Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Questlove vs. Dirty Projectors
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Neon Indian + Dallas + Street Fighter II
Neon Indian is a kid named Alan Palomo whose a Mexican-born, Texas-raised dude who makes music on old 80's synths. The weird things beyond those interests mirroring my own is that he lives in Denton, Texas where I went to school at the University of North Texas and got down at the once-awesome Fry St. I've seen his production name around and today he got a glowing review from The Evil Swayers of Young Musical Opinion. I remember living in Denton only a seven years ago and thinking the world was this place that only existed online, that all the culture was really happening elsewhere. Yet, I simultaneously felt apart of a little culture of shaggy-haired musicians in dark clubs DJ'ing, reading novels and trying to create something out of nothing. It was a beautiful feeling and one that I oddly feel so close to again at Syracuse. I'm just glad this dude is getting his props. Sci-fi Mexicanos, unite!
(The soundtrack to the novel I'm working on? Yes, please)
(Here he plays a classic song called "Mi Viejo")
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Yellow Insect Ectasy Sundrops
West Then South from Gorilla Face on Vimeo.
My dude Rah shot this great vid called "West then South" on his Bike Cam that captures the gorgeous innocence and nuances of a city that I miss very much. He rides bikes. I don't. I wish I did. I'm afraid to fall and die. I'm afraid the bike will revolt, turn its arms into rifles of rage and destroy my tender body.
Watch the damn video!
Estar Guars (Turkish edition)
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
MP3: Tortoise "Northern Something"
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
Ping-Pong freaks: just a heads up that my friend Temsy Chen just edited a documentary called Hardbat Classic that is airing on ESPN this Sunday, September 27th at 5PM EST. It has all these weird, obsessive characters that I'm sure are pretty entertaining. Of course, you also get that wonderfully archaic and stereotypical announcer.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Writing Log 27
David Foster Wallace, from an interview, in 1993 (when I was probably listening to Snoop Dogg, Too Short and NWA):
I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. Since an ineluctable part of being a human self is suffering, part of what we humans come to art for is an experience of suffering, necessarily a vicarious experience, more like a sort of ‘generalisation’ of suffering . . . We all suffer alone in the real world; true empathy’s impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character’s pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with our own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple. But now realise that TV and popular film and most kinds of ‘low’ art – which just means art whose primary aim is to make money – is lucrative precisely because it recognises that audiences prefer 100 per cent pleasure to the reality that tends to be 49 per cent pleasure and 51 per cent pain. Whereas ‘serious’ art, which is not primarily about getting money out of you, is more apt to make you uncomfortable, or to force you to work hard to access its pleasures, the same way that in real life true pleasure is usually a by-product of hard work and discomfort. So it’s hard for an art audience, especially a young one that’s been raised to expect art to be 100 per cent pleasurable and to make that pleasure effortless, to read and appreciate serious fiction. That’s not good. The problem isn’t that today’s readership is ‘dumb’, I don’t think. Just that TV and the commercial-art culture’s trained it to be sort of lazy and childish in its expectations. But it makes trying to engage today’s readers both imaginatively and intellectually unprecedentedly hard.
RIP Roc Raida
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Hakeem The Dream
David Robinson, one of the greatest centers to ever play in the NBA, was elected into the Hall of Fame tonight along with Jordan, John Stockton and many other great players I grew up watching. But, nothing gives me greater joy that to ruin a night speckled in golden twilight. Robinson was always, always, always second best to my man Hakeem Olajuwon. Nothing is ever more certain of that than the 1995 Western Conference Finals after David "The Admiral" Robinson won that season's MVP for the San Antonio Spurs and got taken to task. It was a sad, sad display. By the end, I kind of felt sorry for him. Not really. He's too nice. Like a pre-Obama.
David Robinson, apparently, got all religious in his Hall of Fame speech tonight at the end. But, I couldn't help but think from this video he should have converted to Islam because that shit must give you some power basketball juice. Hakeem Olajuwon, who I remember would fast games during Ramadan, always carried a grace and respect for his faith without getting preachy. Boo-yah!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Black Moth Super Flying Skull
This video makes me want to jump on the Internet and hug the Internet with warm arms like it was a baby. 3 geniuses: Black Moth Super Rainbow x PFFR x Funwunce. Extra big props out to Funwunce for being from Houston. I'm from Houston. Please, tell me that Houston is not the next big city for explosive LSD animation. I am afraid to move back.
Funwunce also made this promo, which like few other things out there, inspired me to keep working on on my novel that takes place in near-future Houston and features the Geto Boys as receiving a retrospective at the MFAH (Bushwick Bill as a painter!) and is the illest shit ever:
FUNWUNCE PROMO from mark armes on Vimeo.
