Trick or ...

2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes

Stay low.

I'm off to Greece for 6 days. Yassas.

Diplo: My Studio

Urb Magazine
In:Studio

When we asked Philly homeboy Diplo (of DJ duo Hollertronix fame) to take us on a tour of his studio, we had no idea he'd be so thorough about it. See what it really takes to keep a modern studio crunk.

Bootleg Cable
My bol got the satellite cheap; the tricky part is getting the access cards and keeping them current. They keep getting reset so you can't flip through boxing fights and porno 'cause they catch that with the quickness and zap you. We set it to BET and Animal Planet the most. Homeboy from Comcast drilled the holes and ran it up the four flights like a champ.

Manute Bol 76ers Actual Game Shoe
I copped this at a flea market. I just got it because it was a solo shoe like size 15 and just weird. When I took it home I realized it had the Bol stencil and then checked the colors on some Google image search and it was legit! I am not sure how it ended up in this parking lot in NJ, but I got to look up at it every day and think about Manute and how he went nearly broke holding down Sudan for years.

Jack Daniels
When the Manute show just isn't shining inspiration down on me, I cop a little sip of this because the heat's not on or there isn't a girl over. But sometimes it just gives me a bit of that magical energy to work with. I can work with wiskey sours a little too, but this good and less time consuming (when my vibe's right), straight up.

Weight Bench
This came with the crib and I use it a bit. The weights are lopsided and sometimes concrete falls on my face, but it still feels good to get in. It's like I'm in D Block or something. Actually, I watch so much "MTV Jams!" that I got to get to the bench because I want to get my eagle on with those video girls and I just feel like it's necessary.

Yamaha DD9 Drum Machine
This one is pretty bad. It came with drumsticks, but I use my fingers since it looks real stupid to hit with drumsticks. It's got a function where I can change the hits to numbers and animals. That's my favorite.

Radio Shack Mixers
These are cool because they run on 9-volt batteries and you can hook two up and it's like having a seven-channel mixer. I can really go into my backyard or on a mountain and just tear it up with these babies. I'm working more with them when the terror alert is like yellow since it helps to practice for when there is a real nuclear fallout jump off and no more power but 9-volts and gerbils on wheels.

Berries
These grow in the backyard where my weight bench is and they come like 50 a day. Most people are scared to eat them right away, but I just don't have the motivation to take them to the sink. Plus, washing berries just isn't that hood. In the summer when it's hot, I've been known to pass out in the backyard with some of these in my hand and the birds just hop all over me and it's crazy peaceful. Then I go inside and just make some "tear the club up" shit.

Accordion
This one is great. It took me a long time to get it to work and not just leak air like a granny Hover vacuum, but with a little tape I got the whole range on this one. A mic and some guitar distortion would usually knock it out. This one is super hot.

Boss Dr.Rhythm SP-202.
I do most beats on here and use the SP 1200 as a way to prop up the sampler. That's about all it's good for. Together these are pretty good. But I can take the Dr.Rhythm around outside since it runs on six AA batteries. Great with Radio Shack mixers for when you just gotta pack up on some John Walker type shit, but still want to be in the grind.

Come Wander.

I'm sick and tired of people and their film criticisms sometimes.

Advise for making Vincent Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" a lovely viewing experience:

please do not read anything anyone says about this film (so start with skipping these paragraphs). just watch it. be that blank sheet for once.

this film is to be enjoyed while you think, while you daydream, while you wander, while you make love, while you put on gallo's when record, while you have a whiskey, while you smile, while you shed a tear.

it will hum and buzz around your eyes and ears.
it will take time to tell its story.
it will annoy, it will amaze.
but it's honest and not the least bit exploitative.
forget the buzz, the cumshots and gallo's big underpants.
it is all part of the story trust me.
so be that road.
don't clean your car window.
listen to
soundtrack bliss.
Jeff Alexander - Come Wander With Me
Jackson C. Frank - Milk and Honey
thank you.

how closely linked these two films are...

Belgium and NATO say hi!

Oh my god, this is priceless! Boingboing reports that George W. Bush's website now blocks all non-US traffic. BBC covered the story as well.

