Attention shopping assholes:
Try Amazon. There's less death involved.
I suppose I could go on a long rant about how consumerism in this country is tearing us apart and turning us against each other. But I don't really believe that. At the risk of sounding simplistic, some people are just dicks. There is simply no reason too sleep overnight at a Wal-Mart and then swarm the store at 5am risking other people's lives. I don't care how poor you are, there are better ways to save. Do your shopping from from home, it'll take less time, take less lives, and leave you with plenty of energy left over to, um, leave glittery embedded comments on your friends' Myspace pages or something.
Oh yeah, and purely from a desire for revenge, I really hope they find and prosecute as many of those Wal-Mart tramplers as they can.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Liberal or Conservative?
Ok, normally I don't like just reposting silly stuff I've found from Reddit, but there is just so much to love in this. The inanity of the responses, the hats, the symmetry, their faces! Pure Reddit gold:
(click image for larger version)
(click image for larger version)
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The Fog of Music Criticism
Rob Horning of PopMatters posted a really thoughtful response to a Peter Suderman post on the inherent positivity of music criticism (in response to a Joe Queenan article, aaaaa! blogosphere!). First, Suderman's claims:
Horning responds:
Exactly. In general, films are massive undertakings with insane budgets and scads of people involved to make it happen. For example, I recently watched 2004's Primer, an amazing lo-budge sci-fi film that was made for an insanely low amount, around $7,000. But it still required a set of actors, a crew, tons of gear, etc. I am currently producing an album using solely the computer with which I am writing this blog. For, um, $0. For every indie film produced there are hundreds of indie albums. Why review one just to crush it? It would be rather sadistic (although most reviewers do display a hint of sadism, IMO).
I have a point of contention with this though:
I think what plagues much music criticism, both from professional reviewers and in the minds of listeners, is the lack of objective criteria from which to judge a work of music. The apparent criteria has become almost purely social: work is judged by its supposed "honesty", self-consciousness, unpretentiousness, and authenticity rather than by traditional musical merits. The question becomes: is this rapper/singer actually from Brooklyn/Manchester or does he just say he is; it's not about the musical product, it's about the narrative. The highest rated albums are often the albums that are the most fun to write about. Yeah, you might feel like a douche praising a young white-boy rapper from Hempstead whose daddy bought him a record contract, but if the product is good, suck it up.
The most obvious example of this need to sustain narrative is J Dilla's album Donuts. The story goes, he wrote the album on his laptop in the hospital whilst dying of cancer. Now, who wants to write a narrative about his sad, valiant efforts culminating in an album that's, well, a piece of shit? More importantly, who wants to read that?
Now, not to get all conservatory-trained-musician on y'all, but why not focus on the product? Yes, a good back story can enhance the appreciation of music - Beethoven's deafness for example, or Brian Wilson's mental illness - but to ignore technical criteria in music, even pop music, is asking to be lead around in a fog of subjectivity and ambiguity.
Here's a few objective things pop reviewers should listen for:
1. Originality: Not for its own sake, of course, but the band/artist should sound like itself. If the R&B singer sounds like Stevie with a hip hop beat, or the garage band sounds like The Velvet Underground with auto-tune, it is not original. Of course, originality for its own sake can be just as tedious, so keep an eye out for extra-musical distractions: costumes, romantic back-stories, different colored eyes...
2. The Singer: Can the singer get the same effect live as on the album without the album's effects and auto-tune. This doesn't mean the singer has to be classically trained, or even good. It just means he/she has to be a real performer. Also, as stated earlier, the voice should be original, if I hear one more Blink 182-influenced pop-punk singer I think I'll open my veins.
3. Production: I dig gritty production, but there's a big difference between lo-fi and bad. I can also appreciate intensive production, but not when it becomes glossy. Also, knowing some basics about electronic music can easily help you sift through the hordes of house and trance tracks built around presets and simple filter tweaks. Learn your gear, it is far more important to know the basic varieties of effects, synths, and editing techniques than it is to have heard of every last indie band to come out of Ann Arbor in the late-90s.
4. Musicianship: I can appreciate Teenage Jesus and the Jerks for what they are, but that doesn't mean that the bar should be set at their level of technical proficiency on their instruments. If an artist or band is lacking in technical skill, they had damn well better make up for it tenfold with originality, creativity, and their lyrics. Yes, Meg White is kind of a sucky drummer, but she also amazes me at the same time (how can she drag the and-of-3 the exact same way every bar??)
5. Lyrics: The rhyming of the words "fly", "high", and "sky" in a sequence should be a federal crime. I don't care if you're being ironic. Lyrics that sound as if they were written on a pad of paper and then forced into some chord changes are nicht güt.
6. Composition: It doesn't have to be symphonic - in fact pop albums can easily sound overwrought when inundated with orchestral instruments and weighted with complex 8-minute tunes - but there should be commentary on the craftsmanship of the songs by the reviewer. Structure, pacing, arrangement, and the overall vibe should be taken into account, much more than the off-microphone lives of the musician(s).
7. Authorship: Did the band/artist write their own tunes, or were they written by a professional song-writer? I think it is utterly hypocritical for many reviewers to lavish importance on the extra-musical elements of an artist's life and how they supposedly enhance the musical experience for the listener, while the songs themselves were written by some old white dude living in Brentwood.
PopMatters is actually one of the music review sites I respect (and not just because they gave AWS a great review...). They do their research and for the most part their reviews are pretty down-to-earth. Contrast them with Pitchfork, the leading bullshit-driven review site. Pitchfork has a cadre of fantastic writers. Really, I'm in awe of their skills. But a review should not be a place to display your skill of writing, a music review should be an arena to display your musical knowledge and your talent at objective critique. If a reviewer's 'musical knowledge' consists of the names of thousands of bands and the names of the thousands of members of those bands and their respective histories, then their knowledge is - to borrow a word from Horning - political. It is not musical. The increased prevalence of non-musical experts in music critic positions has turned the role of the music reviewer into a analyzer of the sociology of music rather than the art of music.
