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Listenin’

I’ve just started reading Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise. I’ll have more to say on the book when I’ve finished with it (and that’ll be a while; I’m only about fifty pages in as of this writing), but in reading the passages early on about Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, I realized that I haven’t listened to the music of either composer in a great while – years, for most of their works I have on disc, and in several cases, over a decade. Ouch. That’s too long to spend out of the company of such great composers. So, as I’m writing this post (and playing Mah-Jong on the laptop), I’m listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D (the “Titan”).

I’m struck anew by this symphony’s earthiness. I knew a number of things about Mahler’s life before I ever heard any of his work, and the things I knew mainly concerned his preoccupation with death, the giant scale on which his musical thoughts formed, his gargantuan orchestrations, and the like. When I first listened to the Symphony No. 1, with its dreamy an mysterious introduction, I heard nothing aside from what I expected. But then the work’s first melody proper begins, a gentle tune in the low strings that is by turns jaunty and lyrical, almost like a folksong. In the second movement, the rhythms are straight out of folk dance, and the third movement relies on a minor-key rendition of “Frere Jacques”. Only in the last movement does the symphony seem to reach the sense of scale and plumbing of epic depths that are thought to be typical of Mahler.

I’d forgotten how much I like this symphony.

(My recording of the Mahler Symphony No. 1 has Leonard Slatkin conducting the St. Louis Symphony.)

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Readin’

Time to catch up on some recent reading I’ve done:

:: As research for a short story I finished drafting a few weeks ago, I read a fascinating book called Stradivari’s Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection by Toby Faber. This is exactly what the title suggests: an examination of the violin making of Antonio Stradivari, the great Cremonese master whose hand produced stringed instruments that have never been surpassed in quality despite the fact that Stradivari died in 1737. I was most interested in the early parts of the book, the ones that deal specifically with violin making and the technical aspects of Stradivari’s craft, but the remainder of the book traces five specific Stradivarius instruments through the history of Western music. It is a fascinating survey of classical music history not from the typical point of view of the composers, but from the instruments that play the music.

:: My space opera reading project continues at its stready, if slow, pace. A short while back I read A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (published in this omnibus). Strictly speaking, this isn’t space opera at all, but rather its sister genre, planetary romance. After reading some early space operas months before, I expected the Burroughs work to be enjoyable but generally suffer the same faults of anachronism commonly found by contemporary readers in early SF. I was surprised to find that this was actually not the case, at least to a much lesser degree. Burroughs, it turns out, was a much stronger writer than E.E. “Doc” Smith or Edmund Hamilton, and thus his work seems to fare better in the light of the decades that have passed since he penned these tales. (I say “seems to” because, after all, I’ve only read the one Burroughs book thus far.) A Princess of Mars turns out to be tremendous fun, a rollicking tale of adventure in which Captain John Carter is mysteriously transported from a cave in Arizona to the plains of Mars, where he falls in with various cultures of beastly beings, engages in fights to the death, discovers tremendous powers and abilities, escapes various dangers, and falls in love with the titular Princess of Mars, Dejah Thoris. Make no mistake: this is one fun book, and you can bet I’ll be returning to Barsoom sometime soon. (“Barsoom” being what the natives of Mars call their world.)

Of course, in reading a book like A Princess of Mars, one must suspend disbelief entirely. We now know that Mars holds no ancient civilizations that existed thousands of years before we emerged from the primordial ooze of our own planet, and we likewise now know that there are no canals on the Red Planet. I always find, though, that whether I’m reading Burroughs or a writer like Leigh Brackett, I just don’t care if the stories invent their Marses out of whole cloth.

While I was reading this I saw via Jason Bennion that Pixar is developing the Barsoom novels into a possible trilogy of movies. Now having read A Princess of Mars at last, I’m not sure what to make of this. I don’t know if the books can, or even should, be filmed as they are. Fiction from the early 20th century tends to be, well, less politically correct, and there were a number of spots in A Princess of Mars where I felt a bit of human, or even male, chauvinism creeping into the story. Additionally, the book contains more than a few scenes that are not suitable for the kinds of audiences at whom Pixar tends to aim its films. We’ll see.

