The Suburbs (2010) by the Arcade Fire

In a recent profile of the band in the New York Times, the Arcade Fire’s Will Butler (the brother of founding member and main lead vocalist Win Butler) described his band, saying, “It was art rock. It wasn’t attitude rock.” But after listening to their 2004 release, Funeral, which I received as a birthday present from my sister that year, my initial reaction was that it was indeed ‘attitude rock’, albeit an exceeding well crafted example of thereof. While I enjoyed the musical textures the band achieved on the album, I just couldn’t understand the melodramatic angst that is best exemplified by the opening track, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”. I simply could not locate the source of the desperation that lay behind Win Butler’s over-the-top delivery, nor could I  imagine how a group of seemingly privileged white kids from Canada (and the US) could be capable of the emotional depth that they attempt on Funeral. I was 25 and angry, having known real desperation in my own journey through life, and what I heard was a mimicry of real emotion. But the instrumentals and arranging were so compelling that I kept returning to the album’s rich soundscapes, catchy hooks, and idiosyncratic instrumentations.

It was the rediscovery of “Haiti”, a couple years later, that opened a door into the ontology of the Arcade Fire. I came across it while selecting music for an early morning political talk radio show that I hosted  weekly for a year. The Regine Chassagne’s lyrics, which in less able hands could have come across as overreaching, are produced to sound as though they are sung from afar and set amid a pastoral collage of back porch acoustic guitar and bass, gentle surf sounds, and synthesizers. It’s a great example of the Arcade Fire grounding their far-reaching artistic vision in understatement. On The Suburbs the Arcade Fire succeed in just this way.

Perhaps it’s not fair for me to review this album, since I first listened to it today on a two hour bike ride from Midtown Manhattan over the George Washington and into Northern Jersey. I tend to form my strongest musical connections this way (although it didn’t work for M.I.A.’s most recent album) . As I rode down the Hudson River bikeway towards the bridge, my reaction to the first few tracks was disappointment, and I have not yet been able in subsequent listenings to develop any fondness for the first 5 songs, except for the opening track “The Suburbs” which mades sense when its themes are reprised later in the album. That track aside, the first 20 minutes or so of this album felt like more of the same for the Arcade Fire, and I was prepared for the album to be a disappointment. But as I passed West Harlem Piers Park, however, “City with No Children” caught my attention with it’s straightforward lyrical delivery. From there on, and with the help of some fine songs from Chassagne, the album builds steadily and begins to take on a shape of it’s own. As I neared the  top of the GWB, “Suburban War” played, sounding a little bit like Stephin Merritt singing Beck’s “Jack-Ass”, and ultimately building to a crescendo and then a long fade out that I mistook for the end of the album.

But it wasn’t the end… it was what I would call then end of Side A (The Suburbs is just over an hour long, so it would be a little bit lengthy for a good sounding LP). Side B traces a journey back into the suburbs, and the beginning of that journey  is the rather generic rocker “Month of May”. But with the next song, “Wasted Hours” the journey to the suburbs that we are promised begins in earnest. This song is a lament for the lost time and lost youth in the empty existence of suburban youth. Well worn territory for sure, but done with grace, and perhaps a more authentic expression the pain and longing that came across as melodramatic, juvenile angst on Funeral. It was an opportunity to empathize with Butler. Like Butler, I am also 30 years old. I lament the loss of time, the loss of youth. I watch the talented people around me fill their lives with meaning through their accomplishments, while struggle to be the many things that I have become or wish to be: a musician, a lover,  a scientist, a cook, a global citizen, an actor, an athlete, an activist, a writer, a member of my community, a member of my family. But I find myself forced to specialize, which means giving up some of these identities and goals, and I struggle to love how my choices have transformed me and to avoid regretting as wasted the hours I spent chasing other dreams. Perhaps it’s just me that has changed, but it seems that Butler has hit the mark as a songwriter on this album, correcting the excesses and that were evident on Funeral, and writing more with more emotional honesty. He’s just more believable as a 30 year old man coming to grips with his past in the suburbs and his present in the city.

“Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” is somewhat of an anomaly in the context, but it’s a catchy pop tune reminiscent of Blondie or Cyndi Lauper, or contemporaries Ladytron. Inexplicably, it name checks the title of Tracy Kidder’s biography of Partners in Health founder Dr. Paul Farmer. During their current tour, as they have on previous tours, the band is donating $1 of each ticket sold to Partners in Health’s Stand with Haiti relief and reconstruction fund. I’ll be at their Madison Square Garden Show tomorrow night.

Life During Wartime (2009)

Given that it opened at only one theater in New York City last weekend (IFC Center in the West Village), I should have known that Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime was going to be a disappointment. Despite earning a high per theater average over the weekend, the theater was less than 10% capacity at the 9:55 Monday night screening I attended. Perhaps word of mouth had spread that Solondz’s latest film was ghost of his 1998 masterpiece Happiness.

With many scenes that parallel Solondz’s earlier black comedy, Life During Wartime follows up with the characters in Happiness ten years later. The opening scene of Life During Wartime parallels the opening date scene of Happiness played between Andy (Jon Lovitz) and Joy (Jane Adams), except in this version, Joy is played clumsily and cartoonishly by Shirley Henderson who is on a date with Allen, previously played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but here played by Michael K. Williams (Andy reappears later as a ghost played by Paul Reubens). At the end of Happiness, there was the possibility of a romantic relationship between Allen and Joy, and here we see them after several years of marriage. Setting the tone for an hour and a half of disappointment, these two actors have huge shoes to fill but they are not up to the challenge. I really wanted to like Michael K. Williams since his Omar character was one of the most impressive performances in HBO’s The Wire, but here his performance is completely unremarkable. Meanwhile, Shirley Henderson can’t summon the pathos or the comical, ambiguous sexuality of Jane Adams’ Joy. Instead, Henderson’s Joy is squirmy and frankly annoying.

The movie wasn’t all bad. In particular, Allison Janney and Michael Lerner deliver admirable performances as Trish (previously played by Cynthia Stevenson) and Harvey, Trish’s divorcee love interest. Dylan Riley Snyder also shines as Timmy, but none of these performances shine enough to carry the film. The film did inspire a handful of laughs, but where Happiness was darkly humorous, Life During Wartime was at best inadvertently campy. Where Happiness was dives into morally challenging waters, Life During Wartime tepidly dips its toes into philosophical questions, barely exploring.

The entire experience comes across as a cheap B-movie sequel–even the cinematography is shoddier, looking more like a British sitcom than a Hollywood movie. Whatever the story is behind the second-string casting, the lackluster performances are a desecration of the original actors efforts. What a shame.

Kombucha and the “Ancient Asian Zen Philosophy of Life”

You may have heard that last month Whole Foods (WFMI) pulled kombucha from its shelves over concerns about elevated alcohol content.. (And if you haven’t, here’s a story from the Huffington Post). So today, while shopping at the Whole Foods in Chelsea on this sweltering hot summer night, I decided to grab a kombucha with my groceries. Gone was the usual GT’s brand kombucha, and in its place was a brand I had never seen before, Carpe Diem, which, oddly enough, is made in Austria. I always like to read copy on the side of beverages, because it can sometimes be hilarious. Here’s what Carpe Diem Classic Kombucha says about itself:

“Kombucha was first discovered during the Tsin dynasty (221 b.c.). Ever since, it has been part of the ancient Asian Zen philosophy of life and valued for its harmonizing effect on the body and soul.”

Perhaps something was lost in the translation from the original German? I always wonder what real practitioners of Zen Buddhism think about their “ancient Asian philosophy of life” being used to brand everything from air fresheners to mp3 players. I’d be willing to bet that if the Alan Watts/Jack Kerouac West Coast beatnik Zen folks even cared, they would find it kind of amusing. But I wonder whether more traditional practitioners don’t find it a little bit crass.

And furthermore, what does it mean for a beverage to “harmonize” the body and soul. I know that this stuff has not been evaluated by the FDA, but c’mon guys, that just sounds like poppycock. Oh well, there’s a sucker born every minute.

TI-89 Titanium: Time for an Update?

