Shancy M. Montgomery
Veer Specimen Books
Photoshop Brushes
Print Design (simple, elegant)
I.R.S. era R.E.M.
Valentine's Treats
The Gates
Prepping for SXSW
Jack Bauer
The genius of the Gilmore Girls Season 2 DVDs
Netflix
Webber Grill
Avocado Salad, Chorizo Paella & Il Cuore Chardonnay
February 15, 2005
February 03, 2005
January 26, 2005
January 18, 2005
10 Reasons to be Excited About Mardi Gras 2005:
- Mardi Gras is a DIY event. The more you throw yourself into it, the more you get in return.
- Masking is at the heart of the Mardi Gras experience. If you ain’t masking, you ain’t a part of Mardi Gras.
- Hundreds of marching Krewes take over the Bywater, Marigny, Treme and Esplanade side of the French Quarter, including our very own gang of merry revelers, The St. Anthony Ramblers. The rootless bohemian spirit of these Krewes is powerful to witness and intoxicating to participate in.
- Mardi Gras is one of the only holidays in this country that is still steeped in a true mythic tradition.
- The Wild Tchoupitoulas gonna’ stomp some romp.
- Spontaneous secret rituals take place all over the city.
- Mardi Gras is the only day of the year that you can abandon all inhibitions and not worry about the repercussions.
- The city is fully transformed into a Temporary Autonomous Zone, of the people and by the people. It’s the most revolutionary and insurrectionary thing that is legally sanctioned in this country all year long.
- On Mardi Gras, everyone is a star.
- Everywhere else in America, it’s just a regular old Tuesday.
December 29, 2004
December 28, 2004
Best of 2004: Cinema
1. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
I don’t know what the critics who gave this movie poor reviews were thinking. The Life Aquatic is one of Wes Anderson’s best pictures to date. I thought it was at least better than The Royal Tennenbaums but maybe not quite as good as Rushmore or Bottle Rocket. It’s up there with the best of them though.
Maybe the reason that I appreciate this film more than most professional critics do is because I hold Wes Anderson to a different standard than the one I use for other filmmakers. I expect to see something from him that I won’t see from any other director. I expect to see unique, geeky and dysfunctional characters, which were abundant to the extreme in this film, from Bill Murray’s washed up oceanographer Steve Zissou, to Air Kentucky Pilot Ned Plimpton to Willem Defoe’s ultra-hilarious Klaus Zimmler. I expect to hear great soundtrack choices, which this film was full of, most notably in the Bossa Nova style David Bowie covers sung in Portuguese by Seu Jorge. I also expect to see tediously detailed sets that are covered in beautiful shots. The production design in this film as usual was beautifully executed. The set design for the Belafonte, which allowed for the camera to follow the actors through the ship from a cross section perspective, was especially amazing. The cinematography was similarly well crafted from the scratchy Super 8 documentary shots to the beautiful wide-angle tracking shots to the quasi-experimental climax scene. Lastly, I expect to hear hilariously absurd comedy which this film was full of. If all of those criteria are met, no matter what else is happening in the film, a Wes Anderson movie, even a lackluster one like The Royal Tennenbaums, will always be better than anything any other working filmmaker can produce.
Most of the negative reviews circle around the notion that Anderson just isn’t telling good or interesting stories anymore but I think that’s a big load of bullshit. The story here about dysfunctional families and fathers, is familiar stuff to Anderson fans but familiar doesn’t make it bad or uninteresting at all. Most importantly, this film is great because it is a work of singular vision. No one else, even when they try, can come close to copying or reproducing Anderson’s style. It can’t be done because Anderson makes obsessive films that are driven by his unique and specific interests and ideas and that is exactly why they are so great.
2. Sideways
Paul Giamatti gives the performance of the year as Miles Raymond, a down on his luck wine geek who takes an eventful road trip through wine country with his best friend from college. This movie takes many clichés we’ve seen a million times and brings them to life with honest and hilarious depiction. The mid-life crisis, the buddy movie, the bachelor party romance that we think we know so well are all turned upside down here and are delivered in such a smart, realistic and warm way that you can’t help but deeply identify with the characters and their various situations.
