Tag: Music

The Freewheelin’ Llewyn Davis.


“Oh, hello! I’ve heard your music, and heard many nice things about you from Jim and Jean and from others.” One of my most anticipated films of 2013 gets a trailer: Inside Llewyn Davis, a.k.a. the Coens’ riffing on Dave Von Ronk‘s memoir and 60’s Greenwich Village, featuring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Adam Driver, and F. Murray Abraham. Looks like it was filmed through Todd Haynes’ Claire and Robbie filter. Can’t wait.

Triskaidekaphilia.

A very Happy New Year to you and yours. (FWIW, in keeping with a resolution to get out more now that the old dissertation is tagged and bagged — defense date, January 18th — I spent a fine New Years Eve-ning with The Roots in Silver Spring.)

Also, just to let you know, I’m working on the traditional annual movie review post, but it probably won’t go live until mid-month, since two of the better-reviewed films of 2012, Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty and Michael Haneke’s Amour, don’t arrive here in the Beltway Styx until 1/11. That also gives me another week to plug a few other holes via Netflix, like last night’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (dopey, but not nearly as terribad as I feared) and The Deep Blue Sea (a definite list contender).

In any event, happy 2013 everyone. Since we’ve made it through the Mayan gauntlet and are already living in The Future, it’s all extra time from here on out. Let’s make the most of it! Onward and upward.

Young Despite the Years.


“This dates back to February 1981 — the exact day is uncertain — which puts the show some 18 months before the release of the debut EP ‘Chronic Town,’ and a full two years before ‘Murmur.’” From three decades ago, film surfaces of a very young R.E.M. practicing their trade at the 688 club in Atlanta. Contrast with only four years later, in Rockpalast, when the pride of Athens, GA, had really come into their own.

Bond Sky Mining.


I don’t think it’s being too uncharitable towards Skyfall — which is a solid and decently fun Bond outing that’s a good deal better than A Quantum of Solace, although not quite at the level of Casino Royale — to say that the best part of the film may just be the opening credits. (Although if you ever wanted to see Bond go up against the Joker, same Dark Knight plan and all, or thought to wonder if 007 possibly grew up like Bruce Wayne in Hogwarts, those are in evidence too.) With that in mind, enjoy.

Tempest Fugit.

“Today sees the release of the 35th studio album of Bob Dylan’s career, Tempest. The album is great, and of course it’s great—at this point, 15 years after Time Out of Mind announced his return to some entirely new type of form, that statement seems expected and unremarkable, and that unremarkableness is nothing less than astonishing“

Fifty years after his first album, and eleven years after a memorable 9/11 also brought forth Love and Theft, Bob Dylan’s Tempest drops today.

Update: Been settling in with the album tonight, and it’s already my favorite since Time Out of Mind. It’s very dark — Bob’s in full-on Blind Willie apocalyptic mode. This is dead land, this is cactus land. Eliot’s in the captain’s tower & the Titanic sails at dawn.

Speaking of which, what with the 14-minute titular track about the Titanic, “Desolation Row” obviously comes to mind. But there’s a little John Wesley Harding here as well — My early favorites are “Scarlet Town” and “Tin Angel,” the latter very much a frontier tale like “Frankie Lee and Judas Priest” or “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts,” and the opening track and first single, “Duquesne Whistle,” is much like “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” in that it doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the album. Anyways, a few listens in, I really like it.

Whistle while you Work.

“The music starts faintly, as if in a vintage pleasure palace, with the band…playing rock and roll ragtime off in the corner. The electric guitars sound almost like clarinets. Everybody’s swinging! But what’s that in the distance?“

NPR’s All Songs Considered gets their hands on “Duquesne Whistle”, the first track from Bob Dylan’s forthcoming Tempest, due out September 11th. True, there is something Basement Tapesy about it upon first listen.

The Axon Effect.


“Squids (like many other cephalopods) can quickly control pigmented cells called chromatophores to reflect light…We used a suction electrode to attach to the squid’s fin nerve, then connected the electrode to an iPod nano as our stimulator. The results were both interesting and beautiful. The video below is a view through an 8x microscope zoomed in on the dorsal side of the caudal fin of the squid.“

In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming…the ultraviolet dream, that is. Via Boing Boing, a squid’s chromatophores groove to Cypress Hill…Science! (Just don’t show it Oldboy.)

And this is crazy…

Digby a few posts down was the second-funniest thing I saw this week, but this made me laugh and laugh. The spontaneous smiles and laughter of the majority of folks on the other end is totally infectious and people-affirming, with special props for the good-natured guys at 0:28, 2:16, and 2:25 and the instantly crushworthy Ms. 0:44. Well-played, Steve Kardynal, well-played.