Sunday, January 28, 2007

Blues in a Box
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John Mayall's inestimable influence on the evolution of British blues stems more from his talents as a bandleader than from his own talents as a musician. While he's a very gifted instrumentalist, particularly on blues harp, and an adequate vocalist, it's his unerring ear for recognizing raw talent that's made John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, in all its incarnations, the legend that it is today.
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Mayall had been playing music professionally since 1955, but it wasn't until he moved to London in 1963 , with John McVieand formed the earliest incarnation of the Bluesbreakers, with John McVie on bass, that his reputation as a live act begain to garner recognition. And it wasn't until 1965, when Eric Clapton left the Yardbirds to join the Bluesbreakers that both became synonymous with the blues in England. The album that followed, Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton catapulted them into blues rock legends.
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Clapton went on to form Cream, and Mayall replaced him with Peter Green, who left to start his own band, Fleetwood Mac. Mick Taylor was brought in to the Buesbreakers, and he soon joined the Rolling Stones. John Mayall's Bluesbreakers was not so much a band as it was a proving ground for raw talent, and the only constant in the lineup over its four-decade span is Mayall himself. He's always known what sound he wanted, and he's never been hesitant in coaxing it out of his proteges.
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Essentially John Mayall is an aptly titled five-disc boxed set that reunites Mayall with some of the guitarists who earned their stripes under him, as well as showcasing his latest charges, most notably Texas guitarist Buddy Whittington. Comprising this set are four discs Mayall released from 1999-2001: Padlock on the Blues, Along for the Ride, Stories and 70th Birthday Concert, as well as a bonus disc of "exclusive live rarities." It's hardly a quintessential collection, but the 59 tracks represented here remind us of the influence Mayall has exerted over the past 40+ years in defining British blues.
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Considering that John Mayall has over fifty albums under his belt, it's unseemly at first glance to call this set Essentially John Mayall, but that's exactly what it is. While some of it could have been called in (particularly Stories and much of Padlock on the Blues), it nonetheless represents the migration of the blues into the mainstream consciousness. Much of the material on these two discs is reminiscent of the boogie-bar band style of blues that encourages patrons to tip the waitresses and bartenders between sets "because they're workin' real hard just for you." By and large, it nestles in the Texas bar band style of blues rock. Some of this no doubt has to do with Buddy Whittington's guitar playing, augmented by Mayall's, vocals, piano and blues harp work. It's blues-based, but it's not exactly the blues. They're serviceable discs, though, including spots with John Lee Hooker, and illustrate Mayall's influence on the evolution of southern rock.
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Any perceived shortcomings of those two discs are more than made up for with 70th Birthday Concert, John Mayall and Friends and Exclusive Live Rarities. Here, Mayall does what he has always done best--let the stars he discovered shine brightly. The roll call of white blues guitar stars is impressive. Besides Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor, there are tracks featuring Peter Green, Jeff Healey, Gary Moore and Andy Fairweather Low and Billy Gibbons., as well as second tier players like Steve Miller, and the unlikely man who introduced Europe to American blues, jazz trombonist Chris Barber. Billy Preston's there, too, as are John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and Coco Montoya. The one commonality between them all is they pay homage to their blues roots and the man who steered them, either directly or by his influence on the evolution of rock, to their individual musical destinies.
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For longtime fans of John Mayall, Essentially John Mayall offers few surprises. Longeivity tends to do that to an artist. The Bluesbreakers albums of the late sixties are among the best white blues ever recorded. It becomes an easy matter to say his best work is behind him. Orson Welles peaked before he turned thirty. Mayall has been doing it for over fifty years now, and, yeah, he's mellowed a bit over the years. Now in his seventies, Mayall is an elder statesman of the blues, particularly the British version of it. That version has become corrupted through the decades, as has the blues in general. It's all become stiff upper lip, playing the riffs all too neatly. .
Mayall, though, has reamained more or less true to his love of Chicago-style blues. That's part of the reason the Bluesbreakers have undergone so many personnel changes. Clapton and Green went on to more mainstream concerns. Whittington hasn't--yet. John Mayall evolves by not evolving. At 73, he's proven that white boys can play the blues.
