iTunes power-tips

A very thorough list of power-tips for using iTunes. I already knew most of them, but the sooner everyone hears about this, the sooner we'll come to world peace.

Top! Albums!

It's that time again... for the End Of The Year Lists. I've tried NOT to do it... believe me, i've tried for several years. But there's no sense in pretending that i'm not keen to shove an Best Of 2006 List down my dear readers throats, i LOVE that. Because i like to show off my immaculate music taste to the world. And i want to be loved for that. To really get the tension unbearable, i'll start at number 10, and slowly work my way up to number 1 in an ecstatic crescendo.

10 Peter Bjorn And John - Writer's Block
This spot was reserved for Architecture in Helsinki until one minute ago when i realized their album was from 2005. No wonder i didn't find it on any of the other 2006 lists! So, best show off on number ten that i'm totally in tune with what's hip and happenin'. And that is Stockholm based lo-fi pop trio Peter Bjorn And John. The guys that re-introduced whistling in rock 'n roll. Like on their single Young Folks, which nestles right inside your brain the first time you hear it. But also on Amsterdam (which you can download here, if you're quick). So shamelessly likeable, you wonder why no one else thinks of it.

9 Frida Hyvönen - Until Death Comes A good year for Swedish music anyway... finally the Swedes have been able to shake off the ABBA-Roxette-Ace Of Base heritage, and at last produce something other than all-perfect, smothered-to-death pop-songs. Or is it just me acknowledging my infatuation for Swedish music?
Like Peter Björn And John, Frida Hyvönen does is pretty lo-fi. But her lo-fi also means very sparse arrangements. On most tracks of her album Until Death Comes it's just her voice and her small white piano. Every emotion from unbridled joy to the saddest thoughts are expressed through those two things, in an instant flipping from one to the other. A song like Today Tuesday makes you wonder what she could be doing with a full band... that should be explosive! In my current obsession for female voices, she was my dearest and most personal discovery this year.

8 Hot Chip - The Warning Seeing these guys live at LowLands earlier this year, you'd think a life-size version of The Thunderbirds stepped on stage. Those glasses that Brain wore? You'd think they only were that big because it's hard to manufacture a really small set of glasses for a 15 cm high puppet. But vocalist Alexis Taylor is clearly such a big fan of the series, he's decided to pay tribute to it by wearing the same size of glasses... clearly visible in this picture!!!. The comparison Thunderbirds/Hot Chip rings true in other ways. Their sounds make you wonder if they all got it out of machines they made themselves on a Saturday afternoon, in their bedrooms, with the aid of some Meccano. After which their mums called from down the stairs it was time to have some tea. I don't know what will happen with their carreers if mum finds out they're singing "Hot Chip will break your legs/Snap off your head" on the title track of this record. They'll be in serious trouble.

7 The Rapture - Pieces Of The People We Love Their debut album was one of the most peculiar sequenced album i've ever heard, but then again also one of the freshest debuts of the past few years. Second album, a real party-pooper! Too bad i missed their concert beginning of October, it must've been a really nice thing to hear the songs on Pieces... in a live set, which i bet was what they were made for.

6 Birdcatcher - Birdcatcher You might think this album is just here because i'm talking about family here. Or just because i designed the cover for it. No no no... none of that. The only malafide reason this album is on this list, that i can think of, is that i've known these songs from their embryonic state, heard them hundreds of times, and have seen them develop into this solid album. Yup. Great music, too bad it didn't sell at all.

5 Thom Yorke - The Eraser Besides the erratic Radiohead show i saw earlier this year, 'Head-wise it was a pretty poor year. Oh no! There was that surprise solo album from Thom Yorke. I have no right to leave this out... although it's pretty clear what's missing on this album. The rest of the band. And upon listening to it now, for the first time in a couple of months, it definitely shows weak spots in the middle bunch of songs, but songs like Analyse and Harrowdown Hill on either end of the album lift the whole of it to a higher plane. Uhm... sorry, can't stop talking about Radiohead. No signs of a new record yet. 2007? 2008? The longer the wait, the bigger the expectations, boys! Okay, back to The Eraser. No. I'm done.

4 Cat Power - The Greatest I have a bunch of Swedes, some of that punky funky hipster music the young kids dance to, and besides a Birdcatcher i've added a pinch of Cat Power. You'd think i do this on purpose.
I've just recently homed in on the talents of Cat Power, but it has hit me in full force. Before, i only thought of her as cover artist with a bit too cheesy taste in music. But no more of that. And finally, i've discovered the spot where Erik's taste in music and mine meet. At Cat Power (found explaining why she wasn't wearing underwear on a fotoshoot). Her voice is soaked in sorrow and joy, and you hear it even if she's sighing. I can't imagine anyone not liking this music.

3 Joan As Police Woman - Real Life From one extreme to another, here's Joan Wasser a.k.a. the Police Woman. She's on one end of that whole Antony-Devendra-CocoRosie scene, but luckily the end with the best tunes and the sexiest looks... and the most frequently washed hair. And chord progressions so awkward but so simple at the same time, you want to cry. And live even more convincing than on record.

2 The Knife - Silent Shout To be honest, i don't know if The Knife would have been on my top list if i had not seen them perform live at LowLands. Before that, this album seemed an awkward excercise on 90's synthesizers. After that, every time, i saw all the layers as i saw them during their gig. And i'm not the only who thinks this... Pitchfork is clearly suffering from the same illusions. Besides the emotional impact it has on me when listening, i'm wondering how these sounds, so devoid of human touch, can have this effect on me? The Knife sounds colder than Kraftwerk, yet evokes images of going back to nature, of family ties that are comlex and painfull, but that are cherished none the less. I'm keeping an eye on these people.

1 TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain A thought about this album... are the songs just really weird, or is the production on this record just really really dense, or is it both? Fact is, it took a long time to figure out what's happening on this record. And really, i still can't put my finger on it. In each stage of discovering the full range of Return To Cookie Mountain there's are certain songs that are stepping stones to guide you. If you haven't even started yet, Wolf Like Me is without a doubt the most accessible song of the bunch. Songs like Blues From Down Here and Dirty Whirl are pretty conventional, but you only notice after a serious amount of listenings. And in a nice contradiction, i bet album opener I Was A Lover is the thickliest layered song, probably the last i will fully understand, and the prime example of how strange the sound of TV On The Radio is... but what a fantastic voyage.

That's it! If you're missing any records on this list, it's probably because i haven't heard them yet. Because despite my appearances, i'm really lame when it comes to discovering new artists, always sticking to what i know best, afraid of anything unfamiliar, blah blah blah. Someone who i know i would put on this list if only i had heard about her earlier, is Joanna Newsom. But she'll have to remind me of that when it comes down to making the Best Of 2007 list.

Everything?

I have no idea what this site, everything2.com, is about. Although it is all explained here, i still don't know. However... a story like this makes you want to read more.

For anyone with an unconditional love for mixtapes

I've started a group at my second home last.fm, called The Monthly Mixtape. The rules to this game are simple... you join, on the first of every month you receive the name of another last.fm user, for which you have to compile a mixtape, or it's modern day equivalent: you upload a .zip-file to yousendit for your opponent to download. And you have lots of fun!

To make any of this a success, i need a lot of people in my group ofcourse... so... For anyone with an unconditional love for mixtapes, you know what to do.

A universal guide to Record Fairs

A record collector's wet dream... that's not what i found on the Utrecht Record Fair yesterday, which is held every six months and attracts people like me from all over the country and beyond its borders. However, i found a load of other great records.

Before i elaborate on my loot, first i'm going to tell you a bit on how one succesfully explores a Record Fair without squandering all your cash on the first stand (The Premature Ejaculation), or get so confused by all the possible wares on sale you end up buying nothing worthwhile (The Frigid). Believe me when i speak from experience, i've been to both ends of that Desparate Spectrum, but i survived.

Preparation starts before entering the Fair, even before passing the cash machine, why yes. Most important rule is right at the start: set a budget. It's so tempting to run out of the Fair during the day to stock up on cash, because you feel you have to buy that shiny Singles box from this or that band, and another one, and another one. Remember then, it IS Satan who's is telling you to do this, because Satan is inside Rock 'n Roll music as we all now. There's nothing bad about that, but be honest, the guy is not always the most trustworthy one. First, you'll end up with hundreds of euros worth of stuff that is too precious to even breathe on, and two, each visit to such a holy place as a Record Fair should produce the purchase of one Gem, one 'music carrier' that blows your mind, and some other records that could be considered the icing on the cake. Just so you appreciate those little things too.

Besides the budget, a second goal could come in handy. The experienced Record Fair visitor, like myself, can sort of improvise on the spot, but don't try this if you're not an expert. Trust me, make a choice between vinyl or CD, Britpop singles, New Wave 12"s, Japanese imports or whatever you fashion. If not, you'll end walking around clueless, barely having enough time in one day to get to the last stand. I myself usually decide to skip all vinyl, because i always think it's too expensive unless its really battered and scratched, and then it's not worth the money anyway... and i'm not the kind of purist who swears by first pressings or the exclusiveness of the vinyl edition of a David Bowie album. I like the remastered CD version just as much.

You have a budget, a goal, now the next step. You enter the Record Fair. The first few stands where people are ganging up on, draw your attention because there must be something really good there. So there it is, some album you kind of fancied for a really small price, let's say 4 euros. Looks tempting right? DON'T BUY IT! At the end of the day you could be short of those 4 euros to buy your Gem, and then you will curse yourself FOREVER! If it was meant to be, that 4 euro item is going to be there at the end of the day. On the other hand, if you're gonna find that Morrissey singles box in the first five minutes, try to figure out what that means to the rest of your day. You've got your Gem, all that's left is a lustless stroll through a smokey, stinking oversized hall with too many middle-aged scruffy men? Or the start of the hunt for something that could top that? Either way, it's going to be a tough day for you. Best time to make your first purchase is around the 20 minute mark. You've tasted the vibe, got a general idea of how crowded the Fair is, weighed your chances of getting your hands on something really exclusive. Then you're ready to adapt your strategy to that.

A pleasant passtime when you're not eagerly skimming the stands, is watching the other visitors of the Record Fair. Besides various degrees of fanaticism, people's appearances are also easily connectable to the music they listen. What you're gonna see most are Elvis fans, Marillion fans, Depeche Mode fans and Madonna fans, these are often also the most fanatic. About Elvis fans, i don't really need to digress, do i? Marillion fans are just as often male as female, but always with plain, unconditioned hair in a tail, an oversized tie-dye shirt, a black leather jacket, jeans and army boots. Depeche Mode fans are 99% male, clad in black, slightly faded clothes, short cut hair. Madonna fans are either fat, female or queer, or a combination of those three. About these people, you should simply ignore them. The only trouble they'll give you is idling in front of the D, E or M part of a stand you wish to explore. Be patient, it'll take five minutes max before they realize there's nothing valuable for them there, and they'll continue on their vain pursuit.

So, i've given you some valuable tips on spending the day. Last one: for some real good deals try to stay until closing time, some dealers are lowering their prices in the last half hour to dump their stuff before leaving. It could save you up to 50%!

Now about how i did yesterday. Biggest surprise in the category 'Music I Am Not Familiar With, But Will Instantly Fall In Love With', was The Sound's From The Lions Mouth. And more incredible about that band is how much it sounds like modern bands like Interpol, Bloc Party, you know... without ever being mentioned as an influence.

