Minor-Key Solitude.

-  Via SuperPunch’s Tumblr account:

-  Julian Assange hiding out in Ecuador comes close to defining irony; here’s an article from February of just this year titled, “Ecuador’s [President] Under Fire for Media Laws”, which goes on to say, “President Rafael Correa of Ecuador is leading a relentless campaign against free speech” and “the most comprehensive and ruthless assault on free media under way in the Western Hemisphere”.  Nevermind, it defines irony.

-  That JJ DOOM album I mentioned yesterday is now streaming in its entirety.

-  One gripe I have with current state critically acclaimed music is that a disproportionate amount of it is infinitely happy.  I’m happy sometimes too.  It’s good to be alive.  But far too many bands are failing to explore the darker sides of music (some of these band’s lyrics get dark, I guess).  It’d be very interesting to somehow take all the acclaimed albums of the last two years and compare the amount of minor-key’d songs to that of years past.  A lot of it is major keys, with very consonant, resonant melodies and hooks.  In previous decades/cultural trends this has been the aim of Top 40/Pop music, not independent and/or acclaimed music.  And considering the uncertain atmosphere that seems to be leaking into almost every aspect of our lives on a global scale, one would think it’d be the opposite.  What’s probably really going on here is bands/musicians/possibly artists are overcompensating for this, and using their output to cope with all the unrest.  But for me, it just doesn’t seem honest a lot of times.  And even when it does feel honest, it is not for me.

I tried Googling this, to see if anyone else what noticing or writing about this… I found nothing.

-  Through Edward Hopper’s Eyes: In Search of an Artist’s Seaside Inspiration.

She was also intrigued to discover that Hopper, who is regarded as a realist and who painted the houses in Gloucester with great precision, manipulated one important aspect of what he saw. “He changed the light and shadows in his pictures a lot and combined different times of day so that the shadow might go in two directions – that’s how he created his narrative, his drama.” Albert Halaban responded to this by taking a more painterly approach to her photographs and manipulating the light as Hopper had done in the 1920s. “The houses that he painted remain, but the narratives he created only exist on his canvases. Standing in the same places, I was inspired to take my own liberties and create narratives that are my own.”

-Sonny

GV Doom Sector.

-  BBC posted audio of DOOM in their studios this past week, debuting a new track of “JJ DOOM”, coming out on Tuesday.  Very pretty song:

What an awesome year it’s been for Hip-Hop.  Especially for me: DOOM, El-P, and Aesop Rock are three of my favorite rappers.

-  Ernest Hemmingway Was A Lousy Spy…is an interesting name for an article.  Haha… check it out:

While other American sailors were volunteering their boats and their time along the East Coast to spot U-boats, Hemingway’s concept of operations went further. He would pretend to be fishing, wait until a German submarine came alon side to buy fresh fish and water and then attack the enemy with bazookas, machine guns, and hand grenades. Hemingway would use Basque jai alai players to lob the grenades down the open hatches of the unsuspecting U-boat.

-  Back when I was super into writing science fiction shorts, stories like this always fascinated me:  Shamoon Virus Targets Energy Sector Infrastructure.  As the world becomes more and more digitalized, it opens itself up closer and closer to ruin.  Yes, I realize I’m breaking no new ground with that statement.

-  The Pussy Riot prison sentence is, of course, outrageous.  But you already know that.

-  Enlightening interview with Gore Vidal in 2005, which has never before been translated into English.  Like most writers — good writers — the guy couldn’t get enough of himself.  But I can respect that because he was one of smartest men on the planet, and never spoke about anything he wasn’t ahead of the curve on.  Example: this was his response to, “what do you think of religion today in America?”:

It’s the work of the devil. Maybe there is no good God. But there is definitely a devil, and his predominant passion is the religion of those Protestant fundamentalists. I believe my country is beginning to resemble a theocracy. Using television, the evangelists raise appalling amounts of money which they then invest in the election of mentally disabled obscurantists.

Since there is no system of public education, the great majority of my fellow citizens is frighteningly ignorant. They have no idea where Iraq is. They accept as the gospel whatever the government tells them. Good grief, any other normal country would have been against the Iraq war! But we live in an abnormal country, governed by experts in deceptive advertising.

-  1976 doesn’t feel like a particularly amazing year for music, but just look at these lists of releases from back then.

-Sonny

Ghosts Of Mars.

-  Label Conscious: The Ghosts Of Def Jam’s Past.

