Trouble

Thanks to the relative success of a previous music-related post of mine, I have decided to again attempt to arouse some discussion by discussing a 60's era pop-folk singer. Yusuf, aka Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, aka Steven Demetre Georgiou, as mentioned in the previous post, is one of the more frequently appearing artists on my pandora radio station. Several months ago, I heard for the first of many times on my station Stevens' masterwork "Trouble."

I call this song a masterwork because, aside from its undeniably solid musicality, it grippingly tells Stevens' own personal story of nearly defeated agony, giving a completely transparent view of his feelings at that time. Stevens wrote the song at the age of 19, during a period of nearly a year of mostly bed-ridden recovery from tuberculosis and a collapsed lung. Addressing Trouble (interpreted by many as death) directly, Stevens virtually begs to be left alone after all he has been through: (see full lyrics here)

Trouble
Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much too much for me

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me

Musically unadorned, featuring mostly Stevens alone on acoustic guitar, songs from this period mark a musical and spiritual transformation for him, from highly orchestrated pop and pop star lifestyle to a more introspective folk style and life focused more on spirituality, including taking up meditation, yoga and vegetarianism.

Its simplicity, clarity and atmospheric style have made it a popular choice for inclusion on movie and TV soundtracks. It was most memorably featured in the 1970 classic black comedy Harold and Maude, during the scene of Maude's impending death. It also was featured on ER and the pilot episode of JJ Abrams' Alias, in a flashback sequence showing Sydney Bristow's ill-fated recruitment into the evil SD-6 program.

The song also has been covered by several artists, most notably by the tragic late-90s folkster Elliott Smith and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, who often performs the song at PJ's live shows.

I encourage you to listen to Steven's original version as well as Smith's and Vedder's covers, and comment about the merits of each. I must say, Stevens' takes the cake for me, though this is one of the instances I feel Vedder's throaty howl adds to a performance rather than detracting from it.

Thence, I would also recommend giving a listen to two other songs titled "Trouble" which are not covers--Ray LaMontagne's more upbeat 2004 title track and Coldplay's 2000 piano ballad. Interesting tangents on a similar idea all.

Image credit http://musakazhim.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/yusuf-islam.jpg

Hotel Photos - Hotos, or Photels?

Last week I was sent on assignment with one of my coworkers to cover an event sponsored by one of JMU's institutes. I won't make any comments about the symposium itself, as to maintain professional balance when talking about work on a personal, yet public blog. What I will do is post a link to the facebook page and Twitter feed we set up to cover the event in near real-time. It was an experimental trial for us using social media in new ways, and I'll let others judge how successful our first attempt was.

But that's not the real point of this post, as you could probably guess from its title. The symposium spanned two days, and they put us up in a nice hotel in D.C., the Grand Hyatt. I was pleased with that in an of itself, but when I checked in Tuesday, it got even better. Since we were fairly early, the hotel didn't have the entire block of rooms in our group ready, and they offered to upgrade me to the "Congressional Suite" at no extra cost. Below are some photos of said room.

Central sitting area

Entertainment area with flat-screen TV and stereo

Full bar (not stocked)

Powder room? (Little area outside bathroom)

Breakfast nook/work area

Pool table!

And, finally below is a shot of the sign of the crappy hole-in-the-wall Chinese joint we ate lunch at in Chinatown. The food was substandard, but the name was too good to pass up.

Jack-ob

This season of LOST is quickly coming to an end, and all the various events of the series are coming to a head. One of the main mysteries throughout the show has been the true identity/form of being of the shadowy and never-fully-seen commander of the Others, Jacob. Since his first mention seasons ago, Jacob's identity has been a source of rampant speculation on the web. I've read entries theorizing that nearly every character seen on or off the island is truly Jacob. Most are ridiculous. The latest and seemingly most credible idea is that Jacob is not anyone we've seen already, as evidenced by ABC's announcing the casting of Mark Pellegrino as "Man #1" for the next and final season, and reports that he was seen filming reenactments of some vital scenes from the LOSTies' pasts. See some non-definitive photos of the set here.

If that's the case, it initially strikes me as less creative than having Jacob be a character we've already seen, but depending on how it's handled, it could be great. If, however, that's not the case, I'll throw in my vote for who it may be (by no means am I convinced).