Scan the sidebar of Metacritic’s music page. Nearly all of the review averages are positive or very positive, and almost none of them are straightforward pans. In fact, right now I don’t see a single album with a review average that gets a score categorized "generally negative reviews." Contrast this with the movies page, which contains more than a dozen films with low averages. Even the limited release indies — the "artsy" films — are often given low marks.
Is contemporary pop music really that much better than contemporary mainstream filmmaking? I think not. Instead, it’s just that the music reviewing culture has developed in such a way that most everything scores a "pretty good" or a "not bad."
Horning responds:
Unlike films, many many records get released, and just noticing one and running a review of it already marks it as significant. The substance of the review itself is almost beside the point. Acknowledging its existence is already an admission that it’s “pretty good,” so it would be strange for the review to suggest otherwise.
...
It might amuse some readers to see well-established artists attacked, but who wants to read negative reviews of stuff they haven’t heard of? There’s no point, and the reviewer just comes across as mean. I certainly felt this way about myself when I was writing the negative reviews. It seemed dumb for me to be discouraging these performers, who had no chance of making it, really, no matter what I wrote about them. It’s no fun pissing on people’s dreams. In fact, it made more sense to try to champion all bands, so I could potentially claim some of the glory for helping one of them make it.
Exactly. In general, films are massive undertakings with insane budgets and scads of people involved to make it happen. For example, I recently watched 2004's Primer, an amazing lo-budge sci-fi film that was made for an insanely low amount, around $7,000. But it still required a set of actors, a crew, tons of gear, etc. I am currently producing an album using solely the computer with which I am writing this blog. For, um, $0. For every indie film produced there are hundreds of indie albums. Why review one just to crush it? It would be rather sadistic (although most reviewers do display a hint of sadism, IMO).
I have a point of contention with this though:
Readers often want hype, not evaluation, because it gives pop culture a sure-fire context, whereas a review that traces musical influences and parses lyrics only helps a select few readers. Besides, there are no established criteria for what’s good beyond popularity or fidelity to genre expectations. Maybe Suderman thinks it’s possible that music reviews could be objective evaluations of quality, as defined by some unimpeachable universal standards, but I don’t believe these exist for pop music (or for much of anything in culture—aesthetic criteria are political creations). The pop music people consume is typically a tribal thing or a means to participate in the zeitgeist, and it’s hard as a reviewer to shape the zeitgeist from the margins.
I think what plagues much music criticism, both from professional reviewers and in the minds of listeners, is the lack of objective criteria from which to judge a work of music. The apparent criteria has become almost purely social: work is judged by its supposed "honesty", self-consciousness, unpretentiousness, and authenticity rather than by traditional musical merits. The question becomes: is this rapper/singer actually from Brooklyn/Manchester or does he just say he is; it's not about the musical product, it's about the narrative. The highest rated albums are often the albums that are the most fun to write about. Yeah, you might feel like a douche praising a young white-boy rapper from Hempstead whose daddy bought him a record contract, but if the product is good, suck it up.
The most obvious example of this need to sustain narrative is J Dilla's album Donuts. The story goes, he wrote the album on his laptop in the hospital whilst dying of cancer. Now, who wants to write a narrative about his sad, valiant efforts culminating in an album that's, well, a piece of shit? More importantly, who wants to read that?
Now, not to get all conservatory-trained-musician on y'all, but why not focus on the product? Yes, a good back story can enhance the appreciation of music - Beethoven's deafness for example, or Brian Wilson's mental illness - but to ignore technical criteria in music, even pop music, is asking to be lead around in a fog of subjectivity and ambiguity.
Here's a few objective things pop reviewers should listen for:
1. Originality: Not for its own sake, of course, but the band/artist should sound like itself. If the R&B singer sounds like Stevie with a hip hop beat, or the garage band sounds like The Velvet Underground with auto-tune, it is not original. Of course, originality for its own sake can be just as tedious, so keep an eye out for extra-musical distractions: costumes, romantic back-stories, different colored eyes...
2. The Singer: Can the singer get the same effect live as on the album without the album's effects and auto-tune. This doesn't mean the singer has to be classically trained, or even good. It just means he/she has to be a real performer. Also, as stated earlier, the voice should be original, if I hear one more Blink 182-influenced pop-punk singer I think I'll open my veins.
3. Production: I dig gritty production, but there's a big difference between lo-fi and bad. I can also appreciate intensive production, but not when it becomes glossy. Also, knowing some basics about electronic music can easily help you sift through the hordes of house and trance tracks built around presets and simple filter tweaks. Learn your gear, it is far more important to know the basic varieties of effects, synths, and editing techniques than it is to have heard of every last indie band to come out of Ann Arbor in the late-90s.
4. Musicianship: I can appreciate Teenage Jesus and the Jerks for what they are, but that doesn't mean that the bar should be set at their level of technical proficiency on their instruments. If an artist or band is lacking in technical skill, they had damn well better make up for it tenfold with originality, creativity, and their lyrics. Yes, Meg White is kind of a sucky drummer, but she also amazes me at the same time (how can she drag the and-of-3 the exact same way every bar??)
5. Lyrics: The rhyming of the words "fly", "high", and "sky" in a sequence should be a federal crime. I don't care if you're being ironic. Lyrics that sound as if they were written on a pad of paper and then forced into some chord changes are nicht güt.
6. Composition: It doesn't have to be symphonic - in fact pop albums can easily sound overwrought when inundated with orchestral instruments and weighted with complex 8-minute tunes - but there should be commentary on the craftsmanship of the songs by the reviewer. Structure, pacing, arrangement, and the overall vibe should be taken into account, much more than the off-microphone lives of the musician(s).
