Music to Traverse Hallways To

Elad's Favorite Songs of 2011 2xCD Playlist!!

2011-12-21T10:57:00.000-08:00

Well, well, this blog is still here. Thanks Google/Blogger for not having a "delete due to inactivity" policy! You guys rock!

Those who know me know I love music. And I love making lists. So I've been debating my top albums of the year for awhile now, but before I post that (okay, fine, IF I post that) I thought it would be cool to share two awesome (imho) comps/playlists/mixtapes I put together this year with some of my favorite songs.

I included links to videos if I could find them online!

CD1
1. Baths - Overseas (fan video)
2. Peter Bjorn and John - Dig a Little Deeper (super acoustic backstage at Conan)
3. Death for Cutie - You Are a Tourist (official video)
4. Broken Social Scene - Curse Your Fail (soundcloud link)
5. TV on the Radio - New Cannonball Blues (official tripped out video)
6. The Dodos - Don't Try and Hide It (live performance with Neko Case on Fallon)
7. Mogwai - Mexican Grand Prix (official video)
8. Radiohead - Seperator (From the Basement performance)
9. The Decemberists - June Hymn (album version via youtube)
10. The Mountain Goats - Never Quite Free (album version via youtube)

CD2
1. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Hysterical (soundcloud link)
2. Real Estate - It's Real (official awesome video)
3. Youth Lagoon - Afternoon (youtube)
4. tUnEyArDs - Gangsta (live instudio performance)
5. Black Keys - Little Black Submarines (album version on youtube)
6. Handsome Furs - Memories of the Future (Q performance)
7. Bon Iver - Holocene (incredible live performance on Fallon)
8. My Morning Jacket - Wonderful (The Way I Feel) (Storytellers performance)
9. Dum Dum Girls - Bedroom Eyes (official video)
10. Wilco - The Whole Love (Letterman performance)
11. Girls -Vomit (performance from p4k.tv)

New Music Roundup

2010-03-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

Oh man, I can barely keep up with 2010! Thankfully I've been spending a lot of time in my car lately and have had a chance to listen to a lot of new tunes. Some of my favorites:

The Radio Dept - Clinging to a Scheme
Third proper album from this amazing indie pop band out of Sweden. Their second album was a disappointment after the amazing debut record, "Lesser Matters." This new one, while not quite as huge and ambitious as that first record, is full of brilliant beats and soothing rhythms. They seem to have found a really happy medium between the static noise they experiment with in their EP's and the more traditional rock/pop stuff.

I've been a fan of these guys forawhile. Their hushed vocals right above the music reminds me of Broken Social Scene (to wit: one of the songs below features some out-of-nowhere horns that rock!) and their lush sound puts them in line with some of today's best new music.

Check out some music-only videos below:

Portugal. The Man - American Ghetto
I'm not overly familiar with this band out of Wasilla, Alaska, but this new album is pretty amazing. It's fairly consistent throughout, employing heavy drum and bass that equals head bobbing awesomeness. Apparently they have employed a lot of different styles over the course of their five studio records since 2007 (wow!). There's a confidence in these songs that make me go back for a listen again and again to relive those slick moments, abounds in the two tracks I've highlighted below. Listen and enjoy! (I'm sure you will.)

Jason Collett - Rat a Tat Tat
Broken Social Scene member and Bob Dylan impersonator, Jason Collett's followup to one of 2008's best records is not quite the step forward in Semi-Acoustic Singer Songwriter History that I had hoped it to be, but it's still quite awesome. If anything, it's too consistent. On his last record, "Here's to Being Here," Collett seemed to look at all of straight-up Rock N' Roll, find the best stuff, and cram them all into one record (this was especially unique because, with BSS, he does the reverse: Throws traditional Rock N' Roll out the window and tries different approaches..but anyway). With this new album, it's a lot more straightforward: Love songs, songs about Canada, anthems, the occasional non-whiny ballad. Basically, an old fashioned rock and roll record. It's a nice change of pace from the psychedelic dreamscapes of Beach House (which you should be listening to.)

The Album Leaf - A Chorus of Storytellers
I'm just going to be upfront this time: I love The Album Leaf. I love their mostly instrumental sound. Their beats and boops and blips mixed with rising and falling (fake) strings. Vocals - let alone an actual chorus! - was rare in previous Album Leaf records, but this new album is more of a "band" record, using the actual touring band for The Album Leaf. As such, there's a definite shift in the sound, from the laptop electronica of the past to a more Indie Rock flavor. And I'm on board! James LaValle's singing voice is not the most dramatic, but the rising tension of these songs creates some great power, while still holding onto the laidback atmospheric sounds that fans of the band have come to expect.

LOST - 6x07 "Dr. Linus" Review/Reaction

2010-03-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

I find it fascinating to read the day after reviews of recent LOST episodes, mainly because it seems like everyone agrees. It's a strange thing that Lost, a show that attracts hardcore SciFi fans, causal TV viewers, and pyscho Alternate Reality game-playing Lostpedia-addicted rampaging uber-fans (*cough* guess which category I fit into?), can all agree that this week's "Dr. Linus" was one of the best episodes of the season, if not the series itself.

I wouldn't go quite so far as to say this ranks up there with "The Other 48 Days," "Flashes Before Your Eyes," or "Through The Looking Glass," but as a pure character study on Ben, the most conflicted and complex character on the show, this episode shines with a brightness that eclipses even the spectacular "The Substitute" from earlier this season.

Let's start with the flashsideways: Ben is a perfectly believable history teacher. One of his strengths is that he doesn't look like a villain. He looks like a braniac (especially with those tiny tiny glasses) who can use his wit and cunning to outsmart opponents. Now, the Ben we know as Leader of the Others was also murderous, ruthless, and a pathological liar. As we learn throughout this episode, him and his father somehow left the Island and created a new life in Los Angeles. Though Ben is unhappy in his life, he is fairly content, until a certain wheelchair bound John Locke implants the idea of becoming a principal into his head.

Soon after, Ben gets a visit from Alex Rosseau, his adopted daughter in the original timeline. The first scene with them together was very strange, almost creepy. But the respect that Alex has for Ben is so apparent and interesting, considering the girl we knew resented and hated her father for all he had done. I didn't think the writers would use her so much and despite these flashsideways being full of Guest Stars, the appearance of Alex surprised me. My first reaction was, "Wow. They went there."

Later, Alex confides in Ben that she overheard the principal getting it on with the school nurse. This opens a door in Ben's mind for some clever machinations and with the help of Leslie Arzt (who is EVERYWHERE apparently), he sucessfully initates a blackmail plot on the principal, played with typical Asshole Facial Expressions by That Asshole Reporter from the Die Hard movies. But there's a catch! If Ben completes his blackmail, the principal will not write a recommendation letter for Alex to Yale.

This poses an interesting choice for Ben. In the original timeline, he sacrificed his daughter on a whim. He believed he could trick Martin Keamy into thinking she didn't matter to him and thus spare her life. He failed and Alex was murdered in front of him. Here, he has a similar (but not quite as dramatic) choice to make and he chooses not to blackmail the Principal. He sacrificed his own ambition for Alex. Unlike Sayid in last week's flashsideways who realized redemption was beyond his capabilities, here Ben chose the right thing to do.

Although this is a different Ben in a different reality, the essence of the character remains, not a villain as we've come to know, but an honest man who was led on the wrong path by Jacob and the Others.
On the Island, Jack and Hurley come across Richard (thanks Lost for answering my question from last week) who leads them to the Black Rock. He says he's there to die and he needs Jack's help. Much like Michael, the Island will not allow Richard to kill himself so he asks Jack to light a fuse on one of the sticks of dynamite (man, there was a lot of dynamite on that boat!). Jack agrees, lights the fuse, and sits down next to Richard and says, "Now let's talk."

Awesome moment! Jack believes (whoa!) that Jacob or the Island has a purpose for him and would not allow him to die meaninglessly here in the Black Rock. It's an extremely tense scene and succeeds in every level, including Hurley freaking out everytime Richard touched the dynamite. He even references Dr. Arzt! Well, Jack's gamble worked and the dynamite doesn't go off. Amazingly, it seems like he just recruited Richard to his team.

Finally, the bulk of the episode was taken up with Ben's conflict with Ilana. Early in the episode, Miles reveals that it was in fact Linus who killed Jacob which pisses off Ilana. Lacking anywhere to go, they decide to head to the Survivor's Beach and wait there until they can figure out what next to do. This is interesting because during last season's time travelling adventures, the survivors, led by Sawyer, were always heading back to the beach but never quite made it because they kept getting sidetracked in the jungle. This season, there's very little action taking place between destinations and after the first commercial break, they're on the beach.

It's always a sad/interesting/cool thing to go back to "where it all started" and see the state of the camp. Where once it was full of life and people, all of that is gone and only wreckage remains. It's a poignant reminder of how far this story has come, from the quests for fresh water and food early in the series to the attack by the Others that practically destroyed the beach camp and all the insanity since then.

Others have commented that it's a shame Ilana is not more fully developed. She's actually been on the show since mid last season yet we know very little about her except that she's been touched by Jacob, which is not very much. So while she created an interesting situation by forcing Ben to dig his own grave, it lacked the intensity it would have had if he had been forced to do that by Jack or even Richard.

I loved the scene with Miles coming to visit Ben. Would have liked to see a similar scene with Sun and Lapidus, final goodbyes so to speak.

Alas, Ben's comeuppance was not meant to be (yet). Fake Locke showed up and freed Ben with some magic Q-like hand movements. He told Ben there was a rifle waiting for him in the jungle. So Ben ran and Ilana followed in a classic Race Through the Jungle sequence which ended in Ben holding the upper hand against Ilana with a drawn rifle.

Now, here's the scene that to me, precludes this episode from becoming part of Lost's "Best Of." Although Ben's speech is well written and brilliantly acted, I did not buy Ilana's change of heart. She went from ready to murder Ben to accepting him into her posse in a matter of minutes. It felt...forced. As if it was, much like Sayid's joining of Fake Locke, masterminded to pit some of the best rivalries on the show on opposite sides in the coming battle. The Ben I know would not accept Ilana's change of heart so readily. In response to her "I'll have you" comment, he should have said something like: "Thank you. But I don't know you won't try to kill me tomorrow." And shot her in the head.

So that scene rang false for me and undermined what was otherwise a great episode. Michael Emerson won an Emmy last year for his portrayal of Ben Linus. This episode made him a easy favorite to win again.

The final scene, with Charles Widmore on a submarine heading to the Island, is perfectly timed with the endgame of the series shaping up. Now, where the hell is a kickass Desmond/Charlie episode??

LOST - 6x06 "Sundown" or "How Badass is Sayid? Let's count the bodies."

2010-03-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

Oh, tricky Lost writers. You tried to fool us! By simply naming your episode after one of your main characters, everyone in Internet Lost World thought this was going to be a Jin/Sun episode and continue the pattern of copying the episode focus from the first season! You had me, for sure. I was ready to hear some Korean, read subtitles, and get all teary-eyed at the inevitable reunion. Instead, we got a episode focused on Sayid and poses the question we've all been wondering: "How many people can Sayid kill in one episode?" The answer: "Lots!"

First of all, I just want to point out how awesome Sayid is. During last season's finale, Sayid (carrying a nuclear weapon on his back, BTW) was shot by Roger Linus. Things looked pretty grim for our tortured torturer. In fact, as "The Incident" ended and no main characters had met their violent ends, I was very worried that the writers might actually kill Sayid. Now, Sayid hadn't had such a major role in the show since his employment by Ben post Oceanic Six, so it made a little sense that they might write him off the show (and by writing off the show, I mean getting shot in the stomach [see: Ana Lucia, Libby, others]). But thankfully they didn't! And he's been very important this new season so an episode devoted to him makes sense at this time.

Still, the flashsideways story of this episode left me a little cold. Here we have Nadia, Sayid's long lost love since the beginning of the show, married to Sayid's brother and with a couple of kids. Now, I didn't have an issue with Jack having a son last week, yet I find this sudden appearance of characters that did not exist strangely jarring. With Jack's son, David, I understood why the writers chose to pursue that storyline. Here, the appearance of a brother reeked of an excuse to get Sayid to do what he does best: Kill a bunch of people.

On the flip side, the flashsideways story may have been to remind the viewer about Sayid's deep-rooted love for Nadia and how much his life has sucked since she got hit by a car in Season 4. That explains why he so quickly goes with Fake Locke... but I'll get to that. Lemme just say, that despite the appearance and subsequent death of Keamy (awesomeness. hate that guy and his smirk!), I feel like this storyline would have been better if it dealt with AltUniverse Sayid encountering one of the other 815 passengers (Jack or Charlie quickly comes to mind) and having some kind of interesting adventure. But I guess that's coming..

On the Island, interesting stuff abounds! After Jack and Hurley split (way to not leave anyone behind, Shephard!) a confused Sayid confronts Dogen about why he has tried to kill him a couple times now in the span of a few short episodes. Dogen gives him a spiel about Good vs. Evil, scales and balance etc, basically a quick thematic summary of the entire series. And then they engage in the best fight scene ever! Dogen, somehow, wins the fight and has the opportunity to kill Sayid, but stops when his baseball, dislodged during the fight, hits the ground. I'm not exactly sure of the significance of that, but it saved Sayid's life and Dogen banished him.

Meanwhile, Fake Locke convinces Claire to give herself up to the Others in the Temple in order to deliver a message. He wants Dogen to come out to talk to him. When she walked into the courtyard was an awesome moment in the history of Lost. It's too bad there weren't more of the regular Losties around to witness it. Imagine Hurley trying to give her a big bear hug!

Dogen doesn't want to go out to get himself killed, so he sends Sayid instead, with instructions to kill whoever appears "as someone who has recently died" immediately. Sayid, in a bit of Locke-like innocence says "Sure, I'll do that!" He runs into Kate on his way out of Temple and soon enough encounters Locke/The Smoke Monster. As ordered, Sayid attempts to kill him by stabbing him in the chest with a ceremonial-looking dagger that Dogen gave him. Fake Locke removes the dagger from his chest and says, "Now why did you go and do that?"

Fake Locke recruits Sayid to his cause by claiming that he can give him anything he wants, specifically (in Sayid's mind), Nadia, alive again. Does this mean that Fake Locke can somehow tap into other universes where people who have died are still alive? Is that how he uses the bodies of those who have died as vessels in this world? The internet is abuzz with theories about that, connections between the flashsideaways reality and regular reality. It's good fodder for discussion.

Meanwhile, Kate has entered the Temple and Miles tells her that Claire is here! Kate immediately goes to find her in a hole in the ground and tells her about Aaron. Unfortunately, this scene, which had a lot of potential, falls a little flat because of Claire's lack of reaction. Other reviewers online have claimed that she's under the influence of the Smoke Monster and not really herself in this scene, but I'm not so sure.

In another dramatic entrance, Sayid returns to the temple to deliver The Smoke Monster's message. For some reason, all the Temple Others are hanging out outside, including Cindy the flight attendant from Flight 815. He tells them that Jacob is dead and those who want to join him and leave the Island should leave the Temple and join him before sundown or stay here and die. It's an ominous message, delivered with intensity by this new, powerful-willed Sayid. Some of the Others listen and leave, while some (including Dogen) stay.

Once again, Sayid goes to confront Dogen in the Pool Room. Dogen gives some backstory about his son, but it's not enough to pacify Sayid who drowns Dogen in the same pool that Dogen's people drowned Sayid in the season premiere. Dogen's right-hand man, the talented actor John Hawkes, rushes to the scene only to have his throat slit by Sayid.

Apparently, Dogen was keeping the Smoke Monster away so by Sayid killing him, he becomes responsible for all the deaths at the Temple. If you add the gangsters Sayid killed in the AltUniverse plus all these people, you have the answer.

The attack on the Temple finally occurs and it's as bloody and dark as we've come to expect when the shit really hits the fan on Lost. In the middle of the chaos, Ilana and Ben's team show up in an attempt to rescue Jack and Hurley, but all they get is Miles. Ben tries to get Sayid to come away with them but Sayid refuses and Ben walks away slowly wearing a frightened expression.

The last few minutes of this episode is really weird. And I mean that in a strange, not so great, way. There's a lot of slow motion and shots of people giving each other serious stares and it's all very dramatic, but it left me wondering: Who were all those people around Fake Locke? They didn't look like the Others who left the Temple. Actually, they looked like pirates, maybe from the Black Rock, all longhaired and sunburnt. (Which reminds me, Where the heck has Richard been??). Also, Fake Locke gives the "Go Ahead" stare to Claire and Sayid... and then Kate? That doesn't really make sense. If he's been recruiting people to his army, why would he let in this civilian?

I will say, however, that is looking like a showdown between Fake Locke's people and Jack's. This is reminiscent of Season 3, when the survivors of Flight 815 split based on their opinion about the freighter people. That led to some very interesting scenarios and a lot of changing of loyalties (always interesting.) Wild guess: Kate convinces Sawyer (maybe Sayid?) to change sides to Jack's side sometime soon.

So, while I quite enjoyed most of the episode, the last few minutes (including Ilana's sudden appearance) were quite jarring and left me more than a little confused. But that's not necessarily a bad place to be mid-season on Lost. Ten more episodes left...

LOST - 6x05 "The Lighthouse" Review/Gush

2010-02-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

This season is heating up quickly, with a barrage of revelations in the last two episodes, specifically in regards to the famous Numbers. First there was the cliffside cave in last week's "The Substitute," now our roving band of misfits have found a mysterious lighthouse. When I first saw the episode title last week, I immediately thought of The Lamp Post, the only off-Island Dharma station that we know of which was used by the Oceanic Six to pinpoint the location of the Island in Season 5 and fly back. This new Lighthouse is also to used to find the Island and reinforces Jacob's dying words: "They're coming." Who - or what - is coming is still unknown, but that mystery gets stronger with every episode.

Meanwhile, in the Alternate Reality, Jack's got a son! ("Wow," says America.) This is big. At first, it seemed strange and random. But the more the episode went on, the more I appreciated this different perspective on a very familiar character. After five seasons of Jack-centric episodes dealing with drinking and random violence (we'll get to that later) and Jack's daddy issues, this episode offered a fresh take on the subject with Jack being the father figure for once.

When I was growing up, I read a lot of comic books and some of my favorites were a Marvel series simply titled "What If?" They were the most random exercises in creative thinking and expounded about stories and characters we already knew very well. The Lost writers seem to be taking that approach to the AltReality with episodes like last week's Locke-centric episode where he seemed to have been paralyzed by something other than his father and now Jack with a son. The real question is, Who's the mother? Is it Sarah, Jack's ex-wife from the Original Reality, or someone new?

My biggest draw to the episode was finally finding out some info about Claire. After not appearing on the show for almost three whole seasons, it's real strange to see her back and taking on the role of the Island's resident Crazy Loner, formerly occupied by Danielle Rosseau. The similarities between the two characters can not be ignored. Both are mothers who have lost their children, both have been left alone to fend for themselves on the island. Claire mistakenly believes that the Others have Aaron and is waging war against them for it. The Others DID have Rosseau's baby, Alex, but while she retreated to the far side of the Island, Claire has stayed close and has been actively pursuing and murdering Others until she can find Aaron.

Jin, "saved" by Claire, is just as afraid of her as the Others. Whether he has real reason to is to be determined. Obviously, Claire is a little deranged and hell bent on a single goal. This is never good. Causal references to her father (dead) and Her Friend (the Smoke Monster) do not say much about her overall mental health. When Jin told Claire the truth, that Kate had taken Aaron away from the Island, she had an internal freakout and Jin smartly said that he had lied and that the Others did have Aaron. I wonder what game Jin is planning. He doesn't want to lead Claire back to the Temple, he wants to go find Sun. Maybe he thinks this is the only way Claire will let him go?

Meanwhile, the Claire storylines continue in the Alternate Reality when Jack's mother finds her husband's will and there's a reference to a Claire Littleton. With the revelation of a son and now this latest bit of gossip, I'm actually excited for the next Jack-centric episode in the Alternate Reality. Just like I was at the end of last week's episode when Alternate Locke met Alternate Ben/History Teacher. I think is a clever way to keep the fans interested in the Alternate Reality which may (or may not) have anything to do with the true finale of the series.

Back on the Island, Hurley is getting some much needed respect via the writers. After a couple seasons in the background (or in his case, the mental institution) this ability to speak and get directed by Jacob is a fascinating development. For so long we've heard about "Jacob's orders" or "Jacob's lists", now we're finally seeing it!

So Hurley leads Jack through the jungle - where they briefly meet Kate who is doing What She Does, wandering around the jungle looking for Claire apparently - and they end up in the Caves, another reference to Season 1. Speaking of Season 1, the "Centric" portions of each episode this season so far matches with Season 1. And seems to continue. Episode 5, Season 1 focused on Sun, next week's episode is called "Sundown." It's a cool trick. These references to the original season really help reinforce the idea of a final, closing chapter of this great journey.

Now, onto the Lighthouse. I don't have a problem with buildings magically appearing based on story necessity as others do (see: all comments online.) I can believe this is a huge Island and Jack has not necessarily seen all of it. The lighthouse was really cool-looking and a had a spectacular "ability." It really did feel like a scene out of the classic adventure game, Myst. And to give a immediate answer to the questions brought by the cave from last week was a brilliant touch. It's not like the Lost writers to be so direct. But I like it!

Jack's eventual violent outburst was hardly a surprise. He's done that quite a bit and viewers should not be surprised. He's a tortured character. Remember when he was in Thailand and he forced the girl to give him a special tattoo? That intesnity of purpose is a trait that also forced Jack to expose his father as a drunk to the hospital they both worked for. That need of Jack's to "know" everything also drove a wedge between himself and Kate in the post-Island world when she was just trying to fulfill a promise to Sawyer and sent Jack back into the world of drugs and alcohol.

So, while it was disappointing that we didn't get to see more of the Lighthouse before Jack destroyed the main part, it was typical Lost. (Remember The Flame?) I have a distinct feeling that the last few minutes of this episode (and that includes Claire's revelation of her "friend") will have immediate repercussions. Which tells me that whoever is left at the Temple is in for some serious trouble. Soon.

Big Love - Season 4 - Midway Review

2010-02-16T07:17:00.000-08:00

Awhile back I promised to write a recap/review of the current season of Big Love. I couldn't quite nail down my feelings about this new season after the first couple of episodes. Big Love is a nebulous kind of show, a sort of Shepperd's Pie of a dozen different kinds of TV shows with some heavy doses of inspiration from HBO shows of the past. This new season, especially, has gone off in some weird tangents and trying to decipher what the creators and writers actually have in mind in terms of theme has taken a better part of half a season.

HBO seasons are typically 10 episodes, this past Sunday's episode of Big Love was episode 6 and a turning point for a couple major storylines and so I feel like it's a good time to stop and reflect on this tumultuous ride.

The main storyline of this season involves Bill's run for State Senate; a crazy self-destructive plot that will probably end very badly for Bill and his family. Obviously, the character doesn't think that. Like in his ridiculous schemes from seasons past, Bill is nothing but self-assured. He believes he's on God's path and how could God steer him wrong? The last few seasons, as Bill makes insane decisions to meddle and interfere with the goings on at Juniper Creek, to wage war on the violent and unpredictable Greenes, and to open a Mormon-friendly casino, the audience is asked to stand by him and believe just like he does. This season, that belief is tested to the limits. The idea that Bill would run and then win a State Senate seat only to publicly out himself as a polygamist is SUPER crazy. Last I checked, polygamy was illegal and though Bill plans to fight and change the law, that's a long process that could not be done within a single episode.

As such, the main thrust of this season, with all this political back-and-froth and a random trip to Washington D.C, feels ultimately pointless because I'm pretty sure that Bill will lose the race and then what? He's exposed himself, lost his best friend, shattered his family, and wasted thousands of dollars, for what?

