Holland, 2002

Try the Punch: Handpicked Hits from 2011

2012-01-07T07:35:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Thank you for your interest in this year's mixes. For those of you new to the drill, here's a little bit about them:

The discs are organized (roughly) by genre. In total, there are five this year, and the tracklisting can be found below. Although you may be mostly interested in one or two, I encourage everyone to try them all. The country/folk mix may have Taylor Swift & Lady Antebellum on it, but it also has Bill Callahan and Cass McCombs. Hopefully everyone can find something new that they enjoy.

As always, I strongly recommend checking out the rest of these artists and bands' work. There are certainly some singles on this compilation, particularly on the Pop and Electronic mixes, but most of these songs come from albums that I love.

Thanks for all the positive feedback on the facebook page. I'd love to hear what you think of these.

Lastly, thanks to my brother for the cover photo (more here) and to Giovanni for help with the name.

Happy New Year,

Adam

---

TRACKLIST

DISC I : POP / HIP HOP / R&B -- 1:19:25 -- 160.5 MB

1. "1+1" -- Beyoncé (from 4) [Columbia]

2. "212" -- Azealia Banks feat. Lazy Jay (from the 212 Single) [Self-Released]

3. "Ass on the Floor" -- Diddy-Dirty Money feat. Swizz Beatz (from Last Train to Paris) [Bad Boy]

4. "Somebody That I Used to Know" -- Gotye feat. Kimbra (from Making Mirrors) [Eleven]

5. "Super Bass" -- Nicki Minaj (from the Pink Friday Deluxe Edition) [Young Money Entertainment]

6. "Niggas in Paris" -- Jay-Z & Kanye West (from Watch the Throne) [Roc-A-Fella]

7. "The Morning" -- The Weeknd (from House of Balloons) [Self-Released]

8. "Heaven" -- Emeli Sandé (from the Heaven Single) [Virgin]

9. "We Found Love" -- Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris (from Talk That Talk) [Def Jam]

10. "Novacane" -- Frank Ocean (from Nostalgia, Ultra) [Self-Released]

11. "Video Games" -- Lana Del Rey (from the Video Games Single) [Interscope]

12. "Wildfire" -- SBTRKT feat. Little Dragon (from SBTRKT) [Young Turks]

13. "Till the World Ends (The Femme Fatale Remix)" -- Britney Spears feat. Nicki Minaj & Ke$ha (from the Till the World Ends Single) [Jive]

14. "Stay Away" -- Charli XCX (from the Stay Away EP) [This is Music]

15. "Turning Tables" -- Adele (from 21) [XL]

16. "Realest Alive" -- Clams Casino (from Instrumental Mixtape) [Self-Released]

17. "Good Man" -- Raphael Saadiq (from Stone Rollin') [Columbia]

18. "Marvins Room" -- Drake (from Take Care) [Young Money]

19. "Swerve... the Reeping of All That is Worthwhile (Noir Not Withstanding)" -- Shabazz Palaces (from Black Up) [Sub Pop]

DISC II : ROCK / INDIE-ROCK -- 1:18:12 -- 155.9 MB

1. "Honey Bunny" -- Girls (from Father, Son, Holy Ghost) [True Panther Sounds]

2. "The Other Shoe" -- Fucked Up (from David Comes to Life) [Matador]

3. "Dawned on Me" -- Wilco (from The Whole Love) [dBpm]

4. "Still Life" -- The Horrors (from Skying) [XL]

5. "Operation" -- Yuck (from Yuck) [Fat Possum]

6. "It's Real" -- Real Estate (from Days) [Domino]

7. "Jesus Fever" -- Kurt Vile (from Smoke Ring for My Halo) [Matador]

8. "Baby Missiles" -- The War on Drugs (from Slave Ambient) [Secretly Canadian]

9. "Whirring" -- The Joy Formidable (from The Big Roar) [Atlantic]

10. "Imidiwan Ma Tennam" -- Tinariwen feat. Nels Cline (from Tassili) [Anti]

11. "Weekend" -- Smith Westerns (from Dye It Blonde) [Fat Possum]

12. "Ice Cream" -- Battles feat. Matias Aguayo (from Gloss Drop) [Warp]

13. "Understand at All" -- Cloud Nothings (from Cloud Nothings) [Carpark]

14. "Believer" -- John Maus (from We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves) [Upset the Rhythm]

15. "Mona Lisa" -- Atlas Sound (from Parallax) [4AD]

16. "Marked" -- EMA (from Past Life Martyred Saints) [Souterrain Transmissions]

17. "The Stars in His Head (Dark Lights Remix)" -- Colin Stetson (from New History Warfare Vol.2: Judges) [Constellation]

18. "Replica" -- Oneohtrix Point Never (from Replica) [Mexican Summer]

19. "Ffunny Ffrends" -- Unknown Mortal Orchestra (from Unknown Mortal Orchestra) [Fat Possum]

DISC III : ELECTRONICA / DANCE -- 1:17:41 -- 148.6 MB

1. "A Real Hero" -- College feat. Electric Youth (from the Drive Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) [Lakeshore]

2. "Midnight City" -- M83 (from Hurry Up, We're Dreaming) [Naïve]

3. "Jam for Jerry" -- Holy Ghost! (from Holy Ghost!) [DFA]

4. "Social Studies (Plastic Plates Remix)" -- Body Language (from the Social Studies Single) [OM]

5. "Getting Me Down" -- Blawan (from the Getting Me Down Single) [White Label]

6. "Emergency Room" -- Ford & Lopatin (from Channel Pressure) [Software]

7. "Streetz Tonight" -- AraabMUZIK (from Electronic Dream) [Duke Productions LP]

8. "Falling" -- Hercules & Love Affair (from Blue Songs) [Moshi Moshi]

9. "Far Nearer" -- Jamie xx (from the Far Nearer / Bear For EP) [Numbers]

10. "Ye Ye" -- Daphni (from Four Tet & Daphni's Pinnacles / Ye Ye Split EP) [Text]

11. "Pyramid" -- Four Tet (from FABRICLIVE. 59) [Fabric]

12. "Snooze 4 Love" -- Todd Terje (from the Ragysh EP) [Running Back]

13. "Blue Lanterns on East Oxford" -- Mountains (from Air Museum) [Thrill Jockey]

14. "NYC" -- Burial (from the Street Halo EP) [Hyperdub]

DISC IV : (ALT-) COUNTRY / FOLK / SINGER-SONGWRITER -- 1:18:35 -- 150.1 MB

1. "I've Been Gone" -- Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers (from Starlight Hotel) [Signature Sounds]

2. "Fine Tune" -- Miranda Lambert (from Four the Record) [RCA Records Nashville]

3. "Friday Night" -- Lady Antebellum (from Own the Night) [Capitol Nashville]

4. "Staying's Worse Than Leaving" -- Sunny Sweeney (from Concrete) [Republic Nashville]

5. "Don't Carry It All" -- The Decemberists (from The King is Dead) [Capitol]

6. "Steve Earle" -- Lydia Loveless (from Indestructible Machine) [Bloodshot]

7. "Drover" -- Bill Callahan (from Apocalypse) [Drag City]

8. "The Circle Married the Line" -- Feist (from Metals) [Arts & Crafts]

9. "Daphne" -- Lia Ices feat. Justin Vernon (from Grown Unknown) [Jagjaguwar]

10. "Alabama Pines" -- Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (from Here We Rest) [Lightning Rod]

11. "The Flood" -- Glossary (from Long Live All of Us) [Last Chance]

12. "The Way It Will Be" -- Gillian Welch (from The Harrow & the Harvest) [Acony]

13. "County Line" -- Cass McCombs (from Wit's End) [Domino]

14. "Ours" - Taylor Swift (from the Speak Now Deluxe Edition Bonus Disc) [Big Machine]

15. "Takin' Pills" -- Pistol Annies (from Hell on Heels) [Columbia Nashville]

16 & 17. "First Watch" & "John Taylor's Month Away" -- King Creosote & Jon Hopkins (from Diamond Mine) [Domino]

18. "Zebra" -- Bry Webb (from Provider) [Idée Fixe]

DISC V : INDIE-POP -- 1:19:22 -- 159.9 MB

1. "Black Night" -- Dodos (from No Color) [Frenchkiss]

2. "Savage Night at the Opera" -- Destroyer (from Kaputt) [Merge]

3. "Cruel" -- St. Vincent (from Strange Mercy) [4AD]

4. "My Mistakes" -- Eleanor Friedberger (from Last Summer) [Merge]

5. "Helplessness Blues" -- Fleet Foxes (from Helplessness Blues) [Sub Pop]

6. "The Last Living Rose" -- PJ Harvey (from Let England Shake) [Island]

7. "Surfer's Hymn" -- Panda Bear (from Tomboy) [Paw Tracks]

8. "Glass Jar" -- Gang Gang Dance (from Eye Contact) [4AD]

9. "Love Out of Lust" -- Lykke Li (from Wounded Rhymes) [LL]

10. "Abducted" -- Cults (from Cults) [In the Name Of]

11. "Jareaux" -- Jensen Sportag (from the Pure Wet EP) [Cascine]

12. "Waiting for Kirsten" -- Jens Lekman (from the An Argument With Myself EP) [Service]

13. "Space is Only Noise If You Can See" -- Nicolas Jaar (from Space is Only Noise) [Circus Company]

14. "Virus" -- Björk (from Biophilia) [One Little Indian]

15. "July" -- Youth Lagoon (from The Year of Hibernation) [Fat Possum]

16. "Cloak" -- Julianna Barwick (from The Magic Place) [Asthmatic Kitty]

17. "Beth / Rest" -- Bon Iver (from Bon Iver) [Jagjaguwar]

Prime Time: Choice Cuts from 2010

2011-01-02T02:59:00.000-08:00

Dear All,

2010 was perhaps the most important year of my young life. I wrapped up my rowing career, finished grad school, moved back home to my girlfriend after three years of long-distance, and following months of searching, found a job. Needless to say, it was an incredibly busy time for me, and yet, I had more free time than ever. I read books, saw countless movies, and predictably, listened to a ton of music.

Lucky for me, 2010 was the best year for music in recent memory. Whether you're a fan of indie-rock, electronic, pop, hip hop, rock, country, folk, or, like me, all of the above, there were a number of phenomenal albums released this year. The aim of these mixtapes is to summarize those records. It is my hope that whether you're a diehard music fan or just someone who listens to the radio, you'll be able to find something new to love on these discs.

Like usual, I've sorted the mixes by genre. Please be aware that I heard considerably more good "indie" this year than "rock," so the ROCK mix has quite a few bands that'd I'd normally throw on the INDIE mix (i.e. if you like DISC I, you should probably grab DISC V too). Also: in my opinion, the ELECTRONIC mix is one of the best this series of mixtapes has ever produced.

I truly believe that each and every song on here is worth hearing. More importantly, I believe these artists, bands, and musicians are worth supporting. If you like a song, please consider visiting the artist's website, going to shows, and buying their records (next to each song below, you'll find the name of the album and the record label from which the song originates).

Special thanks to my sister for naming the mix and to my brother for allowing me to use his picture for the cover (see here for more). Lastly, I always love getting feedback, particularly from people I haven't talked to in years, so please don't be shy. Happy New Year, everybody.

Adam

DISC I : INDIE-ROCK -- 1:19:46 -- 138.7MB

1. "Dance Yrself Clean" -- LCD Soundsystem (from This is Happening) [DFA]

2. "Heaven's on Fire" -- The Radio Dept. (from Clinging to a Scheme) [Labrador]

3. "Home" -- Glasser (from Ring) [True Panther Sounds]

4. "Norway" -- Beach House (from Teen Dream) [Sub Pop]

5. "Kiss Your Lips" -- Allo Darlin' (from Allo Darlin') [Fortuna Pop!]

6. "Round and Round" -- Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti (from Before Today) [4AD]

7. "I Want the World to Stop" -- Belle & Sebastian (from Belle & Sebastian Write

About Love) [Rough Trade]

8. "Blood Red Youth" -- California Wives (from the Affair EP) [Self-Released]

9. "Giving Up the Gun" -- Vampire Weekend (from Contra) [XL]

10. "O.N.E." -- Yeasayer (from Odd Blood) [Secretly Canadian]

11. "Lewis Takes Off His Shirt" -- Owen Pallett (from Heartland) [Domino]

12. "Give It Up" -- Diamond Rings (from Special Affections) [Secret City]

13. "Go Outside" -- Cults (from the Cults Single) [Forest Family]

14. "Helicopter" -- Deerhunter (from Halcyon Digest) [4AD]

15. "Throwing Shade" -- Abe Vigoda (from Crush) [PostPresentMedium]

16. "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" -- Arcade Fire (from The Suburbs)

[Merge]

17. "Me and the Devil" -- Gil Scott-Heron (from I'm New Here) [XL]

DISC II : ELECTRONICA / DANCE -- 1:19:23 -- 154.1MB

1. "Angel Echoes" -- Four Tet (from There is Love in You) [Domino]

2. "Celestica" -- Crystal Castles (from Crystal Castles) [Universal Motown]

3. "One Life Stand" -- Hot Chip (from One Life Stand) [EMI]

4. "You Put a Smell on Me" -- Matthew Dear (from Black City) [Ghostly International]

5. "King Night" -- Salem (from King Night) [IAMSOUND]

6. "On Melancholy Hill" -- Gorillaz (from Plastic Beach) [Virgin]

7. "Real Life" -- Tanlines (from the Settings EP) [True Panther Sounds]

8. "Lovesick" -- Lindstrøm & Christabelle (from Real Life is No Cool) [Feedelity]

9. "Wut" -- Girl Unit (from the Night Slugs Allstars Volume 1 Compilation) [Night Slugs]

10. "CMYK" -- James Blake (from the CMYK EP) [R&S]

11. "Maze" -- Actress (from Splazsh) [Honest Jon's]

12. "Derezzed" -- Daft Punk (from the Tron: Legacy Soundtrack) [Walt Disney]

13. "Computer Face//Pure Being" -- Flying Lotus (from Cosmogramma) [Warp]

14. "In Heat (Javelin Remix)" -- HEALTH (from DISCO2) [Lovepump United]

15. "Coma Cat" -- Tensnake (from the Permanent Vacation: Selected Label Works 2

Compilation) [Permanent Vacation]

16. "Tron" -- Joker (from the Tron Single) [Kapsize]

17. "Animals" -- Baths (from Cerulean) [Anticon]

18. "Ouroboros" -- Oneohtrix Point Never (from Returnal) [Editions Mego]

19. "Candy Shoppe" -- Emeralds (from Does It Look Like I'm Here?) [Editions Mego]

DISC III : POP / HIP HOP / R&B -- 1:18:07 -- 140.4MB

1. "Teenage Dream" -- Katy Perry (from Teenage Dream) [Capitol]

2. "Call Your Girlfriend" -- Robyn (from Body Talk) [Konichiwa]

3. "Shutterbugg" (feat. Cutty) -- Big Boi (from Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico

Dusty) [Def Jam]

4. "All of the Lights" -- Kanye West (from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy)

[Roc-A-Fella]

5. "Fuck You!" -- Cee-Lo Green (from The Lady Killer) [Elektra]

6. "Man of the House" -- Fantasia (from Back to Me) [J]

7. "Your Love is My Drug" -- Kesha (from Animal) [RCA]

8. "4th of July (Fireworks) / Segue 2" -- Kelis (from Flesh Tone) [Interscope]

9. "Ice Cream on Blast" -- A-Trak (from Dirty South Dance 2) [Self-Released]

10. "Just a Dream" -- Nelly (from 5.0) [Derrty Ent.]

