Somewhere I'm Not...

Reading and the post-academic life

2012-02-16T23:29:00.001-06:00

Over the next little bit, I'll be sharing some aspects of my decision to leave academia and enter the so-called real world. The short version of the story is that I was really not happy in grad school. I don't necessarily believe that jobs need to be dream-fulfilling or constantly entertaining, but I also really did not like the way my unhappiness with my professional life was bleeding into my life and home. I felt little interest in what I was doing, even when reading a book or writing a paper on something that, just a year earlier, would have been exciting and engaging. I thought of the few books I had time to read on the side as sanity preservers, keeping me from drowning what felt like the molasses of literary theory and academic writing. The very passion for literature, for reading and writing, that had led me down this path and away from a life of test tubes and RNA analysis, was nowhere to be seen, and that was perhaps the most depressing thing of all.

Fortunately, I feel like my relationship with reading has really changed in the last couple of months. For the first time in my adult life, I am completely free to choose what I want to read (including, fitting enough, books about the science of free will, or the lack thereof). No reading lists, no courses to study for- just me reading what seems most interesting at the time. You would think that such an approach would lead to a more narrow reading list, but I have found the opposite to be true. One of my frustrations with studying the humanities was the short list of canonized thinkers (with a host of others who branch off without quite leaving the umbrella), most of whom I have found to be rather similar in their conclusions. Maybe I was tainted by my years of studying science, but I was baffled by things like the way Freud's writings are still taken very seriously by some, without much recognition of the century of psychological research since (well, except for that Lacan guy). I didn't expect this, but in some ways graduate school felt intellectually stifling, and I felt that I was often reading the same handful of ideas repackaged in ever more complicated verbal constructions. Going to class, I often felt like I could predict exactly what theory would be applied to what topics of a book. Without the surprise, literature was losing some of the magic that drew me in in the first place.

I was depressed by all this, and I realized that I could still lead a "life of the mind" outside of the university. The result has been a complete revitalization of my reading life, and I think I've read more in the last couple of months than in any other couple of months in my life. My readings have led me in multiple directions at once, from a book on philosophy and jokes (Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar) to books on mental illness, botany, and neuroscience, and from a wonderful encounter with Charles Yu's How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (more on this coming later) to some forays into the world of popular literature (including my first ever Stephen King experience). I don't think my head has been this full of ideas since I was writing my M.A. thesis.

One strange thing I noticed is that I've liked or loved most everything I've been reading, just months after struggling to enjoy much of anything I read. I've never been too picky about what I read, and I tend to like most of it, but I also figure being able to pick what I read on my own must lead to some sampling biases, since I'm only reading books that catch my eye. But, in any case, being in a good place mentally and emotionally has made reading what it hasn't been in a long time- exciting.

And... I'm back...

2012-02-13T09:35:00.000-06:00

Looking at my blog, my last post was October 26. In human time, that's a few months ago. In internet time, that's approximately 1928. Of course, in that metaphor, the stock market was about to crash and I was going to lose all my money, so it's a good thing I missed that time period.

In the intervening months, my life has undergone a few changes, so now I'm thinking this blog will be a bit different as well. The biggest change is that I'm no longer a graduate student, and not because I graduated. This has led to some seismic shifts in things ranging from free time to the fact that I can read whatever I feel like reading, free of reading lists or class assignments. It has also opened up a little time for some fiction, and I'm working on what will be my first novel (and most likely an unreadable mess, but that's half the fun).

So, in short, I'm back. More of the same, but different.

The Black Keys - "Lonely Boy"

2011-10-26T13:47:00.003-05:00

The Black Keys are back, and that means one thing- Rock Music. You know what you're going to get with this band, and they keep on delivering. They won't blow your mind or anything, but you'll get in the groove and sing along... which is exactly what happens in their new video for "Lonely Boy" from their upcoming album. The song brings a bit of surf music energy into their style, and the video's low-budget feel and blank-faced dancing put a smile on my face.

And now for a couple of obligatory videos (due to awesomeness) off their last album, Brothers. These two videos show that they can make a highly entertaining video with or without a budget. "Howling for You" is a trailer for an awesome grindhouse throwback movie that you wish they'd really make, while "Tighten Up" features the fearsome Funkasaurus Rex.

Living a story vs. dissecting it

2011-10-01T10:21:00.000-05:00

The difference between reading a story and studying a story is the difference between living the story and killing the story and looking at its guts.

School! We sat in English class and we dissected the stories that I'd escaped into, laid open their abdomens and tagged their organs, covered their genitals with polite sterile drapes, recorded dutiful notes en masse that told us that the story was about, but never what the story was. Stories are propaganda, virii that slide past your critical immune system and insert themselves directly into your emotions. Kill them and cut them open and they're naked as a nightclub in daylight.

From Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow

I'm old fashioned- I love the story in motion. I know that's not very postmodern of me, and I should be itching to dissect (er, I mean deconstruct) each bit of narrative (er, propaganda) that comes my way, but the power of literature is in being able to live it, so no matter how much I dissect and analyze, I hope I can still appreciate those encounters in the wild. I don't know if I'm hoping for the impossible, but I want the best of both worlds, literary Frankenstein monsters I can kill, chop up, analyze, then reassemble and bring back to life.

What should we (in the humanities) do with confirmation bias?

2011-09-29T14:00:00.005-05:00

I think we all recognize that people filter what they see and hear to support their view of the world. The appeal of Fox News or MSNBC lies in being able to watch the world through a window that only supports one's belief system. What we don't realize is just how strong this filtering, or confirmation bias, really is, and I think we all underestimate its effect on ourselves, while recognizing it in others (see comments on news articles at the above-mentioned sites for proof, although looking for proof may be the problem, as I'll explain).

Confirmation bias has been shown in a large number of settings and experiments, but there is one that stands out to me. Researchers during the 2004 U.S. presidential election took some Republicans and some Democrats and had them watch clips of 3 people making a statement, contradicting it, then trying to explain away their contradiction. The catch is that two of those people were George W. Bush and John Kerry, with the third being a non-political figure. As can be guessed, the Republicans felt that Bush's contradiction wasn't as contradictory as Kerry's, and that his explanation for the contradiction was satisfactory, while the Democrats had the opposite reaction. Both groups found the third person's contradictions to be problematic. What really makes this interesting to me is that they were running MRIs on the subjects brains, and when they viewed the contradiction from their own party's candidate, they used a different part of their brains to process what they saw- in other words, the desire to confirm already held beliefs is not just some willful blindness, it's part of how our brains work.

It's easy to see how this works in politics, but confirmation bias can cause us to miss the obvious in relatively simple situations. Let's say we're playing a game, and I give you three numbers and ask you to figure out the rule used to generate the numbers. To test your hypothesis, you can give me any set of three numbers and I will simply tell you yes or no. The first numbers you see are "2, 4, 6." Most people see that and immediately think the rule is ascending even numbers, so how do they verify it? They check with number sets like "10, 12, 14" and "26, 28, 30." The first thing they do is try to verify their new belief- but this is problematic because the real rule is any three ascending numbers." The best thing to do in this game is not to verify your new belief, but to attempt to disprove it- in other words, the first guess should be something like "1, 3, 5." Then, when you see odd numbers are also included, try something like "1, 2, 3" and "3, 2, 1." This is the textbook example of how easy it is for us to miss evidence to the contrary, simply because we don't even bother to look for it. There are literally an infinite number of guesses I could make that would seem to confirm my even numbers hypothesis, yet it only takes one to destroy it.

Wait, where are the humanities? Oh, yeah...

What inspired this post is my recent musing on what this means for us in the humanities- we're not dealing with empirical evidence, and our research is not easily quantifiable- and I am not arguing that it should be. But I also think many schools of thought in literary theory seem to have a strong cognitive bias built in- for example, one of the first things I had to read in an intro to literary theory course was about how resistance to literary theory only serves to show how it is right and/or valid. Psychoanalytic theory teaches that evidence to the contrary can be easily reinterpreted as evidence for an idea, not against it. And any time someone attacks a given school of thought, the response is predictable- the person's attack on Marxism/feminism/Darwinism/environmentalism/religion/postmodernism is only evidence bolstering the attacked point of view. This is further complicated by incommensurable jargon and tautological definitions that lie at the heart of certain modes of thought. (The author of this blog post goes as far as to compare some schools of literary theory to conspiracy theorists in their ability to absorb contradictory evidence into their overall narratives.)

This is especially difficult, because we want to uncover the hidden truths behind literature and the world, and those of us dealing with narrative are basically given a wealth of purely anecdotal evidence. When we think we've found out some new or exciting thing about a work, sometimes basing our analysis on one episode in what can be a lengthy novel, we write papers full of quotes from the works and from others that bolster our view. If we're not careful, however, I think we can miss the forest for the leaves (or in some cases, leaf). We often quote a philosopher or literary critic out of context, and use one isolated part of their theory despite the fact that our analysis can run contrary to their mode of thought. We cite examples from a work that support our view, but ignore (as we've seen, perhaps automatically) any evidence that may destroy our idea. If we are part of a healthy critical ecosystem, others with opposite views can come along to critique or attack an idea with insufficient support, or we can "agree to disagree" in the spirit of open inquiry or to show how we're different from those empiricists.

The fact of the matter is that, obviously, literary criticism is not science, nor should it be. But we should be ever mindful of our confirmation bias, and realize that rigorous thinking is hard work. "It just feels right" or "look at all this evidence" is not enough- we should look for evidence to the contrary and try as hard as we can to be open to it. Critical thinking can be just as easily enslaved by a need to confirm preexisting beliefs as conventional wisdom or political positions, and only a careful effort to seek out evidence to the contrary can expose our own biases. How this would work in practice, well I'm working on it. When we make somewhat falsifiable assertions it is easier, but when we're dealing with literature I think the best we can do is reread what we're working on from the perspective of someone with the opposite view and do our best to tear our own arguments apart. It's not easy, but I think it can lead to better assertions and more careful thinking.

Coming next in my literary theory ramblings- why postmodernists (and postpostmodernists) should love evolutionary theory (hint: it's all about context).

Reductio ad AlGoreium

2011-09-28T16:54:00.001-05:00

(From The Onion)

I've noticed a strange pattern lately on the internet, and it has to do with people's opinions on climate change. You see, any time there is an article on science, even when it has nothing to do with climate change or even the environment, one of the first comments tends to be about global warming, with a reference to Al Gore not far behind. (Full disclosure: I feel pretty convinced that we are living through climate change, but I'm not a fan of Al Gore or his tendency to exaggerate or only pick the worst-case scenarios as examples.) I'm not saying the debate should not be had, or that we shouldn't listen to that 2% of scientists who disagree, but I'm finding it odd how even on articles about particle physics you see references to this. I've decided to baptize this phenomenon as "Reductio ad AlGoreium," in which people reduce science, in all of its complexity and different approaches, to their opinion on global warming- especially its political side. Or, to rework Godwin's Law: as an internet discussion involving science, even tangentially, grows longer, the probability that a discussion on climate change and Al Gore will hijack the conversation approaches 1.

(Of course, I could be wrong, as I haven't done any kind of scientific survey of comments on science articles, so maybe a few memorable examples have skewed my perception of this phenomenon.)

Wilco - "Art of Almost"

2011-09-28T16:39:00.001-05:00

I love me some Wilco, but I know I'm not alone in thinking that their albums since the classic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot have been something like watching Jordan drop 20 points on the other team- pretty good stuff, but you know more could be happening. Well, all you need to do is hear the first minute of "Art of Almost," which opens up the band's new The Whole Love, to hear that there's some of that old adventurism here. The album serves up a nice balance of straightforward tunes as well, but "Art of Almost" reminds me of when Wilco wasn't just a great band that has hit its stride, but a band pushing outwards on each album.