7. Authorship: Did the band/artist write their own tunes, or were they written by a professional song-writer? I think it is utterly hypocritical for many reviewers to lavish importance on the extra-musical elements of an artist's life and how they supposedly enhance the musical experience for the listener, while the songs themselves were written by some old white dude living in Brentwood.
PopMatters is actually one of the music review sites I respect (and not just because they gave AWS a great review...). They do their research and for the most part their reviews are pretty down-to-earth. Contrast them with Pitchfork, the leading bullshit-driven review site. Pitchfork has a cadre of fantastic writers. Really, I'm in awe of their skills. But a review should not be a place to display your skill of writing, a music review should be an arena to display your musical knowledge and your talent at objective critique. If a reviewer's 'musical knowledge' consists of the names of thousands of bands and the names of the thousands of members of those bands and their respective histories, then their knowledge is - to borrow a word from Horning - political. It is not musical. The increased prevalence of non-musical experts in music critic positions has turned the role of the music reviewer into a analyzer of the sociology of music rather than the art of music.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
The Big Sleep Quotes
I watched the classic noir The Big Sleep last night. It was pretty great. As with many of the old Howard Hawks films, I find myself sitting up in my chair to catch all of the lightning fast dialog.
Here's a great collection from IMDB of some of the best tidbits:
Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
Eddie Mars: Convenient, the door being open when you didn't have a key, eh?
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, wasn't it. By the way, how'd you happen to have one?
Eddie Mars: Is that any of your business?
Philip Marlowe: I could make it my business.
Eddie Mars: I could make your business mine.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, you wouldn't like it. The pay's too small.
General Sternwood: Do you like orchids?
Philip Marlowe: Not particularly.
General Sternwood: Ugh. Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, Eddie, you don't have anybody watching me, do you? Tailing me in a gray Plymouth coupe, maybe?
Eddie Mars: No, why should I?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I can't imagine, unless you're worried about where I am all the time.
Eddie Mars: I don't like you that well.
Vivian: How did you find her?
Marlowe: I didn't find her.
Vivian: Well then how did you-...
Marlowe: I haven't been here, you haven't seen me, and she hasn't been out of the house all evening.
Vivian: So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust.
Marlowe: Who's he?
Vivian: You wouldn't know him, a French writer.
Marlowe: Come into my boudoir.
Vivian: Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they're front runners or comefrom behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
Marlowe: Find out mine?
Vivian: I think so.
Marlowe: Go ahead.
Vivian: I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
Marlowe: You don't like to be rated yourself.
Vivian: I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
Marlowe: Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how, how far you can go.
Vivian: A lot depends on who's in the saddle.
Vivian: You go too far, Marlowe.
Marlowe: Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom.
Marlowe: You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling.
Vivian: You've forgotten one thing - me.
Philip Marlowe: What's wrong with you?
Vivian: Nothing you can't fix.
[last lines]
General Sternwood: How do you like your brandy, sir?
Philip Marlowe: In a glass.
[after a kiss]
Vivian: I liked that. I'd like more.
Philip Marlowe: She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.
Vivian: I don't like your manners.
Marlowe: And I'm not crazy about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind if you don't like my manners, I don't like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don't mind your ritzing me drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.
Philip Marlowe: My, my, my! Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains! You know, you're the second guy I've met today that seems to think a gat in the hand means the world by the tail.
Vivian: Why did you have to go on?
Marlowe: Too many people told me to stop.
General Sternwood: You may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Hum, nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy. You're looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life, crippled, paralyzed in both legs, barely I eat and my sleep is so near waking it's hardly worth a name. I seem to exist largely on heat like a new born spider.
Vivian: So you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed, except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. My, you're a mess, aren't you?
General Sternwood: If I seem a bit sinister as a parent, Mr. Marlowe, it's because my hold on life is too slight to include any Victorian hypocrisy. I need hardly add that any man who has lived as I have and indulges for the first time in parenthood at my age deserves all he gets.
Philip Marlowe: You made a mistake. Mrs. Rutledge didn't want to see me.
Norris: I'm sorry, sir. I make many mistakes.
Philip Marlowe: Hmm.
General Sternwood: What does that mean?
Philip Marlowe: It means, hmm.
General Sternwood: You knew him too?
Philip Marlowe: Yes, in the old days, when he used to run rum out of Mexico and I was on the other side. We used to swap shots between drinks, or drinks between shots, whichever you like.
General Sternwood: My respects to you, sir. Few men ever swapped more than one shot with Sean Regan.
Philip Marlowe: I know he was a good man at whatever he did. No one was more pleased than I when I heard you had taken him on as your... whatever he was.
General Sternwood: I assume they have all the usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves.
Philip Marlowe: Thanks for the drink, General.
General Sternwood: I enjoyed your drink as much as you did, sir.
Norris: Are you attempting to tell me my duties, sir?
Philip Marlowe: No, just having fun trying to guess what they are.
Vivian: Do you always think you can handle people like, uh, trained seals?
Philip Marlowe: Uh-huh. I usually get away with it too.
Vivian: How nice for you.
[in a bookstore]
Philip Marlowe: You do sell books, hmm?
Agnes Lowzier: What do those look like, grapefruit?
Philip Marlowe: Well, from here they look like books.
[making a prank phone call]
Philip Marlowe: What can I do for you? I can do what? Where? Oh, no, I wouldn't like that. Neither would my daughter.
Philip Marlowe: I can do what? Where? Oh no, I wouldn't like that. Neither would my daughter.
[hangs up]
Philip Marlowe: I hope the sergeant never traces that call.
Philip Marlowe: You wanna tell me now?
Vivian: Tell you what?
Philip Marlowe: What it is you're trying to find out. You know, it's a funny thing. You're trying to find out what your father hired me to find out, and I'm trying to find out why you want to find out.
Vivian: You could go on forever, couldn't you? Anyway it'll give us something to talk about next time we meet.
Philip Marlowe: Among other things.
Taxi Driver: If you can use me again sometime, call this number.
Philip Marlowe: Day and night?
