Year of Songs: It's Hard to Hold a Candle

Whew - last post of the Year of Songs. Let's work our way backwards through the last two months:




December:

Gold Soundz - Pavement
The Air Near My Fingers - The White Stripes

Both these lyricists go for the classic "remember"/"month ending in -ember" rhyme (best exemplified by "Try to Remember (The Kind of September)" from a previous playlist in the series). I love "Gold Soundz," but I found it to be a rather out-of-left-field choice for Pitchfork's #1 song of the '90s. But then again, the folks at Pitchfork sure love them some Pavement.

Horchata - Vampire Weekend
 
Speaking of obvious rhymes, I'm so tired of all these songs that rhyme "horchata" with "balaclava." Sheesh.

Back to December - Taylor Swift

My friend Peter: "There's a great Taylor Swift song from her latest studio album Speak Now called 'Back to December.' I dare you to use it." Game on, Peter!

Love Her Madly - The Doors

Also from Peter: "I just realized that 'Love Her Madly' by the Doors has a Carol of the Bells reference in the keyboard solo." So it does.

Having gone through a major Doors phase in junior high, I still harbor a fondness for the Doors which was rekindled recently by Jimmy Fallon's spectacular interpretation of the Reading Rainbow theme in the guise of Jim Morrison. Unfortunately, the official video has expired, so the subpar video below is the best I can do:



Summersong - The Decemberists

Befitting a band with a month in their name, the Decemberists have made numerous appearances on this playlist in previous months. Lacking a song that actually has December in the lyrics (that I know of, at least), I thought we could use a nice song about summer to shake things up. 

If We Make It Through December - Merle Haggard

Just discovered this one courtesy of the All Songs Considered podcast. Speaking of summer, this one features this sad little line in chorus:

If we make it through December
I got plans of being in a warmer town come summer time
Maybe even California...

And speaking of California...

Long December - Counting Crows

I love the classic Counting Crows song ending: repeating "yeah" over and over again with rapidly depleting energy until the whole thing just falls apart. Perfect way to send the Year of Songs project limping off at the end of its run.

November:

Young Pilgrims - The Shins

The album Chutes Too Narrow, named after a line from this song, was easily one of my favorite albums of the past decade. In case you haven't heard, after five years The Shins will finally release a new album in March.

Hard Candy - Counting Crows

After that Shins interlude, let's keep the Counting Crows rolling, shall we? This is one of the few post-"Long December" songs that I actually like (don't get me started on that Shrek song).

Allerseelen (All Souls' Day) - Richard Strauss

All Souls' Day, also known as the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, falls annually on November 2.

Today the graves are full of lights and flowers,
One day a year the dead shall hold their sway:
Spend on my heart again those lovely hours,
Like once in May.

Congrats to Richard Strauss for being the most represented German art song composer on the Year of Songs playlist (this and "September").

November - Andy Dwyer (from Parks & Recreation)

The character Andy from Parks & Rec wrote a song about a girl named November to try to win his girlfriend April back (makes sense if you know the character). How could any girl, regardless of the month of her namesake, resist a sensitive ballad with lines like "Let's spread our wings and flyyyyyyyy... on a date"? Grooveshark didn't have a copy, so watch the clip below:




On the Radio - Regina Spektor

The last song on this November list is so epic, we need this song just to preface it:

On the radio
We heard "November Rain"
That solo's really long
But it's a pretty song

November Rain - Guns N' Roses

This song came out when I was in 6th grade and it sparked the equivalent of the Team Edward vs. Team Jacob conflict at my elementary school. The popular kids, led by this girl named Kari, literally walked around the playground during recess asking people if they were Team "November Rain" or Team "Rumpshaker," another song that was popular at the time (I was going to link to it, but after listening to it for the first time in almost 20 years I was a little embarrassed - at the time I didn't understand how gross it was, though the title should have been a pretty good tip-off). The two groups got pretty chippy, and I remember making a case that it was possible to like both songs, but my musical eclecticism was too far ahead of its time.

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For those of you who bothered to read these "Year of Songs" posts and listen to some of the music, thanks for indulging me. Special thanks to those who suggested songs for the project - I discovered some cool music thanks to you. Overall it was really fun to put this mega-playlist together month by month, and the final tally is a whooping 95 songs.

Let's go out on a song that mentions every month of the year: Neil Sedaka's 1961 "Calendar Girl." It's a major cheese-fest, but just close your eyes and picture it playing during party scene on Mad Men, and then it will be a whole lot cooler.

