Friday, July 02, 2010

Kick Out the Hot Rats From the Hot Tub

Music on CD

The Big Bang!: the best of the MC5 by The MC5. From the booklet:
The West Coast was another story altogether. For the hippies, we were a big problem. West Coast hippie music had a gentleness; it was a goofy, "la-la" kind of electrified folk music that they all seemed to identify with. Bands like the Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, and Quicksilver [Messenger Service], The Youngbloods, et al., represented mass-marketed peace-and-flower-power crap. Here come the MC5, from Detroit, with our sequined stage outfits and 100-watt Marshall stacks blasting. We just couldn't connect out West with our leaping, spinning, knee-dropping stage show, ranting and raving about gun-toting politics and "Kicking out the jams, motherfuckers!" We opened a free concert in Golden Gate park with a balls-out version of "Tutti-Frutti." The crowd stood there transfixed, dumbstruck. We thought it was great.

Hot Rats by Frank Zappa. No one else in the system has this album and I think it should check-out well.

DVD

Hot Tub Time Machine starring John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Crispin Glover, others. Middle-aged guys drink too much and end up in 1986.

The White Ribbon starring [Germans]. German village in pre-World War One has "strange accidents" and then more bad things happen. I think. I have not seen the picture.

NonFiction

War by Sebastian Junger. Junger spent a year of on-and-off living with an airborne unit on a mountain in Afghanistan. Boredom, boredom, boredom, boredom, SHOOTING!, boredom, boredom, boredom, boredom, boredom.

Medium Raw: a bloody valentine to the world of food and the people who cook by Anthony Bourdain.

Spoken From the Heart by Laura Bush. I screwed up on this one. I never heard of the book until I saw it listed on the bestseller list.

Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories edited by Sarah A. Larsen and Jennifer M. Miller. Book version of the public television series. Extensive interviews with Badger veterans of the Vietnam War. There is a guy in town who was a Radar Officer on one of the destroyers during the Gulf Of Tonkin incident. Local guy Scott, the guy with the dog, mentioned that the correct answer on the SAT question on the Tonkin is that the whole thing was made up. Radar Officer guy says, "Baloney, I was there."

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Wisconsin History, Neurotic Behavior, Canadian Mystery

NonFiction

A Short History of Wisconsin by Erika Janik. Recent publication from the WI Historical Press. State history in 200 pages with a long recommended reading list. Super Quentin says the Wisconsin state bird is the robin.

Badger Boneyards: the eternal rest of the story by Dennis McCann. Doug More wrote a column on the author and book. Not to be confused with the Boneyard.

People Their Places and Things: 50 more tales from Lake Mills, 2010 by Roland Liebenow, M.D. We have one copy to check out. A second copy in reference. A third copy hidden away if some weaselly jerk steals the first two copies. Thieving weasels.

DVD

Wisconsin Vietnam War Stories by Wisconsin Public Television. Interviews with Wisconsin veterans. A really good program.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: the complete seventh season starring Christian Slater, Rosie O'Donnell, Ted Danson, Richard Lewis, Michael Richards, Jerry Seinfeld, others.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Reminder: Bowie

David Bowie

We have the concert DVD of Bowie's Reality Tour.




Thin White Duke? Or Pale Scrawny Scarecrow?




We also have Absolute Beginners from 1986.



Adrian Belew played guitar for Bowie a few times. I didn't know Belew also worked with Frank Zappa.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Four DVDs: You've Only Heard of One

DVDs

Shutter Island with Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, others. Policeman investigates mystery at insane asylum on Shutter Island.



$9.99: the meaning of life on sale now! starring Geoffrey Rush and Anthony Lapaglia. Australian actors do voice over for stop-motion animation tale by Israeli author. Dave Peck, an unemployed 28-year-old with no goals or aspirations, finds an ad for a book promising the meaning of life for only $9.99. Wishing to share his discovery, his path crosses with those of his unusual neighbors, who, in their own bizarre ways, are all on their own search for hope and redemption.
We just received a short story collection by the Etgar Keret on whose stories the movie is based on.



Not the Messiah: he's a very naughty boy by Monty Python. Stage performance based off the Life of Brian by the Python troupe.



Capitaine Alatriste with Viggo Mortensen. 17th Century swordplay epic with Spanish soldier.


Large Print

Large Print

Never Less Than A Lady by Mary Jo Putney.

Wrecked by Carol Higgins Clark.

Poacher's Son by Paul Doiron.

Out of Mind: a Court of Angels novel by Stella Cameron.

Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.