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Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Science News Letter for March 25, 1939

Posted in Albert Einstein, Death, Egyptology, Essays, History, Mac Lethal, Nature, Research, Science News Letter, Universities on June 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MAC LETHAL-“You’re vs. Your” (2012).

Mac Lethal is a YouTube sensation (he did the pancakes video that I liked quite a bit).  And, yes, he does actually have albums for sale.  He raps really fast (so fast that I wondered if it was sped up–I don’t believe so).  I am 100% behind the sentiment of this song (possessive vs contractions, this is something you used to know).

I’m a grammar freak, so it bothers me when I see these common mistakes made.  It’s nice to hear a song about it (even if it’s not a terribly catchy song or anything).

I like his name dropping and his lecture is pretty effective.  I’m a little confused by the big dick reference/joke at the end of the song…it’s not really relevant.  But his fast tongue is really impressive.  As for his singing….mmm, stick to rapping.

I like the T-shirt!

[READ: May 15, 2012] Science News Letter

I’ve mentioned before when my company sends out links to articles that are interesting or cool.  This is the second time a link to a Science News Letter has gone out.  I swear if I had time, I would love to read all of these.  I wonder how often it was published?

This letter has only two articles in it–one from Physics and one from Archaeology.

The Archaeology one is called “Find Sacred Kitten in Bronze Cat Coffin.”  And indeed, two metallurgy experts were cleaning a bronze cat (which had “bronze disease”) and inside of it they found the bones of a fetal cat.  This was one of the first times that actual bones were discovered in one of these cat idols.  There’s even a (kind of creepy) picture of the bronze statue with the far creepier caption: Cat Coffin.

The Physics article is headlined: Fifth Dimension is New Realm Entered by Professor Einstein”  What?  How cool is that… “Professor Einstein!”  Einstein died in 1955, so it’s not weird that he’d be in a Science Letter.  But still!  Einstein talking about his current theories?!  The subtitle is “Celebrating Sixtieth Birthday, Scientist Wants New Dimension To Account for Electro-Magnetic Effects.” (more…)

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Jason Scott-Warren–“Reading Graffiti in the Early Modern Book” (Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 3, September 2010)

Posted in Banksy, Carla Bozulich, Constellation Records, Essays, Evangelista, Huntington Library Quarterly, Jan Van Eyck, Jason Scott-Warren, Research, Scholarship on May 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: EVANGELISTA-In Animal Tongue [CST082] (2011).

Evangelista is probably my least favorite band on the Constellation label.  I’m especially surprised/disappointed in this because I loved Carla Bozulich’s earlier bands.  I’ve said before that I find her vocals to be weirdly and wonderfully disconcerting.  And when it’s played over aggressive confident music it works wonders.  But when it’s paired with music that is also kind of abstract and untethered, it just sounds like a mess.

After that introduction, I’ll say that this album is their best release yet.  Her voice (the Constellation site suggests her melodies are “largely improvised” (!)) sounds like it always does–unsettling, haunting, compelling, drawing you into whatever world she is invoking.   The title track is the most intriguing–the music is subdued, drawing you in even more.   “Black Jesus” is also compelling in that it is one of her more subtle releases.

“Bells Ring Fire” has the catchiest section, practically a singalong.  “Die Alone” reverts back to that old nebulous style where there’s just nothing to grab on to.  Indeed, “Enter the Prince” and “Hatching” both have interesting sound effects (especially “Hatching”) but they’re not really compelling as songs.

I think the real problem with these songs is that they’re all too long.  Since they don’t have any hooks in them, since there’s nothing to really grab you and make you want to like them, having them come in around 5 minutes is just too much to ask of the listener.  Some of these songs would be inetresting for two or three minutes, but by 5 I’ve given up.