Merry Christmas!

SST: Don't Eat the Pictures

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

A few years ago my friend Jessica posted something on her blog about her trip to Mexico that really caught my attention: "The anthropology museum was great, mainly because I put on my iPod and walked around looking at ancient Mexican cultures while listening to Arcade Fire. I think the visual/audio juxtaposition made the visit all the better." At the time I read that it sounded heretical to me - how could you take in the gravity of a museum while listening to your iPod? However, on my next museum visit I decided to give it a try and I instantly fell in love with all the unexpected "visual/audio juxtapositions" that resulted.

This past week was exceptionally museum-y for me and my iPod's shuffle mode came up with some inspired pairings. For instance, hit play on the song below:



This song ("The Rainbow," by The Apples in Stereo - if you don't know them, you should definitely check them out) cued up just as I walked into a room full of Modernist paintings, including "Political Drama" by Robert Delaunay:

I think the standard museum setup tends to do some artwork something of a disservice - the setting is too reverential as we silently cast our rueful gazes on the canvas. I think that tends to drain a lot of the vibrancy from the paintings and make you forget that the thing was dreamed up by a living, breathing person just like you or me. But this song broke up the sterility of the museum and unlocked a ton of energy inside the painting. Admittedly, this really isn't the most imaginative pairing - they are both really bright, high-energy works, and the title of the song seems rather obvious given the crazy arrays of colors Delaunay throws at us - but there were other unexpected combos of music and art that brought out subtle qualities in the latter that I might not have noticed otherwise.

So thanks, Jess, for the first museum tip: rock out to some tunes while you look at art. The second museum tip I observed on my trip came from Cookie Monster. This song comes from an old one-hour Sesame Street special that was a favorite around the Tanner house, and it's some pretty solid museum-going advice:

Out of the Fires of Mordor

Back in 2009, I grew a mustache for a production of Albert Herring at the University of Michigan which inadvertently gave one of my students a panic attack. After that I made a vow:

[N]ow I realize that this mustache is actually very dangerous and has the potential to unleash much pain and psychological anguish on the world, like Pandora's Box or The One Ring... [I]t must be destroyed (possibly in the fires of Mordor, although that sounds like a lot of work) before it has a chance to harm anyone else.

Well, the mustache is back again, and hopefully this time I can harness its powers for good rather than evil. I am a member of Yahoo!'s Movember team. Movember is an organization that was founded in Australia to help raise money for cancer prevention:
 
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I had a beard in October (which turned into a goatee for Halloween), but according to the Movember rules I had to start November 1st clean-shaven. Here's the 'stache on day eight:

So as you can see, this 'stache rocks a lot harder than my previous 'staches. And that's only after eight days - I can't wait to see how awesome it will be by the end of the month.

If you would like to donate to the Movember cause in my name, you may do so on my Movember profile page: http://mobro.co/opticwalrus

"I am the one who knocks!"

We had a costume contest at work for Halloween, and I had Breaking Bad on the mind since it recently wrapped up its stellar fourth season.  A similarly Breaking Bad-obsessed co-worker and I decided to go as a pair of characters from the show: I as Walter White, the lead character, and he as Tio Hector Salamanca, a old man confined to a wheelchair and a respirator, whose only way of communicating with others is to ring a bell (once for yes, twice for no). I went to the trouble of securing a wheelchair and bell for him - all he had to do was find a bathrobe. But on the day of the contest he was like, "Sorry man, didn't have time to get one." I was a little disappointed, but we got our picture taken for the contest anyways:

I didn't think we would have a chance in the costume contest for the same reason that I didn't expect to win a prize for my gelatina colorida earlier last month - when you put forth something that people are less familiar with (such as a kind of strange Brazilian gelatin dessert or characters from a critically acclaimed but largely unknown T.V. show), you run the risk of marginalizing your chances for recognition. In fact, one of the members of the judging panel IM'ed me during their deliberations saying that they didn't know who we were supposed to be (I sent them some YouTube links). However, I've kind of made it my life's mission to champion lesser-known but worthy works, be it through my Brian Presents: film lectures, the music I program on my voice recitals, or even the Halloween costumes that I choose. And I was actually surprised by the number of people at work who saw us and started to gush about how much they too love Breaking Bad.

