I'd heard Magic and Loss long before "Street Hassle," and great as the later album is, "Street Hassle" is just chilling.  Sometimes people die and get mourned.  Some get put out with the trash and no one cares.

(snif)  OK, @LJo1:disqus , if you say so.

Sweet!  How does Monday 11am Eastern time sound?

Hmmm.  Just so you know, that last one is gonna go in a bit of a different direction.  (It's Irving's best novel.)

Henry Mancini—Peter Gunn (closing titles)
Steve Reich—Pendulum Music (performed by Sonic Youth)
JS Bach—Prelude in F minor (book 2, on clavichord)
They Might Be Giants—"Why Does the Sun Shine?" (studio version)
Joy Division—"Colony" (live)

"Ephemerality"—fuck yes.  Pynchon has always been so good at giving us the sense of the transcendent that's all around us, and that's just not here. Since it really comes through at the end in his books (I'm thinking Vineland, Against the Day, Inherent Vice), I'm gonna just hang on and see where this is going.

You guys are mean!  (runs away crying)

Bleeding Edge thread

Lou Reed, "Street Hassle."  (No, I have not seen The Squid and the Whale.)

Wow, this gives me hope.

It did.  Unlike most shows that are imitative, Breaking Bad took the most important lesson from The Shield:  actions have consequences.  Because of that, it's The Shield's equal in terms of storytelling power.  We had an excellent discussion about the differences between the shows (as…

"On 'realism', this show isn't meant to be realistic but idealistic. You should at least have to take that at face value."  Fair enough.  What's your take on 24 then?  If you're OK with The Newsroom, you really can't criticize 24, which is equally idealistic, just a different set of ideals.
Personally, at some point it…

1. cooking a meal

One of the things you get from that interview (really almost any interview) with Groening and his commentaries is that although the Futurama writers knew a lot of science fiction, Groening didn't.

BZZZZZZT.  Groening named Leela after Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony (which is pretty badass)—her full name is in fact Turanga Leela.

Damn good.  It's a four-hour "opera" but it feels more like an oratorio; it's not a drama but a celebration of God, love, and birds, which pretty much defines Messiaen's lifelong themes.  Scene 6 (The Sermon to the Birds) is worth listening to on its own as a vocal symphony.

It's intermittent.  We'll live.

OH DEAR GOD NO.

I would've loved it if the lawyer at the Ulysses obscenity trial had said "you should have read what he wanted to use."

Elvis Costello, "Love Field"
Olivier Messaien, Saint Francois d'Assise
JS Bach, Cantatas for Trinity
Harry Partch, The Bewitched
Henryk Gorecki, Lerchenmusik