What Have I Been Doing for the Past Month?

More details to follow.

British Actor of the Month--Halloween Edition

I haven't blogged for months, and let's not even mention how long it's been since I've done British Actor of the Month, so I thought I'd better do one now before I get caught up in NaNoWriMo. And, who better to, shall we say, bring this feature back from the grave than

Christopher Lee

Lee will forever be remembered for playing the eponymous Count in Hammer Studios series of Dracula movies. The first film, a Technicolor reboot of Universal's take on Stoker's novel, was good though a little campy. The sequels get exponentially cheesier, but Lee's performance, which finds the right blend of suave, sexy sophistication and mise en mastication, saves the films from being really bad instead of just pretty bad. The chemistry between him and real life BFF Peter Cushing as Van Helsing in several of the films is the highlight of the series.

However, Lee played other villains for Hammer as well, including the Creature in Curse of Frankenstein and the Mummy in, well, I'm sure you can figure that one out. But, arguably, his best role (and Hammer's best film) was in the cult classic The Wicker Man where he played the affably evil (or morally gray area-ed, depending on your point of view) Lord Summerile, leader of a Scottish island that still follows the old ways.

Contemporary audience might recognize Lee from his role as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. That's cool in and of itself, but Lee is a huge LotR fan himself since he reads it at least once a year and has actually met Tolkien. Now that's some serious nerd cred!

Normally I'm loathe to admit that the Star Wars prequels exist, but I have to mention Lee's role as Count Dooku (An evil count whose name begins with "D." I wonder where they got that idea?) in Episode II and III. Which is pretty cool in and of itself, but it gets cooler when you find out he did his own sword, er, light-saber work. And did I mention that he was in his 80s when he made the last movie?

Sure, you probably know that Lee played Bond villain Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, but did you know that he was in a super-secret special ops unit in World War II? Or that his cousin is Ian Fleming? That's right, Christopher Lee may very well be the real-life inspiration for James Bond.

Finally, Lee has one of the most distinctive voices in cinema. His rich, commanding tones have made him a voice-over staple for cartoons and video games like Kingdom Hearts. Plus, it makes him easy to spot in his many Tim Burton cameos and adds that little something extra to all the roles listed above. Apparently, he can sing, too, and has recorded a heavy metal concept album.

I'd like to wish all my readers a happy Halloween. Whether you're out trick-or-treating or bar crawling this night, stay safe. Don't accidentally cut yourself and bleed on unconsecrated ground. You never know who--or what--may have been staked there.

Banned Books Week will soon be upon us again. Restricting access to books and other works of art is one of the sneakiest--and most dangerous--attacks on your freedom. Here is the ALA's new list of the 100 most challenged books of the last decade.

1 Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
2 Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
3 The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier
4 And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
5 Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
6 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
7 Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
8 His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
9 TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Myracle, Lauren
10 The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
11 Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
12 It’s Perfectly Normal, by Robie Harris
13 Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
14 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
15 The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
16 Forever, by Judy Blume
17 The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
18 Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous
19 Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
20 King and King, by Linda de Haan
21 To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
22 Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
23 The Giver, by Lois Lowry
24 In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak
25 Killing Mr. Griffen, by Lois Duncan
26 Beloved, by Toni Morrison
27 My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier
28 Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
29 The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline B. Cooney
30 We All Fall Down, by Robert Cormier
31 What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
32 Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
33 Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
34 The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler
35 Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison
36 Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
37 It’s So Amazing, by Robie Harris
38 Arming America, by Michael Bellasiles
39 Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane
40 Life is Funny, by E.R. Frank
41 Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
42 The Fighting Ground, by Avi
43 Blubber, by Judy Blume
44 Athletic Shorts, by Chris Crutcher
45 Crazy Lady, by Jane Leslie Conly
46 Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
47 The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, by George Beard
48 Rainbow Boys, by Alex Sanchez
49 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
50 The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
51 Daughters of Eve, by Lois Duncan
52 The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson
53 You Hear Me?, by Betsy Franco
54 The Facts Speak for Themselves, by Brock Cole
55 Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Green
56 When Dad Killed Mom, by Julius Lester
57 Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause
58 Fat Kid Rules the World, by K.L. Going
59 Olive’s Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
60 Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
61 Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle
62 The Stupids (series), by Harry Allard
63 The Terrorist, by Caroline B. Cooney
64 Mick Harte Was Here, by Barbara Park
65 The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
66 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
67 A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
68 Always Running, by Luis Rodriguez
69 Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
70 Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen
71 Junie B. Jones (series), by Barbara Park
72 Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
73 What’s Happening to My Body Book, by Lynda Madaras
74 The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
75 Anastasia (series), by Lois Lowry
76 A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
77 Crazy: A Novel, by Benjamin Lebert
78 The Joy of Gay Sex, by Dr. Charles Silverstein
79 The Upstairs Room, by Johanna Reiss
80 A Day No Pigs Would Die, by Robert Newton Peck
81 Black Boy, by Richard Wright
82 Deal With It!, by Esther Drill
83 Detour for Emmy, by Marilyn Reynolds
84 So Far From the Bamboo Grove, by Yoko Watkins
85 Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
86 Cut, by Patricia McCormick
87 Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume
88 The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
89 Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissenger
90 A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
91 Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Graighead George
92 The Boy Who Lost His Face, by Louis Sachar
93 Bumps in the Night, by Harry Allard
94 Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine
95 Shade’s Children, by Garth Nix
96 Grendel, by John Gardner
97 The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
98 I Saw Esau, by Iona Opte
99 Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume
100 America: A Novel, by Frank, E.R.

