Enjoy the Silence

It has been a busy week, with things going on, on a lot of different levels. I also have not posted anything in exactly one week. This is not a coincidence (the classic problem of the more you have to write about, the less time you have to document it).

Here's some of the running plotlines of the past week (there was plenty else going on as well that falls outside the boundaries of this space is meant to convey!):

Academia

Of course it is finals time, which means many people are spending so much time reading and writing that a large number of grad students now think that they are hummingbees, and spend their few breaks from their laptops doing frenzied dances meant to show their honeycomb bretheren how to get to the life-giving flowers of insight. Also they spend so much writing that they can't write a simple sentence without running on forever and shoving metaphors where they don't belong. But then again, I always write like that (because my guilty conscience knows I always should be writing more??).


As for moi, I've been in better shape than most semesters. For the first time ever, I'm going to war with detailed outlines for papers that have been actually run by (and heartily approved by) professors. A major realization I've had is that professors don't give degree of difficulty points. I've always refused to write about any of the major issues dealt with in the class. If Sallis spends 95% of the semester talking about Fichte, there's no bloody way I'm writing on Fichte (of course, this is also because I can't read more than one page of the Wissenschaftslehre without immediately losing consciousness). But just because I have contempt for anyone who uses any paper suggestion that the professor would make, doesn't mean that professors are going to shared my admiration of taking the rogue route. I still tend to write about strange themes, but I have gotten a lot better about writing to my strengths. My "areas of interest" have become clearer and clearer, and I've gotten a hell of a lot better at sticking to those. For my Husserl paper I'm writing on his potential contribution to Judith Butler and Levinas's ethics...and in my ancient greek knowledge class, I'm looking at the Gorgias (which is tied with the Symposium for dearest Platonic dialogue to my heart). Doing secondary reading and having outlines and quotations ready and running proposals by professors...are relatively new for me, so I feel more confident about my ability to produce great work on time...but that is still a long way from actually writing the damn papers! So we'll see how that goes over the next two weeks.

Music

I haven't posted any album du jours, but I have kept up my listening duties. I might retroactively go back and post some of these, but I've listened closely to a bunch of albums that are new(ish) to me: An older Fila Brazilla album, a Dom um Romao, a particular Fleetwood Mac song, Mocky, Beck's Guerro, etc. I still like writing up reviews - and will try to do so as much as possible - but the biggest goal is to ensure that I don't fall into the easy trap of getting "stuck" on something and not forcing myself to diversify, and thus far that has been a smashing success.

In other music news, I went to see Amon Tobin play last night. The thing about electronica shows is that you're never really sure what you're going to get, and how it will relate to the album stuff. "DJ sets" are often VERY different from what they do in the studio. When I saw Jamie Lidell a while back, it was far more "techno-y", because he was showing off his impressive capacity to create beats and music on the fly. Wasn't nearly as polished as Multiply, but a different kind of excellence. Likewise, Amon Tobin, who I love for his combination of jazz and latin rhythms with dnb and other interesting beats, lost almost all of the jazz, and ended up sounding like a dnb and IDM producer. Still some interesting stuff, but not near up to the level of his albums. Still worth checking out though!

Basketball

Wow. No one thought that these playoffs could hold a candle to last year's, but they seem to be shaping up to be just as epic, if not more so. Here's a breakdown of all of the series in increasing order of interestingness:

- Washington v. Cleveland. Lebron and the Cavs aren't playing inspired ball, but with the loss of both Caron Butler and Gilbert Arenas (who is going to be gracing the cover of the next NBA live!) had no chance, and lost in 4 games. I watched none of them.



- Detriot v. Orlando. Orlando started as one of the hottest teams, but levelled off in a big way, and were guaranteed fodder for the Pistons. Another sweep.

- Bulls v. Heat. The third eastern conference series that already went down in 4 games. This was a good deal more interesting than the previous two, however, because it was a rematch of the second round series from last year, and also the first time a defending NBA champion had ever done so poorly in the next year's playoffs. I watched one of these games, just to revel in the Heat-embarassment.

- Toronto v. New Jersey. This is the only eastern series still in question. New Jersey has looked like a lame duck all year, but really turned it on for the playoffs. I hope the Raptors win though. They're pretty kewl.

While the East has been pretty ho-hum thus far (Pistons/Bulls is going to be a real exciting 2nd round, though), the Western playoffs have been RI-FUCKING-DICULOUS.

- Phoenix v. LA. You know it is pretty absurd when a rematch between the most mind-blowing playoff series from last year is the least fascinating one this year. Part of that is just because the Lakers have taken a few steps backwards while Phoenix has gotten Amare back and healthy. Incredibly fun to watch, but never much in doubt.

- Houstin v. Utah. The only first round series that is tied 2-2 (game 5 going on right now, and tied at 79 all!), this is a tough series for me, because I really like both teams. Yao, McGrady (Rip Van Winkle!), the role players the Rockets have (and their coach, Dr. Katz).


And on the Jazz, Deron Williams, ex-Piston Okur, the trials and tears (and extra-marital allowances) of Kirilenko, the power of Boozer (a terror in HD)


- San Antonio v. Denver. The Nuggets, with my new favourite non-Blazer or Piston player Carmelo Anthony, really shocked the Spurs in game 1 to make this a fascinating matchup. They'll try to even out the series in game 4 tonight...this is the nearest and dearest series to my heart, because it is the only one in contention where I can strongly root for an underdog that is going against a monolith that has already won a ton of championships recently (the Spurs).

- Dalls Mavericks v. Golden State Warriors. So much has been said about this series. I can't do it justice. The astounding Warriors, the 8 seed, have just utterly stunned the Mavericks, which were the unquestioned top team this year. It would be completely unfounded in history for a team with such an epic regular season performance - nearly up to the level of the greatness displayed by the 70- win Bulls - to fall apart in the first round to this extent. Just read FreeDarko.com if you want to see thousands and thousands of poetic words on the sublimeness of this subject.

Other stuff

I typically don't like flash games. I can't exactly play games at work, and if I'm going to play a game in home, it is going to be an indepth one (CivIV). I haven't been able to play any video games in awhile! But my friend sent this to me, and I have to say that it is the best flash game I've ever seen.

The Last Stand

You fight off zombies, and then use the daylight to find better weapons and more survivors to help you out. If it were just a shooting game then it would get real boring real fast, but I'm a sucker for any kind of game where you improve as you go along (due to being raised on RPGs), and combining the two makes for a great effect, I think. Which begs the question: why are there no really good zombie games where you have to defend a fortress/mall/whatever, and have to spend your time fighting, scavenging for supplies, and building defenses??? Seems like that would be a big hit.

