about feelings couples have

 

There were a lot of people like her and a lot of people like me, but still we felt nobody was like us.

 

mercifully about a musician

Solo artist Samtar indulges

Samtar is the alternative’s alternative one-man band. Alone, he indulges, producing burlesque sounds influenced by System of a Down's Serj Tankian and maybe some Frank Zappa and a little Mike Patton. On Shadow of the King’s Charade, Samtar's weird renaissance and fantasy vibe side-steps the parade of sixth-generation Rolling Stones and Black Sabbaths.

 

The drifting chorus on album opener “The Shadow From My Dreams” plays to Samtar’s stronger suits—his softer, more restrained vocals and capacity for vocal melody. Hear it at 55 seconds, then at 2:10, capitalized at 2:30. (A guitar solo at 2:50 dissolves the moment.) And Samtar demonstrates his competent falsetto on “Echoes From Across the Sea.”

 

Although Samtar is not to my taste, I enjoyed sampling it. That enjoyment peaked with “The Man”; a supple acoustic moves, tells an old story under an evocative vocal melody. His nice falsetto again turns to burlesque. The album's best vocal melody comes in the chorus of “You Bleed.” Here, Samtar’s controlled Serj Tankian-like affectation works in the song’s favor.

 

The production on the album limps, though. Especially the drums. Cymbals rinse away in the background while the drum heads all sound deadened.

Samtar wrote, recorded, and mixed it himself. Shadow of the King's Charade was released January 13.

about a scene from the Columbo episode, “Any Old Port in a Storm”

“Any Old Port in a Storm” aired October 7, 1973, and guest starred Donald Pleasence as Adrian Carsini, a wine connoisseur who murders his half-brother to prevent him from selling the family winery. Peter Falk is, of course, Lieutenant Columbo.

Adrian Carsini's anxiety grows with each encounter with the amiable detective. In the just-one-more-thing scene (a staple of every episode), Carsini is almost begging to be caught and relieved of the pressure when Columbo mentions the detail that first triggered his suspicion: the dead man's sports car—which Carsini staged at the beach where he dumped the body—was spotless even though it had supposedly been parked there in the rain. Columbo yells his apparent afterthought—turning the screw even more—from the end of the winery's long driveway:

Columbo: Oh, Mr. Carsini! Sir! I just remembered one of the reasons they’re not releasing your brother’s body. I forgot to tell you the other day. Well, you know your brother’s car? It stayed out on that cliff for a week. During that time, it rained, and then we had some sun. But when we saw the car the morning we found the body, it looked like it just came off a showroom floor.

Carsini: What’s your point?

Columbo: No water marks. Can you explain that?

Carsini: No, I can’t.

Columbo: Well, there must be a reason for it. There always is!

Carsini: When you find it, will you tell me!?

Columbo: Believe me, sir, you’ll be the first to know!

Pleasence makes an excellent wine snob. His half-brother is handsome, athletic, an adventurer. But Adrian—short and prissy—has only wine, and his vulnerability is that his world is so small. It makes him desperate.

 

Note: 

- Peter Falk was on Johnny Carson right before the episode aired and expressed his great admiration and appreciation of Pleasance. 

- Dana Elcar has a nice little role as Falcon, a sweet-natured wine enthusiast from Texas.

 

 

(posts) a Raymond Carver poem: "The Other Life"

 

The Other Life

Now for the other life. The one
without mistakes.
- LOU LIPSITZ

My wife is in the other half of this mobile home
making a case against me
I can hear her pen scratch, scratch.
Now and then she stops to weep,
then – scratch, scratch.

The frost is going out of the ground.
The man who owns the unit tells me,
Don’t leave your car here.
My wife goes on writing and weeping,
weeping and writing in our new kitchen.