Using Bees To Effect Vengeance |
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I get to be as self-indulgent as I want without wasting anyone's time. Guilt-free solipsism -- excellent!
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Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Joe Strummer is dead. Joe *was* The Clash, and therefore *was* punk rock. And therefore *was* the driving force behind the aesthetic/unarticulated philosophy that completely dominates the way white kids of my generation, the one before mine, and the one after mine perceive art, culture and morality. Plus he inspired so many people to form bands -- even his choice of a stage name reflected that anti-elitist approach to art (and encapsulated his sense of humor). Given that he personified punk, it's ironic that he was the one who pushed punk forward, integrating reggae and R&B and hip-hop and f'in zydeco. But then that's even more punk, isn't it? I'm so grateful that I got to see him on a recent tour with the Mescaleros in New York. Hearing some of those Clash songs played live sent chills down my spine. Joe Strummer was someone to look up to. He had integrity. His death is a huge loss. His family have requested that donations be made to Nelson Mandela's foundation attempting to raise awareness of AIDS in Africa. At his death, he was working on a song with Bono to benefit the foundation. I'm not at home, so I can't post any MP3s, but do yourself a favor and raise a glass to Joe while listening to The Magnificent Seven or Koka Kola or Straight To Hell. | Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Where in the bloody hell have I been all this time? Don't ask. I did, however, manage to get off my arse and post some Dexter pictures. But where's the sparkling wit, the riveting narrative, the trenchant insight I've come to rely on for meaning in this swirling, centerless universe, you implore? Buggered if I know. Here are the puppy pictures. I'd like to think I'll post a Top 10 list or something in the near future, for what that's worth. Congrats to Meetup for passing 100,000 members. MP3 Of The Time Increment: Mysteries, by Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man. Beth is the singer for Portishead, Rustin Man is a bloke from Talk Talk. Nice stuff. I can be spotted in the flash demo for the new Dell handheld (click on the link to the Flash Tour in the left nav). Which one is me? How did I even end up in this thing? Ah-hah! The new Bond film was disappointing. You know why? They committed the cardinal sin of Bond films -- they got the tone wrong. The theme song by Madonna didn't have the requisite John Barry influences...it sounded like her new single, not like a Bond theme. The double entendres were more explicit than campy. The invisible car is more fantastical than amusingly far-fetched. It's a shame because the last couple have got the formula spot on. Oh well...only a couple years until the next one. West Ham are appalling this year. Really puts a downer on my weekends. Yet to win a match at home, and it's already December. I could wheel my grandmother out, strap some cleats on her, and watch proudly as she instructed Christian Dailly on how to defend against set pieces. | Thursday, December 12, 2002
How long has it been since you played Donkey Kong Jr? (I do feel compelled to point out that, at least in our neck of the woods at the time, the game you can play here was definitely known as Donkey Kong II, not DKJ. DKII was Mark's...I was given Mario Bros that year, and Mich got Rain Shower. Rain Shower and Mario Bros were essentially identical, except Rain Shower was blue and involved laundry and birds, while Mario Bros was burgundy and involved Italians and rectangles. I did own Donkey Kong Jr, though, and loved it...it was the fastest and most fun of all the Nintendo games. My school was rife with such games, and all the kids who had them used to play on each other's at lunch. For most of that year, I of course didn't have one, and scarce were the colleagues generous enough to let someone else play their game sans recompense. Lo those many months when I was game-less! The best I could do was beg someone to let me play Snoopy Tennis for a few minutes. Later on, when the bus to Hadley Wood started leaving at 4:15 rather than 3:30, I opted to become an after-school monitor since I was hanging around school anyway. This primarily entailed me and another boy going through our classmates bags after everyone had left and playing their video games for 45 minutes. ) | Friday, November 22, 2002
Group Asks: 'What Would Jesus Drive?' Smirk. I think Jesus would drive a Chevy Lumina with a bumper sticker saying "In case of rapture this vehicle will be unmanned." But come to think of it, wouldn't Jesus take the bus instead of drive if he's that environmentally conscious? Which raises the question, "What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?". | Monday, November 18, 2002
Thursday, November 14, 2002
So we went to see the Beck/Flaming Lips concert the other day. On this tour, the Lips are not only opening the show but acting as Beck's backing band. Well, they weren't just acting as the band, they *were* the band. How was it? I have rarely experienced feelings of pure happiness to compare to the one that came over me during "Do You Realize", a lovely uplifting song -- a video screen behind the band is flashing images, the band is conjuring a suitably grand, psychedeloperatic noise, there are Lips fans clad in animal costumes dancing around on the stage, and as Wayne Coyne sweetly croaked, "Do you realize/that everyone you know someday will die?", he raised his arms in triumph like he'd just won the World Cup while the elephants and pink bunnies clambered down to hug concertgoers in the front row. It's very hard to describe, but it was ineffably moving. The clashing of profundity and glorious silliness...the painful sentiment of that lyric paired with Coyne's jubilant gesture and the uplifting sweep of the music-- it was defiantly humanistic and calmly resigned at the same time. I don't know. Sonnet was taken with them as well, proclaiming after their set that it was the best concert she'd ever seen. I can't go for that (No Can Do), but it was a sublime performance. The MP3 of the Time Increment: Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips. | Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Apparently, the bastards make you get an Ofoto account in order to get your heaping fill of Dexiness (see below -- thanks to B for pointing it out). I'll try to find somewhere else to post them.... | Monday, November 11, 2002
Friday, November 08, 2002
This is going to make compiling my next mix much easier... I especially like how they've taken the initiative to add cowbell to classics like "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey". | Sunday, November 03, 2002
Another birthday. I'm 28 years young. Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes, clothing, and/or heaping quantities of English chocolate (including the unjustly underrated Double Decker). The birthday sparked the usual cornucopia of profound emotions: the bitter self-recrimination, the free-floating abject hopelessness, the unquenchable soul-lust for Double Deckers, the terrifyingly visceral awareness of the inexorable passage of time and the concomitant sense of hurtling towards death, and -- trust me -- "inexorable hurtling" is an exhaustingly knotty concept to contemplate in and of itself. Anyway, I wallowed in those emotions from around 10am (after opening birthday presents) until 4pm (before putting on pop music with loud guitars). The pop music fixed it, basically. My wife also helped, but that's between her and me. | Monday, October 21, 2002
Congrats to The Julie/Julia Project for getting MSNBC props (in the sidebar, plus scroll down to 10.20)! Richly deserved.... | Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Ron Rosenbaum is always a good read (see Explaining Hitler, a book so interesting that one has to unscrew one's head from one's shoulders periodically while reading it so that the poor thing doesn't overheat, a book so interesting that one finds oneself cradling it, rocking it gently in one's arms, and cooing, "I love you so much, Explaining Hitler, you're just so unbearably interesting, yes, yes you are", as if the book was a little Golden Retriever mix puppy or somesuch). Anyway, Ronnie's written a peach of an article for the New York Observer called "Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee" about his disillusionment with the Left since 9.11. Some of you who sniffed around Using Bees in those days may recall my own breast-beating about the same subject, and Rosenbaum's article is a nice summation of my feelings. I just expect more from lefties, you know? The article references Robert Graves' classic look back at the pre-Great War period in England, Good Bye To All That. It's a marvelous book about which I wrote a not-particularly-marvelous paper in college. Why do I mention it? Don't know, really...it's just the sort of mad, impetuous thing I do sometimes. I'm mad, me...I don't care *what* I do. Last night, right, I stayed up until *2 in the morning*. Told you -- I'm bonkers. | Tuesday, October 08, 2002
According to a Newsweek piece, Dave Eggers' new novel is only going to be available via McSweeney's and independent bookstores. No Amazon, no Barnes & Borders, no publisher stoking the hype. Pretty cool, if you ask me -- after all, would you turn down $3 million for your little indie-rock principles? True, it helps to have heaping great vats of cash strewn all over your Pavement records from the last novel you wrote that *did* go through a big publisher and Barnes & Borders. But still. | Thursday, October 03, 2002
Monday, September 30, 2002
It's kind of charming to me that government IT publications have weekly columns devoted to analyzing the latest episode of the West Wing. | Sunday, September 29, 2002
So this weekend was the Austin City Limits Festival -- we caught Wilco, but then hurried back to make sure the dog was OK. The show wasn't bad, although Tweedy claimed to have puked thrice during the previous night's gig...that may have accounted for the lackadaisical pace (you don't play Misunderstood *and* Sunken Treasure in a one-hour set; you just don't). We blew off today, meaning we'll have to see Kelly Willis and Shawn Colvin some other time. Oh well. On the plus side, we have more pictures. The Book recommended that we put the dog's name into a song and sing it to him, so that the sound of his name establishes positive connotations for him. We went straight to work thinking of songs that could incorporate his name. So far: I Want Your Dex Dexual Healing Get Up, I Feel Like Being A Dex Machine If he were a band, he would be Dexy's Midnight Runners. If he were a George Harrison album, he would be Dextra Texture. Yes -- that last sickeningly soppy joke made you uncomfortable, didn't it? It forced you to stare into the abyss that has been the last 48 hours of my life...are you recoiling at the dizzying descent into domestic inanity that has accompanied dog ownership? | Friday, September 27, 2002
