reviews

The holiday season is upon us! I think it came faster this year than any other year. It is snowy and icy and cold here in Omaha.

I don't have the time at this moment for a proper post, but I can direct you to my 2008 list of music and movies, posted on Omahype and/or my review of a musician named Michelle Malone's album Debris on venuszine.com.

Slacker, but not really

I know I haven't been great about posting on here lately. I've been writing, but for publications and writing groups, not for this blog. Combine that with the fact that I've cheated on this blog, with another blog, Fistful of Paper, and the guilt grows.

Dear blog, I have not abandoned you. I will return. I still love you the most, even with your simple, unchanged design. You were there from the beginning.

I shall not redeem myself tonight. It is too late, again I have been up writing and grading and not planning for class tomorrow and I would rather try to catch another 15 minutes of a Mad Men episode before I fall asleep. So until then, I will take the easy way out and post another video (albeit a funny one, and related to my new obsession Mad Men).

By the way, it is currently zero degrees out. Exactly. Not negative, not positive, just zero. A whole number, rational number and an integer - all concepts I revisited tonight while tutoring.

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis by Between Two Ferns

Kelly Reichardt interview

Here's interview that Spoutblog did with director/teacher Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy).

It's really interesting to me on one level because her career is a very close model of something I would love to have. She still gets to live where she wants and she teaches at a college that she really likes and gets to make personal, well made, low-budget feature and short films with friends and the people she wants to and they often get seen by people. She is able to make a living making films and teaching and is able to have full creative control of her films and doesn't think of one film as a stepping stone to get to a bigger, better career but thinks of it as another fun art project and life experience, and as a way to continue to work on and improve her filmmaking skills.

Colbert vs. Kanye

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Operation Humble Kanye - Stephen Beats Kanye

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Gino's East!

I am too lazy to take a picture, thus you have a backwards computer-taken picture.

But I am not too lazy to heat this bad boy up. Look it's Gino's East pizza! And I found it in Omaha. Gino's East is my favorite pizza ever. This was by far the best part of my day. The second best part, well maybe it's a tie, was getting a tetanus shot and not even coming close to fainting. I'm growing up.

Brooklyn Go Hard

Jay-Z on iLike - Get updates inside iTunes

The song is pretty sweet and catchy plus references from the Brooklyn Dodgers (of course) to Annie (once again) to Lykke Li. Nice. And cool typography graphics. B-R-O-O-K-L-Y-N, join in.

Moxie Paper Press

I joined a small writing group a little while back. It has been a great experience thus far. It is a great group of people and it's nice to have a forum to share work and ideas. And now one of those ideas is coming to fruition. We are starting a small, independent press called Moxie Paper Press (click to go to our website) and we have a blog titled Fistful of Paper. A big shout out to the wonderful, hardworking Cody Peterson who designed our website, blog and logos. Thank you!

And for those of you in the Omaha area, we are gearing up to host our first event titled Monster Holiday on December 13 at the Bancroft Gallery at 10th and Bancroft. Honeybee and Talking Mountain will play and there will be readings by the members of our group/press: Annie Dilocker, Christin Goetz, Drew Hanson, Katie Wudel and myself.

Just wanted to get the word out. More stuff to come from Moxie Paper Press!

p.s. I've added a permanent link to the Moxie site on the left.

Bemis art auction

American Music Awards

This year was the first year in many, many years (perhaps ever?) that I have watched the American Music Awards. When I say watch, I mean I recorded them for Beyonce's performance, but did fast forward through them while playing pieces.

Here are my unfiltered, stream of consciousness observations (most of them while watching):

New Kids reunion: Very strange to watch. They have to be around 40, right? Some of them must have kids. They perform part of The Right Stuff, complete with the side-to-side feet moves, this is the most exciting part of their performance. That one move takes me back to my pre-teen days. A time where I received a New Kids sweatshirt and silk pillow with their faces on it for my birthday party held at a roller skating rink in Dearborn, Michigan. I think I had a neon green sweatshirt and side ponytail. Donnie Wahlberg has definitely eclipsed Jordan as my favorite despite his pretty embarrassing attempts at hip-hop posturing. I like his style, nonetheless. The new songs aren't as bad as I thought they'd be. They broadcast Danny and Jon's face all of about 3 times total. This is not a problem for me, but it's funny how blatant they are about it. I do kind of feel bad for them. Jon seemed like he was in his mid-30s back in the day, the dad of the group, but he doesn't seem to have aged much since then.

