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Aaron's List of Happiness,
End-2004 Edition

That's The Way (Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh): As promised, a quick look over my sunny shoulder at six movies you should not miss, and five albums that could delight your brain and your heart, and increase your enthusiasm for music in general....

Movies Not To Miss, and Why:

1. Napoleon Dynamite: Hilarious nerdiness and dysfunction, with a rosy, rhythmic ending.
2. Garden State: Engaging characters, unpredictable plot, great soundtrack, and the lead actor looks like me at 25!
3. Bad Education: Brilliant story, acting, directing, and set design, even by Almodovar's high standards. I could eat lunch off any portion of Gael Garcia Bernal.
4. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind: Smart mix of romance, satire, and science fiction carried off with wit, another indelible transformation by Kate Winslett, and a Jim Carrey that is unrecognizably substantial, talented, and downright likeable.
5. Sideways: Life-sized character movie that's beautifully written, acted, and directed. Crazy little thing called 'emotional honesty.'
6. Meet The Fockers: Pop culture, shmop culture. I laughed my head off, and they deserve the gazillion dollars this will earn - I can't resist the collision of uptight WASP and let-it-all-hang-out Jew. Hoffman and Streisand walk away with it, though Stiller holds his own. (but you must see Meet The Parents first)

Music To Bring Light In:

1. Shins - Chutes Too Narrow. Rare and captivating, utterly new: unusual and lovely melodies, intelligent lyrics, vocals that soar...
2. Scissor Sisters - Debut. The kaleidoscope that was the 70s, reconstructed with an ironic, contemporary gay eye. And what a stage show! Can't wait for the DVD..
3. Franz Ferdinand - Debut. Art students from Scotland revive New Wave and make it exciting and fresh. Hooks galore, and an anthemic romp about the pleasure of dancing with another man. Awesome. (There's lots of great CDs in this genre if you like it).
4. Delgados - Universal Audio. Quirky Scottish melodicists break through with mid-60s pop clarity and a light touch missing from their previous masterpieces.
5. High Dials - A New Devotion. A festival of mid-60s mod-rock, psychedlia, and garage all served as delicious three-minute pop nuggets.


Hope the above brings some of you enormous pleasure in 2005.

Love, Aaron

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Hope, 2005

I started 2005 off right, with a donation to help the the South Asia Tsunami Relief Effort through Unicef's Tsunami Aid site. 5 million people for whom a drink of water and a spoonful of rice could make the difference between life and death. Unfathomable. Peace be with you. Love, Aaron

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Farewell, 2004!

After a brief intermission, we will resume with the second half of this nameless decade. : - ) I spent 2004's last two days shooting over the Mexican border and back, to spend a night in Puerto Peñasco (called Rocky Point in English although 'Rock Cliff Port' would probably translate it better). We stayed in a palace of wind-swept multi-colored fake adobe (pictured left) known as Plaza Las Glorias. We shopped at a Mexican pharmacy, one of about 200 serving the Arizonan seaside vacationers who are the reason for this isolated town's existence. There is no other civilization for 100 miles around - this is, basically, Arizona's southern shoreline, priced in dollars, and served up with a margarita and a smiley 'si, señor'...

Happiest New Year's Wishes to those who choose to read my blog. This means a lot to me - I share here my creative side, an essential part of the Aaron Experience. : - )

Tomorrow, I will post the movies, music, and other things that brought me the most happiness in 2004. For now, I'm off to cook my family a New Year's Eve banquet dinner featuring shrimp I imported today from Mexico. The menu: Shrimp w Mushrooms and Paprika Sauce, Sesame Chicken, Rice Pilaf, Salade a la Aaron. Have a great night!

Love, Aaron
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Relax, Don't Think About...
...The Way I Treat You... Part 2

Secrets Revealed, For You: At times it seems easier to visit the North Pole (pictured left) than to actually reach a human being when you need customer service! Today's Times sheds light on our plight in their Circuits section's lead article. Goodies include Amazon.com's elusive service number (800-201-7575), surprisingly simple tricks (some systems react only when you hit zero multiple times), and more complicated ones (looking up domain info at whois.com). Note there is a government website corporate index (pueblo.gsa.gov/crh/corpormain.shtml)that reveals many customer service numbers. Heck, I love to win a losing battle.

Today I'm off again, this time with my Mom, for an overnight trip across the Mexican border to Puerto Peñasco, aka Rocky Point. Later, gator..
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Just got back from two days at the Grand Canyon and points north with my nephew Danny. Highlights included an impressive helicopter ride over the canyon's ten mile width and multi-colored rivers. Imagine the Canyon as cascading U, V, and Y shapes in stripes of red and orange and brown in all their imaginable shades. For thirty minutes we floated above the tree tops and hovered around the colorful edges of ridges. I took pictures aplenty, and will share the same with you, my adoring public, upon return to home base next Monday January 3, 2005 (!). Much more to tell later. Best, Aaron


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Greetings from Uncle Aaron's and Danny's Grand Canyon Adventure. It's midnight, and we have arrived! Meet The Fockers was hilarious - more on that later. Nitey-nite!

Happy Birthday, Paul. Que tu inocencia te valga!
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Relax, Don't Think About...
...The Way I Treat You...

Last night Mom and I watched 'Alfie', the 1966 classic that jolted pop culture with its unflinching look at the days and nights of a beautiful but ugly womanizer, and put Michael Caine on the map as the title character. Modernist and episodic, Caine often addresses the audience, a mix of tour guide through, and defense attorney of, his caddish existence, the consequences of which are often stark and grim. In Alfie-speak women are 'birds' and they are often referred to by the pronoun 'it.' Caine is both abrasive and charming in this star-turn, and his stunning looks and (authentic) cockney accent will surprise those, like me, who are more acquainted with Caine's older and wiser work since the 1980s (check out 'Educating Rita' sometime, or 'Hannah and Her Sisters,' or 'Cider House Rules). Finally, Alfie is definitely a period piece, on the eve of the sexual revolution: ten years later, many of these women wouldn't put up with Alfie, and increased promiscuity would make sex easier to come by without deceit. As for the Spanish-language poster above, it lengthens the title to 'Alfie: The Irresistible Seducer' (echoing their lengthening of 'Rebecca: An Unforgettable Woman'), and adds the tag line 'inside every man there's an Alfie,' which certainly sounds more 60s Latin than 60s Anglo...
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Fast Times At Jesus High

On the first day of Christmas I watched some DVDs... "Saved!" is a enjoyable, sugar-coated satire of high-school life in a Jesus-saturated environment. The cast is marvelous, deftly led by Jona Malone as a sweet kid who winds up pregnant after trying to 'save' her boyfriend, who's just realized he's gay. Her awakening leads her to question her heretofore black-and-white world and to befriend the town's cigarette-smoking rebel Jewess. "Saved!" somehow manages to poke fun at its characters while still caring about them. Just about everyone is well-intentioned, except Mandy Moore, who sends up her goody-two-shoes teen-idol image by playing the hypocritical and grating popular girl who seems to use Jesus and charity as a subterfuge to vent her teenage vanity and spite. MacCaulay Culkin, btw, does a wicked turn as Moore's sardonic, wheelchair-bound brother. Lots of boy eye-candy, and a real Xmas treat.

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