Taxi Driver: Uh, night's better. I work during the day.
Eddie Mars: Your story didn't sound quite right.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, that's too bad. You got a better one?
Eddie Mars: Maybe I can find one.
Philip Marlowe: Did I hurt you much, sugar?
Agnes Lowzier: You and every other man I've ever met.
Philip Marlowe: How'd you happen to pick out this place?
Vivian: Maybe I wanted to hold your hand.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, that can be arranged.
Philip Marlowe: You the guy that's been tailing me?
Harry Jones: Yeah, the name's Jones. Harry Jones. I want to see you.
Philip Marlowe: Swell. Did you want to see those guys jump me?
Harry Jones: I didn't care one way or the other.
Philip Marlowe: You could've yelled for help.
Harry Jones: If a guy's playing a hand, I let him play it. I'm no kibitzer.
Philip Marlowe: You got brains
Agnes Lowzier: Is Harry there?
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, yeah, he's here.
Agnes Lowzier: Put him on, will you?
Philip Marlowe: He can't talk to you.
Agnes Lowzier: Why?
Philip Marlowe: Because he's dead.
Agnes Lowzier: Well, so long, copper. Wish me luck. I got a raw deal.
Philip Marlowe: Hey, your kind always does.
Philip Marlowe: What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a gun before? What do you want me to do, count three like they do in the movies?
Philip Marlowe: Let me do the talking, angel. I don't know yet what I'm going to tell them. It'll be pretty close to the truth.
Carmen Sternwood: You're cute.
Philip Marlowe: I'm getting cuter every minute.
Carmen Sternwood: Is he as cute as you are?
Philip Marlowe: Nobody is.
Philip Marlowe: Somebody's always giving me guns.
Vivian: So you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed, except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. My, you're a mess, aren't you?
Philip Marlowe: I'm not very tall either. Next time I'll come on stilts wear a white tie and carry a tennis racket.
Vivian: I doubt if even that will help.
Vivian: What will your first step be?
Philip Marlowe: The usual one.
Vivian: I didn't know there was a usual one.
Philip Marlowe: Well sure there is, it comes complete with diagrams on page 47 of how to be a detective in 10 easy lessons correspondent school textbook and uh, your father offered me a drink.
Vivian: You must've read another one on how to be a comedian.
Philip Marlowe: I collect blondes and bottles.
Carmen Sternwood: You're cute. I like you.
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, what you sees nothing, I got a Balinese dancing girl tattooed across my chest.
Here's a great collection from IMDB of some of the best tidbits:
Carmen Sternwood: You're not very tall are you?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I, uh, I try to be.
Eddie Mars: Convenient, the door being open when you didn't have a key, eh?
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, wasn't it. By the way, how'd you happen to have one?
Eddie Mars: Is that any of your business?
Philip Marlowe: I could make it my business.
Eddie Mars: I could make your business mine.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, you wouldn't like it. The pay's too small.
General Sternwood: Do you like orchids?
Philip Marlowe: Not particularly.
General Sternwood: Ugh. Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, Eddie, you don't have anybody watching me, do you? Tailing me in a gray Plymouth coupe, maybe?
Eddie Mars: No, why should I?
Philip Marlowe: Well, I can't imagine, unless you're worried about where I am all the time.
Eddie Mars: I don't like you that well.
Vivian: How did you find her?
Marlowe: I didn't find her.
Vivian: Well then how did you-...
Marlowe: I haven't been here, you haven't seen me, and she hasn't been out of the house all evening.
Vivian: So you do get up, I was beginning to think you worked in bed like Marcel Proust.
Marlowe: Who's he?
Vivian: You wouldn't know him, a French writer.
Marlowe: Come into my boudoir.
Vivian: Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them workout a little first, see if they're front runners or comefrom behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
Marlowe: Find out mine?
Vivian: I think so.
Marlowe: Go ahead.
Vivian: I'd say you don't like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
Marlowe: You don't like to be rated yourself.
Vivian: I haven't met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
Marlowe: Well, I can't tell till I've seen you over a distance of ground. You've got a touch of class, but I don't know how, how far you can go.
Vivian: A lot depends on who's in the saddle.
Vivian: You go too far, Marlowe.
Marlowe: Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he's walking out of your bedroom.
Marlowe: You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling.
Vivian: You've forgotten one thing - me.
Philip Marlowe: What's wrong with you?
Vivian: Nothing you can't fix.
[last lines]
General Sternwood: How do you like your brandy, sir?
Philip Marlowe: In a glass.
[after a kiss]
Vivian: I liked that. I'd like more.
Philip Marlowe: She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.
Vivian: I don't like your manners.
Marlowe: And I'm not crazy about yours. I didn't ask to see you. I don't mind if you don't like my manners, I don't like them myself. They are pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings. I don't mind your ritzing me drinking your lunch out of a bottle. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me.
Philip Marlowe: My, my, my! Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains! You know, you're the second guy I've met today that seems to think a gat in the hand means the world by the tail.
Vivian: Why did you have to go on?
Marlowe: Too many people told me to stop.
General Sternwood: You may smoke, too. I can still enjoy the smell of it. Hum, nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy. You're looking, sir, at a very dull survival of a very gaudy life, crippled, paralyzed in both legs, barely I eat and my sleep is so near waking it's hardly worth a name. I seem to exist largely on heat like a new born spider.
Vivian: So you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed, except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. My, you're a mess, aren't you?
General Sternwood: If I seem a bit sinister as a parent, Mr. Marlowe, it's because my hold on life is too slight to include any Victorian hypocrisy. I need hardly add that any man who has lived as I have and indulges for the first time in parenthood at my age deserves all he gets.
Philip Marlowe: You made a mistake. Mrs. Rutledge didn't want to see me.
Norris: I'm sorry, sir. I make many mistakes.
Philip Marlowe: Hmm.
General Sternwood: What does that mean?
