What Capitalism Was – Plays Philip Glass on Accordion (2009)

YAY!!!!! The album has been released on p2p networks… and I have tangible super-sweet cds now for a limited release of 100… so write me if you want a cd! Otherwise, looks on the internets, you’ll probably find it!
Heart!
catfish

University Occupations

Student Occupations of their Universities throughout Europe:

from The Resistance Studies Network:

There is an ongoing wave of student occupations and protest for a free and better university education, and against privatization policies at several European universities, mainly in Germany and Austria.

The struggle for free, quality education!
Unsereunis.de has updates and Zur Politik has the map and some info…

Common dreams has a story….

VPN’s, censorship, and the good fight

A few thoughts on VPN’s:

VPN (virtual private network)

One can buy VPN service subscriptions for as little as 6 euro/month. That’s cheap for “perfect” (or whatever) anonymity, whether you want to fileshare (and your ISP forbids legal file sharing), whether you live in China, Australia, Burma, or Iran (and the web is censored or much of it blocked) or if you want to use streaming video sites that are prohibited in your region. Or if you just don’t want your ISP to know every site that you visit: because now they have to retain that sort of information. It’s better than a proxy in some respects because you can run any protocol, from mail to skype to utorrent through it. It’s terrible to have to pay for anonymity, and maybe this sends the wrong message (i.e. we should be battling for our rights online, not subverting their authority with cool technologies) — because really we need to open the world up, not censor and close it up.

Cia Bocabajo – Circus Performance – Bremen 8-2009

This is an incredible performance by Cia Bocabajo in Bremen, Germany on 16 August 2009. Their awe-inspiring skills mixed with their funny and emotive pantomiming made them the best performance in this year’s La Strada festival (street cirkus, theatre and art) in Bremen.

The Pirate Bay Sold!

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-sold-to-software-company-goes-legal-090630/

According to gaming company Global Gaming Factory X, it is in the the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay for $7.8m (SEK 60 million). The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by August and will see the site launch new business models to compensate content providers and copyright owners.

You can follow the discussion on TPB here:
http://thepiratebay.org/blog/164

from comment 35:

“The listed software company, Global Gaming Factory X AB (publ) (GGF) acquires The Pirate Bay website, http://www.thepiratebay.org, one of the 100 most visited websites in the world and the technology company Peerialism, that has developed next generation file-sharing technology. Following the completion of the acquisitions, GGF intends to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners. The responsibility for, and operation of the site will be taken over by GGF in connection with closing of the transaction, which is scheduled for August 2009.

“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site” said Hans Pandeya, CEO GGF.

“The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers’ need faster downloads and better quality” continues Hans Pandeya.”

It sounds like TPB as we know it will be gone. It’s, naturally, with the trial and all that, understandable and probably inevitable, but it’s still sad!

There’s a pretty good discussion here:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/30/pirate-bay-acquired-by-global-gaming-factory-going-legit-like-n
Here’s a good point by Marty K.:

Its pretty sad how TPB blog is trying to spin this buyout as all ado about nothing. Statements like

“GGF intends to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners.”

and

“If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to.”

are very incompatible. I can’t fathom a scenario where this dichotomy of ideas can produce a business model that satisfies both TPB users and copyright owners.

Truly a sad day indeed. Like a Metallica tattoo, and for the same reason, I’m glad I never bought a TPB tee shirt.

There’s now a good discussion on Slashdot:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/06/30/1233213/Pirate-Bay-Announces-Sale-to-Swedish-Company-For-78-Million?art_pos=2

Coraline

A great new animation released on dvd (and p2p networks) that is incredible. The first review of it I heard was: “A dark animation that ISN’T Tim Burton.” That’s true! It has elements of Alice’s Adventures Underground (the flowers, the talking cat…). The soundtrack has great clarinet, tuba and deep dark cellos. It’s as surreal as it is entertaining.

Coraline on IMDB

(Concise) New Music Reviews: The Decemberists, Camera Obscura, Röyksopp

The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love

So, I’m a big Decemberists fan but to my dismay they’ve reproduced much of the hard electric-guitar-laden sound that made parts of The Crane Wife unlikable to me. I miss the accordion-laden Decemberists of yore.  On this album, I really only liked the interludes and the song Isn’t it a Lovely Night but there seems to be a self-consciousness in it; like maybe it reminds me too much of Lou Reed’s pomp in I’m Sticking With You, I don’t know.  This album certainly reminds me of The Tain but lacking the clever lyrics, the segues and the charm.

Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career

So fun! I adore their pop-sensibility and lyric-imagery. Full songs with violins, triumphant ooohs and decent drum fills. Beautiful ballads and gorgeous vocals. Their style hasn’t changed at all really over the years (save a fuller sound), but that’s why it’s good.

Röyksopp – Junior

I’m enjoying this album.  At times it reminds me of the band aRTIST oF tHE yEAR and at times Air.  There is some great instrumentation on this: violins on Röyksopp Forever. I think I’ll listen to this alongside the new Telefone Tel Aviv album which I’ve also been enjoying.  Tricky Tricky features vocals from Karin of The Knife and it is nice and dark (and bouncy) like a song by The Knife.

So the lesson is:  Bands, stop changing your sound!!!!!!!

Ha, j/k.

Film Review – Waltz with Bashir

Having finally seen this after hearing so much about it (It was all over the Bremen press when I was there and it’s been in the recent weekly magazine here in Asheville), I am almost too-overwhelmed to write about it. One can’t help making a comparison to Waking Life. I know, I know, all animations aren’t the same, but I feel like the interview format and the obsession with cognition and memory are shared themes in the films.
Waltz with Bashir takes us with a man as he tries to uncover his part in a massacre during the Lebanese/Israel war of 1982.

Quote about the memories: “It’s not stored in my system.”

Spoiler questions (i.e. don’t read if you haven’t seen the film):
Why are animations like this so much more appealing? Is it because we can have little segues and quick surreal flashbacks? Because we can see the ferris wheel and hot air balloons in the background? What about this makes it more moving? Does the “real” footage make it more powerful for you?
When it’s an animation, I think, we pay more attention to the sideways glances and the pauses of the “actor”… if it was live acting, we would be aware that the actor is aware of the videocamera.

Here is the film’s IMDB page.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

Having just a week ago finished Lynne Truss’s masterpiece Eats, Shoots and Leaves, I still find myself in punctuation chaos when I’m writing essays. Here’s a question:

Is it:
Having read Lynne Truss’ masterpiece…
or
Having read Lynne Truss’s masterpiece….

This site suggests that we use the first whereas this New Yorker article practices the second usage.

The first site suggests that the s’ is modern usage. When do we stylistically, grammatically decide to drop the apostrophe in ‘fridge or whether an Oxford comma is wrong or not? Do the style manuals decide these things?!

Anyhow, I was taught that ’s was correct because you pronounce the S.
Doesn’t it look better as well: Truss’s?

———–
EDIT:

I found this from Eats, Shoots and Leaves that properly explains it:

Current guides to punctuation (including that ultimate authority, Fowler’s Modern English Usage) state that with modern names ending in “s” (including biblical names, and any foreign name with an unpronounced final “s”), the “s” is required after the apostrophe:

Keats’s poems

Philippa Jones’s book

St James’s Square

Alexander Dumas’s The Three Musketeers

With names from the ancient world, it is not:

Archimedes’ screw

Achilles’ heel

If the name ends in an “iz” sound, an exception is made:

Bridges’ score

Moses’ tablets

And an exception is always made for Jesus:

Jesus’ disciples

–Lynne Truss

Music Review: Philip Glass – Glassworks (1982)

Why review aged albums? Because they are still breaking ground over twenty years since their inception.
This album still moves me. Every piece is perfect and it moves along sometimes slowly, sometimes frantically!
From ‘Island’ to ‘Rubric’ is my favorite part of the album. I’ve been much more into the somber “Works for Solo Piano” but I can’t stop listening to this today.
I’ve always found the term minimalism hard to grasp, this seems quite layered and intricate; the timing and everything go, at times, almost maddeningly out-of-4:4…. and I like to think that the songs are predictable but if you listen closely they are not at all.
Find this album and think about your life maybe.
Thanks for reading. More to come about Philip Glass. I’ve been obsessing about him and the Magnetic Fields lately.