I kid you not. I have been asked five different times whilst running if I knew my way around the place. I’m not really sure what that says about my appearance, but it makes me feel good about myself. It's like I'm a local. While I haven’t been able to offer any of the inquirers useful directions, I do feel like I know my way around pretty well at this point. I no longer have to take minutes sorting through the bevy of English coins (coin denominations include: 2 pound, 1pound, 50p, 20p, 10p, 5p, 2p, 1p). In fact, until recently I’d been priding myself in my ability to quickly gather the correct amount of change. I went to coffee shop and ordered a café latte. It cost 2.35, and I only had 3.15 pounds. For some reason I gave the lady all my money. She stopped, looked confused for a while, then handed me my change which consisted of a 50p coin, a 20p coin, and a different 10p coin than the one I gave her. Good job Daniel. I blame my half-white genes for the miscalculation.
For the last week I've run anywhere from 4-5.4 miles per day. I’ve been trying to follow the Haruki Murakami rule—never take two days off in a row. While I wasn’t very good about it for the first 3 weeks, recently I’ve been kind of getting in the groove. I’m also beginning to appreciate the Thames, the Isis, whatever you want to call it, a little bit more. It’s fun watching punting tourists in boats play ping-pong with concrete embankments. I'll have to take a picture at some point. Anyway, it’s nice running weather here in England. For the most part it’s overcast with a pleasant breeze to cool me off. Do you know the best part of running? Weaving through pedestrians in a crowded street. It’s like a game of Frogger where the trucks move really really slow and the worst thing that happens if you run into one is that they cuss you out (not that that’s happened to me). I promise you, it’s extremely enjoyable. Haruki Murakami is a freak by the way. He ran an ultra-marathon. That’s right, 100 kilometers. For all you people who don’t use the metric system, that’s 62.14 miles. His book, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is an extremely interesting self-portrait centered around how a number of descriptions of running and observations about how running has impacted his life as a writer. There are lots of interested autobiographical tidbits in there too though I’m sure some of his stories are embellished.
WOHOO MORE BASKETBALL STUFF!! I've been receiving so many excited comments that I just had to write another section on basketball.
Here is your FIBA USA roster: Chauncey Billups, Tyson Chandler, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay, Eric Gordon, Danny Granger, Jeff Green, Andre Iguodala, Brook Lopez, Kevin Love, Lamar Odom, Derrick Rose, and Russell Westbrook (3 have to be cut before the opening game on August 28th). That’s right, they have 4 players who were on the 2010 All Star Team as opposed to 8 players from the Redeem Team (not to mention they had all the biggest names in basketball. Lebron, Kobe, D-Wade, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, etc.). The FIBA roster presents all sorts of interesting possibilities. Apparently Krzyzewski plans to play small ball, using either Lamar Odom or Tyson Chandler at center and having the other four be an interchangeable lineup of uber-quick guards that apply a ridiculous amount of pressure to opposing ball handlers. The USA guards are a nightmare. You have Rondo, Iguodala, Derrick Rose, and Russell Westbrook, 4 of the hardest players to guard in the NBA as a result of their ridiculous speed. Furthermore, each of them is an incredible tough on the ball defender. While none of them is known for their outside shooting, every time they get a rebound or an outlet pass (they also are some of the best rebounding guards in the game) they have the ability to outrun the other team to the basket. This team will be constantly stealing the ball, creating such fastbreak opportunities. Let me give you the guard breakdown.
Stephen Curry—1.9 steals per game
Rajon Rondo—1.9 steals per game
Iguodala—1.7 steals per game
Russell Westbrook—1.3
Eric Gordon—1.1
Chauncey Billups—1.0
Derrick Rose—0.8
Kevin Durant—1.4 (he plays shooting guard, not sure he counts though)
In short, this team has incredible athleticism and incredible speed. They will have to rely on gang rebounding to hold up against bigger opponents, but each time they do get a rebound, they will be halfway down the court before the other team can react. With Lamar Odom at center, every single player will be able to handle the ball. It will be interesting to see which 3 players get cut before the tourney. I really hope it is Stephen Curry. By the way, we haven't won FIBA since 1994. Who woulda thunk it.
Players to watch next season
These players each have shown flashes of brilliance last season. They are all guards. I really really really like each of them. This isn’t me saying “these guys are going to be All-Stars”, this is me saying “they have incredible potential and I really hope they do well”.
