Oh good. The Criminal Justice System in Texas works. Yay.
Monday, June 30th, 2008Man who killed burglary suspects cleared
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A Texas man who shot and killed two men he suspected of burglarizing his neighbor's home was cleared in the shootings Monday by a grand jury.
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Pattern is Movement–All Together
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Pattern is Movement have been around for a while, but it was only when local record shop guru CJ Davis drooled effusively over their new album "all together" that I gave the band a chance. As usual, CJ is right. This is a very rewarding release. For some reason I had filed Pattern is Movement away with Math-rock wannabees who had ignored the fact that Don Cabballero achieved perfection and made it pointless to be in that genre. Perhaps some of their older stuff should be so summarily… Read More
Devotchka–A Mad and Faithful Telling
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
Devotchka might have made the best album of the year. For years they've been on my radar as a band that blended international influences from Mexico to Moscow, but I mistakenly wrote these guys off as merely filling the indie-world-music nitch alongside bands like Gogol Bordello and Beirut. Not that the bands in that nitch are bad, but in my opinion they don't solidly transcend it the way Devotchka does with their latest. You might have heard Devotchka's music before. Their score for Little Miss Sunshine… Read More
Doublespeak and the National Applications Office
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
The National Applications Office is a) a part of the INS dedicated to processing immigration forms, b) the part of the CIA in charge of gluing false mustaches on the upper lips of spies, c) a domestic surveillance program involving spy satellites. If you choise c, you have caught on the the Bush Administration's antics. Fortunately congress is not quite ready to swallow the whole fish:
A Bush administration program to expand domestic use of Pentagon spy satellites has aroused new concerns in Congress about possible civil-liberties abuses. On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment denying money for the… Read More
An odd list that is oddly decent
Friday, June 27th, 2008
I love rankings: top ten, top hundred, worst twenty, middle fifteen. Write a list, I'll probably read it, especially if it is a list ranking "great books." Lists like this are, of course, made to be trashed, but that's part of the fun. Man, was I ready for some list-trashin' when I found out that Entertainment Weekly, of all forums, was ranking the top 100 books of the last 25 years. And then, I was disappointed. The list simply makes fun of itself. Take, for example, the top six: 1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006) 2. Harry… Read More
That’s Jesus all right! But why does he have a penis in his left hand?
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Miracle in Dallas! The reporter here does a good job of playing this straight. Note especially: "Granite is typically used for kitchen countertops, tubs surrounds, bathroom vanities, etc." Residents See Jesus In Granite Slab
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ― Workers at… Read MoreShearwater–Rook (Plus instore at Good Records)
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
I admit to being reluctant either to embrace or write about Shearwater's Rook, because I have not fully digested the album. I just discovered, however, that they'll be at Good Records tomorrow with a free instore performance, so now is perhaps the time to say a word. Shearwater is from Austin and overlaps with the excellent Okkerville River, so they have to marks in their favor before you even hit play. Their music is a heavily orchestrated affair, led by the resonant voice of Jonathan Meiburg (think Scott Walker) who pens songs with pensively… Read More
Fleet Foxes–Sun Giant EP and s/t LP and…in Dallas
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Fleet Foxes will be in Dallas on the third, and this is a show I can't miss. The buzz about this group is pretty monumental, but I'd say they live up to it. While they do not fall into a clear natural kind of music, they are not without influences and resemblances. On their "Sun Giant" EP, for example, there are times when early seventies bands like America are clearly in the background, and other times when Crosby, Stills and Nash appear to have come together to lay a track down at Sub Pop. (See, for example,… Read More
Planets with Life seem Likely
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
For various predictable reasons I've been reading a fair amount recently on the origins of life and the likelihood of its emergence. So I was particularly interested when the New York Times reported the discovery that there are likely to be a great many suns with planets some of which are bound to be apt for life. A snippet of the most recent article: ...roughly one in three stars surveyed showed signs of harboring stony planets, and other researchers performing similar studies said the figure might be more like one in two. And though the 45 planets on the Geneva… Read More
Hating Milan Kundera
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
Inspired by a Times Online segment in which critics and authors list their most loathed books, I've decided to name my most loathed author. I hate Milan Kundera. I have an imaginary button that I press to make it such that certain people never existed. (This is better than the imaginary hammer, which just poofs the despised out of existence, because there are some people whose influence needs to be stricken from the record as well.) I use it rarely--although I have been punching like mad for the past eight years--but old MK gets an enthusiastic… Read More