COMMERCIAL BREAK—Zeji Ozeri, left, pauses with microphone in hand during
filming of a commercial of I-Chamba, owned by Vic and Lea Sefler, seated at right. Telemundo videographer is Nancy Castro
________________________________________________________

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO – Zeji Ozeri is a man of three cultures—Mexican, Israeli, and now American—and as a singer, song leader, comedian, documentary film maker and an entertainer on the local Telemundo station, he has developed strong followings among Jews and Hispanic citizens of this city.

“What you have to understand about Zeji is that there are probably more than 1,000 Jewish kids in San Diego who have fallen in love with Jewish songs through him,” commented Todd Salovey, director of the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival at the San Diego Rep.

“My kids have been taught by Zeji—and whenever Zeji comes to my synagogue (Adat Yeshurun) to pray, I feel as if a celebrity has come in—that’s the effect he has on so many people,” he said.

Rabbi Simcha Weiser, headmaster of Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, has a similar opinion:  “He communicates beautifully with children,” he said. “He is able to inspire kids to sing – and that is not as simple as it sounds.  He puts so much heart, feeling and emotion into it.”

Although Ozeri had learned his prayers at the Yavneh school in Mexico City, which he attended from kindergarten through high school graduation, he did not really learn the Jewish liturgy until after he came to San Diego.  His first job in San Diego as a song leader and later as a  shaliach at the Ken Jewish Community were not permanent, and while he was in the process of becoming a resident alien with a green card, other organizations—although they admired his work—were reluctant to hire him, lest they run afoul of immigration laws.

Rabbi Arnold Kopikis, who was then the spiritual leader of Congregation Adat Ami – the forerunner of Ohr Shalom Synagogue – told Ozeri he wanted him to lead songs, and help with the services, at Adat Ami, where a large percentage of the membership was Spanish speaking.  Kopikis, an Argentinian rabbi, had served previously in Mexico City, where he had met Ozeri as a youngster.

Although Ozeri had friends who let him stay at their homes during this period of his life in the 1990s, he never wanted to stay with anyone too long—he was so embarrassed by his financial situation.  Occasionally, money was so tight, he had to sleep in his car.  So, while recalling in an interview how Kopikis had reached out to him in his time of need, Ozeri’s voice started to quiver, and he had to stop for a moment to regain his composure.  Rabbi Kopikis, now head of the San Diego Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, is one man to whom Ozeri says he he will be eternally grateful.

“I always like to call him ‘Broza,’”  Kopikis later told me, “because his singing style reminds me so much of (popular Israeli singer) David Broza.”

Besides as a singer, Ozeri became known to Salovey as an actor and a director—appearing at the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Festival as a member of the Spanish-language repertory group, Teatro Punto y Coma, for several years.

A friend from Mexico City and the Ken Jewish Community also in the group was Robert Moutal, who then was head of production for the Telemundo television outlet in San Diego.  Moutal, a member of Congregation Beth El, subsequently was promoted to general manager.

When a position opened for a local morning host on Telemundo,  Moutal recommended Ozeri, but a woman from Texas got the coveted job.  Forty-five minutes after telling Ozeri the sad news, Moutal phoned him back.  The woman apparently had changed her mind.  “The job’s yours.”

For the last six years, on Monday through Fridays, Ozeri has prepared three 150-second segments per day—each of which typically is broadcast twice.  The segment may be a commercial, or a comedy sketch, a brief interview with a visiting celebrity, or whatever else Ozeri may dream up.

On a recent morning, Ozeri was doing a commercial in the studio for I-Chamba— a company whose name means ‘Got Work?’  Owned by Vic and Lea Sefler, whose children go to Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, I-Chamba is a web-based employment service for blue-collar workers.  As Ozeri ad-libbed a commercial, Lea Sefler couldn’t help but laugh off-camera.

“His personality is amazing,” she said. “He really has fun.  We tried to find some way to explain our service with the right slang word in Spanish, and he just picked the right one.  He is very funny, with his choice of words, and his energy.  He has a following in the Spanish market, and when he does the commercials, we get phone calls right away.”

Pitching products is just one part of his job.  Videographer Nancy Castro remembers that he “had a chimpanzee with one of his segments, and  the chimp kept on hitting his head like a coconut.  Zeji was playing off it.”

On another occasion, cameras whirled as Ozeri waited for his Telemundo-arranged blind date, zooming in as he realized that he had been “stood up,” Castro recalled.

Although Moutal is Ozeri’s boss, he says there is nothing he likes better than when his star asks him to appear in a sketch with him. “We do a segment in which he plays an Argentinian professor and I play a Spaniard, who says fallacies, and he corrects me,” Moutal said.  “It is a very light segment.”

Ozeri is physically recognizable – “slender, bald, with big eyebrows, he is easy to cartoon,” says Moutal.  “At the very beginning, we tried to dress him up, but it didn’t fly, so now he dresses casually and the clients like that.  They like his approachability.”

Viewers often recognize Ozeri as he goes about town, Moutal said. “They approach him as a friend.  ‘Hey, you’re Zeji.  How’s it going?’ like he’s their friend, and he is very nonchalant about it.  Sometimes they will ask for his autograph.”

Ozeri and Moutal traveled together to Israel to make a documentary film about the popular Hebrew song,  Erev Zavat Chalav U’Devash (The Land of Milk and Honey), and its composer, Eliyahu Gamliel, whom Ozeri describes as “our grandfather, everybody’s grandfather.”

The song, which almost everyone in Israel knows, has become something of a trademark for Ozeri, who will get requests for it if he fails to sing it at performances.  “He  personally brought the tradition of that song to San Diego,” Salovey says.

The documentary won three local Emmy awards for Telemundo; so far, Ozeri has won or has contributed to winning six such television awards.

He also has recorded two CD’s of Jewish music and that’s just the beginning—or perhaps the middle—of Ozeri’s story.  He says he has some other documentaries planned, is working on some English-language theatre productions, and expects to be recording more music.

So what is the background of this San Diego personality, who came to this city about 20 years ago?

Zeji is short for Zejaria in Spanish, or Zachariah in Hebrew and English.  His father, Aharon, was from a Yemenite Jewish family that ferried across the Red Sea from Yemen to Egypt and walked to Israel, where Zeji was born the eldest of four children.  His mother, Raquel Sefchovich, was a Mexican Jew who visited Israel on a year-long program, where she met and fell in love with Aharon, a soldier in a Nahal unit assigned to helping build a new kibbutz.

Coincidentally,  Kibbutz Erez, where his parents met, is one of the 10 kibbutzim of Sha’ar Hanegev, which became the partnership region of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County more than a generation later.

Ozeri’s parents settled in Mexico City, to which his mother had returned to help in her family’s business.  After Aharon came to visit, they were married.  Born and raised in Mexico City, Zeji attended the Yavneh Hebrew School from kindergarten through graduation—and remembers the school as being similar to Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, where today he teaches Hebrew songs, only Yavneh was staffed  by “fewer rabbis.”

The Yavneh School—named for the community in Israel where Torah learning was continued, even after the fall of the Second Temple—was an Orthodox institution, but many of its teachers and students were either secular or less observant, Ozeri remembers.

He recalled that while he was a student, a new headmaster came to the school – a rabbi who felt that morning  prayers for the students should be mandatory rather than optional.  Ozeri was among the children who rebelled over this change in schedule, hiding in the school bathroom with his legs above the toilet seat so he could not be spotted under the stall door.  It was no use; the rabbi would open the door of the bathroom and call out, “Okay, Ozeri, I know you’re in there, go to Tefilah (prayers)”

Insistent as the headmaster was, he also was tolerant, treating Ozeri’s rebelliousness as simply a youthful phase rather than outright disobedience. After a while, Ozeri started enjoying the morning sessions in which he learned his Hebrew prayers, and says, today, all these years later, he is glad that he had such grounding, because he can pray in fellowship with other Jews anywhere in the world.

