GRIZZLY PEAR

written snapshots

Category: Medias

  • quill

    In January, I wrote a letter to a colleague who is rejoining to our team. Selfishly, I’m excited that she returned.

    This was my first tiny poem-calligraphies to leave the house. It was also one of the last ones that I wrote.

    It’s been a long 2024, and we haven’t even started the biennial budgeting season—that hits tomorrow.

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    Unfortunately, my publication schedule will continue to be sporadic. After we get our budget season assignments, it’s off to the races through June.

    Beyond the increasing workload, it has been a tumultuous time for our team. Hopefully things will settle down, but it’s not surprising that my Commute Music project has stalled on Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult over the past month.

    I just started moving again with Blue Mitchell. Yes, I’m slightly out of alphabetical order. It was a necessary fudge.

    Hopefully I’ll get another post out in May, and then June, but frankly it’s been all about work for the past quarter. I’ve already told my supervisor that I’ll try to keep up the pace up through July 1st, but after that it stops.. (He’s the best boss I’ve had, but we’re all going through it together). Maybe I’ll breathe again.

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  • plumbing

    When buying the house we agreed to address a few minor plumbing issues. Easy enough to do during the negotiations, but the work still had to be done. We changed the innards for two of our toilets, switched faucet stems, and installed a new kitchen sink with our own RO filter.

    That sink took three days, five trips to Home Depot, and a couple angle stops.

    Yes, hiring a plumber would have been more sensible but I learned stuff and enjoyed the challenge (aside from multiple trips to the hardware store!)

    Shoutout to YouTube…there’s no way I would have started this project without all those tutorials. That site is the greatest DIY reference library ever assembled. It has so many videos for every task, with a myriad of angles and opinions.

    I hope more folks make use of this empowering free resource. Simple repairs are one of the easiest ways to earn a feeling of accomplishment on a weekend afternoon.

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    David Auerbach, Carols in the Caves

    • The sound engineers tried to capture the essence in being a massive cave, but the whole album sounded distant. Everything felt flat.
    • This might be a good holiday background album, but does not have presence as the central audio feature for a drive.
    • The album cover looks great.

    Babyland, You Suck Crap

    • Last week, I complained about noise. This one is all about noise, but I had fun.
    • Sampling a multitude of instruments (and implements) gave the audio palate an enjoyable richness. I suspect growing up with electronica and hip-hop makes me prefer variety when getting bashed over the head.
    • I wish I had detailed memories of attending that concert with my landscaper colleague. Sadly, I just don’t remember much from such events. A few visual flashes and a plastic disc is all I have from 20 years ago.

    Elevate, The Architect

    • While looking up this album last week, I learned about the genre “Math Rock“. I had to give it a second shot now that I know “It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures, and extended chords.”
    • Still very noisy. Most likely still not my thing, but the architectural cover makes a lot more sense with the music behind it.
    • Am I enjoying this album more because I’m now aware that it’s supposed to be sophisticated? Is the emperor clothed or nekkid?

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  • Music Notes

    The first week of the commute music project started well. I listened to Aceyalone twice before slogging through a lot of guitar noise.

    Aceyalone, A Book of Human Language

    • I don’t know enough about hiphop to judge the rapping.
    • Clearly catered to art school nerds who want deep subjects and big words over late 90’s gangsta bling.
    • Love the sonic landscape, especially the bass riff in “the Hunt” (sampled Coltrane’s Ole).

    Aerosmith, Classics Live!

    • Following the complexity of Aceyalone, this was a wall of noise.
    • Lots of electric guitars and distortion. Is this rock? I’m listening to too much jazz.
    • Thoughts of youth culture, what will my daughter think of the pop characters of her childhood when she’s in her mid-40’s?

    Al and the Transamericans, Analog

    • Plenty of electric guitar, but not as frenetic.
    • More melodic and borrows from old tunes and instruments. Very Americana, the banjo makes an appearance.
    • Slightly awkward, in a likable way.

    Elevate, The Architect
    When writing this post, I found I had swapped the band and the album title. Oops, but I like having it on the first page of the binder.

