“A privately-owned unmanned US space capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, bringing to the space outpost food, scientific materials and other crucial equipment.
The capsule named Dragon was captured—with the help of a robotic arm – by NASA Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn, 5:31 am EST (1031 GMT), when the ISS was over northern Ukraine, US space officials said. The craft, owned by SpaceX corporation, will now be inspected via cameras, brought to the Earth-facing port of the ISS’s Harmony module and bolted into place by commands from mission control.“
- I have a shitload of comics to read. I AM EXCITE. I’ll have reviews up here this week. Also I hate how nobody gave a fuck about Morrison’s Batman for the past year until a major character got whacked, and now advanced orders for the next issue are selling out.
“Present Shock is a big concept with profound implications for culture, politics and business. A simple visualization (borrowed from Adrian Bejan’s theories of flow systems) is to think of time as a river flowing at a certain pace. Below a certain threshold, the movements of things on the river are fairly linear and predictable. You launch a barge in the river here and three days later you have drifted to there. This is historical progress as we have come to know it over the millennia But when the speed of the flow increases beyond that threshold, the river becomes turbulent, non-linear, unpredictable. Such is the state of time in 2012.
What does this mean? Rushkoff breaks up “presentism” into five symptoms or challenges and matches each with constructive solutions for pressing the pause button. The “aha-moment-per-page ratio in Present Shock is high. Once you identify these concepts for yourself, you will start to see them everywhere.”
- NPR wrote a piece just in time for “Dilla Day”, about the legacy of the late James Yancey.
Why J Dilla May Be Jazz’s Latest Great Innovator.
“Dilla’s reach stretches way beyond hip-hop: For one, he’s recently cast a long shadow over contemporary jazz. He never belonged to jazz’s inner circle, but since his death in 2006 from a rare blood disease, his legacy has helped pull the genre back into kissing contact with modern popular music.
The jazz world today finds itself swamped with young talent eager for reinvestment in the discourse of contemporary culture. The shift has roots that run in a lot of directions. It’s a reaction to the neo-traditional revivalism that capped the last century, and to jazz’s withered commercial infrastructure in the wake of the 1990s CD bubble. Add to that the simple fact that millennial jazz musicians grew up listening mostly to hip-hop, R&B and rock.”
- Women In Video Games (Damsels In Distress…), put in similar situations over and over andoverandoveroverover.
- Relatedly, The Hawkeye Initiative is pretty brilliant in calling out mainstream superhero shit for their years and years of blatant misogyny and sexism.
- John from Baroness posted a really great journal entry/message to fans on the band’s website this week. It talks about his rehabilitation after their harrowing bus accident in Europe, and his absolute need to make music again:
“i’ve tried to fill my weekly routine with as much physical therapy as possible but the truth is, PT is not fun, and its benefits come with a great deal of mental/physical/spiritual pain and struggle. furthermore, i believe am getting a touch of Stockholm syndrome when it comes to my doctors and therapists (the highlight of my week should NOT involve a clinic). music might be the best therapy i have right now. perhaps it’s both the cause and the cure (the thought has crossed my mind); but i feel lost without it. Pete and i have just spent a long week surveying our musical wreckage and, surprisingly, we are quite well and intact. sure, there’s some substantial obstacles to overcome before we write, record or perform any time soon; but we still have everything we need to get “back in” that particular “saddle again”.
- WHY AM I JUST NOW DISCOVERING BARNABY WARD?!? Holy holy:
- “Raise the Black Lantern”… The label I’m on — Black Lantern Music — has just released a 50 track compilation album from it’s first slew of releases. It’s wonderful. There’s so much good music and artists, I’m just glad I’m involved. GO HERE to get the album. Donations welcome. This is the cover:
I’m taking a holiday break. See you — anyone who reads this — soonish.
