Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 2] (1851)

SOUNDTRACK: MOBY GRAPE-Moby Grape (1967). Moby Grape is one of those bands that I’ve always heard of but had never heard.  I know, their debut is 43 years old and yet I’d never heard it.  Well, thanks to the internet (lala.com, RIP as of today), I was able to listen to what I assumed was [...]

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Minute to Win It, Hour to Watch It

There’s a new (reasonably) new show called “Minute to Win It.”  The premise was so delightful, so “I want to do that” that I of course set up a TiVo Season Pass for it. Basically, contestants have 60 seconds to complete really stupid, yet slightly challenging tasks.  And, unlike a lot of shows in this [...]

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BEA 2010

Thursday I went to BEA–Book Expo America.  I wasn’t all that thrilled to go this year as last year was kind of a drag (and publishers were stingy).  But this year I had a very good time. By the time I got there it was already 11.  But I was thrilled to see that at [...]

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Dagobeto Gilb–”please, thank you”

SOUNDTRACK: THE BEATLES-Help! (1965). At last, a Beatles album that I knew from start to finish.  And here it is, another soundtrack album.  This disc is the first that starts to really embrace the diversity that The Beatles were capable of. The title track starts out with the fairly shocking screams of “Help!” but it [...]

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Padgett Powell–”Afraid to be Men” (Harper’s, June 2010)

SOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-Prince of Truth (2009). This is the second disc by Evangelista, the band fronted by Carla Bozulich. This disc continues in the vein or the previous disc, which is a little disappointing. The disc is chock full of a lot of noise: stringed instruments, textures, layers, but they all add up to very little.  [...]

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Billie Livingston–”Do Not Touch” (The Walrus, June 2010)

SOUNDTRACK:  RUSH-Beyond the Lighted Stage (film) (2010). Okay, so I haven’t seen this yet, but I’m delighted to be able to add the link to the trailer. This film is an in depth look at Rush’s history.  There’s interviews with all three of them (Neil speaks!) as well as all kinds of fans.  According to [...]

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Ross Campbell–Wet Moon 4: Drowned in Evil (2008)

SOUNDTRACK: WALLER NOT WELLER blog. WallerNotWeller found me when I reviewed Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All.  I went to his site and I adore it!  He writes some great reviews of concerts, CDs and singles.  His current project is the best singles and discs of 1983.  But while he’s working on that, he’ also reviewing a [...]

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Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 1] (1851)

SOUNDTRACK: LED ZEPPELIN-The Song Remains the Same (1978). I don’t normally try to have my soundtracks correspond to the book. But since Andrew suggested that Mastodon’s Leviathan was a good match, I decided I’d try to have all six Soundtracks relate to the book some how. The obvious starting point was Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” [...]

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Better Off Ted Canceled and Other New TV News

I just learned that one of my favorite shows, Better Off Ted has been canceled for next year.   I’m not going to blame Lost for its demise, although, Ted did get pushed around a lot because of the return of Lost.  I’ll just blame it on the sad fact that hilariously quirky comedies need to [...]

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David Foster Wallace–Girl with Curious Hair (1989)

SOUNDTRACK: BBC Sessions (various). Many many bands that I like have recorded tracks for the BBC.  And after several sessions, they tend to get released as BBC Live or BBC Sessions discs.  In the last few years, I’ve gotten discs from the Cocteau Twins, Tindersticks, The Beautiful South, Belle and Sebastian and Therapy?  One of [...]

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