Moving to Austin -- the subtext was always Dogs & Babies. Well, say hello to the newest member of the Blantreich household: C.K Dexter Haven. It's been a tiring week for Dexter. Two days ago he underwent the ritual doggie bris; today he was snatched from the Town Lake Animal Center by two odd, albeit affectionate, young people who immediately whisked him to a pet store in a strip mall and proceeded to agonize over the right crate to purchase him (he sensibly curled up on a shelf and grabbed some shuteye while all this was transpiring). Then they schlepped him to Blantreich Mansions, where he had a nice little run around his new garden, even volunteering his first (and so far, only) bark. He was then introduced to the concept of "indoors", which took some getting used to. Tentative sniffing ensued, then a quick lap at the water dish for appearance's sake before settling down for some full-on basking in new owner love. Ella Mae stopped by to add some cooing of her own, a rawhide bone was produced, and after some vigorously single-minded gnawing, Dexter's week finally caught up with him and he settled down for a schluf. | Monday, September 23, 2002
God, it's been forever since I posted, hasn't it? It's disgusting really...I've got all kinds of excuses, but you don't care. Why should you? All I can do is try to make it up to you, the only way I know how: by drawing your attention to Atomic Badger Racing. Be sure to check out the Strangelove-esque kitties you can drop on competing badgers. [via b3ta] What else? Going to the Austin City Limits festival this weekend -- your usual assortment of sufficiently alt-country bands and local favorites, plus the effin String Cheese Incident (does anyone find that name funny? It reeks of a bunch of musos sitting around stoned after rehearsal convincing themselves that it's amusing). Still, should be fun, and worth the price of admission for Wilco alone. The new Spoon album, Kill The Moonlight, is super-super-keen, y'all. It grows on you like a vat full of Sea Monkeys swimming in growth hormone -- just like that, in fact. The songs get into your bloodstream without you noticing. So, MP3 of the Time Increment -- Spoon's The Way We Get By. This one seems catchy enough at first, but a few more listens and you'll be unable to avoid putting it on thrice a day for the next two weeks. Highly recommended, especially for juniorhighpants...she heard some demos from this record during the Great Stoop Sale of '02, and now I always think of her and how much she'd probably like this album. Other Spoon factoids: my friend Matt plays sax on two songs. A Lovejoy is the touring keyboardist with them these days. Spoon have never made a bad record. I work with a guy who put out a bunch of their 7"s. They used to rock in all the right ways, but now they save it -- it's just another arrow in the quiver. If you want to get a feel for Rock Age Spoon, check Car Radio. Another MP3 of the Time Increment -- you've heard me go on about him before, but this new Roddy Frame song is quite lovely methinks. He has a new acoustic album that I haven't bought yet, but I will get it shortly. The missus thinks I should write a book about the role that chocolate has played in my life. Adam (as seen in US Magazine) called me up while DJing at Lolita, to soliciting an instant request honoring the presence of John Wesley Harding -- I plumped for The Magnificent Seven, which went down a treat. I made a mix for him to draw from at his gigs -- you can see the tracklisting here. DJing one night, cruising with Britney the next...New York cannot contain this man. We sleep with the windows open lately. It's nice. We've been hanging out with Ella Mae more lately too. That's been really nice. Sounds like sistra v and I have had similar existential crises lately about our suitability for our chosen careers ...except what she's doing is actually much more difficult and much more worthy than what I'm doing. I'm with you, V! Either way, you learn something about yourself and can move on. | Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Friday, August 30, 2002
Snagged 5th row center tickets for Elvis C at the Backyard in October. He was on the Today show yesterday morning with his hot little band: video footage here. | Hearty congratulations to lulu, one of four nominees for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy in this year's B. Iden Payne awards for her terrific work in last year's The Star Play. Of course, everyone in that production deserved a nom (I thought the direction was great ;-).... | The improbably named Will Self (was Ayn Rand his godmother or something?) recently went on a British radio talk show to promote his new book, which is probably as intimidatingly brilliant and frustratingly thorny as most of his other ones. Anyway, Self -- who boasts the impeccable punk rock credentials of having done heroin on Tony Blair's plane -- was joined on the show by a right-wing author (about whom I confess I know nothing) promoting his book, and the two got into a most entertaining scrap. An excellent transcript is here. [thanks to Brian Millar] Note: the BNP is a xenophobic, racist, fill-in-the-blank right wing party that has received worryingly good results in recent elections, particularly in the North. | Monday, August 26, 2002
More rampant piracy, but this one should have you running to purchase copies of Gary Giddins' Visions Of Jazz. In a piece on Charlie Haden and Hank Jones' glorious Steal Away record, Giddins opens with some remarkably insightful reflections on how African-American religious music embodies a parity between Old and New Testaments that Western Christian music doesn't. He then goes on to point out: "Go Down Moses", an obvious example, would suit any seder and, as a piece of music, beats the Passover anthem, "Da-yenu" by a country mile or a desert sea. Considering how indifferently Jews, who practically invented the modern pop song, have fared with hymns, one wonders why they haven't borrowed from other ex-slaves with a cannier ear for the pentatonic scale." I'd never thought about it, but Jewish religious music seems somewhat undernourished given the disproportionate influence Jews have had on other musical forms. Did Jews prefer to compose for the masses? Are the best Jewish composers more secular-oriented? Is it that we just don't know as much about Jewish music because of centuries of repression? I have to agree with Giddins -- any culture that can boast Mendelssohn, Berlin, Gershwin, Dylan, Bacharach, and Joey Ramone must be able to do better than "Da-yenu" -- although I can hear The Ramones taking a good shot at that one. | Sunday, August 25, 2002
You know you're in Dallas when you pass by church billboards that read: "use Son screen to avoid burning". | Friday, August 23, 2002
I don't know much about the band Nickelback -- from what I've heard, they're another one of those bands whose major musical influence is a piece of dried mucus that Eddie Vedder absent-mindedly hocked up in September 1992. Still, there's always time in one's jampacked day for a refreshing rant about how crap most music is. The NME has its problems, but it does do unadulterated vitriol quite well. Rather than make you click through, I'm going to strike a blow for brazen piracy and reproduce the review here, without permission. Have a look at nme.com if you're feeling guilty. Anyway, I present Mark Beaumont's review of the new Nickelback single, "Too Bad": "GRUNT! HEAVE! CHURN! Christ, feel the weight of this riffage! Try carrying this boulder of pain on your back a Mississippi mile! Put your shoulder to The Rock and strain-a-longa Nickelback, a band who write songs in the same way that betrayed Messiahs carry crucifixes up steep hills. ‘Too Bad’, like all their bricklaying slogrock shite, sounds like an episode of The World’s Strongest Man set to ‘music’: much teeth-gritted puffing, much painful wrenching and a lot of red faces all round. Except Nickelback don’t get the satisfaction of dragging a DC-10 seven inches with their teeth, they just drag youth culture deeper into the swamp of whining rock tedium like bricks in its pockets. Take a short pier and walk it. Fuckers." Don't you feel better, now? | Thursday, August 15, 2002
Ella Mae took the missus and I to La-La's and it lived up to its billing. A small but perfectly-formed jukebox -- you don't really need more than Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra, and Connie Francis at a place like that --, a nice little vibe, and some swell Christmas lights. A nice place to call my local. | So I had an anagnorisis today. Started thinking about the new job, what a transition it's been, blah blah blah. Went through the usual suspects. The frantic pace. Yeah, but that's not it. The steep learning curve. Yeah, but that's not it. Then it hit me: this is the first time in my life that my daily tasks primarily involve doing things rather than thinking about things. School is about thinking about things. Yes, you have homework, tests etc. but they're there primarily in order to gauge how well you've been thinking about things. Goes triple for college. In my last job, I was a Strategist (oh all right, Senior Strategist, but I'm just like you, really I am, don't be intimidated). Sure, I had "deliverables", but again, those involved analyzing situations, data, businesses, and putting my thoughts on paper when I was finished. Even when I made presentations to clients, it was in order to persuade them of the usefulness of my thoughts. My current job is not a thinking job. Sometimes I add a little bit of insight, but most of the time I don't have a lot of insight to share. In those cases where I do bring useful experience to the table, I don't have the time or the inclination to think strategically because I'm too busy worrying about the logistics of getting things done. Maybe when the daily processes I fumble with are second nature, I'll be able to do both. But for now, I don't think very much during my average day. That's deeply strange and unusual for me. Not unpleasant necessarily...but challenging. And challenging in a more profound way than I'd realized up until now. I'm not really that *good* at doing things; it's not my forte in life. But I'm really good at thinking. I'll think circles around you, boy. I'll think your freakin socks off. I've always preferred thinking to doing -- because I'm good at it. What do you prefer? (P.S -- I've even noticed a general decline in the articulateness (see?) of my postings since I started the job. A function of the shorter windows of time I have to compose my missives, you interject kindly? That's very sweet, but I don't think that's it. I think it's because my writing/analyzing brain is switched off all day. Hmmm....) | Tuesday, August 06, 2002