Check it our for yourself here

[READ: May 15, 2012] “Reading Graffiti in the Early Modern Book”

This may be the most current scholarly article I have read from JSTOR.  Part of the fun of reading the JSTOR scholarly articles is that they are usually old enough that you can have either a) contemporary knowledge about what the author got right or wrong or b) a fun nostalgia based upon the word choices or references that are in the text.  So with this one, which is not even two years old, there’s neither of those possibilities.  What’s also interesting is how the article is clearly current–the references that Scott-Warren uses are contemporaneous (“the Banksy of his day?”)

So what is this article about anyhow?  Well, Scott-Warren looks at the notes and scribbles that people have written in their books.  But not just your average textbook or library book, he goes back very far to the “early modern” period and sees that people have been graffiting their books since there were books.  He mentions how anyone studying books from that era will see all kinds of things on the pages of the book, from scribbles to pressed flowers to even the rust outline of scissors.  But he wants to focus on what people have written.  And he wants to see of any of these notations are comparable to graffiti in the current sense of the word.

He discusses current definitions (including tagging) to explain that graffiti is all about saying “I am here.”  (He even interviews a graffiti artist named Claw).  Then he goes back to 1434 and sees a Latin inscription from Jan van Eyck on his painting Arnolfini Double Portrait that more or less says “Jan van Eyck has been here.”  Although it is his own painting it has a feel of graffiti, of making a public note that you exist.  Similar inscriptions can be found in many books of the period as well.  There is a 1565 edition of a book with a heavily flourished signature, there’s a 1548 edition book with a doodle that may include a self-portrait.  There’s even a bible that has been inscribed by every member of the family (daughter Mildred’s is stunningly ornate).  Another book has the owner’s signature about fifty times throughout the book.  Are these words to the world?  Public notations?  or something else?

Scott-Warren wonders if these markings can be considered “pen-trials”–pens were hard to use back then, the ink was homemade and paper was scarce.  Another possibility is that they were an attempt to prove and expand on literacy.  A third possibility was ownership. Like the graffiti in a 1685 Indian Bible, written in Massachusett: “I Nannahdinnoo, this is my book…I, I Nannahdinnoo, own this forever.  Because I bought it with my money”

I especially enjoyed the book that had written, under the name Walter Vaughn, “This book belongs not to Walter Vaughn but to James Vaughn because his later father John Vaughn gave this book in his last will and testament to the same James Vaughn and therefore the said James is the true owner of the book” (1582).

In addition to the I of graffiti Scott-Warren looks at the “was here” aspect.  In a 1549 History of Italy, there is an inscription noting that the owner had been to Venice.

The key to all of this seems to be its public-ness.  Some inscriptions were prayers that were clearly meant for others to read.  In another case, the person wrote his opinion about the booksmith where the book was purchased.  There’s even some graffiti that is like trash talking of others.

I enjoyed this article because there were lots of pictures of the inscriptions, although i could have used a few more, frankly.  It was also curious to think about why people wrote things in books long ago–who exactly did they think would be reading their copy of a book?  Was it just a public act of disobedience at a time when a public act had to be very self-contained?

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Conversations with David Foster Wallace (2012)

Posted in Biography, Book Reviews, Books about writers, Boston Phoenix, Canadian Music, Constellation Records, Cynthia Ozick, David Foster Wallace, David Lipsky, Details, Essays, Funny (ha ha), History, My Bloody Valentine, Postmoderism, Publishers Weekly, Research, Rolling Stone, Salon.com, Sandro Perri, Scholarship, Set at School, Stephen J. Burn, Tennis, The Boston Globe, The Buffalo News, The Chicago Tribune, The Connection, The Seattle Times, The Wall Street Journal, To The Best of Our Knowledge on May 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SANDRO PERRI-Impossible Spaces [CST085] (2011).

This album has become one of my favorite releases of the year.  I simply can’t stop listening to it.  And the funny thing is that on first listen I thought it was too treacly, too “sweet,” especially for Constellation Records (home to the over-the-top Godspeed You Black Emperor amongst other wonderful bands).  But after a listen or two, I heard all of the genius that is present in this record–so many different layers of music, and so many interesting instrumental choices. Indeed, it does come off as sweet, but there’s really nothing wrong with that.

This album gives me a happy pick me up without being cloying in any way.  That’s a great accomplishment.

“Changes” opens kind of all over the place, with some noisey guitars and really high bass notes.  But once the shk shk of the shakers comes in, the sing settles into a great groove (and there’s a cool bassline that really holds the song together).  After about 3 minutes, it turns into a cool light funk jam, with retro keyboards, buzzed out guitar solos and some funky drums.  It’s unlike anything you’ll hear anywhere else.  “Love & Light” is one of the shorter pieces at just under 4 minutes.  It’s different from the other tracks, in that Perri’s vocals seem to be the dominant motif, rather than the cool music.  I like the song, but it’s probably my least favorite here.  “How Will I?” uses a similar multi-tracked vocal style but it has some wonderful flute moments (yes flute) that make the song bubbly and happy.  The song kind of drifts around the ether in a kind of jazzy world until about 5 minutes in, when the bassier notes anchor the song with great contrasting notes.  And the electronic ending is as cool as it is disconcerting.

“Futureactive Kid (Part 1)” is a shuffling minor key number that’s just over 3 minutes, it features a cool bass clarinet and backwards guitars to propel the song.  The backwards guitar solo segues into the uplifting (literally, the keyboards just go higher and higher into space. “Futureactive Kid (Part 2)” features fretless bass, a flute solo and My Bloody Valentine-esque sound effects (although radically simplified from MBV’s standards).  It fades out only to introduce my favorite song in forever–“Wolfman.”  I can’t get enough of this song.  It’s a simple structure, but at ten minutes long, it deviates in amazingly complex ways.  It has so many cool aspects that I love–I love the chord changes at the end of each verse.  I totally love the guitar solo that goes up and down the scale for an impossibly long run–well over 100 notes by my count.  I also love that the end of each section features a different guitar style playing the simple chord progression–from acoustic to loud solo to full band playing those same notes–so by the end of the ten minutes you ‘re not sure what to expect.   By the time the flute solo comes in at nearly 7 minutes, I’m totally committed to the song and wherever it’s going to take me.  So when it gets a bit of an electronic ending, I’m ready to go there with it.  Oh and lyrically the song is just as curious as the music.

The final song “Impossible Spaces” is a beautiful, quiet guitar song which is actually easy to sing along to.  It quiet a departure from the rest of the record, but it ties things together very nicely.  I have listened to this record so much lately, I just can’t get enough of it.

You can stream the whole thing here.

[READ: May 10, 2012] Conversations with David Foster Wallace

This is a book that collects interviews with David Foster Wallace.  Although DFW was reticent about d0ing interviews (as the introduction states), he did do quite a lot of them–often at the same haunts.  This book contains 22 interviews that span from 1987-2008.

The conversations are in chronological order, which is really a treat because you get to see DFW’s opinion (and his addiction to nicotine) evolve over the years.  You also get to see the topics that he was really focused on at one time and whether or not they stayed with him until the final interview.  DFW was outspoken about certain things, especially entertainment, which is unsurprising.  But he was also a big advocate of truth, honesty, realness.  It’s amazing seeing him when he lets his guard down. Although his honesty is there for all to see in his work, he is better known for his difficulty with language or his humor.  So seeing him without the multiple revision is quite enlightening.

The first pieces, “David Foster Wallace: A Profile” published after his first novel The Broom of the System launched Viking’s paperback imprint actually looks into his classroom a little bit and shows him interacting with a student (I wonder if she knows she is in this book?).  It seems sweet and almost naive compared to what is to come next.  And, for anyone who is familiar with him from later in, it’s a wonderful look behind the scenes.  There’s also a number of pieces from The Wall Street Journal.  Like the second piece in the book, the worryingly named, “A Whiz Kid and His Wacky First Novel.”  It’s not a bad piece at all, but man, headlines can be delicate matters. (more…)

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Rivka Galchen–“My Mother, Myself” (The New York Times, July 28, 2007)

Posted in East River Pipe, Essays, Research, Rivka Galchen, The New York Times on May 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: OKKERVIL RIVER-“All You Little Suckers” from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers (2009).

 This is another cover of an East River Pipe song.  (I get the feeling that Merge has signed maybe six bands in total).  I didn’t mind this cover so much when I listened to it the first few times—it’s weirdly high-pitched towards the end and kind of melodramatic all through, but I didn’t find it awful.

But once I heard the original, I decided that I didn’t like the cover much.  The original is simple and understated, highlighting the melody.  Plus it’s nearly half as long as the cover.  Why the cover is as ponderous as it is, I don’t know.  Score one for the original.

[READ: April 29, 2012] “My Mother, Myself”

Another article from The New York Times and another article that changes what we think of Rivka Galchen.  In this one, we meet Rivka’s mother, the driving force behind her life choices.  In other words, she insisted that Rivka would keep being a doctor.

As we know from other articles, Rivka no longer wanted to be a doctor (again, I still haven’t read if she finished school or not).  And she was hoping to use the experiment that comprises this article as a test.  She would be going to Guatemala for three weeks of immersion learning of Spanish.  She would also be participating in a trial study for a vaccine for traveler’s diarrhea (for the cost of room and board and study). (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 11] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 4.7-4.12 (end)] (1973)

Posted in Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Language, Military, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Pink Floyd, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Russia, Sex, Squeeze, Steve Miller, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Threats, Travel, War on May 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PINK FLOYD-the final cut: a requiem for the post war dream (1983).

My college experience seems very unlike many people’s (especially the stories I hear from you young kids today).  And I’m just talking musically.  I went to college in the late 80 and early 90s.  And my freshman year, the most popular albums on campus  were Steve Miller’s Greatest Hits, Squeeze’s 45s and Under and Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  My friend John also loved this album.  And I think we listened to it hundreds of times, blasting out of dorm room windows.

It’s kind of strange that college freshmen would embrace an album about (more or less) Roger Waters’ father dying in WWII, especially since none of our fathers had died at all, much less in WWII.  But angst finds its home I suppose.

This album is not a sequel to The Wall, but it has echoes (see what I did there) from that album.  There were touches of WWII in The Wall.  And sonically a lot of this album sounds similar.  The big difference is that Roger Waters wrote pretty much the whole thing, long time keyboardist Richard Wright left the band and David Gilmour, sings on only one song.  So, it’s practically a solo project (and it fees a lot like Waters’ solo album The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking).

This album seems to have alienated fans of Floyd. But I happen to like it quite a lot.  And, I it a lot while reading Gravity’s Rainbow.

“The Post War Dream” opens with military sounding horns and funereal organs, as befits an album about the war.  It also has an intriguing assortment of sound effects (I wonder where he gets most of this stuff).  It sounds very Pink Floyd–Roger Waters’ voice is pretty unmistakable).  But “Your Possible Pasts” sounds even more Pink Floyd.  Evidently this album has a number of songs that were cast offs from The Wall.  If that’s true, this is probably one of them, as it sounds like it could easily fit on that album–especially when the keyboards kick in during the second chorus (even if Richard Wright wasn’t on the album).  And the guitar solo is so David Gilmour–that’s what you call a signature sound.

“One of the Few” has something I love from Floyd–whispered vocals (“teach”) and creepy laughing; it works as a nice transition to the louder “The Hero’s Return.”  This track is very complex–all kinds of tonal shifts, echoed vocals and bitter lyrics.  It explodes into “The Gunner’s Dream,” a gentle piano ballad about a soldier being shot down.   It’s a surprisingly tender song (although not really given the topic of the album) and lyrically it is really impressive.  I don’t really care for the saxophone solo–it’s not my thing, but I think it actually works well for the song.  And, again the end sounds like it came from The Wall (Waters is amazing at angsty screams).

