Saturday, December 17, 2011
2Pac - Can't C Me (with LYRICS)
I don't know if this is too aggressive for this blog, but honestly, 2pac is ****ing awesome.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The Tallest Man on Earth - "Thrown Right At Me" - Dublin, June 2011
Tallest man on earth is an up and coming folk artist, with a healthy following these days. Has a lot of Bob Dylan in his song writing and singing, except hes a much better singer, and has a little more pop in him. Needless to say I'm a big fan
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Inspector Space-Time
This was shot from the International Space Station during Expeditions 28 and 29. I really love the lightning storms... and well, everything about this.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Zac Brown Band - Jolene
Cover of Ray LaMontagne's song Jolene. Although some of his sadness is lost in this cover, overall a much better version in my opinion. I've been listening to this pretty consistently for the past 3 weeks, i know baz heard that.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Book Review: John Dies At The End
A few years ago, my father pushed into my hands Dan Brown's atrocious and stupidly entertaining Angels & Demons. "It's an airplane book," he told me. "What do you mean?" I asked. "It's the kind of book you read on the airplane and then leave there once you finish it." I read it and I can't help but agree. Dan Brown is the perfect Airplane Author (he's also a shit author, if you ask me. But that's neither here nor there.)
I feel similarly about David Wong's first novel, John Dies at the End. It runs literary circles around Dan Brown's Hindenburg, obviously, but it's an airplane book. John Dies at the End is a weird, creepy, scary, and wildly entertaining story, but it's weighed down by a number of problems, including its length. It's by no means my awful, and it's not a story I would revisit, but it got me through my trip from LAX to Washington Dulles, and it made my 4-hour layover in JFK pass by very quickly ("Four hours?" you ask. Yeah. It sucked.)
The premise and promise of John Dies at the End is that Hell is not other people--it's in another dimension, and it's disgusting, filthy, horrifying, eldritch, Cthulu-esque High Octane Nightmare Fuel. John and David are thrown into this world by pure misfortune, and we follow them as they deal and slash-and-hack their way through the horrifying and traumatizing experience of another dimension, one from which demons, monsters, harpies, maggots, cockroaches, shadow-people, and shit-entities come.
It's hilarious, too. David Wong is the Editor-in-Chief of Cracked, and he knows how to humor his audience (which I'm assuming is the 18-30 male demographic). I found myself consistently turning the pages for hours on end because the descriptions, the tone, the narrator's voice, everything about it is so delightfully horrific that I couldn't stop reading. It's weird and it doesn't stop being weird until the end. I'm sure I got more than a few looks when I would burst out laughing while waiting for my flight to arrive.
But there are a few problems with Wong's novel. First, David narrates the story to a journalist throughout the novel, which I found completely unnecessary. In fact, I almost groaned every time the novel returned to the interview because it felt like such a waste of time, and the point of this sub-plot is some twist near the end, one that isn't particularly riveting and doesn't contribute to the rest of the story. Secondly, the supporting characters are utterly forgettable. I'm not exaggerating. If you were to ask me to describe the supporting cast without using names or physical descriptions, I'd give you a blank stare. Some of them die, some of them don't. One of the more important female leads sticks around only for half the novel, which is a problem in and of itself because I invested some emotion into thinking she was important. Then, by the second half, she just disappears. Not cool, Wong.
Interestingly, the biggest problem with the novel was the thing I was just praising a few moments ago: its voice. Let me explain myself using a novel familiar to anyone who's read horror: The Shining. Stephen King's novel is absolutely one of the scariest books of all time. Say what you will about him now, but King crafted a novel that was taut, tense, and downright terrifying. The line between reality and delusion crumbled as the suspense built, and the worst part was that you didn't see a damn thing. Sure, there were instances of blood and visceral horror (e.g., the woman in the bathtub, or the two little girls in the hallway), but for the most part you were kept in the dark. As a result, your imagination filled your ignorance with vague sensations of dread. This is the same reason why Alfred Hitchcock's famous film, Psycho, continues to haunt viewers to this day. In his words, it's a matter of "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience." Nothing a writer or director can offer you will top the horrors your mind conjures up on its own.
