Michael Mann is one of my favorite directors. The musical score from his The Last of the Mohicans is one of my all-time favorite film scores. Football is my favorite sport. As I was watching a recent NFL game I saw this Nike ad, which combines all three of these things. Needless to say, it very much warmed my heart.
I'd like to give a quick shout out to the hard-working maestros of the Louisville Orchestra. My wife and I attended the orchestra's performance of The Lord of the Rings Symphony at the Kentucky Center for the Arts last night and enjoyed it greatly. I love all things LOTR-related and listen to Howard Shore's ethereal score quite often, so this event was a no-brainer for me. The audience was an assorted hodgepodge of tin-foil hat geeks and symphony-going sophisticates (I'll let the reader guess at to which group I belong), but a good time was had by all.
And thanks to my mom for giving me the tickets for Christmas!
I'm a huge fan of Johnny Cash, while my fifteen-month old daughter is a huge fan of Big Bird and the puppetized thesps of Sesame Street. Needless to say we were both thrilled to find this video that combined our pleasures:
"Don't take your ones to town," indeed. Sage words from the Man in Black. See also here for an early 70's encounter between Cash and Oscar the Grouch.
On a side note, my wife and I were talking about what singers we'd like to hear in heaven. I told her that nothing would give me more joy than hearing the velvet baritone of the Man in Black as I approach eternity's gate. If the Almighty is taking requests, I'd like it to be "When the Man Comes Around," one of Cash's last recordings and one of the great Christian songs of all time.
I just heard Moby's song "Beautiful" on the radio for the first time. The lyrics are quite damning of the vapidity of the modern obsession with physical beauty:
Look at us, we're beautiful
All the people push and pull
But let's just go out and ride
Talk about the things we try
Look at us, we're beautiful
All the people push and pull but
they'll never get inside
We've got too much to hide
I'd like to give a quick shout out to the hard-working maestros of the