(no subject)

[jfb]

1. Wow, Middlesex was great. I'm not going to say anything else about the book itself. I'll confess something: I avoid long novels. It takes me a long time to read anything, and the longer the book, the more likely I am not to finish it at all. 530 pages is more than enough to ward me off, but I loved the author's previous, much shorter novel The Virgin Suicides, so I made the effort, and am very glad I did.
   
   The cover of my paperback edition was covered with a thin waxy film, glued on so at first I didn't realize it was there. But over the course of reading it--two or three months carried around in my backpack in the California sun--it started to peel away from the cover, at first just around the edges so it seemed like an extension of the smoke motif in the cover design. Today after I read the last page I pulled the rest of it off, and, with its skin shed, it looks bright and shiny and new. Which, as it happens, nicely matches the protagonist's experience: gradual, then sudden transformation into what you were all along.
   
   
2. I finally saw Fahrenheit 9/11, which left me a little sad, some angry, but mostly inarticulate. I will say that I hated his use of music cues, and I really, really liked that there were Kerry supporters outside the multiplex registering voters.
   
   
3. It looks like I'm in a new band, with Meredith Edgar and three of the DTs. With this one I'll be playing keyboards--the full-sized kind--along with, of course, some other instruments. (The usual suspects: mandolin, accordion, maybe a little lap steel.)
   
   Russell and I are still trying to name our duo, and the new band needs a name too. So far, we are in grave danger of being named the Dead Horse Beaters. Our friend Dan is taking a poll on the subject, so chime in if you have an opinion.
   

Comments

[bnewmark.livejournal.com]

heeyyy - i'm halfway through middlesex - when i'm done, let's discuss!
and what do you mean about the music cues - i thought his choice of music clips during different parts of the film were great. is that what you're talking about?

[bushmiller.livejournal.com]

I also hated what Moore did with the music cues. All the "hey, Bush is a down home bumpkin!" finger-pickin' music really irritated me, for the inherent regionalism/classism in including the music like that, but also because it's completely blind to the fact that this countrified bumpkin stuff is a pose. Bush is a blueblood from New England, but I guess making fun of that with music isn't as easy. Far too much pandering to middle-class liberals.

In contrast, I saw Jehane Noujaim's Control Room the other day. Similar topic, obviously, but overall a much more interesting, thought-provoking, and enraging film. I strongly recommend it. Right now, it's the best movie I've seen in 2004.

Dead Horse Beaters is an awful name, man. That sounds like the Be Sharps to me.

--sean

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I thought Turkey in the Straw was a bit much, but loved the use of The Greatest American Hero. And, yes, I did think that a lot of the editing was annoyingly over the top the top, especially in places where he edited together "Hussein/Al Qaida" when he could have just used more real clips (although that would have taken more time).

If only you had a list of potential band names...

[bushmiller.livejournal.com]

Did you notice how the music in the beginning was quite reminiscent of some of Phillip Glass's more minimalistic stuff? I got the impression during the opening credits that Moore was trying to leech off of the legitimacy of Errol Morris' documentary style.

--sean