Someone (presumably Pete) at our local grocery has a curious idea of marketing. Here's the label he put on a tasty item that was on special this week.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Penguin Joke
No comment needed, I suppose. Fun on so many levels, all of them vulgar... (But I'll just add that my favorite phrase is "poor little guy.")
Friday, December 7, 2007
Spin, Baby, Spin
It's cold outside and I'm not fond of running in tights, so I'm back to taking spinning classes. No, not like this:
More like this:
The bikes have weighted wheels, which add momentum to the spin. There's a teacher who tells you what to do, hopefully pushing you harder than you'd do on your own.
Ann finds Spinning too dweeby for words. In Concord, apparently all of the Spinners are taut type-A women, scrawny of limb and of spirit, trying hard to push all of the femininity out of their sharpened bodies. I prefer to think of it as what Lance might be doing on the off-season.
Which reminds me of a story Gary told me. A British poet named John Betjeman was at a pub with some writer friends who were joshing him for his extreme reserve, noting the nearly complete absence of sex in his poems. He demurely accepted the leg-pulling, but the following week, he gigglingly said that he'd written something very dirty indeed. "In fact, it might be the dirtiest poem ever written," he suggested. Here it is:
I think that I should rather like
To be the seat upon a bike.
(I realize that anecdote works much better without a picture of a naked Lance Armstrong immediately preceding it, but it's too late now. Just try to imagine you hadn't seen the picture. It'll be more amusing.)
Now, obviously, spinning class depends a lot on the teacher. My favorite is Jack, a Broadway chorus boy who plays cheerful disco classics and often signs along. Earlier this week, we had a substitute, who was also good, more military in style ("8-Go!-7-Go!-6 and 5-Go!-4-Go!-3-Go!- 2 and 1") and quite challenging. Alas, the Thursday teacher really gets under my craw. I was hoping that after 2 months away, they'd have given the class to someone else. No such luck.
He's a New Age flake who uses the class as an opportunity to spread his get-in-touch-with-yourself malarky. He'll say things like "connect with the multi-layered experience," or "Don't do what I say; become the embodiment of the instructions" or "I want you to slowly, almost intimitately increase the resistance. Only everything is delivered in a skin-crawling reptilian drawl, so it sounds like this: " I waaant youuuu to slooooowly, almost iiiiiiiintimately increeeease the resistanccccce." Worse, he walks around the class, giving individual tips. Nothing useful, like "your shoulders are too rigid" or "spin faster, lazybones." No, he gives each of us a botched mantra, like "Become the texture of the wheel." He stands too close and you can feel his breath, which in this case is not a good thing.
And his music sucks, too. A long loop of droney throbs, including--really--a techno remix of the Flower Duet from Lakme.
I may have to just use the treadmill on Thursdays...
More like this:
The bikes have weighted wheels, which add momentum to the spin. There's a teacher who tells you what to do, hopefully pushing you harder than you'd do on your own.
Ann finds Spinning too dweeby for words. In Concord, apparently all of the Spinners are taut type-A women, scrawny of limb and of spirit, trying hard to push all of the femininity out of their sharpened bodies. I prefer to think of it as what Lance might be doing on the off-season.
Which reminds me of a story Gary told me. A British poet named John Betjeman was at a pub with some writer friends who were joshing him for his extreme reserve, noting the nearly complete absence of sex in his poems. He demurely accepted the leg-pulling, but the following week, he gigglingly said that he'd written something very dirty indeed. "In fact, it might be the dirtiest poem ever written," he suggested. Here it is:
I think that I should rather like
To be the seat upon a bike.
(I realize that anecdote works much better without a picture of a naked Lance Armstrong immediately preceding it, but it's too late now. Just try to imagine you hadn't seen the picture. It'll be more amusing.)
Now, obviously, spinning class depends a lot on the teacher. My favorite is Jack, a Broadway chorus boy who plays cheerful disco classics and often signs along. Earlier this week, we had a substitute, who was also good, more military in style ("8-Go!-7-Go!-6 and 5-Go!-4-Go!-3-Go!- 2 and 1") and quite challenging. Alas, the Thursday teacher really gets under my craw. I was hoping that after 2 months away, they'd have given the class to someone else. No such luck.
He's a New Age flake who uses the class as an opportunity to spread his get-in-touch-with-yourself malarky. He'll say things like "connect with the multi-layered experience," or "Don't do what I say; become the embodiment of the instructions" or "I want you to slowly, almost intimitately increase the resistance. Only everything is delivered in a skin-crawling reptilian drawl, so it sounds like this: " I waaant youuuu to slooooowly, almost iiiiiiiintimately increeeease the resistanccccce." Worse, he walks around the class, giving individual tips. Nothing useful, like "your shoulders are too rigid" or "spin faster, lazybones." No, he gives each of us a botched mantra, like "Become the texture of the wheel." He stands too close and you can feel his breath, which in this case is not a good thing.