I vote Jack. First, let's think about the history of Jacob. The earliest indicator we know of his being mentioned was when John Locke in 1954 stormed into the Hostiles' camp, demanding to see Richard Alpert and saying Jacob sent him. We then see in 1977 Richard take Jacob's wishes under consideration in taking a wounded young Ben Linus from Sawyer and Kate, and various times in the original present time of the show, with Ben, Locke, and Hurley visiting the cabin, encountering Christian Shepard and Claire there along the way. Thus, we can fairly assume, Jacob has not always inhabited/lived in/been trapped in the cabin. The cabin was not built until the 1970s or later by Horace Goodspeed (definitive year not known).

If the cabin were built around or before the time of the incident, which we should be seeing in the Season 5 Finale, any number of characters (including Jack) fleeing from ground zero could make their way to the cabin for safety, and become trapped there, possibly in some sort of time-space-shift phenomenon that occurs, thus allowing him to exist in all the different time periods simultaneously. One theory would be that the two separate "present times" currently existing on the island (the 1977 greater-Dharma crew and the 2007 survivors including Locke, Sun and Ben) will be merged again into one, with unknown consequences. Something along the lines of this is supported by producer Damon Lindelof's teaser for the season finale he offered at the Star Trek premier last week: "All I will say is that it is time for the time travel craziness to end," he said. "And once it does end, something very, very surprising will happen in its wake. It is a little bit of a game-changer."

Supporting evidence would include the obvious connection the Shepard family has to the cabin, as we've already seen Jack's undead father, Christian, and his half-sister, Claire, in the cabin. Another would be Jack's status as a detached leader or his people (see also discussion of his tattoos), his in the past being called a "miracle worker" for his ability to heal people, and his name being a variant of Jacob. Then there is also the similar focus on single-eye camera shots of both Jack and Jacob (see pictures, above - top two are Jack, bottom two are Jacob). The eyes appear at least similar enough to be possible.

Finally, on a practical level, it has been reported by the producers that Matthew Fox (who portrays Jack), is the only actor who knows how the series will end (source), thus it would make sense that if Jacob plays a large role in the conclusion of the series, Shepard would already know from his previous portrayals.

NOTE: This is incomplete, and more an exercise of my boredom than a definitive piece of LOST theorizing.

Images from lostpedia.

Why new technology is sweet

My last post, highlighting the online music service Pandora, gave an example of one new technology that is making my life more enjoyable. It also spawned another example, as follows: Searching YouTube for any Simon and Garfunkel recordings of Jackson C. Frank's "Blues Run the Game," I found a recording by Nick Drake, whom I've mentioned many times previously. After watching/listening to it, YouTube also suggested I listen to his recording of Bob Dylan's classic, "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right."

Though I had read about Drake and Dylan's cross-influence on each other, I had not known Drake actually recorded any covers of Dylan's songs, so this clearly was a nice find for me, and now for any of you who similarly find such things of interest. As it turns out, Drake's recordings of both Frank's and Dylan's songs appear only on what is essentially a bootleg version of some "working tapes" of his from the 60's. After a little research, I'm still not sure if the album, "Tanworth In Arden 1967-1968" has ever been authorized by the Drake estate or released under any legitimate record company, but for Drake enthusiasts, it's a gold mine. It comprises 18 tracks, including the aforementioned covers and some original, never-released songs. Among them is a track, "All My Trials," which features Drake's actress sister, Gabrielle, (pictured, right) in a vocal duet.

I could go on about the intrinsic value of such stuff to collectors, hobbyists and enthusiasts, but I'll otherwise summarize thusly: without web apps such as Pandora, search engines, Wikipedia, YouTube and Amazon, I can't imagine how long such a chain of discoveries would have taken me to make. (With them, it took about 5 minutes). Honestly, I probably never would have heard of Frank or either Drake, or a host of other people, places and things which are common points of thought in my life. I am probably able to learn more every day in a matter of minutes on the web than was possible in hours or even days previously. How did people learn or accomplish anything in the days before such technologies? I'm not sure, but I certainly am appreciative that they're around for people today.

IMAGE: Gabrielle Drake in character on the short-lived 70's British sci-fi TV show "UFO". From http://freespace.virgin.net/b.world/Gabrielle_Drake.jpg.