Bend Me, Shape Me #1: A Broken Frame

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
- Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

I want a room that looks like this

So begins the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's seminal (for mix-tape enthusiasts anyway) book High Fidelity. I can't recall if this is an exact quote from the book (I haven't read it in 13 years) but it feels like one. I think it raises an excellent question, and to take it in a slightly different direction, I believe wholeheartedly that the music I listened to in my formative years had an enormous impact on what kind of person I became and what sort of aesthetic I developed.

A couple weekends ago I read an interesting article in the NY Times "Arts & Leisure" section on the reformed band Portishead and the release of Third, their first album in ten years. As I read I couldn't stop thinking how much I loved Portishead's first record Dummy (1994), and indeed how much that record altered my taste in music while it served as a soundtrack to my life for many months. In the spirit of Rob Gordon, I decided to make a list of the ten most influential records in my life, and amended the time span to records that came out during the most malleable and impressionable period in a music lover's life (according to me anyway)– the fifteen years from 11 through 25.

So, with no further ado, I want to kick off the ten part series "Bend Me, Shape Me" with the first record on my chronological list: Depeche Mode's A Broken Frame, released September 27, 1982.

"Where is she going?" I wondered.

I didn't discover A Broken Frame until two years after its release. Depeche Mode didn't really achieve a foothold in the U.S. until 1984 and the release of the single "People are People" from their fourth studio album Some Great Reward. In 1984 I was living in Cincinnati for the second time, and fell under the influence of their "alternative" record station 97X (immortalized by Dustin Hoffman's character in RAIN MAN who kept repeating their tagline "97X... BAM... the future of rock and roll"). Having recently left classic-rock dominated Charlotte, I was taken in by the sounds of new bands like The Smiths, Tears for Fears, The Cure, New Order, and especially Depeche Mode.

I loved "People are People" (my very first 12" remix purchase) and Some Great Reward and saved up enough lawn-mowing money to buy the Mode back catalog on cassette, including their second album A Broken Frame. It's hard to say with any precision now, but it felt like I listened to A Broken Frame every day for a year. The first track "Leave in Silence" is an all-time fave and defines the early Mode sound: dubby, echo chamber synthesizer loops, chunky synth bass, spare drum machine with occasional low-end boom, interspersed with glockenspiel-esque chimes and other metallic percussion, and singing that alternates between gothic chanting, deadpan narration and earnest wailing.

For a teenager faced with all kinds of awakenings, the album's overall tone of alienation and matter-of-fact desperation hit the sweet spot for me. Fortunately, like most Mode records, it's also cut with just enough hope to keep you from slitting your wrists.

By far the weirdest (and, naturally, my favorite) track on the album is "Satellite". It opens with a lilting synth reggae mood that creepily belies the lyrics:

Now hear this my friends
I'll never be the same again
Gonna lock myself in a cold black room
Gonna shadow myself in a veil of gloom

I will function, operate
I will be a satellite of hate

Looking at them now they aren't exactly sophisticated lyrics (though quite sensational for a 20 yr-old songwriter), but they were very affecting at the time. What is a "satellite of hate" I wondered... and do I want to be one too? What could another person do to you that could make you feel this way?

Disillusioned, I was disenchanted
Forgot the love that had been implanted

When I first heard Radiohead's O.K. Computer I thought that A Broken Frame was its spiritual predecessor, both records cold to the touch, obsessed with the disconnection of the modern technological world, and yet filled with a longing for something better that really resonates with me.

Perhaps for some of those reasons, Depeche Mode were always huge in the Soviet bloc of Eastern Europe, and the album's striking cover photograph strongly evokes the shadow of communist Mother Russia. I was only just becoming interested in politics at this time, and though I wasn't sure exactly what they were trying to say in songs like "Monument" (later covered terrifically by Gus Gus for 1997's up-and-down Mode tribute album For the Masses), I was pretty sure they had something to do with communism.

So we picked up our tools and we worked in the morning light
With the last stone placed wasn't it a wonderful sight?
But it fell back down and scattered all around
Anything passes when you need glasses

My monument
it fell down

Work all of my days for this kind of praise
it fell down

The synthesizer work is especially ominous in this one, with plenty of creepy horn sounds and spare electro touches. It's also one of the few tracks on the album where both Dave Gahan and Martin Gore sing... their voices are both so different yet they blend together quite unusually here.

yes, I even loved their haircuts

Even the more bubblegummy songs on the record like "The Meaning of Love" and "A Photograph of You" were fascinating to my young mind. I was used to songs that told me what love was, not ones that asked me what it meant.

