This came up today at work. I was working on a subtitle file for an audio commentary on an episode of Private Practice. Which episode is not important. Okay, it was called “In Which Dell Finds His Fight.” The title pretty much summarizes the thing, but here’s TV Guide’s summary:

Oceanside focuses on fertility and starts a dads-to-be class; Sam and Naomi struggle to figure out where their relationship is heading; Addison is conflicted about her status in the dating world; Cooper begins a secret affair with a colleague.

That’s not really relevant. I just wanted to share.

On the commentary are Taye Diggs (pictured, far right) and Chris Lowell (far left). And there comes a scene in which Kate Walsh and Audra McDonald are walking down a hall. You can almost hear Diggs and Lowell drool as they discuss the outfits the women are wearing. Diggs says, “Complementary outfits” and Lowell adds, “Complementary outfits, yes. Flattering.”

That’s how the subtitles were written. COMPLEMENTARY. And I had to fight the urge to change it to COMPLIMENTARY. I know the difference. If I compliment the dinner you just cooked, I loved it. If I complement it, I brought french fries. So in what way is the word being used here? What is the meaning?

There is such a thing as complementary clothing. As one might imagine, it’s clothing that belongs together, or is part of an overall outfit. But these were two outfits–dresses, actually–worn by two women, and they didn’t necessarily go together in that sense.

And Lowell actually says, “flattering,” which implies that the clothing was paying Walsh and McDonald a compliment, and not just a compliment but possibly an undeserved one. In fact, this clothing may have been downright sycophantic. Still, I think that was the meaning they were after. And though I can see the angle that suggests the dresses went with the natural “womanhood” of the actresses in question to form a complete whole, I doubt that’s the answer.

In spite of my misgivings, I left it COMPLEMENTARY, partly because, as Diggs himself says on the commentary track, all of ten people will probably listen anyway, and by my own estimate, of that ten, maybe only, like, eight, will turn on the subtitles.

But also, I didn’t want anyone to think they meant that the outfits were free.

Was I right to leave it? Is there an obvious meaning of complementary related to couture that I’ve missed? Let me know. I’m still working on the file, so there’s time to change it.

Thanks to Will (the other one) I got clued in to Ryan Zeinert’s mix-tape madness, so I thought I’d jump in on the action. Couple quick notes: What I created was not actually a tape. But then I don’t think anyone expected that. I’ve made more than my share of actual tapes, but I finally ditched my Aiwa dual cassette deck a couple years ago because after more than a decade of solid use, it was giving up the proverbial ghost.

Also, though I’m happy with the initial effort, if I did it again in a week, it would no doubt be something completely different. Moods change, ideas evolve, that sort of thing.

Anyway, that’s that. Here are the tracks, annotated in a fit of exhaustion, after the jump:

1) Quiet Village - “Victoria’s Secret” : Oh, man, I’m cheating already. Not so much a cover, but a re-appopriation of an old Chi-Lites tune. But it’s short, and serves a current obsession with the band and it works as a nice, lush intro to the collection.

2) Kraak & Smaak - “Man Of Constant Sorrow” : Still possibly running roughshod over the rules, here I’m wandering dangerously close to “remix” territory, it’s nonetheless a new casting of the old tune into something with a Middle-Eastern flavor.

3) Petra Haden & Bill Frisell - “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up” : One of my favorite covers. Haden turns the Ramones defiant rant into a drifting lullaby.

4) Smashing Pumpkins - “Landslide” : A bit obvious, isn’t it? I suppose if I’d had more time, I could have come up with lots that was more interesting. I got lazy.

5) Luna - “Bonnie & Clyde” : I was torn on this one. I love this version of the Serge Gainsbourg tune, but Mick Harvey also puts out a fine version as well. I went for the one in French.

6) Siouxsie & The Banshees - “Dear Prudence” : I actually overheard some girl comment on the Beatles’ original version of this tune and wonder why they bothered to remake the Siouxsie tune. Why, indeed?

7) Talking Heads - “Take Me To The River” : Was an Al Green tune. Yes, it was. But the Heads made it completely their own.

8) Kristin Hersh - “Trouble” : One of my all time fave covers. I love the original Cat Stevens, especially in the context of Harold & Maude, but this re-working of it blows me the hell away.

9) & 10) The Bangles - “Hazy Shade Of Winter” : Surprisingly decent remake of the Simon & Garfunkel tune by the Bangles, brought in on a bit of Thomas Newman’s score for Less Than Zero. Natch.

11) Paul Anka - “Smells Like Teen Spirit” : I like this version because I can understand what he’s saying. Other than that, I can’t tell the difference. This is the obligatory ironic cover tune.

12) Placebo - “Running Up That Hill” : Another example of what makes a good cover. Molko and company preserve the haunting qualities of the Kate Bush original and show us something completely new.

13) Nouvelle Vague - “Melt With You” : This might qualify as ironic, too, if these cats weren’t so damned sincere. But in truth, the reason this is a good song is because the original was so great.

14) Nine Inch Nails - “(Let’s Get) Physical” : This quintessential Reznor, just the way I like him. I don’t recall a tune of his that has a more massive, towering sound. Perhaps it’s saying something that he’s covering Adam Ant this time around. I dunno. But I love it.

15) St. Vincent - “These Days” : Written by Jackson Browne for Nico, then recorded by Greg Allman (my favorite version) and then by Browne himself, here it gets Nico-esque treatment from my favorite artist of last year, Miss Annie Clark, and finishes off the collection with a dulcet flourish.

There you have it. It’s short, sweet and sequenced rather well. If you ask nicely and if I can get my CD burner working, I might send you a copy.

Mostly, these are Sparky’s concerns, though I share them. Carter isn’t good with the cinematic stuff. It’s kinda like George Lucas and his directing. He’s best when he doesn’t actually do it himself. Remember the last movie? He had a chance to introduce us to Scully and Mulder in the grandest of fashions, with big-screen flair and hair-raising drama. Instead, when they make their first silver screen appearance, they’re … brace yourself … chatting on the cell phone. It was one of the biggest wasted opportunities in film history (this also determined through diligent polling.)

Still, though I expect more of the same, this X-Phile will be at the first available screening, legs kicked up, ready for action. Let’s hope Carter’s matured a bit in the ten years (ten!) since the last flick.

‘D’y'ever do something once and have such a vivid experience doing it that you do it again? And then again and again until it becomes a sort of ritual? I’m not talking about something big, like surviving a plane crash in the Andes and then meeting with your fellow survivors once a year for happy hour at Chili’s. Nothing like that. I’m talking about small, nonsensical, peculiar, the kind of ritual that only you, yourself in this wide, overpopulated planet ever do, the kind that seeks to reclaim, without ever succeeding, something of the magic that befell you the first time you did it?

I thought so, but I bet yours doesn’t involve The Fixx and a PSA jet.

Here’s mine. Every time I fly, whether it’s from LAX to Sydney or Denver to DC or down to the Whole Foods on the corner, I have to listen to “Woman On A Train” by The Fixx. That’s right. Man on a plane listening to “Woman On A Train.” Yeah, I said I was unique. Here’s the song:

The Fixx - “Woman On A Train”

It all goes back to a trip my brother and I took way back when I was fourteen. We boarded a plane bound from New Mexico to California to visit friends, and we did it alone, without parents. Not our first orphan flight, but the first for me since making it into a roiling adolescence, and since discovering the raw, sexy, seductive allure of music.

As the plane pushed off from the gate I had my Walkman in my hand–not an official Sony model; it was a Panasonic, I think–and a tape-recording on a Maxell C-45 of Phantoms by The Fixx scrolling insde on continuous auto-reverse infini-play. As the plane lifted off the ground, the song in question kicked in with its meticulous percussion, oleaginous synth pulse, ethereal guitars and deep, rolled-back bass. Synapses connected with a crackle of ozone.

The song has since reminded me of airports and flight and Mr. Pibb in very small plastic cups and the wonder and fear and amazement at the mystery of onrushing adulthood, whose harbingers were giddiness, confusion and the soul-crushing grip of first love.

Lyrics after the jump.

And by the way, the first word in this post is pronounced “JEV-er” (Did You Ever?)

On the web:
buy the song on iTunes (not this version, which is inexplicably unavailable)
official site
tour schedule (they’re coming to LA, folks)
Erlewine’s take on the album

Woman On A Train

Pictures chase across the ceiling
As I try to sleep at night
There’s a voice inside my darkness
Laughing at the life I’ve lost
She’s no girl on pills in limbo
She’s a woman on a train
With her senses sharpened by the warning cold
She brings me to memory
She flashes her lights, her mission bites
She flashes her lights
Across my desert mind (still no change in me)
(She’s) no girl on pills in limbo
She’s a woman on a train
She’s here…
The woman on a train…
And I will speak no words but the truth for her to hear
Hold her close… but never dare
(She’s) no girl on pills in limbo
She’s a woman on a train
She’s here
The woman on a train…
She will speak for us both
She will speak for us all
Till I learn to care…
She’ll override my best intention
Attack my weak deception
A friend for life and after
I’ll never catch her off her guard