Merry Christmas, but...

Harold Pinter has died. The Noble winner was among the finest playwrights of the 20th century and a huge influence on my writing and worldview. Here's what the New York Times has to say, along with the AP.

Here's his Noble speech from 2005.

I got to see Pinter on stage  in "The Hothouse" while in London in 1995. Though one of his early plays, "The Hothouse" has the trademarks of his work -- a plot that needs to be puzzled out by the viewer, an off-kilter world view and unexpected flashes of humor. Here's a pic of Pinter and John Sharpnel from the production (taken from Pinter's official website).

Go see this show, even if I didn't like it

Photo is by Rob Levine.
Pictured are Namir Smallwood, Matthew Rein, Jahi Kearse, Keith Hale and Traci Allen

You won’t find grades – or stars, or digits in one position or another, or even an adorable little man – attached to any of my reviews. There are a couple of reasons for this. First off, I know from my own experience that grades lead to readers not actually reading what you wrote. “Hey, it’s a three-star review, sounds boring. Let’s go on to the next thing.” Or they become so watered down as to be meaningless (this could be called the Rolling Stone 3 ½ Star Syndrome).

The main reason, however, is that something as simple as a grade often isn’t adequate to describe the experience. This is especially true in theater, where so many elements are fused together for a whole. You can have great acting, but boring direction; the set may be exquisite, but the actors are off; the production is top notch, but the script doesn’t work. And even those examples aren’t nearly as nuanced as the entire experience.

Which brings me to “Five Fingers of Funk,” the latest original work presented by the Children’s Theatre Company. Created by award-winning artist Will Power (his “FLOW” was a big hit in recent years), “Five Fingers of Funk” is at times thrilling, engaging, staid, boring and cringe-inducing, sometimes all within the same scene. It’s a grab bag of influences, emotions and story lines that don’t mesh together at all. It’s a show I ultimately didn’t like, but one that I think would be a valuable show for people to see, especially those with an interest in musical theater or the soul/funk/early disco sounds of the early 1970s.

What’s good? The five members of the teenage band at the center of the story are fresh and engaging, with solid musical and acting chops. The music – crafted by Power and composer Justin Ellington – often find the groove. And the production does a fine job of evoking the era via some epic threats.

What’s not? Well, there is the plot, which sticks close to an after-school special path and never really digs into any of the characters’ hearts. The path of destruction for band leader Poppo is clearly telegraphed from the earliest scenes, and the other kids are often just representations of their various places in society (the angry militant; the token white guy) as fully fleshed character.

Those descriptions don’t even do this justice. Some of the songs are so on point lyrically as to strip them of their power, such as an otherwise lovely duet between lone-female Ruby and the mother of talented-but-shy Big Ced. While at times the characters and story come into focus, revealing a much deeper, if potentially darker, story underneath.

Ultimately, the reason I would recommend people see the show – despite all of my misgivings about the production – is the potential. There’s a great nucleus of material here – songs, the starts of characters, a storyline loaded with ideas if not focus – and plenty of food for thought. So I think it’s worth taking a chance on “Five Fingers of Funk,” just don’t ask me to give it a grade.


What: Five Fingers of Funk
Who: Children’s Theatre Company
Where: 2400 3rd Ave. S., Minneapolis
When: Through Nov. 16
Tickets: $14-$29
Phone: 612-874-0400
Online

OK, maybe there is Life on Mars

I wasn't particularly looking forward to the U.S. remake of Life on Mars. The original British show is one of my favorites of the last few years -- a tasty mix of weird fantasy, SF, cop shows and 1970s cultural commentary, not to mention lead turns by John Simm and Phil Glesner -- and I couldn't imagine how a U.S. version could improve on it.

After watching the show's debut, I'm still not sure. At times, "Out Here in the Fields" was a shot-by-shot recreation of the original show, with the changes working in a hit and miss faction. On the up side, the cast is top notch and slip easily and convincingly into their roles. The chemistry between confused time traveler Sam Tyler and 1970s woman cop Annie also shows a bit more fire from the get go. The New York milleu is a perfect way to contrast the high-tech '00s with the grungy '70s (with a heart wrenching view of the Twin Towers -- hopefully the creators don't go back again and again to the image; once is touching; more than that just feels explotatitve).

On the downside, I knew exactly where it was going, with the exception of one incredibly stupid twist. The modern-day suspect turns out to be the actual killer in this case, aided by his -- surprise! -- twin brother, who provides an alibi. Don't you think the high-tech, highly competent cops of the 21st century might have sussed this out before they brought their suspect in? (It also doesn't explain why the suspect, a young boy in 1973, waited so long to start his copycat spree). Also, 30 seconds of Internet research would have shown the creators that a New York City cop wouldn't be surprised by someone driving a "Jeep," as they had been commercially available for decades by that point. Oh, and the music could have dug a bit deeper -- only one of the tunes was actually from 1973. Considering the era and the location (one strain of punk rock was in the process of being born downtown) they could do better than "Signs."

That aside, there is potential here, but we won't really get to see it until the show moves beyond the British one into its own space, much in the way the American Office has done. That will be born out in the coming weeks.

Back from the world of madness with 10 thoughts

Really, I don't want to go into what's been up for the last two months. Suffice to say, not a barrel of fun (or even of monkees). A few thoughts to get the day going:

1. Two million more people watched Knight Rider last Wednesday than Pushing Daisies. So, Americans are choosing a Ford-commercial retread of a show that wasn't very good in the first place over a colorful and innovative fantasy. This is why the terrorists hate us.

2. Can we come with a new term for "science"-based TV shows that have little-to-nothing to do with, you know, actual science. It used to be that creators appeared to have sat in some general science course, but had not really paid attention. Now, it appears that the creators just half-listened to a couple of people talk about a science class that they, in turn, really had paid attention to either. To be frank -- I'm tired of shows about guys having information downloaded into their heads, having chips implanted in their heads, using shitty "science" to solve either very easy or needlessly Baroque problems. Most of all, I'm really sick of time travel. Well, at least on Heroes and Sarah Connor Chronicles. Doctor Who gets grandfathered in, because, well time travel is really just a means to an end on the show.

3. Of all this awfulness, Fringe has emerged to be something that's, at least, OK. There's a great mad scientist vibe about it (John Noble is gold in the role) and some hints about a strange and dark world underneath it all.

4. On the other hand, Shirley Manson -- the new liquidy villain on Sarah Connor -- is the worst actor I've ever seen. And I've covered community theater in my day.

5. Finally saw Iron Man over the weekend. A fun romp that scratched at the barest surface of an interesting story about an arms dealer dealing with he world he helped create. However, I really wish we could get past remedial plotting 101. It took about 10 seconds to work out who the villain was, and much of the action went by the numbers. Come on, we've all seen these superhero movies in the last decade. We know the plotting drill. Give the audience some credit for brains and try for something a tad more complex and deep.

6. On a sports note -- while I don't expect a football game to approach art, the Vikings-Lions game yesterday was enough to make my eyes bleed. Truly the worst performances I've ever seen. And again, I've covered community theater.

7. The spoils of an 8 1/2 minute interview with Rufus Wainwright are now up at Lavender. With any luck, I'll see the songster this Wednesday.

8. As a result of one of the aforementioned things I don't want to talk about, I have a new car. It not only runs better than the old one (it had better for what I paid), but came with auxilary jack in the stereo, perfect for plugging an iPod into. I may never buy a CD again.

9. However you do it -- physical album, download, listening to a friend listen to it on their headphones -- check out the new Lucinda Williams disc, which comes out tomorrow. It's another brilliant chapter in a consistently brilliant career.

10. My copy of Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book arrived last week. I've been putting off reading it, because I wanted to savor each moment. I'm just a few pages in right now, but am absolutely hooked. Sadly, another item that I don't want to talk about prevented me from attending Neil's reading last week. At least it's available online to watch.

You got zombies in my Shakespeare...say!

