list of things noted while watching 3 ninjas tonight (its on youtube in full glory!)
- one of the basic traits of a master ninja is the ability to disappear in mid-conversation when the person you're speaking with turns his head or loses focus for just one fwiggin moment just one tiny fwiggin moment. they turn back and you are gone
- also, learn to use your environment, i.e. find funny stuff around you to bash your opponents with or about. examples: flower pots, a grand piano, a telephone.
- knives, blades, shurikens, nunchuks, etc. are all ok, but if you even pick up a gun you are so banned from being a ninja. gunkata doesnt count. that being said, evil ninjas carrying ak-47s looks cool as all hells
- this movie has managed to combine backwards caps, vinyl scratching sounds, and ninjas. if only it had dinosaurs
- colt (the moody middle brother) spray paints his mask white to hide in one scene. wtf kid? your grandfather painted that thing as part of your naming ceremony and you just turn it into a crappy mime mask? no wonder no one remembers you
- it seems as all traces of the asian genes have been lost in two generations. besides ninja skills, obv. maybe they wont ever hit puberty?
- i am now spending much time photoshopping something awesome that will be posted above re: backwards hat, vinyl, ninjas, etc. of course this doesn't make sense now because you've already seen it so i assume it came out awesome (also, i managed to get anime porn searching for 'cartoon mountain' on the 3rd page)
Looking through old draft posts on this blog, I came across these two unpublished posts by $$_A*HOWE_$$. Sitting in the depths of Blogger's catacombs, I read them with interest. To read a poem is one thing, but to a read a poem in this context is another - it brings up questions that can't be readily answered. Why didn't he finish these posts? Why did he leave the drafts up? Laziness? Forgetfulness? Or to be discovered? Or to be hidden for future use?
I realized when I was re-typing them here to be posted, that these two entries differ in fundamental ways. The first, "Untitled" (and Unfinished), was clearly meant to be in poetic or prose form. Lines were parsed, stanzas clearly delineated, and thoughts ramble on like a Kerouac paragraph. Halfway through typing up the second, "potpurri", it dawned upon me that it was perhaps not meant to be a poem. See, when viewing old drafts of others on the Blogger dashboard, the text is crunched into narrow columns, making even the most paragraphical posts come off as Shakespearean sonnets. However, I thought it worked well as a poem, and let the way it was chopped up stand. Read it as you will.
1. "Untitled"
driving me and gma to vote up hill (suburb on a hill) radio: literally the november rain guitar solo; my huge desire for that to matter [shrill candidate wife campaigining literally in parking lot for husband... ...vote, no wait] klosterman metaphysics, call it wait, real metaphysics desire to drape doilies of meaning onto the crumbs and pebbles of our dioramas---all the time but voting a hundred million people and change say I Want This and not a referendum on ice cream flavors as awesome as that would be but I Want This for my life to be... represented by x or y representation >> empathy in the broadest sense >> mimesis, and self/circumstances- as-universal we do it in poems/to poets all the time hell, think of any given sports championship even neanderthal sportswriters have no choice but to try on narratives like wedding dresses [newsweek about "never lost his ironic detachment," thats exactly what i was imagining a president of our generation behaving as: 'i will fix this country. hah, no i wont. but i really want to try! seriously!']
AND
okay, great, economic crisis that being fine: watchment quote about "cards on the table" but also, reflection: there is so much land and food is so fundamentally affordable that travis's longstanding thesis is true as ever: everyone is fine, will be fine even souplines had soup at the end of them in fact the only thing holding everyone from th
2. "potpurri"
fratboys the bugbear of middlebrow criticism (limbo-bar usa today can thus praise the "frat pack" and call them that without any hand wringing)---and of course there are kind 'n worldly members of fraternity in this country, but there are also Jewish bank moguls and african americans who can never, will never, get their fill of watermelon, and only alfred p. No One is helped by focussing on these subdemographix
realizing being home that openness to strange experiences is fucking central to me in terms of who i can like (need to distinguish, phrasing and otherwise, from the bullshit widespread "open to new experiences!" like the purple sex pillow in burn after reading)
and anyone can be! although probably true that certain groups are worse about it---the blacks, for example. no im kidding. fraternity types, perhaps.
mt adams vs clifton <> manhattan vs brooklyn
the bandana as not-douche signifier despite the rest of what im wearing. mix and match, right? mixing high and low is still in, right?
increasing my live-with-me stock living at home: cleaning, etc.
