Houston Texans Haiku: Week 6 vs. the Chiefs

Andre the Giant!
Sir Matt the Magnificent!
Thrilling as always.

Texans got it done.
Season one point O over.
Two point O, let's go!

Kansas City Chiefs - 31
Houston Texans - 35

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 5 vs. Giants

First half was pungent.
Question: Do laundry or watch?
Ah! The smell of lint.

Memo to Bookies:
Stop picking Texans to win.
It's our albatross.

The high of Week One
Now a distant memory.
Might have been a fluke.

Playoffs are for teams
Who know, in their skins, winning.
To date, Texans don't.

Talent for playoffs
Is something Texans possess.
Now, just prove it. Please.

New York Giants - 34
Houston Texans - 10

Book Review Club: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

(This is my October 2010 entry for Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For the complete list, click the icon at the end of this review.)

Halloween is a day to remember what we have forgotten. What have we let slip from our collective human consciousness? Fear. Being scared of things we can’t explain, things that go bump in the night. Isn’t that why we dress up as scary monsters, to help laugh at the things that used to scare the dickens out of us even if we don’t know why? I think so, and the same is true for the heroes of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree.

Eight boys dress up for Halloween in various costumes: an ape-man, a mummy, a druid with a scythe, a ghost, a witch, a beggar, a gargoyle, and a skeleton. They are beside themselves with excitement. It’s Halloween! The best day of the year, including Christmas. But their cadre is not complete. They need Pipkin, the ninth boy of their group. “Joe Pipkin was the greatest boy who ever lived.” As the eight gather on Pipkin’s doorstep, awaiting their friend to bolt out of the house and lead them, Pipkin meekly walks out. Without a costume. He tells them he’s okay but that he’ll meet them at the house on the outskirts of town. Bewildered, they go.

Once there, they see it: the Halloween Tree. “There must have been a thousand pumpkins on this tree, hung high and on every branch. A thousand smiles. A thousand grimaces. And twice-times-a-thousand glares and winks and blinks and leerings of fresh-cut eyes.” Suddenly, some thing shows up: Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud, a tall, skeletal man. He asks them why they are wearing those particular costumes and then chastises them for not even knowing what those costumes represent. The boys implore Moundshroud to tell them about the history of Halloween. At that instant, however, from a distance, the soft voice of Pipkin wafts to their ears. He’s trapped. He needs saving. They run to him but Pipkin disappears into the darkness and only the mysterious Moundshroud can help. With swirling fantastic magic, he whisks the boys away on a giant kite. They need to hunt for Pipkin in the history of Halloween. First stop: Egypt.

The bulk of the book is given to the eight boys’ flight through time and space, learning the history and folklore of the celebration we now call Halloween. It’s a phantasmagorical history lesson, really. At each stop—Egypt, pre-history, Greece, Rome, England, Europe, Mexico, etc.—the boys experience the traditions of the various regions and how each place celebrated—dreaded?—the coming winter darkness. And at each stop, Pipkin is there. But he’s not. He’s enshrouded as a mummy in Egypt, he’s a gargoyle atop Notre Dame in France, or trapped in catacombs in Mexico. He’s always just out of reach, always requiring another jump through time.

The manner in which the boys travel from one place and time to another is fascinating. Hanging onto each other’s heels, they act as the tail of a giant kite created from old circus flyers. The catch: all the animals on these flyers are alive and growl and roar. At one time, they are whisked away by leaves. Leaving Mexico, they are commanded to break a piñata and little figures fall from the piñata, each corresponding to one of their own costumes. Thus freed, the little figures lift each boy up and fly him back to Illinois.

