the memory palace » 18th Century

Natural Curiosity

admin — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 03:28:45 +0000

The Music: The “theme,” as it were, that you hear in the beginning and through a fair amount of the piece is from the opening of the score to the movie, Please Give, as is the piece at the end (Memory Palace Thumbs Up on both the movie and the score, by the way). We also hear a song called Le Chat Noir and a bit of a song called Quiet Drive from Elmer Bernstein’s score to a move called Kings Go Forth, which I’ve never seen (and is, apparently, a WWII flick in which Sinatra and Tony Curtis get into a love triangle with on the South of France with a townie played, naturally, by Natalie Wood). There’s also a piece called “The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080: Contrapunctus IX” by a Tuba Quartet called, ahem, Sotto Voce. The thing, it turns out, that I love about Sotto Voce is that their albums feature moody/edgy portraits of the four members of the quartet made to look like they’re in a Nu Metal band, circa 1994. Also they are called Sotto Voce. And they are a Tuba Quartet.

The Footnotes: I read a bunch about Joice Heth but, it turns out, I really only needed to read one thing: The Showman and the Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum’s America by a dude named Benjamin Reiss. It’s pretty kick-ass.

I Have Not Yet Begun to Rot

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:49:25 +0000

The martial song in the front is from the Horatio Hornblower soundtrack. The part that comes up in the middle of that and then picks up again after, is “Dmi We Meet Again?” from Jon Brion’s Synechdoche, New York soundtrack (slightly enhanced). The Porter part starts with a mix of “To Rest Near You” by Rachel’s and “Something You Can’t Return To,” also on the Synechdoche soundtrack. Then “Song for Jesse” from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Follow that up with a couple from the Marie Antoinette Soundtrack, “Opus 17″ by Dustin O’Halloran and “Avril 14″ by Aphex Twin, in that order.

There’s a ton about Jones’ body (incidentally, this is the story I’ve gotten the most “I knew this story, but I like how you told it” sorts of emails about). For some reason, I was particularly charmed by a webpage straight out of Portsmouth, NH (R.I.P Yoken’s). They’ve got pictures of the preserved, dead Jones there too.

Ben Franklin Death Ray

admin — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:35:35 +0000

That’s The Faire Folk by Lightning Bolt. Who are among of the best things about being from Providence, Rhode Island.

I first heard about the British fear of Franklin when I interviewed a Harvard Professor named Joyce Chaplin about her book The First Scientific American for a public affairs show out here in L.A.. It’s archived: http://www.scpr.org/programs/zocalo/index.html