The only song off this record that seems to be known by the casual Depeche Mode fan is "See You", which is a sentimental favorite of mine. When you're in Junior High, you suddenly feel like childhood is over yet adulthood hasn't begun and you're simultaneously nostalgic for the past and the future. The lyrics here seemed to match my frame of mind perfectly.

Well I know five years is a long time
And that times change (oh that times change)
But I think that you will find
People are basically the same (basically the same)

Play For Me These Records Three

Tax time blows for most everyone, but especially so for the longform-filing freelancer. Since 2001 I have sorted and totaled all my receipts, bills, mileage, etc. into categories and sums that best enable accountants to do the voodoo that they occasionally do well. Being the sort of person who can get misty-eyed over an old magazine or particularly good breakfast, it shouldn't have surprised me that I was reminiscing over tax worksheets of yesteryear as I tallied up this year's hot tranny mess.

My music spending has gone way down the past few years, but in the golden age when I was deejaying a lot and generally indulging myself more freely it wasn't uncommon for me to break the $1000 mark for yearly music expenditures.

Sigh. Thank goodness they're all write-offs...

This cover art makes me think of Walter, the horse that lives across the street

This year, I made myself wait until March to buy my first records of the year, and when it was time I allowed myself three new ones. Because I've been an obsessive mixtape enthusiast since the mid-1980s and a sometime-deejay since 2001, I've been asked many times how I find the often weird and semi-obscure music that people hear me play.

There are quite a few answers, but mostly it's music magazines like Mixmag and DJ, websites and email newsletters like Pitchfork, Dusty Groove, Other Music and Turntable Lab, and personal research sparked by liner notes, producers, guest musicians and remixers of already-purchased music. There was a time when "radio" and "recommendations from friends" would have topped that list, but alas that day is long past.

Since July 11, 2000 (yes, I just checked), the tool that has allowed me to remember what music I want to buy when the opportunity presents itself has been the Amazon Wishlist. Rather than use it as a way to tell other people what I'd like as a gift (although it has certainly been used that way), I've used my Wishlist as a place for me to jot down those ephemeral notions of what I want to buy for myself.

The total number of records, movies and books now stands at 472, and on top of the utilitarian perks the Wishlist also serves as a time machine that can often (but not always) take me back to the state of mind and set of circumstances that caused me to add an item in the first place.

For instance, item #1 from 7/11/00 is Expansions (1974) by Lonnie Liston Smith & the Cosmic Echoes, which I added after buying Smith's Cosmic Funk (1974) after hearing it played by some friends of ours at a party they threw at their Santa Monica apartment that summer. Since that night, the host couple has gotten married and had two children, and yet somehow I haven't managed to pull the trigger on Expansions.

Anyway... when I finally did allow myself some new music, I surfed the Wishlist and came up with the following three purchases:

Czerkinsky (1998) by Czerkinsky, The Sssound of Mmmusic (2000) by Bertrand Burgalat, and the 2007 compilation Milky Disco by various artists such as Morgan Geist, Lindstrom and Kerrier District.

Here's how I picked 'em, and what my favorite track is after a first listen.

For a while in the early 2000s, the "(Glamorous City) Lounge" compilations were the shiz. Paris Lounge, Berlin Lounge, New York Lounge, etc. each had two discs, one mellower for "Day" and one more jackin' for "Night". On Paris Lounge, Vol. 1 (2001), "Natacha" by Czerkinsky was the last song on the "Day" side, and for years its loopy horn sample and ultra-French refrain have bounced around in my head, often surfacing months after the last time I actually listened to the song. I finally decided to seek out more from Czerkinsky (pronounced "Jerkinsky"), and I was not disappointed. The album is a sampladelic, catchy, croony collection of pop ditties, and so far, the top track is still "Natacha", which is looping in my head as I write this and probably will be when I wake up in the middle of the night tonight.

We've all been there.

Also from France is Bertrand Burgalat, a producer/remixer of records by Air (that's Burgalat singing "Sexy Boy") and Depeche Mode who put out his first artist album back in 2000. I honestly can't remember what prompted me to jot it down in the first place, but the reviews I read the other day when trying to decide what to buy convinced me to take the plunge without ever hearing a note. I was not disappointed, and this has all the earmarks of a record that will improve with every listen. Gorgeous string arrangements, French Phil Spector/Brian Wilson-esque pop production touches, and a left-of-center sensibility that struck a chord immediately. I wouldn't hesitate to drop "Attention Amiante" during a deejay set as the moody, beat-y transition track that sets up a floor-filler.

