the culture of the time

papal skateboards

money and art

I felt that it was time for a bit of a status update. Not that I ever spoke much on here about what I spend my days doing, but nonetheless.

I am still a student at NYU, though I am not registered for any classes right now. The health insurance is cheap though :). I probably won't graduate this semester, but that's okay. I am making slow and debatably steady progress towards my masters.

I am working 3 days a week in IT infrastructure at a Very Large Bank, creating a somewhat peculiar software testing system. It's no great contribution to society but it pays well.

I can live with that because the rest of my time working I am making art, at least indirectly. On Tuesdays I work at Harvestworks where I work on any and all manner of things technical. This includes mundane IT stuff like fixing the wireless ethernet and some more interesting stuff like tutoring a resident artist in Max/MSP, and possibly working on an internet video piece being created by another (more details on that if I actually end up doing it - it's still in the planning stages).

A lot of people (myself included) thought I was crazy when I turned down a full time job at The Very Large Bank a couple of years ago. But you know what? There's a difference at the end of the day. At the end of the day at the bank I maybe helped out some other programmers to do their jobs better/faster/whatever. Which is alright. I certainly don't mind doing that, and I don't mind being well paid for it. But at the end of a Tuesday, I've helped someone make art, and that feels very different.

So just last week was a bit of a milestone. For the first time ever I got paid to work with an artist. It wasn't much, and the work was kind of mundane (embedding audio files in a webpage). But I got paid to help a musician with computer crap. And I think that's what I want to do.

/brian
musically inclined computer programmer

choice eats

Last night I went to the first Choice Eats event in the Puck Building. This was a food festival curated by Village Voice critic Robert Sietsema. It was, in a word, gastronomical.

First, a quick highlights rundown:

Most disappointing

I'm sure that the toasted walnuts with local honey and fennel pollen is a bar-snack masterpiece of subtlety when you actually have it at Jimmy's No. 43, but when the guy to your left is serving spicy chorizo and the guy to your right is serving an obscenely good rib (see below), it just doesn't cut it.

Kinda disappointing

I've been meaning to go to Hummus Place forever, given their rave reviews and rock-bottom prices. In fact, given the way people seem to swoon about it, I imagined that tasting this hummus was going to be a bit of a revelation about what hummus really could be. Unfortunately the hummus tasted like, well, hummus. And not especially flavorful hummus at that. Furthermore, perhaps its a hummus faux pas, but I think I prefer my hummus cold. This was hot.

Gone too fast

Everyone who I've seen cover the event said that Fette Sau was awesome, but they were gone before we got to them.

Best taco

Ok, it was the only taco I was aware of, but Mercadito had a pretty awesome one with shrimp and avocado.

Best food (honorable mention)

In comparison with my top pick (below), Fatty Crab's short rib "rendang" is much more composed dish, creative even. The short rib has, besides some kind of a sauce, some toasted coconut, lime and chili. It came with some coconut sticky rice. At first bite I was ready to say "well it's good, but too sweet..." but then came just the perfect amount of heat on the finish. Delicious.

Best food

The rib. Oh man. I almost melted when I tasted a wonderful, sticky, sweet, crunchy, unctuous, perfect rib from Kampuchea. I mean I am sucker for a really good rib in general but this was just a whole other level of awesome. So awesome that for my last piece of food I physically finagled my way past the line to get what turned out to be the very last one. Curiously, it doesn't seem to be on their regular menu

John and I agreed that neither of us had ever been that full in our lives, probably owing to the fact that we were eating at a pretty ridiculous rate. We also had plenty of alcohol (I'm talking shots of Jäger here), but were eating so much that it didn't seem to effect us much at all. The beer was actually one of the highlights of the event. There was a large number of varieties available, few of which I had even heard of let alone tasted.

And there you have it. Photos of the event on john's flickr.

song obsession update

• Otis Redding - Try a Little Tenderness
• The Police - Roxanne
• Daft Punk - Harder Better Faster Stronger (Alive 2007)
• Flying White Dots - Tonight We Play
• Harry Nilsson - Midnight Cowboy (Everybody's Talking)
• Jens Lekman - The Opposite of Hallelujah

Celebwatch 2005!

Peter Dinklage, walking a dog longer than he is tall.

George W. Bush is the Haman in the unending Purim that is the Democratic Primary process.

The relationship between checks and balances on the one hand and the reliance on the rule of reason on the other is the Da Vinci Code of American democracy.

- Al Gore

Attend the tale

Now that the writer's strike is over, and just in time for the Oscars, I can finally bring to you my much-delayed analysis of Sweeney Todd.

