2 Oct 2003
Wow, the German show is playing German hip hop and they toss in well-pronounced American phases such as "represent" every once in a while. They also let us know what year it is, as many English hip hop MCs tend to do. I think the best part about foreign language hip hop is that you can play the hardcore stuff at any time of day because the FCC has nothing to say about swearing in another language.
Also, I bought my ticket today for Death Cab for Cutie, and got marked up 67%. I wish I'd picked up my ticket when I was in the Twin Cities sometime, perhaps at the Built to Spill show, but I didn't and I didn't feel like taking the chance that show would sell out. I still haven't discovered a good show to go to over Mid-Term Break, but maybe I will. I did discover, care of Pitchfork, that Pedro the Lion will be playing at the University of St Thomas, Saturday night eighth week (15 November). I really hope it doesn't turn out that I need some sort of student ID, because it was kind of sad when I missed his last tour. Tonight will bring the board meeting and some homework. I don't foresee any excitement in the immediate future. Other than maybe the Program Guide and getting a new schedule done for KRLX that includes all DJs and show titles.
And the updates have been flying fast and furiously of late, so check the Archives.
I swear the German hip hop group is saying "fuck", but I actually can't tell, because it might be German. Those lucky Germans.
Oh man, My Morning Jacket on The World Cafe on Friday. One of my favorite radio shows of all time and an amazing live band. I wish I lived in broadcast range. I suppose I'll have to try to be in my room at midnight for the late netcast. David Dye generally gets a lot more out of the performers than you get from shitty magazines anyway. And he always seems to know everything about every band that's on. I wish I were David Dye. Anyway, I also want to see Lost in Translation, Mystic River and, of course, School of Rock. Maybe I'll try to get to the Cities to see one of them this weekend. OK, I'm definitely going to Lakeville to see School of Rock, I'm just not sure which day. And "Just What I Needed" by The Cars just came on KRLX and that's a terrific song, if I do say so myself. The Cars put out some really godawful shit, but they also put out some really great songs, like the aforementioned monster hit and "You Might Think" and "Good Times Roll". How they managed to also produce such dreck as "Drive" and pretty much every other awful soft rock piece of shit crowding their albums, I'll never know. And then Ric Ocasek produced the first Weezer album.
Okay, so I need to shrink this record wishlist thing down a little bit. Because I think perhaps I should stop spending money for a while, at least unless I need something vitally. So:
- Belle & Sebastian Dear Catastrophe Waitress 7 October [Jeepster]
- Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism 7 October [Barsuk]
- The Strokes Room on Fire 21 October [RCA]
- Various Artists Wig in a Box 21 October [Off]
And I will only buy these if they don't land in my lap in mp3 form. And I think I will ask for a turntable for Christmas to force my parents to search for one. Beyond that, I think I can live with nothing else until Christmas. Well, except for a few movies. And Death Cab for Cutie and Pedro the Lion. Yes, cheap is good. Well, somewhat cheap. I think there will be smoothies, but I am not quite sure.
And Moby posted a list of New Wave bands he considers worthy of rediscovery:
heaven 17
polyrock
the first 5 simple minds albums
the first 4 omd albums
the first 2 psychedelic furs albums
theater of hate
killing joke
the bush tetras
the first 3 echo & the bunnymen albums
the first 3 devo albums
the first 4 talking heads albums
daf (deutsche americanische freundschaft)
the feelies
the bongos
the chameleons
the wild swans
the first album by a certain ratio
I bet you want to know what I did today. Well, I did the 5:30 am radio show for starters. I also worked at the post office, read about Motown and Stax/Volt records and took a somewhat involuntary nap. After that I ate at Bill's.
5 Oct 2003
I watched The Rules of Attraction at SUMO. First of all, let me talk not about the movie, but about the execrable state of film screenings in Olin 149. I do enjoy the fact that they removed the rail that separated the front section from the rear section, especially because that creates two prime seats, so I don't have to worry about where I want to sit. However, there are some major faults. The sound is now worse. I count at least six speakers in the hall, and the front two are new. Either something is wrong with the wiring, or the speakers are fucked, because they tend to buzz at low levels, which would imply that they are underpowered or something weird. They also don't seem to lend themselves to understanding dialogue, which is somewhat important for watching movies. Oh, and the surround speakers don't even seem to be connected. So the sound sucks, sure, but what about the picture? Ten times worse. The projector and DVD player are not setup to fill the screen space available, which is a disappointment. This could be varied from event to event, allowing for both widescreen and traditional material. The projector is horribly under-setup. There is no correction for the change in elevation, so the bottom of the screen is noticeably larger than the top. There are also jagged edges at the edge of the frame, probably due to something with how the projector is set up. In addition to the geometry, the color on the projector is woeful. This is most noticeable when there are large white spaces on the screen, but if you've seen a film elsewhere, you can probably notice at slight, or major, difference in the color. Finally, I think the DVD player has essentially died. The blue flickering that occurs was formerly blamed on the projector. Tonight, however, it also started flickering orange, which led me to believe that there's something wrong with the connection from the DVD as far as the Red-Green-Blue color combination goes. That and tonight the DVD started getting artifacts (digital square-like effects that appear when the DVD player is too weak to handle the picture) pretty much everywhere toward the end of the movie, and eventually stopped. It seems to me that for a system that gets used six times a week by SUMO and twice a week by Film Society, in addition to whatever else goes on there, Carleton should be able to find the money to, one, upgrade to equipment that can reproduce a believable cinematic experience, and two, have a technician calibrate the system so the color's not fucked and the screen dimensions aren't awful and the sound isn't utterly worthless. I don't mind the nasty picture the projectors produce in the classrooms, but for Olin 149, they ought to make sure that everything works and is up to date.
