THE GODS MUST BE LAZY

DISCO VOLNTE - Convinced Of The Hex

DevastatorJr — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:40:30 GMT

For me, the bizarre career of The Flaming Lips is a perfect example of just how wrong you can be. As a music fan, I'd known about them for years, long before their seminal breakout album The Soft Bulletin, and I'd always considered them born losers. They were an ok band, pretty cool and interesting to noise fans actually, but far too weird for mainstream appeal. She Don't Use Jelly? Come on! But a friend mine was adamant that they were the best band in the world, he even bought Zaireeka, their baffling boombox experimental album that required you play its four discs in four separate players just to listen to the thing. Then in 1999 came The Soft Bulletin. Wow, that lumpy, ugly, punk rock caterpillar had somehow transformed into this gorgeous, multi-layered butterfly. And in 2002 they did it again with Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. The 'Lips new album, Embryonic, is another instant classic. This time just dangling on the edge of accessibility, it's a masterpiece of fuzzed out psychedelia and propulsive krautrock rhythms. It's just shocking how good these guys are. I was wrong all along, and I couldn't be happier! So here's the first track off the album to start our playlist. Also, this episode is dedicated to legendary Lower East Side poet Jim Carroll, who died this summer. His book The Basketball Diaries is the kind of thing you read as a mixed up kid in high school that changes your life forever. I know it did mine. Cheers Jim! MP3: Disco Volante - Convinced Of The Hex (Right-Click-Save-As) (download at http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com) 1. The Flaming Lips - Convinced Of The Hex (3:56)2. Deerhoof - Running Thoughts (3:47)3. Gang Starr - Manifest (4:56)4. William Onyeabor - Better Change Your Mind (8:23)5. Marianne Faithfull - Broken English (4:40)6. Ween - Back To Basom (3:46)7. Yo La Tengo - I'm On My Way (4:36)8. Nellie McKay - Gin Rummy (2:59)9. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career (4:19)10. Air - Tropical Disease (6:47)11. Joyce - Feminina (3:48)12. Jim Carroll - "A Peculiar-Looking Girl" (6:22)

DISCO VOLANTE - MUDRA

DevastatorJr — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:55:31 GMT

Greetings True Believers, this week's playlist is very much a trip down memory lane, most of the music being stuff I was listening to back in the '90's, with a few exceptions. And who better to head such a list than one of our absolute favorites, those Gallic titans of indie-rock, the nearly perpetual Stereolab. Though currently on "hiatus," the Groop, as they are affectionately known by rabid fans, remain our personal superheroes around here. After almost twenty years of live performance, touring, fourteen stuido albums, and endless b-sides, compilations and rarities, I can't think of a band more fearlessly experimental, effortlessly brilliant or more deserving of a vacation. Let's hope they enjoy the time off and get back to work quick. The baffling Mudra is exceptionally weird, even for them, and comes from the cute-as-a-button and totally awesome Dimension Mix compilation from 2005. Enjoy! LISTEN @ http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ MP3: Disco Volante - Mudra (Right-Click-Save-As) 1. Stereolab - Mudra (6:44) 2. Yoko Ono - O'oh (1:31) 3. Yo La Tengo - Moby Octopad (5:47) 4. The Silver Jews - Smith & Jones Forever (3:18) 5. Lush - De-Luxe (3:31) 6. Vivian Girls - Where Do You Run To? (3:14) 7. Pavement - Shoot The Singer (1 Sick Verse) (3:15) 8. Swervedriver - Rave Down (5:06) 9. Cornelius - New Music Machine (3:52) 10. Cornershop - Free Love (5:37) 11. De La Soul - Long Island Degrees (3:29) 12. Wu-Tang Clan - Tearz (4:17) 13. Talking Heads - Sax and Violins (5:18) 14. Harry Nilsson - Put the Lime in the Coconut (3:51)

Disco Volante - If Not Now, When?

DevastatorJr — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:14:37 GMT

http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ Welcome back, true believers! I hope you all had a wonderful summer full of trees, parks, picnics, skinny-dipping, beenie weenie, staring at your cousins cut-offs and lemonade. But now that it's back to school time, I hope to get back to a weekly schedule here, bringing you the newest in old music for your listening enjoyment, so stay tuned. This week's headliners are those fun-loving gals from Brighton, England, formerly known as Electrelane. While not exactly jazz rock, their sound still reminds me, in some rudimentary way, of the music of Charles Mingus, the way it careens wildly from structured elegance to barley controlled chaos, often within the same song. Though originally an entirely instrumental band, the 2004, Steve Albini produced record The Power Out added vocals to varied and startling effect, especially on tracks like gorgeous gregorian chanted The Valleys. Sadly, for mysterious reasons known only to them, the band went on indefinite hiatus in 2007, after releasing the excellent No Shouts, No Calls record, from which we take our opening song... MP3: Disco Volante - If Not Now, When? (Right-Click-Save-As) http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Electrelane - If Not Now When? (5:47)2. The Kinks - Lazy Old Sun (2:48)3. Sun Ra - Friendly Galaxy (2:17)4. Boards of Canada - Aquarius (5:57)5. Mike Ladd - Off To Mars? (4:25)6. De La Soul - Transmitting Live From Mars (1:12)7. The Sexual Life of the Savages - Fellini - Zum Zum Zazoeira (5:35)8. Lambchop - I Can Hardly Spell My Name (3:24)9. Calexico - Alone Again or (3:25)10. The Free Design - Umbrellas (Peanut Butter Wolf Mix) (3:56)11. Stereolab & Brigitte Fontaine - Caliméro (6:25)12. The U.M.C's - It's Gonna Last (3:56)13. Ken Nordine - You're Getting Better (2:07)

Disco Volante - Counting Backwards

DevastatorJr — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:36:04 GMT

Disco Volante - Counting Backwards http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ Isn't that just the coolest picture you've ever seen? In 1981, at the grand age of 15, stepsisters Kristin Hersh and Tanya Donelly formed what would become one of the most influential bands in the Boston Alternative Rock scene, the Throwing Muses. Joined by bassist Leslie Langston and drummer Dave Narcizo, the group released a singles and an EP, before the mind shattering self-titled debut full length, also known as "The Green" album. With Hersh serving as primary song-writer, crafting brilliantly demented blue-grass tinged punk rock , with Donelly's angelic harmonies and pop hooks as a counterpoint, the band's music was as bold, chaotic and revelatory as anything being done by their Boston contemporaries like the Pixies or Dinosaur Jr. The group went on to release a series of amazing albums, but after 1991's excellent The Real Ramona, Donelly split to co-found The Breeders with Pixie Kim Deal, and later went on to achieve MTV Buzz Clip success with a new band, Belly's and their hit single Feed The Tree. Hersh kept on trucking, reforming the Muses as a power trio for 1992's Red Heaven, with Bernard Georges replacing Leslie Langston on bass. In 1994 Hersh launched a solo career featuring a gentler, acoustic side on the haunting Hips And Makers album. These days she continues to rock out with her new surf punk band, 50 Ft Wave, occasionally resurrecting Throwing Muses in trio form, and Donnelly also enjoys a critically acclaimed solo-career, (Robyn Hitchcock's a big fan.) But Counting Backwards is the group at the height of their powers, so check out these criminally under-rated alt-rock giants on this week's Podcast. MP3: Disco Volante – Counting Backwards (Right-click-Save-As) http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Throwing Muses - Counting Backwards (3:15) 2. Al Stewart - Turn to Earth (2:53) 3. Stereolab - One Finger Symphony (2:05) 4. Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop (5:20) 5. Tortoise - A Simple Way to Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work (3:34) 6. Peter Gabriel - Digging In The Dirt (5:16) 7. David Bowie - Right (4:21) 8. Ed Dorn - There's Only One Natural Death and Even That's Bedcide (2:59)9. Komeda - Focus (3:38) 10. Animal Collective - My Girls (5:40) 11. Caetano Veloso - Nine Out of Ten (4:57) 12. Interpol - The New (6:07) 13. The Sundays - Joy (4:10)

DISCO VOLANTE - BODY ROCK

DevastatorJr — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:34:01 GMT

DISCO VOLANTE - Body Rock http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ I have a friend who grew up in Brooklyn in the late 1990’s, back when Mos Def was just a neighborhood MC, and he remembers the hype being almost deafening. He was the next big thing, all anybody could talk about. And it would be hard for any hip hop fan to deny his talent after listening to his 1998 collaboration with Talib Kweli, Black Star, an instant classic. Whether or not he’s lived up to his potential is debatable. After that first (and so far only) Black Star album, he released an excellent solo LP, Black On Both Sides, but his subsequent releases, The New Danger and True Magic haven’t quite lived up to the standards of the first. These days it seems like Mos is more interested in acting than rapping, after several appearances on The Chappelle Show, an Emmy nomination for Something The Lord Made Me, and co-starring as Ford Prefect in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. I even saw him on an episode of House on Monday! But I’m really excited for his upcoming The Ecstatic, (mostly because of this Youtube video which shows Mos rattling off MF Doom rhymes, he’s a true hip hop fan!) On this week’s opening track from the 1998 Lyricist Lounge compilation, Mos is joined by Q-tip and Tash from the Alkoholics for a really fun song, Body Rock, which features Mos at his early, laid back best. Excelsior! MP3: DISCO VOLANTE – Body Rock (right click "save as") http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Mos Def - Body Rock [feat. Q-Tip & Tash] (5:11) 2. Tom Waits - Way Down in the Hole (1:44) 3. Animal Collective - Leaf House (2:42) 4. Savath & Savalas - Apnea Obstructiva (4:55) 5. Nouvelle Vague - This Is Not A Love Song (3:47) 6. Cornelius - Brazil (3:27) 7. Komeda - Focus (3:38) 8. Jack Logan - Shrunken Head (2:54) 9. Pavement - Black Out (2:10) 10. Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information (4:12) 11. Jaga Jazzist - Soumi Finland (7:28) 12. Jaga Jazzist - Real Racers Have Doors (3:32) 13. Majesticons - Parlour Party (3:18) 14. John Lennon - #9 Dream (4:48) 15. The Tragically Hip - Eldorado (3:47)

DISCO VOLANTE - Alone Together

DevastatorJr — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:53:23 GMT

In the mid 1990's, dj/producer/instrumentalist Yuka Honda was one half of the Manhattan J-pop phenomena Cibo Matto, a more than slightly twisted but cute as a button hip hop band whose wildly eclectic debut album, Viva La Woman! was an instant classic, one of the best examples of layered sampling I can think of, and a used cd bin glittering gem (like Last Splash or Elastica.) Since the band split up in 2001, Yuka has worked on remix projects with everyone from Yoko Ono to Medeski, Martin & Wood, and released two fantasticsolo albums of elegant, organic-sounding electronica. I love her song titles, like "Why Are You Lying to Your Therapist?" and "Spooning with Jackknife". Here she reunites with former bandmate, Miho Hatori, herself enjoying a promising solo career, and former that dog violinist/vocalist Petra Haden, whose acapella version of The Who Sell Out has to be heard to be believed. MP3: DISCO VOLANTE: Alone Together (right-click-save-as) http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Yuka Honda - Humming Song (Alone Together) (3:44)2. M.I.A. - MIA's Thing (MIA vs Amerie-Carrasco! mash-up) (4:25)3. Public Image Ltd. - Seattle (3:41)4. Public Enemy - Don't Believe The Hype (5:19)5. The Sea and Cake - Sound & Vision (4:06)6. Joan As Police Woman - Eternal Flame (3:39)7. Devendra Banhart - Mama Wolf (3:54)8. Destroyer - The Sublimation Hour (4:12)9. Cornershop - Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu (3:23)10. The Fall - Arid Al's Dream (4:48)11. CAN - I'm So Green (3:07)12. Camp Lo - Luchini (This Is It) (3:59)13. Stereolab - Household Names (3:42)14. Kate Bush - There Goes A Tenner (3:26)