If you want to raise awareness, copy this list and, like I did, bold the one's you've read. Or review/defend one of the books. Or read or reread a title or two.

33 1/3 Great Things About Vinyl

Go to any indie record store or one of the better chain places, and it appears that vinyl l.p.s are making a comeback. (Though, as L L Cool J would say....) Here are approximately 33 1/3 reasons to celebrate the new vinyl revolution.

• You really have to listen to them. Even if you just put a record on to listen to while you're cleaning house or something, you still need to pay attention to know when to lift the stylus and flip it over. (Ed. note: I have since been told that those turntables with an "auto" setting will lift the stylus before it hits the paper part. However, if you're using your grandma's old record player, then there's a good chance that setting doesn't work anymore. And besides, the point about turning it over still stands.)
• At about a foot square, the album cover itself can be a work of art in its own right, and, in fact, many of the most iconic images of modern popular music are from album covers. Cds shrunk the artwork so that it was kind of pointless to design something interesting. And digital downloads have all but made the album cover irrelevant.
• And, thanks to the larger size, you can include cool extras like posters in the packaging. I know sometimes you can get them with cds, but in that case you either have to by the expensive boxed set or have them folded up really small.
• Song order really matters. Because of that break in the middle, you have to choose not only what would make the best beginning and ending song, but how side one will end and two begin. Thus, there is more often than not greater variety in the song order than in a lot of cds that just put all the hits on the earlier tracks and fill the rest out with any old trash. (Though, it should be noted, that there are still plenty of artists--some of them young even--who try to put some thought into sequencing their albums.)
• The mixing is way better. Notice how loud that cd you just bought sounds? Back in the day when they made records on vinyl, the engineers actually understood that not everything should be the same volume.
• No need for the remix. A lot of albums were very hastily and carelessly transfered to digital format, resulting in a rather muddy sound quality. Now, a lot of cds have been remixed or remastered to try to recapture the quality of the originals, but the problem is that the record companies have used this as an excuse to jack up the prices.
• The overall sound quality is better. The process of a vinyl record: the sound waves are recorded on electronic tape, a mechanism reads the waves and presses it into a vinyl disc, then the needle reads those waves and sends them to your speaker. So you're pretty much hearing the same sounds as were made in the studio. Digital recording: a computer records the sound waves as a series of ones and zeros, and then the computer in your cd player tells the speakers what sounds to make. Because the sound waves are binary code, they will come infinitely close to the original, but cannot fully reproduce it. Sound like that's too small of a difference to really matter? Compare a cd and an l.p. of the same album. More than likely the latter will sound fuller, more alive.
• Vinyl records are a more participatory experience. The process of actually playing one is far more involved than a cd (let alone an MP3 player!), and they require further maintenance and care.
• You can watch the record go 'round and 'round as it plays. I know, it sounds like something you'd only do if you were really stoned, but here me out. If you want to listen, I mean really listen to music, then it helps you concentrate if your eyes have something to focus on.
• There's the nostalgia factor. Sure, it's easy to call vinylphiles a bunch of Luddites, but when you listen to a record, it's like you're part of a living history. Slap on your parents' Pet Sounds and you're hearing a little slice of 1966.
• And then there's the cool factor. There's just something impressive about someone with a lot of vinyl. Besides, you aren't really a hipster if you don't own a copy of White Light/White Heat on vinyl. (Preferably bought at an indie record store.)
• Vinyl records, properly stored, have outlived first generation cds. Whereas compact discs actually decay, vinyl records just wear out because you've played them too much. But then you can frame the cover and hang it on your wall.
