Music I'm Enjoying Now 1

Whenever possible, I like to find time for music in my day. On occasion, I'll write a few lines about some of the music that's engaging me. No negative reviews -- I'm only going to write about "music I'm enjoying now."

Very Best of Naxos Early Music: A free download from Amazon! A dozen ethereal tracks by Hildegard von Bingen, Orlande De Lassus, and others, performed by Naxos artists. Naxos seems to be one of a very few classical record labels that have figured out how to sustain a strong business in a weakening recorded music economy. They deserve your support.

The Construction of Boston: Ann gave me this new live recording of Scott Wheeler's first one-act opera dating from 1989 as part of my Christmas CD extravaganza. It's on Naxos. I was delighted to discover that Wheeler has been an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where our son Jack is a senior, and music director for dozens of Emerson Stage productions. His work bring to mind Adam Goettel (Floyd Collins, Light in the Piazza, Myths and Hymns).

Ayombe!: The Heart of Colombia's Música Vallenata
!Ayombe! The Heart of Colombia's Musica Vallenata: A Smithsonian music sampler that you can dance to. Think of this as the Colombian version of the Buena Vista Social Club -- but even better because the centerpiece is... accordions! :-) Several styles including paseo, merengue and son, with distinctive percussion. A couple at tracks are at incredibly fast tempos -- but most of the 15 songs are bright and jovial.

North Texas Jazz: Ann took her undergraduate degree at North Texas State College, now the University of North Texas, in Denton. While Austin is the place that usually comes to mind when you say "music" and "Texas," the University of North Texas in Denton has trained dozens of renowned jazz performers, including Lyle Mays (piano, The Pat Metheny Group), Lou Marini (sax, The Blues Brothers), Adolfo Acosta (Tower of Power), Marc Johnson (ECM bassist), Herb Ellis (Verve guitarist), and dozens of others. For a great sampler, try North Texas Jazz: Fifty Years, a four-CD compilation mostly featuring performances by the One O'Clock Lab Band (so named because it features the most accomplished big band players whose class meets at 1 p.m. - less accomplished or up-and-coming performers are in the Two O'Clock and later bands).

A Movie Liker's Guide to the Oscars

I as a music lover (you couldn't tell?). I am a movie liker. I might watch 30-40 a year, mostly on VOD or DVD, and maybe a half-dozen in the theater. I don't put a lot of stock in the Oscars, but since that particular set of award nominations does help to focus the mind, I'll use it as a jumping-off point for my views - not my "picks," my views.

Best Picture of 2008 has to be Slumdog Millionaire. It was one of the most original, creative and energizing things I've seen on screen in a long time. Superior cinematography, sharp and edgy direction and editing, and a knockout score that will bring overdue attention to A.R. Rahman and ultimately to other Bollywood composers. I found the story a little too contrived, but that didn't get in the way of what I considered to be the best movie experience of the past year.

As for Milk - superior performances by Sean Penn and Josh Brolin, but this was a by-the-numbers bioflick that, had I not known the story (which is quite moving), probably wouldn't have grabbed me. As for the performances, I felt Penn's pain, but I felt Brolin's, too, as a working-class Irish-Catholic pol who just didn't know how to handle change. Between this film and No Country for Old Men, I think Brolin has put some of the best work up on the screen in the last two years. Brolin is nominated in the same Supporting Actor category with at least two extraordinary performances - Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and, in one of the bravest and funniest performances I've seen in a long time, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder - a movie I wanted to hate but couldn't. (Come to think of it, Downey has put up two of the best performances of the last two years, too - he was great in Iron Man, which had me right up to the final fight scene that looked like a parody of the dumbest action picture ever).

I hope to see Frost/Nixon next week. I will wait for Benjamin Button and The Reader on VOD. Having not yet seen those three, I will still puzzle over why The Dark Knight and WALL-E didn't get Best Picture nominations. WALL-E deserves to walk away with Best Animated Feature. I'm surprised that The Wrestler was passed over - that's on my VOD list, too.

We'll probably hear a lot of lamenting that this was not a great year for the movies. That's OK - the year gave us 30 Rock, The Office, Mad Men, and Flight of the Conchords on cable and broadcast, which was plenty to keep me entertained when I wasn't watching UConn basketball.

Inaugural Recap

With wind chills on Capitol Hill in the teens, it wasn't easy to peck out a post on my Blackberry this morning, so here's a catch-up. The event has been reported to a fare-thee-well, so just a few personal observations onsite.

The lines to enter the Capitol grounds moved along well despite a lack of official or volunteer marshals. Once inside security, as we walked to our seats, the air bore the slighty sweet, slightly manure-like smell of wood chips underfoot.

Under a dappled blue/grey sky, with a mass of humanity behind us as far as the eye can see, the voice of God announced, "The President-Elect of the United States, Barack H. Obama." As he strode through the portal and shook the hands of dignitaries on the way to his seat, the crowd erupted in chants of "Obama, Obama."

It was a bit distressing - but, with such an immense crowd, not surprising - that the introduction of the outgoing President drew a few boos and a few round of "Na Na, Hey Hey, Goodbye."

During Rick Warren's invocation and other speeches, someone standing in one of the palladian windows behind the podium kept wiping off condensation so that those tucked in a warm room behind the podium could have a good look.

The music: Aretha Franklin sang "America" (introduced by Senator Feinstein as "My Country 'Tis of Thee"). She couldn't hit the high notes of "let freedom ring" and she's lost a lot of vocal strength, but she beautifully occupied the role of icon. The "Air" by John Williams, based on an Aaron Copland theme and performed by a quartet that included Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, was the single most moving element of the entire ceremony.

Our first impression of the President's inaugural address was "good.". You can only write your Ninth Symphony once, and expectations were high. But Obama plainly wanted to move on from the platitudinous to the practical, immediately reminding us of the hard slog ahead as we look to restore our economy, calling for seriousness and unity of purpose, speaking of peace and war with compassion and strength - and setting the table for what promises to be a busy and challenging agenda.

After his remarks, thousands of us began a show shuffle away from the seating area, mayors and campaign donors and a lot of just plain folks. As we left the secure zone, several guys with paper money in their hands were offering "$20 for your Obama stub" - next stop, eBay. We saw that the streets approaching Capitol Hill were almost covered with shredded newspapers - and it dawned on us that Obama fans who had arrived in the middle of the night had stuffed these in their clothing to keep warm.

We then dropped by a couple of receptions along the Inaugural parade route. At our second stop, a law firm office on the top floor of the Market Square building at 7th and Pennsylvania, we watched as the First Couple stepped out of their tank-like limousine to walk the rest of the parade group, thrilling the spectators.

We continued our long, happy, exhausted walk back to our hotel, looked at each other, and decided to pass on a third night of partying. We'll satisfy ourselves watching ball coverage on CNN. David Gergen just made a statement that sums up our sentiments: "People wait hours to get into these things - and then they're standing there and they ask themselves, 'what the hell are we doing here'?"

The Inauguration was a wonderful day that showed off America at its best. Let's pray that this sense of unity continues. It's essential to the revival of our economy, our global standing and our greatness as a nation.

Obama's Most Quoted Line: Lyrics by Dorothy Fields

Obama called up several great quotes - from the Bible, George Washington, and others - but would be cool to know whether a President has ever before quoted a lyric from a Hollywood musical in his acceptance speech. "Pick Yourself Up" was a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers song in the 1936 movie "Swing Time" -- lyrics by Dorothy Fields, music by Jerome Kern.

Inauguration Day: Off to the Capitol

Roger Simon write on Politico this morning: "I have never seen so much hope, so much optimism and so much sheer joy as in Washington this week."

That captures it. The street scene is like an Istanbul bazaar - hordes of people, everyone well-behaved, striding by retail encampments offering street food (Shep's Chicago Polish sausages look awfully good for breakfast), memorabilia (looks like someone emptied every Washington Post box the morning after Election Day and slipped copies of the paper into glassine sleeves for sale today), tees, totes, red, white and blue boas, and on an on - an unfathomable variety of... stuff.

We decided not to beat the rush, but to take a more Zen approach. We're cabbing to Union Station to our designated security entrance - and making very good time, all things considered.

More from on-site.

No Longer Live from the HuffPost Gala

An after-party wrap-up from the very welcome warmth of our room:

*Ann could not resist marching up to Larry David and Christopher Guest, declaring herself to be their biggest fan, and shaking their hands. In return, they simply muttered "thank you." Disappointing. We were actually hoping for Emmys tickets.

*Kudos to the DJ who got a great techno groove going under Barack's "red states/white states" speech from the 2004 Democratic Convention, and who mixed samples from Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" with MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech. Made the interminable wait for the live performances more pleasant.

*Additional celebrity spottings: Jesse Jackson, Eric Schmidt of Google, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Jonathan Alter of Newsweek, Forrest Whitaker, and David Gregory of NBC. Reportedly on the scene but not seen by us: Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, and Robert DeNiro.

*Also spotted: the marvelous actress Glenn Close, who a dozen years ago sat in the front row of the Big Apple Circus on the afternoon when I was the audience member chosen to perform the Lucy-and-Harpo skit in the center ring with Bello the Clown. I thought I had greatly impressed her with my comic timing, but she never called. Too bad, Glenn, we could've torn up the screen together.

* My biggest disappointment: didn't see Kareem, whom I'm told had RSVPed.

*As we walked out into the very cold night, people was buzzing about alternatives to getting up at 6am on Inauguration Day and walking miles to Capitol Hill to stand around until the 11:30am swearing-in ceremony begins. Let's see what the morning brings.

Live from the HuffPost Gala

The press and blogosphere said that THE "celebrity-watching" event of the Inaugural would be the Huffington Post "Countdown to Change" at the incredible new Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue, and I'd say they had it right.

We got into the "VIP line" around 9pm, just in time to see VVIP Larry David whoosh by (with, I believe, Ari Emanuel hanging on his shoulders), carrying bags of cashews.

We headed right to the main floor and the lip of the stage (same strategy we used for the '92 MTV Ball). Pretty amazing celebrity parade in just the first half-hour: Jamie Lee Curtis and the brilliant comedy director Christopher Guest, Sting and Will.I.Am (who are to perform tonight), telejournalists Gloria Borger and Bob Franken, Sharon Stone (interviewed by comedian/actor/telejournalist D.L. Hughley), Sen. Chris Dodd, Senator-to-be Ben Affleck, Wanda Sykes, Steve Case, and the inimitable Don King wearing a one-of-a-kind denim-and-spangles jacket celebrating "The United States of America."

We're anchored about 15 feet from the livebloggers who also seem to be trained celeb-spotters. I'll take them at their word (it's on the big screens here, so it must be true) that they've eyed Ricky Schroeder, Val Kilmer, Tina Brown, and Mayors Gavin Newsom and Cory Booker, among others. One of them just blogged, "Hey, famous people, please come closer," so I guess I need to move in their direction after I finish my post.

A nice fellow standing in front of the livebloggers just handed me a copy of "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging." I can take a hint. I'll read it next weekend and become a real blogger.

OK, guys, bring on Sting!

C-SPAN Turns 30

With all the talk about how the Obama campaign helped to promote "digital democracy" in America, it's important to remember which network was the first to bring the everyday workings of our federal government into our living rooms and offices: C-SPAN.

Ann and I had a chance to catch up with friends at C-SPAN at their studios this morning. We were reminded just how groundbreaking C-SPAN was, and how many conventions of cable news coverage that we now take for granted actually originated with C-SPAN: taking viewer calls during shows, using close-ups of highlighted newspaper stories to help summarize the issues of the day, bringing cameras into radio station studios, real-time coverage not just of floor proceedings but also committee hearings, extending free access to these proceedings to the Internet, etc. And C-SPAN's hallmark is its objectivity - no other media outlet is so committed to let the facts speak for themselves and let the viewer decide.

Because C-SPAN largely refuses to toot its own horn, its contributions to digital democracy are either overlooked or taken for granted. With tomorrow's Inaugural, this is a good time to take a fresh look at all the ways C-SPAN is putting people in touch with government. As we celebrate a peaceful, democratic change of leadership, C-SPAN is another bit of democracy worth celebrating.

How to Pack for Barack

*Boarding the "Regional" shortly from 30th Street Station, where the President-Elect began his whistle-stop journey to DC yesterday. Remember when every train route had its own romantic name? I still see the "Keystone" and the "Carolinian" and a few others on the train information board from time to time, but you'd think they could give a cooler name than "Regional" to a train running from Boston to Newport News. "Yankee/Dixie Express"? "The Snowbird"? "Harvard to Hampton"? Brand ideas welcome at www.amtrak.com.

*Not quite sure how to pack to be ready for our trek to the swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday morning. We've been advised to be at security gates as early as 6am for entry to the very large restricted zone, and we expect to walk a mile or more to the East Front of the Capitol. So I decided to take no chances on the weather - dug out my old Patagonia capilenes (do they still make that stuff?) for extra warmth, and brought along my black Stetson (a gift from our corporate retreat last year) just in case. When the cameras pan the crowd, the tall dude in the cowboy hat will likely be me - or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who will also be in town.

*I see the HuffingtonPost folks have teased the guest list for their Monday night "countdown to change" party to The New York Times, which reports that Sting and Will.I.Am will perform and that Halle Berry, Tom Hanks, George Soros and George Stephanopolous are among those expected to attend. I got a peek at the list myself, and I can tell you that what the Times ran is the barest tip of the iceberg - they're expecting more athletes, Hollywood stars and moguls, musicians and entertainers, writers and bloggers, and other Very Interesting People than you can imagine in one place. Hope to have a little time to blog from onsite.

DVR Alert: Flight of the Conchords Returns on HBO

What a great day it would be to stay home and watch HBO (but instead we're boarding Amtrak to the Inaugural). At 2:30 ET, the "We Are One" concert will feature Bono, Beyonce, and the Boss - along with Stevie Wonder, Will.I.Am, Herbie Hancock, James Taylor, Shakira and many more. Most every cable operator in the country will be carrying HBO "in the clear" so everyone with cable can enjoy this concert, whether they subscribe to HBO or not.

Now here's one of the (IMHO, many) reasons to subscribe to HBO: Flight of the Conchords, the spectacularly silly musical-comedy sitcom, returns tonight at 10:00 ET.

"Flight of the Conchords" is the name of the "band" consisting of these two New Zealand comedians (Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, who his fellow New Zealanders on the show always call "Britt"). We first saw them do their funny folk-rock schtick at the late, lamented U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen about four years ago, where festival sponsor HBO showcased them. (So I guess we can say we "discovered" them in Aspen, much as we "discovered" Barack Obama along with 40,000 other conventioneers when he addressed the Democratic convention in Boston in 2004).

In the series, the Conchords have moved to New York to pursue stardom. The plots? Well, if Seinfeld was about "nothing," Conchords is about absolute zero. Deadpan and clueless, Jemaine and Bret try to cope with agents, groupies (well, one groupie, which is all they can seem to attract), a mistaken case of anti-Australianism, and other plot contrivances that can usually be summarized in four or five words (as I just did). Every episode includes at least one song that may or may not advance the storyline, but it's almost guaranteed to be charming, melodic and amusing in its wordplay. Great supporting cast, too, including (in season one) several appearances by one of my favorite Broadway musical comediennes, Sutton Foster.

I caught the first episode of season two on Fancast (shameless plug for employer). Sample it now.

Stone Beautiful

A large percentage of the village of Chestnut Hill (our neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia) is built of stone -- Wissahickon schist, to be precise, with flecks of mica that led to it commonly being called "silverstone." Much of the stone was quarried in the immediate vicinity (some quarries are still active), and chunks of schist are periodically burped up out of the earth. Working in stone requires special skill and a special eye. The number of qualified stoneworkers in the world tallies in the dozens. One of them is a man to whom we were led by word of mouth when we moved to Philadelphia: Martin Smith, whose handiwork has earned him a well-deserved profile in the Philadelphia Inquirer. We are the proud owners of a small Martin Smith wall and other projects. You can see more of his work here.

My First Time

Although I've made a career in and around the political process, I've never felt compelled to attend a Presidential swearing-in. In fact, my only inaugural moment until now was attending the MTV Ball celebrating Bill Clinton in 1992. We stood at the lip of the stage all night to enjoy Michael Stipe, Natalie Merchant, En Vogue (trivia question - who were they?), and an appearance by the First Saxophonist. Why go anywhere else? Best moment was coming face-to-face with ABC news anchor Peter Jennings garbed in what I could only guess was a Canadian admiral's uniform, replete with braids and epaulets.

Well, this time it's different. Ann and I will head from Philadelphia to D.C. on Sunday afternoon (presciently, I had rescheduled my trip from Saturday, which turns out to be the day when the President-Elect will board Amtrak in Philly for a symbolic ride to the Capital). Talk about a mix of anticipation and apprehension - we expect huge crowds, impassable streets, who-knows-what weather... and a deep gulp of history that we'll be proud to be part of.

We will blog our adventures on my trusty Blackberry. Next report on Sunday.