Sympathy for Lady Vengeance OST

Yeong-wook Jo's theme is based around Vivaldi's "Ah ch'infelice sempre," which you can listen to here, and sticking with this, the score is heavily baroque influenced. Several tracks are adapted from Vivaldi concertos, and set into the context of the entire frantic, swirling, delicate score, the darkness and tragedy of the movie is perfectly conveyed. The only off-track will be based on personal taste, and that's if you don't like creepy little kids, which track 12 features. Also adapted into the score is a fabulous, typically disgustingly virtuoustic Paganini Caprice, as if we all had crazy weird syndrome fingers. You can watch Jascha Heifetz play the original track here. Check out the mad left hand pizzacato around 3:50.

If you haven't seen the film yet, I certainly recommend it. Lady Vengeance is the third of Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance Trilogy, and I am sorry to say I'm still working on getting a moment to sit down and watch Oldboy, which is purported to be the best of the three. Lady Vengeance follows the main character as she leaves prison and takes her revenge on those who sent her there. Sounds like a predictable plot, but the movie takes a peculiar turn at the end when our protagonist, Lee Geum-ja, discovers that the man she has been following is more than he seems, and she begins to involve others who have been hurt by him in her plot. The film is beautifully shot, which made watching it on Youtube frustrating, so I'd definitely recommend grabbing a good quality version to experience the colors and movements and scenes that make this lush, visually exciting film. You can check out the trailer here.

• Sympathy for Lady Vengeance by Yeong-wook Jo, OST
  
• Buy from Amazon

Paul Newman is Dead

And a lot of what was good about this world is gone from it. Paul Newman was a movie icon, an American icon, a great actor, completely badass, was married to the same woman for 50 years, a true philanthropist who went beyond your usual Hollywood $10,000 per natural disaster and whose foundation will continue to give and whose camps will continue to improve lives, and a gorgeous and graceful human being. If you have a chance, read this excellent Vanity Fair article on Mr Newman.

Here's the statement issued by Newman's Own Foundation:

Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one's life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were. True to his character, he quietly devoted himself to helping offset this imbalance.

An exceptional example is the legacy of Newman's Own. What started as something of a joke in the basement of his home, turned into a highly-respected, multi-million-dollar-a-year food company. And true to form, he shared this good fortune by donating all the profits and royalties he earned to thousands of charities around the world, a total which now exceeds $250 million.

While his philanthropic interests and donations were wide-ranging, he was especially committed to the thousands of children with life-threatening conditions served by the Hole in the Wall Camps, which he helped start over 20 years ago. He saw the Camps as places where kids could escape the fear, pain and isolation of their conditions, kick back and raise a little hell. Today, there are 11 Camps around the world, with additional programs in Africa and Vietnam. Through the Camps, well over 135,000 children have had the chance to experience what childhood was meant to be.

In Paul's words: "I wanted to acknowledge luck; the chance and benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, who might not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it."

Paul took advantage of what life offered him, and while personally reluctant to acknowledge that he was doing anything special, he forever changed the lives of many with his generosity, humor, and humanness. His legacy lives on in the charities he supported and the Hole in the Wall Camps, for which he cared so much.

We will miss our friend Paul Newman, but are lucky ourselves to have known such a remarkable person.

I just ran out and bought some Newman's Own lemonade (pink!) and I was not-quite-surprised to see that Morton Williams was down to the last 5 or 6 cartons on the shelf. You can watch some of his movies on-demand at Amazon. And now all the guys on my wall (behind my desk) are dead.

Decency seems to have come easily to Mr. Newman himself, as evidenced by his philanthropic and political endeavors, which never devolved into self-promotion. It was easy to take his intelligence for granted as well as his talent, which survived even the occasional misstep. At the end of “The Drowning Pool,” a woman wistfully tells Mr. Newman, I wish you’d stay a while. I know how she feels. [Manohla Dargis]

Some thoughts after surfing people.com

i. I have a people.com newsfeed on my google homepage. Yes. I suck. But. . .

1. Thanks to the dearth of the word "Transplants" in the articles about Travis Barker on that site and elsewhere, here's your fun and games for tonight: tell me your 5 favorite Transplants songs. Go!

(in no real order, click for files)

• Gangsters and Thugs [Haunted Cities]
• DJ DJ [s/t]
• California Babylon [s/t]
• Doomsday [Haunted Cities]
• Romper Stomper [s/t]

Buy Haunted Cities & s/t.