Zwa?

I was looking through my class notepad for something, when I noticed this drawing I did from my last Husserl class (you can click to expand if you want to see how awesomtastic my handwriting is):


It showcases a philosopher sweeping up after a scientist, who appears to be tossing bits and pieces of history in his wake.

My question is - what does this mean, and why did I create it?! I have no recollection of this. Everything seems way more profound when you don't remember its origins (which is one of the suspicions I have of the tendancy of Heideggerians to obsess over correlations with ancient Greek thought...)

Album du jour #18 - Threepoint shot away

Help! My need to be productive has been hijacked - by the NBA playoffs!

Last year's playoffs really got me into the game in a whole new way. Between ridiclously close games, thrilling come from behind victories, and a host of other dramatic stories and finishes....the '06 playoffs were widely heralded as perhaps the best ever. How could this year's possibly compare?

Well, they've gotten off to a decent start. The Raptors/Nets series is proving impossible to predict, and the Jazz/Rockets series will be a dogfight...but all that was nothing compared to what went down today, when both the Spurs and Mavs were horribly upset, and the Suns/Lakers game was a classic as always, with Kobe doing is best to one-up every bit of magic the Suns could pull off. I was ELATED to see the Nuggets beat the Spurs - and I hope beyond everything that they can keep it up. Went the other way on the Warriors/Mavs game (rare that I root for the non-underdog, and the Warriors, barely sliding into the playoffs, are the definition of an underdog) because I am determined to see the Dallas/Suns drama unfold in the finals. But it was all exciting, and I couldn't stick to my resolution to break away and write. I forgot 100% that Dice-K was pitching vs. the Yankees until I just now noticed on espn.com that the Sox won...my interest in that is a candle to the flame of fabulous basketball going on. It is going to be a long month. Man, I can't get over the Spurs losing....and for once, I'm motivated less by schaudenfreude than I am the wonderous thought of a Suns/Nugs semis.



Massive Attack - 100th Window (2003)

Prior Relationship to Album: Around my junior year of college I began to get into trip-hop (which has become a bad word in music critic circles, which is unfair, I thikn) and downtempo music. My progression in and through electronica went something like this (I'll save the more thorough sketch for my "history of music" post, a long one I've been working on in bits and pieces)

trance/club house -> psytrance -> ambient and IDM -> trip hop and deep house -> nu-jazz and latin house -> other stuff

Everything to the left of trip hop and deep house I have more or less stopped listening to (although some "IDM" gets a rare listen-to by me)...so Massive Attack is, in many ways, one of the electronic groups I have had the longest relationship with. Which makes it no surprise that it is laden with college-nostalgia for me.

And this nostalgia is unique in another sense; until recently, my listening habits were very rarely influenced by contemporary artists. When I was in middle school I was all about what was (kind of) current...R&B, grunge, alternative. But then the more I got into playing guitar the more I veered off into blues and classic rock, and I essentially stopped buying "new" music for a long period of time.

One other period (aside from current times) where I actually paid attention to current music was my senior year, when I was the RPM (aka, electronica) director for Whitman's radio station. I'm sure I've mentioned this before....in any case, the music I got via that avenue played a large role in opening new directions for me - err..when you read that last sentence to yourself, tone down how pretentious it sounds - and one of the albums was 100th Window. Of course I was already into Mezzanine (although I couldn't really tell my Portishead from my Massive Attack at that point), but this album led me to go back and pick up everything by Massive Attack. Which makes them one of the first bands that I ever got a nearly-complete discography of.

High Point: 100th Window isn't nearly as important or venturesome as Blue Lines or Mezzanine, but it is a remarkably efficient album. By which I don't mean song length (the average is in the 6-7 minute range), but in that it doesn't really take aim at doing anything but taking the strongest highs of Mezzanine and translating it into an album. Which makes it an impeccable, but not as amazing, album. The problem is that it doesn't do nearly enough to distinguish itself from itself, or Mezzanine. I have a hard time picking my favourite track due to this...the best of the bunch is probably 03 "Everywhen," but listen to it right after Mezzanine and it doesn't sound nearly as powerful. The other that I'm tempted to pick is 07 "Smalltime shot away," for reasons that escape me.

Low Point: 02 "When Your Soul Sings" would be a great song...if it wasn't UTTERLY INDISTINGUISHABLE from "Teardrop" off of Mezzanine (or rather, a version of "Teardrop" with less bite, and more Shenead O' Connor, who sings in a bunch of the songs). Shameless, really.

What I Learned/Realized: This album title refers to some book about security in the internet age...basically the idea that you only need to leave one window (out of a hundred) open for your privacy to be comprimised by the government.

I quote from Wikipedia: "Two weeks after the release of the album, Del Naja [the member of Massive Attack who was mainly responsible for this album] was arrested as part of Operation Ore, a police operation intending to indict users of web sites featuring child pornography. The charges were dropped a month later after no sign of such material was found on his personal equipment." Heh.

Future Relationship to Album: As much as it bothers me that this album feels...soft, in comparison to their earlier stuff, it is still among the best at creating that style I love of harmonic and powerful swells of darkness that paradoxically uplift. For me, this window opens onto a black yet prisimatic sky. And also grants me the ability to say cheesy lines like that with half a straight face.

Album du jour #17 - Moose and Gay Sqverrrll

Wow - Menomena is doing a west coast tour that includes a show at Whitman College in Walla Walla....a show at Eugene's WOW hall, Visalia CA (where my father lives), and even Troutdale!! If only they did a show in Rancho Cucamonga, they'll have gotten to nearly every important city in my life in one go (well actually they're playing Pomona, which is pretty damn close...)

Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow (2006)

Prior Relationship to Album: Recommendation from...I don't remember who? Haven't listened to it before...and boy, am I finding out how little of my music collection that I've really listened to. I should find some stupid reason to compel myself to listen to it randomly so I can't ignore things I don't know about...oh, wait! Anyways, this is a collaborative album between Boris, who, as wikipedia tells me, is part of Japan's "experimental doom" scene, and the psychadelic rocker Kurihara. I can only imagine that this album will be what it would be like if you took the two American music styles of doom metal and psych rock and threw in a bunch of atomic monsters and mutant tentacles that rape schoolgirls.

High Point: #06 Voce Sorriu Como Uma Marca D'agua. Most of the first half of the album reminds me most of a slightly harder edged Sigur Ros with Yes solos looped on top of them. It works better than it sounds when I say it (likely because I suck at writing about music). This song caught my attention more than most because it is upbeat, dark, and the guitar solo works really quite well. Also because the translation of the title comes out to "You Laughed Like a Water Mark" - which is the best song name I've heard in a very long time. Actually I didn't know that until after I picked this track, but I'm nothing if not a historical revisionist.

