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.

Tunnel Vision

Mrs. Word Player and I took in an afternoon showing of CLOVERFIELD yesterday. Good flick, smartly executed. I actually found myself biting my nails at one point. A lot has been made in the reviews that scenes of destruction in the film echo the footage permanently etched in our minds from 9/11, but I found myself flashing back to my experiences from another traumatic day in New York.

The subway is a very good setting for a monster movie scene...

August 14, 2003. The great Northeast Blackout that knocked out power for 50 million people in the U.S and Canada.

There's a scene in CLOVERFIELD where the survivors decide to flee the streets and walk the darkened, abandoned subway tunnels uptown. Aside from the monster part, I knew exactly how they felt.

By this time MWP and I had moved to Brooklyn, and I'd just landed a job reading scripts for A&E Networks three weeks prior. I got a call from my contact person Mr. RH that he had some scripts for me to pick up, so I hopped on the 4 Express Train at Nevins Street. The evening rush had already begun, and the train became progressively more crowded with sweaty people (the temperature that day was in the low 90s) as we made our way towards my final destination of Grand Central/42nd Street, just a few blocks from A&E's office on 45th.

The train goes express all the way from 14th to 42nd street, so I wasn't quite sure where we were when the train suddenly ground to a halt. At first, nobody batted an eye. Subways make unscheduled stops all the time, usually because another train up ahead is running behind schedule.

But rarely for five minutes. And never for ten minutes. The lights remained on in the car, but the air conditioning did not, and it got very hot very quickly. The conductor soon came over the PA system and told us that the subway system was out of commission, and that they were working on a fix as quickly as possible. People, myself included, were getting antsy. About twenty minutes in, we were told that the entire city was without power. That's when the crying began.

It was like Central Casting had handpicked my fellow mass transiters. A very pregnant woman. Some very old people. About fifteen or twenty 8 to 10-year-old kids, all wearing the same brightly colored t-shirts, on their way to or from camp. I kept waiting for Leslie Nielson to walk into the car and tells us there's no reason to be alarmed. As we were still less than two years removed from 9/11, everyone was speculating about whether the blackout was caused by a terrorist strike. This didn't help the people who were beginning to freak out. I tried to stare straight ahead and be very aware if someone needed my help and/or if someone was going to lose their cool in a violent way (a frequent thought of subway riders even when things are running smoothly).

At some point, the conductor assured us that the blackout was not terror-related and that a crew with flashlights was coming down the tunnel towards us and that we were all going to have to walk through the subway tunnel to Grand Central.

It was the first and only time I've been rescued.

Seventy minutes we were in there.

We were led out the front of the train, where we crawled out one of the front windows, down a ladder and onto the track. We walked single file towards 42nd street from about 37th or 38th. About every 200 yards or so was someone with a flashlight, but other than that it was almost pitch dark.

Yes, you could hear the rats running alongside you. Thankfully, couldn't see 'em. When we made it to 42nd, we were treated to the spectacularly eerie sight of Grand Central Station completely empty, lit by a few emergency lights and, as we walked further out, by the sun coming through the windows. It was one of the most exhilarating feelings I can remember when I finally walked outside onto the street and took a deep gulp of fresh air.

The streets were chaotic with hordes of people walking seemingly in every direction. Nobody's cell phones were working, so after a call to North Carolina on a payphone to let my parents know I was OK and to see if they'd heard from Mrs. Word Player (they hadn't), I decided to walk to MWP's office at 38th and 8th, about six avenue blocks west and four south. When I got there, the buzzers weren't working, so I walked up 15 flights to see if she was still at the office.

Nope, everyone was gone and the doors were locked.

photos ©mrs.word player 2003

Back down the 15 floors, the whole time thinking that the only thing I could do now was not worry about MWP and start walking the 40-50 blocks to the Brooklyn Bridge. My feet hurt and I was drenched in sweat, but by the time I got to the Bridge I started to get a sense of how bizarre this day really was.

it's not every day that cops give out drinks of water

The foot traffic was so thick you could feel the Bridge swaying gently. A look back and you could see the Manhattan skyline in the fading daylight, not a single light on in the thousands of windows. A look ahead and you saw Brooklyn Mayor Marty Markowitz shouting "Welcome Home!" on a bullhorn. Twenty five blocks later and I was home. Thankfully, MWP and her friend and workmate Mz. Art Designer had made it home long before me, snapping the pix I've posted here along the way.

