Remember those commercials back in the '70s that proclaimed, "The rest of the world loves Julio Iglesias!" and you were like, WTF? Well, you're probably still saying that, but I am here to nominate the next "rest of the world" candidate: Laura Pausini . She's a 28 year-old pop star from Italy who records mostly in Italian and Spanish, but also a little in English. I just stumbled upon her music today, and now I can't stop. If it were in English I might be too embarrassed to admit this guilty pleasure, but since it's furren it seems more legitimate. I just listened to her Live in Paris album, and got this incredible power pop sugar rush. Check it out!

The most addictive track for me is "Vivimi". What does that mean, anyway, "Vivimi"? Give me life? It's a wonderful over the top Prom Ballad. Luv it!

Viva Laura!
posted by Lisa Moscatiello  # 3:23 PM | Perma Link   
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I was riding the subway, reading Augusten Burrough's new book of short pieces, called Possible Side Effects, when his description of a trip to England made me laugh out loud, repeatedly, until long after I got off the train, unexpectedly ran into my therapist on the street, and sat through a movie about pedophilia and self-mutilation. I was chuckling to myself the whole time.

All his books are funny, honest, and moving. They deal with dysfunctional families, gay life, personal ads, filthy apartments, pets, being a drunk, recovery, and much more. Some of his most hilarious pieces concern his stint as an advertising writer and the absurdities of that industry. I have enjoyed all of his books, but I think Possible Side Effects registered the highest on the laugh Richter scale.

Right then on the telly, live open-heart surgery. Again, why? Why don't we have this? We have similar shows on various cable stations. But they're heavily packaged. With graphics and music and a plotline, edited together to create tension and suspense. But this is relaxed surgery. It's live and it's real and a little boring. But the payoff: the person might die. They never die on U.S. television. But here in the United Kingdom, they just might. And I will be right here, watching.

Oh, Augusten, how I love you! I've read ALL of your books now - Sellevision:A Novel; Dry: A Memoir; Magical Thinking, and of course Running with Scissors, although at the time I was using it more as a prop when the person I was desperately in love with was blowing me off and I had to look like I was absorbed in something else. But I got the jist, and I plan to see the movie, and even then, you were there for me, man! It's Thanksgiving, and I'm thankful for you!
posted by Lisa Moscatiello  # 1:16 PM | Perma Link   
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Over the past few weeks I've been getting these mysterious emails from a person named "MICHELE READ." The emails are always really vague and aren't selling anything, but they all have attachments with unsettling titles like "Help Find this Missing Child!" and "Mastectomy Bill". I'm too scared to respond, and there is no way I'm opening the attachments, although I am curious about their contents. Along with my name on the list of recipients are the names of other people, none of which I recognize. They all tend to sound like fake names that you'd see in a Roz Chast cartoon, like "Ruth Anne Esposito," "Darby Shumway" and "Mike and Mary Lou Boris." Who are these people? Is this a virus? Who is Michele Read?
posted by Lisa Moscatiello  # 10:56 AM | Perma Link   
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Have you ever seen paintings of medieval scholars, bent over their books with candles dripping wax, and a skull sitting in the window? That was a tradition to remind them of where we all end up, to keep them humble, and to spur them to be productive and not waste time.

A few years ago I stumbled upon this great web site that had a similar effect on me. It's called Deathclock.com It allows you to enter in certain coordinates - your age, your body mass index (it gives you a calculating tool for that), whether or not you smoke, and something about your frame of mind. Your can choose from Optimistic, Nomal, Pessimistic, and Sadistic. Using these factors, the site calculates your "Personal Day of Death."

When I calculated my personal day of death, I was told that I only had about 15 years left! I tried changing around the different variables, making myself twenty pounds thinner, or saying I was a smoker. The only thing that changed my outcome significantly for the better was lying and saying that I was an "Optimist" instead of a Pessimist. This added years to my life!!

So I did a little math: If I'm depressed, I only have fifteen years to live. And if I only have fifteen years left, I sure don't want to be depressed the whole time! I decided to go on antidepressants. They worked! (They seem to have made me gain weight, but as I learned from Deathclock, this won't make that much difference in my longevity.)

Although it's probably not completely "scientific," I found this a very useful exercise. Go ahead and give it a spin.
posted by Lisa Moscatiello  # 7:49 AM | Perma Link   
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True confession - I don't like Irish piano. It's almost always either this really clunky, corny, boom-chuck Ceili style with zero subtlety, or it's overly ornate and new age, recorded in an echo chamber with fake strings. About two weeks ago, I played a concert at the Cellar Stage in Baltimore with a group of locally-based musicians on the trad. Irish scene. For some reason I had never before played with pianist Donna Long, who has been in the area for about twenty years and who performed for several years on the national circuit with Cherish the Ladies. After hearing Donna, I am going to have to revisit my position on Irish music + piano.

