Band Review: Blue to Brown

Last night I watched the concert movie Duran Duran: Unstaged. Knowing that would be my Friday review, I decided the perfect Thursday review was the blues duo Blue to Brown, featuring Duran Duran guitarist Dom Brown and his father Rob Brown.

There are generous helpings of funk and groove, as one would wish. Overall, it is pretty basic blues. Vocals tend to the smokier side, growling in the lower registers. It reminded me a little of Joe Cocker and Tom Waits, but more intelligible.

The guitar parts fill me with joy. "Talking Blues" may be the best example, as the guitar speaks and sings. However, listening to "Sweet Mercy" and "Please, Please" together may give you a better idea of the range, with the former punching and aggressive, and the latter soulful and pleading. Conveniently, all three tracks are grouped together on the album, Blue to Brown. The CD can be purchased via the band web site or downloaded via iTunes, along with Dom's solo albums.

They're worth checking out.

http://www.bluetobrown.com/home/

https://www.facebook.com/BluetoBrown

Comic Review: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

For the Immigration Module, one of the suggested additional readings was The Arrival, writing and art by Shaun Tan. I had already read it, and I thought I had written about it before, but I haven't really said much.

This is probably because words would be so inadequate. Although you could make as good a case for it being a picture book as a comic book, it does come up in discussing comics, and a complex conversation on The Arrival goes like this:

1st person: Or The Arrival!

2nd person: Yes!

1st person: I know, right?

A simple conversation eliminates most of that verbiage for sharp inhalations or exhalations, plus looks.

That probably sounds pretty silly, but it I think it is a natural result of having experienced the book. I know I said I "read" it earlier, but there are no words in the book; it is all pictures.

In The Arrival a man says goodbye to his family and travels to a new land, finding work, making acquaintances, and missing his family. Tan gets fanciful in creating many of the basics. The mode of transportation is something we have never seen. In the new land foods, musical instruments, and pets all look strange. You understand what their purpose is from the context, but you can't recognize them. There is no text to give you guidance.

There are still many things that are familiar. We recognize the need to eat, and how it feels to miss family, how it heals to make friends, a love for animals, and the joy of reunion. Because there are no words, there is no need for translation.

I don't know if it is completely universal. There is a visual reference to The Bicycle Thief that a lot of people might miss, though missing it would take nothing from the story. If you live in a small village where no one ever leaves, surrounded by generations, it might feel different than if you live in a country with a long history of immigration. Still, I think a lot is universal.

The artwork simultaneously brings to mind old sepia photographs and Hieronymus Bosch, but in the front and back there are very realistic portraits based on immigrants who came through Ellis Island, just as many other pictures are based on the Ellis Island experience.

No one in my family came from there. On my father's side, everyone came through during colonial times, before there even was a United States of America (except for the Huguenot line; their path was a little more complicated, and diverted through Canada first). My mother married a descendant of those many colonists, leaving Italy as a young bride long after Ellis Island closed.

I still feel connected to those faces. Our humanity connects us, and our need to survive and do hard things and seek something better. If my ancestors came in different ways, they still came.

So in using his art to bring up both the familiar and the strange, Tan gets us to share in his protagonists disorientation, but also in his longing and in his hope, and to touch on those familiar emotions in us.

Having this emotional experience without words makes these incoherent "conversations" that readers have with each other the most sensible exchanges possible. What we mean is that we felt things, and as we felt them strictly through visual means, without words, that is the most basic level of relating to it. We show it in our faces and we breathe.

The story that The Arrival tells is worth seeing, but it is also worthwhile just to get that example of how powerful images can be. The Arrival shows us what pictures can do.

Comic Review for MOOC Module 5: Media, Government Intervention, and Information Privacy

Daredevil V1, written by Mark Waid, art by Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin

I have a terrible feeling now that I have read the wrong section. I saw #4,5,6, and I took that to mean issues in Volume 1, and now wonder if I should have read Volumes 4, 5, and 6. What I read had Matt Murdock's legal career seriously compromised by the news revealing his identity, and then had him resolving a situation by gaining control of some data that basically allowed for mutually assured destruction of various criminal syndicates. However, the descriptions for the following volumes do sound like they could pertain to discussions on media and privacy.

The thought that I might end up reading more Daredevil to keep up does not disturb me, so that is a positive review. I was a little distracted in the resemblance of one of the bad guys to Kick-Ass, but I have not actually read that one, so I could be mistaken.

Transmetropolitan V1, written by Warren Ellis, art by Darick Robertson

This was my introduction to Spider Jerusalem. He is likable at his core, but exhausting to spend time with, and so that's kind of how reading the book goes. The class did get an interview with Warren Ellis, and I don't think he answered a single question as asked, but was nonetheless delightful, and there is probably some symmetry there.

Ellis did tell us that Spider is a child, and yes, that makes sense, but there was also a pause to realize that the is from the late '90s, and so much has passed and developed since then that there is this realization that this is a much more mature writer now, which leads to the next assigned reading...

Global Frequency V1, written by Warren Ellis, multiple artists

I am tempted to call this a more mature work. Transmetropolitan has a lot of depth and smart things going on, and it does have a sense of responsibility as over and over again Spider's motivations do indicate that he cares, but he is lashing out angrily and tempestuously. Those on the Global Frequency are organized, precise (at least as much as possible), and they are trying really hard to do the right thing.

That sounds like it is more optimistic, but some of the issues get very dark. I kind of hate only having "multiple artists" there, because each story had such a distinct look, and the art and the subject melded together. If my favorite image is the parkour practicing agent rising from the Thames after successfully preventing a bomb detonation, the images of a burned out agent perishing with the subjects of horrific experiments is more haunting. The set-up allows for infinite stories.

Nightly News V1, art and writing by Jonathan Hickman

Take the clamor of the loudest pages in Transmetropolitan, and the darkness of the darkest pages of Global Frequency, and you may still not be prepared for Nightly News.

In addition to a complex plot, with some very thin disguises over pretty recognizable characters, and lots of additional statistics, and there is a very real sense of information overload. It is an amazing feat that Hickman created everything that you see and read in the book, but it also feels appropriate, like bringing in another person would have diluted the effect.

It is not a happy feel-good book, but it is powerful.

Comic Review for MOOC Module 4: Immigration

I have finally finished all of the reading and videos for the Massive Open Online Course for Social Issues Through Comic Books. Actually, I have been done for over a week, and I had been done with the comics already, but sometimes the academic papers put me off a bit, as they are often incredibly boring. They often contain good points, and boring is certainly the comic style for the academic paper genre, but it is very sad.

Action Comics #900, written by Paul Cornell, with many artists

Superman Unchained #1, written by Scott Snyder, Pencils and Inks by Jim Lee, Dustin Nguyen, and Scott Williams

I am going to treat these together because I just don't care for Superman that much. We have here the story where Superman renounces his United States citizenship, viewing himself more as a citizen of the world, and wanting to at times take action without it reflecting on the US. At the same time, Clark Kent's Kansas upbringing did raise him, and if what the government wants are not compatible with those values, then that's something to think about.

There were really good discussions on this, and on identity, but I really found the reading tiresome. My favorite part is that when Lex Luthor has a chance to cease all human suffering if he can let his hatred for Superman go (and he can't), there is a moment when we see Death lying back and enjoying the sun on snow with the skier who just suffered a fatal accident. That made me smile, but it was short-lived. (Pun not really intentional, but I know it's there.)

Skin Horse: Book One - Mission Alaska, written by Miguel Angel Garrido and Matthew Weldon, with art by Miguel Angel Garrido

I actually ended up buying the next two books, Tigerlily Jones and Path of the Notary. I think I wanted to anyway, but I justified it as being necessary because they really didn't explore the immigration issue very much, and I thought I would get a better perspective from reading what followed. Book One did end on kind of a cliffhanger.

Instead, the next two books started off completely new, with only a small reference to previous events. The series is like that in general. Characters are described whom you do not see, events are referred to that you were never able to read about, and closure just may not happen.

Taking all of that into account, and even admitting that sometimes it might be trying too hard to be whimsical, it is still pretty funny and the artwork is absolutely adorable.

American Born Chinese, writing and art by Gene Luen Yang

This book is perfect. I don't say that lightly.

It weaves together a tale about the Monkey King with the story of a young boy along a common theme of transformation. There are parts of it that are very uncomfortable, and are so valuable and necessary. This is must-read.

There was one optional reading which I am going to write about Wednesday, but we'll go over the Module 5 reading first.

Band Review: New London Fire

On Facebook New London Fire lists the genre as rock/pop; that is basically true, but such an understatement.

It especially struck me as I was listening to Happiness Through Radios And Wires. Suddenly I was hearing so many different influences. I don't have a great ear, so I don't know if I was really hearing a slack-key guitar, but as much as some songs reminded me of doo-wop and surf music, others did not at all.

Having a greater appreciation at that point for the band's range, on the next round of listening I begin picking up on other little details and accents overall, and in many cases was struck by the beauty.

I have a weakness for bands that can do a lot of different things, and do them well, and New London Fire does. They have three unique albums full of unique songs, and they are getting ready for a new one.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1880093518/new-london-fire-recording

Yes, the reason I am reviewing them this week is to encourage support for the Kickstarter. I had never listened to New London Fire before, but had been following David Debiak for his involvement in Electric Century. Seeing the Kickstarter, I checked them out. This was a good choice.

The band has twenty-three days to collect $1370 toward their total goal of $3000. That budget is a bargain and reward tiers are reasonable.

New London Fire makes good music. Let's help them put a bit more in the world.

http://newlondonfire.com/

https://www.facebook.com/newlondonfireband

https://www.youtube.com/user/newlondonfiretv

https://twitter.com/newlondonfire

Band Review: The Palace Wolves

I have really enjoyed listening to The Palace Wolves.

Based in Atlanta, Georgia, you might expect them to have either more of a Southern Rock or a hip hop influence, and that could not be further from the case. They remind me of my favorite Manchester bands, and a little bit of The Cure. You can hear it in the tuning of the guitars and in the use of the pedals. Effects aren't distracting, just effective. This music takes a hold.

I have noticed a bit late that they are working on a new album, making this review a bit premature, but we can always take another look.

Right now there is an EP available, 12, and tracks can be heard via the band's main site or through Soundcloud.

This band is recommended.

http://www.thepalacewolves.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Palace-Wolves/413761098685991

https://www.youtube.com/user/ThePalaceWolves

https://soundcloud.com/the-palace-wolves

https://twitter.com/ThePalaceWolves

Dehumanization

I am not going to be able to do today's post justice.

I am running late, which doesn't help, but also I am probably too emotional about it.

In the previous two posts, there is an element of dehumanization that focuses on the killer, and nurturing their ability to kill. Grossman mentioned that one of the techniques was vilification of the enemy, but it kind of sounded like that was one of the older and less effective techniques. Still, it seems like it can be effective.

He had also mentioned that in addition to the military not having a high enough shoot to kill rate, the police found a similar issue in the 60s, and that was something that they and the FBI worked on, and improved.

I don't want to sound anti-police here. I tried an experiment recently where for ten minutes you were shown scenes, and then there were people holding something, and you had to decide within a second whether to shoot or holster your weapon. That was the longest ten minutes of my life, and it was just a keyboard and computer screen. For when the danger is real, I don't envy anyone having to make those decisions.

The purpose of that experiment was to look for racial bias in shooting. I did not get results for that, but I do know overall that most people are quicker to pull the trigger on a black man than a white man.

That's nothing new. I remember back in college, over twenty years ago, Professor Taylor saying that officers test results showed that the most frightening image for them was a black man. What's the common defense for shooting? I feared for my life. Since black men are scary, it often works as a defense, and lots of black people get shot even though they don't have guns.

What I want to propose is that there is conditioning at work there too, and there are societal factors that reinforce it, and we need to stop that.

There is an overall devaluation of black life. I am going to focus on some recent information related to the Mike Brown case, and most of these are things that I have seen today.

I need to give a lot of credit to Shaun King for collecting information. One thing they worked on was getting all of the eyewitnesses to the shooting with their accounts together. Most of them did not know each other previously (I think two were coworkers, but did not know Brown), they saw the shooting from different vantage points, but their stories align with each other and with the audio recording of the gunshots and location of Brown's body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8IHIJrY2aE&feature=youtu.be

Even if you discount the friend, there are three other people appearing on camera with their full names, and one with audio evidence speaking through an attorney, but still capable of being deposed. There are still people who would rather believe a radio caller only giving a first name and saying that she heard from a friend that Brown attacked and Wilson was injured. There are still people who are contributing to a fund for Wilson, and before the comments were turned off, there were references to rewards, bounties, animal control, and one down with more to go.

(I will not link, but as I type 5930 people have contributed $235525.)

It looks like GoFundMe no longer has the page for Daniel Holtzclaw, the officer accused of raping black women, but it was also doing well.

There is a lot to be said about the specific abuse of black women, and rape culture, and I don't even have the energy to go there, but there are a couple of things that I do want to get down.

One is that there has been a horrible culture in Ferguson. Not only have the poor been exploited as a way of funding the city budget, which, especially with the racial disparities, is going to create more social tension, but there has also been complete willingness to cover up abuses. The links below are mainly about Ferguson, or at least Saint Louis, but these issue are not unique to them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4HUvXOvgkQ&feature=youtu.be

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-least-6-ferguson-officers-apart-from-brown-shooter-have-been-named-in-lawsuits/2014/08/30/535f7142-2c96-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/

One of the comments that keeps coming up is that Brown's body was left in the street for four hours. It seems unlikely that time period was needed for investigation in a case where the shooting officer has apparently not even filed a report. It certainly doesn't take long to snap pictures. You could just look at it as a lack of respect for Brown's life or his family or really any black life. You could also look at it as lynching, like bodies hung up for display and having postcards sent around after a lynching.

I don't know how much the police force was thinking. The response to the protests was certainly an attempt at intimidation, and suppression, because they don't want to lose their power. The black people are a source of income and a source of ego fulfillment, and people don't like having the power structure disrupted when they're not on the bottom.

That sounds ugly, and it is, but if the response keeps being a willingness to find a way in which Brown deserved to die, than anyone participating in that is an accomplice. Borrowing stock footage as "proof" of Wilson's injuries and releasing video footage of an incident that had nothing to do with the traffic stop is trying to make the murder okay. The stop was for jaywalking, which does not carry the death penalty. If it had been for shoplifting, that also does not carry the death penalty. Someone kneeling on the sidewalk with their hands up, you don't shoot! He doesn't have to be an angel to make that murder. It doesn't have to be premeditated for there to have been a long path leading to it, but that path is not Brown's fault.

As long as we try and justify each individual incident, then we are saying that it's okay that a woman whom a Wal-Mart employee thought might be shoplifting (though she had no merchandise, nor weapons, on her dead body) was shot. It's okay that a guy in a store talking on the phone was shot before he even had a chance to realize what was going on.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/26/1324793/-Video-Shows-John-Crawford-Was-Shot-on-Sight-By-Cops-With-No-Warning-Family-Attorneys-Say

(Not linking to an article on Shelly Frey's death, because the headlines are all calling her a shoplifter, and I read that she had no merchandise. Well, getting shot is the best way to have people assume you deserved it.)

It's okay that a man on his way to a pre-Emmy party, which is a good moment, is held for six hours, even though they apparently arrested a woman for the burglary, indicating that he couldn't have fit the description that well, because he does not look that feminine. But then a call on a car full of black men got a woman and her children pulled over, and her handcuffed, because the car fit the description, except it was a different color and I bet the license plate wasn't even close.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-beverly-hills-police-producer-arrest-robbery-20140828-story.html

http://pix11.com/2014/08/23/police-accidentally-pull-over-mother-at-gunpoint-with-4-young-kids-in-car/

Actually, even just running by work can be dangerous:

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/09/cop-mistakes-black-oakland-firefighter

That's what you do, right? Black means criminal! That's why you have Ben Stein and Linda Chavez saying that you can't call Mike Brown unarmed, really, because he had his big black body.

That's racism! That is structural racism. It's a real thing.

You want to talk about the black on black crime rate? It's very similar to the white on white crime rate. We need to quit justifying all of the ways in which it can be okay every time a black person is shot.

Someone posted recently that whites are reluctant to discuss racism because they take it as an accusation. You know what? It can be uncomfortable to talk about white privilege. I didn't actively set it up. I don't do anything to try and maintain it. But my comfort is not worth black lives, and that's what it comes down to. People die and get harassed and abused because the people who don't actively take pride in racism are too embarrassed to talk about it. That is not good enough.

A different "act of killing"

On first watching The Act of Killing I just wanted to know more. I watched the bonus features and listened to the comments, but I searched for additional material, and found some Youtube interviews. Those were good, but there was another clip that came up with a title that sounded like it might be related:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Ozno7HMGE

Well, not exactly. This was an interview with an author who had studied psychology and the military and violence. The interview was from 1996, so would have been related to his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, published in 1995.

I know some people will not appreciate his comments about movies and video games, and I didn't even notice that the first time through. What really struck me was the change in percentage of who was shooting to kill.

In past conflicts, a lot of people who participated in battles were not really trying to kill anyone. Some were, and succeeded, and with less advances in medical care they could be fairly effective, but still, a lot of people who probably thought they would be able to kill the enemy would get out on the battlefield and find they were wrong.

The military used operant conditioning and classical conditioning to change this. One example is that targets for shooting practice were switched from a bulls eye to a silhouette. That was an early change; there are more sophisticated ones now. It was an evolving process, and you can trace that evolution pretty well.

• World War II - 15% shooting to kill
• Korea - 55%
• Vietnam - 95%

This reminded me of something, where I believe I may have been naive.

A few years ago I read Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape. One thing it talked about was military rape, and it turns out that it was a lot more common for our soldiers to rape people in Vietnam than in World War II. (I don't specifically remember if she wrote anything about Korea.)

From reading, and maybe from my own extrapolation, I thought that it was because of morale - that because World War II felt like a just cause, and heroic, and Vietnam didn't, especially as more people turned against the war.

That may still have played a role, but now I wonder how much teaching people to devalue life effects everything else.

Then one of the books in the Media Module for Social Issues Through Comic Books was Nightly News, and I will review those soon, but one thing it talked about was working on upping the kill rate, and something it added was shooter games being developed for training and recruitment. It's a fairly paranoid book (on purpose), and so you might not be able to trust everything in it, but a lot of the things that it mentions that sound crazy are documented.

So, no, this interview was not connected to the documentary I watched, and in fact happened over a decade before the movie was released, and yet, it does relate.

It relates because although as humans we have a taboo against killing, we can be taught to get around that, and even to enjoy it, but successfully doing that does not take away the toll. Those who fought in Vietnam did have a high rate of shooting to kill, but they have paid a high price after because of the trauma. Today's soldiers are still facing high rates of suicide and PTSD.

The other way in which it connects to the movie is bringing things out. At one point Grossman talks about drafts being shared while he was still writing the book, and conversations being started, where people could "speak the unspeakable". We need that. We need it so that people can heal, and we need it so that we can be really honest about the kind of society we want to have.

The Act of Killing

The Act of Killing is a documentary from 2012 about the Indonesian death squads.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/combined

The first thing I need to say is that it was amazing. I will be writing about many things that happen, but I don't feel that they are spoilers, because viewing would not be spoiled. It is not knowing what happens, but seeing how it feels for those involved. Viewing is an intense experience, but recommended.

The director Joshua Oppenheimer had not originally intended to tell the story the way it went, but those who had been victimized during that time period were reluctant to talk, and the death squad members were eager to talk.

That probably ended up being for the best. Since they came from movie theater gangs and loved film, many are willing to reenact their past, using film techniques. A traditional approach could be very moving and educational, but what you get instead, seeing killers comfortable with their acts, and then bragging, and then maybe not so comfortable has an impact that you wouldn't easily expect.

It's a rather unique situation. It's not that there haven't been other genocides, but usually there is a general consensus that it was wrong afterward, like Post World War II Germany, or the perpetrators were Communists, where even if there is just as much tyranny as fascism resulting, there is this idea of the collective, and that is was for the people. (I'm not saying that the reasoning isn't fallacious, but that it does have an impact.)

Here the slaughter was against the Communists. Instead, the heroes were gangsters, and people refer over and over to how their word for "gangster" comes from "free man", so these are people who go their own way. It is the individual, and someone who is strong.

(Their word is based on the Dutch preman.)

This mindset makes it not terribly surprising when you see a militia leader shaking down Chinese merchants for "donations" to his group, or a political candidate gleefully calculating how much money he can make by threatening building code enforcement, whether there are violations or not. He loses, not because of that, but because he does not give out enough gifts during his campaigning. It is a gangster society, built upon protection money, bribes, and corruption.

There are a lot of interesting things about the movie, and things that you can think about and wonder about a lot. One thing that struck me was two of the main killers, Anwar and Adi, visiting with a newspaper reporter. The reporter commented on how smooth they must have been, because he never suspected that these interrogations and killings were going on right above his head. Adi, with some enjoyment I believe, points out that it basically means he was a lousy reporter, because they were not hiding anything. Normally that would just make me think about failure of the press, except for the way the reporter's face changes when he is told that his boss was in charge. His shock is so personal, that it takes him from a frustrating failure of a journalist to a person coming up against something he was not ready for.

The conversations are important to have, and the movie has been facilitating many conversations, but I want to emphasize how important the "acting", and staging, ended up being.

First of all, things came out. Anwar ends up being the main character, and he is charming. You see him being very sweet and gentle with his grandsons and an injured duck. You also see him demonstrating using a wire to strangle people, because beating them to death was too messy, with blood all over the place and stinking if you didn't clean it up. And you see him doing a little dance talking about this, but then there is also a list of substances used that keeps getting longer, and you see it has taken a toll that has not truly been acknowledged.

A little later they are using a neighbor to play the part of a Communist facing interrogation, and as they are talking before he is smiling and laughing, but then he shares a story that maybe they could use, about his stepfather's murder. The feeling changes as they decide the story is too complicated to share, but there is a hurt that has come up, and as they act out the torture the neighbor is just a mess, but then after he is changed.

To me it felt like he had suppressed that grief and everything bad it had done to him for years, and now it was back. He will have to face it, but there was a hollowness before, and there can be something there now. It felt like he was going to come to terms with it. The film gave him a chance to speak about it, and it gave him a chance to feel what his stepfather and others might have felt, and he can move forward.

With greater involvement in the process, there is a greater effect on Anwar. As he takes on the role of someone interrogated and executed and beheaded, it becomes physically harder for him. His sidekick Herman is having a great time playing with the fake organs, but Anwar is looking ill. He says he could not do the scene again, and the end has him basically dry-heaving at the same spot where we saw him cheerfully talking about his killing methods and dancing at the beginning.

Before the physical breakdown, but after watching the scene where he "dies", Anwar gets contemplative, wondering if he did wrong, and saying he knows now how those men felt. This is one of the view spots where you hear Oppenheimer's voice, as he argues that Anwar knew it was pretend, but those men knew they were really going to die, and it was not the same. Anwar insists that he can feel it.

I am willing to believe that Anwar did feel something close. I believe the creative efforts of staging and acting unlocked the empathy which he had silenced at the time. I say that because of other results of creative expression I have seen, so it makes sense to me, but also because of seeing the weight upon Anwar grow.

It is a hard thing. He is responsible for so much death, and he has stature and respect for that. He is the beneficiary of a cruel and corrupt culture because of his participation in it. He is also a human, and it hurts him, turning off caring about the suffering of others because they "deserve" it is an important step on the road to genocide.

It's kind of like you are watching two movies. There are the scenes that the executioners stage, where it is film making, and there are costumes and effects and a script, but what we are really watching is the documentary about the people creating the other movie.

The other movie ends with a musical number with a waterfall and dancing girls and "Born Free" playing over the scene. In it, Anwar is thanked by two of his victims for sending them to Heaven and given a medal. It is telling that the ending he chose has to be one where it is okay that they were dead. Society has said that it was a necessary thing to get rid of the communists so they could have their freedom, but now he needs the victims to be okay too. That vision is not true enough, which leaves him on the roof struggling to get something out of him that won't leave.

It is horrible, but it needs to be seen and known. It needs to be talked about and felt for all the people who have shut it up inside. It needs to not happen again.

Band Review: Lando

There are two sections on the Lando Studio page. There are several tracks available through Myflashstore.net which seem to be available for commercial use. I am not sure how that works. Then, under "My Music" there are other tracks, most of which are available via iTunes as the album Never Meant To Happen.

The title track was the most affecting for me. A minimalist soundtrack plays over a 9-1-1 call between George, calling in a kid in a hoodie, and following him, ending in a gun shot. I don't know if it is the actual recording, but it doesn't matter. The impending sense of doom builds until the final shot stops your heart, and there is nothing left to say.

It is followed by "If I Could Fly Back In Time" which gives different events that he would try and prevent, stopping tragedies, but then in the refrain going back and telling his mother he was wrong, balancing the social and the personal.

Maternal love is expressed more than once among the songs, which is why it is odd for me to hear the misogyny in "At It", the very next track. It seems like love and admiration for one woman should at least open up the possibility of respecting other women. That and the next track, "We Got The Game On Lock" were probably the worst for that.

The Flash files are generally more dramatic and synthesized than the other tracks, with "The Dark Child" being a good example. However, those elements are not lacking in the other songs. "Spinin'" has some accents that are reminiscent of Carl Orff.

Otherwise it is well done hip hop, with Lando's deep tones giving it a very distinctive voice.

http://www.landostudio.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/never-meant-to-happen/id583585628

https://twitter.com/LandoStudio

Band Review: 40 Lohh

40 Lohh is the stage name of Chris Gibson, who is currently based in Kennesaw, Georgia, though he originally hails from Manchester, New Hampshire. He has several videos available for listening on Youtube.

His emphasis seems to be on hooks, but while listening a lot of the music seemed like it would work better as background, like he might do well scoring commercials or television.

There was an interesting mix of sources sampled, including jingles ("I'm Lovin It"), theme songs ("Everybody Hates Chris"), and contemporary songs ("Break Even").

I thought there might be a connection between how well I liked the original and how well I liked the 40 Lohh version, because I enjoyed his version of "Somebody That I Used To Know", and the Gotye version annoys me to no end. However, I am not particularly fond of Tom Jones' "She's A Lady", and I still found the remix jarring.

My favorite track was "Madness", which may be completely original, or just pulling from material that is unfamiliar to me. It is haunting, and builds intensity nicely.

https://www.facebook.com/40LohhOfficial

https://www.youtube.com/user/40lohh

https://twitter.com/40Lohh

So tired

This is going up late. There has been a cold making its way through the household, and it appears to be my turn.

Even before that, knowing what I wanted to blog about did not feel great, because it feels so repetitive. I say the same things all the time.

It is true that this blog is for me. It helps me work out my thoughts, and keep them organized, and there is a certain amount of discipline involved in posting daily. All of that has worth to me, and I know I don't really have a wide audience, so I shouldn't be expecting to change the world anyway. I guess it just feels self-evident to me that there are changes needed, and that they don't happen is discouraging. I don't need to have a wide audience; the information is out there.

Clearly it must be time to do something lighter, like review comics again, but I do think I need to spend a few posts on The Act of Killing, and I am still going to try to make today's point again. I believe yesterday I promised a grand unified theory of things that annoy me.

There is a common thread between defending hip hop and hating respectability politics on Monday, and believing that there is potential in everyone, and that everyone has something to say on Tuesday, and even writing about how you need to not lose your feelings of love for people on Sunday. It is so common to make these divisions. We are gifted people and you are not. These are hard-working people and these are lazy people. Those are ignorant liberals but we know the truth. It's such a load of crap.

I can believe that their are instinctive elements in it, but there is a lot of conditioning in it too, and somehow the other group always ends up being less valuable in some way.

I believe that when some people hold on so tightly to prejudice and privilege, part of it is knowing that while they are not at the top, they are still above someone, and that feels like enough. I may not understand that mindset enough to really argue it. I do want to go back to this quote from Marriage For Moderns that I used in a different post:

"If a woman can find adequate self-expression through a career rather than through marriage, well and good. Many young women, however, overlook the fact that there are numerous careers that do not furnish any medium or offer any opportunity for self-expression. Besides they do not realize that only the minority of women, as the minority of men, have anything particularly worthwhile to express."

http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2014/06/being-person.html

That attitude infuriates me. I know that when people start talking about limitless human potential it tends to be in a cult setting. Maybe that's just because so many people are selling something. That is probably a part of why I don't feel like I can do any ad-linking on my blog; I don't want to get corrupted.

However, if there is a tendency for there to be profit motivations behind most messages, that's worth looking at too. Because maybe black males get a self-esteem boost for not being black females, and maybe Asian-Americans get a boost from not being African Americans, and maybe poor white males get to look down on all of them, but no one is getting the boost that corporations get from having candidates who will do what they want because they keep getting voted in by people who are voting against their best interests. No one racial group is getting the benefits that gun manufactures are getting, or pharmaceutical companies, or Fox News.

Normally my argument against these kind of things is just that it's wrong. The hierarchy that we have in place causes so much pain and suffering, and then hearing people who are fine with it because they have bought into these divisions is sickening. That should be enough, but apparently it's not. So, it's probably worth pointing out that it is also financially stupid. Living standards go down, health goes down, free time and family time go down, everyone gets brought down together except for the very top.

Someone on Twitter had made a point about how the GOP got us to this current state of polarization, because there are things bearing fruit now that were planted in the Nixon administration. The next logical question was what the liberal strategy was, and I don't think there is one. If you care about people, it feels like that is basic human decency, and it should be self-evident, that some things are wrong and must be stopped. Well, no, there's no evidence that it works that way.

And I know that all of the things that I normally write about self-care, and gratitude and relationships, are true. I haven't really given up on humanity yet. You will know when I do because there will be no more band reviews and songs of the day and travel blogs, because there will be no point. I'm not there yet. But I am kind of discouraged, and only part of it is the cold.

Writing and talent

Yesterday I wrote about getting defensive about Hip Hop on August 21st. On August 22nd I got defensive about writing. They go together in a way that I will probably bring together in a grand unified theory of things that annoy me tomorrow.

It started simply enough with Charles Bivona, poet and writing professor, tweeting about how writing isn't born, but is taught and developed. He pointed to the main common denominator between various great writers was great suffering. As they came to terms with that, perhaps trying to find words for their feelings was the path that led them to being great writers.

It sounded reasonable enough, but it drew a lot of fire. Initially the discussion was simply reminding me of something I had already written about, where there is this kind of snobbery about writing that nothing I have seen bears out.

(That post covers a lot, and is lengthy, so I will link to it at the bottom.)

Let me go back to reviewing music for a moment. My biggest complaint is usually a lack of depth. They play their instruments well, and they are enthusiastic, so there is nothing wrong with it, but there is also nothing new. The bands that do have a unique voice, and can say different things in different ways, are the ones that truly stay with me.

Sometimes I feel like a band is young, and they will get more interesting just doing what they are doing. With others it feels like maybe they need to take six months off to dig wells in Africa or help at an orphanage in Central America -- just something to give them a bigger view of the world. And there are others that I sense will never grow; they are content the way they are. Who they are comes out in their songs. This is even more true for writers.

There is room for a lot of disagreement on who is a great writer. There are writers who write well, but whom I do not enjoy, often because of how much they seem to hate people. I won't begrudge those who do love them. I have my own.

One nice piece of symmetry was that Bivona referred to neuroscience and later that day my new Psychology Today (October 2014) had an interesting Q&A with Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist who has come out with a new style guide, The Sense of Style, because one important part of writing is understanding how your reader thinks. (Another article brought together Leo Tolstoy and Mischel's marshmallow test, so that was kind of fun as well.)

A good sense of empathy might be helpful for writing, in that without studying the cognitive processes you could still have a sense of your reader. Depth and experience helps. Certainly a good vocabulary helps, but it can also hinder as some writers end up with a prose that is too dense to be effective. I do remember learning that if a writer is making a few different mistakes, correcting one tends to resolve the others as well, because it changes how they think. That sounds like writing is something that can be taught.

It really did seem like for some people who cling to a belief in innate writing talent it was because they needed to feel gifted and special. I don't have a lot of patience with that in general, but what really angers me is that it might hold someone else back.

Writing, as part of communication, is one of the most important skills we can have. To be able to tell your story, so that all stories get told, is vital. We have enough of a problem as society getting people to even consider the possibility that something outside their experience can be true; we should at least make sure that we aren't doing anything to block evidence.

Writing is not just how we learn to understand each other, but how we learn to understand our selves. Sometimes I know that the writing I am doing is to figure something out, but it has helped so many times when it was not even deliberate. People need that, and they will become better for developing it, if they aren't discouraged.

I joke that I have no fast twitch muscle fibers. It is true that you can be genetically more likely to do well at sports, and that my genetics do not seem to lead that way. However, if in grade school, when we were running laps, someone had talked to us about proper form, and building up lung capacity, that would have been good to learn then instead of now. If someone had explained how to use legs on the rope climb, maybe I could have done it. I have to go through a lot of work now on reconnecting with my body because it seemed to be a hopeless case at a very early age, and no one told me any differently.

The teenagers I talk to now are so quick to give up. They don't think that they can draw or write or learn an instrument. I do think the constantly connected instantly updated culture is a part of that, but it is vital for their happiness that they do learn to try more than once, and concentrate, and persist. Therefore, someone who will tell them that innate talent is a necessity for any kind of success has just made an already difficult situation worse.

And they get an easy out, because if the beginner does persist, and gets really good at it, then they can always just assume that person must have had innate talent.

But maybe, really what you have is a person developing their humanity, looking inward and reaching outward, because writing can do that.

Don't discourage that.

http://charlesbivona.com/

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-gift-inside-writing.html

Reconsidering Hip Hop

In case this brings any new visitors to the blog, I'm going to give a little background. I write about two music reviews a week (Thursday and Friday). Shortly after getting on Twitter, a lot of bands started following me. This is a common practice as bands try to get new listeners and build up a fan base.

I had been doing some writing about music anyway, and the reviews seemed like a natural extension of that. I have since reviewed 168 bands, with about 70 more on deck, so I don't anticipate stopping any time soon.

I hate giving bad reviews. By the time I write about a band we have been following each other for a few months, and I have often developed an affection for them. I won't give false praise, but I try and focus on what listening to the band is like, and who might like them, and be balanced in what I say. I think that is why the bands usually don't seem to hate me after a lukewarm write-up, but I still stress over it. Because of this, I cringe a little every time I get followed by someone hip hop. I usually don't like it.

I had thoughts about that, because I would think, okay, it's just not my thing; I can still listen objectively. That sounded reasonable, except then I would listen to De La Soul after not listening to them for a while, or "Rapper's Delight", and they would be so good. (I'm 42; of course I'm old school.) When the music is well done I do like it.

This weekend I found myself defending hip hop, and I read someone else defending it, and it kind of came together.

Shaun King was tweeting about hip hop on August 21st. It is not the most important thing he has tweeted about recently, but he was writing about how church music didn't fill all of the needs, and how anger needed to be expressed, and it made sense.

My defense happened because someone re-tweeted Lecrae:

http://www.christianpost.com/news/lecrae-speaks-out-on-ferguson-at-times-it-feels-like-my-eternal-family-could-care-less-about-my-earthly-family-125241/

I had never heard of Lecrae before, but the quote about how what's in your songs means you can't demand social justice is pure respectability politics and it is a lie. It is a lie that makes people who are already getting a raw deal have to jump through hoops, when in fact the reason they are getting oppressed is because it benefits other people.

Let me be really clear, much of my bad reaction to hip hop comes because of the misogyny and the profanity. It does offend me. There is room for improvement. It is also often speaking truth. If it is an ugly truth, that is not merely the responsibility of the speaker.

The thing that suddenly came through for me (and a completely different Twitter thread, that we will get to tomorrow, helped) is that I realized part of the beauty of hip hop is its accessibility.

The rock bands who start seeking followers have found other people to play with. Occasionally there is one person with just an acoustic guitar or a keyboard, but they have still learned to play those instruments.

For hip hop, it may just be someone with a phone, or with a computer program. Yes, that means some of them probably haven't tried as hard as they could, but there is still an outlet available, even if they can't find any like-minded people, even if there is not a way to obtain instruments and lessons, there is something.

I believe in the importance of creativity and self-expression. It has to start somewhere. I have not given proper respect to hip hop as a starting point. I will try and listen better now.

Related posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/02/every-voice.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/07/respectability_22.html

Band Review: Rivers Monroe

I have been listening to Rivers Monroe on Spotify this week, and because of that Spotify suggested I should try listening to Sleeping With Sirens. I guess that could work, but they remind me more of Boys Like Girls, with the combination of pop hooks and some country undertones, where it would seem like they could do well as crossover artists.

(Actually, "Summer Starts Tonight" did make me think a little of The Academy Is, so maybe that's the middle ground.)

The self-titled album, Rivers Monroe, is longer than most, with fourteen tracks and 51 minutes. The songs are very earnest and sincere, but also kind of run together. Probably the next step for the band, who are successfully building a fan base, would be establishing a more distinctive voice. Right now everything is pleasant, but it feels like there could be more. I live the guitars, but it feels like with what they are doing the songs should have more bite.

My favorite song was probably "Girls in the Front Row" for the intro, but there is a video for the first track, "Moments", and I recommend checking that out. It gives a good sense of the band, and if you like it you will like them and should listen to the rest of the album.

http://www.riversmonroe.com/

https://www.facebook.com/RiversMonroe

https://www.youtube.com/user/RiversMonroe

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/rivers-monroe/id814427935

https://twitter.com/RiversMonroe