here i am now entertain me (part 1 of 2)

a couple of weeks ago i ordered various stuff from amazon, a number of which were based on music i’d heard through pandora based on my adult./the knife channel. i was waiting on all of my merchandise to arrive before putting up this entry, but i’ve had one straggler go over a week past all the others and i’m tired of waiting on it. (as an aside, while looking up the status of this order i realized i’d never received a couple of cds from a 3rd party on amazon from an order back in february. i contacted them, but they didn’t seem too helpful. but i understand it’s been a number of months. i wonder if it ever got to my house or not?)
anyway, here’s what i got:

• the best of bass 305 – bass 305 (dm records)
• please clap your hands – the bird and the bee (emi / blue note)
• let it die – feist (polydor / universal)
• the world of tomorrow – komputer (mute)
• trans-europe express – kraftwerk (capitol)
• this island remixes – le tigre (chicks on speed / le tigre)
• kala – m.i.a. (xl / interscope)
• first album – miss kittin & the hacker (emperor norton)
• pop-up – yelle (source etc / caroline / emi)

after listening, my best choices were yelle and miss kittin & the hacker. bass 305 is nice, but sort of a one trick pony that gets boring pretty quick. the bird and the bee one is an e.p., and i bought it just for the bee gees cover (“how deep is your love”). feist i’m still deciding on. both the bird and the bee and feist are kind of dreamy/60’s female vocals with somewhat minimalist music backing them. the specific komputer album i bought is a nice kraftwerk style, and if you like kraftwerk it should be exactly up your alley. and that kraftwerk album completes their general catalog for me. the le tigre album is remixes, and to be honest i only got it for the peaches “tko” remix. the m.i.a. album is interesting…i haven’t developed a strong opinion on it yet. miss kittin & the hacker is a nice minimalist electro thing, with vampy/disaffected vocals. yelle is french techno pop music with a heavy 80’s influence…think bananarama with more modern dance/techno sensibilities. but if you start looking up the translations of the french lyrics, you may be surprised. (i was.)
i also picked up a couple of blu-ray movies using a coupon at border’s:

• eyes wide shut – kubrick (warner brothers)
• wall*e – (pixar/disney)

i hadn’t seen eyes wide shut since i saw it in the theaters with tamara. it has much less sex/nudity than i remembered it having (although it’s still a fair bit). i’ve read some interpretations of the movie which make aspects of it more interesting. there is obviously some complexity going on below a simple straight read of the film…well, as straight as you can get with it. but some of the interpretations seem far-fetched to me.
i never saw wall*e in the theaters, but i assumed i’d like it since i’ve enjoyed pretty much every other pixar film. it was good, although it didn’t really jump into the top part of my list of pixar movies.
and i ordered a couple of books from amazon while i was at it:

• germany and Texas – glen e. lich (inter nationes bonn)
• die kettner briefe / the kettner letters: a firsthand account of a german immigrant in the Texas hill country (1850-1875) – ilse wurster (comanche creek)

the book by lich is actually a pamphlet that was printed during the Texas sesquicentennial (1986). it seems to be attempting to note the influence of germans in Texas.
the kettner book (by wurster) is a collection of letters between a german who came to Texas in the 1850’s and his family back in germany. the letters were translated into modern german, then from modern german into english. part of what makes it interesting to me is he was in mason county and the leifeste families were there as well. so my ancestors on my dad’s side were probably sharing a lot of the same kind of experiences he was writing about.