If there's one thing the chess world needs, it's an infusion of irreverence. Why do I think that? I don't know, but it sounds reasonably plausible, non? Anyway, enter Pawnpusher -- a site with a section dedicated to the eradication of inaccurate chess metaphors ("croquet -- it's chess on grass"), a site featuring Chess Pride t-shirts, a site willing to expose Garry Kasparov's facial similarity to Pete Sampras and Vinny Testaverde. I dedicate this post to Bud -- the student who, in deeply archetypal fashion, surpassed his teacher. Although I don't recall the archetype saying anything about surpassing within six months, but there you are. | Monday, August 05, 2002
Friday, August 02, 2002
Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau's forthcoming album is produced by none other than Jon Brion. Two White Album covers, a Radiohead song, some Jobim, and a song called "Free Willy". Should be interesting... | Thursday, August 01, 2002
I need more trousers. And more long-sleeved dress shirts -- preferably client-service-blue or one of the oh-so-daring pinstriped/checked variations. Ross hath failed me already, $10 slightly irregular dress shirts being disconcertingly thin on the ground in their Austin location. You see how life changes when you move down south? This is what I blog about now, not terrorist attacks, celebrity sightings, glamorous Lower East Side goings-on (well, there weren't that many of those before either), or escapades out on the D train. Sheesh. In other news, there are a number of charmingly authentic local bars that I keep meaning to check out. We've already sampled the pleasures of the Carousel Lounge, but right near us are the legendary La-La's and the highly promising Little Longhorn Saloon. | It was only the other day that I discovered Lulu had a weblog of her very own...I saw a link to funtimestwo on konrad's blog but it didn't work so I didn't know where it went. Anyway, I'm so pleased to hear the inimitable Lulu's voice coming through loud and clear. | All that time and energy spent trying to pick a new couch, when we could have just built one from all the mousepads we had lying around [slaps forehead]. | Tuesday, July 30, 2002
All right, I ain't too proud to beg -- if anyone can tell me how to get the "(x) comments" link to look more like my byline and timestamps links and less like my regular text, I would be grateful. I spent half an hour messing with it, and I can't figure it out. Other news; I cooked last night. Chicken in tomato sauce...it was dead yummy as well. I'm quite proud of myself. (Sonnet took over some of the prep while I talked to the one and only V, but I still feel comfortable taking credit). The S.O blogged about Mulholland Drive...I liked it more than she did, but generally I concur with her opinion. I like watching Lynch films just for his aesthetic -- it doesn't always make a lot of sense, and he does tend to repeat himself, but some of it's just so well done. Plus, it has to be said, while Naomi Watts was good, Laura Elena Harring knows how to make an impression...there's one scene in particular that I'm thinking of, it does involve a towel, and you could probably find it on KazaaLite if you were so inclined. Even the missus felt obliged to give props to Harring's mama. Last night, we finished watching Godfather III and I had my high opinion of the film reaffirmed. I don't understand people who say that it was crap. Sofia Coppola? Yes, she was rubbish. Dreadful. But the film itself, while not reaching the heights of G1 and G2, by no means disgraces the series. Pacino wolfs down a bit more scenery than he would have in '74, but as he himself has pointed out, Michael Corleone changed and grew over that 20-odd years as any of us would have, and it is appropriate to alter his characterization somewhat. Plus the climax of the film at the Opera House in Palermo is stunning -- Pacino's reaction to the culminating event sent shudders through me...you can practically see all the pain and regret pouring out of him. The look Keaton gives him is also exquisite. The film is genuinely operatic and genuinely tragic, and I think it's a fitting and worthy conclusion to the story. | Friday, July 26, 2002
Yes, I've taken the comments plunge. Obviously having a little difficulty getting the comments links formatted properly and I now have to run, but I'll fix when possible. I could go into a lengthy disquisition (they're always lengthy, aren't they) about why I've been reluctant to add comments, but someone's already done it. Anyway, there are a lot of reasons to have comments too, especially since I've moved away from NYC, so let the banter commence, I say! | Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Sunday, July 21, 2002
Right, so I added some stuff to the sidebar -- a couple of new links and a little feature I hope to update frequently which lists what I've been listening to, watching, and reading recently. Why should you care about that? I don't know. But I like reading that kind of stuff on other people's blogs, and Bekkah just started doing it, so there you are. | Monday, July 15, 2002
The trickle of Universal records hitting EMusic is now a flood, and so you've got Ellington/Hodges Side By Side (oof, so so great), some Bill Evans, Shirley Horn, an out-of-print Kelly Willis record, a couple of Ella songbooks, Marianne Faithfull, some James Brown, Toots & The Maytals, Gal Costa, The Spinners...even Morrissey's worst solo record. Yep, lookin' good. Now if I can just get that DSL connection up and running... | Tuesday, July 09, 2002
So EMusic has quietly begun adding albums from the library of its parent company Universal to its roster of downloads -- some easy listening, a little rock, some jazz off the "could-it-be-the-best-record-label-ever-pound-for-pound?" Verve Records imprint. That means a Big Record Label is consenting to make some of its catalog available for unsecured downloading and CD burning. If EMusic keeps adding Verve albums to go with its great indie rock and jazz offerings (see March 13th entry), I may have to sign back up ($15/mth for all you can download and burn; $10/mth if you commit to a year). | Monday, July 08, 2002
Good old Nick Hornby has a wry wrap-up of the more amusing 2002 World Cup anecdotes in the New Yorker -- worth a read. | Regrettably, blogging has slowed to a crawl. I am the teensiest bit overwhelmed with the new job -- not so much what I'm doing, but the totally different pace of it. By the time I left it, my previous job was very predictable. I had lots of time to myself -- to work, blog, what have you. This job throws something at you every 5 minutes, something that usually has to be dealt with immediately or else slotted into the carefully organized scheduling/prioritization system one has constructed for oneself. The main stumbling block seems to be that I don't have a carefully organized scheduling system nor a handy project prioritization model to which I can instantly and seamlessly refer...and, further, that I don't deal all that well with urgent things being shot at me as if from some kind of malfunctioning automatic-tennis-ball-server-thingy-but-with-job-tasks. I prefer to stroke my chin while I carefully examine all angles of the question, go and download some MP3s while subconsciously sifting through the options, and then return to the task with an devastatingly brilliant and original synthesis that leaves others in awe at my ingenuity and my insouciant, yet undeniably effective, methodology. That doesn't really work in this job. So to return to my original point, I've yet to determine how blogging fits into this system. There's definitely time -- it's just that it can only happen if I'm not constantly breathless and reeling, like a baby llama brought on board a submarine and instructed to run its food service operations. | Full-on props to the latest members of the blogging community, pinkhairthing and sistra v, both of whom blog like they were born to it. Fresh new voices! Outlandishly enjoyable and unique prose stylings! Pinkhairthing's advice column usually has me in stitches, and Sistra V's ongoing examination of the travails of the rookie teacher is just fascinating. I love it! | Very interesting, very long article about why the constant pressure over the last thirty years to reduce the amount of fat we eat appears to have actually accelerated obesity and heart disease among Americans -- and has prompted the re-evaluation of the scorned "Atkins Diet". The article features the vividly-rendered sentence, "If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease." It would be harder for me to give up carbohydrates than to give up high-fat foods -- sugar, grain, and pasta are my very lifeblood. Can't they just add protein to Chili Cheese Fritos and make everyone happy? | Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Rest in peace, Ray Brown. MP3 Of The Time Increment tribute to follow...it's just so hard to pick which of his amazing performances to make available. | Tuesday, June 25, 2002
"The days when you took the country's pulse from their albums have long gone, but play it loud and you can still believe this is the band who hosted the biggest rock'n'roll block party since punk. In gloomy times Oasis have remembered how to cheer us up. What else, really, are pop groups for? " | Sunday, June 23, 2002
Chicken and cheese Indian bread -- I was turned onto it by Matt B during my senior year at UT. After a nice between-classes lunchtime pint, we would head over to the little cart that sat outside the University Co-op and buy a couple of those delicious little pockets of heaven for $1.25 each. The friendly Vietnamese lady would hand 'em over along with a cup of ice for the accompanying Mountain Dew, and we'd scurry off to eat them. Subsequent trips back to Austin usually involved a detour by campus to ensure that I got a least a couple of them in the system; if Sonnet was driving, I was free to savor them in the passenger seat. The move back to Austin was wrenching in many ways. One of the saving graces for me was my imminent proximity to unlimited supplies of chicken and cheese Indian bread. The price? Still $1.25 each. So as I left The Omelettry after breakfast yesterday, I was gobsmacked to see the friendly Vietnamese lady's mugshot on the cover of the Austin American-Statesman. Turns out she and her equally friendly husband have (allegedly) been fencing stolen goods through the chicken-and-cheese cart for years now. I'm devastated. How did they have time to fence, given the prodigious lines that the food inevitably occasioned? Was it the money? Miss, I would gladly have paid double for that food -- that's $2.50 each -- if I'd known that the alternative for you was a life of criminal subterfuge. 