Strange as it may seem, "milky" is actually a good descriptor for the music

Finally, the Milky Disco comp from Lo Records is an excellent collection of work culled from the so-called "Cosmic Disco" genre. Cosmic (or "Space") Disco is less vocal-driven, more psychedelic and free-form than traditional Disco, and for me is a frustrating (but in a good, teasing way) subset in that its best songs seem to promise an epic break that usually remains just out of reach. That said, it's relatively new (at least I think it is) and continues to grow in popularity among the most talented electronic musicians out there. The standout track here is "Mad as Hell (Dub)" from Black Mustang and Kerrier District (the Disco alias of one of my all-time favorite producers Luke Vibert).

This is the track I'll play for you when you come over on a Saturday and thoughts of work and taxes and mundanity have finally been banished from our minds.

Balancing the Ledger

The first movie I ever took the future Mrs. Word Player to starred Lindsay Lohan.

That may sound like a sure recipe for dating disaster now, but back in August of 1998 (a handful of days after we first met) it was the G-rated Disney remake THE PARENT TRAP title that was the draw, and I'd never heard the name Lindsay Lohan before in my life. I was eager to impress upon my date that we could have G-rated fun together too, and every memory I have from that night is sensational. Thankfully the movie was great, and not at all the "isn't this fun?" (oh-no-we're-exchanging-polite-smiles!?!) bore I feared it could be.

That memory and, for all intents and purposes, that alone is what kept me rooting for Lohan to survive her marathon of death- and logic- and rationality-defying series of arrests, hospitalizations, and rehab stints. Frankly, I didn't/don't want that memory tainted by yet another senseless fatality story.

I think we'll all be looking away from THE DARK KNIGHT posters for a while

Of course, thoughts like this are dredged up by today's news that Australian actor Heath Ledger was found dead of an apparent drug overdose at the age of 28. Here's the twist, for me at least: I've been in a funk the whole day about his death, and (surprisingly to me) I've only seen one of the films he's been in.

Why should his death affect me like this? And, how will I feel about it tomorrow?

I can barely remember seeing MONSTER'S BALL in 2001, and even less can I cobble together a handful of words about Ledger's supporting performance in the film. All I know is that I was/am very excited to see his interpretation of The Joker in the upcoming BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT, and I was bummed to hear last year that the was splitting up with DAWSON'S CREEK's Michelle Williams, his then-fiancee and mother of their child.

That's it. Yet, I still feel something strong tugging at me now that he's gone. I wonder why it was as strong as it was, and I wonder why it wasn't stronger than it was.

Ultimately, we hadn't formed any memories together yet. Ledger's passing didn't immediately affect me in the same way as the following three shocking, completely unsuspected deaths because (unbeknownst to them in life, as virtually all our bonds with celebs are) I'd internalized enough memories about them (in the same vein as me and Li-Lo) that proved (so far) to be far more difficult to shake.

We all knew eventually this blog would feature glamour shots of me.

So, in chronological order...

JOHN LENNON >>> murdered 12/8/1980 >>> his age: 40, my age: 9

I burst into tears when I heard that John Lennon had died. As near as I can remember, his is the first non-family death I can recall. I grew up listening to The Beatles at home on Father Word Player's Teac reel-to-reel, as he'd recorded his collection of vinyl albums to tape and then given them all away. I was allowed to listen to the stereo by myself on Dad's big-ass grey-brown '70s headphones growing up, and The Beatles were extremely important to me and my musical education as a child. No amount of explaining in the world could explain to a nine year-old why someone would shoot and kill someone like John Lennon.

He looks like he could still be alive, doesn't he?

RIVER PHOENIX >>> fatal overdose 10/31/1993 >>> his age:23, my age: 22

I'd thought it cool, during his life, that River Phoenix was exactly one year and one day older than me. Stupid things like that create a superficial kinship between people like him and people like me. I was a HUGE Steven King fan growing up, and after I saw STAND BY ME in 1986 (adapted from King's novella "The Body" from his collection Different Seasons), I'd become a HUGE River Phoenix fan as well. Toss in his we're-grooming-him-for-a-prequel-or-two role in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (and, yes, fine, a desire to have my short curly dark hair look anything like his long straight blonde hair), and his shocking death hit me like a kick to the sternum.