Kanye West: Bizarre. Egotistic, fashionable, and truly strange. He's mysterious, obnoxious, fascinating, frustrating and talented and apparently "wants to be Elvis"...that's how he ended his acceptance speech. You never know what you're gonna get when he's in front of a microphone at an awards ceremony. At least he keeps it interesting.

This doesn't have to do with the awards, but the Heidi Klum Rock Band commercial is pretty awesome.

Miley Cyrus: I thought I would be really annoyed with her performance, but I actually thought it was exciting, visual, and surprising. Then again, this positive reaction could also be the result of very low expectations. She's pretty well coordinated. This reminds me a lot of Avril's teen-angst, my ex-boyfriend sucks songs with her PG-10, Hot Topic pseudo-rocker/rebel/goth image. Despite the total calculation/marketing ploy/co-opting of real, subcultural/underground styles and movements, there is something that draws me in to this in the same way that certain Avril songs/posturings/performances do. I think it needs just enough absurdity and actual distance from the real thing to work...although this formula doesn't work for Ashlee Simpson's dark eyeliner/emo-ish album or performances.

Coldplay: I would never associate Coldplay with the word avant-garde until I saw Chris Martin's moves. He's all over the place with no apparent rhythm, rhyme or reason. In one word: spastic.

RZA is there? He tells Jimmy Kimmel that his daughter has a Jonas Brothers poster on her wall. Awesome.

I love Terrance Howard. He can really change his voice. Does he really have to introduce Mariah Carey? Couldn't it have been Beyonce?

Beyonce/Sasha Fierce: She performs Ladies (Put a Ring On It). It's amazing. There is a strobe light, and a dramatic entrance. There is a really great cutaway to Queen Latifah doing the hand thing (as prompted by Beyonce). Love Beyonce's expressions, especially the end head pops, looking incredulous and pointing to her finger. Also love the all-female band.

Back to back performances by the Jonas Brothers and Pussycat Dolls? Really? I didn't know the Pussycat Dolls were even still around. Or that they were a real band. I always connected them with some kind of marketing scheme, show, or real dolls. Am I making this up?

Annie Lennox performs live. This is a surprise. Pretty intense. But good, and she's nice and humble in her speech. She seems genuinely thankful for the award, which has to do with humanitarianism as well.

There are at least 2 performers I don't know so far (Natasha something, already forgot the other).

Sarah McLachlan: Do they really need to reach back this far for a song to perform? That Angel song? What about a song from this year? Do they understand that there is interesting, progressive music still currently being made?

Conclusions:
1) The 90s live again!
2) When you're really out of what music is popular at the moment, it is really strange to watch these awards.

Ellen Kuras interview

Flavorwire interviews Ellen Kuras and Thavi Phrasavath here.

I like this new Beach House video

Oscar feature doc shortlist

The Ellen Kuras-directed documentary Nerakhoon (The Betrayal) is on the shortlist of feature documentaries, a list that will be whittled down to five Oscar nominees. I was also very happy to see Trouble the Water on there, a film I really enjoyed. Not a surprise that Standard Operating Procedure and Encounters at the End of the World were also on there. Here's a Hollywood Reporter articleon the full 15. I have a lot of doc watching to do.

My predictions for the five nominees are: Standard Operating Procedure, Trouble the Water, Encounters at the End of the World, Nerakhoon, and Man on Wire. Made in America is my runner-up choice, a wild card. We'll see...

television & suitcase

television & suitcase, originally uploaded by NotoriousLBT.

Glimpse shoot

glimpse

Above is a link to photos taken at the shoot for a music video I'm directing for Honeybee's song Glimpse. The kids were pretty adorable. I just added some that were taken with my Lomo (they're at the beginning of the album). Thanks to the various photographers!

Honeybee at the Bemis

Some photos I took while Honeybee was recording are up at the Slumber Party Records Flickr site if you want to check them out.

*the link should now correctly take you to the Flickr site - sorry!

Tilly on Sesame Street

Tilly & the Wall on SESAME STREET from Team Love on Vimeo.

November 4th

layoffs

Though I no longer subscribe to the paper version of the Los Angeles Times, only because it is impossible to do so, it was still very disheartening to find out that Carina Chocano was one of 75 staffers laid off today. She's one of my favorite current film critics. She combines intelligence, warmth, and strong opinions to write really witty, insightful, often spot-on reviews.

