'Misc.' Archive
Haunted Bashir
- filed under Misc.
One of my favorite blogs — The Playlist — has an interview with Max Richter, who composed the haunting soundtrack to Waltz with Bashir.
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The Haunted Ocean — Waltz with Bashir soundtrack
Thoughts Upon Seeing Leonard Cohen at the Beacon Theatre
- filed under Misc.
1) It’s nice to be the youngest, rather than the oldest, person at a concert.
2) Leonard Cohen’s voice has aged exceptionally well.
3) His songs are timeless.
4) It’s not just his voice and his songs – I will be lucky to look half as good at 44 as Leonard Cohen looks at 74.
5) If Leonard Cohen were American and not Canadian, we would be using phrases like “National Treasure” to describe him.
6) Leonard Cohen is playing Radio City in May. If you can go, you should.
Racing Presidents
- filed under Misc.
The Nationals held tryouts yesterday for the Racing Presidents. Here’s hoping they find someone faster than last year to wear the TR Roosevelt costume. As far as I know, TR did not win a single race last year.
Top Ten Things I Learned from Reading “The Yankee Years”
- filed under Misc.
Here is what I have learned from reading “The Yankee Years”, or “The World According to Joe Torre”:
1) Joe Torre is a great manager.
2) How you manage off the field is apparently more important than how you manage on it.
3) Steroid use in baseball was apparently rampant but not in a way that was apparent to Joe Torre.
4) Derek Jeter is a consummate professional.
5) ARod’s teammates despise him.
6) It’s difficult for some professional athletes — Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Kevin Brown — to play in New York.
7) The Yankees waste money on useless, overpriced, and unproductive players.
8) Redsox General Manager Theo Epstein runs a much better organization than Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman because he is able to effectively analyze data and apply it succesfully to personnel decisions.
9) Torre found Cashman untrustworthy and duplicitous. He relied to much on data and not enough on heart in analyzing personnel decisions.
10) Mike Mussina is much more chatty than I remember, especially when it comes to denigrating Mariano Rivera’s performance in the post-season.
Rivera in the post season: 4 World Series Rings, a lifetime 0.77 ERA, an 8-1 record with 34 saves.
Mussina in the post season: no rings, a lifetime 3.42 ERA with a 7-8 record.
11) The Yankees have been harmed by the luxury tax while other teams have benefited from it.
Alternative?
- filed under Misc.
Interesting post over at MarathonPacks about how even “alternative” music creates its own canon. Writer Eric Harvey cites Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes as the two breakthrough artists in 2008 who “represented sepia-toned American ‘values’ and aesthetics most clearly; who, as ‘indie’ artists, gave casual music fans a safe alternative to digging too deeply in the stacks, while retaining a soupçonof hipness.”
Not sure where TV on the Radio fits into that argument, or if their own breakthrough last year undermines it, but there is no question that “indie” is as much a marketing niche as it is a true “alternative.” That is to say that it’s no more or less “alternative” than ‘country”, or “jazz,” or any other category of music created to steer consumers in a certain direction.
Crossing the Delaware
- filed under Misc.
If Barack Obama’s reference to George Washington today has got you interested in reading more about the Delaware crossing you might consider David Hackett Fischer’s “Washington’s Crossing.” A marvelous book that makes clear just how much was at stake when General Washington rallied his weary troops for that heroic crossing.
Multitalent
- filed under Misc.
Dennis Cahill (see top ten below) is apparently a very talented photographer as well as a gifted and sensitive guitarist. See his photos here.
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