There was far more good than bad during part 2 of the winter interregnum. Really:
*LW and OD went off to the Deep South without a hitch, and I continue to be impressed at what the Big Dig hath wrought, seeing as how, barely a half-hour after leaving our front door, I was dropping them off in front of the appropriate terminal. Anyway, the two lovelies proceeded to have a fine visit with my mother-in-law, while browsing and photographing the incredible array of art objects she keeps around the house. Their trip back, via our mother-in-law-donated and now primary (more later, sadly) car, proved to be adventurous ("In North and South Carolina," observed OD, "I guess you're supposed to drive 90 miles an hour, because everyone did, everywhere.") but quite pleasant, considering.
*YD, although missing her two vacationing dear friends, seemed content enough to noodle around on the 'puter, get acquainted with her new camera, watch her heavy metal DVDs and practice her singing. Sometimes, as a parent, you just shut up and let 'em play.
*And as for me, well, I had the absolute pleasure of taking part in two music sessions at the home of Dear Friends, including on New Year's afternoon -- happily eschewing bowl games, by the way -- and attending a New Year's Eve potluck before, after shuttling YD to her party, closing out 2003 at the Concord Scout House contra dance. Many old, and more recent, friends and acquaintances on hand, and thus I was completely immersed in fellowship and good feelings. The high point, if I had to choose, was dancing "Rory O'Moore" with Sue, like me once a single morris dancer and now a parent of two; lots of fun, silly balance-and-swings and casting-offs. I stayed through the "Auld Lang Syne" circle-sing and mixer, then zipped back to pluck YD from her reveling.
*The last couple of days, unfortunately, were spent in sorrowful contemplation of our Ford Torturous, which now appears headed for the scrap heap after 3 1/2 years and 25,000 miles on our watch, thanks to the dreaded gasket heads which were our bane in June of 2000. And, stupidstupidstupid, I wind up treating it to a new muffler on its death-bed. On the one hand, we mourn the now-dashed prospect of a second car -- theoretically more flexibility for conflicting family schedules, a practice vehicle for our young drivers-to-be -- but given that we now have in our driveway a Honda with barely 40,000 miles on it, obtained at essentially the cost of two one-way airplane tickets, we really don't have a complaining leg on which to stand.
Respite from Our Reveling
At the approximate mid-way point of my Christmas-New Year's break, I'm actually in the office to do a middling bit of work before jumping headlong back into mirth, merriment and music.
*I started off my fun with another visit to the Hugh O'Neill's session, with some familiar (and mostly welcome) faces. Somewhat subdued, with the death of Johnny Cunningham on our minds [see Dec. 16], but more than worth the jaunt to Malden.
An interval of modest preparation, and then I went out to Ayer for the O'Hanlon's session, which saw the return of prodigal son Brian Hanlon, with recently recorded CD in hand (currently on the office music shelf), and the inimitable Jerry and Nancy Bell, who demonstrated their prowess on fiddle duets in addition to their usual affability. Jerry nudged me into a rendition of "Poverty Knock," which made me realize I need to practice the damn thing more often.
*The Christmas build-up was quite bearable this year, what with most of the gifts (and there weren't all that much anyway) already secured, and the kids' social calendar was rather full. LW and I were able to have time to ourselves for surreptitious shopping trips and other, more relaxing activities. So the tree-trimming really didn't take place in earnest until Christmas Eve itself, and that worked out just fine: We were joined by neighbor dogs Curly and Tasha, who were subjected to the sort of animal abuse/exploitation peculiar to the season (Tasha's portrait, taken by YD, has a certain William Wegman quality to it).
*Christmas Morning was actually pretty low-key, which made the girls' delight in their respective presents all the more a joy to behold. LW and I were considerably delighted by our CD recorder, and hooked it up later so LW could begin rifling through our vast LP and cassette collection for stuff to burn in preparation for her and OD's forthcoming trip Down South. I monkeyed about with our new digital camera, which among other features has the capability for rapid-fire "burst" picture-taking as well as brief video shoots. Yeah, I think morris dance season is going to be quite fun.
So, shortly I shall return to our LP and cassette-strewn apartment and ready for further holiday adventures, which I expect to include at least two more musical indulgences, a contra dance, and the safe return of LW, OD and Car Number Two.
