monsoonmartin

I wanted to introduce a new feature on the weblog: the Monsoonian Rhapsody. It will appear periodically and will consist of—as the tagline suggests—the best of what’s around. In these posts, I will rave about great music I’ve just heard; new television shows or movies; revolutionary, life-changing products; fantastic places to shop; and the like. It’s a little window onto the consumer delights that infuse my life with such joie de vivre.

The first installment will involve three rhapsodies: a CD, a television show, and a glorious new product. En-joie!!

Crowded House - Time on Earth

Witty, introspective songwriting, inventive instrumentation, ambient beauty and superb musicianship distinguish Time on Earth as the New Zealand/Australian band Crowded House’s finest, most coherent work.

Crowded House, formed from the shards of the very good early-80s new wave/pop band Split Enz, released its first album in 1986, which contained such popular songs as “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “Something So Strong.” I had the cassette of this album, and listened to it so often I probably still know every word by heart. They moved on to a series of three uneven, sometimes brooding follow-up albums that produced memorable CH staples like “Better Be Home Soon,” “It’s Only Natural,” “Weather With You,” and “Distant Sun.”

 After the group disbanded in 1996, lead singer and principal songwriter Neil Finn released a couple of fairly well-received (but little noticed) solo albums, collaborated with his big brother Tim (who led Split Enz and had collaborated with Crowded House periodically), and arranged for the release of CH compilations (1996’s Recurring Dream: The Very Best of Crowded House and 2000’s Afterglow, a compendium of b-sides and lost tracks, among which is one of the most gorgeous songs they have ever recorded, “Help is Coming”).

Neil Finn had been working on his third solo album when he received the news that Split Enz and CH drummer Paul Hester, who had a long history of depression and emotional volatility, had committed suicide. As a result Finn began collaborating with former CH bassist Nick Seymour on a series of songs whose underlying themes included loss and grief. They soon realized they wanted to make a new Crowded House album, and auditioned musicians to round out the group.

Released last summer in the US, Time on Earth is by no means uniformly excellent; it does have its lulls (“A Sigh,” “You Are the One to Make Me Cry”) and outright stinkers (“She Called Up,” “Transit Lounge”). But every other track on the album is outstanding, and only gets better with time. There’s the mid-tempo, guitar- and piano-driven lamentation on apathy which opens the CD, “Nobody Wants To.” There’s the upbeat, offbeat musing about GPS technology of “Don’t Stop Now,” the album’s first single and one of its strongest songs. (Its propulsive drums and dreamy melodies remind me of Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979.”)

The three biggest standouts for me, though, are “Pour Le Monde,” “Heaven That I’m Making,” and “Silent House.” The first is a song of protest against the war and tells the story of a soldier wounded in action and the indifferent, cynical politicians that put him there. (“Pour Le Monde” means “For the World.”) The second is an ambient, ominous piece about stumbling upon the meaning of life. The song ends with the lyrics: “If there is hell on earth / there must be heaven too / Both in one place / And not a second to lose.” The third song listed, “Silent House,” was dedicated to the memory of Paul Hester but really deals in a broader sense with all the confused regret and nostalgia that infuses our recollections of home and family. Shockingly (to me, at least, since it’s such a good song) it was co-written by Neil Finn with the Dixie Chicks, who have their own (not shockingly, terrible) version of “Silent House” on their latest album, Taking the Long Way. This powerful, achingly evocative song begins: “These walls have eyes / Rows of photographs and faces like mine / Who do we become / Without knowing where we started from?”

Here is the Time on Earth link on amazon.com’s site , where you can listen to song samples and purchase the CD.

Here is a memorable performance of “Pour Le Monde” from the program “Austin City Limits,” which I watched late one Friday night with my sweet wife.

Primeval

A new show (to us in the US, anyway) show called “Primeval” debuted on BBC America last night, and it was a fantastic bit of fun. It’s a science fiction series involving dinosaurs rampaging through the suburbs, and the first episode was fast-paced and engaging (if marred by a few too many commercial breaks).

It seems there’s a portal that’s opened up in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire, southwest England. The portal is essentially a “rip” in the fabric of the time-space continuum, allowing dinosaurs both large and small, huggable and snarling, to pass through into the present and wreak magnificent havoc in the surrounding area. The cast of characters was assembled (and their backstories introduced) rapidly: a jaded evolutionary biologist, a reptile expert, a curious young boy, a dinosaur fanatic / government conspiracy theorist, and a liaison sent by the Home Office (sort of a British FBI) to keep a lid on the whole thing. It’s frightening but not terrifying, and although the threat of horrid violence certainly looms, it’s not graphically violent thus far.

The first series (we’d call it a “season” here in the states) consisted of six episodes and originally aired on ITV in the UK beginning in February 2007; the 2^nd series (7 episodes) aired in early 2008; the 3^rd series (10 episodes) is currently being filmed.

Here’s a compilation of scenes from the first episode involving the menacing Gorgonopsid.

It’s on Saturday evenings at 9pm on BBC America, and it’s worth checking out!

Lysol Healthy Touch

Hand Sanitizer

Despite the fact that its name seems to be pulled straight from a health-class video for elementary schoolers about protecting themselves from child predators (“Know the difference between a healthy touch and a bad touch, kids…”), this product is an absolute breakthrough for the germophobic / mysophobic community.

[Mysophobia is fear of contact with dirt and filth and is often seen in OCD sufferers; I bet you can guess what germophobes are afraid of.]

The cleanliness of my hands is something I hold very dear—I wouldn’t say I am obsessive about it to the point at which I’m washing my hands over and over and over. But I eschew dirt and soot and like to have something with me to cleanse me of such contaminants should the need arise. And in my line of work, contact with the foulnesses and pathogens emitted by children is unavoidable.

Wet-Naps and the like are useful, but often do not have the cleaning power to do the job that needs to be done. Purell and other hand gels are adept at neutralizing germs, but their high alcohol content often dries out the hands, which makes them more susceptible to further sullying and the introduction of contagions.

Into this dizzying array of products comes the one I will call The One: Lysol’s Healthy Touch Hand Sanitizer, rolled out in spring 2008. I first found it while wandering around a grocery store called Kroger in Louisville during my trip there for the Shakespeare Behind Bars program. (Hey, I had a few extra minutes before I had to meet Curt, and I find it fascinating to see how grocery stores in other places are laid out, what their prices are like, what kinds of exotic products they carry, etc. So sue me.) It turned out that Healthy Touch had been rolled out on a trial basis in Louisville as part of some test marketing, and when I returned to the Reading area I was dismayed to learn it wouldn’t be available there for several more weeks. But when it did come in, I was all over it—as were my students, who loved to use the canister of the product I had on my desk.

Here’s a commercial for Lysol Healthy Touch, which is basically like a horror film for me--albeit one with a happy ending.

It definitely has its alcohol content—it had better, considering its claim of zapping 99.9% of germs—but it also has moisturizing agents and mild fragrances to keep the hands smooth and eliminate that tacky (as in, sticky) Purell feeling. It comes in two sizes—1.58oz and 5.1oz—and coupons appear frequently in the Sunday papers for Healthy Touch. It doesn’t yet seem to be available everywhere (not at Weaver’s or Redner’s to my knowledge) but you can find them at Giant and, I think, Weis.

Getcha some!!

Monsoon