:: The Andromeda Stories is a manga that I picked up, assuming it to be space opera, but so far it’s more of a mix of planetary romance and science fantasy. No matter; it’s actually quite engaging. The story involves a world called Cosmoralia where the crown Prince is about to get married and become King; meanwhile, a strange star appears in Cosmoralia’s sky, and then disappears as something strange crashes in a remote part of the planet. Of course, this presages invasion. Subplots include the birth of twins to the new Queen, and the identity of a mysterious female warrior. It’s all enjoyable stuff, even if the book’s lettering style makes it hard to read at times. I find that with reading manga, it’s not the reading right-to-left thing that trips me up, but rather the stylized lettering and the fact that the Japanese sound effects (the “BAM” and “ZOOM” and “KRA-POW!” stuff) are left untranslated. (In the case of the latter, there’s not really a way around this that I can see, other than destroying the feel of the panel by removing the Japanese onomatopoeia and replacing it with English.) Anyhow, I’m liking this story and definitely plan to get the next two volumes as they appear, as well as seeking out the earlier To Terra, by the same creative team.

:: Sticking with space opera, I’ve read a few stories in the anthology The New Space Opera, edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan. So far I’m highly impressed with this antho. The four stories I’ve read thus far are “Saving Tiamaat” by Gwyneth Jones, “Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359” by Ken MacLeod, “The Emperor and the Maula” by Robert Silverberg, and “The Art of War” by Nancy Kress. I enjoyed each of these tales, although I found the Silverberg the finest. There’s a lot of fine fiction here, and I’m looking forward to the follow-up volume.

:: Returning to comics, I was in the library and spotted Joss Whedon’s name on a graphic novel, so I grabbed it. It’s called Fray, and it turns out to be a “Vampire Slayer” story, although one set some indeterminate time in the future from the Buffy TV show, with a new slayer in the lead. Her name is Melaka Fray, and by trade she’s a thief who steals antique artifacts for her criminal boss, when she’s approached by a demon who informs her of her true heritage as a vampire slayer. There’s a new vampire uprising taking place, and it’s Melaka’s job to destroy it. The main problem is that Melaka has no real sense of her own heritage as a slayer, and little desire to live up to it.

As one who found the few individual episodes of Buffy I ever watched quite entertaining but who never bothered to learn the show’s dense mythology in order to really get into the show, I was glad that this graphic novel gives pretty much exactly as much backstory as is needed to understand what’s going on. I assume that a lot of this stuff will be old hat to Buffy fans, but for me, it was easy swallowing. The book also boasts a lot of the snappy dialog one expects from Joss Whedon.

All of this, plus Whedon’s admission in the foreword that he plans to write more comics, makes me wonder why on Earth no one’s decided to do a series of Firefly stories as comics. Talk about a perfect medium for keeping those characters and settings alive!

:: Back to short fiction. As always, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror offers a huge amount of excellent fiction in books that are worth buying just for the introductory essays on the status of the genres alone. This year’s edition features, as always, a large amount of short fiction. Good stories here that I’ve read so far are “In the House of the Seven Librarians” by Ellen Klages, “Lionflower Hedge” by Ira Sher, and the delightfully twisted “Dog Person” by Scott Nicholson.

:: Some years ago a friend sent me a copy of The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll. Over the course of two or three moves, this book wound up on a back shelf, forgotten until last week when the friend goosed me about it. Thus I read it in just a few days. What a remarkable tale this is! Thomas Abbey is a quiet teacher in a Connecticut school who harbors an intense fascination for the books of childrens author Marshall France, so much so that he wishes to write a biography of the man. Into his life comes a young woman named Saxony Gardner, who shares his fascination with the same author. Together they begin delving into Marshall France’s life, eventually traveling to his final hometown of Galen, Missouri where they find that France was…ah, but that would be telling. I’ll just note that what starts as a literary love story gradually shifts into horror. Carroll’s characters are among the best I’ve seen in a book; I had that rare feeling of getting to know the people in the story, as opposed to merely watching them. And even though a back cover blurb promised that “the epilogue is a masterpiece of surprise”, I was still surprised when I got there. This is a great book.

