Ah, router troubles have ended. The long, local freakout appears to be ended. I picked up a few albums in recent days:
Mythmaker:Skinny Puppy
A Bestiary of:The Creatures
Sex Change:Trans Am
Telekon:Gary Numan
Reviews to follow. I feel like I've been cooped up in a box the size of a peanut. My mind is the magazine, my mouth is the AK- watch me spray. Ya'll.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Of Robots, Once Judged
I'm a little late getting to the criticism of the recent auto manufacturer advertisement featuring an assembly line robot being fired. The critical party has already kicked off with a fervor that has apparently produced results, but I'm still going to weigh in with my two cents. The argument and the results that it achieved were neither the argument that needed to be raised as a result of the commercials, nor were the results that were achieved appropriate.
The furor that was portrayed as erupting in the popular media over the recent ads, these ads having been first unveiled during one of the many big games of one of the many incarnations of the (!Sports Bowl!), were raised by an organization for the prevention of suicide whose charter includes, not surprisingly, raising awareness of and increasing prevention of suicide. Their primary beef with the ad in question is that in the course of the advertisement's short storyline, a redundant robot, unable to find fulfilling or fitting gainful employment following getting the pink slip for workplace incompetence, throws itself off a bridge, kissing all prospects a wistful goodbye in the hopes of a shameless oblivion.
The offended organization objected to the ad based on the portrayal of suicide. The auto manufacturer made an amendment to the end of the ad in question in response, removing the automaton's final act of surrender from the short story arc of the commercial spot's montage.
In the new version of the commercial, the robot does not "kill himself", but the overarching message of the commercial's plot remains intact. That is the insidious thing.
The commercial's portrayal of a robot being fired from its assembly line job for a single act of incompetence most willfully calls to mind the original automation of operations this conglomerate of conveyance manufacturers' undertook- the push for automation that vaporized Flint, Michigan, the story of which is recounted in filmmaker Michael Moore's breakthrough documentary, Roger & Me.
In the commercial, human and robot coworkers alike, apparently working in a peaceful and accepting harmony, look on sorrowfully as the management types eject the robot from employment for dropping a screw. This creates the first false impression of the ad, the impression that humans and robots on the assembly line are equals and can and do recognize each other as such, in spite of the acrimonious history between workers and management over the introduction of automated labor devices to the factory setting.
Workers and robots are not on an equal footing. For one, robots are obviously not human. They do not have human needs such as the need to eat or the need to support a family. They do, however, displace workers who, for a few generations were brought up solely to work in the plants of the auto manufacturers.
The second false impression created by the commercial is the apparent legitimization of the company's hiring and firing practices. In the commercial, the management is seen to be fair, in that it runs its business according to the same middle class values as its human workers- when someone is incompetent, they are not allowed to ascend to the acme of success, but are instead penalized with redundancy. However, can it be said that this company's drive toward profit for a few, one that cost so many livelihoods, was legitimate in its execution? Can it be said that the automation of the assembly lines and the ensuing loss of jobs was predicated on the same values as the middle class laborers whose lives were altered?
The third false impression perpetuated by the commercial is that the replacement of the workers and the atomization of the community the company supported, apparently undertaken under the directives of middle class values, was legitimate intrinsically, and not undertaken irresponsibly because automation was based on rags-to-riches, hard work will get you everywhere middle class values.
Overall, the commercial also serves to trivialize the induced sublimation of Michigan's prospects from stuff to vapor in its portrayal of human workers comfortably working alongside their replacements as though it is a natural state of things that has always been accepted. One of the very gripes brought up in Michael Moore's documentary Roger & Me was that this manufacturer attempted to herald its commitment to progress once before with an Epcot-like display of humans and robots working happily side by side singing some song about, essentially, moving forward at the cost of the human laborers' own displacement. In poor taste then, and no less so now, It's obviously not something that the company has put to bed as far as talking points and the influence of public opinion are concerned.
Robots cannot kill themselves. To suggest that they can and that it is funny is to mock the plight of the mob of unemployed laborers this company created. Robots would never feel pressed to review that as an option, unlike the laborers their implementation displaced.
The furor that was portrayed as erupting in the popular media over the recent ads, these ads having been first unveiled during one of the many big games of one of the many incarnations of the (!Sports Bowl!), were raised by an organization for the prevention of suicide whose charter includes, not surprisingly, raising awareness of and increasing prevention of suicide. Their primary beef with the ad in question is that in the course of the advertisement's short storyline, a redundant robot, unable to find fulfilling or fitting gainful employment following getting the pink slip for workplace incompetence, throws itself off a bridge, kissing all prospects a wistful goodbye in the hopes of a shameless oblivion.
