Whew! Jaeger, Beanie, and I just got back from seeing Blast!. What an amazing experience. I cannot say enough good things about this show. All of the performers are top-notch and the music is unbelievable.
For those of you that are band geeks Blast! is what became of Star of Indiana. Star has always been innovative (first time I heard of them they were performing indoors with The Canadian Brass) and this seems to me to be a fairly natural evolution for them. They are definitely not your DCI-type corps any longer.
They show itself is remarkable. The arrangement of Malaguena they finish with will blow you away.
I cannot give these folks enough props. If they come to a venue anywhere near you and you care about instrumental music at all, GO SEE THEM. It's a little pricey but well worth it.
Many thanks to Jaeger for taking Beanie and I along. :)
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In other news, TH, a friend and co-worker, has weighed in with some very interesting thoughts on _Requiem for a Dream_. He's kindly given me permission to share with you.
Jared, I saw you write about this on your page and wanted to comment. Although, like most of my writings, this will probably either bore you to death or make you wonder if I ever talk to anyone else but my cats! I was captivated by Requiem for a Dream. Although it's one of the most depressing films I've ever seen in my lifetime (right up there with Raise the Red Lantern and Gia), it is also one of the most brilliant. Except for one minor cliche (starting off happy in summer, descending into hell by winter -- HOW MANY TIMES MUST THIS DEVICE BE USED IN LITERATURE/MOVIES?), and the overused topic of drug addiction/junkies, the film was extremely innovative. The use of modern music coupled with classical sounds from the Kronos Quartet made for a smashing soundtrack and immediately sets the stage for the ominous climax. How, after hearing that music, could anyone think the film ends on a comfortable note? There is only one track in the film that makes one feel uplifted -- it is the one used in the early scenes between Harry and Marion -- the beautiful piece with flowery strings (Summer: Ghosts of Things to Come). Not only the music, but the sounds were fantastic, too. You no doubt noticed the sounds in the rapid-fire drug use scenes (click, drip, cook, syringe, bloodstream, dilate, OH!). But, did you catch the more subtle sound of the refrigerator clicking and whirring up as Sara tried to diet? It's a sound that plagues me late at night when I watch movies. I think the story about Sara must have been the least elementary and most brilliant. Upon my second viewing, I noticed things the director was trying to show us about Sara. Did you notice she was rarely seen without sweets in the beginning? When she went to get her TV, she was eating ice cream. Later that night, she ate a box of chocolates. When she perused her diet book, the most distressing things were the (no sugar) qualifiers -- flashing on the screen while assaulting our ears with unpleasant sounds. Then, we understand. When Sara eats her diet breakfast, the grapefruit, egg, and coffee are consumed in rapid-fire, just like the drugs. When she gets the diet pills we further understand the connection between Sara and the youth, as Aronofsky connects them with the same rapid-fire sequences. At first, Sara's habit is (grab_remote, click_on, eat), then later is (grab_remote, click_on, click_off, grab_chair, take_sun), and finally becomes (grab_remote, click_on, click_off, check_mailbox, ha-ha-ha [it mocks her], pop_pill, slurp_coffee, clean_apartment). The end was a bit hard to believe -- ECT? without anesthesia? ER patients being arrested on the spot without proof? A sex party arena in a NY apartment? Were these peoples' addictions really drugs, or were they false hope? I think time must have been their biggest enemy. In the case of Sara, I don't think drugs were really her fix. Her fix was sugar and TV, the drugs were surrogates for the latter. The younger crowd's fix was most certainly drugs, though. I did not understand a few things: Why did Aronofsky choose to show us a close up of an orange being peeled in the supermarket drug scene? Was Marion doing heroin with the boys? Whatever she was doing was snorted, not shot up. Did Sara imagine the telephone call from the game show? Can you answer this bit of trivia? There were three things Tappy Tibbons promised would change your life: 1. No red meat, 2. No refined sugar, but what was number 3? It was never verbally mentioned, but _can_ be garnered from watching the film. I'm afraid I've rambled on. I'm curious to know what scene or cinematic style most interested you.
In case you have ever wondered, people like this are why I stay at TU. Thank you, TH :)