Much to my delight, the day after the contest I arrived at work to find an the results sitting in my inbox: Best Original Costume, baby! I ended up getting a really nice Yahoo!-branded gym bag for my efforts. All in all, I brought in a very impressive haul of free stuff through Yahoo! in the month of October:

For those of you playing "I Spy," items include: a gym bag, a cake pan and quiche pans (for the dessert contest), two Yahoo! Oktoberfest glasses, a mug from a product launch, a portable charcoal grill that I won in a raffle, a bound notebook, and a t-shirt. Pity - I forgot to include the "Awesome Costume" ribbon that I also won for my Breaking Bad ensemble.

Note: The title of this post refers to Trick or Treating! Or to this clip. It's up to you!

Year of Songs: It Started Feeling Like October

Answer me this: why do we have September, November, and December, but we have October? Shouldn't it be Octember? And aren't all the prefixes on these months off by two? "Sept-" means seven, but September is the ninth month. "Oct-" means eight, and it's the tenth month. Shouldn't "November" and "December" refer to the ninth and tenth months, respectively?

Perhaps we'll never solve all the mysteries surrounding Octember... er, October. On to the playlist:

 

October - Broken Bells

I knew I was going to love Broken Bells even before I heard a note of their music. How could I not love a collaboration between James Mercer (the lead singer/guitarist/songwriter from The Shins) and Danger Mouse (producer of some of my favorite albums of the past decade by the likes of Beck, Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley*, and The Good, the Bad, and the Queen)? Their debut album was one of my favorite albums of last year.  

Annie Use Your Telescope - Jack's Mannequin

A recommendation from Brady Emmett**, who very punctually filed this suggestion back in August:
"I've been sitting on this all year!  My absolute favorite Jack's Mannequin song is 'Annie Use Your Telescope' (Also, saw him live in concert last night.  Awesome!)  'It started feeling like October...'"

Outubro - Milton Nascimento

Milton Nascimento is one of the giants of Brazilian popular music, along with legends like Gal Costa (flimsy excuse to brag about meeting her again).  "Outubro," as you can probably guess, means "October."
 
Gloria - U2

This is from October, U2's second album, released in 1981. There is a track named "October" on the album that would have been more apropos, but it's this dull, mostly instrumental track that I invariably skip over. I much prefer "Gloria," which may be the best rock song with a chorus in Latin.

Miss You - Blink-182

Not a Blink-182 fan, but I've always liked this song. This was also on my "Obliquely Christmas" playlist, due to the line, "We'll have Halloween on Christmas." Speaking of mixing Halloween and Christmas...

This is Halloween - From The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Remains of the Day - From Corpse Bride 

Danny Elfman and Tim Burton bring a very Halloween-y vibe to a lot of their collaborations. Corpse Bride is obviously less Halloween-related than The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I actually like "The Remains of the Day" better than any song in Nightmare. And it is performed by a bunch of animated skeletons, for goodness' sake.   

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah - Tracy Jordan (From 30 Rock)

Forget "Monster Mash" or any other Halloween novelty party songs. This is the Halloween novelty party song to end all Halloween novelty party songs. This was originally a seven second long cutaway gag on an episode of 30 Rock:



Thankfully the writers*** fleshed it out to a full-length song, which you can hear on the playlist above. Mazel tov!

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As always, if you have any song suggestions for November (or December), please leave them in the comments below.

* The Gnarls Barkley song I linked to above ("Online") is built around a sample from "Welcome to the Rain," a minor hit by long-forgotten Portland band Mid Day Rain. (Click here for a side-by-side comparison of the songs.) The song was written in 1970 by the band's bassist, Scott Davis, who I know better as "Bishop Davis." Check out the original song:




Admit it - my bishop is cooler than yours (provided you have a bishop). What's funny is that he had no idea that Gnarls Barkley had sampled his song until a few months ago when I told him and played him a little bit of the track. He said that the copyright expired after 25 years, so he didn't get any financial windfall from the sampling. However, the original profits from the song helped him pay for his mission.

** Happy birthday to Brady on Halloween!

*** "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah" was written by Donald Glover, a former 30 Rock staff writer who is now better known as Troy on Community.

Step Right Up

Saturday, October 8:
Michigan vs. Northwestern, Thirsty Lion Pub in Portland

Saturday, October 15:
Oregon State vs. Brigham Young, Reser Stadium in Corvallis, OR

Saturday, October 22:
Utah vs. Cal, Macadam's Grill in Portland

Funny how prior to 2007 I actually flaunted my ignorance of/indifference toward football, yet suddenly it is my Saturday activity of choice.