Dec. 19
*It's a truism, I suppose, that the events you somewhat overlook in advance are the ones that exceed your expectations. So it was with the first (of many, one hopes) Mid-Winter Celebration hosted by Commonwealth Morris Men, and featuring several area morris and sword teams. It was small, intimate, friendly and thoroughly evoked the warmth, fun and, yes, the wonder of the season. Furthermore, OD was immensely satisfied and enthused by her team's performance in the event, which is a cause for celebration right there. (More here, with obligatory apology for poor photo quality).
*The women/singing the freedom song (a Luka Bloom reference, if you're curious):
==Frankly, I don't know an awful lot about Malalai Joya, other than what few biographical tidbits have come through the media. She's 25, from the western Afghanistan province of Farah, and reportedly lost six family members during a rocket attack in the Afghan civil war. But I do know that getting up at a loya jirga and denouncing, to their faces, the warlords who helped ruin her country is a pretty damn gutsy thing to do. For exercising this freedom of expression, which theoretically was part of the whole business of liberating Afghanistan, she was immediately denounced as a Communist (and worse); ah, the familiar lexicon for attacking dissent. Here's hoping she lives long enough to see Afghanistan reborn.
==Essie Mae Washington-Williams had nothing to gain, really, except her freedom of identity by her public disclosure that she is the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of arch-segregationist Strom Thurmond. Another poignant reminder that, certainly in America, words and deeds are often separate but unequal when it comes to race.
Dec. 16
Sad, this is: fiddler and raconteur supreme Johnny Cunningham dies of a heart attack at 46. Forty-effing-six. I was fortunate enough to experience -- for that is the proper verb -- Johnny in private, social settings a few times, as well as to watch him in concert. It was as if his very cells produced outrageous jokes and stories (some of them perhaps even true). And once, I got to experience him as a fellow performer, when Dark Eyed Sheep and he shared a gig in New Hampshire. It was a rather poorly organized affair, which left us with a small audience, many of whom seemingly unfamiliar with Johnny or Celtic music. Johnny gave it his best, of course, but at one point, gazing out on the less-than-responsive faces, blurted out in that Edinburgh accent, "Excuse me, but are you people dead or something? I mean, back home we'd be carryin' out the bodies about now."
Dec. 13-14
*Saturday, OD and I cart along a couple of her rapper-sword team members -- and the big boss, too -- to their gig in Worcester (WOO-stah, for the Massachusetts-challenged among you). Considerable pessimism in some quarters at the outset, but during their two stands they looked stronger and more confident, and their Fool Dance (which incorporates the standard "I-was-here-first" contretemps between two of the dancers) has promise -- although the "arguing" seems disconcertingly authentic. In any case, it's quite a dynamic collection of personalities and temperaments, as well as talents, and I hope they put it together and maintain their cordiality as well.
*Sunday, and the early morning news of Saddam Hussein's rather anticlimactic capture in Tikrit, huddled in a decidedly non-high tech underground hiding place. Notes:
==Predictably, but no less infuriatingly, comes the punditry's analysis of how This All affects the presidential race. Could we somehow allow ourselves to focus more on the ultimate downfall of Saddam in terms of the Iraqis, and what it means to them? There is joy now, certainly, but as whatever legal proceeding he undergoes evolves, there are sure to arise some other, unresolved and conflicting emotions -- especially regarding those who, actively or passively, aided Saddam to remain in power.
==On page 3 of the Sunday Globe, we read how Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf evaded an assassination attempt -- which might have been aided by Al Qaida -- by mere seconds. A troubling reminder that there remain tough questions, and answers, in that part of the world.
==The Red Sox evidently hold the minds, as well as the hearts, of much of New England: More than one person acknowledged that the phrase "We got 'em" suggested the highly anticipated trade of Manny Ramirez for Alex Rodriguez.
*It is impossible to go grocery shopping listening to La Bottine Souriante on your portable CD player and not attempt to clog amidst the aisles. Sorry, that's just how it is.
*Viewing: "Strange Planet" -- One year in the lives of two sets of three friends, Australian, 20ish/30ish, and caught up in their varied crises and challenges: a failed marriage; a lack of romance; a desire for career advancement. We don't doubt that somehow, the paths of these six Aussies will eventually cross, and in doing so offer potential solutions for the aforementioned life questions. Unavoidably episodic, but winning.
Dec. 11
*Ah, nothing like a parent's pride bursting in the breast. YD has her long-awaited, albeit brief, solo in the school choral concert -- and absolutely nails it. Her nervousness was pretty evident, but unlike most other kids we've seen in that setting (and believe me, we've seen a lot), she seemed to cast it off and belt the words out instead of seeming all apologetic for being there. So, who knows, maybe we'll yet see our own home-made version of The Nields or disappear fear come to fruition�but if not, that's certainly OK, too.
