11/14/02
I fill my head with culture, I give myself an ulcer. Today was double-movie day: in the morning was Videodrome (for Coco Fusco's class--it's no accident that the guy who did makeup and special effects was given fourth billing on the back of the box, after David Cronenberg, James Woods and Debbie Harry), and in the evening L. and I went to a preview showing of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (thank you, Jess). I was surprised by how closely it matches up with my mental images of the book (I hadn't seen the first movie), and it manages to sustain its pace pretty well for 2 1/2 hours while staying veryfaithful to the book. (Though it omits my single favorite line from the entire series: "Never trust something that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!")
Last night was the NAJP's group trip to see Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden. I have a longstanding, difficult relationship with Dylan's music--it's complicated, but the essence of it is that I'm very interested in his work, but I don't like it very much. I wasn't around yet at the time when he detonated, and the sort of ongoing hagiography of everything he does--the idea that it's all important and even good because it's by him--turns me off. So I resisted him for a long time, warmed up a bit when I started playing some of his songs in guitar class a few years ago, and have kept investigating him, with one degree or another of caution and self-second-guessing. The show itself was... well, it relied on the fact that it was Bob Dylan up there. Charlie Sexton's a good guitar player, but the rest of the band is totally anonymous--why, when he could probably play with anyone in the world he wanted to?--and even though the covers were some of the livelier moments (esp. "Brown Sugar" and "Something"--hey, Dylan, the Stones and the Beatles at the same show!), he's doing a strange sort of guardianship of '60s rock. But I did get to watch one of my fellow Fellows dancing from sheer joy ("Brown Sugar," during which one of the security guards was boogalooing along the balcony walkway too), and hear another one singing along loudly ("Blowin' in the Wind"--perhaps we need to have a group karaoke night sometime).