perfidy

Once again, Bush makes it crystal clear that he, personally, does not believe there's a direct link between 9/11 and Iraq. Doesn't it wear this guy down even a little to have to go out there and push this crap, continuously? Bush speaks.

We're approaching the fifth anniversary of the September the 11th attacks -- and since that day, we have taken the fight to the enemy. Yet this war is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.

He spoke to the Seafarer's union too:

And my message to the world is this: Just treat us the way we treat you. That's all we expect.

The following was published at blogcritics.org as a supplement and companion piece to my review of Pere Ubu's Why I Hate Women:

Over the past decade and a half, I have probably written a couple hundred reviews of albums by artists from Sam Cooke to Samhain. When the PR firm handling the fifteenth album by the formerly Cleveland-based new wave band Pere Ubu, Why I Hate Women, asked me for a review, I agreed to give it a shot. I'm a big fan of Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas, and his last couple projects have been right up my alley. But as I sat there staring at the blinking cursor on a blank field of black, I tried to write a straight review and found I just couldn't do it.

What I turned out instead was (very kindly) kicked back to me by an editor, who asked in essence, "um, this is very nice... what is it?"

Well, long story short, I love music, but I'm damn sick and tired of writing music reviews.

The usual formula goes as follows:

"Band X formed in Year A and influenced Y1, Y2 and the incredibly obscure Y3, who had one single on the Kankakee, MI based Fancypants label. Their newest album, X', is a (adjective) non/departure from their previous work. Adjective, adjective adverb quality assessment, subordinate clause hedging previous assertions. X' is recommended to fans of A, A', and A'', but is not as essential as classic album X''. "

There's a lot you can do with that basic template, and a quick glance back through my Blogcritics archive will reveal a number of (if I do say so myself) pretty good variations on that classic theme. Unfortunately, templates are limiting. If you'll permit me to disappear up my own bunghole for a thousand words or so...

The novel form was stale as long ago as the 1760s, when Laurence Stern broke all the rules of narrative and continuity in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Ever read that book? It's awesome. Ostensibly the autobiography of Tristram Shandy, the 900-odd page novel only gets up to recounting the events of a few hours after his birth before Shandy (Stern) gives it up and quits.

The entire book is a sort of deconstruction of the novel form, as well as a very smart parody of the eighteenth-century penchant for flowery apologies. I mean, the first four or five chapters are an extended explanation-by-way-of-apology for his parents' moods at his moment of conception, followed by a chapter following young sperm-Tristram on its journey to meet egg-Tristram!

The rest of the book is a study in digression, with fake-but-accurate musings on noses, names, women, and tragic groin injuries, and every so often an entire chapter apologizing for not ever getting to the point of writing about his life. That book was written a good hundred years and more before Dickens and Hardy would perfect the English novel, and already the form was done!

The modern record album review dates from - what? 1966? That's when Paul Williams published "How Rock Communicates" in the inaugural issue of the rock-zine Crawdaddy, which was just about the first time that anyone took rock music seriously as a worthy subject of critical examination. Only five years later, Lester Bangs was kicking back against that staid and hoary 'tradition,' writing first-person-heavy rants and love letters only thinly disguised as "reviews." That's less then five years between the genre's inception and jumping the shark.

So little wonder that, after writing a couple hundred-odd album reviews, some of which are perfectly normal and some of which have merely nibbled at the boundaries of what a review normally is, I've gotten dangerously bored. As if you care.

Here's the trouble. I think many, if not most, of the people who write about music for Blogcritics would agree that it's impossible to be perfectly objective about music. Part of its attraction, after all, is the intensely personal reaction that it evokes in someone. That is, part of music's appeal is its subjectivity - how it makes you feel.

Long ago, I gave up trying to be The Voice of Authority. What the hell do I know that other people don't? Nothin'. So, I figure the best I can aspire to is to relate to music fans and prospective buyers what exactly a certain album does for me; yep, how it makes me feel. Whether or not someone else will encounter a song or album the same way as I do is a one in a million shot, but still I can't see it any other way.

I can't possibly imagine for the life of me why my good friend Ron doesn't think Wolf Confessor Brings The Flood Neko Case's is the best album of the year, and I have no idea why anyone thinks the Black Eyed Peas have made a half-decent single since "Joints and Jam" in 1998. So, all I can do is make sure when I write a review, that the reader understands where I'm coming from, because that's as important as what I say about the music. But how do you make what you feel about the music relevant to the album, without tipping too far over into mere masturbatory autobiography?

