Angels we have heard on high—Merry Christmas, C. Merry Christmas, J. Merry Christmas, b. Merry Christmas, S, GH, K. Merry Christmas, M, K, E. Merry Christmas, Mom + Dad. Merry Christmas to the cats, too, Merry Christmas to all and to each and to every breathing living loving thing on this planet. Cranberries, sparkly paper, red wine, turkey dressing, ugly sweaters, "What movie should we rent?", endless stockings, new clothes, old relatives, a sense of a better world come down to this one.
Sometimes life surprises. Because sometimes you get blue potatoes—deep indigo blue potatoes—for dinner. Hey, I went Christmas shopping today and found the perfect present for my brother. It's beautiful, shiny, red, and fits in the palm of your hand. It does not play music, it does not feed the cat, it does not accept a cheque in lieu of cash. "Let the circle be unbroken"—that's my only clue. It's a gooder, though! This was me getting my Christmas shopping done early, by the way. Work keeps calling the house, and on Thursday Friday I'm going to be at both places for a total of fourteen and a half hours. So glad exams are done, yeah?
"Carbon Paper Skies" + Shelley Short There's a certain singing style that is perfection (all styles of song have their perfections, of course). This song by Shelley Short is one of the more obvious examples of such clarity. "Take me down where there's no one else around / Tell me things, tell me things". A man with the strange name of Larry Yes provides the male backing-vocals (don't worry, his voice was made for unremarkable lanes and tall goldenrod). I don't know who sings the female backing. This piece is from her debut album Oh, Say Little Dogies, Why? (2004). This song is a pool of music in a field, and a girl sitting on a fence. Someone was flying a kite not half an hour ago, and the nearest house is over a mile away. Her next album will have maybe one of the best precious titles of the upcoming year—Captain Wildhorse (Rides The Heart Of Tomorrow).
State Of Fear + Michael Crichton Doestoevsky was a pragmatist (I think), but he would probably have forged a strong community of redemption between himself and others before he picked up this book. Thomas Hardy would have frowned mightily and composed a bitter elegy describing how The Implacable English Moorside would never notice either global warming or the hearts of men. Chinua Achebe would merely comment acidly upon the plight of the headstrong Inuit and the refusal of any nation to take responsibilty for the destruction of the atmosphere. Me, I just picked the book up and started reading. The book is junk, of course. Events happen in wildly improbably fashion. Characters believe the stupidest lies. Plot-point follows plot-point. There should be more novelists like this. This book is a great read. Canada, btw, is sprinkled all over this book—Alberta and British Columbia, Montreal and Vancouver. That's just a side-note, though, a drop in the definition of exotic to people who live outside this country. Crichton is a good first-time read. I've never read any of his novels twice, but I've never started one of his books and not finished. Doestoevsky, Hardy, Achebe, they're brilliant. Crichton keeps me turning the pages.
Keep checking back. With a little luck, this post will be replaced with something better later today, say erotic Battleship or the number 9 ("smell the colour nine") or even live animals!—or not live.
This Narnia business is *B*R*I*L*L*I*A*N*T (via PolloxNiner).
Just came out of a final, another final tomorrow. Can't seem to pass the Monday post without tripping, you know? I might read a half-hour or so of The Small Boat Of Great Sorrows tonight. No, I won't. I work until ten, I won't be home till past eleven. I have a hard time getting around, sometimes. Then there's studying. I'm getting Arrested Development taped this evening. I'll watch it Wednesday morning. U can read my next post tomorrow (always tomorrow)—Tuesday, between the hours of seven and eight in the morning. Good night and good luck, as they say.
Newton's Law #9 (previously unknown): the frequency of posting on one's blog is directly linked to the frequency of shifts one works, which is to say, more work equals less blog. Who knew? Also, unrelated, last year's best commercial pop song, Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone", is also this year's best commercial pop song. New Year's will probably be at The Starlite for Shout Out Out Out Out and similar song-stylings. Plus a black-and-white party back in St. Albert (Capote would be delighted). ION, this house is getting CROWDED, the family coming in for Xmas. I've been banished to the basement (insert DFA79 lyrics). Finals are still not done and I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Ping-pong at work will clear my head. What do you guys think about t-shirts decorated with the sickle-and-hammer—ultimate capitalist triumph or post-USSR equivalent of wearing blackface? Have a good week-end. Lucky bugs win prizes.
