Really, It's Absolutely Asinine

In another one of its spurious litigations against file-sharers, the RIAA has shown just how extraordinary backwards it really is. Not that doubts existed before, but this shit is just too much.

From the Washington Post :

In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

Baffling. This strategy was out of date when I was in middle school ten years ago -- hell, individuals making copies of copyrighted material like this has existed since effing cassette tapes.

I pay for all my music nowadays, but I'm definitely not above burning mix CDs for friends -- and I'm more scrupulous than most of the listeners I know. As if going after individual downloaders as a deterrent wasn't already an exercise in futility -- there's no way in hell this can possibly work. An attempt to restrict uploading onto personal computers without fine sharing -- something anyone with an mp3 player has to do -- has zero chance of effectively reducing file sharing. If people are in danger of being prosecuted for uploading music they've paid for, why not Soulseek that stuff for free?

The Washington Post article pretty much sums it up:

The RIAA's legal crusade against its customers is a classic example of an old media company clinging to a business model that has collapsed. Four years of a failed strategy has only "created a whole market of people who specifically look to buy independent goods so as not to deal with the big record companies," Beckerman says. "Every problem they're trying to solve is worse now than when they started."

Party in the TARDIS, sweetie dahling

Jennifer Saunders -- that's right, motherfucking Edina from AbFab -- could be playing the Doctor in a one-off Doctor Who special sometime in the future.

I was kinda bummed when I heard that the adorable David Tennant would be moving on after Season 4, but this almost makes up for it.



So. Freaking. Cute. And Scottish.

The Daily Mail article mentions two actors supposedly being considered to play the next Doctor full time. They are:

Irish actor James Nesbitt.



I could totally live with that. As it were.

And Rhys Ifans, who...well, not so much. Although he used to be in Super Furry Animals, so.


UPDATE: David Tennant denies rumors that he'll leave after the next series. To celebrate, here's one more pic.

Fun fact

What Bill Murray says to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation.

birthday card for my sister's 18th

Thought-Purge: Caetano Veloso, 11/7

So I saw Caetano Veloso in Chapel Hill last night. His performance was part of the Carolina Performing Arts series, the UNC version of UMS (for y'all Michiganders) except with (presumably) no sleeping outdoors. I've enjoyed the stuff they've brought to Memorial Auditorium so far, despite the deplorable lack of legroom in their seats.

I have to admit that while I cover any sequence of world-music-ish events for CVNC, by no means do I possess encyclopedic knowledge of the sounds of foreign lands. I have a cursory knowledge of West African and Indian music thanks to some exposure in school, and I can only hope my enthusiasm and curiosity will carry me through to some kind of non-hack insight into whatever I'm listening to. This results a lot of illegible-in-the-harsh-light-of-day scribbling about each piece, embarrassing phonetic interpretations of lyrics, hastily transcribed basslines that all end up looking like large-type braille.

And although I knew more about him than the likes of the griots, cimbalists, oud players I wrote up this year, I was totally unprepared for the sexy, weird, magnetic sexagenarian who's been called the Brazilian Bob Dylan. I guess that, from the fact that I had seen him headlining at the likes of Hill Auditorium (I think I bought tickets for his show one year at UM and couldn't go for some reason), looking all serious-like in the posters -- eyes downcast, face shown in profile, forehead against guitar neck -- he'd be, I dunno, boring.*



I could not have been more egregiously wrong.

To my credit, I didn't have a whole ton of notice before I signed up to review the gig (unlike my unsuccessful lobby to review a NC Symphony pops concert featuring Elvis Costello), and I even bought his most recent disc, Cê, which was released earlier this year. I only listened to it once before the show, and my impression was that it was a little toothless -- catchy enough for me to be able to pick out four or five songs from the disc he (and his band of hot young Brazilian rockers) played during the UNC set, but waaaay too easy on the ears. It deserves further analysis, but before the show, Cê sounded like an overprocessed reworking of the Cars' clean, catchy pop formula.

I was transfixed by the following during the show:

-Caetano looking unbearably hot, even from the back row, in contrasting denim and a beat-up polo that came off as more slacker/dorm room floor than lame old dude. The voice, which delivers a rippling stream of delectable Portuguese most of the time, doesn't hurt. Add to this bright-orange shoelaces and he was seriously adorable.

-His, um, quirkiness? Which manifested itself in a variety of ways, like his goofy-as-hell, coltish jogging/dancing across the stage during particularly rockin' instrumental interludes; baring his midriff during one of these treks to the edge of the stage (to which the small but vocal home crowd reacted quite positively); the RIDICULOUS overuse of strobe effects/blinding lights of the caliber usually confined to gigantic sports stadiums.

