8 long months are

over tonight - so fucking psyched for this, it felt like this day would never come! I don't know how I made it this long.* this 8 minute and 15 second recap is absolutely mandatory viewing, literally everything you need to know about the major events of the first 3 seasons, so fucking focused, thorough, etc!


* actually, I do know, I became totally obsessed with Twin Peaks for like the last 3 months, duh

vibe music

there is this new rap 'micro-genre' comin outta south FL called "VIBE MUSIC" and it is basically like super chilled out, midtempo strip club anthems with pretty synths, lots of hooks and only occasz rapping, what more do you need to know it is obviously awesome - Alexis, as usual, has the details and links you need to understand this important new vibe vibe*

also conveniently a youtube of Snoop's infinitely rewatchable/relistenable "Sensual Seduction" video, which as you probably know by now is one of the best videos ever, and which you might not know (I didn't!) was produced by VIBE MUSIC mastermind Shawty Redd. Doggystyle was what, 15 years ago?? who would've guessed Snoop would still be so relevant, not to mention so fucking avant-garde and awesome, in the 08?

* also in vibe news, I'm sure the frequently missed Internet Vibes is having its biggest day of traffic in a hot minute! we are opening for those Vampire Weekend knuckleheads tonight at the Bowery, excited and totally bracing myself for extreme failure, potential psychological meltdown, etc

final four (three)

man I gotta say I like all three of the top contenders (Obama/McCain/Clinton) better than anyone running in 04, and even Romney is kind of growing on me with his wholesome-yet-deeply-weird vibe, and how Kerryesque was that guayabera shirt, etc, this election will be totally OK

analogy

when trying to explain to power-naifs about how amazing and next-next-next-level thesearepowerfulhours.com is, I am occasz asked "wait, so did these guys invent power hour mixes?"

the answer of course is 'no', but only in the exact same way that Babe Ruth didn't 'invent' hitting home runs or that Takeru Kobayashi didn't 'invent' competitive eating. but like those pioneers in their chosen disciplines, thesearepowerfulhours.com takes a concept 'invented' by mere humans and elevates it to a level of artistry and skill that was previously unimaginable. where their predecessors were content to trudge along with their eyes to the ground, scratching out primitive and immediately forgotten footnotes to history, thesearepowerfulhours.com soars above, inspiring us to consider not only drinking but the whole human endeavor in a new light of limitless possibility, and, yes, hope

draft outlines for 2 forthcoming posts re: 90s alt rock

1. secretly actually the greatest 90s alt rock albums of all time

i. singles soundtrack
ii. urge overkill: saturation
iii. spacehog: resident alien
iv. new radicals: maybe you've been brainwashed too

(am I forgetting anybody? feel free to argue about the order these should go in, aside from singles obv)

2. secrets of the greatest secret tracks of the 90s of all time

i. nirvana 'endless nameless'
ii. guns n roses 'look at your game girl'
iii. urge overkill 'untitled jam at the end of saturation'
iv. I know I am forgetting something major here

maybe one day I'll have what I want

I'm a little meh on the band name/song title/lyrics but man do I love this song! appealingly scruffy but appropriately mellow two-chord DIY drum machine power ballad (vaguely reminiscent, like so many other great things, of a vibe from urge overkill's 1993 masterpiece saturation, in this case the track 'dropout' specifically) with these really.fucking.awesome vocals on top!!! really raunchily nostalgic, desperately soulful, just barely hinged - imagine a cross between jack black and joe somar? recommend!

update: actually I just realized it's kind of a cross between two songs on 'saturation' - 'dropout' most obviously in terms of the beat and arrangement but also kind of the majestic, yearning melodic qualities and beachside vibes (well, more like poolside vibes in the case of urge overkill, obv) of 'heaven 90210', possibly the greatest alt-rock power ballad of the 90s. I guess there's a major element of Beefheart on the vox too, no? sorry to play 'name the similar vibe' I hope it doesn't dimish their accomplishment here I'm just riffin obv

neptunes

my earlier comments re: the frequently regrettable n3rd aside, I could not be more excited by the tracklisting for Rajiv's brand new Neptunes power hour mix - this is big, big news, will be truly glorious. thesearepowerfulhours.com always and forever - UPDATE just noticed the awesome parental advisory label, so fucking thorough!
'we don't make power hours. we build them.'