When I sat in front of that blinking cursor trying to write a review of Pere Ubu's new album, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bear to write another X-Y-Z review, especially of a band that has spent nearly three decades deconstructing rock music. That would just be weak. So, instead I ended up with a short story (or something) that summed up how the album made me feel. By a stroke of luck, the lyrics (which I hadn't even really absorbed by that point) matched the story in my head pretty much exactly, so in they went.

Was the result a review? I guess, but only at a remove. My wife read it and opined that she never ever wanted to hear any album anything like what the story described, and she's right. It's totally not up her alley. So, success! Okay, what I wrote won't tell you whether Keith Moline's guitar work is reminiscent of Robert Fripp (sure it is, why not?), but that's not really as important as knowing whether the album is going to make you run screaming, and I figure a story can do that just as well as a sober transmission of data.

Anyway, after all that hoo-ha and bullplop philosophizing, if you still hunger for a more straightforward review of Why I Hate Women, here you go.

The press release I have describes Why I Hate Women as "a disorienting mix of Midwestern riff rock, 'found' sound, analog synthesizers, falling-apart song structures and careening vocals," and that's about right. Having had someone already write this is a load off my mind, as I don't have to struggle to come up with the appropriate metaphors on my own. I really am sick of writing descriptive music reviews, even about such a disturbing, fascinating, and very nearly brilliant piece of post-rock.

Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas (a bearish Clevelander who now makes his home on the English coast) has spent thirty years tearing at the fabric of rock music. His first band, Rocket From the Tombs, wrote songs that were for the time (the early 1970s) and place (Cleveland), practically from another planet. His singing voice was then (as now) a strangled whine that seems to emanate from that part of the chest that clenches when you puke (Neil Strauss of The New York Times describes it as "David Byrne with a plugged nose,"), and the lyrics to Rocket From The Tombs songs like "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Final Solution" toyed with the outer reaches of suicidal disaffection with a surprising amount of wit and grace. Even before there was such a thing as punk rock, Thomas and RFTT band members Peter Laughner and Gene O'Connor (better known as Cheetah Chrome of The Dead Boys) seemed to be trying to move right past it to the next thing.

Thomas has made fourteen albums, with Pere Ubu, none of which I'm incredibly familiar with. But I do know Rocket From The Tombs, and I do know Pere Ubu's reputation for making difficult and stand-offish music that attempts to reinvent the wheel to varying degrees of success. How could I write a straight review about a band fronted by a guy who was postpunk before there was a punk to be post of?

All of this was in my head when I gave Why I Hate Women its test spins. The first time I listened to it through, I didn't like it very much at all. Nearly every song on the album features a heavy dose of Theremin (the electronic instrument that gives cheesy old horror movie soundtracks their noooWEEEEoooo factor), and through my bargain-basement earbud headphones, listening to the album was like taking a power drill to my eardrums. Upon repeated listens through better speakers, the music took on more focus and balance, and the underlying attractions began to show through. Jackhammer guitar riffs alternated with queasy atmospheric soundscapes, and Thomas' nasal vocals lend a suitable sense of dread and foreboding to his elliptical and impressionistic lyrics.

Thomas claims that Why I Hate Women was written with an overarching story in mind: "the back story is more or less detailed and peopled with characters. The purpose of the album then becomes to capture a specific psychological moment from one of those characters." I figured, why not take a shot at that story?

David Thomas has compared this album to a Jim Thompson novel, and I can see his point. Thompson was another stylistic innovator, a crime writer who wrote pulpy and disturbing novels from the point of view of the unredeemable killer rather than the rugged and flawed (but likeable!) detective. Although not easy, the album does bear repeated listens, in the same way most people have to experience Frank Zappa's music as unpleasant twaddle a few times before things finally click and his approach begins to make sense.

So I wrote a story for a review. Have I jumped the shark? Have I inaugurated a rich new genre of music writing that will sweep the world in the weeks and months to come? Or, in the immortal words of Mel Brooks, am I just jerking off?

To celebrate Labor Day, the Ministry continues to riducule and belittle the states of our glorious Union. On deck is the last of the 'M' states, Montana, where the buffalo roam and home is a shack in the wilderness.

