tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57776032024-03-23T13:22:46.313-05:00The Architectural Dance Society<i>too much typing—since 2003</i>2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.comBlogger1065125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-23629780440684197802009-02-08T19:58:00.002-06:002009-02-08T20:59:30.884-06:00THE ARCHITECTURAL DANCE SOCIETY HAS MOVED<a href="http://spanghew.wordpress.com">New site: http://spanghew.wordpress.com</a> (it's also in the title line...) Please update your links - thanks!2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-13155394566740057812009-02-08T19:53:00.002-06:002009-02-08T19:58:07.496-06:00movin' on up...No, it's not exactly a deelux apartment in the sky (or even the Upper East Side) - but this is the (second)-last post at Blogger. I'm moving to WordPress. Primarily because of <a href="http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-05/music/google-39-s-new-killer-app-why-are-music-bloggers-39-posts-disappearing-and-who-is-deleting-them/" target="_blank">this</a>.<br /><br />I'd rather not find out a bunch of my entries have disappeared (so far, it looks like they haven't). It'll take me awhile to update all references...and unless Blogger deletes them, all entries will remain here (because hell of cross-referencing) - but no new posts here.<br /><br />Everything (except this and the last, place-holding entry) is now at <a href="http://spanghew.wordpress.com" target="_blank">my new digs</a>. If you've bookmarked or linked to this site, please change its URL to http://spanghew.wordpress.com. Thanks.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-39075835280660442042009-02-03T22:02:00.002-06:002009-02-03T22:13:08.910-06:00a deep and troubling mystery!What is the deal with institutional clocks? In the classroom I'm working in this semester, the wall clock has been wrong, differently, every day so far this semester...but always by approximately exact-hour intervals (in other words, it might say 5:11 when it's actually 10:11). The two nearest clocks in the hallway are also incorrect - and different both from one another and from the clock in my room, but also wrong by exact hours.<br /><br />This is something I've noticed about institutional clocks, in schools, universities, and the like, for years...and it baffles me. In the rest of the world, setting a clock is no big deal: it runs accurately for a good long time, and sure, once in a while someone might forget which way to move it when Daylight Saving Times comes or goes, and so for a while it might be two hours out of whack - but that's easily corrected. What doesn't happen is random, arbitrary shifting of the time such clocks tell.<br /><br />There seems to be some centralized (or at least distant) control for institutional clocks...since, as I'm sure you've all observed, when they're wrong, sometimes they suddenly start progressing rapidly forward or backward. Presumably someone somewhere is causing this to happen. But that still doesn't explain why such clocks are so prone to going wrong...or why when they do so, they're so often wrong by exact-hour intervals.<br /><br />One more thing: these are the same kind of clocks whose minute hands creep backwards for a second before advancing...a phenomenon well-known to clock-watching test-takers, causing momentary heart attacks as if they will <span style="font-style:italic;">never </span>get out of that room.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-2783804821606814492009-02-03T06:58:00.003-06:002009-02-03T07:16:31.106-06:00idiot politicians not just homegrown!It's good to know that people other than Americans can elect or appoint absolute morons to political office. <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28938136/" target="_blank">Here</a>, for example, is Martin Mullaney, councilor in Birmingham (UK) and head of that city's "transport scrutiny committee," on why Birmingham is eliminating apostrophes from its signage: "they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level in English to find it." For those who don't speak British, an "A-level" is roughly equivalent to high school (except in Britain, it usually means you can actually read).<br /><br />This is mind-boggling. One does not need a high-school degree to comprehend the use of apostrophes. I do not understand why people find them so confusing. (At the bottom of this post, isolated so as not to bore those of you who do know how to use them, is a brief guide to correct apostrophe usage.) The other reasons Mullaney adduces for coshing grammar on the head in Birmingham are equally ludicrous: apostrophes confuse GPS systems and cause people and emergency services to get lost (no, they don't, as the article points out...Mullaney clearly is not a member of the reality-based community), and they are "old-fashioned."<br /><br />All hail the modern illiteracy!<br /><br />While it's true that names like "St. Paul's Square" have a slightly fusty (and, to Americans, very British) air, so what? Shall we rename them all as "InterCorporate Way" to be all modern and entrepreneurial? <br /><br />Sadly, apostrophes' defenders are presented as if they're little old blue-haired ladies fussing over seventeen cats and condemning "strong language" such as "gosh-darned." I suppose there are more important things in the world - but why encourage further ignorance and illiteracy?