11. "Cold War" -- Janelle Monáe (from The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III)) [Bad Boy]

12. "Ghetto" -- Ghostface Killah (from Apollo Kids) [Def Jam]

13. "Window Seat" -- Erykah Badu (from New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh))

[Universal Motown]

14. "On and On" -- Girl Talk (from All Day) [Illegal Art]

15. "Yamaha" -- The-Dream (from Love King) [Def Jam]

16. "Club Can't Handle Me" (feat. David Guetta) -- Flo Rida (from Only One Flo:

Part 1) [Atlantic]

17. "What's My Name?" (feat. Drake) -- Rihanna (from Loud) [Def Jam]

18. "King of Anything" -- Sara Bareilles (from Kaleidoscope Heart) [Epic]

19. "Love Is" (with K. Michelle) -- R. Kelly (from Love Letter) [Jive]

20. "Bed Intruder Song (Original)" -- The Gregory Brothers (from YouTube)

[Gregory Residence]

DISC IV : (ALT-) COUNTRY / FOLK -- 1:18:39 -- 132.4MB

1. "Harlem River Blues" -- Justin Townes Earle (from Harlem River Blues) [Bloodshot]

2. "Burden of Tomorrow" -- The Tallest Man on Earth (from The Wild Hunt)

[Dead Oceans]

3. "Harm's Swift Way" -- Robert Plant (from Band of Joy) [Rounder]

4. "Set 'Em Up Joe" -- Jamey Johnson (from The Guitar Song) [Mercury Nashville]

5. "Giddy on Up" -- Laura Bell Bundy (from Achin' and Shakin') [Mercury Nashville]

6. "Mean" -- Taylor Swift (from Speak Now) [Big Machine]

7. "Need You Now" -- Lady Antebellum (from Need You Now) [Capitol Nashville]

8. "Where Are You Driving?" -- Laura Veirs (from July Flame) [Raven Marching Band]

9. "Peace Sign" -- Sharon Van Etten (from Epic) [Ba Da Bing]

10. "From a Table Away" -- Sunny Sweeney (from the From a Table Away Single)

[Republic Nashville]

11. "Bite the Dust" -- State Champion (from Stale Champagne) [Sophomore Lounge]

12. "Birthday Boy" -- Drive-By Truckers (from The Big To-Do) [ATO]

13. "Draggin' the River" (with Miranda Lambert) -- Blake Shelton (from the All

About Tonight EP) [Reprise Nashville]

14. "That'll Make You Wanna Drink" -- Easton Corbin (from Easton Corbin)

[Mercury Nashville]

15. "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" -- Alan Jackson & Martina McBride

(from the Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn Compilation) [Sony]

16. "Hey Little Darlin'" -- Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers (from Zoe Muth and

The Lost High Rollers) [Self-Released]

17. "Pickin' Wild Mountain Berries" -- Kurt Wagner and Cortney Tidwell

Present KORT (from Invariable Heartache) [City Slang]

18. "Little White Church" -- Little Big Town (from The Reason Why) [Capitol Nashville]

19. "Climbing High Mountains" -- Sam Amidon (from I See the Sign)

[Bedroom Community]

20. "'81" -- Joanna Newsom (from Have One on Me) [Drag City]

21. "Coming Home to Me" (with Julie Miller) -- Patty Griffin (from Downtown

Church) [Credential]

22. "Infra 5" -- Max Richter (from Infra) [Fat Cat]

DISC V : ROCK -- 1:19:05 -- 161MB

1. "Tell 'Em" -- Sleigh Bells (from Treats) [Mom + Pop]

2. "Blow Dumb" -- Nobunny (from First Blood) [Goner]

3. "Pobody's Nerfect" -- Wolf Parade (from Expo 86) [Sub Pop]

4. "I Get Nervous" -- Lower Dens (from Twin-Hand Movement) [Gnomonsong]

5. "Bloodbuzz Ohio" -- The National (from High Violet) [4AD]

6. "Albatross" -- The Besnard Lakes (from The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night)

[Jagjaguwar]

7. "Facelove" -- PS I Love You (from Meet Me at the Muster Station) [Paper Bag]

8. "Waterfall" -- The Fresh & Onlys (from Play It Strange) [In the Red]

9. "Come on Baby Grace" -- Boston Spaceships (from Our Cubehouse Still Rocks)

[Rockathon]

10. "A More Perfect Union" -- Titus Andronicus (from The Monitor) [XL]

11. "Meet Me in the Basement" -- Broken Social Scene (from Forgiveness Rock

Record) [Arts & Crafts]

12. "Written in Reverse" -- Spoon (from Transference) [Merge]

13. "Attack Music" -- These New Puritans (from Hidden) [Angular]

14. "My Neighbor" -- Wye Oak (from the My Neighbor / My Creator EP) [Merge]

15. "Post Acid" -- Wavves (from King of the Beach) [Fat Possum]

16. "Rebel Horns" -- Frog Eyes (from Paul's Tomb: A Triumph) [Dead Oceans]

17. "Intuition" -- Lonelady (from Nerve Up) [Warp]

18. "11 of Diamonds" -- Grass Widow (from Past Time) [Kill Rock Stars]

19. "Reeling the Liars In" -- Swans (from My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky)

[Young God]

20. "Heathen Child" -- Grinderman (from Grinderman 2) [ANTI-]

21. "Chem Trails" -- No Age (from Everything in Between) [Sub Pop]

Extra Hot Spirit: 2009's Hottest Tracks

2010-01-02T03:45:00.000-08:00

At the close of each of the last four years, I have attempted to compile the year’s best music in a set of mixtapes. Although 2009 was a pretty darn good year for music, when I sat down to make these mixtapes, I found that I had spread myself too thin—there were dozens of albums that, despite enjoying, I listened to only once or twice. So after a good deal of revisiting and deliberation, I’ve decided to trim the fat and limit myself to only tracks and albums that I listened to with regularity in 2009.

This editing resulted in some rather blurry mixes, genre-wise. I’ve combined the indie and rock tapes into one mix that roughly balances the two, with side B (starting with Future of the Left) being a good deal more “rock” than side A. The electronica mix has bands that, in the past, were on my rock and indie mixes. And the pop/hip hop/r&b and country/folk mixes are a little all over the place. Still, I’ve done my best to make these as cohesive as possible. Hopefully they make sense and are enjoyable in the order I’ve placed them in.

As always, I am convinced that nearly all of these songs come from albums and artists worth supporting. If you like a song from these mixes, please check out the artist’s myspace, buy their albums, and go to their shows. This year’s tracklist (below) lists the albums from which the songs were culled and includes links for purchasing.

Last but not least, thanks to everyone for the continued interest in these mixes. I love hearing that people are still listening to Anchors Away or that they discovered one of their favorite bands from one of these things. It makes it all worthwhile.

Happy listening,

adam

DISC I – ELECTRONICA – 1:19:30 – 143.3 MB

1. “Velvet” // The Big Pink (from A Brief History of Love) [buy]

2. “My Girls” // Animal Collective (from Merriweather Post Pavilion) [buy]

3. “1901” // Phoenix (from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix) [buy]

4. “New Theory” // Washed Out (from the Life of Leisure EP) [buy]

5. “Zero” // Yeah Yeah Yeahs (from It’s Blitz!) [buy]

6. “Oh! (A-Trak Remix)” // Boys Noize (from A-Trak's FABRICLIVE. 45) [buy]

7. “Goth Star” // Pictureplane (from Dark Rift) [buy]

8. “Second Lives” // Vitalic (from Flashmob) [buy]

9. “A New Chance (The Juan Maclean Remix)” // The Tough Alliance (from the Prison Break EP) [buy]

10. “Seasun” // Delorean (from the Ayrton Senna EP) [buy]

11. “Plain Material” // Memory Tapes (from Seek Magic) [buy]

12. “Light, Pt. 1” // Nosaj Thing (from Drift) [buy]

13. “All for the Best” // Thom Yorke (from Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy) [buy]

14. “Bits and Pieces” // Junior Boys (from Begone Dull Care) [buy]

15. “Surf Solar (7” Edit)” // Fuck Buttons (from Tarot Sport) [buy]

16. “Hyph Mngo” // Joy Orbison (from the Hyph Mngo 12”) [buy]

17. “Xam” // Subway (from Subway II) [buy]

DISC II – POP / HIP HOP / R&B – 1:19:41 – 140.3 MB

1. “Rockin’ That Shit” // The-Dream (from Love vs. Money) [buy]

2. “Keep It Goin’ Louder” (feat. Nina Sky & Ricky Blaze) // Major Lazer (from Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do) [buy]

3. “Help Somebody” // Maxwell (from BLACKsummers’night) [buy]

4. “Life on TV” // Kid Sister (from Ultraviolet) [buy]

5. “Time” // O’Spada (from the Time 7”) [buy]

6. "Echo" // R. Kelly (from Untitled) [buy]

7. “Raindrops” // Basement Jaxx (from Scars) [buy]

8. “Hey Playa! (Moroccan Blues)” (feat. Tai ‘Missy’ Phillips) // DJ Quik and Kurupt (from BlaQKout) [buy]

9. “Run This Town” (feat. Kanye West & Rihanna) // Jay-Z (from The Blueprint 3) [buy]

10. “House of Flying Daggers” (feat. Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah, Method Man & GZA) // Raekwon (from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II) [buy]

11. “Not Your Average Girl” (feat. Shareefa) // Ghostface Killah (from Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City) [buy]

12. “Ballskin” // DOOM (from Born Like This) [buy]

13. “Day ‘n’ Nite (Crookers Remix)” // Kid Cudi (from the Day ‘n’ Nite 7”) [buy]

14. “Left My Heart in Tokyo” // Mini Viva (from the Left My Heart in Tokyo 7") [buy]

15. “Playing God” // Paramore (from Brand New Eyes) [buy]

16. “Shine Blockas” (feat. Gucci Mane) // Big Boi (from the Shine Blockas 7”) [buy]

17. “Dirtee Cash” // Dizzee Rascal (from Tongue N’ Cheek) [buy]

18. “Mfumu” // The Very Best (from Warm Heart of Africa) [buy]

19. “Bad Times” // Annie (from Don’t Stop) [buy]

20. “This Must Be It” (feat. Karin Dreijer Andersson) // Röyksopp (from Junior) [buy]

21. “All Yr Songs” // Diamond Rings (from the All Yr Songs / Facelove split 7”) [buy]

DISC III – INDIE / ROCK – 1:17:44 – 135.9 MB

1. “Two Weeks” // Grizzly Bear (from Veckatimest) [buy]

2. “Stillness is the Move” // Dirty Projectors (from Bitte Orca) [buy]

3. “Hi-Fi Goon” // Throw Me the Statue (from Creaturesque) [buy]

4. “Daniel” // Bat for Lashes (from Two Suns) [buy]

5. “Night Time” // The xx (from xx) [buy]

6. “You and I” (with Feist) // Wilco (from Wilco (The Album)) [buy]

7. “So Far Around the Bend” // The National & Nico Muhly (from Dark Was the Night) [buy]

8. “Young Adult Friction” // The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) [buy]

9. “Lovers’ Carvings” // Bibio (from Ambivalence Avenue) [buy]

10. “French Navy” // Camera Obscura (from My Maudlin Career) [buy]

11. “Early Warnings” // Foreign Born (from Person to Person) [buy]

12. “Lust for Life” // Girls (from Album) [buy]

13. “Arming Eritrea” // Future of the Left (from Travels With Myself and Another) [buy]

14. “Die Slow” // HEALTH (from Get Color) [buy]

15. “Nothing to Hide” // Yo La Tengo (from Popular Songs) [buy]

16. “Indiana” // Cymbals Eat Guitars (from Why There Are Mountains) [buy]

17. “Let’s Go Surfing” // The Drums (from the Summertime! EP) [buy]

18. “Pine On” // Obits (from I Blame You) [buy]

19. “Over It” // Dinosaur Jr. (from Farm) [buy]

20. “Bell” // Screaming Females (from Power Move) [buy]

21. “Fast Jabroni” // Surfer Blood (from Astro Coast) [buy]

22. “Take It In” // Wye Oak (from The Knot) [buy]

DISC IV – ALT- / COUNTRY / SINGER-SONGWRITER / FOLK – 1:19:06 – 126.9 MB

1. “Jump Then Fall” // Taylor Swift (from the Platinum Edition of Fearless) [buy]

2. “Country Roads” // Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses (from Roadhouse Sun) [buy]

3. “People Got a Lotta Nerve” // Neko Case (from Middle Cyclone) [buy]

4. “Mama’s Eyes” // Justin Townes Earle (from Midnight at the Movies) [buy]

5. “Time to Get a Gun” // Miranda Lambert (from Revolution) [buy]

6. “The Devil and Maggie Chascarillo” // Lucero (from 1372 Overton Park) [buy]

7. “A Love I Think Will Last” (with Chris Janson) // Holly Williams (from Here With Me) [buy]

8. “Whip-Poor-Will” // Magnolia Electric Co. (from Josephine) [buy]

9. “The Blue” // Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit (from Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit) [buy]

10. “Frank, AB” // The Rural Alberta Advantage (from Hometowns) [buy]

11. “Tenuousness” // Andrew Bird (from Noble Beast) [buy]

12. “Much More Than That” // Sharon Van Etten (from Because I Was in Love) [buy]

13. “Two” // The Antlers (from Hospice) [buy]

14. “Blood Bank” // Bon Iver (from the Blood Bank EP) [buy]

15. “Eid Ma Clack Shaw” // Bill Callahan (from Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle) [buy]

16. “Boat Behind” // Kings of Convenience (from Declaration of Dependence) [buy]

17. “Anna” (feat. Panda Bear) // Taken By Trees (from East of Eden) [buy]

18. “Bode” // Julianna Barwick (from the Florine EP) [buy]

19. “Royal Festival Hall, London – Part VIII” // Keith Jarrett (from Paris / London: Testament) [buy]

2009-10-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

For awhile now I've been posting links to videos, songs, and interesting articles on my Facebook page. I find little time or enthusiasm to write paragraphs about random songs I'm enjoying, but oftentimes, those are the things I want to share with my friends most--not just full album reviews and lists and such. Facebook offers a tweet's worth of text and a URL link, plus all of my posts automatically appear on my friends' newsfeeds, so it's pretty much perfect.

So if you'd like to follow me on Facebook, you should be able to see all my posts by following this link (if you're my friend) and this link (if you're not). Regardless of how you feel about Facebook, this page should remind you a lot of a blog...

adam

We're moving.

2009-07-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

For the time being, Dave and I are posting on a blog called The Captured Perspective. It is a place chock full of talented writers with different interests and perspectives. Check it out here:

http://capturedperspective.com/

Please check back to Holland, 2002 in the future, as we may double-post on both blogs or retreat altogether. Thanks for reading.

Adam

Why Leave America Behind?

2009-07-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

This November, I am moving to Uganda to manage AssetMap Uganda, a project in the start-up phase that aims to foster collaboration among NGOs. Last week, someone asked me, “Why are you leaving America behind? Isn’t the nonprofit sector in the U.S. just as much in need of an effort like this?”

The first answer that came to mind was a utilitarian one: We ought to produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The degree of need and the stakes of successful nonprofit collaboration are higher in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else in the world. Leaving America behind makes a lot of sense within the utilitarian framework.

Here’s the problem: I hate utilitarian ethics. Human beings are more than utility consumers and producers, and our responsibilities to one another cannot be whittled down to simple formulas. A utilitarian worldview leaves little room for the demands that culture, kinship, history, faith, and other aspects of our lived experience place on us.

Outside of a utilitarian approach, I had no idea how to respond to this rather pointed question. Instead, I babbled on about conscience and experience, trying to avoid saying things like:

They need my abilities (No, they don’t)
Nobody else will do it (Yes, they will)
I feel called (Sort of)
The need is so great (Welcome back, utilitarianism)

In retrospect, I didn’t have a good answer. How, then, do I justify leaving the country that I love, the community I hold close, to invest my time and energy in a place that is entirely foreign? It comes down to mutuality and innovation.

The phrase “leaving America behind” assumes that the value of my traveling to Uganda is a one-way street, that the U.S. is losing an asset and Uganda is gaining one. This is not only arrogant but also wrong. Instead, I hope to add-value to Ugandan civil society and, at the same time, be informed and transformed by the ideas and lives of Ugandans. This cross-pollination of cultures and people is crucial for thriving in a globalized world, we must learn from Uganda and they must learn from us.

Innovation often stems from having people with multiple perspectives and skill-sets thinking about the same problem (e.g. when engineers work with anthropologists to design a new product). Imagine if Americans never left the country, never engaged with ideas and institutions around the world, do you think we could stay innovative? Also, if Ugandans are going to find better ways to do things, then it might be useful to have me at the table as yet another perspective thinking about the same problem. In short, AssetMap will not be innovating for Ugandans, we will innovate with them.

When next asked why I am leaving America behind, I will say that I am not, that Uganda is doing America a favor by allowing me to learn from and innovate with them.

Underdog Albums of 2009: Part II

2009-06-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

[This is Part Two of a Two-Part post. Part One can be found here.]

Today's post continues on where yesterday's left off, highlighting two more of 2009's best records from lesser-known artists.

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix [Loyauté / Glassnote / V2]

Of the five albums on my "list," this is the one that doesn't quite fit the theme of "underdog albums." Veteran French pop-rock group Phoenix are indeed garnering a good deal of praise for this, their fourth full-length release in their ten-year history; a much blogged about appearance on SNL, an 8.5 from Pitchfork, and a #37 spot on the US Billboard 200 are certainly not indicative of "lesser-known artists." Still, few would have predicted Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix would be the album to bring the band the global fame they seemed to be made for.

