...and the Leviathan grows.

Just saw this article about New Jersey's new law that would make HIV testing of pregnant mothers apart of routine hospital procedure. A pregnant woman would have to actually choose to not have the test done for the state to exempt her. Which means that she would have to know beforehand that the state automatically performs HIV tests on pregnant women.

Zoos blues

Chris Rock eloquently quipped after Roy of Siegfried and Roy was mauled, "that tiger didn't go crazy, that tiger went tiger."

It seems there was another such attack by a wild animal, which has no business in San Francisco, over Christmas.

Top albums of the year

I just took at look at both Pitchfork's top 50 albums of the year and Paste's 100 top albums. While yes, they are totally subjective and sorta of pretentious, I found many of my favs on both. I think that Pitchfork's list was more on the money, however. Especially since they placed LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver second. Of Montreal's wacky-psycho pop-Bowie bleeding record came in five and Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam sixth. Spoon and Radiohead's In Rainbows also made the top ten on Pitchfork's list.

Sit tight...I might make my own list ;)

Putin named Time magazine's Person of the Year

Vladamir Putin gets tapped for the prestigious award. They always had a penchant for tyrants. Oh yeah, and him too. And we can't forget about him.

Bali UN Climate Conference

Ron Baily, science correspondent at Reason.com, is posting dispatches this week from the Bali UN Climate Conference. He's asking quite provocative questions, such as "Do the Rich Owe the Poor Climate Change Reparations?"

Bullying goes digital

Kids w/ cellphones and social networking skills can be so cruel.

The Mars Volta - 1/17/08 @ the TLA, Philly.

Just found out that The Mars Volta are on tour and coming to Philly. Should be a smokin' show. I've never seen them before, but I heard that they rock live.

I wasn't an enormous fan of At The Drive In, but I've gotten into all three MV records. I love the fusion of prog rock and Latin beats. And I totally dig how Cedric mixes in the Spanish with his lyrics.

Greg Osby @...The East End(?)

My lady and I were lucky enough to see jazz sax great Greg Osby play in the most unusual of places last night. He sat in with my buddy's band at the famed East End cafe in Newark, DE playing to a crowd of maybe 20 folks. Lucky for my friend, he works as a jazz PR guy and Osby is a client. His band reverberates within the domain of old Greatful Dead tunes to country and blue grass to rock. Quite interesting to see Osby find his way in the mix...of course, all improv and groove. What a classy dude. So mellow and laid back. Instead of getting on stage and giving solo after solo, as a big star like him could pull of, he really just tried to find his place within the vibe of the five other musicians on stage. A nice holiday treat!

Oh, I forgot Morrissey!

I was just reviewing some of my blogs and I realized that I forgot to write about seeing Morrissey over the summer. Can't believe I forgot to mention that...I had waited almost 15 years to see him! The concert was everything that I expected that it would be: Morrissey sweated through a slew of dress shirts, changing them on stage and showing the crowd his late 40s naked torso. A bunch of folks attempted to get on stage to hug the star; a few succeeded. He did a lot of Bush bashing and teased the straight girls in the front rows. Like I said, everything that I expected! Interestingly, my friend and I saw a near fist fight breakout. This heavyset couple were standing a couple rows down from us and this other, very drunk, couple were behind them. The drunk guy apparently kept spilling his beer on to the chubby chick down below, who was becoming more pissed by the second. She finally turned around and yelled something at the drunk guy who replied, "loose some weight." She gasped and cried, "I'm pregnant asshole!" At this point her husband felt the pressure and pointed his finger at the guy and then to the walkway below them, indicating that he wanted to fight him down there. Instead, he went to seek out a security guard and the drunk couple slipped away. Priceless.

Anyway, my triumph of the summer was seeing at least half of The Smiths. I caught Johnny Marr with Modest Mouse earlier in the summer.

New Bruce record

I can't believe I forgot to mention the new Bruce record! I think that it's the first album with the E Street band in a long time (like maybe 8 years). It certainly doesn't disappoint. I listened to it repeatedly on my ipod when I first loaded it on there -as I do with most new music that I'm excited about. My favorite track is the first one, "Radio Nowhere." Great rock tune with a lot of energy. Now, if only I could get a ticket to see Bruce next time he is in town! It's sad to say, but I've always been priced out of a ticket. Even the $90 'cheap seats' are too much...especially with gas, parking, and $8 beers. Maybe Santa will bring me one this year?

not much

Sorry for the dearth of blogs of late. I just haven't experienced any musical stimuli recently. Friends went and saw the new Dylan flick yesterday, though. I heard it was really great and I was bummed that I didn't get a chance to see it. Maybe this week if I can escape dissertation and teaching duties for a bit! (unlikely).

