Recently in Stuff I Like Category

Kirsten Dunst - Turning Japanese from St1b1 on Vimeo.

American director McG and "superflat" Japanese artist Takashi Murakami collaborated with Kirsten Dunst to create a video piece for the Tate Modern's 2009 "Pop Life" exhibit. I'm a fan of Dunst, The Vapors, blue hair, thigh high stockings, short skirts, and the idea of the Akihabara market in Tokyo. It was hard to do anything but love this particular work. Someday, when my hair is completely white, I hope to acheive Kirsten's hair color in a semi-permanent fashion.

I don't set aside a great deal of time to watch television. "Castle" is the only show that Nat and I bother to catch on broadcast. We keep up with a few others as they hit DVD, typically either via the very generous Lacy Lending Library or the ubiquitous Netflix.

Netflix has been quite insistent that I'd like the short lived Brittish series "Keen Eddie" -- better than 4 of 5 stars. Netflix winds up being more often incorrect than correct in its estimations of what I'll like, and I was hesitant to give the series a viewing -- until I saw the pilot, that is. "Keen Eddie" is mostly a buddy cop, crime-of-the-week show combined with a moderate helping of cultural fish-out-of-water elements. Eddie is a New York detective who, with one thing and another, winds up working for Scotland Yard. The show only lasted 13 episodes, but I don't find a bad one in the group.

There are a huge number of things that work for me ranging from cleverly phrased dialogue to contravention of expectations (e.g., Eddie's upper-crust partner who poses as married so that he and his girlfriend can participate in the London swingers scene), to the sweetly awkward (albeit occasionally forced) chemistry between actors Mark Valley and Sienna Miller, to one of the best 'shipper episodes I've seen -- an episode that manages to eloquently demonstrate why it is most often best not to give an audience what it wants.

By far, my favorite scenes are Eddie's interactions with Rachel Buckley's Miss Moneypenny. The scenes deliver innuendo in a most excellent fashion and are produced in such a fashion as to keep Eddie and the viewer guessing whether or not Eddie is imagining the interchanges.

She rides from michele Lugaresi on Vimeo.

Michele Lugaresi utilized a tilt-shift effect to create a video that resonates with melancholy, longing, and a pleasantly odd phantom nostalgia. The video evokes a barrage of half-remembered, half-imagined ideas. It is a beautiful bit of work.

The video is based on an idea by Christina Onofri and is set to Peter Bjorn and John's song "Amsterdam."

I've been watching Michele's video for a couple of years now, and it continues to work for me on several levels.

Jane Austen's Fight Club from Keith Paugh on Vimeo.

I don't recall when or where I first stumbled across Emily Janice Card's "Jane Austen's Fight Club,", but I'm awfully glad I did. Anytime it surfaces on the active bits of my neural network, I'm guaranteed to have about three minutes of smile inducing euphoria. The mashup of these particular elements of cultural cloth is brilliant and the execution is spot on.

I haven't seen the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel, though I read and enjoyed the novel a few years back. Should "Jane Austen's Fight Club" ever make it to the silver screen, I'd be there opening night.

New Romance - Miles Fisher from Miles Fisher on Vimeo.

I'm actually a bit old for "Saved by the Bell," but I vividly recall my younger siblings watching it to death--cannot get the images out of my head. Aside from not being its demographic, the saccharine nature of the show didn't work for me, even in that when that was.

Miles Fisher, however, deftly manages to turn the show's convention widdershins with great success. His send up includes treatment of one of SBTB's over the top, ham-handed "poignant" bits. It does no damage that the music works for me.

"Firefly" is one of the best television shows that I've ever had the pleasure to watch. It was short lived, but had the perfect amalgamation of cast, crew, and writers. I still get choked up when I think about "Out of Gas" and smile a bit manically when "Our Mrs. Reynolds" crosses my neural network.

"Castle" is another television show at the really, really, really good end of the boob-tube continuum. Nathan Fillion and the show's writers have made a point of playing to their audience. It appears as though the playfulness and self-referencing may be rubbing off in good ways.

If you don't get the humor of the photo, I can direct you here for a wee bit of context.

In the event that the above photo goes the way of degraded bits, I've cribbed a copy.

Six or seven years ago, I purchased a set of Etymotic E4R headphones for use with a series of amplifiers that I was building at the time. I sampled them during a Headroom road show that passed through Salt Lake City and I fell in love with the audio that they produced. I've used them constantly since their initial purchase and have taken good care of them.

Last month, one of the stems that extends from the driver enclosure and supports the foam or silicone ear fittings broke off. I contacted Etymotic, arranged an RMA, and shipped my E4Rs off for repair. A week later, my headphones were returned with new drivers. Etymotic neither charged me for the repair nor asked for proof-of-purchase. My E4Rs were an expensive purchase that I've enjoyed using. I love this kind of long-term customer service.

