"Octopus 1..."

I've been sick all day...so naturally that means I felt like doing a pastel sketch of Paul the physic Octopus trolling the entire German nation.

It'd be interesting to know if anyone's betting with Paul for the final/semi-final game. I like the idea of thousands of people all over the world placing hundreds of thousands dollars in the hands of an octopus. Sure, he's got a lot of hands, but still...

Duotrope's Digest - A freelance writers bible

I stumbled across this the other day one of those convoluted link hunts then went from Craigslist to Wikipedia to a few shitty blogs (like this one!) and back again.

Doubtless many people already know about this- I am probably very late to the party- but 'Duotrope's Digest' is one of the best writers resources I've ever seen.

It's a simple, cleanly-designed, fully customizable and searchable list of magazines, websites, and publications that publish fiction, poetry, and other writing.

If anyone else has ever struggled with finding places to send work, or laboured through one of those 'writers market' guides only to find half the things in their have changed, this is a godsend.

You can go to it here.

Image from wiki commons, author Mohylek. I own no rights to it, see this page for licensing information.

"Sorry You're Smoking Dicks, Hopium..." WTF

I follow HuffPost Politics on facebook, for some vague reason I'm not terribly sure of. It paid off today though, as I got to witness this utterly retarded debate by a few tea-baggers and a few tax-dodging conspiracy nuts who all happen to be masters of the terrible bun.
Lay back, enlarge the image, and hit the 'hopium' pipe.

Memory, Nostalgia, and Command and Conquer

I got bitten by the nostalgia bug pretty bad tonight.

I was browsing reddit and somebody posted a little comment about the first Command And Conquer game, which came out almost exactly 15 years ago.

At 22, I'm a child of the Nintendo generation. I spent far to much time as a youngster playing Super Mario, and Zelda, and Megaman, and god knows what else. But Command and Conquer occupies a special place in my memory- it was the first real game I ever played on computer (math blaster doesn't count), and it was so different from anything else I'd played till that point.

For those that don't know, Command and Conquer is one of the best of the first 'RTS', or 'real-time strategy' games. They're old hat now, but then it was a pretty novel concept- place the player in control of a faction that can build buildings, create units (tanks, soldiers, helicopters), and then wage war against each other, all in real time.

A far cry from running around as a little Italian plumber correcting floating orbs, C&C pits you as an unseen military or terrorist leader, leading squads of men and vehicles into bloody battle. I played the hell out of this game, for probably months, getting roundly trounced by the single player campaign, and wholly slaughtered anytime I ventured onto the primitive online world.

And then my disk broke.

Which sucked for a while, but as happens, new bigger, better games come out, old ones get supplanted, and the slew of sequels to the Command and Conquer franchise, which are all basically the same game with slight updates, didn't really lead me to want to dig up a copy of the first one.

So tonight, with fond memories in my head, I googled it, downloaded it, went through the not-terribly complex compatibility process -most old games don't run well on new operating systems, and require extensive tinkering to get to work- and then fired it up.

Rarely do we get a chance to revisit something that has existed only in our memory for over a decade. Or perhaps I'm just young enough that this happened yet.

But all the usual nostalgia trips are closed to me- the houses and areas I've lived in I either visit enough to keep the memory fresh, or they've been torn down and radically altered. What books and movies I had as a kid have never left my collection, and only occasionally do I come across some old thing I wrote or made and not have a mostly clear memory of what my thought process (or lack thereof) was.

So the first thing I encountered was the installer- same breathy voice, same minimalist design, same silly atmosphere. One of the things about this game that was so great was that it really went to extra lengths to draw you into it's paper-thin world.

The intro movie- a collection of short bursts of different channels showing the state of the earth they'd created- was also exactly as I remembered. I was even calling the cuts and talking along to the dialogue.

Wow, I was thinking, my memory is spot on.

And then the actual game started, and I was a bit more iffy. Each mission is introduced with a Full-Motion-Video of some hammy actor/actors describing your mission and providing a slip of back story. Some of the actors I remembered, some of them, even very important ones, were totally foreign.

Graphically, it was about how I remember, and though it was old it aged well- many old games stand the test of time simply because they're graphics are simple and serviceable, whereas many games made during transitional periods- i.e, the switch to 3D- are so ugly to be almost unplayable because they were trying to hard to cash in on shaky new technology they didn't understand and couldn't make proper use of.

It was a bit though, like going to some place you thought was so huge as a kid, and releasing how small you actually were. The levels are tiny, designed well, but feel arbitrary. I remembered sprawling forests and fields dotted with rivers and cliffs, what I saw were little sections of maybe a few football fields with some terrain cribbed in for good measure.