The big hit of the 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival is Shakespeare's Land of the Dead. It starts with an alarmingly simple concept -- what if a George A. Romero-style zombie apocalypse happened in 1599, the night Shakespeare's Henry V opened -- and builds from there. The show deserves its hit status. The play is polished, well-conceived, written and acted. Beyond that, playwright John Heimbuch understands the conventions and rhythms of this kind of horror story, with echoes of Night of the Living Dead (either staying in the safety of the Globe theater or making a go of it outside) and I Am Legend (destroying London Bridge to stop the spread of the plague; though this is a motif that could have been pulled from any number of films). This isn't as easy as it looks -- witness the complete failure of another Fringe show, The Great American Horror Movie Musical, to show any understanding of the genre and, consequently, falling flat on its face.

There's also an interesting drama going on inside the Globe, with a number of personal and political currents running throughout, from the return of Will Kemp, an actor who has left the company; to Francis Bacon asking for Shakespeare to put his name to a play the knight has written; to an appearance by the Queen herself. 

The show needs a bit of polish -- what Fringe show doesn't -- to focus us more on the inside drama, especially early on in the show, before the zombies appear. As far as the zombies go, they're off stage for long stretches here and it's easy to forget their presence. That decision is understandable in this production, as they're on the Rarig Center's Thrust Stage, and it would look just silly to have the zombies hanging out, waiting for their cue. It's not that I want to see them constantly, but their presence needs to be felt throughout. Oddly enough, a smaller stage would fit the show well. It would give them a chance to sell the work's claustrophobia (another important part of a zombie film, even the mall in Dawn of the Dead confined the characters to a small world) and maybe do more tricks with the creatures.

The show is near the end of it's Fringe run, though I'm sure it'll be part of a last-night "hits" showcase. And considering the huge audiences (the line for tickets last night stretched outside of the Rarig Center) I imagine a future production(s) is in the cards here.

My Fringe reviews are up at City Pages now. Go, visit, plan your weekend.

"Fuck you - me! Fuck you - Me!"

The 15th annual Minnesota Fringe Festival opened yesterday with a flurry of activity. For those not in the know, the Fringe is an 11-day festival spread out through Minneapolis. During it, more than 150 shows are presented. The shows tend to be rough and ready -- things pieced together by artists who want to explore new frontiers, get the word out about their work or do a trial-run for a new company.

I'm reviewing the Fringe for City Pages, so I'll hold off on specific opinions about those shows (check back next week and I'll post a link for those reviews).  But as a holder of an all-access "gold" pass (even laminated this year!), I will share opinions about other shows I take in, along with general Fringe-y opinions.

Today's headline is from Mike Fotis' spoken word piece, "An Intimate Evening with Fotis: Part Two." It's basically Fotis, sitting in a chair, reading his stories. It's a bracing evening, full of humor and quite a bit of geek-tastic insight. Like any good storyteller, Fotis is willing to mine his own phobias and shortcomings for material. His first story -- a mix of video-game anger and a fight in junior high -- hit close to home. While I've never broken my hand after a frustrating attempt to, say, destroy a boss, I have broken more than a few controllers; not to mention tossing just about everything across the room -- game discs, boxes, the useless instruction manuels -- at one point or the other (I even recall tossing down my GBA/DS in the same way, though thankfully onto a soft cushion, preventing permanent damage to either one). And the fight thing? Well, I pretty much stayed out of that in junior high, but I did get into an altercation in middle school when a dude named Victor Hell (really) decided to wail on me because -- remember, we were 12 or something -- we kinda looked the same (we eventually became sorta friends; it helped that we both liked loud rock n roll).

Fotis went from strength to strength, from talking about a particularly awful pair of encounters with bats (the type that flaps around) to admitting his love of loud rock n roll (not to mention Wilco and the Pixies -- white guys in their 30s, unite!) And ended with a rant about the power of his... blog. Right on.

Tonight, I'm off to the U for another City Pages assignment (An Inconvenient Squirrel), but since there are four venues within Rarig, I may take in more while I'm there. More anon.

Journey's end indeed

SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FINALE OF DOCTOR WHO, DO NOT PROCEED!

(to prevent unintentional spoilerage, here's a picture of David Tennant, copyright BBC)

Right....

The title Journey's End resonates in a lot of ways. It of, of course, marks the end of the fourth season of the revised Doctor Who. It also is the end for the current production team, with showrunner Russell T. Davies stepping aside (he will craft several specials over the next year, but this is his last series) and both BBC producers leaving the program. The behind-the-scenes work of Phil Collinson, Julie Gardner and Davies cannot be underestimated. They took a moribund franchise and turned it into a commercial success (Journey's End has an excellent chance of ending the week at the top of the British TV charts -- something that has never happened in the 45-year history of the show) and more importantly, an excellent piece of TV.

The episode is action-packed from the first moments and doesn't let up until it ends and hour later (though that action is of a different nature, but see below for that). Along the way, we have a parcel of companions (basically all of them from the current series, along with cameos from the Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures sets), a vast army of Daleks, the return of Davros (an absolutely lovely and barking mad Julian Bleach in the latest incarnation) and absolute peril to the whole of blasted creation. It's more than over the top -- I don't know if words can describe how over the top it all is -- but that's really just the action-y overlay to the story. Inside, there is something darker, heavier and far more human.

At the end of episode 12 (a cliffhanger that caused me to grab the edges of my chair and scream "you fuckers!" at the screen) we left the Doctor in mid-regeneration. Thanks to his ever-bubbling extra hand, he didn't turn into a new actor. Instead, the extra energy went there -- and a few minutes later, we had a second Doctor. And because it was Donna's touch that sparked the regeneration, he's a human/Time Lord hybrid (shades of the Fox movie!) and, now, so is Donna.

Plot-wise, this becomes important, as it takes the efforts of all three (with nifty assists from Torchwood, Mr. Smith and -- good dog -- K-9) to finally (finally? it is Doctor Who) to crush the Dalek threat.

Yet the real moment -- the throbbing heart of the episode -- comes as the Doctor is confronted by his companions, all who have plots to eliminate the Daleks. Martha Jones is on Earth, prepared to destroy the planet, while Sarah Jane, Captain Jack, Mickey and Jackie have their own device, one that would kill all of the principals, but leave the universe intact. At this point, Davros -- you know, the one who created the Daleks and gave them the drive to destroy all that is different and is about to annihilate all of creation -- lectures the Doctor about his influence on people, noting that he takes ordinary folks and turns them into "weapons." 

A running theme through all of Davies' series has been how the companions "humanize" the Doctor. In fact, that's a key moment in Turn Left -- because Donna is not there on Christmas Day to shock the Doctor out of his reign of destruction, he gets caught and killed by the flooding Thames. Yet here, we come face to face with the flipside of that equation. What good has the Doctor done, really?

Well, let's look at the people we are talking about. Captain Jack was a liar, thief and coward. Rose and Mickey had little to look forward to than life on a council estate. Jackie was trapped i the same flat she'd lived for decades. Sarah Jane certainly had a life ahead, but her time with the Doctor transformed her existence. The same for Martha, who unlocked the heart of a true bona fide hero who saved the Earth through her own determination and unrequited love for the Doctor.

And let's not forget Donna, a go-nowhere temp who cluelessly glided through life without noticing anything before she met the Doctor. So, weapons, yes, but also heroes; people will to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

Of course, they're not called on to do this (it would be a nasty, Blake's 7 kind of ending to the series) and instead it is the ingenuity of the three "Doctors" who save the day. It does, however, come at a cost. For the human Doctor (who has one heart and no regenerative abilities), it's a positive cost -- he is left on the alternative Earth with Rose, allowed to finally "spend the rest of his life" with a companion. For Jack, Martha and Mickey (who wisely stays on the main Earth, as he knows he has no chance against two Doctors for Rose's heart) it may be the start of a new friendship (perhaps to be played out in Season 3 of Torchwood). But for Donna and the Doctor (the proper Doctor) there is only heartbreak.

The Time Lord "brain" Donna absorbed is going to kill her and there is only one way the Doctor sees to save her -- by erasing all knowledge of her time on the Tardis. In an instant, Donna is "reset," forgetting the stronger, wiser and heroic soul she has become. Her mother and grandfather know the truth, but cannot say anything; and the Doctor can never again be with his friend. For him, Donna has died as if she had stopped breathing.

The question is left whether or not Donna is better for the experience. Certainly she'll get a good push from Mom and Granddad, and we saw her bravery in Turn Left when she sacrificed herself (there's that theme again) for the greater good. On the other hand, her chatting on the phone at episode's end doesn't portend for good things; just another temp from Chiswick, moving from day to day but not really living.