Wilco - Art Of Almost by vemeko

Sigur Rós - "Festival" Live

2011-09-27T13:44:00.003-05:00

Seeing Sigur Rós live was probably the best concert experience I've had. You know how people use all sorts of cheesy language when they talk about being at a concert where the music was so huge and it washed over them and all that stuff, and you kind of roll your eyes at their hyperbole? Well, it was really like that in the case of Sigur Rós. The below video is from their upcoming concert video, Inni, which comes out next month. Despite being in black and white, the video captures a bit of the sensory overload I remember experiencing at their show. In the meantime, I highly recommend Heima, a film about the band playing a series of free shows in their home country, Iceland.

Sigur Rós: Festival (Live) from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

Radiohead Remix Series

2011-09-26T21:06:00.001-05:00

I know opinion was mixed on Radiohead's The King of Limbs, but I for one really like it. I've also been really digging the remix series, which, since it's a remix series, has its ups and downs, but the ups are really great. Here's the latest release, including some mixes from Jamie xx and SBTRKT.

Pinback - "Eye to the Sky"

2011-09-24T17:22:00.002-05:00

Yup, Zoey likes Yo Gabba Gabba! And, yup, I like some of the songs on it.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - "Ffuny Ffrends"

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

Unknown Mortal Orchestra are a band that makes you think you've found something out of a dusty record bin from an alternate universe. The video for this track confirms the suspicion.

And as a bonus, their catchy "How Can U Luv Me?"

"Class Warfare" revealed!

2011-09-22T14:24:00.002-05:00

All this talk in the news of class warfare makes me long for the days of Tony of Plymouth, defender of the people in the face of tyranny. Tony would, at the very least, make for much more watchable debates.

(from A Bit of Fry and Laurie, S1E6)

R.E.M. - "The One I Love" and "Discoverer"

2011-09-22T10:20:00.000-05:00

R.E.M. are hanging it up after 31 years, which gives us a chance to revisit their music. Their stuff from the 80s and early 90s is pure gold (especially Automatic for the People), and though they hit a rough patch, I really liked their last two albums. So, here are two songs from two different eras of one of the best and most influential bands in American rock music.

When art causes two different reactions from your brain/heart

2011-09-19T23:06:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, while you watch/read/experience/listen to something, your brain will pick it apart, yet you have a strong reaction to the work despite your (supposedly) higher brain. Sometimes, it's because something is fun, like Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, where the whole time I read it I could see how it's basically Snowcrash meets 80s nostalgia, but it was too much fun to care. But what really made me think of this is something I watched this past summer- the Doctor Who episode "Vincent and the Doctor," about Vinvent Van Gogh. The ending of the episode is, if you think about it, kind of cheesy, with emotional overkill and a rather blah britpop soundtrack (although it's very well acted, and Bill Nighy's monologue is perfect), and I thought this when I was watching it.

However, as I was watching it, I cried like art of any kind hadn't made me cry in a long time. I knew I was, in a sense, being emotionally manipulated, and maybe the fact that I was rather depressed at the time didn't help things, but I couldn't avoid the emotional kick in the gut. A week later, I tried watching the end of the episode again, and once again the floodgates opened. Like the first time, I could see the flaws of the emotional overkill on display, but I couldn't help it. I was experiencing two very different reactions at the same time to what I was seeing, and it reminded me of what happens when we spend so much time studying literature- we forget that art is something we can experience on a visceral level, that we can be floored by something so flawed, and that sometimes, catharsis is just a saccharine sci-fi ending away.

Bjork - Bachelorette

2011-09-19T22:49:00.002-05:00

Michel Gondry. Enough said.

DJ Mehdi - Signatune

2011-09-15T09:28:00.003-05:00

This week, DJ Mehdi passed away in what seems to have been a freak accident. His one full-length album, Lucky Boy, shows the gift he had for the craft, and perhaps no track shows it better than the glitchy "Signatune," where repetition becomes its own kind of motion. I always feel bad when I hear an artist has died, especially when they're still in the early stages of their careers, but I have to admit that, while I feel bad for those who have lost a friend and loved one, I feel most sad that I will never be getting to hear something new from them again.

Florence & The Machine - "Shake It Out"

2011-09-14T10:23:00.000-05:00

Florence & The Machine return to remind us that popular music can be catchy, epic, layered, and fun all at the same time. The album, Ceremonials, is out November 1st.

Florence + The Machine - Shake it Out by Artur Cunha

Wick-it the Instigator - "Nineties FTW"

2011-09-12T10:17:00.002-05:00

Wick-it the Instigator does some sweet mash-ups (I would recommend his collection of Big Boi / Black Keys tracks), and this one does a great job of combining 90s alternative classics in ways you never thought possible. Nostalgia overdose!

Nineties FTW (Wick-it's 90's Rock Nostalgia Overdose Mashup) by Wick-it the Instigator

SOTD - Jeff Tweedy - "I Gotta Feeling"

2011-09-09T20:20:00.002-05:00

Jeff Tweedy covers Black Eyed Peas. Awesomeness ensues.

SOTD - Washed Out + Home Videos

2011-09-07T18:01:00.000-05:00

Washed Out's samples-and-synths sound always feels like the perfect soundtrack to a summer day (I apologize for all that alliteration)- as long as we're talking about a lazy summer day. Nothing shows that as well as these two artfully shot home videos set to Washed Out's music. First up is a track of this year's excellent Within and Without, followed by a track off the Life Of Leisure EP.

POOL SIDE from AERTIME on Vimeo.

SOTD - Wilco - "I Might"

2011-09-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently, this last weekend Wilco had their upcoming album up to stream for 24 hours. Tragically, I was travelling, and completely missed it. Luckily, I still have this track to keep me going until the 27th, when the album officially hits stores.

SOTD - Travis - "Flowers in the Window"

2011-09-05T21:19:00.002-05:00

Travis is a band that part of my brain says I really shouldn't like too much. They're fairly derivative, pretty middle-of-the-road, and kind of cheesy... but when I hear songs like "Flowers in the Window," I can't help but smile. Especially when it becomes a big acoustic sing-a-long, like the below video (skip to a minute in to get to the song).

Or the extra sunny original studio version:

SOTD - LCD Soundsystem - "Someone Great"

2011-08-31T19:22:00.001-05:00

Today, my grandmother passed away. She was always such an inspiration to me, and for a time in my childhood, she and my grandfather helped my dad take care of me. Even though a lot of the details in this song from LCD Soundsystem don't match, the overall sentiment does- "When someone great is gone..."

SOTD - Wye Oak - "Civilian"

2011-08-30T05:00:00.000-05:00

For today's song, I'm giving you all a taste of Wye Oak's latest album, "Civilian." The album is a great example of simple, straightforward indie rock, with Jenn Wasner's vocals as the secret weapon. There's no better example of their sound as the title track, which somehow jives well the below video someone shot out of the window of a Long Island train.

SOTD - 13 & God - "Armored Scarves"

2011-08-29T20:47:00.002-05:00

13 & God is a collaboration between The Notwist and Themselves, and the collision of their styles can often have great results (even if there are a few misses as well). This is my favorite track off their new album, Own Your Ghost. The song slowly adds layers, and the central image of dipping scarves in armor is pretty awesome. Enjoy.

SOTD - The Long Winters - "The Commander Thinks Aloud"

2011-08-26T12:40:00.000-05:00

There's just something great about rock and roll songs about astronauts. From Bowie to "Rocketman" to songs like At the Drive-In's "Hourglass," the lonely astronaut seems to provide a figure that fills the imagination while capturing some of the tragedy of life- and The Long Winters' "The Commander Thinks Aloud," from their 2005 Ultimatum EP, is as tragic as it gets. The song begins with images of the thrill of space travel and of seeing the world from above, with each verse ending with a repeated "yeah" that seems to punctuate the celebratory feeling of being so high above it all. But as the song reaches its coda, with the repeated "the crew compartment's breaking up," you realize the song is about the Columbia Shuttle disaster. The final line, "this is all I wanted to bring home to you," hits like a ton of bricks. Sometimes, you don't get to come home again.

Below is a fan-made video with various images of space travel and shuttles.

SOTD - "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?"

2011-08-24T05:00:00.000-05:00

Today, we get both the original and a cover of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?" This is one of Ted Leo's best tunes, a tribute to the "Rude Boys" of the 2Tone Ska era. Plus, Ted Leo has one of the coolest voices in all of rockdom. With it we have this week's entry in the A.V. Club's Undercover series, with Candian folk singer Basia Bulat doing a fine solo acoustic cover of it, which is fitting, as she has some of the best pipes in folkdom.

Basia Bulat covers Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

SOTD - The Notwist - "Chemicals"

2011-08-23T03:00:00.000-05:00

My second song of the day introduces another aspect of my SOTD- it won't always be a new song, or even usually be a new one. So, today we get a song from German group The Notwist off their 1998 album Shrink. "Chemicals" basically has everything that's great about the Notwist- electronic beats mixed with guitars (a combo that's perfected on their album Neon Golden) and the deadpan vocals of lead singer Markus Acher. By the time the song is over, you just might have the line "You are no good" playing over and over in your head.

I'd never seen this video before, but here it is. It's weird. And somehow very 90s.

Song of the Day - M83 - "Midnight City"

2011-08-22T12:55:00.000-05:00

I'm starting something new- a song of the day. Every week day. Or your money back. (Fine print: Since you haven't sent me any money, I can hereby miss a day whenever, but I'll try not to. Feel free to start sending me money if you want to though.)

The song that's been on repeat for me lately is "Midnight City" from M83 - the moniker of French musician Anthony Gonzalez. I kind of slept on this track as I've never been crazy about M83's music, but not only has this song caught me, but it's caused me to revisit older albums. The song opens with its instrumental hook and then adds layers of sound to settle for a groove somewhere between dreamy and catchy, only to step things up in the end with a sax solo straight out of 1985. Like the best nostalgic music, you hear elements from years gone by, but the end result could exist in no other time but now.

This is the first single from the double album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, due October 18.

The Nook Color for graduate students of the humanities - a review

2011-08-09T23:50:00.002-05:00

As I looked into an ereader or tablet as a possible tool for graduate school, I looked at everything from the Kindle to the iPad. Money was a factor, so the iPad, for all it's coolness was out. On the other end, the e-ink Kindles and Nooks looked attractive, but videos of their pdf support has me less than impressed. So, I paid a bit more ($250, still half the price of an iPad), and went for the Barnes and Noble Nook Color. This review will focus mainly on its usefulness for me as a graduate student of the humanities (Spanish in particular).

Reading Books

The Nook Color has a sharp 7-inch lcd touchscreen. Compared to e-ink, this has the disadvantage of "washing out" in direct sunlight, but I really don't ever read outside. I have turned the screen's brightness all the way up, and had no problem seeing the screen while outside in the shade with the sun shining. Color and contrast are great, and since you can adjust the brightness, I have found reading comfortable in a range of lighting conditions. The screen size is also nice, as the entire device is about the same size and shape as a trade paperback.

As for reading, the Nook comes with access to Barnes and Noble's ebook store, and you can load up any epub file you download online. However, you can "root" the Nook, which allows you to access the Android operating system that Barnes and Noble's software runs over. This essentially makes the Nook Color an Android tablet, and allows you to install Amazon's Kindle app as well, making both marketplaces available to you. In the vast majority of cases, Barnes and Noble and Amazon sell the same books for the same prices, but I have found that the Kindle store has a better selection of free public domain books.

