Some thoughts on thinking...

Originally the goal of this blog could have been prosaically summarized by a pithy Lao Tzu (or Laozi) quote: "A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving."

This one feel more appropriate right now: "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

I didn't have a goal with the blog. I started it as a way to keep myself writing and to help me develop a casual voice. Then, I invited Logan to start writing. I don't remember when or how. Nell was invited next. Ben soon afterwards. And then Sam. I don't remember how that happened either. I'd still like to invite Brad to write.

And I'm happy that I did. It's been a nice, albeit passive, way to keep in touch with everyone.

Lately, though, there is a different vibe on the blog. There seems to be a lot of negativity and anger in comments or posts... but never a post about what could cause that. Instead just a bunch of shallower (not necessarily shallow) posts about pop culture. I like those posts. But I like the mix that we used to have.

Something struck me when talking to Logan about Rachel's heart surgery. He said that it wasn't really something I could write about on the blog. Which I agreed with.

Now I'm not so sure.

I definitely didn't want to tell everyone passively, through the blog, about the hole in Rachel's heart and the procedure to fix it. But it's absolutely something that I want to write about.

Either that, or it may be time to give this blog up.

I'm not exactly sure.

You know you are getting old when...

a casting agent hands you an audition flyer for the Real World 21 that kindly reads: "Please be between the ages of 18 and 24 to apply."

I guess this means I can't appear on NeXt either. :(.....

My Facebook Friends Are Now Better Than Yours (A Photo Essay)

Gui Boratto, Holocene, 1/24/08

It is only January and I am already reconsidering my 2007 music list.

Gui Boratto, aided by native Portland DJs Arohan and Bryan Zentz, put on one of the best dance nights I have ever seen.

During the show, I thought of a musical analogy that might not be too far off:

Junior Boys::Hot Chip
Pantha Du Prince::Gui Boratto

Seriously, for those of you who slept on my 2007 mixtape, do yourself a favor and track down "Beautiful Life."

You have been warned.

Heath Ledger, Actor, Found Dead At 28, Ruins Xanax for Rest of Us

Call it 11 things I hate about you.

According to the New York Post,

"Bottles of the generic forms of Xanax and Valium, both anti-anxiety drugs prescribed in his name, were found in the house, according to law-enforcement sources. The sleeping drug Ambien was also found near his body, sources said. The maid said she last heard the star snoring around noon."

Who among us has not been in a similar situation, I ask? I can't even count all the times I've passed out naked after taking too much Xanax or Ambien. You know there's going to be a backlash against young people taking the valuable prescriptions. That's what happens when one dummy goes and does something like this.

Too bad it wasn't heroin.

Then the headline could have been, "Ledger to Heroin: 'I wish I could quit you.'"

Too soon?

One of these things is not like the other.

Great gig in the sky my ass.

Goldenvoice must have really exhausted all of their resources trying to corral My Bloody Valentine if they had to settle for Jack "WTF?" Johnson as the opening headliner. This isn't UCSD's spring fling.

The only minor revelation is that Kraftwerk is still touring. Hopefully they will travel somewhere northwest because Indio is out of the picture this year.

Your move Sasquatch.

To EEE or not to EEE

My laptop died. A quick, painful death as I held it in my arms.

See, it's power supply was held on by a cheap piece of plastic. So, after about four years of wear and tear, it decide to break off the motherboard. But not before big dramatic spectable (with blue sparks).

Now I'm left with a decision (and an extra 80GB 2.5" HDD... but I digress):

Replace the laptop with a device that could cost up to $1,000. Or with a device that only costs a few hundred dollars, but gets the job done.

But I don't know. It's tiny and underpowered, but maybe too tiny and underpowered? Any thoughts?

The dashboard melted but we still have the radio

The new Apple product I'm most excited about... Time Capsule. It perfectly... umm... encapsulates the difference in Apple's hardware design. It's a single, simple and elegant-looking solution for a number of problems. Network storage. Data backup. And high-speed wireless and wired routing.

But otherwise, I wasn't that impressed by Apple's presentation. Not because the products aren't impressive, but because, well, I'd already heard about everything they were bringing out.

The video rentals were discussed years ago, and it was already well reported which studios had signed up as far back as four weeks ago. (An eternity in the Internet era.)

The MacBook Air is a prime execution of a high revenue niche product. But it's existence and multitouch trackpad were leaked weeks ago.