And that’s what I’ve been up to, reading-wise.

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One Hundred Movies!!! (51 through 60)

And away we go with ten more movies that I like a whole lot. Yup. A whole lot, I say! With this entry we get halfway through the Byzantium One Hundred:

60. Nanny McPhee

This Emma Thompson vehicle is one of the better childrens’ films of recent years. It’s the tale of an English household where the Father can’t provide adequate discipline for his kids, who terrorize one nanny after another until a horrible woman named Nanny McPhee arrives, with her discipline techniques that don’t seem…quite…possible. I always enjoy British stories for children; the Brits seem generally more aware than Americans that kids are often not very nice at all.

Signature moment: The wedding; nothing like a bunch of stiff Brits doing slapstick.

59. X-Men 2

I remember being quite frustrated with the first X-Men movie when it came out in 2000 or whenever. It felt like the producers had taken a really, really good superhero movie and cut half an hour from it, thus turning it into a merely pretty good superhero movie. Luckily, they got it right with X-Men 2. They didn’t scrimp on the running time or the character development, making for a slickly fine film. I haven’t seen the third movie yet, having heard little good about it. But X-Men 2 really is quite good.

Signature moment: Ian McKellen as Magneto has a tiny moment when he gives his helmet a knowing tap. Hard to describe, but it’s a perfect moment.

58. Batman Forever

Ah, the strange trip of the Batman movies. I never much liked the first one, actually; for all the talk of its dark tone, I found it decidedly un-dark, with much of the film outright played for laughs. The production design was amazing, sure, as were the performances, but it just left me cold. The second film, Batman Returns, worked a lot better for me. This one actually was quite a bit darker. Batman Forever is the film with Val Kilmer in the title role, and this is my favorite Batman film yet. (Full disclosure: I haven’t seen Batman Begins yet.) The tone is a bit more fun, but not so campy as to be, well, Batman and Robin.

Signature moment: Alfred,w hen he tells Bruce Wayne that Mr. Grayson has borrowed the car – the “other” car.

57. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tim Burton’s version of the Roald Dahl story is chock full of creepy weirdness as befits a filmed version of a Roald Dahl story. I was skeptical of a second filmed version of this book, but Burton did well, I think. Johnny Depp’s turn as Willy Wonka is interesting; he seems at times to be channeling Michael Jackson.

Signature moment: The animatronic “It’s a small world” type display thing at the outset of the children’s visit to the Wonka Factory…and that display’s horrible destruction.

56. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

And here’s the earlier classic. This film is much sweeter in tone than Burton’s later effort, choosing to emphasize heart and warmth over the Burtonesque dark fantasy. There is still some fairly dark stuff, particularly the fates of the naughty children and the world reaction to the news that Willy Wonka is going to allow visitors to his factory.

Signature moment: “Pure Imagination”.

55. The Incredibles

Superheroes, via Pixar, who have yet to make a bad movie. (I wasn’t wild about A Bug’s Life, but it’s not bad.) This movie boasts some terrific design, and some sneakily dark material, such as the roster of heroes who have fallen before the villain’s steady progression of improved killing machines. Michael Giacchino’s music is reminiscent of John Barry’s James Bond scores. This is kind of a “meta-superhero” movie.

Signature moment: The Sam Jackson character shouting, “Honey, where is my super suit?!”

54. The Fugitive

What a great movie! I don’t think it gets enough love these days, but it was certainly highly regarded back in 1993 when it came out, getting a Best Picture nomination and a Best Supporting Actor win for Tommy Lee Jones. It’s just a taut, riveting story that still manages to depict its characters as real people with genuine concern.

