sovay: (Rotwang)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2024-08-11 07:28 pm

Det er lettere å hoppe på et tog som står

I am feeling frighteningly flat. For better or worse, under normal circumstances I have some compulsion to communicate my thoughts on books or movies or fragments of history and for weeks now it has felt not just impossible in terms of expenditure of resources but totally pointless. Have some things that aren't mine.

1. I couldn't have seen it no matter what, but I had no idea until reading this review that Damien Geter and Lila Palmer's American Apollo (2024) even existed, much less had its world premiere at Des Moines Metro Opera in July. For that matter, despite seeing the nude study of Thomas E. McKeller every time I visited the MFA, I had no idea that John Singer Sargent is known to have been oriented towards men. I can only hope the opera comes to the BLO, because seriously.

2. Kaizers Orchestra were one of my favorite bands in grad school and for several years after, but I had lost track of their last few albums even before their dissolution in 2013 and it wasn't until a few nights ago when I had several songs from Ompa til du dør (2001) stuck in my head that I learned they had reformed in 2023 and announced their reunion in 2022 with a wonderfully meta getting-the-band-back-together video. Amusingly, they are coming to Boston.

3. More of a PSA: as I was warned by [personal profile] rushthatspeaks, eShakti has imploded.

4. In nicer public service announcements, the Perseids are peaking tonight. Anyone who isn't drowned by light pollution in the northern hemisphere, have a lovely meteor shower.

5. I had never seen this wrap reel of the cast and crew of Series 4 of Doctor Who doing Proclaimers karaoke and it's adorable.

6. Nor had I seen this clip of Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, and Ben Gazzara on The Dick Cavett Show in 1970, where they had been invited to promote Husbands and opted instead for performance art. "This is the reason I didn't join a fraternity."

7. Courtesy of [personal profile] thisbluespirit: Stewart Farrar's The Twelve Maidens (1971), which I have shared with my father who also likes sci-fi radio and Martin Jarvis. The schedule looks every Sunday until the six parts of the serial are complete. I unironically love these tech-folk fusions of the era.

Walking around the block this evening, I heard what sounded like a party or maybe just a household of friends trying to sing the a cappella doo-wop of Billy Joel's "The Longest Time" (1984), which was working out all right except that all they seemed to know was the chorus. I loitered a few minutes on the street to see if they would manage to find their way into a verse, but it had obviously gone Chico Marx on them. Cookie Time Bakery in Arlington Heights makes a shortbread fish for everyone who needs an unfair whack of object empathy in their lives.