Your Bookshelf Isn't Sexy

Books can be the end of love.

Hot Pick at Hot Docs: Planet B-Boy

No scientific tests or popular surveys were employed to determine that Planet B-Boy (reviewed here) is a good bet at Hot Docs. Personal taste is the measurement in this case, but rest assured, breakdancing never gets old.

Dangling Carrots

The Globe just published an article on indie musicians' struggles to record. Lack of studio space and time are cited as obstacles. The real focus of the piece is The Banff Centre's Indie Band Residency, a two week program that hooks up artists with music producers, engineers and good studio equipment. As I read about the appreciation for the opportunity felt by Ohbijou (one of the chosen bands) it all sounded like an indie dream come true. Until I reached the third to last paragraph and heard in my head the hideous movie touchstone sound that signifies all is not well; a record scratching beyond repair. The WTF moment: "As for the recordings, the centre is still working out who owns the rights, but the bands are all hoping to release at least some of the tracks they recorded." Really? Way to nullify the most significant benefit of the experience. CBC Radio 2 was going to air performances by the bands in residence earlier this month but the recordings don't appear to be available on the website. Radio 3 has posted a session with Ohbjiou from April 2007.

Summoning Patio Lanterns

Once overheard in a Blockbuster Video store:

Employee 1 - ".....Kim Mitchell."
Employee 2 - "Kim Mitchell, who's she?"
Customer Me - Snorts inconspicuously and thinks internally, "Sacrilege! Don't you know that when he wasn't going for a soda he was stuck on Joy and also a nervous boy? How old are you? How old am I?"

Frankly, it's about time that the sun comes up, the mini-snows retire and the local backyards get gussied up for patio lantern weather. I'd post a link to Patio Lanterns in the spirit of coming warmth but there's no point. It's too easy to hear elsewhere (i.e. EZ Rock any day of the week) and the mere mention of the song automatically sticks it in the brain. Like glue on glue.

Nomenclature

What a band's name says about the band's music. Sorry, but these bad book titles are taken. Although titles can't be copyrighted, so the bad titles could be inflicted upon the reading public again some day.

The Catcher in the Rye (DNF)

It's true. I bailed halfway through The Catcher in the Rye. I was in high school and I just didn't care all that much about what boyish Holden Caulfield was up to. The book's on my "attempt again with fresh adult perspective" list and its failure to enthrall didn't put me off the rest of J.D. Salinger's work, especially his stories about the Glass children. I became interested in them after reading that Wes Anderson's loopy Tenenbaums in The Royal Tenenbaums bore the influences of the Glass family and Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons. Stories about Seymour are often praised but of the Glass tales I've read I'd recommend Franny of Franny and Zooey. Probably because I bailed on Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction too. Well, just the Seymour part. But Franny is good and I feel confident saying that since I've actually read its last sentence and all that comes before. The New York Times recently weighed in on the legacy of the Glass children.

When the Earth Rotates, It's Another Day

I wouldn't consider myself ill-informed about the world, but I'm often surprised by events that fly beneath my radar. Case in point - the dislocation of millions of Chinese citizens due to the construction of a mega dam that will flood the Yangtze River. This happening is well-documented in Up the Yangtze (a Q&A with filmmaker Yung Chang offers good detail on the production and its subjects). The title of this post is a lyric from a karaoke ballad that appears in the film. Its banality made me laugh, but its meaning relative to the view of the dam as a symbol of China's economic advancement isn't funny. Near the end of the movie, a time-lapse sequence of the river rising startles in spite of its inevitability. Never mind that lives are being permanently disrupted, change is a part of progress. So the song says.

Hot Docs: Flashback

The 2008 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival runs from April 17th-27th (film list available here). I love documentaries because they let you into worlds you wouldn't otherwise have access to and make you want to learn about subjects you didn't even know you were interested in. A trip down memory lane turns up the following recommended highlights from previous festivals:

The Monastery - 86-year-old bachelor, Mr. Vig, has always wanted to turn his run-down Danish castle into a monastery. He finally realizes his dream when a small group of Russian Orthodox nuns agrees to move in if he undertakes extensive repairs. The film was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2008 Spirit Awards.

Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story - A Japanese girl is kidnapped by North Korean spies in 1977. Her fate is revealed two decades later, when information about the not uncommon abduction practices of North Korea comes to light.

The Other Final - Bhutan and Montserrat, the two lowest-ranked world soccer teams, play an alternate match on the day of the 2002 World Cup final.

Soul of a Surfer, Skill of Deadwood

It's unlikely I'll ever take up surfing. The facts are: I'm not much of a swimmer; waterproof contact lenses don't exist; any ocean is a plane flight away. But I still love to watch other people surf. One of my favourite obsessions as a kid was North Shore, a movie about young Rick Kane who ends up the underdog in a Hawaii surfing championship. It was cheesy and melodramatic even then, but also really cool. I couldn't get enough of the wave shots and kind of wanted to move to Hawaii when I grew up so I could hang out with someone like Turtle, the half-zen, half-stoner local who befriends Rick in the movie. Consequently, Surfwise (trailer), out in May, is an obvious add to the must see list. It's about a doctor who left his practice behind to live the off the grid surf dream with his large family in a small camper. Sounds like a perfect piece of anti-9-5 escapism.

Other semi-recent surfing documentaries to watch are Step Into Liquid (trailer) and Riding Giants (trailer). North Shore for the 2000s is the girl-focused Blue Crush.

The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland

My plan to elaborate on Douglas Coupland's novel The Gum Thief upon finishing it isn't going well. The book is filled with so many fantastic observations that I can't respond to it in a cohesive paragraph or two. I can't do it justice. A proper review that I endorse is available courtesy of Pickle Me This.

I will say that Coupland zones in expertly on the identity struggle we all face at various points in life. Am I where I want to be? Am I who I want to be? He also slips in some brilliant notes on writing via Glove Pond (a book within the book), such as the joy of coming up with an original thought. Googling glove pond and finding that no one has ever put those two words together as a phrase rates an exclamation point of excitement from would-be writer Roger. The sometimes excruciating process of fleshing out action, particularly around dialogue, is also exposed. Readers need cues about what's happening in a scene, like where a character is standing or whether they're putting on their coat as they leave the house. These in-between statements that appear around more highly regarded witticisms, stunning images or meaningful observations are necessary but can easily become lazy or careless placeholders. This part of writing was once described to me as bitchwork and I can't argue with that terminology. Coupland illustrates the way bitchwork can bog down writing with a tour de force of padded cues in Glove Pond: "'Why is it that all we do is battle?' He sighed, rattled his ice cube and coughed." I did, indeed, laugh out loud at the desperate need for editing here. Fortunately, The Gum Thief isn't in need of editing and is well worth the read.

Paper Cuts posed a few un-Gum Thief related questions to Douglas Coupland recently.

Hell Yeah, I Love Piano

If I could marry Greg Laswell's cover of Girls Just Want to Have Fun I would.

Truth

Chuck Klosterman holds the title for delivering the 'most true' generational statement about my peer group that I've ever encountered. Said statement is made in his book, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: "It appears that countless women born between the years of 1965 and 1978 are in love with John Cusack. I cannot fathom how he isn't the number-one box-office star in America, because every straight girl I know would sell her soul to share a milkshake with that motherfucker." Touché.

In the current issue of The Believer he discusses the ever popular Road Movie and makes more true statements like this one: "I assume the hypothetical Road Movie I was not involved with would have been built on the most elementary of Road Movie clichés: where you’re going doesn’t matter as much as how you get there."

Live Show Miscellany

The Star chimes in on the Canadian presence and other notable acts at South by Southwest in Austin. Satisfying an audience is always tricky, more so in China. CBC can help you attend concerts without actually leaving your house. NPR can too.

Lingo and the Absence of 'Record'

If you read the subject is: music, you might notice that I throw the words 'disc' and 'album' around with abandon but never 'record'. It feels like the cred is lacking. I don't make, spin or sell records for a living and I haven't owned a record in the literal, vinyl sense for two decades. Using 'record' in conversation is even more ridiculous. The minute it's out of my mouth, I'm an impostor. 'Record' is inside voice only until I get cool.