Other nice items where a load of Pulp singles, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust on DVD, some melancholy in the form of A Perfect Circle's first record...

All in all, a good catch. However, there's always something that goes wrong on a Record Fair. For instance, i bought two versions of Pulp's Party Hard, version 1 and version 2. Sadly enough, the CD's in both cases were that of version 1.

Shit.

So if anyone has two copies of version 2 of Pulp's Party Hard... let me know.

Blatant self promotion...

...can be skipped if you go right here. Saves me the trouble of writing some artistic drivel. What you're gonna see there, is just the beginning.

Concerts concerts concerts

My head is spinning from all the possible concerts i could be attending in the coming months... and i figured most of them out through last.fm's new Events functionality. Can't give you a shortcut for it, unless you're already signed up... but then you should figure out for yourself where to see it. In short, it lets you see what concerts/festival are coming up in your neighbourhood, and which other last.fm users are attending it.

So far, i've seen three Nine Inch Nails concerts coming in March next year, but the ones in the Paradiso are already sold out, the one in 013 went on sale today, but tickets cost 40 euros... outrageous!

Then Bloc Party is performing at Vredenburg, April 28. Tickets go on sale next Saturday, so we'll have to plan our upcoming holiday to New York around that.

The gigs i already have tickets for are LCD Soundsystem in March at the Melkweg, The Black Keys around the same time in Tivoli, and tomorrow i'll be seeing the Guillemots in the same space, supported by the lovely Roosbeef. According to last.fm, at least 32 people are attending it. Looks like it'll be a busy night then...

Riddles

I just discovered the blog 3quarksdaily... which is some sort of scienceblog. This post however features a series of riddles. The easiest ones seem only easy on first sight, but there's always a twist. This is something to keep you occupied for this weekend/month/year.

The solutions are probably available somewhere, but i'm not going to cheat... until i'm nearly insane from the sleepless nights these puzzles will be giving me.

Hellmann

Where is your power as a consumer? Apparently, Hellmann changed the taste of their mayonnaise. It's now, and i quote "sweeter with a chemically tangy aftertaste". Not my words.

It's only been recently that Erik's hard-core worshipping of the so-called unsweetened mayo has infected me. Dutch mayonnaise is usually a lot sweeter than foreign brands, and now i'm converted to savour the full fresh taste of Hellmann's mayo, which, in Utrecht, is sold here for instance. Don't know if the change in taste has already contaminated the Olde World, but be sure to sample the goods before you stock up for the next 10 years.

Oh, and aforementioned link also has a recipe for mayonnaise. Which i might be testing today...

Download those titties

I'm in a bit of a queesy mood lately. I'm in need of female voices... soft, soothing, the whole lot. Don't know if it has anything to do with the shortening days, or the shitty weather, the little shitty things that happen everyday... but my ears ache for velvet voices. Today, the radio played a song by Carole King, and my heart sighed. I heard Lisa Germano will be performing in Haarlem soon, and my heart sighed. Aah...

Now lo and behold, instant relief is on the way. A MP3 mixtape consisting of only female performers. Just what i needed. It's in Dutch, but the words that are underlined are the download links. I guess it's the same in all languages.

We Share Our Mothers Health

The video from the song by The Knife. Who make a good chance of winning the prestigious pastedescape Album Of The Year Award. But i was talking about the video... kinky. Not entirely SFW.

do/don't believe/experience/create the hype*

*cross out whatever is not applicable to your situation.

Thanks to Erwin, not the guy who gets bashed here i hope, i got a link to The Hype Machine. And what's that? It let's us all 'find music you never knew you liked'. Quite impressive huh? I'm not sure what it actually does, haven't played enough with it yet, but it seems to do everything at the same time. Videos, rare songs or the obvious ones of any band you can imagine.

Metropolis

Hurrah to the global, upward trend in economics! This year was a good year at de Vormers, the place i work, and as a reward for all the hard work, we went on a weekend to Berlin. Usually you only start to notice how many people are talking about something when your interest in it increases... like when you want to buy a dishwasher, you start to notice dishwashers everywhere. In newspapers. In your neighbour's house. On the train.

However, in the case of Berlin, it's really weird how many people are talking about it. Literally everyone i know has been there, is there right now or plans a trip in the next few months. It's überfashionable, it's what Barcelona was a couple of years ago, if you know what i mean. And now i can say, as i'm speaking from my own experience, it's truely a metropole.

Because of obnoxious alcohol induced deliria (plural of delirium?), my orientation of where i saw what in Berlin isn't flawless. I can tell you i went down subway stations, which is the only way to see anything of the city, since it's HUGE. In some subway station, there's a preserved bombshelter from WWII, which is quite interesting to see. Especially since the tour guide managed to integrate the gates of Moria into his story. Why, and with what purpose, i have no clue, but it sure was a good laugh while it lasted.

Best part of town - Mitte. Full of shops with ultra GEIL stuff, the hippest people - so hip, i wouldn't do them justice by just describing the clothes they wore, it was the whole package that made them too hip. But i'll give you a clue to be the raddest chick/dude in your small circle of friends: wear glasses as big as your face, tight leather pants or any kind of clothes that is at least three sizes too small.Yeah, they were that hip, they could pull such a thing off.

We were there three days, the last day was a day of sight seeing for me. Sadly enough, rain was pouring down, so moods were a bit down... however, since one of the first things we visited was the Jewish Monument near the Brandenburger Tor, the mood fitted the view. Very impressive that one. After that, Potzdammer Platz, the Fernsehturm, the last 2 km of the wall standing near the Ostbahnhof, and the Hauptbahnhof were our destinations, all breathing their own sense of history and/or future.

Definitely a place to head back to, and spend a little more than 3 days. That's all i wanted to say.

Exit passive mode

This is just a little test to see if my blogging software is working properly again. If you're reading this it is. However, any problems i've had with it, is no reason for my absence. What happened? Children have been born. Thoughts have occured and been discarded. I've been to Berlin and came back in one piece. Which is a feat, believe me. What a city! More about that here, perhaps. But in the mean, more of the same old, which is... radio silence.

The Fountain 2.0

I've informed you earlier about Darren Aronofsky's new movie called The Fountain. Now, The Outsider has an in-depth article about the production, why it almost never got made, and why it's going to be the most state-of-the-art sci-fi picture since 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars.

Release date in the Netherlands: March 8. Damn.

Lists... opium of the people

In a rare insight to my readers wants, here are some lists. First, the 20 pieces of art you have to see before you die. I have seen absolutely none of them, eventhough i've actually been to Syracuse where Caravaggio's The Burial of St. Lucy hangs.

Then a list of all the movies that were directed under the pseudonym Alan Smithee. Impressive career.

Then an overview, which is a list too, of Six Feet Under's Claire Fischer's artwork. Which i haven't looked at yet, because i just bought the last season on DVD, and don't want to spoil any surprises about the ending. But i think i already what's going to happen. But i just hope it doesn't happen.

Then the five greatest movie monologues. Numbers 1 and 2 are definitely in my top list, but the rest i'm not so sure about. No Al Pacino, but The Witches Of Eastwick instead? Hmmm.

Enough for now.

Where have all the years/my good looks/those bands from the nineties gone?

Well, to answer one of your questions, Underworld for instance, apparently have made the soundtrack for the Jude Law movie, Breaking And Entering. You can listen to it here (probably only temporarily). Like a good soundtrack should be, it's pretty boring and backdrop muzak. Not really worth the dough.

So, Carl and Rick Underworld, if you're reading this, don't you agree that distributing your music solely through the internet is a bit too 2003? Sure, you're saying you're more in touch with you audience, it's less stressfull blah blah, but we all know it's because you're really upset your last record didn't sell so much, even though you put as much cowbell in it as possible. The world wasn't ready for cowbell at that moment. But we're ready now for some proper album to make us go bonkers. So please.

Where your years and good looks have gone? I don't know.

And other book news

I talked about Spore yesterday, linking to an article in the New York Times. The writer of the article, Steven Johnson has written a book called The Ghost Map. And i can jam one more link in this post... kottke.org explaines why this is a good book too.

So i feel i must read that too.

Catching up

During our two-week holiday in Greece, besides snorkeling, i catched up on some books.

You could say, the theme of the books i brought with me was Europe; from the history of Greece as told in our Rough Guide, to Antony Beevor's Battle For Spain and Tom Lanoye's Alles Moet Weg. That left me with a kind of bleak view on the future of the so-called Old World. Especially when we went on a small trip, and i had a look on the green gray mossy slopes of the Pindhos mountains we were driving through, it seemed very clear to me where Europe as an institution meets its boundaries. The combination of the landscape that bordered on Turkish and the language which written or spoken took some days to make sense to me, made me feel the most foreign i've ever felt somewhere.

Especially Antony Beevor's book about the Spanish War was an eye-opener. Without going too deep into the matter, it (consiously or unconsiously) draws some interesting analogies between 1930 and modern day politics... about forcing democracy on people that may or may not be fit for it.

I brought one other book with me, which was quite a page turner, and by chance i bumped into it in the bookstore on Schiphol Airport, just before we boarded our plane to Greece. It was Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. If you have any interest in marketing or what makes things popular, this is a must-read. Read all about by using that link i convienently made for you. Or maybe i'll let you borrow it for awhile. I'll take it with me the next time we meet.

Spore

The New York Times reports about a new game in development called Spore. The idea: you build a living planet, from bacterial levels up to the 'end of civilization', when the inhabitants of that planet set out for space-travel.

The man behind it, Will Wright, is the guy that made SimCity and The Sims. From what i'm reading, the game looks to be quite spectacular and quite revolutionary in its design. Here's also a 30 minute demo by Will Wright, that shows some features of the game... fucking awesome! I want to play that game right now!

I went on holiday to Greece and all i got was this louse moustache

The truth is out there

From Poland, the land of opportunities, comes this mural art. Reminds me of lots of things, from Mondriaan to Rietveld to Space Invader, and after seeing all his/her pictures, i wonder what's it all for. But interesting none the less.

Frida Hyvönen

Although it seems her website is currently under attack from evil viruses and worms, Frida Hynönen is a name i'm keeping an eye on. Gladly enough, last.fm features music from her, so you'll just have to trust me on my word, go there, and conclude that it's pretty fabulous music.

I don't know if it's because of the nice weather, the days getting shorter or me feeling just generally happy, but i'm really into female voices at the moment... and she's one of them. Her first album is called Until Death Comes, consist mostly of songs with just piano and voice, but covers all emotions from joy to sorrow. My favourite track... Today, Tuesday.

The record comes out mid October in Europe, hopefully followed up with some concerts in my neighbourhood. Talking of which... The Knife is performing at the Paradiso, October 15th... seriously considering seeing them again, after their magnificent gig at Lowlands a few weeks ago.

Five years, nothing changed

The New York Times published a little chart, Five Years Of Consequence (it's a downloadable pdf). It delivers exactly what it promises... an overview of things that happened in the first five years of the 21st century, from 9/11 to the name of the annual Woody Allen movie.

Future danger

The US Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has set up a project to keep away future generations from the nuclear dump in the New Mexico desert. Since the area will contaminated, and potentially lethal, for something like 10.000 years, they want to create a danger sign that transcends all languages, technologies and even species. What it could look like, is like this:

As some other people noted in the comments on the bottom of the article page, it looks more like a place where someone is desperately trying to keep something a secret from you. I'd be all the more interested to know what that secret is. As an example, the pyramids were build to keep people out, but they achieved the exact opposite effect.