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Michel Gondry comes to life! This was the Michel Gondry film everyone was expecting with Human Nature. A stunning, complex mish-mash of cognitive dissonance, visual freakouts and simple, elegant Gondry tricks. The real surprise of the film though is Jim Carrey’s brilliant straight-laced portrayal of Joel Barish. Even at the most manic points in the film, when you would expect the old “crazy Jim Carrey” to break out into one of his moronic “In Living Color” gesticulations, he maintains his cool and keeps it straight.
December 23, 2004
Best of 2004: Music
1. The Pixies - Voodoo Fest, October 16th, 2004
As we were leaving this performance the day after our wedding, Shanna and I were way beyond the realm of normal happiness. This was one of the best shows I've ever seen, the culmination of over 15 years of fandom. It was an ecstatic, visceral experience that left me very out of it, in a good way of course, and I forgot to look for the booth selling CDs of the show. Luckily Jude was in a better frame of mind and managed to grab one. The live recording, while nowhere nearly good enough to reproduce the magical event, still allows me to recapture the feeling I had as I stood in City Park that day rejoicing in the splendor of it all.
2. Brian Wilson – Smile
Brian Wilson finally released Smile this year. It may have been 30 years too late but the result is the epic concept album of the century, the 20th century that is. Smile is an American prayer; somehow it wraps all of our hopes and fears for America into one comprehensive musical exertion. Wilson somehow also manages to capture an essence or encapsulation of the 60's here, something no other artist from that period has been able to accomplish. This work deserves to be recognized as one the greatest pieces of 20th century music. Oh and Jude Matthews says, "This album is the only reason I'm still proud to be an American."
3. Arcade Fire - Funeral
A long form rumination on family, death and rebirth, Funeral burns with hyper-emotional hellfire in some parts then lulls us with dreamy suburban atmospheres in others. Arcade Fire is, as Dennis Cooper says, "Yet another reason that Canada is the new England".
December 22, 2004
Best of 2004: Books
My Best of 2004 continues today with a list of the best books I read all year long. Some are new, others were published prior to this year, but all of them are great.
1. The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, The System of the World) by Neal Stephenson
The Baroque Cycle is nothing short of a masterpiece. Stephenson places the ancestors of the main characters from his seminal novel Cryptonomicon in late 17th and early 18th century Europe. They participate n a myriad of landmark historical events including the writing of Newton's Principia Mathematica, the formulation of Leibniz's Calculus, The Popish Plot, The Glorious Revolution, The War of Spanish Succession, the invention of Newcomen's steam engine and the foundation of modern science and currency.
The historical detail elucidated in these 2,700 pages is mind-boggling. Stephenson goes into hyper-detailed, geekish depictions of such diverse subjects as piracy, alchemy, enlightenment-era scientific exploration, the structure of 18th century London's prison system, Protestant political dissent, the social behaviors of the court at Versailles under Louis XIV, and the invention of currency, trade and free market systems. In his acknowledgements at the end of The System of the World Stephenson notes his indebtedness to Ferdinand Braudel's Capitalism and Civilization, which really comes through in these depictions. This may be the first historical novel to ever utilize Braudel's "bottom up" approach in narrative form. These books are not only the best that I read this year, they are quite possibly my favorites of all time.
2. Getting Things Done by David Allen
Getting things done launched a movement this year. Geeks everywhere are figuring out that the systems laid out in this book are applicable to their everyday lives. I've been using the GTD system for a few months and my work productivity has shot through the roof.
3. Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman
2004 was the year that I finally got the importance of web standards and it came to me right when I finally started to get it about content. Those two elements, standards & content, are the cornerstones of the web's present and future. This book makes the absolute importance of web standards even more clear and also lays down some really awesome strategies for designing sites with CSS/XHTML. Now if I can only make 2005 the year that I implement standards into all of my projects...