Musings, Part B

- I really wish I could write one of NPR’s This I Believe essays. Problem is, I’m sure my one overarching belief, if I indeed have one, has been said already by one more eloquent than I. I tried once. Couldn’t manage to get it right. I tried to write about the importance of the space program. Something about the majesty of space tied with anecdotes of watching them lift off in my backyard at home. Because I could and did. We’d watch the countdown on the TV then race through the house to the backyard and look east and watch the small glowing dot rise above the houses with the smoke trail behind. We even got tickets a couple times and watched it down at one of the viewing areas close by the cape. Now that’s spectacular. And night launches? Every bit as amazing as pictures tell you. Anyway, too bad I couldn’t crack it. Perhaps one day I can write about my belief in the power of a book and make it sound different from something they’ve already got.

- Why is it that for some bands the song(s) I love from a particular CD isn’t (aren’t) the single(s)? Cases in point, Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” was huge, probably thanks to Grey’s Anatomy, but I liked “Open Your Eyes” much better on that CD (Snow Patrol’s, not the GA soundtrack). And The Fray’s first CD, “How to Save a Life” was the single (also probably thanks to GA) but “Little House” was a much better song in my opinion. I’m not sure what the single is from Snow Patrol’s latest, but I adore “The Golden Floor”. Simply love every second of it. It’s also a good thing I buy the whole album when I like a song on it or else I would have missed some great stuff that takes a few runs to appreciate. Like Keane’s latest, Perfect Symmetry, at first (few) listen I didn’t think it was as amazing as Hopes and Fears, on which I love almost every song equally, I didn’t even think it sounded like the band in the first place. Now I think it does and there are some great songs on there. Hopes and Fears is still the best of their 3 though.

- I wonder if it’s weird to miss Battlestar Galactica already, not because of the story or characters, because I’m kind of still ticked off about how all of that ended up (Kara just disappears, really? Lee’s left all alone, really? Baltar gets a happy ending, really? Blah blah, life isn’t fair, whatever. This is fiction. Thus happy can happen. Of course not that BSG was ever really happy…whatever, not the point of this tangent) but because it means the music is over? By music I mean the fabulous soundtrack provided by Bear McCreary. I don’t think I’ve ever spent two weeks listening to related soundtracks in this fashion before. Sure, I tend to listen to things on repeat after I first get them but not at the exclusion of other new things. And never have I tried so hard to find a particular (non-canon/slightly canon/writers messing with fans) couple’s theme before. I think I nailed it down though. I think.

- Third related music musing in a row, it really is true (at least for me) that the first version of a song you hear is your favorite/becomes your standard. The first version (believe it or not) of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” I heard was Bear McCreary’s in BSG. Now I find the Jimi Hendrix version to be…eh. I mean, it’s still a good song, lyrics wise, but there’s something about the way McCreary used the guitars and had the group do the lyrics that just…it’s been described as an eerie version, which okay it sorta is but it’s a cool version too. It sounds…modern, I guess. More rock like, or at least alternative (which, by the way, does alternative just mean no long guitar solos? Or is it just modern/current rock? Whatever, it’s still my genre of choice though I should probably look up a musician’s definition of it sometime beyond knowing which bands fall under the category). The same thing applies to some of Frank Sinatra’s hits. I just don’t like his version as much as say James Darren’s or Harry Connick Jr’s. Except Fred Astaire’s version of “Night and Day” I don’t like as much as the newer versions, say the one in De-Lovely or by others though I’m sure I heard Fred’s first. Maybe his is just a standard of how I don’t like it to sound. Hmm.

- The idea of Twitter annoys me. Maybe because I heard about it first from the Daily Show episode that talked about the non-State of the Union presidential address where Stewart talked about Senators and Representatives “twittering” during the speech, thus not really paying attention. I blame Twitter for Facebook’s new design. I liked my status thing. I liked it being called a status, not a “share” thingy. If you have random comments about stuff, use a blog…I hereby promise to go over 140 characters in each post. Still though, NPR’s pop culture blog’s, Monkey See, positive comments about Christopher Walken’s does cause curiosity to bloom, however unwillingly (Tweets of the Rich and Famous ). And I have hereby committed a listed internet discussion mistake (Ten Toxic Things You Should Never, Ever Attempt to Discuss on the Internet ). Whatever. I love my Mac. There, another. Others that I have comments on: home schooling is a mistake and I love Coldplay’s “Clocks” and “Trouble” because I appreciate a good piano part in a rock/pop song. I have no real feelings on the others…I’m sure I could come down on one side or another though.

- The thinking, connected, informed person’s Urban Dictionary: Schott's Vocab For a more regional Urban dictionary, it seems the Dictionary of American Regional English, On to Z! Quirky Regional Dictionary Nears Finish, is close to being finished. I wonder if all the stuff from my Baltimorese shirt will make the dictionary. Maybe those are mostly dialect instances though. What’s weird is that I kind of want a set of the regional English dictionary. Because it looks like a set, 4 volumes at least. I think they’re supposed to have an online version though. Which would be equally cool. Amazing how a punishment my fifth grade teachers had, copying the dictionary starting from page one (one kid made it to the middle of the A’s) now seems like an interesting read.

- I think this is my problem with CBS: Open Up For More of What's on CBS's Menu See, I like the quirky, the out there, the non standard. I adored Pushing Daisies which ABC cruelly dumped, though I do admit I like Better Off Ted which seems to have been put in its place. Maybe it’s just that I don’t care what the critics like or don’t like. I make up my own mind after reading a summary. If it sounds interesting, I give it a go. And yes, I do watch The Mentalist.

- Hooray for DC: Prime-Time Location I love Bones. It’s interesting, the corpses are always…interesting and its set in a DC. I say a because it’s the Jeffersonian not the Smithsonian and that graveyard in the pilot near the Washington Monument? Doesn’t exist. And if it did, no way would that girl have been able to be buried there. I’m sure its hard enough to get into Arlington. Still, its nice to see pretty aerial shots of the Mall.

- Oh, Broadway. I love Guys and Dolls and totally agree with Jeremy McCarter, Back on Broadway, that it is one of the best musicals out there but Oliver Platt as Nathan Detroit? Oliver Babish as Nathan Detroit? The lard seller whose name escapes me but married Lena Olin in Casanova as Nathan? Really? I mean, I know that in the movie version they had to add another song to appease Frank Sinatra but he’s great, amazing, as Nathan. I even love the song they added, Adelaide. I can sorta see Lauren Graham as Adelaide but she will always be Lorelai Gilmore (even with admitting the whole going back to Christopher bit of the last season which I refused to watch until he was gone again) to me. But Oliver Platt I can’t see. Nathan is more wiry and slinky, quicker, slicker than the eloquence and presence Oliver Platt usually brings to roles, at least those I’ve seen and can remember off the top of my head. I wish the cast the best and if I were in NYC I’d see it but I just have trouble picturing it in my head.