My Playlist:
updated February 23, 2005



CDs


Monkees: Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
V.A.: Benten Hokkai Bentoh 
   (Mao-Mag, Bu-Li, Spyder Babies, et al.)
John Coltrane: A Love Supreme
Little Fujiko: White Peach Jellyfish
Ghost: Snuffbox Immanence
Ghost: Hypnotic Underworld
Blonde Redhead: "La Mia Vita Violenta."
Blonde Redhead: Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
Cream: Disraeli Gears
Pink Mochi: (self-titled EP)
Tater Totz: Tater Comes Alive!
Tater Totz: Mono Stereo
Grateful Dead: (self-titled)


Malagueña: Spanish Guitar Music
   (Albéniz, Tárrega, Sor, et al.; 
   Narciso Yepes, guitar)


Milhaud: Double Piano Concerto (and other works)
   (Jacquelin Robin and Genevieve Joy, piano;
   Darius Milhaud and the BBC Symphony 
   Orchestra)


Milhaud: Creation of the World/The Bull on the Roof
   (Darius Milhaud and the Orchestre du Théâtre de 
   Champs-Elysées)


Tragicomedia: Capritio: Instrumental Music from 
   17th-Century Italy


The King's Noyse: Italian Renaissance Dances,
   Volume 2


The Magic of the Harpsichord
   (Rameau, Scarlatti, Bach, et al.;
   Robert Veyron-Lacroix, harpsichord)


Vivaldi: String Concertos
   (Jaime Laredo and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra)


Richard Wagner: Die Walküre
   (Sir Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic)


Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin (and other works)
   (Kent Nagano and the Orchestre de l'Opéra 
   National de Lyon)


Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time
   (Beths, Pieterson, Bijlsma, De Leeuw)




Live Shows


La Bohème at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion
   (The first two acts are great, the third and 
   fourth acts are maudlin and contrived. Puccini 
   wanted to inject some tragedy so he made Mimì 
   fatally ill of something vague. Tragedy's fine, but 
   he should have come up with a better story than 
   having the characters spend the second half of the 
   opera moping. The highlight was the scene of Mimì 
   looking for her key, in which Roberto Alagna's 
   singing [as Rudolfo] was incredible.)


Dr. George Marko at the Universal World Church in the
   Scottish Rite Temple Auditorium
   (This is a church that believes that faith will 
   make you physically younger and immortal, even 
   though the two founders, Dr. O. Lee Jaggers and 
   Miss Velma, both died of old age. I attended this 
   service so I could buy a video of Miss Velma's last 
   Christmas special. I taped her earlier special, 
   Christmas in America, off channel 56 back in the 
   eighties. Laurie Anderson describes part of that
   special in United States. I haven't watched the 
   newer one yet, which was taped in 2001 and is 
   called God Bless America.

UNIVERSAL WORLD CHURCH WEBSITE


Tsunami Benefit with Pink Mochi and the Mean Reds
   at El Cid
   (Pink Mochi: Quirky and fun, featuring a moog, 
   theremin and fuzzy cat ears. 
   The Mean Reds: The lead singer, who resembles an 
   emaciated Beck, is also a comedian, bantering at 
   length between songs which are short bursts of raw 
   punk -- he's almost as funny as Kepi of the Groovie 
   Ghoulies -- I was most impressed when he poured 
   candle wax over his bare stomach and didn't 
   flinch.)



Bumper Sticker Sighting


Don't pray in my school, 
and I won't think in your church.



At the Movies


A Tale of Two Sisters (Korean horror, pretty cool. 
   See the original before Hollywood does its shitty 
   version.)


Sky Blue (Korean anime, sci-fi dystopia. Great movie, 
   what made it even better was that it's always 
   raining in the movie and when I saw it, it was 
   really raining outside, so nature provided some 
   dolby stereo.)


Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-Wai's second movie, his 
   first with cinematographer Christopher Doyle. 
   Leslie Cheung stars, with support from Maggie 
   Cheung and Andy Lau. Tony Leung makes a brief 
   cameo. Made in 1991, set in 1960. Excellent.)



Videos, DVDs


Brigadoon (Lousy. I like the fairy tale premise, but 
   there's only one good song, not enough tap dancing, 
   and a lame ending. It would have been unbearable 
   without Van Johnson's smart-ass remarks.)


Infernal Affairs II (Cool prequel. Still have to see 
   part III.)


Bullet in the Head (Great John Woo epic.)


