Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Together Through Life



New Bob Dylan with the fruity-cake-make title Together Through Life. It sounds like his last two albums with more accordion and Southwest feel. It's okay music. Kind of background music. But let's face it. With titles like "It's All Good," Dylan will never again capture the lyrical and musical intensity he once had.

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Saturday, April 25, 2009

Going to California

Well, my school got my plane ticket for the day after I finish work. It looks like I'll be back in California on June 23rd.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Final 40

In two months I'm done working - June 22. Forty more days of teaching. It seems to go slower and slower, and even this late in the game I think about leaving. I won't, but I still want to escape the schedule, the office, the noise of kids. When I get back to USA I want to do increasing periods of time without eating animal products and using computers.

June 22. 22. 2222222222222222

I swear I've been hovering in space at this moment in time forever like Groundhog Day.

June 22. C'mon, c'mon.

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Monday, April 20, 2009

J.G. Ballard

I haven't read enough of him to offer a comprehensive opinion, but what I have read by J.G. Ballard (mainly short stories from the 60s and 70s), I liked. I've had a few of his audiobooks lingering on my computer for months, and I still haven't gotten around to seeing Crash (the 1996 Cronenberg one based on Ballard's novel, not the recent and more famous film that's completely unrelated), but now I feel I suddenly have incentive.

His voice and energy influenced the entire ethos of punk literature, informing and infecting the possibilities of speculative fiction. His dissection of narrative, his bizarre mind, will be missed. What has come down to us from writers like Michael Moorcock, Harlan Ellison, William Burroughs, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore and others would surely be different without Ballard.


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Sunday, April 19, 2009

Reading

Here's some reading material. First:

Glomer's Exclusive Interview with Jonathan Ke Quan (Short Round from Indiana Jones and the only Asian in Goonies)

Glomer* proves once again that he's on top of all the news. (*Glomer = J.U.)

Then:

Montgomery Flagg's Nervy Nat comics
Weird early comics from the creator of the "I Want You" Uncle Sam Poster. Click them to supersize... they're peculiar.

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Friday, April 17, 2009

Restroked

I don't know why but I love this rescoring of the opening of Different Strokes. It just makes me laugh.

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Sunday, April 12, 2009

Beatles Remastered



Kind of amazing the Beatles catalog hasn't been properly remastered and the same discs have essentially been out there for 22 years. But on September 9, 2009 they get properly done - all their albums remastered. About time.

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Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Death Proof



I watched Tarantino's Death Proof again. It's a really weird movie. It's both poorly done and incredibly calculated. All the sloppiness is actually intentional and the editing is incredibly weird. The characters and dialogue feel like a 70s Marvel comic, and Tarantino almost self-parodies the characters by creating two groups of woman who are initially indistinguishable cliches. Ultraviolent with laughable plot twists, and Kurt Russell alternates between creepy psychopath and pathetic geezer. Overall, I like it - even with all of Tarantino's fetishes. Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction may be the only thing I like better by him. And it's infinitely better than the other Grindhouse movie, Planet Terror. I initially saw them together in theaters, which makes for a too long movie experience. Death Proof on its own is just right.

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Monday, April 06, 2009

6 Things




Here's six things I liked in the past week. The Big Sleep has an overcomplicated confusing plot but brilliant sets and actors. Kind of like a David Lynch movie if he'd been working in the 40s. Dark Passage is my favorite Bogart movie so far. It may just be the shooting locations because every two minutes I was thinking, "I know exactly where that is in San Francisco!" and unlike many cities, SF still looks very similar to how it looked 60 years ago. I think the story and actors are also pretty amazing. Key Largo is also awesome, more Bogart and Bacall, but also with Edward G. Robinson, whose ominousness as a villain completely overshadows the antagonists in the other films. I've been binging on Bogart (and now Bacall) and finally see his greatness.

Then the new Pet Shop Boys, a Jam compilation, and a breathing program by Andrew Weil, one of my favorite health authors. All goodish.

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Sunday, April 05, 2009

Life Inc.



Douglas Rushkoff has a lot of interesting ideas about local currencies and the current state of the economy. But I don't expect his ideas to take. Who knows. Here's his article Hacking the Economy.

And here's his new book ~



Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back

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Friday, April 03, 2009

New Del fo' Free



I salute Del for releasing his latest album for free here, and even available in FLAC format.

I also thought about downloading the Wolverine movie leak (a month before it's in theaters!) but decided to wait since it sounds like the cut that got out is pretty unfinished (but that's what they always say with leaks). I liked X-Men 2 and thought 3 was a letdown, so I'm hoping this movie restores some credibility to the franchise. But from what I've heard, it's overproduced.

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