The school was small, and students were regularly pressed into service for various school activities.  Ozeri found himself in the school choir, and in the Israeli folkdance troupe.  These experiences and active participation in the youth organization, Maccabi Hatzair, were important factors leading to Ozeri’s career.

Rising through Maccabi Hatzair from a camper to a counselor, he was chosen to spend nine months in Israel to learn to become a Jewish community leader.  Again coincidentally, he was sent to Kibbutz Or Haner for three months – it is also a kibbutz in the Sha’ar Hanegev municipality — and was surprised that kibbutzniks living in that section of Israel adjacent to the Gaza border still remembered his father. Ozeri spent three months on the kibbutz, another six months in Jerusalem at a school for leaders from abroad, and rounded out the tour with a stay in Ramat Gan for seminars at the headquarters for the Maccabi World Union.

At first, he admitted, he had a negative impression of Americans, thinking them hopelessly uninformed about other countries – Americans were surprised, for example, that there even was such a phenomenon as a Mexican Jew.  Furthermore, he said, Americans seemed to be more one-dimensional in their interests than his fellow Mexicans.  It was his impression that Americans picked one subject or activity—whatever it may be– to do very well, but didn’t try to distinguish themselves at anything else.  Mexicans, by contrast, did a lot of things well, but perhaps did not achieve the level of expertise that  Americans attained in their singular fields, he reflected.

Notwithstanding these differences, he made friends with the English speakers—and is particularly grateful to one American and one young Englishman with whom he went on an excursion to Mahane Yehuda market place in Jerusalem, where they began to play their guitars and sing Simon and Garfunkel songs, quickly drawing an admiring crowd.   Impressed, Ozeri decided he would learn to play the guitar at the first available opportunity.  It was a way to have fun, get in front of a crowd, “and, okay, it was also a great way to get girls” grinned Ozeri, who after two long-term relationships is still a bachelor.

In the Maccabi Hatzair program, there was an all-in-fun rivalry school boy rivalry between the Mexican and Americans, which took the form of water fights in which the Mexicans would spray the Americans with a hose, and yell “We want Texas back!  We want California!”

Ozeri was becoming hooked on Israel, but he didn’t know it yet.  He went home, graduated from Yavneh School, and started to enroll at Universidad de las Americas in Mexico City. After he told officials there he did not plan to attend the morning masses, he learned that the classes he wanted to enroll in somehow already had been filled.  ‘You know what,” he told his parents, “I’d rather go back to Israel  and go to school there.”

His father, in particular, agreed, and Ozeri was off to Tel Aviv University, where he majored in theatre and minored in Jewish Studies.  Ozeri came from a working class family—and as he tells the story, his folks gave him $500 and wished him luck in Israel.  Any expenses over and above that, he’d have to earn.

His previous certification as a Maccabi World Union counselor served him in good stead; he was chosen to be a counselor for students from foreign countries, many of them Americans.  Ozeri remembers meeting groups of them at Ben Gurion Airport and quietly shepherding them to the bus.  Then he would count them—loudly, enthusiastically, in Spanish!—and the startled students would wonder if they somehow had landed in the wrong country.

As counselor for the overseas students, he arranged trips to various parts of Israel as well as volunteer projects for them to participate in.  As their residence adviser, he offered a shoulder to cry on when students felt homesick or, in the case of some of the young women, mistakenly believed themselves to be pregnant.

One community service project he helped organize was the donation of old clothing to people living in the poorer sections of Tel Aviv and Jaffa.  Given his own economically needy condition, he became a recipient of some of the clothing himself.  In particular, he remembers obtaining his first-ever pair of Levi jeans.

Because his Hebrew was not good enough to merit parts on stage, Ozeri’s focused his theatre studies on backstage work—lighting, costumes, props, curtain.  All the while, his academic minor of Jewish Studies was becoming increasingly important to him, especially lectures by Survivors about the Holocaust and by pioneers about the establishment of Israel.  In Mexico, history had been something that happened long ago, to people he could not necessarily relate to, but hearing Survivors tell their stories in the new Jewish state—where never again would Jews face such humiliation and degradation—reinforced his parents’ teaching: “Zeji, always remember who and what you are.”

In Mexico, he reflected, people thought of him as a “Jew,” whereas in Israel, where everybody was Jewish, people thought of him as a “Mexican.”   At Tel Aviv University, one of the buildings in which he studied was called the Mexico Building, as money for its construction was donated by Mexican Jews.  Ozeri remembers looking at the Mexican sculptures associated with that building and thinking “I’m in a Mexican bubble.”

Graduation burst the bubble, and not long after visiting his family at home, he was off to Los Angeles at the invitation of his uncle to make movies for the Mexican market.  But his uncle got very sick with cancer, and Ozeri had to sell the movies the uncle already had made.  In Los Angeles, Moises Edid told him that his brother Abraham—whom Ozeri had known at Maccabi Hatzair—was living in San Diego County, so Ozeri decided to come down for a visit.

Edid took Ozeri to a party in the Eastlake area of Chula Vista, and “I opened the door, and it was filled with Mexicans.  I knew there were (Jewish) Mexicans in San Diego, but I had no idea there were so many.  I saw people who went to school with me—Joel and David Chayet – and there were even two first cousins who I hadn’t seen in maybe twelve or thirteen years.  One of them, the face looked familiar—the last time I saw her she was seven or eight, but now she was grown up—and I said, ‘is your name Sharon?’  And when she said it was, I said ‘I’m your cousin Zeji.’”

With his guitar, he led some singing at the party, prompting David Chait, who was working as a shaliach at the Ken Jewish Community (the Spanish-language JCC) to invite him to become a song leader at the Ken’s camp.

In turn that led to Ozeri eventually becoming the shaliach at the Ken, as well as to other jobs as a song leader at  San Diego Jewish Academy, at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School, and at Ohr Shalom Synagogue, among others.

“I had a double identity as a Mexican and a Jew,” Ozeri reflected.  “Now as a San Diegan, I have a triple identity.”

*
Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World

My grandmother taught me the secret of sleeping. When I was about seven, I got sick at her house and was put on the living room couch to sleep. I was extremely restless, and from her chair, she told me to close my eyes and lie still and I would fall asleep. And it worked. It still works. Now, whenever I can’t fall asleep, I just lie completely still and soon sleep finds me. This simple trick has helped me to fall asleep in the strangest places—on school buses, on the floor of a university’s business school, sitting completely upright in a kayak. But the most important lesson my grandmother taught me that day was not how to sleep. Rather, she taught me that being still is important. If you are still, whatever you are waiting for will come.

Even at the age of seven, I was restless. I couldn’t stop moving. Now, as I type this, my foot is jiggling. It’s nigh on impossible for me to sit completely still. Funnily enough, the more I sleep, the less I move. In class, I can always gauge how tired I am by how many time I switch position in five minutes. It annoys me just as much as it annoys the people sitting next to me. I wish I could find more stillness in my life, but as with many things, there never seems to be enough time.

Of course, there’s always the adage, “Don’t just sit back and watch your life go by.” But what are you missing if you are always chasing after life? What is the important things follow after you, but you’re too busy rushing onwards for them to catch up? Shouldn’t we use some of our life to see what happens, like Forrest Gump on his bend, and just wait, live, experience? What do we have to lose by stopping to smell the roses or living the moments now? Yesterday is a memory, tomorrow a vision, today is the only thing holding the two together. Being still allows life to take its time. True, there are only 24 hours in a day, but spending them in a rush creates a constant feeling of having only 23 or 22. Stillness, to some extent, allows for the full enjoyment and expression of all 24 hours.