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Sleeper Cell is no 24-- and That's a Good Thing
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It's become a bit trendy among some TV critics (and I use that term advisedly) to compare Showtime's Sleeper Cell to Fox's 24. Not only is that wrongheaded, lazy reportage, it's just flat-out stupid. Beyond the theme of potential terrorism on American soil, the two series have precious little in common. Let me rephrase that--they have absolutely nothing in common.
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I'm not knocking 24--hell, I've followed it religiously for going on six years now, often to the dismay of family and employers. (Random note to self--gotta get a TIVO.) I love the show, despite its leaps in logic, not the least of which being that all this mayhem takes place in a mere 24 hours. Sleeper Cell moves at a more deliberate, but no less deadly pace.
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Sleeper Cell: American Terror picks up where the first season ended, give or take a few months. After thwarting the terrorist attack on Dodgers Stadium last season, FBI operative Darwyn al-Sayeed (Michael Ealy) just wants to get on with his life. After all, Faris al-Farik (Oded Fehr) is in US custody, and his cell has apparently been destroyed. Darwyn emerged unscathed, and he's been offered a teaching position at the FBI Academy. But he's quickly drawn back into the role of field agent when he's persuaded to recon Benny Velazquez (Kevin Alejandro). Darwyn and Benny had met while Darwin was doing his prison stint, and Benny has attracted the notice of the FBI because he's joined a radical mosque in San Diego. Meanwhile, cell leader al-Farik, tucked away in an American prison of undisclosed location, is enduring indignities and unorthodox CIA interrogation techniques, but remains steadfast in his extremist beliefs.
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Thus the stage is set for another tale of intrigue and betrayal told in a grippingly realistic fashion. This is not a story told in black and white, good versus evil--rather, it flows in ever-shifting shades of gray. Darwin is a man torn between his Muslim faith, his racial identity and his sense of duty. As an ex-Marine, an African-American, with an Anglo girlfriend who's married but separated, he has a lot on his plate as it is. But even though his work as an undercover agent requires subterfuge and deception, he wades through life with a stoic resignation, compromising principles in the name of the greater good.
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The imprisoned al-Farik is no less devout, but his fundamentalist viewpoint has led him to believe his terrorist tactics are not only justified, but divinely inspired. Through his eyes, we almost understand, if not sympathize with, his extremist viewpoint. He's a radical terrorist who truly believes the West is responsible for the evils of the world, and that he's justified in taking whatever actions he can to cleanse the world of its influence. He's undeniably intelligent, even charming to a degree, and is steadfast in his beliefs even under duress of torture.
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It's in its unflinching presentation of the dichotomies inherent in the global war on terror that Sleeper Cell: American Terror makes its mark as one of the most provocative TV series around, cable or otherwise. Once Darwyn is forced to kill the leader of a new terror cell who has blown his cover, he finds himself thrust into the role of their new leader. We're introduced to a number of new characters within this cell, each of them with a plausible backstory. There's Mina, a former Dutch prostitute who got caught up in extremist Muslim beliefs through an Iraqi lover; Salim, an Iraqi expat raised in England, where he learned to misinterpret Islam; and the aforementioned Latino gang member who converted to radical Islam while in prison. They all have their own motives, united in their devotion to their ambiguous cause.
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While Sleeper Cell does present any number of viewpoints, it is by no means one-sided. It shows evil as evil, whether it's perpetrated by Islamic terrorists or American interrogators. It's a series that is unafraid to portray the world in which we currently live in no uncertain terms. Perhaps its most jarring moment comes at the end of the episode, when Darwyn's handler from last season, Patrice Serxner, is executed by extremists. It's broadcast via the Internet, and aptly illustrates how insidious this conflict is.