Philip Marlowe: It means, hmm.
General Sternwood: You knew him too?
Philip Marlowe: Yes, in the old days, when he used to run rum out of Mexico and I was on the other side. We used to swap shots between drinks, or drinks between shots, whichever you like.
General Sternwood: My respects to you, sir. Few men ever swapped more than one shot with Sean Regan.
Philip Marlowe: I know he was a good man at whatever he did. No one was more pleased than I when I heard you had taken him on as your... whatever he was.
General Sternwood: I assume they have all the usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves.
Philip Marlowe: Thanks for the drink, General.
General Sternwood: I enjoyed your drink as much as you did, sir.
Norris: Are you attempting to tell me my duties, sir?
Philip Marlowe: No, just having fun trying to guess what they are.
Vivian: Do you always think you can handle people like, uh, trained seals?
Philip Marlowe: Uh-huh. I usually get away with it too.
Vivian: How nice for you.
[in a bookstore]
Philip Marlowe: You do sell books, hmm?
Agnes Lowzier: What do those look like, grapefruit?
Philip Marlowe: Well, from here they look like books.
[making a prank phone call]
Philip Marlowe: What can I do for you? I can do what? Where? Oh, no, I wouldn't like that. Neither would my daughter.
Philip Marlowe: I can do what? Where? Oh no, I wouldn't like that. Neither would my daughter.
[hangs up]
Philip Marlowe: I hope the sergeant never traces that call.
Philip Marlowe: You wanna tell me now?
Vivian: Tell you what?
Philip Marlowe: What it is you're trying to find out. You know, it's a funny thing. You're trying to find out what your father hired me to find out, and I'm trying to find out why you want to find out.
Vivian: You could go on forever, couldn't you? Anyway it'll give us something to talk about next time we meet.
Philip Marlowe: Among other things.
Taxi Driver: If you can use me again sometime, call this number.
Philip Marlowe: Day and night?
Taxi Driver: Uh, night's better. I work during the day.
Eddie Mars: Your story didn't sound quite right.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, that's too bad. You got a better one?
Eddie Mars: Maybe I can find one.
Philip Marlowe: Did I hurt you much, sugar?
Agnes Lowzier: You and every other man I've ever met.
Philip Marlowe: How'd you happen to pick out this place?
Vivian: Maybe I wanted to hold your hand.
Philip Marlowe: Oh, that can be arranged.
Philip Marlowe: You the guy that's been tailing me?
Harry Jones: Yeah, the name's Jones. Harry Jones. I want to see you.
Philip Marlowe: Swell. Did you want to see those guys jump me?
Harry Jones: I didn't care one way or the other.
Philip Marlowe: You could've yelled for help.
Harry Jones: If a guy's playing a hand, I let him play it. I'm no kibitzer.
Philip Marlowe: You got brains
Agnes Lowzier: Is Harry there?
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, yeah, he's here.
Agnes Lowzier: Put him on, will you?
Philip Marlowe: He can't talk to you.
Agnes Lowzier: Why?
Philip Marlowe: Because he's dead.
Agnes Lowzier: Well, so long, copper. Wish me luck. I got a raw deal.
Philip Marlowe: Hey, your kind always does.
Philip Marlowe: What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a gun before? What do you want me to do, count three like they do in the movies?
Philip Marlowe: Let me do the talking, angel. I don't know yet what I'm going to tell them. It'll be pretty close to the truth.
Carmen Sternwood: You're cute.
Philip Marlowe: I'm getting cuter every minute.
Carmen Sternwood: Is he as cute as you are?
Philip Marlowe: Nobody is.
Philip Marlowe: Somebody's always giving me guns.
Vivian: So you're a private detective. I didn't know they existed, except in books, or else they were greasy little men snooping around hotel corridors. My, you're a mess, aren't you?
Philip Marlowe: I'm not very tall either. Next time I'll come on stilts wear a white tie and carry a tennis racket.
Vivian: I doubt if even that will help.
Vivian: What will your first step be?
Philip Marlowe: The usual one.
Vivian: I didn't know there was a usual one.
Philip Marlowe: Well sure there is, it comes complete with diagrams on page 47 of how to be a detective in 10 easy lessons correspondent school textbook and uh, your father offered me a drink.
Vivian: You must've read another one on how to be a comedian.
Philip Marlowe: I collect blondes and bottles.
Carmen Sternwood: You're cute. I like you.
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, what you sees nothing, I got a Balinese dancing girl tattooed across my chest.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Back
I'm back from Alarm Will Sound's Russia tour, taking a day to rest and recoup. I haven't been this exhausted in a while. I think I'll stay in on this nice rainy day and watch a horror movie. Or maybe an old noir... Horror, noir, horror, noir... Pulse (original, natch) or Double Indemnity... Oh, the choices...
Anyway, I'm gathering all of my photos and videos online to share them with the world, if you be so inclined to view them. But for now, I'll leave you with my favorite footage from my Russia trip.
Inexplicably dancing girls in St. Petersburg:
Anyway, I'm gathering all of my photos and videos online to share them with the world, if you be so inclined to view them. But for now, I'll leave you with my favorite footage from my Russia trip.
Inexplicably dancing girls in St. Petersburg:
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Off to Russia
I'm off to Russia for a few Alarm Will Sound shows in Moscow and St. Petersburg, so there'll probably be nothing here for a week or so.
In the meantime, if you are or find yourself in the Miami area, please go check out my good friend James Moore's Banjo Recital at The Harold Golen Gallery. He'll be premiering a new piece of mine, Like A Prayer Remix for Banjo and Track. As you may have guessed it's a remix of the Madonna song with the banjo playing the main part. It's pretty zany. Also on the program are pieces by such awesome NYC composers as Wil Smith, Paula Matthusen, and Laine Fefferman.