One of the memories of this game, which has stuck with me for some reason, was of one of the early levels where you have to knock out the enemy's SAM anti-air missile installations so you can call in air support. I remember this level being so hard, me slowly creeping tiny groups of my men forward to wear them down before the enemy tanks swung around.

I beat this level in about 4 minutes, with a mass of units just running forth, doing whatever they pleased. Gone was the drama, the excitement, and I could only be puzzled as to why this had seemed so much larger a moment back then.

The answers are obvious- I'm smarter, years of playing games have led me to understand the mechanics and how to abuse them, at this point thousands of RTS games have been released so it doesn't feel so novel- but the memory still remains in my head. This new experience hasn't washed it out, or changed how feel about playing the game back then in any way.

All told, there were several of these moments, and similar ones- "Wow, this game is so much easier now" and "Fuck this, this is only hard because the computer is cheating," and " I remember thinking she was a lot hotter." I probably only played it for about an hour, had my fill, and removed it from my computer with nary a second thought.

But it got me thinking about much larger issues- if my memory could be both so right, and so wrong, so correct but then so warped, then what does that mean about the rest of it? What does that mean about my memories of ex-girlfriends, charged events, fights, trips, families? I've always known that memory is highly fallible and often self-creating, but I also feel like there are a lot of moments that I remember perfectly, and those are memories that I 'revisit' often, and they feel unchanged since the day and moment they were made.

This is news to probably no one, and I apologize if you've read this far expecting some big pay-off, some big insight to justify the several thousands of words it's taken me to get here. But it's just rare that you get the opportunity to pit yourself against your own memory in such a way where it's obvious how right, and how wrong, you are.

Sally Seltmann - Heart That's Pounding

Over jaunty guitars and sprightly keys, sometime Fiest collobarator Sally Seltmann sings earnestly about being in love, being happy, becoming a better person, and...well, several thinly-veiled variations on those themes.

It's interesting and somewhat refreshing to hear someone avoid the common topics of depression and loneliness and instead focus on overwhelming positives, but - and maybe I just have a penchant for melancholy- over the length of a whole album, it gets old, and you keep hoping for some darkness to creep up to provide a change of pace.

'Heart That's Pounding' represents an interesting, but not unexpected twist Seltmann, who formerly released very textured and dreamlike, confessional music under the moniker New Buffalo.

Her debut under her own name is more straightforward, more generic-indie sounding- but she's still a talented songwriter and imbues every track with a clever hook, a catchy chorus, or an interesting little moment that keeps the album moving along. I was wholly un-surprised to discover she'd co-written '1234' after hearing this- that song could exist on 'Heart That's Pounding' as easily as it does on 'The Reminder.'

Ultimately though, this will prove to be a pretty divisive release. Just as some will find her fresh-faced lyrics and delivery empowering, others will see it as naive and annoying- and it's hard not to take issue with the sheer number of times the phrase 'hold me tightly' crops up on track after track. You could design a very effective drinking game based solely around that idea and a shuffle button.

When it comes down to it, though, it's hard to knock 'Heart That's Pounding' too much, since it becomes really obvious after a few listens that she's poured her unshakeably happy soul into the CD. It may not be something I'll personally listen too again- aside from the albums gospel-tinged closer and my personal favorite, 'Dark Blue Angel'- but for those swept up by the irrepressibly buoyant singer-songwriters charms, you probably couldn't do much better.

Daedulus - Righteous Fists of Harmony

Daedulus has been making expiremental and genre-bending electronic music for almost a decade, and 'Righteous Fists of Harmony,' his 10th release and first for Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, is an intriguing concept EP- a sound track to the Chinese Boxer Rebellion- that may inititially underwhelm, but proves itself upon repeated listens.

It opens with 'An Armada Approaches,' a curious and ominous track composed of two slow building, dread inducing sections. The cynic in me wonders if he wrote two openings and couldn't decide which one he liked better, as both parts serve the same purpose, but in the end they go together quite well.

From there on out, it's an interesting mash of sounds and styles, unified by the constant presence and intrusion of cinematic, nostalgic strings, and skittering drum loops.
There's the airy and pleasant, samba-esque 'Order of the Golden Dawn', the reverb-laden and unsettlingly romantic 'Stampede Me,' the enveloping, and comparitevly conventional 'The Open Hand Avows'.

What's curious is, for how disjointed many of these songs are from each other, and sometimes, from themselves, the album still manages to maintain some sort of overarching continuity.