And that leaves the Doctor. Near the end of the episode, he has a Tardis packed with his friends, all joining together to fly the old beast as it saves the Earth. Yet in a very short time, they are all gone, leaving him alone, drenched in rain and unsure of where to go next with his eternal ramble through space and time. That's the essence for the show for me -- the reason it has lived on in my imagination in the 30 years since I first saw an episode -- of a man, surrounded by humor and love and adventure, but also so, so alone. It cuts into the loneliness we all have to survive with every day.

Doctor Who has always been at its best in these moments, from the beginning the Doctor was an exile, unexplained, accompanied only by his granddaughter and a couple of school teachers who were dragged into the adventure. It doesn't surprise me that I find his interactions with other Time Lords to be the weakest parts of the show. Like any mystery, the more you explain, the less interesting it becomes, and the Doctor is about the darkness that can envelop us all -- and how important it is to fight it at every turn; to not give into loneliness or despair or evil.

So there's an ironic meaning of Journey's End. Sure it marks the close of several eras (though not Tennant's, he'll be around at least for the specials, including the Christmas episode -- which promises Cybermen in Victorian England), but the Doctor's journey never really ends. He'll be out there, rickety Tardis careening around the Universe, looking for adventure and new friends to ease the pain.

The view from Mars

Sometimes, all of the speculative fiction about the universe can't hold a candle to the real thing, such as these images from the latest unmanned mission to Mars. 

Doctor Who vs. Star Trek in a tag-team battle to the death

Er, maybe not, but snarky SF site io9 has an interesting survey of the differing occupations of Who and Trek fans. What the rather non-scientific study (though scientific enough that if it had some kind of health benefit, it would be heralded by the major media as "important new findings" that would have, say, everyone eating jelly at each meal each day) found is that fans of both shows follow fairly similar paths -- both in dreams and realities. I'm not surprised by that, no matter the posturing from the different fan bases, the shows attract the same kind of fans. (Personally, I see no reason to separate them, then again I've watched Doctor Who since 1980 -- actually earlier, as a local TV station broadcast it after school for a few months around 1978 -- and Trek literally from the time I was born, as my parents and older siblings were avid watchers, even in the show's death knell in 1969).

What's really great is the jolly time line of the two shows that's about half-way down the page. While Trek gets standard icons, each Doctor gets an adorable avatar to represent his era -- the BBC could market those as some kind of "Baby Docs..." er wait, maybe we should rethink that name.

One against the modern-day Philistines

Over his career, James Morrow has shown little patience with fanaticism, especially of the religious order. His latest novel, The Philosopher's Apprentice, doesn't spare the rod for anyone -- religious extremists, scheming capitalists or followers of science. And at the center of the book is someone who seems to be the most useless of all modern-day academics: the philosophy major.

The book follows Mason Ambrose, who -- while at a dead-end in his academic career -- takes a job as a tutor on an isolated island in the Florida Keys. He finds that his charge, a youngster named Londa, has no sense of morality at all. It is his job to fill in that empty void in her life. The why of this quickly becomes clear -- Londa has been grown by mother Edwina, a rich and brilliant scientist. And Londa has two sisters, grown to different ages, so the dying Edwina can experience motherhood at different ages before she passes away.

And that's just the opening salvo here... Morrow goes on to follow Londa's adult career. While Ambrose succeeded in bringing Londa closer to humanity, she undertakes her moral explorations with the single-minded dedication of a scientist. In the end, she decides to battle against the "Philistines" and attempts to affect a change on them via force. That all of this happens aboard a recreated Titanic packed to the gills with rich industrialists, politicians and moral guardians (whose leaders had used the technology to create Londa and her sisters to unleash a plague of creatures born from aborted fetuses on their "parents"). 

Though it's fairly clear where Morrow' sympathies lie here, he -- like all good satirists -- pokes and prods at all sides of the issues here, from the rather self-absorbed narrator to the decidedly amoral actions of both Edwina/Londa and the Christian crusaders allied against them. And in the end, it is the philosopher, after endless lessons, who needs to make a real-life "impossible" decision. It's an impressive work -- and another sign that Morrow is one of the best authors of any genre writing these days.

At his best, Thomas Ligotti casts a spell over the reader akin to a waking nightmare. The actions in his stories are often beyond any experience that we could know in our everyday life, but the relentlessness and detail of the narration draw us in nonetheless. His worldview is uniformly bleak and most of his writing has been done for obscure journals or in limited-edition volumes, but his legend has grown to the point where Ligotti is an oft-cited (if perhaps not as often read) figure in weird fiction.

The Nightmare Factory takes his writing to a new medium. In it, four of Ligott's short stories are reinterpreted by teams of comic book authors/illustrators. It ends up being a mixed bag. Ligotti's literary spell can easily be broken if the reader is distracted, and the art within the stories at times does this. This hurts the most in the opening "Last Feast of Harlequin." The story is certainly Ligotti's most famous work, one where he takes Lovecraftian expectations and merges them with a nihilistic vision that even the misanthropic Lovecraft would have found to be a bit harsh. Yet recreating it in a visual medium (albeit with excellent Colleen Doran art) robs the story of much of its sense of growing dread.

Ted McKeever, whose ragged art style matches Ligotti's off-kilter visions, does better with "Dr. Locrian's Asylum," driving home the story's madness with an equally mad art style. The other two stories, "Dream of a Mannikin" and "Teatro Grottesco" fall in between these, with expected, in-the-middle results. The Nightmare Factory is a nice experiment, and hopefully brings new readers to this singular author, but really the best way to experience Thomas Ligotti is on the page -- preferably alone, late at night, perhaps with the windows shut against the cold and rain. 

Moffat is in!

It's not really surprising news, considering how closely associated he's been with the revival of Doctor Who, but the news that Steven Moffat will take over as the show's "showrunner" for the show's fifth season in 2010 is still great to hear. Moffat is both a phenomenal writer (not just for Doctor Who, but also other British shows) and a lifelong fan of the program. And going by his episodes for the show -- the original Captain Jack two-parter, The Girl in the Fireplace and Blink -- (and his BBC miniseries, Jekyll), the show may be headed for a darker place.

It's also good that Russell T. Davies is getting out before the show claims another burned-out producer. If there's one word I would use for the fourth season of the show, it would be tired. It all feels a bit exhausted, and considering Davies has spent at least the last five years breathing Doctor Who almost every moment of the day that shouldn't be a surprise. It's happened before on the show. John Nathan Turner led a renaissance for the show at the end of Tom Baker's era and into the rather jolly Peter Davison years. The problem is that he then stayed, and stayed (there are stories that the BBC wouldn't let him leave the show, so this may not be all of his own making). The show's budget got squashed, the number of episodes were cut and the program limped along in the end, fueled mainly by Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. It seems that they've learned from past mistakes (that Doctor Who is one of the most popular BBC programs doesn't hurt when it comes to leverage) and want to keep the show fresh and successful.

Just a note on my music project. I don't want it to seem like that all I listen to is 1970s hard rock, but the latest major block of music I'm dealing with is Alice Cooper. Alice and the boys were a better group than often given credit for, more glam than metal, and they put a jolly series of albums in the middle 1970s, even if the pot is so soaked into the recordings that you can practically smell it through the computer. Upcoming acts include Alison Krauss and British crust legends Amebix. Oddly enough, there's no Allman Brothers. I may have to make a trip to the record store to rectify that...

Listening to "A"

Inspired in part by Noel Murray's "popless" columns in the A.V. Club, and a personal desire to trim my own digital music collection, I've started the long process of going through my music, artist by artist, album by album, song by song. Now, I'm not going to listen to everything -- I know I want to keep the Beatles or Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan (just a few "B"s right there, at least, in the way iTunes organizes things) -- because that would take 122 days of continuous listening to get to the end (providing I don't add anything new). As I actually have work right now, that probably isn't going to work. So it's more a matter of listening to the unfamiliar and deciding if it should stay or if it should go (hmm, that could be a song title).