*Recent musical acquisition: Varttina, "Ikki" -- I thought I had pretty much reached the end of the line with these fine Finnish folk, that their reinventions of Karelian/Finnish-Ugric traditional music, while still retaining some exoticness, were becoming formulaic. But this album, their most recent, sees the group marshalling their considerable resources and doling them out with some restraint. The first few tracks are actually quite spare, including the lovely a cappella "Syyllinen Syli," and the atmosphere begins to build through the third, "Sep�n Poika." The band really takes off with the ebullient "Nahkaruoska," which showcases vocalists Susan Aho, Mari Kaasinen and Johanna Virtanen at full power (and high spirits), ably complemented by Janne Lappalaine's saxophones. Guess I'm back on the bandwagon.
Dec. 5-7
*With ominous warnings of snowy inundation abounding, OD and I visit Club Passim to see two performers with quite different personas yet who, when they did a few songs together, seemed a perfect match.
First is "SONiA" nee Sonia Rutstein, who despite the affected stage name presents herself as a decidedly unaffected, unpretentious performer (and a self-acknowledged fidgeter between songs). Wispy in stature, with unruly hair and geek glasses, she belts out songs about true-life or semi-fictional characters -- an elderly woman determined to do an act of kindness on 9/11, a disabled war veteran who lets his children explore their sociopolitical views -- and love, powerful love: The soaring, candid "I Could Be the One" is probably her signature song. (I happily discover in conversation later on that she can actually reminisce about the Baltimore Colts).
Then comes Greg Greenway, a tall, gentle-voiced man, amiably sharing his memories of Boston ("I proposed to my wife right outside there," he says, pointing in the direction of Palmer Street) and given to softly lilting in jazz-scat fashion as he prepares for the next song. He's a staple of Boston folk-radio airplay, so a lot of his material is familiar to me, but his zest and passion in person made for a whole new presentation, particularly his song for Nelson Mandela.
Snowflakes intensifying, we make it home and into restful slumber.
�and those snowflakes just do not quit until late Sunday, after we've received anywhere from 20 to 22 inches. It's a weekend when, face it, you really just have to let go of pretty much whatever ambitions and plans you might have cooked up and look out the window. Outside of shoveling and the odd walk to the grocery store, that's about what I did -- well, yes, watched a fair amount of college and pro football, including the Patriots' win over Miami which featured a late-game gleeful eruption of crowd-tossed snow powder, making Gillette Stadium look like something out of a Ridley Scott movie.
Dec. 1-5
*Things What Have Pleased Me This Week:
==OD landing her learner's permit. This may seem an unlikely milestone for a parent to cheer, but I think one can look on it as one of the better carrot-and-stick motivation tools to get a kid looking toward the future, and of the intertwined freedoms and responsibilities lying ahead. Still, there'll be a fair amount of time spent in empty parking lots and deserted roads.
==YD boasts an achievement of her own, meanwhile - earning a solo in the upcoming choral concert. All those hours spent singing along to the stereo, karaoke-style, paid off at last.
==The recent "Get Fuzzy" story arc in Nova Scotia, including a reference to Antigonish, one of the stops during our four-day whirlwind of a honeymoon tour. Wouldn't have minded if they'd headed further east and found a ceili on Cape Breton, but that's just me.
*Things What Have Irritated Me This Week:
==The nauseatingly exploitative TV ad for some new video game based, apparently, on a Tom Clancy novel, which uses the "Freedom isn't free" catch-phrase and a child's a cappella rendition of "My Country Tis of Thee" to complement footage of real-life (so we assume) soldiers in action�and then abruptly shifts to the video game depiction of such activity. No, this isn't an anti-military rant on my part. Far from it. Actually, this reminds me of some of the ways Madison Avenue liked to employ WWII in their mid-1940s ad copy, e.g., "Sighted flea, killed same." But this is disturbing in its attempt to fuse entertainment with some sort of faux-patriotic realism.
==A proposal to substitute Ronald Reagan's image for FDR's on the dime. I don't share the ardor for Reagan, per se, but I certainly recognize his importance to American history and quite agree that a significant memorial to him of some sort is therefore highly appropriate. But the proponents for this idea of rubbing out FDR, if I understand them correctly, say their reason is that Reagan's vision of government has now eclipsed that represented by the New Deal. Well, if it's a matter of whose sociopolitical ideology is ascendant at this moment in time, by that reasoning, of whose visage should we rid Mt. Rushmore? TR? Honest Abe? And come to that, if in another 50 years or so we have another comprehensive retooling of federal government, would we then entertain the notion of replacing Reagan's face?
