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NPR’s Morning Edition featured an interview with film composer John Williams yesterday. Listen to it here.

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Just when I thought that ER was returning to something similar to its former glory, it showed some signs that all is still not well the other night. First, we get a cameo by Eriq La Salle. Nothing wrong there, as he is a fine actor and his character was central to the show for many years, but earlier this season we were given a Very Special Episode in which we were supposed to “say goodbye to Dr. Benton”. But, it turns out that La Salle’s contract wasn’t actually up; he still owed them some episodes — which I guess now they’re using up in strange fashion. It’s kind of like if the Denver Broncos called up John Elway next year and said, “You know, your last contract still had five games on it, so we’d appreciate it if you’d play those and then call it quits again.” Weird.

But worse, of course, is the fact that the show’s writers are obviously going to treat us to watching Dr. Greene’s downward spiral into death by brain tumor. In all honesty, I’ve seen enough drawn-out terminal-illness storylines on various TV shows that all I can do right now is yawn for this one. The best such storyline I’ve ever seen was a few years back on NYPDBlue, when Det. Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits) died of complications following a heart transplant. That storyline played out over just five episodes, the last of which was probably the best single death of a beloved character I’ve ever seen on TV — it was by turns harrowing, touching, and in the end heartbreaking as we watched Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) try to deal with his friend and partner’s impending passing. The five-episode story arc was just long enough to be involving and just short enough to be jolting as all such unexpected deaths should be; and the even better stroke of genius was that it was executed at the beginning of the TV season whereas many lesser shows would draw it out so that the death could occur during May sweeps, probably even the season finale, as ER seems to be doing. I have grave doubts (no pun intended) that the writers of ER are in the same league as David Milch, the great writer responsible for the NYPDBlue story.

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This week’s listening: The Music of COSMOS. Carl Sagan’s amazing PBS series Cosmos is a landmark in science television (and probably television in general). The show’s production values were remarkable, and the series holds up fairly well today, even though more than twenty years have passed since its making and the shifts in scientific knowledge that are inevitable. One of the show’s most successful facets was its use of music. The show drew from a very wide array of musical sources, from the classical repertoire to New Age electronica to ethnic folk music and so on. A soundtrack album was produced when the show originally aired in 1980, but as with so many soundtrack albums of that era it was incomplete. A 2-CD set of the soundtrack has now been released, and it is a wonderful listen. One would not necessarily expect something like this — basically a compilation recording — to work so well as a whole, but the musical selections are so well chosen that they seem to blend together organically into a compelling work of its own. The selections are occasionally bracketed by sounds of Planet Earth — thunderstorms, oceans, a rocket launch countdown, et cetera — which adds to the overall effect. What has been produced is a sort-of amalgam to the famous Voyager Record, whose creation was spurred by Carl Sagan in the first place.

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No reader of fantasy literature should be unfamiliar with the work of Lloyd Alexander, author of the classic Prydain Chronicles (based on Welsh mythology, particularly The Mabinogion) and other works based on the mythologies of other cultures. His books are children’s literature, but anyone who sees in that distinction some indication of “lesser quality” is a person who is not really interested in fine storytelling, but rather in intellectual pomposity. Harsh words, but there it is. Anyway, a happy occasion is the reissue this month of Alexander’s novel Westmark, the opening book in a trilogy set in a country called Westmark that is full of political intrigue and revolutionary fervor. The trilogy is only fantasy in that the story takes place in a make-believe locale, but there is no magic, no wizards, and no giant beasts; it’s more of a historical novel set in a place that never was. Westmark has been out of print for a number of years, and now it can be had again. Read it.

(Addendum: The WESTMARK reissue is part of the launch of Firebird, a new imprint by Penguin Books that is geared toward “excellence in fantasy and science fiction”. They are to be commended and supported in this endeavor. Godspeed, Firebird!!!)

