Halb Mensch. Halb Ding.
Blessings of the state. Blessings of the masses.
THX 1138 is certainly not the most accessible film of all time, but for my money it remains not only timeless, but both engrossing and devastating. It’s as uncompromising in its portrayal of a fundamentally alien society as it is in ignoring and avoiding traditional narrative structures and science fiction tropes.
Spent the last few evenings glued to the screen, bouncing from hotel to hotel, trying to find the right fit between price and location for our stays in LA, SF and Vegas. Maybe I’m picky, but that stuff is draining. I don’t know what I’d do without Trip Advisor to be honest.
Originally we had planned to stay wherever, but as our plans started crystalizing, we decided for peace of mind, to book places while in the cities, rather than trying to find something in the stress of it all.
War Stories by UNKLE. I recommend finding the two-disc limited edition, and complete it with the Australian/Japanese bonus tracks Buying a Lie and Mistress. Also, get End Titles… Stories for Film, End Titles… Redux and More Stories. Why it has to be so hard to get the full ‘album’ is beyond me, but it was worth it.
We were seated far, far away from our friends at the Depeche Mode concert (the sound was atrocious where we were seated, so I can’t honestly say if it was a ‘good’ concert, though it seemed pretty rockin’ down on the ground) this tuesday, and as we idled away, waiting for the old geezers to take the stage, we spent the time messaging each other, trying to get a visual in-amongst the thousands of people, because… Well, there wasn’t a lot else to do.
I’m fascinated with the old idea of the mixtape — or the playlist, in our day and age — as more than merely compilations of same-genre music. Instead of transporting the listener around A, I’ve always preferred mixtapes that moved me from A to B.
It took me somewhere between 4 – 5 months to cobble together this one, which was culled down from about 12 hours of material to about 2.5 hours where it stay for a good while, until I finally took the plunge and made it a nice and lean 84 minutes long. If you’re up for it, I suggest that you don’t skim the track listening too much, don your finestest headphones, and enter… The Night (uuuuhhhhh).
I credit the fact that Lawrence of Arabia is in my top 10 half-way because of David Lean’s audacious cinematography and half-way because of Maurice Jarre’s sweeping score. Rest in peace, thank you for the music.
Rikke and I were at the VETO/Spleen United double-whammy concert yesterday here in Copenhagen, and it kicked some major ass. Probably in fact, the best concert I’ve been at in… ever. I don’t think I’ve seen a crowd that worked up since Metallica (and that was 50.000 people, so… quite an accomplishment for little ol’ K.B. Hallen).
So, I’m kind of into soundtracks. And I’m kinda, sorta, maybe, a little… a little anal about my music library and album artwork and those sorts of things. So when I came across a collection of iTunes Library-grade resolution soundtrack covers that I hadn’t even seen before, I think I peed my pants a little. A little.
I think most of the ‘non-normal’ ones are fan-made; but contrary to most fan-made things on the internet, these are actually in pretty good taste. And if nothing else, they’re great as alternates for the real albums, when you have unofficial extended cuts, promos or other cover-less albums in need of some nice coverflow-friendly graphics.
Check out this one for Fight Club which matches the limited edition DVD, or this Pan’s Labyrinth by Mike Mignola, a whole slew of very cool Zodiac ones and some Life Aquatic and Lord of the Rings ones under L. A neat Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within one, which matches the artbook (good ol’ Goldenthal doesn’t let us down). And this There Will Be Blood cover certainly kicks the crap out of the one that came with my purchase.
But reigning high above all the others, is Kill Bill (I always loved the Japanese ‘Kill is Love’ series of posters) and Star Wars.
I met Angelo Badalamenti on Blue Velvet and since then he has composed music for all my films. He’s like my brother.The way we work is: I like to sit next to him on the piano bench. I talk and Angelo plays. He plays my words. But sometimes he doesn’t understand my words, so he plays very badly. then I say, “No, no, no, no, Angelo.” And I change my words a little bit and he plays differently. And then I say, “No, no, no, no, Angelo,” and I change my words. And somehow through this process he will catch something, and I’ll say, “That’s it!” And then he starts going with his magic, down that correct path. It’s so much fun. If Angelo liveed next door to me, I’d like to do this every day. But he lives in New Jersey, and I live in Los Angeles.
- David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish, Hardcover ed., Tarcher/Penguin, 2006, p. 65
Grab Discipline and have a listen to Echoplex:
Apparently something is going down on nin.com on the 5th…
Holy shit; where did that come from!? A 36-track double-album from Trent? That’s a hell of a way to start the week. A hell of a way.
Did anyone hear about this ahead of time? It’s like the polar opposite of the release-extravaganza that was Year Zero. And judging from what I’ve heard so far, so is the album itself. The album art is different for each track by the way.
I love my iPhone, but there’s one thing I don’t understand. With my iPod, formatted with FAT32, I could connect it both at home and at work, and effortlessly stream music off of it or even copy music onto it in both places. Not so with the iPhone. It is bound to my workstation. Sure, I can connect it to my workstation (or my MacBook Pro or Rikke’s Powerbook or someone else’s computer), and they will detect it just fine. But the music on it is inaccessible…
If I try to turn on ‘manage manually’, which is what worked with my iPod, it tells me I have to erase the music library to bind it to the current computer!
Combined with the minijack port being compatible only with Apple headphones (what’s that about?!), this effectively makes it a pain in the ass to use at work. After all, I spent good money getting myself a pair of awesome headphones (Beyerdynamic DT 770); yet if I want to listen to something off of the iPhone, I have to use Apple’s headphones?
In turn, this has me switching back and forth between headphones, as I have to listen to something from my workstation and then back on the iPhone for a podcast, or whatever.
I love that it can be disconnected at any time, so I can take a call if necessary, and as such I accept that it doesn’t work as a HDD. But how can this be intentional? At least let me stream my own music off of the damn thing; that’s the least you can do.
The fires in southern California have caused the complete recordings of Return of the King to be delayed until the 20th this month.
If you haven’t already, head on over and sample The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust. It’s a pretty solid album, and it’s like getting a quarter of a NIИ album too!