30 Day Song Challenge – Day Thirteen: Best Song to Get Creepy With for Friday the 13th:I’m Hurt Bad by Angelo Badalamenti (1990)
PS – Twin Peaks, possibly best TV show ever now streaming on Netflix Instant!
by Ruth Rendell (1998)So, it’s not exactly like I had A is for Alibi sticking out of my back pocket, but even I know reading mass market paper back women’s mysteries with titles like A Sight for Sore Eyes and the author’s name printed in gold is not “cool”. But! When it’s as compelling and unexpected as this Ruth Randell thriller, it sure is pleasurable.
Beach reading time is upon us and if you’re tired of predictable master mind serial killers and tough but gorgeous women detectives, this odd tale of coincidence and murder will be refreshing.
While the psychology might be a tad simplified, Rendell does take us into the minds of her characters, even the most evil ones and gives us a very vivid picture of them and their surroundings. Even a minor character, like a nasty shop owner or a noisy neighbor feel like real people rather than contrived mystery novel plot elements.
As for the main protagonists, you have a beautiful teen whose youth was shattered by her mother’s murder and whose adolescence is marred by an insanely over protective step mother; you also have a vain former hippie living in a London mansion, and finally a psychopath young man who never knew any form of love as a child who despises humanity as much as he praises and adores beautiful objects.
All three lives intertwine in a way I thought would be rote and predictable but was pleasantly surprised to find it stranger, more unusual and almost grimly humorous.
I don’t know too much about author Rendell but she is highly praised among her peers and I plan to look to her again next time I’m in beach reading mode.
30 Day Song Challenge – Day Three: Best Song With Which to Wallow in Your Self Pity:“Have You Forgotten” by Red House Painters (1996)
by Haruki Murakami (1993)Murakami’s short story collection The Elephant Vanishes opens with what would become the first chapter of The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, a book that consumed and mesmerized me like only few great novels can. I tried to repeat that spell with his other works, but only came as close with Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
After finishing the second story, I was worried that this would be another miss for me and Murakami – though a miss from him is still guaranteed to be more curious and interesting than many authors’ best so I kept reading.
I was finally drawn in completely by the story Sleep, a subtly creepy story of a woman who lives two lives when she suddenly no longer sleeps. It’s a masterful study of inexplicable fears come to life, fears that sit dormant below the surface of the toil and small joys of everyday living.
Other notable favorites are Barn Burning, Family Affair, TV People, The Dancing Dwarf, and The Last Lawn of the Afternoon. Of course, every reader will have their own opinions depending on their tolerance for the bizarre surrealism that peppers his writing with such dark grace.
The best stories here have his hallmark gift for mood. You feel the people and places in essence if not in detail and are transported to strange territories that are both very near and very far from our own lives.
by Luna (1994)I love how music can touch you deep down and take you back to a person that you once were.
Luna’s California (All the Way) is one of those songs that will always be associated in my mind with my Junior year in college. While it doesn’t take me back to the specific memories (which boyfriend was breaking up with me at the time, again??) it does transport me to a very certain feeling.
I can close my eyes when this song comes on and see a warm afternoon outside my apartment on Arnold Street in Providence filled with all the optimism of the young and cocky and all the insecurities of the young and barely experienced.
As for the song itself, I was introduced to it by an old friend, Peat, back when mix cd’s were still given as gifts.
Even if the song holds no sentiment to you, it’s still very lovely.
Re-Airing on Cooking ChannelI vividly remember when my family and I first watched Iron Chef. It was so flamboyantly dramatic, with a concept so unusual we – along with many Americans – were floored. There had just never been anything quite like it. I’ve been having a grand old time revisiting this epic show thanks to nightly reruns on Cooking Channel.
Chairman Kaga, with his glittering bejeweled capes, relish for biting into bell peppers and grand gestures sets the cinematic tone. It’s as emotional sometimes as it is campy. I was truly moved to amazement during the historic foie gras battle. I was swept up in the spectacle when, driven away from a French castle by dark horse drawn carraige (!), Sakai ventured off to gather his own ingredients in 24 hours throughout France.
It’s interesting how the world has changed since the show first aired. It seems people are so much more adventurous and knowledgeable about world cuisines. Once confounding dishes which we couldn’t even imagine what they tasted like, are now more approachable.
Sure I can’t exactly imagine crisp eel on chocolate ice cream – but with bacon topping ice cream these days, I have a better idea. As for fried fish bone chips – a dish that the younger me would question – now I’ve actually had and loved these at a neighborhood restaurant.
The U.S. attempted two remakes – if anyone else can remember the woefully off putting William Shatner number and the currently airing Iron Chef America – that I find too obnoxious to watch – something delicate and special got lost in the translation.
And for the record I have small crushes on all of the Iron Chefs, particularly the wise and mysterious Michiba.