It's something I wish David Wong had kept in mind. One undeniable fact of Wong's novel is that it's weird. It's visceral, it's gory, it's delightfully brutal, it's macabre, and it's unapologetic when it shoves its descriptions of tentacled, oozing shit-monsters, or humanoid demons composed of thousands of rattling cockroaches, or swarms of white fly-like winged harpies that corkscrew into human flesh and take up residence inside victims' brains. But by describing its monsters so vividly, the novel strips them of what truly makes them horrifying: their mystery. This is fine for horror books, as not every scary story needs to be as psychological as The Shining. But for a novel of this length (and weighing in at 469 pages, it's quite large), you need more than just gross descriptions to carry the reader's attention. It's the difference between Paranormal Activity and Hostel. The former weighed entirely on the viewers' imagination and as a result it was a phenomenal success, becoming the most profitable (proportionally to its budget, mind you) film of all time. The latter was a mindless, misanthropic, sadistic gore-fest that lacked all self-awareness and was too enamored with bloodshed to really say anything at all.
I don't mean to sell John Dies at the End short, but by midway through the novel it began to feel tedious. The risk inherent in any over-the-top, profane, unapologetic character is that he's exhausting to listen to. This is why J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye wasn't 400 pages long: I'd have burned the book by the end because I can only listen to Holden Caulfield complain for so long. That's why John Dies at the End works so well for the first half (and don't get me wrong, there are good parts in the second half, too). But after listening to David Wong talk about penises and demons and penis demons, I was ready to close the book. I kept reading to see how John dies at the end, and even that wasn't satisfying. As the second arc to the story begins, John thinks to himself, "Here. We. Go. Again." It's supposed to sound exciting, but when I read it, I could only muster up resignation.
I feel similarly about David Wong's first novel, John Dies at the End. It runs literary circles around Dan Brown's Hindenburg, obviously, but it's an airplane book. John Dies at the End is a weird, creepy, scary, and wildly entertaining story, but it's weighed down by a number of problems, including its length. It's by no means my awful, and it's not a story I would revisit, but it got me through my trip from LAX to Washington Dulles, and it made my 4-hour layover in JFK pass by very quickly ("Four hours?" you ask. Yeah. It sucked.)
The premise and promise of John Dies at the End is that Hell is not other people--it's in another dimension, and it's disgusting, filthy, horrifying, eldritch, Cthulu-esque High Octane Nightmare Fuel. John and David are thrown into this world by pure misfortune, and we follow them as they deal and slash-and-hack their way through the horrifying and traumatizing experience of another dimension, one from which demons, monsters, harpies, maggots, cockroaches, shadow-people, and shit-entities come.
It's hilarious, too. David Wong is the Editor-in-Chief of Cracked, and he knows how to humor his audience (which I'm assuming is the 18-30 male demographic). I found myself consistently turning the pages for hours on end because the descriptions, the tone, the narrator's voice, everything about it is so delightfully horrific that I couldn't stop reading. It's weird and it doesn't stop being weird until the end. I'm sure I got more than a few looks when I would burst out laughing while waiting for my flight to arrive.
But there are a few problems with Wong's novel. First, David narrates the story to a journalist throughout the novel, which I found completely unnecessary. In fact, I almost groaned every time the novel returned to the interview because it felt like such a waste of time, and the point of this sub-plot is some twist near the end, one that isn't particularly riveting and doesn't contribute to the rest of the story. Secondly, the supporting characters are utterly forgettable. I'm not exaggerating. If you were to ask me to describe the supporting cast without using names or physical descriptions, I'd give you a blank stare. Some of them die, some of them don't. One of the more important female leads sticks around only for half the novel, which is a problem in and of itself because I invested some emotion into thinking she was important. Then, by the second half, she just disappears. Not cool, Wong.