So I tried to access the page from Belgium and guess what "You're not authorized to view this page" indeed!! Does he have any idea how many Americans work and live here?? haha. Plus NATO headquarters are in Brussels, which is our capital Mr. Bush: that spells North Atlantic Treaty Organisation!

Proof (text is in dutch):



You just made my day again Dubya if this is really something you intended to do! :)

Free of Free Will

Interview with Galen Strawson, by Tamler Sommers

Tamler: There’s a famous saying of Schopenhaur’s that goes like this: “A man can surely do what he wants to do. But he cannot determine what he wants.” Is this idea at the core of your argument against moral responsibility?

Galen: Yes — and it’s an old thought. It’s in Hobbes somewhere, and it’s in Book Two of Locke’s Essay, and I bet some ancient Greek said it, since they said almost everything. Actually, though, there’s a way in which it’s not quite true. If you want to acquire some want or preference you haven’t got, you can sometimes do so. You can cultivate it. Perhaps you’re lazy and unfit and you want to acquire a love of exercise. Well, you can force yourself to do it every day and hope you come to like it. And you just might; you might even get addicted. Maybe you can do the same if you dislike olives.

Tamler: But then where did that desire come from—the desire to acquire the love of exercise…or olives?

Galen: Right — now the deeper point cuts in. For suppose you do want to acquire a want you haven’t got. The question is, where did the first want — the want for a want — come from? It seems it was just there, just a given, not something you chose or engineered — it was just there, like most of your preferences in food, music, footwear, sex, interior lighting, and so on.

I suppose it’s possible that you might have acquired the first want, that’s the want for a want, because you wanted to! It’s theoretically possible that you had a want to have a want to have a want. But this is very hard to imagine, and the question just rearises: where did that want come from? You certainly can’t go on like this forever. At some point your wants must be just given. They will be products of your genetic inheritance and upbringing that you had no say in. In other words, there’s a fundamental sense in which you did not and cannot make yourself the way you are. And this, as you say, is the key step in the basic argument against ultimate moral responsibility, which goes like this: (1) You do what you do — in the circumstances in which you find yourself — because of the way you are. (2 ) So if you’re going to be ultimately responsible for what you do, you’re going to have to be ultimately responsible for the way you are—at least in certain mental respects. (3) But you can’t be ultimately responsible for the way you are (for the reasons just given). (4) So you can’t be ultimately responsible for what you do.

Tamler: I suppose it’s the third step that people have the most trouble accepting.

Galen: Yes, although the step seems fairly clear when you look at it the right way. Sometimes people explain why number (3) is true by saying that you can’t be causa sui—you can’t be the cause of yourself, you can’t be truly or ultimately self-made in any way. As Nietzsche puts it, in his usual, tactful way:

"The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far; it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic. But the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with just this nonsense. The desire for ‘freedom of the will’ in the superlative metaphysical sense, which still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated; the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one’s actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui and, with more than Baron Münchhausen’s audacity, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the swamps of nothingness."

There’s lots more to say about this basic argument, and there are lots of ways in which people have tried to get around the conclusion. But none of them work.

Being and Time

we each die our own death; no one can die for us.

Guilty Pleasure #x

enjoying song and video by the streets.

Turn your radio on and hear hear Teenage Kicks by The Undertones

It's a sad sad day: the absolutely fabulous John Peel died today.

So get yourself that well deserved drink, sit back and listen. Here's to John, to music and staying passionate!

Il Magnifico.

CNN reports:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Doughnut-guzzling, beer-quaffing Homer Simpson may not be the model father but he has won the hearts of British television fans who want the nuclear power plant worker to be the next U.S. president.

Former president George Bush notoriously said American families should be "closer to the Waltons than the Simpsons" but Homer was overwhelming favorite in a Radio Times magazine poll on which U.S. TV character should take over at the White House.

As Americans ponder tax and security pledges from President George W. Bush and Democratic rival John Kerry ahead of the November 2 poll, television fans have been considering Homer slogans such as "No big government, just big waist sizes."