And his music sucks, too. A long loop of droney throbs, including--really--a techno remix of the Flower Duet from Lakme.
I may have to just use the treadmill on Thursdays...
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Hype and Circumstance
Sometimes the hype gets it right. Went to a great concert last night, the last night of Gustavo Dudamel's debut with the New York Philharmonic. He's a very young conductor (26) from Venezuela who learned music through a remarkable public education program known as El Sistema, that has taught more than 270,000 poor kids from tough barrios. Dudamel conducts the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra (with whom he made an apparently triumphant Carnegie Hall debut earlier this year). In 2009, Dudamel's going to become conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The concert began with a charming 13-minute curtain raiser by a Mexican composer named Carlos Chávez. Lots of percussion and energy, which suits Dudamel's dramatic style. But it was a mere trifle compared to the tremendous version of Dvorak's Violin Concerto with violinist Gil Shaham. OK, lots of the credit goes to Shaham, who is simply terrific. He has a relaxed virtuosity that allows you to relax and enjoy his glorious sound and skittering technique. But he also has an extremely generous nature and was clearly enjoying working with Dudamel. Whenever he wasn't playing, he stood back a step and gave an I-have-the-best-seat- in-the-house smile while watching Dudamel's bouncing flourishes and pounces. The two of them together really did make a joyful noise. (OK, Dvorak helped. He's my pet composer and almost never disappoints. But his great pieces, and this is one, are melodically stirring and soulful in a way that confirms and heightens the power of folk music.)
I hadn't heard Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony before. It definitely fits the "fifth is a winner" pattern established by so many composers (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky,Shostakovitch). Great, pounding floods of music, again, well-suited to Dudamel's energetic passion. The first act ends with a section that is rock-music loud and so cathartic that you could feel the whole audience sitting on their hands to keep from giving the ovation it deserved (sometimes the rules of classical music are too restrictive. Honestly, it would have felt good to clap there, even though it would have broken the unity of the piece.) The orchestra gets a work out as it swerves from rapid, jittery passages intoelegiac lines (it was written near the end of World War II) and then into an elated, skipping finale. It was a great piece, and Dudamel clearly carried the orchestra with him.
It'll be very interesting to see where he goes from here.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Winter + Dog
Fall ended abruptly and the dog's pretty happy about it. Every winter on the first snowfall we all tromp a block away to the small and neglected Gertrude Kelly park. No dogs allowed (Both Bobby and I have had run-ins with the Park Police there). I take the same pictures every year. Here are some from this year's batch.
In the little display on the camera, this photo seemed promising--I thought it looked like Aggie was attacking Bobby. Alas, actual size it looks more like she's falling on him--or glued to his jacket...
In the little display on the camera, this photo seemed promising--I thought it looked like Aggie was attacking Bobby. Alas, actual size it looks more like she's falling on him--or glued to his jacket...
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Ghastly Genius
Just heard this gem from 1966 for the first time. The song is nothing special until it gets to the title hook, which is a simple couplet that is both incredibly awkward and instantly memorable:
you're so mystifyingly glad
I'm Mr. Dieingly sad.
The tortured syntax and that ugly ugly adverb (luckily, when you listen to "dieingly," you can understand it; when you read it, it looks like a typo or a Jumble puzzle waiting to be anagramed into the correct answer... Why'd they go with that weird spelling, instead of "dyingly"? Well, that looks weird, too, i guess.) The internal rhyme of "mysti-" and "Mister" would be clever if it weren't clumsy, forced, and fakey. And yet...
Here's the original group, The Critters (named, yes, after the breakfast cereal Crispy Critters), with their big hit, "Mr. Dieingly Sad." Like a great car wreck, I can't keep myself away.
The video is as dull as the song, but it does have charming youths from another era (the young are always more charming when they aren't contemporary) and some amusing subtexts. Watch the poor sap trying to clap energetically to what is essentially a dirge. He keeps looking around as if to say “Come everyone, clap along!” and later “Hey, why aren’t you clapping too, kids?” and then, finally, “Damn it, I started this song clapping and that’s how’s going to end it, because otherwise I’d look silly, do you hear me, silly.”
you're so mystifyingly glad
I'm Mr. Dieingly sad.
The tortured syntax and that ugly ugly adverb (luckily, when you listen to "dieingly," you can understand it; when you read it, it looks like a typo or a Jumble puzzle waiting to be anagramed into the correct answer... Why'd they go with that weird spelling, instead of "dyingly"? Well, that looks weird, too, i guess.) The internal rhyme of "mysti-" and "Mister" would be clever if it weren't clumsy, forced, and fakey. And yet...