But why stillness? Why is it so important? D.H. Lawrence wrote, “One’s action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be mere rushing on.” Stillness brings inspiration; it allows one to be able to think more clearly and be more conscious of one’s ideas and actions. As a person with a cluttered mind, it would be nice to be able to sort through my thoughts in order to make sense of them, like Mrs. Darling in Peter Pan. Because I foresee that it will be difficult to achieve, I want it even more. We always want what we do not have, and I wish to gain stillness all the more because of its absence in my life.

I’ve been a student of yoga for about a year and a half now, goaded into it by my mother but continuing because of myself. When meditating, the practice is to not simply ignore the thoughts that come, but rather to acknowledge them and then return attention to the breath. I’ve tried this and depending on the day of the week, it works. Not always, but sometimes. It’s important to recognize that there are distractions in life, but to take time to be away from them and just be. However, my main trouble is always coming back to the breath. Throughout the day, my mind is always running, but in fits and starts. I think one task at a time, but one task leads to another and by the end of the day I have fifteen different things written on my hand. It’s kind of like that commercial with Ellen DeGeneres. When I try to clear my mind, suddenly all the things I have to do are laid out in front of me and I can see from one task to the next, rather than a jumble of things that will later be smeared across my palm. This is the exact opposite of the stillness I am trying to achieve, and simply leaves me feeling frustrated. Why can’t I quiet my mind? Why isn’t stillness of the mind as simple as the stillness of sleep?

The only thing I can think of is that it’s going to take time. Just as I have to wait for sleep to come after I’ve decided to be still, I’m going to have to practice quieting my mind in order for true stillness and peace to come. For now, I’m going to be thankful for the peace of mind I do have, and appreciate all the little things that make my life so full, loving the chaotic soul that I am. With time, the mind-quiet will come. As with anything, it’s just going to take some time.

Zen-fully yours,

S.

P.S. Great song.

“Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” –Arundhati Roy

PERFECT FOR:

driving, background music at work, background music at home, hanging out with (chill) friends, actively listening

PUT ON A MIX CD WITH:

Fleet Foxes, The Script, John Mayer

I have to go ahead a throw a huge THANK YOU!! to meredith who posted on my Fleet Foxes review and recommended I listen to KOC. I google’d them this morning, previewed one track, and then proceeded to purchase “Declaration of Dependence” and “Riot on an Empty Street” and have not stopped listening since.

They are Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe from Norway. They have topped the charts in Norway, had some presence on the UK Charts, were Top 10 and up in Italy, and barely got anywhere in the US (which is why I have lost faith in this country’s ability to realize what talent is).

I feel like KOC paint this gorgeous musical picture with every song they sing, the guitar, the transient violin and piano parts, act as the autumn leaves, trees, and the ground, and when their voices come in they are both the sun and the breeze. I know this may sound really weird reading it at first, but please just try to imagine it. Their harmonies are impeccable, beautifully blended, and full of heart. “Riot on an Empty Street” seems to be the more upbeat of the two albums I purchased today.

Their timing is nothing short of perfect. I feel like I may be over hyping these guys, but they are truly one of a kind- and if you give them a chance, you will see for yourself. They may sound like a lot of different bands out there, but they have won me over as a loyal listener.

I love this type of music because I can put it on almost anywhere (except the gym…. maybe for stretching) and they just become the soundtrack of the moment. Whether or not you can actively listen to their lyrics, the mood and ambiance they create with their sound is enough to keep it on…..repeat.

What do they sound like? Okay.. I’d say a modern Simon and Garfunkel, or a more monotonous (in a good way!) Fleet Foxes.

Fabulous*

These famous legs don't actually belong to Anne Bancroft, but to actress Linda Gray. Uploaded by projectorhead.wordpress.com.

Beyond a memorable script, a terrific cast, a visionary director, and perfect music, some movies just happen to fully embody the Zeitgeist of its era. So it was with The Graduate, a masterful movie that perfectly captured the freedom and angst of the late 60s.

The script came courtesy of Calder Willingham and Buck Henry. Dustin Hoffman made his major movie debut, and was perfect as Benjamin Braddock, while Anne Bancroft portrayed Mrs. Robinson with the perfect blend of sultriness and ennui. It was director Mike Nichols’ second film, following the startling Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. That’s a pretty auspicious beginning. And the music of Simon and Garfunkel was expertly woven through the film, a soundtrack not just for the movie, but for the times.

Uploaded by dateacougartips.com.

I love behind-the-scenes movie trivia, so here are a couple of things about The Graduate I found interesting. Dustin Hoffman was 30 and Anne Bancroft was 36 when the movie was made, but Hoffman looked so young and Bancroft so mature that they carried off cross-generational lovers. And the legs in the famous movie poster, beyond which we see Hoffman, didn’t belong to Bancroft, but to a young model – Linda Gray, who went on to play Sue Ellen Ewing in Dallas.

The Graduate was selected as the number seven movie in the American Film Institute’s “100 Years…100 Movies” program. Two lines from the movie also are among the most famous in film history: “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me, aren’t you?” was selected as number 63 by the AFI and number 17 by Premiere magazine. And “Plastics” was the AFI’s number 42 quote.

Jag är helt övertygad om att jag föddes i fel årtionde. Visst, jag är uppvuxen med all “fantastisk” teknik, jag har upplevt millennieskiftet, ja allt det där som alla säger är så bra med att vara född på 90-talet.

Men tänk på allt jag missat. All underbar musik. Nog för att den lever vidare och man kan lyssna på den om och om igen och på flera olika nyutgåvor. Men The Beatles, Queen, Simon and Garfunkel… listan blir längre på band jag aldrig kommer få se live. Visst görs det en hel del bra musik även i vår tid. Men lite surt känns det ändå att man föddes fyrtio år för sent.

Allt på 60-talet verkar så grymt. Det ultimata hade varit att födas 1945. Då hade man varit tonåring under Beatles och Simon and Garfunkels tid. Några år senare hade man även fått uppleva Queen. Och som gamling hade man på 2000-talet kunnat berätta för alla sina barnbarn om när man såg alla dessa gudar live. Och ungarna skulle vara lika imponerade som jag idag känner mig när jag hör om de som faktiskt har upplevt en Queen-konsert eller liknande.

Next!

It’s one of those weeks.

The kind of week that blends into itself and with every week that preceded and those to come. That’s how you end up in November, wondering where August, September and October went.

It’s all a big, swirly ice cream sundae that you were looking forward to. It was there, waiting for you to lock your whetted lips around its creaminess. You got up to grab a spoon, and by the time you came back it had melted down to a sticky, marbled mess.

That’s what my months feel like. That’s what this week feels like. I still try and keep track of the days. Tomorrow, I know for a fact, is Wednesday, for example.

Simon & Garfunkel- Wednesday Morning 3am

I hope to relive the days when weekend pandemonium was held back by the sole hurdle of a Friday. I never really ‘got’ all those Friday jokes at school by the way…What’s Damian the Dragon’s favourite day? Fry day…oh dear.

The Easybeats- Friday on my mind

Halloween is an ok holiday. I’m generally interested in dressing up, but every year I try to think of something clever, and some how, failure ensues. I think the most beautiful and certainly most epic failure was last year’s Halloween. My friends and I decided to take the minimalist approach, and dress up as ghosts. You know, buy some white sheets, cuts some holes, and boom, you have a ghastly pack of well dressed college buffoons. Well in theory, you do. In practice, you receive quite mixed results. Thanks to the Confederacy, our clever costumes were met with disdain, boos, and even an occasional punch to the back of the head (sorry Rich). Everyone thought we were KKK members. I spent the entire walk down Del Playa Drive (Santa Barbara’s most notorious Halloween display) having to make “booooo” noises to try and ensure that people knew we were ghosts. We were the most hated people in the entire city. Bottom line, being clever usually just makes people mad.