“In 1995, the head-trauma wing at a nursing home in Bensonhurst began acquiring the lost memories of Def Jam’s first rapper. Terry Keaton, a new patient at Haym Salomon hospital, had emerged from a coma unaware that he was T La Rock. Or that T La Rock had a hit in 1984 called “It’s Yours.” What was known is that the history of T La Rock — and perhaps the time of his life — had been purged from Terry Keaton’s mind with a blunt instrument.

The assailant was never caught, and Keaton spent much of his rehab listening to “It’s Yours,” recollecting lines that the rest of the hip-hop world had been quoting for the past decade. Though “It’s Yours” wasn’t exactly targeting the Yiddish-speaking Russian-granny demographic, this Def Jam moment essentially became theirs: a new memory that required an additional memory for all that excess bass. Listening to an 808 drum machine certainly beat not recognizing your loved ones.”

-  And speaking of ghosts and hip-hop: one of those albums I was referring to yesterday is the oft-delayed Ghostface & DOOM record “Swift & Changeable“.  Since first getting into Wu-Tang, Ghostface quickly rose to the top of those 9 rappers for me personally.  I’m a big fan.

And since we’re on the subject, if you do not already have WUGAZI on your computer I’d suggest getting it.  It’s free, and awesome.  Now here’s more links:

-  Third Lunar Mineral — Tranquillityite — Found In Western Australia.

“Birger Rasmussen, paleontologist with Curtin University in Perth, and colleagues have found natural samples in several sites in Western Australia, and as they describe in their paper published in Geology, it appears likely the mineral is more common here on our home planet than anyone might have surmised.

The mineral has been found in six sites in all, in various remote spots in Western Australia, and occurs in very small amounts. The samples found were actually about the width of a human hair and just microns in length, and that’s part of the reason why it’s taken so long for those that study rocks to find such samples here on Earth. Another reason is that tranquillityite is comparatively delicate and tends to break down when exposed to normal surface climatic events such as heat, rain and wind.“

-  A natural hangover cure?  For real?

-  Warren Ellis: Five Predictions About The Immediate Future Of Comics.  Among them:  indie creators being offered deals to do their own bidding via digital storefronts/apps, more self-publishing/direct to book publishers, several of the DC staff will begin exiting the company due to the constant shifting of… everything.

-  Our Tools Don’t Make Us Who We Are; We Make Tools Because Of Who We Are.

“Cyberculture legend RU Sirius, editor at the Acceler8or webzine, interviewed Joel Garreau and myself about the Prevail project. (Short summary for those who missed the earlier post: Prevail is an Arizona State University-sponsored non-profit organization looking to build collaborative knowledge about transformative technologies and culture.) In a series of back-and-forth email among the three of us, we discussed everything from the logic of transhumanism to the power of the Occupy movement. “

-  And:  Should We Terraform Mars?

-Sonny

DOOM Interview.

Something called the “Red Bull Academy” (I know, right?) is streaming a Vimeo interview right now with [MF] DOOM.  I’ve got to give the interviewer credit, for being extremely polite while dipping into a range of topics in chronological order from Daniel Dumile’s days of break-dancing and graffing on Long Island.  His explanations of some of his more “eccentric” qualities are very interesting to hear, and I think this interview makes me like him more.  Him talking about the characters of DOOM, Viktor Vaughan, and King Geedorah in the third person is a bit odd, but it serves well to give anyone who doesn’t understand the idea of stage names in the music world a glimpse into why he does what he does.

There’s also a Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood produced DOOM track up for listen right now.  I’m guessing it will be appearing off the Thom Yorke/DOOM album, but maybe not.  The beat is extremely strange.

I’m still eagerly awaiting both the DOOM/Ghostface album and the next Madvillain record.  Like a lot of hip-hop fans I’m sure.

I just DeviantArt searched “mf doom” to a whole boatload of results.  Mostly graf type stuff.  Here’s a good one though:

 

-Sonny

 

Bits In the Rain.

Incoherent senseless rambling’s always… interesting.  Got some shit here for ya.  When it comes to rambling, only 7 people do it better than that one bearded mumbler who wrote Transmetropolitan.  In today’s episode, he’s talking about the lonely death of print, specifically magazines.  He’s pointing his dipped fingers at MagCloud, a self-publishing site specializing on helping normal folks (well, maybe people in the biz too who’re out of work) “publish [their] own printed magazine”.  It’s a sad time for print they say, but perhaps they did it to themselves?  That’s what beardy thinks.  My glass is half full though, I think it’s an exciting and opportunistic time for print and what it means to the global media market.