*Books completed:
=="The Ordinary Seaman," by Francisco Goldman - Based-in-fact fiction concerning a group of Central Americans who come to New York to work on a cargo ship, only to discover it is a useless, immovable hulk that becomes their prison. Goldman's shifting of time sequence is a little confusing in spots, but he tells a very convincing tale of what it means to be an immigrant on the lowest rung. What's more, by giving over some of the narrative to the ship's owners, we begin to see them less as evil oppressors of the downtrodden than as men who, like those on the ship, are caught up in their own personal limbos.
=="The Safety of Objects," by A.M. Homes - �which perhaps could be subtitled "Stories to Make You Think Twice About Living in the Suburbs." Homes seems to suggest that as we settle into the affluence, and insularity, of suburban life, we can no longer depend upon people, even those we purport to love (or who purport to love us), to help us locate our self-worth, our personal or spiritual essence. The right blend of events and circumstances, then, can easily carry us from our moorings: an "employee of the year" finds himself unable to cope with his family after a change in routine; a shopping mall contest proves the undoing of a heretofore good husband and father; and pre-teen sexual curiosity takes an abrupt and terrifying turn.
Nov. 27-30 (Urrrpp!)
*OK, let me amend that reference to gastric overload in the dateline. Yes, there was considerable food consumed, especially the first two days of this period, but hardly to a gluttonous degree.
*Thursday we played the role of Thanksgiving Guests at the home of YD's best friend, a mere 5-7 minutes drive away. Pleasant enough time, to be sure, although much of the conversation seemed to center on Pets We Have Known. Later, LW hurries home to get her much-beloved classic edition of "Risk," and so we six adults (in three teams of two apiece) fight for the supremacy of the world in the gathering dusk of Eastern Massachusetts. Gradually, the partnerships dissolve, until LW and the father of our co-host (heretofore a novice) are left to duke it out. Have to say, I almost find myself getting, er, a bit turned on when I see LW's competitive talents in play. Not now, dear, I'm conquering Irkutsk�
*The next day, I did something I am not sure I have ever done: Join the line of early birds awaiting a post-Thanksgiving sale. Yes, yes, we do normally scorn such things, but this one just couldn't be summarily dismissed. Surprisingly, I was able to find everything on the list and in a relatively short space of time. It was the check-out which took ages. But I had taken along my collection of lyrics to songs I've been meaning to learn, and amidst the hustle and bustle and shoppers' announcements, sang softly to myself; think I've finally learned all of "Allenwater."
Then it was our turn to play Thanksgiving Hosts, with OD's chum from NYC and her boyfriend on hand. Much to our delight, considerable leftovers remained, even with a teenage boy on the premises.
*Saturday is a day of much schlepping (pick up one kid, drop off the other, repeat as necessary), until OD and others and I attempt to dance off our Thanksgiving indulgences at a special contra event in Concord. The band was practically wall-to-wall fiddles, sounding gorgeous, and there was a very easy-going feel to the whole thing. My first partner of the night turned out to be the caller's elementary school-age daughter, who very politely asked me to dance. The drive home, making various stops at teenage dancers' houses along the way, almost takes as long as the dance.
*Sunday, I took a deep breath and ventured into downtown so as to drop off our guest at her bus. No injuries reported. And later that day, I rewarded myself with a long-anticipated return to the O'Hanlon's session, where I was warmly greeted and mildly admonished for not having been 'round in such a while. Certainly hoping to remedy that, folks. In any case, this was worth the wait.
*Viewings:
=="28 Days Later" - Post-apocalyptic grave new world-type yarn set in England, where a mysterious virus has been unwittingly loosed upon the public by a group of animal-testing opponents. Hints of "Omega Man," "Andromeda Strain," and a smattering of "Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek" episodes, but director Danny Boyle offers some arresting visuals and an effective atmosphere of dread. The film shifts into a more philosophical gear when the plague's survivors find what they believe to be safe haven, and instead discover that delusions of power and grandeur are equally deadly contagions.
=="The Girl from Hunan" - Twelve-year-old Xiaoxiao is married off to a boy 10 years her junior in a remote mountain village, where she spends her days as baby-sitter and big sister before slowly, inexorably succumbing to her emerging romantic and sexual desires - a development fraught with danger. Lovely to look at.