Interestingly, the biggest problem with the novel was the thing I was just praising a few moments ago: its voice. Let me explain myself using a novel familiar to anyone who's read horror: The Shining. Stephen King's novel is absolutely one of the scariest books of all time. Say what you will about him now, but King crafted a novel that was taut, tense, and downright terrifying. The line between reality and delusion crumbled as the suspense built, and the worst part was that you didn't see a damn thing. Sure, there were instances of blood and visceral horror (e.g., the woman in the bathtub, or the two little girls in the hallway), but for the most part you were kept in the dark. As a result, your imagination filled your ignorance with vague sensations of dread. This is the same reason why Alfred Hitchcock's famous film, Psycho, continues to haunt viewers to this day. In his words, it's a matter of "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience." Nothing a writer or director can offer you will top the horrors your mind conjures up on its own.
It's something I wish David Wong had kept in mind. One undeniable fact of Wong's novel is that it's weird. It's visceral, it's gory, it's delightfully brutal, it's macabre, and it's unapologetic when it shoves its descriptions of tentacled, oozing shit-monsters, or humanoid demons composed of thousands of rattling cockroaches, or swarms of white fly-like winged harpies that corkscrew into human flesh and take up residence inside victims' brains. But by describing its monsters so vividly, the novel strips them of what truly makes them horrifying: their mystery. This is fine for horror books, as not every scary story needs to be as psychological as The Shining. But for a novel of this length (and weighing in at 469 pages, it's quite large), you need more than just gross descriptions to carry the reader's attention. It's the difference between Paranormal Activity and Hostel. The former weighed entirely on the viewers' imagination and as a result it was a phenomenal success, becoming the most profitable (proportionally to its budget, mind you) film of all time. The latter was a mindless, misanthropic, sadistic gore-fest that lacked all self-awareness and was too enamored with bloodshed to really say anything at all.
I don't mean to sell John Dies at the End short, but by midway through the novel it began to feel tedious. The risk inherent in any over-the-top, profane, unapologetic character is that he's exhausting to listen to. This is why J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye wasn't 400 pages long: I'd have burned the book by the end because I can only listen to Holden Caulfield complain for so long. That's why John Dies at the End works so well for the first half (and don't get me wrong, there are good parts in the second half, too). But after listening to David Wong talk about penises and demons and penis demons, I was ready to close the book. I kept reading to see how John dies at the end, and even that wasn't satisfying. As the second arc to the story begins, John thinks to himself, "Here. We. Go. Again." It's supposed to sound exciting, but when I read it, I could only muster up resignation.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Book Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being
About a year ago or so, an acquaintance of mine gave me this book to read. She lauded the novel and said that it resonated with her and that she wanted me to read it, for one reason or another. This isn't significant in and of itself, but I can't help but reflect on that exchange after finishing the book. People have admired this novel for decades since its publication in 1982, but I can't help but be confused by this high acclaim. This isn't to say that it's poorly written; if anything, translator Michael Henry Heim does a beautiful job of interpreting Milan Kundera's prose from the original Czech. The issue lies in the purpose of Kundera's novel: not to craft a story in which characters come to life and to which the readers become attached all the while developing a plot that carries the theme, but rather to gather up his philosophical musings in one space. You can see it in the very title. It is a story about a philosophical truth (at least, to Kundera); it is a story not of life but of "being," the difference being that the former inherently and inevitably involves vicissitudes and difficulties, trials and tribulations, while the latter is flat and stale: I exist, but so does a rock. Only a man lives. This isn't a novel about men.
But people, including, most likely, Kundera, will tell you that it is. Ostensibly, it is a novel about four individuals, each romantically involved with another, even if indirectly. Tomas and Tereza are the main couple. Tomas is a Czech surgeon who, after an unfortunate article in which he relates Czech Communists to Oedipus, loses his esteemed medical position and ends up as a window-washer, among other things. His wife and only love, Tereza, acts as the damsel in distress, a frail lover who constantly frets about her husband's late-night activities. And rightfully so: Tomas is an unapologetic womanizer, one who believes that Love and Sex are entirely separate things. The other two characters are Sabina, Tomas' favorite lover and a painter, and Franz, a rather forgettable scholar who falls in love with Sabina. And there you have it: four lives, intertwined by sex and love. Tomas loves Tereza but sleeps with Sabina; Franz loves Sabina; Sabina goes off and paints things; Tereza bites her fingernails.