DISCO VOLANTE - Bird's Lament

DevastatorJr — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:46:46 GMT

DISCO VOLANTE - Bird's Lament http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ Greetings, True Belivers. How do you measure success? Is it by the size of the checks you cash? The number of gold records you sell or Grammy's you win? What constitutes a successful life? By all the usual standards, Louis Thomas Hardin wasn't much of a success, blind, living on the streets, toiling in obscurity for an often unappreciative and mocking public. But to many, the man who called himself Moondog was a rare, if eccentric genius, and lived a remarkable life. For nearly 30 years, "The Viking of 6th Avenue," was a well known landmark of 53rd Street, Manhattan. Dressed in his handmade costume based on the Norse god Thor, complete with helmet, spear and flowing white beard, Moondog would recite poetry and play music for any and all who'd listen, often using strange instruments of his own design. He recorded many albums through the years, and was championed by no less personages than Artur Rodziński, the conductor of New York Philharmonic . But he refused to give up his life on the streets, until moving to Germany in the 70's. The first song on this week's playlist, Bird's Lament, is Moondog's tribute to jazz musician Charlie Parker, and a great introduction the music of Moondog, it's worth seeking out. MP3: Disco Volante – Bird’s Lament (right-click-save-as) http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Moondog - Lament I (Bird's Lament) (1:43)2. Pram - Silver Nitrate (4:30)3. Boogie Down Productions - Im Still Number 1 (5:13)4. Erykah Badu - Erykah's Creamy Shower (Bruce Wang Creamshower Mash Up) (3:42)5. Pete Rock & Cl Smooth - Wig Out (4:07)6. Fujiya & Miyagi - Transparent things (2:55)7. Dengue Fever - Sober Driver (4:05)8. White Hinterland - Dreaming of the Plum Trees (4:52)9. Stereolab - Pack Yr Romantic Mind (5:06)10. M83 - Kim & Jessie (5:23)11. R.E.M. - The One I Love (3:17)12. Cat Power - Ramblin' (Wo)Man (3:47)13. A Tribe Called Quest - Footprints (4:02)

DISCO VOLANTE - Uncorrected Personality Traits

DevastatorJr — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:22:16 GMT

DISCO VOLANTE - Uncorrected Personality Traits http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ Greetings True Believers, This week I'm cheating a little bit. I made this playlist for an internet friend a couple of years ago, but I like it so much I'm posting it again here. I find it amazing that I have internet friends, people I’ve never met in real life, that I’ve known for ten years or more now. Wow! But, to be honest, I'm feeling more than a little bit of information fatigue, and am considering dropping Off-line and limiting my interweb activities to this blog and whatever is absolutely necessary. Sorry netpals, but there’s a whole world out there, full of trees and food and girls! Wish me luck! I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens as some of the first generation of web-users, bleary-eyed and mind-boggled, start to drop off and step out into the real world. As to the man who heads today's bill, what is there to say about the legendary Robyn Hitchcock? Is it enough to recall how his band The Soft Boys fused punk rock attitude with dark humor and swirling psychedelia to create one of pop music’s truly original sounds, influencing bands like R.E.M. and Pavement? Is it enough to say he is often called "The Fifth Beatle", not because he ever played with the Fab Four, but because of his seemingly effortless mastery of songcraft and irrepressible Britishness? Is it enough to say that the 1998 performance film directed by Jonathan Demme, Storefront Hitchcock, is a perfect introduction to the curious initiate to Hitchcock's wonderfully twisted world? Is it enough to say that Robyn Hitchcock is simply one of the pre-immanent living singer/song-writers of the rock and roll idiom on this or any other planet? Yes, I think it is, except to add that the little a cappella gem that heads our playlist this week, while not particularly representative of the rest of his catalog, certainly offers a healthy dose of his wit and charm. Enjoy! MP3: Disco Volante – Uncorrected Personality Traits http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Robyn Hitchcock - Uncorrected Personality Traits (1:46) 2. The Spencer Davis Group - I'm A Man (2:51) 3. Gang Of Four - Call Me Up (3:33) 4. Broken Social Scene - Stars & Sons (5:09) 5. Cocteau Twins - Pitch The Baby (3:17) 6. Beck - Cold Ass Fashion (4:08) 7. Count Bass-D - Real Music Vs. Bull$#!+ (1:29) 8. MF Doom - Potholderz Feat. Count Bass D (3:20) 9. Common - Real People (2:48) 10. Erykah Badu - Appletree (4:25) 11. Gil Scott-Heron - I Think I'll Call It Morning (3:32) 12. The Jayhawks - Madman (4:04) 13. Stereolab - Velvet Water (4:25) 14. M.I.A. - Sunpowers (The Mophono Bruce Wang - Mash Up) (5:01) 15. Brazilian Girls - Don't Stop (3:51) 16. Ellen Allien & Apparat - Way Out (3:43) 17. The Zombies - Whenever You're Ready (2:46)

Disco Volante - Uptown Top Ranking

DevastatorJr — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:34:49 GMT

Greetings True Believers, Welcome to our special Valentine’s Day show! Our opener, the delicious lollipop reggae classic, “Uptown Top Ranking” by teenaged duo Althea & Donna was a number one UK hit in 1978, championed by none other than BBC-1 hit maker John Peel. Their fantastic debut album of the same name, was produced by the legendary Karl Pitterson of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh fame and featured instrumentation by reggae giants Sly & Robbie. I must confess, it was the cover version by indie singer Scout Niblett that introduced me to the song, but after seeking out the original, there’s no doubt who is the real uptown top-ranking. And check out this awesome performance by Althea and Donna on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iD_qZ3hTDo Outta sight! Happy Valentine’s Day! MP3: Disco Volante – Uptown Top Ranking http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Althea and Donna - Uptown Top Ranking (3:52) 2. Cibo Matto - King of Silence (Dan The Automator Remix) (4:59) 3. Santogold vs Diplo - I'm a Lady (Diplo Mix ft Amanda Blank) (2:40) 4. Frank Zappa - How Could I Be Such a Fool (2:13) 5. Lily Allen - Straight To Hell (5:28) 6. Three Times Dope - Funky Dividends (4:19) 7. Charles Mingus - Duke Ellington's Sound of Love (4:15) 8. Electrelane - Birds (3:53) 9. Arab Strap - Here We Go (5:03) 10. The Bird and the Bee - Fucking Boyfriend (3:15) 11. AIR - Alpha Beta Gaga (4:41) 12. Dusty Trails - Dusty Trails Theme (3:19) 13. Kostars - French Kiss (2:47)

Disco Volante - Father Cannot Yell

DevastatorJr — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:27:54 GMT

Greetings True Believers! http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ This weekend at the Jacob Javitz Center commences the 2009 New York City Comic Con and I must say I am quite excited. The place will be jam-packed with costumed nerds and lovable geeks of all shapes and sizes, consuming snack foods, meeting professional creators, previewing upcoming blockbuster movies and tv shows and so much more I can hardly stand it. I’ve been a comics fan all my life. I was introduced to comics by dear old Mom, who on her way home from work would diligently bring her latchkey kid a couple of slices of the world’s best pizza, (Dominics, downtown Waterbury, CT, without question,) and the latest issues of the Green Lantern, The Amazing Spider-Man and Uncanny X-Men, for which I shall be eternally grateful. For me, comics are more than adolescent male power fantasies, though that they surely are, but more importantly, they are also one of the purest forms of expression of the creative mind. Anyone can create comics, the special effects budget is pennies on the dollar; you are limited only by boundaries of your own imagination. And speaking of the outskirts of the imagination, take a gander at the cover art to the 1969 album by Can, Monster Movie, a fantastically stylized portrayal of the Marvel Comics character Galactus, Eater of Worlds. The album, "Made in a castle with better equipment", was the groundbreaking debut of Can, perhaps mightiest of all Krautrock musik groops. Founded by Germans Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit, and African American ex-pat lunatic vocalist Malcom Mooney, the band’s name, it was retroactively decided, is an acronym for "communism, anarchism, nihilism", and that might be the best possible description of their sound. At once rhythmic and angular, tribal and futuristic, ambient and chaotic, it’s impossible to confine Can’s music into any neat categorical package. Father Cannot Yell is the first track off the album and the first song on this week’s playlist. Enjoy… MP3: Disco Volante – Father Cannot Yell http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Can - Father Cannot Yell (7:03) 2. Stereolab - Ticker-Tape Of The Unconscious (4:46) 3. KMD - Sorcerers (3:03) 4. Ronnie Foster - Mystic Bounce (Madlib Remix) (3:22) 5. Silver Jews - People (4:43) 6. Deerhoof - the perfect me (2:40) 7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Satan Said Dance (5:32) 8. ESG - You Make No Sense (2:21) 9. 10,000 Maniacs - Pit Viper (3:51) 10. Modern Lovers - Pablo Picasso (4:21) 11. The Fall - Cab It Up! (4:54) 12. The Fiery Furnaces - Benton Harbor Blues (Live) (2:53) 13. The Jam - 06. Town Called Malice (2:57)

Disco Volante, Seasons Reverse

DevastatorJr — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:41:11 GMT

Greetings True Believers! Welcome to my new weekly music post, Disco Volante! Every Thursday I’ll be posting a new mp3 podcast mix, featuring pop music from a wide variety of genres and sources – jazz, funk, underground hip hop, indie rock, and whatever else I can throw in there, you’ll have to listen to find out. In the spirit of transitions and new things, we’re starting off our first Podcast with “The Seasons Reverse” by Gastr Del Sol. Founded in 1991 by Chicago luminaries David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke, Gastr Del Sol produced seven albums of wonderfully weird indie rock, ranging from utter noise to glitchy electronica to genteel chamber pop, and featured a rotating cast of semi-famous back up musicians, including Markus Pop of Oval and John McIntire of Tortoise. The Seasons Reverse is a great example of the group at its most melodic and comes from their last album, Camoufleur (Drag City 1998). Thanks to David Von Shmavid and Orange Zest for being our gracious hosts and remember to tune in next Thursday for another edition of Disco Volante. Excelsior! MP3: Disco Volante – Seasons Reverse http://saucerkommand.blogspot.com/ 1. Gastr Del Sol - The Seasons Reverse (5:51) 2. Sonic Youth - Schizophrenia (4:38) 3. Biz Markie - Nobody Beats The Biz (5:04) 4. Fannypack - You Gotta Know (3:46) 5. White Rabbits - Kid On My Shoulders (4:33) 6. Evangelicals - Skeleton Man (4:24) 7. The Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored (4:51) 8. MF Doom - Red And Gold f. King Ghidra (4:42) 9. The Sea And Cake - Parasol (5:30) 10. Goldfrapp - Happiness (4:16) 11. The High Llamas - Didball (4:03) 12. J Dilla - Anti-American Graffiti (1:53) 13. Broadcast - Daves Dream (4:01)

