Benoit Pioulard–Idyll (Video)
Friday, November 28th, 2008
Great video from Pioulard's excellent new(ish) album, Temper. A really excellent followup to his 2006 precis.
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Low–Santa’s Coming Over (Video)
Friday, November 28th, 2008
Lanie and I bought and lit our tree today. If only we'd had this 7" by Low to decorate by. One of my favorite bands puts the oh-shit back in Christmas.
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Paavoharju–Laulu Laakson Kukista
Friday, November 28th, 2008
The new album by the Finnish group Paavoharju is my clear choice for an album to drive snow covered roads to. Listening to this is like listening to a radio tuned between three stations, where one is playing the most beautiful melodies you have ever heard, another is playing organ music recorded in a gothic cathedral, and yet another is playing nordic-techno. The music is of a crystal fragility, and it is layered beneath dissonant statics and hisses. It is also utterly entrancing. I haven't heard… Read More
Marnie Stern–This is It and I am it and You are It…
Friday, November 28th, 2008
I hope there is such a thing as a Marnie Stern wall-poster, and I hope that many of them are hanging on the bedroom doors of rock-aspiring young women everywhere. This chick is completely kick ass. Her new album "This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That" is one of the strongest records of the year. Stern's Deerhoof-ish guitar leads the way in this uncompromising album, but her voice--more rhythm than melody--and the spasmodic drums push this… Read More
Analyzing–REALLY Analyzing–A Hard Day’s Night
Monday, November 24th, 2008
In this fun little paper, Jason Brown, a professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Dalhousie University, uses Fourier Transforms to figure out what notes are being played in that first chord of A Hard Day's Night. Turns out, common transcriptions must be wrong--and a piano is involved.
Even math is more fun in Canada!
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Even math is more fun in Canada!
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Whose Laughing Now?
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
Just got this video forwarded from my friend and economic badger Saltuk Ozerturk. Peter Schiff, against laughter and ridicule, correctly analyzes our economic plight and for the right reasons--two years ago. It's a lesson, I think, in sticking with the fundamentals and not being cowed by mockery when you know what you are saying. Makes Fox News once again look awful.
Ruler–Marnie Stern (Video)
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008Shadow Country by Peter Mathiessen
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008
I, for one, am not at all surprised that Shadow Country by Peter Mathiessen has won the National Book Award. It is one of the grandest pieces of fiction published in this country in the last decade. Like another book on that short list, Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon, Shadow Country is a true American novel. It centers around the life, death and legacy of Edgar Watson who is the sort of morally compromised pioneer that has no doubt always been at the edge of new frontiers. The novel is at once a detailed portrait of… Read More
Sarah Palin and Turkey Torture
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Boy, I hate to put two animal misery videos back to back on the blog, but I couldn't pass this up. This is a video of Sarah Palin, who apparently went to a turkey farm to "pardon" a turkey before thanksgiving. She then gave an interview while turkeys were being slaughtered behind her. It's rather surreal.
Meet your Meat
Thursday, November 20th, 2008
Today was animal rights day in my intro class. It was probably the preachiest I've been all year. (Next class, though, is Famine, Affluence and Morality. That'll take the cake.) I refrained from forcing them to sit through Meet your Meat, so I've decided to post it here. If you eat factory farm meat, which if you eat meat you probably do, I'd suggest giving this a look.