So this year, we went with a more docile approach, dressing as a musical duo to rival all duos. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. Though not a wildly recognizable outfit, it certainly did not illicit hatred and fear as seen in the past. Walking the streets of New York with your best friends singing “Are you going to Scarborough Fair, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme” was a real treat. Unfortunately it was raining, and I was unable to bring my guitar out with me, which would have certainly set the bar high for a more clever costume.

Not bad, right? Yeah, well, you would think New Yorkers would get it, being that S and G had a long standing history with New York, and wrote many of their songs here, but we only go one call out the whole night. I think everyone else just thought this is what we look like.

The real treat was that Rich, came up with his costume about 3 minutes before we left to go out. An ABA Scout/Coach, as well as Simon and Garfunkel’s vocal trainer. Anytime we sang out of key, he blew his whistle and got us back on track.

Aside from our own costumes, New York was a real let down. I can only describe the scene on the streets, as basically being like in old cartoons, when a character is running, and the background is just a loop of the same 5 buildings passing by them. That’s how it felt. Same costumes left and right, very few creative ventures. A lot of Michael Jacksons; a lot of Superheros. It’s like everyone just went into the same costume shop, high fived, and dispersed around the city.

All in all, no one really had any fun. The best part of the night was walking on the streets singing “Cecilia” over and over again.

But with the passing of Halloween, I can finally start getting in the true Holiday spirit. Better believe I will be dusting off my Kenny G and James Taylor Christmas albums very soon.

Scott

Even if you don’t have a soft spot for soft stuff, “Declaration of Dependence” by Norwegian pop-folk duo Kings of Convenience is an important album. Forget that it’s beautifully minimalistic, that it has enveloping atmospherics, or even that it runs at a comfortably relaxed pace: this record is just plain good music.

I always have trouble describing how great this album is without drawing an analogy to Simon and Garfunkel. You know, the delicate vocals, contagious harmonies, and tasty finger-picking guitar. On top of this, the Kings have done a nice job of spicing things up with the inclusion of the extended string family, adding some violin, bass, and piano here and there to create a unique feel for every song. The percussion section is conspicuously absent, but this doesn’t stop the album from being rhythmic. In fact, there are some surprisingly catchy grooves propelling the otherwise low-key music. This focus on upbeat tempos saves the album from the slump that snags similar efforts. Lyrically, the words are very introspective, a good match to the musical mood.

On top of the obvious merits of the music, the recording quality is top notch: lots of breaths and finger noise capture an aspect of intimacy in the performance.

Overall this album is consistent, relaxing, enjoyable, and easy-listening. 85/100

Josh

For the last year or two, indie-rockers have enjoyed a high wave of reverb-drenched  70s nostalgia. I’m no enemy of the trend–I find the quirkiness of Midlake particularly endearing, and I’m hugely sympathetic to the stacked vocal harmonies of Fleet Foxes. One blogger favorite I’ve completely failed to connect with, however, are the Kings of Convenience.

Frequently compared to the legendary Simon and Garfunkel, KoC unfortunately capture all of the former duo’s sugary smoothness and none of their politically-informed wordplay. Instead, on their latest album we’re treated to a bunch of saccharine meditations on relationships.

All too often the songs are structured with rhythms that often bear an uncanny resemblance to up-strum patterns employed by Flight of the Conchords. If only the lyrics had even a bit of the Conchords’ irony–instead, we’re treated to song after song of endearingly heartfelt boy-wants-girl tripe that is undoubtedly meant to be tender and endearing, but is instead just…cute (intimate recording techniques and all). It’s all the confessional, singer-songwriter honesty of Damien Rice or The Swell Season, but with none of the passion.

At their best, KoC sound like a “sensitive” soundtrack to a hipster chick-flick. At their worse, they sound like a band that’d be right at home picking up their instruments for a quiet scene in a thirty-year old Barbara Streisand rom-com. 42/100

I lived my life at 45 RPM

I’m in the middle of a two-part feature concerning three of the best groups of the ’60s (Herman’s Hermits, The Young Rascals and The Turtles) and figured I’d make this week’s theme about ten bands whose 45’s were a staple of my collection. For those born later, AM radio was king, and WMCA and WABC in New York City were among the kingmakers. After an era of crooner pop and teen idol mania, the charts were invaded by surf rock, Motown soul, garage/psych sides and that multi-wave British Invasion. Radio would never be the same.

Many artists have gotten their due critically and financially, from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to The Beach Boys and Simon and Garfunkel. Many have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although several are either awaiting nomination or seemingly have no shot despite making a huge impact in a short and magical time.

I’m going to use today’s list to tout ten worthy artists who I feel are very under-appreciated. They’re enshrined in my Hall of Fame and I still enjoy hearing their music today. Not all have decent video clips, so I’m linking to a site where you can at least hear some audio samples and hopefully pick up a greatest hits collection, if not a few of their catalogue albums or a larger anthology.

If you’re a powerpop or garage fan, there are probably no surprises here. But if you only know these bands from a hit or two on oldies radio, I promise you there is more worth digging for.

Tommy James and the Shondells: A pretty fascinating story of how a guy accidentally becomes a bubblegum idol, hates it, and then becomes one of the more interesting purveyors of commercial psychedelic pop. How can a guy who strung together that many hits not be more highly respected? One of the era’s better producers as well.  Wiki.

Gary Lewis and the Playboys: Even the involvement of Snuff Garrett and Leon Russell couldn’t overcome the fact that Gary was the son of Jerry Lewis, so how could you take this stuff seriously. But Gary was no Dino, Desi and Billy; the band kicked out seven Top Ten hits in two years (!) and this new collection reveals how much great stuff you never got to hear. Wiki.

The McCoys: The band that spawned Rick Derringer had an immediate hit with the iconic “Hang On Sloopy” and never hit #1 again, but their singles included covers of “Fever”, “Come On Let’s Go” and the underrated “Don’t Worry Mother”. Great stuff on the albums, too; “Mr. Summer” is an unknown wonder. The core of the band would up backing Johnny Winter during his transition from Texas bluesman to arena rocker.  Wiki.

The Buckinghams: Another band whose hits came fast and furious and then they were gone. Catchy songs that added horns and time changes resulting in songs more progressive than most. Sometimes it didn’t work out (the middle section in the expanded version of  ”Susan” doesn’t age well) but Chicago and Blood Sweat and Tears leveraged some of these tricks in their arrangements. Still  kicking today. Wiki.

The Grass Roots: Not certain why they never get included in the discussion of great groups of the era. Like The Turtles, they recorded the work of great songwriters (P.F. Sloan was even an original member) and had a string of radio hits that extended into the 70s. The songs were not only ear candy but many were socially observant, and they featured a great lead singer in Rob Grill. And yes, that’s Creed Bratton from The Office on guitar.  Wiki.

Paul Revere and the Raiders: Started as a raucous garage band in the Pacific Northwest, launched into America’s living room on an iconic television program and parlayed the opportunity into a string of hit singles, yet those costumes they became famous for led many to dismiss them as cartoonish wannabees. Wrong! Mark Lindsay’s looks got them onto teen magazines but singles like “Kicks”, “Hungry”, “Just Like Me” and the dynamic “Him or Me” cemented their legend. Wiki.

The Box Tops: I’m still amazed how powerful “The Letter” is forty years later, especially for a song that didn’t even hit the two minute mark. And while “Cry Like a Baby” was their only other Top Ten, that only scratched the surface of this great band. “Neon Rainbow”, “Soul Deep”, “Sweet Cream Ladies”…Alex Chilton would reinvent himself with Big Star and time has proven just how valuable Dan Penn, Wayne Thompson, Spooner Oldham and Chips Moman were to have around. Soul Deep was not only a great song, but a perfect description of the band.  Wiki.

The Troggs: Another band often mistakenly dismissed as a one or two hit wonder, they had several great sides. And as anthemic as “Wild Thing” might be, “With a Girl Like You”, “Love is All Around”, “All of the Time” and “I Can’t Control Myself” are superior songs. A great blend of garage band and druggy music with Reg Presley’s nasal sneer the icing on the cake. (Also famous, of course, for  the legendary taped argument where one member suggests that a track needs a little more fairy dust on it). Wiki 

Mitch Ryder: Mitch and The Detroit Wheels burned like a comet and recorded arguably the hottest rock’n'roll single of all time in “Devil With a Blue Dress / Good Golly Miss Molly”. Bad management and naive decisions broke the band up within a couple of years, but they had a few great singles and recorded a treasure trove of killer rave-ups. Most don’t know that Ryder continued to make great albums over the next forty years because he gets no airplay. (Hell, even his Wikipedia page isn’t up to date). Wiki.

The 1910 Fruitgum Company: Yeah, I know it’s a bubblegum group, but I will unashamedly put “Indian Giver” out there as one of the best singles of the late ’60s. “Simon Says”, “1-2-3 Red Light” and “Special Delivery” all got serious spin time at my house and remain irresistable hooks. Listen – if Joan Jett covers your song, you’ve passed the cool test. Wiki.

Hmm, on to plan B: depend on myself.

P.S. “And no one dare disturb the sound of silence.” (Simon & Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence)

P.P.S. To clarify, Frank and I are still very much together.  My reference to depending on myself was in reference to not counting on others to reassure me or give their emotional support, as no one had responded to my previous message asking for such.  What did get affirmation, rather, was my saying I could only depend on myself (and could not expect anything from others).  Did people expect me to ask for money?  I just needed a friend.

I said, in passing, to a man at a bar the other night,

Bah?

to which he replied,

Bah??? …what is bah?

I said,

Bah is defined similarly to ‘what’ or ’huh’ with a little bit of deer in the headlights look.

he said,

Bah?…ha…bah is not a word…

as he cooly glanced back over at the football game on the television, above the bar, as he slowly went back to sipping his bud light bottle.

I stood there a few moments and then said,

Oh.

I see.

Well I just defined it for you…

…do you need Merriam’s approval?

A little over a month ago, my friend, Jhey, a conscious soul, and I had spent the previous 2 hours freestyle dancing at Republic Nightclub. We had left the club and were in the parking lot, under a street light, as he whirled me around, took my right hand, and then placed his right hand on my waist and said,

Here,… I’ll show you the correct way to do it.

He wanted to show me how to ballroom dance. I stepped back and away from him, as I said,

To which country, era, and culture are you referring to when you say ‘correct way’?

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I decapitated my television 9 months ago. I cannot tell you how much clearer, cleaner, and more original (to me as in they came from ME…not implying reinvention of the wheel here) my inner monologue has become. The benefits I have noticed were not at all foreseeable to myself, as I did not have any initial goals and/or intentions in abstaining from tv. I did not even set out to do so, I was just bartending at night a lot as well as catching up face to face with old and new friends when I wasn’t working.

Part of it is the more entertainment television you watch, the less civically engaged you are. People watch Friends rather than having friends. And of course, you don’t know which caused which, whether people decided to drop out and were left with television or they started watching television and then dropped out. The circumstantial evidence is pretty clear that television is actually the cause of this. There was a really fascinating study in a couple of towns in Canada were the sociologists got to the towns before television did and they were able to do before and after measurements of the effects of television — and as I would have expected, once television arrived in these towns, civic activity slumped substantially.

—NPR, All Things Considered, May 31, 2000

I had enough tv and movie watching the year and 4 months I was married…many hours a week. Now that I did not have to be subjected to that anymore, I just wanted to sit and chill and talk to my friends, at a park, on a swing, on a blanket in a field, at a bar, on a couch, in my car, at a coffee shop, anywhere…many of whom I had not spent any quality time with in over 2 years. One thing I have noticed, after so much time just talking in person or on the phone, is that when I do walk past a tv and hear it talking it sounds funny. Especially when you are so used to hearing live natural voice tones, pitches, and inflections.

Why do they talk like that? Haha no one speaks that way in actual life…

It took about 6 months before I really started to feel as though I was losing the ability to step down and have the ammo needed to appropriately banter with the general public on the casual, yet scrutinizing, levels of sports, reality shows, Oprah, new commercials etc. I do not know about these things as well I once did. As a result, I do not have a lot to offer in conversations surrounding the media. I prefer to scrutinize my own life’s record, my immediate family’s, as well as the words of those who have lived centuries before my conception. I check out only really old library books, no pictures on the front or back and the binds smell of must, because I want to know what was said before what is being said now…roots.

–Michael Tsarion,  Architects of Control: Mass Control and the Future of Mankind

My mother has been telling me I need to write a book and title it, "Things I didn't know I didn't know", for years.

There is no time to come up but for a breath of air…a few hours, days, or weeks even…so you can forget any chance of making it out long enough to bask in the sun’s rays on the dock. You are too busy drowning…but you think that is how it feels to swim anyways…and you didn’t even get the memo that there was a freagin’ dock. By the same token…how can any individual, who has constant imagery and sounds thrust into their senses, have a chance to take a break from it long enough to have absolute lucidity ?

The window through which you see out of would be all murky and opaque from the residue.

Both positivity and negativity permeate through everything, touching all levels of awareness.

Often times, when I am talking or even answering a question, people will interupt me after about 3 minutes,

What’s your point?

To which I will say,

Have you ever read a book?

I am not a ticker and I am not a tweeter.

If I could slice it up, as meat and potatoes, and serve them to you on a silver platter I would, my friend.

However, not everything can be short and concise. You have to build on knowledge of things, houses are built on foundations, and I am attempting to paint a picture—not an emoticon— for you so that you will understand what I am trying to relay to you.

Can you spare 5 minutes?

I shut the world off…and I have no idea of the incredible feelings and concepts I will be grasping this time next year…or the next and so on and so forth. I dropped out of the race, stepped off the main road, left the party, made my exit however you want to see it…and I am reaping from what I have decided to unsow from the fabric of my existence.

There was not always tv, movies, internet, Nintendo, Leapster, cell phones, apps, games, the internet, texting, phones, radio etc. (or clocks for that matter, but I will save that for another day)

As my grandfather who was; born in 1923, raised here in Memphis, lived through the Great Depression, attended the Univ. of Tennessee, Tulane Univ., further training  in Manhattan, an officer in the Navy, on a submarine in Japanese waters in WWII, and a chemical engineer for DuPont creating dynamite for four decades, told me the other day:

He was close friends with, as well as worked along side of at DuPont, Nathaniel Wyeth. (Nate)

Sarah, truly intelligent people are never really bored.

They play on the playground in their mind.

Sometimes, especially as a child,  I just had to sit there.

His quote was in response to:

GreatDad, I could not help but notice a pattern, as I witness the life around me everywhere I go, it appears as though one has to be put in a situation where she or he is forced to WAIT, e.g., the DMV, the airport, voting etc., for her or him to STOP and just BE..

…everyone’s mind is elsewhere…perhaps the past…possibly the future…but definitely agitated and impatient at the present.

My question is, what happens in a society where there is less attention granted for opportunities to create one’s own playground of the mind? What happens when thoughts are externally pumped for x amount of years/decades leaving little to no room for original-to-that-person thought? Do you not learn better when you come up with things for yourself? When you have to figure out how to do things on your own without consulting an outside source?

Breaking the television addiction requires making a choice. The famous Ellen Parr quote goes:

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

Watching TV fills the mind with the images and creativity of others . . . not watching TV fills the mind with freedom.

—turnoffyourtv.com

Who said they know what the hell they are talking about?

The world is flat and Pluto is a planet.

Furthermore, why does it not even occur to us that we do not have to listen?

We have a choice.

You can shut your mouth and eyes, however you cannot shut your ears without plugging them somehow…which I rarely—if ever—witness people doing unless they are in an intense argument with a sibling or former/current lover.

When I hear tvs or voices on radios in passing I generally remove myself from the situation.

It is auditory abuse, to me.

I remember a lot of things.

I was too young to walk, as I recount my father was carrying me like a sack of potatoes, and we were at the K-mart that once existed on Winchester. All of a sudden I heard the most beautiful sound…we were shopping along that space in between the check-outs on the right and the rows of isles on the left…

It was this song.

I did not hear it again until I was an adolescent…nor did I know it’s name or who it was by.

Lie-la-lie recorded inside me…untouched for all that time.

“The chorus of the song is wordless, consisting of a repeated chant of “lie-la-lie”. Simon stated that this was due to a lapse on his part:

I didn’t have any words! Then people said it was ‘lie’ but I didn’t really mean that. That it was a lie. But, it’s not a failure of songwriting, because people like that and they put enough meaning into it, and the rest of the song has enough power and emotion, I guess, to make it go, so it’s all right. But for me, every time I sing that part… [softly], I’m a little embarrassed.”

—The Boxer, Wikipedia

There are not always words for things…which is one of the reasons we all need to make our own art. I went to graduate school, in the creative arts realm of therapy, because just talking about it is not cutting it. We manipulate our own words…even to ourselves.

A visual aid I made for a powerpoint on PTSD in grad school.

Imagery is a PRIMARY process and language is a SECONDARY process. We have always been able to interpret imagery, but language is something we are taught. Memories are stored through primary process and in order to verbalize a traumatic event, one has to be about to make sense of it and then find the words to relay it. Trauma cannot be stored correctly because the left side of the brain, where sequence, logic, cognition reside, shuts down during a traumatic event as the body goes into fight, flight, or freeze action and going back to a PRIMARY and preverbal state. That is where the art comes in. It can facilitate communication between the right and left side of the brain in order to place the memory and store it away so that it is not floating around in the short term memory thus

Trauma being interpreted into the brain.

re-traumatizing the person repeatedly resulting in PTSD.

I cannot always control which things I see and hear will stick…

I was sitting in a waiting room with my mother last Thursday, and we ended up having to wait for 45 minutes. The entire time, there was a tv in the room set on a channel that only airs stuff about babies i.e.: buy this apparatus to prevent SIDS, don’t leave your baby unattended while bathing her/him even for a second, burp them, and something about preventing some shit appearing on their scalp—I don’t know. I just wanted to sit there quietly and talk to my mother about anything and everything at once, but instead there was this voice, this woman, talking at us in this I-have-lost-my-accent-on-purpose voice about babies. My thoughts were completely interrupted by this woman’s voice.

I asked the new receptionist, it was her second day working there,

Can we please turn off the tv, there is no one else in here…how much is it am I paying to be here?

(There was a little bite in my bark.)

she looked shyly and said,

I don’t know…I mean, it’s on a timer…it comes on at 9AM and goes off at 4PM everyday…sorry.

I stared for about 23 seconds at that power button…knowing that by pressing it would probably override the preset timer and turn off the tv.

My father, a mechanical engineer, had my landline telephone on a preset timer he got at Radio Shack from about 6th-9th grade that would shut my telephone off automatically every single day at 9:03PM. Then one day, after years of searching, I finally found the device and changed the settings so I could stay up talking to my highschool sweetheart late into the nights.

I so almost pushed that damn power button.

Alas, I decided not to because I did not want to make this new receptionist feel any more scared than she already looked or make her 2nd day there any more anxiety provoking by the possibility that later on in the day she would be receiving a pep talk by my doctor about not allowing patients in the waiting room to go near the television. I did not want that for her.

So I sat there and suffered the for the next 45 minutes…

I can’t just block radio and/or television out like I used to be able to…I just can’t. I used to be able to zone out.

I did contemplate going to sit outside on the sidewalk, but I did not want to leave my mom sitting alone and I also did not want to appear any more crazy than I already do in general—not for my sake but for hers of course. By now, three more people had come into the waiting room.

I watched one of them, a little boy about 8 yo., play on his handheld videogame thingamagig…he did not blink at a natural rate. His mother sat next to him and stared off into the air…I wondered,

Does she even notice the blasted woman’s voice rambling on the tv? Can she hear it or is she totally checked out of reality?

My boyfriend has observed, and confidently believes, that my senses are much more heightened than most peoples’ due to my selectivity in what I allow into my eyes and ears. I think he may be right. Everyone else around me seems to be deadened by constant imagery and sounds…

I was at a friend’s house about 6 weeks ago when a woman, I had just met, was telling a man, whom I had also just met, about an assignment in one of her classes to watch a movie. I cannot remember what movie, or what class, as I was having my own conversation simultaneously with someone else, however the point is that she said,

…yeah…oh my gosh…these two women in my class refused to watch the movie because they heard there is a rape scene in it.

The man groaned, looked up then back down, and replied,

Are you serious? Jeez. What the fuck?

She said,

I know.

He said,

Why would someone refuse to watch a movie just because of a rape scene?

That is ridiculous.

Raped by actions not meant for pain. Unknowing and darkened days that fooled even the Wishes.

At this point, having been beaten and then raped at 16 yo., I chimed in and said,

Maybe those women were raped!

I told my mother this story and asked her if when she was my age, 1975/6, if that conversation would have transpired in such a way…if people would be shocked by anyone refusing to watch a staged rape scene in a film.

Her response was a no.

Why are people being put down for having the wisdom, maturity, and foresight to take a stand against possibly disturbing imagery?

It’s not like you can watch it first and then say,

Okay, nevermind, move to recycle bin and delete. I did not want to see that afterall…did not want it in my head.

How many images are floating around in your psyche, on repeat like a VHS tape, you wish you could erase?

Repression can only keep them down for so long. They always crop back up…often in a flash…when you least expect it.

There are doors that cannot be shut once you open them, Sarah.

—my mother said this to me as a small child one evening after I was too afraid to go to sleep from watching an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Robert Stack was narrating a story involving ghost hauntings and poltergeists. This sudden knowledge of the paranormal frightened me to death. I could not sleep for weeks.

I am careful of what is painted onto my unconscious.

ζ

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, . . . to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdad’s of his dreams to rise from the dust.

—Salvador Dali

In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of ev’ry glove that layed him down

Or cut him till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

“I am leaving, I am leaving”

But the fighter still remains 

Lie la lie …

I was hoping to have some pictures for this post, however the guy who said he would email some photos he took at the gig has yet to email me them so sorry about that.

Overall the gig went fairly well, I must admit I did fuck up a little bit, especially with the cover of Barenaked Ladies – One Week but I think you can forgive me for that considering how tricky that song is to sing. The whole experience was really very nerve wrecking as the other two acts playing that night were artists with bands who were on tour. Both of them were awesome and I really recommend checking them out.

Rachael Wright

aaaand

Shane Beales

Go listen, they’re really excellent. But anyway they were both touring new EPs and that was proper scary for me, felt I was very much out of my depth. Shane was really nice and encouraging though and I managed to get a bunch of friends to come along.

I need to book some more gigs but promoters and venues are horribly unresponsive to email. I’m thinking that it might be more fruitful to start calling people and even visiting in person.

Also EXCITING NEWS

I mentioned this in last weeks post but today I started a project called AlphabeCovers where I will be covering a song each week and uploading it to YouTube every Sunday going through each letter of the alphabet.  This is because I don’t really have much time to work on my own material at the moment and only really get time during the holidays so this is my way of being able to update fairly regularly and its all good practice .

Today was the first one and I started with America by Simon & Garfunkel.  The vocal harmonies took I while to get right and it was a real struggle with technology to get it to work.  At one point cubase crashed and lost the perfect take that took me ages to get resulting in this facebook post:

As you can see I handled the technical failures in a calm composed manner

I also can’t wait to get a new camera, this thing eats batteries like there’s no tomorrow and apart from being expensive its well bad for the environment.

Anyway after much cursing and many takes this is the final result:

I think it turned out pretty well

See you next week with a new post and a new AlphabeCover

The Graduate often appears near the top of many ‘all-time’ lists, especially among US cinephiles. On the other hand, it also attracts the odd backlash from those who claim it’s tonally incoherent and over-rated as a portrait of disillusioned rebellious American Youth.

What I Reckon is that while I can easily understand it not flawless, I think its a brilliant film that has relevance today for anyone who has done what they’re told, but somehow just wants to get off that merry-go-round…

Please note this review contains spoilers throughout…

This Mike Nichols film from 1967 is usually billed as a comedy, but from the opening shots we’re immediately aware this is not a run-of-the-mill example of the genre. Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) travels silently, stony-faced, through an airport, accompanied by Art Garfunkel’s angelic, haunting voice singing “Hello darkness my old friend…” For much of the title sequence, Benjamin is cropped out of the frame. He returns home with barely a word spoken. Slapstick this is not.

The first half of the film is all about alienation and a complete breakdown of communication within the apparent American Dream. Ben is frequently sullen and silent, either hiding from or cut off from the world: in a diving suit, underwater in the gorgeously blue swimming pool, behind dark glasses, even when he and Elaine retreat beneath the roof of his car, withdrawing from the noise of the outside world. Indeed, even when Benjamin pursues Elaine to Berkeley, we see him sat still while everyone else rushes around him, or later being shut out of her classroom in the silent, empty hallway.

Conversations are often clipped to point of monosyllables. A friend of Ben’s parents accosts him almost conspiratorially with “I’m going to say one word to you, just one word… Plastics.” Nothing the elder generation says to him even begins to connect. But similarly he cannot seem to engage Mrs Robinson, despite his embarrassinbgly awkward best efforts: “We’re going to do this. We’re going to have a conversation.” On perhaps the worst first date ever, Elaine has to shout above the roar of Ben’s car engine, and we can barely hear his one-word replies.

In addition to the fractured dialogue, the way frames are constructed heightens the feelings of dislocation – both of the characters from each other, and indeed from the audience. During their ill-feted affair, Ben and Mrs Robinson are rarely seen clearly together. One or both of them is cut off the edge of the shot, in silhouette, or sat with their back to the camera. Even when we can see them both, there’s not a great deal of eye contact. The bedrooms are white and clean to the point of being cold, clinical and distant, not at all intimate or personal. Within all of this, the humour of the alleged comedy is often painful, and almost always arises through miscommunication or misunderstanding. This is a dark, disjointed view of the world.

Anne Bancroft is tremendous as Mrs Robinson. If Jesus does love her more than she can know, He truly is a saviour of souls. Mrs Robinson is a desperate predator, clinging onto her historic pre-eminence in a changing world. We often see her in animal print coats, robes or slips, a hint at the exotic or dangerous in Benjamin’s preppy world. She lures him into her lair, and never lets him escape. Fearing the worst when Elaine returns, she forbids him from seeing her, because she know her daughter’s youth and innocent beauty will steal Benjamin (her new plaything) away. Her eyes are dark, clouded and empty. In one agonising moment she removes her stocking, coldly vacant. It’s devastating.

In the truly wonderful scene when Ben finally confesses his affair to Elaine, we see Mrs Robinson between them, outside the door, mascara streaked across her face, dejected, resigned, beaten. She silently leaves the frame but the camera stays focused on her, on her absence, for an achingly long couple of seconds before returning to Elaine. That’s the moment the film shifts from the split between the generations to a struggle within the younger characters to discover their own purpose and place in the world.

From the very first to the very last frame, music plays an important part. Like the weather & landscape in Thomas Hardy novels, Simon & Garfunkel’s songs are a character in themselves, the lyrics often expressing the unspoken feelings of Benjamin’s personality. “The Sound of Silence” perfectly reflects and builds on the theme of alienation and isolation all through the first half. Benjamin is reacting against the world of his parents, but he has little or no direction: he certainly doesn’t know what he actually wants; just that he wants things to be “different”. When the focus switches from his home to Berkeley, “Scarborough Fayre” becomes a lilting love song: Ben has found his purpose, a quest to recapture and regain Elaine’s affection.

But Benjamin Braddock, for all his gawky angst, can be a pretty unlikeable character. If he weren’t so incompetent, he could almost be described as a sociopath. He’s nihilistic, he rejects his parents, he’s very creepy towards Elaine in Berkeley when he practically stalks her for weeks, and he does take her on that terrible first date: although he does crack at the last minute, so perhaps he’s not a monster! We can only assume that Elaine sees something of herself in Ben, or simply recognises his struggle to express himself. But for the most part she seems pretty well-adjusted and more at ease with herself.

And then there’s the famous final sequence which has even been copied by The Simpsons, where Ben actually achieves something. Seemingly victorious in his quest for Elaine, the younger generation escape from the clutches of the old. Mrs Robinson (in a leopard-print suit) hisses at Elaine “It’s too late” before her daughter snaps back “Not for me”, fleeing from the Church and her preppy catalogue fiancé Carl. Yet as our hero and heroine leap onto a bus, directionless and alone, “The Sound of Silence” returns. Staring straight ahead, not even touching, they may be in it together, but this must be one of the least triumphant happy endings ever.

For the last 10 years, I believed the urban legend that “karaoke” is Japanese for “tone deaf”. I wanted that to be true. Because that would be funny. Instead the word just means “empty orchestra”. Thanks Wikipedia, for bursting my bubble.

I am hardly ever exposed to social events that include karaoke. But in the back of my mind, I am constantly juggling around songs that would be good ones in case I suddenly had to participate in a karaoke contest. There is an art to choosing a good karaoke song.

The point of singing karaoke is not to show off a person’s singing talent, but instead their ability to entertain. There should be a rule that no serious songs can be sung while participating in karaoke. No Celine Dion. Nothing by Whitney Houston. And definitely not “Bridge over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel. Too sappy and too difficult to pull off for an amateur.

It’s okay for a person to sing horribly if they know they are not an awesome vocalist. But when a person thinks they’re pretty decent and actually tries to sing well, but then falls flat on several parts of a Josh Groban song, or hits the notes too sharply and loudly, “clipping the mic”, that kills the mood.

That can make things awkward, causing the audience to hope that the next performer will perform an obviously stupid song like “I Wish” by one-hit wonder Skee-Lo (“I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller…) or “Peaches” by The Presidents of the United States of America (“Millions of peaches, peaches for me…”).

An ideal karaoke song also should be one in which the singer can incorporate stupid dance movies during the lead guitar solo and fade-out. I am set on “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen. Or “That’s All” by Genesis. Or maybe best of all, “The Heart of Rock & Roll” by Huey Lewis and the News. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZFqA8JJQj0

Surely I couldn’t go wrong with those songs. Because I couldn’t go right. And that’s what truly defines karaoke.

October 30, 2009

Dear readers,

Some thoughts:

Humans are weird.

Watching PotC 1 bloopers always makes me happy and nostalgic.

Don’t put dialogue into your fanvideo.

Johnny Depp is truly an amazing actor, reappearing mannerisms and all.