-The guitar he used during full-band numbers, which was some kind of curious wireless git-outline with no strings and a truncated neck (since it needed no pegs). It was brought out and taken back (so his arms were free to gesticulate spastically, of course) after every other tune.

I might sound put off, but I really think I just lack context; this thought-purge is an attempt to get my colloquial thoughts and first impressions out of my system before I write my review tomorrow. I'll follow up with thoughts on his larger body of work, but for now, I leave you with the translated lyrics to "Homem" ("Man") from Cê.

I'm not jealous of maternity
or of lactation
I'm not jealous of adiposity
or of menstruation

I only envy longevity
and multiple orgasms
and multiple orgasms


Damn, I wish I knew Portuguese.

*This atrocious sentence originally had no ending. I was kinda drunk.

Classical Review Roundup: Computers and Cambodia

A ferrealz update coming soon -- I've been busy shilling coffee for interminable hours each day and traversing the mid-Atlantic coast to see rock shows (thoughts on Spoon, Philly's Electric Factory, and the nature of the concertgoing experience coming soon).

My 60x60 review (the project is so worth checking out, whether you're into listening, composing, or coding)

and my review of the Chapel Hill performance of Pamina Devi: A Cambodian Magic Flute.

Jugalbandi Fever; In Way Over My Head Re: Jazz

Two more CVNC reviews up after last weekend's triple crown of concerts.

My attempt to evaluate and describe a really cool performance of ragas by santoor master Tarun Bhattacharya and Hindustani vocalist Anurag Harsh (and there was a harmonium! Squee!).

And making my jazz-related ignorance work for me at a genre-nebulous performance by Charlie Haden and Hank Jones at Duke University's Following Monk festival.

Look for reviews of the 60x60 2007 International Mix's NC State debut and totally freaking sweet Pamina Devi: A Cambodian Magic Flute at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Classical Review: Dennis AsKew, UNC-Greensboro, 9/16

My review of UNCG tuba/euph prof Dennis AsKew's latest recital is up at CVNC. Take a look, won't you?

This song won't change your life

I hate lots and lots of things. An average day is peppered with quick, passionate bursts of loathing, disgust, and frustration for myriad aspects of the world around me: 24-hour news, people who don't use their turn signals, a sequence of workplace frustrations baffling in their simultaneous mundanity and magnitude, Michelle Norris' vocal delivery, women's magazines, the Lexus-SUV-driving aging yuppies who have encroached on my tacky but otherwise decent suburban neighborhood. And those are just everyday ire-raisers; my ever-pissy nature gets a lot worse when I chance upon stuff like this or this or this.

There are greater and more pressing problems with the world than the existence of Nancy Grace, Target's continued foisting of smocked garments upon the nation's young female demographic, or the insistence of my area college radio station on playing naught but snooze-inducing electronica after 8 p.m. four nights a week. But the really bad stuff can feel so overwhelming that reacting with more than an exhausted sigh would probably reduce me to tears. This way, I can exorcise my frustration with the immutably shitty state of most of the world by screaming at the grotesquerie of Pat Buchanan when he pops up on MSNBC, or bitch about the schlubby, middlebrow music of Billy Joel.

The flipside of this aspect of my eerily Gemini-esque nature occurs when I encounter a book, news item, previously unheard band, much-lauded but never-seen TV show, or, you know, actual person that's incontrovertibly awesome/genuine/entertaining/life-affirming/giggle-inducing: I fall hard.

I'll curl up on the futon for hours with my cat and three seasons of the new Doctor Who, or fuck up my sleep schedule because I was mainlining The Wire until dawn (I was particularly susceptible to this during the stevedore-tastic second season). I'll spend all of the driving I do for two weeks practically getting high off the mind-blowing sonic and ideological scope of the new M.I.A. album. I'll commence online stalking of objay d'crush and suddenly deem it necessary to be made up to maximum hotness whenever I venture outside on the off-chance of an encounter.

Next comes the proselytizing (a&e-wise, anyway; I tend to keep mum when I'm enamored with a particular person). Since I've clearly just seen or heard the light, I commence assaulting everybody I know with phrases like "Oh. Mah. Gahd. I canNOT stop listening to this album, you HAVE to hear it," or "Okay, so there's this thing called a TARDIS? And also David Tennant is really adorable? And, like, you don't have to give a crap about sci-fi to get into it?" whenever I've had a few beers.

