SNL news updates, Madonna's satire, Carter and Steele.
And I don't get Tyler Perry's appeal either.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Google Scans 2 Million Out-of-Copyright Books
Amazing!
"Two million out-of-copyright books that have been scanned by Google could come back into limited printed form after the search giant signed a deal with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Espresso Book Machine - a custom book printer able to produce a bound one-off 300-page paperback, with a full-colour cover, in about five minutes."
More here.
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Tip of the hat ti MR for the pointer.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Clip of the Week
I enjoyed this all sorts of things. Colbert's in rare form here.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Sport Report - U.S. Open & NFL Wheel of Scandal | ||||
| ||||
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Fake Merchandize and Cheating?
If you are what you buy and what you buy is fake then are you more likely to cheat than those who only buy authentic goods?
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational addresses it here:
Tip of the hat to MR for the pointer
Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational addresses it here:
Tip of the hat to MR for the pointer
The Flaming Lips
I like the Flaming Lips.
I especially like their "Do You Realize?" track from 2002 even though I remember satirizing it a bit when it came out. One kids those one likes, I suppose. "Do You Realize?" was named the official rock song of Oklahoma this year. The FLips are now on their album-promoting tour and if they're coming to your neck of the woods, I recommend the show.
Also, you may listen to their new album Embryonic on colbernation.com which will be available till next Monday.
Watch this rather funny exchange between Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne and Stephen Colbert.
I especially like their "Do You Realize?" track from 2002 even though I remember satirizing it a bit when it came out. One kids those one likes, I suppose. "Do You Realize?" was named the official rock song of Oklahoma this year. The FLips are now on their album-promoting tour and if they're coming to your neck of the woods, I recommend the show.
Also, you may listen to their new album Embryonic on colbernation.com which will be available till next Monday.
Watch this rather funny exchange between Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne and Stephen Colbert.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Wayne Coyne | ||||
| ||||
Talent Worth More Than, say, a Paragraph?
This morning as I was going through my routine of news-reading, email-checking, and news commentary-hearing/listening via MSNBC's Morning Joe, I was pleased to hear the music of Postal Service play as the show went into commercial. "Cool," I thought. Morning Joe aired from Seattle today and I thought it apropos that it pay some lip service to Seattle talent. When the show resumed, Joe Scarborough mentioned Death Cab for Cutie as well as the other equally impressive Ben Gibbard band, Postal Service which made sense since they were in Seattle.
I don't really get my news from cable shows as I'd rather read it myself first thing in the morning but if I could privilege a political commentary show at all, I'd go with Morning Joe since they manage to fuse political, social, and pop culture references without much effort and the hosts don't produce too many artificial laughters/chuckles which would eventually result in a rather successful suppression of my desire for high-protein breakfast. It doesn't feel like they're placing products as much as it feels like a tip of the hat to place-specific talent. So, Joe, here's a tip of my hat.
If I truly believe in a product or piece of art, I make it a point to give it as much textual space as I can. I'm going to mention Muse again as they just released their last album. As I've already mentioned, their fifth studio album, The Resistance, is beyond good. It's all-sorts-of-things ahead of so many other acts that get so much attention. I did a search on the NY Times today to see if they had reviewed it as well. I figured, if the Times reviews such absurdities as Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York City....
The Times does mention Muse's new album even though it was a mere paragraph and comparing it to the other paragraphs reserved for such artists as Nelly Furtado and New Boyz, it looked like it was put on a rather unnecessary diet. Is it really that hard to talk about talent these days? Here's the paragraph:
"MUSE This neo-progressive British band gets better whenever it expands its ambitions, and for its fifth album, “The Resistance,” it is going all out: bombastic rock symphonics, dystopian electronic boogies, Chopin quotations, visions of pan-Eurasian political unification."
You can read the other paragraphs featured in the same piece here.
Solid paragraph, Times, it's just that if you're now employing economy of speech why not reserve it for reality TV reviews? Just an idea.
