Aural Story of the Week

This seems fitting this week, and though next week would be more exact:

While you stroll in New Orleans
You ought to go see the Mardi Gras
If you go to New Orleans
You ought to go see the Mardi Gras
When you see the Mardi Gras
Somebody’ll tell you what’s Carnival for

Go to the Mardi Gras, Professor Longhair. Enjoy:

Tracking shots

Kudos to Pete Lachman for linking me to a list of 20 great extended takes (Think: scenes walking through bustling kitchens). For one, I’ve never been able to get the alternating wood and carpet sounds from The Shining out of my head:

This one’s pretty cool, knowing it’s from 1964:

The full list is here. One I recall that didn’t make it is from Atonement.

On Board #46

Details here. Send yours here. As you can see by today’s setting, these things are flexible.

Jan. 28, 2009, 7:32 p.m.
Starbucks – Union Square

Three people are talking loudly on a row of stools. On the far end is DENISE, a black woman, in her early-30s, glasses, hair pulled back in corn rows. There’s an open seat, and then VERONICA, a younger white woman, 28, with diamond earrings and a Burberry scarf. In voice and appearance, she could be cast in a slightly-higher-class Jersey Shore. She is doing most of the arguing with JASON, an younger black man, 23 or so, doo rag’d. He is reflexively spinning his cell phone on the counter, but giving his full attention to VERONICA.

ACT I

VERONICA
He was good, but he wasn’t always good. He was half-assed.

JASON
So, you think you’re gonna get married to anyone and not get half-assed?

VERONICA
No, but he wasn’t good enough.

JASON
You shouldn’t have broken up with him.

VERONICA
If he wants me. He’ll come back. If a man wants you, he’ll find you even of you’re hiding under, under, under the table. If you walk into an art museum, and they have a beautiful piece of art, they’re not gonna sell it right away. Right? They’re gonna wait for the right price.

DENISE and JASON give each other a confused look.

JASON [to Denise]
Look, all I’m saying is she needs to…

VERONICA
If you’re gonna sit here and talk through me, don’t talk at all.

An Asian woman returns from the bathroom. SHARON is heavy-set, around the same age as DENISE, and speaks clear English with a heavy accent.

JASON
I’m trying to…look, is commitment not one of the biggest part of a relationship?

DENISE
Of course.

SHARON
Mmmmm hmmmm.

VERONICA
Definitely. Definitely.

JASON
Well after a year of dating, he didnt cheat on you and you broke up with him…but you say you still love him?

VERONICA

But, look at this (holds up ringless left hand). Beyonce wrote a song about this. Put a ring on it. Have you heard it? iTune it…what’s it called? YouTube it, yeah, YouTube it.

JASON
You’re making me noxious. It was only a year and a half! And then you broke up with him!

VERONICA
You’re a writer. You said you can read a book and know someone’s soul?

JASON
Yeah, sure.

VERONICA
That takes, what, like an hour? Then you should be able to figure a person out in a year.

JASON looks out the window, then down at his phone, still spinning on the counter. He’s stumped.

DENISE and SHARON
Ohhhhhh.

SHARON
She wants to be with this guy, she wants to be married to this guy, she want this guy to commit. What’s so wrong with that?

VERONICA
He’s been eatin’ the cake, and gettin’ it for free.

JASON
Then you better move on.

VERONICA’S phone rings, playing Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.” She answers.

VERONICA
Hey babe…I’m in Starbucks…in Union Square…are you here?…OK, I’ll leave now and meet you there…OK, bye bye.

VERONICA closes her phone and sighs. She looks flustered.

VERONICA
It was really nice meeting you. I gotta go…I dunno what I’m gonna do. But I know if he loves me, he’ll come back.

SHARON, to VERONICA
That was good, girl. You’ll be alright.

VERONICA collects her things and turns, noticing for the first time that the half-dozen people seated at the tables nearby have been watching the animated conversation. She is not embarassed in the slightest.

VERONICA
We all just met. Seriously.

VERONICA exits. The curtain closes as the others stare off at her in silence, wandering into the unkonwn outside.

ACT II

SHARON, JASON, AND DENISE are still at the three stools. SHARON and DENISE have started packing up their purses and surround JASON.

SHARON
This girl. She’s confused the fuck up. All she knows is she just wants to get married.

JASON
But you all told her she was doing the right thing?

SHARON
She is doing the right thing because she’s out there getting what she wants from the beginning. At least she’s not waiting around to get hurt. That was like an Oprah session here. She was getting mad because she didn’t want to here the truth. People don’t want to hear the truth.

DENISE
You want to explore a woman’s mind, but you have no idea. Your book will be better once you understand a woman’s mind. You need to gather information by observing.

SHARON
That’s the only thing to do, to take your information from different places.  And learn from it. All these people fighting for these stupid reasons: “I want this, I want that.” Before you get all that shit, you dead. So why not get what you want, now?

DENISE
A lot of people have love, a lot of people have trust, but if you don’t have understanding you’ll be in trouble.

SHARON
That’s the problem with the younger generation. They don’t take the time to get to know each other. If she knew what She wants, she wouldn’t sit here for there hours talking with us. She screwed up my workout hour. Buy if we helped her, we did our good deed for the day.

