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Nov 1, 2024
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I’ve been writing a lot about jazz and Miles Davis hence the score. I watched Elevator to the Gallows and it maybe changed my life. So awesome!
Dec 15, 2024
It's a totally cliche recommendation EXCEPT
There's a reason why it is widely considered one of the best jazz albums ever recorded
and has been certified 5X platinum (which is probably many multiples more than its next jazz competitor).
It is just jaw droppingly great.
Davis is joined here by saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderly (legends both), pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb. Miles led many great ensembles but that's pretty much like having the jazz hall of fame in your band. I think I've probably listened to this album all the way through like a thousand times and I still find new things to pick out every time it spins.
All the more amazing when you consider that Davis was basically creating a whole new jazz form here ('modal jazz' vs. bebop which was the mode du jour), the album was recorded to three track in just two sessions on two different days in 1959 and that the musicians had almost no rehearsal prior to these sessions -- Davis had given them only sketches of scales and melody lines around which the band improvised. "Flamenco Sketches" is actually a first take.
Apr 21, 2024
Top Recs from @audrey
This book took me way longer to finish than I would've liked, and I feel like a near month's break I took in the middle definitely hurt some of the momentous momentum it has. Invisible Man at times reads more like a collection of short stories, if only for the miraculously structured chapters and expansive situations it traverses, traveling from genre to genre, at times Kafka-esque body horror, at others pure social satire. The varying shades and tones are not an oversight, however, but rather the rare case of a novel whose point is seen most clearly through a kaleidoscope, communicating not a summarizable idea but an entire way of looking at the world, one where subjugation is a near inevitable death sentence, where visibility is a constant battle, and where ideology is just the raw meat charlatans butcher and sell to the masses. Bleak, hilarious, and always flowing (seriously, the prose in this is just outstanding Americana), Invisible Man lives up to its reputation as a genuinely unclassifiable enigma in the canon.
Jan 22, 2024
It's Juno baby, the rare box office and critical darling that managed to turn Jason Reitman and Elliot Page into household names and, according to some, made such good silver screen fodder that it inspired teens across America to emulate Juno and get pregnant themselves. The script is maybe the most examined in today's film studies programs, and to call it a winner is to ignore how much it turns away from the big, environmentally-fantastical trends in concurrent filmmaking (Spider Man 3, Shrek the Third, and Transformers all dominated this year), in favor of a much older, almost Golden Age tryst around wordplay and social slights moreso than the actual pregnancy itself. That's not to say Juno is devoid of drama; it manages to balance its sillier, self-deprecating moments with a genuine recognition of the shortcomings of the institutions, peers, and adults around Juno to treat her and her pregnancy with respect and care. A bit light on technical flourish, but overall too big-hearted to not love!
Jan 23, 2024
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nothing cheers you up more than the ridiculous faces you make when you’re crying. at first sight of your own pain, you’ll cry harder, but that’s just it flooding instead of seeping out of you. eventually, the only thing you can focus on is the contortion of your mouth, making shapes like Silly Bandz, reminding you that there’s always some absurdity to find gleaming in the dark.
Jan 25, 2024