"Grim Fandango" + Cadence Weapon This is your Friday eye on the local guy. Today's topic will be all about Cadence Weapon. Regular readers of This Old Blog know I'm a fan of the young Weapon, which reminds me, I've got a favourite un-episode to tell. These dudes I know from this band are at this party I went to after a Cadence Weapon show. They saw the so-called "mixtape" that Rollie Pemberton aka CW flings bolo-style at the unsuspecting audience from that backpack of his (I grabbed a copy) and they laid their reverent hands on it, saying, "This is the freshest indie." Something about that description started me laughing and I haven't really stopped since. Anyways, you shouldn't check out Cadence Weapon because he's "the freshest indie", or the Fresh Prince, or just plain refreshing in a dull sea of blathering earnest gangsta hip-hop. You should check out CW because he's GOOD! How many times did I burn the bleeding-perfect "Oliver Square" onto a cd? "He's arrogant," you say (I say) and he nods. "He's cocky," you say (I say) and he nods. You know what? He's not that cocky, not that arrogant. But you know why he's nodding? Because he has every damn right to be as stuck-up and high on himself as anybody outside of a hat trick in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup has a right to be. Because listen to the music. It's that good. And you know what? If Arrested Development doesn't make it to Showtime, it's still going to live on in this mix-master's music (both versions). What's the gorilla for? Anyways, The Weapon's cd came out December 6th, it's called Breaking Kayfabe, be thinking words like solid solid solid. Listen, repetition means This Is Important. Every song is its own piece, and the style is blazing. The cd release here in E-town is the 17th. That's this Saturday. Dance the grim fandango.
Circus + Alistair MacLean The first MacLean novel I ever read was Where Eagles Dare. There was a reason that book was made into a movie (although you'd be hard put to find that same book in that same movie). The way MacLean kept spinning the reader around with double-cross after double-cross was amazing, a brilliant game well-played. MacLean is a hack writer, of course. So was Charles Dickens. I'm not saying MacLean is anywhere near the author of Great Expectations, I'm just saying, is all. Circus is filled with the usual tricks—MacLean is like s strange cross between Dashiel Hammet and Dick Francis and even Dorothy L. Sayers, which sounds terrible on paper (on screen) but works really well on the page. His heroes are always these cardboard cut-outs who could probably out-hunt James Bond, but have way too much heart to do so. They always act fiercely and coldly, but only for sentimental and humanitarian reasons. They're dads, for godsake, every one of them. The hero of Circus is no different. Bruno Wildermann is an American acrobat with a photographic memory who works in an Eastern European circus. A setting, I think, which was once used by the old Mission: Impossible television show. The plot is improbable: keep the anti-matter out of the hands of the bad guys. The world's fate rests in Bruno's hands. This book is ridiculous with death. Everybody dies in amazing ways. Quentin Tarantino should not be refilming Casino Royale, he should be scripting this book and ratcheting out a cast right now. There are so many gotchas! in this book, well, it's not for the ticklish. Even the very last freaking line of this book contains a surprise that cast the whole novel in new light. That's just MacLean's way of writing. The men are all strong here, except the dastardly men. The women are beautiful Amazons, delicate shepherdesses, horrible old brutes. It's good vs evil, and good is so darn clever at getting up from evil's beating that we all laugh and root for more. This is a good book. I'm not saying it's a great novel, I'm saying I wish more great novels were like this, that they gave one a reason to turn the flipping page. I'll flip the page for MacLean any day. Pulp fiction at its best.
Saturday night, I remember calling G a muffinhead. I do remember that. Also, bumming smokes off a stranger. Also, grabbing my boss' boss' boss and whispering in his ear for five minutes. Also, the shut-up game, where anyone who said anything to me received a "shut-up". Poor anyone. Also, I have this habit, on certain occasions, of grabbing the random people within arms' length and addressing not unkind comments toward them. Also, rye, gin, scotch, red wine, white wine, and something the girl called a mystery shot. I turned around in the car on the way home and saw K and S and GH crammed into the back. How did they get there? The next day was very unpleasant. My longsuffering girlfriend got me to work. I was fifty minutes late for my shift, with about fifty heaving reasons for being so. I found out (today) that there's video evidence of the frolic and speech impediments of the night in question. To all the people who helped me find my inner child, thank-you. I hope to one day witness the same in you. You know, I'm on the invite for an unofficial work party at my other work-place and I'm a bit hesitant about going. Actually, I'm very hesitant.