Goran Dragic—reputedly has a 37 inch vertical, 6’4 with a 6’7 wingspan, definitely has potential. Has an excellent Andre Miller ability to fake people out with spin moves low in the post, and is deceptively tall and athletic giving him the ability to quickly explode and get himself the shot in the midst of other taller defenders. Scored 23 in the fourth quarter against the Spurs in game 3 of the playoffs, is mentored by Steve Nash. If he can improve his confidence, he is a deadly scorer with an impressive array of crafty moves.
Rodrigue Beaubois—This guy is unbelievable. To give an idea of how unbelievable he is, he averaged 50% from the field, 40% from the three point line, and 80% from the free throw line. As a Rookie. As a Rookie with a 6’10 wingspan (he’s 6’2) and a 40 inch vertical. He is probably one of the fastest players in the NBA right now (dribbling 94 feet) along with Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Ty Lawson, etc. (Devin Harris has the World Record, he dribbled the length of the court in 3.9 seconds. I’m pretty sure some of the players above could beat that). In recap, this kid is fast, unbelievably athletic, and is a pure shooter. Nobody shoots 50% from the field as a rookie. Nobody shoots 40% from the 3 point line as a rookie. He has done both while recording a respectable 80% from the line.
Stephen Curry—I love this kid (he is a year older than me, but whatever). Adjust statistics for the “On the Warriors in Don Nelson’s system” bias.
Statline—wow. 5.9 assists, 4.5 rebounds, 1.9 steals, 17.5 points. As a rookie. Curry is going to be a great NBA player.
80 77 36.2 .462 .437 .885 4.5 5.9 1.9 .2 17.5
His EFG (take into account that the 3 point shot is worth more—33% 3 point FG is the same as 50% 2 point FG) is .535. He broke the rookie record for most three point field goals ever (166) shooting .437%. This kid is unbelievable. He has a chance to become the greatest shooter who ever played. While he is isn’t a jaw dropping athletic specimen, he makes up for it with smarts and quickness.
By the way, the Warriors actually have a respectable starting lineup consisting of Curry, Ellis, Lee, and Biedrins. I don’t know enough to say who will play SF. While they are still undersized and poor defensively, Biedrins is a good shot blocker who should be able to let the guards cheat a bit. Both Ellis and Curry are adept at ball thievery, recording 2.2 and 1.9 steals respectively. The Warriors probably won’t be winning any championships but they sure will be entertaining.
Tomorrow is the Cotswold trip. I promised my parents I'd take pictures. There should be another post up sometime tomorrow night. Also, tune in tomorrow for buskers part 2. I might even talk about the 2 As You Like It performances I saw.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Ok. Part 1 is a poorly written, unorganized review of Inception. Part 2 more of the same ole' day to day.
PART 1
I tried to write this post a couple of hours ago and found I couldn’t really get beyond hysterical exclamations of “that was so freakin awesome” and “wow that movie totally blew my mind”. I calmed down after a couple of minutes then frantically ran screaming back towards the local cinema, praying that there was a show time within the next five minutes. There wasn’t, so, dejectedly, I stumbled my way back to my room. It is my goal to try and write a review of this movie that coolly, objectively examines which aspects of the film succeed and which don’t. Here’s a spoiler—I believe this film succeeds. Another spoiler. In order for any of this post to make sense you probably will need to have seen the movie first. It still probably won’t make sense. Whatever. You can skip straight to the end of the post where I talk about how much I miss playing guitar.
I would like to address some prospective critiques of the movie:
1—the characters are pretty much caricatures created solely for the purpose of allowing a bunch of crazy special effects to be made into a movie. They don’t develop and they don’t have unique personalities. If you exchanged one character for any other, the movie wouldn’t be changed in any significant way.
2—the dreamscape that Nolan creates is far too rigid and structured. It follows too closely the actual rules of the real world to be an effective artistic representation of being in a dream. Fair enough.
3—the movie is overburdened by the complexity of the plot. This results in far too much expositional dialogue. Sure.
Now I will try to argue against each point (to varying degrees of effectiveness, I’m sure) in sequence.
