Read Less, More TV: Books, TV Shows, Movies, and More

I just started Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within and am loving it so far. Has anyone else read it? It strikes me that it's a book that would be excellent for a virtual book club - I am loving the exercises but then live in paranoia that, for example, I'm miscounting my iambic pentameters.

I read TOLT a while back, too, DrSpaceman and found it extremely entertaining and also compelling. I absolutely had to obey Prof. Fry and so did all the exercises. Actually, the counting part was quite difficult, especially when he starts requiring you to combine and vary the rhythms, line endings and interior iambs. But in the end it was quite rewarding to look at making poetry from the technical, structural standpoint and to discover firsthand how the form can reinforce or fight against the meaning. Plus the idea that it can be a hobby that you don't have to show to anyone was liberating. OTOH it would be fun to share snippets to see how others aggregate their iambs. :-)

Current fifth graders? Depending on what type of music you want: - Jack Johnson "We're Going to be Friends" - Christina Aguilera "Beautiful" - KT Tunstall "Suddenly I See" These in no way actually reflect the 1970s rock and current UK indie rock I listen to. But, I think the kids would recognize them, and they all have good messages. 5th Graders to be, but in my community we start thinking about these things a little in advance. What kind of music do I want? Well, if I was the the solo producer of this thing, I'd use something that rocks. Sappy has been done, and it works really well, but I'd go in a different direction. However, I think my co-producer may want to bring on the tears (of the parents, not the kids). In the video I did for my son, I used The Pretenders cover of "Forever Young," which was great -- got just enough tears flowin', yet it wasn't sappy in the "Sunrise Sunset" sort of way. I have poured over all the songs I've got in iTunes, and nothing is exciting me. Maybe I am just looking for something new and fresh. Maybe I need to stop listening to my iPod and start listening to the radio. And my 14 year-old can't help, because hubby and I (and Guitar Hero) have influenced him so much he is into all the music we grew up with (70's and 80's rock,with a little 90's thrown in for good measure). Anyway.... I've prattled on long enough .... Thanks for your suggestions!

If you had the chance (money weren't an object) would you go to a Neil Diamond concert? If you're in a bar and "Sweet Caroline" comes on, do you start singing along? Can you name more than 3 Neil Diamond songs? I'd go to a Neil Diamond show if money were no object. I don't know all the words to Sweet Caroline. I have to stop and think about it, but I can name a few. I'll also admit that I used to get Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow confused. I like Barry's catalogue more, TBH.

I'd like Barry Manilow if I weren't teased as a kid for one of his songs "being about me." Ever since, it kind of ruined Manilow and that genre of music for me. Maybe that's why I prefer Neil Young over Neil Diamond.

AZ - trying having people come up the the incredibly original and witty "Me Tarzan, you Jane." Usually men, 30 years older than I was, who'd had a few too many drinks. Oh, and Neil Young is better than Barry Manilow -- except that Manilow wrote the bandaids theme. He will rule forever for that alone.

I can never get over how attractive Sacha Baron Cohen is when he's not disguised as one of his characters. At any rate, he's just announced that he's never doing Ali G or Borat again.

I want to see Sweeney Todd and Walk Hard so bad.

"Walk Hard" was okay. I was the only person in the theater who laughed when Dewey Cox demanded that one of his band members "learn to play the f**king theremin!" (Theremin being the instrument that sounds like a musical saw, most famously used on the Beach Boys' "Good Vobrations.") The title song has actually gotten stuck in my head. (It's written by the great Marshall Crenshaw and you can easily imagine Cash singing it). In fact the music was spot-on throughout the film (Van Dyke Parks wrote the Brian Wilson parody!)

Heh. One of the bands that plays at the music venue where I volunteer/hang out used a theremin earlier this month. (The band is Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. The musician's name is "Tink." Any surprise they play the theremin?)

I know a tuba player/music teacher who wrote his graduate thesis on the theremin. And yes, he was a typical tuba player, who we really should have thought to call "Tink."

I always enjoyed watching Jon Spencer have fun with his theremin on stage back in the day when I could go see Jon Spencer Blues Explosion without needing ear plugs.

I really want to see jazz theremin now. That's up there with jazz banjo (yay Bela Fleck). And earplugs! Yes! I ushered for John Schofield once, and it was so loud that I ended up standing in the lobby with a bunch of the chaperones (it was a jazz festival for high school students at my college). Eventually all the ushers had escaped the sound levels. Great performer, just too loud live.

This thread is moving. There has been so much interest in discussing other shows, movies, books and music that we've created a shiny new forum just for that. You'll find it at the bottom of the forum index page. So, while this one won't be needed anymore, it will be there (locked) for archive purposes.

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