Several years later, I was living in L.A. and went to the Viper Room to see a friend's band play.

The place still had bad ju-ju out the yin-yang.

Incidentally (and something I just now discovered) River's middle name is Jude, named after The Beatles song "Hey Jude" which was written by Paul to comfort Julian Lennon during John and Cynthia's divorce. There's something comforting about a comfort song, no?

"I move for a bad court thingy"

PHIL HARTMAN >>> murdered 5/28/1998 >>> his age:49, my age:26

Still less than 10 years ago, this is the one I remember the most vividly and the one that still hurts the most when the wind blows just so. Hartman's contribution to the comedy and pop-culture scene was vast, including major roles in PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE, THE SIMPSONS, and SNL. His sensibilities were just so dead-on, and you could count on him to be funny whenever he turned up (which was very, very often) in a show or movie. I guess because he was a company player and supporting actor, most of us didn't talk about him too much before he died (for, after all, it really felt like it was the character Lionel Hutz who immortally referred to bourbon as "the brownest of the brown liquors".)

I was in the office of my new job at a production company in Venice, CA, and my bosses were in Milwaukee when I heard the news of Hartman's murder over KCRW. Alone, I once again found myself weeping over the death of someone I never knew.

Hartman, like Lennon and Phoenix, had touched my life in a way I clearly would never forget. Only time will tell how my feelings towards Ledger will evolve, based mostly, I guess, on how many stars I give his to-be-rented back catalog on Netflix combined with how I felt today.

I'm certain this will come out inelegantly, but doesn't it always feel strange when someone who was just alive is now dead forever?

Empathy for the Devil

HEDLEY LAMARR
My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought
cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

TAGGART

God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue
purtier than a twenty dollar whore.

Too often I find myself thinking like Hedley and speaking like Taggart. Hopefully I write somewhere in between.

The solution to all life's riddles can be found in BLAZING SADDLES

My mind HAS been flooded with a variety of rivulets lately, and they seem to be begging me to tie them together somehow.

Here they are, separately:

1. A desire to finally write down definitions of classically descriptive terms like "pathos" and "bathos" that I (and many others) seem to misuse and often misunderstand.
2. A desire to finally write down translations of still-in-use Latin phrases that I (and many others) seem to misuse and often misunderstand.
3. A desire to finally write down crib-sheet style descriptions of all the philosophers and thinkers overtly referenced in the character names in LOST in preparation for the Season 4 premiere next Thursday.

We'll see, I suppose, if there's a connection other than the tenuous one that they were all in play at one time or another as I pursued my BA in Poli-Sci. Hopefully, at the very least, they'll look purty all wrote out in a row.

pathos: Greek for "to suffer".

1. The aspect of something which gives rise to a sense of pity.
2. In its rhetorical sense, pathos is a writer's attempt to persuade an audience through appeals involving the use of strong emotions. In this sense, pathos is not strictly limited to pity. In its critical sense, pathos denotes an author's attempt to evoke a feeling of pity or sympathetic sorrow for a character.
3. In theology and existentialist ethics following Kierkegaard and Heidegger, a deep and abiding commitment of the heart, as in the notion of "finding your passion" as an important aspect of a fully-lived, engaged life.

The urge to make a groan-inducing pun with the word "bathos" is all-but overwhelming

bathos: Greek for "depth". Used metaphorically from 1638 (Robert Sanderson). First used ironically by Alexander Pope (Bathos, 1727), in contrast to "sublime".

1. Depth, Bottom.
   
2. An abrupt change in style, usually from high to low; an unintended transition of style; an anticlimax.
3. Triteness; triviality; banality.
4. Overly sentimental and exaggerated pathos.
   

pathetic:
1. arousing pity, esp. through vulnerability or sadness : she looked so pathetic that I bent
down to comfort her. See note at moving .
• informal miserably inadequate : his test scores in Chemistry were pathetic.
2. archaic relating to the emotions.

empathy:
1. the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person
2. capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding

sympathy:

1. A feeling of pity or sorrow for the suffering or distress of another; compassion.
2. The ability to share the feelings of another; empathy.
3. (psychology) A mutual relationship between people such that they are correspondingly affected by any condition.
4. (physiology) A mutual relationship between organs such that a condition of one part causes an effect in the other.

