T-shirt #273 - U2 - Vertigo

T-shirt #273 - U2 - Vertigo

I am feeling a little guilty. I have not yet made a list of favorite bands. Recently, I made a list of favorite women musical artists. But I had not yet made the list of favorite bands of all time. I made a partial list in T-shirt #238 - The Clash, but it was incomplete. In that list, I did not even mention U2.

Now, granted, I was making a list of greatest bands of all time in a more empirical way in the Clash post, not a list of MY favorite bands, which are really two different things. I would put the Beatles in a top five best bands of all time list, no question, but I would not put them in my personal top five favorites.

Favorites are a very subjective thing. And I think I throw the word favorite around too easily on this blog. Can I really have as many favorites as I claim to have favorites? Doesn't the number diminish the specialness? In other words, the more favorites I claim to have, the less special each becomes. Ultimately, the list could grow so large that I have to make a list of favorite favorites and another list of leftovers: just regular favorites.

TOP TEN FAVORITE BANDS
... okay, actually the top thirteen and a secondary list of many.

U2 is definitely a favorite band, but would it make my top ten? I don't think so. Here's a quick list of absolute top ten bands:

The Jam, Cocteau Twins, 10,000 Maniacs, The Indigo Girls, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Everything But the Girl, King Crimson, Radiohead, Stereolab, Spyro Gyra, Sigur Rós, The Clash.
Okay, that's thirteen. But I was going by iTunes playlists and most frequent listening stats. And there's a secondary list, and this is where you will find U2:

Kraftwerk, The Innocence Mission, Japan, Talking Heads, U2, REM, The Art of Noise, Genesis, Hooverphonic, DEVO, Simon and Garfunkel, Haircut 100, They Might Be Giants, New Order, Joy Division, The Style Council, Cabaret Voltaire, Lush, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, The Pixies.

And I am still leaving out many great bands and groups of artists who function like bands, such as Aphex Twin and most especially Machine Love (note the link to my entry on them in my other blog). I have given Machine Love some LOVE on my pages before, but in 273 posts, I am not sure where.

I would say this is a pretty good start to the favorite bands list. Though not a top ten, those thirteen bands are those I have listened to most often over the years. Though great and frequently in my rotation, U2 falls into a secondary category of favorites that I adore but for one reason or another were not as constantly played as first thirteen. I also think it's worth noting that of the thirteen "favorites," I have blog posts specifically dedicated to nine of those thirteen top bands, and I have plans for posts with three more of them.

All that said, though U2 is not in that top thirteen bands, I do love U2 and have a long history of loving them and listening to them.

This shirt comes from seeing the Vertigo tour in 2005 at the United Center in Chicago. I have to say it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. The concert was uplifting and powerfully moving with slow, quiet moments and all the pomp and circumstance of a big name rock band. I had seen U2 early in the band's career, and I had not wanted to see them once they hit it big, and so I had passed on many opportunities on their previous tours. I only relented because a, then, friend of mine wanted to see them. I was not disappointed. This concert was amazing.


I figure I do not need to write much about U2. Most people know the band. If you happen to have lived on another planet for the last 30 years, start your research with this U2 WIKIPEDIA.

SUDDENLY I WANT AN iPOD

Around the time U2 put out the album containing the hit song "Vertigo," they also used it for the first advertisement campaign that they endorsed: Apple's iPod. I am not sure if I have mentioned my thing woth commercials on the blog yet, but I mute commercials. I really cannot stand commercials on television, thus the unavoidable ones that the marketing manipulators are trying to sneak in on us drive my crazy. Anyway, I almost never have a TV on unless I am doing something else, and so while I am working or reading or whatever, I mute commercials. Thus, not only does a commercial need to be in frequent rotation on one or all of the channels I watch to penetrate my wall of resistance, but it also has to be catchy. Thus, with U2's promotion of Apple's iPod, it took many weeks but soon I found myself affected by the insidious powers of the commercial even as I tried to resist. Granted, a digital music player is something I would naturally want to own anyway, but I found that my desire for an iPod was heightened if not solely created by these commercials and their ubiquity. Definitely, a lot of this infection and its virulence had to with U2 and the power "Vertigo."