2. Clay Aiken is gay. The reaction from fans has been one of "surprise and support." Somebody is going to hafta explain to me the whole 'surprising' part of this.

lesson is. . .

getting a little stir crazy here on a sunday night.

gotham. (anybody else get any pictures of last week's full moon? pretty sweet.)

this is my verandaah. . . it's a foot wide. it's used to hold my cheapass leaky candles and one of my temp roomie's cigarette butts. (luckies.)

you speakerboxxx guys! and certainly no love below! rose.

and in the end, gary cooper made me do it. like ken said, if gary says so, it's on.

ok. back to work. happy sunday kids!

Gary Cooper Likes What We Like

Sorta. Because if I have the choice (and the cash), I'll be drinking something other than PBR. But it's GARY COOPER for chrissakes. If he tells me to do it. . . I'm kinda 110% there.

[Full view]

[Full view]

Note the packaging up there. This ad is from 1937, before Luckies "went to war" in 1942 and stopped using green on their packaging. While this was pitched as a patriotic step to save the copper claimed to be used in the green dye (actually chromium), it was really an effort to update the design and, among other things, appeal to the ladies.

For more info on Luckies going to war, check out this article. For more Gary Cooper endorsement goodness, go here. Vintage ads galore.

And- watch Mr Deeds Goes to Town in parts on Youtube, also starring the ultra fabulous Jean Arthur. And don't take my word for it. Some guy named Graham Greene kinda likes it, too--

Mr. Deeds is Capra's best film (it is on quite a different intellectual level from the spirited and delightful It Happened One Night), and that means it is a comedy quite unmatched on the screen. For Capra has what Lubitsch, the witty playboy, has not: a sense of responsibility, and what Clair, whimsical, poetic, a little precious and a la mode, has not, a kinship with his audience, a sense of common life, a morality: he has what even Chaplin has not, complete mastery of his medium, and that medium the sound film, not the film with sound attached to it.... I do not think anyone can watch Mr. Deeds for long without being aware of a technician as great as Lang employed on a theme which profoundly moves him: the theme of goodness and simplicity manhandled in a deeply selfish and brutal world.

What I Did This Summer Vol I: Europe

This summer I was lucky enough to be able to go to NUI Galway for a creative writing course, so I spent a month in Galway (really great place), then a weekend in Cong at a hostel where they played THIS every night hells yeah, a day in Dublin (heads up: Dublin airport, not so hot for sleeping over as there is an announcement every five minutes: please do not leave your bag unattended or we will DESTROY it), down to Italy with family friends in an AC-less flat for a week, then up into France for some solo backpacking (or rather, rollerbagging) to visit the D-Day beaches: recommendation- if you only have a few days, the musuem/guided tours are definitely worth the price. Guess what isn't? The Eurail Pass. Fuckers. Learned some valuable lessons, too. Use the duty free store for epic cowboy/Mexican showers. Bring shawls whilst in Italy if you wanna get in the churches. Stay up all night before your flight and you will pass the fuck out for your transatlantic like a sorority girl who left her drink at the bar when she went to take a pee-pee. All told, exceeding exhausting, fun, and I think I'll stay in the US for awhile, which I did to the nth degree two days after I got back on an EPIC road trip, so stay tuned for Vol II. xoxo b

Ireland (Galway, Cong AKA Inisfree!, Inishbofin, Spiddal)

Normandy et Amiens

Italy (Padua, Venice)

London

And please!, tell me about your epic/wacky/wackadoo/lame/sweet summers!

Zero. Coke Zero.

hello kind hearts > coronets. we're back up and running, hopefully consistently, hopefully magnificently. i'll be doing the age-old slideshow of what the hell i've been up to (don't worry, it'll be short.) i'm on my way out but i had a great urge to post something in the normal swing o' things, so here's your dose of I went to Pitchfork so you didn't hafta! for. . .

. . . a bit of the new Jack White Bond theme via Coke Zero. You can watch it at the Coke Ads blog- it's what you'd expect, your typical Bond opening ("a homage to the Bond movie franchise's highly stylised pre-credit sequences," they say), but with Coke! Zero!

The song actual does sound like Jack White meets Bond-- White Stripes chords meets jazzy, cocky Bond orchestration. Jack White's pissed that this is the way the world is hearing his song, and I guess I can't blame him since Coke Zero isn't exactly my Coke of choice. But don't listen to me, I prefer Diet (with a lime, please.) Enjoy & see you soon!

• Quantum of Solace Coke Zero Promo

hey kids

i will be back soon! i've finally settled into my place after a crazy summer and some sucky vagrancy, and school is starting up again and some leader of the free world (no, Rick Astley is NOT the official say NA endorsement) are supposed to be on campus tomorrow so things are gonna suck in terms of getting around, but never fear, because we will be back up and running after this long unintentional hiatus, so watch this spot in the next few days!