"We have here; a bovine interlude."

Currently in Earphones: "Kill Bill Vol.2" Soundtrack, CutThroat Island Soundtrack by John Debney.

Quick update for y'all. The most notable thing happening this week was the sudden loss (that is, non-death-related departure) of my Communications 3 Professor, Mr. Paul Duax, full story here...yes that was MY class he pulled this in.

I'm saddened by his leaving, and even feel somewhat betrayed that he chose to leave at this time, when I'm taking this class with the combined aspects of my high-level enjoyment of his lectures and the need for this as a requisite of my Communications major. Rather ironic that when I broke the story to Anja, it was the first time I'd mentioned his name and her response was "Oh, I know him, known him all my life and went to school with his children!" The one time I have an excuse to talk to him and introduce myself with more than a "Hi, my name is..." happens just after he tells us he's never going to see us again (in the context of the class, that is).

In other news, I went and saw the group Leahy at Mondavi with Anja and Preston last night. They were quite a group, and we had a lot of fun. Poor Preston had quite a day and dozed off a bit during a number or two, but they got rollicking enough by the end that we all got energized. They are all siblings, and Preston and I noticed a pan-family idiosyncracy among the guys of the group (who all happened to play fiddle): they all had a little twitch they did with their bow-arms just before they started playing, presumably picked up from getting their sleeves out of the way. I enjoyed Wicked Tinkers more, but Leahy had their appeal. After all, it takes some skill to play fiddle and tap-dance at the same time.

Meanwhile, back at school, I'm starting to worry a little about taking 18 credits. I'm sure it will be fine, but all of a sudden seeing my Latin term paper (nothing too special), my continuing Anthro Fieldwork Paper, and some various communications projects come screaming onto my docket of "Projects you need to start worrying about now" has got me a little twitchy. I'll make some headway on them this weekend.

By the way, the soundtrack to "CutThroat Island," a little known '95 film with Matthew Modine and Geena Davis has now hit my top 10 list of "Most Cool-Ass Soundtracks out There." They released a special 2-disc expanded version of the score in '04, which was kinda nice given that I only just heard about this soundtrack at the end of '05. However, that didn't preclude all the local media stores from not carrying it, much like most of my odd little movie-music obsessions. I would describe it as the quintessential swashbuckling score; big, brash, sweeping, and full of energy. Though somewhat lacking a hummable theme, as opposed to Klaus Badelt and the Media Ventures Crew in Pirates of the Caribbean or virtually ANY John Williams piece, I would argue that Debney's score has more "Avast, me hearties, raise the Jolly Roger, yo-ho-ho, pieces of eight, etc etc" in it, in comparison to the others. Listen to the samples (that Filmtracks so nicely provides) in the first link of this paragraph and tell me I'm wrong!

Two final parting shots: One, the title of this post is verbatim from my Latin Professor today, introducing section 7 of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, look it up if you don't believe me. Second, yes, I know it's uncharacteristic of me to make my posts link city, but I figure I might as well give those who are interested a leg up when they invariably get those "Who-with-the-WHAT-now?" thoughts that spring up when I rant on and on about obscure soundtracks.

Enough, More Later.
- James