<br /><br />(How to use apostrophes: 1. In contractions, to denote missing letters, as in "don't" for "do not," "let's" for "let us," "it's" (only!) for "it is," etc. 2. To denote possession: the object that "possesses" receives an apostrophe followed by an "s" in most cases: <span style="font-style:italic;">the ball of the dog</span> = <span style="font-style:italic;">the dog's ball</span>. If the possessor is plural and ends in an -s, simply append an apostrophe: of a group of politicians, <span style="font-style:italic;">the politicians' idiocy</span>. Some hold that if a singular noun or name ends in -s, only an apostrophe is sufficient, while others argue that -'s is still required. The second option is certainly not wrong, so err on the safe side. 3. Other uses: here's where confusion arises, I think. The main vector of confusion re apostrophes is "it's/its": possessive pronouns do not use apostrophes, even though some of them end in -s and otherwise look like the sort of word formed by adding an apostrophe and an "s." But this confusion is easily clarified: "it's" is <span style="font-style:italic;">always </span>"it is" - remember that, and you're good. Also: some use apostrophes to pluralize letters or numerals or capitalized abbreviations (i.e., "he has 1,000 CD's"). The second, at least, is pointless.)2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-20534308956961517752009-02-01T22:49:00.003-06:002009-02-01T23:11:55.026-06:00taxing the light fantasticApparently, there was some sort of "foot-ball" game played today?<br /><br />To continue imposing my grossly un-American lifestyle on the rest of you, I will be posting about some pretentious postmodern art consisting primarily of stuff you can buy at hardware stores.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.frieze.com/comment/article/legal_drama/" target="_blank">In a curious case</a>, a British court has ruled that, while some Bill Viola video installations and a Dan Flavin light piece could be regarded as "art" when it came to assessing their value, they were to be regarded merely as "electrical devices" when it came to deciding tax rates and whether customs duty needed to be paid (artworks are exempt from the latter and pay lower rates on the former). This seems both contradictory and rather nakedly self-serving, as obviously a collection of fluorescent light tubes, plugs, switches, and the like are worth relatively little in themselves but become much more valuable once they are assembled into a Dan Flavin piece. I'm at a loss as to exactly when that collection of objects - "electrical devices" at the moment they were subject to the higher tax rate and customs, "works of art" when it came time to assessing their value to determine those tax rates and customs duties - magically was transfigured.<br /><br />Perhaps it's sort of like Heisenberg's cat: the objects both were and weren't art simultaneously, until the proper authority ruled.<br /><br />The real problem pointed out by the article is that, as in many other areas (intellectual property being an obvious one), the categories defined by the law lag behind actual practice. By now, many artworks cannot readily be defined as either "painting," "print," or "sculpture" - and it is this fish/fowl issue that flummoxes the British courts and led them to their rather metaphysical flourish. <br /><br />Or maybe it was some sort of curious scientific/legal pun: light, after all, is both particle and wave, and both artists' work involves light.<br /><br />Adam Sandler's gonna make a movie about all this, I'm sure.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-66870525412868042322009-01-30T23:39:00.003-06:002009-01-30T23:51:27.262-06:00whoa, whoa - slow down you guys, I can't keep upI guess I should have expected this, after the Wrens made and ate a soup that contained samples of Robert Pollard's hair and fingernails: they've just made available for download two entire new songs in the last week or so!<br /><br />Of course, once again (as with "In Turkish Waters" and "Pulled Fences"), the new, untitled song posted at <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2009/01/26/wrens-watch-jan-26-2009-download-brand-new-wrens-song-below/" target="_blank">Magnet Magazine</span>'s site a week or so ago</a> is the same as <a href="http://stereogum.com/archives/progress-report/progress-report-the-wrens_049381.html" target="_blank">"Marked Up," posted at Stereogum</a>. It's even the same recording this time.<br /><br />So no, the Wrens haven't premiered four new songs online in the last few months...only two. Cheating bastards. It's that kind of sneaky repackaging that ensures that in twenty years, the chief economic output of the state of New Jersey will be endless permutations of the Wrens' scanty catalog.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-1115081766691395732009-01-30T11:04:00.001-06:002009-01-30T11:05:49.580-06:00décartournement<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xz07BFG6_EL_8x_XrXccHBB7UC5O6bnHRBWdtW_4qtZ-ZyruKVrC28rgpva2eJMoON9DaIiIg1XcNJwG2yMZNodMIbvn7EJKnXpSpETYgBhsF8NKpl2BekGY5L-XQY73iUI/s1600-h/decartournement.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xz07BFG6_EL_8x_XrXccHBB7UC5O6bnHRBWdtW_4qtZ-ZyruKVrC28rgpva2eJMoON9DaIiIg1XcNJwG2yMZNodMIbvn7EJKnXpSpETYgBhsF8NKpl2BekGY5L-XQY73iUI/s400/decartournement.