OFF: Misc. ranting...

[Henderson Keith]

Hey...

Just a few non-related oddities, so separate from the other posting.

Yesterday I saw a CD in the store called "Tribute to Evanescence" or
something.  Now I've been on record several times saying that this
fad-that-won't-die is damn annoying and wastes a bunch of talented (enough)
musicians time and effort that could have been spent on creating something
interesting and different.  But this has to be now approaching ridiculous.
I mean, unless I'm totally out of it, Evanescence is a brand new band!  With
exactly one album.  To keep up this pace, we'll need to start having
tributes to bands that haven't even formed yet.

On the subject of *not* creating anything interesting, I laughed
uncontrollably this morning at the new Onion article about Matchbox 20 (link
below).  I think everbody here should enjoy this.  Even if you don't know
(much about) Matchbox 20, like me.  (Despite knowing Evanescence, (well, my
brother gave me a copy), I'm pretty well out of it...eg, I've never heard
Coldplay I don't think.  And it was only recently that I was subjected to
the stunning awfulness that is the Darkness.)  And as much as being 'out of
it' would seem to be beneficial and perhaps a feat to be proud of managing,
I'd rather at least know what is really going on in rock music (if anything)
these days.  I mean, I have nothing against jumping onto a popular bandwagon
movement if one was actually producing a lot of good music.  IMHO, that
*did* kind of happen during the late 80s/early 90s in alternative music,
though much of what I liked then has already aged very badly on me.  But the
heavy metal bands are radical extreme from what I can tell (I saw something
called Children of Bodom and In Flames in Budapest, and the latter was
marginally tolerable while the former was not), so what is going on in
mainstream music these days...is it really all dance or "urban" based crap
these days?  Tool was popular not so long ago, and that was surprisingly
encouraging...but what has happened from that anomaly?  Anything?

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4038&n=1

And Green Day...were they *really* a big deal?  I thought they only hit it
big on that one album before drifting off towards obscurity.  I still have
to think for a minute as to whether they were the band that preceded Mother
Love Bone and Mudhoney (?) in the Seattle movement, but that was Green
River.  I suppose *they* might be cited as having some "influence" to the
onslaught of alternative/punk revival or whatever, but Green Day?  Those
guys from Portland who pretended they were English?

Grakkl (FFA)

P.S.  Awhile ago, I saw this article listing the top 10 sci-fi films of all
time, as voted on by a consortium of scientists in England.  The list is
fairly lame I thought, though many of them are at least decent movies.  The
inclusion of Star Wars (sci-fi?  c'mon, really?) is sickening, though in the
article they admit that "the first two films of the original Star Wars
trilogy make it onto the list probably for reasons of nostalgia rather than
science."  The same might be said about Alien, which was nothing but
suspense/horror IIRC.  Solaris intrigues me though...don't really know much
about this movie (the original I mean, not the George Clooney remake, which
I haven't seen either), and I can only find a version with German subtitles
(or overdubs, can't remember), since it was done in Russia(n).  Is it worth
searching out for next time I'm in the UK?  I'd rather have English, though
the German practice might be worthwhile.  Anyway, the worst here must be the
Matrix, which was pathetic IMHO....I guess it's a good thing I didn't see II
and III, which I've heard were even progressively worse!  Anyway, Brazil
(closer to Sci-fi than 3 & 4!), A.I., and Dark City are some of the obvious
omissions here IMHO.

1. Blade Runner (1982)
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
3. Star Wars (1977)/Empire Strikes Back (1980)
4. Alien (1979)
5. Solaris (1972)
6. Terminator (1984)/T2: Judgment day (1991)
7. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
8. War of the Worlds (1953)
9. The Matrix (1999)
10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

P.P.S.  I'm *almost* finished reading the Red Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley
Robinson.  Intriguing many times, but man, can he bore the pants off you.
Christ, am I supposed to be impressed that his geologist wife (who once did
a post-doc here at EAWAG in Zuerich, a 'co-institute' of ETH just like
'mine,' which is why the book has so much Swiss trivia in it, though he got
some of that wrong, even!) coached him on how to sound plausible in every
little detail about how the 'world' works?  I mean, it's *fiction,* I don't
really care as long as it isn't ridiculously *im*plausible.  If I wanted to
learn that much about *science* here in my spare time, I'd have read a damn
*science* paper, and I get paid for that anyway.  And then, how many times
does he have to club us over the head with anecdotes that show us that
certain characters have certain personality characteristics (this one moody,
this one vindictive, this one reserved, this one subversive, etc.).  Uh,
this epic story could have been done in less than half the 4,142,045 pages
that are there.  I guess Jim Cameron has the rights to do a movie about it.
(?)  Man, he'll need to do 10 movies to get all this crap in there.  Still,
I didn't give up 'cause there are a few interesting things there that are
more hopeful than what the human race is currently doing.  But winning two
major awards for the first two books?  Don't see how.