Word Balloons, December 26, 2008

DevastatorJr — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:22:09 GMT

Word Balloons, December 26, 2008 Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #1 Mignola, Fergredo Dark Horse Mike Mignola seems to have found a perfect stand-in artist in Vertigo veteran Duncan Fergredo, whose art is so similar to Mignola’s, (a lot of that might have to do with the coloring scheme.) Not to say it’s an imitation, Fegredo’s art certainly has it’s own style, it’s wilder, gnarlier, but the collaboration definitely is a good one. In this, the first issue of a new Hellboy miniseries, our hero attends a strange funeral, and is invited to join a deadly hunting party. Simon Dark # 15 Niles, Hampton DC One thing DC does well is horror. They seem to have a feel for the right pacing and artwork that create a really creepy atmosphere. Simon Dark is a perfect example. Simon is a bogeyman figure that haunts Gotham city, he is a patchwork man, a sort of Frankenstein’s monster of body parts from various people, cobbled together by unknown (even to him) black magic. He acts as a kind of protector of certain areas of the city, thwarting rapes and robberies, often brutally murdering the perpetrators. But Simon has a child’s mind, and almost no memory of where you came from, and who created him. The book is very reminiscent of The Crow or V for Vendetta and Scott Hampton is an incredible artist. This issue there seems to be a new creature, similar to Simon, which is now prowling the streets committing vicious murders, or is it a just another side of his fractured personality surfacing? Bad Planet #6 Jane, Niles, Daly III, Bradstreet Image This issue brings to a close the excellent horror/sci-fi mini-series from RAW Studios, (co-created by Punisher star, actor Thomas Jane,) about an invasion of ravenous crab-like aliens, humans struggling to survive and a big ugly monster who loves us enough to try and help. Will Ersmatus save us all from becoming crab food? Will the work of Nikola Tesla somehow figure into this? This series was great – twisted, grisly artwork and a face-paced, no-nonsense storyline. Find the back-issues if you can, but I’m sure it’ll be collected into a trade. I’ve also heard there’s a Bad Planet 2 in the works that picks up where this left off. I can’t wait! Eternals #6 Knauf, Acuna Marvel For those unfamiliar with the mythology, the Eternals are a race of godlike humanoids living secretly among us, created for unfathomable reasons by gigantic otherworldly beings called Celestials, one of which, the so-called Dreaming Celestial, has recently taken up residence in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, an ominous sign to be sure. This issue finds Sersi on a mission to resurrect her incinerated lover, Makkari, while Thena battles the rampaging “forgotten one,” Gilgamesh. Acuna’s painted art has hyper-real, otherworldly quality, and the storyline, while a bit opaque at the moment, seems like it is actually building to something, however slowly. I’ll keep reading. This is a mid-tier book for me, pick up an issue and see if you like it. Secret Invasion: Dark Reign #1 Bendis, Maleev, White Marvel In the aftermath of the rather disappointing climax to last years Secret Invasion event, in which the shape-changing Skrulls were only barely defeated in their plot to take over the Earth, the disgraced Tony Stark has been replaced by none other than Norman Osborn (aka The Green Goblin) as head of the S.H.I.E.L.D. security agency. With the worlds heroes left in a shambles, Osborn plans to install a new world order, headed by a dark circle of power – Loki, The Hood, Emma Frost, Prince Namor, and Doctor Doom. Alex Maleev’s art is excellent as usual, and Bendis’ plotting is intriguing, even if the dialogue is a bit too hip and snarky, especially for characters like Namor and Dr. Doom. Whether you’ll want to read this or not depends on whether you’re interested in following Marvel’s larger continuity for yet another epic storyline that’ll probably end up mostly going nowhere. I enjoyed this issue though, especially the female Loki. The Immortal Iron Fist #21 Swierczynski, Green, Bola Marvel There’s been a lot of buzz about this series but this is the first issue I’ve actually read, and I have to say, I’m a new fan. The mantle of Iron Fist has been passed on from generation to generation of martial arts champions down through history. This stand alone story features the nine-year-old Iron Fist of the planet Yaochi in the year 3099, as he fights to save the last Chinese descendents from the technological horrors of The Center of Heaven. Guest artist Timothy Green’s delicately lined artwork is superb. He’s done some smaller projects like the Starlord mini-series, but Marvel really needs to find a good writer to pair him with on a permanent monthly book. Preview this issue here --http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.6450.Preview~colon~_Immorta... John Constantine: Hellblazer #250 Azzarello/Grampa, Delano/Lloyd, Gibbons/Phillips, Mieville/Camuncoli, Milligan/Campbell Vertigo Celebrating two-hundred fifty issues and 20 years of everyone’s favorite paranormal con-man, this double-sized issue features Christmas themed stories by various creators, including series founder Jamie Delano and science fiction superstar China Mieville. Nice jumping on point and introduction to John Constantine’s world of supernatural horror and black humor. Sandman: The Dream Hunters Gaiman, Russell Vertigo This is a terrific adaptation of the original illustrated novel by Neil Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano, a series of fables concerning a fox and a Buddhist monk and many other things besides in the intricate, weaving, dream-like fashion that fans of Gaiman and the Sandman series will find lovingly familiar. P. Craig Russell is no stranger to Dream Country, having illustrated one of my favorite Sandman stories, Sandman Issue #50 and others. Here he adapts the novel with considerable elegance and flair, truly bringing out the magic in Gaiman’s words. Neil Gaiman doesn’t do much comics work these days, and it’s a shame, because this is the medium where I think he truly does his best work.

The Bizzaro Starter Kit (Orange)

DevastatorJr — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:25:17 GMT

"Bizarro" is a new genre, I guess analogous to "The New Weird" writing of people like China Mieville and Ben Rosenblum, but less interested in narrative or science fiction concepts, apparently, and more about shocking with bizarre language. Bizarro fiction deals with strange, grotesque and absurdist subject matter, often with a science fiction or fantasy tinge, and lots of black humor. The Bizzaro Starter Kit (Orange) is a collection of short stories and novella's by various writers in the genre, like Jeremy Robert Johnson's 'Extinction Journals,' which details the life of a man who survives a nuclear holocaust by wearing a suit made of living cockroaches, and Carlton Mellick's 'Baby Jesus Buttplug,' which I'll leave to your imaginations. While the quality of the stories is uneven, I was definitely entertained. My favorites were Extinction Journals, Suicide Girls In The Afterlife and The Greatest Fucking Moment in Sports History. There is also a "Blue" version of the Bizarro Starter Kit out there, with completely different stories and writers, which I have yet to read but I'm really eager to get, as it's edited by Steve Aylett, author of the wonderful "Lint". I can't wait!

The Devastator Jr. Awards 2008

DevastatorJr — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:49:56 GMT

The Devastator Jr. Awards 2008 2008 wasn't a really big year for the new music to me. I didn't buy much, a lot what I listened to was 70's Kraut and Prog rock (Yeah, I'm on that bandwagon,) and I also began to discover, GASP!, classical music. But I don't think it's just me, there were no great big genre bursting paradigm shifters out there. I think culture took a floating holiday, really, and waited to see if we'd get Obama or McCain. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. But here's my list anyway... 11. Pavement Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed (2008) This Matador re-issue of Pavement's mellowist album, from 1997, gets an honorable mention. These Pavement re-issues are really well done, great introductions for the novice and must-haves for the completist. Includes the fantastic Killing Moon cover which, believe it or not, is even better than the Echo and the Bunnymen original. 10. Stereolab Chemical Chords (2008) I was initially disappointed by this umpteenth Stereolab album, but upon repeated listening, it really grew on me. Comprised of unusually short, poppy songs for Stereolab, this a concise collection of cute and bubbly little sunshine gems. Reportedly, this is the first set of songs from the recording session, the light side, the next half will be dark. I can't wait. 9. Erykah Badu New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) (2008) Erykah Badu indulges her psychedelic tendencies to great effect with this Funkadelic infused album. She's one of my absolute favorite pop music personalities. 8. Hercules and Love Affair Hercules and Love Affair (2008) This is about as wonderful as a gay Eurodisco gets without actually being a gay Eurodisco. Fun stuff from these DFA discoveries. 7. M83 Saturdays = Youth (2008) Can really excellent retro be overdone? I think so, just a little, or I'd place this really cool album by France's M83 a little higher on the list. It drips with 80's nostalgia, "Kim & Jessie" sounds like it came right off of the Better Off Dead soundtrack. 6. Beach House Devotion (2008) They sound just like their name, a perfect late night 60's melocholoy vibe. Not quite as groundbreaking as their debut, but they've still got a while before they wear out their welcome with this sound. 5. Ladytron Velocifero (2008) Velocifero is really a bravura follow-up to 2005's Witching Hour, nothing really new here, but an excellent display of the way Ladytron can just churn out these perfect synth-pop rockers. I've never seen them live, but I hear they're great. I gotta catch 'em. 4. Goldfrapp Seventh Tree (2008) Allison Goldfrapp and company trade in the dance-floor friendly pop this time out for a more ethereal, Kate-Bushian sound. It works really well, this is the dreamiest of the dream pop. 3. Portishead Third (2008) Portishead completely defied expectations with this, only their third album in almost 20 years. The hip hop samples and James Bond lounge atmosphere is significantly darker this time around , and that's saying something- stark, deadly, terrifying. Another masterpiece. 2. Juana Molina Un día (2008) Argentina's Juana Molina travels similar territory, but her path is a little less dark, a little more crooked. This record reminds me of Bjork's Medusa, in that it's more concerned with sound texture and quality than with songs per se, but very satisfying nonetheless. 1. Diplo & Santogold Top Ranking Mixtape (2008) It almost doesn't seem fair to include Diplo's mixtape in the same category as these other albums, after all, he's drawing on records from the last 30 years of pop history with almost no regard for thematic continuity - he only wants what sounds good. This time he enlists Brooklyn hipster chanteuse Santogold as his muse, transmorgrifying tracks from her excellent debut album into a seamless flow of reggae, dub, electro, hip hop and 80's pop. Best album of the year.

Word Balloons, November 4, 2008

DevastatorJr — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:51:09 GMT

It’s Tuesday, true believers, and not even historic elections will keep me from reviewing this weeks funny books… Word Balloons November 4, 2008 1985 #6 Millar, Edwards Marvel Growing up with comic books is one of the quintessential experiences of the American childhood. For millions of young people, these dime-store morality plays are the first, clumsy, technicolor forays into the worlds of art, literature, mythology and philosophy – Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk. While boys and girls spend golden summers dreaming in the immensity of it, real life slowly encroaches, inch by inch until one day we wake up and…we’re grown ups. This is the final issue of the mini-series about a boy who loved comics so much his imagination literally brought them to life, written by Mark Millar and drawn in alternately photorealistic and cartoony styles by the versatile Tommy Lee Edwards. I highly recommend it for fans of Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison, and others who travel through similar twilight zones of nostalgia. The Amazing Spider-Man #575 Kelly, Bachalo, Townsend, Mendoa Marvel Chris Bachelo’s fantastic manga style art is the star here, in this hyper-active gangster story featuring an all-new, suped up Hammerhead and the sinister Purple Man. Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1 Ellis, Davis, Granov Marvel I’ve always been a little conflicted about Warren Ellis. I love his self-created projects, like The Authority and Planetary, but he often seems to stumble when working with traditional superheroes, as if trying to jam them into shapes he’s comfortable with, (a notable exception being the hilarious NextWave series.) Here he treads familiar ground with a tale of alternate worlds and alternate X-Men. Fan-favorite Alan Davis does his usual, tidy job, and newcomer Adi Granov is fantastic. But aside from the art, enjoyment of this book relies almost entirely on your familiarity with current X-Men continuity. I’d say it’s for fans only. Great bonus in this issue, a sneak peak inside the creative process - a copy of Warren Ellis' script! The Incredible Hercules #122 Pak, Van Lente, Henry, Espin Marvel Greek god Hercules and boy-genius Amadeus Cho are mixed up in some sort of wacky arranged marriage family feud between deadly Amazon warriors and fearsome Atlantean mermaids. Greg Pak made a big splash with last year’s World War Hulk storyline, (back when this book was titled The Incredible ‘Hulk’,) but this is turning into the roadtrip that never ends. If something doesn’t happen soon, I’m probably going to drop it. Hellboy: In The Chapel of Moloch Mike Mignola Dark Horse Nobody does creepy humor like Mike Mignola. This one-shot follows Hellboy to Southern Portugal to investigate the odd behavior of a painter working in a mysterious chapel with roots that go back to the Crusades. I love the little historical footnotes he uses, I wonder how much of that stuff is true. That's it for this week. Excelsior!

