Category: Uncategorized

Media alert: I’ll be on TXCN at 4:25 this afternoon, with the spot repeating through the evening. I’ll be talking about a story that’ll be on Monday’s front page. (Assuming this refinery fire on Staten Island isn’t al-Qaeda — in which case we’ll probably have bigger fish to fry.)

Since everyone’s mix should be in the mail by now, I hereby announce the February CD Mix of the Month. A little more guitar-oriented and less experimental than most, but it’s gotten good reviews from those who’ve heard it.

Bought some CDs yesterday for the first time in a while. Now (along with September/October) is one of the peak periods for new CDs, particularly indie-friendly ones for all the kiddos heading back to the dorms for the start of a new semester.
I can give unrestrained thumbs-up to Calexico’s Feast of Wire and New Wet Kojak’s This is the Glamorous. (New Wet Kojak, originally a side-project for Girls Against Boys, became substantially more interesting than their brother band some time ago.) The Postal Service’s Give Up gets an only slightly less enthusiastic upward appendage, although I’ll likely warm up to it on future listenings. Cody Chestnutt’s The Headphone Masterpiece brings up the rear, a bloated, juvenile mistake that just didn’t meet expectations.

Worthwhile Canadian initiative finally falters: Alas, Shift Magazine appears to have published its final issue. Conspiracy theorists will note this happens only five months after naming this site one of the 75 “cultural movers and shakers in the digital era.” The meaning is clear: Write about this site at your peril!
I hope this doesn’t mean Saturday Night, a former crabwalk.com favorite published by the same company as Shift, is also on thin ice.

Outmoded fraternal organization of the day: The Improved Order of Red Men. Of course, real “red men” weren’t allowed to join for centuries.

Gregg Easterbrook has been everywhere lately! Dissin’ on the space shuttle (in Time), dissin’ on hydrogen-powered cars (in The New Republic), dissin’ on chemical weapons in The New York Times. For 20 years, he’s had a pretty steady beat in the world of journalism: the don’t-trust-scientific-hyperbole, researchers-screw-up-a-lot beat. Depending where your faith in machinery lies, he’s either comforting or frightening.

Blog magnetic poetry.

If you can’t beat ’em, pander to ’em. Ever wondered what McDonald’s does when it sets up shop in an area that hates Americans? Egypt, 2001: Local outlets introduce the McFalafel, rolled out behind an ad jingle sung by Shabaan Abdel Rahim, best known for his chart-topping hit “I Hate Israel.”

A hint for indie snobs like myself who try to track down import CDs: Ordering via Amazon.co.uk is usually cheaper than you think. I just ordered Mark Eitzel’s new disc there for GBP 11.58 (about $18) total. Not bad, since it might not ever get released here in the states. (It’s a collection of old Eitzel/American Music Club favorites, rerecorded with traditional Greek instrumentalists. It’ll either be brilliant or absolutely miserable.)
Maple Music‘s always been a good source for Canadian imports, for those times you just need that great Flashing Lights EP that’s somehow gone unreleased south of the 49th parallel.

John Cage piece to be performed for 639 years (bottom of page).
Seven years after his death, the John Cage Organ Foundation has begun the performance of what will be Cage’s longest piece. Entitled “As Slow As Possible (ASLSP)”, the work will be performed on a town organ in Halberstadt, Germany over the course of 639 years…
Cage originally wrote “As Slow As Possible” in 1992 as a 20-minute piano piece. According to Art in Action, “musicologists have deliberated over just how slow, as slow as possible really is.” The group agreed on the figure 639, representing years since the construction of Germany’s first single-block organ.
At the piece’s opening performance, approximately 360 people paid $15 USD to see someone turn the organ on. They’ll have to return in another 18 months to hear the first chord. Notes will be played on similar intervals until the performance ends in 2640, provided sponsors can be found over the next several centuries.