Monday Miscellany - 7.30.07

Yesterday, on the two hour train ride to New Haven, CT (yuck), I was reading an old issue of Entertainment Weekly (my friend gives me his when he's done with them, so I'm usually a week or two behind) and in the DVD review section was none other than a documentary I interned on last fall. That felt pretty cool. Especially because it was an "EW pick" and had scored an A- (which, if it were my film would be unacceptable because only A's are good grades to me and anything less is a personal insult. Haha. But since it wasn't my film and I know from reading EW all the time that an A- means they actually thought it was really good, it was exciting). The documentary is The Mormons, directed by Helen Whitney and created as the first collaboration between PBS Frontline and American Experience. You can watch in it's entirity (all 4 hours of it...) on the website. It should be pretty awesome, though I'll admit I haven't seen the whole thing in it's final form yet because it wasn't finished when I stopped working there and I had class when it aired.

More randomness - a book review: "Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story," by Leonie Swann. It is written mostly from the perspective of a flock of sheep whose shepherd is murdered. They try to solve the murder mystery. Each sheep is such a character. They all have lots of distinct personality traits and stories. While I thought the sheep understood a little too much about the human world (explained by saying that the shepherd used to read to the sheep and teach them new words), it was still really funny to see them interpret human things - particularly religion. There was one scene where a sheep goes into a church, and it's really funny how he interprets everything. The sheep interpretation of the human world makes you think about how ludicrous some of the things we do might seem to outsiders (and how ludicrous they probably actually are). I also like how the sheep are constantly commenting on how inept humans are at life because we don't have a very strong sense of smell. The only time I really thought the book was lacking was when it would suddenly switch to a human perspective very briefly. I never thought this added anything and I much preferred the sheep's perspective. And I'm not really sure if I liked how it ended, but I still really enjoyed most of the book overall. There were a few times it actually made me laugh out loud. There were other times when it really made me think and look at the human world from an outsider perspective.

Anyway, so for the music today I'm just going to throw a few songs up that strike my fancy and not really talk much about them. I have many errands to run today (for one, I have to return the really crappy $10 headphones I bought yesterday for the train ride to CT because I was not about to sit through that without music. But man, when you pay $10 for headphones, you definitely can tell you only paid $10 for headphones.) and it's Bryant Park Movie night, so I have a busy day ahead of me.

(mp3) The View from the Afternoon - Arctic Monkeys ("Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not") - iTunes

Ok, I will say one thing about that song. The album title...? Way too long!

(mp3) Chemical, Chemical - Pretty Girls Make Graves ("The New Romance") - iTunes

(mp3) Black Gold Blues - Laura Veirs ("Year of Meteors") - iTunes

Interesting. I just realized that all three albums are the artists' second to last album (meaning the one before their most recent). That's random. I really like that Laura Veirs song, though I am not sure how I feel about the other stuff I've heard by her. I will have to give it more of a listen than I have I guess. But this song stuck out to me right away, whereas the rest of what I heard all kind of sounded the same. Ok, that's all for today. Tata dahlings.