"I'm not angry, just disappointed"

Just as I was starting to develop a semi-earnest interest in the election I came across this stultifying bit of news:

Obama Supporters Take His Name as Their Own

I might be more inclined to vote if I didn't run the risk of standing in line next to idiots like these.

To Know Thyself, Know Thy Family

I recently sent a letter to my maternal grandmother. My mother has always been vague and dodgy about her side of the family, and I've never had any quality sit-down time with any of her relatives, so I was curious. I received a phone call not three days thereafter and had a wonderful conversation with my grandmother. I learned that her grandparents were Lithuanian (paternal) and Ukranian (maternal) Jews who came to America in the late 1800s. I also learned that my grandmother divorced my grandfather, Jim, 11 years before he died at the age of 65 and 10 years before I was born. He was a heavy smoker and suffered from severe hypertension. But perhaps most interesting, I learned that my second cousin once removed (my great-great-grandmother is his great-grandmother) is Dr. Richard Alpert, better known as Baba Ram Dass. He was a psychology professor at Harvard University in the early 1960s and happened to work side-by-side with Timothy Leary. He also ended up writing a book called Be Here Now in 1971. Here's a clip of Ram Dass in 2005 (he had a stroke in 1997, hence his dramatic pauses):

Strangely, I actually picked up his book in the Strand several weeks ago before knowing any of this and I almost bought it. Life is pretty crazy.

Robot Love

Pixar has really outdone itself with Wall-E. Elegant and simple in a way that only a children's story can be, Wall-E manages to turn the horrifying aftermath of consumer fetishism into a poignant love story. In a future where humans have abandoned this planet, leaving nothing but mountains of garbage and a haze of pollution, imagine the old cassette recorder you bought at Goodwill falling in love with an iPod.

Centuries after he has been forgotten, Wall-E continues to dutifully toil away at cleaning up our garbage and as heartbreaking as it is to realize how complete and profound his solitude is, there is something delightful in watching the transgressive pleasure he takes in adding unusual or unique objects to his personal collection. Fascination with the Other has long been a staple of children's stories - think of the Little Mermaid's collection of found objects - and Wall-E, freed of any cultural or societal context, develops his own criteria for what constitutes a worthwhile object; a diamond ring is discarded but its hinged box elicits a series of contented chirps (sound design by Ben Burtt of R2D2 fame) from the little robot.

Just as Wall-E the robot learns about love from a VHS copy of Hello, Dolly, Wall-E the movie borrows heavily from previous children's movies as well as from more adult science fiction classics and literature, liberally incorporating influences and ideas into a sleek and satisfying package that is at once both new and familiar. When Eve, a probe robot searching for life, arrives on Earth, it is no surprise that Wall-E falls instantly and irrevocably in love with her; she is everything he has ever wanted. Coy and seductive, elegant and powerful, Eve is the perfect combination of both form and function in Wall-E's unabashedly adoring eyes.

While it is not a perfect film (minimal human involvement in the last half slightly detracts from the whole) Wall-E is as close as you're likely to get in a G-rated summer film; easily digestible yet compelling romance combined with thrilling visuals and sound design (I saw it in a DLP projection theater - amazing). Highly recommended for anyone with a thing for love songs, loners, and the long term implications of consumer culture.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona on the Horizon

Woody Allen's newest; I think it's about kissing.



Something to look forward to.

Also, the longer American trailer.

Album Review: Home Schooled: The ABCs of Kid Soul

The Numero Group's Eccentric Soul series compiles the forgotten treasures of American regional soul labels in neat little compilations complete with meticulously prepared liner notes, discographic information, and rare photos. Each set chronicles a particular small town label or soul sub-genre and though they occasionally lack consistency, I have yet to find one that doesn't contain at least half a dozen gems.