" ... the giant isopod has one of the most repulsive forms in the animal kingdom to humans. This is thought by psychologists to be due to its many legs, exaggerated exoskeleton, large compound eyes, and foul odor that it obtains through a life underwater. Because of this, giant isopods are rarely found in the human media, and are even less often used as pets."
no it's not george bush. it's not even hitler! it's thomas midgley, jr. who dat?
he was a chemical engineer, born in 1889, who worked for GM. his boss was charles kettering, who told him to find stuff that would help out with their cars. so thomas went up and invented "ethyl", which was really gasoline with tetra-ethyl lead added to it - leaded gasoline. this led to lead in the air everywhere, poisoning babies and puppies and kittens worldwide, and killing off the environment. way to go, jerkface.
GM loved him so much they asked him to find a chemical to use as refrigerant for their household appliances. lo and behold, he found a compound that did just that - dichlorodifluoromethane, a chlorinated fluorocarbon, aka CFC. thomas called it "freon". GM put it in everything, and now thomas's nefarious plan to destroy the earth forever was underway.
karma's a bitch, though, and that IDIOT thomas contracted polio. because the disease disabled him, thomas invented a system of ropes and pulleys to help people lift him in and out of bed. turning out to be a true thomas midgley, jr. invention, he found himself entangled in the ropes and pulleys one day, and he strangled himself.
the dude who put lead in gasoline and CFCs in the air was killed by his own final invention
how fitting
(bonus environmental tragedy by clicking the picture!)
1. What happens when guys take birth control pills 2. How come I don't know anyone that looks like Molly Ringwald is it an 80s thing or what 3. Isn't it bizarre that the Asian guy in Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle really likes Sixteen Candles despite the incredibly offensive and unfunny Asian character featured in it as comic relief 4. High school was never like Sixteen Candles 5. Sixteen Candles sucks 6. Number of single women in New York City 7. Big boobies
i frequently suffer from bouts of extreme depression - usually when i'm walking from one place to another, listening to my ipod, and feeling oh so alone. sometimes it's the song, or the weather, or every pretty girl i pass by. this time it was all three, as an 8-minute remix of "golden cage" by the whitest boy alive came on, a gust of wind buffetted my face, and a gorgeous blonde walked by with purple boots, a purple scarf, and a copy of surely you're joking, mr. feynman! under her arm. i will never get to kiss that girl!
what surprises me about dance songs is the way they can affect me. you mention house, techno or electro to someone, and their mind jumps to some coked out, ecstasy-laden club where everyone's drinking red bull vodkas and finding new ways to air hump to sound waves. yet i've been listening to dance music almost exclusively for the last year, and i still come across songs that make me feel a whole array of emotions. it's a way a song uses the beat to drive home a beautiful melody, or to slowly seep a fuzzy synth through your head. repetition kills you, repetition drugs you, repetition allows your heart to mindlessly soak up a feeling. for me, it's also because i've always been one to focus on the music part of a song, rather than the lyrics. honestly, i could care less for words. it's all french to me.
on a happier note - i'm learning to cook fried rice! this is my second time, and hopefully it turns out better. i wish someone else was here to try it with me.
my name is leon leon leon, and i am nearing the last minutes of the work day, so everything seems to slowwwwwwww down. i'm loving my new fashion style because it involves snappy business wear paired with sweet ass racing shoes (i think theyre racing shoes because they have a checkered stripe on the back). i'm trying out boxer-briefs because i think they make my butt look good, also, i like a tight package. i'm listening to house music.
house usually sucks, because it's what you normally hear while shopping at armani exchange. and usually if you're shopping at armani exchange, you're a douchebag. so it works, in a way.
but some of the best house comes from the top producer/dj/musicians ever - namely, the guys in daft punk. of course, daft punk is considered "french house" to some, but they've put out stuff on other names that's much more house-oriented and less pop-accessible. think less "harder better faster stronger" and more "one more time".
alan braxe is in his own rights a sick french house producer, and works all the time with a dude called fred falke. any track with either of their names on it is going to be fucking banging - with both of them, it's going to be off the hook.
guy-manuel de homem-christo has his own duo with eric chedeville called le knight club. do yourself a favor and download any track by, or remixed by le knight club. how these guys continue to bring such a fresh funky groove to dance music year after year is insane.
o yea, he also produced an album for a little someone called sebastien tellier!!! sexuality dropped in 2008, clashed electro and r&b, and spawned a slew of bloghouse remixes.
thus ends our brief segment of the more you know: daft punk edition!
i'll upload some tracks onto here when i get home. though i dont know if anyone even downloads what i post - do you?
so wtf is the deal just when i start posting again yall slows down. sucka butt! yesterday, while watching cool hand luke (paul newman is so classically beautiful, i want to stare into his eyes all day. i've never seen a paul newman movie before. my boss started a dvd club here at work) we saw the puppies of mysterious puppycam (why? where? who? can i have one?) burrow under their bedding, being all unbearably cute. i spend a not insignificant portion of my day watching those lil tykes romp about
i was also catching up on episodes of my favorite game show, never mind the buzzcocks. if you've never seen it, you should (episodes are on youtube) - it's a british celeb-pop quiz show that is more the view than jeopardy. hosted by simon amstell, a terrificly sarcastic basard (you might remember him from popworld, where he made britney spears cry during an interview), the show frequently has top musicians and actors on who basically spend the entire show making fun of themselves, each other, and amy winehouse. oh yeah, she was also on the show too, being fantastically drunk.
one part of the show, called 'identity parade', has each team try to spot a musical artist out of a line-up of five people. it's embarassingly rude (and hilarious), because it's sorta like 'haha, you once were a famous musician now no one even remembers you'. the worst is when you actually do remember the artist. this last season had the singer from bbmak on. wow. i remember bbmak (back here babyyyy ...), and i just felt terrible. this guy was once on TRL, now he's in a line-up of losers, while current, successful musicians and actors are laughing and pointing at him.
i hope i'm never like that guy. id rather be dead than a has-been.
ok so yea i havent posted on thousands in about forever. whats changed since then? well, we now have a real president, its almost turkey day, and i got a day job. duck, duck, GOOSE THAT IS NOT IN ANY WAY COOL OR AWESOME.
i also made my dj debut this weekend at a place called the mug lounge, on the lower east side of manhattan (13th and ave a). we randomly scoped this place out a few weeks back before seeing mstrkrft, and the bartender there happened to mention they just fired their friday night dj. wasting no time to hop on board, i laid down a fresh set of tunes for them, and they liked what they heard (to be fair, they asked me to play house, trance, european house, european trance, reggae, and old school hip-hop. or something like that. they have no idea what they want). i also met renee, who is 33 years old and a 32B bra size. she tried to request songs, but ended up just pointing at her breasts the entire night.
ive been trying to mix more disco and house, and have come to the conclusion that "doom house disco" is my new favorite genre. it doesnt exist. but it will.
heres some tunes of what comes close. first we have some doom, from a little-known dj in canada called hemingway. its gritty, its dark, and makes me think of blade runner, if it was directed by david lynch. then we skip the house and go straight to some disco, with a remix of sneaky sound system by breakbot. last, i bring you some house. HOUSE OF JEALOUS LOVERS that is, with a funked up high energy party pleaser that will have people to their feet in no time. tenderlions does the remix, and brings their upbeat sound to a classic.
the guy in the dark knight who plays the schizophrenic freak who works for the joker (he's the guy that has the "officer dawes" uniform on during the police parade, you know, the guy harvey dent/two-face/aaron eckhart almost kills in rage, who also everyone thinks is the same guy who plays the scarecrow who he actually ISN'T because that's cilian murphy who is a different but equally if not more awesome actor who has been in movies such as 28 days later, red eye, and the wind that shakes the barley) is in the latest wendy's commercials that are showing on tv !!!
i just realized this! his name is dave dastmalchian
the only other thing i can find him in is this commercial for cingular
that's all! ALSO ALSO HEROOOOOOOOOOOOOES IN 12 MINUTES
man i haven't posted in what seems like ages! i've been working hard (one day a week), buying groceries on the regular (bread, salami, and sushi), and playing hardcore video games (i am now a proud level 40 in halo 3, also, travis beat grand theft auto 4).
how do i fit in the time to BLOG ???
if you haven't heard, travis barker (drummer from blink 182, prob the only good thing from that band) and dj am were seriously injured in a plane crash this past week. four other passengers died - that darned celebrity luck! the l.a. dj scene is a lot different than the east coast scene. it's a lot more glamorous, a lot more flashy, and a lot more narcissistic. dj am is part of the same high flyin', hollywood associatin' club family of steve aoki, etc.
mia moretti is yet another female dj for boys all over the world to drool over. there's not much more sexy than a girl spinning at a club. it's like watching a dog walk on its hind feet; at first it seems wrong, but then it seems so, so right. mia's been tearing up clubs in l.a. for a while, but she recently embarked on a nationwide tour with the summer's new pop sensation, katy perry. yea that's right, mia moretti is katy perry's personal dj. CAN IT GET ANY BETTER ?? (i mean what if they made out with each other omg) katy perry - hot n cold (mia moretti remix)
i know this has already been said over and over, but sarah palin is quite clearly unqualified, unaware, and unable to come up with her own thoughts. besides the glaring gaffes of not knowing what the bush doctrine is or how to pronounce "nuclear", her interview with abc's charles gibsonshowed us how she was obviously being fed lines to say ...over and over:
"GIBSON: What if Israel decided it felt threatened and need to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities?
PALIN: Well, first, we are friends of Israel, and I don’t think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves, and for their security.
GIBSON: So if we didn’t second guess it and if they decided they needed to do it, because Iran was an existential threat, we would be cooperative or agree with that?
PALIN: I don’t think we can second guess what Israel has to do to secure its nation.
GIBSON: So if it felt necessary, if it felt the need to defend itself by taking out Iranian nuclear facilities, that would be all right?
PALIN: We cannot second guess the steps that Israel has to take to defend itself."
wow. Gibson tries to get her to actually answer the question in her own words, but she does nothing but read off her mental cue cards. and to think she's just another face cancer case away from being the person in charge. *shudder*
also: the women of the band heart are super-pissed at palin's use of "barracuda" as her theme song. "Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women ... The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late '70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.)"
it's raining out. i'm holed up inside. i decided to take off my tshirt, then decided to put it back on before i had taken it all off. i have to remake my bed. clean my room. listen to tunes, and maybe take an afternoon nap.
it's been a good day. after all, it's marielle day.
i've been heavy into pop music lately. electro-pop, indie-pop, and disco-pop. i'm sort of sick of the whole dirty "french house" tracks, aka justice/mstrkrft/boys noize et. al. there's a time for heavy club music, and a time when i just want to put something on i can dance like an idiot to while making my bed. songs that sing about simple feelings, like puppy love, sleepovers, and eating ice cream. hipster as fuck: in a state of perpetual adolscent nostalgia. break out the nintendo, put on the breakfast club, we're having ourselves a grand ole' time.
here's some light bedroom disco to go along with it (courtesy of discodust):
whenever i have to explain how i dj without turntables, i find myself coming off as an idiot. i only use a laptop and a keyboard. people consider djing eponymous with turntables. that's slowly changing. hopefully.
it's that time of year again, when even more stuffy socialites gather around than usual to worship the latest batch of clothing to grace the super tall super thin super models. fashion week hit nyc this weekend.
(to be honest, looking at the collections so far, i do like what i see)
fashion doesn't drive trends - it mostly reacts to them. music and arts pave the way for the clothes to come. styles and scenes are grown from artists, writers, and musicians. the simple beatnik style of black tights and tops. amy winehouse grows a beehive on her head that farms for heroin, and suddenly big hair crops on runways everywhere. the sex pistols have a group of followers so devoted to them that they are coined a name: the bromley contingent. among this group is billy idol and siouxsie sioux, who both go on to be punk rock icons, inspiring goth and punk fashions for decades. karl lagerfeld finds a muse in cat power.
perhaps i'm being too hard on fashion. i feel that its artistic scope is limited by its need for functionality or accessibility. though i guess the same goes for architecture, and stuff like furniture design. it's just that when i look back at the history of fashion, i always see it a half step behind music. it seems now, though, it's anyone's game.
anyway, this rambling was just an excuse to post justice's mix they did for dior homme's spring/summer '09 show in paris. because when i think dior homme, i think electro prog church rock.
my ringtone for ages has been "let's make love and listen to death from above" by css. it's got this ghostly sort of feel to it, with a high pitch ephemeral melody that cuts through any conversation. a phone is an odd thing. a phone is basically an object that sits around doing nothing, then starts screaming "ME ME ME HELLO ITS ME AGAIN PICK ME UP PICK UP PICK PICK PICK ME UP" until someone picks the damn thing up. phones are objects of convenient urgency. and choosing the right sound to convey urgency is crucial. i've begun to hear css everywhere.
don't get me wrong - i normally hear songs everywhere (and not just through my beloved ipod). the j-m-z screeches out the first three notes to "over the rainbow" from the wizard of oz whenever it leaves an above-ground station. i hear beats in the clicking sound my air conditioner makes. but at least a few times every day, i think i hear "let's make love and listen to death from above" playing and my hand immediately dives for my right pocket. nope, just ghostly css melodies floating around again. i need a new ringtone.
in the meantime, i'll just overwhelm myself with everything else css has done.
howe-munny says his favorite band name is the toronto-based girls are short. i like it too, because girls should be short. and they are. and they should all be able to sing. and they can. in my mind, every girl i see on the street can sing beautiful melodies off the top of their heads. don't ruin that for me, hayley.
girls are short are also good friends with another canadian indie-electro-pop outfit, the one-man wonder shaw-han liem, also known as i am robot and proud. do all canadian bands have awesome names ?? seems like they do. i have a monster boner for monster animals, so canadian bands are right up my alley: the unicorns, dragonette, even frog eyes. i mean, come on, wolf parade started the whole "wolf" band name phenomenon. then again, that shit came full circle and brought us AIDS wolf, also from montreal. ugh.
remember the tenori-on post? here's i am robot and proud being introduced for the first time (seriously) to this wonderful machine with his own custom model, from the inventor himself. he takes to it like a fuckin natural:
music-wise, japan is both the beginning and the end. styles go there to die, be reincarnated, and relished by millions of people living an incessantly adolescent life. yet still japan produces some of the best new ideas, music, and culture that have so obviously permeated the entire world. this is a country that has produced merzbow, boris, and now, one of the coolest musical toys i've ever seen: the tenori-on.
created a few years ago by a japanese artist, the tenori-on is basically a screen of LED switches that can be activiated in various ways to "create an actively evolving musical soundscape". music, visualized through blinking lights. it is beautiful, it is powerful, and it is just a hint of what technology can offer music to come in the future. holding one of these must be magical. it's versatile enough that it can be used to do most anything, from inspiring electronic and experimental musicians, to bringing old tunes (i use the term liberally, as this song dropped the bomb everywhere only earlier this year), to new life.
i bring you the oh so beautiful and talented little boots, a female singer from england, doing a cover of "ready for the floor" by hot chip. on the tenori-on.
interesting tidbit: little boots's song "stuck on repeat" (which i previously posted a remix of) was produced by joe goddard of hot chip.
Posts
