Sarah Palin is upset about this past Sunday's episode:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/palin-family-says-family-guy-writers-are-heartless-jerks/#preview

Anyone who is the least bit familiar with "Family Guy" would tell you that the writers were actually pretty tame in this episode...in fact, I thought they were fairly respectful and even made a good point about how just because someone has a disability doesn't necessarily mean they are nice and kind as some of us would automatically think. If you compare this episode to the infamous AIDS one or how the writers regularly mock and treat eating disorders with such insensitivity this one is amazingly low-key!

Since I'm really a 19th century girl living in the 21st I found this article in Sunday's New York Times very interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/opinion/14epstein.html

 

I can't stand the taste of peeps, but I do think they make for great art!:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/peeps

...Supernatural Hunger...

I've never been so hungry that I would plunge my hands into a vat of boiling french fries and after watching last night's "Supernatural" I now know I never will be. But that horrific little moment from the episode touches on how bad and dangerous hunger can be...and not necessarily a hunger confined to food. In "My Bloody Valentine" the Winchester brothers find out just what happens when Biblical Famine comes to town.

Ever since "Supernatural" introduced a distinctly Christian background to the show (particularly in a Revelations sense) in the fourth season I have been surprisingly caught up in how raw and un-Touched By An Angel-like a Christian-themed show can actually be. There's no worrying here that at least one character is going to light up like a Christmas tree fifty minutes into the program...here we get a more realistic sense of the Bible's darkness...or at least how realistic a show called "Supernatural" can be.

more on this later...about the White Castle burgers...one of the angels on "Supernatural" was chowing down on these for most of the episode...his name is "Castiel" and he's played with charming solemnity by actor Misha Collins:

 

Today I have been full of unexplained anxiety...maybe it was all the coffee I drank early this morning or the fact that I have quickly broken off my once beloved relationship with snow and feel I'm going to freak if I see one more flake of white. One thing I know for sure...the "Out of Africa" soundtrack always calms my soul as best it can:)...

Barry's score captures the beauty of Africa and the freedom of flying and I always feel so lifted after I listen to it...

Other terrific film scores include:
(also composed by John Barry)




(amazing!!!)








If you were going to musically score the biggest heartbreak of your life, this might be how it would sound. The sadness and pain would come not with an angry bang or a soft whimper, but rest instead in an understated dark beauty, evoking images of cold prairie nights or horse and rider moving through unblemished snow, no one else in sight.

One reviewer on allmusic.com referred to the album The Assassination of Jesse James as a "sophisticated undertaking, full of narrative." When I watched the movie for the first time, it wasn’t the acting that captivated me, but the sounds of such pieces as "Rather Lovely Thing." It sits low in your chest and refuses to leave, until you’re ready to release it. Part of the amazing atmosphere comes from Nick Cave’s willingness to experiment with different instruments such as the Hohner guitaret, which is closely associated with the harmonica and accordion.

A soundtrack as good as this one can only help the film it accompanies, taking something that already has simple majesty and making it even more lovely and breathtaking. I normally only like to listen to scores while I’m reading or resting quietly at home, but I’ve had this in my car lately because it helps me deal with the overwhelming madness of rush hour. It’s calming, but never lures you into a false sense of security…which is a must for anyone braving nasty traffic that even outlaws like Jesse James never could have handled.