And to hold you tight for the week here's something to mull over:
In the meantime, if you are or find yourself in the Miami area, please go check out my good friend James Moore's Banjo Recital at The Harold Golen Gallery. He'll be premiering a new piece of mine, Like A Prayer Remix for Banjo and Track. As you may have guessed it's a remix of the Madonna song with the banjo playing the main part. It's pretty zany. Also on the program are pieces by such awesome NYC composers as Wil Smith, Paula Matthusen, and Laine Fefferman.
And to hold you tight for the week here's something to mull over:
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Unity in Our Country
This is fucking insane:
Whoolery and his wife couldn't believe it when their second and third graders got off the bus last week and told them what other students were saying.The only thing that could remedy this is an appropriate response from the school to address this problem:
"They just hadn't heard anything like this before," said Whoolery. "They were chanting on the bus, 'Assassinate Obama. Assassinate Obama.'
After the incident, the Madison School district superintendent (Rexburg, Idaho) sent an email to all teachers, principals, and bus drivers saying that all students should show proper respect for elected officials.Hand slaps forehead.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Luke Rathborne at LPR tonight
I realized I've been neglecting to use this blog to let y'all know when I have an interesting performance. I guess I've been so caught up in the election season and everything, I didn't even think to post about my concerts...
Anyway, tonight I'm playing with Luke Rathborne, who is a really cool young singer/songwriter, kind of in the folk/country vein. Here's a video of one of his songs:
Also playing in the band are some of my best friends, so it'll definitely be a good vibe. Stop by tonight if you want to hear some really nice, chill music.
Luke Rathborne's In Search of the Miraculous with Bowery Boy Blue & Cameron Hull
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street
8pm
Featuring:
Luke Rathborne - Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Steven Bard - bass
Todd Cohen - drums
Matt Marks - French Horn
Gina Valvaso - Bassoon
Eileen Mack - Clarinet
Kelli Kathman - Flute
Christa Robinson - Oboe
Tix are 11 bucks I believe.
Anyway, tonight I'm playing with Luke Rathborne, who is a really cool young singer/songwriter, kind of in the folk/country vein. Here's a video of one of his songs:
Also playing in the band are some of my best friends, so it'll definitely be a good vibe. Stop by tonight if you want to hear some really nice, chill music.
Luke Rathborne's In Search of the Miraculous with Bowery Boy Blue & Cameron Hull
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street
8pm
Featuring:
Luke Rathborne - Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Steven Bard - bass
Todd Cohen - drums
Matt Marks - French Horn
Gina Valvaso - Bassoon
Eileen Mack - Clarinet
Kelli Kathman - Flute
Christa Robinson - Oboe
Tix are 11 bucks I believe.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Future of the Republican Party is to be Mired in the Past
An interesting Slate discussion among (mostly) smart conservative voices descends into the Republican Party's achille's heel: futile abortion debate. Ross Douthat, one of the more sensible young conservatives loses his cool and crassly lambasts Douglas Kmiec's suggestion that conservatives relax on the three-decade-long abortion fight that has obsessed the party.
Douthat:
Meow...
And Kmiec responds with a little condescending "grace":
I picture that Family Guy episode where Stewie provokes a fight between fellow children, and shouts, "Dance puppets, dance!"
This is to be expected. It is apparent that the rift in the right wing will be between social conservatives and economic conservatives. But the division is stickier than it may appear. Douthat in a previous topic on the same Slate forum calls for conservatives to relax on the anti-evolution and abstinence-only rhetoric, but he easily gets snagged on that old hot topic. Look guys, it a losing battle. Social conservativism is a futile movement. Societies change. Ain't nothing gonna stop that, short of some sort of Taliban-style totalitarian state. This doesn't mean that any erosion of values or adoption of new values is well and good, but it means that we all have to be open to how values change, not reject them out of hand.
Douthat:
I am sure that Kmiec is weary of being called a fool by opponents of abortion for his tireless pro-Obama advocacy during this election cycle, but if so, then the thing for him to do is to cease acting like the sort of person for whom the term "useful idiot" was coined, rather than persisting in his folly.
Meow...
And Kmiec responds with a little condescending "grace":
While we have not met, so little of what you have written is in any way respectful or acknowledges that you are addressing not some abstraction but a fellow human that I can only pray that if any of your family or closest friends come into contact with this commentary that they reach out to you in the most gentle and understanding way, without precondition, to calm an anger that is harmful to the soul.
I picture that Family Guy episode where Stewie provokes a fight between fellow children, and shouts, "Dance puppets, dance!"
This is to be expected. It is apparent that the rift in the right wing will be between social conservatives and economic conservatives. But the division is stickier than it may appear. Douthat in a previous topic on the same Slate forum calls for conservatives to relax on the anti-evolution and abstinence-only rhetoric, but he easily gets snagged on that old hot topic. Look guys, it a losing battle. Social conservativism is a futile movement. Societies change. Ain't nothing gonna stop that, short of some sort of Taliban-style totalitarian state. This doesn't mean that any erosion of values or adoption of new values is well and good, but it means that we all have to be open to how values change, not reject them out of hand.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Mafoo's Hip Hop Vid of the Day
I was listening to this track on the subway coming home the other night. From a production standpoint it's simply incredible. Lyrics are pretty badass too.
El-P - Deep Space 9MM
Lyrics:
One two
Get behind the walls of new Roma, wanna buy the farm
But the land's not yours to own?
Who owns Police? Who holds floor grease on a sandy beach?
Blood beach
Dance with a man he starts clutching, he ugly
Punks hung halo teach
Hugged by the math with the cable reach
A hundred and sixty-six channels lit
To train that animal shit
Where the mind's eye redefined
Where's God?
Buy a car, Kick tires
Back in Eighty-Six I lived
With a four-course artistry
Metal ones took turns showin' off colors and shit
Like I invaded the mating dance ritual
Criminal now
Wild things defined beautiful under my power
El Producto flash-fest-iss
Motherfuckers be like, "Ow, why haven't we left yet"
Blithering sideway twang, the youth and brain management troupe
The man is like BOOOP
You can't touch the Krush Groove
I live by the lunch table
Touched fables
Ducked labels
Lookout for the one he'd abide with the terrible stables
Signed to Rawkus
I'd rather be mouth fucked by Nazis unconscious
Callin' all bomb threats
Radio re-activated, caress
Under hella-ified missle defense
Fenced in, better blame it on fame shit and grin
Walk with a bag full of kittens
Take it to the river and throw yourself in
In about four seconds the ether will begin to leak
Who wanna hold hands with this sicko malnutritionist
Soaked in newspeak?
Dissolve into the syncopated fragments of vinyl
splashed on loose leaf
We can embrace on the business end of my face first
Joe vs. the Volcano suicide beef
Dance with the vinyl monster
Devil in a blue skyline with clean conscience
Save the gesture
But can't save the children, weren't worth the effort
I'm a Caveman
Your modern ways frighten and confuse me
I watch your spirit box with the blinking lights and think
Are those little people trapped in that box? (No, Caveman)
But I do know converted mic digital 8-bus Mackie Avalon compression
Combined with 8-step effected
Dirty words paralyze words and infect shit
Infectious
Insofar as the ineffectual bed for elections
Development arrested
Trapped in the Cuckoo's nest
Looking for the nexus
If it's wild like that y'all found
infrared scope in the clutch of a tyrant
New World lullaby Sirens
Stuck migrants, bust 'em by violence
It's all bad timing
Getting merked on a Tram over Roosevelt Island
You think that's spacey?
Deep Space 9 millimeter, son, keep smiling
This is for the fringes and such
My generation just sit like dust
Feed 'em off of us and ask what I trust
Tell these stories, I'm right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
This is for the fringes and such
My generation ain't friends with slugs
Thank god for the drugs and drums
Tell these to read it, I'll be right here hidin' from guns
Right here hidin' from guns
Right here hidin' from guns
El-P - Deep Space 9MM
Lyrics:
One two
Get behind the walls of new Roma, wanna buy the farm
But the land's not yours to own?
Who owns Police? Who holds floor grease on a sandy beach?
Blood beach
Dance with a man he starts clutching, he ugly
Punks hung halo teach
Hugged by the math with the cable reach
A hundred and sixty-six channels lit
To train that animal shit
Where the mind's eye redefined
Where's God?
Buy a car, Kick tires
Back in Eighty-Six I lived
With a four-course artistry
Metal ones took turns showin' off colors and shit
Like I invaded the mating dance ritual
Criminal now
Wild things defined beautiful under my power
El Producto flash-fest-iss
Motherfuckers be like, "Ow, why haven't we left yet"
Blithering sideway twang, the youth and brain management troupe
The man is like BOOOP
You can't touch the Krush Groove
I live by the lunch table
Touched fables
Ducked labels
Lookout for the one he'd abide with the terrible stables
Signed to Rawkus
I'd rather be mouth fucked by Nazis unconscious
Callin' all bomb threats
Radio re-activated, caress
Under hella-ified missle defense
Fenced in, better blame it on fame shit and grin
Walk with a bag full of kittens
Take it to the river and throw yourself in
In about four seconds the ether will begin to leak
Who wanna hold hands with this sicko malnutritionist
Soaked in newspeak?
Dissolve into the syncopated fragments of vinyl
splashed on loose leaf
We can embrace on the business end of my face first
Joe vs. the Volcano suicide beef
Dance with the vinyl monster
Devil in a blue skyline with clean conscience
Save the gesture
But can't save the children, weren't worth the effort
I'm a Caveman
Your modern ways frighten and confuse me
I watch your spirit box with the blinking lights and think
Are those little people trapped in that box? (No, Caveman)
But I do know converted mic digital 8-bus Mackie Avalon compression
Combined with 8-step effected
Dirty words paralyze words and infect shit
Infectious
Insofar as the ineffectual bed for elections
Development arrested
Trapped in the Cuckoo's nest
Looking for the nexus
If it's wild like that y'all found
infrared scope in the clutch of a tyrant
New World lullaby Sirens
Stuck migrants, bust 'em by violence
It's all bad timing
Getting merked on a Tram over Roosevelt Island
You think that's spacey?
Deep Space 9 millimeter, son, keep smiling
This is for the fringes and such
My generation just sit like dust
Feed 'em off of us and ask what I trust
Tell these stories, I'm right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
Right here holdin' my nuts
This is for the fringes and such
My generation ain't friends with slugs
Thank god for the drugs and drums
Tell these to read it, I'll be right here hidin' from guns
Right here hidin' from guns
Right here hidin' from guns
Friday, November 7, 2008
Prop 8 Thoughts
I'd like to see an exit poll of Prop 8 voters, showing how people voting based on their level of personal relationships with gay people. I'm certain it would show that those with more gay acquaintances tended to vote against the draconian measure, and those with less for it. This is because it is easier for those without significant relationships with gays to dehumanize them, treat them as second-class citizens, literally.
Simply put, before I had gay friends I thought being gay was weird as fuck. It seemed so different than my experience that my brain told me that it must be wrong. Then, being a classical musician, I came in contact with a ton of them, and I realized, duh, there's exactly the same as me, with just a different sexual preference. Pretty damn simple. I'm not shocked that my home state of California decided to fuck over thousands of good, loving people. It makes me angry, sad, ashamed. I saw pictures of supporters celebrating and thought to myself, what a grotesque display? Rejoicing over the misfortune of others, people you don't even know, people you haven't taken the time to understand?
Tuesday night, in the two poles of our country - New York and California - we had people rejoicing the optimism of a potentially bright future in the streets of New York City; and we had people exalting in the ignorance and fear of the past in California. I'd never felt like less of a Californian and more of a New Yorker in my life.