In a manifesto compiled for the magazine by writing staff of "The Simpsons," the bumbling animated TV hero also pledges: "I promise there will be fewer nuclear disasters with me as your mayor than with me as your nuclear safety inspector."

Homer got 24 percent of the vote in the poll of more than 2,000 readers. Second place went to the more obvious choice of Josiah Bartlet, the president played by Martin Sheen in "The West Wing."

Pompous but eloquent radio psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane from "Frasier" was third followed by Sergeant Bilko from "The Phil Silvers Show." Gil Grissom from "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" was fifth with 10 percent of the vote.

Other favorites were Jack Bauer from "24," "The Cosby Show's" Dr. Cliff Huxtable, Phoebe Buffay from "Friends" and Tony Soprano from "The Sopranos."

Here are the components of a good treatment:

1. Start with an opening that hooks the reader.
2. Introduce the reader to your protagonist and make sure that we care about this person.
3. Show us what the main conflict of the story is and what type of story we're reading (drama, suspense, action, comedy, etc.)
4. Give us the story line (spine) and structure of the story. This section should include the major scenes of the movie and the turning points (act breaks).
5. End with a knockout ending that makes us want to shout "YES!"

Been Listening This Week To...

Panda Bear - Young Prayer
(if you liked vincent gallo's when, you sure will enjoy this one)


Vic Chesnutt - Is The Actor Happy?
(free of hope, free at last)


The Arcade Fire - Funeral
(not a real fan of the album as a whole but MAAAN there a few fabulous songs on this record, namely "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" [COME ON ALEX!], "Haiti" [GUNS CAN'T KILL] and my favorite "In the Backseat" [OOOOHOOOH!]. Way to go again Montreal)


Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
(The captain is a one-armed dwarf
He's throwing dice along the wharf
In the land of the blind
The one-eyed man is king, so take this ring)


Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse
(that cover already says it)


Biosphere - Substrata
(whoooooooooooooooooo)

He's Alive.

Thanks to Womblife, I just found out that one of the great enigmas in modern music Jandek recently played a live set in Scotland at the Instal .04 festival (WHAT A LINE-UP THEY HAD BTW!!). The concert apparently happened in true Jandek style: it was not publicized beforehand or even identified as it happened. Many of the people in the room didn’t seem to know until later whom they had seen and heard.

Find out more about the concert and the whole Jandek mystery at Seth Tisue's page.

I’m floating in a sea of red
Drowning down, can’t get no air
And you done told me
I’ve got no life
I’m rolling my eyes
The last gasp is coming on
All over my body

"I think about which of my characters are going to slide into old age gracefully and which ones are going to go in kicking and screaming. That's an important point in my work right now. That's one of the things I think about a lot."

"I used to always read my stuff. And I could never understand why artists would say, "Oh, I can't read my older stuff." I'd go, "Are you crazy? I could read my stuff forever!" Now it's a little harder."

The new issue of graphicnovelreview has a long and great in depth interview with Jaime Hernandez. Only recommended for mature readers.

Constantly talking isnt necessarily communicating

random thoughts after viewing Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind:

Kaufman has still not convinced me. Above all he's a clever writer and manipulator.

'Everyone’s gotta learn sometime' by Beck was a nice song for the opening credits.

Mark Ruffalo fans will love a certain underwear scene.

Alexander Pope title and quote is just amazing.

The story is too easy to figure out. After 30 minutes you know what's up and still an hour goes by explaining the obvious.

Why is the non-linear always a mask with Kaufman? He shouldn’t be afraid of just writing. It's not always necessary to pretty things up. The first seventeen minutes and all the flashbacks prove why he's the best writer in Hollywood at the moment.

The very poetic and beautiful scenes between Winslet and Carrey make the film. The rest is baggage.

Gondry actually does a good job at directing this film. Never been a really big fan of his work either (see human nature and/or alot of his clips) but this film has a nice, simple and at several occasions astonishing look.

Winslet is adorable, even with punky hair. Both her and Carrey are acting very good but Winslet just hits it perfectly. Ruffalo, Elijah and Wilkinson are top notch as well but Dunst sucks (again).