"The Tiki Tiki Tiki Room" + Hilary Duff I know, I know, I CANNOT BELIEVE I am posting this song. The humanity! BUT—this song is good. And I refuse to allow my own perverse snobbery to get in the way of me listening to good music. And this IS good music. By the way, in the Dad, There's A Little Phrase Called Too Much Information (thank-you, Out Hud) spirit of things, my brother loves loves loves Hilary Duff's "Come Clean / Let The Rain Fall Down". And I used to mock him for his fierce love. And now he can mock me back, if he so wishes. Because I love this Tiki song. I love the chaga-chaga chant, I love how you can practically hear fake bamboo shoots gleaming brightly, the generic wind-up bird-cheeps, the jazz-hands echo to the chorused "Tiki room!", the rattling percussion, the way the audience is addressed throughout the song, the inane rhymes, everything! Please download it. You'll love it, so wonderful.
The Chronicles Of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe Film today. No books for you! Well, there was the usual side-effect to watching this movie. I was so glad I was not there. Imagine facing down a twelve-foot tall two-sworded cavalry officer. I couldn't take a centaur if a Aslan himself was behind me. Or fight against a minotaur whose face is bigger than my entire body? Those horns aren't for me. Unlike this reviewer, I thought the CGI was top-notch, not the equal of LOTR, maybe, but still, top-of-the-pops-notch. On the way out of the theatre, I heard this one guy (clutching his wizard's staff) blare out, "That wasn't nearly as good as Lord Of The Rings." Come on, buddy. I understand they're both fantasies, but neither of them are Krull, either. All three movies are about a bunch of in-over-their-heads characters journeying toward some big-bang conflict that will forever change the universe. LOTR and Narnia are opposite side of the same coin. LOTR is the gothic face-melting humanist side, Narnia is the brightly-coloured religion side. Neither Peter Jackson nor Adam (Shrek this!) Andrewson can help that you like The Cure better than The Go! Team. You probably would have taken the blue pill, right? And the reason you like all the dark shadows so much is that that's the only time you can see your replica orc-sword actually glow. In LOTR, a bunch of humans and elves and those little guys band together. They're going to save the world by destroying the one ring, right? Their salvation lies within if they will only make the effort and work together. In Narnia, a bunch of humans and some beavers band together. They're going to save another human, because that other human has gone and done some foolishness and is suffering for it. In Narnia, rescue comes from outside the group. Like religion, but more feline. In LOTR, rescue comes from within the band. It's like the UN, but with magic! Whatever way you look at it, this movie is a good movie. It's full of bright colours, brave actions, and traitorous deeds shown as, well, not worth the candy. It's like Robin Hood. Evil gets defeated, the poor people get to be kings, and everyone lives happily ever after. And Robin Hood is an enormous lion who doesn't steal, only gives. It's a lion, folks! A lion!
I've been trying to build one house per week, 2700 sq ft, wiring, flooring, all of it. I've succeeded. To date, thirty-four houses. I've been trying to write a novel per month. So far, nine novels. I've looked into world peace, too. Expect to hear much celebration by about Wednesday next. But I just can't seem to stick to a regular blog schedule. Monday's post will be tomorrow, Tuesday. The usual pic, the usual song, the usual book and the usual personal. Oh my sons and daughters, yes, the week-end was very full.
Meanwhile, check out The 16mm Shrine. Ash is putting out the usual top-notch quality. Somebody give him a book-deal. And this kid (I've never met him, but a dude I first saw on the site showed me a picture of the kid) has one of the most intriguing photoblogs I've seen in a while. He's got some good pix of The Wolfnote up right now. Which reminds me (the pix thing) Absenter is still going strong. And a new site, Get Published Or Die Tryin, has some hilarious bits about the MFA process, including the line, "a dolphin punches frank conroy in frank conroy's face". I can live with that line. Also, Oprah is discussed. She's in bar and she's been rejected by the overweight white middle class housewives of the world. When this blog gets specific it doesn't mess around. Lastly, PolloxNiner has a new home, and she brought Feist. There's some new (depending on how you look at it) Vashti Bunyan, too.
