Delicious Halloween Nightmares, Volume One

Okay so, there's a lot of cool Halloween music out there. But a lot of it is very upbeat, party kind of music. And when I'm walking home from work in the early dawn, some eerie, haunting Halloween music would be much more fitting. So I assembled a motley crew of atmospheric tunes, including several cuts from some of my favorite creepy movies. Perfect walking mix for some scary and somber contemplation!

Delicious Halloween Nightmares, Volume One

1. Long, Long Time Ago -- Javier Navarrete [Pan's Labyrinth]

2. Meet Rhonda -- Douglas Pipes [Trick 'r Treat]

3. Ghost Song -- The Doors

4. Piano Sonata: II. Sostenuto e pesante -- Dominique Merlet [Bela Bartok]

5. Lamb Lamp Lambency -- Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders [Don't Be Afraid of the Dark]

6. And the Birds Are About to Bust Their Guts With Singing -- Set Fire to Flames

7. Goblins in the Garage -- Marco Beltrami & Buck Sanders [Don't Be Afraid of the Dark]

8. A Tale -- Javier Navarrete [Pan's Labyrinth]

9. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) -- Marilyn Manson [Trick 'r Treat]

10. Small Steps Against Inertia -- Set Fire to Flames

11. Bird of Prey -- The Doors
12. Sonata No. 1, Op. 22: III Adagia molto apassionata -- Enrico Pompili [Alberto Ginastera]

13. Rose, Dragon -- Javier Navarrete [Pan's Labyrinth]

14. Calling All Monsters -- China Anne McClaine

Life Unexpected

After I fell head over heels for Bunheads, Amy Sherman Paladino's spectacular spiritual sequel to Gilmore Girls, and then promptly ran out of new episodes to watch... I've been searching for another family drama to swoon over. Preferrably something with that old school WB feel. 

I saw Life Unexpected listed on Netflix and knew I had found my match. This was a show that aired a couple of years ago on the CW, billed as a return to classic WB aesthetic. I had only watched it absent-mindedly back then, so it was overdue for a rewatch.

The show revolves around a teenage girl named Lux, who has been shuffled through various abysmal foster homes since she was a child. On the eve of her 16th birthday she is seeking emancipation, to escape her foster life. To seek emancipation she needs her parents signatures, so she seeks out her birth parents. But when she goes up against the judge, instead of being granted emancipation, the judge puts her into the custody of her birth parents. But neither of these blokes is a very able parent, they're still trying to get their own lives together.

I'm not quite convinced it's a Bunheads or Dawson's Creek calibur show as of yet, but it's winning me over. Episode s1e7 totally impressed me, that montage of Kate alone juxtaposed against Lux feeling warm and fuzzy and accepted was truly heartbreaking. I pretty much hated Kate Cassidy until that scene really started making me feel sorry for her. I adore the glowing moments of schmaltz that the show ends most episodes with, but it was this ep that shows how good the depressing drama can be, which is an essential ying to the yang.

I was almost turned off from the show just by how truly awful these parents were in the beginning. They actually reference aborting their daughter <i>right to her freaking face</i> several times in the first few episodes and they never even act like it's a big deal. ARGH HOW EVIL ARE THESE PEOPLE. But they've been improving slowly as the series progresses. I get that it's sort of the whole premise: bumbling adult-child parents get set up with their precocious, world-weary long-lost daughter and they both have to learn to deal with each other. It's not an ideal family but it's a <i>family</i> and that's worth something, that's the point. And I can accept that, it's sort of a touching premise. Lux can handle their inadequacies, she's had worse.

The plot does carry its share of basic teen drama tropes (e.g. the preppy jock who woos the outcast girl by demontrating that he's actually a sincere, sweet guy; the adult-child parents being kept in line by their precocious offspring) but the adoption angle makes it genuinely unique and I find the characters interesting and their struggles, while not excruciatingly unique, seem real and relatable. And I have to admit, I ship Lux with the jock. Ever since she told him that story about the necklace and so he brought her a necklace, that was too adorable!

Anyhoo, it's a quality show, I reccomend it for anyone with a love of sentimental dramas or the old WB.