Word Balloons 10/28/08

DevastatorJr — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:59:59 GMT

Hi kids! Today I start a brand new weekly feature, Word Balloons, in which I review the previous weeks comics, every Tuesday right before Wednesday, and we all know what day Wednesday is. So without furthur ado, let's jump right into it... Word Balloons October 28 2008 Stephen King’s Dark Tower: Treachery #2 David, Furth, Lee, Isanove Marvel Peter David and Robin Furth return for their third series of Dark Tower prequels, rendered with moody impressionism by Jae Lee and Richard Isanove. I’m a fan of the Dark Tower series, so for me, this is wonderful stuff. This issue introduces Cort’s daughter, Aileen, and a look at the Order of Lady Oriza. Stephen King’s The Stand: Captain Trips #2 Aguirre-Sacasa, Perkins, Martin Marvel Somewhat less essential for Stephen King completists, this adaptation is a pretty straight-forward re-telling of the novel The Stand. I like the art, which has a nice retro, adventure comic strip look to it. Uncanny X-Men # 503 Fraction, Brubaker, Land, Ponsor Marvel I’ve been reading the X-Men since the Dawn of Nerf, so I’ve seen phases come and go. So far I like this one, it’s called Manifest Destiny. The X-Men have decided to grow up, become responsible Gay adults and move to San Francisco. It suits them. The mutant allegory can be used on many different levels, and Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker use it to great effect, mixing cop-drama action with 30-something angst. I know some people don’t care for Greg Land’s art but I can’t imagine why, his gauzy photo-realism lends a sense of maturity and gravity to the X-Men that works really well with the new direction. This issue Pixie faces down her fears, and introducing the deadly Chimera. The Guardians of the Galaxy #6 Abnett, Lanning, Pelletier, Magyar, Guru Marvel Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning spin cosmic space epics, like Legion Lost and Annihilation. This one has Rocket Racoon and Groot! The Amazing Spider-Man # 573 Slott, Romita Jr., Janson, White Marvel I’ve never thought John Romita Jr. was the best artist for Spider-Man – he’s too BLOCKY. But I have to say I did enjoy the New Ways to Die storyline. Spider-Man vs. Norman Osborn and the Thunderbolts is knock-down, drag-out fun. Hulk #7 Loeb, Adams, Cho Marvel Okay, I confess, I bought this strictly for the art. Art Adams. Frank Cho. Sexy babes smashing into each other with big weapons. ‘Nuff Said. Captain Britain And M13 #6 Cornell, Kirk, Delperdang, Reber Marvel Sure, Captain Britain is a cipher, but the supporting cast is interesting. Super-speedster Spitfire is a secret vampire, The Black Knight looks really cool in a leather jacket and Faiza Hussain is a religious Muslim trying to reconcile her strict familial homelife with the fact she’s been chosen as the wielder of the legendary sword Excalibur. This issue guest – stars Blade the vampire hunter. Uh-oh… Daredevil #112 Brubaker, Lark, Gaudiano, Hollingsworth Marvel It’s a crying shame the movie was such a stinker, because Daredevil the comic has consistently been one of the best books out there of any kind for years. This Lady Bullseye storyline is better than it sounds, and I love supporting character Dakota North. Please don’t kill her! Secret Invasion #7 Bendis, Yu, Morales, Martin Marvel The Secret Invasion Crossover chugs along. Do we know who the Skrulls are yet? Does anybody still care? Superman: New Krypton #1 Johns, Robinson, Gates, Woods, Frank, Guedes, Sibal, Magalhaes DC When last we saw Superman at the end of Action Comics #870, he had defeated the megalomaniacal, planet-stealing Brainiac and rescued Metropolis along with the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor, but not without a cost, his adoptive human father, Jonathan Kent was killed in the conflict. If this all sounds familiar to you, it could be because it’s been a part of Superman lore for the past fifty years. But the retelling by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank has been enchanting. It’s a perfect example of DC doing what it’s best at, straight-forward superhero adventure stories with tight plotting and crisp art. Gary Frank’s Superman is a glowing tribute to Christopher Reeves, while Geoff Johns supplies real drama with his terrifying version of Brainiac. This one-shot special serves as an introduction to the upcoming New Krypton storyline, which picks up where Brainiac left off and will run through Action Comics, Superman and Supergirl. With Kandor now free and on located on Earth, a city full of Kryptonians means a city full of Supermen. I can’t wait for this! Final Crisis #4 Morrison, Jones, Pacheco, Merino DC This is grim, apocalyptic stuff from Scottish writer Grant Morrison, as Darkseid and the nasty forces of Apokolips step on daisies, mangle baby ducks and generally bring da evil to your town. J.G. Jones art is stunning as usual, but the pairing seems a bit awkward, as if neither of their hearts are truly in it anymore, and we’re only 4 issues in, this series is supposed to run 7… I attended a highly psychedelic lecture by Morrison this summer at the Jacob Javitz Center at the New York Comic-Con where he was a guest of honor. He is a founding Vertigo writer and one of comics true weird minds. Green Lantern #35 Johns, Reis, Albert DC I got my skeptical old high school Marvel Zombie buddy to start reading this book, and he loves it. I wasn’t so thrilled with Hal and Sinestro mouthing off to the Guardians like they were little blue nobody’s this issue, but that was a minor misstep. Green Lantern Corps #29 Tomasi, Gleason, Geraci, Buchman DC Fill-in artist Patrick Gleason does a fine job here, I just wish he was a little more imaginative with the aliens, though that may not be his fault. This issue we learn the origin and mechanics of the Star Sapphires. I’m not sure which Green Lantern book is my favorite, but I like them both. There’s nothing ground-breaking going on in either of them, just solid superhero stuff that’s fun and not too heavy. One of the things both books get right is the spirit of freedom and endless possibility of the Green Lantern concept, even if that potential is never quite fulfilled, you’ll tune in to find out what’s next… Hellboy: The Crooked Man #3 Mignola, Corben Dark Horse And so comes to a close this creepy little tale of backwoods hoodoo written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and illustrated by Metal Hurlant legend Richard Corben. Hellboy finds himself out in the Ozarks and decides to help hapless bumpkin Tom, who foolishly made a deal with local bogie the Crooked Man years ago. Some of the Hellboy offshoots are better than others, this one was great. It’s actually scary! Okay, see you next Tuesday!

CRAVE AND ENVY NO MORE -- Anime Eyes!

DevastatorJr — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:52:41 GMT

Great news, ladies! It is now possible to conquer the summit of unrealistic beauty standards: Japanese anime. Plastic surgery can offer a childlike nose and button-popping breasts -- but, for too long, anime aspirants have been unable to claim the genre's big, blinking doll eyes for themselves. Now, thanks to extra-wide, iris-enlarging contact lenses, watery and reflective anime eyes are available to real women. The contacts, a hit with some of Japan's hottest starlets, come in a rainbow of colors; some even incorporate hearts, stars and butterflies. The extra-wide contact lenses are made by a variety of companies including Geo and Dueba, and cost in the $30-$50 per pair range. It seems they're not just cosmetic - send in your prescription and the lenses will be made to order. Shopping Times, a blog that sells the contacts for $35, commands us: "Crave and Envy No More!" http://inventorspot.com/articles/girls_get_anime_look_with_extrawide_contact_lenses_16872

R.I.P. Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008

DevastatorJr — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:21:33 GMT

from Pitchfork -- R.I.P. Isaac Hayes, 1942-2008 http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/144529-rip-isaac-hayes-1942-2008 Soul legend Isaac Hayes, whose simmering grooves and smooth, talk-singing style paved the way for disco and rap, died Sunday, August 10, at the age of 65. The Associated Press reports that Hayes collapsed at his home in Memphis, though the exact cause of death has yet to be reported. Although Hayes reached his critical and commercial peaks with late 1960s/early 1970s solo albums like Hot Buttered Soul, Black Moses, and the blockbuster soundtrack to Shaft, his long and varied career took him everywhere from Stax Records to "South Park", film and TV roles to cookbooks, restaurants, and barbecue sauce. According to the AP, at the time of his death, he was working on a new album for the recently relaunched Stax, as well as the film Soul Men with Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac, who also passed away this weekend. Born in 1942 in Covington, Tennessee, Hayes moved to Memphis with his family at a young age. He sang in church and played in gospel, doo-wop, blues, and jazz bands in high school. In 1964, Hayes joined the Stax Records stable as a session musician and later songwriter, playing with Otis Redding and teaming with co-writer David Porter to write hits for the likes of Sam & Dave ("Soul Man", Hold On! I'm Coming!") and Carla Thomas ("B-A-B-Y"). According to his website, "with the exception of Booker T & the MG's, Isaac Hayes worked on more Stax sessions and tracks than any other musician." In 1967, Hayes released his first solo album, Presenting Isaac Hayes. He hit the mainstream with 1969's hit Hot Buttered Soul, which stretched the boundaries of R&B with its epic song lengths and sexy, bubbling funk. It hit number one on the R&B charts and stayed on the pop charts for 81 weeks. His imposing image (shaved head, sunglasses, massive gold chains) helped solidify Hayes' presence as a star. As his website notes, Hayes scored 20 albums on the R&B and pop charts between 1969 and 1980. 1970's The Isaac Hayes Movement and ...To Be Continued were both hits, but it was 1971's Shaft, the soundtrack to Gordon Parks' blaxploitation film, that launched Hayes into the stratosphere. Shaft hit number one on both the pop and R&B charts, and won both Grammy and Academy Awards. Hayes' performance of "Theme From Shaft" at the 1972 Oscars remains one of television's most powerful musical moments. Following the success of Shaft, Hayes took on film roles (and scoring duties) for two 1974 films, Tough Guys and Truck Turner. It was the beginning of an acting career that would last until the end of his life, with roles in such films as 1981's Escape From New York, 1988's I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, and 2005's Hustle & Flow. From 1997 to 2006, Hayes was introduced to a whole new generation of fans through his role as Chef on the foul-mouthed cartoon "South Park". After such successes as 1971's Black Moses (and its amazing album art), 1973's Joy, Hayes split with Stax in 1975. He scored hits for Polydor in 1978 with "Zeke the Freak" and 1986 for Columbia with a new version of "Ike's Rap" (originally on ...To Be Continued). In the 1990s, Hayes became involved with African activism (he was made an honorary king of Ghana in 1992) as well as Scientology. He spearheaded a Scientologist literacy program, and launched the Isaac Hayes Foundation to benefit underprivileged youth. Stax A&R executive Collin Stanback told the Associated Press, ''Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music. When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes -- the expression ... the sound and the creativity that goes along with it.''