Nov. 25
*I've been enlisted to contribute to a "geography journal" being circulated around the country by a family member's elementary school-age son. The idea is to give an idea of the salient characteristics of your community, so I was thinking of offering something like this:
The streets of this town suck out our very souls, leaving us filled with a pungent sense of self-loathing and inadequacy that regular purchases of personal entertainment devices and hard liquor can barely assuage. Our children's often desperate and forced laughter is so easily drowned by the echoes of broken promises and cruel lies, mingling with the cold wind that chills the lost, lonely old people who stumble along the sidewalks as if in search of the social hall that burned to the ground years ago, turning our civic spirit and shared hopes into so much ash and twisted metal.
We also have a big lake and a public swimming pool.
Oh, all right, fine. You never let me have any fun.
*Not one but two Thanksgiving feast-o-ramas lie ahead, so further updates will resume in December.
Nov. 21-23
*Going to the dentist (well, at least for a regular check-up and cleaning) has actually become a semi-comfortable ritual: Lean back in the chair, exchange greetings and bon mots with the hygienist, submit to the scraping and poking, and graciously accept the admonishments about needing to floss a little more. Then, when making an appointment for the next check-up, I have to somehow advance my mind six months into the future to figure out what on earth I might be doing at that time.
*Two of our gerbils, Julian and Cody - the former in particular � must be watching highlights of US Olympic gymnastics competitions behind our backs. They spend minutes at a time propelling themselves up at the wire-mesh screen atop their cage, like little furry Superballs �. I understand Shannon Miller's attending law school in this neck of the woods, so maybe she can provide some mentoring.
*OD's friend joins us on Saturday, and then that evening I chauffeur them to a local high school production of "Sweeney Todd." I would volunteer to sing the music hall song on which the show is based, but somehow I'm not sure anyone would be interested.
*Meanwhile, I would really like us to have a night off from being parents, especially when neither kid is home.
*Sunday is another leisurely jam session with morris-and-rapper-sword parents, actually as much gabbing as playing music. I think there's nothing wrong with healthy amounts of both.
Nov. 20
*Another well-done, albeit morbid bit of journalistic enterprise here.
*Recent musical acquisition: Eliza Carthy, "Anglicana" - Perhaps few other contemporary folk performers in the British Isles tradition have had as many expectations foisted upon them as Miss Liza, who after all comes from a family that could be enshrined en masse on a Folk Walk of Fame, if there was such a thing. Certainly, she's met, and surpassed those expectations many times over, but in retrospect one wonders if her experimentation of the past few albums - including her collection of original songs on "Angels and Cigarettes" - might have been at least partly driven by that promise. If so, "Anglicana" finds Carthy back in her element, namely traditional English folk, and sounding relaxed and pleased to be there. The arrangements tend to be on spare side, and the performances are, well, simply excellent: the slow, stately "Just As the Tide Was Flowing," with gorgeous fiddle backing; the sprightly, melodeon-driven "Little Gypsy Girl"; the sorrowful "Bold Privateer," which would have provided a compelling counterpoint in the "Master and Commander" soundtrack; and finally, her torch-song take on "The Willow Tree," with brass and a jazz-guitar backing. Oh, yes, and she can still play a damn good fiddle, as the splendid instrumental medley proves. Welcome back, Eliza.
Nov. 14-16
*Friday, I happily hie myself to my first genYOOwine pub session in ages, at Hugh O'Neill's. A couple of familiar faces, plus a friendly Australian flutist passing through town for a conference on Chinese literature. Rather boisterous and noisy around us, but the tunes and the pace were just right. More, please.
*Saturday is largely spent in anticipation and preparation for OD's birthday, her improbable meal of choice being a New England boiled dinner. Remarkably, and blissfully, a low-key affair.
*Sunday sees OD, YD and friend ecstatically bound for Ani DiFranco concert, with no adult presence except for the schlepping to and from the event. To judge by their reactions, a most worthy birthday present.
*Viewing: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" - Just not a Tolkien scholar, sorry to say, but it does seem quite evident that the two films in the trilogy thus far bring forth the intelligence in his writing. The centerpiece of this installment is the battle for Helm's Deep, genuinely heroic, theological, spiritual, and illuminated by a moral certainty 10 times bigger and purer than that evinced by any Republican administration. Elijah Woods, meanwhile, continues to add contours and shades of gray to his Frodo, who is decidedly not just a cute little Hobbit anymore; his looks of desperation, and hints of creeping malevolence, are convincingly unsettling.