a priori: deductive reasoning, from cause to effect

a posteriori: inductive reasoning, from effect to cause

factotum: one who does everything

sine qua non: fundamental cause; necessary precondition

flagrante delicto: in the heat of the crime
(I always thought this had a more lurid meaning...)

persona non grata: an unacceptable person

cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am (first busted out by ya boy René Descartes in 1637)

amor fati: (this one I've been thinking about a lot lately because of the beautiful Nietzsche quote I stumbled across, so excuse the lengthier wikipedia definition in this already lengthy post)

Amor fati is a Latin phrase that loosely translates to "love of fate" or "love of one's fate". It is used to describe an attitude in which one sees everything that happens in one's life, including suffering and loss, as good. That is, one feels that everything that happens is destiny's way of reaching its ultimate purpose, and so should be considered good. Moreover, it is characterized by an acceptance of the events that occur in one's life.

The phrase is used repeatedly in Nietzsche's writings and is representative of the general outlook on life he articulates in section 276 of The Gay Science, which reads,

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.

John Locke is named after John Locke (1632-1704) the Enlightenment philosopher who dealt with the relationship between nature and civilization, later to have great influence on founders of democratic governments. He believed that, in the state of nature, all men had equal rights to punish transgressors; to ensure fair judgment for all, governments were formed to better administer the laws.

Anthony Cooper is John Locke's father. It seems he's based on two Anthony Coopers:
Anthony Ashley-Cooper (1621-1683) was an English politician who was the mentor and patron of real-life philosopher, John Locke.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper (1671-1713) was an eighteenth-century moral philosopher who posited that people are basically good, and that morality is a foundational (if not innate) part of humanity.

"Desmond" David Hume is named after David Hume (1711-1776). Hume was the first great philosopher of the modern era to carve out a thoroughly naturalistic philosophy. This philosophy partly consisted in the rejection of the historically prevalent conception of human minds as being miniature versions of the Divine mind; a notion that has been entitled the ‘Image of God’ doctrine. This doctrine was associated with a trust in the powers of human reason and insight into reality, which powers possessed God’s certification.

Danielle "Rousseau" is named after Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), a philosopher and composer of the Enlightenment whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution, the development of both liberal and socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism. With his Confessions and other writings, he practically invented modern autobiography and encouraged a new focus on the building of subjectivity that would bear fruit in the work of thinkers as diverse as Hegel and Freud. His novel Julie, or the New Heloise was one of the best-selling fictional works of the eighteenth century and was important to the development of romanticism.

I think Alpert's backstory will go a long way in telling us if time travel is in play on LOST

Richard Alpert (the eyebrowish "Other" who recruited Juliet to the island) is named after Dr. Richard Alpert (born April 6, 1931), also known as Baba Ram Dass, is a contemporary spiritual teacher who wrote the 1971 bestseller Be Here Now. He is well-known for his association with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, both having been dismissed from their professorships for experiments on the effects of psychedelic drugs on human subjects. He is also known for his travels to India and his association with the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba.

Mikhail Bakunin (aka "Patchy") is named after Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) was a well-known Russian revolutionary and anarchist philosopher. He "rejected governing systems in every name and shape", every authority figure, including God, or a sovereign. Bakunin denied the concept of "free will" and advocated a materialist explanation of natural phenomena. Bakunin believed that the proper form of social organization is that of free association between individuals and between communities. Thus, "The freedom of all is essential to my freedom."

Whew. I feel better now. Thank you to Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Apple's Dictionary, Latin Phrases & Quotations by Richard A. Branyon, and Lostpedia.

Finally, for other LOST fans beginning to loosen up their theory-belts for Season 4, check out this intriguing line of thinking at Lost in Shangri-La.

Re-issue! Re-package!

Best of! Most of!

There was a time not long ago when I made two year-end lists every year, one for the best films of the year and one for best albums. Recently, for a variety of reasons (that can mostly fit under the odious umbrella of getting older), my consumption of new movies and music has declined steeply, which makes it impossible for me to make Top Ten lists for 2007.... just don't have 'em!

I didn't see ten new releases that I loved, and I certainly haven't bought ten records that were released this year... yet I AM in the mood for Top Tens. What better reason to dig through the computer, see what lists have survived, and see if I still feel good about my choices. Maybe you'll find something old to make new again? So, with no further ado... ooh, I can already see some I wish I could change... and some I've numbered and some are in no order at all... and some are missing (damn you catastrophic hard drive crash of '03) oh well...


