Friday, December 16, 2005

anagrams of 'jersey, free me!'

I rented and watched Garden State last night. To the several dozen folks who recommended this film as one they thought I might like: why didn't you recommend it more emphatically? I don't watch that many films, but Garden State is my favorite film of any I've seen since ETotSM, which is my favorite film.

Angela recently asked people to name the first album they owned. Mine was Business as Usual, by Men at Work. I knew that Colin Hay, the former frontman for Men at Work, had a song on the Garden State soundtrack--indeed, this was supposed to be a real career rejuvenating coup for him. So as I was watching the film I was waiting for it. It's a strangely sweet love song, and thus I was expecting the romance in the film to develop in a direction that would make the song relevant. And then, there it was, for all of seven seconds, as they finish burying a hamster: I just don't think I'll ever get over you.

BTW, it's Beethoven's birthday today. I may forget the birthdays of various friends and relatives, etc., but every time I see December 16th on the calendar, I think "Beethoven's birthday." Not because I have any erudition in classical music. But because Schroeder made a big deal out of it once in a series of Peanuts strips I read when I was seven, and I've never been able to shake that fact from my head in the years since. All the encyclopediae of useful or interesting things that I've forgotten over the years, but, Beethoven's birthday, that I will apparently remember always. Worst of all, it's not even actually his birthday.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I assume Colin Hay of MaW fame is not the same as Colin Hay, Marxist scholar?

Anonymous said...

Speaking of birthdays, Colin Hay (the Men at Work guy, not the Marxist scholar) and I share one.

Anonymous said...

I think I recall his Hay's dissertation being on "The Dialectics of Vegemite." So, could be one and the same?

Anonymous said...

Weirder things have happened. I saw Peter Weller (the actor who played Robocop) on the History Channel commenting on the Roman Empire. Apparently he's getting (or got) his Ph.D.

Also, I love Garden State too, Jeremy. I'm surprised you waited this long to see it. -JJ

Anonymous said...

I was joking about Hay's dissertation.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, we know.

Anonymous said...

Obviously...

Anonymous said...

Let's just bury the hamster...
Josh

Anonymous said...

Okay.

--Buster

Ang said...

JJ, I was reading somewhere that Peter Weller is an insanely popular lit prof at Syracuse.

Anonymous said...

roboPROF

Tonya said...

I can't believe that Shroeder got Beethoven's birthday wrong.

Do you think that Linus was mistaken about the Great Pumpkin too?

jeremy said...

See Wikipedia for details on Peter Weller's career and the fact that he was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

As for the Hay's Cultural Contradictions of Vegemite, I have little to add beyond my 830-page treatise on the subject.

Anonymous said...

I am tempted to share with you my treatise on the movie "Firstborn" starring Peter Weller, and co-starring Teri Garr, Corey Haim, Sarah-Jessica Parker, and Robert Downey, Jr. However, since this is neither the time nor place, I'll just tell you that it's VERY "After School Special." JJ