Like I've said, it isn't a novel about men or women. Indeed, these characters seem little more than vehicles for Kundera's philosophical musings. As a result, they are stripped of anything a reader can relate to. In any other novel, there would linger some mystery around the actions of characters. I would wonder why Tereza stays with Tomas, even when he is unfaithful to her. By doing so, I would infuse her with an air of reality. People and their actions can be inscrutable, and if a character is similarly unyielding to explanation, they appear three-dimensional and plastic, rather than flat. But Kundera relieves me of the burden of thinking. He simply states the reasons why characters do things: Tereza stays with Tomas because she loves him. In a very Eastern European fashion, Milan Kundera "tells," rather than "shows." As a result, I do no work on my part to understand these characters. In the end, they simply feel airy and two-dimensional. Even the structure of the prose is not conducive to character development: "chapters" are perhaps a page or two in length--small vignettes that punctuate the text but do nothing to pace it. The function of the chapter is to chop up the story, not to establish its skeleton.
It is a novel that falls underneath the weight of its own message. The recurring and central theme is that of Eternal Return:
The idea is that because a thing occurs once, it has no weight: "If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness." That's nice and all, but the opposite argument is equally valid, isn't it? If my one action is unique, never to recur, doesn't it take on all the significance of the world? Kundera asks: "What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?" I ask: are those two really the only options? Must we decide between them? Then there arises the question of sentience: would we be aware of Eternal Return as it played out? If not, then how could we ever differentiate between Eternal Return and its absence? Our actions would then become simultaneously light and heavy. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course; it simply appears to me that Kundera's philosophy and the central theme of this piece is specious at best. Perhaps a familiarity of Nietzsche's theories would have helped. If that's the case, then maybe Kundera could have helped me out a bit more. Instead, his thoughts simply don't seem well thought out.
This is not to say that the book is without its virtues. There are certain ideas that Kundera captures beautifully, such as the manner in which people view their lives. In fact, it is something I truly agree with it, and I think Kundera did a fantastic job of expressing this curious phenomenon:
The excerpt makes more sense in context, and perhaps my paraphrasing dulls a bit of the majesty, but the thought is as beautiful as it is eloquently delivered: we fashion our lives around motifs, ones that leap out to us in ways that only make sense to us. For example, if I meet a woman underneath a canopy of cherry trees, this incident will seem all the more significant if cherry trees have played an important role in my life. I'm sure everyone can relate to this idea. Myself, I constantly see motifs play out in my life. This might just be my bias as a writer, though.
Other thoughts are similarly beautiful. Tomas, despite his infuriating womanizing ways, arrives at a startling conclusion: "Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman)." I'm sure the cynics out there will disagree, but I liked this thought for what it was. There certainly is a distinction between sex and love, and any reasonable adults out there in the audience should agree with this. It was Tomas' connection between Love and Shared Sleep that really impressed me. God knows I'm not willing to share a bed with someone unless I really care for her. Moreover: the ending was beautifully done, and I won't spoil it for those of you interested in reading it.
Ultimately, The Unbearable Lightness of Being can be aesthetically pleasing, but I found its intellectual premise lacking weight, as it were. It is by no means awful, but I don't understand those who extol its virtues. The curious thing, of course, is that because it is a book, you can open its pages again and again: its characters are trapped in their own Eternal Return. I'm sure this did not escape the attention of Milan Kundera. It's ironic, then: the novel of lightness is plagued by the heaviest of burdens. Was its own philosophy too much for the novel to bear? How does this affect the purpose of the novel, and its message? Franz realizes, at one point: "...that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, chaff, dust, sand." By the last page, I could not help but feel similarly about the novel.