Partly, this is due to a handful of tracks that bracket the album and the more adventurous songs. Though sonically interesting, they do little but help us transition between the varying styles and provide a sort of anchor, which brings us to 'the problem' with 'Righteous Fists of Harmony'- it's less of an album and more of a 26-minute composition.

It absolutely demands to be listened to in it's entirety. With the exception of 'Order of the Golden Dawn' and perhaps one or two others, it's hard to imagine listening to many of these songs on their own. Which isn't to say that they're bad, but without the framework and context of the album as a whole, they're just not necessarily terribly interesting.

Ultimately, 'Righteous Fists of Harmony' will probably go down as a solid and thoroughly creative addition to Daedulus' discography, but not an essential release. It's good, but it's more of an engaging novelty then an album on its own.

Alex B - Moments

'Moments', the self-released (on his own label, Elm&Oak) debut album from Pnuma Trio bassist and dj/producer Alex B, comes off more like a demo reel or a mix-tape then a full album.

It hits all the necessary notes- there's the obligatory rap collaboration, the song that samples dialogue from a sci-fi flick, the laid back, step-tinged track with females vocals- even a few repetitive beats just begging to be looped from a boom-box and free-styled over.

Now, this isn't to say that 'Moments' is bad, or conventional- there is a lot to like, from the shuffling bass and staccato vocal stabs on 'You and I Both Know' to the engagingly off-beat, introspective 'Talk it Out.'

But aside from those, and a handful of other tracks, most of the 17 songs on 'Moments' barely have time to develop. A beat is introduced, tweaked a little, and just when you expect it to evolve further, it cuts out. Few songs take off like you want them to, and far too many breeze by with hardly an impact.

Partly, this may be due to design. As the title suggests, most of 'Moments' songs are short little electro-vignettes, with the bulk clocking in around the 2:30 mark. But whether intentional or not, the end result is a CD containing a lot of interesting, but half-formed, ideas. It's no surprise that the best songs- like the aforementioned 'You and I Both Know'- are also the ones that feel like they've been given the most attention.

It's undeniable that Alex B knows how to make beats- the question for the future is whether he knows where to go with them.

Spoon - Transference (Review 2)

Transference is an interesting departure for Spoon.

Gone and buried are most of the bands poppier impulses- well, buried as deep as the usually effortlessly catchy band is capable of.

But Transference is all about songs that simmer along but never really explode, subtle production touches that warp and guide the music in unexpected directions. Vocals reverb out of nowhere, briefly overwhelm, and then cut straight out.

There's hardly a solo to be heard, with Daniels content to merely pound chord progessions into your brain with a single-minded punk ferocity unseen in his music since Spoon's earlier days.

But that's not to say this album is a throwback. 

Spoon ventures boldly into new territory on this album, building, and improving upon, the atmospheric 'The Ghost of You Lingers' from 'Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.' It's no coincidence that that was also Daniels favourite song from the last record, as the longest and most important tracks on this CD share a similar slowly unwinding mentality.

That's not to say Transference is all quasi-minimalist pop rock.
'Written In Reverse' is a gutsy blues-comp that Daniels has probably been wanting to write all his life, and 'Nobody Gets me But You' and 'Who Makes Your Money' are Spoon at their hooky and quirky best, while the previously released single 'Got Nuffin' continues to circle my brain almost daily.

But Transference is definitely sign of a shift within the band, and, in my opinion, after a few listens comes off as probably their strongest whole album next to the seminal 'Gimme Fiction'.

It's a bit off-kilter, but they sell it with so much confidence and sincerity that you can't help but feel this is exactly the album they wanted to make.

My Five Favourite Up-and-Coming Songstresses

1. Beach House

Beach House makes atmospheric, reverb-laden music from another time- the 1960's. 
Honestly, you could probably throw a few of Beach House's songs on a Jefferson Airplane and Dusty Springfield mix cd and pass them off as from the era. 
Victoria Legrand, the bands singer, comes from music royalty stock- her family tree contains many famous and not-so-famous musician and singers from the decade her music so beautifully invokes. 
Though both critically lauded, and occasionally lambasted, for staying more or less within the same soundscape over the course of multiple albums, I personally have no issue with that. 
She can write as many of these songs as she wants, and I'll just keep putting them all on shuffle.


2. Lyyke Li.

Lyyke Li's debut album Youth Novels has been out for a little more then a year, and though it's been a slow go commercially, she's racked up a whole host of fellow musicians as supporters.
Her quirky Swedish style and unique voice- combined with her rare ability to sound live almost exactly as she does in the studio- has made her a critical darling, and it's only a matter time before goes big. 
Or, at least, bigger.


