mrs Miller

A stranger arrives in a frontier town to open a brothel. He joins forces with a business savvy madam. The business thrives and when the stranger refuses a buyout from an outside conglomerate they send men to kill him. Beyond these simple plot points the narrative is slight and fractured; conversations in crowded rooms are half heard and characters are introduced only to disappear for long stretches of the film. We learn nothing of McCabe or Mrs. Miller beyond what we can infer from brief scenes that seem to be indiscriminately comprised of both the significant and irrelevant moments of their daily lives. As we struggle to parse out the meaningful moments from the inane, the common element between these scenes becomes the three songs by Leonard Cohen that accompany them all. We begin to make assumptions about the characters based on the lyrics that accompany their lives. “Winter Lady” plays and we see Mrs. Miller smoking opium behind locked doors, sought after by all her patrons but beyond any feeling or attachment. McCabe rides into town to “Stranger Song;” just a “Jacob looking for a manger,” he does little to disillusion the townspeople of their assumption that he’s an infamous gambler with a violent past. The town revolves around the bathhouse and, as “Sisters of Mercy” plays, the prostitutes – professionals imported by Mrs. Miller as well as local women compelled by circumstance – pleasure the rough and inarticulate men who are building the town amidst the falling snow. The music and the images become inseparable; there is something rustic and beautiful in the isolated and serene setting, but at the same time it is a place where pleasure is illusory; past decisions have doomed these men and women, and as they do their best to distract themselves amidst the steam and music of the dimly lit brothel we come to see their fates approaching all too clearly.