Sweetest Contribution to Science Ever

This is totally sweet!

Two Japanese scientists just caught the first footage of a giant squid on camera. Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori captured over 500 photographs of the animal by baiting a hook at 2000 ft in the deep sea off the Ogasawara Islands. The animal, approxiametely 25 ft long, lost a tentacle on the hook, which is unfortunate for him but sweet for science. The researchers even report that the tentacle repeatedly gripped the deck and crew after it was hauled aboard. Sweet!

National Geographic has some of the advance photos, and a more thorough output will be published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B(iology). All of you are academics anyway, you can pull the article off of PubMed.

(update) Or you can read it here.

Gypsy Music for Everyone

The new favorite band of the week is Devotchka, a four-piece outfit from Denver. They are not Ukrainian. They are, however, good friends with Gogol Bordello, who are. The sound of the band is dramatic in the Kensington Gore sense of the word: sometimes they sound like a more dramatic Calexico, sometimes a more dramatic version of Wilco, sometimes a...well...less dramatic Morrissey.

Confession: came upon this band by searching for the song at the end of the Everything is Illuminated trailer. I will resolutely avoid actually seeing the film, given its apparent European sentimentalism and my enduring aversion to Jonathan Safran Foer, the latter of which is another post entirely.

That being said, the (unsigned) band is an excellent fusion of eastern European, Western, and cabaret styles. They're fond of guitars, pianos, marimbas, strings, trumpets, sousaphones, and the occaisional bazouiki. Live they're fantastic, apparently, already having completed a tour in which Marylin Manson honey Dita Von Teese was a backup burlesque dancer. They're currently touring with the Dresden Dolls. See them.

Pre-review: Kayne West

Late Registration, by Kayne West, is an album that I will, inevitably buy or rip from one of my black friends. I thoroughly enjoyed his last effort, The College Dropout, as it provided a great fuel-for-the-fire moment when I got rejected from Cambridge University and decided that academia is a load of bollocks. I also enjoyed it in ways that most everyone else did: the beats were catchy, the lyrics were sly, and the overreaching concept was holistic. Dope.

So it's with some trepidation that I approach the sophomore effort. In the two years since, my appreciation of pop-rap has waned a bit in favor of the London gutterpunks and American Indie acts. Such is the fate of a subscriber to emusic. Not that i don't follow a trend every once in a while, but i typically wait for the buzz to get killed. And before the buzz dies down--and before I actually hear the album--I'd like to review what's been said so far, and how this might play into my future experience.

Where to start? Well, I usually start with whatever Pitchfork tells me. Their review of Late Registration is typical of the scene, and begins by discussing what almost every review I've read (and even a meta-review like this one) leads off with: The Ego. "Contrary to public opinion, hubris does have a righteous appeal." Judging from the 9.5 score on the meter, it doesn't sound as if PF has problem with arrogance. As many reviewers pointed out, bragging is an important element of the rap game. Rolling Stone has similar praises for the egoism: "If anything, Kanye is too modest." Some reviews are a bit broader with their praise; the LA Times focusses on the album itself, and goes through a laundry list of the highlights, from the 1st single, "Diamonds of Sierra Leone" to the more personal "Hey Mama." Some reviews suggest that perhaps the ego effect is a little more subtle, as Jon Pareles in the NYT writes that Kanye "tries not to gloat, but he can't resist. He's no longer the underdog."

So how do i interpret these reviews into something that i'm ready for. My only personal experience with this album, besides the reviewing and the writing about reviewing, was in a subway station. The last week i was in London, before my trip back to the states, i decided to buy a week-long Tube pass. I don't normally ride the tube, mostly because it's too expensive, but also because i don't like the idea of being underground for extended periods of time. This had obvious advantages.

Anyway, on my last day in London I rode home to the Kensington tube station, which exists out right in front of Harrod's, the department store of the gods. I don't need to tell about how living near there helped me develop a rich and caustic anger at the overly affluent, suffice it to say that I'm a communist now. After exiting the tube carriage, and walking up the escalator, I see a poster for Kanye's new album: cudly bear in a dinner jacket, huge eyes looking out, against a black background. I didn't see this poster anywhere else, though i'm sure it was plastered in every Shoreditch fence and phonepost. But for me, seeing the poster at the entrance to the center of affluent comerce in a city driven by the idea of money, well it sort of lets me know that this is a Production, musically, commercially, and aethetically. The Product is the New Rap. All the glamour, five times the beats, and no cheese.

Then again, i haven't even heard it.

All Smith's are Finks

Why am i so reluctant to celebrate Zadie Smith? Here is a woman of the world, versed in my two favorite cultures, releasing novels, short stories, and essays. Who am i to snark? , yet she poses for half-page spreads in a dashiki and the latest from Harvey Nichols. She writes articles for the Guardian about Greta Garbo and gives talks and readings in academic theatres. She explains the cultural devide. She's pretty! So why am I so reluctant to grant her my fandom, which i typically relish on any modern author under 40 worth his snuff?

Zadie needs no lessons in public humility. She has consistently derided her first book as expansive, overambitious drivel, her second as seriously flawed. How better to shun criticism than to welcome it honestly and dispose of its target? Yet seems to me that within her self-criticism lies a very strong conviction that, regardless of what reviewers may have to say for her immature novels, she will be getting better. But she just can't get to it now because that pesky literary establishment keeps making her a celebrity, and pouring on adulation about her ridiculous little novels. A recent article in Slate asks the Man Booker committee to take Zadie at her word and pass her by for the prize. On Beauty is by most reviews an admirable work, yet not a work deserving of the prize because of the approach she has taken upon her own work; she "has mistaken her admirable pooh-poohing of a lot of foolish publicity for a free pass to get by as an overcelebrated mediocrity."

Admittedly, Julian Barnes is the favorite, but for reasons of stature more than merit. His recent "Arthur & George" has been reviewed as , in line but not exeplary of other exhumings of the literary dick. Zadie's book has it's own roots in the Canon, being a very forthright reinterpretation of the story and circumstances in E.M. Forester's Howard's End. When the Slate article gets around to picking apart the book, Joon finds fault with Zadie's somewhat typified description of American liberal professors. Admittedly this is in line with an article who's stated purpose is to explain why Zadie isn't right for the prize, but still the criticism comes out seeming a little small. Was that the point?

Further evidence of the humble hubris that Zadie seems to calmly exhude is an interview she did with Ian McEwan in the August edition of The Believer. The exchange is admittedly aware of it's double punch: while Jim Roll interviews Bjork, Zadie Smith is 'in conversation with' Ian McEwan. In one particularly revealing exchange, Zadie asks Ian about canabalization of personal life for representation in literature:

i wondered how you felt about [your progression as a writer] yourself...I mean, you're working life has been a writing one. And this is a subject which honestly concerns me, not a little, because it's my life and it's likely to be my life for a really long time.

Never mind the willingness to make us aware that this is an interview between two writers. Zadie is placing herself no higher than something of an intelligent apprentice, albeit one that will be able to write for the rest of her natural life. Not that i doubt that prospect; given the size of her advances, and the quality of her short and long fiction, Zadie makes a fair assement of her possible future as an author in the world. It is nevertheless presumptive.

Perhaps the most interesting for me is what Zadie seems to have learned from her experience in America. As i attempt to integrate myself within British culture, one of the most distinct elements underlying where you go and what you do with your life is your assumed (or delivered) social status among the unseen stratum that dictates vocation, address, and recreation.

Patti Smith is a Fink

Patti Smith (punk rocker) is a fink. I tell you this because i thought she was just a punk, but last night i found out she is also a fink. Patti Smith decides to hold a tribute to William S. Burroughs at the Royal Festival Hall on the Thames. She starts it off with an anecdote about her and Burroughs, how she would hail cabs for him outside the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Then she goes nuts on a bassoon, and then up comes the supporting cast. Iain Sinclair (London personality) and Alan Moore (comic book writer) read their little homages to Burroughs, which are part biographies and part pastiche, with background noise supplied by a few instrumentalists, Marc Ribot (Tom Waits collaborator), Matthew Shipp (nu-jazz pianist), and Jason Spaceman (from Spiritualized).

There is, of course, no real 'form' to the thing, they just read or play at the whims of The Great Magnet. Sinclair, who represents the proper English side of things, gives anecdotes about Burroughs living on Duke St. (about 20 min walk from my place), waxes about the battle of poetry and politics. Meanwhile Alan Moore (wrote From Hell, League of Extrordinary Gentleman), who looks like Rob Zombie's older brother, flexes his skull rings around a book by Burroughs and reads in a grovelly Northhampton voice about mugwumps and junk.

Patti reappears later, playing the bassoon, but this time in the middle of the audience, slinking around. I'm filled with the desire to hug her, mostly because she's fuckin Patti Smith, punk god, but it doesn't really matter because she's in a trance and slinks off anyway, up to the stage and back into the spotlight. She then goes into another anecdote, about an ageing Burroughs leading her down some steep staircase to hail her a cab, and that was the last time she saw him. Seeing her shed tears at the memory is no small performance, i suppose, but Patti Smith and everything she's been doing for decades has been performance anyway. And then i realize that Patti Smith has had a boner for Burroughs and that's why i'm sitting in this theatre. Patti Smith is a fink.

Concert Review: Fun House

Iggy and the Stooges :
Funhouse

Man, fuck this review. It's just bragging really. I went to the greatest show on earth. A performance. From minute one, i was jumping flailing, reaching for what was a temporary god. Iggy Pop and the Stooges played the Hammersmith Apollo last Wednesday, and my life is different for having been there. And there's no way to describe the concert in a fucking blog without sounding like a teenage fanboy.

Like mad, Iggy rushed out on stage. Instantly we were moving. No moshing, no real thrashing, but a collective heave-ho came out of everyone within 30 ft of the stage. He never stopped. Humping the speakers, stage-diving mid song, and running around like an ostrich. During "I Wanna Be Your Dog" Iggy motioned to the audience and screamed, "Any of you fuckers with the balls to get on this stage, come on!" Anyone that knows me is well aware of my inability to resist a dare, least of all from one Iggy Pop. After a karate-flip over the security area and onto the stage, i was coke-dancing around like Iggy on the cover of The Idiot, out of my head like a zombie plugged into an electrical socket. As i meandered around the stage, pulsing incoherently and hugging large rock chicks, i moved towards Iggy, crouched down at center stage. I reached around his back and gave his Iggy-tits a good shake, then fell backwards in a swoon, content to have grabbed "the greatest body in rock & roll." The rest of the concert was a sustained, yet primal, denoument to that moment.

See that blood on his chest? That's from my fingernails digging into the King of Punk.

The concert is part of the Don't Look Back series, which brings a successful band and a successful album back to a live audience for a complete run-through of every track. Dinosaur Jr. played "x", and Belle & Sebastian are coming in October to play through "If You're Feeling Sinister".

Setlist:
Down On Street
Loose
TV Eye
Dirt
1970
FunHouse
LA Blues

Skullring
---------
1969
Dog
Real Cool Time
No Fun
---------
Little Doll
Not Right
Dead Rockstar

Reviews of the concert:
The Guardian
The Independent
The Times
Gigwise

Timewaster, Inc.

For those of you that 'don't believe in television', but love to profess their affection for Jon Stewart the site onegoodmove provides extended clips of US commentary shows like Bill Maher and The Daily Show. As one living abroad, it has been useful.