It's the story that bothers. There just isn't enough to be interesting. Especially the clue and plot of the film which are wrapped in a pretty non linear box aren't strong enough.

I hate Kaufman for writing genius acts and scenes and accompanying it with such irrelevant plot. He's such a great writer but he always messes up somehow.

Plus Charlie, how many times have you seen "Abre Los Ojos"????

To prove my love-hate relationship, let me end with a big shoutout to Charlie Kaufman for being the first auteur-writer. He’s the first one who's not making director films but writer films. He’s the only screenwriter I know whom people talk more about than the director. Gondry, Clooney or Jonze are mentioned but look at how much reviews start with the name Charlie Kaufman.

now's the time for peace and quiet

How do you like your stills?

The completion of Ivan's childhood marked the end of one cycle of my life, and of a process that I saw as a kind of self-determination.
It was made up of study at the Institute Of Cinematography, work on a short film for my diploma, and then eight months' work on my first feature film.
I could now assess the experience of Ivan's Childhood, accept the need to work out clearly, albeit temporarily, my own position in the aesthetics of cinema, and set myself problems which might be solved in the course of making my next film: in all of this I saw a pledge of my advance onto new ground. The work could all have been done in my head. But there is a certain danger in not having to reach final conclusions: it's all too easy to be satisfied with glimmers of intuition, rather than sound, coherent reasoning.
The wish to avoid expending in such a way made it easier for me to take up pencil and paper.

-- Andrey Tarkovsky: Sculpting in Time : Reflections on the Cinema

Dare mo shiranai

From the director of After Life seems to come another very interesting film: "Nobody Knows".

Loosely based on an actual incident that took place in the late 1980s, Nobody Knows centers around four children who are forced to rely on one another after their mother abandons them.

Keiko is a young mother with a responsible 12-year-old son, Akira. When she takes an apartment in Tokyo, he helps her to take their belongings inside. Once out of the eye of an unforgiving public, the suitcases are opened. Two infants, Shigeru and Yuki have been smuggled inside. Soon, a fourth child, Kyoko sneaks in as well.

Though the family atmosphere is warm, it is clear that Keiko has had these children with four different fathers. In order to earn money, she frequently leaves the children alone for long periods of time. The kids are heavily restricted, too, because the landlord is aware of only Akira's presence in the apartment. As a result, they can't go outside, they can't make noise, and they don't go to school.

Before long, Keiko is absent more and more often. She finds a lover who helps to save her from herself, and she disappears. From time to time, she sends money to support the children. Although Akira asks the various fathers of all the children for assistance, they still find themselves in a dire situation as both power and water are shut off. How will the children survive their odyssey?

Nobody Knows played at the Cannes Film Festival, where the young actor Yuuya Yagira won the Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Akira. (BoxOffice Prophets)

otherness.

I was just over at Astronaut Ambition and read another wonderful post about Asia (this time it's Japan). Thought you might like it as well, so let me blatantly copy a few lines:

For three weeks I have been hanging out in sleepy Shimodate doing nothing but renting dvds, sending emails, and taking walks. I have no desire to be doing the same in Canada, and every desire to keep doing it here.

They say Japan isn't real; it is a break from everything and everyone you ever knew. What happens here is on a different track from what happened back home. For James, that means becoming the more relaxed and daring person he always knew he secretly was. For Tanya, Japan is a safe haven of incommunication from everything that didn't please her in Canada.

I travelled around the world to escape despair. Almost every night I sit in a red-lit room watching movies with James and Tanya, resurrecting an old friendship and building a new one, and I am happy. Doing nothing in Japan is still more than I was doing back home.

Keep your eyes to the east.

I'm gonna keep plugging http://impulsput.blogspot.com because of the ever magnificent photos and the equally wonderful adventures. Stay up there E.

I'm what's there to show that something's missing

I was right
You always encourage the things you don’t like.

Took me 360 days.

I don't love you anymore.
Just Go.

Don't be misleaded by these quotes: Styrofoam aka Arne Van Petegem is bringing very diverse and great music from the land of wafels, chocolate and sprouts. Soon to be released now is his new album "Nothing's lost" which has among others contributions from Ben Gibbard (postal service), Alias (anticon), Valerie Trebeljahr (Lali Puna) and Markus Acher (Notwist/Lali Puna). Don't miss out.

'A Short Album About Murder' Interview
Pitchfork review of 'I'm What's There to Show That Something's Missing'
Morr Music (label)

Go out and See it.

The Fog of War
Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara:

1. Empathize with your enemy

2. Rationality will not save us

3. There is something beyond yourself

4. Maximize efficiency

5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war

6. Get the data

7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong

8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning

9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil

10. Never say never

11. You can't change human nature

This Is For A Person Named On A Poster

Watch Out Who You Write About!

Three Huntsville residents who say they went to high school with Austin film director Richard Linklater accused him of using them as the basis for the girl-chasing, drug-taking characters in his film "Dazed and Confused" in a lawsuit filed last week, 11 years after the movie was released.

"Dazed and Confused" is Linklater's 1993 cult classic following the drug-and-alcohol-fueled antics of teenagers on the last day of high school in the 1970s. Universal Studios, also included in the suit, is scheduled to release a special edition DVD of the movie Nov. 2.

According to their civil complaint, the men claim the movie subjected them to "relentless harassment, embarrassment and ridicule."

Linklater, who wrote and directed the film, used modified versions of the three plaintiffs' names in the movie.

Bobby Wooderson, Andy Slater and Richard "Pink" Floyd are portrayed in the movie as David Wooderson, Ron Slater and Randall "Pink" Floyd, respectively.

The similarity in name and likeness of the characters is obvious, said attorney Ernest Freeman.

"My clients were not asked nor did they give their permission to be portrayed in this movie," he said.

The movie has turned these men into unwitting celebrities and cast them in a less than flattering light, Freeman said.

(thx to Bill and The Daily Texan)

Helpdesk-ed!!!

My Counter Strike Is Not Working You Fucking Nazi's!

Everything I Have Been Working On For The Past 2 Goddamn Fucking Years Of My Live Is Gone!

Try to remember this url and find out where the ketchup is in the upcoming presidential election

http://www.111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111.com/

See it http://www.oureyes.net/

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
--Soren Kierkegaard

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.
--FW Nietzsche

R.I.P.

publish one book and get yourself a monograph

This is the first book to explore the life and work of gifted cartoonist Chris Ware, whose ceaseless experimentation with narrative and graphic forms, as evidenced in his book Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000), challenge traditional definitions of comic books and literature.

Daniel Raeburn looks closely at Ware’s career, work methods, and graphic innovations, which include pullout, flip-up, and three-dimensional insertions, along with cut-out-and-assemble-paper projects that require construction by readers. Based on many hours of interviews with the artist, Raeburn offers fascinating insights into the connections between Jimmy Corrigan’s biography and that of his creator. In addition, the book encompasses Ware’s many other works and examines his place in the world of literature, graphic art, and popular culture.

Daniel Raeburn self-publishes The Imp, an annual booklet of comics criticism. His writings have appeared in the Village Voice Literary Supplement.

Know Your Beans

vs

Did you know you were going to shoot off the top of a ...?

On the morning of February 1, 1922 the body of silent film director William Desmond Taylor was found inside his West Lake Park, California residence by his valet. He had been shot in the back.

Taylorology has all the information there is about this case. Their newsletter deals with:
(a) The facts of Taylor's life;
(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder;
(c) The impact of the Taylor murder on Hollywood and the nation;
(d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood silent film industry in which Taylor worked.

"I Know Who Killed Desmond Taylor" by Ed King, was the best recap of the murder written within a decade of Taylor's death, and is the only substantial magazine article on the case ever written by one of the detectives who was actually involved in the investigation. Some of the information in the article had not been revealed to the public prior to the article's original publication in 1930. The article does contain some errors which are indicated in the notes--unfortunately King relied too much on his memory and newspaper clippings, and spent too little time reviewing the official file on the case prior to doing the article.