Low Point: #08 "Doce No 1". This sounds like what I used to do when I was 13, when I would turn my effects pedal to da MAX and shittily solo over my Soundgarden cds.

What I Realized/Learned: Japan has an experimental doom scene. And that experimental doom exists.

Future Relationship to Album: In situations where I'd normally play some Agaetis Byrjun but feel a little dirty, then I'll put this on.

A-Rod: I don't mind his absolutely incredible start to the season...partially because he had such a rough time of it last year, that him having a sterling start is a great story. But I really don't mind it when Jeter makes errors at 3rd, Riveria gets shelled, and the Yanks end up losing despite A-Rod's absurd homer hitting.

All I Want for Christmas is a Tech

NBA Playoffs are here! Which is basically like Christmas. Which is enough justification to show this video I just stumbled across of Rasheed Wallace and some Pistons benchers singing Jingle Bells in a hilarious fashion (check out the REEEMIX!)

Shootings

Three trains of thought having to do with recent shootings:

1. I've always gone back and forth on the phenomenon of being infinitely more outraged by tragic events that occur within our borders than those without. Not that we should be caring less about a horrific event...but what exactly is it that guides our instincts to feel vastly more sympathy for something that happens to a group of people just because they happen to reside within our borders? Is this merely a product of nationalism? (And if so, what is the "better" option - according this level of attention to every worldwide tragedy?) Or is there something more intrinsic about culture...and the disease, the weakness is rather mine for not seeing myself more fundamentally connected to it? On the one hand, I think that it is peculiar for such a unique and deep event such as grief (or prayers, for those that do such things) to be contingent upon borders on a map decided by imperalistic forces centuries ago. On the other, it may well be the case that there are positive reasons to be affected more by those who have a cultural attachment (and, for this to be the case, being affected by someone has to operate independently of the economy of "valuing" lives...in that these lives cannot be "worth" more). I'm not sure.

2. As early as yesterday afternoon, TV pundits were debating what effect this event would have on the relapsed ban on assault weapons (I saw this because Walter has a vastly higher prediliction for subjecting himself to the absurdity of Bill O'Reilly than I could ever stomach, along with a prediliction for leaving the TV on). Bill's guest, of course, claimed that restricting deadly weapons was not the right course here - she even suggested that banning assault weapons would be "counterproductive" (I would have given much to hear this woman's explanation as to how that could possibly be the case, but giving full accounts for one's arguments is passe in contemporary political discourse).

I have a fairly radical opinion on gun control: I think private ownership of lethal firearms should be entirely abolished. But I'm also protective of the constitution for the preservation of privacy and the like. How do I reconcile these positions? Through the magic of hermeneutics, that's how! (Otherwise known as: the belief that words have a living meaning, and we should pay attention to see what that meaning is).

The rationale given for the the right to keep and bear arms was not because humans have some inalienable right to guns, but to allow the preservation of a well-regulated militia. Why a well-regulated militia? The theory was that should the federal government ever try to turn tyrranical (terrible terrycloth tyrranasaurus!), the people could band together and check this by threatening to secede again. Basically, making sure that an American Revolution 2.0 could happen if it really needed to. What no one foresaw was the advancement of technology - at the time, anti-federalists were fairly mollified by the fact that they were well-assured the federal government's standing army would its ass kicked if the citizens ever saw the need to take action. Nowadays? Not so much - even a "well regulated militia" has basically zero chance against the federal army, since we don't got bombs, planes, tanks, body armor, etc. etc. The purpose, the organizing telos behind the amendment is deader than Thomas Jefferson.

That means that hand guns, shotguns...fuck, even assault rifles are insufficient to make a well-regulated militia that can "defend the security of the free state" (to quote the 2nd amendment). Does this mean we citizens get to have bombs and stealth fighter jets?? Of course not. Here's the logical problem confronting interpreters of the constitution. The original argument ran, that in order to have A (militia that counterbalances federal gov), we need B (rifles!). But no one can claim with a straight face nowadays that B leads to A any longer...it does, however, lead to rampant criminal violence! This is a case where the letter of the constution has come into *direct* conflict with the necessary meaning of that very bit of text. Does this mean we side with the technicality and continue to fuck up our country?

For defense against animals and rampaging humans, get tranq guns (you bet some efficient non-lethal tranquilizer handguns would hit the market soon after the repeal of the 2nd amendment, or recognition of its vestigial nature). For offense against animals (for those who just need to kill shit), get those fancy bow and arrows. How much easier would it be to stop gun violence if only police and military were allowed to have the lethal variety? There'd be a black market...but combating that would be a lot easier than leaving things the way they are now. Besides, schools could take most of that money being spent on metal detectors and the like and put it towards better counseling programs, for instance!!

Of course, this ought not be reduced to a gun violence issue...much more at stake. Just my train of thought touched off by the absurd "assault weapons are great!" claim that some talking head had the audacity to say on the day of this tragedy. One of the many ways I would fix the country if I suddenly had power to influence national policy.

(a few others: strict greenhouse gas emission limits and renewable energy standards, tighten restrictions on products that aren't energy efficient, replace the legal consideration of marriage with those of "civil union" and "civil union with children", legalize and tax the shit out of marijuana, replace sales tax with a flat income tax that affects all income earned in addition to 50 grand a year (in addition to a graduated income tax similiar to what we have now, but tweaked), increase state power to deal with envirnomental problems, universal health care, stop billions of useless military funding, add an amendment preventing congress from giving the president blank checks in wartime, abolish the electoral college, equal rights amendment...and transform the federal government into a committee run by 21 philosopher-kings appointed by SPEP)

3. Multiple people have requested that I pray - even ones who know full well that the notion of prayer does not play into any notion of the divine I have. So what does that accomplish? Does it really honor the memories of those who have died to offer an empty gesture that is ultimately just for the sake of people who want to feel like they're doing some by spreading prayer? I understand religious people doing it...but when they expect others to, it seems very strange to me. Being true to oneself is an ethical demand, I believe, and one especially relevant in the impossible task of honoring the dead. But maybe they're just reminding everyone who meant to pray but forgot to or something...maybe I sound cold, but a dedication to truth and ethics go hand in hand, broadly speaking.

