Random Epiphanies



I love the word, epiphany . In a smaller, more secular sense, it means to me those moments when you learn something new, and you actually chuckle, or say "Aha!" To me, it means you're creating new connections in your brain, strengthening the neural pathways. This is what excites me most about life--learning new things.

Here are a few random epiphanies from the last few days (in modified order: Song, Wine, and Women):


Song: Donald Fagen has a soul mirror. "What I Do."




For awhile, I've thought that there are 3 types of people in this world--those who don't know Steely Dan, those who don't get Steely Dan, and Steely Dan fanatics. I'm in the last group, for the most part. Donald Fagen has a new album out, "Morph the Cat" , which is a good effort, and nice to listen to. But there's a GEM on the record: "What I Do." In this track, Fagen does what I thought Bowie did in his last few records. They both took a step back, looked at a body of work, and decided to encapsulate their musical worldview in a performance. Brilliant. Twenty-five years after lamenting getting old, ("Hey 19, that's Aretha Franklin..."), Donald Fagen digs what he majored in.

"Morph the Cat" at Amazon.


Wine: Corked wine is not a myth.




Seriously. Bad corks ruin wine . I knew it was a problem (4+ percent of all wine gets corked), but I have lucked out over the years, I guess. It should be obvious to anyone when it happens to you. If your wine tastes like a penny that your roommate has had in their gym shoe for 4 years, it's corked. Return it. The funny thing, is that this happened to only one out of several bottles of my "wine of the week" (see previous post ). Do not drink corked wine. While it might give you a buzz, the taste stays in your gut longer than burnt garlic, or Durian Fruit .



Women: Natalie Portman says something profound about cinema and media, maybe intentionally.




I like cutie Natalie Portman, but I don't think she's a great actress. Time may prove me wrong. She was on yet another news show promoting "V for Vendetta ", which I really want to see, based on my political leanings, and interest in comic book adaptations. I like the fact that she's educated, and politically interested. She managed to perk up my ears though, when she said something along the lines of (and this is my misquote/paraphrase):

[Going to the movies is] "about shared empathy, when 200 people get together and understand that this is not about my day and my issues but about the life of the person on the screen."

So there really IS a reason to go out into public and deal with all those coughers, teenage hoodlums, and tall-hat-wearing misanthropes! Maybe Comcast "On Demand" movies are this generation's nuclear bunker...

...Cue Donald Fagen's "New Frontier" Aha! (chuckle)

Posted: Sat - March 25, 2006 at 01:32 AM            

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