As a graduate student in Spanish, I do have to admit that the selection of ebooks in Spanish has a way to come, but it appears to be getting better. My reading list includes a lot of public domain books, so it's great being able to download those free, but the more recent books are lacking. It seems that some new books are being put out in ebook as they are published, though. For example, Edmundo Paz Soldán's latest, Norte, is out for Nook, even though it has only been published in Spain. It looks like I'll be able to save a lot on a book or two a semester this way, but I expect the selection to keep getting better.

One nice thing is that you can highlight the text and make notes in both the Nook and Kindle apps, as well as search for specific words or phrases. This is quite nice, but if you are going to be writing a paper on a specific text, you'll still need a physical copy, at least until the MLA recognizes ebooks and has a way of citing them. I can see myself search the text, then seeing what chapter I'm in to find it in the physical book for citation.

PDFs

One of the main reasons I have the Nook Color is to view PDFs. I was tired of printing off reams of paper to read once, so being able to read it comfortably on a screen seemed attractive. The native PDF reader is OK, but I highly recommend springing 99 cents and getting the app ezPDF. Pinch to zoom makes adjusting to different kinds of pdfs (one or two columns, etc.) easy, which was one of the big advantages over the e-ink readers. You can highlight, make notes, and such, and if the PDF is one of the good ones with selectable text, you can read the PDF in reflowable text rather than its PDF formatting. A lot of my PDFs are bad scans, so even though you can't select the text, you can highlight by drawing a box around the parts you want to remember.

Other Good Stuff

Other than that, if you root it, you can install all sorts of other apps. I have Netflix and Youtube running on it, games like Cut the Rope and Angry Birds, and the screen is great for surfing the web. Even though I mainly use it as an ereader, there are lots of other uses for it.

Best Amazon review ever?

2011-07-18T17:51:00.003-05:00

Somehow I ended up on this product's page, and saw the above review. Please, when shopping online, be careful. Books are yucky.

Explosions in the Sky - "Last Known Surroundings"

2011-06-24T22:47:00.001-05:00

Last Known Surroundings from Explosions in the Sky on Vimeo.

Explosions in the Sky is a band whose music, I'm sure, provides different mental imagery to different people. Their wordless soundscapes have the stuff of narrative- peaks, valleys, progress, and climax- but only their song titles provide cues for what the stories may be, and some find the stories to be uplifting and hopeful, others melancholy. This new video for "Last Known Surroundings," off the Explosions in the Sky's latest album, Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, is the band's first (although they did soundtrack Friday Night Lights, one of my favorite sports movies). What surprised me was that I had never thought of their music abstractly. Mogwai's post-rock, for example, has always felt abstract to me, but EITS have always seemed to be telling stories, so this abstract video is not only hypnotic, but it made me listen to the music in a new way. To me, this is like an ideal version of the equalizer visualizations you get from Windows Media Player, and a pleasant way to spend 8 minutes.

Footloose, again?

2011-06-22T19:35:00.003-05:00

I just saw a trailer on TV for a Footloose remake, and of course, I just thought of this. That, and how the recent X-Men movie should have had its Kevin Bacon villain do just such an angry dance before he died. In fact, Kevin Bacon should have to do an angry dance in every movie he's in.

It isn't science fiction anymore...

2011-06-21T16:08:00.001-05:00

Imagine that an Alzheimer's patient could avoid some of the memory loss associated with the disease, thanks to a neural implant that could record and replay memories when the brain fails. Or even someone without any cognitive degeneration who can use the same implant to extend their memory to near-photographic levels. Of course, this is just the kind of silly fantasy that science fiction would think of, and not something that affects the real world, right?

Well, it seems my obsessions with the stuff of personal memory and the world of the post-human are that much closer to colliding. Theodore W. Berger, a USC professor, and his team have used neural implants in rats that can be used to enhance memory or to make the rats forget a simple task. The device monitored neural traffic in the hippocampus and could replay that information to help the rats remember their tasks. The team hopes to move on to primates in the near future. The full article is here, and a Discover blog post summarizing it is here.

Of course, the end goal would be aiding in human memory, but all sorts of possibilities, from amazing to terrifying, come to mind. What if, in some future version of this technology, memories could be transferred in some way? Could someone remember facts from a class he never took? And, perhaps, this could be used to create empathy by allowing someone to experience a foreign memory, but could it also lead, like in Borges' "The Memory of Shakespeare," to confusion and insanity as foreign memories threaten to overlap one's own personal memories? And if the device enhances the accuracy of memory, do we all just become like Funes, able to remember all yet unable to deal with abstraction? Or would these devices be little more than a further example of the other technologies we use every day to enhance our memories- journals, photos, videos, blogs, etc...?

One thing I will be curious about would be how such an implant could deal with the way memory is always rewriting itself, how every time a memory is recalled it is changed. Would an enhanced memory, with computer-like detail, even feel like a memory if it's not blurry on the edges and uncertain?

This brings me back to my blog title- it's strange when people dismiss science fiction as fantastic and unrelated with real-life issues when we live in a world that becomes each day more science-fiction-like in nature. Shouldn't literature be willing to look into the near future and begin the conversation on future ethics before they become a reality?

Yup... I'm insane!

2011-06-17T13:54:00.001-05:00

Via: Online PhD Programs

Everything you ever needed to know about language

2011-06-10T21:18:00.005-05:00

I think they should show this video in the intro to literary theory courses, and leave the discussion of the nature of language at that. All you need to know is right here.

Digital Ghosts

2011-05-17T22:52:00.000-05:00

Last week I saw this video thanks to William Gibson's twitter, and he theorized it may be viral marketing for some upcoming sci-fi horror film. If that's the case, there's definitely all sorts of creepy possibilities here. It's obviously stealth marketing for something, but it raises some fascinating/horrifying questions about our digital lives and how they could continue long after we're gone. On the slim chance this is real, well, *shudder*. I think the Uncanny Valley now extends to text-only interactions as well...

John Noble of Fringe talks about sci-fi

2011-05-10T23:40:00.001-05:00

I want this shirt.

Until fairly recently, say the last couple of years, I don't know that anyone would have said I am particularly into science fiction. Or, at least, I didn't feel that I was more or less into science fiction than the average Joe. Sure, I grew up with Star Wars, and thanks to my dad I saw a fair bit of The Next Generation, but who didn't? I loved The X-Files back in the 90s, but so did an awful lot of people. And I never was one to read particularly pulpy sci-fi (you know, the kind with the hideous covers that are 20-part series), and when I read Bradbury stories or A Wrinkle in Time I never thought "oh, this is sci-fi." I just thought, "oh, this is cool."

And yet, whenever I have dabbled with creative writing, dating all the way back to a story I wrote in elementary school that I vaguely remembering incorporating elements of Tron, I have tilted towards sci-fi ideas. And I didn't realize until recently, thanks to Wikipedia, that so many of my personal favorite movies, like Gattaca, weren't very popular when they came out. Above all, being in the academic world, I am suddenly forced to recognize that I am different for liking sci-fi, instead of focusing on more "serious" genres. The more I learn about literary theory and the academic world, the more I find that science fiction is everything I could want in a literary genre (and we in academia do love our genre labels so, even as we deride them for being artificial social constructs). It has great ideas, it's current, it's often political in a way that doesn't make me want to stop reading/watching, and above all, it does this while being fun. (For more on all this, head on over to The Cave of Montesinos).

Which brings me to the point of this post- John Noble, who plays Dr. Walter Bishop on Fringe (maybe sometime soon I'll post on how I feel this show has grown into one of the best TV shows around, sci-fi or not). His performance on the show is among the best you'll find on any kind of screen, and he's capable of making you laugh and breaking your heart all at the same time. He recently did an interview with the AV Club, and I liked what he said about Fringe and science fiction, and how current all the weird things on the show really are:

AVC: There’s often a bias against science fiction and fantasy among actors, directors, and writers. You don’t seem to have that bias. What about this sort of material appeals to you?

JN: Material is material. You know, there’s a tendency to want to put things in boxes so we can judge them and feel superior to them. Apart from the fact that science fiction is, and always has been, the most popular form of popular entertainment—which is interesting—science fiction is also clever fiction, because it invariably deals with potentials of the future. The stuff we deal with in Fringe is not going to happen in 200 years. I predict it will happen in 2025.

If you listen to Ray Kurzweil and other predictors, what we’re doing now will become commonplace in 2025. So we’re sitting just ahead of things, and for thinking audiences, they’re already aware of these possibilities. Those that are rooted in kitchen-sink dramas don’t want to know it. People don’t want to think like that, a lot of folks don’t want to know. It’s like, “I don’t want to know.” And I’m not judging that, they just don’t. So they judge it as being too hard. “It’s too hard,” they say, “I don’t want to think that hard.” If you just want to sit down after a day’s work, a beer in your hand and flick it on, and you can watch Fringe or Grey’s Anatomy, you’re going to go Grey’s Anatomy.

And there you have it, complete with a subtle jab at Grey's Anatomy.

Confession

2011-04-26T22:47:00.001-05:00

In the unfinished basement of my apartment building there's a nail sticking out of a wall. Every time I pass it to do laundry, I'm afraid I'll scratch my head, get septicemia, and end up in a knife fight with a gaucho in the pampas...

Biomusicology

2011-04-20T22:44:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, you realize the semester is almost over, and you have multiple papers due soon, as well as a required mini-course... oh, and you're moving in the next two weeks. And life makes you tired.

That's where songs like this oldie but goodie from Ted Leo & the Pharmacists come to your mind, and for a few minutes, you know you'll be able to do it all.

Had we never come across the vastness of pavement
The barrenness of waves and the grayness of the sea
Never lost or ne'er been misguided
We'd have ne'er reached seas so shining

Or come from out of a hansom in Camden
To a bar in the basement
While all the while it rained
Or come around to the friendliest of faces
Handsomest in ugly places

Or come from out of the tunnels we dig in
To see that tunneling's not living
And working doesn't work
Or come to find that loving is labor
Labor's life and life's forever

Or come to see that keeping's not giving
You get what you've given
You get what you deserve
And in the midst of all of the action
Maybe only there found satisfaction

Chasing sea-foam dreams
Around another dirty old town
Parallel run streams
Toward the gray ocean from the green ground
'Oed und leer, das meer
But look beneath the glassy surface
All the songs you hear
Down there they have a purpose

All in all we cannot stop singing
we cannot start sinking
We swim until it ends
They may kill and we may be parted
But we will ne'er be broken hearted

Making Academia Accessible

2011-04-11T23:03:00.001-05:00

As usual, Calvin and Hobbes reveals the truth.

Today, thanks to the Freakonomics blog, I found out about Access Magazine, a peer-reviewed academic journal that takes a different approach to scholarly writing:

ACCESS magazine reports on research funded by the University of California Transportation Center. The goal is to translate academic research into readable prose that is useful for policymakers and practitioners. Articles in ACCESS are intended to catapult academic research into debates about public policy, and convert knowledge into action.

What I like about this is that the research, which in its normal academic state would be unreadable to everyone except the few fellow academics with the same level of economic and mathematical knowledge, is purposefully being made accessible. I probably won't need to read many articles on transportation during my life, but it's nice to know that I would be able to, thanks to a magazine like this.