1—I felt the human component was actually one of the most effective parts of the movie. In fact, Inception felt a lot like Shutter Island. In both films, the audience is given, bit by bit, pieces of information about the protagonist (played, in both films, by Leonardo DiCaprio). In both films, the audience is constantly forced to question what is real and what isn’t. In both films, much of the emotional pull of the story comes from the interaction between the main character, his deceased wife, and his children. In both cases the husband looks on as his wife becomes insane. Both movies make extensive use of flashbacks to develop the main character’s backstory. But I digress. Both films do it because it works. Call the emotional attachment with Cobb contrived (it effectively utilizes the “aww cute babies” syndrome, an irrational reaction to the sight of small children, to create a sympathetic main character). Call it cheap. After all, the entire movie works on the premise that Cobb, a man effectively banished from the United States, will try anything to get back to his children in America. Just don’t deny that it works. Everyone wants the father to be reunited with his kids. The motivation works. However, not much attention is given to the father / children relationship. Far more of the film fixates on the romantic relationship between him and his wife, beautifully and hauntingly portrayed by Marion Cotillard. This relationship focuses to a large degree on the disjoint between Cobb’s projection of his wife and what she actually was like (another similarity between Inception and Shutter Island). Again, the interaction between the characters works. Cotillard plays her role with the perfect mixture of insanity, sadness, charm, and allure (you’re going to have to see it to find how that mix plays out). DiCaprio does an excellent job, as usual, playing a man wracked with unresolved guilt. It works. The relationship works. The movie is initiated, driven, and concluded by Cobb’s relationship with his family. No, this is not an insightful examination of human psychology. Yes, it has fairly simple desires and motivations for its characters, paying a minimal amount of attention to creating well rounded human beings. Yes, it uses the most efficient means conceivable to connect with its audience (a husband lost his wife, a husband can’t see his children). Yes, characters coast on the charm of the actors rather than the emotional resonance of the script (Ellen Page is very very very charming). And yes, despite all my previous qualifications, this movie works. People were getting weepy (maybe it was just me) by the end of the film. In my book that’s a resounding success.
2—Nolan wasn’t trying to create a film with a dreamy, surreal aesthetic. He was trying to make an awesome science fiction movie that blew people’s minds and stuff. You can’t throw an audience into a completely unfamiliar world and expect them to follow you along through a complicated, intricate maze of plot. The world has to make sense. It has to be different enough from reality to be amazing and interesting yet understandable to the audience. In this movies case, the plot AND the world was extraordinarily complex. One of the most spectacular parts of the movie was that Nolan was able to extensively exposit while holding the interest of the audience and developing the bamboozling plot. There had to be strict rules to the dream world. The audience was expecting as much. It’s like Star Wars. Lasers don’t make sounds. Stuff exploding in space doesn’t make noise. However, it would be pretty dull to watch Star Wars without the zooming sounds and the zapping laser noises. The audience expects there to be sound, so there is sound. Similarly, the audience expects dreams to be fairly logical, with the exception of a twist. There should be one twist. Maybe everything is a different color or people wear bizarre costumes and play sports using hedgehogs as balls. In this movies case, the twist generally involves messing with gravity. It makes sense. It works. It gives the film a unique visual style while simultaneously allowing for the creation of tension through the character’s interactions with the dream world. It is unfamiliar enough to hold our attention and familiar enough not to completely baffle the us.
3—Yep, the movie is complicated. As previously mentioned, this film immerses the audience in an unfamiliar world with its own rules and boundaries. It is, at its most basic level, a heist film. Think about Ocean’s Eleven or something similar to that. The plan needs explaining. Something goes wrong when the plan is being executed. That thing ruins everything, forcing the characters to improvise. All the while, you are developing the characters, and in this case, fleshing out the backstory of Leonardo DiCaprio. It isn’t easy. It’s a juggling act trying to keep the plot moving, trying to explain the world, and trying to create a human connection with the main characters. This movie succeeds brilliantly where Avatar: The Last Airbender spectacularly failed. While at some points the movie loses the audience completely, we go along with the characters. We trust them enough to believe that when they spout nonsense they really know what they are talking about. We trust that they know what they are doing, even if we don’t quite understand. It works. When we are given individual pieces, individual cogs, we don’t understand what they do or where they go. When we have the entire watch, though, it all makes sense. Similarly, while some parts of the movie aren’t easily comprehensible (at some points the audience simply doesn’t have enough information or perspective to make sense of them), all the confusion is worth the moment when the pieces fit together at the end.
