Don't Waste Your Tears On Me

This is the album the clandestine Jaxxophobes have been waiting for.

After three masterpieces, including the delirious Kish Kash, Basement Jaxx have released a record that finally sees a halt to their blistering momentum.

On first listen, the disc is underwhelming.

Hush Boy, essentially Oh My Gosh redux, loses the crucial match-up of lead-off tracks (against the flawless Rendez-Vu, Romeo, and Good Luck). And the whole radio leitmotif is a bit silly -- then again Felix and Simon have always been about shameless maximalist dance flourishes and have never relied on subtlety.

So if this album is a disappointment, why can I not stop listening to it?

Hey You is a klezmer-house mashup that manages to out camp Buz Luhrmann -- and it may be the wildest song you hear all year (and the synth line that comes in on the back half of the chorus is simply awesome). Take Me Back To Your House is possibly the biggest surprise, an impossibly catchy country tune refracted through the Jaxx dance machinery.

It may be a grower, but Basement Jaxx always get you in the end.

[ed: this is why I can't do music reviews -- there is an adverb in every sentence]

Product Review, In Brief IV

Product: Sparks PLUS

Judgement: [BEFORE/AFTER]

Maybe she’s got a hat on too...

"If you hear a voice within you say, 'You are not a painter,' then by all means paint…and that voice will be silenced." –– Vincent Van Gogh

She’s “Gothic,” if they still call themselves that. A girl with dyed black hair, shoulder-length, and a shiny chain belt hanging diagonally around her hips. I’m always amazed how many of them look Mormon.

Another girl. This one with almost no hips, low rise jeans and a flash of pink underwear. High shoes (loud when she walks). She has an overweight friend, which seems somehow symbolic. I decide she’s impatient and overconfident. Unconscious perhaps, I’m disgusted.

I see Jeff and Halina. Halina has been in the coffee shop for a while, but I don’t notice her until Jeff walks in. Neither of them see me, and I don’t feel like talking to anyone so I don’t “see” them either. Even though I like Jeff and Halina.

I came to the coffee shop to work on a story and do a few train-of-thought exercises. But I’m distracted. Not writing much.

It could be the idea of school; I’ve just started my first semester of graduate school and I’ve maybe been to one or two classes. Even then I had a strong feeling that I don’t want to be in grad school.

Or maybe it’s work. There’s been a bubbling tension at work for a while. Thing’s haven’t come to the surface yet, but they do shortly after this night in the coffee shop. Then too I’ve been working on copy for a new client. A lip gloss that builds volume, collagen, naturally.

But it isn’t any of these things. I’m waiting for a phone call. A “no,” likely, but any response would do.

This was the first time that I really put myself “out there” with Rachel. When I made a gesture that couldn’t be shrugged off as some minor social thing. And when I didn’t know what to expect.

I called her to ask her if she’d like to meet me for a cup of coffee. But I didn’t have her home phone number at the time. Just her cell phone.

I had a fair idea that she liked me. Yet, no one can ever know for sure. Not until you know, that is.

I learned later that her phone was mostly broken. (She feel on her phone when she was skateboarding and cracked the LCD. So she could still make and receive calls, but the caller ID didn’t work.) And that she rarely checks for messages.

Of course, this is all history now. Everything with Rachel worked out spectacularly. Knowing this, I may not have been stressed that night. But probably I still would have. Silencing that voice is never without worry.

This post may seem to say that I completely agree with the Van Gogh quote. But I don’t know that I do.

Lately, I’m thinking about when it’s right to listen to that voice that tells you that you are not this. Sometimes it’s right.

I had that thought about graduate school since before I started applying for writing programs. It just took me a year to admit that I am NOT someone who wants to be involved in the academy.

The question then, is when to push ahead and silence the voice, and when to listen.

This doesn’t seem like a question you answer.

We are playing a giant game of telephone

So on a connected, but sort of unrelated topic.

I'm currently taking a 10-week bread baking and pastry class and our focus this past Saturday was bread. Slotted for baking that day were baguettes, ciabatta (which means slipper in Italian if any of you were wondering), foccacia, and butter bread (a.k.a. challah). We completed much of our baking early, so the Chef was showing us some fancy-pants braids that could be done with the butter bread dough. While he was rolling out the pieces, he started talking about how/why braided bread came to be.

Chef Parks claimed that the whole braided bread escapade started in India.

Then came my middle name:

A little background thanks to kamat.com:

"Sati (Su-thi, a.k.a. suttee) is the traditional Hindu practice of a widow immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre." (Thanks, Dad..)

Sati means a virtuous woman. A woman who dies burning herself on her husbands funeral fire was considered most virtuous, and was believed to directly go to heaven, redeeming all the forefathers rotting in hell, by this "meritorious" act. The woman who committed Sati was worshipped as a Goddess, and temples were built in her memory."

