mushinnoshin

• Over the weekend I caught the HD broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera playing at the Opry Mills theater; they did an outstanding performance of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Though as I told Cory this morning, I will forever read that title as “Eugene OneMoGin“.
• Word has it councilman Eric Crafton will be pushing through a proposal to overturn those Pan’s Labyrinth Oscars. We Nashvillians give our Academy Awards in English, damnit.
• My only other Oscar prediction was that without Jon Stewart hosting I would have little desire to watch. I was correct.
• FREEEDOMMM!!!!!! — OK I probably shouldn’t admit this in public. But somehow I got hooked on that Fox show “The OC”. I think mostly it was some combination of finding Mischa Barton hot while identifying with Seth’s dorkiness. Anyway Fox was kind enough to release us, putting out the final episode last week and giving me back my Thursday nights. Now Prison Break is the only thing standing between me and general TV liberation.
• Following my quest to learn how to make actual food for myself (and find a way to use those tasty Plumgood veggies), last night I made my first attempt at soup. It came out pretty good! Granted most of the ‘flavor’ came from the Ramen Noodle package I put in at the end, but still that only accounted for two of the 8 to 10 or so total cups that I made. I eat soup most every day, so maybe if I get to where I can do this pretty well then I can stop forking over my fortune to Progresso.
• Saturday night I took my sister out for a birthday dinner at Amerigo’s, which means I finally got to use that gift certificate we got for the Hands on Nashville Day. We promised a plug, so here it is. It’s a good place. Not quite Sole Mio, but a nice step up from the Olive Garden.
• Jello did a bit in last week’s show about junk mail, making fun particularly of some of the political solicitations he’s received; one section was about an “urgent message”! — “registered documents”! from the “Friends of Hillary” — I actually got the same one in the mail a day or two later. Heh. EDIT: It has occurred to me there’s a Terry Frank joke in there somewhere…

It’s been a while since I posted any music, so here’s:
Encryptionite (Mediterranean Morphine).

Sort of a light and dancy song — by my standards.

The Shawshank sample I think centers the aim pretty well to target: “I think he did it just to feel normal again — if only for a short while”

Woot! 4 glorious hours in the Church of Jello. I am revitalized, my righteous obnoxiousness reinvigorated!

Seriously, he kicked some ass. Granted it was all preaching to the choir, but sometimes the choir needs to rally.

For those who don’t know him, here’s the brief — former singer for the Dead Kennedys, made a second life as an activist, rabble rouser, and spoken word performer. Al Sharpton for the angry punk set. Ran for mayor of ‘Frisco, and more than once has been in the running for the Green party’s presidential nod. I don’t agree with every word he says, but he’s a solid, principled, hard core progressive — a moderate anarcho-socialist, really — who’s not afraid to call the Democrats out as quickly as he does everyone on the other side of the aisle. (“There’s the party of war, greed, and corruption — and the party that pretends to feel guilty about war, greed, and corruption”)

One standout funny — Compare and Contrast:

Anyway, he always stirs up my blood & leaves me itching to agitate against The Man. Our ‘corporate managed democracy’ is bloated, corrupt, and spreading like cancer. This isn’t even capitalism, hell it isn’t even mercantilism, it’s feudalism. We have an arduous fight ahead, but it’s a fight we have to make if we want our planet back.

Perhaps the most inspiring thought — consider how fast the Soviet empire fell when the timing was right. Maybe this empire’s not far behind?

We interrupt this program with a special bulletin:
America is now under martial law.
All Constitutional rights have been suspended.
Stay in your homes.
Do not attempt to contact loved ones, insurance agents or attorneys.
Shut up.
Do not attempt to think or depression may occur.
Stay in your homes.
Curfew is at 7 PM sharp after work.
Anyone caught outside the gates of their subdivision sector after curfew will be shot.
Remain calm. Do not panic.
Your neighborhood watch officer will be by to collect urine samples in the morning.
Anyone gaught intefering with the collection of urine samples will be shot.
Stay in your homes, remain calm.
The number one enemy of progress is questions.
National security is more important than individual will.
All sports broadcasts will proceed as normal.
No more than two people may gather anywhere without permission.
Use only the drugs prescribed by your boss or supervisor.
Shut up! Be happy.
Obey all orders without question.
The comfort you’ve demanded is now mandatory.
Be happy.
At last everything is done for you.

Oh — and, thanks to Mr. Biafra for pointing us to this excellent article by Brian Eno. Yes, prop-agenda is exactly right.

I’m still in a trance … what a phenomenal performance. The Philip Glass Ensemble greatly exceeded my expectations, which were quite high to begin with. I closed my eyes and let them take me on a voyage deep into the crevices of the composer’s nimble mind.

I didn’t realize Glass himself would still be performing and leading the ensemble, that was a very pleasant surprise. 70 spins around the sun don’t seem to have compromised his fingers in the slightest.

I was also amazed by the acoustics. I mean I’ve been in the Schermerhorn numerous times now, but my roots remain electric and this was my first opportunity to hear an amplified electric performance in the space — and there just aren’t words. Sound crashed and cascaded all around me. Of course it helped that I had an amazing seat — just one seat to the right of dead center in the second row of the “Founder’s Circle” level. Worth Every Penny.