DENISE
If I were her, I’d bounce over to Barnes and Noble and get a self-help book.

The three strangers shake hands and depart, going in separate directions. This time, the bemused faces of the other customers follow them out, wondering where they are headed.

New Dodge ad, same as the old BMW ad

I read through Herbert Warren Wind’s New Yorker account of the very first Super Bowl, “Super Sunday” (perhaps the first use of that phrase to describe the big game. Maybe?) in a fit of post-football withdrawal. Much is different: back then, NBC and CBS each paid $1 million for the rights, and received about $700k per ad minute. This year, the rights were part of CBS’ multi-billion dollar contract with the NFL, and 30 second spots ran for around $3 million.

But one thing has not changed, apparently: the connection between male identity and rad cars. This was the full-page ad that ran across from Wind’s story, on Feb. 4, 1967:

If you can’t make out the text, here are a few a translated excerpts:

“Why is BMW a man’s car?

Because it was designed to suit a man’s taste. Fast, lean, tough. No frills, no nonsense. Just a handsome totally dependable car that gets you there with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of driving pleasure.”

[Translation: That wife of yours: dull, bloated, fragile. Full of so much fucking nonsense. Her frilly dresses, her mood swings, and GOD, the fuss! Always with the fussing! She is a gigantic source of exponentially increasing fuss and exponentially decreasing pleasure! Unlike me, a BMW.]

“It rarely needs attention, let alone repairs, and it gets better than 25 miles to a gallon of gas.”

[Translation: She complains when you watch football while 'listening' to her, wastes all your hard-earned money at Saks, and lost the cheerleader physique you married shortly after bearing your second child. Unlike me, a BMW.]

To be fair, the ad does end on this note, in the name of gender equality:

“Funny thing, though. The one complaint we get from BMW owners is that their wives like it too. The only solution we can think of is two BMW’s. His and Hers.”

And if you didn’t watch this year’s Big Game, here are the relevant 60 seconds:

This Week’s Best Profile

Multi-Pulitzer Prize winner, Carol Guzy, has a photo essay on the “journey to the shadow of death” of Classie Morant, who died recently at age 104. It’s here. There’s also a short essay:

Like many elderly people feeling a loss of power, Classie would lash out at those closest to her. A tantrum over Tylenol was particularly combative and quite out of character. From her time with Rozzie, she also knew all the tricks. She would hold the pills she didn’t want in the back of her mouth until no one was looking, and they would find their way into a folded napkin destined for the trash.Classie began facing her own mortality. She sent Ann looking for a pink outfit, presumably for her funeral. “She’s giving up,” Ann said, “a little more each day.” Sometimes anxiety would overwhelm her, and she would repeat a phrase for hours. “Oh, Lordy” would reverberate through the house.

Thoughts on old age, in general? It sounds unbearably terrible to me. But I suppose the alternative ain’t any better.

Music on the go

Props to friend of the program @chgoble for pointing us to La Blogotheque’s video-taped concert series on his hot new blog, EpiBlog, connected to his hot, less-new magazine, Epilogue (I’m contributing to the blog; details forthcoming). I’ve just spent the past good-long-while watching them.

The concerts are all taped – the appropriate adjective is, I think, lovingly – in public spaces of sorts. Buses. Bars. Elevators. Here are some favorites:

Beirut – Nantes

Bon Iver – Skinny Love

Note to all concert videographers: watch the crowd.

Phoenix – 1901

McSweeney’s Monday

To get you through your post-Super Bowl hangover (uhh, Who Dat?), here are several complaints from iconic movie settings. First, the Lookout Point:

Well, aren’t you fucking contemplative? Let me guess, the distant skyline looks like a pearl necklace come undone? And the stars? I suppose they’re like holes punched through a mask? You and your metaphors.

More here.

Swizz Beats does JUSTICE

I happen to think “On To The Next One” has an insanely catchy hook. I like it even more knowing this is how it happened (skip to 2:00):

In case you haven’t seen it, the music video is darkly cool, too:

And wot ‘ave we ‘ere, guv’nor?

This week’s best New Yorker cartoon. I liked this too, but it shouldn’t have had a caption.

On Board #45

Find out what’s going on here, then send the results here.

Jan. 19, 2009
B Train – 7th Avenue to 42nd Street

The amNewYork crossword puzzle isn’t designed by Will Shortz, but it’s giving a couple some difficulty on the way to work. They should know 3 down (televangelist Roberts, four letters, second one R), which would help with 1 across (pigeons cry, three letters, _oo). She fills in ’strand’ for ‘leave high and dry.’ He mostly smiles and laughs, but later offers ‘dang’ for 58 down.

They have about half the puzzle done -including all of the middle – by the time we pass over the bridge. Elsewhere on the page, 72 percent of New York believes the Jets will beat the Colts, Dolly Parton turned 64, and you will face many unexpected surprises today, if you’re an Aries.

She crosses a line through each solved clue. He leans forward, staring at the ground. She shakes her pen rhythmically. They’re giving up. With a dozen clues unanswered, she grabs her Powder Puff Girls purse and kisses him goodbye at West 4th, which seems to take him by surprise. The train doors close and he flips the paper over, starting the Sudoku.