Hooray, a new stereotype: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

DevastatorJr — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:37:06 GMT

This was posted at The Onion AV Club yesterday and is already causing a brouhaha, fostering an article in Salon ( "The Portman Problem" http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/?last_story=/mwt/broadsheet/2008/08/07/manic_pixie ) and is sure to become the hot new catch phrase. Sure, it's funny and pretty true, but I don't know. I'm sort of getting tired of hip, cutesy stereotypes, like the "blipster" or "Stuff White People Like". Do we really need another one? Anyway, I'll do my part to spread this malicious meme rather than doing something productive with my life. It is good for a laugh though. And wasn't Jeanie from "I Dream Of Jeanie" the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Wild things: 16 films featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls http://www.avclub.com/content/node/83898/print/ by Donna Bowman, Amelie Gillette, Steven Hyden, Noel Murray, Leonard Pierce, Nathan Rabin August 4th, 2008 1. Elizabethtown (Kirsten Dunst) Ah, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, that sentient ray of sunshine sent from heaven to warm the heart and readjust the attitude of even the broodiest, most uptight male protagonist. In his My Year Of Flops entry on Elizabethtown, Nathan Rabin coined the phrase "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" to describe that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." In Elizabethtown, Kirsten Dunst plays the archetypal Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a flirty, flighty chatterbox stewardess who razzles and dazzles brooding sensitive guy Orlando Bloom. Coked up, or merely high on life? You be the judge. Though Dunst in Elizabethtown and Natalie Portman in Garden State epitomize the contemporary Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the strangely resilient archetype has its roots in the nutty dames of screwball comedy. For every era, there's a Manic Pixie Dream Girl perfectly suited to the times. 2. I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (Leigh Taylor-Young) Like the Magical Negro, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is largely defined by secondary status and lack of an inner life. She's on hand to lift a gloomy male protagonist out of the doldrums, not to pursue her own happiness. In the late '60s and early '70s, MPDGs often took the comely form of spacey hippie chicks burdened with getting grim establishment types to kick back and smell the flowers. In that respect, they mirrored mainstream culture's simultaneous suspicion and fascination with the open sexuality of the emergent counterculture. With the help of pot-laced brownies, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas' groovy free spirit Leigh Taylor-Young helps transform uptight Jew Peter Sellers from a stone-cold square to a swinging proponent of free love and sense derangement. But what does Taylor-Young ultimately want? As is usual with Manic Pixie Dream Girls, the filmmakers don't seem to have given the matter much thought. 3. Garden State (Natalie Portman) Pharmaceutical companies have made billions peddling antidepressants to twentysomething white people who are, like, totally stressin' over people not appreciating them enough. Zach Braff did similarly well peddling two unusual but no less popular antidepressants in Garden State: The Shins and Natalie Portman. Braff's character is completely transformed when the latter introduces him to the former in a doctor's waiting room, with the plucky, annoying promise, "It'll change your life, I swear." Of course, anything sounds profound coming from such a dreamy woman. Oh, Natalie, your unconventional ways are so inspiring, and your beauty is surprisingly non-threatening! In Garden State, she's a loveably eccentric little angel in the body of a smokin'-hot goddess, spreading good cheer and tuneful indie rock to depressed boys everywhere. 4. Butterflies Are Free (Goldie Hawn) Hawn began her acting career playing the ditz on TV comedies like Good Morning World and Laugh-In, but by the end of the '60s, her bubble-headed persona became less a figure of fun and more a love-generation ideal. She was the uncomplicated free spirit, unduly hassled by the establishment. Hawn won an Oscar for bringing that character to film in 1969's Cactus Flower, and then in 1972's Butterflies Are Free, she played a happy hippie who helps blind lawyer Edward Albert learn to live on his own and stand up to his fretful, frightful mother. Hawn's boyfriend doesn't care for her friendship with Albert, but what can he do? Hawn is a butterfly, man. 5. Almost Famous (Kate Hudson) In Cameron Crowe's gilded memories of being a teenage rock critic on assignment for Rolling Stone magazine, his protagonist's muse is an idealistic groupie named Penny Lane. With blinkered idealism, the boy-critic gets all starry-eyed at her visions of the power of music, the freedom of life on the road, and the fantasy of staying young and beautiful forever. Even though Penny's incandescent charisma gets tarnished by that sex she claims she isn't having, not to mention an overdose that might not have been accidental, Crowe's stand-in has been transformed enough to defend her version of rock 'n' roll against the cynicism, infighting, and weariness of the band who won't return her devotion. 6. Joe Versus The Volcano (Meg Ryan) Ryan plays three roles in 1990's Joe Versus The Volcano, only one of whom is a self-described "flibbertigibbet" (a sort of antiquated version of the MPDG). But since all Ryan's characters are aspects of the same dream woman, they all sport a little flibber. Their collective goal? To get mopey, nebbishy Tom Hanks to overcome his fears—including his concern that he's about to die from a fatal "brain cloud"—and enjoy life for a change. But if Hanks doesn't make it out of the film alive, no worries. The chipper, ever-life-altering Ryan will be waiting for him in Sleepless In Seattle and You've Got Mail, too. 7. The Apartment (Shirley MacLaine) All Jack Lemmon wants to do is ascend the corporate ladder, even if that means loaning his bosses his terrific bachelor pad for their illicit trysts. Then one day he comes home to find that the peppy elevator operator he likes is lying comatose on his sofa, feeling suicidal after an affair gone wrong. He nurses her back to health and she turns his life upside down, talking a blue streak until she convinces him to adjust his values. This kind of troubled, worldly, yet surprisingly ebullient character became Shirley MacLaine's stock in trade throughout the late '50s and early '60s, in films like Some Came Running and Two For The Seesaw. Three years after 1960's The Apartment, she reunited with Lemmon and director Billy Wilder for Irma La Douce, in which she played the ultimate MPDG: a prostitute who corrupts the policeman trying to save her from the streets. 8. Bringing Up Baby (Katharine Hepburn) For the bulk of her career, Katharine Hepburn played strong-willed patrician types who defied convention, but still maintained a baseline gravity. But in Howard Hawks' 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, Hepburn let gravity go, playing a giggly, scatterbrained heiress who torments stuffy scientist Cary Grant with her crazy demands and pet leopard. By the end of the film, Hepburn has turned Grant as nutty as she is, and as they hang from a crumbling dinosaur skeleton, he confesses that following her manic whims has led to the best day of his life. 9. What's Up, Doc? (Barbra Streisand) In Peter Bogdanovich's 1972 homage to Bringing Up Baby and Looney Tunes cartoons, Streisand plays a pesky chatterbox who endeavors to help dreary musicologist Ryan O'Neal get the grant he's after, but instead succeeds in driving a wedge between O'Neal and his fiancée, and getting him embroiled in espionage and jewel thievery. Streisand's character never really has any plausible motivation: She's just an anarchic change agent, pitched halfway between a screwball heroine and a cartoon character. Yet after spending a weekend with her, O'Neal is in a better place financially, romantically, and career-wise. Funny how things work out. 10. Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) The grand champion of the MPDG fighting league, '70s division, just might be Diane Keaton as the title character in Woody Allen's most good-natured film. The fact that she pulled this off in a world that let Goldie Hawn run around loose is just a further testament to how completely Keaton filled out the role of what otherwise could have been a shallow wish-fulfillment fantasy. Her character certainly does have wish-fulfillment elements. But while it's hard to believe such a woman could exist, it's very easy to believe that if she did, she'd be a perfect match for Allen's prototypically nebbishy character, Alvy Singer. If ever there was a comedian who needed to lighten up, it was him, and if there was ever a woman who could make him do it with just a "la-di-dah," it was her. 11. Breakfast At Tiffany's (Audrey Hepburn) In Truman Capote's short novel Breakfast At Tiffany's, Holly Golightly is a sexually adventurous woman who jumps from man to man, living off the gifts she extorts from them, and changing casually with the seasons. In the film version, Audrey Hepburn plays Holly as a chaste party girl who shares her opinions easily, but keeps her affections to herself (and her cat). Nevertheless, Hepburn-Holly charms writer George Peppard to such an extent that he's able to give up the rich older woman who helps subsidize his work, and instead offer his devotion to his erratic dream woman—who improbably, in contradiction to Capote's book, accepts. 12. Something Wild (Melanie Griffith) Straitlaced corporate drone Jeff Daniels desperately needs some screws loosened: His life sucks, and his family is suffocating him. But in the movies, there's always a MPDG around to show the buttoned-up bores how to live. In this case, it's crazy Lulu—later transformed into demure Audrey—who kidnaps him and pushes him into a road trip, complete with assumed identities and murderous mobsters. For a generation of young urban professionals, the indelible image of Griffith ripping her tank top apart while straddling a mortified but excited Daniels forever defined what kind of mania they wanted to see in their pixie dream girls. 13. Sweet November (Charlize Theron) Terminally ill Earth mother Charlize Theron makes things easy for uptight business-dude Keanu Reeves in 2001's Sweet November, an appropriately maudlin remake of the 1968 tearjerker. She enters Reeves' life, imbues it with meaning, then leaves, saving her new beau from the agony of watching her perish. Theron promises to change Reeves' life in a single month, and through highs, lows, and rampant quirkiness, she does just that. By the time she's exited his life, he's regained his joie de vivre and has been blessed with a haunted, vulnerable look that will be catnip to future MPDGs looking for a man to inspire. 14. Autumn In New York (Winona Ryder) See above. Joan Chen's directorial debut, Autumn In New York, is a strange cross between Sweet November and the culture-clash square-dude-meets-hippie-chick romantic subgenre of the Woodstock era. In 2000's Autumn In New York, the square dude in question is uptight businessman Richard Gere, and the charming minx who breathes life into his sorry existence and reawakens his libido is delightful pixie/crazy free spirit Winona Ryder, who, like Theron, nurses the tragic secret that she's terminally ill. They live, they love, and then that whole tragic-early-death thing enters the equation. Bummer city. 15. The Last Kiss (Rachel Bilson) Noted MPDG magnet Zach Braff went to the wedding in the pivotal scene of The Last Kiss soaked through with 30s ennui, and with the oppressive, leaden weights of adulthood, responsibility, and attractive, utterly devoted girlfriend Jacinda Barrett hanging around his neck. Clearly, he needed an escape from his prison of a life. Trailed by a cloud of flowing brunette hair, in walks Rachel Bilson, a chatty, smiley, flirty college student who is actually so diminutive that she's technically a regulation-size pixie. They laugh, they chat, they exchange meaningful glances, and Braff discovers that she's everything his girlfriend isn't: short, 22 years old, and carefree. Unfortunately, Bilson is also manic, and her mania doesn't surface until after they have sex in her dorm room, once Braff's regret is in full, watery-eyed bloom. 16. My Sassy Girl (Elisha Cuthbert) We're speculating here, since this forthcoming MPDG movie is currently only available in trailer form, but if there were an assembly line for Manic Pixie Dream Girls—and there probably is somewhere—Elisha Cuthbert went straight from the manufacturing facility and onto a subway railing to be saved by Jesse Bradford in My Sassy Girl. From the endearing way she slaps him without provocation to the adorable voices she seems to hear in her head, Cuthbert puts the "charming" in "charmingly mentally impaired." She's just the dash of acute manic depression that a staid, sensible-sweater-wearing guy like Bradford needs. As Bradford's token chubby best friend reminds him, "She's a nutjob!" Bradford's response, "But I love her." Those lines fully sum up the plot of any movie featuring a MPDG.