Given the company's track record, I purchased 016 Home Schooled: The ABCs of Kid Soul without reservation. Aside from the promising cover art of an unsmiling preteen dutifully playing the drums in a suit and tie, the set featured "Sweet Pea" by Altyrone Deno Brown, the most haunting and memorable track from 003 The Bandit Label; if half of the songs in the set lived up to that track, the purchase would be worth it. I unwrapped the CD on the walk back to the car, eagerly anticipating what I assumed would be a mix of lo-fi Jackson 5 imitations and spooky Langley Project-esque R&B; I was sure it was a can't miss.

Unfortunately, The ABCs of Kid Soul failed to deliver on nearly every level. Aside from "Sweet Pea," most of the tracks lack not only polish but also passion. Most of tracks are either woefully underwritten and poorly produced or completely lack any focus as they try to blend lyrics about recess and puppy love with more adult R&B tracks. The prepubescent vocalists sound lost and confused as they try to navigate their way through the poorly conceived visions of their adult producers and the songwriting itself is more amateurish than the singers. I imagine some poor kid in a rented studio, trying to balance an over-sized pair of headphones on his head, one eye on the lyric sheet and one eye on the expectant parent/manager in the booth, wondering how he got sucked into wasting his Saturday inside while all his friends play kickball.

Overall, The ABCs of Kid Soul is an occasionally intriguing novelty but one that wears very thin after only a handful of listens and the liner notes detailing the history of the groups (all of whom have excellent names like Little Murray & the Mantics and Jack & the Mods) have more of a lasting appeal than the songs themselves. If you're looking to get your eccentric soul fix, I advise you to try elsewhere.

Stereophonic Philosophy: Part One

On a cloudy day in June, a Rationalist and an Empiricist were strolling through a meadow, arguing about the meaning of the universe…

E: To say “the universe” is a linguistic trick. It’s a label we’ve invented for an absence we can sense. We can sense the unity of everything, but in reality it’s only a trick. We can only infer that if you add up every thing there is, you would achieve a sum, and this sum would be a sum, therefore, monism is true, but only according to a particular, describable perspective consisting of a certain truth-criterion; that perspective is yours, yet you do not see it as such, while that truth-criterion is merely absolute objective correspondence. Your thirst for necessity has led you down that oh-so-beaten path, followed by true Christians, only to conclude that language is not a tool, but evidence of our divine origins. According to you, what we know is all we know and all we can know. I'm afraid that the Earth was revolving around the Sun long before Copernicus.

R: Surely. But what else could it be but a linguistic trick? You’re betraying your belief, sir; you believe that there is something beyond your apprehension of it, beyond what you understand it to be. If there is, and certainly an untrained mind will tend to think this, then we are not so special and the universe is actually unintelligible. If intelligibility is real, if we can know and not simply believe, there must be truth that we can say is true without reservation.

E: What does it mean to say a truth is true without reservation?

R: It means that 2 + 2 = 4 on the moon and in a black hole. It means there is a domain wherein we exist and of which we can know things, not simply believe things. Furthermore, there can only be one domain, because as soon as we become aware of something, it becomes a part of it. To posit an outside is to bring the outside within the Absolute, to make it inside. Logically speaking, there simply cannot be an outside to our knowledge. There is non-being, certainly, but in terms of there being an ultimate reality we cannot access, this is nonsense. Positivity is prior and ultimate; all things are what they are and what they are not, this is true. But in order to not be, it must first be. To repeat, the suggestion that there is something beyond our ability to understand it is utter nonsense. Just because we did not know then that the Earth was going around the Sun does not mean they didn’t exist or were utterly unable to be understood as such. To be is to perceive, to be is to be perceived.

E: Bravo. Your recourse to ontology was exquisitely well-timed and executed. To make a claim about “being” is to assume a direction. It’s like a basic conditional statement; if this, then that. Assuming this ontology, then blah blah blah. For all we know, ontology is an utter fiction rooted only in our desire to eat, procreate, and shelter ourselves. All else is frivolous. This certainly seems to be the case in today’s world.

R: But who are we when we are able to assert something like that? To say that my ontology is an utter fiction is to be a language-using human in the thick of the question of being.