I don't really get my news from cable shows as I'd rather read it myself first thing in the morning but if I could privilege a political commentary show at all, I'd go with Morning Joe since they manage to fuse political, social, and pop culture references without much effort and the hosts don't produce too many artificial laughters/chuckles which would eventually result in a rather successful suppression of my desire for high-protein breakfast. It doesn't feel like they're placing products as much as it feels like a tip of the hat to place-specific talent. So, Joe, here's a tip of my hat.
If I truly believe in a product or piece of art, I make it a point to give it as much textual space as I can. I'm going to mention Muse again as they just released their last album. As I've already mentioned, their fifth studio album, The Resistance, is beyond good. It's all-sorts-of-things ahead of so many other acts that get so much attention. I did a search on the NY Times today to see if they had reviewed it as well. I figured, if the Times reviews such absurdities as Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York City....
The Times does mention Muse's new album even though it was a mere paragraph and comparing it to the other paragraphs reserved for such artists as Nelly Furtado and New Boyz, it looked like it was put on a rather unnecessary diet. Is it really that hard to talk about talent these days? Here's the paragraph:
"MUSE This neo-progressive British band gets better whenever it expands its ambitions, and for its fifth album, “The Resistance,” it is going all out: bombastic rock symphonics, dystopian electronic boogies, Chopin quotations, visions of pan-Eurasian political unification."
You can read the other paragraphs featured in the same piece here.
Solid paragraph, Times, it's just that if you're now employing economy of speech why not reserve it for reality TV reviews? Just an idea.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Curb Your Enthusiasm Does Seinfeld Reunion
Curb Your Enthusiasm, my top choice of smartest/best comedy of our time, starts its new season this Sunday. What I think of Larry David is nothing new as he's a high-frequency item in here. What he is doing this new season however is something fans of comedy have been asking since 1998. That question is, will there ever be a Seinfeld reunion show?
Well, it seems like such a thing might just happen during the seventh season of Curb which starts airing on Sunday on HBO.
Larry David says:
"How many times in the past ten years have you been approached to do a 'Seinfeld' reunion?
"It's come up quite often. People asked me and I said no. That's probably why it was in my head. I never considered it and I never will consider it. ''Curb' Your Enthusiasm' is the only way it could have ever gotten done. We didn't really do a reunion. We did a faux reunion. We're doing episodes of 'Curb.'"
You can read the entire interview here.
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graph per hbo
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Muse's The Resistance: A Review
I rightly talk about music a lot as it plays a significant part in my quotidianity. Most summers, thanks mostly to my intimate associations and friendships with those in the arts, I tend to spend a good measure of time learning about new music. Often I am asked how I learn about new music and just as often I answer quoting my musician friends as well as the publications I make it a point to read on a daily basis. Some daily staples include the Rolling Stone magazine, Spin, Black Book magazine, as well as iTunes around midnight on Monday/Tuesday. Much like all else, music takes time and discipline and its student needs to be willing to do the right amount of homework for it. And some music deserves more homework time than others.
This summer, however, I spent more time re-appreciating much of what I already have on my iTunes since I was traveling a lot and one of the things that makes travel easy is my music. I use familiar music to deal with unfamiliar settings. And, as frequently stated, music is a great tool of experience-recording and journaling. While reconnecting with an old friend of mine, I found myself referencing Muse and their music quite a bit. As a matter of fact, they were a high-frequency occurrence. My friend and I discovered that we had much of the same artistic inclinations we used to have as teenagers. Also, when relating to other new friends I noticed that we kept uncovering a number of layers of commonality mostly because of similar artistic preferences. I've long maintained, in my normal life and daily relationships, that there is nothing inconsequential about artistic tendencies and that that which we like reveals quite often than which we are.
Enter Muse.
I am a big believer in their kind of art. Muse's music is like a very well-research academic textbook. The form is impeccable and the bibliography tips the hat to all the relevant influences whereas the content is not only smart and helpful, it is didactic. I mention Muse often on HetPer and I do so out truly personal reasons. I saw them live when they were very little known in the US and that was experience was, as I refer to it in my daily life, a game-changer.
When at the intimate venue I remember feeling a strong sense of place and purpose. I had never sensed anything like it in any other rock 'n roll show I had seen up to that point. And there were quite a few. In addition to this strong sense of place and purpose, I remember feeling a sense of possibility, too. I was a little confused for a little bit because I remember feeling the same emotions when at the opera seeing Puccini's Tourandot. For some reason, those emotions made sense when the tenor breaks into: "al alba vincero." What else could a rock show be offering then? Well, Matt Bellamy. Bellamy is a rock musician who has a tenor's voice and who plays a number of instruments with the ease of a virtuoso. On top of this, he projects a sense of gravitas that is overwhelmingly beautiful. I remember telling my person that it made sense that a band like this would be called 'muse.' There's something creativity-inspiring about them.
Their music is the stuff that often enables you to be the best version of yourself. When art becomes personal it assumes a kind of importance that is difficult, if not impossible, to shake. Its relevance has leaked into all sorts of realms. In this case, it deserves all sorts of attention.
Enter their new album, The Resistance, which became available today and which is inspiring me all sorts of things and is presently monopolizing the iPhone, the iPod, and the computer. The first track is their already released "Uprising" which, when I first heard it, found overwhelming. As I've mentioned to a number of people, the album is so good it made me lose track of my sense of direction and I found myself entering a kind of daze I haven't experienced since the last Franz Ferdinand show.
Matt Bellamy's vocal range of 3 octaves and use of the falsetto register begs for the kind of attention that no rock musician I have seen live up to this point in my life can quite match. Not even close. There's a sense of depth that he projects not only via his voice but also his amazing command of guitar and piano.
Another track of amazing power is entitled "Guiding Light". Every time I play it, I feel a small degree of apprehension which colors an overall sense of pleasure. I have no idea why apprehension is an ingredient here but it is. I found myself feeling the way I felt when I saw the Sean Penn-directed film Into the Wild, which, as I've intimated to many, is for some odd reason simultaneously painful and beautiful for me to watch. After the first few seconds of guitar and drums, Bellamy's voice translates into music and lyrics the kinds of emotions most of us would perhaps prefer to keep well locked and hidden by virtue of their inherent toughness. Tough emotions are beautiful, no doubt, but it takes a certain kind of balanced elegance and maturity to render them. Boy, of boy, does he absolutely nail this!
I'd like to also give a tip of my hat to the three-part symphony here. While listening to "Part II (Cross Pollination)" it became apparent to me yet again that the reason why this band is so good that it's inimitable is because their kind of skill set is simply of too high a calibre. Most contemporary bands can't hold a candle to them as they truly are in a league of their own. Plus, Bellamy's songwriting in this new album oozes a sense of Mediterranean sounds which I picked up when I first heard it. After doing some research I found out that Bellamy has been living in Italy and he's actively incorporated influences from the South. A good sense of context is yet another strong reason to like them, folks.
The Resistance is not the kind of album you can sort of nonchalantly play as you go about your daily chores. To me, at least, much like Mozart's and Verdi's Requiem, this album demands full attention and a clear presence of mind. It's consuming. But in such a gratifying, sensual, and aesthetically pleasing way.
Could you tell if I approved of it?
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graph per wiki
Monday, September 14, 2009
Darwin Film Not Distributed
The film selected to open the Toronto International Film Festival this year is called Creation and it details the period during which Darwin wrote his On the Origin of Species. The film starts real-life couple, Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly.
This apparently strong film has failed to find a US distributor since, according to the producer, Darwin's theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences.
"Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.
"That's what we're up against. In 2009. It's amazing," he said.
"The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it's because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up."
You may read more here.
Testament of Excellence: Federer Style
Beautiful to watch, every time.
Who does it like Federer, really? Tip of the hat to the kind of excellence Federer keeps giving us.
Who does it like Federer, really? Tip of the hat to the kind of excellence Federer keeps giving us.
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