Mostly, though, this makes me wish that we in the humanities did more of this kind of thing. So much of what goes on seems to be so jargon-heavy and focused on such small areas of study that even at a conference where everyone is focused on Hispanic literature, there will be presentations that are hard to understand for everyone there. The field is so broad that of course we are going to find ourselves strewn across a vast landscape and exploring some dark and distant corners, and that's a wonderful thing. But I think we should be taking a next step to try and make our research relevant and accessible to the world. If we really feel that what we do is important, then we shouldn't he keeping in within the walls of the academy.

As things are now, it seems the only real way for humanities research to have any kind of real effect outside of academia is for artists to read and be influenced by academic work, and through their books or movies pass on some ideas to the general populace. This definitely has happened, and will continue to happen, but it's a somewhat slow process. To me, it is particularly strange that those whose academic work centers on resistance and the popular classes don't make their work accessible or appealing to anyone but the small club of fellow PhDs and grad students, when their ultimate goal is to create a better system for the poor and marginalized. I think we should be able to explain our research in an understandable way, not only to fellow hispanists, but also, at the very least, to educated people outside of our field.

I suppose part of why I feel this way is because I have already done it, but in a different direction. My research often incorporates the science of the brain, often from journals on neuroscience and clinical psychology. Due to my background in the sciences, I can understand most of what I find in these articles, but when bringing this into my humanities research I need to make sure that those who haven't taken a science class since freshman year of college can see what I do. I need to do this in a way that doesn't degrade the science or lose its meaning, yet allows an outsider to "join the club" for a few minutes. It isn't always easy, but I have found that it's definitely is possible.

So, if something as seemingly impenetrable as the science of the brain can be made understandable to us Spanish literature types, why can't we do the reverse?

Social constructions...

2011-04-05T13:41:00.001-05:00

This has nothing to do with what I've written, but it's funny. So here it is.

In the humanities, one of the phrases you hear a lot is "social construction." Obviously, the wide range of human cultures and social structures shows us that society can place us human beings into a seemingly endless amount of "social constructions." On one level, this phrase can show the way we are placed into certain practices or traditions- think, for example of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, how relatively new it is, how it has been changed, and how Americans used to recite it while saluting the flag with one arm raised. And yet, Americans generally accept it as a normal, seemingly eternal thing. Many from other countries would see a classroom of little children reciting and saluting, and find it a strange or even baffling sight. Our culture and language inescapably "construct" the way we see the world, even when we recognize the way that it's constructing our worldview and habits.

On another level, however, this phrase is often used more or less as a dismissal of something the speaker does not like about the world, and since everything we do seems to have a socially constructed aspect, you can dismiss anything. But sometimes, I think we're giving society and language too much credit. I could be saying this because I've had too much training in the sciences, but I think we in the humanities don't pay enough attention to the way our brains are preprogrammed or the way our genes predispose us to various practices and beliefs. For example, our individual societies are constructions, but society itself is not. What I mean is, man is a social animal, and needs and desires societal bonds to survive- we come into the world with the natural urge to be with others and learn from them. Courtship practices are social constructions, but the attraction and the urge to reproduce are not. Different family structures can be socially determined, yet any society that wishes to survive will need a self-propagating structure for the raising and education of children. Even things like musical inclination, the desire for religious belief, and even the way we learn language itself appear to have biological foundations in our brains. In other words, while many specifics can be chalked up to social constructions, in the way I see the world, many of these "social constructions" are manifestations of aspects of human biology. We need to look at both to understand our place in the world.

On Radiohead's New Album (Or, The Trouble With Expectations)

2011-04-01T11:48:00.000-05:00

So, as many of you know, Radiohead have released a new album, The King of Limbs (but this time you can't pay whatever you want). It's more of a low-key affair than their earlier work, more electronic and less song-based, and, as this article notes, a lot of people, including large portions of Radiohead's famously loyal fanbase, have found it disappointing. It seems logical that any band around as long as Radiohead would run into this problem, but what I find interesting is how this shows the power of our expectations as we approach a new work, especially when it has to do with artists we already know and love.

In my case, I know it would be absolutely impossible to try something like an "objective" approach to anything by Radiohead. Ten years ago, their Kid A changed my relationship with music and art, and I've loved everything they've done since The Bends. Listening to a new album of theirs is an event for me, full of expectation, but also a kind of understanding that I'll need to return to the album many times before I get to know it - an understanding that I don't offer to many bands. You could say that I'm predisposed to like anything they do, and I really like The King of Limbs.

Others, I imagine, expect to be blown away every time. Anything less than a mind blown is a failure, and so The King of Limbs is a major disappointment for them. It makes one wonder what would happen if same album were released by a new band- would it be hailed as an exciting new sound, or ignored?

What I'm wondering is if this is a bad thing at all. Do my expectations take anything away from my experience, make it any less authentic? If I say no, and decide that our expectations and context are just part of loving a work, how does that idea of being "objective" in a critical sense? What about someone who feels the same way (or even more passionately) about each new Twilight book or Saw movie? What do we make of our expectations, and what do we make of the expectations of others?

I guess for many people, this isn't a big deal. Let everyone like whatever they want. But what about those of us who study literature or art or music, and supposedly are supposed to be able to look at a work "critically." I usually choose to write about works I really like, and I assume most people do the same, and on the other hand, there are works that seems almost universally disliked or ignored by criticism in general. I feel comfortable knowing that my expectations and preexisting tastes may make me more willing to love a new Radiohead album, or Christopher Nolan or Coen Brothers movie, or a new novel by Cormac McCarthy. But what do I make of my reluctance to grant the same to someone who feels that way about Nickelback, Michael Bay, or Nicholas Sparks? Does this mean I am, on some subconscious level, equaling my tastes to some kind of imagined objective measure of good and bad? And is it any different than someone who loves things I dislike and dismisses my tastes as pretentious?

I don't really know, but it does provide me some food for thought...

The Art of the Title

2011-03-18T00:06:00.001-05:00

A Brief History of Title Design from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.

One element of seeing a movie that is often ignored (by both filmmakers and moviegoers) are the opening and closing credits. Unless we're talking about James Bond films or the Pink Panther, most title sequences don't reach the public consciousness, but sometimes they are worth watching and appreciating.

Luckily, since this is 2011, there is a whole website dedicated to appreciating title sequences.The above video gives quick (and often evocative) snippets of titles throughout the years, and it's fun to see how many you can recognize. But I would also recommend heading over to Art of the Title and getting (re)acquainted with some great title sequences, from movies old and new, and even TV, where some really cool stuff is happening in this area. A personal favorite of mine is the opening credits to Dexter, which makes a normal morning routine into a violent thing, all with a happy soundtrack:

Or, for a great example from film are the gorgeously animated titles for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events:

So, what are some of your favorites?

The Thin Red Line

2011-03-07T22:56:00.004-06:00

It took me over a decade, but I recently, finally, got around to watching The Thin Red Line. Terrence Malick's film is definitely its own kind of beast, completely unlike any other American war movie. Strangely enough, the more I think about it, the more I think the movie's strengths and weaknesses are really the same things, and whether you love or hate the film will depend in large measure on how you approach it- and I think having it released by The Criterion Collection frames the movie in a way that helps to approach it the right way.

In other words, the movie takes a World War II setting and makes an art movie out of it, providing an impressionist experience rather than the epic story you normally get from war movies. The death scenes are heartbreaking, even when we haven't met the characters before, and the battle scenes are intense and brilliantly executed. But this movie is more about the brief windows we get into the soldier's souls, and questions about life and existence. It's a movie that uses war as a chance to contemplate, and this is why I say having the movie on the Criterion Collection makes sense- it made me expect something arty and thought-provoking, and not Saving Private Ryan. I sat back and drank in the gorgeous cinematography and contemplative pacing, and that's what this movie is for.

On a side note, the movie is absolutely gorgeous in its new blu ray transfer. The folks at Criterion delivered a flawless, rich image that lets you soak in every detail. I'd go as far as to say that it's one of the best-looking live action films out there, and cinematography like this doesn't deserve anything less.

Cine mexicano

2011-03-04T15:07:00.002-06:00

This semester I have a course titled Mexican Film in the Age of NAFTA, which covers the last twenty years or so of movies out of Mexico, a time period which has seen the country's film industry learn to exist independent of state funding and censorship, along with the rise of the first group of Mexican directors to go on to sustained success in Hollywood and internationally (I call them the big three: Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Alejandro González Iñárritu). We're coming up on the halfway mark of the semester, but I thought I'd share my thoughts on what I've watched so far, then (assuming I get back into blogging like I want to) I'll give regular thoughts on the films I'm watching through the rest of the semester.

Danzón (María Novarro, 1991)

A nostalgic film about a single mother that works as a telephone operator. Her only real entertainment is danzón, an old style of dance. When her dance partner disappears, she decides to take a sudden trip to Veracruz to find him, and instead has a quiet adventure of self discovery. This is definitely a movie by women, for women, but without rocking the boat too much. It doesn't really do anything amazing or amazing, but it is well-acted and well-filmed, and overall, is what you would call "nice."

El bulto (Gabriel Retes, 1992)

The opening credits will show you two things about this movie- it's a super low budget film with music straight out of bad 80s movies (think MST3K movies bad), and most of the credits involved the director (also the producer, writer, and main actor). The story is about a leftist journalist who gets hit in the head in the 70s and wakes up 20 years later to a confusing world and to adult children he doesn't even know. The movie does have a few interesting elements in its Mexican Rip Van Winkle story, but I have to say the acting and music made this one hard to get through...

Sólo con tu pareja (Alfonso Cuarón, 1991)

Cuarón's first film is half sexicomedia, half romantic comedy (the tone shifts as the movie goes on). Tomás Tomás, a Don Juan in Mexico City, can't resist an opportunity to sleep with a woman, even if it's her wedding day, or when he already has another woman over at his apartment. One of the women he spurns is a nurse at his doctor's office, and decided to tell him he has HIV as revenge. From there, he tries to commit suicide and meets the woman of his dreams who also wants to commit suicide. It doesn't sound like a comedy, but it is, and some parts work better than others. You can tell it's Cuarón's first movie, but there are some elements that show his future promise, as well as some interesting cinematography from Emmanuel Lubezki (Cuarón's favorite cinematographer, and now Terrence Malick's).

Cronos (Guillermo del Toro, 1993)

Guillermo del Toro's first film is really its own kind of beast. An original take on the vampire and Frankenstein myths, this film tells the story of an old antiques shop owner (Federico Luppi) that finds a strange life-giving device, the dying industrialist that wants the device at any cost and his nephew (Ron Perlman), as well as the shop owner's quiet niece. You could call it a horror movie, but it has more in common with old school horror and body horror than the slasher films of the last 30 years. One thing's for sure- you may be able to call it a vampire film, but you haven't seen a vampire film quite like it.

Sexo, pudor y lágrimas (Antonio Serrano, 1999)

One of the first films to make Mexican filmmaking profitable in the private sphere, this movie takes some queues from the telenovela, but much more from American sitcoms and dramas. It's the story of two married couples and a couple of their friends, all the fights they have, and how they eventually find or fall out of love. Imagine a movie filmed like Friends, but almost pure drama. As the title says, there's sex, and there are tears. Can't say I cared too much about these whiny rich characters and their love problems...

La ley de herodes (Luis Estrada, 1999)

For those who like their stories of political corruption with a healthy dose of humor, served extra dark (taking some cues from the Coen brothers), La ley de herodes tells the story of a simple man being made mayor of nowhere town in northern Mexico, and finding out just how hard it is to be honest with so much power, and his PRI bosses push him further into the corruption. It's both funny and horrifying, and serves as a scathing satire of Mexican politics. Unlike, say, El bulto or Sexo, pudor y lágrimas, I want to see some of Estrada's other films...