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While Showtime did air this miniseries on consecutive nights during the holidays, and all eight episodes are available on Showtime on Demand, Sleeper Cell: American Terror is beginning its weekly run on the cable network now. If you can see it, do. This is one of the most provocative television dramas you're likely to see.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Dexter Had a Nice Christmas After All
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Saying goodbye to Dexter, even though it's only for a few months, is not easy. Like a suicide without a passing note, the series left us with so many unanswered questions. Maybe Dexter was caught up in the holiday spirit-- those last three episodes did have a macabre holiday theme. Or perhaps the producers of the series knew they'd packed a little too much in the twelve episodes of the first season, and prodded the writers to wrap it up, dangling plot threads be damned. And there are a lot of dangling plot threads.
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It's been a few weeks now since the finale first aired--time enough to recover from the holidays, time enough to reflect on those twelve episodes, especially those last three. "Seeing Red," "Truth Be Told" and "Born Free" work as one large season finale, tied together with a very macabre holiday theme. That's part of the reason it's taken this long to write this final Dexter piece. Body parts wrapped in festive bows and ribbons didn't seem wholly in keeping with the season.
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I know the furor over the series has died down, so to speak, which makes it a bit easier to look back at it with jaded eyes. Don't get me wrong-- I still think Dexter is the most original take on the crime drama ever to come down the pike. There was nothing remotely realistic about the twelve episodes, but that was what made it work. The premise of a forensics expert working for the Miami PD, and moonlighting as a serial killer who only preys on murderers beyond the reach of the law is the delightfully implausible stuff of comic books, and the plotlines reflected that. The recurring cast of characters-- Dexter's flighty but determined, foul-mouthed but lovable foster sister Deb, the tough guy with a dark secret cop Doakes, the manipulative, politically ambitious Lt. LaGuerta, Angel, whose easy-going style belied his detective abilities--were broadly drawn and often over the top.
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None of it should have worked, and in lesser hands, none of it would have. But by the writers' choosing to have at least most of the continuing plot seen from Dexter's perspective, it did. Michael C. Hall's portrayal of Dexter--disarmingly charming on the outside, calculating killer on the inside-- was what riveted us to the screen through the series. It was almost enough to forgive the potential plot threads that ended up tossed by the wayside, to accept the leaps in logic that made us believe Dexter could go unnoticed as he merrily killed evildoers.
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That final three-episode arc sucked us inexorably into Dexter's world. We simply had to know how it all began, what originally posessed him. We already knew that Rudy was the Ice Truck Killer, and we'd all pretty much surmised that he and Dexter shared a past. What we didn't know was why Rudy was obsessed with Dexter. Close your eyes now if you don't want to know.
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Okay. Rudy and Dexter were brothers all along. They both witnessed their mother's death by chainsaw in a drug deal gone bad, and were locked in a storage container for three days soaked in their mother's blood. Thanks to Harry, rescuing him (he was only three at the time), Dexter was able to submerge those memories. That explains why Dexter insisted he couldn't connect to other people, while all the while connecting to other people.
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Rudy (real name Brian Moser, older brother of Dexter Moser) was not so fortunate. Dexter was able to submerge his memories, thanks to the loving upbinging of Harry and family, Rudy was not. For reasons unexplained, Rudy instead spent his formative years in mental institutions. That didn't deter him from keeping up with little brother's progress, though. How he did that is also left largely to the viewer's speculation.
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But when Rudy, in rapid succession, proposes to Deb, drugs her, binds her and readies her for slice and dice, all in some vague mindset of making Dexter recognize his true destiny, Dexter has no choice but to put him down--like a mad dog. It's a conundum, though--Deb is the only family he's ever known, but Rudy is the only person who will ever accept him for what he is.
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In the end, love for Deb trumps bloodline, and Dexter eliminates Rudy by hanging him upside down, slitting his throat and draining his blood from him, the same way Rudy killed his victims. I'm still not certain the authorities would dismiss it as a dramatically ghastly suicide, but they do. The Ice Truck Killer is finally dead, and Dexter has a nice Christmas after all.
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It all moved at a breakneck pace, and was a thrill-packed alternative to traditional holiday fare. In retrospect, though, you can't help but feel a little shortchanged. Ther were a lot of potential subplots that were set up, but never fully explored. We know Doakes has a mysterious past, and is not above assassination. Paul, in prison now, realizes Dexter set him up. LaGuerta has been demoted, but may have a new ally. The relationship between Dexter and Rita seems to be solid, but even she is beginning to realize there is more to Dexter than she had thought.
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Season Two is on the way. . .

Sunday, January 14, 2007

The Man in Black in the Land of Green
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There's a telling moment near the end of Johnny Cash in Ireland that sums up the man more succinctly than any scholarly dissertation ever could. The concert is winding down, and Cash has just introduced Sandy Kelly to help him perform "Forty Shades of Green," a song he wrote that the Irish took to their collective heart. "There's argument about who wrote this song," he says in that deep, rolling voice.as he cues the performance. "I wrote it--in 1959." You hear an audience member shout, "No you didn't!" Cash doesn't break stride as the intro strains begin. "Yes I did," he replies with a wry smile that segues effortlessly into the song.
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Okay, I'll admit you probably need to see the moment to appreciate it fully. Words don't really convey that flash of fire from those dark eyes, that spark of a knowing grin, that presence that commanded his surroundings and needed no confirmation. If Johnny Cash said it, or, even better, if he sang it, something in you knew it rang with truth.
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Since in his death in 2003, there has been no dearth of posthumous Johnny Cash releases, ranging from the extraordinary to the banal, with a few jewels packed into the mix. Johnny Cash in Ireland falls into that last bunch. Filmed in 1993 as an installment of an Irish television series, this is hardly one of Cash's landmark performances. That's not to say, however, that it's a show to be ignored. Johnny Cash shows never were.
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Johnny Cash and June Carter may have been past their prime when they did this show (indeed, Cash would quit touring about three years later), but the energy of this show still eclipses any number of contemporary performers. Sure, the format is reminiscent of the American TV series that ran 1969-71, but that only sparks vagrant memories of headier times. Cash was a gentleman outlaw then-- a brilliant musical subversive who charmed his way into prime time through the universality of his music, and introduced us to a whole new generation of music troublemakers in the process.
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Johnny Cash in Ireland shows that over twenty years later, he had lost none of that spunk. It may be an episode of the Dublin series Country from the Olympia, but there's no mistaking it for anything less than the Johnny Cash show. Featuring what was left of the legendary Carter Family, Kris Kristofferson, Sandy Kelly and his only son, John Carter Cash, Live in Ireland is a revue showcasing some of Cash's greatest hits, as well as some of his older nuggets. "Folsom Prison Blues" is there, of course, but so is the rockabilly classic "Get Rhythm."
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Cash doesn't showboat, though--he gives his band plenty of room, as well he should, since the Tennessee Three were instrumental to his unique sound. He never forgot his roots, or his love, and the Carter Family, with June figuring predominantly, take center stage on a few tunes, particularly "Wabash Cannonball."
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Still it's the imposing presence of Johnny Cash that makes this an arresting performance. He manages to make "A Boy Named Sue" still sound fresh, and "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" eerily haunting. When Kristofferson joins him on "Long Black Veil," the awe he has for Cash is obvious. And well it should be--Cash paved the way for him, and an entire generation of musicians seeking to expand the parameters of country music.
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Johnny Cash was undoubtedly one of the most important musicians of the twentieth century. He took his music out of the country ghetto, and made it something to which everybody from punks to rappers could relate. Johnny Cash in Ireland may be a minor chapter in his performing career, but it still offers a glimpse into his brilliance as a showman and a performer. And for anyone who grew up on the music of Johnny Cash, it will bring a nostalgic tear to the eye. It's unlikely we'll see his kind again.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Factotum Labors at Many Trades, And Masters the Optimism of Despair
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The writings of Charles Bukowski are an acquired taste. Praised by some critics as intuitive literary genius and derided by others as the ramblings of a serious alcoholic with delusions of literary grandeur, one simple fact remains. He hit on a collective nerve that had little to do with alcoholism, womanizing or gambling--it had to do with pursuing a life well lived. He never apologized for his shortcomings--he reveled in them.
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Factotum, the movie, doesn't stray far from that premise. Where it differs is in its Scandinavian approach to the source material. The American directorial debut of acclaimed Norwegian director Bent Haner, Factotum springboards Bukowski's early days into an allegorical everyman's tale in which the protagonist never fully realizes redemption.
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Matt Dillon portrays Hank Chinaski (ostensibly Bukowski's alter ego) as a man disconnected from the realities of the world. His only passion in life is writing, and he's not all that passionate about that. He jots down his thoughts occasionally, but women, menial jobs, horse tracks and seedy bars distract him from his efforts. He's a factotum, a person who wanders aimlessly from job to job. "I just want to get my paycheck and get drunk," he tells an employer after being fired from one of several jobs.
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It would be far too easy to discount Factotum as plotless rambling. To do so, however, would be nothing less than a surrender to the banalaties of big budget movies. This is not a film driven by plot so much as it is by character, and in that regard, it shines. In what may be his finest performance to date, Dillon imbues the Chinaski character (read that Bukowski) with a stoic resignation towards the obstacles that confront him. Most of those obstacles, of course, are roadblocks of his own making--his refusal to compromise to anyone or anything besides his vices-- but he never lets them overcome his singular ambition of becoming a published writer. When he's not boozing or playing the horses, he's scribbling random thoughts on a yellow legal pad, and dropping his manuscripts in the mail, with fruitless results.
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Accompanying Chinaski through much of the film is the equally besotted Jan, (Lili Taylor, Six Feet Under). Their relationship, based mostly on their mutual alcoholism is, is, as one would expect, rocky at best. But at its core, it's based more on a disregard for society's expectations than chemical dependency. The bond the pair share supercedes the haze in how their days and nights are spent. In one particularly amusing scene, they're awakened in the middle of the night by the commotion of a fire in their apartment block. They merely shrug it off, and go back to sleep.
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It's all set in a surreal version of Los Angeles, bereft of sun and palm trees, or even much of a populace. It's a desolate, gray place (with seamier sections of Minneapolis filling in for El Lay), seen through the eyes of the isolated. In Bukowski/Chanefski's world, "political correctness" is a term that doesn't exist--people smoke openly in offices, people drunkedly wander deserted streets and random fisticuffs go largely unnoticed. Even the time frame is uncertain-- working class sixties mores juxtapose with PT Cruisers and computers in an assembly line world where automation has yet to replace the working grunt.
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Of course, we're seeing all this through Chanefski's version of the world, and in that convoluted logic, it all makes sense. He sees the absurdities of day to day existence, and gives no pause to consider life beyond its underbelly. His resultant world view is both egocentric and distanced. Since he sees the world only in terms of how it affects his personal aspirations, it's not surprising that his version of Los Angeles is cold and desolate.
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Factotum works best when viewed in the context of allegory. It's ultimately a story of sacrifice in the name of art. As Dillon interprets the character, Chanefski never veers from his personal Holy Grail. The menial jobs, the bouts of homelessness, the drunken binges, the meaningless dalliances with various women--all are ingredients to feed his dream. And even though the film's ending is ambiguous, it leaves the viewer with a sense that it might, just maybe have been worth it after all. He's sleeping on a park bench as the credits begin to roll, but that doesn't preclude him from soliloquy.
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"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don't even start," he advises us. "This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs. And maybe your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."
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Despite its measured pacing and often misanthropic viewpoint, Factotum should be required viewing for anyone who ever harbored a dream. It's bleak, often funny, sometimes almost boring and moves at an unsteady rhythm. In short, it's a lot like life.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Scooby Doo's Saddest Day
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Iwao Takamoto, the man who created Scooby Doo for Hanna-Barbera Productions, has died at the age of 81. His passing, less than a month after the death of Joe Barbera, marks yet another sad milestone in the annals of pop culture.
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The son of Japanese immigrants, Takamoto was born 1925 in Los Angeles. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he, like thousands of other Japanese-Americans, spent WW2 in an internment camp in the California desert. It was there that he learned illustration from fellow internees. Despite the lack of formal training, he was able to land a job as an assistant at Walt Disney Studios in 1947. He worked as an animator on several Disney features, including Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians before joining the Hanna-Barbera team in 1961.
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While he was responsible for the design of several characters, including the Jetsons' Astro and Penelope Pitstop, he'll be most remembered as the creator of Scooby Doo. It was he who brought the cowardly but adventurous Great Dane, and the rest of the Mystery, Inc. gang to life in 1969, and was largely responsible for Scoob's continuing status as a contemporary cultural icon.
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Takamoto designed the character of Scooby Doo after talking with a Great Dane breeder about the finer physical attributes of the breed--straight back, straight legs, angular jaw and the like. In classic cartoon mindset, he went the opposite direction in his design, giving Scooby a goofy humped back, huge chin and large loopy legs. The origins of his name come from a scatline in Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night." It was one of those incongruous cartoon designs that was an instant hit, and made Scooby Doo, in his various incarnations, the longest running Saturday morning cartoon character in history.
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Takamoto's Scooby Doo is, depending on who you talk to, one of the most loveable, or one of the most ingratiating cartoon characters to come out of the Hanna-Barbera studios. Even though the stories were thin and formulaic, the comic relief that Scooby and his allegedly stoner cohort Shaggy lent to the series resonated in the public consciousness. Besides the cartoons that remain popular even with the youngest generations, Takamoto's creation inspired two regrettable live-action feature films. The CGI incarnation of Scooby Doo in those films was a pale imitation of the character Takamoto created.
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Iwao Takamoto created an immortal character in Scooby Doo. And now he enters the pantheon of departed but immortal animation legends.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

In Praise of Ramen Noodles. . . And the Man Who Created Them.
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It's the little things that matter. . .
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The 20th century introduced us to a multitude of inventions that transformed us culturally, socially and even politically. It's difficult to pinpoint the most fabulous creation that lifted us from the social mire in which we'd been immersed for centuries. Some say it was the computer. Others will point to the airplane. The slackers among us will say it was movies.
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All of these assumptions are wrong.
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Discounting superglue, nothing affected us more than three things: duct tape, velcro and ramen noodles. Here's why. The inventions that really impact our daily lives go unsung, mainly because they were so perfect, we never noticed their how cool they really were.
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Consider this. Duct tape is the musician's best friend--it splices multiple wires, it essentially holds the stage together, and without it, there would be a helluva lot more rock and roll suicides. With duct tape, you know nothing's going anywhere. I'll forego the implications of that.
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Velcro's a different matter. It's the ultimate easy answer to every conundrum. It solved every would-be home designer's problems regarding placement of flea market art. With Velcro, you could make everything instataneous, even the way your trouser cuffs hanged (Remember parachute pants?) You could fasten anything to Velcro, and feel relatively secure it would hold. For a while, it even seemed a likely replacement for shoestrings, though aesthetics doomed that idea.
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But nothing has had a more profound, if indirect, impact on our culture than ramen noodles. I shudder to even contemplate where our society would be technologically, medically, culturally or even politically, had Momofuku Ando not perfected the formula for ramen noodles in 1958. He died yesterday, 6 January, of heart failure at the age of 96.
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Ando said his inspiration for instant noodles came after seeing lines of refugees waiting for traditional ramen soup. He wanted to feed people cheaply and quickly. and after much trial and error, the finally perfected his flash frying method of cooking noodles, enabling them to be ready to serve by boiling for three minutes. The original version, chikin ramen, was not an instant hit, since it cost six times as much as traditional noodles. As production costs went down, however, ramen noodles soared in popularity. Today, an estimated 70 billion servings are sold annually worldwide.
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While that's a staggering figure, it's not surprising, considering that the packets sell for between 10-20 cents in the United States. And with the multidudinous varieties of flavor packets available for that little bag of dried noodles, it's astoundingly simple for a starving college student to convince his or her self that they are eating a varied diet. If you added crackers, and chopped-up wafer meat, they actually made for quite a satisfying meal, as I remember.
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There is little doubt in my mind that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates owe at least some of their success to Momofuku Ando and his invention of instant noodles. In fact, I'd hazard to guess that your accountant, your doctor, your lawyer, your congressman--in short, every professional on whom you depend-- would not be where they are now without ramen noodles at some point in their lives.
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So I salute you, Momofuku Ando, sir. You left this world a little wiser by feeding us when we had little money, and giving us the energy to explore our ideas, rather than wonder if we were going to starve. You will not be forgotten.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Two Wild Nights As Sweet As Tupelo Honey
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Some musicians are so ingrained in our collective consciousness that we sometimes take them for granted. It's not that we don't appreciate them-- we do-- but they're like that eccentric uncle who'd pull out a nickel out of your ear and impart a word of wisdom to you as a bonus. You'd only see those guys every once and a while, but every time you did, it was a magical moment.
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Van Morrison Live at Montreux 1980/1974 captures two very magical moments in the career of a musician whose importance in pop music's evolution cannot be overstated. If he had done nothing beyond penning the perrenial "Gloria", his place in rock and roll would have been ensured. But Morrison is posessed of a wandering spirit, and has never been content to stake a claim to one particular idiom. Rather, he traverses a fine line between blues, celtic folk, soul, country and jazz, imbuing them with a synergy that's
been described more than once as "Celtic Soul."
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A reticent performer at best, Morrison has, by and large, let his music speak for itself. But when he does perform live, it's an experience that trandscends all the trappings of pop stardom. He's hardly a snappy dresser, he doesn't engage the audience in snappy reparte, he doesn't even make eye contact with them. And why would he?--the music, the poetry is his language, and through it, he communicates something that strikes a universal chord.
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The two discs comprising Live at Montreux represent Morrison at two different heights of his career as a live performer. Chosen by Morrison himself, these performances also comprise his first DVD release. Think of the 1980 disc as the headliner, and the 1974 performance as the opening act, and the tracking makes sense. In the 1980 Montreux show, Morrison works as a jazz bandleader, with an auspicious band, including Pee Wee Ellis and Mark Isham on sax and trumpet, and John Platiana on guitar.
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By this time Morrison had some bonafide hits under his belt--"Wavelength," Moondance" and "Tupelo Honey" probably the most recognizable. And the performances of those songs by far eclipse the studio versions. But it's in the performance as a whole that the genius of Morrison becomes evident. He doesn't only give the individual bandmembers room to stretch(in the best tradition of jazz), he immerses himself so deeply into the groove, his voice literally becomes one of the instruments, alternating between second sax and percussion in some of the songs. Through it all, he maintains the uniquely Irish sense of irony, as in "Summertime in England", where he references the likes of Mahalia Jackson, TS Eliot and James Joyce, among others, as seminal influences.
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The 1974 performance, packaged as the second disc, is a stripped down show by contrast, but no less compelling. The band was put together on the spur of the moment-- with only keyboards, bass and drums backing Morrison, who, played guitar, sax and harmonica, in addition to furnishing vocals. It comes across almost as a polished jam, and has a decidedly soul-blues feel to it. With the exceptions of "Naked in the Jungle" and "Foggy Mountain Top," these are largely obscure songs. Still, they do showcase Morrison's talents as a multi-instrumentalist,and foretell his coming emergence as one of the great songwriters of the last fifty years.
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Van Morrison Live at Montreux 1980/1974 offers an intimate, yet very public glimpse into the soul of the artist. It's digitally enhanced visually, and the 5.1 sound is rich. The stereo separation enhances the ambience to an extent that you almost feel as if you were there. There's nothing particularly flashy in the direction of either performance-- angles and transitions serve only to enhance the music. Neither concert ever sags, either visually or musically.
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All in all, Van Morrison Live at Montreux 1980/1974 is an outstanding package that bears repeated viewings and listenings. Much like the man himself, these shows defy classification, but leave you utterly satisfied through the sheer power of the music.