Begone Dull Care!

For the two other people that care: Domino is streaming the leadoff track "Parallel Lines" from the upcoming Junior Boys album.

And Greenspan & Didemus are touring the states with Max Tundra in April.

So awesome.

Questions for iPhone owners...

One the near "eve" of my potential iPhone purchase, I was wondering if you all could enlighten me on a few things:

1. Is 16GB necessary/worth it?
2. White or black?
3. Has any one figured out a good, free Text Message work around?
4. Can you make your own ringtones yet?
5. Does it really drop a lot of calls?
6. Should I just hunker down, and wait five months until Apple puts out the new model?
7. Will I still be cool if I don't buy one?

Thank you.

2008: Every puzzle has an answer.

Of all my frivolous end of year reviews, this may be the least meaningful.

I just barely bought an XBOX 360 (expect some reviews in the future). I don't (plan to) own a Playstation 3. And I think the Wii is still a couple of years off from capitalizing on its potential (the Dragon Quest X announcement should act as a nice catalyst).

In the meantime, another system is quietly winning the seventh generation war.

If your name is Mark, which I hope it is because why else would you be reading this post, you already know the system I am talking about. The Nintendo DS.

When you look at the sales figures, the matchup isn't even close:

Nintendo DS: 94.40 million
Nintendo Wii: 43.61 million
XBOX 360: 26.48 million
Playstation 3: 18.78 million

Quite a flip in one generation. We will have to wait and see if Sony even survives the year.

Nintendo has grown so confident in its marketing prowess - it, quite rightfully, uses the success of Brain Age as a benchmark - it even offered to fully market Dragon Quest IX in America. No hard feelings $quareEnix!

The DS Lite is still selling so well, Nintendo has claimed that it has no plans on releasing the DSi stateside any time soon (I think they have since backed away from that statement).

And with good cause.

While third party publishers are releasing 100 hour juggernauts for the XBOX and the Playstation, and not developing games for the Wii, there seems to be a new breezy, eye-catching game released on the DS every month. I mean there is even a KORG DS-10 synthesizer available for the system. How cool is that?

One of my favorite games of the year, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, is not exactly novel, but it resurrects a genre that has all but disappeared in the FPS dominated landscape of gaming: the point and click adventure game (although perhaps I should lay that crown atop Phoenix Wright?). Eschewing the absurd dream logic of Roberta Williams for classical puzzles, Professor Layton typifies the DS in my mind: old school gaming style with a twee sensibility that is sure to repulse the 1337est of gamers.

Looking ahead, the DSi points to the future of gaming: eliminating physical cartridges in favor of flash memory. Although the path is fraught with piracy, I think the fact that it virtually eliminates the second-hand market should compensate for the risk.

Plus it sets up the new fleecing of the modern gamer: additional downloadable content.

For a fee, of course.

Love Lockedown

Where my L O S T peeps at?

A Lower State Of Consciousness

You have heard it before. That terrible techno-rave throwback the DJ throws on during a timeout. One of those bizarre tracks that randomly becomes a huge sports anthem.

I can imagine football hooligans losing their shit over the record. But Americans? Do you honestly expect me to believe a Philadelphia fan would chant along with a song called Kerncraft 400? I mean just look at the music video. I thought this was why we don't trust Europeans. We gave them the Marshall Plan, they gave us Eiffel 65. I am pretty sure we constructed the Atlantic Ocean as a final bulwark against Crazy Frog.

I did some further digging (looked on Wikipedia) and discovered that the entire song is built around an ancient Commodore 64 track. Back in the heyday of Napster, when Kerncraft 400 was originally released, there were tons of "Techno Remixes" of old video game themes. Did chiptunes ruin an entire generation of American youth?

Possibly not. Maybe people just like their woah-woah-woah-woahs.

I CAN HAS BESTSELLER?