Cuhhhlt in the making

Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and Office Space, has a new movie out, but it's had a very limited release. According to the article link, it's because of 'contractual stipulation' that it wasn't directly dumped on DVD. It seems to be an interesting movie, especially if the original title was The United States Of Uhhmerica.

Wondering spirit

These are the last few days of the year which will feel faintly like summer. Even though this morning, while biking to work, i saw the first leaves being blown off the trees, racing across the pavement. Autumn equals returning back to the house, putting on some vinyl, and returning back to yourself. Yep, put your bikinis back in the closet and pour out your minds.

So, to set an example to this world, Neil Young's Harvest is on the record player now.

On the other hand, the last few days i've stumbled upon some good new music. Since LowLands, i've listened to a lot of The Knife, and discovered that one of the songs i thought belonged on their album Silent Shout, actually doesn't. It's not even by them, but by an other Swedish band, Zeigeist. Shame on me for not buying a proper copy of Silent Shout, but then again, i wouldn't have found out about Zeigeist. They sound a lot, and i really mean A LOT, like The Knife... even down to their voices.

Something else from Svveden is/are Peter, Bjorn and John. Sort of dancey, sort of acoustic, sort of very indie rock. Just lovely.

Same kind of lovely, but a different sound comes from Junior Boys. As their wiki at last.fm says, their sound defies "any easy equation of pop or dance", a definition which leaves a lot for the mind to conjure up what that could be like. Anyway, i'm hooked on their song In The Morning, i should definitely try to check out their album So This Is Goodbye.

But listening to Harvest now, i really long for something open, raw and honest. And i'm so much into Joan As Police Woman right now, which is all those things.

This was just a small update of what was on my mind, more to come soon. Don't go away.

New York London Paris Munich

Our favorite guerilla artist Banksy has pulled off a stunt with Paris Hilton's first album. He switched 500 copies of the original album (ha, there's a joke in there somewhere) for a cd with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why Am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For? in stores throughout the UK, as well as making his own album artwork for it. Hilarious.

Paris Hilton probably wonders now where UK is, and in which country that lies. Meanwhile, have a look at Banksy's site. One great quote:

The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit.

Notice the link between shit and fame, ladies and gentlemen.

Update: Thanks to someone i call Straight Erik i've got the goods here, an example of what Banksy did. If i had one of these in my hands... oh boy!

RIP

Last Saturday, our cat brought in her first dead animal, a wee mouse. What exactly had happened, we'll never know, but she probably played with it until it passed out and away, and then she lost all interest. At least it's good to know this death was entertaining to somebody.

In the same category, hats off to Steve Irwin. Men can't get more heterosexual than he did. In fact, he was so hetero, it was almost gay.

Label that!

Google has a little game called the Image Labeler. It's pretty simple. For 90 seconds, you and someone else, somewhere on this globe, get to see a couple of pictures, for which Google wants to know a proper tag. When both your answers match, you get 100 points. It's kinda funny.

But i wouldn't post that here if there weren't some scheme to it, some way in there to corrupt The System and fasten the downfall of the entire western civilisation, leaving us roaming through the streets, gnawing at each other. How? Just fill in 'tits' with every picture.

Corporate design

You can rub your eyes again and again but it's true... a brillliant repackaging! Don't worry though, from the inside it's still the same crap you got accustomed to reading. More changes to come in ways you cannot yet imagine, but that's still in progress. I suggest you hold your breath!

Another recount please

The sad news reached us that Pluto is no longer a planet, in contrary to the news earlier this week that IAU officials were hoping to expand our solar system to twelve planets. Boohoo.

A recount of events

Last weekend was Lowlands weekend, the biggest and festival of alternative music in the Netherlands. Same as last year, Erik bargained for some free tickets and pocket money in exchange for some minor chores over the course of those three days, which honestly is a gift from heaven... seeing so many kick-ass bands, and actually not having to pay for it. Uhm, or even worse, spending your tokens on a band shirt spree, just to get rid of them. Tokens are useless in the real world, band shirts will hopefully rub off some of their cool on to me.

Instead of running around the festival terrain, trying to see everything, we focused on a few shows we really wanted to see and try to sit them through. In chronological order, that would be Wolfmother, Razorlight, The Veils, Bloc Party, DJ Shadow, The Knife, The Frames, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Scissor Sisters, Massive Attack, Broken Social Scene, The Kooks, !!!, Hot Chip and Wir Sind Helden. Of that list, i was only really dissappointed by The Frames and Massive Attack, for too static shows. And the ones that impressed me were The Veils, despite how i felt about their new album Nux Vomica, Bloc Party, DJ Shadow, Scissor Sisters, !!! and Hot Chip.

What topped it though, was The Knife. Eventhough their show was as static as one can get -imagine two people standing still in black clothes in front of a black wall, with only their facial features marked by neon paint- their set was haunting and still sits in my head, making me wonder what the hell happened there. In front of them was a transparant screen for images to be projected on, as well as behind their backs. On either side of the stage were egg-shaped boards were distorted human faces were miming to the words of the songs.
A hybernated version of Heartbeats was probably the song most people got off on, but the emphasis was definitely on their last album Silent Shout... which i've been listening to obsessively ever since. More info on forthcoming shows, which aren't many, here, as well as some insights from their set designer.

For next year's edition, LowLands organiser Eric van Eerderburg is determined to get Radiohead.

We already have those tickets in our pockets.

Barbie in the big house

Have a little peek at this before Mattel sends its lawyers to get it off the web. But remember, Not Safe For Work!

A recount

The International Astronomical Union have updated the definition of a planet. From now on, our solar system counts not nine, but at least twelve of them. Pluto is one part of a double planet-system with its former moon Charon, planetoid Ceres is now officially upgraded, and object 2003 UB313 joined the planetary team. The last one is still to be christened though.

Cut it

Male circumcision could reduce the spread of HIV in Africa. The reason? Read the article, it makes some sense, but i'm sure it's not the answer - but that's what the news item says too.

From the country with a chimp in charge...

comes the news that US citizens are one of the most sceptic people when it comes to the acceptance of Darwin's theory. That's ironic, in the same way that on the day Hezbollah and Israel accept a cease-fire, Ariel Sharon is finally dying.

Tiger tiger

Talking about Playing God again... the full list of what Stylus published at their website is here, somewhere halfway down the page. They redid an impressive list of albums up til now, in some cases, it definitely improves the original, like Radiohead's Pablo Honey. Check that out... if you don't have all the b-sides they're talking about... you know my number.

So what if...

I always had the feeling that Duran Duran's Seven And The Ragged Tiger had too many layers of sound and production, in a way the same critique Paul McCartney had on the original version of Let It Be.

Well. Duran Duran are not The Beatles, but their first two albums are classic in their own way. And so is Notorious, and the Arcadia record. Seven is the odd duck in this series, so what would the album have sounded like if they hadn't re-recorded it three (or four?) times.

There's this very rare demo version of a song called Seven And The Ragged Tiger, which later turned into The Seventh Stranger. The band (Nick Rhodes in that case) called that demo a hoax, but it kind of reveals to me what the album could have been like... more guitar orientated, beatlesque... quite amazing. Too bad i'm not able to play it to you.

To be honest, i hate the record as it was released. Some of the worst songs ever recorded by anyone are on that record. I Take The Dice for instance. Blegh! My ideal track-listing would be something like this:

1 Is There Something I Should Know?
Instead of cramming this on the re-release of their first album in favor of To The Shore, Is There Something... really should have been the first song of this album. In fact, it actually was.
2 New Moon On Monday
This song was long ignored by both band and audience i think, but what an uplifting song it is. It captures the spirit of this album perfectly.
3 Faith In This Colour (Is There Something... b-side)
Adding an instrumental to the sequence stresses the notion of this album that it's much more atmospheric than any other record from Duran Duran. They always wanted to be arty, let's give 'em just that.
4 Secret Oktober (Union Of The Snake b-side)
5 Of Crime And Passion

6 The Reflex (album version)
Would open the b-side of the record. The album is far superior to the single version, in sounding a lot more like it's actually being played by musicians. Long intro, lovely.
7 Union Of The Snake
I never could put my finger on why i never liked this song. Until i saw an old old interview from 1983 with Nick Rhodes, where he says it wasn't so much written as a song in the traditional way, but it was created out of loads of synthesizer rhythms and stuff. Songs like that always are crap.
8 Tiger Tiger (Ian Little Mix) (New Moon... b-side)
Another instrumental, and this one is far, far superior to the album version. I might even say it's one of the best things they ever recorded. Sorry Simon le Bon.
9 The Seventh Stranger
Ofcourse.

...Up again

I tried it. I didn't like it.

The "Stylus" sequence feels a bit superficial to me, as if it was approached as a compilation, arranging the songs to segue one into the other... where albums usually don't work that way. Hard breaks and resting points are necessary to create some dynamic.

I thought leaving out Suspicion is a mistake, it's a great song. So i took the liberty to make my own sequence... made in about 30 minutes time. The main idea: the original order wasn't all bad, i kind of took the best of the original, the Stylus sequence and my own preference:

1 Why Not Smile
2 Lotus
3 Hope
4 At My Most Beautiful
5 The Apologist
6 Sad Professor
7 Parakeet
8 Walk Unafraid
9 You're In The Air
10 Daysleeper
11 Suspicion

Yep... Diminished, Airportman and Fall To Climb are ditched. The latter, i was never fond of, for being too over the top. Suspicion is a perfect closer, the last words being Dream, dream, dream... perfect ending for such a gorgeous record.

If anyone's up for more of this stuff: Playing God with Radiohead's Pablo Honey. I was thinking of Amnesiac to do some re-sequencing, but there's a time for everything. Next up: Duran Duran's 7 And The Ragged Tiger.

Dear readers...

Stylus Magazine posted an article about R.E.M.'s Up album, reshuffled. According to the writer of the story, the last great R.E.M. record, with which i wholeheartedly agree. The new sequencing is as follows:

1 Why Not Smile?
2 Hope
3 The Apologist
4 Walk Unafraid
5 Lotus
6 You’re in the Air
7 Daysleeper
8 Sad Professor
9 Parakeet
10 At My Most Beautiful
11 Falls to Climb

The connaisseur notices that three songs are missing, under which Suspicion, which doesn't make this a very good sequence if you ask me. Eventhough i do agree that perhaps Up could use some editing, this particular order doesn't make much sense to me. It starts of too slow, Lotus should appear much earlier in the album, and Parakeet and At My Most Beautiful just don't work next to each other. Still, the idea is a great one. I'm going to post some of my own thoughts on rearranging albums here soon. So hold on.

The Fountain

Interesting... the trailer for Darren Aronofsky's new movie. If you're Dutch, you'll have to wait til February 2007 to see it. Probably at the Rotterdam Film Festival.

Newsexchange

Rarely did i laugh so hard for reading a URL... a list of easily mispronounced sitenames. My favourites must be lumberjacksexchange.com.

Tap tap tap

Since Stoffel has her own hole in the wall to jump in and out of the house, there's no more worrying for us about wether she'll claws at our sofa, scoop sand out of the pots or drink all the beer out of boredom when we're not around, it's instant pleasure for her and for us. No more scratching our bedroom door in the middle of the night, to ask if she can get out. I correct: to insist she must get out. Because she doesn't stop scratching until she gets her way.

The only thing she wakes us up for at night these days is a cuddle around 3 am, usually, which is really cute. This night however, around 3 am, Erik and i woke up from some loud screaming and a right kerfuffle in our garden. Some 3 hours later, all of which i laid wide awake in bed, Stoffel finally came for her hug.

Since i knew i wouldn't be getting any more sleep now, i got up to take a run around the park. I could make a long post here about which music is really great for running, like Underworld, LCD Soundsystem, but it mostly comes down to which BPM the music is. If that coresponds to your pace, most music can keep you going and going. So... while running an idea popped into my head. With all these nifty widgets for OS X Tiger, someone should definitely make one that let's you define the beats per minute of the song you're playing at that moment.

Seems like someone already did that... and what's really nice is that this one copies that BPM-number directly to the song. That's one great tool to create the ultimate running list.

My ideal running tempo is the same as LCD Soundsystem's Beat Connection. I'll let you know what that is in BPM, soon.

The Science Of Sleep

The trailer for Michel Gondry's new movie is up. If Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind was a fantastic movie in the most literal sense, this one should top that.

There's nothing on tv

Some guy called Thom over at Dead Air Space posted thislink to a live feed from the Space Station ISS. The crew from the Discovery have arrived and are doing repairs, space walks, and other amazing stunts.

Imagining our ancestors

According to a study, it may have been only 2,000 years ago when the ancestor of every person now living on Earth, lived. Interesting read, thought-provoking idea, and eventhough the article mentions the Navajo, i think there's one flaw: according to modern theories, the native Americans (all)descended from inhabitants of Siberia who moved to America some 16,000 years ago.

Now, if only we could bend the 4th dimension to our liking to go have a see, that would be nice.

Imagining the 10th dimension

You might have to take a second look at this, and another, to start to grasp what is told here. What it's like in the 10th dimension. Be patient, it's done in flash, and might take a long time to load.

To give you a head start, imagine dimension zero to be a single point. The first dimension consists of a line to connect two points (different occurences of dimension zero). The second dimension would be a split from the line of the first dimension, to a different occurence of a point in another space. The third dimension, where we tend to move about, is the possibility to connect two of the points in the second dimension with each other not with a line, but by bending those points towards each other, allowing us to move into any direction we wish to.

From there on the pattern of one point, a line between two points, a split and a fold are repeated until the 10th dimension ends up as a single point, containing all possibilities in all possible universes, at all possible times, but to be honest i had to watch the movie three times to understand that completely.

Some basic questions i'm left with now: What creatures can move through more than three dimension, or just two, if there are any? We can plan our lives along the fourth and fifth dimension, will we ever be able to move into them? If the example of the moebius ring, a two dimensional figure that allows a two dimensional being to move into three dimension (without its knowledge), would there be something similar for the third dimension? To be precise, maybe we experience certain moments in our lives twice, without our knowledge.

Sounds like i need to pick up a book about quantum mechanics or something. Questions questions questions. Now, back to the start of the movie...

Pieces for the people

The Rapture have decided to release their new album on September 4, Pieces Of The People We Love. The first single Get Myself Into It is available at the ugliest site ever... MySpace. Sounds interesting, but not a lot different to the stuff from Echoes. Cross your fingers, hope for the best.

We all love Bob

This week, a special occassion. Franz Ferdinand played two nights at a completely sold-out Tivoli, in front of approximately 2000 people each night. Some very very lucky people, considering all the hassle it took to get tickets. I was there the first night together with best friend Inge, now six months pregnant... so technically, we also took somebody to their first gig ever, and he/she should be very pleased it was so energetic, loud, fast and bloody great.

Because of the whole 'pregnant' thing i had been so thoughtful of arranging a seat for Inge on the first balcony, overlooking the stage from the right. Perfect view, but sadly enough it also meant we were missing out on our favourite Ferdinand, Bob the bassplayer. He sported a nicely trimmed beard, a nice haircut and some rosy cheecks. It must have been the excitement, and/or some Russian firewater. The whole atmosphere on stage was playfull, with every Franz at one point or another diving into the audience... except for Bob ofcourse.

Thinking back to february 2004, when i first saw them play in a fully packed Ekko, that evening must have sparked my teensy popstar crush on Bob. I was standing almost in front of him, who must have been completely stoned judging the look on his face. That might explain why his head was kind of lopsided in our direction, which gave me the awkward feeling he was watching me the whole time. Now, that show was really really great, because everyone in the audience kind of knew this was a band that was going to make it big, and here they were, within hands reach.

Just 5 months before that, October 2003, they also played at Ekko in front of 40 people. According to legend, that show was really really really legendariously great, kids were conceived there and named after bandmembers after that. But it also was the birth of Franz Ferdinand's link to Utrecht, since they came back to town two times after that (when they could have filled a lot bigger spaces), and referred to that great great great great great great gig at both occassions.

Moving back to June 2006. A special occassion. Bob wandered on the right side of the stage, not really within our sight. However, when he moved to the front of the stage, Inge's and my heart sighed. We imagined he was being teased by the rest of the band... for his rosy chubby cheecks, his beard, his aloofness, or whatever. The kind of kid you'd take home and never let go. But after the show, we didn't see him anywhere. The following night some members of the band apparently joined the crowd afterwards. Bob probably wasn't one of them. He was alone in his dressing room, silently sobbing. We love you Bob, hang on! Til next time!

Thom thalkes

Across the sea, over at The Guardian, an long interview with Thom Yorke about everything, including his upcoming solo album.

Just 3306 more days

The two new moons discovered around Pluto have been christened Nix and Hydra. Nix after the goddess of the night and the mother of Charon (also the name of Pluto's earlier discovered moon), and Hydra after the nine-headed mythological serpent that guarded Pluto's realm. Last January, NASA launched the spacecraft New Horizons, which sets out towards the Pluto system. Expected date of arrival: July 14, 2015.

Innerspace

Did anyone ever wonder how much space there is between a proton and an electron? Well, someone actually did, and made it into a website.

(don't) believe the hype

After the success of the Arctic Monkeys through MySpace, Q magazine invented the band 'Hope Against Hope', in order to 'prove that the Rupert Murdoch-owned site is now just another cog in the older industry phenomenon of hype'. They even got booked. Too bad it doesn't say anywhere how to create this hype. The rest of the article recounts some of the hypes of 50 years of rock 'n roll. Great read.

Replay?

If your Danish is up to date, enjoy this site. It offers virtual replay of all the goals made at the Soccer World Championship, from different perspective, at different speeds, with all kinds of data available. Makes you watch it all over again and again and again.

This message was generated automatically, do not respond.

Here's an interesting Q&A with Ray Kurzweil, author of several books on Artificial Intelligence. Best question:"Is this Ray, or just some clever AI implemetation answering posts?" His answer:"Well, given the quality of my replies, maybe I am just a chatterbot..."
Ha ha ha.

Sorry, i can't think of a funny title. This one is about a movie shot entirely on a mobile phone.

So the story is as follows, two Italian directors shot a feature-length documentary using a mobile phone. That probably means the budget of this movie is even lower than Moonshine.

The largest pinhole

As we speak, a group of six photographers are building the world's largest camera in southern California. But it's not a camera, it's an abandoned hangar. The lens is a quarter inch hole on one end of the building, the film is a light-sensitive sheet on the other end. With such a set-up, a so-called pinhole camera, exposure time could add up to days, but the end-result "will be sharp and have tremendous depth of field".

Nobody does it better

Every once in a while these things happen, you watch an artist touring their latest album, which left you kind of 'meh...'

But when you see them live, it all comes together. I've had that with Goldfrapp, which i saw last week at the Effenaar in Eindhoven. I love Felt Mountain and Black Cherry equally, but Supernature just seemed too dense and flattened out to me. But that full-speed, long version of Ride A White Horse she did last wednesday, that changed my mind. What a brilliant song, and i didn't see it all this time.

I bang my head in repentance, and am now a born-again believer.

A view to a kill

I don't know what to think about this. Documentary maker Eric Steel films the Golden Gate Bridge for 365 consecutive days, capturing nearly two dozen suicides. Now it's out in theatres, to much uproar, ofcourse. I'm sure it's done with all the consideration for the victims and their families possible, and the moviemaker says he once was contemplating suicide, and with this movie wants "illuminate the darkest corner of the human mind." But could it still be all about generating controversy? It's the only thing that sells these days doesn't it?

update: i got a link to the trailer from one of the gazillion readers i get everyday (thanks Erwin), makes me want to see it. Very Six Feet Under.

The midas touch

This looks pretty sweet, the Nixie Clock Gallery, which is made out of neon-filled numeric displays, also known as 'numicators'. They consist of an outer mesh anode, with ten cathodes shaped to form numbers. They were popular in the 1960s and 70s, but that's pretty obvious. I want one

Index this

You may have heard of The Economists Big Mac Index, which is "the world's most accurate financial indicator to be based on a fast-food item". Talking about creating your own niche.

In addition to that, there's the Coca Cola Index, which looks slightly more disturbing (heaviest drinkers St. Maarten? Healthier? Freer?) and the Starbucks Index. As i said, they're creating their own niche.

Powers Of 10

For those who've seen the short movie on last year's Zomergasten, Powers Of 10 finally has a website. For those who have never heard of it, go see it now. It starts with a picnic blanket in Chicago, zooms out 10x every 10 seconds until the entire universe (more or less) is visible. And then goes back, reaching out to the nucleus of an atom. Amazing

The devils touch

You see? Last post on this tiny space in the webcontinuum was on the sixth. I've develop a nice cold slash fever since then, while temperatures outside have been rising steadily. It's a fine 25 degrees outside, but i'm inside with a warm sweater, long trousers and big lumpy socks on, shivering.

Despite my ailments, i've trekked into town this morning to get myself some hot tickets for the Franz Ferdinand shows. They're playing two nights here later this month in Tivoli, which holds ±3000 people a night. Not as intimate as when i saw them two and a half years ago, with 500 people in Ekko (ha, i knew them before anyone else did, they didn't even know themselves...), but still, intimate. However, i failed in my pursuit. My only hope lies in buying tickets through the webcontinuum, which starts at 10.00. That's in 5 minutes. B-Bye.

update at 10.05: Yes!

Oh my god, i can't believe it

Have you ever been this far away from home? Recently, NASA published this picture made by one of the Mars Rovers, close to sunset/sunrise on Mars. You can see Earth as a bright star over the horizon. As incredible as this is, i bet a color image of that would look even more stunning. This is the strangest view ever. With the best caption.

More pictures of earth: This photo was taken, i reckon, in the 60's or 70's during a lunar expedition.The next picture was made by one of the Voyager spacecrafts, relatively early after their launch in 1977. The furthest away from home is the so-called Pale Blue Dot photo.

Start spreading the news

Dubai is the fastest growing city in the world, clearly visible in this slideshow. According to it, 15% of the world's tower cranes are in Dubai right now.
However, it's not the biggest city in the world yet. A list of largest cities throughout history, right there.

If you thought Dani California was the Chili Peppers repeating themselves, think again.

It's remarkably similar to Tom Petty's Last Dance With Mary-Jane, not only in chord progression and tempo, but even in lyrical theme. A mash-up of the two songs is available here, skip to about one-third through the show. Amazing huh? Boy, this makes the Red Hot Chilli Peppers look like fools. The only thing that would make them look more stupid would be if they pulled some socks over their dingdongs.

Here's Johnny, Eli, Scott and Alexis!

My all-time underground heroes Girls Against Boys are performing at the Paradiso on July 25th, and that's the best news i could hope for, waking up on a Saturday morning, with too much work and no play.

A small update: Before that, they will be performing at the All Tomorrows Parties festival in London, where they will play a integral rendition of their album Venus Luxury No. 1 Baby. Boy, i really shouldn't go into detail what limbs i would like to give to see that.

Errata

Since it already leaked on to the net, you could have a listen to three tracks from Thom Yorke's upcoming solo-album, The Eraser. I won't. I'm a big big Radio Head, and with just as much anticipation as for any new Radiohead material, i'll wait til i get the real thing in my hands, and have that first proper listen in our livingroom, peering over the artwork over and over again for 45 minutes. Like we all used to do, before mp3.

We feel you

I thought so all along, the internet is becoming an ever-growing, pulsating superbrain that is fed with our feelings. Now here's the site to prove it.

It takes awhile to find out what it does, namely scanning newly created blogposts all over the world, harvesting for sentences that contain the words 'i feel'. Those are then saved in the interface and ehm... you'll have to see for yourself what that looks like. Pretty disturbing if you ask me, but it seems most sentences taken out of context look a lot more intriguing than they really are.

I'm talking about soccer, but i have to

This is a unique moment in history, so please pay attention. I'm going to talk a bit about soccer. I'm the kind of guy that watches soccer only during European and World Championships. The rest of the time, i couldn't think of anything more mentally restricting than sitting through a soccermatch in front of the television. However, in 9 days time, the World Championship starts, so i'm all fired up again to see some man-on-man action.

Last Saturday, the Dutch team played against Cameroon in advance to the championship. That was the first time i saw them play in their new suits, which is exactly why i'm spending my precious time to write about it. They looked pretty awful. If any flair or sense of authority could be put in a soccer suit, whoever designed the Dutch ones took great effort to remove all of that.

As you can see on the first picture to your left, where Robin Van Persie is either tipping over from the tequila shots he had before the game, or in search of some Cameroon Cock, the colors are pretty cheap and flat and the blue socks completely break down the 'orange' look. On the second photo, during one of the countless attempts of male bonding during the game, you can see the worst part of all, the typography on their backs that looks like it was constructed with duct tape.

I just hope before the championship really starts, their mums will be able to sew some better shirts together. Soccer could be so much more gay!

DeVotchKa

What's this? A mixture between rock 'n roll, gypsy and mariachi music? With all credits going to Chromewaves for this amazing discovery, i present you DeVotchKa from Denver... On their MySpace page you'll find some music to download, but what's really swell is this cover of Velvet Underground's Venus In Furs. It's the feelgood hit of the summer.

New times

This overview of new fonts used in the new version of Office is pretty old, but i found it again after following a link in a story that told about the absence of good old Times New Roman in the upcoming Microsoft release. Some people regret it, wonder if people will stick to it no matter what, i wouldn't hope so. To be honest, i never liked the font, think it's old-fashioned and butchered by the same Microsoft. And i'm sure 99% of the MS Office users don't care about wether or not Times will be included in any new software. And and and... i don't really care about MS Office.

Behold, the future

A very neat overview of all sorts of trends from 1750 up to 2100... although completely focused on the US of A. It doesn't say anywhere when and how India, China and Brazil are becoming the new superpowers.

Bugs

A lengthy piece about my favourite site - last.fm - and its contemporaries over at Pitchfork. Take your time to read it... i haven't had the time yet. Then tell me the good stuff.

Dinosaurs

Erik and i, we're still making good use of our hard disk recorder. In daily life this means we tape movies from the Dutch, Belgian and British public broadcasters; without commercials and usually in their original length, not edited to fit a 90 minute slot. The BBC ofcourse is the best of these three, with the more obscure films and closing credits and all. The downside of recording them from the BBC, is that subtitles prove to be subliminally necessary, since in their absence, eventhough i would call myself quite fluent in inglisch, i have a hard time following movies.

However, last night, we watched Francis Ford Coppola'sThe Conversation, the movie he made between The Godfather I and II. It was a bit tough following all the dialogue, since we taped (ha, that's a verb we won't be using much anymore) it off the BBC a couple of days ago. But what a brilliant movie. I don't think it's an overreaction to say it's kind of a forgotten film, not just because in FFC's work it was jammed inbetween two masterpieces, or that it is over 30 years old... it's just that so many movies from that period, roughly 1970 to 1976, and certainly in the clique of FFC, have some sort of glow to them. Brilliant stories, brilliant actors, brilliant camerawork... I'm just naming Network, Dog Day Afternoon, Chinatown... classic after classic.

I don't know who made the suggestion, but Erik and i agreed we should make some sort of collection of these great pictures. I bet imdb is gonna help us with that, which brings me to another point: why isn't there something like last.fm for movies? I know all about metacritic, but with that it's like the 20th century never happened. Too bad...

About a violin and a sampler, which adds up to an insight

I haven't said a word about the Final Fantasy show i've been to last tuesday... at least not to my dear readers. Everyone else i've been spamming the analogue way (i mean by telling them... sometimes i'm getting too lyrical) about how good it was. Highpoint for me was an integral performance of the first three or four songs of OMD's Dazzle Ships, which seriously has me wondering if i've been right in dissing them all these years. I've suffered from severe denial of talent with some of my favourite bands such as Manic Street Preachers, Human League, Suede and even Radiohead before i truely saw their beauty... perhaps OMD is the last eighties band i've denied a place in my recordcollection. I'll keep you informed

Bonkers

I've been going mad over the new Radiohead songs i've been listening to, and with me it seems the whole world... which in this case is represented by the NME. They've put up a poll where you can choose your favourite of all the new tunes they've been playing. NME clearly assumes everyone has gone mad, downloaded every concert Radiohead played lately, analysed it to the bone etcetera etcetera.
Before voting, you'll have to register so they can spam you with other useless information. Now you're just going to see the results.

Sitting Ducks

In the category 'Sunday News/Too True To Be Funny/Too Homophobic If You Ask Me', the Dutch taskforce stationed in Afghanistan has changed its name from mission Unicorn to Taskforce Uruzgan (after the region it's stationed), because the unicorn is associated with homosexuality in Anglo-Saxon countries. Initially the name was chosen because of its positive and neutral subtext to muslims, and because US Troops usually work under testosterone dripping names like Cobra and Anaconda, something the Dutch troops apparantly are jealous of. However, the mood has switched, now the troops are not so happy with the name and demanded a change of moniker.

However, the best bit is the following. In choosing the name of the Dutch base near the city of Tarin Kowt, all controversy should be whisked away by the name Kamp Holland. That's not with a C, people.
Good luck soldiers, setting up your tents together.

Rapture Cometh

Biggest promise of that wave of bands that hit our faces in 2003/2004, The Rapture, finally updated their website. Which means a new album must be coming soon, but no date has been set yet. Patience patience.

Building and building and building and building and building and building and building

Architecture In Helsinki played an explosive show last night at Ekko, in their own words - eventhough every band says that but this time it sounded a bit more sincere - one of their best shows ever. It was also pretty chaotic, if it hadn't been as tight as is was, it would've been dreadful to watch. It occured to me that they really should be playing LowLands this year, they would kick ass there. Big surprise was their cover of Love Is The Drug, which sounded really really good. I wish i could post it here, but for now, you'll have to imagine how good it was. And that you weren't there. And i was. HA!

On Hold

Life is becoming more like a hard disk recorder - if you didn't catch something the first time, just rewind and see it again. I'm talking about how easy it is to find some pretty decent recordings of last tuesday's Radiohead show. It's absolutely great to hear the new songs they played, makes you wonder why they're not releasing a new album straight away. Sounds like they have some really decent tunes by now. Must mean a lot better is on the way. Woohoo!
I promise, as soon as i've got something i could call a nice selection, i'll post it up here for you to listen. Hold on.

Update: Oh hell, i've got three songs now... sounds good enough no? They are 15 Step, Open Pick and Bodysnatchers. And they're right here, but only til next friday!

Update 2: I've mentioned Thom's solo project somewhere... the latest news is this note i found on my doormat this morning.

this is just a note to say that something has been kicking around in the background that i have not told you about.
its called The Eraser.
nigel produced & arranged it .
i wrote and played it.
the elements have been kicking round now for a few years and needed to be finished & i have been itching to do something like this for ages.
it was fun and quick to do.
inevitably it is more beats & electronics.
but its songs.
stanley did the cover.
yes its a record!
no its not a radiohead record.
as you know the band are now touring and writing new stuff and getting to a good space so i want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah...
this was all done with their blessing. and i don't wanna hear that word solo. doesnt sound right.
ok then thats that.

i think its out in july and im pretty certain XL are going to put it out.

love thom

Rusty Head

I was actually nervous last night... seeing Radiohead live isn't something that happens very often in one's life, so i was very excited it was happening. Perhaps a bit too excited, which explains why it was a bit of a letdown... i'll get to that. But first things first: the setlist, accompanied with some useful comments here and there.

1. Everything In Its Right Place
2. The National Anthem
3. 15 Step: this new song sounded very very cool...
4. Lucky: -it's gonna be a glorious day- goosebumps, watery eyes. Am i catching a cold?
5. 2+2=5: it started to go a bit wrong here, not as tight as it should've been
6. Bangers n Mash
7. Nude: beautiful... improved a lot from the version that circled the web a few years ago.
8. Pyramid Song
9. Open Pick
10. I Might Be Wrong
11. Paranoid Android: woops... i think Jonny fucked up the transition to the Rain Down bit. Thom said 'Oh fuck it, let's skip it.' Audience sheepishly boo-ed, band continued
12. How To Disappear Completely
13. Karma Police
14. Bodysnatchers: Thom on drums... mindblowing
15. Idioteque
16. No Surprises
17. There There: this song is quite orgiastic when you experience it live.
--
18. Spooks: Sort of surf diddy... this is where my brain exploded...
19. House of Cards: mmm... first new song that kind of sucked.
20. Just
21. You And Whose Army: Thom bursts into laughs halfway... starts over
--
22. Street Spirit: Phil is completely lost during the first chorus. However, amazing that they played this.

Well... some of my comments contradict the first message: that this was not the most exciting (Radiohead) show i ever saw. Talking about it afterwards, we -(straight) Erik, Erwin and his wife Annabel- came to the conclusion they were a bit rusty. Was it because it was just the third show of the tour, or fatigue, or considering the canceled show of today, any other reason? In the fast songs, the sloppiness didn't matter that much, but the tight ones like 2+2=5 certainly didn't profit from it.

All in all, i'd say i'm fan enough to be glad i was there. Didn't want to miss it. Got a cool t-shirt... i'll post a picture of that perhaps later. It's really really cool. Trust me.

radiohead

Busted Tees

I really had to laugh at these T-shirts, and that says something, because usually i hate funny shirts.

Since it's art...

...it's OK to link to these pictures of naked men right? Purely for the sake of art, right? Very Magrittesque.

Radiohead

Bad news... although in about eight days, i'll be seeing Radiohead live in a theatre nearby performing brand-spanking-new and very likely bloody brilliant songs, it's highly unlikely a new album will be released this year. No plans for such an event. On the other hand, if that means they're gonna come up with something like Kid A, it's allright. Or they're pulling the plug, and this is a farewell tour. Aargh!

Patrick Wolf

Good news for me... via some people at last.fm i got exposed to the talent of Patrick Wolf. He will be releasing a new album this summer called The Magic Position. A promising title, since the songs i've heard so far of his first album, have some kind of magical spark indeed. I'll be looking forward to those new songs and to any live dates he could be playing within walking distance.

Nora

Today, i saw my new born niece Nora for the first time. By the way she looks, i bet she's gonna be a tough little sister. Though you can't really tell with that baby pink blanket covering most of her.

102

The latest buzz on the world of blogging: which movies have you seen on Jim Emerson's list of 102 essential movies? I'm getting 35 out of 102 (marked with a *), nice score, but still some work to do. I wonder if there's a similar list consisting of music?

* "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) Stanley Kubrick
"The 400 Blows" (1959) Francois Truffaut
"8 1/2" (1963) Federico Fellini
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) Werner Herzog
* "Alien" (1979) Ridley Scott
"All About Eve" (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
"Annie Hall" (1977) Woody Allen
"Apocalypse Now" (1979) Francis Ford Coppola*
* "Bambi" (1942) Disney
"The Battleship Potemkin" (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) William Wyler
"The Big Red One" (1980) Samuel Fuller
"The Bicycle Thief" (1949) Vittorio De Sica
"The Big Sleep" (1946) Howard Hawks
* "Blade Runner" (1982) Ridley Scott
"Blowup" (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
* "Blue Velvet" (1986) David Lynch
"Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) Arthur Penn
"Breathless" (1959 Jean-Luc Godard
"Bringing Up Baby" (1938) Howard Hawks
* "Carrie" (1975) Brian DePalma
"Casablanca" (1942) Michael Curtiz
"Un Chien Andalou" (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
"Children of Paradise" / "Les Enfants du Paradis" (1945) Marcel Carne
* "Chinatown" (1974) Roman Polanski
* "Citizen Kane" (1941) Orson Welles
* "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) Stanley Kubrick
* "The Crying Game" (1992) Neil Jordan
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) Robert Wise
"Days of Heaven" (1978) Terence Malick
* "Dirty Harry" (1971) Don Siegel
"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) Luis Bunuel
"Do the Right Thing" (1989 Spike Lee
"La Dolce Vita" (1960) Federico Fellini
"Double Indemnity" (1944) Billy Wilder
* "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) Stanley Kubrick
"Duck Soup" (1933) Leo McCarey
* "E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) Steven Spielberg
"Easy Rider" (1969) Dennis Hopper
* "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Irvin Kershner
* "The Exorcist" (1973) William Friedkin
* "Fargo" (1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
* "Fight Club" (1999) David Fincher
"Frankenstein" (1931) James Whale
"The General" (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
* "The Godfather," "The Godfather, Part II" (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
"Gone With the Wind" (1939) Victor Fleming
"GoodFellas" (1990) Martin Scorsese
"The Graduate" (1967) Mike Nichols
* "Halloween" (1978) John Carpenter
"A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Richard Lester
"Intolerance" (1916) D.W. Griffith
"It's a Gift" (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
* "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) Frank Capra
* "Jaws" (1975) Steven Spielberg
"The Lady Eve" (1941) Preston Sturges
"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) David Lean
"M" (1931) Fritz Lang
"Mad Max 2" / "The Road Warrior" (1981) George Miller
"The Maltese Falcon" (1941) John Huston
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) John Frankenheimer
* "Metropolis" (1926) Fritz Lang
* "Modern Times" (1936) Charles Chaplin
* "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
"Nashville" (1975) Robert Altman
"The Night of the Hunter" (1955) Charles Laughton
"Night of the Living Dead" (1968) George Romero
* "North by Northwest" (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
* "Nosferatu" (1922) F.W. Murnau
"On the Waterfront" (1954) Elia Kazan
"Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) Sergio Leone
"Out of the Past" (1947) Jacques Tournier
"Persona" (1966) Ingmar Bergman
"Pink Flamingos" (1972) John Waters
* "Psycho" (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
* "Pulp Fiction" (1994) Quentin Tarantino
"Rashomon" (1950) Akira Kurosawa
* "Rear Window" (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) Nicholas Ray
"Red River" (1948) Howard Hawks
* "Repulsion" (1965) Roman Polanski
"The Rules of the Game" (1939) Jean Renoir
* "Scarface" (1932) Howard Hawks
"The Scarlet Empress" (1934) Josef von Sternberg
* "Schindler's List" (1993) Steven Spielberg
"The Searchers" (1956) John Ford
"The Seven Samurai" (1954) Akira Kurosawa
"Singin' in the Rain" (1952) Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
"Some Like It Hot" (1959) Billy Wilder
"A Star Is Born" (1954) George Cukor
"A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) Elia Kazan
"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) Billy Wilder
* "Taxi Driver" (1976) Martin Scorsese
"The Third Man" (1949) Carol Reed
"Tokyo Story" (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
"Touch of Evil" (1958) Orson Welles
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) John Huston
"Trouble in Paradise" (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
* "Vertigo" (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
"West Side Story" (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
"The Wild Bunch" (1969) Sam Peckinpah
* "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Victor Fleming

movies

Radio 4

Radio 4 are releasing a new album next month, and in some subconscious fit i listened to their last album this week for the first time in two years, which at the time, was quite a let down after their masterpiece Gotham. Now, it didn't sound that bad, but i remembered what i didn't like about it.
Title of the new album: Enemies Like This, which promises more of what was bad about that last album, the politics on it. They're performing on the 21st of May at the Melkweg. I had tickets to their previous show last year, but i got ill that week. So what do i do? Do i earn a second round, or should i consider it a warning? They're supposed to be good live, so...

radio 4

The Infinite Possibility

Another appliance that changes your life. The hard-disk recorder. Erik gets to see the daily episode of Star Trek, i meticulously analyse every episode of this year's Dutch edition of The Mole. And a whole lot more. Finally, no more hassling with videotapes that are full, have to be rewound, absolutely musn't be taped over. It's all there at the push of a button. It eradicated the boredom of zapping, and fulfilled the potential of what television is all about: informing you.

That's a lot of words for an electronic device. But it does to audiovisual information what the mp3-player did to music. It condenses.

Which brings me to another point, which occured to me during our holiday, at a latitude of about 24 degrees southwards. I was listening to the remastered edition of Depeche Mode's Music For The Masses, which i last listened to, in it's chronological order, about five years ago. I sat still for 45 minutes, enjoying every sound i was hearing, and anticipating the music that i knew by heart, that shaped my youth. Oddly, something i hadn't done in a long long time, listening to an album in one piece. And you know, i'll be the first to admit Depeche Mode aren't the best example of what you might call 'an album band', but this was a coherent piece of work, and it should be listened to in that way.

Then it struck me... how much my iPod had destroyed of my love of music. I was aware that that might happen when i bought the thing, two years ago, but now i can see to what extent it did. It makes every song into a stand-alone object that needs to be rated with a five star system. Like a porn-star, or a model in a flashy fashion ad (they're always on their own too). And strange enough, new bands are making music in that fashion too. I was listening to Oranger a couple of days ago, and i got the feeling every song was pushing too hard to get it's message across. I stopped it after three songs... i can't believe anyone could listen to the whole album.

Luckily, the iPod exists only by the grace of its owner. How i want it to be, that's what it is.

Seems like i haven't had a grip on my own life lately, doesn't it? I can assure you, dear readers, that's not the case. I was watching the last episode of the 4th Six Feet Under season just before we flew to La Gomera, and it sort of ends with Nathaniel sr. talking to David. One sentence that stuck with me:"Life consists of infinite possibilities. And all you can see is pain." A day later, i looked out of an airplane window, looking down on France, the Alps, lakes, roads, villages, and i thought: "This is one of the infinite possibilities".

television, iPod, music, depeche mode, six feet under.

Back in town

It's been a while, but i return to this stage after a well needed and much enjoyed stay at La Gomera, about which i can be quoted about one hour after we set foot on the island "This is where i'll live when i'm old". Perhaps, stuff about that holiday will turn into stories, to be read a future edition of your favourite blog.

In the past weeks, a lot has happened, the most important thing: i've moved this site to a new webhost, with a lot more space to put whatever i feel like online. I've yet to figure out what that could be, but it really should be anything i can think of. So keep watching this space...

Annswers!

Annie answered some silly questions over at PopJustice... mine is somewhere halfway. I wonder now if i didn't have anything more clever up my sleeve.

Superman, that's me.

In advance to the Stadsloop on Easter Monday where i will be running ten (10!) kilometres, today i took up the challenge to actually run that distance, instead of running laps around the park for half an hour or so. Thanks to map24 which allows you to measure out distances on their maps, i could pinpoint the 5 kilometre mark. It took me exactly one hour to run that distance.
Anyone who has taken up running for awhile knows what i'm talking about... that feeling when you return home, and take a shower, you feel your body tingling and just... whole, made out of one piece. And i can understand how this feeling gets addictive.

You got male!

A very interesting read about a woman who walked around dressed as a man for a while. For me at least, sort of explains the everlasting push and pull between the sexes. Which i don't know anything of, obviously.

Spots

How unique is this? A photograph taken from the International Space Station during the eclipse of last Wednesday. You're watching Cyprus and the coast of Turkey there.

Social Software part II

Despite my enthusiasm about last.fm, the spanking new examples of web 2.0 raises some questions as well. The internet has always been a place where every extremely clever, useful site is followed by ten of the utmost stupidity. An upgrade doesn't really change that.

Though there are a lot of interesting sites to discover over at the Museum of Modern Betas, what exactly does the user gain in knowledge after joining up with riffs.com for instance? The catch is to give either a thumbs up or down to every possible concept imaginable... from Philip Seymour Hoffman to baby pandas to sombreros.
So only a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Very black and white, i don't wish to perceive the world a place where you have to either love or hate something, and what's the use anyway? If there's one thing that makes web 2.0 so great so far, it's the fact that it reaches out to you, and you can put something back into it.
Furthermore, 'riffing' doesn't seem to have any kind consequence. You're allowed to install some stuff on your computer, which integrates into iTunes and streams music you'd be interested according to your voting history. It didn't work very properly though, and certainly not as good as last.fm radioplayer.

To be honest, so far i've encountered more bad examples of social software than good ones, like 43places... don't see the point in that one too. But i'm not that reislustig, perhaps that makes the difference. Though i'm very excited to fly to the Canary Islands in exactly 12 days time. Woohoo!

Social software part I

For those amongst my dear readers who are not aware of the exciting new things happening on the internet, i will reveal some of them which have caught my eye. You may have noticed my preoccupation with last.fm lately, which is a perfect example of what i'm talking about. A collaboration of the internet with the person using it, on one hand the user enhances the system with his or her valuable input, making the system more clever. On the other hand, last.fm for instance recommends new music or interesting discussions about music that applies to the registered behaviour of the user. Last.fm is able to monitor this behavior after you install audioscrobbler on your computer, which keeps track of the music played on your music player like Winamp or iTunes and even your portable mp3-player, if you have one.
It sounds half as great as it really is. Last.fm offers a load of special function once you sign on for their services, like user-specific radio, discovery mode for new music, the fun doesn't seem to end. If you're wondering, i'm not being paid by them to say this. I'm just that enthusiastic about it.

More about these 'web 2.0' sites as soon as i'm getting better from this late season cold. It's about time the weather turns a little warmer... although in three weeks time Erik and i are having a week off at La Gomera, part of the Canary Islands. Last thing... i took a personality test which was quite elaborate, but also quite accurate. The endresult: my personal DNA, which looks like this, apparently.

That's the title of this modern piece of art. Faithful Creator. Wanna read my psych report? I'm ready to share it with the world. Be sure to check out my masculinity/femininity percentages... quite enlightening.

To complete the picture, here's Erik's DNA.

web 2.0, social software

Life goes on, bra!

Yesterday, the day being Saturday, i finally had another chance at taking out my new camera and make the most of the occassional bursts of sunlight every 15 minutes. Didn't take me about 5 minutes to find out i left the camera in the On position since last Sunday, so the battery was nearly empty. The only option left was to go back home, put the battery in the recharger and enjoy the weather on my own.

First thing i went over to the second-hand/antique shop just a couple of blocks away, to see if they had any nice tables, since we still need one (in time) for the front room. As i opened the door and took a first look around, there wasn't anyone in the store. Somehow it felt a little silly going in then, but there wasn't even anyone at the desk. Just a big sleepy red and white cat. Come to think of it, it looked a bit like this. Freaky. Without the purple fur and the grin though. That's when someone put on Obladi Oblada at a loud volume.
I had a look at all the tables and the junk piled on top of it, and by the end of Obladi Oblada i was back at the front door, so i guess i had to leave. All the time i didn't see any personel or someone else who might have put on that music.

I jumped on my horse and rode into town. I stalled it at the main saloon and there was a chinese busker in the middle of Obladi Oblada. I should have tossed him some cash, but i was too busy finding my way to the recordstore. That's where i bought the soundtrack to Broken Flowers, as a little gift for Erik. Which we listened to on our way to Inge and Koen that evening, to have some excellent home made Sateh. Inge is now 10 weeks pregnant, but up til now, not much of it is visible. It's great to see how down to earth they both are about the pregnancy, not too stressed about what you shouldn't do or should do when expecting a child. I bet, in a couple of years they have built
a home sweet home, with a couple of kids running in the yard...

Sourgrape mountain

Annie Proulx was a bit dissappointed with the 3 Oscars Brokeback Mountain got. After seeing it twice in the last few weeks (yep, i loved it that much) i don't know what to expect from seeing Crash...

Sweet sweet spam

You know, sometimes it's not so bad being pissed on, as long as it's done nicely. Like these spam messages. I can't help it, but they actually give me a good feeling, meanwhile supporting a system that draiimns people of their insecurities, blah blah, images of overdosed casualties in my dreams, blah blah, the gnawing teeth of capitalism impoverishing the poor, enriching the rich.

End of the radio silence

Things have been quiet around here lately. Don't know why, just didn't find the time. But i have a lot of stories in my head, perhaps now's the time to start writing them. First up, news about new Radiohead material, my favourite subject. Atease reports about the alleged A Scanner Darkly soundtrack... rumours are confirmed! Still no news about the new album, but this news means it could be a busy year.
radiohead

Where iPods go to die

He must have sneaked out of the pocket of my coat when we weren't paying attention, sitting at McDonalds, stuffing food in our faces just before heading off to the movies. Yep... must have felt its last breath approaching, and did like all good mamals do. Look for a quiet place to find that final rest. I should have known, its battery wasn't up to it lately, it kept passing out after 2 hours of play, while we both could vividly remember the times when we had 8 hours of non-stop fun, without either of us running out of breath.

But there i was, reaching for my pocket and finding it empty. Not a note, a goodbye of some sort, nothing. My iPod is dead.

I'd like to think this is how it went. It keeps my mind at ease. The more likely fact that some shithole stole it while i was (not) enjoying my Big Mac would be really sad, pathetic, useless, whatever, is too much for me to bear.

I've heard a rumour about an iPod with a touchscreen, would that be true? And i'm keeping the zippers on my jacket locked from now on.
iPod

I've freaked out, and it was okay

I've discovered something today... people don't notice someone with a camera as much as you'd think. And to be honest, after walking through town this afternoon shooting pictures of people, and getting away with it, it's a bit addictive. The picture below is the proof, kind of a lucky shot. I wasn't even looking what i was aiming at.

Yes, people freak me out

It's been the most beautiful weather the last few days; snowy, bright skies, sunrises and sunsets at either end of our street. But i haven't found the time to make some good use of my new camera in these conditions. Getting up 30 minutes earlier in the morning would be a good idea beforehand, but never quite comes to full realisation.

One reason is the fact that Stoffel starts scratching and meowing at the doors of the master bedroom around 6 a.m, non-stop, until either our sanity or our eardrums snap. Normally the servants would have her whisked away into the south garden, but we've sent them on a well deserved holiday in the Caribbean. The purpose of this scratching and meowing is also very very vague. The moment we open the doors, she runs to the foot end of the bed and starts clawing at our naked toes, i got a nasty scratch on my sole just yesterday. Then we chase her out of the dormitory, and try to resume sleep. Until the scratching starts again.

So... every bit of sleep between 6 and 8 (when i really have to get up) is a precious gift. But then again, what kind of photos am i keen on making with my lovely camera? At that time of day, it's not very likely i'd find 'the perfect picture' in my own backyard so to speak. I'd really like to have the courage to make pictures like Martin Parr or Ed van der Elsken, and with that i mean pictures with people in it. It's an obvious trap for the beginning photographer to shoot pictures of 'beautiful plastic bags up trees' or 'that lone beer bottle next to a park bench'. Very beautiful, but also very very empty. What i'd like to do, although the thought of it freaks me out, is head into the city this Saturday, and make some beautiful pictures of people.

If that actually is going to happen... you'll have to see. Stay tuned.

Bugaboo

Babies, like birdflu, seem to pop up everywhere around me these days. We attended the christening of my 3 month old nephew Wessel a few weeks ago, Erik's sister is about 7 weeks close to lift-off, so to speak... and my best friend Inge and her husband are now expecting their first, in October.

So last week, when Inge and i attacked the city, she wanted to buy some pregnancy bras and a name book. A whole new world opened up for me when i walked through the doors of the maternity store. I can honestly say i'm lightyears removed from the target group... gay, male, and with no intention to find a female of the species to hatch an egg for us. I clearly sensed i missed the hormones that should be raging through my body in order to make me all squishy and go 'Awww!' at every undersized sock or shoe. Instead, i saw a store where those hormones, having taken control of normally entirely healthy human bodies and souls, were invited to spend as much money to resolve their insecurities and to enhance their parental bliss.

And rightly so! You would be a horrible, cold, suffocating parent if you only spend 50 euros on a pram, when you could spend 600+ euros on the Baby Prawn Pink MaxiCosy or the Bugaboo by Bas Kosters, which honestly looks like something the target tarts would sneer at if they'd see it at a flee-market, instead of at a high-end maternity shop, where you would find them now.

Luckily, the hormones hadn't taken total control of Inge's brain at that point. When i scolded that being pregnant is the new black, she let out a heartily laugh. We stood there, in front of 20 or more prams, the one more luxurious than the other, and three wheels being the standard. The four wheel push chair is obviously a relic of the 20th century.

For one second, i imagined a new parent, jogging their Sunday morning jog through the park behind a faulty Convertible Sports Edition MaxiCosy, when the front wheel collapses and baby and parent go skidding across the pavement.

But hey, selling security is the new gold.

Soil

Oh stupid me. Did i report yesterday that the Konica Minolta Dynax 5D was my camera of choice, in the upcoming purchase of my first DSLR camera? Today i found out that Konica Minolta has gone bankrupt, and the whole photography division has been taken over by Sony. I don't know what to think of this... would that mean now is a good time as any to buy the 5D, or would that be a horrible mistake? I'm the kind of guy that's not so fond of taking risks, and when i read stories like these i just don't know what to do anymore.

Sometimes, my money feels soiled. And whatever i would buy with it, would become soiled too.

I sometimes feel that the first scratch or dent on something new is a bit like dieing... dying... die... how do you write it? I have the bad habit of anthropomorphizing the appliances that surround me. I mean, i call my iPod the White Baby.

Whatever the outcome, i'm want to buy my camera this week. I'll have to figure out the future of Konica Minolta in the next few days.

Anti Shake

Yesterday's Chad Bucket show couldn't not have been more manly and laidback if they would have had their dicks hanging out of their pants. Good show.
Today i had two objectives; catching up with Inge at Utrecht Centraal to take a walk and some shopping, and start looking for a place where i would be able to buy a Digital SLR camera. The one i had in mind, the Konica Minolta Dynax 5D, was a bit hard to find. So further investigation has to be undertaken in the near future. Best feature on it is probably the Anti Shake, which allows you to take make pictures in poor light conditions without using a tripod. When i get my hands on it, be prepared to see more instant classic pictures here, all the time, anytime.
Remember how we used to look forward to events when we were younger? Birthdays... toys you've been saving your pocket-money for, for what seemed ages... this or that new album when we were in our teens... Now all we need to count down to is from 1 to 0. I feel nostalgic for an emotion called longing.

The frenzy

After Dooce Goes Dutch, now it's time for Chromewaves, my favourite mp3 blogger to hit the Low Countries. To be more precise, he's hitting Utrecht City tonight while checking out Jens Lekman at Ekko. Erik and i however, in a rare fit of household blues, will be checking out a befriended band for the second time this week. This time it's Chad Bucket at Het Oude Pothuys, while Wednesday night we attended Lupo's gig at the ACU. Tonight promises to be quite some rock 'n' roll show, the Lupo gig was energetic in a dancey-franzy kind of way. Erik is in the process of recording their first album, and it was my first time hearing their songs live. Let's hope they get a record deal.
So, may i catch up with anyone tonight, it would be lovely, if not, count the hours until we do. Spread the looove, peace out.

The final countdown

The world is counting down to one billion songs sold through iTunes. Every 100,000th song is rewarded with some leftovers the Apple people found underneath the dumpster, but the person buying the 1,000,000,000th song receives "a 20-inch iMac, 10 60GB iPods, and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card". And gets to name a music scholarship set up by Apple. So start counting down silently in your head, in case anyone else is paying attention...

The longest concert ever

Composer John Cale has reworked his piece As Slow As Possible, originally 20 minutes long, to last 639 years. Here's all about how and why. Counting down... 2,016,530,640, 2,016,530,639, 2,016,530,638...

The smartest kid

The book i've been looking for ever since i stumbled upon those cute little copies of the Acme Novelty Warehouse (which i then gave away as presents to people i thought could use them), i found it yesterday.

My obsession for Chris Ware has been growing for some years now, i've been collecting even the most boring memorabilia just to get a hint of a snippet of a shard of insight into his methods, but to no avail really. The guy's a genius, period. His way of telling stories is something i would like to integrate more into this blog here. Oops, now i've spoiled it all. Forget that last thing i said.

I was talking about Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth. I found a paperback edition of it waiting for me, just at the moment during lunch-break at which i thought, i should head back to work, i should check the graphic novel section at the local bookstore just for a few seconds. So that's my luck.

Now it's 3, 2, 1... aaand you're back in the room.

Missed connection

Dooce is on tour in Amsterdam. I could be a total no-brainer and start stalking her, but i won't. It's good to read that she lost her heart to our toilets. Heather, if you read this, you're welcome to use mine if you ever need to.

However, the title of this post is not about the train i didn't catch to Amsterdam, but the fact that the traditional media (newspapers, television) are completely missing out on this. Maybe i am mistaken, but i don't think there are any of them paying attention that a big weight in the field of blogging (which is often misunderstood for amateuristic writing and self-centered drivel) (clearly that's not the case :p---) is visiting our part of the world. Then again, if they would, perhaps i wouldn't feel overwhelmed by that... since it would make it all seem less exclusive. Stupid, but that's the way it works.
dooce

Snails

It's ridiculous... i'm not getting any work done because of this stupid simple game. It's nothing but sand, water, salt and oil falling down, and a snail moving across the field. The substances react in different ways to each other. Sound stupid simple, but it's bloody addictive!

March of the pigheads

I remember a link from kottke.org from a while ago, how March Of The Penguins became "a strong case for intelligent design". I thought it was a strong case for mums and dads equally splitting their responsibilities. And for kicking out your spawn as soon as they hit puberty. But well...

Snakes

Last weekend i felt it for the first time this year. Spring. Was it the temperature that was just a bit milder than what i was used to the last few days? The way the sun was a bit brighter, or the day just a tad longer? Or just the fact i took my mom into town, to go shopping for hyacinths, 'cause they smell so much like spring. Now they're slowly budding in front of our garden window.

What i heard so many people talk about, The March Of The Penguins, i went to see it with my mother, but that was before we bought the hyacinths. Beautifully shot, but what was all the fuss about then? It's a good piece of family entertainment though...

So, since it's spring, it's time to spend more time in t-shirts. And a new, good address for that is boashop.nl. I'm sure if you ask nicely, they'll send you a Dutch dictionary if you don't understand a single thing they're saying.

Me and President Clinton

Just saw some snippets of the State Of The Union. Oil. Iran. Bla. Terrorism. Bla. Bla. I fell of my seat when Bush started talking about babyboomers. It went a bit like this:"This year the first of the generation of babyboomers turn 60. Amongst them two of my dad's favourites. Me and President Clinton."

This guy really shouldn't write his own speeches.
state of the union

5D

Nothing gets your weekend more started than the discovery of a new dimension. I haven't got the foggiest idea what this article means to say, but it sure sounds uhm... exciting.

King Pong

The internet, a horn of plenty for all kinds of things. Like this, only to be described as Pong of the 21st century. My total was 6853.

To towers...

Scheduled for 2008, or maybe 2009, is the start of the construction of the highest building in the Netherlands, 262 metres high, the Belle van Zuylen. Since it's planned location is approximately 2.5 kilometres away from our house, it would be visible from our backyard wouldn't it be for the large conifers in the back.
It looks a bit like a joke. Who in his right mind would come up with such an idea? The whole 'iPod' look will be outdated before construction even starts, and the metaphore tree/building is really too childish, isn't it? Other than prestige, what's there to gain? The wrath of God in the form of thunderbolts and lightning, most likely.

When a fish gets big, little fish start gnawing at him

What seemed a good idea at the start, the Million Dollar Homepage, has turned out to be more of a curse. After it got hijacked for a ransom fee of $50,000, now the buyer of the last 1,000 pixels is sueing Alex Tew, creator of the homepage.

From the vaults

If you care to take a look, i'm adding old blog-avant-le-lettre-entries from my former website ndns2013 to this place. I'm struck by the difference in writing... i mean that it's very weird, off-key. What happened to me in those 2 years? Like the Sugababes would say, i've grown taller in more ways.

Coming down a vampire

Hear, hear, there's talk on the web about a movie with a budget of $9,200, that includes the Panasonic camera and Apple Powerbook it was shot and edited on. Full story here, and trailer here. It's called Moonshine by the way. The trailer is a tad dull, but it's the thing all the youngsters are talking about now through their computerized 'forums'... these things added up, i'm quite anxious to see it.

Going up a hill

Raising the expectations even higher for Brokeback Mountain, is this little article which trades the term 'the gay cowboy movie' for 'the soft-porn western'...

Spit out your apple

An interesting piece of criticism on the user interface of the iPod. I certainly don't agree on all of them, but the writer has some good points on copying photos and accesibility of your agendas for instance. However, i found it hard to take the rant about user interfaces seriously as soon as i clicked on the link 'comments' on the bottom of the page... see for yourself.

Eat your apple

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, sent out an little e-mail to his employees at the expense of rival Dell. Available here in an interesting way of presenting the news... a sort of news scheme. Looks funny...

Seven years of stomach aches

What does it mean if your fortune cookie in a Thai restaurant doesn't contain a message? Bad luck? Painful ailments in the loins for three generations to come? Or did i just eat the little note?

Being Q in the X world

Yesterday, when I read the following headline, Sony Music launches gay label, i had to frown. The underlying thought is that "Only now are media and entertainment brands being created for the gay and lesbian audience following the success of brands for other minorities...", according to Matt Farber, founder of MTV's spin-off channel LOGO, directed at a gay and lesbian audience. He was referring to the succesfull brands dedicated to the African American and Hispanic audience.

Honestly, i'm not appealed to it, although clearly if a corporation like Sony makes a move like this, they're seeing it as a potential success. I don't even see the comparison between a gay audience and the African American, for instance. While the latter is a clearly distinguishable group in terms of geography, cultural inheritance and other things, the gay audience simply isn't. I do support the idea of emancipation of gay artists, not just in the field of music but also movies, sports, etc., as that would greatly improve the struggle a lot of kids have to deal with, still, to come to terms with their own sexuality. But i don't know if marking off a territory as a 'save haven' is an assett to this process.

It's the everlasting balance between segregation, integration and assimilation. Being gay means moving somewhere in the middle of those three, to me anyway. I don't want to segregate because the society i live in is as much mine as it is anyone else's, and like anyone else i want to live by its rules to feel part of it. Integration means being branded as gay in the straight world, and be expected to answer to certain stereotypes, be part of what is marked off as 'gay'. And assimilation would mean i wouldn't be able to have some kind of mirror, be it other people, or music, or art, where i could talk about, or see, or feel what other people don't... what it is to be queer.

Sometimes balancing between those three is very tough. As a night out with the people at work we went skiing at an indoor ski run, and while having dinner in this large restaurant with a load of other groups, the table behind us all of a sudden began shouting "If you don't jump now you're a homophile" (Als je nu niet springt... ben je homofiel). It wasn't the incorrect use of the word homophile that shocked me, i can tell you. All of a sudden this very relaxed atmosphere felt very hostile to me. Apparently, this was some kind of aprÈs-ski song, supposedly innocent, but it just marks what is the general attitude towards homosexuality. To me, it only has to do with who i share my bed, but to 'the public', it can be whatever they want it to be. In the worst case, the stick they beat you with.

So... to conclude: i don't suppose Sony's gay branch will be venturing into aprÈs-ski compilations. Oh, and the whole time while typing this, i was tapping my foot to the Human League.

Overheard at the supermarket

He: I haven't seen him in a long time...
She: Haven't you heard?
He: What?
She, with a glee in her voice about what she knows and he doesn't: He's dead!
He: WHAT?
She: Yeah, he killed himself.
He: Really?
She: Yeah...
He: Oh god...
She: Mm-mm...
He: I just thought he was on a really long holiday.

An excerpt of the George W. Bush tapes

What would Bj–rk (recently the winner in a poll called Most Eccentric Celeb... thank God, it's been 3 weeks since the last one!) and her hubby Matthew Barney order at IKEA? Aluminum igloos, ofcourse

Invaders have arrived

You know the space invader? Those little patterns of tiles you see in cities like Amsterdam? London? Barcelona? Now they've landed big in Paris...

Annie Proulx on Brokeback Mountain

The movie i'm most desperate to see coming months is Brokeback Mountain. Here's a little interview with the writer of the original story, Annie Proulx, whose Bud-drinking, NRA-member redneck, liked the movie so much, he went to it twice.

This year's Arcade Fire II (and a rant)

Next episode: Deerhoof. This sounds a lot weirder than Animal Collective, but in a way also a bit more conventional. In a pill-popping Japanese sixties wallpaper kind of way.

Ah fuck it. I'm trying to bring you the most exciting stuff of 2006, but it's all useless. I don't know where i saw it, probably somewhere at lastfm, someone's current favourites of really really old albums. That's a lot more true to the heart than reserving the latest new flavour as your own. So here goes nothing. What album did i finally add to my own catalogue last year?

PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea / Pixies - Doolittle / Millionaire - Outside The Simian Flock / John Cale - Paris 1919 / The Smiths - Meat Is Murder / Death In Vegas - Scorpio Rising / Depeche Mode - A Broken Frame / Deus - Worst Case Scenario / Jesus And Mary Chain - Darklands and not the last but only in this list, Nitzer Ebb - Big Hit.

I'll be catching up with more Depeche Mode, New Order, The Smiths and others this year.

This year's Arcade Fire I

Oh yeah, you know what i'm talking about. If you watched this space a year ago, you noticed me ranting about the Arcade Fire before anyone else! Uhm... at least in the former swamps we fondly call the Netherlands. So this year, i'll inform you once more who's gonna make it over here, and it's easy for me to tell since they're already multi-million selling cocaine addicted jaded rockstars in their home country America.

First up: Animal Collective. They fit perfectly in that category of bands which is often overlooked, the ones that hide their faces. Behind masks. Of animals. At their best, they sound frantic, unintelligible, racing towards their melodies. Chaotic. Fucking Cuhhh-razeeeee. Uhm... perhaps they won't be exactly as big as the Arcade Fire. But you know, just keep an eye on them. Just in case.

Vorsprung durch Technik

This nifty pixelmachine could only be a German invention. If you bring us Kraftwerk, you can also provide every home with a copy of this 21st century edition of the fireplace. If the Gas War between Ukraine and Russia lasts long enough to drain all supplies in Europe, we can at least warm our hands at this. Or set fire to it.

As if by magic, a year has gone by

A new year, thousands and thousands of possibilities stretching in front of everyone, a clean slate and a new piece of chalk. A freshly washed handkerchief, smelling cool and crispy, waiting to be soiled with all kinds of new things.

There's one thing though that 2006 couldn't eradicate, and that is the discussion about Intelligent Design. The word has travelled from the New World to the Ancient One, and now the scientists in our midst are a-quarelling and a-querying eachother's religious point of view. I'm still firm on the side of the scientists, but i'm not too stupid as to dismiss this as a passing phase, where all discussion ends as soon as judges decide either way. The whole thing fits to the era of Human Identity we're currently in, and the idea of Intelligent Design (there's a good joke in there somewhere, but i'm not making it right now) is proof that religion/belief is intrinsic to human nature. In fact, right there's a way of explaining the whole thing away. The supporters of Intelligent Design are only acting on their primal fear of the unknown, by attributing the current state of technology to a Higher Power.

The same guy by the way who made me gay, according to them. I'm not sure, but i don't think all of the ID advocates support that point of view. Wow, i'm really making progress as a scientific writer.
science, intelligent design