Monthly Archives: November 2005

Music Reviews

What’s Yr Take On Cassavetes

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We’ve talked about it in letters
And we’ve talked about it on the phone
But how you really feel about it
I don’t really know
What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?

I honestly know very little about John Cassavetes. What I do know is that he was in Rosemary’s Baby. Ever since hearing Le Tigre‘s song “What’s Yr Take On Cassavetes,” however, I’ve felt a need to have a take on him.

Okay. Not really, but the song is great and Le Tigre is quickly becoming one of my new favorite bands.

Back during high school when I was really into the whole riot grrrl band movement, I had a few Bikini Kill albums. Compared to the other “riot-grrrl” bands I was into, most notably Babes in Toyland, Bikini Kill was quite hardcore. I remember loving the perversity of the introduction to the song “Carnival”: “This is a song about the seedy underbelly of the carnival / The part that only the kids know about / This is a song about 16 year old girls giving carnies head / for free rides and hits of pot.” For me, all of Bikini Kill’s songs captured pure punk rawness without succumbing to the violence that most male-oriented punk groups seemed to exhibit.

That said, I grew out of Bikini Kill rather quickly and ended up selling the albums sometime during college. Now, as I listen to politically and lyrically tame electronic and whatnot music, I cannot imagine listening to such music.

Nonetheless, I’ve missed the idea of Kathleen Hannah and her politically-charged lyrics. That’s why finding Le Tigre has been so great.

Unlike Bikini Kill, Le Tigre is more pop/electronic oriented (including keyboards and sampling!) so their music is much easier to listen to. Whether “being easy to listen to” is a good criterion for music is probably a ripe place for debate, but either way, Le Tigre is fun to listen to and they have political lyrics. It seems, to me, like a good situation.

The first Le Tigre album I owned wasn’t actually a real album — it was a remix album creatively called Remix. I fell in love with the DFA remix of “Deceptacon.” I also loved the lyric from “Much Finer” that went: “Do you wanna stay in bed all day? (yeah!) / Do you remember feeling any other way? (no!).”

After Remix, I felt the need to get more Le Tigre as soon as possible. Lucky for me, I stumbled across the self-titled Le Tigre shortly thereafter. Hearing the original version of “Deceptacon” only convinced me further that I loved Le Tigre.

Beyond Le Tigre and Remix, I have yet to get more Le Tigre albums. I’ve seen This Island in the used bin at the CD store a few times, so I figure I’ll grab it eventually. Until then, I’ll just have to ponder my take on Cassavetes… (“Misogynist? Genius? Misogynist? Genius? … Alcoholic? Messiah? Alcoholic? Messiah?”)

Seattle

A Room With a View

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My new apartment
On Thanksgiving I finally moved into a new apartment. I’d been living at my old place for over two years (since I graduated and moved to Seattle in May, 2003), and it felt like time to move.

Funny thing about my family and moving: Notwithstanding the fact I moved from Minnesota to Washington, when people in my family move, we tend not to move very far. I vaguely recall that when my dad was a boy, his family once moved just a few houses down the street. Likewise, when I was a kid and we moved, the new house was less than a mile away from the old house. Now, my new apartment is about three blocks from my old one.

Despite the fact that there may be genetic factors playing into my decision to stay within the Pike/Pine corridor area, location was my #1 criterion for moving. I love the area I live in now (close to bars, close to downtown, close to the bus lines, etc.), so that is hopefully a valid reason for not moving very far as well.

As for the new place, the view is, hands-down, the best part. My old apartment had one window that looked out at a brick wall. At my new place, there are two walls of windows. The east windows give me a view of First Hill (and if I get some binoculars, Molly‘s apartment, maybe…). To the south I can see parts of downtown as well as the Space Needle (and on a cloudless day I can see Elliott Bay and the mountains). Needless to say, the view kicks-ass, especially at night.

In addition to the awesome view, I also love the apartment for the very stylish kitchen (stainless steel stuff), the speakers in the bathroom, the ability to do laundry in my own apartment (even though it is a slow-drying Splendide Italian-made washer/dryer combo), and the cave-like loft above the kitchen where I will sleep once I get a queen-sized mattress.

