8 Musical Moments Caught on Film

In the Mood for punishment. Image from the website: http://www.guardian.co.uk

It’s been a rough week here on planet Earth, which is why I’ve decided to take a moment out of my day to celebrate two of my favorite things—music & film. That’s right, not only do I work in the Music, Film & Audio Department, but I also enjoy watching films and listening to music, occasionally at the same time. Nothing makes me happier than that scene in a film when the perfect song is cued up, and suddenly characters start walking in slow-motion, or sports-training-through-montage, or driving their motorcycles really, really fast. Seriously, is there anything better than these musical moments? (Other than cheese, of course?)

Come with me now, as I share 8 of my favorite musical moments in film…

Morvern Callar is a troubling little film, based on a novel by Alan Warner. Our amoral protagonist wanders through the film listening to a mix tape through a set of headphones, which becomes the soundtrack for the film. I hold this scene directly responsible for my love of Lee Hazelwood–after watching it, I immediately had to find out who was responsible for the song “One Velvet Morning”:

 

Wong Kar-Wai is one of my favorite directors because of the way he uses music in film. The film Chungking Express is an almost love story, where all of the characters are either trapped thinking about the past, or imagining their futures, but rarely meet in the present. I can no longer hear the song “California Dreamin” without thinking of this film:

 

And how could Wong Kar-Wai make a movie about people walking up and down staircases in slow-motion that is this good? Fair warning: don’t be deceived by the title of the film In the Mood for Love, as it’s less a film about love, and more a film about longing. (If regret is more your bag, you can check out the kind-of sequel, 2046.) This scene is like one, gigantic sigh:

 

The movie Ghost World (and the wonderful graphic novel it’s based on) is one of the best stories I’ve ever watched/read about misfit teenage girls. There’s a lovely scene in the middle of the film when our confused heroine discovers her love of blues music:

 

Few directors around today use music quite as well as Wes Anderson. Not only does he have great taste in music (and by great, I guess I mean my taste), but he knows how perfectly the right song can tell a story. In the film The Royal Tenenbaums nobody has to tell you how Richie Tenenbaum feels about his adopted sister Margot, the song does it for him:

 

The Naked Kiss was my introduction to the weird, seedy, and melodramatic world of Samuel Fuller. The film opens with a bald, half-naked woman beating a man up and then throwing money at him. You would think that things couldn’t get any weirder from there, but you would be wrong. This is one of the strangest, most maudlin musical sequences I’ve ever witnessed:

 

And speaking of weird and melodramatic, Night of the Hunter features one of the all-time best screen villains, a tattooed preacher played by Robert Mitchum. The movie is something of a live action fairytale, which is apparent in this river scene:

 

And as for contemporary films, I am fond of the scene in the movie Drive where our antihero drives down the L.A. river basin with dreamy synthpop playing in background:

 

What am I missing? Do you have any favorite musical moments in film?

-Tara

Senior (Kitty) Moments

In 1997, I adopted a tiny adult tabby cat but no one at the Humane Society knew her age.  The official paperwork said she was two years old while the scribbled hot pink sign taped to her too-small cage stated she was four. This means she is now between 18 and 20 years old.

Miss Holly Golightly

She has definitely slowed down these last few years–for example, she no longer plays–but in many ways she’s holding her own very well: she licks every single meal bowl clean, uses her litter box regularly, climbs up and down two flights of stairs, jumps on chairs, and has the shiniest & softest coat of striped fur I’ve ever seen or touched. About the only odd (and annoying) thing she does now is yowl randomly throughout the day, at least when I’m home. I think she has some dementia and I feel she’s too old to be put through a battery of expensive medical tests.

Holly Golightly, al fresco

But I am preparing for that inevitable sad day when her little claws won’t be clicking upon my wood floors anymore. I don’t think I can ever be truly prepared to say goodbye to my baby, but these books have been helpful:

Caring for Your Aging Cat: A Quality-of-Life-Guide for Your Cat’s Senior Years by Janice Borzendowski

Senior Cats by Sheila Webster Boneham

Your Older Cat: A Complete Guide to Nutrition, Natural Health Remedies, and Veterinary Care by Susan Easterly

~Maria, happily owned by Holly Golightly

We Are the Champions!

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, one of the first nice days of spring so far this year. 39 teams met to battle it out on the trivia field. It promised to be a battle for the ages. It was a battle where only one team would emerge victorious. That team was… the CLP Dewey Decimators!

The battle was the 6th Annual Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council Trivia Bowl, which was held on April 7th at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The Decimators were at the top of the pack for most of the competition, never falling below 4th place. Going into the final question, they were in second – 5 points behind the leader and last year’s champion. With the bravado of someone who knows they have to “go big or go home,” the Decimators bet all of their points on the final question.  (The final question was “Although they have since been disputed, according to recent reports Columbia University students are consuming up to 100 lbs of what food per day?”  Scroll down for the answer.) They finished with 640 points, earning them the win!

