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Seven Dreams

Gordon Jenkins
featuring his orchestra, Bill Lee (Dreamer), The Ralph Brewster Singers

Tracks: 1 — The Professor; 2 — The Conductor; 3 — The Caretaker; 4 — The Cocktail Party; 5 — The Pink Houseboat; 6 — The Nightmare; 7 — The Girl on the Rock

Tags: Musical, Program Music, Concept Album

Release Date: 1953

Rating: ★★★★★

This “musical for record album” features the experiences of the Dreamer (sung by Bill Lee) as he experiences each environment. We follow him through each dream, and every morning, he wakes to the raucous, jangling alarm ringing and the spoken, sing-song litany of, “Wake up, brush your teeth, wash your face, comb your hair, eat your breakfast, go to work…” until, with the last dream, he lets himself stay in the last, best dream. Continue reading “Seven Dreams”

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To Die, To Sleep

(1994, Rated PG-13) Noah Hathaway (Phil), Paul Coufos (Dumar), Larry Gatlin (himself), Ami Dolenz (Kathy), Charles Napier (Father), Trish Davis (Mother), Nicole Fellous (Jan), Suzanne Alter (Sue), Vali Ashton (Counselor), Tom Pieper (Drug Dealer), George Thompson (Bartender). Music: Ralph Geddes and Michael G. Smith. Screenplay: Rick Filon (story by Kenneth Dalton and Rick Filon). Director: Brianne Murphy. 86 minutes.

Tags: Teen, Angst, Suicide, Avoid-At-All-Cost

Notable: The characters are so two-dimensional, most don’t even have names (Father, Mother, etc.), and the script is the same.

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

A troubled teen — a rich kid who would rather have his parents than their money — begins to flirt with death as a way to ease his pain. He meets a roadie with a C&W band who offers his experience to help him choose a different course. Continue reading “To Die, To Sleep”

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The Four Agreements

By Don Miguel Ruiz
ISBN: 0-965-046365

Publication Year: 1997

Tags: New Age, Philosophy

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I’m willing to admit that I may not “get” this volume simply because I don’t agree with several of the ways in which these Four Agreements are described. The basis of the concept has been described in many similar volumes over the years: This consciousness is not All There Is, and what we call “reality” is, in fact, a sort of unconscious agreement as to what is “real”. Ruiz refers to all this as a form of “domestication”, being changed from a “truly free person” into a sort of societal “pet”. This occurs, he says, because we learn and “agree” with all the things we’re taught, regardless of whether or not such “agreements” actually help us. This, Ruiz, explains, is our prison in which we live our lives, all the while imagining that we are “free” when we are in fact devoutly unhappy. Continue reading “The Four Agreements”

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Flame Wars

Linguists and language experts — including two of my more favorite foils, Dr. John McWhorter and Dr. Anne Curzan — tell us that a living language changes, evolves, and creates new words (or new meanings for old words) through usage. The idea is that some words, even though they are illegitimate corruptions that should never have been created (or were created through ignorance of proper usage), simply won’t go away. I doubt that this rant will change anything, but I wish at least to re-register my protest. Continue reading “Flame Wars”

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Bobby McFerrin

Bobby McFerrin

Trachs: 1—Dance With Me; 2—Feline; 3—You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me (with Phoebe Snow); 4—All Feets Can Dance (anybody ‘thout feet can dance on their hands); 5—Sightless Bird; 6—Peace; 7—Jubilee; 8—Hallucinations; 9—Chicken

Release Date: 1982

Tags: Vocal, Debut Album

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

In novel-writing, there is a theory that one must prove one’s worth by writing a few formulaic novels (or, to use a more descriptive and technical term “crapola novels”) first; after having proven that one can produce mediocrity at its most pointless, there is some peculiar reasoning on the part of publishers that you will then be capable of producing a work of genius. I’ve never understood this idea, particularly when it could injure an artist to approach his art this way. By this same token, had this been the first work by Bobby McFerrin that I’d heard, I’d have dismissed him without a second thought and not gone on to enjoy his later works. Continue reading “Bobby McFerrin”

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The Wicker Man (1973)

(1973, R) Edward Woodward (Sgt,. Howie), Christopher Lee (Lord Summerisle), Diane Cilento (Miss Rose), Britt Ekland (Willow), Ingrid Pitt (Librarian), Lindsay Kemp (Alder MacGreagor), Russell Waters (Harbour Master), Aubrey Morris (Old Caretaker/Gravedigger). Music: Paul Giovanni (performed by “Magnet”; “Corn Rigs” sung by Paul Giovanni). Screenplay: Anthony Shaffer. Director: Robin Hardy. 88 minutes.