Blogging on the go

2011-02-10T23:49:00.001-06:00

Google recently released a Blogger app for Android, so I'm giving it a test drive. In fact, this may change the way I blog, since now I can write a little something something wherever, whenever... even on the toilet. In fact, just to be safe, you should probably assume all posts are being written on the toilet from now on.

Great music video? Or very great music video?

2011-02-09T21:09:00.001-06:00

You be the judge.

Groundhog Day

2011-02-01T22:07:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, a day whose supreme purpose is to serve as a reminder to watch Harold Ramis' (Wash U grad, by the way) film of the same name. It's the kind of film that's better every time you watch it, a film that's incredibly fun and emotionally true, and just overall well-made from start to finish. I remember thinking it was good when I first saw it, but it wasn't until later that I realized how much I like this movie. Apparently, Roger Ebert went through a similar process of gradual appreciation, as he shares in his "Great Movies" entry:

"Groundhog Day" is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is.

I would say I feel that way too. In it's small corner of the film world, it's a perfect example of a movie that does exactly what it sets out to do, even if it isn't flashy about it. So, tomorrow, pull out your well-worn copy of the DVD, or head over to Netflix's Watch Instantly, and celebrate February 2 in style.

Oh, and here's a trailer if you've been under a rock for the last 15 years:

My Favorite Music of 2010

2011-01-20T01:21:00.000-06:00

Even Zoey has to rock the jams...

Ok, so I'm a month late, but I'm finally getting around to my list of favorite music from 2010. Once again, my belief that there's no such thing as a bad year for music was rewarded, with plenty of great tunes to help me through long days of reading and paper writing. Rather than rank them, I've put them in alphabetical order. I've added a video or audio of a favorite track from each one, along with a little commentary.

Since this is one long post, click below to go to the whole thing...

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs - This one definitely grew on me, until I realized one day that I really like it. Arcade Fire is one of those bands where I hear people's criticisms, and think they probably have a point, but I like the music so much the (perhaps valid) criticism only registers on an intellectual level and is soon forgotten. (Go here for a great example of using Google Maps to enhance a video)

Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: Son of Chico Dusty -This album is a masterclass in how to do your first solo album after a successful career in a group. From beginning to end, this has my head nodding.

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record - Maybe it has to do with my formative years of music discover (the late 90s and early 2000s), but Broken Social Scene always takes me back to the era when guitars ruled indie rock.

Caribou - Swim - This was a year with a lot of electronic music that I really liked, but didn't quite love (Four Tet, Bonobo, Flying Lotus), but this album I love. This has dance music DNA, but for me, it makes me want to put on headphones and soak it all in with my eyes closed

Fang Island - Fang Island - Fang Island remind me of what would happen if some of those 90s Weezer guitar solos became whole songs. If Bill and Ted were to listen to one indie release from 2010, it would be this one.

Foals - Total Life Forever - Foals reign in the chaos of their first album, and it does them good. I slept on this one at first because I wasn't impressed before, but who knew there would be some great tunes if the band decided to let their math rock breathe a little?

Gayngs - Relayted - This album brings back 80s slow rock with a vengeance. It shouldn't be good, but somehow it is...

Girl Talk - All Day - Not only is it free, but it's one major overdose of mashup goodness- it's almost too much. There are some juxtapositions on this one that, no matter what I'm doing, I can't help but smile.

Holy F*** - Latin - The drums kick and the music is crazy. Pure instrumental goodness.

Hot Chip - One Life Stand - This one grew on me. "I Feel Better" having such an insanely awesome (awesomely insane?) video doesn't hurt either.

Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid - My favorite debut album this year. Monáe is exploding with talent and ideas, and I wouldn't be surprised if this album ends up being the tip of the iceberg.

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Overhyped? Yes. But during some of the standout tracks, the music gets so big and so confident that you forget the hype for a bit and just enjoy an album daring to live up to its name, even if, in my opinion, it could use a bit of a trim.

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening - More 8-minute tracks of James Murphy rambling/yelling/singing? Yes please. "We're dancing Marxism to pieces..."

Local Natives - Gorilla Manor - Wonderful harmonies, unique melodies, and interesting beats. I'll be keeping an eye on these guys.

The Morning Benders - Big Echo - I saw these guys open for John Vanderslice in Provo last year, and kept them in the back of my mind. When I saw they had a new album, I wasn't disappointed - they know how to write wonderfully catchy music.

The National - High Violet - "Afraid of Everyone" captures the feeling of being a parent in a society bombarded by fear-mongering media, and may be my favorite song this year. The rest of the album is just as brilliant.

The New Pornographers - Together - When you need a shot of sugary pop music that won't insult your intelligence, the New Pornos are always reliable.

Robyn - Body Talk - Robyn takes her take on pop to a new level here. I'd say 80% of the album is worthy of being a chart-topping hit on the radio, but I guess she'll just have to settle for being big in Europe.

The Roots - How I Got Over - The best band in late night television reminds us that they make great music of their own. I heard this might be their last album, and if so, it's another solid album to add to their legacy.

Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago - An overlooked album that's worth your attention.

Stornoway - Beachomber's Windowsill - The world of folkish pop is definitely crowded, but Stornoway manage to make a place for themselves with this album.

Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz - It's not for everyone, but it's definitely for me. Sufjan's return is at once almost completely different from Illinois, but is still unmistakeably him, just a bit unhinged.

Twin Shadow - Forget - There's an overflow of dreampop 80s-inspired lo-fi bands out there right now, in my opinion. But Twin Shadow reminds me that there are often some really good albums floating around in genres that don't necessarily interest me.

Yeasayer - Odd Blood - Underappreciated, if you ask me. Just try to resist tracks like "O.N.E." or "Madder Red."

Public Service Announcement

2011-01-18T16:15:00.002-06:00

Fringe is now moved to Fridays. Citizens of both universes are to take note and continue observing the program as before. Also, please remember to take your Cortexifan as directed. Thank you.

John Cleese explains the God Gene

2010-12-27T11:06:00.000-06:00

Enjoy!

Christmas Was Better In The 80s

2010-12-23T11:02:00.000-06:00

Just a friendly reminder from The Futureheads...

Get your slow jams on

2010-12-21T21:54:00.001-06:00

One of the big surprises in music for me this year (stay tuned for my post on my favorite music of the year) is Gayngs. They're a Minneapolis super group, including Bon Iver, that got together to make an album entirely at 69 BPM in the style of 80s soft rock. It sounds like a bad joke, especially when you've seen their press picture (above), but somehow it's not only way better than it should be, but just really good stuff. How much you enjoy it will probably depend on how much you like slow grooves, but I dig it. Here are a couple of the songs I like the most...

"No Sweat"

"The Gaudy Side of Town"

Nostalgia for little science nerds

2010-11-19T20:21:00.001-06:00

As a kid, I remember watching episodes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos with my dad, and looking through the big illustrated book he had that was based on the series. Well, someone decided to put autotune to good use and took footage of Carl Sagan and other scientists talking about the vastness of the universe and our place in it. It's cool in its own right, but the nostalgia factor really pushes it to another level for me:

Which also takes me back to another one of these I saw a good while back:

By the way, Cosmos is on Netflix streaming, and I think I'm going to give it a revisit... I'm sure it's dated and that some of the science is obsolete, but I love remembering the awe thinking about the vastness of the universe produced in my young mind, and hopefully I can feel that again. There's something healthy about being completely overwhelmed from time to time by the immensity of the world, galaxy, and universe.

A couple of FAILS

2010-11-15T20:47:00.001-06:00

Just a couple of humorous fails I wanted to pass on to you all:

First, here's a snippet from a crime alert email I received a few days back:

At about 8:30pm, the fiancée of a Graduate student returned home in her car in the 6300 block of Cabanne in University City. She observed three subjects in front of the apartment building and drove to the rear. As she exited the vehicle, two suspects approached her; demanded her keys and money; and then attempted to take her vehicle. However the vehicle had a manual transmission and the suspects could not drive a manual transmission. The suspects fled on foot. A short time later University City Police stopped three suspects who were taken into custody for the Robbery.

Second, here's a photo I took of a book display at the Wash U bookstore:

Oh well, they only got one of the books wrong... and at least the other author has the same first name, right?

Pure cinematic gold

2010-11-14T20:54:00.000-06:00

I was just flipping channels, and stumbled on this scene from the major cinematic flop, The Avengers:

Sean Connery. In a teddy bear suit. That is all.

Representations of Remembrance

2010-10-22T11:56:00.000-05:00

I just got an email saying that my MA thesis, Representations of Remembrance: Literature and Memory in Borges, Piglia, and Fresán, has finally been published to the Harold B. Lee Library's catalog, complete with online access to the pdf. Here's the glorious entry:

Abstract: This study examines three works by Argentine authors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries: Jorge Luis Borges’s “La memoria de Shakespeare,” Ricardo Piglia’s La ciudad ausente, and Rodrigo Fresán’s Mantra. These works explore the theme of memory directly, and provide insight into the role of memory in relation to literature, technology, and media. To understand memory and its functions and failures, I employ concepts from recent scientific inquiry into the nature of memory, particularly neuroscience and clinical psychology. Within this framework, I show how memory and narrative fiction share a number of similarities, and explore the idea of memoria ajena, or memories that come not from personal experience, but from outside, whether it be from another person’s mind or from the fiction one consumes

And here's a link to the whole thing in pdf: http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd3875.pdf

My whole theory on the relationship between memory and literature (specifically, that the narrative structure of literature mirrors the structure of episodic memory, and that is why we are susceptible to receiving foreign memories through books and films) is rather embryonic right now, but for a brief run-through of my take on memory, you can just read the introduction. Hooray for the reckless use of science in the realm of the humanities!

Movie of the Week: The Secret of Kells

2010-10-20T21:05:00.002-05:00

Since coming out to St. Louis, I haven't been watching as many movies, so I've decided to start a personal Movie of the Week, or MOTW (not to be confused with Monster of the Week, a term I know because I'm an X-Files nerd). It can be any kind of film, popular or independent, Hollywood or foreign, new or old. After I watch them, you all are the lucky recipients of my thoughts, recommendations, or warnings to avoid it...

After the last Academy Awards were announced, there was one film nominated for Best Animated Feature that not only had I not seen, but I hadn't even heard of it: The Secret of Kells. I saved it to my Netflix queue so I could know whenever it reached the States, and I was happy to see that not only did it arrive, but it was available on Netflix streaming. I had seen a few reviews and blurbs mentioning that the animation is beautiful, but that didn't prepare me for what I saw when the film actually started. From start to finish, this film is pure joy to the eyes, providing crisp, fluid animation and gorgeous backdrops, all of which made me glad Netflix streams it in HD because this film warrants it. In many scenes, the stye is clearly inspired by illuminated manuscripts,with an engaging blend of organic and geometric shapes and colors. The different settings allowed the animators to get creative, and each place, from the parchment-colored scriptorium to the colorful watercolors of the forest, is interesting in its own way. If for no other reason, this film's visuals are not just great for an independent foreign production- they would be great no matter where they came from. And I fear big studios would never dare to do 2D animation like this, but that's another story.

The story is rather simple- a boy named Brendan lives in Kells in the time right before the Vikings attack. A monk from a faraway city arrives with a book of illuminated manuscripts, and supports Brendan's interest in illuminating, even though his uncle, the Abbot, is against it and feels the townspeople should focus on defense against the Vikings. From there Brendan must face several dangerous adventures in order to make sure the Book of Kells survives. While the complexity and depth of the story don't live up to the visuals, I found Kells to be a thoroughly enjoyable viewing experience. I still think Up and Fantastic Mr. Fox were the best animated films last year, but to think that those films came out the same year as this and Caroline makes me optimistic for the future of animation, as each are bold and daring in their own ways, and all of them remember to entertain.

