Category: entertainment

Lines of lightning

I’ve just returned from Columbia, MD, where I spent the evening with Rich at a Counting Crows concert.  I saw them twice last year but didn’t think I was going to make it this summer since my sister, my normal CC partner, is out of town, but Rich offered to accompany me, so a great tragedy was avoided.

I’d never been to Merriweather Post Pavilion before and was leery of an outdoor venue as they aren’t as intimate, but, although it’s a different experience to see a band outside, Merriweather has good acoustics and huge monitors.  The only drawback was that I absolutely could not see the stage, but we were so far back I would have been able to see only tiny figures even with an unobstructed view.

The music more than made up for the lack of visuals, though, as it always does.  They played a great set, more acoustic than I’ve ever seen them (as Adam pointed out).  Adam seemed genuinely happy tonight, not in the sloppy drunk way he has purportedly been in the past, but in an at-peace-with-the-world kind of way.  He’s originally from Maryland and his family was in the crowd, as were a number of his friends from Berkeley, so that may have been part of it; additionally this was the last show they’re going to be doing for quite a while, so he may have also been feeling relieved — but I’d like to believe that he’s just doing better overall than he was 10 years ago after he suddenly became famous.

They played beautiful renditions of ‘Richard Manuel is Dead’, ‘Mrs Potter’s Lullaby’, ‘Omaha’, a great acoustic ‘Accidentally in Love’, and…well, just go check out the setlist.  It was all fantastic, but the highlight of the evening for me was their ‘Rain King’/‘Raining in Baltimore’ medley.  I was hoping they would play ‘Raining’ as it’s one of my theme songs when I’m feeling the peculiar loneliness of a long distance relationship (a recurring theme in my life currently in full swing), and their “song sandwiches” (I know, these are called alts, a terrible non-descriptive term) are one of my favorite parts of seeing CC live.  ‘Raining’ is a bittersweet song, perfectly suited to Adam’s bittersweet voice and the bittersweet feeling, and tonight’s version captured it wonderfully.  “Three thousand five hundred miles away / but what would you change if you could?”

Their final encore, ‘Holiday in Spain’, was perfect as well, and another song I’d been hoping to hear.  The note of wishful desperation usually present in Adam’s voice for this song was absent in lieu of the anticipation of his upcoming vacation written plainly across his face.

I’m sorry they aren’t planning to tour again any time soon, but I’m glad I was able to make it to the show tonight.  Sometimes I think that as I become less angsty I’ll stop identifying with the Counting Crows’ music and Adam’s lyrics — but it’s been nearly eleven years now and they still move me in new ways every time I hear them.

Missing

CNN.com – Find ‘Missing’ clues on Web sites, e-mail – Jul 16, 2004

This looks like an interesting twist on an idea EA had a few years ago — create a game that blurs the line between play and reality. Well, kind of.

This sounds less ambitious but perhaps more likely to succeed as it doesn’t require a monthly subscription. Also, I’m guessing that this game will allow players to move through at their own pace since a CD means everything’s already written — which didn’t seem to be the case with Majestic.

Even with its flaws, when I the guy I was living with, who was playing Majestic at the time, woke me up on September 11, 2001 with the words, “We’re under attack,” I thought he was talking about the game. If ‘Missing’ can create that kind of illusion and the *and* keep the momentum going throughout the game I can see this becoming a much larger genre.

Fahrenheit 9/11

According to an AP review of “Fahrenheit 9/11”, the movie “will reinforce whatever opinions people had when they walked into the theater — about President Bush, its subject, and Moore.” I went to see it tonight at the Midtown Cinema with no fully formed thoughts about its subject — general dislike for both Bush & Moore aside — and left feeling much the same way.

I’d never seen a Michael Moore film before and mostly thought of him as arrogant and obnoxious. Admittedly, I’d done what I could to avoid hearing and reading about him because I knew I disagreed with his agenda, but from what I had picked up, my gut took over and I instinctively hated him. My image of him shifted slightly as a result of “Fahrenheit,” but is not much more favorable than it was. He’s a master propangandist with a talent for pushing buttons and moving audiences, but I don’t feel any more educated than I did at the beginning of the evening.

Let me say right now that I want Bush out of office. I am extremely disappointed in him and his administration and am terrified at the prospect of four more years of the same.

On the other hand, I am not convinced of the conspiracy theories I hear from all corners of the political arena, and “Fahrenheit” did nothing to bring me any closer to a conclusion. While it succeeded in raising quite a few “what ifs?”, it did nothing to fill in the holes. And because Moore’s agenda is so blatant it’s impossible to believe him without seeing all of the documents he referenced and probably more — just as Bush’s agenda is so blatant that it’s impossible to believe him.

I was also skeptical about Moore’s portrayal of Bush. In one sequence Bush was a bumbling idiot, then a pawn of his father and his cohorts, then a scheming and greedy businessman masterfully engineering an elaborate plot. It’s possible that he really is all three but I find it more likely that he’s being represented this way so that any anti-Bushite watching the movie will an image with which they can identify.

Most of the movie, in fact, appealed to base emotions rather than reason, just as it condemned the administration for resorting to fear to control the population. Images of young soldiers talking about their fears and the violent music they listened to while bombing Baghdad were interesting and moving but would remain the same in any military conflict and are not the product of an unjust war. Lila Lipscomb’s loss is heartbreaking, but the images of her visiting the White House were cloying and over the top.

This is a great campaign piece for the Democratic party, or, really, for anyone who opposes Bush. It will help them feel righteous about their beliefs and perhaps even persuade some who are still on the fence about the fall election. But it doesn’t deserve the genre title ‘documentary’, even if Moore is correct in all of his assertions.

Completely unrelated to the movie itself, it was heartening to see so many people flocking to the Midtown. I tried to go yesterday evening but even arriving before tickets went on sale wasn’t early enough to make it in. We arrived at the theater around 6:20 tonight, for a 7:00 showing, and judged that the crowd out front was even larger than yesterday’s, so came back at 8:15 for a 9:30 showing. The Midtown doesn’t sell tickets in advance because they “don’t have a computer”, so there was no way to know whether or not we were going to make it in then either, until a theater employee with a manual counter came through the line asking everyone how many tickets they were planning to purchase. When he reached the end of the line he said, “As long as no one’s lying to me, we have 93 people.” There were 138 seats, all of which were full by the time the movie started.

The Midtown is the only theater in the area playing “Fahrenheit”, but it’s exciting to see that there are that many people interested enough to stand in line for over an hour and sit in uncomfortable seats watching a tiny screen. The audience was diverse, both racially and chronologically, though skewed toward young and white. I didn’t know there were that many young people in the area, let alone that many young people who cared enough to see a movie like “Fahrenheit.” I hope it encourages them to continue thinking.

Baseball & more

Would you believe that I took even more pictures? Believe it. These are from Thursday, 4/15. Tim and I went to Sapporo East for sushi, then I let him talk me into heading over to City Island for the Harrisburg Senators’ opening night. They won, something like 8-4, and I hear it was a good game. I was too busy taking pictures and watching the people around me to notice. I promise if I ever go back I’ll take notes so I can tell you all about it.

Anyway, after the game, Tim and I headed downtown to Scott’s to hang out with the folks from Poetry Thursday (see the link in the previous post). We had a good time there, before ending the evening at the old standard, Shady’s.

There are lots of pictures here. I don’t want to add captions for all of them right now, and I absolutely never will for the baseball pictures. As a result, even I think most of these are boring. But since I took them, I feel obligated to put them up, and since I put them up, you should feel obligated to look at them. Especially admire the many faces of Dan Chiavaroli. He’s my new favorite dwarf.

metacritic

My mom pointed out yesterday that I posted a link to a book about globalization and lost my job to overseas outsourcing. I posted a link to an article about the low stress level of Harrisburg and my apartment was broken into. Nearly makes me afraid of the power of my blog.

I’m not sure what harm this could do though:

metacritic

The site compiles critic opinions of movies (in theaters and on DVD), music, and games, then scores them out of 100. “The Godfather” is their all-time high scorer. “Bio-Dome” is dead last. Sounds about right to me.

Feelin’ Groovy/I’m a Slacker

I should have posted this ages ago. I wrote it, then I didn’t type it up. Read “tonight” as “a week ago”. I suck.

