- Holy shit, a week off? A week?? Well I hope get that job I was interviewed for… hope it was worth it. Let’s get at this.
- It’s nice to read direct quotes from Mark Hamill this morning, rather than speculation derived from an article that’s mostly speculating. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, he has some really, really wonderful things to say in terms of the direction he hopes the movies take, including a more balanced approach between practical and CGI effects, not such a heavy-handed tone, and that he and all the old actors/characters would not be the focal point. I’m still disappointed that neither of my picks got the directing job (Rian Johnson and Duncan Jones), but damn Ben Affleck I bet would make a really cool hanger shootout with laser guns… just imagine that last shootout scene at Fenway in The Town, but with smugglers and new government agents…
- Sadistik’s new album is good. Perhaps not his magnum opus, but it’s good. And I mean that in a good way, I think eventually he can do something even better than this. And with the rise of Macklemore, it’s nice to hear a Seattle rapper who actually reflects the city. Not that “Flowers For My Father” is all depressing. The song (and a handful of other tracks) that details the first-hand account of Sadistik and Kristoff Krane knocking on the late Eyedea’s door and no one answering is actually very positive. In defense of the rest of the tones though, what do you expect from a guy who saw that amount of death firsthand since the release of his last proper album? I actually find it hard to believe that the production on this was handled by multiple people, there’s a consistency to it throughout (both in quality and feel).
Also, hearing a new Cage verse make me want new Cage album. And RIP Eyedea.
- Yesterday marked the 3rd anniversary of someone very close to me. Something I never thought I would say at the age I’m at now. But when I think back to that day, and being in that room with those other people I shared that moment with, I remember it as being a really beautiful thing. I couldn’t stop shaking after it happened, and I was probably in some form of shock, but that wasn’t fear or terror or horror doing that; it was the sheer power of what I — we — had seen before our very eyes. Something rare and otherworldly and unexplainable. Something breathtaking and beyond all of us. I’ll never forget it, it feels like it was yesterday.
“Chips based on the ARM architecture run a majority of the world’s smartphones, including the iPhone and most Google Android phones, and now, a wide range of hardware makers are building ARM chips for the computer servers that drive web services and the sweeping software applications used inside big businesses. The idea is to significantly reduce the power and money needed to operate a computer data center, and clearly some big-name buyers are interested.”
- I got Mixed Blood Majority tickets this morning, along with Cecil Otter’s first solo show in some time. MBM is a super group of sorts, at least when it comes to the Twin Cities music scene. The group features vocalists from both No Bird Sing and Kill The Vultures, and production from Doomtree‘s Lazerbeak. Pretty excited, as all three members are some of my favorite local musicians. Here’s the latest thing they threw up on their Soundcloud page:
If you preorder their album right now you’ll get the album, a shirt, a poster, and a random CD from either of their other bands for just 12 bucks (without shipping). Good deal.
It was a real pleasure just so sit and talk with you. I listened very carefully to what you had to say about this compelling history, and I’ve since read the script and found it in all the detail in which it describe these monumental events and in the compassionate portraits of all the principal characters, both powerful and moving. I can’t account for how at any given moment I feel the need to explore life as opposed to another, but I do know that I can only do this work if I feel almost as if there is no choice; that a subject coincides inexplicably with a very personal need and a very specific moment in time. In this case, as fascinated as I was by Abe, it was the fascination of a grateful spectator who longed to see a story told, rather than that of a participant. That’s how I feel now in spite of myself, and though I can’t be sure that this won’t change, I couldn’t dream of encouraging you to keep it open on a mere possibility. I do hope this makes sense Steven, I’m glad you’re making the film, I wish you the strength for it, and I send both my very best wishes and my sincere gratitude to you for having considered me.”
- Chris and Matt over at WarRocketAjax have included some of my award categories in this year’s “Gordie Awards”. WarRocketAjax is a pop cultural podcast wherein two really, down to the bone, unequivocally nerdy dudes talk about comics, video games, BBQ, music, movies, TV, net stuff, etc. But mostly comics. The categories they took from me were “Best High Concept”, “Best Rap Verse”, and “Best Last Page (of a comic)”. To which I would have to answer (in order): the entirety of Hickman’s “Manhattan Projects”, Sadistik on “Wild West” (off Kristoff Krane’s “fanfaronade”), and I’ll have to come back to the last page thing.
Here’s that track (and verse):
And while I’m on the subject, Sadistik has a new record coming out soonish. February 19th. Here’s the announcement on his page, along with the track listing and album info/artwork/all that jazz.
- The BAFTA nominations have been announced. Not many surprises here. One flick I was really excited for that didn’t get raving reviews was the crime/screenwriting/Shih Tzu kidnapping comedy “Seven Psychopaths“. It was nominated for “Best British Film”. Glad to see Michael Haneke’s new film getting some attention. Somewhere. I haven’t seen “Amour” but I’m sure it’s probably challenging as are all of his movies. “Original Screenplay” is an interesting category, as I could see almost any one of the guys win. But c’mon, “Zero Dark Thirty” isn’t really an “original” script. I mean, it is in a sense that there wasn’t a fictional account of those events prior to it existing… but it’s a journalistic take on what happened. It’s just telling a real story. And if there’s evidence of that, it’s that the State Department is taking quite an interest in investigating where Boal and Bigelow got their information for the movie.