For those of you with children, I should war you that this film has some parts that may frighten small children, especially when the Vikings attack. If this had an MPAA rating, it would definitely be PG.

Song referencing songs

2010-10-16T23:29:00.002-05:00

Novels have a long history of directly referencing other novels or works of fiction (See: Quixote, Don), as do film and television. In rock music, however, the examples are perhaps not as numerous, yet there are plenty to go around (see this recent AV Club article for examples). I decided to post two of my favorites that do this song-referencing in excess, making it the central element of the lyrics. First up is Built to Spill's "You Were Right," which serves as a virtual encyclopedia of classic lines from the golden days of classic rock. Lines like "you were right when you said we're all bricks in the wall" or "You were right when you said all we are is dust in the wind" seem a little cheesy, but I think they're meant to be. This song serves as an ode to the way that the songs we listen to growing up provide us with a set of aphorisms we can use to understand the world. It's an earnest act of musical archaeology, with guitar hooks to match those of the songs referenced. Here's a live video of the song, and a link to the lyrics (check the comments section for the sources of the references):

The other song is the one that inspired this post, as I listened to it today for the first time in quite a while: "Plus Ones" by Okkervil River. The track begins with the line "No one wants to hear about your 97th tear," and continues with others about "the 100th luftballoon" or how "not everyone's keen on lighting candle 17." I love the slew of references, especially in how they range from "16 Candles" to "3 Times a Lady," and how by adding one to each number something seems off about each references. There's no reason why she shouldn't be 4 times a lady, except for the fact that we're so used to it being 3. Plus, the song's catchy. The song is below, and the lyrics are here.

In case you need a laugh

2010-09-30T10:46:00.000-05:00

I'm posting this Monty Python clip just in case you a) need a laugh, or b) need to feel completely and utterly horrified that anyone would find such a scene of bloody violence humorous.

Stornoway

2010-09-28T22:51:00.000-05:00

Well, for the last few years I have been writing for The Yellow Stereo, a little music blog that, as of late, has been having some server issues. I was going to post this over there, but the issues have led me to decide to start doing my music posts on both blogs...

If you don't really feel compelled to put Stornoway on repeat right away, I wouldn't blame you- I think I first heard one of their songs about a month or two before it caught on. But when I gave them a second listen, they caught on in a big way. Musically, they know just how to add little layers of instruments to keep their blend of folky rock interesting, but the real star of the show is Brian Briggs's voice. The melodies are great, and all the little harmonies and instrumental flourishes are the icing on the cake.

Below are their first two singles, including "Zorbing," which is definitely one of my favorite songs of the year so far. If you like these, you'll dig their debut album, Beachcomber's Windowsill.

The Value of Art in the Age of Digital Distribution

2010-09-22T22:11:00.000-05:00

This week Sufjan Stevens' record label, Asthmatic Kitty, sent out an email announcing the pre-order of Stevens' new album, The Age of Adz. They're offering a pre-order this week for $8, plus you get the album two weeks earlier... not a bad deal. However, the email also said this:

We have it on good authority that Amazon will be selling The Age of Adz for a very low price on release date, not unlike they did with Arcade Fire’s recent (and really terrific) The Suburbs. We’re not 100% sure Amazon will do this, but mostly sure. We have mixed feelings about discounted pricing. Like we said, we love getting good music into the hands of good people, and when a price is low, more people buy. A low price will introduce a lot of people to Sufjan’s music and to this wonderful album. For that, we’re grateful. But we also feel like the work that our artists produce is worth more than a cost of a latte.

Which raises some interesting points that echo my own conflicted feelings about music in the digital age. On one hand, I am a music junkie, and I want to keep up with the wide world of music while still supporting the artists, and a lower price means I can support my habit without pirating. On the other hand, Amazon's Daily Deals on their MP3 stores are usually in the $2-$4 range (for the record, Amazon takes the cut on the albums), and the lower price can devalue the product. I remember buying albums for 15 bucks each after driving half an hour to the record store (remember those?), and each new album was like an adventure. It's not that way any more, as I buy more music due to cheaper prices online, and it's no longer a pilgrimage or adventure each time.

At the heart of this trade-off, I think, is the fundamental problem of art existing as a product. Art, at its best, seems like it should defy monetary value, yet in order to get it we need to purchase it and make the creation of more art possible. More exposure for good music is a good thing, but at the same time the amount we pay for things often colors our view of it. The albums I bought in high school were definitely more expensive, yet I valued each one, and was terribly disappointed when a new purchase stunk. Now, if I buy an album for 3 or 5 bucks, and it'd bad, I think, "oh well, I didn't spend much on it." I guess it goes to show how much pricing serves to help us form opinions of things.

Personally, I guess I will keep buying a lot of albums, and at the cheapest price I can, because hey, I gotta put food on the table. But, at the same time, part of me missing skipping a morning class on the day a new Radiohead album came out so that I could buy it, struggle with the packaging, look through the album art, and listen to it on my discman before making it to my next class. Part of me misses spending forever at the record store because I knew I could only afford one, and yet there were so many choices. The albums I bought were the chosen ones, the ones that made the cut, and were therefore instantly special in a way that doesn't really happen any more. Or maybe nostalgia making me remember things differently...

The hot-button issue of 2010

2010-09-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

THE big issue of the year is, of course, which of these two album covers is the best album cover of the year?

Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart

Klaxons - Surfing the Void

You see, it's tough, because on one side we have a flying giant shark, and on the other a catsronaut. Perhaps it is an impossible choice.

"The earth belongs to the living" - Constitution Day ramblings

2010-09-17T13:35:00.004-05:00

So, lately I have been watching HBO's John Adams, a miniseries about- you guessed it!- John Adams. I haven't read David McCullough's book, mainly because I chose to read it's much shorter companion, 1776, which I can heartily recommend. In any case, the series is well-acted, and one thing I have enjoyed about it is finding that many of the phrases that catch my ear can be traced letters or other documents from the historical figures, which has led to me watching the show with a laptop at hand and then bookmarking different letters and websites to read later. The last episode I watched followed Adams as he was in France with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, far from the writing and ratifying of the Constitution. Jefferson makes a startling statement, but one I have been thinking about all week, which I will quote from the 1879 letter to James Madison the writers took the words from:

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; and that no such obligation can be transmitted I think very capable of proof. I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;" that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society.

He then goes on to talk about debt, and how one generation should not have the right to pass on its debts to the next. But then he takes the idea to a rather startling place:

On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished them, in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.

This is the idea that struck me, something I never thought of before- what right does one generation have to make a binding constitution that following generations must follow? Obviously, the power to make amendments allows a generation to alter a constitution, but what is proposed here, an expiration date on laws and constitutions, is another thing entirely. This idea seems to suggest that, at least, that each generation should seriously consider the constitution or laws it has inherited and decide what to keep, amend, and reject. People often appeal to the Constitution, but with no reason other than that it is the supreme law of the land, without considering if the Founding Fathers really had the right to do so.

I am not suggesting I believe in a rejection of the Constitution- far from it. But I think I have enjoyed the seed of doubt Jefferson's letter has planted in my head. I suppose I have always taken the idea of a perpetual, binding Constitution for granted, but Jefferson neatly deconstructs it here, making the opening for doubt, the kind of doubt that I find productive. By openly challenging the Constitution as a perpetual power, one can consider its contents, its origins, and its effects in a way that's impossible when taking it for granted like something that's just always there.

So, this Constitution Day, question the Constitution all the way to the core. Personally, by doing so, I find certain aspects of it to be all the more wise and useful, and I realize that, if a new Constitutional Convention were to happen every 20 years or so like Jefferson proposes, there are not too many things I would vote to change... except for that Electoral College... but that's another story...

When a music video is not just a video

2010-08-31T22:17:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to Arcade Fire's new music video/interactive experience for "We Used To Wait." Even if you don't know or care who Arcade Fire are, this video is a must see. The way this video employs Google Maps combined with original imagery is impressive, to say the least. It is meant to be seen in Google Chrome (which is a good enough browser to give Firefox a run for its money).

Click here, and be prepared for a cool experience and a healthy dose of nostalgia.

8th Grade Spanish + García Lorca = Bueno

2010-08-18T12:43:00.001-05:00

I just saw this, and had to repost it... McSweeney's Internet Tendency, my favorite source of overly nerdy literary jokes, just posted "Narrative in Eighth Grade Spanish in the Style of Federico García Lorca." It made me smile, and I know some of you are fellow Spanish lit nerds, here's a little sample:

SON: ¿Donde esta el baño?

(It has been four years since SON has been home. He joined the army after an argument with his father over his inheritance of land. He learned of his father's murder while on the front line against the rebels. Reluctant, he must now enter the house as a man.)

MOTHER: (hanging up a pair of stockings) Mi casa es su casa.

(The guitar picks up intensity as both realize the truth in the MOTHER's words. The SON, overcome, falls to the ground and weeps. The stars flicker.)

SON: ¡Madre!

(He cries to the sky like a wolf searching for a moon that never comes.)

Head here for the rest...

New scenes for the hit action event of the summer - SALT

2010-07-30T00:04:00.001-05:00

Now that I have seen Salt, I think the movie was missing one thing- one of those scenes after the credits that totally blows your mind. So I decided to write some, which, hopefully, some Hollywood exec will read, and then film and add as a DVD extra. If they're smart, they will, because these are gold. Pure gold.

SCENE 1

The Russian President's house place. He is sitting alone, eating his usual dinner of vodka and pelmeni (thanks, Wikipedia!), and reading top secret U.S. spy documents. He looks up, staring out of his window, and you can tell from his eyes he is plotting something.

Cut to a scene in the walls. A figure in all black, below the camera, is moving in a wall space. The figure pulls out a high-tech government listening device and places it on the wall.

Back to the president. After finishing off his third glass of vodka, he takes a bite of his pelmeni, and promptly does a spit-take. Furious, he turns to his bodyguard, and yells, in heavily accented English:

PRESIDENT

This meal taste horrible. Get me SALT!

Cut back to the figure in the wall. The camera pans to the side, revealing that the figure is SALT. She turns slowly, looks at the camera, and smiles, very enigmatically.

Fade to black.

SCENE 2

The U.S. President is wanting to leave the White House, but it is The Day After Tomorrow, and a huge super-storm has frozen the ground in front of his presidential limo. As he sits impatiently in the car, playing Frogger on his cool new iPhone, he tells his driver:

PRESIDENT

Call the grounds crew, and tell them we need loads of SALT!

Several grounds crew members come trudging through the snow, and one of them is wearing a big warm Russian-style hat. The crew starts spreading the salt melt, and the camera moves around in front. The crew member in the Russian hat looks up at the camera, revealing she is SALT. She then smiles, very enigmatically.

Fade to black.

SCENE 3

A college professor is teaching a basic chemistry class. She is elderly, but teaches with great passion. She is informing the students about what happens when Sodium ions and Chloride ions are found in an aqueous solution. She writes "NaCl" on the chalkboard dramatically. She turns back to the students, asking:

TEACHER

What is left if we boil this solution?

STUDENT 1

Sodium Chloride?

TEACHER

Which is better know as?

THE WHOLE CLASS, TOGETHER

SALT!!!

The bell rings, and the class leaves. Only the teacher remains, and she begins pulling off her latex mask, revealing she is SALT. She then smiles, very enigmatically.

Fade to black.

Alright, Hollywood fatcats. The ball's in your court.