• We’ll be first to go when the glaciers come
• Population: 12
• Where what a man does with his cattle is his business
• Now with 50% fewer radical dissidents
• At least our cows are sane
• The New Jersey of the Upper Midwest
• Mountainous, know what I mean? Nudge, nudge
• It's where you're wanted
• Big Pie Country
• We Dug up Our State to Enrich Eastern Mining Interests
• Anti-Government-Isolationist-Compound Conventions Welcome!
• Bring Your Own Guns
• If you’re tracing the steps of that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance guy, get the fuck out.
• Land of the Big Sky, and and a lot of dirt
• The Stubtoe State. Don’t Ask
• One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. Unless, of course, you don't believe in that sort of thing, in which case you can find a patch of land, build an arsenal, write a manifesto and start your own damned government.
• Turn The Lights Out When You Leave
• Proud Home of Gary Fucking Cooper
• Your Militia Is Safe Here
• We could all fit in Cleveland, Ohio
• We've got lots of 10'x10' shacks in the woods
• Land of the Big Sky, the Unabomber, Right-Wing Crazies, and Very Little Else
• Is Mercury Poisonous?
• More guns per capita than Detroit
• More Prairie Dogs than People

It gradually dawns on you that the drive from Vermont to Cleveland probably shouldn't have been attempted at night, especially given the circumstances. Tarry highway coffee can't beat back the buzzing behind your eyes and the vile taste of exhaustion rising at the back of your throat. The last time you looked in the mirror, the bruises around your neck had blossomed from faint red suggestions of violence into splendid purple and blue memorials of the last hour you'll ever spend in that town. You need a shave and a transfusion probably wouldn't hurt either.

You reach down to press in the cigarette lighter, and as you look away from the road the edge of your eye catches sight of the furry... thing... driving the white panel truck as it blows past you on the right. What the hell?

Later, pitching the dead end of the same cigarette out the window, you swear the trees furring the black hills to the north suddenly resolve themselves into a gigantic man-shaped figure rising out of the woods against an inky Berkshire sky and striding off to the west. A second later, you pass a tractor-trailer. When you are able to look back north, there is nothing there but trees and sky.

As the exhaustion creeps deeper into your chest, you drift in and out of awareness, the center line a punctuated commentary on the tedium of driving through upstate New York. You climb that line hand over hand, every mile one mile closer to Cleveland. The radio cuts in and out, a jittery melange of classic rock, bad country, and paranoid ranting about God, UFOs and government conspiracies.

It is some time before you realize that the whirring you hear is the car's front wheels grasping blindly at mud. You open your eyes. It is some time before you realize that you aren't driving any more, and that you probably shouldn't try to move in case it makes the pain hurt worse. It is some time before you realize there had been someone in the car with you, and you don't remember where they came from. You wonder what could be making that thrashing sound in the brush down below you.

The night is getting colder, and over the occasional whoosh of passing cars on the highway above, the radio is playing again, a curious mixture of agitated rock, stealthy nightmares, and electronic squealing that echoes the buzzing behind your eyes. There's a theremin playing like a demented steel guitar, and the singer's disembodied nasal voice hovers just above you like a wisp of fog, intoning cryptically about lost luggage, two slices of white bread sealed in a ziploc bag, and bars where the beer don't walk on him. He's got a job for life. In your head -- in my head is a white room where all the good things go. A man with a bag walks in, drops it on the floor and he goes. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I gotta get out of this place else I swear my head will crack - crack!
I gotta get out of this place else I swear my head will crack
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says to Betty Groove

I wait for the dawn but I fear the dawn will not come back
I wait for the dawn but I fear the dawn will not come back
What will you do for me?
What will you do?

There's something that's closin down on me feels like a hand grabbed round my throat
There's something that's closin down on me feels like a hand grabbed round my throat
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says to Betty Groove
What will you do?

I gotta get outa this town for I swear this town will be the death of me
I gotta get outa this town for I swear this town will be the death of me
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says
What will you do for me?

Sleep finally overcomes and the night is split by the red pulsations of emergency vehicles. The activity comes nearer, and the man and the electronic buzzing sing together just for you, with the infinite love of a father for his helpless newborn child,

My eyes are growin tentacles for to grab you
My eyes are growin hand grenades for to have you
My eyes are growin tentacles for to grab you
I live in a house without any windows

My hands are growin spectacles for to grab you
My hands are growin half the night for to have you
My hands are growin spectacles for to grab you
My hands are growin spectacles...
I live in a house without any windows
I got a 40 watt bulb to light up my life.

As the music grows to a stormy climax and abruptly fades into the busy sounds of an upstate New York freeway night, it gradually dawns on you that Cleveland is going to have to wait a while.

When my parents drive out to visit goodwyfe Johno and myself, they usually bring a giant haul of goodies; vegetables from their garden, blueberries or apples from their bushes and trees, and jams, jellies, and pickles. Usually, they bring more than we can possibly use.