Without further ado, let me introduce to you the winning team from the GPLC Trivia Bowl, the CLP Dewey Decimators:  Lisa from the Finance & Administration Dept., Denise from our Homewood Library location, Mykal from Shelving & Stack Services at Main, and Megan from Children’s Dept. at East Liberty. (That’s our cardboard Andrew Carnegie standing with the team. He was there to inspire them.) Two of the winning team members were on Pittsburgh Today Live to talk about the Trivia Bowl and their victory.

It was a great victory, but it was ultimately a fundraiser for a worthy cause. The mission of the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council dovetails nicely with the mission of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Many of our neighborhood library locations serve as sites for GPLC classes, workshops and tutoring sessions. The Library supports literacy and learning in all its forms and we always want the best for the individuals in our community. GPLC is one organization that helps our neighbors become the people they want to be, the people they can be.

The Library also has resources for ESL students, those looking to improve their literacy skills or get their GED. If you need us, the Library is here for you. We’ll get you the contacts and tools you need to succeed.

-Melissa M.

P.S. Here’s my favorite picture from the event…

Andy wears the Championship Belt!

P.P.S. The answer to the final question? Nutella.

You get a poem! And you get a poem! And you get a poem!

Started in 1996, National Poetry Month is held every April to celebrate the awesomeness of poetry. Libraries, schools, publishers, anyone who likes words and poetry, have special events, online programs, poem-a-days and all kinds of neat stuff. I wrote tons of poetry when I was in grade school and even more when I was an angsty teen (oh, the pain of the suburbanite underachiever).

In fact, my mom saved my very first poem. Written in the 4th grade, it illustrates my tendency toward the macabre. (Seriously? I have no pappy. Egads, Suzy.)

What is Yellow?

Yellow is the color of happiness.
Yellow is the sun.
Yellow means fun.

I like yellow because
It is a wonderful, curious color.

Yellow and orange are best buddies.

Curious, wonderful, fun and sun describe this beautiful color.

Yellow is the color of my Easter dress I wear because I’m happy.
I go to visit Granny because I have no Pappy.

My mom wears her yellow shoes.
Which are in twos.

Yellow is a snappy shade.

Clearly I was the next Robert Frost. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.

If you are in Pittsburgh, you live in a good place for poetry. If you want to hear or read poetry, you have some serious options. There are several different calendars of literary events: the Pittsburgh Literary Calendar Facebook page, and the Sampsonia Way Literary Calendar are great places to begin.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has wonderful poetry resources and holds several poetry events a month (not just on special occasions). At Main there is a monthly program called 3 Poems by…Poetry Discussion Group. The poet for April is Rita Dove. There is also an excellent Sunday Poetry and Reading Series. For National Poetry Month CLP- Allegheny has been posting a Poem-A-Day on their Facebook page. CLP- South Side (my home base) had a great Winter Poetry Series in partnership with the Pittsburgh Poetry Society. We also had a teen program celebrating poetry with sidewalk chalk! (photo credit: Brooke Askew)

There are some really fun online poetry events happening, too! At The Rumpus, there has been a poem a day project. Not only do you get a new, fresh poem every day for 30 days, but you can usually listen to it, too! Not into long poetry? Check out Cornell University’s Mann Library’s Daily Haiku.

The Academy of American Poets, the creators of National Poetry Month, have all kinds of crazy poetry fun at Poets.org. Celebrate 30 different ways. Take a poem to lunch. Encourage a young person to write a letter to a poet. Visit a poetry landmark. I visited Edgar Allan Poe’s grave in Baltimore: people still leave roses and booze. Finally, on April 18 (Thursday!) I will have a poem in my pocket.

My favorite poem!

i like my body when it is with your

i like my body when it is with your body.
It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh … And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

e.e. cummings, 1894-1962

-suzy

The Remote War

Every now and then a book comes along that really helps me get a handle on current events. A foreign policy junkie like myself gets a fix constantly from the reams of info available online. But there is usually something missing. A few paragraphs and a carefully chosen photo can fill me on some event, sometimes only hours after it happens on the other side of the world. But those paragraphs usually aren’t able to capture that vital element in comprehension. I am talking about context.

That’s when Print throws open the saloon doors and swaggers back into the room. The Internet is wonderful and all, but good luck trying to parse out what’s happening in somewhere like Nigeria from a few news articles and a Wikipedia page.

Getting context and background on the shadowy enemies of Obama’s drone campaigns had proven very difficult until I found this book, The Thistle and the Drone,  by Akbar Ahmed. This remarkable work takes a historical and anthropological look at the tribal groups most likely to have their sleep interrupted by a hellfire missile. It’s impressive for a number of reasons. Ahmed’s encyclopedic knowledge on the topic was acquired by his own experience as a government administrator in Pakistan’s most notorious areas.  There, in the pre-9/11 world, the author learned the histories and organizations of groups like the Pashtun and Baluch. His own scholarly research further completes an expansive understanding of tribal societies and elements common to all sorts of cultures from the Scots that gave the English so much trouble so long ago, to the Chechens and Avars that resisted Russian imperial aims. Books like this only come along so often. Ahmed provides the background and nuance to center-periphery conflicts such as those raging in Waziristan and northen Nigeria. This book should be required reading, as inconvenient as its contents may be.

For more background on Pakistan and Afghanistan and the long chain of events that led to our never-ending war against people wearing sandals, I highly recommend Ghost wars : the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll.

Any other news junkies out there that happen upon singular works that go beyond the headlines, please sound off. I am always looking for an edge, and I am sure the library has it.

Sky

Life After Life, After Life After Life

Neither U.S. nor UK copyright law protects titles of books. This means  that someday I can call my memoirs In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death and Duran Duran without fear of legal reprisal (though I’d gladly entertain a hand-delivered cease and desist request). On a more practical note for you, the Eleventh Stack reader, however, it means that every now and again you’ll run into multiple books with the same title, which can prove a wee bit confusing when it’s time to make a catalog reservation.

Dear John: call me, maybe?

Exhibit A: two novels called Life After Life, released just six days apart. What could have been a marketing nightmare turned out to be a boon for both novelists and their publishers, as the coincidence has piqued interest in both books. That means longer library waiting lists, though, so here’s a quick-and-dirty overview of each novel, to help you decide which one you’d like better, or if you’d be happy to  read both.

Jill McCorkle

The residents, staff, and visitors of Pine Haven Retirement Center are the focus of Jill McCorkle’s novel about the sweet memories and painful regrets that can rise to the surface as life winds down. A hospice volunteer dutifully records her charges’ dying moments, to teach herself about living well. Another staff member does her best to care for the residents while pondering how own difficult history and uncertain future. A once-powerful man fakes dementia to avoid meaningful conversations with his combative son. As the narrative point of view shifts from character to character, the reader sees how each person affects, and is affected by, the rest of the community, and how much power a single kindness–or cruelty–can have. Although the subject matter is unavoidably heavy–we all have to die sometime–it is also laced with what I can only describe as “realistic hope,” the notion that one person’s voice can be heard, that a single life is precious. On the whole, McCorkle’s given us an honest look at what it means to live well and die well, one that will resonate with anyone who’s ever pondered her/his own mortality or otherwise dealt with hospice/end-of-life issues.

Reserve this if: you enjoyed The Secret Life of Bees or The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (originally published as These Foolish Things); you like fiction set in the American South (think Sarah Addison Allen, but with more realism and less magic); you’re looking for fiction that strikes a balance somewhere between “literary” and “beach-read”; you don’t mind the uncomfortable looks people give you when they ask what the book is about and you say “death.”

Kate Atkinson

If anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, what happens to you when things kill you over and over? This far-fetched rhetorical question is no joke for Ursula Todd, who dies–sometimes quite horribly–and is reborn again and again, always into the same family. Atkinson–whose Jackson Brodie mysteries already have quite a following–will earn plenty of new fans with this speculative twist on the historical novel, which focuses heavily on England’s participation in WWII. Atkinson’s ambitious premise is that the life of one person can mirror the life of a nation, and as Ursula rises, falls, and rises again, so does England. The tone is decidedly British, which includes not only the loving descriptions of everyday objects Anglophiles adore in their fiction, but also the pluck and dry wit that embody the national sense of humor.

Reserve this if: you enjoyed Code Name Verity or Downtown Abbey; your television set is perpetually tuned to BBC America; you’ve ever spent far too much time contemplating the Hitler Murder Paradox.

See why you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover? If both of these titles were in your hands right now, which one would you check out first, and why?

Leigh Anne

Two Thumbs Up

When you ask a friend if Hellboy is any good, you’re not asking if it’s any good compared to Mystic River, you’re asking if it’s any good compared to The Punisher. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if Superman is four, then Hellboy is three and The Punisher is two. In the same way, if American Beauty gets four stars, then The United States of Leland clocks in at about two.

Last week, journalist and movie critic Roger Ebert passed away. He joined the staff of the Chicago Sun Times in 1967 and worked there until his death. In 1975, he was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. He hosted a weekly film review show for nearly thirty years and taught film classes at the University of Chicago as a guest lecturer.

  

I didn’t always agree with Ebert’s reviews (who did?), but I loved his writing style. The man could turn a phrase like no other. I think Ebert was at his best when maligning the worst of films – my favorite is his review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a movie he called “a horrible experience of unbearable length.” He had three collections of his amazing one-star reviews, in fact.

  

As Ebert’s health deteriorated and he lost the ability to speak, his blog became his primary means of communication. He started writing about more than movies – his family, politics, whatever moved him that day. His final book, a memoir, spun out of the honesty he found about his life in the blog.

I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

- Jess

(Ebert also wrote a book about his love of rice cookers)