By the next morning, the power was back on, but there was still one more bizarro moment to come. Our good friend Mrs. CFA was working at CNN Headline News back then, and asked Mrs. Word Player to be interviewed live on the air, via telephone, as the pictures she took during the Blackout scrolled across the screen. I sat in the other room, watching the interview live, just one closed door away from the interviewee.

Strange days indeed... most peculiar, mama!

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?

My Salon at Marienbad

Despite growing up in the often less-than-progressive Queen cities of Cincinnati and Charlotte, I became fascinated with surrealism at a very young age thanks in large part to my grandfather Big Bill's collection of Serriers. Parisian surrealist painter Jean-Pierre Serrier (1934-1989) never became a household name alongside contemporaries (and strong influences) like Dali and Magritte, but his work has always had a firm grip on my imagination.

"Now go out and do my bidding!" I would think.

Big Bill not only collected Serriers, but commissioned the artist to create corporate art for his apparel company Velva Sheen. My impressionable mind (then and now) was extremely impressed that my Dad and Grandfather worked for a company represented on canvas by a horde of levitating men in bowler hats with vacant black eyesockets.

Serrier led me to a lifelong love of Magritte and, I suppose, explains to some extent the explosive reaction I had in college the first time I saw director Alain Resnais and screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet's 1961 masterpiece LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD. Long story short, I saw in MARIENBAD all my beloved cold, fascinating, inward-looking surrealist images sprung to life.

Well, sort of. "Frozen in death" may (or may not) be more accurate than "sprung to life" from my point of view, but you can (hopefully) see what I'm trying to say.

Only the shadows know

Because my VHS copy of the film is now collecting spiderwebs with the rest of my remaining tapes, I hadn't thought of the film in a while until yesterday's New York Times article "Marienbad Returns, Unsettling as Ever" written by Mark Harris. The article not only sheds some light on Marienbad's controversial, contentious and surprisingly successful initial run in New York, but also made a personal connection that was so obvious that I never once considered it.

But the movie’s nightmarishly looping, repetitive semi-narrative, drenched in incantatory voice-over and toxically discordant organ music, is as disturbing as ever and retains its power to frustrate anybody who hopes to shake loose some answers after 93 minutes. The people who walked out (literally) of “Inland Empire,” David Lynch’s “Marienbad”-influenced 2006 film, saying “What was that all about?” will find similar though more elegantly concise cause for discomfort here.

The nonlinear, schizophrenic dream-logic elements in Lynch's work (particularly TWIN PEAKS, LOST HIGHWAY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE and INLAND EMPIRE) that I find so wonderfully unsettling are a direct descendant of MARIENBAD's haunted, unsolvable psychotropic puzzle.

This flyer for a 2001 deejay gig of mine "borrowed" from Mr. Magritte

As virtually anyone who stayed up late with me at one of my 1990s bachelor pads will attest, one of my favorite audio-visual background combinations was whatever beat- and loop-driven electronic music I was into and a muted MARIENBAD playing on the set.

How I wished I could spend some time wandering the grounds and playing the matchstick game at Marienbad.

Good times...

POSTSCRIPT: In surfing around and sampling the plethora of online discussions of MARIENBAD (yes, work was slow today), I came across one from author Thomas Beltzer that was particularly excellent here. This pullquote speaks to me suh-in' fierce:

In the dark of the theater all of our wishes are fulfilled. However, despite our materiality and the ephemeral flickering of illusion before us, there in the dark we feel ourselves to be mere ghosts, lesser beings in the presence of screen grandeur. We know we matter less as real brings than the fictional beings before us.

My Word... it's Bond.

Yesterday the New York Times informed me that Marc Forster will be directing the next Bond film, the second in Daniel Craig's sure-to-be-illustrious reign. The fine article, written by Terrence Rafferty, pointed out that Swiss-born Forster (best known for directing FINDING NEVERLAND and the upcoming THE KITE RUNNER) is not only the first Bond director who wasn't born in "the Commonwealth," but he's also the first to be born after the release of the first Bond film DR. NO in 1961. In fact, Forster was born in 1969, two years before I was and only four years before Roger Moore's first Bond, LIVE AND LET DIE.

Wow.

One can only hope Forster will cast a "Bond Girl" as close to perfection as Eva Green was

Ian Fleming's master spy has played as important a role in my development as almost any fictional character. The first Bond I saw in the theater was FOR YOUR EYES ONLY in 1981, and I can still remember the preadolescent tingle that Sheena Easton's theme song gave me as I wore out the cassette copy of the soundtrack for months afterwards. Mother and Father Word Player would dutifully record the ABC Movie of the Week on our "war horse" top-loading VCR whenever it was a Bond movie so I could see them without staying up past my school-night bedtime. I even read several of the officially sanctioned John Gardner Bond books that revived Bond in print fifteen years after Fleming's death (License Renewed and For Special Services were particularly good.)