Strong opinions are generally a good thing when you want to make a living as a critic, but even among amateur arbiters of taste, there's a stigma of mild uncoolness associated with getting a little gushy about your latest media crush in conversation. I risk coming off sounding like Comic Book Guy (er, more than I already do) or Natalie Portman's insufferably quirky epileptic from Garden State (thanks for ruining the Shins for anyone with discriminatin' tastes, Zach Braff), but spreading the word a little when you've found something that cheers or finspires of ascinates you just makes sense. Occasionally effusive friends and associates have turned me on to such rays of sunshine as the Pixies (I have lovely slo-mo memories of hearing "Debaser" for the first time the day after I returned home from Governor's School), Lynda Barry's Cruddy, Television Without Pity, early Woody Allen films, the Constantines, the post-glam work of David Bowie, dada, and countless others. If anyone digs a band or book or whatever that I recommend anywhere near as much as I've come to adore some recommended gems, increasing my potential to annoy too-cool types with vocalized enthusiasm has been so freaking worth it.

I'm all for those transcendent and private moments when it's just you and whatever's coming out of your headphones. But it's only natural, in the afterglow of finding a new fave, to try to spread the good vibrations around. This song won't change your life, but if you're like me, it might make you feel a little better about the way things are.

The Dude Culture of Music Criticism

Pandagon's Amanda posted a few pointed truths about women in and around the overwhelmingly male-dominated world of music criticism (not to mention music itself) and the Insufferable Music Snobbery that has a lock on music and, increasingly, pop culture in general. Her post was spurred by an intrepid Gawker intern's recent analysis of Pitchfork articles affirmed that fewer women write their douchey reviews than do guys named Mark.

I don't have much to say about this in the short time I've got to post--gotta finish writing a review of a tuba recital I saw this weekend (it's not Austin City Limits, but it'll do). Except: The more I think about this, even though I've known it was true and lived it for years, the more I'm determined to put some of the ideas I've had for this blog (and my fledgling career) into action.

So I'm going to rework this blahg to serve its intended purpose--giving me someplace to write about music while I'm unattached to any pop-review-publishing publications.

this is just to say

http://www.doctorwhoscarf.com/

Just a morbidly late-night post about something awesome. I'm not as into The Believer as I used to be -- it feels like their fascinating articles about topics you didn't know were fascinating credit has begun to run out in the face of boring reviews of contemporary novels by up-and-comers and a disappointingly dull CD companion to their recent music issue -- but I've spent my last three hours of insomnia catching up on the aforementioned music issue and their August issue. In it, okay but kinda dad-lit author Nick Hornby interviews David Simon, the erstwhile Baltimore reporter and current co-creator of HBO's supposedly unparalleled The Wire.

I've been putting off Netflixing The Wire, simply because the likes of grimy, cuss-happy Deadwood and blinky, shiny, sexy Doctor Who have been occupying my TV-on-DVD devotion of late. An excerpt from the interview is here; the whole thing is really enlightening and inspiring, that there are some people working in Hollywood's idiom who are actually fucking real and principled about what they do.

This is the part of the interview that made me jump to queue up the show and trumpet a little of its creator's awesomeness:

DAVID SIMON: My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.

Ha! So maybe David Simon's a little more David Milch than I thought. This is also, by the way, my intellectual objection to spending my life churning out articles about fucking dog parks or property taxes or "Midtown Raleigh" at the likes of The News & Observer. (ETA: Although the seeming drudgery of straight news reporting doesn't appeal to me, their arts/entertainment/lifestyles coverage is pretty damn good for the Triangle's sadly undersized cultural scene.)

Thoughts on The Wire forthcoming. It's gonna be intense.

David Berman, Rebel Jew

An hourlong documentary about Silver Jews hombre David Berman's relationship to Judaism was screened at film festivals this spring and is coming to DVD; for some reason Blogger won't let me link when I'm using Safari, so info at http://www.silverjewmovie.com. Understandably, I'm a little wary about big religious epiphanies (see, "Dylan, Bob in Popemode") in my musical idols. But hey, if it keeps him off the smack, you know? Also news of a new SJ album being recorded AS I TYPE. Can't remember where I read all this crap or I'd link.