But people, including, most likely, Kundera, will tell you that it is. Ostensibly, it is a novel about four individuals, each romantically involved with another, even if indirectly. Tomas and Tereza are the main couple. Tomas is a Czech surgeon who, after an unfortunate article in which he relates Czech Communists to Oedipus, loses his esteemed medical position and ends up as a window-washer, among other things. His wife and only love, Tereza, acts as the damsel in distress, a frail lover who constantly frets about her husband's late-night activities. And rightfully so: Tomas is an unapologetic womanizer, one who believes that Love and Sex are entirely separate things. The other two characters are Sabina, Tomas' favorite lover and a painter, and Franz, a rather forgettable scholar who falls in love with Sabina. And there you have it: four lives, intertwined by sex and love. Tomas loves Tereza but sleeps with Sabina; Franz loves Sabina; Sabina goes off and paints things; Tereza bites her fingernails.
Like I've said, it isn't a novel about men or women. Indeed, these characters seem little more than vehicles for Kundera's philosophical musings. As a result, they are stripped of anything a reader can relate to. In any other novel, there would linger some mystery around the actions of characters. I would wonder why Tereza stays with Tomas, even when he is unfaithful to her. By doing so, I would infuse her with an air of reality. People and their actions can be inscrutable, and if a character is similarly unyielding to explanation, they appear three-dimensional and plastic, rather than flat. But Kundera relieves me of the burden of thinking. He simply states the reasons why characters do things: Tereza stays with Tomas because she loves him. In a very Eastern European fashion, Milan Kundera "tells," rather than "shows." As a result, I do no work on my part to understand these characters. In the end, they simply feel airy and two-dimensional. Even the structure of the prose is not conducive to character development: "chapters" are perhaps a page or two in length--small vignettes that punctuate the text but do nothing to pace it. The function of the chapter is to chop up the story, not to establish its skeleton.
It is a novel that falls underneath the weight of its own message. The recurring and central theme is that of Eternal Return:
"Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. We need take no more note of it than of a war between two African kingdoms in the fourteenth century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a hundred thousand blacks perished in excruciating torment."
The idea is that because a thing occurs once, it has no weight: "If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness." That's nice and all, but the opposite argument is equally valid, isn't it? If my one action is unique, never to recur, doesn't it take on all the significance of the world? Kundera asks: "What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?" I ask: are those two really the only options? Must we decide between them? Then there arises the question of sentience: would we be aware of Eternal Return as it played out? If not, then how could we ever differentiate between Eternal Return and its absence? Our actions would then become simultaneously light and heavy. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course; it simply appears to me that Kundera's philosophy and the central theme of this piece is specious at best. Perhaps a familiarity of Nietzsche's theories would have helped. If that's the case, then maybe Kundera could have helped me out a bit more. Instead, his thoughts simply don't seem well thought out.
This is not to say that the book is without its virtues. There are certain ideas that Kundera captures beautifully, such as the manner in which people view their lives. In fact, it is something I truly agree with it, and I think Kundera did a fantastic job of expressing this curious phenomenon:
"This symmetrical composition--the same motif appears at the beginning and at the end--might seem quite 'novelistic' to you, and I am willing to agree, but only on condition that you refrain from reading such notions as 'fictive,' 'fabricated,' and 'untrue to life' into the word 'novelistic.' Because human lives are composed in precisely such a fashion.
"They are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence...into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life....
"It is wrong, then, to chide the novel for being fascinated by mysterious coincidences...but it is right to chide man for being blind to such coincidences in his daily life. For he thereby deprives his life of a dimension of beauty."
The excerpt makes more sense in context, and perhaps my paraphrasing dulls a bit of the majesty, but the thought is as beautiful as it is eloquently delivered: we fashion our lives around motifs, ones that leap out to us in ways that only make sense to us. For example, if I meet a woman underneath a canopy of cherry trees, this incident will seem all the more significant if cherry trees have played an important role in my life. I'm sure everyone can relate to this idea. Myself, I constantly see motifs play out in my life. This might just be my bias as a writer, though.
Other thoughts are similarly beautiful. Tomas, despite his infuriating womanizing ways, arrives at a startling conclusion: "Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman)." I'm sure the cynics out there will disagree, but I liked this thought for what it was. There certainly is a distinction between sex and love, and any reasonable adults out there in the audience should agree with this. It was Tomas' connection between Love and Shared Sleep that really impressed me. God knows I'm not willing to share a bed with someone unless I really care for her. Moreover: the ending was beautifully done, and I won't spoil it for those of you interested in reading it.