Later, aviators.
The thing about crap jobs is that they're crap. You'd think that would be obvious going in, but not so. Whatevs. Plus, I left my cell at work. I HATE that. That's like leaving your best sweater at your friend's before a first-date night x 10! Right now, I'm so tired, I'm not even going to finish this post until tomorrow morning (today, to you, I suppose). I'm taking my black oxfords off, I'm hitting the shower, I'm having tea and kimchi or maybe something else. Maybe I'll give C a call again, maybe I'll read the editorials in the Tuesday Post. Doubtless my cat will sit in the chair across from me while I eat. Good night and good-morning.
"Past, Present, And Future (Live)" + Jens Lekman Morrissey was outdone on this one. Self-pity and pitiless carelessness for the self mashed up by a sixties girl band and covered by a Swedish singing phenom now trying to hack it in suburban LA. This song is the live version—the full applause from the audience at the end of the music is wonderful to hear, especially after Jens has just sung, "But don't try to touch me, don't try to touch me / Cause that will never happen again." Jens Lekman is a sort of genius, I think. His throw-aways are better than many bands' singles. His spider-babies song, for instance—"Boisa-bis-o-boisa"—was a bleeding slice of brilliance, too, say a theme song sung softly by the crow in Alice In Wonderland, or a Neil Gaiman character. Jens has masterpieces out there with "You Are The Light" and "Rocky Dennis' Farewell Song To The Blind Girl" and "Black Cab" and the hugely under-rated "Pocketful Of Money" and—oh, you get the idea. You understand me. This is a guy who wrote and sang and sings, "Oh, I still remember Regulate with Warren G / That would have been back in the sweet summmer of nineteen-ninety-three." Godsake, the Warren G was the unnofficial theme song of this grocery store I worked in back in the day! But it's that big rich voice of Jens, right? Those intricate and clever but also heartfelt lyrics, right? The Stephen Merrit of him, the Morrissey of the man. What I'm hoping, here, is that you are a JL fan. And, if you're not, that you will dl these very minor efforts by a very talented songwriter and say, "Sweet Lord, if these are the crumbs from the table, what's the full-meal-deal taste like?" Oh, I forgot, "F-Word" is better than a masterpiece, it's perfect. Long as you like cats.
[Edit/update: This is horrible news (via Said The Gramaphone). Jens is saying he's giving up the game, at least for a few years. Touring has basically wrecked his life and he's going to look for a day-job. His last show will be in Athens, Greece. Horrible news, that is, for his fans. With any luck, it will end up being good news for Jens. I so wished to hear him, though, and can hardly believe his tour was not a mega-blowout success. Every song he sings is a single. I hope, one day, that I look up from my coffee or cheap shiraz (hell, why not?) to hear the opening notes of "Maple Leaves" and see a mild-looking man playing the piano in the suddenly-brightest corner of the room. Don't give up on music forever, Jens.]
Prester John + John Buchan Remember this? "Look for a small humourous anecdote touching on Thomas Wolfe, a yellow Volkswagon, my Dad's Winchester .303, casting for the upcoming Rocky VI film, and a flourescent purple bikini." I lied. That was just to hook the unsuspecting reader of this blog. The good news is that there's an even better story here, something along the lines of Rider Haggard, but oh so much better. This is Buchan's finest work (and, yes, I've read The Thirty-nine Steps), perhaps only equalled by Buchan's excellent but entirely different Sick Heart River. PJ is the kind of book R.L. Stevenson would have written, if he'd had enough time in his short life. The hero of this novel is the eponymous British lad, the good old boy, the man who makes good, etcetera. The villain is completely out of the ordinary. The Reverend John Laputa is leading the native people of Africa against the colonial powers. He's doing this with the aid of a symbolic/talismanic necklace representing his royal African descent from the legendary Christian Prester John, with the help of a couple of sucker-trash Europeans from the shady side of the Mediterranean, with the charity of the English people he cons on cash-cow tours of Britain and, most importantly, with his own powerful charming force of character. Now, everything in this book is seen from the pov of the protagonist, Davie Burns. There's a lot of casual racism in this book. The kaffir negro is described a pitiful animal-like beggar lucky to be allowed employment in the colonial world of the British Empire. The Dutch do not get off much better. The lone Portuguese man is worse than both combined. John Laputa/Prester John is always clearly a man apart from his brother Africans, an exceptional human being. How much of this racism is the view of the hero as opposed to the view of the author is unclear, but it's there, and there's plenty enough of it. But it becomes part of the terms of the story, this racism; the terms of the large and careless empires which men could establish by sheer force of will—and corruption on every level. The plot of the story is nigh frantic, beginning with an eerie childhood encounter with the young man who will be become the Prester John. Davie Burns is then sent out to Africa, to earn his keep. He encounters very suspicious activity among the native Africans of the back country, and gets caught up in the just-hatching native rebellion to such an extent that at one time he finds himself in a large cave, surrounded by thousands of Africans, pledging enthusiastic heartfelt allegiance to Prester John in the person of John Laputa. The atmosphere of this book is of worlds at stake, of great lion-hearts struggling for expression, of harsh African country-side and the harsh measures by which men live. This book is a book, above all, of atmosphere. Additionally, it's a standout from the normal boy's-own-adventures of its day, because the obstacles which must be removed from the adventurer's path (I'm talking DB, here) are really the pillars and foundation of the adventurer's world. After the rebellion is quashed, there is nothing left for Davie Burns. He is facing a successful retirement at twenty-five years old. He is not displeased with his circumstances, but he is discontent, with less of the whole "no more worlds to conquer" idea and more of the "isn't it a pity" sensation. And the book ends. It's brilliant. Please read and enjoy.
1) I watched Sky High (thank-you, C) and it was excellent—also, it was excellent because Bruce Campbell is in it. Bruce Campbell is a lousy actor but everyone in the audience (nearly everyone) is a happier person after watching him shout and act stern. It wasn't the trilogy that first made me his fan, though, it was that television series, Brisco County Jr. About other films which are not Bruce Campbell films, I have only this to say. I'll watch any film featuring Charlotte Gainsbourg, even the dreadful ones, even though they're all dreadful ones.
2) There's a ping-pong table set up in the back, now. I love ping-pong. The table is home-made, narrow, corners cut diagonally, net made out of painted cardboard. The paddles are tiny and plastic, matting carefully peeled off of one side. The one ball has a pin-prick hole in it. Work could be fantastic this winter. I like the Chinese grip myself.
3) I might talk a little politics in my next post. There's an election coming, and it looks like a monster.
Sneak-Thief + "Cold Ways (feat Lindsay-J)" The kids in the tight jackets and white pants probably yelled "Italo!" after hitting each other to this shiny-chain-swinging beat. Either that, or they started snapping pics of every flamingo they spotted. I could have helped them out with the photography, but the lingo? I don't know foreign languages. But I do know a solid bassline (who doesn't?), and this bass is solid cubed. I'm not going to try and fool you—yeah, Sneak-Thief aka Michael Morin is local, but he's not that local. Just like The Faunts, but at the opposite end of music, he long ago left the City Of Champions, and he's blazing around Holland and Germany all Peaches-style, where the closest thing they have to a guitar is a poster of Devendra Banhart in the record store. And DB doesn't go down very well on the dance floor. Anyway, this track is off Sneak-Thief's Cold Ways EP (2003), released on Lasergun. What's Lasergun? This is Lasergun, so get your rave on. Sneak-Thief has a website and thirteen tracks on the NMC business. This gold is old but it still gets glitzi.
The Riddle Of The Sands + Erskine Childers His cousin was the First Lord of the British Admiralty, and Childers himself graduated from Trinity College. He was not an unnconnected man. He volunteered for the British in the Boer War and was wounded. He wrote his only novel, a novel which heavily affected the British military, on his way home. Around the outbreak of WWI, he and his American wife were smuggling arms to Irish rebels, but he volunteered for naval service and flew a plane, earning the Distinguished Service Cross in WWI. He served as a member of Irish Parliament (despite his background) and was the father of the fourth president of Ireland. Childers was executed for treason against the British Crown in 1922, court-martialed for illegally carrying an automatic pistol . His last words were, "Take a step or two closer, boys. It will be easier for you." This book is about sailing, and war, and navigation, and ignorance, and so much more. This book is about two men who take a miserable holiday along the dykes and sands of Holland and Germany and Denmark and come to suspect that the Germans are making secret preparations to attack England and establish naval dominion over the northern half of Europe. The language of this book is like crisp poetry. Except for Kipling's Kim and certain sections of Defoe's novels, this would have been the first spy novel in the English language, perhaps in any language. What Childers did in this novel was successfully synthesize the German political stance and attitude into a novel, a novel which said Germany was going to attack England and Europe. The novel was published in 1903. WWI began eleven years later, and this novel reads like a history of the pre-war preparations. Correction: this novel reads like a thriller/adventure/spy novel/mystery/boys-own-adventure of pre-war preparations. It's the setting that dominates this book, though, the shifting sands of the title. The fog is always clearing or thickening, the water always rising or falling, the sands and shoals merging with the wind and water. Everything is temporary, everything is unknown, the enemy might be in the next country or a hundred feet away, who can tell? It's a good book, it's a standout. Look at the author's life. Whatever he did, he threw himself entirely into the effort. How could he not have written a fascinating novel?
Well, I don't know anymore, I was going to hang out by the big giant disembodied dinosaur head, but all the tourists beat me to it. So now he's got a new bunch of friends. Is this good? Looks like the bodiless reptile exhibit is the coolest kid in class now, which means we never talk anymore because now he doesn't know me. Alright, whatever. The West Edmonton Mall is insane. What happened, WEM? You used to be cool, but now you're crazy, too crazy for me. I can't hang out with the West End Carnivores, I drink milk, I like potatoes, I watch Gilmore Girls. Do you watch Gilmore Girls, WEM? Does Ichabod Rex here watch Rory and Lorelei? Rory has such a big forehead, doesn't she? A walking candy apple, that one. I didn't like her in Sin City. The actress, I mean, not the character. Rory goes to Harvard or Yale or something like that. She met her new boyfriend there. They might be getting serious. Does Harvard have big-headed tiny-eyed lizard-heads populating the halls? Does Yale? I don't think so, WEM. Stop being crazy.
"This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)" + Arcade Fire Is this as good as the original Talking Heads business? I don't think so (although I LOVE the translated sound, the vibrating guitar lines—plunk, plunk—and are those little taps being made on a xylophone?). Win Butler's voice is as ragged and torn as last year's jeans. And the AF version needs more voice, too. They really like their covers, but I've got mixed feelings. When this band played here, Butler said that he and the rest of the group were coasting toward the edge of crazy doing the same ten tunes over and over. So they played some Springsteen and some New Order. The Springsteen I didn't recognize, but the sound was very muddied on it. Have you heard the AF's cover of "Maps"? The thing is, the Fire don't attack their covers enough. They need more power out there (no puns, please). They need to beat the song up and not stand back and be respectful. Win Butler needs to sing these songs like he sings his own. Whatever, though. This is a solid cover, very decently done.
Note: I took these mp3s off a blog which I can't, for the life of me, recall. Random surfingness. But it was a good blog, I loved every selection on it, and I wish I could pass on the URL. All credit, unknown blog, to thee.
A Journal Of The Plague Year + Daniel Defoe This is a famous book. This book is famous because it is wonderful. This book is what everyone in those sap-headed creative non-fiction classes is trying to write. It's Wisconsin Death Trip but in London, while England is fighting off the Dutch. Shortly, the Great Fire will frost the entire city. Times are incredibly tough. This is a run-on book, a book of lists and figures, a book of anecdotes, a book on economics and politics and religion and superstition. This book is not a novel. This book is true and good. This book is common sense and heart-wrenching confusion and, more than anything, death.
In the first house, there died four persons. A neighbour, hearing the mistress of the first house was sick, went to visit her, and went home and gave the distemper to her family, and died, and all her household. A minister, called to pray with the first sick person in the second house, was said to sicken immediately and die with several more in his house. Then the physicians began to consider.
[Edit: Good God, I said local profiles on Fridays, didn't I? That was Note Number Two in the listening section. Apologies. Check back Monday for an atonement post. Have a good week-end. Lucky bugs win prizes.]
[Edit (Sunday): I found the blog and the blog is Hello Gina and she has the smile-out-loud "Sweet Troubled Soul" up right now, the stellastarr* single, along with the "stellar" James Iha remixplosion. Love the kick when all the instruments—except for that drumbeat—cut out for, like, two seconds, and Christensen belts out the title phrase.
