Image via WikipediaDMc tagged me with the latest music blog game going around:
“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now.”
There’s a generosity about those instructions, isn’t there? An inclusiveness: any genre, words or no. The songs don’t even have to be good. But do they have to be songs? Or even music? Can they be any media I’m enjoying?
Why not? This is the internet, so I’m going to do what I want. I’m taking some liberties with the rules and changing them completely.
So here are the seven that I’m truly enjoying right now:
How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria? I started watching the CBC show for two reasons: 1. I love Gavin Crawford. 2. My daughter is obsessed with musicals in general and the Sound of Music in particular. Now I find I’ve developed an unlikely crush on Simon Lee who radiates enthusiasm and positive energy.
Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller documents the lives of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and Carole King. It’s a great read and nice and thick. As I read, I’m revisiting the work of all three singer-songwriters. Joni’s Coyote is currently in heavy rotation.
Twitter continues to obsess me. It’s like catching snatches 
While we’re on online stuff, I’ve been trying out Zemanta, a blogger’s tool that finds you links and images to use in your posts. So far, I like it.
My friend Bobby recently gave me Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show which is a great dvd set. I have been staying up late into the night working my way through some great episodes of the series. The special features are amazing. I loved Garry Shandling’s boxing match with Alec Baldwin.
And how great is YouTube? It just gets better and better. Want to learn about the open tuning on Cold Play’s Yellow or how to do a twisted cable cast on? Want to catch Jerry Seinfeld telling Letterman about the woman who’s suing his wife or see the switch hitter face off against the switch batter? It’s all there — at least for a while. YouTube is now sitting alongside Google for me in the “how did we have a conversation before it came along” category. On the downside is the annoyance factor of when the video gets removed after you’ve blogged it.
The final item in my seven is the original topic for this blog: pilots. Thanks to the wonders of the web I have incredible advance access to the US fall season. I have a stack of pilot scripts and now the preair leakage is starting to drip through. I’m particularly looking forward to Pretty Handsome which I hear is great and Steven Bochco’s new series Raising the Bar.
And those are my seven according to my revised rules:
“List seven entertainments you are into right now. No matter what the genre or medium, or even if they’re not any good, just so long as you’re really enjoying them now.”
Now for the tagging. Denis and Will, if you’d care to replay with the new rules, please do. Bill and Robbo I know you’ll have something interesting to add.
Robbo
Seven things that entertain. Hmmm. That’s a good thing to contemplate.
The internet itself is a bit broad but I do tend to just bathe and wallow in it like a warthog at the muddy watering hole. Idly surfing and following unexpected links – convincing myself that this exercise in polymathematics will render me a better person – or at least a more trivially informed better person.
The recent passing of George Carlin naturally brought his works back to my attention – although they’ve never been far from my grasp.
Music. Robbie Williams’ tunes have been worming their way into my head via the old scratched up iPod I cram into my pocket along with my keys, jack-knife and other MacGyver essentials. When strolling through Parkdale you must be prepared for any eventuality including being able to skin and gut a squirrel whilst bopping to the heavy dance beat of “Love Supreme” or “I Just Want To Rock”. I always use the Ramones afterwards to cleanse the urge to dance.
I’m wracking my brain to think of anything from television I could include in this list and absolutely nothing comes to mind.
Radio. Tom Allen’s show “Music & Company” on CBC – every morning, without fail. I’m going to be sad when that goes off the air. Why is it that anything that works is immediately deemed unnecessary by the CBC and yanked? And they canceled “Search Engine” too, the slimy craven bastards. Don’t get me started. Grrrrrr.
Does food count as “media”? I think it should. It’s certainly entertaining. Bacon and cantaloupe. Of course, anything with bacon on it is a gift from the gods. Socks with bacon – yummy. Cantaloupe, or any melon for that matter, is not only refreshing and tasty it’s also incredibly loaded with all the good stuff your body needs – but I enjoy it anyway. There’s also a recipe for Tuscan Grilled rabbit I’m dying to try out.
Books. I have way too many books stacked and scattered next to my bed, across my desk, under the couch and in every other nook and cranny of the house – I actually left one in the fridge in a moment of pre-alzheimers dementia. Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future Of The Internet: And How To Stop It” is getting the most attention. I’m re-reading Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy and Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Trilogy – so there’s a system of threes working somewhere in my alleged mind. A bunch of other crap I dip into whenever I have a moment. Frank Darabont’s unproduced Indiana Jones script was a fun read. And I’m enjoying Henry’s subscription to “MAD Magazine”.
Movies. Iron Man. Iron Man. Iron Man. Saw it in the theatres, watched it again last night at home, can’t get enough of it. I’ll be my usual sucker self and buy every special edition DVD that comes out. I’ve been re-discovering a bunch of old classic films (silents and early talkies) through archive.org, TCM and the torrent sites.
More music. Sondheim, oddly enough. Caught the Tony Awards and cheered for Patti Lupone – and then Mandy Patinkin read Sondheim’s acceptance of his lifetime achievement award and his way with words once again impressed the hell out of me as he described his playwright collaborators: “They invent. They make whole cloth out of nothing. They make a hat where there never was a hat.” Brilliant. The Tonys are the best awards show to watch because the winners are always, without exception, literate, erudite and entertaining. The next day browsed through the Pirate Bay to see what broadway material was available. It was good for my soul to see “Into The Woods” again.
Henry. He’s not a form of media but he can be just as distracting. He’s off school now and I’ve promised to use him as an apprentice in my summer shoots. So when he’s not attending camp or raising hell with his friends he’ll be assisting me hauling cables, setting lights, wrangling props and whatever we can do to violate the child labour laws. It’ll be challenging (for both of us) but certainly entertaining.
Looking back over my list I see that I’ve come up with 9 distinct entertainments. The thought of being so thoroughly occupied has left me feeling spent and fatigued – I think I’ll go lie down and have a nap – which is number 10 on my list.
Cheers.
admin
I couldn’t agree more, especially about the bacon and melon. I have a particularly good watermelon in my fridge right now, perhaps the best watermelon I have ever bought.
Robbo
And speaking of bacon:
https://www.eatliver.com/
Chloe Perelgut
I can’t think of Seven Songs, but seeing HDYSAPLM in person is excellent. Check out cbc.ca/maria for tickets!