In retrospect, the odds were good that I'd marry someone who'd gotten Pussy Galore's autograph

All of this accumulated Bond trivia and youthful devotion would come into play on two notable occasions in my adult life. The first contact Mrs. Word Player and I ever had came over the phone, and years before we met face-to-face. In the days before the internet, workplace trivia disagreements had to be settled by calling someone else in. This was the case when she and a workmate, who was a UNC chum of mine and had moved to LA around the same time as me in '95, had some Bond trivia they needed settling. He said he had a friend (me) who would know, they called and we had the brief conversation that would serve years later as the foundation of a much longer one that lead quickly to l-o-v-e.

Oddly enough, that wasn't even the story that popped to mind as I read the Forster article on Sunday. My "other" Bond story came rushing back, and led me to a box deep in storage that contained a prized possession from the day I met James Bond.

Tis better to've been Bond and lost ...

After working on THE FAN, I took a job as office assistant for a wonderful British producer named Kathy Eldon. A few days a week I would drive up to her cool apartment off Sunset Plaza and answer phones, read scripts, etc. Kathy's primary project was developing the artwork and journals of her son Dan Eldon into various book, documentary and film projects. Dan was a celebrated photojournalist who had been tragically killed at the age of 22 in Mogadishu, Somalia, when demonstrators who were rioting over a U.N. massacre turned on him and three fellow journalists and stoned them all to death. Since my time working for Kathy, much has been published from Dan's life, but the only book I've personally looked through is called The Journey is the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon, which I highly recommend.

As it turns out, Kathy was friends with Aussie actor George Lazenby, who portrayed Bond in 1969's ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. She had George over for lunch one day and, knowing what a Bond fan I was, invited me to join them. I was extremely nervous beforehand, but once we all sat down Lazenby was charming and easygoing, and didn't mind at all answering my questions (although they were all ones he'd certainly answered a million times before).

He freely admitted that he'd gotten caught up in the whirlwind of fame surrounding his ascension from world's top male model to Connery's heir, and that a combination of arrogance, listening to bad advice, and poor management by his trusted advisors led to him turning down a multi-picture deal to continue as Bond. Instead, he signed what appeared to be a sensational deal to star alongside friend and mentor Bruce Lee in his next films. This proved to be the beginning of the end of his acting career, as Lee died shortly before their first film together (GAME OF DEATH) was to begin shooting, and in fact Lazenby had plans to have dinner with Lee the very night he died of a sudden heart attack.

I remember that he seemed more broken up about losing his friend Bruce Lee than about losing the Bond job, which humanized him when he could easily have come off as a sad sack who blew his big chance. He went on to marry tennis star (and member of the Kennedy clan) Pam Shriver, so I doubt he's doing too shabby these days.

Shortly after my lunch with Bond, a close friend (we'll call him Mr. CFA) flew out to LA and attended a party with me at Kathy Eldon's. Lazenby was there and, despite having imbibed a fair share of cheer, remembered me and talked briefly with us. CFA and I laughed for days afterwards at Lazenby's remark that we looked like brothers (even though we look nothing alike).

My brief time working for Eldon was pivotal for yet another reason, and one which I just remembered has another Bond moment embedded. Another expat friend of Eldon's was director Michael Radford, and when Michael told Kathy he needed an assistant (as his latest film IL POSTINO was soon to be released), she sent me over and I landed what turned out to be one of my best and most difficult jobs.

Fast forward to the days following IL POSTINO's five Oscar nominations, when Radford's phone was ringing off the hook with congratulatory calls. One of them went like this:

ME
Hello, Michael Radford's Office?

SC
Yes, is Michael There?

ME
(knowing instantly who it was)
May I tell him who's calling?

SC
Yes, this is Sean Connery.

Two is the Magic Number

David Lynch won't leave me alone.

I won't leave David Lynch alone.

I have David Lynch's fax number.
I don't have a fax machine.

David Lynch is my favorite director, but I rarely watch his films more than two or three times.
I have listened to the soundtrack to TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME more than any other album, by far.

It's no secret that Lynch explores the theme of duality in most, if not all, of his work. Three of his last four features have dealt with duality explicitly, and its no coincidence that his most famous creation is TWIN PEAKS.