I jest, but this really sucks. | Wednesday, June 19, 2002
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
One more thing re: MEETUP -- if you sniff around the site a little bit, you might be able to find a picture of me beavering away on this very laptop...and all your preconceptions about what I look will be dashed to the rocks (actually they'll probably be confirmed in spades...and come to think of it, those of you who know me in meatspace will also be less than shocked at what I look like. probably.). | Saturday, June 15, 2002
Another impressive England victory. Bring on Brazil! In other news, I finally get to talk about the oh-so-secretive Internet startup I worked for after getting laid off. The site has launched now, and I for one think it's pretty cool. MEETUP The idea is that if you're a huge fan of...let's say...Weezer -- or you want to meet other bloggers in your town...or you're planning a wedding and want to MEETUP automatically schedules a meet up in 500-odd cities around the world (most in the US, at least to start) and you get to vote on which location you'd like to use. The site launched the other day and was promptly "Slashdotted", so there are already almost 5000 participants (mostly techies) as of the time of writing. Soon they'll start getting the word out, one by one, to the hundreds of online communities that I helped to identify -- and a worldwide Weezer fan MEETUP will surely be of interest to the major Weezer fan sites out there, so those categories will shortly begin to show some life too. Anyway, you can get all the juicy details at the site...have a poke around. And think: "What topics am I geekily passionate about? And goddamn, wouldn't it be great to meet other people who are just as into "blankety blank" as I am. Odds are, your little niche is not on there, so please suggest it! For instance, Matt might be all excited about the Metafilter MEETUP, but might want to suggest a Comic Book Fans MEETUP. | Friday, June 07, 2002
Wow, what a fantastic match -- all I can say is "Nes Gadol Hayah Sham". I was dead proud of West Ham's own Trevor Sinclair coming on as a surprise sub for the injured Owen Hargreaves just 19 minutes in -- he created chances, he put in 110%, and he deserves as much credit as anyone for the win. Having said that, England's defending was just phenomenal. All credit to Nicky Butt, who played out of his skin, as well as the impeccable central defensive duo of Rio Ferdinand and Sol Campbell. It was so heartening to see Campbell's massive frame back there, ready to lunge in and clear the ball whenever it got anywhere near him. And you could see Argentina succumb to fear once Owen put that shot off the post...after that, they would do anything to stop him, and the result was the decisive penalty. Plus the spirit at Fado was just great, even though they didn't start serving pints until 7am. Can't wait until the Nigeria match on the 12th, which we *must* win. ...so far, it's been a really enjoyable World Cup. (Oh, well done USA as well...an epochal victory for them, to be sure). | Thursday, June 06, 2002
Heh..hello?? Hi. I'm sitting in my brother's apartment having hooked up the puter, and I'm dipping my toes in the water. Since I last blogged, I/we: I just called around to find a pub that is opening early for the England/Argentina match -- looks like I'll be heading to Fado at 5:45am tomorrow morning in order to get a good spot for the match at 6:25. This is the big one, folks, and it's going to be a lot of fun. After extensive deliberations with the S.O and a few frantic late-night calls to the more prestigious Italian fashion houses, I've settled on a coolly casual look, and will be sporting a chic claret and blue polyester number with a sexy little West Ham United logo on the sleeves and a big fuck-off Doc Martens logo emblazoned on the front. I think it will be a hit, but you know what these early-morning pub football watching types are like -- so catty. My brother found a place to live in Dallas -- an apartment complex called Rancho Palisades. Naturally, we're having a grand old time referring to it as "Rancho Relaxo". Saturday, the mighty Nina Nastasia is coming to Austin's Mercury! I saw her many times in New York, and I bet she will blow Austin away...Albini produced her last album and it is goosebump-inducing beautiful. Lots of things on the agenda: must get in touch with old friends like Chip C and Matt B; must do some homework to prepare for the new gig; must buy that car; must find a place to live; must stay in touch with the New York peeps; must seize the opportunity to promote the exciting startup I worked on when it launches (just a few days away now...watch this space), must watch World Cup matches...must begin to settle into new existence. Weird. In some ways, blogging is one of the few points of continuity...this interface is the same one I've always used. More later... | Friday, May 24, 2002
Somehow that last entry got posted before it was quite finished. Neddy mind -- on to bigger and better things. Like a new best-of-breed enterprise software tool that augments content management systems with incremental functionality enabling the seamless integration of contextually relevant gluteal graphics into any pre-existing website. In other words, an app that lets you put a picture of an arse of practically any web page you wish. [via b3ta] | Thursday, May 23, 2002
Wow, two weeks passes quickly when you're busy. It was fun watching my brother graduate last week. That's it -- my parents' children have all entered the real world, as it's amusingly known in some quarters. I lined up some interviews while I was Austin and they all went very well, which was encouraging. Now it's just waiting for some word of the decision. Will there be an unprecedented bidding war for my services, or will they all independently opt for "thanks but no thanks"? With any luck, I'll have some idea in the next week. If none of them come through, we'll be OK for a while, but it would sure be nice to land a paying gig so we can find our own place to live rather than relying on the kindness of our parents, my brother, and his roommate (incidentally, hearty congrats to Matt, who recently strode into the arena of the affianced). In the meantime, it's cleaning and packing and canceling utilities and paying bills and writing thankyou emails and opening bank accounts and informing one's "network" and spending time with friends. Speaking of networks, I apparently grew one when I wasn't looking. Quite a few people have graciously hooked me up with job leads, and I didn't have to schmooze them or bullshit them or cold call them. I just asked them what was going on with them when I saw them (out of genuine interest, imagine that), told them what was going on with me, and they said, "Oh I know so and so". It was painless, I'm enormously grateful to them, and I look forward to returning the favors. Been listening to: | Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Saturday, May 04, 2002
According to Freeworld, the late Kirsty MacColl's terrific album Tropical Brainstorm has sold over 50,000 copies in the US and is still selling 500-odd a week. The super-catchy single "In These Shoes" was voted #1 song of 2001 by KGSR-Austin listeners...and, most touchingly, a bench in Soho Square has been dedicated to Kirsty. Sniff. | Thursday, May 02, 2002
Apropos my earlier post: Index of Logical Fallacies [via Metafilter] -- the antidote, once again, is Hayakawa. | "Suddenly I have an insatiable urge to watch He-Man while eating Fun Fruits." I'm going to go ahead and say this is one of the finer sentences ever seen on a weblog, and as evocative a description of nostalgia for childhood as anything in Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu | Battleground God -- a test to determine whether your beliefs about God are internally consistent. [via Flutterby] Congratulations! You have been awarded the TPM medal of honour! This is our highest award for outstanding service on the intellectual battleground. The fact that you progressed through this activity neither being hit nor biting a bullet suggests that your beliefs about God are internally consistent and very well thought out. They bloody well better be, given the amount of thought I've put into them! A direct hit would have occurred had you answered in a way that implied a logical contradiction. You would have bitten bullets had you responded in ways that required that you held views that most people would have found strange, incredible or unpalatable. However, you avoided both these fates - and in doing so qualify for our highest award. A fine achievement! 37469 people have completed this activity to date. You suffered zero direct hits and bit zero bullets. This compares with the average player of this activity to date who takes 1.29 hits and bites 1.06 bullets. 8.44% of the people who have completed this activity, like you, emerged unscathed with the TPM Medal of Honour. I must admit, I was confident going into this test. If there's one thing I work hard at, it's being logically internally consistent. You think I'm being facetious, but I'm not. As some of you know (Hi Georjean!), when discussing religion, I almost always end up foaming at the mouth about the need for internal consistency rather than debating whether God actually does or doesn't exist. As even more of you know (Hi everyone!), I tend to be very process-focused rather than results-focused, in a Kantian fashion, if you will, as it were, to be sure. | Wednesday, May 01, 2002