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the writers will surprise me. They have so far. I did not expect this storyline to last this long, but with Bill winning the nomination and with a strong backing from a Utah Senator, it seems like he may actually win. The scene in the latest episode, "Under One Roof," when Bill takes his three wives to a home he plans to buy for them, a massive house on a hill reminiscent of Roman's Big House, was powerful and showed me more about why Bill wanted to go on this mission, instead of his preaching about equality.

But, of course, the political storyline is just a small part of the huge tapestry of this season. Big Love has always cast a wide net, but this year, that net is the size of a stadium. We've got Nikki's daughter, complications with her creepy ex-husband, JJ, who I suspect will attempt to murder Bill by season's end. Nikki's mom, Adeline's, marriage to JJ and all the craziness that inspires.

We've got Margene and her new business, which seems to be doing very well, and is causing Margene to rethink her situation within the family.

We've got Barb filling in for Bill at the Blackfoot Casino, dealing with the Native population there, hitting girls with her car, and giving speeches to bored employees about the shared history of the Mormon and Native people.

We've got Sarah and Scott, getting married to Passion Pit's "Moth Wings" and secretly adopting an Indian baby.

And then there's Ben. His storylines have never been that interesting to me, mainly because they felt forced. His sexual longings early in the series seemed to be a little premature and then his questioning of the faith shortly thereafter ultimately unnecessary because he fell in line quickly to follow in his father's footsteps as the seasons have gone on. Except he always had a "thing" with Margene. This was something I did enjoy because it developed slowly and believably and hit just the right amount of teenage angst and genuine friendship. When Ben showed up to Margene's live show, it was a sweet gesture and Margene's grateful kiss, misinterpreted, began a series of events that have led to Ben being banished by his father, falling in with Bill's mischievous mother, and now kidnapped in Mexico by the Greenes. One word: Awesome!

And then there's Alby. Oh, Alby. Why do you always set yourself to fall? This character, the closeted son of the Prophet, was always a strong point for the series. He's played with deadpan sincerity by the actor, Matt Rose. His gay tendencies are a classic Shakespearean flaw that was manipulated very well by his mother and father and yet somehow he prevailed. His new wife, Lara, was a perfect conniving match for the greedy Alby and they successfully ruled Juniper Creek while Roman was in jail. After Roman's murder at the end of last season, a Trust was established to take over the finances of Juniper Creek (this was all done between seasons and with very little explanation in this new season, hence a lot of early confusion). The problem? The trustee, a gay Mormon who wants to rid himself of his impulses, is caught in a love affair with Alby that ends very badly.

I felt like this storyline, while strong, was a little unbelievable and took up way too much time in the first half of the season. I have read that the creators of the show, a gay couple themselves, wanted to show the Mormon perspective about homosexuality and specifically Mormon gays who tried to convert themselves to heterosexuality. I felt like that was touched on a little bit, but it was more Alby and the trustee in a lover's tryst for many episodes and only when they were exposed by Bill did the shit really hit the fan. It should be interesting to see what Albie's next move is, but that storyline really did take up a lot more time than it should have in an already busy season.

And now Ana's back! And pregnant! With Bill's baby!

I bet a lot of fans sighed with exhaustion when Ana showed up on screen. "Another storyline?!" shouted the public. As for me, I'm actually glad she's back because I felt like her storyline was never properly resolved from last season. Sure, it ended and Bill was bitter and angry afterwards, but I actually enjoyed a lot of storylines revolving around the brief Fourth Wife and am very very excited to see what happens next.

So, where do I stand on Season Four? Well, I'm definitely enjoying it. I feel like it lacks a little punch seen in previous seasons, specifically in regards to weird and random situations they find themselves in (case in point: when Sarah and her friends found the Lost Boys House last season. How weird was that?!) There's a definite serious tone this season that doesn't allow for a little comedic relief, which is a shame. But now that the Greenes are back and Bill's campaign is in full swing, there should be some extremely dramatic stuff in the near future.

I said up top that Big Love seems to be inspired by HBO series long finished. Specifically I'm thinking of Six Feet Under, one of the best TV shows ever created. Big Love, to me, is the spiritual sequel both in tone and the way it shows the darker side of America. I don't doubt that Big Love lost some viewers this season, people unable or unwilling to follow everything that has happened. It's the kind of show that demands a lot from the viewer, but the reward is, well, big.

LOST 6x1 - 6x2: "LA X" Thoughts, Speculations, and Theories

2010-02-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

To echo the Internet: "Wow."

This was truly an incredible season opener, for one of the most fascinating TV shows ever. I say this with no hyperbole. I can't remember any other show that so drastically played with time and space. In the first few minutes of this episode, we have 5 seasons of drama and action reset, only to have that realization blown out of the water, and "our" characters back, almost where we left them. Over the summer break, the big question running around was: "Did it work??" The incredible answer: "Yes it did. And it didn't!"

This totally fulfilled my wildest speculation about how the season will unfold. I was hoping Faraday's gamble would work - that would give a lot of weight to the previous season. But I also didn't want to lose our characters, the drama and heartbreak of Jack and Sawyer and Kate and Juliet. I could not conceive of losing them and their history. So the creation of an alternate reality (as opposed to changing the past) is a perfect solution!

And then we get the added benefit of bringing back some old favorites who died on the island, like Boone and Charlie. This was a great touch and I hope these returned characters are dealt with well and not killed off quickly in a fulfillment of their "destiny." Especially Charlie.

The first episode spent a lot of time with Not-Dead-Yet Juliet. This was a little crazy since she died dramatically in the season finale and here she is, yelling for help. Awesome, right? Well, kinda. I'll echo the complaint that with the recap episode and the Previously On segment and then a few of the final minutes of last season replayed early in the episode, we watched Juliet die many times and it was getting a little old before Sawyer even managed to free her.. Only to watch her slip away.

BUT, not before revealing an important tidbit of info. Right before Juliet dies, she whispers a few words that seem to be random ravings of a dying woman. She says, "We should get a coffee sometime. We could go dutch." And she smiles. This confusing bit of dialogue has an extra weight later in the episode when Miles is able to communicate with the deceased Juliet and we find out that she wanted to tell Sawyer: "It worked."

My brilliant and beautiful wife had an incredible theory that I believe will turn out to be true. Basically, the idea is that somehow, in her final moments, Juliet was able to tap into the OTHER Juliet, from the newly created alternate reality, and a scene sometime in the past when Alternate Juliet met Alternate Sawyer and they flirted briefly. So even though our Juliet has died, she was happy because she knew that their gamble had worked. We will probably see that scene between Juliet and Sawyer in the alternate reality late in the season. Props to Shawn for figuring it out early.

The other main conceit during the first episode was the differences between the new alternate reality and established backstories. Some glaring differences are Desmond on the plane. Boone alone, without his sister Shannon. But the really interesting ones are the tricks that the writers pull on us harmless viewers to try and trick us into thinking things were MUCH different. For instance, Locke tells Boone that he actually did go on his walkabout. Hurley claims to be the "luckiest man alive." But as the episode ends, we see Locke being put into a wheelchair and we wonder..How different is this new reality from what we know?

The second episode spent more time on the Island, in the present. This part is glossed over a little in the first episode and left intentionally vague, but Jack and Kate and other time traveling survivors are now back in the present, where Jacob, Locke, and Ben have begun their war. The revelation about the Man In Black/Jacob's Nemesis/Fake Locke is the Smoke Monster is pretty huge and explains a lot about the dynamic of the island, including the significance of the ash surrounding Jacob's cabin. I've also always been curious about the Sonic Fence that surrounded New Otherton, why would the Others, led by Jacob, need to protect themselves from the Monster if the Monster was just a manifestation of the Island (like I assumed). Well, he's not. He's this guy, whoever his name his. It still doesn't explain how Ben was able to use the Monster to defeat Widmore's soldiers, but we may get some explanation for that in coming episodes.

But the big deal was The Temple, finally! After years of this Others hideaway being cloaked in mystery, we finally get to see it, and it's very impressive! At first I thought they traveled through time again, the Temple looked so ancient and yet well preserved. But no, they're in the present, led by an Ra's al Ghul-looking mofo and his Jewish translator (Played by John Hawkes from Deadwood. That's the sixth actor from Deadwood in a minor role on LOST. Awesome!). I didn't mind the other language or the weirdness of the situation, it actually felt more "right" with the strangeness of the Others. For awhile there, at the end of Season 5 with Locke leading the Others, the people looked a little too much like young survivors of a plane crash, not the wild indigenous population who have been on the island for a long time.

Meanwhile, in the alternate reality, landing in LAX may not have been the best thing to happen to our characters. Charlie is arrested. Jin looks like he's about to be arrested. Oceanic lost Christian Shepard's coffin. Only Kate seems to come out well, freeing herself from captivity and then stealing a cab with everyone's favorite Australian: Claire! It should be very interesting to see what happens next in all these storylines.

The ending of the episode, while satisfying, left me with some definite questions and some confusion. The scenes with Sayid in the Spring were very confusing, but I'm happy with the end result. What is Sayid's importance to the Others? And what will the Others do now that Jacob has seemingly died? On the beach near the Statue, the scene with Fake Locke and Richard was also confusing because I could not understand why the Others did not leap to defend their defacto leader, Richard? They all had guns, but they stood there like dumbasses. I wonder if there's a real reason for that or that was just to serve the overall story.

I can't wait to see what happens next!

For Shawn :)

2010-02-02T12:36:00.000-08:00

Beach House on p4k.tv

"Zebra"

"Norway"

The End of LOST and What it Means for the Future

2010-02-02T07:10:00.000-08:00

So this is what Christmas morning feels like.

LOST will begin its final season tonight with a 2-part episode titled, "LA X," and the excitement and anticipation is palpable, both on the world wide webs and pretty much everywhere. This type of frenzy for a TV show is not completely unprecedented, but it's been awhile since it seemed like the whole country, maybe the whole world, was so enamored by a TV show that its big reveal tonight has been debated and speculated about for almost a year.

But there's a big question looming over everything. When LOST is over, what happens next? Where do we all go from here? Some people are ready to give up TV all together, claiming "there will never be anything like LOST again..", which is very similar to all the people who canceled HBO after The Sopranos ended, claiming "That's it! They'll never be a show like that again!" I, of course, disagree! I believe that not only can the magic of Lost be reproduced again, but that there are shows on TV right now that have the potential to be similarly epic and exciting to the mass audience.

I acknowledge that LOST is special in very unique ways. LOST managed to appeal to a very wide range of audiences by siphoning out tiny bits of information slowly regarding a big mystery. That pulled in many viewers. LOST created some fascinating characters that clicked with a huge range of the population. Unlike the white-washed ensemble casts of the past, the LOST crew was pulled from all corners of the globe, its characters origanting from random countries like Korea, Iraq, and Australia. Yet if you had to pick a setting for the show, besides the all-important Island, it would be Los Angeles, the original destination for Flight 815, and where I believe most of the action will take place in this final season.

So what does the end of LOST mean? To me, I look at the end of a great series as an opening to introduce a lot of people to new and exciting series. Just last week, Caprica began on Syfy. Another series set in the world of Battlestar Galactica (but you don't need to have watched Galactica to understand), Caprica is a very adult take on science fiction, much like LOST. With incredible actors, nuanced writing, and gorgeous futuristic settings, the show has all the right ingredients to become a fascinating look at a society on the brink of collapse. Other series include two new one hour dramas on HBO premiering soon: Treme, from the creators The Wire, a show about musicians rebuilding their lives and their city in post-Katrina New Orleans, and Broadwalk Empire, starring Steve Buscemi as a gangster in 1920's Atlantic City. HBO is always fascinating in period pieces (see: Rome, Deadwood) and the latter show looks to follow the trend.

While I plan to enjoy every second of the final LOST season, I've got my eye to the future and what will be the next big thing that is the subject of endless dinner conversations and long, meandering, blog posts.

The infamous SNL Potato Chip Sketch

2010-01-25T08:56:00.000-08:00

To answer the obvious question, NO, I'm not planning to rename the blog: "Elad Likes Saturday Night Live" but it just happens that I'm posting a lot of SNL stuff lately. But they did rerun a episode this weekend which was mostly just okay, but the last sketch is one of the funniest I've seen in a very long time. I don't know why exactly. It's a ridiculous sketch with a lot of yelling, but at the end, when the uber-hilarious Will Forte says in his faux Southern accent, "Cause they're hungry," I challenge you not to laugh!

And The Winner of the "They're Making a Movie Out Of THAT?" Category is..

2010-01-19T10:03:00.001-08:00

Despite myself, I laughed a couple times at this trailer for MacGruber.

SNL movies has been going downhill since Wayne's World but this is a pretty new low. I think Will Forte and Kristen Wiig are hilarious, but seriously, a MacGruber movie?

As Seth and Amy would say, REALLY?

Brit-Love

2010-01-17T17:38:00.000-08:00

The Ting Tings remind me of a less schizo Fiery Furnaces, which I think is exactly what the universe has been asking for. To be honest, I haven't paid them much attention, but this performance from SNL over the weekend was spectacular. Check it out, judge for yourself.

2010 and the New TV Season

2010-01-13T07:10:00.000-08:00

Of course, I believe everyone should be watching what I watch. Intellectually, I know that's not possible, but I still like to believe it. For instance, you could have overheard me on Monday saying to one of my co-workers "So what did you think of the Big Love premiere? Awesome, huh?" Only to be met with a confused and slightly annoyed look.

But you'll indulge me (right?).

Let's start light, with the comedies. This past Monday brought the return of How I Met Your Mother. I'm fairly new to this show but am fascinated by it. It's the most interesting premise for a sitcom I've ever seen and the characters are all hilarious in their own right, all brought together with some truly original writing. This was How I Met's 100th episode and ended with a great musical number via the amazing Neil Patrick Harris. Although I couldn't help but wonder what it would have been like if the whole episode was a musical. (Musical number below)

Monday also brought a new Big Bang Theory, another show I promised myself I would watch consistently this season (while catching up on the early seasons). This is such a great nerd show. The casual references to everything from the Green Lantern, to Firefly, to Halo touches a sensitive part of my nerd heart. It's also got damn funny people in it with Sheldon, a cross between Urkel and Kramer, being the superstar.

Thursday returns with the laugh riot on NBC. The fledgling Community is still a little rocky in its first season. I think the show would improve dramatically if they stop trying to give every character a story every episode. Focus on the big funny and let the minor characters evolve slowly. Learn from The Office.

Six words: Will Arnett on Parks and Rec. (Almost) 'nuff said. Parks and Rec has been the funniest half hour on TV this season, which is all the more amazing after the lackluster first season. In an era where shows barely get a chance to grow, NBC gave this mid-season replacement a second shot and they did an incredible job of sharpening the comedic knife. (Image above from the severely underrated Blades of Glory.)

(FYI: No new Office this week. sad face.) But the ridiculously hilarious 30 Rock is all new with Agent 420... I mean, James Franco. 30 Rock has been consistently great this year (as always), I worry though, that some of the stories are getting repetitive. My solution? More Hornberger!

Now, onto more serious stuff...

This week will also see the return after a seemingly long hiatus of Fringe, a show that you should definitely be watching. This show, from the LOST creator and Star Trek writers, constantly surprises and intrigues. The arc for this season, involving an alternate universe and an army of shapeshifters from that universe who are waging war on us, is some of the most fascinating stuff I've ever seen on TV. The show has a lot of dark themes, with a lot of murder and death and disgusting inner body stuff, YET it's really witty and has truly great action sequences. The lead actors are wonderful, especially the Should Win An Emmy performance by John Noble as Walter Bishop.

Probably the biggest deal in TV right now and something I am very anxiously waiting for is the beginning of the last season of LOST. Anybody who watches the show knows it ended on a spectacular cliffhanger so I know we're all waiting to see what happens next, but before we go headfirst into the final chapter, I recommend (if there's time!) to watch some older episodes of the series to appreciate just how much planning and preparation the producers put in before this last piece of the story. I did a Rewatch over the summer (not the whole series, but most of it) and it was an amazing thing to behold.

Unlike a lot of other shows that seem to make it up as they go along (*cough*Battlestar Galactica*cough*), LOST really does progress in a very deliberate way, both from an overall story arc to a character level. All the time travel stuff from last season really does have roots in the early season stories and will be very important for the series climax (Can you say Egyptian?). And the characters arcs are novelesque in their scope, my favorites being Sawyer and Ben and what they did with them last season. February second can't come soon enough!

This month will see the beginning of the Next Big Thing (in my opinion) in Science Fiction TV: Caprica. Most of us have already seen the pilot episode (released onto DVD to coincide with the finale of Galactica) and I, personally, was blown away by the deep and dark story of this show. The actors are amazing, the premise is smart and complex, the settings are gorgeous, and the team behind it has a proven track record. All signs point to Awesome.

Here's a great scene from Episode 2 of Caprica (major spoilers!!) :

Lastly, the aforementioned Dollhouse has two more episodes left in the series. The revelations in last week's "Getting Closer" was not as over-the-top "WOW" as I would have hoped, but the overall episode was very strong. They are definitely in "End of Series" mode with characters randomly getting shot and alliances in flux. It should be very interesting to see how it all wraps up!

And don't think I'm not going to talk about Big Love, one of my favorite shows HBO has ever done (saying a lot). I'm going to wait till we get a few episodes in and then do a post devoted to just that show!

Dollhouse: Out With A Bang!

2009-12-23T07:29:00.000-08:00

For some backstory for anybody who doesn't know but cares to, check out Mo Ryan's various writeups about "Dollhouse" here.

Ironically, I am of multiple minds about Dollhouse. I've gone into every episode with almost zero exceptions, been disappointed, been entertained, been put to sleep, but more recently been amazed, excited, and impressed. The first season of Dollhouse was pretty weak. I think even the producers and writers would cop to that. The show is a very highconcept sci-fi drama with many moral, cultural, and technological implications that were rarely touched in the first season. Instead, the show played up to the most base human instincts: sex, greed, power and violence.

In its second season, the show took a lot of those same ideas and fleshed them out and explored them in new and interesting ways. While the first season had maybe five episodes I would consider "successful," every single episode in the second season has come through and delivered, elevating what was just a "cool idea for a show" into a great series that will be missed. It was an incredible thing to watch this season and after every episode think, "That was the best episode yet!"

Once the ax went down and the series was unceremoniously canceled while not even airing (don't EVEN get me started..), the producers were given a chance to finish the series in a proper way. We should be thankful. Most shows don't get that chance. With Dollhouse, where the endgame was pretty obvious from the first episode (Echo gets out), the showrunners had a double task of pushing their premise to the limit in a condensed way.

So far: They've outdone themselves! The last six episodes of the series, played in doubleheader fashion, have been almost note-perfect. They've had just the right blend of action and adventure. They've touched on politics. They have not ignored the best characters in the show: Victor and Sierra. They even went all Eternal Sunshine and it wasn't cheesily-done.

There's now just two episodes left, airing in early January, and I have high hopes that this series will end better than most series ever get a chance to.

Elad's Top 9 Albums of 2009 (Updated!)

2009-12-15T16:19:00.000-08:00

I know you've been waiting for it. And here it is! My favorite albums of this past year.

9: Alec Ounsworth - Mo' Beauty.

This late '09 release from the lead singer of the incredible band, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, is interesting and flawed at the same time. Though it lacks the rampant innovation that signifies Clap Your Hands, Ounsworth tries to create some truly unique rhythms with his strange voice and weird pacing. It's never boring, but it doesn't always work. A couple of the best tracks crib from his own previous hits, "Me and You Watson" especially sounds like "Satan Said Dance" but that's a minor thing in a overall very satisfying album.

Live performance from KEXP of the album opener:

8. The Mountain Goats - The Life of the World To Come

The Mountain Goats have been creating some of my favorite music over the last few years. Their roots are in low-fi and acoustic guitar music. I prefer their most recent Sufjan-esque bombast and even the pop-friendly stuff from last year's brilliant Heretic Pride. This record was more of a return to their roots with John Darnelle alone with a guitar or a piano for most of the record. It's a beautiful piece of music, tied together with a loose biblical theme that I really don't get (New Testament stuff is lost on me). I just wish there was more variety. Still, this is some of Darnelle's most vulnerable music and it's an amazing thing to listen too, as always.

Live performance from The Colbert Report (I was there!!)

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The Mountain Goats - Psalms 40:2

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Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

U.S. Speedskating

7. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

These guys can not not make great music. While not as amazing as their last record, Sky Blue Sky, this is nonetheless another great record to add to the ever growing list. Standouts include "One Wing" (possibly one of the best Wilco songs ever written - Yeah, I said it and it's true!), the Fiest-collab "You and I," and the anthem "I'll Fight." A little more scattered than we've seen Jeff Tweedy in the past, this record finds Wilco a little more pop-friendly at some parts and more random in others (I did not think "Bull Black Nova" needed to be five minutes long). Wilco, in my opinion, is up there with Radiohead as one of the best bands of our generation.

Great performance from Letterman:

6. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Seems to be another breakout year for these French dudes. Cadillac commercials aside, they're still everywhere. Much deserved, of course. These guys know exactly what kind of music they excel at and they deliver pretty much every time they go into the studio. I feel like their last album, It's Never Been Like That, was stronger than Wolfgang on some levels, but you can't resist how catchy and memorable these songs are. The first two tracks could be considered for singles of the year, but it's the mesmerizing third track, "Fences" that's one of my favorite songs of the year.

Live performance of "1901" from SNL:

Phoenix - 1901
Uploaded by bleep1234. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

5. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

This one's a doozy. Another awesome outing from the Flaming Lips, this Double LP (1 CD) is a lot of music. A lot of great music. More distorted, dyslexic, and dysfunctional than ever before. I've previously called it Expert Level Music Listening. It's an amazing piece of music, but you have to be ready for such a musical onslaught. The Lips have definitely brought a lot of their signature "moves" together into one massive shout-out to their proggy influences and their huge back catalog. The interlude "freak-outs" can be a little much after many listens, but the honest-to-goodness songs are pure gold.

Check this crazy awesomeness out!

4. The Dodos - A Time to Die

This short record from the San Francisco trio is so full of incredible music, it's hard to believe it comes from a band whose fairly young and new to the indie scene. There's tons of variety here, from poppy ballads to Arcade Fire-esque epics, this is a band with so much to say, it's amazing they condensed the album into 9 songs. Their last album, the not-to-be-missed-by-any-chance Visiter, was almost overflowing with music: 14 tracks, some of them over eight minutes long. This new record is only 9 songs, about 45 minutes of music, but it feels bigger and grander than it seems on first listens. After listening to just one or the album as a whole, I always feel like I've just gotten a glimpse at the something truly original.

Cool performance of one of the stranger tracks on the record, "Two Medicines"

3. The Appleseed Cast - Sagarmatha

You may never have heard of the Appleseed Cast but they've been around for a long time and have been evolving for awhile. From an emo band with pretty straightforward music, they've morphed into a post-rock outfit with an overwhelming power. Fans of pure guitar-bliss music (Interpol, My Morning Jacket) can not let this record go by without listening. Though steeped in some oldschool metal influences, the interplay of what sounds like dozens of guitars (but isn't) is so addictive, you'll want to listen again and again to pick up all the subtleties. The album feels like a roadtrip album with long meanderings songs in the beginning and tighter more accessible stuff towards the end. This is the kind of album I'll be listening to years and years from now.

(Had a little trouble finding a video for these recluses. Here's the first track from the album on youtube. not very interesting visually, but an incredible song.)

2. The Handsome Furs - Face Control

This band is a husband and wife team. The husband, Dan Boeckner, is the co-leadsinger of the amazing Canadian band Wolf Parade, one of my favorite new bands of the last few years. Unlike the expansive music of Wolf Parade, I look at this record as simply great indie rock done in a new and interesting way. Heavy on beats and the incredible guitar licks of Boeckner, this albums feels like a neverending well of head-bobbing awesomeness. Themed together under the guise of a Russian occupation, the songs on this album blend together better than any other tracklist I've seen since probably OK Computer. The album is fairly quick and to the point with some of its best tracks, "Officer of Hearts" and "Radio Kaliningrad", at the end. Face Control is an amazing achievement that is not getting enough recognition this year.

Weird, kinda gross, but kinda awesome "Thriller"-esque video to single, "I'm Confused"

1. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

This is not entirely unexpected to those close to me. I've been in love with Andrew Bird's music since I first stumbled across his records in 2006. I put him on a pedestal as one of the most amazingly innovative artists to ever grace our fair planet. His latest record, Noble Beast, is the next step in his incredible career. Discarding conventions like song structure, Noble Beast has the feeling of a dense novel full of delightful diversions into a man's confused pysche. It puts me in mind of Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but less weird.

Andrew Bird made it a point to keep this record a little less "sprawling and erratic" (his words) as his last one, the (once again) not to be missed Armchair Aprochyra, but in creating a more unified piece of music, he leaves the listener with the distinct sense of restraint and unresolved passion. The album has no big climax, no dramatic finish, and I think that's entirely intentional. A couple of songs are worth pointing out as standouts though the whole record, in any context, is an amazing piece of music: "Masterswarm," a brilliantly executed song from beginning to end, "Effigy," a long sprawling work with some of the most vivid images Bird has ever written and a violin-based chorus that sounds like something off Beck's Mutations; "Not an Robot, but a Ghost" with its otherworldy chrous and haunting lyrics; and the creepy "Anonanmial" (below).

For those of us who are looking for something new in music, Andrew Bird provides a dozen new ideas in every song.

Official Music Video for "Anonanimal"

Honorable Mentions:

Bon Iver - Blood Bank EP. Brilliant title track, if the rest of it was as good it would have definitely made it onto the list.
Islands - Vapours. Third effort from yet another Montreal-based band. Definitely more accessible (less dark) than previous works. It's fun in a surprising way.

One final note:
2010 looks to be another incredible year for indie rock music. New albums by Spoon, Broken Social Scene (!!), Arcade Fire (!!), Interpol, Midlake, Band of Horses, and The National (among others) has already got me extremely excited! See you next year. :)

Yes, please.

2009-12-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

How awesome does this game look????

So, the full title is a mouthful. It's Final Fantasy: The Crystal Chronicles, The Crystal Bearers. But you could just call it the Crystal Bearers.

I've been following the development of this game for about two years, ever since I got the Wii. It's not the first Final Fantasy game on the Wii. The company, Square Enix, created a pseudo-exclusive series within Final Fantasy, The Crystal Chronicles, for Nintendo. So there has been a few Crystal Chronicles games for the GameCube, the DS, and the Wii, as well on WiiWare as well, the brilliant My Life As A King/My Life as A Dark Lord games. It's kind of cool because even though Square has a contract with Sony to develop the bigass Final Fantasy games for PS, us lowly Wii owners have gotten a lot of sorta off the beaten path style games.

But now we have this massive game that looks incredible. The developers have tried utilizing the Wii's unique motion controls to the max and pushing the graphical limits of the system. That combat you see on the previews is all motion based, which sounds incredible. The game comes out next month and so I haven't played it yet, but all early previews show that the developers succeeded in creating an experience unlike anything else seen before, which is pretty amazing when we're talking Final Fantasy, which probably has more games than Mario.

I'll be pre-ordering this game and playing the hell out of it for a few months, so expect some posts.

:)

100 Greatest Quotes From The Wire

2009-11-17T11:19:00.001-08:00

This is quite awesome. Obviously, 10 minutes isn't enough time to cover all the amazing lines of dialogue from this spectacular series, but this comes close:

via Videogum

In Praise of Stargate Universe

2009-11-11T07:47:00.001-08:00

I'm not one to jump to conclusions. I've been enjoying Stargate Universe since the premiere episode, but I wanted to wait until at least a few episodes before crafting a coherent opinion about this brand new series. And I have to say, I am very impressed!

First, some background. I have a interesting history with Stargate (at least I think I do). Like most other normal people, I was a fan of the movie and I had heard about the series, Stargate SG1 and wanted to see it, but did not have Showtime (still don't) and could not watch it. A couple years later, the show moved to the Sci-Fi Channel, but I still didn't get into it. Only when I heard of a new series, a spinoff of SG1 called Atlantis, that I thought: "Great, here's an opportunity to get into a new series from the start."

But I knew that Atlantis, unlike Universe (I'll get to that later), was heavily dependent on what came before it. Sure, they were going to be focused on a new galaxy, but the whole mythology of Stargate had obviously changed and grown so much since a single two-hour film. So I started watching SG1, from the beginning, on DVD. And I fell in love.

SG1, like Star Trek The Next Generation, will be remembered as one of the best Science Fiction series ever created. It may not have the largest mainstream audience, but it does have the distinction of being the longest running American ScFi show. A lot of people dismiss SG1 as some kind of cheap movie-tie-in (Yes, that is Richard Dean Anderson, better known as McGyver, in the main role. And yes, HE IS AWESOME) but the far-reaching plotlines and incredible humor and action of that series remains a strong ceiling to compare other similar SciFi shows.

So, after watching nine seasons (the next three ran concurrently with Atlantis), the time for Atlantis was finally here and I watched it very excitedly. Unfortunately, something about the series didn't click for me. I didn't particularly like any of the main characters and felt the storylines were so similar to a lot of what SG1 did - and better - that I'd rather just watch SG1. Also, Battlestar Galactica was on at the time and that took a lot of my focus away from other deserving series.

Fast forward to the end of Atlantis (a little prematurely, from what I've read online) and a new, bold direction for the Stargate franchise in SGU. From the first moments of the first episode, I felt a sense of seeing something original unfolding. The way they thrust us into the storyline without any proper backstory and then reveal it Lost-style (through flashbacks) was a clever way to unfold a introductory episode. The focus on characters and their reactions to extreme stress (ala' BSG) was another refreshing facet of this new show.

The premise of SGU is not overflowing with originality. A group of people flee an attack and end up on an ancient vessel traveling through space "several million light years from home." A little Voyager, a little Lost in Space, a little Battlestar Galactica (without the End of Humanity drama, thankfully), and finally a little similarity to Stargate Atlantis. So, all that is working against the show: That feeling of Haven't We Done This Already? But yet, despite all that, SGU feels fresh and new.

And here's why. The characters that have made it onto the ship, Destiny, have no clue what they're doing. Unlike Atlantis (where they had the Ancient city up and running with their fancy laptops within twenty minutes) or Deep Space Nine (where they moved the Space Station in the first episode), these guys have no idea how to control the ship. The early episodes dealt with emergency power, air, and water issues, before any of the characters had a chance to catch their breathe.

Speaking of characters, the show's creators took a page from Galactica and focused on some truly remarkable and troubled characters. The main character, Dr. Nicholas Rush, is a frustrated genius with some real emotional issues and a heartbreaking past (not yet revealed). Other great characters include Col. Young, the reluctant leader, and Lt. Scott, an even-headed marine (or is he in the Air Force?) who has great leadership skills. And then there's the "kids," young twentysomethings who have been the cause of much derision online - people have been joking that SGU is more like Stargate 90210 because of these characters, but nothing can be farther from the truth. Both Eli (comic relief Jew-kid) and Chloe (a politician's daughter with a lot to prove) add a much needed aspect to the Stargate franchise: Something different. After 15 seasons (SG1's 10 and SGA's 4) and countless scientists and soldiers, a new kind of character is a breathe of fresh air.

Those blue stones are another innovative addition to SGU. They're a bit of Ancient tech (just like the ship and the Stargates themselves were created by a long gone civilization called The Ancients) that allows for communication over loooooooonng distances. Using these stones, characters can swap bodies with other people on Earth. This has brought a fascinating new dimension to the classic lost in space storyline. True, they are millions of light years from home, but yet many episodes so far have spent a good amount on Earth. Last week's "Earth" (simply and aptly titled, like every other episode of this series so far) had Eli and Chloe visit a club and get drunk. I was watching it thinking, "Is this really Stargate?" That was a great feeling.

And then there's the sex. Unlike its family-friendly predecessors, SGU is aiming for a darker, more adult, audience so there was been a lot of sex scenes so far. Nothing that would make an HBO viewer think twice, but it's different coming from the Stargate franchise has done in the past. What it has done is given yet another dimension to these vibrant characters.

SGU has received a lukewarm reaction online, from what I've gathered. Many people, like myself, have already fallen for this series, but many others are railing against it in very large numbers. People criticize the pace, the tone, the lack of action, the inclusion of the young characters. I don't see where they're coming from at all. I'm loving this new series and am looking forward to watching closely at how the first season plays out. If it's anything like the smart and deliberate storytelling in the first set of episodes, this is going to be a great ride that will hopefully last a long time.

(Update.) I would be remiss if I did not mention the latest episode of SGU, "Time," aired after finishing this post last week. What a brilliant hour of TV that was! Reminded me of the best time travel episodes from Next Generation, taking what's somewhat of a SciFi cliche and ramping it up to 100. The episode will have its detractors based on the sheer insanity of the plot and the resolution but I thought it was amazingly done from start to finish. That whoooshhh you hear is the sound of this show taking off!

Rush's line before he jumps into the unstable gate: "For a moment there I thought we were in trouble," despite being a quote, is a perfect tagline for this show.

The Amazingly Incredible Antics of Andrew Bird

2009-11-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

The irresistible Andrew Bird was on Austin City Limits last week with a short set, unfortunately. But the four songs he played that were televised were fascinating. His studio work is brilliant (see the multi-layered awesomness that is his latest record, Noble Beast), but his live show takes his whole approach to music to a completely different level. In a post-set interview he says that if something "dangerous" doesn't happen during the show, he feels like he did something wrong.

Here's an great video for the song, "Fake Palindromes," from The Mysterious Production of Eggs:

The cool sketch was stolen from this guy's blog. More here.

Did you say Mickey? Really, Mickey?

2009-11-02T07:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this looks awesome. It's a new Wii game on the horizon called Epic Mickey. Yes, that Mickey.

First of all, this game looks great. Visually it has a hyper-impressionistic style with a very dark tone. Screenshots posted so far are early builds without proper lighting and they still look awesome. (That's concept art up at the top of the post and screenshots below.) This is another game that shows that you can do a lot with the Wii. Looks like Dali was very much of an inspiration of the look of the world.

Secondly, this game is being designed by Warren Spector, one of my all-time Game Design heroes. (Yes, that Warren Spector.) His breakthrough game, System Shock, was one of the best gaming experiences of my life and that was back in the mid-90's! He has also worked on the Ultima games and helped create Thief, another great series. Oh, and his company created a little phenomenon called Deus Ex, up there with Half-Life and Quake as some of best computer game series ever created.

To think about Mr. Spector making the jump to the Wii (much like I did recently) is exciting enough. But the game he's creating looks to have all the right ingredients to be one of the finest games on the system.

The story is extremely interesting. The original progenitor for Mickey, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, rules a kingdom called Cartoon Wasteland, a sort of graveyard and garbage dump of relics from Disney's past. Micky is forced into the world and has to save it from Oswald's evil reign and return home to The Clubhouse (I guess).

Those who know me know I love a good re-telling and this has some incredible potential for storytelling. The freedom to dive into Disney's long long history and find the rejects and make them into badguys sounds so inspirational. And the team seems to have taken inspiration from a lot of various theme park rides at Disney World, an extremely rich reservoir of the weird and freaky.

One of the main game components seems to be a paintbrush where you can create or destroy various items in the gameworld. That sounds very similar to the Magic Paintbrush in Okami, a classic on the Wii. Which is great! The Wii's unique gameplay mechanics lend themselves to these types of uses. Add RPG-style game dynamics and a really quirky visual style and this looks to be a winner.

Thanks to the always informative IGN for all the info.

Oh, Oh, Oh, Embryonic. I think I love you.

2009-10-28T07:46:00.001-07:00

So, the new Flaming Lips album is here and it's been playing in my car non-stop since I got it.

Pitchfork hailed the album with a surprising 9.0 rating and said, "The record is extremely dense, initially overwhelming, but unusually rewarding upon repeat listens." Which I agree with completely. First listen of this album would scare most people away, but a few days later, the music seems to wrap around your brain and small pieces start to make sense and then the whole thing comes together as a single symphonic piece. It reminds me of Radiohead's OK Computer in its motif-uniformity.

The album has a loose psychedelic vibe like early Lips material but is based around heavy bass and electronic sounds which makes it fit in the post-Yoshimi era. At the same time, it feels completely fresh: not acid-inspired tales of superhero children with giant heads or tall tales about magicians and space stations. The stories on the album feel almost personal but told through a muffled filter, in an third-person manner with an invariably female protagonist. This being the followup more to the Christmas on Mars soundtrack then the underrated (in my view anyway) At War With The Mystics, it has that visual quality, as if the band is scoring a film about a single character going through a series of trials and troubles.

Initially, I was weary of the extreme manipulation of Wayne Coyne's voice. Although he's no Bon Iver, Wayne's falsetto, though not technically strong, is one of the Flaming Lips' ramshackle strengths. I didn't like the idea of burying it under waves of feedback like in the mesmerizing album opener, "Convinced of the Hex." (Which - by the way - was my first taste of the new record when they played it on the Colbert Report a few weeks ago. My first thought then: "These guys have LOST IT.")

But even after my first "WTF?!" listens, that sweet bassline from "the Hex" started showing up unprompted within my brain, along with the similarly haunting riff from "See the Leaves," the best song about the apocalypse I ever heard. It's almost as if the album comes up from behind and surprises you with its strengths rather then revealing itself through repeated listens, like say, every other piece of music ever produced.

I remember thinking the spacey "Evil" was weird and too long, but now the strangely poignant lyrics ("I wish I could go..Go back in time.. I would warn you... These people are evvvvvvil..") and the yearning gaps in the music make it all the more powerful. And I'm completely surprised about how much I love "I Can Be a Frog," which is two minutes long and brilliant. How they did that is beyond me.

The biggest two-part punch in the album comes firmly in the middle, tracks 9-10 in this 18-track epic. The brooding, dark, bassline hinted at in early songs comes full force in the sublime "Powerless" and climaxes in "The Ego's Last Stand." Rarely does an album work so well that similar sounds come in and out of focus and morphs from weird to something that sounds practical back to something that is completely out-there. The idea of inserting segue tracks in a long record is nothing new, but it's not something The Lips have done before to my knowldge. The short "freakout" tracks (Wayne's own word) serve to punctuate the emotions from the traditional "songs," but I think the intention here was to sever the cord of typical album structure and have the whole thing be listened to as one. In that regard, it works very well. In fact, the transition from album closer "Watching the Planets" back to "Convinced of the Hex" is one of my favorites, as if the band is daring you to listen to something else.

This is as close to an intimate performance of "Planets" as you can find, for the awesome radio station KCRW,

The album doesn't lose steam towards the end, either (a feat many bands can't quite get these days). Take, for example, "Worm Mountain" which is so overflowing with ideas that it seems almost too much, until you start to pick out the various pieces and realize each one has a power of its own and without any of them, the song would just not be as good. And one of my favorite songs on the album,"Silver Trembling Hands," an almost traditional yet equally awesome song that would have fit nicely on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots comes in at Track 16!

It's amazing to think that thing this band - in various incarnations - have been together for over 20 years (The Flaming Lips initially formed in 1983, with Wayne's brother, Mark, on lead vocals, first album released 1986) and still have so much to say! Embryonic is their twelfth studio album, with a thirteenth, a full album cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon already announced.

Though Embryonic is dense and hard to swallow on first listens, it's a true gem for fans of The Flaming Lips. It's a unique and incredible band that can produce a genre-defining shift in direction and tone every couple albums but that's exactly what these guys have done, notably with the incredible The Soft Bulletin (which I still listen to A LOT) and the mainstream breakthrough Yoshimi, here's another one, even more challenging and thus rewarding than anything that came before it.

Poke.

2009-09-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

I am still alive.

(I think.)

It's funny how I forgot about this blog, but the internet never forgets. Sorry, blog. I feel bad. I'm going to post on you some more even though nobody will probably read it. But it will make feel better about abandoning you.

I'll take some pictures of my fish and share them with you. How does that sound, blog?

Austin City Limits 2007

2007-09-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

After last year's Lollapalooza '06, I attempted to coin the phrase Mega-Festival to describe the attempt to shove massive amounts of people into a single space over the course of a weekend. Well, Austin City Limits blew that festival away by the sheer size of it. The day-after guesses bring the number at sixty-five thousand, which might be lowballing a little, in my opinion. That number seems sort of abstract and hard to pin down, until you're on a field with sixty thousand other people trying to flee a festival you tried so hard to get to in the first place.

But I'm skipping ahead.

First off, we had some trouble starting off. Actually, before we even left our home state, we were terribly delayed by stupid airline nonsense. I won't bore you with the details (which I'm sure you can guess it), suffice it to say, our plans for the day were thoroughly shot down before they barely began. And we missed one of the bands we really wanted to see mid-day Friday, Peter Bjorn and John. Word around the campfire wasn't we didn't miss much, but still. Sucks. Big time.

We did manage (desperately) to catch Spoon's 6:30 pm set. We were a little too exhausted that day to remember we had a camera so no pictures from that first night, but Spoon put on a damn good show for a few thousand of their loyal Austin fans. I had heard in years past that Spoon's live show leaved something to be desired, and it's true, the pitch-perfect perfection in Spoon's brilliant albums were missing in the one-or-two-note performance, but my hips certainly didn't mind. I shaked my white ass to such classics as "I Turn My Camera On" and "Someone Something" as well as almost every song from the new album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. I had been waiting to see this band for a long time and was so glad we got there in time.

We caught a little Gotan Project on the way to buy beer or iced tea. I knew them from my trip-hop days. A very engaging performance from a band I knew very little about. Made mental notes to check them out some more.

Headlining that evening was the irreplaceable Bjork. Her liveset was, as you can imagine, crazy. Lasers, costumes, a jangling and dancing Icelandian sounding beautiful amidst super-loud beats. Unfortanetly, the day caught up with usand we didn't stick around for the whole set. It was hard to leave, but very nessecary.

Saturday, we woke refreshed and ready to take in the day and some of Austin. We grabbed some kick-ass barbecure downtown and went to the festival in time to rock out to Cold War Kids. I never heard of this band before so I didn't really know what to expect. I was impressed. They have a sprawling rock sound that references a lot of post-rock, but with lyrics. It's indie rock for adventurers.

We then headed to see one of my favorite new artists, the amazing Andrew Bird. Those who knew his stuff cheered at every opening chord. Those who didn't stood perplexed but amazing by this extremely talented violinist/whistler/singer/songwriter. He blazed through the opening tracks to Armchair Aprochrya and The Mysterious Production of Eggs to ferocious applause. His vocals, his dynamic violining, the authenticity of his words poured through those speakers and I was transfixed. His performance was everything I hoped it would. The first highlight.

And then, particularly no time later, the big highlight of the weekend: Arcade Fire. Shawn and I moved in real close to get the best of this wonderful band. It wasn't easy. It was hot. And sweaty. And sort of gross. (And eventually dangerous). But so freaking worth it!

Everyone - I think - has heard of Arcade Fire's legendery live performances. Allow me to elobrate: Every word you've ever read is true. Watching them blast through fiery song after fiery song, my mind kept saying.. As if there was any doubt, this is the best band in the world right now. It felt like there was hundreds of thousands of us in the audience shouting every word, singing our hearts out to such made-for-concert choruses to songs like "Leave the Car Running" and "No Cars Go." (I don't know why they're obsessed with cars, but I digress.)

The Arcade Fire have somehow tapped into a sense of need in today's young people. We need this band. We need its anthems of rebellion and justice and glory. And we need it delivered with every ounce of being in their collective bodies. Three or four songs in and the band's sweat matched the audience. The way they shouted every lyric (even if they didn't have a microphone anywhere near them) was spellbinding. The washes of horns and guitar and violin and whatever the hell Regine was playing was caked with emotion. An amazing experience, from beginning to end.

The only downside was that some kids just got into the spirit too much and decided to crowd surf, almost coming down hard on Shawn. Stupid kids.

Sunday, weary but determined, we woke early to grab some waffles and eggs and oh-so-delicious bacon for fuel and headed to the festival in time to watch The National, one of the most promising young bands in the indie rock scene today. I've been fan for years, but have never been lucky enough to watch a performance. I was mightly impressed, as was the few friends we had around who weren't familiar with them. They played mostly stuff from their new album, of course, and they played with such fire, I loved every moment of it.

Next big band came at the Big Big set for Britian's Bloc Party. They didn't play any b-sides, much to my disappointment, and for some reason, I felt like the massive set and huge huge audience were a little too much for the kids from England, but they still played a fun and upbeat set. I'd seen them before and wasn't too impressed, but the new album tracks worked out really well live.

Next up was Amos Lee, a soulful guy from Philadelphia who poured his heart out for an hour to much ado. There wasn't much God talk this weekend, and this guy wasn't evangelical or anything but his soul grooves and pure heart leaked out and was infectious.

Then, another highlight, the wonderful My Morning Jacket. These guys know how to have fun. They dressed up the set and themselves for this headlining spot. It was a Hawaiian motif with lead singer Jim James in a blond wig and tight-pants, complete with Hawaiian girls holding pineapples and some dudes metal-detecting on the "beach." As for the performance, incredible. So much power in that voice! So much emotion in those guitar licks. People around me didn't seem as into it as I was, but that didn't faze me from rocking out until my flip-flops were so sweaty, I almost tripped.

Finally, after three very long days, the last shows of the fest went on. There were quite a few performances before the headlining Bob Dylan, but I, of course, chose to see The Decemberists. It was my third time seeing them and, though they didn't seem to have the same intensity like when I saw them last in San Francisco, it's hard not to be transfixed to such a wonderful band, even half-exhausted as I was immediately following the My Morning Jacket set. These guys have such wonderful material and they played some of their best songs in an all-too brief set, closing with the powerful "I Was Meant for the Stage."

The final act of the festival was Bob Dylan. At this point, the sixty-five thousand people converged on a single section of Zilker Park and though we had intended to stay for a few songs, we got the hell out of there as soon as we could. I don't "get" Dylan, so I didn't mind leaving. I was curious, for sure, but I was more convinced I didn't want to spend a few hours in line waiting for a bus back downtown after a looooong day out in the sun.

To sum up, Austin City Limits was a remarkable experience. There is no way one person could see so many different bands in such a short time for so many different parts of the country and the world than in one of these mega-festivals. Sure, it's a lot to take. But it's also wonderful. And extremely memorable.

(Stay tuned for a couple more Austin posts, including "Fun Diversions" and - assuming I can figure out this new Blogger feature- video!)

Tell Me You Love HBO

2007-09-10T17:44:00.001-07:00

Last night, Tell Me You Love Me, HBO's newest one-hour-long drama premiered with much ado and almost as many commercials as that Justin Timberlake thing. I don't usually like to form an opinion on shows based on pilot episodes, but the internet is abuzz today with talk about the show so I thought I'd throw my two cents in.

From the outset, I knew a point of comparison for this show would be the brilliant Six Feet Under. Although centered around death, Six Feet Under was really about relationships, familial and sexual and marital. From the first episode of Six Feet Under on, we were thrown headfirst into a troubled family and all the crazy characters of that family, the Fishers, and all those around them.

After one episode of Tell Me You Love Me, I can't say I know much about any of these characters except that one couple is not having sex, one couple is trying to have a baby, and another couple is young and likes to have sex.

