Sense of Adventure » Music

The Real Secret

Victor — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 21:31:03 +0000

… To success in writing. Also, all of life.

It’s here in the refrain. Listen:

Seriously. That’s it. Persevere. Everything else is secondary.

I love this song (which you may buy right here), as you may guess. Also I like They Might Be Giants in general.

Even back before my late unpleasantness last year, when I was still stuck in a mire from which I could not extricate myself, the chorus “I get knocked down, but I get up again/You’re never gonna keep me down” helped me keep me going. Long enough to be given the amazing gift of a chance to heal.

And that’s notwithstanding that I don’t drink alcohol. Except for a single glass of red wine to mark important passages in my life.

(Seems to me I’m due another one of those real soon now, come to think of it.)

The song’s Wikipedia entry mentions that both Rolling Stone and AOL Radio – that’s actually a thing? – rated the original “Tubthumping” among the Most Annoying Songs. For me that’s just value added, that it annoys such notable dogwhistles. Also, is it just me, or does somebody who works for AOL – A-O-L – castigating something as being among the “worst ever” display just an epic lack of self-awareness?

Also, per HuffPo, “If the sight of a roomful of twentysomething bloggers bobbing their head to They Might Be Giants playing a hit song from 1997 doesn’t bring you joy, the Internet has failed.”

Anyway: watch. Listen. Enjoy. Learn.

And by all means feel free to hop up and down and bob your head!

Oh, we like sheep!

Victor — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:21:25 +0000

My Christmas Day was made when, driving over to John and Gail Miller’s for Christmas dinner in early afternoon and hearing the last part of Handel’s Messiah on the radio, I discovered the chorus for part of it was, “Oh, we like sheep.”

Pictured: sheep

Oh, you do, do you?

Of course, I know the real lyric was “Oh we, like sheep” – punctuation matters! But I heard it the other way.

I wanted to. It was much funnier that way. And in all fairness, it did sound as if they were singing that they liked sheep.

I had a very good Christmas; hope you did too.

Dinner was great – turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, the works. John’s mother and aunt were there, as well as their friend Lynn Kaczor, who was supposed to be off visiting family. As I understand it, weather happened.

After dinner John’s mom and aunt took off. We watched the Alistair Sim A Christmas Carol, which wasn’t bad (the story’s not my favorite.)

The highlight of the afternoon was when Gail gave their cat Archie some of the home-grown catnip Lynn brought. Archie gobbled it right down. Then he dove in and rolled in it, getting big chunks all over his fur. Then he rolled on his back and rubbed it all over his big round face with his paws.

He looked like a 1980′s waterbed magnate who’d spilled his cocaine. It was great.

After the movie I went over to Steve and Kathy Kubica’s. ASFS stalwart Bill McClellan was there when I arrived. We were later joined by Craig Chrissinger and Jessica Coyle, then Kennard and Kristen Wilson – giving us the two co-chairs for Bubonicon 42 together in the room at the same time, a clear security risk. Lucky for us no provocateurs staged a terror attack.

We watched Castle, some Muppet shorts from the Web, and opened presents. Then we watched a Rifftrax of some old Christmas short films. All of which was mightily enjoyable.

So: good day, good food, good fun, good people. I got back to my animals and my “tree” – a foot-tall conical rosemary bush in a pot – just before midnight. An excellent Christmas Day, I’d say.

Hope you had a good one, too.

I really love and appreciate my friends, both human and animal. Thanks for being there for me. That really is my best Christmas present, always.

Bombay Calling!

Victor — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:43:18 +0000

But first, since we needs more graphics on this site, and also since I’ve been dying to post this:

Japan welcomes its robot overlords

Hat tip to Katherine Mangu-Ward at reason.

What’s it got to do with the subject of this post? Well, accomplished rationalizer that I am (it’s a living), I could spin you a mighty explanation about how it pertains to technology and globalization in our modern world. The truth: nothing!

And yes, I know we’re now supposed to call it Mumbai, not Bombay. Bear with me. And always remember: we do digression right! And by “right,” I mean “compulsively.”

What this is all really about is that my phone, hence Internet, service blinked out an hour or two ago. Yes, I suffer from the Heartbreak of Dial-Up. A connection I need to correct here, directly. *Sigh*: it still must wait its turn.