- Good Lord. More people having more issues over Django. Along with an ultra-conservative co-worker (who’s mad because the movie’s “just about white people getting murdered”) here comes Al Sharpton who’s saying there shouldn’t be figures of the characters in the movies because he says these toys are for kids. Which they clearly aren’t. I mean, any kid would be bored out of his mind with an action figure that vaguely looks like Leo DiCaprio in a Hugh Hefner-esque robe with a cigarette holder dangling out of its mouth. And I’m doubting action figures of characters from Tarentino movies sell all that well. I think they’re probably geared towards hardcore fans who collect things of this nature, and they’re not widely available. “”I don’t see any dolls representing Hitler that came from Tarantino’s (Holocaust movie ‘Inglourious Basterds’)…”, Sharpton says. No, you don’t. But who gives a shit if there was?
When I have kids I’m not going to let them have a fucking Hitler doll from a Tarentino movie, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t allow such a thing to exist.
- Rian Johnson posted his original script for his film “Looper” on the official website of the science fiction flick. He stresses that it’s only the “shooting script”, therefor it is different in some ways from the final product. I found it interesting that he noted writing the first half years ago, and starting the script back up again years later. It’s obvious where this happens when you watch the movie. And at first it’s a little jarring but in the end the 3rd act is what gives the movie all of its heart.
- I’m compiling a list of my favorite albums of the year and holy shit I have a ton of them. Probably more than I’ve ever had before. Last night I was writing up little 3 or 4 sentence justifications for my picking them. I still have quite a few do to. So hopefully that’ll be posted soonish. While I was digging I ran across a review for P.O.S.’ latest album “We Don’t Even Live Here” and was kinda blown away by it. Apparently though, I am not the first to find frustration with a review from this guy at Pitchfork, a one Ian Cohan. This led me to the site RipFork, in which select music critic reviews (mostly from Pitchfork) are torn apart in pretty hilarious fashion.
Actually I’d like to, when I have time, dig into that POS review line by line, because a lot of it just doesn’t make much sense.
The lamp is as simple as it is inexpensive. A cable hangs from a gear mechanism holding onto a plastic bag filled with dirt or rocks. The energy created by gravity pulling the bag downwards is enough to power an LED bulb for up to half an hour. Riddiford and Reeves have posted their creation on the fund sourcing site indiegogo and thus far pledges have doubled the $55,000 goal.
The two note on their page that over a billion and a half people in the world today have no access to a reliable electricity source. When it gets dark, their only light source comes through burning wood, peat, or other biomass materials – the most popular by far, is kerosene. They also note that the World Bank has recently estimated that up to three quarters of a billion women and children regularly inhale smoke from kerosene lanterns, which is they say, equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day – a situation that leads quite naturally to very high lung cancer rates.
- Cover for Jonathan Hickman’s next “Avengers” issue:
- Last night I made the mistake of beginning to watch the Lance Bangs Pavement documentary “Slow Century”. A mistake because I should have known it would’ve been too fascinating to turn off, no matter how late the hours got. If you’ve got the time, here it is:
- Sage Francis has resurrected the Tumblr Hello There, Racists after an apparent shut down. I think it’s outrageous to say it isn’t fair to publicly chastise these people, knowing full well that Twitter and Facebook are publicly viewed domains (they’re basically the 21st Century “public square”). It also serves to remind us of some very important things, two of which: you’re not invisible on the Internet, and if you want to say outrageous shit you’d better damn well be posting anonymously (then again anyone with half a brain can trace an IP address), and yes… racism definitely still exists. Some of this shit is just disgusting.
- Very interesting article, that very well might go over your head a little (went over mine at least), on the nature of dark energy. Is it static or dynamic in its existence. If it’s dynamic… yeesh, the philosophical implications of such a thing are astronomical; a form of matter whose density and composition and structure changes as it shifts though space time??
While hypothesized dark energy can explain observations of the universe expanding at an accelerating rate, the specific properties of dark energy are still an enigma. Scientists think that dark energy could take one of two forms: a static cosmological constant that is homogenous over time and space, or a dynamical entity whose energy density changes in time and space. By examining data from a variety of experiments, scientists in a new study have developed a model that provides tantalizing hints that dark energy may be dynamic.
The results are still far from conclusive, but the scientists hope that future data might narrow down the models with greater accuracy. They hope that observations by the Planck spacecraft (launched in 2009; first data available in April 2013) and the Euclid spacecraft (launch date is 2019) could help pinpoint the dark energy models that most closely describe our expanding universe.