Blue in the Face (Okay, so now I like two movies by 
   Wayne Wang. This one and Chan Is Missing. All his 
   other movies suck. I saw this one because Jim 
   Jarmusch is in it. The dialog is improvised, and 
   much of it is funny. Roseanne Barr's scenes are 
   heavily edited, it looks like they had to cut most 
   of her adlibbing.)


November sumo tournament. Asashoryu wins again! He won 
   five of the six tournaments in 2004, no one's done 
   that since Chiyonofuji in 1986, and Asashoryu's 
   only the fourth yokozuna to pull it off. Kaio beat 
   Asashoryu on the last day to keep his 12-3 record. 
   People are talking about promoting Kaio to yokozuna, 
   but I don't think it's a good idea. He's a strong 
   ozeki and a good spoiler, but he just doesn't put 
   up the numbers consistently enough for the yokozuna 
   rank. Same goes for Wakanosato and his ozeki hopes. 
   Kyokushuzan had a dismal 2-13 record, last basho he 
   was 11-4. He should do well again next time.



Books


V.A.L.I.S. by Philip K. Dick (His masterpiece.
   "The Empire never ended!")


The Love You Make by Peter Brown (Insider's story 
   of the Beatles. Brown obviously sympathizes with 
   Cynthia Lennon, but she ends up sounding like a
   psycho anyway. Yoko rules. Call your mom, Kyoko!)


The Elizabethan World Picture by E.M.W. Tillyard
   ("If mankind had to choose between a universe that 
   ignored him and one that noticed him to do him 
   harm, it might well choose the second. Our own age 
   need not begin congratulating itself on its free-
   dom from superstition till it defeats a more dan-
   gerous temptation to despair." [pp. 53-54])


The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
   (A lot of passages describing landscapes, all he
   had to say was, "It looked like New Zealand.")


The Complete E.C. Segar Popeye (The original 
   superman! When Popeye first showed up in Thimble 
   Theater [in 1929], he could take bullets and drink 
   poison, and he punched guys just 'cause he felt 
   like it, he even punched cops and if he went to 
   jail he'd just tear down the wall and escape. And 
   that was before he discovered spinach! Blow me 
   down, he was the berries, I says he was! Later he 
   got more kid-friendly, and by then the real star 
   was Wimpy.)


Subscriptions to Rolling Stone and Giant Robot.


TV


Howard Stern on Letterman (Pimping Sirius.)


Frontline: The Persuaders (Marketing techniques. The 
   most interesting part is the interview with 
   Clotaire Rapaille, who used to work with autistic 
   children, and now he advises companies on how to 
   appeal to the reptilian brain.)


The ball drop with Regis.


Kohaku Uta Gassen (I couldn't tell whether Red or 
   White won.)


Tournament of Roses Parade (Stephanie Edwards is 
   planning to go on her second honeymoon to Scotland 
   as soon as she fixes her roof leak and the plumbing. 
   On a previous telecast, when a Loch Ness Monster 
   float went by, Bob Eubanks expressed his skepticism 
   regarding the beast's existence, and Stephanie said, 
   "Oh, I don't know, I think I got a glimpse of him 
   on my honeymoon!" This year Bob revealed that he 
   has an eight-dollar-a-day Starbucks habit. That's a 
   lot of coffee, unless he's getting those ice 
   blended things. What happened to Frazier Smith's 
   simulcast?)


Wild About Animals (Nature show, Fox Saturday morning,
   hosted by Mariette Hartley. Where's James Garner to 
   take photos with her?)


One Piece (Wacky pirate cartoon, Fox Saturday 
   morning.)


McLaughlin Group (This is where I saw clips of the 
   inaugural address. When Bush announced his 
   "ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," I 
   thought it was a concession speech. As for his 
   spreading "liberty throughout all the world," do we 
   have enough bombs for that? There obviously aren't 
   enough ground troops, so we'll have to nuke all the 
   repressed countries, and as soon as the radiation 
   clears, people can move into their free democracies. 
   With any luck the land will be liveable before our 
   sun supernovas.)


Perry Mason



Radio


Harry Shearer's Le Show (Political satire. It's 
   funny when he just reads stuff and comments, 
   the produced bits are pretty lame. My favorite
   shows are when Tom Leopold calls in.)


Jim Svejda's The Record Shelf (Classical music show, 
   usually it's a good history lesson. Sometimes he 
   interviews movie soundtrack composers, who have 
   interesting stories to tell, but their music 
   sucks when you hear it by itself.)


Howard Stern (Do you have your satellite radio yet?)


Left, Right and Center (Bob Scheer is great. He 
   should have the whole show to himself. Just call 
   it Left.)


My phone is tapped. Bush must be as paranoid as Nixon.
Or I am.

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