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One of the most memorable books I’ve read is A Gentle Madness by Nicholas Basbanes, a wonderful volume about book collectors and book collecting. This book is full of amazing stories about book collectors and the lengths to which they will go to acquire the objects of their passion (the most memorable of whom, especially to anyone from Iowa, is surely the infamous Stephen Blumberg). Well, apparently A Gentle Madness was the first in a projected trilogy about books, and the second volume — Patience and Fortitude — is out. I’ve already bought it and it has shot to the top of my “To Read” list.

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After September 11, I kept wondering why Osama Bin Laden selected the targets that he did, and why he seems to have been particularly fascinated with the World Trade Center. As horrific as that day was, it seems to me that he had far more in mind than mere body count; had that been his goal and nothing else, he could have scheduled his attacks for September 9 — a Sunday — and targetted NFL stadiums that were full to capacity.

While searching the archives at Slate Magazine, I happened upon this article that suggests just such a reason for Bin Laden’s apparent obsession with the WTC. It might not be that the buildings were to him symbolic of a decadent culture at odds with his own warped interpretation of Islamic tenets; the buildings themselves — as physical artifacts — may have been offensive to him because of a family connection to the WTC’s main architect and the WTC’s implementation of Islamic architectural styles. Scary stuff.

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You Only Live Twice was on last night on ABC. I still find it a far more enjoyable film than its successor, Thunderball, but this one is still not without its faults. It is one of the most blatantly sexist Bond films, with one male character informing Bond that “In Japan, men always come first and women come second” and Bond enthusiastically approving. It also has a plot that is highly improbable even by James Bond standards: would the world’s superpowers stand down from nuclear alert after Bond has thwarted SPECTRE’s plan with only seconds to spare? would a space launch from Japan really be completely undetectable by everybody? The sets are all very well-done, but some of the film’s photographic effects are just-plain lazy. For a Russian spaceshot we are shown stock footage of a NASA rocket launch, complete with swaying palm trees in the foreground, ignoring the fact that the Russians launch their rockets from a vast plain in the middle of the country which is about as likely to have palm trees as the middle of Nebraska. Late in the film, when Blofeld’s mountain base is blowing up, we are shown footage of an actual volcanic eruption complete with lava. I suppose it’s not really fair to bust on a 1967 film for such things, but I’m doing it anyway. Another flaw is the film’s two main women: one of them, named Aki, is the Bond film “sacrificial lamb”; after she dies another Japanese girl shows up whose name I don’t think we ever even learn.

But the film is still a whole lot of fun; the producers seem to have learned from their pacing errors in Thunderball and constructed a Bond film that actually moves. The sense of fun is restored, and the score by John Barry — with its nifty Asian influences — is a gem.

An added bonus during last night’s telecast was a Top Ten list, of the best Bond theme songs. This was hosted by Brandi, a person of whose existence I was almost completely unaware until last night. Ah well. Apparently the list was collated from the results of an ABC online pole, and it shows. That’s the only way I can think that one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard in any setting was actually listed (Tina Turner’s song for Goldeneye). I would have appreciated that ancillary feature more if Brandi had taken time to explain just what the hell the lyrics to Duran Duran’s A View To A Kill song are about, but you can’t have everything, I suppose.

Next week brings us Diamonds Are Forever, which began the trend of increasing goofiness in Bond films during the 1970s. For those who blame Roger Moore for taking Bond in a farcical direction, tune in next week for Connery’s last Bond film. You might notice that Moore isn’t so much to blame for that.

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Final thoughts on Figure Skating at the 2002 Olympics: I am really looking forward to seeing Timothy Goebel and Sasha Cohen grow and mature over the next four years. I wonder if Yagudin will stick around for amateur eligibility or go pro; I rather hope the latter because — quite selfishly — if he goes pro I might be able to go see him perform when one of those touring shows hits Buffalo. I’m still thrilled to have at last seen a Russian skater who wasn’t, well, boring. And seeing the two Gold Medalist pairs on the ice at the Exhibition last night was great. I was hoping they would do something nifty like switch partners or something; and indeed, they offered a combined death-spiral that was amazing. And the most heartbreaking moment of the Olympics was not Michelle Kwan’s slip on her triple in the long program; it was Todd Eldredge’s in his short program, when you knew at that moment that his Olympic dream was over. He’s one of those people who is simply active at the wrong time: had he been in his prime at, say, Albertville or Lillehammer he might be an Olympic champion. That’s not a bad thing, though: Kurt Browning never won an Olympic medal either, and — if I may mix my sports metaphors — Jim Kelly is in the Hall of Fame.

