The seventy-fourth TV show: #39 Zorro
While older adventure shows like this can be good fun - especially as they appeal to the young boy in me - in the end their story telling and world is often limited enough that they struggle to hold our interest. There's some interesting struggles here set in Spanish California, but they do tend to lead up to the obligatory fight scene as well as some cleverness as everyone runs around trying to see who Zorro is and needing his help while not wanting to ask for it. There's something satisfying about that, but on the whole it didn't appeal to us to really make it feel that fun.
The seventy-third TV show: #58 Coronation Street
So here we go. The second soap opera, and the first that feels traditional, a near daily show that runs continously without real breaks. There's a big cast, some of whom seem to show up in a scene or two each week while they don't have an ongoing storyline, I guess also to divide the work. I've not been bothered to get deep into the backstory - after all, we're looking at over 50 years of TV here - but it's set on the titular Coronation street in England's north west (with the show being filmed in Manchester - I've seen a corner of the set before). The Barlow familiy has a bit of a focus that - as these shows go - everything emanates from.
It seems to follow the standard soap stories - I'm sure that there are some specific bits, but a lot of the character beats will be familiar. Love stories, betrayals, break ups, everything that's needed to keep things going. What makes it stand out a bit from other soaps I've watched is the sense of place. Sure, you always get specific sets that return, but here it feels like it's connected and people appear in the background or pop up in a scene because they're meant to be there as part of their character, not because they have a bigger role in the scene. Sure, a lot of it is still because of the story, but more than most other things you feel you're coming into this world, and it being familiar to regular viewers would be a big draw that I can see people getting into. I just can't believe it quite as much.
The eighty-seventh album: #87 Love - Forever Changes
Forever Changes starts with Alone Again Or, a well produced larger song that I enjoyed the first time I listened as part of the songs list. And although the mariachi elements disappear slightly, the sound stays more consistent than I was expecting. There's a definite baroque sound to the entire album, making for a pleasant listening experience that feels like it crosses genres and styles enough to also stay interesting.
The fourty-seventh book: #1004 Chaireas and Kallirhoe - Chariton
This ancient love story is possibly the first real novel - according to some of the introduction I read almost their Harlequin style novel. And it starts with the married couple splitting because they think of each other that they're dead, with Callirhoe mostly being followed on her life, as she's so beautiful every man wants her. It's a lot of adventures, near misses and desires, going partially the way you expect, but going for some grander than most of these stories do. It feels different, especially as it's more about reunification, creating a story that has a more interesting plot than most of these.
The eighty-sixth album: Tim Buckley - Goodbye and Hello
We're getting another folk rock album today., leading into psychedelic rock as well as the folk voice is overlaid with electronic sounds that add to an ethereal feel in a lot of the album. The lyrics, in the mean time, are dreamlike in places, supporting the music where it is so, but I also don't feel they often feel quite as evocative as they could be.
Compared to other, possibly more pure folk musicians, some of the songs feature more energy, with a faster, louder guitar and a 'rockier' sound, going a bit harder, which helps keep interest, but I don't find myself getting too much out of the album.
The eighty-fifth album: #85 The Monkees - Headquarters
We'll be watching the Monkees TV show at some point in the future. Today we get their first real album - the third to be published from the band, but the first they played on and wrote themselves. Of course, from my perspective, I'm now comparing that with the Beatles' album released a week later, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. And while that may not be perfection, this feels like it harkens back so much more to old Beatles material (which I think the Monkees were meant to at least somewhat invoke). It's not until Shades of Gray that it went beyond that, a soft, wistful ballad that sounds a lot more unique - the folk direction working for Jones' and Tork's voices.
The second side of the album works better for that reason. Abandoning the love songs, we get more interesting songs, relying on Dolensz as another strong vocalist who gets more focus and more of a mix of styles. They feel like they show more skill and interest, which is a major help. Sunny Girlfriend sounds like a love song, but is played with a hint of sarcasm that really makes it sound that bit better. And then you get Zilch. A spoken track that overlays the four vocalists each repeating a key phrase, creating its own kind of music that feels unique on its own and may well be my standout track of the album, if only because of the statement it makes of the Monkees as artists and writers. And it explains why I know of Mister Bob Dobalina. Another question answered.
The twenty-eighth classical recording: #629 Igor Stravinsky - Rite of Spring
First performed as a ballet in 1913, this piece of music caused a riot, in part due to its weird sounds. These days, we're used to the relative aggression, although that was not unheard of, but also the lack of standard keys as normally used. It's slightly disharmonious, and that's a sound we need to learn to listen to. With rock and the like, we perhaps already have, but I understand it was new at the time.
It still sounds mad and maddening at times, a big mess that coheres into an aggressive setup, working especially well to evoke the pagen rites it's trying to evoke. There are a lot of more restful moments in there, in between the aggressive sounds. It evokes emotions in a way where I can really imagine how a ballet would give shape to these.
The seventy-second TV show: #701 The Colbert Report
When I covered the Daily Show a while ago, it was to come back to a show I'd seen before, trying to get a bit of a sense of its history. I had not really watched The Colbert Report though, so this was to really get me a new insight.
It takes a lot of work and daring to hang a daily news comedy show off a fake news pundit's imaginary show while skewering those views while staying believable. I believe he's currently doing great in his late night talk show (one I haven't seen yet) where he plays himself, but here the character helps. Where Jon Stewart is the annoyed and weary observer, Colbert is actively in the middle of the news, directing you to observe these views more closely instead of getting annoyed at a distance. It feels unique and centering the conversation work in a way that later follow ups didn't quite manage. By sending up these personalities, their rhetorical tricks become more obvious. Colbert stays funny all the way through, not becomes obnoxious even where that would have been easy - by going too far or staying too real.
The fourty-first comic: #947 Giraffes in my Hair
Here's a semi-road strip story, of a hippy in the 60s kicked out of his house and going on a road trip and other adventures. This leads to Disneyland on acid (well, not quite), reaching to all corners of the US and slightly beyond and there's a rebellious streak in him through a lot of this - mostly drug based and some relatively minor crimes. At the same time, and I'm not sure whether this is intentional, it feels a bit petty - trying to defend a rock star image that doesn't really come through. The stories are entertaining, but I'm not sure my sympathy was always quite there.
One of the things it helps is that it's a good setting for the art, which isn't overly detailed. The charcoal art is simple but expressive enough to tell the story, giving it a more memorable look. It works, here, and makes it more pleasant to read. It's a shame the lettering doesn't hold up near the end - one of those things you just don't notice until it goes bad.
The seventy-first TV show: #669 Veronica Mars
We've just watched the first season of this show and it's been a revelation - we expected we'd enjoy the show, but not to the extent that we did.
There's this stereotype of the CW show - good looking teens dealing with their teen problems, a bit formulaic and not usually high quality. It's meant to pander to the (smaller) audiences that watch it. Regularly, though, it comes through with good series - the Arrowverse shows and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are two of those examples now, while shows like Supernatural and Vampire Diaries are in the past. This is another one of those.
While there's some teen drama in here, Kristen Bell and the cast around her are good at elevating their roles and adding more nuances to it. The central mysteries of the first season slowly get expanded on, with a lot of pay offs in the final two episodes - the penultimate one through a lot of recurring guest characters and the final one through a more serious, straightforward resolution that is incredibly satisfying.
We're taking the next two seasons on our own. There is so much here, we have to keep watching.