She also manages to slip in some biting and too-true cultural commentary in some of her writing. Here is the (somewhat prescient, hopefully not so much so that the currently wildly popular Fey suffers a backlash) last paragraph to her Baby Mama review:

Fey has spent several years proving that she's very good at what she does, and she may spend the next few years having to prove that she deserves any success that comes her way. But hey, this is America -- where the fact that a woman is running for president is still talked about with a kind of gee-whiz-look-how-far-we've-come disingenuousness, despite the many countries that have already seen one or more women presidents. If a Fey backlash happens, I hope Hillary buys her a drink.

Places to read her stuff:

L.A. Times reviews and film writings.

Salon magazine pieces.

I hope she quickly gets an amazing job offer.

Wendy and Lucy trailer

I can't wait to see this. Will this and Rachel Getting Married please come to Omaha? I'm definitely a fan of Kelly Reichardt and her work and I've been eager for this to come out. Michelle Williams is in a bunch of what look to be good movies coming out: Synechdoche, New York, Incendiary, Scorsese's Shutter Island and Mammoth from Lukas Moodyson, another one of my favorite current working directors.

I haven't seen a narrative film that has really blown me away in awhile. I'm ready for inspiration.

More Wendy and Lucy:

UNKLE review

My UNKLE review is up at venuszine.com

reading material if you wish

I have two new articles in the City Weekly this week: Meeting the Band: UUVVWWZ (photo above) and a review of Jenny Lewis' album Acid Tongue.

gossip girl + obama = success

And featuring Hannah from doc American Teen. Pretty awesome.

punk rock tour blog

I'm going to use a word I don't often use in this post: idol. The word has undoubtedly lost much of its grandeur and power, as our culture has tilted towards excess in many ways, including word usage. It's not enough to like something, but instead you love it. Whereas dislike would've once worked or is pretty accurate, hate may be used. And the phenomenon American Idol doesn't help at all either.

But I digress. I am writing because I was alerted to the fact that Tobi Vail's tour diary from her early days in the band Go Team is online at Punk Rock Tour Blog. Tobi Vail was the reason I had to inject that bit about the idol because growing up she was definitely one of them for me. The drummer for Bikini Kill, she was also a writer of the zine Jigsaw Youth, and perhaps more well known to some as the onetime girlfriend and love of Kurt Cobain. She was the primary reason I bought a drumset with all of the money I had saved in the bank in (was it?) eighth grade.

I was alerted to this blog by Monitor Mix, Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney's (another in the idol range) blog for NPR, but I was so excited that I had to share it further.

Other blog posts include entries from Molly Neuman of Bratmobile and Corin Tucker of Heavens to Betsy (and later Sleater-Kinney). This is a very exciting find (what do you call a find that you don't find yourself?) for a Tuesday morning.

I told you to be patient...

I've been listening to Bon Iver a lot again lately (hence the title), since I checked out For Emma from the library and can play it in my car for now. I have a subscription to emusic, which is where I tend to get about half of any new music I acquire (other 40% buying CDs, 10% from friends), but the issue with that is that my car has become increasingly finicky about what CDs it will play and it refuses about 99% of all burned CDs now (a lot of percentages in this post).

I also checked out Lucinda Williams' "West" and an Iron and Wine CD that I haven't heard. On eMusic I got Department of Eagles and Vivian Girls the other day. I like Vivian Girls a lot and look forward to listening to Department of Eagles.

This turned out to be a "what I'm listening to these days" post, when I intended it as an extended apology of not blogging about fireworks, vertigo, throwing up, and crazy bands from Tel Aviv. I've gotten behind on a lot of stuff lately, and I still feel like I'm running to catch up (or maybe jogging).

But the house is coming together, Laura was here for a fun visit, and now I'm off to Minneapolis to hang with my sisters on their birthday. I can't wait!

last night

Lykke Li and Bon Iver

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. Omaha. The Anchor Inn., originally uploaded by NotoriousLBT.

From last, last Saturday at the Anchor Inn in Omaha.

this is what all the walls in my new house are going to look like

behind the times

I've been so behind in posting lately. Entries related to fireworks and vertigo are coming soon. I promise.