A movie called "Sharktopus?" Yes. A movie called "Sharktopus!"

2010-07-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

SyFy Channel seems to want to up the ante a little and take horrible monster movies to a whole new level of horrible. They still have a long ways to go, however, before they can earn a PhD in horribleness.

Oh, and there's a bit of blood, so be warned...

Inception: A Borgesian Good Time

2010-07-18T00:36:00.002-05:00

No spoilers here... just a brief plug for Inception, Christopher Nolan's latest. All throughout the movie, I kept thinking how Borgesian the dreamscape was. Dreams, dreams within dreams, labyrinths, subjective time, obsessive ideas, memory... it's all there. Of course, I wondered if it was just my Borges-obsessed post-thesis mind making the connection, so I did some searching and found this quote from a New York Times interview Nolan did:

Q. So who do you read in preparation to make a movie like this? Freud? Philip K. Dick?

A. Probably Borges. I’d like to think this is a movie he might enjoy. [laughs] It sounds like a highfalutin reference in some ways, but the truth is, he took these incredibly bizarre philosophical concepts – like a guy facing a firing squad who wants more time to finish a story in his head, and he’s granted more time by time slowing down, as the bullet travels between the gun and him – and makes them into very digestible short stories.

I think Inception manages that same feat- its a digestible story with some great mind candy to go with the stunning eye candy. It's probably the most Borgesian thing ever to come out of Hollywood, and being who I am, I think that's a great thing. There are shades of "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," "The Secret Miracle" (as mentioned above), "El Zahir," "The Writing of the God," and even "The Library of Babel." And I couldn't help but think about the final words of "The Memory of Shakespeare," the subject of a chapter of my thesis: "pero en el alba sé, alguna vez, que el que sueña es el otro. De tarde en tarde me sorprenden pequeñas y fugaces memorias que acaso son auténticas." How often do you get a whole serving of Borgesian ideas at the same time as your monthly recommended allowance of explosions and action?

Come to think of it, I just got the idea that Memento can be seen as a very twisted take on "Death and the Compass"... I might be on to something!

Zoey's Awesome GROWL!

2010-07-16T19:29:00.000-05:00

Zoey loves to talk, loves to squeal, and loves to growl!

Sci-Fi Visuals 1.5 - Janelle Monae

2010-07-14T22:46:00.001-05:00

A second edition of my recent sci-fi visuals post is coming soon, with more movies and some TV shows... until then, here's a music video from Janell Monae, a young r&b/funk/rock/pop/rap/electronic/indie/cyborg musician whose recent album, The ArchAndroid, is as much fun as you'll have listening to a concept album about cyborgs rising up from oppression. This song is from her first EP, Metropolis, and establishes an interesting world for her music to take place in. I like the presence of a "Tech Daddy" and "Punk Prophets" in the audience...

A happier, simpler time...

2010-07-13T14:42:00.000-05:00

I just saw this wonderful video from our glorious past. When I hear people talk about the "happier, simpler" times of yesteryear, this is exactly what comes to mind, and it's quite humorous. Thankfully, this is the Mystery Science Theater version, so it's bearable...

Personally, I love the part about making sure your conversations are emotion-free. Emotions are the worst.

Arrested Development with a Vengeance

2010-07-08T22:16:00.000-05:00

There may or may not be an Arrested Development movie in the future. Until then (or not then), we have this trailer for an Arrested Development action movie made out of clips from the show...

And while we're on trailer mash-ups, here's another great, if unrelated, one:

Favorite Sci-Fi Visuals

2010-06-27T00:07:00.001-05:00

Not too long ago I watched a little British film called Franklyn. It has four interlocking storylines, three of them in current London, and one in Meanwhile City, a futuristic cyberpunk dystopia where the state requires everyone to have a religion, be it Catholic or Seventh Day Manicurist. Meanwhile City has some obvious debts to Blade Runner's Los Angeles and Terry Gilliam, but I was stunned by how great it looked, especially considering the lower budget the film had. The future metropolis blended with religious imagery was simply striking. Plus, the mask the main character wears is pretty cool. Personally, I would have preferred a movie just set in the sci-fi world, and less of the London stories.

So, since watching it, I have been thinking of my favorite sci-fi visuals, and I thought I would share them, in no particular order... and probably leaving out a few, because I'm just making it up as I go...

2001: A Space Odyssey - No, not the LSD trip. What I love is the way space is relentlessly big, making the solitude of space feel real.

Wall-E - The first half hour of the film had me staring at the screen in wonder.

Sunshine - Here a literal voyage to the sun becomes some of the best eye candy you'll see in any genre.

Blade Runner - The grimiest LA you'll ever find outside of the real one.

District 9 - Forget Avatar. This movie has 2009's best special effects.

The Fountain - Even more amazing when you know how little the special effects cost.

Children of Men - Oppressively gloomy? Maybe. But the cinematography is amazing.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Surreal in the best kind of way. Plus, it's all about my current obsession - memory.

Soooo... what are yours?

Watching "kids stuff" and loving it

2010-06-22T01:21:00.001-05:00

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis

This last weekend my wife, Karalee, gave me a great Father's Day surprise- tickets for us to see Toy Story 3! I won't post any spoilers, because it's a great movie with some great twists, but I will say that it's another example of why I have loved Pixar movies for the last 15 years. Every year I know that I will have a chance to go a movie theater and get to look at the world with a sense of wide-eyed wonder and have a cathartic experience. It was hilarious, but it also had some absolutely brilliant moments that can bring a tear to your eye (I didn't cry, but I'm not a movie crier). It doesn't have the surprise factor of Pixar's last few movies, since we're already familiar with the characters, but it more than makes up for it by being a great experience, start to finish.

As for the quote above, I think it explains how I feel about great "children's" movies and books. From classic Disney to movies like Iron Giant to Pixar, sometimes I think supposed kiddie movies can deal with things in a way that "adult" movies struggle with. I don't know, maybe it's the juxtaposition of innocence with just how bad the world and people can be (and the villain in Toy Story 3 is really bad), or the happy endings that the characters actually have to earn, or the way so many emotions can be bundled up into one movie about toys of all things, but I never cease to be amazed by what a bunch of creative people can do with animation. All I know is that these last few days I have fondly remembered the hours spent with my toys (Star Wars, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, and Ghostbusters), and the elaborate situations and stories I would make up with them, and I can't wait to see Zoey do the same and be there to play with her... and for any movie that can do that "I am eternally grateful."

Memory and Music - "The Trapeze Swinger"

2010-06-21T17:50:00.000-05:00

"Bow to my beard!" (What I would say if I had a beard like Sam Beam.)

Well, I'm in the final stages of writing my thesis about memory in the works of Jorge Luis Borges, Ricardo Piglia, and Rodrigo Fresán, but I won't bore you too much with that. Instead, I'm going to share an Iron & Wine song that, for me, does a great job of illustrating the different positives and negatives of remembering. Whoever the character speaking in this track is, you can tell that the girl has left quite an impression on his memories, and he desperately hopes that she remembers him well. Along the way there is some beautiful imagery, musings about the grafitti on heaven's walls, and a trapeze swinger. What hits me now when I hear it is the way he asks her to remember him mistakenly, as a dream, and seldomly.

Before you click play and listen, I have two warnings- this is ten-minute song, and it drops an F-bomb on you. You've been warned, so now you can enjoy. Lyrics below...

Please, remember me happily
By the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin, the time when
We counted every black car passing
Your house beneath the hill
And up until someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention

But please, remember me fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then they went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like "We'll meet again" and "Fuck the man"
And "Tell my mother not to worry"
And angels with their great handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry

And please, remember me that Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white
By midnight, we'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world and then returned
And now you're lit up by the city

So please, remember me mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower
Calling passers-by but much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Gleam and resonate, just like the gates
Around the holy kingdom
With words like "Lost and found" and "Don't look down"
And "Someone save temptation"

And please, remember me as in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees and fast asleep
Aside the lions and the ladies
That called you what you like and even might
Give a gift for your behavior
A fleeting chance to see a trapeze
Swinger high as any savior

But please, remember me, my misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain and chasing trains
The colored birds above their running
In circles around the well and where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter
So bright, on cinder gray, in spray paint
"Who the hell can see forever?"

And please, remember me seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees, you turned from me
And said, "The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last", the clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs, the parking lot
Had an element of danger

So please, remember me finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear, but if I make the pearly gates
I'll do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl
An angel kissing on a sinner
A monkey and a man, a marching band
All around a frightened trapeze swinger...

I knew I had this growing sense of guilt for a reason...

2010-06-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

From Friends of Irony

"No Atlantis is too underwater or too fictional"

2010-06-14T11:35:00.001-05:00

So, I guess Oprah is giving away a new show, and people submitted their own videos to try out. I'm not too sure, because I never watch Oprah, because we all know Ellen is more entertaining and doesn't destroy awesome BBC nature documentaries by replacing David Attenborough's excellent narration. This video is, in my book, the beginning of what could be a seriously funny show, and luckily it seems like he's winning in a landslide on the online voting. And yes, the line I put as the title of this post is from this video and it's the BEST.

Zach's oprah deal from Zach Anner on Vimeo.

He also has a Youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZachAnner.

Look out for viral ideas...

2010-06-04T20:14:00.003-05:00

"We are all susceptible to the pull of viral ideas. Like mass hysteria. Or a tune that gets into your head that you keep on humming all day until you spread it to someone else. Jokes. Urban legends. Crackpot religions. Marxism. No matter how smart we get, there is always this deep irrational part that makes us potential hosts for self-replicating information."
-Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

Billy Collins - "Litany"

2010-05-30T17:50:00.000-05:00

Ben posted a Billy Collins poem over on his blog, which reminded me of how much I like his poetry... I can't help but hear this and smile...

Personal Classics - Elliott Smith's XO

2010-05-27T23:49:00.000-05:00

I'm posting this because I'm feeling uninspired and can't really bring myself to write about my thesis. I feel increasingly less theoretically-minded every day, but music is here to keep me sane.

Back when I started college, I was all over Audiogalaxy, which was a great filesharing site that doubled as a very active music discussion forum. For all of its problems, filesharing is a huge part of why I have become addicted to music and have spent what must amount to thousands of dollars over the last decade. One of the artists I found through Audiogalaxy was Elliott Smith, and it couldn't have come at a better time. When I first heard Elliott Smith's XO, I instantly connected with the emotion, which was so different from the emo that was on the rise then. Smith could write a song that sounded as gentle as can be, but underneath it all there was real heartbreak or anger. Later I learned about Smith's drug addictions and depression, and it dawned on me how some people have a gift to take all of their personal pain and turn it into something beautiful. And beautiful is a perfect word for XO.

On a side note, I introduced my family to Smith's music, and a few of them loved it. I was in Argentina in 2003 when he died, and I still remember when my dad let me know in an email. It was the first time an artist whose work had really influenced me had died, and the feeling of loss was strange. I had just assumed that I could continue looking forward to new releases every few years, but now we have what he did, and I guess I can value it all the more because of it.

Another entry in the b-movie (f-movie?) hall of fame

2010-05-18T20:05:00.002-05:00

As you probably know by now, I love garbage. Not the kind from garbage cans, but rather the kind on the SyFy channel (complete with silly spelling!) at 2 AM. It used to be that you had to have cable AND stay up late to enjoy the best garbage, but it was the kind of sacrifice discerning garbage connoisseurs had to make. But now, thanks to the magic of the interwebs, Youtube can provide you with the one minute chunks of transcendent awfulness that were the real reason you sat through the rest of the bad dialogue and plotless meandering. To recap, Interwebs 1, Not sleeping, 0.