    • More noise. I’m not built for rock.
    • I do buy things for the cover. In this case, the cover and the title. I’d do it again, even though this will be my one and only listen through this album.
    • Google image search led me to the Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan. When it works, the internet is amazing. Fun fact, the Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper took 21 years to restore (1978-1999).

    Bonus (?)
    Last February, I shared Ruthie Foster’s rendition of “War Pigs” to mark the first year of Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine. October brought further horrors with Israel-Palestine. Let’s hope for better in 2024.

  • A few Christmas Albums

    A couple of years ago, the girl fell in love with Lucy and Linus, starting a search for Christmas jazz albums. Here’s what we’ve found on Hoopla:

    Ella wishes you a Swinging Christmas, Ella Fitzgerald — She specifically requested it the day after Thanksgiving, so you know it’s good! What a gorgeous voice.

    Holiday Soul, Bobby Timmons — This instrumental album holds its own beyond Christmas. Bobby Timmons is an amazing pianist, obscured due to his early death. For non-Christmas fare check out Chicken & Dumplin’s and Chun-King on youtube.

    A Charlie Brown Christmas, Vince Guaraldi Trio — This album kicked off our jazz kick at home and is still great. Actually, I wonder if this album is why my current personal jazz preferences leans towards trios.

    If you want crooners, here’s a few albums by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Gene Autry.

    And for Christmas-adjacent jazz, I gotta add John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things.

    Happy December and an early Merry Christmas!

  • Midnight Diner (TV Show)

    Seasons 1 & 2

    The Japanese aren’t scared of sex. Heck, the first episode includes a stripper who is a regular throughout the series.

    But the show isn’t explicit — nothing more than what you find on Instagram. It just accepts sex workers, gangsters, cross dressers, and normies as part of the fabric of life in this district.

    The show is ultimately conservative. It touches on the fringes, but happiness is found in a solid relationships and family.

    It’s also not afraid of or death. Like many Asian shows, they’ll kill a likable character. Such a dynamic inserts needed tension to keep this upbeat show from going completely saccharine.

    I almost wonder if the show is a mirror of where America is headed. A little lewd, a little violent, a little corrupt, but ultimately conservative. I guess things could be worse.

    Seasons 3, 4, & 5

    Midway through the third season my wife lost interest. I also took a nine month break before finally finishing season five.

    A small restaurant with recurring characters is a fun premise, but the characters don’t go anywhere. I wonder if the producers were trapped with a season-by-season contract.

    The show is worth watching, but don’t worry when you’ve had enough of their quirky little world. It’s a great case study in television flash fiction (albeit a tad too heartwarming), but fifty episodes is too much.

    Then again, if they came out with a sixth season, I’d check it out.

    ~

    At twenty minutes a pop, the show is a series of barely connected short stories. It has a few regular characters, but each episode is free standing. Of course some stories are stronger than others, but pick any one at random (even just the first one). If you dig it, you’ll dig the rest, until you don’t. If you don’t, then don’t bother.

    Since this is the first non-animated TV show that I’ve watched and finished, I assume there must be be something good about this series. Or maybe it’s a sign that I have no idea what I’m talking about.

  • Rivers and Tides, Riedelsheimer, Goldsworthy, Frith, 2001

    I watched Rivers and Tides multiple times in a theater in Berkeley before it was demolished for a new apartment complex.

    It blew my mind.
    The pacing was deliberate and the images were gorgeous.
    I was entranced by the musings of Andy Goldsworthy.

    When I gushed about it to a professor, she pushed back,
    “Don’t you think it mythologizes the artist too much?”

    That dampened my enthusiasm for two decades.
    Last year, we rewatched the movie with the kids.

    I see where my prof was coming from.
    So what! She’s wrong.

    Yes, the movie glamorizes the artist and his work.
    But it’s about failure as part of the artist’s process.
    It takes a metric shitton of boring-ass effort.
    If this is mythology, then we need more myth to do the work.

    It’s a great film, equally matched by the avante-garde music of Fred Frith.