The offended organization objected to the ad based on the portrayal of suicide. The auto manufacturer made an amendment to the end of the ad in question in response, removing the automaton's final act of surrender from the short story arc of the commercial spot's montage.
In the new version of the commercial, the robot does not "kill himself", but the overarching message of the commercial's plot remains intact. That is the insidious thing.
The commercial's portrayal of a robot being fired from its assembly line job for a single act of incompetence most willfully calls to mind the original automation of operations this conglomerate of conveyance manufacturers' undertook- the push for automation that vaporized Flint, Michigan, the story of which is recounted in filmmaker Michael Moore's breakthrough documentary, Roger & Me.
In the commercial, human and robot coworkers alike, apparently working in a peaceful and accepting harmony, look on sorrowfully as the management types eject the robot from employment for dropping a screw. This creates the first false impression of the ad, the impression that humans and robots on the assembly line are equals and can and do recognize each other as such, in spite of the acrimonious history between workers and management over the introduction of automated labor devices to the factory setting.
Workers and robots are not on an equal footing. For one, robots are obviously not human. They do not have human needs such as the need to eat or the need to support a family. They do, however, displace workers who, for a few generations were brought up solely to work in the plants of the auto manufacturers.
The second false impression created by the commercial is the apparent legitimization of the company's hiring and firing practices. In the commercial, the management is seen to be fair, in that it runs its business according to the same middle class values as its human workers- when someone is incompetent, they are not allowed to ascend to the acme of success, but are instead penalized with redundancy. However, can it be said that this company's drive toward profit for a few, one that cost so many livelihoods, was legitimate in its execution? Can it be said that the automation of the assembly lines and the ensuing loss of jobs was predicated on the same values as the middle class laborers whose lives were altered?
The third false impression perpetuated by the commercial is that the replacement of the workers and the atomization of the community the company supported, apparently undertaken under the directives of middle class values, was legitimate intrinsically, and not undertaken irresponsibly because automation was based on rags-to-riches, hard work will get you everywhere middle class values.
Overall, the commercial also serves to trivialize the induced sublimation of Michigan's prospects from stuff to vapor in its portrayal of human workers comfortably working alongside their replacements as though it is a natural state of things that has always been accepted. One of the very gripes brought up in Michael Moore's documentary Roger & Me was that this manufacturer attempted to herald its commitment to progress once before with an Epcot-like display of humans and robots working happily side by side singing some song about, essentially, moving forward at the cost of the human laborers' own displacement. In poor taste then, and no less so now, It's obviously not something that the company has put to bed as far as talking points and the influence of public opinion are concerned.
Robots cannot kill themselves. To suggest that they can and that it is funny is to mock the plight of the mob of unemployed laborers this company created. Robots would never feel pressed to review that as an option, unlike the laborers their implementation displaced.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Tata Steel
Tata Steel, as mentioned in the article the fellows from New York Reggae band Steel Pulse will link you on your mellow way to, has acquired Corus Steel. No word on whether the Tatas will seek to acquire New York Reggae band Steel Pulse, but it is a sure bet that members of New York Reggae band Steel Pulse would like to acquire some tatas. Am I right, fellas? Am I right?
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
One Thing, Having Occurred to Me...
A thing occurred to me altogether of a sudden whilst I stood singing in the shower this morning:
The National's "Baby We'll Be Fine" is an update of the Go-Go's "Our Lips Are Sealed". Oh, holiest of shit.
The National's "Baby We'll Be Fine" is an update of the Go-Go's "Our Lips Are Sealed". Oh, holiest of shit.
Tighten the Bunions, Screw Down the Tennis Shoes, Make Fast Loose Tread
So, into Friday. Are our teeth loose yet? We're burning up on entry to R&R, and I'm so tired I can hardly see straight.
Lambchop's Damaged came out in August of 2006. You might remember it as "The Summer What Meltede My Face Like Soe Muche Gumme, Oy Vey, What Withe Alle This Uff Da Heate."
I personally thought the summer before was worse, but then I didn't have an air conditioner that summer.
I have made this Lambchop recording a part of my daily ablutions. I know what you might be thinking- "What, another band that started with an adjusted country twang and has since shot well into the experimental left field? I have a LOT of Wilco records, thank you."
Well, alright. However, if you travel that pernicious path, traveler, you will not know the rich sentimental tonality of Kurt Wagner's nearly spoken, rumbling musings. You will not be treated with intimacy by the wry sense of humor that is the spool of yarn from which the songs are darned. You will not meander, fork in hand, through this garden to the feast of non-sequiturs, surprise revelations, instantaneous understandings of things past, that a story as then currently unfolding brought to the singer's memory.