While they may represent only a small fraction of Texas Instruments’ (TXN) revenue, graphing calculators are how most US students know the company. For the past 7 months I have been back in school and my TI-89 has been my best study buddy. It may not be the most up to date technology, especially compared to my brand new iPhone 4, but it’s a useful tool. The most useful functions are solve, factor, integrate, and differentiate, each of which help me check my work and solve problems quickly. While graphing calculators are prohibited in Calculus exams, the TI-89 Titanium has been a useful tool for Calculus homework and exam prep. In Chemistry and Physics classes, it has been indispensable for solving homework problems, and checking examples in lecture. The user interface is relatively simple, and I haven’t yet been unable to find an operation that was necessary to solve a problem.

There are numerous websites devoted to hacking the TI graphing calculator series, and I have to admit that I knew a lot more about way back in the day when the TI-82 was my sidearm. Learning to code on my TI is a possible future project, but for now I’m pretty happy with the preloaded software.

But as useful as it may be, the TI-89 Titanium seems like a dinosaur. While the TI may be a hardware-focused company, it needs to understand that many users of its products get the most value out of their software. In light of that, TI needs to start embracing other hardware platforms, such as the Apple App Store, or risk being cut out of the market. Already there are several TI clone apps for sale in the App Store, most notably the RK-89. Retailing for $19.99, this software clone may be functionally inferior, but it  is a fierce price competitor to the $150 TI-89 Titanium. Sure there are some advantages to the hardware of the TI-89 Titanium. It’s a lot sturdier than an iPhone for use in Chem labs, and I don’t think that the College Board will be permitting iPhones during the SAT any time soon (they do allow the TI-89 Titanium), but as the software improves, many users will find a software-only product more and more attractive.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)

I didn’t feel the heat. Jack Nicholson’s acting and a David Mamet screenplay usually make a picture for me, but despite a fine performance, this remake of a 1946 classic film-noir falls flat. It may be simply a generational issue, but this movie fails to convey much eros. Perhaps that’s because we see more skin and erotic tension in today’s PG-13 fare. But I’d say the biggest issue is that the film relies on sexist stereotypes of female sexuality that are today more likely to offend than to seduce, and which never had a basis in reality. The first sexual contact between Nicholson’s Frank Chambers and co-star Jessica Lange’s Cora Papadakis begins as an attempted rape. Apparently, however, Cora is so smitten by the forceful masculinity of Frank’s attempted rape that the encounter melts into a consensual screw. Like the rape-seduction scene in Sydney Pollack’s Three Days of the Condor (1975), this unrealistic attempt at the erotic breaks the spell for the rest of the movie.

But the ultimate undoing of The Postman Always Rings Twice is its unevenness. The movie climaxes about two thirds of the way through with the conclusion of a murder trial sub-plot, and then meanders through a handful of mostly inconsequential vignettes, including one featuring Angelica Houston in a bizarre cameo as Madge, a wild cat trainer in a small time circus. It’s a cute scene, but at most, its effect is to make the viewer wish that he had followed her story instead of the increasingly tedious story of Frank and Cora (and at the same time, the viewer doubts that even with such a colorful character, the movie could inspire much wonder or interest).

Emblematic of this film’s flaws is the shoddy direction of the last scene. I won’t give away what happens, but there is a dead body on screen that moves several times during the final cut. It’s a laughable ending to a movie that had lost my attention and respect too soon.

Who are the Big Winners in Financial Reform?

There has been much written about the potential political gains by the Obama administration. Similarly, the financial industry is widely seen as having dodged the bullet on some of the most restrictive regulatory proposals, but of course many details of the regulatory regime are still to be worked out. Is the public going to see much protection from financial reform? Again, the jury is still out. But one interest that will come out ahead, regardless of how the financial reform process unfolds, is the the lobbying industry.

A recent report by the Center for Public Integrity estimated that in in 2009, several hundred million dollars were spent on financial lobbying efforts, a substantial portion of the at least $1.3 billion spent by businesses on lobbying. With 68 studies to be conducted, hundreds of rules yet to be written, and a brand new Bureau of Consumer Financial protection to be established, it appears that these dollars will continue to flow to  the lobbying industry.