I'm So in the Bubble

Like the best manipulative, mainstream power ballads of your youth, Chemistry of a Car Crash by Shiny Toy Guns (from the solid We Are Pilots) is one of those songs you want to sing along to earnestly and passionately. It hits you in a place that makes you feel oblivious to your surroundings and impervious to the snickering of those in the silence outside your song bubble. Let's call it The Emoteeng Spot (a buried X of adolescent fervour that surfaces timelessly for a worthy few).

I wouldn't have guessed that quieter, reflective songs on The New Pornographers most recent album Challengers would be just as addictive as their high-energy, infectious concoctions, but they are. After initial listnenings, Adventures in Solitude, an end of the summer-sounding lament, and poignant Challengers are my most recommended songs, but the archetypal My Rights Versus Yours is a gem too.

Montreal's Plants and Animals are getting all sorts of buzz these days. Their somewhat unfortunately titled, Bye Bye Bye, is in high rotation around here right now. As is No One thanks to G. Since I often arrive at Top 40 parties during the kick out and clean up portion, I might be the only person left who hasn't heard Alicia Keys' song ad nauseam. At this point surgical removal seems the only option to get it off the brain. Willpower certainly isn't going to help.

The Savages

The odd and visually appealing opening sequence of Tamara Jenkins', The Savages, led me to believe the movie might veer toward the quirky humour end of the spectrum. Not really so. It has funny moments but it's a fairly intense look at the insidious natures of illness and aging. Within minutes of that lovely opening scene set in the glow of Arizona's desert light, I found myself flinching at the oppressive, hermetically-sealed vision of the state Jenkins puts on display. The feeling of discomfort stayed with me as the film progressed and the Savage siblings (played by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) struggled with their cantankerous father's decline. Linney and Hoffman do an excellent job of turning their characters into flawed, intricate beings and of creating a complicated, believable brother-sister dynamic, without having the crutch of the explicitly revealed backstory to lean on. The movie encapsulates the minutiae of daily reality; what we do to distract ourselves (watching someone do aerobics in front of a TV set has never been more depressing); the way we seek comfort in small kindnesses offered by strangers or in the companionship of a pet; how we achieve degrees of happiness in relationships that aren't always smooth.

Margo Martindale appears about halfway through in a small role. She starred in the final and most affecting segment of Paris je t'aime, which transitioned from funny to heartbreaking so subtly that audience members I saw it with were laughing long beyond the point where laughter seemed appropriate. It was directed by Alexander Payne, who served as an executive producer on The Savages. Payne's fine line tone, consistently employed to great effect in his Paris segment and earlier films like Election, is echoed nicely in Jenkins' comparably effective film.

The New York Times covered The Savages well with a favourable review and an insightful article about the film's evolution and its director.

Dan Mangan and Lotus Child at CMW

R, P and I checked out 2/5ths of Canadian Music Week's B.C. showcase at The Reverb last night. Openers Lotus Child put on a good, energetic show for the sparse 9pm crowd. All four guys in the band seemed to be having a great time. Lead singer Zach Gray offered affable, if minimal, banter in between songs and I bought a CD from friendly bassist Peter Carruthers. I always appreciate a band that uses permanent, integrated keyboards/pianos as opposed to occasional key-plinking and they did that well. With the exception of one or two jammy songs I wasn't crazy about, Lotus Child's set was very enjoyable. No Talking, especially, is a head-bopping, head-sticking tune. This clip of You Better Watch Out, recorded in Vancouver, shows the size of the audience they deserved to be playing to yesterday, if it wasn't a Friday night cluttered with other musical attractions around the city. Too bad neither of these songs are on their album, Gossip Diet. Let's hope another disc is on its way.

Next up was Dan Mangan, our reason for attending the show thanks to P's earlier good work. His amazing, weathered voice sounded just as good live as it does on his album, Postcards and Daydreaming. Mangan belongs in beautiful theatres that cater to the intimate style of his songs. Despite having to battle the usual chatty drinkers at the back and thumping beats banging through the floor from the club below, he captured the room's attention with his second song, So Much For Everyone. As the song neared its vocal crescendo, the crowd went almost silent and that's as good as you get in bars.

