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Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis (2010)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Anarchy, End of the World, Funny (ha ha), Futurama, Graphic Novel, Matt Groening, Meta, Short Story, Sonic Youth, Supernatural, Technology, The Simpsons, Threats, Thurston Moore, Time Travel, World Cafe Live on April 19, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: THURSTON MOORE-World Cafe Studio, November 16, 2007 (2007).

This World Cafe set is a nice contrast to the all-acoustic performance mentioned yesterday (even if it was recorded earlier).  Thurston has a full band with him (including Steve Shelly on drums).  Samara Lubelski from the other session is here too.  The band brings new dimensions to what are mostly the same set of songs.  Both sets included “The Shape is in a Trance,” and “Fri/End” but this one also includes “Honest James.”  The contrast is striking though.  The songs are bigger with the band (and allow for more intricacies) but they are still intimate.

  The interview is also interesting.  David Dye is a fantastic interviewer and he gets some great (and funny) answers out of Thurston. The whole description of how the lyrics to “Fri/End” came about is really cool (if unlikely).

Thurston and NPR: perfect together.

[READ: April 15, 2011] The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis.

This was a wonderful Christmas surprise from Sarah this year.  It is a beautifully packaged (slipcase with a cut-away opening) hardcover edition of the 2002 & 2005 Simpson/Futurama crossover comics issues.

Despite all of my fondness for The Simpsons and Futurama, I never really got into the comics (gotta draw a line somewhere).  But they have Matt Groening’s seal of approval, and they play jokes with things that the show never really touches (not to mention, the shows never tries a crossover event–I can’t even imagine how that would work). (more…)

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Jude Watson–Beyond the Grave [The 39 Clues, Book Four] (2009)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Children's Books, Egyptology, Fears, Jude Watson, Kids Corner, Mystery, Technology, The Amoeba People, Threats, Travel, Trout Fishing in America, WXPN 88.5 FM--Philadelphia, PA on April 14, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: Kids Corner on WXPN (2011).

Kids Corner is a great radio show on WXPN (88.5 Philadelphia).  It airs Sunday through Thursday night at 7PM.  It’s also available online (you can listen live at 7PM!).  In addition to some smart radio for kids (Science Thursday!), there’s quizzes and call in stuff and lots of music.

Most of the music is funny/novelty stuff.  From standard bearers like “Weird Al” Yankovic, to great bands like Trout Fishing in America, to the ancient novelty song “Star Trekkin” and my new favorite kids’ band The Amoeba People.

Every night they have a contest for song of the day, which anyone can vote in (democracy in action!).

Check out the last six years of Ton Ten songs (Steve Martin’s “King Tut!”).  And be sure to tune in, you just might just learn something.

[READ: March 2, 2011] Beyond the Grave

This fourth book in the series excited me because it broke with the format of the kids traveling to two cities with no help.  When they land in Egypt, they are greeted by an old friend (whom they never met before).   This old friend,  Hilary Vale, is actually a friend of their grandmother, Grace.  Grace went to Egypt every year and spent her time with Hilary, traveling, seeing the sights and, of course, looking for clues (although Hilary didn’t know any details of what Grace was up to).  Hilary (and her grandson, Theo) play a helping role in the book, and I have to say that it was nice to let the kids have a little breather with some people that they can trust.

They also get to go to a super fancy hotel room (using Alasdair Oh’s frequent number card).  Of course, as is the way with cool spy stories, the super fancy hotel turns out to be the stronghold for the branch of the Cahill family that Alasitar Oh is part of (I still can’t keep those branch names straight).  They pretty easily access the super spy area of super cool hotel suite.  (Because they have Alastair’s card, they are given the fancy suite).  Of course, once they are in the secret room, Alastair’s uncle, the sinister Bae Oh, knows that they’re there (he owns the hotel).  And they are suitably trapped.

While in the stronghold, the kids learn a little bit about the items they are seeking in Egypt (there is a fake statue in the room).  But mostly they’re concerned about trying to escape.  Thanks goodness thier au pair (who getts cooler with each book) has been paying attention. (more…)

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Peter Lerangis–The Sword Thief [The 39 Clues, Book Three] (2009)

Posted in Adventure, Airlines, All Songs Considered, Children's Books, Culture Shock, Eoin Colfer, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Peter Lerangis, Short Books, Technology, The Head and the Heart, Threats, Travel, TSA, Violence on March 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE HEAD AND THE HEART-“Winter Song” (2010).

