A brief history of perfect music.

In 1999 the movie Anna and the King, starring Jodie Foster and Chow-Yun Fat, was released in theaters, and while it only grossed several million dollars domestically, it is a fine movie, an epic really, and I recommend it to everyone.

I've always thought the soundtrack was so beautiful, but never really felt an urgency to purchase it until I saw that the manufacturer had discontinued its production. So I went to Amazon and ordered a used CD for very cheap, and it came in the mail a few days ago.

The history of music in movies is a good one. It actually begins in the era of music history known as Romanticism, when "program music" burst onto the scene thanks to Berlioz and his Symphonie Fantastique, which premiered accompanied by a paper program for audience members detailing the story behind the work. Music had been set to a story before, of course, in the form of opera, but this was something new. Whereas before, the music of Haydn and Bach and Mozart and Beethoven found its purpose in perfecting the classical composition, program music tells a story.

So even though in the grand scheme music has moved from Romanticism to Modernism, movie music, as it tells a story, still clings to that old tradition of taking the listener through an experience by setting a mood and highlighting action.

What truly made music in the post-Beethoven era Romantic, however, was its obvious beauty. And some of the best movie music today still gives us that. John Williams was once the master of the form, though his recent works have declined in creativity, in my opinion. Jerry Goldsmith passed away several years ago but left absolute gems, including his work on First Knight. Hans Zimmer should be heralded as the current master, beautifying everything from The Lion King and Crimson Tide to Gladiator and Kung Fu Panda.

The soundtrack to Anna and the King is another perfect example of how "program music" both elevates a cinematic work of art, and stands alone as a composition worthy of high praise. Unfortunately there's no way to post snippets, but trust me when I say that the themes George Fenton created are among the absolute best (and most beautiful) I've ever heard.

How can something like this not be nominated for an Oscar for Best Score? I know the Oscars aren't truly the be-all end-all, but I watch like a fan every year and it's still an immense honor to be nominated. In the same vein it's ridiculous for Patrick Doyle's incredible score for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire not to have been nominated, or a certain Harlequin-haired crooner's work on one of the best movie songs of the last few decades ("Remember" from Troy). But, this isn't the time to air grievances. *grr*

I think, at the end of the day, what makes music so fulfilling and universal is its ability to convey the profound. Whether you're listening to a movie soundtrack or a jazz piece or a classic rock tune, every now and then you're just struck with the overwhelming notion that not only is this what music was meant to be, but that it's trying to tell you something, and no matter how hard a wordsmith may try, the message is still best conveyed in the mind and heart; felt, rather than uttered.

And that's how I felt listening to the soundtrack to Anna and the King; that the music meant something beyond the theme of the movie, that it relayed truths and ideas that lie too deep for mere mortals...try as we may to unlock the secrets.

Dammit, Jim!

I'm not a science writer so this may not make any sense at all. But I think it's fun to ponder these little conundrums.

Okay. Time travel. Still impossible. And when you think about it, if it were possible, someone should already have come back from the future by now.

But! I'm reading Chaos and Harmony by Trinh Xuan Thuan, and it's all about the cosmos and Einstein and things of that nature. And he's talking about how time appears to slow down as you near the speed of light. He gives a scenario with Jules and Jim; Jules is piloting a starship at 80% the speed of light and Jim is chillaxin' back on earth. Jim decides, about an hour into Jules' trip, to send him a message using tachyons. (Bear with me; tachyons are theoretical particles that can travel faster than the speed of light)

Okay, here's the conundrum. Once Jim sends the message, Jules receives it a half-hour before Jim has actually sent it. So when he sends the reply message, Jim receives it approximately 52 minutes before he sent his original message.

So I'm thinking....if Jim receives a reply before he even sends a message, thus making sending a message unnecessary, he wouldn't send it, and therefore would not receive a reply in the first place.

:P

It reminds me of Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, where they need to leave the keys to the jail cell somewhere so they can retrieve them without having been given them in the first place, so they have to go back in the past and leave them behind a bush. Once Bill and Ted think of this idea, they go behind the bush and - voila! - there the keys are. But then, Bill reminds his friend that they have to remember to actually go back in time and leave the keys.

But what if they forgot? Then the keys would not be there in that moment when they went to go get them. And what if they then committed absolutely to going back in time and leaving the keys? Would they abruptly appear?

