I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: NICK BUZZ-Circo (1996).

Martin Tielli has been prolific both as a solo artist and with his “side project” Nick Buzz (named after his love of smokes).

Nick Buzz’ first album came out in 1996 (during a time when the Rheos had just wrapped up their album The Blue Hysteria) and was ignored.  It was reissued in 2002 to a bit more fanfare.  I reviewed it once before and while I thought I was more dismissive of it then, it turns out that I wasn’t.  That I enjoyed it and felt mostly the same as I do now.

“Spilling The Wonderful” starting out with a mellow piano intro, the song jars into a noisy/drunken waltz melody and a violin solo before returning to the cabaret/waltz style that opened the song. It is deliriously catchy. The song ends with some tape manipulation before seguing into “That’s What You Get For Having Fun.” This song opens with some slapped and scratchy guitar sounds with a refrain of “there’s a monkey in my underwear.”  There’s a super catchy guitar riff that is sung along to—this song really shines live.

“Just Because” mellows things down a lot, with a jazzy sounding guitar and Martin’s delicate vocals.  The music for his one was written by pianist Jon Goldsmith which might explain the mellowness. It’s a sweet ballad.  Although the segue after this song is some clips from the radio (possibly sung by Tielli?) which are distant and crackling.   There’s a saxophone playing as well.   This merges into an announcer introducing the band for their (live) cover of Joni Mitchell’s “River.” It’s a beautiful, delicate version with Hugh Marsh’s electric violin solo swirling around.

Some dissonant sax segues into Sane So Sane which is actually a pretty gentle piano song. They play with the recording sound as the drums get muffled and dense and there’s more backing vocals thrown over the top.  But it remains largely conventional.  “Hymn to the Situation” is a creaky somewhat creepy song that Martin described as being about a self-centered jerk. who says things like “I’d suicide for you.” There’s a canned crowd cheering at a particularly funny line and even a cow mooing as the song ends

“Fornica Tango” is a wild weird song.  It is tango (Tielli speaks Italian), but the rhythm is kept by a squeaky sound (which is likely Marsh’s violin).  The song is interrupted throughout by a crying baby or, even stranger, a screeching chimpanzee (fornica translates as ant). The song ends with some crazy sounds from Marsh’s electronic violin.  The highlight of the record is “Love Streams’ a beautiful ballad based largely around a piano melody and Marsh’ keening violin. It’s followed by “Aliens break a heat” which is more tape manipulation and all kinds of weird effects (backward vocals I believe) for 2 minutes. Until it’s replaced by sounds of traffic (European) and horns honking.

The final song is the amusing “The Italian Singer/Just Because I’m Nick The Buzz” It starts slowly with some plucked strings and Tielli’s voice. There’s some spoken sections and lots of staccato music until the gentle ending which resumes the melody from “Just Because.”

It’s a peculiar album but one that gets better with each listen (and hearing him play some of these songs live has really introduced new aspects of them to me.

[READ: October 10, 2015] The Circle

I put this book off for a while but with no real reason for doing so.  And I’m sorry I waited so long because the book is really good–it’s thought-provoking and questions a lot of established ideas but is also really kind of fun and utopian.

What’s most impressive to me about the way the book is written is that the story itself is really quite simple.  It is a gradual building up of intensity.  At the end of which the main character has to make a decision which proves to be very important both for her and everyone else.

The story is about Mae.  Mae had been working at a dull and dispiriting job in civil service at her home town.  The job was dull, the people were dull, there was zero energy in the place and even her boss was depressing.  It sucked.  She had been there for 18 months and when her boss joked about her getting a promotion, she’d about had it.

She contacted her friend Annie.  Annie was her college roommate and boon companion for a few years.  And Annie worked at The Circle, the coolest most awesome place in the country to work at–think google, but better).  Was there any way that Annie could help out Mae?  Indeed there was.  Annie got Mae a job at The Circle, just like that.  Annie was one of the Top 40, the influential crowd at The Circle and Mae was in (her first day is hilarious, because Annie plays a wonderful prank on her).

So what is The Circle?  Well, this story is set some time in the future and The Circle is the new IT company.  The company that has swallowed Google and Facebook and just about every other technology company out there.  Nearly everyone uses it, as a social network as a search engine, and even recently as a way to make purchases–the folks at The Circle have managed to make everyone work together.

The best part is that everyone’s account is linked directly to each person’s real identity.  This allows for a purer internet–there’s no trolls because everyone’s identity is confirmed.  There’s no need for passwords because it is your own personal identity everywhere.  You don’t fear hooking up your bank account because it cannot be hacked.  It’s borderline utopian.

And when Mae arrives, the campus is glorious–all the latest and greatest toys, food and technology is being developed right there in house.  The health care is top of the line.  And if you get tired there are beautiful dorms room right on site where you can crash.  It’s amazing.

Mae’s job is a little exhausting.  She, along with most new people, start in CE, Customer Experience, where you answer customers concerns and questions.  When she is done she gives each person a survey to fill out.  Her goal is to get 95 or better as an average–the closer to 100 the better.  So if she gets a 98, she is supposed to ask why the person didn’t give 100 and see if they will up it for her.  The work is hard and exhausting but she gets along fine, and soon becomes a whiz kid newbie at the company

But a few weeks in, the HR people have to talk to her–she hasn’t been following the Circle social media.  This is crucial to keeping up with what’s going on at work.  So even though her work ranking is very high, her social rank–her Circle rank–is really low, near the bottom.  In order to boost it she needs to read things people have said, smile at things, post things and become a Circle entity.  Her social media is on a secondary screen in her office area.

Once she picks that up, she becomes part of a survey team, she wears a  headset and has to answer survey questions.  And as she becomes more successful she gets more monitors to watch and more input to process.  She is exhausted but is very happy–the work is satisfying and makes her feel accomplished.  And soon, people start recognizing her on the chats and asking her to like their products or status or children.

All along, the circle has been progressing with new ideas.  And their latest is a big one–they want transparency.  They want the world to be able to know everything that can be known.  So they invent tiny cameras so that you can put one at the beach and see what the tides are like.  Or you can put one in the street to see what traffic is like.  And these camera are great–hi-def, super light an wirelessly controlled.  You can even allow other people access to them–so you can look at my camera of the beach to see what the waves are like.  Or if there is civil unrest, the cameras can monitor the behaviors of people to ensure that nothing gets out of hand.

And soon enough, a politician steps forward and offers to wear a camera all the time–absolute transparency.  She become a cause célèbre.  And soon enough people start wondering what other politicians are hiding.  Why won’t they go transparent?

Then when Mae transgresses the law (and is caught on camera–the leaders of The Circle use this as an opportunity.  Not to punish her, but to talk to her about the benefits of full transparency.  And soon Mae comes up with the slogan that Secrets are Lies and ultimately states that Privacy is Theft–because you are stealing information that other people could be getting.  Soon Mae becomes more popular than Annie.

And all along, even though The Circle seems to be the ultimate in altruistic companies, there’s a niggling feeling of privacy invasion.  So Eggers gives voice to that concern through the presence of Mae’s ex boyfriend.  He makes antler chandeliers and tries to live as off the grid as possible.  When Mae (she is still friendly with him because he is still friends with her parents)tries to get his shop online, he freaks out on her.  And when Mae gets her parents on Circle insurance to help with her dad’s chronic condition, one of the stipulations is that they be fully transparent too.  They love the insurance but hate the privacy loss.

The story does get very dark–especially when it involves the persecution of anyone who disagrees with the Circles’s ways (we don’t really see it directly until the end).  And the whole time you have to wonder what are the ultimate intentions of The Circle.  Is Mae just a naive hanger-on or can she really make the company Utopian?

It’s a really compelling story that argues for both sides of technology and embraces some of it while warning us off of it as well.