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Friday Music Cue: A Funky Space Reincarnation

Just saw this Charlize Theron perfume spot for the first time-pretty hot. Love how voluptuous she is, and the choice of music is inspired. Marvin Gaye's 'A Funky Space Reincarnation" is from his dark, strange, seriously funky "Here My Dear". The story is that when he got divorced (from Berry Gordy's daughter) he was broke, so the judge decided that all the profits from Gaye's next album would go to her. A pretty good deal, except that Gaye put out a very non-commercial, fairly gloomy album that was all about the break up and the judge, an elaborate kiss-off explained in intricate detail. It's Gaye's 'De Profundis'. It didn't sell many copies, which was part of the plan. The upside to the story is that it's one of Gaye's most uninhibited albums, super confessional and very jazzy and live-sounding. You can hear "A Funky Space Reincarnation" at lala.com from the link below. It's the new online music store I'm very into. One of the virtues is that you can listen to any song all the way through before you decide to buy it or not. In fact, you can listen to entire albums from start to finish once. The downloads are DRM-free too.

A Funky Space Reincarnation - ...

Moving Photographs

About 400 photos in about 4 minutes. For all 'return to key west' posts click here.

Discuss!!

Went to see James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem and his friend, novelist Sam Lipsyte "In Conversation" at Joe's Pub tonight. I love the whole "In Conversation" construct-even when it doesn't work, as this one sometimes did not, it's still intriguing to watch people really talk, awkward patches and all. (This is a big part of why I am totally inot  'Spectacle: Elvis Costello with...' on The Sundance Channel-real conversation between two artists, about their shared passion, not an interviewer and a 'star' and which is bluntly all about that star). They projected some of  their notes, suggestions for topics to get into-you'll get a better idea of the topics from this than from any of my paraphrasing. Click on the image to see it bigger.
 

Murphy made a comment about hearing a song coming from passing cars in his neighborhood, saying that now that radio was dead this was the new radio--and that those cars were hired to drive through "hot" neighborhoods (Williamsburg in his case) and saturate the air with selected singles. Brilliant marketing move but a very disturbing trend, this steady, subtle encroachment of advertising into all spaces--both private and public,  like Bedford Street in Williamsburg. It reminded me of an interview I read with LL Cool J years ago. When asked when the moment was that he realized he'd achieved success. He said it was the first time he heard one of his songs coming out of a passing car-"because that's one big radio station".  When that highly democratic station is co-opted by viral marketers and becomes about buying airtime I'd say we're losing something that belonged to all of us--even cars blasting music at all hours can certainly be annoying it was, in a very real way, the voice of the people..

Man Walks Into A Bar, The Sequel

Roommate Kyle (above, after shaving his head this weekend) and his 15 minutes of fame that came after his accidental overnight stay in Trophy Bar was chronicled in the New York Times has a second act. Well, Act 2.5 is all the blog coverage was Act 2. Maybe blog coverage was 1.5, come to think of it. Anyhow, New York Magazine honors Kyle, sort of, in the annual Reasons To Love New York issue. (Do ignore the inexplicably sour review of Trophy Bar that the story links to--one wonders just how bad the writer's day was.)

Oddly, along with the morning batch of e-mails that included news of this was the invite for my next DJ gig with Samo. The last time we DJed together at Trophy Bar was the very night Kyle got locked in there. We return to the scene of the crime Sunday, December 21st.
 
 

Vote Levi

My go-to model Levi Poulter is up for Mate of the Year at DNA Magazine. More reasons from 'return to key west' why he should get your vote below. (NSFW)

Lord Ottenbottom Welcomes The Carte Blanche

Just posted a little something about Thankgsiving in Key West over at my cocktail blog Embury. We took over the toolshed for the second year in a row and turned out some pretty awesome cocktails, I must say.

Full post here.

The Shower Shots

One of my favorite set of photos from return to key west are the ones we did in a friend's outdoor shower--one of the great benefits of life in the sub tropics. I think we hit it when the light was just right, too. More shots here (NSFW).

More below.

Janna Levin

Cosmologist and author Janna Levi is speaking tonight, Thursday December 4th, at the Tribeca branch of the 92nd St. Y (info here). Levin was a speaker at the Key West Literary Seminar earlier this year where she completely won over even resolute science phobes with her engaging, witty and passionate perspective on, well, existence itself.
She also discussed her book 'A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines', an imaginary historical novel about the unlikely but vital friendship between logician Kurt Godel and Alan Turing, the homosexual mathematician who broke the Enigma code that was pivotal in the outcome of WW2. Turing, who is considered the father of modern computer science, was persecuted for his sexuality, and quite horribly.  He was injected with hormones and driven quite mad both by their effects and the cruel isolation he was forced to endure, eventually committing suicide. When I was in Manchester recently I saw this statue of Mancunian Turing in the gay district--note the apple in the statue's hand-Turing killed himself, rather poetically, by eating a poisoned apple.

Check out a podcast from the KWLS with Levin discussing Turing as well as illuminating the mysteries of the universe here. Mark my words, she's so charming and makes incredibly complex subjects so comprehensible that someone is going to tap her to host some kind of regular science talk show.

Tremor of Forgery

In the final panels of 'return to key west' Ryan's reading the Patricia Highsmith novel 'The Tremor of Forgery'. Why? In addition to a having a vivid orange and black cover that worked well with the yellow and orange striped sheet Ryan's laying on and with the intense hot sunlight of these shots, I'm also just a bit obsessed with the book. The author of 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' and the script for 'Strangers on a Train' tells a morally ambiguous, open ended (even for her) tale in this one. A writer goes to Tunisia to finish a screenplay for a studio and his world-and his world view-gradually, almost imperceptibly begins to fall apart, leaving him-and the reader-in some new unfamiliar place. It's a strange, engrossing book that bears a certain resemblance to 'The Sheltering Sky'. The North African desert seems to be a place where Westerners lose their way. Since discovering a copy at Powell's Books a couple years ago (it's out of print, but they have some in stock) I've purchased several copies and handed them all over to people-Ryan took this one on the flight home. I've been convinced there's a great movie there--so much so that when I saw Gus Van Sant at The Abbey in Los Angeles a few months back I threw back a couple recklessness-inducing cocktails and went over to him and assaulted him with a mini-pitch as to why he should direct it. I was totally convinced from the first time I read it that he would be the perfect director, and any of his regular guys could be the screenwriter--Damon, Casey Affleck.  Actually, now that I think about it, James Franco would be great.

That's the kind of stalker I am--I approach directors with movie ideas they must do. A creative, script-clutching, d-girl kinda stalker.

All 'return to key west' posts here.