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297134048814209570" /></a>2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-9447149178486019842009-01-30T11:00:00.001-06:002009-01-30T11:03:43.674-06:00opportunity missedA few days ago, I noticed that the Oriental Theater was playing four movies. The order may not be correct as billed on their marquee, but the four movies were <span style="font-style:italic;">The Wrestler</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Reader</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">Doubt</span>, and <span style="font-style:italic;">Milk</span>.<br /><br />It is my firm belief that whenever an array of movie titles can be formed into a comprehensible sentence, they should be so arranged; thus it is that this slate of films presents a tragically missed opportunity:<br /><br />DOUBT<br />THE WRESTLER<br />MILK<br />THE READER2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-88668283206337406952009-01-29T23:07:00.000-06:002009-01-29T23:08:01.630-06:00Slang King!Fans of The Fall know that Mark E. Smith has a peculiar way with language and in particular has a cracked way with song and album titles. So it's no surprise that a <a href=" http://tinyurl.com/al6tt5" target="_blank">long-running thread on Ye Olde Fallnet</a> assembles fake Fall song titles, albums, and even artwork.<br /><br />Some of my favorites (all peculiar spelling and punctuation is intentional):<br /><br />"Of Their Phalanx! Episode 7#"<br />"The Flaxen"<br />1919 Disco Man<br />Addendum: Rot<br />Adherents of Debris Field<br />Aerobics Instructor vs. Zeitgeist<br />Ailerons Deployed<br />Are/Am Chaotic<br />Bar Code Formulate<br />Batwalk Nacht<br />Benefiction<br />Blank Fizog<br />Burstwich Arse Fiend<br />Castle Vernacular<br />Cat Gut Violator<br />Chamber of Errors<br />Chipping Machine Ranger (Cut Up)<br />Claimant IV's Insights<br />Cogent Discourse Tits Up in Ditch<br />Cornwall Dross Horse<br />Cough It Up, Functionary<br />Crust-Choke!<br />D. Crypto-Knight<br />Daft Song<br />Drag Man in Gdansk<br />Dream-Coitus w/Cooking Show Presenter<br />Factotum* If Applic.<br />Fall Title Authentification Protocol<br />FD.brimmedfork<br />Final Represented Qty.<br />Flaccid Plumber in Accrington Pub<br />Gallic Trophy-Haulage Inc.<br />Gaza/Conflate 78<br />Hairline Plenitude Assessment Board<br />Ham-Fist<br />I Cudgel Sky Saxon<br />I'm an Inter-Mingler<br />Inasmuch<br />Krieg Walker-Stassen!!<br />Larcenist's Last Redoubt<br />Lost Guitarist in Pudding Shoppe<br />Manxchester Extent(acle)<br />MES Channels Dead Poetaster<br />Met Hasselhoff<br />My Malt Shuffle<br />Oblong Vector<br />Paltry Return on Service Rendered<br />Peg and Awl Fornicants<br />Physicks Defied at Last<br />Pilf en Rectifier<br />Pist M'Self<br />Pith of Chasm<br />PRCLJJ.3 (Oort Cloud)<br />Ring-Tone Slattern Not Without Appeal<br />Schlock Cartel (& Its Pitfalls)<br />Shatner!<br />Shift-Key Curses<br />Sloven After Kid Pouch.<br />Stept-Up! Trail-Forth!<br />The Hatred of Ombudsman Fowler<br />Tit Fuck Hash Key 7<br />Vix. Waned Sheik<br />Whelk Legion<br />7'23" Whatever Was Near Mic<br /><br />I believe these tracks would be assembled onto the following albums:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">And Within<br />Conjoined Twin Emulsifier<br />Crooked Gap in Eiger<br />Defeat the Retina - AKA The Exposure of Infinity<br />Marrow Transplant Rejection Queue<br />Partisan Slump Chronickle<br />The Frictionary E.P.</span><br /><br />And here are a few of my own:<br /><br />Shite Natterer (Sans Prefix)<br />Petomane Horse<br />The Winch/Whinge Retrograde<br />I'm Not Fookin Morrissey Am I<br />Flak Jacket<br />Drink-Reich Blighter<br />The Arse Whisperer<br />Cabin Essence*<br /><br />* Not a cover...just another song that happens to have this title, which is rather MES-like if you think about it.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-24552471554751820182009-01-27T07:03:00.001-06:002009-01-27T07:05:29.270-06:00because you needed to knowYou know the movie referenced in the first season of <span style="font-style:italic;">30 Rock</span>...the one whose title no one could pronounce? It turned out to be <span style="font-style:italic;">The Rural Juror</span>...but until now, the name of the actual titular character has never been revealed.<br /><br />It is "Earl Wuhrer."2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-42195632194200572892009-01-25T19:20:00.004-06:002009-01-25T22:43:02.602-06:00utterly, thoroughly, obliteratingly gobsmackedI've heard unlikely or obscure tunes muzak'd before...but unless the original song borrows a melody, I believe that today, I've topped everything along such lines I'd heard before: today, in a relatively upscale suburban mall, I heard a muzak version of The Bonzo Dog Band's "<a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-COYM.mp3">Canyons of Your Mind</a>." The original is (as you can hear if you listen) obviously goofin' on Elvis, particularly his big, dramatic ballads - but, as usual with the Bonzos, is built on a solid song underlying the broad, comedic antics (including The Worst Guitar Solo In The World).