Ultimately, The Unbearable Lightness of Being can be aesthetically pleasing, but I found its intellectual premise lacking weight, as it were. It is by no means awful, but I don't understand those who extol its virtues. The curious thing, of course, is that because it is a book, you can open its pages again and again: its characters are trapped in their own Eternal Return. I'm sure this did not escape the attention of Milan Kundera. It's ironic, then: the novel of lightness is plagued by the heaviest of burdens. Was its own philosophy too much for the novel to bear? How does this affect the purpose of the novel, and its message? Franz realizes, at one point: "...that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, chaff, dust, sand." By the last page, I could not help but feel similarly about the novel.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Fall Out Boy ft Kanye West - This Aint A Scene REMIX *With Lyrics*
This song alone proves why kanye west is king. Song on Fall Out Boy's album, under their name, and all kanye is doing for his entire verse (1:10) is making fun of these guys. And kanye's version is pretty catchy, not gonna lie
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Elliott Smith Twilight
This song has been killing me. For some reason I really like depressing music, and, well Elliott Smith was pretty depressed I guess. As is this song. Gets me right here (*hand on heart*)
Monday, May 9, 2011
El Guincho- Bombay
The cosmos is all there is, or ever was, or ever will be. The cosmos is also within us. We are made of stars. We wish to pursue the truth, no matter where it leads. But to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both.
ps. this video contains some nudity, so yeah.
ps. this video contains some nudity, so yeah.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Fun.
Stumbleupon is probably one of my favorite things. While stumbling I found this website called tuneglue. Its just a great website where you can search a band and it gives you a handful of related bands. While on it a couple days ago, I searched both Jukebox the Ghost and Tally Hall and both were related to this band Fun. I gave them a quick look-see and enjoyed what I heard. They're based in New York and formed from the two bands, The Format and Steel Train. I haven't really heard much of those two bands but I wouldn't be surprised if they were a talented bunch as well.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
A Combination of 3 of My Favorite Things...
...Robots, Sting, and Electro-pop. And hey, just goes to show that celebrity nepotism doesn't always have a shitty result. Yes, that was directed at you, Miley Cyrus.
Self Machine - I Blame Coco. Enjoy.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Riot?
UMD students rioted just off campus last night after receiving news of Osama bin Laden's death. Justice served, but is a riot of celebration really the right move?
- Martin Luther King Jr
Monday, May 2, 2011
Grateful Dead - Ripple (Studio Version)
While watching Freaks and Geeks today, a scene about the album American Beauty by The Grateful Dead caught my attention. American Beauty is one of the legendary albums that everyone is suppose to have in their collection, so I decided to download it and give it all my attention for the first time in a while. If you have never done that, you really should. Great album to listen to driving with the windows down in May.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Pipe instruments/Study Jamming
Since I figure everyone's got exams coming up and I'm about to finish putting off my own work, I thought I'd post the music I will be studying to... annnd for a little additional set up: the first time I ever saw or heard people using PVC piping as an instrument was five or six years ago when I first saw Blue Man Group in Vegas and ever since I've really been into the sound.
i've been thinking about death a lot lately
It's good to remember that there's immaculate beauty in the world. I will definitely be visiting El Teide, which is Spain's highest mountain and where this was shot by Terje Sorgjerd this month. Fullscreen this mother.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Submarine
Submarine Trailer
Wakey!Wakey!
So Jukebox the Ghost was unsurprisingly awesome last night. They even performed a few new songs, as well as a cover of Huey Lewis and the News' Power of Love... making me like them even more. Back to the Future. Not to mention Ben Thornewill is up there in my favorite people to watch perform now. He's always jamming out and throws in wide eyed expressions with these comedic, robot-like head turns..and musically/vocally he's on point. Not to say the other members aren't, but Thronewill's got a lot of presence. Even when he forgot a part of "Under my Skin" it was executed perfectly, it almost seemed practiced and was awesomely entertaining.. Anyways, this isn't what I'm here for. Wakey! Wakey! opened for them, as previously mentioned and I really enjoyed their set. So I thought I'd specifically highlight a few of their songs and give'm their own post.
