Listen to the Lion

Still breathing

Just thought I'd let everyone know I'm still alive. I just haven't had anything to say.

McCain strategery

Not that I really want him to win, but here's how McCain could, from the Examiner.

Pet Peeves

My list of some pet peeves, from the Examiner.

Indy v. Narnia

Here's a compare-and-contrast on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, from the Examiner.

My mystery bookshelf

Here's an Examiner column on some great mystery writers.

Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos

Here's an Examiner column on Limbaugh's strategery on the Democratic primary race.

"Keep it Simple" by Van Morrison

Van Morrison
Keep it Simple
Lost Highway Records
4 stars (out of 5)

More than any other artist, Van Morrison can make feeling the full weight of your humanity bearable by taking the worst things about being human and turn them into music that is joyfully, cathartically ecstatic.

But since 1997's The Healing Game Van has seemed less interested in reaching for ecstasy in favor of strolls down musical memory lanes. Not only has the overall quality of his songwriting suffered during this time, but his band - once anchored by organist Georgie Fame and former James Brown sax man Pee Wee Ellis- has had players of decidedly reduced skill.

Still, there have been flashes of startling brilliance, like "Little Village" from What's Wrong With This Picture? and "Celtic New Year" from Magic Time.

Keep It Simple is, unfortunately, marred by the same drawbacks as its four immediate predecessors - including some garish, atrocious countrypolitan backing vocals - but its spare instrumentation and stronger songwriting let a little more of the master's brilliance shine through.

"No Thing" is the worst track here, but even it has a bit of charm, with Van intoning, "People come / and people go / one monkey don't stop no show." "How Can a Poor Boy," "School of Hard Knocks" and "Don't Go to Nightclubs Anymore," are a couple of notches better, especially the latter with Van's shout-outs to erstwhile collaborators Fame and Mose Allison.

The punning "That's Entrainment" is a loping, rustic romance that enriches our vocabulary — entrainment simply means the synchronization of an organism to an external rhythm — and ends with Van whispering "You put me back in a trance," as if the magician has fallen under his own spell.

"Song of Home" is a country rewrite of "Irish Heartbeat," complete with twanging banjo; "End of the Land" is the mirror-image to "The Philosopher's Stone," with Van heading west out of town and driving all night "when things get out of hand."

"Keep it Simple" is, appropriately, the album's center, harkening back to the mix of cynicism and nostalgia that made Hymns to the Silence a great work. Against simple guitar arpeggios, the older, wiser, Van concludes that life is but "illusions and pipe dreams on the one hand / and straight reality is always cold," therefore "we've got to keep it simple to save ourselves."

Very Van-like that such a jolt of pessimistic realism comes after the positively gorgeous "Lover Come Back," which quotes melody and imagery from Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" as Van's voice trades off with John Allair's sumptuous Hammond organ and Cindy Cashdollar's steel guitar.

"Soul," the disc's penultimate track, is one of its two classics. With an arrangement that's both brooding and uplifting — and an unexpected, perfect sax solo from Van himself — it's a perfect example of Van's lyrics and vocals combining to make something infinitely satisfying.

The finale "Behind the Ritual" is Van at his very best, drinking wine in the alley and talking all out of his mind in the days gone by, ripping off another sax solo, mumbling vocals, soaring vocals, nonsense scatting vocals, all adding up, if not quite to ecstasy this time, to a positively cathartic spiritual experience.

It's a good day when the Cubs lose

Reds win, 9-0.

Iron Man: not too bad

I went to see Iron Man at the good theater last night (Sunday) to catch their last showing at 10:20 p.m. I often go to that theater at that time because the chances of having to share a space with cell-phone-using, can't-shut-up riff-raff are minimized. And because I always go to movies alone.

But since it was opening weekend, there were still quite a few people there. Lots of low-level chatter, not enough for me to go off on someone but really annoying when you think that these people paid $10.25 to not watch something.

The movie was OK. Judging it against Batman Begins (A+) and Spiderman (A-), it's a solid B.

Robert Downey Jr. is great, tossing off some great lines under his breath like, I think, no one else can manage now that Peter O'Toole is 97, or however old he is.

Terence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow are fine, but needed more lines/more interesting parts. As proof of this, I offer the fact that the warmest relationships Stark develops are with a robot arm and his computer's operating system.

The villain is lame, and the climactic action sequence is not that great. Most of the cool shots of the Iron Man in action are in the trailers.

Other than that, it wasn't too bad.

Bad news for Barry

Here's a column on Obama's showing in the Pennsylvania debate and primary, from the Examiner.