Music: Ennio Morricone, Crime And Dissonance (2005)

Let the e-brickbats fly when I say that I cannot take figure skating seriously. Don’t get me started on ice dancing. I can’t even bring myself to watch Skating With Celebrities, and you know how I feel about C-listers trying to pay the bills.

Still, in catching some of the Winter Olympics coverage of the ... activity (it’s not a sport, dammit), I’ve noticed how popular the music of Ennio Morricone is. Among his prodigious output, his score for The Mission has been getting quite a workout in Turin.

That prompts me to mention this new collection, compiled by Alan Bishop and featuring liner notes by avant-garde musician and longtime Morricone admirer John Zorn. The tracks are from films like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin (which sounds much better in Italian, Una Lucertola Con La Pelle Di Donna), and contain the wild cacophony of sounds that are the master’s trademark, like racing heartbeats and orgasmic human voices.

Great music, but awfully hard to skate to. Brian Boitano could pull it off, though. He did two salchows and a triple lutz while wearing a blindfold.

Miscellaneous: Today’s Morbid Thought Occasioned By A Trip To The Theater

Someday I will see a movie trailer and think, “That looks good. I’ll go to that when it comes out,” not knowing that I will be dead before the movie is released. For all I know, this moment has already happened.

This is why I shouldn’t go to the movies by myself.