Signature moment: Is there another one? The train wreck. One of the most spectacular such sequences ever put on film, and even more impressive by virtue of not being computer-generated.

53. Excalibur

I don’t know why this film works as well as it does, because it probably shouldn’t. Telling the King Arthur story in a single film is hard enough, as the Matter of Britain consists of a huge number of interrelated stories. The film’s design is highly stylized, with often-impenetrable dialog. The music is a mish-mash of original scoring by Trevor Jones combined with selections from classical works like Carmina Burana and Wagner. Nevertheless, the movie in many ways sets production precedent for later fantasies like The Lord of the Rings, with its carefully selected locations and stylized shots.

Signature moment: Merlin’s magic to help Uther seduce Igraine.

52. The Man Who Would Be King

The Rudyard Kipling story, with Sean Connery and Michael Caine as the British con-men and adventurers who journey to a distant land in India and convince the locals that they are gods and kings, is a grand entertainment, funny and poignant and sad.

Signature moment: The last time Connery sings “The minstrel boy”.

51. Legends of the Fall

This big-hearted horse opera is a tale of three brothers (Brad Pitt, Aidan Quinn, and Henry Thomas) and the woman (Julia Ormond) who comes between them. It’s set in the rural country of Montana. There are scenes set in World War I France. Anthony Hopkins plays the family patriarch. The tale spans several decades, and features mystical narration by a wise old Native American. There is nothing at all that’s subtle about this movie. Maybe that’s why I like it so much; it plays out with operatic intensity (helped along by one of James Horner’s best scores).

Signature moment: When Tristan (Pitt) meets Susanna (Ormond).

All for this week. Next time we’ll delve into the Top Fifty. You may have noticed that thus far on the list we haven’t referred to a certain sextet of space opera films. I wonder how long that can last?

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Sentential Links #117

Here we go. Or not.

:: I suppose, then, that my strongest feelings about Into the Wild as a film are feelings of disappointment — disappointment at the lost potential to film the story as something unique and powerful, something that escapes received ideas and gestures; disappointment that the fleeting moments of real excellence couldn’t be extended.

:: Leave it to Hollywood. One of the big questions about the strike is what affect it will have on the Oscar telecast? Of course, this is the same industry that when President Reagan was shot, one of the trades had this headline: OSCARCAST POSTPONED. And then below in much smaller type: PRESIDENT SHOT.

:: Some folks don’t seem to realize that most Hollywood writers really don’t make a whole lot of money. There are hundreds of thousands of people who depend on the entertainment industry for their income including janitors, caterers, carpenters, and craftsmen of all kinds (like me), as well as high priced actors and producers.

:: So, a few weeks ago near the end of September, Jane and I decided that it was time to step out in faith. We would leave St. Luke’s, we would join the Roman Catholic Church, and we would trust that Christ would show us the community He wanted us to become part of. (I find faith journeys fascinating, no matter where they end. Well, almost no matter where they end. This is one of the interesting ones.)

:: All writers can do is to write the stories they have in them.

:: I drove across the country with my boyfriend years ago. We went to many many states. We saw many beautiful things. We went through mountains and plains and prairies. But the states that touched us the most – the states that, frankly, blew us away … were the Dakotas. (I drove across South Dakota with The Girlfriend (now The Wife) many years ago, and it really is compelling landscape; the way the soil changes color once you cross the Missouri River, the way the Interstate has exits right into farm fields, the way the exits to towns are marked with mileage to the next town so as to warn you to get off NOW if you need gas, and the longest horizon I’ve ever seen.)

:: Conservatives often seem to miss, when raging about the stuff on their teevees, that it’s really their beloved Invisible Hand that’s slapping them in the face. They would rather believe it was Betty Friedan. If they stopped to consider how much of the damage they perceive to their “culture” is actually done by the free market, it would drive them mad.