Oh, and the movie. Well, I liked some parts. For instance, James van der Beek's vacant, handsome, drug-dealing imbecile was quite enjoyable at times. The film also effectively got the point across that we're all abused and we all abuse others, but the characters were a little too pathetic or arrogant or dumb, and as such I felt alienated from them (not too mention the too beautiful recreation of college life, even if it was tragic as well). The New Wave soundtrack was also better than most, but the film just took itself too seriously, especially noticeable in its pointless obsession with reverse-action sequences, in which everything plays out backwards. Supposedly this was to show us something about fate or destiny but it pretty much just wasted time and provided special effects. I felt like maybe there was a good movie waiting to be made here, about college students and how they treat themselves and others during their transition to adulthood, but instead it just made me loathe people all the more.
The Observer on the rather frightening Bush White House.
I've also been cleaning up the music on my hard drive. I deleted most of the random singles I had and collected the others into a folder. Some full albums I've saved because I know them, some because I've yet to listen to them. Most albums I am not familiar with I've gleaned the AMG Pick tracks and saved them to the singles folder before getting rid of the rest of the album. Hopefully this will make for a smoother transition when it comes time to reformat the old hard drive.
I feel very nice right now. I've taken two tests and two quizzes in the past two days of class, and as such, I have no math homework due until Friday; so there's only Rock reading and listening for tomorrow. Technically I probably don't need to do that either since I've listened to Revolver, Sgt Pepper's, and Pet Sounds many times each and read about them even more, but it should be enjoyable anyway. I've also just printed up a nice looking schedule for KRLX that will go both on the wall outside the studio and in the program guide which, I'm assuming, should be out by Wednesday or so, but don't come knocking down my door if you can't find one. This is beautiful, this is great, this is the least I've had to do in almost a month. And I get to send out warnings today to miscreants who don't sign logs or come to radio shows. Given my record on first tests in math classes at Carleton, I probably sucked it up a lot today on those exams, especially Structures, but that doesn't matter any more, because they're over, and since when was college about grades anyway? Ha ha ha, let's pretend I'm going to graduate.
That will be all for now except that, once again, Roger Ebert has a spot-on opinion of a film we've both seen. Well, it's spot-on according to me. And I'm the one who read it, so that's what counts. And I believe, since I was far too busy this weekend and was unable to leave Northfield, I will go see The School of Rock tonight. Perhaps you should email me if you somehow also have very little to do and would like to go.
7 Oct 2003
First things first, KRLX Program Guides are out and about so pick one up or else. And buy a sticker in Sayles tomorrow AND Thursday AND Friday. You can also look at the schedule here; it's much nicer than the one on the official KRLX site. Hopefully it will soon replace the one on the KRLX site. And there is a Blogumentary tomorrow at seven. I actually picked up an mp3 because of the Film Society email, where I linked to the film's site, where I linked to the Chuck Olsen's blog, where he'd posted an mp3 (Sloan "Gimme That")and now I'm listening to it, all due to the power of blogging. I wonder if that should be in the film, it's so postmodern.
I went to Apple Valley instead of Lakeville to see The School of Rock. The idiots in line were having a very hard time buying movie tickets, a process I hadn't previously considered to require much thought, but apparently they weren't quite up to the challenge. As such I waited around for the 10 o'clock show instead of the 9:30, so I entertained myself by playing perhaps the worst game of pinball I can remember. I also got to Auditorium #11 early, so I could hear the wretched music they were shilling over the speakers. Apparently Seal has a new album. If you care, I'm sorry. Actually I'd read that in Rolling Stone or something, but this was the first (and hopefully the last) time I'd heard it. And then an incredible number of trailers, some of which even came after the stuff that traditionally comes right before the movie, like the corporate advertisements and the warnings to turn off your electronics and not make noise. And I saw the infamous "Movies. They're worth it." propaganda piece. Yeah, I wanted to yell at the screen but I didn't. The place was kind of disgusting, as if it maybe hadn't been cleaned for a good, long time; I think I'll just go to Lakeville next time. The movie itself was good, though less ROCK-oriented and more about the story than perhaps I'd expected. Read what Ebert and Moby have to say, they're pretty much right. The stickers on Jack Black's van were pretty interesting. I spotted The Strokes and Godsmack. Actually, I spotted a lot of others, but I'm telling you, the overlap between their fanbases is not large. The sort-of-indie, hip crowd does not go for the violent, macho, headsplitting sort of mindnumbingly repetitive assault that Godsmack offers and vice versa. Was it the guy from Godsmack who said he hated "Fell In Love With A Girl" more than anything on earth? Yes, I think it was. See what I mean? And Rolling Stone. You know what they spent their 4-star ratings on? John Mayer and fucking Sting. Guess what got three stars? The new Outkast, My Morning Jacket, and pretty much everything else worth listening to. I'm going to be so happy when my subscription runs out.