A Sad Day for Television: Victorious Cancelled

The good news? Victorious has 15 new episodes that have (apparently) been filmed recently. The bad news? Nickelodeon has given the axe to its best show. But not only its best current show, possibly its best sitcom ever, with iCarly being the only even remotely plausible competition.

This news came as an unprecedented surprise to all of us. With iCarly already being sent to the chopping block, could Nick truly be so brash as to kill off it's only other dependable sitcom at the same time? They're really going to throw the reigns to their mid-level B shows and brand new, yet-to-be-filmed pilots, and just cross their fingers that they'll flourish? When the network is already in such deep financial woes? 

Frankly, I'm devastated. Nick hasn't hurt me like this in.... well, probably never. When iCarly was cancelled, it was very sad, it was the end of an era, but it wasn't a massive loss. iCarly had already defied all comprehensible conventions, smashing Dan's previous sitcom record. It was time for the show to end, all of us in the iCarly fandom were expecting it to end two seasons earlier. But... Victorious? Victorious is young. Victorious has so much ahead of it, so much left to explore, so many untapped ideas. Or.... it did. But it's being cut down in its prime, long before we even have the luxury of watching it decline. Dan Schneider's best work isn't even being given the dignity of a fourth season. It's not just being cancelled, it's being cancelled earlier than previous Schneider shows that weren't 1/10th as good, like Drake & Josh and Zoey 101.

With both Victorious and iCarly finished filming forever.... Nickelodeon's golden age seems to be at a decisive end, save for The Legend of Korra. Can Nick resurrect itself from the brink of destruction? Only time will tell. But whatever Nick hopes to accomplish, they will have to fight their way uphill through the incompetent business decisions that have plagued the network for two years.

An event like this demands a more detailed analysis than this blog entry provides. What will become of the Victorious stars? What will this mean for the network's prospects in the short term? I haven't even mentioned the spin-off. But I'm short on time, on edge, and above all, at a loss for words. I was planning on writing a post about Disney Channel this evening, but then this news came up and torpedoed my intentions. What a sucky way to start a weekend.

The Legend of Korra

Avatar: The Last Airbender represents a golden moment in TV history. It is a perfect storm of excellent animation, powerful story, genuinely intelligent writing, a vast host of classic tropes lovingly reiterated, and a gorgeously rich fantasy mythos all its own. It may be the greatest TV series of all-time. So when it was announced that a new series in the Avatar universe was to be produced, my first thought naturally was "HOLY FUCKING SHIT OH MY GOD YES." Then, my second thought was.... "Wait, lightning doesn't strike twice."

But apparently it does. Because the brilliant creators behind Avatar: The Last Airbender created The Legend of Korra. And to my elated, giddy surprise, it's every bit as good as the original. In some ways, it's even better. I've watched the whole series three times already. It just aired. I almost invariably wait years in between viewings of story-based programs.

The Legend of Korra is set 70 years after the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar Aang and Firelord Zuko turned the Fire Nation Colonies in the Earth Kingdom into an autonomous nation where all of the cultures mix freely. Avatar Korra is the 17 year old reincarnation of Avatar Aang, and while she is prodigious at the physical aspects of bending, she lacks discipline and spirituality, inhibitng her ability to Airbend. Having been sheltered in the Southern Water Tribe her whole life, she moves to the mixed nation in order to learn airbending from Aang's youngest son, Tenzin --  the only living airbending master in the world.

The amazing thing (well, one of them) about The Legend of Korra, is that it manages to carry on the legacy of ATLA without merely reiterating it. It carves for itself a unique set of attributes independent from ATLA, and in doing so it becomes a truly brilliant series in its own right. It's not really that either series is better or worse, it's more like they're both freaking amazing for their own individual reasons.

Where ATLA was an expansive saga told over more than 60 episodes, TLOK is a terse, 12 episode self-contained story. Further season(s) will follow but they too will be self-contained. So while ATLA had plenty of filler eps to flesh out character details and submerge us in this utterly rich and fascinating mythos,  every single episode of Korra is action-packed. Furthermore, while ATLA toyed heavily with classic shonen tropes and built its legacy on the Eastern spirituality of venerable TV programs like Kung Fu, The Legend of Korra steps out into its own a bit with less of an archetypal storyline, and draws inspiration from the universally-beloved films of Hayao Miyazaki.