Out Of The Blue: The Blue Brain Project

DevastatorJr — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:09:47 GMT

Apropos of recent discussions regarding artificial intelligence and the brain, here's an article from SEED, (another great science magazine,) about the Blue Brain Project. What do you guys think of this one? Out of the Blue by Jonah Lehrer • Posted March 3, 2008 05:50 AM Can a thinking, remembering, decision-making, biologically accurate brain be built from a supercomputer? seedmagazine.com/news/2008...e_blue.php In the basement of a university in Lausanne, Switzerland sit four black boxes, each about the size of a refrigerator, and filled with 2,000 IBM microchips stacked in repeating rows. Together they form the processing core of a machine that can handle 22.8 trillion operations per second. It contains no moving parts and is eerily silent. When the computer is turned on, the only thing you can hear is the continuous sigh of the massive air conditioner. This is Blue Brain. The name of the supercomputer is literal: Each of its microchips has been programmed to act just like a real neuron in a real brain. The behavior of the computer replicates, with shocking precision, the cellular events unfolding inside a mind. "This is the first model of the brain that has been built from the bottom-up," says Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the director of the Blue Brain project. "There are lots of models out there, but this is the only one that is totally biologically accurate. We began with the most basic facts about the brain and just worked from there." Before the Blue Brain project launched, Markram had likened it to the Human Genome Project, a comparison that some found ridiculous and others dismissed as mere self-promotion. When he launched the project in the summer of 2005, as a joint venture with IBM, there was still no shortage of skepticism. Scientists criticized the project as an expensive pipedream, a blatant waste of money and talent. Neuroscience didn't need a supercomputer, they argued; it needed more molecular biologists. Terry Sejnowski, an eminent computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute, declared that Blue Brain was "bound to fail," for the mind remained too mysterious to model. But Markram's attitude was very different. "I wanted to model the brain because we didn't understand it," he says. "The best way to figure out how something works is to try to build it from scratch." The Blue Brain project is now at a crucial juncture. The first phase of the project—"the feasibility phase"—is coming to a close. The skeptics, for the most part, have been proven wrong. It took less than two years for the Blue Brain supercomputer to accurately simulate a neocortical column, which is a tiny slice of brain containing approximately 10,000 neurons, with about 30 million synaptic connections between them. "The column has been built and it runs," Markram says. "Now we just have to scale it up." Blue Brain scientists are confident that, at some point in the next few years, they will be able to start simulating an entire brain. "If we build this brain right, it will do everything," Markram says. I ask him if that includes selfconsciousness: Is it really possible to put a ghost into a machine? "When I say everything, I mean everything," he says, and a mischievous smile spreads across his face. Henry Markram is tall and slim. He wears jeans and tailored shirts. He has an aquiline nose and a lustrous mop of dirty blond hair that he likes to run his hands through when contemplating a difficult problem. He has a talent for speaking in eloquent soundbites, so that the most grandiose conjectures ("In ten years, this computer will be talking to us.") are tossed off with a casual air. If it weren't for his bloodshot, blue eyes—"I don't sleep much," he admits—Markram could pass for a European playboy. But the playboy is actually a lab rat. Markram starts working around nine in the morning, and usually doesn't leave his office until the campus is deserted and the lab doors are locked. Before he began developing Blue Brain, Markram was best known for his painstaking studies of cellular connectivity, which one scientist described to me as "beautiful stuff...and yet it must have been experimental hell." He trained under Dr. Bert Sakmann, who won a Nobel Prize for pioneering the patch clamp technique, allowing scientists to monitor the flux of voltage within an individual brain cell, or neuron, for the first time. (This involves piercing the membrane of a neuron with an invisibly sharp glass pipette.) Markram's technical innovation was "patching" multiple neurons at the same time, so that he could eavesdrop on their interactions. This experimental breakthrough promised to shed light on one of the enduring mysteries of the brain, which is how billions of discrete cells weave themselves into functional networks. In a series of elegant papers published in the late 1990s, Markram was able to show that these electrical conversations were incredibly precise. If, for example, he delayed a neuron's natural firing time by just a few milliseconds, the entire sequence of events was disrupted. The connected cells became strangers to one another. When Markram looked closer at the electrical language of neurons, he realized that he was staring at a code he couldn't break. "I would observe the cells and I would think, 'We are never going to understand the brain.' Here is the simplest possible circuit—just two neurons connected to each other—and I still couldn't make sense of it. It was still too complicated." Cables running from the Blue Gene/L supercomputer to the storage unit. The 2,000-microchip Blue Gene machine is capable of processing 22.8 trillion operations per second—just enough to model a 1-cubic-mm column of rat brain. Courtesy of Alain Herzog/EPFL Neuroscience is a reductionist science. It describes the brain in terms of its physical details, dissecting the mind into the smallest possible parts. This process has been phenomenally successful. Over the last 50 years, scientists have managed to uncover a seemingly endless list of molecules, enzymes, pathways, and genes. The mind has been revealed as a Byzantine machine. According to Markram, however, this scientific approach has exhausted itself. "I think that reductionism peaked five years ago," he says. "This doesn't mean we've completed the reductionist project, far from it. There is still so much that we don't know about the brain. But now we have a different, and perhaps even harder, problem. We're literally drowning in data. We have lots of scientists who spend their life working out important details, but we have virtually no idea how all these details connect together. Blue Brain is about showing people the whole." In other words, the Blue Brain project isn't just a model of a neural circuit. Markram hopes that it represents a whole new kind of neuroscience. "You need to look at the history of physics," he says. "From Copernicus to Einstein, the big breakthroughs always came from conceptual models. They are what integrated all the facts so that they made sense. You can have all the data in the world, but without a model the data will never be enough." Markram has good reason to cite physics—neuroscience has almost no history of modeling. It's a thoroughly empirical discipline, rooted in the manual labor of molecular biology. If a discovery can't be parsed into something observable—like a line on a gel or a recording from a neuron—then, generally, it's dismissed. The sole exception is computational neuroscience, a relatively new field that also uses computers to model aspects of the mind. But Markram is dismissive of most computational neuroscience. "It's not interested enough in the biology," he says. "What they typically do is begin with a brain function they want to model"—like object detection or sentence recognition—"and then try to see if they can get a computer to replicate that function. The problem is that if you ask a hundred computational neuroscientists to build a functional model, you'll get a hundred different answers. These models might help us think about the brain, but they don't really help us understand it. If you want your model to represent reality, then you've got to model it on reality." Of course, the hard part is deciphering that reality in the first place. You can't simulate a neuron until you know how a neuron is supposed to behave. Before the Blue Brain team could start constructing their model, they needed to aggregate a dizzying amount of data. The collected works of modern neuroscience had to be painstakingly programmed into the supercomputer, so that the software could simulate our hardware. The problem is that neuroscience is still woefully incomplete. Even the simple neuron, just a sheath of porous membrane, remains a mostly mysterious entity. How do you simulate what you can't understand? Markram tried to get around "the mystery problem" by focusing on a specific section of a brain: a neocortical column in a two-week-old rat. A neocortical column is the basic computational unit of the cortex, a discrete circuit of flesh that's 2 mm long and 0.5 mm in diameter. The gelatinous cortex consists of thousands of these columns—each with a very precise purpose, like processing the color red or detecting pressure on a patch of skin, and a basic structure that remains the same, from mice to men. The virtue of simulating a circuit in a rodent brain is that the output of the model can be continually tested against the neural reality of the rat, a gruesome process that involves opening up the skull and plunging a needle into the brain. The point is to electronically replicate the performance of the circuit, to build a digital doppelganger of a biological machine. Felix Schürmann, the project manager of Blue Brain, oversees this daunting process. He's 30 years old but looks even younger, with a chiseled chin, lean frame, and close-cropped hair. His patient manner is that of someone used to explaining complex ideas in simple sentences. Before the Blue Brain project, Schürmann worked at the experimental fringes of computer science, developing simulations of quantum computing. Although he's since mastered the vocabulary of neuroscience, referencing obscure acronyms with ease, Schürmann remains most comfortable with programming. He shares a workspace with an impressively diverse group—the 20 or so scientists working full-time on Blue Brain's software originate from 14 different countries. When we enter the hushed room, the programmers are all glued to their monitors, fully absorbed in the hieroglyphs on the screen. Nobody even looks up. We sit down at an empty desk and Schürmann opens his laptop. In Markram's laboratory, state-of-the-art equipment allows for computer-controlled, simultaneous recordings of the tiny electrical currents that form the basis of nerve impulses. Here, a technique known as "patch clamp" provides direct access to seven individual neurons and their chemical synaptic interactions. The patch clamp robot—at work 24 hours a day, seven days a week—helped the Blue Brain team speed through 30 years of research in six months. Inset, a system integrates a bright-field microscope with computer-assisted reconstruction of neuron structure. The entire setup is enclosed inside a "Faraday cage" to reduce electromagnetic interference and mounted on a floating table to minimize vibrations. Courtesy of Alain Herzog/EPFL The computer screen is filled with what look like digitally rendered tree branches. Schürmann zooms out so that the branches morph into a vast arbor, a canopy so dense it's practically opaque. "This," he proudly announces, "is a virtual neuron. What you're looking at are the thousands of synaptic connections it has made with other [virtual] neurons." When I look closely, I can see the faint lines where the virtual dendrites are subdivided into compartments. At any given moment, the supercomputer is modeling the chemical activity inside each of these sections so that a single simulated neuron is really the sum of 400 independent simulations. This is the level of precision required to accurately imitate just one of the 100 billion cells—each of them unique—inside the brain. When Markram talks about building a mind from the "bottom-up," these intracellular compartments are the bottom. They are the fundamental unit of the model. But how do you get these simulated compartments to act in a realistic manner? The good news is that neurons are electrical processors: They represent information as ecstatic bursts of voltage, just like a silicon microchip. Neurons control the flow of electricity by opening and closing different ion channels, specialized proteins embedded in the cellular membrane. When the team began constructing their model, the first thing they did was program the existing ion channel data into the supercomputer. They wanted their virtual channels to act just like the real thing. However, they soon ran into serious problems. Many of the experiments used inconsistent methodologies and generated contradictory results, which were too irregular to model. After several frustrating failures—"The computer was just churning out crap," Markram says—the team realized that if they wanted to simulate ion channels, they needed to generate the data themselves. That's when Schürmann leads me down the hall to Blue Brain's "wet lab." At first glance, the room looks like a generic neuroscience lab. The benches are cluttered with the usual salt solutions and biotech catalogs. There's the familiar odor of agar plates and astringent chemicals. But then I notice, tucked in the corner of the room, is a small robot. The machine is about the size of a microwave, and consists of a beige plastic tray filled with a variety of test tubes and a delicate metal claw holding a pipette. The claw is constantly moving back and forth across the tray, taking tiny sips from its buffet of different liquids. I ask Schürmann what the robot is doing. "Right now," he says, "it's recording from a cell. It does this 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It doesn't sleep and it never gets frustrated. It's the perfect postdoc." The science behind the robotic experiments is straightforward. The Blue Brain team genetically engineers Chinese hamster ovary cells to express a single type of ion channel—the brain contains more than 30 different types of channels—then they subject the cells to a variety of physiological conditions. That's when the robot goes to work. It manages to "patch" a neuron about 50 percent of the time, which means that it can generate hundreds of data points a day, or about 10 times more than an efficient lab technician. Markram refers to the robot as "science on an industrial scale," and is convinced that it's the future of lab work. "So much of what we do in science isn't actually science," he says, "I say let robots do the mindless work so that we can spend more time thinking about our questions." According to Markram, the patch clamp robot helped the Blue Brain team redo 30 years of research in six months. By analyzing the genetic expression of real rat neurons, the scientists could then start to integrate these details into the model. They were able to construct a precise map of ion channels, figuring out which cell types had which kind of ion channel and in what density. This new knowledge was then plugged into Blue Brain, allowing the supercomputer to accurately simulate any neuron anywhere in the neocortical column. "The simulation is getting to the point," Schürmann says, "where it gives us better results than an actual experiment. We get the same data, but with less noise and human error." The model, in other words, has exceeded its own inputs. The virtual neurons are more real than reality. A simulated neuron from a rat brain showing "spines"—tiny knobs protruding from the dendrites that will eventually form synapses with other neurons. Pyramidal cells such as these (so-called because of their triangular shape) comprise about 80 percent of cerebral cortex mass. Courtesy of BBP/EPFL Every brain is made of the same basic parts. A sensory cell in a sea slug works just like a cortical neuron in a human brain. It relies on the same neurotransmitters and ion channels and enzymes. Evolution only innovates when it needs to, and the neuron is a perfect piece of design. In theory, this meant that once the Blue Brain team created an accurate model of a single neuron, they could multiply it to get a three-dimensional slice of brain. But that was just theory. Nobody knew what would happen when the supercomputer began simulating thousands of brain cells at the same time. "We were all emotionally prepared for failure," Markram says. "But I wasn't so prepared for what actually happened." After assembling a three-dimensional model of 10,000 virtual neurons, the scientists began feeding the simulation electrical impulses, which were designed to replicate the currents constantly rippling through a real rat brain. Because the model focused on one particular kind of neural circuit—a neocortical column in the somatosensory cortex of a two-week-old rat—the scientists could feed the supercomputer the same sort of electrical stimulation that a newborn rat would actually experience. It didn't take long before the model reacted. After only a few electrical jolts, the artificial neural circuit began to act just like a real neural circuit. Clusters of connected neurons began to fire in close synchrony: the cells were wiring themselves together. Different cell types obeyed their genetic instructions. The scientists could see the cellular looms flash and then fade as the cells wove themselves into meaningful patterns. Dendrites reached out to each other, like branches looking for light. "This all happened on its own," Markram says. "It was entirely spontaneous." For the Blue Brain team, it was a thrilling breakthrough. After years of hard work, they were finally able to watch their make-believe brain develop, synapse by synapse. The microchips were turning themselves into a mind. But then came the hard work. The model was just a first draft. And so the team began a painstaking editing process. By comparing the behavior of the virtual circuit with experimental studies of the rat brain, the scientists could test out the verisimilitude of their simulation. They constantly fact-checked the supercomputer, tweaking the software to make it more realistic. "People complain that Blue Brain must have so many free parameters," Schürmann says. "They assume that we can just input whatever we want until the output looks good. But what they don't understand is that we are very constrained by these experiments." This is what makes the model so impressive: It manages to simulate a real neocortical column—a functional slice of mind—by simulating the particular details of our ion channels. Like a real brain, the behavior of Blue Brain naturally emerges from its molecular parts. In fact, the model is so successful that its biggest restrictions are now technological. "We have already shown that the model can scale up," Markram says. "What is holding us back now are the computers." The numbers speak for themselves. Markram estimates that in order to accurately simulate the trillion synapses in the human brain, you'd need to be able to process about 500 petabytes of data (peta being a million billion, or 10 to the fifteenth power). That's about 200 times more information than is stored on all of Google's servers. (Given current technology, a machine capable of such power would be the size of several football fields.) Energy consumption is another huge problem. The human brain requires about 25 watts of electricity to operate. Markram estimates that simulating the brain on a supercomputer with existing microchips would generate an annual electrical bill of about $3 billion . But if computing speeds continue to develop at their current exponential pace, and energy efficiency improves, Markram believes that he'll be able to model a complete human brain on a single machine in ten years or less. For now, however, the mind is still the ideal machine. Those intimidating black boxes from IBM in the basement are barely sufficient to model a thin slice of rat brain. The nervous system of an invertebrate exceeds the capabilities of the fastest supercomputer in the world. "If you're interested in computing," Schürmann says, "then I don't see how you can't be interested in the brain. We have so much to learn from natural selection. It's really the ultimate engineer." An entire neocortical column lights up with electrical activity. Modeled on a two-week-old rodent brain, this 0.5 mm by 2 mm slice is the basic computational unit of the brain and contains about 10,000 neurons. This microcircuit is repeated millions of times across the rat cortex—and many times more in the brain of a human. Courtesy of BBP/EPFL; rendering by Visualbiotech Neuroscience describes the brain from the outside. It sees us through the prism of the third person, so that we are nothing but three pounds of electrical flesh. The paradox, of course, is that we don't experience our matter. Self-consciousness, at least when felt from the inside, feels like more than the sum of its cells. "We've got all these tools for studying the cortex," Markram says. "But none of these methods allows us to see what makes the cortex so interesting, which is that it generates worlds. No matter how much I know about your brain, I still won't be able to see what you see." Some philosophers, like Thomas Nagel, have argued that this divide between the physical facts of neuroscience and the reality of subjective experience represents an epistemological dead end. No matter how much we know about our neurons, we still won't be able to explain how a twitch of ions in the frontal cortex becomes the Technicolor cinema of consciousness. Markram takes these criticisms seriously. Nevertheless, he believes that Blue Brain is uniquely capable of transcending the limits of "conventional neuroscience," breaking through the mind-body problem. According to Markram, the power of Blue Brain is that it can transform a metaphysical paradox into a technological problem. "There's no reason why you can't get inside Blue Brain," Markram says. "Once we can model a brain, we should be able to model what every brain makes. We should be able to experience the experiences of another mind." When listening to Markram speculate, it's easy to forget that the Blue Brain simulation is still just a single circuit, confined within a silent supercomputer. The machine is not yet alive. And yet Markram can be persuasive when he talks about his future plans. His ambitions are grounded in concrete steps. Once the team is able to model a complete rat brain—that should happen in the next two years—Markram will download the simulation into a robotic rat, so that the brain has a body. He's already talking to a Japanese company about constructing the mechanical animal. "The only way to really know what the model is capable of is to give it legs," he says. "If the robotic rat just bumps into walls, then we've got a problem." Installing Blue Brain in a robot will also allow it to develop like a real rat. The simulated cells will be shaped by their own sensations, constantly revising their connections based upon the rat's experiences. "What you ultimately want," Markram says, "is a robot that's a little bit unpredictable, that doesn't just do what we tell it to do." His goal is to build a virtual animal—a rodent robot—with a mind of its own. But the question remains: How do you know what the rat knows? How do you get inside its simulated cortex? This is where visualization becomes key. Markram wants to simulate what that brain experiences. It's a typically audacious goal, a grand attempt to get around an ancient paradox. But if he can really find a way to see the brain from the inside, to traverse our inner space, then he will have given neuroscience an unprecedented window into the invisible. He will have taken the self and turned it into something we can see. A close-up view of the rat neocortical column, rendered in three dimensions by a computer simulation. The large cell bodies (somas) can be seen branching into thick axons and forests of thinner dendrites. Courtesy of Dr. Pablo de Heras Ciechomski/Visualbiotech Schürmann leads me across the campus to a large room tucked away in the engineering school. The windows are hermetically sealed; the air is warm and heavy with dust. A lone Silicon Graphics supercomputer, about the size of a large armoire, hums loudly in the center of the room. Schürmann opens the back of the computer to reveal a tangle of wires and cables, the knotted guts of the machine. This computer doesn't simulate the brain, rather it translates the simulation into visual form. The vast data sets generated by the IBM supercomputer are rendered as short films, hallucinatory voyages into the deep spaces of the mind. Schürmann hands me a pair of 3-D glasses, dims the lights, and starts the digital projector. The music starts first, "The Blue Danube" by Strauss. The classical waltz is soon accompanied by the vivid image of an interneuron, its spindly limbs reaching through the air. The imaginary camera pans around the brain cell, revealing the subtle complexities of its form. "This is a random neuron plucked from the model," Schürmann says. He then hits a few keys and the screen begins to fill with thousands of colorful cells. After a few seconds, the colors start to pulse across the network, as the virtual ions pass from neuron to neuron. I'm watching the supercomputer think. Rendering cells is easy, at least for the supercomputer. It's the transformation of those cells into experience that's so hard. Still, Markram insists that it's not impossible. The first step, he says, will be to decipher the connection between the sensations entering the robotic rat and the flickering voltages of its brain cells. Once that problem is solved—and that's just a matter of massive correlation—the supercomputer should be able to reverse the process. It should be able to take its map of the cortex and generate a movie of experience, a first person view of reality rooted in the details of the brain. As the philosopher David Chalmers likes to say, "Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside." By shuttling between these poles of being, the Blue Brain scientists hope to show that these different perspectives aren't so different at all. With the right supercomputer, our lucid reality can be faked. "There is nothing inherently mysterious about the mind or anything it makes," Markram says. "Consciousness is just a massive amount of information being exchanged by trillions of brain cells. If you can precisely model that information, then I don't know why you wouldn't be able to generate a conscious mind." At moments like this, Markram takes on the deflating air of a magician exposing his own magic tricks. He seems to relish the idea of "debunking consciousness," showing that it's no more metaphysical than any other property of the mind. Consciousness is a binary code; the self is a loop of electricity. A ghost will emerge from the machine once the machine is built right. And yet, Markram is candid about the possibility of failure. He knows that he has no idea what will happen once the Blue Brain is scaled up. "I think it will be just as interesting, perhaps even more interesting, if we can't create a conscious computer," Markram says. "Then the question will be: 'What are we missing? Why is this not enough?'" Niels Bohr once declared that the opposite of a profound truth is also a profound truth. This is the charmed predicament of the Blue Brain project. If the simulation is successful, if it can turn a stack of silicon microchips into a sentient being, then the epic problem of consciousness will have been solved. The soul will be stripped of its secrets; the mind will lose its mystery. However, if the project fails—if the software never generates a sense of self, or manages to solve the paradox of experience—then neuroscience may be forced to confront its stark limitations. Knowing everything about the brain will not be enough. The supercomputer will still be a mere machine. Nothing will have emerged from all of the information. We will remain what can't be known.