<br /><br />Seems as good a time as any to celebrate the Bonzos, a band that lays a fair claim to have been the main influence on Monty Python, and thereby an indirect influence on much of the comedy that follows. (In fact, Bonzos co-leader Neil Innes wrote many songs and much incidental music for the Pythons - and later went on to write most of the music for the immortal Rutles.) "<a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-RO.mp3">Rhinocratic Oaths</a>" is the most Python-esque song in the Bonzos' catalogue, and it demonstrates as well the peculiar warping of a particularly British strain of jazz.<br /><br />The voice you hear is Viv Stanshall's (later rather well-known for the narration at the end of the first part of Mike Oldfield's <span style="font-style:italic;">Tubular Bells</span> ("plus...tubular bells!"), itself a wry joke on the Bonzos' own "<a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-IO.mp3">The Intro and the Outro</a>," which features a rather odd series of, uh, guest musicians.<br /><br />But let's not limit the Bonzos to inventing Monty Python: hell no, they invented heavy metal, too. Don't believe me? Listen to "<a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-MA.mp3">Mr. Apollo</a>" (this mix is gorilla-enhanced).<br /><br />But not all is fun and games in the Bonzos' world. Neil Innes occasionally veered disturbingly toward writing genuinely affecting, moving songs - such as "<a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-RM.mp3">Ready Mades</a>" (covered years later by <a href="http://tinyurl.com/ato2f8" target="_blank">The Condo Fucks</a> - at least I think that's the band's name...), which, among other things, tells the sad tale of a man who arrested for something he put on display. (I'm pretty sure this song takes place directly around the block from Penny Lane.)<br /><br />Back to that muzak'd version: Devo sort of did this, but I always thought it'd be a brilliant idea for The Residents to hire a genuine Muzak arranger (cap'd this time because I'm referring to the actual corporation - even though I believe they've long since changed their name) to arrange several of their tracks...but making sure to preserve as many odd chords and rhythmic structures as possible. I'm pretty "Santa Dog" would sound fantastic arranged for a hundred strings and more french horns than could be drowned in the biggest Vegas fountain.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Bonzo Dog Band:<br /><a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-COYM.mp3">"Canyons of Your Mind"</a> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Tadpoles</span>, 1969)<br /><a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-RO.mp3">"Rhinocratic Oaths"</a> (<span style="font-style:italic;">The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse</span>, 1968)<br /><a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-IO.mp3">"The Intro and the Outro"</a> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Gorilla</span>, 1967)<br /><a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-MA.mp3">"Mr. Apollo"</a> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Tadpoles</span>, 1969)<br /><a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/090125-BDB-RM.mp3">"Ready Mades"</a> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Tadpoles</span>, 1969)</span>2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-8685587276814394292009-01-23T10:50:00.004-06:002009-01-23T11:23:02.039-06:00of course, of courseOur current slate of Netflix DVDs includes episodes of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Cadfael </span>series originally broadcast on British TV, and since that series is set in the 12th century, it's no surprise there are many horses. And we recently bought the DVD of <span style="font-style:italic;">Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog</span> - and all decent people know and fear the name of Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin.<br /><br />We're also re-watching <span style="font-style:italic;">The X-Files</span>...and the last episode we watched was the second part of "Terma," part of which is set in Russia...and features guards riding horses.<br /><br />I began to detect a trend here - so I said to Rose that it was a bit curious, and I'd know something was up if there were a horse in the next DVD we watched...which seemed unlikely, since it was from the first season of <span style="font-style:italic;">30 Rock</span>.<br /><br />Fans of that show know what's coming, of course: in "Corporate Crush," Liz Lemon opens the door to her office to find...Tracy Jordan, and a horse.<br /><br />I'm not sure what this is all about. (Although, come to think of it, at a department meeting yesterday, my voice was, in fact, a little hoarse.)<br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Addendum: And, I just realized that two of the four items above also refer to...Thomas Jefferson! More mystery...</span>2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-35368838898108790572009-01-22T15:46:00.004-06:002009-01-22T16:23:57.642-06:00unless you're insured by Mutual of OmahaAbout a month ago, someone on the Robyn Hitchcock mailing list mentioned that he'd had a dream in which Hitchcock was on David Letterman's show and announced that he was about to premiere his new song, called "(Here's One I Bet You Wouldn't Want to Meet) In the Wild." Unfortunately, our dreamer couldn't recall how the song went - so <a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/MTP_ITW.mp3">I decided to write the song instead</a>.<br /><br />The first problem was that rather unwieldy title: how to make it scan? I played with it for a while, and came up with what I hope is a viable solution. The wordiness and staccato rhythm dictated some of the rest of the song's texture, with a lot of rapid-fire words. The lyrics came pretty quickly - I think the idea is quintessentially Robyn, in some ways similar to "Lions and Tigers" - although figuring out how to sing them presented more difficulty! <br /><br />It seemed as if the music should be relatively simple, so I stuck largely to conventional chord sequences and rhythms (with a few tricks thrown in to make things interesting). The most fun was coming up with actual guitar parts as opposed to just strum-strum-strumming away. Some day I might even practice often enough to be able to play them reliably and consistently. Editing magic!<br /><br />Lyrics: <br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />Here's one I bet you wouldn't want to meet in the wild<br />The scent of raw meat between the politician's teeth<br />Slavering over a shivering child<br /><br />At home we find it best to try to keep them in line<br />Some jingling coins and some velvety loins<br />Makes them forget they're already dying<br /><br />Oh Mr. Perkins, you've such a glaring white smile<br />But don't mind Jim, so secretive and grim<br />You'll have alligator shoes in a while<br /><br />Here's one I bet you wouldn't want to meet in the wild<br />With a sleight of wrist and the invisible fist<br />He's anointed the bank vaults in his castles in the sky<br /><br />Clipped wings and a nice little perch will be fine<br />And yesterday's news is covered up with rotting food<br />You won't smell it if you just keep on buying<br /><br />Here's one I bet you wouldn't want to meet in the wild...</span><br /><br />(The bridge, incidentally, refers to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Kingdom" target="_blank">this program</a>, and urban legends like <a href="http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.asp" target="_blank">this one</a>.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><a href="https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/jenor/public/MTP_ITW.mp3">Monkey Typing Pool "(Here's One I Bet You Wouldn't Want to Meet) In the Wild"</a> (2009)</span>2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-55668674570444007652009-01-20T00:40:00.003-06:002009-01-20T01:06:05.893-06:00ObamaesqueThe weirdest thing about the news coverage of Barack Obama's impending inauguration - or maybe, the weirdest thing about my view of Obama - is that every time the media refers to Obama as "the first black president," I'm somewhat taken aback. I mean, of course I'm aware that it's tremendously significant that Obama, as an African-American, was elected president...but for me, it's so much more present in my mind that he is, say, a thoughtful man, an intelligent man, a reasonable man, that the fact that he's black recedes into the background. (Of course - as nearly everyone reading this probably already knows - I'm not black, and I suspect that if I were, Obama's blackness - and the significance of his being elected to the highest office in the nation as an African-American - would be far more present in my mind.) <br /><br />It's not that I "forgot" he was black...or that I'm "colorblind"... But for myself, at least, once the primaries began to shake out and it was clear I'd end up choosing between Obama and Hillary Clinton, the qualities that stood out for me in making Obama the superior choice loomed independent of his race...and in fact, the qualities that turned me against Clinton (I was never exactly in her camp...although I surely would have voted for her had she been the Democratic nominee) were related to Obama's race: the way her campaign used similar subtly racist demarcators to position herself for white, working class Americans as "normal" and "known" versus Obama's purported status as political outlier, cultural elitist, and untested unknown. The way those attributions tied cleanly to certain unpleasant racial notions, and the way Clinton attempted to exploit certain voters' discomfort with Obama, repulsed me from her campaign...and even though I was aware of the extent to which her campaign (and, of course, far less subtly, McCain's) worked racial metaphors and assumptions, I still found myself weighing Obama's qualities on a scale that somehow all but erased race as having any input.<br /><br />I should say too that the views of certain conservatives about Obama...the ranting about "socialism," say - seem to me to be not much about race, and more about a generational or cultural shift, of which Bill Clinton was the first signifier, in which an older, hierarchical order gives way to a more egalitarian, inclusive order. Race is certainly among those qualities leveled by this new order...but more important is the way it assumes such issues as being negotiable. Contrast that to Cheney et al....who clearly believe, it seems to be, in a natural order of things wherein some people (almost invariably, "some men") are simply better suited to rule than other peoples...and certain surface traits, seemingly unrelated to leadership potential, function to predict leadership capabilities (or, maybe more accurately, such peoples' ability to get along and go along with the old, entrenched orders).<br /><br />The simplest, shortest way to sum all this up is that I've always viewed Obama politically - as a politician, as someone whose politics were far more amenable, far more practical, than Bush's...and, even though I knew those politics were far to the right of mine (and who knows how much of his rightward positioning is genuine and how much is politicking?), the fact that he seems the sort of man to weigh evidence rather than rely on faith or prefab labels, that in itself is enormously hopeful. I have no doubt he'll disappoint me sometimes, perhaps frequently...but I also have little doubt that when he does so, he'll have reasons for it, reasons which will either be spelled out or be essentially transparent. He is not doctrinaire by any means...but neither is he unprincipled. And it's that latter quality that most recommends him to be: though he recognizes politics as the art of compromise, he realizes also that artless and thoroughgoing compromise is not politics, but surrender...something else entirely.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-67719521191931109232009-01-19T19:39:00.003-06:002009-01-19T19:44:01.305-06:00oh dear...If you are very, very bad, and you're a singer, when you die, you will go to Karaoke Hell...where you are compelled to sing your hits with horrifyingly cheesy rearrangements, courtesy of a demon specializing in such torture. His name is Bill Gates.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/node/148560" target="_blank">Pitchfork </a></span>has linked to several extraordinary renditions of well-known songs, as "performed" by Microsoft Songsmith, which analyzes a vocal part, then comes up with what it thinks is a suitable instrumental background. The Van Halen track is particularly evil, while the Police...well, as the <span style="font-style:italic;">Pitchfork </span>writer pretty much says, it's all that Sting deserves.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-65468073376012587542009-01-16T00:18:00.000-06:002009-01-16T00:18:00.939-06:00for the little ones<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRw5bhNzaO4XbriIGyRXIhBH3Hup3qXhIxYXLkQmSG0NodrNboVuZbCGYSV53KqBCg0Dg5Zn7cCLDMPJNEIze30SVg2OZ9LNvxzHwinrOXdcYIxNyCgys_6FAeohmKqm5idJw/s1600-h/41G9WA5NRDL._SS400_.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRw5bhNzaO4XbriIGyRXIhBH3Hup3qXhIxYXLkQmSG0NodrNboVuZbCGYSV53KqBCg0Dg5Zn7cCLDMPJNEIze30SVg2OZ9LNvxzHwinrOXdcYIxNyCgys_6FAeohmKqm5idJw/s400/41G9WA5NRDL._SS400_.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291742531804025522" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://tinyurl.com/8vlhha" target="_blank">For real.</a>2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-83962910815234986042009-01-15T18:13:00.002-06:002009-01-15T18:23:03.612-06:00won't get fooled again?Those looking for a relatively concise, impassioned summary of just how much George W. Bush has fucked up this nation should read yellojkt's four-part "<a href="http://tinyurl.com/9j4yy6" target="_blank">Epic Fail</a>" series (the link is to a convenient Google search that lists all four entries). I'm not sure who the remaining true believers are - oh, except probably for asshole jerks like our county executive Scott Walker, who's parading "ideological principles" as to why he wants to flush the county (and mostly, the city) down the toilet, since he's thinking that will help him in his upcoming gubernatorial run with the rest of the state ("I Killed Milwaukee" will be his slogan, should he get his wish) - but if there's a silver lining in this cloud of disaster, it might be that maybe, just maybe, folks will wise up to politicians hypocritically claiming to run for elected office "against government." Not that they're lying, exactly - they want to make sure the government stays well out of the way of their own power and wealth. The rest of us? Useful (in the voting booth) idiots, disposable otherwise. Can't find a job? Hey, the military's still hiring...but don't expect that, if you get injured, you'll actually get coverage, or even an honorable discharge, since they've got folks working to redefine your situation as pre-existing or not combat-related...2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-68489892136330645682009-01-14T22:54:00.004-06:002009-01-14T23:08:10.964-06:00you animal!Normally, I listen to songs before I post them. But it's 11 at night, Rose is sleeping, and my headphones are in the next room (I'm lazy), so I haven't heard this song I'm posting. Why am I posting it?<br /><br />Because (1) Neko Case and <a href="http://www.anti.com/" target="_blank">Anti- Records</a> will make a cash donation to <a href="http://www.bestfriends.org/" target="_blank">Best Friends Animal Society</a> for every blog that posts this song. So even if the song sucks (and I seriously doubt it will, given my experience with Case's last two albums), it's still worth posting.<br /><br />Oh, and (2) I will donate money to the same organization if Neko herself comes by my house...say, next Thursday at about 2pm.<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br /><a href="http://www.anti.com/media/download/708">Neko Case "People Got a Lotta Nerve"</a> (<span style="font-style:italic;">Middle Cyclone</span>, 2009)</span><br /><br />(via <a href="http://www.antilabelblog.com/?p=1301" target="_blank">Anti-'s label blog</a> - which also has info on posting the track yourself)2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-57938379240600942972009-01-14T15:40:00.003-06:002009-01-14T15:43:31.617-06:00Resolved:Ugliest female name: Gretchen.