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Listening this week: a grab-bag of film music. First up is Deutsche Grammophon’s new recording of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Andre Previn, London Symphony Orchestra). This includes suites from The Sea Hawk, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Captain Blood, and The Prince and the Pauper. I heard about this on the rec.music.movies newsgroup, and being something of a Korngold nut I had to get it, even though I’ve always found Previn’s results to be of mixed quality. At times he tends to choose tempi that restrict the emotive power of whatever music he happens to be conducting (his Symphony #2 by Rachmaninov, on Telarc, leaps to mind), but when he gets the tempi right he can be as expressive a conductor as anyone (his wonderful recording of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto and Rhapsody in Blue on Philips, with the Pittsburgh Symphony, are a testament here). Unfortunately, the new Korngold recording is an example of the former. The Sea Hawk is one of the most thrilling of film scores, with brazen fanfares, a muscular main theme, and a love theme that sweeps and soars in the grandest Romantic fashion. In Previn’s hands on the present recording, though, the music seems to almost be chained in place, never really being able to engage the emotions because of the slowness of the proceedings. The disappointment is compounded by the fact that the men’s chorus in the famous “Strike for the Shores of Dover” cue is omitted entirely. This is the emotional high point of the entire score, and this omission is inexplicable. The music, sans the chorus, simply sounds wrong. It is wonderful to see film music getting more respect from the classical world, instead of being viewed with suspicion as some kind of odd bastard-child genre. It’s too bad the recording itself can’t be more successful. For a better Korngold experience, seek out Charles Gerhard’s amazing recordings with the National Philharmonic, which are still the best of this repertoire despite their having been recorded almost thirty years ago.

I’ve also listened several times to Howard Shore’s increasingly amazing score to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. What an amazing work this is. In a recent interview in Film Score Monthly Shore talked at length about the operatic nature of his work, and it really is true. He uses the leitmotif style of composition to amazing effect, weaving motifs together in a tapestry that is thrilling, moving, and cohesive. My only quibble is that the CD, by necessity, omits much of the score. This work needs a release similar to the “Ultimate Edition” of Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace that came out a few years back: every note, in film order. (A particularly nice touch is that on the CD, the track titles are — for the most part — the names of Tolkien’s actual chapters. I like that kind of attention to detail.)

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What a night of skating that was!! Congratulations to the new Gold Medalist, Sarah Hughes, whose free skate last night was absolutely perfect — and what is more, it was completely electrifying in a way that I haven’t seen anyone skate since Brian Boitano’s unforgettable performance in Calgary in 1988. She owned the ice in a way that no other skater last night did — and I have to think that she and Sasha Cohen will be strong favorites for 2006.

As for Michelle Kwan, she was lucky to even get the bronze in a performance shocking in its tightness. I had a feeling all week that she wouldn’t end up taking Gold, but I didn’t think it would be because she slipped on one jump entirely, two-footed the landings on others, and generally looked stiff. I figured she would simply be beaten by Irina Slutskaya, her athletic better, and in a way she was — but Slutskaya’s program, while slightly better executed than Kwan’s (no outright slips), was still stiff and bloodless. Only one skater last night really took flight and glided across the ice with the same kind of charisma and skill that put one in mind of greats like Yamaguchi, Witt, Hamill and Fleming. That skater was Sarah Hughes.

(And ptoooooie!!! on the Russians for lodging a formal protest about the finish, apparently a sour-grapes bit of sniveling along the lines of “You gave two medals in Pairs, so we want one for the Ladies”. This was simply not a case like the Pairs, where the lesser performance was awarded the Gold. And lest anyone think I’m simply a North American-biased observer, the Men’s Gold was rightly awarded to Yagudin, who in my eyes was almost as electrifying as Hughes.)

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