I have a cold, and that is not very exciting. At least my sinuses have not yet fully exploded.
8 Oct 2003
Tonight I saw Blogumentary and was struck by how awkward it is to attempt to document an online phenomenon such as blogging through a medium as static and production-heavy as film. Even for relatively edit-free pieces, there is a somewhat lengthy process to put a project together, whereas with blogging, everything is instantaneous. I have been to a number of typepad.com sites and they all look very nice. I may have to take them up on their 30-day free trial, if not the actual service.
9 Oct 2003
Due to some clever telemarketing, I listened to The Swordsproject tonight at the Cave. The Cave, by the way, looks relatively shiny and new this year. The Swordsproject for the most part seemed well-intentioned but overambitious. There was a moment or two near the end where the blend of wailing guitar, keyboard and lively bass started to work for me, but it didn't really "do it" for me, in the end.
Also, I've been enjoying NES Open of late. It's slightly more detailed than the classic NES Golf, and it has multiple courses. The golf game I got for SNES isn't as good and the emulator likes to shut down when I want to run in something other than fullscreen, which sucks.
10 Oct 2003
I suppose since I am going to design this weblog, I had better have
some sort of post to situate everything around. And while I'm at it,
here's the New York Times review of the new Coen Brothers movie.
10 Oct 2003
Okay, the pretty pictures and links on the side are all well and
good, but this is an exercise in content, not prettiness. Well, it's
about prettiness too, but I suppose it's more exciting to hit a page
more than once due to regular updating rather than the arrangement of
the crap on the sides. So here we go.
This evening Kevin Jackflaps
and I attended the Death Cab For Cutie show at First Avenue. Well,
perhaps more importantly, we stopped off at Electric Fetus to purchase
Belle & Sebastian's Dear Catastrophe Waitress, which has
been called by some the pop record of the year. I haven't actually
listened to it yet since I've been ripping stuff from the KRLX Record
Library, but I will, and it will be fantastic. I also got Transatlanticism
at the show, and we listened to it on the way home but, of course,
another listen will be required to accurately gauge my opinion. That
means that I am only hotly anticipating two new releases right now: The
Strokes' Room on Fire and Off Records' Wig In A Box,
which I just tried to preorder but PayPal is less than functional and
so I was turned away. But I will persevere. And I will also not buy any
music costing more than eight dollars until late December.
We parked at the wrong end of the parking garage, which was
approximately eight miles away from our preferred entrance, but we
soldiered on. I got some sucky free tickets while Kevin got The Rapture
and I think Rebecca Light solicited a number of Shins tickets from the
ushers, or whatever the extremely funky employees of the First Avenue
club are called. So I don't think I was able to add any more shows to
my list for the rest of the term, which currently includes only Pedro
the Lion at the end of ninth week or something.
We stood sort of by the entrance and the bar in the back for what we
could catch of The Long Winters' set. It was all right, and included a
Madonna cover, apparently, but it was hard to get into from back there.
Death Cab For Cutie had no such excuse. They sounded too "polite" all
night. The atmosphere they create on their records, which is no small
part of their appeal, was largely lost to the sound system, which I
sadly noted on "A Movie Script Ending", my most beloved Death Cab song.
After I heard that, I started forming the opinion that they needed to
either rock out or they would suck. They did rock out, but only for
about five minutes total. Most of the time they seemed to be going
through the motions with stuff straight off the album, losing the charm
of their studio productions, while not adding much for the stage. I
liked pretty much anything new they played, but otherwise their set
lacked excitement or urgency. Perhaps I'm spoiled since I've just seen My Morning Jacket, but if I am, it's only elevated my sense of what a rock show can and should be, and this wasn't quite it.
10 Oct 2003
Okay, I don't know what I was thinking, but I signed up for the
Basic level of service for my trial period. That's dumb, it's free, why
not take advantage of everything I can get? I don't know if I'm willing
to pay fifteen dollars a month, but I might as well see what it could
get me.
10 Oct 2003
From the South: Take I-35E North to 11th Street exit. Follow
11th Street to the third stoplight which is Cedar Street. Turn right
onto Cedar. Follow Cedar for two blocks to Exchange Street. The
Fitzgerald Theater is located on Exchange between Wabasha and Cedar
streets.