- New remix EP! I’m basically doing here what I tried to to with Biggie, but now I have more tools at my disposal and I don’t suck as much. I wanted to do another Hip-Hop legend. Nas was on the list, and is still. Ironically though, one of the songs on this album is a 2001 track (off The Blueprint) called “The Takeover” in which Jay-Z talks alot shit about both Mob Deep and Nas. I can’t mess with the original, which is one of Kayne West’s best beats, it manages to sample The Doors and KRS One and David Bowie. Dang. Anyways, yeah enjoy. Most of the tracks are pretty dark besides “H.O.V.A.” which kind of has a dance party vibe, and “Encore” which is sort of a reflective, hopeful sounding song. Here’s the cover:
There’s still much to be desired with my scratching, but I’m getting better. Also there should be a guitar solo. Maybe at the end of HOVA. Okay I’ll stop. Here’s the stream:
Okay what the fuck? Bandcamp has changed since I last used it. There used to be a drop down menu to embed albums on a variety of sites, including WordPress. Now they’re only providing embed shortcodes for Tumblr, Twitter, and Google+ (with Facebook being default embed). Hmm. Okay, well here’s the damn link cause yeah F this:
Our attention isn’t boundless. Our time is finite—even as we try to extract value out of every second (we don’t have time to waste). We cannot respond to every utterance, click on every link, read every post. We have to choose even as the possibility of something else, something wonderful, lures us to search and linger. Demands on our attention, injunctions for us to communicate, participate, share—ever shriller and more intense—are like so many speed-ups on the production line, attempts to extract from us whatever bit of mindshare is left.
- The newest music on my family’s label (Black Lantern Music) is from a guy called SJ Mellia. Here’s a little taste off the album:
- The candidaite in Maine who likes World of Warcraft… yeah, apparently she’s getting attacked for it. The Maine GOP party has written: “In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments like the ones below. Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world”. This is a new level of stupidity and uselessness.
- Early and limited reviews of “The Master” are generally positive with caveats. The main caveat being, “what the fuck does this movie mean?”, which should be a question anyone asks about a movie wherein people are searching for meaning. It’s puts us in their shoes. It’s really quite an easy concept, I don’t understand how people don’t get that. I’m also reading that the whole Scientology thing is not of too much concern in the film. Rather it is simply a platform for Anderson and the actors to explore the relationships between characters. The main relationship of course being that of Phoenix (the wandering, lost WWII veteran searching for meaning in a post-War existential crisis) and Hoffman (the L. Ron Hubbard stand-in), servant and master. Apparently there is some sort of strange sexual connotation to their relationship even, though this is not explicit; and indeed sexual themes are prevalent throughout the film. After a summer of explosions and CGI shit, I’m ready to be challenged by a movie.
- Another very anticipated movie of mine is the time-travel flick “Looper”, which I’ve been patiently waiting for since I heard it was Rian Johnson’s next project. Now, I’ve read in a few different places that this is one of the best time travel movies of all time. I don’t take that lightly, as there have been some brilliant ones (even a brilliant one with Bruce Willis). Though I did not see “Brother’s Bloom” — I heard it was just okay — Johnson’s debut “Brick” is an incredibly smart movie, especially for taking place in and around a high school. The negative reviews of this flick — there aren’t many — talk of “barely missing this mark” and a far too meandering plot. Again, based on the complaints… I’ll likely dig this.
- There is a new and FREE Death Grips album out now, called “NO LOVE DEEP WEB”. It’s batshit:
- Nazi Buddha ‘Came From Outer Space’. Which isn’t the official title I guess; it’s just the one to get you to click on the link. It works. Turns out this ancient Buddha statue, discovered in the 1930′s via a Nazi organized archeological dig, was carved some 1000 years ago out of a meteorite that crashed to the Earth’s surface some 15,000 years ago. This has Indiana Jones written all over it.
Also from the BBC:
- Hubble Telescope Captures One of the Most Extraordinary Views of Universe to Date. The image comes from a result of astronomers pointing the Hubble towards a very specific patch of sky for around 22 days. Letting in 500-ish hours of light to the scope. It captured around 5,500 separate galaxies, including the farthest it saw, UDFy-38135539. Just to give you an idea, that galaxy is over 13 BILLION light years away. Which is of course so mind-blowing it is almost incomprehensible…
- Hey I made a new remix! It got a little dark… yeeeaaaahhh sorry about that:
Just to give you an idea of how different it is, here’s the original:
- Mikey Mictlan of Doomtree has a new album out. And he’s offering it up for FREE (but give him a few bucks, eh):
- Really insightful post from my guy PEESHE (over in Australia) about using the MPC for live shows. Specifically the MPC2000XL. Number 5 is something I always try to remind myself of. This is where he blogs now, mostly. What an excellent collective site. Dang. Beautiful design.
- And speaking of collectives, the new Minneapolis/St. Paul collective F.I.X. (“F to the I to the X”) is giving away three free albums in one nifty package until their debut collective show Friday the 17th: No Bird Sing’s “Theft of Commons”, Kill The Vultures’ “Ecce Beast”, and Kristoff Krane’s “Hunting For Father”. The last I’ve spoke of on here before. Probably multiple times. It’s an awesome album. The other two are as well. And hey, the shit is FREE. Here’s the Bandcamp stream:
- Hey, independent comics retailers/press… wanna know a good way to not sell your shit? By ripping on any of Warren Ellis’ friends in the public net-square. This includes blogs, Facebook, in this case Twitter. His wrath will be swift and severe. And I’m betting his site gets more views than yours. Not to mention that is just being an asshole. Saying that shit on Twitter.
The social, cultural, and political turbulence chronicled by such off-radar newspapers as Rat Subterranean News, Screw, San Francisco Oracle, East Village Other, Black Mask, and Los Angeles Free Press, to name only a few, is commonly overlooked in mainstream histories. As a result, what often remains is the same scattershot of familiar imagery from the late 1960s/early 1970s that’s lingered in the nation’s collective memory: hippies dancing with flowers in their hair at the Monterey Pop Festival during the Summer of Love; Timothy Leary at the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park in 1967, urging the Haight-Ashbury crowds to “Turn on, tune in, drop out”; U.S. military tanks on city streets during the race riots in Detroit and Newark; the rise of the Hell’s Angels as the new American outlaws; and the Kent State University shootings and Mary Ann Vecchio’s haunting scream.
- Aesop Rock has a new video/single off the forthcoming “Skelethon”. I preordered the vinyl of this; not only because Rhymesayers is giving out a 2+ hour Aesop mix with it, but also because if you get the vinyl you automatically get the digitals. The song is called “ZZZ Top”:
Prhym8 is a guy from my neck of the woods, Minneapolis, MN. He’s great to listen to because he one of those rappers who can weave seriousness and FUN in and out of his tracks. Which is always refreshing. He’s also a real good producer, he makes all his beats (from what I gather). And… ya know, the shit is free. Here’s one of the tracks:
- People are seriously destroying Timbuktu in the name of their God? Wow, humanity can be so sad sometimes. “It is horrible to see one of the most fantastic art capitals on earth assaulted in this way. Africa’s heritage is being systematically trashed. How will the world respond?”.
- I’m sitting outside in my new wooden chair with the cat and the birds watching THIS movie. It’s a free documentary that’s been uploaded to YouTube called The Crisis of Civilization. The movie is essentially wholly narrated by Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, the Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development. The film discusses how all the “crisis’s” we face today — everything from ecological disaster to financial meltdowns to terrorism — are just manifestations of a civilized, industrial global system that is failing. If it has an overall thesis statement, it is that this current global system (and every aspect of it) cannot continue to exist as it does through the entirety of the 21st Century… at least without catastrophic consequences.
“The white paper outlines a series of challenges currently facing China’s extraction of rare earth minerals. China holds 23 percent of the world’s total quantity of minerals, mostly sourced from three main sites in the south of the country. Those sites are now heavily depleted to the extent that China believes two-thirds of their total supplies have now been mined, and the remaining seams are of a much poorer quality which will increase the cost of extraction.
Illegal mining, and the theft of supplies, has also meant that prices have been kept far lower than China believes they should be — so as demand for copper, iron and other metals has shot up over the past 20 years, rare earth mineral demand has not increased prices commensurately.”
- KROWNE — of my Black Lantern Music family — has won the Orbital/Beatport remix contest of the track “Wonky”!!!! Congrats Gary!! Fuck yes yes yes. Here’s his SOUNDCLOUD. Krowne is a really talented producer who creates these tricky sound designs, think complex architecture (curved glass, laced rafters like braids), steeped in on-the-go DJ skills and a keen sense of how to tickle an earhole. He’s good. And if you go to his Black Lantern page, you’ll find a bunch of albums for free. I really dig “Quantum Living” a lot.