• They're kind of fragile so it's a little risky buying them online. So it's probably better to go to an acutal physical store. Which is good, because then you might get to know the store's employees and other customers.
• Online music purchase (whether iTunes or Amazon) isn't really good for browsing. But, if you have to go to a store, given the right mood, you can spend hours just looking at what they've got. And there's nothing more enjoyable than a leisurely flip through a bin of records.
• Vinyl records aren't nearly as portable as cassettes, cds, and MP3s. Normally, that would be a bad thing, but look at it this way. If you have to be in proximity to the actual apparatus, there's not as much that can distract you from giving the record a good listen.
• To combat the portability problem, there are some turntables that allow you to copy records onto either cassette or cd. Some even come with a USB port to allow you to load them onto your computer.
• In the future, it's quite possible that records could be issued with a code to download a digital copy, if, in fact, they aren't already.
• We wouldn't have certain genres of music like hip-hop or house without vinyl records.
• Vinyl records are also highly collectable, what with all the bootlegs, Japanese imports, and outdated greatest hits collections that never received a cd rerelease. Sure, there are limited release and special edition cds and download offers, but what's the fun of hunting something down when you can just have someone burn you a copy?
• And they're great for showing off your collection, too. As was mentioned before, the covers are big enough to frame and display, and you need shelving to hold them all. You can't very well leave your MP3 collection lying around for people to look at, now can you?
• You can physically manipulate a vinyl record while playing it. Which means you can have all sorts of fun "scratching" or changing the speed to make them sound like chipmunks.
• As Shaun and Ed proved, you can use them to kill zombies.
• Cuing a record is really hard, but being able to master it improves your concentration skills tenfold.
• They're recyclable! The Jamaican record industry still releases singles on 45s so that, if they don't sell, they can recall the extras, melt them down, and repress them as a new single.
• When singles used to be released on 45s, the artist wasn't necessarily obligated to fill out an entire album just for people to hear it. Similarly, if you just liked that one song by an artist, you didn't have to buy the whole album to here it they way you do with cds. Now, download services have done a lot to bring the single back, but there's a new problem. Everything can be bought as a single, including some songs that don't really stand on their own.
• When singles were on vinyl, they had B-sides. Usually, these were just throw-away songs, but occasionally a classic song would wind up there. "I Will Survive," "Maggie May," "La Bamba"? All B-sides. With singles today only releasing one song, who knows what hidden greats are slipping through the cracks.
• They have an aura in the Benjaminian sense. Those clicks, pops, and skips are traces that the record has been owned and played.
• Also, as an analogue recording, they are an indexical sign of the recording session.
• Because there's a break in the middle, you don't have to commit to listening to the whole thing in one sitting.
• And because you can stack them up, you can create relationships between parts of different collections that you can't with a cd changer.
• Since it's harder to cue, it's easier to see an album side as a unified whole as opposed to a bunch of unconnected songs.
• However, as a listener you still have choice--Sides One and Two are merely suggestions; you choose where to begin listening.
• Since so many people have bought into the myth that digital is better, they tend to give their records away cheaply--if not for free. You can make some really great vinyl finds at garage sales or, for the more daring, going dumpster diving.

Ok, so I'm 1/3 short. You try coming up with a fraction of a reason.

Conspiracy Theories Are More Fun When You Make Them Up Yourself

Recently, a friend linked me to an article that claimed that, in his upcoming autobiography, Keith Richards will reveal that, were he not a rock 'n' roll legend, he would be a librarian. This only serves to confirm something I have long suspected: Rock stars are secret nerds.