Yes, folks, these are the directions to the Fitzgerald Theatre,
where, on Halloween, 31 October, 2003, Belle and Sebastian will be
playing. Upon seeing the announcement,
I was under the impression that perhaps Kevin had finally gone berserk
and convinced himself that there was going to be a show in the Twin
Cities no matter what reality told him. However, Ticketmaster informed
me otherwise. I'd have preferred to drive up and buy my ticket from the
box office, but I was worried they might sell out, so I went ahead and
paid the regular price along with the 40% markup. We had actually
discussed the possibility of a Minnesota show due to the order of the
dates already up, so I can't say it's a total shock, but certainly it
is a nice surprise. I listened to the new album today and I agree it
does seem like a change, at least from the Belle & Sebastian I'm
used to, but not in a bad way. I'd hesitate to call it the pop record
of the year, YET, but perhaps further listening will convince me.
In order to continue my online buying frenzy, I managed to successfully pre-order the aforementioned Wig In A Box
compilation. It comes out in 10 days, but I'm not sure when it will
actually arrive here. I didn't get an option to choose my shipping
method (it says post-paid), so hopefully it will be expedient.
10 Oct 2003
I was at the Cave for Heiruspecs. The Cave, however, quickly became
quite full of sweaty freshmen, and so I adjourned to my room where,
with the window open, I can hear the group at a not unsatisfying
volume, without having to be swarmed by rowdy college kids.
Also, I've just discovered this article in the New York Times:
The Alcoholic Republic has given way to the Republic of Fat, but
in both cases, before the clever marketing, before the change in
lifestyle, stands a veritable mountain of cheap grain. Until we somehow
deal with this surfeit of calories coming off the farm, it is unlikely
that even the most well-intentioned food companies or public-health
campaigns will have much success changing the way we eat.
I'm quite intrigued by Michael Pollan's position, especially since
it's one I haven't heard before. I recall, I think sometime last year,
seeing Adbusters attempt to
get the war on Big Fat (or Big Food) going. This seemed, at the same
time, to be both a more difficult and perhaps more vital court battle
than that which immediately preceded, the war on Big Tobacco.
The war on Big Fat is a difficult one, because it's tough to place
the blame. Does the blame really lie with the corporations, e.g.
McDonald's, Kraft, Nestle, for force-feeding Americans a steady diet of
needless empty calories? Or is it the fault of the American people
themselves? Is it anybody's fault, and is it a problem that can be
solved? I think Pollan's assumption comes at the problem (obesity and
its deleterious effects on American society) from a new and intriguing
angle, though one that comes with its own set of problems. I know
plenty of farmers who get by every year with the help of subsidies, and
that without them, the market would not allow for anything but the most
massive agribusiness corporations that can afford the slimmest possible
profit margins. I also know that subsidies indirectly hurt farmers in
poorer countries who have no access to the West because the
agricultural markets here are so well protected. This, like the
roboticization of so many simple tasks in factories and elsewhere,
seems to be a situation that will require a sea change in the economy
and the work force. Obviously we can't flood the market with food
nobody needs, so we need to shift farmers into more vital positions, as
we do with factory workers and anyone else whose job could be done
better by a drone. The effects of attaining this paradigm shift could
be tremendous: supplying people with newly created jobs, of what sort
it is uncertain, that would serve society efficiently, while at the
same time lessening the cost of excess goods on the market. What will
we do as a nation, especially with the current sad situation in the job
market, do to more accurately assign workers to tasks that are relevant
to today's society? This is ignoring the essential issue at hand
discussed by the article, that of the obesity "epidemic", but if Pollan
is right, it could be closely related. At any rate, it will be
interesting to see what finally will be done to solve the problem of
food and agriculture in this country and in the world at large.
Hopefully it will be positive.
11 Oct 2003
Holy crap, what an amazing blog!
Just seeing the heading in my web browser and knowing that somebody is
writing this blog, well, somehow it just does my heart good.
I'd also like to mention that Neil Young is my hero and the fact
that I can play music this loud in the middle of the night is a
glorious thing, and that is only one reason I love my private bathroom.
I'm not sure if I want to shorten the list I have at the right, but for
now I will at least add Decades. And since I seem to be getting
hits from random blogs, I feel it would only be fair for me to put up
the random list on my site as well.
11 Oct 2003
It is good every once in a while to return both to Bjornar B's site and especially his Marathon game.
My latest try yielded a time of 0:21, which is pretty good considering
it was my third try after a long layoff. You can also buy branded apparel, and I think that's pretty exciting.
13 Oct 2003
I don't actually have much to say myself right now about Radiohead that I haven't said before. But I do have a story about kids drawing in reaction to being forced to listen to Thom Yorke & co. It came from The Morning News, which is a daily source of exciting links for news and oddities such as this one.
