the sticking point: Advanced Placement (November)

A random gathering of stuff I'm digging on lately.

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Prior to this month, everything I knew about Christopher Titus could be summed up thusly: "Comedian... Looks like Bryan Adams had a kid with Nick Nolte... Didn't he have a TV show that I never watched?" But I've seen some of his work recently because I'm working on a Titus-related "thing," and now I'm a fan. (I'd say his material is not what I expected, if only I had preconceived notions.) Heavy backstory, heavy comedy; Titus is more storyteller than joke-slinger.

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Even though the John Locke and people-at-the-beach plotlines were wrongfully, painfully absent from the first few episodes of Lost's new season, I'm still loving it. Separating the cast was inventive, and it is allowing for some nice new permutations of partnerships. I also appreciate the diminished reliance upon Jack to carry the action. (However, what's the story behind this week's "Fall Season Finale"? Don't bullshit me. The show is going on hold for a couple months. Calling this batch of shows a "Fall Season" is just a load of marketing crap.)

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Last Monday, I went alone and was overwhelmed. On Tuesday, SO'C was my valet. On Wednesday, I went with SO'C again, but I had it mastered. I even knew

where to find the plasticware on my way out. The Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center has become my lunchtime "thing" lately. The food is good but costly. And it's always crowded. And it is unnervingly confusing among the aisles and paths and people clusters. And the food is costly, but it's good.

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Months ago, Micken gifted me with a copy of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I picked it up a few weeks before the Korea trip and was immediately deep in it. I love Bryson's style and how easily he handles the involved, deep science of the subject is as fascinating as the topic itself. But, now... with the new baby home... it seems as though I'll still be ambling through this book for months to come.

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The Huffington Post. The Huffer's been at it for a year and a half, but I've only just discovered this site. (Thanks to a lower third on the Bill Maher show.) It is one of only a very few sites I have to visit every day.

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Between naps and babies and other books, I've been squeezing in reading a tiny book by Mark Polizzotti* on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited, so I've been listening to that record a lot. What an amazing piece of work it is. It's always been a favorite of mine, but the Polizzotti book ongs' phrasings, arrangements, backstories, and allusions. H61R might be the greatest album of the rock era.
*Polizzotti, the director of publications at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, is a weblogger.

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Just as I was relieved to hear that NBC took Studio 60 off its kill list (because I love the show), Sorkin unfurls S60's two worst episodes. Don't know why they took a storyline out of the studio and to Pahrump, Nevada, but they did -- and the show became a big snore. For my money, you can't do any better than having the Matt Albie character in his office, writing sketches for the show-within-a-show. Maybe it's just my personal preference, because I can relate. If this show doesn't get fun and interesting again, and fast, it will hemorrhage its (already thin) viewership.

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The Seth Rogan / Paul Rudd "Do you know how I know you're gay?" dialogues from 40 Year Old Virgin are all I want to hear these days. (If you close your eyes, you can enjoy them, here.)

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Wire’s “Three-Girl Rhumba”; I'm particularly grooving on it's cool high-hat sound.

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Daniel J. Levitin has written a book that I haven't read and don't own, but articles he's written for various magazines and the book's accompanying website, Your Brain On Music, is endlessly fascinating. Levitin is a producer, audio engineer, musician, and neuroscientist whose work explains what makes music appeal to the human brain. I've seen passages on how musicians violate listeners' expectations regargding pitch, such as in The Beatles' "Something," where the melody plays the same note - the tonic - for the song's first six notes. Says Levitin, when George Harrison comes off the tonic, he hits the least likely note in the scale, the leading note. This turns upside down a listener's usual frame of reference, wherein melodies are composed of different notes. (McCartney holds a single pitch for the first seven notes of "You Never Give Me Your Money," and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "One Note Samba" is well... the ultimate example of this violation of standards.) This stuff is a music geek's (read: Tommy Himself) dream.

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"I've got something for you to hear" my wife said one morning. She started the show Weeds on the DVR, and Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice's version of “Little Boxes” started playing. Within an hour, I'd burned it to disk and put it on the iTunes. Great song, and their version in particular is amazing.

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Like cologne, valentines, or a heart-lung machine, I'm pretty sure the "What Would Henry Rollins Do?" T-shirt is NOT something one buys for oneself, so I’m waiting for a package to surprise me in the mail. In the meantime, I'll just keep looking at that graphic and chuckling.

I'm still waiting.

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Why am I such a sucker to the allure of any website that generates something? Following on the heels of Fake Name Generator, Church Sign Generator, Band Name Generator, Shakespearean Insult Generator and the like, is Cassette Generator, the most useless of them all, and yet… I was at it like Shaq to a lavender suit. (Thanks to pal Tim for sending me the link.)

[posted with ecto]

On iTunes right now: Stop, I'm Already Dead from the album We Are Night Sky by Deadboy & the Elephantmen