TOP 10 RECORDS of 2001
Minus 8: "Elysian Fields"
Miniflex: "Sud"
Wagon Christ: "Musipal"
The Avalanches: "Since I Met You"
Jack Dangers: "Hello Friends!"
Daft Punk: "Discovery"
Bjork: "Vespertine"
Syrup: "Different Flavours"
"Dubplates from the Lamp" (Pork Records Sampler)
Herbert: "Bodily Functions"


TOP 10 MOVIES of 2001
LOTR: Fellowship of the Rings
Donnie Darko
Amelie
Mulholland Drive
Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition
Moulin Rouge
Waking Life
Monsters Inc.
Memento
Ghost World

I admire a proper self-sabotaging band name like Crazy Penis

TOP 10 RECORDS of 2002
Royksopp: “Melody A.M.”
Mr. Scruff: “Trouser Jazz”
Gusgus: “Attention”
Meat Beat Manifesto: “RUOK?”
Playgroup: “Playgroup” + “Party Mix Vol.1”
Tosca: “Different Tastes Of Honey”
Crazy Penis: “The Wicked Is Music”
Funki Porcini: “Fast Asleep”
Jazzanova: “In Between”
Cornelius: “Point”


TOP 10 MOVIES of 2002
1. Punch Drunk Love
2. 24 Hour Party People
3. Adaptation
4. Spirited Away
5. About A Boy
6. Bowling for Columbine
7. The Ring
8. LOTR: The Two Towers
9. Signs
10. Dogtown and Z Boys

Ironically, THE RING may not hold up on video, but it was terrifying in the theater

TOP 10 RECORDS of 2004
Mylo: “Destroy Rock and Roll”
Crazy Penis: “24 Hour Psychedelic Freakout”
Arthur Russell: “The World of Arthur Russell” (reissue)
Kerrier District: “Kerrier District”
Wagon Christ: “Sorry I Made You Lush”
Manzel: “Midnight Theme” (reissue)
Rjd2: “Since We Last Spoke”
Quincy Jones and Bill Cosby: “The New Mixes, Vol. 1”
Jack Dangers: “Forbidden Planet Explored”
Air: “Talkie Walkie”


TOP 10 RECORDS of 2005
Isolee: "We Are Monster"
Annie: "Anniemal"
Eugene McDaniels: "Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse" (reissue)
"Cherrystones Hidden Gems" (compilation)
Recloose: "Hiatus on the Horizon"
Boards of Canada: "The Campfire Headphase"
Beatfanatic: "The Gospel According to Beatfanatic"
Madrid de los Austrias: "Mas Amor!"
Tosca: "J.A.C."
Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band: "Your New Best Friends"

Towa Tei is one of the most underappreciated pop musicians of the last twenty years

TOP 10 RECORDS of 2006
Darkel: “Darkel”
The Whitest Boy Alive: “Dreams”
Audion: “Suckfish”
Nightmares on Wax: “In A Space Out Of Sound”
Major Swellings: “Noid 1978”
Van Hunt: “On The Jungle Floor”
Alan Braxe and Friends: “The Upper Cuts”
Luke Vibert: “Kerrier District 2”
Towa Tei: “Flash”
Burt Bacharach: “The Look Of Love” (3-disc compilation)


TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2006
The Queen
Casino Royale
Talledega Nights
An Inconvenient Truth
Thank You For Smoking
A Scanner Darkly
The Science of Sleep
Apocalypto
The Holiday
Inland Empire

It Blows By Any Other Name?

Who's ready to get unscientific?!? Good, me too.

I've been seeing ads lately for IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH, the latest surefire post-MONSTER flop from Academy Award® Winner Charlize Theron. I have no idea what the movie is about, but every time I see an ad for it I cringe at how awful the title is. With a title like that it HAS to be a flop, right?

Well, I think so.

The flag in the background counteracts the foreign-sounding word in the title

The first movie title that I can remember having this same effect on me was KRIPPENDORF'S TRIBE. I remember seeing the trailer for it and whispering to whoever it was next to me "Can you imagine ever speaking the words "'two for KRIPPENDORF'S TRIBE please'"? Unfortunately I can't immediately find the budget for KRIPPENDORF'S, but with a U.S. gross of $7.6 million for a Disney movie starring Richard Dreyfuss and Jenna Elfman, I can safely call it a flop.