I’m suspicious of a virus lurking on my laptop. Which would be ridiculous, because then this would be the gajabajillionth virus?

Why do I like unicorns so much? And why is it so difficult for people to accept anything different than normal? The latter isn’t about unicorns, my thought process just led me from unicorns to it.

Rupert Friend gets himself into decent movies. Haha I’m not really going anywhere with this.

The 1988 AP French test is right. The only time fleas are brought up in period films are when people are destitute.

After wearing that tablecloth on my head all day, I still feel like I have it on. Phantom tablecloth. I learned a lot about people today based on their comments about my costume. Oh yesh, and the final decision was to be a ghost. I bought a plastic rectangular tablecloth from Wal-Mart for $1.50. I wish there was a cents symbol on the keyboard.

I need to watch movies at least two times each. Speaking of movies, I’d like to finish “The Royal Tenenbaums”, please.

Simon and Garfunkel freaks me out, even if my dad has their CDs.

I need to get back to writing prose.

“Cyberchase” has clean animation now too. Ehhh.

Love,
Katherine

A different light source

Still LOVING my Nikon D3000 and the fact that I can take awesome photographs with it. Admittedly, I’m yet to progress to the manual settings, but, shutter priority is working pretty well right now. Especially considering I’ve found the best way to trick the camera. Last night I was basically shifting the camera slightly, pressing the shutter and *hoping* it would decide to take a picture. That wasn’t working so well, and the photographs had an ugly background. I tried turning the light on, pressing the shutter and racing to switch the light off again, which resulted in some interesting pics, with two different colours of light showing. But it wasn’t what I wanted. Tonight, I moved the camera closer to the light switch, zoomed in 0n a blank piece of wall (not completely blank, just one small photograph to help the camera focus), focused the camera, reached out and flicked off the switch, then fully pressed the shutter and took the pic! I’ve only been using LED torches, I’m yet to experiment with other light sources, which I will when I’m not tired from work.

Speaking of work, tonight I had to close, practically as supervisor. Our fruit and veg manager was asked to stay back (to lock the doors and stuff) but I had the responsibility of making sure all the “stuff”  that had to get done by the check-out operators was done. We were one person short up the front too, so I’m pretty happy that everything went ok. Yay!!

Picture Details:
Nikon D3000
Nikkor 18-55mm lens
f/5.6
ISO-100
10sec exposure

Oh, and I thought I should mention my first thoughts of this picture, it reminded me of neon lights, and then of the song by Simon And Garfunkel, The Sound Of Silence, which I used to play on the piano. In particular, the lyrics of this verse:

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
Beneath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed
By the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

I try to open up my heart as much as I can and keep a real keen eye out that I don’t get sentimental. I think we’re all afraid to reveal our hearts. It’s not at all in fashion.

Without Arthur’s voice, I never would have enjoyed that success.

~Paul Simon

Paul has more, I think, of a feel for the stage. Whereas I have it more for the notes themselves. I love record making and mixing, arranging, producing. That I love. I love to make beautiful things, but I don’t like to perform.

~Art Garfunkel

For Emily Whenever I May Find Her

Sound Of Silence – Simon & Garfunkel (live sound)

Leaves That Are Green

A Poem On The Underground Wall

Simon & Garfunkel – Richard Cory 1966 live

Simon & Garfunkel – He was my brother 1966 live

Simon & Garfunkel – Barbriallen

Simon & Garfunkel – Red Rubber Ball

Simon And Garfunkel – Cecilia Live In Cologne 2004

Simon & Garfunkel — Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall

I Am a Rock

I Am a Rock

Simon & Garfunkel – Hazy Shade of Winter

Simon & Garfunkel – Homeward Bound (Monterey 1967)

Simon & Garfunkel – Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound

Simon & Garfunkel – Overs

Simon & Garfunkel – Cloudy

The 59th Street Bridge Song – Simon & Garfunkel

Feeling Groovy – Simon & Garfunkel

The 59th Street Bridge Song/Mystery train

Simon and Garfunkel – Old Friends

Simon and Garfunkel – Old Friends

Simon & Garfunkel – Homeward Bound (Monterey 1967)

America

SIMON @ GARFUNKEL..BOXER

April Come She Will–Simon & Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water(Live)

Simon and Garfunkel – Are you going to Scarborough Fair

Simon and Garfunkel- Mrs. Robinson

Kathy’s Song (live) – Simon & Garfunkel

Simon and Garfunkel, the concert in Central Park (13)

Simon and Garfunkel, the concert in Central Park (21)

I don’t think that Simon and Garfunkel as a live act compares to Simon and Garfunkel as a studio act.

~Paul Simon

Paul is a very creative artist but I’m more that thorough, meticulous, disciplined nut.

~Art Garfunkel

Background Articles and Videos

Simon & Garfunkel

“…Simon & Garfunkel were an American singer-songwriter duo consisting of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. They formed the group Tom and Jerry in 1957, and had their first taste of success with the minor hit “Hey, Schoolgirl”. As Simon and Garfunkel, the duo rose to fame in 1965, backed by the hit single “The Sounds of Silence”. Their music was featured in the landmark film The Graduate, propelling them further into the public consciousness.

They are well known for their close vocal harmonies and sometimes unstable relationship. Their last album, Bridge over Troubled Water, was delayed several times due to artistic disagreements. They were among the most popular recording artists of the 1960s; among their biggest hits, in addition to “The Sounds of Silence”, were “I Am a Rock”, “Homeward Bound”, “Mrs. Robinson”, “Bridge over Troubled Water”, and “The Boxer”. They have received several Grammys and are inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (2007). In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Simon and Garfunkel #40 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[1]

They have reunited on several occasions since their 1970 breakup, most famously for 1981’s The Concert in Central Park, which attracted about 500,000 people. …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_and_Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel

http://www.simonandgarfunkel.com/

Paul Simon

http://www.paulsimon.com/

Paul Simon

http://www.paul-simon.info/

Art Garfunkel

http://www.artgarfunkel.com/

Paul Simon’s music-1953 to 1963

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM3KAmBxAiE

Paul Simon Performs on Charlie Rose

Paul Simon’s birthday profile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2FT5ArssOM

The Sounds Of Silence (Interview with Art Garfunkel)

Paul Simon – American Tune

John lennon And Paul Simon

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Tammy Wynette–Videos  ]]> http://vivalamainstream.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/album-a-day-simon-garfunkel-sounds-of-silence/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:33:36 +0000 TJ http://vivalamainstream.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/album-a-day-simon-garfunkel-sounds-of-silence/

Artist: Simon & Garfunkel
Album: Sounds of Silence
Release Date: January 17, 1966

My current conditions are not particularly conducive to listening to the soothing harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel. It’s game night here in Philadelphia, and the Eagles are sufficiently pounding the Redskins, but I’d much rather sit quietly in my room in my apartment, a place I have not seen for over 8 hours, and reflect on the madness and trials of a hectic Monday. Sounds of Silence may not be the happiest of albums to end a day on, but it’s certainly calming set of music, and sometimes all you need is something to wipe away the madness.

I’m sorry to shortchange you guys again, but been swamped with work the last few days. Tomorrow will see a good healthy amount of blogging, so fear not; I haven’t forgotten my loyal readers.

Simon & Garfunkel – Sounds of Silence [iTunes] (YSI)

==TJ==

Video posted on you tube gregorianmusiciancom.

Sail on silver girl.  Sail on by.  Your time has come to shine.  And your dreams are on their way. See how they shine.” Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel.

Sailing on . . .

I like this rendition of a favorite song and hadn’t heard of this group before.  I do wish they weren’t dressed like medieval monks, though.  Rather dark and foreboding.

Here’s a new video for you. Sika has made changes to his side of the office because he has become The Chosen One.