(okay, maybe my Dad was just trying to be sweet in sort of an awkward way... Just like when he named my old dog Nanuck, but called him Nookie for short).

Anyway, as Chef Parks kneaded his butter bread, he continued to explain how the act of sati was replaced by the widow braiding her hair after the death of husband, chopping it off, and throwing it on to the burning funeral pyre. The women was recognized as a widow by her short hair and was able to honor/mourn the death of her husband sufficiently. And more practically, I think, than throwing herself on to a funeral pyre. I'm sure I was distracted at some point during the Chef's explanation (I'm not always great at following long stories), but eventually folks decided to bake bread, braid it, and then burn that when some dude died. And then they figured out that was just silly and decided to eat the braided bread at funerals.

So I came home and attempted to do a little fact checking (this and to find the answer to his second challenge, which is the history of the bagel.. can you say stirrup?)

But this is what I found (challah and braided bread were the most easily connected, yet culturally problematic in terms of verifying Chef Parks' story).

"With that in mind, the Midrash relates that the braiding of the bread alludes to the way God adorned the hair of the first woman, Eve, before her wedding to Adam in the Garden of Eden."

So I guess this is like playing cross cultural telephone (one explanation may have come before the other, but they probably started out with the same basic idea, and ended up with an entirely different result).

Alright. To get to the (longwinded) point, it seems that humans (across cultures, across geography, across knowledge and wealth and technology) have continued to translate the meaning of acts and words (anything from highschool gossip to bread braiding to acts of war) to fit their specific frame of reference. Not news to any of you, I'm sure.

So, if it isn't a person specific problem, but instead a human specific problem, we are going to headed for waterballons or missles or whatever else, over and over again.

If someone figures out what to do, let me know.

Born of Frustration

Heartbroken. Again.

Just as well.

I am going to be traveling two of the next three weeks, so you will not be hearing much from me on the blog front. Hopefully Nell and Ben will pick up the slack.

Can we get some PYNCHON up in this PIECE?

Odds this book will rule - 3:2

Odds that Mark will refuse to read it - 39:1

iLife

Apple has this amazing ability to anticipate my wildest technological desires.

Case in point.

My friend still has not seen Season 2 of Lost. Unfortunately my grating renditions of Michael ("WALT! WWAAAALLLTTT!") have not quenched her curiosity for all things hatch (remember those naive times?).

I did some research and discovered that not only did Apple have the software necessary to encode my EyeTV DIVX files into DVD friendly MPEGs, but it was already installed on my computer.

An hour or so later, not only was I able to enjoy Michael in all his lugubrious glory, but iDVD helped me create graphic interfaces to navigate while listening to ominous sounds of Michael Giacchino's soundtrack.




















Cool.

Another case in point.

I was at a Goldsmith family barbecue the other week and throughout the evening the brothers Gold communicated through video conferencing over their new MacBooks.

Later, using the same hardware, Mason and Nell were able to visually demonstrate their Hadriatic love of all things L.F.O. ("There was a good man named Paul Revere").

Essential? Probably not. Useful? Kind of. Cool? Hell yes.

FYI II

Thank you Entertainment Weekly...

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/

The vantage falling from the ivory tower

It has been over a month since I left graduate school and I feel there has finally been enough distance and separation that I can begin writing about my academic work.

The blog originally served me as an avenue for my fugitive thoughts outside the totalizing myopia of the academic sphere.

Curiously enough, this trend may invert in the coming year.

I am giving la vida academica a respite; as such, the blog may become host to my refugee scholarship.

Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to be publishing excerpts from some of my academic writings. You may not find it all that interesting, but hopefully it will provide you some insight into the topics and themes that have enthralled me for the past few years.

A lie #1

Dan Brown’s Big Secret!

You know him as Dan Brown, author of the bestselling novels The Da Vinci Code (the book Salman Rushdie said “gives bad novels a bad name”) and Angels and Demons. (You’ve probably read them, the books that expose some of the secrets of the Catholic Church.)

But what you probably don’t know… Dan Brown DOESN’T EXIST!

It’s true. Apparently Random House (“his” publisher) invented “Dan Brown” as a kind of experiment. They have a team of writers (I think like four) working to research and write each book, which is then published under the single pseudonym “Dan Brown.”

So what this means is that ALL of those stories about how he was an English teacher or how he’s married to an Art Historian named Blythe or how he researched and wrote the books are complete bullshit.

I guess the idea is that this way Random House can literally own “Dan Brown” and everything he creates. Since “Dan Brown” is just a brand (like Coca-cola or Toyota), Random House NEVER has to worry about contract renegotiations, his ego, writer’s block or any of those other writer problems.

It’s kind of brilliant for Random House, in a weird way, but kind of funny too. I mean, the “author” who’s all controversial right now for invented facts IS an invented fact.

The details...

It was Wednesday, 28 June 2006. We had planned for Tuesday, but something else came up and we shuffled.

I took her to Christopher’s, a nice seafood and steak restaurant in the historic Peery Hotel in downtown Salt Lake. The plan: we’d eat and then go back to her parent’s house for champagne and cake with her family. Somewhere in between I’d ask her to marry her.

A little background. I had a different sense of meaning with Rachel from the beginning. From the first date, everything felt pretty natural. (Of course, I was nervous to the point of feeling nauseous for the first few dates, but that went away.) I never want to force anything and I actively tried to avoid thinking something “should” happen or “should” have happened. I simply wait until I can’t wait any longer. To buy her flowers again. To call her. To say I love you.

I suppose you could say we’ve been “unofficially engaged” for around three months, although I don’t remember the date. I do know that we had been dating for more than six months because that’s how the subject came up.

We were in the Sugarhouse Coffee Company. I had met her for her lunch from work and we were just drinking coffee and talking. It felt right to say something about how happy I was that we’d already been dating for six months. Then it felt right to say something about how I didn’t ever want our relationship to end. Then that I wanted to marry her. She said she felt the same way.

But we waited to become engaged. We waited until that day at Christopher’s. We had gone together to buy the ring the Saturday before. She knew that was the day. And I knew I didn’t really have any way to surprise her. But I tried anyway.

After dinner I walked her over to the lobby of the Peery Hotel. It’s nice. Historic and different from what you see in Salt Lake City. I had bought her an iPod. An expensive gift I knew she’d never expect. (Even though I had told her I bought her a present too.) And I had written her a card.

Right after I wrote her the card, I realized that it said everything I wanted to.

So I gave her the iPod and I waited for her to reach for the card. When she did I stopped her and said that I wanted to read it to her. So I did. Then, like you may expect of others although perhaps not me, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me...

She said “yes” before I could even finish the question.

The wedding is now officially dated, and is less than five months away.

2 December 2006.

12-02-06.

It will be a very best day.

We Share Our Mother's Health

The entire weekend was permeated with this ineluctable sensation of the unheimlich, but I will always cherish these few days I was able to spend reconnecting and reminiscing with old friends.

It Doesn't Materazzi

Zinedine Zidane did what I have been wanting to do to the Italian team for the past month.

Algerian karma is a bitch.

κατακλυσμός

Three engagements. A broken commitment. An unexpected six-month pregnancy. A suicide.

Suddenly everything has changed.

Classic Moments In Gaming History #272

Soulblazer, the first chapter in the underrated Enix trilogy (also including Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma) for the SNES, set itself apart at the zenith of Nintendo's dominance with its existential undercurrent and tonal melancholy. The climatic battle with (the not so subtly named) Deathtoll in the vertigo of dazzling space, unveiled the game's grave thesis: for the metempsychotic soul, being is suffering.

He Took Her To A Movie

The first half of 2006 has been rather dire for movies.

Tristram Shandy began the year on a disappointing note, while V for Vendetta was an admirable, albeit arrhythmic, attempt at adapting Alan Moore's atrociously alliterative anarchist anthology (if you think that was bad, imagine having to read that out-loud -- on screen; Hugo Weaving is the man). Inside Man was serviceable and completely forgettable; the same could be said about Mission Impossible III, but JJ gets a few props for making shit blow up good (negative points, however, for casting the PSH if you aren't going to use him). And while I find Superman intensely uninteresting as a character, Bryan Singer has crafted a couple of thrilling set pieces and adds enough depth of feeling to make his reboot of the franchise the first good 'summer movie.'

For those of you who have been paying attention to the sidebar, my recommendations will come as no surprise. Thank You For Smoking is a fiercely cynical, but always entertaining satire. An Inconvenient Truth might just be a glorified Powerpoint presentation, but it is (surprisingly) never dull and grounds Gore's stoic neo-Kantism in the tragedies of his biography. Regardless of how you feel about Altman or Keillor, there are two reasons you should see A Prairie Home Companion: Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline. And finally, Brick, a film which premiered at Sundance last year, is easily the best movie so far of 2006. A film noir by way of the schoolyard, it is taught, visually striking, and sharply written (and at the risk of completely alienating you, features Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the toughest anti-hero since Bruce Willis in Die Hard).

Special honors go to X-men III, a franchise killer of epic proportions and The Da Vinci Code which not only made Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou look bad, but also the Louvre and Paris -- not even Jesus or God walked away from the film untarnished.

And to wrap things up, some random numbers that may or may not correspond to how I felt about the movies of 2006 (let Mark have his rebellious subjectivity):

Tristram Shandy - 69
V for Vendetta - 64
Inside Man - 72
Thank You For Smoking - 82
Brick - 90
Mission Impossible:III - 73
The Da Vinci Code - 9
X-men III - 24
An Inconvenient Truth - 84
A Prairie Home Companion - 80
Superman - 76