Most of you that have stumbled onto this blog are probably aware of my endless gripes about Los Angeles and its culture (or lack thereof). Sure, there is plenty of great stuff around this city to enrich our lives, but finding it is not always easy. Also, I'm mostly speaking on a day to day basis, and how starved I often feel for that East Coast culture.
However, there is one thing that I love about this city, and that is its classical music station. Now the commercial classical station went off the air about a year or so ago, but the public broadcasting station, KUSC (affiliated with the university) is alive and kicking. This classical station is the best I have heard ever, in any city, and I am so thankful it's on the air. It has great radio hosts, NO commercials, and they play works in their entirety, something that is not possible on commercial stations. The musical selections are great too. You can hear plenty of the standard masterpieces, but also many new things to broaden your horizons (pardon the cliche).
My favorite host is Jim Svejda, a guy who speaks with a superiority complex/nasally sounding voice (which I used to find annoying, but now enjoy) and knows more about more topics than you could imagine. And he is not afraid to criticize performances and pieces, which I also find refreshing. They frequently host great interviews with performers (pianist Leon Fleischer) and even current movie composers (Dario Marianelli of Pride and Prejudice)
Tonight I heard on the station a piece written by one of the radio announcers, Alan Chapman. He wrote a piece called Peter and Mr. Wolf, which you might notice, sounds a lot like Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. Peter and the Wolf is a cute (but also very well written) children's piece that features a narrator and that uses different instruments of the orchestra to tell a story, each instrument representing a different animal. This piece by Alan Chapman was surprisingly great, taking his cue from the Prokofiev piece but featuring Mr. Wolf as a mean spirited 8th grade science teacher. This is just an example of why we are so fortunate to have a station like KUSC when many cities are losing their classical stations.
If you live in a city which has no classical station, you can go to KUSC's website and listen live to its streaming broadcast. Hurray for technology! Just click on this link HERE and choose your media player. You can also click the programming tab and view complete playlists. Enjoy the music!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
No Country for Old Men
I recently watched the film by this name, and was very surprised by it. I hadn't really expected much from it since I'm not really a huge Tommy Lee Jones fan, but while watching, I was really drawn in to what (I think) the writers were getting at. If you're not familiar with it, the film is focused on a serial killer that feels no remorse for his actions. But beyond that, the main point is that Tommy Lee Jones, an old (almost retired) lawman, cannot come to grips with what motivates this kind of behavior. The crimes are not crimes of passion. Instead it seems as though they stem from some inherent evil that is unexplainable.
I found myself identifying with Tommy Lee Jones' character a lot. Back in his younger days, crime seemed pretty straight forward, as did morality and common sense decency. But now, he feels alienated from the situation he finds himself in. I'm not yet 30, but somehow, I have some of the same thoughts. I feel like this old character looking at the new world around him and being past his time. Do times really change this fast? What seemed like common sense only a short time ago, now seems like ignorant closed-mindedness to many. It's as if the world changes before our very eyes.
What I found so poignant in the film, is how Tommy Lee Jones is rendered almost helpless in a way, because he cannot comprehend the killer's motives. He's from another era, a time where life made sense, and was in many ways simpler.
I just recently discovered that the same directors of this film, No Country for Old Men, also did O Brother Where Art Thou, which I also found a little disturbing. I think both the movies have a certain dark humor, but there is in both (especially in No Country...) a focus on the increasing depravity of our society. Let us just hope that with all the advancements of today and new possibilities of doing good, that we don't forget where we came from. People no longer like to talk about it in this age of pluralism, but what I'm referring to are Judeo-Christian values, the underpinning of our society, and the main reason for its success. I don't like religious fanatics, whatever the religion, but I do treasure the foundation our society was built on.
One of my favorite non-classical singers, Alison Krauss, has a song called A Living Prayer. While the words are very meaningful by themselves, some nice person has uploaded the song to youtube and set it to beautiful pictures of the Georgian (the state) countryside. It is very peaceful, and for some reason, makes me think of past days.
I found myself identifying with Tommy Lee Jones' character a lot. Back in his younger days, crime seemed pretty straight forward, as did morality and common sense decency. But now, he feels alienated from the situation he finds himself in. I'm not yet 30, but somehow, I have some of the same thoughts. I feel like this old character looking at the new world around him and being past his time. Do times really change this fast? What seemed like common sense only a short time ago, now seems like ignorant closed-mindedness to many. It's as if the world changes before our very eyes.What I found so poignant in the film, is how Tommy Lee Jones is rendered almost helpless in a way, because he cannot comprehend the killer's motives. He's from another era, a time where life made sense, and was in many ways simpler.
I just recently discovered that the same directors of this film, No Country for Old Men, also did O Brother Where Art Thou, which I also found a little disturbing. I think both the movies have a certain dark humor, but there is in both (especially in No Country...) a focus on the increasing depravity of our society. Let us just hope that with all the advancements of today and new possibilities of doing good, that we don't forget where we came from. People no longer like to talk about it in this age of pluralism, but what I'm referring to are Judeo-Christian values, the underpinning of our society, and the main reason for its success. I don't like religious fanatics, whatever the religion, but I do treasure the foundation our society was built on.
One of my favorite non-classical singers, Alison Krauss, has a song called A Living Prayer. While the words are very meaningful by themselves, some nice person has uploaded the song to youtube and set it to beautiful pictures of the Georgian (the state) countryside. It is very peaceful, and for some reason, makes me think of past days.
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