Ahhh, such speculation is almost fruitless. But I love it.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Revising the aughts.

Thanks to a couple of savvy friends and a revelation of my own, I have added to my list of the defining characteristics of this decade and now present to you the full list (though subject to revision yet again). Here we go:

1) The War on Terror
2) American Idol
3) Reality TV
4) Celebrity mania
5) Blogs
6) Harry Potter
7) The election of the first Black President
8) The recession
9) Social networking
10) The iPod
11) Going green
12) Internet fame

I left off anything from fashion because at any given time there are several major trends and I like to keep my lists looking tidy. Also I didn't want a number thirteen...but I would have chosen huge sunglasses, just so you know. ;-)

Becoming...a better photog?

I'm excited. I'm about to share with you all some photographs I took during college. These actually were also a part of an art exhibit I did sophomore year (don't be fooled, I lived in a fine arts dorm and they had a little room...)

I've been thinking recently about if and how my camera skills have gotten better over the years. The pictures below are those I considered some of the best I'd ever taken--by the time I was 20. I had a Kodak Advantix camera, which, if you'll recall, was a big deal because of the "drop and load" function for film canisters. (Easier to load - harder to develop, trust me!) It could do crazy things like turn black and white photography into a study in history. But, as basically the point-and-shoot of yesteryear, it had its limitations also.

Now, they have a slightly grainy quality (which you may or may not be able to see) because they're actually scans of the real thing that I had put on a CD so that I could work with them online. But that kind of makes them even cooler, because there's an age attached to them, unlike purely digital photography. I did adjust the color saturation a bit since you always lose something in the transfer.





















I upgraded in 2005 to a 35mm Minolta, getting it for about $170 on overstock.com instead of at its regular price of almost $450. I got a digital Canon Powershot in 2006 (on a whim, as I was out of town and without my Minolta), and as you all know just purchased my latest one, a Fujifilm Finepix that I love to death. I ordered prints online at Walgreens yesterday for about fifty of my favorite photos from my NC vacation, and could not be more thrilled. The quality is sublime, and the detail, especially around edges, is ridiculous.

Anyway, I decided that I've always had a pretty good eye for photography. There were a few clunkers in that long-ago exhibit that I can only see now as "not that great." But mostly for me, it's just a matter of progressing in terms of camera quality and really cracking the whip and learning the fundamentals.

Thank God for Jesus.

There's a book coming out this Wednesday called The Sartorialist, and it's by a man named Scott Schuman who goes by the book's titular moniker. He's a street-style photographer, snapping hip adults in major cities all over the world, and I didn't realize how much I liked his stuff until I found out about the book. (Don't you love it when you find out that something awesome is coming out like two days before it does? No wait period!)

I've wondered each time I've seen a subject of his, what these people are really thinking when they get dressed. Are they the sort of person who's so effortlessly individualist and creative that a quirky outfit seems perfectly normal to them? Are they making an effort to stand out quirkily? If so, can the Sartorialist spot such artifice a mile away, and does he reject it or accept it's inevitability?

Anyway.

I think I'm going to take a nap. Late night last night.

(photo courtesy of this post by Joanna over at A Cup of Jo)

The aughts.

Every decade has defining characteristics. The 20s - jazz. The 30s - the Depression. The 40s - WWII. The 50s - perfection. The 60s - postmodern freedoms. The 70s - disco! The 80s - big hair. The 90s - errgh...um...sigh...really crappy alternative music. (Except for Alanis)

And of course, there's much more that can be said about each of those decades; sub-characteristics, if you will, people and events and styles and landmarks that are instantly identifiable in their place in time.

And when you think about it, it takes a while for the new decade to shake off the old. For example, when I was born, the world was still living by those wonderful 70s standards of bell-bottoms, discotheques, disaster movies, orange shag carpet (though my mom claims it was 'rust colored,' it was my room so I should know), and Three's Company. God, I love the seventies. *moment of silence*

So I've been thinking, now that this decade is gently drawing to a close, what are those defining characteristics we will look back on in twenty or so years and nod our heads and say, 'Yes. Those were the aughts, all right'?

I've compiled a list.

1) I'd say the biggest one is the War on Terror. Or, the War in Iraq. Or, whatever we choose to call it whenever we figure out what's actually going on. September 11th was extremely early in this decade and so the proceeding events have had plenty of time to play out across the aughts; not to mention the fact that the War is as hotly contested and debated and reviled as Vietnam (though Nam, interestingly, spanned two decades).