seriously dark

friends I sense dark times ahead, with twin work and music-work landslides bearing down on me and not having gotten nearly far enough ahead of the curve so far this month. that said, as brutally dark as things may get, apparently this is darker

a carbon nanotube carpet that is apparently literally the darkest thing ever made! the one in the middle obv. the grey looking bro on the left was apparently the previous record holder, doesn't look that dark to me. potential solar applications, fashion (really fucking black is the new black etc), etc

damn good coffee

one of the less obvious byproducts of my twin peaks obsesh has been the reintroduction of coffee into my daily life in a major way. I haven't really had tea in months, and the daily coffee ritual(s) are becoming increasingly reverent. not to mention Jeff found a motherfucking working coffee grinder lurking in one of our disused kitchen cabinets last night! just smell those freshly ground beans!

and, today - a U of Nevada, Reno chemist has patented a process for converting used coffee grounds into biodiesel! Starbucks could apparently churn out 3m gallons a year from all of its waste, which tbh seems like kind of a shockingly small amount considering how much waste we're taking about (200m pounds!)? I'm a fan of the niche biofuels news story genre but this is kind of disappointing. that said I bet my coffee waste from the work week could at least get me to Williamsburg or whatever on the weekend? tbd

nerdcore

wow is this new n.e.r.d. track 'everybody nose' kind of awesome for being so intensely shitty in so many different ways at the same time or is it just soooo shitty? it's kind of like ween without the redeeming qualities

resurface 2

Andrea's new blog, cake time, check it out!

srsly heartfelt and wise words on pressing topics like personal finance, food, important things, and, yes, yes, yes, kittens - last night I got to kind of hang out with Andrea and Grace's five (5!) mind-bendingly adorable new kittens for the first time, it is really too much to even process at once but read the blog and feel the vibe etc

the green bay

mixed and to be honest not ultra-intense feelings about the Giants' impressive OT win over Green Bay the other night - obv psyched for the Giants and for the chance to beat those overrated goons from New England, but it's hard to feel super good about beating the Packers, esp on their home turf, and even moreso after reading their wikipedia entry! did you know that

...the Packers are the only non-profit, community owned professional sports team in the US?

...the Packers have sold out every game at Lambeau Field since 1960?

...the waiting list for season tickets is over 74,000 people long, which is more than Lambeau's capacity? the entire population of Green Bay is only 102,000!

...the waiting time for season tickets is estimated at about 35 years, so "is not unusual for fans to designate a recipient of their season tickets in their wills or place newborn infants on the waiting list after receiving birth certificates.^[9]"

..."During training camp in the summer months (held outside the Don Hutson Center), young Packers fans can take their bikes and have their favorite player ride their bike to the practice field from the locker room. This is an old Packers tradition dating back to approximately 1957 (the first years of Lambeau Field's existence). Gary Knafelc, a Packers end at the time, said, "I think it was just that kids wanted us to ride their bikes. I can remember kids saying, 'Hey, ride my bike.'" The practice continues today.<sup>[12]"

seriously, (re)read this inspiring and powerful SI feature on Brett Favre and the Packers and their relationship with the people of Green Bay if you dare, you WILL cry. my heart goes out to all the Cheeseheads on this sad day, if it is any consolation please know that the sacred bond that you enjoy with your team is so awesome in its power and uniqueness that this bummer of a total choke-job by your QB hero is kind of meaningless in the grand scheme of things! you are all winners ('winners')! fuck the Pats!</sup>

beholder

pretty excited for these I guess - via several prime internet sources - the pic is of a rabbit eye, kind of freaky, no? I still want to get lasik, these come in vision correcting and non-vision correcting versions -

Movie characters from the Terminator to the Bionic Woman use bionic eyes to zoom in on far-off scenes, have useful facts pop into their field of view, or create virtual crosshairs. Off the screen, virtual displays have been proposed for more practical purposes – visual aids to help vision-impaired people, holographic driving control panels and even as a way to surf the Web on the go.