I then had the immense privilege of attending an after-show reception where we got to meet Mr. Glass and I got the John Hancock pictured above. Just for some context — I’ve met a small handful of famous and semi-famous musicians, and never bothered for an autograph or otherwise fawned — I’m not generally fazed by celebrity. Genius, on the other hand — well all I could do was meekly thank him and humbly bow.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention how much I also enjoyed hearing the Nashville Symphony perform his latest piece (co-commissioned by the NSO), The Passion of Ramakrishna, on Friday. It would have gotten a post of its own had Sunday not dwarfed it : )

Today we’re celebrating Losar, the Tibetan New Year. I understand that today is also the Chinese New Year. So I guess they’re on the same calendar, or is it just a coincidence? Maybe Tibet should adopt the US calendar just to say fuck you to China*.

* Yes, I’m still reeling from some of the things I saw in Kundun. The Chairman’s Army did some mighty fucked up things. Putting a gun in a kid’s hand and forcing him to shoot his parents? Yikes.

Well I was going to post this earlier in the day but our office Tubes were broken all morning.

Anyway, early this morning the new colleague commented on the Tibetan Prayer Flags I’ve got hanging from my rearview mirror. This reminded me that I wanted to mention that Kundun, Martin Scorsese’s film on the life of 14th Dalai Lama, is playing the Belcourt tonight.

This is part of the Philip Glass mini-fest, leading up to this weekend’s NSO performance of a commissioned Glass composition, followed by Sunday’s appearance by the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Schermerhorn. All of which I’ve been looking forward to as it is. But the point of all this rambling? Well, this weekend I found out another neat little tidbit — apparently Glass is also a Tibetan Buddhist.

• Hear that? Well it’s NOT the sound of my kitchen faucet dripping. I got all Mr-Fixit on it this weekend. Go me!
• OMG OMG OMG OMG! The rumours were true — The Police are touring! Looks like I’m going to Bonnaroo.
• The Richardson campaign seems to be making progress.
• I’m not sure what to do here. Remember my new feline friend? Well, I didn’t see him for about a week or so. Then, yesterday afternoon, he shows up again, only now he’s sportin’ a new collar with a tag that says “Please don’t feed or harbor me, I have a loving home”. Well, does that mean he was your cat all along and you were so relieved when he came back that you put the collar on him, or does it mean that you found him during the last week and you’re trying to take him in now? I don’t want to take someone’s cat if the former, but if the latter, well he has lived with me for nearly two months now, I’d say he already has a home.

  And it’s more complicated: when he showed up, he came bounding up the stairs with a air of “holy shit dude am I glad to see you”. And he seemed to have lost weight, and he proceeded to scarf down the food I gave him. And his coat was dirty and he shed heavily when I petted him, suggesting that at the very least he wasn’t getting much attention. So what sort of conditions is he experiencing in this ‘loving home’? I’m certainly not going to turn away a hungry, neglected cat even if he isn’t a ‘stray’.

  I don’t know. I tend to see cats as autonomous & intelligent creatures that are capable of deciding for themselves which humans they want to live with based on how they’re treated. I don’t grok the ‘ownership’ of animals. But I know that’s a strange view to most people. So I don’t know what to do, do I keep feeding him and letting him stay with me? I let him back out whenever he wants, he’s completely free to return to the other house. Or do I respect the wishes of this ‘owner’?

I hear tell there was some sort of sporting event last night. Me? I was wrapped up in some powerful 1957 Soviet cinema. Good stuff.

Lots of good stuff this weekend actually. Friday night I watched a DVD called The Lathe of Heaven. It was an apparently acclaimed sci-fi novel that PBS made into a movie. It did have some interesting Taoist inflections, illustrating how taking well-meaning action can sometimes do more harm than good, and accordingly how the best course is frequently to let the course run itself. I may have to make a point of reading the book now.

Saturday afternoon I was at the Belcourt for High and Low, for which I must echo Gandalf’s high praise.

Then Saturday night it was the Nashville Opera performing Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet. I didn’t go in with the highest of expectations, I figured — OK, well, it’s Romeo & Juliet, it’s bound to be thin & sugary and utterly unsubstantial — but no, it was fantastic. The music was mesmerizing and breathed life into the overexposed story. Of course I’ve now taken in two musical adaptions of the play in under a month, which should probably be enough for a while : )

: )

(via JohnnyTheBastard)

I don’t want to sound like a spoil sport — I do appreciate the humor regarding the whole Aqua Teen brouhaha, and especially the way they handled the press conference. And I agree with the general consensus that the authorities who thought <shudder>terrorism</shudder> was to blame were idiots.

But, that said — OnTheCommons points out an angle to the story that I hadn’t seen mentioned elsewhere, on the insidiousness of accepting that the background of our very lives is now a perfectly acceptable canvas for the corporate marketing department. (No offense intended to my friends in marketing : )

They make a particular point of the hypocrisy inherent when the corporation is part of the media cartel working to cripple fair use and other rights of the consumer:

Where is it written that corporations have an automatic right to expropriate any aspect of a city in order to push their products? How come what’s ours is fair game for them, but what’s theirs is not fair game for us?

Which sorta dovetails nicely into a tangentially related thought experiment by Logan to which I wanted to give props.

Certainly some things to think about.

update: …and having done so a little more, here’s why I think I still enjoy and am not bothered by this particular incident, even if I think the article is onto something insofar as principle goes — this stunt strikes me as being something that was done by the creative team (maybe the show’s creators?) rather than by corporate — corporate probably just allowed it, and may not have even known until after. So my inner guerrilla performance artist appreciates the stunt. But the places that corporate teams might take the idea in the future do still scare me.