I went down to Corvallis last weekend with my sister and two of her boys to see the Beaver game.  However, my favorite part of the trip actually happened before the game. They had a bunch of booths and carnival-type games set up in front of the stadium, including one of those "swing the hammer, ring the bell" games with free t-shirts for the victors. I'm pretty wimpy and I was sure I'd make a fool of myself, but I can't resist the allure of a free t-shirt, so I stepped right up:

Boo-yah! With my new Emblem of Manliness I felt pretty good about myself. I wore it to work this week and told my manager how I had won the shirt where other burlier men had failed. His response? "You do know that the game operators can change the resistance, right? A lot of times they like to mess with the burly guys and let the wusses win."

Huh. So maybe my Emblem of Manliness is actually a Stigma of Wussiness. But hey, free t-shirt!

SST: Geometry of Circles

SESAME STREET TUESDAY

Last month Bob Boilen, host of one of my favorite podcasts (All Songs Considered), posted a memory on his NPR blog about his days as a director of the NPR program All Things Considered. It was his job to select appropriate, mood-setting music to play between segments, which was never more difficult than on September 11, 2001. He ended up choosing this piece by minimalist composer Philip Glass:



He later gave a talk where he explained why he chose this particular piece on that day:

"I wasn't going to play very dramatic music... I wasn't going to play music that had a lot of baggage to it... Not a famous Mozart or a Beethoven piece that was heavy or weighty... [Instead I played] a piece that didn't have a beginning, middle, and an end, because that is how I sometimes think about minimalist music, where it is just this mood that falls and happens... And it was just right... All of a sudden there was a place to breathe...... People didn't need more emotion, they just needed time to think." 

Although I had studied many of Philip Glass's works in depth as a music major in college and had seen many films that he has scored, I was unfamiliar with this particular piece. As I listened to it for the first time there was something about it that pushed out a lot of clutter in my mind and brought in a lot of clarity. I was recently able to track down the CD on which it is found, Glassworks, and I have been listening to it a lot over the last week, especially at work, where I have found that it makes me incredibly productive.

Little did I know* that my first exposure to Philip Glass came at a very young age via a series of pieces called "Geometry of a Circle" that he composed in 1979 specifically for Sesame Street:



*I wouldn't have realized this was Glass without an assist from my friend Peter. He emailed me about this a while ago, saying, "in retrospect, [this is] pretty crazy for a kid's show."

Vindicated!

I was in Chicago in 1994 … and at this time I had no thoughts of coming back and playing the game of basketball. Bryon Russell came over to me and said, ‘Why’d you quit? You know I could guard you. If I ever see you in a pair of shorts …’  

When I did come back in 1995 and we played Utah in ‘96, I’m at the center circle and Bryon Russell is standing next to me. I said, "You remember the [comments] you made in 1994 about, ‘I think I can guard you, I can shut you down, I would love to play against you? Well, you’re about to get your chance."

The quote above comes from Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech, in which we learned that what drove him to greatness was petty grudges based on past slights.

Likewise, I have held a petty grudge since Memorial Day weekend 2008 that has given me motivation. I quote my own blog:

...on Sunday night our ward FHE activity was a Jell-O competition, I am holding my entry in that same picture on the left - Gelatina Colorida. It's a dessert I had frequently in Brazil, consisting of various colors of Jell-O cubed and then encased in a mixture of sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream, and unflavored gelatin... There were only seven entries in the contest and there were five grand prizes and mine failed to win any of them. Even a plate of lemon Jell-O with peas and string beans in it, which even its creator declared inedible, won a prize. The only other participant who didn't win a prize was Brady Emmett, and his dish didn't even have Jell-O in it (it was tapioca pudding). They did invent an honorary award for my dish ("Most Least American"), but My Gelatina Colorida losing out on the real awards was the biggest snub since The Color Purple went 0 for 11 at the 1986 Oscars.

Flash forward to today. At work we had a purple dessert competition (it is Yahoo!, after all), and I once again made Gelatina Colorida, only this time I only used purple Jell-O to fit the theme. I even painstakingly carved out the Yahoo! logo into the purple Jell-O with a knife. I was afraid that once again the American palettes of the judges might not understand my dish.

However, near the end of the day the contest results popped up in my inbox:

Like before, an additional award was created for me, but unlike the condescending "Most Least American" (which I admit is pretty clever), instead they gave this more flattering qualification: "Given the array of yummy creations this year, we were actually able to add another prize to honor a 4th place winner as well!" My prize? A cake pan with a cover and handle, and a set of quiche pans. Score!

So kids, always hold grudges ;)