Back in 2006, after Phoenix released one of my favorite albums of the decade, It's Never Been Like That, I wrote in a year-end retrospective, "It's utterly shocking that French alt-pop band Phoenix hasn't been plastered on billboards, commercialized to no end, and replayed thousands of times on US radio stations." Pitchfork placed that album at #13 on their top 50 of the year, doing their part to boost the group's cred, but still it seemed no one would take them seriously.

What changed? First, they went bigger. Lead single "1901," which rivals their best tracks (and they have some absolute monsters), adds giant electro-flares to their trademark guitar/kick drum rhythms. Second, they finally nailed the consistency/flow thing. While Never got the former right, without a dud in the bunch, it still somehow felt weighed down. Wolfgang, however, is more carefully ordered. Some critics have claimed it's frontloaded, when in fact, the last four tracks, particularly the momentous closer "Armistice," make up a better stretch than the middle chunk. Last, they took an admirable risk with "Love Like a Sunset," a near-eight-minute, two-part behemoth that acts as an album fulcrum, that paid off immensely. Simply, Phoenix may be my favorite singles band of the decade, but this is pretty easily my favorite album of 2009.

Visit Phoenix's official website here.

Watch Phoenix play "Lisztomania" & "1901" live on SNL here.

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit [Lightning Rod]

In 2007, much fuss was made about Jason Isbell's exit from Southern/alt-country band the Drive-By Truckers. Credit Isbell, formerly one of the group's three lead singer/songwriters, for two of the band's best tracks in their final two albums together, "The Day John Henry Died" and "Daylight." As such, I wasn't all that surprised that his debut solo record, 2007's Sirens of the Ditch, was pretty damn tight. "Dress Blues," in particular, which told the story of US Marine Corporal Matthew Conley who died in the Iraq War, was the type of tune that makes grown men cry.

I was surprised, however, to find his 2009 follow-up, named in honor of his new backing band, the 400 Unit, was twice as good. Even casual fans of alt-country -- say, Ryan Adams, Neko Case, earlier Wilco, or My Morning Jacket -- will be drawn to the sound of this album, which is more consistent than the scattered recordings of Sirens allowed for. More importantly, Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit manages to do what so many of the Truckers' albums have failed to: remain balanced from start to finish. From the uptempo "Good," to the beautifully simplistic guitar lick in "The Blue," to one of the best closing tracks of the year, "The Last Song I Will Write," this is such a listenable record, I often find myself playing it two or three times in a row.

Visit Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit's official website here.

Listen to the band perform on World Café Live here.

Underdog Albums of 2009: Part I

2009-06-09T04:15:00.000-07:00

[This is Part One of a Two-Part post. Part Two can be found here.]

Today is June 30th, the year's halfway point. Dave and I have agreed that we need to post more than we have been of late, so let's kick things off with some of my favorite records of 2009. Instead of regurgitating information you're likely already privy to (yes, the Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear records are top notch), here are a three excellent releases (I'll post two more tomorrow) from artists who mostly continue to float under the radar:

Bat for Lashes - Two Suns [Parlophone / Astralwerks]

Try as she might, Natasha Khan seems destined to not be taken seriously. Perhaps its the gaudy album art, the lazer shooting wolf videos, the regular exaggeration of the "concept" behind Two Suns, or the fact that Kate Bush is referenced in every single review of her work. It is true that like Bush, Bat for Lashes transforms what might otherwise sound like cheesy electronic music into majestic songs, but Khan's voice is much closer to Chan Marshall's of Cat Power. Khan's vocals on Two Suns are at times shockingly good (see: "Glass"), an enormous step up in range and ambition than what she displayed on her debut record, Fur & Gold. But more than the mere technical craft that went into this album's creation, the most impressive aspect of its 45-minute runtime are its eleven songs. If Fur & Gold hinted at Khan's talent as a songwriter, Two Suns announces it loud and clear from its kickin' first single "Daniel" to the crescendoed "Siren Song," her most ambitious track to date.

Visit Bat for Lashes' official website here.

Watch the must-see performance of "Daniel" on the Late Show with David Letterman here.

A-Trak - FabricLive.45 [Fabric]

A-Trak release reviews almost always mention his tenure as Kanye West's tour DJ, among his many other impressive credentials (e.g. youngest ever winner of the DMCs at age 15, and first ever to win all three major DJ competition titles). As they should; A-Trak should first and foremost be appreciated for his proficiency with his instrument. But where artists like DJ Shadow and The Avalanches pushed the envelope of what people thought turntables could be used for, A-Trak is simply doing what DJs have been doing for years, better than just about anyone else.

His Dirty South Dance mixtape was probably the record I listened to most in 2007. Despite consisting almost entirely of the most over-used and tired technique in the business, mash-ups, his layering of hip-pop and crate-dug electronic gems improved on every song in the bunch and flowed seamlessly from beginning to end. His newest mixtape, commissioned by London's Fabric nightclub, is as simple as they come: save for a single mash-up to start the tape, FabricLive.45 is just 25 killer tracks and remixes, perfectly beatmatched and mixed. Even if you're clueless as to the technical skill required to mix records as well as A-Trak does, his selection of bass-throbbing electronic jams will interest anyone hunting for the year's best summer driving album.

Visit A-Trak's official website here.

Preview tracks from FabricLive.45 here.

Justin Townes Earle - Midnight at the Movies [Bloodshot]

The way I see it, music lovers can hope for two types of records, those that push boundaries or explore new territories and those that execute a style to a tee. Justin Townes Earle, son of prolific country musician Steve Earle, has perfected the latter technique. Eight months ago I posted about The Good Life, his debut album and one of the finest releases of 2008. Less than a year later comes his sophomore effort, Midnight at the Movies, which continues on down the "traditional but damn good" road. The thing is, "traditional" country music is pretty hard to come by these days. So when Earle's twang takes front and center on "Walk Out," or when the harmonica on "Halfway to Jackson" mimics a southbound train, I guarantee you'll be more pleasantly surprised than you expect. Most impressive are the record's early stand-outs, "Mama's Eyes" and "Can't Hardly Wait." The former is a brief but sobering account of his dysfunctional relationship with his father, while the latter is a straightforward countrified cover of one of my favorite Replacements' tracks. Both succeed because they're exemplary of Earle's forté: uncluttered, perfectly-executed, memorable country.

Visit Justin Townes Earle's MySpace page here.

Watch the KEXP interview and performance, which includes "Mama's Eyes" here.

The Last Two Months of My Life... and the Next 12

2009-06-07T05:21:00.000-07:00

I can't speak for Dave, but personally, I've been a bit too swamped these last couple months to worry about the blog. Here's a snip-it of what I've been up to, and what the next 12 months of my life will be dedicated to:

Curiously, history provides concrete evidence that the world’s most capable democratic states do not respond to instances of genocide with consistent behavior. The principles of nonintervention and sovereignty, a state’s self-interests, and an array of internal and external pressures, can cause action, or be completely ignored. The primary puzzle to be investigated is thus, ‘What motivates advanced democratic states to politically commit to genocide intervention?’ This project will investigate the argument that states have made calculated responses to recent acts of genocide based on national self-interests, internal and external pressures, and their normatively influenced identities. Contributions will therefore be made to the existing literatures of genocide research, humanitarian intervention, and international relations.

Being a grad student has its perks, but it can also be quite frightening. I envy those with stable 9-to-5s and a family life. What if my research turns up nothing? What if no one even reads the damn thing? How in the hell is this going to help me get a job?

For me, the easiest answer to the above questions is another question: 'Who cares?' There are few things in life more gratifying than committing yourself 100% to a goal and seeing it come to fruition. And that's exactly what I'm going to do. For now, I'm taking things one step at a time, which means I've got just one more week in England before my first year is kaput. Then: iced coffee, sand, sunshine, music, and Lake Michigan.

2008 Film in Review

2009-04-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

Let me start by acknowledging the awkwardness of discussing the films of 2008 at the close of April 2009. I realize that many of these movies are long forgotten, the Golden Globes and Oscars having beaten any remaining interest into the ground.

I for one, however, still have not seen all of the films released in 2008 that I had originally intended to. What's more, I have little doubt that the vast majority of individuals that voted on the aforementioned awards would say the same. Nonetheless, I have finally reached the point where I have seen enough to merit this post. So that's that.

Now, I've heard every argument in the book against making "stupid, pointless lists" at the end of the year, but fuck it, I like them. So here's mine. These are the films I saw from last year and the grade I would give them. Yes, grades are somewhat arbitrary. Deal with it.

The List

The Wrestler -- A+

In Bruges -- A

WALL-E -- A

I.O.U.S.A. -- A- [see my review here]

Frost/Nixon -- B+

The Reader -- B+

Waltz With Bashir -- B+

Marley & Me -- B

The Dark Knight -- B

Man on Wire -- B

Vicky Christina Barcelona -- B-

Slumdog Millionaire -- B-

Milk -- B- [see my review here]

Changeling -- C+

The Fall -- C+

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- C

Iron Man -- C

Ché, Pt. I -- C-

Quantum of Solace -- D+

Defiance -- D+

Bolt -- D

Films I Have Not Seen, But Would Like To:

Revolutionary Road [see Dave's review here]

Gran Torino

Doubt

Happy-Go-Lucky

Burn After Reading

Australia

Tropic Thunder

Pineapple Express

Solo & I.O.U.S.A.

2009-04-25T06:35:00.001-07:00

The Oxdox International Documentary Film Festival is one of the more exciting events I've taken part in since moving across the pond. 70 documentaries are being shown in just seven days, many of them accompanied by question & answer sessions with their directors, producers, and stars. Just halfway through the festival, I've already been lucky enough to catch two incredibly well-executed films, Solo and I.O.U.S.A.

Solo is the story of Andrew McAuley, an Australian adventurer, and his attempt to paddle a regular ol' kayak (solo) across the Tasman Sea, from Australia to New Zealand. I went into this film thinking it would be hugely inspirational to see a man, one who clearly had ten times the gall and strength than me, leave his family for a dream. I was moved, incredibly so, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

What I saw was one man's obituary. The great majority of Solo is comprised of two sources: a video journal McAuley kept while on his 30-day trip, and interviews with his wife, Vicki. And what these videos document is a man who pushed himself beyond the limits of what he even thought possible -- and lost.

The film opens with McAuley's distress signal, sent to the New Zealand coastguard just 30 kilometers from shore -- within eyesight. Viewers are then treated to the story of McAuley's life, the preparation that went into his trip, and finally, scene after scene of his battle with one of the most treacherous expansions of ocean on Earth. You see him cry repeatedly, promise his wife he'll never do anything so stupid again, and yearn to hold his baby boy. What you learn is the sanctity of human life, and the very demarcations of what man is capable of. It is no doubt one of the most depressing films I've ever seen, but one that's worth every second.

You can watch the preview for Solo below, and get details on when it will air on the National Geographic Channel here. McAuley's blog remains intact here.

I.O.U.S.A. is another in a series of excellent documentaries released this decade that aim to wake up the American public. Some have been tremendously popular with the common moviegoer (e.g. Fahrenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth) while others have gone regretfully unnoticed (e.g. Why We Fight). Regardless, each of these films -- and you can add I.O.U.S.A. to this list -- takes a subject that Americans have some cursory knowledge of, and claims that we've got a substantially larger problem than any of us may realize.

This documentary, directed by Wordplay's Patrick Creadon, tackles the issue of the US National Debt crisis by focusing on former Comptroller General, David Walker. Walker's "four deficits" are highlighted: the trade deficit, the savings deficit, the budget deficit, and the leadership deficit. The moral is frightening: if we the nation of America continue down the road we are on, we will be unable to sustain ourselves, and like the empires that came before us, we will crumble.

Creadon mixes media effortlessly -- interviews, news stories, animation, speeches -- and, critically, presents what I found to be a neutral and informative take. I would strongly suggest all Americans see this film precisely because there aren't too many practical day-to-day fixes provided. Instead, solving this problem will take a shift in attitude and political lifestyle that can only be accomplished on a national level.

The full-length film is 85 minutes in length, but if you only have a half hour, they've made a "bite-sized" version that's freely available to watch on their website here, or on YouTube here. Watch the trailer:

Protestantism, Capitalism, and Discontent

2009-04-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

I want to identify three forces that I find interesting and perhaps related: 1) American society is guided by the self-regulating market and a culture of individualism; 2) We are the most Christian and religiously devout nation in the west; and 3) Americans, both men and women, have gotten steadily less happy over the past 100 years despite living in one of the most opulent nations in modern history.

I recently picked up the Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell in which he writes:

I was not born happy. As a child, my favorite hymn was: “Weary of earth and laden with my sin.” In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life; I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more.

This is due in large part to a diminishing preoccupation with myself. Like others who had a Puritan education, I had the habit of meditating on my sins, follies, and shortcomings. I seemed to myself – no doubt justly – a miserable specimen. Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection. External interests, it is true, bring each its own possibility of pain: the world may be plunged in war, knowledge in some direction may be hard to achieve, friends may die. But pains of these kinds do not destroy the essential quality of life, as do those that spring from disgust with self.

This speaks strongly to both my life experience and frustration with the church, but also hints at a potentially inherent antagonism between capitalism and Christianity.

The primary religion of our culture emphasizes the depravity of the human nature. The institution that has largely guided American social transformation for the past two-hundred years, market capitalism, is centered in the primacy of self-interest. With our economics leading us to focus on ourselves, and our religion on how fallen and broken we are, is it surprising that we aren’t getting any happier?

Despite my frustrations, I am a Christian and believer in the usefulness of markets – seeking an alternative way to understand faith and society through a lens of human flourishing, not depravity and selfishness.

Revolutionary Road

2009-03-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

There have been many potent critiques leveled against the American Dream. From Death of a Salesman to American Beauty, the darker ‘untold’ story of American suburban life has been told. While joining this long list of criticisms, Revolutionary Road departs from it in some important ways.

Like many, this story begins with a young couple that falls in love, marries, has children, and finds a house in the suburbs. The husband, Frank, takes a job he hates and is ‘too talented’ for and his wife April feels trapped and bored in her role as suburban housewife. Sounds typical, right?

Wrong. Most other stories have frustrating but likeable characters who end up sticking it to the man or living the life they always imagined upon an enlightening/ empowering experience. Lester Burnham of American Beauty fits this bill well. In Revolutionary Road, nearly everyone is despicable, blind, and completely lacking in courage. The one man who sees clearly the world Frank and April find themselves in is John Givings, a recently released psychiatric patient and former math professor. Here are a couple of his more powerful insights:

In speaking about the suburban way of life, he says, "Hopeless emptiness. Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness."

Then, in an argument with Frank about April's second (surprise) pregnancy and why Frank took a promotion at a job he hates instead of moving his family to Paris to start over as he had planned, Givings remarks, "I wouldn't be surprised if you knocked her up on purpose, just so you could spend the rest of your life hiding behind that maternity dress."

Unfortunately, Givings sees only ugliness, so much so that he is completely incapable of finding a role in society. Herein lies the underlying theme of the movie: There is no alternative to a seemingly absurd world. While one leaves the film convinced about the futility of suburban married life as an end in itself, a deeper angst comes from the film’s intentional failure to articulate an alternative. I left asking myself, “If no this, then what?”

It’s a tough pill to swallow but, once taken, I think it unearths our deepest insecurities as young American hopefuls.

Watchmen

2009-03-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

Impotence, not coincidentally, is the unifying theme of Watchmen. I've posted before that the story, as told by Gibbons and Moore, is essentially a freudian analysis of the psychosexual complexes that motivate people to dress in leotards and fight crime, and (therefore) that motivates readers of the genre to commune with the medium with fervent intimacy. When you look past all of the story's remarkable trappings, it is ultimately a tale of freaks and failures, of men and women who believe they're heroes and villains but in the end are little more than slaves to their own subconscious feelings of powerlessness. It is here that I take issue with Snyder's adaptation.
Dave Gibbons' name appears in the credits of the film; Alan Moore's does not. This is appropriate, but it is not because Snyder failed to attempt to preserve the integrity of the text. Indeed, both authors' work, as it appears in the ink on the page, is preserved with remarkable fidelity here. Scenes from the novel are regularly reconstructed panel-for-panel and line-for-line. The problem is simply that Gibbons' vision is well-served by the big-screen costuming and special effects; Moore's is not.
...
To show Night Owl and Spectre engaging in kung fu heroics is not only an exaggeration of the text, it is a fundamental misreading of their characters. These aren't action heroes; they're people who get their capes caught in revolving doors and are brutally gunned down. Moore's greatest insight with Watchmen was to realize that if flawed people choose to engage in heroics that are infinitely beyond them, the results of their efforts are not comic (as was, and is, so widely popularized in comedies of bungling superheroes), but tragic. Snyder seems to be completely oblivious to this. These aren't people who are uniquely endowed to be heroes, as the Night Owl/Spectre fight sequences would imply, but are either tormented into doing so (like Rorschach and the Comedian, the moral centers of the work), or are looking to get off (basically everyone else).

(via Mark)

Watchmen (the book) benefits in a variety of ways from its medium, but the comic format has its drawbacks. Because of the ease with which its pages turn, one can miss the many subtle themes Watchmen has to offer. As the above highlights, the movie's greatest flaw is not that it gets the story wrong (J. Hoberman actually argues it gets it too right) but that it misses one of Alan Moore's fundamental points.

Thus, there are two things anyone should do before seeing this film: (1) read the book, and (2) read it again. This is not a suggestion so much as a prerequisite. To see this film without understanding the novel's underlying themes is to reduce its real substance to mere plot.

Having fulfilled the above requirements, I left the movie theater last Saturday feeling elated in the knowledge that this movie was probably as good as it could have been. It was true to the book, Snyder's stupid camera tricks never bogged down scenes the way they did in 300, and besides a couple of miscasted roles, the acting was more right than wrong.

And yet, this film's greatest success has nothing to do with what occurs between its previews and closing credits. Unlike the multitude of superhero films released this decade -- Spiderman, X-Men, and Batman among the most popular -- Watchmen serves not to supplement, but to complement (or even advertise) its source material. Since the buzz began for Snyder's adaptation nearly a year ago, the book has seen record sales, and it is currently sitting at the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

Ignoring the merits of the film altogether, Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. Pictures deserve one helluva pat on the back for igniting a new interest in both a twenty-year-old comic book and the graphic novel medium itself.

Where’s the love?

2009-03-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

The nonprofit sector is a strange world. I would like to take this moment to reflect on my experience this year working for a nonprofit among 30 other recent graduates doing public interest work in Chicago. For the record, I am not against nonprofits, but I do think good ones are the exception, not the rule.

Nonprofits are typically built in the following way:
1) Someone has a “new idea” that will solve the “most pressing issue” of our time
2) The founder uses their charm, close networks, and good luck in raising money
3) They operationalize their idea by developing programs and filling an office
4) They find ways to show how well their programs are doing without actually addressing whether the world really looks any different because of their programs
5) The cycle continues: restate the vision, get more funding, run programs, overstate impact...

The following are a few of my high-level critiques and observations:

1) There is no rational process that incentivizes real impact
Every nonprofit has a “unique approach” that validates their existence ad infinitum (though they all claim to be working to put themselves out of business). This leads them to have entirely different and thus uncomparable metrics of success, which also undermines the prospects of real partnership and collaboration. If everyone can define success differently, then there cannot be a mechanism that consistently rewards more impactful organizations. This means that funders do not maximize dollar for dollar impact, but instead rely on their gut, being wooed by emotional appeals, or personal pet interests and friendships.

2) “At least we’re doing something” usually means rationalized mediocrity
Nonprofits often have unbelievably audacious visions and rarely hold themselves accountable to audacious impact goals. One example is Teach for America (TFA). TFA is often discussed as a best-in-class nonprofit, and I would agree; they definitely attract top-talent (read John Boumgarden). However, I think they too fall into this category of huge vision with dissonant impact. Wendy Kopp’s vision is “One day, all children...” The average impact of a Corps Member is one tenth of one grade level better than the average (see study). Are we really to believe that this is the strategy that will lead to “One day, all children?” But hey, at least they’re doing something.

Did Gandhi start a nonprofit? Did King? The two most impressive civic leaders of the 20th century impacted world structures without the nonprofit apparatus. There are obviously many great nonprofits out there (see Harlem Children’s Zone), but I think we have become too quick to channel our desire to do good into the segmented, weakly accountable, and largely unimpressive nonprofit sector.

Vaclav Havel, the great Czech dissident and politician, offers us an alternative to the typical nonprofit approach. He says:

We are looking for new scientific recipes, new ideologies, and new institutions to eliminate the dreadful consequences of our previous recipes, ideologies, and institutions [...] We cannot discover a law or theory whose application will eliminate the disastrous consequences of the application of earlier laws and theories.

What we need is something different, something larger. Man’s attitude toward the world must be radically changed. We have to abandon the arrogant belief that the world is merely a puzzle to be solved, a machine with instructions for use waiting to be discovered.

We have to release from the sphere of private whim and rejuvenate such forces as a natural, unique, and unrepeatable experience of the world, an elementary sense of justice, the ability to see things as others do, a sense of transcendental responsibility, archetypal wisdom, good taste, courage, compassion, and faith in the importance of particular measures that do not aspire to be universal [...] The way forward is not in the mere construction of universal systemic solutions. Instead, human uniqueness, human action, and the human spirit must be rehabilitated.

How do we implement Havel’s call for a transformed human consciousness based on justice, compassion, and responsibility? I don’t know, maybe I’ll start a nonprofit.

The Birds, the Bees & the ICC

2009-03-10T04:41:00.000-07:00

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, President of Africa's largest country and home to the infamous Darfur conflict, Sudan. This post is an attempt to consolidate what is no doubt an array of confusing information and names for those unfamiliar with the infant institution. My hope is to offer insight into this watershed event in international human rights.

A (Very) Brief History of the ICC

With the intent to try perpetrators of international humanitarian law, tribunals were created on an ad hoc basis following WWII (the Nuremberg Trials), the atrocities of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia), and the Rwandan genocide (the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The results were mixed: while the ad hocs represented successes for the international human rights regime, as well as the victims of some of the most tragic events of recent history, they were also marred by bureaucracy, incompetence and corruption, and were accused of being a form of victor's justice. Some important figures were successfully prosecuted; others, most notably Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, "got away" (Milosevic died of a heart attack after almost five years of criminal proceedings -- no verdict was delivered).

The ICC is a permanent court based in The Hague with the mandate to prosecute individuals for the "world's worst crimes," including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Its creation in the late 90s was an attempt to solve the ad hocs' shortcomings -- to reduce costs and inefficiencies, as well as deter future violations. Most critically, the ICC can prosecute anyone from Joe the Plumber to Barack Obama, which is huge: if this thing works, heads of state will be unable to allow atrocities to happen on their watch, a massive leap -- not a step -- forward for international human rights.

The ICC's founding treaty was ratified by the required 60 states in 2002, and today, more than 100 member-states compose its Assembly of States Parties (ASP). And yet, some of the world's most influential states -- Russia, China, India, and oh yeah, the United States -- have thus far refused to join. But that was Bush, and this is "stem cells are alright" Barry.

In all seriousness, it does seem probable that Obama will eventually sign the US up for the ICC, because frankly, Bush's primary insecurities were largely unfounded. I'd be happy to flesh this out elsewhere, but it's not what this post is really about. So...

What Happened with Bashir?

Who doesn't love bullet points?:

Early 2003: Violence begins in Darfur, a conflict that continues today. Roughly 300,000 people have died, more than 3 million people have been displaced, and 4.7 million people now rely on humanitarian aid for food, water, and shelter. It is the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
March 2005: In a sly move at the UN, France essentially corners the Bush administration, and the case of Darfur is referred to the ICC.
April 27, 2007: The ICC issues arrest warrants for Ahmed Haroun, Sudan's Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs, and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb. Both remain at large and are therefore classified as "international fugitives."
July 14, 2008: ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo presents a case against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Darfur.
March 4, 2009: The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Bashir on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes, but not genocide as Moreno-Ocampo suggested. It is the first arrest warrant for an active head of state issued by the ICC.
In the last week: Bashir is totally not cool with the arrest warrant. The guy's literally dancing in the streets of Darfur and laughing at the ICC's absurd allegations.

Merit

Does the ICC have a case against Bashir?

On the one hand, he has presided over wartorn Sudan since 1993. There is a myriad of evidence that his government aided Janjaweed militia in the systematic destruction, rape, and murder of the peoples of Darfur. Most notably, it is well documented that combat training and planes were provided. And back in 2004 when the governments of the world actually seemed to care about Darfur (Bush and Co. even called it a "genocide"), Bashir's government consistently prevented humanitarian agencies from entering Darfur, claiming that they had it all under control.

On the other hand, Sudan does not provide first year Poli Sci students with a particularly strong example of separation of powers. Sure, Bashir's the President, but the ICC is "arguably chasing the wrong person." Moreno-Ocampo has made him out to be an all powerful dictator, but experts have confirmed the government has numerous centers of power. It is quite possible that others in the chain of command had greater knowledge and authority over the situation in Darfur.

The Unknown

Best Case Scenario

Optimists hope that moderates within Sudan's government will turn Bashir over to the ICC, negotiate a solution to Sudan's multiple conflicts, and that human rights will eventually be prevail.

The Financial Times' William Wallace rightly concludes this would be "somewhat of a miracle."

Worst Case Scenario

Pessimists say hardliners will rally around Bashir, non-political humanitarian aid agencies will be forced out of Darfur, and old conflicts (i.e. a North-South civil war that precluded the violence in Darfur) will reignite.

While arguably overstated, this scenario seems far more likely. In fact, the licenses of 13 humanitarian agencies have already been revoked, and four peacekeepers were "ambushed" and injured earlier today. Simply put, it's not only possible, but probable, that the ICC's warrant could undo the positive work that has been done in the region since the beginning of the crisis.

The Challenge

I would argue that, regardless of the current situation, the ICC has four primary impediments: distance, enforcement, investigation, and politicization. All four prove problematic in the current Bashir case and must be considered if the Court is to be successful.

First, the Court is situated in The Hague, far from the impoverished villages of Darfur. This has two main implications: (1) Bashir and others have deemed the ICC another of the imperialist world's attempts to meddle in African affairs -- in short, it is portrayed as a "White Man's Court"; (2) The separation of the Court from the far reaching locales it has jurisdiction over does little to educate and thus deter would-be criminals from committing crimes against humanity. Nonetheless, I personally believe the Court's permanence is vital to its success and that its seat in The Hague will encourage impartiality (the ad hocs arguably suffered from a biased, regional perspective).

Second, the Court has zero means of enforcement -- no police force, no soldiers, notta. The primary responsibility of enforcement therefore lies with its member-states to deliver those who have been issued arrest warrants to The Hague post haste. Again, two problems: (1) What state is actually going to deliver its current President? (Sudan ain't even party to the ICC); and (2) Other states party can only arrest Bashir should he leave Sudan, something he's not bloody likely to do.

Third, the Court relies on state cooperation in regards to investigation. For Moreno-Ocampo to succeed in bringing Bashir to justice, he will almost certainly require official documents and transcripts of meetings and/or phone calls that prove Bashir intentionally committed these crimes. Moreover, he has to prove these crimes even occurred, something that may prove difficult without unfettered access.

Finally, just like the ad hocs, the ICC is at risk of becoming entangled politically. Personally, I would argue that there was ample foresight in this area to prevent anything fishy from occurring. Even so, we must resist the temptation to assume Bashir is guilty simply because Moreno-Ocampo has brought a case against him. Like they say, "innocent until proven guilty." Ardent supporters of the ICC should see the warrant as a success, regardless of the outcome.

So What?

Even if the arrest of Bashir is somehow orchestrated, Moreno-Ocampo's got a tall order. He'll have to prove the crimes occurred, that Bashir organized them, and that he had the proper intent. Something of this magnitude will take extraordinary patience and conviction on the part of the ASP (read: time & $). Forgive me for being less than optimistic.

More importantly, we must ask ourselves whether this is really worth the risk. It is true that the outlook seems bleak. But it's been nearly seven years since this conflict began, and despite its highly publicized nature, repeated outcries of civil society, and the promise to prevent another Rwanda, children are still dying in Darfur. Can we afford not to try a new approach?

If I sound conflicted, it's because this is some seriously heady stuff with no clear cut answer. Regardless of the outcome, as a student and proponent of human rights, I recognize the tremendous strides that this week's events represent. Their importance cannot be understated.

I remain ever hopeful that sovereignty will be strengthened, not weakened, by a robust system of international law, that crimes against humanity will one day be prevented, not prosecuted, and that the ICC will be successful in its ambitious goals.

Top Chef Season 5 Wrap-Up: Suck Mountain

2009-02-28T13:12:00.001-08:00

On a 1-10 scale of suckiness, the Top Chef Season 5 Finale was a 9.4, with Gail's rudeness and Carla's cryfest each accounting for roughly .3 points towards the not-suck end. Here's a frankenstein recap from Gawker's Joshua Stein and comedian Max Silvestri:

After drawing knives, Hosea picks first. He picks Blaise. Stefan picks Marcel. Carla is stuck with Casey. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! WE DESERVE TO BE EXPLAINED WHAT IS GOING ON. Here I'll help: Hosea fucks Stefan by taking all the foie gras. Hosea fucks Stefan by taking the caviar. Hosea gleefully eats a cake—he's a fucking fat whore—in which he finds a golden baby. This translates into his using the golden baby to fuck Stefan some more by giving him alligator meat whilst choosing the less challenging red fish from himself. Hosea continues to demonstrate a creepy and malevolent obsession toward Stefan that transcends the competition and delves into deep, if well-founded, insecurities on Hosea's part concerning his lack of intelligence and skill.

The chefs rush to finish their dishes. Carla says it's like the last 6.2 miles of a marathon. Hahaha, oh man, I totally know what you mean. Those last 6.2 miles are such a funny and well-known thing about the marathons we all run.

At the judges' table, they have harsh words for Carla being so out of character. She breaks down in tears and breaks my heart in the process. Stefan, the tenderest villain ever, hugs her and I literally wept. Hosea's dishes were consistent, but Stefan's highs were higher and lows were lower. The frozen fish and "pedestrian" dessert were a mistake. Each chef gets a chance to plead their case. Not fair! Stefan's got a language barrier. It's unclear whether a better defense would have helped. The new Top Chef? Hosea.

What a disappointment. The look on Hosea's face and subsequent gleeful "who's the next Top Chef? Oh just little oh me, Hosea" gloating sucked all the joy out of this for me. Stefan's a gracious loser, and he somehow manages to not punch Hosea in the face when Hosea says "You were really close at the end, man" or whatever. No class, Hosea. Speaking of, did you see when Leah ran up to Hosea and tried to kiss him but it got so weird and awkward? Here's a diagram on how of how lamely this season ended.

To anyone watching the entire season, it is clear that Hosea wasn't the Top Chef. He was inferior to both Stefan in terms of technical skill and Carla in terms of imagination and passion.

After watching an entire season of an uncharacteristically untalented field of competitors repeatedly underwhelm and underperform, I was hoping for less uns and a well-deserved win for either Alpha-Male-Douchebag Stefan or Batshit-Crazy-Sweetest-Woman-Ever Carla. Instead, I suffered through Carla dropping the ball in Casey-esque fashion, the least exciting judges' table ever, and Blow-sea's pathetic defeat over his ridiculous obsession, Stefan.

Lame.

Overlooking Democracy

2009-02-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

Democracy is being overlooked in the field of international development. Take a look at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG); strengthening democratic institutions is simply not a priority. Not that this list is the end-all-be-all, it simply represents an important trend. As discussed in this recent NY Times article by Peter Baker, even President Obama has not yet made democracy abroad a top priority.

We could invest billions in education, health, gender equity, and other important initiatives, but without a foundation of accountable and responsive democratic government, funds may be spent inefficiently and used to maintain corrupt (and mostly ineffective) structures of resource distribution. In my estimate, democracy one of the most powerful forces for social good in the world and is being entirely underutilized.

My guess is that democracy is being undervalued for two main reasons. First, large international organizations like the UN, World Bank, World Vision, etc. attempt to be apolitical and categorically nonpartisan in their work. In many developing countries, working for free and fair elections is essentially the same as working against the regime in power, thus being perceived as partisan behavior.

Second, the severe degree of need in the developing world seems to legitimize a myopic strategy for change. When making choices about allocating scarce resources, it’s difficult for nonprofit/international organizations to invest in long-term democratic transformation in the midst of the “urgency of now.” When given the choice, they will ensure that bellies are full before working toward contested and inclusive elections. This is despite the fact that, in the long run, a well-functioning democracy may be a far better mechanism for filling bellies.

To optimize the efforts of global philanthropy, we ought to make democratization a priority among donors, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations working in the field of development. We must invest more seriously in building the civil and political societies of fledgling democracies if we are to move beyond the aid ineffectiveness that has plagued the efforts of the West for the past 50 years.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

2009-02-16T03:21:00.000-08:00

For me, Animal Collective has always precariously toed the line between fascinating and obnoxious. The same could certainly be said of most boundary-pushing artists, but there's always been something particularly eclectic about the group's affinity for yelps, tribal rhythms, and acoustic/electronic pairings. You'd be hard pressed to find a band from our generation who has simultaneously garnered as much hyperbolic praise and utter confusion.

Personally, I have pretty mixed opinions on the band's output. Sung Tongs (2004) is about 50/50 un-/bearable, Feels (2005) is mostly excellent ("Banshee Beat" is one of my most played tracks, all time), Panda Bear's Person Pitch (2007) is one of the most exciting albums of the decade, and Strawberry Jam (2007) was overrated beyond belief.

Which brings us to Merriweather Post Pavilion, released (count 'em) six days into 2009 to overwhelming cries of "Album of the Year!" Uncut's Stephen Troussé wrote, "[Merriweather Post Pavilion] feels like one of the landmark American albums of the century so far," and even your-parents'-favorite-freakin' ABC News covered its release.

I'm not going to write much about this record, because there's already an absurd amount about it out there (God, alliteration rules). I'd suggest this blog post in particular, which unintentionally mimics the space between fascinating and obnoxious that I already claimed Animal Collective occupy.

I've got two main things to say, and I'm going to present them numerically so as to appease Dave's penchant for organization:

(1) Animal Collective isn't particularly good at making consistent albums, but they are titans of the monstrous jam. Just as Strawberry Jam had "For Reverend Green" and "Fireworks" hidden amongst a mostly unsatisfying listening experience, Merriweather Post Pavilion has its ups and downs. I must, however, make it clear that the ups on this record are so ridiculously far up as to be downright astounding. Attach as much hyperbole to "My Girls," "Brother Sport," and jam-of-the-year "Summertime Clothes" as you can possibly muster. They are so mindbogglingly fantastic that I'm going to ask you to stop your reading, pause whatever you're currently listening to, and play these songs as loud as you possibly can, right now:

"My Girls" video here.

Listen to "Brother Sport" here.

Listen to "Summertime Clothes" now:

Thank you.

That said, there are some pretty boring sections (see: "Lion in a Coma" --> "No More Runnin") that make me hesitant to accept any review that touts this record as brilliant. That said, this album is mostly very good, and presently only a notch below Feels for me. I'd give it a B+, an 8.3, four stars, a crocodile, or something else totally nebulous.

(2) This album is virtually impossible to emotionally connect with. Taylor Parkes gets it: "Dropping into this record can feel like walking into someone else's dream, all lit up with a significance that somehow fails to connect."

But y'know what? I've never listened to Animal Collective with the intent to feel anything besides awe. So I'll just keep on blasting this record and singing "I want to walk around with you" everywhere I go.

Poetic Champions Compose

2009-02-09T21:04:00.000-08:00

Last week I attended a reading by three-time Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky at the Art Institute of Chicago. I must say that I am a total rookie when it comes to poetry. It takes all of my attention and energy to even read a poem, let alone understand one.

If you think reading poems is difficult, imagine listening to them while trying to retain even an ounce of coherence. Pinsky however did not seem concerned with whether the audience correctly decoded the meaning of his words. On the contrary, Pinsky argues, “Poetry does not begin with understanding, but with attraction- like love or hunger for food.” He not only read us his poems, but taught us to listen, arguing that the medium of real poetry is ultimately, and simply, breath.

Playing by his own rules, I fell in love with this very short poem entitled “ABC” in which he uses, in order, every letter of the alphabet:

His delivery is earnest yet playful, immediately compelling while not stifling the imagination. I cannot say much more than that without overstepping my bounds as a self-proclaimed poetry weakling.

During Q&A I wanted to ask him about his politics. I hoped to catch a glimpse of some radical new vision for society or whatever. However, when asked about such things, he humbly commented that he is not an expert on politics and won’t use his position to pretend that he is one; his aim is to master the English language.

In Robert Pinsky I found a man full of depth, passion, and humility in a field of literature that has always pushed me away with its pretense and inaccessibility. I am grateful to have seen him and encourage you to check out his Favorite Poem Project, which landed him the position of Poet Laureate for three years straight.

Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

2009-02-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

Despite reading articles, blogs, and message board posts galore last year, I managed to remain in the dark on Grouper's Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill. In fact, 2008 year-end list season was the first I'd even heard of "Grouper" (a moniker for Portland's Liz Harris), despite the fact that this is (apparently) her third album. Deer made Pitchfork's Top 40, Boomkat's Top 15, and a few individual Dusted lists, yet I couldn't recall seeing a single review. What on Earth was all this out-of-nowhere fuss about?

Deer begins with a slow rumble that gradually builds and fades; it's possibly a train rolling by--it doesn't matter. There's an amp switch thrown and Harris' siren-like voice breaks in. It's soft and pretty, or maybe child like. I can't make out a single thing she's saying--that doesn't really matter either. What matters is how this thing sounds.

The way it sounds is like: somebody really sad is fucking around with a guitar in an auditorium, and I'm down the hall taking a leak with the door open. And as I get wind of opening track "Disengaged," I'm dragged head first in search of this eery-ass sound; this sound that's so over-muddied, too ridiculously fuzzed out to know whether or not Harris is trying to say anything with her words, or just use that voice to lure me to her. Then there's an organ (or something), and the amp fuzzes out. You hear her switch off a tape recorder, pick up an acoustic guitar, and begin strumming "Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping."

By now I'm standing in the corridor of the auditorium. The sound of her voice and guitar still echo, but she's more intelligible and emotive than from down the hall: "Oh dreamer/ oh heavy water/ love is enormous/ it's lifting me up/ I'd rather be sleeping/ I'd rather fall in a tideway/ right where the deepest currents flow." (Ok, I'm probably a tad off, but it's close).

The way this album sounds is: dark and lonesome, foggy and tired, or as Boomkat writes, "It's a mass of mesmerizing magnetic hiss and soft noise, with a voice cloaked in lo-fi haze somewhere at the back." Sounds kinda like shoegaze, don't it? So does Deer, except the standard elements aren't used. For instance, "Wind and Snow" blankets just about everything in layers of--not electrics, but--creaking vocals, like a microphone just on the verge of doing that annoying screech thing it does if it gets too close to random objects. The result is a "wall of sound" you absolutely have to hear on the best headphones you can scrounge up.

In many ways, this album will appeal most to fans of shoegaze (Harris even reminds me of Asobi Seksu's Yuki at times). But it will also serve as a strong companion for anyone who's finding these winter months colder, darker, and longer than usual. I've listened to this album about two-dozen times in the last month, but I doubt I'll touch it once Spring rolls around. Who cares? Right now, it's utterly perfect. Maybe that's why so many music journalists felt compelled to throw a moderately well-received record onto their (December) Best Of lists. And Goddamn am I glad they did.

Listen to "Heavy Water/I'd Rather Be Sleeping" (TURN IT UP):

Visit Grouper's MySpace page.

Extinction of Culture

2009-01-27T22:18:00.000-08:00

Why does it matter whether different cultures are protected from emerging global forces? Some would say it doesn’t, most anthropologists would argue otherwise. I guess I see both sides.

On the one hand, no humane person pines over the glory days of when we had a culture of slavery in this country. Or, for a more current example, do we really want to preserve our current American culture of excessive consumption and environmental degradation? Just because a culture exists doesn’t mean it should. Further, as Westerners, we shouldn’t deny remote cultures the vast material benefits of our system (if they desire those benefits) for the sake of being able to visit exotic peoples and discuss our neat differences.

From the anthropological perspective, it seems that all cultures ought to be equally valued by outsiders because it’s inappropriate for one group to determine the fate of another based on priorities and principles that are not shared. After all, who is to say that we got it right as Westerners?

Intuitively I believe in preserving distinct cultures because I see the beauty and concert in the thousands of unique expressions of human voice around the world. I would just like to unpack a little further what it is specifically that we ought to value about our culture and others’ to better understand how to think about things like globalization and international development both critically and constructively.

What do you think? How careful should we be about cultural imperialism when thinking about global "progress?"

Dusted's Destined

2009-01-26T05:40:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Dusted Magazine, my favorite music e-zine, wrapped up their annual Destined feature. The site selected 10 emerging artists to watch in 2009, including Bachelorette, Kurt Vile, and Aeroplane. Dusted's track record is a strong indication that at least a couple of these artists are worth keeping an eye on: at various points in the last six years, Parts & Labor, Hot Chip, M.I.A., Deerhunter, and Fuck Buttons were each labeled "Destined" before their breakout releases.

If you missed the two-week feature, you can check out the in-depth articles for each artist here.

My personal favorite was Nate Knaebel's look at The Strange Boys, a Dallas-based garage rock band.

Here's an excerpt:

While the band’s musical scholarship is undeniable, one would be wise to avoid pinpointing a particular influence. “A band can make a whole career out of sounding like Radiohead, and no one says anything,” Sambol points out. “But when a band tries to go through someone that’s maybe easier to poke at – the Kinks or Dylan – people desperately want to reference it.” Touché.
While Sambol noted that he one day hopes to outgrow any influences, the band’s official debut full-length, The Strange Boys and Girls Club, already finds the band standing solidly on its own. It’s the sound of high school dances stomped out on gymnasium floors long since abandoned; cold nights and warm whiskey; bad decisions and trouble. The jangling guitars are punctuated with strategic bursts of fuzz; the drums provide a laconic shuffling rhythm that pushes the band along just so without ever rushing things. Sambol’s strained bleat sounds simultaneously desperate and elated.

Listen to The Strange Boys' "Heard You Wanna Beat Me Up".

Visit The Strange Boys' MySpace page.

Equality as Outcomes or Opportunity?

2009-01-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

Since I can remember I have readily recited Milton Friedman’s old adage that the government should ensure that people have “equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes.” The logic here is that if everyone is afforded the same opportunities (e.g. education, health, etc.), then it’s simply a matter of individual will, luck, and choices whether one gets “ahead” in terms of social and economic outcomes (e.g. income level). This line of thought also embodies a general disregard among conservatives concerning the role of government in mitigating inequality of outcomes. As with most others, it’s time for me to revisit this proposition.

Rethinking this raises two basic questions: 1) Is equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcomes a useful distinction? and 2) Why might inequality of outcomes be a proper focus of government? In regards to the first question, I’m not convinced that equality of opportunity vs. outcomes is a practical distinction.

Theoretically I understand the logic, but we live in a world where peoples’ opportunities are directly shaped by the outcomes of their families and communities. For example, if one’s parents are too poor to live in a neighborhood with high caliber schools, then that directly impacts their opportunity to get a high quality education, thus furthering educational inequality of opportunity.

I absolutely agree that we should focus on equalizing peoples’ opportunities, not outcomes, but in order to do that we need to restructure opportunities so they are not dependent on outcomes. This is where the typical conservative line falls apart. You cannot simultaneously advocate for more equal opportunities AND smaller government.

If the funding of healthcare and education continues to be largely decentralized, as conservatives advocate, then the quality of those services will mirror the economic circumstances of communities: poor areas will have weak basic services, rich areas have robust education and health systems. If we take Friedman’s logic seriously, I think it undermines his advocacy for small government. By the way, Obama’s quote on this point was spot on: “The fundamental question of our time is not whether government is too big or two small, it will be whether it works.”

On the second question, as usual, I think Amartya Sen says it best in this tour de force of an interview:

------

I believe that virtually all the problems in the world come from inequality of one kind or another [...] There are some people who say that they're concerned only with poverty but not inequality. I find that very difficult for the reason that Adam Smith discussed a long time ago in The Wealth of Nations. He pointed out that the same thing that everyone likes doing, talking with others, appearing in public without shame, taking part in the life of the community, if you live in a community that's relatively rich, you need a much bigger income to be able to do these elementary things.

If you are a villager in rural Bangladesh or Uganda, you might be able to meet with people very easily even if you're not schooled or if you don't have a car or if you're not clothed in a way that's regarded as obligatory in some cultures. But in, say, America, if you don't have a television at home your kids might find it hard to converse with each other in school. The income that we need in order not to be poor is much higher in a richer society. So that relative poverty, which is really a matter of inequality, in terms of income can be the cause of absolute poverty, the inability to do the basic things which Adam Smith noted we all like doing.

The idea that we can be interested only in poverty but not in inequality I don't think is a sustainable thought. A lot of poverty is in fact inequality because of this connection between income and capability. The same capability to take part in the life of the community requires a much bigger basket of commodities and therefore a much bigger income in a rich society. So you have to be interested in inequality. And since we live in a global village, events in different parts of the world influence each other. The Internet begins to penetrate in my country. Indians begin to find out how other people live in the rest of the world. Given these circumstances, the issues of inequality and the issue of poverty are not separable even globally.

They're very closely linked, both in terms of the need to ask the moral question, Is it right that I should enjoy my privileges, and not feel I owe anything to others? As well as the other level, do I have a right to be content living in a world with so much poverty and inequality? Both these questions motivate us to take these issues to be central to human living. Ultimately, the old Socratic question, How should I live? has to include a very strong component of awareness and response to inequality.”

----

My apologies for the length of this interview segment, but Sen makes sense of why inequality matters in a way that I have never been able to articulate. In short, I still agree with Friedman’s basic proposition, but I would argue that taking it seriously undermines the libertarian solution he ends up coming to. Further, I think Sen's argument forces us to reconsider the real difficulties surrounding inequality of outcomes, which may be good reason to believe that it is a proper thing for the government to focus on.

Dear Science

2009-01-13T04:15:00.000-08:00

The following is a quick write-up I did some time ago for my favorite record of 2008, TV on the Radio's Dear Science. I had planned (and still plan) on writing a bit about some of the records I thought went under-appreciated, but I've been sitting on this for about three weeks and have finally decided to just post it. Hopefully, I'll get my shit together and provide a bit more later on. For now...

TV on the Radio formed within the space and culture of New York, New York, a metropolis aptly portrayed one year ago in a review for The National's Boxer as "catastrophically wounded but still humming like a generator." Isolated as New York may be, Americans from sea to shining sea can no doubt relate to such desolation and persistence: our youth still enlist despite an endless parade of flag-draped caskets; our alarm clocks are still set each night despite continued layoffs; and our united voice still chose "hope" despite eight years of spoon-fed bullshit. Ours is a nation founded on the principle that discontent can always be overcome by equal portions grit and Gatsby-style optimism.

This same balance is reflected throughout TV on the Radio’s third studio album, Dear Science. These are gloomy days, and singers Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone know it. The two split songwriting duties nearly 50/50, yet coalesce around themes familiar to the coarse American political landscape: war, religion, environmentalism, corruption, materialism, racism, and technology. Malone questions the morality of Israeli military action on "Crying" and wonders "What's this dying for?" on "Stork & Owl." Adebimpe chastises an overtly disingenuous effort towards air quality on "DLZ" and, humorously, those vain enough to dress their Weimaraners in sweaters on "Dancing Choose." Elsewhere, shadows and gallows populate the chorus of "Family Tree," a timeworn interracial love story hindered by "an old idea" whose "roots of evil" are as firm and foundational as ever.

As with the 2008 presidential election, however, these disenchanted overtones only tell half the story. In an interview with The Onion's AV Club, Adebimpe likened the recording of 2006's Return to Cookie Mountain to "the Ren & Stimpy episode where they get space madness, and they're orbiting the planet, ready to kill each other for a bar of soap." Weary of their childish artistic clashes, TV on the Radio reconvened as a more sensible pop group bent on crafting a percussive, clean, and—according to Adebimpe—more "regular" album.

The result, which marries the band's usual status quo dissatisfaction with a less familiar brand of romanticism, is a far warmer sound than TV on the Radio has ever experimented with before. Horns and strings are noticeably brighter than on the aggressive and brooding Cookie Mountain, particularly in aid of the crescendoing "Family Tree" and "Lover's Day." Meanwhile, “Crying” and “Golden Age” are downright danceable, if not fit for pop radio. Adebimpe and Malone play a large role in the band’s sunnier tone; the power of love is a theme reiterated in nearly all of Dear Science’s eleven perfectly sequenced tracks.

The only problem? Five years ago, no band in America sounded like TV on the Radio. Now, TV on the Radio sound like TV on the Radio, and there's no telling how far this tank of gas will take them. Yet this band still seems awfully avant-garde compared to the bulk of their peers. Capturing both the despair and optimism that has defined the last year, Dear Science is TV on the Radio's most commercial-friendly album to date, but also their most sure-stepped, consistent, and best.

Watch the video for "Golden Age":

Rethinking Youth Engagement in Israel Palestine

2009-01-07T21:29:00.000-08:00

This post was originally published on the Newsweek/Washington Post “Faith Divide” blog.

This past summer in Washington, D.C., I had the opportunity to meet two young Israelis who were backpacking across America. They had just completed their mandatory military service in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), a three year (two years for women) requirement for all Israeli citizens over the age of 18, and had decided to delay their studies to see the world. After sharing travel stories and talking about the future of electronic music, I posed a question very near to my heart: “Do either of you have any Muslim or Arab friends back home?” The lively spirit that had colored our conversation vanished and, after an awkward pause, one of them stated, “No, it doesn’t really work like that. We’ve just spent three years fighting Arabs; do you really think we could all go to the clubs together at night?”

This encounter and recent events in Gaza have forced me to think seriously about the consequences of militarizing, year after year, entire generations of young people in Israel and Palestine. Young peoples’ identities and worldviews are deeply shaped by the experiences they have and the institutions of which they are a part. What, then, happens when the vast majority of youth in Israel and Palestine are asked to serve in military roles that further embed an “us vs. them” mentality? Is it possible that the institution of compulsory military service cements an oppositional identity between the very people on which peace in the Middle East depends?

What if there were an alternative institution shaping how young Israelis and Palestinians perceive one another? Given the serious security threats to the people involved, I am not arguing for an elimination of mandatory military service. Instead, the respective governments should create a parallel opportunity where young Palestinians and Israelis could legitimately fulfill part or all of their civic duty by serving in a joint Israeli-Palestinian interfaith “Peace Corps.” This initiative would facilitate interfaith peace exchanges, cooperative service immersion experiences, and constructive dialogue among thousands of young Israelis and Palestinians each year. Instead of pitting Israeli and Palestinian young people against one another during their most formative years, this initiative would help them form constructive relationships based on positive interactions, shared values, and common goals.

This initiative would be effective in fostering peace for two main reasons. First, it would bring adversarial groups together to work toward common goals (e.g. regional peace, quality of life for refugees, access to health and education) that could not be reached without the cooperation of both groups. In his classic “Robbers Cave” experiment on conflict and cooperation, social psychologist Muzafer Sherif forcefully shows that social tensions are significantly reduced when groups in conflict jointly pursue and achieve shared goals; the same lesson applies to peace in Israeli-Palestine.

Second, this initiative would teach and train future foreign ministers, faith leaders, and policymakers to partake in constructive dialogue, be empathetic toward the circumstances of others, and utilize nonviolent and cooperative strategies for building a more stable and peaceful region. This model is the same one used by Teach for America (TFA) in their efforts to reform the education system in America. TFA is effectively equipping future leaders in all fields to be lifelong advocates for educational change. For evidence of the effectiveness of this model, check out the impact of TFA Alumni.

Young people will make an impact in the world. If we want them to leave a legacy of peace in Israel-Palestine, then they must be shaped and empowered by nonviolent leadership opportunities. Peace in Israel and Palestine depends on whether both governments can find a more constructive way to engage their youth.

Bank It: Money Tracks from 2008

2008-12-31T13:33:00.001-08:00

A Short Note

Friends,

For the fourth time, I have put together a modest recap of what I consider to be the year's best music. This year's mix is calledBank It: Money Tracks from 2008 (thanks, Catie). Whereas many mixes like these arbitrarily rank tracks, I have instead focused on artists and albums that are worth seeking out and supporting. So if you like the song I chose from The War on Drugs' Wagonwheel Blues, for instance, I urge you to check out their MySpace page, go to their shows, and most of all, get their album(s).

There are only about a half-dozen tracks on here that I consider strong "singles" from weak records; most of these can be found on Disc 2, the pop disc. Otherwise, the bulk of the albums listed below are at least very good if not excellent. So give something new a try.

Like last year, I've organized the mixes by genre. You can view the tracklists for all five below and download them with the links I provided elsewhere (links will not be posted here for security reasons).

I hope you enjoy these. Happy New Year,

adam

Tracklists

DISC I -- INDIE-ROCK -- 1:12 -- 111.5 MB

1. "Freeway" // Kurt Vile (from Constant Hitmaker)

2. "Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur" // Sigur Rós

(from Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust)

3. "Party Barge" // Silver Jews (from Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea)

4. "Strange Overtones" // Brian Eno and David Byrne

(from Everything That Happens Will Happen Today)

5. "Lost Coastlines" // Okkervil River (from The Stand Ins)

6. "Ragged Wood" // Fleet Foxes (from Fleet Foxes)

7. "Family Tree" // TV on the Radio (from Dear Science)

8. "Islands in the Stream" // Constantines and Feist

(from the Islands in the Stream Single)

9. "Too Drunk to Dream" // The Magnetic Fields (from Distortion)

10. "Glue Girls" // Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

(from Pershing)

11. "Walcott" // Vampire Weekend (from Vampire Weekend)

12. "Soldier's Grin" // Wolf Parade (from At Mount Zoomer)

13. "Weekend" // The Sea & Cake (from Car Alarm)

14. "Soul on Fire" // Spiritualized (from Songs in A&E)

15. "Featherbeds" // Oxford Collapse (from Bits)

16. "Arms Like Boulders" // The War on Drugs

(from Wagonwheel Blues)

17. "Dark Leaves from a Thread" // Destroyer (from Trouble in Dreams)

18. "The Hunter's Star" // Shearwater (from Rook)

DISC II -- POP / HIP-HOP / R&B -- 1:10 -- 109.5 MB

1. "Another Day" // Jamie Lidell (from Jim)

2. "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a

Shaker Hymn)" // Weezer (from Weezer)

3. "Don't Stop the Music" // Rihanna (from Good Girl Gone Bad)

4. "Lights Out" // Santogold (from Santogold)

5. "88" // The Cool Kids (from The Bake Sale)

6. "Swampy (Summer Jam)" // Food for Animals (from Belly)

7. "RoboCop" // Kanye West (from 808s & Heartbreak)

8. "Hands in the Air" // Girl Talk (from Feed the Animals)

9. "Swagga Like Us" (feat. Kanye West, Jay-Z, & Lil Wayne) - T.I.

(from Paper Trail)

10. "In Search of the Youth Crew" // Cadence Weapon

(from Afterparty Babies)

11. "The Kramer" // Wale (from The Mixtape About Nothing)

12. "Soldier" // Erykah Badu

(from New Amerykah Part One (4th World War))

13. "Touch My Body" // Mariah Carey (from E=MC²)

14. "Untouched" // The Veronicas (from Hook Me Up)

15. "No Can Do" // Sugababes (from Catfights and Spotlights)

16. "American Boy" (feat. Kanye West) // Estelle (from Shine)

17. "Lay It Down" (feat. Anthony Hamilton) // Al Green

(from Lay It Down)

DISC III -- ROCK -- 1:12 -- 107.9 MB

1. "Living Well is the Best Revenge" // R.E.M. (from Accelerate)

2. "Waving Flags" // British Sea Power

(from Do You Like Rock Music?)

3. "Trans Canada" // Constantines (from Kensington Heights)

4. "Nothing Ever Happened" // Deerhunter (from Microcastle)

5. "Always Wanting More" // Jay Reatard (from Matador Singles '08)

6. "Arms Against Atrophy" // Titus Andronicus

(from The Airing of Grievances)

7. "I Admit My Faults" // Eddy Current Suppression Ring

(from Primary Colours)

8. "Bright Tomorrow" // Fuck Buttons (from Street Horrrsing)

9. "Ghost Town (Pt. 1)" // Dan Friel (from Ghost Town)

10. "The Rest of My Days" // Gentleman Jesse & His Men

(from Gentleman Jesse & His Men)

11. "The Package is Wrapped" // Marnie Stern (from This is It and

I am It and You Are It and So is That and He is It and She is It and

It is It and That is That)

12. "We Call Upon the Author" // Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

(from Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!)

13. "In the New Year" // The Walkmen (from You & Me)

14. "(My Head)" // Times New Viking (from Rip It Off)

15. "Things I Did When I Was Dead" // No Age (from Nouns)

16. "Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts" // The Gaslight Anthem

(from the Señor and the Queen EP)

17. "Gardenia" // Stephen Malkmus (from Real Emotional Trash)

18. "Slapped Actress" // The Hold Steady (from Stay Positive)

DISC IV -- SINGER-SONGWRITER / (ALT) COUNTRY -- 1:00 -- 95.1 MB

1. "A&E" // Goldfrapp (from Seventh Tree)

2. "You Belong With Me" // Taylor Swift (from Fearless)

3. "A Ghost to Most" // Drive-By Truckers

(from Brighter Than Creation's Dark)

4. "Runnin' Your Way" // Sera Cahoone (from Only as the Day is Long)

5. "Wildflower" // Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson

(from Rattlin' Bones)

6. "Saro" // Sam Amidon (from All is Well)

7. "The Butcher" // Final Fantasy

(from the Spectrum, 14th Century EP)

8. "I Was Made for You" // She & Him (from Volume One)

9. "Unnamed (This Song Makes Me Happy)" // Leona Naess

(from Thirteens)

10. "Sax Rohmer #1" // The Mountain Goats (from Heretic Pride)

11. "Bag of Hammers" // Thao Nguyen & the Get Down Stay Down

(from We Brave Bee Stings and All)

12. "Borrowing Time" // Aimee Mann (from @#%&*! Smilers)

13. "Alicia Ross" // Kathleen Edwards (from Asking for Flowers)

14. "You Swan, Go On" // Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron

(from Lost Wisdom)

15. "The Captain and the Hourglass" // Laura Marling

(from Alas, I Cannot Swim)

16. "Tell Me Something True" // Tift Merritt (from Another Country)

17. "Ain't Glad I'm Leaving" // Justin Townes Earle

(from The Good Life)

18. "Armageddon Song" // The Dutchess and the Duke

(from She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke)

DISC V -- ELECTRONIC / DANCE -- 1:05 -- 96.4 MB

1. "Say Whoa" // A-Trak

(from Running Man, a Nike+ Original Run Mix)

2. "Lights and Music" // Cut Copy (from In Ghost Colours)

3. "Air War" // Crystal Castles (from Crystal Castles)

4. "I Told Her on Alderaan" // Neon Neon (from Stainless Style)

5. "Which Song" // Max Tundra (from Parallax Error Beheads Us)

6. "Heaven (Narctrax Rmx)" // HEALTH (from HEALTH//DISCO)

7. "Hercules' Theme" // Hercules & Love Affair

(from Hercules & Love Affair)

8. "The Rip" // Portishead (from Third)

9. "Ready for the Floor" // Hot Chip (from Made in the Dark)

10. "Graveyard Girl" // M83 (from Saturdays = Youth)

11. "Grand Ideas" // Lindstrøm (Excerpt from Where You Go I Go Too)

12. "Techno Dread" // 2562 (from Aerial)

13. "Positif" // Mr. Oizo (from Lambs Anger)

14. "Planisphère (Final)" // Justice (from the Planisphère EP)

Milk

2008-12-28T14:02:00.000-08:00

Milk is a newish biographical film directed by Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Elephant) about the life of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in the United States. Spoiler Alert: don't read on if you don't want to know what happens in this film. This movie was a pretty massive let down for me. Here's why.

But first, the good. The acting was absolutely top notch. As most reviews have said, Sean Penn gives perhaps his greatest performance yet. Besides just nailing the mannerisms of the real-life protagonist, the way Philip Seymour Hoffman did in Capote, the most emotional scenes in the film are lifted to new heights because of his acting. The love he shows for Scott early in their relationship, the anguish in his cry when he finds Jack's strung up body, and that final and perfectly helpless "no" muttered as his hand is trivially waved in front of Dan White's gun--all of these were tremendous.

The supporting actors were equally excellent. I was most impressed with James Franco who, up until now, I had only seen play the horrendous role of Peter Parker's roommate. Josh Brolin and Emile Hirsch were also very good. Best was Denis O'Hare in the role of Senator Briggs who absolutely excelled for the second time this season as an antagonist (also wonderful as the mad "doctor" in Changeling).

On acting alone, I'd give Milk an A.

Unfortunately, there were so many points in this film when the direction and editing really hindered the storytelling. On the whole, I felt the movie moved much too quickly in the first half, yet often seemed to be too slow in making any real headway plot-wise. I was bothered by the fact that the first impression we are given of Milk in the "present" is picking up a stranger in a subway stairwell. Next thing, they're in California and he's got a camera shop. Next thing, he's running for office. Viewers are more or less asked to sit through a series of bullet points. Things move much too fast, yet nothing seems to really happen; oh, he lost again?--darn. Thanks Gus Van Sant for the character montage to catch us up: "There was Ronnie J. the hip Asian, John Stine the smart guy, and of course Mark T." 30 minutes later, John pops up with a map of San Fran and his first speaking lines, and I'm thinking, "Who the hell is this guy?" It's just sloppy character development and storytelling.

There are too many examples of careless editing to remember them all. At one point, I turned to my girlfriend to see if she too saw a boom mic bob below the screen's top edge (she did). More frustrating, however, was the number of times a seemingly random shot, or series of shots, was sporadically placed between scenes with no regard for its importance to the story. One example finds the young Cleve Jones doing sit-ups in the Castro Camera storefront window; there is absolutely no point to this five second interlude, but we shot it, so we might as well use it... tsk tsk.

The movie's biggest failure is that despite its wonderful performances, there are very rarely opportunities to be moved. I felt very little while watching this film, perhaps only upon viewing the death's of Milk and his lover Jack. Much of this has to do with directorial choices. For instance, when Jones mobilizes thousands via telephone calls, I did not feel the excitement or the build that I could have. Instead, Van Sant decides to amateurize the film with a downright stupid split-screen montage of men calling men calling men. It looks like the Village People doing the Brady Bunch. Similarly, when Milk finally wins in his third election attempt, it's as simple as that: he wins. Sure, there's a rousing party in the streets, but practically no momentum is built up to the victory. It just kind of happens, again, giving viewers no opportunity to be moved. One final example would be the movie's apparent climax, the defeat of Prop 8, whose story is told by pans across a cheap green/red color chart of the state of California. Again, momentum of Prop 8 failing is crushed by a cheesy directorial choice.

There are more examples. The script foreshadows Milk's death three times in the first five minutes, first by depicting Milk making a recording in case of his assassination, then by showing actual footage from the 1978 murder, and finally with Milk's "if I make it to 50" line in bed with Scott. Yet for some reason, we are asked to re-watch this final scene in bed at the end of the movie. It's borderline insulting; like, "Hey, see what we did here with this bit of foreshadowing??? Pretty smart, huh?!"

I should mention that the second example--real footage being spliced into the film--is one of Van Sant's finest artistic directions to date. In particular, the decision to use only original footage of Anita Bryant instead of having an actor play her role was smart and worked very well. I loved how seamlessly actual news reports, speeches, and videos from the 70s were mixed into the movie.

At the end of the day, the story wasn't told as well as it should have been by the men and women behind the camera, not in front of it. For that reason, I was disappointed, I was left uninspired, and I believe some rather fine acting was squandered.

Watch the trailer:

TED Talk on Education

2008-12-16T20:53:00.000-08:00

First, if you haven’t spent a significant amount of time on TED.com, you need to. Technology Education and Design (TED) is an annual event in California where some of the world’s leading thinkers share ideas about practically everything. All of these talks are available for free online.

One particularly riveting and hilarious TED talk (watch here) was given by Sir Ken Robinson on the topic of how schools kill creativity. Robinson argues that public education systems were designed at the dawn of the industrial revolution and governments structured the curriculum to meet the rapidly growing needs of the industrial system. This way of thinking about the purpose of education is still with us today, as evidenced by the consistent hierarchy of priorities in public education; math and languages at the top with music, art, and dance at the bottom. In other words, the skills most useful and marketable are the ones that are prioritized and rewarded at the expense of more creative pursuits.

Robinson goes on to say that in our rapidly changing world, creativity is as important as literacy and ought to be treated that way by our institutions. He states that all children are born artists and are relentlessly educated out of their creativity. Robinson asserts that if you are afraid of being wrong, you cannot come up with an original idea, which is the most basic component of creativity. Our current system is built on the stigmatization of mistakes, thus slowly deteriorating our willingness and ability to think creatively. I prefer a “fail often, fail early” approach.

I think Robinson is correct on two big points: 1) kids are typically not rewarded for creative endeavors early on and 2) the current education system is designed to churn out middle managers in major corporations. I have no problem with corporations as such, they are perfectly appropriate vehicles for doing business. What I am not sure of is whether our schools should be categorically designed and structured to meet the needs of industry.

What do you think? Do we need to seriously rethink the aims of education and institutionalize new priorities? Should we treat creativity as seriously as we do literacy?

Faith in Action

2008-12-08T12:59:00.000-08:00

My good friend Becca Hartman gave me this poem and I was particularly taken by it:

I was hungry
and you formed a humanities club
and you discussed by hunger
Thank you.

I was imprisoned
and you crept off quietly
to your chapel in the cellar
and prayed for my release.

I was naked
and in your mind
you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick
and you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless
and you preached to me
of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely
and you left me alone
to pray for me.

You seem so holy;
so close to God.

But I'm still very hungry
and lonely
and cold.

So where have your prayers gone?
What have they done?
What does it profit a man
to page through his book of prayers
when the rest of the world
is crying for his help?

As people of faith (in God and humanity), we cannot settle for the publishing of more papers to collect dust, the hosting of more convenings and conversations that don't lead to sustained action, or believing in a faith that continues to be disengaged from radical living for the life of the world.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched with King in Selma, AL during the height of the civil rights movement. When reflecting on his experience, he said, "I felt like my legs were praying." I am, unfortunately, a person of faith that has preferred to consume my religion rather than live it out in service to others. I am both nervous and exhilarated to see what it might look like to take this poem to heart.

Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler

2008-12-04T14:48:00.000-08:00

I have been at odds with the formal study of economics for some time, especially when applied to individual human behavior. In my college microeconomics courses I was taught that human beings have fixed interests; they always maximize utility, respond to incentives properly, and make rational choices. I found microeconomic theories useful for explaining behavior in the abstract, but they didn’t help me make sense of reality as I experienced it. What about sacrifice? What about thoughtless actions, or irrationality? Why do so many people make choices that are not in their best interest, even when they are aware of the risks, costs, and alternatives?

Now, after a few years of disillusionment with the field, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein have gently re-humanized economics in their recently published book Nudge. Sunstein and Thaler offer a fresh perspective, informed by law, behavioral economics, psychology, and political science, about how private institutions and government can “nudge” people toward choices that will make them healthier, wealthier, and happier. This book is the Freakonomics of behavioral economics. Further, the authors include plenty of repartee and interesting factoids (like neck-ties were originally used as napkins!) alongside high-quality and compelling analysis.

Sunstein and Thaler spend the first part of the book breaking down the “economic man” model of understanding human behavior. They are constantly differentiating between how rational “econs” are expected to act versus how humans behave in reality. In making their point, they state:

"If you look at economics textbooks you will learn that the economic man can think like Albert Einstein, store as much memory as IBM’s Big Blue, and exercise the willpower of Mahatma Gandhi. Really. But the folks we know are not like that. Real people have trouble with long division, forget their spouse’s birthday, and have a hangover on New Year’s day (pp. 6)."

Thaler and Sunstein call themselves libertarian paternalists, or choice architects. They in no way seek to limit peoples’ choices, but instead hope to merely nudge people toward choices that are more in their best interest, as judged by themselves. The way choices are presented to people can drastically change their behavior, and by thinking creatively about choice architecture, libertarian paternalists can help people move in directions that will improve their lives.

A great example of what they call a nudge comes from a high school cafeteria. In this case, a school official realized that, by simply re-arranging the order of the food in the lunch line and which items were at eye level, she could drastically change the nutritional quality of kids’ meal choices. While these kids faced no less choice, the context in which they made their choices changed and thus so did their behavior. It is these types of nudges that Sunstein and Thaler find so promising, the minor shifts in social situations that have the power to greatly alter peoples’ behavior.

They offer several different types of nudges that can be employed by private and public institutions to help people make better choices, here are a few examples:

1) Utilize Defaults and Status Quo: Padding the Path of Least Resistance
They show that people, on average, avoid making difficult choices by consistently sticking with the default or status quo. Typically, if people do nothing, then nothing changes. However, by structuring default options differently, such as automatically enrolling employees in a sensible health insurance or 401(k) plan unless they opt-out, leaders can drastically change peoples’ well-being.

2) Provide Feedback
The best way to help people increase their performance is by giving them consistent feedback. One case of creative feedback comes from slightly changing the presentation of customers’ energy bills. In this case, people consuming above average amounts of energy received a frowny emoticon on their energy bill, whereas people using below average amounts were rewarded with a happy emoticon. Those who received negative visual feedback drastically cut their energy usage over the next three months, whereas low users maintained their rates. Even though economic or environmental incentives didn’t change for these consumers, a simple emoticon feedback tool affected their behavior and the environment at large.

3) Understand “Mappings”: From Choice to Welfare
Simply put, this means making information about various options more comprehensible. Sunstein and Thaler examine how this could impact education in America. They found that, when information about school performance was made more comprehensible and relevant to low-income parents, those parents overwhelmingly chose to put their children in better schools. School choice by itself is not enough, people must be nudged with well-mapped information for them to make optimal school choices.

There are many other forms of nudging that Sunstein and Thaler articulate, but the main point they make is this:

"The sheer complexity of modern life, and the astounding pace of technological and global change, undermine arguments for rigid government mandates or dogmatic laissez-faire. Emerging developments should strengthen, at once, the principled commitment to freedom of choice and the case for a gentle nudge (pp. 253)."

Nudge helps us move beyond the “economic man” model and realize that humans are fallible (and often predictable) creatures. By understanding and utilizing patterns of human behavior, governmental and private actors can help people make more optimal choices for themselves and the world around them.

Taylor Swift - Fearless

2008-12-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Among other admittedly derivative adjectives, I'd use gusty, youthful, and honest to describe Taylor Swift's 2006 eponymous debut. If nothing else, it distinguished Swift as an anomaly in the pop world: almost all of the album's songs were penned alone, with the only aid coming from the guitar she actually plays, and--to top it off--she did it all before obtaining a driver's license. Justifiably, she was honored with the 2007 Country Music Association's Horizon Award (previous winners include the Dixie Chicks, Alison Krauss, and Garth Brooks), yet didn't seem to garner much attention in the mainstream pop world.

Two years later, Swift has returned at the still-shocking age of eighteen with Fearless, an album that has quickly earned her a spot on the cover of Rolling Stone, somewhat ironically sandwiched between The Boss and Bono.

The verdict? Fearless is precisely the album Taylor Swift needed to make: it's far more "pop" than "country," it's every bit as genuine and youthful as her self-titled, and it's her ticket to becoming America's next big star. In short, like the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain and Faith Hill before her, Swift has made her move to crossover into mainstream stardom.

Swift's greatest asset is her uncanny ability to relate to her audience via a bevy of--what skeptics will inevitably call "immature" or "childish"--teenage experiences she unabashedly crafts her songs around. The tremendously catchy opener "Fearless" tells of a "flawless" first kiss with a new beau who is "just so cool." Sound stupid? Ask the millions of young girls who remember a night of driving just like Swift's what they think. Similarly, "Fifteen" is the most unambiguous description of a high school experience you'll likely find outside of High School Musical. She effortlessly describes her freshman year, the first boy who ever told her, "I love you," and the ultimate realization that, "In your life you'll do things greater than/ Dating the boy on the football team." Again, Swift's story may initially seem juvenile, but imagine her primary listenership and the moral that's shared and your perspective may change; it's awfully encouraging to know that there are still musicians who have something to teach their audience.

I'll take a cue from Swift and acknowledge that my audience does not, to my knowledge, consist of any fifteen-year-old girls. So while newcomers may similarly find Swift's lyrics sweet and endearing, it is admittedly unlikely that her typical subject matter will do much to entice them to give Fearless a try. On that note, Swift's melodies are enough to make her worth your time. In a day and age when a surprisingly small sample of middle aged men in studios write a giant percentage of our biggest pop hits (see: this guy or that guy), it's borderline inspiring to think a teenager from Pennsylvania could come up with hooks this goddamn good. Pick a song, any song, and it could be a chart-topping single.

If you're the standard "everything but rap and country" music fan, Fearless' production will do little to convert you. Unfortunately, most of the songs are smothered in radio friendly, bright-as-all-hell Nashville drums and the Kenny G equivalent of a bass tone. Yes, Swift is a "country" star, but most of the genre's traditional instrumentation (e.g. the fiddle and pedal steel) are almost entirely excluded. This can be frustrating, especially on the album's ballads, such as the lovely duet with Colbie Caillat, "Breathe," in which a graceful mandolin might initially remind listeners of Nickel Creek--that is, until the drums kick in.

Look: for better or worse, this sound is marketable, and it's hard to fault Swift for sticking with what works. After all, she's a pop star of the Faith Hill strand, not a Kathleen Edwards or a Neko Case. It should also be mentioned that despite the bright production and her less than booming voice, Swift always manages to stay front and center in the mix, an impressive testament to her maturity and vitality.

Besides the mix, the only other weakness of Fearless is its length. It has become an all together confounding tradition in the mainstream pop world to cram as many recordings as possible onto albums, with seemingly no regard for the art of record-making. Practically, it makes sense: very few mainstream pop fans listen to CDs in full anyway, so why leave off another potential hit single? Swift's self-titled avoided this pattern; clocking in at just 40 minutes over 11 tracks, it was a delightfully listenable album. But Fearless is a bit more beefed up: 53 minutes and 13 tracks. A bit of restraint--leaving off the out of place and oddly militaristic "Change" as well as the Joe Jonas breakup inspired "Forever & Always"--would have been nice. "Change," however, hit #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, so again, it's hard to call its inclusion outright wrong.

As for its strengths, Fearless has a number of high points. On the playful "Hey Stephen," the rhythm section takes a back seat, while a Hammond B accompanies Swift's adorable mmm mmms. There are very few moments of subtle production, but this is certainly one where the guy behind the glass deserves some credit. Same goes for "The Best Day," a song written by Swift for her father that should do for daddy-daughter dances what Green Day's "Good Riddance" did for high school graduation ceremonies. A lightly strummed acoustic guitar allows Swift to do exactly what she does best: sing a simple, pretty song about something she genuinely cares about. Needless to say, it works as well as anything on the album.

All of the pieces fall into place--the youthful songwriting, the tremendous knack for melody, and a less formulaic production style--on what might be the album's best track, "You Belong With Me." A song sure to resonate with tomboys everywhere, Swift sings about "dreaming 'bout the day" when her friend, a guy dating a high-heel clad cheerleader, will "wake up" to realize he's meant to be with Taylor. "You Belong With Me" is a monster single (it hit #12 on the Billboard Hot 100), led by a confident and feisty Swift and assisted by a banjo, fiddle, and (yes!) a pedal steel that give the track a Dixie Chicks feel. Yet there's a moment in the last verse of the second stanza when Swift treads new ground, singing "Hey what you doin' with a girl like that?" in a lovely falsetto that sounds more akin to Joni Mitchell than Shania Twain. And just then, in the subsequent pre-chorus, she adds a touch more emphasis to, "She's cheer captain/ and I'm on the bleachers," that is so magnificently cute, it's difficult not react with a smile.

And that's the crux of it: I love Taylor Swift because she makes me happy. I could launch into a rather boring discussion about how the ability to download mp3s has turned music into an industry of consumption, but suffice it to say that she manages to invoke within me the rare and primitive emotion of joy. That alone should provide enough impetus to give Fearless the chance it deserves.

Listen to "You Belong With Me":

More Taylor Swift here.

Framework for Human Flourishing

2008-11-23T12:49:00.000-08:00

There is a wide array of terms that attempt to get at what I want to call “flourishing.” These include concepts of flow, fullness, being fully alive, self-actualization, and many others. It seems to me that all of these conversations are attempting to answer the more foundational question: what does it mean and look like for human beings to flourish? As I posted before, this question is on my mind more than any other.

Over Turkish coffee and hookah in Hyde Park the other night, two friends and I came up with a vision of what it might look like for us to flourish in community together. While the discussion was mostly geared toward our travel plans together, I think the framework we established might be more widely relevant. It’s essentially a five-point vision:

1) Exposure
We want to be continually exposed to other peoples’ realities. This could mean sleeping with the homeless, understanding a place’s politics, dining with the marginalized, and being seriously embedded in real relationships with people whose lives have the ability to fracture our perspective.

2) Intellectual growth
We must be exercising and stretching our intellect, forcing ourselves to think in greater nuance about more things. I want to be able to see the world sociologically, anthropologically, poetically, musically, economically, politically, and scientifically.

3) Celebration
This may sound cheesy, but we have good reason to celebrate all of the good things we have been given and entrusted with. From dancing all night to being engaged in the beauty of music and artistic expression, we need to continually counter the gray and sleepy humdrum of modernity with an engaged and hearty spirit of playfulness and foolishness.

4) Creating
My boss once told me that leaders need to ask themselves two questions: 1) What am I creating? and 2) Do people believe me? While this is bent toward entrepreneurial leadership, it speaks strongly to my desire to not only critique, but create. However informal or subtle, we need to hone our ability to translate ideas into reality, as Adam has with this blog.

5) Discipleship
Regardless of one’s faith or moral tradition, we are becoming a certain sort of person as. How are we surrounding ourselves with sources and creating habits that enable us to move toward ideality. My personal ideal is the person of Christ, but yours could be King, Nietzsche, Gandhi, or Dylan. The question remains, how are we becoming the disciples of our heroes?

I realize that this is an unscientific, somewhat vague, and idealistic vision of human flourishing. What are your thoughts on this? Is flourishing an entirely personal venture or, as the field of positive psychology asserts, can we come up with frameworks for understanding fullness? In your experience, where does this framework miss the mark?

Pop in '08

2008-11-21T06:08:00.000-08:00

In a recent interview with Pitchfork, mashup artist Gregg Gillis (a.k.a. Girl Talk) was asked to defend the quality of the music he samples. Here's the Q&A with interviewer Mark Richardson:

Pitchfork: What about the role of irony in your music, if there is any? What is your actual relationship to the tracks you draw from? Which of them you think, "Oh, this is amazing; this is genius," which of them you think, "This is silly," and which of them you think, "This is a cheesy guilty pleasure."
GG: At this point I feel like I've graduated beyond guilty pleasures. I sample everything on this because I like it. Going back to my high school band experience, the bitter teenage years, back then I would sample the music almost to mess it up. Even on the first Girl Talk album, I don't want to say I was approaching it ironically, but I was taking songs that I maybe didn't listen to as much, like [Joan Osborne's] "One of Us", and completely mangling it. But [now], that's not really interesting to me.
Kind of taking a step back, I appreciate almost every form of music. If I'm not really getting it, oftentimes [it's because] I don't like something on the surface. There's probably a fan base for it, but I just don't understand why they're into it. There's a crowd out there who hates everything Pitchfork reviews, and there's a crowd who hates every jam band release out there. No one's really right or wrong in my mind, it's just a matter of your influences and your experiences growing up. All that factors into my never wanting to sample anything ironically-- I'm totally behind everything. Especially pop; it's so sincere and up-front, making a song everyone's going to enjoy. It's impossible for me to hate on that.

This quote immediately brought to mind two occurrences: 1. After Girl Talk's breakout album Night Ripper was released, my brother Joel said to me, "It makes listening to really bad rap fun"; 2. Dave once asked me if my inclusion of R. Kelly's "I'm a Flirt (Remix)" on a mixtape was "a joke."

Defending an entire genre of music is a difficult prospect because stereotypes are so prevalent, more often than not, for good reason. I'll refer you to a n article I wrote on the merits of country (see pages 12-14), because most of the same arguments can be slightly altered and applied to pop. But I think ultimately, Gillis hits the nail on the head with that last line. Trace the history back through Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Elvis, and pop has always been about simplicity and fun, and not a whole lot more.

Most of my days are spent in the library and not tuned into the car radio, and as a result, I haven't a clue what today's number 1 hit is. That said, I have been lucky enough to catch a handful of gloriously unabashed pop singles this year. Here are a couple I've particularly enjoyed and a couple more that have me salivating for a future release:

First: Sugababes - "No Can Do"

I have no explanation for why some groups simply don't make it across the pond (example: probably the decade's best pop album, Robyn's 2005 self-titled, finally saw an American release in April of 2008--what the hell?). Sugababes have six albums to their name--their most recent, Catfights and Spotlights, is their "lowest charting in eight years," despite hitting #8 on the UK Albums Chart--and yet I'd never heard their name before moving to England. Their album, like most pop records nowadays, is simply not all that good: it's not at all cohesive, it's front-loaded to death, and much of it is downright boring. But there are a couple of singles that just scream perfect pop. Case in point, "No Can Do," which borrows a Sweet Charles Sherrell sample originally produced by James Brown, glimmers with a modern Motown feel. This is the kind of track that would put Christina and Britney to shame if it ever made it onto American airwaves.

Second: Taylor Swift - Fearless

I promise to give this album a proper review sometime soon--it deserves it. But for now, I'll just post my current-favorite-tune, "Hey Stephen," from what's hands down the best pop album I've heard in 2008.

Third: Kid Sister - "Family Reunion"

Dusted Magazine posted what I believe is the first proper review of Kid Sister's upcoming Dream Date today. One of the first singles out is this Diplo-produced number with a killer bass line and a funky guitar lick. In the middle of November, Kid Sister treats us to the perfect summer single, complete with a chipper chorus: "Quit your boohooin'/ Sun be shining, barbecuing/ It's about to be a family reunion."

Fourth: Rox - "My Baby Left Me"

I'll let Pitchfork's Eric Harvey handle this gem:

Ah, ooooooooo-uu-oohh yeah!

The soul beneath Rox's sweet shout sounds like the product of peak-era Motown labor division--each piece molded with micro-level human care and macro-level cold precision. The excerpted vocal above is no exception: it only distantly exhibits characteristics that one would instantly recognize as "human." Like the studio-constructed self-choir Stevie Wonder made of his own impossibly keening falsetto on the middle eight of "We Can Work It Out" (2:08 to 2:15), this background holler is chrome. Most crucially is the break in the middle of the "Ah, oooooooo" part. It's the quick-hiccup sort of modification that most would identify with record-scratching, but there's no "scratch" sound present. Just a frozen microsecond of space, like gleaming side-panel detail work temporarily interrupted by the gap where the door opens.

Listen to "My Baby Left Me" here, or visit Rox's MySpace page.

Helping voters change their world

2008-11-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

In one of my first posts back in October, entitled "A Different Electoral Conversation," I outlined how I understand the basic mechanism of democracy. I argued that in democracy, politicians are supposed to respond to voters’ needs because they are held accountable through the electoral process; accountability causes responsiveness. However, in many nascent democracies, accountability breaks down because voters vote ideologically or do not have the information they need to accurately judge the performance of their government. Instead of pursuing systematic reform, governments often initiate highly visible public works projects and offer handouts just before elections to create a positive impression among poor (and uninformed) voters. This is commonly called "budget as theater."

Democracy is one of the most powerful forces at work in the 21st Century, but it is not being fully harnessed for social good. In countries where a large majority of people face deprivation in terms of basic education and public health, we would expect the government to respond to that deprivation in order to satisfy voters and maintain power. However, all but one of the studies performed since 2001 have not found a significant relationship between democracy and levels of social service provision. I would like to discuss how we can change this fact in emerging democracies through the power of information.

Without accessible, digestible, and relevant information about how politicians perform along very basic social criteria, such as basic education and public health, democracies cannot function as they were designed. This information asymmetry is exacerbated in poor countries because of low transparency, high illiteracy, and many other large scale social problems. The question then, is how can we empower voters with the information they need to accurately sanction and reward the politcians in power? It is only when voters have this information will governments have the incentive to respond to their basic social needs; if they don't perform, they will be thrown out of office.

My vision is a world in which people’s basic social needs are recognized, met, and protected by freely elected governments. What if we were to strengthen democracies in less-developed countries by empowering voters with the information by which they could hold governments more accountable for their basic social needs? How would this happen? I think three things would need to take place:

1) Make sure the electoral mechanism "works"
People need to have faith that elections will be free and fair in order for them to invest in changing their system. Thus, we would have to use innovative techniques, like text messaging to report electoral fraud, and existing institutions to ensure that the electoral mechanism works. Trust and hope in the democratic system must be (re)built for real public action to take place.

2) Equip people with basic information about how their government has performed
Information is all to often deeply buried in reports, long meetings, and government files. An independent civil society organization ought to synthesize policy outcomes into easily accessible and digestible materials that are widely distributed among voters. It would need to secure both local and international legitimacy through rigorous analysis, partnerships, and quality products.

3) Mobilize people around an alternative social vision
Socially and politically marginalized people would need to show up en masse in order to seriously alter poltical incentives for those seeking elected office. People would need to not only have faith in the electoral process and the information necessary to accurately asses the performance of their government, but they would need to vote on the basis of that information.

Essentially, I want rebuild the electoral process, equip voters with information, and change voting norms in order to incentivize social performance among politicians. Of course local institutions and networks would be depended upon and utilized, but a new civic organization would be required to orchestrate such a massive shift.

Generally speaking, this is my strategy for strengthening democracies in less developed countries around the world. I want to use existing institutions (elections/ government) to ensure that peoples most basic social needs are met.

Would this work? I have no time for cynicism, but would love some serious feedback on this idea.

Security through energy independence: A bipartisan critique

2008-11-12T21:14:00.000-08:00

One thing that both Obama and McCain expressly agree upon is the need for America to be independent of foreign (read Arab) oil. This seems to me one of the great unchallenged assumptions of the American political scene. I would like to explore the notion that we must be energy independent.

We live in an increasingly complex and interdependent world. Everything we need to sustain a Western way of life is in some way dependent upon the global economy. Think of food, computers, medicine, raw materials, mechanical parts, labor, and the list goes on. This raises the question, why should we categorically reject this increasing global economic interdependence when it comes to oil and gas?

First, I am not talking about the general move toward sustainable energy. I am all for wind farms, solar, hydroelectric, biofuels, and most other clean and green technologies for both environmental and economic reasons. However, this does not seem to be at the crux of the argument made by both the Democrats and Republicans. The primary rationale behind the energy independence agenda, as expressed during the presidential debates, is the idea that depending on foreign (Middle Eastern) oil and gas is a basic security threat to America. This is where I disagree.

Dependence on other countries for natural resources does not necessarily make a country less secure. Countries like Japan and Germany are almost entirely dependent on foreign oil and or natural gas and have not experienced security problems because of it. We seem to fear the idea that the Saudis (or other Middle Eastern countries) could hold us hostage because we are dependent on them for oil, but this misses the point. Sure we depend on them for oil, but they depend on the rest of the world to buy that oil; we are interdependent and interlocked economies. If the regime was using the money to spread a movement of destruction, economic turmoil, or global terror, they would lose their buyers and thus their funding.

Further, energy independence would not necessarily make us more secure. As we learned on September 11th, our largest security threat comes from terrorists, not state actors. We could be entirely energy independent and face no less of a threat from terrorists and extremists around the world. Even if we can suppose that radical terrorists get funding from oil sales, the increasing global appetite for oil on behalf of China, Russia, India, and Brazil would maintain a high enough demand for oil that prices wouldn’t crash.

The idea that our security depends on our ability to wean ourselves from foreign energy is wrongheaded. In fact, isn’t it feasible that a decrease in the global demand for oil could even increase regional instability in the Middle East because it would cause their undiversified economies (and population) severe distress? We live in an interdependent world and should not fear global trade as a point of American weakness. Furthermore, it seems that people believe that we are captive to the Middle East for their oil, but we have, on average, imported about the same amount of oil from Africa as we did from the Middle East during this past year. We also get vast amounts of oil from Canada and South America. The fear that Middle Eastern oil producers could sabotage the West by jacking up the price of oil doesn't hold given our diversified energy portfolio. They too must compete for our consumption.

In short, I believe that home-grown, green, and sustainable energy solutions are great opportunities to create American jobs and protect our environment. However, telling Americans that our “addiction to foreign oil” is a grave security threat is based on an outdated worldview. We are not an island; global economic interdependence strengthens, not threatens, our collective security.

What do you think? Do we need to rid ourselves of foreign oil to become more secure?

Newsweek's Home Run

2008-11-10T05:48:00.000-08:00

My obsession with the 2008 Presidential campaign must unfortunately end sometime. After watching countless YouTube videos, reading op-eds galore, and mentally mapping the candidates' array of endorsements, I still haven't tired of the drama and spectacle of it all. It was an enormously entertaining campaign, complete with deeply moving passages, a fair dose of humor, nail-biting cliffhangers, and a tear-jerking conclusion.

I've never been a huge fan of Newsweek, which can probably be attributed to the simple fact that my parents subscribe to Time. But this week's edition (dated Nov. 17) includes what is inarguably the finest journalism I have come across in more than six months of following this campaign.

Pooling the resources of a special team of reporters given year-long access to both the McCain and Obama campaigns, "on the condition that none of their findings appear until after Election Day," writer Evan Thomas crafts a narrative so remarkably entertaining, you may forget it's about politics at all. Thomas' strong suit is his frankness; with the utmost clarity and truth, he is adept in his portrayal of the candidates' strengths and weaknesses.

There are seven "chapters" in all, and they are all page-turners--honest to God. There are incredibly candid moments where one feels as though they have stumbled into a private meeting they were never meant to be a part of. Take for instance, this excerpt regarding Obama's debate-prep:

Obama was something unusual in a politician: genuinely self-aware. In late May 2007, he had stumbled through a couple of early debates and was feeling uncertain about what he called his "uneven" performance. "Part of it is psychological," he told his aides. "I'm still wrapping my head around doing this in a way that I think the other candidates just aren't. There's a certain ambivalence in my character that I like about myself. It's part of what makes me a good writer, you know? It's not necessarily useful in a presidential campaign."

These candid remarks were taped at a debate-prep session at a law firm in Washington. The tape of Obama's back-and-forth with his advisers, provided to NEWSWEEK by an attendee, is a remarkably frank and revealing record of what the candidate was really thinking when he took the stage with his opponents.
On the tape, after Obama's rueful remark about the mixed blessings of his detached nature, there is cross talk and laughter, and then Axelrod cracks, "You can save that for your next memoir."
Obama continues: "When you have to be cheerful all the time and try to perform and act like [the tape is unclear; Obama appears to be poking fun at his opponents], I'm sure that some of it has to do with nerves or anxiety and not having done this before, I'm sure. And in my own head, you know, there's—I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. When you're going into something thinking, 'This is not my best …' I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' Instead of being appropriately [the tape is garbled]. So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking aboutpersonal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f–––ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

If you were at all interested in this campaign, I urge you to take the time to read these. The entire thing can be found online; read it here.

It's Been a Long Time Comin'...

2008-11-05T06:05:00.000-08:00

There was a subtle yet beautiful moment last night in President Obama's (goddamn does it feel good to write that) victory speech that may have been lost on some spectators. The man said:

It's been a long time comin', but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.

It was perhaps the most loaded statement--the culmination--of his entire campaign.

You see, after speaking with sit-in demonstrators in 1963, Sam Cooke wrote the first draft of what is now the definitive song of the Civil Rights Movement, "A Change is Gonna Come." After Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Rosa Parks found solace in the song's painful yet optimistic verses:

It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die,
Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky,
It's been a long, a long time comin',
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

I go to the movie, and I go downtown,
But somebody keep telling me don't hang around,
It's been a long, a long time comin',
But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will.

The brilliance of that line in President Obama's speech then, was his choice to introduce the black-colored elephant in the room as subtly as possible. He didn't ignore it; I would guess many viewers (blacks and whites alike) picked up on the reference. But he knew that to claim a victory for his race would be to crumble the mantra upon which his campaign was founded: "Yes we can."

Unreal

2008-11-04T22:29:00.000-08:00

I apologize for this horribly impressionistic vignette...

I have been reservedly optimistic about the promises of Barack Obama, but tonight, I was truly inspired. I was at the Obama rally in Grant Park, where roughly 500,000 people converged to celebrate a new era of American leadership. It was an incredible expression of hope, common humanity, and inspiration. People were climbing trees, crying, dancing, and chanting; for the first time in my life I saw civil society in action. Regardless of how I think the next four years may shake out, I am incredibly grateful for the way Obama has captured the imagination and soul of the American people; we have something to believe in again. I am incredibly excited to see what Obama can do as President and for now, I am once again proud to call myself an American at home and abroad.

Out of Poverty by Paul Polak

2008-11-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

I just recently read Paul Polak’s book entitled Out of Poverty. First, upon reading Polak’s book and thinking about my last post “Toward what end?” I realized that I have been vastly over thinking poverty alleviation. The basic realization that Polak and others have helped me come to is that humans have radically material needs and an income of less than $1/ day is staggering and must not be treated like yet another neocolonial or materialistic paradigm.

Polak is a successful entrepreneur and change maker who comes from a strawberry farming background. His perspective on international development is wonderfully refreshing and simple. Through his organization, International Development Enterprises (IDE), he has effectively lifted 17 million people out of dollar-a-day poverty. IDE was founded and operates on the basis of four very simple observations:

1) The biggest reason people are poor is because they don’t have enough money.

2) The vast majority of people living on $1 per day earn their living from one-acre farms.

3) They can earn much more money by increasing productivity and finding ways to grow and sell high-value labor-intensive crops such as off-season fruits and vegetables.

4) To do that, they need access to very cheap small-farm irrigation, good seeds, fertilizer, and markets where they can sell their crops at a profit.

So Polak has invented and marketed affordable, efficient, and effective tools like treadle pumps and drip irrigation systems that can be afforded by the world’s poorest farmers. He doesn’t depend on donations or subsidies and is able to make a small profit by marketing low-profit tools to millions of small-acreage farmers around the world.

In Out of Poverty, Polak also identifies three great poverty eradication myths:

1) We can donate people out of poverty
This is a direct critique of Jeff Sachs, head of the UN Millennium Development Goals, who argues that poor people are too poor to invest their own money to move out of poverty. Sachs calls for rich countries to make gifts to poor countries to essentially continue the enormously ineffective trend that has gone on for over 50 years. William Easterly, in The Elusive Quest for Growth is right in that we have spent billions of dollars in foreign aid and have very little to show for it. Both myself and Polak see the Sachs plan as merely a continuation of this; big infrastructure, irrigation, and agriculture projects with big budgets that will be controlled by the governments of developing countries, the benefits of which will very rarely reach the poor rural farmers who really need it.

2) National economic growth will end poverty
India and China have both experienced incredibly impressive GDP growth over the years. However, 360 million people in India and over 200 million people in China continue to live on less than a dollar a day. Any scholar of India can notice a development of “two Indias,” one for those who reap the benefits of growth and those who continue to be entrenched in poverty. Yes, we need growth, but all too often that growth is aimed at urban industrial growth instead of empowering small-scale, dollar a day farmers to increase their production and profits.

3) Big business will end poverty
Polak sees very little reason to think that multinational corporations will seriously invest in lifting people out of poverty. Not because they are evil or selfish, but they are just not competent in designing affordable solutions for the poorest people in the world. Roughly 90% of innovation and design efforts are focused on catering to the richest 10% of the world’s populations. They don’t have the competence in understanding, reaching, and selling to customers who live on less than a dollar a day. Until the target market that they are designing and innovating for changes, we will not see a major breakthrough from corporations in solving poverty.

In sum, Polak bypasses donors, governments, and big business to directly empower the millions of people who need the most help. He sells them unsubsidized and high-quality tools and resources by which they can generate enough income to send their kids to school, see a doctor, be properly nourished, and partake in community activities. He is a grassroots visionary in a world where the IMF, World Bank, and UN Millennium Development Goal initiatives continue to dominate. I highly recommend this book for anyone thinking seriously about addressing poverty in our lifetime.

Justin Townes Earle - The Good Life

2008-10-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

Justin Townes Earle is the son of country music star Steve Earle, the guy who brought back rockabilly in the late 80s with bitchin' records like Copperhead Road. As if the surname wasn't enough to live up to, Justin's father was gracious enough to give him the name "Townes," one more recognizable than just about any other in country music. For those unacquainted, Townes Van Zandt led one of the most storied lives in country history, and has been cited as an influence of every important songwriter you know: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, et al. It's the equivalent of naming your kid "Dan Elvis Johnson" or "Sarah Aretha Robinson."

Earle is in many ways predisposed the fate of so many famous musicians' offspring (read: hype and disappointment). That is unless he manages to continue to make albums as charming as his debut, The Good Life. Released back in March of this year on Chicago's Bloodshot Records (hands down the best independent alt-country label in the biz), it's hard to chalk Earle's first attempt at record making up to beginner's luck.

For about half the tracks, Earle decides to look well beyond Dad and Van Zandt, instead harkening way back to the iconic Hank Williams. His vocals sound far closer to Williams' patented honky tonk croon than to his dad's Springsteen-esque rasp. His lyrics frequently take the same approach Williams did with his countless lost-without-love songs. And most pleasantly, the hands off production, which more often than not just leaves the drums out entirely, is reminiscent of Williams' penchant for the stripped down sound of a couple guitars and a fiddle.

He certainly changes it up with tracks like the tell-all ballad "Who Am I to Say" and the Appalachian Civil War story, "Lone Pine Hill." But Earle is best when he keeps things simple and allows his youth take center stage. This more playful side is reflected in the lyrics and instrumentation alike, from lines like "All the fancy restaurants won't let me wait inside/ They serve me out the back door and never ask for a dime," to the addictive acoustic pickings on album opener "Hard Livin'." The true standout, "Ain't Glad I'm Leaving," is Earle's best Hank impression, complete with Grand Ole Opry backup vocals, a healthy dose of twang, and the stinging line, "If you ain't glad I'm leaving/ Girl you know you oughta be"--it's a bit more leisurely, role-reversed "Move It on Over," and it's utterly fantastic.

As a country fan, this year's been a bit of a disappointment. The list of pleasant-but-mostly-forgettable records is too long to list (see: Sera Cahoone, Justin Rutledge, Shelby Lynne). Even if The Good Life isn't perfect (it's certainly not), it is absolutely memorable. Justin Townes Earle might have a long way to go to live up to his name, but he's well on his way.

The Good Life is without a doubt the best country record of the year, although we'll see what Taylor Swift has to say about that in three weeks' time.

Check out Justin Townes Earle on MySpace and on Daytrotter.