Wow, what a beautiful day here in Brooklyn. Went and got some of my hair chopped off ("sideys intact, please") and came home to hear our landlord playing electric guitar again. He always plays along with Rolling Stones songs -- today it was Angie, often its Honky Tonk Women or Brown Sugar. Once he surprised me with Hand Of Fate -- what a great, great song. Even landlordly guitar overdub wankery couldn't ruin it. Anyway, off to a Yankees game now. | Hamas would accept Saudi peace plan, spokesman says / Group would stop attacks on Israelis if occupation ends Am I horribly cynical for not taking these statements at face value? Forgoing the right of return? Guaranteeing Jewish access to holy sites in Jerusalem? Having "good neighborhood" with Israelis? Where the hell did this come from? It certainly contradicts everything stated in the Hamas Charter and belies the actions Hamas has taken to disrupt every promising negotiation of the last 15 years. If Hamas does endorse this spokesman's comments, I imagine Israel will come under international fire for being skeptical, but can anyone really blame them? Hamas constitutes a totalizing ideology for its adherents, and to give credence to the idea that the poor Palestinians whom Hamas has radicalized will suddenly reject everything they've been brought up to believe about their right to control all of Palestine, the impossibility of living with Jews, the betrayal that a negotiated peace would represent, the absolute indispensability of a right to return to their ancestors' olive groves, is dangerously ignorant. It will take years of good behavior for Hamas to earn any shred of credibility as peacemakers. For what it's worth, I think Israel's long-standing policy of encouraging settlements in the West Bank is destructive -- and to be honest, I don't have an enormous amount of sympathy for the Israeli couple whose 5 year old daughter was recently murdered by militants (obviously murder is inexcusable, but what responsible parents would move with their young children to a West Bank settlement? They placed their desire to make an ideological point above the safety of their kids). And I'm not keen on Sharon -- while he's not the wild-eyed butcher some make him out to be, I don't fully trust him as a peacemaker either (particularly given his views on settlements). On the whole though, I think Israel is getting a bad rap. They're right to point out that, where the US was content to indiscrimintately bomb Taliban strongholds from the air in order to root out terrorists, Israel is taking the harder road by going house-to-house in search of terrorists, in order to minimize the impact on innocent civilians. While I have no doubt the IDF have killed innocent people, I am also sure they have taken measures to avoid doing so ...unlike the Hamas, Al Aqsa, and Islamic Jihad militants, who intentionally kill as many innocents as possible. It is an enormously depressing situation. On the whole, I would be in favor of a return to 1967 borders, a Palestinian state on the West Bank, and a heavy international presence to enforce the rules. Whether Sharon would go for it, I don't know. Whether Arafat would go for it, I don't know...especially since he rejected the best offer he is ever likely to get when he walked away from the table in early 2001. What really concerns me is whether the Palestinians would abide by the terms of any agreement -- Arafat's actions often run counter to his rhetoric, and Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc. hardly appear to be committed to peaceful co-existence with Israel, the above article aside. I don't have the same concerns about Israel's willingness to abide by any agreement. Why? Partly because I'm Jewish, I suppose, but also because Israel has abided by agreements with other Arab nations in the past (Egypt, Jordan), because it is a democratic state whose leaders ultimately answer to the will of the people, and because Israelis have not been bred to work for the destruction of any Palestinian state. | Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Ladies Night Transcript -- another doozy from Mighty Girl's Maggie. Beware: frank slumber-partyesque discussion lies behind that link. | Sunday, April 28, 2002
Friday, April 26, 2002
I did lots of homework when I bought our DVD player, and one of the things I looked at was whether it was capable of playing DVDs from regions other than the US. I wasted a great deal of my former employer's time researching that, but now all that work has paid off, because: The Young Ones is coming out on DVD. (it will work, right? PAL and NTSC don't matter for DVDs, right? I can buy a British DVD and as long as my player is multi-region it will work, right? Please email me if you have insight into this important issue. Cheers.) Sonnet and I hung around outside the Bowery Ballroom for 2 hours last night, but it was worth it -- we got into the sold-out Wilco show and they were transcendent. Buy the new record, people, it's as good as everyone says. | Wednesday, April 24, 2002
MyBunnies.com -- Miriam owns 25 rabbits, and they've got one webpage each, bless 'em. I liked the looks of Cocoa, Peter The Lop, and Clyde, but Snugglebunny and SweetPea were frankly rather scary. And the less said about Big Mama, the better...I will need to sleep with the light on for a few days. | Sunday, April 21, 2002
OK, one more MP3 -- I can't resist. Soul Chills, Part 1, by DeDe Soul And The Spidels -- check out that bass playing! Dearie me. | Saturday, April 20, 2002
Can't sleep. Brain wired on Claritin-D and too bloody hot, despite an almighty thunderstorm this evening. So, here's an account of my attempt to get into an industry-only Elvis Costello gig at the luscious Bowery Ballroom, as emailed to Danielle earlier today.... "I met my friend Adam and his friend Mike down there...we got in the line sans wristbands, passes, what have you, and tried to figure out a plan. We came up with three -- 1) I bought tickets on the Island website on Monday and they should be waiting inside 2) I am a label rep for John Mayer, the opening act 3) I work for Island -- whaddya mean I'm not on the list Adam chose #1, Mike and I were more comfortable with #2. Adam went ahead in the line to make it all less suspicious. Five minutes later, Adam heads back to us shaking his head. He tried it, they said "If you're not on the list, we can't let you in". He got in line with us to try #2 -- although the girl at the door had looked straight at him, they were letting the punters in a different door than the industry people, so it seemed safe. Just as we approach the door, they said "Next few people, go the other door please" -- so he had to drop out and head further back the line to avoid recognition. Mike and I head downstairs, credit card in hand. "We bought tickets on the site on Monday", I said nonchalantly and presented the card. "We don't have you here.". "What? Can you look again" "Sorry, you're not on here. You got them on the Costello site?" "Yes, on Monday. Can we pay cash or something?" "No, this is a private event, we're not selling tickets. If you're not on the list, you can't get in". This last was the large bouncer hovering near the girl at the door. "Are there other lists we might mistakenly be on?" She looks..."No, not here. It looks like your card was never charged. You'll have to go back upstairs." We trundle back up, dejectedly. When we get up there, Adam comes over, having failed in his attempt to execute plan #3. We stood around for 10 or 15 minutes, my hay fever causing me no end of trouble. I was ready to split, when we heard a Bowery employee say to another, "So-and-so says we can start selling tickets." Straight into the small line, and we're in. Brilliant. John Mayer set new standards for crap. His songs were boring, most of his lyrics were about how much he treasured his woman's body, and he made the most hilariously wanky faces when soloing. Dreadful. Of course, the obligatory coterie of blond co-eds stood at the front, staring adoringly at him, mouthing the words, and generally attempting to communicate their eagerness to bestow copious blowjobs upon him. Elvis was good. The band didn't seem too tight except on the faster numbers like Dust, Lipstick Vogue, Doll Revolution, Hope You're Happy Now, Pump It Up -- in fact, they definitely got better throughout the set. Waiting For The End Of The World was an unqualified thrill, Man Out Of Time sounded gorgeous even though Steve was inaudible for most of it (there were quite a few problems with the mix -- Elvis seemed to blame much of them on the roadies) -- and the way he waited for the industry scum to shut up before finishing I Want You was pretty spine-tingling. Didn't play Daddy Can I Turn This, which was a disappointment, and Alison was tossed off carelessly (take more care with your tossing, Declan), but we were as close as this to Elvis and rock band in fine fettle and it was a grand night. Davey Faragher is a champ...he played terrifically. And Steve was doing some beautiful stuff during Episode Of Blonde. Pete was as invigorating as usual - a rapid fire drum fill 10 seconds into WFTEOTW upped the energy *immediately*...he's such a god. Don't really have time to get into more detail, but you will enjoy yourselves, no doubt about that." | Wednesday, April 17, 2002
Tuesday, April 16, 2002
A bunch of different Weezer covers, including the UC Berkeley Marching Band covering Pink Triangle and -- oh yes -- The Olson Twins covering Island In The Sun (disappointingly, they don't appear to be on the song -- perhaps it was just recorded for their movie). | Being Geddy Lee -- in which one man synchs the dialogue in Being John Malkovich with the music and musings of the band Rush. " I decided that I would listen to every interview of Rush I had (in both audio and video form) and pick out pieces of dialogue to incorporate into this project. Having approximately 75-100 hours worth of material, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy…but nothing worthwhile in life ever is." Wow. Next they'll be saying that 2112 syncs up perfectly with Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory or something. Oh, wait... | Monday, April 15, 2002
Let's update the MP3 Of The Time Increment, shall we? Hmmm. Let's see. Ah yes: Gus "The Groove" Lewis: Let The Groove Move You First of all, his name is Gus -- a good omen for a soul singer. Second of all, this is a fearsomely funky track -- fat fat drums, spot-on Raelettes/Sweet Inspirations-style backing vocals, all manner of guttural grunting, the words "Sock it to 'em, Leroy" featured prominently...need I belabor the point? How did I come across this slice of sweat-soaked Southern soul, you ask? It's all thanks to Mr. Fine Wine ("Cake...and fine wine" -- quick, name that movie), the DJ who transmits rare soul and funk 45s across the tri-state area from 7-8pm Friday evenings on WFMU. I'm telling you -- one jaw-dropping tune after another. Shame you'll have to move to New York to hear it.......aha, tricked you!! WFMU archives all the shows in RealAudio format for your listening enjoyment. And they even keep playlists on file, to aid the furious Audiogalactic surfing which will undoubtedly transpire shortly after you tune in. Ooh, you really are a lucky bastard, aren't you? P.S -- When you're finished goggling at the aforementioned bounty, peep this. [Goes slackjawed] God bless these trainspotters. I think my next bad habit will be collecting '60s soul 45s. P.P.S -- Oh, and here's a live MP3 of Belle And Sebastian having an impromptu go at "Oliver's Army". | Wow, no health insurance + unappealing $600/mth COBRA coverage option + wife's numb fingertips and continuous shooting pain in arms = bad. No health insurance + wife's numb fingertips and continuous shooting pain in arms + two weeks sans relief = something must be done. But still = bad. Go to doctor anyway + reassuringly authoritative diagnosis + great sense of relief + free samples of prescribed anti-inflammatory + loads of Claritin-D samples for husband whose prescription has just run out = good. $150 out of pocket, well spent. And you can sod your bloody COBRA. | Wednesday, April 10, 2002
Bugger -- Costello at the Beacon Theatre three weeks after we move. No Austin date yet...c'mon EC, The Backyard, The Backyard... | Sorry I've been AWOL for so long, kids. This whole unemployment thing really throws one off one's schedule. Some tidbits from the last week then: And finally, the big news: we're moving back to Austin. Yep. An intense couple of days saw the missus and I run through the scenarios and it soon became clear that our plans to move to Austin-or-somewhere-like-it in the next year or so had to be accelerated. Accelerated to June 1, to be precise. It will be enormously difficult to leave our amazing, amazing New York friends...but we've consoled ourselves with the thought that we'll certainly be coming to New York as frequently as possible...plus lots of them have Austin connections of their own, so that will help too. Fear not, though, gentle reader: Using Bees shall persist, like a dry cough that you desperately wish would melt into proper phlegm already so that you could get some satisfaction from clearing your throat. CDs near my desk today: all of them (hah!) | Wednesday, April 03, 2002
A great contribution from Lisa: Foretold day arrives Anticipation is worse Hey! Freedom-Hey dey! Hey dey indeed. This whole staying home thing isn't so bad. It's a gorgeous Park Slope spring morning, I had a bagel and a delicious cup of coffee from Ozzies, we're having lunch with Jeff in a while, I'm getting to spend lots of time with my wife, I'm no longer spinning my wheels in a job where I wasn't learning anything, and I'm listening to even more recently discovered Nick Drake outtakes while looking for another job. In the meantime, if anyone could use some smart, creative internet marketing strategy on a freelance basis, give me a shout (hey, you never know). And I've just received a haiku from Bekkah, acknowledged queen of the form: what do the boss know? cut off nose to spite their face chickens with no heads | Monday, April 01, 2002
You know what might be the worst part about losing my job? I must have had 2 or 3 gigs worth of MP3s on that machine. Damn. By the way, it has been pointed out that my earlier haikus were not, in fact, strictly speaking, ipso facto, haikus at all, but a brand new, perhaps Japanese-inspired form of poetry that could easily be mistaken for haiku unless one were a true syllable-counter. However, Michelle has thoughtfully contributed a true haiku as an exemplar of the genre, to wit: The other shoe? Yea, but it did finally drop. Enter G 'n T | back from passover "hit the bricks, pal"; oy vey oh those bitter herbs if I stay insured and get decent severance then Dayenu and from Sonnet: Laid off by the man? Fuck all those motherfuckers. Steal office supplies. | Got laid off 20 minutes ago via phone. To be fair, when my boss gets back in the office this afternoon, I'll be meeting with her. Not a surprise, as those of you who've been subjected to my incessant rabbiting are well aware -- and not entirely unwelcome either. At the moment, I'm pretty much focused on tying up the loose ends, etc., but if you have an urge to contribute a topical haiku, I'll be sure to publish it when I have time. | Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Elvis Costello chooses some of his favorite lyrics. And from the accompanying article, this choice quote: "Destiny's Child's "Say My Name" is as good as anything [Motown's] Holland- Dozier-Holland ever wrote. It's a simple story anybody can recognize, done with tremendous panache." | An excerpt from an earlier rant of mine made it to yesterday's edition of Random Blog Quotes, which is a pretty cool site actually, so I'm well chuffed. | Helms Reverses Opposition to Help on AIDS "I know of no more heartbreaking tragedy in the world today," the senator wrote, "than the loss of so many young people to a virus that could be stopped if we simply provided more resources." Mr. Helms has frequently denounced foreign aid as a "rathole" and has frequently voted against aid appropriation bills. He has attributed his change of opinion to Bono, the star of the rock group U2 who has pushed for more federal spending to fight AIDS, and the Rev. Franklin Graham, who heads an organization known as Samaritan's Purse and is deeply involved with Africa. [Shakes head] Ten years ago when I had a defaced picture of Jesse Helms on the back of my school binder, I would not have predicted that the singer for U2 would convince him of the error of his ways. Incidentally, Helms does not intend to help US AIDS sufferers, since their plight is purely a result of the "homosexual lifestyle". So I have no plans to canonize him yet. And even Bono will not be able to change my mind. | Monday, March 25, 2002