14 Oct 2003
In this week's The Nation:
Big Pharma's favorite myths: Africa doesn't need cheap drugs, it
needs infrastructure (it needs both); brand name companies have already
slashed their prices to compete with generics (discounted brand
versions are still at least twice as expensive); weakening patents will
hurt corporate profits and destroy the incentive for new research
(Africa accounts for roughly 1 percent of the $400 billion
pharmaceutical industry's total sales).
Full Article.
This article makes me mad for a number of reasons.
One is that its a case of business trying to make money while not at
all realizing the cost. These aren't just sleazy tactics that might
hurt a competitor or deflate the portfolios of a few investors; denying
affordable access to life-saving drugs to those who need it is in no
way acceptable, at all. I can think of very few things more important
than doing what we in the West can to stop such an epidemic, not only
for humane reasons, but also because it's that much harder as a
developing nation to get anywhere when so many of your people are
stricken with a terminal and spreading disease.
Two is that it reminds me of one of the number of ways I despise the
Bush administration. Not only do they lie in order to get the country
to go to war, among other things, but they even have to lie about PR
initiatives. Sure, maybe they're a bunch of lying dirtbags, but $3
billion toward AIDS in Africa is a godsend no matter who it's from.
This, however, has turned out to be just another ploy by the White
House in which they announce some seemingly good-intentioned deed, only
to renege on it months later, obviously without a second press
conference to set the story straight. Had they not made the pledge in
the first place, I might not mind so much, but the fact that Bush went
out of his way to let us all imagine that he was actually going to make
the world a better place in some way, and then quietly pulled back,
makes it all the more despicable. There are probably relatively
ill-informed people who currently think highly, or at least not as
terribly, of this administration specifically because of this pledge,
much like people at first praised the misguided No Child Left Behind
act. It looks good at first, but those who take the time to examine the
details and the outcome eventually realize that it's just another scam.
Three is not actually in the article so much, but Bush's and the
Vatican's policy on birth control is just ridiculous. They have such
high-flown ideals about the "sanctity of life" and the evils of "family
planning", yet nowhere along with their vile rhetoric have I seen
anything about where these families, lacking access to normal birth
control methods or even condoms for crying out loud, are going to get
the money to fund the extra children that will result from the fact
that the US or the Catholic church won't support any form of aid that
would have helped them keep their families to a manageable size in the
first place. The illogic just astounds me. And I've heard some
conservatives tell me that, "God will provide," no matter how
irresponsible we are. I don't even have any reply for such an idiotic,
unreasonable and dangerous belief.
15 Oct 2003
Note the three new albums on the right. They are there thanks to
Colleen. What better way is there to start your day than with three CDs
in your mailbox? I can think of very few.
Also, I am wearing my Dennis Kucinich t-shirt today because I read a terrific piece yesterday on him in The Nation. I realize this is the second straight post on them, but I did mention this summer that they are my favorite magazine. Since they can't be expected to post every article they print online, here is a quote:
On the campaign trail, it sure looks like Kucinich's chief
"problem" is that when he talks, he means it. It does not take much
exposure to Dennis Kucinich to realize just how serious he really is.
He says things that could never even occur to a phony.
They go on to talk about his proposed Department of Peace among
other things. This was especially refreshing after hearing so much
about how Kucinich is a vanity candidate only pushing issues, and not
really interested in the race. This story doesn't necessarily convince
me that he's going to win, but that would be a pretty lame reason for
me to claim ideological sympathy with a candidate, especially this
early in the race. Since I need to go to class now, I will refrain from
expounding on the race for the Democratic presidential candidacy, but
don't worry, I will sometime soon.
Dennis Kucinich website.
18 Oct 2003
Well, I haven't posted in a while. I think I have many things to say, we'll see.
I have been playing more of the traditional Golf for NES instead of
NES Open. It's really quite fun for being almost twenty years old. I
played it often at my grandparents' house, and then later when I bought
a used Nintendo. My brother and I got to the point where we'd have to
reset it if it looked like we couldn't hit at least 18 under par. When
I hit that, I may post an image. So far, my best is a 12 under par 60.
Vimm's Lair: repository for classic Nintendo emulation.
I downloaded Mozilla 1.5. To my dismay, my theme needed to be upgraded, and I'd forgot which theme I used so I had to cast about on themes.mozdev.org
for a good while, even longer because everybody was downloading new
themes for their updated installations. I finally discovered that I am
in love with Pinball, which was thankfully updated. I can't stand to
look at anything else; they are all inferior, I tell you. I haven't
noticed any major changes in the browser or mail client, except
spellchecking, but if I do, I'll probably mention it/them.
I tried to download the Windows version of iTunes, which I'd been
very excited about, but it's only compatible with Windows 2000 or XP
and I'm stuck with ME until I decide to pay for the upgrade. I probably
will around Christmas, but until then I suppose I'll have to hold off.
Since reorganizing my mp3 collection, which I discussed at some point,
I haven't had as many issues with Winamp, so it's not as much of a
problem as it might have been.
