While PJ and I were driving to Washington D.C. last week, we talked a little about songs about driving. One of my favorites has long been Chely Wright’s “Shut Up and Drive,” so when we got back I downloaded it from iTunes and started listening to it again.

The embedding for the video has been disabled on YouTube, but you can watch it here. (Usually, I don’t choose songs that won’t let you embed the video — I think it’s stupid when they do that — but I love this song enough to overcome that prejudice.)

Now I can’t stop listening to this song. It’s really a great country song, I think. Somebody really ought to cover it.

Listening to it again also made me think about the late 1980s and early 1990s and when I loved a number of country songs, mostly by female artists. Here’s a list (in no particular order) of some of the ones I loved back then. Some of these video also have embedding disabled, but I’ll include what I can and link to what I can’t.

“Like We Never Had a Broken Heart” by Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks:

“Come Next Monday” by K. T. Oslin:

“Maybe It Was Memphis” by Pam Tillis:

“The Dance” by Garth Brooks:

“Something in Red” by Lorrie Morgan

“For My Broken Heart” and “Does He Love You” (which is a GREAT video, btw) by Reba McEntire

“What Made You Say That” (she’s so hot in this video, but the guy is even hotter!) by Shania Twain

“No One Else on Earth” by Wynonna:

“Love at the Five and Dime,” “Once in a Very Blue Moon,” and “More than a Whisper” by Nanci Griffith (though she’s not exactly country):

Going back and listening to these songs again made me wonder about the state of country music more recently. I don’t ever listen to country, though I do see how talented Carrie Underwood is. And the Dixie Chicks are amazing. Otherwise, most of it isn’t really to my taste any more.

But I’m glad to take this little trip down nostalgia lane, though I’m trying really hard not to buy all of these songs and albums again from iTunes!

]]> http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/sotw-shut-up-and-drive-by-chely-wright/feed/ 0 thisgaudygildedstage http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/pageant-a-review/ http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/pageant-a-review/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:39:53 +0000 thisgaudygildedstage http://thisgaudygildedstage.wordpress.com/?p=1138 ]]>

PJ was feeling under the weather on Saturday, so instead of going out for Halloween, we decided to stay in and watch Pageant, a documentary about the Miss Gay America Pageant. Here’s the trailer:

Simply put, I loved this documentary. Let’s start with the level of being a documentary. This film focuses on five of the 52 contestants in the Miss Gay America Pageant. I liked this emphasis on just a small sampling of the contestants, since it allows you to become familiar with them and start rooting for (or against) one or more of them. This focus creates the documentary’s narrative and sucks up into the competitions and back- and onstage dramas.

Like the ladies in the Miss American Pageant, these ladies participate in a series of competitions before the pageant’s finale, where the finalists are named and then compete for the crown. We see the contestants undergo an interview as men — they are required to dress in male clothing and are judged, in part, on their ability to distance themselves from their drag persona. They have a solo talent competition, in which they have to perform alone and without separate props. Then they have a talent production contest, in which they can have back-up dancers, props, and sets. And they have to compete in evening gowns.

On the final night of the competition, the finalists compete once again in evening wear and production talent and answer an interview question (this time in their drag persona). The focus on five contestants allows us to keep up with all of these events and put them into context with all of the backstage drama and activities going on in these men’s lives.

In addition to the focus and narrative, I love the attitude this documentary takes towards its subject. These men are not depicted as freaks or even outrageous divas. They are humanized and shown as men who really care about what they’re doing. Some of them want fame. Some want fortune. Some want attention. They all want to win.

This element also adds to the drama. I don’t think you can watch this documentary without hoping that one or other of the contestants will win, depending on your point of view. I don’t think the documentary stacks the deck against any of the five ladies we follow, which is another thing I like. It doesn’t play favorites. We see each of the contestants on their own. I ended up liking some more than others but not because the filmmakers decided in advance who they wanted me to like.