A devoted father... who nonetheless made ERASERHEAD the most unsettling ode to fatherhood in history.

An interesting counterpoint (or, more accurately, accent) to Lynch's apparent fascination with both sides of the coin is that he named his production company Asymmetrical, which, to me, says that he doesn't feel that the two sides in most conflicts are necessarily standing on equal footing.

I've had Lynch on the brain for some time now... pretty much ever since the release nearly a year ago of his last feature INLAND EMPIRE. The other day I forwarded reflections of my second viewing of IE and an interesting psychiatric interpretation of IE to a fellow writer and film lover, and this was his response:

Also, I've been having a great time reading about IE, but the more i
read, the less i think i want to see it. It sounds almost painful.

I simultaneously hear what he's saying 100%, and also am saddened by it. It's not that IE is necessarily "good for you" and therefore should be watched, or even that I necessarily love it the most and want to evangelize it from the rooftops.

It's simply that I was affected by it, and for some reason, want to share that.

I loved his willingness to stump for Laura Dern's IE Oscar chances in untraditional fashion.

I wonder what it means that I am so taken in by tales of madness, murder, paranoia and dissociative personalities. I'd like to believe that it's a sane person recognizing the realities and shades of insanity, but who the hell knows. I DO know that I am plagued by many of the same dualistic fears and insecurities that the characters in Lynch's movies face.

I am a success.
I am a disappointment.

Inherently, I am a good person.
Inherently, I am capable of evil.

I am worldly.
I am naïve.

I am in control of my destiny.
My destiny is in control of me.

I "get" David Lynch's movies.
I "don't get" David Lynch's movies.

etc. etc.

All I know, is that the dark and confusing hallways of Lynch's films also exist inside of me, and that is a good thing, and a bad thing.

Why is it that THESE people still resonate with me where other fictional characters are long forgotten?

A footnote, if you will. Piggybacking on the DVD release of TWIN PEAKS: The Definitive Gold Box Edition is the CD release of TWIN PEAKS: All New Season Two Music. This is truly fantastic news for diehard fans (like myself) of the show's soundtrack music as created by Lynch, composer/musician Angelo Badalamenti, and vocalist Julee Cruise. IMHO, the music from TWIN PEAKS is the most evocative, transporting, emotional, moody, tactile music ever created. Adding something new to the canon of two that has existed with no change for 15 years is extraordinary.

I found a user review on Amazon.com that summarized my excitement for this new release in a way I (or I) couldn't say better myself...

By L. R. Grubb "empathy addict" (Philadelphia, PA USA):

A decade and a half after Twin Peaks ended, six long years since I finished watching the show, and here we are. This is music that I have quite simply been yearning for for years. There is something about Twin Peaks that has created a condensed kind of nostalgia for series itself, the time in my life during which I watched it, and the people I watched it with, as well as something more, an unplaceable, deep and vivid longing for something that does not quite exist. Twin Peaks: Season Two Music has landed softly into my current life, not unlike a telegram from my six-years-ago self, and even with such magnificent tracks like Shelly, Audrey's Prayer, Harold's Theme, Josie and Truman, Hook Rug Dance, and Half Heart, I'm left with the sense of an intangible absence, one I suspect will never be filled after living ever so briefly in the staggeringly multidimensional world of Twin Peaks.

Cellular Phronesis

Someone or other once said that "a clear conscience is often a sign of a bad memory." I wonder what that means for the consciences of the near future that will no longer be able to forget a thing with every step of every day recorded in one form or another for later playback or review.

Memory, of course, is a very tricky thing, and I for one am pleased with the way technology allows us to remember things that were prime candidates for slipping through cracks. It has taken me some effort to memorize three phone numbers that I can recite without cheating, yet I can vividly remember the first time I heard Heart's "Magic Man" on the way to Montessori school about 32 years ago and being scared and excited by the lyrics coming out of Mother Word Player's dashboard FM.

terrifying!

I got to thinking of the shortcomings and successes of memory on Sunday reading Jenny Lyn Bader's article "Britney? That's All She Rote" from the Week In Review section of the New York Times. Bader touched on something I've felt for a long time now, that collectively our memories are getting to be just as short as out attention spans. "We are in a culture that devalues our sense of memory" says author and Harvard rhetoric professor James Engell.