Control

I caught the new film "Control" on Friday night. "Control" is a biopic of the late Joy Division front man Ian Curtis who committed suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980, Curtis was only 23 years old. It was an excellent flick to say the least. Directed by famed rock photographer Anton Corbijn who has done videos for Depeche Mode and albums covers for U2. "Control" is Corbijn's first foray into cinema and was shot in his signature black & white style. The film was intense and quite sad, given the nature of the story and how young and afflicted Curtis was. My favorite scenes were those that depicted JD shows in the early years. The ensemble put together to play the band was fantastic. I was looking at pictures and videos of the real group afterwards and was astonished at the similarity. New Order, the famed 80s techno-new wave band which consisted of the rest of JD after Curtis' death, performed the score. First time actor Sam Riley who played Curtis actually did the vocal tracks and did a very respectable job.

The movie is based on a book written by Debbie Curtis, the rock star's widow, and focuses on the turmoil Ian experienced during his short Joy Division years. Debbie and Ian married quite young -18 I think?- and produced a baby in 1979. Quickly after becoming the front man for JD Curtis developed epilepsy which plagued him on stage and off. The movie indicates that Curtis was prescribed an array of medication to curb his fits; yet they may have also altered his brain chemistry in dangerous ways (not to mention the late nights and indulgences associated with living the rock life).

A good friend of mine was nice enough to loan me "Heart and Soul," a four disc box set that came out a couple years ago and which features both JD albums plus a host of alternate tracks and live tunes.

Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, & Giovanni Hidalgo @ Keswick

I'm fortunate enough to have a close friend that works PR for a ton of jazz guys. This affords me the chance to see a lot of music for free. Last night we caught Mickey Hart of Greatful Dead fame at the Keswick theater with the legendary Zakir Hussain, and Giovanni Hidalgo. Unlike some of Mickey's more New Age stuff, this was all drums all night (save for Mickey tweaking some knobs). The show started with Zakir and Mickey playing a root structure from an old growth sequoia and a grape vine root structure that dates from the 1860s, respectively. Both pieces were wired with sound sensors that provided different noises depending on where they were being played. It was mind blowing to say the least! The rest of the night was pocked with one smokin' drum solo after another by these masterful players. Interspersed, of course, with deep rhythms and driving beats. I gotta see this again!

Arcade Fire dream...

Had a dream last night that I met Win from the Arcade Fire. I gushed all over and sort of grossed him out, I think. He was also really, really tall in my dream and wearing his usually mezzo cowboy mezzo pageboy outfit. Forget what I said? Something along the lines of, "I saw you guys tear it up at Randalls Island (this is where his face became distorted in utter disagreement; guess in my dream he thought they sucked?). Do they usually do shows there?" He muttered some sort of response. Then the dog started licking my face.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

I downloaded the new Radiohead last Tuesday night from their website. I'm so geeked about not only the record, which is awesome, but also how Radiohead has essentially told the recording industry to get lost. Of course, only mega bands like Radiohead can decide against advertising and the promotion provided with a record company, and sell their music widespread from their own website.

Pitchfork did a forum in which people revealed how much they chose to pay for "In Rainbows." By my guess, the average ranged from 3-7 pounds. If you must know, I paid one pound, which with the processing fee cost me in the end $2.98 (2.95 + .03).

The record is great. Very mellow and easy to listen to over and over (I haven't really turned it off in a week). In many respects, it sounds like the logical extension of "Kid A" and "Hail to the Thief." In fact, if someone was to tell me that "In Rainbows" was the B sides from those records I would believe them (though I'd be surprised that they are B sides because they're so good).

Funny story. I asked my students in class if anyone else has downloaded the record. They all looked at me like I had three heads. When I later asked my best friend whether the kids still listen to Radiohead he told me, "naw, it's old man music." When I asked my Lebanese friend the same question she said that Radiohead is too sophisticated for American students, whose ears' are strapped to Fergie and Justin Timberlake. Luckily, when I saw my students on Friday a couple perked up and said they had grabbed "In Rainbows." The world, again, makes sense ;)

Arcade Fire, LCD Sound System, Blonde Redhead, Les Savy Fav, ?

