My tights are dirty. I'd better go home.

Polished off Danny Elfman's Batman: a Film Score Guide a few days ago. This is a quick and painless read, though it inspired a desperate Itunes purhcase when I couldn't find my copy of the soundtrack. It's a bit thin, though, in that it spends more than half its length setting up the context for musical analysis before finally jumping in with two chapters devoted to the analysis of the music. I should be thankful for this, because it prevents the read from getting insanely techincal and my knowledge of the theoretical concepts behind music (and the accompanying jargon) is cursory at best (any of my 8 or so readers that can explain whole tone music to me? I'm too lazy to google, plus, I like to hear it from self-avowed experts [and what the hell, why don't you lie to me about it. that would rock]). However, though the book was challenging on this level at times, I wanted more and I would have learned so much from this book since I (apparently) know the Batman score by heart. (I was shocked to find that, just by looking at the intervals between the notes in the score examples provided in the book, I could tell exactly which part of the referenced cue it was representing.)

It had some interesting ideas in it. One idea that I found resonant was the idea that the conflict between Batman and the Joker is indicated in the score by the two fighting for the dominant musical theme. I liked this, particularly since a climactic battle has Batman fighting the Joker's henchmen to the accompanyment of what has been the Joker's waltz theme. There was also something in the book about how the Joker has a degree of control over the music's score and can appropriate parts of Batman's theme to achieve moral equality with the hero or something along these lines.

Ultimately, the book is a little too light and boy does it end like the author walked off of a cliff while she was in the midst of writing this thing. I had a good time reading it, though. What with the Elfman obsession.

I'm currently in the midst of reading Chris Elliot's The Shroud of the Thwacker which is a pretty fucking awesome, funny antidote to The Da Vinci Code bullshit going around.