Happy Halloween!

POOR CHARLIE BROWN.

Saturdays with Hedy Lamarr #29

Trashcan Sinatras - Usually (Live)

I'm so very super crazy excited. Tonight I'm seeing Trashcan Sinatras play a private house party in my hometown. There will only be about 50 people at the party and Trashcan Sinatras will play a few acoustic sets and chat and mingle with everyone. It's potluck and BYOB! I have worshipped this little known, Scottish band since I was a freshman in high school and I have never seen them live. Now, 20 years later I'll see them for the first time in this unique setting. My heart might burst.

The Beauty of Mad Men #10

Season 2, Episode 13, "Meditations on an Emergency"

Interpol - Live at The Joint - 10/22/2010

Interpol live at The Joint (photo by me)

October 22, 2010

This was my fourth time seeing Interpol live. Two of the three previous shows were absolutely spectacular with fantastic energy, eye popping light sequences, and pure crowd love. One of the previous shows was a short set, two days after they had played Coachella, a quick stopover as they essentially "tried out" some of the tracks for their forthcoming album and it felt exactly like what it was: a practice run. It was a letdown.

I was a little worried going into this show because their new self-titled fourth album is not really doing it for me. But I shouldn't have let my worries get the best of me. This is a tight band that knows how to put on a good show. They are also one of the few bands that seem to truly enjoy playing Vegas and lead singer Paul Banks is vocal in letting us know it. In addition I was a little concerned about Carlos D leaving the band. Would the lack of his prescence be noticeable? He was such a striking figure, a true individual character in a band with plenty of character as a whole, not to mention his throbbing bass lines that provided the crux of so many of their songs. But honestly, his absence did not affect the band's performance. I've always enjoyed watching guitarist Daniel Kessler's manic on stage movement the most anyway. He glides back and forth and side to side on his quick feet until you are suprised that he can move like that and play at the same time!

Overall the setlist consisted of five songs from their first album Turn on the Bright Lights, six from their second breakthrough and most popular album Antics, only one lonely song from their third outing Our Love to Admire, and a full six off their new self titled fourth album. I will first say that the songs off the new album sounded much better live and actually made me want to give the album more of a chance. Secondly, hearing live seven songs from their latter two albums and eleven songs from their earlier two albums ultimately reveals the difference between the two parts of their career so far: their early work contains a palpable energy, propulsion, and ROCK that their latter work is lacking. It's not that there new work is not as good as their older work, but it is decidedly different to my ears and I prefer the raw intensity of their first two albums to the rather lanquid unfolding of their last two.

But Interpol is a very smart band. They obviously know that my opinion is the same opinion as a lot of their fans and they rewarded our loyalty by playing a setlist that consisted of over 60% older songs.

And I thank them for it.

Setlist (for those of you into that kind of thing):
Success (Interpol)
Say Hello to the Angels (Turn on the Bright Lights)
C'mere (Antics)
Memory Services (Interpol)
Rest My Chemistry (Our Love to Admire)
Summer Well (Interpol)
Narc (Antics)
Evil (Antics)
Untitled (Turn on the Bright Lights)
Barricade (Interpol)
Lights (Interpol)
Slow Hands (Antics)
PDA (Turn on the Bright Lights)
Try it On (Interpol)
Not Even Jail (Antics)

Encore:
NYC (Turn on the Bright Lights)
Take You on a Cruise (Antics)
Obstacle I (Turn on the Bright Lights)

Nikon Small World

These are some of the 2010 winners

of the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition 

which according to Nikon aims to

showcase "the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope." 

Incredible aren't they?

5 Day Old Zebrafish Head by Hideo Otsuna

Cancer by Dr. Paul D. Andrews

Mollusc Baby by Dr. Gregory Rouse

Soap Film by Gerd Guenther

Soy Sauce by Yanping Wang

Wasp Eye by Charles Krebs

Mirabilis jalapa (four o’clock flower) Stigma with Pollen by Robert Markus

The Beauty of Mad Men #9

Season 2, Episode 10, "The Inheritance"

Saturdays with Hedy Lamarr #28

Middlesex - Book Review

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I loved Eugenides' first book The Virgin Suicides. It had a dreamy nostalgia to it that appealed to me and I could really FEEL his setting and his characters.

I don't know why it took me so long to pick up his second, Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Middlesex, but now that I've read it I must say I'm quite disappointed. As sprawling family sagas go, it had compelling characters and a very unique story to tell, but for me it meandered too much, got lost on its tangents and continually dropped focus on the most interesting character of all: narrator Cal Stephanides. It frustrated me when Eugenides would give a little snippet of Cal's story that would excite me and then veer off again and tell another involved story about a side character that I never cared for as much as I cared about Cal. If Eugenides had edited about 200 pages out of this story it would have received five stars from me. As is, it was a bit of a chore to read and it didn't compel my full page turning attention until the last 150 pages or so. Once he finally let the family history go and focused directly on Cal's self discovery I loved the book. I'm just sorry I couldn't love the entire book as much as I loved the last part of it.



View all my reviews

The Beauty of Mad Men #8

Season 2, Episode 12, "The Mountain King"

Fall Colors

All these photos were taken in the Manti-Lasal National Forest outside Manti, Utah

on October 14, 2010.

All these photos were taken with the Hipstamatic App on my iPhone.

Saturdays with Hedy Lamarr #27

The Beauty of Mad Men #7

Season 2, Episode 9, "Six Month Leave"

Saturdays with Hedy Lamarr #26

The Beauty of Mad Men #6

Season 3, Episode 1, "Out of Town"

The Harlot's House

The Harlot's House by Oscar Wilde

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille.

They took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."

But she--she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille.

They took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."

But she--she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.

The Beauty of Mad Men #5

Season 2, Episode 2, "Flight 1"

Saturdays with Hedy Lamarr #25

RIP Tony Curtis

Tony Curtis
June 3, 1925 – September 29, 2010

Obituary in the LA Times