On Thursday-related music notes, I received the Wig In A Box
compilation from Off Records, five days before official release. I was
kind of underwhelmed by the whole thing, mostly because the original
Hedwig soundtrack is so good, and John Cameron Mitchell is such a
singular performer, that any other band sounds like they're pretending.
If they ape the original completely, it's boring, and if they change
anything, it's sacrilegious. I enjoyed The Polyphonic Spree's version
of "Wig In A Box", but otherwise found the album to be less than
impressive.
I also watched Jesse Kriss do his electronic music thing at the Cave
on Thursday night. The audience was rather sparse, but I enjoyed the
performance quite a bit. I chose to write a new performance report for
History of Rock class on it, and that will be posted once I have
refined it. All I can say now is he used turntablist techniques,
PowerBook-provided beats and a little synthesizer to create some
exciting sounds.
Today I went to DJ Spooky's
talk about the history of digital media. It did get kind of long (I
wish he'd have performed more, but he did have a dance party coming up
later), but there were enjoyable parts, especially the remix of a Bush
speech which showed him owning up to all the allegations against his
administration. I think there is a link to it from the DJ Spooky
website. If not, it can be found here on fuckitall.com. It's the union.mov file.
I considered attending the dance party, but had a better offer to go
to the Twin Cities. We visited Cheapo records where I purchased the
four-disc Italo Disco Collection, which is basically a lot of
European dance music for ten dollars. I've gotten to the third disc,
and it's probably right about at what you'd expect four hours of music
to sound like for ten dollars. After walking around to stall for time,
we watched Lost In Translation at the Lagoon Theater, and it
was as good as advertised. Colleen had already seen it, so I assumed
we'd see something else, but luckily she liked it so much that she
consented to a second viewing. Bill Murray is amazing, as is Scarlett
Johansson. Apparently, some viewers have complained that it lacks plot,
and it does, but that's because plot is extraneous to the emotion it
communicates through the images and the gestures and the score, and
essentially every little thing that goes unsaid. It's a delicate and
careful romance, the likes of which Hollywood rarely provides, but it's
such a satisfying experience. I could describe scenes but I won't, I'll
just say that it's a movie that pays attention to details and to the
small things, and it succeeds wonderfully.
20 Oct 2003
Surprisingly, it's not summer solstice, but...today! I think today
is 19 October 2003, with a little of 20 October 2003. And since this is
my blog, I'm going to self-absorbedly tell you about it.
Because I fell asleep on my bed with my clothes on at 11:00 pm the
night before, I sort of woke up a little after four. I then proceeded
to undress and get back into bed, where I didn't actually go to sleep
before receiving a call at six o'clock to come in and do a radio show,
because the DJ didn't show up. So I did, until a quarter past seven,
when I returned to my room to await breakfast, which I went to for the
first time in recent memory. It was pretty good. So was brunch, which I
ate a few hours later with Colleen, who was saddened at the lack of
bacon, and with good reason. I managed to get my History of Rock
homework done, but no math.
At two, Geoff and Susannah and I left for the Twin Cities, where we
visited FleetFarm, Minnehaha Falls, and a Vietnamese restaurant, the
name of which I forget, but where I ate sugarcane shrimp on some sort
of very fine noodles with lots of sauce and it was tasty for under
seven dollars. And then we came back and I did my radio show and it was
good. And I will have a fine when I return my CD to the Music Listening
Room tomorrow a day late.
Then Colleen and I went to Goodbye Blue Mondays and raised our
caffeine levels. We also listened to a lot of music and decided that it
would be in our best interest to take in a matinee tomorrow at
Lakeville, specifically Intolerable Cruelty, since violence
is out for early in the day. We also determined the dining hall is too
stupid to have brunch on midterm break Monday, so we'll eat at Perkins.
If I manage to make some progress on math homework, it should be a
delightful day.
And holy crap, it's really late but I wanted to make a list of all
the albums I need to listen to over winter break so I can listen to
them only to increase my overall knowledge of my collection. I think I
will post it as a comment to this post, so it doesn't take up the whole
front page.
21 Oct 2003
Today we watched Intolerable Cruelty as was suggested in the last post. There were three retired-looking people filling out the rest of the theater.
In short, the Coen Brothers once again manage to make George Clooney
look like a genius. He is a perfect match for their snap-crackle
dialogue, and plays the lovable, fast-talking bullshitter better than
anybody in recent memory. Essentially here he reprises many of the
traits of his character in O Brother, Where Art Thou?: charming, believable yet untruthful, quickwitted and out to win his lady against all obstacles. Cruelty,
however, is set in the modern day, filled with divorce lawyers and
golddigging man-haters. Since it's a Coen Brothers production, the bit
parts are all brilliant, like Wheezy Joe, the failed assassin; Gus
Petch, the "ass-nailing" private detective; and Heinz, the Baron Krauss
von Espy, the froofy Swiss 'concierge'. There isn't really time to
think anywhere in the first half of the movie as Clooney talks everyone
else's ear off when rich spouses aren't philandering their money away.