Red Rock West

Red Rock West (1992), directed by John Dahl, is a darkly humorous noir set in rural Wyoming. Although it has many similarities to the the Coen brother’s Blood Simple (1984), released nearly a decade earlier, Dahl’s film deftly pushes the plot to the edge of the preposterous where the Coen brothers film unintentionally crosses over. Nicolas Cage delivers a strong performance as Michael Williams, a down and out ex-Marine living out of his Coupe de Ville. When Williams drifts into a small town bar on his way to find work on an oil rig, Wayne (J.T. Walsh) mistakes him for the man he hired to murder his wife, Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle). Similar to Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider, in Red Rock West we get a chance to see Nicolas Cage before he had perfected his Nicolas Cage act. Conversely, Dennis Hopper has moments of brilliance as he nearly reprises his late-career character Frank Booth from Blue Velvet as Lyle from Dallas a psychotic ex-Marine gun for hire. This was a role tailor made for Hopper. While he shines at times (as in the photo below… what a face!), his performance lacks the quirkiness that made Frank Booth so enigmatic and terrifying. Lara Flynn Boyle’s Suzanne is at first  mundane, but she begins to shine as the film draws to a close, marking her transformation from the ingenue to an appropriately cartoonish villain. J.T. Walsh, however, is the real standout Wayne. His matter of fact approach to brutality and his portrayal of desperation hiding just below the surface anchor the film.

Dennis Hopper and Nicolas Cage in John Dahl's Red Rock West

Cute or Quaint?

In a piece in yesterday’s New York Times, Sharon Zukin laments persistent gentrification in New York City, noting that the aspects of urban neighborhoods that Jane Jacobs hoped to preserve in the face of mid-century urban renewal had now become those features most attractive to the gentrifying class. It seems quite possible that the end phase of the metamorphosis of Williamsburg, the West Village, and other New York neighborhoods may be to become open-air upscale malls such as SoHo has become. Galleries replace the studios of first-wave gentrifiers, boutiques replace the galleries, chain stores replace the boutiques, and the next thing you know you’re a West Village-themed Olive Garden. But this is nothing new. Umberto Eco noted our culture’s obsession with the “authentic” in his 1995 book Travels in Hyperreality, so it makes sense that the following decade would see the remaking of many New York neighborhoods in the image of an idealized New York-past—except this time with “organic” dry cleaning and artisanal dog treats. To Zukin, “Much of what made these neighborhoods unique lives on only in the buildings, not the people.” Apparently for her, the authenticity of personhood varies inversely with attraction to “authenticity”. I say there’s no accounting for taste.

Clearly, the problems of gentrification are real. Working class residents are forced to move out, young middle class and working class people can’t afford to move in, the neighborhood loses vibrancy and diversity as the residents become more economically (and consequently culturally) homogeneous. I can’t begin to propose a solution to these problems—perhaps this phenomenon is inherent to our economic system. On the other hand, many of the factors that contribute to gentrification are real improvements in quality of life: reduction in crime; access to public transportation; access to goods and services; and environmental improvements to name a few.

In May 2008, I was on an apartment search. I had lived in Bed-Stuy for the past 6 months and I was looking to move in with my girlfriend to a Manhattan apartment. Because of my economic circumstances, it was more likely that my future Manhattan neighbors would say, “There goes the neighborhood!” than to have any fear of me gentrifying them out of a nice apartment. You might even say I was trying to gentrify myself a bit.

I was not, therefore, in search of authenticity. Instead I was searching for real quality of life in my apartment and neighborhood. I wanted to be close to trains, supermarkets, restaurants, and entertainment, and I wanted the neighborhood to be safe at night. I would have been happy to have lived in an West-Village themed post-modern neighborhood, but I had no desire to pay a premium for it. I began to notice that some neighborhoods had a mystique surrounding them (and concomitantly higher rents) that had no concrete basis in the actual quality of life. I began to notice that this mystique was based on two qualities for which some are willing to pay a premium: cuteness and quaintness.

Quaintness is the quality that gentrifiers want to preserve when they gentrify an area. Butcher shops, haberdasheries, bakeries can all be quaint. Architecture can be said to be quaint if new residents choose to renovate and preserve it rather than tear it down and build luxury condos. It becomes especially quaint when buildings are gutted to the facade and luxury condos are filled in. Cobblestones epitomize quaintness.

Quaint

Cuteness is the quality of that which is built when gentrifiers move in. When they close down 99cent stores, adult movie houses, and fried chicken places, the new Artisinal cheese bars, boutique children’s clothes shops, and doggy day care centers are cute. Sculpture parks can also be quite cute.

Cute

But beware anything that goes a little too far in either the quaint or cute direction—it can become “funky”.

Funky

How can I make iTunes recognize my mp3 audiobook as a podcast?

Today I decided to read an audio book version of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. (A review may follow.) I wanted to listen to it as a podcast on my iPhone since I have recently taken to listening at 2x speed, and the 2x feature is only available when listening to podcasts. (Interestingly, the 2x speed doesn’t actually play at exactly 2x speed—it’s actually closer to 1.5x, but that’s perhaps the subject of a future post.) I also wanted to segregate this audio book as a podcast so that it would not end up coming up on shuffle. I would hate to have to pull over my bicycle and switch to the next track because I shuffled an Ayn Rand novel(!). So I decided it was worth looking around the web for a tool to do the job.

Several message boards pointed towards Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes. There’s a wealth of potentially useful scripts there that can help automate all sorts of pesky, time-consuming iTunes tasks. (If you don’t know what an AppleScript is, Apple has an introduction here.) The site also happens to have just the script for my problem. It’s called Re-Add Selected Tracks as Podcast v1.2. It’s not as easy as just running the script though. There were a few minor inconsistencies between the readme file included and what was actually required to run the script, perhaps because of the some of Apple’s changes in Snow Leopard (more details here).

This script basically sets up your computer as a podcast server and downloads the mp3s into your podcast folder in iTunes, so you’ll need to make sure to enable Web Sharing beforehand (and don’t forget to disable it again afterward, unless you normally use that function).

The readme file enclosed in the script download assumes that the user has enabled the scripts menu. I had not, and it posed a problem, since the only instructions I could find said to set it up in using the AppleScript Utility. Unfortunately, this app was stripped of it’s UI as of OS X 10.6. After a little research I found that preference can now be set using the preferences menu of the AppleScript Editor which is located in Applications > Utilities folder. Simply check the “Show Script menu in menu bar” box. (Note: you do not have to set up the scripts menu. You can also run the script by selecting the tracks in iTunes and opening the script from the Finder.) When I set up the scripts menu, the Re-Add Selected Tracks as Podcast did not immediately show up when I was in iTunes. I figured out that this was because the readme file directed me to save the script in the wrong folder ( [user name] > Library > iTunes ), instead I placed the script in [ user name ] > Library > Scripts > Applications > iTunes. Once I moved the script to that location, it began to appear at the top of the scripts menu when using iTunes.

Before you run the script, you might want to make sure your your mp3s are in the order you want, since the script will add them to a podcast in the order they are selected. If you want to listen to an audio book, it’s much easier not to have to search for the next chapter.

Finally, you will need to make sure that iTunes doesn’t delete older “episodes” of your new podcast. In order to do this you will want to select the new podcast in iTunes and click on the settings button in the lower left hand corner of the iTunes podcasts window. Turn off the default settings for this podcast (if applicable) and under “Episodes to keep” select “All Episodes”.

Enjoy your audio books. And thanks, Doug.

What’s that CD doing in the iTunes icon?

iTunes users, have you noticed the anachronism on your desktop? Last night while learning how to play the Beatles’ “In My Life”, I noticed the CD that remains in the iTunes icon. Most of us are now using compressed digital media on hard drives or flash, or listening to vinyl records. The CD is well on its way to becoming the newest ironic format (along with the MiniDisc).  So, I would have written a blog post about this, but I googled it first and it looks like this Kitsune Noir has beat me to the punch. KN speculates that eventually Jobs & Co will move to an icon similar to iPhone/iPod Touch OS.

http://kitsunenoir.com/blog/2009/10/29/when-will-they-update-the-itunes-icon/