"Comme" All Ye Faithful

Just in time for the Christmas season Bedazzled has a great Scopiotone of the song "Les Rois Mages" ("The Wise Kings") from 1971 by the French artist Sheila. I swear that this song and "video" were lifted directly from my head because they contain some of my favorite things ever: French chanteuses, Medieval imagery, choruses with hand clap break-downs punctuated by percussive Neil Diamondesque acoustic guitar strums, Mod fashion, refracting lenses, the list goes on.

I have reprinted the lyrics below the video. The song is basically about how the singer will follow this guy like the three wise men followed the star to Bethlehem and Christopher Columbus followed the sun to the Americas. I love how the song has reduced key events of history and religion to a metaphor about relationships (and this is a few years before ABBA's "Waterloo" which did something very similar).


Comme les Rois Mages en Galilée
Suivaient des yeux l'étoile du Berger
Je te suivrai, où tu iras j'irai
Fidèle comme une ombre jusqu'à destination

Comme les Rois Mages en Galilée
Suivaient des yeux l'étoile du Berger
Comme Christophe Colomb et ses trois caravelles
Ont suivi le soleil avec obstination

Plaise au ciel que j'ouvre mes fenêtres
Le matin au bord d'un étang bleu
Plaise au ciel que rien ne nous arrête
Dans ce monde aventureux

Comme les Rois Mages en Galilée
Suivaient confiants l'étoile du Berger
Mon Amérique, ma lumière biblique
Ma vérité cosmique, c'est de vivre avec toi

Plaise au ciel que s'ouvrent les nuages
L'éclaircie dévoile le chemin
Plaise au ciel qu'au terme du voyage
Son triomphe soit le mien

Comme les Rois Mages en Galilée
Suivaient confiants l'étoile du Berger
Comme Christophe Colomb et ses trois caravelles
Ont suivi le soleil avec obstination

More Who Nerdiness

I am currently on Christmas break from teaching and am spending my first week off doing preety much nothing but stuff I enjoy. I've been watching tv, reading non-school related material, and making stuff. I'm currently working on a new album cover for my band, a Franeknstein's monster statue for Rhonda, and today I worked on two pieces of Doctor Who related fan art. The first is a watercolor of all 10 Doctors that will take me a while. The other is a little pop art inspired banner I threw together for fun.

Here Comes the Groomer

My friend Jenn Gooch alerted me to the incredible talents of Sandy Hartness of Sandy Paws Pet Grooming Shop in Yucca Valley, CA. Her work speaks for itself.

Re-TARDIS

I've been a Doctor Who since the mid-80s when KERA in Dallas began airing the Tom Baker episodes on Saturday nights. They eventually aired the the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th Doctors, but did not air the early 60s episodes, at least through the early 90s. Despite my huge fandom of DW, I've only seen a handful of early episodes over the years via video, although I did read every single Target novelization while still in high school.

Anyway, my plan is to slog through every single DW episode from "An Unearthly Chld" through the end of the Sylvest McCoy era via the magic of Netflix. I was watching the first disc of the Early Years set (includes the first 3 serials) and stumbled upon a series of skits that aired in 199 on the BBC in conjunction with "Doctor Who Night" (am I dreaming?). They were created by some of the guys responsible for Little Brittain, and are quite funny. The skit below is probably the best, and probably my favorite Doctor Who parody period.

The Pitch of Fear

Slam Drunk

I know of no one who loves a sad song as much as I do. I'm not talking about the kinds of songs that make you feel a little wistful and melancholy. I'm talking about songs that make you double over with the sudden shock that life is nothing but horrible, inescapable suffering and the only recourse is to collapse, snot-faced and trembling in a wet, squirming mockery of the fetal position writhing on the floor. This is probably why two of my favorite kinds of music are classic country and Irish ballads. I must admit that there is also an over-the-top bathetic quality to many of these songs that I find appealing. Although I see how people could see that this approach could be ironic, it isn't. I love music that has shed all the cloaks of public decency and goes straight for the jugular vein, in terms of trying to pry emotion from its listener.

With that being said, here's a link and the lyrics to the Ferlin Husky classic "Drunken Driver." It is nowhere near as creepy or gloriously ridiculous as Dolly Parton's "Me and Andy," but it just as worthy of hearing.



"Drunk Driver"
Friends there's somethin' been hauntin' me and I just got to tell you bout it
I saw an accident one day that would chill the heart of any man
And teach them not to drink a drop while the steering wheel's in their hand
This awfull accident occurred on the 20th day of May
And caused two dear little children to be sleeping beneath the clay
These two little kids walked side by side along the state highway
Their poor old mother she had died and their daddy had run away
As these two little kids walked arm in arm how sad their hearts did feel
When around the curb came a speeding car with a drunk man at the wheel
The drunk man saw the two little kids and he hollered a drunken sound
Get out of the road you little fools and the car it brought them down
The bumper struck the little girl taking her life away
While the little boy in a puddle of blood in the ditch lying there did lay
The drunk man staggered from his car to see the damage that he had done
And he let out a yell you could hear for miles when he recognized his dying son
Such mourning from a drunken man I've never heard before
While kneeling at the running board he prayed to heavens door
Saying oh God please forgive me for this awful crime I've done
And his attention then was called away by the words of his dying son
And he said daddy why did you do this to us how come you run us to the ground
It was you and mommy we was talking about when the car it brought us down
And I was just telling little sister that I knew we'd see you again someday
But daddy why did it have to be like this why did it have to be this way
Why daddy why

I Should Coco

Here is the latest addition to our little animal family. Her name is Coco and she is a Denton animal shelter rescue. She's a min-pin and chihuahua mix. She's about 7. She's a grumpy, eccentric old lady. Although she is up in years, she had never been fixed. She also had heart worms and really bad teeth. We spent almost $500 on her before we even got to take her home. She was worth it.

I love her very much. The cats aren't so sure.

My wife, Rhonda, took these amazing pictures.

Sweet, sweet memories of mama boiling corn

I grew up watching Hee-Haw and late night K-Tell commercials. This SNL skit from 2004 reminds me of both of those beloved memories. Watch for the song "Ain't Nothin' Cuter." It is God.

Doctor Uke

The Doctor Who theme play on ukelele. The two great tastes that taste great together.

Book Review: Little, Big - John Crowley

Little, Big by John Crowley

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
LB is lush, beautiful, and strange. It is one of those books, also, that sent me scurrying for other sources to help make sense of what I am reading. The language is poetic, but not dense. The characters are memorable, but like the book, a little removed and detached. I found myself reading this book from a distance, as opposed to feeling involved and part of the story. Which again is also apt, because the book is ultimately about a Tale and one lone family whose responsibility it is to spin it by acting out an ages old set of circumstances set forth by outside forces. The Story which this family enacts is theirs alone and sets them apart, literally it seems, from the rest of the world. Despite the aloofness of the novel, however, I found LB to be rewarding and rich. It is not a casual read, but thick with allusions to other tales, fables, and myths. John Crowley does not simply do this to flex his highly developed literary muscles, but the very nature of his Tale depends upon the existence of these other established ones.


View all my reviews.

Straw-ng Hold

East Texas man builds house out of mud, hay, and sand.
I must admit that building this kind of structure has always been a dream of mine. Who wouldn't want their own ecologically sound Hobbit hole?

Suarasama

I am so happy. A few years ago I stumbled upon a twenty volume Smithonian/Folkways collection of Indonesian music. Most of it was really great but the last disc pretty much blew my mind. It was a collection of guitar music and every track was absolutely incredible. What struck me was how all-over-the-place everything sounded. Some of the songs were made on funky home-made guitars and sounded like weird Delta blues filtered through Middle Eastern ude music, while other stuff sounded like Hawaiian slack key guitar.

Out of all of this great music, one band and song especially stood out. The song was called Fatas Di Atas Awan and sounded like nothing elese I had ever heard. I'm not going to describe it here, but you should give it a listen for yourself. The band was/is a male/female duo called Suarasama, and I've been looking for their album on and off for the last 7-8 years and just discovered today that Drag City will be re-releasing their full-length album, Fatas Di Atas Awan later this month.

Yay.

Since I'm kind of obsessed, I just ordered it on CD and LP. Although I've only heard the title track, which is the song on the Smithsonian compilation, I can't imagine the album being a disappointment.

