Beirut

I spend a lot of time alone.

Ok. This is one of those instances in which I think that I am not odd. That I am, in fact, like a lot of other people. But my problem is that I also spend a lot of time observing that I am alone. That’s key. Most people don’t think about it^sd But I do.

Anyhoo, while alone, I spend a lot of time doing things to occupy my time so that I don’t feel so alone. One of those things is writing^sd2. But the major one is watch TV.  Well TV shows. Or shows, that at one point, aired on the television channels that you know and love.

Let me backtrack for a minute. Because this post is, in fact, an example of an evolution. Or something. 

About two years ago The Dutchman introduced me to the brilliance of Firefly. Though he didn't know it at the time, this did three things. 1) Made me rewatch Buffy. 2) Turned me into a Joss fanboy 3) Gave me the idea to name my first daughter Inara.

...

Ok. He probably could have guessed #3. But that’s not the point. I became a Joss fanboy. Which heightened to a fever pitch around the time before Dollhouse started. Notice that I said before. Because when the series started I watched ever episode with antici

pation.

But it really wasn’t a good show. At least for a while. I mean, I recently rewatched the entirety of Dollhouse (during the hiatus) and most of the first season is comically bad.  I mean, its great to watch while you’re drinking^sd3. But other than that…the episodes don't work. Especially w/r/t the greatness that the show has become^sd4.

I know what your thinking right now. Well, you’re probably thinking two(ish) things. 1) wtf is ditriech doing writing?^sd5 and 2) what does this have to do with anything. This is the Beirut song of the weekend. Not the Beirut ditriech rambles on about tv shows of the weekend.

I assure you I’m getting to the latter point.

The reason why I^sd6 was excited about the new Whedon venture is the premise. The same as Firefly^sd7.  A western. But in space. Fucking awesome idea. Dollhouse’s is _even better_

Dollhouse premise: “Ok. So there are people who get their mind wiped. And can be whatever you need them to be. For a price.”

That’s a great premise. because when you hear it you think two major 1) if you can afford to pay for this what do you really need? 2) Is this nothing more than a really great brothel? because most guys just generally want sex.

Then you want to see what Joss does with it. Ok. That’s not technically true. I think that you’d want to see how any great show runner would deal with this^sd8. Because if you had this premise, you’d want to see how they’d reconcile these things.

Whatever the reason you’d first tune into this show as a casual fan, you’dve stopped watching quickly. The first 5 or 6 episodes were pretty bad. Ok, that’s an overstatement. The first 4 were bad, 5 is where it started to be a decent show. But, where it got great was 01x08.

The title of 01x08 is “Needs”. And it is, by far, my favorite episode of Dollhouse. In fact, it may be one of my favorite hour 42ish minutes of TV ever. And I’m going to tell you why^sd9.

Needs completes a mini arch in which the Dolls are glitching. Meaning, that something in their former lives, generally, was messing up them being a doll. Like it was infiltrating the “imprints” or personalities that they were assigned to do for a particular, uh, shift.

It’s really hard doing this show without spoilers. Especially this ep. And I'm going to spoiler something after this here jump. But it’s worth it.

Anyhoo, theses glitches convince the dollhouse upper management to allow certain dolls to fulfill their needs.

To be honest, when I first watched this episode, it didn’t really register. But when I watched it a second time^sd10 I noticed what this episode was doing. Ok, well, to be honest, I guess that all the episodes were kinda doing this. But this one was the most overt.

“Needs” is showing us that even if you completely, and I mean completely, wipe someone’s mind, there are some things we don't lose. Ever. These are the things that make us human^sd11. Well, not just human. These needs make us who we are. Not us as in a group of people. But us as individuals.

What I mean is that even if my mind was wiped, my doll version would probably still show a predilection toward the internet and drinking. It’s part of who I am at my core. And that’s what this show was about. It is about who we are as people individually. And what, if anything, can take that away from us.

The song that plays during the climax of this episode is “Lonely Ghosts” by “O+S”. And, is hauntingly beautiful. Also: this week’s BSOW. I mean, I would go on about how this song is pretty much perfect and all. But I’ve gone on enough about Dollhouse. So just listen and draw your own conclusions.

O+S
Lonely Ghosts
O+S

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sd: but I bet you do now!

sd2: Something that will become more evident over the next moth or so. Probably.

sd3: Not that I do much without drinking. Well work. Most of the time. I think. I don’t know. I’m pretty drunk most of the time.

sd4: Seriously, one of the best TV shows I’ve watched in very long time the last 5 or so eps. Which is why I now think all sci fi shows need an end date

sd5: And why can’t he do more? Ok, fine. You twisted my arm. I’ll write about TV now too. Happy?

sd6: Seriously one of the best show’s I’ve ever watched. And if you’ve never seen it we probably shouldn’t be friends. Or we should, so I can show you how awesome it is. Something.

sd7: see sd4

sd8: To be honest, I didn’t know what a show runner was/did until Dutch introduced me to Firefly. But I really want to see what someone like JJ Abrams or Shawn Ryan could have done with this premise. Not that I think it would be better. But because I enjoy other things they’ve done and it would make me happy.

sd9: what? you thought I wasn't?

sd10: I’ve noticed that I typically watch everything twice. At least. Which is totally new and different for me, because I rarely watch things more than once.

sd11: Which, honestly, is what the show is about. What is human? How are we humans alike? And what makes us different? It, actually, should probably been seen as a counterpart to BSG.
 

One of my favorite movies of all time is "Friday Night Lights". This, actually, makes complete sense to pretty much everyone. However, I don't love the movie because its about football in general or high school in particular. Nor because it has Connie Britton^sd1 in it, though normally either one of those would do it for me. FNL: The Movie, is about perfection. Which makes it right up my alley.

I don't know if anyone knows this but attempting to be perfect is the thing that gets me to do, well anything. It's the only thing that makes me try new things^sd2. Perfection is pretty much the goal in everything I do. Naturally I fail almost all the time. But that's not the point. The point is to try to be perfect each and every time you do something.

But what is perfection? Well, Coach Gaines defines it by saying:

Being perfect is not about that scoreboard out there. It's not about winning. It's about you and your relationship with yourself, your family and your friends. Being perfect is about being able to look your friends in the eye and know that you didn't let them down because you told them the truth. And that truth is you did everything you could. There want one more thing you could've done. Can you live in that moment as best you can, with clear eyes, and love in your heart, with joy in your heart? If you can do that gentleman - you're perfect.

And I think that's a pretty good example of what personal perfection is. Perfection can also be when everything seemly comes together in a strange confluence of instances that can't really be explained or repeated.^sd3

Why am I talking about perfection all of a sudden? In a BSOW no less.

Because this week's song is frakking perfect.

I mean it. It's my favorite song in the history of songs. For a multitude of reasons. Mostly because it's just happy. Seriously. I mean, it makes me get up (or want to get up) and dance. And I can't dance^sd4. The beauty of this song cannot really be explained. It just has to be experienced

Postcards From Italy - Beirut

Postcards From Italy
Beirut
Gulag Orkestar

(00:37:41) ditriech: also, are you on your home computer?^sd1
(00:52:30) WhamBangThud has signed on.
(01:07:59) WhamBangThud: yes
(01:08:51) ditriech: find the beirut songs scenic world [lon gisland ep], the fish inside me, and monna pomona.
(01:09:12) WhamBangThud: hookay
(01:09:48) ditriech: monna pomona is what I would describe as "hauntingly beautiful"
(01:10:04) ditriech: and scenic world is awesome, especially if you are familiar with the other version

This week, friends and compatriots, you get a special treat. Mostly due to my problems with indecision, but that's not the important part! The important part is that you get two Beirut songs of the Weekend. And they are both by Beirut! It's your lucky day!

Anyhoo, a little bit of a back story. A long, long time ago (read: sophomore year), I used to make mix cds for other people. Like a lot. So, with me telling everyone that I meet ever about how awesome Beirut is, I decided to make a mix cd with the songs that I think people who like life would like. Of course, I haven't actually, you know, burned the cd or given it to anyone^sd3, but two of the songs on there were your Beirut songs of the Weekend, the aforementioned "Scenic World [Lon Gisland EP]" and "Monna Pomona"

Monna Pomona
Beirut
Pompeii EP

(02:14:06) WhamBangThud: The phrase of the week is hauntingly beautiful.
(02:14:10) WhamBangThud: Thanks to yourself
(02:14:29) ditriech: its been one of my favorites for a while

Scenic World [Lon Gisland EP]
Beirut
Lon Gisland EP

If I had to pick the better song of the two, this is it. Not to say I didn't enjoy the original version of "Scenic World" on Gulag Orkestar. But this version is amazingly good.

Have a good Weekend.

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sd1: You see, during Bizzo's last visit here, I connected my external to Biz's laptop, and that's how we listened to music. Apparently, if you have certain settings on your iTunes you keep every song that's added to your library. So he has (had?) all my music. Which is interesting, because I have a very varied library. Which, actually, I plan on discussing at length at some point. But then again, I planned on being an astronaut too, and we see how well that's going for me.

sd2: Ok, not really. But its pretty close. Most people that I get into conversations with, if we talk about music at all, Beirut comes up. Sometimes if we don't even talk about music! I could be talking about either Beirut here, btb.

sd3: Until Now! WOOO!

ditriech's "If you don't listen to Beirut on a semi-regular basis, here's why you should" Playlist*

*Needless to say, I have all these songs. PM Email me if you can't find some of them. The ones on STAB especially.

You know how I typically say that there is always a Beirut song in my head? Yeah, well chances are that it’s this one. I whistle/hum it a lot regardless to where I am or what I’m doing. It’s quite odd. Then again, there isn’t much about me that isn’t.

Gulag Orkestar
Beirut
Gulag Orkestar

A new feature (and we all know how well I keep up with features. Remember Life of a Salesman? Of course not.) is the Beirut Song for the Weekend

The first one is the newest Beirut song to get caught in my brain, My Night with the Prostitute From Marseille. And believe me, its hard to get caught there. Not much to hold you back. Or something. Anyhoo, the song is awesome.

Beirut
My Night with the Prostitute From Marseille
Big Change: Songs for FINCA

Have a good weekend folks.

Seriously, I picked this song after re-listening to “The Flying Club Cup” while working on a day’s posts. And then promptly listened to it about 30 times (not including the YouTube Video which is after the jump, nor the imeem listed above.). For some reason the song just stuck out to me, and I fell in love with it. All over again. I can completely see this being a possibility for each of Beirut’s songs.

Guyamas Sonora
Beirut
The Flying Club Cup

I figured we'd gone far too long with the name of the blog being Confessions of a Beirut Game and had far too few confessions and no Beirut at all. I've decided to change that today Confessioners.

As I've discussed in other areas, I'm pretty much addicted to the song "Mt. Wroclai (Idle Days)" by Beirut. I've listened to it about 50 times in the past two weeks. Which is an amazing feat when you realized that the 100^th most played song on my iTunes is at 55^sd1 over a 2 year period. So I've decided to share the song with you. Hopefully you'll enjoy it and we can remain friends.

Here embeds a (fan made) Video for the song "Mt. Wroclai (Idle Days) by Beirut.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/s1QYXlRzNS0" width="350" height="269" wmode="transparent" /]

More info after the jump.