O is for Oasis

Do you recognize the Stevie Wonder song the chorus of Step Out by Oasis echoes?

oasisOasis is a British band of the 1990s and beyond, about which I know relatively little:

1) The group has often been described as Beatlesque,
2) The members have occasionally been accused of copyright infringement, and
3) The band, for a time, included brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, who fought a lot, as brothers in these sagas often do.

I have but one album, and it’s the album that everyone who has but one Oasis album owns, the one that starts with a revisiting of the Gary Glitter song Hello [LISTEN].

Oasis had their first UK number one single in April 1995 with Some Might Say[LISTEN] … Although a softer sound led to mixed reviews, Oasis’ second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? was a commercial success, becoming the fourth best-selling album in UK Chart history with over four million copies sold. The album spawned two further hit singles, Wonderwall [LISTEN] and Don’t Look Back in Anger [LISTEN], which also reached numbers two and one respectively. [They got to #8 and #55 in the US, respectively]. It also contained the non-UK single Champagne Supernova [LISTEN] —featuring guitar playing and backing vocals by Paul Weller—that received widespread critical acclaim and peaked at number one on the US modern rock chart [and #20 on the US pop charts].

Here’s Step Out, which was removed from the Morning Glory album and relegated to a B-side. Stevie Wonder now has a co-writing credit; do you recognize the Wonder song this chorus echoes?

Apparently, the band has broken up and Noel Gallagher says the band will NEVER reunite, but that this album will be remastered soon.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Easter is new

“God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.” But the Greek word used for “justice” ALSO means “righteousness”.

eastereggsOne of the things my pastors, and pastors before them, have often said is that you should be different on Good Friday than you were on Ash Wednesday. It’s not always easy to do that. The texts tend to be SO familiar that one has a tendency to “mail it in,” theologically. “Oh, yeah, that scripture; I know EXACTLY what that means.” I think, remarkably, that I did not “mail it in” this Lent.

Frankly, I’ve been puzzled by people who look at Scripture as though God handed it down in 17th century English. It was helpful that our pastors have been doing sermons on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5), getting us to look at things differently. Verse 6 is: “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.” But the Greek word used for “justice” ALSO means “righteousness”. That’s a very different emphasis, and one can use one or the other, and come to different conclusions; alternatively, one can use BOTH terms and see it yet another way.

I used to see the story of the poor widow in Mark 12 putting in her last two coins as merely a sign of her fidelity to her faith. But after having read Jesus for President, I can’t help but wonder if the exploitative temple system that drains the woman’s ability to care for herself ticked off Jesus so much that he ends up driving out the money lenders in the previous chapter.

Here’s hoping that, regardless of your theology, that this is a time for looking at the familiar in a new, and possibly challenging, way.

The newish computer

The first thing I say is: “Where the heck is the Start button?” I had to Read The (Online) Manual to figure out where it was.

The Dell laptop that the Wife had purchased a few years back was dying. Even after buying a replacement battery, it wouldn’t operate without being constantly plugged in, and took FOREVER to start if we turned it off, loading several options very slowly, or often not at all. This meant that one could, say, download a picture to the computer, but not upload it to the blog. One could write a document, but could not save it.

Also, keys started falling off. One was the quote key. (Note to readers: if I wrote don’t as dont in the last few months, it’s not that I can’t spell.) Another was the /? key. There were a couple of others. It became a royal PITA.

So in late October, I ordered another Dell computer on the recommendation of my IT support St. Louis friend, and it arrived a week or so later. It sat in the box. And sat. And sat…

Until March. More about March when I finally answer New York Erratic’s question about the worst time of the past year. (No, I haven’t forgotten.) One of the issues I had though, was that I needed to type the February 24 minutes of the board of the Friends of the Albany Public Library. In spite of everything else on my plate, I realized that I HAD to figure out the new computer so that I could at least check ONE item off the list.
Windows_8_Start
I turn it on, and the first thing I say is: “Where the heck is the Start button?” I had to Read The (Online) Manual to figure out where it was, and that Windows 8 was installed on my computer. (A few days after I turned on the machine, someone told me, “Whatever you do, DON’T download Windows 8.” I imagine many people have since Microsoft is no longer offering support for Windows XP and Office 2003.) Oh, swell.

Anyway, I figure out, kinda, how this thing is supposed to work. I go to the Office suite button. It asks me if I want to buy the product. Do I have to BUY the product separately? Suffice it to say, it took another week before I could FINALLY use the contraption correctly. This involved, among other things having someone uninstall one of the security products I installed because it actually made the computer LESS secure. Product A thought Product B was taking care of the bugs, so neither one actually worked.

All this, BTW, adds to my personal narrative that I’m not particularly comfortable with these computer thingies. Some people THINK I’m better than I am because I know infinitesimally more than they do. It’s like getting a 12-year-old to explain some complex scientific discovery because he might know more than a 10-year-old.

Fridays in Lent: Handel Messiah, Part 2

I’ve performed Part 2 of Handel’s Messiah, which is the Passion/Resurrection section, far less frequently than Part 1.

HaendelOne year for Christmas, I gave my sister the score of the entire Messiah, we sang from it so much in high school. Since then I’ve sung much of Part 1, the section associated with Advent/Christmastime, at least a half dozen times. I’ve performed Part 2, which is the Passion/Resurrection section, far less frequently, except, of course, the Hallelujah, which I sing every Easter Sunday.

Read the Wikipedia piece.

LISTEN to the live performance.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel Is a cleverly oddball screwball comedy caper, yet melancholy tale of murder,

Grand_Budapest_HotelIn the first scene of The Grand Budapest Hotel, a young woman or girl walks through a cemetery, and I realize “She looks like a Wes Anderson character.” Is it the sensible shoes, or the way she walked? Not sure. Strange, because I had only seen two earlier Anderson films, The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), which I did not love, and Moonrise Kingdom (2012), which I enjoyed greatly.

This is “The adventures of Gustave H [Ralph Fiennes] , a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero [newcomer Tony Revolori], the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend” during a period when the world is rapidly changing. The tale is told by Mr. Moustafa [F. Murray Abraham], owner of the title structure. It’s a cleverly oddball screwball comedy caper, yet the melancholy tale of murder, theft, and love.

It’s so well made that one forgets how much skill is involved. It includes some stop-motion animation bits which I can only imagine would be diminished on home video. I laughed aloud more than a few times, almost all in the second half.

I rather liked this summary from James Berardinelli of ReelViews: “It offers an engaging 90+ minutes of unconventional, comedy-tinged adventure that references numerous classic movies while developing a style and narrative approach all its own.” Some elements of homage, yet its own film.

LOTS of familiar faces in the large cast, well used. Special props to Tilda Swinton, who plays an 84-year-old woman. My friend Steve Bissette noted that the highlights for him “included Willem Dafoe’s monstrous boogeyman/family hit man and Harvey Keitel’s appearance.”

He called the film an “absurdist faux-continental adventure and among Anderson’s most entertaining confections (and that’s saying a lot), with the usual precocity those who don’t enjoy Anderson’s work will revile and those of us who do savor.”

This was one of those exceedingly rare times we went out on a Friday night, to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, and actually saw at least five people we knew, two in that very showing. So people really DO go out on date night. I never knew…
***
I read a review of someone recently seeing Frozen. The reviewer wondered “Why on earth did this movie become a cultural touchstone?… It just wasn’t nearly as fantastic as people have made it out to be…” Then she answers her own question: “I suspect I would have enjoyed it much more if I hadn’t gone into watching it with the knowledge that it has become so popular. I was expecting a lot more, and I think high expectations kind of ruined it for me.” I totally agree, And if she saw it on video, rather than in the theater – I don’t know – THAT would be significantly important in a first viewing.

 

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