Frankie Lee and Judas Priest were the best of friends

I've been listening a lot to Judas Priest lately. I never listened to a lot of metal growing up because I was a clueless little snob, but over the past few years I've seen the errors of my ways. Anyways, Sin after Sin is one of my favorite priest albums, and I especially love the song "Diamonds and Rust," which was written by none other than Joan Baez. What's awesome about this song is that it was written for Bob Dylan after he unceremoniously dumped her and treated her generally like dirt. Whenever I listen to the Judas Priest version of this song, I picture Rob Halford in full Priest leather get-up singing to Bob Dylan at the height of his Rolling Thunder weirdness. So my friend and band mate Ryan Thomas Becker sent me this image that he made in honor of my rock and roll fantasy.

Damn you Ryan, damn you.

My Barbarian Invasions

About 18 months ago I was introduced to the performance group My Barbarian by my friend Colleen who sent me a link to a video for a song called "Unicorns LA." I subsequently discovered that it was mentioned in boingboing about three years ago, but somehow I missed it. Since then I have become obsessed with their somewhat singular take on post-ironic performance art. The only way I can describe them is as if Bob Fosse choreographed a Renaissance Faire to be filmed as an after school special to be shown at an early 70s Californian hippie commune, then you have a vague idea of what this group is about.

The most bizarre thing about them is that they somehow manage to project both sincerity about what they are doing, while still being completely self aware of the ridiculousness of their performance. I don't know what to call this approach. "Sincere irony" perhaps?

My interest in them comes partially from my interest in the way popular culture interprets the medieval world. I study medieval art history and I am always confronted by people who misinterpret what I do. I don't know how many times I have been asked if I go to Renaissance Faires, or if I "dress up" in medieval garb. How come nobody asks Egyptologists if they put on Pharonic headwear? Anyway, I do understand that medievalism has a particularly geeky/fanboy subculture aura around it, and it is this aspect that initially attracted me to My Barbarian. I think that possibly only Civil War buffs maintain the same level of intense fandom around their historical subject as medievalists do.

My Barbarian explore so much more than medievalsim. Their whole shtick is an examination of/commentary on, and weird embracing of 1970's Southern California new age culture and its interests. What I love most about these guys is the way they can both satirize this culture for its excesses while also embracing it for its hopefulness and sense of possibility.

The one to watch.

This is pretty darn cool. iTunes along with the makers of the upcoming Watchmen movie have just published the first chapter of an animated webcomic of the Alan Moore classic graphic novel. While I still have my doubts after seeing the new preview for the 2009 film version made by the guy who brought us 300, I'm quite excited by this animated version.

Ten out of Ten Doctors...

A comix artist named Rich has created a surprisingly good Doctor Who fan comic featuring all ten Doctors. The art and the story are both very good, and are in some ways more entertaining than the last season of DW.

HeLP!

I've been going record crazy. It is an addiction I cannot and do not want to curb. I am going to go broke. I don't care. Vinyl is precious to me. It gives my sad little life direction. It keeps my hands out of my pants (except when I reach for cash to buy record). I used to hate people like the one I have become. I worked at a used record store for ten years. I once mocked and loathed the sad, empty-lifed recluses who came into the store and snot-pawed the vinyl like some middle-aged pizza loving Gollum whose one-ring was an out-of-print Italian prog album. Now I am that person. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs. I try to eat fairly healthily. I exercise regularly. I collect vinyl. I am new at it. It is a corrupting influence. I don't know exactly what caused this mania. I got a new job. I am in a band that makes me happy. My life has changed significantly in the past few months. This coincides with my new habit, but I'm not sure how the two fit together.

Here are my recent acquisitions of the past month or so:

Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Pink Floyd - Meddle
Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
Geraldine Fibbers - Butch
XTC - Skylarking (Mermaid Smile version)
Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
Jethro Tull - Warchild, Heavy Horses, Living in the Past
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
Lou Reed - Transformer
Big Star - 3rd
David Bowie - Scary Monsters, Changesonebowie & Changestwobowie
Billy Bragg - Workers' Playtime
Can - Ege Bamyasi
Decemberists - Crane Wife, The Tain, Her Majesty, Picturesque
6 Nonesuch Explorer Albums

There are more, but I'm too weak to go on.

Rest in peace, Arthur C. Clarke

There were two major authors that completely consumed by brain from about the ages of 10 to 14 - Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke. Ray Bradbury showed me that there was something beautiful, scary, and poetic in almost everything around me, while Clarke taught me about potential.

Almost everything that guy wrote was about how we could achieve anything we wanted as a species as long as we just rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Nothing happens to any character in a Clarke novel if they just sit on their hands. His heroes are always people who think big, question everything, and look ahead. Unfortunately, it is our inability as a race to live up to Clarke's vision that I am so disappointed in the world right now. I feel that we're asking all the wrong questions, setting all the wrong goals, and simply not applying ourselves. We could be achieving greatness, but instead we're fighting over whose god is better than the other.