MY FIRST U2 CONCERT

I saw my first U2 concert in 1983 as the band toured with its third album War. And even though "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "New Year's Day" were hits, not very many people packed the small Detroit Grand Circus Theater, which was later the State and currently the Filmore Theater. When the band came out, everyone in the audience rushed the stage, and so my, then, girlfriend of the time and I had a whole row to ourselves in which to spread out and dance.

It was a very good concert, and I heard some of my favorite songs from October, but it was not better or even close to as good as the 2005 Vertigo tour show I saw in Chicago.

THE RULE OF FIRST LISTENING (well, almost a rule)

U2 provided me with a rule that is not always true but is often enough true that I am calling it a rule and one of the many RULES OF CHRIS (see category).

More often than not, the first album one discovers for a band becomes and is always the favorite thereafter. I found this to be true with David Bowie, Talking Heads, and Laurie Anderson. I have also found this to be true with U2. I did not discover the band until its second album, October, was out. This album is far and away my favorite, dwarfing even Joshua Tree, which many people would count as their favorite.

A friend of mine in college, whose nickname was Madge or sometimes Maggot, had seen U2 when it tured with its first album Boy. She saw the band perform in a roller rink in Detroit. For her,  Boy was her favorite. But that was the first one she heard. For me, I first heard October, and so it was my favorite.

There are bands that break this rule. I probably would argue that Animals is my favorite Pink Floyd album and Central Reservation my favorite Beth Orton album, but these are exceptions to the rule, and they do not make the rule any less true.

MY WIFE'S CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH BONO

I know I will get the details of this story wrong, so I plan to update it. But my wife loves to share that she jumped on stage during a U2 concert and got Bono's sweat on her. I don't remember much more than that, so I will wait to ask her about the story again and update this part.

A WEEKEND WITH RATTLE AND HUM

Back in 1988, I took a group of students from my English 105 class to Chicago. We went to museums and the Hard Rock Cafe and had a great time. I have to say, it was one of the best weekends of my life. Definitely top five. The documentary about U2, Rattle and Hum, debuted that weekend and we went to see the movie and treated it like a concert, dancing and grooving to the music and secretly drinking beer. This one guy who was with us smuggled in 15 beers on his person without the means of a bag or small ice chest. Amazing. I thought I had a digital version of a picture from that weekend. Again, another thing to update. The blog oozes and grows in an amorphous blob like way.

These are just a few of my U2 experiences. I have listened to U2 for many years and enjoy the band's music a great deal. One of my favorite musicians, Brian Eno, produced some of their best albums. U2 is also responsible for introducing me to other producers of theirs, such as Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite. I do not love all of U2's albums. I am not fond of Pop at all. I HATED Unforgettable Fire, when I first heard it, but now I love it. I also hated Achtung Baby when I first heard it. Though I do not like all of it, "One" is now one of my favorite songs of all time, not just U2 songs, but songs by anyone.

U2 has been a part of my life for over 30 years, and my life is richer because of my experiences with the band. To close, I am presenting just a few videos of my favorite U2 songs. I will try to restrict myself to five, but this is not easy.

U2 VIDEOS

U2 Tomorrow

U2 Shadows and tall trees

Mary J. Blige, U2 - One

U2 - A Sort Of Homecoming Live

Here's a cheat, including two of my favorites all together in one live video.

