Crater

Top 10 Albums of 2011

1. Absence | Snowman: a haunting album full of lonely textures, minor piano chords, pounding drums, & creepy falsetto. Snowman's style reminds me most of Liars, perhaps because of the vocal similarities (falsetto melodies & the occasional screaming) but their instrumentation is actually more lush. Spooky arpeggios & breathy vocals that should sound comforting ("don't let anybody drag you down") result in songs that are more menacing than most metal music.
2. [S/T] | Clams Casino: good instrumental hip-hop that relies far more on textures than beats or melodies. Perhaps the most distinctive part of Clams Casino's style is the use of vocal samples, which are often bathed in distortion, echoing, & moan-like. It is a textural use of vocals as opposed to traditional hip-hop sampling & comes across as both unique & haunting. Also – I would hate this album if all the Lil B & Soulja Boy lyrics were on top of it, so I'm very glad its instrumental. One could easily add the Rainforest EP to this list as well, since it's an equally excellent work.
3. As High as the Highest Heavens and From the Center of the Circumference of the Earth | True Widow: this is a type of music I’ve largely stopped listening to & yet this album hit home with me. It’s mid-tempo distorted guitar chords, not even riffs most of the time, with plain & plaintive vocal melodies, but perfectly done. The pacing & guitars are powerful, not flashy but strong & simple. I probably couldn't cite a single line of the lyrics but I like they way that they're low in the mix & drenched in reverb, giving them the "voice lost in the machine" quality of a band like Tool.
4. The King of Limbs | Radiohead: To be honest, this may be the Radiohead album with the lowest average rating in my iTunes (& I don’t have Pablo Honey :). But that’s a little misleading, because the best tracks of tKoL are better than the best tracks of In Rainbows. “Bloom” & “Lotus Flower” in particular are amazing, gorgeous atmospheres topped by charming melodies. The beats throughout the album are very interesting too, organic with shuffling snares are opposed to the tinny drum machines Kid A & Amnesiac. Another unique aspect: this may be the happiest Radiohead album ever, at times it sounds positively ecstatic as in the closer “Separator.”
5. Own Your Ghost | 13 & God: similar to TKoL above, this album does not have the transcendent individual songs of 13 & God’s last work (“Superman on Ice”, “Tin Strong”) but is a more complete album overall. The songs tend to swing between Notwist glitch pop & Subtle post-electronica rap but in a balanced, coherent way exemplified by the persistent lyrical themes of senescence & death.
6. apoLLo1ne3hree | iL: one of the most unique albums I’ve heard lately, iL’s music is composed primarily of spliced vocal samples up front & melodramatic atmospheres in the background. That may not seem too original, but everything is off kilter in a deranged way, like a mistuned radio. Burial is perhaps the closest reference point, but Burial’s pacing is far more restrained & consistent, he never hammers you with sample after sample. The album ends up being both very moving & very draining, which is handled masterfully by making all the songs around a minute long. The 17-song album comes in at 20 minutes but is so vivid & original that it feels like a long play.
7. Conatus | Zola Jesus: the vocals on this album are, without exception, powerful & haunting. The music is mostly synth textures but they're interesting enough. A minor piano chord here, little synth blurps there, & the atmosphere falls together in a way that complements the mesmerizing vocals without being distracting. After seeing Zola Jesus live, I realized that the beats on the album are surprisingly good, too.
8. Tomboy | Panda Bear: catchy as hell. It doesn't live up to Person Pitch, lacking the epic quality of that album's longer songs, but you could listen to almost any single song on repeat for an hour before it gets dull. Animal Collective & Panda Bear have been on a winning streak for a long time now. Avey Tare’s album from last year was pretty disappointing, though.
9. Dedication | Zomby: I can't figure out why this album is so addictive but I find myself wanting to listen to it all the time. The songs are quite simple, as each only has 2-3 simultaneous parts at work, but that helps draw attention to how catchy & well-chosen each piece is. Even cheesy gunshot samples which I've long written off as tasteless sound good in the menacing, mysterious atmosphere that Zomby so carefully builds throughout the album. As with Clams Casino, Zomby's EP this year (Nothing) is also worth mentioning as it's every bit as good as Dedication.
10. Work (Work, Work) | HTRK: like the #1 band here Snowman, I just discovered HTRK this year & instantly fell in love. There's something sort of 1980s about them, almost like early Talking Heads except even bleaker. The vocals have the same lonely reverb quality as True Widow, but the instrumentation is more focused on synths & samples.

Honorable Mentions:
The Invisible Insurrection | Desolate
Wander / Wonder | Balam Acab
Past Life Martyred Saints | EMA
Salon Des Amateurs | Hauschka
Severant | Kuedo
Aesthetica | Liturgy
Celestial Lineage | Wolves in the Throne Room



Missing from last year’s list:
Clouds are Mountains | Eleven Tigers
Hidden | These New Puritans

Centipede

I see loathsome little legs,
my God.
I see You as a centipede.

I see loathsome claws,
my God.
I see You as a scorpion.

I see loathsome antennae,
my God.
I see You as a grasshopper.

I see loathsome sabellaria worms,
my God.
You are my wounds.

—Edmond Jabès, The Book of Questions Vol. 1, pp. 241-2.

Crucial

Simulation is no crime. Credibility is only a special effect...—Jean Baudrillard

Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael

Bay

Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay Michael Bay

Crucial

On the metro to meet my fiancé, who is beautiful. I have a beautiful fiancé and mostly the life I've mainly wanted, by the way. It's not enough.

On the metro and listening to Sun Glitters and I stop reading about 4chan to look out the window. We're above ground. McDonald's. 7/11. Football field of a parking lot. Traffic lights lingering on red. Wendy's. Abandoned brick building. Abandoned brick building with a few windows shattered. There's nothing so serene. I can't quite touch the quiddity of its quintessence, of its lessons. Dark energy of an accelerating universe. Part of me wants to call it nostalgia but there's no past here, nothing to harken back to. It's the sort of sadness you wish would never leave, the sort of sadness you could crawl under the covers with. KFC. Liberty. Crackle stomp shine goes the music in my mind. The brick buildings continue. They are all abandoned. They are all newspaper offices. Washington Post, Washington Times, Washington Daily, Washington Examiner. None of this exists or ever has. Burger King. Crackle stomp shine. Pitch-shifted vocals murmur something I can't make out and don't attempt to. Crackle stomp shine. What's left to conquer once I've made you mine.

Crucial

It was a dark time in my life. I was watching a lot of CNBC.

Caustic Window

Hot Mama

MΣČĦΛÑIČΛŁŁŸ ŞΣPΛЯΛTΣĐ ČĦIČKΣÑ
PǾЯK
ŞǾŸ PЯǾTΣIÑ ČǾÑČΣÑTЯΛTΣ
ŞΛŁT
╒ŁΛVǾЯIÑĜ
ŁΣŞŞ TĦΛÑ 2% Ǿ╒:
ČǾЯÑ ŞŸЯUP ŞǾŁIĐŞ
BΣΣ╒
PΛPЯIKΛ
ŞǾĐIUM ΣЯŸTĦǾЯBΛTΣ
ŞǾĐIUM ÑITЯΛTΣ
ЯΣĐ 40.
PIČKŁΣĐ IÑ VIÑΣĜΛЯ
ẄΛTΣЯ
ŞΛŁT
ЯΣĐ 40.

once more, with feeling...

MΣČĦΛÑIČΛŁŁŸ ŞΣPΛЯΛTΣĐ ČĦIČKΣÑ
Moments spent hoping
PǾЯK
Gelded horses
ŞǾŸ PЯǾTΣIÑ ČǾÑČΣÑTЯΛTΣ
Succotash of your inner workings
ŞΛŁT
Succotash of your scarlet desire
╒ŁΛVǾЯIÑĜ
Trees are meat
ŁΣŞŞ TĦΛÑ 2% Ǿ╒:\
Lives are meat
ČǾЯÑ ŞŸЯUP ŞǾŁIĐŞ
You can't escape meat
BΣΣ╒
Internet insomnia
PΛPЯIKΛ
Brilliant mines
ŞǾĐIUM ΣЯŸTĦǾЯBΛTΣ
Lithium elope
ŞǾĐIUM ÑITЯΛTΣ
Mansion elope
ЯΣĐ 40.
Are we all we are we
PIČKŁΣĐ IÑ VIÑΣĜΛЯ
Rodentia survival
ẄΛTΣЯ
Future esteemed
ŞΛŁT
Dearth
ЯΣĐ 40.

Byte

Apple annihilate us
comfort castrate us.
Receive seethe receive
node abode node
you'd say you were wired
but the wires are obsolete {ctrl alt del}
which is to say everywhere & nowhere
which is to say
the wires are the very air itself
very scared of self
barely stealth.
Read me my
recondite rights
euthanize me with EULAs
'sall good 'sall straight
rather die than wait
rather annihilate.

Boorishness

yearn cohesive 

albeit inveterate

inure alonelessness

envy excedrin

stut stutters and rants

corraded nerves

but we'll wallow in welcome

bask in the luculence of our love

supple syntaxis

agreed upon arrangements

a motley sanity

hypersomnia

I like it that way.

Soft river of love

carry me home, make

this poem happen

in earth as in mind.

Pastel waters lie in wait for us

Beyond marriage, beyond lust

A formality no document

can truly attest to

a bond more covalent

than contractual.

Bromide Poisoning

saxicolous subconsciousness

albeit inveterate

orgy umbrage hours

strangled with felt

strangled with health

orthorexic nervosa

albeit inveterate

coccyx succor

the only way to get those fuckers gone

another oneirocriticon

another list of elaborate lies

swell gucci swell ribcage swell

triskaidekaphobia

but I already said that

I already wrote it in ruination's unaverse intonations

overt or otherwise

chelation therapy

iridectomy

recovery indefinite

obstreperous

with devilish delectation

with a joy no job could cancel

no chore could incarcerate

-_-     -_-     -_-

Mark Foley was right / there are no barriers for medicine

Mark Foley was right / there are no barriers for shame, shame!

—Manchasm / Future of the Left

I have effectively divided my online persona into two pieces: the professional and the questionable. There is no reason to risk exposing potential employers to the instability that is Talk Show Host, to the inaniloquence of my linguistic aptitudes. Unemployment is no time to perk up with pride.

Neither portion of my personality is the least artificial, either. I'm genuinely elated to be working where I am, to be studying what I am, and I also really like weird poetry, politics, perusals, protuberances.

By the way, no one ever tells you when you don't make the first cut. This has become a fact of our information/underemployed age. More people apply to positions both because A) it's easier, with the Internet and all, and B) the unemployment rate is fairly high. At the other end of this is not the toothless grin of an administrative demon but more likely an overworked Human Resources peon. HR is an easy area to cut from, a likely start to the cutting of corners, so I'm assuming they're understaffed everywhere nowadays. The last private company I worked for—true story—fired the only HR person in a forty-some person office. The boss had to call her up to ask where things like insurance forms and various waivers were for months afterwards. So I'm not saying it's great, but when you're applying to jobs you get used to being utterly silent, utterly powerless, utterly divided in two / truncated. Sigh, shake your head, move on, but not dot org. Just move. On.

~_~    ~_~    ~_~

Unique Aspects of Radiohead Albums

Worst in every way - Pablo Honey

Most guitar riffs - The Bends

Most grandiose narratives (Airbag, Paranoid Android, Lucky) - OK Computer

Debatably best album ever, only with "secret song" after album's end - Kid A

Best b-sides - Amnesiac

Longest, least cohesive - Hail to the Thief

Best vocal melodies, least interesting lyrics, cheapest - In Rainbows

Best beats, shortest, happiest, no distorted guitars[?] - The King of Limbs

Which would you say has the best artwork? In a way, I'm saddened that I won't be able to afford the "newspaper album" version of King of Limbs, which I'm sure will be awesome. Radiohead has always been one of those bands whose physical editions are well worth the artwork: from the re-appropriated street signs and bathroom figures of OK Computer, to the strange wintry landscapes of Kid A, to the awesome little bear theme of Amnesiac, it's always good. I look forward to seeing pictures posted online once the newspaper album ships.

Also, Amnesiac was a hard one. What I put is true (Cuttooth! Kinetic! The Amazing Sounds of Orgy!) but very tangential. I'd be interested if anyone has a better idea.

Bombilation

I will start writing poetry again.

I will rant and rave like a scansion slave.

I will emerge unperturbed.

I will lay me down in a bunker underground.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

enough ice cream

to feed the world

ten times over

so støp

every landscape is Los Angeles

so støp

purple skies until the day she dies

støp

animal 42

so støp

tamper with the temperature

støp

free enterprise system

so støp

nothing is fucked here, dude

so støp

støp

breaking into homes

cracking housewife skull

with wrench for Tiffany's

and gruyere out the fridge

stripping the copper from abandoned tenements

stealing fertilizer from Fresno industrial farms

jacking Erlenmeyer flasks from high school science classrooms

cooking meth in motel rooms

støp that.

støp bigots

støp poets

støp rap.

Quality valium is available, no doctor needed!

So støp.

Feelings are overrated

so støp.

Marginalized is just a word

America is just a word

Michael Bay is just a person

støp.

http://bit.ly/GTV

so støp

rotting rot rotten

shizocarp

støp

sex nøt love

cloth nøt skin

støp

støp

støp

nøt knøtted up

like Mobius strips

Mobius drip

radically disconnected

globalization as anachronism

an idioticon for each and every one

insulate your yourself

insulate

støp

Bring in the New Fear

Top 11 Albums of 2011


...because I couldn't make a top ten because that would entail pushing Flying Lotus off the list.

1. All Waters of the Earth Shall Turn to Blood / The Body: Not only is this the best album title of 2010, it's also the best album. It sounds much like the third item on this list in its use of vocals-only choruses to contrast with metal, except this metal is more drone or dirge-like whereas Liturgy are standard Black Metal fare. The Body's album is better because it nails the dynamic: it's truly frightening right from the start, where just a hint of dissonance in the chorus leads to a horror movie uber-climax of zombies, decapitation, and unending death. But in a good way.
2. King Night / Salem: Loud, distorted dance music, chopped-n-screwed hip-hop, and even a sort of punk rock song at the end of the album. King Night is pretty weird and varied but maintains a threatening, dangerous dynamic throughout, whether it's a half-speed baritone talking about abusing you or ten layers of synths emitting beautiful drones. I look forward to hearing more of this, which apparently is in the "witch house" genre.
3. Renihilation / Liturgy: While Black Metal is arguably my second-favorite genre behind experimental hip-hop, I rarely come across an album that captivates me throughout its entire runtime. Black Metal bands love long songs with incoherent screaming and neverending tremolo-picking; it's a defensible stylistic choice, but one which wears you down after ninety nonstop minutes (this is why Krallice's album is further down this list). Liturgy, however, takes expert advantage of Gregorian interludes and lo-fi production here, managing to tap both into primal anger but also mysticism in a way which Black Metal hasn't seen since Wolves in the Throne Room released the near-perfect Two Hunters.
4. To Realize / Clipd Beaks: Noise rock that somehow sounds harmonized. What amazes about this album is that the noise never grates, the out-of-tune pubescent-voice-cracking vocals somehow insinuate a gorgeous and insecure melody, and the whole record has such astounding depth and coherence. It drags towards the second half of the album, where it becomes more instrumental and the melodies are buried, but that's also simply because the first half has the best songs released in 2010, like "Blood" and "Strangler".
5. Sisterworld / Liars: This album is really solid but unspectacular, with most songs failing to evoke a unique atmosphere. The lyrics and melodies are some of the best Liars have done ("Scissor", "No Barrier Fun", and "Proud Evolution" are all exemplary), and they mesh well with the slacker-jazz noise rock instrumentation, but the whole doesn't coalesce so well as their 2nd and 3rd albums which were so transcendent in their synergy. Also, I actually liked the remixes (almost every one is enjoyable, despite Thom Yorke's being surprisingly boring) and found that the remixes and originals make a nice long-play together.
6. All Creatures Will Make Merry / Meursault: This album has wind blowing throughout it, whether it be a distorted chord hanging over an entire song or simply a healthy dose of reverb. Combine the atmospherics with a delightful Scottish accent belting out emotive verses and you've got a really melodramatic but somehow excellent album. The instrumentation ranges from folky acoustic to orchestral pounding drums and strings but it's really the consistency of the vocals, always there alternatively either blowing you over or holding you up, that make the album so moving. The last song is perfect too, the vocals quiet down a bit as a piano mumbles some chords. It reminds me of the way Radiohead ends Kid A and In Rainbows, which is a good thing.
7. Spirituals / Spirituals: Compelling blend of electronic and acoustic instruments, another album of sampler-jazz freak-outs, though much less beat-oriented than FlyLo. Actually better than the Four Tet album which came out this year, which is really saying something. Witness "Manzanita", where disjointed clusters of bells ring against a background of shuffling drums and analog synths, a Four Tet simulation that exceeds the original.
8. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy / Kanye West: I'm not a big Kanye fan but this album really is brilliant. Every song veers towards a sort of megalomania but in the most charismatic way possible and tropes that I would usually find tiring (the Chris Rock bit, excessive use of autotune, Kanye's less-than-amazing rhymes) actually work well in the context of the album as a whole. The fact that most songs far outrun the usually four-minute pop song formula, e.g. the amazing Runaway which clocks in just over nine minutes long, but don't get boring is a testament to the incredible flow of structure and production at work here. Avant garde pop hip-hop on par with the best of Outkast's oeuvre.
9. Dimensional Bleedthrough / Krallice: I really love Krallice but this album is just too long. Their EP is amazing because it's focused—4 long songs which mesh well—but this album just wears you down with 14-minute tracks. The music is great, but it's too much of a good thing.
10. There is Love in You / Four Tet: I love Four Tet and keep hoping he'll make something better than Rounds or Pause, two of the best instrumental albums ever. So far, this album is the closest yet, but it doesn't surpass those two in any way.
11. Cosmogramma / Flying Lotus: I think my insanely high hopes for this one rendered it disappointing. It's still a landmark album but feels diluted and—surprisingly—unfocused. Unlike precursor Los Angeles, which stuck to a basic theme of fuzzed out off-beat hip-hop, Cosmogramma incorporates jazz and live instruments alongside video game sound effects and IDM. Reading about it ahead of time, I was ecstatic; FlyLo does jazz? IT'S GONNA BE THE SECOND COMING OF MILES DAVIS! Unfortunately, it's not the Miles of Bitches Brew and the album wanders between uninteresting experiments and slightly successful fusions with no real sense of direction.

Honorable Mentions:

• [S/T] / Blue Water White Death
• Dear God, I Hate Myself / Xiu Xiu
• Maniac Meat / Tobacco
• Glass Eights / John Roberts
• See Birds EP / Balam Acab
• [S/T] EP / oOoOO

Those last two are really excellent releases but I cannot bring myself to put an EP on the list, simply because they're too short. Balam Acab is excellent but leaves me wanting so much more. RELEASE AN LP, KID!

Behold Our Headlessness

This is a big f*ck*ng deal.

Nebuchadnezzar's debut album, Difference & Repetition, is now up and running. You can visit the website for lyrics, credits, and related derangement, or head straight on down to the ol' Internet Archive to download it, comes complete with album insert pdf. I just uploaded some higher-quality AIFFs but they may not be available yet.
Many thanks to the parties who made this possible, who are numerous but may not want to be associated. So nlogic is the only one I'll thank by name.

Basketball's Positional Glut

Top 10 NBA Point Guards

There is an amazing glut of talent at the Point Guard position in the NBA right now, so much so that I feel a need to
sort some of it out in list form. While we've seen various eras be defined by different positions (think of when
Ewing, Olajuwon, Shaq, and David Robinson were all in the league at the same time, or earlier eras when 3-4
historically great centers were in the league simultaneously, though now there is only 1 great center in the entire
NBA), the present era is shifting towards PGs even as the league's two best players (LeBron James and Kevin
Durant) are short forwards. Many of the names on this list are young players, having entered the league in the last
3-5 years, and each of the last three drafts has had all-star caliber point guards.

Statistics: All are taken from Basketball-Reference.com. Ast/TO = assist to turnover ratio. You want at least 2 from a PG, but great PGs are
3+. | TS% = true shooting percentage. Should be above 50%; really great players are 55% and up. | PPS = points per
shot. 1.1 is about average, 1.2 is good, 1.3 and up is great. | PER = player efficiency rating. 10-15 is average,
15-20 is good, 20-30 is great. STL36: steals per 36 minutes. 2 is good, 1 is bad, 1.5 is average for a PG. | I have
taken stats from the past 2-3 years and averaged them (each year weighted equally, not according to totals. Which is
just for my own convenience and not effectiveness).

1. Chris Paul (New Orleans Hornets): Paul is a historically-good point guard, perhaps the best we've seen since
   Magic Johnson. I still put him at the top because his injuries don't seem to be chronic (unlike Baron Davis,
   for instance) and, when in the game, he is still far-and-away the most productive PG. Stats - Ast/TO: 4.16 -
   TS%: 58.6 - PPS: 1.35 - PER: 27.3 - STL36: 2.4
2. Rajon Rondo (Boston Celtics): Rondo has the 2nd-lowest scoring average of anyone on this list, but that's
   also part of what makes him great. Rondo does everything well except shoot 3s, creates for others as good as
   anyone in the league, and is arguably the best defensive point guard in the NBA. Because of the new hand-check
   rules, people still get around him, but Rondo piles up steals, defensive rebounds, and can handle most shooting
   guards (he spent an inordinate amount of time guarding Kobe Bryant in last year's finals, a feat only Jason
   Kidd could match). A PG who can guard SGs (and you'll see several on this list) is one of the most under-rated
   assets in the NBA, because one of the most consistent weakness across disparate defenses is when a PG gets
   switched onto a bigger perimeter player and subsequently overpowered. Stats - Ast/TO: 3.05 - TS%: 53.3 - PPS:
   1.21 - PER: 17.8 - STL36: 2.1
3. Deron Williams (Utah Jazz): Only slightly inferior to Paul in almost every area; only his 3-point shooting stands
   out as a superior skill, and Paul has gained ground in that category over the past two years. Williams' weak
   defense and strangely low rebound totals are why he falls below Rondo. It will be interested to see how Deron
   fairs as the sole focus of an offense, without Boozer as his pick-and-roll buddy. Stats - Ast/TO: 3.14 - TS%:
   58.1 - PPS: 1.36 - PER: 20.8 - STL36: 1.1
4. Jason Kidd (Dallas Mavericks): Kidd, in his prime, was better than anyone else on this list (even Chris Paul, thus
   far), and all the while he was never even an efficient scorer. Rather, Kidd has excelled in the NBA by doing
   EVERYTHING other than scoring better than any other PG. In fact, in most categories, his competitors aren't
   even close. Unless you count Oscar Robinson as a PG, Kidd is by far the best rebounder the position has ever seen,
   on top of being an amazing man-to-man defender who generates 2 steals a game without gambling too much. Now that
   he's added a decent 3-pt shot to his game—and spends all his time guarding SGs whilst the quicker,
   smaller Maverick shooting guards pick up the opposing PG—he is perhaps underrated and still a vital element
   on one of the West's best teams. That Kidd's Wins Produced are second only to Paul (and just by a smidgen) is
   a testament to how incredible a PG he is. Stats - Ast/TO: 3.46 - TS%: 54.3 - PPS: 1.16 - PER: 17.1 - STL36:
   1.8
5. Steve Nash (Phoenix Suns): Nash is nearly-perfect offensively (he makes too many risky passes that result in
   turnovers to be truly perfect), the best pure shooter in the NBA (yes, there is a reason his True Shooting % reads
   like a typo) combined with an amazing ability to create offense for others. Unfortunately, he is also one of the
   worst defenders in the NBA. Despite having decent height for a PG, his arms are short, his horizontal quickness
   nonexistent, and he fails to challenge shots in any meaningful manner. The fact that he's really good at
   drawing charges stops him from being a complete detriment on that end of the floor, and thus stops him from
   falling further on this list. While he probably did not deserve his two MVPs, I enjoy watching Nash as much as
   anyone in the NBA and he has aged amazingly well, probably due to the fact that he has always relied on skill
   rather than athleticism. Stats - Ast/TO: 2.99 - TS%: 62.4 - PPS: 1.38 - PER: 20.7 - STL36: .7
6. Chauncey Billups (Denver Nuggets): Billups is a bit weird offensively because he shoots a fairly low percentage
   but is extremely efficient because of his high 3-pt percentage and ability draw fouls and convert at the line
   (sort of the opposite of Derrick Rose). On top of that, Billups' best asset, through his Detroit years and up
   to the present, has been his ability to run an offense without turning the ball over. He won't make the fancy
   passes that others on this list will, but his Ast/TO ratio reflects a higher basketball IQ which improves those
   around him. Stats - Ast/TO: 2.63 - TS%: 59.6 - PPS: 1.45 - PER: 19.3 - STL36: 1.2
7. Stephen Curry (Oakland Warriors): Curry is already one of the league's best 3-pt shooters, will be among the
   leaders in steals every year, and will probably become an 8-9 assist per game guy if he is allowed to run a team
   (as opposed to sharing responsibilities with Monta Ellis). My hope is he becomes the next Steve Nash, an
   insanely-efficient shooter but one who looks to set up others first before creating his own looks. His only real
   knock, at this point, is his substandard defense, which is compounded by the Warriors' reckless style. But
   Curry is still learning the NBA game and has tremendous quickness, passable size, and an obvious intelligence.
   Chances are, in a couple years, he will not only no longer be a liability on D, but he'll be one of the top-10
   defensive point guards in the NBA. Stats - Ast/TO: 1.97 - TS%: 56.8 - PPS: 1.23 - PER: 16.3 - STL36:
   1.9
8. Tyreke Evans (Sacramento Kings): Tyreke is another PG with great size who can effortlessly switch onto a SG or
   even a SF. He is probably the best perimeter defender on his team. Some would argue that he is a shooting
   guard, but he played an awful lot of PG last year. Then again, perhaps LeBron belongs on this list, since he
   essentially plays PG on the offensive end as well. Evans didn't shoot a great percentage, but that is more a
   function of the Kings' limited options than his abilities. His combination of strength and speed is unmatched
   on this list and—best of all—he seems to recognize this and spends almost all his possessions driving
   towards the basket. Stats - Ast/TO: 1.93 - TS%: 52.9 - PPS: 1.24 - PER: 18.2 - STL36: 1.5
9. Russell Westbrook (Oklahoma City Thunder): Westbrook is here despite having terrible shot selection. His excellent
   defense and manageable passing makes up for a horrendous (worst on this list) shooting percentage. I think he will
   improve his percentages over the next few years, as OKC develops more offensive options behind him and Durant.
   Westbrook was more efficient at UCLA and it is hard to believe that the NBA game is so drastically different as to
   turn him into an offensive liability. Stats - Ast/TO: 2.01 - TS%: 49.0 - PPS: 1.14 - PER: 16.5 - STL36:
   1.5
10. Derrick Rose (Chicago Bulls): Rose is a bit of a conundrum. He has great size and athleticism, the potential to be
    a standout defender, but has yet to effectively apply himself in any way. He shoots a high percentage for a point
    guard, but because he doesn't shoot 3s or draw fouls, his points-per-shot is mediocre. His presence on this
    list is entirely due to potential; without increased scoring efficiency and more consistent defense, he's a
    worse PG than many of the honorable mentions below.Stats - Ast/TO: 2.35 - TS%: 52.4 - PPS: 1.15 - WS48: .089 -
    PER: 17.3 - STL36: .8

Near all-stars left off this list (in no particular order): Tony Parker, Baron Davis, Jose Calderon, Brandon Jennings,
Devin Harris, Andre Miller, Jameer Nelson, Mo Williams, John Wall.

P.S. - The first thing I noticed upon constructing this list was how prone to overestimating the potential of youth I
am. Most of the honorable mentions have significantly better stats than the bottom of my list in more than a few
categories, yet I cannot bring myself to put Miller, Parker, or Calderon above Rose, Westbrook, or Evans. Jennings is
the only exception to this rule: he had one good game last year and then spent the rest of the season shooting his
team out of the game. He is an excellent defender, but I'm unconvinced he belongs above the other young talents of the
game.

P.P.S. - I really wanted to use the Wins Produced (WP) metric, which has a loyal cadre of blogs if you're
interested, rather than PER, which is a fairly useless measure (which is why there is little correlation between PER
ranking and my top 10). But, alas, I just didn't have time to manually average out WP per 48 stats, which are not as
easy to find as PER. I think you would find, however, that my rankings are only solidified by WP48, which tends not to
reward offensive stat stuffing but pays attention to solid all-around PGs like Rondo and Kidd.

Buy Nothing

Because paying for software is now the exclusive domain of suckers...

Top Ten OpenSource/Freeware Programs

My prior top ten lists were presented as objective, but I know so little about software that I'll actually put a disclaimer here: these are programs that I've found useful and elegant, but there are doubtless better ones out there that hackers know about. Further, while I have put these in an ordered list, the numeration for these (especially the bottom half) is probably more fluid than the other lists, since they are all recent discoveries and I'm constantly finding new programs. Audacity is probably the only item which I've used over a long (> 1 year) period of time.

1. QuickSilver: Awe-inspiring productivity app. I've pretty much abandoned the Dock in Mac OS X, and my Desktop and Finder usage is drastically decreasing. Not only does QuickSilver launch apps, but you can move files and folders around faster than in Finder. Have a document buried in seven layers of folders? You can do anything to it in about six keystrokes. QS is very customizable too and someone with more Terminal skills than I can probably do wondrous operations with it.
2. GIMP: Never buy Photoshop. GIMP does everything Adobe does but is free. The usability isn't great, but then again neither is Photoshop's. I have been using this to make the album insert for Difference & Repetition and it's been very effective.
3. Firefox: Still the best web browser ever, though now entirely because of its prevalence in the design community (every website works on Firefox) and the vast array of plugins. Personally, I use Firefox exclusively for web design, with the Firebug and Web toolbar plugins which make it a more powerful design tool than any other browser.
4. Chrome: Though I've ranked 'fox ahead of it here, Chrome is my primary browser because it integrates best with my Google apps (mainly Gmail & Reader), is far faster than Firefox, and the killer, minimalist layout (while my Firefox is very much maximalist, due to all the plugins) with the brilliant Omnibar. I wish Chrome could completely supplant Firefox, but sadly Moodle's editing tools don't display in Chrome, OpenCMS won't work, and Netflix streaming doesn't either. In the end, though, I would probably have to use two browsers anyways, since it's best to have one sleek one and one overloaded with features used during specific work sessions. Is there a browser which allows multiple installs (Update: Firefox allows multiple profiles)? Just different settings and extensions? Also, Safari is a pretty great, fast browser (I have to think its plugins will never catch up to Firefox or Chrome, though) but it's annoying to keep bookmarks synced across all three.
5. Audacity: I don't use Audacity much anymore but it's a great tool for finishing touches on sound files. If you're either interested in doing something fairly basic, like making the sound on a podcast a little better, or performing global edits on a file made elsewhere (I run a lot of my GarageBand work through Audacity) this is an invaluable resource which only keeps improving.
6. Subversion/SCPlugin: An essential versioning tool which was indispensable for our group web design project this summer. Subversion (and it's Mac OS X client, SCPlugin) allows a group to edit files held on a server and resolve issues caused by overlap. It's sort of like Google Docs except file-type agnostic, less synchronous, and more powerful. Honestly, of all the items on this list Subversion is probably the one I'm most inept at, but I truly appreciate what it does.
7. OpenOffice: Never buy Microsoft Office. For one, Open Office seems to handle Microsoft's own file formats better than they do, and for two the immense export options of OO make MS Office obsolete. You can still communicate with your closed-source colleagues, only now you don't have to spend money to do so. I haven't explored the other features as much as the word processor, but I look forward to trying them out.
8. HTML Editors (Multi-party entry): NVu, KompoZer, Gedit, Aquamacs Emacs. I'm curious if anyone out there has a preference and why. I've finagled an <oXygen> license out of my department and have been doing all my XHTML/CSS editing in it because of the bells and whistles (real-time validation, automatic tag generation/alteration) but NVu seems pretty good and hopefully I will get around to the others.
9. PaintBrush: Sort of like MS Paint but free and for Mac, I use this quite a bit for minor tweaks when GIMP or the Drawing portion of OpenOffice are clearly overkill.
10. CyberDuck: the FTP software I use. There are several good, free ones available but I like the duck icon :)

I was going to list some of the other programs I use or want to try out, but they're really too numerous. If anyone has suggestions or recommendations, hit me with it. I'm new to this free software stuff and it has been really great sampling the wares and finding so much ability out there. Never buy a Microsoft (or Apple, for that matter) program again!

Blackwater Park (The Opeth Album)

The Purposes of Religion
Religion seems to have two purposes: to ground a particular politics and to assuage the fear of death⁄nihilism.
The first of these is the most expressly problematic. In trying to make the laws of the State embody those of God, Religion meets two contradictions. The first is that such practice undermines God, as if transcendent authority were not enough on its own and must be supplemented by—inevitably flawed—human laws. This seems to cover up the fact that God does not mediate or control our earthly lives enough already and thus God's will must be done by people, OR that merely mediating our access to the Beyond⁄afterlife is not enough. Either way, the first contradiction belies a certain insecurity with God's omnipotency; we do not see God punish the wicked enough to be truly secure in our conviction that Religion dictates Right and Wrong OR we are not confident enough in the transcendent plane's ultimate dominance over the immanent. If God is real and the ultimate authority, then there is be no need to enact God's laws on Earth via the State (since God could enact them if God so chose, and far be it from us…) OR it would be enough that God's laws are the sieve presiding over access to the afterlife, thus they needn't exist here on Earth. It is as if Religion enters politics only after sensing its own irrelevance. What other anxiety could compel a transcendent order to actualize itself in the empirical world? It is for this precise reason that Religion as grounds for politics utterly collapses. Either you are content with God's ultimate judgment and thus need no supplemental laws OR you admit the inadequacy of the transcendent plane, revealing that your purpose all along was never really to save people but merely to eliminate acts you do not like. Homosexuality is, as always, the perfect example: here is an act which has no detrimental consequences to society or the human body, but because our culture has traditionally been disgusted with it we require immanent laws to keep it at bay. Religion merely serves as a shield here, a transcendent justification for worldly concerns. Even the religious should be able to see this flaw: if homosexuality is wrong, why not let God punish sinners instead of the government? Who gave you the right to dole out what is rightfully God's? And rather than prohibit the act, shouldn't you be busy trying to convert the sinner?
That brings me to the second contradiction: State laws are based on force whereas Religion claims to base itself on belief. Even if there were a perfectly Christian State, it would miss the point because the fear of worldly punishment—and not divine—would be the motivating factor in people's actions. But Religion has little interest in promoting belief in and fear of the State, it needs belief in and fear of God. Once again, it appears as if religious politics come about precisely because of God's nonexistence, only this time the State laws actively harm Religion by decreasing conversion. Conversion, it should be noted, is not an effect of insecurity with God's omnipotence: one can still go about saving people in a pagan State, and one does so not out of fear of Religion's dwindling power but love of fellow people. But when the State stands in for conversion, all is lost. People no longer act properly because of God's imperatives, but because of the State's. Fewer people actually end up being saved because they act properly but without belief, thus they are denied access to the Beyond.
As a mostly polemical aside, many of the American conservatives who support religious politics also rail against "big government." But what is more "big government" than presuming that God is not enough, that government must enact God's law? On this issue at least, libertarians are the only conservatives who seem to be on solid footing, and yet they tend to be less religious than mainstream Republicans.
Returning to my opening, the fear of death is a bit trickier to refute. I am of the opinion that Religion developed purely as a defense mechanism within Reason itself: Reason proves unable to find an ultimate cause or end which impregnates existence with meaning. In short, Reason can never answer the question “Why should I live?” Thus Religion steps in to posit a Beyond which is the guarantor of our existence's meaning, much as early Religion and myths served to fill in scientific ignorance about phenomena like rainfall, earthquakes, and the stars (a function which has fallen by the wayside). But Religion has serious difficulty with this question as well. It posits a reward, be it a beautiful afterlife or movement up a reincarnation food chain, but then must supplement this reward with the caveat that suicide would annul it (because otherwise everyone would immediately kill themselves so they could achieve Heaven⁄Nirvana). The suicide prohibition is mere evidence to me, and does little to damage Religion's effectiveness. In fact, I think Religion is pretty useful in reducing the fear of death, I just wish that the price wasn't all sorts of ulterior ignorances. In particular, every religion seems to elevate the human to a higher, more exclusive plane of existence, which results in all sorts of environmental degradation because we think we're special when really the same laws apply to us as any other species.
And finally, a couple disclaimers: I have tried to speak of Religion with a capital R, but it is quite possible nothing said herein applies beyond the domain of Christianity. Much of my struggle with Religion involves the Christianity⁄Judaism⁄Islam triumvirate which I know far better than Eastern or less popular religions. Even critiquing these 3 is tough, since Judaism, as I understand it, does not have an idea of heaven, instead choosing to posit that “the reward for a life well-lived is a life well-lived”, a tautology which also circumvents the problem of meaninglessness albeit in a much more agreeable manner. Secondly, I am sure there are specific passages of scripture which function as counterexamples to my arguments. But that misses my point entirely: these passages which justify embodying transcendent laws here on Earth are the very symptom of my argument and not its refutation. Whether God or a prophet says that we need to enact religious law on Earth, the problem is still why this need be done. And “because Moses said so” is pretty much the most asinine answer possible, falling back on the very authority of the transcendent which by its very nature cannot demonstrate its purpose here in the corporeal world.

Black Square (Malevich)

I think I can finally articulate why I find stereotypical modern art—as embodied by Malevich's Suprematist Composition: White on White—so detestable. The reason is that this utterly useless art feels that it's actually articulating something new or pertinent, making a sophisticated meta-aesthetic argument, when really it is just repeating the obvious. Take, for instance, another prototypical work: La Trahison Des Images (the treachery/treason of images) which is a painting of a pipe with the sentence Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe. ("this is not a pipe.") written below it. Now, this work of art is famous for its theoretical statement, not its artistry (however one defines that). It makes a point about the relation between signifier and signified.

But it takes a philosopher to think that this wasn't ludicrously obvious already: has anyone ever tried to smoke that painting? Did a frog ever try to hang out inside Monet's Water Lilies? No organism is so asinine, and none should think it amazing to have such pointed out to them in such a limpid work. The value of art lies not in its theoretical underpinnings or tricky sophistries but in its affect, in its ability to shape one's life, views, reality, mood. I would argue that the same is largely true of theory itself, which is why Nietzsche is so powerful despite being a priori wrong in so many instances. "Modern Art", by pointing out the obvious, only insults its audience by presuming they don't already know what is self-evident (further, that which is so self-evident that you need not know it, since in your every action you affirm its truth whether or not you are aware of it) and amputating its ability to affect its audience.

It should be noted that this argument does equate to the fairly vulgar "but anyone could paint that" retort. I, above all, am an advocate of removing mastery from art. These supposed masters, with their expensive University training and works chock full of allusions to other works which I have never heard of, are often worse at their trade due to their own mastery. They start from such a secluded, incestuous frame of reference that it dulls the pure potency of their work: Joyce's Ulysses is best read by someone with no knowledge of the Bible or the Odyssey because it transcends its allusions. Acting like it is a vital work simply because it reworks old ones into a new context is far too reductionist and ignores the truly spectacular elements of the novel which anyone can understand: namely, the formal innovation above and beyond any referential content. On another note, there is plenty of Outsider Art which is created by these same "anyone"s but is nonetheless stunning in its grandeur. Similarly, there are plenty of bands playing music that anyone can play (Nirvana being perhaps the finest example; anyone can play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" but no one but Kurt Cobain is capable of writing it) which is fantastic not for its complexity (if that was true, everyone would listen to nothing but Prog Rock and Joe Satriani) but its emotive effectiveness. The amount of skill or time put into a work can only ever be a blunt and inaccurate proxy for the work's artistry.

There was an anecdote I recall, though I cannot recall from whence it came, that relates a conversation between Slavoj Zizek and Judith Butler.

Z: This is a cup.
B: You can't say that. The correct, philosophically rigorous, statement is: "Within our patriarchal, hetero-normative society which marginalizes not only women and gays but simply anyone who does fit the convenient definitions of genders and sexualities which we possess, this is a cup."
Z: But, my dear, that is precisely the point: everything you just said is implicit in the statement "This is a cup." All of that is implied by the symbolic order within which we are operating; its repetition is mere redundancy.

This conversation replicates what I am talking about: while Butler's (and Malevich's) point is absolutely true, it articulates nothing new, merely making explicit that which was already obvious though implicit. And those who would argue that, for most people, the patriarchal/heteronormative nature of our society is not obvious, I would say that making such a statement does not suddenly change their mind to the contrary. You need persuasion, not truth, to do that, and persuasion is precisely the rhetorical compliment to the affect of art which I discussed above.

Exeunt

Brought up in this city, at the feet of Gamaliel

So I have a few things to say about LeBron James, which I know no one wants to hear probably, and then about education. Bear with me.


LeBron to the Heat is not going to guarantee a championship in the least, and it's mainly because his style and Dwayne Wade's are far too similar. They both are at their best driving to the hoop and neither is a very good three-point shooter, though they both think they are. This means that the defensive strategy against the Heat is going to be fairly simple: pack in the paint, have your wing defenders switch as much as possible, and hope Chris Bosh (the real X-factor here) doesn't go off. Even Bosh isn't really a traditional back-to-the-basket big man. He'll be able to play off of Wade and James' penetration and put up easy numbers (probably a 55% shooting percentage, not unlike Amar'e after Steve Nash came to town) but I'm not sure that his isolation face-ups will be of much use. What the Heat need now is shooters (Mike Miller anyone?) or their spacing will suffer.

On the other end of the court, who is going to hold down the fort? James and Wade also have similar defensive styles; they make tons of plays (seriously, look at their combined blocks/steals per game. It's just not fair) due to their immense athleticism, but that also points to how fundamentally shakey they can be. They're maybe the two best help defenders in the league, but neither is a real stopper one-on-one. On top of that, Bosh is honestly a pretty mediocre defender for a big. So without a true center to guard the paint (I actually love Jarvis Varnado as a draft pick here, he will be able to contribute a block or two and 6 fouls every game) I'm not sure this team can be among the defensive elite without a serious commitment from one of their two wingmen superstars.

To go into further detail, how does this skeleton of a roster match up with the two biggest competitors in the East, the Magic and the Celtics? The Celtics have a defensive commitment from all their players and actually, across the roster, would be about as capable as any team ever of defending this Miami behemoth. KG on Bosh, Paul Pierce on LeBron, Ray Allen (with liberal help from Rajon Rondo) on Wade; that is a pretty good setup. Further, Rondo is actually the Celtics best player now, and point guard is one of the two positions the Heat don't have an All-Star at. Looking over at the Magic, the other position the Heat don't have an All-Star at is center, where Dwight Howard looms large. Further, Howard is the best defensive answer to the Wade/'Bron duo; he intimidates drivers like no other and didn't win back-to-back defensive player of the year awards because of his good looks. The well-balanced and unselfish Magic roster, built around a very distinct offensive style (almost every play they run is out of the 4-out, 1-in set), should be considered the favorites in the East until proven otherwise.

To be quite frank, the way I had hoped this free agency would work out: James goes to NYC with Stoudemire to team up in D'Antoni's offense. That would be perfect because Stoudemire's game actually compliments James': they could pick-and-roll any team to death, and the small lineup with LeBron at the 4 and Amar'e at center would be devastating in the open court. It may have taken a few years to get the right set of roleplayers, but that duo would have been potent. Actually, the Knicks quietly made a great deal yesterday, netting three Golden State players who will fit right into their system whilst giving up (admittedly) their best player in David Lee, so that is a step forward for a franchise that has looked lost for years now. And back in Miami, I'm excited but also a little apprehensive. Two non-point-guards who need to have the ball in their hands to be effective? It's not the way I would build a roster.





I came across this video via the blog Flowing Data recently and it really ticked me off. It is not that I don't think education is a noble goal, or that our education system as presently constructed is somewhere on the spectrum of seriously flawed to utterly broken. The problem is that the issue of education tends to get framed in this context of graduation rates and nothing else. While part of the illogic of this is that graduating alone means nothing without proof that graduates have certain skill sets (much as good grades mean little if the students have no real-world—contextualized and useful—knowledge), the real disturbing part is when people act like graduating more students is going to have a ripple effect across society, leading to more jobs, a more involved citizenry, a better economy, less crime, etc. This is precisely the argument put forth in the above video; the direct implication of improved education is improved economy.

Now one could argue that this is unfair to education, subordinating it to some external goal and neglecting its innate value, but I think it's also just false. I graduated with a double-degree from an elite university and then went to work at a job where the only skill I utilized was my typing speed. One of my friends here just graduated with an Astronomy degree; he's working at a grocery store. The truth is, in the race to educate more people, we're just making it harder for the educated to find ways to apply their learning. We're producing legions of college graduates who will soon find out they went to school for no reason, who will soon be employed in jobs they could have acquired straight out of high school (even a high school degree is overkill for most of these positions). I really think that college should be more of an option and less an assumption; many, many people can make a good living without a Bachelor's degree, or by saving thousands of dollars by getting an Associate's from their local community college. Increasing the graduation rate might actually increase the disillusionment and despair of the populace as we put a bunch of overeducated youths to work in the very positions they went to school to avoid; they think they're above this labor but the market thinks otherwise.

My other major gripe with the video is that it ignores the somewhat-enigmatic maxim "correlation does not imply causation." People who don't graduate high school are more likely to use drugs and be imprisoned, it argues. Now, is the problem that people who don't graduate get into trouble or that people who get into trouble don't graduate ? You cannot simply assume that the causality only goes in one direction, there needs to be genuine empirical proof. The solutions to these two problems are totally different and a perfect educational institution might have little affect on the myriad of other social ills which lead to addiction and imprisonment.

In sum, I'm always too content to criticize so I would like to propose a couple courses of action, ones that I am less an advocate of than simply curious about. First, could we filter students towards beneficial courses of study, for themselves and for our society? This is not a matter of forcing as much as incentivizing. The government has a handle on labor markets, it knows where demand for educated employees will come from, so let's subsidize nursing and outpatient care providers, let's revamp elementary school computer labs while making a certain level of computer literacy mandatory. The primary counter-argument that I can think of—that people should have a choice and equal opportunity to study whatever they want—is so obviously false when you take the status quo into consideration. First of all, there isn't equal opportunity across disciplines now (when was the last time an English department had the same sort of administrative support as Engineering?) and secondly, this whole project is about finding educated people meaningful employment; the alternative of letting them study what they want for 4-7 years and then end up working as a convenience store clerk for 40 years is not ideal, to say the least.

My second plan would be to attack things from the other end; try to alter the job market to reflect the populace's skills and interests. This is not easy without a massive Keynesian support, and that's not the direction our neoliberal politicians are headed (the growing deficit and jobs bills aside). But it's also essential. The easiest and most important example is of "green jobs". Green jobs don't really exist in a substantive quantity now, but they need to. This isn't a matter of remaining profitable and growing the GDP, it's about surviving in the coming decades of scarcity. The market has little incentive, since it's myopic and geared towards creating individual wealth as opposed to societal wealth, but the government can use taxes on polluters and systematic regulation to shift funds into more promising areas. Environmental Science programs, and green courses within other disciplines, are growing greatly, but that won't matter if there isn't a productive outlet for all the knowledge and skills they create. The fate of our society will largely depend on how we handle environmental issues, not on the Dow Jones or even the National Debt. So let's start getting started.

Bye Bye Bombie

In honor of this imminent 4^th of July, considering reading "Letter 16" by Charles Olson in his collection The Maximus Poems.


|- -|  |- - -|  |- - - -|  |- - - - - - -|  |- - - -|  |- - -|  |- -|

He represents, then, that movement of NE monies

away from primary production & trade

to the several cankers of profit-making

which have, like Agyasta, made American great.



Meantime, of course, swallowing up

the land and labor. And now,

the world.

...and then, continued...

In other words, he marks that most neglected of all

economic law: how the coming into existence of benevolence

(the 19th century, left and right)

is the worst, leads to the worst, breeds

what we have:



that the good drives the goods

after the worst,



what we have a word for

That word, for those who are still interested, is "perjorocracy", a most delightful port-manteau. And, while I think that the distinction between "primary production" and "profit-making" is, on the one hand, useful and if anything more relevant today than ever (think of investment banks, think of exchange-traded funds and hedge funds and mutual funds and their fundamental difference from the objects they must manipulate to be profitable), it also does not stand up to any sort of rigorous scrutiny, much like Marx's distinction between "use value" and "exchange value" (see, for instance, some Baudrillard's most persuasive arguments on this latter issue).


On an unrelated (except spatially) note, HTML seems to be made for poetry (no, it was made for physics research papers...strange that those two could be so close stylistically) and now that I know it, I will write my posts directly in the "Edit HTML" page since it gives me much more control over layout and accessibility. The code that the "Compose" tab generates is hideous (see this page's source code for evidence). I also want to write a poem using HTML, something which I am certain has been done before but is nonetheless necessary.


Signing off,

Ejypt

Bely the Blood / Rely on Love

Two poems & a quote from the author of Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials.

{0} - - {0}

    ___

Nuclear ratiocination / extinction imminent
set this fucker aflame sententious profanity.
Partial parturition makes all myrmidons squirm
with maternal minions' umbilical umbrage

as a rock
wants to
go on being
a rock
for all time

operative word wants
as if inanimate was but
an exceptionally stupid
class of sentient, as if

we will live out our lifetimes without being wiped out.

   ___

{0} - - {0}
    

I'd Rather Be a Hopeless Nihilist

Than Doomed & Devout

or ToTellTheTruthToATumor

I hear you hollering
from every trailer park on Earth
from within tourniquet quotation marks
"You're one harrowed terrapin
on a Laodicean odyssey / over seas of apathy
/ didn't vote for decades
thus
don't deserve a dime more.
Might as well march about
strutting signs with insane axioms
proclaiming postulates no policy 
can affirm / keep your goddamn
government hands off of my Medicare."
The Talking Heads and I
can agree on one thing:
the hands of a government man.
We all need a witness
we all beg for forgiveness.
I will take your paranoia
and make it real / graph 
the apophenia in Excel.
I hear you hollering
"Do what you will
just don't, don't make
it meaningless. Confirm
the cancer / cancel 
every check
I ever
wrote / cremate
all creation
/ but don't bely TRVTH
just because
you were a nihilist
in your youth."

My only rebuttal:
nothing has more
hope than your
world ever will.

{0} - - {0}{0} - - {0}{0} - - {0}

"If there is putsch against the established order, it is conducted by developing a heretical nomality and dismantling the myth of transgression" - Reza Negarestani, Lessons in Schizophrenia

Bodies, Be Them Docile or Destructive

We have trouble with these incorporeal corporations incorporated in
corporeal effects and/or an unwavering numen
they’re warped whether you’re pragmatic or idealist.
Give me a power forward who can shoot
jumpers, rebound the ball, & space the floor.
In Foucault, there’s always again this problem of focus
where power is both micro and macro
but never quite in itself and an individual at once. Power is a change
in the relations between subjects and for that very reason its meaning
must be differential, sloped if you will—dribble drives
to the proverbial bucket, be them blunted or broke—
and there’s no reason to think that power is a verb
with a consistent subject and object.
It’s a fallacy to expect its relations to be dualistic,
ruler-ruled,

colonizer-colonized
even if these oversimplifications can be useful in the larger context
of an abstract plane where power flows through subjects.
Add the advanced layers

players & teams
subjective causality. How my transcripts
arrive at PR companies
who then lie to news reporters about products
that have been recalled in the U.S.
shipping containers on a saffron freight slug
-ing across the country, tagged by AZTEmiC &
icy frillz to be sold in some Mexico
cornerstores and Dutch cafes.

We have a better chance of winning because of it.

Boom Bap Doom Rap

"Above all, revolutionary change is not a matter of instantaneous redemption, but of generating a critical desire in the people, a desire capable not only capable of questioning authority or the status quo (such desires are almost ubiquitous on the far Right), but of questioning itself. The people must become critical of their own desires, they must ask why they want what they want, rather than always criticizing from a position of certainty." --Planomenology, Revolution LOL *Update Again*

"Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening."--Eloi Cole, man from the future

/(-)\thehillshaveeyes/(-)\

Working on the Nebuchadnezzar album has me thinking about and listening to hip-hop a lot a lot so, instead of attacking the tens of items on my to do lists, I decided to write-up another Top Ten. There's little to no hope of ordering these albums in a hierarchy, so I'm just going to annotate the list and leave it at that. There's a lengthy honorable mentions section because, predictably, I find it hard to leave out so much amazing music. Comments encouraged.

Top Ten Hip-Hop Albums

• 36 Chambers / Wu-Tang Clan. A tour-de-force of brilliant beats, piano riffs sprinkled around threatening verses. Even if you hate drug talk gangster rap, this album is still a landmark just for the production, but Wu-Tang's rhymes have always transcended their peers as well. They own the group dynamic, building songs by interweaving their different tones and cadences. "Homicide's illegal and death is the penalty"
• The No Music / Themselves. Doseone is one of my favorite rappers, and this probably isn't even my favorite album of his (perhaps Subtle's A New White would take that honor) but it's an important work for avant garde hip-hop. Dose displays such a variety of flows, from simple and anthemic on standout Good People Check to unbelievably fast and schizophrenic on Live Trap, that the album has something for everyone, but as a whole confounds everyone. "There were two skies that day, one in the air and one's yolk reflecting off a twelve-story building's glass"
• The Cold Vein / Cannibal Ox. I needed an El-P production on the list and this album beats out Fantastic Damage because of the Can Ox duo's superior flows. Vordul and Vast Aire complement each other well, with Aire spitting slow puns and Vordul focusing on stream-of-consciousness continuity, and El-P's harsh electronica evokes a perfect grim city background to their lyrics. "Early bird gets that worm but the early worm finds a spot in early bird's stomach and can't escape from it"
• Labor Days / Aesop Rock. In terms of hip-hop theme albums, only the bizarre The Weather comes close to this epic. Aesop deals with work, alienation, poverty, and creativity in an inspiring and provocative manner over a series of similar, organic Blockhead beats. I love Bazooka Tooth more than most, but it doesn't hold a stick to the lyrical and musical coherence of LD. "I want to be something spectacular on the day the sun runs out of batteries"
• Madvillainy / Madvillain. The combination of Madlib's old school, fuzzed-out beats and MF Doom's ridiculous wordplay makes for entertaining and often mindbending music. More lighthearted than the other albums on this list, the album has a sense of cartoonish humor and is easily digestible, even for mainstream hip-hop fans. "Four blasts from the blunt, been 'shrooming since last month"
• cLOUDDEAD / cLOUDDEAD. This might be the first hip-hop album that really blew my mind and made me realize its limitless potentials. Odd Nosdam's production, distorted and slow with plenty of street noise and power drills, sounds like Houston hip-hop gone industrial, while Doseone and Why?'s harmony raps and bipolar back-and-forth are at turns poetic and silly. Their self-mockery and emotional vulnerability counteract the pretentiousness of abstract poetry rap. "God, did you remember to render everything?"
• Boy in da Corner / Dizzee Rascal. Dizzee's raps are less esoteric than the other fare here (i.e. Aesop and Dose) but very three dimensional. He alternates between typical braggadocio (Fix Up, Look Sharp) and insecure introversion (Sittin' Here) in a way that's less contradictory than simply human. The grime production complements the lyrics quite well, a mixture of pretty melodies and atonal distortion. "Review the situation: take part, take over"
• Revolutionary, Vol. I / Immortal Technique. While the production is nothing special, Technique's flow and intelligence is. His rhymes are expertly interlocked, tough and witty all at once, but--most importantly--backed by critical thought and legit politics. While none of the albums herein approach pop rap's greed and vapidity, the two Revolutionary albums are the most thoughtful and effective rejoinder to that wasteland. "I drop knowledge so heavy it leaves the world unbalanced"
• Arrhythmia / Anti-Pop Consortium. I almost prefer The Ends Against the Middle EP, but this album wins out by virtue of quantity and not necessarily quality. APC, like Can Ox and Wu-Tang, use the group dynamic to great effect, playing slower flows (Beans) off of more rapid ones (M. Sayyid). But APC's production was just as innovative as their abstract flows; witness the table tennis sample on aptly-titled Ping Pong or the elephant noises and operatic midsection of seminal track Mega. "My symphonic monopoly philosophy sloppily etches notes awkwardly" 
• Two/Three / Dabrye. The last album to make the list, this was a difficult choice because of its newness. Will I still love this album in ten years, or will it be rendered irrelevant by better releases in the same style? In any case, Dabrye's first mostly-non-instrumental album is impressive both for the keyboard-heavy, masterful beats as the unparalleled collection of eclectic and talented guest rappers. Almost half of the Top Ten is represented, as Aesop Rock, Beans, MF Doom, and Vast Aire are sprinkled throughout the first seven tracks. "Signifier of the colonized mind"

Honorable Mentions in No Particular Order

• Temporary Forever - Busdriver
• Fantastic Damage - El-P
• Funcrusher Plus - Company Flow
• Abandoned Language - Dälek
• Octagonecologyst - Dr. Octagon
• Liquid Swords - The GZA
• Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II - Raekwon
• Illmatic - Nas
• Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives - Prefuse 73
• It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy