“People and nations are forged in the fire of adversity.” -John Adams
We don’t subscribe to HBO. That might need to change.
This weekend we caught part two of HBO Films’ seven-part miniseries, John Adams. The work is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by David McCullough.
Chris Hicks of Deseret News calls the miniseries “an epic undertaking of the kind we see infrequently on TV these days, filled in equal part with scenes that are stirring, chilling, uplifting, gut-wrenching and enlightening, while demonstrating the great sacrifices that went into the formation of America.”
While this show is entertainment, it is also educational, particularly so in this time of little reading and weakened public schools. I’m a student of American history, and I learned something. Namely that New York abstained from the vote for independence on July 2, 1776. According to my research this morning, the New York delegation did adopt the Declaration a week later, making the vote unanimous.
JamesMcMurtry, son of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter Larry McMurtry, is a brave writer in his own right. One listen to “Cheney’s Toy” off his latest album, Just Us Kids, is proof enough.
You’re the man
Show ’em what you’re made of
You’re no longer daddy’s boy
You’re the man
That they’re all afraid of
But you’re only Cheney’s toy
Washington Post reporter J. Freedom du Lac says McMurtry is a “famously caustic observer of Americana.” Freedom du Lac also says McMurtry, 46, has crafted one of the year’s best albums in Just Us Kids, which artfully mixes provocative portraits with political screeds.
McMurtry’s dad is justifiably proud of his son’s work and achievements. “One element of music is poetry, and poetry is a lot harder than fiction,” his father says. “A lyric is the hardest form. You have to concentrate and squeeze those words. I respect James a lot for having found his own art and done it so well.”
When McMurtry is at home in Austin, he performs a midnight set every Wednesday night at the Continental Club on South Congress. He’s almost always preceded onstage by singer-songwriter Jon Dee Graham.
Graham says, “He’s pretty fucking precise; I think he’s always looking for the right words. And as a songwriter, I respect the hell out of him. He’s able to create, whole cloth, out of thin air, things that never happened to people who don’t exist, and to make them funny, witty, insightful and a general comment on the world. How do you do that?”
Rocky Mountain News asked Ralph Nader, an independent candidate for President, if Barack Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama’s pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.
Nader’s response is on the shocking side, which makes sense as a media strategy. Although I suspect this is how Nader really thinks and really talks, no matter who might be listening.
“There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American,” Nader said. “Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.”
“I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law,” Nader said. “Haven’t heard a thing.”
“He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician,” Nader said. “He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.”
I love that we have someone, anyone, willing to speak truth to power. Doing so is heroic in these times. It might not be welcome, or even all that smart, politically or otherwise, but still I respect that Nader is doing it. He’s a man of action and he would like to see some people in D.C. snap to attention, as improbable as that eventuality seems.
On a totally unrelated note, I wish Nader had some sharper looking creative. Obama really has the graphic designers in his camp.
Jim DeRogatis, music critic for Chicago Sun Times likes Alejandro Escovedo’s new album, “Real Animal.” Not as much as I do, but that’s okay.
Blame a midlife crisis or a fury prompted of any number of dramas in Alejandro Escovedo’s life, from divorce to a near-fatal bout with Hepatitis C but at age 57, the veteran Texas roots-rocker has returned for the first time in his long solo career to the aggressive, at-times punk-rock sounds of his earliest band, the Nuns, with a few hints of pioneering alternative-country combos Rank & File and the True Believers thrown in for good measure.
Co-written with Chuck Prophet, produced by the legendary Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T. Rex) and propelled by a crack band that includes Chicago-based violinst Susan Voelz, “Real Animal” is rife with borrowed licks from Bowie and one of Escovedo’s biggest heroes, Lou Reed.
I’m still listening for the best track on a record full of contenders. Andrew Dansby of The Houston Chronicle likes the opening track, “Always a Friend.” He says it “as infectious a pop song as Escovedo has written.” I like track four, “Smoke.”
Speaking at a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida yesterday, Barack Obama said, “It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid.”
“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
If we’re lucky, the establishment has a right to be afraid. But not of Obama’s blackness, or his age. His message of change is positive for the people, but it could mean an upset apple cart for arms dealers, oil companies and their ilk. We all know they’re going to fight tooth and nail to protect their interests. It’s the American way, as sure as exposing the bastards is the American way.
[UPDATE 7.19.08] In Ryan Lizza’s feature piece in The New Yorker on Obama, he argues, “Perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them.” In other words, it pays to be Bill Clinton-practical. Change can’t come from the sidelines.
Obama is a complicated character in an equally complicated time for this nation. The fact that he’s black and young makes him an outsider. Wisely, he uses this fact of his life to his advantage. But he’s also a politician, a deal maker and an insider. The question for progressives and conservatives alike, is who will he make deals with and what kind of deals.
In February, The Panderers released their debut EP entitled “Hotshot’s Boy” on Snack Bar, a label created by Mike Doughty.
According to the band’s MySpace, the EP was produced by Dave Wilder and Pete McNeal, who came together on the deep belief in a trove of songs authored by singer/songwriter Scott Wynn. Scott’s roots stem from deep east Kentucky coal country where his father and uncles worked coal as did their father before them. Scott is the first of his family not to work coal and to attend college. Scott borrows much from the baseness and humility of coal country, but you have to remember that coal can also be fire. So, the music pretty much reflects that….very base, bare, rootsy…and/or pure fire.
Though chief semite David Berman sounds less electrified and more gentrified than usual on Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, he’s the rare songwriter who’s better for it.
As a vehicle for Berman’s words, just as much as a follow-up to his 1999 poetry collection Actual Air would be, Lookout Mountain is a volume to be consumed in one’s own time, filed on the shelf, and eventually taught in seminars as an example of form and poise.
In other words, this one’s a must have. But I wouldn’t file it on a shelf. Put it into listening rotation, straight away.
Rolling Stone reporters are soaking up the music in rural Tennessee this weekend. Kevin O’Donnell has this to say about Battles, a band I’ve never heard of until now.
Battles were a solid choice to perform on the first night of the fest. The New York-based four-piece — fronted by Tyondai Braxton, the son of jazz musician Anthony Braxton — turned out a killer hour long set of tricked-out, prog-rock grooves, which ranged from avant-garde electro-jazz to freaked-out space funk. The clear highlight of the group’s set was “Atlas,” a fantastic piece of robo-rock that mixes Daft Punk-style electro-grooves with industrial atmospherics.
We had a nice time exploring the country outside of Atlanta this weekend, first at Etowah Mounds State Historic Site and Red Top State Park, both near Cartersville. Then on Sunday, we checked out the LEED Platinum visitor’s center at Sweetwater Creek State Conservation Park, before taking back roads to the outer reaches of Fulton County, where the people of Serenbe Inn–a beautiful organic farm off Hutcheson Ferry Road–welcomed us in.
When it was time for dinner, we strolled through the farm, passing donkeys, goats, llamas, sheep, rabbits and chickens before coming to an expansive wildflower meadow. The sun was beating down as we emerged from the shaded woods into the open expanse. On the other side we entered the Hamlet, a new urbanism project rising from the ground half a mile from The Inn. We strolled by retail shops and sharp looking homes, before reaching The Hil. Named for chef, Hillary White, who runs the restaurant with her husband Jim, The Hil is a refined, yet informal, neighborhood restaurant, with a dedication to serving simple, farm-fresh cuisine.
I ordered Pan-Roasted All Natural Chicken with Smashed Potatoes and Shiitake Mushroom Gravy. Every bite was delicious. Darby had Wood Grilled Harris Ranch Hangar Steak with Sernebe Farm Crispy Onions. I ordered a side of Serenbe Farm Broccoli and was glad I did. We started out in the bar with Hornitos Margs on the rocks, no salt and an order of Carmelized Vidalia Onion Dip with Potato Chips. For dessert—Riccotta Fritters with Strawberry Jam.
In our bathroom at Magnolia Cottage I found the Nov. 2007 issue of Atlanta Magazine, wherein a feature on nearby community, Rico, describes Serenbe as irrelevant to members of the local community.
“I’m not sure if I can say this right,†Donna Bailey, a pastor at the United Methodist Church in Rico said, “but people with large or unlimited incomes envision community different than the rest of us. For the people who’ve lived here a long time, they don’t have much of an interest in living in condos, or eating fancy desserts. That’s not community to them. [Serenbe] is an urban concept brought to the country. There’s no question, what you have here is tasteful, it’s sculpted, and in places it’s even beautiful. But somehow it seems irrelevant.â€
I find it interesting that this is bathroom reading the The Inn. I love the concept of new urbanism on paper, but I have to admit seeing it up close as I’ve done at Serenbe Hamlet and also closer to home at Palmetto Bluff and Habersham, I do tend to stand back a little, pause and ask, “Is this some kind of Stepford?” These places do have a dreamy quality to them.
Serenbe, though, strikes a unique balance thanks to being grounded by the historic farmhouse and the animal husbandry and food production that makes for a real farm. Maybe not as real as some, but real in its own right.
We went to see Sex and the City yesterday afternoon. It sucked. Royally.
The film was poorly acted, the writing was shoddy and it was much too long. But the thing that bothered me most was the glorification of excessive consumption. Calling this film a “film” is a stretch. It’s really an ad for luxury products that 99% of viewers will never be able to afford. I’m sorry but $525 shoes aren’t aspirational. They’re a waste of money (and I say this as a fan of shoes and the TV series).
Today I stumbled upon criticism that helps me feel justified in my opinions.
Mr. Big not only buys her a penthouse apartment (“I got itâ€), he offers to customize the space for her shoes and other fetishes. “I can build you a better closet,†he says, as if that were a binding condition of their sexual harmony: if he builds it, she will come. The creepiest aspect of this sequence was the sound that rose from the audience as he displayed the finished closet: gasps, fluttering moans, and, beside me, two women applauding. The tactic here is basically pornographic—arouse the viewer with image upon image of what lies just beyond her reach—and the film makes feeble attempts to rein it in.
The characters are slaves to their own fetishization of commodities. This fetishization is responsible for the failure of Carrie’s wedding to Big. Dressed in their billowing designer costumes like unwitting circus clowns, she and her friends fuss around the limousine to carry Carrie to her wedding. “It’s like trying to push a cream-puff through a keyhole,” comments the token homosexual figure (who serves as the Jester) regarding the difficulty of fitting Carrie’s extravagant Vivienne Westwood gown within the limousine. Here, Carrie is quite literally overwhelmed by her own materialism.
A lot of this reaction might have to do with timing. Americans can’t afford gasoline, or food, and we can’t sell our homes in this climate. There are only dark clouds on the economic horizon; yet, we are confronted with Big and Carrie’s 5th Avenue penthouse, Carrie’s haute couture wardrobe, Samantha’s beach front Mailbu digs, first class airline travel and a five star Mexican resort, all of which serve to remind the viewer how far out this fantasy is.
[UPDATE] For the inverse of the argument above, see Marketing Daily.
Faith Popcorn, a trend spotter and founder of marketing consultancy BrainReserve, believes the “Sex and the City” movie comes at the perfect time for a nation exhausted politically, emotionally and financially. Marketers can use the good feeling gained from the movie to their advantage, she says, helping consumers temporarily escape tough times. The movie joins “My Man Godfrey,” “The Women” and other Depression Era classics that provided weary audiences with high-style fantasy relief.