What I've been doing while not writing here: moving, painting, writing stuff that I actually get paid for (albeit not that much), taking some photos, seeing some shows, surfing the web, grading stuff, teaching, playing outside with dogs, thinking about writing on this blog, thinking about making movies, thinking about making books, watching the blooper reel of last season's The Office, laughing, watching Gossip Girl, trying to drink more water, trying to stay on top of to-do lists, failing at staying on top of to-do lists, eating, e-mailing, sleeping, searching for bookshelves, returning to Pub Quiz, losing at Pub Quiz, thinking about getting a massage, thinking that I'm so behind on New Yorkers, thinking that I should be doing more to help Barack Obama get elected, missing my sisters, being sad about David Foster Wallace's death, recycling, listening to crickets, trying to understand the financial crisis and how it happened, looking away from roadkill, wanting to make stuff, drinking tea, meeting new people, looking forward to Laura visiting, planning a music video, getting annoyed with my phone, smelling Rufus' head, thinking I need to go to the dentist sometime soon, racking up library fines, and making lists.

Omissions/additions: missing Erica, getting so close to finishing my Finger #2 piece.

Further amendment: REALLY missing my sisters.

That's right.

Not that I needed it, but more proof that Gossip Girl is awesome.

Now if only Serena and Dan would get back together.

jumpin, jumpin

Meeting the Band: Talking Mountain was in the CW this week. It's always nice when a band whose music you enjoy is made up of nice and fun/funny people.

one word reviews of recent activities

Okkervil River show: so-so
Neko Case show: amazing
Jeanne Claude and Christo lecture: French

dance, dance, dance at hotel cafe

Lykke Li at Hotel Cafe.

Labor Day weekend in Hancock

From Hancock Labor Day

Click here (or above on Hancock Labor Day) for full album and festivities.

rufus in hancock

rufus in hancock, originally uploaded by NotoriousLBT.

sincere

sincere, originally uploaded by NotoriousLBT.

L.A. photos

From L.A. in August

Click on the L.A. in August link to see the rest.

My breakfast on August 30

Do the whirlwind

I'm back at the keyboard after a long, multiple state break. The states I have stayed in over the past week and a half include California, Minnesota, Wisconsin (with brief stops in Arizona and Iowa) and now I've returned to the good life in Nebraska. I'll post updates, details and photos in the next couple of days (if I can find the time). This week continues to be crazy busy as I'm moving into a new house and starting the fall quarter.

weekend of shows

I saw a bunch of great local bands this weekend. On Friday, Thunder Power (now sans exclamation points) had their CD release show at Slowdown with Honeybee, These United States, and Midwest Dilemma. It was the first time I've seen Midwest Dilemma and they sounded really good and full (they should sound full with that many members) and I'm always excited to see Honeybee live. Thunder Power sounded great too and the EP Love Yourself looks and sounds awesome.

On Saturday there was a benefit show at The Waiting Room for the Peace Center, which amongst other support, offers free counseling for soldiers with PTSD. Bands that played included: Bear Country, Simon Joyner, Bill Hoover, McCarthy Trenching, Outlaw Con Bandana, Orenda Fink and Baby Walrus (pictured above).

It was the first time I've seen Outlaw Con Bandana, and they were really, really good. I've heard good things about them, and they did not disappoint. I haven't seen Baby Walrus in what feels like forever, and it was way too long, because this band is SO good. They played a few new songs which were really promising and is a sign of more good music to come from them, and the old stuff reminded me how good their album was. I guess I'll have to take Lykke Li out of my CD player. It was bound to happen some time.

Plaiderpillar

My staff favorite is up at Venus Zine. Amy (a.k.a. Plaiderpillar) makes really awesome stuff. Cody first introduced me to her stuff by way of Herbert, my long-legged monster friend.

Here is Herbert and Rufus:

K.C.

Last weekend we embarked on a family weekend trip to Kansas City. It's a great mid-size city with quite a bit going on (see Whoop Dee Doo article below, as one example). We went shopping, ate some good food, and saw The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (well worth it). We also visited a small town called Weston and ate at their diner and looked at some antiques.

This first photo was taken in the section of town called the Crossroads Arts District. One of the stores we stopped at was Peggy Noland Kansas City. She designs some cool, kind of out there stuff that has been worn by the likes of Tilly and the Wall members and Lovefoxxx from C.S.S. (those awesome one-piece spandex suits that she often wears). Note: she is the faraway person in the photo below. The store is tiny, as in the size of a closet, and the walls and ceiling were covered in fluffy, white cotton. It felt like you were in a tiny cloud.



This next photo is from Hammerpress, a letterpress and design studio. They had a bunch of awesome stuff in there - concert posters, stationery, art books and art prints - and you could see the big letterpress equipment in the back area they make the stuff.



And here's the sibling set in the small town of Weston, in front of some historic building and historic bell, no doubt.