ATLA's wide-open ancient landscape becomes a 1920s steampunk city for TLOK, reminiscent of Miyazaki or Final Fantasy 6 (complete with mech-suits). But don't worry, the setting and animation retain the impeccable grandeur of the original. In fact, the animation in Korra is several fold superior to the already flawless animation in ATLA! I honestly have never seen more gorgeous fight choreography in my life. The series is amazing to behold simply on the virtue of the animation alone, before you even get into the immaculate story.

Speaking of, now on to the story. The following segment contains MAJOR SPOILERS so be forewarned!

The characters in TLOK are FANTASTIC. While Uncle Iroh is easily my second favorite animated character of all-time (behind Magneto), the rest of the top 5 would probably all be TLOK characters.

In ATLA, Sokka was the token non-bender on the team. And while he was funny and very smart, he was the antithesis of cool. On the contrary, TLOK's non-bender is an unmitigated badass, the beautiful and deadly Asami. Her character arc is fascinating: watching her have to face off against her own father, and choose her only living family or the life she's made for herself with her friends.

I'm partial to Airbenders in general, for their spirituality, but Avatar Korra gives Aang a run for his money. She's strong and sincere, and she wears her heart on her sleeve. And then of course there's Tenzin. He's not quite as wise as Iroh or Monk Gyatso, but what he lacks in powerful wisdom he makes up for in raw power. In a series full of truly amazing bedners, Tenzin may well be the biggest badass of all. When he absent-mindedly obliterates the equalists trying to capture him in episode 10, has to be one of the coolest things I've seen in my life.

Tarrlok, Amon, and the boat scene.

The  best and most excellent thing about The Legend of Korra are the characters Noatak and Tarrlok. Easily one of the most fascinating and most excellently developed storylines I've seen on screen. First we have Amon, one of my favorite all-time villains because he does it with such absolute style and force. I was almost rooting for him just because of how cool he is.

Then we have Tarrlok, who at first appears to be a sleazy manipulator; a second-rate villain just to serve as minor sport for Korra until the real showdown with Amon begins. But in truth he and his brother Noatak were the sons of a powerful bloodbender, who had forced them into learning his evil art. But Noatak and Tarrlok defied their father and seperated, and Tarrlok dedicated his life to the pursuit of good and justice. His father was a notorious criminal, so he became a city councilman, to uphold law and order. He lived in constant fear of becoming his father. His paranoia drove him to extreme methods against the Equalists, which caused a rift between him and Avatar Korra. Tarrlok's fight with Korra is the season's single best bit of bending, particularly when Korra rips the wall out and turns it on him. Tarrlok captures Korra and blames it on the Equalists. In a brilliant twist, Amon subdues Tarrlok for interfering, and Korra frees herself.

But at the end we find out the truth about Tarrlok. That Amon is Noatak, his brother, who despised their father and set out to rid the world of bending. Both brothers hated their father and dedicated their life to escaping his influence. Tragically, their attempts to escape their upbringing unwittingly led them to vy for control of Republic City just like their father had. When Amon is defeated, he and Tarrlok escape. But Tarrlok now understands that they'll never be able to escape their father, and in order to rid the world of his evil legacy and put a rest to him and his brother's constant fear, Tarrlok kills his brother and himself in a selfless act of sacrifice, the most brutal and beautiful thing you'll ever see on Nickelodeon.

Easily the greatest television series to debut since Victorious in 2010, and easily one of the greatest television series ever made.

Rock Music's Greatest Band Returns After 15 Years

As y'all know, I'm mostly devoted to pop music these days. I have been for a few years now. But when I was thirteen I became quite smitten with the music of Neil Young. And miraculously he followed me throughout my entire life, with his prodigiously diverse back-catalog connecting to me through each contrasting phase of my life. If you knew what a perplexing cornucopia of divergent phases my life has been through (almost anything you could imagine), you'd understand how expansive Neil's catalog is and why he'll always be my most favoritest artist of all time. :')

Over the last three years, the guitar-laden Crazy Horse incarnation of Neil has been my favorite. While his other works tend toward melancholia and introspection, Crazy Horse speaks to me with pure, unadulterated fun. They're wholly unpetentious in their pursuit of an unmitigated bar-stomping groove and sick, tasty guitar fury in generous servings. Their songs can still be articulate and meaningful, but in a more primal way, less intellectual than it is spiritual.