3. St Vincent.

I saw St Vincent at Bumbershoot before I really knew who she was, and either didn't pay as much attention as I should, or her debut CD didn't take me like her second release, 'Actor', has.
Either way, I've fallen in love with her music pretty hard. 
I must admit, I'm a sucker for things that are a bit odd, and her detuned, beautifully ugly solos and consistently unsettling lyrics strike all the rights chords for me.
Though she's been performing for years, with the prolific Sufjan Stevens, and as a member of the Polyphonic Spree, it was only with Actor that she started to earn any sort of critical or commercial success.
With her music getting more confident, and shifting towards the darker and more personal as opposed to the pleasant but glossy folk-pop of her debut, I expect good things from her in the future.


4. The Heartless Bastards

They've been around for a while now- I think almost seven years- and flitted at the edges of fame but never quite made that final leap.
Why that is I'm not quite sure- lead singer/songwriter Erika Wennerstron is one of the most soulful and authentic voices in rock, and her lyrics masterfully elicit timeless themes that rockers have tread for years, whilst still sounding new.
Whatever reason, it can hardly be said that the Heartless Bastards are doing poorly- they have a rabid, and rabidly growing fan base, consistent critical acclaim, are touring with the newly reformed and reshuffled Wolfmother, whose throwback stoner rock will compliment them nicely.


5. Viva Voce

Viva Voce play charming and disarming roots tinged pop- that is, until Guitarist and singer Anita Robinson decides to go crazy and bust out a face-melting solo that'll make even the narrowest of rock or metal fans stand up and take notice.
Though a girl masterfully playing guitar can occasionally become a gimmick, it's the strength of Viva Voces music and songwriting that sell the band- and the variety of their catalog, combined with the frenetic energy of their live shows, that have earned them their steadily growing reputation.

Thoughts on Joining oDesk

I joined oDesk today, as craigslist is not really providing any freelance or contract writing work of note lately.

I have to say that I was initially impressed by the scale of the site, the amount of jobs offered, and the professionalism and simplicity with which everything was done.

That said, when my account was finally established, my profile written, and few competency tests were taken, I started to really go through the job marketplace and see what was going on.

Now, like I stated in the beginning, I just joined oDesk, so I could quite easily not have any idea as to what I'm talking about. But the bids on some of these jobs are so low as to be insane- their are groups posting for 50, 60, 100 articles to be written- 400, 500, 750 word articles- for 1$ USD an article!


I'm a fairly fast writer. I'm no one-man sweatshop, but in about one hour, I can research a knowledge-extensive topic, and write a 750 word keyword-laden article about it, proof it, and lay it out in a fairly standard, but attractive way.

Now, of course, that's an hour of really working, not an hour of passively messing around on the internet every few minutes and getting distracted by every shiny link that comes my way.
To be sure, there are many more realistic bids on oDesk I came across, but they seemed to be vastly outnumbered by the sheer horde of vaguely slave-labor types- and what's more bizarre is that these super-cheapo  posts have tons of bids.

I joined the website because I need money- and obviously, there are a large pool of people, seemingly predominantly from third-world, or under-developed countries on oDesk, who need money much more then I do, as they are taking these unfathomably low jobs.

And while part of me wants to say good on them, and another part of me wants to curse them for forcing me to work well below my countries minimum wage, I can't help but wonder about the thin line between providing opportunities and exploitation.

I guess sometimes the two just go hand in hand? Thoughts?

Black Dynamite - A Fistful of AWESOME

Black Dynamite is a film nerds wet dream.
It is, quite probably, the single greatest throwback/genre spoof ever made, I'd say perhaps even beating out Tarantino's Deathproof for single minded devotion to genre conventions.
Of course, both films stray in their own ways- Black Dynamite by playing for laughs, and Deathproof by being tremendously self-indulgent- though, that never stopped me from enjoying it.
But I don't mean to even remotely suggest that you have to be a scholar of blaxploitation or 70's cinema to enjoy Black Dynamite- far from it.
The film is hilarious. Michael Jai White, who also co-wrote the script, absolutely owns the roll of 'Black Dynamite,' a jive-talkin' street-walkin' badass who becomes embroiled in a war against drug pushers, corrupt governmental officials, the 'Man', and other increasingly ridiculous foes.
Far too often these types of films are all about winking and nodding at the camera and saying 'look, we made a zombie film!' or ' hey, we're making a kung-fu movie!!' then they are about actually trying to make a film. They take away all the stereotypes, all the commonalites and mistakes that plague genre flicks...but they don't take away the parts that make them entertaining.
Black Dynamite skirts that trap nicely, for most of the film, though I won't deny there were some things that were probably a bit much.
But still, all the weirdness we love from blaxploitation and 70's action flicks is beautiful recreated- the silly plots, the constant dramatic reveal of characters histories that make no sense, the gratuitous sexuality, the wildly varying acting, the terrible editing, camera work, sound design, the scripts that have probably been recut and rewritten so many times, or so hastily, the swaths of the film make no sense and don't relate- it's all more or less here, and generally done subtly enough that it doesn't just become a gimmick, but a part of the film.
Black Dynamite is the most sincere genre throwback ever made. And it's also the most awesome mutha-fuckin' movie ever made.
Probably.