While Mark was all atwitter over Blart, I noticed more pressing signs of the impending apocalypse:

The New York Times Best Sellers - Paperback Advice (1/18/09)

1. SUZE ORMAN’S 2009 ACTION PLAN, by Suze Orman. (Spiegel & Grau, $9.99.) Managing your money in hard times.
2. TWILIGHT, by Mark Cotta Vaz. (Little, Brown, $16.99.) A behind-the-scenes look at the film based on the vampire romance for young adults by Stephenie Meyer.
3. THE LOVE DARE, by Stephen and Alex Kendrick with Lawrence Kimbrough. (B&H, $14.99.) A 40-day challenge for spouses to practice unconditional love.
4. SKINNY BITCH, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. (Running Press, $13.95.) Vegan diet advice from the world of modeling.
5. WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING, by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel. (Workman, $14.95.) Advice for parents-to-be.
6. THE BIGGEST LOSER FAMILY COOKBOOK, by Devin Alexander with Melissa Roberson. (Rodale, $21.95.) Eating healthily on a budget, with 125 recipes and tips from “The Biggest Loser” contestants.
7. THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE, by Rick Warren. (Zondervan, $14.99.) Finding meaning in one’s life through God.
8 . DINERS, DRIVE-INS AND DIVES, by Guy Fieri with Ann Volkwein. (Morrow, $19.95.) A road trip with recipes from the Food Network star.
9. THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES, by Gary Chapman. (Northfield, $13.99) How to communicate love in a way a spouse will understand.
10. I CAN HAS CHEEZEBURGER?, by Professor Happycat. (Gotham, $10.) More than 200 "LOLcats" from the popular website.

Obama clearly chose the wrong best seller to perform the inaugural invocation.

Strange News from a Distant Star

"'All this light is dead,' said Ingeborg. 'All this light was emitted thousands and millions of years ago. It's the past, do you see? When these stars cast their light, we didn't exist, life on Earth didn't exist, even Earth didn't exist. This light was cast a long time ago. It's the past, we're surrounded by the past, everything that no longer exists or exists only in memory or guesswork is there now, above us, shining on the mountains and the snow and we can't do anything to stop it.'

'An old book is in the past too,' said Archimboldi, 'a book written and published in 1789 is the past, its author no longer exists, neither does the publisher or the ones who read it first or the time when it was written, but the book, the first edition of that book, is still here. Like the pyramids of the Aztecs,' said Archimboldi."

-- Roberto Bolaño, 2666, pg. 831

Although never explicitly referenced in the text, the year 2666 looms like a powerful, hostile star over Roberto Bolaño's final novel. It is that cruel vantage point under which the narration and the entire horizon of history unfolds; not an unwavering gaze of final judgement, but an eye that, for wanting to forget something, has ended up forgetting everything.

In the "The Part about the Crimes," we are subjected to a numbing 300 pages detailing in excruciating forensic detail the serial killings in Santa Teresa: that nebulous black hole that ensnares all of the plots' disparate orbits. Yet, for all of their gravitational weight, the murders are a structural red-herring.

Lurking on the peripheries of the novel are faint and not so faint references to past events - the human sacrifice practiced by the Aztecs, the cruel punishments exacted by Vlad Ţepeş - which radiate down upon us, divorced of all human particularity. For Bolaño, history, "which is a simple whore, has no decisive moments but is a proliferation of instants, brief interludes that vie with one another in monstrousness." No one remembers Vlad Ţepeş, let alone the names of any one of his victims. Aztecan human sacrifice is a glib historical anecdote. And so too will the atrocities of Santa Teresa and Nazi Germany, events seared into our consciousness, recede into time and lose their singularity. They will become moments as distant and as alien to us as the light from a dead star.

Yet for Bolaño, this despair is a manifestation (or perhaps the wellspring) of literary anxiety.

Throughout 2666, Bolaño conflates texts and humans. Just as the Santa Teresa victim vanishes into the Sonora desert leaving behind only an inexplicable scrap of clothing, so too will Bolaño disappear from the historical event horizon, leaving behind a work that is bound to become an uncanny artifact for future generations, like Duchamp's readymade of a geometry book suspended over a clothesline.

From the totalizing vantage point of 2666, everything is ash:

"What would those who lived in the tenth dimension, think of music, for example? What would Beethoven mean to them? What would Mozart mean to them? What would Bach mean to them? Probably, the young Reiter answered himself, music would just be noise, noise like crumpled pages, noise like burned books.

At this point the conductor raised a hand and said or whispered confidentially:

'Don't speak of burned books, my dear young man,'

To which Hans responded:

'Everything is a burned book, my dear maestro. Music, the tenth dimension, the fourth dimension, cradles, the production of bullets and rifles, Westerns: all burned books.'"

Just a thought. . .

Couldn't we be human and dancer?

I hacked Logan's Match.com profile

Chumbawamba82

Ayn Rand ignited the fire within me that was searching for the right spark. My every action is guided according to my philosophy, and my philosophy is the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

I am interested in meeting someone that truly embodies the values and virtues of Objectivism. I have found very few women that have not already been beaten down to a flimsy, irrational, empty pulp. I have changed many girls’ lives, but no one has blown me away yet.

I never “hook-up” randomly, I never kiss a girl that doesn’t deserve mine. I have yet to find a girl deserving of my falling in love with her. But “other people” are secondary values no matter what, so finding someone is not a priority for me.

http://nymag.com/news/features/artifact/51814/

Mac tip: Menu bar on dual external monitor

I've solved a problem that's been driving me crazy for years. I always have an external monitor hooked up to my laptop when I'm working from home, and I thought it was impossible to identify the external monitor as the primary screen while keeping the laptop display active. Using two screens was no problem, but the primary screen always had to be the laptop display. No longer!

Go to System Preferences
Click "Displays"
Select the "Arrangement" tab
Drag the menu bar from one screen to the other (see the screen grab below)

One random thought from the Golden Globes

Ricky Gervais really should have been picked to host the 2009 Oscars.

We're number two!

We're number two!

We're number two!

Watching the BCS title game (for the first half) reminded me of my perception of College Football in general and specifically the BCS National Championship. It's a joke. It's a joke that isn't even very funny.

I mean, as Gordon Monson points out in today's trib, if the Sugar Bowl champion were decided the same way the national champion is, you know with votes and computers then Alabma would have won easily, everyone thought they were head and shoulders better than Utah. Instead they played a game, and we know how that turned out.

Do I think the Utes could have beaten Florida? Who knows, and who cares? That's not the point. Asking that is like crowning the national champion by some arbitrary subjective process.

Anyway, best season in Utah (I mean the state. The '84 cougars? gimme a break) college football history. It's funny to me that it came with Kyle Wittingham as the coach. . . maybe I'm wrong about him.

Brad's Best Albums of '08

Honorable Mentions: (In no particular order)
Elephant Shell - Tokyo Police Club
The Stand Ins - Okkerville River
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Konk - The Kooks
In Ghost Colours - Cut Copy
Afterparty Babies - Cadence Weapon
Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
The Cool - Lupe Fiasco

10. Oracular Spectacular – MGMT 

Sorry Logan, an album this full of good tracks can't be bad, even if it was made by the worst kind of people. Trust-fund Wesleyan hipsters. Although if you hate the Killers I can see why you would want to hate this band. They're like the Killers, only if the Killers had more talent and imagination.

The (sort of) debut album from MGMT blends synth, noise, and plenty of pop-rock refrain, but their main resource is their youthful cockiness. As Oracular Spectacular plays out you get the feeling that these Cardinals believe that there's nothing they can't pull off. No, restraint is not MGMT's strength, and their lack of it is apparent on the few tracks that miss. But the theme of Oracular Spectacular is that youth is not the time to play it safe, (maybe it's never time to play it safe) and they don't. MGMT seem to think that the worst result of their lives would be to end up like other people. (They probably will.) And that the worst result of their music would be to sound like other bands. (They probably do.) But they try hard enough to be different that their same-old indie-pop is interesting, and it's pretty damn fun too.

Standout track: Time to Pretend

9. Santogold – Santogold 

Santi White got the contract to record her solo album while singing for a Philly punk-rock band called Stiffed. This was after she had collaborated with GZA on two of his albums and produced an album for Res, and about the same time she co-wrote a song for Ashlee Simpson. So I guess it's no surprise that the album is difficult to categorize. Punk-hop? World-pop? M.I.A. Sound-a-like? Well she does kind of sound like M.I.A., but I think that's a good thing. And even though they sound a like they're certainly not the same, Santogold's sound is scattered, but refined, she's not as raw as M.I.A. She is a student of the game, pulling from an, at times, overwhelmingly wide variety of influences. But all-in-all she pulls it together with impressive technique. This album is good, really good, but it feels like an early work of an artist who has a lot more left in her. I expect the next one to be even better.

Oh and don't hold the Ashlee Simpson thing against her.

Standout track: Creator

8. Alopecia – Why? 

Anticon sort of started as a counter-hip-hop label. The Anticon artists seemed to define themselves by what they thought hip-hop was missing. And it was good. I'm not sure that is really a sustainable identity though, luckily Anticon didn't put it to the test. Alopecia is an indie-rock album. It doesn't really even try to be a hip-hop album, except that it contains some of the best hip-hop of 2008.

Let's just get this out of the way. Yoni Wolf, the Why? front man, can't sing, and he's not a very good rapper. But he knows sound, plus he can write a mean lyric, and the lyrics are really where Alopecia shines. Every word seems at once spontaneous and deliberate, intelligent and accessible. The band does more than just back him up too. The music keeps the album from getting too depressing when Wolf heads that way, and keeps it from getting too poppy when Wolf plays the name game with “Cheerio.” Even as I write this I'm thinking to myself that I should rank this album higher, definitely worth a listen or two from anyone who hasn't heard it.

Standout track: The Fall of Mr. Fifths

7. The Bake Sale EP – The Cool Kids 

I know, I know, it's an EP. But with 10 unique songs (no remixes) it's almost as long as an album. And hey, it's good, that's what counts. The Cool Kids are one of those couples that met on myspace. You know how the story goes, boy writes a beat, other boy wants to buy the beat, two boys meet to discuss terms of sale, yada yada yada, the two boys become the Cool Kids. Antoine “Mikey Rocks” Reed is from Chicago, and Evan “Chuck Inglish” Ingersoll is from Detroit.

Mikey and Chuck serve up a sort of hip-hop deconstruction, the first track starts with a deliberate beat that includes a spoken “clap” and Mikey boasts, “did you know I made this beat with just my mouth and a bell?” The entire EP relies on vocals and harmonies to do the heavy lifting with some occasional Casio drum machine bass thrown in for spice. But a good recipe need not be complicated, with The Bake Sale EP the Cool Kids prove that with some flour, eggs, butter, sugar, milk and a little vanilla (or chocolate if you prefer) you can make a pretty tasty cake.

Standout track: Black Mags

6. Tha Carter III – Lil' Wayne 

I mean if you don't like Lil' Wayne, nothing I write here will convince you. Let just say, however, that “Let the Beat Build” is the reason the Utes won the Sugar Bowl. (!!!!! by the way)

You won't be wowed by every track, but you will have a lot of fun.

Standout track: Let the Beat Build

5. 19 – Adele 

Other than Adele's voice 19 is probably just an album full of well written and well produced pop. Her voice, however adds a texture that helps the album elevate to something lasting.   Aside from that, I can't really say why I like this album so much.  This review was the hardest one for me to write,  it's just great the same way that a great tomato soup is, nothing special, just good for the soul.

Standout track: Cold Shoulder

4. Made in the Dark – Hot Chip 

After listening to the DJ Kicks Hot Chip mixtape last year (thanks Logan) I was anxiously anticipating the release of Made in the Dark early last year. I was not disappointed, but I was surprised. The album is more than just the fun that “My Piano” showed me last year, it is soulful, complex, and yes, you can dance to it.

Standout track: One Pure Thought

3. This is Alphabeat – Alphabeat 

Haters might say this is way to high for Alphabeat, a Danish pop band that has seen little success in the States, but I say that anyone who turns down opening for the Spice Girls' reunion tour deserves some serious recognition. The band employs a lot of classic pop sounds, and they don't really do much that's new, but it's somehow refreshing. Their execution is spot on, and the male-female duet vocals make me smile every time.

Plus they have three guys named Anders in the band.

Standout track: 10,000 Nights

2. Esperanza – Esperanza Spalding 

What is a 24-year-old Jazz Bassist/Berklee College of Music Professor doing in the two spot of this list? Kickin' ass, that's what.

On her official website Spalding says that her desire to become a professional musician came from watching Yo Yo Ma perform on an episode of Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood when she was 4. Fred deserves some post-mortum props for whatever role he played in getting this young woman started. Aside from playing the bass Spalding fronts the band and sings, in English, Spanish, Portuguese and sometimes a hybrid of all three. Her soprano is silky smooth, but when you listen make sure you turn the low range up, you won't want to miss a note that beats out of Esperanza's bass.

Standout track: Precious

1. Midnight Organ Fight - Frightened Rabbit 

 I already wrote a post recommending this album, but let me try to say something new about it. If these guys were any worse at what they do (even just a little) this album would be bad, like not worth listening to bad. But they're not, and the album is stellar. In many ways this album is a cliche; a guy breaks up with a girl, gets out the guitar, and waxes emotional. But Frightened Rabbit capture the real emotions and momentary misogyny that I myself have felt a few times while trying to get over a relationship. The music is straight-up rock and roll, but that doesn't mean Frightened Rabbit aren't inventive, these guys are what the Hold Steady could be if the Hold Steady ever grow up.

Standout track: Keep Yourself Warm

Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Part Deux

It's funny. I don't think any team I have actively rooted for has ever "won it all."

When you grow up having to watch Michael Jordan push off on Byron Russell in the 1998 NBA Finals, you develop a healthy pessimism and a distrust of the art of referring.

And to a certain extent even now I haven't watched one of my teams "win it all." But after the Utes demolished the Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl, it sure feels that way.

I mean here is a team that had won 7 straight bowl games and wrapped up its second perfect BCS season in a conference that was 25-11 against non-conference opponents and 6-1 against the Pac-10.

And yet the Utes earned no respect.

Just go back and listen to the condescension of the pre-game commentaries -- many by people who probably never even saw the Utes play a single game and still held them down in the Harris and Coaches' Poll.

After all is said and done, the BCS house of cards will probably remain standing.

But hopefully the Utes win will further delegitimatize a systematically unfair process and help pave the way for a future playoff system so that other marginalized schools have a shot at truly "winning it all."

k

"Harman offers a compromise between Kafka’s intended title and Brod’s more familiar one by calling his version Amerika: The Missing Person. And he follows previous English editions by retaining the German spelling of America, with a 'k.' This lends the name, in American eyes, a more ominous and alien quality than it would have for the German reader. That 'k' is hard to resist, however, and not just because readers have come to expect it. No writer has ever annexed a single letter the way Kafka did with 'k.' Between the two in his own last name, Joseph K. of 'The Trial' and K. of 'The Castle,' the letter seems imbued with his own angular essence."

- "America, 'Amerika'" by Adam Kirsch, The New York Times Books Review

Curioser and curioser

The best summary, from EW.com, is this: "an extravagantly ambitious movie that's easy to admire but a challenge to love."

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is many things. Slowly paced. Heartwrenching. Inspiring. Depressing. Brilliant. And, perhaps most strangely, shallow.

Yet, it all seems to come together into a fittingly appropriate package. With a single, simple core message: people are the same at the beginning of their lives and at the end. Death is a fact. All you can do is enjoy those moments in between.

I'm not going to give a reading of the movie, or explain how it fits into the Fincher canon. The message is simple enough. Mainstream Sisyphus, I'd argue.

No. Just go see it. It's worth it. Despite its faults, it's better than most anything else out there. And honestly, we can all learn from the message. Focus on enjoying what you can in life. Don't worry about the Heidis and Spencers—who just don't get it. Watch them. Learn from them. But don't live your live based on anything they say or do.

In time, we'll all be in diapers again.

Know Your Enemy

Origin of Name: Choctaw Indian word meaning "thicket-clearers"
Nickname: Yellowhammer State
Entered Union: 1819, 1865
Motto: "We dare defend our rights"
State Flower: Camellia
State Tree: Southern Longleaf Pine
Famous Residents: Helen Keller, George Wallace

New Year's Resolutions for the next New Year's Eve

Eat 12 grapes.

Make a wish and jump off a chair at midnight.

Light off more fireworks.

Wear yellow underwear.

Drunk dial east coast friends at a reasonable hour.