Stereolab Origins X and XI

DevastatorJr — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:39:47 GMT

The Stereolab Origins project has really been fantastic. It's a great glimpse into the creative process of one of my favorite bands ever, not to mention a wonderful tour of exotic sounds from a very wide range of musicians. Hats off! Below, please find the two latest editions, featuring Sergio Mendes, Gal Costa, The Velvet Underground and more… Stereolab Origins X http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ynmkui_TRgw Stereolab Origins XI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDCMwU4hwwc

Sandcastles

DevastatorJr — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:03:09 GMT

Check 'em out -- http://www.rense.com/general76/sandcastles.htm

Are you too dumb to vote?

DevastatorJr — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:04:12 GMT

Are you too dumb to vote? http://www.salon.com/books/review/2008/06/05/shenkman/ Sure, ignorance is rampant among the American electorate, as Rick Shenkman argues. But without The People, there would be no Democracy as we know it. By Louis Bayard Jun. 05, 2008 | "Just How Stupid Are We?" There's no getting around the provocation of that title, and if your mouth is already forming the words, "Not stupid enough to read this book," then pause and give author Rick Shenkman his proper due. By questioning whether American voters have the capacity to think straight, he has ensured that he will never win an election and probably won't scare up a lot of readers, either. But at a time when Obama and Clinton and McCain have been hustling around the country trying to feel the common man's pain, it's oddly bracing to hear someone argue that the common man is a pain. If nothing else, it flies in the face of a great many clichés. "The people have spoken." "The people are always right." "Government of the people ... by the people..." Well, you know the rest. Or maybe you don't. Because, according to Shenkman, Americans don't know a hell of a lot, and some of us are, by any available metric, D-U-M dumb. "No one thing can explain the foolishness that marks so much of American politics," writes Shenkman, former journalist and founder of History News Network (hnn.us). "But what is striking is how often the most obvious cause -- public ignorance -- is blithely disregarded ... We feel uncomfortable coming right out and saying publicly, The People sometimes seem awfully stupid." For starters, they know nothing about government or current events. They can't follow arguments of any complexity. They stuff themselves with slogans and advertisements. They eschew fact for myth. They operate from biases and stereotypes, and they privilege feeling over thinking. The result is a political system of daunting irrationality, and rational people like Rick Shenkman are paying the cost. Don't look for things to get better, either. With the decline of political bosses, party machines and labor unions, the hoi polloi no longer have anyone telling them how to think -- even as polls, referendums and ballot initiatives place an ever greater premium on their opinions. "Nothing in our past experience," writes Shenkman, "justifies the belief that people in these circumstances are up to the task that history has now given them ... Our confidence in democracy rests on a myth." Stated this baldly, Shenkman's thesis has the sting of novelty, but in its rough outlines, it's no different from what Alexander Hamilton was arguing more than 200 years ago. Indeed, as Shenkman usefully reminds us, our constitutional history betrays from the very start "a constant tension between faith in The People and contempt for them." Madison and Jefferson may have talked a good game, but many of the Founding Fathers lived in terror of mob rule, which is why, under the original Constitution, only the House of Representatives could be directly elected. If it had been up to conservatives, that would still be the case today. Indeed, until Nixon and Reagan seized populism for anti-populist ends, America's right wing (the late William Buckley included) had very little use for representative democracy. By contrast, Shenkman argues, liberals actually swallowed the myth of mass wisdom and so were all the more stunned when The People turned on them for such crimes as embracing the rights of women and minorities. The upshot is that we are now "in the pitiful position that neither liberals nor conservatives are prepared to say to The People: stop and pay attention. Liberals cannot because their ideology leaves them unprepared to find fault with The People. Conservatives have not because The People repeatedly put them in power." But are The People really such a bad bargain? We can all, of course, muster at least anecdotal evidence of American stupidity. We've seen "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" We've watched Jay Leno flummox bystanders with the most basic questions. ("How many doors in a four-door sedan?") I know of more than one journalism professor who's been forced to quiz students on current events because tomorrow's news reporters don't actually follow today's news. But the more Shenkman tries to define our stupidity, the more slippery it becomes. Short-sightedness is part of it, he says. Boneheadedness, wooden-headedness, good old-fashioned numbskullery. But where are the statistics to show we are living in "an Age of Ignorance"? We're told that students forced to listen to NPR for a whole hour liken the experience to "torture." Depending on the hour, I might agree with them. A study finds that 22 percent of Americans can name all five members of TV's "Simpsons" clan, but only one in 1,000 can name all five First Amendment freedoms. I'll admit I'm among the 999 -- on the spot, I couldn't come up with "petition for redress of grievances" -- but what exactly makes these fact sets worth comparing, other than that each numbers five? Is a widespread familiarity with the most intelligent and subversive comedy in American TV history really a cause for despair? Shenkman has an equally tough time gauging our irrationality (though, again, each day brings fresh evidence). He criticizes voters for measuring economic success by employment and not productivity, as economists do. But isn't employment how the economy manifests itself to the average citizen? Similarly, Shenkman considers voters irrational for buying into George H.W. Bush's "no new taxes" pledge. Surely, though, that makes them not irrational but credulous. And in truth, the condition that Shenkman seems to be anatomizing is not so much stupidity as malleability. Americans are very good, he says, at being manipulated and lied to (to buttress his point, he offers a brief history of political ads) and we're equally good at lying to ourselves. Is it any wonder, then, that our current president was able to ram such an ill-advised war down our throats? But again, this won't quite pass. A sizable number of Americans opposed the Iraq war from its infancy, and a majority of Americans opposed it once it became clear the Bush administration had trumped up the casus belli. The 2006 congressional elections and the dismal state of Bush's poll rankings are persuasive testimony that the masses, one way or another, are tuned to the world around them. At any rate, representative democracy is a hard genie to put back in the bottle. As Shenkman admits, with more than a touch of rue, "We cannot fire the American people." He holds out hope, however, that we can downsize them. Among the bizarre trial balloons he lofts for enhancing political discourse are requiring voters to pass civics tests (shades of the Jim Crow literacy tests), letting state legislatures once again choose senators, and restoring the Electoral College's historic autonomy in electing presidents. A counter-revolution, in other words, that would roll American governance back to the good old days of Hamilton (without, presumably, rolling over women and blacks in the process). It would all be pretty alarming if it weren't so hopelessly, even endearingly, unrealistic and if it didn't arise from a fundamental misreading of the electoral process. Elections are not, despite the fond wishes of academics like Shenkman, examinations. A basic understanding of the issues is certainly an asset to a voter, but the decisions we make about candidates can't help being informed by all the things that Shenkman distrusts: emotions, hopes, values. I tend to vote Democratic, for example, not because I've scrutinized the party platform down to the last plank but because I approve, in general, of how Democrats want to use their power. The same, I assume, holds true for many Republicans. And so the seemingly blinkered outcomes that drive Shenkman crazy -- Clinton supporters overlooking his crassness, Bush supporters overlooking his obtuseness -- can actually be seen as exercises in priority setting. We may not like what our leaders are doing, but we continue to like who they are and how they look at the world. Simply because these sentiments can't be assayed through true-false questions is no reason to deny their validity. Even in the voting booth, the heart has its reasons. -- By Louis Bayard

Motherbox LIVES!

DevastatorJr — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:13:43 GMT

"How about that--"

Book Snobs Beware...