Enough of confusing and nonsensical thoughts about the movie (perfectly appropriate given the subject matter). Go see this film. Even if I was like really good at explaining stuff (which i'm not) I wouldn't be able to do justice to this movie.
PART 2
So far my brilliant deprivation strategy has been working well. I have been quite impressed at how much I've written (I probably have written over 5000 words for classes not to mention my sblagh and various other writings) and read (again, lots and lots) now that I have left my beautiful guitar all by herself. However, such deprivation comes at a price—I am experiencing withdrawal symptoms. In my desperation to play guitar I keep getting these urges to:
1-Accost a busker, stealing his/her (yes, I would steal from a woman) guitar, running away, hoping I don’t get caught, and spending the rest of my trip locked up in my room annoying all my hall mates and probably everyone in the entire building
2-Pay a busker, asking them to lend me their guitar for at least an hour and promising them the proceeds from my busking
3-Pay a ridiculous amount of money to take a bus to London, find a music shop (To my knowledge there are no instrument stores within something like a 15 mile radius. I checked online, though I could be wrong), hide somewhere (maybe in the bass section, no one is likely to check there) until closing time, and spend a blissful 30 minutes playing until someone notices the sound and calls the fuzz. Maybe they’ll let me keep the guitar while I’m in jail.
4-Build my own guitar out of pencils and rubber bands. Unfortunately, I was never really good at building anything except awesome improvised Lego structures. Maybe I could build a guitar out of Legos instead. Hrm.
Luckily I have an assortment of delightful distractions to temporarily pacify my horrible longings. So far, these have included sleeping, writing songs for my guitar, writing in my sblagh how much I miss my guitar, day dreaming about my guitar, banging my head against the wall until I knock myself unconscious (so I don’t have to think about how I can’t play my guitar), watching hours of How I Met Your Mother and pretending that I am Ted and my guitar is, well, The Mother, reading horribly sad short stories about music (Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro, highly recommended), and walking around searching for romantic vistas by the riverside, candlelit balconies, and open windows for heartbroken sighs and wistful stares.
*Sigh*
Oh I forgot. Jeremy Lin signed with the Warriors. Here's the story and a nice little video interview.
http://www.nba.com/2010/news/07/21/warriors.lin.ap/index.html
PART 1
I tried to write this post a couple of hours ago and found I couldn’t really get beyond hysterical exclamations of “that was so freakin awesome” and “wow that movie totally blew my mind”. I calmed down after a couple of minutes then frantically ran screaming back towards the local cinema, praying that there was a show time within the next five minutes. There wasn’t, so, dejectedly, I stumbled my way back to my room. It is my goal to try and write a review of this movie that coolly, objectively examines which aspects of the film succeed and which don’t. Here’s a spoiler—I believe this film succeeds. Another spoiler. In order for any of this post to make sense you probably will need to have seen the movie first. It still probably won’t make sense. Whatever. You can skip straight to the end of the post where I talk about how much I miss playing guitar.
I would like to address some prospective critiques of the movie:
1—the characters are pretty much caricatures created solely for the purpose of allowing a bunch of crazy special effects to be made into a movie. They don’t develop and they don’t have unique personalities. If you exchanged one character for any other, the movie wouldn’t be changed in any significant way.
2—the dreamscape that Nolan creates is far too rigid and structured. It follows too closely the actual rules of the real world to be an effective artistic representation of being in a dream. Fair enough.
3—the movie is overburdened by the complexity of the plot. This results in far too much expositional dialogue. Sure.
Now I will try to argue against each point (to varying degrees of effectiveness, I’m sure) in sequence.