If there’s one thing that stands out in The Halloween Tree, it’s Bradbury prose. It’s had a singsong quality to it, a brazen joyfulness in just being alive. It’s like the prose itself were a twelve-year-old boy dressed up on Halloween and running through the town. It picks you up and sweeps you back to a time and place you may never have known but, somehow, know. It’s a part of the human DNA. Take these wonderful Dickensian opening lines:

It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small northern part of a Midwest state. There wasn’t so much wilderness around you couldn’t see the town. But on the other hand there wasn’t so much town you couldn’t see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness. The town was full of trees. And dry grass and dead flowers now that autumn was here. And full of fences to walk on and sidewalks to skate on and a large ravine to tumble in and yell across. And the town was full of…Boys.
And it was the afternoon of Halloween.
And all the houses shut against a cool wind.
And the town full of cold sunlight.
But suddenly, the day was gone.

The day dying, the sunlight being “murdered” as Moundshroud puts it, is an important theme in this book. Halloween, throughout history, is the celebration of the ending of the season of light. The passing of October 31 equates to past generations of humans, far and wide, the beginning of the long, dark winter. As Moundshroud asks the boys, once the sun sets, what assurance do we have that it’ll rise again the next day? What if it never does? It was a real fear for our ancestors, something the boys and our modern culture have forgotten.

Not too long ago, the darkness in our world was quite a bit closer than it is now, at least in the modern western world. We have science to tell us the true nature of things. We can rely on it to cast away the superstitions and fears our ancestors had. Our children say “trick or treat” but don’t really know why.

Halloween, however, is the celebration, the remembrance, of our past. It’s a cumulative organism now, an amalgamation of traditions and beliefs passed down. It’s a celebration of death as marked by the living. Toward the end of the book, Moundshroud forces the boys to make a choice to save Pipkin or not. The price they have to pay is a year of life, taken at the end of each of their respective lives. He warns them that here, when they are twelve, life seems so long. Later, however, when they’re going to want one more year, it won’t be theirs. Here, Bradbury, through Moundshroud, gives these modern boys a taste of the past, a past they know nothing about but, by learning about history and what makes life special, they make their choice.

At the end, one boy, Tom, the default leader of the eight, asks a question of Moundshroud: “…will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?” Moundshroud has an answer. You may have another. But, on Halloween, for one day a year, we get to revel in the fear that our ancestors lived with daily. We get to remember. And, on November 1st, we get to put it all away and forget about it all over again.

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@Barrie Summy

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 4 at Raiders

Weapons not all there.
Sloppy, brilliant, down to wire.
A win is a win.

A note to Foster:
Whatever you did, stop it.
Be the Texans' Earl.

Houston Texans - 31
Oakland Raiders - 24

Record: 3-1, 1st in the AFC South!

Forgotten Music: September 2010 - The Summary

Thanks to all who participated, including Ed Gorman who joins us for the first time.

Paul D. Brazil – Swoon by Prefab Sprout
Bill Crider – David Seville
Chad Eagleton – The Groovie Ghoulies
Martin Edward – Jackie Delshannon
Ed Gorman – Dakota Staton
Randy Johnson – Shake Your Money Maker by The Black Crowes
George Kelley – Bitches Brew by Miles Davis
Evan Lewis – The Black Adder Theme
Todd Mason – Rainy Day (and the Bunch)
Scott D. Parker – Brand New Day by Sting
Perplexio – Days of Innocence by Moving Pictures
Eric Peterson – Zulu Death Mask by Deadbolt
Charlie Ricci – Do You Remember by Cashman and West

Until the next Forgotten Music Thursday on 28 October...

Forgotten Music: Sting - Brand New Day

For the past ten years, as the first wisps of fall fill the air, I have changed my listening habits. Packed away are the classic rock anthems that seem to go best when summer's high, out come the more melancholic stuff. The two CDs I most associate with this time of year are David Bowie's ...hours and Sting's Brand New Day.

Coming three years after “Mercury Falling,” Brand New Day (BND) was the return of Happy Sting. For many, the 1996 Mercury Falling was a somber collection. Yes, it had its downer songs—what Sting CD doesn’t?—but his Motown influences certainly made the CD unique among Sting’s oeuvre. You can't miss the lightness with BND. If you’re like me, most of Sting’s music reminds me of seasons and weather. If Mercury Falling was a “winter” CD, BND is full of that late summer, early autmn vibe. Musically and lyrically, Sting was in a sunny, warm, and often inviting place.

