Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 133

'Jungle' Fever?

Haven't caught up to the actual show yet, but I see that Mozart in the Jungle is one of those half-dozen pilots competing to be picked by Amazon for a go-ahead for a full series, depending on viewer response (and other matters, one imagines).   It seems like a longshot due to general area--classical music--but has a shot due to star power, including Gael Garcia Bernal as the young conductor Dudamel...er, Rodrigo, plus Malcolm McDowell.  And it's based on a memoir about sex and drugs in that world. This clips opens, my droogies, with a little bit of Ludwig Van's Ninth Symphony, perhaps in honor of Mr. McDowell.   UPDATE:  I've now seen the pilot and it's pretty weak.  Great to see some details from the classical world in a show but odd mix of serious music and "Sex and the Classical City."

'Not Your Standard Well Fire"

We'll want to keep an eye on this one:  Officials from Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, Chevron, and the appropriately named Wild Well Control are trying to figure out how to contain and put out a massive natural gas fire that erupted at a well pad owned by Chevron on Tuesday, about 50 miles south of Pittsburgh. One worker was injured and another is missing and feared dead. 
DEP spokesman John Positer said: "Our biggest concern is the environmental impact of what they're going to do. ..This is not your standard well fire. It's bigger. We want to know what they are going to use to put out that fire and how they're going to contain it and prevent it from spreading and possibly getting into a stream."
Always interesting in these well fire stories to read, as in this AP story quoting the DEP spokesman Positer, that a site "isn't near homes or businesses and appears to pose no threat to public health." Reading the comments section of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story gives a slightly different perspective, such as Virginia Eberhart describing her house as "a little over 1,000 feet" from that well. She writes: I am all for energy independence but I can tell you that this is not anything but a nightmare to live by. My house was shaken to the core. It felt like a 747 was outside our house and the flames reflected in all the windows on the one side of the house. We felt like we were living next Mt St Helen's with tremors and booms all night long.I am all for energy independence but I can tell you that this is not anything but a nightmare to live by. My house was shaken to the core. It felt like a 747 was outside our house and the flames reflected in all the windows on the one side of the house. We felt like we were living next Mt St Helen's with tremors and booms all night long."i am allI am all for energy independence but I can tell you that this is not anything but a nightmare to live by. My house was shaken to the core. It felt like a 747 was outside our house and the flames reflected in all the windows on the one side of the house. We felt like we were living next Mt St Helen's with tremors and booms all night long.II am I "I am all for "I am I "I am ""I am "I"I am all for :I am all for "I am all "I am all for energy"I ""I am all for energy independence but I can tell you that this is not anything but a nightmare to live by. My house was shaken to the core. It felt like a 747 was outside our house and the flames reflected in all the windows of one side of the house." A Chevron spokeswoman could not estimate how long the fire might continue to burn. Updates from the Greene County Messenger here.  -- Barbara Bedway

Roll Over, Beethoven: Latest on Our New Film and Book!

Updates  Video of our recent, amazing "Ode to Joy" flash mob in Nyack just posted by our hosts, Rivertown Film Society.  Really captures one of the great nights in local arts history....

The NPR "All Things Considered"  segment on the film was terrific.  Listen to it here.  Naturally we are now getting fresh requests for dozens of screenings across the USA.  And here's Bill Moyers' recent segment on the film on PBS--he even presents the entire  trailer!

Also surging: the tie-in book that I wrote  with director Kerry Candaele, now updated in print and e-book  editions:  Journeys With Beethoven: Following the Ninth , published by Sinclair Books. It's just $3.99 for the e-book and $9.99 for print.

Screenings of Following the Ninth (which I co-produced) continue.  Due to popular demand, a 2nd screening is coming Feb. 19 in Nyack after the sold-out first screening and flash mob.

Reviews of film include very positive review from New York Times:  "Thrilling... all the film’s segments are smartly assembled and gracefully paced. Oh, and the score’s pretty good, too." From the Village Voice.   "A majestic sonic travelogue... that rarest of films: a documentary as ineffable and transformative in its reach as it sets out to be."Another good review at Film Journal: "Stirring documentary."  Hollywood Reporter: "Persuasive feel-good movie doc.... offers enough spirit-lifting moments to prove its thesis and leave viewers inspired!"

The film follows the Ninth Symphony and its enormous cultural and political influence around the world.  So we travel from Chile during the Pinochet years, to China's Tiananmen Square uprising,  to Japan (for the annual mass singing of the "Ode to Joy") and to Germany with Leonard Bernstein for the fall of the Wall, plus Billy Bragg re-writing the "Ode to Joy"--and playing it for the Queen.

You can write me at:  epic1934@aol.com.    And here's Kerry's terrific trailer:

'The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow'

Socked in by snow in the Northeast again so here's my recent photo offering some hope for a better tomorrow...or, err, next week, or month, maybe.

The New 'Odd Couple'?

UPDATE We've learned that President Obama plans to spend the long Presidents holiday weekend binge-watchibg "True Detective."

Earlier:  Andy Greenwald is not a big fan of "True Detective" but makes some interesting points in this piece.  And I love his closing idea that we really deserve one sit-com episode of Rust and Marty as new roommates.

"I’m talking about Martin Hart and Rust Cohle: wacky roommates! How could the greatest potential sitcom of all time be brushed aside in a single montage? I demand an entire hour of the two of them trying to figure out the coffee maker, weighing baking soda for counterfeit coke, and injecting each other with household spices. Is it too much to ask for one classic mid-’90s night in which Rust and Marty eat Andy Capp’s Hot Fries, do pull-ups, and watch 120 Minutes while waiting for the 1 a.m. SportCenter with Rich and Stu to start? I definitely don’t know where True Detective is going. Considering the leaps in style and sanity it took last night, I don’t think anything we’ve seen even counts as prologue. But I do know where it could have been. Opportunity missed!"

Wendy, Can You Break This Trap?

NYT Magazine cover this Sunday coming on Wendy Davis (at least she's not another woman-on-the-moon).  Story here.  

El Sid

The comedy giant of early TV, Sid Caesar, has died at 91.  I was just a tyke but remember the show well and he had numerous comebacks over the years.  Everyone from Neil Simon to Mel Brooks were among his writers.  He the true pioneer in TV sketch comedy--SNL should do a tribute this weekend. (See My Favorite Year for a Hollywood version.)  Naturally, I am going to present a Beethoven clip. Huh? Well, it's classic Sid, a wordless argument with wife to the opening of the Fifth Symphony....

Keep Calm, Carry On, in 21st Century

I first noticed the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters with their distinctive red crown when we began visiting my stepdaughter Jeni in London in the mid-aughts. By then, the posters were already being parodied: "Keep Calm and Get a Pedicure," "Keep Calm and Drink Vodka." This YouTube video explains the poster's moving significance, as one of three commissioned by the British government in 1939, to offer reassurance to the population for the ordeal that lay ahead. The other two posters ("Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution will Bring Us Victory" and "Freedom is in Peril, Defend It With All Your Might") were actually distributed, but the third never was.
In 2000, the owner of Barter Books in England found the posters in a box of dusty books bought at auction, and framed one. Customers clamored to buy them, and an iconic poster was re-born for the 21st century.

With Britain's leaders anxious to demonstrate their deep empathy about the plight of the country's flood victims bashing about the country in wellies, politics.co.uk is a tad put off, finding such behavior "deeply un-British:" "Whatever happened to "keep calm and carry on?"  -- Barbara Bedway    (h/t @ConnieSchultz)

Our 'Ode to Joy' Flash Mob

As promised, just launched today: cool video of wonderful flash mob that I helped organize in Nyack, N.Y., following a sold-out screening of our Following the Ninth film (which I co-produced) last month. The hosts for the screening, Rivertown Film Society, shot it from the balcony and with three roving cameras on the floor, then edited the video. The musicians hail from local orchestras, arranged by Arlene Keiser,  with singers from Nyack High. They had exactly one rehearsal just before the screening, at another site. Yes, the audience was surprised.  Conductor is Rob Keiser, one of the heroes in my book about coaching my son in Little League, Joy in Mudville.  Of course, the message is: universal brotherhood/sisterhood.

This is in keeping with the theme of the film (featured in recent segments on Bill Moyers' PBS show and NPR's "All Things Considered"), which explores the amazing influence of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony around the world, and our book, Journeys With Beethoven .  In fact, there is now a global phenomenon of "Ode to Joy" flash mobs around the world and I've posted some of them over the past few months.   Maybe you'd like to try it your home town?  BTW, we're doing a second screening of the film in Nyack on Feb. 19.  You can reach me at: epic1934@aol.com.

That Musician Arrested in Philip Seymour Hoffman Case

Turns out the key guy has had quite a musical career from playing with Bowie to serving as Wyclef Jean's musical director to doing own album and performing widely. (Recorded with Blondie, Amy Winehouse, Tom Jones and on and on.)  Reputed to be terrific sax player but maybe age (57) and loss of gigs led to his apparent heroin dealing.  He has not yet been charged with selling directly to PSH--though the actor's number was found in his cell phone.  Here's a clip of him playing--as usual as Robert Aaron (not Vineberg)--not long ago.  Below that: He played sax on the studio recording of my favorite Bowie song, "Modern Love" though I can't be sure he is in this live clip (but might be).