<br /><br />Ugliest male name: Jared.<br /><br />Both sound like characters in epic Vogon poetry. Hearing them aloud is an experience akin to feeling an unidentified something the consistency of hard rubber in your mouth as you're desperately and drunkenly consuming an anonymous burrito in a flickering neon-lit place cockroaches are scared to inhabit.<br /><br />In other words, ick factorial.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-82948727311554255482009-01-13T21:15:00.004-06:002009-01-13T21:41:31.262-06:00another in a series of insane musical comparisonsFor the first time in way, way too long, I was listening today to Paul McCartney's <span style="font-style:italic;">Band on the Run</span>. First thing I thought: why did I ever think this wasn't a fantastic album? Second, and odder thought: as I was listening to "Jet" (which is a brilliant pop song) I suddenly found myself thinking of Stephen Malkmus. Now, vocally there's almost no similarity; musically, while Malkmus sometimes draws from classic '70s rock and '60s psych (both of which, of course, McCartney had a hand in originating), the emphasis is very different...but what struck me is that the critical darts hurled McCartney's way in the seventies had much to do with the way he failed to fit with then-emerging rock-critical orthodoxy: his lyrics were rarely either deeply meaningful (or attempting same), knottily allusive, or at all self-important, and he seemed pretty unconcerned with being profound. Plus - I mean, Linda McCartney playing keyboards? She wasn't even a musician! (Of course, within a couple of years, had Paul been a young punk, Linda's non-musician status would have been a plus...Paul was ahead of the curve there.) But the reason I found myself thinking of Malkmus during "Jet" in particular was a certain insouciance, an off-kilter tendency toward little private jokes, and the way the lyrics seem to point toward some sort of heavier subject matter but then turn that very pointing into a sort of joking parody. That seems Malkmus-like to me: a couple of lines in "Jet" gesture at the British class system...but they're so vague and joking that any kind of <span style="font-style:italic;">idea </span>refuses to gain traction. Coupled with that are goofy lines like "I thought the major...wass a lady...sufferagette!" - I spelled the last word wrong intentionally to get the extra syllable McCartney adds: you can almost hear him cracking up at the goofy pronunciation...kind of like Malkmus riffing on "career! career! Korea!" in "Cut Your Hair" - or that "the only lonely place was on the moon." Malkmus's word salad tends a bit more toward the recherché (a word that's much more likely to appear in one of his songs than in McCartney's) but he too seems content to riff on associations and sound (compare "jet"/"suffragette") rather than worry meaning to a shred. <br /><br />So in the seventies, the peak of <span style="font-style:italic;">Rolling Stone</span> high critical seriousness, McCartney's work was dismissed as fluffy, meaningless, pop pap...whereas in the nineties and uh-ohs, Malkmus gets branded with "irony" - which, although not necessarily as critical as "fluffy" was, is still off-base - in that it implies an emotional standpoint either critical or above-it-all, and most often there's little evidence in Malkmus's work to suggest either perspective. I mean, when you write a set of lines like "You are a gardenia pressed in the campaign journal in the rucksack of an Afrikaaner candidate for mild reform" (from "Gardenia"), the "point," if there is one, seems more to be a joke at extending a metaphoric comparison far past its breaking point in terms of specificity - not some sort of withering critique of, I dunno, Afrikaaner candidates for mild reform, or mild reform, or the pressing of gardenias. <br /><br />Next up: why Tori Amos is just like The Kingsmen. Or maybe Leonard Cohen. I'm not sure.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-87945640735884198932009-01-12T22:18:00.004-06:002009-01-12T22:33:13.011-06:00please - still no heart attacksLong-time readers will know that I consider it my duty to mention any and every scrap of musical activity undertaken by Jersey's heroes, the Wrens (example, from my entry posted February 4, 2005: "Kevin Whelan, on his way to work this morning, tripped on a loose bit of carpeting and banged his left elbow on the piano. The chord that resulted consisted of E, F, F#, G, A, and C two octaves below middle C (the expected B is broken) and reportedly will form a leitmotivic chord for the operatic song cycle based on the tunnel builders of Newark, due to be released sometime in 2057. It is projected to be a full 47 seconds long, and recording will commence in 2012, with overdubs scheduled for the following thirty years, while the band's heirs negotiate direct-to-cortex release for the remaining fifteen years"). <br /><br />But really truly actually the Wrens have released a new song. Okay, it's "new" only if you don't notice it's really the same song as "In Turkish Waters," which was released last month (and was on one of my 2008 mixes)...but this is a different recording. What's more, it is the first time all four Wrenseses have performed together in a studio in ten years. And that studio, my friends, is none other than (Zappa looks over at the majestic Albert Hall pipe organ) Abbey Road studios.