One thing I could not understand for the longest time was why so many people seem to dislike the 1989 Tim Burton film version of Batman (which I think is bloody genius). This perplexity came to a head with the release of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, which everyone seemed to like but me. Finally, someone explained it to me with perfect clarity: Batman fans don't like Burton's Batman because it is a Tim Burton film first and a Batman film second.

While I now understand the objections these fans had, I am still unable to fully accept them. I like auteur-ish directors, and have long felt that the fact that Burton makes Batman fully his is what makes it a film worth watching rather than a giant exercise in cross-market corporate synergy.

While I sat and watched Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd, I could not help but wonder if I was succumbing to the same tendencies as those Batman fans. Was I bothered that Burton had erased Hal Prince's Sweeney Todd, Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, my Sweeney Todd?

The answer I think, is no. Besides the fact that I don't really think I have such a great attachment to the musical, the problem that I had with the Tim Burton adaptation of Sweeney Todd is that it never really becomes a Tim Burton film in full. At best, it is a filmed version of the musical, very well adapted to make it less theatrical and more cinematic, with a veneer of production design from the Tim Burton School of Fantastically Wild Hair and Low Camera Angles From Which You Can See The Sky.

Don't get me wrong; the result of this is a very entertaining movie. I still love the musical, and the music. Most of the cuts were well chosen, the cinematic touches well executed (the montage-of-sorts for By the Sea, for example, is hilarious), the special effects cool (the beggar woman's death was particularly pretty). The problem is that while choices like these obviously betray the hands of filmmakers skilled at their craft, and all of the stylistic hallmarks remain, I simply could not shake the feeling that this was Sweeney Todd executed by a studio in the style of Tim Burton rather than Sweeney Todd by Tim Burton.

Some notes about the performances:

Johnny Depp

An admirable if less-than-awe-inspiring performance. Suitably dark and freaked out, managed not to be out-acted by his hair, itself a feat.

Helena Bonham Carter

Passable, but not much more. I'm all for hiring good actors who can't really sing, but only if they're comfortable with the fact that they can't really sing (in Sondheim, see Elaine Stritch, Judi Dench). Carter seemed really uncomfortable during most of the musical numbers. In particular, I felt like I could see her counting the beats during The Worst Pies in London. Did an admirable job in portraying the devil to Depp's Faust.

Sacha Baron Cohen

Again, passable. He was funny, and a very good casting decision, but I don't think he really brought anything to the role; it seemed exactly the same as every other actor to do it. I was going to say that, well, most of his screentime is sung and there's no room in a Sondheim score for ad-libs. But you know what? His numbers are stocked with little pauses that are obviously intended for the actor to fill with (mostly physical) comic flourishes.

Alan Rickman

Everything and more. I mean, he's just doing his normal Alan Rickman thing, but who cares?

Timothy Spall

Again, suitable but nothing more. Would have liked to have seen him kill a bird with his bare hands but that's not his fault really.

Jamie Campbell Bower (Anthony)

Excellent performance. I don't really remember much about it other than that I thought it was good.

Jayne Wisener (Johanna)

Don't really remember much about her except that she was pretty and sang well enough.

Ed Sanders (Toby)

As they say on the interweb, A+++. Simultaneously one of the best and worst thing in this movie. Best because he was really good, and worst because he made the "stars" look pitiful by comparison, particularly with Nothing's Gonna Harm You.

As good as the adaptation was, it did lay bare some of the perils of the theater-to-film adaptation business. For example, again taking The Worst Pies in London as an example, the pies onstage are much more believably disgusting, since we are coerced into trusting Mrs. Lovett's lyrics and Sweeney's reactions. On screen, we have to actually be shown how gross they are with a campier and (I think) more unbelievable shot of a cockroach crawling out of the pie. Similarly, Mrs. Lovett's death seemed a little too fantastical for me, and read more like an effects shot than a horrifying end. In the stage version, the real horror of that scene is Sweeney's madness, exemplified by the traumatized Toby's repeated lines (excised from the film) about grinding the meat - "Three times. Three times. Smoothly, smoothly."

Partially to show I'm not just against change altogether, let's talk about a cut I particularly liked: the removal of Kiss Me. Besides making Anthony and Johanna's love affair seem much more romantic and eliminating the more farcical side of Johanna's character (at the climax of Kiss Me she realizes she doesn't even know Anthony's name), doing this essentially pares down the musical expression of Anthony and Johanna's love to one very strong leitmotif, that of Anthony's "I feel you/Johanna." Hearing this theme repeat over and over reinforces the obsessive nature of Anthony's love for Johanna, which we are then forced to compare to that of Sweeney and the Judge.