So far, I'm up to Ae -- which, as you rockers would know, means Aerosmith. It's interesting how musical taste can work in odd ways. Yesterday, I carefully pruned the AC/DC lists, cutting out most of the post-Back in Black music, but only deleting duplicates when it came to the Bon Scott era from the 1970s. Now listening to Aerosmith, who ply a similar style of blues-based hard rock who hit their peak in the 1970s, I am mainly impatient when listening to the non-radio hits. Some of this could be personal -- AC/DC was one of my first rock 'n' roll loves, all the way back to the night in the summer of 1980 when I first switched the dial to the rock station (KQRS, which pretty much plays the same music -- I mean, literally the same music -- today). I got Back in Black for Christmas that year and listened to it constantly (Mom and Dad -- sorry!)

On the other hand, Aerosmith was moribund in the early 1980s, sunk in the depths of their various drug addictions. Permanent Vacation was still seven years away, with a variety of solo projects and badly thought-out albums (including a pair of Spinal-Tap worthy moments: one where all of the writing was backwards; and one featuring  Stonehenge) still to come before their renewal. When I did get a chance to hear their older albums (I had an eight-track of Get Your Wings) I wasn't particularly impressed.

But I don't think it's just my personal preference. For all the swagger, Aerosmith doesn't have the pure free rolling spirit of the original AC/DC, where Bon Scott shared his excesses with child-like glee. Too often, ballads and serious tunes got in the way of Steve Tyler, Joe Perry and the rest. And Perry, while a good hard rock guitarist, can't hold a candle to the raw boogie of Angus Young. In comparison (and since I'm trimming, this is all about comparisons) the Australians completely kick their American brethren's asses.

Judge does theater criticism

The quixotic quest by Minnesota bar owners and patrons to get around "no smoking" prohibitions by presenting "improvisational" theater performances where all of the patrons are actors, who just happen to smoke (smoking during a theatrical performance is allowable under the law) has been quashed by a Minnesota judge. 

As the evenings had no script or attempt to tell a story, they really didn't fall on the side of a performance and the smokers will have to return to their now-familiar post outside, huddled against the, er, rather nice spring air. 

At their present course, I don't see how they could win, unless the actually go the extra step and present some kind of show. After all, Minnesota is lousy with actors, directors and writers, including tons with improvisational experience. The cost of a couple hours of a lawyer could probably buy an actor's services for several weeks (more if you toss in free drinks). They, in turn, could guide the evening. Maybe there's been a murder in the bar and someone's the killer. Maybe the band hasn't shown up. Maybe they've run out of rum. The possibilities are endless -- and maybe even entertaining.

Ah, the sucky Doctor Who episode at last

You know I had high hopes for Doctor Who and Agatha Christie, but instead I got giant space wasps and a story that couldn't decide its tone (serious?, mysterious? parody of drawing room mysteries from the 1920s? What?) and containing a message basically the same as the Charles Dickens' show from season 1. Well, Steven Moffat's space library show looks promising at least...

More Doctor Who stuff:

The Battle for the knitted Ood goes on...

The A.V. Club interviewed Freema Agyeman this week.

And this bit appeared in Neil Gaiman's blog this morning: 

I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush...

"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?"

This Trend Has Gone Too Far

...and I'm back. I could say that I'm doing a secret project for the government, but really I'm just grading papers for tests, and it's all governed by non-disclosure agreements, so I can't say much else. Still, a brief pause in it all, so hopefully I can get a bit caught up over the next week.

Pearls Before Swine puts the whole blogging thing into perspective.

As the American TV season grinds to a halt, shows are starting to wrap up -- 30 Rock ended on a high note, while Lost seems to be heading for some big mojo by the end. Battlestar Galatica is just getting warmed up on its last season, though I have to admit the show isn't quite the destination for me as it was before. I think it'll find its way again -- some of this has to do with the whole Starbuck thing, which I think is spiraling out of control for a reason, as opposed to the writers having no idea what to do.

Doctor Who keeps rolling along. Nothing this season has been as all-out awful as last year's Daleks in New York monstrosity, but nothing up to "Blink" or "Girl in the Fireplace" standards. On the other hand, we do get Agatha Christie soon (this week for those in Britain, a bit later for the U.S.) followed by a new Steven Moffat (who wrote both of the aforementioned good episodes) two-parter followed by  some massive three or four part series finale.. and then a rest. I think the show needs a bit of a rest, actually. Oh, the scripts are still sharp and the actors fun and all that, but I think too much exposure hurts even the best of programs. 

Don't get voted off MILF Island

A few passing thoughts before I go into the deep of day and night jobs (nothing compares to the easy life of a freelance writer..)

The butchered TV season is returning in full force, just in time for an expected Actors' strike that could spell the doom of the American version of the medium. Meanwhile, 30 Rock is back, and all is right again in the world. I'll even excuse a rather lame "Hand stuck in vending machine" gag (which I believe every comedy show -- even those on Adult Swim -- has done in the past) for the glory of MILF Island.

Battlestar Galatica continues its weird path to completion, with a full-blown Cylon civil war, lots of pensive looks (do the actors get coached on that? or does it just become second nature after a while?) and Starbuck screaming "You're going the wrong way!" like some petulant child. Despite this, the show still delivers the goods -- let's just hope their arrival at Earth is handled better than Galatica 1980 was.

SciFi starts season 4 of Doctor Who Friday night with the gloriously absurd starship Titanic episode (hmm, that could be a video game or something) episode. New episodes have already started on the BBC, and the good news is that Catherine Tate plays a much more nuanced Donna Noble than we saw in the 2006 Christmas episode. And Martha is back in episode 4. As is practically every supporting character from the first three seasons. And Daleks. And maybe pudding as well. Looks like they want to send the show out to hiatus with a bang.

Meanwhile, the cavalcade of awful Summer movies starts even earlier this year. The horrid looking Iron Man (really, those digital effects make Dragonball Z look good) gets things started May 3, to be followed by a huge sea of nothing -- apart from Indy 4, which apart from the presence of Transformers-killer Shia LeBeouf, looks to be at least fun -- onto the fall. I really don't remember being so uninterested in a summer season before. When does the Hobbit come out?

On the upside, this has given me a chance to catch on up some awfulness (and good stuff too) from last year. Will Smith is in danger of being out acted by a dog throughout the largely ludicrous I Am Legend, but the film has a few nice thrills along the way. The less said of the "science" the better -- but end of the world films usually aren't about making complete sense. Still, I can't but help to think the likes of 28 Days Later covered the same territory with plenty more verve and skill.

Post-Easter Blues

Actually, they're more of the "I have to go back to a day job" blues, but yeah, it's Monday. In fact, it's been a complete and utter Monday from beginning to end... though there are a few cool things to report:

To any knitters out there: I'd like a pair of these.

The season 4 trailer for Doctor Who is now online -- show debuts April 5 on the BBC. Woot!

Torchwood continues to hurtle its way through its second uneven season. I don't know if the show will ever find its feet, but -- as promised -- there was hot action between Captain Jack and Ianto in the last episode. It seems like the BBC is burning off the last couple of episodes in advance of Doctor Who's return.

Lost ended the mini-season strong. Note to show creators -- flashbacks about interesting characters like Michael are good. Ones about boring ones like Juliet, well not so much.

Spoil the upcoming Battlestar Galactica season 4 for yourself and friends.

And with 30 Rock coming back soon, the spring actually promises to have new episodes of nearly all the TV shows I care about (Pushing Daisies will be back next fall; hopefully the British IT Crowd will make a return sooner rather than later).

Childhood's End

Returning from the grave... well, a rather intense temp assignment, with  a few thoughts and stuff:

Arthur C. Clarke has died. I devoured his books as a teenager and they helped to lay the foundation for what science fiction should be in my young mind. I may have turned aside a lot of those assumptions over the years, but like the works of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, Clarke's works were -- and still are -- essential for anyone who really wants to understand the genre.

After reading a number of accounts from last week's South by Southwest music whatever it was (conference, convention, excuse to party for a week?), I realize that the whole affair sounds like hell to me: long lines, crowded venues, tons of people trying to act cool, all for a lot of bands that no one will remember in a couple of months.

Lost continues on its merry way, with a pair of recent peaks surrounding a deep valley in the last three episodes. I don't think it's a surprise that the valley was one that advanced the underlying mythology more than characters. Yes, the backstory to Lost is intriguing, but it's not what makes the show so enticing -- it's the bevy of interesting characters who are constantly forced to make difficult decisions, and often make the wrong ones.