I thought it would be fun to look back at the titles of the 3,296 films that have been/will be released from January 1, 2003 to December 31, 2007 and pick out the the titles that I hated strictly on their own merit. These are titles that made me cringe so viscerally that they actively made me NOT want to see the film they represented.

it just can't be a good idea to have "VERY LONG" in your movie's title

I came up with 20 films in all, and AFTER I selected them by title, I looked up their budgets and their box office performance in the U.S. Let's see how good a prognosticator I would have been if betting by title alone.

2003

THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE: budget- $50 million, U.S. gross- $19.7 million
POOLHALL JUNKIES: b. $4 mil, USg. $.56 mil
OWNING MAHOWNY: b. $10 mil, USg. $1 mil


2004

CHASING LIBERTY: b. $23 mil, USg. $12.2 mil
WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT: b. $26 mil, USg. $14.5 mil
THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND: b. ??, USg. $.34 mil
THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: b.$120 mil, USg. $57.7 mil
A HOME AT THE END OF THE WORLD: b. $6.5 mil, USg. $1 mil
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW: b. $70 mil, USg. $37.8
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT: b.$55 mil, USg. $6.2 mil


2005

BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE: b. $15 million, USg. $32.6
ELIZABETHTOWN: b.$54 million, USg. $26.9


2006

LOOKING FOR COMEDY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD: b. ???, USg. $.89 mil
TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY: b. $4.7 mil, USg. $1.2
LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN: b. $27 mil, USg. $22.5
LET’S GO TO PRISON: b. $4 mil, USg. $5.5 million


2007

CODE NAME: THE CLEANER: b. $20 mil, USg. $8.1 mil
I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE: b. $14 mil, USg. $12.5
THE WENDELL BAKER STORY: b. $8 mil, USg. $.13 mil
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH: b. ??? USg. ???

Slevin? no really, Slevin??

So, without using LELAND and ELAH and MUSLIM in the equation (for lack of available figures) lets see what the numbers add up to for the other 17 films on Mr. Word Player's Terrible Title List™.

COMBINED BUDGET: $511.2 million
COMBINED GROSS: $260.1 million

COMBINED LOSS: $251.1 million

Now here's the question that I have no answer for-- with better titles, would these films have performed appreciably better? Or are titles such an integral part of a film that these were doomed to (collective) box-office failure, having been developed and rewritten for so long with weak titles at the eye of the storm?

I haven't seen any of the movies on the list (with the exception of the first 20 minutes of TRISTRAM), so I can't really comment on how their quality/perceived quality figured into the losses.

What do you think? What IS in a name when it comes to plunking down your hard earned entertainment dollar?

Death Blog 2000

Yesterday I read a stimulating article in the NY Times about "life lists": lists people make of goals and experiences they want to achieve before they die. I think "death list" has a lot more urgency than "life list", but the point is that writing about these lists has become a cottage industry and I want in.

One of the sources quoted was 43Things.com, a website where you can join "1,217,358" people in making out a list of 43 things you want to do, then see who else shares your aspirations (for instance, 138 people want to learn Hungarian before their ticket is punched).

Instead of writing up a life list, I thought I'd make a blog list of 43 subjects I want to blog about before I expire and/or tire of blogging. So, with no further talk of my inevitable death...

1. The maxims of Nicholas-Sebastien Roch de Chamfort
2. Scrabble
3. Post-structuralism
4. Truisms that aren't true
5. The excuse "Sorry, I've been really busy"
6. Words I hate myself for having to constantly look up
7. "Greatest Hits" from my portfolio of screenplay coverage
8. The importance of a good title to books, movies, TV shows
9. Fantasy Baseball
10. Pascal's Wager
11. Dinosaurs
12. The Inner Game of Tennis

13. Headphones

14. Liner notes
15. Friendship
16. Email etiquette
17. Wishlists
18. Socrates and Plato
19. High school survival stories
20. Ghost stories
21. Solipsism
22. David Cronenberg's DEAD RINGERS
23. Ray Bradbury's THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES

24. Steve Kilbey's UNEARTHED

25. Deejaying
26. Brooklyn
27. Nihilism
28. Omelettes
29. Homophones & Homonyms
30. Nightmares
31. Mad Libs
32. LSD
33. Memory vs. History
34. Liars
35. Statistics
37. Writing poetry
38. Bad ideas vs. Good ideas
39. The voices inside our heads
40. Snapshots
41. Context
42. Bermuda

43. Love