Apple TV take 2 is a huge improvement over the original. And it's cheaper. But it's the same hardware as before.

The iPhone updates are nice. But were expected and are less than what people had hoped. (SDK anyone?)

The iPod Touch just crossed over the line to become a useful PDA replacement. But only if you don't already own a Touch. (Right. $20 is fair. Uh-huh.)

I don't think I'm alone. Apple stock is down about $40 from it's peak at the end of December. And was down about $7 yesterday alone. The day of Jobs keynote.

Thing is, the real problem is not the products. Apple's new offerings are, nearly without exception, awesome. It's the leaks. You can't make a big splash when everyone already knows what you're going to talk about. From what I've seen with Apple over the past four years, it's the unknown product that really gets the market fired up. And that unknown has become inextricably linked to Apple's brand.

Which is a great thing. Except for those days, like yesterday, when it isn't.

The empire never ended

I've never really talked much about why I didn't finish Graduate school. If you asked me about it, I probably said "it wasn't doing it for me."

The true story is that it did do it for me. To the point where I realized that I didn't need to spend another year and another $6,000 to complete my education.

Here's the real reason I gave up on Grad school (even though I was more than halfway through and had a GPA of 3.95... the highest in my life):

After the first year, my artistic pretensions were completely destroyed. Along with any belief in the difference between high and low culture.

My pretensions had held back my writing. I always felt like every story had to mean something. Or to mean nothing. That is no longer my goal when I write.

Now I want my stories to interact with a reader in somewhat the same way I interact with people in a group setting. Mostly, I try to be funny. Funny in a way that's relevant to the content of the conversation and also plays off the disconnect between the context and commonplace signification. (That's a fancy way to say thematic and literal "punning.") I may occasionally say something meaningful or interesting. But I'm not trying to. And if I do it comes out of the moment.

That's what I want my stories to do. And Graduate school wasn't going to help me write that way. Although, in a way, it did/does.

The worst part of Grad school is that it burned me out on reading. For almost two years now.

Fortunately, that feeling is subsiding. And I now feel a strong need to read. But I'm having a hard time motivating myself when my current obsession is learning CSS, ASP and other web languages.

I need to decide whether to jump into those books. Some of the graphic novels on my list. Or the more famous Philip K. Dick and Patricia Highsmith books I've been hankering to read.

It's all up in the air.

A haiku

She had dumps like a truck truck truck
Thighs like what what what
All night long
Let me see that thong

The Tipping Point

There's little doubt in my mind that Hillary, Obama, Edwards, and even Kucinich have nearly identical views on everything from gay rights to foreign policy. Sure, Edwards may see special interests as more of a threat to authentic democracy than someone like Hillary, but deep down I'm sure she wouldn't totally disagree with him. The difference between the four Democratic candidates has more to do with how they perceive and present themselves than with their core values and beliefs. They're all brilliant, compassionate people, and with the help of a well chosen staff, any one of them would probably make a fine president.

The question for me is this: When faced with matters of life and death, oppression and freedom, democracy and free market capitalism, which candidate is most likely to act on what they feel is right, and which is least likely to act solely on what they think will be popular? Since each of the four candidates has essentially the same values, it boils down to a matter of integrity.

The answer, clearly, is Kucinich. He's a vegan for god's sake. Dennis is one ethically consistent dude, and he's cute to boot. His kids are in public school, he isn't rich, he always votes with his conscience, and he's just an all around good guy. He's like me, only older, smarter, shorter, and has a hot wife.

He's also totally unelectable. Not because he's too honest or not enough of a politician, but because his views aren't those of the majority of America. He's too much of a socialist. He's also too short to ever stand a chance against a republican in a general election. Sad but true.

Which is what brings me to Obama. The lead up to the Iraq war took place during my junior year of college. I'd wake up every morning and listen to NPR to hear how much closer the Bush administration was to declaring war without a UN resolution. I listened to the live broadcast of every single meeting of the Security Council in the run up to the war, hoping reason would eventually prevail. I organized and attended several demonstrations to oppose the congressional vote that give Bush the power to go to war, and several more after the vote was taken. I sent countless letters and made countless phone calls to voice my concern over going to war against the will of the UN. At the time, I really felt as though I'd done everything I could.

But it wasn't enough. Bush was able to start this war because members of congress were too spineless to ask tough questions and defy what they perceived to be public opinion. I don't believe for a second that Hillary or Edwards voted to give Bush the power to go to war because they felt it was the best way to make our nation safe. They didn't shirk their obligation to check the power of the executive branch because they thought it was in the best interests of this country or the Iraqi people. They didn't cast that vote with any vision of a better future for the United States or the American (let alone Iraqi) people.

They voted the way they did because they're fucking cowards. I don't care how they've voted since; when the future of this country was in their hands, they abdicated responsibility. Obama and Kucinich, on the other hand, took a highly unpopular stance in opposition to Bush and this war. They knew it was wrong wrong to give the president the power to start this war, and they voted accordingly. They voted with integrity when it mattered most even though they had little to gain and much to lose. More than any other, it's that vote that set the stage for the world in which we live today.

The last thing this country needs is a president who will bow to powerful interests or the fickle and reactionary whims of the American public. We need a president who cares deeply about the constitution and who values human rights. We need a president who doesn't compulsively react politically (I intend this link to be an example of Edwards' political response to Hillary's presumably genuine emotion), but acts first on what he/she believes is right. We need a president with the courage to do the right thing and, cheesy though it may sound, the courage to hope. Given the state of the things at the moment, hope is just about all we have left.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised by the surge that led to a victory for Obama in the Iowa caucuses last week. Until Obama's first place finish, I had very little hope that this country had any chance of going in a different direction. Sure, I was ready to vote for the guy. I'd even given $50 to his campaign. But my hopes have been dashed so many times over the past eight years that I just assumed we would continue spiraling downward, continue electing individuals with no more hope or vision than those before them. Obama doesn't just stand for hope and change, he has hope and the courage to fight for change.

Now that America has seen that there's reason to hope, I'll be surprised if anyone is able stop Obama. Hope is all we needed to see.

2007: A meaningful moment through a meaningless process

Favorite Concerts -

5. !!!, Someday Lounge, 5/2/07
4. Hot Chip, Wonder Ballroom, 6/11/07
3. Subtle/TV on the Radio, Roseland Ballroom, 3/23/07
2. Junior Boys, Doug Fir Lounge, 4/24/07
1. Björk, Sasquatch Music Festival, 5/26/07

Album Honorable Mentions -

Apparat - Walls
Battles - Mirrored
Björk - Volta
Caribou - Andorra
The Clientele - God Save The Clientele
Denzel + Huhn - Paraport
The Go! Team - Proof of Youth
Gui Boratto - Chromophobia
John Vanderslice - Emerald City
M.I.A. - Kala
Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Boat Sank
Sigur Rós - Hvarf-Heim
Subtle - Yell&Ice
The Tuss - Rushup Edge

Top 10 Albums:

10. Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero

Future music historians will probably look back on 2007 as a watershed year for the industry. Radiohead didn't invent the concept of a band induced leak, but they certainly had the critical cachet to get credit for taping into the digital zeitgeist [how about that oblique Corgan allusion]. Likely overshadowed in this narrative is Trent Reznor, orchestrator of one of the most compelling narrative environment driven advertising campaigns since convergence culture became a syllabus staple. Merchandise with hidden website addresses, flash-drives planted in concert bathrooms, phone numbers concealed in spectrographs. All of which would be irrelevant if Year Zero itself wasn't so strong. Imagine Aphex Twin orchestrating 1984. Well, Reznor is no Orwell, but the creative decision to not cite his diary verbatim results in a provocatively splintered narrative set in our not to dystant dystopian future. And while Thom Yorke and company merely provided you with early guilt-free access, Reznor is hosting multitrack raw files of the album for your own remixing pleasure. How cool is that?

9. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away

If Nine Inch Nails didn't already make you close the browser, this next Zach Braff approved selection should have you deindexing the blog. Like Modest Mouse's recent output (their new record could have equally fit this spot), I have liked each successive Shins album in exact inverse to the general trend in critical opinion. Possibly the most underrated album of the year.





8. The Field - From Here We Go To Sublime

I am go to steal a phrase because it seems so apt to describe The Field. Rhythmic invariance. All of Axel Willner's songs seems to follow the same musical algorithm: input golden oldies, output minimal trance loops. But what a glorious formula he has discovered. Perhaps that is why my favorite moment of the album is when he breaks from the beat in A Paw In My Face to a muzak outro [think the end of Optimistic]. And this album doesn't even include the best songs The Field released this year. For that you will have to track down Pop Ambient 2007 and his various remixes (and Things Keep Falling Down EP while you are at it).

7. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

An album tailor-made for the consummate Logan. Pretentious Bataille name dropping. New-wave sensibilities. Hell, there is even a song entitled "The Past Is Groteque Animal."







6. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

As a band, Spoon have a reputation for restraint and minimalism. No stray ends, no curious accidents. While the album title has a throw-away dadaist feel, it was no doubt deliberately selected after careful consideration. The title is in effect the perfect distillation of the musical tension in the album. Calculated improvisation? Meticulously libertine? Whatever it is, the album is practically effervescent at only 36 minutes. A reminder of the band's central mantra: less is more.


5. Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline

In contrast to other albums on this list, And Their Refinement of the Decline most closely approaches the nebulous concept of timelessness. Celestial and beautiful in a non-anthropomorphic manner, it is the sounds of a universe finally succumb to entropy. Notes are held for minutes, never quite mustering the resolve to build to any noticeable movements or motifs. Or perhaps it is the sound of the universe at its most nascent, just beginning to test the frontiers of arrangement and order. This central ambivalence is captured in the infinity sign on the rather tongue-and-check artwork, one of the few signs that this album is of terrestrial origins.

4. !!! - Myth Takes

I completely dismissed !!! during the short-lived dancepunk era. By the end of 2003, I had already sworn my allegiance to The Rapture and beyond a cursory listen to Louden Up Now, I wrote off Chk Chk Chk as carbon copies with a terrible name. Beyond superficial similarities, however, the bands have little in common besides a unifying goal: they both want you to unashamedly dance your ass off. And let's face it. The world can never have too many of those types of bands. [True story: one of the only concerts to outlast me in energy.]

3. Eluvium - Copia

Not quite ambient. It is far too cinematic and panoramic to be both interesting and ignorable. Even if the gorgeous piano of Radio Ballet occasionally washes over me, the climatic fireworks (not a metaphor!) of Repose In Blue never fail to get me a little teary-eyed. One of my biggest disappointments of the year was not seeing Eluvium [who curiously opened for both Explosions in the Sky and SunnO))] live.



2. Radiohead - In Rainbows

My reaction to seeing Radiohead live in 2006 was largely ambivalent. I was disappointed with the setlist [not enough Amnesiac cuts, but better than Usana when I had to endure through Fake Plastic Trees (the worst) and Sail to the Moon (the second worst)], but I distinctly remember being cautiously optimistic with the new songs. Mind you this memory could have been shaded differently depending on which tracks were included in the final tracklisting. Leave in Down is the New Up or Bangers + Mash and I would probably be telling you how boring I found the new material live. As it stands, however, 15 Step and Open Pick (aka. Jigsaw Falling Into Place) were harbingers of the brilliance to come. I can't really argue with Mark over this album. His critique boils down to two essential arguments: the songs are nothing new and he doesn't like Thom Yorke. I disagree with the former, and sidestep the latter. All I know is that when the bass and the card-shuffling drum beat come in at the 2:39 mark of 15 Step, all my faith in Radiohead is restored.

1. Pantha Du Prince - This Bliss

My personal and humble pick for the album of the year. What else can I say?

4 reasons In Rainbows deserved a 6

1) The album doesn’t feel cohesive. It awkwardly moves from fast songs to slow, mind-numbing songs and never creates a consistent tone.

2) There is only one great song. And it’s called Jigsaw Falling into Place.

3) I’ve heard it before. The In Rainbows recipe: Two parts Amnesiac. Two parts Hail to the Thief. One part Kid A. And five parts The Bends. Don’t add any OK Computer.

4) Radiohead still isn’t any fun. And now they only seem to sing about themselves.

In case that isn’t convincing:

15 Step is a good song. But even the lyrics themselves are wholly aware that the song is another Radiohead song. “How come I end up where I started?” There is nothing here that we haven’t heard before.

Bodysnatchers is actually one of my favorites from the album. It has energy. And it raised my hopes for the album the first time I heard it.

Nude is a song I really liked when I first heard it a decade ago. I realize that Radiohead has never officially released the song before. But that doesn’t make it any newer.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi is another prime song. But it introduces the biggest problem I have with this album. It’s too much about Thom Yorke.

See list item number 4, please, for All I Need.

Faust Arp wins the Sail You to the Moon award for worst individual song on an album and is an easy candidate for worst Radiohead song of all time.

Reckoner is the kind of “wrist slitting” song Radiohead has long been reviled for by mainstream audience. I’ll admit... it makes me wonder if they’re right. Even though I kind of like the song.

House of Cards almost feels light and fun. Except it’s that same high horse they’ve been riding for years. Another reminder of how stupid people are for living average lives.

Jigsaw Falling into Place is arrogant and a little too sarcastic. But it’s a good song.

Videotape is a final example of why this album is just slightly above the Radiohead average. And, perhaps, it’s the final song on the final album for the band.

And if I’m not convincing, consider this damning two star review on Amazon.com. In a January 3 review titled Radiohead slap their own faces Y. Shuangchun (real name) says, “I paid at least $6 for their own digital download. And they only gave me 160kps CBR MP3. Now they sell it else where for low price. I am like, why should I have paid to support them in the first place and now I felt like I am trashed, as their fans.”

On politics.

We have all wondered what is wrong with Kansas.

But the more I interrogate my own political leanings this election cycle, the more uncertain I become about their rational foundations.

I have followed the election coverage, reviewed the position break-downs, and watched the debates.

Yet when I actively (or passively) consider who I should support for nomination, I find myself thinking in conflicting mediated caricatures.

Hillary the pugilist versus Hillary the triangulator.

Barack the uniter versus Barack the inexperienced.

John the populist versus John the methodist.

Truth be told, Kucinich probably overlaps most fluidly with my core values. But I can't stand him. Should I still vote for him?

Likewise, I want to support Obama because of what he represents, but is that rational? Should I simply forgo rationalism as my political compass?

All this anxiety is inconsequential as the nominee will be a forgone conclusion by the time I vote. But these days I find myself wondering less about Kansas than my own rational facilities.

5 reasons Puzzle Quest is game of the year

1) It’s additive. I spent more time playing Puzzle Quest than I would have liked. Rachel did too. As I mentioned before, it’s one of those games that I could see, even when I closed my eyes.

2) It’s original. It seamlessly blends two unrelated game genres into one fun package.

3) It has a great “sleeper hit” story. It was a low-budget indie game from no-name developer and publisher... and it became popular largely through word-of-mouth and critical acclaim. That’s amazing in an era where the average annualized sequel costs $15 million to produce.

4) Rachel played it. Did I mention my wife played it. She doesn’t like any video games except for Bejeweled and Heroes II. And Puzzle Quest.

5) It’s fun. Not only is it addictive, but it’s fun. It didn’t feel like work when I was playing it. Nor did if feel like failure when I finally put the game down (unbeaten).

LOGANMIX2007: The chorus doesn't matter

A modest compendium of my favorite tracks of the year. And a sneak peak at what will be gracing my top albums list (oh, the suspense!).

Just so you know, I decide to structure this mix differently than I have in the past, so if you wanna rock the house and turn this motha out, you will need to skip ahead to at least track 8.

1. Pioneer To The Falls - Interpol [Our Love To Admire]
2. Sea Legs - The Shins [Wincing the Night Away]
3. Forgotten Works - Klaxons [Myths of the Near Future]
4. My Piano - Hot Chip [DJ Kicks: Hot Chip]
5. Wanderlust - Björk [Volta]
6. Deathful (ft. Tunde Adebimpe) - Subtle [Yell&Ice]
7. Kappsta - The Field [Pop Ambient 2007]
8. Atlas - Battles [Mirrored]
9. Grip Like A Vice - The Go! Team [Proof of Youth]
10. Must Be The Moon (Radio Edit) - !!! [Must Be The Moon Single]
11. You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb - Spoon [Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga]
12. Bookshop Casanova - The Clientele [God Save The Clientele]
13. Dashboard - Modest Mouse [We Were Dead Before The Ship Sank]
14. She's a Rejector - Of Montreal [Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?]
15. Come Around (ft. Timbaland) - M.I.A. [Kala]
16. Beautiful Life - Gui Boratto [Chromophobia]

[And for those who want to throw all consequence aside: "what's up? holla!"]

Happy New Years everybody!


I am really going to miss those 00' shades when the decade ends.