My theory is as follows: Whereas most of us nerds cope with being shoved in our lockers by planning our revenge (what else could possibly explain the sadism behind Windows Vista?), the rock star has discovered that such tortures can be avoided by doing something perceivably cooler. Being in a band hides their nerdish qualities, but if you look closely enough, you can still see them.

A brief note before I present my evidence: Just because someone may sing about being an outsider, "Loser," or "Creep" doesn't necessarily make them a nerd. There are dozens of other fringe groups besides nerds, and, furthermore, this wonderful little thing called the poetic "I" means that, though someone may be speaking in the first person, what they're saying isn't personal. Also, a clarification: nerd cred (or "credibility") means that something someone's done has gained them a considerable following among nerds. So having nerd cred doesn't exactly equate being a nerd, but it can often be a sign that a nerd lies within.

Anyway, on to the evidence.

Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. These 70s rock gods were into what bassist John Paul Jones dubbed "fairy shit." Both were fascinated by British folklore, though Page's interests tended to be a bit darker. Furthermore, many of their songs ("Misty Mountain Hop," "The Battle of Evermore," etc.) make reference to ultimate nerd text The Lord of the Rings. They are most explicit in the lines from "Ramble On," "'Twas in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair/But Gollum and the Evil One crept up and slipped away with her." Also, check out their fantasy sequences in The Song Remains the Same.

Brian Eno. The synthesizer follows closely behind the clarinet and the tuba as the nerd instrument to end all nerd instruments. The different sounds a synthesizer makes are different programs, so it's basically a musical computer. Now synths have been in use by rock bands since the 1960s, but in the 70s Eno really pushed how this instrument could be used. When artists have him produce their albums, they don't say they're calling in the geek squad. But they should.

Related to this is what I like to call the Rule of Synth. Basically, any creative or unusual use of synthesizers is a strong indication of an inner nerd. Thus, most 70s/80s New Wave, New Romantics, and German bands are more than likely nerds. Case in point: Devo.

Rivers Cuomo. Put his highly successful gig with Weezer on hiatus to go finish his bachelor's degree. From Harvard.

Sting. Imagine you're a British youth of the late 70s. You turn on Top of the Pops or something one day, and--OMG! That's Mr. Sumner! Yep, before making it big with The Police, Sting was a teacher of--if memory serves me right--something nerdy like history or English.

Iggy Pop. The godfather of punk had an essay on Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire published in an academic journal. Even if his naked torso was smeared with peanut butter while he wrote it, that's still pretty nerdy.

David Bowie. Even discounting the serious nerd cred of Labyrinth, there's still the numerous sci-fi references, collaborations with Eno (see above), and the major innovations in the way we use the internet he made in the 1990s. (Some consider him one of the first bloggers.) Ziggy may have played guitar, but I bet he also wore a pocket protector.

Buddy Holly, Elvis Costello, and others who wear nerd glasses. As John Lennon proved, wearing glasses does not necessarily make one look like a nerd, so, even if thick frames are in style, if they wear glasses and still look like nerds, chances are they probably are. Elton John is particularly guilty of this because, no matter how many sequins he put on his specs, they still made him look like a total dork.

Bob Dylan. Again, nerd cred for the way literary critics have gravitated toward his lyrics. But in his autobiography, he admits to doing research for his songs. Also, have you heard his Christmas album? He sings polka. Polka!

That's about all I can think of for now. If there are other rock stars you suspect of being nerds, I'd appreciate your evidence.

British Actor of the Month--First Pretend Scottish Boyfriend Edition

I know, I know. I skipped April. But, really, things got a little crazy, and there's really no point in going back. So, anyway, May's British actor is a bit of a unique case in that I think I developed a crush on him before I'd even seen him in a movie. I just knew that he was sexy and Scottish, and that was enough for my sixteen or seventeen-year-old self. And that's how

Ewan McGregor

became my first pretend Scottish boyfriend. Luckily, I have had occasion enough since then to see one or two or fifteen of his movies. Now, the films he's in tend to range in quality from the enjoyable likes of Emma or Black Hawk Down to those that make you wish you could donate your corneas while still living--I'm thinking of Miss Potter and especially The Island right now. But he usually makes as good as he can out of the material. Here's a list of some of my favorite points in his career:

• Trainspotting, otherwise known as my favorite movie. In it, McGregor plays a Scottish heroine addict who has to decide whether he should stay on the margins with his friends or "choose life" and leave them behind for a more ordinary existence. In addition to the dark, surreal humor and the great soundtrack, you get to hear those natural Scottish accents.
• Velvet Goldmine, in which he plays the Iggy Pop-like proto-punk singer Curt Wild. This ode to glam rock has many perks for his fans like watching him make out with Jonathan Rhys Meyers and expose not-so-little Ewan--um, I mean, getting to hear him sing. Yeah. *coughs*
• And of course, for those of you with less prurient interests who still want to see him sing, there's always Moulin Rouge! Now, for many years, owing to a "dispute" with a former roommate, I refused to watch this movie, but the appeal of Ewan (and the stupid master's exams) finally wore me down. I've got to say, it wasn't half-bad. Especially since, as Satine would put it, he's got an enormous talent.
• Star Wars Episode I-III. Now, like any self-respecting sci-fi geek, I hate the prequel trilogy. But I think it's kind of cool that McGregor was in them. Because, you see, ever since his uncle had a bit part in the original (and better) trilogy, Ewan had always wanted to be in Star Wars. So, much like last December's British Actor (a.k.a. my current pretend Scottish boyfrined), this would suggest that he's a bit of a nerd.
• Shallow Grave. Oh my God! Doctor Who's trying to kill Obi-Wan!!! But seriously, this is the film that first brought McGregor and future 9th Doctor Christopher Eccleston--as well as Scottish cinema--international attention. A thriller about three flatmates who make a very bad decision that gets even worse, it's a small film, but it's size just makes it all the more tense.

Album Face Off

I've always wanted to write music reviews, but, sadly, I tend to be not all that objective when it comes to music. I fear that they would only consist of three words: "Dude, that rocked/sucked." However, I'm rather good at comparing and ranking things (just look in the back entries for that time I decided to use my living room floor to put all my CDs in order of preference), so I've decided to start a feature in which I pit two or more albums against each other to determine, if possible, which is the greater(est). For this first match up, I present to you

Raw Power versus... Raw Power?

I know, some of you may be confused. Is there another Raw Power besides the one by Iggy and the Stooges, you ask. Well, gather 'round, children, it's story time. See, the original 1973 version was mixed by David Bowie, but by the time of the CD re-release in 1997, Iggy Pop had decided that he didn't wanna be perceived as Bowie's dog anymore (I think that joke might be stolen from The Venture Brothers, at least in spirit), so he remixed it. Thus, there are two different versions of the album available.

I kind of prefer the Iggy Pop mix. Bowie's version mixes the instruments much lower than the vocals, making them harder to hear. In the later version there's a more even distribution of volume. However, the original mix does have some very strong merits. For one thing, if you listen carefully, there's some musical parts in this one that get lost on the second mix. For another, to paraphrase some guy at Rolling Stone, the necessity of having to turn it up to hear it properly gave the record an aggressive quality, thus cementing the bands reputation as Godfathers of punk. Historical value aside, the recently re-released Bowie mix, while a bit more expensive, comes with a bonus disc of an Atlanta performance. It's not the best live recording ever, but it does contain some excellent audience abuse.

Basically, though, the differences between the two mixes are subtle enough that unless you're a character from the film High Fidelity, you're not really going to find them that big of a deal. Either way, it's a damn good record, and rightly deserves its place on most top 100 (or whatever) album lists. (See? What did I tell you--no objectivity whatsoever.) So some advice to the consumer: If you're a casual fan or just curious, you'll probably want to get the Iggy mix--most places have it for under $10, so it's the right price. The more hard-core music lover may want to shell out extra for the "new" version of the old mix, though. Devout Stooges fans, however, probably have both.






Note to my readers: I could really use some feedback. Was my little foray into the world of music criticism successful, and if so, what should I match up next? Let It Be v. Let It Be... Naked? V. The Replacement's Let It Be? Stereo v. Mono Pet Sounds? Brandenburg Concerto #2 v. #3? Suggestions are welcome, as long as they don't suck.