My wife has been assigning video production projects in her class, but this raises the game:
While at first it looks like nothing more than a mix of two entertainment genres that were best left unconnected- namely, elementary school skits and Web video- it’s actually wonderfully subversive at times. The Charles Beard shout-out (at 1:01) makes the whole thing worthwhile, and the First Thanksgiving is just incredible.
[To the tune of Sting, “History Will Teach Us Nothing,” from the album Nothing Like The Sun (a 2-star song, imo).]
William Shatner reads Sarah Palin’s resignation speech as poetry (listen for the bongo drums).
Thanks to Balloon Juice for costing me several minutes of productivity this morning. Though the best commentary is from Gawker:
It’s like Peggy Noonan, Jack London, and William Faulkner wandered into the woods with three buttons of peyote and one typewriter, and only this speech emerged.
And she wrote this speech! In advance, on paper! What does any of it mean? It is amazing. Twenty years ago she could competently descibe a dog race, three years ago she could articulate a position on the abortion issue, and this weekend she composed a resignation speech by throwing culture war stock phrases into a hat and dumping it upside down on a copy of The Paranoid Style in American Politics [ed: great book! really holds up!].
A couple days ago at the library, I did my usual thing of checking out a couple CDs from familiar artists, and then one at random: Chantal Kreviazuk’s “Colour Moving and Still.” I still haven’t popped in the Van Morrison or Joni Mitchell. I’m still listening to Chantal.
She’s somewhat heavily under the influence of Alanis Morissette for much of the album, but even in this second release she’s starting to break out on her own. You can especially hear that in this song, “Far Away,” particularly in the soaring chorus, which really shows off her fabulous voice.
The video itself … well, actually it isn’t that good, if only because it’s like a collision of indie / chanteuse / film school project / fashion model / road grrrl styles, and she never looks like she’s really tearing into the song (and just close your eyes and listen- she does tear into it). Still, I predict my daughter will sing this at the Peninsula rock concert next year, if she doesn’t opt for Sarah McLachlan’s “Worlds on Fire.”
(And what’s happening in Canada? Why do they turn out these amazing women singers? K. D. Lang, Tori Amos (I think), Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Kathleen Edwards, Feist, and Kreviazuk are all from Canada.)
Though so far as I know, she hasn’t been on Sesame Street yet. Advantage Feist.
[To the tune of Chantal Kreviazuk, “Souls,” from the album Colour Moving And Still (I give it 3 stars).]
My friend Jess made this “Great Moments in Literal Video,” but will probably be too modest to talk it up (even though she’s The Onion Girl and one of the geniuses behind Sad Guys on Trading Floors).
I’m especially gratified to see lots of bands that I recognize from my youth- Tears for Fears, Billy Idol, a-ha. It warms my heart.
Though I have to confess it was only with the end of the Creed video, and the line “I need Bruce Willis” that I began to suspect it was a joke. Once we got to the Beatles I was clear, but it just goes to show how little I’ve listened to rock on the radio in the last, oh, fifteen or so years.