The Unexpected Fallout from Hot Chip's New Video.

Hot Chip : Not Male Models.

Quirky electro-dance act Hot Chip released probably the most bizarrely amazing music video of all time a few days ago. It almost instantly went viral all over the net, and has probably brought them more exposure in three days then they've gotten with all three of their previous CDs combined.

If you haven't seen it, it's the video for 'I Feel Better' from their new album 'One Life Stand,' and can be viewed here. Go watch it.

So, you and me both know, that the four boy-band-looking model types playing Hot Chip in the video are not, in fact, Hot Chip, just a satire of over-produced boy bands, and apparently, a direct dig at British group JLS. Even if we didn't know what Hot Chip looked like, the sheer absurdity of the video and the constant pans to the nerdy-looking fellows in the crowd would tip us off.

But for some people, a giant, disembodied black man who shoots lasers out of his eyes is not a good enough give away that something is up.

All over the internet, on music gossip sites, forums, places like youtube and vimeo, and even in places that cater to a generally more 'in-the-know' crowd such as digg and reddit- people are coming away with from this video with the idea that Hot Chip are some terrible new English boy-band.


You know, it's not terribly surprising, if you really consider the video.

The whole thing is played extraordinarily straight. Up until the so called 'cancer jesus' starts spitting lasers, at almost a minute and a half, almost nothing truly weird has happened. If I hadn't been in on the joke the whole time, I probably would have backspaced out not long after the intro.

I'm sure the song itself has some impact. I'm an avid Hot Chip fan, and it took me several listens to get into 'I Feel Better' and not wonder if I accidentally turned on some millennial club mix. Expecting someone for whom this is not their type of music, to listen to it for nearly two minutes with very little payoff, is expecting a lot.

It's hard to tell what, exactly, the fall-out of this will be. Undoubtedly it's brought Hot Chip a lot of new fans, and those who are confused by the video probably don't matter much because they probably wouldn't like Hot Chip in the first place.

But it's an interesting case study in marketing gone wrong- I can't imagine any band wanting to achieve a few fleeting moments of internet fame, only to be mistaken for a bunch of prancing male models. Somehow, though, it rather fits Hot Chip's absurd nature.

Devendra Banhart and the Grogs at the Showbox, Seattle - March 18th, 2010

When Devendra Banhart walked onstage, I didn't even recognize him.
Once known more for his bizarre dress and on stage antics, the former king of freak-folk looked downright respectable as he took the microphone- beardless, short haired, and wearing only a black shirt and jeans.
It took only one warbled note, however, to connect that wholly unique voice to the face.
He's currently touring with the Grogs, his backing band with which he's been playing for several years. It's comprised of several talented musicians- many of them leaders of their own bands, as well as Rodrgio Amarante of Little Joy, and whole menagerie of other side projects.
The set was varied and well put-together. They started with a few tracks from 'What Will Be,' Banhart's first major label album and probably his most conventional.
After a bit, the Grogs headed off and Banhart played a bunch of his older songs, including the brilliantly melancholy 'A Sight to Behold' and everyone's favourite slightly unhinged children's song, 'Little Yellow Spider.'
He talked briefly of Alex Chilton's death the previous day, saying he had too much respect for the man to attempt a Big Star cover.

The Grogs stealthily returned, quietly coming in during 'We All Know', before blasting in to a series of dancier, louder tunes, including a hard-edged version of the, on the record at least, rather pallid '16th and Valencia.'
The rest of the show was a bit of a mixed bag.
Banhart is an excellent showman, and he is eminently watchable, able to sell even the silliest of lyrics and endow his sometimes childish impulses with a sense of gravity.
The Grogs are a great backing band, and the interplay between the musicians was fascinating, as they took a lot of requests, and often seemed to be watching each other for chord changes and cues.
But when it came time for each of them, in term, to perform one of their own songs, the energy faltered a bit, with only Amarante's rendition of Little Joy's 'Shoulder to Shoulder' really winning the crowd over.
There was a lot of filler towards the end, and though the set all but concluded with the epic, sabbath-inspired 'Seahorse,' many of the songs before and after came and went with nary an impact.
That said, the show was always fun, the music was never bad, if not compelling, and there was no one in the crowd who was not hanging on every word and every lyric Banhart uttered.
I would have liked to have seen him at the peak of his weirdness, but I have nothing but good things to say about this new, straightforward version.

Unfortunately, Devendra Banhart was not dressed like this.

What Can Google Teach Us About Relationships?

Google auto-complete has proved to be very revealing feature about our society.
When you type something in, it brings up the most searched and goggled phrases that, in the algorithms eyes, best complete what you're about to say.
Sometimes it's downright spot on, lending credence to that whole 'if you have a question, 5 other people do too' saying my teachers always used to say when nobody would ever raise their hand.
But sometimes, it's a bit wierd...

How do people feel about their boyfriends?

What about their girlfriends?

So there's a decent amount of syncing up there. Looks like pretty much everyone is suspicious of their partners, terrified of being pregnant, and seriously doubting their mates character, considering the amount of 'is my girlfriend/boyfriend cheating on me' variants that appear.
Of course, I'm sure that all changes when you get married...

How do people feel about their husbands...

...and wives?

Surprise, surprise...the exact same trends emerge.

What Can Google Teach Us About Life? March Edition.

This is part of a (someday) long running series where I post what Google auto-complete seems to feel is the burning questions of the month by asking it the very elementary What, Why, When, Where, and How?

These are the results on March 1st, 2010.
For next months results, go to (next month hasn't happened yet.)

Pretty boring for this month.

I am so curious to now why people were asking google 'Why can't I own a Canadian?' 

Also, I wonder if there is a faint overlap between the 'Why is my poop green' and 'Why do dogs eat poop' people?

Where is Santa right now? In March? Seriously? Probably has something to do with the Justin Bieber mania. 

It's a bit sad that Haiti is so close and nobody seems to know where it is, though I guess it's good that they're looking.

When will I die? You're asking Google that?

How to kiss, how to lose weight fast, how to get pregnant. It almost tells a story.

Well, there's the March 2010 results. Click here to go to the next month and see what's changed!

Kim Jong-il Redubbed : Part 2

Continued from Part One

These pictures are from the Boston Globes Big Picture Blog- for more context, please go to Part One and read the introduction.

Kim Jong-Il : The Redub (Part 2)

"This is the worst buffet I have ever seen. I'd rather go to the Royal Fork then eat this dreck."

"Dear Leader, our sweatshops are staffed with the only finest of underage slaves."

The worst day in Dear Leader's life was the discovery that gummy bears were not, in fact, magic.

Even though they'd run out of food, at least they had shoes. Glorious, glorious shoes.

The new law that Kim Jong-Il get first taste of every birthday cake was not terribly popular.

Dear Leader spent 30 minutes berating the head of wheat until someone gathered the courage to tell him he was facing the wrong way.

North Korean sperm bank technology is several decades behind the rest of the world.

"...And this is the right way to grab a grape. If I see anyone doing it a different way, they will be shot. Are you watching? Is everyone watching? I'm not going to repeat it."

Though he'd never let on, there was only one thing Dear Leader feared more then a populist revolt: The Dreaded Back Pig, Messenger of God and Destroyer of Dictators.

"What is this 4Chan I keep hearing about?"

And so the blog empire begins...

I got my first click yesterday!
Not on this blog, which doesn't have ads, as you may notice (though, that said, it may by the time you read this.)
Nope, the adsense click came another blog I maintain http://dayofthezombie.blogspot.com/, which is a super-niche blog about zombies, zombie movies, and zombie news.
The idea and intent was to create a site that would attract mostly visitors that were directly invested in learning more about what they were searching for. With it, I'm not casting my net wide trying to just rack up pure traffic, but to specifically target a very certain audience, with the hope that as a result they the blog more usefull, look around it more, and maybe get lost in some of the articles.
If, during that, they click an ad, while that's just fine with me.
I also added amazon associates to the blog, because it's all about what zombies movies to watch and own, and which to avoid, so it doesn't feel terribly out-of-place or like too much of a stretch.
I don't expect to make money off of this. While, I mean, I hope I do. But realistically, I've looked into blogger pretty heavy and my expectations are not too high, specially not with that blog being as focused as it is.
But you know, if I could make enough for a cup of coffee or a beer someday, that would be alright with me. Because the writing, the constant writing, is the main focus, especially as I've been taking a lot of SEO jobs lately. I figure why be doing it solely for other people, when I could be doing it for myself?
I'm constantly looking for ways to pare down my writing, make it more interesting, make it good for the internet without sacrificing any style or skill.
Even if this is the only click it ever gets, it'll still be time well spent. I don't think anytime spent learning something can really be called time wasted.
That said...I sure hope it gets more clicks.

