<B>THE SHINS: <I>Wincing the Night Away</I></B><BR>
Sub Pop SP 705 (CD). 2007. James Mercer, Joe Chiccarelli, prods.; Phil Ek, Sean Flora, Hiro Ninagawa, Brian Deck, Lars Fox, engs. AAD? TT: 41:52<BR>
Performance ****<BR>
Sonics ****
An essay with the unassuming title of <A HREF="http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/">"Thoughts on Music"</A> has certainly caused a furor over the last week. Of course, it didn't hurt that it was written by Apple's Steve Jobs or that he stated absolutely that digital rights management copy restriction systems "haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy."
As Dave Barry is wont to say, <I>The Singing Neanderthals</I> would be a good name for a rock band, but it's a book by cognitive archeologist Steven Mithen, arging that language and music evolved from a common ancestor. He calls that ur-communication "Hmmmmm" (holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical, and memetic).
Doesn't this phiz look like it should be on a car hood?
Huckleberry gets comfy on the NAS drive.
Distressing news: Vandal punks have defaced the Gaudi-designed dragon at Barcelona's Parque Güell.
I'm mad at the weather. It's cold. Colder, in fact, than it should be. This is why I'm mad. If things were just as they should be, I wouldn't complain.
<I>The Economist</I> opines that Steve Jobs' anti-DRM argument is "in short, . . . transparently self-serving. It also happens to be right."
<I>The Smithsonian</I> has a fascinating article about the Masks for Facial Disfigurement Department, which fitted disfigured veterans of the Great War with prosthetic faces. One benefit of reading it online is that there's an accompanying video.
Really cool site with labels from Jamaican singles. Get your analog nerd on.