But did he really have to cut the third verse of Priest?

I know the subway conductor is really saying "E train to Parsons-Archer," but I swear it sounds like he says "E train to the Parthenon."

celebwatch 2005!

Mandy Patinkin in the audience of a performance of Particularly in the Heartland. I sang with him! Well, the whole audience sang together, so technically it's true.

Why do I do these stupid memes?

... because leslie tells me to (but not really).

1. Your rock star name (first pet, current car): Alpha the Bus. I play bass.
2. Your gangsta name (fave ice cream flavor, fave type of shoe): Cookies 'n Cream Jack Purcell.
3. Your Native American name (fave colour, fave animal): Black Monkey
4. Your soap opera name (middle name, city where you were born): Seth Manhasset.
5. Your Star Wars name (the first three letters of your last name, first two letters of your first name): Grubr (the Hutt).
6. Superhero name (second fave color, fave drink): Blue Scotch.
7. NASCAR name (the first names of your grandfathers): Stanley Samuel. If I was feeling obstinate I would have put “Stanley Schmeelik” but that's just silly.
8. Stripper name (the name of your fave perfume/cologne/scent, fave candy): Gyro Fudge. HA.
9. TV weather anchor name (your 5th grade teacher's last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): Simon Seattle.
10. Spy name (your fave season/holiday, flower): Fall Titan Arum.
11. Cartoon name (fave fruit, article of clothing you're wearing right now): Pear Pocket Tee.
12. Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast, your fave tree): Nothing Baobab (i like that quite a bit).

also not about sweeney todd

There's a lot you can do with a hypnotized chicken. You can use it as a paperweight, or you can use it as a doorstop, and either way, the chicken will sit there motionless, staring blankly. (What you can't do is use it as a football. Something about being thrown through the air seemed to wake that chicken right up.)

- Albert Gore, Jr.

random unix tip

Thing I just learned: man 7 ascii

via leslie, but as a show of blog support for laura. answer these questions by putting your music on random.

• Will I get far in life?

  Billy Joel - 2000 Years. how literal.

• How do my friends see me?

  Dean Gray - Dr. Who on Holiday (a mashup of Green Day's Holiday with The Timelord's (aka KLF) Doctorin' the Tardis, itself a mashup of The Doctor Who theme and Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 1). I am a mashup of a mashup. And a particularly awesome one at that.

• Where will I get married?

  djBC - Chanukah Song (GoyiMix) (a mashup of Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song with Van Halen's Jump, and some samples from Spartacus, The Godfather, Star Trek and Happy Days). a not particularly interesting, pretty messy mashup, which sound like a marriage to me.

• What is my best friend’s theme song?

  Passion - I Wish I Could Forget You. no comment.

(At this point, every other song was christmas related, so i exercised some editorial control and skipped a bunch.)

• What is the story of my life?

  The Dead Kennedys - MTV Get Off the Air. "If we have our way even you will believe this is the future of rock and roll." "You've turned rock and roll rebellion into Pat Boone sedation."

• What was high school like?

  Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya & Pink - Lady Marmalade (Moulin Rouge soundtrack). unfortunately my sexual escapades in those years were basically nonexistent.

• How can I get ahead in life?

  U2 - Grace. "It's a name for a girl; it's also a thought that could change the world." Dammit bono, which is it?

• What is the best thing about me?

  DJ Danger Mouse - Encore (The Grey Album - mashup of Jay-Z's Encore with The Beatles' Glass Onion). "Oh yeah."

(At this point I am exercising editorial control again and eliminating any more mashups.)

• How is today going to be?

  Thomas Newman - Black Angel (Angels in America score). Today will be very dramatic with some really dissonant violins.

• What is in store for this weekend?

  The Apples in Stereo - Energy. partay! also, it's very kid disco friendly.

• What song describes my parents?

  we are scientists - riffmaster b. "settle down. settle down."

• My grandparents?

  Survivor - Eye of the Tiger. Not that appropriate really.

• How is my life going?

  Brian Eno - 2/2 (Ambient 1: Music for Airports). well, until last week i guess this pretty much summed it up.

• What song will they play at my funeral?

  Cutting Crew - I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight. Again with the literalness! Well I hope I do, even if I hope they don't play this song.

• How does the world see me?

  Abba - Dancing Queen. laura i will totally trade you.

• Will I have a happy life?

  The Beatles - I Want You. well that's only vaguely twisted.