The device to make this happen may be familiar. Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights...

two things (unrelated)

1 - transcendently weird title on this otherwise very satisfactory John Judis piece on why Obama losing NH wasn't due to New Hampshireans and like by extension all of White America being the secret racists you always feared, relax

2 - this oldish Pat Jordan profile of poker great Daniel Negreanu is great, the stuff with his mom is esp cute actually really moving, via Bronx Banter

time

oh man, via wayne, please watch and worship with me this vintage live vid of a Miles Davis rendition of "Time After Time" from the mid-80s, which sr. wax had previously posted an mp3 of on his blog (I think it's the same version anyway...?) some months/years (who knows anymore??) ago. I loved it then but the vid adds some extremely heavy layers!

so much to say here... I liked the 'original' song OK before but this is really some other level of emotional reality than that cyndi lauper bullshit (sorry I love cyndi lauper obv). obv wardrobe = fucking amazing, miles's blood red trumpet (!) and intensely sequined black smoking jacket (!!) with the Japanese characters and a fucking dragon on the back (!!!), powerful sunglasses, Miles himself looking hunched over, balding, sweaty and busted as shit, his tone corroded but still fucking expressive as shit, every judiciously chosen note really fucking sings, and it's just devastatingly... yearningly... achingly... bitter? am I imagining this? or otherwise being overly influenced by the unbelievably intense vibes of the man and the outfit and the staging and the lighting and the vintage 80s filmstock? does it even make sense to talk about being 'overly' influenced by a vibe? plz check out the quietly heartwrenching bit about 6:20 in or so when he starts walking off to the side of the stage, away from the band, slowly gliding between the chairs and video cameras and the spotlights etc, so fucking alone in this thing... seriously, some of these close-up shots of him all by himself up there, glittering faintly in the night just like the dying star he basically was, are just so fucking epic, watching this makes me feel like I am learning some great secret about life and living and dying and eternity etc -

on a more comical note, check out the amazing guitar face during the solo at 5:30, it seriously helps me 'get' the solo to see how he is so fucking into it that he can hardly bear to touch these notes etc! do like serious jazz/miles davis fans find this period like depressing or bad or whatever? I don't know anything about this stuff but am really fillin it

resurfaced

luckily for us, alexis, easily one of the most astute users of the internet I know, has resurrected teen jeoparty, now blogcasting from maggie's philly-phasion site and featuring a new pro-looking layout -

- in addition to reminding me as always that there is this awesome thing called dancing that I never do enough of, the site has already clued me into the amazing slice of web reality that is Jorge Garcia's blog. I don't think the LOST power hour is gonna get done in time for season 3 folks, which I feel is kind of incredibly tragic, but I definitely gotta at least make time to rewatch some eps in the weeks ahead -

3 recent improvements and 3 goals for further improvements to be achieved in the next week

recent:

1 - 1.25 yrs later, got my replacement passport in the mail today, thx fam

2 - here at the lodge-house we get our cable TV 'informally' and don't really get all the channels - as I like to say, we get just enough so that there's usually something on you can watch if you're just in the mood to watch TV, but not so many channels that there's always something on that you want to watch, if that makes sense. the fun part is that the channels we get change every once in awhile - I wish I'd been keeping track of it, but I feel like maybe once a year we get a few new ones and lose some old ones. well, we just got sci-fi, bravo, comedy central, and fox news, bitches. haven't checked for YES yet but I'm crossin my fingaz. not sure if there were any casualties, we'll see

3 - added Google shared items feed to the right side of this blog page, inspired, as I am in so many ways, by Nate. this will be a place where I put special links that I am not nec gonna blog but are very special in their own unbloggable way

to be achieved this week:

1 - fix bike

2 - NEW CHAIR, my back is killing me owowowowo

3 - shave

change

"Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal." - Schopenhauer

(via the Gmail 'web clips' robots that constantly, unobtrusively bring me nuggets of wisdom/news/etc that so often kill me with their appropriateness, it's mind-blowing and kind of intensely futuristic and just really fucking real to see what bubbles up from the unholy, 3.5 GB monstrosity that is my inbox)

two things

1 - this week, India's Tata Motors finally unveiled the Nano, its longishly-promised $2,500 car, to be available in India starting later this year. great news for freedom and economic development, but also news that ought to, ahhh, 'focus' the minds of those thinking about energy prices and greenhouse gas emissions etc. as noted by Tom Barnett in his most recent editorial, unprecedented and undoubtedly long-term growth trends in China and India are already the primary driver for today's high oil prices - just as they are for high prices in most commodities - and this kind of news is a clear signal that this dynamic will only intensify. as the houston chronicle puts it, "$2,500 cars = $200 oil?" sounds plausible to me.