There was a bit of a discussion on spoilers on io9, a supremely geeky science fiction site. For those of you visiting here -- once a show has aired on television, book has been issued or movie has been in the theaters, it's fair game. It's not a spoiler anymore after its escaped from captivity, so don't pretend people are causing you grief because they have the audacity to talk about a movie from two years ago you haven't gotten around to watching yet. By the way, Rosebud was his sled.

Speaking of spoilers -- word is that Captain Jack and Ianto will be seen in bed together on the next BBC-broadcast Torchwood (whoo hoo!) and that the Daleks will be back in season 4 of Doctor Who. Now, does either of these facts surprise anyone?

Another passing; and some bonus thoughts

Gary Gygax, the founding father of Dungeon and Dragons, has died. For those of us who spent our youth (and adulthood as well) buried in thick manuals full of charts, monsters and descriptions that opened the door to a new world, I offer my condolences.

The New York Times offers another story of a memoir that turned out to be absolutely false. From all reports, the book is a compelling read -- so why go the route of memoir in place of a novel? I'm sure there are some market pressures here, and there certainly is a perception that a "true" story is more real, even though that runs counter to millennia of storytelling. Whether or not the incidents in the Illiad, or in the writings of Charles Dickens or Virginia Woolf or any other master author took place is immaterial. It's about the truth within the characters and the stories, not whether or not you actually lived with foster parents and had to duck drug deals.

After reading the recent Charles Schulz biography, I found myself with a desire to reread his run of comics. The first 15 years or so have been reprinted by Fantagraphics -- though that doesn't get to a point where I am most interested in from the run. The book more than implies that an affair Schulz had in the early 1970s appeared in not-so-veiled code within the run of the strip (it involved Snoopy romancing a girl with "soft paws"). Peanuts was also far more complex than it appeared on the surface, reflecting Schulz's well developed anxieties and fears, but who would have guessed there was real "puppy love" behind the story line?

My illo is finally up at MinnPost! As is a fantastic article about a recently donated comic book collection.

Returning from my sick bed

I spent the week recovering from a rather nasty bug, so I'll have to cram a week's worth of stuff into this rather quick post:

New MinnPost post at, er, MinnPost. Still waiting for my 19th-century style illo.

You can read an official, online version of Neil Gaiman's American Gods here.

Nominations for the Hugo Awards close March 1. 

Torchwood continues to be up and down, but the latest show on the BBC (it'll be on BBC America in a few weeks) may be the best thing the show has ever done.

Lost just goes from strength to strength, as last night's moving Desmond-centric episode showed. Not only was the geek-centric back story explained a bit, but story held considerable emotional weight, which has always been the central appeal of the show.

In Dwarf news: the painting of the Warhammer ones is almost (finally!) done; while my WoW dwarf now gets to tool around the world on a tricked-out ram (not a Dodge Ram, just a... ram --the Dwarfs really got the short end of the stick as far as mounts go, didn't they?).

Right, music:

Shelby Lynne Just a Little Lovin’

Shelby Lynne has fought the Best New Artist Grammy curse all this decade, and may finally have found her breakthrough with a collection of songs made famous by another singular artist.

On Just a Little Lovin’, Lynne digs into the Dusty Springfield songbook, bringing nine classic hits (and one Lynne original) of moody pop music back to life for a new audience. She does a remarkable job, taking songs that are often quite familiar and recasting them in a way that is 1) completely her own but also 2) honors the memory and music of the late, great performer.

You can hear that on the best-known tracks, such as “How Can I Be Sure” or the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard “The Look of Love” or Randy Newman’s “I Don’t Want to Hear it Anymore.” Lynne’s own contribution, the folk-tinged “Pretend,” sits well, side-by-side with songs by some of the great pop songwriters of the last 40 years. And the efforts of Lynne’s talented band and legendary producer Phil Ramone only help to bring the songs back to life.


Willie Nelson Moment of Forever

Meanwhile, the red-headed (hmm, white-headed now I guess) stranger just soldiers on, issuing collection after collection of strong country music for his audience. Moment of Forever has the distinct Nelson touches that brings listeners back again and again to his musical well – dusty vocals as dry as the western deserts, well-played and arranged country-western of a style that may be out of vogue but certainly not out of style, and a collection of songs that reach deep into the mind and heart. You also have Nelson heading off in some unusual directions, such as an eight-minute reading of Bob Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody,” one of the songwriter’s signature songs from his born-again phase. It’s an engaging song, and Nelson’s delivery matches its moods and message better than Dylan’s nasal ever did.

American Music Club The Golden Age

I never could connect with American Music Club, and that somehow left me feeling inadequate. Mark Eitzel’s dark, brooding songs and the band’s synthesis of diverse strands of pop and rock music should have been in my musical sweep spot. Yet, I never got behind the music in more than a “that was nice to listen to, what’s next” sort of way. That’s changed on The Golden Age, which finds the band – recently relocated from San Francisco to Los Angeles and sporting a slightly retuned lineup – at a high point of their musical careers. And this time, I get the music. The sound fuses diverse elements that reminds me of the music Elvis Costello made in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a sound that freely borrows from rock, pop, jazz, blues and other strains, but fuses them into a mature whole. Maybe the word here is mature – there is something about Eitzel’s weary delivery that connects with the older me that understands where he has always come from as a musician.

Taking the ice sled to blog

After spending the last two nights in the close company of musical crusty bachelors (I saw My Fair Lady in Minneapolis and The Bachelors over in Eau Claire), I'm a bit burned out to write anything coherent about music. Instead, thrill to my first post at MinnPost.

The New York Times has a nice article about the wind sled students on Madeline Island in northern Wisconsin sometimes have to take to get to school in Bayfield on the mainland. One part of the story did make me laugh however:

“I thought it was kind of strange at first,” said Emma Dalzell, 14, who recently moved to La Pointe from Madison, Wis., where she did not have to cross an icy bay to get to school. Now the commute has become routine.

Now, I lived in Wisconsin for a dozen years -- including three and a half just a few miles from Bayfield in Ashland -- and I would say that the vast majority, all but the dozen or so students who live in La Pointe, don't have to take a wind sled to school. I get the feeling from the story that Wisconsin is seen as a vast wasteland to New Yorkers, where people hunt animals for their flesh and to wear as skins. OK, that may be true in some parts of the state -- but Madison?

OK, a few musical notes. Ex Jayhawk Gary Louris has an excellent solo album, Vagabonds, that is just out. At the other end of the musical spectrum, the jolly sounding Hate Eternal have unleashed an absolutely brutal death metal album with Fury and Flames. Genghis Tron (one of my favorite all-time band names, by the way) continue to mix metal, dance and industrial music in a fresh way on Board Up the House. And I've been catching up with an amazing black metal band from the Pacific Northwest called Wolves in the Throne Room, who make a rather tired genre sound fresh again.

Well, at least it isn't as cold as Kim Stanley Robinson's book...

The weather continues to toy with the hearts of Minnesotans, in a typical February way. After a weekend where the temp peaked at the freezing point, it tumbled this morning and the wind  picked up -- to the point where it was howling outside my window. I thought I'd left the tundra behind in Wisconsin...

My reading project continues and the books are slowly coming off the shelves. I've got about three dozen to go (for the uninitiated, these are books that I've bought over the last few years but have not read, including a pile of new and gift books), which means if I read three a week, I could be done by May. Of course, I know that I'll never be able to read three of these a week, especially since some of the ones up and coming are rather thick (including some epic tomes by Peter F. Hamilton, George R.R. Martin and Neal Stephenson) and I'll be working out of the house for a few months this spring, reading student papers all day long. Experience tells me that the last thing you want to do after that is dig into a thick novel.

