3.12.2005
The Pod People
In the perfectly normal town of Santa Mira, California, residents seem to be suffering from a mass hysteria: certain people feel that their relatives are not actually their relatives, even though by all objective counts they are. Things become more suspicious when Miles' friend Jack Belicec finds an unformed, unmoving body in his house that later disappears. Jack and his wife decide to stay at Miles' house, along with Miles' former girlfriend Becky who is showing a renewed interest in him. At night in Miles' greenhouse, the four find giant pod seeds that begin to sprout duplicates of all of them. Jack and his wife leave to find help, but they return transformed into emotionless replicas of their former selves. Most of the town has already been converted, and Miles and Becky are chased by a mob of pod people. They elude them temporarily, but Miles leaves Becky for a moment and returns to find her transformed. He escapes to a highway and tries to warn passers-by who think he is crazy or drunk.
3.7.2005
Martin Denny
'Exotica' music man Denny dead
HONOLULU, Hawaii (AP) -- Martin Denny, who recorded 38 albums that defined a genre of tropical mood music, dubbed "Exotica," which reflected tiki lounge culture, died Wednesday (March 2, 2005), his daughter said. He was 93.
Denny created a sound that he described as a fusion of Asian, South Pacific, American jazz, Latin American and classical. His relaxing compositions were frequently punctuated by wildlife nature sounds.
Denny's original "Exotica" album was recorded in 1956. Several albums by Denny played off the Exotica theme, such as "Exotic Sounds from the Silver Screen," "Exotic Sounds Visit Broadway," "Exotic Percussion" and "Exotica Classica."
His other albums include "Forbidden Island," "Primitiva," "Hypnotique," "Afro-Desia," "The Enchanted Sea," "Romantica" and "Hawaii Goes A-Go-Go!"
Born in 1911 in New York City, Denny studied piano as a child, and as a young man toured South America with a six-piece band, picking up the Latin elements that would later influence his Exotica sound.
During the 1950s and '60s, Denny was a fixture in Waikiki.
His music was rediscovered by a new generation of fans in the 1990s, when most of his early catalog was reissued on CD.
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