Showing posts with label Criticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Criticism. Show all posts
10.24.2012
8.18.2012
6.10.2012
Views and Details of Crown Fountain 2006
I won't say much about Crown Fountain because everything you could want to know about it is on the Wikipedia page. Suffice to say that when I happened on it one tired evening, I was recharged by its great scope and ingenuity. It's a fantastic piece of art and the people of Chicago are fortunate to have it.
5.18.2012
4.29.2012
6.30.2009
You Look Like Someone Who Could Use a Little More Dorothy Parker In Their Life
"Scratch a lover, and find a foe."
"Brevity is the soul of lingerie."
"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true."
"I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it."
"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised."
"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."
"The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant--and let the air out of the tires."
"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment."
"They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm."
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
"I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more."
Of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Parker said:
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
When asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence, Parker replied:
"You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think."
Three you may have heard, but didn't know were hers:
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy"
"Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses."
"Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."
A frequent misattribution, but telling anyhow:
"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."
And a little verse...
"I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under the host."
"If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think, "How lucky are the dead.""
"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania."
"Whose love is given over-well
Will look on Helen's face in Hell;
While they whose love is thin and wise
May view John Knox in Paradise."
"Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)"
"Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live."
"Brevity is the soul of lingerie."
"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true."
"I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it."
"If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised."
"Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."
"The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant--and let the air out of the tires."
"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment."
"They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm."
"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."
"I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more."
Of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Parker said:
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
When asked to use the word horticulture during a game of Can-You-Give-Me-A-Sentence, Parker replied:
"You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think."
Three you may have heard, but didn't know were hers:
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy"
"Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses."
"Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."
A frequent misattribution, but telling anyhow:
"If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to."
And a little verse...
"I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under the host."
"If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think, "How lucky are the dead.""
"Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania."
"Whose love is given over-well
Will look on Helen's face in Hell;
While they whose love is thin and wise
May view John Knox in Paradise."
"Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)"
"Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live."
12.31.2008
Here's What I'm Thinking(2008)
Yes, I know it's way vogue these days to want to save the planet and all that.
The environment's in jeopardy and we all have to pull together and do our part, etc.
Everyone I know is recycling or, at the very least, they're lying to everyone else about recycling and I'm thinking, "What for?"
What exactly are we trying to rescue here?
Somebody really smart needs to explain it to me 'cause as far as I can see, life on Earth sucks a fresh turd.
You really expect me to separate my garbage for this fucking shitpile?
Hell, as far as I'm concerned, our rendezvous with total disaster can't arrive soon enough.
Where the hell are all these nukes everybody's always whining about?
Let's light a few of those up, why don't we.
That would kind of end the suspense, wouldn't it?
Break the tension?
Or maybe our finest scientific minds could find a way to alter the Earth's orbit and steer us into the path of one of those big asteroids, you know - one of those 'Global Killers'?
Listen, all I'm saying is that not recycling just isn't gonna cut it.
We gotta get pro-active, people!
Let's make it our resolution for 2009...
A Record Review by Ted Fisher
I love my friends and none more than Ted Fisher. We've been pals a long time, yes, but the fact is our tastes don't often converge. So when I found this product review he'd written over at Amazon, I was really pleasantly surprised to find the two of us in such close accord.True, we are both pretty much the same age and grew up together in similar environs. And, yes, we liked a lot of the same stuff, music especially, when we were teenagers. But since then, our opinions have matured independently and it really shows lately. He's basically a nut for classical (and is becoming quite learned on the subject) and I'm... not. Or not as much.
So when I read this recent piece of his, I had to smile over how, after all this time (it's been since, I think, 1993 that we last stood in the same room) we still share a few things, so I thought I'd share just one of them with you.
The Record That Changed It All
by Ted Fisher
July 10, 2008
I just listened to this record again after I went to a Sex Pistols concert on the 4th of July, 2008 in Slovakia, of all places. It is still a great record after more than 30 years, although hearing them in concert singing about the Berlin Wall ("Holidays in the Sun") and their spat with their former record label ("EMI") did sound a bit dated today.
I think a lot of reviewers have it right when they call this the "album that changed everything". But I don't think most of them go far enough, because they seem to limit it to punk. Without the Sex Pistols, we would not have had New Wave, which within a few years turned into the industry mainstream. The Police? Not there (so no Sting either!). U2? No way. Duran Duran? Nope. The B-52s? Don't kid yourself. Devo? Well, maybe -- but probably in a different form. The musical reality that we now know as the 1980s could not have happened without the Sex Pistols. They really did change everything.
This isn't just the "greatest punk album of all time", which it actually may or may not be. It's the album that set the stage on which the musical background of the entire Reagan era was played. (Let's ignore "Thriller" and Stevie Nicks for a moment -- great as their achievements may be...)
Understanding the evolution of pop and rock music into what we have today means, at a minimum, understanding Elvis, the Beatles and the Sex Pistols. Those are the guys that came along and changed everything -- the paradigm shifts, as they say. (Number 4 is probably Grandmaster Flash, but let's ignore that as well for now...)
The Sex Pistols were far from a perfect band. Image got in the way of the music quite a lot -- in part because the project was launched by Malcolm McLaren, who wanted a band out there that would let him sell more clothes at his London shop, called "Sex", dealing in what would become punk fashion. Unfortunately for the band, the image obsession meant replacing Glen Matlock, who could actually play his bass and who played a key songwriting role, with Sid Vicious, who had little musical ability but who looked nasty and didn't have Matlock's feathered, Bay City Rollers-style hair. Vicious was a disaster, and met a disastrous end.
But none of that really interferes with the record -- Matlock plays bass on much of it, and where he doesn't, guitarist Steve Jones fills in. No Sid here.
The Sex Pistols were more of an idea than a band, really. The image often took over everything. Thankfully, the real merit of the record is the music. This isn't just guitar distortion, crashing drums and shouting. The songs almost all have melodies that grab you from the start. (The only real exception is "New York", which I still wouldn't recognize in a lineup today, although I've heard it hundreds of times.)
Steve Jones' guitar playing is remarkably tight, and really is brilliant in many places. His style really is minimalist, but you don't immediately notice that through the power and distortion. Where he does use flourishes, they are melodic and memorable. Johnny Rotten, the vocalist, creates a thoroughly misanthropist persona simply using his voice. The sound he creates is unique and quintessentially punk, and he doesn't have to actually say "I hate you" because you can feel it. In many ways he created the mold for most punk singers after him, including a way of phrasing that lets you know he doesn't care what you or anyone else thinks.
Actually, seeing the Sex Pistols in concert today is a totally different experience in two important ways. First, Glen Matlock back on bass, still with his feathered hair, and this puts the music rather than the image in focus. Second is a complete change in Johnny Rotten -- or actually John Lydon, as he now goes by the name of his birth. He no longer hates everybody and everything, but actually seems to really enjoy himself and to genuinely like people in his own "in your face" way. When I saw them in concert, he waved his naked paunch at us like a belly dancer and told us: "We love ya." This was not the Pistols of 1977, but rather more like a thoroughly enjoyable 2008 tribute band to the Pistols of the past.
Enough from me -- just get it. This is one of the basics. You don't have to like it, but there's a good chance that after a couple of listens you will find something to your liking. I think everyone should at least know what the Sex Pistols were and sounded like.
Also keep in mind that these people who seemed to make the selling of nastiness and destruction their livelihood at the time are warm and fuzzy middle-aged guys today. They weren't actually hateful, they just seemed that way.
I just listened to this record again after I went to a Sex Pistols concert on the 4th of July, 2008 in Slovakia, of all places. It is still a great record after more than 30 years, although hearing them in concert singing about the Berlin Wall ("Holidays in the Sun") and their spat with their former record label ("EMI") did sound a bit dated today.
I think a lot of reviewers have it right when they call this the "album that changed everything". But I don't think most of them go far enough, because they seem to limit it to punk. Without the Sex Pistols, we would not have had New Wave, which within a few years turned into the industry mainstream. The Police? Not there (so no Sting either!). U2? No way. Duran Duran? Nope. The B-52s? Don't kid yourself. Devo? Well, maybe -- but probably in a different form. The musical reality that we now know as the 1980s could not have happened without the Sex Pistols. They really did change everything.
This isn't just the "greatest punk album of all time", which it actually may or may not be. It's the album that set the stage on which the musical background of the entire Reagan era was played. (Let's ignore "Thriller" and Stevie Nicks for a moment -- great as their achievements may be...)
Understanding the evolution of pop and rock music into what we have today means, at a minimum, understanding Elvis, the Beatles and the Sex Pistols. Those are the guys that came along and changed everything -- the paradigm shifts, as they say. (Number 4 is probably Grandmaster Flash, but let's ignore that as well for now...)
The Sex Pistols were far from a perfect band. Image got in the way of the music quite a lot -- in part because the project was launched by Malcolm McLaren, who wanted a band out there that would let him sell more clothes at his London shop, called "Sex", dealing in what would become punk fashion. Unfortunately for the band, the image obsession meant replacing Glen Matlock, who could actually play his bass and who played a key songwriting role, with Sid Vicious, who had little musical ability but who looked nasty and didn't have Matlock's feathered, Bay City Rollers-style hair. Vicious was a disaster, and met a disastrous end.
But none of that really interferes with the record -- Matlock plays bass on much of it, and where he doesn't, guitarist Steve Jones fills in. No Sid here.
The Sex Pistols were more of an idea than a band, really. The image often took over everything. Thankfully, the real merit of the record is the music. This isn't just guitar distortion, crashing drums and shouting. The songs almost all have melodies that grab you from the start. (The only real exception is "New York", which I still wouldn't recognize in a lineup today, although I've heard it hundreds of times.)
Steve Jones' guitar playing is remarkably tight, and really is brilliant in many places. His style really is minimalist, but you don't immediately notice that through the power and distortion. Where he does use flourishes, they are melodic and memorable. Johnny Rotten, the vocalist, creates a thoroughly misanthropist persona simply using his voice. The sound he creates is unique and quintessentially punk, and he doesn't have to actually say "I hate you" because you can feel it. In many ways he created the mold for most punk singers after him, including a way of phrasing that lets you know he doesn't care what you or anyone else thinks.
Actually, seeing the Sex Pistols in concert today is a totally different experience in two important ways. First, Glen Matlock back on bass, still with his feathered hair, and this puts the music rather than the image in focus. Second is a complete change in Johnny Rotten -- or actually John Lydon, as he now goes by the name of his birth. He no longer hates everybody and everything, but actually seems to really enjoy himself and to genuinely like people in his own "in your face" way. When I saw them in concert, he waved his naked paunch at us like a belly dancer and told us: "We love ya." This was not the Pistols of 1977, but rather more like a thoroughly enjoyable 2008 tribute band to the Pistols of the past.
Enough from me -- just get it. This is one of the basics. You don't have to like it, but there's a good chance that after a couple of listens you will find something to your liking. I think everyone should at least know what the Sex Pistols were and sounded like.
Also keep in mind that these people who seemed to make the selling of nastiness and destruction their livelihood at the time are warm and fuzzy middle-aged guys today. They weren't actually hateful, they just seemed that way.
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