And I’m (holds out hand, fore finger and thumb) THIS close to looking into it.  Print out of home.  Give a local company an offer to place “X” amount of magazines, with their ads of course, at “X” locations across the metro.  Guy like me, or anybody else who’s interested to begin with (without money involved), would charge such a small price it’d be no skin off any moderately successful company’s back.  Put it next to The Onion.  Put it in coffee shops, gas stations, grocery stores, bookstores, record stores, fucking bus stations, I don’t know.  See where it takes you.  In the words of Matt Jones’ t-shirt: get excited and make things!!

Yes, there’s always failure.  It’s everywhere.  Apollo 13 is full of shit — the Ron Howard movie not the moon mission — failure is an option, and it isn’t that bad.  People fail everyday.  The saying should go: LACK OF TRYING is not an option.  If failing wasn’t an option, we’d all be dead surely.  Or mad.

-  There’s a chick, lady, whatever, named Margaret Atwood who I’m convinced is a genius.  She’s a Canadian, writer, optimist, speculator, and award winner.  The magazine, speaking of them, Wired is featuring a very interesting interview with Atwood on her work, the differences between speculative fiction and science fiction, and the future of humanity to cite a few.  READ IT.  It’s good.

-  “Truth and Consequences” are two powerful things.  So it makes sense that CBR titled their interview with Jason Aaron that, subtitled “Aaron on Scalped“, a story that revolves around, examines, practically breaths both of them.  I just finished the middle issue of “The Gnawing” and it’s consequences that weave in and out of the dialogue and themes.  Gina won’t leave the Reservation, no matter how much money she’s offered, because she’s already nearly been killed before for trying that same thing.  Bad Horse made a deal with a nut-case, who’s only getting out of jail because the FBI’s pulling strings, because of the consequences if he doesn’t.  Catcher’s about  to kill a local police officer, and the Hmong crew is coming to fuck up Red Crow.

-  That Metal Faced Blog is linking to a badass, MF Doom (sorry… DOOM) themed mixtape by a dude called Pipomixes.  Nothin’ wrong with that.  It’s an interesting little mix that takes one to the depths of the Operation Doomsday secret lair base to the high cliffed cave of Born Like This hieroglyphics and all.  I’d stream it, but it takes a while to upload on WordPress.  Just follow the LINK.

-Sonny

Fetal Self-Loathing Syndrome.

Been a long time coming.  I was up along the glorious north shore of Lake Superior this weekend (kinda, for 2 days) with my lady friend.  It’s a beautiful place, just northern Minnesota in general.  A Lithuanian co-worker of mine once told me that he finds northern Minnesota — the north shore, the pine forests, the streams and endless lakes — prettier than both Sweden and Norway, all of which he’s been to more than once.  That’s somethin’.  It came as a little bit of a shock to me, but I guess you don’t realize what you’ve got when you see it everyday (well, not quite every day).  Shit, I went to Hawaii of all places (arguably top 10 prettiest places in the world) and saw the waterfall the State pimps out as being “THE waterfall to see in Hawaii”, and to be honest, several of the waterfalls dumping into Superior are a lot more impressive.  And I’m trying not to be biased here at all.

On the way back to the cities we of course had to stop in Duluth where I of course had to record shop at Electric Fetus on the corner of Superior and Lake.  I guess the front display window at the Minneapolis store was shattered in the Minneapolis tornado earlier this year, I haven’t been since.  Anyways, I bought a couple things I’ll hopefully be talking about soon:  Born Like This on vinyl (which feels like some sort of relic from a horror film; cursed to the very last speck of black and furry mask) and the new Daniel Johnston record (which came as a shock, cause this may signify a new final direction for the man’s career).  When I brought those two items up to the counter the clerk was joking about how crazy it is — in a good way — to walk into a record store and come away with such.  “This might be the widest range I’ve ever seen between the TWO albums a customer has purchased before”, (something to that effect) he told me.  I took it as a compliment.

I actually took a small writing gig, but hopefully I can keep on posting here.  Ya know: Walking Dead covers, “The Vinyl Bin”, me on Ellis on the death of print, local concert reviews, and possibly some flash fiction.  Whatever, it seems like no one cares but this place is still getting pretty regular foot traffic (or, the Internet equivalent).  Then again… fuck it, see you soon.

- Sonny Wilkins