:: A century from now, even the very best blog posts will be long forgotten. Let’s face it: they aren’t that good. But bad blog posts will still be every bit as bad as they were on the day they were spawned. They’ll endure. So really, we’re doing this for the children. And the grandchildren. (I know, this is all a pretty childish exercise — but yes, I voted. Althouse, Derbyshire, Du Toit, Hindraker, and Whittle.)

And that’s it for this week. Be careful out there among them English.

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Bills 33, Bengals 21

The Buffalo Bills are, right now, a .500 football team.

Yes, you read that right. The team that found ways to lose to Denver and Dallas at home despite leading at the exact moment the clock in the 4th quarter ticked to 00:00, and that got manhandled on the road by New England and Pittsburgh, is now at .500. All they have to do to meet my preseason prediction for a 5-11 season is go 1-7 the rest of the way out, and this team is frankly showing too much character to go 1-7 the rest of the way out. Wow.

So yeah, color me impressed. Of course, I’m one who thinks that they’re beating decent teams, while other, more pessimistic Bills fans might say that the fact that the Bills are beating these teams makes those teams bad teams. Well, to that I saw, Pshaw. That’s right. Pshaw. So onto the commentary!

Woo-hoo!

:: JP Losman. He only had one really bad throw all day, he managed the game smartly, he spread the ball around to different receivers (it seemed like he was only throwing to Lee Evans, but eight different Bills caught passes in this game), and he did some decent running when there was nothing to gain by throwing. I don’t know if this game was enough to convince the Bills’ brass to keep him around, but I still think he’s got a decent NFL career inside him, even if it’s not here, so games like this can only enhance his trade value. I’ve always liked Losman, so even if he’s not the guy in Buffalo, I’m rooting for him to have success.

:: Marshawn Lynch. What a stud. He always keeps his feet moving, he always seems to grind out at least a yard or two after he takes the initial hit, and he finally broke the long run we’ve been waiting to see from him. When he ends up running behind the next great Bills O-line, he’s going to be an absolute force.

:: The Bills’ young players. Just think, folks: these guys will be coming of age when Darth Brady and the rest of his Sith apprentices in New England are on the physical decline of their careers. Heh!

:: Coaching. This game was, as far as I could see, very well coached. Nothing really stupid was done, with one exception (see below). The defense always seems to have guys right around the ball, wherever it is. Tackling has been improved immensely. The motivation continues to be amazing. I don’t know that this is a championship coaching staff, but they’ve got to get some mad props for getting this team back up off the mat after what had to be the most dispiriting start to a season ever.

:: The NFL’s flex schedule! The Bills’ resurgence has given the league cause to move their upcoming home game against New England to Sunday Night Football on NBC in two weeks. Huzzah! Now I really hope that this week at Miami doesn’t become a “trap” game. And how sweet would it be if Buffalo was the team that ended the talk of an undefeated season? (Not that I’d bet on that outcome, but it could happen!)

Meh.

:: I guess I’ll file this under “Meh”, even though they had a pretty good game. I’d still like to see the offensive line improved over the offseason, preferably with a high draft pick. Ditto the D-line. Those guys play incredibly hard, and they’d only benefit from having a nice big body in the middle.

D'oh!

:: Ocho Cinqo. I like that guy, and I hated seeing him go down like that. I hope he’s OK.

:: No defensive pass rush. Oy.

:: Red zone efficiency. Gotta get better down there, guys. Had those four FGs been TDs, this game would have been a blowout.

:: And speaking of red zone efficiency: first-and-goal from the one yard line and you got cute with the playcalling? Aieee! I have a feeling that given four chances to run it up the middle, Marshawn Lynch would have picked up the yard and scored.

Other stuff from around the NFL:

:: Wow, this Peterson kid in Minnesota seems to have some potential, doesn’t he?

:: My preseason pick for the Super Bowl? Saints over Ravens? Yeah, it could happen — and, in the immortal words of Wayne Campbell, monkeys might fly out of my butt.