An Open Letter to MSTRKRFT (Review of Fist of God)

Dear MSTRKRFT,


You are awesome. We get it.


Even if you have pretty much one synth sound that you've ridden and abused to all hell- it's fine, because it sounds suitably bad-ass. 


Even if your style is so easily triangulated as to be discernible in any remix or collaboration almost instantly, it's not a problem.


You've never pretended to be anything other then an awesome dance party, and you've fulfilled that role to the tee. When you came out, saying all this shit about trying to rescue the dance floor, we might have thought that was a bit ballsy, but you delivered.


I'll admit- I worshiped at the altar of Death From Above 1979. When that band broke up, I devoured anything and everything you put out as soon as it was available. I was driving around town blasting your shit before you'd even released Paris, when you were just a few remixes and maybe the hint of a future EP.


And now you've put out 'Fist Of God'...and it's more of the same. But that's actually not that bad part- I'd be totally fine with that. Your music is awesome. It's your vocals I can't stand.


Seriously, nearly every song on this album has been ruined by some middling singer/rapper spewing out terrible shit over the music. At least with your debut, the ratio of excellent to irritating was limited to "She's Good For Business".


The other songs were awesome. The quirky vocoding, the hypersexual and campy lyrics- they didn't detract a bit from the sheer skull-fucking dance madness that is your music.


But...what's going on? What's happened to you? YOU HAVE A SONG ABOUT TWO GUYS WATCHING EACH OTHER SHIT AND PISS!


That's not cool. That's not sexy. It doesn't make me want to dance. It makes me want to clean my face.


Yes, 'Bounce' is probably one of the best party songs ever. But still...if you step back and actually listen to what Nore is saying, it amounts to some variation on "I'm Nore, You're MSTRKRFT, We party." Maybe that's good enough for you. For that song, it probably is. I'm not going to complain about that song. I haven't been able to get it out of my heads for months.


But, your collaborations with 'Jahmal of the Carp' sound like bad disco/soul, mostly because that's what that guy is wailing.


You make the excellent 'Click Click' and then let E-40 shit all over all the best parts.


You collaborate with Ghostface Killah...and then proceed to make a song where HE DOESN'T RAP. 


That is what he does. That is why he is famous. I was stoked for this song...until I actually heard it. Thats like inviting Frank Lloyd Wright over to design a birdhouse, or calling up Picasso because you made a scuff on your bedroom wall and wanted to paint over it. 


In summation- What the hell, man? You're still MSTRKRFT, and still awesome, and I'm still going to put this CD on any playlist relating to anything involving motion, but, you know, I can't help but feel like we're growing a bit apart.


People change, I know. I just wish you hadn't changed into such a drunken frat party.


Sincerely,
Me.


PS. Having looked over the lyrics for 1000 Cigarettes, I realize that it's not about two guys watching each other 'shit and piss', but about him watching hot chicks go to the bathroom in his house while he spies on them and does the same.


I was wrong, but I'm still speechless.

Kim Jong-il Redubbed

The Boston Globe's Big Picture Blog is pretty amazing.
They recently ran a series photos of candids shot by the North Korean Central News Agency depicting Kim Jong-il's conducting a series of unannounced guidance visits to a bunch of businesses and factories in North Korea.
In all seriousness, the photos paint a dismal picture- no one is smiling, everyone looks like they might get shot at any second, and everyone is watching every motion of 'dear leader' as if their life depends on it. And it probably does.
But, as I scrolled through the list, a number of the pictures made me laugh out loud. We know Kim Jong-il is insane- but with a little creative re-captioning, we realize we didn't quite know the extent.

Kim Jong-Il : Redubbed

" You call these crackers? You are making our nation a joke! From here on out, all crackers must be at least 4" by 6"- any less, and our motherland weeps with tears of shame."

"With these buckets, we are now able to complete phase 5 of my world domination plan- Operation Sand Castle Overload."

Dear Leader always wondered what the sound of one hand clapping was. No one had the heart to tell him he was doing it wrong.

"Do you have a copy of Wuthering Heights? No? What about Lady Chatterly's Lover?"

" You see? Proof that snow grows on trees. Have the Weather Minister shot."

"With all this fruit wrapped in plastic, no one will be able to tell it's not real."

"Is this a joke?! The real school will have to be...at least 3 times bigger!"

"Dear Leader finds the purity of your urine...to be satisfactory."

ON TO PART 2

Spoon - Transference (Review)

My first thought, upon listening to Transference a few weeks before it released, courtesy of NPR, was this it was a whole CD built upon 'The Ghost of You Lingers.'
That's actually how I described it to a few people, and though my opinion of the album has changed quite a bit since then, I think it remains pretty valid.
Like that track, this album simmers and rolls along but never really explodes. It's full of weird, subtle production touches and songs that just seem to hover,  linger, and vanish, without taking off like you expect them to.
Initially, I wasn't too taken with it. I love Spoon- and have for years- and while there wasn't anything I could point to specifically, I was just pretty meh about the whole thing. There wasn't any song that was particularly standing out to me, and I found some of the lyrics a bit silly, especially the opening to 'Written in Reverse' a bit silly: "I'm writing this to you in reverse / Someone better call a hearse."
But...I kept wanting to hear the CD again, and seeking it out on the net when I could. 'Got Nuffin' and 'Who Makes Your Money' proved to be quite the unsuspecting earworms, and the albums closer 'Nobody Gets Me But You' has firmly grounded itself in my brain.
With a few weeks to listen to it, I can say that's it's grown on me massively. It's a stronger CD as a whole then 'Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga,' though nearly it's polar opposite. That was a like a string of unrelated but solid, poppy songs- and this is probably their most cohesive CD ever.
You get the sense, though, from listening to this CD, that this is exactly the album they wanted to make. Everything about it feels sincere, feels like it came together just as they wanted. Like Hot Chips also just released 'One Life Stand,' 'Transference' is a bit of a gamble- that succeeds both because of the talent of the band involved, and how wholly they invest themselves in the new direction they're taking.

What is the What? - Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng

Wow, talk about a consuming book.
A friend more or less forced it on me while I was really busy- I cracked it open one night when I had a few moments of spare time, thinking I'd just see what it was about- and then spent every fleeting free moment I had over the next few days devouring it.
'What is the What' is the story of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the several thousand Lost Boys of Sudan displaced in the civil war that gripped the country from the 80's to the mid 00's.
It follows his early childhood, as the first shadows of conflict begin to emerge, to the inevitable attacks on his village, his long, harrowing 'escape' to Kenya, his life in the purgatory of refugee camps and lawless and dangerous world outside, and then his entry into the United States and his experiences there.
From a technical standpoint, this book is a staggering achievement. Writing from Deng's perspective over a few days in America, as he thinks about his life after being attacked and robbed in his own home, brushed off by the police, and generally treated like the failure and non-person he feels he has become, Eggers has found a way to capture what one would imagine both talking too, and being, Deng, is like.
Though not technically a true biography, I also found the process of how this book was written quite fascinating. Starting and working with Deng's intense, and just unrelentingly tragic and violent life, Eggers blended holes in his life with the stories and expierences of other survivors and worked in important events that provide context and further understanding of what was going on.

They're upfront in all this- the introduction tells you that some characters are composites, that some conversations have been imagined when they couldn't be remembered, and so on- but the result is a book that is more 'real' then real, a story that becomes less about an individual man and his specific life, and more about a country, and a people, going through something terrible.
There is no shortage of violence and horror in this book, as it should be. I'd say much of what happens is unfathomable in it's cruelty and inhumanity, except these are the same kind of accounts that come out of every genocide and war in which civilians are targeted or considered expendable casualties, and however outraged people are, nothing ever seems to really get done.
Books as well done as this go a long way towards humanizing and keeping these sort of tragedies relevant and fresh, and might inspire more people to be more active in the future, when these sorts of things occur again...though I know that's a rather idealistic outlook. But I can hope.
All in all, this is a great book, easily recommendable. It's harrowing, it's quite sad, and a lot of the little triumphs become, in the end, bittersweet. There are moments where, I was reading, and simply came across something particularly effecting and turned my head to the side and kind of smiled in the same way you do when you receive terrible news, and simply couldn't look at the book.
But it's the sort of book you won't be able to put down, and won't be able to forget.
I'd recommend reading the book before you delve into all the interviews, and stuff about Valentino Achak Deng, but his charity, which provides educational opportunities in Sudan, can be found here.
After you've read it, you should really read Dave Egger's essay on the writing of the novel. It's pretty fascinating about how the book evolved over time and the processes that went into writing it.