Still, I've gotten to some good books. I've been a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's since I first met him about 20 years ago at a MiniCon. His outlook on life and science fiction were refreshing, as were his decided left-wing politics, which while always a part of the genre, sometimes get overwhelmed by the right-wing military nuts and the libertarian Robert Heinlein followers. His latest series about global climate change the politics around it concluded with Sixty Days and Counting. At times, the various plot threads didn't seem to want to come together -- and I have to admit that anything involving politics bores me deeply -- but by the end I understood what Robinson was doing with his characters and his story. It ends with a surprisingly positive message -- that it isn't too late, and that we, as humans, have shown the capacity to change our behavior in the past and can do so again. Meanwhile, Robinson's descriptions of the natural world are supreme, from the lonely challenges of hiking and rock climbing to the lung-stealing nature of extreme cold (in the series, winter temperatures in Washington D.C. sink down to 50 degrees below zero).

I needed a break after that, so I turned to Naomi  Novik's latest Temeraire book, Empire of Ivory. It's a jolly fun ride through an alternative earth where the Napoleonic wars are fought with dragons. This time, stiff Brit Laurence and his dragon Temeraire travel to Africa in a desperate search for a cure to a disease plaguing the English dragons. There, they come face to face with the slave trade and resentment from the native people and dragons. The book is fast-paced and written in a delightfully clear style that hides some issues in plotting (often, characters act in a way that befits the plot instead of a rational decision) and the rather flat human characters. (The dragons, on the other hand, are wonderful -- full of recognizable traits, but also clearly the product of a non-human species.) Novik also has a great talent for description, bringing each location to clear life. Empire of Ivory also ends on a rather nasty cliffhanger for our heroes, and I really can't wait for volume five.

On other fronts, I haven't decided if I truly like Ashes to Ashes or I'm projecting my love of Life on Mars onto it. I think the show has great potential, especially since it is clear that the situation for this time traveler is quite different than Sam Tyler's (I'd say more, but plenty of people still haven't seen the end of Life on Mars). I'm hoping the  show creators have the verve to take this into those directions. Sam's "am I dreaming or what?" crisis isn't going to work here -- so can the creators find something as compelling to keep the series moving along?

Making love to their egos?

Before we get to the Friday music, a few links:

Boston founder Tom Scholz wants Mike Huckabee to stop playing "More Than A Feeling."

(If only we could convince radio stations to stop playing Boston.)

Nerds! Con of the North is this weekend, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press is there. (I'm not sure if I'll be there myself -- time will tell.)

Kids say no to Aerosmith (well, in the Onion-world they do at least).

OK, music:


Lenny Kravitz It is Time for a Love Revolution

A decade and a half into his career, Lenny Kravitz at his best comes off as a retro-rock lover with enough soul to make it work; or a rather tired Prince-wannabe without the same level of verve or talent for that role. Thankfully, It Is Time for a Love Revolution finds Kravitz more on the former instead of the later. Sure the album grates, especially as it winds through its 16-track, 75-minute running time (an eternity for an artist at his best with singles), but there is enough good ying to balance the bad yang, or something like that.

Once again, Kravitz crafts a sound that feels like it comes from another era – specifically from the heavy-duty rock years of the early 1970s, when bands could jam out and also include tender ballads on the same release. You get that from the first, almost tinny, sounds of the opening title track. Driven by an insatiable beat, the song has the usual trippy-hippy vibe that Kravitz prefers, but you can ignore the lyrics and just get lost in the beat.

At times, Kravitz sounds like he wants to recreate the groovy vibe of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. Other places, he’s content to be Wings. And sometimes – well, the songs probably should have been left on the shelf (such as the Neil-Diamond-meets-Queen-but-not-in-a-good-way “A Long and Sad Goodbye”).

Love Revolution isn’t a case where you could cut off the back half of the album and call it a day (as with most overstuffed modern records). Instead, some of the best music comes at the end, such as the driving “I Want to Go Home” and album-closer “Confused.”

Bob Mould District Line

Minnesota’s favorite ex-pat songwriter returns to the fold with this follow up to Body of Song. Like that album, Mould does most of the playing himself – apart from contributions from Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty and cellist Amy Domingues – and like all of his music dating back to the heyday of Husker Du, the songs seer deep into Mould’s heart and mind.

With a career that spans nearly three decades, Mould’s music comes in a number of distinct flavors – there is the intense distortion-drenched pop of Husker Du and Sugar; the introspective moody acoustic pieces on Workbook; even the odd electronic meanderings of Modulate. On District Line, Mould plays with the different styles, though focusing most of his attention (thankfully) on the first two. What you get is a strong set of songs that could have been pulled from any era of his career (the closing track, “Walls in Time,” actually dates from the Workbook era),

It does take a few listens for the album’s strengths to come through, so District Line is definitely a “grower.” On the surface, the songs don’t have the instant catchiness of the best Sugar tunes, but they’ll get under your skin after a few spins. And then Mould’s signature honesty – now tempered with a dollop of maturity – comes through, making District Line one of the artist’s strongest albums in many years.

A 'Canvas' of Pewter and Plastic

A primed miniature is like a blank canvas.

I don't feel the same way about the sculpture before it is primed. Until then, it is just a pile of metal bits that need to be fitted together; or plastic components ready to be assembled like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. There are hobbyists who delight in this step -- who love to transform what the original sculptor did into a personalized piece of art.

I'm not one of those. Assembling miniatures is a choir for me. My fingers are clumsy and often end up with as much glue on the tips as on the model in question. I love the idea of converting the models, but am only able to do very simple tasks -- swapping weapons, adding occasional personal touches -- with my skills. Once I have the miniature together, it still doesn't inspire much in me. At this point, it is just a hunk of shiny metal or grey plastic (or both). It's been assembled, cleaned of "flash" (leftover hunks of metal from the molding process) and lines, but it isn't ready yet.

Priming is really a simple task. You add a coat of black or white spray paint that makes 1) makes it easier for the paint to stick to the model and 2) provides an important starting point. A black undercoat will leave you with a darker model, but is great for painting metal effects. With white, the colors "pop" out more and light colors are easier to apply (though enough layers can make anything work).

Still, it is here that the model truly comes alive to me. For the first time, I can sense the shape and individual sections of the model. I start thinking about color schemes and what effects to try and how I hope it fits in with its "friends." Even when it's just black, I can see how the light hits different parts of the miniature, which may dictate choices later on.

Even after these years, my painting skills aren't good enough to pull all of this off. Some of this is patience -- I like having the projects started and done and will often get impatient before the task is finished. This is especially true when doing blocks of troops. Painting 20 dwarf warriors who have the same basic elements (armor, axe, shield, clothing, bits of skin on the hand and the face, and a big, big beard) gets old quite quickly, meaning that I rush and end up with sloppy work that needs to be corrected later.

Still, at its best, painting gets me into a zen-like space. As each layer of thinned-down paint is applied, the model's personality emerges. I find that the sometimes oh-so-tiny details just pop out (like a tuft a hair hiding at the helmet line of the aforementioned dwarfs). Often, I will find that hours have passed as I've put together a complete unit, ready to do its imaginary battles.

As of late, I've preferred working with larger models or smaller units. A new game, Warmachine (and its near-relative Hordes) specializes in smaller units and giant hulking constructs (Warjacks) that provide plenty of  space to work. I also finally got around to painting a character called the Nightbringer for Warhammer 40,000. It's a large model (it towers over nearly anything the game can dish out) and has wonderful, flowing lines. I painted it over an afternoon, applying layers of paint between other tasks. It was a nearly perfect way to work -- one I hope to continue. Well, once the remaining projects (I'm down to three -- those dwarfs, a collection of fantasy goblins and some reinforcements for the Eldar -- the space elves of the 40K universe -- along with a few misc items) are done. So, back to the stunties for now.

Tell Me Why I Don't Like Mondays

Sorry, I've got the Boomtown Rats on the brain right now.

A story about the revived Mystery Science Theater 3000-like project Cinematic Titanic is now up at MinnPost.

I know you are not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, and any radio station that plays even some music I like without commercials of any kind is worthwhile -- especially in the Twin Cities' radio wasteland. But oh boy, sometimes I can't stand the Current. The CD player in my car is on the fritz, so I've spent more time than usual listening to my three favorite non-commercial stations (KFAI, Radio K and the Current) and there is something about the latter that just sets my teeth on edge. Maybe it's the bad electro-pop they seem to favor right now; maybe it's too much Nada Surf; maybe it's DJs whose taste in music I really don't agree with. Whatever the reason, it sounds more and more like a slightly more hip adult contemporary station that a rebellious station working to uncover the best music of today (while also playing lost treasures from the past). 