DevastatorJr — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:15:54 GMT

...Mikita Brottman has got you in her sights. In her new book, The Solitary Vice: Against Reading, Brottman takes aim at literary snobbishness of all sorts. I haven't read it, but I have read this excerpt from Popmatters. I hope they don't mind if I post it here, followed by my reply. What do you think? The Solitary Vice: You Can Always Watch the Movie, Instead [14 May 2008] http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/58262/the-solitary-vice-you-can-always-watch-the-movie-instead/ Be totally honest for a moment—just between us. Have you ever pretended to be familiar with a work of literature you haven’t actually read? Have you found yourself joining in conversations about Captain Ahab, Ophelia, or Leopold Bloom, without actually having read Moby-Dick, Hamlet, or Ulysses? Come on—I bet you have. If so, you’re not alone. We’ve all done it, whether it’s to impress a date by agreeing with them about the latest Philip Roth, or to appear blasé by arguing that Dickens is overrated, though we may never have managed to finish one of his novels. It’s odd how many otherwise honest, decent people should feel so insecure about what they haven’t read that they’re willing to lie about it. What for? You wouldn’t pretend to know your way around Chicago if you’ve never been there, or to have tasted ostrich eggs if you’ve never had the chance. The Solitary Vice: Against Reading (PopMatters/Counterpoint; US: Apr 2008) AmazonBut then, there’s no social assumption that knowing your way round Chicago makes you a more educated person, or that to be truly cultured, you “ought” to have tasted ostrich eggs. When it comes to literature, it’s a different matter. “Classics” like Moby-Dick, Hamlet, and Ulysses are generally considered to be works that all smart, sophisticated people “ought” to have read. And, since most of us like to think of ourselves as smart and sophisticated, we feel we “ought” to have read them, as well. If your best friend has just finished a great book and thinks you’d enjoy it too, she’ll say you’ve “got to” read it, or you’ll “love” reading it, or you “have to” read it, which all suggest the experience will be pleasurable. But when somebody tells you there’s a book you “ought” to read, it usually means something rather different. “Ought” is used for obligations, things you feel you should do, despite your inclinations: You want to wear pink but you “ought” to wear black; you want bacon and eggs for breakfast, but you “ought” to have granola. In most cases, these are things you need to do for your own good, even though you might not want to. You “ought” to say thank you; you “ought” to call your mother; you “ought” to get going. Books you feel you “ought” to read aren’t usually books you expect to enjoy, in the short term, at least. Rather, they’re books that will be “good for you” to have read in the long run; they’ll make you more educated, more sophisticated—or, at least, they’ll make you feel that way, which is almost as good. Books you think you “ought” to read are usually books you once started but didn’t finish, books you were supposed to read for a literature class but bought the CliffsNotes for instead, or books some well-meaning friend bought for you that you’ve never got round to reading, though they look impressive on your shelf. In each case, if they were really compelling, don’t you think you’d have read them long ago? Let me make it plain: There are no books you “ought” to read. Take my advice—if it bores you, if you don’t get it, if it puts you to sleep or gives you a headache, put it down and read something else instead. Even this book: If you’re not interested, stop reading right now! Put it down, get your money back, give it to a friend, or toss it out of the window. Honestly, I won’t mind. There’s no point forcing you to read something you don’t find engaging. The truth is, if you’re not interested in what you read, you’ll get nothing out of it, and you’ll probably forget it the moment you’ve finished. What have you got to gain from struggling to read something against your will? Maybe you’ll be able to catch a reference to the book if it’s mentioned in a movie or play; maybe you’ll be able to hold your own at a fancy dinner party, but then, you could probably do the same thing by just reading the back cover. And let’s face it, these days no one’s going to be less successful or looked down upon because they haven’t read War and Peace. Most of the books people think they “ought” to read are those works generally known as “literary classics.” These books have a reputation for being difficult to engage with, but it’s important to remember that most “classics” were written for a very different age from ours, and for very different readers from you and me. Before the 20th century, fiction was the main form of public entertainment (and even then, only a few people had access to it). There was, needless to say, no TV, no movies, and no Internet, and very few people actually owned books. What we now call “classic” novels were generally published in installments, or in magazines, so, like today’s soap operas, they could be drawn out for as long as they held the public’s attention. As a result, they couldn’t be closely structured in advance; “plot” (as we know it now) was far less central than it is today, which helps explain why, used to the fast pace of modern media, many people get bored with “classic” fiction, just as they find it difficult to get into silent movies or films with subtitles. It doesn’t mean they’re less smart; it just means they’re used to a different pace and style. For readers today, it’s a lot more difficult to get hooked by one of these “classics” than by modern writing; their slow, gradual unfolding demands the kind of time and attention few busy people are willing to devote to a relaxing, recreational activity like reading fiction. So the only time most of us ever read these books, or try to read them, is at school or college, when they’re “assigned reading” in mandatory English courses. It’s often said that being made to read literature in the classroom kills the joy of it. What’s less often discussed is how many people continue to harbor guilt and shame about books they’ve never read (and to bluff about reading them, too). Have you ever wondered why these books are supposed to be so brilliant, when you’ve tried to read them, and found they neither hook you in, nor inspire your curiosity, nor foster your pleasure, nor get you involved, nor keep you engaged? Perhaps you’ve decided that reading “classic” fiction is one of those cultural experiences, like opera, ballet, or avant-garde theater, in which, to really appreciate its subtleties, you have to be an expert, a real connoisseur, because obviously, there are people who (claim to) find these books riveting, compelling, and impossible to put down. And these people can’t all be bluffing, can they? Can they?? Well, not all of them, but some might be. There’s a scene in David Lodge’s campus novel Changing Places in which a group of English professors, after too many drinks, plays a game they call “Humiliation,” in which each person names a book he hasn’t actually read (but assumes all the others have), and scores a point for every person who’s read it. In other words, the winner is the person who humiliates himself the most. One of the eminent highbrows reveals that he’s never read Longfellow’s “Hiawatha”; another confesses he’s never been able to get through Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Regained.” The titles get more and more familiar, but the game only ends when one of them, in a moment of drunken honesty, slams down his palm on the table and yells, “Hamlet!” He wins the game, of course, but the next day the news creeps out, ending up as a brief item in the university newspaper, and before long the sheepish professor has been turned down for tenure and forced to resign. Not long ago, one of my smartest students asked me if she could write a paper on “the character of the Cheshire Cat”; when I agreed, I didn’t realize that, knowing nothing of Lewis Carroll, she was planning to write about a Disney cartoon. While the scene is obviously exaggerated, like most comedy, it hits on an important truth, which is that nobody’s read everything, even English professors, and it’s very common for people to give the impression—even to genuinely believe—they’ve read far more than they actually have. A lot of literary knowledge is picked up by accretion; you don’t actually have to have read “Paradise Regained”, or “Hiawatha”, or even Hamlet, to be familiar with their plots, characters, and perhaps a few of their famous lines. Similarly, lots of fictional characters have passed into public consciousness as archetypes, metaphors, or embodiments of particular kinds of behavior. By calling somebody a “Scrooge” or a “Don Juan,” you’re not actually claiming to have read the works by Dickens or Molière that feature these characters, just as you wouldn’t assume someone who described their ex-boyfriend as a “Lothario” would necessarily be familiar with Nicholas Rowe’s The Fair Penitent, the little-known 1703 Restoration drama in which this character appears. While some people are very conscious of gaps in their literary knowledge, many others are not. In fact, they’re often convinced they’ve read something even when they haven’t, or haven’t really, which raises the question of what it actually means to have “read” a book. Not all the books we read stay with us, perhaps not even most of them, and if you’ve read a book but can’t remember anything about it, how can you be sure you’ve “really” read it? Lionel Trilling once famously told Edward Said that he thought the Columbia University humanities core, one of the early “great books” curricula, “has the virtue of giving Columbia students a common basis in reading, and if they later forgot the books (as many always do) at least they would have forgotten the same ones.” I remember feeling terribly proud of myself in college for managing to “read” the whole of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene—over a thousand interminable-seeming pages of it—but while I may have sat at my desk with the book in front of me, taken in each word with my eyes, and turned over every page, I remember so little about it that to say I’ve “read” it means nothing at all. (I’m not alone; when he was reading English at Oxford, poet Philip Larkin wrote the following note in his college library copy of The Faerie Queene: “First I thought Troilus and Criseyde was the most boring poem in English. Then I thought Beowulf was. Now I know that The Faerie Queene is the dullest thing out.”) On the other hand, there are certain books I can remember so well that, even many years later, I can still recall the texture of the paper, the font, and the look of certain passages on the page. A few years ago, when discussing Nabokov’s Lolita in an undergraduate class, I was momentarily taken aback when one of my students, in defense of Humbert Humbert, mentioned all the gifts he bought Lolita, including a trunk full of clothes, a bicycle, and a DVD. Wait . . . a DVD? “The Little Mermaid,” she reminded me, indicating the reference on her page, highlighted in fluorescent pink. She was right, Humbert does buy Lolita a copy of The Little Mermaid for her birthday, but it’s not a DVD, it’s a book by Hans Christian Andersen, “a de luxe volume with commercially ‘beautiful’ illustrations.” I was a bit shocked to realize that my student knew The Little Mermaid only as an animated Disney movie, but I’ve had so many similar experiences since then that I’m starting to get used to them. Not long ago, one of my smartest students asked me if she could write a paper on “the character of the Cheshire Cat”; when I agreed, I didn’t realize that, knowing nothing of Lewis Carroll, she was planning to write about a Disney cartoon. Just a few weeks ago, when I asked my freshman students what they thought of “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon,” Angela Carter’s updated retelling of the Beauty and the Beast myth, a number of them accused her indignantly of “plagiarizing from the movie.” Simply put, the students I teach are far more familiar with movies than with books—and why not? It’s through movies that most people today come to know literary “classics.” Many more people watch films than read books; in fact, cinema today is what literature was to the readers of earlier centuries: the most accessible form of culture (I’d probably have a much better memory of The Faerie Queene if they’d made it into a film). I’d far prefer my students were familiar with a movie version of something than not knowing it at all. It works both ways—I was pleasantly surprised, not long ago, when my whole class proved coolly knowledgeable about the history of Troy (they’d just seen the Brad Pitt movie, it turned out)—a nice contrast to the student who, when I asked him which Dickens he’d read, replied confidently: “Charles.” If you can manage to get hooked by a classic novel, by all means go ahead and read it, but if not, remember, you can always watch the movie. There are some tremendous film versions available, like The Little Mermaid, on DVD. My personal favorites include Robert Z. Leonard’s Pride and Prejudice, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, Jack Conway’s A Tale of Two Cities, and James Ivory’s Howard’s End. There are also some great television adaptations you can order from Netflix, including first-rate versions of the best-known works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and E. M. Forster, all particularly recommended for anybody who’s having trouble with the originals. Mikita Brottman Some especially interesting movies have been made from the works of Shakespeare. While Shakespeare’s poetry is the best of its kind, I know a lot of people find the archaic language difficult to understand, and this often prevents them from appreciating its power. If you have a problem with Shakespeare, I suggest you pick up a modern translation, and then, once you’ve got a sense of the plot (not a difficult task—Shakespeare isn’t really about the plot), find a good movie version to get a feel for the language, then try the original again. Particular favorites of mine—all loyal to the word and spirit of the original, and visually compelling in their own right—are Franco Zeffirelli’s dark Hamlet, Roman Polanski’s blood-drenched Macbeth, Michael Radford’s lavish Merchant of Venice, and Julie Taymor’s apocalyptic Titus. My Reply -- Personally, in my reading life, there has always been a range between books I read for sheer enjoyment and books I don’t immediately connect with at all but feel I “should” read, for one reason for another. Usually, I try to strike a balance between the two. Of course I could wallow in endless epic space battles between sexy robots and the forces of evil, but occasionally I feel that it might be a good idea to exercise my brain a little bit by reading something outside of my personal comfort zone. Often, I am pleasantly surprised by the insight gained from reading a book I normally wouldn’t have been interested in, and though I initially find the subject matter strange/boring/dumb, the writers meaning oddly resonates with my own life experience. Sometimes when I’m reading a book with particularly difficult or strange language, I’m tempted to give up and throw it away. Sometimes I do. But other times, if I stick it through, I am rewarded at the end not just with a feeling of accomplishment, not just an appreciation of the work that went into the writing, but again with a sense that what the writer had to say was deeply meaningful, and worth the effort. This much is obvious, and I suspect Ms. Brottman is playing devil’s advocate in reaction to some unfortunate literary snobbishness she’s encountered. But I’m not sure what she hopes to accomplish – not many Americans read anymore anyway, certainly not those books they “ought” to read, like Moby Dick or Ulysses. You’ve won your battle a long time ago. Congratulations. -- Me