- Great piece of street art (graffiti, if you prefer that term; I really could care less what it’s called) from GOIN, who I believe works out of the UK:
- 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:
I think I would need to listen to the album again in its entirety — which is a quite a job — to really say how much I like or dislike like it. So I’m categorizing this under the “upon first listen” thoughts. Which can, and do, change. I’ve been up to date with Neil Young’s modern material since 2003′s “Greendale”, having listened to all his albums since then. And I like most of them. Fork In The Road was probably the weakest of the batch, followed by the ground shaking Le Noise (which, in a strange bit of artistic freedom, featured little to no percussion). So new Neil Young, or old for that matter, is nothing new to me. Hearing him with Crazy Horse in the world of cellphones and private space companies, however, is. Turns out Americana was just rehearsal for the big dance. They’re really bringing out the big (epic, long, operatic, etc) guns for this album. And that world of cell phones and nano-tech is not something Mr. Young wants to be a part of; he sings on the 30 minute opener, “When you hear my song now, you only get 5 percent, you used to get it all… I’m driftin’ back”. The instrumentation is a little nostalgic too, with the band hearkening back to their 70′s days of drawn-out freeform jams, mic’ed 30-watt amps, and that vinyl, analog sound. It feels good on the ears (even if it feels a little strange when just a few years ago Young made an album about retro-fitting his classic car(s) with enough modern tech to free them from gasoline), and it’s sometimes nice to hear the legends crave the old days.
- Then you’ve got Kendrick Lamar’s debut full-length which deserves most of the credit it’s getting.
This is probably the strongest Rap debut we’ve had in some time. I use the term “Rap” deliberately. The production is rock solid, rarely missing the mark. And the slate of producers, besides perhaps Just Blaze, are a little bit off-kilter compared to the sometimes predictable melody makers of 21st Century mainstream Hip-Hop. I always like Pharrell’s beats, and I almost wish he’d do an entire album for a guy like Kendrick. And what of Kendrick himself? He lives up to the hype. Well, most of it. A lot of the these lines are really thought provoking, more than what Top 40 Rap was giving us in the hey-day of materialism Rap, when the illustrious 50 Cent album “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” was the big anticipated album of the moment. Those days are gone, thank God. And Kendrick Lamar, along with a whole slew of new-ish rappers, are taking mainstream Rap into the 21st Century (finally) with equal parts style and substance. It’s nice to see. What this album is not, is “Illmatic”. This is not an “instant classic”. It might become a classic one day, but it’s not instant. In fact, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City might suffer a little bit from Dark Knight syndrome: levels of anticipation so off the charts there’s absolutely no way it can live up them. Which is too bad. This album isn’t breaking down any walls, it’s not shattering the paradigm Rap music exists in as it stands, but it is solid. And it’s the best mainstream Rap has been (w/ a few notable exceptions) in quite some time.
Much like this summer’s anticipated Cancer 4 Cure from El-P, the next step in P.O.S.’ discography is probably the most accessible release of his career. But (also, like El-P) he manages to accomplish this without sacrificing any of his personal and artistic flavors: the DIY aesthetic, the percussive tones, the clever but understated wordplay… it all remains. In fact, this might be the album that is most representative of him. Every little moment, hit, lyric, it all breathes P.O.S. That’s not to say he’s not breaking any new ground here. If you haven’t heard, this album is (mostly) Electro inspired; producers like Ryan Olson, Patric Russel, and even some German dudes have cooked up some tasty synths and E-progressions for a dance party behind an abandoned factory somewhere in the future. On some of the later tracks the combination of this new Electronic sound and the percussive drum hits I alluded to earlier is really where the album shines: carelessly treading new ground without reservation or fear of reprisal. In fact, it’s almost daring you to not like it and turn it off. The second half — with the exception of the catchy as hell “Get Down” featuring Mictlan; which feels like the first half — is ALL up this alley, specifically “All Of It” and “Piano Hits”. One of my biggest gripes in fact is that I would have liked to have heard more of these tracks drag on longer. With lyrics or instrumentally, particularly the last song, it would have been nice to hear these songs themselves explored a bit more the same way the initial sound was to begin with. But let me go back to the first half, like I said it’s catchier than shit. “Bumper” the opener is a charming knocker with live drums and possibly the catchiest synth on the disc. Following that “Fuck Your Stuff” and “Where We Land” are impossible not to sing along to, the latter featuring a very cool appearance from Justin Vernon. By the time a pair of head-nodders come around the corner, you’re ready to give your voice a break anyhow; and you do, letting appearances by Astronautalis and Sims shine. Then there’s a mid-point, almost devoid of drums of any kind (“Lock-Picks, Knives, Bricks, and Bats”)… before cruising through about 4 or 5 tracks like nothing that’s ever been done on a Hip-Hop album before. In this sense, the album is structured very cleverly. It brings you in with some amount of charm, then gives you a little break before delving into the weird shit. Lyrically the album tackles 21st Century alienation through freeing yourself from the system in which that alienation exists. “Want to be happy? Don’t even live within their system”. The title of the album sums it up pretty well. When it’s finishing up and he’s saying, “That misstep, that’s mine. That rough wake, that’s mine. This might be it. This might be it.”, you get the sense that if we lived in his world — totally free — he might still have tribulations and struggles and real problems, but at least they will be his and his alone.
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.
- 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.