4. On a totally different kind of shooting....what was up with Phoenix playing its starters in the game against the Clippers today?!? That's fucking absurd. They can't move up or down in any spot, and the Clippers are playing to stay alive in the playoff race. All that Phoenix is doing is creating a risk that one of its starters gets hurt, and an injury to Nash, Barbosa, Amare, or Marion would end their championship hopes RIGHT AWAY. Even injuries aside, the biggest threat facing these folks, given their weak bench, is getting tired (Nash especially sucks it up when he has his back spasms/has no legs under him)...were they just too competitive to give up a game that had no meaning to them? Dallas played the janitor and Mark Cuban's cousin against the Warriors tonight...who are going to get that playoff spot over the Clippers unless the Clips beat the Hornets (very doable) *and* the Warriors lose to Portland tomorrow (less likely). I'd rather see the Warriors in that 8th spot, so I'm not super pissed or anything (I bet a bunch of Clips fans will be), but Phoenix just ruined a chance to rest their crucial guys while losing the damn game ANYWAY. Idiots!

That being said, I can't wait for the playoffs.

Album du jour #16 - Death Through the Out Door

Iiiiits Patriot's Day!! Aka, the "Massachusetts is the only state that's going to make up its own state holiday" day! Since I'm a descendant of Patrick Henry, I feel...well, not connected at all. But I do try to see if his charisma is hereditary; I go into work and say "Give me a raise or give me death!!" But they always choose death. (This might be because the "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" line was fictionalized after the fact, just like much of popular history).

Led Zeppelin - Coda (1982)
Prior Relationship to Album: Led Zeppelin. Definately the most important artist to me in my life thus far.



The biggest question was: do I just include the first, original 8 tracks? Or add in the 4 that were included with the version from the Complete Studio Recordings set? (I own the cd with just the 8, but have the other 4 songs as well). The last 4 tracks aren't part of the Coda that I first listened to...but on the other hand, Coda is an album about odds and ends, celebrating Bonham's life and legacy by showing that even the left over tracks from various recordings could make a cohesive, quality album. So the more, the merrier.

High Point: Hard to pick just one, but my three favourite tracks are #1 "We're Gonna Groove" (incredible opener), #2 "Poor Tom" (the gentle but captivating drum line serves as the perfect basis for this song that slowly progresses from light as a feather to intense and pounding), and #12 "Hey Hey What Can I Do" (never released on an album before the boxed set re-releases, but one that gets a huge amount of radio play nowadays).
Low Point: 08# "Wearing and Tearing" - this song was designed to complete against the insurgence of punk...but it runs far counter to Page and Plant's strengths, and, compared to the rest of the material here, sounds out of place and kind of a mess.

What I Learned/Realized: "Bonzo's Montreux" - the all drums track - is one of the few Led Zeppelin songs in which it is possible to hear the squeak of John Bonham's bass drum pedal in the recording studio.

Future Relationship to Album: Zeppelin will never be dethroned from the center spot in my musicverse.

Philobloggery

(of course that's actually a bad title, since it just means "love of bloggery" - but people have taken the prefix to be more associative than the suffix in the case of philosophy...maybe because we associate "soph" on its own primarily with the sophists? heh).

I've always wanted to utilize the strengths of internet discussion to advance philosophy. Back when I had a livejournal (oh, those wacky halycon days of youth) I created a group called "SublimeThinking" which was designed to bring together people interested in academic philosophy, to have monthly extensive discussions about group readings, as well as just general topics. While I did spend a great deal of time tracking down every gothy Nietzsche lover, Deleuze freak, and Kant nerd on livejournal, we never consistently did the planned discussion thing, and posting was infrequent. Since I gave up livejournal years ago, I stopped trying to moderate it...my tiny vision of building a spontaneous community of free thinkers somewhat dashed (although the group does live on to this day).

But now that I'm doing that blogging thing (I really wish they would invent a new word for it), I figured I ought to go see what the options are out there for continental philosophy-esque minded folk like I pretend to be. And, unsurprisingly, there is a lot more nowadays. I'm hoping that I'll make better use of my downtime at work to read these kinds of sites instead of, say, read about silly things. So you'll see me adding links to places I find that seem worth checking out.

For starters, I stumbled across a philosophy blog where someone gives a kind of snooty critique of the notion of continental philosophy...so I felt compelled to offer a snooty response. I feel like I owe it to everyone to catalog all of my petty internet comments.

Here's another comment I put on a site I came across, agreeing with the post's criticism of the Leiter Report (a rather sore subject to me):

I concur whole-heartedly. The Leiter Report is exceptionally awful at listing what schools are well regarded in the continental tradition. Depaul is an exceptional program if you’re interested in phenomenology, social philosophy, feminism, and the history of philosophy (among other things), one of the few best, really - and it doesn’t appear.

I don’t have a problem with a study that is unobjective in its dislike of continental philosophy, and subsequent refusal to solicit the opinion of any authoratative figures in the field (Leiter’s claim is that analytic studies of continental figures are the only way continental work should be taught, since “you can’t train the next Nietzsche” (paraphrasing)). I do, however, have a problem with the fact that he sees fit to pass judgment on a type of philosophy in an area that isn’t deemed fit to be actually represented. I was lucky enough to have professors who were able to fill me in on the larger picture, but I feel very bad for those looking for guidance on applying to continental programs and relying on the absurd lists of the Leiter Report.

I also agree that the reaction to eliminate all attempts at school rankings is juvenile. The best situation would be if there were a plurality of rankings, with full disclosure of their biases, specializing in giving information about programs in different areas. Then we wouldn’t have the problem of a biased monothilic ranking system without any visible dissenting voices.

But my grand ambition, aside from snooty comments that aide my procrastination fetish, is to meet thinkers from other schools, and find means of connecting outside the normal guise of academic circles to share and be exposed to as much insight as I possibly can.

Album du jour #15 - MYcapslockisBROKEN

Mission of Burma - ONoffON (2004)

Prior Relationship to Album: Only vaguely aware of Mission of Burma as an 80s band, Josh insisted that I familiarize myself with what Mission of Burma was doing since their reunion. He meant the upcoming Obliterati in particular, but I got ONoffON as well to check it out. I've listened to a few songs, but not most of it, and definately not all the way through.

High Point/Low Point:

The problem with working from a pre-set template to these ADJ posts (a style I ripped off from the AVClub, in particular their "Commentary Tracks of the Damned" section) is that there isn't always something that fits each category well. I intended the "What I Learned" section to list the relevation I had about the music while listening to it - an invitation to the hope of an epiphany, even for music I had heard a great number of times before. But it doesn't always work like that, and when I lack any profound advancements in my musical understanding to share, I tend to fill that space with random trivia or whatever.

But in this case I've found that the categories I can't go about picking are the High and Low points...I tried to think of songs that I liked more or less than any others, but there really weren't any. It was like listening to a dial tone - each song has the same chords, the same horrendous vocals. The only song that sounds even remotely different from the others was #08 "Prepared,"...which goes for a different sound, but that sound is itself so bland, it is just another shade of beige. I need swells and dips and eventfulness in my music; sharply constrasting patches of light and shadow.

What I Realized/Learned: Two things:

1. I need to listen to Obliterati again - I remember vaguely liking it, although I haven't played it much. Either I have vastly different opinions on these two recent MoB albums, or I didn't pay much attention.

2. I have a closer association of music and colours than I thought; compelling and gripping music to me seems prisimatic by its very nature. I am very visceral about my art - there is a reason that two of the artworks I have up in my room are very elemental (Bachelard-ian) works on color -

Chariots of the Gods:

Four Meditations:

This connection between light and music, of a music that enacts the clash of color tones, and of visual art that evokes musical tones....I call audiochromology (because I love to invent pretentious terms for experiences I'm not totally sure I'm really having), and I shall have to dwell on it later. Perhaps the common element lies within the common term, and we have a kind of supra-senuous sense or "tone" that can manifest itself throughout different sensory mediums - hue and pitch? How about smell, touch, taste? Or are the three "bodily" senses distinct from the two more mental senses?

Future Relationship to Album: Not totally certain. I used to feel the same way about a lot of indie rock before I warmed to the genre. I might revisit it at some point to see if I can find my attention captured by something in here....but prospects for that seem as dreary as the current Nor'easter weather.

Bonus Link du Jour: On a completely different note, check out this person who turned a stuffed beaver into a computer case!!!

Album du jour #14 - Illusionary, Incidental Pasta

Guns n' Roses - Use Your Illusion I




Prior Relationship to Album: I got my first cd player in 6th grade, a boombox that ran on 4 D batteries. Embarassingly enough, my first TWO cds that I owned were Kriss Kross....and another copy of Kriss Kross (long story...but much like all of my other stories from that period, it involves me having absolutely no understanding of how to interact with other people, thievery, and copious amounts of Brian-crying). Shortly thereafter I got into the "12 free cds if you sign with us" thing that the labels were doing back then (actually I would sign up to BMG's thing, get 10 free cds, buy a few obligatory ones, and then quit and switch to Columbia House...etc. etc.). I got most of my cds this way, but one time while wandering around Fry's (err...what was the place in Willsonville called before it was Fry's? Incredible something? Help me out on this, Josh), I saw a copy of The Spaghetti Incident...and I bought it. I didn't like it that much, but it didn't have the Guns n' Roses singles that I liked on it, so I picked up Use Your Illusion II. I don't think I ever did own UYI 1. I know I've heard all of this at some point...but maybe not in full album form. I certainly won't remember most of it.

High Point: "Double Talkin' Jive". Hard, uncompromising, and fast. Axl gets the fuck out of the way and lets Slash go to town. I love Rose on Appetite for Destruction, but not on this album. I'm sure the metal-by-way-of-blues style with the Flamenco guitar outro don't hurt either.

Second would be "Garden of Eden," for many of the same reasons above. Except the Flamenco part.

Low Point: I know there are moods I am in, during which I don't hate listening to "November Rain" - but I am almost never in those moods. Also, I think that "Live n' Let Die" is way overrated.

What I Learned/Realized: It may be called #1, but I think Use Your Illusion II is definately on top when it comes to quality.

Also - Slash's mother designed David Bowie's costumes from The Man Who Fell To Earth. FILLER!!!!!

Future Relationship to Album: Well, I'll listen to it more than the Spaghetti Incident, probably....

Pair o' docks

I have so little of an interest in shoes, it has to tip over the line into active contempt. I don't like wearing nice shoes, I think women who spend too much money/attention on shoes are foolish, and I think that going beyond the bounds of necessity and basic comfort for something we put on our FEET is beyond wasteful.

The only thing that seems stranger than women who fetishize shoes are MEN who fetishize shoes. Like the guys who get limited edition Jordans and all that jazz. And yet...I'm interested in the jockeying that shoe companies are doing to try and land elite basketball stars. If you like reading about basketball stuff, then check out this link detailing the upcoming sneaker wars (courtesy of TrueHoop, as so many of the NBA side stories I read are).

EDIT: There is a pun relating the title of this post to its content that I didn't even get until I posted it (and read it out loud). I love language!

Brian and TV

This weekend folks were watching Pirates of the Caribbean in the living room (I should probably see the sequel to that, huh), and a commercial announcing the new season of the Shield came on.

"Whoooo!" I fist-pumped. "One of the top 5 shows ever!"

Zach, one of the founding members of Zazz Incorporations, immediately asked me to name my top 5 in order. Uh....I immediately realized that my claim had a lot more to do with enthusiasm about the show's return after well over a year, and it really wasn't one of the 5 best TV shows ever. But how to rank them? I can't really compare comedies to dramas directly, so I should probably split it out into two lists. As for a ranking criteria note....I tend to try to combine "good for its time" with "good right now". Obviously you can't fault older shows for being, well, older (there has been a steady increase in the rise of quality of the best TV shows, unlike movies, I'd argue). But I also don't want to go nuts on the whole "this may not be funny anymore, but it was hugely inspirational to stuff I do like" angle - I think that you gotta weigh both factors.

Before I make any lists, I want to take a short detour to discuss one of the stranger phenomena I see: people who make very proud declarations of "Kill your TV! " or "I haven't watched TV since 1985" or whatever, and then go on to list 60 or 70 movies or so that they deem absolutely essential in their life. TV snobbishness is stupid; it is easy to watch only really amazing shows (many of which are of far higher quality than those 80 movies that people rewatch over and over) and ignore the rest of the crap. I have never seen an episode of American Idol, Grey's Anatomy, ER, Survivor, or really any reality TV show (save a one season stint of Project Runway), game show, etc. It just seems retarded to be proud of arbitrary excluding one visual medium...like people saying "I love books - but only ones you can read in less than two hours!!!". But it seems like more and more people are realizing that great TV exists.

Arbitrary lists

Dramas
1. The Wire - Only seen Season 4 of this, but if the rest are anything close to it...like nothing else on TV.
2. Deadwood - Higher quality than the Sopranos as far as cast, story, etc. are concerned.
3. The Shield - Gritty, engrossing.
4. Twin Peaks - Lynch = brilliance.
5. Sopranos - Certainly deserves credit for leading the TV renaissance. But I've never felt as attached to it as I have other things.
6. Heroes - Cheesy, but unafraid to do whatever to advance the story line. Proving that a pure network serial can work without stupid gimmicks that come to hurt the show (24's real time thing, Lost's flashbacks, etc.)
7. Veronica Mars
8. Lost
9. X-Files (I guess...I kind of hate this show in some ways).
10. House? Maybe...I'm already kind of tired of this show. Maybe Big Love?
Things I've never seen but might deserve to be in the top ten: Six Feet Under, Battlestar Glactica

Comedies
1a. Arrested Development - the most advanced form of comedy yet reached in any TV or movie, I think.
1b. Simpsons - Would be at the top easily if it had ended 4-10 seasons ago.
1c. Seinfeld

4. Venture Bros - The best show most people have never seen.

5a. The Office (US) 5b. The Office (UK) - A tough call, but a long running show that frequently manages an excellent portrayal of absurdity just barely edges out a short lived, flawless show about awkwardness.