We also get to see some of the contestants’ families and friends. It’s great to see the support some of these guys get from their mothers, for example, or little brothers. Others are married and enjoy the support of their husbands. One spends the film with what we assume is his boyfriend, who turns out not to be (supposedly).

I also love the men/ladies who are competing in this pageant. The documentary starts by telling us a little about each of them. We get to see their home lives and occupations outside of the pageant. While I sometimes thought that one or another of the ladies was kidding themselves or liked one’s talent more than the others and so forth, these men all seem like people who would be fun to know. And I don’t just mean as drag queens. Apart from that (though also including it), these men seem like good, creative, and interesting people. They might be a little crazy sometimes, but who isn’t?

And finally, I loved the excitement that the documentary creates about the final night of competition. By the time we get to the end, I was really invested in the outcome. In fact, this documentary made me want to go to the pageant, and I immediately looked up where it was taking place next. Unfortunately, this year’s pageant happened this weekend in St. Louis. I couldn’t believe it! I think it would be fun to go to the contest and watch it live. Maybe next year I’ll get to go.

The other thing I did after watching the documentary was check out who has won the crown in the years since. I was surprised that some of the contestants featured in the film went on to place in the top five again and at least one has won the crown. Others have dropped out of the competition. It was interesting to get a little info on what’s happened to them.

One of my favorite shows this year was RuPaul’s Drag Race, which clearly owes a debt to the Miss Gay America Pageant. I hope the next season of RDR will feature even more contestants. If not, the pageant should investigate the possibility to becoming a t.v. series too. I really enjoyed it and want to see more.

PJ and I spent four days last week in Washington D.C. I was attending the conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council, and PJ was doing a little work at the Library of Congress.

D.C. is one of the first cities that PJ and I visited together in the 1990s. In retrospect, it’s a great “first city” to visit: if you stay downtown, the city is fairly easy to navigate by foot, car, and/or metro. And it’s difficult now to believe how accessible all of the government buildings were before 9/11. My first memory of being at the Capitol is that we practically just walked right in — we went through a metal detector, but that was about it. Today, everything’s much more secure.

We drove over, which took about 6 hours. The mountains of West Virginia and Maryland were gorgeous. The autumnal landscape was breath-taking with its combinations of reds, browns, yellows, greens, and oranges. Just outside of D.C. it started to drizzle a bit, but overall it was a fairly easy drive.

Because of the drizzle, I didn’t take any pictures the first evening we were there. The next morning, PJ and I walked over to the Capitol before parting ways: he walked on to the Library of Congress while I visited the National Art Gallery before heading back to our hotel to attend a conference session.

Here are some of the pictures I took during this walk:

I’ll blog about my visit to the National Art Gallery later. I also went to the National Portrait Gallery. But mostly I worked.

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, I attended sessions of the NCHC Conference. The Wednesday session was called “Beginning in Honors” and offered an introduction to honors education administration. The session wasn’t quite what I expected, but I learned a few things that I think will be good to know.

My main gripe against the conference is that all of the sessions I would have liked to attend were scheduled at the same two times on Thursday morning. I wish these panels had been spread out a little more. I ended up attending sessions on Assessing Honors Programs and Fundraising for Honors Programs. Both were incredibly helpful. These two sessions alone were worth the registration price!

On Thursday, I also started visiting some of my college’s alumni who live in D.C. I had lunch that day with one of the first graduates from our program in the mid-1970s. A colleague from the University Development Office also came to these meetings with me, which was great. I’m not great at small talk and she is, so it was really helpful to have her there. On Friday, we had breakfast with a graduate from the late 1990s and then coffee with an alumna from the 1980s.

It was really great to have this time talking to alumni. It’s given me a lot to think about as we move forward in trying to publicize the college and do fund-raising.

Thursday afternoon is when PJ and I went to the Portrait Gallery. By then, however, he was starting to feel sick, so we didn’t end up doing much that evening — just dinner and then back to the hotel. By Friday morning he was definitely not feeling well, so we decided to check out early and leave D.C. a day early. Although this meant that I missed out on going to any more of the conference or seeing more of D.C. or hanging out with a friend who was there, it felt like the right thing to do. I’d rather he be home and in his own bed with Paisley and Marlowe there to help me take care of him than stick around in the hotel room for another day.

All in all, it was a very successful trip. I look forward to going to the conference next year in Kansas City. And I might be headed back to D.C. in February for another conference. I doubt that the city will be quite as beautiful then, however!

Yesterday I decided to cook for a change. On weekdays, I’m usually so tired after a long day at the office that we have started going out to eat a lot. I therefore try to cook at least once on the weekends.

So, yesterday I opened up one of our vegetarian cookbooks and liked the first recipe I saw: Harvest Vegetable and Lentil Casserole. The picture in the cookbook actually looked like a soup, but apparently anything you bake can be a casserole. Here’s what the final product looked like:

I really liked it. I tend to like lentils anyway, and the vegetables came out great. Plus, it was really easy to make. I even saved some so that I could come home today for lunch and heat up a serving.

I’ll post the recipe after the break.

Here’s the recipe:

1 T oil

2 leeks, sliced into large pieces

1 garlic clove, minced

4 celery ribs, sliced into large pieces

2 carrots, sliced

2 parsnips, sliced

1 sweet potato, cubed

6 oz brown lentils

1 can chopped tomatoes

1 T fresh marjoram, chopped

1 T fresh thyme, chopped

3 and 3/4 c. vegetable broth

1 T cornstarch

salt and pepper to taste

fresh thyme for garnish

While preheating the oven to 350 degrees, heat the oil in a large oven-proof casserole dish or stew pot. Add the leeks, garlic, and celery and cook for 3 minutes.

Add the carrots, parsnips, sweet potato, lentils, tomatoes, herbs, stock, and salt and pepper. Stir well. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Cover and bake for 50 minutes or until lentils are cooked and tender. While it is cooking, remove the casserole from the oven and stir the vegetables once or twice so that they are evenly cooked.

Remove the casserole from the oven. Mix the cornstarch with 3 T. cold water in a small bowl then add it to the casserole. Stir until the broth thickens. Simmer gently for 2 minutes.

Spoon into bowls and garnish with remaining thyme.

While walking to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice this summer, PJ and I were window shopping as we passed various art galleries. One in particular caught our eyes, the Galleria d’Arte Bac Art Studio.

This studio stood out to us for two reasons. First, most of the paintings in the window were etchings and watercolors, a medium that we both really like. And second, many of the works seemed to exemplify a queer aesthetic, also something we both really like.

After we visited the Guggenheim, we went back to the Bac Art Studio. This time we went inside and had a good look around. The work that PJ instantly expressed a fondness for depicts two men shaving. It’s called “The Razor”:

Le Rasoir 2009 by Paolo Baruffaldi

This painting is by Paolo Baruffaldi, a Venetian artist who has a few series of paintings displayed in the gallery. Even though “The Razor” was our favorite, we liked how a lot of his work seems to depict Venice as a homoerotic locale, something that we definitely did not pick up on while we were there. In fact, we felt that Italy as a whole was severely lacking in visible gay people, though we just might not have been looking in the right places.

Like so much of the art we saw in Italy, Baruffaldi’s work seems to see Italy much more homoerotically. He has a series of male angels, for example, that reminded me of gay holiday greeting cards. Here’s the one that seemed most representative of this series:

Angelo Jeans 1

He also has a lot of paintings related to carnival. These sometimes feature men in masks, for which Venice is famous, and sometimes depict semi-clad men shaving or getting dressed while masked revelers are in the background:

Angelo Ivre con tre Bautte

He also paints scenes of the Tuscan countryside. “Le Rasoir” is from a series of nudes and semi-dressed men shaving.

PJ and I would like to start buying art from time to time for our home. We figure we’re at a point in our lives when we can afford to buy a work every now and then that really appeals to us. It’s been two years since we bought our one and only painting thus far, so we immediately started talking about buying one of Baruffaldi’s works.

We both really liked the idea of finding a work like “The Razor” that a) we liked and b) would always remind us of our time in Venice specifically and Italy more generally. As is so often the case, though, we talked our selves out of buying it. On the one hand, we weren’t sure we could get it home safely. On the other hand, we figured we could try to buy online once we got home.

So, almost as soon as we got home I looked the gallery up online in the hope that we could buy this watercolor. But I couldn’t figure out how to navigate the website. Consequently, I was really disappointed. When we had dinner with friends who had also been to Italy this summer and they showed us the Venetian masks they had bought while there, I was really kicking myself for not just buying this painting when I had the chance.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I decided to give the website another look. This time I was determined to figure out how to order “The Razor.” I managed to figure it out this time — it actually seemed really easy; I don’t know why I was  being so obtuse before — and while I was a little worried about ordering something from Venice, I went ahead and did it.

I’m happy to report that our copy of “The Razor” arrived in the mail today. I could have had it framed by the gallery, but I decided to wait until we had it so that we could get a better sense of what we wanted. So, as soon as we get back from our trip to Washington D.C. next week, we’ll get our painting framed. I’m excited that we’ll have this work hanging in our house, reminding us every day of our trip to Italy.

I love Paolo Baruffaldi’s work and highly recommend ordering from the Bac Art website. Our painting arrived quickly and was well packaged for safe delivery. I’m definitely considering order more of his paintings, especially a couple of the nudes, at some point as well as one of Cadore’s cat paintings, like this one:

Due Gatti a Venezia

While browsing through the new albums on iTunes today I ran across Melanie Fiona’s The Bridge, which I’ve downloaded and started listening to. In many ways, The Bridge is an R&B/Soul album in the vein of Amy Winehouses’s Back to Black. I really like it.

The first single off the album is “Give It to Me Right,” a great song that is representative of the album’s neo-soul, adult, and totally catchy vibe. The official video is here. Here’s a YouTube video of a live version of “Give It to Me Right” from a British t.v. show:

So far, I love every track on The Bridge. My favorite so far is “Monday Morning.” Here’s a live version of this track:

Hot! Melanie Fiona can sing, not just in a technical way but also in an interpretative way — she knows how to tell the song’s emotional story. She’s amazing!

Here are the lyrics for “Give It to Me Right”:

Okay, okay,
He’s got my number and
You can’t, you can’t
Warn me baby here I am
Either you make the time
Or just forget me

I’m not, I’m not
Tryna run your life
That’s why, that’s why
I’m nobody’s wife
But when I want, when I want it
You gotta be ready

I don’t want it all the time,
But when I get it,
I better be satisfied
So give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all

I don’t think you understand,
How real it is for me to find
A man who thinks he can
So give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all
yeah yeah

On time, on time
I expect you to be
Oh my, oh my
Baby in my fantasy
You can’t get it right,
Then just forget it

No ways ok
For you to go around
uh uh, today
You better make a touch down
You know what I like,
Won’t you accept it

I don’t want it all the time,
But when I want it,
You better make me smile
So give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all

I don’t think you understand,
If you can’t please me,
I know someone who can
Give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all

This is the real life baby
This is the life that makes me say
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahh

This is the real thing baby
When I’m alone I can make me say
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahh

I don’t want it all the time,
But when I want it
You better make me smile
So give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all

I don’t think you understand,
If you can’t please me,
I know someone who can
So give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all

Give it to me right
Give it to me right

Give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all

Give it to me right,
Or don’t give it to me at all

Last night, PJ and I went out to see Jane Campion’s new movie, Bright Star, which depicts the love story between the English poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne. PJ is an admirer of her work, especially The Piano, and we’ve heard lots of Oscar buzz for this film, so we were really looking forward to seeing it. We both really liked it.

Here’s the trailer:

English professors like me and PJ know of Brawne solely as the woman Keats loved but couldn’t marry. Practically penniless, Keats couldn’t afford to marry, and within a year of their meeting in 1818 Keats began to show the early signs of tuberculosis. The entire length of their romance was less than two years, and much of it was conducted by correspondence.

The fact that few facts about their relationship are known beyond the existing letters written from Keats to Brawne (he had her letters burned at his death) poses a huge problem for the filmmaker who wants to tell their story. The temptation would be to completely fictionalize the story, veering into either melodrama or romantic comedy.

What I like most about Campion’s take on this story is that she has clearly avoided the pitfalls of modern romantic films, choosing instead to work toward cinematic realism. While there are lyrical elements to her film, she attempts to present this love story as quietly and simply as possible. She includes many of the elements contained in the letters and contemporary accounts, but she never speaks down to the audience. She shows us these characters and their story without wasting a lot of time on exposition. In doing so, she creates a very affective story, which, if not completely historically accurate, creates a pair of lovers that are believable and enthralling to watch.

Casting Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne is the first and most obvious work of genius on Campion’s part. Cornish plays Brawne as a woman transformed and matured by this tragic romance. She does an excellent job of showing us Fanny’s vanity and somewhat misguided enslavement to fashion early in the film and then slowly revealing her growing maturity and awakening as a woman.

I would think it would be tempting to depict Brawne as simply a young flirt, which is apparently how she is described by Keats’s friends, all whom believed that she was a bad entanglement that distracted the poet and contributed to his early death. Campion and Cornish show us Brawne’s flirtatiousness, but they reign it in and present her as an essentially well-meaning young woman who genuinely loves this man. They are clearly on Fanny’s side of the historical debate about her character and influence over Keats, as one would expect of a director like Campion.

The counterargument is represented solely by Keats’s friend Charles Brown, played by Paul Schneider. Brown is also a writer, and Campion depicts him as jealous of the challenge Brawne poses to his friendship with Keats and as desirous of her attentions for himself. In fact, this Brown is a creep, who takes a disliking to Brawne and then maliciously works to divide her from Keats. By the time Brown gets a servant pregnant, it is just the final piece of evidence that he is a selfish brute rather than a true friend to the dying poet.

Ben Whishaw plays Keats. He too does an excellent job, though the film is really less about him and more about Brawne. Perhaps the best part of his performance is his voice, which is excellent for reciting Keats’s poetry. His reading of “Ode to a Nightingale” over the final credits is worth sticking around for.

But the real star of Bright Star is Topper, the cat. He’s a black and white scene-stealer! About mid-way through the film, I became fascinated with watching Topper whenever he was on screen. My favorite part of his performance was during a scene in which Brawne has given up hope that Keats will return and is therefore giving a sad speech. Topper, meanwhile, sees a butterfly on the window and suddenly leaps up from Fanny’s lap to smack it. It’s a moment that Keats might have appreciated — the obliviousness of nature to human problems and disappointments. It’s a moment of realism that helps to ground this film.

Overall, I really liked Bright Star. The performances are excellent, and I found myself hoping that Campion had decided to rewrite history and let Keats live. It’s often difficult to enjoy a film like this when you know how it’s going to end, but Campion weaves a web of beauty and romance that makes the film worth watching. I subsequently read a short biography of Brawne. The film leaves her future rather vague. I wish it had also been more forthright about her life after Keats. But this is a very minor fault, and I highly recommend Bright Star.

This week’s song of the week is Madonna’s “Celebration,” which is one of the new tracks on her greatest hits album of the same title. It’s a great dance song:

This collection shows just how amazing Madonna’s career has been (so far).I wish it had a few more of the slower hits, especially “This Used to Be My Playground,” which is one of my favorites. But just about everything you would imagine is represented in this collection. (“Material Girl” is also one of my favs. And of course “Like a Prayer,” “Like a Virgin,” “Human Nature,” “Ray of Light,” and “Holiday.”)

I’m not ashamed to say that I’m a gay man of the Madonna generation — her career started at just about the same time that I started becoming aware that I was attracted to boys instead of girls. It’s so difficult to explain to younger gay guys just how important Madonna was to gay men my age. She was the first pop icon to embrace gay men openly and aggressively. She put her gay dancers front and center in her videos and then argued for a sexual liberation that included us all.

Britney is nothing like Madonna in this regard; in fact, her whole virgin thing early in her career was the exact opposite of Madonna. Christina is a little closer, at least in that she routinely includes gay people in her videos. But really there’s no one carrying Madonna’s message of living life fully regardless of who you are, which is why we’re fortunate to still have Madonna herself carrying the torch!

And I, for one, am delighted that she’s still pushing some of those boundaries. Why not trade in the hubby for a hot, young Brazilian model/DJ? (Made in Brazil, one of my favorite blogs, follows Jesus Luz fairly closely, so I feel that I’m up on — and loving — the Madonna/Luz gossip!) If anyone’s earned the right to have great sex with a yummy boytoy, it’s definitely Madonna. And if their relationship is about more than sex, than good for her. If not, good for her too.

As she sings in “Celebration,” Madonna has spent her career whispering “An invitation to the dance of life” in our ears. I’m glad that she continues to dance it too.

Here are the lyrics:

I think you wanna come over
Yeah I heard it thru the grapevine
Are you drunk? Are you sober?
Think about it, doesn’t matter
And if it makes you feel good then I say do it
I don’t know what you’re waiting for

Feel my temperature rising
It’s too much heat, I’m gonna lose control
Do you want to go higher?
Get closer to the fire
I don’t know what you’re waiting for

I’m gonna party, yeah
Cause anybody just won’t do
Let’s get this started, yeah
Cause everybody wants to party with you

Boy you got a reputation
But you’re gonna have to prove it
I see a little hesitation
Am I gonna have to show you
That if it feels right
Get on your mark
Step to the beat boy
That’s what it’s for

Put your arms around me
When it gets too hot we can go outside
But for now just come here
Let me whisper in your ear
An invitation to the dance of life

I’m gonna party, it’s a celebration
Cause anybody just won’t do
Let’s get this started, no more hesitation
Cause everybody wants to party with you

Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?
You look familiar
You wanna dance?
Yeah
I guess I just don’t recognize you with your clothes on
What are you waiting for?

I’m gonna party, it’s a celebration
Cause anybody just won’t do
Let’s get this started, no more hesitation
Cause everybody wants to party with you

Come join the party, it’s a celebration
Cause anybody just won’t do
Let’s get this started, no more hesitation
Cause everybody wants to party with you

Boy you got it, it’s a celebration
Cause anybody just won’t do
Let’s get this started, no more hesitation
Cause everybody wants to party with you

Boy you got it
Cause anybody just won’t do
Let’s get this started, no more hesitation
Cause everybody wants to party with you

I love tennis. I’ve loved watching tennis on t.v. since the mid-1980s. When I first started watching, my favorite players were Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. Their rivalry was amazing. Then I fell in love with watching Pete Sampras and Monica Seles. More recently, I enjoy watching Venus Williams, Roger Federer, and, of course, my one true tennis love, Rafael Nadal (Isn’t he lovely? I’m so glad he’s healthy again!).

Spain's Rafael Nadal returns the ball to Croatia's Marin Cilic during the semi-finals of the China Open tennis tournament in Beijing Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009. Cilic beat Nadal 6-1, 6-3. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel)

While I love watching tennis, I’ve never played it much. I played with my sister a bit when we were young. And PJ and I hit the ball back and forth a little in grad school just for exercise. I wish I could play (and play well). If I thought there was any hope at all, I’d probably be on the court as much as possible.

But finally there is a way for me to play, or at least to imagine that I’m playing — and that I’m playing against the greatest players, past and present: Grand Slam Tennis for Wii.

I’m the first to admit that I spend most of my free times these days playing GST4W. I bought it over the summer, and I love it. After a long day at work, the last thing I want to do is sit and think about anything; playing GST4W allows me to get the blood pumping a bit and let my mind forget all of the day’s work and just focus on strategy — should I hit a drop shot, cross-court with topspin, or a lob?

GST4W has two modes that I like to play. You can play Grand Slam tournaments as your own avatar. I created both a male player (a cute Italian man) and a female one (an athletic African-German player) so that I can play in both draws. Or you can play exhibition matches. (In the exhibition matches, you can also play doubles.)

The game also has different levels of difficulty. You can set the difficulty at “easy,” “medium,” or “difficult.” But you can also choose not to attach the nunchuk to your Wii remote, which allows the computer to control your player’s move from side to side. (You still have to move forward to the net or back to the service line on your own.) This makes playing somewhat easier, though the “cost” of playing this way is that the computer doesn’t always move you to the most natural, strategic position, costing you a point here and there.

I’m usually let the computer move me, since it’s easier. When I do it myself, it isn’t pretty! This makes tournament play is a little too easy, sp I’ll have to hook up the nunchuk soon to make it more difficult.

In the mean time, I’ve been playing exhibition matches. In this mode, you can play as a professional player against other professionals. The game includes Nadal, Federer, Novak Djokovic, Sampras, John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Navratilova, Evert, the Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova, Justine Henin, and several other players.

Today I played as Djokovic against McEnroe at the French Open. It was a great match, even though I lost. It went 5 sets, with McEnroe beating me 6-7, 7-6, 7-6, 4-6,6-3. Towards the end of the match, I started taking some pictures so that I could try to write about why I love playing this game so much.

This is me as Djokovic serving at 0-1 in the fifth set. The players are cartoony, but I kind of like that. I think it might feel a little too sacrilegious if it were more realistic.

Here I am giving a little fist pump after winning a game:

I think trying to take pictures negatively affected my game, however, since I quickly lost serve and ended up losing the set 6-3, as you can see here:

One of the fun features of GST4W is the list of match statistics you can see at the end of the match. I was surprised to see that I actually had more winners than McEnroe in this match — it’s the unforced errors that did me in:

And finally, the other fun feature is the chart of how many calories you burned playing the game:

As you can see here, I played for just over 90 minutes. I don’t know how accurate the calorie burning chart is, but I did play a vigorous match, one that wore me out by the end. I don’t think GST4W is a substitute for a real workout, but I enjoy the sense of moving my arms about and getting  my blood pumping while I play.

So far, in easy mode I’m almost unbeatable as Nadal or Venus Williams. I’m waiting until I get bored with the easy mode before making it more difficult by changing the setting or attaching the nunchuk. At this rate, I could get years of pleasure from this game!

I remember when Gossip was “The Gossip,” but they’ve apparently dropped the “The” now that their new album, Music for Men, is out. Regardless, I’ve been listening to the album this week, and I’ve chosen “Heavy Cross” as my song of the week.

You can click here to see the official video of the song. It can’t be embedded. While looking for a vide that can be embedded, I stumbled across one of the remixes, the Fred Falke Remix, that I really like:

In the past few months, I’ve started really getting into remixes. Now I even look for them on YouTube and on iTunes. One of the things I like about this remix is that it sounds like an almost entirely different song from the original. Obviously the vocals are the same, but the change in music from rock to dance is a bigger shift than most of the remixes I tend to like use.

I could therefore imagine that, if you like the original version, you might not like this remix because of the huge generic shift. But I like them both. The synth/electronica vibe seems really cool to me. There are several more remixes on YouTube. I hope they come out as a single.

Usually, I post the lyrics to my songs of the week, but when I searched for the words to “Heavy Cross” I found very different accounts of what’s being sung.

This YouTube video solves the problem by providing both alternatives: