I can’t believe I haven’t posted about Basic Instructions though it has been in my feeds for a year and a half. Twice a week Scott Meyer gives four panels of wisdon on everthing from How to Maintain a Healthy Diet to How to Deal with Visions and How to Travel Back in Time. Now, go learn!
I just bought a pair of new shoes, and came to think of these. I seem to have very tender feet, or maybe awkwardly shaped heels, or both… but whatever the reason, almost every new pair of shoes is an exercise in excruciating pain until they are worn in. So these Compeed patches have become a bit of a staple for me. They are ridiculously expensive (about SEK50 for a pack of five, and directly converted that’s about €5.50 or US$8.50), but I haven’t found anything that works half as well. They stick well, staying on for a couple of days, and they cushion really well. They are thick and gel-ish, and seem to work by absorbing moisture from the blister since the part of the patch covering it swells up (that’s even if the blister has been punctured and the outer skin has fallen off). Don’t know what more they do, but something makes them unsuitable for diabetics.
Anyway… they have the ability to take me from a grimacing zombie stagger to walking more or less normally in a matter of minutes, so I try to always keep a pack at hand.
Now I’ll stop unless Johonson and Johnson offer me money to be their spokesperson…
I really needed that one. (Nothing seriously wrong – just sitting here with the clock going towards 2am, with a bit of the weird kind of backlash blues you sometimes get hit by as you realize that things aren’t too bad)
(Link via Boing Boing, via other places)
Blu animates walls in Buenos Aires with about seven minutes of awesomeness:
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
I have to say it at once: Portishead fulfill and surpass all expectations, and I can’t describe Third as anything but another masterpiece. But it is different. Definitely Portishead, but at the same time fundamentally different, and something entirely new.
The opening track, “Silence”, has a sound like you’d expect Portishead to sound like after maturing for a decade – maybe a bit more lo-fi, but with the familiar structure of lazy drum patterns along with familiar sounds. But then it is abruptly cut off, as if to make statement that the past ends there.
Going back, I’d say that Dummy was comfortably melancholic, while the self titled follow-up turned a few shades darker with its outcry of frustration. So, how would I define the sound of Third in emotion? Nagging anxiety, unnerving tension, restlessness and that feeling of wanting to crawl out of your own skin. The album never lets really lets you relax – if it isn’t stressing, monotonous beats or discordant semi-industrial sounds it’s sudden changes and interruptions.
“Hunter”, the second track, just lets you get into a comforting mood before an electronic arpeggio abruptly wakes you like a doorbell in the night. “Plastic” stops, starts and twists this way and that. “We Carry On” has a beat like that of some tribal ritual, and along with something like electronic imitations of primitive instruments the beat goes on and on and keeps you waiting for a break that never really comes. The whispering “Small” is broken off by determined, dissonant chords. And then we have the single track “Machine Gun”, like a martial theme out suitable for some dystopian sci-fi, a minimalistic construction of industrial beats carrying Beth’s light voice and, somewhere far in the background, a mellow flute struggling to be heard.
Minimalism is, by the way, a good description of the whole album. There is a lot going on, but the soundscape is open, even vast. It goes with the anxiety-feeling I described, and there’s something quite cold and raw about it. And along all this there is, of course, Beth’s wonderful voice – this time free from the vocal effects so common in the past.
Third is a work of musical art, far from light entertainment. It demands attention, left in the background it will turn into an distraction and lure you in – or force you to turn it off. It is Portishead, and it is something you have never heard before. And it is absolutely brilliant.
Official portishead site | Wikipedia entry
Portishead - Third at amazon.com: Download | CD | Vinyl
Portishead - Third at amazon.co.uk: CD | Vinyl
It’s finally spring up here. I like that, in general. And I don’t mind birds either – true, I’m barely able to distinguish a sparrow from an emu, but I think they are fascinating and adorable critters. But… I’m something of an insomniac and when you’re up north and dawn comes around just after three in the morning ,and you try to go to sleep with the persistent tada-tweet-tada-tweet-tada-tweet of some horny*, matutinal assemblage of feathers trying to pick up someone to father his chicks echoing between the buildings…
Well, I’m thinking sinister thoughts about assault weapons, and maybe this one (as demonstrated by the Mythbusters) would be something that could bring the problem down:
At least it would bring some satisfaction. And maybe missing the bird would mean the removal of the tree from where it delivers its performance.
(I’m actually not a weapons nut, I happily continue zapping if there’s “Top Ten Super Mega Giant Assault Weapons” on Discovery, and I think world conflicts would better be solved with tea parties (or at least decent political mediation), but there’s something about the cold, meticulously timed perfection with which a modern gatling gun is able to wreak more or less unstoppable mayhem – call it some bizarre awe at the aesthetical clash of mechanical perfection and total destruction, maybe)
*I believe the main purpose if the barrage of tweeting has to do with mating, but who am I to say it’s not a part of the conspiracy to finally push me over the brink of insanity?
