cover songs

every once in a while i'm reminded of how good a cover of a song can be. most covers are a woeful rehashing of the original that leaves you wanting to rage at the artist, why the heck did you even bother? it sounds exactly the same (i'm thinking of the black crowes's lucy in the sky with diamonds) or is such a vapid rendition (smash mouth does neil diamond/ the monkee's i'm a believer) that it's not worth the energy required to play the damn thing. but a good cover song has the power to completely transform the original. the new artist will take it and own it, not just singing it in their own voice but giving it the unique twist that only they can give it. why else would one cover a song?

the first time i discovered this potential i was 14, and my sister had just brought home an album titled "red hot + blue: a tribute to cole porter." "sit down," she said, "you have to listen to this." i looked at her dubiously. yeah, i knew cole porter. my dad played cole porter on the piano. we had dusty vinyl full of cole porter. i'd even sung cole porter. sure, i liked it, but come on, as cover songs? porter's appeal was the same to me as fred astaire's: urbane, slick, and charmingly obsolete. but an older sister's opinion means everything to the younger, and so i sat and listened.

i think my jaw must have hit the ground. the sophisticated wistfulness of "night and day" becomes untempered lust in u2's expert rejiggering. the song seemed to have been written just for them. who better to sing "don't fence me in" than david byrne, for whom the lyrics seem to hold special meaning? kd lang lends the power of her voice to a more conservative version of "so in love," and manages to own the song anyway. and erasure singing the songs of "too darn hot": "i'd like to sleep with my lover tonight... but it's too darn hot..." took on a new, poignant meaning (the album was part of an aids benefit). you can listen to song samplers of the cd from amazon.

few cover songs have since astonished me as much as those. i'm older now, more critical, harder to impress. but cover songs still hold special appeal. well done versions tantilize you with the memory of what the original song was - the same lyrics, the familiar chord winding throug out - but evoke an entirely different mood. Good covers, i'll contend, are harder to pull off than good original songs. so i'm constantly on the prowl for new covers. here are some of my favorites. i'd love to hear some of your favorites.

yesterday i discovered an excellent cover of the cure's "a forest", done by french pop band nouvelle vague ("new wave"), transporting us from the northeastern, cold, conifer forest of the original right into the heat of a lush, tropical rainforest. you can listen to it, as well as some of their other songs (an intriguing version of echo and the bunnymen's killing moon) on their official site.

tom wait's version of heigh ho reminds us, surely, this is what dwarves must sound like.

i'm enthralled by brasilian artist seu jorge's covers of david bowie - played with an acoustic guitar and translated into portuguese, and popularized by the movie the life aquatic with steve zissou. when i first heard them i didn't recognize bowie's beloved notes. but once you catch on, it's simply awe inspiring to listen to him meld and translate the sound of several electric guitars, pianos, whatever in the original into a single, acoustic guitar. another convincing bowie cover: m ward's let's dance (links to artist): a winding, reflective tune. think swaying slowly in a faded floral patterned dress, sunlight through the dusty air from the tall windows of an abandoned house.

two versions of prince's purple rain desmonstate just how original a cover can be in the hands of a daring, imaginative artist. i'm damn impressed by classical guitarist benjamin verdery's rendering of prince's "purple rain" (sorry, couldn't find the link, but it's available on itunes)(also, can this properly be called a cover if it doesn't have the lyrics? i on't know.) the version by a swedish artist stina nordestam (links to artist) is nearly its opposite, evoking smeared lipstick, cigarettes, rainy days, and too much whiskey. neither of them, of course, anything like the original.

johnny cash did a number of covers, the best of which are u2's "one" and depeche mode's "personal jesus"" (many mistakenly assume the cash is the original).

madeleine peyroux (georgia-born, but lived in paris for 10 years) does an intoxicating version of dylan's "you're gonna make me lonesome when you go", which could easily stand on its own merits. her voice is a perfect foil to dylan's, light where his is rough, but she manages to convey the intensity of emotion, the keeness of need, almost as well as dylan himself, while keeping true to the rueful tone of the song while making it all her own. you can hear her version on amazon.

i also love ricki lee jone's kick-ass version of rebel rebel (links to amazon), claiming that song for grrls everywhere.

both covers of "in my time of dying", by bob dylan and martin gore, are very cool. the original, by led zepplin, i have yet to hear.

cake gives gloria gaynor's "i will survive" a cynical bite. i have a special place in my heart for ewan mcgregor's "your song", as sung in the movie moulin rouge. there's nothing too fresh about siouxsie and the banshee's "this wheel's on fire" (original by dylan), but she brings a sassiness to it that i like.

other covers, while originals, are just disasters. tori amos-does-nirvana falls into this category. it fits all my criteria for a good cover song, but i find her treatment of it melodramatic. the whole point of nirvana, to me, was deeply disturbed lyrics sung with complete abandon. sinead o'connor does a good job with nirvana's "all apologies" however. maybe i just love her voice.

if i were queen...

edict #5331: any company that lets you sign up for an automatically renewing, annually charged service on line, that company shall be required to provide a way to terminate said service ON LINE.

kostova's the historian

with much anticipation i began reading elizabeth kostova's the historian. i'd heard quite a bit of buzz about the book. i was hoping for a chilling tale of horror and suspense, but akmost half way through now, I'm pushing on only by dint of sheer will. there's a compelling story in there somewhere, between long conversations spent at cafes (which kostova does not bother to edit for us), over-described journeys across europe, and the convenient arrival of a new character. at one point, she tries to juggle three nested stories, and the book becomes as ridiculous as a recent simpson's episode, where lisa tells marge, homer, and bart a story about mr. burns telling her a story about moe telling him a story about a treasure. in the book it's hard enough trying to keep track of the three different "i's", and the style between the three narrators is so similar it's really impossible to tell who is speaking without looking for external clues in the text. character depth and development become lost in the jumpy narrative and in kostova's eagerness to unwind the plot. like brown in writing the da vinci code, she relies on cliff hangers to create suspense and danger.

but the book has some strong points, the largest of which is the fascinating details of vlad tepes's life and some of the tension between the ottoman empire and wallachia. and it does take you on a sweeping tour of europe, at times reading almost like a guide book. it's one of those stories which it almost hurts me to read, as i am forced to speculate how good it could have been.

the book exemplifies the danger of the "i" p.o.v., which i was warned against in one of my writing books (can't recall which one, at the moment). it's much too easy to fall into "i did this, i did that". i can't help but compare to tartt's book the secret history, a rivetting tale also written in the first person. tartt manages to take less scary material and bring it to life with suspense and intrigue.
she succeeds where kostova does not because she takes you by the hand, knows just when to paint in broad strokes or zero in to sharp detail. from the get go she seizes control of the story, and hence you, the reader, drives you relentlessly towards the conclusion of the book. never once does it get out of her hand. with kostova, i get the feeling the story leaked away from her, even as she hastened to contain the spill.

messiah season has started!

every year for about 3 hours at a time i suspend my doubts and become a devout christian. the vehicle of my faith is handel's oratorio, messiah. probably handel's most famous work, i will contend it is also one of the most briliant and powerful pieces of music ever written. legend has it handel wept while the music flowed through him onto his score. When he wrote it he was indebted, depressed, desperate, but he believed, as i do, that divine inspiration guided his hand through the notes.

it's become something of a tradition for me to listen to messiah every christmas, starting the day after thanksgiving. to me, it epitomizes the beauty of all the positive aspects of that religion through the retelling ot jesus's life, in verses taken from the king james bible. but i am sad to say that after 27 years, my most treasured tribute to handel, the annual sing-it-yourself messiah put on by the san francisco conservatory of music ended last year. smaller versions of the event abound, but pale compared to the majesty of over 1,000 spectators rising to their feet in the davies symphony hall to join their voices in the chorus glory to god in the highest. it doesn't take a pious heart to be moved to tears.

this year, i shall have to content myself with sitting patiently in the audience, watching and listening to the piece unfold on stage. please forgive me, though, if i hum along to a snatch or two here and there.

i hate harry potter

i know. it's almost a sin. especially for someone who likes fantasy. i went through a period of curiosity - cool, i thought, the series so many people have been raving about. i picked up the first book. meh, thought i. well, maybe the second book was better. they are easy to read, after all, and i borrowed them from people to avoid shelling out the $8 or whatever for the paperback edition. again, meh. i continued on to read the 3rd, by this point mystified by the amount of acclaim the books were getting. now, i've slogged through 5. i experienced a brief flicker of interest with book 3, though that quickly faded.

the thing is, i just don't get it. i suppose i'm happy that kids are reading these books, that fantasy fiction has experienced a flowering, etc etc. but i can't get past the fact that the books are just so poorly written. the prose is completely flat, the pacing atrocious, but worse of all, the characters are cardboard. i don't think i could create a more insipid character than draco malfoy. and by the fifth book, harry was swinging out of control, doing things and acting in ways that i couldn't understand because there was no flow or sense to his development. he was putty in rowling's hands, doing exactly what she wanted, when it was convenient and required for her to move the plot along. okay, now harry has to be mad at hermione. now he has to be apologetic. the effect: he just doesn't make any sense.

it makes me cringe to think there is a whole group of kids growing up thinking this is the greatest stuff around. it makes me want to vomit when people compare rowling to tolkien. but worse than that, it makes me very very depressed, since it seems success as a writer has very little to do with talent or skill. but maybe i should take comfort in that. after all, who am i to presume i have either of those things?

nanowrimo 2006

yay me! i finished today, at 50900-ish words. i told ryan in a way it felt anti-climatic. not having a job is part of it. but i also remember feeling so euphoric the first time (2002?) that i finished. i swear, i was on 7th heaven, couldn't stop smiling. now, yeah, i'm happy, yeah, i feel accomplished. but that's about it.

my story has some potential. there are bits i really like. a lot of it is crap. but nanowrimo for me is like novel seeding. you get it all out, follow a story line even if it doens't feel quite right. but i've also noticed that starting stories is easy for me. i have so many scenes and characters running through my head. it's taking up the story, crafting it, and keeping it going that's the most difficult. i have such vague ideas about what my story is about. "i want to write a story about the fight against good and evil, and how the characters come to terms with the fact god is within, not something external." okay, great, but how do i make that into a story that's fun to read?

for the nerds

this periodic table, from popular sci magazine, is pretty freakin' cool.

books books books

i need help. i'm addicted to purchasing books. odd, isn't it? it's not to reading them. more than half of the books on my shelves are unread. i purchase books when i want them, thinking i'll read them "someday". well, sure enough, someday never comes around. sadly, amazon.com goes far to facilitate my addiction. a trait i share with karl rove, according to newsweek, anyway.

i tried to put a moratorium on new books, telling myself, i shall read the ones i have before i order more. but sure enough, i catch myself surfing around on amazon digging up new books to order. what can i do? i know it's hereditary - my dad had the same problem. i remember my mom getting so angry with him when he would go out ad spend $100 on new books when we couldn't even pay the electricity bill. my dad was a powerful reader, though - i suspect he read all his books. i just have the purchasing addiction. my sister, on the other hand, is the reader. how does it happen that i just have one half of that? it doesn't seem fair somehow.

anyway, my dad was fery strict about books. he would get mad at us if we put them on the floor, saying we should show respect to them. i think he'd be appalled now at my library. i have books chaotically arranged pretty much anywhere, under the bed, stuffed into my nightstand, lodged behind the bookshelves. someday i'll have to purge all of them, decide which ones to read and which ones not to read. i guess while i still have them all i can at least pretend i'm a well read intellectual.

throw it all away!

i reread some of the early chapters of my book and i was pretty tempted to throw it all away, in one dramatic sweep into the trash can. i take solace in the fact that i'm not the only writer to have felt this way. the task of rewriting feels overwhelming. all the plot threads that i left behind because i wans't quite sure about them, well, it's not time to deal with them, weave them into the fabric or just pull them out. all i can think is how long and how painful writing it the first time was - how can i possibly rewrite it now? i knew this day would come, but now that it's here, the reckoning seems much mroe than i'd anticipated.

so i've lost a little hope, and a lot of courage. i'm not going to give up. i've come too far for that. but i do feel as if i've bitten off way more than i can chew, and rather than swallow it, i'm just going to choke on it all. i don't want to compromise on my novel, but i'm so exhausted, i'm not sure i have what it takes anymore to get it up to snuff. maybe i'll let it sit and age for another 5-10 years.

so you think you know your geography?

i came across this game, the ultimate geography quiz. you're given a city name and a country, and you have to pinpoint it on the map. you can pit your wits against another person, if you dare.

geosense.

because there are no rivers, and only the largest lakes visible, it can be really tricky to pinpoint cities in some of the amorphous countries. like salt lake city.

i got to within 40 km accuracy. not bad, i guess. the game points out how woefully ignorant of all the countries in africa or those of the former ussr.

i miss latin

yes, i studied it for five years. yes, it's a dead language. no, i don't consider it a waste of time.

with my knowledge of latin i can:
1. hold a coversation with the pope, with minor changes
2. exorcise demons
3. read the aeneid

i love latin. the language is really unlike any other, even the other "romance" languages. the key to understanding and appreciating it lies in the declension. the nouns and adjectives have a different ending, specific to its role in the sentence. if its the subject it has one ending, another if it is the object or possessive - this is like english and other language pronouns, but latin also has the dative and ablative cases, indicated movement or reference to the noun, taking the place of prepositions. the result: you can scramble words around, allowing for that glorious iambic pentameter. by placing words next to each other, too, you can imply a relationship, though the adjective would technically refer to another noun. i wish i could come up with an example. i'll try to find one.

anyway, i've noticed that my study in latin affects the way i write. there are certain grammatical patterns that i've picked up and deploy. i put down a sentence and it just feels latin, the formality, the placement of the words. again, the lack of example is making my case weak here, but i'm not so good at providing on demand.

suffice it to say, the study of any language, even a dead one, is never a waste of time.

cool free games

okay, since i'm unemployed, i play games to amuse myself. also since i'm unemployed (an just 'cus i'm a penny pincher in general) i don't want to fork out a alot of dough for games.

fortunately for me, there's a wealth of free games out there! the ones i like best are browser based.

anyway, here's one of my favorites:

Psychiatrie fur misshandelte kuscheltiere.
Don't worry, there's an English translation for the game: Asylum for Abused Stuffed Animals.

This game just stole my heart. I still think about it, though it's been a good two or three weeks since I've played it. You're a psychiatrist in training, filling in for the doctor while he is on a trip, at the mental institute for mishandled stuffed animals. You're job is to rehabilitate them, by recommending treatment and slowly coaxing the past out of each of four stuffed animals, using a combination of dream therapy, drugs, play therapy, and other options. It is simply quite adorable and also poignant. I was amazed too, by the complexity that went into it, both in thought and in execution.

Bottom line: You will never look at stuffed animals the same way again.

too big for their britches?

i've noticed google's been having problems lately with their service. the chat on gmail is frequently unavailable, at least once or twice a day now, and i've been getting more server errors when i try to log into my gmail. furthermore, on sites that use google ad sense, the loading of the ads can be prohibitively slow... it's made me give up on a couple sites because the ads were taking forever to load.

i guess i can't complain too much - after all, it's all free. but it's frustrating, too. perhaps they need to invest in more hardware and infrastructure.

my darlings

"I cannot stress this enough," my professor said. Thin and wirey, with a crest of wild grey hair, she could command our attention with a lifted eyebrow or a narrow-eyed glance. "This is the most important thing you will ever learn." She dropped her voice low.

We leaned in close. This, The Secret of Writing, was what we were all here to learn.

"You must be ruthless and 'murder your darlings.'" She'd said the last words so deliciously, as if savoring every syllable, then peeled her lips back into a grin.

I thought she was crazy then. Now I'm beginning to realize how right she was. Her words aren't unique - she was quoting some famous author. Since that time I've come across those words again. When writing, we become so in love with our prose, a well crafted scene or a clever turn of words, that we fail to stay true to the bigger picture of the story. I've caught myself doing this over and over again as I rewrite my novel. I frequently find myself hemming and hawing - but, but, I love this scene, where the character does this, and it's just perfect! Then I realize it breaks the pace, it doesn't quite fit, the character's actions don't really make sense in the greater scheme of things.

I can't quite get myself to delete it, so I cheat. I make a copy of it and stick it in a folder. I can always go back to it, I tell myself. I can always copy and paste the scene or phrase in later, when it might be appropriate. I've discovered I seldom do so, however, almost always prefering the revision to the original.

Another excellent piece of writing advice handed down to me from one of my favorite editors, from his editor before him. It's the same advice a mother would give to her daughter before her big debut: put on all your jewelry, then start removing them, one by one. when you think you have just the right amount of jewelry, go back to the mirror, take a good long look, and remove one more piece.

I admit, I lay description, analogy, and metaphor on thick. Probably too much. I'd like to tone it down, so that's what I'm working on now, going through my prose, picking out the stuff that works, the stuff that doesn't, and the stuff that even though it does, is just too much. It's painful, because ultimately, writing is such a display of ego. And as my characters develop and adopt egos of their own, I discover my professor wasn't exaggerating - it really is like murder.

reasons

browsing through row upon row of new fiction, i am drawn by alluring covers - a sillouhette of a woman's face, lips parted, another black and white picture of a woman bent over to wash her hair with a hose. i wonder, how can my book compete? what can i hope to offer the reader that these sexy, evocative, and soulful titles can't?

maybe it doesn't matter. i know now why i want to write. i want to create magic, to transport the reader to a world of my imagining. this is also why, try as i might, i can't get away from fantasy fiction. i've tried writing down "straight" story lines, but i can't help it. fantasy weaves its way in. i might as well embrace it.

commercial wars

there's nothing a day-time t.v. addict such as myself enjoys more than a juicy commercial war. there are, of course, the stupid, blatant ones ("better than the other leading brand!"). but the jewels are the clever, witty ones. most recently, the geico-ais war. geico's mascot is the gecko (why he speaks with a brittish accent, i have no idea). recently, ais (auto insurance specialists) ran an ad with the tagline, "a more evolved choice," indicating their web site offers advanced options for "those with opposable thumbs." they show a picture of a gecko eating the aflac duck and a moose (elk? deer? not sure whose maskot that is).

Geico's response: so easy even the caveman can do it. i absolutely love their commercial. a caveman dressed in jeans and a hip sweatshirt is at an airport on one of those moving walkways. he passes a number of billboards, including geico's, depicting a caveman in front of a computer. the camera stops on the the image, and a moment later, the caveman comes walking back, takes a second look at the billboard, nods, and smiles.

paced to norwegian electonic-pop band röyksopp's remind me, the commercial comes off cool, collected, and clever.

temper-pedic mattress

i'm intriged... i hate my mattress. i hate mattresses in general. they wear out too quickly, they aren't exactly enviromental, and, well, i can never afford the really comfortable ones. partly because of all the commercials, i'm intrigued by the temper-pedic, the form-fitting foam. my last experience with a foam pillow was negative - it stank so badly of chemicals i had to get rid of it. the temper-pedic looks pretty comfortable.

but i have to ask... how is it for sex? its not somethign they address in the commercials, obviously, but if you're sinking into the foam... well, you can probably figure out what i'm getting at.

there's a new judge in town...

this season they've messed with some of my court t.v. shows, to which i've become addicted. i don't know why, exactly. many of the cases are repetitive (come on, how many land-lord tenant cases, or "it was a loan, not a gift" cases have i heard?) but i still enjoy watching them. much of it depends on the judge, of course, and the qualities they bring to the show. their interaction with the bailiff, too, is important to the success of the show.

the newest addition is judge maria lopez, former massachusetts supreme court justice who resigned after her conduct in a child molestation case was questioned. with a sultry, husky voice and a hot temper, i can see how she might be a perfect fit for t.v. i see her as judge marilyn milian (of the people's court) taken one step further. lopez is from cuba, milian is from puerto rico. both have brown hair, are in their late 40s/ early 50s, and are tough women. i like milian better - she doens't have a chip on her shoulder like lopez seems to (lopez can be overly aggressive, as if she feel she needs to play the role of the latina judge she's been give), whereas milian seems more compassionate, wittier, and more insightful. of all the judges, i'm most confident in milian's ability to get to the truth, whereas with the others, sometimes i wonder.

judge mathis is "one of the people". he was a juvenile delinquent, but decided to change his life around when his mother developed cancer and he had to help take care of her. he likes to tease people, making fun of them, because ultimately, it's true, coming to t.v. to solve your legal problems is a big joke. i get the feeling he experiences the success of his show with a certain amount of wryness. he also likes to say it like it is, cutting through the crap: "a person who takes a lot of crack is a crack head. what, you think i should mince words or clean it up?" he banters about with doyle, a towring, kind of goofy looking, young red-headed sheriff, who seems almost the perfect foil for mathis's hard hitting cracks. in one episode, the defendent is a hypnotherapist who claims to have made a woman in her thirties experience her first orgasm. "oh i've done that too," jokes doyle with his goofy grin (coming from anyone else it would have been crass). mathis is probably the most entertaining of the lot, and out of all of them, he makes me laugh. he puts people on the spot, helping them realize the stupidity of their ways by joking with them or teasing them, instead of lecturing them, something most of the other judges revel in.

milian, too, has a young bailiff, douglas, a tall, black man who's usually very quiet but will occassionally break into a quick grin.

judge joe brown (of texas justice) is much more of a gentleman. i get the feeling that he's a hard core republican, though he takes issues of people's sometimes bizzare and shocking alternative lifestyles gracefully in stride. he's not as interesting to watch, though he has a certain dignity. not surprisingly, he usually has a female bailiff. it used to be "miss holly", a short-haired blond in her thirties. this season it's someone new - dark haired, thin lipped - and i don't know her name (yet).

i don't like judge judy - she's a witch! she's quick to judge people and is very disdainful and snooty. occassionally she impresses me, but over all, i find myself talking back to her. "well, you dismissed his entire testimony withot even letting him finish!" or, "no, his testimony does make sense, you just didn't pay attention to what he was trying to tell you!" watching her frequently makes me either sad, because i don't see justice meted out, or just annoyed at her grating manner.

there's also judge alex, who is so incredibly boring i don't even bother with him. and "an eye for an eye", which is a little more creative - people undergo some sort of embarrasement or discomfort to make up for what they have done, rather than receiving a monetary settlement. for instance, two ladies who accused the other's cat of peeing on their car's upholstry, when neither's case could be proven, were ordered to go througha car wash together... in the end they had a good laugh through their shared misery and their friendship was restored.

judge hatchett can be fun - she's very compassionate, and her big motto is "think of the children!" she frequently sends kids out of the courtroom so they don't have to experience the unpleasantries that testimony can frequently result in. she used to be a family court judge, hearing custody, divorce hearings, or cases of parent vs. child, but since then she's expanded into all kinds of small claims.

then, of course, there's divorce court, which used to be heard by judge mabeleane ephram, but i think she has her own show now, and its lynn toler, who has a spicy attitude just like ephram had, but there's something about toler that i like better. she seems warmer, and is willing to depricate herself to make a point. in a case where a man wanted to leave his wife because she had gained 140 pounds, toler offered an anecdote: one day she was getting out of her car when she happened to look down at her thigh and noticed how big it was. she asked her husband, "honey, have i always been this big?" and her husband told her with a kiss and a smile, "you were big when i met you and you're bigger now, but i still love you." her point, the husband seeing weaknesses in his wife when he should have been looking for the weakness inside himself.

as you might imagine, i could happily watch court t.v. all day. of course, the first show, judge maria lopez, doesn's start until 10 am. but with the reintroduction of perry mason, one of my favorite shows since i was a girl, my 9-10 am block is set! i think ive probably seen most of them, at this point, but i still like watching them. and yes, i know they're fiction!

kitties

much as i like to complain about them, i adore my kitties. there are few things more heartwarming and adorable as a bundle of sleeping cats.

must. be. productive!!

or not.

i have to say, the episode entitled "Mr. F" in season 3 of Arrested Development (nicknamed "AD" in our household)is one of the most brilliant moments in t.v. and comedy. it had me literally holding my sides with laughter, not just on the first watching, but on the second as well (and alcohol was only involved in one of the viewings). i admit when i started watching the season i was a little dissappointed - it was slow to get off the ground. but i remember now that's the genius of the show. it takes a while to set itself up and then *kaching*! it cashes in all the jokes. Mr F was one of those payoff episodes. theres so much double meaning and so many puns that aren't cliche, but are so artfully executed. the whole bit with the japanese business men and tiny town was just pure gold (this part, of course, is why i loved the episode so much).

that's all. too bad it's canceled. sigh. well, genius is frequently misudnerstood in its time!