U2 - Elevation - Beautiful day - Until the end of the world Live From Boston 2001

Okay, it's really tough to stop at five videos. I may share a U2 playlist another time.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 92 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published 1312.19 - 18:55
FINAL publication - 1312.20 - 15:43

T-shirt #272 - The Unknown T-shirt

T-shirt #272 - The Unknown T-shirt

Presented here for the first time anywhere are pictures of my best friend Tom Meyers (better known as the Lord of Chaos) and me at one of his apartments in Bloomington, Indiana while he was in Law School. As you can see, I am wearing a t-shirt of some kind. I have no idea what this T-shirt is and if I still own it. But I owned it at one time, and I thought it would be fun, as a change of pace, to present the t-shirt here as the "Unknown T-shirt."

I cannot identify the t-shirt. There seems to be an insignia on the left breast but I cannot make it out.

I have no idea what we are doing except pretending to feed each other. We would never have actually fed each other because to do so would compromise our masculinity. But we were being campy (can one say "camping it up"?) for the camera, helmed by one of Tom's law school cohorts, Renee whose last name escapes me.

I am also presenting this photo and the ones of dice and D&D books because my friend, the Lord of Chaos, will be visiting soon, after the holidays, and we have planned a festival of gaming. Normally, we have played D&D 2.0. A few years ago, we were going to try D&D 3.5 and I bought tons of books and then we did not end up playing. Now, since I have been playing Pathfinder, which is essentially D&D 3.5 with modifications, we are going to play Pathfinder while he is here. He is right now (and I mean right now as he just emailed me) in the process of creating two characters.

I met Tom Meyers at Kalamazoo College. I actually met him before we became friends. He was the grouchy roommate of a friend of mine, hobbling around on crutches because he had broken a leg or some such. It was a year later before we would become friends as we were both theatre majors. Though we lived together in the dorms, though never as actual roommates of which he reminds me often, and though we hung out quite a bit during some quarters (and not others), we became closer friends after we graduated, which is also when we started playing D&D together. Tom discovered D&D during summer theatre with some performers visiting from New York and then managed to hook up with the same ultra-geeky friends that I had made in my first year at K and with whom I roomed most often: Jack Lee, Dave Reusch, Hilding Holcomb, and others. Once Tom and I started gaming together it became our favorite past time.

We have two epic adventures in our history. The first is with his character, Thomar, a half-orc priest, who had a grand adventure as a priest of Thor, God of Thunder. In the ultimate climax of the adventure, Thomar, played by Tom, defeated this enormous troll (a troll of the realms eternal and not of the world of Midgard, so like a God but a troll). Tom rolled two natural 20s in a row, which was the only way he could have defeated the troll and won out in the end. We still talk about it today as one of the greatest gaming experiences of our lives.

The other adventure featured two characters, adventurers close like brothers. My character, Keebler, is an elven ranger/priest. His comrade, Ostess Cak, is a thief. They arrived at their names in an interesting way, or at least Cak did. Keebler, as a name for an elf, is blatantly and obviously stolen from the Keebler company, which has its headquarters in Battle Creek. But Ostess Cak is a name with more interesting origins. Tom and I were embarking on a gaming fest in 1995 in Detroit, which combined two things we loved: gaming and going to Detroit Tigers games. On the drive back from the ball park to the hotel, we spotted a sign for Hostess Cakes, but some of the letters were burned out, so that all we could read was OSTESS CAK. We thought that it would make an excellent name for a character and a legend was born. Thomar also has an intriguing origin. Can you guess? It's a typo of Thomas. Tom would receive mail addressed to Thomar Meyes and realized that Thomar would make a great character name.

Tom game mastered (Dungeon Mastering or DMing) a great series of adventures in a world of how own creation in which magic is being sucked into some kind of vortex, where Keebler and Cak work to help people and collect wealth. They have a secret tree fort, which they built. Also, they cleaned out a huge castle, which they then came to own and manage. But the greatest feat of all was when Cak bit off one of his own fingers and fashioned a set of thieving tools and lockpicks from the bones to escape from a cell in what we think was some kind of space ship. Keebler and Cak do not think of it as a space ship, but Chris Tower the player does.

