I finished 23 hours of so of “E” this afternoon when I made it through two albums of Evanescence.
Here’s the thing, it’s just light nu-metal with a female vocalist, and it accomplishes the same thing as those generic-world-music-female-vocalist tracks … see, for example, Gladiator. You don’t know or care what the words are, and you don’t think of what she is doing as singing. Here, for example, there is no melody, per se … she just strings together words, providing dramatic intonations for them. At her best the lead singer caresses those words, and you, the listener, want to be caressed and wrapped up in the music and lyrics as well.
Eva Trout, earlier on the playlist, was more satisfying in a musical and lyrical way.
Next up: sixteen and a half hours of “F,” featuring Faith No More, Fiona Apple, Fleetwood Mac and others. The one you probably do not know or recognize is Fanfare Ciocarlia, an engaging Romanian Gypsy Brass band (“Gypsy Brass” being a broad genre designation; Boban Morkovic, Yuri Yunakov … they, too, are contained within this category).
The other band most will not recognize is Fury in the Slaughterhouse, a 90s group from northern Germany; theirs was one of the first concerts I attended, back in 1991. My host father got me free tickets and I went with a reporter who was covering the performance. I now have three of their albums, one of which is a “live” album. The last of the three, “Mono,” hit the U.S. in 1993 or so and was relatively well-received. At least Jacob, who was perhaps the most adamant about his musical tastes in our Sponsor Group, liked it — that was sort of an Ebert “thumbs up” sort of thing. It’s all perfectly serviceable rock from the early 90s, naively retro in a way in the face of Grunge.
I hit the co-op this afternoon for some pita bread to go with my hummus in the fridge. It’s $0.30 cheaper at Woodman’s, I discovered last week, but I’m not making a trip for a bag of pita bread. I should not splurge. I really should not. But this delicious cherry imitation-ice-cream (soy-based) stuff that was on sale was hard to resist, and I’ll eat it tonight during Heroes.
I want Sulu to return.
I got hold of the firsts season of Extras, for/of which there is an interesting review over at the NY Times. Tyler supported the recommendation earlier today in the office. I’m not one for TV comedies these days, but hell … one episode guest-stars Patrick Stewart. I’m all over it.
And, the “good news” — my kitchen has water again. I called management around 9 or so, they sent someone out immediately (I was in the office), and when returned 2:30-ish I had water, a spaceheater with fan was blowing on pipes in the entryway, and I promise to be more careful in the future.
Someone else I know had triple-digit repair bills recently regarding frozen pipes. Ouch. I’m just a poor student.
After Heroes I’ll get back to J. Fforde.
Another promise.
In other news:
- Swapped Malay baby: I’m not Muslim: “An ethnic Chinese Malaysian mistakenly given by doctors to a Malay Muslim couple at birth nearly three decades ago is bracing for a possible legal battle so he can renounce Islam, an action that can be considered a crime in parts of Malaysia.”
- Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue: A fascinating exposé of Tariq Romadan by Ian Buruma. 6 pages long.
- Leaked tapes reveal uncensored Schwarzenegger: “Recordings of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reveal the Republican griping about Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike and expressing sympathy for Mexican immigrants, but saying they should embrace the United States.”
- DNA tests for China’s legionary lore: Here we finally do have a fascinating story. It has science, it has history, it has romance … “The town’s link with Rome was first suggested by a professor of Chinese history at Oxford in the 1950s. Homer Dubs pulled together stories from the official histories, which said Liqian was founded by soldiers captured in a war between the Chinese and the Huns in 36BC, and the legend of the missing army of Marcus Crassus, a Roman general.”