Towards the end, the movie takes a thoughtful, seemingly sappy turn,
but that only sets up the brilliant final gag, in which Clooney appears
to finally get what's coming to him. It was clever, lightning quick,
and as good as expected from the Coens.
Just to remind myself, here is a list of their films that I've seen and loved:
Intolerable Cruelty (2003)
The Man Who Wasn't There (2002)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Fargo (1996)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
This leaves me with their first four films to discover:
Barton Fink (1991)
Miller's Crossing (1990)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Blood Simple (1984)
And Bad Santa is coming out later this year.
21 Oct 2003
I bet you didn't realize what an incredible mp3 resource Epitonic.com is. But it is. I mean, they have an more high-quality, easy-to-access, legal mp3 downloads than I've ever seen in one place.
22 Oct 2003
So I was playing NES Golf this afternoon and I finally had a magical
round. I think I had two eagles, three pars and thirteen birdies, if I
remember correctly. I'm not sure I can top this score, so I might have
to start playing other games. Well, technically, given the right
conditions, I could envision a score as low 49, but that would depend a
lot on the wind.
23 Oct 2003
Hmm, I haven't posted in a while. Let's see if it's worth your while for me to post today.
I didn't really do anything Tuesday, I don't think. On Wednesday I
saw What Time Is It There? at Film Society with Colleen. It was
artfully constructed, and as such, provided well put together shots
(all static) and some good performances, but didn't choose to focus as
much on plot or story. It was what I expect out of Film Society, which
is not necessarily something that will delight me, but something I
wouldn't see otherwise, and something in which I can recognize the
craft or skill even if it wasn't the best thing I saw all year.
Afterward, we hung out for a while in my room. A long while. I
realized I haven't been staying up late very much this year, at least
in the presence of others, so that was a nice exception.
It appears that Friday will bring another movie, possibly Party Monster.
In other news, Pitchfork had a very good piece on Elliott Smith
after his death. Yes, they can sometimes be stuck-up and pretentious,
but they also in general care about music and, as evidenced here and
elsewhere, those who make it.
In the November issue of Wired magazine, Malcolm McLaren discusses soundchip music,
which he claims to be the music of the future. I suppose if Malcolm
McLaren, who helped manufacture the punk revolution with the Sex
Pistols, thus predicting and shaping the future, is telling me that
this is the future of music, perhaps I should listen. I and the New York Times
often wonder what will eventually rise up to take the place of rock,
which is generally being recycled, if in new and exciting ways. I
suppose this is as good a guess as any.
24 Oct 2003
The Guardian on America's attitude toward and position(s) on the environment.
24 Oct 2003
It seems that I've decided which class I'll be taking next term.
There will be Statistics and there will be Macroeconomics and there
will be Studies in Television. There will probably also be Squash or
Badminton, depending on how quickly those classes fill up. I will be
finished will all my liberal arts distribution credits so I won't have
to take any classes I don't want to take except for maybe a bad math
class here and there. And that's that.
25 Oct 2003
In case you weren't aware, there are good things to be doing when
you are supposed to be sleeping and bad things to be doing when you are
supposed to be asleep. Having ridiculous amounts of fun in delightful
company is a good thing that I would rather be doing than sleeping.
Doing a fucking radio show at 6:30 in the morning for some deadbeat
fucking bastard of a DJ is one of the bad things to be doing when you
are supposed to be sleeping. I was really enjoying not doing a radio
show this morning, until I heard the dreaded phone ring. I can't
believe I'm doing the 5:30-7:30 weekend slot for the fourth time this
term. I suppose it must be nice not to know the compliance director
because then apparently you don't feel bad about making him never ever
sleep. Damn dirty motherfuckers.
On the other hand, last night I saw Kill Bill, Vol. 1, and it
was incredibly violent. It was also incredibly fun. It is certainly a
film that will be etched into my memory for a long time to come. If I
weren't so tired maybe I would be able to write something lengthier and
coherent about it, but right now let's just say that filmed violence
has never been so fun or stylish or perfect and that I am excited for
Vol. 2.
27 Oct 2003
On Saturday night I went with Colleen and roommates Rebecca and Beth
to Buca di Beppo in Burnsville where we dined care of Colleen's
wonderful mother, who gave the meal as a birthday gift. I've not been
that full since, well, the last time I was really full, and it was all
so tasty. There were also rowdy adults and men with toilet paper stuck
to their shoes and there was also a lot of good food.
The Guardian has an article on this study, Sing a Song of Drug Use-Abuse.
Apparently drug use is no longer as highly touted in popular music as
it once was, and John Markert has the research to prove it.
I am slightly tired but since I stayed in bed for approximately
fifteen hours last night, I don't think it will be a major problem.