It was the final track on the record that came on my headphones during a shuffle play sometime in the recent few months that remembered the album to me- the track "The Decline of Country and Western Civilization". It's a surprise cloudburst, erupting from a clear atmosphere of noise into something so dramatic it ought to be on stage evoking tears from the aristocracy. But, then, I'm a sucker for songs that subjugate all the most evil tendencies of humanity in order to tell an object of affection how good-looking they are.
This is a drum. Today you can buy it from Musician's Friend for $69.99 in American Currency (or the approximation of said currency floating in digital internets your web browser draws pictures of when you log on to your bank account).
When you hit this, everything becomes more awesome. That especially applies to rock band practice, which we had last night, and which included a guy who was nice enough to hit- not one of these, but a whole set of them- not once, but many, many times. I needn't tell you how much more awesome everything became with each successive strike of drumstick to drum. When you're a member of a band that has been seeking a drummer for a couple of months following the departure of your original drummer after your first show at the now-defunct Siberia, you get a real hard-on for having a drummer in band practice. Everything just fell together with the drunken synergy of a group of people who are on the same page, squeezing the juice that is music from our respective instruments like so many fucking amazing oranges into very tastefully designed juice glasses- perhaps the kind one might buy at Crate & Barrel.
I have been a fan of the glassware for sale at Crate & Barrel for some time. Very classy.
Man, my ears are ringing.
In addition to the above-mentioned Lambchop record, I have also been hearting Destroyer's Rubies by Destroyer. Hearting is something my girlfriend says, and it's pretty cool. It's when you replace your blood with something else, and your heart pumps that through your circulatory system, instead. Did you know that there is about 60,000 miles worth of tubing that comprises the human circulatory system? Needless to say, Destroyer's Rubies is really tired. Sorry, Destroyer's Rubies- you're going around a few more times, I'm afraid.
It's Friday, ya'll. Catch the girls, kiss them and make them cry.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The Activity that Necessitates Women Covering their Heads
Last night I braved the straits of late adolescence and shambled to Sin-e here on the Lower East Side to take in a performance by one Joel Bravo and his Sex with an Angel.In the early morning of the religions we know (the Christian religions) women were bade cover their pates, tresses, for fear that the greater beings watching them from Heaven, the Angels, would become so tempted by the shine and sway of woman's hair that they would lose their heads and give the earth girls the shag they were so obviously gagging for.
Early in the world we didn't widely have condoms. So, when the Angels would knock the bottoms out they hoes, they hoes would sometimes give birth to monsters and demigods- the giant Cyclops, for example.
No such monsters will issue from the efforts colliding in the union of Mr. Bravo's lush musicality and his current willing cadre of fellow traveler musicians. It was a brilliant end-cap to a disappointing night of pseudo-irony and the poorly executed inside jokes of privileged white kids a bit drunk with a little bit of musical knowledge, flush with a willing scene of kids excited to be out and sexy, and just enough self-awareness to know they thought it was funny they were scamming folks out of $8 at the door. To summarize- Joel Bravo/Sex with an Angel: Talented. Opening bands- Fucking idiots, working through some identity stuff, sons of nobility.
Keep it up, Mr. Bravo. Your theatricality is sincere. Your backup singers- (and I wouldn't just say this because one of them is my roommate)- a superb group that keep your vision vast and pretty. Thanks for getting up on the stage, playing a well-executed set, and not overstaying your welcome. Thanks for trying. Your effort is evident.
Belvedere is to Tactical Disadvantage as Retirement in Resplendence is to the Ghetto of the Now
Consigned to the ghetto of the present, it is obvious to me that our forebears could have gotten nothing done had they been prescient.
Or, then again- look at the psychopaths littering the path of prescience throughout written history. Mojave 3 has a song, Return to Sender, goes something like "The word on the street/is that hell is complete/when you think that you know where you're going."
But whose hell would that be? Suppose that depends on who the "you" is in the song. Did you force everyone into 5-year-plans or gulags? Did you find it to be a good idea to gather all your bits of science like kindling to build a burning black hole the size of a quarter on Long Island?
Memory is a prism, a honeycomb of mirrors- looking down the right rabbit's cubbyhole can steel you at the crucial hour or break you on the jagged ends of doubt.
Or, then again- look at the psychopaths littering the path of prescience throughout written history. Mojave 3 has a song, Return to Sender, goes something like "The word on the street/is that hell is complete/when you think that you know where you're going."
But whose hell would that be? Suppose that depends on who the "you" is in the song. Did you force everyone into 5-year-plans or gulags? Did you find it to be a good idea to gather all your bits of science like kindling to build a burning black hole the size of a quarter on Long Island?
Memory is a prism, a honeycomb of mirrors- looking down the right rabbit's cubbyhole can steel you at the crucial hour or break you on the jagged ends of doubt.
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