He continued to win over the audience by instigating a singalong to Robots Need Love Too and in a move worthy of the best in the buzz game, by playing his final song unplugged and off-stage in the middle of the room with the crowd encircling him and his guitar. It was a wonderful end to the set because while it was masterful PR, it was really just a genuine response to defeat the racket downstairs that didn't come off like a calculated stunt. I asked Mangan afterwards if he had any copies of Postcards and Daydreaming for sale but he'd sold them all at a gig the night before. He was super-nice, very approachable and his depleted merchandise stock is a good sign. Watch him talking humbly about his bright future here.

Mangan is worth supporting so pick up his album and see him live if you have the opportunity. Even R was impressed. He's a hard sell anytime but more so last night, convinced as he was that we were taking him to some kind of hippie folk-fest. It was a good night for music and all of that easy fan interaction is the great benefit of small venues and pre-crazyhype fame. Love it.

Other Voices

Other Voices is a music series broadcast on Irish television that gathers all kinds of artists to film live performances in a church in Dingle. Before I left my Ireland vacation for home a few summers ago, the Y's gave me two CDs as parting gifts. The first was a collection of Irish artists covering Top 40 (it's fun and deserves attention another time) and the second was Other Voices 3.

Aside from Our Mutual Friend by The Divine Comedy which I've raved about previously, Kite Flyers Hill by Eddi Reader, Ellis Unit One by Steve Earle and Saints and Sinners by Paddy Casey stand out in Series 3. Reader's performance from the show is at the link above, but the links to Earle's and Casey's sets seem to have crapped out. This version of Ellis Unit One is a close approximation to the one on the disc. Saints and Sinners, Live from the Olympia, is equally good. Paddy Casey's playing Canadian Music Week on Saturday and has been anointed by The Star as one of the best bets.

I'm not sure where one would lay hands on a copy of Other Voices 3 here in these snowy parts, but the show's website features clips. In theory.

Glurg

Something (a nonsensical mood maybe?) has me thinking about The Shaggs today. They were profiled by Susan Orlean in a book I read a few years ago called The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup. In the 1960's, three sisters, at their father's behest, formed a band called The Shaggs but really weren't great at being a band. Or playing music. Orlean's profile gives personal context to their strange contribution to the recording world. They've acquired cult-like, revered status over the years. Wikipedia claims they're one of the most important examples of outsider music (a genre that exists, apparently). The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup features some other interesting folks too, like teenage surfer girls and a taxi driver/king. None so unusual as the Wiggin sisters and their bizarre sound though. Philosophy of the World is slightly accessible but My Pal Foot Foot is just plain weird.

More conventional musical samplings can be heard at Canadian Music Week. The festival, and its 500+ roster of CDN and international acts, kicks into gear on Wednesday. You'll even find the more tuneful Deal sisters of The Breeders there. And where have they been hiding? I'd love to know what it would take from the crowd to get the Deals to play the Last Splash triple crown of catchy - Cannonball, Divine Hammer and Drivin' on 9 - as the encore. Perhaps promising to get a comet named after the band would do. It would be a fitting tribute as they may disappear again into the silent unknown for another century after this tour is over. At least we'll have Breeders' Comet in 2012 to look forward to. Eyes on the sky.

Trailer Watch

Ellen Page's new movie Smart People gets released in April. Looks promising and Thomas Haden Church is always funny, but I'm not sure about casting Sarah Jessica Parker as a doctor. The movie will be mentioned, if it hasn't already been, on The Coast's Ellen Page. That's right, the Halifax weekly decided to demonstrate its pride in homegrown talent Page by devoting a portion of their website to her.

Also in April, Six Feet Under's ghostly patriarch Richard Jenkins stars in The Visitor. It's from the director who made the unique world of The Station Agent come to life a few years ago.

The fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series arrives in May. Watch the trailer or read Vanity Fair on what will certainly be a blockbuster, even if it's mediocre.

I remain hopeful that M. Night Shyamalan will one day return to the good form of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. He takes another stab at it in June with The Happening.

Top 5 Live Covers

It was easy to choose the top three covers I've heard live but I debated whether the final two were worthy enough to include. Then logic kicked in. If these are the only other two live covers I can actually remember, they must belong to the most memorable list.

5. Rasputina - Barracuda (Heart)
4. Travis - The Weight (The Band)
3. Stars - Fairytale of New York (The Pogues)
2. The Lowest of the Low - God Only Knows (The Beach Boys)
1. Belle and Sebastian - I Want You Back (The Jackson 5)