I went with Nat to pick up my birthday/anniversary/father's day/hogswatch gift from the airport. Nat found and purchased a five-month old Pixie-Bob for me. It is without doubt one of the coolest gifts I've ever been given. Our friends Channon and Joe had a Pixie-Bob and I found it's temperament to be the ideal mix of dog and cat. Of course, I hadn't wanted one badly enough to seriously look for one, or to purchase one, or to commit to a litter box. Nat handled the hard work and left the litter box to me. After several days of watching the cat torment Nat's beagle Suzy by pouncing at her out of nowhere, taking a couple of playful swipes, then chasing her out of the room, Hobbes seemed like the perfect choice of name.

On the same bowling trip I discovered The Darkness, I was also exposed to the video for "Stacy's Mom." It was my first experience with Fountains of Wayne and I was impressed with their infectious pop sensibility. Both Stacy and her Mom were pretty hot too, but I'm sure that had little to do with "Stacy's Mom" taking up residence in my mind.

After "Permission to Land," I had a very low level of expectation with regard to "Welcome Interstate Managers." Fountains of Wayne however, knows how to make not only a coherent but a fantastic, witty, addicting album and has left me awed at the quality and execution from the first listen through three weeks of heavy rotation. There is not a track on the album I dislike, but I find myself looking forward to "Bright Future in Sales," "Stacy's Mom," "Hey Julie," "Little Red Light," and "Peace and Love" marginally more than the other songs. It is not a significant margin by any stretch of the imagination. The tunes range from the straight forward, well executed pop of "Stacy's Mom" and "Bright Future in Sales" to songs playing as homage to the likes of Gordon Lightfoot ("Valley Winter Song"), Simon and Garfunkle ("Hey Julie") and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band ("Hung Up On You").

The lyrics are masterfully sardonic observations of popular culture. Topics range from the stock theme of the broken hearted, jilted lover torn between reconciliation and revenge to ruminations on the reality of the music business and the business of sales. "Welcome Interstate Managers" is one of those albums I can easily see myself grabbing in order to revisit the lyrics as much as the music. (Lloyd Cole's "The Negatives" still holds the title in my book, but Fountains of Wayne is definitely crawling up its way up my list.)

The liner notes include the lyrics, credits, photos of the band members and a brief round of "thank-you's" from the band. The design is interesting in its use of altered photos emphasizing the 2D nature of both the photos and the liner notes in a very postmodern way. The effect is of a photo of poorly made and badly arranged cardboard props in rows.

The album is so good, I hunted down Fountains of Wayne's first two albums, the 1996 self titled album and the 1999 "Utopia Parkway." My initial reaction is to like both of these earlier releases and they continue to grow on me as they get additional play time. I'm enjoying all three albums currently available and look forward to the next release by the band.

Rating: Strongly Recommended.

Fountains of Wayne, "Welcome Interstate Managers"

Sophmore albums are notorious for their inability to live up to a well adored first album. "Feels Like Home" does not suffer from this malady. Quite the contrary, Ms. Jones and The Handsome Band have forged an album with the feel of careful nurture and precise craftsmanship. It is a far cry from the cheaply mass produced, shoddy consumer products which inundate our lives. The listener is, of course, treated to a return visit with Ms. Jones's breath taking vocals. Though the mood evokes the earlier album's laid back tempo, be certain this is not your mother's copy of "Come Away With Me." The band has grown and evolved and "Feels Like Home" is the natural result of this process.

One of the major evolutions is the writing contribution of each member of the band. These contributions work together to create a memorable album, at once both a series of snap shots carefully arranged in a scrapbook and a cohesive collage, painting an elegant portrait of The Handsome Band. Not only has Ms. Jones helped to insure the long term financial viability of her collaborators, the listener is treated to a vastly expanded view of the musical landscape.

Even the liner notes reverberate carefully crafted quality. They contain writing and performance credits as well as the lyrics for each of the songs and a brief round of "thank yous", all tastefully and invitingly arranged. They manage to elegantly provide detailed information and to reinforce the idea of process, growth and development with the selection of documentary styled snapshots carefully scattered through the text.

From the first single, Sunrise, through a duet with Dolly Parton to a reworking of Duke Ellington's Melancholia, "Feels Like Home" explores the edges of isolation, loneliness and tentative, new affections with a mix of jazz, folk, country and blues. It is an audio treat for me this week equal to my first experience with "Come Away With Me."

Rating: Recommended (until I manage to develop a rating system)

Norah Jones "Feels Like Home"