Perhaps soon I can report more fantastic and epic adventures.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 93 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.18 - 20:22

T-shirt #271 - Spamalot

T-shirt #271 - Spamalot

Hello again and welcome to another post that has to do with comic books. Okay, just kidding. This one is supposed to be about theatre. The adaptation to the stage as musical of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Never fear. I plan to share a few videos. But that will have to wait until after the blog recap.

Though I plan to pack in quite a bit more than just comic book content here as I have been slowly assembling this entry for a few days. Do you like to know that I am working that far in advance?

Sunday morning when I logged on and looked at my statistics, I had another big surprise. After the last peak of 103 page views on Sunday Dec. 8th, the count climbed to 150 on Dec. 12th (the day I unveiled the Serenity post) and then to one of the all-time daily highs of 261 page views on Friday the 13th, which I suspect is still in large part due to the previous day's Serenity and Firefly post as the Friday post on Daredevil had been posted as incomplete and finished on Saturday the 14th.

Looking into the stats, I see the post for Firefly claiming large numbers of views, along with the post on Feist, Winter is Coming, and the Daredevil shirt.

But the post that keeps showing up at the top of the list both for the day, the week, and now atop the all-time top viewed page list is T-shirt #241: Advice from a Volcano. On the all time list, this post has claimed the top spot with 288 page views and rising (more every day). I cannot figure out why this post is so popular. Someone help me out. Click the link. Take a look. Leave me a comment.

If you look at the post, it features the kind of content that I figure is only interesting to me. I start out explaining my day off (Nov. 17th) and my intention to watch the Lions game. I can't imagine that the sole mention of the Detroit Lions is causing all the page views. I go on to describe "The Blog Journey." I believe that this is my first post in "The Blog Journey" category. I write about my surgery, the Veronica Mars Kickstarter, and the Rules of Chris, none of which would spike the count. Next, I perform a blog recap, explaining the statistics much as I am doing here except that I copied the grids and links from the Blogger statistics pages, which I suspect may be the reason that the page is getting so many views. This is my working theory at least. I close with the text from the shirt and then some random facts, including a fantssy sports recap and a kimchi update. I also include a link that Doris Lessing has died, which may be a partial reason for the number of views. After all, the number of views may be due to multiple reasons. After all, I mention The clash, The Fantastic Four, Darth Vader, and provide links for all. I also have links to all the most popular posts on my page. If the hits are doing double-duty, this would account for the increased views on this page.

So, here's an experiment. If my theory is right that the Blogger statistics grid is what is driving up the page counts, then if I paste in another Blogger page grid to this post, it should rise in the page views stats as well. So here goes.

More » Posts Entry Pageviews T-shirt #241- Advice from a Volcano - Blog Recap Nov 17, 2013,  288 T-shirt #176 - Isher Artifacts Sep 13, 2013,  216 T-shirt#171 - The Neahtawanta Inn - Goodbye Bob Ru... Sep 8, 2013,  174 T-shirt #28: Batgirl (spoiler alerts) Apr 18, 2013,  146 T-shirt #62: Nightwing May 22, 2013,  129

This is the all time list for my blog. When I posted this grid T-shirt #241: Advice from a Volcano, Isher Artifacts had the top spot with 218 views. HOLD ON. How can the page views go down over a month's time? If you look back that the Volcano post and compare to this grid, you will find that other number are off. The Batgirl post lost one view. ODD.

In any case, we shall see if my pasting of the grid is what's driving the page views or if there's lots of people on the Internet searching for blogs about volcanoes.

The Blog Journey continues. The process of self-discovery is very much tied to the popularity of some posts over others. Saturday's post with pictures of the puppy was immediately, wildly popular.

On to other subjects.
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and SPAMALOT

I do not have that many shirts that are specifically dedicated to theatre (which I prefer to spell the European way). I discussed one of my most beloved musicals in T-shirt #91: Jesus Christ Superstar. In that post, I made a list of favorite musicals and quite forgot Spamalot.