I had no dial tone, either inside the house or at the box in the back. To quote Mojo Jojo, “Curses.” So I called Qwest tech support.

Which connected me with a rather obviously Indian gentleman. That’s subcontinental, not American. After hearing my piteous plaint, he asked if I’d tried calling my landline from my cell phone.

“No,” I admitted. “There didn’t seem much point if I didn’t get a dial tone.”

So he bade me Hold while he called, and I Held, and lo! the phone did ring.

The first time I picked it up I got nothing – although I also didn’t get that utter leaden anechoic deadness when the line is just plain out. I hung up. The phone rang again, and this time I had a connection!

So we’re back in business for now. And I have to get broadband. Arrgh!

Anyway, the reason I named the post as I did is that the incident put me in mind of a classic rock song which you’ve never heard of, “Bombay Calling,” by the sadly overlooked late 1960s/early 1970s group It’s a Beautiful Day. It’s great in itself, a smokin’ four miunute instrumental. Moreover it provided the inspiration (by which I think they meant, “all of the notes”) for one of my all-time favorite songs: Deep Purple’s classic “Child in Time,” which I’m listening to as I type this.

Yes, kids, I know dinosaurs and humans didn’t walk the Earth at the same time. I’d remember.

So anyway – that’s what’s happening. Now to put on pants (“Welcome to TMI Theatre!”), grab Emma, and head out to the Nature Center for a walk while there’s still some daylight yet.

Everybody’s a critic (Emma Dog Edition!)

Victor — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:16:17 +0000

So the other night I went to dinner with some of the usual ASFS suspects (you know who you are.) As a couple of us sat at India Palace, a fine Burque eating establishment, waiting for the rest of the party to turn up, we really liked the music playing over the speakers. It was jaunty, clearly Eastern with more than a hint of Western rock and pop. So we asked what it was.

The waiters, who seem, huge surprise, to be East Indian themselves (a necessary distinction around here, for what should be obvious reasons) were bemused by our question. We were not hugely surprised when they told us it was the soundtrack of a Bollywood movie called Fanaa.

I was pleased to find it available on eMusic, the DRM-free music download service I subscribe to, which has a great selection if you don’t insist on the current chart toppers. (Another huge surprise: I don’t.) So I went ahead and used seven of my monthly DLs to snag it.

Having downloaded it overnight I just put it on WinAmp on my notebook PC, as I sit here on the couth in the living room. Emma lay snoozing on the floor by the other sofa – she’s usually outside this time of day; I think the wind bugs her. Me too.

No sooner did the music start to play than she lifted her head, gave me a reproachful look (which she does really, really well) over her shoulder, got up, and took herself off to the office and the sanctuary of her pen. So much for Indian music!

I have no idea what bothers her about it. It’s not playing loud – that isn’t exactly in my PC speakers, although their sound quality is surprisingly not-bad. Nor does it have any particularly jarring or unearthly components. None in my range of hearing, anyway, which of course isn’t that of a dog, nor even what it was when I was younger, sadly. Did they put scurrilous anti-canine messages on the tracks, at a frequency only dogs can hear?

As for the soundtrack, you couldn’t prove by me it was what I heard the other night, although I can’t imagine why they’d misinform me. They could always have been mistaken. Or it could be the same: I don’t remember all that well. (Although the song playing now, “Destroyed in Love (Lounge Remix)” does sound kinda familiar. Oddly it’s track #5, and I thought I heard it toward the beginning. Oh, well.) But the album is sparky and jaunty and appealing, as so much of Bollywood music seems to be, and I like it – especially for a buck seventy-five – so I can’t say I regret the DL.

Sadly, it would appear Emma does.

BTW, Amazon offers several different CDs of this, all with different ASIN numbers and identical tracks. I have no idea.

Update: Jesus Christ! Check out these synopses for the movie! It turns out to be a cheery musical comedy about – horribly blighted young love. Oh, and nuclear terrorism.

Just your standard Bollywood flick!

Meanwhile, Emma seems to be spending a lot of time in her pen these last few days. Yet I haven’t been stamping and blaspheming all that much. I’m a tad concerned about the tyke.