Tilly at Sokol

Lykke Li

Here is my review of the Lykke Li album Youth Novels for Venus.

I'll sum it up for you: it's pretty awesome and really catchy. I've been playing it a ton lately. Plus she can dance.

Princeton review

You can check out my Venus review for Princeton's Bloomsbury EP here.

dance, dance, dance. so, so good.

SPLIT SERIES LYKKE LI & EL PERRO DEL MAR- DANCE DANCE DANCE
by lablogotheque

Whoop Dee Doo

An article I wrote on Whoop Dee Doo's upcoming performance at the Bemis ran this week in the CW. You can see it online here or click on the image below.

If you're reading this from Omaha, it sounds like an awesome event. I really wish I could go but I'm heading to Kansas City this weekend with my family. So if you go let me know how it was.

Beautiful Losers, the film

I had a strange coincidence yesterday when I randomly remembered there was going to be a documentary on the art book Beautiful Losers, which in turn was based on an art exhibit. I looked on Amazon to see if a DVD was out because I figured the last I heard about it was a really long time ago. No luck. Then I checked this movie blog called Big Screen, Little Screen that I occasionally visit, but hadn't for a long time, and guess what was the last entry? The trailer for Beautiful Losers. Weird.

I'm really excited to see it.

So here it is:


Beautiful Losers film trailer from beautifullosersfilm on Vimeo.

americana part one and two

american horses, originally uploaded by NotoriousLBT.

american band, originally uploaded by NotoriousLBT.

guitars and fireworks

guitar, originally uploaded by NotoriousLBT.

This is in the happy accident pile of what happens when you accidentally re-use the same roll of film. There are others in the sad accident pile. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

These taste buds are a changing...

In the last few months, I have acquired new tastes for the following foods:

Steak (though I probably ate this when I was a kid)
Popcorn (especially Tender Whites)
Yogurt (this one in the last week)
Fast food cheeseburgers (more in the last month than the last 10 years of my life)
Jellybeans (Jelly Belly, best combination is Strawberry Jam and Coconut)
Quaker Simple Harvest Instant Multigrain hot oatmeal (new and good...this one isn't that much of a stretch since I've enjoyed other kinds of oatmeal for a long time)

Foods I have started eating only in the last few years:

French fries
Potato chips

It's weird how suddenly you can start eating and even liking foods that you have never had a taste for before. Perhaps my semi-recent change to eating meat has opened up new flavor possibilities? It's like I don't even know my own taste buds anymore.

No Cigar, No Job

I briefly attended this really great art show (title above) at RNG Gallery this weekend. The displayed art was made in Haiti by Chris Lawson and the artists of FOSAJ Art Center, located in Jacmel, Haiti. An accompanying audio installation was created by Orenda and Todd Fink.

Alessi and Jake Bellows

The Munny Show

The Bemis Underground and Trocadero hosted The Munny Show at the Bemis on Saturday. A bunch of really great local artists (Scott Blake, Wanda Ewing, Renee Hoover, Leslie Iwai, Jeff King, Laurie and Charles, Joey Lynch, Miss Cake, Peter Morris, Dave Nelson, Zack Nipper, and Nolan Tredway) were given a Munny to design/decorate/re-create.

I like these kind of concept art shows, it's cool to see how different each artist's work was when given the same canvas/parameters. There were a lot of really cool ones (so much so that I reached my photo limit on this blog post without making an album). They were silently auctioned off with proceeds going to the Nebraska AIDS Project.




Dave Nelson's Munny.


Zack Nipper's Munny.


Peter Morris' Munny.

You asked for them...

More photos from the Wisconsin trip!

pinecrest 2008

I've got some catching up to do.

I've returned from one of the best places on Earth: Hancock, Wisconsin. This picture gives you a good sense of the place.

El Perro del Mar review

You'll need to scroll past the Mars Volta review (or read it), but a review I wrote a little while back for the El Perro del Mar album From the Valley to the Stars was published in the City Weekly this week.

Bemis Creativity Festival

Bemis hosted the Creativity Festival, a series of awesome free events from Thursday through Saturday - music, exhibitions, panels, workshops, open studio tours - it was really fun, informative, and inspiring.

Much of the conference was devoted to talking about "creative communities" and how to foster, support and keep them alive and buzzing. It's clear that the Bemis is dedicated to promoting and helping develop the arts in Omaha, a task that they see as vital to the health of a city or community. I wish all cities would be committed to that same purpose, even if it's at the expense of business or economy at times.

Anyway, here are some photos from the festival:

bemis