Monday Sundries

[offbalance]

+ Awesome weekend was awesome. I spent it with great people and had a great time seeing The Swell Season, Suspicious Package, and several wonderful friends (and my sister!!).

- One of the things I saw this weekend was Couples Retreat. It was unspeakably awful. This movie was the worst pile of crap I've sat through for a long time. I'm only sorry that j_bkl, airspaniel and rockradar had to sit through it as well. It was chock-full of awful stereotypes of every stripe, and we had to watch a collection of shrill, unlikeable people go through couples therapy and somehow reconcile, and I'm not even sure how they managed to do that. I remember reading in Entertainment Weekly that this film was the bastard child of John Cassavetes and Judd Apatow - and I can only say that I wish it were even half that good. Remove it from your queue posthaste, it is time you will never get back..

- I do not approve of this at all. The Bon Vivant was a classic NYC coffee shop; stable, comforting, good food, nice staff, and owned by the same family for eons. Now, they're messing with a good thing. I will try the new place, probably. But I am unpleased by this development.

+/- I have been assured that this article is accurate, but even when I was a wee thing, most "children's" stuff made me itch. When I am home later I may listen to some of the linked-to songs in the article, but as someone who was raised on a steady diet of music from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, I find it extremely hard to believe that kids need special music. Sure, maybe pay attention to what's playing and keep Nelly off the radio, but you don't have to condemn yourself to a non-stop rotation of Yo Gabba Gabba and the Wiggles. Most music, in fact, is kid friendly. In fact, the very coolest kid I know loves Talking Heads and James Brown. So there.

- I have not yet seen Mad Men . This is annoying me far more than I expected.

+ I caught a chunk of Away We Go and laughed my ass off. Can't WAIT for that one to come from Netflix.

+ The Ziegfield is included in free movie tuesdays at Clearview Cinemas!!

- Due to a stupid premiere, I can't buy my tickets in advance I have to wait until tomorrow. :P

- Monday is being a real pain in my ass.

Comments

[firynze.livejournal.com]

One of my writers has been raising his child on a steady diet of eclectic 80s blackwave and German EBM. The child is adorable. Another is raising his on a diet of opera. I myself was raised on Grand Canyon Suite and Peter and the Wolf, plus 50s music. Kids don't need special Yanni/Yo Gabba Gabba crap. Hono.

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

Peter and the Wolf! I adore that piece of music. I also loved all the music Vince Guraldi did for the Charlie Brown specials, and all the classical music in the Looney Tunes cartoon. I was singing Wagner and Mozart at 5 and had NO idea.

KILL THE WABBIT!

[firynze.livejournal.com]

PatW was my first album. I think I still have it in the spare room at my parents' house. :-D

I liked Rabbit of Seville the best. :-D

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Yo Gabba Gabba is actually pretty great, based on what I've heard. It's well-composed rock, rap, punk, and hip hop about...brushing your teeth and doing your homework.

*shrug* I enjoyed it.

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

See, as a wee thing, I kind of resented those songs. I already knew to brush my teeth and do my homework, and I wanted to listen to music that wasn't manipulating or pandering to me (even though I didn't quite know those words yet). It's why I stole my mom's walkman and Beach Boys tapes after not too long.

You're talking to the kid who informed her Kindergarten teacher that while "Puff the Magic Dragon" was a good enough song, "Leaving on a Jet Plane" was way better, and could we listen to that instead?

[queenmother49.livejournal.com]

Yo Gabba Gabba is designed for kids between Bell and Cara's age...who don't know yet about brushing their teeth consistently except that I tell them to. Also, they are learning an essential skill from this show, beatboxing from Biz Markie.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying Yo Gabba Gabba is awful and shouldn't be played to children! I'm just saying that shouldn't be ALL they listen to - "kids' albums" and whatnot. Give 'em non-targeted music, too!

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Robbie Schaffer, the first guy quoted in the kids' music article, is in Eddie From Ohio.

There's a big influx of family/kids' music being made in the folk scene as the artists have kids and write music for them.

[queenmother49.livejournal.com]

just look at some of the stuff that Jerry Garcia did...

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Clearview Free Movie Tuesdays are the best thing ever. Caveat: if it's a new movie, show up WAY early to get tickets AND to get seated, or you'll be craning your neck in the front row.

You know that you get discounted tickets all the other days of the week too, right?

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

But of course! :) I've not mentioned it here, but I've been hip to the freebies for a long time. Usually we try to get tickets the day before to make sure we get in, and then we just have to worry about showing up. J loves sitting close up, though.

We do the Chelsea a lot, but since Inception is at the Ziegfeld, we're doing that tomorrow (hopefully.)

And we've done the discounted ones, but free>cheap.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Waitaminute, you can get free Clearview Tuesday tickets the day before? I...am not sure we ever even considered that. You're such a smartie.

Free definitely > cheap, but we like to keep the cheap option in mind for when we're going with a bunch of friends, or the timing doesn't quite work out.

Inception is the best of all the theaters, because it's so huge they're almost never sold out, and you can nearly always get a good seat. We're also hitting up Inception tomorrow, but I think we're heading to Bedford or Larchmont.

[queenmother49.livejournal.com]

Not all children's music is awful. Don't get me wrong, there is an enormous amount of tripe, but there is some that's fantastic. And if you grew up listening to albums like Letter B, or really liked the Rainbow Connection you have already been subjected to "kid music." There is nothing wrong with being able to look at your picky eater and break out the Yo Gabba Gabba classic "There's a Party in my Tummy." Don't get me wrong, my kids also like Slayer and the Ramones, but I'm going to stop them from listening to the "They Might Be Giants" kids records, or singing along about not biting their friends.

People censor too much around kids now, but maybe that's because music stopped having innuendo and simply started writing lyrics like, "It's Gettin' hot in here so take off all your clothes..."

[video-jukebox.livejournal.com]

On the Bon Vivant: I said it once, and I'll say it again: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

On kids' music: On the one hand, I found myself cringing one day when I glanced over the shoulder of a young boy standing in front of me on the subway-- couldn't have been much older than seven-- and saw he was listening to "Sex Therapy" by Robin Thicke on his iPod. On the other hand, I can remember dancing to "Venus In Furs" by the Velvet Underground when I was four. *shrugs*

I will say that I still have a soft spot in my heart for almost every musician I've ever seen on Sesame Street-- Cab Calloway, Smokey Robinson, Lena Horne, etc. The impression I walked away with was essentially that, if they were on Sesame Street, they must be pretty awesome. I'm hoping that kids today will walk away with a similar impression when they see bands like Of Montreal or Andrew Bird on Yo Gabba Gabba.

J5, Prince, & TMBG

[reppep.livejournal.com]

J also likes Jurassic 5 and Prince, although as she hears the lyrics a bit more these days, we tend to cringe. Don't knock TMBG, though -- both their kid and adult stuff is fine, notably Here Comes Science.

She does like Bugs Bunny music (that's the only context she hears it in), although she hasn't watched much 'Toons at all yet.

I played Beat It / Eat It and Bad / Fat for her this week, and Julia was fascinated. This was full of Win, although I suspect she will end up liking MJ more than WAY...

FWIW, I liked both Puff and Leavin', although I Dig Rock & Roll Music is better (although I didn't get the irony), and I am *still* peeved at the stupid perversity of If I Had a Hammer.