29 Oct 2003
Okay, so I really need to upgrade to Windows XP. I don't really want
to do so until the term is over, so I have time to back everything up
and don't have to worry about needing my computer immediately. I need
it because I can't access my network drives here at Carleton very well
or consistently without an operating system upgrade. Then I find out
that I can't download iTunes for Windows or buy music from Apple
because of my operating system. Today I went to Napster.com
to see about their new digital music service, and once again I was
turned away, only because of my OS. I think the purchase will certainly
be worthwhile, if it benefits me in all these various ways. Ideally I
wouldn't have to upgrade at all, but at least it will bring me new
available services.
30 Oct 2003
I don't want to be a math major for the next few days. I've sucked
it up on my last few problem sets in both Probability and Structures,
and they've accordingly taken longer than normal. Now I have to face
the weekend in which I'll have to study for both of them; I just hope I
can convince myself to keep studying for long enough to prepare for
both of them. My problems don't generally lie in the realm of not
knowing stuff, but in not caring enough to prepare adequately and to
make sure I know what I need to know. This seems to be my requisite one
time per term in which I actually expend a noticeable amount of energy
worrying about academics. It generally happens when it seems that I'm
not at all prepared for a test (or two tests) that will go a long way
in determining my grade for a required class. I don't like taking two
math classes at the same time because it means that I have two vital
classes that I have to care about and can't take pass/fail. At least
Colleen helped me to forget about all that school stuff for a while.
She is wonderful.
And tomorrow is the Belle & Sebastian concert which will
hopefully be wonderful as well. I hope to return with some form of
merchandise, though I can't say exactly what yet.
The term is quickly coming to an end.
31 Oct 2003
And just so's I don't forget, the Cavaliers will be playing on ESPN on Wednesday at seven o'clock.
31 Oct 2003
This article I read in Wired about Amazon's new searchable database of books (content, not
just titles or descriptive information) made me very excited
about the role the internet could and should play in enhancing our
lives. Recently I'd been thinking about digital music retailers (Apple,
Napster, BuyMusic) who seem like they will soon come into their own as
a vital, if not THE vital, element in transmission of music from artist
to listener. Right now they are still quite limited and constricted in
their delivery systems both in terms of content and who can use their
services. I know I won't be able to very well at home because we lack
broadband internet access, and I can't currently because I don't have
the latest operating system. Most likely these things will smooth out
over the course of time, and it should become increasingly easy to get
your hands on a copy of whatever you want to listen to whenever you
want. Personally, I would love to see something like All Music Guide
get hooked up with a music e-tailer so that I could search on the site
for obscure albums by groups I know and love or search for new artists
in new genres. Even better would be the fact that you could utilize the
Guide's "Song Highlights" for individual artists, or their "Some
Important Songs" listing under style categories, which would be an
amazing way to introduce yourself to new music of all sorts; in essence
you could purchase any of an infinite number of greatest hits
compilations centered on any artist, style, label, or other musical
category.
Much as DVDs followed CDs, DVD-Rs followed CD-Rs, and DivX followed
MP3, it seems logical that online purchases of films and television
content should begin some time in the near future. Perhaps more
exciting here is the possibility of easy one-time viewing, or graded
rates of pay for different amounts of viewing, which is less important
to me, personally, for music which I rarely want to listen to only
once. For some films, I'd like to buy them online and have them in
digital format forever: classics, mindbogglingly good lesser known
films and perhaps legendary television events. There are also things
I'd like to be able to purchase just once: a somewhat humorous or
memorable version of an episode of a relatively good TV show, or a
movie to watch with friends just because it might be fun, or a
controversial yet not necessarily good new work. This could go a long
toward increasing the potential market for independent and obscure
films much like digital music selling could exponentially increase the
potential audience for tiny little indie bands who can't get sold
anywhere except in the most well-stocked independent record stores, who
themselves are probably being crushed forever by Best Buy et al. I
can't really think of many innovations I would appreciate more than
instant access to all of popular culture at a decent price at the click
of a mouse. I mean, yeah, there's money growing on trees and perhaps
teleportation and time travel, but as far as developments in the
visible future for a white middle-class Westerner like myself, I can
see no more pressing need than the opening of the vaults of
entertainment to digital and instantaneous consumption.
31 Oct 2003
I was just reading this Ebert review and was struck by these two paragraphs, which perhaps can include many parts of culture besides just films:
One of the tasks faced by serious filmgoers is to distinguish
good films in disreputable genres. It is insufferable to claim you
"never" see horror movies (or Westerns, musicals, war movies, teenage
romances or slasher pictures). You're presenting ignorance as taste.
The trick is to find the good ones. The French auteur critics did
a lot of helpful spadework, resurrecting genres and rehabilitating
reputations, but they were not always right -- and besides, you have to
feel it for yourself. If a film holds my attention, it is in one way or
another a good one. If it moves or delights me, it may be great. If I
am distracted by its conventions, obligatory scenes and carelessness or
lack of ambition, it deserves to be tossed back into the genre.