BoingBoing once again has a link to amazing cool awesomeness, this time a promo video for a documentary about a photographer chasing the aurora borealis. I so want to plan a trip to Iceland!
The attic smelled old, heavy with dust and the floor creaked. It was summer (I think) and I was probably eleven or twelve. The light was golden brown and thick as I rummaged through boxes. Probably my cousin Chris was with me, but I not sure and I might have been alone. Then I found it. A box. A box of treasure. A box full of Hardy Boy books. These weren’t the garish blue and illustrated covers from the seventies, these were old: beige thick hardcovers that had no pictures on them but that smelled exciting. I’m sure I had to ask permission to take them, but I don’t remember that either. I know that they had been my Uncle Jim’s and I probably read all of them by the end of the summer. That moment of discovery, breathing in the rich scent of old books that had been packed up, forgotten and were now set free once again . . . I remember that moment in the way you always remember such moments: thickly and with a churning of excitement in my stomach. I don’t know if I loved the smell of old books before that moment, but the discovery of my Uncle’s books nearly thirty years ago in the attic of the Williams Family Country Store (my family’s store) haunts each time I smell old books.1
Have you ever held a book close to your face and inhaled deep, taking in all those words and history and time? For me, the smell of time is an old book.
I recently found My mother recently sent me a copy of a brochure for the Williams Family Store and it reminded me of just how central that building was to my life, despite the long distance nature of that relationship after my parents moved us away from York when I was seven. The brochure is from a later period of time, probably close to the time my grandparents decided to sell the store when I was in my twenties. My reaction to the news that they were selling the store was one of sudden, punch-in-the-gut loss. Sadness and anger came later, but initially I felt only loss. The odd thing is that I don’t have many actual memories of the store or the building from when I was young. I remember, when my cousin had an apartment in the building and I stayed with him and there were pretty girls and we stayed up too late smoking and drinking and we watched movies and I fell in love that night—in the way only young twenty-somethings can fall in love—with a girl I’d never see again and who turned me on to Kahlil Gibran. But when I think back to my younger years, my childhood, I find only fragments and even those tend to be obscured, like I’m looking at them through thick, warped glass:
floorboards creaking / my grandfather behind the counter / hiding in the racks of clothes /
Mostly I remember a feeling of safety and rightness. There was an utter appropriateness to the store and the building, to visiting my great-grandmother in her apartment above the store, to knowing that the town knew our family through this portal. I felt pride and ownership. Though my grandparents owned the store, it was the Williams Family Store, so that meant it was partly mine. Or I was partly its. Warmth and safety and love wrapped into the shape of a general store and apartments and hallways that always smelled of another time, connecting me to a past I was too busy being a child to appreciate and too wrapped up in my Hardy Boy adventures to really get to know.
I miss the store, those hallways, that attic. I miss the boy whose summer could shine golden from the simple act of finding a box of books.
We are supposed to live in a country where the rule of law applies to everyone, even our political leaders and our government. When even the “good guys” are abusing power and creating a system of governance which places itself above the law and leaves the American people with no recourse before the law, we are, as the man said, in deep shit.
Anthony Romero:
“Eric Holder’s Justice Department stood up in court today and said that
it would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the
reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human
rights violations committed by the American government. This is not
change. This is definitely more of the same. Candidate Obama ran on a
platform that would reform the abuse of state secrets, but President
Obama’s Justice Department has disappointingly reneged on that
important civil liberties issue. (Link)
Glenn Greenwald has more on his blog about why this is such a disturbing move on the part of the Obama DOJ. (Link)
Ignoring the rule of law does not make America safe. Hiding crimes behind a blanket of secrecy does not make America safe. Using fear and terror to hijack our ability to hold the government accountable for its crimes does not make America safe.
When is a job not a job? When the head of the Republican Party says it’s not:
STEELE: You’ve got to look at what’s going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s a job.
STEELE: No, it’s not a job. A job is something that — that a business owner creates. It’s going to be long term. What he’s creating…
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn’t count if it’s a government job?
But there are people we meet in life that miss being important to us by inches, days, or heartbeats. Another place or time or emotional frame of mind and we would willingly fall into their arms; gladly take up their challenge or invitation. But as it is, we encounter them when we are discontent or content and they are not. Whatever serious chemistry might have been possible if, isn’t. [Jonathan Carrol, Glass Soup]
I’m serious, they must hate America because they are trying to do everything in their power to destroy America’s economy, Constitution, rule of law, and infrastructure in order to further their own political agenda. I am not talking about the ordinary Americans who vote Republican or who support conservative ideology, I’m talking about the Republican Party’s leadership and the Republican politicians.1
To that point, there’s no debating the Republican record on the economy. Their allegiance to Reaganomics and free market deregulation have led us to the brink of, well, dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria.