7. Futurama
8. Home Movies
9. 30 Rock
10. Cheers

Sketch shows

1. Mr. Show (if only David Cross could get a guest spot on the Wire, he could complete the hat trick)
2. Kids in the Hall
3. Flying Circus
4. The State
5. Chapelle Show
6. Reno 911
7. Viva Variety

Notable mention: Inspector Gadget. Thailand put out a live-action version of the show:

We're Fighting!!!

Multiple readers have whined that I haven't posted lately. I have two reactions:
1. I have multiple readers?
B. Ok fine. The real reason I haven't been posting is because I've been in a fight with this site. Basically I spent like 2 hours writing a super long post last Friday, and then I left it open for a super long time..and when I came back and tried to hit publish, it didn't work, and I ended up losing the whole thing (I usually write on a text file first, but sometimes don't...). And rather than re-type the whole deal, I walked away in disgust. And then I spent the whole weekend staying up at nights, finishing an overdue paper. And then I got in another fight - with my hair. You can see my myspace if you want to check out who won (I can tell you who lost: the lovely ladies of Boston). I've also been having too much fun listening to new things (LCD Soundsystem, The Field, etc.) to listen to the thing that came up randomly to do the album review (Guns and Roses, to be precise. Or Guns 'n Roses, to be slightly more precise. Shouldn't it be Guns 'n' Roses? Why is only one letter's absence significant enough to warrant an apostrophe? that's always bugged me).


For any Whitman people reading...this is precisely what we created CAAF for.

I PETA the fool

"Look what happened to my fox! Someone cut off his little foot. Is it - Is it noticeable?"

I posted this over at the AV Club, but I thought it was worthwhile sticking here. Me ragging on people who think that PETA is the devil (the context being that PETA criticized Karl Rove for some joke he made about liking to kill little creatures during the White House journalist ball thing, and a bunch of posters got all worked up about how evil PETA is. What I forgot to point out is that they should be criticizing him for his rap, that was waaaaay waaaay crueler to animal and human alike):

PETA was being dumb here, no doubt. Their intentions aren't bad, but to choose Rove's feeble attempt at humor as a time to take things literally is pretty retarded.

That being said I don't really understand why PETA gets so many people worked up. I'm not on board with their program - I don't think animals should be treated like humans, for example - but what do they do that is so bad? As far as causes go, it is about a million times more understandable than the NRA or such things (I can't wait 5 days for me gun!). While I don't have a problem with animals being given a lesser status, I also don't really have a problem with rich people getting red paint thrown on them for wearing fur. Even ethical implications aside, I think that might be a net positive kind of event. But everyone makes them out to be such a sinister organization, when at best they just seem occasionally wrong-headed and kind of self-defeating with their bad publicity.

Album Challenge #1: Donerail

My old friend Josh, also on board with the "force oneself to encounter new music" theme of this site's music, proposed a good idea wherein he and I would, on an occasional basis, suggest "new" albums (to that person) to each other for reviewing. This is a good idea, because in some ways we're very divergent in our interests (he put it well in his post, so I'll just direct you to that), yet in others we share similiar roots
(our friendship was built on three main pillars: 1. his contempt for me arising from how I acted in freshman year english class to try and attract the attention of the girl sitting in front of him (funny story, he and his father managed to accidentally ruin my first and only "date" with this girl), 2. debate, him because his brother was the coach and me because I was a fucking nerd, and 3. our love for guitar playing and the classic rock greats).

In any case, my first "challenge" him was Four Tet's Rounds, which I think is a pretty good choice as far as trying to pick a more or less purely electronica album that a non-electronica fan will almost definately enjoy. And his first to me is to listen to Donerail's first album "Disconnected." This is a band he's connected to - but not strongly enough that I would feel the need to not be a dick about what I think.

I'm awful at describing music, so I'll let the band speak for itself here:
"Bouncy Americana-roots music featuring introspective story telling and big guitars."

Well, I'm clearly not the intended audience for this music, since that description only bats .500 for me - not its fault, but I'm not going to be drawn naturally to Americana-roots or to introspective story telling (as I've said before, I suffer from an almost utter inability to follow the story-threads in music unless I basically look up the written lyrics). Bouncy and big guitars, however, are big thumbs up from me (what would a band with just those two elements look like? Tapes 'n Tapes, maybe - another portland band! Of course, T'nT might well have story elements that I've never noticed). I'll try and be thorough to accomodate the "challenge to new things" format, but since my review skills are bad you're probably better off just listening to clips from the songs for yourself -
http://cdbaby.com/cd/donerail



It starts off with a song that is pretty tight on instrumentals but suffers from lack-luster vocals (this last part is characteristic of much of the album. The strange effect of the beginning of each verse flailing about, only for it to sync up tonally on the way down. If you just listened to the last half of each vocal line, you'd be in pretty good shape. This is particularly evident on #04 "Portland.") "Long Division Exit" is one of the best tracks instrumentally, though, because the experimentation and guitar diversity that Donerail likes is dispersed throughout the song, not just bunched up at the end (which is the problem with the second song, "Drenched." That and the fact that the blues solo doesn't really mesh well with the style of the song whatsoever.)

"No Caroline" is my favorite track - the vocals aren't hidden behind anything, the song knows when to be soft, when to be loud, when to experiment, and is just well balanced over all. The best thing it has going for it is how the staccato lyrics lay on top of the laid-back accompanying main guitar melody .

"Portland," again, scores high in the guitar experimentation category (although there's a little too much lead guitar diddles in a few spots), is ok with everything else. The line "Portland I miss you....we rely on each other/Like a sister and a brother/Or - a drunk and his lover" - who is the drunk and who is the lover? I'm not totally certain. "Gale" is kind of forgettable. And not really very much like a gale, unless a gale sounds like one constant, lazy, ambulatory guitar solo.
"Vicodin Dreams" should be named "Expensive effects pedal purchase justification song". I love a lot of the things being attempted in here; it just needs a complete rebuilding. Like a castle made out of a bunch of awesome LEGO pieces that are all kind of jumbled together.