Coming mere weeks before the millennial calendar change, Sting channeled the anniversary with his first track, “A Thousand Years.” Not one to shy away from grandiose themes, Sting’s meditative singing is almost a devotion to love and longing. Evoking lovers who exist in some sort of transcendental plane not our own, Sting sings of love lost, regained, and cherished. If the album BND is a summer day, “A Thousand Years” is the darkness before the dawn.

If BND is known for one thing, it’s “Desert Rose” (introduced to the world via the Jaguar commercial). The compelling, fast-paced song is intoxicating in its rhythms, beats, and feel. Cheb Mami, an Algerian vocalist, sings the Arabic lyrics that act as counterpoint to Sting’s English lyrics. Interestingly, when Sting asked Mami if he’d like to sing with him, he sent Mami the instrumental track. Both men listened and wrote essentially the same song. How’s that for synchronicity? (Ba dam ching.) This is a happy, fun song, even if the lyrics speak to the lost. More than one critic, in 1999 and beyond, have noted the over synthesized nature of BND. It’s certainly here in “Desert Rose,” but the layers merely add to the overall effect of what is, in my opinion, the best song on the album. I’d rank it in the top two or three of all time. Here's the video from his live concert.

If there is a secret weapon on BND, it’s trumpeter Chris Botti. For Sting, jazz has always been a major influence on his music (remember Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland in the 80s?) and one of his jazz heroes is Miles Davis. With Botti, playing with a Harmon mute, dancing in and out of the shadows of songs, Sting is essentially playing with Davis’s heir. Botti first shows himself in “Big Lie, Small World,” a nice little Brazilian song. Botti’s trumpet flits in and around the melody, sometimes complimenting a lyric, other times doing his own thing. He closes out the song with a solo that, in 1999, had me scrambling for the liner notes to figure out just who this guy was. On tour, Botti played on almost every tune, bringing nuances to the songs that I don't think Sting knew existed. Brilliant trumpeter who knows that silences and rests are just as important as thousands of notes. I have followed his career ever since.

The remainder of the album has the types of songs you’d expect from Sting’s experiemental mind. “After the Rain Has Fallen,” with its call for a life of adventure and romance, is a story song not unlike “The Pirate’s Bride,” a European-only cut from the previous album. With tongue firmly in cheek, Sting sings from a dog’s POV (for the second time; bonus points if you know the first time*) in “Perfect Love Gone Wrong.” Botti’s all over this song. In a fun treat, when the POV shifts to the dog’s owner, the music not only shifts from its jazzy jaunt to deep funk but the lyrics are rapped in French (by a female vocalist). Yeah, really, but it works. “Tomorrow We’ll See” has Sting singing about a prostitute, bringing out his clever use of vocabulary, rhythm, and rhyming. Sting returns to his country & western vein (that he tried out on Mercury Falling’s “I’m So Happy I Can’t Stop Crying”) with “Fill Her Up. It’s a fun, up-tempo tune with steel guitar, fiddle, cat calls and a gorgeous backing choir. If you could say any song is jarring, it’s this one. Not to say it’s bad; it’s just a little off-putting when you’re in music and rhythms that are decidedly European in origin to be jettisoned to Memphis, Tennessee. The message, however, is all Sting: pure optimistic joy at the power of love.

Effervescent, joyous, jubilant, infectious, “Brand New Day” is one those quintessential Sting songs. You can’t help but smile as the song just bops along while Sting tries to get all the words out of his mouth in time and on beat. Stevie Wonder contributes harmonica on the album, something Sting mimics during the tour. As the song fades away, the theme from “A Thousand Years” returns, bookending a fantastic CD. With its exhortations of turning the clock to zero to start a brand new day, it’s no wonder Sting sang this song at midnight of 1 January 2000 in New York’s Times Square.