    The entire soundtrack is great, but my favorite moment in the movie is at the start of this clip, where Goldsworthy discusses the effect of sheep on the land while the music builds towards a muted climax when the camera pans around a huge stone sculpture.

  • The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Lounsbery, Eritherman, Sharpsteen, 1977

    A great movie, and one of the few feature films that stayed in the ads-free kids section in Disney+; I’d happily watch it again.

    Loved their use of a physical book as a frame throughout the movie; the animators used the page transitions in fun creative ways.

    Also loved the imperfections of the animated lines; it breathes life into the movie that is often missing in modern projects.

    And of course, I enjoyed the surreal song Heffalump and dance number; the boy seemed a little disturbed by the sequence.

  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Chris Columbus, 2001

    I only watched this because of my daughter. I was just old enough to miss the book phenomenon, and I couldn’t be bothered to the watch the movies.

    So far, it’s done nothing to interest me in reading the books, but I’ll be fine with watching future movies if she insists (tellingly, she hasn’t insisted in the months since we’ve watched it).

    She had fun, though as all good readers she was disappointed in some of the changes.

    Voldemort is a properly horrific villain. I could only imagine how much more scary this movie would be with modern CG.

    But really, I’m realizing I’m an animation fan. Maybe it has something to do with watching very little TV (aside from documentaries) while growing up. Or I just prefer the surreal possibilities of that medium. Or the pure craft of the art.

    Real life is magical enough, I don’t feel compelled to watch other humans live their lives on the big screen.

    Maybe it’s cause I’m getting older. I feel a slight pressure of time and yet still harbor a desire to develop a deeper subject knowledge in a few cool subjects. The only way to square that circle is to start actively cutting things out.

    Like in jazz. I ain’t ever giving up Coltrane, Thelonious, Kind of Blue, or Keith Jarrett’s solo albums. But I’ve recently decided to focus my listening on jazz trios. If it’s not one those greats, there better only be three folks on stage.

    Or my recent trend towards avoiding books that are younger than me (Calvino and Murakami excepted), letting the ravages of time simplify my choices.

    Then again, I thought I’d do something similar with EDM and Glitch Hop, but it doesn’t seem to have panned out. I’m back to listening to whatever banging noise gets me through work.

    Who knows. It’s a time of flux.

    It’s always a time of flux.

  • Turning Red, Domee Shi (2022)

    We watched it half a year ago and I can’t remember anything from it.

    It was quirky and fun to have an Asian-American protagonist (we are so spoiled relative to the lily-white days of the 80’s!). Red pandas are super cute, especially when Pixar-fied. I wish I had a crew to hang with like the girl (moving across the state in 6th grade did not help).

    But yeah. Not much here. I’m not sure what “it” should be, but “it” ain’t here. The movie was better than I expected from the trailer but my predominant memory is feeling slightly bored.

    It doesn’t hit like the classics like Toy Story or Monster’s Inc., which we just rewatched the other night.

    I wonder if one can pinpoint this decline halfway through WALL-E when it went from an avante garde film without words to that silly fat human spaceship.

    At some point Pixar chose to pursue technical proficiency over crafting a great story. And the results — both good and bad — are unavoidable.

  • Sacred Verses, Healing Sounds I & II, Deepak Chopra, 2007

    It’s fine. The production is nice and the selected passages are properly inspiring. Chopra is a fine reader and the Indian music is atmospheric. I don’t know much about Hinduism, but I presume this combines best passages out of the Bhagavad Gita and Rig Veda with a dash of explanatory text.

    But I can’t shake the feeling that this is just a basic offering. Mix a few ingredients that feel truthy across all cultures, coat it with woo, and sell it to America.

    I’d be more charitable if this three hour production was marketed as an introductory taste of Hinduism, but I was put off by its inflated self-importance. I don’t care for a program that dilutes spirituality and sells it as more than a mere starting point.

    As a pan-theistic atheist who is skeptical of all forms of systematic formal religious structures, I am the prime target audience. Slap on an ancient spiritual sheen and I’m intrigued. But I also spent my teenage years as a Reformed Baptist steeped in the intellectual cathedral of Calvin. Don’t pretend you got more unless you’re bringing it.