I've hoped that the less we have to rely on our memories for day-to-day details (thanks to advances in personal technology) that the more brainpower we would have at our disposal for creative and esoteric thinking. Frankly, it's hard to compare one's memory epochs, especially when you can't remember what the older ones were like anymore.

people often forget about The Disintegration of The Persistence of Memory

The article contained two words I was unfamiliar with that I wanted to write up here, but in the 48+ hours since I first read it something else from it has lodged in my noggin. In talking about the physiology of memory, she notes:

Other body parts may be involved, too, as suggested by stories of transplant patients who acquire memories not their own. Mr. Engall said, "Memory has a kind of bodily presence."

And I thought that notion was strictly the invention of horror screenwriters!

Anyway, here are the two words that are either new to me, or seemed so because I had forgotten learning about them the first time:

1. phronesis: Aristotle distinguishes between two intellectual virtues: sophia and phronesis. Sophia (usually translated "wisdom") is the ability to think well about the nature of the world, and is used in our attempts to discover why the world is the way it is (this is sometimes equated with science); sophia involves deliberation concerning universal truths. Phronesis is the ability to think about how and why we should act in order to change things, and especially to change our lives for the better. Aristotle says that phronesis isn't simply a skill, however, as it involves not only the ability to decide how to achieve a certain end, but also the ability to reflect upon and determine that end (this is, however, denied by some commentators, who argue that Aristotle considers the desired end (eudaimonia) to be given, so that phronesis is simply the ability to achieve that end).

perhaps Aristotle taught Alexander a tad too well?

Gaining phronesis requires time, as one must gain both the habit and understanding of correct deliberation.
(definition taken from wikipedia)

2. neurobics: a unique new system of brain exercises based on the latest scientific research from leading neurobiology labs around the world - including Dr. Katz' lab at the Dept of Neurobiology in the Dook University Medical Center in Durham, NC. The deceptively simple exercise program is the first and only program scientifically based on the brain's ability to produce natural growth factors called neurotrophins that help fight off the effects of mental aging. Neurobic exercises use your five physical senses and your emotional sense in unexpected ways and encourage you to shake up your everyday routines.
(explanation taken from neurobics.com)

In Search Of: Optimism

Six years ago today, a phone call woke me up for the second time that morning. The first time was when Mrs. Word Player got up to go to work, after which I promptly fell back asleep. The phone call was from a close friend who worked at CNN Headline News in Atlanta. She told me that a plane had struck the World Trade Center, that it was apparently no accident, and was asking if we were OK.

By the time I got dressed and ran up to the roof to see, a second plane had struck the towers. Words cannot describe the feeling of shock, how time seemed to slow down, and how scared I was. Mrs. Word Player called from work, and soon would return to our tiny West Village apartment with several of her workmates in tow. We numbly watched the news coverage, drank scotch, and made and fielded phone calls checking on friends and loved ones.

taken from our rooftop at 14 Horatio St. on my 30th birthday, 8/24/01

The acrid smell of smoke and scorched metal would waft up to us later that morning and linger for weeks.

taken from the same rooftop 18 days later

And of course, all of our memories of that morning will linger for the rest our lives. I'm a big fan of milestones and statistics, eras and epochs, and as I've been thinking about today's sixth anniversary of 9/11/01 I've thought about how it demarcated my own life.

From 8/24/71 to 1/28/86 I was an optimist. Until my gym class that day, freshman year of high school, when we were called back to our class and informed that the Space Shuttle Challenger had disintegrated shortly after liftoff, I had no question that the future would be even brighter than I could imagine (and to paraphrase Han Solo, I had imagined quite a bit). I was a sci-fi kid, and I was certain that in my lifetime I'd be visiting Space Stations and Moon Bases. SPACE: 1999 and The Martian Chronicles had been huge favorites of mine, and they weren't set so far into the future that I couldn't believe.

Anyway, from 1/28/86 to 9/11/01 I was a realist, with cynical tendencies. After 9/11, I began skewing more and more pessimist. No need to go into detail, but suffice it to say that I no longer saw a bright future for the people of Earth.

But wait, there's more?

NYC-based artist and graphic designer Reed Seifer (pronounced like "cipher") created his Project Optimism long before 9/11/01, but for me it has taken on a special personal meaning in the months and years since then. He has incorporated the word and the spirit of "optimism" into a variety of media and format, but the one that I thankfully can't seem to stop thinking about is his series of brightly colored buttons with the single word "optimism" emblazoned on them.

optimism!

Life can appear cripplingly complicated to me at times, and the fact that a simple button with one word on it can be so powerfully affecting comes as a great relief.

The Optimism of childhood was a gift, but I've come to realize that the Optimism of adulthood is a choice. It's not whether you see the glass as half full or half empty, it's how hard you work to add just enough to the glass that it's no longer a judgment call.