Wow. Probably one of the best shows I've ever seen. The show was set on a beautiful and warm Saturday afternoon on Randall's Island, just a skip from Harlem. It's quite rare when this happens, but all of the bands were exciting and excellent. We were there from the very first act until the very end of the Arcade Fire's encore. I was so sore from standing that I had to stretch and sit down for ten minutes before leaving the grounds and walking back to Manhattan. What a joy to see all of those amazing acts in one day! The Arcade Fire, Les Savy Fav and Blonde Redhead have been on my "to see" list for quite some time and boy am I a happy camper! Les Savy Fav was as bizzare and fun as I've heard and Blonde Redhead rocked the fucking house. The Arcade Fire were quite magical, though I wish that I was much closer. There was so much going happening on the stage, and I missed a lot by being back a bit. I love that they all sing the lyrics. LCD Sound System rocked my boots! I never really gave them much of a listen before, but since the show they have been prominent on my ipod play list.

Arcade Fire & Les Savy Fav

I'm feeling quite exuberant about this weekend coming up! The Arcade Fire, Les Savy Fav, LCD Sound System, and The Wire are putting on a little festival type show in NYC this weekend and I'll be checking it out with my partner in crime, who just became a certified stock broker. Hopefully I'll have some pictures and a good review of the show on Monday!

Interpol at the Tower 9/15/07

The lady and I zipped up to Philly last night to catch Interpol at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby. Despite putting out two recent records that I thought were a little lackluster, I've definitely been anxious to see them live. To be honest, I've haven't heard much of the most recent record. But I thought that "Antics" was full of forgettable songs, save for two that are quite amazing. Friends have said the same for their recent album as well.

The show rocked. They played with The Liars, who we missed. We walked into their second song and were treated to a long list of favorites for the night. They have a great stage presence. They look at each other and play next to one another like a band that actually likes one another. As always, they were dressed to the nines in black suits. While I've always dug Interpol's highly rhythmic sound, I was quite impressed with their drummer. On the records he provides a low key, yet powerful presence to the melodies and interesting lead guitar work. Live, he came through with hard hitting, straight ahead technique, but also little fills that I don't recall being on their recordings. Very tasty.

In all, a great live show. Maybe not worth a whoping $35, but I don't feel too cheated. You can definitely tell that Interpol has been playing for almost 10 years. The show was energetic and professional, but not overboard, rehearsed and fake.

Like the old farts that we are, we bounced before the encore...

The National at the TLA - Philly 9/4/07

Caught The National last night at the TLA on South Street (which is now known as the "Fillmore" TLA). The show was a little slow going at the beginning, but picked up after a few songs and ended on a high note. A quick Wikipedia search just informed me that they really didn't do a whole of live playing until their first release in 2001. While six years is a long time to improve, it may just be that they are a studio band. I came across them this summer after hearing their recent release "Boxer" and was quite impressed. In fact, I acquired their record and the Arcade Fire's most recent release at the same time and found myself playing The National much more often (not to denigrate the Arcade Fire, who are living Gods and who I am seeing in NYC next month). In all, pretty good show...wish I had stopped at Jim's on fourth and South and grabbed a cheese steak though.

Can the British Government Have it Both Ways?

The British government is currently pushing the idea that an infusion of state sponsored civic education amongst its young Muslim population will help to prevent acts of domestic terrorism in the future. The government funded program is hoped to transcend traditional Islamic education in the country. By and large religious instruction is taught in Mosques by conservative Imams hailing from the generally alienated Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities that are walled off from mainstream British society. In fact, many do not even speak English, let alone have a grasp of the issues that young British born Muslims face in terms of finding their way in what can be a hostile society. Critics charge that these traditional teachings tend to be literal interpretations of text that lack an interrogation of the deeper meanings associated with them and how they might relate to the experience of young Muslims in Britain. From literal and archaic notions of jihad, for example, it is argued that young Muslims may come to wrongly perceive that violence must be waged upon Western governments and those that support them. Further, and what is at the heart of the matter, these traditional teachings are criticized for saying little about how the Koran can be a guide to navigating the complexities of modern life. The West can be a confusing and alienating place for young people whose identity is being competed for by both Western values and cultural-religious tradition.