So you can imagine how invested I was in the re-emergence of Neil's longest, truest companions. After a decade provided almost exclusively with tedious political concepts and easy-listening lite-folk records, the 2010s seem to present Neil Young at the peak of his powers once again. Le Noise, released in 2010, gave us a more coherent counterpart to the impressive yet untempered sonic experimentation from 1995's Dead Man soundtrack, which itself was a superior take on the ponderous but well-intentioned Arc noise album from 1991. Now, in 2012 comes Americana, which is effortlessly, decisively, and beyond doubt, the best album Neil has made since the last Crazy Horse album fifteen years ago.

As often happens when Neil reunites with The Horse, he sounds younger than he has in many years. In fact, they actually manage to sound younger on Americana than they did on the last Crazy Horse album, 1996's ethereal and serene Broken Arrow. Americana is young and hungry, overflowing with classic Crazy Horse tropes that retain unexpected precision. Punchy, powerful songs such as "High Flyin' Bird" and "Travel On" genuinely might as well have been lifted from 1975's Zuma or 1977's American Stars 'N' Bars. The instrumentations are crisp and unbashful. The voice of the world-weary but warm-hearted old man that permeated all of Neil's 00s records and some his 90s ones too, is dead and buried in the ferocious articulation of Americana's various anthems. Even The Horse sounds younger than they did last; providing immaculate harmonies as strong as their timeless vocal contributions to "Dangerbird" and "Hey Hey My My."

In archetypal Neil fashion, this is an album that simultaneously sounds exactly like what you've heard him do before --  AND it's a preposterous new-fangled concept you never could have imagined Neil doing in a billion years. It's an album entirely of very old songs, most of them traditional folk songs. But they're not played like cover songs, they're given brand new Crazy Horse instrumentations and sincerely original melodies. It's astounding, but even humdrum standards like "Oh Susannah" and "Clementine" become these ecstatically groovy, picture-perfect, fist pumping Crazy Horse anthems that completely belong to Neil.

Some fans are disappointed that these aren't original Neil compositions, but I see that as a slightly vain appreciation of the situation. Neil may not have copyright over these tracks, but he invented their instrumentations and their melodies, and he chose nothing but songs that sounds as much like Neil as Neil himself does. Each one is absolutely soaked in classic "Neil lore."

Every single thing on here might as well be a Neil original. Even "God Save The Queen," whose awkward political anthemia would feel comfortably at home alongside America The Beautiful on Neil's 2006 record Living With War, and that's the least of them. "Travel On" borrows the wayward drifting theme from a dozen obscure Neil album cuts ("The Wayward Wind," "This Town," "Four Strong Winds"), adds the leery stumbling of "Roll Another Number (For The Road)," equips it with the down-home trot of "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" and the feel-good repetition of "Homegrown," and you have one of the most perfectly archetypal Neil tunes in existence.

"High Flyin' Bird" is a like a fierce younger brother to brooding fan-favorite jam "Dangerbird." "Wayfarin' Stranger" is a subtle and beautiful ode to death that would feel amongst kin alongside the myriad of similarly mysterious and dark acoustic hymns from Neil's past: "New Mama" on Tonight's The Night, "Drive-By" on Sleeps With Angels, "Music Arcade" on Broken Arrow, and "Through My Sails" on Zuma. Neil even revisits his Everybody's Rockin' concept for the first time since the 80s, with the very ably performed Sillhouttes cover "Get A Job" -- the only song on this collection that isn't a folk song.

The new melodies allow these very old lyrics to fall on modern ears as if they were new, and surprisingly these are excellent lyrics indeed. In lyrical terms, death haunts this record more so than on Tonight's The Night or Sleeps With Angels. More than half the album's songs are specifically about death. In his own versions Neil perserves grim, dark stanzas that have faded away from the schoolbook versions we heard as children. My favorite is this verse from "Clementine" that sounds nearly conjured from George R.R. Martin's a Song of Ice and Fire: "In my dreams she still doth haunt me, broken garments soaked in brine. Though in life I used to hug her, in death I draw the line." I mean, grim image, right? A brine-soaked ghost is creepy enough, but even to posit the question of whether or not to hug her (and to thus pose hugging her as a possibility) makes it seem as though she's a flesh and blood zombie standing before him. So chilling.

