Hi + a great read

I'm pretty sure no one but Matt and I read this, but just in case: I'm Letitia/Tish and I will now be contributing book rec's/rants and other miscellany to this blog. Hi!

The great read promised above is "The Outlander" by Gil Adamson. When forced to choose between plot/character development and prose I usually go for the former, but with "The Outlander" you don't have to choose. It's a dazzling read, and easily inhaled it in a few short days. Set in the West - although it's never clear if it's Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Canada (Alberta or Saskatchewan?? I just had to look those up - somewhere above Montana..) - it's about a woman who murdered her husband and is fleeing from her scary, red-headed, eerily twin-like brothers-in-law. There's a whole cast of memorable, eccentric characters reminiscent of the recent HBO series Carnivale. The pace is thumping, and Adamson creates a haunting picture of the widow's - as well as other character's - emotional state. And perhaps best of all, her visual descriptions are gorgeous and lingering. Overall , totally great. Probably the best book I've read in a year.

mp3 news

Hello!

Sadly, all the old mp3 links are dead (file storage service mediamax went bye bye).

Here's a random 7" I ripped using Garageband, to hold you over.

Maybe I'll scan the cover for you some time. If you leave a comment.

brief rant re: pretentious hipster record reviews

Memo to the editors at Dusted (and Pitchfork and all the rest of you): for those of us not "in the know," i.e. those that actually might be looking to the record review for information or analysis rather than with a pre-existing opinion, the following sentence might be better positioned at the beginning of the review, rather than in the last paragraph:

"Only a couple of the record’s 10 tracks are actual songs."

Well, that's good to know. Thanks for the tip-off!

summer mix tape

The RIAA strikes back.

A rock/pop mix "tape" thrown together for your summery listening pleasure. Some stuff you know and love, and a few more tracks that you probably haven't heard. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Ender's Game is here.

Read this story at Slate and/or listen to the story at NPR. No exaggeration here: the kicker premise of Orson Scott Card's classic science fiction novel Ender's Game is now completely possible.

In a nutshell, Raytheon hired video game developers to redesign the command and control systems for military drone aircraft. The result is a video game-like system that on the one hand, further isolates the operator from the very real death and destruction on the other side of the world, and on the other hand, makes the system intuitively easy to use, particularly for a generation of young people raised on incredibly realistic video games. It's impressive, and terrifying. The reporter's 7-year-old son watched the demo with him, and said, "It was really cool."

"Therefore, there are patterns, everywhere in nature."

simply cool

David Byrne connected an organ to a huge building.... This is just very very cool.

via flux=rad

these kids today and their not-math rock

According to the oracle¹, "math rock" is a style of rock music characterized by "complex, atypical rhythmic structures" and "asymmetrical time signatures." I don't love the term, but it's there, and it actually does fit. But I've been noticing it getting a lot of use lately, and none of the bands it's being applied to these days, as far as I can tell, ever stray from 4/4 time. It seems some of the other qualities that commonly went along with the weird time signatures, such as "angular" melodies (whatthefuckever that means), or "strident" vocals, or simply a lack of vocals at all, are enough these days to qualify for the genre. Battles, Les Savy Fav, and Foals are examples that come to mind, along with what I think of as "new prog" bands like Explosions in the Sky. (How much better Mogwai were than Explosions will ever be is another post.) These bands get labeled math rock because they sound a little weird, I guess.

I guess that's my only point. I'm just getting a little Andy Rooney on the indie rock scene. Heh.

Real, good math rock: Jetpack, Don Caballero, June of 44, Rodan...


¹On a side note, a Yale undergraduate I mentored this year, who is now going on to one of the top medical schools in the country, cited Wikipedia more than all other sources combined in her final term paper, and then complained about getting a B+ in the course. Yeah.

Parts and Labor

Vision of Repair and Brighter Days, from Mapmaker

Changing of the Guard, from Stay Afraid

Anything that, when it comes through on shuffle at work, causes my colleagues concern for my sanity is well worth posting about. Friends and labelmates^1,2,3 of Pterodactyl, Parts and Labor definitely make even more noise. My favorite tracks of theirs, especially from Mapmaker, not only have great energy but put great lyrics sung to catchy melodies over the earthquake-at-45rpm foundation. (Yes, a foundation that is like an earthquake. It works.)

For more samples and a video of a performance of Changing of the Guard, click through:

www.partsandlabor.net

JAGJAGUWAR records

new heights for nerd rap

The Economist really is an excellent publication.

In regards to their unbiased news coverage, might I propose that non-party people put your hands in the air and wave them just like you do not care? Or like you care but don't let it influence your news coverage?

Via the FP blog.