From: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org (precious-things-digest) To: precious-things-digest@smoe.org Subject: precious-things-digest V8 #291 Reply-To: precious-things@smoe.org Sender: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-precious-things-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "precious-things-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. precious-things-digest Tuesday, December 23 2003 Volume 08 : Number 291 Today's Subjects: ----------------- telegraph tales of a librarian review [fingerpuppets ] Re: telegraph tales of a librarian review [Brian K Tanaka Subject: telegraph tales of a librarian review maybe it's just me, but it's nice to see someone in the media pan the bonus dvd. i still haven't watched it! woj _________________________________________________________________ Tori Amos Tales of a Librarian, Atlantic, #13.99 It's a "best-of" collection from her Atlantic years, with four new songs chucked in. This being Tori Amos, it's arranged not chronologically, but according to an overarching theme: the library. Thus, the heartbreaking Playboy Mommy comes under Medicine and Health: Miscarriage, Professional Widow under Animals: Spiders, and Me and a Gun comes under Social Problems and Social Services: Rape. It sounds iffy, but actually it's quite a neat way of placing some fantastic songs into a sharper focus. There'll be a few complaints about the ones that got away (Wot? No 1,000 Oceans?), but for the most part, it's all here in its turbulent glory. The new stuff is OK, but follows the pattern of Amos's recent material in that she seems to have lost a bit of her restless squirming spirit. There's also a DVD with five "live" songs, which is barely worth bothering with, having been recorded during the soundcheck at some outdoor concert. The performances are perfunctory, the sound is dull, and the cameras appear to have been operated with remote control joysticks by someone wearing a blindfold. David Cheal _________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 12:29:36 -0800 From: Brian K Tanaka Subject: Re: telegraph tales of a librarian review On Mon, Dec 22, 2003 at 09:41:05AM -0500, fingerpuppets boldly wrote: > > maybe it's just me, but it's nice to see someone in the media pan the > bonus dvd. i still haven't watched it! I'm curious to see what you think of it after you do watch it, woj. I know that I, personally, was pleasantly surprised by it. > There's also a DVD with five "live" songs, which is barely worth > bothering with, having been recorded during the soundcheck at some > outdoor concert. I think a non-Tori person wouldn't be thrilled with the DVD. I think it's safe to guess that this person isn't a Tori person or he would have known which concert it was. I don't think he needed to know that to write his review, but I point it out because that also means he most likely don't have the context that you or I would--the little extra bits that round out the experience beyond what you would know just watching the clips. I'm thinking of such things as: the performance is from the final day of a long tour to which the viewer brings their own memories of the prior ten months (or of that day, if you were there), the reason that she chose Pretty Good Year as one of the songs for inclusion (which I won't repeat here since I can't remember where I heard it and I can't vouch for its authenticity), and so on. > The performances are perfunctory, the sound is dull, I disagree on both counts. They may not be the most stellar performances of any of the three songs, but I'd hesitate to call them perfunctory. I think they're quite good, in fact. And, what about the sound, exactly, is dull? I think it's pretty good. Especially the vocals. *shrug* And the song selection! I love that little batch of songs. Great ones all, and far from the obvious, general-public-friendly choices that could have been made. > and the cameras appear to have been operated with remote control > joysticks by someone wearing a blindfold. David Cheal OK. Ha. I have to give him that one. The cameras are out of control. I assume that's because this was more or less a practice run for the filming of the real performance later that evening. Maybe. - -- - - Brian Tanaka - ------------------------------ End of precious-things-digest V8 #291 *************************************