In spite of this, I refuse to give up hope. It is because of people like Arthur C. Clarke that I cling to one last shred of optimism. He never gave up on us, so I guess I can't either.

Glove Makes the World Go Around

My friend Jennifer Gooch, who is a MFA student at Carnegie Mellon has created a website called onecoldhand.com that seeks to reunite lost gloves found in the Pittsbutrgh area. She has been getting mad attention from some major news sources.

Here's a link to the AP article about her endeavor:

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- It's like an online dating service for long lost gloves. No, that's not a typo.

A Texas native who experienced her first snowflakes in Pittsburgh last year was miffed by the lost gloves she spotted all over the city last winter. Whom did they belong to? Wouldn't they want them back? Why were people just walking past them?

So Jennifer Gooch, who is pursuing her master of fine arts degree at Carnegie Mellon University, started onecoldhand.com in an effort to reunite dropped gloves with their mates -- and in the process spread some goodwill.

Universal Soldier

I'll admit it. I am a big fan of musicals. I was raised on Singin' in the Rain, My Fair Lady, Cabaret, Jesus Christ Superstar, Wizard of Oz, and all of the other great musicals. I have never understood some people's dislike (in some cases revulsion) to movie musicals. The argument is usually that they are unrealistic, the plot is too thin, ridiculous and unbelievable, the characterization is weak, etc., etc. Of course these are the same people who love slapstick comedies and sci-fi actioners, two genres both entrenched in their own brand of unrealistic conventions, but that's another story (Note: I love these genres too, I'm just saying).

As a big musical fan, Beatles buff, and a fan of the director Julie Taymoor, I have been very excited about the new musical Across the Universe. I saw it over a month ago, but I'm only now getting around to completing my review. Although I totally loved it, the reviews have been decidedly mixed, it's at 54% fresh (read: good) at Rotten Tomatoes. Some of the negative reviews are spot on: that it is ham-fisted and overly naive (true), that it depicts a cliche-ridden, overly nostalgic and overly-simplified view of the 60s (also true), and that it is full of embarrassing cameos (half-true). What these critics hardly ever mention is the sheer inventiveness of the musical numbers, the excellent acting and singing, the amazing visual effects, the great score and performances of Beatle standards, and the film's palpable exuberance towards its subject matter.

One of my biggest complaints about some critics is the inability for many of them to temper their reviews based on the material. Criticizing a musical because the plot is thin, or the characterization is weak is like complaining about the lack of special effects in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Each film genre has its own inherent strengths and weaknesses, and although we should expect high quality from every film and also expect films to push the envelope of their respective genres, it is kind presumptuous to expect one kind of film to deliver a complete experience that is beyond the constraints of its genre in every single aspect.

While ACTU almost wallows in some of the hoarier musical conventions (boy meets girls-loses girl, big sing-a-long production number as deus ex machina, etc.), it fills the screen with some of the most beautiful and inventive images I've seen in a long time. The bizarre production number featuring "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" remade as a plaintive broken-hearted lesbian soliloquy set amongst a choreographed football practice is worth the price of admission alone. There are some numbers that take these very well-known songs in such unexpected ways, that I sat through much of the movie with a big, goofy smile on my face in anticipation of what was going to happen next.

In the end, if you're a fan of musicals and/or the Beatles, you'll probably enjoy this one. If not, then don't go.

En-"list"-ed

My friend Jennifer Gooch (who's becoming quite the cause célebré as an artist and a songwriter) posted a list of words on her blog pertaining to themes and ideas in her art work. It's kinda like Eno’s Oblique Strategies inverted.
After reading her list I made one of my own for songwriting. I was slightly surprised at the results. My list reads like the personality traits of the child of Neitzsche and Faulkner - a Southern Gothic Ubermensch?

Here’s my list:
1. regret
2. family
3. memory
4. death
5. renewal
6. tokens
7. brotherhood/sisterhood (in the sense of bonding together against or for a common cause)
8. names
9. outsiders
10. metamorphosis
11. language
12. body parts
13. declarations
14. science
15. abuse
16. sexuality
17. small town life
18. escapism
19. story
20. lying
21. defiance
22. (inability to) travel
23. secrets
24. war