Okay, this isn't where I read it, but Pitchfork (jayzus) posted a bunch of SJ-related info a few weeks back:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/44039-silver-jews-work-on-new-lp-berman-seeks-intern

Also, DCB was apparently looking for an INTERN???? Good god. The mind reels. Sour grapes: it would probably suck, and I couldn't do it anyway, since one of the requirements is "musician/writer types need not apply." But he was looking for an arts admin person, which I kinda sorta wanna be one day, so...Maybe I'll look into this. Hell, just this afternoon I was thinking of going to the ANTM 10 casting call at NC State. Perverse social experiment, anyone?


Slightly related: Janet Weiss is now a Jick!

Thriftstravaganza No. 2

I haven't been able to do this for a while because I just wasn't finding any good stuff--and not for lack of trying, 'kay? This collection of random stuff is culled from multiple trips to three different Raleigh thrifts over the past coupla weeks.

Item: Awesomely patterned ruffle-collar blouse
Cost: $4.99 + tax
Location: American Way, Raleigh



Even though this doesn't button over my boobs (like 99.9% of shirts, dammit) I bought it anyway because I so loved the colors and the jellybeans-and-paperclips pattern. Any of my more reasonably-proportioned pals are welcome to it.

Item: Fat plastic white hoop earrings
Cost: $1.99 + tax
Location: American Way, Raleigh



As a rule, I don't usually pay more than a dollar for a used hunk of cheap plastic, but I really liked the shape of these earrings. I tend to be picky about wacky old earrings, eschewing the Jackie Collins-esque hunks of primary-colored gold-rimmed metal that so many obnoxious stick-necked chicks can pull off okay, so I'm willing to splurge a little when I find some I deem acceptable.

Item: Royal purple negligible negligee
Cost: $4.99 - 25% = $3.75 + tax
Location: Cause for Paws on S. Saunders St., Raleigh



I bought this as what I thought was some kind of hilariously businesslike piece of sleepwear that I'd tool around the house in reading romance novels and eating bonbons and swooning over daybeds in. When I tried it on at home, my mom thought it was meant to be worn outside. It's got goddamn sheer pinstripes, but a slip or two underneath would fix that. Let's examine the evidence, shall we?



Businesslike pinstripe pattern. Score one for outside wear. Ditto the cuff-like buttons at the end of the sleeves. These clues notwithstanding, I must point to three features of this garment that condemn it to indoor use only: Its stringy, satiny "belt," brothel-chic collar ruffle, and scandalous wrap neckline. Did I also mention it's see-through?

Verdict: Power garment for the mistress of a lushly-appointed whorehouse with an antique gimmick. And even then, you're not gonna be going outside all that much.


Item: John Lee Hooker, Mississippi River Delta Blues
Cost: $2.98 - 50% = $1.49 + tax
Location: Tryon Hills Thrift Store, Raleigh



Only like eight tracks on this one, and at least two of them are pretty misogynistic. I mostly just jumped at the chance to buy a disc by a half-decent artist from a thrift store.


Item: Faux sun print framed fabric panel
Cost: $4.99 + tax
Location: Cause for Paws on Crabtree Blvd., Raleigh

This one was found under a flukey stroke of luck. I knocked off a bit early from temping, simply because I COULD NOT copy and paste one more column into another column in Excel without going insane and blinding myself with a staple remover, and checked out The Neighbourstore (fancy Euro spelling theirs), a church-run thrift in the Crabtree Thrift Alley that's sometimes good for hilarious old-man clothes. Nothing of interest there, but I couldn't help popping into Cause for Paws. I hit their furniture room first and found this fetching cotton print.





No price on the frame, so I got it for cheap. The fabric is just flimsy cotton, but I dig the nautical theme. I haven't decided where to hang it yet.

I think I might try to venture out to Garner and Durham some this week if I have time. Seriously, where's all the good crap?

I still like John Hodgman way more than that kid from Die Hard 4

I am now officially a Mac owner. Yes, I feel like a major fucking snob. And yes, it is awesome.

Onion Fake Columnist Breaking News!

Oh. Mygod.

The worlds of Smoove B and Jim Anchower have collided!

This has cheered me up more than anything else this week 'cept for the heady anticipation for the arrival of Hugh Laurie's novel to my mailbox and Freaks and Geeks iron-ons.

Now: Back to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and fixing this DAMN article.

A new poem by David Berman, via Jeff Johnson.

Late-night bitterness

I'm about ready to puke with cold dread after stumbling across this book review on Salon. The book, Daniel Brooks' Trapped, bitterly stares down yet another way in which the 21st century's first wave of twenty- and thirtysomethings are being royally screwed out of another intangible privilege their middle-class parents had. The opportunity to pursue creative careers, work for the public good, or devote time and energy to political activism is trumped in so many situations by "selling out" merely to make ends meet.

