The iMac—one of the most influential and recognizable computers of all time—is ten years old today. TUAW has more, including the first iMac commercial, which used The Rolling Stone’s “She’s A Rainbow”.
The 2008 Toronto International Film Festival is just over three weeks away. Alas, I won’t be making it up north this year, but that can’t stop me from poring over the schedules and putting together my picks—those films that, were I going, I’d gladly wait in line for. Starting next week, I’ll begin posting those picks, along with trailers and other goodies, here on Opus on a (roughly) daily basis. Just think of it as another blogging project.
I’ve been using Macs for years, but it seems like I’m always finding out about clever new tricks and shortcuts, such as this one:
If you’re typing in a text field (in Safari, TextEdit, or most any Mac OS X app), you can press F5 while your cursor rests in a particular word to see a list of words that begin with the letters after the last space… The results come from Mac OS X’s built-in dictionary.
FYI, if you try this in Firefox, you’ll simply refresh your browser. Click here for more useful “Mac 101” tips and tricks.
- Year: 2008
- Label: Saint Cecilia Records
- Genre(s): Ambient, Electronica, Shoegazer
There are some folks who just can’t quite put the past behind them, who seem almost unhealthily fascinated and attracted to the trends, ideas, and styles of yesteryear. And while that can often increase one’s chances of embarrassment and foolishness, if nothing else, it can make for some pretty good music.
Such is the case with Daniel Land & The Modern Painters. The Manchester-based six-piece have a decided fixation on the sounds associated with the glory days of 4AD Records. Which means that, while listening to the five songs of the Imagining October EP, you’ll hear plenty of woozy, shimmery guitars that bring to mind the likes of Robin Guthrie (The Cocteau Twins) and Miki Berenyi (Lush).
What you won’t find, however, are similarly dreamy female vocals. Rather, vocal duties are handled by Land, whose hushed voice has been described, in so many words, as a combination of Elizabeth Fraser and Neil Halstead. Now, I wouldn’t go that far, but his vocals befit the music pretty well, especially on the gentle opener “Off Your Face Again”, which just drifts along nicely on never-ending swells of ringing, chiming guitars.
“Between The Acts” ventures a little further into Cocteau territory, recalling even more firmly the halcyon days of Heaven Or Las Vegas or Treasure. And while there’s certainly part of me that finds it odd to not hear some angelic siren’s glossolalia weaving its way through the music, that has become something of a cliché. And so it’s actually kind of refreshing to hear a male voice accompany such delicate, ephemeral sounds.
If you spend any time on the group’s MySpace page, you’ll find things like “rainy Saturday evenings” and “winter walks on deserted beaches” listed right alongside their musical influences. Which really make sense while listening to “The Nights Are Falling”, the EP’s most ominous and foreboding track. Land can be heard singing here, but his words are buried beneath nocturnal waves of reverbed guitar and spectral synths—which eventually give way to “September, Look At October”.
A nearly 8-minute track, it closes the EP out with booming drums and more of those oh-so gorgeous ethereal guitars. The band also incorporates some electronic programming in the song’s extended denouement—which, while modern and technological and all, struck me as almost as gimmicky and clichéd these days as bringing in female vocals simply because you’re writing ethereal, Cocteaus-y songs.
Personally, I find that the more that Land and his bandmates attempt to be throwbacks, and revel in said position, the more refreshing and involving their music becomes. Which is not to say that there isn’t room for improvement.
The band is certainly capable of creating more than just a few lovely soundscapes and atmospherics, but at times, this does mean that they meander a bit much, apparently lost in their own swells and swirls. A good pop hook or two wouldn’t sound at all out of place. And as odd as this seems, given the band’s predilection for shoegaze—one that I share, I might add—I find myself wanting to hear some stronger, more upfront vocals. Bands like The Autumns and Bethany Curve have show time and again that you can, indeed, combine a powerful set of pipes with an equally sizable set of guitar effects, without any adverse effects whatsoever.
But there’s no doubt in my mind that these folks are on the right track, and have no reason whatsoever to be embarassed by their almost slavish devotion to the past. They still come out ahead in my book.
I’m incredibly fascinated by the “stromotion” photos coming out of Olympics, such as these and these. The synchronized diving photos are especially impressive: they show just how amazingly tight some of the divers were in their performances. FYI, “stromotion” is a photo/video consisting of multiple shots of athletes from different phases of their performances, allowing you see how said performances evolve over time. Plus, they’re really pretty.
Roger Ebert reflects on the opening ceremonies, and China at large:
It is little hard to imagine Chicago (or Rio and our other competitors) finding 2,016 unpaid volunteers to rehearse endlessly for an opening performance. But we wouldn’t expect it. The closest America comes to a production like this is probably the halftime show at the Super Bowl. Although our universities have marching bands, our emphasis at the Super Bowl is more often on individuals, even if they are Janet Jackson. We are just not inclined to present thousands of painstakingly drilled performers. The closest sight I have seen to Friday night’s spectacle, and I mean this objectively, not with disrespect, is the sight of all those Germans marching wave upon wave before Hitler in “Triumph of the Will.”
Wired on Cai Guo-Qiang, the man behind the Beijing opening ceremony’s fireworks:
The New York-based, Chinese-born Cai is an installation artist who revels in using explosives (primarily gunpowder) to create violent displays of pyrotechnics, or, as he calls them, “explosion works.” And because of his considerable talents with both art and fire, he was commissioned to produce Friday’s opening Olympic ceremony.
The opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics were simply mindblowing. I can only imagine what it must’ve been like to have actually been there, underneath the firestorm.
The winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced, and as usual there are some real doozies. Here’s this year’s winner, from Garrison Spik (Washington, D.C.):
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”
However, I think this one’s my personal fave, from Camille Barigar & Jeff Blick (Twin Falls, ID):
As Kevin thumbed through the thick pages of the ancient manuscript lately found deep in the bowels of the Enzo family library in Castellino, with its depictions and detailed woodcuts of the morbid crimes committed during the Spanish Inquisition, he couldn’t help but marvel at the serene faces of the Florentine martyrs (Italians are so much tougher than they look!) and thought that his own expression would differ slightly if he were being sawn in half using the crack of his butt as a straight-line.
Cinematical has just posted the full specs for the upcoming Iron Man DVD—which is due out September 30—and they look pretty sweet, especially the Blu-Ray edition. (Perhaps it’s time to upgrade?) What’s more, Best Buy is taking pre-orders for a special edition that comes with your very own Iron Man helmet. My geek-o-meter is about to go into the red…
An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad?
The Republican nominee’s advisers brush off the charges, arguing that the spot was meant to be a “creative” and “humorous” way of poking fun at Obama’s popularity by painting him as a self-appointed messiah. But even this innocuous interpretation of the ad—which includes images of Charlton Heston as Moses and culled clips that make Obama sound truly egomaniacal—taps into a conversation that has been gaining urgency on Christian radio, political blogs, and in widely-circulated email messages that accuse Obama of being the Antichrist.
You can watch the ad—which besides being somewhat disturbing is also juvenile, pretty crappily produced, and neither “creative” nor “humorous”—here.
Khoi Vinh discusses some thoughts concerning the impending ExpressionEngine-centric overhaul of his site. FWIW, the approach he outlines—condensing all of the different types of entries into a single “blog”—is very similar to what I’ve done on Opus. I’m a big fan of the approach’s simplicity and elegance, and using EE as the backend makes it very easy to do.
I’ve recently come across several blog entries that raise the question, “Can a Christian, in good conscience, vote for Barack Obama?”, with the main reason for the question being Obama’s pro-choice stance.
This is certainly an important issue, especially seeing as how Obama is gaining an increasing amount of support and acclaim from Christian circles. How can Christians, a significant portion of whom see abortion as nothing short of murder, support a presidential candidate who is very open about his pro-choice stance? The implication seems to be that, in some way, Christians who intend to vote for Obama are making a serious moral compromise that others find unconscionable.
This caused some discussion between Renae and I, as we seek to understand the issues more fully and prepare to vote in the coming months. We want to make our vote “count”, and we want to ensure that we are making the most informed decision possible, whatever that decision might be. But as we thought about it, we came to realization that politics, in any form, involves compromise.
While politics, and the actions of political leaders, are certainly informed and shaped by idealistic absolutes that can lead to intense disagreement—e.g., the constant antagonism between conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats—no political process can survive without some measure of give and take. Especially when you’re dealing with democratic system.
Put simply, there is no perfect candidate available, not for any political office, and there never will be. At some point, your candidate of choice will “let you down” by supporting some issue or stance that, for whatever reason, you are opposed to. Or perhaps they’ll have some character flaw or lifestyle choice that will just drive you crazy, and yet you choose to stick by them.
To that end, I wish to pose this question to those folks who are wondering how Christians can compromise in order to vote for Obama: what compromises, moral or otherwise, are you willing to make by voting for McCain (or someone who is not Obama)?
Certainly there are things about McCain with which you disagree, perhaps even vehemently. If you’ll recall, McCain has received flak from conservative pundits and leaders due to his stances on immigration, terrorism, tax cuts, stem cell research, and so on. Or maybe there are things about his personal life that you find worrisome and troubling, but are willing to overlook. What are they, and how or why do you justify overlooking them?
And there’s a flipside to this question: are there aspects of Obama’s campaign that, if looked at honestly, you can appreciate? Or perhaps there are aspects to his character that you respect. If that’s true, what are you willing to compromise or give up by not voting for Obama?
As I stated early on in this post, I think it is beyond our rational capabilities to truly understand the mysteries of free will and determinism. And honestly, does it really affect your day-to-day life? Even if I think that God has ordained my every action, I still must make choices to either sin or strive for righteousness, and those are real choices (in a sense we can’t fully understand). And while I agree that grace is given solely by God and salvation is his work 100%, I still must actively engage people in conversations about the gospel, presenting it to them as a conduit of God’s grace, just as I must help the poor and the sick even while understanding that God controls all of it. Calvinists who shrug off these responsibilities are erring on the side of fatalism. It’s one thing to completely ignore the repeated commands of Christ (the great commission, etc), but it is also just nonsensical to assume that God disseminates his grace outside of the work of human agents. This isn’t the same as saying he needs us; just that we are his, bound up with his grand purposes on earth. Such are the awesome mysteries of being captured by God’s grace.
Wherefore art thou Mark Hollis?
Spirit of Eden has not dated; it’s remarkable how contemporary it sounds, anticipating post-rock, the Verve and Radiohead. It’s the sound of an artist being given the keys to the kingdom and returning with art. Yet upon completion it was seen as utter commercial suicide, as if Duran Duran had released a krautrock, free jazz, gospel album after Notorious. EMI responded by suing Hollis for being wilfully obscure and un-commercial, much as when David Geffen sued Neil Young for not sounding Neil Young enough. This ridiculous case was eventually thrown out of court yet it had a long lasting impact on the music industry. The lawsuit set the precedent for the clause that a band’s recordings have to be of a commercially satisfactory nature.
I’d like to think that, if Portishead and My Bloody Valentine can reappear after spending a decade or so out of the limelight, that Mark Hollis/Talk Talk could do the same, but I suppose that’s really wishful thinking. Ah well, guess it’s time to pull out that copy of Spirit Of Eden again. Via
I’ve been in a “classic 4AD” state of mind today…
Of all of the so-called “modern classical” composers that I’ve heard these days, the one that I continue to find most affecting is Max Richter. His previous albums—2006’s Songs From Before and 2004’s The Blue Notebooks—are really quite gorgeous, combining chamber music arrangements with more experimental aspects such as spoken word and electronic flourishes to create some very haunting and affecting pieces of music.
His latest release, however—24 Postcards In Full Colour—takes that experimental aspect a bit further. While his previous albums have been wrought around literary themes (the works of Haruki Murakami and Franz Kafka), 24 Postcards... is wrought around the idea of using the humble ringtone as a legitimate format.
From the FatCat Records website:
An attempt an exploration of the ringtone as a vehicle for music performance , 24 Postcards... is an experimental work made up of 24 classically-composed ringtones, set to be premièred in various gallery spaces. The première is intended to be in the form of a series of installations where pre-registered audience members switch on their phones to receive SMS messages, each message alert playing back one or more of the tracks, so making up the performance. In tandem with this release, will be a micro-website hosting 24 photographic images, one accompanying each track. As Max explains: “Thinking about how we listen to music today, I wondered why it is that ringtones have so far been treated as unfit for creative music… Who says ringtones have to be bad?.. It’s like saying LPs or CDs are bad – its just a medium….”
The tracks range in length from 60 seconds to three minutes, but as his previous releases have shown, Richter is no stranger to using short compositions to create haunting impressions. As the website puts it, even his shortest pieces offer a glimpse into potentially much larger pieces
, which is one reason why I find Richter’s music so compelling.
FatCat Records will release 24 Postcards In Full Colour on CD, LP, and MP3 downloads on September 23 (US, Canada) and August 25 (UK, Europe, everywhere else). More details, as well as samples, can be found at the “24 Postcards” website.
Veerle lists her top 10 favorite typefaces. Always nice to see Mrs Eaves getting some love.
GreenCine Daily looks at Love and Honor, the final film in Yôji Yamada’s samurai trilogy following The Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade. FWIW, I thought Love and Honor was the weakest of the three, but it was still a lovely, well-made film.
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace is a comedy series, released in 2004, that lampoons 1980s television drama, particularly horror, sci-fi, and “the rampant egotism of self-appointed ‘mastermind’ authors.” The show presents Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace as though it were a real, budget television series, produced in the 1980s, and now getting its first screening; this hoax is the basis of the show’s fictional frame. Darkplace’s fictional show-within-a-show includes deliberately poor production and special effects, sub-par acting, and storylines that are “severely flawed and open-ended”, this is interspersed with ‘present-day interviews’ with the ‘cast’.
The series’ fictional premise is that some time in the 1980s, best-selling horror author Garth Marenghi and his publisher/publicist, Dean Learner, made their own low-budget television series with a single intent: “to change the evolutionary course of Man over a series of half-hour episodes.” Set in Darkplace Hospital, “over the very gates of Hell,” in Romford, East London, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace shows the adventures of Dr. Rick Dagless, M.D., as he fights the forces of darkness while simultaneously coping with the pressures of day to day admin. Within this fictional context, Marenghi wrote 63 teleplays from which 50 shows were produced; however, Channel 4 was eventually forced to reject the show due to its “radicality.” Though, Marenghi also cites possible government suppression: “MI8, which is actually three levels above MI6, pulled the plug. And they did it because I knew the truth.”
In 2004, due to the “worst artistic drought in broadcast history”, Channel 4 decided to air six of the original episodes.
If the above video melts your mind—and it should, it really should—you can continue watching episode #1 here and here.
Thanks to Mr. Elastic for the 411.
The Silent Ballet reviews July Skies’ The Weather Clock:
July Skies has received criticism for its blurry song distinction and deliberate climactic elisions; those who have turned on this record anticipating dynamic, ascending guitar work will be disappointed. For those who have grown to love the sound the July Skies has established on the previous albums, a sound that shies from ostentation and embraces subtleties applied by Harding’s minimal instrumentation, The Weather Clock will not disappoint you.
My own review of The Weather Clock can be found here.