One - Pmac
A friend showed me this really cool sample of One by Three Dog Night. This guys name is Pmac, he's an aspiring rapper from San Francisco with a really cool flow. And if his song wasn't enough, this video is pretty awesome as well.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Jukebox The Ghost @ The Black Cat tonight
Jukebox the Ghost is an indie/pop/rock band from DC/Philly...maybe they're from Philly but based in DC? Regardless, I saw these guys open for Tally Hall a while back and they were fantastic. They're a lot of fun, really high-energy and tight. Check out some more of their songs on their myspace page and i'll link some songs at the bottom.
They are playing the main stage at the Black Cat tonight. $15 for a ticket. Doors at 9:00. And Wakey Wakey is opening for them. I just got my ticket so yeahhh
Friday, April 22, 2011
HMBC
Vo Mello bis ge Schoppornou- HMBC
I know very little about this Austrian group. A guy I met in Berlin showed me this song and told me he and his friends always listen to it on the way home from long nights out. Apparently they are singing in a German/Austrian dialect and he doesn't know what they're saying, but who really needs to know. The music speaks for itself. Enjoy.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Malajube "Montreal -40°C"
This french song makes me feel like im drinking by a pool with my friends during the summer. Don't look up a translation of the lyrics. Word of advice.
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Rhodora by Ralph Waldo Emerson
On being asked, whence is the flower.
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.
One of my favorites. VCU has a great site that explains the poem further. Enjoy. Happy Tax day!
Friday, April 15, 2011
Love me some Mal Blum
Mal Blum makes me want to curl up in a blanket and pretend that I live for indie folk music like the rest of the world right now (reference to all Mumford & Sons fans). Here's to belting out San Cristobal lyrics in my apartment alone for the rest of the afternoon. Cheers
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Cool Rap
I posted a few Childish Gambino songs earlier on, but here's another jam I've been jamming to lately. It was brought to my attention on facebook when Victor liked a line our friend Max posted, which features a Dragon Ball reference.. so this guy just keeps earning street credit.
"Honestly, I'm rapping bout everything i go through. Everything I'm saying i'm Super Saiyan like Goku" - Childish Gambino- "My Shine"
And while in a bit of a rap mood, I thought I'd let you guys know about this guy George Watsky. He's a San Francisco rapper/spoken word artist, that has been on HBO's Def Poetry and a bunch of other spoken word/slam poetry venues. He attends Emerson and if you like this video, check out the other's on his page.
AnimaTion
RSA Animate
These videos are pretty cool and great for people with trouble paying attention to anything lacking bright colors and/or fast-moving images. These guys at the Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts provide talks from influential and innovative thinkers (some of which can often be seen on ted.com) and simultaneously provide drawn visuals to highlight his/her main points—making it easy for those of under the influence of easy wandering thoughts to follow along. May not agree with everything but its a pretty cool idea.
A talk about what motivates us:
Ben Harper & Jack Johnson Ft Bob Marley - High Tide or Low Tide
Live performance of Bob Marleys song High Tide or Low Tide, performed by Jack Johnson and Ben Harper. Both these guys are favorites of mine, and nothings better than when they get together for these live shows. Not to mention that this is a real good bob song.
Pinky and the Brain, Tongue Twister
Makes my day every time. Not a fan of the show, but this is a great clip.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Thunderball
Thunderball is now on Netflix for instant play. This is by far my favorite Bond movie for countless reasons. It's Sean Connery, the undisputed, best Bond, he uses a jetpack, there are sharks, an underwater war, several women, including one of my favorite Bond girls, annnd the film features the best delivery of the signature "Bond, James Bond" line.
Domino (Claudine Auger) is definitely up there with Honey Rider, Jill Masterton, Pussy Galore, Christmas Jones, Elekra King.... and who'm I kidding? There all pretty up there. Friday, April 8, 2011
Toy Story 3
Super 8
June 10th 2011. I will be sitting in a movie theatre with a crazy amount of anticipation. I have seen the trailer for this movie about 20 times, I still don't know what it is about but it remains to be my most anticipated movie of this summer. I literally cannot wait to see it. As far as I know, the movie is basically about a group of kids who like to make monster movies on their super 8 camera. One day while filming a movie, they witness a train derail and crash. From then on its a blur to me. There might be aliens involved, who knows? All I know is that J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg are making it, and that I am seeing it. Check out the trailer. Please.
