Uncouth Reflections

GoPro Hijinks

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

If people are going to persist in amusing themselves by doing physically risky things, may there at least be a GoPro camera attached.

Posted in Movies, Sports, The Good Life | Tagged GoPro, risky behavior, video | 1 Comment

NOT The Beatles

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

I posted my first NOT The Beach Boys earlier. Here is the first NOT The Beatles. It is another truly shameless rip-off, but enjoyable.

There is an entire genre of music that rips off the Beatles in one fashion or another. Sometimes this is done strictly for amusement, as with Eric Idle’s Rutles. Sometimes it is a more respectful homage, as with Todd Rundgren and Utopia’s Deface the Music. The link below is to Mr. Greedyman, a cut by the Vinyl Kings. They just want to sound like The Beatles. Not bad.

Posted in Music, Uncategorized | Tagged Beatles, Mr. Greedyman, Vinyl Kings | 4 Comments

City Hall

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Atypical Neurotic

Atypical Neurotic writes:

Posted in Architecture, Photography | 4 Comments

Art Du Jour

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

Sir Sidney Nolan, Gallipoli riders, 1963

textile dye on coated paper, Australian War Memorial

Posted in Art | 2 Comments

Art and Booze Together

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Eddie Pensier

Eddie Pensier writes:

Here’s a curious little article detailing the mutually beneficial yet uneasy relationship between the businesses of trend-setting art and liquor. Interesting, though, to note what the arty folks consider to be a downside:

Spirits sponsors want signage at an art event, sometimes tons of it, notes Jeffrey Lawson, head of Miami’s Untitled Art fair. Worse yet can be the arrival of scantily clad girls wearing a brand’s banner and serving shots, a visual that doesn’t quite jive with classy contemporary art sales.

Sure thing. I can see how that would be a, um, problem.

(The article is from DuJour magazine, and you don’t know how hard I struggled not to title this post DuJour Du Jour.)

Posted in Art, The Good Life | 6 Comments

Juxtaposin’: We Happy Few

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Fabrizio del Wrongo

Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:

Posted in Movies, Performers | Tagged Film, Henry V, Juxtaposin', Kenneth Branagh, Laurence Olivier, movies, Shakespeare, St. Crispin's Day | 2 Comments

Cocktail Du Jour

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Paleo Retiree

Paleo Retiree writes:

Filipino food is something that’s having a moment in downtown NYC, so — trend-chasers that we are — The Question Lady and I have been checking it out. Thumbs up so far. Filipino food is related to other Asian-Pacific cuisines — heavy on the peppers, bitter melon, garlic, tropical fruits, fish and rice — while being its own distinct thing.

Our favorite of the restaurants we’ve tried so far is Jeepney, which describes itself winningly as a “Filipino Gastropub” and is half a sweetly earnest authentic place and half a sharply-designed hipster hangout. That’s a mixture that can be very pleasing, we’ve found. The real-natives side delivers heart and soul while the scenester side adds style and edge. Besides, what could be more fun than being in a room full of happy eaters half of whose inhabitants are smiley Filipinos bursting with homesick pride and whose other half are cute urban trendoids? Well, it works well in this case anyway.

The other night I enjoyed one of Jeepney’s signature cocktails, a San Felipe.

Continue reading →

Posted in Food and health, The Good Life, Trends | Tagged cocktails, food, Greenwich Village, Jeepney, restaurants, trends | 13 Comments

Our New Gizmo

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

Courtesy of the generosity of one of our UR members, who has chosen to make his gift on an anonymous basis, we now have the ability to upload music files directly. I thought I would put this to use. What to send upstairs and on to the world?

Why not choose something that is very hard to find otherwise? Maybe a film with an interesting soundtrack that has never been committed to vinyl or CD?

Have you ever seen the movie Zardoz? This is the one that takes place in a dystopian future, with Sean Connery running around in what looks like a Borat swimsuit,

and with a giant stone head flying about telling the primitives the gun is good and the penis is bad.

It’s what Johhny Carson would have called wild, wacky stuff. But it had an interesting score. In the beginning the stone heads floats into view to the sound of a kind of early music version of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, an arrangement by David Munrow performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. It’s actually now available on YouTube, but I spent a long time tracking down an .mp3 version given the lack of a published soundtrack, and I wanted to try out the music gizmo, below.

So, remember readers, now that we have an audio player, we want to spin what you want. We play your requests, the songs you like to hear.

Posted in Movies, Music | 4 Comments

NOT The Beach Boys . . .

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Fenster

Fenster writes:

. . . wherein we introduce a new semi-regular feature on NOTS. These will be songs that crib from the masters, especially those in the power pop lineage, and do it well enough to make it work no matter how shameless the cribbing.

Music in the power pop tradition looks to balance a certain set of contrasts. It looks to be punchy without overdoing it, and often relies on a certain restraint despite the punch (e.g., The Who’s I Can See for Miles as opposed to the group’s later all-out arena-sized bombast). And it looks to be melodic, and especially harmonic (as with the Beatles), without retreating as far as the tradition of commercial pop. Sometimes it holds these in rough balance (Squeeze, say). Sometimes one is dominant over the other, as the harmonic side is with the Beach Boys.

Sax has taken it upon himself to go through the latter’s albums here, one by one. What a project! I have enjoyed the music and commentary to date and look for more.

In the meantime, here is installment one of NOT The Beach Boys.

It is a cut called Forever by a contemporary outfit called the Explorer’s Club. It is, per the above, as shameless a rip-off as you will ever find. And that is saying a lot. I have some other NOTs queued up that are pretty shameless in their own way. Anyway, here it is.