The book looks mostly at Ivy grads' having to, say, take a corporate gig after trying to make it as a journalist or at a nonprofit in order to be able to afford a metro DC-area home -- boo effing hoo, right? What's more compelling, at least based on the review, is Brooks' detailing of how post-'60s conservative backlash effected ridiculous tuitions at historically cheap or free public Ivies, drove up costs at genuine Ivies astronomically, and boosted the ranks of millionaires and billionaires with tax cuts for those already reeking with wealth. According to Brooks, forty years ago, teachers, journalists, and social justice types were able to send their kids to prestigious universities without difficulty, live off of the fee for a single article for a month, or raise hell marching on Washington. Their contemporary analogues--that is, my friends and me and our ilk--are barely scraping by with nothing to show for it but exhaustion from overwork, guilt and self-loathing for making the appalling decision to choose to survive within the system than to starve outside it, and that ready-to-vomit feeling when we contemplate where we went wrong with our good grades and supportive parents and the notion, obviously idiotic now, that we could become whatever we wanted when we grew up.

The end of the review points out two groups at even worse disadvantage, veterans and illegal immigrants, who run risks far more dire (cessation of government benefits and firing or deportation) for giving the government well-deserved shit about the policies that affect them. I know I'm way more fortunate than some people and could be doing a lot more than I have been. I should be more optimistic, more defiant, but I already know that the fields I want to work in (creative journalism, music academia, arts administration) are going to be hell to break into, let alone live off of even in the childless, thrift-store-furnished future I see for myself. And some wonk Yalie adding to the dishearteningly long list of books telling me how utterly fucked I am financially and career-wise doesn't necessarily make it so. It's just such a letdown that after slogging through the muck of four years at Michigan, these are the prospects that lay before me and my fellow would-be creative warriors. Best? Maybe. Leaders? Fat fucking chance.

I can't help thinking, what a fucking lovely ideological cap to the day I applied for my first credit card -- in order to buy the computer I'm hoping to be able to use in conjunction with writing articles and designing programs.

Thriftstravaganza No. 1

Location: Cause for Paws on Crabtree Blvd., Raleigh

Total cost: about $7.50

Item: Mini Lucite chest of drawers
Cost: $0.59

So far, it's adorable. Jewelry? Stamps? Change? Hamster dresser? The possibilities are without end.

Item: Wodehouse Playhouse Volume 1 DVD
Cost: $3.98 ($1.99 per disc)

Watched a few episodes. Hoped it might be on par with Jeeves and Wooster, but so far, not that great. Thought I might see other Britcom luminaries pop up, but it appears as though the two pictured on the cover portray the principles in each story (Mulliner and Ukridge are covered) and I've yet to recognize any of the bit players. Not as funny as the books, nor as Jeeves and Wooster, but such expectations are unrealistic. By the by: Wooster himself, my displaced-by-time-and-space alternate reality soulmate Hugh Laurie, has a cute little essay on his relationship with Wodehouse's work and what it was like to turn stories that rely so heavily on wordplay into a (great) TV series.

Item: Bag o' yarn

Cost: $1.99

Eight 50-gram skeins of sport weight green-yellow (or is it yellow-green) Sabrina acrylic yarn. Too pretty to pass up. The Crabtree Cause for Paws always has great bags of enough yarn for a large project (like a sweater or afghan), but I have reason to suspect that the people who originally aspired to completing such projects are now dead--that these are the product of an estate sale or perennially raiding a nursing home closet.

Item: Sirdar Relaxed Knit pattern
Cost: $0.50



I dig the detailing on the front of this sweater. Cardigans are nice and all, but pullovers are generally a touch classier. We're about to get tacky as hell in a second, though.

Item: Columbia-Minerva afghan patterns, MCMLXX
Cost: $0.50

This blindingly awesome booklet contains patterns for four of the most hideous patterns I've ever beheld. Hilarity: The tableaux pictured above (front and back cover) are captioned with the Dickinsonian phrase "In the mood of yesterday, today and tomorrow-- / in colors to blend with a mood-- / to accent a quiet scene--". The "quiet scene" that would match this kaleidoscopic vomit of colors is "drug-fueled macrame bee-turned-orgy." Feel free to use that as a retro-porn premise. I'm on board for set design--I'm SO making the Granny Stars one (the green one on the pink cover).

Let me know if you'd like pdfs of either pattern. I know you're all dying to turn your sofa into a veritable time machine with one of these babies.