Super 8 Trailer
Street Art by Banksy
Below is a link to an article on another blog, called Bored Panda, which features 80 pictures of street artist, Banks's, graffiti. Banksy is one of the most known street artists today and he recently directed a film called Exit Through the Gift Shop (which was nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Oscars). The film's really cool and gives a first hand look at the production of awesome vandalism. The film is currently available for Netflix Instant Play so if you like what you see and have a bit of time, I'd check that out.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Tally Hall
A song by Tally Hall that I had never heard. If you don't know these guys, they're a pretty legitimate band from Michigan. The first album of theirs, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum (link below), was a hit, really good stuff. They got some following after a few of their songs were featured in The O.C. Their new album comes out on June 21st and I'm definitely looking forward to it. So check these guys out. They also like to make little videos and have an internet show that you can find on their website.
Joe Purdy
I don't know why I'd admit to this, but the first time I ever heard this song was on Grey's Anatomy. Whoops. Anyways, it's a good song. Ch-ch-ch-check it out!Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Seu Jorge - Ziggy Stardust
Seu Jorge- Ziggy StardustThis is a cover of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust...personal favorite. Wes Anderson had this guy cover a bunch of Bowie songs for the soundtrack of his film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou And since the movie is about a documentary film crew, Seu Jorge is actually in the film, and plays the guy who does the soundtrack for the movies they make.. making it a kind of russian doll situation.
Anyways, I recommend checking out Seu's other renditions of Bowie songs, as well as checking out the movie.
The Kooks - See The Sun Alternate Version
stumbled onto this the other day, really cool version of this song
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Wale
I thought we'd throw a few Wale songs up for the nice weather. For anyone who doesn't know by now, Wale's a rapper from the Maryland and he's good to go. I'm going to try to refrain from posting too many songs right now but I'd recommend downloading his mixtape "More About Nothing", which tastefully samples a bunch of Seinfeld clips and is ultimately a solid mixtape.
Pixies
If you can ignore or are okay with the fact that this song is about large black penis this song's awesome.
Song from "The Jerk"
The Jerk is up there in my favorite comedies of all time. It's one of those perfect movies and I believe it's still on Netflix Instant in case you haven't seen it. This is a cute little scene and song from the movie... i'm mainly posting it for the song, if you haven't seen the movie you might wanna skip the rest of the scene.
"(Life) was never easy for me, I was born a poor black child"- Steve Martin
Faces - Ooh La La
This is the closing, slowmotion song from Wes Anderson's Rushmore. Fantastic film and an awesome song.
"I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger."
Monday, April 4, 2011
Another Jam from TJ
I haven't really seen this video so I'm pleading ignorance if it's too out there, but the song's good to go.
Wye Oak and New Gambino
Donald Glover released a new track that samples or maybe reconstructs Kanye's All of the Lights (Break) and as per usual, it's pretty fantastic. Plenty of fantastic jokes. If you haven't heard i'm gonna link a couple other tracks of his that are good to go, in the order they were released.
quick note: the break link is to the mp3 download from Donald's site not a direct download or like the others a streaming jam
As for Wye Oak, they're a duo from baltimore that are really awesome. the drummer is also the bassist via a synthesizer and the front-woman's got a hell of voice. I'm posting "For Prayer" which is off of a previous album and a live performance of "Civilian" which is the title track off their latest album. The album version is a little better, but the live acoustic really does it justice.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
gypsy band
So I saw the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story which is an interesting film by Goran Dukic and is a dark romance/fantasy/comedy? Anyways the movie was pretty enjoyable and one of the supporting characters was fantastic and happened to be based off of the lead singer in the band Gogol Bordello which is a crazy cool gypsy band. here's a link to two videos on youtube of songs from them I dig.
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