<br /><br />Take that, Beatles! Ha - those guys haven't recorded together in the last ten years either! And you're thinking that's because two of them are dead...yeah, well, two of the Wrens were dead (for tax purposes) for a year in the early 2000s, so there.<br /><br />Anycow, the new song (here titled "Pulled Fences") is available for an entire penny less than a dollar via <a href="http://wrens.com/records/Pulled_Fences" target="_blank">this little chromium link here</a>. Long-suffering Wrens obsessives may also note that ZOMG it's an entirely new website. (Note: "new" in this sense includes some text not updated since 2002 - but really, there's lotsa new stuff, including a much-more detailed discography, with notes in trademarked Wrens "we suck worse than all you guys think we do" style, and a new layout, and the rest of Charles Bissell's hair is being auctioned off. Hurry, before it's all gone!)2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-59666195305354205772009-01-11T14:24:00.000-06:002009-01-11T14:25:17.197-06:00my shortest blog entry ever, re Google's new faviconIck.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-84053695585797809262009-01-11T00:07:00.000-06:002009-01-11T00:07:00.336-06:00stand in the place where you live...Strictly local content here...but it's curious how marketers assume certain things based on geography. In today's mail was one of those packets of coupons that arrive periodically - usually, I open them to see if one of them might be for somewhere I go to regularly or might be interested in, then toss it in the recycle bin. <br /><br />But I've noticed that that marketers assume folks in our neighborhood (about two miles north of the airport, near the Walgreen's where Howell and Chase meet) are more interested in businesses to the south: nearer the airport, in St. Francis, Cudahy, or South Milwaukee. Of the 11 coupons for local businesses with one or two locations, 9 of them were south of us, and of the 2 whose location is to our north, one was three blocks north. Only one featured anything north of I-94...and that was one with two locations, one of which is in the Third Ward. (Those coupons were for an exercise center and a fried chicken place. The other coupons were for a bar that serves your typical bar food, two different Chinese restaurants, an Italian restaurant, a pizza place, a donut shop, a discount haircut joint, a hotel, and a carpet and tile outlet.)<br /><br />But we ourselves are far more oriented toward businesses to the north of us. We're far likelier to head north when we go out or shop - to the Bay View business district, to the Third or Fifth Wards, downtown, or the East Side or Riverwest. That might be because we're former East Siders and Riverwest residents...but more likely, it's because of the kind of restaurants, bars, and other businesses we're interested in. My guess is that if we lived in a hipper part of Bay View, more of those businesses would show up in such mailers.<br /><br />Or not: I'm kind of thinking the older, lower-middle-class crowd these places imply are probably more into coupons than yr hipster joints might be. (O noes did I just out myself as being vaguely hipsteresque? Vaguely...I mean, Blogger is like the AOL of free blog sites, isn't it?)2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-58069979244116140372009-01-10T22:11:00.001-06:002009-01-10T22:13:24.952-06:00my new favorite jokePhilip Glass walks into a bar Philip Glass walks into a bar walks into a bar walks into a bar walks into a bar Philip Glass Philip Philip Phil Philip Glass walks Glass walks Glass walks into Philip Glass Philip Glass Philip Glass Glass Glass Glass Glass Philip bar bar bar bar bar bar bar.2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5777603.post-39611859244408620082009-01-08T14:18:00.004-06:002009-01-08T14:26:26.301-06:00Hey! You got Onion in my CNN!So I'm having lunch at Comet and reading <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/index" target="_blank">The Onion</a></span>, when I happen to look up at the TV, which was playing CNN. There's a crawl at the bottom saying something like PORN INDUSTRY WANTS ITS OWN BAILOUT.<br /><br />You know that Philip K. Dick novel <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.philipkdick.com/works_novels_timeoutofjoint.html" target="_blank">Time Out of Joint</a></span>, where the main character Ragle Gumm finds objects disintegrating in front of him, replaced only by scraps of paper saying things like DESK and the like? (You know that Orson Scott Card - author of <span style="font-style:italic;">Ender's Game</span> - and the folks who put together <span style="font-style:italic;">The Truman Show</span> should be paying Dick's estate royalties...) This was a more high-tech version, where somehow the world of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Onion</span> had escaped its textual confines and had virally infected the actual news. <br /><br />That must be the answer. Because with more people unemployed with nothing else to do, how could the porn industry possibly be suffering?<br /><br />(Next post will not mention <span style="font-style:italic;">The Onion</span> - promise. Unless they pay me.)2fshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17813487704459856169noreply@blogger.com3