2 - today, a previously 'stealth' next-generation ethanol start-up called Coskata made their big splash, timed to coincide with the beginning of the Detroit Auto Show. if biofuels are going to be a big part of addressing the trends in item #1, it's not going to be from corn alcohol in Iowa, it'll be from next generation technologies that can produce fuel from grasses, trees, biomass waste streams (forestry, paper mills, ag, 'municipal'), etc. and it wouldn't be surprising if the technological breakthroughs look something like Coskata's process, which hybridizes established gasification technologies and an apparently major biotech breakthrough in the form of proprietary microbes that eat the syngas and excrete ethanol. something old, something new, something borrowed, etc. they're claiming production costs of under $1 per gallon, and could not have more high profile backing - they've announced a partnership with GM and equity investors that include GM and some of the biggest names in cleantech VC (Khosla et al). I think this is gonna be big news in the papers tomorrow, it seems like kind of a big deal - they're planning on building a 100m gallon per year facility by 2011.

hahas

hey I'm not a big fan of like 'comedy' videos etc but what is not to love about this tribute to neil strauss's 'the game', one of my favorite books (true story! not that I ever learned anything from reading it obv) which I understand is now a reality show or something that I'd be v interested in seeing some day, featuring the talents of paul rudd, one of the greatest comic actors alive (rip chris farley) and david wain, who is much less annoying than michael showalter! fellow traveler dav informs me that the line about how yr hair smells like the carpet in the hallway of an apartment building where old russian people live, "that is an actual thing"



- morningside heightsers will also experience the thrill (?) of recognition at the scene at pertutti's at the beginning! I think I found this by following a lightning bolt myspace bulletin board post linking to the trailer for 'pineapple express', which definitely looks possibly awesome - I highly recommend befriending the bolt they post great bulletins

title pk

hey wow the aforementioned Peter Koech (as w Nico and your author a product of the CC'03!) made Drrrrudge with this vaguely snarky post by some little conservative blog people, who will clearly never be so young and smart and multiply talented. congrats! was any of this a secret? anyway I got the votepoke e-mail and filled out my voter thing as I threatened to earlier, it's stopped raining so imma drop it off at the big post office after work i.e. pronto, it's a great day for democracy

nico

nico = wayne's baby lady's name, also nico = the fab nico muhly, composer, philip glass/bjork accomplice, etc extraordinaire, whose choral Agnus Dei I linked to awhile back and don't have time to find any info on but despite this is a perfectly spacious, emotionally complex, spiritually stirring accompaniment to the inspiringly heavy rains and thunder/lightning here in the NYC - conveniently uploaded to zshare for obsessive repeated listening -

unidentified choir singing a piece by nico muhly - agnus dei

primary

question of the day, am I going to register for the Democratic party so that I can vote in the surreally actually-significant NY primary? I don't know, it could happen! I mean I should probably take advantage of the historic opp etc but it's kind of a busy work day and I don't really want to be on weird party mailing lists or whatever happens, I'm a fucking Independent! but also a strategic one. thanks to Moveon mover/shaker Peter K, 801a, and Caitlin for the three separate reminders and helpful web links in the past 24 hr, I couldn't have even thought about doing this without you!

UPDATE: it is really fucking raining rite now!!! it's a complex calculation

super soakler

fyi, Lonnie Johnson, the inventor of the super soaker, is also a nuclear fucking engineer who used to work at NASA's jet propulsion lab before his revolutionary water gun made him a multimillionaire independent inventor, and now he's developed a totally innovative way to generate power from heat, including from sunlight - it's not a stirling engine, it's not photovoltaics, it's just totally clever and seemingly technically plausible (or so an engineer coworker tells me) and could cut solar power costs in half!

all b/c we all bought a bazillion supersoakers growing up in the 80s/90s! this is a picture from the article, I'm really hoping that that's Lonnie in red and that the photographer came over kind of unexpectedly, and Lonnie just happened to be out back tending to the massive supersoaker arsenal he keeps fully loaded at all times 'just in case,' like "hey, uh, do you just want to take a picture of me right here, with the guns?" "uh, yes, yes I definitely do Mr. Johnson"

c08lv08x

the unseasonably warm, awesomely windy, intriguingly off-and-on cloudy day is perfect for the unidentified Moroccan mixtape jams Carlos posted a minute ago - T-Pain isn't the only one with an intense and relentless obsession with autotuned vocals, and with all due respect to the Pain I can actually listen to this shit all day, the first track ("Track 3") esp, as I'm proving rightnow

forever banner

david banner real talk to tom breihan:

One of the things I truly want to be is immortal. Without me, it wouldn't be no you. Without you, it wouldn't be no me. My story is told through you.

outdoor lodge

remembering why I love working from home, I've recently opened up the outdoor branch of the lodge office for the first time in the 08, wtf this is great. my little friend emilio the cat is sitting behind bars watching birds (mostly) and me (occasz) from inside the lodge, which is maybe a little sad but maybe he's made his peace with it. I hope so b/c he is so cute

and, remembering why everything has really seemed to be 'clicking' for me and in the world in general over the past week or so, there's a brand new episode of Mr. C's Bossa Nova Carnival up on WFMU, which is just just the most perfect vibe right now for all kinds of reasons, and a really awesome coincidence with the awesome spring weather since dude has been doing like one episode every 1.25 years for the past 4 years. the singer on the second track sounds like michael mcdonald in his throaty chewbaccaness, no? by now we know, the wave is on its way to be

wild ones

so for mysterious reasons I'm suddenly in the process of revisiting Suede, a high school obsession that I'm hoping to turn up some redeeming qualities for. I am pleased to report that I am having more success than in previous attempts! back in the day I remember not really getting why this song - kind of a lone moment of sunniness in the midst of their epic, catastrophic, extremely vibe-able second album "Dog Man Star," much like these beautiful days of springlike weather here in early January NYC are inevitably a prelude to some truly wintry harshness in the weeks ahead - got so much love on the Suede-centric internet (or AOL or whatever), I somehow thought the lyrics were too cheesy and that the hook wasn't quite big (now I'd say 'raunchy') enough

turns out, I just wasn't ready to look past/accept the lyrics, which aren't even that bad considering how bad they'd get on subsequent albums, and recognize the beautiful, yearning vocal performance, the subtly transcendent, gently anthemic qualities of the chorus, and the fucking production, which to me is so distinct and uniquely shaded and I can't figure out why, is it just a lot of reverb or what? gonna talk more about this album later, at night, as is more app, but I'm really fascinated by the mystery of what makes this sound so 'right' to me... for now, come with me on a sentimental yet awesomely mysterious and unfamiliar yet totally windswept walk over the sunny moor, ignore the cheesiness of the strings in the outro, which I used to like but now grate, etc

suede - the wild ones

o-mentum 2

man it's one thing to know in your head that 'whoever wins Iowa gets a big media boost' but seriously how fucking psyched in your heart for Obama are you after reading this Newsweek cover story? it really works! notice how his vaunted multiracial multicultural etc background and 'charisma' etc is barely touched on - the whole article is basically focused on telling you 1) how good of a leader and executive he is, with bold strategies executed competently with a keen eye towards fundamentals and 2) how his principles are good and genuinely held. in avoiding dwelling on the striking but by now stale 'this guy just IS change! he just IS!' intro and in seeming to address the two basic concerns most people kind of have about whether he'd be a good president (e.g. is he competent, and does he have personal integrity), this is pretty much everything the campaign could ask for in terms of being super positive and in advancing the media narrative right on schedule

they even manage to give him some humanizing but basically flattering flaws - sometimes he's just too presidential! - which in every case are made up for by how fucking awesome his wife is! and it seems like it's all working! like 'true love', you really can't buy press like this, it has to be given freely, and from the heart

half heart

still feeling a very special vibe here, iTunes says I've listened to this for a total of almost 10 hours this week -

david lynch and angelo badalamenti - half heart

'remind me' to write something sometime about my almost inescapably positive feelings re saxophone solos, recently enhanced in an unfamiliar and dramatic way by Lost Highway, but seriously is this soprano sax solo not a little slice of fucking heaven -

your wonkish arms are too short to box with that god

as promised! earlier - please please take some time to read this essay by Swarthmore history prof Timothy Burke, "Competency as a Cultural Value," a dryly, almost coyly academic title for easily the most fucking essential thing I've read about politics and policy and the way in which we experience 'the political' and history and our life in as long as I can remember. via wayne! go read it now, I'm being really serious here