In this regard, we should applaud the effort to challenge what seems to be a form of conservative religious education that serves little purpose in helping young Muslims to find a balance between religion and life in Western society. Especially since religion is supposed to play the important role of acting as a touch stone for how to live a moral, valuable, and fulfilling life. Frequently young Muslims ask what the point is of having to remember verses and stories from religious text if there is no connection to how one should handle the challenges of daily living and modern realities. Not being able to find the kind of significant guidance from traditional elder Imams can be a catalyst for further alienation and a misconstrued interpretation of Islam.

Despite what seems to be a fine idea, there is still a sense of illegitimacy of such a program being pushed by the British government. How can they promote a program like this on the one hand and yet continue to fail at the decades old problem of assimilating these mostly South Asian Islamic communities into British society on the other? The failure of assimilation, coupled with a underlying prejudice among Britons, is the source of the alienation and frustration experienced by many young British Muslims. It also seems quite unlikely that the British state can continue as the U.S.’s number one ally in Iraq and the war on terror, which is perceived as the number one threat facing Islam and fuels the calls for jihad, yet seek to curb extremism at home through civic education alone. It seems as though the British government wants to have it both ways.

Eradicating Islamic political violence in Britain requires the government to come to terms with what is a crisis of prejudice and a failure of assimilation amongst its Muslim population. Coming to grips with these social realities and seeking to make change should be the task of the government; though not religious education. That task must be left to progressive and forward looking members of the Islamic community. Their charge is to demonstrate that the Koran can indeed speak to the realities faced by the British Muslim youth in meaningful ways.

Modest Mouse

If you havn't yet, you **must** see Modest Mouse when they come to your neck of the woods. I've listened to the band for a few years now and was able to catch about an hour of their show in Philly on Sunday night. I know I'm going to get squashed for this by their horde of dedicated indy rock fans, but I feel like they have almost a Greatful Dead vibe when playing live, especially since they sport two drummers (who are phenomenal). The icing on the cake, for me at least, is MM's new addition Johnny Marr of The Smiths fame. I remember dancing and just rocking out at the show and every once in a while glancing over to stage right and thinking, "fuck, that's Johnny Marr!" What a great summer of music for me. I saw Morrissey AND Johhny Marr! Probably the closest I'll get to a Smiths reunion ever...

2107: “You People Lived in Filth!” – A sort of book review of Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart’s Cradle to Cradle

One hundred years isn’t a long time. Yet, in the last one hundred years we can account for radical changes in the expectations that we - in the West at least - have concerning the standards of the food we eat and the conditions that we live in. We readily expect that our waste will neatly leave our homes, our malls, our schools, workplaces, and public spots en route to some place where it disappears from sight and smell forever. In fact, we rarely think about whether our waste ends up burnt, buried, or recycled, nor whether the food we dine on is thoroughly inspected and safe. We can think back to 1907 as a period in which there was nothing in the way of food safety standards (though a movement in that direction was initiated as a result of Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, which was published that same year). Nor was there any notion of labor rights, environmental protection, and many of the sanitation procedures that we often take for granted nowadays.

Looking back through history ever further, to the crowded city streets of Paris, London, or Rome in the 17^th and 18^th century, reveals a more distasteful reality of how people lived. The blood of slaughtered animals, along with human excrement and other waste flowed through the sewers of these magnificent cities. “How did people live like this?” we might wonder. We shutter to think about living in such conditions, which allowed for the rapid spread of pestilence and sickness, not to mention unthinkable stench. While this may still be the experience of too many in the developing world, a signal of the progress and greatness of the modernized West has been our ability to escape the condition of living in our own waste.

Yet I’ve wondered recently how those living in 2107 will look upon the collective condition of the world as it stands today? Will they think that we live in filth? Despite the fact that we can split atoms, fly space crafts around the solar system, cure many illnesses, make electricity from the sun’s rays, and communicate with each other in a myriad of digital ways, I wonder if they will ask why we still chose to live in our waste? I think that they will find it extremely perplexing that a society as developed as ours, who has the self awareness and knowledge about the harm that we inflict on ourselves and for posterity - not to mention the multitude of living systems that we are embedded in - refused to develop a different course for humanity.

When I say that we live in filth I mean that we continue to choke on unsafe air from the cars we drive and the outdated and dangerous ways that we engage in mass industrialization. I mean that we continue to produce millions and millions of consumable products made from an array of unsafe chemicals that we know little about and which we simply burn or bury after we use them one or two times. I find it so perplexing that industry continues to spends so much time and energy developing products that will only be used for a small fraction of time by consumers, yet will spend hundreds of years in landfills (I’m thinking especially of the enormous amount of plastic packaging that most products come in, only to be discarded immediately).

We dump many of the items that we have no more use for into ever expanding landfills that are getting closer and closer to the places we live and the sources of water we eventually come to drink. We are, in effect, living in our own waste. We put zero amount of effort into thinking of ways to design the same products that we rely on daily so that they are not harmful for humans or the environments in which we live. Scratch that, we have the technology and the know how for making safer and better products, however we lack leaders (both political & business) with the will, courage, and vision to bring humanity into the next industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution centered on extracting resources from the Earth (with little thought of replacing them) and putting these resources through production processes that have amounted to harming both human and non-human life for many years to come. The next industrial revolution will be about reengineering the production of consumer goods so that the stuff we make is in accordance with our natural environment. It will be about plastics that are biodegradable and the eradication of materials that are not. It will be about more intelligent approaches to designing buildings, which will utilize natural light, wind patterns, and the surrounding ecosphere to produce happier places to work and live, and which no longer rely on burning fossil fuels for cooling, heating, and sanitation. It will be about re-conceptualizing how we design, plan, and imagine the cities that most of humanity has come to chose to live in.

I’m currently drinking a soda out of a plastic bottle made from polymers derived from petroleum. This bottle, which not only is derived from the most contested resource of our time (though clean water is quickly taking its place) will be intact for those living in 2107 to view and touch as an artifact of an era which may be known in the future as one of reckless disregard, ignorance, and waste. Even the popular notion of recycling many of the products that we use only serves to slow down the rate in which we are harming ourselves. Recycling for many products is really a process of downcycling – a term coined by Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart in their book Cradle to Cradle. The process of recycling a product essentially causes it to loose its quality each time it is put through the recycling process (assuming that individuals keep recycling each new plastic reincarnate). Even though I will recycle this bottle, and it will become another plastic product again, it will eventually have to be disregarded after going through a few recycles. Alas, we are really just slowing down the rate by which synthetics eventually reach our waste graveyards or incinerators. In addition, while it is thought to be a socially responsible activity, the process of recycling releases into the atmosphere dangerous toxins emitted by the burning of plastics during the recycling process.

What is radically different about the world from 1907, or 17^th century European cities, is that we fully understand the consequences of continuing down the path we are on. Furthermore, we have the knowledge and creative ideas of how to alter that path. What we lack, sadly, is the will to cause massive social change in how we consume and live. McDonough and Braungart’s text urges product designers, city planners, and architects to approach their designs with the future of humanity in mind. Interestingly, they are not saying that we need to save the planet, for the planet will still be here long after homo sapiens has expired. Their message is that we need to save ourselves from the harm we are inflicting on ourselves. Their cradle-to-cradle philosophy urges designers to make products that can easily be disassembled after their use and put back into the production cycle as something else. In this sense, products should have an immense shelf life, being able to become that same product again or easily transformed into some other consumer product. The idea is to rid ourselves of the current approach to production which is based on a cradle-to-grave approach: extract resources from the Earth to make consumer products which are then discarded (thrown away) into landfills or burnt up in incinerators, expelling unknown synthetic chemicals into the ecosphere which we rely on for life.

It’s time for us to recognize that the approach to mass production and living brought on by the industrial revolution is antiquated. If anything, it’s insulting that humanity has yet to update itself from what seems to be such an archaic paradigm of not only how we make things, but what are relationship ought to be with the multitude of living systems that we are embedded in. All other living species exist in an interdependent cyclical system in which their “wastes equals food” for some other set of beings. It’s high time that we apply this age old and ubiquitous principle to how we manufacture and produce all the things that we need to live as well.

Belgian Dubbel - "Dubbel Pummel"

Wow, long time since I last posted. The reason why is because I didn't think that the News Journal would actually link my blog.

Anyway, here's a pic of the "final product" from my Belgian Dubbel made over Christmas. It's super tasty and really strong. Great buzz ;)