The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (or CBDTPA) has been introduced into Congress, and it's a doozy. Essentially, "any hardware or software that reproduces, displays or retrieves or accesses any kind of copyrighted work" will have copy-protection mechanisms built in, by government mandate. That means MP3 players, computers, CD players, Palm Pilots, CD burners, TVs, etc. Why? Because as Sen. Fritz Hollings, the bill's primary sponsor, points out, ""any device that can legitimately play, copy or electronically transmit one or more categories of media also can be misused for illegal copyright infringement. " This is true. But rather than say to media companies, "Wow, that sucks for you guys, you better figure out a business model that accomodates the way people really want to interact with music, films, and text in the digital world [i.e. easy access to everything, all you can eat, for one flat rate] rather than selling one work at at time", Hollings etc. -- aided by generous donations, of course -- have decided to restrict the ability of citizens to use perfectly legal technologies because they could be used to make lots of copies. So much for "fair use" rights. What happens if you tamper with or attempt to disable the copy protection on your computer or PDA or Mp3 player that you've legally purchased and in fact own in order to make copies of media that you've legally purchased and in fact own? Five years in jail and a $500,000 fine. This is ridiculous. As someone at the recent PC Forum said, "People are having their citizenship taken away and replaced by consumership." Stoppoliceware.org has the scoop on how to fight the CBDTPA. As last night's Oscars showed, we sure loves us some Hollywood. That Halle Berry sure seems like a nice, pretty lady. But making a Hitchcock-like directorial cameo was the festering head of MPAA lobbyist Jack Valenti, gurning and mugging in Errol Morris's gee-isn't-Hollywood-magical--you-need-us-you-know-slap-on-the-back film that opened the show. Valenti was alarmist and dead wrong when he said that video was going to destroy the movie industry. He's sounding the same alarms about the Internet now, of course, and he's wrong again. And the scary thing is that our insatiable lust for celebrity conveniently blinds us to the unseemly power that media conglomerates -- the celebrity-enablers -- are amassing over our daily lives. We exist to consume their content, and if we start getting uppity by sharing files online, they bring the hammer down and start calling in those favors, all the while shoving more celebrity gossip, starlets falling out of dresses, right-on uplifting sentiment, and vicarious emotion down our throats until we're well and truly sedated and we've happily conflated consumer choice with individual rights once and for all. But Reese Witherspoon looked nice, didn't she? | Friday, March 22, 2002
2002 Messiest Apartment Contest Wow. I hope this is the final, shattering proof that my wife needs in order to acknowledge that my tidiness issues are really laughably minor in the grand scheme of things. And that the proper response to them is a good-humored, indulgent shake of the head perhaps coupled with a quiet chuckle to oneself. | Wednesday, March 20, 2002
In keeping with the earlier posts on British slang, we now have a nice compendium of German swear words -- with audio files so you can get the pronunciation right! No schweinehund or fefluchtnachmal (don't know how it's written, but my siblings and I picked it up from our grandparents when we were kids). [via Shake That Cola Drag] | A trans-European fight has broken out on the Fantasy Football league message board, some French folk having stirred up passions by pointing out how many French footballers play in the English Premier League. Some Englishmen observed that the reason for this was that the French football leagues are so crap, and how many French teams made it to the Champions League anyway, eh? The discussion quickly degenerated (I'll spare you the postings by some of the Irish contingent), but my favorite post by a Frenchman so far is the following: TODAY IT'S DAY OF FRANCE by: GODE SAVE THE DRAG-QUEEN (feverfr) Wednesday, March 20 7:11 AM PT the best country in the world. english women look like elisabeth 2 the queen of the drag-queen people:les english de mes couilles. you les rosbeef washing the back of your master george michael la tarlouzes and robbie williams le sucker de charles the big ears. | Monday, March 18, 2002
Neo-Nazis review The Man Who Wasn't There [via Metafilter] "There is a modicum of anti-White racism to be found in many of their works, but this is countered by the fact that the Coens are fine storytellers. In this age of Lowest-Common-Denominator crap coming from Hollywood, it's nice to see a thought-provoking comedy once in a while, even if it is brought to us by more of those filthy Yids." Yes, Vanguard News Network is a highly disturbing website. Some of the writing is laughable, some of it is impressively literate. Either way, why not check out some state-of-the-art racial hatred and anti-Semitism? Let's learn from the last six months, and get this stuff on our radar screen before it reaches critical mass [c.f Elvis Costello's song "Night Rally" or The Clash's "Clampdown"]. And maybe we can empty their coffers by pushing their bandwith bill to unsupportable levels. | Team picks white man mascot to make point [via Kottke.org] "An intramural basketball team at the University of Northern Colorado called “The Fighting Whities” is turning the tables on the Eaton mascot issue. Led by Solomon Little Owl, director of Native American Student Services at UNC, the team chose a white man as its mascot to raise awareness and understanding of stereotypes that some cultures endure" Nice one. | I haven't had time to check out the nominees, but there's the The SXSW Web Awards is bound to be home to all manner of groovy goodness. If there's anything particularly mind-blowing I should check out, please let me know.... | Sunday, March 17, 2002
Why did I resist getting the Goldfrapp album for so long? Sensuous Sarah Cracknell-meets-Shirley-Bassey vocals atop a shimmering blend of John Barry strings, Mancini/Schifrin harpsichord and harmonica stylings, and the odd electronic flourish to bring the whole concoction into the 21st century. Gorgeous stuff. As I just said to my wife, if Morcheeba is the quintessential Sonnetmusik, then Goldfrapp is surely Alexmusik. | Wednesday, March 13, 2002
The editor of National Review weighs the merits of nuking Mecca. The American Prospect has a suitably snarky and outraged response. P.S -- I just subscribed to the American Prospect -- they've dropped their annual subscription rate from $30/yr to $9.95. | Girl Wonders: Michael Gurian defines his post-feminist vision I'm dubious of these physiological gender-difference factoids, but they're certainly interesting. [via Flutterby] | Monday, March 11, 2002
Two new MP3s-Of-The-Time-Increment this week, the first being "Death Car" by the band Wheat. It's from their album Medeiros (hah!), and the reason I've chosen it is that it is an insidious little song. Better-than-average indie rock vocals, a lovely chorus and intriguing lyrics add up to a song that gets stuck in my head remarkably frequently considering it came out so long ago. Listen to it three times and you'll have the same pleasure. The second is Don Piper's "Just Checking In". Don has played with the terrific Pam Miller, among others, but is a gifted songwriter In His Own Write. This song is a catchy little mid-tempo foot-tapper with an instantly appealing chorus. Great production too. You can check more of his stuff out at his website. Speaking of In His Own Write, Sonnet and I managed to pick up McCartney tickets today. They're $85 tickets in Nosebleed Towers, but hey -- it's Macca. Last time I saw him was 1990, and it was the best day of my life up until that point. For a Beatleist like me, there's no question. It's like a Buddhist coming face to face with Siddhartha. That is, if Siddhartha were touring stadia and singing 'bout Freedom. I'm talking 'bout Freeeeeeeeedom. If you're reading this Mr. McCartney, please play "The Pound Is Sinking" or "Don't Be Careless, Love" or "Back Seat Of My Car". And go easy on the stuff from the new album -- we're still, er, getting into it. | So far I'm reasonably impressed with BBC's new Radio 6 -- on Day 1, they've interviewed Clash roadie Johnny Green, had a session from old Austinite Hammell On Trial, and spun tunes from the likes of Richard Ashcroft, Electric Soft Parade, Dubstar ("Not So Manic Now" -- yay, 1995 flashback!), Mary Lorson...its kinda like if the Mojo review section were a radio station. Their current playlist includes Mick Jagger, Gorillaz, White Stripes, Departure Lounge, Travis, Outkast...you're getting the picture. Worth a go. | I agree with Bekkah's haikus re: Mr. Russell Crowe. Sonnet is also likely to weigh in on the subject. I just couldn't believe anyone could say the words "God bless narrative" with a straight face. | I love slang. Particularly British slang -- Cockney, Scottish, Irish...they're all enormously amusing, as far as I'm concerned. Someone posted this excellent compendium of Irish slang to Metafilter, and I creased myself laughing as I went through it. A lot of it I was familiar with thanks to Roddy Doyle books, but much of it was delightfully new to me. Naturally, most of it is extremely rude, so please don't have a butcher's at it if you're easily offended. Or even if you're not easily offended. Just for good measure, here are a good London slang site and a Scottish slang page. | Friday, March 08, 2002
Billy Bragg Addresses Parliament Rock singer Billy Bragg hiked up his sweater to show off a T-shirt featuring the punk band the Clash as he testified in Parliament, telling legislators they were out of touch with the British people. Speaking of The. Clash., I just finished A Riot Of Our Own, by Clash roadie Johnny Green, and can highly recommend it for fans. Other tidbits: went to see John Wesley Harding last night. He played his forthcoming album, in order, to open the show...all the songs sounded terrific. One song, Sussex Ghost Story, has an arrangement by Gavin Bryars, so Wes brought his boombox, miked it up, and played the song over the recorded strings. Then a nice surprise -- Evan Dando jumped up to play a couple of new songs and then Wes joined him on another new Dando original called "Hard Drive". As Adam -- who'd heard it before -- promised, it was fantastic. While Dando's always been quite the melodicist, his lyrics have never been this affecting before. Edit: turns out it's a Ben Lee song. Oh well. | Thursday, March 07, 2002