2) The next biggest is American Idol. Whether or not you like it, it's the truth. It also came into existence very early, in summer of '02, and is still going very strong and has been incredibly successful both in ratings and in the commercial viability of its winners and finalists. Simon Cowell is an icon, although a strange one, and Seacrest inhabits a plane all his own. It is very difficult to imagine the aughts without this show.

3) Reality TV in general. There have always been reality shows, but it wasn't until the aughts that it became a phenomenon, and networks began developing reality over aging formulas of the past like situation comedies. We have seen more highs (AI, Biggest Loser, Survivor), lows (Paradise Hotel, Beauty and the Geek), awesomeness (What Not To Wear, America's Next Top Model, Real Housewives), unnecessariness (Run's House, Hey Paula!)and outright inappropriateness (Flava of Love and it's many spinoffs) than we ever imagined could exist in the universe.

4) Celebrity mania. I hate it. I can't go into it or I'll break something.

5) Blogs. Huh. Whodathunkit. And remember when they were called 'weblogs'? And all new and frightening? Good times.

6) Harry Potter. Even though the series was first published in the late nineties, the movies began coming to theaters in '01 and the hype as the fifth, sixth, and finally seventh books came out was unreal. Kids loved reading again. Parents loved reading with their kids. J.K. loved cashing her checks--err, I mean...writing. And every now and then, on warm summer midnights, the country--nay, the world--felt united by a boy in glasses who became really good at acting like a bitchy teenager.

7) Admittedly I'm not too taken with the world of high fashion, but notable styles that have come and perhaps already gone are huge sunglasses, Ugg boots, anything peasant (meaning ugly), graphic tees, and hurrah! Skinny jeans are back and hips are allowed once more. And if you happen to be wearing an outfit consisting of each of those things, you are either Mary Kate or Ashley. Who probably belong on this list too. Although way down.

So that's my take on it. Anything major that you think should have been on my list?

Here, at the end of things.

At this point

all I dare dream of

is a chance to slip away

downstream

into a moment

that never ends.



(photo taken on the E.B. Jeffress trail along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina)

You can't beat a flying dream.

Last night I dreamed I could fly.

In the past, the very few flying dreams I've had have been large disappointments, with me trying and failing over and over to lift off.

But last night I did it, I took a running leap and soared. And there were witnesses, and they were awed, and I went higher to prove that I could, and then dipped lower to let my fingers skip over the tops of trees.

There was someone else in my dream who could fly as well, a very nice young man just about my age, but he was content not to show off, just waiting until I was done so that we could fly together.

It was nice.

Preach it, farm boy!

To quote Wesley from The Princess Bride:

"Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

There are those who would say this is too cynical, but to do so would risk a blog post of lengthy quotes from Eric Wilson's book Against Happiness and we wouldn't want that, now, would we.

:)

Interview #4: Jonny Lang.

Jonny Lang began his career at the tender age of fourteen, catapulted into the world of blues with his preternatural guitar skills and grizzled voice a few decades older than he was. At twenty-eight years old he has offered up four studio albums - Lie to Me, Wander This World, Long Time Coming, and Turn Around - and infused a gospel sensibility into his latest work, one testament to a life that has been way more than just interesting.

1. From the point that you first picked up a guitar, how long was it before you were what we would call "proficient?"

2. How were you discovered? The music industry is full of tales of luck and connections; tell me yours.

3. Your voice changed in between your first two albums; how cool was it to be able to add even more grizzle and unearned life experience into a fresh set of lyrics? Did you try to overdo it a little, the way my brother would answer the phone in a deep voice in case it was a girl?

4. What is your assessment of the blues market today? What do you think it would take to attract more listeners to the genre?

5. How has your musical expression changed/evolved as you have grown up?

6. Describe your voice using one word. (Can't use 'grizzled'!)

7. Any time an artist goes in a different direction, they know they will alienate a portion of their fans. What kind of response did you perceive to Turn Around, especially concertwise?

8. When I saw you in concert last, you changed the lyrics to "Wander This World" a bit to reflect your conversion to Christianity. Are there any songs on your albums you would leave off now if you could?

9. With so much life still ahead of you, where do you want to ultimately end up?

10. Will you sign my arm and be a guest mentor on American Idol next season? :D