Simply put, before I had gay friends I thought being gay was weird as fuck. It seemed so different than my experience that my brain told me that it must be wrong. Then, being a classical musician, I came in contact with a ton of them, and I realized, duh, there's exactly the same as me, with just a different sexual preference. Pretty damn simple. I'm not shocked that my home state of California decided to fuck over thousands of good, loving people. It makes me angry, sad, ashamed. I saw pictures of supporters celebrating and thought to myself, what a grotesque display? Rejoicing over the misfortune of others, people you don't even know, people you haven't taken the time to understand?
Tuesday night, in the two poles of our country - New York and California - we had people rejoicing the optimism of a potentially bright future in the streets of New York City; and we had people exalting in the ignorance and fear of the past in California. I'd never felt like less of a Californian and more of a New Yorker in my life.
The Future of the Republican Party
David Frum:
It will definitely be interesting going forward and seeing how the right reacts to this trouncing. Frum is of the post-boomer generation Republicans, and is also one of its most conservative voices - for better and worse. This generation, and even more so the conservatives from Gen X/Y, seems to be much more willing to ease up on the social conservativism. Still, I don't see the boomers letting go of their culture war-loving strangle-hold just yet. Rush is still extremely popular and is not going to be easing up anytime soon, which does not bode well for the party. It will of course prove to be poison for them, which I suppose I should make me feel happy.
Still, I would like there to be a sensible economically and governmentally conservative opposition in this country. I'm not one of those worried that Obama and the newly blue congress is going to tax us to death and nail up a poster of Stalin on the door of the capital building. They'll probably spend at least two years undoing the damage of Bush before they can get anything done anyway. But there is something admirable about sensibly cynical conservative voices such as Frum, and I'm even more optimistic about the voices of my generation such as Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Megan McArdle and others. I disagree with them more often than I agree, but their views are most often unique, well thought-out, and independent of any sense of sticking to the 'party line' (perhaps the most dreaded relic of the baby-boomer age).
I think we'll see a civil war in the right, with the old guard fighting an unwinnable battle, as the culture war inevitably is. It'll be a slow death, though, with its throes providing endless entertainment and headaches for the rest of us over the next few years.
A generation ago, Republicans were dominant among college graduates. Those days are long gone. Since 1988, Democrats have become more conservative on economics - and Republicans more conservative on social issues. College-educated Americans have come to believe that their money is safe with Democrats - but that their values are under threat from Republicans. There are more and more college-educated voters.
So the question for the GOP is: Will it pursue them? This will involve painful change, on issues ranging from the environment to abortion. It will involve even more painful changes of style and tone: toward a future that is less overtly religious, less negligent with policy, and less polarising on social issues.
It will definitely be interesting going forward and seeing how the right reacts to this trouncing. Frum is of the post-boomer generation Republicans, and is also one of its most conservative voices - for better and worse. This generation, and even more so the conservatives from Gen X/Y, seems to be much more willing to ease up on the social conservativism. Still, I don't see the boomers letting go of their culture war-loving strangle-hold just yet. Rush is still extremely popular and is not going to be easing up anytime soon, which does not bode well for the party. It will of course prove to be poison for them, which I suppose I should make me feel happy.
Still, I would like there to be a sensible economically and governmentally conservative opposition in this country. I'm not one of those worried that Obama and the newly blue congress is going to tax us to death and nail up a poster of Stalin on the door of the capital building. They'll probably spend at least two years undoing the damage of Bush before they can get anything done anyway. But there is something admirable about sensibly cynical conservative voices such as Frum, and I'm even more optimistic about the voices of my generation such as Ross Douthat, Reihan Salam, Megan McArdle and others. I disagree with them more often than I agree, but their views are most often unique, well thought-out, and independent of any sense of sticking to the 'party line' (perhaps the most dreaded relic of the baby-boomer age).
I think we'll see a civil war in the right, with the old guard fighting an unwinnable battle, as the culture war inevitably is. It'll be a slow death, though, with its throes providing endless entertainment and headaches for the rest of us over the next few years.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Election Night in the East Village
I thought I'd share some photos from my amazing night.
Here are a couple of videos I have found that effectively display the vibe in the East Village last night:
Here are a couple of videos I have found that effectively display the vibe in the East Village last night:
President Obama
Tonight has been one giant sigh of relief. I attended the Newspeak concert and as the announcement came over the large screen TV, the band (which has never sounded better) went into a bangin cover of The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again. Everyone in the place was screaming at the top of their lungs, people were dancing, bawling, clapping along, hugging each other, and I was fighting back the tears. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. A weight felt lifted off of my shoulders. I walked outside to a city in revelry: shouts, screams, cheers coming from all directions. People walked by carrying American flags. Horns were honking all around me. Pure raw emotion reigned tonight. I screamed, cheered, whooed. It was an incredibly sentimental evening.
Maybe tomorrow I'll feel embarrassed about how I feel right now: the innocent joy, the peace, the rampant optimism. But the buried grief and shame I feel for the thousands who have died for my country's mistakes, the thousands who have suffered from a failing economy, the years of totalitarian-style propaganda in the media, the elevation of ignorance as a virtue, everything that has sickened me and made me wonder why the fuck I would want to live in this country has bubbled up to the surface and seems ready for deliverance. In short, I'm tired of the people in charge of my country making me feel like shit. That we now have one that makes me feel great is a really nice feeling.
I feel calm, happy, and comfortable. It was a good night.
Maybe tomorrow I'll feel embarrassed about how I feel right now: the innocent joy, the peace, the rampant optimism. But the buried grief and shame I feel for the thousands who have died for my country's mistakes, the thousands who have suffered from a failing economy, the years of totalitarian-style propaganda in the media, the elevation of ignorance as a virtue, everything that has sickened me and made me wonder why the fuck I would want to live in this country has bubbled up to the surface and seems ready for deliverance. In short, I'm tired of the people in charge of my country making me feel like shit. That we now have one that makes me feel great is a really nice feeling.
I feel calm, happy, and comfortable. It was a good night.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
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