Two weeks ago my parents came to town, and when they left, our refrigerator and pantry were bursting: leeks the size of baseball bats, summer squash of every size and description, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans, dozens of yellow onions tasting of the Ohio earth they grew in, enough shallots and garlic to see us through to spring 2008 (at least), and a good eight pounds of blueberries.

Now, my parents' blueberries are spectacular. Some of them are gigantic and mellow specimens, but others are much smaller and a little tart, but absolutely full of flavor.

And me being me, the first thing I thought this year when faced with eight pounds of berries, was "hey - I can make beer out of that!" (Of course, that's what I think every time I see a potato, pepper, bag of kaffir lime leaves, cherry, apple, or old shoe, so it's not like I'm exactly making a leap here.) Many, if not most, blueberry beers are made with blueberry essence or extract, which imparts the flavor of blueberries without turning the beer purple. Unfortunately, blueberry extracts tend to behave a lot like imitation vanilla - if buried way down in the mix as part of a recipe, they work great and do the job of providing acceptable flavor for a minimum cost. However, once they take center stage, their shortcomings (mainly the one-dimensionality of their flavor) become apparent. And although I could certainly come by canned blueberry pulp or several kinds of extract from a beer supplier, here I am with fresh berries and an overzealous desire to do everything the hard way.

So I say, "nuts to all that!" If my beer must be purple, so be it! I have fresh berries to use, and as God is my witness, they shall be beer!

Brew #11: Buckeye Blueberry Ale

1 Munton & Fison Export Pilsener kit, hopped liquid malt extract.
1 lb honey (in this case, wildflower honey from local bees, because I'm like that.)
2 lb frozen Ohio blueberries
EasYeast European Ale Yeast, liquid

For this recipe, which was going to be a blueberry wheat until my supplier didn't have any wheat malt, I used for the first time a can of hopped malt extract that does not require boiling before fermentation. To make an all-malt beer, you need two such cans, but since I'm after not only a light-colored but a light-bodied beer, I went with one can of malt extract, one pound of honey both for alcohol and for a dry finish, and whatever sugar turns out to be in the berries.

Since this recipe didn't require boiling, this was an ass-easy brew.

Brought two gallons spring water to a boil and added the berries in a gauze bag. Held for 15 minutes at 160-180 degrees to pasteurize. Added the malt extract and honey and held at 160-180 for ten more minutes to pasteurize the honey, which was probably not necessary but the safe thing to do.

Removed brew pot to an ice bath and reduced to 75 degrees. Added three gallons of room-temperature distilled water to fermentor and added contents of brew pot, including the bag of berries. Poured the wort back and forth to aerate. Pitched yeast at 72 degrees and fitted airlock.

At pitching, this is a pale beer with a dramatic orangy-pinky-purply tinge from all the anthocyanin pigments released from the frozen berries. You ever peed the morning after eating a lot of beets? My beer is that color. Cool.

I don't really expect that very much berry flavor is going to survive the primary fermentation - it's probably mostly going to fly out the airlock with the gases. As such, I'm considering adding another pound or so of berries at the end of primary that will macerate in the young beer and replace the lost berry flavor. This will also kickstart another small fermentation as the yeast eat the fresh berry sugars. If I can figure out a way to pasteurize the berries (maybe by heating them to 20 minutes and cooling them in a sanitary environment?) I'll try this. Or, I might just let it go and see what I get for the minimum of effort.

It's a bit of a mystery as to whether this beer will turn out well. But, if I did everything right the first time, I'd never learn anything.

[wik] Very light body with a orangy-purple color and a light pink head. Flavor is very light, almost watery, buy crisp and tart from the faint berry flavor. Not a home run, but nicely engaging as a glass to drink. I'll need to double the fruit and add in some light crystal malt next time in order to make it really good. On the other hand, the yeast is really nice and I want to see it in something darker for sure.

I play the guitar. By which I mean that I know some chords and can improvise a lame lead built in a pentatonic box. That knowledge pretty much grants access to the entire AC/DC catalog which, really, ought to be enough for anyone.

But there are legions of folks in this great land of ours who are just starting and can't yet play by ear. Others seek more than what Angus Young can teach us- odd, yes, but they're out there and I've met them. They want an edge, a little more knowledge, or at the very least, a more refined dabbling in the guitary arts. Some people take private lessons which, judging by the fliers I see at any given moment on any campus or metro area, must be a booming business.

The quickest way though to learn how to play a song yourself, and if you can't do it by ear, is to use tablature. Tab is a graphical shorthand that explains where your fingers go on certain strings. Tab can help you fret a weird chord you didn't hear in the song, or with a spiffy lead run you can't pick out yourself. It also has the benefit of having near instantaneous utility, as opposed to having to train to read formal sheet music. If you can see, you can apply tablature. Its main drawback though is that tab cannot help you if you don't already know how the song is supposed to sound.

As with every other perversion, the internets are full of tablature sites. Typically, more skilled players will post their shorthand interpretations of popular songs for novices. They are free, and understood to be a sort of fraternal public service. Yours truly, not 2 weeks ago, consulted a site because I knew the tuning of a song was all fucky, and didn't get it. In about 10 seconds I was able to find the song, see the layout, go "Oh, THAT's how...", and presto-change-o, could play the song.

But now the lawyers got wind of it, so it's all fucked up for everybody.

The site I used for tab, OLGA, has been down for awhile. They've now posted links to the nastygrams they got from the law firm representing the National Music Publishers Association and the Music Publishers Association of the United States that accuse OLGA, and several similar sites, of copyright infringement and ordered them to stop operating. Their argument is that because music writers, transcribers, and related fields have to go through the legal hassle of following copyright law when they do their business, the result of which is selling songbooks and such to musicians, offering what is ostensibly the same service for free (yet still generating an income with blogads and such) is illegal.

So dig, I can get- marginally- the infringement argument. That's the law, the publishers feel threatened, and seek remedy through legal action. As far as a reasonably well-adjusted society's legal mechanism working, I get it. But the MPA said a little too much with this remark:

We are doing this to protect the interests of the creators and publishers of music so that, the profession of songwriting remains viable and that new and exciting music will be continued to be created and enjoyed for generations to come.

So- just so I'm clear- the Music Publisher's Association's position is that, if the broader population know how to play older, previously released music, musicians will no longer care to produce new work?

I'm pretty sure that wide popularity has not yet worked AGAINST a musician. And it's odd that a dilettante has to explain this to the MPA, but here you go: musicians are artists. Artists create because if they don't, they go mental. Admittedly sometimes they are mental beforehand. But regardless of their personal sanity timeline, artists make art because they have to, not for the friggin pay; are you kidding?! As for the income, I am highly skeptical of the claim that some schmoe running a tab site is winning the big money and fabulous prizes. The whole point is to share information to enjoy the music, not to play musical capitalist. It's not like Russell Simmons made his gajillions on tablature.

And thinking about it, are they going to file cease and desist orders on every cover band in the Union? Because not only do they play copyrighted material, they profit from it too. Sure some get paid in cocaine, but it is, strictly speaking, compensation. And as much as I would love to see crummy cover bands wither and fail, I'd rather it done through people telling them they suck by not paying to see them, than by playing lawyer-ball. Although, to be fair, they may have tried serving them with court papers, but often those folks have no fixed address and it's tough to deliver to "the van with all the bondo on it in the field behind the old fire station."

But let's test the waters here, and see how music publishers feel about this. I will reveal the most secretest secrety secret of rock and roll, right here and now. I am gambling that this revelation will not cause popular music in general, and rock n roll in particular, to screech to a jarring and disastrous halt. I am willing to gamble that, contrary to the MPA's weird assertion, its transcribers will continue to be able "to feed their families". It is nothing less than the Key to Rock. It is the entry path to Chuck Berry; through Crosby, Stills, Nash and (sometimes) Young; past KISS; on to the Ramones, Pearl Jam, and the nu-metal flavor of the month.

I stand at the cliffside now, Prometheus-like, and hereby give the gift of rock and roll fire to the yearning multitudes:

A-C-E-A

Use it wisely, my children.

Now let's see if they send their legal vultures to peck at my innards for all eternity.

One of my favorite flicks, Full Metal Jacket, was on last night.

For me, the whole movie is the first half or so. Everything after the suicide scene gets weirder and weirder, it starts to drag, and byt he end I really don't care what happens to these characters, who I nominally cared about to begin with anyway. But every scene that includes Gunnery Sergeant Hartman cracks me up. And the harder he pushes his recruits, the harder I laugh. Lady Lethal, who I have asked to endure the movie in the past, doesn't really get it. Even after I pause the scene, and repeat the rapid-fire obscenities just to make sure she got them, she agrees they're terrible but can't quite get from there to humor. So, alas, I laugh alone.

And for no better reason than because I fucking feel like it, here are two quotes from FMJ that crack me up to tears. These have been washed and then, heh, back-washed through Altavista's web translator:

Who said that? To whom did the Bumsen say that? Who has slimy little communist shit, Twinkle toed more cocksucker down here, who signed straight its own Exekutionsbefehl? Nobody, huh? Fairy fucking the patin said it. From bumsenden standing. I will pint it all cube bumsender to it. I will pint you to their ass hole suck butter milk.

And my personal fave:

Private Pyle you had the best place your ass far and beginning shitting I them cufflinks or me of Tiffany get stuffed will certainly upwards.

Curiously, with the movie fresh in my mind, astonishingly perceptive-and loyal- reader Othershoe provided me this link to discussion of what Joker calls "the Jungian thing". I went two ways with this exchange. First, I was excited at reading reasonably detailed explanations or interpretations of Kubrick's intentions and results with Jungian philosophy in the film. Then, about halfway through, I thanked the Dark Ones that my college days are safely behind me and I didn't have to listen to a roomful of students discuss the hidden, and probably made-up, meanings in movies.

Mad props to Othershoe for providing a trifecta of entertainment, nostalgia, and the creeping feeling you're going to blow the final, all in one swell foop.

God bless the lowly search function. I knew that, at some time in the past, Minister Johno had admitted his admiration for the Mexican soap opera.

Due to my advancing years, it helps, of course, that said admission happened within the last three months, but never mind that. I remembered.

And while it wasn't the key point of his missive, or even anything other than a footnote, the second of many such footnotes, it caused me to stop and pay attention to a story in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled "With Sexy Story Lines, Low Budgets, News Corp. Will Launch MyNetworkTV" (sadly, unless I get lucky by linking to the "print" page, subscription required).

Now, my entire exposure to the Mexican soap opera can be found in old episodes of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", when Ryan Stiles was called upon to do improvisations on such things, and always made his point by using his hands to simulate having big, bouncy, heaving sweater puppets. So I, perhaps more than the average normal reader, was taken by the phrasing used by Brooks Barnes in describing the upcoming offering from News Corp. To wit:

Every time News Corp. launches a new television business, it turns to programming that entrenched players decry as schlocky and culturally debasing. Then, in many cases, the company starts printing money.

What? This sounds like fun, even for a guy who's got perhaps two TV shows he watches with any regularity. The article continues:

On Tuesday, Roger Ailes, chairman of News Corp.'s Fox Television Stations, will flip the switch on MyNetworkTV, a new broadcast network that will feature a novel format for mainstream U.S. television: Super-sexy -- and super-cheap -- prime-time soap operas that air six nights a week for limited runs.

It's an over-the-top format borrowed from Spanish-language broadcasters. While story lines on American soaps can drag on for years, Spanish soaps, or telenovelas, deliver immediate gratification. They wrap everything up after 13 weeks, offer a cliffhanger in each episode and culminate with shocking finales that can rack up Super Bowl-size ratings -- just the formula that MyNetwork hopes to duplicate.

U.S. viewers may be jolted by the style and content of the two shows MyNetwork is rolling out next week -- "Desire" and "Fashion House." But "Fox has a way of turning unsophisticated, simplistic programming into a success," says Laura Caraccioli-Davis, an executive vice president at ad-buying firm Starcom Entertainment. She adds: "And this is definitely unsophisticated."

(emphasis, of course, mine)

I'm not sure if they're trying to up the sophistication, or to provide full employment for second-tier talent in Hollywood (neither of which would offend me, nor would they improve my quality of life), but their approach might provide something to help waste more of Johno's increasingly limited free time:

MyNetwork has largely hired actors with limited experience. And in another bid to save money, it is buying telenovela scripts from Mexico, Cuba and other Spanish-speaking countries and translating them into English. It employs a staff of writers to smooth out the story lines and winnow the shows down to 65 episodes from 120, and taping is done on union soundstages well outside the Hollywood infrastructure in San Diego.

Schlock TV, but now in English, with "smoother" story lines, and shorter runs. What more could we ask for in mindless entertainment?

And it's not that I have a problem with mindless TV. Perhaps I'm the only guy who remembers a feature that used to be on (the Comedy Channel? - heck, it might still be on for all I know), called Short Attention Span Theater. Reading the plot development for one episode, SAST was the first thing that came to mind, minus the alleged comedy:

The plot points are rapid-fire. "Desire" is the tale of two brothers who are on the run from the Mafia and happen to be in love with the same woman; one brother sleeps with two different women, dodges a spray of bullets and escapes from an exploding building -- and that's just in the opening 10 minutes of the first episode.

For those rare cases when I'm in the mood to watch crap (and of course, sometimes I am), I prefer that it be really efficiently delivered crap, so that I can either watch twice as much in the allotted time, or spend half as much time watching it.

News Corp to the rescue, it would seem. And I'm rather looking forward to seeing just how bad this stuff can possibly be.

[wik] This all reminds me - I really miss MST3K. Is it still shown anywhere on cable?

[alsø wik] I was surprised to preview this story and see the phrase "...fuck, it might still be on for all I know", and came back here to the entry to find out if I had suffered Tourette's Syndrome. Nope - I typed "h e c k". Honest. Blogging software is amazing, no?

This article on human computer interfaces is fascinating. The author predicts a coming revolution - and that we are overdue for one - in the design of interfaces for our computerized gadgetry, from PCs to phones to media components. Well worth the read, and ties in with advances in the physical construction of interfaces that we've linked here before, like the multi-touch screen, and in the redesign of operating system displays to take advantage of the graphical power of modern PCs.

A while back, Murdoc had a post about the Liftport Group and its efforts to build a beanstalk. Liftport is researching the technologies that will be essential to the creation of a working geosynchronous elevator once materials science finally develops the requisitely strong materials for the beanstalk’s cable. With the invention of carbon nanotubes, it seems that the unobtanium is becoming, possibly, closer to being obtanium.

There was a spirited discussion in the comments to that post, enlivened by the appearance of one of the people working at Liftport, Brian Dunbar. I thought I had (as I seem to have a positive gift for) left the last comment, but surprisingly, a month later, Brian reappeared
and responded to my post. And it’s interesting stuff.

For your ease in reading, I have reproduced below the relevant earlier parts of the thread, so as to make it intelligible. It’s long, but interesting to see someone who is working for a company that is actually trying to build a beanstalk defending his idea on a blog. Sweet. Brian here was responding to some of the more critical commenters:

Fine - we need and encourage critics.

Note however that there are reasons why the old ideas remain ideas and not working systems. Too expensive, too impractical, not the right time, etc.

We think this could be a reasonable alternative. It is an idea worth exploring. If it doesn't work, then we'll know and can move on. If it does then we've got inexpensive access to space.

Which is the real prize, and why I work there. I don't care if CATS comes from laser launch, mass-produced Virgin Galactic SpaceShip2s or fricking magical swans. I do feel that the species needs a way to get to space that doesn't cost an arm and both legs - this is my contribution to that effort.

But the goal is, in the end, access to space.

posted by Brian - August 6, 2006 08:24 AM

The conversation moved to discussion of two-stage to orbit vehicles, and Dfens made the point that, “If it's a good idea that needs a technological jump before it's feasible, then I wait for that technology to improve and revisit my idea. That's the difference between science fiction and actual engineering.” Brian responded to that:

Point taken. Brief nutshell, here is what we're doing;

We think the only thing that requires a technological jump is the ribbon material. People are working on that, but not for space elevator applications. Practical CNT that an Edwards SE would require will be useful in hundreds of applications - enough so that there is a huge incentive to develop it. We might hope it would be sooner than later. Anything can happen to delay this option, so we accept that potential roadblock and move on.

We can't enter that arena and build an R+D effort to catch up with the established labs - no problem. We're not interested in the material so much as using it.

What we're doing is working on the other bits that will be required for a working space elevator. The lifters, for one, and an early result is the subject of this blog post. Politics and legal issues for another - and those two are essential to master for any project.

You're not wrong - but if things do work out then when the CNT does become available a small group of people will be - with some care and luck - in the right position to take advantage of the situation.

It may _not_ happen - the odds are long. But it just might.

posted by Brian - August 7, 2006 01:48 AM

This, I think, is one of the more interesting features of the Liftport project. The way technology moves now, you can actually more or less plan that someone will, in fact, invent what you need – so long as what you need is broadly useful. Finally, we get to the important part, where I comment. I said:

Me, I vote for fricking magical swans.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned - at least here - is that this isn't an either-or proposition. Whether it is a two stage to orbit (Dfens' quarter century old idea, or Rutan's next project, take your pick) a big dumb rocket, Orion nuclear pulse or indeed fricking magical swans, cheap access to space is a *prerequisite* for Brian's magical beanstalk. No matter how stupendously advanced the eventual material, no one has yet (that I'm aware of) come with an idea for a self-deploying beanstalk. We will have to get into space to build it. And that means getting beyond our primitive space technology.

Likely, there will be a great need for testing of the beanstalk concept elsewhere before anyone allows one to be built here on earth. Tethers, rotovators, maybe a lunar beanstalk would likely be necessary (for legal/ safety/ bureaucratic/ product liability reasons. People would want to see that a beanstalk works, and continues to work for a significant period of time before allowing a 100000km carbon nanotube whip to be placed over their heads.

For those reasons, cheap space access is even more necessary for a beanstalk. A beanstalk will be a like a railroad - people will have had to already gone ahead and prepared the way before it can be built. But once built, it will make going to space infinitely cheaper. First though, we've got to make it at least reasonably cheap.

All that aside, I am all for Brian and his comrades spending as much money as they can get their grubby hands on to do the research needed so that when the time comes we will have that beanstalk.

posted by buckethead - August 8, 2006 10:50 AM

I told you all of that, so I could tell you this. Brian responded to my comment:

And that means getting beyond our primitive space technology.

Maybe not.

In terms of material needed we can - we think - get the job done with six to eight Delta IV launches, plus on-orbit assembly.

The last is tricky - it's not like anyone has done this before ... unless you count ISS and MIR. We'll need a place for the assemblers to work and live. Again, it's a new application of somewhat established concepts. But it's been done before.

This is not to poo-poo the difficulty involved, merely to note that it's possible with technology we have now.

People would want to see that a beanstalk works, and continues to work for a significant period of time before allowing a 100000km carbon nanotube whip to be placed over their heads.

Wrong imagery. Any forces that would impart enough energy to play crack-the-whip will shred the material. The stuff is going to be strong, but that level of strong it ain't.

A break? Stuff that is below the break will come down. Stuff above goes up and might be controllable in it's altitude by moving the cars up and down.

The stuff coming down? It's light - kg's per kilometer. It's messy and there are (maybe) some long-term implications if we don't police up the stuff. And if the break is way up there and we have thousands of kilometers coming down? The bits that survive the shock of the breakup will burn on re-entry.

Which is not to make light of any of this - we've got studying to do before we can say with assurance 'yes we can do this' but some basic physics and engineering dictate that a whip hovering over our heads it's not going to be.

More seriously and of longer-term impact - we've got to live here too. We're working hard not to build something that could wrack the planet. Many eye-balls help - and I hope you and other bloggers like you will keep an eye on us and keep us honest.

Enron I don't want to be.

I think that six to eight launches seems optimistic – but that is besides the point. We’ll need a lot of experience in real space construction before this becomes feasible. More to the point, we’ll need a lot more experience with tethers and other long, stringy objects and how they behave in freefall conditions. As I recall, the one time that NASA attempted a tether experiment, the cable got rather tangled. Unspooling a cable the length of a beanstalk will pose significant engineering challenges all by itself. Don’t get me wrong – as any longtime reader of this blog will know, I am a huge space nut. I wrote a twenty page essay on space strategy, as a ferinstance.

Brian knocks me on my space whip imagery. And while I know, and he knows, that a break in a beanstalk would not result in a crack the whip scenario, you can be damn sure that luddites and other undesirables will use exactly that image. The fall of a beanstalk would nevertheless be a significant event, and could be a good deal more damaging than just having a plane or rocket fall on your head.

The real point is, I don’t think we’ll get a beanstalk before we’ve solved, at least to a great degree, the problem of cheap access to space. It gets to the whole bootstrap paradox with space exploration – once you’re there, things become easy. But to get there, things need to get easy.

The potential of the technologies that Brian’s company is researching right now are enormous, and extend far beyond use in a Earth beanstalk. Beanstalks on other worlds will make all that stuff currently trapped at the bottom of deep gravity wells accessible. Rotovators have the further possibility of reducing the cost of travel even between worlds – a network of spinning tethers in free space could play catch with payloads throughout the solar system – some like to pitch and some like to catch. No need for messy and mass-costly rockets, just load on the midlle of a flinger, and lower yourself to the tip, and let centrifugal force fling you toward your destination. A couple of course corrections, and then get caught by another flinger, crank down to the middle, and you’re there. If a beanstalk can be made compact enough to be carried aloft in six or eight Delta IV launches, we could without too much difficulty ship ready-made beanstalks to all the interesting parts of the solar system ahead of any large scale manned exploration missions.

That is the wonderful thing about thinking about space exploration – the possibilities are so entirely open.