“Paranoid Eyes” is a delicate song that works, for me, as lead in to the wonderful “Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert” a short, string-filled somewhat goofy song that is very bitter under its seeming jocularity.  It’s followed by “The Fletcher Memorial Home,” a really dark track about old age with a lot of current political commentary thrown in (although the “group of anonymous Latin American meat-packing glitterati” always confused (and amused) me.  So even though it is “about” WWII, there’s plenty of anger at current political climate, right Maggie?.  Boom boom, bang bang, lie down, you’re dead–take it away David…

“Southampton Dock” is another gentle song, more of a story with musical accompaniment.  It segues into “The Final Cut” a fitting piano end to a sad album about death and loss, that also happens to reprise song elements from The Wall.

But that’s actually not the last song.  We get the incongruous “Not Now John.”  It really doesn’t fit with the album at all (I happen to love it, even if it doesn’t).  It’s way over the top, including the how-in-the-hell-did-they-think-this-would-be-a-single? opening lyrics: “fuck all that we gotta get on with this. (fuck all that).”  And yet, single it was, reaching #7 in the US.  Man it rocks.  Oi, where’s the fucking bar, John?

The album ends properly with “two suns in the sunset” a mostly acoustic track that returns the mood to more sombre feelings (except for the rocking section where you drive into an oncoming truck).  Never has futility felt so upbeat.  For an album as personal as this is, it really draws the listener in.  Of course, if you don’t want to be drawn in, it’s easy to resist, as many have.

The reissue (which I don’t have), includes the cool song from The Wall movie, “When the Tigers Broke Free.”  Which I imagine would work quite well contextually.

[READ: Week of April 30] Gravity’s Rainbow 4.7-end

And the book ends with a bang and a lot of leftover questions.  My first reaction is that I can’t get over Pynchon spent so much time in the last 60 pages talking about things that had nothing to do with the “plot” per se.  I never really felt like the story was all that hard to follow until the end, when Pynchon let loose the dogs of war on his writing.  There are several pages of stream of consciousness reverie where I was completely at a loss.  Of course, this has been true for much of the book–Pynchon would talk about something and then cycle back into it, filling in the gaps that he left open.  The whole book seemed to have this kind of coiled effect (perhaps a slinky). He would set up a scene as if you had been there all along.  And while you were puzzling over just who the hell he was talking about, he would flashback to whatever you needed to fill in the missing pieces.  And he is still doing that as the story comes to a close.

And although it starts out with a familiar figure, he quickly takes something and has a massive hallucination.  Is this even true? (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 10] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 4.1-4.6] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), James Joyce, Language, Marilyn Manson, Military, Phoebus Cartel, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Tool, Travel, War on April 30, 2012| 4 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: PHOEBUS CARTEL-“Difficult,” “Asylum Energy,” “November”

If I had any idea how many bands were named after things in Gravity’s Rainbow, or were perhaps tangentially related to it, like this one, I would have never bothered mentioning bands that I actually know.

Phoebus Cartel is a heavy metal band based out of Denmark.  And…  well, that’s really all I know about them.  I found this image for them online which linked me to their site on bandbase (if you must, you can also get it in English–although there’s no extra information).

There are three songs here on the site.  They are all sung in English and all have heavy guitars.  The band is clearly heavy metal inspired, but they also classify themselves as “alternativ.”

“difficult” has elements of Marilyn Manson in the singing (and even the melody). It’s a very catchy interesting song and very heavy.  “asylum enemy” has some great heavy chugging guitars. I like the part in the middle where we just get two heavy notes and a pause.  It reminded me a lot of Tool.  “November” has the most normal sounding singing in the bunch–it’s also the least metal sounding–more like heavy alt rock.  Although the break in the middle with slow guitars is nicely atmospheric.

I really enjoyed all three songs.  I’d like to learn more about these guys but I literally can find nothing else about them anywhere.

[READ: Week of April 23] Gravity’s Rainbow 4.1-4.6

Section 4, the final section is here at last.  We are out of The Zone and into The Counterforce.  The epigram here is by Richard M. Nixon.  Hilariously it is simply, “What?”  Unfortunately, I found it to be way too apt for my own feelings while reading this pretty confusing section.  While some sections advanced the “plot,” there were a ton of new characters added and, even more confusingly, a bunch of scenes that were either hallucinations or fantasies  or both.  And none of these do much for you sense of what the hell is going on. (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 9] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 3.25-3.32] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Language, Mercury Rev, Military, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, The Flaming Lips, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Travel, War on April 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MERCURY REV-Deserter’s Songs (1998).

Mercury Rev has changed a lot as a band over the years.  They began as a noisy punk outfit who was getting kicked off of airplanes, and by this album (seven years after their debut), they’ve turned into a kind of sweet orchestral pop band (a transformation not unlike The Flaming Lips).  I got into them with their album before this See You on the Other Side with the seriously rocking song “Young Man’s Stride.”  This album came as something of a shock, it is often so delicate.

I used to really love this album a lot and then one day I thought that it was a little irritating sounding, and that has stuck with me ever since.  The irritation comes from a combination of the really high-pitched vocals and the musical saw that seems to accompany most songs.  However, I hadn’t listened to it in quite some time and hearing it now, I found it enjoyable once again.

It opens with “Holes” a five-minute song that layers many different instruments (musical saw, of course, and horns) over Jonathan Donohue’s timid and wavery voice and gentle keyboard washes.   “Tonite It Shows” continues in the pretty vein–a beautiful song that name checks Cole Porter.  “Endlessly” features more unearthly soprano singing (there’s a lot of high-pitched music on this disc).  It has a lovely melody and references “Silent Night” on the flute.

The first highlight has to be “Opus 40” which tempers all of the potential irritants but maximizes the beauty and wondrous songwriting.  It soars to the heavens but stays grounded with a cool retro organ solo.  The other major highlight is “Goddess on a Hiway.”  “Hiway” is even better than opus 40 at blending the wonderful elements of this album.

“Hudson Line” is an anomaly on the disc–raw saxophone solo and low vocals change the pace of the album quite a bit.  “The Funny Bird” actually sounds like a Flaming Lips song circa 2008.  The Flaming Lips comparisons aren’t all that surprising since Donahue played with the Lips back in the early 90s.  And “Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp” is a pretty raucous song (“stomp” is correct).  It has a traditional feel and ends the disc on an upbeat note.

So, yes, although some of the effects on the disc veer into annoying, it’s still a great disc overall.

[READ: Week of April 16] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.25-3.32

We have finally exited The Zone this week.  The lengthy Section 3 has come to a close with an unceremonious send off to Slothrop, who I assume we’ll see in Section 4, with the reintroduction of old characters and with a chance meeting that made me go wow!

I’m really amazed at the interconnectedness of the book.  While I didn’t think that things would be unrelated, the number of unexpected connections is really tremendous.  And while I missed many of the other characters, seeing the occasional one pop up is pretty exciting.

I’m happy to leave the Zone, not because I didn’t like it (although I admit I Slothrop’s slog from one place to another was getting a little tiring), but because I really want to see how he wraps all this stuff up.  Connections are popping up everywhere, and I feel like he’s doing a whole lot more than I initially thought. (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 8] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 3.16-3.24] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Frank Zappa, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), James Joyce, Kid Rock, Language, Military, Molotov, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Research, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Travel, War on April 16, 2012| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: MOLOTOV-¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas? (1998).

Molotov was the last Rock en Español band that I really bothered to check out.  They were probably most notorious for the cover of the album.  Interestingly, the cover is actually a four sided cover which you can flip to three other far less sexist scenes, so yes, that was pretty much a sales gimmick.  And it certainly attracted attention (and a law suit!).  So they reissued the title with the far less offensive, but very different cover below.

My Spanish is poor at best, but this album is a mix of Spanish and English.  And, of course, I know some bad Spanish words, so I get a sense of what this album is about. But here’s the thing–it rocks really hard and has some really great elements of the metal/rap/funk hybrid genre, regardless of whether you know what they’re talking about (although don’t go singing “Chinga Tu Madre” around the office, capiche?).

The opening song  “Que no te haga bobo Jacobo” has a very Rage Against the Machine vibe–heavy guitars and sound effects with militant rapped lyrics.  The riff is great and the vocals are smoother than Rage’s Zach–“Tito” Fuentes has great flow.  There’s also some good funky bass in the middle section.  “Molotov Cocktail Party” is a mix of English and Spanish, a pretty straightforward rap, not unlike Kid Rock.

“Voto Latino” has a more alt rock vibe in the guitars, although the vocals are pretty straightforward rap style.  The song title means Latino Vote, so perhaps there’s a politics context to it.  And “Gimme Tha Power” is a political song, too.  A rap (in Spanish) over some nice acoustic guitars.

There definitely isn’t in “Chinga Tu Madre” which has more of those cool guitar effects and group chanting, although it’ probably not worth investigating the lyrics much more.  But the chorus is catchy as anything.  “Matata Tete” and “Mas Vale Cholo” return to that Rage Against the Machine style, with vocals that are a bit more cookie monster-y (I’m not sure who sings lead on which songs, actually) although “Mas Vale Cholo” has some fun with the vocal delivery.  And there’s a spirit of early Red Hot Chili Peppers at work, too.

“Use It or Lose It” is rapped in mostly English.  It has a very cool acoutsic-feeling chorus (and a quote of the line, “what cha gonna do rap is not afraid of you.”).  “Puto” is presumably an anti-gay song (I suppose I should find that out before I say so).  “Porque No Te Haces Para Alla?…Al Mas Alla!” has a fun chorus and cool guitar effects once again.  “Cerdo” has a cool 70s vibe, with funky bass and scratchy guitars–it’s got a sexy feel, although the title means “pig,” so who knows.

The final track also rocks very well.  According to Wikipedia, the translated title of “Quitate Que Ma’sturbas (Perro Arrabalera)” is “Stay Away Because You Masturbate (Suburban Bitch)” which seems weird .  But maybe they had nothing better to write about.  Sometimes ignorance of a subject is not a bad thing.

¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas? is not the classiest album around, but it’s got some really interesting sonics.  And I’m led to believe their later albums are even better.

[READ: Week of April 9] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.16-3.24

Last week ended with sex and this week opens with the way I felt–like a voyeur who can’t look away.  The exhausting orgy was exhausting to read about as well.  And I’m starting to wonder if Pynchon is making a point about sex rather than just enjoying writing about it.

This week’s read also brings back two characters from way way ago.  Well, one from not too long ago, but another from what seems like an eternity.  I assumed we’d see Pirate Prentice again, but I assumed that it wouldn’t be until Section 4. So that was a nice treat, even if it’s a less than happy return for him. (more…)

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Thomas Pynchon–[Week 7] Gravity’s Rainbow [Sections 3.11-3.15] (1973)

Posted in Africa, Big Books, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Drinking, Drugs, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Language, Military, Political Humor, Pranks, Racism, Research, Rocket 00000, Russia, Sex, Supernatural, Surreal, Technology, Thomas Pynchon, Threats, Travel, War on April 9, 2012| 3 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: ROCKET 00000-What Women Want (2010).

This is the second band that I have discovered because of this novel.  I was looking for images to paste in last week’s post for Rocket 00000, and I came across this EP.

Rocket 00000 are a trio from Cincinnati and this is their first (and only) release.   It’s got a kind of 80s punk vibe–I can’t really make out the words, but I like the feel.

There’s something very raw and almost amateurish about the record–but that seems deliberate, because the album sounds very professional–it’s recorded well and the band is very tight.  And since I like the bandcamp site quite alot, I’m going to provide the link with extras here so you can listen to the album, too.

There’s four songs–two are 5 minutes and two are around 3 minutes.  The two longer ones have intros and outros that extend the music to those long (for punk songs) times.  And I really like these instrumental sections. In fact, when I first listened, I thought maybe the whole first track was an instrumental.  Since  I liked the tone of the album I was okay with that.

The “Summer City” part of “Summer City/Conspiracy Theory” has a simple but effective guitar solo as an instrumental.  After about a minute and a half “Conspiracy Theory” kicks in, the vocals bring a new texture and a punk element into the song.  “Lethal Weapon 2 & 4” has a great title, but it doesn’t sound all that different from the other songs (although the lyrics, “We’re not perfect…but neither are you” are pretty clear).

“Signs” has some cool drum breaks and fills, and the end of the song is musically interesting.    “Braveheart: Forever Young” probably combines the music and vocals  best–I like the  upbeat music with the dark words.  The song ends with about 2 and a half minutes of instrumental (with interesting feedback) that works really well together.

It’s not the best punk EP, but it’s got some good qualities and the band has a good name.  I wonder how they “say” it?

[READ: Week of April 2] Gravity’s Rainbow 3.11-3.15

After last week’s breezy read, I figured that this week’s would be a bit rougher.  But for the most part, it wasn’t–aside from the very end which was a little hard to stomach.  There was a lot of technical discussion in this section–which was a  bit hard to comprehend.  There was a also a return of Franz Pökler–where we learned his story and what happened to him.  We assumed that he was killed by a police truncheon, but that turns out to be untrue.  His story is pretty dark and sad.  Sorry, as Marco points out below, it was Peter Sachsa who was killed by truncheon.  My conspiracy has been called out!

Section 3.11 opens uncomfortably with Franz Pökler… copulating with Leni in an aggressive and rough manner.  He has just come back from showing of Alpdrücken and imagines that it’s Margherita underneath him.  He assumes that men all over the country are doing the same thing because of the movie.  He calculates that it was that night that Ilse was conceived–they’d barely had sex around that time.  This flashback brings us forward to the scene of Franz waiting for Ilse to return to Zwölfkinder—a kind of children’s fantasy playground which would prove to be a very significant location for them. (more…)

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Science News Letter for Febraury 2, 1952

Posted in Essays, History, Nature, Nostalgia, Rafflles Bulletin of Zoology, Research, Science News Letter, Tokyo Police Club on April 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TOKYO POLICE CLUB “Cheer It On (Trey Told Em Remix)” and “Cut Cut Paste” from Viva Piñata! (2008).

Tokyo Police Club released one of the best LPs of short blasts of rock in a long time.  “Cheer It On” is a great song that name-checks the band and which I could listen to over and over.  It’s a hot punk blast.  This remix totally changes the song (which is better than just tweaking it or repeating the chorus over and over).  Trey makes it a discoey song (with the wah hoo! from “Celebration,” I believe) and big rubber disco bass lines over the music.  It really changes the sound. I like the original a lot better, but I enjoy a remix that actually remixes.

“Cut Cut Paste” is a studio release and it shows TPC in their element–a short fast song.  I love the way it starts out with a shifting guitar sound.  It has a great manic intensity.  Tokyo Police Club is definitely one of my favorite new bands.

[READ: March 20, 2012] Science News Letter

I’ve mentioned before when my company sends out links to articles that are interesting or cool.  Most of the time they are highly academic (that’s the kind of work I’m in), but they also do more general information as well.

So this particular page was sent to us because of the article “Marriages Are Seldom Higher in Leap Year” (since this is a leap year).  There was a tradition in Britain and Ireland that on a leap year, women could propose to men (see the postcard below).

But this article (really only three paragraphs) which is addressed to “Marriage Shy Bachelors” says that only twice since the Civil War has the marriage rate been higher in a leap year (1896 and 1920) in America. And that in 1952 the supply of available unmarried persons has been depleted by the spurt in marriages following World War II.  Rest easy single guys! (more…)

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