Over the weekend I: attended a thought-provoking play at the Illusion Theater; attended two parties Saturday night (including a Chinese New Year shindig -- enjoy the Year of the Rat everyone); watched the entire second season of Dexter (not as good as the first -- it centers on a character whose fate is pretty clear from about the fourth episode) and the debut of Ashes to Ashes; finished painting a force of shiny evil Necrons; and finally got my main World of Warcraft character to Level 40, though I didn't have enough money to get my pimped-out mount (he's a dwarf, so he rides a, um, ram; got the short end of the stick there, didn't I?) No wonder I'm tired today.

Neil Gaiman wants you to pick one of his books to be posted on the Internet for free.

And here's why I have the Rats on my brain right now.

Dark Passengers

Sometimes, it takes a binge to stop a binge. I was able to tear myself away from World of Warcraft to, um, devour the first season of Dexter. The series has a novel concept -- a forensics expert for the Miami Police who is also serial killer -- and a string of winning performances throughout the cast. It gets silly sometimes -- especially the cop-cliche 101 plotting of many of the "mysteries" and a surprise reveal about one of the characters I saw coming from the second time he appeared on screen -- but Dexter (created on screen by Michael C. Hall) is such a dark, but engaging character. He is much vigilante as killer, targeting murders who have escaped the system. Even so, there is no question from his inner narration that the man is a monster, only controlled by a "code" his adoptive father instilled in him. Season two has run on Showtime as well, but is not yet out on DVD. Also, an edited version of season 1 starts next week on CBS. I'm not sure how this will work -- not only is the show pay-cable violent, but one of the characters will be rendered nearly mute once they remove his love of four-letter words.

My dwarf has dinged up to level 38, leaving the mount and chainmail less than two levels away. Of course, I don't know if I'll have enough cash for the mount at 40, but miracles do happen.

Some good things happening musically this week, but I need to spend more time with them before issuing any final verdicts. The latest from Lenny Kravitz is too long but surprisingly engaging. Meanwhile, the British Sea Power have returned with another crunchy and rocking effort. And there is still a stack of dance and pop CDs I need to go through. Looks like a fun weekend on this end.

Black holes of obsession

Having an obsessive personality can be a real boon to a gamer. After all, it takes a certain kind of person to spend hours pouring over tables and charts to determine the best character, or endlessly think about card combinations for a cool game; or spend hour after hour hunched over one-inch tall (or smaller) figures, carefully painting layer after layer on them, all in the hope that they'll look good on the table when you and your mates pretend to fight with them.

Believe me, there have been many a weekends where I have looked back at what I did and thought "that was it? I spent the entire weekend painting that unit of undead knights? What the hell was a I thinking?" By the end of the work week I'd cheered up again and was ready to do it again that coming weekend, be it painting, collecting, collating or even playing.

This obsession can take you down dark paths, especially when you get to the various forms of digital crack. Finances and space can sometimes stop a real-world obsession. In the digital world, where the entry cost is usually fairly low and the game either sits in your computer or in a game system, those gloves are off. And there is something so sweet, sweet about combining your obsessions with a digital avatar, who can play out your dreams.

I had thought that phase was over. A few years ago, I lost a winter to the online game City of Heroes. Literally -- I would play from the time I got home from work until I went to bed. Sometimes, I would get up early in the morning to grind a few experience points before heading into work. The game was a geek wonderland -- a colorful place where you could create your  own superheroes and have them fight all manner of nefarious baddies. That I had a gang of friends in Green Bay who gathered at comic-game shop Rogue Traders to play made it all the more fun. We could spend an entire day deep in Paragon City, playing with our various toons.

By the end, fatigue (and the lack of a high speed internet connection for several months, followed by my conversion to a Mac) broke the spell. All the while, I experimented with another game, the much better known World of Warcraft, but it never grabbed me the same way (though game maker Blizzard, in their wisdom, makes the game work on either Windows or Macintosh machines). I'd go in, fiddle around for a bit, have some fun and then leave it behind. Last summer, I took advantage of a free trial of the game's expansion. I spent a couple weeks with the new characters, explored a few new parts of the world, and then let it go.

This fall, a new "patch" (updated software that changes the game world in big or small ways) was issued that was said to make it easier to play in the mid game. Last week, I paid my monthly fee for the first time in at least a year, unlocked the full expansion and took at a look at my level 31 dwarf hunter. I spend part of the weekend playing; and then a good chunk of the night Monday; and then before and after a show Tuesday night; and then I was up this morning, before "work," grinding away. I'm almost up to level 37 (there are 70). It is easier to gain experience now and the world is more user-friendly (having rested the character for months helped; I gained extra experience for two levels). I'm also getting worried. I've been leveling at a rate of two to three hours per, which makes some of the fun carrots that are coming up -- I can buy a mount and wear chain mail at 40! -- rather enticing. Blizzard is well known for providing carrot after carrot to keep you in the game. Until now, I haven't had the appetite, but now?

Oh no, maybe I should have a chat with the cable company.

Snowy like Monday morning

You know, I've become used to the "We're all gonna die!!!" mongering from the TV weather crews, but you would have thought the apocalypse was coming by watching last night's forecast. It appears to have snowed about a quarter inch so far -- come on, where's my snow storm? If I have to live with all the cold and darkness and general misery of a Minnesota winter, we could at least have a nice heavy blanket of fresh snow.

The Syringa Tree

A week after declaring that Mark Rylance's performance in Peer Gynt would likely be the best of the year in the Twin Cities, I got a chance to see a performance of at-least equal scope and power. For nearly two hours, Sarah Agnew is alone on stage in the Jungle Theater's production of The Syringa Tree. Yet after a few minutes, you forget that this is a solo show. Agnew brings a dizzying variety of characters to life (about two dozen), each one distinct, fully formed and instantly believable.

Playwright Pamela Gien drew on her experiences growing up white in segregated South Africa for the play. The writing is direct, detailed and poetic. Much of the show is seen from the viewpoint of young Elizabeth Grace, who closely observes the complex dynamic of her home, their African servants and the political turmoil outside the gates. It also means Agnew spends much of the show as a pre-adolescent and she carries it off with great aplomb, making the youngster an absolutely believable -- and endearing, for her youthful faults -- character. The first few times she quickly shifts to another character are a bit jarring, but once the rhythm of the performance is set, the audience is along for the ride, following the dynamic, magical and heartbreaking tale Gien tells.

Elizabeth's magical look at the world -- infused with the beliefs of the Xhosa servants and her own youthful imagination -- is matched perfectly by the set and the direction -- both crafted by Joel Sass. It's easy to look at a one-actor show as being the sole work of the  performer, but as in all theater, this is an act of collaboration -- in the case, between the one on-stage artist and the crew off-stage that make it work.

Still, it is Agnew's performance that shines brightest here. Without any other actors to share the burden (and not even an intermission for a rest) it is up to her to keep the show alive -- and Agnew does that, and then some.

The show runs through March 9 at the Jungle in Minneapolis -- it is not to be missed.

Monday morning links:

Check your geek-index in today's AV Club.

Good news for Lost and BSG fans (OK, fans of other TV as well, but that's all I really care about): the strike may be coming to an end.

Apparently, they're still making the Land of the Lost movie. With  it, another piece of my childhood will die.

Friday Misc

The usual this and that from another week in paradise -- if you're definition of paradise is a place where the temp stays below zero for days on end.

Anyway, new MinnPost story on the Theatre Unbound 24 Hour Play Project is online.

As are a couple of pieces at Lakeshore Weekly News.

Lost is back. The debut was dynamite -- full of the intrigue and real drama that has always marked the best episodes of the series. It followed through with a number of the major cliff hangers from last season, found a new way to divide the survivors, had some excellent scares and reminded me why Hurley has always been a favorite character. At the beginning, when he shouted "I'm one of the Oceanic Six" I knew we had a major mystery for the rest of the season -- who are the other three (Jack, Kate and Hurley are all in the "flash-forward" world) survivors, and what happened to the rest? For the first time, I'm cursing the writer's strike (well, more episodes of Pushing Up Daisies would have been nice) and hope it ends in time to get the rest of season 4.