Okay, so I guess I'll talk about the sex now. Everyone else is. There's a word for the kind of sex we saw on display last night. It's called pornography. The producer and headwriter Cynthia Mort joked that she didn't think people would pay much attention to the sex (at least I hope she was joking). HBO has been showing nudity and sex scenes for years on their dramas, but this was long, drawn-out, choreographed sexual escapades.

In other words, gratuitous.

From the outside, one could say the enormous amount sex and the extreme display of flesh was a simple ratings ploy. If this was any other network, I would say they're right. But this is HBO and HBO, to me, has more credibility than... well, anybody and anything.

So the question remains, was all the sex trying to prove something? I kept watching the episode wondering if there was hidden meanings in all the bare asses and naked breasts.

Early in the episode, therapist Mary Coster looks at two pictures of naked bodies for an photo for a book she's writing about sex. A scene or two later, the young couple gets down and dirty and certain flashes evoke those same images. Okay, that's interesting. But by the fourth sex scene in single hour, I started to wonder if this wasn't just a way of shocking people.

Well, I'm not shocked. And frankly, I was kind of bored. Six Feet Under had a lot of sex, some of it graphic, but all of it served some purpose. Some overlaying story arc that needed to be shown during that sex scene, not just two straight people getting it on for fun.

Furthermore, trying to go beyond the obvious, the show seriously lacked a sense of humor. The premise of the show, couples dealing with relationship issues through therapy, is serious stuff. You must buoy that seriousness with some kind of comedy. A joke here or there or - shit, have someone fall on a rake, if that's all you can come up with.

All that being said, I will watch another episode, just because it's HBO and because I'm damn loyal. But there better be some serious improvement or I'm out.

Dude! It's Barzak Day!

2007-08-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

Happy Barzak Day everybody!!

This world is full of really incredible people, but few warrant their own international day of celebration. I'm proud to count one of those few, Chris Barzak, supremely worthy of the honor of having a day in his, well, honor, as a good friend of mine.

Chris and I haven't shared a state since our brief summer in Michigan a million years ago (save a few months when I lived in Northern California and he in Southern California - but, ask any expert, those might as well be different states) and so I haven't had the pleasure to see Chris that much lately (which sucks!!). Like many a touring indie rock band, nobody has the time to come to Southern Florida. But, like many of us bloggers, I follow Chris's daily/weekly/whenever-he-feels-like-it occurrences and happenings and interestings at his wonderful blog, which I am very grateful for existing.

Today is a very special day. The release of One for Sorrow, Chris's excellent first novel is a major cause for celebration. I can not wait to read the official version, which I'm sure will take the world (of Good Taste) by storm. Chris has always been somewhat of a hero to me, from the day I met him almost ten years ago, already workshop and writing-seasoned, with superhero namedrop abilities and even greater writing chops. His stories (I've read most of them, I think) over the years has opened my eyes as to what can be done with stories and what should be done.

Even though this is Chris's special day, I feel like celebrating myself! Chris, I only wish you were nearby, so I can toast you with champagne or some good really imported beer. I think I'll do it anyway.

To the first Chris Barzak Day! Cheers!

John From Cincinnati... Over or What?

2007-08-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's kind of ironic that a confounding series that made only a scant amount of sense is confusing again as to whether or not the series has been axed by HBO. I'm not surprised there's little love for the show from the press, John From Cincinnati is (was?) a complex and confusing conundrum, a beautiful mess.

But, like one writer from the Cincinnati Post, I kept returning to the watch and trying to understand it. If, in fact, last night's somewhat dramatic season finale was in fact its last episode, I will miss trying to decipher the dialouge and the relationships (and the plot!) of this show.

I will not, however, miss it as much as I miss the brilliant "Deadwood." I hope both shows see some new life in the future.

I am, as always, optimistic.

(Update: Some people love this show. And, really, if this guy can grok this much from the episode, you know there's some great stuff under the surface. He might be stretching a bit here and there, but really, it's all there to interrupt. Good job, man!)

Television to Traverse Hallways To

2007-07-31T10:06:00.001-07:00

Last night's Big Love was toted by HBO as the most dramatic episode ever in the history of everything (!!!!), but it really wasn't.

Not to say it wasn't a great episode, it was. Every episode in this second season has been amazing, supremely interesting and full of exciting things: Barb had en existential crisis early in the season, Nicki has been excommunicated from her family, Margene had a brush of shocking truth with her mom and fell briefly in love with another woman. Bill's oldests, Ben and Sarah, have been going through their own relationship dramas; Ben reveling in sin and Sarah counting the days until she turns 18 and flees to college.

Bill, meanwhile, has been doing his reckless thing (again). Early in the season, he set out to discover who outed his family as polygamists (in last season's dramatic finale) and, failing that, decided to take out his frustration on Roman Grant and his Juniper Creek ruling council, the UEB. Bill pulled all kinds of hijanks to get a Hendrickson seat on the council, first for his brother and then for himself. All that amounted to getting tipped out that Roman was planning to buy a video-poker company called Weeber Gaming. Bill decided he wanted that company for himself.

Meanwhile, back in Juniper Creek, Bill's brother, Joey, spent some time in prison for a crime his wife committed (which set out Roman Grant's son, Albi, on a revenge pilgrimage that continues to threaten Bill and his family). Bill's mother and uncle have schemed to launder over a million dollars from a dying woman.

And then more bad guys showed up. The Greens. Apparently, a fearsome family of polygamists who had previously been at war with Roman and the UEB, then banished to Mexico, now returned to stake a claim, specifically on - you guessed it - Weeber Gaming. Hijinks have since ensued.

(Spoiler warning for last night's episode follows.)

So that brings us to the big episode, "Kingdom Come," which seeks to bring a lot of the disparate storylines of the season to a closing point so the writers can focus in a little more on individual character stories to finish off the season (sadly, only four episodes remain).

Does the episode succeed? Yes. Does the episode surprise? Not really.

Anytime shows - these days anyway - prophesies something "big" and "huge," it usually means a character getting shot. (Thanks Lost). Well, that's exactly what happened.

After a full hour of drama dealing with Ben's soul and in-fighting between the wives and Bill and an off-camera war between Roman Grant and the Greens, Roman is accosted on a streetcorner in front of his favorite diner and shot twice in the chest by two of Hollis Green's wives. It's pretty dramatic, sure, but it was also inevitable. As the season has progressed, Roman has become less and less the "big bad" and more a friendly character so without unteething the beast, he had to die. But the repercussions, especially in regards to Nicki's mental health, will be fascinating to watch.

As for the other storylines, the sex "thing" between Bill and Margene and Nicki was interesting and brought the show back to the first episodes (remember the Viagra?). But the most interesting storyline for me was Ben's. I had trouble buying all that "I'm not ruined!" type talk, I know they're religious and Mormon's, but any teenager growing up in today's world should not be that squeamish when it comes to sex. Don't they watch MTV? Seriously.

What was very interesting was seeing Ben prepare to live "The Principal" at sixteen, proposing marriage and pre-planning for a second wife. It drove home (to Bill and Barb especially) how absurd his life is and the wrongheadedness of some of his decisions.

Anyway, I think I prattled on enough. For anybody who doesn't watch this show, you can see from my rampant discussion of character motivations and subtleties that is a high quality show, extremely well-written, and well worth everyone's time.

With Thanks to Pitchfork...

2007-07-30T13:28:00.001-07:00

And the entire music blogging community:

Kevin Drew - "Backed Out On The..."

(Obvious reference to Broken Social Scene classic, "Time=Cause." The song is called "Backed Out On the Cause" but that would have been a little too close, so he shortened the title a little.)

Little more about Spirit If: it seems to take a lot of ammunition from the great BSS lyric, "My favorite band/is a witch." The album is amorphous and dynamic. It starts with a punch as loud as BSS is capable of. But then chills out until the rocking high of the song above. The casual swagger of the songs on this album reference a lot of what BSS is doing with their albums: exploring new sonic territories, messing with multiple vocal tracks, throwing traditional song structure out the nearest airlock, and the lyrics are all about rebellion and youthful bliss.

I once called Broken Social Scene the best teenage band ever and that idea seems to leak into all their extra-credit work. Kevin Drew is interested in the modern pressures on the young generation, but is quick to paint them all as "Fucked Up Kids," which, of course, they are. Just like all the rest of us.

Ah, Music

2007-07-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

So I've been seriously neglecting my Austin blog due to unanticipated musical brilliance in other regards, notably non-Austin bands that have come out with new albums in the last few weeks that have been kicking my ass.

Most recently:

Broken Social Scene Presents... Kevin Drew's Spirit If; the BSS founder's debut (Kevin Drew being one of the only BSS members without a full-time separate band) is essentially a new Broken Social Scene record, complete with horns, explosions of sound, hushed vocals, and borderline manic time changes. Follow this link to download a preview of single-worthy track, TBTF ("Too Beautiful To Fuck") and catch Mr. Drew in his favorite morning-time position.

Interpol - Our Love to Admire

A slightly maligned but worth-the-effort followup to their previous followup, Antics, deserves attention for the first track alone, but also for stretching Interpol's creativity and ability. It doesn't always hit and the album itself seems to fly by without a major emotional impact, but that vapidity is an admirable quality in itself. It has the flow and attention-disorder of a chilly autumn Saturday. The occasional high is worth the price of admission, definitely.

Earlimart - Mentor Tormentor

I absolutely adore this band and their brand of wispy California indie pop. They tend to play it soft with quieter tracks replete with swells and lows, but they also employ a staticky electric guitar that rocks out on cue. Never shy of double-digit album tracks, much like their previous album, this one has almost fifteen tracks to keep us happy and nodding our heads to the beat.

Cute:

2007-07-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

Just cause!

John From Cincinnati

2007-07-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

After watching six episodes of HBO's newest drama - most at least twice - I can safely, and finally, recommend this show as worthy of your precious time and attention. It struck me today, especially, reading about the show on HBO.com, in writer Steve Hawk's Inside the Episode, where he quotes creator David Milch, "The important point that I'm trying to make is that storytelling has nothing, whatsoever, to do with logic."

Well, obviously. JFC makes very little sense in a conventional way. A stranger wanders into the lives of a dysfunctional family of surfers in Imperial Beach, California and strange things start to happen. Sure, it's not the exquisite and complicated quilt of characters like Deadwood or even the gritty sad reality of NYC cops like NYPD Blue, but as the episodes pass in their slow and deliberate and often bewildering way, I have become as fascinated by the show as it seems the writers of it are. A few of the many great moments will linger in my memory for a long time, I'm sure, so passionate and powerful they are.

And the dialogue! Just like Deadwood, the dialogue is what drives this show. Even though Steve Hawk recommends we watch what the characters do and not what they say, it's what they say that is so weird and strange and interesting. The way the characters interact - in all their verbal violence - is what separates this show from anything else on TV.

For Deadwood fans, there's a particular joy from seeing characters we love from that show on this new Milch show. Particularly one of my favorite Deadwoodians, Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie), playing the heroin-dealin' Hawaiian Freddy. Also great to see Ellsworth, Jim Beaver, playing the pot-growin', spliff-rollin', Vietnam Joe. And, great (in a weird sort of uncomfortable way) to see Deadwood's Frances Wolcott (and first Deadwood role, Wild Bill-murdering Jack McCall) returned playing a nice guy (wow!), Dr. Smith. Also, the latest episode had an all-too-brief cameo from Deadwood's Trixie, Paula McCalomson.

To sum up, John From Cincinnati is not an easy show to like. I didn't recommend it to anyone for the first few weeks it was on, but now I feel confident that anyone who watches it and has the patience to deal with some confusion and some really weird characters, will be in for a very rewarding experience.

Excuse me while I geek out

2007-07-13T07:01:00.001-07:00

About Battlestar Galactica, of course! This week, SciFi Channel aired a commercial-length preview of the upcoming BSG TV-movie, "Razor," and it looks amazingly awesome. Exactly what they should be doing at this moment, referencing the rich past and adding layers to future episodes. In case you haven't seen it yet, behold!

Hear! Hear!

2007-07-12T16:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so what's more exciting? A new post on this poor derelict blog, or a new story of mine in a new magazine??!

The latest issue of Say..., titled What's the Combination? containing my story, "Do What You Desire" is finally seeing daylight! (and inevitably, nightlight) The other contributors are some of the finest young science fiction and fantasy writers working today. This is definitely going to be a treat. You can order it here via Gwenda Bond's blog for a very small sum (6 bucks!). I hope you do.

I haven't seen the cover yet so I can't wait to get a hold of the issue or at least someone else to post a scan (hint, hint.)

This will be the first time a story of mine has appeared in print and not in the dubious 72 point of a computer screen. So, yeah, I'm excited.

(PS, I changed the blog's title. Yes, again. And the template. Finally!)

San Francisco Notstalgia (Chapter 838)

2007-05-21T10:19:00.000-07:00

From SFGate.com: Why Aren't You Working??

Notice the high volume of writers apparently doing nothing. Good times.

Announcement

2007-05-15T16:16:00.001-07:00

So, I'm thrilled. I, along with some trusty compatriots, will be attending the ridiculously awesome Austin City Limits festival in September. The lineup is crazy. So many wonderful bands. So many new artists I haven't even heard of!

Well, to prepare (and since I have the whole summer to think about it..), I decided that I should make it my mission to listen to every single artist on that lineup. And what better motivation (*jokes*) than a blog?! So I started a new one:

AustinCityLimitsArtists.blogspot.com

It will be my way to catalog and comment on every band on that lineup. See that box marked Bands on the right side of that page? Give me a month and it'll be totally full. Obviously, I've started writing about bands that I know and love and will continue to do that while I experiment with new artists. I'm not just going to do one post about each band. The goal is to have a wide range of information and commentary (cause you know I love to wax poetically about music) about every single band.

So, wish me luck. Spread the word. And see you in Austin!!

How To Fight Irrelevance

2007-05-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

It would be so easy to write off Wilco.

"They're done!" you can shout. They've been done, you could say, ever since that one really wonderful album sorta took over the world for a year.

They've lost the spark, one could say. Hell, I've said it. I've had the pleasure(?) of seeing them a bunch of times at festivals over the last couple years, first at the Langerado festival in Sunrise, FL, where they seemed to be bored and excited to jump back on a plane and head back up to Chicago. Then I saw them in Chicago at Lollapalooza '06 and this time, I was bored. Little did I know, they were playing mostly stuff of their new album which I hadn't heard yet.

Sky Blue Sky comes out officially on Tuesday, May 15. It's been floating around the internet for the last few months and it's rightfully gathered a lot of attention. It's an amazing album. But you can't compare it to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. This is the concession those people who keep wanting to write them off need to make: This is a different band. This is not the band that spawned those huge indie/country anthems and ballads with their stirring string sections and electronic influences. This is not even the same band that struggled with those preconceptions while trying to find something new in 2005's A Ghost is Born.

On Sky Blue Sky, they sound more confident than ever before (yes, even more than Summerteeth!). But, like I said, it's a different band. In some ways, they've embraced more of the country influences that informs their music. In other ways, they've become a tighter, more cohesive, band. The additions of two new member seem to have allowed Wilco to find a new voice. In A Ghost is Born and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, they always seemed to be attempting "mainstream" or "crossover" appeal and approval. With this album, they've stopped reaching for the stars (they're already there) and shifted their focus to a barebones rock sound. A couple times on this record, they remind me of My Morning Jacket, which is definitely a good thing.

I'm lucky enough to say that I will see them again in the near future. I'm going to be attending the Austin City Limits festival in September and will see dozens (130?) great bands. And even though I've seen Wilco at a couple festivals and one kickass gig at the Warfield in San Fran long time ago, I can't help but be excited to see these indie-rock legends again.

New!

2007-04-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to change the title of this blog for a while. I wanted to pick a new template but all the choices on this new version of Blogger suck. I'm hoping to get inspired to post more here soon about music and writing.

In the meantime, read this, if you haven't already.

Between Silence..

2007-04-08T11:53:00.000-07:00

Music!

Galactica

2007-03-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

Season 3 is over with much more to come. And this season, more than the previous ones, has left off with many many lingering questions and mysteries to ponder and debate until new episode start to air (I think they learned a lesson from LOST..)

Some points:

Chief Tyrol, Sam Anders, Col. Tigh, and Tori: Are they Cylons? Have they been programmed with some kind of trigger to make them Cylon sleeper agents (note: they were all on New Caprica, we know Col. Tigh was in prison there, is that where whatever happened to them took place?) Or has Cylon "skinjob" technology evolved so far that they can now create clones and replace people?

Baltar: What do you think of his acquittal? Is it justified? Does he deserve to die? Or, like Lee pointed it, should he be forgiven like the rest of the God-forsaken survivors of the colonies? And who were those religious people he was with at the end of the episode, are they in way connected to the Sagitarians or Tom Zarek?

President Roslyn: The cancer's back, now what? Taking Kamala again seems to allow her to see visions she wasn't able to when she was "sober." Will she take another blood transfusion from Hara or will she continue to let the cancer go so she can use her visions to guide the fleet to Earth?

Further, what was up with those visions of Caprica Six, Athena, and Rosyln in the Kobol Opera House? What's the significance of their connection with Hara?

Romo Lapkin (Baltar's lawyer): Will we ever see him again? (I hope so.) And what was that "other business" he had to deal with?

Starbuck: WTF? The episode when she "died" was one of the most maligned hours of Galactica history. Fans were in a tizzy, pissed about her death, the way it was handled, everything. I thought the episode, "Maelstorm," was boring and the episode when poor Kat died was so much more dramatic. But now she's back and been to Earth. Again, WTF?

Pegasus: Do you miss it as much as I do?

New Caprica: A great storyline that has had widespread repercussions. Do you think we'll get another flashback episode on that planet?

What caused the fleet-wide power failure when they reached the Nebula? And how did the Cylons beat them to it?

I'll post more when I think of them!

Updates

2007-03-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

The orchids are doing great. Yay!

I just got a new job, working for an uber-cool design store for kids called Genius Jones. I'll be working on their website and the warehouse. I haven’t started yet. My old job convinced me to stay through March, even though they aren’t giving me anything to do, really (hence, this blog will definitely be more active over the next few weeks. Yay?).

Working in a very structured, hierarchical, office (*adjusts tie*) for almost two years now has been an… interesting experience. There’s been some wonderful moments of camaraderie and I’ve made some great friends in the process. There’s been some truly awful moments when the weight of eighteen bosses made me feel like the lowest ranked ant in the back of the food line. Doing what I’ve been doing – Events, although mainly the computer work involved – has been exciting. There’s a certain pressure and excitement with the idea of having some massive event the next day and trying to make sure every little piece is sent to the right place and the right person.

I’ll miss my boss, Alysa, who has been like the best sudden friend I’ve ever had. When I came to interview here in summer of ’05, I never thought I would be welcomed as part of a large family so warmly. People here – when they’re not stressed out by crazy demands of donors – are truly kind and friendly and have been nothing but super-accommodating to me. I’ll miss them all.

As for my writing, it’s been sporadic at best. Somnolent, more accurately. I feel like I have stories to tell, large ideas I want to spread throughout the world. But I am severely unmotivated. I’m not sure why. It’s nice to see 23 Small Disasters online and popping up on blogs. That’s been the biggest motivator for me in a while. True, it’s been only a couple days, but I’ve been thinking about writing more during these last few days than I have in a year. So, wish me luck, and hopefully you’ll see more By Elad Haber soon!

Orchids

2007-03-03T07:06:00.000-08:00

A new addition to the apartment. The question is how long can I keep them healthy and looking this good?

Disasters In Full Light

2007-03-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

Faster than a speeding bullet, 23 Small Disasters has appeared on our collective word-playground at the lovely Ideomancer. It features little interconnected pieces by Ben Rosenbaum (The Editor), Christopher Barzak, Mehgan McCarron, Greg van Eekhout, Kinii Ibaura Salaam, and Tim Pratt.

Please check it out, give it a read, and tell us what you think. I'm quite proud of my contributions to the piece, but prouder still to be in such great company.

New Album Roundup

2007-02-15T09:30:00.000-08:00

It’s been a little less than two months since I posted
my most anticipated albums of early 2007 and I’ve
gotten quite a few already with a lot more
forthcoming. Some early thoughts:



The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible

A few tracks are reminiscent of the best Funeral
had to offer, but with a double dose of layering and
crazy time changes. Notably, “The Well and The
Lighthouse” shines like a wonderful beacon in a murky
sea. The country-themed-anthem “(Antichrist Television
Blues)” is a great, memorable, song, although the
sudden ending is a surprising choice for such a
nuanced band. The subtle “Oceans of Noise” is
hypnotic.

Arcade Fire aren’t in the business of wild
experimentation or plunging brand new depths of sound.
Funeral was amazing because it seemed to be a
culmination of years of indie rock from a wide
spectrum of artist. Neon Bible is a worthy sequel, but
may not surpass its predecessor. Then again, I’ve only
had it less than a week.



Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City

This album has some moments of utter brilliance, but
overall, it’s not as loaded with new ideas and new
directions as the sublime Silent Alarm. A lot of
complaints around the web are focused on the
production which seems to be very pop-friendly with
waves of screeching guitars underlying wild choruses.
I agree. Another major attraction of the debut was the
assured production stylings that made such brilliant
songs like “Banquet” possible. This album doesn’t
reach for these heights, but is satisfied with calmer
fare.

I think Bloc Party need to decide what kind of band
they want to be. Are they an indie rock band, always
experimenting and striving for new heights? Or are
they simply a brit-pop band more interested in radio
airplay than pushing boundaries? This album reflects
that indecision and suffers for it.

On the plus side, though, Bloc Party has released a
bevy of B-sides in the last month, a few of which are
definitely of the more experimental tinge than a lot
of the album tracks. So, there’s still hope!



Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Some Loud Thunder

This is definitely going to be the most controversial
album of the year. The first track alone has sparked
loads of talk on the blogs and the music sites. It’s
the title track, which I first heard at their
Langerado performance and fell in love with on a
recording from French radio. It’s a sweet, simple,
song. On the album, though, they decided to up the
volume on the vocals past a, well, listenable
clipping, so that it comes out muffled, crunchy, and
thundery. It’s a strange decision. It definitely puts
you off the first time you listen to it. After a
while, though, it starts to grow on you (reminds me of
Alec Ounsworth’s voice) and the beauty of the song
shines through.

Other tracks have a boozy, drugged-out, rhythm that
feels very Clap Your Hands. The band sound more like
what they sound like live than the surprisingly clean
production on their debut. The choices they make are
extremely daring (far from the pop-friendly Bloc
Party) and they don’t always succeed. But there are
moments when the guitars flare up and the vocals chug
along and the drums echo and it’s truly an amazing,
original, sound. I look forward to more time spent
with this album.

Still waiting on new albums by Earlimart, Air, and The Shout-Out Louds.

A Recent Hobby

2007-02-11T12:49:00.000-08:00

I've been having some fun lately with flower arranging.

Some pics:

Continuing on the theme..

2007-02-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

Finally!! The Arcade Fire's new album, Neon Bible, just leaked to the Internet. Mark your calendars, Feburary 9th 2007. A good day.

(and in case you forgot...)

Video of the Week

2007-02-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

Further evidence why the Arcade Fire are the best band in the world right now.

23 Small Disasters

2007-02-03T14:57:00.000-08:00

As mentioned elsewhere in far more active blogs, an experimental fiction wiki I was involved in creating was bought (!) by the wonderful folks at Ideomancer and will take over an entire month's issue. Soon-ish, hopefully. Ben Rosenbaum, who is great!, conceieved and edited the thing and deserves a lot of credit. Everyone else attached to the project are wonderful and creative people and I hope everyone who reads the thing, which is called 23 Small Disasters, enjoys it and takes something original from it. Stay tuned for updates!

PS. I like the new version of Blogger.