I Know Who Killed Desmond Taylor

by Ed. C. King
Special Investigator, District Attorney's Office,
Los Angeles, California as told to Alberta Livingston

Originally published in TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES
October and November 1930

The "bumping off" of a famous person like William Desmond Taylor is the sort of oyster that any detective delights to open, so you can just bet the family jewels that I was pretty much elated when my "Chief," the late Thomas Lee Woolwine, District Attorney of Los Angeles County, called me into his private office on the morning of February 3rd, 1922, and assigned me to represent his office in the investigation of this greatest of all murder mysteries.

And, almost from the very first hour of my investigations, I have KNOWN who committed this murder. Yet, at the present time, the evidence is so limited that were the guilty person to come forward and confess the murder, "he" would have to produce corroborative testimony before "his" confession could be accepted. "He" would be compelled to substantiate "his" confession by other credible testimony in order to prove "his" guilt and secure "his" own conviction!

(read the rest here)

Finally the ever excellent Wikipedia also has some insights.

Matt Kelly Mania

So Blockhead and Sixtoo. What a different approach to live music it was. First up was Blockhead doing that same Fennesz laptop routine for about an hour or so but I really can’t bring myself into saying something negative about it because the tunes were so beautiful. So yes I could touch upon the click tick apple style and how different it was compared to the Sixtoo performance but let’s just hail this sample genius for making all the right choices during the gig. He played quite a lot from his "music by cavelight" record and it was all very good. Don’t know why some people mock his beats cuz they really sounded great! And Blockhead is such a great character: every time someone shouted in the audience at him or even when he played some Michael Jackson or some other 80’s stuff, he always had this little funny grin on his face which was great. And apparently to his amazement there was a big turnout (ca. 350 people) which he even mentioned like two times. I wonder how the lonely gigs in god knows where land are?

When Sixtoo came on stage with DJ Signify (Lex-fame) and bass player Matt Kelly, I was real curious at how he would perform his music. It has been said and said that his music is kind of dark, stark and/or moody. While the latter is still probably true for his live show, dark and stark were nowhere to be seen. In fact, the show was soo LIVELY and energetic that I was really caught off guard at first. Yeah he played a lot of songs from “chewing on glass and other miracle cures” but he reinterpreted them immensely and brought it all live with a remarkable passion and an outstanding virtuosity. A lot credit goes to DJ Signify and Matt Kelly as well (maybe Matt was even the star of the evening?). That was their major plus imo: such an interesting line up! You got two djs (signify and sixtoo), one mc (sixtoo), two mpc pros (signify and sixtoo) and then a bass player (also handling various pedals and effects). God what an odd idea you’d say to include a bass player but boy did this work out greatly. Matt added so much intensity and again that liveness that you need in such shows and on top of it all, he was standing there like the next Jonny Greenwood. YEAH I admit there was a certain Matt Kelly hype in our little clique but Sixtoo and Signify were no less though. That variation just played out so well. Sometimes you had sixtoo on decks, sometimes signify. Then Sixtoo would start rapping, then they would chop up Buck 65’s voice. Or there would be instances where they’d go much darker but a few moments later it would be so melodic again.

As you can probably feel by now, I was absolutely sold. Best 4 euros spent this month! The only unsatisfying feeling after the show is that I didn’t know who did those superb visuals for the Sixtoo show. The Blockhead visuals were pretty good as well (they were done by a guy named Lucidhouse who won this video competition over at ninjatune.net) but well Sixtoo was a little bit ahead of Blockhead in almost every department yesterday and that also included the visuals.

ps just found out at sixtoo.net, that it was Presstube who did the visuals. Props!

Inspiration Links:
http://www.sixtoo.net/
http://www.ninjatune.net/ninja/artist.php?id=108
http://www.djsignify.com/
http://www.ninjatune.net/blockhead/
http://www.presstube.com/

EDIT:
check out Sixtoo's Blog as well!

Tonight!

Sixtoo|dj Signify|Blockhead
(NinjaTune | Lex-Warp)

do 7 oktober 04 . 20u30 . STUK Labozaal