I next visited the subject of theatre in one of my most popular posts, one that for some time held a place in the top five all time posts: T-shirt #125: Hair and the Barn Theatre. Spamalot earned a mention in this post, though I did not create a new ranked list of favorite musicals. I should revise the list and include Spamalot.
The only reason I had Scrooge in the top ten is because I played Scrooge in my high school's production of it in 1979.

CHRIS TOWER'S TOP FIVE FAVORITE STAGE MUSICALS

1. Jesus Christ Superstar
2. A Chorus Line 
3. Godspell
4. Hair
5. Rent

Second five (to round out the top ten)

6. Sweeney Todd
7. Forever Plaid
8. Spamalot
9. The Rocky Horror Show

10. The Who's Tommy

Spamalot beats out The Rocky Horror Show because honestly, I love Monty Python and the Holy Grail more. In the least years when I participated in the floor show at local midnight showing of Rocky, my friend Steve and had started doing bits from Holy Grail because we were both quite sick of Rocky Horror by then.

I am including my review from the Barn's production of Spaamlot in 2012 on the page today.

I saw Spamalot in 2004 during the previews in Chicago with the stellar cast described below. I was surprised that one of the best scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the witch scene, was omitted from Spamalot. Other than that bizarre omission, I rather like Spamalot A LOT.

In closing, after my review from last year, I will post some of my favorite scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the one Spamalot song that I think is very clever (assuming I can find it on YouTube).

Thanks for reading today, especially if you returned after I posted an incomplete blog entry yesterday (which is today according to the date of this blog).

Spamalot
a production of the Barn Theatre
at the Barn Theatre, Augusta, MI
Attended Date: August 14, 2012
reviewed by Christopher Tower

The Barn Theatre continues piloting the rocket of its successful 2012 season with one of the best musical comedies of the last decade: Monty Python’s “Spamalot.” Riding the jet-fueled power of a fantastic company, a strong direction team, and tight orchestra, the Barn Theatre once again proves to local audiences that professional theater is a live and soaring to ever greater heights in the Augusta twilight.
Audiences roared with delightful laughter from the first lines of “Spamalot” during Tuesday’s opening night performance, and once the show concluded, the loyal patrons leapt to their feet in enthusiastic appreciation rather than the usual standing, “we’re ready to leave”-type ovations often delivered for the curtain calls.
The Barn more than proves its mettle with a production of
“Spamalot” that has already garnered many accolades. “Spamalot” is the brainchild of Python comedian Eric Idle who teamed with John Du Prez and Neil Innes to “lovingly rip off” the 1975 film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” as a Broadway musical. The show started in previews in Chicago in 2004 and soon traveled to Broadway in 2005 with an all-star cast, including Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria, and Sara Ramirez. Helmed by Mike Nichols, the show won three Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Since then, it has toured nationally twice, and productions have been launched in nine different countries. Though some Pythons have criticized it as “Python-lite,” the show played over 1500 performances in its initial Broadway run and reaped nearly two hundred million dollars, placing it among the all-time highest grossing box office gems.
With few exceptions, the story follows the flimsy though well-loved plot of the 1975 film. King Arthur (Fee Waybill) “rides” through England circa 923 A.D. with the help of his faithful servant Patsy (Roy Brown), who bangs two coconut shells together to simulate horse’s hooves. The musical better integrates the sketch-comedy mind-set of Monty Python into a cohesive plot; thus, the peasants who engage Arthur in political debate become Galahad (Lance Fletke) and Bedevere (Nick Pearson),
and the two soldiers who discuss how swallows might bring tropical coconuts to England become Sir Robin (Kevin Robert White) and Lancelot (Patrick Hunter).
Some of the songs featured in the film, such as “Knights of the Round Table” and “Brave Sir Robin” are converted and expanded for the musical while other classic film scenes evolve into songs, such as “He Is Not Dead Yet” sung by the plague victims and Not Dead Fred (Matthew D. Wiggin) from the “Bring Out Your Dead” sketch and a trio of songs sung by Prince Herbert (Ethan Eichenbaum). The show also borrows from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” with Eric Idle’s signature tune “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” Other songs are added for comic effect and parody Broadway musicals, such as “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway (If You Don’t Have Any Jews),” “The Song That Goes Like This,” and “The Diva’s Lament,” in which the Lady of the Lake (Amy Harpenau) complains about the show’s plot and her role: “whatever happened to my part?”
Though the famous witch burning scene was cut during the original Chicago preview, most of the other famous “Holy Grail” sketches remain, including the taunting French soldiers, performed brilliantly and principally by Jamey Grisham. Other great sketches include The Knights Who Say Ni (Charlie King), Tim the Enchanter (Steven Lee Burright) and the killer rabbit, and the father of Prince Herbert (Ricky Philippi) marrying off his son Herbert for “huge tracts of land” featuring the ingenious confusion with his guards (Nic Balario and Matthew D. Wiggin).
The Barn’s production is masterfully overseen by Hans Friedrichs, who is proving to be one of the summer theater’s best directors. Jamey Grisham provides hilarious choreography, especially during the Laker Girls sequence and the “You’re Gay” sketch with Lancelot. John Jay Espino guides the five-piece, veteran orchestra masterfully as he has done all season.
The cast also proves its professional pedigree yet again with stellar performances, most notably Roy Brown’s rendition of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” and Kevin Robert White’s hilarious “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway (If You Don’t Have Any Jews).” Ethan Eichenbaum’s Prince Herbert is a standout of hilarity as is the work of Grisham, Burright, and Charlie King.
Amy Harpenau sings her guts out, quite literally, with a devilishly campy and wonderfully over-acted performance in songs that run crazy scales up and down the register and mix styles in goofy ways. Fee Waybill joins Harpenau well with a bluesy segment of the show’s power number: “Find Your Grail,” and his straight-man “I’m All Alone” song works very well as Patsy (Brown) reacts comically around him.
The evening finishes with a musical revue bar show so much in demand that seats were sold out on opening night. The Barn’s production of “Spamalot” is top rate from start to finish, and the audience eats it up like “a lot” of yummy spam. Don’t miss it!!

THE VIDEOS

I am sure that every single person reading my blog has seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail at least once. If you have not seen it, this is something to dedicate yourself to IMMEDIATELY. If you do not have time to go get and watch the movie, then check out these favorite scenes of mine. If you have seen the movie, you will surely enjoy seeing these scenes again. I will try to keep my set of videos here to a minimum, but I would rather post the ENTIRE MOVIE, obviously. heh. "Obviously." Guard scene.

There's no reason that this scene should have been left out of Spamalot. Very silly. It's one of my very favorite bits in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Classic John Cleese: "She turned me into a newt" following the longest pause in comedy film: "I got better."

She's a witch!

Surely, no collection of videos for my favorite scenes Monty Python and the Holy Grail could leave out this completely hilarious and often quoted scene. LOVE IT!!

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Guards Scene

Monty Python Holy Grail Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

Monty Python And The Holy Grail - Help Help I'm Being Repressed

I know, I know. I am leaving out MANY great scenes. Though the KILLER RABBIT never did much for me, so not that one.

Hey, I said I would keep it to a minimum. Four is rather a lot, really. THREE. "Five sir." Five!
Sorry. I get carried away thinking about this movie. :-)

If you want to see more, go SEE THE MOVIE.

And now one from Spamalot.

Several of the songs written for Spamalot (IE. not originally included in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) are well done. I especially like "Find Your Grail" and "Whatever Happened to My Part." But the song that struck me as most clever is this one. It's a great satire on musicals. Very funny.

Spamalot - Song that Goes Like This

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 94 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.17 - first published - 20:07

Completed - 1312.18 - 9:41

T-shirt #270 - KUDL 2007 Retro Black Long-Sleeve

T-shirt #270 - KUDL 2007 Retro Black Long-Sleeve

Happy Monday to you all if you happened to stop by here on a Monday.