E: How am I in the thick of the question of being? As far as I can tell, I’m in the thick of talking to you, friend. This reality to me is primary. Who are you to be pontificating about being, anyway?

Their conversation veered into economics…

E: Economics is the language of organized human sustenance. How am I going to feed myself and my family? The assumed answer to this question is the condition of everything else within the realm of human experience…

R: (cutting in) But what if that isn’t necessarily the case? What if the idea of economics is a fiction; it’s a costume we wear, designed by the Masters who make the Rules. Who does it benefit to break down human life into a matter of eating and having a roof? The insecure neurotics and the Masters (who are often one and the same). I don’t need McDonald’s to remind me I’m hungry and I don’t need my landlord to remind I want to stay warm and dry.. The power-hungry people who are unsure of themselves as primarily plural beings are the ones who benefit by manifesting their ego-will through choices and actions driven by domination and directed towards expansion. Economics knows no modesty, but modesty is as fundamental as eating.

E: I don’t think so. I think eating is, shall we say, the most fundamental aspect of being. It’s the closest we come on a regular basis to being in tune with the ebb and flow of energy that is the cosmos.

R: Now you sound like me.

E: You’re a persuasive fellow. Would you agree that it is people who exploit people, not systems, just as it is people who kill people, not guns?

R: Yes and no. I do agree, but only with you, whom I know to not own a gun and not have a desire to. I do not agree with that assertion if the person making it is simply contesting gun control. It’s a shallow argument not meant for politics. To make it is to foolishly disregard the meaning of the gun, i.e. the reality that its primary purpose is to hurt and kill. It’s a totem of power. Every gun in every cop’s belt is an assurance that might makes right.

E: But doesn’t that ignore the difference between a society that agrees on common goals and rules by which to live its life and a criminal with a gun? The former’s sole purpose is to prevent the latter. You have executive might and corporate might. One originates in whimsy, the other in an agreed-upon system. If you concede that though a dictator obeys only his whimsy, a system of operations emerges according to his tendencies, then you cannot avoid the reality that societies require systems to function. However, humans are more than parts of a system; they are the authors of the system and further, are infinitely more complex than the system itself. If there is to be a system, let it be based on rules concerning common goals that pertain to a given group of people while fostering the greatest amount of freedom of expression and self-actualization.

Just then, E tripped on a molehill and fell on his face. R crouched down with concern in his eyes.

R: Was that supposed to happen?

E looked at the sky, then R.

E: I have no idea.

Nader Being Nader

Nader: Obama "talking white"

Is Nader pointing out the, ahem, white elephant in America's living room or is he beating a long-dead horse? The Obama campaign seems to think the latter, while us Molly readers would tend to think the former. Considering how completely misunderstood Rev. Wright's various "remarks" were in the media, is it intelligent to raise such complicated issues in an arena driven by headlines and sound-bites? Is that the whole problem?

In other news, Fritzl's trial will begin "this year." Maybe the movie will be out by then.

The Naked Campaign

For several months now, illustrator Steve Brodner has been creating a series of short videos that combine clever animations, live political cartooning, and thoughtful campaign analysis for the New Yorker's online only section. Each short artfully interprets a specific campaign issue or political concept; for example, with the aid of a marker board Brodner shows how an "intellectual" candidate like Barack Obama can be transformed with only a few strokes into Abraham Lincoln, Adlai Stephenson, or Woody Allen in the public eye.

Some of Brodner's shorts are a little too clever for their own good (straight talk egg-spress salad flavored with Hamas...) but usually his low-key analogies and visual interpretations of campaign issues come across as both educational and amusing. The entire series is available here at the New Yorker site.

Poor Kobe

Just in case getting schooled by the Truth and serenaded by "no means no" chants in Boston wasn't bad enough, Shaq skewers Kobe with a vicious freestyle rap at a NYC open mic.


Check out the article and video at TMZ.com

PiL on American Bandstand!?

Dick Clark. John Lydon. Absurd.