an albuquerque not animate be armada.

A guy on a audio recording mailing list posted links to some live recordings he'd made of an Orchestra and Choir doing what I think is Handel.

http://www.csp-music.com/asorecordings.html

The ASO Rode recording sounds better, but what I like about the recording is that the orchestra and choir sound pretty amateur. Not to take anything away from them, because they work hard to sound this good, but the subtle edge of bad intonation and mushy attacks is kind of awesome. It reminds me of the Portsmouth Symfonia. It is right on the edge of badness where people who don't have much of an ear for music probably don't notice anything out of the ordinary, but if you're a musician, it drives you nuts.

Wonderfalls is pretty great TV. The high concept pitch for it would be something like "Joan of Arcadia meets Arrested Development," -- a sarcastic, though pretty hot looking slacker girl's life is turned upside down when toys in the shape of animals start telling her what to do. Hilarity, as they say, ensues, though there's an irreducible sweetness to it, where cynical people are forced to care what happens to each other. Every show is an interpersonal trainwreck, but the writing is so wry that it avoids the comic-book retardedness of shows like "Malcolm In The Middle."

The main characters, the slacker-girl Jaye and the emotionally wounded bartender, Eric, are of course going to get together -- in fact pretty much from the get-go they spark, but circumstances, and talking plush toys make their journey to each other the most ridiculous, drawn out obstacle course, that nonetheless retains some emotional truth.

And the writing is wicked. One throwaway sample: Jaye's Mom is talking to her sister, and her brother:

Mom: Go talk to your father Aaron. You were always his favorite.
Daughter: Mom you said I was your favorite!
Mom: We don't have favorites, dear.

The fact that Television like this exists is enough to give me hope for the medium. Unfortunately I don't see television like this actually on television -- Fox did everything to sabotage Wonderfalls' broadcast, and canceled it after 4 episodes, with 9 episodes completed but not aired.