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Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
- Herodotus
A moment, and its glory was no more. The sun went down beneath the long dark lines of hill and cloud which piled up in the west an airy city, wall heaped on wall, and battlement on battlement; the light was all withdrawn; the shining church turned cold and dark; the stream forgot to smile; the birds were silent; and the gloom of winter dwelt on everything.
Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! it is the nature of their kind to be so. The loveliest things in life, Tom, are but shadows; and they come and go, and change and fade away, as rapidly as these!
- Charles
Dickens
Love is like racing across the frozen tundra on a snowmobile which flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice-weasels come.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
With the
Northern Hemisphere firmly in the icy grip of winter, many of us
feel the urge to engage in a warm embrace with the cold
outdoors, layers of jackets, hats, gloves, scarves and moon
boots protecting our pale white skin. If you are one of those
brave souls taking in the clean, crisp air of the sub-zero
outdoors, frost on your breath, LAS salutes you. If, on the
other hand, the cold weather and frozen precipitation compels
you to stay inside tucked under a warm blanket, LAS presents a
list of recommended films,
music and print to snuggle up with passing the time while snowed in.
.:
Abbie Amadio
/FILM/
The Shining - Cabin fever, hallways filled with blood, demented twins, and Jack Nicholson with an axe. No movie encapsulates the mood of winter better than Stanley Kubrick's
masterpiece.
/MUSIC/
The Promise Ring Nothing Feels Good - Simple
math. [(Promise Ring) + Emo] X Sweaters = Winter
/MUSIC/
U2 The Best Of 1980-1990 - Winter is notoriously associated with death. When Bono dies someday, we will have this to remember him by.
/MUSIC/
Cat Power You Are Free - Despite the lively, spring-like artwork, this album is pure cold. Chan Marshall's voice is chilly and aloof even when singing about the deepest of subject matters. This is a wonderful album, but the minimalism of Marshall's melodies yields a sort of emptiness and distance. Perfect for a weepy drive in the snow.
.:
Andy Brown
/FILM/ and
/PRINT/
Cold Mountain - Though the movie did not live up to the hype surrounding it, the book is a great wintry read. Charles Frazier's attention to landscape detail will transport you to another place--granted that place is an Appalachian Mountain ridge in the dead of winter, but you can't help but feel pretty warm under your fleece throw blanket while reading about people nearly freezing to death. Rent the movie if you must, but not even Jude Law can unpack the complexity and fullness of Frazier's characters in two hours. Sure you're snowbound, but at least you aren't being chased around the South by both Union and Confederate soldiers alike!
.:
Natalie David - I miss snow!!! Down here all we get is rain. :(
/FILM/
A good wintery movie, off of the top of my head, is Edward Scissorhands. Just 'cause he makes it snow and all.
.:
Dan Filowitz
/PRINT/
"Into the Wild" by John Krakauer, the book about the guy that decides to go off into the Alaskan wild and dies
there. "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoyevsky. It's cold in
Russia.
/MUSIC/
Múm's Finally We Are No One is also Icelandic. The Reindeer
Section's Y'all Get Scared Now, Ya Hear because
reindeers live in snowy places, plus, this involves Gary Lightbody from
Snow Patrol.
/THE
ICY MIX/
"Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice
"Ice Cream" by Raekwon the Chef
"Ice Cream Man" by Van Halen
"Ice" by Hall & Oates
"It Was A Good Day" by Ice Cube
"New Jack Hustler" by Ice T
/FILM/
Hot Dog: The Movie - Skiing and Shannon Tweed! The Ice
Storm - It involves an ice storm.
.:
Mike Hammer - Quickly I would say:
/FILM/
Fargo, A Christmas Story.
/PRINT/
The Ice Storm.
/MUSIC/
Weakerthans Reconstructions Site, Low Trust or
In the Fishtank with the Dirty Three, and Hayden Closer I Get.
.:
Eric J Herboth - When I'm not shoveling out the driveway
for the umpteenth time I enjoy:
/FILM/
A Simple Plan - Sam Raimi's film freezes the suspense of
finding $4million in a blanket of white. Affliction - Set
in snowy Vermont, this taught adaptation of the Russel Banks
novel amplifies the natural chemistry between James Coburn and
Nick Nolte. The Ice Storm - The quintessential film for a
winter's day on the couch. Noi - A new Icelandic film
that is snow and ice from open to close.
/PRINT/Snow
Falling on Cedars - The Ethan Hawke film version wasn't all
that bad itself, but the book by David Guterson is an involved
read covered in the white stuff from start to finish. War and
Peace - Tolstoy's timeless classic is as rewarding in summer
as it is in winter but when thermometer dips a reading by
firelight gives it that extra crispness. Crime and Punishment
- Dostoyevsky's trademark work is as cold, calculated and
gripping as you can get. Charles Dickens - The master of
winter writing.
/MUSIC/
Sigur Ros Agaetis Byrjun or () - The
stark, monolithic sound cloud that the Icelandic wunderkinds lay
down is nothing if not chilling. Radiohead Kid A -
Just look at that big, icy wall of mountains looming ahead. Saso
- String just about any of this band's catalog together into a
nice mix for napping. HUM You'd Prefer an Astronaut
or Downward is Heavenward - The former album is much
better and chilled with the deadness of space while the latter
specifically mentions storms, snow and the Inuit.
.:
Bob Ladewig
/FILM/
The Ice Storm - What a crazy movie about a key party and wife
swapping, mixed with young love. Sigourney Weaver at
her best... well, here and Tadpole.
/PRINT/
David Sedaris "Santaland Diaries" - Horror
Christmas stories about family, working retail and
more family.
/MUSIC/
Modest Mouse This is a Long Drive for Someone with
Nothing to Think About - A cold debut album from this powerhouse.
.:
Peter Lindblad - Here's my winter
favs.
/FILM/
and /PRINT/
The Shipping News - You could wrapped up in blankets sitting in front of a roaring fire and E.
Annie Proulx's moving, hard-bitten novel about a shell of a man who tries to
rebuild his life by moving to Newfoundland would still make you reach for
your parka. Left alone to care for his two emotionally disturbed daughters
after his cheating, abusive wife dies in a car accident, Coyle makes a new
start in this frozen coastal wasteland. You shiver a little when Proulx
describes the howling, frigid winds blowing through the drafty house he
lives in, the one his ancestors left abandoned and tied down on an island of rock. Multi-layered characters move through the day like snow plows, their
eccentricities enhanced by the isolation of their surroundings. It's a
hard-knock life and Proulx's language is just as hard-bitten and eccentric
as the people of the place.
Even though he takes more liberties than he should with the book, gutting it
like a fish caught in the icy waters near Newfoundland, Lasse Holmstrom's
adaptation makes for a smooth flowing narrative and the cinematography is
incredible. It makes for great watching on those evenings when the wind
chill outside makes icicles of your beard.
/MUSIC/
Dismemberment Plan The Ice Of Boston EP - Travis Morrison perfectly captures the ennui of post-college life in a cold,
unforgiving city in the title track of this four-song sampler. It's New
Year's Eve and the narrator is alone in his cramped apartment with his
clothes stripped off, pouring champagne all over his body and then he gets a
call. "It's my mother," he says in a deadpan voice. What he needs is a hug;
instead, the conversation is short and awkward, and the distance between
them is palpable. Even better is the EP's version of "Spider In The Snow",
with rushing, vaporous synth sounds that make you feel like you're sitting
all by lonesome on a subway train and heading for home after a hard day at
work in an impersonal office. Beautiful, sad, yet imbued with a sort of
optimism born from a believe that things can't get any worse than this, this
won't help you beat holiday depression. In fact, it may make you put razor
blades to your wrists, but at least you realize, you're aren't the only one
who feels this way.
.:
Brian Sutherland
/FILM/
Fargo; Birth of a Nation has that famous icy river scene;
Cold Mountain; South Park; Dumb and Dumber.
/MUSIC/
Snow and winter are certainly clichés in the emo genre (see: Gloria
Record's first EP; I Hate Myself did that song about the polar bear who commits suicide alone on one of the poles, but I can't remember the record;
Seam's This Pace Is Glacial; 1000 Words for Snow, etc.);
The Winter Blanket; Dinosaur Jr. made a video for "Whatever's Cool with Me," I believe, that was just J. Mascis and a bunch of snow.
/BOOK/
Jack London's "Call of the Wild" or "To Build a Fire"; all
Dickens; Wharton's "Ethan Frome"; Frost's "Miles to Go Before I Sleep";
Laura Ingalls-Wilder's children's book "The Long Winter"; one of my favorite
F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories is "Winter
Dreams".
.:
Mark Taylor - I hate to bee an ass here but I just wanted to let you know it is Sunny and 70 degrees here in the Great State of NC. That is all.
/FILM/
Ice Pirates - A classic tale of two space pirates and their attempt to find Princess Karina’s father. You know-your typical pirate story.
/FILM/
The Ice Storm - Before Ang Lee became green with the huge blockbuster Hulk, indie hit The Ice Storm was his big splash in American movies. The Ice Storm is a great story to warm up to. It has it all: Sex, Drugs, and Katie Holmes.
/FILM/
Rocky- When have you not wanted to watch Rocky?
/FILM/
Dumb and Dumber- One of my favorite comedies of all time and at least a quarter of the film is shot in the Rockies…that John Denver is full of shit.
/FILM/
Spies Like US-Much of the film takes place in the artic like conditions of the then the Soviet Union. With spies like these who needs enemies?
/MUSIC/
The Arcade
Fire - The best reviewed album of the year is also the hottest! And did we mention they’re Canadian! It's really cold there!
/MUSIC/
Fireside
Do Not Tailgate - Sit by the Fireside and warm your mitts with Sweden’s best post-hardcore outfit.
---
The staff
of LAS flashes our fellow Northern Hemispherians and the wider
world a warm, brilliant white smile.
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