what are you waiting for? the post is specifically addressed to cosmopolitan liberal elite types, which I'm guessing includes 'literally' anybody that reads this blog except for maybe Gary Jones if he's still reading - but he's probably read the Burke piece already anyway - and my parents or at least my dad - but it is seriously mandatory for him too, and for anyone who spends any time thinking about or at least (especially?) making wasted dinner party small-talk about US politics this year or otherwise. like so many of Burke's posts, it uncannily seems to express only dimly understood, shadowy ideas I had about the way the world works in clear, incredibly articulate, and powerfully 'truthy' language, like seeing a high res photo of a moment you'd previously only hazily remembered - it's all there, it's just like I remembered, it's just perfect

2009

fuck, I just realized that I *still* don't have any pictures of myself ever wearing those fun 200_ new year's glasses with the 00s for the eyes, and 2008 was my next-to-last chance! the proportion of 'bitter regret' in that lingering complex post-new year emotional mix has just increased by at least 20%. friends, PLEASE help me to not repeat this tragic oversight for the third year in a row next year!

in fact, in order to help me help myself, I have just created a future-dated post as a reminder. which reminds me, I should probably start learning to use my Google calendar.

the green lodge

it's saturday night in my room, and I'm surrounded by 6 cans of Coke arranged around my desk and floor, I am trying to figure out which one is the 'current' one and which are half-kills that have potentially been sitting around for as long as two days. I put my ear to each can, listening for the carbonation level, I'm pretty sure it's this one, but it doesn't sound quite fizzy enough. is Coke less fizzy than Pepsi - my usual cola of choice until recently, for some reason - i.e. are my fizziness expectations just too high? did I put it someplace weird that I haven't noticed yet? how horrible would it be if I accidentally drank an old one! should I just drink a beer instead? within arms length of my computer on my desk and on the floor there are

- 5 empty vitamin water bottles (3 formula 50, 1 b relaxed, and 1 rescue)
- 2 empty beers (Budweiser and Kronenberg)
- 1 unopened beer (Kronenberg)
- 2 mostly empty glasses of water
- 1 almost completely full glass of water mixed with one of those vitamin C powders that was acai berry flavored and disgusting
- 1 half drunk bottle of Very Old Barton bourbon, a birthday present from Alexis, who is officially in blog limbo thanks to the new blog-city redesign - will she bother to make a new site at teenjeoparty? will she blog on a new site? will she ever bother blogging again?
- 1 mostly drunk bottle of Chilean wine, appropriately enough
- 1 half-drunk coffee

because I am just lazy, and NOT a disgusting person lacking in personal hygiene, there is no old food anywhere in my room, thank you very much, although there IS 'current' food, a recently-delivered general tso's chicken that I am eating with a knife because there are no clean forks and mr. wonton never provides plastic forks (should I feel bad about hating this environmentally conscious measure? isn't not having to do dishes one of the joys of ordering out? would I order out less if I had a dishwasher?), and I was hungry and didn't want to commit to doing dishes because there are a bunch right now.

I am slightly confused about the placement of my current beverage b/c I just came back to my room after a failed attempt to watch some of the Democratic debate on TV. I heard it started at 8:30 so I checked it out then but there was just a lot of NFL pregame-esque bullshit, I felt bad enough for wanting to watch it in the first place but staring into this fathomless abyss of punditry and politics-as-shitty-entertainment (literally like 'here is what political consultants are saying about the storylines that the campaigns are likely going to be pushing to spin the news tomorrow') really just made me feel terrible, so I came back to my room, which has an exposed green light bulb and green-painted walls, where I work and eat and record music and occasionally sleep, where I have lived for four and a half years, which is longer than I have blogged, and I ended up writing this blog.

actually there was kind of a cool moment in the pre-debate coverage where Democrats were shaking hands and exchanging whatever (undoubtedly psychotic) pleasantries politicians exchange in these kinds of situations with the Republican candidates as the former took the stage directly after the conclusion of the latter's debate (giving the false impression that it was just gonna start right there with maybe a quick bathroom break for the moderator and not like a half hour break for pundits to talk about questions posted on fucking Facebook). the liberal elite just stays up later, it is what it is! anyway it was kind of like when the cast of one TV show meets the cast of another TV show on one of their respective TV shows, like Flinstones meet the Jetsons, which I thought was funny.

I was right, it IS this can.

I'm going to read the NYT liveblog of the debate to see if it will be worth leaving the room to watch a little bit of it, just to sample the flavor. then I'm going to work on some music, possibly with Aron, who has been doing something I barely understand to a set of bike handlebars and also knows how to spend a quasi-productive Saturday night at home alone, even though he has a girlfriend, which is a powerful and frequent testament to his quintessentially masculine dedication to solitary, obsessive pursuits. he's been working on the handlebar thing for hours, and it involves a saw somehow. later I hope to watch "Lost Highway" which I was inspired to rent by Timmers G on New Year's Eve, it's his favorite Lynch, and Dav also recommended it the other day. I'm interested to see my reaction to it after spending a couple of days in the past week researching just how fucking psychologically damaged Lynch prob is due to his terrifyingly deep involvement with Tr*nscendental Medit*tion. also on his audiobook thing he mentions how he thinks the movie was heavily influenced by his obsession with the OJ trial, which was going on while he was writing it or making it or whatever, because he was seeing OJ playing golf and shit and wondering how he could be so chill (with the implication of course that he really did kill her), and ended up researching fugue states, where something awful happens and then you just kind of split off a new personality and life. the video's already 2 days late, and after racking up a really embarrassing late fee on the last disc of Twin Peaks I am keen to not draw too much more attention to my weird renting habits, but I might be too late and the only thing I really want to watch after this is "Fire Walk With Me" (again)

lil wayne

thanks to the magical secret blogosphere of Google Reader's 'shared items' feature (Nate, Chris, Sean, Vern, and Wayne, I'm right there reading with you), I just read what I'm pretty sure is the best and truest essay on politics in all of human history, via Wayne's reader and written by Timothy Burke, that is going to be absolutely mandatory reading for everybody - but right now I can't get a web link to work? more on that later. UPDATE: it's here

more importantly, did you know that Wayne, with significant collaboration from his wife Becca, is going to be a daddy vvvv soon? and that in his compulsive musicological nerdery he's already analyzed, sampled, and remixed little Nico's currently enwombed heartbeat? yeah Wayne is awesome and parenthood is really fucking adorable, and considering her impressively brainy lineage and the awesome and well-rounded playlist he's working on for the little lady I'd say the odds are close to even that she'll be using fruity loops before she learns to walk. congratssss!

killer weekend

owowow this free download of Killer Mike's label quarantined 2005 album "Ghetto Extraordinary" comes hardddd - "I be sittin the bushes of your home / pissin in a coke can / waiting / for you to come home" right off the bat, intense! more later but seriously download this at least half the tracks are great (via PTW)

O-mentum

so is this really happening or what?

KIDZ IN THE HALL - WORK TO DO

se telefonando

Nate's aforementioned masterful, achronological and idiosyncratic Best of 2007 is inspiring in its words and general attitude as well as its sounds, and I was hoping to do a quick rundown of all the things I really obsessed over musically and otherwise this year, regardless of when it was released etc -

not sure if that's ever really going to happen, but really the only really really really important one I really wanted to bring up again is Mina Mazzini's "Se Telefonando," which I was introduced to by the SIPAtastic Kyla W earlier this year and am periodically (indeed, just days ago) reminded of in all of its utterly mind-blowing perfection when I hear it being played upstairs by fellow 502 head Caitlin KM. I have probably watched it on Youtube well over 100 times this year, and my obsession with this towering achievement of human artistry has scarcely waned. the song, which I've just learned (or maybe learned before and forgot?) was written by Ennio Morricone, is pure, bittersweet, triumphant/sad, emotionally sophisticated yet melodramatic bliss, and written in a devastatingly focused verse chorus chorus chorus chorus (keychange) chorus chorus chorus (keychange) chorus chorus chorus etc form that makes your average verse-chorus-verse torch song look like so much splashing around in the shallow end of the pool