The lease is for one year, so hopefully I won’t be moving again any time soon. This last move made me realize that I have a lot of stuff and that I really need to start downsizing a bit. I also want to get a much larger television. It feels strange watching movies on such a small (I think 20 inches?) screen in such a large, open space.

Site

See What I’m Working On

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Posts In Draft
I’m pretty excited and/or proud of my first WordPress plugin. (It hasn’t been officially announced or anything, but I intend to in a week or so once I’m sure I’ve got all the cool features and whatnot.) The plugin is called “Posts in Draft” and lets WordPress blog owners add information about what posts are in draft status.

I, for one, tend to be working on a bunch of posts at one time, and I thought it might be cool to give visitors to the site a little sneak-peak into what I’m writing up next. You can see the new list added below “Recent Posts” in the right-hand sidebar.

If there is any other information that you think might be interesting for the plugin or other plugin ideas, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Philosophy

Past Lives

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For whatever reason, the topic of past lives has come up a few times in the last couple of weeks. In order to save myself the trouble of stating my viewpoint, I’ll post it here. I may go into more details at another time.

Being an atheist, I don’t believe in God or any of that stuff, nor do I buy into the agnostic idea of souls or whatever. I wouldn’t say, however, that I strictly believe in science or whatever. My beliefs on those “big questions” are rather nebulous, to be honest, and I am still trying to figure out what I think is true.

But on the topic of past lives: I do not believe that souls are reincarnated. I think when people have hypnosis that finds past lives (or however else people determine that stuff), one of two things is happening:

  • The “past life” is really some repressed idea in the person’s unconscious psyche (yes, say hello to Jason the Freudian). To the person, it may very well be “saved” as a past life and there are ripple effects of that past live in the person’s life, but it all comes from some sort of inner psychological goings-on.
  • The “past life” is really a simultaneous existence of the person, though in another dimension. What I mean by “dimension” is rather vague. Do I mean another universe using the Bubble Universe Theory? Or do I mean another dimension as in a hypothetical “sixtieth dimension” where reality is shaped based on different variables and whatnot? Like I said, I’m not sure what I mean by “dimension” here, but any of the possibilities seem more likely to me than the existence of a human soul that is reincarnated.

So there you have it. Don’t be afraid, however, to ask me this in person. I just figured since it seems to be a hot topic lately, I should get my thoughts out there.

Music

Plastic Pitchfork

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Plastic Constellations on Pitchfork
Time for a shout-out to The Plastic Constellations for making it on to the front page of Pitchfork. They already made it to the track reviews for their song “We Came to Play,” but this time they are the #1 and have a picture for the track review of their song “Sancho Panza.”

I knew these guys back in high school (the drummer is my mom’s best friend’s son and we used to be really good friends, as well), so it’s great to see them doing so well.

Now if only they would do a West coast tour…

Music

Hung Up

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Madonna's 'Hung Up' single
Following Paulo’s lead, I guess it’s time to comment on the fact that I am totally loving Madonna‘s new song “Hung Up.” I’ve had the track since iTunes made it available back in mid-October.

I first heard it at the club on Halloween weekend, and I have to say that hearing it while dancing and drinking and being around people only made it better. Since then, I’ve managed to download six versions (radio edit, album version, Tracy Young‘s Get Up and Dance Groove remix, SDP [a.k.a Stuart Price]‘s extended dub), SDP’s vocal mix, “Blueyender Tech” remix). I’ve also downloaded the video.

I may even be so bold as to say that this is Madonna’s best song since “Music” or “Ray of Light” — mostly due to the fact that it sort of reinvents her yet again. (Although I really liked “American Music,” it wasn’t as exciting or danceable.) And for those who complain that she is just “stealing” from ABBA — it’s called sampling and had I listened to “Gimme Gimme Gimme” before hearing “Hung Up,” I wouldn’t have been very impressed. Now, however, I think the song is kind of cool, and the part that Madonna sampled is even more exciting in the ABBA original.

I like the song so much, even, that I used some of the lyrics during a philosophical conversation last night. My friend was talking about how all these goals she has and that she just wants to have them right away and I said it sounded like she spend most of her life waiting for the future. Then I said, “Time goes by so slowly for those who wait.” How obnoxious is that???

Nonetheless, I cannot wait for Confessions from the Dancefloor next week. Here’s hoping the album is as good as the lead single.