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
Last night, Sonnet and I did a fun thing with J & B. Namely, a steel cage match between six classical piano players to determine the Best Piano Player of the Century. The judges (except for J, who was the architect of the evening -- THANKS!) did not know who was who during the competition, a double-blind methodology being required to ensure the scrupulous fairness the participants deserved. There were two stages: the Beethoven program and the Freestyle program. I predicted Vladimir Horowitz would win, but shocker of shockers, he actually came last! The Top 3 were Gold: Daniel Barenboim Silver: Glenn Gould Bronze: Maurizio Pollini My personal top 3 were Gould, Barenboim and MoPo, in that order. It sounds dorky, but it was actually really fun. [Parenthetical aside: you know what? I'm going to stop using "dorky" as an antonym for "fun" because dorkiness more often than not = fun.] I recommend you do what we did -- just listen quietly, take notes to yourself, and then take turns discussing your emotional take on the piece. You'll get a lot more out of the music that way.... OK, even if you choose not to take notes, next time you're in the mood for some cultcha, don't use it as background music. I've often thought that being in the presence of the artists during performance accounted for the superior buzz of live classical music, but after last night, I think it's the lack of distraction that's the key variable. | Monday, March 04, 2002
What is it with Ground Force? A flurry of friends have recently come out to me as fans of the BBC gardening show. Guess I'm just more punk rock than that -- viz: my linking to an MP3 of the new Oasis single, even though its host has already received a cease and desist letter from the RIAA. [Rik Mayall voice] Pretty bloody brilliant, eh? [end Rik] Actually the song is not particularly great, but it sounds a lot better the second time through. | Amaretto coffee is goooooood. I went ice skating yesterday, for the first time since I was a kid. I didn't fall down once, although I was not at my most graceful. Planning on seeing John Wesley Harding at Makor on Thursday. He's always highly entertaining live...if you live in NYC you should check it out. | Sunday, March 03, 2002
In honor of Jeff's birthday, I'm going to assign an essay question: Compare and contrast Preston Sturges' film Sullivan's Travels with Pulp's song "Common People". | Thursday, February 28, 2002
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
The Chicago Tribune has quite a nice story about how the major labels are in deep trouble and how musicians are now storming the barricades. Worth a read. The parts that get me particularly excited are near the end: ""I make a lot more money per record," says Joe Pernice, whose recent self-released Pernice Brothers album outsold six previous releases he had recorded for an established independent label, Sub Pop. "I stand to have financially the best year I've ever had in music. And I own my album! That's an unbelievably good feeling. You get cast away [by labels] if you're not what's happening at the moment. I know that I can have a certain size audience doing the kind of work that I'm happy doing, and don't even think about major label sales levels. I'm in a different league, I'm under the radar. But there's this land under the radar, you know?" and "We've come to the point of no return for the major labels," says Just Plain Folks' Whitney. "There will always be a mainstream business that tries to sell lots of albums, but there is so much potential for artists who can figure out how to sell 50,000 to 100,000 albums, instead of 500,000 to a million. There will be a lot more artists, promoted with less money in a far different way than they are now, which is primarily through commercial radio and MTV. They can't squeeze out any more sales going in the present direction. It has to go the opposite way." | A new creature drawn every day [via B3ta, which incidentally is very good today. The picture of Lee Majors' stunt cat is my new wallpaper.] | Sunday, February 24, 2002
A leader of the U.S. Christian right, Pat Robertson, reiterated on Sunday that Islam preached violence and said that Osama bin Laden was a true follower of Islam's founder, the Prophet Mohammed. Colin Powell: "Mr. President, can you get your friends to shut the hell up, please? I'm trying to cobble together a viable geopolitical strategy here, and your foamy-mouthed Crusader pals keep talking complete crap and making my job 50 times harder. OK, they're organized and they have money, so we have to kiss some ass on domestic policy, but George, I'm not kidding, they need to shut the hell up with that 'Muslims are evil and violent' stuff. And Ashcroft -- you're a Christian recording artiste, so maybe you should get a slot on the 700 Club and then apply the smackdown, because the Justice Department sure doesn't need innocent people being attacked in the street because of their religious beliefs. Rein your boys in." And what a remarkably restrained and insightful response from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. How does he stay so calm? I'm get pretty het up every time I think about that smug bastard. "Calmer 'n you are." | Wednesday, February 20, 2002
"A website displaying a picture of a British woman's stark-naked boyfriend, built in a bid to gently blackmail him into proposing to her, has had to be taken down after attracting huge numbers of hits from internet users around the world." Hmmm. Cobblers on display Gently suggesting that he Get down on one knee Civil servant nude Government brought to standstill Queen Mother logs on Mid-recession thought Pent-up consumer demand Brit men in the buff | Early this morning, WBGO -- in an effort to gently coax me out of the Sleep Chamber -- threw on some nicely bracing Thelonious Monk and followed that triumph of crespuscular programming with...George Benson. As Guru says, "That's not keepin' it real. That's keepin' it...wrong." | Tuesday, February 19, 2002
Nader: 2000 run was a building block Hey it's time for a Using Bees flashback moment. I was disappointed to read this: Q. What was your biggest campaign mistake? A. Using too many electronics and not enough foot power. In other words, I wouldn't have spent as much time working through the Internet. I think the Internet failed to get out the vote by all parties. What I would have done was have far more people in the neighborhoods responsible for getting a dozen votes here, two dozen votes there. I should have been much more hands on, and person to person. But that's much more difficult to do. It's a lot easier to get on TV, have a few ads and get on the Internet. Ralph -- you've got it wrong. Without the Internet, I never would have voted for you -- simple as that. A dozen votes here or there does not scale, as we say in the corporate world...and besides, I don't remember a significant Internet-based get out the vote campaign except to members of your email list. Perhaps if you'd deployed your penultimate weeks more carefully -- fighting for more votes in comparatively liberal areas rather than scrapping for votes in areas you should have been writing off -- you would have seen a better result...especially if the goal was to build a base rather than be a spoiler. Anyway... | Nick Drake fans -- go and download Tanworth In Arden II, which comprises Nick's demos for songs like Poor Boy, Time Has Told Me (beeeyyoootiful guitar playing), some works in progress, etc. It's so great to hear "new" Nick material.... [You have to refer to him as Nick, don't you? His music is too intimate for him to be called by his last name.] If you don't have the original Tanworth-in-Arden boot (mainly folk and blues covers recorded before Five Leaves Left), you can download it from there as well. | Monday, February 18, 2002
OK, after 10 years of intermittent attempts, I just got Joni Mitchell, after listening to an MP3 of "River" from her album Blue. Phew, finally. Hope it wasn't just a one-off. | Friday, February 15, 2002
Which Trainspotting Character Are You? I'm Tommy..a good mate to my friends, yeah...but it neglects to mention that I also get hooked on skag, contract HIV, and suffer a horrible death from kitty-feces induced myxamtosis or some shit. I'd rather be Begbie, thanks. "No wee wood ah poison mah boadie wi that shite." [via Breath Of God] Irvine Welsh's latest got scant attention, but it ranks right up there with Trainspotting in my estimation -- hilarious and affecting. | Thursday, February 14, 2002
What happens when you graft "The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round" onto Madonna's "Ray Of Light" and then make a flash video for the unholy result? Genius, that's what. | Wednesday, February 13, 2002
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