Stream the entire new Menomena album

2007-01-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

It's your lucky day, music fans. The incredible new album by a bunch of computer nerds from Portland is available in its entirety (entirely legally, i might add) online three weeks before its release. With a spiffy website too.

http://barsukmusic.blaireau.net/menomena/

I recommend "Wet and Rusting" and "My My" to start.

The Link Of The Year!

2006-12-27T16:24:00.000-08:00

The Year in Review, according to Shawn and Getting to Maybe.

Great post! Be sure to check it out.

Albums I'm looking forward to

2006-12-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

2007 version:

Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City. new full-length for this busy band. lots of bonus material since we all first partyed to Silent Alarm, so i expect this one to be viewed pretty critically in the world at large. first single is good but not great. definitely no "banquet." i'm hopeful it'll surpass expections.

Earlimart - new one. (not sure what it's called) Love love love this little band out of Southern Cali. saw them a whole bunch in san fran. Three songs from the new album linked via Pitchfork. all reeking of greatness. "Everybody Knows Everybody," "Don't Think About Me," "Nevermind the Phonecalls." this one's gonna be the breakthrough.

Broken Social Scene - Live in Ft. Lauderdale. (I wish!!)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder. sounds fucking awesome! totally weird, totally cooky. produced by Dave Fridmann of Flaming Lips and Mogwai fame, you knew it had to kill. so far, with three tracks leaked (the best on myspace), it sounds as weird as you'd expect. i recently called Arcade Fire "music from mars," this is music from Jupiter. can't wait for the full release.

Air - Pocket Symphony. Always a time of celebration when a new Air record comes out. Will they continue to be beyond-words-awesome? I'm sure they will.

The Postal Service - ? (it could happen. there's been murmurings.)

The Clientele - God Save the Clientele such a weird, moody band. seems like they're going to be in a good mood for this one. can't wait to hear the results.

The Decemberists Get LOST On "The Island"

2006-10-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

This is the story of an island. This is the story of strangers thrust together by circumstance. This is story of violence and savagery at the last corner of the civilized world.

Am I talking about ABC's mega-hit series, LOST?

No, I'm talking about The Decemberists' incredible twelve minute opus, "The Island," off their brand new album, The Crane Wife. Ths song is broken up into three sections, a lesson learned from their 2004 EP, The Tain,a single twenty-minute track broken into a loose 4 part structure. The three sections of "The Island" are titled, "Come and See / The Landlord's Daughter/ You'll Not Feel The Drowning."

Come and See starts with a wordless two-minute musical prolouge that speaks volumes. It's a heavy-metal-inspired prog-rock statement that becomes a shout that becomes a scream. Close your eyes and you can almost see the pictures painted. An old-fashioned ship on a calm ocean. Swaggering sailors studying the sea. A roaring bassline bemoans a coming storm. And then things get weird.

The Decemberists have gotten very good at what they do. Their proggy influences are a new thing, notable from The Tain, yet infused with their preqrequiste nautical obsessions, this musical barrage says tons without actually saying anything. In 2005's Picaresque LP, their other big sea-shanty opus, "The Mariner's Revenge," was replete with things that go ding-ding and other things that make wave and crashing sounds. None of that here, it's all classic instrumentation played with the quirky irrevence we (all?) love from The Decemberists.

Finally, Colin Meloy's voice comes in at around the two and a half minute mark. His first words, "There's an island hidden in the sound," sound like smoke wrapping around a pillar, all sultry vowels and bright-eyed wonder. But before a third line is spoke, it gets all dark again when Meloy sings, "Affix your barb and bayonet," which also foreshadows violence ahead. (Much like when Sawyer and Kate found the case with all those guns.)

Soon after arriving on the Island, Meloy's characters find an abandoned harbor "in the reeds." There's a jetty and the bodies of some dead birds, but there's no evidence of human life. Much like some other group of quasi-invisible neighbors, they cover their tracks well.

The first section chorus kicks off soon after, with a rousing romp of screeching guitars, roaring accordions, and blasting drums. The Decemberists, who I use to like to think of my own personal little band, have definitely matured. Their emotional punch on these high notes is so perfectly pulled off, it's a testament to their skills and their producers. The final lines of the chorus, "We'll not go home again," hints at the impending doom so evident in the faces of those LOST characters, especially in the beginning, when their situation seemed hopeless and alone.

Meloy repeats the lines, "Come and see," often in the first section, sounding a little like one of those tourist-targeted ads for Aruba or Bermuda. One of those beautiful places... if you can forget about all the random dispearing blondes.

The Landlord's Daughterintroduces a first person perspective to the narrative, a lone sailor coming up on a girl referred to as The Landlord's Daughter, (perhaps a native?) The music takes on an almost gypsy ryhtym powered by accordion and piano. He approaches her menacingly, a human-shaped dark cloud, and sings, "Make no whistle or thou will be murdered!"

The caterwaul of the earlier chorus joins the accordion chimes and the song almost explodes in symphonic violence. A chase! A fight!

Laser-sounds straight out of scifi metal come out and join the swelling wave of music. Much like in Picaresque other non-sea-inspired epic track, "The Bagman's Gambit," The Decemberists ultra-musical moments reach almost abstract heights, but where in that track an ear-splitting minute-long noisefest engulfed the climax of the song, here, the song just breaks leaving tense silence and replaced by a gorgeous guitar riff.

The lone guitar strums purposefully as it was the last person or thing in the world on some important mission.

Another voice picks up in the third section. Though the same "I" is used, it's obviously not the same brute that attacked and killed (?) the girl. Through disturbing lyrics, often sincere but also sinister, Meloy sings, "Go to sleep now, little ugly, go to sleep now, you little fool," we're left with a sense of lingering unease, as if we ourselves were trapped on some island somewhere where anything can happen.

Causes of Celebration

2006-09-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

- It's Friday! Woohoo! And it's a long weekend. Rock! True, I have the day off on Monday for a not-so-happy Jewish Holiday (Yom Kippur), but I still got the day off and I'm thrilled.

- New Decemberists' record leaked to the Internet!! The Crane Wife so far sounds like a mishmash of all previous Decemberists goodness but without the random poppy sheen of Picaresque. Looks like another A+ from my good friends from Portland. (PS, guys, your website is in desperate need of a re-design. Seriously. Get on that.) (hey, while I'm making unprompted requests, how bout a South Florida show ?? Pretty please?)

- Visit from my Dad. He's a good guy going through a tough period. Hopefully some time in the sun, and the cool shade of my balcony, will unburden his heart.

- And finally, love. Love is the ultimate cause of celebration. I have my love. Her name is Shawn. Things are not always so easy for us, what with life and money and damn persistent plumbing problems, but we try our best to be happy. Sometimes we both act crazy and we make each other even more crazy, but more often, we find the peace and the solace in each other's presence that is lacking elsewhere. I've learned that relationships are harder than I ever imagined or even guessed, but in the end, they're worth it.

SG-1 Will Live Forever!

2006-09-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! News:

Rumors Surface of SG-1 TV-Movies

Stargate SG-1 undoubtedly has a future after SCI FI channel cancelled the long-running series last month -- but what kind of future is it? A feature film? An eleventh season with another broadcaster? IGN reports this week that, according to unnamed cast members, the studio is currently planning to create a series of SG-1 TV movies.

One of Those Posts with Lots of Links

2006-09-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

This Pitchfork review of My Morning Jacket's brilliant double live-album, Okonokos, is extremely lacking. There's some interesting flourishes here and there, but the scope and grandeur of the album is not protrayed through the review and the writer seems to think MMJ is just another band with just another album. They could not be more wrong. This is an instant classic album - a rarity in the overly crowded market of the day - and an affirmation of sucess from a band that has transcended all genre and classifcation lines, beyond indie rock, beyond alt-country, and into mainstream consciosuness.

Maybe I'm a little biased. I saw MMJ at Lallapoolza recently and it was a truly transformative moment. I reconnected with some dormat ROCK portion of myself and, through the band, found a new apprecation of all music. This is an almost magical feat and they pulled it off effortlessly, in about an hour's time. Ever since that show, I have been listening to Okonokos almost non-stop and in its chords and lulls and highs, that same magical spark is reignited again and again.

And the magic will not stop! A film is coming out of the performance, from the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco (where I saw an equally transcendent performances by Mogwai back in the day). That film should be an incredible blast of a perfomance, apparently it's edited and directed very well. I can't wait!!

But, that's not out for another month. (*takes a breathe, relaxes). For the moment, I'm focusing on the album. It's coming out this week and a lot of other reviewers 'round the web have captured the spirit of the album a lot better than pitchfork. Some links and excerpts:

From their hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal:

"Okonokos" is a true concert experience, its many transcendent moments sharing space with happily wrecked solos and the occasional splintered high note from singer Jim James. This is not a complaint. This is what live music is all about: a shared, human experience, imperfections and all. We're living in the moment here.

From Miami New Times: (huh? okay!)

The best live albums bring something new to songs that have been heard only in a studio incarnation, new performances that transcend the recorded versions and connect with striking immediacy. By that standard, Okonokos, My Morning Jacket's first concert set, is a stunning success.

From PopMatters:

Okonokos‘s structure is perfect for a live album—when the songs trip off into another world, they soon rock brightly back to life, often within the same song. The songs are stretched out, but without losing any of their impact. In fact, the impact of every hook, note, and solo is only accentuated. The band hammers each note exactly right, with absolute toughness but also sensitivity, so it isn’t bombastic but still kicks hard. James’ voice soars but also turns ragged, as the music flies light but also punches the audience in the face. An extra dose of intensity is added to songs, to keep the feeling of surprise, and those intense moments the audience is expecting—like on “One Big Holiday”, their most overtly rocking song—are delivered even better than promised.

From Barnes & Noble.com: (see what I mean by mainstream sucess?)

Even before their breakthrough, It Still Moves [and best album - elad] My Morning Jacket had built a buzz as a great live act: With their long hair swinging in circles, their penchant for dramatic shifts in dynamics, and their indulgence in epic guitar solos, the Louisville, Kentucky, band created an impressive spectacle.

Now, I can't say that My Morning Jacket will appeal to everyone. They have a sort of homespun rock sound that touches on Southern twang, indie exuberance, and even more traditional pop structures to their shorter songs, but there's something, definitely something, that makes this band appeal to more than just one target audience. They have a truly American sound bringing to mind long drives through empty highways or endless landscapes of mountains, valleys, or stripmalls all crowned by the same lazy clouds. That indescribable Americanness is part of what inspires and excites me about them. But at the end of the day, they're just a rock band. Maybe the last great rock band. Or maybe just the best.

Today. In the Dept. of Way Too Much Time On Your Hands

2006-09-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

The Condiment Packet Museum.

via The Lucky Clover

An Open Letter

2006-09-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Ruth Gotian of the Kinneret Day School Almuni Assocation,

I don't care.

Sincerely,

Elad Haber

Sometimes, the world feels very small.

2006-09-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

Man, where did this week go? Where did this summer go?!

I feel like it's been such a blur. A good blur, but a blur nonetheless. Alaska was incredible, seemed to be a calm nap before a busy evening. Before I knew what was happenning, Israel was at war and workload suddenly increased a thousand-fold. My calm summer where I was suppose to get back to my roots of writing and reading and relaxing was gobolled up, never to be heard from again.

And this week the offical "craziness" begins at work, with more and more work and responsibility and overtime (that demon of good and bad all moshed together).

Shawn and I are in a new apartment. Two weeks later and close to settling in. It's a wonderful place, full of good vibes, in an even wonderfuler (that should so be a word) location. It's going to be great to watch this neighborhood develop. Although it looks like our building might start looking like a messy construction project soon.

Everything hasn't been perfect, tho. I feel like I work constantly and yet am still undeniably broke. The stress of all that (work, brokeness, moving) has eaten away at my ability to relax and ponder, writing-wise. I'm picking away at this one little piece of story I got, very very slowly. One of these days, it may be something readable and good. Been a while since I had one of those. Wish me luck!

Thankfully, there has been some very good news lately, in the regards to live music in the area. That one thing I'm always complaining about? Yeah, well, someone wants me to shut the fuck up, cause there's four band incredible bands coming in the next two months to enterain me, personally. Gonna be great.

Weirdest Album Cover Ever?

2006-08-31T08:39:00.000-07:00

I think so, yes.

(those magicky mushrooms surrounding the little girl with the heart says it all, i think..)

(ps. what's with the christmas gnome ???)

Thinking Out Loud

2006-08-31T05:54:00.000-07:00

Is there a word or term for the limbo between apartments? That gray time when you are running back and forth between two apartments? When half your stuff is in one place and the other half in the other (or at least it feels that way) And situations come up when you need something and you think, "Oh shit! It's in my other apartment!"

Something like "residence-confusion"? Maybe "living doubly"? How bout a cool "bohemian" ?

2006-08-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

Something I threw together at work to promote a big Super Sunday-like phonathon coming up. Not really practical, but I thought it looked nice. We ended up keeping the tagline I came up with ("the war is over...") and that made me happy.

The Pi Room

2006-08-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

".. people would go into the pi room, and their brains would become quiet, and they would emerge relaxed.."

Image snatched from Doug Coupland's website via his nytimes blog.

Hook me up. Burn me down.

2006-08-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

Check it.

"A film for people who love music and buildings and watching buildings burn down."

More TV-Talk

2006-08-23T13:09:00.000-07:00

(or, How to Kill Time During Work Without Really Trying)

Deadwood Recap: "The Catbird Seat" (warning: spoilers.)

Can I just scream, on behalf of all the people who watch the show, FINALLY!!!

After waiting ALL season for the fireworks to kick off between Hearst and the camp, it finally (finally) starts with an unlikely murder and even more unlikely shooting in Hearst's own hotel. But, I'll take it slowly (see: subtitle).

Bullock isn't around. He's "campaigning" in the nearby town of Sturgis. In the beginning of the episode, him and his crew are debating whether he should continue his campaign away from Deadwood and somehow decide that he should. Despite the attack on Alma Ellsworth last week that had him rushing back to town. Basically, they decide that he'll have to rush back when - not if - the war begins.

Hearst meets with two black-suited nameless henchman (who else misses Col. Turner?) and intones a simple but ominous line, "You're clear on the order of the killings?"

Farnum is still in his cubbyhole of an apartment, still having not wiped off Hearst's spit from a previous episode. It is another degrading and sad moment for this punching bag of a character. A part of me starts to feel bad for him, but then I remember he's a loser and everything that is happening to him he made happen himself or deserved in account of his awful treatment of his slave worker and erstwhile confidant, Richardson.

Next scene finds Ellsworth, one of the best characters of the show's three year run and fifty character roster, having a very long and involved discussion about Alma with a dog. One of the henchman shows up and puts a bullet in Ellsworth's forehead.

The next scenes blur together into an excited rampage of violence and fright. Alma reeling with grief in the middle of the thoroughfare, Utter running into The Gem shouting, "Ellsworth's been shot!" are classic Deadwood moments. Everyone realizes what's going on and immediately reaches for weapons. There's a strange confusion in the air as the characters - much like the audience - have no idea what's going to happen next.

What happens is as dramatic as you can imagine. A character who has come dangerously close to irrelevant in this new season, Trixie, sees Ellsworth's body being dragged through the camp and decides she's sick to fucking death of this fucking Hearst guy. She pulls her trusty gun from her trusty bra and jabs it into her dress. She then takes her shirt off and parades right past Hearst's guards in the lobby of the Grand Central, who are as you can imagine distracted, and marches right up to Hearst's door. He is fearless and a little dumb. He opens the door, greeted by not one display of exposed flesh but two, and is completely surprised by the gun in her hand. She fires, but misses her intended target - his black, greedy heart - and hits him in the shoulder. She flees, while the guards scurry up the stairs strangely (and unbelievably) ignoring Trixie.

Meanwhile, Swearengen is sheltering Alma again while Utter goes to fetch Sofia and Jane (tragically underused) watches over the kids in their tree-shaped school house. The battle, it seems, is underway in a quiet way.

Hearst, guarded well (this time), marches through camp with blood pouring down his arm on the way to the doctor. A chilling scene follows as the Doc mends Hearst's bullet wound not five feet from Ellsworth's cold body.

Sofia is thankfully returned to Alma, where she has the sad duty of informing young Sofia about Ellsworth's fate. Sofia demands to see Mr. Ellsworth, to "feel his beard" one last time. Alma and Al and then Alma and the Doc have very interesting conversations about Sofia and what happened to her family way back in the beginning of season 1.

Bullock finally returns (again) to comfort Alma and Sofia. He doesn't really do or say much (as usual), but gives them all good hugs. Mrs. Bullock, as usual, is absent from all important things during the course of the episode.

There's a charming scene between Richardson and Jewel, fourth (possibly fifth)-tier characters in the Deadwood hegemony.

One of my favorite characters enters the scene with as much fanfare as one would expect of such a lofty and high-faluten individual, Wu. The exchange between Wu and Sweargen is important, but lacks the pure fun and silliness of their earlier conversations over the last three or four episodes. But there was a wonderful moment at the end when Wu gets up close to Swearengen, locks his middle and right index finger together and says, "HANGDI!" which I believe means best friend in Chinese. Swearengen gives him a nod, a "Hangdi!" and sends him off to collect his 150 chinks from Custer City.

Next week, the war begins (or ends?) in earnest with the season/series finale.

But, fellow Deadwood fans, don't fret! Regular episodes of the show may be over, but HBO is planning two (that's right, two!) Deadwood TV-movies (read: long episodes) for sometime in 2007. I'm guessing one of them will involve the summation of the Hearst storyline and the second will involve the famous Deadwood fire that destroyed the town in 1879.

Goodbye Stargate SG-1!

2006-08-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

With a heavy dose of sadness, I learned today SciFi Channel has announced that it is cancelling Stargate SG1 after 10 seasons.

This announcment comes on the heels of last week's "200," the wild 200th episode of the series that featured, among other things, a puppet version of SG1, a Star Trek and a Wizard of Oz sequence, and an SG1 version of Buffy and Farscape. It was funny, although loaded (*cough* overloaded) with injokes. The payoff was supposed to be the return of Richard "MacGuyver" Anderson as Jack O'Neil, but he just sort of came back and cracked some jokes. There was no real action or danger. Couldn't he have killed one of those Baal clones, just for fun?

But, anyway, SciFi unsuprisingly cancelled SG1 and renewed Atlantis, which has never sparked my interest, unfortanetly, despite my love of all things Stargate. Maybe with SG1 going off the air, I'll give Atlantis another shot. With my old flame Star Trek off the TV air and now my longtime friend, SG1 gone as well, my TV will be disturbingly quiet. Thank the Gods for Battlestar Galactica!!

The ironic thing is that SG1, in my opinion, has picked up speed over the last two years. The Go'uld story has been done for three seasons and last year's introduction of the Ori as Big Bads and the welcome arrival of some fresh blood into the cast reinvigorated the series. The decision to focus (at least in the first quarter of this tenth season) on stand-alone episode is an odd one, but the Ori episodes will apparently kickstart as of this Friday and I'm looking forward to what they come up with, especially in light of The End of Everything. Right now, they have the Ori looking like some unsumorntable mountian pass, with their ships blowing up everything in sight without getting scratched by the good guys. I predict a very grim and darkening future suddenly looking bright and winnable much like the finale of SG1's best episode, season 7's The Lost City. Should be fun.

As the saga that began with a much-loved film starring Kurt Russel in 1994 ends, I find myself in a reflective mood. I started watching SG1 in response to my awful reaction to Star Trek's hick cousin, Enterprise, and couldn't have been happier with the drama, the fun, the humor, and the action of SG1's early seasons. I was so enthused, I made my friends watch endless hours of the show and for awhile there, we were definite, um, whatever you call Stargate fans. Middle-season syndrome kicked in and a lot of bad episodes followed which I watched, thankfully, alone. After leaving San Francisco and my fellow nerd-loving friends, my Stargate love didn't diminish, but actually increased, though the episodes may not have been as original and fun and interesting as the past, it partly reminded me of those calm and wonderful afternoons watching SG1 episodes when we should have been doing homework or something equally productive. In its last years, SG1 managed to impress the hell out of me a few times by its ability to tell its own brand of storylines. And yet at the same time, I felt like they had gotten so good at telling their stories, they didn't push the envelope anymore or try bold new things, because the same old things were so comfortable to them. So, this decision is probably for the best.

Goodbye Teal'c, I''ll miss you, even though you haven't really done anything interesting in two years. Goodbye Sam, I'll miss you, you were one of the best and most consistent elements of the series, I'll cherish every last page-long technobabbley diatribe. Goodbye Mitchell, you the best thing to happen to the show in years. Goodbye Valla, your inclusion into a regular series role was the smartest thing the producers could have done after last year's uneven season. And goodbye Daniel, I'll miss you most of all. You came so far. A wild-eyed and innocent boy in the movie, a distraught husband intent on finding his wife in the early seasons, your dramatic death, your even more dramatic return, and all the wonderful and passionate things that happenned in between. Even though you left the show for awhile, I never got the impression from watching that you were bored or unhappy to be there. For that, me and all the other fans, are grateful.

To the hardworking writers, producers, extras, set designers, special effect artists, and everyone else that worked on the show, I thank you for your years of hardwork and for ten wonderful years of Stargate SG-1.

Lollapalooza 2006 was..

2006-08-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

A celebration. A tradition. A party. A gathering.

It was a festival, but maybe Mega-Festival is more accurate. Huge. Massive. In both space, people, and berth. The incredible lineup of 100+ bands is enough to make someone's head spin and it was so complelety overcrowded, it reminded me of some kickass band in a tiny club. Still, it was incredibly organized and perfectly timed. Very little sound trouble, no overlap. Bands were absolutely forbidden to go past their allotted time (much to fans disappointment), but it ended up making the whole thing flow surprisngly well.

Pitchfork criticized it as a "hotel festival" catering to the older "stroller"-crowd. And yes, there were much less dirty unshaven hippies walking around wearing Umprhey's McGee t-shirts, but is that a bad thing? Yes, there was some strollers. And yes, there were a lot of drunk college kids. And then there were lots of teenagers.

Truly, there is never been an all-encompassing style, taste, genre overlap than Lollapalooza 2006. If you came, you almost definitely saw one of your favorite bands. Headliners were Death Cab for Cutie (cool young people like Shawn and I), Kayne West (younger and cool and hipper kids who listen to shitty music most of the time and good music occasionally) and The Red Hot Chili Peppers (old people).

Not only was the lineup impressive as gold, but the setting was perfect. Chicago is GORGEOUS. After two years of flat Miami, this spiky wonderland of modern and recently modern archeteicture was eye-opening. Gothamesque (is that a word? it is now.) The festival was situated in Grant Park, right in the heart of downtown on the lakefront. Centered by the Buckingham Fountain (popularied in Married With Children), it stretched across two huge fields with four large stages and four smaller intimate stages set into the trees. There was music everywhere, whispering on the wind in the distance or pounding up close as you rush by to catch the end of someone's set. Surrounded by beautiful buildings, listening to some of your favorite bands, it's an extremely memorable experience.

Musical Standouts: Stars. Canada's forgotten little art-indie-band put on an impassioned set full of broad and beautiful strokes and lots of lots of heart. My Morning Jacket, from Kentucky, played like champions, perfectly comfortable on the second largest stage in the festival, playing for a fraction of the audience the other "big" bands got. They were electrified on stage and I ate it up, gyrating and dancing like a drunk teenager.

Death Cab for Cutie pack so much more of a rock out WOW! factor live than they do on their records, especially the more recent work which has the glossy professionalism of Serious Musicians. But live, they are like kids again, obsessed with the sound guitars and drums make when played loudly and in tandem. They played for over an hour and a half and it was a full on assault of Rock! Notably, the extended "We Looked Like Giants" with Ben Gibbard on guitar, then drums, then guitar again. "Transatlanticism," just like last time, was like an epiphany.

Our second day started off well with some great Chicago deep-dish pizza. Delicious stuff. At the festival, it was kind of a waiting day for some of the big names in the evening. Still, we enjoyed sets by Feist, the impressive Calexico, and a little bit of the Go-Team. And then it was time for The Flaming Lips!
Now, I've seen the shtick a few times now. I've seen the balloons, the Space Bubble, the confetti, the extended coda to Yoshimi. And it still kicked ass! Wayne's voice seemed a little hoarse, but they were still able to rock out with a big helping of festival standards (Race for the Prize, Do You Realize?, etc) and a few of the newer and prettier tracks. Didn't play the brilliant "The ambulance Driver," though, much to my disappointment. Still, any day with the Flaming Lips is a good day. (Side note: walked past lead singer and ultimate indie rocker, Wayne Coyne, in downtown Chicago the next day. I said, "Hey Wayne! Great show last night." He smiled, said, "Thanks" and walked another a couple steps before being waylaid by other Lollaers wanting his picture. I was proud of myself for not being a fanboy, but damn, I would have loved a picture with Wayne and I.)

An unforgettable moment followed the Flaming Lips show. Right after it ended, right across the field, another great and favorite band, Theievry Corporation, started up their set. It was like going from one pyschadelic extreme to another. We were still walking and dancing across the field. It felt great, like the way life should be every day. And as for Theievery Corp, they killed. I've seen them before in a small intimate setting and I just didn't feel the same power as on their records. But, as the sun set on another beautiful day in Chicago, they rocked out with highlights from all their records. The always enteraining Corporation came out and sang in multiple languages. Lolla founder Perry Ferrel came out and sang "Revolution Solution" to feasts of applause.

The next day brought more bands and tons more people. Sunday, in Lollapalooza, was so full and epic, it was dizzying. (Maybe it was the heat.) And though we got tired and drained, the one band we were waiting for all weekend came on second-to-last and we rocked out like we've never rocked out in our lives. Broken Social Scene came on for forty-five glorious minutes and played their hearts out. They brought the whole band. It was a party onstage and off. Their songs, especially those off the second album, make so much sense played live with the full force of a dozen members on guitar or horn. The epic "Shoreline" and "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" were soaring and could be heard across Lake Michigan and into Canada. The quiet and beautiful "Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old" sung by four very talented ladies was great and a momentary chance to catch our breath before dancing and going all crazy. The fans cheered for almost twenty minutes after they were done, begging for "one more song! one more song!" and booing the Red Hot Chili Peppers as they started across the field. It was an unforgettable performance and the realization of a dream of mine to see Broken Social Scene perform that I've had for almost five years now.

So, to sum up, Lollapalooza was (is and always will be hopefully) an incredible experience for every music fan. I went to Lollapalooza '96 ten years and had a wonderful time with a group of fellow high schoolers. Ten years later, I had a great time as an adult. If there is a Lollapalooza 2016, I will be there, proudly, with stroller in hand.

Musical Interlude

2006-07-24T06:19:00.000-07:00

Couple albums that have taken me lately:

TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Finally! This is the breakthrough break-out break-in blowed up piece of musical shrapnel that will take over the world, if enough people hear it. This is a fully complete TVOTR album, fulfilling the potential of the original EP and minus the occasional lapse in judgment and weak bridge of their debut album. There are rhythms and melodies that are completely original, utterly TV on the Radio. The two new members - an actual human drummer and a smooth bassist - add much needed dimension to a band that strives for something greater than just music. This is passion in sonic form. Their lyrics are passionate and topical. There is talk of war that feels so personal we're not sure if they're meaning Iraq or some kind of personal relationship battle. There are images of floods and homes drowned and we know it is the ghost of Katrina. TV on the Radio are notorious as some of the only non-whitey indie rock music, but here they are more than just a color or a city or a genre, they are a statement of purpose and power.

Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That

This is the little band that could. As in, you can hear the potential on their songs, but I could never sit through one of their albums. A combination of boredom, repetition anxiety, and frank disillusionment would set in. Not this time. This is an kick-ass rocker of an album from start to finish. Phoenix seem to have let down their hair a little with this one. The tightness and over-calculated attention to detail of their previous works were admirable but not necessarily enjoyable. Again, not here. This album is simply fun. It is a breathe of fresh air. It lacks the pretentiousness of a lot of other, similar, bands that employ synths as if the 90's never happened, who sing in high-pitched flare unconscious of any metrosexual connotations, and whose lyrics don't make any rational sense, but are fun to sing along to. One of the best albums of 2006.

Our Mistake

2006-07-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Middle East is about to erupt. There’s a war in Lebanon, a conflict that threatens to spell over into Syria. There’s chaos and rebellion in Gaza. There’s a civil war in Iraq. The pawns are on the field, killing each other. The major players, The United States, Iran, Russia, and China are still in shadow, waiting for their time to intervene.

Neighbors to the north, the European Union watches with apprehension. They know world wars. They know what they feel like, what they sound like, when they’re coming. They may not be able to see the smoke over the mountains, but they watch the explosions firsthand on TV. Neighbors to the South, Africa turns away from its own problems for a moment to watch the display on their doorstep.

Everyone has their reasons. Israel strives to defend itself. The Islamic jihadists seek power and the fulfillment of their prayers. The rich and the powerful protect only themselves.

Meanwhile, America waits, a slumbering giant whose selfishness and short-sightedness opened the door for this conflict.

What if there had been someone in our current administration who could read between the lines and think proactively? What if someone could have seen this coming?

For a moment there, when the Iraqis voted, when the suicide bombers in Israel, when we seemed poised for victory in peace, I believed our President.

I believed Democracy was the reason for the Iraq invasion and that once seeded in Iraq, it could and would spread across the region. Well, it has. Elections have brought criminals into power. The people voted based on their religion, based not on the facts, but the image and the propaganda. Look what happened when people did that in this country.

The biggest mistake, though, was we had misplaced faith as well. We believed in them, in the regular Arab and Israeli people of the Middle East who would rise to the occasion of democracy. Who would allow peace into their hearts if it meant safety, security, and separation. But we shouldn’t have. We should have been there, not in Iraq, but in Israel and Lebanon and Gaza to keep the other monsters at bay.

What do you when two people start fighting? You get inbetween them and try to reason with them? Where was America to do that? We were there ten years ago, Bill Clinton stood between Yassif Arafat and Yitzchak Rabin, and they shook hands. We should have stayed there and stick our bigass nose where it didn’t belong, but where it might help.

Right now is the time to look around. Right now is the time to evaluate mistakes and promise to correct them.

We’ve been selfish. We were distracted before 9/11 and then we were selfish and paranoid afterwards. We may not have pulled the trigger in the current situatuon in Israel, but we weren’t there to stop it. Why not?

So, war.

2006-07-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

It seems to be affecting me more than most, this "crisis," this conflict, this war. I work in a building full of Jews and it's the talk of the town - and the country, I'm assuming - but it's all talk. It's all, "What happenned..?" or "Did you hear.. ?" or "Shame about..." But for me, it feels emotional. The images on TV don't shock me as much as the fears in my head. Fear of my family in Haifa, caught in a missile attack, my young cousin who I barely know but love so so much and the thought of something happening to her makes me want to... to not think anymore.

There's a Solidarity Rally tomorrow run by my job and a temple. I suppose I'm going. I don't feel the need. I don't believe in rallys or marches, cause they don't do anything. We have this false sense of importance that anything we do can change the course of history, can alter the opinion of governments and rebels and terrorists. But, we can't. We are as helpless as the frightened civilians on both sides of the border huddling together in bunkers and waiting for peace.

I was just informed that I have to go to the Rally. The whole office is going. To show suppport. For who? I don't know. For our collective jobs, apparently. I guess some people need to DO something in the face of all this sadness. Maybe they're the smart ones.

Alaskan Memories: Journey's End

2006-07-12T06:45:00.000-07:00

Our seventh day of vacation, fifth on the cruise, found us settled in completely to the life of the rich and unemployed. We woke up early enjoyed breakfast in the fabulous Lido restaurant which had these huge windows with beautiful views of the outside and since we weren't set to arrived at our last port of the trip, Ketchikan, till after lunch, we spent the morning relaxing on deck, walking around, playing ping-pong. The weather was changing rapidly, from the constant rain and clouds of the days before to brightness, blue skies, and - surprisingly! - warmth.

After a relaxing morning, we arrived in Ketchikan to some bad news. An excursion that I had booked back in Miami and was REALLY looking forward too, a kayaking trip, was cancelled due to bad weather, a super-blustery wind that would have had us capsized in no time, apparently. To make for it, we decided on a completely different kind of trip for the day, a rather pricey (but worth it!) floatplane ride into Misty Fjords National Monument (kind of like a National Park, but slightly different). It was a clear bright beautiful blue day, not a cloud in the sky, so the name Misty Fjords didn't seem to apply, but, whatever!

Cliff faces rose hundreds of feet into the air, dusted with snow, while thin waterfalls fell in sparkling cascades into large lakes below. Fjords are created when ancient glaciers recede completely and in their wake they leave huge mountainous chasms that are filled in with lakes, some called "hanging lakes" that are perched high up in the air. It's an incredible sight to see from a low flying plane. But the best part was actually landing inside the park, in an abandoned cove a million miles (or so it seemed) from civilization and any other people. Once landed, the captain told us to "get out!" We were a little dubious. We would be going swimming. No, we stood on the flotillas (the legs) of the plane and soaked in the peace and serenity of this quiet spot. I could have stayed there for hours. I felt more at peace, more centered, more separate from the noise of the world, than ever before. It was truly cleansing. Unfortunately, we had to leave. We clambered back onto the plane, smiling and calm, and returned to the air, where more sights awaited us.

Later, we explored Ketchikan, nick-named Alaska's First City, because it is the southernmost city in the state and often the first stop for cruise ships. It is noteworthy for its proliferation of Totem Poles and for a certain street built on stilts over a creek, called, simply, Creek Street. it was once the red-light district in Alaska's Gold Rush time, but now - Alaska's Tourist Time - it's a tourist-friendly row of shops and stores. We did our gift-shopping for friends and family here and found some really great stuff.

The next day was another day out in the open ocean, on the way to our final destination, Vancouver, Canada. Like the first day, the speed of the boat seemed to immobilize both Shawn and I and we both took some Dramamine pills to settle our heads and stomachs. It mostly worked. We started to get sad, what with the end of our wonderful trip, but we tried to make the most of our last day, spending time in the Thermal Suite, napping comfortably in our room, and enjoying our last dinner on board. the Ryndam.

We were smart, though. Instead of rushing back home to work after the end of the cruise, we rewarded our general awesomeness with two days in beautiful Vancouver. It was our first time in this city, which was so impressive and so interesting. A lot of the city's older-style architecture reminded me of the brownstones of Boston while the glass-heavy urban sections reminded me of Chicago and the hills and electrical cables lines reminded me of San Francisco and the scattering of construction sites and tall metal cranes reminded us of Miami. So, it was sort of like visiting four cities in one.

Our first day we followed all the tourist guide's suggestions and went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It sounds cheesy, but it was super fun. The bridge was a little frightening and definitely exciting and beyond the bridge was a small nature park, with foresty paths, all these platforms overlooking a gorgeous valley, and something called a Treetops Adventure which is a series of small suspension bridges linking big trees to each other. The only thing missing, really, were little guys in Ewok costumes and the occasional Stormtrooper running around. That evening, we again followed all the tourist guides and went to a brewpub called Yaletown Brewing Co. for some great beer and lots of food (although the portions were huge and we barely finished what we got.)

The next day was all about Stanley Park. We'd read about it, saw pictures of it, and I kinda thought it would be like Golden Gate Park in SF, but it wasn't. It was three or four times larger, with tons to see and do. We visited a wonderful Aquarium where we saw beluga whales and walked along a sea wall overlooking a beautiful bay and the city. Finally, we walked down something Lover's Lane and although it seemed to be infested with insects, it was pretty and quiet and romantic. That night, we went to another romantic dinner, a fancy place called Vij's in the West End of Vancouver. We had a craving for Indian food - the one kind of food not available on our cruise - and so we googled around and found the most famous Indian place in the city. It was great although spicy as all hell! Canadians must like their spice.

And so, on that tasty note, our trip officially ended. It was a wonderful experience, full of incredible sights, amazing adventures, beautiful scenery, extreme relaxation, and I couldn't imagine doing it with anybody else except my lovely Shawn. We had a lot of laughs, a lot of shared WOW's, and a lot of quiet time enjoying a break from reality.

Obviously, I highly recommend doing an Alaskan cruise. You won't be sorry!

Alaskan Recap (Cont'd)

2006-07-07T07:47:00.000-07:00

On the first day of our cruise we were on the open ocean, traveling down the Alaskan coast to the Inside Passage, a series of islands, inlets, rivers, and archipelagos that would be our playing field for the next six days. Our first day involved lots of getting-to-know the boat and enjoying good food and the relaxing atmosphere of the ms Ryndam. The crew was all foreign, mostly Indonesian and Phillipino. A more charming and relaxed people I could not imagine. Everyone was smiling, everyone was pleasant. I felt completely at home within the first few hours.

The second morning sticks out in my memory for a few reasons. It was cold. Seriously cold. Cold is something foreign in Florida, it comes occasionally, more infrequently than hurricanes, cold like this was definitely something we weren't use to. We bundled up in all the layers we could find and headed out to view College Fjord, our first national park, named because all the glaciers have names of Universities, like Harvard, Yale, etc. It was dark and misty and the clouds were so low, you could smell them. It was, in retrospect, the rainiest and cloudiest morning of the trip, but beautiful and haunting and memorable. So many glaciers calve all day all week all year here that the water is covered in small icebergs. They told us to keep our eyes open for any seals or otters using the icebergs as sea buses to travel, but we didn't see any. In fact, save the whale watching later and the copious Bald Eagle sightings, our wildlife quota was very low. Which was fine, the scenery more than made up for it.

The next day, the Ryndam sailed into Glacier Bay National Park, a large inlet that was once sealed off from the rest of the Inside Passage by glaciers. When the famous George Vancouver sailed into that area two hundred years ago, where his map showed a shore, there was an opening, revealing a series of finger-shaped lakes and bays that awe to this day. At the far corner of the park is the spectacular Margerie Glacier. The Ryndam came up amazingly close to the Glacier and parked, as if it would at a port, for a full hour while 95% of the boat stood on the open decks, enjoyed the surprising sunshine, and stared at the incredible glacier.

There's a sound glaciers make. The natives call it, White Thunder. It comes from little pieces of ice falling off the glacier and hitting the water below. There's also a waterfall-ish stream coming off the glacier. But that's nothing compared to when the beast begins the process called calving. There's a grumble, almost a moan from the ice, and massive pieces of it slide off and splash gloriously in the water below. Words can't quite describe the natural majesty of it. There's something ancient and fulfilling about glaciers, like old old trees; it invokes an almost god-like awe in the presence of them, especially when they are as detailed and beautiful as Margerie.

The next day, with the rain coming down in sheets, we arrived at our first port, the town of Haines. We had nothing planned for the day (my fault) and attempted to go on a nature hike through a rainforest, but we hadn't planned well in advance and there was nothing available. We instead went on a small trip in search of bears. We didn't see any. But we did get to see a very pretty lake and a whole bunch of bald eagles. We spent the rest of the day doing some gift-shopping in the town. We got some great stuff, including little totem poles and a native knife thing-a-majig callled an Ulu that Shawn fell in love with. (Maybe she just liked saying the name.) Click here for more info and pictures on Ulu's.

After spending the day being drenched by an angry Alaskan sky, we retreated daily to something called a Thermal Suite. I highly recommend doing something similar when going on a cruise, if it is available. We paid a small flat fee for the whole week and had acess to a semi-private suite in the Spa area. In this suite, there was a Turkish bath, steam rooms, and hot stone beds. It was the perfect way to soak in some relaxation and often Shawn and I were the only ones in there, so it was like our own little corner of the big boat.

Next day: Janeau, Alaska's small capital city. This was not a day for shopping or idle sightseeing, but rather adventure! Early in the morning, we ventured out in search of excitement. We had an excursion planned for the morning, but we wanted something in the afternoon, too, and we had decided two days ago that we liked whales and wanted to see some, dammit. From the boat, a lot of people were able to see whales thanks to their binoculars, but we were cheap and didn't buy any, so we didn't get to see anything. Besides, we weren't going to be satisfied by seeing a toy tail miles away, we wanted to be so close, we could touch them! But I'll get back to that.

First up was our helicopter ride towards the Hubbard glacier. Seeing a glacier from above is an incredible sight to behold. It was like passing over a blue mountain or something that looked like Superman's Fortress of Solitude. And to actually land on it! We set down next to an alien blue lake and stepped out of the helicopter. Those first steps are cautious and unsure. It's ice, for crying out loud! What if it breaks or gives? But it's didn't. Turns out ancient ice is as hard as stone. So, passing danger, we let ourselves by awed by wonder. The rain was back in full force causing clouds of mist the size of cruise ships and we were surrounded by these black mountains sliced by waterfalls. It was like another world. We walked around like astronauts without the zero G. Way too soon, it was over, and we had to return to normal land.

Later though, we embarked on our whale watching tour with the incredible Orca Enterprises and their newest boat, the Purple Streak. There were a few whale sightings that day in other parts of the surrounding waters, but our fearless captain and excited tour guide took us to a deserted part of the inlet system where three or four straits meet and there was no other boats in sight. It was there we saw incredible things. First, a distance shadow. Then, a waterspout. Then, a tail, slowly and seductively rising and falling out of the water. It was a pod of humpback whales netting, or feeding. They parked themselves not fifteen feet away from our boat and swam and ate and almost breached a few times while we watched in awe from the top deck of the Purple Streak. Suddenly, a cry from the other side. Another group. Two groups of humpbacks surrounding us, feeding. It was almost too much. But there was enough eye-candy for everyone in the boat. We took tons of pictures and even some video of the incredible mammals. Up close, even just seeing the curves of their torsos and their tails, you are gripped by excitement. We saw so much, even the tour guide broke out a video camera and started to take footage of what we saw.

Again, too soon, we had to return, specifically because Shawn and I were late for our boat! We had been told by the sales people earlier that day that the trip would last only til 4:30, which would give us enough time to make All-Aboard at 5:30. But it was coming up on 5 and we were still on the water! Thankfully, the people at Orca Enterprises are professionals and made it their upmost priority that we would not miss our boat. They sent one of their representatives to wait at the gangway of the Ryndam and make sure it waits for us and sent an umarked private van to take Shawn and I back. There were some stressful moments there as we pondered what would happen if we were stranded in Juneau, Alaska, but I was confident we'd make it in time. As soon as returned to the boat, though, we changed and headed straight for the Thermal Suite to decompress.

Alaskan Recap (Part 1 of a few)

2006-07-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

Is this really a state? one is likely to exclaim upon arriving at this massive mountain range that calls itself Alaska. Flying over, thirty thousand feet in the air over the Canadian Rockies, snowy mountain peaks emerge and often I saw a huge mountain and thought, Is that the highest peak in North America? Definitely not, as the next mountain was even larger and whiter and more impressive.

Landed, in an hotel shuttle from the airport, I was on-the-verge-of-awestruck. There's a certain US-born familiarity in any US city, even one called Anchorage, Alaska, that is, according to a sign, 5433 air miles from Miami, Florida (home, unfortunately). So, as we drove through "downtown" Anchorage, I saw familiar names: Hilton, Burger King, Starbucks, and felt more at ease. This was not some alien country ... or so I thought.

The air was cool, not cold - as you might imagine - just cool. Almost bright. Sunlight lasts almost twenty hours a day in the summer here in the Mid-Alaska and instead of baking the air like the hot sun does in Florida, here winds from the mountains come and sweep softly across the valley. The city of Anchorage is hilly, full mostly of shops and restaurants. We quickly dragged ourselves to a brew pub on that first night and I had my own personal first taste of Alaska: beer. A tangy, sun-colored brew that rightly deserves the name, Gold Rush, and a sweet Pale Ale that tasted like summer.

Next day we were up before 6 to catch a morning train to Seward, Alaska, and the beginning of our cruise. This turned out to be an early highlight. The Alaskan railroad is an old institution, up to the 80's, it was the only federally run railroad in the country. Finally, the US Government sold it to the state of Alaska and it retains a wonderful charm: part transportation, part sightseeing. Alaskan citizens sleep peacefully in the nearby seats while wide-eyed children like Shawn and I stare out at the windows and snap dozens and dozens of pictures of the incredible scenery rushing past. We saw wildlife, some glaciers, and lots and lots of mountains, all of which had us squirming in our seats and wanting more.

Seward, Alaska, was not impressive. The proof, as I say, is in the tourist traps. We hit the Sea Life Center because I'm a sucker for aquariums (and beer) and quickly boarded what became our home away home for seven long, full days: The MS Ryndam (that's Mother Ship - i.e. carries smaller ships).

You know those scenes from the first episodes of The Real World when the kids get to their swank new pad and they run around and scream and go, WOW. Well, it was sort of like that. Much tamer. And with better music. The boat was empty at this early hour so we had the run of it. We walked and took in the internal sights. A lot to see! Leaping dolphins at the apex of a pool flanked by hot tubs, a beautiful three-story mermaid fountain, a large theater, huge open decks, small mini-decks, walkarounds, tenders, halls with large windows, lounges with smaller windows, bars with stages, a nightclub, sports fields and courts, ping-pong tables!, boutique lounges for the richer people, the massive two-deck Rotterdam Dining Hall, the spa.

As you can tell, this was my first cruise. And I was mightily impressed. Not just with the design of everything, the luxury of it, the cleaness of it, the courteousness of the crew, but especially the food! It was lunchtime when we boarded the boat and so we walked up to the buffet restaurant, the Lido, to find it empty save a few lounging crew members. Still, the buffet was stocked. Asian food, Italian food, main entrees that looked like dinner. We started our cruise very well. Ate, drank coffee, and then sat outside on the deck for the first time. (Aside: Time is such a vaporous thing on vacation. Reality is full of "work-time", "lunch-time," "evening-time" all these labeled sections of life. On vacation, there is no labels. It was as if Time was open and we could spend hours sitting on one spot, staring at the still or dynamic scenery, just breathing it in. And we did.)

Later that night, we left port, sailed off into the evening light, too early for a sunset, but not fast enough for me, eager for what's to come.

More to follow.

First round of pictures can be found at Getting To Maybe.

Countdown

2006-06-21T06:35:00.000-07:00

For anybody who doesn't know (i.e. who hasn't seen me in the last month and has not given me a chance to mention it randomly) Shawn and I are going to ALASKA this weekend for a seven-day cruise capped off with two days in Vancouver.

I can not wait!!

I plan to spend the next three full work days reading about Alaska, looking at pictures of the various port towns we will visit, and planning "excursions!"

Pictures and full reports to follow.

Gotta love 'em!

2006-06-19T06:25:00.000-07:00

My people, Star Trek fans, will never give up. This article explores fan-made episodes that have sprung up since the end of Trek on television.

The truth is, these fan made projects have been around for awhile, ever since the disastorous Enterprise started airing and Trek fans realized that the people in charge of the franchise did not have the best interest of the fans in mind. It was sorta like a presidental election. The producers were going for those quirky "swing-voters" while leaving their "base" behind.

The one thing that I take issue with is the reference of modern science fiction being too "dark." I disagree. If anything, Star Trek was too "light." Battlestar Galactica is brilliant, powerful, deeply human stuff. (Just like Trek's goth sister, DS9.)

As for my own perspective of the lack of Trek on TV, it doesn't really bother me. If I had faith in Paramount to produce good Trek, I would be the first one watching it and writing about it in this here blog, but I don't. After years of sub-par episodes (first Voyager and then Enterprise), Star Trek needs a long long break. This new film that they're making (yet another prequel!) is a bad bad idea and will further alienate the true Trek fans from the owners of the franchise.

My advice to the people in charge: Let it rest. Let the fans have their fun. Please.

Radiohead!

2006-06-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

Awesome article in NYTimes today about Radiohead's show last night at Madison Square Garden in NYC. Radiohead fans are so prevalent in culture today, there was no expository remarks like, "Radiohead, a five-member rock band from Oxford," no, instead, this article focused exclusively on new songs.

By all accounts the next Radiohead album (due sometime early 2007) will be the best thing since sliced bread (or, OK Computer). I watched a quiet, hazy, perfomance of "Appregi" on youtube and was wowed to silence. And if this article is to believed, songs like "Bangers and Mash" and "Videotape" are even better.

And I am offically high off that reference to "Nude", i.e. "Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)" one of the best best best unreleased tracks in Radiohead history means it might actually get (finally!!!) released. That's huge, yo. Huge.

I've always wanted to know where I came from..

2006-06-14T06:22:00.000-07:00

..And, thanks to National Geographic, I can find out.

I was just browsing through NG's wonderful website and found this: The Genographic Project. You can order a kit (for the steep but worth-it price of about $100), use a "cheek scraping" thingee, and send back a DNA sample to see which ancestral group you are descended from and track where your ancestors moved during that those first migatory tens of thousands of years.

This goes way beyond family history. I know what countries my grandparents came from, but before that, my history is blank. I can't imagine what it would be like to go back to ten thousand years! As the website says, this isn't a genealogy test. It's a way of tracing back the lines of your DNA code to match up with ancient history. I am, offfically, fascinated.

Wiscon! (mostly shout-outs. cover your ears!)

2006-05-31T08:37:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a weekend. Though I go from hating to loving conventions quicker than I can drink a cup of coffee (i.e. fast), I had a wonderful time seeing some wonderful people. Especially Chris, of course, who has been America-deficient for past two years (lucky guy). He's come back, changed, minus some pounds, plus a greater Karaoke voice, and imbued with a peace and calm I relate to Japan. And, damn, that boy can dance!

And now, shouts-outs:

Much love (and ironic curses) to my new best friends Amber van Dyk, Chance Morrison, and Lisa Deguchi for making me feel at home. You guys were my salvation and I seemed to never run out of things to say around you all. Obvious shout-outs to Kristin and Alan for your continued spirit and inspiration in all things (even writing). An honor to finally meet Mary Rickert and hear her read from her beautiful work. Karen Meisner's soft and kind self made me smile. Very glad I got to thank Christopher Rowe for Say and share innumerable drinks with the group collective of Kelly, Gavin, Gwenda, Barb, Richard, etc. I always felt enlivened and young (again) in the presence of Mehgan McCarron and Alice Kim (both of whom have great stories in the new Rabid Transit). Dave Schwartz is scary-looking without hair (sorry. truth.) As always, wonderful to see Hannah Wolf Bowen, sorry sorry sorry I didn't make it to the Mafia game. I proved my theory that Haddayr Copley-Woods is one of the most interesting and considerate and just plain friendly people in the science fiction world. Ben Rosenbaum reminds me of an Israeli artist I once knew who was sorta insane but in the best best way.

It is truly a honor to know so many talented people.

/end cheesiness.

Say it Again

2006-05-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Gwenda has kindly posted the offical TOC of the newest issue of Say.. which, from the looks of it, will be great. Say has always impressed me by their choice of contributors, some wonderful writers working in the underground SF world right now. And, of course, some incredible cover art. The previous issue's cover is one of my favorite magazine covers I've ever seen. I'm also particularly honored to share a TOC with Ms. Awesomeness Hannah Wolf Bowen, Mr. Important Reviewer Matthew Cheney, and Ms. Superstar Meghan McCarron.

I've Been Busy... Watching Television

2006-05-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

That's not meant as a joke. (Although it is kinda funny.)

I have been knee-deep in some fascinating TV and movie watching. TV is centered around Six Feet Under. HBO2 is running the entire series run following the end of the series last fall. Everyweek night at 8 an episode airs and we've watched almost fifty hours already. Any episodes missed we catch through (*cough*) other means and so I've been able to watch everything in a very fast fashion.

I love doing this, "marathoning" as I call it. I did it with Stargate SG1 and other HBO classics like Oz and The Wire. When you watch episodes back to back like this, you get an almost surreal view of the show. It creeps into your thoughts and you relate to every character's ups and downs more than a traditional viewing. It feels like you're on the rollercoaster ride with them. As for Six Feet Under, it is just a brilliantly written, charming, nuiscaned, and fascinating look at modern life. Relationships, drugs, and especially death, are so vividly protrayed, it's a joy and eye-opener to watch. It's been great enterainment and, more importantly, wonderful inspiration.

And Shawn and I have joined the Netflix revolution. We love it. Love watching more than a dozen random and disparate movies in under a month, some we've been meaning to watch for years, some we never heard of until we saw it, some clearly mainstream, most, refreshingly, not. Some highlights: Everything is Illuminated based off the novel by Johnathan Safran Foer. Gorgeous, hilarious, heartbreaking film. Jarhead, Sam Mendes' war film that borrows heavily in tone and structure from Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. And a weird, powerful and sad film called The Squid and The Whale, a extremely realistic portrayal of a family undergoing a divorce in the mid 80's and all the hardship and pain that goes with that, before divorce became as common as showering in the morning.

The New Worst Idea Ever

2006-05-03T08:06:00.000-07:00

As gas prices topple $3 a gallon, people all over the country seem to be waking up to what has been supremely apparent to me over the last seven years: President Bush is a puppet to the oil and auto industry! Like, duh!

So the Republican congress thought they could buy off the American public like they do with their spoiled brat children and say, "Here's a hundred dollars! Go buy yourself an iPod." (Meanwhile, the only iPod you can get for less than $300 is the Shuffle. But, anyway...) Thankfully, that idiotic plan is dying and will forever be remembered as The New Worst Idea Ever (copyright pending).

What needs to happen is this: the public, the states, and the legislative branch of our great country need to take this fight to Bush. We should prosecute him for crimes against the environment. Because the actions and inactions the President perpeterated over the last seven years (by not signing Kyoto, by ignoring scientific claims, by not over-taxing Hummers) has done irreversible damage to the environment. We've passed Go. We will not collect two hundred dollars.

In the future, when everyone has to wear gas masks to run between their cars and their glass houses, you can find me easily by looking for the one with the bumper-stick-like sign on the back: "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Kerry."

poem and pain

2006-04-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

you know what I don’t understand?
betrayal.

how does that work?
how does love become hate?
how do things change so much
how come it hurts so much
when the one to blame is family?

Truth

2006-04-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

From the 3/24/06 episode of Real Time With Bill Maher:

Nobody can use the phrase "our greatest problem" anymore unless you're talking about global warming. President Bush has been saying we're in a war on terror, and now I get it. He's not saying "terror," he's saying "terra" as in "terra firma," as in the Earth. George Bush is an alien sent here to destroy the Earth! I know it sounds crazy, but it made perfect sense when Tom Cruise explained it to me last week.

Now, last week on "60 Minutes," James Hansen, who is NASA's leading expert on the science of climate delivered the world's most important message. He said, "We have to, in the next ten years, begin to decrease the rate of carbon dioxide emissions and then flatten it out. If that doesn't happen in ten years, we're going to be passing certain tipping points. If the ice sheets begin to disintegrate, what can you do about it? You can't tie a rope around an ice sheet." Although I know a certain cowboy from Crawford who might think you could.

And that cowboy and his corporate goons at the White House tried to censor Mr. Hansen from delivering that message, claiming such warnings were speculative. This from the crowd that rushed into a war based on an article in the Weekly Standard. This - this from the guy who thinks Kyoto is that Japanese emperor dude his dad threw up on.

Global warming is not speculative. It threatens us enough so that it should be considered a national security issue. Failing to warn the citizens of a looming weapon of mass destruction - and that's what global warming is - in order to protect oil company profits, well, that fits, for me, the definition of treason. And codified treason.

Please, wait a second. The guy in the White House who made the edits was Phil Cooney, who had been an oil industry lobbyist before given this job as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. That's the office that is supposed to be watching out for us. But that's where Phil busied himself crossing stuff out in scientists' reports, because apparently in Phil's mind, he hadn't switched jobs. He was just doing his old job - oil industry lobbyist - from a different office. You know, in the "people's house."

Republicans have succeeded in making the environment about some tie-dyed dude from Seattle who lives in a solar-powered yurt and eats twigs. It's not. This issue should be driven by something conservatives are much more familiar with: utter selfishness. That's my motivation. I don't want to live my golden years having to put on a hazmat suit just to go down and get the mail. Those are my Viagra years. When I'll be thinking about having children.

But I wouldn't know what to tell a kid about our world in 20 years. "Dad, tell me about the birds and bees." "They're all gone. Now, eat your Soylent Green." We are letting dying men kill our planet for cash, and they're counting on us being too greedy or distracted, or just plain lazy, to stop them.

So, on this day, the 17th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, let us pause to consider how close we are to making ourselves fossils from the fossil fuels we extract. In the next 20 years, almost a billion Chinese people will be trading in their bicycles for the automobile. Folks, we either get our shit together on this quickly, or we're going to have to go to Plan B: inventing a car that runs on Chinese people.

- Bill Maher

My Best of Music 2005 List (finally!)

2006-03-29T12:16:00.000-08:00

Woops. Almost forgot about this. Glad someone reminded me.

Here it is, the list you've all been waiting for, my totally personal, extremely difficult, Best Of The Year List.

1. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm

I listened to this album so much for a majority of the year, I pretty much burned out on it. That's why it was hard to pick it for my favorite of the year, but it so dominated my consciousness for so long and, i believe, will stick with me for the long haul, it easily fits into the #1 spot. When i think back of my 2005, the year I really settled in Florida, when I worked at Smart Publishing, and moved to South Beach and began working for The Greater Miami Jewish Federation, I was (very often) listening to Bloc Party's brilliant debut album. (And, as a reward for my devotion, their playing in Ft. Lauderdale in April. Woohoo!)

2. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene

Another strange one. My first reactions were cold, weird. It seemed too noisy, too busy, too random of a collection of songs to really work. And yet, I kept coming back to it. Even today, a year after hearing it for the first time, it's one of the most played CD's in my car. It's #2 in my six-CD changer and I think the button is a little worn from all the times I've pressed it. There's a violence in this record that seems to quantify a lot of thoughts and emotions felt during the past year. At the same time, it's a timeless album that seems to predict the future of music. Powerful, emotional, exquisitely Canadian. (Going to see them at Lollapoolza in August, along with 129 other bands and they're the main attraction. Can't wait!)

3. The National - Alligator

Another album that seems to have melded with my life this year and become a kind of smoky mirror for it. Songs on this album mean so much to me, because of their subject matter or because they remind me of certain times and events. The National have a distinctly American sound (a kind of wry cynicism, mixed with pure, dark, New York concrete) that perfectly captures how I think and approach things. For a displaced New Yorker like myself, The National are a much appreciated reminder of home.

4. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary

If the other albums on this list remind me of this past year here in Florida, Apologies brings back to my days of Tool, Metallica, and White Zombie. Metal with an almost literary attitude. Wolf Parade are another Canadian band and there really is something in the water up there because this album has some truly spectacular moments on it. Tempo-changes, grooves, and just beautiful melodies mixed with abundant imagery of snow, cold, and loneliness. A real surprise of an album. Looking forward to more work from these guys!

5. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Never got around to writing a review for this album, because, really, what could I say that hasn't been said? These guys are the most talented young musicians around. Definitely cemented that after seeing them live a few weeks ago and listening (wayy tooo much) to a live performance from French radio. Their style is original, strange, seeped in personality, and bubbling with enthusiasm. And they do it all without barely breaking a smile and without the backing of a label. I'm very much a production whore and I can hear the rough edges on this album and that brought it down a notch or two on the list, but this is easily the most impressive and original album I've heard in a long time. From the sound of their live sets, they're working on some great new songs and a "real" debut album should be out soon and will, probably, destroy the world.

Discovering Miami

2006-03-27T06:05:00.000-08:00

Despite my continued outbursts against this town, I had some more Miami-based fun this weekend. I volunteered to be a Bus Captain on a guided bus tour of the city called Discover Miami, stopping at six different locations where ethnic-flavored mini-festivals were taking place. It was very interesting. This city, like most American cites, represents a huge tapestry of nations and ethnicities. There were almost twenty buses leaving from all the different festivals and crawling around the city. Each bus had a tour guide and on my bus was a guy named Kevin Wynn who hosts a TV show about Miami. He knew tons of interesting things and was very informative and funny throughout the day.

Our first stop of the day was Little Havana. It was early and sparsely attended, but it was quite nice. Musicians rocked out to Cuban rhythms, art dealers displayed some wonderful paintings and wooden sculptures. I had an empanada. It was delicious.

Next, we headed to Overtown. According to our tour guide, this central area of the city is a harking back to the time of segregation. Back when Miami was first founded, the black people were forced to live in this section of the city. Slowly, over the century, people began to leave, to escape the ghetto and settle in other parts of town. Sometime in the middle of the century, the city of Miami decided to demolish a huge swatch of land in the center of Overtown to build the I-95 right through the center of the city. The neighborhood has never recovered and is definitely one of the slummiest parts of town. Still, the neighborhood is attempting to recover and recently remodeled and redesigned a historic theatre in the center of Overtown. This was our destination, the renovated Lyric Theatre.

There was a choir singing gospel tunes, tables full of African art and sculptures, and a guided tour about black diaspora inside the new section of the theatre. A little underwhelming, but they were setting up for a big show later on.

Next was the Jewish-themed stop, Temple Israel, not far from my job in midtown Miami. An historic synagogue, one of the oldest in South Florida and built right in the center of the city next to quiet streets and a cemetery, it is a beautiful place. The main complex is a classic structure with a gorgeous main sanctuary, huge and impressive from all angles and impressive from the inside. But the most interesting part was a small sanctuary built in the late 60's, designed by Kenneth Treister, who also designed the Holocaust memorial in South Beach. The outside of this small sanctuary looks like a mansion from some weird Star Wars planet. Inside, stained glass and rock-face walls convey a sense of inner light and inner peace.

Outside of the Inner Sanctuary.

Our second-to-last stop was Little Haiti. The smells of food were everywhere here. Roasted corn, big spigots with meat and rice. Women dressed in wild, bright, gold or turquoise dresses. There was a stage set up like all the other locations but the brightly colored reggage-esque band had sound trouble and couldn't get their act together before it was time for the bus to move on again back towards Downtown, our launch point for the day.

Here, there were two festivals set up, a Native American exhibit and the European concert (read: white people). There was also an antique car show going on through one of the main streets. As you can imagine, traffic was a nightmare and I didn't linger after my official "duties" were over. I hopped in my car and tried my best to avoid traffic on my way back home. I got a little lost, ended up in Overtown. I don't know if it had to with the tour or the fact that I'm getting better at the whole driving thing, but I found my way out of Downtown exactly where I wanted to be and then home, safe, sound, and newly appreciative of this strange, spread-out, metropolis.

More Flaming Lips Love

2006-03-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

or Redundancy Is Only Possible When Not Talking About Great Music.

You want to read something interesting? Go here to check out a song-by-song notes by The Man Himself, Mr. Wayne Coyne about the new Lips album, At War With The Mystics.

Some of the things he mentions are incredible. This goes back to my endless wondering about the definition and direction of indie rock, what makes it "indie," what makes it different. This kind of forethought, pre-planning, and ability to experiment and be completely, unshamefully, radical is the very definition of what it means to be Indie Rock.

Musically, the new Lips album is beyond words. It is picture perfect in terms of instrument placement in sound space (on headphones, it practically glows), every chord and note is nessecary, clear, powerful. Choatic tracks like "The W.A.N.D" make so much sense amidst the aural chaos. Quieter tracks like the sublime "Mr. Ambulance Driver" and the heartbreaking "The Sound of Failure" take on a clean genre-less sensibility, as if the various instruments were played by classical musicians in glass booths in million-dollar Upper East Side studios. And songs like "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" and "Free Radicals" embrace the gleeful Lips spirit that is unescapable to the listener (especially at a live perfomance).

Peace on Rooftops

2006-03-20T12:09:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing I like to do, it's rail against Miami, my home. I cringe to say that, but it's true. I can't run away from it. I've lived here close to two years now. As much as I dislike it most of the year, it's my home.

Yesterday afternoon, amidst a wonderfully breezy, empty, Sunday, while stepping onto my open hall between my apartment and the laundry room, I noticed something strange. Wind. A powerful, lively, breeze blowing through my particular row of buildings. This was strange. While breezes are common near the ocean and in any apartment lucky enough to have a balcony, my apartment is not so lucky. But all is not lost. We have an ill-used roof on my building, accessible through a terrifyingly steep staircase, but accessible nonetheless. I was taken by the weather and leaped up those flimsy metal stairs to my roof.

It was dusk. Reds and yellows played in the sky. Buildings' lights blazed in a bright world. Nearby, a small beautiful white building with red roofs on the balconies. In the distance, huge bright building with twinkling lights and slick-looked glass terraces. Palm trees stretched in all directions. The wind was strong, whipping at my clothes. I closed my eyes, gripped a railing, cherished the moment.

It's a rare thing for me to enjoy something exterior about this town. Occasionally, I'll comment on a nice sunset or a particularly bright day. More often, I question why anyone would want to live here. Yesterday, I knew.

(Note: Added a couple new blogs to the blogroll. Both very clickable. Enjoy!)

Like I always say...

2006-03-17T10:54:00.000-08:00

The future will be a wonderful place.

Are you kidding me?!!

2006-03-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

So, who's coming to Chicago with me in the summer?

There are three (Yes, three!) exciting, huge, indie, music festivals this summer that happen to be in Chicago. Hmm. I wonder why.

First and possibly best is Pitchfork's first offical festival. Last year, they curated the Intonation Festival and had staple bands like Broken Social Scene, among others. For this one, they have been releasing band names slowly. The first group was enough to make me buy plane tickets (if I could afford them): Ted Leo! Mountain Goats? The National?!! Are you kidding me?? They've got a lot more bands to announce, so they could be saving their big big names.

Next is this year's Intonation Festival. Curated by VICE Records and, oh, my favorite radio station, KEXP. The big name here, so far, is Bloc Party. With many, many, more bands to be announced, this fest may be the smallest of the three, but i'd still go.

Finally, the behemoth. If Indie Rock had a big massive Microsoft-metaphor, it'd be Lollapalooza. I went to Lollapalooza '96 and had an amazing time that I recall vividly to this day. This year is like some big bad Fuck You! year and it seeks to top every other festival of the year and possibly history. Chili Peppers, Flaming Lips, Death Cab, Broken Social Scene!, among others really make this year a standout. 130 bands on eight stages over two days = a fucking awesome time.

I wonder if I can take three vacations over the summer.

Langerado Link-Fest

2006-03-16T07:16:00.000-08:00

The New Times has put up their positive, energized, pure-love, hippie-spirit, review of Langerado.

SouthFlorida.com's has a great article/preview for the new Flaming Lips album, At War With The Mystics.

Blubex.com's way close Lips show recap.

A very cool blog a guy named Andy made to upload pictures he took from the festival: Blogerardo.

Sunsentinel.com has a small photo gallery.

A reggae fan's perspective on the fest.

Flaming Fun In The Sun Yeah

2006-03-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

Langerado Festival, March 12-13 2006. (with more pics provided, graciously, by Danya.)

Live music in Florida - at least music that I'd like to hear - is a rare and beautiful thing. So imagine my surprise when I heard that one of the best bands ever will be gracing a traditionally hippie-music festival in Sunrise, Florida, which is near Ft. Lauderdale and borders the Everglades. I'd seen The Flaming Lips once before, in the beautiful renovated theater setting of The Warfield in downtown San Francisco, and it was an incredible, memorable, exciting performance. This show was equally fascinating and maybe even more fun.
So, to start off, Shawn, Danya, and I piled into my car and rocked out to some Lips CDs on our way up. It was a gloriously bright, wonderfully free, Saturday, without work or responsibility of any kind. Upon arriving at the Markham Park, we parked amongst the thousands of other cars in a huge, unmarked, grass field. We headed first to the Swamp Tent to see RJD2 impress the hell out of us with his charming, untraditional, DJ set.

Already, five or ten minutes in, we knew we were in a setting populated by foreigners, specifically, hippies. They were everywhere; with their scruffy beards, tie-dye, blatant drug use, and generally relaxed demeanor. Which was all good! There was dancing and smiling and before we knew it, it was time for the main course of the weekend, The Flaming Lips.

It was still bright out in front of the Sunset Stage as the three of us camped out at the closest possible spot to the stage and waited for the show to begin. We smiled and yelled at Wayne Coyne as he supervised the set-up for the show. They brought out a shiny plastic mesh and we knew we were in for a treat.

(*clears throat*)

It seemed like he came out of nowhere. Like a Phoenix rising from all the sweat and heat, Wayne came floating down from the ether of space and walked over the crowd, supernaturally, looking shaggy and beardy like Jesus if he grew up in Oklahoma City (and spent the eighties on acid). We all laughed and cried while the band wailed and Wayne floated above us. Finally, Wayne landed on stage amidst applause like you wouldn't believe and launched into a wild, charismatic, performance of The Soft Bulletin's opening number, "Race For The Prize."

If you didn't know, a Flaming Lips show is like a birthday party, complete with balloons, guys in animal costumes, streamers (and guns that shoot streamers), confetti, fancy lights.. did I mention balloons? Lots and lots of balloons.

Next up was probably the highlight of the performance, a rarity from a band with hundreds of songs to choose from, a cover. A beautiful sing-along cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." A wonderful experience, shared by thousands of loyal young-and-old's. That song is one of those pop culture abnormalities that defies age or gender. Everyone knew the words. Everyone sang along.

Next, a treat! Two new songs, from the forthcoming (and brilliant) new album, At War With The Mystics, the Prince-esque "Free Radicals" and the Drozdy-genius of the first track off the new album, "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song." Both of them came off brilliantly live, even with all the weird studio tricks seemingly intact, and a kind of frenzied breathe of newness to the classic Lips set.

Finally, sunset kicked in, darkness overtook the crowd, and the flashlights came out.

Classics followed: "The Gash", "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots" (necessary), "Do You Realize??" and even the rarely played first (and only) hit-single in The Lips' 20 year history, "She Don't Use Jelly."

The Flaming Lips show was similar to when I saw them last time. But instead of being up in the nose-bleed section, I was totally close, close enough to almost touch the flying balloons, and get coated with confetti. They put on such a flamboyant, ridiculous, performance, you can't help but have a good time. I built up this performance a lot to my fellow travelers and was worried it wouldn't live up to the hype, but one minute into Bohemian Rhapsody, I knew I didn't have to worry. I'd watch the Lips play everyday if I could. And everyday I would have fun.

We didn't stick around much after that. Unlike the thousands of free-wheelin' hippie s lounging about listening to monotonous grooves about God or whatever, we came specifically to see a handful of bands. So we beat some traffic on the way out and headed home, to do it all again tomorrow.

I woke up the next day with a sneeze. Literally. I don't know what came over me, but I was racked with phlegm the next day. It didn't seem like that big of a deal and so we all loaded onto Danya's jeep and headed up north again, from the cool, bright, buildings of South Beach to the flat emptiness west of the beach. When we got to the park, I was hit again by a wave of allergies that didn't stop ALL DAY. It made me lethargic and uncomfortable and the incredible heat of the day didn't help.