Now on Netflix InstantSure, birds are falling from the sky, but there are some positives about the New Year. Netflix has started streaming all seasons of the too often forgotten Larry Sanders Show, for example.
A forerunner to cynical comedies like Arrested Development, 30 Rock, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, this HBO classic still makes me laugh even if the references (Ghost, Jodie Whatley, the first Bush Administration) are dated.
Garry Shandling, a pioneer in comedy, plays egocentric incredibly well as a third tier talk show host in this behind the scenes satire. No one says “horse shit” and gets drunk quite like Rip Torn as Artie, the show’s producer and while Jeffery Tambor’s work as George Bluth (on Arrested) is great, his portrayal of side kick Hank Kingsley is a revelation in pathetic, weak, and very funny assholery. Familiar faces like Janeane Garofalo and Jeremy Piven round out the cast in their pre-famous days.
I am enjoying revisited the show immensely and think those fans of the aforementioned shows who haven’t watched it the first time around will be delighted. Makes me wish Shandling was still working on HBO.
directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (1993)The words “Ninja Scroll” echoed in the halls of my freshman dorm. Nerds coming from all corners of the country and globe were getting introduced to anime with this bloody action packed oddity, all thanks, if I remember correctly, to one Hal Lee who passed a well worn VHS around Nickerson Hall. With explicit sex scenes, demon monsters, and arm ripping/blood soaked fights, well, needless to say the dudes were INTO it. I however, never saw it til last night (thank you Netflix + AppleTV).
Like most things Japanese, Ninja Scroll is somewhat inscrutable, but that hardly matters. Whether you follow the story about a secret gold mine, an old man spy, and a bisexual who plays a deadly game of telephone or not, there’s just so much good stuff to look at. From rape minded rock monsters to ninja birds, from vagina snakes to magic bee swarms, the movie hits the ground running and never stops.
In short, though, Jubei is a ninja for hire who talks with the insensitive staccato of a teenage boy that just learned the word ‘shit” as in “Shit! A cast off skin!!”. He meets up with a girl ninja Kagero who is poison to any man that sleeps with her. Together they reluctantly (since they are fiercely independent, of course) join forces with a sneaky old man to defeat a team of demons with strange abilities who want nothing more than world domination through destruction and a pirate ship full of gold.
In a huge sea of anime, which is daunting to traverse, this one stands out with it’s inventive monsters drawn from folklore, stunningly beautiful artwork and a plot that speaks to my D&D heart.
The movie spawned a sequel series and word has it that Leonardo DiCaprio owns the rights to a planned live action movie coming next year.
Click here for the rest of Ninja Scroll
directed by Wong Kar-Wai (1990)Wong Kar-Wai, whose cinematic voice is all his own, brings to the screen quiet moments in time rather than sweeping plots in Days of Being Wild. The moments certainly stuck with me, as I’ve been trying to find the movie again since I saw it years and years ago.
Set in Hong Kong and the Philippines in the 1960’s, Wild is sumptuously shot by Kar-Wai collaborator Christopher Doyle with what looks like a hazy memory filter. The fashions here are eye candy too and I swear it looks like Muccia Prada must have just viewed this movie before her Fall 2010 season.
The attractive cast is also great to look at, including China’s biggest stars like the lovely Maggie Cheung and the dashing Leslie Cheung. They fall in and out of love in this study of relationships, manipulation, sadness and desire. It’s doesn’t sound like much to explain what happens, (someone leaves someone from someone else, someone gets sad…) but there’s something haunting about the whole affair.
An all around gorgeous movie, which unfortunately looks like it was transferred from VHS for instant netflix, Days of Being Wild sounds amazing featuring lilting, mid century tropic instrumentals.
Considered inaccessibly art house by many, this was not a hit in its home country despite an all star cast. Still, many consider it to be a pivotal film in Hong Kong cinema.
Click here for the rest of Days of Being Wild
by William Hjortsberg (1994)Nevermore is silly fun, though to my surprise based on some real events and relationships. The story focuses on the (true) friendship between magician Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They shared an interest in mysticism but became enemies based on their opposing views. Doyle was a passionate believer, Houdini a staunch skeptic. It’s no wonder then, that it’s Doyle who sees the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe is Hjortsberg’s serial killer mystery (the serial killer part – not so true).
Despite the spiritual leanings and fun with ghosts, actual New York events and places (I am a sucker for anything set in the early days of the city) and wild sex scenes that jump out of nowhere, this is a stunningly common mystery novel. The reveal never as good as the lead up. It’s all fine and good, but just not what I expected from Hjortsberg, whose sci fi weirdo novel Gray Matters, about the enlightenment of man and floating brains, was far more trippy and unique.
Still, judged for what it is, rather than his previous work, it’s great fun for mystery novel lovers and interesting for anyone curious about the Jazz Age in New York and the tricks of Houdini.