All together it's an astoundingly delicious set of tracks, which would probably rank in my top 15 Neil Young albums -- which means something since he has 40 albums! The only thing it lacks is a truly great extended-jam in the tradition of "Cortez the Killer" or "Like a Hurricane;" including that would probably bump it up to the top 10. It's an album I can't imagine a Neil diehard not loving.

Pop #9

It's becoming really difficult to find songs for these compilations anymore. Traditionally, eighty or ninety percent of the great pop songs I find had been revealed to me during the 40 hours per week of music they pump out of the speakers at work. These days they barely play any modern music at all, and even fewer songs that I'm unfamiliar with (recent or no). But I managed to find a few good tracks. Call Me Maybe is an easy contender for best song of the year.

Pop 9

1. Call Me Maybe -- Carly Rae Jepsen
2. Monster -- Paramore

3. Don't Know Why -- Norah Jones
4. Wide Awake -- Katy Perry
5. Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) -- Kelly Clarkson
6. Mandy -- Barry Manilow
7. Our Summer -- Dragonette
8. All Kinds of Wrong -- Miranda Cosgrove
9. Made of Stone -- Evanescence
10. Dressin' Up -- Katy Perry
11. Don't Hurt It (feat. Timbaland) -- Dev
12. Stay (I Missed You) -- Lisa Loeb

13. Boyfriend (feat. Snoop Dogg) -- Big Time Rush
14. Five Fingaz to the Face -- Victorious Cast
15. Somebody That I Used to Know -- Gotye

Empress of the World

Empress of the World is a quaint little romance novel from 2001 written by Sara Ryan. Within its pages, a teenage girl named Nicola meets a group of friends at a summer learning program, whom quickly become her inseparable confidants. She then falls madly in love with another member of this clan, a gentle Southern girl with the unlikely name of Battle.

 'Empress' is far from the best novel I've ever read, but it has a definite power to it. Despite the countless tropes it employs, it's a genuinely unique piece of work. It's kind of strange, half of what I read is "young adult" fiction, and yet this is the first time in years I actually felt like I was reading a kids' book. Despite the characters being almost college-age, plus the smoking and drinking of alcohol, and the references to sex and drugs, this book reads like it is meant for middle school or younger. The writing is ceaselessly straight-forward, though not without its charms, and the scenes are often only a few sentences long. It actually becomes vary jarring, having mere glimpses raised up to be scenes, and chapters tend to end abruptly in the middle of action I'd realy like to see develop further. But beneath the frustration lies an excellent adventure. 

Giving teenagers the run of a campus (their summer program takes place at a university), provided a fun bit of independence and made the characters seem a lot older than they are. It gave it sort of a Zoey 101 feel. It made me nostalgic for college, more than anything else. The characters were pure and naive, but in an endearing and fairly true to life way. Like many young adult novels, it doesn't shy away from portraying alcohol in a positive light. And, like Annie On My Mind, the drinking is used subtlety to add a pinch of mystery and adventure to a beautifully romantic scene.

The romance itself, for the most part, is actually pretty generic. Where this novel shines with notable fervor is in its depiction of the core friendship between Nicola and the other kids she met in the program. Their friendship develops quickly but not at all unrealistically, into a do-or-die allegience and an effortless rapport. The many scenes of pragmatic Nicola clashing against bossy, extroverted crazy-nerd Katrina and soft-spoken but strong-willed Battle are fun, free-spirited, and vividly genuine. I would love to see a sequel focused on Katrina, her character was so much fun.

 I don't know what to say about it other than that it was kind of a trip for me. Juxtaposing the juvenile writing style with the college-esque characters, then adding in the powerful wistfulness of its 'fleeting summer of youth' theme, sort of threw me for a loop. I would definitely reccomend this novel for fans of friendship and slice of life stories; in that category it is fairly immaculate. But for romance you'd do better to read Annie On My Mind. Yet I'm proud to say that this is another humble, pure-hearted novel about two girls in love, without the murder, suicide, promiscuous sex or soapboxing that sometimes plagues lesbian literature. This is the kind of romance I believe in with mine own heart.