Monthly Archive for May, 2006

So Much To Say

Published
by
Joel
on May 24, 2006
in life
. 1 Comment

I’ve got so much to say… and not a lot of time here to say it. I’m doing well. I’m working, I’m taking classes, I’m eking. And I’m also alive.

A couple of things rock my boat right now. Life change is taking place right now… and especially after this summer is over… I’m seeing an uncharted ocean that has big waves on it. And I cannot see to the other side. I think I’ll change my MySpace name to RiversOfBloodSeepingThroughTheCurtains or something emo like that.

Dr. M. Neil Browne is a challenging professor whose all-knowing prowess is only tempered by his occasional thoughtful musings on the pathetic nature of humanity. He’s an exceptional educator, and he teaches because he loves students. However, he is also a rather rigid intellectual… with little more than an outright superiority complex when it comes to relating himself to all of humankind. Like I said… he’s ‘challenging.’ He spoke at length against Christianity yesterday, demeaning it as a harsh relligion whose treatment of women is nothing less than criminal. “Men wrote the Bible, ladies… that’s why the Gnostic gospels were dispelled… they offer a kinder, gentler version of Christianity.” And here, I’m paraphrasing. He recommended a book called Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories by the femininst theologin Mieke Bal. In it, he said that Bal addressed many of the major ‘romances’ in the Bible, and concluded that women were always portrayed as the seducer, as the catalyst for sin in the man. I was left agog at his candor (to use some big words).

David & Bathsheba, Judah & Tamar, Samson & Delilah. Sounds like Bal picks the titillating ‘romances’ and uses some kind Freudian theory on them (according to the paltry ONE Amazon.com customer review). David took Bathsheba from her husband because he was king, he could, and he wanted to. Judah raped Tamar because he was deeply infatuated with her, he was stronger than her, because he could, and he wanted to. Samson fell to Delilah’s knife because he seriously didn’t believe that having his hair cut would affect his strength. Oh? And why is that? Because Samson had already done a lot of things that he wasn’t supposed to do (e.g. touch a carcass, go in with a harlot) and those things didn’t affect his superhuman strength. He even teased Delilah and told her time and again lies about how to remove his strength. But then he told her anyway. Did he think that she wouldn’t do it? Heck no! He knew she’d do it, because she’d tried everything else that he told her. He just thought that it didn’t really matter. Compromises led to conflict for Samson, and his head was shorn, his eyes dug out, and he was put to the millstone.

So, he’s ‘challenging.’ Certainly, women are not the originators of sin, Satan is. Oh yeah, and he proclaimed that the devil was invented in the middle ages in order to ’scare’ more people into converting to Christianity. Of course, he failed to mention what the supposed motive for such a tactic might be. I mean, I’m a Christian because I’m petrified of burning in a lake of fire for all eternity… I don’t know about you. I read Jonathan Edwards.

Oh, and did I mention that this is all coming from an Economics class?

Gnarls Barkley

Published
by
Joel
on May 17, 2006
in music
. 0 Comments

You may or may not be familiar with these fellows. They’re DJ Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo. Danger Mouse became fabulously famous for his underground Mash-up album of Jay-Z’s Black Album and The Beatles’ White Album… affectionately dubbed “The Grey Album”. The Grey Album became a massive underground success, enduring a lawsuit from Sony/EMI, and ranking as the #1 album of 2004 on Entertaiment Weekly’s Year in Review list. Cee-Lo is a former member of Hip-hop collective The Goodie Mob, and is considered a major influencer of the “dirty south” style of music that informed multi-platnum-selling, Grammy winners Outkast. Combining their collective strengths, curiously-absent weaknesses, and weirdness, these fellows have concocted a wholly “other” album. What comes across as so effortless, so unique, and so infectious… also is nigh-impossible to describe. Just listen to two of the more radio-friendly tracks on the Gnarls Barkley website, “Crazy” and “Smiley Face”. You’ll see what I mean. Then hit up their MySpace page and check out the photos. I’d love to see these guys live.

Christopher Walken

Published
by
Joel
on May 15, 2006
in life and music
. 0 Comments

… is not running for President. But if he were, Walken 2008 would be the site to go to for information on how to join his grassroots campaign.

Return to the Sea by Islands

Pitchfork gave the debut album from Islands a fairly strong rating. Part of this records strength is that it comes from a unique group of Canadian crazies who used to call themselves The Unicorns (at least, two of them did). With songs written about subjects as diverse as Whitney Houston, rough gemstones, and cataclysmic volcanoes ending the world, Islands craft a thoroughly enjoyable and polished album. If you’re a fan of Arcitecture in Helsinki, The Flaming Lips, or Of Montreal, you’d like Islands. Highlights, for me, are Swans (Life After Death), Humans, Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby, Rough Gem, Jogging Gorgeous Summer, and Volcanoes.

Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not by Arctic Monkeys

The Arctic Monkeys hail from England. Busting down the turnstiles on their way into America, and following on the good leads paved for them by recent successes Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Cheifs, The Redwalls, Bloc Party, and even Editors, they have arrived in the colonies to proclaim the greatness of the new British Invasion. Though they fail to outshine home-grown oddities like Spoon, Film School, and Hot Hot Heat, the Monkeys are infectious, if unrelenting in the way they write, record, and perform music. The Beatles are owed for much of this… which means they really owe Cab Calloway and all Chicago blues musicians, which means we all owe Leadbelly, and so on and so forth until the first rock fell on the first branch and made the first noise interpreted as music by a human ear. Listen to I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor, Mardy Bum, and When The Sun Goes Down

I just realized how much stinking music I’ve got, now that my computer is reformatted and it’s all in one place. I’ll have to do a special post on classic Mash-ups one day.