“We will survive; if one newspaper is left standing, it will be us,” - Alessandra Stanley, 2008 C.E.

Drew University keeps it tight with the New York Times. First, they were a clue a few months ago in an NYTimes Crossword puzzle, and now they're in the Randolph Record because they had the double treat of hosting bffs Maureen Dowd and Alessandra Stanley. This was on October 29th (seems that the news story needed a while to be written).

It's a short article and a real Dowd treat, it has her quotes live, and Alessandra mumbled something about a luxury fashion label. This is a good clue that someone is content to stand apart from the pack and choose elitism over something more tasteful. Hi five, Ms. Stanley!

Which verbal gems do you find most insightful?

Click here for the article

Click here if you'd like to book Maureen Dowd for a speaking engagement

Tom Friedman, do you take Malthus with your tea?

Lots of Daily Show this week. Tom Friedman's a fairly sensible guy and likes to push people in positive directions, though he's short on revelations.

They both hit the problem on the head: fossil fuels are cheap and dirty. They are also packed with huge amounts of chemical energy, which is a bit more technical.

Mr. Friedman wants to 'level the playing field' between green power and fossil fuels, inferring levying a pollution tax so great that the price difference is irrelevant. Fair enough, taxes should implement social change. Two problems that I see: one is the old yarn about the problem with the commons, which continues to show itself true. If the U.S. does its due diligence and cleans up its act, why should other nations do the same? Especially nations that are enjoying, despite a slowdown, annual growths of seven and nine percent. What's more, they have a much better argument not to participate in world enviornmental initiatives: the relative costs that would cut deep for us would cut even deeper for them.

The other problem is that there is no one good solution. Instead, we have several: the aforementioned green sources plus nuclear, natural gas, and 'clean coal,' a technology apparently years away. If we put these all together, will they add up approximately to what we had before? Or will we be left subsidizing these sources because they cost so much more to generate power?

In the new times of thrift and consumer fear, I think we should ask ourselves: how much does it cost? Not how much would it cost given a series of hypotheses, but how much does it cost now? From there, are all of these technologies and infrastructure proposals going to get cheaper? How would they? I'm not ruling anything out, but I will say one thing: to me, it takes less work to blow up a mountaintop in West Virginia than to maintain the moving parts for a million wind fans collecting wind energy.

While not advocating any more desecration of West Virginia, probably one of the most beautiful states in the Union, I want to point out that the ante keeps being raised on enviornmental causes. It used to be: walk when you can, keep your tires inflated, insulate your house better, and don't use the heater and air-conditioning when you're not at home. While you're at it, turn off appliances you're not using and turn off the sink when you brush your teeth. Now I feel like we're at permanent threat level orange. What's changed? The sea levels, a little. Some migratory patterns too. It seems very presumptuous, though, to say that these things are leading us to a cataclysm.

Tom Friedman tries to present himself as reasonable, but this energy movement is supposed to be the new economy, even though it will certainly cost more--much more. More money for energy means less money for universal health care and less money for social security for a larger aging population that will live longer than previous generations. There's only so much economy to go around!

The cracks in his reasonable facade started showing when he started talking about the world getting "crowded," a view routinely expounded by those who think that their fear-laden view is the objective view. It's simply not true-there are millions of square miles that people can live on, even if the world's population doubles. But, I'm biased too. I like people, I like babies, and I live in a metropolis that feels plenty crowded!

21st Century update: Portable Synth Very Interesting

The Nintendo DS is a fliptop portable gamer with a writing wand that you can use much like that of a Palm Pilot. Hooray! Though I, like many people, don't play video games. Hooray! For others.

Hold up. Now there is a 'game' that is actually just a KORG synthesizer. Walking by the Nintendo Store yesterday, I wanted to see if I could play with one. They did not have it out on display. Notably, though, they were sold out of it. The last copy was sold to a woman who ran in asking for it at the top of her lungs, and then after learning it was the last one, vaunted her purchase to the store. She got super double happiness off of that purchase, probably more than was intended.

I do want one. But I don't even compose on my fancy Apple Computer (Garage Band), so perhaps I should start there.

Click here to looky look at it. You can see he's using the "Kaos pad" which lets you change the sound by rubbing over a big square. I believe the effects from it are somewhat randomized.

Shock Jock Talk without the Shock Jock

Dichotomy on NPR! Amazingly, for Fresh Air, they interviewed longtime Howard Stern contributor Artie Lange about his new book, Too Fat to Fish. This guy epitomizes the line from Spiritualized: "I don't fall off the wagon, you know. I take a dive and go as deep as I can go."

Click here to listen to the program

Terry Gross: Sensible, sounds like a four year college degree.

Artie Lange: Unapologetic drug user and caricature of humanity that is everything on Howard Stern. He fits in with the "post James Frey" trend of not promising help on other people's drug use but at least detailing the exploits. (See NYT contributor David Carr's book, "Night of the Gun")

Results? A great interview! Fresh Air is a fine show, but usually it's the mirror in the parrot cage: awk! You're smart and well-educated!

Doreen Kronin and Betsy Lewin

Children's books are important. They are on the front lines of establishing the yen for books that hopefully continues later in life. Yet, until I started buying children's books for my cousins' kids, I didn't pick them up much except for morning reads at a New York City Public School.

The morning reads taught me that the charming cartoon Arthur reigned supreme in children's minds. On this I held common ground with the children: I found Arthur totally entertaining. If I was a house husband, I would set aside time for Arthur.

It is possible, though, to reach a child without the assistance of a children's program. It certainly happened for me. Where the Wild Things Are, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day were all satisfying on many levels: illustration, story arc, humor, fears, and imagination. They created kids-sized worlds that I could enter into again and again.

(Also, I was, and am still, a big eater, so "Cloudy" with its promises of literal manna from heaven was my Shangri-la).

An author/illustrator team working hard these days is Betsy Lewin and Doreen Cronin. They have several elements that come together, time and again in their books. If you're looking for a new book for a child, I suggest checking them out.

The illustration is watercolor, but the one detail they never neglect are the eyes: sympathetic, simple, cartoonish. And they're always looking at you from the page. Children should connect with as many faces as possible, whether in a book or in real life. The stories revolve around farm animals who can be petty, selfish, and sneaky. Sneakiness especially is child's play, it says, what can I get away with? I think these books play this to great effect. In some sense, the modern child needs to always ask what he can get away with because he needs to have that latitude of mind when he's older.

Just as important, Doreen and Betsy don't fall into traps that could discount their worth. They don't proselytize, which is very important to me. Though kids deal with kids issues, they have a sense of when adults are trying to sell them snake oil. (FYI, note to adults, all adult issues are snake oil to children). Doreen and Betsy don't truck in diversity, "democratic values," conservation, and family values. Since when did kids have problems with this stuff anyways?

To elaborate a bit, when I was six years old, I was sent to a day camp. I was one of three white children and all the other kids were black. I never, never thought about it until my mom asked me if I was okay going to camp and being different from those kids. To me, they were kids. To her, they were black kids. My mom is not racist, but she came from a segregated world. So, when I state that children's books don't need to deal with adults issues, I mean that children should be young enough not to have developed the dysfunctions that are propogated in an adult society.

In addition, their books are not abstract, which is something that can totally lose a child. See Spot. See Spot Run. This book was created out of declarative sentences describing concrete actions and has split more children and adults than any other. Adults think it's asinine, children find pleasure in it as if it were Song of Myself (and my dog). The point is, if the child is holding a book, the adult should be satisfied.

What kids books have you seen recently that you like? Which kids books seem to appease adults more than kids? (After all, the adult is buying it or checking it out of the library).

T Boone Pickens - the pied piper of natural gas reserves

T Boone has been on TV a lot recently, hitting up several shows in New York City. In case you haven't read or seen him, he's basically trying to push America to use Natural Gas. Natural Gas is apparently abundant in North America, though it is also hard to access because you need to have a pipeline to transport it.

T Boone has a lot of Natural Gas holdings, but that Gas isn't going anywhere without a major pipeline. So, he's making an appeal that Natural Gas can be a substitute for a major cuplrit in America's oil consumption: Diesel use. According to T Boone, Natural Gas is the only viable North American substitute to Diesel, which we make from oil (which, of couse, is mostly foreign).

I got to see him on Morning Joe and the Daily Show. He had ample time to explain his ideas on both programs. What I noticed, though, is that he never mentioned the word Biodiesel during his interviews. According to his plan, American trucking and equipment has two fueling choices: "foreign oil" derivatives (diesel and unleaded) and natural gas.

Though not necessary for an argument, it would have bolstered the appearance of credibility if he had at least mentioned Biodiesel. Because, if he were to sell the American public on Natural Gas, he would stand to make a fortune. If he doesn't, he's sitting on a relatively unused resource.

I would like to hear the opinions of some envoirnmentally and geopolitically concerned experts who do not stand to gain from selling major holdings before I join the Pickens Army.

Though, I must confess that I miss manual labor, and his talk of "3 million new jobs" building wind farms--his other venture--gets me all excited to join a work crew and hoist fan blades.

Balearic

It's time for me to get new dance music. At least, in my fantasy world where I'm booking two deejay nights a week, I'm having to make a shift to the largely anonymous songs that make up a dance club. Songs that blend into one another so even the soberest of club patrons is not sure where one begins and one ends.

Yesterday I went to Turntable Lab for some record cleaning supplies. What can I say? They do sell brushes and needles--things that you need if you actually play records. They even sell records, and since I buy so few new records I committed to purchasing something made in the last year. I grabbed some stuff:

DFA's Metro Area man Morgan Geist

Rong Records which has something to do with MOMA's P.S.1 I BELIEVE

"Pool Party Remixes" - no link, sorry

Eskimo Records' Balearic Beat Comp

So, I played the records on their turntable (yes, you can listen to new records there!), and the Rong Records' record was pressed on noisy wax which disqualified it. Morgan Geist, too jaunty. I needed something more cathartic, I wanted to listen to music to deactivate, not to get energized or think. This came through on the Eskimo records' E.P.: the big falling synths, space sounds, and 'sampled percussion sounds' struck me as the solution. In my fantasy D.J. residency, guys and girls might fade to nothing as they followed the Balearic sounds from Eskimo records.

The crowning feature of Eskimo's compilation was the big emphasis on warm melodic synths: each song centered around this. Too distracted in trying to make purchases and leave, I grabbed the record and went home. Later, after a couple hours of T.V., I plugged into the record to enjoy the experience again. On the second listen, though, I realized that this record had a close classic rock affiliation, which made it less anonymous than I originally hoped.

As Pink Floyd pushed through the seventies, they also used big, warm, melodic synths. The album that heralds this sound is Wish You Were Here, which is both cathartic and emotive. The album opens and closes with spacey fuzzy synth notes played over background synths. Within the album, though, Pink Floyd has emotive and painful songs that balance out the initial, "live from Outer Space" sounds.

Close to the center of the album, the title track, "Wish You Were Here," uses a bare, electrified (sounds a bit, doesn't it?) acoustic guitar, which is near opposite of a synth. "Wish You Were Here" is a crying howl of a song much like "Tears in Heaven" or "Leaving on a Jet Plane": it sounds like something reserved for wakes and once-in-a-lifetime hugs between friends. How do they contain this emotion? By placing "Welcome to the Machine" before it, which sounds like something based on the movie "Metropolis" or "Modern Times," and "Have a Cigar," which is a caricature of a record exec but so dominated by synths that it seems to be an exec from the future, promising sales on music contained solely on, aak!, computers.

Wish You Were Here helps define the difference between synths and guitars (at least, until they became nearly ubiquitous). In the mid seventies, synths didn't have nostalgia like guitars. A guitar, though, is chosen to reference a guitar from the past: rockabilly, country, blues, metal, Spanish, surf, garage, grunge, folk, slide, Ben Harper. So, Pink Floyd's album, largely based on synth, is more self-referential than anything, looking at its own catalog: Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon. It's the sounds of the Pink Floyd universe.

Sitting with my headphones turned up to club levels, I realized that the synths on the Balaeric record were recreating airs from Wish You Were Here. I was a little disappointed because it ruined the numbing effect I was looking for: As an overly emotive teen, I listened to Wish You Were Here whenever I had a sad face. So, this record brings me back to those confused times, just like if I listened to a pop song with a folk guitar, banjo, and mandolin, I'll probably think of the Grateful Dead album American Beauty and the sixth grade.

Pink Floyd does not own all synth sounds and melodies, so it would be possible to create a similar record that doesn't sound like Wish You Were Here. That would be the record for me: stripping away the classic rock roots that defined my, and many others', childhoods.

Dread feeling

Stop picking on her. The internet doesn't like her. Bully.

Feeling will go away once something actually positive about her comes into the newsfeed.

In case you missed the Daily Show

I nearly missed it myself, not being a regular watcher. Fortunately, I've been using television to avoid some important stuff in my life, and Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert has more bounce to the ounce than the standard late-night variety shows. Perhaps, though, having two hosts for an hour is the way to combat the ADD generation's apathy.

One of the news contributors, Wyatt Cenac, had to make his own promo. This newsless comedy break had me in tears. These guys are uncouth.

Thanks to the push of internet, you can watch it here.

Liquid Liquid to appear in New York City

When it comes to infectious percussion with No-Wave Cool, the two well-compiled masters are Liquid Liquid and ESG. Oh, there are plenty more. Konk, Bush Tetras, and the Contortions all come to mind, and if you like percussion with no dance beat, try the Golden Palominos' first album.

Liquid Liquid, this will be a concert for the ages. WEDNESDAY, NOV 19th.

CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR TICKET.

-signing off, Standardsmus of musicmus.

Why is she opining on Sarah Palin on 11/11?

I'm confused as to why op-eds like this are running. The election is over and no one cares what a VP from a disastrous campaign is doing with her party's finances.

I can only conclude that she has carte blanche to write what she wants. No one can edit her, no one can ask her to write about something more relevant.

I am in pain, reading her articles and her portmanteaus. What others do for pure satire, she does to be taken seriously.

Here is the link to the article. May God cleanse me for reading and linking this trite nonsense. Read at risk to your eyes and mind.

And one more thing: