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Nov. 19, 2009

Cormac

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, Film, Psychology | Tags: , , |
1 Comment 

This past weekend’s Wall Street Journal has a fascinating interview with Cormac McCarthy, the author most recently known for his book “No Country for Old Men” made in the award-winning film by the Coen Brothers. Among other things, McCarthy also wrote “The Road,” set for release in film version of November 25th. If you are not familiar with “The Road,” it is a post-apocalypic story of a father and son journeying towards the coast, their only potential place of survival in a world nearly destroyed by some past, yet rarely spoken of cataclysmic act.

The Road is a poignant, heart-wrenching tale.  It pulls out emotion that are severely unpleasant in experience: specifically, the dull sense of loneliness and the profound experience of potential loss. While these are not emotions we actively seek out, it’s fair to say we are better from their experience. Recalling a recent conversation with Krista Tippet of NPR’s “Speaking of Faith,” my good friend Dave expressed that one of the most important things Tippet expressed was the sentiment that we are limiting ourselves when we seek a narrow version of ‘happiness.’ Rather, she suggested that we ought to seek a type of flourishing that encompasses a wider set of emotions and experiences, all which speak to the varied experience of humanity in both its good and bad forms. Cormac pulls you into these moments, highlighting the importance of relationships and the ways in which we often experience them most profoundly with the potential of their loss.

In the interview, McCarthy suggests that the story comes in large part out of his own attachment to his young son. And yet, the love between father and son in the book is different than often portrayed in traditional Hollywood love stories. For example, in The Road, the father and son never explicitly say “I love you.” About this, McCarthy states:

“A lot of the lines that are in there are verbatim conversations my son John and I had. I mean just that when I say he’s the co-author of the book. A lot of the things that the kid says are things that John said. John said, “Papa, what would you do if I died?” I said, “I’d want to die, too,” and he says, “So you could be with me?” I said, “Yes, so I could be with you.” Just a conversation than two guys would have.”

Similarly, McCarthy’s complex relationship with religion comes out in the the way his characters wrestle with the notion of god the seeking of transcendence, even while not ‘stating’ religious words, or calling to mind a ‘religious’ book or film. But like the love never stated, religious imagery and themes pervade his work. For example, near the end of The Road, the narrator states that the father, “knew only that the child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.’” While not traditional religion in the sense of sitting in mass, reciting creeds, or experiencing prayer, there is something spiritual in how the father feels a certain duty to his son’s protection, and acknowledges of the beauty in the world admidst the ugliness of the post-apocalytic setting of the novel.

Cormac’s own religious committment has seemingly adjusted over time, even if it appears his connection to religious orthodoxy was never very very strong. In the interview, speaking about his Irish Catholic upbringing, and religion in his life today, McCarthy summarizes:

I have a great sympathy for the spiritual view of life, and I think that it’s meaningful. But am I a spiritual person? I would like to be. Not that I am thinking about some afterlife that I want to go to, but just in terms of being a better person.

It seems that the type of spirituality that interests McCarthy is profoundly about an existential commitment to living out love in the world, all the while acknowledging his own impotence in this matter. Cormac, like the father in the novel, feels a certain pull of duty, and desires to see the transcendent in the profane. For McCarthy, this duty and transcendent comes in relationships and his desire to find in narration transcendent relationships in contexts typically narrated devoid of them. This posture towards life commits McCarthy to writing novels that, “take years of your life and drive you to suicide.”

It is this existential relationship to all things religious that ultimately makes McCarthy’s novels so profoundly gripping. He calls up religious questions, but doesn’t feel confident in the traditional institutionalized answers. To use the words of philosopher/ theologian Miroslav Volf, McCarthy is reacting against the ‘thin’ view of religion that often rely on cliches, acknowledging the importance of a thick meaningful framework, all the while simultanously doubting its existence.

But isn’t this in itself a TYPE of thick religious understanding, even if not orthodox in the traditional sense? In a review of the book, philosopher Jamie K.A. Smith weaves together the actual practices of father and son and what the mean for the characters, ultimately suggesting that they participate in a form of world-building through the nearly litergical nature of their interaction. Smith writes that, “the book is suffused with ritual and thus a kind of sacramentality. Quasi-liturgies both make and hold together the remnants of a “world” for father and son.” For two men depending on each other in a severely broken world, they needed a way to construct meaning, and live into a ‘reality’ not yet present. Smith highlights one such moment of life re-narration, recast in liturgical form:

The boy sat tottering. The man watched him that he not

topple into the flames. He kicked holes in the sand for the

boy’s hips and shoulders where he would sleep and he sat

holding him while he tousled his hair before the fire to dry it.

All of this like some ancient anointing. So be it. Evoke the

forms. Where you’ve nothing else construct ceremonies out

of the air and breathe upon them

Perhaps it is such ‘quasi-liturgies’ that we, as the religious and non-religious alike, need more than anything.

 

Oct. 6, 2009

why “up in the air” will be a run-away hit with my generation

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, Film, Psychology | Tags: , |
1 Comment 

Screen shot 2009-10-06 at 12.24.55 PM

“Isolated? I’m surrounded!” George Clooney’s character defiantly states in the trailer of the upcoming film “Up in the Air.” In this, Clooney highlights one answer to the dilemma of the modern individualistic global citizen… in becoming citizen of the world (pursuers of ambition), do we become strangers to all things particular (relationships, community, home)? When it comes to jobs and relationships, the movie sets itself as a reflection on what it takes to live with meaning? If it’s work, then what what does one do and why? If it’s people, then who is the audience and how many admirations does this require?

One of the more poignant moments of the trailer (yes, I know, I am reviewing a trailer) is when George’s character argues the following: ”If you think about it, your relationships are the heaviest components of your life: your husband, your wife, your home. We weigh ourselves down until we can’t even move. Make no mistake, moving is living…”

Contrast this to the following quote from CS Lewis, recently sent to me by my good friend Dave Ellis: “My happiest hours are spent with three or four old friends in old clothes tramping together and putting up in small pubs—or else sitting up till the small hours [of the morning] in someone’s college room, talking nonsense, poetry, theology, metaphysics over beer, tea, and pipes. There’s no sound I like better than laughter…friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, ‘Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’”

The contrast is stark, and it’s one that many of us feel acutely. Where is significance found, we wonder? Do our strivings for meaning lead us to pursue the needs of the generalized other and the significance driven self (push for health care reform, desires to influence policy, wanting to ‘make’ it in business, attempts to gain recognition and influence), or do they usher us into the arms of others? We feel both desires, and often live in the tension, evidenced by the father who goes to his son’s baseball games (living the particular) while simultaneously attempting to live vicariously through his success and thus enter his unrealized dream of doing something on the big stage (desiring universal recognition). Or likewise, the opposite side can be seen when the most powerful people in the world (universal recognition earned) yearn for relationships, desire significance IN THE EYES OF A FEW OTHERS, rather than the generalized other (desiring particular). I personally find it hard to live into one desire without the other… as Walt Whitman says “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

“Up in the Air” takes on hard questions on the location of significance, and whether at the end of the day, commitments to the particular (one person, one location, one seemingly universally insignificant life) tie us down or free us to act.

 

Aug. 25, 2009

Will the Music of the Future Come in One Piece Silver Jumpsuits, V-Stripes & Boots?

Posted by barhamand under Culture, Music, The Arts
[10] Comments 

Yesterday, one of Pitchfork’s strongest writers and the author of one of my favorite blogs, Eric Harvey, contributed “The Social History of the MP3,” a long-ass article discussing the many aspects of how the digital format affected music this decade. For me, the most fascinating aspect of reading this piece was that I lived it, and unless you’re a toddler, you did too.

Remember downloading songs off of Napster? How about Kazaa? Remember asking friends to burn you a CD because you were too cheap to buy it yourself? Did you ever pass music through AIM or access another user’s “getfile”? Or maybe you used Ourtunes to download from other iTunes users at your dorm or in the college library. Were you on Oink? Or maybe you were bolder (dumber), accessing torrents from free sites like The Pirate Bay. Maybe you’ve downloaded music from a blog via a public hosting site like MediaFire, SendSpace, or RapidShare. Perhaps you’ve been a member of a message board, facebook/google/yahoo group, or just an email chain where music was passed around. Have you ever listened to a full day’s worth of music for free at The Hype Machine, Pandora, Last.fm, or YouTube? Or maybe you’re one of the good ones, buying MP3s from the iTunes, eMusic, or Amazon music stores. REMEMBER WHEN NONE OF THIS CRAP EXISTED?

Today, Rob Mitchum’s perfect 10.0 review of the Special Collectors Edition of Radiohead’s seminal work, Kid A, echoed Harvey’s piece in its opening paragraph:

We used to listen to music in an entirely different way. There was once a time when music was organized into 45- to 75-minute chunks—often a few standout tracks padded with a lot of mediocre filler, but occasionally designed so that the parts built up a larger structure. Used to be, people would sit down and listen to that lengthy piece of music from front to back in one sitting, resisting the urge to jump to their favorite parts or skip over the instrumental interlude that served as grout between two fuller compositions. These antiques were called CDs. Here’s a story about the last of its kind.

Combined, the two articles spurned a great deal of thought in my puny brain as to what the future of music may look like. Hence, this post.

. . .

For the last century, technology has often dictated how artists—who actually create (!) the music we listen to—think about their craft. When 45s were introduced to the general public, a 7-inch vinyl record only large enough to fit one song on each side, the “single” saw its heyday. Kids wouldn’t have the cash to buy an entire LP (“Long Player”), but for chump change, they could get “Hey Jude” (which, amazingly, was never actually on a Beatles’ album). Thus, so many of rock n roll’s earliest stars ignored the idea of an “album,” and focused instead on churning out as many strong singles as possible (see, for example, Elvis’ discography).

But when technology changed, so did music itself. As Wikipedia so eloquently puts it:

As the LP achieved market dominance, musicians and producers began to pay special attention to the flow from song-to-song, to keep a consistent mood or feel, or to provide thematic continuity, as in concept albums.

The rise of the album as we know it was really therefore a direct spawn of the vinyl record itself, perhaps why the terms “album,” “record,” and “LP” are still used interchangeably today. Only the wealthy and obsessive could afford many records, so it was common practice for fans to play their newest buy on repeat. Ask your parents how many times they listened to their least favorite vinyl record, and I bet it’s twice as many times as you’ve played your 10th favorite computer-downloaded one (let alone the huge number we download—just because we can—and never get to).

Moreover, and to the point of that Wikipedia quote, because the standard vinyl side runs for only 23-minutes, bands and musicians had to consider the format itself when recording and sequencing their songs. Take Abbey Road, a record I’ll assume most readers have heard at one time or another. Side A closes with “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” which feels remarkably heavy as it repeats the same riff for its final three minutes, before ending abruptly. Side B begins anew with “Here Comes the Sun,” one of the sunniest bits of music in the band’s late catalog. For anyone who has only heard Abbey Road in CD or MP3 format, it should now be self-explanatory why these two songs appear back to back, why “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is seemingly placed out-of-place in the middle of the record, and why vinyl as a format mattered to the artists. Many bands experimented with the “sides” of their albums to create two (or four) sub-albums. To use another Beatles’ example, The White Album couldn’t seem more arbitrarily arranged in your iTunes window, but listening to it on vinyl can feel like playing four separate records.

Rather than alter the way artists thought about the album, cassettes did more for the fans, harkening a time to come when making our own mixtapes would be commonplace. Still, their 30-45 minutes per side and cheaper production costs meant that longer albums could be released for a fraction of the price.

The late 80s brought the Compact Disc’s dominance over all other music formats, an era which Mitchum claims more or less ended with Radiohead’s Kid A. With singles long gone, so too did “sides” go the wayside. Sure, most pop artists still cared more about racking up radio hits, but some damn fine albums came out in the one-slab CD format, altering the way musicians and bands once again thought about crafting the larger piece of art. Case in point: album listeners/critics now widely prefer roughly 35-45 minute run-times (as Mitchum’s review confirms), and anything over an hour is regularly referred to as “bloated.” Tell that to The White Album (1 hour, 34 minutes), Pink Floyd’s The Wall (1 hour, 21 minutes), or hell, The Clash’s Sandanista! (2 hours, 25 minutes).

At times, however, artists have refused to be boxed in by the CD format. Two examples come to mind. First, The Flaming Lips’ Zaireeka attempted to give the listener more control over how their music sounded:

Released on October 28, 1997, the experimental rock album consists of four compact discs. Each of its eight songs consists of four stereo tracks, one from each CD. The album was designed so that when played simultaneously on four separate audio systems, the four CDs would produce a harmonic or juxtaposed sound. The discs may be included in different combinations, omitting one, two or three discs.

While forward thinking, how many people have two stereo systems, let alone four? (Not to mention the thing kind of sucks no matter which records you choose to play). The second example is Ryan Adams & The Cardinals’ Cold Roses. Despite the fact that he could have fit the bloated album (see what I did there?) onto a single 80-minute compact disc, Adams chose to release it as a double-disc set, “designed to make it look like a vinyl LP.” Perhaps he preferred us to think of it as two separate albums, or maybe he was just nostalgic for the past. Regardless, neither of these gimmicky ideas ended with many CDs sold.

. . .

The MP3 has effectively demolished the CD industry. Brief tangent: Oddly, that last sentence could have read “music industry,” and you wouldn’t have flinched. It’s been argued before that it was the big labels own damn fault for resisting change, rather than offering what the fans wanted: a high-quality, DRM-free, cheap, and vast library, akin to what Oink had before it got shut down (see: DJ/ rupture’s phenomenal blog post “Defending the Pig” from 10/2007).

But what effect has the MP3 had on the artists themselves? Most obviously, the single has re-risen as the dominant format. Who would run out and purchase the new Britney record when you can legally download “Womanizer” and “Circus” for a couple of bucks on iTunes? Does anyone care about the last few songs?

As for the future, who better to show us the way than the band that gave us the last “pure” CD? Radiohead’s most recent album, In Rainbows, was announced exactly 10 days prior to its release as a digital download in October of 2008 (just about one year after the demise of Oink). Lead singer Thom Yorke would later explain:

“Every record for the last four—including my solo record—has been leaked. So the idea was like, we’ll leak it, then.”

Even better, anyone who wanted to download the thing got to choose their own price. I paid $0 for it, felt kind of bad for five minutes, and then forgot I ever cared. Some people I know paid as much as $20 and bought the physical CD when it came out three months later. As amazing as this whole plan still seems today, the true genius was that the band knew the record would still sell well when they officially released it. In many ways, the pay-what-you-want idea was just another promotional tool (and a damn good one) to bolster excitement for CD sales.

Instead of repeating their success, however, the band is choosing a different approach. In a recent interview with The Believer (which also, by the way, includes a comparison of the MP3 and the 50s single market), Yorke said:

“None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again. Not straight off. I mean, it’s just become a real drag. It worked with In Rainbows because we had a real fixed idea about where we were going. But we’ve all said that we can’t possibly dive into that again. It’ll kill us.”

In the last few weeks, the band has put its money where its mouth is, by releasing two digital download singles, “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” and “These Are My Twisted Words.” The former is available for just a one pound donation to the Royal British Legion, the latter, for free.

No one seems to be talking about this in the grandiose manner everyone did for the In Rainbows release, but personally, I think this could be what’s next in the timeline. Why would bands continue to go through the costly and time-consuming pains of making cohesive albums, selecting (and usually paying royalties for) cover art, and getting a label to manufacture their work, when no one cares enough to pay for the end product anyway? The only people that regularly obtain full CDs anymore are those like me—the ones who download more albums in a fortnight than our parents ever dreamed they’d own in their lifetimes.

. . .

I used to argue with those that only listened to single songs that they were missing the bigger picture. “It’s like looking at only a 2×2-inch spot on a huge canvas of paint,” I’d say. After all, most of Kid A doesn’t sound much like “Idioteque,” and to only hear that single track would be a damn shame—that’s Mitchum’s whole point.

But what if CDs, LPs, albums, et al. had it all wrong? What if the future of music is just 100 singles on iPod Shuffles? Will the MP3′s ultimate legacy be to drown the “album” format for one more easily digestible? Only time will tell.

 

Aug. 3, 2009

The Best Film of the Summer (Besides (500) Days of Summer)

Posted by barhamand under Film, The Arts
[4] Comments 

The Hurt Locker [directed by: Kathryn Bigelow; starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty]

The Hurt Locker

Whenever a movie begins with a quotation, I rarely remember the damn thing by the time the credits roll. But The Hurt Locker’s ominously simple opening message from former war correspondent Chris Hedges stayed with me throughout the entirety of this tremendous film: “War is a drug.”

Director Kathryn Bigelow brings moviegoers to the streets, markets, and desert of Baghdad, circa now, where Sergeant William James’ job is to diffuse improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are charged with protecting the young James, a cocky and reckless soldier (played to perfection by Jeremy Renner), while he disarms the bombs. And that’s basically it.

There are a couple of sub-plots, including an enraged/deranged James running the city streets at night in search of a little boy’s killer, but they largely distract from the film’s true draw: the hyper-real, engaging, and terrifyingly tense combat scenes. My palms were sweaty and my eyes were wide as I watched James strip a car in search of whatever it was he knew would disarm the IEDs packed in the trunk, while his team nervously scanned the surrounding buildings for potential “hostiles.”

Writing this scene — and the others just like it — probably wasn’t too difficult (the dialogue throughout the film is innocuous at best). But the production team, cinematographer, and Bigelow deserve every bit of wild praise The Hurt Locker‘s received (currently at 98% on RottenTomatoes) for making these characters, their baggage, and the sore spots they find themselves in, too intimately realistic not to invest in 100%.

The Hurt Locker movie image (2)

Apart from the look and feel of the film, the acting is excellent. Kudos to the producers for allowing three relatively unknown actors to shine in the lead roles, while providing them with an all-star supporting cast. If you don’t quite recognize Guy Pearce (LA Confidential, Memento) as the Sergeant who James replaces, David Morse (The Rock, The Negotiator) as a Colonel impressed by James’ work, or Evangeline Lilly (Lost) as James’ wife, you will not miss the always-wonderful Ralph Fiennes’ performance as a contracted British team leader who finds himself caught in a desert shootout along with James’ team.

Besides the obvious revelation that there are actually individuals doing this crap for our country, I was struck most by the way the whole “war is a drug” motif kept materializing. James sheds his protective suit regularly, chases bad guys down dark alleys, and scoffs at the notion of first utilizing a robot to investigate the IEDs. He does these things because he lives for the rush that follows, a strikingly problematic truth for the professional Sanborn and nervous-wreck Eldridge.

Perhaps the most eye-opening scene of The Hurt Locker takes place back in the US, where a common trip to the grocery store screams monotony after two straight hours of combat action. It’s his “real” life that James finds most foreign. In clear contrast, Eldridge can’t wait to go home.

Then: it’s not that war is a drug, just that it’s James’. The point? We’ve all got something to live for, and it’s worth doing, even if it means risking life itself. The Hurt Locker is therefore most praiseworthy because it’s the only war film I’ve ever seen that is entirely relatable (without sacrificing its sharp sense of authenticity). James may be an unlikely and rough-around-the-edges protagonist, but he’s got exactly what so many of us twenty-somethings are searching so desperately for: purpose.

 

Aug. 3, 2009

(500) Days of Summer — If Tom could go back in time…

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, Education, Film
[3] Comments 

(500) days of summerThis blog has been on a bit of a review kick as of late… from Adam’s identification of 5 great albums from 2009, to John and my respective reviews of “The Unlikely Disciple.”  As such, who am I to deviate from this momentum?

A few weekends ago, I went to see Marc Webb’s movie “(500) days of Summer.” The film is a sharply written non-love story about two twenty-somethings, their search for companionship, and the ways in which those paths indirectly and tragically deviate through each other’s lives.

My goal in this post is not to give a review of the movie per-se, but rather to bring up what I hope is an interesting observation about the role of film and experience in learning. Nevertheless, it might be helpful to have some background for those not familiar with the story. Here is a brief excerpt of the review of the film by Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek:

“(500) Days of Summer” begins at the end of a relationship, doubles back to the precarious, fluttery days at the beginning, and traverses some of the territory in between. But most of it deals with the tragicomedy of the post-breakup phase, the period during which the spurned lover is left trying to figure out what the hell just happened, and why.

One of the interesting things in watching a film for me, as an audience member, is trying to determine a clear take-away… something learned that I did not know at the beginning of the movie. In (500) days, one clear question that emerges at the end is whether we think Tom should have avoided being in this relationship were he to live life again, especially given that it did not end up working out. From a personal take-away standpoint, the question becomes whether we should we similarly avoid our respective “Summers”? If you answered yes, you can point to the fact that this relationship caused Tom a lot of angst and pain that he could have benefitted from avoiding.  If you answered no, it is easy to point to the fact that this relationship shaped Tom in ways which, arguably, were at least somewhat productive. Our answer to this question hinges on how we see risk and failure in life.

On this point, the question of take-away dovetails nicely with Matthew’s Crawford’s discussion of risk, personal experience and learning in his book “Shop Class as Soulcraft,” which I discussed briefly before here. In this book, Crawford makes the case for the importance of working with one’s hands, and does so specifically by detailing the ‘tacit knowledge’ one gains from these experiences. In addition, he argues that it is not only experience that leads to learning, but also the experience of failure that come along with this engagement. According to Michael Polanyi, the existence of tacit knowledge is shown in how ”we can know more than we can tell’ (1967: 4). For Crawford, the importance of tacit knowledge is demonstrated in the limitations of current motercycle user manuals. He argues that technical writers– who often lack personal experience with the bikes– fail to convey important details that flow from implicitly garnered tacit knowledge.

One specific type of indirect experience that can contribute to our ‘tacit knowledge’ base is film… the experiences (and experiences of failure) that we have vicariously by resonating with it’s characters. Over at his blog, philosopher Jamie KA Smith points to a book on the role of film in an audiences psychology: Carl Plantinga’s “Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator’s Experience.” It is on my to-read list. Writing of Plantinga’s book, Smith quotes and extends the author’s argument:

“Any abstract meaning that a film might have is ancillary to the experience in which that meaning is embodied.” What a film means cannot be reduced to the proposal “message” that might be gleaned from it. This is because “[e]xperience creates its own meaning, and in some cases the meaning to be taken from the experience of the film may contradict the abstract meaning an interpreter might glean from film dialogue, for example. Affective experience and meaning are neither parallel nor separable, but firmly intertwined.”

In both cases, Crawford and Plantinga make a case for knowledge that is non-reducable to propositions like “Motorcycle problem X is solved by Y” or “This movie is about… and thus we should therefore…”  This “tacit knowledge” comes by hands-on experience with murky environments, often with some degree of failure. In good film, this comes indirectly through experiencing the world of characters going through similarly ambiguous situations.

For Tom, while his relationship with Summer did not work out the way he expected, his understanding of love beyond a propositional level was deepened through the experience. He lived in pain, and this pain could not/ should not be subsumed under a simple ‘pleasure seeking/ pain avoidance’ framework. Rather, it holds the potential for building a deeper understanding of the world. As viewers, it is here that we cannot leave Tom, but rather must stand with him in solidarity. I also don’t think the best take-away is that Tom should have avoided a relationship with Summer in the first place, or that we should avoid these types of risky situations in our own lives… relational or otherwise. Rather, we should affirm that a specific type of learning can only come by living through the “Summers” of life… be they in relationships, activities or the jobs we pursue. Without them, we avoid a good deal of pain, but we also miss out on the wisdom that comes from the experience.

 

Jul. 3, 2009

Hello my name is… ADAM

Posted by barhamand under Music, The Arts | Tags: , , , , , , |
[4] Comments 

Hi. I’m new here. My name is Adam, and I’m big on music and film.

Since we’re just over halfway through 2009, I thought it’d be appropriate to kick things off with a handful of albums I’ve enjoyed most this year. But instead of regurgitating information you’re likely already privy to (yes, the Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear records are top notch), here are five excellent releases from “underdog” artists, those who mostly continue to float under the radar:

Bat for Lashes - Two Suns [Parlophone / Astralwerks]

Try as she might, Natasha Khan seems destined to not be taken seriously. Perhaps its the gaudy album art, the lazer shooting wolf videos, the regular exaggeration of the “concept” behind Two Suns, or the fact that Kate Bush is referenced in every single review of her work. It is true that like Bush, Bat for Lashes transforms what might otherwise sound like cheesy electronic music into majestic songs, but Khan’s voice is much closer to Chan Marshall’s of Cat Power. Khan’s vocals on Two Suns are at times shockingly good (see: “Glass“), an enormous step up in range and ambition than what she displayed on her debut record, Fur & Gold. But more than the mere technical craft that went into this album’s creation, the most impressive aspect of its 45-minute runtime are its eleven songs. If Fur & Gold hinted at Khan’s talent as a songwriter, Two Suns announces it loud and clear from its kickin’ first single “Daniel” to the crescendoed “Siren Song,” her most ambitious track to date.

 

Visit Bat for Lashes’ official website here.

Watch the must-see performance of “Daniel” on the Late Show with David Letterman here.

…

A-Trak - FabricLive.45 [Fabric]

A-Trak release reviews almost always mention his tenure as Kanye West’s tour DJ, among his many other impressive credentials (sample: youngest ever winner of the DMCs at age 15, and first ever to win all three major DJ competition titles). As they should; A-Trak should first and foremost be appreciated for his proficiency with his instrument. But where artists like DJ Shadow and The Avalanches pushed the envelope of what people thought turntables could be used for, A-Trak is simply doing what DJs have been doing for years, better than just about anyone else.

His Dirty South Dance mixtape was probably the record I listened to most in 2007. Despite consisting almost entirely of the most over-used and tired technique in the business, mash-ups, his layering of hip-pop and crate-dug electronic gems improved on every song in the bunch and flowed seamlessly from beginning to end. His newest mixtape, commissioned by London’s Fabric nightclub, is as simple as they come: save for a single mash-up to start the tape, FabricLive.45 is just 25 killer tracks and remixes, perfectly beatmatched and mixed. Even if you’re clueless as to the technical skill required to mix records as well as A-Trak does, his selection of bass-throbbing electronic jams will interest anyone hunting for the year’s best summer driving album.

 

Visit A-Trak’s official website here.

Preview tracks from FabricLive.45 here.

…

Justin Townes Earle - Midnight at the Movies [Bloodshot]

The way I see it, music lovers can hope for two types of records, those that push boundaries or explore new territories and those that execute a style to a tee. Justin Townes Earle, son of prolific country musician Steve Earle, has perfected the latter technique. Eight months ago I posted on another blog about The Good Life, his debut album and one of the finest releases of 2008. Less than a year later comes his sophomore effort, Midnight at the Movies, which continues on down the “traditional but damn good” road. The thing is, “traditional” country music is pretty hard to come by these days. So when Earle’s twang takes front and center on “Walk Out,” or when the harmonica on “Halfway to Jackson” mimics a southbound train, I guarantee you’ll be more pleasantly surprised than you expect. Most impressive are the record’s early stand-outs, “Mama’s Eyes” and “Can’t Hardly Wait.” The former is a brief but sobering account of his dysfunctional relationship with his father, while the latter is a straightforward countrified cover of one of my favorite Replacements’ tracks. Both succeed because they’re exemplary of Earle’s forté: uncluttered, perfectly-executed, memorable country.

 

Visit Justin Townes Earle’s MySpace page here.

Watch the KEXP interview and performance, which includes “Mama’s Eyes” here.

…

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [Loyauté / Glassnote / V2]

Of the five albums on my “list,” this is the one that doesn’t quite fit the theme of “underdog” records. Veteran French pop-rock group Phoenix are indeed garnering a good deal of praise for this, their fourth full-length release in their ten-year history; a much blogged about appearance on SNL, an 8.5 from Pitchfork, and a #37 spot on the US Billboard 200 are certainly not indicative of “lesser-known artists.” Still, few would have predicted Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix would be the album to bring the band the global fame they seemed to be made for.

Back in 2006, after Phoenix released one of my favorite albums of the decade, It’s Never Been Like That, I wrote in a year-end retrospective, “It’s utterly shocking that French alt-pop band Phoenix hasn’t been plastered on billboards, commercialized to no end, and replayed thousands of times on US radio stations.” Pitchfork placed that album at #13 on their top 50 of the year, doing their part to boost the group’s cred, but still it seemed no one would take them seriously.

What changed? First, they went bigger. Lead single “1901,” which rivals their best tracks (and they have some absolute monsters), adds giant electro-flares to their trademark guitar/kick drum rhythms. Second, they finally nailed the consistency/flow thing. While Never got the former right, without a dud in the bunch, it still somehow felt weighed down. Wolfgang, however, is more carefully ordered. Some critics have claimed it’s frontloaded, when in fact, the last four tracks, particularly the momentous closer “Armistice,” make up a better stretch than the middle chunk. Last, they took an admirable risk with “Love Like a Sunset,” a near-eight-minute, two-part behemoth that acts as an album fulcrum, that paid off immensely. Simply, Phoenix may be my favorite singles band of the decade, but this is pretty easily my favorite album of 2009.

 

Visit Phoenix’s official website here.

Watch Phoenix play “Lisztomania” & “1901″ live on SNL here.

…

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit [Lightning Rod]

In 2007, much fuss was made about Jason Isbell’s exit from Southern/alt-country band the Drive-By Truckers. Credit Isbell, formerly one of the group’s three lead singer/songwriters, for two of the band’s best tracks in their final two albums together, “The Day John Henry Died” and “Daylight.” As such, I wasn’t all that surprised that his debut solo record, 2007′s Sirens of the Ditch, was pretty damn tight. “Dress Blues,” in particular, which told the story of US Marine Corporal Matthew Conley who died in the Iraq War, was the type of tune that makes grown men cry.

I was surprised, however, to find his 2009 follow-up, named in honor of his new backing band, the 400 Unit, was twice as good. Even casual fans of alt-country — say, Ryan Adams, Neko Case, earlier Wilco, or My Morning Jacket — will be drawn to the sound of this album, which is more consistent than Sirens’ scattered recordings allowed for. More importantly, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit manages to do what so many of the Truckers’ albums have failed to: remain balanced from start to finish. From the uptempo “Good,” to the beautifully simplistic guitar lick in “The Blue,” to one of the best closing tracks of the year, “The Last Song I Will Write,” this is such a listenable record, I often find myself playing it two or three times in a row.

 

Visit Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit’s official website here.

Listen to the band perform on World Café Live here.

 

Jun. 27, 2009

Experimental Learning

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Education, The Arts | Tags: , , |
[3] Comments 
AM Laboratory

AM Laboratory

The other day, a friend sent me a link to the aM laboratory tone matrix. Playing around with this music simulator made me think a bit about the role of experimental learning tools in education. You can check out the simulator here, but be prepared to lose an hour of your day (err…. or several hours?).

In the tone matrix, you press the dark grey buttons to make them white, and thus to “turn on” that specific tone.  Then, the simulator runs a continuous linear run through the matrix, playing whichever tones are highlighted. The lighter greyish spots on the picture to the left are a representation of the progression of the simulation (those notes were just played just before I took this screenshot). The tone matrix thus creates an environment of real time feedback where the tones selected and the sounds they create make a simultanous visual/audio representation of the constructed music.

For example, on the right is a picture of my recreation of “Boom Boom Pow” by Black Eyed Peas (Rachmaninoff was bit too complex for me right now.).  At the lower left of the matrix you can see the two bass notes (“boom boom”), followed by the “pow” in the upper part of the same quadrant, near the middle of the screen.  The melody is represented in the upper two sections of the matrix (“I got that hit the beat the block”), starting with the last three notes on the screen (upper right quadrant), and continuing with the other remaining three notes when the cycle begins anew.

Picture 2

Boom Boom Pow

So what are the benefits of using this tool for learning music?  Well, for one, in playing around with “boom boom pow”, I was able to test out different melodies, see the range between notes that create the harmonies of interest, and then experiment with temporal space to create the necessary rhythms. I could see and feel the difference between a rhythmic space of two and space of three that creates the syncopated ‘boom boom pow’ (3 spaces) as compared to the rhythm at the start of the melody (2 spaces). In the more complex composition shown at the top of this post, I experimented with different rhythms, multiple scales working simultaneously, and the use of space to emphasize tone.  And, while these methods are all available while plunking away at the piano, the benefit of this tone simulation approach is that the feedback is entirely in real time, and it allows you to ‘play’ at a level above your ability.  To be fair, the major drawback it is much less cool to pull out a macbook and play some tones on repeat than it is to dance your fingers across a Steinway Grand.

While the use of the simulator for music education is interesting in itself, it made me wonder whether these types of simulation techniques could be applied in the development of supplementary methods for teaching subjects like mathematics, economics, and even logic. In each of these subjects, a real-time feedback and multiple-sense learning approach could help teach an intuitive understanding of these topics, as a supplement to the application of formulas, and the following of rules. Think of it as the Suzuki method going digital and taking on other subjects… learning to do math/economics/ logic ‘by ear.’

 

May. 5, 2009

The Wrestler: What form does redemption take?

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, The Arts | Tags: |
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“The language people speak influences the way they see the world”–Whorf

“Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.”–Tennessee Williams

After seeing my friend Adam’s A+ review of”The Wrestler,”  my brother John, his girlfriend  Ashley, and my roommate Chris went out and rented the movie. I am glad we did. Darren Aronofsky’s film is a poignant narrative on the potential and limitation of personal redemption.  The shooting was crisp, the characters realistic, and the story uncomfortably true.

**WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW**

The Wrestler

The Wrestler

The award-winning Fox Searchlight film tells the story of Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a once famous wrestler 20 years past his prime.  Randy spends his time in various local independent wrestling leagues, while prepping for a 20th anniversary rematch with his nemesis Ayatollah.

After one especially brutal preparation match, Randy’s heart gives out, necessitating a bypass surgery and the morbid prognosis that his heart is not capable of sustaining further beatings of ring-side leaps, performance-enhancing drugs, and prop-induced mauling. Throughout the rest of the movie, Randy struggles to come to grips with his forced career change, as he attempts to woo the heart of a local stripper Cassidy, and awkwardly push towards reconciliation  with his estranged daughter Stephanie.

There are two scenes that sum up some of the power of Randy’s story. The first is nicely summarized by Adam:

There’s an insanely brilliant scene where Aronofsky’s camera follows Rourke from an upstairs bathroom in the grocery store where he works, down the stairs, across the stockroom, through a pathetic plastic curtain, and into the deli. It’s all done to the faintly heard rumbles of a crowd cheering, apparently heard in his head.

There is truth in Aronofsky’s depiction of Randy’s experience.  Specifically, our previous experiences condition how we view the world and what pursuits we view as being of value. As an audience, we get a clear picture of the disappointment Randy must feel in his new work, as the background noise highlights the disparity between his past life and current reality. Instead of walking out to cheering fans, he is surrounded by nagging customers.

Likewise, the final scene of the film shows Randy deciding to fight in the final anniversary fight in spite of a healthy list of reasons not to: the girl he falls for finally leaves her work to show him support, his heart is still not in any condition for a fight, and he seems to be slowly emerging out of the haze to realize that this fight is only a moment of entertainment for fickle fans, and not a ticket back into the big leagues. And yet, he chooses to fight.

In these scenes, the potential and limitation of our personal redemption narratives come into focus.  Randy realizes early in the film that his life is not worth continuing in its current form, so he makes a push out of it.  He shows his love for Cassidy, and he attempts to reconcile things with Stephanie. But the shadows of his past life, and the way they encode his sense of success and failure, stay with him.  Whorf’s quote that  ”the language people speak influences the way they see the world” is true, and Randy’s inocculation into a world where meaning is found in competition, entertainment and commerce keep him from breaking free into the other world he deeply desires.  The echos of the ring sound far after the sound of the final bell. And in the end, when, in spite of himself, there are still opportunities for another route, a place beyond the Hell that is himself, to quote Tennessee Williams, Randy hops back in the ring.  He cannot break free, and his need to finish that story keeps him from entering the story of his loved ones. Randy’s story is our story, and his battle towards (and against) redemption is the one we all have to fight.

 

Apr. 20, 2009

Susan Boyle and Human Rights

Posted by Peter Boumgarden under Culture, The Arts
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Susan Boyle’s popularity is blowing up following her appearance on Britain’s Got Talent.  If you haven’t seen the video yet, take a look above… you will be the 13th34th+ million person to do so!

The massive popularity of this clip is interesting because its ability to capture our attention hinges on the psychological disconnect between our expectations and her actual performance.  The live audience, judges, and youtube watchers all place Susan in the ‘bust’ category before she starts singing, and only upon her fantastic rendition of Les Mes do we pull back such valuation.

This categorization tendency is not unique to Boyle.  With talent shows like BGT, we tend to infer some type of correlation between ‘pop’ attractiveness and singing talent, and thus assume the worst when someone doesn’t have this look. Being that American Idol is seemingly in its 4500th iteration, I have seen several of these busts live. The situation is the same every time… someone like Susan comes onto the stage, we expect her to be horrible, and she does not disappoint in singing out of tune, failing to have any level of self-awareness, and then acting crushed when told to go home. What catches us off guard about Susan’s performance is that her actual singing is so far removed from our expectations.

People have understandably been profoundly moved in viewing this clip.  Her performance has been forwarded to me via email several times, and it is bouncing all over the blogosphere.  Richard Beck, a psychology of religion professor and fantastic blogger, writes:

“This performance, in so many ways, is such a profoundly spiritual lesson. One of the judges spoke of cynicism. How diagnostic that is of both myself and the age we live in. No one expected this kind of beauty, of song and spirit, existed within Susan Boyle. We were prepared to laugh at her and judge her for our own amusement and entertainment… But the power and grace of her performance judged us all.”

But while there is truth in what Richard is saying… the power and grace demonstrated here is limited.  And this limitation is diagnostic of the limitations of how we attribute value to people in interaction.

Over at the academic blog The Immanent Frame, the current book-de-jour is “Justice: Rights and Wrongs” by philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff.  In it, Wolterstorff argues for the difficulty of grounding a rational/ foundational account of human rights, and concludes by articulating his own theistic account.  He summarizes the goals of this project in the following post:

I want to re-emphasize the structure of my discussion about secular accounts of human rights.  The project of trying to ground human rights is the project of trying to find what it is about human beings that gives each and every one a dignity sufficient for their possessing human rights.  I hold that Kantian-style accounts are entirely adequate for grounding the rights of those human beings who have the capacity to engage in rational action, the capacity to form, follow, and revise life-plans, or whatever.  There has been some discussion in the philosophical literature recently pointing out that persons have this capacity to different degrees, and that, consequently, this capacity does not secure equality of worth.

In other words, in building accounts for human rights, we attempt to find something shared across all people that gives them worth.  Unfortunately, anytime we do this, we find that not all people have this capacity, or they do not have it in equal abilities (for example, those with highly limited cognitive abilities).

The irony of our response to Boyle is that is affirms the problems of human rights talk that Wolterstoff highlights.  We are willing to grant people worth if they have rational capabilities, but not if they lack such capacity.  In this case, we are willing to give performers the time of day and a level of dignity if they have talent, and in turn, nothing if they are talentless.

Boyle’s performance makes us feel bad for our initial categorization, but ONLY BECAUSE we find out that she really does have talent! This clip does much less to make us question this underlying assumption that human worth flows from specific capacities or capabilities. The problem of our response is not one of mis-categorization, but rather one that emerges more deeply out of the way we link people’s worth too intimately to innate capabilities or capacities. Only when this link is ruptured will grace and power truly abound.

 

Mar. 26, 2009

Revolutionary Road

Posted by Dave Ellis under Culture, The Arts
[2] Comments 

There have been many potent critiques leveled against the American Dream. From Death of a Salesman to American Beauty, the darker ‘untold’ story of American suburban life has been told. While joining this long list of criticisms, Revolutionary Road departs from it in some important ways.
revoroad

Like many, this story begins with a young couple that falls in love, marries, has children, and finds a house in the suburbs. The husband, Frank, takes a job he hates and is ‘too talented’ for and his wife April feels trapped and bored in her role as suburban housewife. Sounds typical, right?

Wrong. Most other stories have frustrating but likeable characters who end up sticking it to the man or living the life they always imagined upon an enlightening/ empowering experience. Lester Burnham of American Beauty fits this bill well. In Revolutionary Road, nearly everyone is despicable, blind, and completely lacking in courage. The one man who sees clearly the world Frank and April find themselves in is John Givings, a recently released psychiatric patient and former math professor. Here are a couple of his more powerful insights:

In speaking about the suburban way of life, he says, “Hopeless emptiness. Now you’ve said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.”

Then, in an argument with Frank about April’s second (surprise) pregnancy and why Frank took a promotion at a job he hates instead of moving his family to Paris to start over as he had planned, Givings remarks, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you knocked her up on purpose, just so you could spend the rest of your life hiding behind that maternity dress.”

Unfortunately, Givings sees only ugliness, so much so that he is completely incapable of finding a role in society. Herein lies the underlying theme of the movie: There is no real alternative to a seemingly absurd world. While one leaves the film convinced about the futility of suburban married life as an end in itself, a deeper angst comes from the film’s intentional failure to articulate any sort of hopeful alternative. I left the movie asking myself, “If not this, then what?”

It’s a tough pill to swallow but, once taken, this film unearths some of our deepest insecurities as young American hopefuls.

 

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