:: It’s OK, Indianapolis. In the James Bond movies, Blofeld always wins Round One.

Next up: the Bills travel to winless Miami, who are off this week after losing in London last week. Be careful, guys! This looks like a classic “trap” game! Be mindful, for past the Dolphins, Eeee-vil lurks!

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Strike for the Shores of Dover

I occasionally get search engine hits for people looking for the lyrics to “Strike for the Shores of Dover”, a rousing sea-shanty chorus that is heard at a particularly triumphant moment in the Errol Flynn movie The Sea Hawk. Thanks to the recent Naxos release of the film’s score, here are the lyrics:

Pull on the oars!
Freedom is yours!
Strike for the shores of Dover!

Over the sea,
Hearty and free,
Troubles will soon be over!

Sing as you row;
Here we go,
For we know that we row
for home, sweet home!

Pull on the oars!
Freedom is yours!
Strike for the shores of Dover!

Over the sea,
Hearty and free,
Troubles will soon be over!

Here we go,
For we know that we row for Home!
Sailing for Home!
Home!

Those lyrics may look insipid, but believe me, watch the movie and try not to grin when this stuff kicks in.

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Go Mirna!

The Amazing Race starts tonight, with a whole new batch of racers. I’ve only been on the TAR bandwagon for about a year now, having now seen three seasons through (starting with those great hippies’ win). The downside? No Mirna, sadly. The upside? No Dustin-and-Kandice, whose antics made me think that the show’s rules should include “No having anyone drive you to your destination, no having anyone let you follow their car to their destination, and no having some local ride with you so they can point which way you should turn to get to your destination”.

Obviously, I have no idea which team I’ll end up pulling for overall, since it takes a few episodes before anyone really starts to stand out. But let’s be honest: early money has me pulling for this Goth duo. But as interesting as that pink Goth lady looks, there’ll always be a special place in my heart for Mirna. Sigh….

(Geez: A Bills game, followed by Colts-Pats, followed by The Amazing Race? And I didn’t think to buy chips or Cheetos yesterday when I did my grocery shopping! AIEEE!)

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Snap-hiss

Last week I posted a YouTube thingy collating the ten best sound effects of Star Wars, and I indicated that I thought one sound was horribly missing while one made no sense to be included at all. Here it is again:

The one that I don’t think belongs there at all is the Techno Union guy. I think he’s a neat touch, but he’s a throwaway gag, really. What’s missing? The Millennium Falcon, obviously. That ship has a totally distinctive sound to its engines, such that in the movies you can always tell when the Falcon is onscreen or approaching. The best example of this comes during the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi, when there’s a tracking shot that follows some Rebel fighters as they pursue a group of TIE fighters. All of a sudden, you hear the Falcon‘s engines offscreen and the ship then roars into the frame from above, as if overflying the audience.

Other ships have different sounds as well: Slave One‘s engines have a roar of their own, and I love the “lumbering bomber” drone of the Naboo cruiser that lands on Coruscant at the beginning of Attack of the Clones.

Other great sounds in Star Wars? The pod-racers in The Phantom Menace are terrific; many of them have distinctive sounds, especially Sebulba’s racer with that pounding pulse it makes. The blasters held by the destroyer droids have their own sound, apart from most of the other blasters in the series; Han Solo’s blaster also has its own sound. The various astrodroids throughout the films also all have their own sounds, although all are roughly similar to R2-D2’s familiar beeps. And if you really listen carefully, you can tell that the lightsabers don’t all sound the same either. Luke’s green lightsaber from RotJ has a different ignition sound than his earlier, blue saber; Count Dooku’s saber also has its own ignition sound.

That’s what makes the sounds of Star Wars so great: objects of similar types make similar sounds, but none of them ever really make the same sound. This is the type of thing that mechanics know; two cars of the same make, model and year will nevertheless sound slightly different at idle. (George Lucas probably knows this, as he’s an old car hound.) Everything in Star Wars always sounds like a real thing with real moving parts. I love that.

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The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer

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