Tags: Thriller, Suspense, Horror

Notable: Britt Ekland before she became a “Bond girl”; Edward Woodward’s first leading film role

Rating: ★★★★☆

A hard-nosed, devoutly Christian police officer from the mainland, Sgt. Howie (Woodward), is sent to the Island of Summerisle to search for a missing young girl. What he finds is a small, isolated population devoted to the faith and practices of the “Old Gods,” with all the accompanying pagan sensuality, nature worship, rites, and rituals, along with a firmly-established wall of secrecy and misdirection from every person on the island. Continue reading “The Wicker Man (1973)”

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Deadeye Dick

By Kurt Vonnegut
ISBN13: 978-0-38-533417-4

Publication Year: 1982

Tags: Absurd, Satire

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

As a child, Rudy Waltz acquires the nickname of “Deadeye Dick” for accidentally killing, through nearly impossible circumstances, a pregnant woman. He lives his life as a “neuter”, having no particular emotional attachments, not even to the part of his life lived in Haiti nor to his hometown of Midland City, Ohio, which during his absence is destroyed by a neutron bomb. The novel, like his life, is viewed through this detachment from empathy with the world. Continue reading “Deadeye Dick”

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A Writer’s Book of Days

There are a great many books out there purporting to be wonderful tools or aids to writing. A frightening number aren’t particularly helpful for anything other than lightening one’s purse a bit. This one, however, I’ve found helpful for writers at many levels, from exercises and writing advice to tidbits for emotional and physical support. Allow me to introduce you to Judy Reeves’ A Writer’s Book of Days (ISBN 0-965-004136). Continue reading “A Writer’s Book of Days”

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Tubular Bells 2

Mike Oldfield

TRACKS: 1—Sentinel; 2—Dark Star; 3—Clear Light; 4—Blue Saloon; 5—Sunjammer; 6—Red Dawn; 7—The Bell; 8—Weightless; 9—The Great Plain; 10—Sunset Door; 11—Tattoo; 12—Altered State; 13—Maya Gold; 14—Moonshine.

TAGS: Instrumental, Follow-up Album

RELEASE DATE: August 31, 1992

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

When this album first came out in 1992, I desperately wanted to like it. For one thing, the original Tubular Bells was pretty good. For another, the brain-dead trend-heads at Entertainment Weekly magazine panned the album, calling its sound “too new age”. Knowing as I do that EW is almost never right about anything, and that they rarely praise anything without being paid for it in one way or another, I was prepared to really enjoy this disc. I can still safely say that they’re dead wrong about one thing: The term “new age” has nothing whatsoever to do with this music. For the rest, however, I’m forced to admit that it really does stink. Continue reading “Tubular Bells 2”

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The Internecine Project

(1974, PG) James Coburn (Prof. Robert Elliot), Lee Grant (Jean Robertson), Harry Andrews (Bert Parsons), Ian Hendry (Alex Hellman), Michael Jayston (David Baker), Christiane Kruger (Christina Larsson), Keenan Wynn (E. J. Farnsworth), Julian Glover (Arnold Pryce-Jones). Music: Roy Budd. Screenplay: Barry Levinson and Jonathan Lynn (based on “Internecine” by Mort W. Elkind). Director: Ken Hughes. 99 minutes.

Tags: Suspense, Thriller, Spy vs. Spy

Notable: New meaning to the phrase “Timing is everything”; reliance on low-tech gimmicks, for the most part

Rating: ★★★★☆

Robert Elliot (Coburn) is a renowned professor of economics who is about to be promoted to the highest chairmanship in the U.S. government policy-making committee. He is also a former corporate spy who must get rid of anyone or anything associated with his dark past. As the masters of intrigue would say, he must “clean up his network,” which means killing four people. He creates a perfect plan that some call the Circle of Death – in a single night, his former associates will kill each other, in a perfect circle of mutually assured destruction. Continue reading “The Internecine Project”