Grading robot is at full power plowing through two sets of final grades for three classes and then the normal week of grading all to be finished by Friday, though the final grades are due tomorrow. So this did not go up first in the morning because of Grading Robot's activity.

I just finished one set of final grades (due tomorrow) with one set to go, and as you can see, I am very excited for the Lions game tonight. Monday night football. GO LIONS!

Do I really need to discuss this KUDL shirt in any depth? It's the retro re-issue of our 2007 design that we did this year, like my T-shirt #237.

I may take an Ultimate hiatus. I am not sure how many Ultimate shirts I have left, but I am pretty sure that I am out of KUDL shirts. I have featured 29 such shirts (including this one), which is quite a few, especially since KUDL has only been active eight years.

Short entry today, but I have a few things already set up in tomorrow's entry, so it should be a good one.

I have shared about my fantasy sports play before.

I had a good week last week. I won in all six of my fantasy basketball games, with one I had a huge comeback victory on the last day of the week. I am inserting screen shots of the matchup going into Sunday and the final result.

I fell to a horrible 6-9 in picking football spreads for the week, while my colleagues all did much better than I did.

Fantasy football is not decided yet, so I may report back, but I had at least one HUGE win, so I am happy with that.

As you can see in this NO MERCY league, I was down 3-12 going into Sunday games. I had more players active than my opponent so I had hopes that I might pull out a close win. Given the small number of players he had going Sunday, I am surprised to keep under in the turnover and personal foul categories, in which the lower number takes the match. I did not think I would catch him in rebounds, but I was hoping to edge him in several other categories, which as you can see, I did. This was a good one and in large part due to my skill as a player in terms of my draft and my waiver additions. It's also nice to see a comeback as he had more games through the week, but I made it up on the final day.

The other thing I want to share today is a group discussion from Good Reads with Night Film author Marisha Pessl. I have already written about Night Filmas I mention in the message I posted to Good Reads. Marisha did not respond to my message, but I did not expect her to do so. Surely she read it as there were not that many messages. You can surely find the group if you are on Good Reads and you are interested. Once again, I want to promote Marisha's book. It was excellent!!



FROM GOOD READS --------------->

Ask Marisha Pessl - Monday, December 16th! discussion

This topic is about Marisha Pessl

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Featured Author Chat - 2013 > Ask Marisha! 

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date    newest »

message 1: by Cynthia, Goodreads Moderator

Dec 09, 2013 10:47AM

Welcome to the group! Marisha Pessl will be answering questions throughout the day on Monday, December 16th in this thread only. In the meantime if you have a question for Marisha, or just want to introduce yourself, feel free to do so in this thread. 

by Chris

0 minutes ago

I loved NIGHT FILM!! I don't have any questions, but assuming you get these all read, quite a task, and I wanted to add my voice. I wrote about Night Film on my blog, TWICE. :-)
My story about how my wife asked me to read the book as an anniversary gift to her is here
http://365-tshirts.blogspot.com/2013/...
My review of the book is here
http://365-tshirts.blogspot.com/2013/...

LOVED it!! And I think it's quite a rare thing to come to the book via my wife's request that I read it and start on our anniversary (as in immediately) as a gift to her. One quick download to my Kindle and off I went. We were in Hawaii on vacation at the time, so I managed to read much much more on long plane rides and soaks in the hot tub.
Thanks Marisha. You have added to my favorite books not just of this year but of all time.

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Back to Grading...

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 98 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.16 - 19:07

T-shirt #269 - DAVID BOWIE - HEATHEN - Teaching featured musical artists of the day

T-shirt #269 - DAVID BOWIE - HEATHEN - Teaching featured musical artists of the day

The same people who wondered why it was 266 days before I featured Firefly, especially those who know me, will wonder why it took equally 269 days to feature the one musical artist who is arguably my favorite and about whom I am most passionate: DAVID BOWIE.

This shirt is from the Heathen tour, obviously

But some subjects are so large, so important, that it does not seem like something easy to tackle, so I put it off. DAVID BOWIE is such a subject. I must own at least a dozen books devoted to David Bowie. I have all the albums on CD and LP. I have listened to everything for many years and obsessively. I have favorites, lists of favorites, and facts to share. I have Bowie stories to tell. I came to love Bowie so much, when I first discovered him in college, that I would randomly shout "BOWIE!" to emphasize my love for the Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack.

And it did not escape me that Bowie's 25th studio album, promised in 2006, finally came out in early 2013: The Next Day.

Luckily, at least for my ability to generate content, I have more than one DAVID BOWIE shirt, and so I can spread out my David Bowie love over several entries before my BLOG YEAR expires. Though it is a tough choice, I will present my favorite David Bowie song before I depart for the day. But the main content will consist of my my DAVID BOWIE POWER POINT PRESENTATION that I created for my Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.

I taught the media course for ten years. During the course, since our focus was media, I developed the FEATURED MUSICAL ARTIST of the day. Since the class met once weekly, this meant one a week. I would share some basic information about each artist (occasionally I would do two in one class) and then extract facts about the artist for bonus questions on my weekly quizzes. There was some controversy stirred up about my creation of such questions, but they were considered BONUS questions and hence extra credit and thus I did not feel badly if students did not know the answers. After all, they could guess. They had a 50-50 chance on the standard True-False bonus question and at worst a 20% chance on the standard multiple choice question.

These pictures come from my last full, regular length semester in the Winter of 2008 in the Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.

The purpose of the featured artist was simply to allow me to play music, show pictures, and talk about my favorite musical artists once a week. I did not spend much time on these features, on average about five minutes. The choices were motivated not just by my favorites, but in selecting artists that the students may not know or may not know well. My goal was to inspire and possibly turn on the students to some new music.

During these sessions I featured the following artists: Ani DiFranco, Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins, Stereolab, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Joy Division, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk, Laurie Anderson, MIA, Erykah Badu, Patti Smith, the Pixies, Public Enemy, Robert Fripp, Suzanne Vega, the Clash, The Jam, and Velvet Underground.

I saved DAVID BOWIE for the final week of the semester, and eventually, I prepared a power point presentation to share what I wanted to share about David Bowie in my Women's Studies Media and the Sexes Class at Western Michigan University.

Today, I would like to share the slides from that power point. Because there are forty-four slides, I added a page break, so you will need to click on it to see the entire show. I made a few notes. But first, arguably my favorite Bowie song and video, and some pictures of my dear friends and teaching associates: Abigail "Crabby" Nappier and Erin Bauchan (now Erin Bauchan-Caprara).

David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes

 COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 96 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1312.15 - 13:46

HERE'S THE POWER POINT (note the page break)

this picture is from the Black Tie White Noise album

picture from Heathen

Madame Tussaud's wax depiction of Bowie left

Other wax dummies?
Bowie's various characters

Vanity Fair feature

Note in the classroom pictures
I have this on the document camera
while running the power point on the other screens;
the classroom contained four screens which could be set in pairs

Various shots of Bowie being androgynous

I tell a story about the demise
of the far too ambitious
Diamond Dogs stage show
which he junked to do Young Americans

The Thin White Duke

I talk a bit about Eno, but I am saving that for
another t-shirt

Arguably, my favorite album

When I was supposed to be writing
a paper on Moby Dick for American Literature
in my Sophomore year of college
I wrote an essay on David Bowie
My teacher said I started with a Bowie bang
but ended with a Pip (character in Moby Dick)
whimper.

I saw both Detroit shows
on this tour

Under appreciated great album
hours

Heathen was the best thing
since Outside or maybe even
since Let's Dance.

Bowie with wife Iman.

Bowie's 50th birthday party
in 1997 at MSG

from Bowie's boxed set
SOUND AND VISION