There isn’t a Sting album I don’t’ like. The first album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, is a milestone in my musical evolution as I was introduced to jazz in a big way. "Nothing Like the Sun" and "Ten Sumner’s Tales" are classic examples of nearly perfect pop records that speak to love and world issues. Brand New Day can sit right besides those albums. While it’s not as perfect as those first three, it’s a very good piece of music by one of the more erudite and searching songwriters of our times.

Extras:

The Brand New Day Era was capped with a concert he performed at his home on 11 September 2001. If you remember, he was to simulcast the concert on the 11th via the internet, with many of the BND songs reworked and reinterpreted. In preparation of this event, Sting had a documentary crew film him and his band. The resulting DVD, “All This Time,” showed the rehearsals and gathering of friends, family, and fans at Sting’s Italian home. We know what they didn’t: the attacks were coming. It’s fascinating to watch artists deal with the violence in their own way. In the concert that night, Sting chose to play a reimagined “Fragile” as a tribute to the victims. Here’s the video. What follows, on the DVD, is proof of the things Sting sings about: the power of music and love to deal with unimaginable grief. As the concert progresses, song by song (truncated though it was by the exclusion of certain stables like “Desert Rose” and “Englishman in New York”) you see and hear this band of musicians and audience members find joy despite sorrow and power through music. As much as the song “Fragile” was dedicated to the victims of the attacks, the rest of the concert was as well. For the reworked songs, the DVD (and CD) is worth the price. For the joy you will get by the concert’s end, that’s priceless.

Extras, part 2:

In 1999, many songs found themselves remixed for discotheques all over the world. Usually, this entailed putting backbeats to the song, no matter the original rhythm. Some of the Brand New Day tracks have that. “A Thousand Years” is different. Bill Laswell takes the nearly six-minute song and *doubles* it’s running time. The opening is orchestral, introducing the theme with Middle Eastern effects subtly playing in the background. Back beats do start and Sting’s wispy voice seemed even more ethereal here. But it’s Chris Botti’s trumpet that get all the glory. The vocals end with over four minutes left, leaving Botti time to play with the melody. One could argue that this version of the song should have made the album.

*1987’s “Conversation with a dog,” available on the “We’ll Be Together” single.

Forgotten Music: September 2010

Welcome to the September 2010 edition of the Forgotten Music Project. Inspired by Patti Abbott's Forgotten Book Friday series, here we examine music that has fallen off the public's radar or other music that never made a blip. We're doing this on a once-a-month basis, the last Thursday of every month. Aside from my own entry, here's today's line-up:

Paul D. Brazil
Sean Coleman
Bill Crider
Chad Eagleton
Martin Edwards
Randy Johnson
George Kelley
Evan Lewis
Todd Mason
Perplexio
Eric Peterson
Charlie Ricci
Ray Foster

If I have missed your name or got the wrong address, let me know and I'll fix it here and for future months. Anyone can join: just let me know here in the comments section, by e-mail, or in the comments section of my entry that you'd like to join in next month and I'll add you to the list.

The Music of Summer 2010

Here in Houston, we've got our first taste of cooler weather. It'll only get up to the mid 80s today. By Texas standards, it's time for a jacket.

As my listening habits naturally follow the seasons, I thought I'd give a rundown of some of my favorite songs from this past summer. I put them all on a CD and have been listening to it during my commutes. See what y'all think.

Haven't met you yet - Michael Buble - If there's a favorite song for the year, this one gets it. Absolutely love this tune.

Nobody's Perfect - KISS - From Sonic Boom, the new CD. This song--and the CD as a whole--hearken back to KISS's original mission statement: to be the Beatles on steroids. This is a good, old-fashioned rock and roll tune and I'm tapping my foot every time.

Someday - Rob Thomas - All this guy does is write great, catchy pop tunes. We should all be so fortunate.

Hey, Soul Sister - Train - No, I haven't grown to hate it. In fact, I've pulled out my guitar and am learning to play it. You know you're old when the reference to Mr. Mister is considered classic.

Tighten Up - The Black Keys - My favorite new "discovery" of 2010. Excellent CD and this is my favorite tune.

American Slang - Gaslight Anthem - The descendants of Springsteen. Put this CD/song on your car radio, roll down the windows, and drive fast.

Anchor - Alejandro Escovedo - New CD by the guy who shared the stage with Springsteen in Houston back in 2008. While I don't immediately like the new CD as much as 2008's Real Animal, it's good to see (let's say it again) good old fashioned rock and roll still being made well.

Mockingbird - Rob Thomas - I could have put most of the songs from his 2009 CD on this list, but left it at my two favs.

Need You Now - Lady Antebellum - I love a good breakup song and this is among the best of the lot. The dueling singers, male and female, put this in a class of its own.

Heartbreak Warfare - John Mayer - Part two of my breakup mini-trilogy. I'm still a sucker for a mix CD with a perfect track order.

Breakeven - The Script - This one grew on me and, through multiple listens, have grown quite fond of it.

The High Road - Broken Bells - You've heard it on some commercial (can't remember the one). One of the few "indie" songs I listened to while the sun blazed down.

This Too Shall Pass - OK Go - I'll admit that the video is what hooked me.

Ishin Densy - Keane - As a child of the 80s, I've grown to dislike a lot of it. However, Keane's new CD channels early 80s Brit-pop to make a new sound for themselves. Later on the CD, they pull out the Rocky theme song.

Southern Pacifica - Josh Ritter - One of the fun discoveries via the Starbucks/iTunes free songs. Really dig the chilled-out nature of this song. Makes me want to get to the beach with my guitar, watch the sun set, lit a fire, and play.

Summer Day - Sheryl Crow - Sheryl does "Motown" with a California vibe. If Ritter's tune is the song I listen to at sunset, Crow's song is the one you listen to during the day while you're driving to the beach.

California Gurls - Katy Perry - Yes, I like this song. The first five or so times, I didn't. The next one hundred, I got to where I really like it.

Modern Day Delilah - KISS - The lead track off Sonic Boom and the opening song at the recent concert here in Houston. KISS was my first, favorite band. With Sonic Boom, they've captured their mid-70s sound. The guitar solo by Tommy Thayer is fantastic.

That's my list. Are there any songs you've loved this past summer? And come back tomorrow for Forgotten Music.

Forgotten Music: September 2010 - Call for Entries

Hello all. This Thursday, 30 September, is the September 2010 edition of the Forgotten Music Project.

It got cool here in Houston, 65 degrees this morning. It'll get up to the 80s, but that's fall down here in Texas. Looking forward to breaking out the music that just doesn't seem to fit when it's upward in the 90s. There's probably some music I've forgotten along the way.

Per usual, I'll post links on Thursday to everyone who posted in August. If you have the time, great. If you can't make it, you can either let me know before Thursday (and I'll remove your name) or not (whereby readers can jump to your blog and read your latest entry and be amazed at your erudition). If you want to join and you haven't posted before, just let me know and I'll get your name on the list for Thursday morning. As usual, I"ll do a summary at the end of the day.

Looking forward to everyone's entries.

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 3 vs. the Cowboys

Oh where, oh where did
That keen swagger go? Oh where,
Oh where did it go?

First, goal from the one.
Whole team moves backwards. No guys!
The other end zone!

Houston is my town.
But I don't hate them Cowboys.
Not even today.*

Dallas Cowboys - 27
Houston Texans - 13

*Especially since the Texans basically didn't show up...

Houston Texans Haiku: Week 2 at Redskins

Sixty minute men
Found a way to win. Big Time!
Andre the Giant!

Overtime's the bane
Of the Texans' history.
Except yesterday.

Houston Texans - 30
Washington Redskins - 27 (OT)

Record: 2-0