and the performance, holy fucking what the fuck is this ever the rosetta fucking stone and the fucking sphinx of human emotionality rolled into one monument of the unbounded artistic sublime or fucking what?? the constant, subtle morphing of her vibe, from coolness to anticipation to pride to regret to melancholy to ecstasy to determined to knowing to demure to flirty to defiant to pleading to wistful to bitter to coy to these totally ambiguous mona lisa-type expressions and back, she is seriously giving you the entire fucking story of life and love and triumph and tragedy while reveling in that glorious, don't stop now don't ever stop no seriously just change the key and keep it going chorus. enigmatic, heartbreaking, and unspeakably beautiful, this clip and all that Julee Cruise stuff (which I'll also prob revisit soon) really tapped some new and richly ambiguous emotional veins for me this year - ok, just watch it -

new flows

you know, I had a birthday recently and got asked a few times the requisite 'do you feel any different/have you changed' etc type questions, and I was like, "what do you mean, like, have I changed the way I use the internet? yes! it's really exciting. but have I changed 'inside', emotionally or otherwise? not for like at least 10 years or so. obv!" kind of a flip answer but really, enhancing those internet flows is just as important, and more importantly way more achievable, than trying to deal with our obscure, hopelessly stunted inner worlds, gnah mean?

so, in the spirit of a new year and new beginnings and all that, I've recently made a couple of significant changes to my work as well as my music flows, the results of will undoubtedly be reflected in the content of this blog in more as well as less obvious ways:

1- as I mentioned recently on the old blog, I've been mainlining energy-related news for work from a carefully managed Google Reader account, and filing away anything worthwhile on my rapidly growing del.icio.us page. instead of trying to read and remember things, which is impossible already and only gets more impossible the more you read, I just skim, tag, and let the knowledge accumulate until I need it, at which point I can easily call up the crumb trail of links I've been scattering.

as you've noticed if you're reading this on the actual page and not hiding like a coward behind yr RSS reader, I've taken the opportunity presented by my blog-move to add some new 'functionality' to this page, namely a continually updated list of my latest del.icio.us links as well as a tag cloud which you can use to explore my growing information nugget from various entry points. these will undoubtedly be tweaked a bit in the days/weeks to come but I encourage you to avail yourself of these resources if you're interested - as kind of my virtual filing cabinet for work stuff, I'll be keeping it at least as up-to-date as the blog and continually working to enhance its usability etc. comments welcome.

2 - after resisting for awhile, I 'finally' got around to getting an ipod, snagging one of those little new super small clip-on 1 GB nano-shuffle-jawns. we'll see how often I actually use it considering how rarely I leave the house these days, but I'm optimistic that it could offer a kind of solution to the repetitive/obsessive/limiting listening habits I've fallen into over the past year or so of not having a car. one of the best things about driving a car is getting a nice, relatively distraction-free (well, hah etc) environment to listen to music out in the world etc. I feel like 90% of the time I spend listening to music is in front of my computer, and at least 70% or so of that time involves me being more actively focused on work or other internet stuff. definitely not good for my ears or taste in the long run

so, am now working off of a system where I've cut my 'recently played' list to cover just the past week or so and every week I shovel a random selection of these into my iPod with the handy autofill feature, and then shuffle through subway and train rides etc, walking occasz. I kind of like not having any display to tell me what I'm listening to, makes it easy to listen w/o prejudice even if I can usually kind of figure it out, definitely one of those bugs that is totally a feature. for instance, the past few days I've been traveling with a great mix of Nate's Best of 2007 (lots of dreamy, vibe-suffused global prog-folk etc), the Twin Peaks Season 2 soundtrack (yess!), the recent Beanie Siegel and Joell Ortiz albums (rappp!), Black Dice's Load Blown (maybe not as genius as I hoped?), the Durty Goodz Axiom EP, David Lynch's audiobook (creepy, more on this for sure later), and, uhh, Urge Overkill's forgotten masterpiece Exit the Dragon (definitely more on this later too).

much like when I had the car and I just had CD mixes of whatever I'd downloaded from the interweb that week, it's pleasing to see how many connections there end up being between music that doesn't have any particular relation to each other other than the fact that I sought them out and/or stumbled across them at this particular time, in this particular state of mind - connections that would probably be harder to see if I was skipping around tracks based on who they were by, what I thought I wanted to hear, my generally highly orthodox feelings about what kind of music vibes are appropriate pairings with a given environmental vibe, etc

first

thanks for coming by. it's a typically emotionally complex New Year's Day and I've been listening to this on repeat for the past 4 hours or so -

david lynch and angelo badalamenti - half heart