"Circle" resets to the early-album-energy kind of song. Fast, short, enjoayble ditty. "Unwind"'s decent, but kind of muted overall. The last part of the album features songs that grab your attention for being fairly different from the preceding stuff - "Violet" has some sweet moments, "My Son is Sane" is typical fare but plays with silence to achieve some good energy. "You", on the other hand, is pretty flat energy wise. And as for "Bozeman - Radio version" - they mean like a 1920s radio. The silent-movie-soundtrack recording technique is interesting, and makes for some cool guitar sounds, but you're still left kind of wondering why it is happening.

So, the album knows how to explode and innovate on micro levels - just not at a macro level, and not consistently. That, plus the big vocal inconsistencies, is what holds it back from successfully blending Wilco-esque stuff with other alternative sources (that I'm not musically literate enough to identify, but are clearly there).

Brown Sugar

Keith Richards, apparently, once snorted his dead father's cremated ashes along with some cocaine. Hmm...would this fact make me like the Rolling Stones a bit more? *listens*......nah, they're still pretty boring.

James and I fix sports

This might fall below the "worth posting" threshold...but what the hell. A silly IM conversation I just had with James, a friend I stole from Walter (not that it was any of my doing...they were arch-enemies already).


Joxer Jameson: whats up sugar tits?
Brian: my breasts are cinnamony, thank you
Joxer Jameson: hah noted
Brian: not much
Brian: you?
Joxer Jameson: same
Joxer Jameson: watching the bosox
Brian: it is too early for baseball again
Joxer Jameson: suck me
Brian: here's my problem with baseball
Brian: there's too many games
Joxer Jameson: agreed
Brian: every day when I check NBA results, if lowly Seattle, say, stomps the Spurs or whatever, I'm like "oooh! damn! that's a big deal!"
Joxer Jameson: that it tough
Joxer Jameson: which is why football season is so greta
Joxer Jameson: its short and intense
Joxer Jameson: but
Joxer Jameson: baseball is still a great game
Brian: no, football's worse, because the amount of talk and hype is WAY out of proportion to the amount of game
Joxer Jameson: haha
Brian: and it is hard to track elite performers who can take over a game
Joxer Jameson: half the fun
Joxer Jameson: no way
Joxer Jameson: you jsut need to do your own research
Joxer Jameson: cant pay too too much attentian to sports writers
Brian: no, I mean, I know I don't know the plays they run and all that shit
Joxer Jameson: yeah but when you watch as many games as possible you know who the play makers are
Brian: but say, Brady and Manning will never square off against each other at the same time
Brian: I think that is lame
Joxer Jameson: oh like head to head?
Brian: yeah
Joxer Jameson: on the field at the same time?
Joxer Jameson: that should be a game
Brian: basketball achieves the perfect blend of the individiual and the team - you have to have both at the same time
Joxer Jameson: haha
Brian: I would like football more if there were two offenses at once with two balls
Brian: and the offense also had to play defense vs. the other side
Joxer Jameson: haha yeah
Joxer Jameson: that would be interesting
Brian: so then the penultimate play could be setup
Joxer Jameson: id like to check that out
Brian: where one QB is throwing a long TD pass
Brian: and the other QB blocks it by throwing their ball so that it hits the other ball in midair and knocks it off course
Joxer Jameson: haha
Joxer Jameson: that would take insane acuracey
Brian: that's why it is penultimate
Joxer Jameson: hahaha
Joxer Jameson: lets start it
Joxer Jameson: 10 men for each team at once?
Brian: awesome
Brian: yeah
Joxer Jameson: i see how this could happen
Brian: we'll call it "Double Quarter-Pounder....WITH DEATH"
Brian: although there wouldn't be much death
Joxer Jameson: haha
Joxer Jameson: maybe not in YOUR version
Brian: we have competing leagues already?
Joxer Jameson: just competing teams
Brian: oh, ok
Joxer Jameson: yours will, naturally, be massacered
Brian: this is true

Words - a tidbit

Sometimes I am in the midst of something (in this case, an all night paper writing session), and I have thoughts I don't want to lose entirely...which I will if I don't write them down somewhere. Sometimes I'll try to preserve them by making incomplete posts about them. In other words, this will be disjointed and incoherent.

Words - thinkers of language make the mistake of treating words as if proper nouns for ideas (idealism). Idealism hangs on often not because Plato sticks in the back of throats, but because we treat words like names, and assume they must have their unique subjects. Just as "Mike" and "Mike" can be two differnet people, we think that a word that adopts two meanings is split in twain in all but superficial means. Say "sanction" - a word that is its own antonym. A ruler sanctions an activity...another ruler puts sanctions on another country. Permission/restriction. No one doubts that words can have wholly different - or even opposing - meanings. But people persist in their belief that each word carries with it a footnote to one specific meaning, and the first sanction is really just "sanction1" in the dictionary, and the second is "sanction2". But a word does not mark an evocation to a trailing static definition - it is a conduit to openness to the other. The depth at which radical intersubjectivity runs is proven by any single word in the dictionary. Analytic philosophers, those who are afraid of language becoming relative, etc....are extremely pessimistic about the capacity of humans to create meaning-giving context!!

Caputo Lecture

John (Jack) Caputo visited BC on Friday, to run a seminar and provide a lecture. Caputo is one of the bigger fish in the (medium sized?) pond of contemporary continental philosophy. The first was based on a paper on Derrida's notion of the "Democracy to come" (a venir), and the lecture was on deconstructing Christianity. The two projects sound very different, but really dovetail together. Caputo follows Derrida's working with Christian terminology, but isn't interested in anything approaching traditional religion (as many of the audience members couldn't quite grasp in their questions...they made many queries coming from the perspective of god as a divine being).

In the democracy paper, Caputo takes up Derrida's statement of a "democracy to come" as a means of heeding a (transcendently ethical) call for justice. The roots of this lie with Levinas, who saw the very foundation of ontology as being based in an infinite ethical imperative we have to the Other; alterity makes a call upon us to continually become a responsible Being-for-the-Other. "Ethics" is not based on any telology, is not a system designed to keep social order, is not at all based on sympathy (a kind of violence, for Levinas, to try and deny the radical otherness of the Other), does not lead to happiness, etc.

Derrida and Caputo do find something phenomenologically compelling about this call, but want to found it better than Levinas (and move a tad away from his absolutist position that, ontologically, it is "pre-ontology"). For Caputo, the democracy to come doesn't have to do with an ideal political state - instead, due to the nature of the call, it cannot be something pre-anticipated or fore-grounded in any way. What we call "democracy" now is merely a historical marker. It need not even be a "democracy", what we are called towards. The "democracy to come" is a means of showing how the call to responsibility for the other is grounded in the hope of a justice that is not (and cannot) happen in the future, but instead is abjectly futural - an essential element of time's flow itself. Democracy is thus just the best placeholder term we have for a transcendent ethical "source" for this call we find that evokes us.

