| Wednesday, November 18, 2009 |
| Joanna |
My friend Janet is outraged over Joanna Krupa's elimination from "Dancing with the Stars." Yes, Joe and I are still watching "DwtS," and we were both surprised by her ouster.
Unlike last season, when I gave my dialing finger a workout voting for ooh-la-la Frenchman Gilles Marini, I don't have a horse in this race. The only time I've voted this season is two weeks ago, when I felt either reality TV princess Kelly Osbourne or weepy tax dodger Aaron Carter was going to get the boot, and I felt compelled to phone in for Kelly because I so desperately wanted Carter off my screen, pronto.
Krupa, a pouty Polish bikini model, was quite obviously a better dancer than Osbourne or Donny Osmond; I don't think she was as good as the season's frontrunner, pop star Mya. Of course, Mya is something of a ringer, having studied dance for years (just not ballroom dance, which I guess makes her eligible for the competition). She even appeared as one of the "Cell Block Tango" dancers in the 2002 film "Chicago."
So why were the lesser lights, Osbourne and Osmond, spared over the graceful, elegant Krupa? Well, I think part of it is their relatability. Both of them show their emotions openly, making it hard not to root for them. If Osbourne trips up during a dance, the smile instantly disappears from her face; when a judge praises her, she lights up like a 150-watt bulb. Osmond joyfully punches the air when he's nailed a dance, and if he makes a misstep, he is his own harshest critic, encouraging the judges to be tougher on him. (One week, Carrie Ann Inaba mentioned that he had made about four mistakes during a dance, and he immediately piped up that he'd actually made five.)
Also, the two Os have built-in fan bases. I had never heard of Krupa before "DwtS," whereas I practically grew up on the Osmonds (I was a devoted watcher of the Donny & Marie variety show back in the 70s), and Kelly appeared on one of the most popular reality TV series of all time, "The Osbournes." Plus, she has that redemptive arc -- she battled drug addiction and seems to have learned from her youthful mistakes.
I don't think there's ever been a contestant on "DwtS" who has wanted to win more than Kelly -- the woman has obviously worked her butt off, listened to her partner (Dutch-born ballroom champ Louis van Amstel), and she's improved tremendously over the course of the competition. By contrast, there was always something ice-princessy about Krupa. Remember those old TV commercials with the model saying, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful"? Joanna is the woman we hate because she's beautiful. (Of course, being a bikini model isn't necessarily a ticket to oblivion in this competition, since Brooke Burke won a couple seasons ago. But she was a little older, and a mom, which I suspect helps with a certain segment of the voters.) Krupa's best, most memorable dance was her "Futuristic Paso Doble," which required her to act like a robot.
"DwtS" is not a pure meritocracy -- if it were, there's no way soulful sensation Lil' Kim would have been booted before wooden rodeo champ Ty Murray last season. I think Mya will win next week, but on a show where personality frequently trumps physical ability, I wouldn't count out either of her challengers yet. |
posted by 125records @ 6:30 AM  |
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| Monday, November 09, 2009 |
| Nostalgiarama |
This past weekend, I had a choice of two concerts that would bring back the 1980s in all their glory: the Pixies performing Doolittle in its entirety at the Fox Theater in Oakland, or Devo's two-night stand in San Francisco (Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! on Friday, Freedom of Choice on Saturday). I opted for Devo, mainly because I saw the Pixies live about a zillion times during their wonder years, in venues large (opening for U2 at the Spectrum in Philly) and small (opening for Throwing Muses at the old 9:30 Club in D.C.). But I was too young to witness the spuds on their seminal tours, though I did finally manage to see them twice. My dad drove me and my brother to see them in East Lansing in late 1982, and I also caught their 2005 reunion gig at the Paramount in Oakland. That was a kick-ass show, so I knew they still had the chops.
Q: Are We Not Men? is one of my favorite albums -- I think it still holds up brilliantly today, and there's really only one song on it that I don't care for ("Too Much Paranoia," mercifully short). Hearing it live was a dream come true, and the band put on an incredibly high-energy performance from start to finish. Here's a surprisingly decent YouTube video of Devo's Friday performance of "Gut Feeling," which is probably one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time. The guys perform with such intensity that it's hard to believe they're all in their late 50s and early 60s (with the exception of drummer Josh Freese, the only non-original member). It's kind of like watching a bunch of suburban dads rock out. Here's another video worth watching: opening track "Uncontrollable Urge," featuring four of the members jumping in unison. I can't imagine that they had any more energy back in 1978.
There were only two encores, "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA" and "Gates of Steel," so the show was just about an hour long. I kind of wish they'd played some more songs from Duty Now For the Future, the bridge between Q: Are We Not Men? and Freedom of Choice, but it was a thoroughly satisfying experience nonetheless.
Despite the fact that the album contains the band's biggest hit, "Whip It," I got the feeling (a gut feeling?) that Devo wasn't quite as into playing Freedom of Choice. The disc is much more synth-based, and it's harder to get crazy when you're behind a keyboard. Plus, it's just not as strong an album as their debut; most of side two (yes, even though I now have it on CD, I will always think of it as a vinyl record) is inconsequential. I could have sworn I saw Mothersbaugh reading lyrics (taped to the stage, perhaps?) at one point.
For the Saturday night encore, "Beautiful World," Mothersbaugh broke out his Booji Boy garb as a treat for the fans (the plastic-masked Booji character was a fixture in the band's first few videos). Booji delivered a monologue about meeting Michael Jackson in L.A., and for a moment, you could almost feel the crowd holding its collective breath. Even among aging punk rockers, it seemed inappropriate to joke about Jackson. But the story turned out to be a little sweet, in its own weird way. Moments like that one ensure that I'll always be a proud member of the Devo faithful. |
| posted by 125records @ 6:35 PM |
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| Saturday, November 07, 2009 |
| What's Wrong With America |
I have been watching this show on one of our smaller local PBS outlets, KCSM, called "MHz Worldview Presents." I found out about it from a couple people in my book group. Worldview shows international mystery programs on a rotating basis -- French, Italian, German and Scandinavian. They air at 10 PM on Monday nights and are repeated at 1 AM on Wednesdays.
I am primarily interested in the Norwegian "Varg Veum" series, and Sweden's "Wallander." I think the Swedish-made films based on Henning Mankell's "Wallander" books are far superior to the English ones featuring Kenneth Branagh that air on "Masterpiece Mystery," and "Varg" is kind of goofy fun -- it's about a private eye based in Bergen who seems to get beat up about half a dozen times in every episode, but always lives to triumph over evil and charm the ladies with his rugged blond good looks. Since they are murder mysteries, not surprisingly, things can get pretty violent. There are dead bodies, dismembered corpses, children in peril, shoot-outs, blood, guts, and mayhem.
But hey, the show is on well past any child's bedtime, and anyway, what kid is going to want to watch a subtitled crime drama from Norway? However, whoever is packaging this show for American audiences obviously thinks they need to protect us from that racy European content. I'm not talking about the violence and death, mind you -- I'm talking about the sex.
 I swear I'm not making this up: in one broadcast, "Worldview" blurred a statue every time it appeared onscreen, presumably because it depicted a bare-breasted woman. (The image looked something like this one which I whipped up myself, except I think it was even blurrier. Naturally, that particular statue is in Europe, out in public where children can see it.)
In another episode, a woman was briefly shown in her bra and panties as she was getting dressed. Even though she was wearing underwear, she was still blurred. I hope the people who would be horribly offended by the sight of a woman in lingerie never click over to the Jockey.com web site by mistake.
So, in short, the dead body of a young girl stuffed into a barrel = no problem; bare marble breasts = an affront to our morals. Of course, I guess I shouldn't expect anything different in the country where movies like "Saw" and "Hostel" are rated R, while "Henry & June" got a NC-17. |
| posted by 125records @ 5:49 PM |
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| Tuesday, November 03, 2009 |
| It's Too Early |
I was in a store yesterday and they were playing Christmas music -- something by John Legend, followed by that Josh Groban recording of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" featuring heart-tugging messages by U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. No retail establishment should be allowed to play carols at least until all the discounted bags of Halloween candy have been sold.
Believe it or not, I've got about a third of my Christmas shopping done already -- I've been picking up items here and there -- and am hoping to have it all done by Thanksgiving. I like to support my local merchants, but playing Xmas tunes in early November just makes me want to do everything online, where I can supply my own soundtrack.
Speaking of Halloween, this was the first time Joe and I stayed home that night since moving into our "new" house. We don't have all that many kids in our neighborhood, but I'd read that our town attracts carloads of children from other areas who come here because it's safe and presumably people here give really good candy. I was prepared with bags of Three Musketeers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. We wound up with just under 50 trick-or-treaters, ranging from precious 4-year-olds dressed like princesses to slightly thuggish teenagers sans costumes who held out their backpacks.
However, some friends of ours who live in the ritzier part of town had 400 kids come to their door, and they told us about a family near the city limits who had -- this is not a typo -- 1,200. Assuming one piece of Halloween candy costs about 15 cents (though you can certainly get it cheaper if you buy off-brand stuff), that's $180 to satisfy kids from all over the East Bay. If I lived in that neighborhood, I think I'd buy four or five bags of candy, hand it out, and when it was gone, turn out the lights. |
| posted by 125records @ 12:50 PM |
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| Saturday, October 24, 2009 |
| Anglophilia |
We went to see two movies today, both British imports. I picked the first one, "An Education," which I was desperate to see because it is that rare thing, a decently-reviewed Peter Sarsgaard movie. Lately, he's been in more than few stinkers, like "Orphan" and "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh." Joe picked the second one, "The Damned United," a film about an English football club manager, scripted by the always-reliable Peter Morgan ("The Queen," "Frost/Nixon"). After "An Education" ended, we had 45 minutes to drive to the other end of town to catch "United." Seeing them both back to back like that made me realize that the seemingly dissimilar films did have one common theme -- arrogance. (Warning: mild spoilers ahead...)
Jenny, the young heroine of "An Education," played by the dazzling newcomer Carey Mulligan, is a 16-year-old schoolgirl who has only one thing on her mind -- getting into Oxford -- until David (Sarsgaard) comes along. A sophisticated, wealthy, much-older man, he wines and dines her, showing her a glamorous life she never knew existed. It's certainly a far cry from anything she's ever experienced in her dull, early-60s suburban life. Why should she plod away at Latin and eventually wind up like her dowdy spinster schoolteacher (played by the usually-very-undowdy Olivia Williams) when she can run off with David and enjoy a whirlwind of travel, concerts and beautiful clothes? I don't think it's giving too much away to reveal that Jenny eventually learns that David doesn't quite offer the easy path to a perfect life.
Mulligan, like her American counterpart Ellen Page, can play much younger than her actual age (she was in her early 20s when the film was shot, but is completely convincing as a 16-year-old). It seemed unrealistic to me that Jenny's parents would be so supportive of her relationship with David, but thinking about it later, I realized that a middle-class couple with few means (in one scene, Jenny's father complains about how much he'll have to spend to send her to Oxford) probably would want their daughter to "marry up," as it were. And in that day & age, once you were a married woman, what would be the point of furthering your education?
If I had a daughter around Jenny's age, I'd want her to see this film -- as dated as some aspects are, the message that in the end, a woman must be able to depend on herself and not simply rely on a man is a timeless one.
Jenny thinks she's got life figured out at age 16. Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) didn't have the excuse of youth -- he was an adult man with a family when he became manager of the Leeds United football club in 1974, the most coveted job in U.K. sport. He promptly went in and told the team members that they were doing everything wrong, despite their long record of victories under previous manager Don Revie, and from now on, it would be his way or the highway. In fact, Clough is practically a textbook example of how not to succeed in a new job. He's such a jerk that it's hard not to want him to fail, and fail he does. Most of "The Damned United" takes place in flashback, as we learn how Clough was able to attain the lofty position of Leeds manager in the first place. A big part of his prior success at Derby County was due to his assistant manager, Pete Taylor (Timothy Spall), who had an uncanny knack for being able to pick players who would help lead the team to victory. But when he gets the Leeds job, Clough is convinced he can go it alone -- that he's the genius. He is very wrong.
In the film, the Brian-Pete relationship is -- well, I don't want to use the hated word bromance, but "United" is practically a love story in which the two men are together and then split up and everything goes haywire because they are so obviously meant to be a pair. It's sad to note that while the film shows them reconciling, in real life, they were torn apart a decade later by a disagreement over a player's transfer to a different team. The men remained estranged until Taylor's death in 1990. Clough died five years ago, and his family is reportedly angry at inaccuracies in the film. (It's based on a novel, The Damned Utd. by David Peace, which is a fictionalized account of Clough's tenure at Leeds.) The "goofs" page of the movie's IMDB profile shows that the writers took plenty of liberties, and shows that a lot of football fans want to set the record straight. For instance, "the 3rd round F.A. Cup tie between Leeds and Derby on the 27th of January 1968 depicted in the movie was played in Leeds, not in Derby." Good to know!
Bottom line: if you're a Sarsgaard fan like me, run, don't walk, to see "An Education." It would also appeal to anyone in search of a coming-of-age saga or period piece -- it's certainly a nice alternative to all the horror fare currently clogging theaters. I was a little more lukewarm on "The Damned United," mostly because Clough was such an unlikable and deluded character. On the up side, it's easy to follow even if you know nothing about football, and Sheen gives yet another excellent performance.
One slightly odd note: the dialogue of both films include reference to the "wandering Jew." I had always thought that was the name of a plant, but I now know that it is also a figure from folklore who was cursed to walk the Earth until Jesus' second coming. We live and learn. |
| posted by 125records @ 9:11 PM |
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| Saturday, October 17, 2009 |
| Coincidences at the book sale |
Yesterday afternoon I was emailing with my friend Neal about author Sherman Alexie, who had just done a reading in Albuquerque. I mentioned that I had been wanting to read his acclaimed novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
A couple hours later, I went to my local Friends of the Library book sale, which is one of the largest in the Bay Area. I happened to be walking past a table when someone picked up a book and showed it to her friend. "Oh, this is a wonderful book," she said. I glanced over, and noticed that the book she was holding was none other than The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The friend took it, glanced at it, and put it down. I reached over and snapped it up.
I walked over to a table filled with hundreds of romance novels displayed spine-up -- I don't read that genre, but the sheer volume was kind of impressive. A fellow browser mentioned that she had just donated 500 historical romances -- "those were my duplicates!" -- and said she was looking for novels by Liz Carlyle. I had never heard of that particular author, but at that very moment, my eye happened to fall on a particular book and I read the name Liz Carlyle. I handed it to her, and sure enough, it was one of the titles she was searching for. (A further perusal of the romance table shows that a good third of the books there seem to be written by Nora Roberts.)
One of the things I like to do at the sale is try to find the book that seems least likely to sell. At this sale, I think I have to declare a tie between The Complete Y2K Home Preparation Guide and 5/5/2000: Ice: The Ultimate Disaster. From a description of the latter book: "The Antarctic ice mass should be three miles thick by May 5, 2000 -- the date when all the planets will be arrayed in a straight line and some kind of cataclysmic shift of ice to the equator is possible..." Perhaps the 2012 Survival Guide will be turning up at the 2017 Friends of the Library sale. |
| posted by 125records @ 12:15 PM |
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| Thursday, October 08, 2009 |
| Secrets and lies |
Are you keeping a family secret? I learned a really good one a couple of years ago, which has the added advantage of being about relatives who are all dead, so I can pass it along without having to worry about invading anyone's privacy. My great-grandmother -- my father's maternal grandmother -- had a "hidden" sister named Emma. Emma gave birth to an illegitimate son in 1916, and both mother and child were considered mentally ill. The son, Birger, spent his life in and out of an asylum before dying in the mid-1970s; Emma was a social outcast who never left her small town, even as most of her siblings emigrated to the U.S. She died a couple of years before her son passed away.
This is how far my great-grandmother went to keep the secret: she always claimed that the church where the genealogical records were kept in her hometown of Stockaryd, Sweden, had burned to the ground, just so no one would ever go searching there for the family history. I assume she never even told my grandmother, her daughter, about Emma. My parents learned about it during an e-mail exchange with some distant relatives after my grandmother's death. Sometimes I think about her and how dreadful it must have been to be shunned by your family, your very existence erased by your own siblings.
When I heard an interview on NPR with Steve Luxenberg about his book Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret, I knew I had to read the book. Luxenberg, a Washington Post editor, learned after his mother's death that the oft-recited narrative of her childhood was a complete fiction. Only child Beth had actually been Bertha, who grew up with her younger sister Annie, a mentally retarded, disabled girl who had been institutionalized at the age of 21. Annie Cohen died in the early 1970s after spending over 30 years in Eloise, a massive public hospital in Detroit. Luxenberg knew that he had to bring all of his reporter's skills to find the truth about Annie -- and why his mother had spent a lifetime keeping her a secret. One of his big questions: did his father, who died several years before his mother, ever find out that he had a sister-in-law?
The book is absolutely fascinating and I highly recommend it, so I don't want to give away too much of what Luxenberg's research reveals. He is fortunate in that some of the people who knew his mother and Annie as children were still alive, so he could track them down and interview them. But the book is about much more than one family's secret -- it's a fascinating portrait of how society's views of mental illness and physical limitations have changed over the decades. Eloise itself, once home to over 10,000 residents and 75 buildings, is now a virtual ghost town with just a handful of dilapidated buildings. Had Annie been born in the early 1970s, instead of dying then, her life would have taken a very different course.
For some reason, the saddest thing to me was that Luxenberg never found a photograph of Annie, despite combing through hundreds of albums belonging to family members, friends and former neighbors. (His mother, not surprisingly, kept no pictures from her childhood; it was as though her life began when she got married in her mid-20s. Beth/Bertha did not even appear in her high school yearbook, perhaps due to the family's poverty.) The haunting cover image is an illustration made from a stock photo. At least Annie's memory is honored by this book. |
| posted by 125records @ 12:24 PM |
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| About Me |
Name: Sue
Home: San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States
About Me: Email me: talk at interbridge dot com
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