1—I felt the human component was actually one of the most effective parts of the movie. In fact, Inception felt a lot like Shutter Island. In both films, the audience is given, bit by bit, pieces of information about the protagonist (played, in both films, by Leonardo DiCaprio). In both films, the audience is constantly forced to question what is real and what isn’t. In both films, much of the emotional pull of the story comes from the interaction between the main character, his deceased wife, and his children. In both cases the husband looks on as his wife becomes insane. Both movies make extensive use of flashbacks to develop the main character’s backstory. But I digress. Both films do it because it works. Call the emotional attachment with Cobb contrived (it effectively utilizes the “aww cute babies” syndrome, an irrational reaction to the sight of small children, to create a sympathetic main character). Call it cheap. After all, the entire movie works on the premise that Cobb, a man effectively banished from the United States, will try anything to get back to his children in America. Just don’t deny that it works. Everyone wants the father to be reunited with his kids. The motivation works. However, not much attention is given to the father / children relationship. Far more of the film fixates on the romantic relationship between him and his wife, beautifully and hauntingly portrayed by Marion Cotillard. This relationship focuses to a large degree on the disjoint between Cobb’s projection of his wife and what she actually was like (another similarity between Inception and Shutter Island). Again, the interaction between the characters works. Cotillard plays her role with the perfect mixture of insanity, sadness, charm, and allure (you’re going to have to see it to find how that mix plays out). DiCaprio does an excellent job, as usual, playing a man wracked with unresolved guilt. It works. The relationship works. The movie is initiated, driven, and concluded by Cobb’s relationship with his family. No, this is not an insightful examination of human psychology. Yes, it has fairly simple desires and motivations for its characters, paying a minimal amount of attention to creating well rounded human beings. Yes, it uses the most efficient means conceivable to connect with its audience (a husband lost his wife, a husband can’t see his children). Yes, characters coast on the charm of the actors rather than the emotional resonance of the script (Ellen Page is very very very charming). And yes, despite all my previous qualifications, this movie works. People were getting weepy (maybe it was just me) by the end of the film. In my book that’s a resounding success.
2—Nolan wasn’t trying to create a film with a dreamy, surreal aesthetic. He was trying to make an awesome science fiction movie that blew people’s minds and stuff. You can’t throw an audience into a completely unfamiliar world and expect them to follow you along through a complicated, intricate maze of plot. The world has to make sense. It has to be different enough from reality to be amazing and interesting yet understandable to the audience. In this movies case, the plot AND the world was extraordinarily complex. One of the most spectacular parts of the movie was that Nolan was able to extensively exposit while holding the interest of the audience and developing the bamboozling plot. There had to be strict rules to the dream world. The audience was expecting as much. It’s like Star Wars. Lasers don’t make sounds. Stuff exploding in space doesn’t make noise. However, it would be pretty dull to watch Star Wars without the zooming sounds and the zapping laser noises. The audience expects there to be sound, so there is sound. Similarly, the audience expects dreams to be fairly logical, with the exception of a twist. There should be one twist. Maybe everything is a different color or people wear bizarre costumes and play sports using hedgehogs as balls. In this movies case, the twist generally involves messing with gravity. It makes sense. It works. It gives the film a unique visual style while simultaneously allowing for the creation of tension through the character’s interactions with the dream world. It is unfamiliar enough to hold our attention and familiar enough not to completely baffle the us.
3—Yep, the movie is complicated. As previously mentioned, this film immerses the audience in an unfamiliar world with its own rules and boundaries. It is, at its most basic level, a heist film. Think about Ocean’s Eleven or something similar to that. The plan needs explaining. Something goes wrong when the plan is being executed. That thing ruins everything, forcing the characters to improvise. All the while, you are developing the characters, and in this case, fleshing out the backstory of Leonardo DiCaprio. It isn’t easy. It’s a juggling act trying to keep the plot moving, trying to explain the world, and trying to create a human connection with the main characters. This movie succeeds brilliantly where Avatar: The Last Airbender spectacularly failed. While at some points the movie loses the audience completely, we go along with the characters. We trust them enough to believe that when they spout nonsense they really know what they are talking about. We trust that they know what they are doing, even if we don’t quite understand. It works. When we are given individual pieces, individual cogs, we don’t understand what they do or where they go. When we have the entire watch, though, it all makes sense. Similarly, while some parts of the movie aren’t easily comprehensible (at some points the audience simply doesn’t have enough information or perspective to make sense of them), all the confusion is worth the moment when the pieces fit together at the end.
Enough of confusing and nonsensical thoughts about the movie (perfectly appropriate given the subject matter). Go see this film. Even if I was like really good at explaining stuff (which i'm not) I wouldn't be able to do justice to this movie.
PART 2
So far my brilliant deprivation strategy has been working well. I have been quite impressed at how much I've written (I probably have written over 5000 words for classes not to mention my sblagh and various other writings) and read (again, lots and lots) now that I have left my beautiful guitar all by herself. However, such deprivation comes at a price—I am experiencing withdrawal symptoms. In my desperation to play guitar I keep getting these urges to:
1-Accost a busker, stealing his/her (yes, I would steal from a woman) guitar, running away, hoping I don’t get caught, and spending the rest of my trip locked up in my room annoying all my hall mates and probably everyone in the entire building
2-Pay a busker, asking them to lend me their guitar for at least an hour and promising them the proceeds from my busking
3-Pay a ridiculous amount of money to take a bus to London, find a music shop (To my knowledge there are no instrument stores within something like a 15 mile radius. I checked online, though I could be wrong), hide somewhere (maybe in the bass section, no one is likely to check there) until closing time, and spend a blissful 30 minutes playing until someone notices the sound and calls the fuzz. Maybe they’ll let me keep the guitar while I’m in jail.
4-Build my own guitar out of pencils and rubber bands. Unfortunately, I was never really good at building anything except awesome improvised Lego structures. Maybe I could build a guitar out of Legos instead. Hrm.
Luckily I have an assortment of delightful distractions to temporarily pacify my horrible longings. So far, these have included sleeping, writing songs for my guitar, writing in my sblagh how much I miss my guitar, day dreaming about my guitar, banging my head against the wall until I knock myself unconscious (so I don’t have to think about how I can’t play my guitar), watching hours of How I Met Your Mother and pretending that I am Ted and my guitar is, well, The Mother, reading horribly sad short stories about music (Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro, highly recommended), and walking around searching for romantic vistas by the riverside, candlelit balconies, and open windows for heartbroken sighs and wistful stares.
*Sigh*
Oh I forgot. Jeremy Lin signed with the Warriors. Here's the story and a nice little video interview.
http://www.nba.com/2010/news/07/21/warriors.lin.ap/index.html
Friday, July 23, 2010
I get misty as time goes by
Today I ate a Cornish pasty, read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and alternately sat and stood on Cornmarket listening to an amazing jazz guitarist. He was a fifty five year old white male with a receding hairline, a charming smile, and thin rimmed golden glasses. He wasn’t flashy or amiable. He didn’t try to create any report with his audience. He just sat on his amp, playing a beautiful semi-hollow body guitar (I forgot the brand name) with unbelievable tone and precision. In fact, I can only remember three groups of people besides myself stopping for any extended period of time. The first was an elderly couple with what looked like an adopted Spanish child. She had long, straight hair and a radiant smile, and, though not especially interested in the guitar, willing tottered towards the side of the street where the man had stationed himself. She shyly placed fifty pence on top of the soft black guitar case, giggled a little bit, and ran back to her parents. The second person to stop was a sweaty, red faced business man in a suit. He tossed a pound in the case and, after listening for a while, walked away with a purposeful stride, eyes and countenance steeled as if daring an unlucky tourist to get in his way. Finally, a couple in their late twenties or early thirties stood next to my spot in the middle of street, stopping for a while to sway back and forth, hands clasped, to an elegant arrangement of “Misty”.
He wasn’t exactly a stage presence or an arresting performer. He just sat on his small, portable Roland amp (it had a surprisingly full-bodied sound with just the right amount of reverb) tapping his left foot and effortlessly playing a tasteful set made up of jazz standards and classical pieces. His glasses inevitably slid down to the end of his nose during songs, forcing him readjust them after each piece. I was only one clapping during the intermissions. I clapped very loudly, drawing more annoyed glances from the smorgasbord of European tourists. He even mumbled “thank you” a couple of times, probably to stop me from clapping so he could play his next song.
I didn’t plan on staying long. I wanted to get some more reading done and maybe take a nap. Each time I started to leave, though, he would play a song I recognized and loved. Each time, he would play something that held a very special meaning, something I resonated with strongly. He played “As Time Goes By”, the song from Casablanca which was also heavily referenced in one of my favorite Woody Allen movies, Play it Again, Sam. He played “Girl from Ipanema”, the first bossa nova song I learned on guitar. Finally, he played “Eyes on Me”, the love song from Final Fantasy VIII. It was like he was reading my mind or something. Well, not quite, or he would have played “Moonglow”. I’m not complaining though.
He wasn’t exactly a stage presence or an arresting performer. He just sat on his small, portable Roland amp (it had a surprisingly full-bodied sound with just the right amount of reverb) tapping his left foot and effortlessly playing a tasteful set made up of jazz standards and classical pieces. His glasses inevitably slid down to the end of his nose during songs, forcing him readjust them after each piece. I was only one clapping during the intermissions. I clapped very loudly, drawing more annoyed glances from the smorgasbord of European tourists. He even mumbled “thank you” a couple of times, probably to stop me from clapping so he could play his next song.
I didn’t plan on staying long. I wanted to get some more reading done and maybe take a nap. Each time I started to leave, though, he would play a song I recognized and loved. Each time, he would play something that held a very special meaning, something I resonated with strongly. He played “As Time Goes By”, the song from Casablanca which was also heavily referenced in one of my favorite Woody Allen movies, Play it Again, Sam. He played “Girl from Ipanema”, the first bossa nova song I learned on guitar. Finally, he played “Eyes on Me”, the love song from Final Fantasy VIII. It was like he was reading my mind or something. Well, not quite, or he would have played “Moonglow”. I’m not complaining though.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Daniel Gilham: Budding Enologist
I’ve decided not to drink alcohol while at British Studies mostly because I’m not sure I’ll be able to survive nearly two whole months of being sober after I return to the States (my birthday is in October). So, in the tedious hours, days, weeks, and months of not being drunk, I have decided to exercise my already cultured and sensitive palate by tasting various foreign carbonated beverages and remarking briefly upon their flavor. It's kind of like training for when I consume large quantities of cheap, potent alcohol in the not too distance future.
This subtle yet bold vintage is marked by its expressive aroma, cheerful effervescence and excellent integration. The aftertaste is rather delicate making for an interesting contrast between the projective, vegetal composition and the complex finish.
This dry, woody, vintage seems to be largely derivative of the Shiraz variety of grape. Characterized especially by its depth and excellent definition, this pungent nectar has a rather aggressive, lingering finish remincescent of cat pee.
This reticent specimen was distinguished by it’s the inclusion of some residual carbonic gas, adding a pleasant tickle to the peppery flavor. Had a rather aggressively saccharine conclusion after the initially elusive attack.
I have one. When and why, Daniel, did we start calling rich chocolate confections decadent?? It doesn't make any sense!! What is decaying?? Why do we use a word that has a negative connotation to describe something as delicious as German Chocolate Cake?? In a similar vein, why do people call food sinful (the girls at my table couldn't stop talking about how sinful the food was even though I was pretty sure it just was sitting on their plates the whole time)??
I have no idea.
Speaking of food, I found a really good Thai restaurant in the area too. Green Curry fried rice is like, sinful and stuff.
This subtle yet bold vintage is marked by its expressive aroma, cheerful effervescence and excellent integration. The aftertaste is rather delicate making for an interesting contrast between the projective, vegetal composition and the complex finish.
This dry, woody, vintage seems to be largely derivative of the Shiraz variety of grape. Characterized especially by its depth and excellent definition, this pungent nectar has a rather aggressive, lingering finish remincescent of cat pee.
This rather unusual specimen, clearly one of the sweeter “doux” varieties, has a distinctive but balanced bite, evoking a mixed body of both eucalyptus leaves and freshly cut grass. It is rather stalky, finishing cleanly with a vivid, defined zip.
This vintage was both flat and lopsided. For the most part, the barely perceptible hints of almond and vanilla were dominated by the coarse, bitter feel. Its one redeeming quality was the pleasant, earthy, mineral aftertaste.
This reticent specimen was distinguished by it’s the inclusion of some residual carbonic gas, adding a pleasant tickle to the peppery flavor. Had a rather aggressively saccharine conclusion after the initially elusive attack.
Meaty, voluptuous, expressive, and alcoholic. Characterized by its striking aroma of spices and tobacco, the initially pleasant vintage was rudely interrupted by an overpowering chemical taste. It did have a rather soft finish though, rescuing an otherwise unpalatable selection.
I have one. When and why, Daniel, did we start calling rich chocolate confections decadent?? It doesn't make any sense!! What is decaying?? Why do we use a word that has a negative connotation to describe something as delicious as German Chocolate Cake?? In a similar vein, why do people call food sinful (the girls at my table couldn't stop talking about how sinful the food was even though I was pretty sure it just was sitting on their plates the whole time)??
I have no idea.
Speaking of food, I found a really good Thai restaurant in the area too. Green Curry fried rice is like, sinful and stuff.
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