For readers in Britain -- or Americans with, um, access -- the sequel to the terrific Life on Mars starts next week. Ashes to Ashes (another David Bowie song) moves the action to 1980, has a number of the old Manchester cops, no Sam Tyler, but a new detective who "time travels" (i.e., gets a bump on the head and wakes up in the past) from modern day. The science-fiction hook was always secondary to the characters and the loving pastiche of old-school cop dramas. Hopefully that'll keep with an era that shouldn't seem so much like living on another world.

And a bit (OK, more than a bit) of a musical obscurity this week:

Age The Scar of Lead

Japanese crusty four-piece that I really know nothing about except that they were part of the Amebix Japan comp a couple of years back and have a couple of eps floating around. This seven track mini-lp has tons of charms, from the raging, nearly out-of-control fury of the playing to the oddly translated English lyrics that make more sense the longer you read them ("The night full of wicked hearts attack on" is a prime example). Age even tackle Twisted Sister's Stay Hungry, which marks the first time something related to that band has been cool since 1983. I picked it up at my local punk rock shop, Extreme Noise. If you're interested, you will have to hunt -- the Internet didn't offer any band or label sites, but there were a smattering of places that sold the lp.

Too busy writing to post

But here are a few links:

In place of my regular gaming post, check out Cool Mini Or Not, which is, well, exactly as advertised.

If you want to brave the elements for a show, here are some new reviews:

Talkinbroadway: Well and and Peer Gynt and the Poetry of Pizza (mmm, pizza...)

And don't forget Lost is back tomorrow. No clever links for this, but I'll buzz in with opinions after the broadcast.

Right, this public television magazine isn't going to edit itself -- as much as I would like it to.

Buffy the Torchwood Slayer?

Torchwood Series 1

(BBC Video)

Torchwood Series 2

(BBC America)

Spun off from the revitalized Doctor Who franchise, Torchwood is an X-Files type show,  though this time its set in Wales and has five smoldering characters to craft sexual tension. The first series got good numbers on cable BBC3, so the second has moved a station up to BBC2. The reaction from critics and fans was a bit more mixed.

Put me in that camp as well. There's plenty to love on Torchwood (I'll get to that in a moment), but the show has a tendency to be loud brash and "modern" at the expense of clearly told stories and well-defined characters.

However, when it clicks, Torchwood can be amazing. The show's bleak look at life on earth is one of the darkest on television. It's a world where no good deed goes unpunished.

The concept of Torchwood comes from Doctor Who. It's a secret branch of the British government that researches and protects the country from alien threats. They also scavenge what they can from what they find, often using devices that they do not fully understand. At the end of the second season of the new Doctor Who, Torchwood in London is destroyed. There are, however, other Torchwoods, including one in Cardiff. There's a "rift" in space and time there, which allows all sorts of weirdness to fall through. Captain Jack Harkness -- last seen being brought back to life in the far future at the end of the first new Doctor Who season -- is in charge. And his resurrection has gone further than that -- the Captain can't die.

He's joined by a quarter of young and hot investigators who work in semi-secret (their existence is known -- it's hard to be subtle when you have a massive SUV with "Torchwood" written on the side -- but somehow kept quiet from the general public) on cases that are both science-fictiony and fantastic. 

As I noted before, sometimes the flash gets in the way of storytelling. The "cannibals in Wales" story really doesn't make any sense, while the "alien fight club" one is so derivative and silly that it undermines the very real confusion the main characters are feeling at that point.

Yet Torchwood can also hit on all cylinders. Sapphire and Steel creator Peter Hammond works his signature, creepy magic in "Small Worlds," where Jack and the team meet up with the forces of fairie and come across a situation that they cannot "win." "Out of Time" brings three ordinary people from the 1950s forward to the 21st century and explores their culture shock and efforts to cope in a sort of reverse Life on Mars scenario. Finally, we learn some truths about the immortal and multi-sexual captain in "Capt. Jack Harkness," when he travels back in time to the 1940s and meets his namesake. The episode also features some of John Barrowman's best acting in the series -- and one of the finest and most honest gay kisses I've ever seen on television.

Season two (running Saturday nights on BBC America in the states; on BBC2 in Britain) kicks off with "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang," which features the good and bad of the first series. There are lots of flash cuts and intrusive incidental music, and the plot -- well, it holds together a bit better than "Countrycide." To kick things off, James Marsters was brought in to play one of Jack's old flames. Marsters is basically playing Spike from his Buffy days, just without the vampire bit (though we never see him in daylight...) He brings a nice energy to the proceedings and it's fun to see the character again, no matter the name, but it does distract from the new chemistry of the team, which has grown since the season one finale. The creators have noticed the issues of the first series and are promising some adjustments. We'll see how that plays out over the next few months.

Riding with the truckers

There was something else this blog was supposed to cover... Oh, that's right: Music!

Drive-By Truckers Brighter Than Creation’s Dark

I’ve never hidden my love of this Alabama-based collective. Their mix of traditional southern music styles – from raging rock to blues to country to soul – with the fury and honesty of punk drew me in from the first time I heard their opus Southern Rock Opera.

Over the years, the band has gone through a number of lineup changes and stylistic shifts, but the underlying brilliance has not faded. Coming off their stellar support performance on Bettye Lavette’s The Scene of the Crime, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark finds the Truckers in another epic mood, crafting a long, complex and more-often-than-not, thrilling musical ride.

With three songwriters and vocalists, the band’s eclecticism is its calling card. What binds it all together is the excellent playing throughout, including contributions by legendary keyboardist Spooner Oldham, who helps to anchor the diffuse music into a cohesive whole.

Songwriter/vocalist Patterson Hood calls this album a “grower.” Which is more than encouraging. I already love Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. How will I feel after it “grows” on me?

Disfear Live the Storm

I could really do some shorthand with this review and just say: "Excellent Scandi-crust D-beat hardcore fronted by former At the Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg." Now, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'll take this one step at a time.

"Scandi-crust." Scandinavian-based "crust" is a particular style of punk rock that is based on heavy, metal-style riffs. The guitars are usually downtuned, which makes the music more menacing. Crust was an offshoot of the anarchist hardcore of the 1980s, with England's Amebix usually cited as the style's ground zero. Scandinavia (in this case, Sweden) has spawned tons of extreme punk and metal bands over the years, from the church-burning black metal acts to a legion of pissed-off punk rockers.

To jump ahead a bit, Tomas Lindberg seems to have been a member of all of the Swedish bands in the last decade, though it really is "only" half a dozen. At the Gates took death metal (the intense and technical style that emerged out of the 1980s thrash scene) and added enough melodies and harmonies to give the style a fresh kick. Since then, millions of bands have copied the style, but few have managed it as well as At the Gates. After the band imploded, Lindberg went off into punk rock (with occasional forays into metal, such as The Crown) while the bulk of the band became the Haunted. At the Gates will reunite for the first time since the middle 1990s this summer for a string of concerts.

To move back, "D-beat" is another sub-strain of hardcore punk rock. In this case, the name is drawn from the signature drum beat, which is powerful and quite easy to hang a couple of chords and riffs on and make memorable hardcore. It started mainly with angry  Brits Discharge, though there is also a Scandinavian school that started around the same time, followed by others around the world (Japan has a particularly good dis-scene). Like At the Gates, millions of bands have followed in Discharge's footsteps, utilizing the beat, a riff or two and a few lines of lyrics to spread their message of, er, war is bad and we're all going to die horribly in a nuclear war and, oh, the cops aren't really cool either (OK, it does beyond this, but sometimes it's hard to tell).

So what makes Disfear (note the "dis" prefix) such a great purveyor of the style? Well, Lindberg sings for all those bands for a reason -- his vocals are distinct and powerful, even when he's just yelling his head off. The band is made up of seasoned pros who have plied this kind of music for years and no how to take the seemingly limited tools and make it fresh. The 10 songs here are loaded with raw, raw power, but power that is molded into something focused. The band hits a number of highs here, including longtime live favorite "The Furnace" and the punishing album closer "Phantom." So, yeah, excellent Scandi-dis-crust. And in the middle of winter, what else does a hard rock fan want except something so intense it melts away the snow and ice?

And for a bit more: this month's column from Lavender, my long-awaited Best of 2007 list.