• What do my friends really think of me?

  stellastarr* - My Coco. "I sat alone and i didn't care. i sat 2 years in the same old chair."

• Do people secretly lust after me?

  Regina Spektor - Samson. "You are my sweetest downfall."

• How can I make myself happy?

  John Williams - Finale and End Credits (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom). dum dadum duuum, dum daduuuum.

• What should I do with my life?

  Regina Spektor - Music Box. "life inside the music box ain't easy. the mallets hit the gears are always turning. and every one inside the mechanism is yearning to get out."

• Will I ever have children?

  The Cranberries - Linger. "you know i'm such a fool for you. you got me wrapped around your finger."

• What is some good advice?

  Fairground Attraction - Perfect. "Young hearts are foolish, they make such mistakes; they're much too eager to give their love away."

• What is my signature dancing song?

  The Blues Brothers Band - Peter Gunn.Fine I will stand here and menacingly tap my foot in time.

• What do I think my current theme song is?

  She Wants Revenge - I Don't Want to Fall in Love. Well that's not true. man these guys need to chill out. then again, they know exactly what they're doing. ok, i can't listen to it anymore, on to the next one.

• What does everyone else think my current theme song is?

  The Who - Sally Simpson. well that makes no sense at all. oh well. i always laugh at the line "Sally got married to a rock musician she met in California."

• What type of men/women do you like?

  The White Stripes - Your Southern Can is Mine. mwahahaha.

• What did you think of this meme?

  The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling. Damn straight phil spector. damn straight.

song obsession update

man this is all i do on this blog anymore.

• Radiohead - 15 Step
• Jim James & Calexico - Goin' to Acapulco (I'm Not There soundtrack)
• Beirut - Scenic World (Lon Gisland E.P. version)
• The Rolling Stones - Wild Horses
• Party Ben - (Do Ya) Think I'm Sexy (In the Morning)

Still have the other one... Harry Nilsson on there.

song obsession update

• Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way
• M.I.A. - Boyz
• We Are Scientists - This Means War
• Harry Nilsson - Everybody's Talking
• Blur - The Universal

I have been crushing particularly hard on those last two.

i'm 26 and i haven't watched life of brian yet today.

Who doesn't like kabobs? I'll

Who doesn't like kabobs? I'll tell who didn't like kabobs, the nazis, that's who.

This statement still leaves some respite for the free will of the composer even if this free will is buried under the rubbish of culture and civilization and is only a shadow, at the least a tendency, a simple stochasm.
–Iannis Xenakis

And it's a silly meme from leslie. Directions:

1. Bold all of the following TV shows which you've ever seen 3 or more episodes of in your lifetime.
2. If you want, add up to 3 additional shows (keep the list in alphabetical order).

• 24
• 7th Heaven
• 8 Simple Rules
• Adam-12
• Aeon Flux
• ALF Brian should be a kid, not a republican!
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents
• Alias
• American Idol/Pop Idol/Canadian Idol/Australian Idol/etc.
• America's Next Top Model
• America's Test Kitchen yes i'm obsessed.
• Angel
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
• Arrested Development
• Babylon 5
• Babylon 5: Crusade
• Battlestar Galactica (the old one)
• Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
• Baywatch
• Beavis & Butthead
• Beauty and the Beast
• Beverly Hills 90210
• Big O
• Blackadder
• Bonanza
• Bones
• Bosom Buddies
• Boston Public
• Boston Legal
• Boy Meets World
• Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (just 2. but man, that one w/ jerry orbach.)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Bug Juice
• Caitlin's Way
• Chappelle's Show
• Charles in Charge
• Charlie's Angels
• Charmed
• Cheers
• Clarissa Explains It All
• Columbo
• Commander in Chief
• Coupling
• Cowboy Bebop
• Crossing Jordan
• CSI
• CSI: Miami
• CSI: NY
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Dallas
• Dancing with the Stars
• Danny Phantom
• Dark Angel
• Dark Skies
• Davinci's Inquest
• Dawson's Creek
• Dead Like Me this show was great. ellen muth really needs to do more stuff.
• Deadwood
• Degrassi Junior High why was this not on here, but the other one was? i mean seriously.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation
• Designing Women
• Desperate Housewives
• Dharma & Greg
• Different Strokes
• Doctor Who (1963)
• Doctor Who (2005)
• Dragnet
• Due South
• Earth 2 (oh good god tim curry)
• Eerie Indiana
• Emergency!
• Entourage
• ER
• Everwood
• Everybody Loves Raymond
• Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
• Facts of Life
• Family Guy
• Family Ties
• Farscape
• Father Ted
• Fawlty Towers
• Felicity
• Firefly
• Flash Forward
• Forever Knight
• Frasier
• Freaks and Geeks
• Friends
• Full House
• Futurama
• Get Smart
• Ghost Whisperer
• Gilligan's Island
• Gilmore Girls
• Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
• Green Wing
• Grey's Anatomy
• Growing Pains
• Gunsmoke
• Hannah Montana
• Happy Days
• Heroes
• Highlander
• Hogan's Heroes
• Home Improvement
• Homicide: Life on the Street
• House
• I Dream of Jeannie
• I Love Lucy
• Instant Star
• Inuyasha
• Invader Zim Let's make biscuits! Let's make biscuits.
• Invasion
• Hell's Kitchen
• JAG
• Jackass
• Joey
• John Doe
• Just Shoot Me why?
• Keen Eddie
• Keeping Up Appearances
• LA Law
• Laverne and Shirley
• Life With Derek
• Little House on the Prairie
• Lizzie McGuire
• Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman i think it was the first 3 episodes. then i gave up.
• Lost
• Lost in Space
• Love, American Style
• M*A*S*H
• MacGyver when i was a small child growing up in brazil, macgyver was my hero
• Malcolm in the Middle
• Married... With Children
• Melrose Place
• Miami Vice
• Mission: Impossible
• Monk
• Mork & Mindy
• Murphy Brown
• My Life as a Dog
• My So-Called Life
• My Super Sweet 16
• My Three Sons
• My Two Dads
• Mythbusters
• NCIS
• Nip/Tuck
• North Shore
• Numb3rs
• One Tree Hill
• Oz
• Perry Mason
• Phil of the Future
• Pokemon
• Power Rangers
• Prince of Tennis
• Prison Break
• Primeval
• Profiler
• Project Runway
• Psych
• Quantum Leap
• Queer As Folk (US)
• Queer as Folk (UK)
• Red Dwarf
• ReGenesis
• Remington Steele
• Rescue Me
• Road Rules
• Robin Hood
• ROME
• Roseanne
• Roswell
• Salute Your Shorts
• Saved by the Bell
• Scarecrow and Mrs King
• Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
• Scrubs
• Seinfeld
• Seven Days
• Sex and the City
• Six Feet Under
• Skins
• Sliders
• Slings and Arrows
• Smallville - the only episode of this i ever watched was the one with christopher reeve
• So Weird
• South Park
• Spaced
• Spongebob Squarepants
• Star Trek
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Star Trek: Voyager i think i've watched 3 of them. i don't really know.
• Star Trek: Enterprise - not a one.
• Stargate Atlantis
• Stargate SG-1
• Superman they probably mean the old george reeves one? or maybe not. but between the newer cartoon and the old fleischer cartoons...
• Supernatural
• Surface
• Survivor
• Taxi
• Teen Titans
• That 70's Show
• That's So Raven
• The 4400
• The Addams Family
• The Andy Griffith Show
• The Apprentice
• The A-Team
• The Avengers
• The Beverly Hillbillies
• The Bionic Woman
• The Brady Bunch
• The Closer
• The Colbert Report
• The Cosby Show
• The Daily Show
• The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd
• The Dead Zone
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• The Dukes of Hazzard
• The Famous Jet Jackson
• The Flintstones
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• The Golden Girls
• The Honeymooners
• The Invisible Man
• The Jeffersons
• The Jetsons
• The L Word
• The Love Boat
• The Lucille Ball Show
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show
• The Mighty Boosh
• The Monkees
• The Munsters i just remember this being on the tv a bunch. i barely remember the actual show at all.
• The O.C.
• The Office
• The Office (US)
• The Pretender woohoo!
• The Real World
• The Sentinel
• The Shield
• The Simpsons
• The Six Million Dollar Man
• The Sopranos i think 3 is the exact number of episodes i have seen
• The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
• The Twilight Zone
• The Waltons
• The West Wing
• The Wonder Years
• The X-Files
• Third Watch
• Three's Company
• Top Gear
• Torchwood
• Twin Peaks
• Twitch City
• Two and A Half Men
• Ugly Betty
• Veronica Mars
• Venture Bros.
• Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
• Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
• Will and Grace
• Wings somehow i'm sure i watched 3 episodes of this, though i don't remember anything about it except that steven weber was on it. he was, right?
• Without a Trace
• WKRP in Cincinnati

Basically everything on here I'm embarrassed by i watched in the 80s after school or whatever. hmm i'm gonna break the rules and add a 4th one as well, cause i don't think adding degrassi jr. high really counts.