Here's the original group, The Critters (named, yes, after the breakfast cereal Crispy Critters), with their big hit, "Mr. Dieingly Sad." Like a great car wreck, I can't keep myself away.
The video is as dull as the song, but it does have charming youths from another era (the young are always more charming when they aren't contemporary) and some amusing subtexts. Watch the poor sap trying to clap energetically to what is essentially a dirge. He keeps looking around as if to say “Come everyone, clap along!” and later “Hey, why aren’t you clapping too, kids?” and then, finally, “Damn it, I started this song clapping and that’s how’s going to end it, because otherwise I’d look silly, do you hear me, silly.”
Where I'm Going With This...
As I consider what this blog will be from NY, one of the obvious formats would be a critical forum posting my thoughts on the many shows I see here (about 50 a year these days, not counting concerts, movies, readings and so on). But I don't wanna. Here's why.
Two nights ago I saw the new play by a downtown writer/director I admire a lot. His early works were some of the best I've seen in the last decade or so, formally inventive and really exciting. But lately he's been going down a bum road. Where once he found intriguing depth in the banal, colloquial verbiage of daily life, nowadays he's exploring a sticky poetic dialogue that's a pretty hard slog. I just don't think it's his strength. I respect him for trying to break out of what had become a reliable formula, but I hope he finds a new direction soon. (And I've still enjoyed the recent plays OK, they just haven't had many of the sweet shocks of his earlier stuff.)
And last night I saw a pretty good play that got better and worse in the second act. The writing came together nicely, but a crucial performance took a serious nosedive. As a result, what had been a prettyimmersive experience became one of those annoying bi- or tri-level evenings. Instead of just watching one good play, I wound up watching the play being presented by a good (minus one) cast, and then imagining the play as it was written, as well as how it might have been with a knock-out performance in that role. In the end, I was mostly satisfied, but not transported.
If I were going to write up blog entries about those two plays, I'd have to name names and air my disappointments and regrets, and I just don't want to do that. Here's where I'll get as New Age-y as you'll ever hear me. Refunfuño notwithstanding, I hate the idea of adding any more negativity to printed world. I don't mind at all sharing a poisonous opinion among friends, or even in an e-mail, but posting it here ("publishing" it, for what it's worth) feels like adding another twig to the bitchy inferno we call home. Or, to mix my metaphors, I feel as if negative writing gets packed into spiritual suitcases we all have to schlep with us wherever we go.
So,I'll leave this blog for commenting on oddities, noting my occasional (and probably ill-founded) insights, and extolling things I like, which, of course, could be a play or a movie or a book or whatever. And, yes, I'll keep complaining about things that get under my craw, but most of them probably won't have names attached (though whoever designed that stupid NYC Taxi logo might be exempt from my negativity ban. Sometimes you just have to fan the fire...)
Two nights ago I saw the new play by a downtown writer/director I admire a lot. His early works were some of the best I've seen in the last decade or so, formally inventive and really exciting. But lately he's been going down a bum road. Where once he found intriguing depth in the banal, colloquial verbiage of daily life, nowadays he's exploring a sticky poetic dialogue that's a pretty hard slog. I just don't think it's his strength. I respect him for trying to break out of what had become a reliable formula, but I hope he finds a new direction soon. (And I've still enjoyed the recent plays OK, they just haven't had many of the sweet shocks of his earlier stuff.)
And last night I saw a pretty good play that got better and worse in the second act. The writing came together nicely, but a crucial performance took a serious nosedive. As a result, what had been a prettyimmersive experience became one of those annoying bi- or tri-level evenings. Instead of just watching one good play, I wound up watching the play being presented by a good (minus one) cast, and then imagining the play as it was written, as well as how it might have been with a knock-out performance in that role. In the end, I was mostly satisfied, but not transported.
If I were going to write up blog entries about those two plays, I'd have to name names and air my disappointments and regrets, and I just don't want to do that. Here's where I'll get as New Age-y as you'll ever hear me. Refunfuño notwithstanding, I hate the idea of adding any more negativity to printed world. I don't mind at all sharing a poisonous opinion among friends, or even in an e-mail, but posting it here ("publishing" it, for what it's worth) feels like adding another twig to the bitchy inferno we call home. Or, to mix my metaphors, I feel as if negative writing gets packed into spiritual suitcases we all have to schlep with us wherever we go.
So,I'll leave this blog for commenting on oddities, noting my occasional (and probably ill-founded) insights, and extolling things I like, which, of course, could be a play or a movie or a book or whatever. And, yes, I'll keep complaining about things that get under my craw, but most of them probably won't have names attached (though whoever designed that stupid NYC Taxi logo might be exempt from my negativity ban. Sometimes you just have to fan the fire...)
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