Nevertheless, there they are on cable news and the Sunday shows acting as if they know something. At the same time, they’ve proved themselves to be dishonest, bad-fath actors in this thing. They’ve spread lies about fake CBO reports, while also ignoring an actual CBO report on the Senate bill indicating that it would, in fact, succeed in stimulating economic growth. They’ve spread lies about nonexistent ACORN line items in the bill — line items that only exist inside of Michelle Malkin’s twisted dome. I mean, they met with Joe the Plumber on the Hill this week to discuss the economy. Joe the Plumber. About the economy. Because they’re very serious people who ought to be taken very seriously.
So join with me in support of Bob Cesca’s Operation Zero Cred and go read his entire article and suggestions.
Joe the freakin’ Plumber discussing the economy. I mean, get real people, this is a party that is morally, ethically, intellectually, and economically bankrupt. Ok, actually most of the leaders of the party aren’t economically bankrupt, they are actually quite well of, they are just happy to make the rest of us bankrupt because they don’t give a tinker’s damn about the the working or middle class as long as we continue to buy stuff and max out credit cards and sink further in debt since they happen to profit off of that debt.
Name me one, just one example of the Republican party putting country first in any way other than empty rhetoric. And by “country first” I don’t mean the wealthiest 1%, or the Defense contractors, or fucking CEO’s begging for Federal money in one breath and then mewling and whining about “socialism” with the next.
Next time an asshole complains about “liberals” interfering and being all socialist, direct them to this here interesting tid-bit about history:
On August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon announced a freeze on all wages and prices in the United States. That’s all wages, not just wages of those who made a deal to take government money, or government employees, or government contractors. Everybody. About the only serious protest of Nixon’s controls came from union workers who felt that the freeze only cemented an already unfair gap between the wages of labor and management — a gap about 50 times smaller than it is today. [From Devilstower: The President and Private Pay]
Of course, history means facts and facts have no place in today’s Republican party. Witness former Bush’s former Chief of Staff bleating about dress codes in the Oval Office and then go to Huffington Post’s slideshow of former presidents—including the holiest of holies Ronald Reagan—working in the Oval Office without their suit jackets on and omg the world didn’t fucking end!!!!!!
Go ahead, give me evidence that the Republican Party leadership and their various mouthpieces care about the well-being of Americans more than they care about accruing political power. Any evidence.
I didn’t think so.
I am so with John Cole on this:
I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years. [John Cole: You'll Never Get This 21 Minutes Of Your Life Back]
Zero Cred, folks. On science, education, the economy, history, complex thought, the nation’s security, the Constitution, truth . . . pretty much the Republican Party has zero credibility on anything except lying, breaking the law, wallowing in racism, and destroying America through greed and short-sightedness and the unquenchable thirst for power.
Hey GOP, if you truly were half as patriotic as you pretend to be, you’d stop all this bullshit and get to work restoring the rule of law and sensible government oversight and work on helping the poor, working, and middle class live better lives, and divert some of the money you want for your defense contracts and wealthy friends to helping out a failing infrastructure and crippled education system.
Oops, I mistook you for sane and rational human beings for a moment. Sorry, it won’t happen again.
Go ahead, prove me wrong.
I’m ignoring, for a moment, the hate-spewing, lying sons-of-bitches like Rush and O’Reilly and Malkin and Beck and Hannity. [↩]
Look, shit like this1 happens on sets and in rehearsals and with artists. I think the glee with which this particular meme has spread through the intertubes is because we love to see our celebrities dragged down a notch or two and what better way to do that than having evidence that said celebrity is an asshole.
I’m not saying the Bale was right or wrong here, but you know what, the man is not paid to be a nice guy, he’s paid to be a professional actor. That’s why we go to his movies. We can take a moment and feel somehow superior to him and titter on about how he was mean to someone, but really, every single one of us has been just as much of a jerk at some time in our lives.
Bale may have been the asshole here, or maybe it was the DP or maybe it was a combination of both men making mistakes in the high pressure situation of making a multi-million dollar movie. I’m sure there have been far worse situations, arguments, tirades and tantrums on thousands of sets over the years. This one is only a big deal because people are making it a big deal. My response to the whole brouhaha?
So what. Big deal.
I’m not linking to the file – but if you haven’t heard about Bale’s tantrum on set, I’m sure you can find it yourself. [↩]
I’ve always been struck by the number of offhand lies that are told in an office setting. From telling people on the phone that someone is on the other line or in a meeting when that someone is neither, to forging a the boss’s signature, to faking sick days, business settings seem rife with deception. Of course, those lies are harmless, we tell ourselves. White lies. Nothing to worry about.
How often have you lied to a friend to get out of a social engagement you really didn’t want to attend, or to spare their feelings, or make them feel better about themselves?
(Then there are the lies we tell children . . . but that’s a whole can of worms that I, as someone who doesn’t have children, am going avoid opening.)
The point is, I wonder what the qualitative difference is between these lies–these harmless “white” lies–and the nearly infinite number of corporate lies that undergird our society; or the lies of a politician to his/her constituents. How is telling a white lie to a friend different than lying to a reporter? Sure, the results can be drastically different and when Bush or Obama lies, the scope of that lie plays out on a much vaster field than our daily deceptions. However, is the physiological process of lying different? Do our brains learn how to decieve comfortably (both others and ourselves) with these repeated white lies?
If we don’t value truth in our everyday lives, why expect it from others?
I have a lot of music and I love sharing new and interesting music with people, so I’m going to start a series that will post on the first of every month called “Music You May Have Missed.” Most of the time I’ll showcase one band each month and will provide links and samples as well as give some of my reactions to songs or albums. Hopefully you’ll discover some music that makes you smile, or think, or cry, or simply rock out.
I first came across dEUS when I picked up In a Bar, Under the Sea from a used cd store. This was probably about 10 years ago. I had never heard of them, but liked the cover:
From the first track, the 46 second long “I Don’t Mind Whatever Happens” and the schiziod and hyper, “Fell Off the Floor, Man,” I knew I’d found a band that was on a different wavelength than most:
In a Bar, Under the Sea is probably one of dEUS’ most eclectic albums, and if there is a central theme to the album, it’s a kind of postmodern bricolage of styles and images. Playful and oddly angled, this was an album I liked on an intellectual level, and I appreciated what the band was doing musically, but the album didn’t get under my skin or draw me back again and again. I would occasionally listen to it, enjoy it, and then forget about it for a while.
Then, while living in NYC, I read an article in Time Out and became interested in the band’s more current work. Picking up Pocket Revolution I was soon hooked by the music and lyrics in ways that In a Bar . . . hadn’t quite managed. The tone of the album is captured in the first track, “Bad Timing,” that begins moody, with hypnotic, distant electric guitars and a low, insistent bass line that support the melancholy vocals. As the song progresses, however, everything winds tighter and tighter inward until it explodes in a wash of distortion that surrounds you and brings out the anger that is always implicit within melancholy. While the album has some quiet moments, (namely, “Include Me Out”) the songs that really struck me are rockers like “If You Don’t Get What You Want” and the slow-burn fuse of “Pocket Revolution” that erupts into a desperate gospel-esque chorus backed by a wall of distorted guitars, and the rock-funk of “Nightshopping.”
(The gospel elements aren’t in this video, you’ll have to listen to the album version to hear them.)
At the same time, I also got the earlier album, Worst Case Scenario, which came out in 1994. Less coherent than Pocket Revolution, but not quite as all-over-the-place as In a Bar . . ., it opens with “Suds and Soda,” a song that combines a wall of sound with lyrics and style that remind me of King Missile’s work, with a little early Flaming Lips thrown in as well.
This is then followed by the funky, bass-driven “W.C.S. (First Draft)” that plays jazz sensibilities and a cool, almost spoken delivery against outbreaks of punk noise and energy. Trust me, it works better than you might think. In fact, the album as a whole intertwines a laid-back and cool approach with eruptions of noise and distorted instruments and voices. The lyrics manage to be ironic without being self-involved and if you like your rock on the loud and sometimes chaotic side, this is definitely an album you will enjoy.
Last March, the band released Vantage Point. Quieter than some of their previous album, this is an album that doesn’t grab my attention as insistently as Worst Case Scenario or Pocket Revolution. The band presents a smoother, less experimental sound, with fewer odd angles and jagged edges that I have come to both expect and enjoy. Still, they offer some solid rock songs with “When She Comes Down,” “Is a Robot,” and “Oh Your God.” This last is one of my favorites because you need to have a really good rock song to support lyrics like:
“In the name of something bigger / Your god can only snigger / And the sight of all this rigour / With sex the only trigger / For love… or was it the other way round?”
On the page, these words look inane, but in the song, they carry a power that is surprising and genuine. Overall, however, the album is more introspective than previous ones. “Eternal Woman” is almost a ballad, an invocation of the search for beauty while “Slow” meditates on the nature of time and perception:
Already, as I listen closer to Vantage Point for the purposes of this post, I’m finding levels and depths that were not apparent on my first couple of listens. I’d still recommend Pocket Revolution and Worst Case Scenario to anyone who likes their music on the jarring side of things, but if you don’t like those, give Vantage Point a try. You can listen to all of the albums I’ve talked about on Last.fm (as well as dEUS’ album The Ideal Crash, which I don’t have, but am currently listening to for the first time as I write this sentence).
Ultimately, dEUS provide a unique combination of hard-rocking sensibilities with an eclectic mixture of musical styles in support of lyrics that range from ironic and post-modern, to smart and subtle, and with some poetry thrown into the mix as well. Plus, ya know, they totally rock.
