Ground Control to Billy Joel
Aug. 18th, 2005 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatAs of late, I've been listening to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bethje's copy of Carolyn Mark's new album, Just Married: An Album of Duets. Each track is a duet with a different performer, none of whom I'd heard of before. One particuarly interesting track on the CD is "Rocket Piano Man," an odd medley of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," Elton John's "Rocket Man," and apparently Billy Joel's "Piano Man" (although I can't really hear the latter one). Other pretty cool songs on the record are "It's All Just A Matter Of (Where You Draw The Line)," "Sweet Thing," "Done Something Wrong," "The Colour Of Love," and a new version of Carolyn's own song "Don't Come Over Baby." My least favorite song is the last track, "Claxon's Lament," because I don't care for Carey Mercer's voice.
Here are a few reviews of the album that turned up from a Google search:
A not-too-positive review from PopMatters
Various comments on the album
NOW Magazine review
The relevant review is the fifth one on this page.
In other news, Beth and I went to Clementon Park yesterday. That place is never very crowded. We got there after 6, and stayed less than four hours (they officially close at 10, but they always stop letting people on the rides fifteen minutes or so before closing), but we got to ride everything except the Inverter (not that we couldn't have ridden that one, but neither of us wanted to). We rode many things twice, including the J2, the newest roller coaster. That ride was introduced last year as the Tsunami, but they changed the name. It's a particularly rough (or, in the words of the disclaimer, "aggressive") wooden coaster. We also played some skeeball in the arcade, and won some little plastic dolphin thing.
After leaving the park, we ate a diner, where I had a pizza steak that wasn't that great. The thing is, I'd had pizza steaks at that same diner before, and I remembered them being better. The one I had last night was messy, and I don't think the sauce was very good. Also, it had onions on it, even though I checked with the waitress to make sure there weren't any. So it was kind of disappointing, but it wasn't bad.
Later that night, we watched The Devil's Playground. This was a documentary about Rumspringa, the period when Amish children decide whether or not they want to join the church. This is when some of them get into drug use and/or dealing, heavy drinking, attending huge parties, and the like. The movie was actually a lot calmer than I thought it would be. While it did mention some pretty crazy stuff, the tone was quite accepting, and not a "SHOCKING AMISH TEENS CAUGHT ON TAPE!" kind of thing. One thing that did surprise me was how it seemed pretty easy for the people who ultimately decided NOT to join the Amish church to find jobs and support themselves. I suppose they didn't give us a random sample, though, so maybe it's a lot harder for many of them.
bethje's copy of Carolyn Mark's new album, Just Married: An Album of Duets. Each track is a duet with a different performer, none of whom I'd heard of before. One particuarly interesting track on the CD is "Rocket Piano Man," an odd medley of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," Elton John's "Rocket Man," and apparently Billy Joel's "Piano Man" (although I can't really hear the latter one). Other pretty cool songs on the record are "It's All Just A Matter Of (Where You Draw The Line)," "Sweet Thing," "Done Something Wrong," "The Colour Of Love," and a new version of Carolyn's own song "Don't Come Over Baby." My least favorite song is the last track, "Claxon's Lament," because I don't care for Carey Mercer's voice.Here are a few reviews of the album that turned up from a Google search:
A not-too-positive review from PopMatters
Various comments on the album
NOW Magazine review
The relevant review is the fifth one on this page.
In other news, Beth and I went to Clementon Park yesterday. That place is never very crowded. We got there after 6, and stayed less than four hours (they officially close at 10, but they always stop letting people on the rides fifteen minutes or so before closing), but we got to ride everything except the Inverter (not that we couldn't have ridden that one, but neither of us wanted to). We rode many things twice, including the J2, the newest roller coaster. That ride was introduced last year as the Tsunami, but they changed the name. It's a particularly rough (or, in the words of the disclaimer, "aggressive") wooden coaster. We also played some skeeball in the arcade, and won some little plastic dolphin thing.
After leaving the park, we ate a diner, where I had a pizza steak that wasn't that great. The thing is, I'd had pizza steaks at that same diner before, and I remembered them being better. The one I had last night was messy, and I don't think the sauce was very good. Also, it had onions on it, even though I checked with the waitress to make sure there weren't any. So it was kind of disappointing, but it wasn't bad.
Later that night, we watched The Devil's Playground. This was a documentary about Rumspringa, the period when Amish children decide whether or not they want to join the church. This is when some of them get into drug use and/or dealing, heavy drinking, attending huge parties, and the like. The movie was actually a lot calmer than I thought it would be. While it did mention some pretty crazy stuff, the tone was quite accepting, and not a "SHOCKING AMISH TEENS CAUGHT ON TAPE!" kind of thing. One thing that did surprise me was how it seemed pretty easy for the people who ultimately decided NOT to join the Amish church to find jobs and support themselves. I suppose they didn't give us a random sample, though, so maybe it's a lot harder for many of them.
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Date: 2005-08-18 08:53 pm (UTC)It's weird, because I actually just saw The Devil's Playground, too! (heh, perhaps when Aila returned it to Netflix it went directly to you!) Thought it was pretty good, but, I dunno, the Amish church has always been one that just seems sorta irritating and baffling to me (I was sort of "errrrrgh" when they said that they pulled people out of school at 8th grade because intelligence and education can lead to pridefulness. At least it seemed to explain the fratboyism of the kids during Rumspringa, I guess... But yeah -- it actually seemed really easy for Amish folks to find jobs, both of the ones outside of the church and those during rumspringa. (I have to wonder where they got the money to get cars, though.)
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Date: 2005-08-19 06:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-19 07:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-19 08:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-19 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-19 08:10 pm (UTC)That's possible, although I would imagine they probably have multiple copies. I do wonder whether all of the Netflix movies are shipped from one central location, or they have several different ones throughout the country. I know that when I return them, it says something on the envelopes about sending them to the nearest processing center, somewhere in Pennsylvania.
I certainly have some problems with Amish beliefs, including the education thing and the rigidly defined gender roles. On the other hand, I've never heard of the Amish trying to force those beliefs on other people, or use them to justify violence, so I have no problem with some people holding them. And it's cool that they give people a choice whether or not they want to joing the Amish Church, since I'm not so fond of the idea of infant baptism myself. (Well, since I'm not religious at all, I don't think it technically matters one way or the other whether a person is baptized, but I don't like the idea of parents forcing kids into a religion they might turn out not to believe.)
As for the cars, I know they said something in the film about kids who join the Church selling them to Rumspringa kids for low prices. That doesn't really explain how they started getting cars in the first place, though.
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Date: 2005-08-19 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-19 08:14 pm (UTC)