————————————————————————————-

I’ve had dreams come true. I got into the college of my first choice; I got to drive cross-country, not just once, but twice; I have my own apartment and two fantastic cats; in a more literal sense, I got my current job; and tonight, I got to see Simon & Garfunkel in concert.

I have many childhood memories of lying on the oak floors of my parents’ living room playing Simon & Garfunkel on vinyl from my parents’ adolescence while following along with the lyrics printed in the liner notes. I listened to those records over and over until I knew every word of every song on all five albums. I fell in love with their body of work as a whole, but also with each song individually as one line or another, or the general mood of a song, would feel relevant to my life and inextricably tied to who I am.

Years before I sprawled across the living room floor trying to figure out all the cultural references in “Punky’s Dilemma”, I had walked into the bedroom my newborn sister and I shared with our parents, then stopped at the sound of my father singing my sister to sleep.

Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

Admittedly not written by Paul Simon, but I stood in that doorway until my father finished the song, my four-year-old eyes full of tears, and that was probably the beginning.

Their Concert in Central Park happened in September 1981, two months after I was born. By the time I was twelve and dreamt that they came to Lewisberry to put on a show for me, I knew it was likely that Paul & Art would never play together again. I never stopped wishing, though, and tonight was worth the wait.

Though their voices are no longer as clear and sweet as they were 40 years ago, the sheer beauty of Art singing “Kathy’s Song” while Paul gently strummed his guitar from a few steps away moved me to tears. Many songs did, in fact, some for the heartfelt, breathtaking performance, some just because I love the songs so much. I laughed, too, for “Cecilia”, “Mrs. Robinson”, and the final song of the night, “The 59th Street Bridge Song”. Had I read reviews of other shows from this tour, I would have been prepared for their “surprise” guests, but as it was I was truly shocked when Paul introduced their inspiration, The Everly Brothers, and after a few songs Simon & Garfunkel rejoined them on stage for a joint rendition of the hit “Bye Bye Love”. The whole evening was magical and perfect.

I am no musician and cannot give a critical analysis of the performance. But I am a human being and tonight I was alive — as one can be only when dreaming.

Ouch

Pride and Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy

They’ve made a Mormon version of ‘Pride & Prejudice’. I was excited when I first saw that there was a new adaptation coming out, though from the trailer it looks like it might be an adaptation of ‘Bridget Jones’ more than of the actual Jane Austen book, but then I read the IMDB reviews of it and they’re serious in the tagline when they say “A Latter-Day Comedy.” You’d think I’d have suspected there was a correlation between the tagline and the fact that nearly all of the actors are from Utah, but it never occurred to me as a possibility. Of course I’ll go see it, but now it will be with a sense of dread instead of excitement…

Blurring the line between fantasy & reality

I generally consider posting quiz results to a blog to be boring, but, in this case, I’m going to make an exception. The quiz gains validity by recognizing that I am an elf. I’m not sure how I feel about the class, but I guess it’s hard to fit into any of the possibilities. I’d like to be a mage, though.

http://twinrose.net/dandchar.php

You Are A:

Neutral Good Elf Bard

Alignment:
Neutral Good characters believe in the power of good above all else. They will work to make the world a better place, and will do whatever is necessary to bring that about, whether it goes for or against whatever is considered ‘normal’.

Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.

Primary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.

Secondary Class:

Detailed Results:

Alignment:
Law and Chaos:
Law —– X (1)
Neutral – XXXXXXXX (8)
Chaos — XXXXXXX (7)

Good and Evil:
Good —- XXXXXXXXX (9)
Neutral – XXXXXX (6)
Evil —- (-4)

Race:
Human —- XXXX (4)
Half-Elf – XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (16)
Elf —— XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (22)
Gnome —- XXXXXXXXX (9)
Halfling – XXXX (4)
Dwarf —- (0)
Half-Orc – XX (2)

Class:
Fighter — XXXXX (5)
Barbarian -XXXXXX (6)
Ranger — XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (15)
Monk —– XXXXXXX (7)
Paladin — XXXX (4)
Cleric — XXX (3)
Mage —– XXX (3)
Druid —- XXXXXXXXX (9)
Thief —- (-8)
Bard —– XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (17)