Sarah intended to get this disc for me for Christmas.  But evidently Sub Pop bought out the disc and put it out of print.  It’s now available as a download.  But a personal email from Sub Pop headquarters said they’d be releasing the disc in physical format sometime in April.  (Yay!)

This is a beautiful folk song which features wonderful harmonies.  It’s a simple guitar-picked song.  It opens with a male vocalist who sounds very familiar (I can’t quite place who he sounds like), but the end of the verse has a beautiful, brief blast of multi-part harmony.  The second verse is by a different vocalist (he sounds close to the first, I only noticed he was different after a few listens). The final verse is by a female vocalist which comes as a wonderful surprise as her voice brings a whole new shape to the sound.

The harmonies continue throughout the song and really flesh it out.  There’s not a lot to the song itself: a simple verse/chorus structure, but the execution and vocals are really lovely.

[READ: February 21, 2011] The Sword Thief

I can’t believe it has been five months since I read Book Two of this series.  It wasn’t for lack of enjoyment, sometimes other books get in the way!  But now that I’ve jumped back in, I’m in for a while (I’ve already started book 4).

One thing that I wanted to point out before talking about the book itself, was the way the various destinations are described in the book.  While I haven’t been to all (or really any) of the locations described, I have seen enough (in books and online) to know that the authors aren’t simply placing the kids in a generic location that pretends to be a city.  They really try to give each environment a full-bodied realism.  And I hope that young readers can really appreciate the sights and smells of the different countries.  It’s especially effective in Egypt (in book 4), but Tokyo really comes to life and Korea, although not fully explored, really shows the rural regions well.  Maybe this will encourage people to travel, but if not at least it’s instructive that not every place looks the same.

What I especially liked about this book is that the kids form a (brief) alliance (or two).  The first two books emphasized how all of the different family lines were in such competition with each other for the clues.  And, obviously that is the point of the books.  But it would be very tedious to simply have them run from place to place being chased by the different families.  So in this one, the kids form an alliance with Alistair Oh.  Better than that though is that Lerangis gives a detailed background of Alistair which makes him a more sympathetic, human character (even if we don’t fully trust him). (more…)

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Cory Doctorow–“Truncat” (Salon, August 26, 2003)

Posted in Canadian Content, Cory Doctorow, Devendra Banhart, Salon.com, Swans, Technology, The Future, Walt Disney World on March 6, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SWANS-My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky (2010).

Three minutes of noise and pounding drums.  Monotone bass notes that hit as hard as the drums. An air of foreboding.  Yes, Swans are back.

The opening track of their new album is called “No Words/No Thoughts.”  The first part, the four minutes of instrumental, is clearly the No Words.  When M. Gira’s voice finally comes in, he’s not much happier than he was for his last Swans album.

The sounds of Swans are back, but the really big difference is that the menace is tempered somewhat.  I’m almost tempted to call it better production values. Early Swans was really scary…slow, ponderous and heavy.  And while those same qualities are here, it’s not quite as ponderous or heavy, and the pace is rather brisk on this first song.

But after this cacophony, we get the two minute a cappella “Liars.”  The music is only humming background vocals, but it is no less intense, especially when Gira’s sonorous voice reads a spoken section.  It’s very catchy (practically a first for Swans), but no less spooky.

“Jim” has some more cool harmonized backing vocals: a whole bunch of “Na Nas” which again, does not lessen the intensity of the song.  Although for old school Swans style, it’s track 4, “My Birth” with its creepy piano opening and bludgeoning noise for four minutes that shows that Swans are reaching back.

“You Fucking People Make Me Sick” opens with a Jew’s harp and then features guest vocals from Devandra Banhart and a child singing call and response.  While not as scary as some other tracks, it’s very creepy and not quite Devandra’s usually hippie fare.  It’s really good.  Especially the end instrumental part with dissonant piano and horns (!)

“Inside Madeline” is another song with 4 minutes of instrumental introduction before settling down into a relatively quiet song (more horns) that is far less sinister than most of these tracks.  “Eden Prison” has a wonderful circle high pitched guitar swinging around the background of the clattering noise.  It’s 6 minutes let up only briefly but the really convey claustrophobia.

The disc ends with the quiet “Little Mouth.”  It’s a slow ballad with whistling (!) and acoustic guitars in the background.  There’s a beautiful guitar solo which ends with Gira’s a cappella voice ending the disc.

I keep referencing Swans early music.  It’s true that their later stuff was far less scary and intense (“Can’t Find My Way Home” was a beautiful ballad which should have gotten more airplay than the original).  But this disc is certainly a call back to Swans’ roots.  Another thing is that Jarboe is not present on the disc (a first since their early days).

It’s a great return of a New York institution.

[READ: February 15, 2011] “Truncat”

This story is set in the same world as Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, although it does not take place in The Magic Kingdom at all.  Rather, it is set in Toronto and is considered a quasi-sequel to the book even though none of the characters are the same either.  Although all of the elements of that novel are in place: deadheading, whuffie, and apparent age among other things.

Interestingly, this story gives more details about the world than Down and Out did.  Or at least it spells it out more clearly.  So we get:

Adrian’s father was apparent 22, hardly older-seeming than Adrian himself, though his real age was closer to 122.

It doesn’t explain everything, but it spells things out pretty clearly. (more…)

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Cory Doctorow–A Place So Foreign and 8 More (2003)

Posted in Anachronisms, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Corporate skewering, Cory Doctorow, Death, Drugs, End of the World, Free Speech, Funny (strange), Guster, Huh?, Moneen, Sci-fi, Set at School, Short Story, Technology, The Future, Threats, Time Travel, Violence, Walt Disney World on February 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MONEEN-The World That I Want to Leave Behind (2010).

I’ve liked Moneen’s discs; they played an interesting mix of grungey noisey rock and incredibly poppy emo.  And their song titles were really long and often funny (“The Frightening Reality Of The Fact That We Will All Have To Grow Up And Settle Down One Day,” “There Are A Million Reasons For Why This May Not Work… And Just One Good One For Why It Will”).

The first sign that The World I Want to Leave Behind is different is that their song titles are all really short.  The longest one is the title of the album–which is the shortest song: a 2 minute quiet intro that features some noisy guitars at the end.   The rest are 1-3 words long.  Now, perhaps you can’t judge a band by that; however, their music, like thier song titles, has eschewed complexity and embraced pop.  (“Believe,” “Waterfalls,” “Lighters”).

Okay Moneen always had this component to it.  So it’s not like suddenly the band is all pop.  Take “Are We Really Happy with Who We are Right Now?” from the album of the same name .  The song is all emo vocals (including harmonies) but the music is punky and noisy.  It’s also got a lot of dissonance.  Similarly, “The Start to this May be the End to Another” (from their debut), opens with really blasting noise and then turns into a heavy emo track with loud and quiet sections.  They are certainly poppy, but there’s at least nods to noise.

This album removes all of that noise and chaos and settles into to some tried and true emo.  If you hate emo, you will hate this album.  There’s virtually no dissonance on the disc at all.

Okay, that’s not entirely true.  The second song, “Hold That Sound” opens with some noiy aggressive guitars (and interesting noisy effects) and “The Long Count” has some noisy heavy opening chords which propel through the track.  But unlike earlier records, the noise gets pushed to the background pretty quickly.  “The Monument” also shows some remnants of heaviness–there’s even screaming vocals at one point.

And yet, the aforementioned “Wateralls” and “Lighters” sound like Guster-lite (and I like Guster quit a bit).

The final song, “The Glasshouse” does rock pretty hard (although the harmonies are all still there and the emo certainly seeps in by the end with a piano break and the final 2 minutes being all gang vocals).

Okay so in fairnes to the band, they haven’t smoothed off all the rough edged, but the polished bits are really polished now.  The thing is, I kind of like emo, so despite my tone, I don’t really dislike this record.  I’m always diasppointed when a band moves more commerical, especially if they cut off their more interesting bits, but Moneen make good emo (if you allow that such a thing exists).  I don’t like all emo bands, but there’s still enough interesting stuff here to keep me coming back to it.  In fact, for all of its poppiness, “Believe” is a really fantastically catchy alt rock song which should be in heavy rotation somewhere, if it’s not already.

[READ: February 13, 2011] A Place So Foreign and 8 More

When I saw that Cory Doctorow had a book of short stories out, I was intrigued. I’ve enjoyed two of his books quite a bit, so what could he do with short fiction?

This is some of his earliest work and I found it a mixed bag.

The first story “Craphound” was great (and the origin of his website name).  It concerns going to flea markets and buying all kinds of crap.  When you do it a lot, you become a craphound.  But when you take a fellow craphound’s crap of choice for yourself, you break the unwritten rule.  That’s all well and good.  But in this story one of the craphounds is an alien, like from another planet.  And what he trades for his crap is pretty wild.  But why would he break the unwritten rule?  The story is a fun look at what happens when extra-terrestrials are a part of your life.

“A Place So Foreign” was my absolute favorite story in the book, and one of my favorite short stories in quite some time.  I’m happy to say that I read it last, so it totally ended the book on a high note. Despite the cover picture with an “alien” hand holding a suitcase, the story has nothing to do with that at all. (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Shampoo Planet (1992)

Posted in Boredom, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Douglas Coupland, Funny (ha ha), Greed, Marriage Trouble, Neil Young, Rheostatics, Technology, The Inbreds, tagged on February 21, 2011| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Live at the Bathurst Street Theatre, Toronto ON, April 4, 1997 (1997).

This concert is free as a download on the Rheostatics Live website.  According to the on-stage banter, the band had just finished a string of live dates with the Inbreds that were recorded for their amazing Double Live album.  They even say that this night’s show is also being recorded for the disc.  And the set list is pretty amazing.

Which is why this show is such a disappointment.  Part of the problem is obviously the quality of the recording, and you can’t fault anyone for that…a bootleg is a bootleg after all.  But the band makes some really odd flubs and some of the songs seem really lackluster.  This is all the more surprising because the band seems in really good spirits –making jokes with each other and with the crowd (they make someone take off a Mr. Bean T-shirt!).

The biggest gaff comes in “King of the Past” where (I think Dave) begins the chorus a measure early (yipes!).  “Fan Letter to Michael Jackson” for some reason removes the loud rocking “Michael!” and “Jackson!” sections and replaces them with whispers.  It’s an interesting change, but the intensity is completely lost.  Something is also missing from “Sweet Rich Beautiful Mine,” there’s no oomph to it.  And, my favorite song “Claire” sounds off to me (I think it’s the recording though).

On the plus side, “My First Rock Concert” is great and well-received.  Dave introduces it as if it was the first time they’ve played it, which is very exciting.  The end of the show picks things up and the band sounds better.  In fact the last two songs are really great (and you can really hear Neil Young’s influence on the guitar).  I’m willing to blame some of my disappointment on the sound quality…it’s missing a fullness that you really need to appreciate the band, but this is not an A+ show.  They played another show the following night there (also available online).

Heh, I just learned that they used a number of recordings from this show on Double Live.  They used “Torque, Torque,” “Claire,” “Bread Meat Peas & Rice” and “Feed Yourself.”  Listening back, “Torque” and “Peas” sound great in the set and “Jesus Was Once a Teenager, Too” is a fun, light version.  “Claire” still sounds funny to me (even on Double Live), but it’s definitely worse on this bootleg.  The mixing is so much better on Double Live (of course!), that it really accentuates the guitar solo and backing vocals much more.

[READ: February 1, 2011] Shampoo Planet

On the inside cover of my copy of Shampoo Planet, I scribbled my name and “December 1992.”  I was in a phase of putting my name on all my books (which is kind of cool looking back, but really rather silly).  This is Douglas Coupland’s second book, and I remember being very excited when it came out.

I’m sure I read it then, but upon re-reading it (admittedly almost twenty years later), I didn’t remember anything from it.  Does that mean I didn’t read it, or that the book was just ephemeral?  Well, in some ways it is ephemeral, because it’s such a document of its time.  It also seems to me that either Coupland is (or was) unique in his writing style, or that very few writers dealt with 90’s culture as directly as he did.  Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another writer who approached 90s culture in the same way

In many ways, this book is all about dealing with the wealth of the 90s, when money was everywhere and people felt free to experiment with their lives.  And, yes reading this now the story feels so light and free and I wish that I had the problems that these kids deal with.  I also wondered if anyone could write a story like this now, with youth culture being so very different.

The inside front and back cover are (different) periodic tables that he has personalized with 103 elements of the 90s.  (Lu=Moon, A=Ambition, Dd=The Dead).  This is the only nod to unconventional book tropes here (where Gen X had all of those definitions that he footnoted).  In fact, the novel is fairly straightforward and conventional.

The main character, Tyler, is a twenty year old who cares more for his hair (he has a vast array of products–my favorite observation: “always better to buy well-advertised products–preferably those products endorsed by a celebrity” (133)).  He was raised in a hippie commune off on Vancouver Island (the only real nod to Canada in the book), but when his parents divorced, his mother Jasmine took the kids to Lancaster, a suburb of Seattle.  And, as seems to happen, the children of hippies became proto-yuppies. (more…)

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Douglas Coupland–Marshall McLuhan (2009) [Extraordinary Canadians Series]

Posted in Annie Hall, Biography, Books about writers, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, CBC Radio 3, Consumerism, Death, Depression, Douglas Coupland, Extraordinary Canadians, Marshall McLuhan, Shad, Short Books, Technology, The Future on February 7, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHAD-TSOL (2010).

I first heard Shad on CBC Radio 3 online.  The track was “Yaa I Get It” and I really enjoyed it.  I haven’t listened to a lot of rap in the last few years; I’ve more or less grown bored by the genre, especially all the violence.  So, I was happy to hear this track, which was boastful but funny.

I decided to get the whole disc, and I wasn’t disappointed.  “Rose Garden” features a sample of “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” which sets some of the tone of the disc.  But it’s on the next song “Keep Shining” that Shad’s uniqueness shines through.  This song is about women.  But not in any way that I’ve heard in rap before: “I can’t speak for women.  We need more women for that.”  And the inspiring final verse:

My mom taught me where to keep my heart.
My aunt taught me how to sing two parts.
My sis taught me how to parallel park,
and tried to teach me math but she way to too smart.
My grandma in the 80’s is still sharp.
My girl’s cousin is in activism in art.
They taught there’s no curls to tight, no mind too bright, no skin too dark to keep shining.

Later on the disc is “We Are the Ones” an oddball jam that sounds like one of those bizarre Atlanta rap tracks (funky vocals and all) and an amusing line about being Lost like Matthew Fox.  But his name checks aren’t all pop culture (Moredcai Richler gets a mention as does Glenn Beck (he “better duck like foie gras”).

And of course, there’s the wonderful “Yaa I Get It.”  With great horn blast samples and all kinds of noise competing for our attention.  Yet, throughout the lyrics stand out: “Maybe I’m not big cus I don’t blog or twitter…Dawg, I’m bitter.”  And there’s this wonderful couplet: The precision of my flows in terms of tone and diction/Is akin to that of the old masters of prose and fiction.”  Or take this lyrics from “Call Waiting,” “But what they say is hard for a pimp is harder for a man of faith.”

“Listen” has some great scratching on a heavy rocking track.  It’s followed by “At the Same Time.”  This is a mellow, sad song, which I don’t really like, yet which I find very affecting.  And lyrically, it’s great: “I never laughed and cried at the same time… Until, I heard a church pray for the death of Obama.  And wondered if they knew they share that prayer with Osama.”

The disc ends with “We, Myself and I” another noisy rocker and the one minute “Outro” an acapella rant.

Shad is a great rapper, doing interesting things and trying to make a difference.  He’s worth checking out.

[READ: November 1, 2010] “Marshall McLuhan”

I learned about this book because I’m a fan of Douglas Coupland.  And, as it turns out I’ve always had a vague interest in Marshall McLuhan, so it seemed like a sure thing. The problem was that the book was not readily available in the U.S.  So, I had to order it from Amazon.ca.  And, since you can’t get free shipping to a U.S. address from amazon.ca, I thought it would make sense to order 6 titles in the series, all of which I’ll post about this week.

So, here’s a shameless plug to the folks at Penguin Canada–I will absolutely post about all of the books in this series if you want to send me the rest of them.  I don’t know how much attention these titles will get outside of Canada, but I am quite interested in a number of the subjects, and will happily read all of the books if you want to send them to me.  Just contact me here!

Each book in the series has an introduction by John Ralston Saul, in which he explains the purpose of the series and states globally why these individuals were selected (“they produce a grand sweep of the creation of modern Canada, from our first steps as a democracy in 1848 to our questioning of modernity late in the twentieth century”).  It also mentions that a documentary is being filmed about each subject.

Perhaps the most compelling sentence in the intro is: “each of these stories is a revelation of the tough choices unusual people must make to find their way.”  And that’s what got me to read thee books.

This volume was probably a bad place to start in the Extraordinary Canadians series if only because it appears that Coupland’s volume is markedly different from the others.  Coupland being Coupland, he has all manner of textual fun wit the book.  The other authors seem to write pretty straightforward books, but you know something is up right away when you open the book and the first six pages comprise a list of anagrams of “Marshall McLuhan.”

On to Marshall McLuhan.  The Medium is the Message.  That’s about all anyone who has heard of McLuhan knows about him (and that he has a hilarious cameo in Annie Hall).

When I was a freshman in college, I took a class in Communications which focused an awful lot on Marshall McLuhan.  I didn’t like the teacher very much, but the message stayed with me all these years.   And so even though I’m not a student of McLuhan or anything, I was happy to relearn what I should have known about the man and his ideas.

(more…)

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Cory Doctorow–Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

Posted in Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Cory Doctorow, Death, Destroyer, Drugs, Huh?, Neko Case, Sci-fi, Short Books, Technology, The Future, The New Pornographers, Threats, Walt Disney World on February 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: NEW PORNOGRAPHERS-Together (2010).

I enjoyed The New Pornographers’ debut album Mass Romantic, but I didn’t bother getting their later discs.  In the ensuing years, I’ve grown appreciative of both Neko Case solo and Dan Bejar’s Destroyer.  And, while I intend to get the NP’s middle discs, in the meantime, I am totally enamored of this one.

Their first disc sounded like a group of great songwriters doing their own thing.  This disc (their fifth) sounds like a group of great songwriters working together.  The album sounds cohesive and, frankly, wonderful.  It’s hard for me to pick a favorite song, because when the disc is over I find myself singing bits and pieces from so many of them.

The songs work well together, with different vocalists coming to the fore.  But there’s an overall cohesiveness to the disc.  Even the Dan Bejar songs (three on this disc), which sound very distinctly Bejar, act like a change of pace but retain the album’s style, rather than sounding like Bejar solo songs.

And I like the Bejar songs quite a lot (“Silver Jenny Dollar” is always in my head), but it’s the Newman songs (those sung by Neko Case and otherwise) which rise into the pop stratosphere.  The gorgeous delayed chorus of “Up in the Dark,” the beautiful cello of “Moves.”  Even a song like “Valkyrie in the Roller Disco” which opens a little quietly compared to the rest of the disc, pulls out a stunning chorus.

“A Bite Out of My Bed” is weird and wonderful and, of course, those first 6 songs are amazing.  “My Shepherd” is a stunning song and “Your Hands (Together)” is a catchy rocker which should have been a huge single.  Just when you think that “As a Rule” couldn’t possibly get any catchier, along comes a whistle solo.  Fabulous. And the album closer, “We End Up Together” has great group vocals and a nice return to those catchy strings from the opening.  It’s a great release from start to finish.

[READ: January 24, 2011] Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

I loved Doctorow’s Little Brother.  And when I recently said I would be going to Disney, an astute reader said I should read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (which I’d never heard of).

Knowing what I know about Doctorow (this and all of his books are published under a Creative Commons license and if you go to his site, you can download the entire book for free), I expected that this book might bash Disney (the main source for our current copyright extension laws–see The Copyright Extension Act also known as The Mickey Mouse Protection Act).  The title also hinted at is as well.  But in fact, this book does not bash Disney World in any way.

Rather, it embraces the Magic Kingdom as a sort of traditional refuge, something that should be immune to technological update.  Of course, since it is a science fiction novel, it is also futuristic, full of bizarre technologies and lots and lots of behavior control.

The book opens in the undetermined future (although later in the book we learn that it’s probably sometime around 2069).  The Prologue is full of words that won’t be defined until later in the book (if at all):  “Deadhead” as a verb, “Bitchun Society,” and this whole sentence: “I took a moment to conjure a HUD with his Whuffie score on it.”

So, we know that this is not a typical story.  And it stays atypical.  Chapter One opens:

My girlfriend was 15 percent of my age, and I was old-fashioned enough that it bugged me. Her name was Lil, and she was second-generation Disney World, her parents being among the original ad-hocracy that took over the management of Liberty Square and Tom Sawyer Island. She was, quite literally, raised in Walt Disney World and it showed.

The story is set in Disney World.  Julius, the narrator who is 100+ years old but has been rebooted several times and appears 40, is dating Lil, who was 19 or so when they met.  And despite her youth and apparent airheadedness, they really hit it off.

As stated, her parents were more in less in charge of portions of Disney.  So, when they decide to deadhead, it puts Lil (and by proxy Julius) in charge.  Lil’s domain is the Hall of Presidents (and there’s fun insider knowledge about the Hall, and Lil is often seen with her head inside Abraham Lincoln).  Julius, meanwhile, loves loves loves The Haunted Mansion (and the story of his first time(s) there is really great).  And he works behind the scenes there now, constantly trying to make it better (shave a few seconds off here, make this part a little scarier, etc).

And all is great until Julius is killed. (more…)

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George Saunders–“Escape from Spiderhead” (New Yorker, December 20 & 27, 2010)

Posted in Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Death, Depression, Drugs, Dystopia, Fears, George Saunders, New Yorker, Prison, Radiohead, Technology on January 12, 2011| 5 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: RADIOHEAD-OK Computer (1998).

The Bends showed amazing maturation for Radiohead, but OK Computer was like going from black and white to color.  It opens with “Airbag” a blast of music, oddly off kilter and unsettling but which immediately brings you into a great riff.  About midway through, the song splits in stereo with two competing solos vying for attention.   It ends with a loud stretched out chord.  And then comes one of the most bizarre singles around.  A nearly 7 minute multi-segmented song which, the first time I heard it, I couldn’t even find a melody.  I rather wish I could go back to that naive time, because my mind was blown away by the outlandishness of the song.  Now I know all the melodies and I think it’s just brilliant.

The minor chords of “Subterranean Homesick Alien” are accented with outer space sounds and yet despite its subject (alien abduction), the song is pretty well grounded: a simple, easy rocking track.  It’s followed by “Exit Music (for a Film)”, a gorgeous building minor chord song that opens with simple acoustic guitars and slowly builds to a scorching rocker (when the drums kick in at nearly 3 minutes, it’s like a wake up call).

“Let Down” is another slow builder, although it features a much more singable verse and chorus structure (it’s incredibly catchy).  It’s followed by “Karma Police” another catchy monster of a song.  It starts with a pleasant enough piano riff and features the politely sung threat: “this is what you get when you mess with us” and the beautiful falsettoed apology: “for a minute there I lost myself.”

It segues into the odd 2 minute computer-voice-recited (and barely listed as a track) “Fitter, Happier.”  This song foreshadows future Radiohead experiments.  It seems like a blow-off track, a filler, and yet like so many of the newer Radiohead songs, it works like glue holding the big hits together.  Check out how weird, wild and intricate the music behind the voice is.

“Electioneering” is one of the noisiest, most raucous songs in the Radiohead catalog.  It opens with this steel guitar sounding riff and crashes in with loud, distorted guitars and all kinds of drums.  Thom Yorke’s vocals are really loud in the mix, so when he gets to the bridge it’s practically a wall of noise, but listen to the great ascending and descending guitar riffs behind his vocals.  They’re really intriguing.  As is the skronking noisy guitar solo.

“Climbing Up the Walls” has all kinds of insane sound effects going on in the background of one ear (as befitting the title).  It’s a drum-heavy track with eerie almost unadorned vocals (until the very end when Yorke goes berserk).  It segues into the most delicate track on the disc, “No Surprises.”  The chorus of “no alarms and no surprises, please,” has always been very affecting.  And the delicate bells that adorn the verses are a very nice touch.  The penultimate track, “Lucky” is a sort of optimistic track, despite its mellow music and, I suspect, really not very optimistic ending. But the utterly uplifting scream of “it’s going to be a glorious day, I feel my luck could change” is spine tingling.

I feel like “Lucky” is such a great ending song that I tend to forget the final track, “The Tourist”.  It’s a slow, drawn out  track…”idiot, slow down.”  It’s probably my least favorite song on the disc, but it’s kind of a good ending after all of the high points of the disc.

And with the final bell of the final song, Radiohead became untouchable.

[READ: December 29, 2010] “Escape from Spiderhead”

George Saunders must live in a dark, dark world.  His comedy is dark (but very funny) yet I feel he is often quite under-served when people refer to his as a funny storyteller.  This story, which actually has many funny elements, is incredibly dark.  And even though I laughed out loud at a few things, no one comes away from this story happy.

One of the great things about Saunders is his almost obsessive mockery of corporate/medical culture.  He has more trademarks in his story than anyone I’ve ever read (even if they are all for things he has made up).  Now to me, that’s funny in itself (especially the names he gives them), but it serves a much more telling purpose: a portent of a very dark future.

This story is set in a lab, where the main character, Jeff, is being communicated with by Mr Abnesti (a very hard name to keep straight).  Jeff is in a room with Heather, and both are being fed the experimental drug ED556, a shame inhibitor.  And so they rip off their clothes and have at it (he was obviously given some Visistif™ because they do it three times).  They are also given some Verbaluce™ which helps them elucidate their experience (from more than just grunts and moans).  This Verbaluce™ is essential to all of their experiments because without their comments, the proceedings are undocumented. (more…)

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Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)

Posted in Beck, Broken Social Scene, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Canadian Content, Canadian Music, Dan the Automator, Death, Graphic Novel, Kid Koala, Metric, Michael Cera, Nigel Godrich, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sex Bob-omb, Technology, Video Games, Violence, YA Books on January 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

[WATCHED: December 17, 2010] Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

I was delighted to finally get to see Scott Pilgrim vs the World on DVD. And man, it did not disappoint.  I love Michael Cera, so even though he’s not who I pictured as Scott Pilgrim, he played the character quite wonderfully (although he was within the realm of the “Michael Cera” character, he had an air of the sinister about him which was quite captivating).

The movie did  great job at capturing the hyper real video game quality of the books (I love all the little extra details which were not cute comic book details (like the phones printing RIIIIIIIIING) but simply part of the world they lived in.

I thought that the compression of this long (but not too long) series was wonderfully done.  Although I missed some aspects of the book, I thought it was all handled very well.  Plus, I liked the increased presence of the awesome Wallace and I really liked the way they adjusted the Knives storyline so that it could conclude at the same time as Ramona’s.  That’s very different from the final book, and, while I think the book’s version is more elegant (and fitting a longer story), for the movie, that truncation worked very well and allowed for a fantastic conclusion.  The end was great thanks to the introduction of the cool video game that Scott and Knives play early in the movie–a game which was made up for the movie.

I’m also thrilled to finally know how to pronounced Sex Bob-omb and I’m also thrilled to hear how much they rocked (Beck did most of the band music and über-god Nigel Godrich made the score for the rest of the film. Other great bands on the soundtrack include Metric, Broken Social Scene, Dan the Automator and Kid Koala.  I sort of ignored the soundtrack when it came out but I think i may have to go check it out now.

So in the movie, Scott must battle Ramona’s seven evil exes to win her love.  As for the seven evil exes themselves, they were all fun (and nicely diverse).  I enjoyed seeing Ann Veal (her?) working with George Michael Bluth again and Jason Schwartzman was simply terrific as the evil Gideon.  Also terrific was Satya Bhabha as the over-the-top first evil ex and Chris Evans as the bad-ass actor boyfriend.  I was only bummed that the Katayanagi brothers were given kind of short shrift (but hey you can only have so many characters).  The fight scenes were really well executed and fun.

The only weakness I would say in the film is that I thought Ramona was a little flat.  It was hard to know just what was so compelling about her for Scott (aside from the act that she was in his mind-portal all that time).  The book gives more details that show their relationship build, but the movie left that out.  I’ve never seen her in anything else, so I don’t know whose fault that was.  This compromises the ending a little bit because the decision between Knives and Ramona is actually kind of difficult (where it really shouldn’t be).  And yet, I thought the ending was really well done, with Ellen Wong really stealing the show).

The DVD itself is pretty awesome and there are a ton of special features.  Although Scott Pilgrim vs the Bloopers was a major let-down.  The movie is so understated that none of the bloopers are over-the-top hilarious.  However, the trivia track that you can play during the movie (I watched about ten minutes of it) was very interesting.  I especially enjoyed reading how parts of the movie that were finished before the book actually made their way into the book because O’Malley liked them so much.

I’m also thrilled that they filmed the movie in Toronto.  The trivia track points out all kinds of interesting locations.  From The Torontoist:

The first thing Wright did when he met O’Malley here in 2005 was visit all the real-life locations.”Pretty much everything that was in the book, we shot the same place Bryan had drawn,” he says.

A perfect example is the house in which Scott and his pal Wallace live. In reality, O’Malley lived at 27 Alberta Avenue, though he thinly disguised it as “Albert Avenue.”

As any true fan knows, however, the drawings in the book are actually at number 65, down the street. So, that’s where they shot, turning the garage door into the apartment door.

And there’s plenty more details in that article.  Like that those romantic and perilous stairs are real stairs on Baldwin St.  (I love crap like that).

It’s a really enjoyable romp of a film, unjustly ignored in the theaters.  And perhaps best of all…in no way is it setting itself up for a sequel!  A movie that just ends….how novel!

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