Monday Nite Thinktank

I find it funny that when guys talk about feeling down, feeling depressed, etc., advice always offered up if said individual is single can almost without fail include "get a girl." The reason I find this humorous is that I have seldom seen anyone who is happier in a relationship than they are out of one. Like Nietzsche said, "Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent." Now, I would like to defend myself and say that I am not in any way misogynistic, as I will apply this thought in reverse as well (in the sense of it affecting women as well as men.)

Thoughts on the Grammys while DJ-ing at a college alternative radio station

The 53rd Grammy Awards happened tonight and I was too busy being a DJ to watch them. So I'll give you my reactions to the categories that mattered to me while looking at the Wikipedia page for the event.

Record of the Year/Song of the Year Combo:
I wish "Fuck You" by Cee Lo Green had won, because then people on the radio would be struggling to talk about which song won the next day on the radio.

Album of the Year:
I'm actually really surprised that Arcade Fire won. I was expecting those tasteless Grammy voters to let some of that other bullshit win. Arcade Fire really deserved the win, The Suburbs is a great album.

Possible Review

I'm considering writing a review of The Social Network. I think I should watch it again, however (I've only seen it once.) If I do end up writing it, it will probably be more of a reaction than a review, per se. Events will unfold as the unfold (is that vague enough?)

3 Libras: An Opinion Essay/Review

Here are some facts right off the bat: 3 Libras is a song by the supergroup A Perfect Circle off of their first album Mer de Noms (French for "Sea of Names") in 2000. It was released as a single in early 2001. If you're interested (which you probably are if you're bothering to read this), here's a link to said video.

3 Libras is my favorite "rock" song. I don't say favorite piece of music of all time, because the Adagietto from Mahler's Symphony No. 5 and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata are also up there. But in terms of popular music, 3 Libras is my favorite for a variety of reasons. There's things to be said about the instrumentation. I could go on about how Josh Freese's delicate ghost strokes on the snare and prominent accentuation of the snare with the crash cymbal hits give the song a sense of poise, how the viola and guitar intertwine to create a magnetic and calming atmosphere that while present, isn't overwhelming, and so on and so forth. This is not, on it's own, why I love the song so. Maynard James Keenan's vocals are this song's pièce de résistance.

Apology

I apologize for my recent lack of posts. I promise I'll write something interesting tomorrow... Or I guess today if you wanna be a time-nazi about it. I promise you.

Emancipation from Tradition

"Tradition" annoys me greatly. I am currently enrolled in a geography class, and the teacher majored in native peoples studies (or something similar), and she goes to Barrow, AK and works with the native people there. Every time she talks about this, I don't see this as a necessarily good thing; she merely helps perpetuate what I like to call a "cult of culture." It saddens me to hear about places like this, where the "actual" natives of a location insist on sticking to their traditions merely as a show of cultural solidarity. I feel especially bad for the children, as they are forced to grow up in an environment almost completely isolated from the world at large, and forced to remain in the same ancestral home and follow these arbitrary, archaic traditions.

Duck and Cover: A Perspective From Another Century

Note: This was written for my English class.  We were instructed to watch the famous short film "Duck and Cover" and give our reaction.  This is that reaction.


Ah, the 1950’s in America; a veritable wonderland of repressed sexuality, not-so-repressed racism, and really unrepressed hatred of communism. A man had a better chance of claiming he were a serial killer and being accepted at a dinner party than pledging support for what could vaguely construed as support for “social-type government policies”. Seeing as I was not alive during this period of time, the reader might wonder where this schema of the fifties came from. My answer would be the 1999 film “Blast from the Past” starring Christopher Walken, Brendan Fraser, and Alicia Silverstone. I have gauged this source to be “reliable”. I also may have taken a few US History courses as well.