I knew Donna was really tasteful at backing tunes, but I'd only really ever heard her in sessions and had never heard her solo. For her solo spot in this concert, she chose one of my favorites, an O'Carolan tune called "Bridget Cruise", which I knew from the late Derek Bell's solo harp album. It's a stately, elegiac piece that is so perfectly composed that it almost plays itself. Donna's interpretation was innovative but respectful, with subtle jazz inflections and impressionistic touches. I knew from that one tune that I would love her CD, Handprints, and I got one that night. I have since listened to it dozens of times.

She is a virtuouso. She obviously has had "legit" training - she plays with a sure touch, sensitivity and clarity that belies years of scales, Hanon, and other forms of torture, no doubt. It's tricky, playing this music and interpreting it in a way that is individual yet within the tradition. In some musicians the urge to innovate leads to experimentation that is forced and downright silly . Donna's approach reminds me instead of one of my favorite Irish musicians - Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll. Both musicians have a way of breaking down a tune and polishing it until every melodic and harmonic possibility that was already there is made to shine, rather than superimposing arbitrary flourishes for the purpose of showing off. I was just thinking that Liz and Donna would make a fantastic dream team, when I opened the booklet and read the liner note 'essay' - which was written by none other than Liz Carroll

While known as a great accompanist of Irish dance music, on this CD Donna plays melody on all of the tunes, which is fairly uncommon for a pianist. Irish tunes are intricately melodic, and the piano doesn't easily lend itself to the requisite triplets (hitting the same note rapidly several times in a row) and other forms of ornamentation commonly used in Irish tunes. I've heard other recordings by musicians who play jigs and reels on atypical instuments - Dick Gaughan's Coppers and Brass on guitar is one - and my reaction is, okay, you did it, so what? It's more like an athletic activity just to show you can . Donna, by contrast, slows down the jigs and reels to a heartbeat and lets them breathe. Her readings of chestnuts like the "Blarney Pilgrim." the "Banshee" and the "Pinch of Snuff" seem to tell stories, and remind the listener why these tunes are classics. She seems to gravitate toward tunes that are slightly melancholy, which is probably why they happen to be some of my favorites, like the hornpipe "Jackie Tar" and "Maguire's March".

Where Donna really blossoms, though is on the airs. The aforementioned money song, "Bridget Cruise," is on this disk and is breathtaking. On the "Lark in the Clear Air," she channels Bill Evans from his "Live at the Village Vanguard" era. I can practically hear the glasses clinking at the tables. Like Evans, Donna uses colors from the French impressionist palette to dazzling, hypnotic effect.

She saves the best piece, her original composition, "Luna" for last. On this piece she is joined by Billy McComiskey on button accordion and Liz Knowles on fiddle and viola. The tune brings out the best in all three players, as each takes a turn at the melody while the others weave in and out, with all three breathing as one. This is an instant classic. It's one of those mournful, achingly gorgeous melodies with an epic quality that should land it a feature as the soundtrack for an Oscar winning film.

You can hear samples from this recording (and buy it) at Donna's CDBaby Page here.
posted by Lisa Moscatiello  # 3:04 PM | Perma Link   
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"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
posted by Lisa Moscatiello  # 10:25 AM | Perma Link   
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Wow. As the smoke from the World Trade Center was still wafting over Manhattan, I asked myself if music might now be irrelevant. What is the most appropriate art form for this new era? I actually have not sufficiently answered the music question for myself (hence my current semi-sabbatical), but I have fortunately discovered the artist whom I feel most fittingly taps into the Zeitgeist in a miraculously healing manner. I've already commented on this blog about how funny and entertaining radio talker Stephanie Miller is, but in the past week she has reached new levels of sublimity. She is In The Zone.
Her show, which she broadcasts for three hours every week day with co-stars Jim Ward and Chris LaVoie, perfectly articulates the horror and wonder of these times. It's fast-paced, improvisational, tragicomic, highbrow and lowbrow. It's interactive and democratic, featuring interviews with senators alongside audio clips of jingles composed by fans and montages of angry phone calls from listeners. My favorite evolving bit concerns one funny and touching contretemps with a little old lady from Miami named Mildred, who started out as an irate caller and has now become Stephanie's new unofficial grandmother. This show is postmodern, post-9-11, postfeminist, post-everything. Nothing is off limits as fodder for comedy, from Kim Jong Il to Stephanie's own cosmetic surgery and personal freshness.
Earlier this week, a man nicknamed "Sock," who had seen Stephanie on Fox's Hannity and Colmes TV show, wrote her the above letter, in which he essentially threatened to have her killed. What did she do in response? Stephanie, who is the daughter of Barry Goldwater's running mate, and who cut her show business teeth doing standup at trashy obscure comedy clubs, is apparently able to withstand just about any tomato Human Nature can toss at her. Before phoning the FBI, she called and talked to the guy ON THE AIR. And it was funny! On this mp3, to me, Stephanie demonstrates that she is the talk radio equivalent of Michael Jordan, Lenny Bruce, and Charlie Parker. This is what it's all about. This makes me want to weep. Check it out here.
posted by Lisa Moscatiello  # 11:07 AM | Perma Link   
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