Nov. 13
So, Me Mum is off to sail around the Mediterranean, then from the Canaries to St. Croix on a sloop. No, not a cruise ship. Wouldn't mind being that adventurous two-some decades from now.
Nov. 10-11
*Old friend and former sportswriting colleague Bill Ballou incurs the wrath of Yankees uber-owner George Steinbrenner by not voting for Hideki Matsui as American League Rookie of the Year. And to think, I knew him back when it was surly high school coaches cursing his name and personage.
*How many times do we have an epiphany and say to ourselves, "You know, that's a story I wouldn't mind doing some day." And then we don't. Well, in this case, obviously, someone actually did. For anyone who still remembers "Dueling Banjos."
*As someone who produced his own, decidedly low-tech comic books in childhood, I must say this site is at least 30 years too late. (But I do appreciate the "Nnnnggghhh!")
Nov. 7-9
*Having indulged myself at the scrag-end of the VFW contra the night before, I escort YD and friend to a special Friday night contra in Concord, at which performs Small Tattoo, who incorporate various percussives (bongos, djembes, etc.) and banjo-ukele with the tried-and-true fiddle, guitar and bass combo. Highlight among many: their surging, churning take on "Cluck Old Hen," rendering it nearly unrecognizable as an old-timey tune. Just before the interval, I spot OD's companion waltzing with two other teens, the trio looking for all the world like Three Muses stately cavorting in some bucolic setting.
*Quite understandable how folks in earlier times might have taken a lunar eclipse such as this one as a bad omen: Really does look a bit like blood covering the moon.
*Late Sunday afternoon is another session-gabfest with my trusty parental and musical chums, and more importantly, followed by our short, to-the-point birthday dinner for our young lady YD. More to come, darlin'.
*Viewing: "Songcatcher" - Fraught with good intentions and noble lineage, this offers an oft-tantalizing glimpse of folk music collecting in early 20th-century Appalachia. The songs, including the likes of "Barbara Allen," "Matty Groves" and "Pretty Saro," are soulfully and realistically interpreted, and could easily have been the emotional center of the movie. Unfortunately, there are subplots a-plenty, from corporate greed to the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, all akin to a cell phone ringing at a Jean Ritchie concert. Still, Janet McTeer is delightfully uptight and mannered as the scholar who comes to learn the obvious but necessary lesson that there is more to music than what's on the printed page. Watch for thinly veiled Cecil Sharp caricature at end. One other fun bit: Pat Carroll, otherwise known as the Voice of Ursula, portrays the matron of the mountain.
Nov. 6
*How to cause consternation and confusion among teenage contradancers: Show up at the halfway point of the dance and without your daughter.
*Recent musical acquisition: Eclipse First w/ the Scotrail Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, "Names and Places" - Pleasant enough all-instrumental production that seeks to evoke places, people and events throughout Brittany, Isle of Skye and Scotland that served to influence the album's musicians. Can't fault the musicianship, but it starts to get repetitive after a while. Did they not encounter any good singers in their travels?
Nov. 5
*Viewing: "The Matrix" - No longer a movie, of course, but a bona-fide Cultural Reference Point, complete with its own cosmogony and theology. Yet as undeniably fresh and innovative it might be - hell, the visual techniques it pioneered and/or popularized are seen in commercials for used-car Web sites and weight-loss programs - there is a certain degree of Luddism common to many future-shock movies. Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith, by the way, is actually more terrifying in his dispassionate soliloquys than when he tries to kick Keanu Reeves' butt.
*Recent musical acquisitions:
==Popcorn Behavior, "Journeywork" - Can't help exclaiming, in a "Scooby Doo" guest-villain voice, "Those darn kids!" Of course, the members of Popcorn Behavior (now Assembly) aren't kids any longer, per se, but they were when they made this second album in 1997. There are a few hints of the experimental, riff-driven stuff they incorporated into their unique brand of contra-dance music, but mostly this is just a damn good bit of playing, grounded by the fiddle-piano interchange between Sam Amidon and Thomas Barlett.
==Ceolbeg, "Seeds to the Wind" - An album that grew on me, especially thanks to the late Davy Steele's soaring vocals on the title track and the group's fine take on "Johnny Cope." Steele's original songs evoke Scots history, culture, pride and sorrow, and as such they sit quite comfortably alongside the traditional material.