Much is the same with Caputo's treatment of Derrida's "religion without religion" - and I believe this is the difficult that confronted listeners who themselves were Christian in background. Christianity is really just the best placeholder name we have for this religion of weakness that is called for by alterity. Christianity and Jesus are merely paradigmatic because a careful hermeneutical reading of the roots of Christianity (up until Paul, really - he and everything thereafter predominately marks a grand departure from the essence put forth by Jesus...a literal misreading of the poetically-intended "miracles") shows the paramount place of weakness. What is truly divine is the humbling of the self, and the giving of the self for others - invitation, non-violence, sacrifice. Basically as far as you can get from the contemporary concept of Christianity! (to the extent that Christians are involved in charity today, I believe is analogous to capitalism's dependency upon welfare, a means of warding off awareness of the fundamental corruption of the basic institution. The boat with an ever-widening hole comes with a bucket! It never fails to amuse me the neo-conservatives that want to roll back the stance the federal government has taken to social programs since the 30s...there is a reason that American support for communism was growing exponentially up until the New Deal. Talk about hacking one's own legs off...).

My thoughts on what Caputo has to say: generally positive. But one of my friends whose opinion I value mentioned that he always found Caputo to be more style than substance..and in many respects that is the case. Caputo is certainly the definitive stereotype of "continental philosophy writing" that aims to be ultimately evocative without much literal concern for justification. But he does raise some phenomenologically valid points - the way in which "democracy to come" refers to a structure of temporality and not a specific, hoped for event/state of affairs I liked quite a bit. But the notion that the call must be wholly other seems to retain that unquestioned and unjustified claim of Levinas's - and is not in tune with my (admittedly not well established) reading of Derrida's trace. I think the very notion of something as infinitely other is a fun but dangerously vapid byproduct of idealism, and good phenomenology does not point to such a thing (both Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology; even in the Beitrage, where Heidegger gets the closest...there is still the faintest echo of silence in nearness to the Last God...and he backs away from that whole business in later works).

Also, I posed a question to Caputo about the relationship between Nietzsche's holy Yes (from the third metamorphoses of the spirit, aka the child) and receptiveness to the call, and he agreed that Nietzsche's interest in a justice-sans-ressentiment is somewhat similiar to his theology of weakness, but he feels that the source of Nietzsche's ethics ultimately boils down to overflowing which is "phallic". It cannot be weakness, a true gift, unless it is giving of one's self, not giving of what one has left over.

But is that really the meaning of Nietzsche's overflow? Or is Caputo commiting the sin he warns others about by not reading something as a poetic metaphor? I suspect that Nietzsche doesn't mean that one ought to give of oneself only after being completely satiated. Indeed, Nietzsche is interested in how far the human spirit can go in affirming despite pain and suffering and loss. The difference is that one must be able to say "Yes" to that giving - it must be through that peculiar kind of strength - or else ressentiment creeps back into the picture. There is a world of difference between trying to turn weakness into strength, and in recognizing that one can (and should!) with-stand any amount of weakness due to a higher order of strength. That sounds a lot like ressentiment, but that is because it is not meant duplicitously here. I will explore this topic a great deal more when I write the first essay in my humor series - exploring whether or not Nietzche's golden laughter is at heart tender or cruel. I may well incorporate Caputo's analysis into that paper, given the way in which I find myself spiraling back to that subject.

Album du jour #13 - Menomenology + Concert Review

This post has been waaaay too long in coming, but my determination to get various academic obligations out of the way and a Caputo-laden Friday (as well as pursue a small semblance of a social life for a few nights a week) has delayed me.

In short, on Tuesday I went to see up and coming Menomena with Jon at Great Scott. FANTASTIC show. What I didn't expect was to see two very quality opening bands too. The first, Land of Talk, was the biggest surprise. Elizabeth Powell is an outright amazing vocalist - and every guy in the bar was immediately in love with her. At the end of the show I purchased a Menomena poster (based on the Neverending Story...I had to), and asked Powell to sign it "I am not in this band, but I am still a stone cold fox." She found that so amusing she gave me her cd for free - which, coincidentally ehough, was given a good review on Pitchfork the very next day.



The second opening band, Fields of Music, was very tight, but just wasn't as memorable to me as Land of Talk. As for the Menomena show, it was impeccable. I was originally going to review the most recent album and then write about the differences I noticed in the show...but everything was just more dynamic. They're a fantastic life band. So I'll just talk about the album and you can imagine that turned up to 11 for the show.

(why liz powell would be popular even if she wasn't a good musician):


Menomena - Friend or Foe (2007)

Prior Relationship to Album: I was altered to it in Febuary by my good friend and fellow philosophy nerd Jon Burmeister. But it might be arrogant of me to refer to him as a peer - he's the PhD-est of the PhDs! Or something like that. Anyways, he was able to predict exactly my kind of music. Menomena is creative, orchestral, jazz, funk, and all with a passionate independent voice. I wish we had better terminology to talk about the myriad types of rock that exist nowadays...because "indie rock" brings to mind stripped down music with no extra layers. My favourite "indie rock" groups do strip away traditional rock habits to get down to a raw musical center, but then build on that and weave creativity around it, like undoing a knotted yo-yo only to tightly re-wrap it. For instance, Menomena makes as much use out of bass sax and chimes solos as they do their own voices, keyboard and guitars.

High Point: #05 Weird. I can't think of any track in recent memory that puts as much pure driving force behind each note. Second might be #10's Evil Bee.

Low Point: Mostly that there aren't more bands like this one...but as far as the album is concerned, #08 My My. Not that it is a bad song per se, but it has the least Menomena-uniqueness. Would be at home in the last half of a New Pornographer's album, easily.

What I Realized/Learned: Great Scott gets some damn good acts (I saw Jamie Lidell there awhile back). And Portland might have the best music scene in the country.

Future Relationship to Album: It makes me feel like God is rubbing my tummy!

In other news:

I mentioned the relationship of the Chinese to basketball in the NBA post...so I had to point out this link - a list of nicknames the Chinese have for various NBA stars. We have really been slacking as far as nicknames are concerned recently; at best, we've just been using things like K-Mart, or D-Wade...which aren't nicknames nearly as much as efficient names. I'm definately calling Carmelo Anthony "Sweet Melon" from here on out. And It is amazing that no one in the US ever came up with "Stone Buddha" for Duncan before.

Pop Quiz: Who's my favourite President? Yup, that's right, Franklin Pierce!! What a rockstar.