This clip, which can also serve as an informational training video on what to do when bullet-proof snakes attack, is from Hard Ticket to Hawaii (there is some super-fake bloodiness, so be warned):

The real question is, why do I love these kinds of things so much? Was it my exposure to MST3K at a tender age? Or is it, as Henry Krips would say, just an expression of the Scopic Drive creating pleasure from the interpassivity required to watch such scenes with the level of detachment necessary to enjoy really crappy stuff? Or am I just insane?

A big pile of broken dreams

2010-05-17T18:45:00.001-05:00

Here's a great segment from the documentary Scratch where DJ Shadow talks about what it means to sample music:

And here's what he did with that "pile of broken dreams"...

Why am I posting this? I guess with my thesis I've been thinking more about sampling and mash-ups...

Looking forward to this one...

2010-05-03T19:47:00.002-05:00

Hopefully it doesn't take too long for us to get it here in the States!

Lotto commercials can be cool?

2010-04-27T21:00:00.001-05:00

Apparently, lotto commercials can be awesome now. This one features new Grizzly Bear and was directed by Patrick Daughters ("Two Weeks," "1234") and choreographed by Michael Rooney (who did the dance sequence in (500) Days of Summer). This would be one of those times when a commercial manages to be something interesting in its own right. I wouldn't mind a full-length video of this...

Generalísimo Francisco Franco is still dead...

2010-04-26T20:24:00.001-05:00

This just in...

A running joke from SNL's first season...

George has got my back

2010-04-26T20:22:00.000-05:00

"I'm on the dollar bill AND coin, so you know I'm right!"

I often hear how those not in one of the two major U.S. political parties (I believe they're called something like the Republicrats and the Democricans... I'm not too sure because I can't really tell the difference between them) are lukewarm or not realistic, or whatever. I finally ran into a quote from someone named George Washington which I feel backs me up in my decision not to join one of the parties:

All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They [political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

In short, General Washington expresses my opinion on the matter and succinctly explains my reticence towards joining a party. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm write, but it always helps to have a revered historical figure backing you up.

As an added bonus, I'm not in either parties' donor list, call list, or address book, which means less junk mail. Last I checked, my vote still counts for one, like everyone else's. I also feel like my letters to senators and representatives have the same chance of being read or ignored as those by party members, unless there's a practice of checking names against party membership records that I'm not aware of...

Lastly, perhaps my second largest pet peeve with politics (behind ineffective and misguided legislation) is the high school football mentality that so often comes with it. It is so strange to me how people get up in arms about decisions proposed by their own people when it's the other team that puts it into practice, or how often when goals are shared, the two sides will act like they disagree to avoid looking like they are cooperating with the enemy. It's a situation where the only thing keeping either group from tearing itself apart is the presence of some big other to fight against, even if it means inventing slights and controversies to distract the public from the lack of action going on...

Oh well, I just wanted to defend my position of not joining a party, unless said party involves really tasty food and sweet music. Then I might attend.

Use your humanities skills, save the world

2010-04-22T14:18:00.001-05:00

"Stand back- I understand semiotics!!!"

When you see something titled "The Only Thing that Can Stop This Asteroid is your Liberal Arts Degree," you know it's got to be good. For anyone in the humanities, this is must-read stuff. A sample:

I've seen your work and it's damn impressive. Your midterm paper on the semiotics of Band of Outsiders turned a lot of heads at mission control. Your performance in Biology For Non-Science Majors was impressive, matched only by your mastery of second-year Portuguese. And a lot of the research we do here couldn't have happened without your groundbreaking work on suburban malaise and its representation and repression in John Hughes' films. I hope you're still that good, because when you're lowering a hydrogen bomb into a craggy mass of flying astronomic death with barely any gravity, you're going to need to draw on all the multidisciplinary reason and analysis you've got.

You can read the whole (not very long) thing over at McSweeney's Internet Tendency... Go ahead, click me.

2010 rocks my socks off

2010-04-22T10:44:00.004-05:00

So far, 2010 has been a great year for music. It seems like every corner I turn has a new great album hiding behind it. Yesterday, I got an advance copy of the new album from The National, and it inspired me to share all the stuff I'm loving from this year, in no particular order:

The National - High Violet - Yet another outing of great music from a band that keeps making great music.

Jónsi - Go - Sigur Rós frontman goes solo, making a more upbeat version of his band's usual music.

'go do' from Jónsi on Vimeo.

Hot Chip - One Life Stand - Nerdy British electronic love...

Yeasayer - Odd Blood - Still weird, but now with 50% more catchy.

Caribou - Swim - Electronic music taken in some interesting directions.

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record - Nothing says "Indie Rock" like a new BSS record.

The Black Keys - Brothers - I haven't heard the rest, but how can you not love a music video featuring a "funkasaurus rex" singing and dancing?

Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago - As epic as ever.
"Black Eyes"

Holy (Censored) - Latin - OK, so the band's name isn't suitable for a family blog, but their instrumental sounds are pretty sweet...
"Latin America"

The New Pornographers - Together - Conquering the world, one ridiculously catchy song at a time...
"Crash Years"

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach - Still the best cartoon band out there...

Jamie Lidell - Compass - More white-boy neo-soul goodness.

Spoon - Transference - Not the best Spoon album, which means it's still pretty awesome...

Fang Island - Fang Island - Guitar licks galore... (skip to about 1:25 for song to start)

Back from Kentucky

2010-04-21T23:57:00.001-05:00

This last week I spent a few days at the Kentucky Foreign Language Conference in Lexington. I presented on Guillermo del Toro's films The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth and it went well... I then spent a lot of time listening to other people talk, which was interesting or not depending on whether I had read the book they were talking about or not...In any case, these conferences are important to us book nerds, because no one else is going to listen to our half-baked musings... All in all, a good time. That is all.


"We're not in Provo any more, Toto..."

"Even better than the Fourth Third Bank!"

I don't always post 7-minute videos...

2010-04-18T22:15:00.002-05:00

I don't always post 7-minute videos of interviews from cable news, but when I do, I prefer videos that begin with a new commercial from The Most Interesting Man in the World, who would probably agree that you only need to watch the first 30 seconds of this video... Stay thirsty my friends, indeed...

And a bonus:

The Stale Taste of Recycled Air

2010-04-14T21:26:00.000-05:00

Recycled Air - The Postal Serv...

Stay observations after flying to Lexington today...

- I've said it before, but airplanes are cylindrical core samples from the depths of hell.

- I don't really enjoy flying on Delta airlines...

- I kept looking out the window hoping just once to be able to see nothing but land, but there were always signs of man. I know some people say that's a good thing, but it's nice now and then to be able to see nothing but nature...

- Bluegrass is just green. Sad day.

- So far, Rodrigo Fresán's Jardines de Kensington (Kensington Gardens) is a good read...

Is there a way to say this without people giving me that look?

2010-04-10T22:02:00.002-05:00

So, today I had a repeat of a situation that I've had quite a few times in the last couple of years. After people get over the initial weirdness of my decision not to go into a career where I trade imaginary pieces of a company in order to receive imaginary money or something similar, they ask what I plan to do with a Spanish degree. I tell them I want to teach at a university, and the next question is always, "Do you want to teach at BYU?"

Now, don't get me wrong. I've had a great time at BYU. When I'm looking for jobs a few years down the line, if BYU has an opening it will be one of the places I apply. But I'm not from Utah, and teaching here has never been my goal. I can probably get better pay elsewhere and wouldn't have to worry as much about offending my students (at least not in the same way) at other schools. When I try to explain this, it seems like everyone here finds it really strange that a Mormon professor wouldn't have teaching at BYU as his dream job, and I often get this look like they can't figure out what's wrong with me. I don't know if they understand that most LDS scholars are at other schools since there are only so many spots here... or maybe they're shocked I would even try to teach literature that might offend someone. Who knows. All I know is I'm starting to wonder if for the next few months I should just say "Absolutely yes!. BYU is the ONLY place for me!" What suggestions do my fellow nerds have?

B-Movies

2010-04-08T23:02:00.000-05:00


Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbiar/4250054948/

"Sir, we really need to know what happened. I know it's hard, but anything you can tell us would really help."

"Well, officer, to be honest, the explosion wasn't that great. They could have used some more money on their special effects, but the way it got hot all the sudden and the gust of wind were nice touches."

A tragedy of brobdingnagian proportions

2010-04-07T15:24:00.001-05:00

Yesterday my iPod started making weird clicking noises, and I wasn't even listening to crazy electronic music. Then, it stopped playing music and kept on clicking. Now I turn on the iPod and only see this on the screen:

What I wonder is this: Should I feel better about my iPod's death because Apple programmed it to give me a cute little dead iPod screen?

Weirdest. Music. Video. Ever.

2010-04-07T12:42:00.000-05:00

Hot Chip, for some context, really look like this:

So the first part of the video is definitely weird. But then a creepy floating bald white guy shows up, and this quickly becomes the weirdest music video I've ever seen:

"We truly live in a Renaissance of weirdness." -Paul M. McNeil, esquire

Apuntes para una teoría de lo quijotesco como virus

2010-04-05T14:00:00.001-05:00

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kinetic-lensman/4190418889/

While writing my term paper/thesis chapter on Rodrigo Fresán's Mantra, I came across an article Fresán wrote titled "Apuntes para una teoría de lo quijotesco como virus". Fresán talks about the nature of memory, the influence of El Quijote on everything from Sherlock Holmes to It's a Wonderful Life to Mexican lucha libre. There's even his outline for a sci-fi novel in which an alien race is "infected" by Cervantes' masterwork, and an idea for a murder mystery that picks up right as the second part ends. The most interesting idea here is that of the quixotic (a term whose English usage sometimes makes me wish people would actually read Don Quijote) as a virus, an infection that spreads within the novel, throughout literature, and out into society. Near the end, he shares this interesting idea:

Entonces, dentro de muy poco, el mundo no será Tlön. El mundo será un lugar inolvidable, una Mancha que todo lo cubrirá y que no podrá ser borrada. (152)

I find this idea interesting in light of the idea of language as a virus, as seen in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. Language is a type of self-propagating piece of information, much like the RNA that makes up a virus, that has the ability to, in a sense, hijack thought (while at times also making up the very material of thought) in much the same way RNA viruses hijack the cell's machinery to propagate itself. In the same sense, El Quijote is a type of narrative virus, mirroring our brain's need to place memories and events in a narrative structure, which takes the nature of narrative itself to create a link between fantasy and the real. After reading the Quijote, many of us are infected, seeing the world around us and the texts we read as reflections of the wandering knight. Don Quijote has the power to take our reading machinery and put it to use in new ways, and once we internalize it, it has a way of finding its way into our conversations and writings, like new viruses trying to pass themselves on to the next host.

In any case, I know I'm infected, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Recycle your robots

2010-04-03T18:13:00.002-05:00

Today I was in Salt Lake City, and saw these paintings on the street. I don't know the artist, unfortunately. I particularly like the "will work for current" sign.

Fringe Opening Credits, 80s style

2010-04-02T14:42:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm a big fan of Fringe, and last night's episode started with a scene from the 80s, which then led to an 80s version of the opening credits. Since most people I know don't watch Fringe, here's the usual version of the opening credits:

And here's the version from last night:

What I love are how things like "Virtual Reality," "In Vitro Fertilization," and "DNA Profiling" are included as fringe science. That, and the awesomeness of the synthesized score with the touch of electric guitar at the end. As a child off the 80s, I approve...

...just like I approve of this opening credits song: