Scenes: Washington State 2009

The color of the sky is

why I live where I live

Julia Child In The Modern World

Like many people in the United States right now, I have a renewed interest in Julia Child. M brought home a copy of Child's memoir My Life In France and I was immediately pulled in by her prose, which is just as radiant and charming as she was. Example...

"I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume. Then I lifted a forkful of fish to my mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly. The flesh of the sole was delicate, with a light but distinct taste of the ocean that blended marvelously with the browed butter. I chewed slowly and swallowed. It was a morsel of perfection."

If people are wondering why a character like Child is resonating throughout our culture today, I think David Denby of the New Yorker put it best...

"She was incapable of modern irony."

The Meaning Of Edward M. Kennedy

Via The New Yorker's George Packer...

"It’s the strangest of his many paradoxes that such workmanlike, even obscure, accomplishment was the product of a man who owed his career entirely to the glamor of his family name."

I've never romanticized the Kennedy's as a family. Yet, there was something about Edward M. Kennedy that I always found endearing and admirable: his tireless work ethic, his ever-apparent flaws, his unflagging love for the United States of America. Reading his obituary this morning, I can't help but feel we, as a country, lost a part of our identity. And it has nothing to do with his family name, but rather a sense of Americanness that I'm afraid is lost forever.

Bob Dylan's Holiday Feast

Apparently, certain Jewish groups were astonished to learn that Bob Dylan will release a Christmas album this October. I first heard rumor of Christmas In The Heart a few weeks ago when news leaked that Dylan had recorded four Christmas songs at Jackson Browne's Santa Monica studio. The press seemed to raise an eyebrow at the news: What was Dylan, who was raised Jewish, doing recording "Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem" and "Here Comes Santa Claus"?

However, I think the Jewish groups and the press have missed the point entirely.

Dylan has never renounced his Jewish background, nor has he renounced his flirt with Christianity. While he stated that he is "a praying man" in Chronicles, his spiritual affiliation hasn't been the subject of much speculation since at least the late-80s. If anything, he's made it apparent that his faith is in song, which is what I'm willing to bet Christmas In The Heart is all about.

Songs. Christmas songs. Actually, to be more specific...American Christmas songs. Dylan is positively obsessed with the American songbook and there's no question Christmas songs have had a major impact on our culture. Many have said that this album--Dylan's 47th--will be akin to holiday albums by Elvis, etc. But I have a feeling Dylan's delivery will frame these songs to reflect things about our culture we often take for granted. After hearing Dylan cover "Winter Wonderland" in his scorched-throat growl, I bet walking through Macy's during the holidays will never be the same...

Metallica Is A Super Bowl Halftime Show Match Made In Heaven

I've gotta get this off my chest...

Last Sunday, I was at the Triangle Pub in White Center with my neighbor. We were discussing the NFL pre-season games we'd watched (I was especially boastful about my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, who, naturally, wiped the floor with the Arizona Cardinals yet again). Being the music nerds we are, the conversation steered toward the musical guest most likely to play the halftime show at next year's Super Bowl. Watching Springsteen earlier this year was painful. The Stones were embarrassing a few years prior. Paul McCartney sucks. Tom Petty, while obvious, still ruled.

Given this track record, it seems like a no-brainer that the artist filling next year's slot will probably be John Mellencamp or Journey. But what about fucking Metallica? I would argue that no band embodies the raging energy of pro football better than Metallica and no band out there could match the flexed-muscle spectacle that is the Super Bowl better than Metallica. Better yet, the American heartland is chock-full of good ol' boys driving around in pick-ups with No Fear stickers on their back windshields blasting ...And Justice For All.

Their set would most likely suck to diehards...

"Enter Sandman"

"Fuel"

Variables: "Seek and Destroy", "For Whom The Bell Tolls", "Whiskey In The Jar".

Some have argued that Metallica is too metal for the mainstream, to which I say "And Prince is too fey, but he still played." It may not happen this year, but I'm willing to bet I'll see Metallica on that stage before my life is over.

New Work: Six Organs of Admittance Review In Seattle Weekly

Seattle Weekly 8.12.09

Six Organs of Admittance

Luminous Night

(Drag City Records)

Ben Chasny, the guitarist known as Six Organs of Admittance, makes music that evokes gigantic, ponderous moods. But where his earlier work sounded like field recordings from ancient Buddhist temples, his past few albums have grown increasingly cinematic, each one evoking a vast, wild landscape that's part Wild West, part bleak psychedelic fantasy (thinkJim Jarmusch's Dead Man, Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo, etc.). For his latest album, Luminous Night, Chasny enlisted West Seattle–based Randall Dunn (Sunn O))), Earth) for production; the result is a brief but rich batch of songs that are both mind-quieting and stormy. Chasny opens the record with "Actaeon's Fall," an instrumental reading of the Greek myth (in brief: Actaeon sees the beautiful Artemis naked, who turns him into a stag; Actaeon is subsequently killed by his own dogs). Here Chasny lays down a feathery acoustic melody, over which a flute flutters, punctured by a electric warrior riff. The seven songs that follow—a balance of instrumentals ("Cover Your Wounds With the Sky") and restrained vocal-and-guitar numbers ("Ursa Minor")—are blanketed by Dunn's production, gentle as billowing curtains and chilly as January winds. Present throughout is the viola of local freak-genius Eyvind Kang, who weaves his way in and out of the songs like some mystical thread. BRIAN J. BARR