Today, we were destined to see the curious performance by a curious band called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. These were five guys from Brooklyn (hmm, that seems familiar), serious about music and themselves (well, maybe not so much themselves), but definitely music. They seemed a little humbled to be there, in the nice shade of the Swamp Tent, in front of a small-ish but respectable group of people. When they started to play, guitar problems were our first impression and an almost five minute intro to a four minute song proceeded. But after that first mishap, it was perfect. Flawless.

We were all wondering if we'd be able to decipher some of the lead singer's words during the performance, as if his mumbley-vocal styling on the album would give way to some clarity, finally. Well, it didn't. It was almost worse. The lead singer has a very unique style, his words come clambering out of his mouth in fast-forward, in a high pitch. Musically, the band was in top form. Their complex, shoe-gazey, motifs would sound like so much noise in the hands of lesser musicians, but these guys proved that they can rock AND roll. There were beautiful crescendos and spastic riffs that played out in crystal-clear notes. They scattered some covers amidst their album tracks, notably "Satan Is My Master" by Black Sabbath, a major hit that had the whole crowd chanting, "satan, satan, satan, satan..."

There is a growing, credible, innovative, music scene in Brooklyn right now, with critical darlings, The National, gaining major notice from their sublime album, Alligator, and TV On The Radio who are set to take over the world with their soon-to-be-released instant classic, Return to Cookie Mountain, among others. CYHSY is one of the most exciting bands of the decade and I hope this is just the first of many performances I will see by them.

Next, already tired from the heat (or one particularly stubborn nose), we sat and relaxed while listening to a competent, but ultimately lifeless, performance by indie pioneers, Wilco. For me, Wilco are a powerful, formative, band. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a springboard I used to uncover more and more indie bands with unique sounds. For some reason, though, maybe it has to do with their lukewarm latest album, they seemed to have lost a punch. Maybe it's just me. I enjoyed their perfomance but I was not wowed like I was with The Lips and Clap Your Hands. Enjoying a performance is great, but being wowed is the ultimate goal. It was a fun time, though, as Shawn, Danya, and I sat back away from the crowd and had more freedom to dance, play, or just lay back and enjoy the dawn.

Again, we left very soon after Wilco ended their set. We got in a long line of fleeing folks and slowly found our way out of the park and back down to civi- uh, Miami.

Overall, a great, surprising, weekend of live music in unexpected places. With Bloc Party, stellarstarr*, and the upcoming Ultra music festival here in Miami, I hope this interesting trend continues.

News!

2006-03-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

I got some great news this weekend. The infallible Christopher Rowe had decided to publish my story, "Do What You Desire" for the latest issue of Say... I've wanted to be a part of this wonderful magazine since its inception so I'm thrilled to be a contributor. The theme for this issue is Say... What's the Combination? and I think my weird story about stars and finding meaning in them in a confusing world fits perfectly.

Bonus!

2006-03-03T06:45:00.000-08:00

Broken Social Scene did an small perfomance on NPR last night. Unfortantely, not the NPR station down here in South Florida. But I found a link with a listen button. I can't actually listen to it right now cause I don't have speakers at work, but I assume this is the length of the perfomance. (and, is that a new song right there?!?!)

Link-fun.

Best Music of 2005 (Part 5!)

2006-03-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene

Remember that Conan O'Brien skit, "In the Year 2000" ? I thought that was the funniest thing to hit late night TV since Bill Maher. It seemed like the honest fruit of a bunch of creative people sitting around, throwing out ideas and catching the best, and then futurizing them. That's what the new BSS album sounds like. They should really have called the album, "You ain't ready for this shit yet." But then it might have been mistaken for a hip-hop album.

The second and instant-classic album, You Forgot It In People, contained so much interesting! new! exciting! music, it was almost too much. If that album would have been split, with one half coming out post-Float On, Broken Social Scene would be a household name (well, a cool household anyway). From rockers "Cause = Time" to brilliant subtle tracks like "Looks Just Like the Sun" to the best instrumental ever, "Pacific Theme," this seemed to be an album and a band on the cusp of huge sucess. So it comes as a surprise that the band follows up their classic with a tough, passionate, busy, complicated, self-proclaimed "fucking mess" that still manages to rock beyond a reasonable doubt.

Where YFIIP started with a prickly electronic tinkle, this album wastes no time and launches right into an instrumental frenzy with appreggios that fly high into the air and come back down in equally fast explosions of sound. Second track, "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" is busy and recalls the upbeat power of the faster tracks from the previous album. Lyrics throughout the album are skewed, fuzzy and just-barely-decipherable, so that the words mix in with the music seamlessly to create a single, often confusing, barrage of music. "Shoreline" comes in with the first pure, single track, guitar riff before it gets mixed in with another layer then another and another.

There's so much here. So much anticpation, excitment, and passion in every track, it's overwhelming and inspiring at the same time. Producer Dave Neufeld apparently drove himself to therapy trying to make sense of all these sounds. Somehow, in the time between the two albums, the band added another four or five members (which brings the grand total of members of this supergroup to, what? 32?) and I couldn't imagine what it was like to work with all those different musicians, all coming and going at different times over the course of two years, while trying to create a coherent vision. A vision that is clearly ahead of its time.

Despite the power of every note and musical crevice, the underlying subtelty, the nuiscane pushing the enevelope whenever it can, comes through to my practiced ears. I hear it all over the album. I hear a bass and drum combination with a little tipany and I think, "wow, i never heard that before." There's a zipping chrous line to the song, "Fire-Eyed Boy" that is so quick and so zany, it's unlike out there in modern music. Central track, "Windsurfing Nation" (the ex-title track), is musical collage at its best. Electro-drums and driving guitars give way to a rap solo and a Big Band finale while the next track, "Swimmers," is quiet and grounded in reality, chrous: "If you always get up late, you'll never be on time," a perfect match.

The final tracks are long, dense, and a little self-absorbed. As such, I haven't fully appreciated them. To be honest, I've never actually sat through the length of the 10-minute closing track, although I hear it's pretty awesome. But that's a good thing. I adore this album, adore this band, and there's still a quarter of an album left for me to discover. Broken Social Scene's self-titled album was released in mid-2005 amidst a crowd of deserving and attention-grabbing albums, as such its importance may have been marred. Its lack of inclusion in Pitchfork's final list is a devasting oversight, one they will regret. When people start making lists for the best albums of the decade, they may have to save two spaces for Broken Social Scene.

Absence

2006-03-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

Wow. Been awhile since I've been here.

Sorry about my silence, blog. I know you've always been there for me, a friend and partner for years. I really am sorry, blog. I doubt you want to hear the same old excuses: work, girlfriend, Olympics.

The truth is, there's someone else. I'm sorry. I didn't plan this. It just happenned. It was going to be just something small, a side project kind of deal, a group work. It's becoming something else.

But don't despair! You're still my thoughts and in my heart. My busy months at work are now offically over and I can focus again on my love of all things Internet. There's tons of music reviews I haven't had time to read and a growing devotion to all things wiki. I will be back.

And I will finish my Best Music of 2005 list!

Best Music of 2005 (Part 4)

2006-01-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

Death Cab for Cutie - Plans

Often I get asked, "What is Indie Rock?" People challenge me to define it. And I try my best, usually failing. Indie Rock is as much a feeling as it is a genre. But in the future, whenever I get asked that question, I'm going to say, "Listen to Death Cab. That's indie rock, personified." Their recent mainstream success (The OC, SNL, a major label) is definitely far from the "indie" troupes that separate the genres, but their sound has always been what carried Death Cab and that does not change with this album.

Plans is the sound of a fully mature band in a very philosophical place about where they are in their career and their lives (reminds me of Radiohead's Hail to the Thief, minus the pretension). Continuing immediately where Transatlanticismleft off, Plans is subtle and deep, relying as much on Gibbard's sentimental lyrics as on the sound of a guitar. This is an album with a clear lyrical theme (Love + Death) that is confidently portrayed throughout these eleven songs. Gibbard is at the height of songwriting here, throwing images out at such powerful, gritted-teeth, speed and such superior ability, it's almost overwhelming. Like all Death Cab records, this album reveals its subtlety with time.

I've listened to probably every word and chord of Death Cab's career and I've watched their fascinating tour-documentary, Drive Well, Sleep Carefully, a couple times, so I can safely say I know Death Cab. I know their emotions, their ups-and-downs. I know where Ben Gibbard stops and Death Cab comes in. And so I know this album is quintessentional Death Cab and yet, it's pensive. That's probably intentional, part of the Endings theme that runs throughout the album. But I know this band, I know they like to rock out to end a song, I know they like to make big, bold statements, and as much power as there is in Plans, I also know they're holding back. For what? Probably their next album. But maybe they were a little afraid to make their big Major debut with a bang. Maybe there's just been too much press.

Regardless, Plans is definitely worth a listen. Just like Radiohead's fifth album, there's shades of every single previous record here. "Marching Bands of Manhattan" reminds me of the first song of the first album, "Bend to Squares." "Soul Meets Body" is a little Postal Service, a little "Title and Registration." "Summer Skin" is any number of love-lorn childhood songs (see: The Photo Album).

"Different Names for the Same Thing" is a breathe of fresh, experimental, air. Its strange structure and curious sound effects sound like a band that's not Death Cab and that's a good thing here. This seems like a good place to shout-out, Chris Walla, Death Cab's second-in-command, their lead guitarist and producer. His talent is everywhere here and his production stylings (i'm hesitating to put the word genius all over this sentence.. I don't want to embarrass him) is so strong, it's really been the backbone of this band and the last two albums.

"I Will Follow You Into The Dark" is a dark song that would fit perfectly on a Decemberists record. Meanwhile, "Your Heart Is An Empty Room" sounds like it should be running over the end credits to The Breakfast Club. I love the guitar lick that runs around the chorus. "Someday You Will Be Loved" is eerily similar to Transatlanticism's "Tiny Vessels", but in a good way.

"Crooked Teeth" is a song with literally dozens of great images and lines. Lesser writers (like myself) read or listen to stuff like this and just sit back in slack-jawed awe. Is this song about an erstwhile relationship or a two-bit suburban town? "What Sarah Said" is the heart of the album, like the title track from the previous record, a powerful statement that cements the themes and direction of each. And a perfect indicator of why Transatlantsicism was so perfect and Plans falls slightly short. Where "Transatlanticism" let itself breathe and flap its wing and challenge itself, "What Sarah Said" gets to the point and then leaves, quietly.

"Brothers in a Hotel Bed" is rather vague, a disappointing choice for a follow-up to the strong lead-in track. This would have been a perfect place to put a song like "We Looked Like Giants," an all-out rock explosion. And coda "Stable Song" is an unnecessary rehash of Transatlanticism's "Lack of Color."

The rather-weak ending to a strong album makes for my lukewarm-to-medium reaction to Plans. Definitely a noteworthy album in any year but in terms of a Death Cab album, I can't shake this feeling that they could have done better.

What, Me Weird?

2006-01-19T06:07:00.000-08:00

The first player of this game starts with the topic "five weird habits" and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says "You have been tagged" (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.

1. I can't sit still when music is playing. A lot of people have this not-so-weird habit but for me, it's quite extreme. When I was younger, I would jump around my room while rocking out to the latest Tool record. I've calmed it down a lot. Nowadays, I shake my foot and nod my head while sitting at my desk at home. In the car, I strum my fingers or play the drums on the steering wheel. I really like playing invisible instruments.

2. TV habits: Listening to commercials gives me a headache so if I'm watching regular TV, when a commerical comes on, I immediatly hit the MUTE button. Watching them I don't mind. They're usually colorful and creative. Just listening to those damn jingles and being told what to buy hurts my head. Also, I really like The Guides on digital cable. Especially the one I have now, where I can watch one show in the corner of the screen and scroll through the channels and pick out things to watch next. I usually do it during commercials but years of PC-use has made my brain multi-task friendly. I always need to know what's on next and what I can watch.

3. I'm meticilously obsessed with washing my hands. Not Aviator-crazy, but pretty damn crazy. I've had this tick for awhile - i've been watching my hands everytime i touch money for years - but it seems to be more pronounced nowadays because of my dog and my car. I feel this constant need to watch my hands after touching either. I guess it's good. But Shawn will tell you we go through Softsoap way, way, too fast.

4. I've never been a phone person. I just don't like it. I've always been worried about calling and bothering people so I don't call people. Lately, it's morphed into an aversion to having other people overhear my conversations. Not so much because what I'm saying is private but because I don't want to intrude on someone's personal audible space. This is especially bad at work, in my office, where I have to speak on the phone a lot. When I first started, I waited till everyone went to lunch before I made a phone call. Lately, I've been better, but it still takes me a few tries before I start hitting those buttons.

5. I drink an obscene amount of coffee. I am fascinated by the stuff, buy the best for my morning cup (Starbucks Sumatra. Owww yeah.) and visit the Dunkins Donuts near my job twice a day. I have vast ideas for books about, inspired, and devoted to coffee.

See? Not so weird. Tagging: Shawn, Dave, Sting, Hannah, Zwrk!

Best Music Of The Year (Part 3)

2006-01-16T06:35:00.000-08:00

Well, as 2006 picks up speed, my lazy ass still hasn't finished my 2005 Best Of The Year list. In fact, I'm still in internal-debate-mode what my favorite album of the year is. But, I lean heavily towards..

Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary

I'm a fan of rock and roll. Despite my love of all things indie and strange, sometimes the straightforward speaks the most. And when it's done right, it can be extremely powerful. Following in the footsteps of those other awesome Monteralians, Wolf Parade took me by complete surprise this year. I'd long come to suspect any band with the word Wolf in their name as well as my usual Pitchfork apprehension and so I was suspicious. Could this album be all I ever wanted in an album?

Apologies starts off with a drum kick that has a distinct "shot heard 'round the world" vibe. The first couple of songs are a powerful, personal, sentiment and set up's the album lyrical themes. For me, the lyrics on this record - a combination of two lyricists combining forces to form one modern viewpoint - is one of the biggest hooks. The images in the first handful of songs are more vivid and evocative than most bands create in their entire career. Just like The Arcade Fire, when I listen to this record, I get images of cold weather, lonely cities, quiet homes, and long bus-rides staring out the window, watching the world go by.

Musically, Wolf Parade seem to have their roots in the Metal sensibilities that shaped a lot of my favorite music in the 90's. A step above grunge, but without the aggression of real metal music. I'm down with that. Their songs have a tendency to break out into cacophonous riots of emotion. Their rebellious shouts against the prisons of modern society ring true with me. Driving to work this morning, there's nothing I'd rather hear than a cry for revolution against a world that doesn't question why, that just "builds things high."

The highlight of the album for me comes around track eight, "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts." A brilliant, confident, song that contains some lyrical knock-outs and a frighteningly addictive melody. And it doesn't stop there. The last few tracks contain as much power - if not the immediacy - as the beginning of the album. The central track - "Same Ghost Every Night" - is a little long and slow for my taste but the rest of the album feels as fresh and strong after fifty listens as it did after five and that, alone, is a testament to this album and this band.

The comparisons to the Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse are hard to shake. In a year of stand-outs, is an album similar to last year's unanimous winner worthy of the kind of attention that I give it? I don't know. All I know is this album entered my consciousness and has a left a real mark that I think I'll remember for a long time to come.

Or, in other words, those damn Canadians did it again.

Resolutions

2006-01-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

After the typical New Year's-depression, whereas I think more about what I didn't accomplish than what I did, I'm starting to feel more and more excited about this new year. 2006 sounds like it's going to one helluva ride. First of all, there's a cosmic alignment coming up that seems to spell all kinds of interesting things. Consider: I'll be turning 26 on 2/26/2006. I'm no numerologist, but there's something.. unique, about that. The only downside is I have an event on that day (a Sunday) and I have to work all day. Second, after a year of working, I'll be getting my first tax refund (won't be much) but that plus money I've earned and will earn will all lead to (hopefully) a nice trip sometime during the year.

But mostly I want this year to bring me back to focus on my writing career. And, borrowing from Dave's idea, I'm going to put my resolutions/goals up here and hope the public-ness of it inspires me to actually do it and accomplish it.

Goal/Resolution #1: Finish ten stories. (This sounds hard, considering I finished only one story in all of 2005, but I've got three or four stories that I like that are missing endings, and a bunch of other ideas for short, quick, stories, so this lofty goal seems like it might just be possible.)

Goal/Resolution #2: Sell/publish five stories. (That would be more stories published than I've done so far in the past two years, 4, but I still think it's possible. I need to get stories out as much as possible to lots of magazines and keep them constantly in editor’s hands and not my own. I always submit stories, whether they get picked up or not is up to the editors. So everyone cross your fingers for me.)

Goal/Resolution #3: Read more. Ever since I stopped smoking, I haven't been reading as much. It used to be a casual, ever-present, part of my daily routine. Nowadays I feel like I need to set aside time for reading and that’s increasingly hard what with being a popular guy and all, but I'd like to get back to my book-a-week schedule.

Goal/Resolution #4: Start a novel. This has been coming for awhile. I feel like I haven't been able to achieve as much success with short stories as I'd like to. I know I'm young and I know I have time to achieve that success, but I've got a novel idea that I've been slowly developing for the last five or six months and an itch to write a real, strong, powerful novel since I was teenager. It’s about time I started.

Ending

2005-12-31T14:31:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

I've been feeling a little "blah" about this New Year and I wasn't exactly sure why. By all accounts, I should be celerbating. I've had one of those "grown up" years that other people around my age have. I got my first real job, car, girlfriend. You know, same old shit.

Then I listened to TV on the Radio's "Dry Drunk Emperor" (mp3 link) just now and was moved beyond reason. We still have a tyrant in power. We have a fumbling, moronic, corrupt, government that is incapable of handling anything (apparently). My blame for 9/11 has always gone squarely on Bush. He mishandles a war. Spends billions and kills thousands of civilians in a "Shock and Awe" bombing campaign against an army that was surrending before the war started. More recently, we've seen that he (and his people) cannot handle a major natural disaster. He's trying to convert the country to his whacked-out religion while completely ignoring real threats to our country like unchecked immigration, corporate monopolies, and class divisions.

All this makes me sad, uneasy, and a little afriad for the future. This is all crystalized beautifully by the lyrics to Dry Drunk Emperor. TVOTR has never shied away from criticizing the President but with this song, written in response to Hurricane Katrina and released for free to honor New Orleans, is a rallying cry if I ever heard one. "get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!!and bring all his thieves to trial."

Lyrics and words by the band.

Best of the Year (Part 2)

2005-12-23T08:21:00.000-08:00

One album glaringly absent from Pitchfork's Top 50 2005 is The National's subtle and ambitious third-album, Alligator. This album is best on a dark day in summer. Their sound is all kinds of Americana, blending a Springsteen-esque twang with modern rock asethtic. They sound like a little a quiet, suburban-version of Interpol. They're not always quiet though, given to big tear-jerking guitar-driven ballads and effects-heavy songs laden with heartbreaking lyrics. Their stories romanticize the mundane (office work and cross-country travels) and sound off longingly about far-off ideas like astronauts and spies.

Their primary weapon is their lead singer's passionate voice, deep and Morrisey-ish with a hint (a whisper) of raspy Tom Waits-style vox. Their guitars sound like good old American Gibsons. Their drummer is competent and not show-offy. Showing off would be unprofessional and these guys are anything but. They shed the idea of being a "rock band" and instead go about music as it really is: a job. A job they've gotten good at after two well-recieved albums and one EP. Their confidence in this album seem to be half about being sure of themselves after gaining some experience and half pure inspiration. There's a swagger and chillness here that is absent from a lot of other albums this year that seem to either try too hard or try too little. The National have struck the middle ground: They try just enough, without being late or messing up their hairdos.

The first time I heard them was on a live radio show through KEXP some afternoon at my last job. It was a special week of NYC shows for the Seattle-based radio station. They were a little late to the show, all of them coming in on their lunch break from their "regular" jobs. They spoke about not wanting to be a (quote/unquote) rock band and how it's good to be like normal people most days of the week. They go to work, they write some songs, they go home to their girlfriends or wives. They seem like the most functional and down-to-earth band since Death Cab for Cutie.

There's a lot to love about Alligator. Certain sound combinations and bridges and intros are magical and inspiring. They - like most bands these days - embrace the techonological sleekness available but keep it at a minimum-flourish, their music is caked in earth tones. It's very refreshing, I think, from the flashy-ness of a lot of the rest of standouts from this year. Their lyrical strength is surprising, casual, almost literary, dialouge that rings so true: "Well, whatever you do / Listen, you better wait for me / No, I wouldn't go out alone into America;" "I don't have any questions / I don't think it's gonna rain / You were right about the end / It didn't make a difference;" "I was in a train under a river when I remembered what / What I wanted to tell you, man / What I wanted to tell you, man / I got two sets of headphones, I miss you like hell / Won't you come here and stay with me / Why don't you come here and stay with me;" "Hey, love, we'll get away with it / We'll run like we're awesome, totally genius / Hey, love, we'll get away with it / We'll run like we're awesome."

Alligator is wonderful because it is mutuable. You can hear it how you chose. Either as a dour reminder of the weakening state of American middle-class reality or a fist-pumping outcry against conformity. There are songs that positively scream with restrained agression while other songs seem surfacely sad, but contain within them real truth that threatens to break your heart, but instead repairs it.

Pitchfork's Year

2005-12-20T16:04:00.001-08:00

That time of year again continues, with the ultimate annual tradition: Years Best Lists. And the first one out is one I look forward to all year: Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of the Year.

There's a lot of shit on there I don't know. That didn't use to be the case. Then again, Pitchfork didn't always review hip-hop, although it has always enjoyed styles of music I consider uninteresting or un-listenable (like their fixation on electro-punk bands like Black Dice and Broadcast) so I've always been able to forgive certain differences of opinion, but there seems to be a lot of fucking hip-hop on that list. Remind me: What part of Chicago you kids from?

This is the first year I've disagreed with them so much, especially in their Final 10. Down the line from Wolf Parade, there's nothing I like except for #1. LCD Soundsystem? too upbeat. MIA and Deerhoof? That shit gives me a headache. Art Brut? I listened to them once for two minutes (should I have listened more?) Same for Animal Collective. And never heard nor even want to hear anything from Kayne "My name is unpronounceable" West: Late Registration.

Major Gripe #1: Bloc Party's Silent Alarm is way way way WAY to high up on that list. Fuck this short-memory shit, I know this album was from the beginning of the year, but this is genius stuff right here. This album is classic and this ranking is something Pitchfork going to regret in the future.

Major Gripe #2: No Broken Social Scene. Well, fuck you, too. No love for followups continues. Maybe it's the album. It's tough and difficult and loud sometimes. One of their members called it a "fucking mess" and he loved it anyway. I feel the same way.

Franz Ferdinand's romp is also way too high. Come on! This stuff will be party fodder for the next decade.

Real nice to see The Mountain Goats' wonderful Sunset Tree get a nice placement. A truly inspired album. Any lover of fiction (or, incidentally, non-fiction) needs to hear these words.

Nice Thing #1: Also, surprised to see The Decemberists' latest get such nice praise. I feel like Picaresque is uneven. Smart and funny and powerful, but holding back, somewhere. More polished, maybe, and I liked the looseness of old.

Nice Thing #2: It's nice to see the guys at Wolf Parade get their due. In my opinion, they've crafted a brilliant and nuanced masterpiece in Apologies to the Queen Mary. I would put the album higher in my personal list but it's still nice to see something you support do well.

Really nice thing: Sufjan Stevens. I don't know how I feel about calling his truly epic Illinois "the best album of the year." It's a (seemingly) small, often quiet, often shy, narrative about a boy and a little state up in the north. It's too sedate next to Kayne West and his hommies. But, the wonderful thing about that album is that it's surprising. It starts quiet, but then explodes with horns and strings and a thousand colors of sound. There's so much creativity and heart and power in those words, in each plucked strung and roared note.